The Art of Observation

The Madnesses

2011-06-01T23:47:00.001-06:00

“Ah, but love,” the Dead Spirit breathed, circling back and forth around the bars. “That isss a poison, even to you—poison to make men mad and sssend women to their deathsss. No, no, love is too strong for me to use, bright and black and gloriousss, an infection I cannot drive away or bring. It will recede as the tide and come again, steady as the sea, wild as the wind—love destroysss all. But he is not destroyed by love, but by lust. It is not my doing.”

“So you are not responsible for it?”

“He was infected by that madness long before I came here,” the Spirit answered honestly. “Bright-Crown has too long taken what he wisshhhed to be bound by it—his madness is greed, lust for power. You know this, ”

“I know.” The queen pursed her lips. “Spirit, I know you intend to destroy my son.”

“Do you now.” The Spirit paused, just far enough into the blackness that the edges between the shadows of the skull and the shadow of the cell bled into each other. “He tempts me, taunts me, waves morsels beneath my nose and sssnatches them away—the blackened sssouls of all who support him. I intend only to satisfy myself.”

“By his destruction.”

The Spirit hesitated, then nodded, smiling widely. “Yesss.”

“Were it in your power to bring this... madness upon him, would you?”

“Which madness do you ask?” The white skull began to circle again, ducking a little further into the darkness. “The greed, the lust, or the vengeance?”

“Any,” the queen said firmly. “Any madness.”

“The greed, perhaps. If it were in my power, I might blacken his soul to suit my tastes, drive him down a dark path that ends with me. But were it in my power to bring such madnesss, why would I stop with one who bindsss me; why would not every man be infected with such? No, no, such is not my power.” The Spirit drew a little closer to the bars, gliding smoothly instead of the snake-like bobbing that normally marked his motions. “The lust... perhaps. I could make him drag others down with him; lie and cheat to sate the flesh, blacken the souls of many—but again, this is not my power. His lust is what has drawn me here, not my doing. But the vengeance...” The dark figure stopped, inches from the bars, and the queen did not move away. “The vengeance I would not. This madness sets fire to sssaw-dust, forces those who would remain bland cowards to become bright lights, fighting against the mad prince. It pushes away those who would be blackened with him. Yesss, it is madness, yesss, it blackens his soul—but if it were in my power, I would not bring it. The vengeance can only destroy him until he is one like me.”

The queen remained silent for a moment. “So what is in your power then?”

“Fear alone is the source of my power, and fear alone is what I can bring. But there is a power in fear.”

Draw

2011-03-21T22:15:00.003-06:00

It was a long drive back to St. Steven, so much so that Jodi fell asleep two hours into it, after the sun had long since set. She leaned her head on Frankie's shoulder and nodded off, and he stayed stock for nearly an hour, watching her carefully as she slept. After a while, though, he loosened up just a little, just enough to move his hands and head. When this didn't wake her, he began moving once more, reaching ever so subtly for her bag. He pulled the canvas into his lap and began leafing through the contents, dismissing the thin books and multicolored paperwork in favor of something he only half-knew would be there.

With a small noise of victory, he pulled the favored item from the bag. A big, unlined spiral notebook with a purple plastic cover, attatched to a small box of colored pencils. A bit more digging uncovered the pencil sharpener, and he had put the tip of the red pencil to the paper before he remembered.

He didn't know how to draw anymore.

He sat stymied for a moment, then looked over to Jodi. If he moved to go back to the city, then she would wake up, and he would have to unbuckle the belt-thing, which she had told him not to.

And the city hadn't helped anyway—he couldn't find the drawing place and just being there hadn't done any good, had it?

Had it?

He stared at the paper.

There was white and only white there, rising like the walls of the asylum before him. He felt the small thing called reason drift away, and he scaled the walls and stood atop them, staring out at the forest. The forest was not the forest, but rather all the people from forever on, all running around the asylum walls as fast as they could go. The whole world was dust as the rushing feet trampled everything, and he almost cried out in horror as the stars hit the horizon and were trampled on the ground, until their shining whiteness was dull or dead. The sun followed, turning the sky to the red inside people, and everyone washed away in it, and only the red was left, surging up against the white walls where he stood. And all around was rushing wind and burning fire, and the screaming of a thousand voices in a thousand languages, and he could sense the monsters coming...

Frankie shut his eyes.

He opened them again.

There was only paper.

He looked at the pencil in his hand, and willed it back from where it had melted into wax, turned it back to the shape that his fingers said it was. He closed his eyes and marveled at the blackness.

And he took stock.

The thing in his hand was called a pencil, and it was round and long and pointy at one end. There was color inside it that was meant to come out. Jodi was next to him, so much smaller and tireder than he had remembered her, and he wondered if she could still fight monsters now. Of course she could. The notebook was made of paper, which is where the color was meant to go. It was smooth and thin and perfect, and there had used to be pictures waiting inside it that nobody but him could see.

He opened his eyes and looked for the pictures again.

The paper was still blank, and still white, but there was more than that now. The things inside his mind were never quite happy to stay there, and he let them out for just a second, just a little, so he could see what they were before he let them out all the way.

Slowly, the pictures started to form, flickering, unstable, but there. He smiled, just a little, as they vanished again—he'd seen them, he remembered them, they were there.

And he quite liked them.

He put pencil to paper again.

And slowly, carefully, he started to draw.

He drew the yellow flagpole, the gate and the other side of it, the big dog, the endless trees. He drew the road made of rocks and the road made of nighttime, with all the odd yellow stripes. He drew the people that had said hello, the people that had yelled, and the people that had run. He drew the little buildings, the quiet place, the falling water, the cold and the nighttime. He drew the bad tasting plant, and the good tasting plant. He drew the deer and the wolves. He drew the city, and the big building, and what everything had looked like from way up high.

He drew the everyone star, still there no matter where he was.

And then he drew Jodi.

He drew the way her brown hair started frizzing late in the day. He drew her smooth hands that had always guided him when he was unsure. He drew her smile, the one that showed up in her eyes. He drew her feet, in her comfortable white sneakers, and her legs in the dark green skirt. He drew the scar that he still remembered giving her.

His everyone star, still there no matter where he was, or who he was, or what he was. Constant, unchanging, beautiful.

So far away.

Pump, Lift, Pour

2011-01-13T15:15:00.002-07:00

His life is threefold, in this moment—three words, three movements, and none other. Pump, lift, and pour fill his every thought, and he lets himself go blank, flicker out like a star behind the clouds—still there, but hardly. The water runs over his hands as he pours, washing away the dry and warm and making his fingers slippery so the bucket is harder to hold. But the water is there, is real, and is more than him in this moment. He can see his breath, and it is water.

Pump, lift, pour, and the basin is another drop closer to being full. But that is unreal and far-away, and this is here and now, and the spotted tin of the rings around the bucket reflects scarlet and skin as he lifts it to the edge. The weight makes it real, weighs him down and keeps him here, so he will not blow away. As the water drains out, joining that in the still basin with splashes and ripples, the weight lessens, and he feels the nagging urge to kneel again, to fill the bucket, to pump.

Pump, lift, pour, and he doesn't need to understand it. The handle of the pump is freezing cold no matter how much heat his frozen hands pour into it, and he must only touch the wooden part or his hand will stick and leave his skin behind. He thinks, briefly, that he should repaint it come spring, because the red paint is flaking away and breaking the surface of the falling snow, and the red of rust is ugly and his master would not like it. Up and down, up and down goes the handle with a rusty creak, and the gurgling rush of water hits the bottom of the bucket with a thock-athocka shhhhh that sounds hollow and full all at once. The sound echoes further than his breathing, into the sparse forest and snowy darkness. The world is half black and half white and all water and sound and scarlet.

Pump, lift, pour, and the snow continues to fall, and there is no sound but the splashes of pouring water and the rush of falling water and the back-and forth creak of the pump's handle. There is no time but hours. There is breathing, slow and measured with the motion, and droplets of condensed breath that vanish in the empty air. There is weight, of the bucket and the handle and the water that falls into the basin. There is darkness, light, and snow. There is scarlet.

There is nothing else.

Pump, lift, pour, and everything changes. A door flies open on the other side and the snow lights up with the firelight, and someone tumbles out into the snow, rushing with barefoot steps that crunch fast across the dry snow, running around corners to the back where the pump is. Pump, lift, and pour fade away—the footsteps are more important, familiar and demanding and he straightens, dropping the bucket from frozen fingers to meet them.

She catches sight of him in the shadow, and stops—her feet are bare in the snow, and she must be cold, he thinks, she needs to go inside, but then she runs to him, and grabs his hand, and pulls. She is saying something, scolding him, going on about cruel pranks and frostbite, but it is very hard to listen over the heat of her hands pouring into his fingers, dry against the wet and warm against the cold. She nearly drags him around the corners, marching stubbornly along the path that her footprints carved a moment ago. He follows meekly, silent, and merely listens.

She starts to drag him inside, but he pauses, more out of habit than any sort of fight, to kick the snow off his boots, and he realizes the ice has frozen them on. She pulls on his hand again, and he follows her in.

The children watch them, silent and guilty, and he remembers hours ago how they told him to pump and pour, to go outside in the frozen dark, how they said it was her wish. It wasn't—he can see that now, through hindsight and the snow in his eyelashes. The fireplace is startling in its warmth, and he draws back. She glances back at him, then shoves him down on a bench. She orders him to stay, and that becomes all that matters, and he gladly obeys. A boy hesitantly offers a blanket, and she wraps it around him, muttering something in the nonsense language she uses when she is angry or dealing with very small children.

It is rough, but warm. He settles into it, trying to force the cold out of his bones, listening to her whirl on the children and begin a long tirade about taking advantage of Bird and cruel jokes and could've died and what could happen. They shrink before her like shadows before light—she controls them, creates them, and they cannot exist without her. There is a pause in her tirade, and the fire cracks and jumps, and he leans forward towards the warmth, because the fire is not so startling now.

He remains here, hunched over, for some time, as children are banished to bedrooms and silence and punishment declared for all, before she returns to him. She kneels before him, brushing away the blanket to remove his hands from where they have been tucked next to his stomach. She takes one gently, and rubs it between hers. The warmth is burning, almost painful, and he winces. She sighs, and apologizes. Something halfhearted about the children not meaning any harm and him knowing better follows, but she doesn't mean anything but sorry, and both of them know it.

She picks up his other hand, and rubs it in the same manner of the first. She says the circulation is still alright—he won't lose anything, and he is glad because she is. He puts the first hand to her shoulder, and she looks up, startled, and there are tears in her eyes. Thank you, he whispers, and the tears fall. She puts her head in his lap.

Made

2011-01-02T23:42:00.000-07:00

“The universe was made by an artist.” Joey stared upwards at the stars. “Who else would have put so much beauty in the trees? There are patterns sculpted into rocks, colors painted on sunsets. Every flower is beyond what I could imagine on my own. It was the artist who made them.”
“Might as well say it was an engineer, cause everything works.” Rona argued tiredly. “If the universe was made by an artist, then nothing should work.”
“If the universe was made by an engineer, nothing would be beautiful,” Joey pointed out.
“Who says the universe was even made?” asked Finnian, glancing from one to the other.
They looked at him simultaneously, with almost identically incredulous expressions.
“Well, duh,” Rona muttered. “What, you think all this just happened?”

Random snippets

2010-12-31T00:06:00.002-07:00

“There are so many strange things in the dark,” she said quietly, her weak grip on him tightening in fear. “I saw you, and the children, so many times—I saw you die, and I saw you alive again—My mother was there, sometimes. I wanted so badly to go to her but my hands were tied down—but they aren't tied down now. But you're dead, so I must be hallucinating—where is my mother?”
“I am alive, Theia,” Bird repeated, sprinting through the town's darkened streets. “I am alive—please, believe me.”
“But I always believe you—I always do, and you never are!” She sobbed. “And in two days the guard will come by and it will all break—break into pieces, and I'll still be in the dark alone and you'll still be dead!”
“In two days you will still be free, and your fever will be gone, and I will still be alive,” he promised. “In two days, I will be by your side, and there will be no guards, and no chains, and there will be light.”
“You promise?” she asked brokenly.
“I do.” He nodded. “I cannot lie to you, Theia. I will bring you a light, in two days, if there is none in the house—I will be with you, and you will not be alone—and as long as I still can protect you, I will never be dead.”
He rounded the corner onto the dirt pathway up the ridge, and she buried her face in the back of his neck. “I wish I could believe you.”
“You can,” he repeated earnestly.
“But the dead ones always lie.”

---------------------

“You are different, little one, but I still know what you want.” The story keeper turned her around. The empty hallway was full of light, streaming from crooked windowpanes and catching the light of a thousand motes of dust. Faded flowers sat on a windowsill, the blue glass vase thick with dust. Wooden doors were scattered down the hallway, opening by cracks into rooms that held just a glimpse of mystery; strange things that felt familiar and so alien at once. The room was warm, and yellow, and everything she wanted. “You wish for the old things, the mystery and magic you knew when you did not understand. The brilliance of jewels means nothing to you, nor the transient life of flowers. This hallway leads to your dreams; mystery that cannot be exhausted, a world where there is always more to explore—a world where mystery lives on without uncertainty or danger. Listen to my stories, tell me your own, and I will give you this.”

---------------------

“I... I couldn't feel safe.” She looked down, ashamed. “Not like that.”
“Anastasia,” he growled quietly. “You're an idiot if you think I would ever hurt you.”
“You would,” she whispered. “You wouldn't mean to. I know you wouldn't mean to hurt me, but you... you would.”
“I would not,” he argued, taking her hands in his own with less than his usual roughness. “I couldn't. I won't.”
“I'm sorry.” She put her head on his shoulder, taking in the synthetic warmth. “I want to trust you. But...”
“But I left you,” he finished bitterly, dropping her hands to wrap his arms around her body and entwining his fingers in her hair. “So you can't.”
“It's more than that,” Anastasia admitted as she pulled herself closer to him. “You just... It's not even you.” She ducked her eyes away, burying her face in the crook of his neck. “I can't trust. I never could. I'm sorry.”
He let his face soften, if only for a moment, as he held her so closely that he thought his skin might burn. His fingers ran gently through her hair, combing out the small tangles that plagued it, and Casey wanted so badly to do something, anything, anything he could to comfort her.
“Learn,” he finally whispered.

----------------------

“She will never be happy in darkness, Spirit!” The rebel drew his sword. “You know that as well as I do.”
“My darkness is less painful than that which you offer her.” The Dead Spirit looked down on him, black cloak swirling around dramatically in the flickering light. “Mine is only a physical darkness—to return with you will sentence her to a hidden life, always watching, always silent.”
“Because she is yours?”
“No, because she was yours,” the Spirit shot back. “She is innocent. Your sin has doomed her. If she returnsss they will take her again, and all will be lost. No, she will not return with you.”
“Then where will she go?” the rebel challenged.
“There are pathsss.” The Spirit circled on the other side of the pond, as if searching for a way across. “I offered you a choice, Fire-bonesss. I offer her the same.”
“She will choose to return to me.”
“Then it will be her choice; I will warn her and protect her if need be. But she is not such a fool as you think—she may leave you yet.” The skull dropped to Paul's level but the shadowy figure still stood tall above him. “You have given her little enough cause to ssstay.”
“You really think she would choose death?” Paul drew his sword with a metallic sssshk. “Enough of you is flesh for me to cut, Spirit!”
“I have never offered death!” The skull rushed back up to where it belonged, and the white bone hands appeared, tense and curled like claws. “She is safe, Fire-bones; safe with me! I am under no obligations to you. Your price will be high if she chooses to return—and I will collect it.” The dark figure leaned over the pond, the beak of the skull inches from Paul's face. “Your ssssoul is not so uninteresting as it once wasss.”
With an angry cry, he swung his sword, aiming for the painted face beneath the skull. The Spirit was too fast, and shot back, out of his reach. Before he could swing again, the skull had vanished, and the shrine was empty once again.

The lie

2010-11-24T22:21:00.000-07:00

“Clever boy,” the queen gasped, grinning through her pain. “You were always the best of tricksters.”
“What?” Alice asked, glancing over at Quinn.
“And she still doesn't know!” The fat woman barked out a short laugh, grasping tightly at the wound in her side. “Her mighty protector is the thing she fears most! You do more damage than I could ever, Quinn Hunter, Mad Hatter. I should have seen it.”
“Mad... Quinn, what is she talking about?” Alice took a step back, glancing from one to the other.
“Come now, girl, don't be stupid.” The queen glared at her like she was an ugly sore. “You know what I am. But he can see me; he can hurt me. Something nobody else was ever able to do.”
“I told you, Alice,” Quinn lied smoothly, “We're the same brand of crazy. Of course I can see her.”
“Hah,” she stood, wincing from the wound. “Girl, your precious Quinn is the same Mad Hatter you've been running from. He's tricked you, lied to you, betrayed you. He's trying to worm his way back into your mind. He wants to send you back to the hospital.”
“That's not true,” Quinn said, gliding over to her. “I would never hurt you, Alice, ever.”
“But you would lie,” reminded the queen. “And you have; again and again. Even now you lie to her. You are the Hatter.”
Quinn took her hands in his own, but she pushed him away. She stared up at him, hurt in her eyes.
“She's lying,” Alice whispered, looking for any confirmation in his face. He remained stoic. “Tell me she's lying.”
And Quinn looked away.
Alice stepped back, a sob catching in her throat. “No. No no no! I can't believe this!”
“But you do,” the queen hissed, grinning like the cat. “You trusted him, and he betrayed you—he was never your friend from the start.”
“That's a lie,” Quinn finally spoke. “I was your friend, Alice; I still am! Please, trust me—I never meant to hurt you, even from the beginning.”
“No,” she whispered, backing away from him. “Stay away from me.”
Quinn's features began to change as she looked on. His gray wool coat took on a purple tinge, and odd stitching began to weave its way across, changing the fit to make him seem larger, hulking, and less human. His hair pulled itself back, growing longer and spilling over his collar like a waterfall. The fedora warped, twisted, and grew until it was the top hat. His gray gloves became fingerless and brightly colored, his watch chain looped around one shoulder
All that remained unchanged was the card, tucked into the band of his hat, and the strange, haunted look of his dark eyes.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered, almost choked, and pulled the card from the band of his hat.
It was the ace of spades.
Alice stared for a moment, trembling, before she turned and ran. She did not scream, did not cry, simply ran—and that was enough to break him.

Once

2010-10-07T20:38:00.002-06:00

Once upon a time, there lived a fantastic beast; a horned bird that tormented a city by the sea. Nothing could stand before it, and only the winter storm could slay it. But that was long ago, and unremembered, and it has long since died.
Once upon a time, the city by the sea found itself a mighty king, who ruled over great lands. He lived among them, and there he built his palace, overlooking the western shore. Beneath it there were catacombs, dungeons, and darkness. But that was long ago, and he has long since died.
Once upon a time, a monk was falsely accused of murder, and imprisoned beneath the castle. His order built a shrine upon a hillside, on the site of an old spring that had run dry, where they waited and prayed for him. The monks dug into the hillside to build it, and paved a great road with the stone. Two years later, the accused monk appeared in the shrine; the people of the city took it as a miracle and let him go free. But that was long ago, and the little shrine has fallen into disrepair; the monk it saved has long since died.
Once upon a time, the city by the sea was blessed. A man who might have been a prophet said that they would forever prosper, if they never forgot who they were. A great storm blew all around, but never touched the city, and the white walls of the palace shone like a beacon out to the sea. They blessed the man who might have been a prophet, and welcomed in the hundreds of swamped boats as he commanded them. The city became known for kindness, and beauty, and wealth. But the might-be-prophet's words have been almost forgotten, still whispered in proverbs and by old women in their last days. He himself has long since died.
Once upon a time, a selfish king inherited the throne. The city by the sea struggled under his rule. There were whispers that burned through the city like fire, and they forgot how to trust their king, or the nobles, or even themselves. Grief marked them, fear ground their hearts to dust. Their kindness was beaten into obedience, the high-held heads were cut down. Their hearts were burning as they forgot. But that king has died, perhaps not so long ago.
Once upon a time, there was an actor, with great skill in his craft; he made worlds spring to life with his voice, and moved like a dancer in a dream. He knew the powders of the street magicians and the stories of the city, the beast and the monks and the might-have-been-prophet. The court was entranced by him, and he walked among them for a time. But he learned what he should not have learned, watching as he did. And he was falsely accused, and cast down from the light, to the lowest cell of the dungeon to starve.
And perhaps he died.
Once upon a time, a black spirit appeared in his place, clothed in torn robes and wearing the skull of a fantastic beast. It spoke in riddles, could not be caught, blew away like smoke. It brought forth a bleached human skull, and the skull burned.
It called itself the Dead Spirit; it walked in darkness.
Once upon a time was now.

Shorts

2010-10-06T21:25:00.004-06:00

More random shorts. These are shorter than the last ones, but I still like them all. Maybe not together, but oh well.

“But...” Emily hesitated for a long moment before continuing. “Some people are good.”
“Not all good.” He smiled thinly. “You'll see it more when you get older. But I've never met someone who was all good—and the ones who seemed it at first sometimes turn out to be the worst of the lot. The prince who smiles and laughs and keeps peace with everyone seems good, but he will send a man to his death for nothing, should that man cross him.” The wizard paused for a long moment, clasping his hands in front of his face, his mask of a smile for the moment gone. “They do evil in the name of good. Those are the worst of them; who believe they are righteous. At least a highwayman admits he is stealing.”

-----

Adara paused, watching him carefully. “Why does a spirit of darkness look to the light?”
“We all are attracted to that which we do not have,” The Dead Spirit replied quietly as he washed the dirt out of the wound, letting her blood stream away into the blackness of the cavern beyond. “The moth emerges from its dark cocoon to seek the flame.”
“You could have light,” Adara murmured.
“As the moth can,” the Spirit said. “And it is destroyed.”

-----

“You idiot!” Chester thundered, huge voice defying his small frame. “He's dying for you, and you still can't believe him? He's never wanted to hurt you, Alice!”
“How would you even know?” she sobbed, jerking away. “You've never been there!”
“I've always been there!” Chester caught her again, and she could've sworn his skinny fingers were claws. “As much as he has. And let me tell you something, Alice. If he dies, you're going to die, whether at the hands of the queen and her lot or when that medicine 'saves' you. He's Quinn, he's Hatter, and he has never hurt you.” Chester forced her to look at the fading, stumbling, dying warrior still in the street. “She's not the one killing him, Alice! You are!”

-----

Sometimes, only sometimes, she would see him once more, through the half-conscious fog of the sticky medicine Malise gave her, right before she fell asleep. He would come up the stairs quietly, appearing in the darkness like a ghost with a scarlet mark, so that neither Malise nor Kalida nor Eldon nor their master would know he was there. He would sit with her then, far closer than he did in the mornings or the afternoons—he would touch her hair, and hold her head in his lap, and she would smile up at him in a daze, and when he thought she was asleep, he would whisper things that she could never remember but loved so much to hear. But the feeling of his touch and his quiet voice would send her to sleep again, and when she awoke he'd be far away again, in the wooden chair that seemed a million miles from her bed.
She wanted to call him over to her again, to make him repeat the words that she could never remember until they were burned into her mind, tattooed onto her memories like the scarlet bird. But she didn't. She couldn't. It wouldn't mean anything if she did.

-----

“Well, you have to fix it then.” Emily ventured cautiously. “You keep telling me everyone needs to be responsible for what they do, but if the good man being gone is bad than you need to be a good man too.”
“I could never be him.” The wizard shook his head. “I had too much darkness in me for too long.”
“But you don't have half as much darkness now,” she pointed out. “You do all sorts of nice things.”
“Just because I'm not lost right now doesn't mean I have a map.” He looked up at her with that same false smile. “But I'm alright, I swear. I just don't like to think about it much.”
She examined him. “You're lying.”
“Only halfway.” The smile faltered a little, but then he turned away. “But it's almost dinner. Come help in the kitchen.”

Do Not Die

2010-09-13T21:19:00.002-06:00

The blackness was warm, soft, and welcoming. He felt his mind slipping in, slowly, inevitably, like falling asleep or sinking into deep water. It was peaceful, he felt, it was restful, it was right...
It was wrong!
He shot out of it again, fighting. He couldn't remember why it was wrong. Maybe it wasn't wrong. He just didn't know what was right. He needed his master, his master would know, his master would...
His master!
There was an order! He had an order! Finally, finally, after what felt like years! He felt the need to obey surging through him like electricity in his veins. He had to remember, had to obey!
But the blackness was still there, and he was still slipping, and as his mind hazed over again he wondered why he'd been so desperate a minute ago, for not even the peace of a master was like this; not even the peace of a good master...
His master! His good master!
He gasped, his mind suddenly connecting to his lungs and burning like fire. He had to wake up, had to remember, had to obey. He had to obey his master. His master. He couldn't forget, couldn't slip anymore. He forced himself to keep breathing. Remember to breath. Remember your master. Remember your order.
He couldn't remember. The blackness had stolen it.
He fought, clinging to the fire in his body like a lifeline. Pain kept him awake, pain kept him here. Breathe in, breathe out. He had to remember to breathe. He had to remember his master.
The pain was burning into his body, into his mind now. What was the order, what was the order. The fire was burning away the darkness, what was his order?
Don't die, Bird.
Don't you dare die.
That was the order. He breathed out in relief, before panic hit him. The blackness was death, that tempting peace was death. He had almost disobeyed! His master had ordered him and he had almost disobeyed!
He forced himself to keep breathing, letting the fire burn through him. The rest of his body was coming into sharp clarity now, blackness pushed back by the pain in his lungs. He had feet to run with, hands to serve with. Everything was still there and burning. There was a strange wetness running down his hands. Blood. One of his legs felt strange. Broken. He couldn't move his arms. Trapped.
He ignored it all, focusing his mind to burn through the blackness that remained. It was raging against him now, fighting all the stronger for his defiance. It no longer seemed the soft, restful thing it had been moments before, but a raging beast, more terrifying than anything he had ever faced. He felt fear, then, stronger than he had ever known. Stronger than loyalty, stronger than contentment, stronger than love...
Love.
His master.
Theia!
He surged against the blackness, then, fueled by a fire other than pain, fighting it with every resource he had. He dragged his mind awake, pulled his consciousness together so it was focused behind his eyes. He couldn't let it win. He had to destroy it, had to, had to, Theia had ordered him. Theia had ordered him. She wouldn't abandon him, he just had to fight this, stay alive, stay awake until she came for him, came to order it away and tell him he had done well. She had ordered him to live. He would live. He would.
The pain wasn't his friend anymore, fire turning into ashes and welcoming the darkness back in. The darkness was stronger now, surging against him like he'd surged against it. He never relented.
He gritted his teeth, fighting for what felt like hours, forcing himself to breathe. He ignored the pain, tuning out every part of his body but his burning lungs and the focused self behind his eyes. I am iscovo, my masters will is my own, he repeated to himself again and again, growling at the darkness like a caged animal. What my master has willed I will do. My hands will be useful, he clenched his hands into fists. My feet will be swift. He moved them a little, ignoring the knife of pain this sent up his leg. And my eyes will see...
He burst into consciousness, his eyes snapping open to see white light, and the arched ceiling of the healers chambers, and Her.
-
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Small thing I wrote for a character named Bird. He's a chimera, so the master thing isn't *that* weird. Anyway, not sure how well I like it. Tell me what you think!

Fashion Advice

2010-08-17T20:23:00.001-06:00

“You have the worst taste in clothing, human.” Wisp curled around the closet bar, calmly sorting through her shirts. “I assure you you are not an autumn. Oh dear, is that glitter?”
“My name is Amelia,” she corrected for the millionth time. “Get out of my closet.”
“I'm waiting for the rat to come out.” The tiny dragon gestured to a little hole in the corner of the floor. She felt a little nauseous at the thought, and looked away. “And I decided to take the opportunity to examine your wardrobe. You have very little taste.”
“You don't even wear clothes!” she objected. “How would you even know?”
“I have seen many fashions come and go! I am an expert. I watched Style and You for four years.”
“...You watch television.”
“It is my great regret that you don't own one.” The dragon shook his head. “A pity. I think you would benefit from Our Host Jennifer's wisdom.”
“Oh yeah?” Amelia raised one eyebrow, tugging her favorite shirt away from the dragon's claws. “Then enlighten me.”
“For starters, you are not an autumn. You are a spring. Glitter is so last year, and you seem to favor the 'baggy old lady' style of shirts.”
She blinked. “My shirts are not...”
“And,” he continued, “Your jeans are an unflattering cut for you—you want to emphasize the length of the leg and diminish the hip with your body type.”
“Excuse me?”
“You have no accessories, your shoes are hardly suitable for yardwork, and Oh My Gosh, girl, you need help.” The dragon looked smug.
She stared for a moment. “...Get out of my closet.”

Want

2010-08-12T18:36:00.004-06:00

Brief Explanation: Bird is a chimera (engineered companion/slave) separated from his master by Rolland and those he works for, on threat of killing the people Bird works to protect. Bird is known to be almost completely emotionless, and impossible to provoke. That does not stop Rolland from trying.

“Can you imagine? Can you dream?” Rolland taunted, tossing the killswitch from hand to hand. “I imagine not.”
Bird watched him silently, seemingly impassive, with his long tail sweeping the forest floor behind him.
“I've heard you can't even want. Makes this seem so much emptier.” He sighed. “Taunting you is no good. You can't want to make me stop, can't want to kill me. No matter what I do or say. No matter what I tell you.” Rolland sauntered casually over to the chimera, leaning in close. “I could say that I'm going to be the one to kill you. I could say that you're probably the last of your kind. I could even tell you what King plans to do with your precious master—he's giving her to me.” The captain grinned. “Pretty, isn't she? Not that you'd know. But she'll be mine, and mine alone, my mate—does that upset you?”
There was a soft crack as Bird's feet left the ground, and a loud thump as Rolland's body found the wall behind him. He found himself suspended nearly a foot off the ground, pinned against the wall with Bird's hands around his throat, squeezing so tightly that he could barely breathe.
“You have no idea, do you.” The chimera's level voice was rife with cold steel. “I can imagine. I have always been able to dream. And you cannot hope to understand how much I want.” His grip tightened marginally. “I shouldn't. I'm not built for it. If that makes me defective, then fine. I'm defective. But I do want. And right now, I want to kill you.”
Rolland struggled to breathe, fumbling with the killswitch in his hand.
“You threaten the children. You threaten me. And now you dare to even suggest that you would lay a finger on my master...” Bird's eyes narrowed. “Yes. I very much do want to kill you.”
There was a sudden beeping noise, high and piercing. Bird started, glancing over to its source.
The killswitch.
“Oops,” Rolland choked out laughingly, releasing his grip on the button. Bird stared at the silver device in horror.
“Who?” he whispered quietly, loosing his grip on Rolland's throat so much that the man fell a few inches.
Rolland grinned again. “Mikhail.”

The Dead Spirit

2010-08-01T20:46:00.001-06:00

The prison cell at the end of the hall was built almost like an amphitheater. The bars formed a small stage at the center of a wide half-circle of cell, almost completely dark except for the flickering torchlight from the hallway behind them, extending into endless blackness. Perhaps more unnerving were the hundreds of carved symbols, of every color of wood and stone, hanging like gallows from the bars. The prisoner examined it through a swollen black eye, then swallowed hard before the captain shoved him forwards again, closer to the bars.
“Y'think the dead spirit will go for him?” One of the guards whispered to his companion, his free hand edging closer to his blade. “I mean, 'e's kinda skinny.”
“Dead Spirit don't go for bodies, idiot,” the other whispered. “Goes for souls, and then the bones burn up. You've seen it.”
“Yeah, but...” he glanced at the shackled man behind them. “Y'sure 'e's got a soul?”
“Don't matter, numbskull.” The second guard fumbled with his keys. “We just gotta get 'im in before the spirit shows up, and not be 'ere when 'e does. If the spirit don't get 'im, 'e'll just starve. Same deal.” He pried the sticky lock open, and the gate creaked open into the cell.
“Yeah, but... Look out!” The first guard slammed the gate shut again as something white flashed into existence in the back of the cell. “It's the spirit!”
The second guard swore profusely, stumbling backwards away from the bars. “No way no how am I opening that door with that spirit in there.”
“Come on, you two.” The captain spoke up from behind the group. “It's gone. Look.” Sure enough, the cell was nothing but empty blackness again. “Get that door open.”
The second guard fumbled with the keys again, but as soon as the lock clicked, the white returned. He locked it again instantly. “He's watchin' for us.”
“The spirit cannot make you any less alive than the king can,” reminded the captain. “Open the door.”
“'Ey, 'ow's about this?” The first guard spoke up again. “We keep this one in another cell for a couple hours. Once the spirit's gone, we come back, toss 'im in, and run. King don't gotta know 'e's not dead yet.”
“No, we do it now.” The captain pulled his blade. “Or else we'll find how well the Dead Spirit likes the souls of cowards.”
A sudden breeze flowed through the hallway, chillingly cold, coming from the darkness in the back of the cell. The lamps flickered, and one went out. The first guard took a step back in fear.
“Cowardssss...” A thin, raspy voice finally came, echoing around them in the darkened hallway. “Taste of unripe fruit, of sawdust, of old dreams. Perhapsss I should prefer a murderer?” The spirit's tone lilted upwards on the last word, curious and half excited. “You smell of empty pride, and innocent blood. Do come closer, Cap-tain.” The white object began to slowly appear again, resolving itself into the twisted skull of some gigantic bird,with dark patterns carved into the bone. Horns like an antelope's jabbed upwards from the skull, with a net of tangled white string hanging between them, decorated with black feathers and glass beads. It tilted to one side, then the other, as it approached, moving back and forth, up and down with a tuneless rhythm. The other guard took two steps back, mirroring his companion. “Yes, yesss, I smell it on you. Your blade holds nothing but tatters of old soulsss, musty and dry. Do come in, cap-tain.” A claw-like hand of bleached bone appeared from the blackness to reach out for the bars, but stopped short over one of the runes. “I will speak with thee.”
“Dead Spirit, we are honored.” The captain fought to keep his nerve, tightening his grip on the handle of the sword. “We bring you a sacrifice; a rebel and a traitor.”
“He who has spoken to the queen,” The spirit tilted its head again, and beneath the skull the prisoner could see an almost human looking face, painted black save for a row of painted teeth stretching around its face in a hideous grin. “Is he traitor, or is he advocate?”
“Traitor.” The captain narrowed his gaze at the elusive spirit. “He is yours.”
“Are you ssssure you do not want to come in, cap-tain?” The spirit moved silently and smoothly around the bars, bone-clawed hands pausing only briefly over each of the hundreds of runes. “It shall not be painful.”
“This one is yours,” the captain repeated. “No other.”
“Pity.” The spirit seemed to deflate a bit before it stood straight, suddenly towering over them all. “Then he is mine. I allow you to open the door, sssaw-dust-soul. But ssstep not inside.” The bleached bone hands withdrew into the shadow, and the spirit quickly followed. The four men stared after it into the darkness.
“Well,” the captain finally said, “You heard it. Throw him in!”

