1. How does competition between siblings affect their relationship and their growth - in good and/or bad ways?
This question comes up just breifly in my memory, in the part where we decide to have a competition to see who can gather the most coins. But it provides insight into our relationship, and so is something that could be explored to see if that was a good thing to have in our sibling relationship.
2. When should parents say "no"?
A very broad question indeed, that has probably been around for as long as there have been parents. But it directly correlates to this story - our stealing of the coins in the fountain was "wrong," but we didn't know that, and so it begs the question should our parents have stopped us? Was it "wrong" enough to be worth ending our happy respite from the torturous days?
3. How responsible are young children for their own actions?
Along the same lines as the previous question, are we (my brother and I) to be held responsible for stealing the coins or are our parents? Or does it matter?
Monday, September 28, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
A Memory
It was hot. Hot to the point where the ground directly beneath your feet looked like a mirage, and the statues in the fountains looked more like they were sweating than giving off cool water. Hot in a way so that there were only two things one could do: lie perfectly still in your apartment will all the shades drawn and as many fans on as possible, or go to the pool.
That summer in Lyon, France, was the hottest summer on record since sometime in the 1950’s. And I was there, with my parents and my younger brother Sam. We had been sitting in our apartment all morning with the shades drawn and fans cranked, but to no avail, and so we decided to go to the pool. But, because we lived in the center of the city, we did not have a car – everywhere was within walking distance, at least on a normal day. But the pool was pretty far even on a normal day, and this particular day was anything but normal. We didn’t even make it out of the Place des Jacobins, the square where we lived. Our parents, having somehow forgotten that it was nearing 300 degrees outside, were permanently sidetracked by an orchestra who had decided to set up in the middle of the road, and was causing a major traffic jam. It was somehow drawing a huge crowd.
Sam and I were not big fans of classical music, and were especially unhappy with it at that moment, for it was delaying our trip to the pool. We grumbled and sulked next to the fountain while our parents went over to watch, until suddenly I was struck by a brilliant idea. I turned and hopped into the fountain. It was cool and clear, and even better than the pool, because it had money on the bottom! Sam, who had followed me in immediately (almost as if he had been thinking the very same thing), proposed we have a contest to see who could get the most money. And so we rushed around the fountain, diving for euros, always trying to be one step ahead of each other. The cement mermaids and fish spewed water over us, completely blocking out the heat of the day, which had been our only concern all morning.
Gradually, other children in the square began to catch on to what we were doing, and ran to join in. By this time we had already filled our pockets near to bursting with change that we probably should not have taken, and were now just enjoying the swim. We climbed up onto the higher levels of the fountain, splashed and played, and generally had a good time being young boys.
Eventually our parents came to get us out, and I don’t know if they were mad at us. I had them fully tuned out. But they did let me keep the money. And so I trotted happily home, much refreshed and five euros richer.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Questions for Tobias Wolff
1. In Nightingale, where did you get the inspiration for the ending with the button, and what was your intended meaning?
2. What led you to become a short story writer - have you ever wanted to continue a story and turn it into a novel?
3. Were any of your stories in Our Story Begins based off of your own experiences or other real-world events?
2. What led you to become a short story writer - have you ever wanted to continue a story and turn it into a novel?
3. Were any of your stories in Our Story Begins based off of your own experiences or other real-world events?
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
An Exercise in Time, part 2
"Clark's hood whipped back and forth in the wind, sounding like the standard of a ship raised high into the sky and crackling under the force of the zephyr that buffeted it."
Carson Witte, An Exercise in Time
Clark was yelling at that point, trying to impress upon us all the futility and utter pointlessness of standing out here in the gale to look at a pickup truck that didn't work. I only caught snippets of what he was saying, because the wind was so loud. "This is pointless" ... "don't care" ... "go cry in a" ... "home" ... "dead just like Tucker". And so I got the general jist of the point he was trying to make.
Watching that hood being tossed about brought me back to an old memory, of me and Tucker as young boys in the swimming pool with our dads, being tossed up in the air and caught by strong arms coming back down again. We were laughing so hard we could well have passed out for lack of air. And then I remembered the time when Tucker and I played a prank on Mrs. Judy, his crabby nextdoor neighbor. We laughed so hard that by the time we were done, she had already finished being mad at us for the prank and was now grumping at us to get off her lawn. And in turn I remembered the soccer field where Tucker and I scored the greatest goal ever to grace the Midwest - a textbook corner kick to a perfect header by me, which bounced off the crossbar and Tucker finished it off with a diving header. We ran all over the field doing victory dances - airplanes, shoe shines, eagles, cartwheels, everything.
And now, I remember that Tucker is dead.
