Blindfold the New Year?

I serve the tea of certainty
On the distant lakes of sand
Where grow the flowers of the hours
Slipped through Fortuna’s hand

But why? They asked a bit too fast
A daring move for sure
So threw I them a two and ten
But still they wanted more

The time is nigh said calmly I
And tapped my wrist for measure
To wit, they said and we ate bread
Then parted ways with pleasure

--

We have not quite yet passed the post where Janus sits, but it's Monday so what can I do? Happy New Year! At least this way you have a couple days to solve this poem before the ball drops.

An Alternate Ending

And then the house exploded. Shrapnel rained down upon us as the story ceased to make any sense. The alien mother ship, having lain dormant in the ground for a thousand years rose up out of the wreckage in accordance to some Mayan prophecy, its lasers flying. I barely dove out of the way as a green and red beam struck our tree. It burst into flame. I raised a fist in the air declaring that somebody would rue this day and my father pounded his hands on the ground in defeat. We had been so close to having nothing go wrong… so close to a story free of anything ridiculous happening… so close to the deadline before the author went insane.
--

Ever wonder what authors do when they come to a point in the story where they are not sure how best to continue? Suddenly encountering writers block in the middle of a story is no fun, but sometimes it can be made into fun. Thus this little sample.

If my school had a class on how to procrastinate I'd be willing to bet I could pass even if I never got around to doing the homework. Yes, I'm that good at it. The hazard of this when you have a major writing assignment is time and the large crunching noise you get when your procrastination slams you into it at top speed.

And since it's best to actually have my long rambles end up at a destination to keep them coherent, this snip is a combination of writers block and a time crunch. See, I can't really tell you how other writers handle the block, but my method is to just keep writing anyway. Did I take into account that the story this sprung off of was non-fiction? Nope, not at all.

Oh, and Merry Christmas. If you're wondering where the Christmas theme is in this... well the non-fiction story was about my family going to get a Christmas tree. It's really just too long to stick on this blog though. If I split it up we'd all be reading it until the snow surrendered to the tulips.

Things Unowned

Grass, blanketed in snow, sings of dewdrops from Heaven,

Long since have the arrows of birds pierced the sky,

Frogs, deep in the great sleep of hibernation,

Dream of warm tranquil waters, now a lie,

Trees, their arms outstretched, collect the silver lining of the clouds,

While the sky, blazing with new light entrenches,

The horizon, an illusion hidden by mounds of stone,

Peaked by ice sculptures viewed only from natural benches,

Horizontal logs, now recushioned by unbroken softness,

Rekindled glory to the fallen that once paid the toll,

A king of unrealized royalty is one, who leaves these things untouched,

Realizing that the things unowned are what make the world beautiful.

--

Don't tell anybody this, but I nearly forgot it was Monday. After a quick shuffle through some of my old stuff I happened upon this poem. Seems to fit the season nicely. This wasn't a past assignment or anything like a number of some of my previous 'dated' postings have been, more of something I wrote because I was in the mood to write something. I experimented with form a bit here too. I was writing poetically rather than writing a poem, though the end result is about the same.

Project Asclepius

The cell phone hummed again. Gary turned the faucet handle and shook the still clinging moisture from his hands into the sink. He scanned the number.

“Same as before,” Gary mumbled and then jabbed at the power button, holding it down. The phone closed with an irritated flip and he slid it back into his pocket. “Well, there’s my temporary solution.”

“If you’re going to do that there’s no reason to even bring one.” Don said. “Anyway, I’ll go ahead and get us set up. Grab one of the cages when you come alright?”

“Know what Colubrid toxin we’ll be using today?”

“Coral, not sure which species. Just check the handling manifests.”

“Right.”

Don left through the double doors and after a moment of preparation Gary followed. Immediately he was accosted by a familiar pungent aroma. It held an everlasting gloom of a scent that hung about the place like some ghostly pall. As his nose slowly acclimated to the stench, the protest of many birds replaced it, filling his ears. Unlike the odor, this din was more of a recent addition to the labs.

“Project Asclepius has advanced far enough to begin live animal testing,” The project director had announced when the first avian shipment arrived. “Medical immortality may be closer than you think.”

Gary hated that motto. If not for Jennifer’s condition he never would have signed onto this ridiculous project to begin with. He scowled and then paused. A lone dark shape sat pecking at something on the floor before him.

“Hello, Jackdaw,” Gary greeted the bird solemnly. “What are you doing loose?”

“Kak-kak.” The crow tilted its head up at him and then hopped a bit to one side, granting Gary the space to pass.

--

This clip was done as part of a writing assignment for my creative writing class. The teacher called it 'Relay Writing'. Basically, we started with a story and each week we added something to it and passed it along to another student from the class at random. We all started with the same two stories, but by the end of the semester there were several wildly different tales floating around. Almost without variance I declared each week's story worse than the last and impossible to contribute to. And almost without variance each week I was surprisingly pleased with my own additions. Largely my annoyance at what others had done was over the apparent lack of coherence resulting from the story stuttering slightly with each new addition. Despite my griping, it was fun. I can't help but wonder if anyone would be interested in doing something like this with a group of my fellow writing/story blogs.

