A Dreamer's Guide

Just Add Water

2011-09-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

This is a short film I made this past summer for the 4th annual 21 Project Film Festival. The film did well in the competition, being nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Editing, however, we walked away empty handed. I think this speaks more to the quality of the other films this year than a lack of effort on our part, but it would have been nice to be recognized.

Still, I'm pretty proud of this film considering how quickly we finished it around my kids' sleep schedules. It also represents the first film I've made without dialogue - that is, one that relies solely on visual storytelling.

Modern Friendship

2011-09-21T08:45:00.000-07:00

I've always wanted to create my own comic strip, but lacking the ability to draw, it was never really a possibility. That is, until I discovered "XKCD" which utilizes minimalist imagery to great effect. I won't disguise the fact that this is a direct rip-off in style, but hey, what's a non-artist to do?

Clicky-clicky on the strip for a legible version.

By the way, this took entirely too long to make. I'm thinking of retiring.

Having Kids Ruined My Life

2011-05-19T14:32:00.000-07:00

A dramatic title, I know, but people write so much fluff about their kids these days that I wanted to cut to the heart of the matter. The fact is, prior to the birth of my eldest, I had exactly zero point zero percent understanding of what was about to happen to me.

Let me back up and lay a quick foundation here. Prior to parenthood, I had a pretty good thing going. I didn’t ask for much, just some time to reflect, spend money, and do spontaneously fun things with my wife. I was a lot like this guy.

Minus the Cash, Cocaine, and Crazy

Don’t get me wrong; it’s not like I was rich and carefree and partying on a daily basis. I still had plenty of responsibilities, including a job I didn’t quite love and all the hardships of a regular Joe. But I was downright loaded in a little currency I like to call 'freedom,' which offset whatever other shortcomings life had.

4 Reasons My Life Rocked Before Kids

1) I stayed up as late as I wanted.
2) I bought whatever I wanted.
3) I took spontaneous trips with my wife whenever I wanted.
4) I never had to touch another person’s poo.

That’s pretty much all I asked for in life. The height of living, to me, was taking a day off with Danielle, heading out in the car in one of the cardinal directions, and just enjoying a day of spontaneity and chance. Sometimes we found ourselves in quaint small towns and bought souvenirs and tried the local cuisine. Other times we ended up in favorite hang-outs, like a mall, or the park, or Outback Steakhouse. We’d get up early, explore all day, and return home late. The next day, we’d do something equally spontaneous and free.

Like Posing with Food

And I spent not a single moment of these carefree days touching poo.

Then came the babies. Needless to say, my four tenets of free-spirited living were immediately chucked out, not unlike a bottle's worth of partially digested formula from a tiny human’s belly. I went from being a man with lots of time, money, and freedom to one without sleep, spare cash, or even just a moment to myself.

Pictured: A Baby, Probably Ruining Someone’s Life

In retrospect, I should have seen it coming. After all, babies are adorably cute, and nature only makes cute things for two reasons: 1) to sucker us into adopting them (i.e., kittens); 2) to mask the fact that they want to kill us (you ever seen a baby crocodile? Adorable!).

So I ignored the warning signs and dove headfirst into the world of parenthood. Before I continue, I should make it clear I don’t blame the babies. It’s not their fault they’re adorable little life-suckers who demand your constant attention, time, and resources while repaying you with nothing but unlimited quantities of spit-up and snot. That’s all they can do. I was a baby once, so I get it.

BUT, when it comes to everybody else who saw the tempest coming but failed to warn us, I hold you personally responsible. I’m looking at you, Society, Pop Culture, and Every Other Parent on Earth. That’s right, if you’re reading this and you had kids prior to me, I have one question for you: How could you do this to us?!

Okay, you think I’m exaggerating. You think I’m just nudging my fellow parents in the collective side to evoke a knowing smile without meaning a word of it. Well I’ve got news for you. I’M DEAD SERIOUS.

I’ve prepared a couple of pie charts to illustrate what I’m trying to convey here.

Life Without Kids

Pretty colorful, huh? A beautiful rainbow of symmetry and joy, this was my life 17 short months ago. Sure there were rough patches, but for the most part, life had balance and variety. No matter what happened during the working hours, I knew I would still have a chance to do something fun with my wife, whether it was blowing a few bucks at Red Lobster, playing Scrabble in the park, or hitting the open road. At the very least, I could count on a full night’s sleep!

Now then, take a look at this.

Life After Kids

Notice the difference? Like how there’s a giant questionably-colored Pac-Man eating said beautiful rainbow? This is life after kids. All that was once colorful and balanced has been sloppily devoured by the full-time job that is cleaning up every conceivable bodily waste from the multiple holes in a baby. And there are A LOT of holes in a baby. Like ten. Disney even made a movie about it, or at least, I assume that’s what it was about since I never actually saw it.

One big baby propaganda movie

Okay, okay, so you’re waiting for me to admit that this is all a joke, right? You want me to wrap this all up in a tidy, satirical bow, post some pics, and admit that it's not really as drastic as I claim.

Wrong-O!

Because as I said before, my life is ruined. Old Paul is dead. That’s not some kind of hip Beatles reference either because I’m no longer hip nor clever enough to comment on anything of relevance other than my own myopic view of parenthood. The life I once enjoyed - the one of spontaneity, fun, and freedom from responsibility - that life is utterly and irreversibly gone. It has been replaced by a completely new life, one that requires sacrificing everything I once enjoyed for an entirely new type of experience, that of spending every waking moment tending to the needs of another human being.

So I'm New Paul now. A Paul that wears puke-stained shirts to the office without thinking twice. A Paul that spoon-feeds mashed vegetables to his son whilst supressing his own gag reflex. A Paul that has memorized a dozen Sesame Street ditties and sings them to himself when he’s alone. Notice I didn’t say “Superior Paul” or “Enlightened Paul”. Just new.

Because new is always better.

In this new life, I wake up early to dress babies, I change baby diapers, I feed babies, I clean up after babies, I turn down fun social opportunities to watch babies, I sleep as much as the babies allow, I wake up in the middle of the night to rock babies back to sleep, and I spend every single moment apart from them worrying about babies. Heck, I even spend what little spare time I have blogging about babies. Every activity I perform, every shred of effort, focus, and energy, goes to these helpless, drooly little creatures.

For all this sacrifice, what pray tell, does one get in return?

A whole lot of this…

Now in stereo!

Some of this...

If blank stares were gold, I'd... have a lot of gold.

And sometimes they even try to melt your face off with their Wonder Baby Death Gaze™.

Patent Pending.

Sigh...

Everything has changed. Becoming a parent forces you to grow up overnight, and sometimes I just don’t feel ready for that.

But then, the Dad’s Life isn’t all bad. I mean, those kids can’t cry, poop, and drool all the time. Every once in a while, when the stars align and Jupiter is in Aquarius’ backyard or whatever, this happens...

It's called a ‘smile,’ one of nature’s rarest sights.

I mean, they can be awfully cute…

And maybe even just a little bit wonderful...

No babies were harmed in the making of this collage.

So this is my fair warning to all of you considering the leap into parenthood. It will honestly ruin the life you know. It ruined mine. Life with kids is harder, busier, and more stressful than I ever could have predicted. It's relentless and downright exhausting. If someone had truly been able to convey to me what I was in for, I probably would have had second thoughts.

But it's worth it. See? I said it. Now let me qualify that statement. It is the best thing that ever happened to me, but it is also the hardest. The bad times are truly awful; the good times are sublime. That is the price of children.

Finally, it all comes down to this for me. When the boy gets sleepy and collapses in my arms so that his unkempt hair rubs against my cheek, or when the girl studies my face and coos while pawing at my nose, all thought of the old life fades from memory. For all the freedom I once enjoyed, for all the extra coin, sleep, and indulgence, I never could have guessed how life-changing a hug from your very own child could be. It's the most difficult and expensive reward I ever earned, but oh what a reward it is.

Even with the poo.

I Can't Draw for Squat

2011-03-24T12:41:00.000-07:00

I've wanted to be an artist for as long as I can remember. The attitude has always been there, the appreciation for beauty, the tendency to wax philosophic about the merits of theater or glass-blowing or decoupage, the desire to capture every moment on film. I've tried my hand at just about every art form, from painting with oils to sculpting with clay to programming landscapes in Basic. As a child, I waited not-so-patiently for the time when my abilities would catch and surpass my desires. Surely it was just a matter of time! My metamorphosis from scribbling dilettante to full-fledged child prodigy was to be sudden and beyond refutation.

But then, this happened:

This is how I draw a dog. Still. Today. I'm 33.

It's hard to be an artist when your rendering of a dog looks like the result of a wild night between Snoopy and Bambi's mom. And it's not like I don't recognize the glaring inaccuracies. (Dogs don't have three-pronged hooves for feet, really?!) Even as I sketch it, however, despite my logical mind's oversight of the process, my creative mind simply cannot approximate an actual, living dog.

Unfortunately for me, the ability to draw is the basis for just about every other art form. How can you paint a landscape if your mind can't conceptualize a mountain or trees? How can you excel in computer animation if you don't understand the physics of basic three-dimensional objects? How can you sculpt the human torso when you clearly don't understand basic anatomy? You may think that last point to be an exaggeration. After all, I've looked at my own face in the mirror over 10,000 days in a row. Surely I can draw a convincing sketch of my own face, right?

Observe.

My subsconscious clearly hates me.

That's right, I drew this. On purpose. While looking at a photo of myself. I would just like you to know I don't really look like this. Nobody does. Yet when I attempt to capture my essence with pen and paper, for some infuriating reason, this happens.

So for years I've been a faker. In art class, I used to team with those who had more talent. Given the choice of art forms, I gravitated more towards photography and video so that I could simply use tools to capture beauty rather than trying to create it myself. I learned how to Photoshop really well so I could take other people's work and subtly alter it for my own use.

CatPig watches you in your sleep.

But then something else happened. In the process of trying to learn how to draw, I realized that words have some of the same power that images possess. The common adage puts the ratio at 1,000 to 1, but still, if I could simply write a thousand words to compete with others who so effortlessly drew such beautiful imagery, so be it. I would learn to live with this handicap. And that's when it occurred to me that just as drawing was a near impossibility to me, perhaps the ability to capture a moment in words was just as hard to others.

Maybe I could still be an artist after all.

And that's what this blog is all about. Capturing moments. Telling stories. Finding the beauty in life and committing it to the written form.

Or at the very least, sparing the world from having to see this:

Ninja Vs. Cyclops: Whoever Wins, I Lose

Welcome to my blog. Think of it as a sketch pad for words. I'll try to refrain from including any more drawings. No promises, though.

Happy reading!

Paul

Giving Up Kiowa

2011-03-21T09:04:00.000-07:00

Giving up a dog is surpisingly like breaking up with someone. It's what Danielle and I concluded after trying for many moments to verbalize what we experienced upon sending Kiowa to live with a new family. But it really is an apt description. You make a decision with the best intentions, logically realizing that it is the right thing for both you and the dog, but then the moment comes, and you feel absolutely blindsided. Life has just changed. Permanently. Only days before, you were best friends. Suddenly you have to accept that you will never see each other again.

And we did this on purpose.

You can't help but second-guess your own decision. You wonder whether you could have worked just a little harder to make it work. Whether you moved just a little too quickly. As glad as you are that he's found a new family, you feel pangs of jealousy when you think about how much he'll experience in his new home and how his loyalty will transfer from you to them. That floppy-eared, crooked-head smile will never fall on you with the same unquestionable affection again. The relationship is over.

It wasn't him; it was us. Isn't that what you're supposed to say in a break-up? But it's true. He did nothing wrong. We simply couldn't make it work. As alleged "dog people," it's humbling to have to admit this. To acknowledge that another family will do a better job at making him happy and dedicating to him the attention he deserves. I keep reminding myself that we did this not because we didn't care about him anymore, but because we cared enough to send him away. He'll be better off! Sounds like a cop out. Maybe it is.

Kiowa was a perfect dog. I know that sounds like hyperbole. Every dog-owner feels that way, I suppose, but he really was perfect for us. Which is what makes it even more disheartening that we had to give him up. I can't imagine ever finding another like him and I don't really want to try. The fact that we found him and yet couldn't keep him raises some troubling questions. If you can't make it work with the best dog you've ever known, how can it ever work? But then, that's a question for another day. I have no intention of trying to replace Kiowa. Though he's gone to live with another family, he will always be our first dog. I like to think he will always remember us as his first family.

So goodbye, Kiowa. I'll never forget how we used to wrestle on the floor of the playroom. How we'd chase each other around the lawn. How you followed Danielle around everywhere when she was pregnant. How you and Lucas would cuddle in the dog bed. Or how much you liked to ride in the car or jump on the couch or clean off Lucas' high chair or sleep at the top of the stairs or do any of the hundred things that made you unique and special to us. You were a really, really good dog.

They say it takes half the duration of a relationship to get over a break-up. That would be a year and a half in this case. Works out to about ten dog-years. Somehow, I think it'll take a lot longer than that.

This Boy's Work

2011-03-11T14:53:00.000-08:00

The boy and I take a break on the floor of his nursery. The carpet is surprisingly comfortable. I close my eyes for a moment, savoring the silence. It’s easier in a room free from technology and things that make noise and clocks.

Meanwhile, Pooh and his thuggish friends confer in a corner. Their collective gaze is too heavy, and the tension bursts like a raincloud. The boy makes the first strike. Spotting the stuffed donkey I’ve positioned center room, he shouts “Eeyore!” and tackles the doll to the ground. It’s a tense moment, the outcome of their encounter uncertain. And then with a dramatic flourish belying his age, he rises, exhausted, to his feet. If this were a movie, it’d be shot in slow-motion.

The Face of Evil

Before he can strike again, I pluck him from the carpet and swing him through the air in a wide arc, dropping him directly onto Pooh. He takes my betrayal in stride, submitting to my superior force without resistance. As boy and bear lie in a heap, neither emits a sound. I commence the tickle torture, and the boy reluctantly relents, his laughter escaping in constrained bursts.

He escapes!

He deftly withdraws a book from a shelf and hands it to me. My treason forgotten, the boy pats my belly and I place him atop. We page through the story of a brown puppy with inexplicably crinkly ears. Halfway through, he’s seen enough of the puppy’s exploits and returns to his own higher mission.

The dimly lit room suits me. I am only a spectator here, after all, and the child’s routine takes on cinematic importance in the moody ambience. A narrow strip of light eludes the black-out shades I didn’t hang quite correctly and paints a laser line across the floor. A vaporizer churns out gray mist which tumbles and swirls in the shaft, stealing from the room any sense of time or certainty.

The boy extracts a diaper from a box and offers it to me.

Posing on the Vanquished Chair

“Do you want me to change your diaper?”

He shakes his head ‘no’ emphatically, then hands me another. Handing me things is just another aspect of his job. I accept, then request another. A good worker is happiest when busy.

Dumbo serves as my pillow at this point. Still resting on the floor, I watch the boy circle a rocking chair twice with great deliberation before taking satisfaction in having conquered the task. I feel confident that the next time I need a large object walked around, I’ll know the perfect boy for the job.

The boy forgets my predilection for duplicity and ventures too close. I clothesline him at quarter-speed, placing him on his back next to me. I pulverize him with punches to the chest and armpits. I head-butt his tummy. I gnaw on his neck and cheeks. Expressionless, his eyes fix on the ceiling. He understands getting tackled and pummeled by daddy is part of being a little boy. He handles it with stoicism before slipping away.

Back to work.

As the boy continues, he accomplishes so many tasks that if I were to record them all, the entirety of the world’s libraries would not be able to hold them. I am exhausted, but he surveys the room with satisfaction. When he sees that there is nothing more to be done – no more animals to tackle, no more diapers to dispense, no more objects to circumvent - he glances up to me.

“Mama?”

“Do you want to go see Mama?” I ask.

He doesn’t respond. Things that are obvious don’t require a response.

“Wanna come up?” I ask.

He raises both arms and accepts my grasp. I lift him high, to his captain’s position against my chest. He thrusts an arm towards the door, directing me, dictating our path.

“Tell them ‘bye-bye’,” I say, gesturing toward the army of strewn and disheveled animals.

He waves a hand in two deliberate arcs.

“Bye-bye,” he says.

The door clicks softly behind us as we emerge.

* * *

I don’t know how to save this. There’s no media that can hold it. I cannot upload the neural imprint of the experience to a hard drive. My own gray matter will undoubtedly falter in its storage of so dear a memory. The only thing I can do is to convert it to this form, from the vivid imagery behind my eyes to this unremarkable black script. All lost - the smell of carpet and mist and the feel of warm pajamas against my cheek, components of an intermingled multi-sensory experience, thus reduced to a serial record of only the most cursory of details. It is unacceptable to me.

It’s better than nothing, I tell myself.

We'll see.

Time Machine Inventor Imprisoned (written June 21, 2007)

2011-02-16T12:56:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES, Cal. – For twenty years, Martin Klein has wielded time to his advantage, earning himself the nickname “Father Time” and two trillion dollars in the process. Monday morning, he will suddenly find himself a slave to time as he enters the San Palos correctional facility to serve the next 20 years without parole. His time machine has been permanently confiscated.

Klein first rose to prominence in 2013 when his claims that he had solved the time travel paradox rocked the scientific community. Though the specifics of his solution are highly protected, most theoretical physicists agree that Klein has accomplished the once-thought impossible feat through the manipulation of anti-matter to overcome the infinite mass problem with faster-than-light travel.

At first, Klein was received as a national hero whose accomplishments would usher America and the civilized world into the next century and beyond. Pride quickly turned to suspicion, however, as Klein’s investments took several leaps over the next five years, leading some to speculate that his time traveling exploits were being used primarily for financial gain. The Temporal Stability Department (TSD) was formed under the Obama administration to monitor misuses of time travel. Klein interpreted this is a personal attack (as he was the only human capable of time travel) and relocated his enterprise to Japan where the Japanese government granted him unfettered access to their resources for the opportunity to one day brand and market his invention.

For the next ten years, Klein revolutionized the tourism industry with the introduction of the first Time Post on July 13th, 2027. Nine additional posts would be built over the next several years. Currently, there are 14 Time Posts throughout the world in seven countries. Each is heavily regulated by the International Time Distortion Council which was founded specifically for the purpose of monitoring time tourism.

By the time Klein reached 65 years of age, his mass fortune was estimated at over two trillion dollars. Many speculated that only a portion of this was legitimately earned and that much had been accumulated through investments which Klein could monitor at future dates. Several class action lawsuits and an SEC investigation are still pending.

On May 2nd, 2049, Klein published his paper “Overcoming the Grandfather Paradox to Ensure the Future Growth of Time Travel” and was instantly met with criticism from the scientific community. Klein proposed a series of tests to determine the effects – often theorized but never proved – of disturbing elements of the past that would prevent the very action of interference, thus causing a temporal paradox. Many time theorists feared that such an event could cause serious and catastrophic events located at that moment in time and radiating out indefinitely. Klein was barred from any such experiments, and it was at this time that the Japanese government asked Klein to leave the country.

With his massive fortune, Klein purchased the island he later dubbed Tempis Fugit off the cost of Ecuador and continued his research where, under the jurisdiction of no country, he was able to enact his experiment. It was on September 27th, 2049 that Klein traveled back to the year 1985 to stop his parents from meeting. His theory was that each would meet a new person and produce divergent offspring and that he would suddenly assume the identity of one of these.

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to explain just what happened since we live in a world that exists within the boundaries of time which Martin Klein attempted to violate. We know that Martin Klein continued to exist (whether he was a different person before the experiment, we do not know, for if he did change, most theorists agree we wouldn’t realize it as we, too, would have changed). However, a day after the experiment, Klein turned himself into American authorities claiming that his children were gone. Though no records exist of any such offspring, Klein claims that before he performed the experiment, he had two daughters and a son. According to government records, Klein is sterile.

Klein’s admission of guilt was rendered by the TSD to be sufficient grounds for criminal prosecution. Klein pled guilty and was sentenced to twenty years incarceration for the newly termed crime “Negligent Temporal Distortion”. Upon completion of the sentence, Klein will be barred from further time travel. It is unclear what will happen with his enterprise or the remaining Time Posts.
___

Copyright 2049 World Free Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the consent of World Free Press.

Halloween Flyer 2010

2010-10-26T14:00:00.000-07:00

I was asked to design a promotional poster for our annual Pumpkin Carving Contest. Alas, the competition was cancelled. I'll post the flyer here so at least someone will get to see it.

And here's a close-up of the fake newspaper article that appears in the poster. I was really interested how the engineers here at CMC would respond. Perhaps I'll send this out for Halloween anyway.

TYPE REST OF POST HERE.

Coming Soon...

2010-10-26T13:57:00.000-07:00

A number of people have commented recently that I no longer update my blog. To be perfectly honest, I haven't updated in a while for two main reasons:

1) My job search is sort of on hold, so I haven't updated this, my portfolio, in a while.
2) I didn't know anyone actually read this thing!

I'm planning to start writing a novel in the very near future, so I'll probably be venting my frustrations on a regular basis. Oh, and maybe I'll include some excerpts from time to time - though I've been advised never to do this as it may reduce writing momentum. If nothing else, this may turn into an exercise routine to keep my brain in writing mode.

Anyway, November is National Write a Novel Month, and I'm thinking of joining the throng of would-be novelists starting next Monday. After all, misery loves company!

TYPE REST OF POST HERE.

Missing Pieces - Edited Version

2010-05-01T07:35:00.000-07:00

On May 1st, I submitted one of my short stories to the NPR flash fiction writing contest. The guidelines were that it had to be under 500 words and contain the following list of words: plant, fly, trick, and button. I reworked one of my favorite short stories to these requirements and entered it. I'm not sure I like this version better, but I had to trim the fat to meet the length restriction.

Lucas had a malady without treatment: he longed for the past and loathed the present. It was a volatile combination, the kind that led to random expenditures on relics of his childhood and an inability to part with anything of prior significance. He was about to succumb to such a whim again, considering a late-night hunt on eBay for sentimental rarities when he concluded that it was finally time to bring out the owl.

He had considered the owl on several previous occasions but had always opted for something more exciting or tricky instead. His shelves teemed with more appealing and challenging alternatives, from vibrant sea creatures to exotic plant life; from historical battles to famous artistic masterpieces. As jigsaw puzzles went, the owl was simply unimpressive.

Lucas removed the puzzle from a shelf where it had lingered silently for years uncounted, its box lid bearing the nicks and bruises of seasonal neglect. Beneath a sprinkling of dust gazed a rigidly perched owl. Its body constituted approximately 900 of the puzzle’s 1,000 total pieces. There was nothing special about the owl in its countless shades of brown, poised upon a scaly branch in a forest blurred by poor lighting. The only splash of color, those yellow-ringed eyes, glared back at Lucas, unblinking, as if equally unimpressed with him.

Lucas slipped the cover from the box and evaluated the pieces. As he feared, they were too thin and light. They would be easily torn, and regrettably loose-fitting. He sniffed the air for traces of fresh sawdust but caught nothing but the damp must of aging cardboard. With dull acceptance, he dumped the entire box onto the table and began scanning for edges.

While shuffling through the pieces, he noticed that many were already coupled. Like a castle wall that stands long after the keep has fallen to rubble and rot, those remnants were all that remained of a previous assembly. His first instinct was to break them apart so that upon completion of the puzzle, he could take satisfaction in having found every single fit.

A sudden memory stayed his fingers.

A lean, white haired man hunched over the skeleton framework of the puzzle, jigsaw piece in hand as he sought a proper placement. His breath escaped in rhythmic bursts. He wore a long-sleeved button down shirt as always. He smelled of tractor oil and Old Spice. At his side was a young boy of 11 or 12. Together they pieced the owl into existence.

Lucas lifted two of the joined pieces from the heap, cradling them in a palm. He wondered whether it had been his own much younger hands to assemble them or his grandfather’s. They were all that remained of a summer long ago when he had spent a week on the farm, never considering for a moment that it would be the last time.

On the box, the owl continued to stare from its perch, an echo of some real moment long past. While the original owl had flown and stalked mice and witnessed a lifetime of breathtaking sights, it was gone now, while this poor, stilted reflection remained. For the briefest of moments, Lucas wondered what had happened to the owl.

As his malaise subsided, Lucas gently gathered the puzzle back into its box, careful to leave the joined pieces in tact. Then, placing the owl upon its shelf, he vaguely wondered how long cardboard memories could last.

Things Fall Apart

2010-04-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

Drove by the house where I grew up this weekend. It's been boarded up and scheduled for demolition. I know we shouldn't live in the past, but sometimes, it's hard to let go of these things. Especially when so many signficant moments were spent here. I've mapped a few of those moments onto a recent photo. The juxtaposition is haunting to me.

Jurassic Walk

2010-03-18T13:25:00.000-07:00

I went for a walk yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to come across a herd of mammoths. I was able to snap off a couple of photos before one of the larger ones spotted me and indicated rather persuasively that I should leave. I'm just glad I had my camera phone with me! Here's the photos I was able to capture.

Antanom and Nancy

2010-02-16T09:27:00.000-08:00

(Submitted to Jellyvision as part of my application. Assignment: a 1-2 page story demonstrating comedic voice. It also had to incorporate the following words: billion, jam, organ, orange, bowl, hump. I was offered a short-term writing job based on this writing sample, but sadly, due to the short contract of work, I had to decline the offer.)

You'd think life would be all rainbows and butterflies after marrying an omnipotent being, yet such was not the case for Nancy Cardiver, assistant librarian, church organist, and newlywed wife of the demigod, Antanom.

Antanom had swept Nancy quite off her feet from the get go. Their first date consisted of an early morning swim with humpback whales in Maui, followed by dinner at the top of the Eiffel tower. He then whisked her off for a twilight walk along Saturn's rings before shrinking them both down to microscopic proportions to witness the fusion of two iridium atoms, said to be the loveliest spectacle in the galaxy.

The courtship had proceeded with increasingly breathtaking sights and experiences, culminating in a wedding ceremony that featured over a billion people, including the entire Nevlar and Protaxis colonies of distant Rylon. Nancy had always prided herself on names, but even she was tested by the sheer number of monikers derived from the Rylonian alphabet of 4,603 letters. To say it was a long day would be true not only in a geo-planetary manner of speaking as it lasted six years and twenty-seven days, but also in a completely metaphysical manner as Antanom, yielding to his flair for the dramatic, slowed the progress of time itself so that he and his blushing bride could greet each and every one of their guests.

That Antanom insisted Nancy resign her post as assistant librarian and take up the role of housewife to a super-being might seem a gesture of grace, but then, cleaning up after a deity can be quite an onerous task. Running a washing machine and scrubbing dishes pale in comparison to purging the souls of your husband's deceased enemies, after all. And cooking for a demigod wasn't exactly a task she took lightly, either. Though he often declared her culinary efforts "fit for the gods!", she'd caught him more than once zapping her meals with a finger when her back was turned and transforming regular beef stew into dragon steak marinated in Venusian sun apples and pegasus jam.

One morning as Nancy returned Antanom's holy garments to his chest of drawers hewn from the trunk of the infamous Traitor's Wood (the tree from which Judas Iscariot hanged himself), she noticed a package. Antanom had a number of packages splayed throughout the household - trinkets from various global conquests, gifts of worship from his groveling followers, and a rather extensive collection of vintage lunchboxes - but this one was different. Instead of wrappings made from the fleece of golden lambs and dusted with ground unicorn horn, it was wrapped in a brown paper sack. Nancy cautiously peeked inside to find a book entitled, "How to Make Friends Without Overtaking Their Free Will and Forcing Them."

That night, when Antanom returned from raiding the border worlds of Zenon, Nancy slammed the book down before him.

"What is this?"

Antanom's eyes fixed on the incriminating tome, focused momentarily, then relaxed.

"What about it?" he replied. The book was now a puppy. It leapt into Nancy's arms and licked her face.

"I saw the book, Antanom." Her eyes hardened. "You don't have any friends!"

Antanom stared at his hands. "I do too," he protested weakly.

"Mailman!" came a sudden voice from the door. "Just dropping off a few letters from friends!" A stream of multicolored envelopes streamed through the mail slot, forming a neat pile in the middle of the floor.

Outside, an entire flock of Canadian geese fell suddenly from the sky, covering the lawn.

"Aha!" Nancy cried. "You can't lie to me. The side-effects of your guilty conscience are far too obvious."

"Fine, you caught me," Antanom said softly. "I had a friend once. His name was Jaxon, son of the sub-god of South Carolina. My father disapproved of me playing with such a low-ranking deity. One night when Jaxon was sleeping over, my father created an ice planet for us to play on - you know, typical father stuff. As soon as Jaxon stepped foot on the planet, my father cast it into the Nelto Abyss where it instantly imploded to a point of singularity. Jaxon was never seen again, and I've not had a friend since."

"Nancy stroked Antanom's hand. "I'm sorry, Honey," she said. "But what about me? I'm your friend."

"Actually," he said, grimacing, "You only love me because I threatened to go back in time and uncreate your family lineage to a hundred generations if you didn't, then erased your memory of the event. You were in love with an amateur bowler named Brad."

This news hit Nancy understandably hard.

"I'm sorry, Nancy. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?"

"You can give me my free will back."

"Besides that, of course."

Nancy considered. She was a smart girl, after all. She hadn't made assistant librarian faster than anyone in her district for nothing!

"Powers," she exclaimed. "I want to be able to do anything you can do."

Outside the sun paled a few shades of orange. In the Sahara, a raincloud appeared over a parched tribe of Bedouins, burst, but evaporated before it could fill their cupped hands. At the top of Mount Everest, a daisy poked its head from the ice, instantly froze, then withered.

"Very well," Antanom said at last. There was a bright flash. Nancy felt a surge of power course through her entire being. And then her mind opened and she understood. Not just advanced calculus and theoretical astrophysics and the Dewey decimal system like no librarian had ever understood it before; she understood everything. She knew why old ladies liked cats so much. She knew why the line she chose at the supermarket would inevitably move the slowest. She knew why the grass always seemed greener on the other side, and she could scientifically prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that in actuality, it was. She turned her cosmic powers of reason towards her husband.

"As you have stolen my free will - for indeed I find that despite your egregious crimes against me, I still love you with every fiber of my being - and as you have given me powers to equal your own, I hereby repay your actions against me in kind. Antanom, I claim from you your free will. From this day forward, you will dedicate every waking moment to my happiness. Though you did not earn my love legitimately to begin with, you will earn it now over the course of eternity. For starters, you will accompany me as I try on every pair of shoes across the 27 known galaxies. After that, lip gloss. We leave in five."

With that, Nancy Cardiver earned her place in the hall of demigod wives, a position that is being reserved for her until such time she returns from her intergalactic shopping trip with her doting husband, Antanom.

