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.

Day 91: OK ok OK

So I have this depression when I'm not at work or working.  I wonder if this is something my mind is doing to condition itself to keep on working.  I feel great as long as I'm putting words down on the page (like this one).  Or reading things.  I have a feeling that this will help me get a lot of things done.  Also, for the first time in my life, I feel lonely!  This is great because it makes me want to be around people, and when I am around people I don't feel like it's forced or that I'm supposed to entertain.

Read a bunch of stuff about Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  Probably have that.  Every spoiled kid probably has that to some degree.  Even the poorest person in America has an easier life than kings in earlier generations had:  transportation, health care, heat, etcetera.  People don't need anything anymore, and we work for a means to an end.  Or atleast the Proletariat does, which unfortunately is me right now.  I should "quit my day job" and just write for a year straight.  Thinking about it...  I absolutely hate work anyway.  Then I'd figure out how to channel all of this into a positive... thing.

Anyway, back to writing.  Going to remain completely focused for an hour and see if I get to my thousand word goal.  I'd prefer to be writing in the morning but beggars can't be choosers.

/end.dear.diary.segment

            Diane was a voluptous beauty, a real looker indeed.   Space Cowboy kept a picture in his wallet, which was unfolded in the palm of his hand.  She was lassoing a three horned antelope while riding a razorback wearing a full leather outfit, covered head to toe in animalistic femininity.  He shed a tiny tear as he fondled his forehead vein.

            The lights in the bar dimmed, the stainglass windows reflected light from the outside like it was light otuside.  The duplications showed a giant ferocious looking chimera stranded on a yellow planet, which was surrounded on each side by surreal style smaller primary colors.  It looked like childrens artwork, but really good childrens artwork.  And it didn’t set a tone for the bar at all.  A microphone made a shrill static noise as it was powered on, and a pencilnecked geek with black greased back hair flattened out the microphone chord with his black zip up boots.

            “Ladies and gentlemen, but mostly ladies, welcome tonight to the Velvet Fairie.”  He twisted an imaginary moustache and a dark skinned eskimo hit a drum roll somewhere behind the stage.  “We’ve got three sets of two tonight.  First act up is the Cannibal Caped Crusaders.”  A boo resounded from the table of tough guy types.  The band, who was situated at a table directly in front of the stage squirmed.  “They’ll be quick… Next we have Bruno Pornto and his Imfamous Gears.”  A second boo.  Bruno Pornto was a cross dressing snake charmer with full arab garb.  “Tough crowd.  I know you guys will like our third act though.  The one, the only Paige Barrow is on after them, the hiatus is over.”

            “Hot dog, she hasn’t performed in years.”  Kenny slammed his fist and mug down.  “If you thought your Diane was something, this one will set you straight in just about four minutes flat.  Sometimes it doesn’t even take that long.”

            Space Cowboy scoffed.  Simple space cattle folk, he thought.

            “Where’s your girl, Kenny?”  He sat with both arms loosely hanging on each side and the mug in front of him.

            “I told you, I’m stranded.  If I try to jump a cattle ship out, I could be killed.  There’s an indefinite hiatus on my travel papers.  She’s on the other side of the galaxy.”

            The groups performed heavy metal folk on acoustic guitars.  The songs were originals, the sound system and acoustics were awful, and the gawkers who made their way in just as quickly left.  The old fashioned swinging doors let the twilight cast a shadow into the artificial light of the hall.

            “What’s taking so long?!  Get her up on stage!”  Kenny said, the pitcher half empty in front of him.  Drunks from the other tables chuckled.

            “Hey, cool it Ken.  The lady looks like she’s had a rough night.”

            Paige Barrow sat by the utility sink behind the bar, quietly relieving her face into a bar napkin.  It was unclear whether she was crying, blowing her nose, laughing, or simply hiding her face. 

            A sound Space Cowboy recognized as a draft from his days on Earth blew by outside.  The space locomotive flew by at speeds exceeding light.  A man wearing a sheriffs badge stumbled over the threshold, favoring his left arm that had three red gashes in it penetrating through his overcoat.  The bouncer and a crying female ran to his side, clutching him by both arms as he cried out in pain.  The women lamented like a funeral singer.  He leaned forward and spit up a mouth full of crimson spit, rubbing his face with the unbloodied sleeve.

            “Space Ranger is walking in a straight line… across security checkpoints… he’s not just an ordinary man!”  The man said, the fear of God behind his eyes.