Once on a Skewer

When the eels slide by I am reminded of that day at the fair. Do you remember our last trip before we came here? I made that dare in front of the booth and the old man behind us said I should be the first to try. They made an 'S' on the skewer, like a dollar sign, and we each took a bite at the same time. It was disgusting, but I pretended it was the best thing since peppermints. I feel sorry for them now. You thought they looked like they were still alive, but once on a skewer nothing lives for long.

--

Found this scribbled in one of my journals. As for what it is about...? Your guess is as good as mine. All I can remember about it was that they were living in some underwater city. From where this left off I'm guessing it wasn't a happy place.

As Stone is to Sand

Shine as of fire on the waxen set molted in steam; an epitome

Put within sight of the hustle of war as a hedge for the bludgeons

Seen the implacable justice of care on the mazard

Chosen for symbols of radiant glory to prove to all arete

True in the gyre and unending subjection of deadly down hacking

Worn in the triumph of heroes and lost in the fall of a body

Found in the time of a century’s passing and cleansed of its squalor

Shown in a room through a plate of clear glass for the viewer to behold

Stating the truth for the fallen; a steed in still motion; epitaph

--

It's been a couple blog postings since I last threw poetry at you, so here you go. This was another piece done as an assignment for my high school Latin class. It had to be about a certain object, which, as is a bad habit of mine, I never quite got around to directly mentioning. Oh well, I think it's fairly obvious what I'm talking about anyway. Took me about four attempts to settle on the rhythm. The earlier attempts were just, well, bad. I had saved them anyway, as I do with most drafts that I opt to scrap and start over rather than revise, but I never transfered them to my laptop when we junked the old computer. One of the hazards of not drafting on paper first I suppose.

Monologue of a Trash Collector

“Do you know why we Scrappers have so much pride as a community?”

The man paced before Tobias, who, for his part, sat politely and inclined his head to listen in spite of the pounding headache he had woken with. He blinked through the bright lights, trying to get a good look at the Scrapper.

“Do you know why we, who toil at the absolute bottom of this farce your people call an economy, wouldn’t give up any of it for the wealth you think you have?”

Worn leather aviation cap and goggles, brown eyes, black waxed mustache, red and white stripped shirt, patched overalls, tall yellow boots, tattoo of a rusted gear on his forehead: Tobias checked off the list in his head. Unless someone else was running around the Undercity with this sort of a fashion sense, the man was definitely his target.

“It’s because we of all people understand value when we see it. There are very few methods of creating actual wealth. All of them involve harvesting a part of the world, be it food or minerals or energy. Everything after is little more than a retooling of that wealth. Eventually the product of this prosperity wears out and is discarded. So where did the wealth go?

Tobias tried to smile; he really did. The problem was that the knots were tied too tight and the dented metal can wasn’t much to sit on. Not that he could blame the Scapper for cutting off all the circulation in his right wrist. This almost always happened.

“It rots- that is, until we Scrappers find it. Nothing is so broken that it can’t be fixed. Only, we don’t need to sell our souls to do it. Understand Lefty? We alone exist free of the constraints you toil under.”

“No one exists above the law Mr. Colderan.” Tobias interrupted, but only out of courtesy. It would have been rude after all, to snap his bonds and punch the man without explaining why. “Please come along now or we will be late.” His boss would be waiting, and anything short of punctuality simply wouldn’t do.

--

This is more of an idea sketch than anything else. There's a story in this world I'd like to write I'm currently calling: 'The Gateway to Theia.' The incarnation of Tobias in that story will be a bit different if I write it. I made him overly polite from a narration perspective in this sketch just for the giggles.

He said. She said.

The reds and blues of fireworks flashed across the lake from where they sat watching on the hill.

“They are beautiful this year,” he said. “Can you see them?”

“I can,” she said, but she couldn’t.

She felt along the blanket. He dipped his hand into the basket and placed a triangle in her hands.

“Here,” he said.

“It’s so dark tonight,” she said.

“Yes,” he said, looking at the long shadows cast by the moon, “quite dark.”

They ate their sandwiches in silence, listening to the rising booms.

“The finale should be soon,” she said and leaned against him.

“Not just yet,” he said.

The sky burned with the shimmering lights.

“Please,” she said.

“I can’t,” he said, but he could.

The reds and blues of the final bang flashed along the road hours later to where they lay waiting on the hill.

--

This is one of the things I scribbled down earlier in the week. It is more of a skeleton than a fully fleshed out piece. Overall I feel it moved too fast and wasn't quite clear enough on what was happening. I enjoy trying to convey an idea without saying it outright, but I'll probably try doing this one again as a little less vague.