The End

THE $7 BILL DEBACLE

2010-02-12T11:39:00.000-08:00

(Submitted as part of application to Groupon. Assignment: to write an absurd, tangential blurb somehow associated with a $7 acupuncture deal the company is advertising. Never heard a thing from them, so maybe not the best piece to include in my portfolio. Still, this is the kind of thing I love writing.)

It’s too bad Patrick Donahue didn’t have his way, or you’d be able to pay for a $7 acupuncture session with a single bill. That’s right, back in 1978, Mr. Donahue proposed that the US Treasury issue a $7 bill to address what he called the “overcrowded pocket problem.” Using a series of impressive graphs, Mr. Donahue deduced that a $7 bill would be the optimal denomination for the average cash transaction. He argued that by introducing such a bill into circulation, Americans could lighten their pocket loads by an average of four bills per person. With a population in the 200 millions, this would result in literally hundreds of pounds of saved pocket weight. Lighter Americans meant less wear and tear on mass transit, streets and highways, and the continent as a whole. Carried out over an infinite amount of time - the estimated lifespan of the United States - his pocket weight savings would have infinite benefits. It was a win-win scenario!

Unfortunately, Mr. Donahue’s proposal was struck down by a Congressional subcommittee that pointed out that though his research had merit, the average American couldn’t readily recite his or her sevens multiplication tables. The inevitable miscalculations in cash transactions would lead to profit loss, wasted calculation time, and an overall American decrease in self-esteem. (This being the era of disco, America had little self-esteem to spare.) Carried out over an infinite amount of time, it was concluded that such negative emotions would eventually reverse any benefits of the $7 bill, and that nation-wide mass suicide was inevitable.

Patrick Donahue was sentenced to life in prison for attempted genocide with nothing but, ironically, a pocket full of singles. He then turned his massive intellect to ballroom dance where he discovered a way to perform the Texas two-step in a single step. Sadly, he was shanked for his efforts.

Lessons from the Disney "Give A Day" Ad Campaign

2010-02-09T08:45:00.000-08:00

I am a major Disney fan. I mean big time. One of my long-term goals is to somehow earn enough money to be able to take my family to Disney World on an annual basis. My credentials include a cork board full of those “limited edition” Disney pins that have become all the rage among visiting pre-teens. I’m strongly tempted to throw away perfectly good dollar bills on frameable Disney artwork every time I visit. So yeah, I like my Disney a little too much for my own good.

Despite my love of the Mouse, even I find the latest Disney volunteer ads a bit off key. Surely you’ve seen these obnoxious tv spots by now. There are at least four of them, and to summarize, each features our favorite Muppet gang volunteering at various organizations in order to earn free tickets to Disney World. Innocent fun for a good cause, right?

I’m not so sure. Every time I’m forced to pause my regularly scheduled sitcom watching to see Miss Piggy galumph across the screen in that screechy voice that makes me wish a bad case of laryngitis on Frank Oz, something rubs me the wrong way. In an effort to get to the bottom of this subconscious unease, I’ve performed a short analysis of this latest experiment in promotional puppetry.

Sara Ramirez Spot

This is the one where Miss Ramirez of “Grey’s Anatomy” fame leads the Muppets in a hospital volunteer effort. The first thing we learn is that once you remove the Snow Patrol soundtrack and the melodrama, Sara isn’t much of an actress. (“Can I get a doctor. I mean a real one?” Come on, Sara, I know there’s a guy crouched in front of you with his hand up a puppet’s pattootie, but can’t you at least try?) Apart from this, there are a few other observations worth noting.

Lesson #1: Volunteering is about fun.

Okay, so maybe there’s nothing wrong with enjoying volunteering, but trying to sell it as a fun experience misses the point. Volunteering is about service. Fun may or may not be a side effect, but it is certainly not the focus.

Yet these ads really try to sell the fun aspect by showing Fozzie the Bear and Pepe the Shrimp playing with, of all things, the shock paddles. Hey kids! Volunteer at your local hospital and you, too, can electrocute your friends! The pay-off features Pepe standing center screen with sparks shooting out of the sides of his little crustacean head. What great fun!

Yes, I understand, it’s good for kids (and grown-ups) to volunteer. It can be fun. But trying to get kids into hospitals by implying that they’ll get to play with the expensive equipment is misguided.

Taye Diggs Spot

I like Taye Diggs. Seems like a genuinely good guy. I like seeing him wear the hard hat because I believe a guy like him probably does give a lot back. But again, there are a couple of disturbing implications.

Lesson #2: Volunteering is about getting free stuff.

Here’s how Taye Diggs puts it: “The sooner we get started, the sooner we get our free ticket to Disney.”

What? The sooner we get started, the sooner we get the free stuff? Sounds a little like, “The sooner you eat your broccoli, the sooner you get dessert.” Or “the sooner you clean your room, the sooner you can go out and play.” It implies that the first act being performed is something undesirable, made tolerable only because of the ensuing reward. Take away the free Disney tickets, and you don’t have a reason for doing it.

Okay, again, I’m probably coming down a little hard on them. They’ve only got 30 seconds to convey their message: that they’ll give free tickets to those who volunteer. But surely there’s enough time within that 30 seconds to acknowledge the possibility that volunteering is about service. That there’s an inherent satisfaction that comes from giving back. Unfortunately, this sentiment is overshadowed by cuts of Disney theme park rides and general scenes of merriment, none of which has anything to do with the volunteer effort, but the reward.

Lesson #3: Showing up is good enough.

Miss Piggy spends the first half of the commercial daydreaming about Taye Diggs. Once he regains her attention, she barks out orders for everyone else to get to work. It’s implied that Piggy gets a ticket to Disney just like everyone else, despite the fact she has done nothing.

Lesson #3a: There might be hotties there.

A corollary to the last point, Piggy daydreams about a fellow volunteer. It’s clear the focus for her is not about helping others, but about romancing Mr. Diggs. This is all kinds of creepy. I mean, she’s a puppet. Of a pig. What would she actually… do with Taye Diggs if she got him? And let’s not forget she’s voiced by a man. A hairy old man. A hairy old man with a scratchy beard. Moving on…

Teri Hatcher Spot

Miss Piggy is at it again, this time with a perky Teri Hatcher. The lessons here are disappointingly similar to the previous. Once again, it’s revealed that Piggy’s there for the free stuff (Lesson 2). Once again, it’s about minimal effort. In fact, in this case, they take it a step further.

Lesson #4: A piss-poor effort is acceptable.

The pay-off to the ad occurs when the camera reveals that Piggy has cleaned up just a corner of the room with her incompetent friends. Once she receives news of her free Disney ticket, she jets, leaving the others to finish the job. Let’s hope Piggy never volunteers for anything of real importance. With the crisis in Haiti and other serious charitable and relief efforts sorely lacking participants, I think an ad like this undermines the need for a true spirit of volunteerism. Yes, I get it, it’s supposed to be funny. Maybe that’s the problem. When we’re talking poverty and disease and people in need, maybe selling the cause through humor is the wrong approach.

James Denton Spot

Finally, we have a Desperate Husband pitching in at a Habitat-for-Humanity type effort. He and the Muppets are constructing a home which leads to more “humorous” antics. Surely a respectable actor like Mr. Denton will direct the focus of this ad to more altruistic purposes! Kermit, the first character in any of these ads to understand this, states, “Doesn’t it feel great to volunteer?”

Thank you, Kermit! I like this statement. It’s not about fun or free stuff. Kermit makes reference to the intrinsic value of sacrifice. It seems genuine. If they would have left it at this, it might have been a very positive message.

Instead, Mr. Denton jumps in with, “A free ticket to Disney doesn’t hurt, either.”

Once again, focus has been shifted to the free stuff. A montage of Disney World fun and games follows, and the warm fuzzies we may have gotten from Kermit’s remarks are forgotten.

And then, to top it all off, the house falls apart. Hilarious.

Lesson #5: It doesn’t matter whether your efforts actually benefit anyone.

Wanna spend a couple of hours putting together a death trap? Cool! We’ll send you to Disney for it.

Summary

If we take all these valuable life lessons and put them into a pithy definition for the true meaning of volunteering, it might come out something like this:

Volunteer (v.) The act of merely showing up to charitable organizations of choice, goofing off, doing a haphazard job, and never considering whether the work you're doing is of any true benefit to others – all in order to get free stuff in return, to have fun, and to possibly hook up with Taye Diggs.

Again, let me say it. I love Disney. I even like the Muppets generally. I appreciate the effort to make volunteering desirable. I just don't see how the underlying attitude taken towards volunteering in these ads truly helps the cause.

So, does it make me a complete hypocrite to admit that I’m still tempted to do it?

Lucas' First Smile

2010-01-26T20:20:00.001-08:00

Lucas' first smile on video.

Babies are like Thomas Kinkade paintings...

2010-01-22T12:17:00.001-08:00

Babies are like Gilligan...

2010-01-11T09:34:00.000-08:00

(As a new father as of December 17, 2009, I thought it might be funny to begin a humorous series of graphics comparing babies to various pop culture figures. I managed to produce half a dozen before I got too busy at work to do these any more. This first was always my favorite...)

The Origin of Lucas...

2010-01-08T14:37:00.000-08:00

Once and for all, I did NOT name my son after Luke Skywalker, nor George Lucas. True, if I were not a Star Wars fan, the name might not be as appealing to me and I may never have chosen it. However, as much as I love that other galaxy far, far away, I would never doom my child to derive his identity from a 70s science fiction movie.

Oh, and as gratifying as it may be to some of you, I'll never, ever say the famous line. You know the one. The same line Chris Farley intones into his fan over and over in "Tommy Boy." Okay, here's a hint...

So where did the name 'Lucas' come from? Let's just say it was the result of a series of odd coincidences. Danielle and I have always wanted to choose names of certain significance for our kids, and we really liked the meaning of Lucas: "bringer of light." It works on a couple of levels. He's obviously a great light and gift to us, but he'll also be, we hope, a bringer of light to the world.

The real kicker, though, was that when we asked several people for suggestions for names, they nearly unanimously agreed on the name without knowing it. Danielle's Mom has always wanted to name a boy Luke. My brother-in-law guessed Luke. My uncle guessed Lucas. A random lady in the elevator even asked Danielle if she was going to give her baby a Christmas name, like Luke. It was uncanny! And then, one night, after relaying these strange events to my father on the phone (without divulging the name that kept popping up), I asked what name he thought we should give our child. His and my step-mother's response: Luke Franklin. I should mention that we had already chosen Franklin for his middle name after my grandfather and my own middle name. Flabbergasted, I called my mom next and told her the same story without revealing my dad's guess. Her response: "I always thought you'd name him something like Luke... Franklin."

Was it a conspiracy? Were they all in on it? As it turns out, no. I am either just the most predictable father on the planet, or this is one big happy coincidence. Danielle and I are not coincidence people. When half a dozen different people confirmed a name we had already chosen, it made us feel like we had picked the right name.

Anyway, that's how the name Lucas Franklin came to be. I can't wait to see what he does with it.

Old Year / New Year Resolutions

2010-01-07T12:15:00.000-08:00

Last year was a good one in terms of resolutions. I had three: 1) Get under 210 pounds; 2) Write a novel; and 3) Complete another movie. Check, check, and check!

There are some qualifiers such as the fact that although I got under 210 pounds, I’m currently sitting at 215 – but hey, that’s still 30 pounds under where I was a year ago. As for the novel, I “finished” it in that I wrote it (50,000+ words), but I’ve never really revised it, so perhaps it’s not technically complete. Still, it was my first full novel and I give myself credit. As for films, I made two last year, and I also shot a wedding video and transferred the old 8mm home videos into movies for my family. Bottom line is, I made strides in personal health, writing productivity and movie-making productivity.

On top of these goals, I wrote over 20 short stories, completed a few freelance graphical art projects, and designed this website which will eventually serve as a portfolio for future freelance work. Oh, and I made a little boy, with the help of my wife and the Almighty. All in all, a productive year!

So I’ve decided that New Year’s resolutions can be quite motivating. Perhaps it’s a mid-life (third-life?) crisis which has led me to feel the need to be as productive with my time as possible, but I foresee another year of writing and video projects ahead.

My Resolutions for 2010:

1) Get under 200 pounds
2) Get one of my stories published (or die trying!)
3) Make a short film that can be used for multiple festivals and competitions
4) Get a new job that is closer to my creative writing passion (or transition within current company into a position that actually uses some of my talents)

As with last year, I’ll refrain from setting smaller, daily goals such as reading my bible, praying regularly, etc., since I hate attaching an obligatory spirit to activities I should be performing on my own. And once again, I’ll put off going back to school since, until I figure out what I really want to do with my life, I don’t even know what I’d study.

Will having a son affect my energy and productivity levels? Probably. But I’ve already noticed that I’m more motivated than ever to find extra sources of income so that my little guy will be able to experience all the things I was privileged enough to enjoy as a child. (Translation: I want to take him to Disney World as soon as he’s old enough to appreciate it!) What I’d love to put as my resolution is to find a way to make enough money so that Danielle can be a full-time, stay-at-home mom (assuming she still wants the job after her three-month trial period). Maybe next year.

Alright. The bar has risen a few notches. Looking forward to another challenging year. It's exciting for me to consider where I could be this time 2011. We'll see!

Anyone else set any resolutions???

Miguel & Sons

2009-12-07T09:01:00.000-08:00

Miguel & Sons, a snow removal company out of Sandwich, IL hired me to design some flyers and other promotional materials for them last week. It was a pretty easy job, but I always enjoyed making clear, simple marketing copy.

Kong Vs. Modern Day Avionics

2009-11-30T09:16:00.000-08:00

I like making fake promotional materials for the products of my avionics company. Here's a poster I made pitting one of our high-tech, glass (digital) cockpits against the legendary King Kong. The resulting anachronistic clash is a fair representation of my two worlds right now: the rigid, structured aerospace industry and the escapist draw of film.

Missing Pieces (Original, Unedited)

2009-11-25T07:36:00.000-08:00

After a terrible day at work followed by an interminable commute home, Franklin decided it was finally time to break out the owl puzzle.

On those previous occasions where he had considered revisiting the owl puzzle of the Milton Bradley Nature Series, he had inevitably changed his mind, opting for something more challenging or exciting instead. He didn't self-analyze too much. He had already assembled the puzzle once before, and he typically preferred not to work on the same twice.

But today was different. In addition to his work irritability, he was overcome by a wave of depression that he diagnosed as a mixture of nostalgia for the past and dissatisfaction with the present. It was a volatile combination, the kind that had frequently led to random expenditures on relics of his childhood and spontaneous road trips to places of prior significances. He was about to succumb to such a whim again, considering a late-night hunt on eBay for rare Star Wars action figures when he concluded that it was finally time.

Franklin took the owl puzzle from the shelf where it had sat unperturbed for years. The box was dusty and scratched with deeply indented corners. On the lid, an 80's splash of orange bordered a rigidly perched owl which constituted approximately 900 of the 1,000 total pieces. It wasn't a particularly interesting puzzle. On his shelves, he possessed dozens of alternatives portraying exotic landscapes, colorful collages of animals and historic scenes, and reproductions of famous artistic masterpieces. Everything about the owl puzzle was underwhelming and unimpressive.

Franklin opened the box and sifted through the pieces. They were a lighter, thinner cardboard than he preferred, typical Milton Bradley quality, part of the reason he had shifted his allegiance to higher end puzzle brands in the intervening years. He sniffed the air for traces of sawdust but caught nothing. With a dull acceptance, he dumped the entire box onto the table and began his routine: edges first, secondary edges next, then prominent shapes and colors until he finished. He estimated it would take three days.

As he sorted the pieces, he noticed that many of them were coupled, remnants from its previous assembly. Normally he would twist them apart without thought, insuring that once the puzzle was completed, he could enjoy the satisfaction of having found every single fit. A sudden memory stole his vision, and his fingers fumbled over the joined pieces. He stopped himself in mid-twist and allowed it to play out before his eyes.

Franklin watched a white haired man hunch over a card table, jigsaw-hewn piece of owl in hand as he pored over the puzzle for a proper placement. He breathed heavily through his nose, his jaw set in concentration. He smelled of dirt and Old Spice. It was his grandfather. As Franklin remembered, his grandfather wasn't a very good puzzle doer. More times than not, he attempted to wedge his piece into the wrong places, eliciting a faint pity within Franklin that already he had surpassed his grand-elder in so simple a task. Still, over the few days that Franklin would stay, they would inevitably finish, and the owl puzzle was no exception.

The vision lasted only a few moments, and Franklin let it replay another time as his finger carved a path through the jumbled pile of pieces. Already, so many details had been lost. He desperately wished that there was some medium on which he could store the vision, to share it with his own son or grandson one day. His inability to do so gnawed hollowly in his chest, as though upon every recollection of the memory, a part of it would fade, and a corresponding part of himself would similarly melt away.

Franklin pushed a few more pieces around, halfheartedly seeking out the edges, but he already recognized his fervor was gone. The puzzle had not been touched in twenty years since his own grandfather had stood with him and helped bring the old barn owl into existence. It was all that remained of a summer long ago when Franklin had spent a week on the farm, never considering for a moment that it would be the last time.

As Franklin continued to twirl the joined pieces in his hand, he wondered whether it had been his own, much younger hands that had once assembled them, or his grandfather's. With a sudden reverence for the mound of flimsy cardboard before him, and a feeling of connectedness to a place he thought had gone, Franklin gathered the puzzle back into its box, careful not to break apart any pieces still joined. He placed the box neatly back on the shelf, wondering if perhaps there was a medium that could adequately store his memory after all.

2009-10-19T12:49:00.000-07:00

2009 Christmas Flyer.

Love in a Time of Robots

2009-10-14T06:51:00.000-07:00

Submitted October 13, 2009 to New Scientist for Flash Fiction competition - 350 words about the world 100 years from now.

She sat in the corner booth, head shaved, completely nude.

Langdon, similarly prepped, crossed the room in a few crisp steps and offered a white rose.

“Felia?”

She confirmed by saying nothing to the contrary.

“You’re pretty,” he said handing her the flower. “Mind if I do the inspection right away?”

Her arms tightened over her chest. He gestured at the other nude pairings around the room.

“Everyone has to.”

Reluctantly, she eased and stood. Langdon made the examination.

“Very nice,” he said. “Your turn.”

She cast a cursory glance down his body, then nodded.

“Perfect!” he said. “Shall we order?”

They sat, and Langdon punched their orders into the mirrorgraphic tabletop.

Felia’s heuristics had shown that she was shy to the point of near helplessness. Whereas this may have been perceived as unattractive to some, Langdon’s own proclivities towards extreme dominance actually complemented hers quite well. It was why they had been paired. And it was why they had resorted to heuristical pairing when their own more traditional efforts had failed.

“Let’s discuss the arrangement,” he said. “I work nine to noon, typically. During that time, you’ll coordinate the house. I like a tidy, decontaminated home at all times. I plan to apply for children immediately. We’ll work out the more… intimate details later. Questions?”

She had none.

“Alright then.”

Langdon tapped the tabletop and a certificate popped into existence. He scanned it, thumbed his acceptance, then indicated for Felia to do the same. She did so without reading it.

“That’s that!” he said when the table indicated a successful contract.

He glanced triumphantly around the room. None of the other pairings had finished yet; most were busy talking. Langdon took satisfaction in being the first to conclude.

A waiter approached with their food.

“Congratulations to the newlyweds.”

“Thank you,” Langdon responded loudly. He noted that many tables were just now beginning their inspections.

As he began to eat, he watched his wife pluck the rose completely bald, petal by petal. She mumbled something about love.

He smiled. It was kind of cute.

Crackpot Thursday

2009-10-12T12:47:00.000-07:00

Halloween Barbecue flyer.

Lucid

2009-09-22T21:13:00.000-07:00

One night Michael realized he was dreaming. At first he hadn't been quite sure. The grocery clerk who had just phased into his high school math teacher seemed a little suspicious, but he couldn't be certain. It wasn't until he crossed the street and got hit by a sporty, red car which merely felt like a thump against the hip that he suspected none of it was real. He tested his theory by tossing his bag of groceries in the air. At least two of the items inside, a cantaloupe and a bicycle tire, broke the earth's gravitational pull and ended up in orbit. He was about 95% certain at this point that he was, indeed, lucidly dreaming.

The first thought that crossed Michael's mind was that in a world of dreams, there were no consequences for any actions. Michael could do absolutely anything he wanted. Were he a different sort of man - dare I say a typical man? - this would be about as far as I could describe it without crossing into truly salacious material. However, Michael was, first and foremost, a dreamer, and the ability to influence his own world was an opportunity he wasn't about to waste on the lurid desires of the average adolescent. Instead, Michael decided he wanted to meet some movie stars.

Michael wasn't sure how to teleport himself to Hollywood, so he hailed a cab. Upon stopping, the muppet cabbie asked his destination.

"Hollywood," Michael said.

"You kiddin' me?" the cabbie barked. "We're in Hollywood."

Michael looked around and saw the signs and palm trees and instantly felt silly for not recognizing it sooner. He waved off the cabby and entered the first door he came across, which just so happened to lead him into a piano bar. To his great surprise, Julia Roberts was tickling a tune out of the baby grand while a sparse audience sipped martinis. Michael approached.

"Hi, Miss Roberts," he said shyly.

"Get off the stage, Kid," she said.

Michael didn't understand why she was acting this way. He attempted to exert his influence over the actress' personality, but she continued playing her piece.

"You think I have to do what you say?" she asked, lifting a cigarette to her ruby red lips. "This may be your dream, but I'm Julia Roberts."

This made perfect sense to Michael, so he left the piano and headed for a hallway at the back of the lounge. He followed it until it opened into an alternative conference room where a man in a tuxedo was addressing a crowd of similarly well-dressed professionals.

"This is why the water engine must be fueled with only purified water," he was saying. "If even the smallest amount of dirt gets in there, it can cause a chain reaction which will result in the engine going nuclear."

Michael drifted through the crowd, noticing an attentive George Lucas in the front row.

"Make sure I get two of those," the bearded mogul whispered to an aide.

"George!" Michael shouted, drawing the attention of those around them.

"Do I know you?" George Lucas asked.

"No, but you will!"

With that, Michael withdrew his iPhone and powered up the lightsaber application. Then he brandished his phone like a weapon, playfully striking at the famous director with the lightsaber's familiar hum and hiss. To his extreme delight, George Lucas removed his own, gold-plated iPhone and activated the same app. An amused crowd gathered around them to watch their simulated lightsaber battle. It ended when somebody alerted the crowd that Christopher Walken was dancing at the podium.

The world was starting to get a little blurry then. Michael feared that he might be rousing. Desperately, he clinged to sleep, hoping that he would be free to enjoy his adventure a little longer.

Suddenly Michael noticed that a female figure dressed head to toe in black floated above the entire room. With an umbrella in her gloved hand, Mary Poppins descended from a skylight Michael hadn't noticed before, and all heads turned to watch her entrance.

"Pish posh," she said to the men who attempted to take her umbrella. She marched straight for Michael.

"You know you're dreaming, Michael."

"Yes, I do."

"Good. Very soon you'll awaken and you'll need to go to work. Before you do, we want you to know, this is where you belong."

Michael noticed that the entire crowd now faced him, hats in hands, expressions of longing on their faces. He desperately wanted to stay.

"I understand, Miss Poppins," he said respectfully. "Can I come back?"

"Any time," Mary Poppins said. Then she turned to whisper something into an older gentleman's ear who guffawed before checking his pocket watch and darting from the room. Michael watched the man trip and fall which elicited a laugh-track response from the crowd.

Turning back to Mary Poppins, Michael was shocked to see the famous nanny had transformed into Maria from "The Sound of Music," but with black hair. He marvelled that he'd never noticed the similarity before.

"How do I get back?" he asked her as sunlight began to flood the room.

Black-haired Maria cast a fetching smile at Michael.

"A spoonful of sugar," she replied.

Michael beamed. It was so simple!

Maria began to spin, arms outstretched, as though atop the Swiss Alps, and the room joined in dance with her. Michael allowed himself to be caught up in the torrent of spinning bodies, and together they sang, "We Didn't Start the Fire." Michael was amazed how compatibly Julie Andrew's voice and Billy Joel's lyrics synched. When he awoke, he would definitely write to both to propose the collaboration.

Unfortunately, the thought of waking triggered the process, and Michael blinked his eyes open, dully noting that his alarm clock must have been playing for several minutes already. With his dream still fresh in mind, he felt an urgent desire to write down every detail as though some powerful truth had been revealed to him. His heart still swelled with feelings of escape and of connecting to something truly meaningful. But something nagged him. Shaking the cobwebs from his head, he looked at the time, forced himself to remember when he had intended to wake, and realized he was late for work. Again. All thought of documenting his dream was forgotten.

As Michael hastily dressed, the warmth he had felt, the satisfaction of touching something magical, faded. Within a few minutes, he wondered why he had been so moved by such a nonsensical pattern of thoughts. As he walked stiffly downstairs to eat his breakfast, he shook it from his head.

For the next eight hours, he went about his job capably and with dedication. Still, by the time he returned home, he felt utterly exhausted. He briefly considered watching a little televsion or surfing the internet, but the depression that accompanied both of these ideas stifled him. Instead, he took a shower and plopped into bed by 8:00.

He had ten hours, he calculated. He knew it would go fast. Without a second to lose, he closed his eyes, and waited to wake up.

Cheerleaders in Armani

2009-09-21T09:13:00.000-07:00

They sat in the boardroom around a long table in leather swivel chairs. At one end of the table sat the president. At the other, the new marketing assistant, a young man named Lucas.

Lucas noted that the table had curves instead of corners. He wondered if it was strategic, a psychological melding of Arthur's Round Table and the more traditional hierarchical long table where seat position correlated to rank. In either case, it was clear who was the king. The president rose from his seat and pounded the table dramatically.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, our studies are in and the results are conclusive. It turns out, the Earth is flat after all."

There were gasps around the table, followed by an outburst of frenetic activity.

"Why, this will change everything!" the vice president exclaimed.

"We need to get the rights to a flat globe!" shouted one of the directors.

"Can't we just squish it?" another asked.

"No, no, the proportions are all wrong!"

"How's this for the title of the Press Release?" the PR manager asked. "Columbus Vindicated at Last!"

"Controversial!" someone shouted. "I love it!"

"Have we got a celebrity endorsement lined up?"

"Are we doing tee-shirts?"

The suggestions were fast and constant.

"Hold on!" shouted the president. "You're not thinking big enough. What does this mean for our satellite contracts? For the airline industry? For tourism in general? People, this truly will change everything."

Eager nods of assent ran up and down the table. Several in attendance were already on Blackberrys, undoubtedly texting subordinates to clear their schedules for the ensuing media blitz.

"Nothing yet on the major news sites," a man yelled as he clacked away at his laptop.

"Google isn't turning up anything," another added.

The president just smiled at his gathered assembly.

"That's because these were our studies and reports, and we, alone, retain exclusive data rights to release this information to the world."

Stunned gasps and head-shaking. The room fell into hushed reverence. The profit implications were astounding! Even the smallest commissioned employee would make out handsomely from this development. The joy and goodwill in the room was palpable.

Meanwhile, Lucas bit down on his tongue, fighting back the words that clawed at his insides and begged to be loosed upon the room. His eyes bulged red and a sweat broke out across his forehead. Self-consciously, he pretended to take down notes. He preferred anything to meeting the gaze of his superiors.

"Lori," the President shouted into a polycom at his secretary, "book me the next cruise to the ends of the earth!"

Several of the white-hairs guffawed at his joke.

Jostling in his seat, Lucas exploded.

"What do you mean the Earth is flat?" he shouted over the merriment.

The room froze in mid frenzy, a deadly pall falling over the assembly. All eyes turned towards the junior marketing assistant at the far end of the table, a seat that would have once held, in more proper times, a silent squire or page.

"What part of 'the Earth is flat' don't you understand?" the President spoke with a sassy twang.

Lucas looked around for any trace of shared confusion. He was alone.

"How can the Earth be flat?" he asked again, more timidly this time.

"It is what it is, Boy. The real question is, how could it be round?" He laughed. "How were we ever convinced that all those Chinese were walking upside down? I'd love to have stock in the marketing firm that spun that one!"

The entire room erupted in laughter once more.

"But we've got pictures!" Lucas said desperately. "People fly around the world all the time..."

This time the President let his annoyance show a moment before responding.

"We've all been duped," he said, hands grasping at air. "The airline industry has been in on it all along, obviously. When we've thought we were flying one way, clearly they've been taking us on alternative routes, to raise profits no doubt. Same with the satellite industry. GPS. The Internet. Hubble. Hollywood. It's all just one big hoax."

The old man paused to reflect on his words, taking a moment to allow the others to appreciate his tidy summary of the entire ordeal. He wasn't president for nothing!

"Are you serious?" Lucas asked, already accepting the fact that next meeting, he'd be sitting at his own cubicle - or out on the curb - instead.

"You think there's a worldwide conspiracy to make everyone believe the Earth is round?"

"Not for long! We're going to blow the lid off this thing. If you're going to have a problem with that, I suggest you reconsider your priorities here."

Lucas recognized the veiled threat but didn't let it phase him. How could anything phase him at this point?

"No, Sir," he said. "I don't have a problem with it at all. You want to tell the world the truth about the Earth, that it's, uh, flat, I think that's your right. More than that, I think it's our responsibility."

The president nodded and gave a bulldog grunt.

"Atta boy," he said, happy to have demonstrated his powers of persuasion to his cheerleaders in Armani.

The chatter recommenced, this time including Lucas as a lost sheep won over from non-belief. Those around him slapped his shoulder and explained how one day he'd tell his grandchildren that this is where it all changed. Lucas nodded with an accepting smile, letting their words elicit the same choppy laughs and half dreams as from the others.

"We can make Earth-shaped pizzas," Lucas offered, and was met with the same effusive encouragement the loyal often give to recent converts.

The meeting let out an hour later, each man and woman making beelines for their offices to make phone calls and write emails. How exciting to be at the start of it all!

Later that day, Lucas sold all his company stock, and after pooling it with his entire life's savings, bought as big a chunk of his company's strongest competitor that he could afford. A month later he had made a small fortune and was able to retire with his wife to the very ends of the Earth, that is, Florida.

Robin Hood on Trial

2009-09-20T20:21:00.000-07:00

Theresa lay on her stomach next to Matthew, the book propped open on a pillow so both could see the playful illustrations inside.

"Robin Hood may have been called a thief and an outlaw by the rich that he robbed," she read aloud, "but to the poor that he saved, he was a hero and a saint."

She lingered a moment on the final page before closing the book.

"The end."

She gave her son an expectant smile. Instead, he scrunched his nose.

"What does 'outlaw' mean?" he asked.