            Space Cowboy sighed and pulled his hat down over his eyes.  Paige finally was taking the stage, a harried stagehand gathering the gear of the other groups which still littered the stage.  She removed a tin harp from a black box, delicately opening each metal clasp on a jet black case.  Her floral skirts sat across her crossed legs like wrapping paper. 

            Kenny sat slack jawed, slapping his knee and humming loudly before she even started a song.  His lips perpetually mouthed the words “hot dog”, even when he wasn’t talking.  He tapped his foot when he got sick of slapping his knee.

            The metal plate in Space Cowboy’s head vibrated, an uncomfortable tectonic shift taking place under his scalp.  “Yeah, yeah.”  He said to himself, forcing his legs to pick him up.  The spurs on his boots dug into the ground.  The rest of the bar was placated, staring graciously up at the stage, even the wounded officer by the door had become silent.

            “Siddown and let the lady play!”  The bouncer yelled, interupting the act more than Space Cowboy was doing.

            Just then, a militia of three men burst through the swinging doors, crashing directly into the wounded man by the door.  His arm made a hideous slurping noise and popped. 

            He cried out in agony but the three men carried him to the back hall of the bar by the restrooms, assuring him “there was no time for that now.”

            A blue suit of armor of a man pushed through the doors, a purple visor covering his knights helmet.  A single red eye flashed behind the visor, and with each flash it became brighter and more vibrant. 

Space Cowboy dove out of the booth, retrieving a pistol that looked more like two pieces of cardboard carved and fitted into the shape of  a plus sign.  The house lights suddenly came back on, and Paige scrambled to reinsert her autoharp into its case, falling over helplessly in the process.

The larger rowdy men at the table shouted obscenities at the Space Ranger.

“Haven’t you guys ever seen a Space Ranger before?!  Don’t look into his eye!”  Space Cowboy said, the red eye from the visor focusing across at him.  It refocused forward on the stage, and it hovered forward, the gravitational push of its immense weight shifting the placemats on the booths around it.

Day 90: Doesn't do well with silence

             1. You don't put baby into a corner.
             2. I feel like my body is naturally producing sudafed but I still want to take more.
             3.  I hate text messages and it feels like an easy way to keep me at arms distance.
             4. I'm already taken for granted.  Persistence persistence persistence.  You people drive me crazy.
             A more personal blog post again.  I was watching "The Muse" today because Albert Brooks is alright.  Some of the lines that he has his friend acknowledge as "great lines" which said friend proceeds to jot down in his little notebook aren't really very good lines at all.  That script could use some rewrites.  Not that my script doesn't always need rewrites, it does.  But, you can just keep on rewriting something ad infinitum.  Little red squiggly lines.
              Real life needs to stop happening so I can enjoy myself.  My writing isn't great but it's better, right?  It's atleast better.  I'm going out for a run.  See you guys in a few.
             I hate being at home.  Absolutely hate it.  Which is perfect because that should make me want to get out.  I am happy all day until I get home and then I feel like complete shit.  Well part of it's the cold.


            The door swung open and Space Cowboy and Kenny jumped.  An old timey looking felow with a straw hat, overalls, and three teeth hit Kenny with the door,   Lights flickered from the rafters inside.

            “Space Cowboy?”  The old man asked.  “That’s Space Cowboy ain’t it?”  When he verified that it was in fact the Space Cowboy he cowered back in fear.

            “Fellers, it’s the Space Cowboy’s back!”  The Old Man said.  A group of similar old men scrambled like cockroaches from a circular table.  A tray of nachos spilled on the wooden floor.

            “Calm down, calm down, I’m not here for you.”  Space Cowboy said, walking into the center of the room and staring up at the ceiling.  He pulled a chain out from under his shirt collar and removed it over his head, somehow fitting it around his oversized cowboy hat.

            “He’s got the key!”  One of the older man said.  They scattered to the far ends of the room, one with a wide scar over a shallow trench in his eye.  Kenny approached behind Space Cowboy slowly, puzzling over the significance of the key.

            “That key, now, you insert that key into something?  What are you unlocking?”  Kenny stared like a child having candy dangled in front of their face. 

            Space Cowboy climbed the stairs and felt his hand getting sticky.  It was covered in black soot, the railing a dirty mess. 