Edit: Oh, perhaps I should mention: I switched from updating every day to once a week. The other schedule was great for bulking up the blog a bit when I first started it, but the post rate was a touch draining when piled on top of other things. I decided to update on Mondays strictly to make my audience look forward to the one day of the week most everyone else agrees on hating.

Blindfold the Moose: Making ironic choices since 2008.

Grand Slam

Jeremy does not turn to greet me. I know without looking that his face holds the same blank expression it had when I stopped by for last month’s visit. He still slouches in that old office chair of his. It was a nice chair back before his business failed, but now it is stained with grease and ketchup and missing the two back wheels. Not that he notices. His hands are too busy moving with the joystick, too busy blurring across the keyboard, and too busy performing his collection of well rehearsed strokes across the touch screen to worry about fixing such menial things. For that matter, his ears are too full of the audio feed to even know that I’m there.

I want to walk right over to him and yank the cords from his head. I want to throw his helmet out the window and I want to watch as the VR visor smashes into the blacktop and shatters like the baseball did to that glass door on Jeremy’s twelfth birthday. Grand Slam! I want to drag him outside and make him play again. And that’s really all I want. Forget the green grass. Forget the blue sky. Forget the dust cloud sliding into home. I don’t ask for much; I just want one last game with my brother, that’s all.

Instead I flip a switch and then eye the uncooperative bulb. I sigh. The faint blue glow of the terminal provides little for me to see by and the scent of old cigarettes makes me want to gag. I could still leave, probably should leave, but I don’t. I wade through the lava flow of empty beer cans and yank on the hanging drawstring. Light fills the room and suddenly Jeremy is yelling at me about the glare. I smile and force the window open. The outside air is cold, but fresh.

--

When I wrote it half a year ago, this was a completely contained story. It was intended to be a brief glimpse into the relationship of the unnamed narrator and his brother. I set it slightly into a hypothetical future mostly on a whim. Recently I've been toying with the possibility of expanding the story into something more. Not sure how far I'd take it yet though.

Harvest the Day

Long ago, in a time which came before microwavable food and instant soup, there was an elapsed period of many years in which cooking your food could be even harder than finding it. In the land now known to us as Germany there were an adventurous group of young men who set out to found a new town. They were a resourceful bunch with a wide range of skills and, as a good team should, quickly located an optimal location and were soon making steady headway on the work to construct their village. They had brought cutting tools with them and it didn’t take this hardy crew long to clear an area. While this had been going on, a few took up some bows and hunted down enough meat for everyone to have a good meal after a hard day's work. When they came back, tugging the carcass behind them, they saw that a fire had already been started.

Now, it should be understood that the town from which these men had come was not happy that so many of their people should run off. Indeed, many thought this an irresponsible action to leave so abruptly and had tried to persuade them not to go. The young men however had ignored their unhappy relations. Adding insult to injury they had expressed distaste for the slow life of their less capable elders and, wanting to be away from the rules that held them back, exclaimed that they could get on fine on their own, knowing already all that there was to know about life.

And thus was it that, after the departure of this rebellious faction, the leaders of the town talked it over and came to the conclusion that a representative must be sent to persuade them to return. They decided that whoever they sent had to be somebody very clever, for this group of young men was adamant in their resolve. They decided that it had to be somebody resourceful, for this group of young men had many things at their disposal. And lastly, they decided that it had to be somebody strong in both will and form, for this group of young men would listen to no one else. With all of these traits in mind the town selected my ancestor, a highly regarded druid, to go bring them back.

The town put at his disposal anything he thought might possibly be needed in order to accomplish his mission. He asked only for a large bronze cauldron, which, though confused as to why, the town provided readily enough. Taking a firm length of rope he looped it around the cauldron a few time and then, gripping it in both of his powerful hands, hoisted it up onto his back. Taking nothing else but a simple traveling stick he set off in the direction the young men had traveled.

It wasn't long before he came upon the sounds of labor and saw the crackling of flames. Pausing he surveyed the scene from a distance, so that he could observe them without being seen himself. The sky was a dark blue and the shapes of the young men were nothing but black silhouettes against the dancing orange flame. He could however make out their conversation from where he stood hidden by the thick forest branches. It seemed that this group of young men had hit a snag in their master plan and were, instead of doing something about it, busy arguing over whose fault it was.

Carefully taking off the cauldron my ancestor hid it in the brush and, circling around, came out of the woods at a different spot. He hailed them as he approached.

"Hello over there, the town sent me by to see how you were getting on and if you needed anything. What seems to be the trouble?"

They all spun around and looked into the darkness, but could see little of who was speaking for their eyes were not used to looking out into the night. There was some mumbling amongst them before they answered.

"Who is that?" "I'm not sure." "Isn't that the druid?" "Why would they send him?" "Shh, just tell him we're fine and to go away." "You tell him." "No you." "I don't want to tell him."