Predawn Warning

2010-07-20T20:08:00.001-06:00

“Oi, what do you want now?” Sajan grumbled, trying to grab the blanket back. “It's early! And it's your watch, you stupid thing!”
The dragon snorted, sending scorching hot air across his exposed skin. Ryven flipped him over with an immense closed forepaw, very deliberately reminding the man how much larger Ryven was than himself. He stared upwards in surprise at the glaring blue eyes that glinted in the predawn light.
“Ok then.” He sat up, and the dragon backed off a bit. “What?”
Ryven turned his head away, gesturing down the slope of the hill. The musician followed his gaze, then looked back at the dragon.
“...It's a hill.”
The dragon snorted again, making the tips of his messy hair sizzle.
“Ok, fine, I'll go look.” Sajan stood quietly, glancing over at where K slept curled up near where dragon's chest had rested. “Stupid dragon,” he muttered. “Too early for this.”
He trudged on down the hill, being forcibly shoved by the dragon following close behind him whenever he started to stop. He finally reached the bottom, and looked up at the dragon expectantly.
“Well, nothing here. Small trees, grass and shrubbery, just like... Oh.” He caught sight of the hill above them that they'd just passed over, all the way from the campsite down.
Thin patterns had been burned into the shrubbery, hardly noticeable from any other angle. They stretched all up and down the hill, very clearly fresh. He stared for a moment, trying to make sense of them, before the dragon glanced down at him, and seeing his confusion, picked him up by the back of his shirt, dragged him twenty feet to the left, and deposited him unceremoniously on the ground. He considered protesting this before he noticed that from this angle, the burned patterns looked to form letters.
Stay. Away. From. Her.
He stared a moment longer, then glanced up at the dragon. “....Right.”
He could have sworn the dragon was smiling.

Story bits again

2010-06-22T21:59:00.005-06:00

“Eli, think about it.” The man's smooth voice carried almost effortlessly across the scarred remains of the arena. “Control over your own life. Remember how it was? When you could hide your shell where nobody could see it, where nobody could find it. You wouldn't have to worry about it getting into trouble, would you—it stays where you left it, right where you want it. It doesn't have those notions of kindness, empathy, dignity. It doesn't get itself into danger and need you to get it out.”
Eli was silent, watching the man with emotionless black eyes. Young watched nervously from her cell.
“And she... What is she to you but a prison? Don't do this, don't do that, peace, compassion, mercy. How much easier would your life be if you simply took what you wanted again, without that weak human stopping you?” He held out the pristine shell towards Eli. “Take it, Eli. It is your freedom, your right as one of your kind. I offer you new life!”
He stood for a moment longer without speaking. The entire arena seemed to fall silent, waiting for the enormous creature to make his decision.
Eli reached out one three fingered hand towards the sphere. The robed man grinned, and held the sphere high.“This is your right, Eli. Be your own once more.”
Then all at once white energy sparked from nowhere and everywhere, shooting out from Eli's hand to shatter the sphere completely. The confident grin suddenly fell to an expression of shock, and the hooded man took a step back, only to find his feet bound in place by the same power that had shattered the sphere. The shock turned to fear as Eli approached, rising up to his full height.
“I would be a fool.” The massive hand wrapped around the strange man's neck, lifting him helplessly off the ground. “Do not question that you will die today. Make it easier by telling me where you have hidden her.”

“Everything I've built my life on is changing. There's nothing to hold on to anymore; I can't... I can't deal with this!”
“It's terrifying, isn't it?” he asked quietly, without any of his usual exuberance. He sat next to her, calmly folding his thin hands in his lap. “Like the whole world is falling through your fingers.”
“I can't deal with this,” she repeated, a little more quietly as she felt the tears begin to come. “I can't believe... Can't believe he would really do that. Any of that—I mean, I've known him since forever, and...”
“Shh.” He put a hand to her shoulder, snapping her out of the panic she was descending into. “I know.”
“How could you know?”
He smiled thinly. “Some things are better left unsaid.” He sighed. “But you can't let it break you. It only feels like the world is falling apart—you have to know it isn't.”
“What isn't?” She whirled on him, tears in her eyes. “My brother is dead, my fiancee killed him, my home is gone and everything I've ever believed in was a lie!”
“Not everything.” He cut her off, taking her hand gently in his own. “The basics are still there. There is still enough truth in the world to hold it together, you know.”
“Like what?” She asked, sniffling.
“Well, to start with...” he pulled her hand up to match his own. “You have five fingers on each hand, and so do I. So did Eric, and he loved you.” He moved his hand away, and pulled a dove from nowhere. “Gravity is strong, and always goes the same way, but even doves can beat it. Feathers,” here he placed the dove in her outstretched palm, “are softer than bones, but you still need both to fly.” He looked her in the eye. “There are still truths to the world, you see, even when everything else turns out to be a lie. Remember these and it will be a bit easier.”
“Just a bit?”
“Yes.” He nodded quietly. “It will still be hard, and it will still hurt for a long time—probably forever. But you have to remember that there is still ground beneath you and a sky above you; you are not falling, and you are not helpless, and someday, eventually, you will be alright again.”

Joey pulled Finnian forcibly to his feet. “I refuse to let you kill yourself like this!”
“Why should you care?” Finnian looked away again. “I betrayed you. I betrayed your whole world. I'm s'kiav, untrustable! Worthless!”
“I care because you are my friend, Finnian! It does not matter what you have said is truth and what is lie now. Your actions are more proven than your words.” The illican knelt so they were finally on eye level with each other. “If this is unacceptable, then I shall be nicadahne instead of friend, and care for you as I care for all. But that is a lie to myself and to you. You are my friend. I will not allow you to die.”
They were silent for a moment longer, Finnian still refusing to meet Joey's gaze.
“There is a word the outsiders use. If you do not understand why I wish to care for you, perhaps you will understand Forgive.” Joey spoke very quietly, never letting up on his grip. “Because I have not understood it before now. It is a giving up of hurts to free us both. So I forgive you, Finnian. Do you understand this?”
“I don't deserve it.”
“You don't need to.”

Telepathy 101

2010-05-31T21:52:00.003-06:00

Kind of a continuation of yesterdays post. Enjoy.

“Ok, I got this book at the library.” Seth pulled it from the bag, setting it on the bed between them, and she read the title.
“Understanding telepathy?”
“I read the first couple chapters. It had a couple testimonials from telepaths who talked about how they controlled it.” He flipped it open, pointing to a long quote on the page. “Most of them seem to agree it's about imagining a mechanism of some kind that can be opened or closed, like a door. When they want to use their powers, they open the door a bit, and when they want to not use their powers they close it.”
“So my door is stuck open.”
“That's what I'm guessing.” He shrugged. “Anyway. They're a bit more vague on how to pick who you're trying to listen to. I guess you just try to hear a voice, like trying to pick a voice out of a choir. You can read it if you want, but I don't know it'll help.”
“Hm.” She leafed through the book as he watched. “I think I know what they mean about the voice thing. People's mental voices sound kinda like their physical ones. I did what you said last time, though,” she remarked, “with the trying to match voices with people. And I think you're right; as far as I can tell every voice I'm hearing belongs to an individual..”
“So can you pick out an individual one?”
“Not really.” She shook her head. “I can pick just one to listen to, but I can't make the others stop.”
“Hm.” Seth shook his head. “Weird. Anyway, I think you should try it with the hat on.”
“You're sure about that?”
“Yeah. I mean, if you could figure out how to get the so-called door moving with the hat on, maybe you could figure out how to actually shut the thing.” He shrugged. “Worth a shot.”
“True.” She nodded thoughtfully. “But hey, I was wondering something. You said you could see the energy field my head makes?”
“Yeah, sure.” He nodded. “Easy.”
“And you control energy fields, right?”
“Yeah, though I couldn't stop your powers permanently, if that's what you're asking.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I'm gonna try it. But if something goes wrong that you can see, could you... hold it off or something?”
“I guess.” Seth nodded again, letting his hands glow slightly. “Try to read my mind, then. Whenever you're ready.”
“You're sure?” Sam looked unsure again. “I don't know if this will work. If I really do have superpowers, what if I hurt you somehow?”
“Then I'll use my superpowers to pry your superpowers off my head.” He smiled briefly. “Just try it.”
She crossed her legs, sitting indian style across from him on the bed. “Ok. Think of something, and I'll try to see if I can read your mind.”
He nodded, and she closed her eyes, straining through the silence in her mind to hear his voice. At first there was nothing but darkness, but quickly enough...
He watched as the energy field around her head slowly began to focus itself, expanding slightly as she concentrated. Seth wondered briefly why her energy field was always the same color, and wondered if it was like that for everyone. He also wondered if she would appreciate being told that she was a deep reddish purple.
There were faint whispers now. She listened closely, focusing in on one that sounded like her friend, blocking the others out. She retreated a little bit, taking the shred of the voice with her, and trying to concentrate on it and all else.
“Peony. Is that what it's called?” It sounded almost exactly like him, though it echoed a bit and there were whispering tangents falling off it. “What is her favorite color anyway, maybe I should tell her she's that. Wait, elephants elephants elephants elephants should think of elephants but newspaper clippings—hey, I was looking for that one! Wait, elephants, not newspaper clippings. Big happy elephants, peanuts circuses elephants, creepy sideshow guy that came through town last year elephants.” She concentrated further.. He was thinking of elephants, but having difficulty keeping his mind on that one spot alone. Images of elephants flashed into her vision, and she tried to push the voice back a little. She could see into his head, not just hear it. That was unexpected. She considered ending her concentration, but curiosity pulled the voice closer to her again. Pictures of elephants, trailing off into brief spurts of memory or distraction. It was amazing how well she could see into his mind, how well she could hear him now, almost as if she were no longer in her own mind, but...
She lost control, suddenly, and the voice overtook her. A new image filled her eyes, and the voice vanished-it felt like his thoughts were literally inside her head. But she could see herself, sitting cross legged across the bed, frozen with her eyes suddenly wide open. A bright light surrounded her head, in a deep reddish-purple, the color writhing and expanding suddenly. Part of it seemed to be connected to the head she now was in. The whole world looked startlingly different—streams of color ran through the wall in wires, her computer glowed green, her alarm clock looked yellow. In every direction there were tints of neon brightness, and suddenly, she realized what was happening. She was seeing through Seth's eyes—she was literally inside his head. She felt fear rushing up from somewhere that was not her, and she felt a hand move, then saw it—Seth's hand, reaching out towards the body that she was no longer in.
“Sam?” His voice asked, and she felt him speak it, heard it with his ears. “Sam! Sam, are you alright?”
“I'm fine,” she said quickly, out of reflex. He spoke those words in the same instant, and then suddenly looked extremely alarmed.
“...Sam, what on...”
“I lost control. I don't know what happened.” He managed to stop saying her words about halfway through the second sentence, listening instead to her voice somewhere in the middle of his skull.
"Sam," he asked softly, “Why are you in my head?”

Voices, hats, and superpowers

2010-05-30T20:53:00.003-06:00

“So you can't hear the voices when you have a hat on?”
“Nope.” She shook her head, wincing as she took her hat off. “I line them with tinfoil. That's what does it.”
He took the hat from her hand and examined it. “Wait, you have the shiny side on the inside.”
“Is that that that unusual?” She took the hat back from him, placing it on her head.
“I thought the shiny side was supposed to be out.” He shook his head. “Something about it deflecting mind control waves or something.”
“Huh.” She narrowed her eyes in thought. “It definitely has no effect on mind control waves. From what I've heard mind control is really difficult to block—you need an interfering circuit, and...”
“It's alright, nevermind.” Seth glanced up at the web of twine and newspaper strewn across the ceiling. “So, assuming you're not crazy...”
“I'm not,” she said defensively.
“Then where are the voices coming from?” he finished. “They can't just be coming from nowhere.”
“I... I used to think they were trying to talk to me.” She glanced over at him. “But half the time they're ignoring me, or talking about something else. I think they're something natural that I just happen to be able to hear.”
He thought for a moment. “So you're psychic or something?”
“I guess.” She wrapped her arms around her knees.
“So that would make the voices other people's thoughts.”
“That's one theory.” She nodded. “I've thought about it sometimes. It would make a lot of sense if it's true.”
“Can you control what voices you hear?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I told you, it's a sea of noise. I can barely pick out one over the other.”
“What about when you have the hat on?”
“...I can't hear anything when I have the hat on.” Sam looked at him skeptically. “I just told you that.”
“Have you tried?”
“Why would I want to?” She flopped back on the bed, staring upwards. “The hat makes the voices be quiet. It's the only time I can hear myself think. If I try to hear them, maybe it'll make a way for them to get in, and then where would I be?”
“You could just make a new hat.”
“That's not what I mean. I mean, if I open that door in my head, I don't know if I can close it.”
“No, you could. It's not a door.” Seth rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “I told you I can see energy fields if I want to. That includes mental energy, and well... You've got one heck of a field.” He looked away, out the tiny window and across the street. “That hat contains it.”
“Really?” Sam sat up again, torn between skepticism and hope. “Is that how it works?”
“I think so. But there are still edges getting out. I think if you tried to control it, you could focus that small amount enough to hear someone's thoughts.”
“So what, I can control what I hear?”
“I guess.” He shrugged. “I don't know. All I know about powers like this are from a couple of self-help books my mom made me read. But it seems like it'd be a good thing to try, right?”
“Sure.” She stared at her hands. “I just don't know where to start.” She paused for a moment, realizing what he'd said. “Wait, powers?”
“Sure. Telepathy. You read people's minds.” He nodded. “It's a superpower.”
“...Huh.” She looked thoughtful. “I'd... never thought of it that way.”
“Sheesh, it's either superpowers or insanity. And you keep saying you're not insane, so...”
“I'm not!”
“So it's superpowers.” Seth shrugged. “Question is, how do you control it?”
“I... have no idea.” Sam looked away again. “Tinfoil?”
“Well, other than that. I mean, can you like, do some kind of insane yoga concentration thing, or...” he gestured vaguely around his head. “Something with your hands, I guess?” She laughed, and he pouted. “I'm serious! There's always hand signals in the movies.”
“I really don't know.” She shook her head. “I've never tried it.”
He shook his head. “I just don't understand how you didn't think of this before.”
Sam smiled a little. “You try sharing your head with a million voices and see how well you do.”
“Point.”

Crazy

2010-05-27T20:22:00.002-06:00

No parent ever expects their child to go crazy.
But she had, undoubtedly. Their beautiful eight year old tomboy daughter had started hearing whispers, just lightly at first, so barely there that they though it might be her very active imagination. She told them it was like the wind was telling her something, and she had to be very quiet to hear.
But the whispers were not what made her crazy.
As she got older, they caught her flinching, or twitching, or covering her ears when she didn't think they were looking. In completely silent places she spoke loudly, as if trying to speak over something. She started looking tired; her schoolwork suffered, and she didn't want to do anything but lie her head on the table and stare with open eyes at the grain of the wood. They asked her what was wrong.
The whispers had stopped being whispers.
Every day, when she got up, the whispers had gotten a little louder, just enough, she said, that she barely noticed. She'd thought she was just getting better at listening, but no. There were thousands of voices now, she said, that talked constantly, saying things that made no sense and repeating themselves and randomly coming and going. It was a sea of noise, and she had no way of stopping it.
She woke up screaming when she was twelve. They asked her why. She said she'd been murdered, and then she'd been the murderer. She said the body was in a dumpster two blocks down.
That was where the police found it.
She didn't want to sleep anymore, but her body fought her until she lost. The visions were always terrible, more realistic than any dream, feeling pain and pleasure as if she really were there. She woke up staggeringly drunk one morning, and it took a few minutes for her to return to normal. Another day she woke up asking what cocaine was, and why it made her see such strange things in the dream. Her parents worried, but she never left the house at night. She began stuttering, repeating entire words and phrases, going off on wild tangents as she struggled to think clearly. She could barely go to school, she was so exhausted, and her classmates were not kind.
They decided to move, thinking the change might do her good. A little town called Springfield seemed like a good choice at the time—her father got a job fixing computers, and her mother substituted at the elementary school. They were sure, that without the depravity surrounding them in the city, their daughter would get better—the dreams were surely subconscious wonderings, and the voices the product of stress and fear. It would get better.
It got worse.
There was no doubt, now, that she was insane. She refused to see the doctor, screaming about the noises the voices made around him, fighting and thrashing until she escaped the office. There was scarcely a day that the school did not call home to ask about her, if she'd been sleeping, if everything was alright at home. The stuttering got worse. The psychiatrist said she was schizophrenic, and gave them some medication. Nothing got better—the dreams consumed her in her waking hours now, too, freezing her in place as she watched something they couldn't see with wild blue eyes. They had to check, every day, if she'd taken the medication. They caught her throwing it away or flushing it down the sink more often than not. Her father had to sit on her, once, so that she would stop flailing long enough for her mother to force it down her throat.
It wasn't like she hadn't fought for her sanity. Every waking moment was dedicated to making sense of her world, and the results stretched out in newspaper clippings and scribbled dreams across every wall and surface of her room, connected with a web of twine and bright blue yarn. She theorized, trying to think clearly through the wild tangle of voices, trying to come up with something, anything, that would explain her misery.
No parent ever expects their child to go crazy.
Not many know how to deal with it when it happens.
Her mother clung to her husband, turning to him as her rock as her dreams for her daughter's future unraveled before her eyes. He stopped looking at his daughter, seeing straight through her when she had an episode, shutting his emotions off when she broke down screaming, looking away when she huddled on the floor sobbing. They were not a happy family anymore.
They came home one day to a silent house. Her backpack sat in the hallway, but there were no sobs, no screams, no nonsensical ramblings. Her mother assumed the worst, and ran to her room, with her father following close behind.
And they found her there, curled up in a ball on top of the sheets, with tinfoil wrapped around her head, completely silent, and for once, for the first time since she was eight, completely at peace.
“It makes the voices stop,” she'd said, without stuttering at all. “I can't hear any of them—it's quiet now. I like it.”
They'd looked at each other, unsure of how to respond. She was quiet, still, happy, sane, for the first time in years. But neither dared let down their defenses; they'd been guarded for so long that they'd almost forgotten how to love her.
They bought her hats, and sewed tinfoil into them. She wore them to school, and her grades improved immediately. The teachers stopped calling home. The medication wasn't an issue anymore. She didn't wake up screaming, or stutter, or freeze for minutes on end. Her father could look at her, her mother could smile.
They were almost happy.
They should have known it wouldn't last.

The Signs

2010-04-27T21:53:00.005-06:00

Brief explanation: I've written a rather lot of merperson mythology. The solstice child is believed by the aqueans (merpeople) to be the one who will end their world. So what, logically, should his mother do when he's born?

She could no longer ignore the signs.
A golden child, he was. That she couldn't deny, even if she wanted to—his eyes and scales were amber and sunsets. But so had her grandfather been, and he hadn't been the solstice child, now had he?
But her grandfather hadn't been born in the darkest hour of the summer solstice, thanks to his parent's foolishness in conceiving him at the right time of year, thanks to his mothers foolishness in traveling despite being heavily pregnant, thanks to the warm summer night that hadn't killed him instantly with the shock of cold like most babies. That she could ignore, or deny, or tell others differently—for all anyone but she and his father knew, he had been born two days after the solstice. Still close, but clearly not the prophesied child, just enough to save him from suspicion and ire.
But she knew differently, and her own suspicion was one she could not save him from.
Born on the summer solstice solstice, when seven (and she'd counted, and his father had counted, and both shook their heads and desperately, desperately hoped they had counted wrong) stars had fallen across the night sky, a golden child. They whispered quietly to each other—should they let him live? If he was the child of prophecy, then to save their world—to save themselves, their family—he had to die. Was it not better to kill him before he had the chance to know his fate?
But no. No. They could never—would never. The golden child had lived, in the hopes that he was not the child they thought he was, that he would grow to be insignificant and normal, and live a happy life regardless of the foolishness that gave it to him.
But they knew, from the time he was old enough to swim away, that this was a false hope.
The dolphins loved him. His father had started to think he would go insane if he had to listen to their chatter for one moment longer—but the child laughed as the friendly bunch poked their noses into his soft belly. When he began to swim, they swam with him, chattering so fast that not even the elder of the pod could understand their language. He learned to hunt among the dolphins before he learned among his pod, and chattered with them in the bright squeaks and whistles. His mother almost smiled.
And the dolphins shall know him, as they know my child Feldspar, and they shall teach him...
Almost as soon as he'd learned to speak, he'd learned to sing. He started off simply—a single toned voice much like any other child, singing back the songs she'd sung to him as a baby. But there were other melodies, that emerged not long after, blending into two vocal tones, then three, then four—an impressive voice, even for an adult, and especially impressive for a child. But the songs were different, with words and phrases he'd never heard, then ones his parents had never heard. She didn't want to ask.
Illa shall sing with him, and teach him all her songs...
On occasion, they would visit the shore, and lie on their backs on the smooth rocks at low tide. He would lie next to her, nesting between her arm and the bend of her hip, staring upwards in wonder at the stars. She asked him what he saw, and tried very hard not to cry as he identified the constellations, one by one, without ever being told.
She didn't want to believe it.
The stars will be as simple as the water, as Somin tells all he knows.
He loved to play, with the dolphins or anyone who was willing. The dolphins didn't play with him as much when their pod joined to a larger one, but there was still always a few tagging along behind. The other children—who were always bigger or smaller than him by half a year—taught him a few games. The dolphins foiled his every attempt at hide and seek. He was a fair shot at tag. He lagged a bit at catch-the-otter, but that was alright. But he came up with new games, other games, and soon the adults began to ask their children where these strange games had come from. They told, and he was asked.
“There's someone in a dream who tells me about them,” he said. “Just like the one who told me about the stars.”
And Hollin shall teach him games, as he has always taught my children, and he shall play...
It was possible, at this point, for her to still imagine he was not the solstice child. The six children of legend had been known to visit some in dreams and teach them great things, and though it might have been a stretch of the imagination to believe that four of them would bless her child, it was not impossible. And even a desperate hope is better than none.
But she still knew, in her heart, that he was.
They left the new pod not long after that.
They found ruins, from before Alanti, and stayed there for a few days. The buildings were alien to all of them, the carvings barely perceptible, and the runes meaningless—but he understood them. She found him explaining to one of the younger children what the carvings meant, what the runes meant, the stories they told, as clearly and as plainly as if it were as simple as what fish you would eat and what would eat you. She could not turn away, as if in horror.
Karo shall teach him words, letters, all that shall be lost to you...
It was in his twelfth year, at the solstice festival, that she finally, finally, could not deny it any longer. The elder was telling a story, that he had never heard—she knew he had never heard, for it was one she hadn't heard since she was a child, one of those stories that by tradition was only told every fourteen years, to mark the fourteen the solstice child would one day (not yet, she hoped) be among them. He nudged her again, and again, until she finally whispered, “What?”
“Mama, he's got the story wrong!”
She asked him how. He told her the way the story was supposed to be—the way she's heard it as a child. When he finished, she realized the whole gathering was watching him, listening in rapt attention to the true and real story. The elder had fallen silent.
So she asked him, late that night when none were listening, where he had heard the story, and why he knew it so well.
“She tells me—a girl a lot older than me, but not a grownup. She's purple.”
“Is she like the one who told you about the stars?”
“And the songs, and the runes, and the games, and the dolphins, Mama!” He nodded. “They talk to me when I'm sleeping.”
And Urma shall tell him her stories, though they may pass away in time, he shall know them...
“How many of them,” she'd asked carefully, “do you see?”
“Seven, Mama.”
“You mean six,” she corrected quickly, hoping so desperately he was wrong.
“No, Mama. There are seven.”
Though all may see these six in dreams, to hear the stories or learn the stars, only the Child shall see the seventh.
And Antioch shall guide him.
She could not deny the signs any longer.
They had to kill him.
She didn't want to. What mother would, what father would? They loved him, even if he was the solstice child, even if the world would end, he was still their child, their only child. They made a knife from obsidian shards, and tucked it away with a quiet promise to each other that tomorrow, tomorrow, the deed would be done.
Tomorrow came and went, again and again. The deed was not done, never done, not for another year. He was only twelve, they still had time—another day would not destroy the world. His father gave him the knife as a present two days after his thirteenth birthday, on the day he thought he had been born.
He was old enough to hunt on his own, among the dolphins that still followed him. He was old enough to wind shells and coins and tattered rope into a bracelet for his mother, and another for himself. He was old enough to understand and fear the coming of the solstice child.
He was not old enough to understand that he was the solstice child.
The days flickered past. She knew they had to kill him soon, before the fourteenth year, before he was taken from them and all hope was lost. His father became a little more resolute on the matter, steeling his nerves, determined not to force his wife to do it. They made another knife, larger, more deadly—the first one had gotten a little chipped in the hands of their son.
They would explain it to him. It wasn't fair any other way—his mother wished more than anything that they had killed him before he was old enough to love them. He had to understand what he was, what he was destined to do. How that destiny had to be fought. Why. The death would be swift. She knew it would still be hard, still be painful. But he would at least know, and his spirit would be free to wander.
But the days still washed by them like waves, and time was running short.
They fixed a date. The day they were intended to leave for the solstice festival. He would be sent out to hunt, so they would be late. The others would leave them behind, and they would be free to do the deed alone. He would return, ask where the others had gone, and it would be explained. The deed would be done. The world would be saved.
He was sent off to hunt.
The others left.
And they waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And he never returned.
She did not know if Antioch had guided him away from them, or if he had understood more than they knew. Perhaps some chance circumstance had done the deed for them, a shark, an orca, a fisherman's net. She grieved for him if he was dead.
She grieved for the world if he were alive.

Lies and Magic

2010-04-11T16:05:00.003-06:00

“I'm not lying. I don't lie.” The magician tossed the silver rings from one hand to the other. “Or at least, I do my best not to.”
“You're a magician. Everything you do is a lie.” The inventor shook his head, watching the smaller man carefully. “By definition, I mean.”
“Not really.” The smaller man looked rueful. “Those lies are what makes it so hard for you to believe in me. But I'm not lying.”
“Why on earth not?”
“Because falsehood is the death of magic. It's what makes most of us, yeah, but once you learn, just once, that the magic is a trick...” he pulled the rings apart effortlessly, snapped them back together, twisted them in and out as he spoke, “You never believe again. You find it amazing, but... you never really trust in it. Every trick is just a trick, that you're an inch away from figuring out.” He tossed the rings into the air, and they vanished. “So if I trick you again and again, then when I want to show you something real...” He pulled the rings out of his sleeve. “You won't believe me.”
“We don't believe you anyway.”
“Which is why I never lie.” The magician smiled. “So when I find some real magic...” He put a hand to the windowpane, glancing out at the darkened sky. “You'll believe it really is.”
The world outside suddenly exploded into light, as a thousand tiny lights rushed by the windows of the airship, swirling in the drafts kicked up by its wings and dancing around like an enormous ballet. Amongst the lights were doves, diving in and out of the chaos with swooping wings and snow-white feathers. The inventor's jaw dropped.
“How did you...”
“I didn't do a thing.” The magician smiled. “That, my friend, was entirely real.”
“But...”
“I think...” the magician trailed off, watching the display with hidden eyes, “The trick to magic, if you will, is believing it will be. Magic, that is. Whether you find that in one of my little tricks or in the sunset or the sea or the patterns of light coming through the trees is up to you. Or even,” he motioned to the fantastic display outside the window, “something as simple as a swarm of fireflies. There's magic in all of them, if you choose to believe it.”
“And if I don't?”
“Then there isn't. You can go on living as if magic doesn't exist.” He sighed, and began to twist the silver rings again. "But that, to me, seems like just about the worst way to live. Why not simply believe?"

In the Solution

2010-04-04T20:53:00.002-06:00

The room was silent, totally silent, as he waited. The vent above his head didn't rattle; the hardwood chair didn't creak as he shifted in it; there were no voices from down the hall that passed his way. He could almost hear his own heartbeat.
In short, it was unnerving.
He stood, not for the first time, pacing back and forth as he waited for the other door to open. There was no clock, but he was sure they were late. Agent Sampson was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago. And the man was not known for tardiness.
Tin sat again, forcing himself into the placid complacency that had once come so naturally to him. Agent Sampson would be here. There was a reason, he didn't need it. There was always a reason.
The room was small, gray and featureless. On one side there was a mirror, behind which he knew was another room that watched over him, but nobody was in it-the door that lead into it had been open when he passed coming into this one. There was a table scarred with long use, and two hardwood chairs, one on either side of the table. On the opposite side of the table from him was a cardboard shoe box, slightly battered and with a lid that didn't quite fit. He hadn't opened it.
Another five minutes ticked by. He shifted again, annoyed. Though he had very little better to do, he still detested wasting time like this. He glanced at the shoe box again.
Why would Agent Sampson bring a shoe box? He must have left it here—nobody else used this room, after all. Was there something important in it? Tin fought back the urge to look for a few moments longer, then finally gave in, pulling the box cautiously across the table. He removed the lid cautiously, half expecting something to jump out at him. Nothing did. He set the thing aside.
Inside lay two black wristbands, bearing the names of bands he didn't recognize, and a hat with a couple buttons pinned to one side. He examined it, then set it aside, rapidly losing interest.
The last object caught his attention, though. A multicolored cube, with nine different-colored squares on each side, their arrangement seemingly random. He picked it up, and turned it over. Every side was the same way. The sides looked like they could rotate-he tried it. They could. He twisted it around for a moment, more for something to do than in any actual goal, before he quite suddenly remembered.
The colors were all supposed to be on the same side. He didn't know how he knew that, and he sat for a moment staring at the thing, fighting back the shock and an overwhelming feeling he didn't recognize. He started twisting it again, experimenting.
The rapid clicking of the cube soon filled the room as he twisted it this way and that, trying to make sense of the pattens. Every so often, a flash of something would hit him, sometimes little things, and others so much to make him stop, staring wildly at the cube. It was a rubix cube. There'd been a party. There was a brick house, a school, a chain link fence in front of an abandoned factory. The door wouldn't latch. A black cat that hated him. He didn't know what was happening, but he couldn't bear for it to stop.
The sides of the cube spun faster and faster as he focused all of his attention on it and the patterns gradually worked themselves out in his head. A math class, a girl, a beat-up red locker. A small room at the top of a long staircase, painted blue. Posters, pictures, something that looked like a kid had drawn it. An old computer, a set of beat up speakers, a blue guitar.
Bits and pieces were beginning to fall into place now. Recognizable patterns began to form on the sides of the cube, and he bit his lip, trying to focus on that only as every part of his mind screamed for attention. Voices he recognized, but didn't remember, someone telling him to do the dishes, his own voice speaking back. The feel of a spiral bound notebook pressed up against his palm. A teacher, telling him to focus.
He paused for a moment, and the room fell back into that blank, empty silence that had been there before, what felt like hours ago as he let the memories—they were memories—fall into place. A wall in his head was crumbling, it felt like, and everything behind it was rushing in all at once. He started to feel lightheaded. The house was his, the locker was his, the room and guitar and posters and... and everything. That was his past.
He forced it back, ripping his attention back to the cube in his hands. He was almost there. He started twisting again, fighting against every new revelation as he did. A mother, a father, his own hands, so much younger. He forced himself to only see the cube.
The last piece fell into place, and suddenly the noise in his head died away, falling back in the place of one word, which he uttered aloud.
“...Peter.”
The empty room didn't respond. He stood, holding the solved cube in shaking hands.
“My name is Peter.” He looked up. “My name is Peter!”

I wrote this in like, December, but I liked it enough to post. It happens towards the end of Tin's story, and is a bit of a spoiler, really. Wish it had something more to do with Easter, though if you squint and read my mind, you could kinda get that, I guess.. Ah well. Happy Easter to you all!

Naming

2010-03-28T22:26:00.004-06:00

I promise you've seen at least one of these characters before, so it totally counts as continuation. Yes.

He blinked at the sudden brightness, struggling to follow the fast-moving shadows that swarmed across the room. There were close to thirty of the children here, he realized as his eyes adjusted. Some played on the floor with battered toys, some worked on small projects on the scattered wooden tables. A few were sleeping, on benches or tables or whatever came to hand. Everyone looked up at his entrance as his young guide dragged him inside, slamming the door behind them.
For a log moment they just stared at him, battered toys and games forgotten, and he shrunk back just a little, back towards the world of mud and exhaustion that had been his only home for so long. Nobody moved, nobody spoke. Everyone simply watched, with cautious, suspicious eyes, and the room hung frozen.
Finally, one of the girls spoke up. “Who'd you find, Mikhail?”
And then the noise crashed into his mind like a wave, sweeping him up in the rush of children. They ran towards him, swarming around him like moths around a light. One took his backpack; another helped him out of the battered coat. He could barely make out single voices in the massive barrage of questions as the kids took both his hands and pulled him towards the room's big open fireplace.
“Did you walk all the way...” “Where'd you get that big mark on...” “Do you like potato soup, or...” “...Have a name?” “Did you come to see...” “Can I...” “...You want me to...” “Theia?” “...Look in your backpack, please? I won't touch...”
“Hang up!” shouted his rescuer, clapping his good arm to the bandaged one with the odd crash of resounding metal. “Quit with the questions! Give him a chance to catch his breath. The guy's been walking for like, ever! ”
“How long is like ever?” asked one of the littler girls, staring at him with wide eyes.
The boy—Mikhail, he corrected himself—paused a moment, then turned to the chimera, momentarily lost. “How long have you been walking?”
“A... A long time. Four years.” The words sounded strange, his own voice unfamiliar. He hadn't spoken to another living creature in almost that long. Four years. Really?
The children gave a simultaneous “Oooooh,” clearly very impressed. “That's longer than Tina's been alive!” piped up one boy. “And she's old enough to punch!”
A crash sounded from one of the small doors that edged the big central hall. “I got a blanket!” Another boy, this one with shaggy blonde hair only kept out of his eyes by the speed at which he was moving, skidded through the doorway, stumbling as he made the sharp turn. “Three of 'em!” He dumped all three rather unceremoniously on the chimera's lap, smiling widely.
“Thank you,” he said, trying to return the smile.
“Not a problem!” The boy ducked his head respectfully. “I'm Wilbur. What's your name?”
“I...” he paused, momentarily lost. “I don't really have one anymore,” he admitted quietly. The whole assembly stared for a moment longer until they again exploded into sound.
“You should be Gilgamesh!” shouted one, waving his hand wildly.
“No, Izangati!”
“Gabrialla!”
“That's a girl's name!” someone shouted indignantly. “You should be Antonio!”
“You can be Misha, cause that's my name too! We'll both be Misha!”
“Vincent! You should be Vincent!”
“Compass! Umbrella!”
“...Not even real names!”
“Gabriella!”
“Hang up!” yelled Mikhail again, clapping twice. “He can't be named everything.”
“We should vote,” suggested Wilbur. “Like we do with babies.”
“That won't work.” Mikhail said flatly. “Babies don't care what their name is.”
Wilbur thought for a moment. “Right. How about he picks one, then?”
“I was gonna suggest that,” muttered the older boy. He turned to the chimera. “Well, how about it? What should your name be?”
“I...” He paused for a moment longer, thinking, then shook his head. “I really don't know.”
“So should we vote then?”
“We always end up with something stupid when we vote without Thiea here. Like Toastpants.” Mikhail crossed his arms. “Let's vote on some names, and then he can find one he likes off of those.”
“That'll take forever!” Wilber whined.
“Toastpants.” Mikhail enunciated, like that one word would win him the whole argument.
Apparently, it did. “Fine.” The blonde boy sulked. “But what are we supposed to call him until then?”
“Gabriella!”
"No!"