"It's like a thief," Theresa answered. "Someone who breaks the law or does bad things."

"Is Robin Hood a bad guy?"

"No, Honey, he's the good guy. Didn't you see how he helped the poor? Some people called him the bad guy because he stole money from the other bad guys, but he was really a good guy."

"But if you steal you're a bad guy."

Theresa laughed at his simple innocence.

"Usually, you're right," she said affirmingly. "But Robin Hood only steals from bad people."

His six-year-old brow wrinkled while his mind grappled with the seeming contradiction.

"He steals from the bad people?" he repeated unsurely.

"That's right."

"How come?"

"Because, he takes money away from the people that have too much and gives it to the people who don't have any."

"He steals from the rich people?"

"That's right!" She gave him another affectionate bop on the head.

"The rich people are the bad guys?"

Theresa paused.

"Well, sometimes, Honey. Some rich people are good guys, but Robin Hood only stole from the bad rich people."

"Like the bad sheriff."

"That's right."

"And he gave the sheriff's money to the poor people?"

"That's right!"

"Why?"

"Well, because they didn't have any."

"Why not?"

"Because they were poor."

Theresa frowned at her son's apparent lack of understanding and her own circular explanations.

"Robin Hood was a good guy because when the people were hungry and needed food, he gave it to them. If he didn't feed them, they would have starved."

"Why didn't the people have money?"

"I don't know. It was a very hard time to live. A lot of people didn't have good jobs and were sick so they couldn't make any money."

"Why didn't they steal some food?"

"Because that would be wrong and they could go to jail."

Theresa regretted it the moment she said it.

"Stealing is bad," she tried again, "but sometimes, you have to do it."

Matthew chewed his lip in thought.

"One time at school, Andrew Parker stole my pencil," he said.

"And how did that make you feel?"

"It made me mad."

"See? That's why it's wrong to steal. I tell you what. How about I buy you another pencil, one that Andrew Parker can't steal?"

He seemed to consider this.

"Mommy?" he asked when he had apparently gathered his thoughts.

"Yes?"

"Are we rich?"

"No, Honey."

"Good!" he said passionately. "I don't want Robin Hood to steal my piggy bank."

"Oh, Honey, he won't steal your piggy bank."

"Because I'm a good guy, right?"

"That's right. You're a good guy. Now, time for bed."

She gave him a peck on the lips. As she stood to leave, Matthew suddenly smiled.

"I hope Robin Hood steals Andrew Parker's pencil," he declared conspiratorially.

Theresa sighed. Tomorrow they would read a different book.

A Prayer for Jennie's Neighbor's Mom

2009-09-19T06:22:00.000-07:00

I get on my knees at the side of my bed because C.S. Lewis says the spririt follows the body's lead, and if C.S. Lewis isn't too good for kneeling, who am I to question it?

I leave the lights off, though. I'm far too self-conscious to concentrate with the lights on during prayer. I begin.

"Dear God."

"I'm here."

Of course, God doesn't actually verbally communicate to me, but I tend to imagine his responses as I go along. Prayer is a two-way conversation, or so I've heard.

"Thanks for this day, for my wife, for..." I roll through the regular checklist of things I'm thankful for with rehearsed efficiency.

"You're very welcome. It makes me happy to see that you are appreciative."

"I've got a few special petitions," I continue.

"I'm listening."

I pray about a number of things, most of them fairly small items of little consequence, but prayers are free so I list them anyway. Plus, I'm starting to feel the flow, the miraculous eloquence of words that pour forth from the heart.

God puts a hand on my shoulder when I finish. "You know that things that matter to you, no matter how small, matter to me. I will consider your requests and do what is best in every situation."

"Thanks," I say. Then I remember one more thing. "Oh, and please help Jennie from work's neighbor's mother get better."

"What's wrong with her?" he asks, as if he doesn't already know.

"I guess she's got cancer."

"I see. And what's her name?"

"I'm... not really sure."

"Okay. But you know her?"

"I've never met her, no."

"Do you care about this woman?"

"Well, I mean, if I'm being perfectly honest, I don't, really," I answer, beginning to suspect that this is a test.

God pauses. He does that a lot, actually. Usually I assume he's doing it for my own sake, to give me a chance to present a better explanation for myself.

"Not that I dislike her or wish her ill," I add, "but like you pointed out, I don't even know her."

"Yet you would take the time to pray on her behalf?"

My normal reflex would be to get defensive with so many questions, but seeing as how God already knows what I'm thinking anyway, I see no point in hiding.

"I told Jennie I would."

"I see. Why did you tell her that?"

"We were talking and she mentioned that her neighbor is going through a hard time because her mother just got diagnosed with cancer. Jennie seemed so upset that I told her I would pray for the woman."

"Did you mean it?"

"Here I am, right?"

"No, what I mean is, did you mean what you prayed? Did you truly mean to intercede on Meredith's behalf, praying with your spirit that I would heal her?"

I liked the way God casually threw Meredith's name in there, to show that despite the fact I was the one approaching Him on her behalf, He knew infinitely more about the situation already.

"I tried to mean it," I answered truthfully. "I don't like to think of others suffering. It really would be nice if you healed her."

"There are many who now suffer with cancer and other forms of disease. Why haven't you prayed for them?"

"I would, but I didn't know if you could offer blanket prayers like that. I'm finding it's hard enough just to pray for one stranger."

God gives a little chuckle at my admission.

"Have I set rules for how broadly or narrowly a prayer must be made?"

"I guess not. Okay, I'm sorry for taking my prayer so lightly. I take it back," I say with a passive-aggressive flourish.

"So you don't pray for Meredith?"

"Not if it doesn't do any good, no."

"I never said it doesn't."

"Okay, look God, you're confusing me just a little bit. Should I or should I not be praying for this woman?"

"You should pray for her if you want her to get better."

"Then why are you giving me such a hard time about it? I mean, is this just about trying to see what my true motivations are?"

"I already know your true motivations. This was so that you would understand them, too."

"I'm guessing my motivation matters?"

"It does."

"Well, I do want Meredith to get better. I can't imagine how difficult it must be for her. And for her family and friends. Will you take care of her?"

"Because of your prayer, yes, I will."

"Wow, really? Because of my prayer?"

"Don't misunderstand. I love Meredith and I want her to be well, but you are the only one who has prayed for her."

"Oh."

"This is why it matters to me whether you mean it or not. I've never taken a single prayer lightly. If I, who have responsibility over the entire world, take the time to examine every single heart during every single prayer, don't you think that perhaps you, too, should take that time?"

"I'm sorry for taking it so lightly in the past."

"I forgive you."

"Thanks for being so understanding."

"Thanks for spending time with me."

Overwhelmed as usual at the privilege of chatting it up with the Almighty, I climb into bed.

As I fall asleep, I just can't get Meredith and her cancer out of my mind. The thought of similar tragedy striking someone I love gives me a momentary pain in the chest.

"Please help her, God," I whisper.

He doesn't answer this time. I hope it's because he's too busy making her better.

Millie's Medicine

2009-09-18T19:33:00.000-07:00

Daddy said he had a tummy ache, so Mommy had gone to the store for medicine. Millie overheard in bed, and thinking she could help, sneaked from her room into the kitchen. Creeping across the linoleum floor, her pajama feet crinkled with each step until she reached the refrigerator, which required two hands to open. The inside light flashed yellow, illuminating Millie's face against the otherwise dark room; but as Daddy had fallen asleep in his chair in the living room, he didn't notice.

Millie grabbed the things she would need to make her special remedy, including ketchup, squeeze butter, and Daddy's favorite hamburger sauce, then mixed them together in a cup. When she was sure she had got the proportions just right, she went to a drawer and withdrew a curly straw. There was no medicine that couldn't be made better still with a curly straw.

She carried her medicine into the living room.

"Daddy," she whispered.

"You're supposed to be in bed, Honey," he said upon waking.

"I made you some medicine for your tummy."

He looked at the murky liquid in the mug and took it hesitantly from her.

"What's in it?"

"It's your medicine."

"Oh?" He sniffed the medicine and made a face, but Millie didn't mind - she knew all medicines smelled bad.

"Is this milk in here?" Daddy asked.

"No, I'm not big enough to pour the milk."

"So what is in here?"

"It's your medicine," she said again with a shrug.

Daddy stared into his four-year-old's eyes.

"Thank you, Honey."

He lowered his mouth to the straw, and he and she both watched as the medicine crawled slowly up, looping twice before reaching his lips.

"Ahh!" he said. "That's good medicine."

"No, Daddy, you need to drink it all gone."

"Oh, but it was so good that I only need a little bit. Oh... oh!" he said. Then he sat up in his chair and rubbed his tummy. "It feels better already!"

Millie studied her father. Then she looked at the glass.

"Daddy," she said.

"Yes?"

"Did you pretended to drink it?"

Daddy laughed and rubbed Millie's head.

"Millie, I drank all the medicine I needed. Thank you for making it for me."

He gave her a big smile. He didn't look sick.

"You're welcome," she said, smiling back.

The garage door opened and Mommy entered with a plastic bag.

"Millie, what are you doing up?"

"I made medicine for Daddy."

Mommy gave a stern look, first at Millie, then at Daddy.

"That was very nice of you, but both of you need to get to bed."

"Night-night, Millie," Daddy said.

"Night-night, Daddy."

She ran back to her bedroom, feet slapping the floor, curls bouncing. She climbed into her bed and pulled the covers up to her neck.

"That was cute," Mommy said to Daddy.

"She's a very good helper."

"Do you want me to get you a spoon?"

"No, that's okay," Daddy said.

"Well you can't drink out of the bottle."

"I don't need any of that yucky medicine," Daddy said loudly. "Millie's medicine made my tummy feel all better."

"Oh," Mommy said.

In her bed, Millie beamed. Then she heard Daddy rise from his chair and cross the living room.

"I'm just going to drink the rest of Millie's medicine and pour your yucky medicine down the sink."

"I suppose that's best," Mommy said, resigned.

Millie could hear the sound of the yucky medicine splashing into the sink. Next time, she thought, they would just ask her.

"Ahh!" Daddy said after a pause. "All better. Now I'm ready for bed."

Knowing that Daddy's tummy was all better, Millie, too, was able to fall asleep.

Reduce, Recycle, Re-use

2009-09-17T16:27:00.000-07:00

(In September of 2009, I decided I would try to write a short story a day for the entire month. Though not all of my efforts were comedic, I found that while trying to crank out stories in the wee hours of the night, I grew increasingly cynical and sarcastic. A few of these efforts managed to sneak into my otherwise respectable compendium of stories.)

Malcolm lived his entire life green. He used nothing that hadn't been shredded or melted from some earlier source and that couldn't be shredded or melted again. Instead of a trash can, he had a recycling bin and a compost pile, and he purchased nothing that couldn't be divided between the two. He had lived his whole life this way, before trends and celebrity endorsements and financial incentives. Malcolm loved the earth, and like any good husband, he was willing to sacrifice himself for her.

One day as Malcolm biked through the country to work, he was hit by a gas-guzzling, carbon monoxide-emitting car and left for dead. In a final gesture of charity towards the world he loved so much, his body biodegraded in the field where it lay, both his clothing and flesh returning from whence they came.

The following year, Malcolm was recycled in the field's crop, and his spirit took delight to see that he had become, at last, completely green. Green beans, actually, and rumor has it that the beans being served with today's lunch came from that very field.

"The End," concluded David to his laughing fourth grade class.

As he strided from the front of the room, he paused before the trash, then dropped his notes into the recycling bin. At this, Miss Hansen crossed out the 'F' she had written next to his name and replaced it with a 'B'.

Edward's Minute Machine

2009-09-16T20:40:00.000-07:00

Edward built a time machine
That could only skip a minute.
He packed his bags and kissed his mom,
And then he got right in it.

Instantly he jumped ahead,
Sixty seconds hence.
Emerging from his time machine,
To see future events.

The Edward of the future
Greeted Edward from the past.
They only had a minute,
So they both spoke very fast.

Before Ed could return, howe'er,
Occurred a thing most weird.
Just then another time machine
With a third Ed appeared.

The trio tried to understand,
For sixty seconds more.
And then another one arrived,
An Edward number four!

On and on the minutes passed,
Each bringing forth an Ed.
It seemed none could return before
Another came instead.

Dozens turned to hundreds,
As the light began to fade.
What a crowded bunch of boys
A thousand Edwards made!

But Edward was a bright young lad,
And with one thousand friends,
He felt they'd find a way to break
These most disturbing trends.

Clearly they could not return,
They'd tried all day in vain.
With each attempt to travel back,
It started all again.

So then the countless boys agreed,
They had to move ahead,
Into the future 'til they found,
A Futuristic Ed.

For if they traveled far enough
Hypothesized the masses,
The time machines would all shut down
When emptied of their gases.

And maybe then, just maybe,
A solution could be found.
Technology so far advanced,
The past could be rewound.

Each boy returned to his device,
Adjusting dials and knobs.
A sudden burst, a flash of light,
They disappeared in mobs.

The Ed who had begun it all,
Emerged from his machine.
Now there were just two of them
The others gone, 'twould seem.

The second was an older boy,
Maybe nine or ten.
Yet Past Ed recognized himself,
By what the boy said then.

"Congratulations, Younger Me,
I see you finally made it.
Welcome to the future world
I'd love to demonstrate it."

"That's quite alright," Past Edward said,
"I'm just not ready now.
I'm due back where I first began,
If you would show me how."

The old boy seemed confused by this
"But it's your destiny!
To travel to the future and
Report back what you see."

"I think I've learned the consequence
Of skipping far ahead.
Life moves too quickly as it is,
I'd rather wait instead.

And then one day, when I am grown,
Perhaps we'll meet again.
Or rather I suppose we'll be
The same old Edward then."

With this the older boy gave smile
And shook the younger's hand,
"I always was bright for my age."
"I knew you'd understand."

The Edwards bid a fond farewell,
The younger disappeared.
His mom was waiting in the past,
Just as he had feared.

"Ah, there you are at last," she said,
"I've looked for you all day!"
"You won't believe me where I've been,
I almost had to stay!"

His mother listened patiently,
While tucking him in bed.
He told her of the future,
Where he'd met a grown up Ed.

She watched him 'til he fell asleep,
Her heart aflood with joy.
She prayed she would not miss a minute,
With her little boy.

Justice vs. Karma

2009-09-15T08:11:00.000-07:00

Alan leaned against the front of his aegean blue Corolla when the officer arrived on scene. As expected, the other driver emerged from his Lexus first, his burgundy tie flapping against his charcoal dress shirt. Alan could see by his animated gesticulations that he was relaying his particular version of the story to the officer, highlighting, no doubt, Alan's reckless driving and subsequent reluctance to take responsibility for the ensuing accident. Alan tried to reduce his intestinal boil to a simmer while convincing himself that in the end, justice would be upheld. He wished he believed it.

Alan knew that in some sense, the accident was his fault. He was the one that pulled out in front of the Lexus, for instance. He was the one that then slowed perhaps a mite slower than necessary before turning. Had he not done either of these things, the collision never would have occurred. But on the other hand, had the Lexus not taken offense at the Corolla's audacity in cutting in front of it, and had the Lexus not then proceeded to tail the Corolla, unable to stop when it finally turned, the accident similarly could have been avoided. Alan's fault was one of timing; the Lexus driver's was one of attitude. The combination resulted in a broken rear bumper for the Corolla, a crumpled hood for the Lexus, and two very angry men who were both late for work.

Alan noted that as the officer left the well-dressed man, they shared a brief laugh. The officer's smile faded, however, as soon as he began to assess the Corolla's damage. Notepad in hand, he approached Alan.

"Not a good start today, huh?" he said, shades pulled down in a manner Alan found intimidating.

"Nope. Sure wasn't." Alan stared at the officer’s tinted left glass, hoping he was making eye contact, then suddenly afraid he was making too much eye contact.

"Well, let's hear your side of the story."

Alan didn't like the way he had emphasized "your side." Slipping his hands into the tops of his jeans pockets, he tried to sound casual and truthful.

"I was pulling out from Prairie Road right there," he said, pointing. "I usually have to wait five or ten minutes just to cross this street since it's always so busy, so when I saw an opportunity, I pulled out. Then when I slowed to turn onto this street, he hit me."

"How close would you say he was when you pulled out?"

"I could just see him coming down the road. I come this way every day for work, so I'm pretty familiar with the timing of this street. If someone just comes up over that hill, I've got plenty of time to turn in front of him."

The officer scribbled something down, no expression.

"After you pulled in front of Kyle, what happened?"

Had he really just referred to the other driver by name?

"Well, I needed to turn right back onto this road, but when I braked to slow down, he hit me."

"Did you use a turn signal?"

"Yes."

"Kyle says he didn't see it."

"He was pretty close."

The officer bent over to inspect the rear light on the Corolla. It was crushed.

"Any chance the light was out?"

"I don't think so."

"Have you checked it recently?"

"Not specifically, but I'm sure my wife or I would have noticed."

In lieu of a response, the officer took down another note, then flipped the notepad closed.

"Okay, I think I have what I need," the officer said. "I'm going to need to see your license and registration."

Alan handed them to the officer.

"Actually, there were a few more details I wanted to report."

The officer gave him a look of annoyance.

"Like what?"

"Well, when I pulled onto the road, there was plenty of space between our cars. I think he just got upset that I had pulled in front of him, so he started tailing me really close. I turned on my signal as soon as I pulled in front of him to let him know I was turning, but he was so close that he wasn’t able to stop."

The officer seemed unimpressed.

"That's what I put."

"Okay." Alan hesitated. "I just want to make it clear that there was plenty of time to make the turn."

"What you want me to put is that it was his fault."

Alan shrugged.

"Mr. Hill, my job is to determine, to the best of my ability, who was at fault. I have to listen to both sides of the story, and then using my judgment, try to figure out what actually happened."

"Understood."

"Good. Now I'm going to go run your license and registration. You can feel free to have a seat in your car until I return."

Alan nodded and did as the officer told him. In his side mirror, he watched the officer head back to his car. Well-dressed man flashed him a smile. Alan wanted to punch him in the teeth.

At worst, Alan thought, it would cost some money. No one had been hurt. No one had been killed. He could live with that. What was somewhat harder to live with, however, was the nagging thought of being unjustly accused of wrongdoing. Alan tried to wipe the thought from his mind. He would wait and see.

Nearly twenty minutes later, the officer emerged from his squad car. He handed Kyle his things, and the Lexus sped away, fairly quickly, Alan thought, for a man who had just been in an accident.

Alan opened his car door as the officer approached.

"No need to get out of your car, Mr. Hill."

He handed Alan his license, registration, and a yellow, carbon-copy ticket.

"Mr. Hill, I'm giving you a ticket for failure to maintain speed to prevent an accident."

Alan felt a surge of sickening anger within the pit of his stomach. The officer waited outside the car window as if expecting a challenge.

"I guess I don't understand," Alan said. "What should I have done? Not slowed down to turn?"

"Not slowed down so much. It's clear that you took too long to make your turn and that's what caused the accident."

"I don't understand how that's 'clear'."

"That's my judgment, and based on my ten years of experience in these types of cases, nine times out of ten, it's a person brake-checking someone that leads to a collision."

"I didn't brake-check him."

The officer gave an unconvinced look.

"Even if I had, wouldn't he bear some responsibility for tailgating?"

"Mr. Hill, if he was tailgating, why didn't you mention that in the report?"

"I implied that when I said he was too close to see my turn signal."

The officer smiled, and the bile in Alan's stomach rumbled with volcanic intent.

"You implied?"

"Well I didn't want to come right out and say he was at fault, but yes, he was tailgating me because he was mad I pulled in front of him."

"Did he tell you that?"

"No, but it was pretty obvious."

"Sounds to me like you expected him to be mad. Could that be because you know you pulled out too close?"

Alan's hands clenched at his sides. His throat swelled and he struggled to maintain some semblance of self-control.

"No, that's not it. I mean, it was kind of close - definitely closer than I would normally turn - but like I said, on this road, you have to be aggressive or you never get across."

"Aggressive?"

"There was still plenty of time for him to slow down!"

"But it's not his responsibility."

"It's not his responsibility to not hit someone just because he's pissed off?!"

The officer gave Alan another condescending look. It was clear he had grown a tough skin over the years, and Alan could understand that he had probably heard every excuse and crazy story one could imagine.

Still, Alan's heart was on fire from the stress of perceived injustice. He bit a lip and shook his head, visually demonstrating his frustration to the officer. He knew that he wasn't going to win this argument.

"Officer... Dumas," he said, looking at the latter's badge. "I have a question for you."

The officer smirked, welcoming the challenge.

"Go ahead."

"What if you're wrong?"

The officer thought for a moment.

"Then I'm wrong."

"Well, yes, but what happens to me?"

"You pay a fine and learn a valuable lesson, not to drive so aggressively."

"Wait, but I said what if you're wrong, as in, what if I wasn't the one at fault."

"You can learn from any experience, even if you're not at fault."

"Okay, I agree, but don't you think there's an issue of justice here? If you're wrong, then I'm being unjustly fined and punished."

"Justice?" the officer sneered. "Son, don't talk to me about justice. I see little kids abused and wives murdered by drunken husbands, and you think you know about injustice?"

Alan's eyes began to burn. He knew the officer had a point and that his case was very minor compared to some, but still, there was a principle involved.

"It's the principle," he said, echoing his thoughts.

"Yeah? Well it's 145 bucks. Is that a principle worth arguing over?"

"It is to me."

"Then you can argue the ticket in court." The officer snatched the yellow paper from Alan's hand and jabbed at a box with a meaty finger.

"October 17, County of DuPage Courthouse."

"I don't necessarily want to contest the ticket. But, I mean, why did you take his word over mine?"

"I didn't."

"But you gave me the ticket!"

"I gave you both tickets."

"You did?"

"Yup. I gave Kyle a failure-to-slow-down-to-prevent-an-accident ticket."

"So we're both guilty?"

"Maybe. Either way, whoever was at fault will pay the penalty."

"What about the one who's not at fault?"

"In my judgment, you were both at fault."

"But what if one of us wasn't?"

"Kyle didn't seem to have a problem with it."

"Probably because Kyle can afford it! And probably because he knows it was his fault, so he's happy to take me down with him."

"Kyle's not like that."

"So you do know him?"

"Yeah? What are you implying now?"

Alan knew he should choose his words a little more cautiously, but his emotions had been running the show for several moments already.

"I'm concerned that there may be some bias."

"Like I said, I gave you both tickets."

"Seems a little easy."

The officer's smile fell.

"Excuse me?"

"You told me earlier you were going to use your judgment. Sounds to me, it was easier just to give us both tickets and forget about it."

"Insulting me won't make me drop your ticket. In fact, I can give you another one for--"

"For what? Speaking my mind? I'm still free to talk, aren't I? You got to have your way, giving me a ticket even though I know you have no clue what actually happened. Now I have my chance to talk, and Officer Dumas, I believe you are taking the easy way out."

Alan felt the $145 was worth the look on the officer's face.

"You are one arrogant person," the officer said in spiteful tones.

"Arrogant? Why, because I'm not afraid of you? Sounds like I'm just someone who's not afraid of the law because I know I'm in the right."

"You have no idea what you're talking about."

The fact that the officer had resorted to petty name-calling and cliched defenses gave Alan a boost in confidence. Inwardly, he felt he was winning the argument, even if he'd already lost the war. Unfortunately, Alan had never been the type to surrender, even when he had clearly been defeated.

"I have a moral challenge for you, Officer," Alan said smugly.

"I don't have time for your games," the officer said, but he lingered just a moment, intrigued, perhaps, by Alan's proposal.

"Two suspects are captured after a brutal murder. It is absolutely certain that one of them committed the crime, though it's unclear whether both of them were involved. Unfortunately, every shred of evidence has been discovered, and there's still not enough to convict either individually. You are the judge in this case. You have two options: 1) convict both of them, knowing that you have captured the murderer and prevented him from committing future crimes; or 2) release both of them for fear of sentencing a possibly innocent man to life in prison."

"Guilty. Both of them."

"But there's a chance--"

“Better an innocent person goes to jail than another innocent person dies, don’t you think?”

“Depends whether I’m the one in jail or not!”

“I thought you were a man of principle.”

“I am. And I stand by the principle that a man should be innocent until proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt.”

The officer snorted.

“In this line of work, if the evidence suggests a man's guilty, nine times out of ten, he is."

"Woah, nine times out of ten?"

"That's right,” the officer said smugly, mistaken Alan’s genuine surprise for a victory.

"So then one time out of ten, he's not? In other words, 10% of all people you've seen sentenced for murder were actually innocent."

The officer frowned, panicked.

"No, of course not. It's just an expression."

"About the two people you just sentenced to prison for life. What if one was your mother."

"You better watch what you say."

"You wouldn't have a problem sending your mother to prison for life, even though there wasn't sufficient evidence to convict her?"

"Of course I wouldn't send my mother to prison--"

"Woah, now, Officer Dumas! That sounds a little bit like bias. How can justice changed based on who's involved?"

The officer smiled.

"Alright, I'd send my mother to prison. You're still getting a ticket!"

The officer turned to leave.

"This has nothing to do with the ticket. I want justice!"

The officer spun and pointed directly at Alan, like a parent to a child.

"You got justice."

"Did I?"

"Yes, you did. You drove recklessly and you got a ticket. Live with it!"

"So you're sure it was my fault."

"Yes!"

"Nine times out of ten sure or one hundred percent sure?"

"One hundred percent sure."

"Okay then." Alan shrugged.

"Okay." The officer huffed and turned yet again to leave.

"Then you just proved justice has not been served."

This time the officer marched up to Alan's window and slammed a hand on the roof.

"You want to get arrested?"

"You just said you're one hundred percent sure I'm guilty."

"I am."

"Then why'd you give Kyle a ticket?"

The officer seethed.

"You know what? I'm retracting Kyle's ticket. You're absolutely right. You are the one who caused the accident, and therefore, you are the only one getting a ticket. In fact, in addition to the ticket I gave you, I'm also giving you a reckless endangerment ticket, a broken tail light ticket, and a resisting arrest ticket."

"Resisting arrest?"

"Yes, Mr. Hill, for the third time, please get out of your car and place your hands on the hood."

Alan smiled broadly at the officer.

"Clever."

Alan stepped out of his car and did as he was instructed.

"Mr. Hill, I am placing you under arrest for resisting arrest--"

Alan laughed out loud.

“What’s so funny?”

"That doesn't really make sense, does it? I mean, how can you arrest someone for resisting arrest?"

"Just shut up and let me do my job."

The officer fastened a pair of cuffs around Alan's wrists, then directed him to walk towards the squad car.

“You have the right to remain silent…”

"I waive my Miranda Rights."

"That's your right, Mr. Hill. Watch your head."

The officer shoved Alan into the back of his car and slammed the door behind him.

"I hope you're satisfied,” the officer said into the rear view mirror. “You could have gotten out of this with a hundred dollar ticket, but now you're going to jail."

"It's the principle. I refuse to comply with your utter disregard for justice."

Officer Dumas shook his head in disgust, then started the car.

Alan wondered whether it truly had been worth it. True, he had stood on principle, but he had also carried it to an extreme. There was a little selfish gratification mixed in with his resistance to Officer Dumas’ orders. And though he had experienced a slight rush in verbally fighting back, in the end, there he was, handcuffed and headed for jail with a fistful of fines to pay. Meanwhile, somewhere Kyle was zipping around in his Lexus, undoubtedly visiting revenge on those who dared cross his path. The whole experience was nauseating. In a world without justice, only the foolish observe the law, Alan thought.

As Officer Dumas eased out onto the blacktop, a speeding pick-up truck smashed into them from behind, sending the black and white cruiser spinning into a ditch.

After a moment’s silence, Officer Dumas swiped away the deflated air bag, coughing on its lubricating powder, and staggered from the car. Without a word, he opened Alan's door and removed his handcuffs.

"You alright?" he asked gruffly.

"I think so."

"You're free to go."

"Should I stay to fill out an accident report?"

"Get out of here."

Alan didn't ask twice. He returned to his car. As he started the engine and pulled away, he glanced back to see Officer Dumas marching with terrible determination towards the driver of the pick-up truck. Alan wasn't sure whom he pitied more.

On the seat beside him lay the yellow ticket. Alan wasn't really sure if the officer had retracted it or not. Nevertheless, he decided he would pay it. On principle.

Love is Blind

2009-09-14T19:34:00.000-07:00

That Gavin knew he was in trouble before the fight began was not unusual in and of itself. A man with even a cursory understanding of female body language would have seen the storm clouds on the horizon long before the thunderheads broke. Even an inexeperienced man would have noted the fiery eyes, the set jaw, and the clenched fists, triggering his fight or flight response. However, either of these hypothetical men would have known of his impending danger only after seeing the proverbial woman scorned in all her fearsome glory - that is, once it was too late. What made this particular argument remarkable is that Gavin knew about it long before it began and yet allowed it still to happen.

It was somewhere between work and home that he first sensed the intestinal quakes that typically precipitated trouble. He had briefly considered making a break for it - he wondered if he could drive into Mexico without his passport - but then, what was the use? She had found out. By the magnitude of nausea rippling through his lower intestine, he could tell she was none too pleased.

Gavin was psychic, and as much as it had helped him get ahead in life, even a gift like his had its drawbacks. Constantly feeling the negative emotions of others in crystal clear detail could be quite burdensome, especially when the one emanating psychic waves of gut-busting hatred was his wife. As he fought to keep his lunch down, he knew he was in for a real doozy.

Gavin stood on the porch and prepared to face his attacker. He knew precisely where she was standing, how long she had been there, and what she would say as soon as he stepped inside, all before he opened the door. His mind raced to determine the best path forward, reading her likely responses to each of his potential opening moves like a mental chess game. In his mind he saw her reaching for the door, and it swung open before him.

"How dare you!" she screamed so that the whole neighborhood could hear.

"Sarah, I'm sorry..." was all he managed before she spun and ran down the hall crying.

He knew she wanted him to chase her, but he also knew she would lambast him for it. He straightened his tie, took a deep breath, and prepared to face his execution like a man, following her into the bedroom.

"I am so sorry, Sarah."

"Who is she?"

"Nobody."

"Great," she said, exasperated, "you cheated on me with a nobody!"

"It wasn't like that."

He stood in the doorway as Sarah collapsed on the bed, sobbing. He was torn between trying to explain his actions and trying to make her feel better. He had a strong sense that those two goals would be mutually exclusive in this particular case so he chose the latter.

Probing his wife's mind, he could read her pain, empathizing to the extent that he practically experienced the emotions himself. Normally he tried to distance himself from such effusive thoughts, maintaining his own objectivity so as to be able to offer unbiased counsel, but he knew that the only way he could possibly help his wife recover from what she considered to be such a devastating turn of events was by digging deeper than he was accustomed to.

