Murdoch

Being unable to speak is an extremely frustrating thing. If she had been born that way, it might not have been so bad, but as the situation stood, she had, for the greater part of her life, been fully capable of speech. So when she suddenly found herself completely unable to make any sound more complicated than a hiss, she was rather at a loss for a good many years. And with the complete loss of her powers, too, it's not surprising that she was a tad bit helpless.
Of course, that was the plan. We thought that through rather well, I think.
Allow me to explain. I am Murdoch. I am one of the rather... well, to be honest, I'm probably the least important wizard of all who participated. Still, to be powerful enough to be included in the fifty at all is an honor, and secures my place as the greatest wizard to ever walk this land! And I'm not just saying that because the others all fly. I am powerful. Really. Quit looking at me like that.
Anyway. She is the interdimensional moderator. At least, that's what I call her. Her proper title is considerably more impressive, and considerably harder to remember. I mean, it's not like I don't remember, but anyway. It's her job to keep people like me from jumping from universe to universe, wreaking havoc, building empires, burning buildings, stealing babies... You know, that sort of thing. And she was very, very good at it. You'd be almost through the dimensional barrier, just sacrificing the seventeenth goat, when bam! No more ritual. I don't know how many goats I've lost through those portals of hers, but seriously, she's gotta have several thousand of them somewhere. And with over a hundred major dimensions under her watch, to catch everyone who tries that every time is a major achievement. Not to mention going along helping people and improving the quality of life along the way. Really, she is impressive.
The previous moderator, Jarn, wasn't half as bad as her. He would let things go, where there's no way he didn't notice, armies going through large, unstable portals and the like. He was more interested in dramatic entrances and massive rituals where millions of people bowed down to him in awe. And for the right price, he would occasionally even do it for you! Ah, the good old days.
But when he finally kicked the bucket, she was for some reason chosen as his successor. And we all laughed at the girl when she fell out of a portal on her head the first try. After Jarn's overdone lightshow of an entrance, her simple portal-open-fall-out was rather amusing. But her willingness to actually do her job more than made up for it. In her first year, she stopped almost as much as Jarn had in his entire career. You could still get away with some, because she was still learning her powers, so it wasn't so bad at first. But she got better and better at an incredible rate. Before long, you couldn't get a dagger through the dimensional veil before she was on you. And a couple thousand years of that was far too much.
And that was precisely why she had to go.
The ritual wasn't my idea. It was Lui's. (Lui Sho Reed, for those of you who're interested.) Don't call him Luigi. He really hates that. And you do not want to make him mad. He's the best, the brightest, the most powerful, and definitely the most evil. He'll steal your soul without a second thought, or just kill you, if he's feeling nice. (Very seldom is he feeling nice.) He got along really well with Jarn, probably because Jarn was absolutely petrified of him. That's how powerful he is. Virtually immortal too. I mean, everybody's got the no-aging thing going, but most of us figured it out around seventy, eighty. Him? He's in his thirties.
Anyway, enough about him. He came up with the ritual. Great idea. Basic principal: get enough of us to make all of us together more powerful than her, set a trap, get rid of the IDM. (The acronym was my idea.) Sounds simple, right? Well, it wasn't. We had to get all of us, that's fifty known dimensional offenders to the same place at the same time without her noticing. Just communicating without her picking up on it was hard enough. And to get all of us there! That was a brilliant stroke of strategy.
How, you ask, did all of us get through the barrier at the same time? Well, we didn't. Two hundred tried.
And fifty... well, forty nine made it through. I had to try twice.
Really, I am a great and powerful wizard. Seriously! I'll turn you into a newt!
Anyway. By the time we were all together, we didn't have a ton of time to plan. I mean, she knew where we were, and as soon as she was done putting the dimensional barrier (which we damaged quite badly) back together, she was coming for us. And even with that many of us, she would still kick our collective rear ends if we weren't ready the first second she showed up. Even Lui was worried, I think. But don't tell him I said that! So, we had to get ready fast. Symbols painted, check. Everyone in position, check. And when she popped up (right where we needed her! I don't know how Lui planned that, but it was amazing) we almost instantly started the ritual.
Now, at this point, you're probably expecting me to tell you how it went wrong. Shows how much confidence you have. Just so you know, we succeeded. She was completely out of our hair for almost twenty years, which, considering she'd been stopping us for a couple thousand before that, wasn't honestly that good. (What? We had almost ten thousand years with Jarn in charge. I wasn't around for that whole thing, of course, but who was? Twenty years went by like nothing.) Completely powerless, just like an ordinary human. Also, completely unable to speak, which was a major plus. It kept her from breaking the curse, and it had her scrambling to make even the most intelligent of people understand what she was trying to say. She got chased by more than one angry mob, let me tell you!
That was after, of course, she escaped from Lui. He had her imprisoned for the first year or so, just to make sure the curse was holding. And he would have kept her there too, just to keep an eye on her. (Because regardless of the curse, she was a clever one.) But she had other ideas, and so did that nifty little machine she built.
Now, keep in mind that we have no idea what universe she's originally from, nor do we know what kind of education she had there. For that matter, we don't even know her real name. At this point, I doubt she remembers it either, she's been alone for so long. (Sad, really. If she wasn't my sworn enemy, I might feel kinda bad for her.) Anyway, whatever world she's from, if that's the level of technology they have there, I'm steering clear. Cut through the dimensional barrier like butter, and Lui had no idea where she went for about three years. Amazing. And it went up in smoke five seconds after she was through. Pity, though I couldn't have figured it out for the life of me. Would've been handy.
But I, unlike Lui, knew exactly where she went. That's just how amazing I am.
No, I didn't use a magical artifact I found by sheer chance. That would be silly.
...Ok, maybe I did. But still, I think it was clever.
Anyway. I developed a system by which I could see her every move, and I've been watching her, ever since I returned home from the ritual. It would have been handy to have before, just so I could know when to hide, but it's just something interesting now. When she escaped from Lui, it started getting really interesting. Her little machine took her to an almost completely dead world. The buildings were in ruins, without a sign of life for miles. Mostly ashes. Rivers were clean, though, and the plants were doing well, so whatever happened happened a long time ago. I think she went there to take stock of her situation, and that was probably a good place to do it. Not a lot of people to not be able to talk to and all.
Anyway. Lui was a little mad, to put it lightly. And of course he went shooting through the dimensions looking for her. Eventually someone implied that he was scared (and got fried for their trouble), and he gave up looking to save face. But while he was doing that, she was building another machine. Somewhere in there she must have decided that powers or no powers, she still had a job to do. I told you she was amazing.
Or, just speculation and not at all implying that I might know something that I really don't want Lui to find out from me because he'd kill me, something just might have gone wrong with the ritual. Just a little tiny something, maybe, just a few cracks in the curse caused by a lack of consistent motivation among those who participated. Maybe just a minuscule ability to use very specific parts of her powers under extremely unlikely circumstances. Just speculating, but it might be that she encountered one of those unlikely circumstances involving a specific shape of leaf falling into an unusual bend of a small stream causing three goats to fall out of a portal looking very startled. And it could be possible that she figured out that the curse was imperfect and started dropping oddly shaped leaves into the stream until she had a healthy flock of goats to look after. Of course, I'm just speculating. Not like I saw it happen or anything. Cause that would just be silly.
I mean, the curse could never have been cracked. Our motivation was perfect. It's not like me being there because she scared the pants off of me didn't completely coincide with Tusok's desire to exact revenge for his past humilations, or Ajah's planning to play pranks on respected authority figures once she was out of the way, or Ulioh's craving for ravioli at the time. All fifty of us were completely on the same page. Really.
Just out of speculation, if everything I just postulated were true—which would be absolutely absurd, and there's no way it could happen—but if it did, in some very unlikely scenario, I would be very scared. In fact, I'd be so scared that I wouldn't try to jump between dimensions anymore. I wouldn't try to build up empires or wreak havoc. I'd probably be too scared to come out of my basement. And I'd sit here, watching her every move, just waiting for her to find me so I could beg on my knees for mercy. And I'd probably be writing this.
Because when we completed the ritual, she recognized us. She knows every one of our names. And she has to know that if she manages to get every one of us to retract the curse before the seven thousand year mark when, for seven brief minutes, her powers will be completely up for grabs, the curse will be broken.
So she's got seven thousand years to find fifty of us.
Don't mind me saying so, but my money's on her.