            An egg shaped box sat in the middle of the room upstairs, light refracting around it from the concave onyx windows.   He stood between the metal horseshoe shaped platform and a blue cone of light shone from the center of the platform up into the sky.

            “That’s it for the space travelers getting in here once he hits that thing.  Damn shame too.”  An old man whistled between his teeth.

            “Blue lights going to swallow up everything, just like it did in the Radama galaxy.  Soon ain’t going to be nothing here but Federal workers.”

            He twisted the key and the security system powered up.  The voice of the paper in the bag laughed a maniacal laugh.  The stars in the sky suddenly became visible, and then disappeard with a light speed haste.  The building started shaking and Space Cowboy fell backwards, catching himself  on the back of his neck on the stairs.

            Kenny stood trembling at the shaking base of the tower.  There was a loud “ding” noise and the sky turned into a big blue net.

            “Did what you want me to do, Space King!  Now set the girl free!”  Space Cowboy yelled into the picture.

            Back at the bar, underneath the neon mounted bucks head, Space Cowboy and Kenny sat alone nursing a pitcher.  Space Cowboy pulled his cowboy hat down over his eyes, the bartender eyeing him warily whle shining a glass.  A table of roughneck type of guys were talking loudly about the shield being in place.

            “This is probably the last bar we wanted to go to, Space Cowboy.”  Kenny said.

            “I just wanted to see Diane again.”  He shook his fist.

             

             Made it halfway to 500.  And it was awful.  Still day 90 though.

Day 89: Temporary Moratorium/Sleeving Cadence

           Alright so I made things make sense again.  Focus is weird because you should always be doing something.  I spend a lot of time thinking about doing things.  All of that time could be spent doing something.  Although, of course, that's exhausting.  Anything you can do is work.  I don't care about that, though, let's do it.
           I understand I'm supposed to move out with someone and talk about how they're "Off that day", or "What we're eating for dinner", and mostly be boring.  Alright, I admit it, real life is boring.  The world moves slowly and it's depressingly unlike what you hope it'd be.  In that way this fiction is an outlet, even though my fiction is also admittedly boring.
          All the advice I've gotten from reading books is to consistently "go out of your comfort zone."  Does going out of your comfort zone on facebook count on going out of your comfort zone?  I've had some pretty offensive posts recently!

            “Space King sent one of his edicts again.”  The Space Cowboy said, his stallion's space helmet bobbing as it walked down the trail.  His spurs beat into its side painfully, but it squinted its watering eyes and continued with no way to alert him.  Space Cowboy pulled a round wrapped piece of paper from his bag and pressed a button on it, and it unwrapped in front of them in a flat rectangle.  The squiggly written lines rearranged themselves into a video screen.

            “Hello Space Cowboy, or should I say Darryl.”  The king sad adroitly out of his tiny Spagghetio circle of a mouth.  He had a giant bumpy white whig on and his skin looked naturally pale.  “First of all, Space Cowboy… ahem… the gun you’re carrying.  Who are you planning on shooting with that thing?  Me?  One of my boys? Our humble planet of Probippity has no use for the things.”

            “I’m not registering my gun, it’s just not happening,”  Space Cowboy said.  “I’ve been living outdoors for years and I’ve never had to register my gun before.  What happens if that space bandit jumps onto my Space Stagecoach and I didn’t have that thing?  I’d have had to kill that sucker with my bare hands.”

            Space King waited for Space Cowboy to stop talking to resume.  Space Cowboy kept going, starting a long diatribe about space politics and how his father never had to deal with regulations.  He refused to look down at Space King, and stared instead across at Kenny.  Space King looked up at them both like giants.

            “How does he expect me to hunt without it?  The man’s gotta get his hand out of my back pocket.”  Kenny wrestled with his horse, it tramped in place.  “If I see him up there, flaunting his fancy space umbrella and shoving those space hams into his gullet, I’m going to…” 

            “I will not have you scare the Space Royalty!”  Space King said.  “We have asked you to do a simple job, activate the space shield and kindly get out!.”  Space Cowboy might have heard him but he didn’t let on. He quickly rerolled the ledger and put it back in his bag, whistling a 1930s era cattle poking tune.

            Space Cowboy looked up at the space manor on the only hill in the vicinity.  Made entirely out of glass, it looked like the lowest ball of a snowman with a three sectioned disgusting hornet perched on it.  Space Cowboy squinted angrily up at the tower, he knew the King was probably staring down at him through a telescope.  He couldn’t see that far.