The hood went back and forth and back and forth, each time cracking like a lion tamer's whip as it was brought to a screeching halt and pulled back again. Each time it broke the sound barrier, dust flew off the tip in little showers, dust that must have been accumulated over centuries in Clark's dresser. It floated gently down to the ground, where it was indistinguishable amongst all the other dirt and debris that littered the road.
Carson Witte, An Exercise in Time
Clark was yelling at that point, trying to impress upon us all the futility and utter pointlessness of standing out here in the gale to look at a pickup truck that didn't work. I only caught snippets of what he was saying, because the wind was so loud. "This is pointless" ... "don't care" ... "go cry in a" ... "home" ... "dead just like Tucker". And so I got the general jist of the point he was trying to make.
Watching that hood being tossed about brought me back to an old memory, of me and Tucker as young boys in the swimming pool with our dads, being tossed up in the air and caught by strong arms coming back down again. We were laughing so hard we could well have passed out for lack of air. And then I remembered the time when Tucker and I played a prank on Mrs. Judy, his crabby nextdoor neighbor. We laughed so hard that by the time we were done, she had already finished being mad at us for the prank and was now grumping at us to get off her lawn. And in turn I remembered the soccer field where Tucker and I scored the greatest goal ever to grace the Midwest - a textbook corner kick to a perfect header by me, which bounced off the crossbar and Tucker finished it off with a diving header. We ran all over the field doing victory dances - airplanes, shoe shines, eagles, cartwheels, everything.
And now, I remember that Tucker is dead.
The hood went back and forth and back and forth, each time cracking like a lion tamer's whip as it was brought to a screeching halt and pulled back again. Each time it broke the sound barrier, dust flew off the tip in little showers, dust that must have been accumulated over centuries in Clark's dresser. It floated gently down to the ground, where it was indistinguishable amongst all the other dirt and debris that littered the road.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
An Exercise in Time
"Freddy and Clark and I stood with shoulders hunched, hands in our pockets, and looked on as Ivan circled Tanker's old pickup and explained why it wasn't his fault the tires were mired almost to the axle."
Tobias Wolff, Our Story Begins, Flyboys, pg. 153
The wind was blowing hard, almost to the point of howling, yet it made no noise. It seemed to penetrate my jacket, my shirt, my pants, my hat, and left my skin feeling cold and damp. Goosebumps the size of mosquito bites had risen on my arms and the back of my neck, and I was shivering ever so slightly. Clark's hood whipped back and forth in the wind, sounding like the standard of a ship raised high into the sky and crackling under the force of the zephyr that buffeted it. Fraddy's hair was blown across his face, making him look like a mop being used to vigorously scrub someone's ceiling. The curious thing about this wind was that it kept changing direction, as if its creator was having a bout of indicision as to what he was going to do with this powerful gale he had created. The sky was overcast, and it seemed like night, though it was only two o'clock in the afternoon. Dark clouds rolled across the sky, moving shadows across the empty landscape. They were hulking, menacing things, looking like demons converging down upon any sorry soul who was foolish enough to be outside. You could tell it was going to rain, almost taste it in the air. The taste of freshly mown grass mixed with muddy water overwhelmed the senses, even though not a drop of rainfall had fallen from the sky. The truck was pulled over on the side of an unused dirt road, which cut through a barren landscape that stetched out in every direction - as far as the eye could see in such conditions. There were small shrubs dotted throughout the otherwise flat plain, seemingly holding on for dear life so as not to be uprooted. And there were those shrubs who had failed to withstand the onslaught of the wind, the tubleweeds, rolling across the road faster than the winner of the Gloucestershire cheese rolling.
And then it began to pour.
Tobias Wolff, Our Story Begins, Flyboys, pg. 153
The wind was blowing hard, almost to the point of howling, yet it made no noise. It seemed to penetrate my jacket, my shirt, my pants, my hat, and left my skin feeling cold and damp. Goosebumps the size of mosquito bites had risen on my arms and the back of my neck, and I was shivering ever so slightly. Clark's hood whipped back and forth in the wind, sounding like the standard of a ship raised high into the sky and crackling under the force of the zephyr that buffeted it. Fraddy's hair was blown across his face, making him look like a mop being used to vigorously scrub someone's ceiling. The curious thing about this wind was that it kept changing direction, as if its creator was having a bout of indicision as to what he was going to do with this powerful gale he had created. The sky was overcast, and it seemed like night, though it was only two o'clock in the afternoon. Dark clouds rolled across the sky, moving shadows across the empty landscape. They were hulking, menacing things, looking like demons converging down upon any sorry soul who was foolish enough to be outside. You could tell it was going to rain, almost taste it in the air. The taste of freshly mown grass mixed with muddy water overwhelmed the senses, even though not a drop of rainfall had fallen from the sky. The truck was pulled over on the side of an unused dirt road, which cut through a barren landscape that stetched out in every direction - as far as the eye could see in such conditions. There were small shrubs dotted throughout the otherwise flat plain, seemingly holding on for dear life so as not to be uprooted. And there were those shrubs who had failed to withstand the onslaught of the wind, the tubleweeds, rolling across the road faster than the winner of the Gloucestershire cheese rolling.