Easter

He is risen!

Blue

The sea was blue, calm and inviting.

It was not supposed to be this way.

The sea was supposed to be stormy, gray, hostile; it was supposed to hiss at his approach and beat the white rocks like a beast within a cage. It needed to whip him with salty spray and sting at his skin with its cold wind. It needed to roar and fight the tide for the right to overtake him, to drag him under, to destroy his fragile human self.

He needed the sea to be that way.

Instead, it welcomed him, with smiling blue eyes and the gentle crash of the waves. It stretched out long before him, meeting the sky as blue as itself with gentle white clouds and seabirds calling over him. It lulled him into a sense of perfect peace, tranquility beyond measure, a life untainted by the worries of itself.

He knew it couldn't really be this way. The sea had tricked him before, and he would not let it again.

Under the surface of perfect blue, he knew there were undercurrents, waiting for him, waiting to pull him down, down, away from the sunlight, away from the world of streets and houses, into that dark world of endless water. He'd gotten away, he wasn't going back. He wasn't going back to that life.

He'd come here to remember. To remember why he couldn't go back. He was happy here, wasn't he? Here on land, with the muddled brown and green beneath his feet and the stability that came with it. There were no changing currents here, no cold water swirling down from the north to freeze his blood. The wind was like that, certainly, but there is escape from the wind. And he'd already escaped from the water. He wasn't going back.

The sea smiled at him again, playing with the sunlight in its waves. He didn't smile back. As soon as a cloud touched the sun, he knew the blue smile would disappear, and the sea would stare at him with a gray confidence. It knew he would return.

But he wasn't going to. He wasn't going back to be pulled under and frozen in darkness, or beaten against the rocks in the rage of the storm. He felt the bruises again in his imagination, and winced. No, he couldn't go back to that. He wouldn't. The sea was wrong.

But the blue sea still smiled at him, and the birds still called. They called him, he thought. He couldn't trust them. They were a part of the sea.

But then, he was a part of the sea too. No matter how far he ran on two feet, there was still that drop of water in his heart that called him back here, time and time again, to stare at the sea and make a choice.

Could he go back?

No, never, never again. He'd made the choice before, he would do it now, too. He would simply walk away, up the wooden steps that led off the white sand, and down the road into the town. He would stay there for a day, then go further inland, further and further until he couldn't feel it anymore, the sea pulling on his heart like gravity on his feet. And then he would be free, he'd be free finally. He could laugh again, smile again, live again. And never come back.

Was that what he really wanted? To never come back? Yes, yes, that was it! Never, ever would he come back to watch the seagulls swoop over the waves or watch the fish leap out of the water. Never again would he watch the brilliant orange sunset as the sun touched the water, and faded into inky twilight. Never again would he see the sea exhaust itself in storm, and caress those that it had bruised and broken in its waves until they were healed. Never.