            “Officious meddling bastard,”  Space Cowboy said.  “Sure I’m going to get a ticket again on my wagon.  That’s half of my fee for the job.”

            “Those traffic court fucks don’t even have an active line to complain to.  Either they get their money or that’s your car.  I’ve been stranded up here for years.”  Kenny lamented.

            The road was flanked on both sides by a residential colony.  A house maiden decked out from head to toe in what looked to be an intergalactic snowsuit closed the pneumatic tube of a front door, the kids behind her shouting protests.  The awestruck children watched from the one small window, the biggest one in front and the other two trying to peer around him.  The Space Cowboy saluted them by removing his oversized space hat and setting it back on top of his big black head.  They cheered and hollered like they had seen a real life Buzz Lightyear.

            “Let’s get this over with so we can go to Lefty’s.”  Kenny said, remounting the goat.  “Ain’t nothing like my actual horse, either.”  He kicked at the space goats side, it moaned lugubriously. 

            “The moon is getting more purple every day.”  Kenny wore the sunglasses that they insisted would help his space driving, and wondered if they’d have any effect on his vision.  “I swear to God that thing is getting more purple.”

            There had been pancakes at the public house that morning, and everyone else had stayed in.  The Captain insisted Kenny escort the Space Cowboy, a man no one knew a lot about except for the Space King.

            Kenny was through with smalltalk.  “Where do you live, Space Cowboy? Wonder why everyone calls you Space Cowboy.”  Space Cowboy didn’t respond.  He looked up at the space ranch hanging up there in the sky, the circular bisons grazing by the lucite barn. 

            “If you don’t shut your mouth this is going to be a much longer walk for both of us.” 

            They passed a sign that said they shouldn’t be going up into the mountains.

            “Captain said it’s right up here, just turn the generator on with the key and get out.”

            For the lack of vegetation on the trail, here were suddenly old dead trees with roots that looked petrified guiding the path.  The goat refused to go any futher when they crossed a trench where a stream used to be, Space Cowboy hopping off and guiding the goat off the trail where he itched it to a tree.  He wound the rope around the branch three times and tied it in a bowline knot.

            “I’ve been down here a hundred times, Space Cowboy.”  Kenny said.  He rubbed his arms.  “You could have just given me the key and I would have done it for you.”

            “I got strict orders, Kenny.  This key doesn’t leave my possession.”

            Kenny shook his head and they continued down a flanking dry earth.  Space Cowboy followed cautiously behind and kept his hand close to the holster.

            “Welp, here we are.”  Kenny’s voice garbled through the staticy voice modulator.  His face was hidden behind a cloud of gas inside the space helmet.

            The meter on Space Cowboy’s normality radar started to blink repeatedly.  He sensed something wasn’t right before he looked down at it. 

            They stood together infront of the outpost station, which appeared to be completely built into the ground underneath it.

           

Day 88: Before I forget

TV should be used for educational purposes.  Half an hour shows are a great source of entertainment but when people do nothing but watch "entertainment" it's the equivalent of a kid who discovers he can eat cookies for every meal.  The worst rated shows are always the most informative ones.  The best example of this is The History Channel or Science, where they try to liven everything up with spruce audio and graphics.  It's like they're sugarcoating a pill so you think it's candy.  Learning isn't as fun as entertainment, that's obvious.

Internet and Facebook ruin context.  I was just reading this awfully boring book by Tim Berners-Lee about the creation of the world wide web, and the goal initially seemed to be to encompass the entire world and allow everyone  to be involved in it.  This concept of "open world" is this sort of catch all in videogames now, "sandbox game", where they present you a world to play in.  You create context by presenting any sort of hub for things to take place from.  So, it's kind of like with TV, when you have these different worlds that are all acceptable substitutes for your real one, and then you use them in a misinformed or unintended way to entertain rather than inform. 

So I think to write my stupid fiction blog I'm going to have to first decide on a world I'm writing in.  The big problem with this is that I don't understand the world I live in.  That seems to be where science fiction comes from, where you can catalog the assorted metaworlds you've stumbled into.  My biggest problem has always been liminal space, what aspect of this giant world you're supposed to describe, and also what actions are relevant or important.  There's all of these "entertainment traps" in the world that you can fall into to keep you from creating anything relevant.

Another day of "not much writing", but fiction is a real bitch.  I've been "doing research", though.