And then it began to pour.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Review of the story "Splatter-Paint"
Of the four depictions of MHS in our group writing, "Splatter-paint" was the one story that didn't have a morbid ending coming for it. When my group worked on it halfway through, it looked like it could actually be an uplifting, fun story. But for some reason, most people seem to think that something drastic and terrible has to happen for a story to have a deeper, spiritual meaning. This is not the case. I have made many drastic and crazy stories with morbid endings, so I may sound like a hypocrite. But "Splatter-paint" should not have had such a random turn of events. There was no tie to this in the rest of the story, no inkling of any misintent shown by Dashean. THERE WAS NO REASON. Nothing justifies the sudden and pointless killing of the narrator of the story - nothing. It made me cringe to see an idea and plot line with so much rich potential go down the drain
I am being harsh and somewhat hypocritical in this review of "Splatter-paint," and for that I apologize. I will use this experience to further my own writing, for it has helped me to realize as well that people don't have to die for a story to have an important meaning or message.
I am being harsh and somewhat hypocritical in this review of "Splatter-paint," and for that I apologize. I will use this experience to further my own writing, for it has helped me to realize as well that people don't have to die for a story to have an important meaning or message.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Truths
- Main Entry: 3lie
- Function: verb
- Inflected Form(s): lied; ly·ing ˈlī-iŋ\
- Etymology: Middle English, from Old English lēogan; akin to Old High German liogan to lie, Old Church Slavic lŭgati
- Date: before 12th century
intransitive verb1 : to make an untrue statement
I have lied more times in my life than I care to count. The problem is, they were over such stupid things - like whether I had two brownies for dessert - that I don't remember them anymore. And so I have very little to say on the subject of my own lies.
And as for lies in general - well the whole world is pretty much made up of lies. I sound very much like Kurt Vonnegut when I say that it is very hard to find something that is really true. There are true statements out there, but they are difficult to come by.
But unfortunately, most people define "a lie" as being a bad thing, and say that if someone lies they have bad morals. This is, in effect, a lie.
Anything that can't be shown to be true is - in all technical senses - a lie. All religions are therefore lies, because they cannot be proven to be true. In the same way, all of science is a lie, because it can also not be proven.
I have here addressed the word lie in its general context, the most ambiguous "dictionary definition." This is not a practical use of the word. And so, I think we should keep on using "lie" like we have been in the past - as something untrue that was said with the intention of deceiving or misusing someone, something or some situation.
Lie on baby
Thursday, September 3, 2009
McDonalds
Just a note: This does not relate to our good friend Bruce. Instead, it explores what my school, MHS, would be like viewed through the eyes of Jonah, the protagonist of Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle.
At first glance, MHS school seems like a very normal place. Students hanging out in groups or frantically scrambling to finish their homework, griping about a test they have to take, flirting with each other. The usual picture of life in high school. This, too, is what I thought, when I first came to the school.
But little did I know, that I would be dead wrong.
Many people believe that things are not always what they seem. But in truth, things are always not what they seem. MHS seemed ordinary. David seemed like a nice guy. McDonalds seemed like - well, McDonalds.
And none of this was true.
I should probably back up a little at this point, and explain. I came to MHS in my sophomore year of high school, and liked it immediately. People were friendly, and I seemed to fit right in. I did a musical, played soccer, hung out with John and David and Alice and Mikey after school. John was a football player, and he's the one who introduced me to the other three. He was very smart, but his problem was he just couldn't find any incentive to work hard. After his dad had died he had only wanted to play football. It worked like a pain reliever for him, that he could get all his unhappiness and aggression and anger out on the field. And so, in consequence, he was a really nice guy. David was extremely rich - his dad had co-founded Microsoft or something, and he had had one of the easiest childhoods on the planet earth. He was a good actor, and was in all the plays, but what he really wanted to do was start a rock band and be lead singer. Unfortunately for him, none of the rest of us had any musical talent, unless you count Alice's dancing. And Alice was a good dancer. Highest level class, in all the clubs, the whole sha-bang. She was good-looking, too, but not in a way that made guys objectify her. And she loved McDonalds.
Mikey was Mikey. To this day I still have no idea if he had any other talent than being a class clown.
Things were normal for maybe six months. And then, two-thirds of the way through the school year, I made a very important discovery.
I had been duped.