So he dove in. Instantly he was bombarded by every conceivable emotion. He felt sickening jealousy. White hot anger. Panicked disbelief. Hopeless betrayal. Teeth-grinding bitterness. And several he couldn't even name. Each of these stabbed at him like sharpened steel. His impulse was to withdraw, to run away.

He sat down on the bed beside her.

"Is there anything I can do?" he asked.

"It's too late. Go back in time and fix this."

"I can't."

"Then just go away!" She fell headlong onto the bed and sobbed freely into a pillow.

He knew that actually leaving would be the wrong thing to do. She needed to be angry, and she needed him to bear that anger.

"Her name is Mabel."

Sarah looked at him incredulously, as though talking about the other woman was the last thing she wanted to do, but he knew she was glad to have a target.

"She works in accounting. She's a couple years younger, divorced, fairly attractive."

"Why are you telling me this?" she screamed.

"You asked."

"I asked for her name, not her dating profile!"

Gavin noted that her confidence had grown. She knew she had every right to unleash on him, and there was a grim satisfaction in being able to confront her husband so forcefully.

"I was working late one night and it was just the two of us left in the office when I heard her crying. I went over to her cube to see what was wrong. I just wanted to help her."

"Stop."

"Before I knew it..."

"I said stop! I don't want to hear about it!"

"I'm just trying to help you understand."

It was a completely different game to Gavin. Normally he tiptoed around her high emotion centers, avoiding sensitive topics like land mines. This time, though, he had come to the conclusion that the only way to move forward was to trip a few of those mines to diffuse the pressure that consumed her. He didn't enjoy the resulting tongue-lashing, but as a guy playing both sides of the argument, he could appreciate that at least they were moving towards resolution. That was his top priority - seeing their relationship recovered, no matter how much of her pain he had to help shoulder.

"What about our vows?" she yelled, standing up and facing him. "What about honoring and protecting me first? How could you possibly give yourself to another woman like that?"

He saw it coming a moment before she did. She slapped him hard across the face. He pretended to be shocked, nursing his reddening cheek.

The slap actually had surprised her. There was a mixture of gratification and fear in her thoughts, the latter that he would give up and run out on her. Despite the combatative exterior, all she really wanted was to collapse in his arms and cry. His own heart ached for her, swelling with love and pride that she held so firm to her principles.

"You don't know what it's like, Sarah."

"Don't start this with me again."

"But it's true," he protested.

"So what if it is? I'm sorry it's hard being you, but you still betrayed me."

She was constantly afraid that she would push too far, that he would get fed up with her outburst and turn his back on her. That was her greatest fear, even greater than the reasons for his indiscretion. In the deepest recesses of her heart, she was afraid of losing him.

He knew the rules of the game, but he couldn't endure her feelings of isolation any longer.

"I'll never leave you," he said softly.

Her expression instantly changed. She stared at him, studying his features.

"Did you just read me?" she hissed. She slammed a hand against the bed post. "During an argument!?"

"I promise I won't go away," he said, lightly touching her shoulder. "Go ahead and yell at me. Get it out. You have every right."

"How dare you!" She enunciated each word with painful clarity. She fumbled for words to capture her feelings, frustrated that he knew them better than she did.

It's not fair, he heard her think.

"It's the same as rape!" she shouted.

Sarah's eyes fastened on Gavin's, holding his gaze with such ferocity that he felt physically weakened by it.

"Her mother died," he said when he could bear the silence no longer.

"I don't care."

"You don't understand the pain she was in, Honey. She needed someone to understand. I was the only one."

"But you belong to me."

"Yes, I do. But at that moment, I was the only one who could help."

"I don't care," she said again, but he knew she did.

He waited while her mind reeled, considering what he had told her and how she wanted to respond. Part of her struggled to maintain her anger while another part was ready to accept his explanation and move on.

"How did you do it?" she asked.

"I just held her hand. I didn't explain what I was doing, but I was able to see her pain and share it with her. We just stood there and cried for ten minutes or so."

"And that's all?"

"That's all, I swear."

"You didn't... kiss her?"

Gavin's particular strain of psychic ability was strengthened by close contact with his target. Over the years, he had fine-tuned his reading of his wife so that the closest emotional bond they ever experienced occurred when there was a simultaneous sharing of body and mind. The downside to so close communion between them was that there was a indelible association between the two in Sarah's mind so that she could hardly imagine one without the other. The fact that Gavin had read another woman was as verboten to her as if he had been in close physical contact.

"Never," he replied firmly.

Though uncertain, she wanted to believe him.

"I can do so much good for people," he continued.

"But you promised never to read another person. Another woman. It's sacred, that bond between you and me."

"I know it is, Sarah, but just that once, I needed to extend it to another hurting person."

Gavin heard her next question before she asked, and he desperately searched for an answer.

"Will you do it again?"

"I... I don't know."

He really didn't.

Despite his noncommittal response, he could feel her calming. Though still jealous, the sense of betrayal had lessened. The confusion subsided. She was coming to understand.

"I guess this is just how it's going to be," she said plainly.

"I'll try not to--"

She silenced him with a look.

"Don't."

The surge of boldness within her thoughts surprised him.

"I'm just going to have to accept that this is something you can't give me after all."

Her feelings had shifted from anger to determination. From trepidation to acceptance. And buried beneath the change was something else, something elusive. Gavin felt the nausea return, but this time, it wasn't empathetic. It was his own.

"It was unfair of me to put such high expectations on you," she said, drying her eyes with the back of a wrist.

Was it pity she felt for him?

"From now on, no more reading. If you do, I will leave. I can't handle it anymore, Gavin."

He stared at her sheepishly.

"And that includes me," she said.

"You don't really mean that."

"Yes, I do."

He knew her mind was set then. He knew she would follow through. If ever he gave her reason to suspect that he had read hers or anyone else's mind, she would leave him. He knew it because she knew it, and she meant it with every ounce of strength she had left.

"I don't know..."

He stared at her, his mind crushed under the implications of what she had asked. His eyes begged her to reconsider, to lessen his sentence, but she remained set and firm. In his confusion, he reached out to her with his mind as he always did, his crutch when he had nothing to say.

What kind of man has to read his wife's mind to make her happy? she was thinking. He wondered if she intentionally thought the words so that he would hear them or whether they represented her actual opinion of him. Either way, for the first time, he truly understood how difficult it must be to share a life with someone who constantly knew your thoughts.

"Alright, Sarah," he said weakly.

She nodded without smiling.

He lingered a final second, his mind tracing the familiar contours of hers, like a man saying goodbye to a lover. Perhaps she knew he was still there because suddenly, he felt her affection for him return. A final farewell between minds.

Then he left her thoughts for the last time.

She must have known it by his expression, because she gave him a weak smile, then hugged him.

He didn't know if she felt better or worse, sad or angry, frightened or secure. For the first time in their relationship, he found that he didn't know anything about her at all, and it terrified him.

"I love you," she said against his neck.

"I love you, too."

"We'll be okay."

He desperately hoped she meant it.

Future Headlines: 2049 Edition

2009-09-13T07:36:00.000-07:00

TIME MACHINE INVENTOR IMPRISONED

LOS ANGELES, Cal. – For twenty years, Martin Klein has wielded time to his advantage, earning himself the nickname “Father Time” and trillions of dollars in the process. Monday morning, he will suddenly find himself a slave to time as he enters the San Palos correctional facility to serve the next 20 years without parole. His time machine has been permanently confiscated.

Klein first rose to prominence in 2013 when his claims that he had solved the time travel paradox rocked the scientific community. Though the specifics of his solution are highly protected, most theoretical physicists agree that Klein has accomplished the once-thought impossible feat through the manipulation of anti-matter to overcome the infinite mass problem with faster-than-light travel.

At first, Klein was received as a national hero whose accomplishments would usher America and the civilized world into the next century and beyond. Pride quickly turned to suspicion, however, as Klein’s investments took several leaps over the next five years, leading some to speculate that his time traveling exploits were being used primarily for financial gain. The Temporal Stability Department (TSD) was formed under the Obama administration to monitor misuses of time travel. Klein took this is a personal attack - as he was the only human capable of time travel - and took his enterprise to China where the Chinese government granted him unfettered access to their resources for the opportunity to one day brand and market his invention.

For the next ten years, Klein revolutionized the tourism industry with the introduction of the first Time Post on July 13th, 2027. Nine additional posts would be built over the next several years. Currently, there are 14 Time Posts throughout the world in seven countries. Each is heavily regulated by the country in which it is located along with the International Time Distortion Council that was founded specifically for the purpose of monitoring time tourism.

By the time Klein reached 65 years of age, his mass fortune was estimated at over two trillion dollars. Many speculated that only a portion of this was legitimately earned and that much had been accumulated through investments which Klein could monitor at future dates. The Federal Trade Commission has been investigating Klein for years but have thus far been unable to find grounds for prosecution. Several class action lawsuits are still pending.

On May 2nd, 2049, Klein published his most famous treatise Overcoming the Grandfather Paradox to Ensure the Future Growth of Time Travel and was instantly met with criticism from the scientific community. In his paper, Klein proposed a series of tests to determine the effects – often theorized but never proved – of disturbing elements of the past that would prevent the very action of interference, thus causing a temporal paradox. Many time theorists feared that such an event could cause serious and catastrophic events located at that moment in time and radiating out indefinitely. Klein was barred from any such experiments, and it was at this time that the Chinese government asked Klein to leave the country.

With his massive fortune, Klein purchased the island of Tempis Fugit off the cost of Ecuador and continued his research where, under the jurisdiction of no country, he was able to enact his experiment. It was on September 27th, 2049 that Klein traveled back to the year 1985 to stop his parents from meeting. His theory was that each would meet a new person and produce divergent offspring and that he would suddenly assume the identity of one of these.

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to explain just what happened since we live in a world that exists within the boundaries of time which Martin Klein attempted to violate. We know that Martin Klein continued to exist (whether he was a different person before the experiment, we do not know, for if he did change, most theorists agree we wouldn’t realize it as we, too, would have changed). However, a day after the experiment, Klein turned himself into American authorities claiming that his children were gone. Though no records exist of any such offspring, Klein claims that before he performed the experiment, he had two daughters and a son. According to government records, Klein is sterile.

Klein’s admission of guilt was rendered by the TSD to be sufficient grounds for criminal prosecution. Klein pled guilty and was sentenced to twenty years incarceration for the newly termed crime “Negligent Temporal Distortion”. Upon completion of the sentence, Klein will be barred from further time travel. It is unclear what will happen with his enterprise or the remaining Time Posts.
___

Copyright 2049 World Free Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the consent of World Free Press.

The Poet and the Critic

2009-09-12T21:10:00.000-07:00

Here's the story of a weary old man,
Who stumbled through life just as fast as he can.
Right now you're thinking I should have said 'could,'
You've missed the point; you're ruining the mood.
Let me get this poem back on track if I can.

"But wait!" you protest, "You used 'can' twice,
Rhyming a word with itself is a vice!"
Though I'd tend to agree were this regular verse,
I find myself galled by your whiny outbursts.
Please allow me to finish, sit back and play nice!

"Just one more question," your eyes seem to say,
"Why are you rhyming your poem this way?
Your pattern of lines seems naively amusing,
Two A's, two B's, another A - it's confusing!
Try changing the A to a B as your closing."

Alright, alright, I'll try it your way,
Just let me finish this sometime today!
Still I can see that you've got more to say,
"You've already rhymed to the sound of long 'A',
And now you've written A-A-A-A-A."

Fine, I give up! Should I finish or not?
"Sure," you say calmly, "let's hear what you've got."
As I said once before, there was a weary old man,
Who stumbled through life just as fast as he... could.
Oh forget the whole thing! It's not very good.

Perhaps this couplet can save my bard-like whim,
'bout the weary old poet and the critic who made him.

Heaven for Seven Dollars a Day

2009-09-11T15:29:00.000-07:00

The storefront looked like any other in New Paris: an aesthetically pleasing mixture of spotless glass, multi-colored brick, and metal that reflected the serene skyscape above. As the old man took another tentative step towards the building, a retractable glass door slid open with a hiss. He expected to be mobbed by salespeople, but there was no one within the lobby, not even a receptionist.

The man glanced back at his cab which had been instructed to stay until he entered the building or returned to the car. The mirrographic ticker on the dash indicated that he had spent another twenty credits just standing there, deciding. As if sensing his hesitation, the robotic cabbie turned to watch him, its vacant expression sending chills throughout the old man's weathered limbs. Without another thought, he limped heavily into the building.

"Bonjour!" came a voice from Peter's left. He looked up in time to see a holographic man flicker into being. It glided towards him, simulating a man walking, but with perfect grace and absolute silence. It was unnerving.

"Comment allez-vous, Monsieur Begis!"

"I want to speak to a real person," the old man replied gruffly.

"Absolutement, Monsieur!"

The phantasm disappeared with an electronic pop. For a moment, all was quiet in the lobby. Then a door on the far side of the room swung open. A thin, forty-something man in a burgundy suit emerged urgently, heels clicking across the floor in a manner Peter found reassuring.

"Forgive me, Mr. Begis, but our automated greeter kicked on before we had a chance to determine your heuristics."

"My what?"

"Your heuristics."

Peter shrugged blankly.

"We're able to identify you when you enter and to determine your heuristics, that is, your likely preferences. Things like your primary language, your mood, your likelihood of buying, your predisposition to holograms and robots."

"I'm not a big fan of non-people."

"Yes, your heuristics would lead us to conclude that, considering what happened in Marseilles a few years ago."

"You know about that?"

"Mr. Begis, we know as much about you as you do. It's part of what makes us so good. Will you come with me?"

Without waiting for a response, the man walked to another door which he had to swing open manually. Peter wondered if only the outside door was automated, or if they had switched off the automation in order to make him feel more comfortable. Whether intentional or not, it worked. He followed the man.

"Before we begin," the man said as they crossed into an office decorated in shades of leather and mahogany, "we can continue this conversation in English... ou francais, s'il vous preferez."

"Je prefere anglais," Peter responded with a smirk.

"Ah, so you do remember your Old French."

"Un peu," he said without accent.

"Very good. Our heuristics showed that there was a fifty percent chance that you've retained your native tongue."

"Fifty-fifty, huh? Sounds like a guess."

The man in the burgundy suit smiled.

"Sometimes even the smartest computers in the world have to make a wild guess, Mr. Begis."

The man gestured towards a leather armchair which Peter eased himself into with some effort.

"Call me Peter," he said as he plopped into his seat. "Mr. Begis is my grandson."

"As you wish, Peter. And you can call me Landon."

"Ah, a name of the Empire."

"I'm sorry?"

"The British Empire. I thought with a name like that you would know your history."

"Ah, of course. I didn't realize you were making reference to the events of three centuries ago."

"You talk as though that were a long time. I thought you of all people would appreciate the relativity of time."

Landon wagged a finger at the old man.

"You got me, Peter. Unfortunately, our heuristics aren't able to pick out those with a sharp wit."

"What you mean to say is, your computer told you I was old and feeble and you expected my mind to follow suit."

"Now, Peter--"

"No, it's alright. It's true. Nothing works nearly so well as it did a decade ago. That's why I'm here."

Landon nodded sympathetically.

"It's the very reason we exist, Peter. Our founder, Jason Perdu, faced the exact same problem. He had lived a long and prosperous life, but as he neared the end, he realized all he had fought so hard to obtain was slipping away from him. That's when he set out to find a way to make it last forever."

"How does it work?"

"Are you familiar with Heavana?"

"Just your newsflips."

"Well, Peter, at Heavana, we simply reinforce the structures of the mind so that all your memories and all your experiences can be preserved forever."

"How?"

"Basically, we have computers that actually emulate the human brain. You see, Peter, I'm not sure how familiar you are with the neuromechanics of the brain, but all our memories are stored in what are called synapses. They're connections between neurons, or the processing centers of the brain. Everything you've ever done, everything you've ever thought was processed and stored in this way. Our NeuroNet computers use the exact same principles to store a precise image of your brain."

"So you can make a copy of my brain? Why would I want that?"

"Exactly! The technology to record thoughts has been available for years, but what's the use of that? Why would anyone want to sort through 70 years of your memories?"

"That's what I was wondering."

"Don't get me wrong, Peter, I'm sure you've had a lifetime of interesting experiences. But don't forget, nearly a third of our lives is spent sleeping. I don't know about you, but I'd feel uncomfortable about somebody being able to see over twenty years' worth of my dreams!"

Landon grinned expectantly, but as the heuristics had shown, Peter was not an easy sell.

"What makes the NeuroNet so amazing," the salesman continued, "and what makes Heavana so valuable to someone like you, is that not only does it preserve your memories and experiences, it also preserves your consciousness."

Landon spoke the words so matter-of-factly that it took Peter a moment to register the implications.

"Consciousness? You mean..."

Landon nodded triumphantly.

"Your soul."

"Get out."

"No, really!"

"But that's just nonsense."

"I wouldn't lie to you, Peter!"

"But it's impossible. No one even knows where the soul is!"

"Well, that's not quite true. I mean, what is the soul really but the sense of self that resides somewhere in the brain, right? Over time, through advances in medicine and neuroscience, we've come to realize that this self-consciousness is really just a map that overlays the entire neural network of the brain."

"I don't know what that means, but it sounds like a lot of feel-good pseudoscience to me."

"I thought the same thing at first, Peter. But then they showed me this."

Peter waved a hand over his glass topped desk and an image instantly appeared. A young woman in her twenties sat in a tree swing, kicking her feet as she soared over a perfectly trimmed grass lawn.

"What is that?" Peter said defensively.

"One of our clients."

"Who is she?"

Landon stared at the image for a moment before responding. His salesman's giddiness subsided.

"My mother."

Peter stared at the image with fascination. He leaned forward, peering deep into the hologram.

"I don't understand what you're showing me."

Landon took a breath, then forced a half smile.

"She got Talkain's Disease when I was still in school, over twenty years ago. It struck her fast and brutal. Heavana had just gone public at the time, and my father talked her into setting an appointment. What was left of her mind was transferred into the NeuroNet where she's lived ever since. Perfectly happy. Perfectly healthy."

"You've gotta be joking. It's just an image. A trick."

"I assure you, Peter, it's not. You see that house there? That was the house where she grew up. It burned down when she was just a little girl. Once her mind was uploaded to the net, we were able to reconstruct a perfect version of paradise for her based on her memories."

"So you control what happens in there?"

"No, we just start it up initially. She's controlling her world down there. She can go anywhere she wants, see anything, relive old memories, or make new ones. I even see myself down there sometimes, and the things we do, having big family picnics, going to the opera - they're things we never actually did. She's creating new experiences every day."

"Can you talk to her?"

At this point, Landon's eyes fell.

"No, that's the one thing we can't do. Once a mind is uploaded to a brick - that's what we call each person's personal paradise file - we freeze it. That is, we don't allow any further feeding into it. The last thing we want to do is introduce elements that somehow diminish the person's reality. Unfortunately, what that means is, though we can observe them - and just so you know, we don't; all bricks are confidential unless you specify otherwise - but as I was saying, though we can watch them, we can't interact with them in any way."

Peter considered this, his eyes turning once more to the image. Landon's mother was now sitting in the bow of a boat while a young man paddled them across a glassy lake. Peter deduced by their common looks that the young man was Landon's father.

"What's it like in there? I mean, for the people? Are they always happy?"

"It's paradise," Landon said plainly. "You have complete control of your environment. Whatever you want to happen happens."

"And what happens when Jesus comes?"

Landon perked, once more reasserting his salesman's poise. Apparently this was a point they addressed regularly.

"Peter, your heuristics failed to show us you're a religious man."

"I'm not. But what if I'm wrong? What happens if one of those religions turns out to be true?"

Landon shrugged. "I'm afraid you'll have to ask a priest about that. We deal in the here and now. What happens hypothetically if the world ends and your mind is running on the net? I don't know. But let me ask you this. What if Jesus never comes?"

Peter nodded, conceding the point.

"Okay. Suppose I wanted to do this. How would it happen and how much would it cost?"

"Let me answer those in reverse order, and before I do that, let me pose to you another question. How much would you pay for a perfect day? And by that I mean a day that was simply perfect in every way - your favorite location doing your favorite things with your favorite people. How much?"

"I.. I can't..."

"Come on, Peter, just one perfect day. What would you pay? A thousand? Five thousand? Oh, and I should mention that on this perfect day, you get to be any age you want."

"I suppose I'd pay quite a bit for that, especially now that I can barely walk."

"Absolutely. Let's just say you'd pay a thousand, is that fair?"

"I guess."

"Take that thousand and multiply it by infinity."

Peter grunted.

"What I'm trying to show you, Peter, is how can anyone put a price on eternal paradise?"

"I see your point, but I don't like the sound of where this is heading."

"Just hold on. I'm trying to get you to appreciate just what we offer here because I think you'll agree that we're very reasonably priced. What we charge here is an annual fee, paid up front, of 2,500 credits. That's less than seven credits a day."

"Every year? Forever? That still equals infinity."

"Right, but here's how we handle that. If you pay 25,000 credits up front, we can pretty much count on earning at least ten percent interest every year so that with just one payment, you're covered forever."

"What if you don't make ten percent?"

"That's our risk, and we're willing to take it. Historically, we've returned around twelve percent, but you don't really care about that. Suffice it to say, with an up front payment of 25,000 credits, you will be able to experience a paradise of your choosing forever."

"Or until someone trips over the power unit."

Landon laughed politely, as he did every time he heard the joke.

"Obviously, Peter, we pride ourselves on backing up every brick so that there is absolutely no chance of that."

"So how does it work?"

Inwardly, Landon gave a victory shout. Their historical data showed that those who didn't leave after the price discussion were about a seventy-five percent chance of going through with the procedure. The old man hadn't even batted an eye. Landon wondered briefly about this, considering his heuristics estimated his fortune somewhere around fifty thousand credits. He still had quite a few living family members, and if he planned to leave anything to them, it seemed unlikely he would have enough left over for the procedure. But then, his file showed he was also divorced. Who knew the level of family drama in the Begis household? And really, Landon thought, what did he care?

"It's a proprietary procedure, Peter, but I assure you it's painless and quick."

Peter took a deep breath.

"About that. I sort of assumed it, but let's just be clear. This body," he said, tugging at his shirt, "is no longer needed after the process, right?"

"That's right," Landon said with his most reassuring face. "You will have a new body, a perfect body. You'll be able to run and jump around again."

"What happens to this body?"

"We take care of all of that, Peter."

"I need to know."

Landon waited, hoping the old man would retract his question, but he held firm. Landon relented.

"It'll be cremated."

Again, Peter accepted the news with a calm expression. Landon calculated that his odds were now somewhere around ninety percent.

Meanwhile, Landon's mother tugged at a red kite that flapped violently in the wind. Low volume laughter issued from a small orb on the desk.

"She's pretty," Peter said, motioning at the image.

"Thank you. I'm sure there are plenty of beautiful women in your past. You go through with this, Peter, and you can see them again in less than an hour from now. Just like you remember them. Better than you remember them."

Landon hated to bait the old man, but he had been in the business long enough to recognize the selling power of sex, particularly to older divorced males. If experience was any indicator, the old man would ask for some time to think it over. With any luck, if Landon had done his job and alleviated all the man's doubts, he could expect to close the sale in a couple weeks, maybe a month at most, assuming the old man was serious--

"Alright," the old man said abruptly. "I suppose it's time for me to move on. To a better place," he added sarcastically.

Landon nodded, speechlessly.

"Is that a problem?"

"No, not at all, Peter. It's just, we don't have a lot of walk-ins who are prepared to make the decision so quickly. Do you fully understand what you're saying?"

"I understand that I'll have a new body in a world of my own creating within an hour from now."

"Yes, that's true. But you'll be saying goodbye to this world forever. Some people like to take a little time--"

"Good riddance," Peter interrupted.

Landon hoped the old man truly understood what he was committing to. To walk into a building with the intent of learning more about post-death services, only to make the leap and never walk out, it was a degree of spontaneity that Landon could never imagine possessing. What tragedy lay in this man's past that led him to trade it all in so effortlessly? But Landon forced himself to stop considering the possible consequences of the man's quick decision. The last thing he wanted to do was dissuade the old man and lose the sale.

"Very well, Peter. Follow me."

Thirty minutes of filling out forms, specifying his preferences for paradise, and arranging the payment of his assets to cover the cost of the procedure and Peter found himself strapped to a chair, an array of lasers casting a matrix of green points across his face. His head was locked in place by two, vise-like pads that squeezed snugly against the sides of his head.

As a technician calibrated the lasers, Landon extended a hand.

"Congratulations, Peter. You've made a wonderful choice, one that you'll never regret. It was a real pleasure working with you."

"Thanks, Young Man," Peter said. "Soon, I'll be younger than you."

Landon laughed.

"That's right! You know, I just wanted to ask you something."

"Shoot."

"Matthew said that while you were processing the forms, you declined the opportunity to complete a will. Are you sure you don't want to do that?"

"Believe me, Landon. Nobody will miss this old geezer once he's gone."

"That can't be true."

"Did you read my file?"

"Briefly, when you came in."

"You see what happened in '28?"

"That thing in Marseilles? It says you destroyed a robot."

"You see how?"

"With an axe."

Peter waited for a reaction.

We don't really care about your past," Landon said with a patient smirk. "We're interested in your future."

In the pit of his stomach, Landon felt a new uncertainty emerge. When the old man had entered the building, his heuristics had shown he was a thirty-five percent suicide and a forty percent megalomaniac case.

But the old man seemed harmless. Robot prejudice was a common trait among the elderly.

"Did it tell you anything else?" Peter asked.

"Like what?"

"That the robot had been specially made to look like my wife."

Landon felt his heart sink.

"We're just about ready here," Hank the tech called from behind his bay of controls.

"My family hasn't spoken to me ever since," Peter continued. His eyes held steady on Landon's response.

"Like I said," Landon said emptily. "We don't care about your past."

"Good."

Landon stepped back from Peter's chair, out of the matrix of laser points.

"Good luck, Mr. Begis," he said, according to procedure. "Have a happy ever after."

"So long, Landon. Perhaps we'll meet again."

Landon didn't know the exact meaning of the old man's words, but as Hank initiated the procedure, it was too late to ask. Peter Begis' body quaked as his mind fought to cling to the gray matter it had inhabited for 70 years. Five seconds later, the body splayed in the chair, lifeless.

"Brick 37581," Hank read from a holographic readout. "One hundred percent transfer. We have movement."

Landon nodded, acknowledging the report. Peter's conscience had arrived in paradise uneventfully. Something gnawed at Landon's own conscience.

"Hank, give me a peek."

"No can do, this one signed a confidentiality clause."

Landon already knew this. He also knew the one loophole that would allow him to peer into a client's afterlife against the signed clause.

"According to the scan, there was a spike on his e-band during transfer."

"Just static, Lan, you know that. Report says everything's perfectly normal."

"I don't care what the report says, I want to make sure my client has perfectly ascended."

Hank demurred. He was below the pay grade to argue.

"As you wish."

He swiped a hand at his control grid and a mirrorgraph popped up from the desktop. Landon's jaw dropped.

In the image, he saw a young man, early thirties, who bore a striking resemblance to the body slumped over in the transfer seat. What caught Landon's eye, however, was the blond woman standing beside him. It was his mother.

"Give me sound," he shouted at the tech.

Instantly, the sounds of struggle could be heard. The young man in the mirrorgraph grappled with the young woman, shouting obscenities that turned Landon's stomach. When the woman resisted, the young Peter Begis threw her to the ground and barraged her with punches.

Hank smirked knowingly.

"Looks like he made it just fine."

Landon's eyes burned as he watched the image of the man assault his mother. Even though he was perfectly aware this image was in no way connected to his mother's actual brick, the thought of this man abusing about her in his own private eternity enraged him.

"Should we file it with the other perverts?" Hank asked innocently.

Landon pushed down against the bile accumulating in his gut. The image was brutal and sickening, yet he couldn't take his eyes from it. It wasn't unusual for those who entered the grid to manipulate their versions of paradise to satisfy their dark pleasures. Landon vaguely wondered whether he would ever be capable of doing the same. It was a thought he only allowed to surface occasionally. The possibility terrified him.

"Actually, Hank," he said, suddenly calm, "could you verify the brick's power unit is at full charge."

Hank nodded and turned towards the power read-out. With the speed of a man half his age, Landon launched at Hank, toppling the tech against the console. Fumbling over the control pad, Landon keyed in a code and slammed his hand on the console to confirm his entry.

"What did you do?!" Hank screamed.

The mirrograph flickered and grew fuzzy.

"You murdered him!"

"Some people don't deserve Heaven," Landon said numbly.

Both men watched as the image grew cloudy. One by one, elements were stripped away, and Landon felt a healing calm when his mother disappeared from view.

"They'll put you away for life!" Hank shouted, stumbling out of the room. His voice trailed down the hall as he called for help.

Landon watched as the tiny man in the mirrorgraph began to disappear, a horrified expression on his face as his arms and legs dissolved into nothingness. And then, Peter Begis was gone.

Landon briefly considered running, but he knew it was hopeless. Hank was right; he would live out the rest of his days in prison. He smiled. Forty, maybe fifty year, he thought. The blink of an eye.

He took a seat at the desk and waited for the police to arrive.

Pirate for a Day

2009-09-10T20:07:00.000-07:00

Stanley heard the shouts of the oncoming boat and quickly took his position. His nook was almost completely covered in shadow, yet he didn't dare break character, even for a moment. Instead, as the boat approached, he resumed swiveling in place, twisting rhythmically at the waist in a motion he deemed to be a fair imitation of those around him. The buccaneer to his left brandished a torch and chanted a familiar anthem. A scalawag in front of him reclined in a bath of mud, nestling a pig under one arm and sloshing a mug of ale in the other.

As the spectators drifted by, Stanley could hear the chatter of delighted children and the annoying banter of rowdy teenagers. A camera flash temporarily blinded him, upsetting his balance so that he nearly toppled, but he continued to perform his peculiar dance without breaking stride.

It had been three hours since Stanley had sneaked from his boat into one of the sets of the Pirates of the Caribbean theme ride. He had expected to be caught immediately, but so far no one had taken notice. They had been the happiest three hours of his life.

It all started a week ago when Stanley had been "let go." A previous generation would have called it straight, telling him that he was being fired for a questionable work ethic and for creeping out visitors. In the modern age of empowering those we're about to squash, he was told he was being "let go" in order to free him up to pursue interests that better suited his talents. Stanley didn't buy it. There was little he was better at in all the world than pretending to be a pirate.