World this story takes place in:

            Moon outpost with engineers working on mining.  Suddenly the temperature starts to rise on the moon.  Contact with the mothership gets cut off and they can no longer see it in space the way they used to be able to.  There’s a space lodge where they live, completely ran by robots with emotional AI.             

            He put the grave head down at the foot of the cave, removing his hat and fanning his face with it.  The bears nest was gone, they left a trail of fish guts behind them inside of the cave.

            The buggies back tires revved as it swayed backwards and forwards.  The automated system flashed red with errors.  The three engineers stood in front of the desk chairs in a row

Day 87: Madness

                Is doing the same thing a million times and expecting different results.  This is why I'm going to have to attack this writing thing from different angles as much as possible.  If you haven't watched Book TV, it was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be.  That's another shallow platitude from me.  I'm falling into these grammar traps.  I need to be older and more experienced and I'm not doing that by being younger and less experienced.
              Reading things about writing fiction have instructed me that I should keep a journal.  This isn't journaly enough of a journal for me, I think.  I need to get more personal.  It should help that no one comments on this thing, so I should be able to say anything.  At some point I've started censoring myself.  I still am committed to getting good at this.

             Roger picked the guy who looked most serious from the yellow pages.  The many ads that started with “Welcome” or “Please call” seemed too expedient for his liking, on the bottom of the page their was a picture of a staunch flat faced man with furrowed eyebrows and a charcoal three piece suit sitting in front of a fireplace.  This screamed “serious”, the kind of man who entertained important patrons after making them wait in his study for hours while he pondered the great questions of the universe.

            A black townhouse sedan pulled up to the door of the cabin, Roger looked up from his soggy cheerios on the shitty kitchen table through the window.  He opened the screen door and waved from the porch as a man exited the car.  He was full of deliberation, every action seemed smooth, cool, and calculated.

            “Doesn’t seem like the kind of man who would make housecalls, seems like the kind of guy you’d have to go to.”  Roger said as he watched the him scrape one leg on the path up the driveway.

            Jim was completely silent in the shack.  The sun heated the aluminum walls to a bright red, it didn’t look comfortable in there. 

            Roger looked like a sucker.  Forlorn look on his face, right hand gripping his left arm behind his back, face tattooed with pockmarks, dry skin, crows feet, and paleness.  He stood on the threshhold of the doorway in barefeet, the screen door beating against his feet and flinging itself open.

            “A Mr. Roger.” The man said, taking his hat off.  “So sorry to hear about your girls.  My own girls were taken from me once.  Rest assured, I got them back.”

            Roger was delighted at this news.  A smile broke the plane of his face, he silently gestured that the man follow him inside.

            “I apologize for the mess, I have been a mess, I’m just a mess about all this.”  Roger said, kicking rubbish underneath the oriental rug that Jim had earlier ripped.  A cuckoo clock that Miranda received as a wedding present from a high ranking duke sounded its cry on the wall. 

            “If you don’t mind me asking, and perhaps even if you do, Mr. Roger, what sort of people are you involved with?  Are there ransom demands?”  He removed a cigarette case from the inside of his creased vest, opening it and removing a cigarette with one hand.  Roger stared on as he lit a cigarette.

            “A scientist, I think.”  Roger said.  “We don’t have any more news than that.”

            The door to Jim’s shack swung open with a metallic grunt and he came scrambling up the drive. 

              Starting a new one tomorrow will maybe come back to this at some point

Day 86: Another one

            Hey, I missed yesterday too.  I think it's important to take some time out and reflect on what fiction is actually worth.  First thing, fiction has to be short and focused or it loses some of its storytelling elements.  I'm a lot more into nonfiction than fiction lately, and this makes me think I should invent new ways of fiction that are unique to me, because fiction as a whole is sort of either "movie adaptation material" or not.  So, cut the middle man out and make movies?


            Jim and Roger climbed back into his jeep, Otto’s disfigured corpse laying like a ragdoll at the bottom of the stairs.  Jim looked at Roger and shrugged;  Roger had not witnessed anything negative happening to Otto.  The moose head floated freely, braying like it was still out on the frontier.  Jim gathered up a handful of metallic objects and threw them in his bag.

            The building was practically disappearing, its gaunt walls caving in on themselves.

            “Turn here.”  Jim said repeatedly, Roger making the turns.  “Here, here.”  He shouted in eager anticipation.  They passed the café that they had eaten at on the way.