More story bits

2010-03-21T21:09:00.003-06:00

“Because, I mean, it seems so indefinite, really.” He gestured vaguely off to one side, floppy sleeve almost totally covering his hand. “You say you've grown up, you say I haven't. You're probably right, you know, but really, if it's so necessary you'd think I'd have got the hang of it by now.”
“You are grown up. You just refuse to admit it; you see the world like a kid and you refuse to believe anything else!”
“And is that really so terrible?” The magician stopped. “I do believe in other things. I know bad things happen. I know the lies. I know the truth. But I don't have to believe that all the good things are gone either.” He looked away, out the tiny windows. “Grown-up, I think, is when you decide to stop believing that things can be amazing. Maybe not big things, but little things. You stop seeing things as beautiful, and just start seeing things as there. You don't think it matters anymore.”
“It doesn't.” The inventor stopped as well, finally turning to face the magician.
“Why not?” He spread his hands, palms up. “It mattered then. It was beautiful then. Does the magic of the world really have to die that quickly?”
“It's just... not anymore.” The inventor leaned against the doorway, really thinking about it now. “Things just aren't amazing, and aren't beautiful.”
“Not anymore.” The magician sighed, taking off both top hats and closing his eyes in the afternoon sunlight. “Do you know, it's so much easier to grow up than it is to grow back down? I did grow up, you know. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me, and it was so hard, so very hard to grow back down. I had to choose to believe in the magic, every day. I had to look for it.”
“You can't grow back down. Not once you've grown up.” The inventor shook his head. “It's impossible.”
“No.” The magician smiled, then put his hat back on. “Just hard.”

He was a secret, once, before. A real secret, like between two lovers, whispered quietly or not at all, and for no one else, no one, not ever. He was hidden well, hidden perfectly. He may have been loved, he may have been hated. It didn't matter. He was simply secret.
But she, she is the child, who looks in at the wrong moment and sees. Only a child, knowing not what she's found, not what it means or what desperate lovers will do to take their secret back. She only knows that she has found it, and she likes it. And it is her secret too, now. He is her secret, not hidden so well, but still hidden. Better loved, at least.
But she is a child, and children cannot keep secrets. She may whisper it to one, perhaps only to herself, but the other children will hear. And whispers, only ever whispers, spread like fire. The whole world will burn before too long, but she doesn't know that yet, for she is a child. He is still secret, now and for as long as she can keep him. But her parents will whisper, and her neighbors will whisper, and whispers echo and burn. The secret will be a secret to all of them, until he is a secret to none.
And then the world will burn, and he will burn, and be gone. Ashes.

“You amaze me.” Crash shook his head. “What, did you trade the part of your brain that handles emotions for a double dose of mechanical knowledge?”
“I guess.” Jack shrugged, blandly trying to explain himself. “I can't see any other reason I could be this bad at this.”
“Lack of practice would be my guess.” Crash looked his employer over skeptically. “Though I honestly can't say I was ever as bad as you.”
“Whatever,” Jack sat against the wall with a sigh. “She's not mad at me, I think.”
“There is absolutely no way you can be certain about that.” Crash warned. “She is still a woman.”
“What if I'm 75% certain, based on a number of different variables, that she is not mad at me?”
“Then she's mad at you.”
Jack swore softly. “I said I was sorry...”
“Then she won't be mad at you for as long. Maybe. I don't really know.”
“Whatever.” Jack pulled his mask off, setting it aside as he pulled his knees into his body. “I tried, at least. That should count for something.”
“It doesn't.”
Jack swore again.

Airplanes and books

2010-03-14T19:40:00.004-06:00

“This is ridiculous. Ridiculous. The plane was supposed to leave an hour ago! It's not even here yet!” Jack stormed down the row of seats for the thousandth time, glaring darkly at the big airport windows overlooking the tarmak. “It's ridiculous. What, did the airplane run out of wings?”

“It probably hit some bad weather,” Amy said for the thousandth time, not looking up from her book. “Sit down.”

“I will not sit down! The plane should be here already!” He kicked the row of seats, vibrating it all the way down to where Crash was sleeping with a magazine over his face. The taller man groaned, and rolled over. “Why isn't it here?” The terminal was fortunately mostly deserted, save the occasional sleeping businessman, and two college students playing games on their phones on the opposite end of the big room. Nobody took notice of the blond man as he strode back and forth, gesturing wildly and ranting about the plane. Small blessings, Amy thought.

“Any number of reasons,” Amy replied calmly. “Most of which we went over an hour ago, and some before that.”

“But it's been an hour! When is that stupid plane going to come?” he asked, turning to her as if she knew.

“It'll come when it gets here. Now sit down.”

“I'm not going to sit down,” he pouted, crossing his arms. “And that's final.”

“Fine.” She turned the page of her book. “Suit yourself.”

Jack glared at her for a moment, then collapsed in the chair next to her. “It's supposed to be here already!” he complained. “I just don't get why it's not!”

“Mm.”

There was a moment's pause. “Can I have another sandwich?” he finally asked, hesitantly.

“Those were supposed to last the entire flight,” she sighed, setting down her book and digging through her carry on bag.

“That is entirely Crash's fault,” he pointed out as she handed him the sandwich. “I've only had one.”

“And he's only had three, so you're only one behind him now.” She closed the plastic bag with one hand, picking up her book again with the other. “What happened to that book of sudoku you bought from the gift shop?”

“I finished it,” replied Jack as he slouched against the hard gray plastic of the airport chair, his mouth still full of sandwich. “Too easy.”

“It was the hardest one they had...”

“Marketing.” He waved the sandwich in one hand. “All marketing. Crash could've done those puzzles.”

“The gift shop is still open, you know. You could go get a magazine...”

“I don't want a magazine!” He exclaimed. “All they have is lame stuff like TIME, and Newsweek. Who cares about stuff like that?”

She sighed again, having rather unpleasant flashbacks to her highschool days of babysitting her neighbor's seven year old. “Fine.” She snapped her book shut, and handed it to him. “You read my book, and I'll go get myself a magazine.”

He blinked, choking on a bite of pastrami. “But...”

“No buts. If you won't get yourself something, you read that.” She was two aisles away before he managed to swallow.

“But it's a romance!” he objected, turning around in his seat. “I can't read...”

“No buts!” She shouted back. “Read it or stop whining!”

“...Ok.” He turned back around. “Wasn't whining,” he muttered. “Perfectly legitimate complaint. Plane was supposed to be here an hour ago, should've been halfway to San Francisco by now.” He stared dismayedly at the cover of His Rose, which featured, in addition to some of the most illegibly beautiful pink cursive text he'd ever seen, a swooning woman in the arms of a man with his shirt half open. He raised one eyebrow as he read description on the back.

Rose is beautiful, it read, but terribly lonely. Spending her life under the control of her widowed stepfather, she feels she is doomed to die a spinster. Until one day, a handsome stranger collapses at the edge of the gardens, and she finds herself...

He covered his eyes and guessed at the rest of the paragraph. “...Strangely drawn to the mysterious enigma of a man. But will their love survive her stepfather's suspicion, or will the dark secret that brought him here destroy them both?” He opened his eyes. “Oh, enigmatic mystery of a man. Got it.”

“Don't even wanna know what you're talking about,” muttered Crash from the opposite aisle of seats.

“Shut up,” replied Jack cordially as he opened the book.

Amy returned a few moments later to find Jack calmly engrossed in the romance novel, and Crash asleep with the travel pillow over his eyes. She set down two motorcycle magazines easily within Jack's line of sight and reach, and opened up her own copy of Celebrity Homes and Gardens. She glanced up, a few minutes later. No good.

She pouted inwardly. She'd just gotten to the good part. With any luck he'd finish the novel as quickly as he'd finished the sudoku book.

It was nearly half an hour before Jack spoke again. “Oh, come on!” he exclaimed. “Using a poker in a swordfight is good and all, but it'd cool down by four minutes in! There's no way Morringston could've burned him!”

She very calmly attempted to ignore him, turning the page of an article on water gardens and acting like she was very engrossed in yet another picture of koi. Unfortunately, Jack had never been a quiet person.

“Come on, man, how are you missing this? She just freaking stole a horse to come find you, least you could do is say thanks,” he muttered. She glanced up at him, mildly annoyed. He didn't notice. “And she somehow magically knew to bring medical supplies. Yes. Great. Way to miss the moment, dude.”

“Jack, they can't hear you,” she reminded quietly, hoping he'd get the point.

“But he's a moron! He likes this Rose girl, and it's so obvious that she likes him, but he just doesn't see it! He's being all 'oh, she'd never want to be with a scoundrel like me,' and every conceivable piece of evidence is all like 'yes, dude, she does. Duh' and I'm guessing it will take her either getting kidnapped or terribly wounded before he finally admits this!”

“Well, it is a romance novel. If he got it right away, the book would be over already.”

“Dude's a moron.”

“They always are,” she muttered, going back to her magazine.

Flirting 101

2010-03-11T20:05:00.002-07:00

A bit of introduction is in order for this one. This isn't an entire scene, and as such, it's almost entirely dialouge,between Alice, a librarian, and Marcelle, a much older librarian. This coversation came out of Marcelle wanting Alice to flirt with library patron Quinn, in order to get him to play the Mad Hatter for the library's upcoming book day. Alice refused flat out, and the conversation proceeded to here. It's short, and a bit different than what I normally try to write, but I liked it so much I just had to share.

“Well… We were going to plan the whole thing out, but then I mentioned Quinn, and Janice…” She blushed a little. “She’s been spending a little too much time in the historical romance section, if you ask me. She has some very… creative… ideas.”
“You’re impossible.” Alice turned away again.
“It was Janice that wanted to… Oh, fine. If you won’t flirt with him, I will.”
“You?” Alice did her very best not to look horrified. “But he’s twenty years…”
“Maybe he likes older women. That’d be quite nice, actually.” She mused. “Me, Mrs. Hunter, most envied woman this side of central branch. ‘Oh, Mrs. Hunter,’” her voice went up several octaves as she spoke, “’how did you ever catch such a prize of a man,’ they’ll ask me. ‘I’m so jealous, Mrs. Hunter!’ ‘Share with us your man catching secrets!’ And I’ll tell them—being sure to show off my huge diamond wedding ring from that fancy jewelry store where he works—I’d say ‘oh, it’s easy girls, you’ve just got to wear a short skirt and heels, and red lipstick, and you have to tell him just how handsome that fedora makes him look, or how much you admire his hairstyle every time you see him—don’t pay any attention to it if he seems a little creeped out, that’s just how men show affection. And of course, of course, you have to bat your eyes at him all the time. Wear lots of mascara, or fake eyelashes; that’ll be sure to get his attention. And swoon, girls, you have to swoon. Men love it when you swoon. Try and aim it so they can catch you in their big strong arms, because it’s not half so romantic if you get a concussion.” Marcelle acted everything out as she spoke it, batting her eyes and fake swooning, and Alice began to laugh. “Be sure to always act dainty and womanly… Though chivalry might be dead for some of your men—not for mine of course, but if they won’t be a gentleman, than I suppose daintiness isn’t required. It may still help though. Be sure to be afraid of spiders. Scream whenever you see one; this will give him opportunity to prove his manly courage and rescue you without expending too much effort. And of course…”
“Stop! Stop, alright!” Alice couldn’t stop laughing. “You’ll scare him into never coming here again!”
“Well, what choice do I have?” Marcelle acted injured, though there was a smile in her eyes. “When our only single, young, pretty blonde librarian refuses to do a little flirting in the name of literacy?”
“I’m still not gonna flirt with him.” Alice said, wiping here yes. “But…”
“But the flirting’s the fun part!”
“But I will ask.”
“That’s better.” Marcelle looked as smug as a cat. “He always comes in on Thursdays, so tomorrow, try not to look quite so much like a nun, alright?”
“I do not look like a nun!”

Sir (Meeting Old Crow)

2010-03-07T20:23:00.004-07:00

Short introduction: Skie is a series of flying islands, ruled by a small number of city states that all hate each other. They've agreed to ban flying machines (Skyships) with the exception of a small police force for the sake of not killing each other, and of course, as for every law, there are those who live to break it.

The room was dark. Isaac peered in nervously, clenching the note in one balled fist. “Hello?”
There was no reply. He stepped through the doorway hesitantly, glancing around at the ashen shadows of the hanger. Huge, curving forms were suspended high overhead, with walkways interspersed here and there, with dangling ropes and curling pipes winding along the pathways. His eyes adjusted as he stood in the darkness that ate all the color out of it, staring. There was a window, somewhere high above him, but most of it's light had been lost to the thick coating of dust that fell heavy in the air.
Something moved near his feet. He jumped back, and the black and white cat stared at him, curious. He breathed out, relieved.
“Hello, uh, cat.” He knelt, holding out his hand to the creature. It examined him with a disdainful air, and paused for a moment, thinking.
And then it bit him.
“Ow!” he pulled his hand back abruptly. “Dumb cat!”
“His name is Ferris.” A woman's voice came from behind him, barely hiding a kind of sadistic, braying laughter. “He does that.”
“Oh!” Isaac whirled, forgetting his bleeding finger. “Who are you?”
“Same person that gave you the note, of course!” She laughed, switching on the lights. The room was not lit by a single bulb, but by close to a dozen separate light sources—ranging from an old, flickering fake-flame bulb to a string of Christmas lights. This oddity was lost on him, though, as he stared at the woman in front of him.
Old Crow looked remarkably like her wanted posters, it occurred to him. The high ponytail was a little longer, of a dark brown the color of dirt, and she looked a little younger—though, perhaps, that was the wide smile more than any actual indicators. The wrinkles around her eyes certainly didn't make her look any younger, but the freckles that dotted her face made her seem almost childlike as she stood, laughter plain in her face and her stance as he stared. Her clothes were baggy and warm, an old green sweater over burned, greasy work pants, and a leather tool belt that extended down one leg, not unlike his own. She wore combat boots, stained with mud, and he glanced back up at her face, feeling half afraid and half incredulous.
“Didn't your mother ever tell you it's not polite to stare?” she asked, moving in on him like a freight train. “Stand up straight, shut your mouth, and try not to look like a fish.” She prodded him into position, then surveyed him with a discerning smile. “Better. Now, you're the halfwit flier that I saved from the police ships today.” He nodded dully. “First time?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Yes, Sir.” She emphasized, looking pointedly at him. “Honestly, what do they teach you...”
He stared a moment before he finally caught on.“Yes Sir.”
“Better.” She gestured with a wrench at his ragged toolbelt. “Doesn't look like you know quite what you're doing, now does it.”
“Well, ah, no, sorry.” She shot him a glare. “Ma'am.”
“Sir!”
“Sir!” He held up his hands apologetically. “But it was my first time.”
“Flying or building?” She inquired, holding the wrench threateningly.
“Both... Sir.”
“Hm.” She surveyed him for a moment longer, like a general surveying their troops. “Not bad, then. Not bad at all.”
“Um, thank you.”
“Could've been a lot better, though!” She whirled, striding across the workshop. “Come with me. I'll teach you a thing or two.”
“Um, about what, exactly?” He followed her cautiously, being careful not to step on any of the myriad bits of ship scattered about.
“Building! Flying! What makes things go! Come on, boy, keep up!”
“Right.” He sped up his pace to where he was almost running. “So, um, Sir? Where are we going?”
“Workshop, where did you think?”
“You mean this isn't...”
“This is a hanger, boy! What did you think it was, a pretty princess powder room?” The gestures Old Crow made as she spoke would have been hilarious had she not been holding the wrench in the other hand. “Hanger, H-a-nggg-er! Say it with me now, haaaang-eeeer.” She stopped so abruptly that he almost ran into her, and whirled again. “I can't hear you.”
“Hanger.” He very hard not to look as shocked as he felt.
“Haaaaang-eeeer” She enunciated, though he couldn't quite tell what he'd said wrong.
“Haaaang-eeer.” He repeated.
“Better.” She nodded, turning again. “Hanger. Just do what I do, boy, and you'll learn the ropes in no time!”
"What ropes am I learning, exactly?"
"Look," She whirled to face him again. "Apparently, you're as smart as you are pretty. So let me spell this out for you. You have two choices. You can work for me, become my apprentice, and learn to build, maintain and fly faster than you ever could on your own. Ooor, this is the dumb choice, you can say no, and I hit you with this wrench and feed you to my cats."
"...The first one, please."
She glared at him for a moment.
"Sir."

This story is three years old. I swear. I just haven't posted any of it before.(Have you heard that before? Yessss.)
That being said, I think I'm actually running out of stories I've had for forever and not posted, so maybe we'll eventually get some continuity going on. Maybe. Unless I think of some new ones.

Meeting in the lane

2010-02-28T18:31:00.005-07:00

So apparently, I haven't fooled anyone into thinking that I can keep my head in one story for more than twenty minutes. This is further evidence towards their point, and as such, a new story. A bit of introduction is necessary for this one. The story is set in late 1800's Europe, though I need to work on showing that in my dialouge, and stars Mary, a british author on holiday, and Charles, her unlucky suitor/stalker/friend, who, working together, create a fake detective and accidentally make him famous. This is early on in their working relationship.

The man I had collided with was not, fortunately, a stranger. The shaggy brown hair and startled eyes were extremely familiar, coming as they did attached to a beanpole of a man, shabbily dressed, and headed towards the inn where I was staying.
"Oh! Good day, Charles!" I said, trying to regain my composure.
“Mary!” Charles looked startled, nearly falling backwards into the woods as he stumbled to regain his balance. “What's going on? I heard there was a murder!”
“There was!” I whispered, pulling him off the lane towards a small stone bench. “But keep your voice down, I'm not supposed to have left.”
“What happened?” he asked, a little more quietly, glancing back up the road to the little inn.
“The desk clerk was poisoned. Looks like Arsenic to me, but they haven't let me inspect the body well enough to tell for sure.”
“You're trying to investigate?”
“Of course I...”
“Mary, just leave it to the police!” Charles implored, interrupting me. “They know what they're doing.”
“No they don't,” I retorted heatedly. “That inspector is a first class idiot—he's been promoted because of some rich uncle or something, I'm sure of it.”
“He can't be all that bad.” Charles glanced from side to side, making sure we were completely alone. “Can he?”
“He saw my name on the desk register and assumed it was a man.”
“”Well, Augustus is a man's name...”
“Well, yes, but when he came up to speak to me about the clerk's death, he assumed...” My embarrassment took over at that point. I turned bright red, and broke off abruptly.
“Assumed what?”
I took a deep breath, and attempted to continue. “I had to tell him Augustus was my brother, and not, in fact, my lover.” I had to look away as I spoke, trying to hide the burning blush on my face.
“He what?” I should have known better than to tell Charles that. His face turned redder than mine. “Why, that's an insult to your honor—I won't stand for it, I'll...”
“You will do nothing!” I caught his arm, holding him back. “The last thing I need right now is for someone to imply that I lied to a police inspector in the middle of an investigation!”
“But...” He sighed, calming down under my watchful eye. “Right.”
“Thank you.” I gave him a brief smile, before glancing back down the lane towards the inn. “But now he's looking for my supposed brother—he wants to interview him about where he was and what he was doing last night.”
“Oh.” Charles stood thinking for a moment and running a hand through his hair. “Well, that is troublesome.”
“Extremely.”
“I don't suppose you have a plan to divert them?”
“Not as of yet, no.” I sat down on the little bench with a sigh, momentarily stymied. “I've really gotten myself in deep this time.”
“No joke.” He sat next to me, thinking, before he suddenly stood again. “I've got it!”
“Got what?” I inquired, staring up at him.
“I'll masquerade as your brother!” he said triumphantly.
“Charles, we look nothing alike!” I objected.
“Well, not naturally, no.” he admitted. “But you've caught me before in disguise—I bet I could fool that police inspector!”
“But...” I trailed off. “I don't like it.”
“It's the only plan we've got.” He sat again, shrugging his shoulders. “Unless you've got a better one.”
“Unfortunately, I don't.” I sighed again, brushing the dirt off my skirts. “But do you really think you could pull that off?”
“I said you've caught me before.” His eyes twinkled as he spoke. “I didn't mention the times you haven't caught me.”

It was raining

2010-02-15T20:13:00.001-07:00

Raining. It was raining.
He hardly noticed anymore.
The battered leather overcoat had once been fairly waterproof, but age and use and use and use had reduced it to nothing, and water soaked through like sound. He plodded onwards, heading into nowhere, across the wastes. He moved not so much forwards as away.
Mud caked the old trousers, the broken boots, the blistered feet inside. The rivulets of water running down his face ran into his open mouth, and he thought without thinking that he should swallow, and save what little water he carried for later. He stumbled, catching himself half-inches above the ground. The world was mud, and what wasn't was pain, and what wasn't was water and tiredness mixed into more mud, just like the stuff on his trousers.
He didn't know where he was going. He'd never known, not since he set out. He knew precisely, though, where he'd been.
The smell of woodsmoke drifted through the rain, suffering a thousand battle wounds from the piercing drops, but still there. He almost, almost woke up from the trance of one-foot-forward at that, lifting his eyes from the broken, muddy ground to stare blankly at the forest around him, not sure what he intended to see. Nothing, nothing, ever nothing, and he looked back down.
His pack was heavy, slung over one shoulder. It didn't hold much; a little food, a little water, a lot of rain. Two books, soaked through and useless. A needle, black thread. Nothing.
He thought, his mind fighting against the stupor, that he could hear children laughing—somewhere, elsewhere, probably only in his memories. There was little enough laughter there, maybe it could use a little more.
He stumbled again, as his exhausted feet lagged behind where his mind said they should be, and fell this time. He pushed himself back up, wiping the mud from the scarlet mark on his face with a sleeve so dirty it hardly made a difference before he plodded onward, upwards, away.
Always away.

This isn't exactly finished, but I like this part. It's a lot shorter than most of my stuff, but hey.

Beautiful

2010-02-14T15:14:00.002-07:00

“Karen?” His voice was unsure, for once, and she dropped lightly to the ground, listening to the distinctive sounds that her boots made on the pavement.
“I'm here.”
“Good.” He breathed out, relaxing his grip on the railing. “I was worried...”
“Why?” She didn't mean to sound as startled as she did. “Did something happen?”
“Oh, no. Just something I heard on the bugs.”
“What?” She put a hand to his shoulder. “Tell me.”
“Oh, one of the delve guessed you were a girl.”
“What?” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “What did he say—should I do something?”
“It wasn't serious—I think he was drunk, actually.” Jay almost laughed. “Nobody took him seriously.”
“Heh.” She relaxed. “So only drunk people and blind men can tell I'm a girl.”
“Oh, I'm sure I could tell anyway.” The smugness crept back into Jay's voice. “Even if I could see you.”
“You sure?” Karen shook her head slowly. “People have made the mistake before...”
“No, really?” He turned towards her. “They can't have really...”
“They have!” she insisted. She expected him to make some comment on that, but he was silent for a moment, seemingly lost in thought.
“...Karen.” He finally spoke. “What do you look like?”
“Why?” She shifted nervously.
“Just curious.” He shrugged, turning away again. “I just don't know, is all.”
“I...” She hesitated. “I have brown hair and hazel eyes.”
“And?”
“And... and I'm kinda pale and I'm shorter than you by about five inches and my dad says I'm too muscular for a girl.”
“And?”
“I don't know,” she turned away. “What do you want me to tell you?”
“I don't know.”
There was a moment of silence between them, as Karen stared out at the winter skyline, and Jay listened to the dull roar of the monorail tracing it's way through the city.
Jay worked up his courage at last. “Can... can I touch you?”
“...What?” She took a step back. “Why?”
“It's... it's the only way I can tell what you look like. Just your face. I'll be gentle.”
“...Alright.” She swallowed hard. He held out a hand to her, and she very slowly guided his hand up to her face, and let him go. She shut her eyes.
“You're shaking.” His voice held something different in it now. “I don't have to...”
“No. No, go ahead.” She spoke quickly, trying not to turn away.
His fingertips rested lightly on her cheek for what felt like forever before they finally started to move. He traced the line of her jaw with four fingers, leading down towards her mouth. He brushed it lightly with his thumb, and moved upwards, gently running his fingers across her skin. She barely noticed that she was clenching her fists so hard that her short nails bit into her skin. His fingertips glided along her forehead, pausing for a second at the base of her hair, then down again, following the curves of her eyebrows and onto her eyes.
“Why are you crying?” His fingers stopped.
“I'm...” She started to deny it, but the crack in her voice defied her. “I didn't want you to...”
“I didn't have to, you could have said...” He sounded genuinely concerned. “I'm sorry.”
“I didn't want you to know...” She tried to keep from sobbing. “I didn't want you to know how ugly I am.”
There was a silence that felt like it lasted for forever, with his fingertips still resting on her face. Then Jay pulled away, for only half a second.
And then he embraced her.
She almost tried to struggle, but he didn't let her, strong arms holding her still against him. “Don't say that,” he whispered. “Don't.”
“But..”
“You're beautiful, Karen. Who told you...”
“I'm not—I'm really..”
“Don't say that.” He cut her off again, pulling her closer. “You're beautiful,” he breathed into her ear. “I checked.”

Normally, I wouldn't post stuff this sappy on my blog, but hey, it's valentines day. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

The Shattered Mirror

2010-02-08T15:54:00.005-07:00

The old door didn't so much creak open as it banged, and Alice practically lunged inside with the heavy box of decorations. She dropped the box with a relieved sigh. The thick dust that covered everything poofed out in all directions as the cardboard met the wooden planks of the attic, catching the golden light that filtered through the dirty windows. Alice shoved the box up against the wall with her foot, and stood, surveying the scene for a moment.
Janice hadn't been kidding when she'd said they didn't come up here much. The dust now swirling around the air clung to everything, and abandoned spiderwebs glittered in every corner. The ceiling sloped inwards, peaking above the door, with three great beams that corresponded to the big pillars in the library below. A series of boxes much like the one she'd just dragged up the long staircase lined the walls, some with an old copy of a ruined book gracing the top of the pile, and others with less natural adornments, like old tinsel, or buckets. The warm yellow light of the summer afternoon suffused the room, and for a moment, she felt a strange nostalgia, like she was hiding in grandma's attic until far after she should have gone home.
That feeling snapped abruptly as her eyes rested on the floor at the center of the room.
There was a mirror. At least, there had been a mirror—what remained was a mess of fragments, scattered across the floor almost up to the door where she stood. The remains of the frame were missing. But the oddest thing was the total lack of dust on the mirror—even the floor it sat on was coated, but the mirror itself was completely clean. No footprints led up to it, or away from it.
Alice, quite suddenly, had to get back downstairs right this second.
She turned, but the door had closed behind her. She grabbed the handle, trying to open it until she remembered Janice's warning about the sticky lock. She bit her lip, trying to fight down the panic as she twisted the doorknob this way and that to no avail. She was stuck.
“What, leaving so soon?” A voice she knew from bad memories echoed out from behind her. “Alice, I thought we were better friends than that.”
She swallowed hard. “You... are not real.”
“Am I?” She refused to turn around and see him standing there, rising from the mirror like she would rise from a pool of water. “Then why, my dear Alice, are you so afraid of me?”
“You're a bad memory. A figment of my imagination. I'm not crazy anymore, darnit, and I know that you are not real!”
“Of course you're not crazy, Alice. You were never crazy.” His voice was smug, smooth, intoxicating, the perfect gentleman that he wasn't, he wasn't, she knew he wasn't. “But do you really have to take it out on me? I'm hurt.”
“You're a fictional character. I thought you up when I read Alice in Wonderland when I was seven. You don't exist. I know that.”
He laughed, like bells. “Alice, you know I was there before that.”
“So I was crazy before that. I'm not crazy now. Go away.” She clamped her eyes shut, keeping her hand on the doorknob as an anchor to reality. “You're not real.”
“Alice...” His voice was pleading in a way that already had what he wanted, the way he always had. She could feel him stepping across the fragments of the mirror, flickering in and out of reality as he touched them. “What happened? It used to be so easy for you to believe in me—all you needed was a book. Just that, one book, one afternoon—and you knew I was there.”
“I was crazy.” The words came in a half-sob. “Go away. Wherever you've been for fifteen years.”
“I never went away, Alice. You stopped believing, but I never went away. The others did, but you know...”
“Go away!” she shouted, finally whirling to face him. “I'm not crazy, I refuse to be crazy! I'm imagining you because of the mirror and the stress and I must be panicking, that's it, I'm panicking because the door won't open and oh no don't come any closer...”
“Shush.” He put a hand over her mouth, balancing precariously on a shard of mirror. “Now, Alice, dear, won't you calm down? This does neither of us any good.”
He was different than she'd remembered him. The parts were all there—the long curly hair barely held back in a ponytail, the well tailored suit jacket, the ridiculous top hat and white porcelain teacup in one well-manicured hand. But he was different—his eyes were darker, though still half hidden in shadow; his hair was brown now, instead of white, rich and dark like coffee or dark, expensive chocolate, shining like silk as it curled around his half-smiling face. The hat was even more ridiculous, if that was even possible—it had gained bits and pieces of belts and metal and a clock, stitched in to the grey fabric with black as night thread. The coat was a different cut, with flaired sleeves and a tie wrapped around one arm. And the ace of spades winked at her, tucked into his hat band, just as it had been when she had last seen him fifteen years ago.
He removed his hand from her mouth as her breathing returned to normal. “There, that's better.”
“You've changed,” she said breathlessly, trying very hard not to believe her eyes.
“You've changed, and so I have too.” He smiled a little at that, ducking his eyes beneath the dark brim of the top hat. “I am whatever you need me to be.”
“Gone?” She quipped, trying to regain her courage.
“Hah, no, not today.” His smile was a little more forced. “You can see me now. That's a start.”
“I'd rather not, thank you.”
“I'm just going to pretend you didn't say that.” He took a step back onto a different shard of mirror, moving like a dancer. “And enjoy my brief time with you. This, after all, is a rare opportunity.”
“If you so much as touch me...”
“You know me better than that,” he admonished gently. She hated to admit that she did. “We could have tea, Alice, what would you say to that? Just how we used to.” He gestured with the teacup.
“Not happening.” She swallowed. “I'm supposed to be working. As soon as Janice notices I'm not back, she'll come upstairs, and find that the lock stuck. And then she'll let me out, and I'll be fine, because there's no mirrors down there, so you can't follow me.”
“A shame.” He sighed. “My one lucky chance, and it has to be ruined completely by your lovely friend downstairs. Perhaps my friend the cat could distract her for a while.”
“Cat wasn't real either, don't you try to trick me like that.”
“I assure you, Alice, Cat is just as real as I am.” He turned, moving back towards her across the shattered glass. “Would you like to...”
“No. You're not real, he's not real, and you stay away from me!” She flattened herself against the door again as he stepped closer. He sighed again.
“You wound me, Alice, you really do. When have I ever hurt you?”
“Let's see, how about when you made me crazy.” She meant for that to sound exactly as bitter as it did, aiming the words like bullets.
“You were never crazy,” he replied placidly.
“Don't you go trying to trick me like that, I was crazy. I know I was crazy. I have to watch out or I'll go crazy again, and so help me if you take one step closer I will go straight back to that psychiatrist and have you medicated out of existence for good!”
“Rather drastic, don't you think?” He stood a few feet away, seemingly lost in thought. “But you would never do that, Alice. You wouldn't give up your imagination for the world.”
“Try me.”
“I'd rather not.” He spun on one foot, pacing back across the mirror shards. “So you won't have tea, and you won't be civil, and you won't let me bring the cat to see you even. What a disappointingly boring adult you've grown up to be.”
“I'm sane. That's what counts.”
“Oh, Alice, I would so disagree.” He stopped again, then motioned to her with the teacup. “Well, if I can't come to you, why don't you come to me? If you are so sure that I am not real, then show me you have nothing to fear. Three steps.”
“This is a trick.”
“What would I gain by tricking you?” he asked patiently, hands outstretched pleadingly. “Three steps. That's it”
“You're going to pull me through the mirror or... or something, I don't know. No.” She shook her head violently. “I'm not coming over there.”
“Both you and I know that's not possible. If I'm not real, and you're not crazy, then show me that you are not so afraid of a broken mirror. Three steps, Alice. It's not too far.”
“No!” She finally broke down, sobbing. “No, no, no! I don't want to have to do this! It's my first day, and I don't know anyone, and I just moved in and I have no friends and now You, of all people have to show up and I...”
“Shh, shh, I'm sorry.” He moved quickly over to her again, wiping her tears with his purple handkerchief. “Don't cry. I just wanted to talk, is all.”
“Why are you doing this...” she whispered, her words half broken by the intermittent sobs.
“I'm not going to answer that until you can stop crying. Chin up, Alice.”
“Why are you doing this?” She choked back the tears, trying to look him in the eye. “Why trap me here, with the sticky lock and the broken mirror, and on my first day? Why are you even here; I mean, don't you have someone else to drive insane?” Her voice cracked again, and he smiled weakly.
“Come now, come now. Every hatter must have his madness.” He put a hand to the doorknob, leaning in close to her as he balanced on the last shard of the mirror. “It's just that you, dear Alice, are mine.” With that, the door clicked open, she stumbled backwards into the stairwell, and the hatter-the Mad Hatter, her hatter, the one she'd created and played with and loved and gone insane for-vanished into thin air.