Finally somebody from the group spoke up.

"Um, just tell the town that we're fine and they shouldn't worry about us. In fact, let them know that we want to be left alone."

The group nodded in agreement, but the druid didn't even slow his approach. Instead he came right up to them and stopped only ten feet away.

"That's good to hear. Glad you're getting along so well without any help."

There was a pause as though both sides were expecting something from the other. Finally my ancestor broke the pause.

"Well, I suppose this means that you've caught plenty of food."

They all nodded that yes; they had caught plenty of food.

"So?" prompted the druid.

"So what?" a few asked.

"Aren't you going to invite me to share some of your food? Any town, even one in the making, must be generous to travelers who arrive late in the day."

They talked it over quietly and one stepped forward to deliver their answer.

"We aren't guided by your rules, we're our own town now. If you want to eat with us then you must defeat one of us in combat."

They said this because none of them had thought to bring anything to cook their food in and admitting to this would be embarrassing. Their thought was that an older man could never defeat one of them, especially if they picked their best. Privately they were just hoping he'd be dissuaded by their lack of hospitality and go away.

"This is your town and so I agree to your terms."

His answer surprised them, but they had one more thing on their side. The druid had brought no weapons, while they had a full arsenal of weapons. The young men selected their warrior and armed him with a powerful two-handed sword. They cleared a circle to the side of the fire and the warrior and druid both entered it.

"The first to leave the circle or to yield shall be the loser. The other shall be triumphant. Begin!"

The druid had only his walking stick to defend himself against the force of the two handed sword. Knowing that his stick could never withstand a blow from the sword he dodged around avoiding sweep after sweep of the sword. The sword was heavy however and it took all of the warrior's strength to swing it. The force of the blade blow carried him a few steps every time before he could turn about and attack again. Using this to his advantage the druid would step or duck lightly out of the way and then give his opponent a good taunting whap on the backside with his stick. Infuriated the warrior put more and more force into each blow and lunged dangerously. Each time he was carried a little further with the momentum of his swing and each time he had a little less strength to stop himself from toppling over. Finally the warrior made a careless slash at the druid too close to the outside of the ring and as my ancestor stepped out of the way he stuck his foot out, tripping the overly zealous boy. His momentum carried him out of the ring and the young men standing about were forced to declare the druid the winner.

Humiliated they were forced to tell the druid that, while they had the meat and they had the fire, they had nothing to cook it in. The druid seemed to ponder this for a while, sitting on a fallen log, until his eyes suddenly brightened and he looked up.

"I think I know of a solution to your problem."

He stopped, forcing them to prompt him in to finishing his statement.

"What is it?" "What can we do?"

"It's fairly simple really. This is a trick that my predecessor taught me. All it requires is a little bit of something called magic."

"Magic?" "But we don't have any magic."

"Ah, but there you see, you are wrong. Everybody possesses a little bit of magic within them. You just need to know how to focus it. If you all help me, I can focus it for you into say… a cauldron."

They all agreed that they'd do anything they could to help him do this magical happening.

"Alright, everybody gather round me and hold hands. Picture in your mind a cauldron. Make it big, make it bronze, that should fit all of the food in it and heat up quickly enough… no no, you're not all thinking of the same thing, picture one that you've all seen before, maybe one that was back at the town. …Perfect, its done."

The young men looked about expecting to see the large bronze cauldron that they had pictured. Seeing nothing they felt that they had been tricked into making a fool of themselves. There was one thing they all wanted to know.

"What's the big idea?"

The druid laughed and pointed to the trees.

"Magic requires nature. Since you cut down all of these trees, the closest I could bring it was over there. Go and you will find your cauldron."

So they went and found it. One of them tried to lift it, but it was too large and too bulky to carry, for the wise druid had removed the rope and hidden it away. Eventually four of them came back carrying it together. Nobody suspected that the druid could have carried it all the way there since it took four of them just to get it to the fire from the edge of the woods.

Putting the cauldron over the fire they brewed a most fabulous stew over which there was much talking. This group of young men was so impressed by the druid that they listened to everything he had to say. My ancestor explained to them that though they were a capable bunch there was much they could still learn from their elders who came before them. While they were young and full of energy, they still knew little about battle tactics. He even hinted that he could take some of them on as his helpers and teach them in his ways. All of them were deeply interested in this mysterious force of magic that the druid had demonstrated to them and they had taken a part in. They agreed that on the following day they would return to the village and give it a second chance to see what it could teach them. The cauldron would remain behind in the clearing they had made as a reminder to all those who were there that night of the wonderful thing they had experienced and the lesson they had learned.

--

I was digging through some old files and found this one. It was an assignment for, of all things, my high school Latin class. It seems to me it had to be about a hypothetical ancestor and a pot, or in this case a cauldron. I wrote it a solid chunk of years ago so I apologize for the slight drop in quality. I posted the whole thing to make up for it. Latin was quite possibly the most useful class I took in high school. I came out of four years of the class with only a partial understanding of Latin, but a great understanding of English and how sentence ideas are pieced together.