This was not what he wanted.

He stared at the sea for a while longer. No. He would not go back. He would run forever, run until he couldn't feel it anymore, run until the blue in his heart and his eyes turned to brown and green, like those born to walk the earth. He would run until there was no saltwater running through his veins, until it was dirt and mud and stone. Until he was one of them, fully and completely, born of land and not of sea.

This was not what he wanted.

A hint of laughter, a splash, a sense of himself in another. She was here. He stood abruptly on feet that should not have been there and stared into the sea. Where, where, where? She was here!

She smiled at him from beneath the waves. He didn't smile back, and she darted away. He reached out his hand to call to her, then stopped, and sat back down.

He knew what he didn't want.

So what did he?

He wanted freedom. But was there freedom in running forever, in constantly staying away from where his heart longed to go? No, no there wasn't. As long as he lived, the sea would still have some part of him, whether he wanted it nor not. Was there freedom in giving in, in letting himself become himself and accepting that?

Yes.

He moved to the water's edge and stared down into it. The sea was smiling above the white sand, turning everything beneath it a crystal shade of blue. It stopped just short of his feet, and as the tide fell back, his heart went with it.

That was what he wanted.

He left his shoes on the beach as he walked into the water, feeling its summer warmth wrap around him. He didn't flinch as the water got deeper, deeper still, gradually accepting him back without condition. And he smiled, actually smiled for the first time in such a long time as the water rushed over his head, playing in his hair. The sea still knew him. The facade fell away and he became himself again.

He belonged here. This was what he wanted.

Serial Killer Dream

Ok, so last week I had a dream about a guy who somehow became a serial killer. I think it was because he was tortured, but it had something to do with water. He was convinced that "Life is the Deception." He only used his hands to kill people, and sometimes rope, and he never killed them while they were still conscious. And he always killed people in shallow water. Anyway, most of the time he wasn't aware that he was a serial killer. He was the nicest guy you could hope to meet when he wasn't in serial killer mode.

Anyway, he tried to kill this girl, but she somehow got away and left her hands behind. This made nice-guy (no, he doesn't have a name) suspicious and he went to a house in the mountains with a lot of other people. Anyway, it turned out that some of them were killers too, though they didn't have the "Life is the Deception" thing going on. So nice guy was taking out the trash (Gatorade bottles) with two of the other killers (though he didn't know they were killers yet) when the other two flung the bottles down the hill for no good reason and ran off.

Nice guy went to pick up the bottles and found a shallow stream at the bottom of the hill. Somehow this triggered a memory and he even more strongly began to suspect that there was more to him than he remembered. Anyway, his whole life he'd seen these dvd cases with people on them but nothing in them. He finds one with one of the two that ran off on it and decides to ask him about it after he throws the gatorade bottles away. The bottles are scattered all over the hill so it takes him a while to find them all and he finds a few more dvd cases, all having people from the house on them and numbers.

Then he finally throws away the gatorade bottles and finds his way to a smaller house in the trees where he finds a dvd case with his own picture on it and the number 9. The two that ran off come in and one of them is #8, so nice guy shows him the dvd cases and #8 seems startled and demands an explanation. The other guy, #5, goes back out and other people start coming in. All of them are the killers on the empty dvd cases and one girl, #4, shows that she has a superpower, the power to shrink. (her name was Mini or something like that.)

It turns out that all of the others have a superpower, and that nice guy is the only one with the killing amnesia. Also, the girl that he tried to kill turns out to be #2, with the power to regrow body parts, so she has hands again. She hasn't killed anyone (or at least she doesn't remember it) and she confirms that nice guy does, in fact, kill people. He's quite devastated by this. So then all nine of them are wondering what nice guy's power is, and all eight look at him expectantly. But then I woke up.

Technology

The problem with technology getting smaller is that it is simultaneously getting more expensive and easier to lose.
Take my iPod for example. It cost about $200 for 80 gigs. Not long ago, that thing would have been the size of a computer. Not very portable, but on the plus side, pretty easy to keep track of. As it is, I think I spend more time looking for the dumb thing than I do using it.
Another example: my cell phone. Don't know how much that cost, but that doesn't keep me from losing it every three days, just as soon as it runs out of battery. Again, I spend more time looking for it than I spend using it.
Now, I know that an iPod that you couldn't take with you would be about as useless as a cell phone tied to a wall, but an iPod you can't take with you is more useful than an iPod you can't find. A cell phone you can't find is pretty much useless too.
Maybe I should just get organized or something.

Black

There was never a night so black as the night of the invasion.

I was a soldier then, convinced that my country could do no wrong. I was young, almost in love. Almost, not quite. Not enough to keep me from enlisting at any rate. I knew that I would have to fight, that men would die. That was what happened in war. I knew that I might die. It didn't seem to matter so much, somehow. I don't think I knew what death was. I don't think any of us did. Death is something that resents being pinned down.

There was never a night so black. Trust me.

I was a soldier, in the prince's own squadron. I'd shown exceptional skill with a sword, they told me, and so I received this honor. I would be on the front lines, taking no prisoners, with glory ripe and ready for the taking. I knew that I would kill someone. I knew that I would kill a lot of people. But they were the enemy. They were more beasts then men. At least, that's what they told us.

Stars haven't seen a night so black as that. Even they hid their faces.

I was a soldier. I was a good guy. I was a hero.

I never realized I was an enemy as well.

Black. Only black. No moon, no stars, just black.

He was a soldier. He was the enemy. I should have killed him. I knocked his sword to the ground, held my sword to his throat, smiled. Why did I smile?

Why did he?

Black skies, black smoke from the oily torches. Black swords, black smiles.