It's not Alice in Wonderland fanfiction, I swear. It very heavily references that book, but it's not--the book is a book in this story just as much as it is in real life. Which also implies that this Hatter is not that hatter. He's a little bit... different.

Power in a name

2010-02-07T15:34:00.004-07:00

“...That's your name, isn't it.” He cradled the small body in his arms as he made his way across the rocky field. “Your name is Christofori.” The boy started glowing again, and cringed in pain. “I didn't mean anything, don't try!” he said quickly. The glow faded as quickly as it came. “And that's why you did... all that, because you have to grant a wish when someone says your name. You don't have a choice, do you?”
The boy shook his head, the movement barely visible in his exhaustion. Marcus bit his lip, then stumbled, barely catching himself in time to avoid dropping his young friend.
“I'm sorry.” He made his way carefully down the rocky slope. “I... I'm so sorry.”
Christofori didn't respond, shivering in his arms.
“I shouldn't have... I shouldn't have come here. My research—I'm so sorry.” Marcus fought against his own exhaustion as he struggled to get them both back to the cabin. “I didn't realize it would...” He fell silent, contemplating the full meaning of what he'd learned, as he trudged over the barren landscape.
Chris began coughing, prompting Marcus to speed up. A few of the little glowing stars shot up the slope to meet them, circling around Christofori in a panic. Marcus didn't say anything, just kept moving. Not much further to go.
The cabin finally came into sight, and Marcus almost smiled. “Hang on, Chris, we're almost there.” The stars shot to the door, whirling around the knob as they waited for him to arrive and let them in. He very slowly put Christofori down on a patch of clear ground by the cabin wall. The freezing metal of the doorknob stung his hands, and he bit his lip again as he fiddled with the key. The door finally swung open, and he picked the boy up again and brought him inside.
The cabin was warm, luckily. Close to thirty Wishes rushed around him as he carried Chris across to the small bed and wrapped the boy in the thick blankets. Some of them circled around his hands, unsure, and he spoke very quietly, trying not to disturb his young patient.
“He granted too many wishes.” Half true. For all he knew, the Wishes knew the entire story already. “He is exhausted, but I think he will be fine.”
This seemed to comfort the little stars, and they flew back up to near the cabin roof, watching from the ceiling beams as Marcus cared for their young prince. The boy's heartbeat was still strong, and his breathing was fine, though he wasn't responding. Marcus smiled, halfway. At least the kid was finally getting some sleep.
He moved off, leaving the boy exhausted in the too-big bed. Marcus shifted through the cabinets as quietly as he could, looking for something to eat. A can of soup came to hand, and he examined it, checking the expiration date. Close enough. He grabbed the can opener out of the drawer, and as he prepared the soup he watched the little stars circling the boy, unafraid to get too close now that Marcus was out of the way. They darted quickly through his hair, across every inch of exposed skin, trying to see if he was alright. Marcus would have smiled at their concern had it been unwarranted.
After about an hour, the soup was finally ready. He poured a bowl for himself, and one for Chris. What remained he poured into a wider bowl that he set on the small wooden table, waving some of the wishes over with a small motion. Only a few came, as the rest remained around the white-haired boy.
They cleared out quickly enough as he approached, and he shook the boy's shoulder gently. “Wake up, Chris. You need to eat something.”
The boy made a soft, protesting noise, but obeyed, sitting up in the cocoon of blankets. He looked up at Marcus with tired eyes,
“Here.” He handed Chris the soup, along with a spoon. “Eat that.”
Chris obeyed, though Marcus saw a tired tremor in his hands as he held the spoon. “You can go back to sleep once you're done.”
The boy nodded, and continued eating. Marcus looked up to the wishes that resided once more in the rafters. “There's some for you lot on the table.”
The little swarm descended on the bowl, trying the salty broth experimentally. They seemed to like it, and within a few moments the bowl was empty. A few began circling around what remained of his bowl, and with a sigh he surrendered it, watching the tiny stars as they ate.
Chris ate maybe half his bowl before he was too tired to hold the spoon anymore. Marcus took the bowl, rubbing an affectionate hand through the boy's hair. “Go back to sleep. You had a long day, you know.”
Chris nodded wearily, then collapsed again on the bed. The wishes once again conducted their examination of his hair and skin, then, satisfied, they attacked the remains of his food.
“Heh.” Marcus watched them tiredly. “Have to make another pot...” He trailed off, nodding off to sleep in the chair by the little heater. A few of the wishes examined him, though not with the same intimate care that they had their prince, then shot back up to the rafters.

Wrote this in December, and just now got around to posting it. I don't know if I've posted much of this story before, but it's been around for a while. It's not the sort of thing I normally post, mainly because it doesn't have the same sort of emotional power as most of my stuff. Also, the title is lame, I know. Anyway, let me know what you think!

Jack's Secret Studio

2010-01-31T14:14:00.001-07:00

“Jack?” Amy called, poking her head into one of the multitude of small, messy rooms the lab boasted. “I need you to sign something! Jack!”
There was no reply, and similarly no sign of her employer. She sighed. Typical him, to spend the whole day in one place exactly until she needed him. She straightened a pile of papers on one of the old file cabinets out of habit, not even glancing at what they said, then picked up her clipboard again and resumed her search.
“Jack?” She called again. “Security system says you're in the building somewhere!”
“Toasterhead is missing again?” Crash leaned against one of the doorways, watching her from behind. “Surprise surprise.”
“He's gotta be around somewhere. He never leaves unless he need supplies, and last I checked we...”
“Maybe something happened.” The hired hand peeled himself off the doorway, following her down the hall. “Some kind of teleporter incident or something. What's that?” He gestured to the clipboard in her hand. “Important?”
“Just an order contract. I've reviewed it, but it needs his signature before I can fax it.”
“Sheesh.” Crash ran a hand through his spiked hair. “He goes missing at the worst times.”
“No kidding,” she agreed. “Well, tell me if you see him.”
“Will do.” Crash glanced down another hallway. “Here, I'll check that way. I'll call you if I find him.”
“Would you do that?” She smiled. “Thank you, Crash.”
“No trouble.” He grinned. “Catch you in a bit, then!” With that, he broke off, headed down the other hallway. She watched him go for a few seconds before turning her attention back to the task at hand.
After ten more empty rooms, though, she was about ready to give up. “Jack, if you want a new order of sheet aluminum, you need to sign this!” she called, exasperated. “I've already read it and cleared it with accounting, you just have to sign!”
Still no response. She sighed, putting her free hand up against the wall. He wasn't anywhere, as far as she could tell. It was entirely possible that the security system was wrong...
And quite suddenly, the wall she was leaning on opened.
She nearly fell, catching herself only just in time. Amy stared into the little room, which was much darker than the rest, trying to make out whatever was inside. Several thick stack of something like light wood lined the walls. It took her a moment to realize that they were stretched canvasses. Some of them even had been painted—and whoever had done it was quite good. She moved closer, curious.
A canvas on the top of the other stacks caught her eye. It was a smaller painting, almost the size of her clipboard, but very beautifully done. The scene portrayed a little blue house, very simple in it's design, caught in the light of a late fall afternoon. She examined it for a moment longer. No signature. Maybe it wasn't finished.
She set it down and moved on. Three or four easels stood around the room, in varying states of dilapidation. Amy ran her fingertips along the side of one, frowning at the dust that had accumulated. She needed to clean in here.
Only one of the easels seemed to have been used recently. Unsurprisingly, it was the one that rested by the room's sole window. There was a canvas sitting on it, and she could smell the fresh oil paint on it. She took a few steps towards it, but halted at the sudden feeling of a hand on her shoulder.
“You're not supposed to be in here, you know.” Crash's voice was low. “He doesn't like people to know... this.”
“Jack painted these?” She glanced back at the canvasses stacked against the walls. “He's really good!”
“He'll never admit it.” Crash whispered. “He's good, I'll grant you that, but he's still Jack. He doesn't want anyone to know.”
“But they're beautiful—he should really...”
“Amy,” Crash cut her off. “Listen to me. You can't tell him you've been in here. Don't mention secret rooms, paintings—anything. You know him, he's paranoid. If he finds out you know... if he even thinks you might possibly ever even suspect, he will freak out. Trust me on that one.”
She bit her lip and nodded. “Right.”
“Good.” Crash looked relieved. “Come on, let's get out of here before he shows up.”

The Everyone Star

2010-01-30T20:22:00.004-07:00

New story, again. This one is about crazy people, namely, Frankie, an insane genius who's spent his whole life in an asylum, and Molly, a girl who was sent to the asylum for attacking people who said her imaginary friends weren't real. For some reason, they are friends. Enjoy!

Molly found him nearly an hour later, sitting in the patch of tall grass that the lawnmower always missed next to the gray stone wall of the asylum. He'd gotten his arms free again, and he wrapped them around his knees as he stared up at the sky. He looked sad, almost, but smiled as she approached.
“Hello!” He said brightly, sitting up and dropping his knees into a cross-legged position. “Did you find the unicorn?”
“No, but I found you!”
“I'm a unicorn?” Frankie looked confused. “I thought I was a wombat.”
“No, you're Frankie, silly.” She giggled
“Oh!” he looked relieved. “That's what I normally am.”
“Yep.” She sat down next to him. “What'cha lookin' at?”
“Oh, the uplights. Things. The little bright things, what with the twinkling and what?” He struggled for the word, gesturing upward. “Those.”
“Stars?”
“Yeah!” He nodded vigorously. “Stars, yep!”
“Oh, ok.” She stared at the sky for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. “There sure are a lot of them.”
“There has to be,” said Frankie.
“Why?”
“To look at.”
“..Oh.” She stared at him for a moment, then turned her gaze back to the sky. “They're pretty. Which one is your favorite?”
“That one.” He pointed without a moments hesitation. “See, right between those two trees, above the north gate?”
“It's the north star, isn't it?” Molly looked at her companion with wide eyes. “Sailors used it to find stuff.”
“Not just sailors!” Frankie laughed. “That's the everyone star.”
“The everyone star?”
“Yeah, everyone has a star, you know. That's why there are so many.”
“Oh, ok.” She stared upwards as he continued.
“The everyone star is for everyone. That's why it doesn't move, and the rest do. Cause, see, my star moves a bunch, so I can't always see it. So the everyone star stays there, and I know I'm not alone. That's why it's my favorite.”
“But you're not alone!”
“Not as long as I have a star!” Frankie laughed again, and leaned back against the wall. “Sometimes, I wonder...” he trailed off. “Am I crazy because my star moves so much?”

Amnesia dreams

2010-01-24T22:35:00.002-07:00

The smell of fish, faint in the air, draws him onward down the white hallway. He's not sure where he is, or who he is, or even what he is, but he smells fish, and that's enough.
He recognizes the room at the end of the hallway, from half a dream like this one, perhaps something more, and the warm bed with the blue cover is soft beneath him, and he sits, sits and watches, and half-dreams fly by in the cold whiteness from the light with no switch. There is a beanbag, and a picture of a stern man with glasses, and a table with a chair. Flickering ghosts of memory fly around the room, from the door to the table to the bed that he knows is his, like glass butterflies. He feels no need to chase them.
One of the ghosts is the man with glasses, another is a woman with grey hair and soft eyes. The man is angry, they are both angry, and for half a moment he is afraid before they both vanish. But other ghosts are coming and going, and he is sure they all have names, and for a moment he wonders what his is. And he can't remember, can't remember anything, and again he is afraid.
He looks away from the ghosts, into the white corners of the room with no light switch, and stares there for a moment, lost in thoughtless until he sees the book. He recognizes it. But when he moves to touch the blue cover, the letters change, and become something he can't recognize, and this scares him, more than anything before, and he remembers this dream from a thousand nights ago and wakes up, eyes wide.
Cee takes a moment, staring and breathing hard at the darkness in the room without ghosts, until he remembers where he is, and who he is, and almost sort of what he is. His hand brushes a book, and he looks down, startled, but the cover does not change. The soft sound of Lynn's breathing comes from the other room, and there is a light switch, illuminated by the rays of moonlight that fight through the windowpanes onto the soft colors of the walls. He breathes out.
Cee is alright.

Ok, so I wrote this in like, August. But I just realized that I had never posted it, and I still like it, so... Yeah. Enjoy.

Assorted writing-bits

2010-01-17T19:25:00.005-07:00

Some short things I've written recently. They're not connected. Other than that, no context for you!

I am gathered here today
To let you know that you are not forgotten
that I still think of you—frequently
though I may not speak of you so often as I wish.
And to bring you flowers,
Like I used to, long ago,
seeing as the last ones I brought you have wilted.

“This?” The young man's voice was hollow, an empty vessel lined with bitterness. “This is my punishment for sins never committed.”
He wrapped the crystal shard in a thick black cloth, and placed it in a pocket inside his coat. For a moment he stood motionless, letting the anger run out of him for the thousandth time before he finally turned back to them, his face completely still again.
“Was that all you required of me?” The harsh, clipped accent did nothing to make him seem more human.

“No.” She dragged herself upwards, out of the smoking ruins of the machine, ignoring the broken glass that cut into her hands. The villain took a step back, gaping, as she made her way to her feet.
“But.. you...” he stammered, glancing around for something, anything to defend himself with.
“Not like this.” Her voice was cracked with emotion, pouring sorrow and anger like a thundercloud. “I didn't live for a thousand years, save the world, fight off apocalypses with my two hands to die like this, at the hands of some fool who thinks he knows a thing or two. Did you really think,” she moved forwards as she spoke, forcing him back, “that I would just let you kill me? That I would truly be that desperate to end it?” He suddenly found his back to the wall, and her in front of him, hazel eyes glowing with a desperate rage. “I do want to die.” She raised her weapon. “But never like this.”

“Take two steps further into my lab,” Jack's voice was level, and perfectly calm, “And I can practically guarantee that you will die.”
The robot's controller twitched, just barely, and Jack caught it, spotting the robot's weakness in that one move. With a sharp laugh, he jumped at a keyboard, and after a few short strokes he grinned menacingly.
“Ok.” He took up his position again between the robot and the door, crossing his arms. “Take two steps further, and I can definitely guarantee that you will die.”

“Now see, that's just the problem! You see fireflies, and you think, 'Oh, they're just fireflies,' and go looking for magic somewhere else! You can't see what's right in front of you because you believe it to be ordinary!”
“It IS ordinary!”
“Almost all magic is.”
A pause filled the little room.
“The best disguise any magic could have, I think,” the little man said slowly, as he cradled the dove in his hands, “is itself, for nobody keeps looking once they see what something is.”

He clutched his head desperately as the memories assaulted him from the inside out, lying twisted on the floor and unable to move. “I... No, please, make it stop!”
“Do you know you're seeing?” The doctor knelt by him, staring into the white eyes. “It took over 50 tries to create you. That pain, that shame, that terror—that's what they felt. That's what it took to make you, the one, single success.”
“No...” He tried to stand again, but fell, crying out in pain.
“So tell me, Hybrid. Why did they have to die?”
“I don't know.” He clutched his skull with the three-fingered hands, white eyes wide. “I don't know.”
“They died so you could be born. So you could go out, learn what you can, and tell us what you know. The weight of their lives is yours.” He cringed as a particularly horrible death flashed through his mind. “They died for you. Why did they die?”
“They died for me.” He repeated blindly, willing to do anything to make it stop.
“Did they all die for nothing?”
“They died for me.”
“So did they die for nothing? Are you going to live for nothing?” The doctor stood over him as he writhed. “Fail your purpose, your creators, them? Well?”

That's all for now!

The Dragon is Revealed

2009-12-01T20:51:00.003-07:00

The lower council chamber was huge, perhaps three times as big as the upper one. High stone arches concealed shadowed chambers from which emerged the members of the elders council, all stone faced and robed in black. They took their seats in polished pews around an immense stone circle, at one end of which sat Master Solun, hands clasped and head bowed. His robes were black, like the rest, but edged in brilliant gold in thin, swirling patterns that she could have sworn were glowing. The sight was unnerving, to say the least. K hesitated.
“You sure this is a good idea?”
“It will be fine.” He took her hand, leading her forward to the edge of the circle opposite Master Solun. “The council does nothing without reason.”
“If their reason is to look scary as all get out, I'd say it's working,” she muttered as she took her place beside him. “What's wrong with the upper chamber?”
“I don't know.” He whispered. “But shh, the last of them are taking their seats.”
The murmur of the elders quieted down as the last of them took his place, leaving the room in a deafening silence for a moment as all eyes fell to them. K glanced around, nervous, but Ryven tightened his grip on her hand reassuringly. Finally, Master Solun stood.
“Ryven of the northern edge, welcome.” He spoke with a full, resounding voice that echoed through the chamber and belied his age. “You have completed your task?”
“I have.” Ryven dropped her hand as he responded, stepping forward into the light of the circle.
“Then this is the child of Kolina, a thousand years gone?”
“She is.”
“Welcome, then, Destined one.” Master Solun bowed slightly, and Ryven motioned for her to come forward. She stepped hesitantly into the stone circle, and the rest of the council bowed from their seats. “We have long awaited your arrival.”
“...Thank you.” she said, glancing to Ryven, who nodded. “I have been told that you know what I must do.”
“We do.” Master Solun sank back into his chair, face still stone. “The darkness has invaded our lands, and even now encroaches further. I am sure you have encountered it—yes, you have already begun to fight. This is good.”
“I fought some.” She nodded. “But Ryven told me about a dragon; I'm supposed to find it before I can defeat the darkness?”
“Yes.” Master Solun nodded. “But that is another matter altogether. And that, my brothers,” he adressed the elders council, standing and motioning to them all, “is why we are gathered.”
“So, then, you know where it is?” She looked almost hopeful. “I was afraid we would have to spend a lot of time looking for it...”
“You have already found it. The dragon has been with you all along.”
“What do you mean?” Ryven started, eyes wide. “the prophecy clearly stated...”
“Exactly what we said, Ryven.” Master Solun spoke again. “The dragon has been with you all along.”
“But we haven't seen it!” K objected. “It's kinda hard to miss that!”
“It will be made clear.” One of the elders moved to K's side, and drew her back. “You must leave.”
“But...” Ryven attempted to follow, but Master Solun's voice held him there.
“You are to stay.”
“But it's my sacred duty, to...” Ryven held out his hands as he spoke, again moving after K.
“Do not move, child of destiny!” Master Solun's voice resonated around the chamber. “All will be made clear.”
The floor suddenly became lit in harsh red lines with the power of a spell. Ryven stared around him at the sealing circle he found himself imprisoned in. “Master Solun, what... What's happening?” He bashed against the edge of the circle, attempting to get out.
K stood at the edge of the chamber, staring. “What's going on?” she demanded. “What did Ryven do?”
“This is not a punishment, child.” The elder that had lead her from the circle stood behind her, watching impassively. “This is destiny.”
“Destiny my foot, let him out of there!”
A slow, melodious chant began to fill the chamber, echoing out of nowhere. Ryven bashed against the circle again and again, shocked back every time by the power it held. Master Solun looked away.
“When this one was but a child, we found him.” He spoke softly.
“We found him.” The rest of the council repeated.
“We took him, raised him, and tested him.”
“We have.”
“He has never known the truth.”
“He has never known the truth.”
“What truth?” Ryven shouted. “Master Solun, please, what's going on?”
“When this one was but a child, there was another spell.”
“We found him.”
“We bespelled him.”
“You what?” Ryven's shout carried over the murmur of the elder council, piercing through the near-deafening chanting.
“And now, by the power of the destined...”
“By her power.”
“We remove this spell.” This last invocation was spoken by all, unified. The chamber resounded with the words as they cut through the chanting like an arrow.
The sudden silence after went unnoticed as K stared, shocked, at the transformation overtaking Ryven. He fell to his knees, his head in his hands, as he began to glow with the same terrible red light that trapped him there. His body seemed to buckle as if under some enormous strain; his back bent unnaturally and his shoulders began to swell. K threw herself forwards to help him, only to be thrown back by the outer circle, hitting hard against a wall. Ryven's hands were changing now; a brilliant blue was winding it's way across his skin, engulfing the red light as it went- and he seemed to be growing.
Wings suddenly exploded from his swollen shoulders, bursting out all at once, tearing through his white shirt. Not those of an angel—more like the wings of a bat, and that same brilliant blue. The sealing circle that bound him suddenly expanded, tainted with that same sapphire color that was overtaking him. The wings fell to his sides as if broken, and the change continued to wind it's way through him. His hands were claws, now. Along his twisted spine scales began to appear, and a wild, black mane shot down his back. He tried to stand, to fight his way out of the circle. Horns twisted out of his skull, and he fell again, lying prone under the weight of his wings.
The blue color finally made it up to his face. He tried to cover his features with one hand-now-claws, trying to stop the change, but his features began to melt away, elongating and changing uncontrollably. He gave one short, sharp cry, and the last recognizable part of him was gone. He was something else now, something bestial—K suddenly understood.
“He's the dragon.”
The transformation continued unchecked. His neck grew longer, arms thicker. The last remains of his clothing fell to the ground as his body continued to grow. He'd gained a tail at some point. His feet and legs no longer resembled their human counterparts. Rows of shining scales ran down his back, down his arms and legs and tail. She bit her lip as she watched him writhe. The transformation was almost complete now; the red of the sealing circle had been almost completely extinguished by the blue.
One final burst of light ran through the circle and through Ryven, and the room fell completely dark. Every candle had been extinguished by the spell. The only sound was the rough, heavy breathing of something huge and inhuman, tinged with the smell of smoke and the sharp, bitter aftertaste of magic.
One by one, the lamps were relit, shining pinpoints of light in the infinite dark of the chamber. K stood from where she'd fallen against the wall, staring hesitantly at what had been her friend. He wasn't moving, save for the rise and fall of his breathing as he lay in the center of the chamber. She moved hesitantly towards him, half afraid that this might not be Ryven after all.
“Ryven?” She kneeled by his head, staring into one of the heavy-lidded blue eyes that roamed the chamber. He didn't respond. She moved a little closer, reaching out to touch him. His scales were cool to the touch, but she could feel a heat beneath them, barely kindled yet. She ran a hand down his neck. “Ryven, talk to me.”
The blue eye focused on her for a moment, then looked away, in something she could have sworn was shame.
“He cannot speak.” Master Solun's voice came from behind her. “You will learn to communicate with him, but not in words. That is lost to him now.”
“What did you do to him?” She stood to face him, angry.
The old man held up his hands, attempting to calm her. “We have only restored him to his natural form. This is how he was always intended to be.”
“But...” She trailed off, glancing down at Ryven-what had been Ryven-as he lay upon the floor. “I thought you cared for him.”
“It was destiny.” Master Solun's words were forced and hollow, and for a moment she almost believed that he hadn't wanted this either. “It had to be done.”
“Why?”
“You'll understand eventually.” He put a hand to her shoulder, and tried to lead her away. “Let him rest now. The worst is over with, but the coming weeks will be hard.”
“I want to stay with him.” Her voice was resolute. “I'm not leaving him here like this.”
“Fine.”

I'm not sure if this is a new story. It's been around for a few years, but I might not have posted from it before. In any case, wrote this a few days ago while practicing being descriptive. I like it, I think.

The Throne room

2009-11-17T19:34:00.001-07:00

“And welcome, dear Ellie, to the brightest room of my home...”
The light nearly blinded her as they stepped through the doorway. This room was not dark like the others had been; rather, it was surrounded by immense stained glass windows. Patterns of white and blue and blue ran throughout the room, interspersed by the black silhouettes of a thousand crows in flight, all heading for the center, the opposite end of the room from where she stood. Against the opposite wall stood the room's lone piece of furniture; an odd sort of chair. It appeared to be-or had been, in some past life- a cast-iron gate, with swirling patterns of blackened metal around stiff bars that stabbed upwards into the air. The seat was stitched together with the same bright-blue thread that held everything else in the castle together, made of mismatched patches of leather and cloth.
She felt him enter behind her, and the shimmering brightness in his hand vanished as soon as it the beams of stained light touched it. He chuckled at her amazement.
“Do you like it?”
“It's beautiful.” She admitted. “What is it?”
“It's the throne room, of course.” He lead her across the spiral pathways tiled into the floor to the cast-iron chair, running a hand down the black metal of it's back. “I am a king, you know.”
“It doesn't look very comfortable,” she mused.
“It's not,” he admitted. “But it serves it's purpose.”
“Do you have a court?”
“Look up.”
She glanced upwards, and her eyes met an enormous white window, somehow contrived so the crows could come and go as they pleased, and hundreds of them lined the circles of the ceiling, staring down in silence.
“Your crows?”
“They aren't my crows.” He stared up with her. “They are their own. Whether they listen to me is their choice entirely.”
“But they always do.” She looked down at him. “Don't they?”
“Mostly.” He met her gaze with eyes bluer than blue, and smiled. “But they are as much mischief as I am. If they choose otherwise, I cannot control them.”
“But you are their king,” she ventured. “So it seems like...”
“Haven't we already learned,” he said with a smile, “that nothing is ever as it seems?” He gestured upwards, and the crows flew from their perches, swooping down around them in a black swarm. She gasped, and he pulled her close, as the crows circled fast, closer and closer with every pass. She felt the tickle of wingtips against her more than once as the black mass surged through the room. It was terrifying, but more, it was beautiful. The Crow King pulled her closer, and laughed amidst the deafening roar of wings meeting air.
“But they do obey me,” he whispered, “as long as I am what I am. But it is not my choice that they do.”

New story, for the millionth time. I don't even know where I'm going with this one, but enjoy anyway.

The Interview

2009-11-01T21:13:00.003-07:00

Jack's main lab was even more impressive than he had described it in the email. The ceiling was more than four stories high, though the sheer dimension of the room made it impossible to tell. The room was at least half a mile wide, and maybe twice as deep, and every inch of it was covered in workbenches, tools, shelves, or massive, inexplicable inventions. The powerful canister lights supplemented standard grocery-store fluorescent lighting, along with smaller lights on the workbenches of every shape and size, from typical desklamps, to floor lamps, and on one a blue-green lava lamp, which illuminated blueprints for some kind of odd gun.
The walls were solid white, or had been when they started out, at least. Now, they were pockmarked with the burnt remnants of explosions, along with a disturbing amount of what appeared to be skid marks. Some of the skid marks had even made it onto the ceiling. The only mark on the walls that she could possibly interpret as deliberate was a bright red line, perfectly straight, which ran at about head height around all four walls. The floor was mostly cement, though in places there were the remnants of a tile floor, which had for the most part been blown to pieces. Crash shut the sturdy metal door behind them as they stepped in.
“Welcome to crazy.”
“It's... big.”
“No kidding. Let me introduce you to Jack.” He motioned to a lone figure who stood atop scaffolding in the corner to their left, lost in a shower of welding sparks. “Here, helmet.” He handed one to her, a red one labeled with the rather unnerving logo “Human, Try to miss.” It might have been slightly more comforting were there not a skid mark across the top. She put it on with some trepidation.
The man on the scaffolding didn't seem to hear them as they approached. As they drew closer, Amy could see it was because of the big, black headphones he wore. For a moment, she thought that he must be wearing them to protect his hearing, but then she spotted the cord, leading down to the mp3 player in his pocket. She smiled, and folded her wings in a little tighter to get through a narrow space between two workbenches.
“Hey, Jack!” Crash shouted upwards, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Jack! Hey! Toasterface!” There was no response, owing partly to the sound of the welder, and partly to the headphones. “Yo!” Crash gave the scaffolding a stiff kick with his steel-toed boot, shaking the whole apparatus all the way to the top two stories overhead. That the man noticed, and turned rapidly, forgetting to turn off the welder as he pulled off his headphones with his free hand.
“Hey, quit it!” He yelled down, gesturing with the welding torch in one gloved fist. Amy stared. A shining metal mask covered almost almost half his face, from near the top of his forehead until halfway down his nose. Parallel red slits ran across the surface, not unlike those on a toaster. They glowed with an eerie light as he scowled at them. The rest of him was slightly more normal. His light brown hair was short enough that it naturally spiked up, and his goatee seemed well maintained. He wore a black t shirt, along with baggy cargo pants, and seemed more a college student than a famous inventor. His gloves, though, were the same shining metal of his mask, coming up his arms almost to his elbow in an odd, scaled fashion. “I'm trying to concentrate here!”
“Hey, toasterhead, you forgot your appointment!”
“What appointment?” He looked confused for a moment, then he spotted her. “Oh!” he looked embarrassed, almost, then waved with the welding torch. “Uh, sorry. I'll be down in a second.” He flipped off the torch and tossed it aside carelessly, making his way across the high scaffolding with practiced ease. He practically slid down the stepladder at the end, and brushing his gloved hands off lightly as he walked up to them, he offered one to her with a businesslike smile. “Jack Free. You're Amy?”
“Amy Casting.” She smiled, and shook his hand warmly. “You said in your email that you wanted to interview me for the position of...”
“You have wings.” He seemed almost incredulous.
“Um, yes.” She flexed them back and forth a little, careful not to knock anything over. “I did mention that in my application.”
“I, uh, rather thought you were kidding.” He stared a moment longer before finally bringing himself back to the subject at hand. “But, uh, ok. Interview.” He turned quickly and strode to one of the workbenches, sifting through the papers carelessly before finally pulling out a clipboard with about seven sticky notes of all different colors adhered to it's surface. He pulled a blue one off, muttering, “Not kidding about the wings... Ok!” He did his best impression of a good businessman, and slid a rolling stool in her direction before taking a seat atop a wooden stool. “Crash, you can go.”
“Righto, bossman.” Crash gave a mock salute, and marched off towards the door.
Amy watched him go, then smiled nervously at the inventor. “I have some experience with secretarial work, and I...”
“Um, right.” Jack examined her, then the clipboard again. “Uh, first question. Do you, uh...” he brought the clipboard closer to his face, and tilted it. “Um, like... rock music.”
She looked a little incredulous, but smiled. “I can stand it, at least.”
“That can't be what it says...” he tilted the clipboard the other way. “Um, can you use a...” He gave up, shaking his head. “Let's just improvise.” He tossed the clipboard over his shoulder, where it landed in one of the lamps. “So, uh, you can do secretary stuff? Like, organize and crap?”
“Yes sir, Mr. Free.” She nodded.
“Call me Jack.” He grabbed a new piece of paper and the stub of a pencil and began scribbling, with the paper on his leg. “Organize stuff... check. Um, ok, can you use a computer?”
“I can use most of the basic programs.”
“Mathematical background?”
She paused for a moment, thinking back. The most advanced math class she'd done had been introduction to statistics, and that she'd almost failed. “Um... Well, I'd consider it sufficient, but...”
“Nevermind.” He scribbled something. “Basic algebra and stuff?”
“Yes sir, Mr. Free.”
“Jack.” He looked up at the ceiling, trying to remember something. “Um, how are you for heights?”
She resisted a laugh. “I'm good with heights.”
“Good.” He scribbled something for a moment before it finally hit him. “Oh, right, like wings and stuff! Duh. Nevermind.”
“Yes sir, Mr...”
“Jack, for the last time!” He turned and grabbed the clipboard out of the lamp where it had come to rest. “Um...” he thought for a moment longer as he examined the cryptic sticky notes. “I think this one says something about hate.”
“May I see?” She took the clipboard from his hands. “No, that one says heights.”
“Oh, yeah!” he attempted to snap, but it didn't work with the gloves. “And that one is... uh, fences.”
“Finance.”
“Oh.” He looked slightly embarrassed. “Well, I guess if you can read it, I'd better hire you.” He coughed. “So, uh. 9-5, Monday through Friday?”
“Sure thing.” She pulled out her little blue notebook, and wrote that down. “Um, do you have the paperwork for me to fill out?”
“Uh... somewhere.” He looked at the mess of papers on the workbench, then shrugged. “I can get new ones. Tomorrow or something.”
“And the wage?”
He clearly hadn't considered this, and stood thinking for a full moment before he finally spoke. “Um, what do people normally get paid for stuff like this?” He stood a moment longer in thought, leaning against the messy desk. “Um, what if we start at uh, 50 dollars an hour? Is that reasonable or something?”
“...Very!” said Amy in shock. “That's much more than I would've expected, sir.”
“Is it?” he looked frustrated. “Money annoys me. I don't like thinking about it.” He waved a hand. “So if that works, that works. When can you start?”
“I could start today if you needed me, sir.”
“Ok!” he shrugged. “Today!”
“Um, Ok.” She fidgeted nervously with the clipboard. “What do you need me to do?”
“Um...” he stood for a moment, trying to remember. “I guess... start organizing. I guess you could start here... and if you need a file cabinet or anything, there's one... uh, over there. Make Crash move it.” He considered this. “Unless I blew that one up. But there's an unexploded one around here somewhere, I'm sure. You'll find it.”
“Yes sir.”
“Just call me Jack.” He moved off towards the scaffolding again, pushing the headphones up over his ears again.
“Alright then.” She smiled after him. “Jack.”