             They reached  the city that day at noon.  “Population 24,552”, the sign read as they passed it.  Jim was Rip Van Winkle, and Roger himself hadn’t been into the city too recently. 

            The first city street they drove into was blocked off wit police barricades and a loan officer blowing on a whistle with a hand extended straight in front of him.  The icecream shop across the street was filled with fathers, its windows see-through other than sundae decals.

            Roger insisted they stop at the gunstore, but the man behind the counter was insistent on forms of identification.  Roger had his wallet, but this consisted of a few credit cards and a drivers license picture.  They both looked like mountaindwelling hobos who were looking for someone to kill.

            The police finally got around to putting “missing” signs up.  The best picture Roger could produce for them was one of his daughters on two swings, looking antsy that he was keeping them from swining for the picture to be taken.  He sat in between them on the dirt pit underneath, his neck protruding forward like a turtles.  The picture was now on every electrical pole in the area, on the walls between small businesses, on billboards, on the news.

            Jim was out in the shack again like usual.  He rebuilt it quickly with the pieces he had rescued from Otto’s house, now it looked patchwork and lustrous, like a beacon for moonlight.  He promised he would work on something that would help Roger, although as much as Roger insisted the incident had been his fault he refused to capitulate blame completely. The night they returned from their useless drive to Otto’s, he let Jim know that his time was limited and that by virtue of the earlier incident he was a poor influece on the girls.

            The stretchy chord on the phone in Roger’s office made talking on itself uncomfortable.  It wouldn’t wind in a way that didn’t bother him, and it curved up against his face as he tried to talk.  He sighed and started dialing.  The phone clicked twice and started ringing, then an operator at the school connected him to his wifes extension.

            “Miranda.” Roger said, the syllables hanging heavily as he said them.

            “Roger!  Sorry I haven’t got ahold of you sooner, it’s been extremely busy here.”

            She sounded foreign to Roger, completely removed.  It was like she was on mars.

            “How are the girls doing?”  She asked, a tangible guilt in her voice.

            “That’s what I was meaning to tell you…”

            “One minute Roger!”  He heard some scurrying in the background.  “Sorry about that.  We made a very major discovery and they’ve entrusted me with the documentation.  I told them normally it was you who took care of that kind of thing, but…”

            “The girls are gone, Miranda.  They’re gone.”  He started to bawl uncontrollably.  Miranda kept her composure and waited for him to get it all out.  He wailed continuously for minutes before stopping, Jim watching the house from the tiny vertical slit in his new amalgamation.

            “Well what do you mean gone, Roger?  And why aren’t you out there trying to find them?”

            “It was Jim’s fault.  Jim and his crazy inventions.  I… don’t know how it even happened.  He conjured up miniature people from thin air, he made this big mess in the forest.  Some guy he used to know ran in and snatched them away, he thought they were Jim’s.  It was all too hectic and chaotic, there was nothing I could do.”

            She cut him off.  “Roger, you’ll find them, I know you will.  This sounds like a callous thing for a mother to say about her own daughters, but I know you’ll find them.”  She picked up a picture of herself and the girls sitting on the desk.  “You’ll be stronger for doing this, you’re going to be a much stronger person when I get back.”

            Roger closed his eyes and leaned against the bureau, holding the phone to his chest.  He put it back to his ear and there was silence, but he knew she was still there.

            “What’s the discovery?”  He asked, avoiding the somber details.  He was usually completely left in the dark about his wife’s work, and he didn’t think this time would be an exception.

            “All I can tell you, Roger, is, it’s something big.  I have to travel to Angola next week to meet a special, we’re bringing him back with us.”

            “A… specialist?”  Roger asked, perplexed.  He ran his hands through his disgusting greasy hair, thumbing the pockmarks that were popping up on his face.  He thought of his wife escorting a witch doctor of sorts back at some third world airport. 

            “I have to get going Roger, I’m so sorry.  Use the money in savings, hire a private investigator.  I’ll call you from Angola.”

            A few days passed before Roger could himself together enough to make the call.  He stayed confined to his room, noticing the dust swirling in the air in the afternoon sun.  He had a beer during the day and watched Jerry Springer, which validated his revulsion for himself.  There were a lot more private eyes in the yellow pages when he expected, opening the plump book with a feeling of dread.

            The TV blared on and on about personal injury attorneys.  Each commercial was either louder or quieter than the one before it.