My teacher also managed to imprint on my mind that carpe diem translates better not to Seize the Day, but to Harvest the Day. I think I prefer it that way too.

Idiosyncraphobia

Deep within a forest wooded, as I walked weary footed,

And each radiant and lucid star shone from up in the sky,

A strange mist came a drifting and within it creatures shifting,

So the hill that was uplifting, lifting a tower to the sky,

Caused me to seek a refuge, drifting toward the tower that was so high.

Not once did I pause to wonder why.

At the door I pounded meekly, one might say even weakly,

From the long and hard excursion that got me lost then went awry.

Soon the door creaked slowly ajar as a man moved aside the bolt bar,

And opened the door so far, far enough to let me by.

Oh so carefully he opened it just far enough to let me by.

Not once did I pause to wonder why.

Once within I looked about me and was much surprised to see,

Such furnishings as belong in Dracula- meant solely to horrify.

To my host I looked then for he had not yet spoken,

And in the silence still unbroken I looked him in the eye.

Wondering what sort of man he was I looked him in the eye.

Not once did I pause to wonder why.

A single eye centered on the face to me spoke explanation of the whole place.

Dread clung upon my shoulders and the fear I felt came out a cry!

I fled the tower loudly screaming, hoping wishing I were dreaming!

Out the door I went a streaming, fleeing from that single eye,

From the unknown I ran loudly screaming, fleeing from that strange and single eye!

Not once did I pause to wonder why.

--

While we are still in the Halloween mood, I present to you Idiosyncraphobia. The title basically means fear of the peculiar. I'm not entirely sure if that is a condition or not, though I might argue that we all have it to a certain degree. I made the word by smushing idiosyncratic and phobia into one. I stole the meter from The Raven, but somehow I don't think Poe will mind.

Halloween Special Part Two

It all started on the seventh day and the final hour of his grounding. There came this storm, a right powerful one with gusting winds and tearing rain, that blew in from out of nowhere. There wasn’t a house on the street that did not have a downed tree the next day and the Jansons, they lived right next to me, had their in ground pool blow right away during the strongest gust. I watched it bounce, water and all, over our fence, spring off of its own diving board, and be flung out of sight by the storm.

That might all sound amazing, and it was, but it could hardly compare with the mystery of what Nathaniel saw as he watched the storm through his bedroom window. During a triple strike of lightning there appeared a shadow in the upper window of the old house across the lane. It was one of those old boarded up Victorians. Old man Gunthurner had lived there once, but he’d died ten years before and left such a mess of a will that the lawyers are still trying to sort it all out to this day. Now, that house should have been empty and, worse still, Nathaniel knew it.

Well, being the curious sort, Nathaniel could hardly think of anything but the shadow after that and we all knew he would remain as such until the mystery was solved. We agreed to look for the shadow, but, as a precaution, we set out for the house on the brightest day we could find. The front door was bolted, locked, and had a couple boards nailed into place across it, but the wooden door on the left side for the cellar had a tree fall on it during the storm. Working together we managed to heave it off. To our disappointment, the hole it had made was no more than the size of a toaster, but Nathaniel, he was not one to be discouraged. He just stuck his head through and wiggled around a bit, first managing to get one arm in and then the other. Before long he was inside and opened the cellar for us.

Even though the day was bright, the cellar had no windows and provided nothing to see by. We found a light switch, but it seems the electric company had cut power to the house. Stumbling in a line after Nathaniel, since he was the only one who could see in that accursed darkness, we went up the old rickety stairs and explored the house. We found nothing of course. No unusual shadows, no footprints in the dust on the floor besides our own, no signs that anyone had been there lately at all. The house itself was as one might expect it to be: cobwebs in the corners, furniture covered in sheets, during the day time it was little more than an old house.

We went to get Nathaniel and found him in one of the upper rooms. He was looking into the only item in the house not covered by a sheet: a large antique oval mirror set into a fancy rectangular frame. Its surface was amazingly spotless. There was not a smudge on the mirror and not so much as a spec of dust to be seen on its framework. The mirror was as perfect as the day it had been made, maybe more so.

“We will have to return to this place at night,” Nathaniel informed us then, “For at night did I see the shadow and so at night shall it return.”

Half of us were not as brave as we were curious and the other half returned that night only with great reluctance. Nathaniel, too curious to consider fear, led the way, his cornflower eyes shining like two moons in the darkness. For its part, the true moon was as full as it gets, maybe fuller, and it cast a pale glow through the windows.

This time we had plenty of suspicious shadows to choose from. There was but one shadow that Nathaniel was interested in however. Suddenly he saw it standing lonely against the wall and in the same moment, it also saw him! They both froze and then Nathaniel gave chase, lunging up the stairs after it. We hesitated, but followed wearily, having gone too far to turn back now. Though we could not see where they went, it was not hard to guess. The room with the mirror, we knew we’d find them there.