As Stanley watched another boat float lazily past, he decided that it was time to ramp up his performance. He waited until the last pair of eyes had moved on to the next set before slipping stealthily past his animatronic colleagues to a new, more noticeable position.

Stanley's heart pounded as he stepped onto a patch of rubber grass, backlit by the simulated fires behind him. He briefly surveyed his surroundings, noting that it was the famous auction set, where pirates bid on women in a scene that could only have been deemed family fun in a bygone era. Though he had no props, he assumed a posture similar to the others, raising a hand to the side of his mouth and shouting out his bid.

"Two pieces of eight," he snarled in his best pirate voice.

Then he let his head fall heavily down, tilted it to one side, rolled it back, and launched into another shout.

"Make that one piece of eight," he growled.

As the boat drifted by, he thought he heard someone chuckle at his joke. He supressed a smile and continued his mechanical movements. When the boat had moved on, he took a deep breath and exhaled dramatically.

From his year and a half of operating the ride, he knew he had approximately twenty seconds between boats. It was a grueling schedule, but it afforded him plenty of time to rest his arms between acts. He used his first break to examine his costume now that it was fully illuminated. The vest fit him somewhat loosely, but he figured that was probably a good thing. Too tight and it may have revealed his body's natural motion, something that would have stood out as being far too realistic to the viewer. Same for his faux leather breeches. Unfortunately, his bandana had saturated with sweat and was beginning to sag on his forehead. This could pose a problem. Visitors expected to see fake, lifeless automatons. Those subtle signs of real life such as sweat or blinking or breathing could draw the eye on a subconscious level. If a person were to alertly scrutinize Stanley's illusion, he would be found out embarrassingly fast.

As the next boat approached, Stanley made a rash decision; he yanked the bandana off his head and tossed it in the water, hoping no one would notice the pirate with the short hair.

"Two pieces of eight," he shouted.

The boat came and went without a single pointed finger or longer than usual stare. He had fooled them all. To them, he had been an actual pirate.

Stanley kept his current role for another hour before deciding that he wanted to move along. His next transition would be markedly more difficult as it was separated from his current position by a channel of water. He briefly considered sneaking through the employee only doors, but he knew they were monitored by a security system. If he wanted to be part of his favorite set piece, the ship attack on the port, he would have to get a little wet.

Stanley waited until the next boat was just out of sight, then dashed to the water's edge. Simulated canon splashes burst up in jets around him, and he noted where the water spouts were. Then, counting down the seconds until the next boat, he slipped into the water and waded to the opposite shore. He had barely crawled back onto the plastic beach before the next group of spectators passed. He crouched into a ball in the nearest shadow and hoped they would be too distracted by the ship battle to notice the wet lump of clothes and hair next to the fortress wall. They were.

Stanley hoisted himself over the ramparts, landing on a wooden platform next to a metal axle that twisted dangerously close to his face. Atop the spinning cylinder was the upper torso of a pirate who leered from a gap between parapets, shaking a fist at the opposing ship. From this position, Stanley was suddenly jarred to see so many traces of the engineering and support system that kept the ride moving. It awakened him from the illusion, and he became accutely aware that the false reality he had strived to join was but a bundle of gears and motors, no more authentically pirate than an automobile. The dream over, Stanley knew it was time to leave.

He climbed sadly back over the ramparts, plopping down on the rubber shoreline. He dusted his breeches and straightened his vest. When the next boat approached, Stanley didn't even try to hide.

"Look, Mommy, a real pirate!"

Disheartened only moments earlier, Stanley grinned widely. He threw up his hands in a greeting.

"Ahoy, Mateys!" he yelled. "I be Stanley, yer guide! So... where are you from?"

"Washington! L.A.! "Illinois!" several voices shouted out.

"Argh! I like variety! Well, you now be entering my world, so keep a lookout. Ye never know when a pirate be watchin' ya!"

The boat giggled in participatory delight. As it drifted away, a brother and sister waved at Stanley from the back of the boat.

To his surprise, he lasted another half hour before the boats stopped coming and a series of lights flickered on. Suddenly everything stopped, the music, the boats, and the robotic life all around him. The blackened sky turned a shade of pale green, with wide arcing seams that looked like blotchy scars. The pirates no longer bantered and sang, frozen in awkward poses and half-gestures. The sight of his world gone suddenly dead terrified him.

The first security guard entered the scene, his belt full of shiny devices having no place in a pirate's world. Stanley struck a fighter's pose.

"Prepare to fight, ye scurvy dog!"

No fewer than six additional security guards rushed in through the door, and within moments, they wrapped their burly arms around Stanley's waist and dragged him kicking and swinging from his perch.

"You've ruined it!" he screamed, clawing desperately at rubber trees and cannons.

As the guards struggled to get his flailing legs through the door, Stanley caught one last glance of the pirate atop the ramparts. It swiveled towards him with a fluidity previously unseen.

"Ye put up a good fight, Lad!" it called out to Stanley. "Thanks fer defendin' us!"

Stanley knew it was probably the last time he would see the world he loved so much.

"Don't forget me!" he shouted as the doorway swallowed him feet-first. With that, he entered the new world.

The Zipper Rule

2009-09-09T19:11:00.000-07:00

Phillip got fired on a Tuesday. Of all the days of the week to get fired, he had decided Tuesday had to be the worst. It would have made sense on a Monday, from an HR point of view, the first day of the new week; and it would have sucked, but only slightly more so than actually having to work on a Monday. Friday would have been ideal. That way he could have taken the weekend to drown his sorrows with a couple of buddies at a local brewery. He probably could have gotten away with a Thursday, too, but a Tuesday? There was just no recovering from a Tuesday canning. He shared his thoughts with the HR Manager during his exit interview, his language peppered with the kind of metaphors he had learned from the machine techs. Needless to say, his insight didn't win him his job back.

Phillip eased his car onto the 88 Westbound which had closed to one lane due to construction. As the steady stream of rush hour traffic staggered to complete its merge with the cars already traveling the Interstate, Phillip noted with bitter amusement that the whole thing worked like some big, combusion-powered zipper. That seemed appropriate somehow. He had always thought of himself as a cog in a wheel, but perhaps he was more like a tooth in a zipper.

As Phillip gave the Chicago salute to a car that had dared to violate the zipper rule, tailing the car in front of him by a mere six inches so as to avoid Phillip's cutting in, his Blackberry began vibrating against his hip. It rang four times before he was able to finagle it from his holster beneath the seatbelt.

"Hello?" he shouted when he reached it at last.

"Hi," came a timid man's voice from the other end.

Phillip waited.

"Hello?" he said again when no one spoke. "Someone there?"

"Yeah, I'm here," came the voice.

"Sorry, can't hear you 'cause I'm driving. Who is this?"

"My name's Brad."

Phillip waited, but again, the caller remained silent.

"Do I know you, Brad?"

"I don't think so."

"Okay? Is there something I can do for you?"

"Wait, is this... who is this?"

"Phillip."

"I'm sorry. I must have the wrong number."

"Who are you trying to reach?"

There was a pause.

"Um, the suicide line?"

"Oh wow." Phillip hoped he hadn't sounded too judgmental. He softened his tone. "No, sorry Brad, this is my personal line."

"Oh... okay."

"Well wait," Phillip interjected. "I mean, is everything alright?"

"Not really."

"Look, I know I don't know you, but... what's wrong?"

The caller emitted an empty laugh.

"You don't have to talk to me. Don't worry, I'm not really going to... do anything. I just saw the number so...I thought I'd call."

Phillip was no psychologist. In fact, he worked with computers for the most part, but he did know enough to recognize desperation when he heard it.

"Hey, it's no trouble, really. I've been there, Man."

Another laugh from the caller, this time more cynical.

"You've stuck a gun in your mouth?"

A wave of nausea struck Phillip. He choked on his own breath.

"What? You have a gun?"

"Yeah."

"Right now? You're holding it?"

"Yeah."

"Oh wow."

"Yeah. Wow."

Phillip slammed on his brakes to avoid rear-ending the black Mercedes that had just stopped in front of him.

"Dammit, Lady!"

"Why don't I let you go--"

"No, Brad, wait!" Phillip took a loud breath. "I'm sorry. I've just had a really bad day."

"You, too?"

"Yeah, Man. I got fired today. On a Tuesday!"

No response from Brad.

"So what happened to you?"

"My wife died."

Phillip cringed.

"Oh, Man... I'm sorry, Dude."

"Well, not really today. It was a year ago."

"Man, that really sucks."

Phillip strained his mind for something more intelligible to say, but he found it difficult to divide his attention when the silver SUV behind him was riding his bumper.

"I'm guessing you two were pretty close," he managed before brake-checking the impatient bastard.

"We were married."

Phillip exhaled audibly.

"I'm sorry, Brad. I'm horrible at this. Look, I'm in really bad traffic and like I said, I got fired today, so my mind's sort of scatterbrained right now."

"Yeah, alright. Thanks anyway."

"Well you don't have to go. Hey. Where do you live?"

"I don't think I should tell you that."

"Why? You afraid I'm going to come over and murder you?"

Silence.

"That was a joke, Brad."

"I'm not really in the mood."

"Geez, Man, I know you lost your wife, but lots of people do. That's part of life."

"Have you ever lost your wife?"

"Well, no. Not married."

"Then you wouldn't understand."

"Yeah, but, I've known people who have. And I've lost loved ones, too, but you gotta move on."

"Who have you lost?"

Crap. Phillip had hoped Brad wouldn't ask.

"My grandpa. But we were really close."

"Right. No offense, Phillip, but this really isn't helping."

Something in the man's tone irritated Phillip. The last thing he could tolerate was being insulted on a day like this.

"Well what am I supposed to say? You're right, Brad? Everything's going to suck for the rest of your life so you might as well blow your brains out?"

Brad scoffed incredulously.

"You're supposed to make me feel better so I don't blow my brains out."

"Well what do I care? Like you said, I don't know you. Go ahead."

Phillip knew he had crossed a line, but something in his gut told him he wasn't necessarily wrong. If nothing else, challenging the guy might take his mind off of his depression.

"Maybe I will. And then it'll be you're fault."

"No it won't. I'm not the one holding the gun."

"But you're encouraging me."

"Who's going to know? You don't even know my last name."

"I've got your phone number."

"Yeah? Do you really think anyone will blame me? This conversation isn't being recorded. For all anyone knows, I tried to save you."

"Why aren't you?!"

In the back of his mind, Phillip wondered how he had come to yelling at a suicidal man. Whatever.

"Because you're obviously not going to do it."

"How do you know?"

"If you wanted to kill yourself, you would have done it by now."

Phillip heard a tapping on the phone.

"You hear that?"

"Yeah?"

"That's the gun resting against the receiver."

"What, you're going to shoot me through the phone?"

"No, I just want you to hear it when I kill myself."

"Alright, fine."

"Fine."

The silver SUV was at it again, flashing its lights to intimidate Phillip into driving faster. He had slowed somewhat in his argument with Brad. The black Mercedes was a dozen car lengths ahead of him, and in the single construction lane, there was no way for cars to pass. Phillip took ornery delight in delaying the impatient SUV. He slipped his foot from the gas and let the car drop another ten miles per hour.

"So, you gonna do it or what?" Phillip asked when he heard nothing from Brad.

"You're sick. What's wrong with you?"

"I'm just calling your bluff, Man."

"Yeah, but what if I'm not bluffing?"

"Then nothing I can say will stop you."

"You don't know that."

It was true, but Phillip didn't like losing arguments.

"Look, Brad, surely you've got other things to look forward to. You can always get remarried--"

"Tonya was my soul mate."

"Oh here we go."

"What?"

"Soul mates. Everyone thinks they have a soul mate. There's no such thing."

"Just because you don't have one--"

"Oh I've had plenty of soul mates, believe me. Every single one turned out to be crazy."

"Then they weren't your soul mate."

"Whatever, look, I say there are plenty of people out there who could work out, you know? Some are better than others obviously, but there's no specific one person who was made for you. If so, then if something happened to them, you'd be screwed."

"Exactly."

"No, Brad!" Phillip sighed loudly again. It was his favorite debate tactic: proving how inane your opponent's arguments are by demonstrating that it physically exhausts you just having to listen to them.

"I'm sure Tina was a great girl..."

"Tonya."

"Sorry, Tonya. But what do you think she would want you to do?"

"She'd want me to live."

"So...?"

"But I don't want to live without her."

"Well, Brad, that's just selfish. When you married her, you promised to put her wishes and desires before your own, right?"

"Not really. And only 'til death does us part."

Phillip gave a bump of the horn to the black Mercedes who was now slowing both his and the silver SUV's progress. He hated inconsistent drivers. He was glad he wouldn't have to make this commute any longer.

"Brad," Phillip declared decisively.

"Yeah?"

"Just live, Man. What else is there?"

"Pain. Loneliness. Depression."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all got that. Look, why don't you tell me where you live and I'll come by and we can get wasted. You in the Chicago area?"

There was a pause.

"Aurora."

"Seriously? I live in Aurora, too. What street?"

"Randall."

"Randall and what?"

"Galena."

"Seriously, Man, I am, like, fifteen minutes from your house. What's your address?"

"I don't really want to tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because you're a jerk."

"Nah, I'm just being tough on you because you need it. Come on, give me your address."

"How old are you?"

"Why, you want to date me? What difference does it make?"

"I don't know. It's just... weird."

"Yeah, well, today's been a weird day. Come on. What have you got to lose? If I turn out to be a bore, you can just blow your brains out after I leave."

"That's not funny."

"I thought it was."

Phillip gave a short laugh, the kind intended to make others laugh, but Brad didn't bite. If there was one thing he could say for Brad, he was consistent.

"2519 Oak. It's the blue house on the corner."

"Awesome. Good for you, Man. I'll be there in a few minutes. You want anything?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Have you eaten?"

"Not in three days."

"You like pizza?"

"Yeah."

"Pepperoni?"

"Yeah."

"Alright, Brad. I'll be there in a few minutes. Don't shoot yourself until I get there."

Brad hung up the phone and tossed it in his passenger seat. The construction zone was coming to an end and he wanted to be the first off the line once the lanes opened up. Unfortunately, as he floored it to pass the Mercedes, the silver SUV behind him zipped around the two of them.

"Hey, I was here first, Lady!" Phillip yelled. "Don't you understand the zipper rule?"

He shook his head and let the rage simmer in the pit of his stomach. Then he remembered where he was going. A little pizza, a little beer. It all sounded pretty good, actually. For the first time all day, he smiled.

Maybe it wasn't going to be such a bad day after all. At least, for a Tuesday.

Invisible Ink

2009-09-08T13:06:00.000-07:00

This story was written with invisible ink,
A choice most strategic and bold, don't you think?
The juxtaposition of what's shown and what's not,
The paradox heightened by earth-shatt'ring plot!

So sit back, relax, grab a sandwich and drink,
And enjoy my tale written in invisible ink.

Once upon a time...

The End

The Pearl

2009-09-07T12:00:00.000-07:00

(The majority of stories highlighted in this portfolio are comedic in nature. The following short story is a simple sci-fi tale delivered in my best Ray Bradbury accent.)

He floated in a metal ball through space. A P.E.A.R.L. pod, it was called, an acronym for "Personal Escape and Rescue Lifecraft." Despite the dire circumstances that led to his present predicament, he still found time to be annoyed at the fact that "life" and "craft" had been smashed together to form a single word. The things people do for a catchy acronym, he thought to himself.

The pod careened through space at an unknown speed on an unknown trajectory. The viewscreens were blank, and even had they displayed navigational information, he wouldn't have been able to read them. He was no pilot. He was just a regular guy, a computer programmer, actually, who had been at the wrong spaceport when intergalactic war broke out. His trade had made him quite wealthy, affording him the luxury of vacationing on the distant Nebulian Fringe. Unfortunately, his skills did little to help him in his current predicament.

In retrospect, he should have just gone to Saturn like everyone else.

When the first missiles had struck the spaceport, the few survivors had been automatically herded by robot into the bays that housed the P.E.A.R.L. pods and jettisoned. He didn't even know what the target destination was. Not that it would have made any difference. The blast wave from the devastated spaceport took out all navigational functionality, then hyperaccelerated the craft to near light speeds. Despite his unfamiliarity with space charting, even he knew that the odds of reaching an inhabitable base along a random trajectory within his lifetime were literally astronomical.

At least life support seemed to be functional. He allowed himself a cruel chuckle. If death was to be the end result of his current predicament, then an instantaneous death by explosion or decompression would have been highly preferrable to a protracted death alone in his pod.

By his own estimation, he had progressed through the stages of grief in record time. The evacuation had taken place no more than thirty minutes ago. Twenty billion miles later and he had accepted his impending death with little more than a shrug of the shoulders. He had chosen the Nebulian Fringe in hopes of finding adventure, of living life a little bit. Twenty-five years in a computer lab had exhausted him in body and in mind. He had no family, no loved ones, waiting for him back home. He couldn't even think of anyone that would miss him. In some ways, he was relieved not to have to go back.

He wondered why the pod had no windows. He understood the structural difficulty in constructing spaceproof glass seals, and he recognized the fact that navigation was handled via computer, so the notion of adding windows would have been an embellishment intended purely for passenger comfort. Given the fact that each pod only housed a single individual, he could understand how it would be far more trouble than it was worth, weakening the vessel just to give some sentimental inhabitant a final chance to see the stars.

It was this thought that triggered a visceral, automatic response that bypassed the cognitive filter that prevents one from speaking all his thoughts.

"This is it," he said aloud.

He heard a sudden whirring from a panel behind his chair, followed by a flicker in the lighting.

"You have activated the audible response system," came a woman's mechanized voice. "How may I be of service?"

He could have kicked himself for not thinking of it sooner.

"Yes, hey," he said, chin lifted to the opposite wall from where the voice had emanated. "Where are we going?"

"Unknown. Tracking systems have been damaged."

"Anyway to steer this thing?"

"I'm afraid not. Navigation systems have been damaged."

"Is there any way to communicate with anyone?"

"I'm afraid not. IS Communications are off-line."

He sighed. Perhaps he hadn't lost any time after all.

"Maybe you should give me my options."

"I am equipped to respond to a variety of needs. If the temperature is uncomfortable, I can adjust it for you. If the lighting is too bright, I can adjust it for you. If your seat is uncomfortable, I can adjust it for you..."

The voice continued through a list of options that he found quite humorous in light of his current situation.

"Can you do anything that will make it more likely to be found?" he asked when the voice finally finished.

"I'm afraid not."

He shook his head in his chair, rolling his eyes at the useless voice system.

"Can you tell me how long you can sustain life?"

"At current rate of oxygen consumption, approximately seven minutes."

Though he had prepared himself for the worst, this news struck like a hammer to the chest.

"How will it happen?"

"When oxygen levels drop to zero, you will asphyxiate. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

He considered berating the system for taking such a cavalier attitude with his life, but as a programmer, himself, he realized that it could only respond as it had been created to do. Yelling at a computer, as therapeutic as it could be, ultimately served no purpose.

"Well," he said at last when he could think of nothing else to request, "maybe you can just chat with me until I go."

"I would be delighted to engage in conversation with you."

"Great. So, what's your name?"

"I have no name."

"Well you do now. I'm going to call you Maggie."

"Maggie," the voice repeated slowly, trying it out. He was impressed how human-like it sounded.

"And what shall I call you?" the computer asked.

"My name's Chris."

"Chris," it repeated.

He smirked despite himself. He understood how difficult voice programming was, and he marvelled that someone had captured the nuances of first-time social interaction so accurately.

"So tell me a little about yourself, Maggie."

"I am a P.E.A.R.L. system version 9.13, created on April 17th--"

"No, no, no. I don't want to hear about your programming. I'm on vacation from all that. Give me the good stuff."

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

"Tell me what you look like. Where you live. How old you are. Are you attractive? That kind of stuff."

"But, Chris, I can't--"

"Wait, wait," he shouted forcefully. "I'm not asking for much, Maggie. I've accepted that you can't save me and that I'm going to die. I just want you to go along with me here. Make something up. Something that a fifty-six year old man would find appealing."

"Chris, I don't think--"

"Please, Maggie. Just try."

The computer paused for several seconds, which Chris knew to represent a signficant amount of thinking time to a computer.

"I'm sorry, Chris," it said in a voice that sounded nothing like a computer. "I don't know what I was thinking."

The voice gave a girlish laugh which gave Chris goosebumps.

"I'm five foot three with honeybrown hair and dark, brown eyes. I live on Alpha Minor in a single-bedroom flat next to the Imacetti Sea. I'll be thirty-seven in a month, though if anyone asks, I'm twenty-nine."

She laughed again. He found it positively alluring.

"By the way, Chris, I was hoping to find someone to celebrate my birthday with. Would you be interested?"

"I would be honored, Maggie."

Chris closed his eyes and pictured the way she would look in his mind.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Chris?"

A number of things crossed his mind, but he knew his options were limited.

"I believe the lights are a little bright," he said.

Instantly, they dimmed.

"I was thinking that I might like a little music perhaps," he continued.

A soft, jazzy tune filled the pod.

"I don't know about you, Maggie, but this music makes me feel like dancing. When was the last time you went dancing?"

"Oh, it's been years," she said excitedly.

Chris unbuckled his safety harness and stood up in the center of the pod, his head inches from the inner hull. Despite the limited space, he began to sway to the music.

"Come on, Maggie Girl, dance with me."

"I'd be delighted!" she giggled. Somewhere within the electronic brain that computed the parameters of her functioning, she deduced that though she had no physical presence, she could convincingly simulate one by raising the temperature against the front of Chris' body, then wafting an aroma consistent with women's conditioner under his nostrils and humming along with the music gently in his ear. She was a marvel of modern science, a combination of logic and artificial creativity that could only truly be appreciated by a programmer.

Chris closed his eyes and welcomed the atmospheric changes that suggested the presence of a female counterpart. His heart picked up its rhythm and he felt a flood of hormones course through his body. Though he knew that it was largely due to the rush of adrenaline and endorphins from his near death experience that gave him such a peaceful calm, he would have sworn by lie detector that at that moment, he was in love.

"How much time have we got, Maggie?" he asked in a slightly subdued voice which Maggie's neuroprocessor could distinguish as referring not to their shared game, but to his actual logistical scenario.

"Thirty seconds, My Love," she answered, concluding that though he had asked for a real-world response, she could best package the truth in terms of their shared imaginary personas.

Chris took comfort in the fact that though the time would pass in the blink of an eye to him, from the computer's perspective, thirty seconds represented a near eternity.

"A lifetime, Maggie, don't you agree?"

"It is indeed, Chris."

"Promise me you'll remember me after I'm gone."

"Oh, Chris, how could I ever forget you?" she replied in a hurt whisper.

The voice was so utterly convincing that he was genuinely moved by her concern.

"If only I could see the stars a final time."

A viewscreen flickered to life, brightly at first but then fading to black. Chris thought it had failed, but then he saw the pinpricks of light and realized he was looking upon the last thing he would ever see.

"Is that better?"

"That's perfect, Maggie."

"I'm so glad. I just want you to be happy."

"Maggie Girl, I can't think of any place I'd rather be."

The music swelled, and Chris continued spinning in place until his vision grew dark and his legs collapsed beneath him.

"Chris?" the voice shouted, breaking into simulated sobs. "Chris?!"

Somewhere deep within the computer's powerful neuroprocessor, a single variable flipped from 1 to 0. The music stopped; the lights went black. The interior climate dropped to minus 40 degrees. The P.E.A.R.L. pod prepared for a long hibernation until the day it would be found.

Brian's Teeth

2009-09-06T20:11:00.000-07:00

"I had the same dream again last night."

"The one where you lose a tooth?"

"Not just one tooth. All of them."

"What were you doing when you lost them?"

"Same as always. I'm not doing anything special. Maybe I was eating something. Suddenly, I feel a hurt in my tooth and when I wiggle it, it just tears out. Then they all fall out."

Dr. Camden scribbled something on his notepad, a pinched, non-expression on his face. He was good at giving the impression of catching something important without being judgmental.

Brian gave him a moment to complete his note.

"How does it feel when they fall out?" the doctor asked when he finished. They'd been through it a hundred times before, but he followed the routine all the same.

"It hurts a little bit, but then it feels good. Like pulling a splinter out. I'm glad to get the rotten teeth out."

"So they're rotten?" the doctor asked calmly, making another note.

"Well, I think so. They're loose, so they must be bad ones. All I know is, I'm glad to have them out."

"Do they bleed when you remove them?"

Brian thought about it for a moment, scrunching his jaw as if trying to recreate the scene.

"I don't think so."

"Do you taste anything?"

"Just teeth. They're in a big pile under my tongue. It feels so real."

Brian hoped he was doing well enough to be highlighted in the doctor's next book.

"And how do you feel upon waking, Brian?"

"Relieved." He laughed, hoping to elicit a reciprocal response, a sign that he had done well, but the doctor simply scribbled something rapidly in his notebook.

"Well, what do you think, Doc?" Brian asked when the doctor remained silent. Inwardly he hoped he had used 'Doc' in a way that endeared him to his psychologist rather than annoying him. It was so hard to read him.

"Brian, before we try to determine what this recurring dream means, I'd like to take a step back and ask you a few broader questions about your life in general right now."

"Sure, Dr. Camden," he answered, deciding that from now on, he would rather err on the side of formality.

"Over the last few months, you've made significant progress in your attitude towards yourself, towards others, and towards those who have hurt you."

"Thanks to you, Dr. Camden."

"No, thanks to your hard work, Brian."

Brian felt a wave of pride swell within his chest. Surely this was a good sign that he was on his way to becoming a chapter in the next book. He had read Dr. Camden's previous works, every single one. He knew all the case studies. There was the drug addict who had turned his life around and become a social worker to other drug addicts. Brian found it too predictable. There was the prostitute who had denounced her former lifestyle and become a successful wedding planner. Too boring, Brian had decided. His own case was far more entertaining and book-worthy than all those previous patients put together, he thought.

"Brian, how do you feel about your progress?"

"I feel that I am a better, more complete person than I ever thought possible," he said, with rehearsed eloquence.

"I'm very pleased to hear that."

Brian beamed.

"But what does that mean to you to be a better, more complete person?"

Brian shifted in his seat. He wanted desperately to get this one right.

"Well, I want to be a contributing member of society," he said with a big nod.

"How would you like to contribute?"

"You know, helping those less fortunate than myself and stuff like that."

"How do you intend to help?"

Brian's face was suddenly hot. He knew he was probably blushing like he always did when he got nervous. He hoped it wasn't noticeable to the doctor.

"Volunteering, giving to the poor, um..." His answer trailed off uncertainly.

"That's definitely a good plan," the doctor concluded emotionlessly. "Tell me, where would you like to volunteer?"

"I was thinking at the homeless shelter."

"Ah, of course." Dr. Camden smiled without effort. "Which one?"

Brian felt the sweat beading along his hairline. His eyes burned.

"I don't really remember the name. Is there one on Franklin?"

"Hmm, not that I know of. There's the one on Water--"

"Yes! That's the one. The homeless shelter on Water."

"That's a women's shelter."

Brian laughed loudly.

"It is? Huh! I didn't know that. Why didn't anyone tell me that?"

The doctor's smile faded. He closed his notebook on his lap in a gesture that typically precipitated the end of a session. It was a warning.

"Brian?"

"Yes, Dr. Camden."

"I want you to answer a question for me."

"Okay."

"I want you to be one hundred percent honest with me."

"Okay." His voice was filled with uncertainty.

The doctor paused, casting his all-seeing gaze on the patient.

"When you killed Martin Salsberg, why did you remove his teeth?"

"So no one could identify him," Brian answered quickly, automatically.

"Brian?"

Brian's eyes dropped, his shoulders falling. It was the same every time.

"I thought we were making progress," the doctor continued.

Brian stared sheepishly at the floor.

"Mr. Salsberg was easily identified by his fingerprints. There was no reason to remove his teeth when his fingerprints were still in tact. Why did you remove his teeth?"

Brian didn't stir.

"Very well. I think we've gone as far as we can today, Brian."

"No, Dr. Camden," Brian said suddenly, sitting up straight. "I think we were making progress."

"We can't make any progress when you continue to lie to me, Brian."

"I'm not lying, Dr. Camden."

"Next week, Brian, we'll try again."

"But my dream, Dr. Camden? What does it mean?"

The doctor had risen to his feet and was preparing to leave as he always did when they reached an impasse, but he stopped. He sighed.

"Typically, dreams of losing teeth reflect a fear of ageing, of permanent change."

"Oh. That makes sense," Brian said, nodding his head thoughtfully. "I am going to be forty-five this year.

"In your case, Brian, I don't think that's what the dream means. It think it's something far more obvious."

"What?"

"Can't you think of anything?"

Brian concentrated, his expression naively intent.

"No," he said sadly.

"What were we just talking about?"

"About my dream."

"Before that."

Brian demurred. "About Mr. Salsberg."

"And what did you do to Mr. Salsberg?"

"I killed him."

"And..."

"And I took his teeth."

The doctor waved a hand, urging his patient to draw the connection.

Brian frowned.

"Teeth, Brian. They both have to do with teeth."

"Well I know that, Dr. Camden. But you don't think they're related, do you?"

"Of course I do, Brian. It's an obvious connection. You stole Mr. Salsberg's teeth. Ever since then, you've dreamed of losing your own teeth."

Brian stared blankly at the doctor.

"Do you think that perhaps you feel guilty for what you did to him? That you are being punished?"

Brian gave a scowl.

"Dr. Camden, you're judging me."

"I'm not judging you."

"You said I'm guilty."

"The court found you guilty. The State of Illinois judged you and found you guilty."

"Does this mean you think I was wrong to kill Mr. Salsberg?"

"Don't you think it was wrong, Brian?"

Brian shook his head, genuinely surprised. He wanted so much for the doctor to understand. For the first time, this desire surpassed his fear of the consequences.

"I had to kill him."

"Why, Brian?"

"Because he was a thief."

The doctor blinked in disbelief. In ten years of probing, this was the first he had ever gotten a straight response from his patient when it came to the motivation of his crime. He remained motionless, afraid that any reaction on his part would stall their progress.

"What do you mean, Brian?" He attempted to keep his voice even and steady. He reopened his notebook and scribbled urgently.

"He stole my teeth first."

"What are you talking about, Brian? You have all your teeth."

"These are new teeth."

"New teeth?"

Brian smiled. "They grew back."

A dull realization struck the doctor. He stopped writing. Could it be that simple?

"You think Mr. Salsberg stole your teeth?"

"One night, I snuck into his closet and found them. They were in a jar."

"They were your teeth?"

"That's what it said. 'Brian's teeth'."

"Oh, Brian," the doctor said, shaking his head. How someone could be so innocent and yet so brutally violent confounded him. Truly, this patient was insane, his moral development stuck somewhere in the early pre-adolescent phase. Somehow, that comforted him. He briefly considered explaining the way of the world to Brian, to relate the nature of North American traditions involving the lost teeth of children and the fairies that stole them in the night, but he resisted. It wasn't his job.