Springfield Halloween- When You Give a Dinosaur Sugar

2009-10-20T21:54:00.002-06:00

In retrospect, the sundae had been a bad idea.
A very bad idea.
Timothy was normally a ball of energy, and on a good day, Seth could keep up with him without much trouble. But with sugar thrown into the mix, along with the natural high of a celebration, the second grader was practically bursting at the seams with hyper, hey look a shiny thing can we go over there please please please oh wait another one that way let's go that way come on Seth energy. The teen found himself practically running from one booth to the other, holding onto Timothy's candy with the hand that wasn't being dragged across the square. Luckily, the boy hadn't had any of that yet; that had been the deal for the sundae. He could only have the dessert if he promised not to eat any candy, at all, until tomorrow, when with any luck he'd be too tired to care.
Seth knew that was a little much to hope for. But in any case, the deal had been struck, and now Timothy was an inch away from literally bouncing off walls. He wondered, not for the first time, how the second grader seemed to have a sense for picking the food item off of any menu with the highest sugar content. It was like a superpower or something, and considering Timothy was the town's youngest superhero, it very well might have been.
“Hey Seth, facepainting! Come on come on come on!” Seth almost lost his purple wizards hat as Timothy switched directions, this time headed for the pet shop.
“Slow down!” Seth tried to reign in his charge, with little luck. “It's not going anywhere.”
“Come on!” It was like trying to stop a freight train one handed. Timothy dragged his babysitter across the street to the pet shop's multicolored windows, which this month featured a family of black cats on a series of successively smaller pumpkins, with the message “Happy Halloween” scrawled across the scene in big, jagged letters. A scarecrow with a crooked hat sat outside the door in a folding chair, holding a sign labeled “Free Face Painting” in a similar font. Timothy pulled to a stop in front of him, and glanced around. “Where's Mr. Chase?”
The scarecrow shook with silent laughter, and Seth smiled. “I see him.”
“Where?” Timothy looked around again, dragging his supervisor around in a circle as he inspected the scene. “I don't see him.”
“Miles, stop that.” Allie Chase, the town's veterinarian and co-owner of the pet shop, stood in the doorway, trying not to smile as she looked down on her husband. She was dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, with her hair pulled back in two brown pigtails on either side of her head and a blue dress that came down to just below her knees.
The scarecrow turned his head upwards to face his wife with a grin. “He would've figured it out!”
“Oh!” Timothy looked startled. “Hi, Mr Chase!”
“Hey!” Miles looked back down at Timothy, dropping the pretense of lifelessness with a smile. “Want some facepainting?”
“Yeah!” Timothy jumped up and down at the offer. “I want a dinosaur!”
“Aren't you already a dinosaur?” asked Allie, leaving a trail of red glitter from her shoes as she stepped down onto the sidewalk.
“Yeah, but dinosaurs are cool!”
Miles picked up a three ring binder full of pictures and flipped to a few. “How about that one?” he said, pointing to a yellow Stegosaurus.
“That one's better!” insisted Timothy, pointing to the T-Rex next to it. “Cause it's a T-Rex, and they were meat eaters, and the king of the dinosaurs, and they had all sorts of teeth and walked around like this!” Timothy proceeded to do his best T-Rex imitation, high stepping in a circle around Seth with his arms pulled in tight to his chest, roaring as the tail of his dinosaur suit dragged along behind him. “I'm a T-Rex!” he roared. “I'll eat you, Rar!”
“I see that!” Miles laughed. “Alright then, T-Rex it is.” He motioned to the folding chair that sat opposite him. “Have a seat!”
Timothy did as he was told, bouncing up and down until Seth put a hand on his head. “You've gotta hold still, or it'll be a zig-zag Rex.”
“That'd be cool too!”
Allie watched in amusement. “Just out of curiosity,” she remarked to Seth, “How much sugar has that one had?”
“...An entire ice cream sundae,” admitted Seth sheepishly.
Allie looked at him like he was insane. “You let him have the whole thing?”
“We made a deal,” Seth explained. “If I let him have the sundae, he won't eat any of his candy tonight.”
“Oh.” Allie watched as Timothy started bouncing again under Seth's hand. “Right.”
“Oh, that reminds me!” Miles put down the green face paint and reached under his chair. “I have candy I need to get rid of. Want some?” He pulled out an orange plastic pumpkin filled to the brim with the neon colors of candy wrappers. “I have Smores-n-more, Smackers, these really good peanut butter things...”
“Miles,” Allie scolded, taking the pumpkin out of his hand. “I'm giving out healthy food this year, you know!”
“Yeah, I know.” Miles grinned. “But I'm not!”
“Oh good grief, you silly owl...” She rustled through the pumpkin, examining the contents. “Jawbreakers, licorice bites, candy-covered-chocolate-covered-peanut-brittle-covered lollipops? Miles, can you actually eat those things?”
“They're not half bad, really.” Miles mused as he took advantage of Timothy's awestruck fixation with the pumpkin to finish painting the dinosaur's tail. “I think you'd like the peanut brittle things.”
Allie glared at her husband for a moment before taking advantage of his distraction to stuff three in her dress pocket. “Might as well call them bricks of sugar,” she muttered. “Oh good grief, this one is actually called brick-o-sugar!”
“Now those are good!”
Allie sighed. “Ok, fine.” She turned to Seth. “Here. One for you, one for Timothy.” She held out the pumpkin with a victimized air. Seth took the candies, almost feeling guilty about it, then Allie grabbed her own wicker basket off the doorstep. “And healthy food,” she said, shooting a look at her grinning husband, “for the both of you.” Seth dropped two boxes of raisins into their baskets.
Miles finally finished the dinosaur, and handed Timothy a mirror. “There you go. Pretty good dinosaur, eh?”
“Awesome!” Timothy examined the dinosaur on his cheek with a grin. “Can you make it breathe fire?”
“Um, ok!” Miles grabbed the orange facepaint and did a few quick strokes. “There. A fire breathing T-Rex.”
“Great!” Timothy hopped up from the chair, then grabbed Seth's hand again. “Thanks, Mr. Chase!”
“You're welcome!”
Miles and Allie waved at the pair as Seth was once again dragged unceremoniously across the square, headed this time for a plastic duck pond. Then Allie turned to Miles with mock severity. “So you bought candy, eh?”
“Um, yes.” Miles smiled, trying not to look guilty, but failed. “Am I in trouble?”
“Well, maybe.” Allie browsed through the pumpkin again. “That depends entirely on how much of this you're willing to share.”

Springfield Halloween-Frankenstien's Dunk Tank

2009-10-19T17:00:00.003-06:00

This is the first of a series of shorts that will hopefully eventually connect together into a longer story. The prompt for this one: “In retrospect, something like an astronaut might have been more impressive.” Enjoy!

Dr Jeremy Tabition, to say the least, was not amused.
Nobody ever enjoyed the dunk tank, he knew. It was only through some cruel whim of the school board that it happened every year, and despite the fact that it was one of the best fund raisers the school had, for once in his life he would like to be able to enjoy himself on Halloween as a normal, dry human being. With a special emphasis on dry.
But of course, as a teacher, he had to make sacrifices, and these included, among others, sacrificing his enjoyment of the relatively warm, but a little windy fall day in favor of sitting above a tank of water, dreading the moment one of the ragged baseballs finally hit the target hard enough to dunk him.
He fidgeted atop the plank, trying to keep up a smile as he watched another student hand over their two dollars for the three tries at dunking Dr. Tabs. Smiling was difficult at this point, as he was already soaked, and it was only through the miracles of waterproof makeup that he still resembled Frankenstein's monster rather than a melted bucket of paint.
In retrospect, something like an astronaut may have been more impressive. And smarter, too; a suit that could survive the vacuum of space might have made the water that he'd made Gabe swear he hadn't iced slightly more survivable. Maybe not more enjoyable, but Jeremy would take what he could get.
This whole situation might not have been so bad if it had actually been his turn, he mused as a ball narrowly whizzed by the target, hitting the plastic backdrop with a bang that made him flinch. It was supposed to be the turn of Brian Branch, the math teacher. Brian had always tried to get out of the dunk tank altogether, but thanks to Gabe's rigorous daily disinfecting of his classroom for the three weeks prior, along with Jeremy's insistence that he get vaccinated for everything from tuberculosis to malaria this year, Brian would not be calling in sick with pneumonia this year. Or the flu. Or a sudden allergy to water. Not that they'd bought that one the first time, but still. Brian Branch, this year, at least, had no excuse.
Except this year, they simply couldn't find the man.
He wasn't answering his cell phone, or his house phone. Nobody had seen him, not even Trudy, though Jeremy suspected she was covering for him. Gabe's hurried search had turned up nothing, and it had come down to a game of rock paper scissors as to who would take the math teacher's spot until he could be found.
And he should've known that Arnold would pick paper. He always picked paper. It was like the English teacher was obsessed with it or something.
So despite having already served one of his two slots as target, Dr Jeremy Tabition was stuck here, smiling in the way of a man that wants to murder something and dreading the approach of the sadistic gym teacher Dave Clemmence to the front of the line. If there's one thing Tabs could say in his favor, possibly the only one, it was that the man could throw a ball.
“Get me out of here,” he whispered to Gabe as the janitor, dressed as a cowboy complete with lasso, came by to collect the balls. “I can't take it anymore.”
“You've got ten minutes left before it's Arnold's turn,” Gabe whispered back, with a sympathetic look. “And if we find Brian, we'll make him take your other turn.”
“Right.” Jeremy snorted. “Sorry, but he's probably at the soda fountain, you know.”
“I told you, I looked there.” Gabe turned back to the next person in line. “Oh, hey, Mr. Meeps! Nice Watson costume.”
“I'm Winston Churchhill, actually.” The older man looked vaguely resigned, as if he'd already corrected half the town on this point, which he had. He handed over his two dollars, and received the three battered baseballs in return. “I don't suppose you could tell me when I could come back to dunk Brian,” he remarked as he wound up for the pitch.
“That would be whenever we find him.” Gabe watched as the ball slammed into the backing, two inches above the target.
“He's missing?” Oliver Meeps shook out his arm and took the second ball in hand.
“He's hiding,” responded Dr. Tabs, his voice echoing from inside the dunk tank. “I don't suppose you've seen him.”
“He's down at the soda fountain.” Oliver let loose another fast pitch, this one slightly to the left. “Tch, out of practice...”
“I told you!” Jeremy crowed. “Trudy's covering for him!”
“I looked there!” Gabe looked chagrined as he handed Oliver the last ball. Oliver went through a few warmup swings, and Gabe took another step back. “Is he in disguise or something?”
“Who isn't?” asked Dr Tabs, keeping a wary eye on the substitute as he wound up for the third time. “He's probably... Agh!” The ball found its mark, and the chemistry teacher plummeted into the water. The clear plastic tank gave a clear view of the shocked expression on the green-painted face, and by the time Jeremy surfaced, Oliver was laughing hysterically. “Good grief, man, where'd you learn to throw?” Gabe reset the tank's seat and helped Jeremy pull himself back up, trying to stifle a smile.
“Hah!” Oliver looked triumphant at his victory. “Still got it.”
“Ok, fine, good shot.” Tabs wrung the water out of the sleeve of his tattered Frankenstein shirt. “Hey, would you mind dragging Brian over here? This was supposed to be his timeslot, and he's got another one in an hour.”
“You sure? I mean, it'd be a waste of waterproof makeup...” Gabe said, laughing, before the teacher cut him off.
“I'm sure!”
“Alright, I'll get him.” Oliver picked up his cane again, still laughing. “Try to stay dry!”
“Gee, thanks.” Jeremy sulked on the plastic seat as the next person stepped up to dunk Frankenstein.
He should've been an astronaut.

Next

Auntie Martha

2009-10-18T22:24:00.005-06:00

“Aunt Martha?”
“Yes?” The old lady's voice crackled through her ancient phone. “A call from my favorite nephew? What have I done to deserve such an honor?”
“I'm your only nephew, Auntie. I need a bit of advice.”
“Advice? Is it something to do with a girl?”
“No! Well, um, yes, actually. I was wondering...”
“Oh, you have to tell me all about her, Jack! Is she nice- Oh, where did you two meet- have you been seeing each other for long? What's her name, Jack, oh you have to tell me. Oh, I simply have to tell everyone at sewing circle- Susan just had her third grandchild get married, did you know- and they're all asking about you, Jack! But don't let me interrupt, do go on with your question.”
“Hypothetically!” Jack stressed the word. “If I hypothetically liked this girl, who is entirely hypothetical and does not exist, and she hypothetically liked ballet, and had by some circumstance indicated that she wanted to take lessons as a child but never did, would it hypothetically be acceptable to rig a contest for which the prize was a month worth of ballet lessons, and maybe kinda fix it so she won?” He paused for breath. "And if so, how long would I have to wait if the conversation happened, say, today, to point her to this hypothetical contest, in order to divert all suspicion of rigging it from myself? Keep in mind that this is totally hypothetical."
“Oh, a dancer!” crowed Aunt Martha with pleasure, before she caught herself and giggled. “A hypothetical dancer, of course. But why not just buy her lessons, Jack? It could be terribly romantic. And maybe a nice pair of shoes, if you want.”
“Shoes! I hadn't considered shoes!” Aunt Martha giggled again as the sound of Jack's frantic scribbling reached her. After a moments pause, his voice came again. “...Hypothetically, what's the best way to ask her her shoe size?”
“Oh, that's easy! Just the next time she takes off her shoes, take a peek at the number on the sole. Don't actually ask her, though.”
“What if she doesn't take off her shoes, though?”
“Improvise, honey! Maybe go shopping with her, or spill something that sticks to shoes but not to feet. You're a clever boy.”
“Um, alright. But the first question? Would that work?” He noticed Crash waving at him frantically through the office window, and nodded cordially.
“Well, it might work, Jack, but I really don't see why you'd go through all that trouble. Just giving her the lessons would be much more romantic.”
“Thanks for your help, Auntie. I've gotta go.”
“Good luck with your hypothetical lady friend.” She stifled a giggle again, and he sighed. “Bye bye now.”
“Bye.” He hung up the phone, sighing. Crash burst into the office all at once. “Yes?”
“Jack, Fixit's on fire.”
"Again?"

One year ago, I posted the first story about Jack, as well as drawing him for the first time. So therefore, I have declared today to be his birthday. So happy birthday, Jack. May you eventually learn how people work. But not too soon; we enjoy laughing at you.

Meeting the Kilsinger Brothers

2009-10-16T21:20:00.005-06:00

“I didn't know you were a student here.” A familiar voice sounded behind her, and Karen whirled, eyes wide. The voice had come from behind the neighboring bookshelf, and she glared at it menacingly.
“Blind, what are you doing here?” She hissed softly.
“I could ask you the same.” The smirk in his voice was infuriating.
“Go away.” She paused as she realized. “Wait, how did you...”
“Mostly your boots. They make a very distinct sound. Really, you shouldn't wear those around. Someone will notice.”
“Go away, Blind.”
“I have every right to be here. You go away.”
“I have a paper!”
“And I'm meeting someone.”
“Who?”
“Guess.”
She glared at his voice for a moment, then very deliberately turned back to the book she was holding, a rather dry account of first century politics.
“Come on, guess!” He sounded teasing. “Fine, then I'll guess about you. Your paper is on... History? You're in the section for it, anyway.”
She didn't respond, turning to another page of long dead idiots trying to kill each other.
“I'm pretty sure you're either a junior or a senior, so either this is an upper level class, or you're not a history major, so you've been putting your history requirement off. Given that it took you fifteen minutes to find this section, I'm guessing the second.” He paused for a moment. “So that means you're something else, then. Hm, chemistry? You do occasionally smell like laboratory.”
Karen ignored him, putting the book back where she'd found it and picking it's neighbor up, leafing through to a section on the Gaelic Wars.
“I would eliminate music, just for the fact that you don't quite seem the type, and probably English, as closely related as that class is to history. Am I getting any closer?”
“Go away, Blind.”
“I'd rather not, thank you. So, I think something with science. Your glider, for example, is a fair bit of physics that not many people would try without some calculations.” He mused for a moment, mumbling something about what majors had to take that level of physics before the senior year, when she noticed someone in a wheelchair slowly coming up the aisle.
“Oh, Good morning, Professor K.”
“Hello, ah... Karen!” He pointed at her with a smile. “I had you for Calculus One. You sat in the upper left corner, am I right?”
“Yessir!” She smiled, ignoring the now-silent man behind the bookshelf as she inwardly cursed him for learning her name.
“Hah! So Karen, what brings you to the library? Last I checked Professor Holt didn't assign too many papers for Inorganic Chemistry.”
“History, unfortunately.” She showed him the book. “What brings you here? Assigning papers to unsuspecting math classes?”
“Looking for my brother, actually.” He glanced around. “He said he'd meet me around here, but he might have gotten mixed up.”
“Your brother... Oh! You showed us pictures of him once.” She recalled the class now. The problem in question had something to do with projectile motion. “The problem with the mashed potatoes.”
“You're teaching that now?” Blind's voice came through the bookshelf in disbelief. “Oh, come on! Do you have to gloat forever?”
“Hah, knew you were around here somewhere!” Professor K pointed triumphantly at the bookshelf. “You're in the wrong aisle, Jay. Again.”
“What? Aisle 14.”
Karen glanced up at the sign above them. “This is aisle 14.”
“I counted. The sign is wrong.” Blind, or Jay, fumed as his voice moved around the end of the bookshelf.
“You forgot that aisle one is short. You never remember to count that.” Professor K laughed. “In any case, sorry I'm late.”
“Tch.” A familiar figure rounded the corner, tall and dark, with black hair that spilled like water over his face. But there were differences. Rather than the blue blindfold she knew so well, a pair of dark glasses covered his eyes, and the neat blue uniform was replaced by a dark jacket, unzipped over a white t-shirt and jeans. The calm smugness was replaced by a slightly less calm expression of disgust. But the long white cane still swept the ground in front of him, and she wondered, for half a second, what this particular one did.
“You really are blind!” She exclaimed.
“Am I?” He moved a hand to his face and waved it about. “Oh, I hadn't noticed.”
“Only way to explain that outfit,” muttered Professor K with a smile.
“What?” His hand moved to his clothing. “What's wrong? Did I...” He trailed off and glared at the other man. “Monty, you are not funny.”
“At least I don't look like a clown.”
“I do not look like a clown!” He turned to Karen. “Do I look like a clown?”
Professor K nodded enthusiastically in her direction. She barely kept from laughing. “Yep.”
“You're lying. Unless someone messed with my closet, I know exactly what I am...” He trailed off. “Monty, you messed with my closet! What am I wearing?”
“Purple jacket, orange shirt, striped pants.”
“I don't own striped pants, you liar.”
“You do now!”
“I would have noticed if you had...”
“Well, you didn't!” Professor K was laughing now. “Karen, am I right?”
“He isn't.” Jay turned to her. “He's not right. I know what I'm wearing.”
“Oh,” the paraplegic finally got control of his laughter. “Have you two met?”
“No, why don't you introduce us?” Jay smiled, and she shot him a glare over his brother's head.
If Professor K noticed, he didn't mention it. “Oh, well, Karen, this is my brother, Jay Southend Bus Stop Kilsinger.”
Jay made an exasperated noise. “My name is not bus stop.”
“Jay, this is Karen, uh, Same, one of my students. She's a...”
“Chemistry major.” He faced her with a familiar smirk.
“Not even asking how you knew that.” His brother shook his head. “Is he right?”
“No.” For once it was her turn to look smug. “Physics.”
“With a minor in chemistry,” he said without missing a beat
“...Yes.” She pouted.
“Hah.” Jay looked triumphant. “I win.”
“Second guess doesn't count, little brother.” Professor K shook his head, grinning like his brother. “Sorry about him, he ran into a wall as a little kid, and...”
“And Monty,” interrupted Jay, “thought it would be a good idea to send his wheelchair off a ramp at the bottom of a staircase, and...”
“And he,” interrupted Monty pointedly, “tried to keep a squirrel in his sock drawer, and when Mom found out...”
“And he,” Jay raised his voice a little, “wanted to send a lunch box to the moon, so he built...”
“When he was little,” Monty very subtley rolled over his brother's foot, “Mom always had to watch him, because if she took her eyes off him for one second, he'd run outside without any...”
“But Monty,” remarked Jay casually as he whacked Monty sharply with his cane in a seemingly accidental motion, “thought that the tooth fairy was real until his sophomore year of college, and tried to...”
“Regardless!” Monty shoved his brother away as forcefully as he could. “Don't mind Jay. He's a bit odd sometimes.”
“Pot, meet kettle,” muttered his brother.

Sameness

2009-09-19T15:38:00.001-06:00

Knights ride out in armor, to battle, to war; the dragon flies above the city, burning red; the world is ending faster than it can begin anew. The chosen few, the weak-made-strong and their camaraderie fight against beast and beasts and men who are worse, all beyond what could be known by the ordinary man. All blackhearted, deadly tooth and claw, dripping with acid and breathing poison, the destroyer comes forth. The world is at an end, nothing shall survive, nothing, no one. But the weak-made strong bring it all to an end, so the world can breathe, and things begin to grow, green and pure, for a few moments (days, months, years, centuries) of time until the darkness realizes it is still there. As long as there is light, there is darkness, and the darkness shall rise again.
This is a story we know.
The faces, the names of the weak-made-strong, the chosen ones, are different, perhaps, from time to time. Sometimes they are not so weak, sometimes they are misunderstood, sometimes they are mistaken for the darkness itself, for the balance is so strained within them. But they are, always are, and this is the first part of the story.
In the same way, the darkness has a thousand forms. The dragon, the wizard, the thousand year curse or the broken pieces of Armageddon; it could be any, it could be all. It could be perhaps not so dark after all, but it's light is so scattered, so faceted, that still none can see. It could be. But it is, just as the weak-made-strong is, and this is the second part of the story.
But if all can be different, save light and dark, up and down, what is same? It is not in the hero's quest, or his sword, or the laughter of the darkness or the clatter of war. The knights may be knights, but tomorrow they will be trolls, or forests come to life. The sword may break and be reforged a thousand different ways; it may not even be a sword in the end. Light and Dark, up and down, and even these, sometimes, are not sacred. Sameness is a preciously scarce commodity.
The sameness is not what matters, it seems, but in sameness, in the everyday and ordinary, lies empathy. And without empathy, the hero may slay a thousand dragons and though we would cheer him, we would forget, and he would be lost. Without empathy, he is not human, and we have no reason to remember.
So there must be sameness, the everyday, the ordinary. Something we can recognize, understand, and know. Routines and roles are what we know; from the act of cooking dinner, to raising a family, to burying a loved one; though these things might not be the same from story to story, they are the same as us, and we understand them. We know them. We can empathize. These things are life.

No up here

2009-09-09T18:22:00.003-06:00

There is no up here. There is only down, and over, and further down and down and down until forever and there is never no people and no place to hide.
I need a place to hide. To hide, to not exist, unseen, unknown, and I. But there is no place to hide.
There are small, bitter places; corners, curtains, empty rooms. Unused benches on hillsides, still in view of the path for fear they could not find us, and we be lost.
(But is that not the point of hiding?)
There are woods, shallow-thick, but they are not like up. Woods do not welcome like up does; they bar the path with thick grasses and ivy, low growing bushes and the omnipresent unknown. They bar the way with look, don't touch, look, don't touch, and though they are beautiful, there is no sky. I am not welcome here, and I stand at the edge of the mown lines and go no further.
(Someday, maybe, I will.)
But up; up has always welcomed me; bare steep paths and the promise of ever-higher, ever-higher lead me on, higher and higher and away. And there are no people there, none, none but me, and I need not be one here.
And I am alone, and this is hiding. This is up.
There is no up here.

Love for Sale

2009-09-07T19:34:00.001-06:00

Atticus, suffice to say, was not having a good day.
If it had just been the lawnmower breaking, it might have been fine. If it had just been the dog tracking mud across the freshly mopped floor, it might have been fine. Or if it had been the invasion of mice, or the car not starting, or having his flowers eaten by something (might have been rabbits. They will die), or blowing the back tire on his bike, or even accidentally locking himself out and having to break in through a window, it might have been fine. Well, maybe not fine. Tolerable, at least.
Atticus was not even having a tolerable day.
The small man projected a cloud of sheer frustration as he walked down the town's main street, so much so that passersby were consciously avoiding him. His fists clenched around two grocery bags filled with canned food and spaghetti (as he'd never managed to cook much else on the fickle gas stove of the little house, even after three years of trying) and the glower on his face was not offset in the least by Ben's three-year-old backpack that he'd been forced to borrow, which featured, much to both his and his charge's embarrassment, glow in the dark dinosaurs. The backpack had been full of overdue library books, was currently full of the third bag of cans, and in a moment would be full of thirty pounds of dog food, which had been eaten that morning by the mice.
He rounded the corner and stared down the block, realizing, almost too late, that he would have to walk directly by the barbershop. He turned around. An extra two blocks was not what he needed right now, but better than having to deal with Eugene.
To top it all off, the pet store was run by one of the most helpful, cheerful people Atticus knew, one Miles Chase. This of course meant that Miles was also one of the most annoying people Atticus knew. He didn't try to be, to be sure. He just was. And Atticus had no intentions of spending any longer in that shop than was physically possible.
The brightly painted windows fast approached as Atticus rounded the final corner, featuring a giant chameleon with its eyes pointed two different ways, along with some colorful birds in the foliage of a green jungle, aka series of giant leaves. “Sale on all cats and kittens!” it said, in total disregard of logical correlation. “These prices will disappear fast!” He stared disapprovingly at the big orange letters the size of his face. “Come in today!”
With a sigh, he set down the two bags of cans on the bench outside, along with the third from the backpack, and stepped in. The door jingled merrily as he stepped onto the smooth tile, glancing around for the shop's proprietor. Not in at the moment, thank goodness. He walked hurriedly to the back of the store where the bags of food were kept, ignoring the chatter of the budgies and the odd glance of the snake. The resident parrot that nobody wanted politely said “hello,” as he passed. He ignored it.
“Hey there!” Atticus flinched as Miles walked up from behind him. “How's it going?”
“Fine, thank you.” The older man turned, almost mechanically, to face the shopkeeper.
“How's Dragon doing? Still running you ragged?” Miles stopped a few feet away, smiling cheerfully.
Atticus made a rather forced. attempt at smiling back. “She's fine, thank you. I need dog food.”
“Oh, well, you know where that is! We've gotten some new stuff in that you might like to try though.. Or she might like to try, rather.” The younger man laughed. “Unless you're not telling me something.”
“What we've been getting is fine, thank you.” Atticus turned back to the shelf of dog food, trying to find a size of bag that would fit in the small backpack. “Yellow bag, yellow bag...” he muttered. Behind him, Miles turned to the rack of empty animal spaces that were normally used to house the strays people brought in to the adjoining clinic's humane society, and opened one of the little doors. Atticus ignored him mostly, watching out of the corner of his eye as Miles reached in and pulled out a tiny white ball of fur. The little ball stretched, and yawned, and as Miles massaged it with gentle hands, it opened its eyes and looked up. Atticus found that he was rather unabashedly staring, and quickly looked away.
“She's a stray.” Miles was more observant than Atticus gave him credit for. “She and her brother were found last week under someones deck. They said that the mother was hit by a car.”
“Is that so.” Atticus tried not to look back at the kitten again, and failed rather miserably. “What's her name?”
“Doesn't have one yet.” Miles rubbed the cat's ear gently, and she purred. “Do you want to hold her?”
“I, uh...” Atticus looked away, then sighed. “Well... why not.” He took a few steps over to Miles, and the younger man carefully deposited the kitten in his palm.
“Careful not to drop her. She's fragile.” Miles reached into the box and lifted out the other kitten, a little black one.
“She's beautiful.” Atticus held the kitten up near his face, and watched her as she examined him with brilliant green eyes. He was shocked to be able to feel her heartbeat through his hands. “And neither of them have names?”
“Well, they're not very old.” Miles carried the other one over to the register and set him down on a towel as he pulled a bottle of milk from behind the counter. “Only about four weeks, we think.”
“...What is that in cat age?” Atticus followed him over, still carrying the white one.
“Definitely not ready to leave their mother.” Miles held the milk away from the cat, and watched as it struggled to stand and move towards the bottle. “They can walk, barely, and they're about ready to start eating solid food, though they'll make a mess about it. Not litterbox trained, yet. And of course,” he said, as the little black one toppled over. “Their balance will be off until their tails become flexible.” He let the black one get it's feet under it again, and it once again started moving towards the food bottle.
“Goodness.” Atticus examined the little cat in his hands. “So basically, they're not cats yet.”
“Well,” Miles shrugged. “No, not really. But see her eyes?” He barely paused before continuing. “They're developing their permanent eye color right now. That one actually seems to be almost done; it hasn't changed at all over the past few days. That's the color her eyes will be for the rest of her life.”
Atticus went a long moment without saying anything, gray eyes roaming from white kitten to black kitten to brilliant green eyes that stared up at him, until the little bundle of fur in his hands started purring.
“...That sale you have on cats.” He never once looked at Miles as he spoke. “Do these two count?”
“You don't want to wait until they're a little bigger?” Miles finally let the black one get the bottle. “They'll make a mess.”
“I know.”
“They'll take a lot of looking after.”
“I figured.”
“You know...” Miles looked up at him, carefully. “Kittens need a lot of love.”
Atticus met his gaze with steel resolve, softened by a genuine smile. “I know.”
“Then yes.” Miles returned the smile. “They count.”
Atticus left the shop having a considerably better day than when he'd gone in.
After all, he'd never been able to say no to a sale.

Someone who mattered

2009-09-06T16:05:00.003-06:00

“I'm not going with you.” The illusionist shook his head. “If you want to kill us all, fine, but if I'm going to die, I'm going to die here.”
“But we need you, Morris!” The hero sat on the conference table, swinging his legs back and forth. “I don't think we can even get in without your help.”
“You'll manage, I'm sure.” Morris folded his hands behind his back as he stared out the room's huge window. “I'm staying here.”
“But don't you care that people will die if we don't?”
“They'll manage.”
“But...” Cable trailed off, staring out the window for a moment. “We have to.”
“So a criminal syndicate will control one more city. They'll live.” Morris' voice was cold as ice, cold as it ever was, and his face was hard.
Cable turned back to the illusionist. “Don't you care about them?”
“No.”
“None of them? I mean, they all care about you!” Cable hopped down off the table and joined his friend at the window, looking out.
“Do they?”
“Well, yeah! They care when we disappear.”
“We are passing entertainments, nothing more. A distraction.”
“Morris, they really do care about us! I've talked to them, believe me! Why don't you care about them?”
“I can't care about all of them, Cable.” Morris' voice turned to a hint of condescension, as though he was speaking to a child. “There are too many.”
“So think of one, then! One person that you care about. Don't you want to save them?”
“There isn't anyone.”
“Nobody?” Cable stretched as he spoke, nervous. “Come on, I know there's...”
“No. There wasn't. End of story.” Morris turned away, staring out over the city below.
“But...” Cable paused. “What about that one kid?”
“What kid?” Only through careful concentration did Morris keep his voice level.
“The one you visited... You went a couple times, actually. I know you didn't want us to know, and I'm sorry I followed you, but...”
“Cable, shut up.”
“But...” The redhead shuffled his feet nervously as he spoke. “I saw you when you talked to him, and it seemed kinda like you were...”
“Shut up.” Morris put a hand against the glass, tension clear in his fingers.
“And you did magic tricks for him, and you talked for hours, I think, because when I left and came back you were still there, and...” Cable looked back at his friend. “You seemed happy.”
Morris was silent for a moment, stern faced but shaking almost imperceptibly, free hand clenched into a fist.
“Morris, don't you want to save...”
“Shut up!” Morris whirled. “He's dead! He died, and I couldn't do anything! You never saw him, I never saw him! I don't want to remember him!”
Cable at this point normally would have shrunken away, apologized, and never mentioned this again. Something about this time, though, whether it was Morris' words, or his tone, or the sheer weight of the bitter sense of futility he felt in his oldest friend, was different, and Cable rankled at it.
“So you're just going to forget?” The angry tone of his voice was new, unfamiliar, and he was almost afraid. “Pretend he didn't exist, that you never met him? I don't know how it was with him, and I don't pretend to, but he was real, Morris! You can say we don't exist all you want, and for all I know, you're right, but he did! He existed! And he mattered to you!”
“Shut up,Cable!”
“I will not...” Cable paused for half a heartbeat to regather his nerve. “I will not shut up! Don't pretend he wasn't real, that he didn't exist. He was, and he did! He mattered to you, and he still does! Don't disgrace him like this.” Cable stopped, fists clenched and breathing hard. “If you were his friend,” he said slowly, deliberately, “the least you could do is remember him. Even if it hurts.”
They stood for a moment, staring at each other with anger in their eyes fading into shock, before Cable turned away. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again, and walked out.
And Morris alone stared after him.
And slowly, surely, Morris slumped against the window, and mourned.

Once again, new story. You might be a tad confused by the "we don't exist" thing, but it makes sense in context. Anyway, enjoy, and comment!

Nameless Fruit

2009-09-05T15:55:00.004-06:00

“What are they called?” she asked as he handed her another of the strange, sweet fruits.
“They don't have names.” He took a bite of his. “These are 'the blue spotted ones,' and those over there are the 'yellow square ones.'”
“...They don't have names? But even if the kid didn't name them, haven't you?”
He shook his head softly as he stared into the soft colors of the fog. “I don't want them to have names.”
“But you're a scholar, an explorer! You're supposed to name things.”
“Am I?” Marcus looked at her for a moment before looking away. “That's what I used to think.”
“What...” She stared for a long moment.
“There's something fundamentally selfish in exploring, you know?” He sighed. “To desire so much of newness, of the unknown, and all for yourself. Sure, you write books about it, you keep logs and diaries so that other people can know what you found, what you saw, but you take something from a place when you are the first one there. There's a... power, in the unknown, and to explore it is to take that power for yourself. And so we might not be forgotten,” he laughed bitterly, “we name it, and pin it down, so that power will never regrow.”
“...I'm not sure I understand what you mean.” She stared at him, fruit forgotten.
“I'm not so sure either.” He sighed again. “But if I name what I find, then it isn't as new. It's used; it bears the weight of my memory instead of simply it's own.”
They were silent for a moment, as the mists rolled around them and the soft light flickered from nowhere in particular.
“That's an odd way of thinking about it,” she finally said.
“It's a work in progress.” He finished his fruit and stood. “We'd better get going. Chris will be waiting for us.”

Two Blank Pages

2009-08-08T16:42:00.001-06:00

I don't know how the story ended.
Perhaps it was something I missed, or something that was left out. Perhaps there was a line, a word, an inference, an accent even or a word that was more important that I saw it to be, something that would make it all fall together, all make sense, and the lines would connect the unnumbered spots into a picture of something I understand and have seen before.
But I am left with half a picture, a feeling of incompleteness, and something I've never known. A portrait of a face inhuman.
That face is deathly familiar all the same.
I don't know how the story ended. They went their separate ways (or did they?) and they agreed to meet again (I think, I hope, I really hope.) and they loved each other. (This, at least, is sure.) But I don't know how the story ended.
I don't know that the story ended at all.
When there are no more letters joined into words joined into sentences, when the black marks turn to white nothingness and there are two blank pages at the end of the book, is it really over? It must be, because there is nothing more.
But loose threads still dangle, and the story echoes in my head, and I hear it back as something strange. A voice I don't know answers from the other side of the canyon, and I am almost afraid. And the story cannot be over.
But it is, and there is no more, and there are two blank pages at the end of the book.
And I don't know how it ended.
I don't know it ended.
It ended.