We gathered in the doorway to watch the scene unfold. Nathaniel stood as one transfixed before the mirror. The full image of the moon reflected back, hanging above his head and where the shadow idly stood within the mirror staring back at him. Nathaniel reached out his hand and touched the shadow at the surface of the mirror then glanced over at us with an apologetic smile.

“It would seem,” said he, “That all this time, the shadow was my own.”

With a slight wave he stepped into the mirror and was gone.

We tried, of course, to follow him, but Nathaniel always had a certain knack for managing things the rest of us could not. Everyone thought he’d return someday, but this time he did not. After he’d been missing for a month we gathered up the courage to go back and investigate, but the mirror was no longer there. His mother soon moved away and took the house with her, selling the land to her neighbors. Come to think of it, not even a year had passed before there was no longer any sign that the amazing Nathaniel Nicholas Night had ever existed in our town at all.

--

Thus concludes my oh so spooky Halloween tale. If you enjoy this sort of a narrator I'd recommend The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, by Mark Twain. His influence definitely was part of what led me to write this.

In completely unrelated news, I put my amazing graphic design abilities to work and made a Blindfold the Moose logo. Ok, so it's a bunch of ovals I connected and colored in paint, but all things considered it could have turned out a lot worse.

Have a Happy Halloween!

Halloween Special Part One

Nathaniel and the Shadow

There was once this boy, lived down the street from me, who went by the name Nathaniel Nicholas Night. To tell you the truth, Nathaniel was something of a curiosity to the rest of us. Why is that you wonder? Well to start with, his hair was dark blue. You heard me, dark blue, and no, it was not dyed. In fact, his mother would oft say to him:

“Nathaniel, Nathaniel dear, please come with me and change your hair to a normal color.”

But Nathaniel would always say in response:

“Nay mother I cannot, for I was brought into this world with hair the color of the evening sky and with hair the color of the evening sky I shall leave it.”

And then what was a good mother to do? After all, he also had yellow eyes. Yellow eyes! Have you ever heard of such a thing? Now this was before everyone was running around with those newfangled colored contacts in their eyes, but even so, his poor mother did her best. She bought him a new pair of sunglasses every week, but Nathaniel, he never used them.

“My eyes may be like two cornflowers in the sun,” Nathaniel would say, “but these shades would only dim what is currently bright while obscuring wholly that which is already dark.”

What is the most curious thing about him? Why, that would have to be his inordinate amount of innate curiosity. No mater how curious any of us were about Nathaniel, he was always ten times more curious about something else. The first time we all went fishing, Nathaniel became so intrigued as to what the fish do all day that he up and leapt in the pond, vowing not to return until he had seen it for himself. And he didn’t return. We waited nigh an hour for him to resurface, but once Nathaniel had got an idea into his head, there was nothing and nobody was going to get it back out. It was a good full week before anybody saw or heard from him again. Not too surprising, his mother locked him in his room after that.

“You can ground me if you like mother,” Nathaniel conceded to this, “But I learned such wonders in the last week as they never taught in a school.”

It was another week before he was allowed outside again.

Well now, it may be that the adventures of Nathaniel will go on forever, but alas that is not for us to know. You see, and this is something of a carefully guarded secret, so please don’t go spreading it around, there came one fateful night, not long after the fishing incident, when a few of us watched Nathaniel leave this world for good.

--

I decided to give my adoring fans- all maybe one of you if I'm lucky- a whole short story for Halloween. This was my attempt about a year ago to combine a tall tale with a ghost story. In case my previous clip about a robot practicing witchcraft didn't tip you off, I get some odd kicks out of combining ideas that most people wouldn't bother trying to combine. Anyway, expect part two to conclude it tomorrow.

Yes, it is Complete

“Do you believe in completion?”

She rests one foot on the pavement. Above them the road winds around the side of the mountain. A bead of sweat rolls off the end of her nose as she leans on the handlebars. The air shimmers.

“I’m not so sure about it myself.”

You shouldn’t just stop halfway up.

“Most of my life has been spent trying to finish a homework assignment, check the daily chores off one by one, or watch clock hands for the end of the day. All I seem to do is strive for completion.”

You’re stalling.

“But is completion even possible? If I finish today’s homework there will still be tomorrows. Can we ever achieve resolution or do we only pretend to by dividing larger tasks down for the sense of accomplishment?”

This slope will be a pain to start on.

“I wonder if completion is really just part of a cycle. What if everything is just like the gears on my bike: quick smaller cycles turning slow larger cycles in order to progress? You say we’re halfway there, but once we reach the top we still have half the trek to go, right?”

It’s too hot for this.

“Do you think completion can be anything but partial?”

Around her a clump of flies mingle. Beside her a broken rail marks a boundary. Before her a dotted line leads the way.