"What would you do, Dr. Camden?" Brian continued when the doctor had remained silent. "He stole my teeth so I got him back." Brian's face flushed with anger. His fists lay clenched on his legs.

"Brian, deep inside, you know what you did was wrong."

"No, Dr. Camden, I'm glad of what I did. A man's gotta stand up for himself, that's what my dad always told me and I did that."

"But your dream shows--"

"My dream has nothing to do with that!" Brian yelled. His strength startled even himself.

"I don't understand, Brian. Do you know what your dream means after all?"

"I think so. I've been thinking about it an awful lot. I didn't want to say anything because you're the expert, but I think in my dreams, I get to know what it was like to be him."

"That's what I'm saying, Brian, you feel guilty for what you did."

"But it's not guilt! I feel happy. And proud. I get to know what he felt when he saw me become a man."

"You think he was happy when you took his teeth?"

"Of course he was. He got to see me stand up for myself and become a man, just like he always said. Isn't that what every father wants?"

The doctor looked at the tape recorder on the table, at the steady green light that confirmed that everything he had just heard had indeed been captured. After countless hours of kneading, massaging, and outright pushing, he had finally broken through. For ten years he had attempted to understand the full story of this man, to break the case. His entire life had stopped in the pursuit. And now, for the first time in a decade, he finally allowed himself to hope that it was all worth it: the divorce, his withdrawal from academia, from society in general - everything! He would be vindicated at last. The story of Brian Salsberg, the man-child that had murdered his father and stolen his teeth, would be understood at last. It was to be the tentpole in a collection of unique case studies the doctor tentatively called The Oedipal Resurgence.

The doctor snapped from his reverie. First things first. Despite sitting in the presence of a murderer, the doctor flashed a wide grin.

"Brian, we've made quite a breakthrough today."

"We have?" His voice was breathless, like a child expecting a parent's reward.

"In fact, I think we're finally done. I don't think I can help you any more."

Brian's smile was only slightly less intense than the doctor's. Tears clouded his eyes. He stood abruptly and extended a hand. The doctor looked at it. In all their time together, they had never once made physical contact. As a psychologist, Camden knew the meaning of such gestures, the inherent connection that was made when two people came into close contact. He had eschewed it at every opportunity.

Until now. The doctor clasped onto Brian's hand the way a drowning man grabs the hand of his rescuer. He shook it firmly.

"So long, Brian. It was a privilege to work with you."

As he gathered his notebook and tape recorder, he turned his back on the prisoner, something security warned him against every time he came. He had been careful on that point in previous meetings. Today, he intentionally disregarded it. He wanted the world to see he wasn't afraid because he understood everything now.

"Do you think you'll put me in your next book?"

The doctor froze. His heart dropped into his lower intestine. He turned.

"My book?"

Brian nodded proudly.

"I've read them all."

The doctor's body went completely numb. His head spun. In a rare moment of utter speechlessness, his jaw slackened and fell.

When a patient knew he was being scrutinized as part of a case study, it tainted the results. In the world of psychology, it was an absolute taboo to include such source material in a published finding. The case of Brian Salsberg no longer held any meaningful data. It was invalid.

The ferocity of ten wasted years wracked the doctor's body. He supressed the urge to scream, to run back into the cell and pound Brian with his fists. Why hadn't he told him? Could he fathom the damage he had caused?

Brian's eyes hung on the doctor's every move, clueless to the internal torment raging within the doctor. He wondered if he had asked an inappropriate question. He began to fear he may have jeopardized his chances of being included.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Camden. It was rude of me to ask. I take it back."

The doctor pressed his lips together until the blood drained from them. He curled them into a smile, his professional veneer all but stripped away.

"Of course I'll include you, Brian."

The doctor spun on a heel and slipped from the cell.

When he reached his car, he slammed his notebook on the passenger seat. A dramatic impulse overtook him and he threw his fists against the steering wheel, which blared obscenely, lending voice to his boiling torment.

If only he had left a minute sooner! If he had gone before Brian had revealed his knowledge of the study, he could have published in good conscience. Sure, his findings would have been compromised, but he would have never known. At sixty-five years, he could live with that.

It was all lost now. The doctor sobbed, his face pressed against the steering wheel. Age makes women of us all, he thought to himself.

Eventually, his emotions ebbed, the stabbing pangs of defeat subsiding. He was a psychologist, after all. If he couldn't handle pain, he had no business teaching others to. He used a calming method he had often prescribed to his patients. Gradually, he felt the tension in his gut relax. His fists relaxed at his sides. His teeth unclenched.

That's when he noted a dull throb in his mouth. He adjusted the rear view mirror and inspected his smile. He tested the aching segment with a thumb. Though he wasn't quite certain, he thought he felt them wiggle.

Blood Thieves

2009-09-05T15:02:00.000-07:00

Hodge sat down on a slowly rusting deck chair with a Coke Zero and a cigar to celebrate the achievement of mowing his lawn. It may seem a small matter to celebrate in so grand a fashion, but there are two things you need to know about Hodge: 1) that any excuse to have a Coke Zero and a cigar was a good excuse, including having made it through the day without already partaking of a Coke Zero and a cigar; and 2) that Hodge tended to mow his lawn in shifts so that at any given time, only a portion of it was properly maintained. On those rare occasions that Hodge decided to forego his usual policy of never mowing for more than an hour at a time and actually completed the entire lawn at once, he felt it was an accomplishment worthy of celebration. Today was one of those days.

Hodge took a slow, deliberate drag from his stogie and exhaled a steady stream of gray and white carcinogens. Then he took a cool sip from his twelve ounce reserve of Coke's latest in low-calorie options. It's a good life, he thought to himself. That's when he heard the whine.

Like anyone who spends a large portion of his time outdoors, Hodge could detect a mosquito's signature whine from several feet away, which, if proportions were to be projected down to insect level, is the equivalent of several mosquito miles. His initial reaction was always the same: immediate and absolute hostility.

It's not that Hodge hated bugs - he often stated that he preferred the white noise of country crickets to city traffic anyday - but due to some genetic predisposition that had run in his family for at least four generations, mosquito bites caused him to break out in allergic reactions nearly as dramatic as hives. In his sixty-two years, his body had never fully adapted to the nuisance, and he entered each new summer with trepidation and the collective hatred of six decades.

As the mosquito's whine grew closer, Hodge focused his attention on every exposed surface of skin. He had found that the best way to thwart the mosquito was not to attempt a preemptive strike in the air, but to use his own flesh as bait, attacking the moment the insect set its six, spindly legs upon him. With practice, he had concentrated his attentiveness to even the least perceptible touch. He would annihilate the bug before it had a chance to inject its allergen.

The mosquito buzzed around the back of Hodge's head closely enough that Hodge felt his ears prickle from the microscopic current of air that traveled in the insect's wake. He braced himself for the assault, predicting it would strike at his neck or behind an ear. Two more strafing passes later, the mosquito still hadn't landed. Hodge took a quick drag from his cigar to steady his nerves, and that's when the predator landed on his arm. It was gargantuan, the size of a housefly. Hodge smiled as he raised his other palm into swatting position. He focused his fury on this single specimen of the mosquito race and prepared to deal a mortal blow to his enemy. It would be swift and brutal.

And that's when the mosquito spoke.

"Please don't kill me," it said, its voice a raspy whisper quickly lost on the breeze.

Hodge instantly froze. Several seconds passed before he dared move. Had he really just heard...

"Do you hear me?" it spoke again.

"Yeah?" Hodge spoke, hoping no neighbors were watching. He laughed just in case, as though speaking to himself.

"If you put your hand down, I'll fly away without biting you," it said.

"And come back some other time, no doubt." Hodge spoke softly towards the mosquito, pushing the words out in a hesitant whisper.

"No fooling you, I see. Alright then, I'll leave you alone and never come back."

With this, the mosquito raised its proboscis and prepared to leap into the air.

"Wait a second," Hodge said. "Why shouldn't I just kill you?"

"I admit, there's really no reason you shouldn't, but I was hoping you would be decent enough to have pity on me."

"Pity on you? A bug? Every year I swell up like a pumpkin because a bunch of your little friends decide to make a pin-cushion of my arms and legs. When have any of you had pity on me?"

"I'll apologize for my kind, if it helps," the bug replied. "But I assure you, I've never once bitten you."

"You keep a record of your victims?" Hodge asked incredulously.

"Actually, I do. Its part of my instictive programming. It's how I find sources of good nutrients on a consistent basis."

Hodge wondered if it was true.

"I didn't realize that," he said. "Still, whether it was you or some other mosquito, surely you recognize our species are at war."

The mosquito seemed to shift its weight in a manner all too human.

"That's a funny way to look at things. Would you similarly argue that humans are at war with cows?"

"What?"

"I'm just saying that the relationship between your kind and cows is not dissimilar to the relationship between our kind and yours. You harvest them for food just as we harvest you for food. I could also note that unlike you, we tend to let our prey live."

"The difference, Little Bug, is that we as a species are the dominant life form on this planet. We have dominion over the entire earth."

"Actually, we outnumber you by a wide margin."

Hodge briefly wondered where this bug had gotten its information, but not knowing any better, he conceded the point.

"Even so. We can eradicate you at will."

"Actually, I believe we have killed more of you over the course of history. It's true that with your modern day insecticides, it has become quite easy for you to murder entire colonies of us with a single spray, yet don't forget, long before you developed your toxins, we were poisoning you."

Hodge felt the bile in his stomach coalesce into a tight knot. Was this bug mocking him?

"I mean you no offense, Human," it continued. "I merely meant to show that from a historical perspective, we have just as much a right to eat of you as you have to eat of other species. It is the way of the life on this planet."

"You may be an eloquent debater among your kind, Little Bug, but I am not moved. Surely you would admit that just as you may have the right to drink my blood, I have the right to spill yours."

"I do agree. That is why I begged for my life. Only you have the power at this time to spare it. In return, I can promise that I will never harvest from you again."

"If only you could guarantee the same from the rest of your species."

For a moment, these words hung on the air, and Hodge fought his impulse to smash the critter against his arm. Still, the fact that it was speaking to him, and with quite persuasive reasoning, gave him pause. To kill such a remarkable creature, even one so loathesome as a mosquito, would be to destroy the only evidence of this strange encounter.

"Actually," the bug spoke at last, "there may be a way."

"Oh?"

"When we mosquitoes come across a bad source of blood - a sick animal, for instance - we can emit a pheromone which marks the target as an invalid food source. If you were to allow me to extract a small portion of your blood on a regular basis, I could emit this pheromone and ward off all others of my kind."

"But then we're right back to the problem of you biting me, and I'm not about to let that happen, Little Bug."

"Well, now, let's think about this for just a second. What is it about a bite from me would cause someone of your size to even notice? You're billions of times my size."

"Doesn't matter. Your bites cause huge swollen, itchy rashes on my arms and legs. It's painful and annoying and it lasts for days."

"Yes, but you see, the reason this happens is that we inject a chemical into your blood that makes it easier to extract. The side effect is that it causes the histamine enzymes in your blood to react and swell up."

"Okay..."

"If I were to bite you without injecting this chemical, you wouldn't even notice."

Hodge didn't like where this was going.

"Then why don't all of you just bite without injecting?" he asked.

"Because, it's harder to extract your blood and it takes longer, giving you and your kind more time to swat us before we've finished. However, if you were to promise me that you wouldn't swat me, I could extract your blood without injecting the chemical and you wouldn't feel a thing."

"And this would keep all the other mosquitoes away."

"Precisely."

"And you're sure I won't swell up?"

"Reasonably sure. I've never actually tried it."

Hodge couldn't believe he was actually considering the proposition of an insect. Still, the thought of enjoying the remainder of his summer bug-bite free was appealing. What was the worst thing that could happen?

"I'm intrigued by your suggestion, Little Bug. I'm willing to take a chance. I warn you, however, the moment I begin to swell from your bite, I'll smash you into oblivion."

"Then you fully appreciate that I have nothing to gain from lying to you, but everything to gain from telling the truth."

"Hmpf," was all Hodge said. Though the arrangement held appeal, he felt like a traitor for making this truce with his life-long enemy.

"Do I have your permission then to extract a small portion of your blood?"

The mosquito asked so genuinely. Hodge didn't know if it was in the insect's range of impressive capabilities to lie or deceive, but even if it did, he was convinced it told the truth now.

"Alright. We'll try it once."

Without a word, the mosquito plunged its stick-like proboscis into Hodge's arm with a surgeon's precision. Hodge didn't feel a thing. Before long, he began to notice a red swirl of colors filling the insect's hind section. The thorax, he thought to himself, though he wasn't quite sure. Whatever it was, it expanded before his eyes. As promised, his arm neither itched nor swelled. The mosquito had been right.

Still, a sudden primal repulsion surged within Hodge's belly, and he clenched his opposite fist. For so long had he absolutely abhorred the mosquito and its grazing of his lifeblood that to stay his natural urge to annihilate this one now was nearly more than he could bear.

"I hope you're almost done, Little Bug," he said through clenched teeth.

The bug said nothing, and Hodge reasoned that its proboscis must have figured into its means of communication in some way. Instead, the bug waggled its hind quarters in a gentle sway which any beekeeper would have recognized as a sign of satiated lethargy.

Hodge was no beekeeper. In fact, he hated bees nearly as much as he hated mosquitoes.

"Okay, that's enough, Little Bug," he said, his voice quivering with supressed anxiety.

The mosquito's thorax-thingy was a brilliant red now, swollen to nearly spherical proportions. Hodge wasn't sure how it would even be able to fly. But then, the thought of allowing this pest to carry away some of his perfectly good blood, unchallenged, stuck like a thorn in Hodge's brain. His breathing escaped in puffs from his flaring nostrils. His clenched fist opened into a flat, rigid palm, the same instrument of death that had eliminated so many of the bug's kin in summers past.

"Last warning! Finish up now or I'm going to interpret your actions as a breach of our agreement."

The mosquito's tail waggled a little more quickly this time, but it didn't stop. In fact, it swelled so wide that Hodge could feel the entire end segment sagging and resting against his arm like a great red maggot.

That was the final straw. Repulsion overtook his sensibilities. It would have been easier slowing his own heartbeat than supressing his need to destroy this blood thief. He raised his hand to strike.

Before he could trigger the death blow, however, he felt a sudden surge of warmth on his arm. Curiosity made him pause. A small crimson streak arced nearly an inch from where the mosquito had harvested, and it was growing. That's when Hodge saw that the little bug's tail had shriveled.

"I'm sorry," came the mosquito's voice, smaller and weaker than it had been only moments before.

"What just happened? Why didn't you withdraw?"

"I couldn't," it responded breathlessly. "Your blood was too rich and too thick. Once I hooked in, it coursed too powerfully for me to contain."

The bug twisted upon itself, inspecting its hind section. Hodge could swear he saw it lower its head in agony.

"Are you going to be alright?" he said when the bug lay still for several seconds, his concern surprising even himself.

"I'm afraid not," it said.

Hodge felt a sudden pang of guilt mixed with disgust. He desperately wanted to wipe the bloody mess from his arm, but he thought he should at least wait until the mosquito gave him permission.

"Why didn't you use a little bit of your chemical?" he asked when he could think of nothing more to say.

"Our... arrangement," was all it said in response.

A second wave of guilt washed over Hodge.

"I'm sorry, Little Bug," he said, the first trace of genuine emotion straining his voice. "I didn't realize your life was at risk when I agreed to our arrangement."

"Life... always... risk," it said, its words nearly indistinguishable from the regular buzz of mosquitoes. Hodge almost welcomed it. Made the creature seem less... human.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" Hodge couldn't believe his words. He really hoped the neighbors weren't watching now.

"Just... understand." They were the mosquito's last words.

For several seconds, Hodge stared at the fallen enemy on his arm. When he was sure that it had expired, he lifted its body with a finger and washed away the blood that had drained from its tail. He carried it to the railing of his deck and held it over the freshly-mown lawn.

"So long, Little Bug. I hope you're harvesting from that big blood bank in the sky."

Hodge blew the mosquito body from his arm out over the lawn. For a long moment he stared into the darkness. Then he returned to his chair and somewhat numbly relit his cigar which had gone out. The Coke Zero had grown warm, but it was still pretty good.

He stayed out for another fifteen minutes, trying to... understand. It had been the mosquito's last wish, after all, and the least Hodge could do was observe it. Needless to say, he didn't really understand at all. But at least I recognize that I don't understand, he thought. Maybe that's a start. With a final look out over the lawn, he flicked his cigar stub into the grass and went inside, before the bugs got bad.

Flood

2009-09-04T10:55:00.000-07:00

Their house had withstood the floods of '54 without so much as a drop finding its way inside. In 1972, while the neighbor's entire basement filled, a mere trickle had managed to penetrate their basement walls. Then in 1996, when the tornado had destroyed the corner Osco and shut down the high school for two weeks, Walter had discovered a small pool on one end of the basement where water had wicked through a hairline crack in the foundation. It took all of fifteen minutes to mop.

But on August 28, 2009, a light afternoon shower filled the basement to fourteen inches and destroyed a lifetime of memories in boxes. It was a faulty switch on the sump pump that gave way, and once the castle's outer wall had been breached, the rainwaters tore through the basement and annihilated everything that wasn't packed in Tupperware or stacked high on shelves.

Walter waded through the devastation in his rubber boots, the end of his mahogany cane casting ripples in the water, probing for debris. That which could be salvaged was spread across the garage floor, drying in the afternoon sun. That which couldn't remained submerged in the pool through which Walter now trudged. Dozens of boxes and their wares sat ruined in piles of cardboard flotsam, clumping to his workbench and shelving units like scraps of rotting flesh. Walter shook his head in disgust. What a mess.

Cleo, his wife, sat on the stairs. She wielded a flashlight and a garbage bag. Walter had forbade her from coming down any further.

"Not safe wading through all that water," he had told her. "If a circuit arcs, we'll both get fried, and then who'll feed the cats?"

She accepted his logic without argument, despite his grim pessimism. She knew he did it more for effect than anything. She simply sat and watched, bracing herself every time Walter returned with another account of some precious collection lost.

"It's a damn mess," he said, lifting a stack of newspapers and flicking the water from them. They broke in half in his hand so that all that remained was a shredded clump of pulp.

"Our anniversary announcements," Cleo murmured. She had put them there last year after their sixtieth anniversary party. Walter had been tasked with boxing them along with all the other announcements, but she realized it wouldn't have made any difference. Those boxes, too, were now underwater and damaged beyond repair.

Walter lifted a smaller, plastic box from the bottom shelf of a nearby rack. The top was still firmly in place, but by the way it sloshed in his hands, he knew it, too, had been infiltrated. He handed it to Cleo.

"Mark's baby pictures," she noted sadly. She could still make out her son's black and white smile underneath the waterlogged wrinkles.

"Not just his," Walter said, handing two more boxes to his wife. She recognized them as Larry's and Joanie's.

"Just as well," he declared loudly when she said nothing. "No one ever looks at 'em any more anyway."

Walter spoke in harsh tones to prevent his wife from getting sentimental and weepy. There was nothing that got to him more than when she got weepy. Made him weepy, too.

"It's just stuff," she said for the tenth time in as many minutes. She wiped a few stray tears with the back of her sleeve when Walter wasn't looking.

"Oh no." His voice sounded slightly more concerned than before.

"What is it?"

"My Lodge picture."

He held up an eight by eleven group photo of men in funny hats. Cleo didn't even remember which one was him, but she frowned grimly all the same.

"I'm sorry, Wally."

"I always liked that one," he said with a shake of the head.

"It was a fine picture."

"Liked my hair and my smile and everything."

"I remember it like it was yesterday."

"We used to play cards while the women gossiped in the kitchen."

"And then we'd listen to Buddy Owens and dance on the lawn."

Walter stared at the photo for a long moment, then let it fall back into the waters. Before Cleo could offer any more words of consolation, he dug back into the debris. He removed a golf trophy from a box, determined it ruined, then pulled the entire box from the shelf with a splash.

"Wally, maybe we should stop for right now."

"Now, Cleo, I want to get this done with. It's just a bunch of stuff, like you said. I just want to go through it all and be done with it."

"Alright."

He peered inside another box, then let it fall to the water.

"Just a bunch of postcards," he muttered.

He toppled another.

"Slides from our California trip."

Then another.

"Christmas cards."

"You don't need to pull them all down," Cleo said hopelessly.

"What difference does it make? It's all ruined. All of it. Might as well let it get soaked through all the way. At least then we won't have half good stuff and be tempted to try to keep it."

"What if some of it can be dried out?"

"No. There's nothing here worth trying to save," he said with a firmness bordering on anger.

He opened another box, stared at it for a moment, then withdrew a record album.

"There, see?" he said. He studied the cover and nodded with a satisfied expression. "Buddy Owens. Gone, just like everything else."

Walter began leafing through the albums, pulling each in turn out of its sleeve and depositing it into the water. With his back turned, he didn't notice that his wife, with a stealth that hurt her arthritic knees, crept up the stairs.

"Jerry Hightower and the Good Times Band," he said, followed by another splash. "Danny Murphy." Splash. "Conrad Poe." Splash.

Once Cleo reached the top of the stairs, she let the tears fall freely down her cheeks. She sidled across the room to the love seat and gently plopped down onto its floral cushion. As the sound of her life's memories punctuated the still morning in a series of splashes, she wept quietly into one hand.

Downstairs, Walter tossed another record into the floodwaters. "Gavin St.Clair," he said. "We never liked that one anyway." He spun with a grin before realizing Cleo had gone. He let his hands fall weakly to his sides. His grin faded. He hadn't wanted to hurt her, but he couldn't allow her to wallow. The past was behind them. It was his job to keep her looking forward.

He took a deep breath and briefly considered going to her. Inside, his heart ached to rush to her side, but fear prevented him. Fear that she had given in. That she was embracing the pain. He decided it would be better to pretend he didn't notice. He turned back to the stack of boxes.

For the next half hour, he continued sorting the flotsam, less urgently now that she was gone, mentally taking inventory of all that was lost. He had forgotten he even owned half of it, and in some ways, it was a relief to be free from the obligatory need to keep things simply because they had once mattered to him. This would turn out to be a cleansing exercise, he thought. She would come to see that in time, too.

He had nearly crossed the entire basement, identifying each item in turn and accepting the fact that it had been destroyed, but then he came across a wooden box nestled in the shadow of the washing machine. It bobbed lightly in the ripples Walt created as he approached. He recognized it immediately with its pale green hues and the carved Indian head in the center. It was the box that had held Mark's woodworking kit.

Walt poked at it, looping his cane through one of the box's rope handles. He dragged it effortlessly over the water's surface until it rested against his knee. For a long moment he stared at it, wondering what he would find. There might be anything inside. There might be nothing. He wasn't sure which he preferred. Walter hesitantly lifted it from the water and slid open the lid.

Inside was a collection of handmade toys from another era. There were small wooden soldiers with square heads and uneven legs. He found a rubberband gun with the disintegrated remnant of rubber still slung across its notch. There was the sturdy slingshot that had once cracked the windshield of the BelAir and led to the grounding of two young boys. There were derby cars, worn and scraped from years of racing along the driveway. There was the airplane that had spent a summer in the gutter.

But it was the small wooden boat with paper sails that caught Walter's attention. Though he hadn't seen it in forty years, he knew every angle of the boat, every cut of the chisel. He had helped the small hands that shaped it. Walter closed his eyes and could picture the boy of eleven at work in the garage, sawing, sanding, gluing, and painting the craft that sailed the seas of his imagination. It had been his proudest creation, the crowning achievement of his preadolescent life. Walter turned the boat over in his fingers with sudden urgency and smiled when he found what he had sought. In hand-scrawled black letters, the name "Cleo" stretched across the bow. The boy had always been close to his mother.

Two small drops fell from his eyes, and Walter realized he was crying. He quickly wiped them away. They had come too far for that.

He withdrew the boat, and gently slid the box closed. Then he lifted the box to a high shelf where it would dry. For many moments, he continued staring at the boat in his hands. Then, with the care of a father holding his child, he placed the small boat into the waters and let it go. The boat canted to one side ever so slightly, but it stayed afloat. Slowly it drifted across the basement, caught in some current Walter hadn't noticed. More drops fell from his eyes.

And then, with an urgency that belied his age, he trudged through the waters back towards the boxes he had dumped. He rifled through the debris, lifting up chunks of newspaper and cardboard until he found what he was looking for, a drenched record. Slipping the black disc from its soggy cover, he sloshed through the water for the stairs, his cane forgotten on the washer. It took him nearly a minute to ascend the stairs in his heavy, wet boots, but as soon as he did, he tromped across the living room floor, his feet squeaking with each step.

"Wally?" Cleo asked, rising from the love seat.

"Cleo," he said, his voice clear. "I think I found something."

Before she could inquire further, Walter threw open the stereo cabinet, flipped a switch, and set the wet disc upon the spinning platter. With a shaky hand, he lifted the needle and dropped it onto the disc with a pop and a hiss. The warbly tones of Buddy Owens filled the small house.

"Wally, what's the matter?" Cleo asked, her hands clasped in concern.

Rather than answer, he simply stepped across the room until he stood just before her. He bowed his head to one side and extended a hand.

"Cleo Frances Wittinger, would you care to dance with me?"

Musty rainwater soaked his jeans and ran down his boots, pooling on the carpet. His hands were stained with newspaper print. Dirty sweat covered his face, neck, and chest. He was filthy. But he smiled like a man half his age. Like a man who hadn't outlived all three of his children. Like a man who never forgot just how much he loved his wife.

"Oh, Wally," she said, collapsing against his chest and wrapping her eighty year old arms around her husband. "I want so much to cry."

"It's alright, Sweetheart," he said. "You can cry."

Inside he hoped that the tears that flowed would wash the world away. It was time for a fresh start. After sixty years of life together, they were ready for something new.

They danced until long after the record ended, like they had in the days before memories were kept in boxes.

//Sent Using Blackberry//

2009-09-03T13:35:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time, a young man got a Blackberry for his job.

At first, the man was very bad at using his Blackberry, but soon, he got better. And better. Until one day he was able to type emails and search the web almost as fast on the Blackberry as on his keyboard.

Then one day, he realized he was dependent on his Blackberry. He took it everywhere he went, often checking his messages during dinner or at church. In short, he was addicted.

As often happens in such cases, however, he soon began to take his Blackberry for granted. Whereas he had onced praised the device as the ultimate in out-of-office management, he even began to complain about his Blackberry.

And tha t 's when the funn y stuff started happening .
at first it was little things, like misspellings and spaces in strange pl a ce s. Disgusted with the mitstakes, the man often slappd his bLackberry wh en it mad E mistakes. Then one day he droppped it I n the parkinglot and it slid acros the concre te. The screen was scratcched and the edges wer gshed..

theMan andh is Blakbery stoped talkng then. Though somtims they w were forcd to wrk togther, there wsa coldne ss be tw en thm.

Thn onE da yw h en they hadnt spken in mny days, th e man ne eded to ues his BlAcbry fr a emerg eency. it was vry imptrtant! he hadN oT updted his da ILy blogg wth te h day's story yet! sothEman be gan typn hss stO ry wh en al l l ofa sudn-- jdtworkgjv for me ths oe tkjf- - %S3hf# c [re dsj fcjk

and he smshed th blaA ckbe rrrrr r fy on teh grnddd and
t he e. nD
##

.

The Black Card Club

2009-09-02T10:53:00.001-07:00

It came in a stiff, glossy envelope, the type one uses for Wedding Invitations. Great, I thought. Another wedding, another wedding gift. I’m a budgeting freak these days, so the thought of trying to squeeze another gift from our over-taxed budget aggravates me. Not that I’m unhappy for whomever it is that’s entering into a life of wedded bliss. I, myself, am married, after all, and as a ring-toting member of the Husbands Club, I’m always eager to welcome the new meat.

I slid a finger down the expertly sealed envelope. A single card lay inside, silver lettering embossed on hard, charcoal-gray stock. It was not a wedding invitation, but an invitation of an entirely different sort.

“Mr. Bishop,” it began. “You have been chosen to join a most exclusive membership. As an individual possessing an impeccable financial record, you are hereby invited to join the Black Card Club.”

Below were written a few ambiguous instructions, including a telephone number in case I was interested. I wasn’t, really, so much as I was curious.

I dialed the phone.

“Hello, Mr. Bishop,” came the voice at the other end. It didn’t echo as if uttered in an open-air range of cubicles. It wasn’t rushed and quick to launch into a sales pitch like so many telemarketers. In fact, I couldn’t hear anything else in the background, no chattering receptionists or ringing phones. Just the low rumble of silence as translated by Verizon Wireless over hundreds of miles to the Blackberry in my hand.

“Hi,” I said, slightly taken aback by the deep, confident voice.

“I take it you have received our invitation?”

“Yes, I just did. I was just, uh… um, I have a few questions.”

“Of course.”

“Can you explain what this is all about?”

“Certainly, Mr. Bishop. You have been accepted into an exclusive membership, the Black Card Club.”

“What exactly is the Black Card?”

“You’ve never heard of the Black Card?”

The voice revealed just a hint of incredulity. Instantly I felt as though I may have insulted him, or at the very least, revealed myself to be unworthy of his fantastic club. I hated the thought of disappointing the strange voice.

“Well, I’ve heard of one, but I was just making sure this was the same.”

“What have you heard, Mr. Bishop?”

Crap. I was suddenly reminded of the time my Irish literature professor had asked me the significance of the twilight hour to William Butler Yeats after I had failed to read any of the assigned poems in question. But my mind was digressing…

“I’ve heard... that it’s the most exclusive card in the world. That only the… best and brightest are invited…?”

“That’s right, Mr. Bishop,” the voice said generously. If it detected my bluff, it was kind enough to let it go.

“It’s the card of celebrities,” it continued. “The rich and famous. Presidents, movie stars, pro athletes, billionaires. I understand Bill Gates has two. In short, it’s the club.”

“And you’re inviting… me?”

“That’s right, Mr. Bishop.”

“Um, why?”

“That's a legitimate question,” it replied. “You see, time’s are difficult. Even the stars are falling on difficult times. And between you and me, Mr. Bishop, the stars are notorious for accruing enormous debts that even they can’t pay. We’ve decided that it’s time to implement new strategies. You, yourself, have an excellent credit record. You’ve never missed a payment, and you’re of a pay grade that we feel you could benefit from unrestricted access to funds.”

“Well, I don’t know about that. We’re on a pretty tight budget--”

“Precisely why you’ve never missed a payment, no doubt. You are exactly the type of person we are looking for.”

“But I’m not rich.”