I was a soldier. I had to do it. He was a soldier. He was the enemy. I could kill him, I would kill him!

So why did he smile?

Black hearts.

I was a soldier. Soldiers kill people. He was a soldier. He killed people. He would kill me. I could kill him. I should kill him. I was a soldier. I smiled to kill people.

He smiled to be killed.

I killed him.

There was never a night so black as the night of the invasion.

I don't smile anymore. I know what death is. It resents being pinned down, but you can pin it down regardless. And it smiles at you. It smiles because as you pin it down, it takes something from you. It takes something you can never take back.

I was a solder. I killed again. I became a hero, a good guy, with glory beyond what I could dream. But it doesn't mean anything. I don't smile anymore.

But he smiles. He smiled as he died. I don't know his name, I don't know his past.

All I know is he smiled. And I killed him. He still smiles as I suffer.

When I die, I shall smile.

There was never a night so black.

A bit darker than usual, I'm afraid. I started typing and this is what came out this time. Enjoy.

Phantom Club

November gets no posts. Feel sorry for it. Anyway, here's some writings by me.

Blind could feel the last rays of sunlight on his back as he crouched on the edge of the building, listening to the sounds of the twilight city below. He was quite sure that the sunset behind him was beautiful, everyone would certainly tell him it was. He didn't really know, though. He'd never seen one.

He knew how the sun warmed his skin, and how the shadows of the buildings cast patches of coolness through the city. He knew the cold feeling of the metal beneath his fingertips as the warmth of the day dissipated into the chill air. He knew how the birds called among themselves that the day was gone, he knew how traffic dwindled from it's great roar of the daytime to near-silent whispers of the lone car heading home, he knew how the city itself seemed to sigh as it celebrated the release of sleep.

All this he knew.

He was just frustrated that he couldn't see the stupid thing, that's all.

Everyone had told him about it, and he was certain that they'd done a wonderful job, but it really didn't help to tell him about the way that the brilliant orange melted into the midnight blue of the sky when he didn't know what orange was. And really, how could he expect them to describe orange? It was... Well, orange. Not much help.

Of course, this shortcoming hadn't stopped him from writing about sunsets. Some of his best lyrics had been about sunsets. He'd written about the clouds that billowed around the dying sun, about the first dance of the silver stars in the inky twilight. He wrote about things he didn't know, he sang about things he'd never seen.

But he wouldn't be singing tonight. Tonight was not a night for Jay Kilsinger, but rather a night for DJ Sightless. And DJ Sightless never sang. Too bad.

Yeah, it's shorter than usual. And I didn't number it. But since I'm pretty sure nobody reads this, you'll live.

Fractals

So Recently I've started rendering fractals on my computer. Just for fun. I have no intention of putting them on an art site or anything. But here's a couple of my favorite ones, just for the sake of someone besides me seeing them. Assuming someone besides me reads this blog.

My very favorite isn't here, cause it's too big for blogger to upload. I might post it someday, though.

Defiant Chapter 3

“So,” Cain said with a smile that would reassure a vampire, “I understand that it's you gentlemen who saw the phantom?”

Surveyors One, Two, and Three, better known as Jim, Carlson, and Edward, looked at him from their hospital beds. “Um... Yes,” said Jim.

“Who are you?” asked Carlson.

“And why do you have a loaded rifle?” Edward chimed in.

“All in time, my friends. As for now, just think of me as the creepy man with a rifle in your hospital room who's going to ask you questions. You're going to answer them.” Cain enjoyed scaring people, and this was a prime opportunity. “Right?”

After a moment's hesitation all three chorused, “Right.”

“So exactly what do you want to know?” asked Jim hesitantly.

“For starters, where did you see it?”

“In the west side of the forest, slightly south of the hidden trail head we found a few months back. He... I mean, the phantom, hadn't been seen there before, so we figured we'd be alright,” said Carlson.

“Wrong...” muttered Edward.

“You say the phantom is a he?” Cain focused his attentions on Carlson, but Jim answered instead.

“Yeah. Me and Ed got a better look then Carlson did, cause we started running later.”

“Hey, he was scary! Leaping out of a tree in a cloak the color of blood, and then just standing there, staring...”

“Hey, you took off almost before he started coming at us! For all we knew, he could've just been some random dude... In a cloak... Leaping out of trees... With freakish red spirals all over half of his face... Ok, so he probably wasn't normal,” Ed conceded.

“Anyway. He's a guy phantom, or whatever. Not a normal human. As Ed mentioned, he had freakish red spirals on the left half of his face.”

“ Red spirals?” questioned Cain. “You do realize that your story contradicts the wraith-like-tortured-spirit face story we've been getting up until now.” They shrugged. “Ok, back to the spirals. Just that made him not human?”

“Well, that and the flying. I swear he was flying.” Carlson interjected.

“Oh, not the whole 'It flew, It flew!' thing again. Are you sure it was flying?” Cain glared and fingered his rifle as he spoke. “Because this will go much easier if your story follows the laws of physics.”

“Hey, no need for violence.” Edward held up his hands, one of which was in a cast. “We're just telling you what we saw. The guy might not have been flying, but it looked a heck of a lot like it.”

“Ok, start from when you first saw the phantom.” Cain sighed.

“Well... We heard a voice when we were just heading down the trail, minding our own business...”

“And mercilessly mocking Carlson,” interjected Carlson.

“We were not merciless,” muttered Edward.

“Boys?” Cain tapped his fingers on the rifle. “I only need one of you to tell this story.”

“Um... Boys?”

Carlson made a face at Edward, then caught Cain's glare. He shrank back. “Shutting up now.”