When It Got Dark

2009-07-31T22:59:00.002-06:00

The last rays of the summer sunset reflected off the soda ad on the side of the bus as he stepped off, waving to the driver and shouldering his backpack. The driver waved back, and the bus rumbled away, back to the stops it had actually intended to make. Jason turned and watched the old lot for a moment. The rotting log was still there, and the old car had gained a few coats of rust since the last time he's seen it. Insects buzzed around the permanent rain-puddles in the cracked cement. And in the far corner stood the tree, the ever-silent guardian of the broken neighborhood. He almost smiled.
As he walked closer, he could see the carved names in the bark still, though some had almost grown out. The boards nailed to the trunk had almost rotted through, and some of them were missing. He glanced down. The wild grass was growing over them. Not a recent fall.
But from high above, he could hear breathing, heavy like a sob. He looked up at the old treehouse, then sighed, and set down his backpack before he sat down with his back to the tree.
And very slowly, with the air of someone with a very important story to tell, he began to speak.
“Once upon a time, in a kingdom so far away that not even Mr. Woods has been there, there lived a princess. She lived in a beautiful castle, all up in the air, and all around the clouds were her subjects. The skies were hers to command, and if she were ever sad, the clouds were sad, and the world rained all around. But if she were happy, all the skies were happy, and there was blue as far as anyone could see. And sometimes she was happy, and sometimes she was sad, and the world went round beneath her.”
The breathing above him had gone very still.
“Now in one of the kingdoms below, there lived a knight, who wandered from place to place and saved people, for that is what knights do. But while some knights served a king, and others served a prince, this knight served nobody, for as long as he could remember he had been alone.”
A sudden flash of memory hit him, of a broom-headed horse and a pot falling over his eyes, and he paused for a moment before he continued.
“The princess in the sky, sometimes, was lonely, and sometimes came down from her castle, to see what was below. Sometimes she found adventure, and sometimes she didn't, but once, she found the knight, and then for a while, neither was alone. Once, they fought a great dragon, and chased it into it's lair, and killed it, and another time they defeated a wizard who'd turned a village into monsters, thirsty for blood, and they turned all the villagers back. And they had many adventures, the knight and the princess, and the knight vowed to serve the princess so neither would be alone, really alone, for even when they were apart they knew they would be together again sometime.”
A white car splashed by through the remnants of last night's rain, and the clouds that gathered on the horizon spoke of a storm coming fast. He paused a moment to gather his thoughts.
“And every adventure they had, they started at her castle in the sky, and ventured out all across the land, and at the end they came back, but...” He trailed off. “Then it got dark.”
Jason sat for a moment beneath the tree, silent, and watched the last of the sun vanish and clouds cover the moon.
“And they had to go home when it got dark.”

New story! This isn't even the whole scene of this, but I like this bit, and anything else would require explanation. Anyway, Enjoy!

Denial

2009-06-22T23:56:00.000-06:00

“Gramma!”
Eleanor winced as the little girl's ear peircing shout carried across the parking lot, then smiled as the six year old tackled her knee in a hug. “Hello, Bianca. And how are you today?”
“I'm ok! Up up up up!” She held out her hands pleadingly. Eleanor laughed, and picked her up. “How're you?”
“I'm good. Where's your brother?”
“Camping.” She stuck out her tounge. “Dad and Gabe are camping cause they like icky bugs and dirt. They're weird.”
“Silly boys.” Eleanor giggled, despite herself. “And your mother?”
“Right behind her!” Denise Stonewood followed her daughter across the parking lot, breathing hard. “Thank you so much for agreeing to take care of her today, I...”
“It's no trouble.” Eleanor smiled. “I have to spend time with my favorite granddaughter sometime, don't I?”
“Gramma, I'm your only granddaughter!” Bianca pouted in her arms.
“That doesnt mean you're not my favorite!”
Denise smiled. “Thank you. Can you drop her off back at the house at... oh, four, I guess?”
“You'll be lucky if I ever bring her back,” joked the older woman and the little girl squirmed in her arms.
“Mama, gramma's kidnapping me!” squealed Bianca.
“You better bring her back, or I'll send her daddy to rescue her.” The young mother smiled, laughing, and Eleanor understood not for the first time why her only son had fallen for her.
“Hah! Roger never won against me when he was a kid, and he still can't.” Eleanor started tickling her granddaughter, who was giggling uncontrollably. “Anyway, don't you have a doctors appointment to get to?”
“Oh!” Denise glanced at her watch. “I'm late! Thanks again, bye!”
Eleanor smiled after her daughter in law as she drove away, then turned to her granddaughter. “Well, what do you want to do?”
“Swimming! Swimming swimming swimming!” Bianca squealed. Eleanor flinched again.
“Bianca, not so loud, please.”
“Why?”
“Because it hurts my ears.”
“But Mama said that I need to talk loud so people can hear me!”
“Well, not quite so loud, ok?” Eleanor set the girl down, and took her hand as they walked towards the little green car. “I can hear you just fine when you talk normally.”
“Gabe says I'm good at being loud. I'm louder than anyone else in my class!”
“Honey...” Eleanor took a moment to process just how much her granddaughter must annoy that poor teacher. “Louder isn't always better,” she finally said as she fiddled with her car keys.
“Why?”
“Because if people can hear you, that's loud enough.”
“But the louder I am, the more people can hear me!” Bianca was jumping up and down in her seat as her grandmother tried to buckle her in.
“But what if you don't want someone to hear you?”
“But I like people to hear me! They all look at me when I'm loud!”
“That's not a good thing, honey.” Eleanor buckled herself in and started the car. “You use your inside voice when you're talking to people.”
“I can be even louder inside!”
“That's not what I mean.” The stoplight at the edge of the shopping center parking lot turned green, and Eleanor's foot hit the gas.
Bianca was strangely silent for the next few minutes. Eleanor glanced over at her, somewhat worried.
“Oh, honey, you're so pale!”
“Look out Gramma!” The little girl squeaked, and Eleanor swirved without taking her eyes off her granddaughter.
“Are you feeling alright? Maybe we shouldn't go swimming.”
“Car! Car car car car!”
“Bianca, didn't I just say not to talk so loud?”
The little girl covered her eyes as her grandmother screeched into the parking lot of the city pool. It took her a few minutes after the car had come to a complete stop to open them again. “Gramma, why do you drive so fast?”
“I don't, honey, it just seems faster because my car is lower.” Eleanor was digging around in her huge purse for that medicine that she was sure she had in here somewhere.
“But the dialy thing said 80!” Bianca pointed to the spedometer, still white as a sheet.
“No, honey, you must have misread it. I wasn't going faster than thirty.”
“Gramma, your car is scary!”
“Don't be silly, dear, I have anti-lock brakes and air bags! If someone runs into us, we'll be fine.” Eleanor finally gave up on the medicine and took Bianca's temperature with the back of her hand. “You feel fine to me, dear. I wonder what that was...”
“Gramma, they've gotta catch us to run into us!”
“Bianca, dear, didn't you want to go to the pool?”
Bianca nodded, then unbuckled her seatbelt and stumbled from the car. “Mama can pick me up here, right?”
“No, honey, I've gotta drive you home.”
The girl paled again. “Gramma, can we take the bus?”
“No, honey, my car works just fine.”
“But I like the bus!” Eleanor flinched at the return of the full fledged outside voice. “The bus is... the bus is cool!”
“But yesterday you said the bus was full of icky boys and...”
“The bus is cool! I like the bus!”
“Maybe we can ride the bus some other time, honey.” She opened up the back of Bianca's backpack and pulled out her swimsuit. “Now go get changed. And stop talking so loud!”
“I like the bus....” mumbled Bianca as she trotted dutifully off to the changing rooms, swimsuit in hand.
“Strange girl.” Eleanor turned to the ticket window directly in front of which her car which her car was parked. “Two, please.” The attendant was white as a sheet as she took Eleanor's money, never taking her eyes off the green car parked less than six inches away from the front of the building. Eleanor glanced behind her at the attendant as she headed for the changing room herself. “Huh.” She shook her head. “Must be a virus or something.”

Gym

2009-06-20T16:32:00.002-06:00

Atticus stared increduloulsy at the high school's office secretary. “You want me to do what?
“Teach gym.” She fidgeted. “Just for today! I know you can't do it every day, but Mr. Clemmence finally agreed to go see a doctor about his... um...” she coughed. “And Mr Meeps is already teaching history, and nobody else could come in...”
“And so you're flagging down random people on the street?”
“Well, I was gonna go to the temp agency, but I've heard Mr Clemmence talking about you before, Mr. Knott, and so I just figured...”
Atticus set his grocry bags on the sidewalk and crossed his arms. “I doubt Mr. Clemmence has been saying anything even remotely resembling a reccomendation.”
“Well, no, but please sir, the first class starts in fifteen minutes and nobody else is available, not even Gabe cause some kid threw up in the bleachers, and I have to watch the study hall and the only other person that could do it is Ms Knockings, and that just doesn't work, sir!”
Atticus tried to picture the small, stern woman trying to coach a group of highschoolers, and failed. “But... don't you need background checks or something?” he protested weakly.
“No time! Just don't shoot anyone and we're good.” She grabbed his arm, and his groceries, and dragged him into the school, something that if he'd been at all in doubt of her intentions would've gotten her shot. Two minutes later, he was standing in the large gym, staring at the ceiling and wondering how exactly he'd gotten here. He sighed visibly.
“Well, what exactly am I supposed to do now?”
“Well, I'd recommend changing into tennis shoes, at least.” The door of the janitor's closet opened, and a blonde head popped out. “You're gonna have some trouble in loafers.”
Atticus jumped back, startled. “And you are?”
“Gabe. Gabe Stonewood. I'm the janitor around these parts.” He tipped his blue box cap to one side respectfully. “I take it you're the famous 'infernal brit'?”
“That would be me, yes,” he replied as he looked the younger man up and down. Tall, blonde, blue eyes. Ben could probably disguise as him fairly well, if he ever had to. “Any idea as to what I'm supposed to be doing here?”
“Well, if I overheard correctly, teaching gym. Good luck with that.”
“Well, yes, but what exactly does that...”
“Laps, pushups, whatever.” Gabe shrugged. “Mostly just yell at them.”
“Yell at them. Oh, joy.” Atticus turned his gaze back to the empty basketball court, wracking his brain for an activity that could entertain sixteen high school boys for an hour, especially given most of them were significantly larger than him. “I don't suppose you could teach gym, and I could go clean the...”
“Nope!” Gabe grinned. “I've got a date with the bleachers. I'm happy to leave the hard job to you.” He watched cooly as the first of the students made their way through the double doors at the far end of the gym. “Careful. I've heard they can sense fear.” With a chuckle, he picked up his bucket and started walking away.
He was a little surprised to find himself unable to move. The smaller man had some kind of nerve grip on the back of his neck, and his whole body was tingling.
“Um.”
“Sorry. Getting your attention.” Atticus wasn't even looking at him, just staring at the students congregeating at the other end of the room with a look in his eyes that would've sent anyone who knew Atticus running. “I need your help for one last thing.”
“Speak, o master, and I shall obey,” the blonde quipped as Atticus let go of his neck.
“Unroll that wrestling mat.”

The boys were milling around near the locker room when Atticus finally approached them. “Right. Get changed, you lot.”
One of the football players spat on the ground. “What do you want, Brit?”
“Where's Mr. Clemmence?” another asked.
“Does it matter?” Atticus's voice had an edge like a knife. “Get. Changed.”
The football player, a huge boy almost a head taller than Atticus and twice as thick, stepped up. “We don't take orders from you.”
“Well, then, I suppose you'd like to run twenty laps without changing.” Atticus's glare spoke volumes. “Get moving.”
The boy didn't move.
“I said...”
“We heard you, brit.” The boy glared. “Mr. Clemmence warned us about you.”
“Oh, did he.” Atticus stared at the boy for a minute before he broke into a wide smile. “Well, if you don't want to get changed, I can't make you. Follow me, then, boys.” He waved them to follow them as he walked back to his original end of the gym. They followed, bewildered at this sudden change of attitude. The football player who'd stood him down puffed his chest out like an overblown turky as he walked, reveling in this newfound power.
The small man stopped at the edge of the wrestling mat, kicked off his shoes, and stepped onto it. “Ok, here's the deal. I'm just an old guy, and a tiny one at that, right?” There were a few reluctant nods, with some of the brighter bulbs wondering where this was going. “So if any one of you can pin me down, you have the rest of the class to do what you want.” He spread his arms, letting the whole class see just how skinny he actually was. “Shouldn't be too hard, right?”
The class murmured for a moment before one of them stepped up, a boy that Atticus vaguely remembered as someone Ben had talked about, somebody Johnson. Tristan? “I think I can do it.”
“Ten laps if you can't.” Atticus held out his hand to shake on it. “Agreed?”
“Fine.” The boy took his place across from Atticus on the mat, assuming what he thought was a proper fighting position. Atticus barely shifted his feet. Gabe watched them from atop the bleachers.
“Whenever you're ready.”
The boy lunged at him, and it was over almost before it began. Atticus whirled out of the way, barely tapped the boy's knee in the right place, and had him on the ground before he fully realized what had happened.
“One. Two. Three.” The brit calmly counted off. “Don't rush your opponent like that. I win. Go get changed and start running.”
The boy stared up at him in shock for a moment, then dumbly went and did as he was told. His classmates hooted at him as he left, and Atticus dusted off his nice slacks before he turned back to them.
“Who's next?”
There was a sudden silence. Then the football player stepped up. “Let's see how you do against a real man,” he muttered as he took his place. “He's a wimp anyway.”
“Fine.” Atticus shrugged as he moved into position. “Sometime today, please.”
The boy swung for Atticus' head, and he stepped back neatly. The boy didn't overbalance nearly as much as he'd hoped, and almost managed to make a recovery before Atticus wound up behind him.
“You're moving your torso too much. Try that again.” The boy obliged, Atticus dodged, and tripped him neatly. “One, two...” The boy sprung back to his feet. “Oh, you're still up!” Atticus dodged another fist. “Don't lock your knees. Move your feet! Oh, for goodness sake.” He caught the boy's arm as he tried to hit him again, pulled his fist apart, and put his thumb on the outside. “Are you trying to hurt yourself? Try that again.” He almost touched Atticus that time. “Much better, but...” he quicly ducked under the boy's arm, and with a simple push the boy was on the ground again. “One...” he jumped back to avoid the kick. “Oh, finally using your feet, I see!”
The other boys were cheering their compatriot on, forming a ring around the wrestling mat. Gabe was laughing hysterically. Atticus smiled brightly as the football player scrambled to his feet. “Well, you're pretty good, I'll give you that, but let's give someone else a turn, shall we?” He dropped quickly, sweeping the boy's feet out from under him, then put one hand hard on his shoulder. “One, two, three. I told you not to lock your knees.”
Atticus smiled. The boy glared.
And then he got up and walked slowly to the locker rooms.
“Alright,” said Atticus, stretching, “Who's next?”
Forteen hands shot into the air, amid shouts.
“Right. You lot would probably stand a better chance if you changed first, right?”
The rush for the locker room was overwhelming. Atticus just smiled.
“How the heck?” Gabe dropped down from the bleachers with his bucket. “I thought you were gonna get creamed.”
“I know some tricks.” Atticus didn't look at him.
“You think you could teach me some?”
“You think you could beat me?”
“Never hurts to try.” Gabe put down his bucket and stepped onto the mat.
“Oh, I beg to differ.” For a moment, the small man looked genuinely scary.
And Gabe really hated to admit that he was right.

Leaks

2009-05-27T23:36:00.000-06:00

Atticus awoke sharply to a particularly loud crack of thunder. It was a sound that he was beginning to get used to, but forty years of sleeping with both ears open made the habit hard to break. He glanced at the red numbers on the little digital clock he'd bought for himself the day before, and sighed. 4:30. Could be worse.
He groaned as he sat up, rubbing his eyes wearily. Another bolt illuminated his sparsely-furnished room, with the still packed up boxes stacked tall in one corner and two empty bookshelves standing next to the door like sentinals. A thin coating of dust still lay on the dual windowsills, from the house's long emptiness before they'd moved in. Atticus resolved to clean as soon as he had the time, or sometime eventually, at least.
The long downstairs hallway of the brick house was empty. He moved along it silently, headed for the kitchen. A soft clicking greeted him as he made his way in, and a wet nose shoved itself against his hand. The dog was trembling, scared stiff of the thunder. He scratched her soft ears and made a comforting noise, which sounded so strange coming from his own throat. The lightning flashed again, and Dragon dashed back under the table. She cowered in her dog bed, and Atticus sighed. He was no good at this comforting thing.
He flicked on the kitchen light, and moved to the sink. The dishes from all three day they'd been there were piled in the sink, and takeout containers overflowed from the white trash bin. He vaguely considered starting breakfast, but then realized that they were out of eggs, and the toaster hadn't been unpacked yet, and the diner wouldn't be open for another half-hour, at least. The dog's wet nose found his hand again, and he scratched her almost subconciously, mulling over the situation.
He wondered if Ben would mind leftover pizza for breakfast. Probably not, come to think of it.
Another crash of thunder sent the golden retriever skittering under the table again, and Atticus wondered how Ben was doing. The boy had been doing better, as far as he could tell, but an illness like this could reverse in a moment. He sighed, and headed upstairs to check on the boy.
The old wooden stairs creaked wearily as Atticus went up. The second door on the left was cracked open, and the orange night-light shone through like a beacon. Atticus pushed it open with all the quietness of a man who's long known how to move unheard, and stepped in.
He made slightly more noise when he nearly fell on his face. He cursed under his breath, and warily let go of his death grip on the doorframe. Water. There was water all over the floor. A quick glance upwards told him why as a water droplet hit him in the face
The roof was leaking. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his nightshirt, barely refraining from cursing again. Bloody American craftsmanship! And in the one place in the house where it actually mattered! Ben needed dry air, for...
Ben. He glanced over at the bed, and was relieved to see his young charge still sleeping. The twelve year old's small frame was twisted all around the blue-checked bedspread, and both of his pillows had somehow migrated to the floor. But he was still breathing, and still sleeping, and that's what mattered at the moment. The two de-humidifiers next to his bed were both still functioning, though the puddle was beginning to reach the one on the far edge. Another drip hit him in the back of the head, startling him. He sighed, and went back downstairs.
He wasn't entirely sure if they'd unpacked a bucket, or if there even was a bucket to unpack. Atticus eventually grabbed his tea kettle off the stove and a towel out of the downstairs bathroom and creaked his way back up the stairs.
Benjamin almost stirred this time as another huge flash of lighting broke the sky. He twisted another rotation, wrapping his bedspread more tightly around himself. He mumbled something as Atticus set down the tea kettle where he thought the drip was. One of Ben's feet was sticking out from under the covers now, and Atticus almost smiled. And then another drip hit him in the shoulder. The smile vanished, and he went back downstairs.
He returned this time with the frying pan. The dog followed him upstairs, tail tucked between her legs. She slid across the wet floor, suprise and fear painted on her face. He rubbed her head again as Ben flopped one arm out, still sleeping, looking for his pillow. Atticus handed it to him, and in a moment the boy was still again.
And then the splash of water in the puddle hit his ankle, and he knew there was a third leak.
All he could find this time was a teacup. By this time, the kettle was beginning to get full, and the dog smelled wet, and there was a fourth leak somewhere, he was quite sure of it, because a full half of the ceiling was shining with water at this point, and he went downstairs to get another teacup.
Nearly half an hour and his full tea set, two cocoa mugs, a couple of dirty glasses and a cereal bowl later, Atticus sat on the now-mostly-dry floor, leaning against the annoyingly-damp wooden door and staring at the absurdly-wet ceiling and feeling almost helpless. Ben had started coughing, and no matter how many times he emptied the teacups, the room wasn't getting any drier. The dog picked it's way through the teacup maze on the floor, headed for the closet as lightning flashed again, and in a panic Dragon knocked two of them over. Atticus sighed, and grabbed another towel from the pile he'd set outside the door. He hadn't felt this frustrated since... well, for a very long time.
He didn't know why this was bothering him. He'd stayed in leaking houses hundreds of times, many times worse than this. It barely crossed his mind anymore; if it didn't mess with his mission, it didn't matter. He'd always been able to deal with it himself. Why was this different?
He threw the wet towel at the bathroom across the hall and stared upwards. He was retired now. The mission wasn't what mattered anymore; he knew that. He'd spent the past year trying to convince himself of that, but forty years is a heavy weight to shake off.
Lightning flashed. Ben coughed. The dog wimpered, and Atticus swore under his breath. Bloody rain, bloody leak, bloody retirement. He wasn't himself without a mission.
Or maybe he was himself, and he had yet to figure out what that looked like.
He sat back, taking stock. Who was Atticus Knott? Not a spy anymore, not a retiree, technically, not even who he'd told them he was. Just an old man who'd spent his life learning what to do in situations that he would never encounter again. He didn't even have a family anymore.
He sat in silence for a moment, listening to the rain hitting the roof and the drips falling into the teacups, and thunder rolled in the distance, and Ben was breathing softly, with the same sick rasp to his voice that had brought them both to America, and to this bloody leaking house. This bloody leaking house that was going to keep him sick, with this bloody rain that had followed them all the way from England and this whole bloody situation, and Atticus wished that he just had to steal someone's briefcase so it would be over, and he could get on with the next bloody mission.
And then it hit him.
Ben. Ben was his mission. He was in another country, in a leaking house, with unknowns on every side and the odds against him, and he had an objective and a base and a full town to recon and two people to report to and quite possibly some enemies. And maybe, he barely thought, he did have a family, kind of. He twisted his ring around unconciously as he mulled it over.
And quite suddenly, he was alright.
“Alright.” He stood, stepping around the near-overflowing teacups to pick up his twelve year old charge. “Come on, Ben, we're going downstairs.”

Dr Doctor and the Viking Kid

2009-05-14T23:38:00.000-06:00

“Is it on?”
Timothy peered up at the camera from under his plastic viking helmet. Seth nodded, making the camera rock up and down.
“Ok! Um... Hi! I'm Timothy! And... um... Seth?”
“You're introducing your story.”
“Um...”
“Start with Joscar.”
“Yeah! Joscar's great. He's a pirate, and he fights bad people and stops them from taking stuff cause that's what pirates do! I wanna fight crime with Joscar someday, so I've got my viking helmet cause I'm gonna be the viking kid!” The camera followed Timothy as he climbed onto a picnic table in the middle of the park. “And this is the story of... Viking Kid!” He posed dramatically, and the camera shook slightly as Seth tried to keep from laughing. Timothy looked out of the corner of his eye at the camera. “Is that good?”
“Yep.” Seth pushed the stop button on the camera and set it on the table next to Timothy. “Now all you have to do is think of a story.”
Timothy scowled. “This assignment is hard.”
“It could be worse, you know. She could've made you write it.”
“No she couldn't have, cause we don't know how to write yet.” Timothy crossed his arms over his knees as he sat on the tabletop. “I don't know how to make a story!”
“Well, you've got your protagonist already, so it shouldn't be that hard.”
“Pro..” Timothy struggled to pronounce the word. “Protag...”
“Main character. Hero.”
“Oh! Hero! Ok.” Timothy thought for a moment. “But if there's a hero, there's gotta be a villain.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah, there's always a villain! Haven't you been paying attention?” Timothy stood up again, and Seth quickly rescued the camera from being kicked to it's death as Timothy marched up and down the table. “Whenever we go to the store, there's a villain, and whenever we go to the bank, there's a villain, and sometimes even when we're at the park! Villains are everywhere!”
It momentarily occurred to Seth that Timothy was actually right, and he didn't know quite whether to be disturbed by that or not, but he shook off the thought and went on. “So your story needs a villain, then.”
“Yeah.” Timothy thought for a moment, hovering without actually meaning to. “But if I'm Viking Kid... You're the villain!”
“But if I'm the villain, who runs the camera?”
“You do. You can hold it up with your powers, right?”
“Tim, that's not how we're supposed to use our...”
“But you can!”
“...Yeah.”
“Ok, you're the villain!”
“Fine.” The teen sighed, and put his free hand into his jacket pocket. “But you have to tell me what sort of villain to be.”
“An evil one,” Timothy said, as if it were the most obvious thing since the sky being blue, or his parents being able to fly. “What other kind is there?”
“Um... Misguided...”
“Those are boring! You're evil.”
“Ok, I'm evil. What's my villain name?”
“Um... Dr Doctor!”
“Dr Doctor.” Seth was not impressed.
“Or you could be Dr Dentist, cause that would definitely be worse.”
“Let's stick with the first one.”
“So you're Dr Doctor, and I'm the Viking Kid, and I'm gonna stop your evil plan!” Timothy was looking heroic again, and Seth almost laughed.
“What's my evil plan?” Seth went digging through their big red bag of costumes, looking for something evil. Timothy flew down next to him and started helping.
“I don't know, it's your plan!” Timothy examined a jester's hat and stuck it on Seth, looking critical.
“But it's your story!” Seth took off the hat and continued looking.
Timothy pouted. “This is too hard!”
Seth looked a top hat over, removing two plastic daisies from the rim, and put it on. “How's this?”
“Not evil enough!”
Seth tried to look very evil. “Now?”
Timothy thought for a moment, then shook his head. “You don't make a very good evil.”
“I'll take that as a compliment.”
“A what?”
“A good thing.” He found a fake mustache and went searching through the bag's infinite pockets for the glue. “Now what's my plan?”
“You're trying to take over the world, I guess.”
“How am I gonna do that?”
“Um...” Timothy thought for a moment as Seth tried to stick the mustache on with double-sided tape. “You're gonna... um... You're gonna use a baseball bat.” He pulled the offending item out of the bag, and examined it. The purple plastic could not have been less intimidating.
“To take over the world.”
“Um...” Timothy tried on a pair of purple glasses as Seth's mustache fell off.
“Destroying the world would probably be easier.”
“Yeah, probably.” Timothy put the jester's hat on top of the top hat. “That way we can just say you're using a bomb.” The hat fell off, but Timothy wasn't paying attention anymore. “A really big bomb.”
“Is that alarm clock still in here?” Seth wondered aloud. “That would make a good bomb...”
“Yeah, I think so!” Timothy laid waste to the bag as he searched. “And we can use the beach ball for the world! My mom drew a map on it a couple weeks ago!”
Seth decided against objecting to using a red-and-yellow striped earth, and clipped a bow tie to his collar. “Right. So I'm blowing up the world, with my evil alarm-clock bomb, and you're going to stop me.”
“Right!” Timothy thought for a moment more. “I need to be saving someone.”
“You're saving the earth.”
“That's not the same! Joscar always has to save one person every time, even if he's saving the earth too! So I've gotta save someone.”
“But if I'm evil, and you're the Viking Kid, who are you going to save?”
Timothy thought for a moment. “You.”
“But I'm Dr Doctor.”
“You can be the daring explorer too! He's always getting captured.”
“But then I'd have to capture myself.” Seth looked skeptical. “And that wouldn't work.”
“This is too hard!”
“Just think it through, it's not that bad. We'll get ice cream when we're done.”
“Promise?”
“Sure.”
Timothy sat silent for a moment as Seth rustled through the bag, finding a black sheet that made for an excellent evil cape. He shed his jacket and tied the sheet around his neck.
Timothy suddenly had a moment of epiphany.“Maybe I'll be the daring explorer for the first part when you capture me, and you'll be the daring explorer when I rescue you!”
“But then it'd look like there were two explorers.”
“Not if we have the same hat!” Timothy had that it's-so-obvious expression again. “And we have an explorer hat, see?”
Seth blinked, and shook his head. “Right. Well, we'd better get started, then.”
“Right!” Timothy jumped on top of the table again. “I've come to stop you, Dr Doctor!”
“Not until the camera is on!” Seth shoved most of the costumes back into the bag and stood. “And don't I need to capture you first?”
“Oh! Right!” Timothy snatched the explorer hat from his bag, and switched it with his viking hat. “I'm exploring, daringly, exploring for all the world to see!” he sang, switching keys in the middle.
Seth winced. “Um, no singing, ok? Just look like you're exploring.”
“I need to explore over there! Trees are much more exciting to explore!”
“Right, um, ok.” Seth followed his young charge over to a big pine tree. “Ok, so you're exploring here...”
“And you kidnap me.”
“Why?”
“Cause you're evil! Duh!” Timothy adjusted his hat. “Is the camera on?”
“Um...” Seth flicked the switch to the on position. “Yep.”
“I'm exploring, exploring, oh look a tree!” He shot Seth a sharp glance, which Seth took to be his cue. He suspended the camera carefully by it's own battery power, giving it a faint blue glow as it hovered. “A fantastic tree of wonder!”
“Not so fast, er, Daring Explorer!” He tried to look dramatic as he burst into the camera's field of view. “I, the villainous Dr Doctor, am here to capture you!”
Timothy tried to look shocked. “Oh no!”
“Muahaha!” He picked the first grader up and slung him over his shoulder. “You'll never escape from me!”
“The Viking Kid will stop you, evildoer!”
“The Viking Kid has no hope against my bomb of evil!” Timothy produced the alarm clock with a flourish, taking care to keep the camera on them. “When it goes off, the world shall be destroyed!” He finished with another flourish of maniacal laughter, vaguely hoping that no superhero was in the neighborhood to hear and come to the rescue, then turned off the camera. “Good. Go get your viking hat.”
A sudden jingle filled the air as the ice cream truck rolled past the park, and Timothy's attention span followed it all down the street. “Are we done?”
“Not unless you want the world to get destroyed.”
“Ok.” Timothy was off like a bullet after the truck. “Come on, we're getting ice cream!”
Seth sighed, and stuffed the camera into his hat as he followed Timothy across the park.
Destroying the world was easier anyway.

Nothing I

2009-04-26T21:46:00.003-06:00

There's nothing more I can do for him. I know this, and he knows this, and he still smiled like that.
And somehow my gut tells me, “no, no, you can do something. Wait.”
So I wait.
He's lost a lot of blood, I know. The doctor said he might survive, might, maybe, if he has a transfusion.
There is no blood for a transfusion, not for him. My blood does not match his, but I know this, and it is true in too many ways. There's nothing I can do here.
But I wait.
The steady rise and fall of his chest is half matched by the slow beep-beep-beep of the heart rate monitor, occasionally in sync and most of the time not, but it doesn't matter anyway. Both will stop soon. He fell into unconsciousness a few hours ago, as his body slowly started shutting down. The mountain of blankets on top of him seems to be crushing his frail form, but they're his best chance. And he's pale, so pale, and there's nothing I can do.
I am waiting for a miracle.
The nurse comes in every half hour or so, asks me if there's been any change. There hasn't been, just the rise and fall and the beep beep beep and the slowing of them both and he's dying and I don't want to let go of his hand.
And there's nothing I can do.
Lucas is going to die tonight.
All I can do is wait.
His eyes are closed I think, still covered beneath the bandages, and I know that it's better this way. He has always been ashamed, so ashamed of them, and I know he wouldn't want to be ashamed in his last moments.
But he shouldn't feel that way, because there's a bullet hole in his shoulder instead of in my heart, and it didn't have to be that way.
It's dark outside the little window, but the blinds are down regardless. A policeman shifts outside the door, listening to the beep-beep-beep and the hospital carts rolling past and the sheer weight of the air, and I know he's afraid, but not like I am. He is afraid that someone will come to kill me too, and he'll fail and I'll be shot, or he'll be shot this time, like Lucas was. But I am afraid because Lucas is dying, and I am living, and I don't want it to be that way.
And I know, I know, that my testimony will avenge him, but it doesn't matter. The man who shot him is in custody already, and the men who hired him will be in custody soon enough, and I will nail their coffin without Lucas by my side. That is what I can do, and what I will.
But it doesn't matter, because Lucas won't be there, and that's not how it's supposed to go.
We were supposed to do it together. I promised him, really promised, that I'd stick with him until we brought them down. And he promised, with all the sincerity of a man who never doubted anyone but himself, that he would stay with me until the end.
I doubt he has much time left for that.
The nurse comes in, her shoes click-clicking against the white tile, and she smiles at me in the way of someone who knows there is nothing to smile about, and I try to smile, but realize that I'm crying. She hands me a tissue and asks me if there has been any change. There has been no change.
She moves to remove the cloth from his eyes, the one thing still clean, still untouched through all this bleeding and dying and catching bullets, and I move to stop her. She says she has to clean off his face, because he's sweating, and for some reason that's bad. I still can't let her do it, and I'm crying, and she's still trying to smile that same way, but can't. So I say let me do it, if I do it it might be alright, even though I know it's not, and he would be ashamed.
And she agrees.
So I carefully, careful not to rip the bandage or touch his skin or wake him, carefully remove the bandage. I apologize as I do, but he cannot hear me.
It is surprising. The nurse doesn't know, so she goes to work washing his face. But there's nothing wrong. There's nothing different, nothing to hide. His skin is just as pale, just as smooth as the rest of his face, and his eyes are closed, with long black eyelashes and I am curious now. There's nothing wrong.
And there's nothing for him to be ashamed of, and he shouldn't have to feel that way.
The nurse is leaving now, and I don't say goodbye. The rise and fall and the beep-beep-beep are unchanged, the sky is still dark and the policeman still stands there and the blankets are still far too heavy, and Lucas is still dying, but now I don't understand and I never will.
And there's nothing I can do.
I watch him now, like I did at the very first, a man who looks dead in a thin blue hospital gown, except now he really is dying, and there is no panic to hide my feelings with. And all I can do is wait for him to die.
He shifts, almost imperceptibly, with the same weak, barely fighting spirit he's always had as he tries to hold on to life, but there's not enough blood for him to hold on to, and I'm crying again.
We're still for a moment as he lies there, weightless beneath the mountain of blankets, and I reach out to brush his black hair out of his face, because I want to see his eyes (and I am sorry, Lucas.)
And my hand lingers for a moment, and the beep-beep-beep is going steady and I am crying, and there's nothing wrong except a hole in his shoulder and I'll never understand, never understand why he was always so ashamed, and there's nothing, nothing, nothing I can do.
He opens his eyes.

An Ode to the School Cafetera

2009-03-16T18:49:00.002-06:00

Chemical science
is what I'm here to learn
but quite what I'm eating
I still can't discern.

I just want to eat
(and learn chemical science)
but not while my food's
staring back in defiance.

I would like food
that's not overcooked.
That tastes like it should
and not how it looks.

And speaking of looks,
can you make it look nice?
Or just slightly better
than vomit on rice?

And speaking of vomit,
can you please fix the smell?
The odor resembles
the bowels of hell.

Now don't get me wrong here,
sometime it's good.
But mostly the meat
has the texture of wood

And gravy's ok,
in smaller amounts,
but when my food's swimming,
this time doesn't count.

And can you not fry it?
Just once? For me?
I just want to live
till I graduate, maybe.

And when I graduate
(If I'm still alive,)
And I manage to live
till I'm seventy-five

I guarantee
that I'll warn my grandkids
“Just don't eat at the caf!
Like poor Grandma did.”

