Day 92: Better hurry up and write something!

Happy New Year guys!  Ninety two days of writing for me.  The internet sure makes it easier to do stuff.  I realize I have learned a lot of impractical knowledge by reading all of this crap over the last couple of years, but that's ok.  Impractical and interesting are one in the same, right?  I don't mean to turn into a humorless philistine though.  I have definitely learned what philistine means (but am I using it right?).

Love is better than money.  That's true.  Does this mean I should go back to school, where I might devise a plan for making more money, or get another job?  Present vs future.  Either way I'll continue writing.

Let's acknowledge some things between us, blog.  It might bring us closer.  First of all, I know you're not going to make me any money.  This isn't about writing to make money.  This is about "love of the game" (with Scottie Pippen).

What they mean by a "natural" is someone who doesn't worry about what they're doing.  They act like it's not the first time the first time.  A genius is someone who is born with confidence?  Yeah I've been out of this fiction loop for a couple of days, I know.  But I'm getting back in.  I'm going to pretend nothing happened.

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            A cuckoo clock bleated on the wall next to a giant fake fern.  The lights dimmed back down.  Space Cowboy looked around with puzzlement, Kenny didn’t notice any difference. 

            The Space Ranger slowed and hovered there for a minute.  It removed a large metal tube, heated one end with a bright red glowing hand, and inserted it into a facial cavity.  The smoke hissed as it exited through its eyeholes.  It whistled between its teeth and pulled up a chair, spinning it around backwards and leaning towards the stage.

            “Sorry about the entrance, I’m off duty now.”  The noxious gas coming out of its eyes added an eye irritant to the air.  The bartender tapped the No Smoking sign and bit a stick of jerky.

            Paige took her instrument back out of the case, the smoke swirling up over the stage in a cloud.  The spotlight flashed on and off, the drummer sitting alone in the dark.

            The jukebox spun its CD tray back inside, resetting itself to its factory conditions.   The harp creaked on her lap, and a man with an old timey moustache at the unruly truck driver table started dealing out a hand of poker. 

            Space Cowboy reached and slipped his fingers into the gun again, smoothly slipping it out into his lap.  Space Ranger was entranced with the stage, his laser beam shining directly on Paige’s face.  She sweated unnoticeably, the way beautiful girls do.  The spotlight brightened and her face resisted the urges to let a drop loose.

            Then there was that first music note.  A droning E minor chord, and the mode of the room was set.  She surveyed with a newly rechristened face, like a hawk perched in a room of rats.  A rat hid under the trapdoor of the stage, its wide smirking face.

            “Better not do any of my political stuff.”  She said into her sleeve.

            She reached down to hit another string and the Space Ranger jumped out of his seat.  He slowly spun in a ricle and surveyed the room again.  Kenny thumbed through a matchbook in his lap.  The seat across from him was empty. A shiny Space Confederate flag was emblazoned on the back of his helmet.

            Space Cowboy was outside grappling with the results of his actions.  He managed to duck out from behind the chair and past the crowd without any difficulty, which felt like enough work in itself for the day, but with the space highway open if he didn’t get out in a hurry he would end up being recruited again..  The darkness perfect cover, but as he looked back over his shoulder he noticed no one was looking for him.  Space Ranger seemed aware that someone was missing, his blinking light looking as puzzled as a blinking red light could.

            Space Cowboy took the long walk back to the pier.  He peeled the Cowboy insignia off of his suit, twisted the knob on his space helmet to darken his visor, and cast the letter from the Space King down to the ground.  It unraveled in the sand, followed by a trail of everything else that was in his bag.  A pager, security papers, insurance papers, everything but the gun.  Enormous metal shadows flashed against the newly opened sky, reflecting like a mirror off of the clouds.

            He hurried at first when he noticed the giant objects breaking through the membranous sky and then slowed down out of futility.  A metal bridge suspended above a space oil pipeline was littered with onlookers, the days work had been canceled.  Darryl, as he went by now, was the only one on the lonely visage of the road.  Onlookers  stared transfixed, their heads moving slowly left to right as he passed every new hundred meters of land.  Looking up at them made him dizzy, so he continued on like a pilgrim on a quest.

            “Could really use that horse now…”  He lamented.  “Black Betty.”

            Gunshots rang out at the bar, Kenny spilling like a bag of coins onto the table.  The Ranger stood with official looking federal agents, their badges pressing out from their shirts buoyed by their bulletproof vests.

            The Space King’s royal carriage floated safely in the sulfur clouds.  It would have been hidden if you didn’t know what you were looking for.  It was like an angels wing, phosphorous and effervescent.  Space King sat with his two guards inside.

            “Are we going to sit up here in the princesses ship all night?”

            “It was the only ship!”  Space King yelled.  He wrapped frivolously at the luggage compartment above him.

            “And it wasn’t my fault things aren’t going according to plan!  You heard what Arthur said, both of you did! If I just opened the bridge, they’d be right down!  If the Marble Dynasty gets here first…”

            “Sir, we’ll protect you, sir.”  The more confident bodyguard asserted.  The less confident one nodded and shrugged, taking his eyes off the window for a moment to show support.  “I know those Marble Dynasty guys from high school, Ring Dynasty ’05!  Whoop whoop!  We swept the floor with them.”

            “The view up there, man I bet it’s crazy”  The other guard said to himself louder than intended.  He craned his neck to peek up at the above sky.  The unmarked vessels loomed ominously.

            “What was that?!”  Space King said.  His eyebrows beat against his brow with pugnacious camradery.  “We are useless.  I better get to work on my next press conference.”

            “I’m just going to go make you another cappucino.”  He rose out of the green nylon wrapped bucket seat and shuffled bent over to the back of the compartment. 

            The Space King thumbed through a binder of information about the Marble Dynasty while biting his other thumbnail.

            “Says here even if you never have seen them you will know them when you do.  They have what is called a presence.”

            “Of course they have a presence, they’re people Space King.  People just like us or anyone else.”  He patted the Space King on the head and furtively flicked the switch for the cloaking device.