Edward smiled. “Phantom tree, Carlson, Phantom tree...” Cain relocated the glare. Edward flinched. “Joining him.”

“Thank you,” said Cain, then motioned to Jim again. “Continue.”

“Well... We were minding our own business, mocking Carlson about believing in the phantom and all...” Jim paused and sent an apologetic look to Carlson, who smiled an I-told-you-so type of smile. “Headed towards where Edward thought he'd heard something. And I'd just said that if we saw the phantom, then I'd believe it exists, flying red ghost all the way. Just then, the thing did a front flip out of a tree ahead of us and landed about 40, 45 feet away, with this billowing red cloak thing swirling around it. Honestly, it was almost sorta cool.”

“And you almost sorta wet yourself,” interrupted Carlson with a grin.

“Look who's talking.” Edward said, dissipating Carlson's smile.

“Guys, now is not the time...” Jim was watching Cain.

“Gentlemen...” Cain's voice carried a warning tone in it. “There's two bullets in my rifle and three of you. As I mentioned before...”

“Um... Yes. Being quiet is a wonderful thing, with many redeeming qualities! Boy I sure do love being quiet, it's one of my favorite things, and...”

“We're going to practice right now! Yes, right now! Why don't we just let Jim get on with telling the scary rifle man the story now.”

“Anyway! After the billowing cloak thing, he just sorta stood there and watched us for a moment, and I told the boys that...”

“Wait, it sorta stood there? How can it sorta stand there?”

“Well, it's just the way he was standing. He looked ready to move, almost like he was moving already, like he was just waiting for us to run before he started chasing us. And he pointed at us, like he was accusing us of something... Of course, when we didn't run right away, he just leapt into the air, about ten feet high, coming towards us, and... Well...”

“We screamed like little girls and ran.”

“Very fast little girls. Manly ones.”

“Yeah,” Jim shrugged. “Pretty much.”

Hey! It's a new chapter! That has been written for like, a month now! Feel free to critique.

Random quotes

Yeah, I should post more often. But I'm fairly sure nobody reads this, so it doesn't really matter.
RANDOM'D!

“I sleep in the anti-computer box. See over there? It's entirely made of not computer.”

"So maybe this was mostly my fault."
"Mostly?"
"Well... Yeah."
"How is it not entirely?"
"...You didn't stop me?"

“I would, except that at some point it becomes much more interesting to set things on fire rather than eating them.”

Hamlet.

You know you're really, truly tired when you can say "Gardening is the theme of Hamlet!" and mean it. And you say it in such a way that it reminds you of Phoenix Wright, with the pointing and the fire of justice in your eyes, and you feel that you have totally shot down your opponent and they will never, ever be able to prove otherwise. Not with their silly theories about revenge being the theme. Gardening is totally the theme of Hamlet. And I don't believe you if you say otherwise. And do you know why?
Because it's midnight, and I'm almost done with an essay about Hamlet. I get the feeling that I'll turn this in tomorrow, and the teacher will say, "Well, the first part is good, but I get the feeling that during your conclusion, you just started making stuff up." And then, I will look her in the eye, and say with the fiery conviction of justice, "Yes. Yes I did." And then gardening is the theme of Hamlet. Cause I can prove it.

Defiant Chapter 2

“Sir?” The young man watched nervously as the bounty hunter pulled a long, black rifle barrel out of the box.

“Yes?” responded the man, in a walking-on-thin-ice tone that made his employer's representative jump.

“We just wanted to let you know that the phantom has been spotted...”

“Phantom?” he interrupted, without looking up. He looked down the barrel, and snapped it onto the rifle as he continued. “You seriously believe there's a phantom.”

“Well, we don't quite know... I mean... Um... Well, yes.”

“A phantom. As in, ghost? As in ectoplasm and the disembodied spirits of dead people? Or is it more of a hobgoblin, some sort of mysterious monster, a creature yet undiscovered by science?” Cain LeStram looked the man in the eye. “Let's get something straight. Whatever is in that forest, it's not a phantom.”

“But sir...”

“Well, I don't quite care what it is,” came another voice. Both men looked up to see a man in a gray suit walking down the shattered sidewalk towards them. “We're paying you to shoot it.”

“Now that I fully intend to do,” said Cain, leaning the rifle against the truck. “You'll have yourself a dead whatever soon enough.”

“Mr. Miller! What are you doing here... I mean, I can take care of this, Sir. You didn't really have to come down.”

“I'm fine, Brant. I wanted to speak to Mr. LeStram myself. You can go.” Mr. Miller adjusted his tie as he spoke. “If you really need something to occupy your time, I'm sure the janitorial staff could use some help.”

“No Sir. I have plenty to do Sir. I'll go now Sir.” Brant backed away before half walking, half fleeing up the hill towards his small black car, which currently looked fairly meek next to the elegant limousine that had pulled up next to it.

“What's with him?” asked Cain, pointing a dirty thumb in the direction Brant had fled.

“Chronic Lackey Syndrome,” responded Mr. Miller with a chuckle. “Symptoms include mindless obedience, over the top respect, and power ties. Fairly common, I'm afraid.”

“Ah.” Cain smiled. “Is it deadly?”

“Not particularly. Completely incurable, though.”

“Too bad.” Cain coughed a bit and leaned against his pickup truck. “But I suppose you didn't come down to talk about him.”

“No. There's been another report of the phantom.”

“Phantom?”

“Yes, yes, I know. It's completely ridiculous. But let's just call it that for the sake of clarity, alright?”

“Hey, you're the boss. You say phantom, we go with phantom. So what did it do this time?”

“Badly scared three surveyors. They reported that it actually came out of the trees and attacked them.”