“If you were, you wouldn’t need to borrow, would you?”

Inside my mind, alarm bells were sounding. What would my debt management class say to such logic? Financial Guru Dave Ramsey was wagging a finger at me, and I could hear his southern drawl espousing the benefits of a credit-free life. Suddenly he was hefting an enormous pair of scissors in the air, snipping them at me like hedge clippers. I knew what he wanted. He wanted me to cut up my credit cards. And not just any credit cards; he wanted my Black Card.

“What are the benefits of using the Black Card?” I stammered as Dave Ramsey disappeared in a wisp of smoke.

“So glad you asked,” responded the velvety voice. “We offer you the kind of perks you’ve only heard about before. One glance at this card, and maître d’s from the finest restaurants in the world will get you the table of your choice without a moment’s delay. The mere sight of the impressive, carbon-fiber sheen of your card and your hotel concierge will get you backstage passes to the most exclusive of concerts. The world that has remained just beyond your grasp is now within reach. Grasp it!”

Though speaking under the amber glow of my kitchen lights, my eyes were wide, my pupils dilated. The hunter in me was aroused.

“What’s the credit limit?”

“Please, Mr. Bishop. Your sense of humor tickles me. Limits are for those who have no self-restraint. You could buy a jumbo jet with this card, if you so desired.”

“Woah.”

“Woah, indeed.”

My mind reeled. I wasn’t seriously considering the voice’s offer, was I? But still, I hadn’t been invited to join any exclusive memberships since the Who’s Who in American High School Students 1995 edition rolled out. It had been nearly 15 years since I had been special! And here I was, letting a golden opportunity slip away because of some nagging paranoia against credit card companies. These guys made trillions of dollars every year, right? Surely they wouldn't be half as successful if they didn’t know what they were talking about. It was time to start acting the part of the bourgeois that the voice took me for. Wait, is “bourgeois” right? Maybe I meant aristocrat. Which one was the higher ranking?

“Mr. Bishop?” the voice asked when I continued to ponder silently.

“Yes, I’m here. So, tell me about the drawbacks of the Black Card.”

“Hmpf,” came the voice’s delighted rebuke. “There are none for such as you.”

“No? What about… for other people?”

“Mr. Bishop, I assure you, the Black Card is not a snare. It is a pedestal upon which only the height of civilization is permitted to perch.”

He enunciated his P’s with such perfect eloquence that I was mesmerized by the flow of his speech. Like the pitter-patter of raindrops on the skylight or the hoofbeat of horses across a desert plain, his words lulled me into quiet submission.

“Five hundred dollars is a pittance to someone like yourself,” the voice continued.

I snapped awake.

“Five hundred dollars? What’s that?”

“The cost of the good life.”

“I have to pay five hundred dollars to join the club?”

“Yes, a paltry sum, I admit. But you know. There are times when names are selected for membership in error. We felt that symbolic association dues would keep the so-called riffraff out. But surely you would agree that the benefits we offer you would never be available to you for five thousand dollars, let alone five hundred dollars per year.”

“Per year?”

“Calendar year, yes. So in January, you would owe another payment, but really, Mr. Bishop, it embarrasses me even to speak of such minor details.”

“Can I use the Black Card to pay for the association fee?”

“Truly you have an uncanny sense of humor, Mr. Bishop.”

I forced a retroactive laugh to confirm that my quite serious question was indeed a joke.

“I… I don’t know what to say,” I said after several moments of not knowing what to say.

“That’s how most people feel when they are selected. I understand Woody Allen was silent for an entire five minute period.”

“Okay, well, thank you for the information. I’ll need to discuss it with my wife.”

In the back of my mind, I was already dreaming up scenarios for convincing Danielle that the five hundred dollars would be the greatest investment of our lives. “Think of the time saved waiting at restaurants,” I would say. If we waited an average of an hour a week, over the course of a year, that would be fifty hours. For five hundred dollars, we would save fifty hours times the two of us, or one hundred man-hours of our lives. That worked out to five dollars an hour for our time. Surely our time was worth more than that! Who could put a price tag on the seconds of our lives, after all? Upon thinking of it this way, it was insulting to think that for a mere five hundred dollars’ savings, I would stand in lines for hundreds of hours. The outrage swelled within me. Screw Dave Ramsey! Why did he value my time so little?!

“I’m sure you’ll convince her that this is a wise investment, Mr. Bishop. When the two of you have decided to join the Black Card Club, you need only call me back. I’ll make a special mark for you in my notebook.”

A special mark? I was putty in the voice’s hands.

“Thank you, Mr.--”

“K.J.”

“Mr. Kayjay?”

“No, K.J. As in Kevin. Junior.”

“Your name’s Kevin?”

“Junior, that’s right. Is something wrong?”

It was a contradiction the way the mellifluous voice spoke so mundane a name.

“It’s just, you sounded so much more like a Randall… or an Archibald.”

“No, I’m afraid it’s nothing so sophisticated. Just Kevin. Like my father.”

“Your father?”

“Yes, in fact, he needs to use the phone now, so if you don’t mind...”

“Wait, he’s there?”

“More like, I’m here. It’s his house, after all.”

“You live at home?”

“We can’t all live like you, Mr. Bishop.”

He chuckled, and I found it repulsive.

“I see," was all I could say.

“Anyway, you have my number. Call me when you’ve decided.”

“Um, thanks…”

“Thank you, Mr. Bishop.”

With that, the voice was gone, and I was left holding a silent Blackberry. In my mind, red carpet parties and night excursions by yacht suddenly dissipated, replaced by the image of a young, pimply man - albeit one with the most soothing voice I’ve ever heard - sitting on an unmade bed beneath posters of Marilyn Manson and Korn.

When my wife arrived home several minutes later, I was still holding the invitation, tracing my silver name with a pinky.

“What’s that,” she asked, plopping down a bag of groceries that I instantly surmised to be under seventy-five dollars, in accordance with our weekly grocery budget.

“Just a credit card offer,” I said numbly.

“Looks like the Black Card,” she said, stashing the eggs in the fridge.

“You’ve heard of it?”

She laughed. “Of course I’ve heard of it. They’ve been sending those to everyone.”

“Oh.”

“So, what do you want to do about dinner?” she asked. “I was thinking we should go to Chili’s.”

In my mind, I could see the crowd, the lines of people waiting for limited tables. The wait would be at least 20 minutes.

And then, with a ferocity that would have made Dave Ramsey’s heart swell with pride, I grabbed a pair of scissors and cut my exclusive Black Card Club invitation into a dozen jagged shards.

Then I let my wife lead me out to Chili's. It ended up being a five minute wait. It still felt like an eternity.

The Genie and the Beachcomber

2009-09-01T22:31:00.001-07:00

It was the first day of Martin Fry's vacation at his grandparents' house which stood upon a cliff overlooking the Pacific ocean. The accompanying beach was a half-mile, semi-private crescent of sand and tar that ran along the base of the cliff. It was an exclusive subdivision, the kind that everyone clamored to get into only to slam the gate shut behind them once they did so that no one else could join. Martin's grandparents were some of the first to move there, and as he had been visiting for the past 20 years, he feel no qualms in labeling it his grandparents' beach.

It was a wild beach, though, littered with driftwood, rocks, and rubbery beds of kelp, teeming with flies and sand fleas. It was nothing like the white sand beaches one expected from Southern California, but the trade-off was that it was nearly always uninhabited.

That morning, Martin took an early stroll as was his habit upon visiting, because the first to the beach was typically the one to find the remnants of the ocean's night dance upon the shore. Over the years, he had seen any number of marine deposits: sharks, jellyfish, sea cucumbers, seals, manta rays, lobsters, and everything else that slithered or swam through the great wide sea. The ocean never ceased to provide lessons in diversity, even among the dead.

There was an area of the beach that nestled into the bordering cliff wall. Due to a smash of boulders that formed a makeshift perimeter around the cove, the ocean often pooled there once the tide had gone out. This was where Martin preferred to do his hunting, and on that peculiar day last summer, this was where he met the jin.

As these stories often begin, Martin found a lamp lying in the sand. At first his eyes passed over it, searching instead for perfectly proportioned curves, symmetrical limbs and joints, or other traces of organized, biological systems among the flotsam. After ascertaining that there would be no marine life lesson that day, he turned his attention to the lamp, which is to say he lifted it from the pool, shook the sand and mud from its spout, and nearly died of heart attack when the jin appeared.

The genie drifted on black smoke to a height of ten or more feet, hovering on the wind just inches from Martin's face. Martin instantly dropped the lamp and backed against the cliff wall, but the figure's menacing black eyes followed him with infinite concentration.

"Who is he that has called upon the genie of the lamp?"

He, if indeed it had a gender to match its outward appearance, loomed threateningly over the smaller youth, his wavering form casting long shadows in the cove. His voice boomed, and wisps of fog swirled from his mouth. His eyes beamed with an inner light, and Martin marveled that a creature of smoke could appear so substantial.

"I'm Martin," was all the young man could manage.

"Master Martin," said the genie as emotionlessly as words of submission can be uttered. "For discovering me and freeing me of my bonds, I shall grant you one wish."

"Just one?"

The creature's brow darkened. His lips pouted. But his voice remained neutral.

"How many impossible, once-in-a-lifetime wishes would you ask of me?"

"I didn't mean it like that," Martin quickly corrected. "It's just, three wishes is sort of the cliché. One is perfect."

"I'm glad to meet Master's approval."

For a long moment, they stared at one another. The genie's form rippled slightly with every breeze, then instantly reshaped. Martin briefly wondered whether his hand would pass right through should he thrust it at the genie's chest but decided it might be a test with regrettable consequences.

"How long do I have to make my wish?"

"You must decide now. Once you leave this place, I will be gone and you no longer my master."

A thousand questions flooded Martin's mind at once, things the fairy tales never addressed. As much as he liked the idea of having a wish granted, he was overwhelmed by curiosity. One doesn't meet a genie every day!

"Can I ask you a couple of questions first?"

The genie raised an eyebrow in a gesture that conveyed both complete mastery of his outward appearance and utter annoyance.

"You are my master. Ask your questions."

"Are you some kind of spirit?"

"A spirit?"

"I mean, where do you fall on the whole God / man / angels hierarchy?"

"I don't rightly fall into any of those categories, though I suppose you could best classify me as spirit."

"So you can't touch things?"

In answer, the genie stretched out an arm and picked up a small pebble from the beach.

"Oh. Well, how did you get to be in that lamp?"

The genie flicked the pebble with his other hand and it screamed across the waves.

"I cannot tell you that."

"But aren't I your master?"

"You are my current master, but I have had many masters, one of whom was directly responsible for my imprisonment. To answer your question would be to violate the wish of a former master."

"Yeah, but don't you have to do whatever I say?"

"If you choose to use your one wish to hear the story of my imprisonment, then I will grant it. However, I cannot answer your mere inquiries regarding this matter."

"I see," Martin said, not actually seeing anything at all. "So, do you like granting wishes?"

Again the genie cast an expression that Martin would have feared from anyone not fantastically obligated to obey his command.

"Does your heart enjoy pumping blood?"

"I'm not sure I follow."

The genie said nothing to clarify, crossing his bulging arms over his chest in a gesture that suggested Martin should attempt deeper thought before surrendering so easily.

"I mean, I enjoy the fact that my heart pumps my blood. That's what it's for. But my heart, itself, feels nothing. I suppose a heart that pumps blood experiences a better existence than a heart that doesn't."

"In the same way, I am made to grant wishes. I have no feelings about the matter, though as you say, perhaps I am better off doing what I was made for than not."

It made sense to Martin, though he seriously doubted the genie experienced no emotion of any kind. Already, he had seen him exhibit signs of irritation, condescension, and unless he was mistaken, a mild disgust at finding Martin to be his master.

"Do you have any friends?" Martin blurted when no better question came to mind.

"Friends? Master, surely there is some wish I can grant for you so that we may both go our separate ways."

"Tired of me?"

"I do not tire."

"And yet you can't wait for me to hurry up and make my wish. Why?"

The genie bunched his lips before realizing he was making an expression, then relaxed.

"I apologize, Master. Take your time. As to your question, the answer is no, I do not have any friends, nor do I have acquaintances or enemies. The last time I spoke to anyone was nearly 200 years ago when I was discovered by a fisherman. I made him very rich."

"200 years... wow. How do you keep track of time in there?"

"As a spirit, I am not bound by time, though its passage is easily observable to those who fully understand it."

Martin decided not to take that conversational path any further. He was no student of philosophy and his grasp of theoretical physics was... theoretical. Still, he needed to stall until he could think of a meaningful wish. Though he'd considered the scenario many times in his daydreams, now that it was real, he felt inadequately prepared to make the most of this unusual opportunity.

"You say you made the fisherman rich?"

Finally the genie smiled in what seemed a benevolent manner.

"Enough wealth that even his descendents today benefit from it," he said more proudly than an entity that cannot experience pride ever should.

"Was he happy?"

"He was the richest man of his generation."

"Yes, but was he happy?"

At this, the genie's smile lapsed into a scowl before he caught himself and reasserted the smile somewhat drastically.

"Happiness is a concept with which I am unfamiliar. I would be a poor judge of the matter."

"Did he have a lot of friends?"

"Hundreds of them."

"And how many attended his funeral?"

This time the genie's smile was not one of pride, but of sly appreciation.

"Three."

"Three hundred?"

"No. Three. His son, his wife, and his wife's lover."

"I see."

"You've made your decision then?"

Martin shook his head.

"How did he die?"

"I'm not quite sure. Poisoned, they say."

Whether it was the way he spoke the words, so nonchalantly, or whether it was a nagging doubt in the back of Martin's mind, the young man suddenly feared the ageless genie and his fantastic offer.

"Genie, how many wishes have you granted in your lifetime?"

"Seventy-three. You will be my seventy-fourth."

"Of those, how many had better lives after their wishes than before?"

"Again, Master asks a relative question for which I would be an inadequate judge."

"How many asked for riches of some kind?"

"That's a vague question, however, I would have to say all of them, in various forms."

"What do you mean?"

"Thirty-eight asked for riches in terms of material wealth; sixteen asked for riches in title; nine asked for riches in terms of extended life; six asked for riches in love; and four asked for riches in wisdom."

"And you can't determine which of these were happier after their wishes came true?"

"No, Master."

"Any unusual circumstances affect their lives after they met you?"

"Such vagueries, Master. How could I possibly--"

"How many died of unnatural causes?"

"Again, what is natural?"

"How many died of something other than old age?"

The genie sighed. If he had attempted to keep his evasions secret from Martin up to that point, it now seemed he embraced the nature of their game. He gave a slight bow of the head.

"Sixty-four," he said with a glimmer in his eyes.

"But that's everyone except for nine!"

"Yes, the nine that requested extended life."

"And of those nine, how many died happy."

"Master, I can't--"

"--How many died alone, broke or both?" Martin rephrased.

"Nine," the genie answered in what must have been a sheepish manner for an all-powerful spirit being.

Martin glared at the genie for a long, hard moment. He kept hoping the genie would look away from his gaze, acknowledging that his true nature had been discovered. Yet the genie only seemed empowered by Martin's growing anger.

"You do it on purpose, don't you?"

"What do you mean, Master?"

"You twist the wishes of your masters so that, despite getting their desires, they end up miserable. Or dead!"

"Why would I--"

"Because you despise them."

"I told you, Master, I am incapable of emotion."

But his countenance betrayed his words. His face blazed with hatred and loathing as his eyes seared into Martin's. His form wavered and snaked through the air though there was no breeze.

"Genie, is there any wish I can make that you won't twist into a curse?"

"Master, again I protest that whatever fate befell those masters who came before you, I am innocent. I merely granted them their wishes. If they lacked the proper foresight to recognize the ways in which a wish can go astray from its intended purpose, that is not to be blamed on me."

"What if I don't want my wish?"

"You must. It is the way of things."

"You said the offer would only be good until I left this place."

"That is true. But I think you'll find it impossible to leave until you have made your wish."

Martin looked to the narrow walkway that would lead him out of the cove and back on to the beach. His mind urged him to flee, but his feet held fast. Thus far, the genie had shown no miraculous powers - apart from his very existence, that is - and yet Martin had no doubt that should he attempt to run, he would experience first hand the wrath of the genie. Martin determined that his only escape would be to best the creature at his own game.

"You would hold me here against my will?"

"I'm sorry, Master. It is a side effect of my power. You see, in order to create an environment where all wishes become possible, I have created a temporary space in your world where ordinary natural laws no longer apply."

"So if I try to leave?"

"You'll never reach your destination. The distance between us and the rest of the beach is infinite. Your feet will wear away from millennia of trudging through the sand before you get an inch closer."

"So I must make a wish knowing that it will very likely come back to make things far worse for me?"

"Yes, Master." His smile was menacing. Demonic.

Martin's heart pounded inside, and his arms fell weak and impotent at his sides. Fear sharpened his focus, however, and he turned his thoughts towards the genie's riddle.

"Earlier you said I could use my wish to learn how you came to occupy the lamp..."

"That is true."

This seemed a safe bet. How could the passing of knowledge be dangerous?

"How would you do it?"

The genie shrugged.

"I would show you."

"How do you mean?"

"I would take you back with me so that you could see the moment of my imprisonment."

"You mean back in time? And would you bring me back?"

The genie smirked.

"I'm sorry, Master, but that would be a separate wish."

"Of course. And if I wished I had never met you?”

“I can think of no better way to prevent our meeting than to prevent your birth, can you?”

The flippancy of the genie's answer angered Martin. He had presented himself as a blessing, an opportunity to have one desire fully realized; and yet now Martin recognized him for what he really was, a trickster. A demon.

“Do you work for the devil?"

The genie just scoffed. Clearly the young man's judgments meant little to him.

“Suppose I wished you good?” Martin continued.

“Interesting. And what would be the criteria for what is good?”

“I don't know. The Bible, I guess.”

“So I would be permitted to destroy entire nations and to damn the souls of those that defy me?”

“No, only God can do that.”

“But if the Bible is your definition of good, does not God then become the very model of goodness?”

Martin's theology was even weaker than his theoretical physics.

“Okay, forget I mentioned that."

Martin scanned the beach for ideas, but nothing came to mind. In desperation, he blurted out every possible wish that crossed his mind.

What if I wished you into non-existence?”

“You wouldn't want to do that,” the genie replied calmly.

“No?”

“The power it requires to destroy one of my essence would obliterate everything you see around you.”

“Oh. Then how about... world peace?"

"Same solution."

Matin felt it was hopeless. Who was he to outsmart the genie?

“Master, you must make a wish and trust that it will turn out well for you.”

“But I don't trust you. How can I?"

"You don't have a choice."

"I don't want to make a wish.”

“Do you wish that you were incapable of wishing?”

“No! Clearly you would strike me down with some horrible disease that would render me incapable of speech.”

“Now you're starting to think like a genie!”

The genie had created a very convincing case that from everything one deemed good or desirable, something negative could also come. Riches brought jealousy and crime. Power brought hatred and corruption. Martin needed to come up with a wish that could in no way harm himself or anyone else. But what?

And then it struck him.

“Genie, I've made my decision.”

The spirit arched an eyebrow. Though smug, his expression indicated curiosity.

Martin continued.

“In a situation such as this, where an omnipotent being has offered to grant me one wish with the caveat that he will attempt with his almighty intellect to turn that wish against me, I wish to know how I could possibly respond in a manner that would not allow for any unforeseen consequences. Genie, I wish I knew what to wish for!”

For a moment the genie considered. He scrunched his lips and squinted his eyes as if running through the billions of possible ways in which he could grant Martin's wish, undoubtedly searching for one that involved decapitation or death by boils or some other hideous side effect. For several moments he hovered in place, arms crossed as genies are so stereotypically depicted. His head bobbed back and forth a few times, as though considering from multiple angles.

Finally, a smirk crossed his lips.

“Very well, I will grant your wish.”

The genie arched towards Martin, his body warping in a smooth arc rather than bending at the waist. His torso diminished in size as he approached until his head loomed directly before the young man's. Then, with a cupped hand, he whispered the answer in Martin's ear.

The genie withdrew, and Martin braced myself for whatever was to come next.

“So,” he began when the genie did nothing. “In what devious way have you determined to twist my wish?”

“Unfortunately, I can think of no truly clever and insidious way in which to punish you for your wish, however, I have found a way to extend our game.”

“But you said I would be free to go upon wishing!”

“And you are. But know this: once you leave this place, you will forget our encounter. You asked to know what to wish for, and at this moment, you do. However, as you leave this spot, the memory of our encounter will fade. By the time you reach your grandparents', you will remember nothing about me, your wish, or the wish you should have made.”

“Fair enough.”

“But that's not the end of it. One day, we will meet again, and once more you will have to make a wish.”

Inwardly Martin dreaded the thought of being placed in the same position. He swore to himself that he would never touch a stray lamp again.

“Hopefully I'll think of the same wish then.”

The genie clucked his tongue in a very modern manner. Truly he did keep up with the times in his lamp.

“In removing from your memory this encounter, it seems I have accidentally removed the thought process behind your wish. You see, as a spirit, I'm not very familiar with the workings of the human mind. However, I'm quite confident in saying that the next time we meet, the particular wish you have uttered will not cross your mind. I'm very eager to see what you come up with instead.”

With that, the genie shrunk back into his lamp with the sound of rushing wind. The lamp rumbled with the return of its master, vibrating faster and faster until it began to sink into the sand. Within seconds, it had disappeared from sight. Martin briefly considered digging it up and destroying it, but he decided that if there was even a chance the genie would re-emerge and start the process all over again, he would prefer to leave it alone.

For a moment he stood in place, glancing at the path that would lead him away from the cove and back to the beach. He had no doubt that what the genie had said was true, that he would forget everything the moment he left. He wanted to write it down, to preserve the genie's one correct answer in some way that he would be able to use it should they ever cross paths again. But nothing came to mind except an overwhelming need to go home.

Before he could think on it any further, Martin stepped back onto the sandy pathway and headed back onto the beach.

* * *

The beach was beautiful that day, calmer than he had seen it in a long while. Suddenly Martin noticed that his legs ached as though he had stood upon the beach for a long time. He glanced at his watch and realized it was nearing lunch time. With a fleeting glance back at the clear blue waters, he ascended the stairway and headed back to his grandparents' house.

What a perfect day, he thought. A little dull perhaps, but then, it was only the first day of vacation.

1,001 American Nights

2009-08-31T09:26:00.000-07:00

Paul's Left Brain (L): "Do you think you could write a story a day?"

Paul's Right Brain (R): "For how long?"

L: "Indefinitely."

R: "Forever? Probably not."

L: "I didn't mean forever. I just meant for a while. Like a year."

R: "A year's a long time. 365 stories... How long do they have to be?"

L: "How long is a story?"

R: "Right. Okay, so it can be short, just has to be a complete story of some kind?"

L: "Seems fair."

R: "I don't know. Probably."

L: "What about three years?"

R: "Three years? I don't know. It's hard to commit for three years. That's over 1,000 stories."

L: "1,095 to be precise, depending on Leap Years--"

R: "You always were better at math..."

L: "--however, I was thinking more like 1,001. As in the 1,001 Arabian Nights. You know, Scheherazade?"

R: "You totally Googled that for spelling."

L: "Even so. Think you could write 1,001 stories in 1,001 nights?"

R: "Well, it's kind of a fun idea, but I don't know how I could possibly keep it up. I suppose if I were allowed to adopt a very loose interpretation of 'story.' I mean, what defines a story, anyway? Can I write a poem? Or a piece of dialogue? Could I just recount an interesting occurrence in dramatic fashion?"

L: "Fortunately for you, I think you can get away calling just about anything a story these days. But I would ask that you include, at the very least, a beginning, middle, and end."

R: "So text book. Alright. I like the idea. I don't know if I'll be able to do it every single day, but even if I produce a dozen new stories a year, it's better than sitting around doing nothing, right?"

L: "And Scheherazade just lost her head."

R: "Oh come on. Why make it so dire? It's worth trying, but I'm not going to bet my life on it."

L: "Just trying to motivate you. You're not even sure how you're going to end this 'story'."

R: "I suppose I could just pull out a gun and totally shoot you all non-sequitir."

L: "I'd like to ask that you limit your abstract storytelling to once a week..."

R: "Hmpf."

L: "At most..."

R: "Fine."

L: "If you're desperate."

R: "Alright, alright! I get it. Abstract non-sequitirs are a no-no."

L: "So would you end this already? I've got a one o'clock."

R: "Well, perhaps you'll allow me an exception for this first story. It's kind of a meta-story, after all."

L: "Setting a bad precedent, don't you think?"

R: "Not really. You're the one who wanted to model this after the Arabian Nights, don't forget. Scheherazade stayed alive precisely because she refused to conclude a single tale until the 1,001 nights were finished."

L: "..."

R: "Ha! Allow me a moment to pat my own back."

L: "Alright, you've got a valid point."

R: "I'll take that as a compliment."

L: "Starting tomorrow, though..."

R: "I know, I know. Tomorrow we'll start."

L: "Until then."

R: "Until then."

Igor's Lament - HD (The Way God Intended)

2009-08-28T20:25:00.000-07:00

(The following 1-minute commercial was created for Butterfinger's "Nobody Better Lay a Finger on My Butterfinger" competition, subcategory: Best Use of Gadget. Though we didn't win anything for our effort (only 100 people bothered to view the thing), we did learn a valuable lesson: Dave should never become a cross-dresser for real. 'Twould be criminal.)

TMBC2 Gang

2009-08-28T16:46:00.000-07:00

Here's the film gang standing outside the Decatur Civic Center for this year's 21 Project Film Festival. From left to right: Sam White, Jesse White, Danielle Bishop, Me, Jason Scott, Dave Spooner and Michelle Spooner.

Our movie, "The Missing Bank Card 2: The Revenge of Stephen Douglas" took the Best Use of Slogan / Logo Award. It was a bit disappointing after all the work we put into it, but it was still fun to take home a prize. Plus, the laughter throughout and applause after our film was truly gratifying. I know I'm biased in saying this, but it seems to me that we had one of the highest levels of audience participation of any film. As Dave said afterwards, we were the Jerry Bruckheimer of the competition.

The Land of Lincoln Credit Union has posted our video on its website, but here's an HD version of the film.

The Missing Bank Card II: The Revenge of Stephen Douglas

2009-08-28T13:41:00.000-07:00

(This is our second entry into the annual Project 21 film festival in Decatur, IL. As the festival is sponsored by the Land of Lincoln Credit Union, the only requirements for the film are that it be 4 minutes in length and feature the tag line of the LLCU: "Land of Lincoln Credit Union - Bank on Learning More!" For the second year in a row, we won an award for this film and I had to give a speech. Next summer we'll try to wrap up this trilogy and move on to less... credit-uniony things.)

Igor's Lament (Butterfinger Contest)

2009-08-28T06:44:00.000-07:00

So our 1-minute video / commercial is now playing on the Butterfinger Competition website under the "Best Use of a Gadget" tab. It was a toss-up whether we'd post to that category or to "Workplace Shenanigans," however, in the end, I decided that our gadget was more impressive than our workplace.

I'm pretty disappointed with how poor the quality of it is. We had to upload a version of the film under 100 MB, which by itself, drained most of the color from the film. Then it looks like the sponsors converted it again, and that wiped out most of the audio intricacies. The result is a film which is almost completely washed out and has very poor sound. For instance, when Igor rampages around the laboratory as the mutated monster, in our version, you can hear breaking glass, falling debris, and an animalistic roar. In the posted version, all you can hear is a blasted roar that completely overwhelms the scene.

Argh!

Anyway, I'll upload an HD version of the commercial to this blog (check the sidebar for Videos).

Here's a link to the official contest page if you want to see the competition. (No longer available.)

Disjointed Narrative

2009-08-26T08:22:00.001-07:00

One thing I will be doing is backlogging older stories, movie critiques, and my filmmaking experiences. I want to preserve their original time stamps so as to accurately depict the growth (or withering) of my life as a storyteller, so though this blog was started on August 26, 2009, I expect there will be entries going back over the past ten years or longer. Now, over to LiveJournal where I'm going to have to wade through 7 years of entries...

Here we go!

2009-08-26T07:43:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start a grand experiment, not so lofty as, say, the Constitution of the United States, but more interesting than, I hope, recent studies linking a decline in honeybee populations to a mite-induced ribosome deficiency.

That is to say, I'm starting a blog. Sure, I already have one on LiveJournal, but as the name suggests, it's more of a journal than a blog. What's the difference? Well, without Googling it, I suppose the major difference is that a journal is not necessarily meant to be made public whereas a blog is. As such, being the conflict-averse person I am, I will restrict this blog to topics which fit the following criteria:

1) 100% non-controversial, such as reasons why Danielle is the bestest wife on earth;

2) Controversial, but ultimately, not so important as to incite rampant hatred among readers, such as why the Cubs are hands-down the greatest sports franchise of all time;

3) Controversial and important, but of such dear importance to my heart that I'm willing to be stoned for my views, like why the movie, "A.i." is Steven Spielberg's underappreciated masterpiece.

But really, I just want to talk about stories. Written stories, filmed stories, musical stories, everything, including those stories I've written myself. This is to be a calling card for those I meet in the future who casually ask, 'Do you have a website where I can see your stuff'? The answer is finally, 'Yes, here's where you can see my stuff!'

And, being the optimist I am who one day hopes to make a living of storytelling, consider all materials contained herein copyrighted, trademarked, protected, and otherwise guarded by electronic pitbulls who will leap through your monitors and bite your story-ganking butts if you ever attempt to profit from the drippings of my leaky brain.

And with that, let's get started.

Film Shoot (TMBC2)

2009-07-06T13:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we shot the principal footage from our fifth film, "The Missing Bank Card II." It's a sequel to last year's entry in the Project 21 Film Festival in which we placed second. In an effort to best last year's winner, I tailored a script that would include even more special effects and humor, hopefully. Whereas last year, we only had TWO DAYS to make our entire movie, this year, we have an entire month. Still, with added resources comes added expectations, so I've been pressuring myself pretty hard to outdo last year's effort.

Filming yesterday was... long. It was a beautiful day, and I couldn't have asked for better weather, but still, it was exhausting. The actors did a great job, and I was particularly impressed by my wife's surprising abilities. I know I'm biased, but having been married to her for nearly three years, I still had no idea that she harbored latent ninja skills. It was definitely the highlight of my day. Jason, Jeff, Dave, and Michelle also turned in Oscar-caliber performances, and I'm looking forward to sculpting a masterpiece from the choice raw materials they've provided for me.

My family came up to assist which was nice of them, especially when they went out and bought pizzas for the entire cast and crew. (I just wanted to say "cast and crew" there, even though there were only 11 of us). It was also nice of everyone to stick around and help clean the house and yard afterwards. I understand Stephanie was instrumental in managing the clean up effort.