--

Not entirely by accident, this completes the story that was started in Almost Perfect. It is the second twin. I used the same form and style to write this one, which should be obvious from a simple comparison of the two. The role of friend held more meaning and expressed more ideas in this rendition. The general placement of the conversation also fit better and felt a little more real to me. When I wrote it I was trying not to waste even a single word. The result you can judge for yourself, but I'm satisfied with how it turned out.

Technomancy?

Do you see that one passing there by the solella vendor? No, not the round guy in the pinstriped tube socks, though I’m sure he’s interesting enough. I mean the one attempting to disguise herself with the flowery hat. To you she may be just another Returner pretending the role of a woman, but to the knowing eye, she bears the unmistakably traces of a witch. I know her as I know any other robot, and that is, only in passing. But they say that if you were to happen by the electronics dumping ground at midnight you may very well see her there, entranced in the darkest of sabbaticals, summoning to her, through such unholy circles as could be known only to one of their kind, the long forgotten viruses which ended the lives of many of her brethren in the decades prior.

It would be well if you never saw her there. The dark purple lightning, which crackles and leaves singe and soot on her chest plate, is said to blind even the most bio-enhanced eye.

--

I have absolutely no clue where this is heading. Possibly nowhere. It is the direct result of a brief conversation I had this morning with a friend of mine. Her homework was to write a five page sequel to a story about a man and a wife who raise a robot as their son. I'd tell you more, but that's all I was told about it. She had three pages and still needed to come up with a way to write two more so I suggested a plot twist where it turned out the wife was secretly a robot like her son. As an afterthought I added, "And also a witch." Of course, she refused, so I said, "Well if you won't do it, I guess I'll have to," and so I pulled out my computer and typed up this little blur.

As I reflect on it, I'm going to blame the 'she's a witch' thing on Hawthorne. Having just finished reading 'The Birthmark' and 'Young Goodman Brown' adding in a witch almost seems like a given. It sparked another interesting debate with another of my friends who read this over my shoulder and remarked on how a robot couldn't use magic or witchcraft. I'll admit, it's not a concept I've really run into, but I challenged the notion on principle. In a world where we accept magic as possible, what is it that would limit it to something only a human can do and not a machine? My friend suggested the necessity of a soul, to which I replied, "Ah, but there you see, this is witchcraft, so they would have had to have given it to the devil in any case."

Almost Perfect

“Do you believe in perfection?”

She sits with her back against the rock. In a sea of swaying grass it is the only landmark in sight. The crooked tree on top grows with its roots wrapping around to the ground. It is her friend’s favorite perch.

“I’ve been thinking lately.”

You think too often.

“I’ve spent most of my life trying to get better at things, improving at this or that, removing my flaws one by one. It would seem that the ultimate goal to such a quest would be perfection.”

It isn’t possible.

“But what if it was? What if you had all the time in the world and could just refine your flaws away until one day there was nothing left at which you could improve? Would that be perfection?”

Sounds kinda boring.

“Though, I wonder if personality arises from the flaws. How much of us do you suppose would be left if we chiseled away all of our imperfections? Would that be too much like trying to refine the impurities out of this boulder?”

You’d kill the tree.

“Do you think it’s possible though?”

Before her the horizon burns. Above her black and stars push. Behind her there is rock and tree and nothing. Below her there is only crushed grass.

--

Er, this is actually complete in a sense. It was the first part of a larger three part story I wrote for my creative writing class at the end of my last term. The third part is something of a twin to this one. Together they formed a frame around the bulkier middle section which was more of a traditional story, although in this case I use the word traditional extremely liberally. I've considered writing another 'girl and friend' story or maybe a series of them. They're kind of fun to try to piece together.

The Epic Slipper Quest

I was sitting in my great room
I was reading my new book
Outside the storm was howling loud
I did not need to look

My feet were getting chilly
My toes were feeling numb
I knew I’d need my slippers
Before the night was done

The dog lay in the hallway
His sprawl blocked off the path
My way I made it careful
Lest I test his doggie wrath

The cat stood in the kitchen
No food sat in his dish
I knew there’d be no passing
Without a second fish

The fish was wrapped in plastic
It smelled strongly of the sea
I cut myself a small piece
But the cat was eyeing me

--

It's a poem! Well, the start of one anyway. My mother, father, and I were all taking turns reading paragraphs from one of Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays on Self Reliance and trying to decipher what exactly the guy was rambling about. Smart guy, Emerson, but he writes like he's talking to a whole other century or something. Anyway, my father ran off to check on the laundry and I announced basically the second stanza and then went and got my slippers. Quite obviously I was smitten with myself and decided to turn it into a longer poem. It might be dramatized from any actual occurrences... just a little.