Rubix Cube

2009-02-14T21:07:00.006-07:00

This thing is impossible! thinks Peter as he walks. The rubix cube in his hands holds his mind more than the van that's been following him for the past three blocks. The teen (just barely so, now, the cube was his present last Tuesday) would normally see it, but no, not today. The rubix cube is far more important than the van. Nor does he notice the missing person poster that blows by, with the face of a girl he saw once in passing. Normally, he would see that too.
The chain link fence beside him rattles in the wind as the poster smacks into it. He doesn't notice, twisting the cube again and again and again. He doesn't get it. He should, he's sure of it. It's just a kid's toy, for crying out loud, he should've had this finished two days ago.
But he didn't, and he doesn't.
And the van gets closer.
His hat almost blows away, and he puts up his hand to catch it, without thinking. Leaves blow by, red and yellow and brown and brown.
Peter looks up at a crosswalk, checking the light. The slate gray building beside him, unfeeling in the cold wind, stands in stark contrast to the rubix cube in his memory and in his hands.
And the van gets closer.
He's almost got it when the light turns, and he walks onward. Twist, twist, and he's beginning to find the pattern. He smiles. Almost, almost...

This is impossible. thinks the policeman assigned to find him.

Curtains

2009-01-27T21:27:00.000-07:00

Sal heard ripping.
Sal didn't like that sound.
Especially when that sound was coming from her living room, which a certain someone had been explicitly told to stay out of, not just by her, but by every authority he'd recognized. Em had even programmed him a dream where Captain Cannonball of sugar-cereal fame told him to stay out of the living room. If anything should've stopped him that would've been it.
And yet, clearly, he was in the living room.
She muttered something unprintable as she grabbed the flyswatter and stomped down the hall. That little shredding machine on legs was going to get it this time, especially if it was the curtains.
“It's not the curtains!” said the twelve step “Bright side of things” course in the back of her head and the top of her fridge underneath the phone book. “It's... a recording! Sure! Let's go with that!”
She didn't believe the twelve step course, but belief was the first step.
“It's not the curtains. It's not the curtains. It's not the curtains.” She repeated slowly, as she walked down the hall.
It was the curtains.
She wasn't surprised. Score one for pessimism.
Why was it always the curtains?
Sal stared at the seemingly innocuous little ball of metal, quivering at her expected wrath, then looked back at the torn shreds of blue ribbon that had been her new curtains. Had been. For the third time this week.
“Kevlar.”
The quivering little ball stopped quivering and held stock still.
“Kevlar,” she repeated, with more of the very-angry-mother tone she'd somehow picked up between now and when she'd met this little ball of... fun. Yes. Fun. “I know that that's you.”
“Not.” The voice didn't look like it's coming from the ball, but it was.
“Is.”
“Not! Kevlar sleeping upstairs.”
“No, Kevlar is not sleeping upstairs.”
“Kevlar in kitchen, helping.”
“Kevlar is not in the kitchen, helping.” And he wouldn't be any time in the near future either, if she had anything to say about it. Cleaning batter off of the ceiling fan once was quite enough, thank you very much. “Kevlar is on my living room floor, where he shouldn't be, underneath my new curtains, which he was not allowed to touch, which have also, somehow, gotten shredded. That's where Kevlar is.”
“Kevlar not touch curtains.” The ball unrolled, and the little robot sat on her floor, looking up at her guiltily. “Kevlar only look.”
“If Kevlar was only looking, then who, pray tell, ripped my curtains?”
“Josephus.”
“Josephus isn't here.”
“Yep! Josephus rip curtains, run. Not here!”
“Josephus hasn't been here for three hours.”
“Josephus run very fast.”
Sal sighed. Time for Kevlar logic. “Kevlar, I'm a detective. You know what that means?”
“Not care.” Kevlar started picking something out of his claws. She didn't know what it was, but the twelve step optimist course assured her that it was not tiny bits of her curtains that would get scattered all over the house for the next 8 hours or so.
“It means,” she said, completely serious, “That I have psychic powers, and I can read your mind.”
“Can't.”
“Can! You're thinking...” She closed her eyes and waved her hand in a very psychic way. “That I can't read you mind.”
The robot stared, completely silent for a moment, stuck in something midway between shock and awe, then slowly put his claws on top of his head. “Can't read through hands.”
“Can.” She put a little extra spite into the word, mostly fueled by the sight of the curtain bits stuck in his claws that he'd been trying to remove. The twelve step optimist course had nothing to say.
“Prove!”
“Ok. Think something very hard, Mr not supposed to be in the living room anyway.”
He closed his eyes. She watched him for five seconds or so, smiling, before she finally spoke.
“Captain Cannonball.”
Kevlar almost fell over. “Hu-min cheat!”
“I didn't cheat. You would've noticed if I'd cheated.” She held her hands up, smiling and shaking her head. “Admit it. I'm psychic.”
“Not cheat?” Kevlar looked skeptical. “How know?”
“You're not listening, boltbrain. I'm psychic. Telepathic. Clairvoyant. Magical.” Sal did a sparkly motion with her hands on the last word. “And what's more, I can tell that you weren't just thinking about Captain Cannonball.”
The little robot started to look scared.
“You had a dream the other day, didn't you? Captain Cannonball came, and gave you cereal, and told you to stay out of my living room. You remember that, don't you? Of course you do, you were thinking about it!”
Kevlar panicked and backed up against the wall, hiding behind the shredded curtains. “No! Don't remember! Forgot! Didn't have! Not think! Hu-min stay out Kevlar head!” he wailed. “Don't like psi-kick!”
“I'm right!” She crowed. “And what's more, I can tell what you did! I see it in your mind! Admit it, Kevlar! You. Shredded. My. Curtains. You came in here, and climbed up the back of the couch, and jumped off to shred the curtains. Your mind tells all!”
“No more psi-kick! Admit! Admit! Admit curtains!”
“Good.” She crossed her arms. “And you know what happens when you shred the curtains. Time out.”
He finally peered out from behind the tattered ribbons. “Have to?”
“Have to.”
“Don't want.”
“Shouldn't have shredded my curtains then.”
“Have to now?”
“Yes. Now.” She waved the flyswatter at him menacingly. “Or flyswatter and no dessert.”
He put his hands over his head again. “No flyswatter. Going now.”
“Good.” She barely resisted kicking the little robot as he walked out of the room. She breathed in, and out, just like she'd learned from the twelve step optimist course. He'll go do it. He'll do it quietly. She'd have an hour of quiet. Just one hour. One.
“...Curtains ugly anyway. Better now.”
She stared at him for a moment, twitching. He did not just...
“Oh, that is it!”
In retrospect, Kevlar's grip on the ceiling was rather impressive.
The holes he left in it were slightly less so.
But the twelve step optimist course made for wonderful replacement curtains.

Tinysaurus

2009-01-17T20:43:00.002-07:00

There was a dinosaur in the fridge.
Amy stared at it, somewhat surprised.
It stared back for a moment, completely unsurprised, then went back to eating her lunch.
“Jaaaack!”
“Whatever it is, it's not my fault,” he shouted from two rooms away.
The dinosaur finished off the sandwich, and swiveled in the confined space, looking for other tupperwared prey. She was amazed at how small it was; it couldn't have been more than a foot high. And it was clearly a meat eater, looking at it's teeth and claws. This was definitely no ordinary dinosaur... as ordinary as any dinosaur could be.
“Jack!”
“I'm coming already!”
A huge crashing, clanging noise sounded from the other room. The dinosaur perked up it's head at that, alert and looking for danger. Apparently the winged figure five or six times it's size didn't count, since it soon enough went back to trying to bite through the lid of the leftover chicken.
Crash sauntered casually in. “Jack's a bit tied up. What's the problem?”
“There's a dinosaur in the fridge.” She stepped away, allowing him to see inside. “I'd like to know how it got there, and what it's doing with my lunch.”
Crash stopped short for a moment, wide eyed, until his brain finally registered that snakes do not have legs, and therefore this was not a snake. “R-right. Let me have a look at the little guy...” He put his hand into the fridge, very slowly reaching for the bipedal lizard.
The thing whirled, snarling, and jumped for his hand. He pulled back just in time to avoid losing a chunk of his thumb. The tiny thing tumbled out of the fridge and landed on the tile floor, looking slightly confused, until it decided that Crash's sandaled feet were the ideal prey.
Ten seconds later, Amy sighed as Crash stood precariously on top of the table. “What, the mighty black belt can't take something that tiny?”
“It's a dinosaur. I was never trained to deal with dinosaurs.” Not to mention it looked very much like a snake from that angle.
“You were never trained to deal with Fixit either.” She offered the thing a piece of chicken, which it took quite happily. “You know, it's actually kind of cute.”
“I'm here! I'm...” Jack skidded into the room, a wire wrapped around one leg still, and stopped dead in his tracks. “Dinosaur.”
“Yeah.” She scratched it's head, and it made a noise almost like purring.
“Tiny dinosaur.”
“Tiny vicious dinosaur. It almost took a chunk of my hand!” Crash spoke from atop the table.
“You just scared it is all.”
“Where did it come from?” Jack reached out a hand to examine the thing, and winced at the sound of it's teeth trying to bite through his metal gloves. He drew back.
“That's what I was hoping you could tell me, actually.” She shifted, the movement of her wings catching the attention of the dinosaur. It started moving slowly across the floor, ignoring the promise of chicken, stalking her feathers. She laughed at it. “It's cute, don't you think?”
“Yeah, cute in a deadly predator sort of way,” muttered Crash as he started to climb down.
Jack watched it from a distance as Amy lifted her wings out of it's reach, making it jump and claw at the air. “Where'd you find it?”
“In the fridge.” She wasn't really paying attention to him so much as she was the dinosaur, which tumbled to the ground in a manner entirely too adorable for it's species.
“How'd it get there?”
“I'm blaming Fixit,” said Crash.
“If you weren't hiding on the table, I'd blame you,” muttered Jack. “Fixit!”
The little robot burst out of the microwave in a cloud of powdered sugar and saluted, startling all present, dinosaur included. It darted under the table again.
“Fixit, there's a dinosaur in the fridge.”
Fixit went to the fridge, opened it, and stuck his head inside. He shrugged.
“It's not in the fridge anymore.” Jack sighed. “How'd it get there?”
The sugar-covered robot turned away from the fridge, looked at Jack for a moment with an air of puzzlement, and then pointed to Crash.
“Crazy robot, it wasn't me!” Crash looked indignant.
Fixit made a motion which, had he been human, would've been the equivalent of sticking out his tongue at Crash. The man almost returned the favor.
“Well, then,” Jack said, glaring at them, “who was it?”
Crash and Fixit pointed at each other again. “It was him!”
Amy knelt, coaxing thing out from under the table with a bit of chicken. “Come on, little guy.” The little thing came out and let her pet it as it gnawed on the chicken. She laughed. “There you go.”
Jack made a mental note to give Amy a raise, and tack 'dinosaur whisperer' onto her job title.
“So we don't know where he came from then,” she sighed. “Guess we'll have to keep him.”
“No!” said Jack and Crash simultaneously, Crash being the more empathetic of the two.
“I mean,” Jack coughed, “I'm sure we can find out. After all, the security system should be able to tell us something.”
“We need to give him a name.” Amy was ignoring both her coworker and her employer. “How about... Turnip?”
“Turnip the dinosaur.” Crash was unimpressed. “And don't give it a name, you'll start getting attached to it!”
“Turnip the tinysaurus.”
Jack looked distressed. “I... Um... You can't...”
Fixit knelt, looking at the dinosaur. He offered his hand, and the dinosaur sniffed it, got powdered sugar up it's nose and started sneezing. Amy laughed. “See? They'll get along fine.”
“But it's... it's a...” Crash gestured vaguely. “It's a dinosaur! A bloodthirsty killer!”
“Oh, don't worry, he likes me!”
“For breakfast!”
“Quit being silly, Crash.” Jack pressed a few buttons on his visor, accessing the security system remotely. “Security system's got nothing on it. Apparently a dinosaur just spontaneously ended up in the fridge... somehow...”
“That's not even possible,” muttered Crash, as he very gently stepped down to the floor, trying not to attract the attention of the toe-eating monster.
“I'll keep it,” she declared. “My apartment building allows pets.”
“What? But...” Crash took a few quick steps back as the dinosaur looked his way. “Ok fine just keep it away from me.”
Jack shrugged. “Go ahead, I think it'll be fine.”
She smiled at it as it went after her wings again. “Turnip. Good name for a dinosaur.” She waved a bit of chicken at it, and it followed her dutifully out of the room.
Jack, Crash, and Fixit stared after her. A moment later, Crash looked at Jack, his voice low.
“How long did you spend rehearsing that?”
“Two hours,” he said without even looking at him.
“...You suck.”
“Says you, Mr. Afraid-of-snakes.” Jack took off his visor and handed it to Fixit, who put it on his head.“Now if you'll excuse me, Amy is out a lunch, and I'm going to buy her a new one.”
As he strolled casually out of the room, Crash could only think of one good side to this.
More blackmail.

Seeing Eye Parapalegic

2008-12-28T16:50:00.001-07:00

The wooden door resonated deeply with the knock, just like always. Jay didn't turn his head. “Hey, Monty.”
“Jay, open the door. It's one of those infernal outward-swinging ones.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.” He stood and opened the door. His brother rolled inside and switched on the light.
“Thank you.” Monty wheeled himself calmly to the table and Jay sat back down.
“No problem. So, what brings you off campus?”
“Just seeing what you're up to. Reading?” Monty glanced towards the braille book in front of his brother.
“Yeah. 'Hamlet.' Gear was complaining about it. Apparently it's an assignment.”
“Does he know that Facet is his English teacher?”
“Nope. I don't think she knows he's her student either.”
“I'd like to see them when they find out,” mused Monty.
“You'd like to see Sonya at all.” Jay gave what he imagined to be a mischievous grin. Monty glared at him.
“Riiight. You think I like her, little brother? Your mind reading has failed you this time.”
Jay shook his head. “Don't think so. Anyway, how's the math?”
“Same as always. Joyce from Physics won a big award last week, but everyone still hates her class.”
“And you won the student's choice award again?”
“The final results aren't in yet, but I can't roll two feet across campus without someone telling me they voted 'Professor K all the way.'”
“Creative. Just the math majors, or everyone?”
“Mostly math majors, but I've had quite a few that I only saw for introductory stats. I think it was one of the art students that's been putting up the posters all over campus.”
“Posters?”
“Yeah, just a drawing of me and the slogan in big orange letters. There's a couple hundred of them.”
“Ooh, does everyone else call that cheating?”
“No, they know I had nothing to do with the posters.”
“But you had something to do with the rally.”
“Not voluntarily,” Monty admitted. He realized something. “Wait a minute, how'd you know about that?”
“I have my ways.” Jay leaned back in his chair with his customary smile.
“You have a source is what you have,” muttered Monty, “and one of these days I'm going to figure out who it is.”
“Anyway, what were you saying?”
“My appearance at that rally was not voluntary. My wheelchair was hijacked by a robotics major.”
“And?”
“And they made me roll right onto the stage in front of a thousand cheering students. So I waved.”
“And?”
Monty glared again, despite knowing that Jay couldn't see him. “One of these days I'm going to find your source, you know this? And they made me do skate tricks in my wheelchair.”
“Now that was voluntary.”
“Ok, maybe it was. A little. But I did not voluntarily attend or condone the rally. The faculty knows that; in fact, it was one of the engineering professors that helped me disassemble the remote control. He said that he'd give the student an A for it, in fact. Apparently I was hijacked by someone fairly skilled.”
Another knock at the door made Monty look up.
“Jay? You home?” asked a female voice.
Jay smiled, and whispered, “Did I mention that a certain Dr. Sonya DuBoise lives two doors down?”
Monty paled. “No, you failed to mention that,” he said weakly.
“I'm home, just give me a minute to get to the door,” said Jay, loud enough for Sonya to hear.
“How do I look?” whispered Monty. Jay raised one eyebrow. “Ok, ok, fine.” Jay stood up to let her in. “Wait, no, not yet! I'm not prepared, I...”
Jay smiled and put his hand to the doorknob. “If you don't want her to see you,” he whispered smugly, “hide.”
Monty wished fervently that he hadn't worn shorts and a completely unsuitable t-shirt; also, that he could stand up and whack his brother on the head. He could do neither, so he rolled backwards into the closet and shut the door. “You are so not funny.”
Jay calmly opened the door and smiled. “Sorry about that. What did you need?”
“I was just wondering if you had seen... I mean, encountered my cat.”
“The walking dust mop?”
“I suppose you could call him that.”
“Third floor laundry room, yesterday morning. I'm afraid to say he completely evaded my stick. Our encounter was less than pleasant.”
“Oh, terribly sorry about that. Any idea where he went?”
“None, sorry.”
“Well, thank you for your help.” She glanced around. “Hey, your lights are on. Did you have a visitor?”
Monty breathed in sharply, and whispered, “No. No you do not have a visitor.”
Jay, of course, could hear him. Sonya couldn't. “No, I don't. I had the light on for the seeing eye dog.” Monty had to resist smacking himself in the face. This could not go well for him.
“You have a seeing eye dog?”
“Just got him. His name is Gomery.”
“Well, I hope he likes cats.”
“Oh, he loves cats. But I don't think I'll be keeping him for much longer.”
“Really? Is he not trained right?”
“I suppose he's alright. He stops and starts when he's supposed to.”
“What's wrong with him, then?”
“Well, he has no fashion sense, for one. Matched spots with stripes.”
Sonya gave him a strange look. “How would you know?”
“I have my ways. And he tells the worst jokes.”
“Your seeing eye dog tells jokes?”
“If you prefer to call them that, yes.”
“You're taking your seeing eye dog back because you don't like his jokes.”
“And because he's thoroughly immobile. Couldn't keep up with me if I carried him.” Monty glared at Jay through the door.
“Oh, well, I suppose that's a good enough reason. Where is he?”
“He's in the closet, resting.”
“Can I see him?”
“I don't know, let me ask.” Jay walked over to the door and knocked. “Gomery, would you like to come out and see Sonya?” Sonya watched incredulously as Jay waited expectantly. “At least answer me, Gomery.”
Monty silently cursed his brother. “Bark bark. Bark. Bark bark bark woof.”
Jay gave a small smug smile at the door before turning back to Sonya apologetically. “He says he's too tired. Terribly sorry.”
“No, that's ok. I'm... I'm gonna go look for my cat now.”
“Right. I'll see you later then!”
Jay shut the door after her. Monty rolled out of the closet and glared at him. “You... That was....”
“That,” replied his brother smugly, “was for the mashed potatoes. Now what were you saying about not liking Sonya?”

Random short. Just figuring out how these two interact.

Missing Christmas

2008-12-17T17:24:00.003-07:00

So I'm in Arkansas as I write this, as I have been for the past five-ish months. Now, don't get me wrong, Arkansas isn't that bad of a place by any standard; I have a roof over my head, three meals a day, and seventeen billion (or so it would seem) hours of homework a night. In fact, the biggest thing wrong with Arkansas is the fact that it is not, through no fault of its own, Colorado.
Now, I understand that I chose to come here. And I understand that I'm choosing to come back in January. But at the moment, I'm wishing, rather forlornly, that I wasn't here, and that I had chosen to go to a school in Colorado instead.
Why? Because as I said before, Arkansas is not Colorado. In fact, it's very much not Colorado (You call these mountains? More like "largish hills.") And as it is not Colorado, many of the things that I'm used to happening in Colorado do not happen here.
Things like snow. Now, a few weeks ago, everyone was all excited because it had snowed. I got kinda excited, so I went to my window and looked out.
That was not snow. That was thickish frost. It was thickish patchy frost at best. It didn't even stick to the sidewalks. Laaaame.
Now, Colorado has snow. Snow means winter, winter means Christmas, unless you happen to be in pre-Aslan narnia.
Arkansas does not have snow. Therefore, it stands to reason that it is not winter (it is a nuclear apocalypse and all the trees have died), and therefore, there will be no Christmas. Santa Clause does not exist. Rudolf is a lie. And Frosty the snowman? Yeah, right.
This makes getting into the holiday spirit difficult, to say the least. The hall decorations are helping, but until frozen whiteness falls out of the ceiling (at which point I am MOVING OUT), it ain't the holidays that I'm used to.
But snow's not the only thing that's missing from Christmas down here. There's also a crucial lack of Girl Scout related excursions (though I got at least one of those over thanksgiving), assorted madness trying to get Operation Christmas Child together, and staring suspiciously at mysterious packages that arrive in the mail and are rapidly whisked away to the magical land of wherever mom hides stuff. This was supposed to be happening all through the month of November, eventually leading up to the annual deciding not to get a real tree this year and decorating three smaller ones to look like a big one. Yes, true holiday traditions. And all they have in Arkansas is ice and paper snowflakes.
But what I really miss, surprisingly, is one of the things that I least looked forward to when I had the option. Wrapping books at Borders with my girl scout troop. Getting stiffed by the lady with five oddly shaped books who's yakking on her cell phone the whole time and running out of tape at crucial moments isn't something you'd think I'd miss, but it is. At least, right now. Maybe in a few minutes I'll be missing having a heater that isn't schizophrenic, or pretending that my mom doesn't already know everything she's getting. Who knows. But right now, I'm missing Borders, and I'm missing it like crazy.
The sad thing is, it's one of those things that even if I had stayed in Colorado, I wouldn't be doing. My girl scout troop is done. Over with. Graduated. I don't usually adress real life stuff here, but it's happened. And even if we do get together to go to the mall once in a while, we will never do another fundraiser. That includes Borders, and all the cell phone yakking, odd shaped presents, reciept not-having and tape running out of that comes with it.
Somehow, I miss it.
It's hard to grow up in Christmastime.

The Magician's Grave

2008-12-08T15:43:00.002-07:00

I stand here, waiting. Waiting for what, I don't know. Magic, maybe.
I stand where his grave should be. He has no grave, but here is where it would be, on a hill, looking away from the city, looking up at the sky. There's a tree here instead; just starting to bloom. Ten years old.
I planted it here. When I was young, too young to really understand who he was, what death meant, who he could've been. To me, he was a friend. A mentor. A refuge, a shelter, a listening ear, a caring voice. And again, he was a friend. That meant so much to me, young though I was.
I didn't really understand what it meant to die; simply that he was gone, he was gone, he wasn't coming back ever or ever again. I couldn't see him, I couldn't speak to him, he couldn't speak to me. He was just gone; a few brief days of silent twilight until he at last slipped away, vanished into nevermore.
I remember how he died. I was there. I saw it, I remember it. I don't count those brief days of halfness in the hospital, sleeping, barely breathing, barely living. He didn't die there, that was just when the last little bit of him stuck around while the good part, the living part, the part that made him him checked to see if he was done. Had he kept all his promises, settled his affairs, fed his doves and said his goodbyes? And then he was gone, vanished. I'll never be able to explain quite what it was, just that sitting there, my little hands wrapped around his thin fingers, I looked at him, and he almost, almost, seemed to smile. Almost seemed to laugh, halfway, as the magic came to take him to be with it, his magic, my magic, the world's magic, what little of it still showed through. And then he was gone. Gone-gone, not halfway, not leaving anything to chance, not leaving anything to ordinariness. Just gone, with that last hint of laughter and the frantic panic of the machines sent by doctors and nurses to guard what little of him was left.
The others were with me, then, just as they were when he really died, for real, the first time when he stood and saved me and gave his life for mine, not twilight died in a cold white room with silent machines to watch over him. They cried with me, and took my hands, and held me, and rocked me to sleep as I cried for him, cried because I couldn't see him anymore, and I couldn't see him ever again, and that was all I understood. I didn't understand that they were crying too, and they were as lost as I.
It is doubly sad to be lost when you're a grown-up, because then there's nobody to lead you home.
But he was gone, one hundred and a half percent and never coming back, no matter how much I cried. All I have left to me are his words, his words and his scarves and his doves, and a little book with golden pages, which I gave to the inventor. But I know, somehow, the magic, his magic, my magic, is still here, in golden pages and doves and dancing stars. In the colors of the sunset, in the silent whisperings of twilight, in choice and in belief. I am not afraid.
But that's never stopped me from standing here, in front of a tree just barely in bloom, and waiting for something that I can never name. He has no grave, no gravestone, no great monument like they gave to the others. This is the only place I have to mourn for him. This is the only place anyone will ever mourn for him; I and the others who knew him. This tree is a gravestone, a living monument, sheltering doves and freely dispensing fruit and being draped in all different colors as the seasons change. Stone is dead, and he was alive, so it's alright.
It's alright.

Written while listening to this song.

Emotions suck

2008-12-07T22:52:00.003-07:00

Emotions. Yay.
On a related note, I hate/love/loath/need you all, so go away but don't leave me and shut up and talk to me.
To anyone who may be offended by my wanton drama-queening, I'm sorry. Once I turn into a robot, I can guarantee it won't happen again.

Climbing (Last and Only Friend)

2008-12-06T23:46:00.001-07:00

Climbing.
I'm climbing.
It briefly enters my mind that when I reach the top, he'll kill me.
So maybe he will. So what?

Climbing.
He's climbing.
When he reaches the top, he'll kill me.
Maybe he will. So what?

Climbing.
I'm climbing.
Nothing matters anymore. Nothing. Not me, not him, not anything. Just climbing, climbing, getting to the top so he can kill me. Climbing, upward, onward, through the blinding snow. My hands are ice, my face is ice. He'll kill me, but he will only kill ice, not me. I've been dead for a long time.
So maybe I am. So what?

Climbing.
He's climbing.
Everything matters now. How I look, what I say, how I say it, what I think, how I breathe, everything. Just everything. He's climbing, climbing, coming the top so he can kill me. The blowing snow outside the high window swirls briefly into the dancing firelight before it disappears into the blackness of the ice outside. Somewhere, he's out there. I wonder if he's still alive. Maybe he's been dead for a long time now.
Maybe he is. So what?

Climbing.
Still climbing.
I pull myself onto a ledge, one that's just big enough for me to sit, to stay for a moment while I turn my hands from ice to hands again. But I can't stay for too long, all of me will turn to ice. I am already ice; my blood runs colder than the snow that melts on my skin, that sticks to my hair, that turns my black clothing into icy whiteness. I am ice. All he will kill is ice. I start for the top again.
Maybe I'll die before I get there.
I won't.

Climbing.
Still climbing.
I can feel my brother's blood pulsing through my own veins, getting colder and colder by the second. I move to the fireside; maybe he'll feel my warmth like I feel his cold. He's coming to kill me; his hands are ice and his blood is ice and his heart is ice. And I am fire, white hot and burning. My hands are fire, I destroy everything I touch. My blood is fire, I cannot control myself; I cannot choose what I will destroy. And my heart is fire, I cannot bear the destruction that I brought, but all I do to fix it destroys more. So I confine myself here, in this tower, on a cliff on a mountain on a snowy plain, where all is ice like my brother, and where he's coming to kill me.
Maybe he'll die before he gets here.
He won't.

Climbing.
I'm climbing.
My brother probably knows I'm coming. Of course he does, that's why he's going to kill me. I blow on my frosted hands whenever I get the chance, trying to warm them up. Sometimes, I'm glad the cold doesn't burn me like it does him. I can feel his warm blood in my veins, pulsing, burning, roaring through me, with that eternal fire that wanted to save the world, but instead turned it to ash. Ash. My brother. My last and only friend.
I'm climbing
So he'll kill me. So what?

Climbing.
He's almost here.
I pause, hesitantly, at the window. I want to open it; he's not that far yet, but... I am glad that the heat of the fire doesn't burn me like it does him, but I cannot be careful enough, I cannot know how much to hesitate. How much can he stand? He's cold, he's ice, he's frost. Frost. My brother. My last and only friend.
He's climbing.
So he'll kill me. So what?

Climbing.
The rock gets colder as my hand touches it.
I can feel him now, he's here, he's nearby. I'm almost to the top. My brother, my last and only friend. Ash. Ash, my brother. I'm coming, I'm climbing, I want...
I want you to kill me.
Ash, my brother. My last and only friend.
I'm climbing.

Climbing.
I can almost touch him now. We are linked, somehow, painfully, sorrowfully, for no two could be so alike. And yet so different. I am fire, I feel, I love and hate and change, I move, I walk and run and climb and learn by knowing, and he is ice, he stays, he reads, he feels so little and knows so much. We are brothers, but we could've been strangers. And yet somehow, painfully, sorrowfully, we are the same. I can't explain it, I never could. But now he's coming, he's coming to kill me. My brother, my last and only friend. Frost, my brother. It should me me out there climbing, and you here in this tower so far away. That is how it should be. But you're coming, you're climbing.
You're going to kill me.
You're climbing.

I'm at the top.

He's at the top.

He's going to kill me.

My brother, my last and only friend.

Hello.

Inspired by this song.

The Train

2008-12-06T22:33:00.005-07:00

I sit silently on the hill, waiting for the train.
I don't want to get on it. I never do, I never did, and I never will again. I just sit, and wait, and watch for it, just to know that it's still there, and that I'm not the only one left.
Someone has to be running the train, I know. Someone is still there.
I don't want to find them, but it's nice to know.
I can hear it coming, far away, the chug-chug-chug of the old steam engine pumping smoke and water into the air, bringing ash to settle on the trees, the empty bird's nests, the new fallen snow. The distant clacking is comforting, but I still sit, I still wait. I can see my own breath like the steam of the train.
It's getting closer. Chug-chug-chug and clack-clack-clack dance in the breathless air, spewing black warmth into the silent cold. I pull my old jacket tighter around my shoulders.
I wonder if the train will still come through here in spring.
The empty gray sky tells me a story, today, of how I should get to shelter, or I might be stuck here, sitting, waiting for the train, in the snow and ice and ash. A story of snow, and snow, and then maybe snow tomorrow. There will be no sunset today, only empty grayness fading into black.
I can almost see it now, the big black engine chug-chug-chugging it's way along the frozen tracks. Every day, a moment and an hour before sunset, it makes its way through this empty forest. Empty now, but not when it started. Not back when, way back when, before me, before my mother, before my grandmother and great grandmother and all so many years ago, back when the train was new, and the tracks shone in the sunlight. Back before the tracks were lined with ash from the train rolling by, again, again, again, and again. Back before the forest was cut, and grown, and cut, and grown, and left to rot when nothing was left, and slowly, slowly grew back, back into something that it never thought to be. It's still a forest, but it's a place for things like me.
Things with no place for them.
I rub my human hand with my other, trying to warm it. My left shoulder is cold; I can understand why. It's a problem, but not in spring, not in summer, not in fall. I can deal with it in winter. Metal is cold, always cold, but I'm ok. I'm ok now.
The train is coming still. The light shines through the blowing snow, shining on the tracks. The tracks are black now; once they shone like my left hand does now. Once back when.
I wonder, when I am as old as these tracks, will the train still come?
The engine rushes by me, finally. I can see the silhouette of the coal man, rising and falling like a clock. I know they have machines for that now, but he still rises and falls, rises and falls, moving the train with his dented shovel and blackened hands. I can't see his face, but that's alright. I just need to know he's there. I just need to know I'm not the only one left.
The cars of the train clack-clack-clack along behind the engine, staring at me with frosted windows and darkened cars. There's nobody there, not like the coal man. If there was then I would never know. But the coal man is still there, and that's enough. That's enough.
I don't need to be lonely, not anymore. I don't need to feel that way. But somehow, somehow, I do, I am. But it's better to be lonely than to pretend not to be. This is my place; there is no other for me now.
But the coal man is still there, and that's enough. That has to be enough.
So I sit silently on the hill, watching the train roll away, staring at it long after it's faded into the distance, long after the clack-clack-clack fades into the silent cold.
The train still comes. And that's enough.

I wanted to write something not quite so happy; more specifically, I wanted to write something that felt like this. Not sure that I succeeded, but at least I tried.

Solar vs Bottom Dweller

2008-12-04T21:01:00.003-07:00

“And with a push of a button, I shall destroy your puny hydraulic dam, and destroy this city!” The man in the fish suit laughed maniacally. “And the river shall once again be free for fish to swim in! Freedom, my brethren!” He spoke to the two catfish swimming lazily around in a walking robot tank. “For I am... The bottom feeder!”
Solar could only stare. “You cannot be serious.”
“There is a fish ladder. It's not like they're stuck,” came Susan's voice from the huge robot panther beside him. “I remember I rescued a cat from it once. Dear Duplo, he was such a wonderful kitty.”
“He spit everywhere, and smelled to high heaven,” complained the robotic voice of Todomi, who was the one actually running the robot. “You said yourself that you should've left him in the fish ladder.”
“I didn't really mean that, dear, any more than I meant that I wished I'd kept the cat-cannon to launch you into the sun.”
“Focus please,” said Solar, as he watched the maniac below dance in front of his camera via which he was threatening the city; namely all four people watching his videoblog. “He might not have a brain, but he has a bomb.”
“And a rather interesting robot! Do you think we could manage not to break it, dearie?”
“Sure, why not.” Solar pulled a staff out of a beam of sunlight. “I'll distract him, you take care of the bomb.”
“Right! Let's go, Todomi!”
The agile robot leapt into the forest surrounding the dam, disappearing into shadows as Solar stepped into light. He was off and running down the slope, head down, headed straight for the fishman.
It didn't take long for the man to notice him, especially once he started attacking. “Heathen superhero! How did you find us?”
“Gee, I wonder,” said Solar, as he landed a solid hit to the man's chest, knocking him back. “It's not like three people a day threaten the dam or anything, and of course there would be no reason for someone to be up here watching for it!”
“How dare you suggest the plan of the great ones is unoriginal?!” The Bottom Dweller threw a handful of muck at Solar, which he dodged.
“Quite easily!” Solar twisted around and struck the man again. “You've put your bomb down by the generators, right next to one of the central pillars. It has a digital timer, I'm guessing.”
“You spy!”
“I'm no spy, you're unoriginal! What you fail to realize is that the pillar you intend to destroy won't actually bring down the dam! It's still structurally sound without that support!”
“That's why there are two bombs!” The fishman looked triumphant as he finally managed to hit Solar with a fistful of mud.
“On the same pillar!” Solar wiped the mud off with the back of his hand and struck again as the man squawked.
“You spy!” He struck with the fury of a thousand flopping goldfish. Solar caught his fist and twisted it around his back until he cried uncle. “I.. I surrender! You win this round, land dweller!”
“Big surprise.”
“Fool!”
Solar stared at the robot containing the catfish tank. “Excuse me?”
“You dare surrender to this pathetic human? You make us ashamed to call you our brother.”
“I'm sorry, Oh great ones!” The man in the fish suit cowered, bowing as much as he could without breaking his still-twisted arm. “Forgive me! My human body is weak!”
“You shall pay for your disobedience!” The catfish-mobile began charging what appeared to be a high powered laser. “Now, speak your last, and be honored to do it in our presence!”
“I shall love and serve the fish of the world, even in my death!”
The robot stood high on it's spindly legs and the two catfish inside did their best to look imposing and merciless. “Now, then, die!”
Solar caught the laser beam in midair, freezing it in place.
“What is this treachery?” asked the fish.
“What is this lunacy?” countered Solar.
“The great and mighty catfish, heathen!” The man in the fish suit had regained some of his self righteous confidence. “They will transform this puny human town into the beginnings of a new Atlantis, ruled by catfish, where humans are slaves to the superior race! You shall be no more than a pebble washed away by the mighty river of their greatness! All hail the mighty...”
“Done!” Susan's robotic panther sprang out of the top of the dam. “Bomb's gone. All taken care of. How's the madman?”
“Ruled by fish.”
“All hail the mighty catfish!”
The panther gave as incredulous a stare as was possible with a robotic panther face. “Seriously?” it asked in Todomi's voice.
“Dearie, bring that fishtank robot back. I'd like a look at the robot, and I'm sure you and the other kitties wouldn't mind a snack...”
The fishtank backed away. “Do not touch the tank of the great ones, mortal... shining cat thing! For we are great, and we shall destroy you when we conquer...” It didn't get any further before the robot panther leapt. The smaller robot didn't stand a chance. It was trapped before it could even start it's laser charging.
“We'll have to leave you alone for a while, Solar. I need to take a closer look at catfish technology.”
“Right. You call Sam?”
“She's on her way with the police. Do try to be nice, dearie, the poor girl's had it rough recently.”
With that, the robot panther leapt from the dam, landing neatly on it's feet hundreds of feet below, and took off toward Susan's little cat-filled home.
“Oh, yeah...” Solar stared after it. “Right.”