“You sure it isn't one of the 'it flew, it flew, we saw it' reports that you get so often?”

“Quite. They report that it actually touched the ground, and one claims he saw it's face.”

“Well, the face thing is nothing new, but the touching the ground thing we might want to look into. Nobody's reported that before, am I right?”

“Correct. They're in the hospital building at the main camp if you wish to speak to them.”

“Hospital? Don't tell me the thing actually attacked them.”

“I doubt it. From what I've been told, one or more of them fell while he was running. He's fairly scratched up. I didn't pay much attention to that part.”

“So I'll go have a chat with the surveyors,” said Cain with a grin, “and we'll find out what they saw.” He put the rifle into the back of the pickup and pulled out his keys. “You want me to follow up on whatever?”

“Yes. Please do.” Cain climbed into the tattered leather drivers seat and slammed the door shut, but opened the window when his employer continued. “Also, if you find the phantom, I don't particularly care for it alive.”

“Already understood. You pay me to kill things.” Cain rolled the window up and drove off.

“You don't have to put it that way,” muttered Mr. Miller. “But at least he's direct.”

'Ello everyone! I had this written a long time ago! I just never bothered to post it. But now, you all can read it! And critique it! Or whatever! But seriously, feedback of any sort is appreciated.

The Phantom Club (Chapter 1)

“Look out!”

The crowd scattered as a volley of EMS fire ricochet down from the level above. The man who'd fired the gun stepped to the edge and grinned. The silver logo on his red jacket shone in the light shed by the neon signs around him and the beams of sunlight that made their way through the tangle of silver buildings high above. He raised his gun to fire again. What to shoot, what to shoot...

A beam from an FL-2 singed his hair and he turned his attention to his opponent. A man in a yellow jacket looked back at him from behind dark sunglasses, wearing the same grin he'd had a second ago.

“Hello, lead head,” said the leader of the Delve gang with a grin. “How's life with the Bolts treating you?”

“Oh, fine, fine. They pay much better than you ever did, Emmit. Cooler jacket, too.”

“Really.” The grin disappeared, then came back with a vengeance. “And I suppose you shooting at innocent pedestrians is another benefit?”

“No, I did that with you guys too.” He shrugged. “But when have you ever cared about that?”

“An excellent point. I might consider doing the same. But first...” Emmit raised the FL-2 again and aimed it at his head. “I've got some business to take care of.”

The cafe-goers stared as the lifeless body thumped onto the street.

“Now...” He stared down at the lower level. “Where was I?”

The remnants of the crowd scattered as beam after beam found it's way into their midst. Emmit grinned as he pulled out a targeting scope from his jacket pocket and fitted it on his weapon. “Now lets see... who wants to die?”

A business man hiding under a table caught his eye, then a homeless man half hidden in an alleyway. Finally he settled on a little girl trying to find her mommy. “Don't worry, little girl, you won't be lost for long,” he whispered to himself.

A flash of black dashed through the corner of his eye. Three seconds later, a shroud whipped itself over his face and his gun was wrested from his hand. He looked up to see the edge of the black cape flying backwards. A grinning white mask stared at him with dark eyes. The figure landed on a railing, balanced perfectly. It tilted its head to one side and held up his weapon for him to see. It examined the gun for a moment, then placed it's hand on the setting dial. Three clicks to the left; did that make the beam weaker or stronger? Emmit couldn't remember.

The grinning figure raised the gun, aiming it at him in the same manner he'd used only a second ago. It cocked it's head and held up three gloved fingers. Two fingers. One. He turned and ran. A pulsing beam met the sidewalk two inches away from his foot. He ran faster, turning a corner and disappearing through the smoky doorway of a bar.

A cheer rose from the crowd below. “Phantom! Phantom!” The figure turned and stared down at the crowd. It raised one hand, gave a small wave, then bowed. It then examined the weapon in it's other hand.

The barrel of the gun broke with a sharp crack as the phantom struck it against the metal rail. It examined the remnants, then threw them over the railing. They landed in a trash can near the edge of the square.

The crowd continued cheering. “Thief! Thief!” Not an accusation; instead, the word was a name.

The one called Thief nodded it's head to them, the black fedora dipping over it's eyes, then leapt into the air, landing on a wall and leaping to another until the black-cloaked figure finally disappeared into a patch of shadow.

All was silent for a moment, then the businessman came out from under the table. The homeless man resumed his street corner. The little girl ran to her mother's open arms.

Everyone returned to their normal business, except for the two police officers who removed the body. But then, that was their normal business.

High above the square, Thief watched, impassive behind the grinning mask.

What's this? Another story? Indeed it is! And there's gonna be more of this one too. Critique please!

Defiant (chapter one)

“Why me?”

“Why not?” Marci smiled as she pulled out another makeup pencil. “We need a phantom, and you're the best one for the job.”

“Is that purple? No. No purple. And no, I'm not. Couldn't you do it?”

“Last I checked, I couldn't do back flips out of nowhere and swim half the waterforest without coming up for air. You're doing it.” She dug through the bag, looking for a non-purple pencil. “How about this one?”

“Marci...” Terry trailed off, then started again. “That's bright pink.”

“So?”

“Well, for one, I don't wear pink. And for two, we want this to be sorta actually intimidating, right?”

“Fine, fine, be that way. No pink.” Marci sighed and looked up at the spattering of treetops high above their heads. Sunlight filtered between the branches and reflected off the interconnected pools of water that surrounded them. She brushed her black hair out of her face and looked back down at him. “So what should we use then?”

“I don't know! This wasn't my idea.”

“Yes it was.”