Discontinued, but not Forgotten

A white owl glided through the snow covered branches. Its shadow flicked over the ground, in and out, as the little light which broke through the frozen trees was lost and found again. Spreading its wings it flapped them, once, twice, and then landed on one of the frosted branches. Below stood a solitary figure shivering from the cold. His skin, an unhealthy shade of dark yellow, was exposed to the biting air for the full length of his arms and most of his face. While his pants were long enough to stretch down to his padded shoes, he wore nothing but an olive sleeveless muscle shirt above his waist. Leaning against the tree he exhaled, his breath spreading out in a rapidly dissipating cloud.

"You're late again you know."

Above him came a hardly audible pop, the sound of his friend entering her true form. She hung from the branch for a moment by her hands and then dropped down into the snow beside him. She was much smaller and younger than he. Wiser too apparently since her garb, a bear skin that covered her entire form and left only her face exposed, was better suited to the weather. She hissed at him.

"I was getting some dinner."

The man pushed away from the tree, rubbing his hands together for some warmth.

"Have I told you how silly you look in that outfit?"

"Have I told you how cold you look in yours?"

The man coughed and scratched the back of his neck with his hand, looking up at the sky.

"Touché."

--

This was the start of a collaborative story I started a couple years back where one of us would write a piece and then the other would write the next piece. We had two different stories going with different characters who would have eventually met if it hadn't stopped off short when the other person dropped out. The story has been abandoned and I have no intention of resurrecting it, however for these two characters I managed to develop a distinct fondness in the short time I spent with them. They may eventually get their own story from me if I happen to come up with another plot that calls for a shape shifter and a martial artist.

Absolutely Nothing to do with Anything

It's my dog Scout! I could tell you that he's my inspiration for an up and coming story, but there's no sense trying to rationalize this. Actually, I just wanted to play with my ability to add a photo to the blog and I incidentally uploaded all the pictures I'd been storing on my camera for the last year or so earlier today. Um, Tada! Yeah, turns out it's fairly easy.

If I write enough words on here I think it'll wrap around and under the photo. I don't have much more to say though, so in honor of the final push, let me share the words I wrote on the chalk board in my syntax and style class: The elephant sat on my purple chair. That's a neutral sentence in case you were wondering. Down with prepositional phrases! I was trying to write an active sentence, but trying to do it is like guaranteeing I won't. Well, that's not entirely true. It's easy to write an active sentence: The elephant ate the peanuts. I was just trying to make mine more interesting. That's where the utter failure comes in. Oh well, at least it gave me something to blather about to fill in text under the photo. Huzzah!

Edit: And now I get to test the edit feature too! Mostly to realize that the spacing on the blog is different than the spacing in this text box I'm writing in. I was already under the photo before I even talked about my desire to be there. See, my need to test this feature is justified by my inability to accurately predict the outcome!

A Girl Named Anomie

Dearest Reader,

Be you from the unknown future or the forgotten past, another world or simply another land, or if by some small and perhaps innocuous chance are reading this in the here and in the now, know that should you ever one day decide to take leave of your home and travel into foreign realms, your reality may soon become little more than a frame of reference.

K.K.

--

And here we have the intro to a story I can't seem to start to my satisfaction. The largest struggle has been a mater of voice. I have never before written a story with a narrator who talks directly to the audience and isn't an acting character in the events. It definitely wins the prize for personal most restarted narrative.

That aside, I'm relatively excited about writing this tale. I am focusing on exploration and setting it in a world where each corner has something worth exploring in sights, in moods, and in ideas. Some of my favorite stories (The Hobbit, Watership Down, Etc) involved embarking on a journey into the wide unknown. Surprisingly, given the success of those books it is hard to find stories like this that weren't written before I was born. In my perfect world, maybe I could restart a trend.

The Chest of Eighty Wonders

His hat was that of fine velvet and her eyes the greenest of greens. They danced amid the petals of pink tree blossoms and sang silent songs to those who would listen. Jenny stared at the two unabashed.

How can that couple be so carefree? She wondered. If I was trapped in that tiny space, dancing would be the last thing on my mind.

Carefully she placed them back on the shelf. The blossoms swirled a little and then settled as neatly as before.

“Caught your eye, have they?”

The elderly man smiled at her. She had not heard his approach.

“Did you make this one Mr. Tinkin? They look beautiful together.”

“This pair is the gift that inspired my others. They were a farewell many years ago.”

“From the one who taught you?”

“Taught me?” His cough was laced with laughter. “She taught me many things, but no, not the making of snow globes.”

--

That's the first couple lines from a story I might eventually finish someday. The name of Mr. Tinkin is more of a placeholder than a done deal in this case. When I write out a sketch for how a story might start I don't waste time trying to think of the best name for a character. It's easier just to jot something down and decide if anything would work better at a later date. The title of this post is my working title for the story. It'll probably stay.

And don't expect me to update this rapidly all the time. I'm just on an excitement high from starting a blog, can't sleep, and haven't thought far enough ahead to avoid using good backup material so soon.