Wrote this as a part of a much larger story, in which I've been making all my characters ten years older than I originally thought them up as. Apologies for the lack of conclusive ending, but it makes sense in context. For now, laugh at the insane fish cult member. And comment!

The Magician's Door

2008-11-22T12:45:00.002-07:00

The inventor slumped against the wall, staring at the wooden door. Nothing was behind it, no flying ribbons, no escaping doves, no smiling magician to burst out just as he opened the door. Nothing would fall on him, nothing would fly out at him, nothing would scare him. He knew that.
So why was he so afraid to open the door?
He stood and put his hand to the bronzed doorknob, then stared at his hand, and slumped back against the wall. Nothing to be afraid of. Nothing.
The magician had nothing dangerous; the worst that he could expect was ribbon. He knew that, the man was about threatening as a basket of kittens. Or at least, he had been. Now...
He put his hand to the doorknob again. Opening the door in three, two, one...
He slumped back down, letting his hand slide from the doorknob like water. No, no, he couldn't do this. He was afraid. Why? What was so different about now? He'd never known if the magician was here...
That was it. That was what was different. That was why he was afraid.
He knew the magician wasn't here.
And that scared him.
He didn't want to walk into the empty room knowing that it would never be filled again, he didn't want to know, to see with his own eyes, to test and to verify the magician's absence. He knew it, he'd seen the man fall, but somehow, somehow...
Somehow, maybe, if he didn't open that door, the magician would still be in there. Still laughing, still smiling, still quietly reading the little book with golden pages. Still feeding the doves, opening the windows, throwing ribbon everywhere. Still living, still laughing, still loving.
And he didn't want to know that he wasn't.
Oh, he was not crying. No. No. He was not crying. He was not going to cry about this. Not because the magician had gone and gotten himself shot, darnit, not because that stupid magician had gone and stood in the way of that stupid, stupid idiot conqueror and took thirteen stupid shots to the chest and gotten the stupid crap beaten out of him, darnit, not because said magician had wound up in the stupid hospital on a respirator with no magic left and probably going to die within a few days, maybe a few hours, a few stupid lonely hours, darnit, not because that stupid magician was dying, not because he was dying, not because he'd never wake up, not because he was... not because the magician was his friend, his good friend, maybe his only friend, and his friend was dying, darnit, not because he was too much of a stupid coward to go and see the only friend he had before he was dead, darnit, stupid dead, stupid death, stupid stupid stupid stupid! Darnit, he was not going to cry!
The inventor was crying.

I wasn't sure if I needed to introduce the character of the inventor before I showed his response to the magician's death, but I'm posting this anyway. I've written some other magician stuff involving this character, but I didn't like it so much as I liked this. Enjoy.

Falling

2008-11-15T15:07:00.001-07:00

The world was falling.
This didn't see quite right. He opened his eyes.
Ok, so the world wasn't falling. He was falling.
This didn't seem quite right either.
The ocean below him seemed quite small still, so he had a ways to go. He looked back up. Nothing. He'd fallen out of nowhere.
Nothing seemed quite right today.
He looked all around him. Hello cloud, hello other cloud. Nothing else around. He looked back down.
The ocean was still very far away.
He stretched, then gathered up his hair and stuffed it in his collar. Nothing worse than hair getting in your face when you're falling to your death.
It momentarily occurred to him that he shouldn't be this calm about falling out of nowhere to his death. He considered panicking, then decided against it. It couldn't do him much good, and besides, it was a pleasant day today, if you discount the wind. No sense in ruining it. He looked down again.
The ocean didn't seem to be getting any closer. Probably because it was just so big.
Maybe this was a dream. Yeah, that must be it. He was having the flying dream again, and he'd wake up right before he hit.
If he ever hit. The ocean needed to hurry up and get here.
But he didn't remember the flying dream being quite so... cold. Or windy.
No matter. Clearly, he was dreaming. Which totally explained the lack of panicking. And how and why exactly he was falling.
He flapped his arms experimentally. No, he couldn't fly. No matter, it was just a dream. Too bad; he'd always wanted to fly.
He looked back down and wondered, momentarily, why the ocean was still an ocean. If this were a dream, it should logically have turned into lemon pudding by now. But no. Still water, still big, still very far away. How high up was he, anyway?
It pleased him that the ocean was getting a little closer. He rubbed his ears. Dreams shouldn't be so cold. He decided that as long as he was here, he might as well have fun with it, so he twisted around in midair until he appeared to be seated.
At that point, he began going through the motions of having a tea party.
Abe Lincoln stared at him. “You should be panicking,” he said over a cup of earl grey.
He nodded politely, and his mind's version of Abe Lincoln pulled the parachute cord and vanished.
He wondered why Abe Lincoln hadn't seemed quite himself today. He'd had to work much harder to bring him to the tea party.
He looked back down. The ocean was getting closer fast. He said goodbye to his imaginary tea party, gave the tiger a hug and waved goodbye as he drove away, and then turned his attention back to falling. Yes, he should be hitting the ground within a minute. Or the water, either way.
So he'd be waking up.
He stared down at the ocean calmly and politely, arms outstretched. It briefly flashed into his mind that he was going to do a bellyflop, and it would hurt like nothing else, so he pulled himself into a swan dive and waited.
He'd be waking up any minute now.
Any minute now.
Any...

A few random shorts

2008-11-14T22:49:00.004-07:00

I haven't written anything really worth posting recently, but I have quite a few small things that I like enough to share. Don't expect them to be complete or make sense; they're not, and they won't.

A slice of the sky, of heaven and angels, cut down and bound here, bound to the earth to walk, to walk forever and ever amen, always staring up, never quite remembering who, or what, she is. Never, ever knowing, always longing, never looking down, never looking back, always trying, striving, reaching higher and higher, seeking to pull herself up from here, from this empty dust of too many distractions and nothing is real, nothing is reliable, and yet far too steady and unchanging, she walks the earth. Her prison. She doesn't remember, doesn't, couldn't imagine what she is, who she was. Who she will be. The wind calls her name. She doesn't know it's hers.

Black. White. Black. White. 64 squares. He stared at them darkly. Chess, chess, how he hated chess. The boy that sat across from him apparently liked it. Oh, and how he hated this boy. Smug little... The boy stared at the board a moment longer. “You're sure.”
“Yes, good grief! I'm sure!”
“You're sure you're sure. You want to move your queen to take my pawn. You're sure.”
“I'm sure! Just take your turn already!”
The boy shrugged. “Fine then.” He gently picked up a the black rook with the delicacy of an artist. “My turn.”
The man sputtered in shock. “How the...”
“Checkmate.” The young face broke into a gentle smile as he tipped over the white queen with the rook. The small noise of it tapping to rest on the board sounded like the crash of an empire.
The sirens of the police sounded like a dirge.

Jack stumbled out of the smoking robot, coughing. He looked up with tired eyes through the shattered mask, and saw her.
“Amy...” he whispered.
She was running to him before she even knew she was standing up. He opened his arms just in time to catch her as she embraced him. “Jack...” she mumbled.
His heart skipped several beats as they stood there. He was holding her. He was holding her. He was holding her! He closed his eyes, savoring the moment, and was hardly embarrassed at all when he started crying. She was crying too, and he shushed her gently, reveling in this new role as the comforter, the pillar of strength.
Thirty feet away, Crash hauled himself up, and proceeded to pull the little robot up from the hole behind him. They stared at the pair for a while, and then Crash shook his head and sat down, smiling broadly.
“So. Who's his best man, you or me?”
Fixit sat down next to him, looked at him for a moment, and then pointed to himself.

“Cursed be the charcoal, cursed be the wood, cursed be the gasoline, cursed be the one that would. The world will burn, the world will burn, the world will burn and I will laugh and the world will turn and turn and turn and we'll be left behind.” Spindle offered his hand. “Shall we dance?”

Jars and spiders

2008-11-04T23:11:00.003-07:00

Love, Mike Queens thought between glancing behind him and not using his turn signal, was a very strange thing. It made a man do things, unmanly, unnecessary things, like buy flowers. Flowers. Dead plants. It was beyond him why dead plants were deemed necessary by love, but they were, and even an idiot like himself could look at flowers and say “I will buy these for Sadie” without having any comprehensive reason why.
And for some reason, dead plants made Sadie very happy with him. Sunflowers especially; roses seemed a little formal... How did he know this stuff?! He was male, for goodness sake. Men aren't supposed to think about roses and formality and piddly little stuff like that, they were supposed to think about guns, and lifting heavy things, and opening jars, and killing spiders, and other manly things.
But then, Sadie was his match with a gun any time, and heavy things were not his specialty.... But he was good with jars! And very good with spiders. Sadie didn't like spiders, and spiders didn't like rolled up newspaper. Mike glanced at the rolled up newspaper in the side pocket of his jeep door and smiled. Yes, he was good with spiders.
But then he glanced back at Sadie, sleeping peacefully through the bumpy jeep ride into the outback, and sighed again.
Why was he sighing? This was that whole love thing messing with his head again. It made him buy flowers, it made him sigh... What next, jewelry?
He glanced at Sadie again, then swerved slightly to miss an alarmed looking road-creature.
Ok, jewelry. Her ring size... seven maybe? Eight? What was the rule on this, guess high or guess low? But maybe rings were too formal, maybe he should start off with something less... committal.
Darnit, he was thinking about these things again! Jars and spiders, Mike, keep it together!
Bracelets... did she wear bracelets? Or earrings? Another glance in her direction made him almost hit a tree. Earrings. Small ones, maybe, she didn't seem like the type for big hoops or dangling things getting caught in her hair and in her way... Maybe just diamonds, set in...
Diamonds? No! Way too committal! What was he trying to do here, propose?
How the heck was he supposed to propose, anyway? The whole get down on one knee affair was a little... cliché, but a classic nonetheless. Maybe something a little more creative, like a scavenger hunt, or...
Good grief!
Mike shook his head in disbelief and pulled off. He didn't know whether it was love or just plain old lack of sleep that was making him think this stuff, but either way, he was in no condition to drive.

Spindle's March

2008-10-31T23:12:00.003-06:00

The rhythm of a thousand pounding footsteps hitting the ground in unison shakes the city as they march, one in mind and thousandfold in body to the center, to the tower, to the summoner. To Spindle. Spindle. He twirls around the spire of the tower, the ever-present smile glued onto his mask, laughing as they march. This is it, this is it! They're coming!
They march, march, footsteps on concrete, from everywhere, from miles around. They come from sewers, from forests, from everywhere. The army of the unknown, the army of the feared, the army of Spindle. The inhumanly tall form winds it way down the tower, laughing, laughing. He is mad, no doubt. He has known that for a long time. But now! Now madness was sanity, now the unknown marched the streets! Now the uncontrollable was his to command, the feared feared him! He leaps from the tower, vaulting head over heels in the air.
The pounding beat works its way closer, and they begin to arrive, begin to gather. Spindle watches, gleeful and mad and inhuman. He spins again, spins with dark, near-demonic joy as the abominations surround him.
Abomination! What a word. Spindle loves words like that. Abomination, exhumation, rotation. Quotation! No, no, that one's no good. Spindle laughs. Abomination! He is, they are! This is what they are called! This is abomination!
He dances, his long limbs trailing behind themselves as the creatures watch. This is it, this is it! They're coming, they're here! He can hear them, the march of thousands more getting closer and closer, the pounding beat syncing up to his mad heartbeat, the rhythm shaking the dark, damp city that for so long has called him abomination. He is! This is his march, the march of the abominations! This is his night!
Spindle laughs, and spins around in glee. This is his. This is his. Everything is his now.

Spindle wants to wish you a happy Halloween.
In person.
I'd hide if I were you.

Too big, Too white.

2008-10-29T21:32:00.003-06:00

The doctor exited the room, slowly shaking his head. The hero knew instantly what he meant. So did the rest. But the little girl did not. And when they told her, when they told her that the magician could not get better, that he would never come back to dance with her and to show her the spots in the world where a bit of magic still showed through, when they told her that he would never even open his eyes again, or breathe without a machine to help him, she cried. She cried, and shouted, and fought against them all, trying to get into the room where his battered body lay. The hero held her, took her kicks and scratches and screams in stride, and did not move, did not cry, did not change his face or look into her eyes as she fought him. He did this for her.
She fought for a very long time. The others tried to console her, took turns holding her, took turns being kicked and bitten and scratched and screamed at. But she fought on, and on, trying to get in, trying to see him, even when they took her away from the hospital she kept screaming, kept crying. The magician, her magician, was being taken away from her. She couldn't understand why.
She fell asleep, sometime between the second and third day after. And the hero finally left her side, finally came back to the hospital. He came to see for himself what he wouldn't let her.
The magician lay on a bed far too big, looking far too small, far too pale against the white bedsheets. He looked too frail, too thin and tiny to really be the magician, to really be the color and life and everything that he had been. Even his smile, his ever-present smile was gone, covered with the respirator that allowed him to get just enough air to cling to whatever of the incredible life was left in him. The long IV in his thin, pale arm was too much. The hero couldn't stay here, in this colorless room, with a friend that he never knew well enough to understand.
But he needed to know. He needed to understand.
So he stayed.
He fell asleep there, in the visitors chair of the tiny hospital room, waiting for something he knew would never happen. But he chose to hope for it anyway.
The morning light filtered through the white, sterile curtains as he awoke. The magician still lay unmoving on the too-big bed in the too-big hospital gown and everything was white, white and sterile and far too big and not magic at all. This was not where the magician belonged, his mind decided as he awoke. And when his mind was fully awake, and clear and ready to be rational, he still held onto that thought. With or without his magic as he'd known it, the magician remained just that, a magician, and his magic never could, and never would, have tolerated such empty whiteness.
So the hero, in one of the least rational but perhaps greatest ideas he'd ever had, tied his red bandanna to the magician's bed. Just a little spot of color, just a tiny bit, just enough to break the sterile whiteness.
And just a little, just a tiny bit, the magician looked more like himself.
The hero smiled, a sad smile, nothing like the magician's, but perhaps just a little more than it had been the day before, and walked out.

Puppies (of the evil sort)

2008-10-28T23:27:00.002-06:00

Puppies, they say, are the least evil of creatures. I stand in direct opposition to this point of view. No, I am not taken in by the adorable brown eyes, the big, fun, fuzzy paws, or the oh-play-with-me-please-please-please attitude. I am well aware that all these are designed to trick me, to fool me into dropping my guard and snuggling the fuzzy little hairball like there's no tomorrow.
And that's when the vampire puppies attack.

Just practicing not taking myself seriously. Enjoy.

Rush.

2008-10-27T21:44:00.000-06:00

He rushes at me, his sword drawn. I leap out of his path, and try to cut him with my own sword. He dodges, but not without another cut to his cape. His clothes are all full of holes from my attacks, and mine are likewise. We've been fighting for so long, so long now. I whirl around and try to slice him in the back, but miss. That cape of his makes it difficult to judge where he is. It doesn't matter. I'll win this anyway.
My wounds are bleeding, still. How long they've been there, I don't know. How badly I am injured, I don't know. How badly I have injured him, I don't know. I only know that I am bleeding, and he is bleeding, and eventually one of us will run out of blood. It will be him. I'll win this.
I jump out of the way of his sword as he tries to cut a path through me. He almost doesn't expect my counterattack, and my sword nicks his shirt. Almost, I almost had him that time. He almost has me with a thrust at my chest. Another button gone.
I hate him. He hates me. We've hated each other, and fought, attacked and defended, dodged and struck, trying to destroy each other for as long as I can remember. I don't know why.
His sword almost catches my ear. My sword almost severs his foot. Sword clashes against sword, sparking the air into light and noise. The ruined city around us watches silently. We've been fighting for so long now...
Why do we hate each other? Why do we fight, why do we attack each other with swords drawn, why do we strike and destroy? Why? We've been fighting for so long now. I don't remember why. Why don't I remember? Why do I hate him? Who is he? Who am I? Will this ever all be over?
He rushes at me. I dodge. A flurry of swords, he dodges. I miss him, he misses me. Another tear to my clothing, another ever-so-slight wound that slowly speeds my demise. Another clash of swords.
No.
Until we know. Until we know who, and why, until someone comes here, and tells us who we are, and why we fight, we won't know. We won't remember. And this will never be over.
I rush at him, sword drawn.
I don't remember why.

Happiness has bad penmanship

2008-10-26T18:16:00.002-06:00

http://www.critters.org/bonsai.html is a very interesting thing. The basic premise? You put in several blocks of text, and it spits out a bizarre amalgam of them that somehow makes sense. Here are some of my favorites that it's given me:

"Something seemingly deadly, monstrous, inhuman.
We needed something tangible.
Something that he twisted around.
She didn't know I designed the stars. "

"I told you, I could've sworn that I was not dead."

"They've shot her.
She didn't know I live in exile.
The difference was much stronger than prison.
“You're awake then.” A Memo, from Outsiders.
Once, all must be stopped for me. "

" “You don't want to miss it.
Trust me.” He shot her. "

" “It's nothing to do anything with.
Now they come to you.” He kidnapped my arm to make me sir, does yours have a name?” “Yes, it's name is Jack.
Call me sir, does not give you license to call me now.
He still shoots laser beams. "

"This is the earth shattering crunch of the imagination, alone."

"Happiness has become a bullet."

" "The golum is afraid of healing, quite clearly!”
“It is.”
"The golum is a blessing that you say I couldn't carry."
“You don't want to see it!” "

The Crucial Question

2008-10-25T23:12:00.000-06:00

The crucial question. The one and only answer. One he had, the other he so desperately needed.
A year ago he'd been convinced he knew the question. He'd prepared, he'd practiced, the whole thing was set up. And he was so sure of the answer. He just had to ask the question, and hear the answer. Happily ever after.
How quickly things had changed.
So much had happened. The world was dying. Perhaps it was already dead. Everywhere, things were falling to pieces, and only he could stop it. So the world asked him the crucial question. Not his question. It's question. And he answered.
And now, now the world was in a thousand pieces on the ground, trying to pick itself up again. It had shattered somewhere between the middle and the end. And it asked a thousand questions, all without answers, and the one crucial question was lost amidst the noise. But he had a new question. Still the old remained unanswered, but if the answer to the new question was no...
Happily ever after would never come.
So he sought his answer. The question was asked a thousand times to a thousand people, and all eventually lead him here.
A shattered chapel. Stained glass windows shine patches of color on the splintered pews. Here, here is where his question could be answered. Here, in front of the alter he stands. Here is where the first question would have lead him if the answer was yes.
Here is where his heart breaks if the answer he seeks is no.
And they tell him the answer will be found here. He goes back outside. A field of yellow flowers, underneath the sun. A little bit of life left in his shattered world. He almost smiles.
And then he sees her. Among the ruins of a battle.
She is lying on her back in the field, her eyes closed. She does not move.
This is the crucial question.

The Sleeper

2008-10-25T22:38:00.003-06:00

“Quiet.” The stranger held up his hand. “Peace be to you, my brethren. We are gathered.”
“Brethren?” Victoria pulled back. “We are not your...”
“We are gathered,” he repeated, interrupting her, “not to mourn, not to conquer. We are gathered simply to know.”
“Who are you? Who is this 'we' that you keep talking about?”
“We are gathered.” He kept his face turned to the ground, not opening his eyes. “You seek the sleeper, correct?”
“We do!” Galen stepped forward. “Do you know where...”
“Peace. You have sought what you do not understand. Do you truly know what you seek?”
“We seek the sleeper, the one who dreams this world into being.” Victoria responded. “The unknown element of all that drifts in and out of existence. The one thing in this world that is real.”
The stranger did not smile. “If that is so, what shall you do when you find him.”
“We shall wake him.”
“Why.”
“Why? To escape! The sleeper is what traps us here! If the sleeper awakes, than we can...”
“Escape.” The man finally smiled. “You do not understand what you ask. Escape is entirely possible. Your quest is in vain.”
“What do you mean?!” asked Galen. “We have fought our way to the deepest part of the world, and you tell us it's all been for nothing?”
“Not for nothing. We are gathered.” The stranger lifted his arms, motioned to the ethereal world around them. “Here, where ideas are the shape and substance, where everything changes and all remains the same, here at the border of darkness and light where nothing becomes everything and everything melts away; here is where we have come. Here is the world where the sleeper resides. This is his domain. And here. We Are Gathered. And now you shall know.”
The two stepped back, staring. The world around them shifted, moving inward and outward, pulsing with power at his words. Shafts of brilliant light formed out of the darkness. Color became color in it's true self, indescribable and impossible. They fought to hang onto their existence, their very being, as reality moved around them and beneath them and inside them.
And then the man spoke the words as they realized them.
“I am the sleeper.”

Listening to too much creepy music. I could've continued this, but didn't feel like it. Enjoy.

I found an acorn today.

2008-10-24T13:50:00.003-06:00

I hold an oak tree in my hands. So small, so fragile. I could crush it, and it would never be an oak tree. So easily I could crush an oak tree.
There's something special about acorns. Maybe they're only special to me, because I'm not used to them. But as I've been walking under the oak trees on my way to class this year, I can't help but look up and wonder. They're so tall! I want to climb them, and build a house up there, and not come down until dark, or maybe stay up there all night. You can't do that with a pine tree. And now their leaves are turning color and falling, and I can see the birds nests in their branches. There's at least one nest in every tree; some have as many as three or four. I want to climb up and look, and see if there are still any egg shells left in their nests. Of course, all the eggs turned into birds long ago, but bits will still be left.
I wonder if acorns leave bits behind when they turn into oak trees.

Random philosophy isn't really my thing, but it seems almost magical to me. I can hold an oak tree. That's amazing. Any one of them is easily ten, twelve times my height.
But they all started out as a seed.
I can't really get my brain to wrap around that. As much science as I've jammed into my head, I still can't fathom how something so huge could have started out as something so tiny. This thing is literally smaller than my thumb, and if I plant it, if I let it grow, it'll turn huge. I know it'll take years and years to do it, but it'll grow. A little brown nub that I could easily crush will turn into something, that if it fell, could easily crush me.
And I'm ranting. I admit it, I don't have a story to post today. And I really don't know how to express myself about this kind of stuff. But I am just amazed that God could pack an oak tree into an acorn, and I thought you all should know.

Wooden

2008-10-23T19:50:00.001-06:00

The little glass boy sits on the wooden floor, playing with his toys. Wooden toys, wooden floor. His mother watches him from atop the wooden stool, with wooden brown eyes. Wooden toys, wooden floor, wooden stool, wooden mother. Everything is wood. Except for the little glass boy, with his shining green eyes. So fragile, so weak. If she touches him, he might break.
The little wooden horse clop-clops across the floor in the little glass hand. Frail. So frail, so delicate. If she touches him, he might break.
The wooden mother thinks that she might be going mad. Her wooden mind is splintering, perhaps. For how can a mother of wood and a father of wood give birth to a child of glass?
Perhaps the child is wood. Perhaps she just can't see it yet. That must be it.
The mother turns her wooden eyes back to the brown leather in her hands. Shoes for the people, shoes for the children. Shoes for the little glass boy. Does he need glass shoes? He's so fragile; the leather might break him. The leather has never broken her; it's so hard to tell what will break her child. He's so delicate. Frail.
The little glass boy cuts his finger on the sharp edge of a nail, but he does not cry. He simply puts his glass finger in his little glass mouth and sits, still. He does not want wooden mother to worry. She worries so much. Perhaps it is because he is made of glass, and she is not.
Are all children made of glass?
Mother doesn't take him out to see the other children much, because she's afraid he'll shatter. But the other children look like wood to him, and sometimes, in the right light, he looks like wood. He's sure he could play with them, he's sure he would be safe. Maybe if he played outside, the sun would turn his glass to wood, and wooden mother would stop worrying.
Perhaps wooden mother will always see him as glass. Perhaps that is just what comes of having wooden eyes, and being a mother.

Is the kid actually made of glass, or is it a metaphor? You decide!

Go

2008-10-23T17:08:00.000-06:00

“Go.”
They stared back at him in shock. “But...”
“Go. Go on without me.”
“But the creature...” Tarei spoke up, taking a step back down towards him in the darkness.
“I can deal with the creature. I have been for years.” Frail looked downward at his tattered shoes. “Someone has to stay here and deal with it anyway.”
“But you'll be trapped here again!” Daro shouted from the top of the rope ladder. “Just come on! We'll find a way to get you out!”
“I'll be fine. Just go on without me.”
“But...” Tarei stood staring at him at the foot of the ladder. “I...”
“Go,” Frail repeated softly, staring straight at her with those incredibly green eyes of his. “I'll be fine.”
She ran to him, and before he could stop her, she embraced him, crying. “I don't want to go without you.”
He smiled, just a little, and slowly hugged her back. “I know. Shh, shh. Listen.” She was still for a moment. “I've been down here so long now. I know what it is to be alone, trust me. But I can't go back. I couldn't adapt again. I can never live among light and noise. And... As much as I'd like to be with you, I know you could never live down here. And I could never live up there. This is all I know.” He was crying too now. “I can't go with you. I'm sorry.”
They stood, crying in each others arms for a moment, before the creature's roar sounded behind them. Frail released her in an instant. “Go! I'll lead it off!”
“But...” She stood reaching after him as he ran towards the noise. “Frail!”
“Go!”
“Sis, get up here!” Daro shouted from the top of the ladder. “Now!”
The second roar was all she needed. She glanced back once more as she ran for the ladder, only to see Frail's pale form dodging the huge claws as he danced it away. The ladder swayed wildly beneath her feet as she climbed. She had almost reached the top when it jerked sharply to the right, and she almost fell. A tearing sound came from below, and she glanced down to see the creature's claws removing the bottom half of the ladder. Daro pulled her over the edge, and they stared down for a moment. The ladder had been cut off over 20 feet up the cliff. There was no way for Frail to follow them now.
But apparently there was a way for the creature to follow, for the earth shattering crunch of it's claws embedding themselves in the wall to climb shook them to their bones. Frail's voice could be heard, shouting at the creature, trying to get it's attention. He would save them.
Someday, she would come back to save him.
Another roar from the creature. They took off running. The two stumbled blindly towards the white light where their rescuers had disappeared, and burst into the sunlight, out of the humble looking mouth of the cave into which they had disappeared almost a month ago.
For a moment, they were blind. Rustling all around them alerted them to someone.
And once the world faded back into color, their parents embraced them. At last, they were home.
But someday, they'd go back. This much they knew.

Toasterface.

2008-10-18T19:04:00.005-06:00

A Memo, from the desk of Jack:
Ok, guys, this is getting ridiculous, not to mention out of hand. I mean, I understand your logic. Don't get me wrong, it's totally logical. Yes, the thing looks like a toaster. On my face. Yes, it shoots laser beams. From the mask, on my face, over my eyes. And yes, I could understand that you say I have a toaster on my face, and that I am, therefore, shooting “toaster eye beams,” thank you captain maturity. And yes, it looks ridiculous. I know. I designed the stupid thing, I should know. All that matters to me is that it works.
However.
This does not give you license to call me “Toasterman,” Toast face”, Toastereyebeam man” or any other variation on that theme that your little brains might spawn. My name is Jack. Call me Jack. Not “Toasterface,” not “the Toastinator.” Jack. Maybe Sir. Either one works.
This also implies that the bread thing was not funny the first time. And if I wake up one more time with bread taped to my face, any part of my person, or anything that belongs to me, so help me, I will find out who did it, and then I will fire your sorry rear end halfway to China. Because you work for me, remember that? I pay you to work for me. I sign your paycheck. And I, Jack the paycheck man with the toaster on his face, am calmly and collectedly, like a mature, reasonable adult, am asking you to STOP IT WITH THE BREAD. Also, the butter isn't funny either. So stop. You're only making yourself look stupid.
Sincerely,
Jack.
PS: If anyone gets the bright idea of jelly, so help me I will fire you TO THE MOON.

A brief exercise in not taking myself so seriously. Enjoy.

In the Land of the Blind...

2008-10-14T19:28:00.003-06:00

“No no no no!” He walked in just in time to catch the device before it smashed to pieces against the concrete wall. “Why isn't it working?!”
“What? What's happened?”
She looked up at him, and he stepped back in shock. Her eyes were bleeding. “It's not working! All that preparation, all that testing, all for nothing! Nothing's working! I... I... I'm blind!” He watched her, paralyzed, as she stumbled across the room. “I must be doing something wrong. I have to be doing something wrong. There's no way I could've missed something. I mean, I've been preparing for this for years! I've cured every cause! I must be doing something wrong! Ok, it'll work this time. It has to work. I'm sure it will work.” She stuck her head in the machine of which she was so proud, the machine that had brought fame and fortune to her and healing to so many millions. It whirred to life; lights flashed and the electromagnetic field pulsed through the room. One light, diagnostic complete. Two lights, course of action certified safe. Three lights...
The machine cranked to a sudden stop, sputtering smoke out the cracks. She pulled her head out, coughing, then rubbed the smoke from her eyes and stared with bleeding eyes unseeing into the room.
“No!” She kicked the machine. “No no no no no! Work! You stupid machine, you stupid stupid stupid machine! This is what you were made to do! Come on, this is stupid! What the heck is wrong with you?!”
The machine only made a noise like a truck backfiring in response.
“Fine! Fine, I don't need you! I'll find a doctor, a doctor with a certified machine! And he'll know what's wrong. He has to... I have to... There is no...” She broke down, crumpling into a heap on the floor. “No... No no no no... I don't want to be blind.... Please... Not this, not my sight! Take my hearing, leave me crippled, just... just don't... I don't want to...”
“Hey, hey, it's ok. We'll find a doctor.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “I'm sure they can do something...”
“A doctor? You think a doctor can cure this?!” She was suddenly back on her feet again. “Look at me! Look. At. Me. Every person in my family, that's every single one. All of them. They've all gone blind. Suddenly, inexplicably, without hope of a cure! And now, we all know that it's coming, we all know that someday, someday we too will lose our light, and we try, we try to stop it. But I thought... I thought that I could reverse it! I thought that I could lose it, and then take it back! That's not to say I wanted to lose it, not even for a minute did I want to lose it! I treasure my sight! You haven't noticed this?! I took advantage of every minute I had of having eyes that worked! I've been doing that for years! But... but now... It's happened to me...” She trailed off for a minute, her rage slacking away as he watched in shock. “I never really thought it would, I'd hoped it couldn't. I'm the medical genius, after all, I've cured cancer, I've cured everything. And I thought... I thought... that I'd cured blindness. But now...”
She stood silently, weeping tears of blood from unseeing eyes. And he watched, through the heavy glass lenses that he'd so often cursed, and was thankful, thankful for the first time in his life, for his own blurred vision. In the land of the blind...

It's no secret that I'm interested in blindness.(Completely blind character count: 3) I've kinda been wondering why. I think it might be that my vision is horrible and I'm afraid that someday this'll happen to me. Maybe.

The Injection

2008-10-12T15:58:00.002-06:00

They hand me the needle, as they do every day. Every day they give it to me, and every day I make my choice. They tell me the choice I should make, of course, but it's my choice whether I choose their way or my own. Their way, their way is the injection. They want me to take it, to slip back into that half-dream where all of their orders make perfect sense, and there's no reason that I'd do anything else, or want to. If I take it, the world smiles upon me, the cold steel walls are my home and all that I desire, and all that I could ever want, I already have.
I haven't taken it in a while.
I wanted to be a better soldier. I thought maybe, just maybe, I could improve myself, to be smarter, faster, more like they'd want me to be. And I realized that the injection slowed me down. So I stopped taking it. I did it for them. I wanted to follow their orders, I wanted to be the best that I ever could be.
But I started to realize. Things that I'd known were right for as long as I remember suddenly became wrong. The orders I was given stopped making sense. I went, I did, I conquered and accomplished, but I saw things. I saw things that I'd always seen, and never really noticed. I saw children, families, mothers and fathers and little babies. I saw riches, poverty, greed and generosity, and I started to realize. I saw laughter and smiles, I saw screaming faces and weeping. I saw my own hands stained with blood. I saw how the blood refused to wash away. I saw gunpowder, smoke, bullets, I saw wounds and injuries and death. I was death, I brought death. And under my faceless mask and unmarked armor, I started to realize.
I realized that something was wrong. Something was wrong with the orders that I'd taken, something was wrong with me for taking them. The injection, the injection was wrong, the drugs that they put in the food were wrong, the whole accursed UQA was wrong. ISO Industries was wrong, the doctors that were so very proud of me were wrong, and the fact that I can't remember anything of myself is wrong. That I can't remember anything that is not blood, is not war, is not death and faceless masks and guns and cold steel walls and needles that make things make sense is wrong. Everything is wrong.
And I am wrong, perhaps. My very existence. Perhaps. I don't know yet.
They hand me the needle, as they do every day. Every day they give it to me, and every day I make my choice.
My choice is not wrong.

Yay for things I wrote in ten minutes or less. Anyway, short thing about Tin. UQA is Unquestioning Army, by the way. Explanation? Maybe later.