“The red sheet on a string was my idea. And it worked, too. It's kept them off, hasn't it?” Terry watched suspiciously as she started digging through the bag again.

“And now they've sent in a bounty hunter to kill the red sheet. You know what happens if he kills the red sheet?”

“I don't get shot?”

“No, then they figure out that there never was a phantom, and move ahead with the whole thing, and then we all get shot.” She pulled a lemon yellow pencil out of the bag and began examining it.

“And if he shoots me, that happens anyway.”

“Come on, you can dodge anything!”

“When was the last time you saw me do a bullet?”

She paused, pencil in hand. “Well, ok, you can dodge most of anything. Still a better chance then the red sheet.” Back in the bag went the yellow pencil.

“Fine, fine. So I have to be the phantom. I have come to terms with this. Getting shot now vs getting shot later, what's the difference?”

“That's the spirit!” she said enthusiastically. “Let's see... You'll be wearing red to match the red sheet, so...” She pulled a pencil out again and waved it in the air triumphantly. “Red! Hurrah!”

“Fine. Red. I can deal with red. It'll match the blood when I get shot.”

“Ooh, now there's an idea!” She smiled, making him intensely nervous.

“What, shooting me?”

“No, silly, blood! We do the whole thing in the color of blood!”

“That's slightly morbid...” he said hesitantly.

“You're a phantom, for crying out loud. Phantoms are not particularly happy people. Morbid is what they do.”

“I thought random terror was what they did.”

“Morbid and random terror go hand in hand,” she offered. “Maybe we could make you some sort of corpse with blood all over.”

“Can we please not do blood? Or corpses?”

“Fine. We'll just do the whole cursed-phantom thing that we've been going with since we started the red sheet.”

“Thank you.”

“You're very welcome. Now hold still and I might not poke your eye out.” She put the pencil to his face and started drawing.

“Are you sure...”

“No talking!” she interrupted. “Hold still. And yes, I'm sure you have to be the phantom. I'm also sure of what I'm doing, sure of the fact that it has to be done now, and sure that you'll be fine. If all goes well, he won't even get to see all my hard work. Pity.”

He sat helplessly silent as she drew spirals on his face.

“Hmm... You think I should go with more of a tribal curse thing or an elegant curse thing? Don't answer that. On second thought, hold up one finger for tribal curse and two for elegant curse. How would I even do an elegant curse, I wonder... Wait, I know! Ok, nevermind. We're going with elegant curse. I think I'll only do one side of your face. That'll make you seem only slightly cursed, and if you're part human, he might be less likely to blow your brains out. Not that I'm saying that that'll happen, of course, but if it does, we want to be prepared, right? Right!” She sat back and looked at her work for a moment while he tried not to move. “That should do it.”

He sighed. “I'm assuming I can talk now?”

“Wait, no, it needs something. Stay there for a second.” She leapt to her feet and sprinted up the trail, over and under the huge clumps of roots and around the sharp turns without slowing down. He sighed and looked at his reflection in a pool of water. His white hair framed his pale face, making the red-brown spirals and dots stand out even more. His green eyes sparkled with electric reflections as he made a few faces, just to see what it would look like. Not particularly scary, but then, she'd said she wasn't done.

“Terry!” She sprinted back down the trail, panic in her brown eyes. “They're here!”

“Who?” he asked cautiously.

“Them! The outsiders! They're headed this way!”

“You mean the bounty hunter?”

“No, no, not him, the scouts! The surveyors!”

“We've gotta set up the red sheet,” he stated. “We'll just have to hope we can do it in time.”

“There is no time! Besides, we never set up a wire along here! You'll have to go!”

“What? Me? I can't!”

“You have to! Whatever happened to coming to terms with this?”

“But I'm not ready!”

“You're ready enough, just stay far away enough that they can't see details. They're almost here!”

“I'm wearing green!”

That stopped her for half a second. Then she pulled the sheet from her backpack and practically threw it at him. “Wear this!”

“What? How?”

“As a cloak!” She grabbed it from him, threw it over his head and pulled it around his neck, tying it in a tight knot. “Now get over there!”

“But...”
“Hey, I thought I heard voices!” came a shout from a ways down the trail.

“Go!” said Marci in a whisper one last desperate time before she leapt into the pool. He knew she'd surface some thirty feet away, safe in a clump of roots.

“Fine.” He some of the slack of the red sheet over his head like a hood and started climbing the nearest tree. From a branch high above, he could see the trail until it twirled around a pool of water and disappeared behind one of the ridges in the landscape. Three men made their way along the winding path. He gulped. All three carried rifles.

Terry made his way carefully from tree to tree until he was close enough to hear what they said.

“Oh, look, a root! Scary root, scaaaary!” Guy number one pulled back in mock horror.

“Ha hah, very funny.” Guy number two was not amused.

“Oh no, a tree! It must be a phantom tree! Fear the phantom tree!” Guy number three followed number one's example.

“No seriously, you guys are hilarious.” Still not amused.

“How will we ever survive the attack of the phantom tree? We're doomed!”

“Ok, ok, you've had your fun. Can you please let it drop now?”

“No. But seriously, you need to relax. There is no phantom.” Number one grinned. “A flying red ghost? Please.”

“Hey, there have been seventeen reports of this thing. Seventeen. Not to mention the equipment malfunctions...”

“It breaks just as much on a normal basis. You know that just as well as we do,” Three added.

“I'm telling you, there's something seriously wrong with this place. Never mind the secrecy, the weird shipments, the executive directors dropping by every three days; there's something here. In the forest.”

“What, the phantom tree?”

“You know that's not what I mean.”