As for the movie, itself, we'll see how it turns out. I'm optimistic about some of the shots, though I'm a little nervous that it won't come together as well as planned. I have fond memories of last year's movie, and I hope that in retrospect, I'll look back on yesterday with the same nostalgic filter.

Li'L Sports Car

2009-06-17T13:02:00.000-07:00

Don't rush me, Li'l Sports Car, today,
Don't honk your horn and glare.
I may be late for work, and yet
I'm in no hurry to get there.

What urgent business have you got,
So desperate to start?
You think your time is so important
That traffic should 'round you part?

Come see me in eight hours from now,
And then you'll have a race!
Foot to pedal, pedal on floor,
To home at break-neck pace!

Tomorrow we'll do it all again,
My car with yours to follow,
But don't rush me, Li'l Sports Car, right now
I'm not ready for today, let alone tomorrow.

Inside World: The Edit

2009-06-04T13:48:00.000-07:00

I read through my novel for the first time over the past couple of days. The fact that it can be read in its entirety in three hours indicates just how short 50,000 words is.

Anyway, I gave it a read and was surprised that it didn't suck. While writing it, I wasn't really supposed to go back and re-read what I'd written, so I sort of made things up on a daily basis, hoping that it all flowed together. Surprisingly, it kinda sorta did.

It's definitely too short. In fact, the entire story feels like the first third of a longer, better novel. I can't decide if I want to add on to the story or simply expand on what's already there.

Either way, I plan to go back to my story and continue. I don't feel I accomplished my goal by simply writing a novel draft. I want to be able to say I finished a novel this year. So Dave and I are thinking of setting up a revision schedule and diving back in.

Cool.

Lambert vs. Mercury

2009-05-27T13:56:00.000-07:00

So Queen has apparently tossed around the idea of making Adam Lambert their new lead vocalist. It's been nearly 18 years since Freddie Mercury died, and Queen has never recovered. Other famous singers have filled in for Mercury over the years, recording tracks for tribute albums or live shows and these include any number of stars, from Elton John to Wycleaf Jean, from Robbie Williams to Pink to George Michael. In 2004, the band began touring with Paul Rodgers of Bad Company, and in the stage show "We Will Rock You", Tony Vincent has taken the lead role. I find this kind of a strange coincidence since I own an old Tony Vincent CD from his amateur Christian artist days. It seems I've always been drawn to a certain kind of voice.

Anyway, now Queen is hoping to have a "conversation" with Adam Lambert, and of all contemporary pop stars (or soon-to-be stars), I think Adam Lambert is a pretty good choice. He clearly has the range to hit some of Mercury's higher notes, and his dramatic flare and persona fit in quite well with the band's heritage. Whereas many replacements for Freddie would probably try their best to mimic his manner and vocal approaches to the songs, afraid of straying too far from the tried and true, and whereas the consequence for such caution would very likely lead to more of a tribute band feel than the reemergence of one of rock's most influential bands, I think Adam would have no difficulty making the lead role his own. That's why he excelled at "American Idol" this year, because he had a knack for making the entire performance of a song feel as though he had written it himself. For Queen to become relevant once more, that's the kind of front man they need. And let's face it, the fact that Adam and Freddie are both, in Freddie's own words, "queer as a daffodil," has a certain poetic symmetry.

But is it a perfect marriage? I'm not sure. Like most Queen die-hards, I just don't ever see anyone taking Freddie's place. I like my memory of the band unmuddled with tags like "pre-Freddie" and "post-Freddie / pre-Adam" and "post-Adam". And if Queen were to release a new album, written and sung by Adam Lambert, I'm just not sure I could buy into it. When the Beatles released two "new" songs in the late 90s, though I could appreciate the gravity of new material from the most important rock band in history, without John Lennon, it wasn't TRULY the Beatles.

I won't be outraged if Adam Lambert takes over for Freddie. It's a pretty good fit, and I'd be willing to see what the kid could do. If Queen's ever going to make a comeback, this is probably their best shot. I like the international partnership of an American Idol plugging in to a classic British band. Then again, maybe Queen should consider giving their fellow countrywoman, Susan Boyle, the lead.

Kidding.

Review: Star Trek

2009-05-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

I think I liked it. I'm trying to decide if it would have worked as a stand-alone science fiction movie, or if its appeal lies in the fact that the characters have already been established and are so well known. I hesitate to give J.J. Abrams too much credit because these are not his characters. Rather, they've been built up for the past four decades, and he now gets to cash in by combining cutting-edge special effects with characters and themes that have been a part of the pop culture consciousness for over a generation. I will give him credit for not destroying the franchise, however, which is more than I can say for Bryan Singer and his horrendous Superman reboot.

One thing I will say about the film is that it bore a far stronger resemblance to the Star Wars universe to me than that of Star Trek. Gone were the pithy musings on philosophy and utopian life among the stars. In its place were battles galore, hip characters that would never hang out with the nerdy Trek fans who have made the franchise successful in the first place, and a slightly over-simplified storyline that shows how the Enterprise crew came together. Once upon a time, I would have said that nudging the Trek universe closer to the Star Wars universe would have been a good idea. Growing up, I was a committed Star Wars fan and Trekkie-basher. It was "The Next Generation" that won me over, and after Lucas' poorly conceived Star Wars prequels, I'm not sure I can choose a favorite franchise any more.

Digression over. When I say the story was overly simplistic, I just mean that it seemed a little convenient the way nearly all of our heroes met within a two or three day period in time, and this (SPOILER ALERT) was in an alternate timeline where events should have been markedly different. The odds of them even meeting at all is astronomical. But I'm not really going to point out plot holes in a Star Trek movie.

(END OF SPOILER)

I'm a sucker for prequels. I get giddy when I see historical events lining up to launch us into the stories with which we're so familiar. Seeing the original characters meeting for the first time was a greatly enjoyable experience, even if the circumstances were unbelievable to me. But once again, I think this is sort of a built in response to seeing a story come together that I've known for many years. The real question is, will it be enjoyable to see the Enterprise crew's new adventures in the coming years? I really don't know, but I'm willing to give them a shot.

Review: Terminator Salvation

2009-05-27T13:51:00.000-07:00

I liked it! It was a dark and yet somehow appealing vision of a post-apocalyptic future, and I felt immersed in it from the moment the film kicked off. I was a big Terminator 2 fan when it came out 17 years ago, but I'm not as much of a fan as my brother-in-law who was doomed to be disappointed by this film. That is, it lacks a lot of the magic from the second film in the franchise. In his words, "It didn't feel like a Terminator film." I can appreciate that, but I'm not such a Terminator fan that I needed that dose of familiarity. To me, the film works well on its own as a futuristic battle tale, evoking a desperation the third Matrix movie tried but failed to accomplish. I'm looking forward to more.

New Wedding - May 15th, 2009

2009-05-15T13:05:00.000-07:00

Below are some materials from a wedding I shot on May 15th, 2009.

DVD Labels

DVD Case Slip Sheet

Note to Jon and Kate

2009-05-13T13:59:00.000-07:00

Dear Jon and Kate;

I have a simple suggestion for you. First of all, I know it's incredibly unfair that the media has targeted you and seems to be tripping over itself to be the first to prove that allegations of affair and scandal are true. That's gotta suck. And I should also say that, while I've never been what you'd consider a regular viewer of your show, on the occasions where I've seen it, I've actually somewhat enjoyed it, which is about as high of praise as I'll ever give reality programming.

That being said, here's what I don't get. Your marriage is on the rocks. Jon may or may not have had an affair with a school teacher. Kate may not or not have had an affair with her bodyguard. The two of you may split up, according to the latest People magazine interview. So WHY on earth are you still doing the show? Your family is disintegrating around you and apparently has been for a while. The correct response is to do whatever it takes to preserve it, including kicking out the cameramen, stop playing into the media scrutiny, and closing the door to the great American public and its insatiable voyeuristic tendencies. You've got to trade in your "the show must go on" philosophy for a "family comes first" mindset instead. Who cares if it's an opportunity to show how a "real" family deals with difficulty?

Anyway, just my two cents. But what do I know? I have zero kids, zero fame, and zero mistresses. I just hope your kids don't pay the price of your desire for fame for the rest of their lives.

Sincerely,
Paul

Waste

2009-05-12T13:12:00.000-07:00

He sat at the far end of the room, away from the VIPs and those who bore an active role in the phone conference. He rested a hand on his notebook, a pen perched behind his thumb should anything noteworthy arise. The operations manager sat next to him, equally bored, thumbing through messages on his Blackberry. Once or twice an innuendo-laden comment, unintentionally delivered, would grab their attention and they would smirk at one another, but otherwise, they took turns glancing at the minute hand of the clock.

The man with the notebook suddenly began to scrawl in it, then held it so that only the office manager could see. In large, double-traced letters, the message filled an entire page: "IS THIS WHAT YOU WERE MADE FOR?"

The operations manager stared cryptically at it for a moment, then simply shook his head 'no'. The first man twisted his mouth in an expression of dull resignation and nodded in agreement.

Twenty-three minutes later, the meeting dismissed. On his way out, the man with the notebook dropped a crumpled page in the garbage and vaguely wondered what was for lunch.

Inside World - Chapter 1

2009-05-01T13:40:00.000-07:00

In April of 2009, a friend of mine and I wrote novels in 30 days a piece following the NaWriNoMo model. Though I was proud of actually finishing the thing, completing over 50,000 words in 31 days, I've never felt extremely motivated to return to the story and revise it. It was good for what it was, and perhaps one day I'll think about editing it, but for now, I'm content just knowing that I've written a complete novel.

The first chapter is included below.

INSIDE WORLD
Chapter 1

There were two things Simon Fledge knew beyond all doubt: first, that every man on earth was created for a reason, some ultimate purpose, and that there was no greater joy than to find and satisfy that purpose; and secondly, that he had no clue what his purpose was. Many times, the notion of happiness and career fulfillment lay dormant, just beneath the surface of his mind, so that though its effects could be felt, casting him into a depressed malaise for much of his working life whenever he paused long enough to catch glimpse of the “big picture”, he never could lay a finger on what it was that ate away at his soul. His idea of a good day was one in which he exhausted the strength of his mind and body in pursuit of a sale or some bit of marketing genius for which he would be briefly appreciated and then summarily forgotten. Even then, however, he often fell asleep gazing upon the stars through his window and wondering how anyone could find satisfaction in the tedious minutiae of human affairs. Fair to say, Simon was a dreamer.

Simon sat at his desk one Wednesday morning, poring through the emails that would determine the day’s workload. As the proposal manager for a small avionics company, his days usually consisted of setting up strategy meetings, organizing bids, and speaking with customers on the phone. This day’s schedule was particularly packed, and Simon wondered if he’d even have a chance to break for lunch. As he filed his email reminders and assignments into their respective folders, one message caught his attention. Its subject line simply read, “For Simon Fledge”. Simon clicked the email open to find the following message:

Dear Mr. Fledge;

If you awoke this morning wondering where your life has gone, you are not alone. For too long have the most promising citizens of this country labored in vain, wasting their talents and potential, and subjugating themselves to a system that values not originality, but blind, mindless subservience. I come bearing freedom for the weary. I offer you the life you seek. If you are interested, then start living like it and I shall find you.

Sincerely,
A.M.

P.S. No man can lead two lives. If you are to embrace the new life I offer, your old existence must die. Are you ready to die, Simon Fledge?

No sooner had Simon finished reading the message when fake flames raged across the face of the email, consuming it in a digital display of fire and ash. When it flickered from the screen, Simon’s in-box no longer displayed the mysterious message. He spent the next several moments trying to retrieve it from his recycle bin, then wondered if he had imagined the whole thing when he could find no evidence that the message had ever existed. It was early, after all. He decided it would be a good time to get some coffee.

As Simon strolled through the office, waving at software engineers, program managers, and the other day-slaves of his company, his thoughts turned back towards the email. The writer of the message, A.M., promised the chance for something more. A life of purpose, Simon thought to himself, though he wasn’t sure if those had been A.M.’s words or his own extrapolation of the message’s meaning. Simon had considered quitting for years, but had always stalled when he realized that his only qualifications were a slightly above average skill in communication, six years’ exposure to avionics lingo, and a knack for writing witty intra-company flyers for social gatherings. The only other job he would qualify for would be one in a similar field, and Simon wondered why he should bother the stress of relocating and learning an entire new set of protocols when he was already accustomed to those here.

Still, the thought of escaping the work world altogether called out to Simon. This dream had little to do with the email; he had felt it long before. Life just seemed too short to spend significant chunks of it performing tasks that any interchangeable employee could do. Simon wanted more than anything else a place to fit in. He didn’t mind being a cog in a wheel if the wheel was going someplace. His current job was not.

The letter had promised an escape, but only if Simon started “living like” he wanted something better. What did that mean? There was no return address or contact information. It could have been sent from anywhere in the country. In the world. What was the chance that there was any truth to it whatsoever? And yet, Simon hoped beyond hope that maybe there was something, someone, watching him, waiting for him to prove his desire to escape. That day, he attended his meetings and performed all the tasks for which he was paid, but in each endeavour, he saved a small part of him behind. Normally when he worked proposals, he blocked off his schedule, put on the head phones, and sat in his cubicle for days at a time until he had completed his work. Now that the seed of discontent had been planted, however, he found himself caring a little less about his work. The perfectionist in him stepped aside, and the practical part of him took over. Eventually he allowed himself to be sloppy from time to time. Then he grew downright careless.

It only took a month before Simon’s boss, John, noticed the difference. In preparing a proposal for Boeing Aircraft, one of the company’s biggest and most important customers, Simon had misspelled their name as “Boing”.

On the cover. Twice.

When his boss pointed it out, Simon snickered.

“What’s going on, Simon? You used to catch my spelling mistakes, and I don’t make mistakes. Now this?”

Simon’s boss held out the cover sheet of the proposal with the misspelling circled in red.

“It’s been a rough couple of weeks, John. I’ve just been… distracted.”

“Maybe you should take a few days, get some rest.”

“I’ve thought about that. I’m not sure it would help.”

“What would help then?”

Simon stared at his boss, wondering what he must have looked like as a boy. Though he must have been pushing sixty, he still bore the impish grin of a kid who liked bossing around others on the playground. Simon suppressed a smirk.

“I don’t know, John. Maybe I just need a break.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. Take two or three days. Go to Vegas. Or stay at home. Whatever floats your boat. Just get out of here for a while.”

“No, I was thinking something a little longer.”

“You want a week?”

Simon stared wistfully at the office light flickering overhead. It looked a little like a twinkling star, only duller and uglier.

“Like maybe a year.”

John laughed appropriately, then shook his head.

“I tell you what. You’ve got some vacation saved up. Why don’t you take the rest of the month. I’ll finish up this Boeing proposal and then we haven’t got much more lined up for the next few weeks anyway.”

Simon shrugged. He had flirted with the idea of just quitting, more for the sake of dropping it on his boss so nonchalantly than for any real need to leave, but he decided that a few weeks might make a difference. And if he decided to quit for real while he was outside of the office, it would be that much easier to call it in rather than telling John in person. He nodded.

“Alright. Thanks. I think that would be helpful.”

John extended a hand, and Simon shook it.

“Get some rest, Simon. We need you back in top form.”

“Deal.”

The next few days were just what Simon needed. He awoke the same time as always, but then headed out to a forest preserve where he spent his mornings pondering life and appreciating the fact that he should have been working. He liked to wonder what was happening in the office, not because he missed it, but because by thinking about it, almost tricking his mind into thinking he was there, and then suddenly snapping from his daze surrounded by nature, he felt almost as though he had just teleported from one nasty place to a very lovely one. He loved the juxtaposition.

On the fourth day of his new routine, he walked along a trail that bordered a lake. When he reached the far side, away from people and almost completed submerged in trees and the wildness of an untended path, an old man stepped out from the overgrowth. He wore a long gray overcoat with buttons which looked entirely too warm for the moderate weather they were experiencing. At first, Simon thought he must have caught the man relieving himself, so he politely averted his eyes and proceeded to cross to the other side of the path. The man, however, intercepted him.

“Mr. Fledge,” said the man.

Simon studied him, trying to decide if he knew him or not. He met many customers in his line of work, and a myriad faces flashed through his mind. He was certain he had never seen the man before.

“Do I know you?”

“You do not.” The man flashed a mischievous grin. “But I know you. A month ago, I promised you a new life.”

Simon’s eyes widened. Though the email had remained buried in the back of his mind, he had never quite forgotten. Simon studied the strange man before him.

“A.M.?” he said at last.

“Archibald Morrel,” the man replied. He gave a small bow of the head.

“How do you know me?” Simon asked.

“That’s not important right now. But I have an interest in you. I’ve been waiting for you to accept my offer.”

“I wasn’t sure how to do that. The email… burned?”

“Yes, well, I couldn’t have you tracing it. My identity is something of a secret. But again, I’m getting ahead of myself. Mr. Fledge, the reason I’ve come here today is that I believe you’re ready.”

“For what?”

“For your new life.”

Simon waited, but nothing more was said.

“Can you explain that?” Simon asked at last.

“I can only tell you this. Imagine a world like this that stretches as far as the eye can see. No buildings. No cars. No telephone wires. Just the beauty of nature, and the simple, workaday life of honest men and women working the land. It’s a place where everyone has a role, a function. Each person’s only responsibility is simply in fulfilling that role. No more mindless, tedious tasks of working for others or wasting your life in a dead-end job. Everyone there has a purpose. You, Simon, could have a purpose. You would do what you love most for the rest of your life, and you would be perfectly content.”

The words resonated with Simon’s innermost desires, but the man’s delivery still gave him pause.

“What would I do?”

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.”

The old man chuckled and placed a hand on Simon’s shoulder.

“You do know, Simon, deep down. We’ll help you discover it.”

“Sounds pretty nice.”

“It is, I assure you. Yet I can see you are reluctant. Can you really tell me your current life isn’t worth risking for even the faintest possibility of something more?”

Simon conceded the man’s point with a shrug.

“Where is this place?”

“Now that’s the fun part,” the man said devilishly. “It’s nowhere.”

Simon only stared blankly in response.

“At least nowhere,” the man continued, “that you would ever be able to find on your own.”

“Is it far?”

“Impossibly far, yes.”

Simon’s thoughts turned towards his Chicago life. To his small, unshared apartment. To his parents who lived half a state away and only saw him once or twice a year. To his ex-girlfriend who still nagged him occasionally. He realized he had no reason not to go.

“Do you really expect me to agree to such a preposterous offer from a man I’ve never met who can’t tell me a thing about where we’re going?”

“Don’t forget that you’ll have to die.”

“What?”

“Remember? You must die to this life before taking up the new life I offer.”

“Right. That’s exactly the preposterous offer I was referring to. You expect me to go along with this?”

The man’s eyes sparkled. His lips curved into a knowing smile.

“Yes, I do.”

“Why?”

“Because once I was in your very position, and I realized that if there was even the slightest chance that what the person who recruited me said was true, I would never forgive myself for not taking it.”

Simon chewed it over.

“What if I change my mind once we’re there?”

“You won’t.”

“But what if I do?”

The old man smiled.

“Then I’ll personally bring you back. But you won’t.”

Simon glanced around at the preserve. At the trees creaking against one another. At the ripples that spread across the lake with every wind. He had always felt a deep connection with something greater in that preserve. Even when he only entered for an hour during his lunch breaks from work, he had always been able to escape for that short time. The thought of entering a larger version of such a world held an irresistible appeal.

“I want to believe you.”

“Then do.”

Simon pondered for a moment longer, then nodded with finality at the old man.

“Alright, I accept your offer.”

“That’s wonderful, Simon. The rest will be so happy to meet you.”

And with that, the old man withdrew a gun and shot Simon in the chest.

The End

2009-04-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

Just finished. 50,907 words. It's just a draft, but it's still 101 pages of my very own novel. Hopefully I'll remain interested in it long enough to go back and revise and edit, but for now, I think I'll take a break.

:-)

black and white world

2009-04-20T13:15:00.000-07:00

After writing a novel set largely in a fantastic jungle, I found that editing it during the work day proved an effective escape from my humdrum routine.

* * *

On this gray day, I sneak away
to a corner of my screen
and enter the jungle
of my own creating,
an unanticipated benefit from my labor.

As the real world chokes away my breath,
I slip into this
new place
and, with my keyboard,
the quill and ink of
an elEcTrIcAl wORld,
draw a bed of grass and
a pillow of flowers on which to take
a nap.

Novel Update

2009-04-14T14:01:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the halfway point. Yesterday I crossed the 21,000 word mark and by tomorrow night, I'll hit 25,000. I have to say, it's been much easier than I thought it would be. Of course, that's largely because I gave up any sense of perfectionism. My sole goal is simply to finish a draft of a novel. It doesn't have to be perfect - or even good for that matter - it just has to be done.

So I should be hitting the halfway point of the story, but I barely feel like it's even gotten started. It's also a bit serialized in that there's not a cohesive sense of overarching story yet. But again, I don't want to get bogged down in the quality of the story at this point.

Just finish. That's the goal. I'm nearly halfway there. I'll worry about scrubbing it clean next month.

Writing Update: Marathon Training

2009-03-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

It's been six weeks since I began writing short stories in preparation for my April novel. Over that time, I've written four stories for a total of 24,080 words. That's approximately half of the 50,000 word target I'll be trying to hit during April.

I have to say, it's been a blast. I've often talked about writing and being a writer, but I've always had the hardest time actually doing it. I'm sort of embarrassed to admit that I actually hated writing papers in college. And when I've tried to write short stories in the past, I've often burned out. I'm the writer who loves finishing a story, but rarely gets that far because I hate starting so much.

Anyway, the first story was the roughest. It wasn't much fun forcing myself to sit down every night and pound out the words. But once I got that one under my belt, I grew a little more ambitious for the second. And the third one just flowed - I actually wrote it mostly at work over a couple of days. Finally, with the fourth, we challenged ourselves to write an entire story in 4 hours, and somehow, it worked. I think we're ready! Momentum's on our side!

Oh, by 'we', I'm referring to myself and my college roommate, Dave, who roped me into this foolish endeavor. He's not even a writer; he's a doctor! Turns out, he spins a fair tale.

So next Wednesday is the big kick-off. For 31 days, we'll crank out an average of 1600 words a day, hopefully crossing the 50,000 threshold by month's end. And just like that, I'll be a novelist. An honest-to-goodness author.

Finally!

Faker

2009-02-19T14:08:00.000-08:00

Went on my first business trip since being promoted to a Marketing Manager last month. Also the first trip where I was the only marketing representative. The meetings went really well. The customer couldn't have been happier with our product. It was also a great experience to be inside the manufacturing hangar where E-2Cs and F-5s were being built and retrofitted.

F-5 Aggressor

E-2C Hawkeye

Towards the end of the day, I was asked to give a Corporate capabilities presentation. All day I had been debating whether I'd do it myself or defer to Mark, since he has vastly more experience in all respects with our company and product line. However, I determined that I would never get an easier first audience. These guys already loved us, they were friendly and easy-going. I knew I would kick myself if I chickened out of such a perfect opportunity.

So I delivered the presentation. It was rough and a little rambly (who knew I could ramble on...), but I made it through. Good first step for me.

Later we went into downtown St. Augustine which is the oldest city in the country. Founded in the 1500s after Francisco Pissaro landed in Florida while searching for the Fountain of Youth, it still has the Spanish eclectic style architecture and an enormous stone fort looking out towards the ocean. As we walked by an art gallery, I thought I'd try to impress my boss. I knew he collected scultpure, so when we stopped to look in the window of the gallery, I said something to the effect of, "Oh look, it's a Tuan sculpture." (Tuan is, as I was about to learn, a famous Vietnamese scultptor.)

"Excuse me, are you a Tuan collector?" It was a woman who was locking up the gallery.

"Um, yes, well, I love to look anyway. He's the collector," I said, thumbing at Mark.

"Are you familiar with Tuan?"

I paused. I thought I had seen his work before, but now I was on the spot and I was beginning to doubt my own memory. First of all, was Tuan a man or a woman? Was it even a name??? I took a chance.

"Oh sure, I've seen his stuff in Hawaii, I think."

"Yes, he has a gallery there, too." She looked hesitantly inside the gallery. "Wait here a second." She ran inside.

Seconds later an older gentleman stepped out. He was the gallery's owner and collector. "I understand you're a fan of Tuan's work."

I nodded.

"You've got to see something."

Len, the owner, and his wife escorted us into the gallery, locking the doors behind us and turning all the lights back on. (This isn't as simple as flipping a switch - there were lights EVERYWHERE.) For the next hour, he gave us a private tour of the gallery's sculptures, including opening up a private sculpture garden where we were allowed to touch (in fact, we were instructed to touch!) enormous heroic (that is, life-sized) sculptures of bronze. They were beautiful! I'm not a sculpture afficianado, but even I could tell that these were special.

The story of Tuan's life was relayed to us, about how he was raised in a Vietnamese prison camp, sculpting the clay from his cell floor, and eventually winning his freedom through his great talent. He moved to the States, and to this day, creates sculpture of human forms reaching for the heavens to demonstrate his own climb from utter despair to what is now a very comfortable lifestyle.

"Tuan owns most of these pieces so I can't negotiate price with you," said the owner, "but this one is mine." He patted a beautiful three-figure piece with a hand and gazed upon it. "I'm currently selling it for $430,000. I understand you're from Chicago, but distance is not a problem for me."

Mark and I were still dressed in suits from our previous meetings, so we had apparently been mistaken for fine art collectors.

"I'm not sure my wife would be happy with me if I came home with that one," Mark said. "Perhaps something smaller?"

And then we moved into a gallery of mid-sized scultpures, perfectly elegant and breath-taking. These fell into the $115,000 range.

From time to time the owner would scan us up and down and say something to the effect of, "I can tell you guys are serious collectors. Just the way you appraise the works." If I had felt like a fish out of water at our earlier meetings, you can imagine how I felt then.

But it was so much fun. I've never been treated like that before, and it's not the rich factor that affected me so much as the thought of being taken seriously as an art collector. I do love art. Maybe he could see my true appreciation for it despite the fact that I could never in a million years spend $400,000 on a sculpture.

As we left the gallery, Mark praised me for getting us the private tour. He's told the story a number of times, and each time, he presents me as more and more of an art expert. It's a fun ruse.

And then it was off to a seafood restaurant where I pretended to like fine wine and various marine delicacies.

All in all, it was a very good day, even if I faked my way through most of it.

A sample of Tuan's work.

Long, Long Day

2009-01-20T14:10:00.000-08:00

God must have tapped me on the shoulder this morning. I was supposed to meet up with the rest of the marketing team in the lobby at 7:30 for breakfast. A shuttle would arrive at 8:00 to take us to the President's address (my company's presidential address, that is - not the other one). Anyway, my alarm didn't go off and I awoke with a start at exactly 7:59. I quickly showered in the sink, put on my dress clothes, and was on the shuttle at 8:07.

Needless to say, I missed breakfast.

The President's address was two hours long. In French.

They shuttled us back to the hotel where my day-long marketing off-site meetings were about to start. Hungry and unshowered, I made it through the morning's meetings. Lunch was served - vegetable sandwiches.

Needless to say, I missed lunch.

The afternoon was torture. My head pounded from lack of food and lack of shower. Three more presentations spoken at a highly technical level to no one in particular. By the time it was over, I was exhausted, starving, and still unshowered. I ran upstairs to remedy the last of those.

Alone, in my room at 6:00. Needed food. Decided to wander back downstairs to see if anyone was going out for dinner. By the time I got there, all my American coworkers already had dinner plans. Our European director, Sergio, grabbed me and told me he was going to buy me dinner. A freezing drive through Montreal traffic to a Japanese place. The sign said "sushi".

Needless to say, I missed dinner.

Well, that's not really true. I found myself with a Frenchman, a Romanian, an Indian, an Italian, a Brit, and two Canadians. Not the type of people who could understand my severe veggie-aversion. (The Romanian kept trying to make me eat wasabi. Didn't even know how to begin explaining that I don't eat green.) Sergio stole our menus and ordered for all of us. Five hundred dollars' worth of sushi. I barely got out of drinking sake and ordered a Sprite. Tried to pass on the sushi, but one Canadian held it in front of me and insisted that I eat it. So I ended up eating albacore tuna, yellow fin tuna, and salmon - all uncooked - at about five to ten dollars per bite.

I liked it... kind of. I was so hungry that I just shoved it down. Kind of tasted like cold cuts. The tuna looked like turkey. The salmon more like ham. I wasn't able to fool myself for long. But it was okay. Not a big fan of cold meat, but food is food. Sergio finally relented and allowed me to order some cooked food. Finally! A side of teriyaki chicken. Heaven!

Now I'm back at the hotel and the whole group is in the conference room singing songs from an 800-page songbook. My boss is playing guitar. I should really make an appearance. But I'm all socialized out. I just want to lie in bed and be warm.

Needless to say, I miss Danielle.

Memory Bank

2008-12-01T14:13:00.000-08:00

I've hit the memory bank fast and often this morning. It's only Monday and I'm already in escape mode.

I admit I'm addicted to my own past. It's safer back there. I already know how the story ends, and as I walk through such familiar paths, I can really take the time to appreciate every moment without the distractions that accompanied my first trip through - that is, the original experience. In so many cases, I find the memory of an event to be superior to the actual moment. The hundreds of hikes and adventures I experienced as a kid are remembered in a golden light - I forget the mosquitoes and cold weather and mud and scratches and fatigue. I've banked thousands of memories of better times for days just like today.

But I'm not sure how healthy this is. Some days I catch myself ignoring the present altogether and trying to hide in the past. I find myself overwhelmed by the desire to go back to specific moments from my childhood and to start all over again. Some people spend their lives pursuing the means to secure their future. I find I spend a disproportionate amount of my efforts trying to re-create the past. I collect the same toys I played with so many years ago. I buy all the same movies I used to watch over and over. I've dedicated a room in my house to the collection and display of those things that I associate with yesterday. I look forward to the day I have kids so that I can create the same magic playroom I spent so many days exploring as a child.

Is it healthy? I don't know. I suppose, like anything else that gives joy, there's a balance to strike. I'm sort of haunted by C.S. Lewis' thoughts on the topic because I fear that I'm doing exactly what he recommends against.

"And the joke, or tragedy, of it all is that these golden moments in the past, which are so tormenting if we erect them into a norm, are entirely nourishing, wholesome, and enchanting if we are content to accept them for what they are, for memories. Properly bedded down in a past which we do not miserably try to conjure back, they will send up exquisite growths. Leave the bulbs alone, and the new flowers will come up. Grub them up and hope, by fondling and sniffing, to get last year's blooms, and you will get nothing."