“Look, we'll make a deal,” said One. “If we see the phantom, then fine, he's real. Flying red ghost all the way. But if we don't see him today, than he's not real. People are making stuff up. And then you promise to stop freaking out, ok?”

“Fine.”

“Here goes nothing...” Terry did a front flip out of the tree and landed about forty feet in front of them, red cloak billowing around him. He hoped they'd see him.

They did. One and Three simply stared, while Two backed away saying, “Oh no, we're gonna die, we're gonna die...”

Terry slowly raised his left arm and pointed straight at them, wordless.

“Calm down, man, we don't know if this is the phantom or not. He's not flying. He's just standing there.” Three was trying to save face.

If it was flying they wanted, it was flying they would get. Terry burst into a leaping run, taking in nearly ten feet to a stride.

“He's flying! He's flying!” Two turned and did a pretty good imitation of flying himself, flying back down the trail. One and Three, forgetting their mockery for a moment, followed him at a slightly lower altitude. All three were screaming.

Terry followed them for about a quarter mile before he stopped. He watched them flee over a ridge, waited a moment, then turned back. He wasn't dead yet. That was generally a good sign.

“Told you it would work.” Marci poked her wet head out from behind a tree as he passed by. “That was so much better than the red sheet.”

“I still don't like it,” he muttered.

“Neither did they.” She smiled a smile that made him nervous. “The red cloak thing is clearly something we need to keep, and we'll keep working on your curse. I don't think the green will go over so well, though. That needs to be red too, I think.”

He sighed. “I can deal with red.”

I wrote this the other day, so I thought I'd post it. Critique please!
And yes, there will probably be more. Wheee.

Happy Easter!

He is risen!

Spammers vs Me with a flaming death spatula: Who will win?

Well, recently I've become an administrator of a not-too-active forum. My job: delete spam posts. How long my job takes: way too long. Like, half an hour whenever I go to the board. Given that there's like, three regular posts vs the forty or so spam posts, it's a bit frustrating. It's more frustrating for the people who don't have the magical flaming death spatula of admin power with which to delete these posts, but still, it's annoying. So please, if you know someone who spams, hit them with a spatula for me. Hit them hard, and several times. Feel free to upgrade your spatula to a tenderizing mallet, or perhaps a whole microwave if they're the kind that just puts links to dubious medicines in their posts. You'll be making the world a better place.

Free Verse

This is not a poem.

Free Verse,

which is prose,

is what this is.

This has no rhyme.

This has no meter.

How could this be

Poetry?

It's not.

And if you think it is,

Prove it.

I don't believe you.

This is but

Broken Fragments

Strung along a page,

ink on paper,

hardly even there.

This is not a poem.

Poems ebb

and flow like water

from the mountains to the sea.

This halts,

stopping and starting,

like a butterfly among flowers.

But, of course,

it's not like that,

because that would be poetic.

This isn't.

This is not a poem.

Poetry rhymes

and sounds complete

because it is.

But this

sounds broken

incomplete

like a puzzle with half the pieces missing

but, of course,

it's not like that,

because that would be poetic.

This isn't.

This is not a poem.

Poetry has stanzas,

meter, clear devisions

things to make it

make sense.

All this has

is broken thoughts

inconsistency

like a great cloud blown by the wind.

But, of course,

it's not like that,

because that would be poetic.

This isn't.

This is not a poem.

Don't tell me that it is.

I don't believe you.

Switzerland?

So I've started getting college spam. Lots and lots of college spam. You know, the "more emails in a day than you've gotten in your entire life until now" kind of spam.
I think it's because of my SAT score... That would explain Stanford, MIT, and Westminister, anyway. But I got this one from Switzerland. They told me that we live in an increasingly global world, which makes sense until you think about it. And then they told me that I should go to Switzerland and attend college there. Also, Switzerland is apparently the gateway to Europe. I thought the airport was the gateway, but hey, that's just me.

Cripes

"Hey, it's not that bad. When I first got here, I almost got eaten by cripes," said Reed with a shrug.
"You keep talking about cripes, and yet you still refuse to explain what they are," complained David, keeping a wary eye on Luxor as she fired up a welding torch.
"What sort of questions do you have about them?"
"Well, for starters, what are they?"
"We're pretty sure they're reptiles, but they move too fast for us to tell definatively."
"How fast can they go?"
"Faster than anything Luxor's invented thus far. Which would make it...." He counted on his fingers for a moment. "About the speed of sound."
David sat in stunned silence for a moment. "You're kidding."
"Nope. They're really, really fast."
"And they eat people?"
"They eat anything. Well, anything that wanders into their territory. We marked the danger zone a while back."
"So how'd you get away?"
"We're talking about cripes, not me. Any other questions?"
"Yeah... Why'd you call them cripes?"
"It's the least offensive thing anyone's ever said upon encountering one."
"Ah." David pondered that for a minute. "What do they look like?"
"Blurs. Deadly ones."
"Any way to tell if one's coming?"
"If your arm is suddenly missing, there's one nearby."
David winced. "So I should avoid those then?"
"Probably," Reed admitted with a casual shrug, then gestured towards Luxor. "Weren't you keeping an eye on her?"
Luxor casually tossed another stick of dynamite onto the pile of scrap metal and explosives, then lit the welding torch again. "Blastoff in five, four, three...."
Reed ducked under the table. "You should probably hide."
David didn't argue.

DPC?

So I might have won the DPC. Or I might have lost. I'm not entirely sure. If Dana got disqualified for not posting on the twenty third, I won. If he didn't, I lost. And he didn't post on the twenty third, but he says that was a computer problem. Oh well. I don't particularly care anyway.
In other news, markers are awesome. As is LaserQuest, where I get to go today!