The events leading up to my discovery started on a rather cold February afternoon, when the four of us decided to go downtown for lunch. As we walked down the sidewalk, an argument broke out about where we were going to eat. Mikey wanted Stacks, David wanted pizza, I wanted crepes, and Alice wanted McDonalds. John had not said a word. Mikey was pointing out to Alice that she had wanted to go to McDonalds every lunch for a month and a half, and Alice was retorting that he had never actually let her go to McDonalds for a month and a half. I was about to back up Mikey's argument (since pancackes are alot like crepes and so I was willing to compromise) when out of nowhere, David exploded.
Almost literally.
He just went off, like a somewhat higher-pitched cannon. The phrase "Something inside him snapped" doesn't apply here. The "something inside him" just utterly ceased to exist. He started screaming at Alice, "LISTEN YOU LITTLE BITCH WHY DO YOU ALWAYS THINK YOU SHOULD HAVE YOUR WAY? WHY CAN'T YOU CONSIDER OTHER PEOPLE'S FEELINGS FOR A MOMENT? I'VE LIKED YOU FOR 3 YEARS NOW AND YOU HAVE NEVER, EVER SHOWN ANY SIGNS OF AFFECTION BACK!!!!!!"
Now let me just say that if there is one thing I truly and utterly hate about high school it is the drama. The completely pointless drama. But I felt like it was my duty to intervene, since David had just uttered a complete hypocrise and called one of my best friends a bitch.
But I never got the chance. David was still yelling his head off, now just calling her as many derogatory terms as he could think of. Alice had backed against a tree, and David was advancing on her, yelling "CUNT! HOR! SL-" Suddenly, he was gone. It took me a moment to realize that John had punched him. He was lying on his back on the sidewalk, blacked out! John checked his pulse, and then silently got up and kept walking towards downtown. Alice was still up against her tree, shaking slightly. "C'mon," I said. "I think we'll go to McDonalds today."
Mikey wholeheartedly agreed.
The three of us didn't see John or David again, and we didn't have any particular desire to go find them either. But after three days, we started to get worried. So we decided to go and see the principal to find out what had happened.
And so began the most important stage of my discovery.
We walked into his office, and he asked us to sit down. We began explaining to him what had happened, but I had only just gotten to the part where David started yelling when suddenly all the lights went out. Curtains had dropped over all the windows and somehow blocked out all the light. I immediately grabbed Alice and Mikey and yelled for the principal. He did not answer, so the three of us locked hands and got up, meaning to head for where we thought the door was. We hadn't taken a single step before a voice I did not recognize said in a calm, measured tone, "I wouldn't move if I were you." I could feel Alice freak out, but I squeezed her hand and after a moment or two she seemed to calm down a little. The lights came up, and I realized that I was no longer in the principal's office. Or at least, it didn't look anything like the principal's office. Just to add to the freakiness of it all, there were four men with machine guns trained on us flanking a man in Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian T-shirt. All I could get out of my mouth was "what the hell?"
"Sit down," he said "and let me explain something to you." We sat back down on the couch, but now it was a hard wooden bench. This was slightly less troublesome at the moment than the machine guns and the man in bermuda shorts, who had continued to talk. "I will not tell you my name, but I can tell you that I work for the government of the United States of America, and so you have nothing to fear. Please just listen to what I have to say to you. Your friend David was part of a top-secret U.S. intelligence test run. He was an android." "A what?" said Mikey. "An android. A robot in the form of a human. You see, he was a test to see how well our androids would function in social situations. And I'm sure you'll be very pleased to know that he passed with an abundance of flying colors."
I was none too pleased to hear this, but I didn't think Bermuda man really cared.
"Unfortunately, he was programmed to be adaptive, and he adapted so much to the social environment at MHS school that he began to feel sexual attraction, and to get involved with the intense and pointless drama that goes on at your school. And when he began feeling attraction to someone he was programmed to be friends with - that would be you, Miss Alice - he blew a fuse in his command processing unit and went out of control. You are very lucky he didn't cause you any physical harm."
I was utterly shocked and somewhat disbelieving of this fantastical story this man was unweaving for us, but I did not miss the irony of the fact that something inside David had broken when he had attacked Alice.
"Your friend John saw to that," he continued. "But unfortunately, he also committed a felony in destroying the most expensive piece of technology in our history. A felony that is punishable by death."
"What?" yelled Mikey, shooting up off the bench. "Listen Mister, I don't know who you think you are, but this isn't fucking funny! Let us out of here right now or I swear to god I will take your small intestine and shove it so far down your rectum you'll be able to pull it out of your -"
A deafening sound echoed through the room, and it took me a second to realize what it was.
Gunfire.
In what seemed like slow motion, I looked at the floor where Mikey had been standing and saw him lying in a pool of blood, not moving. Alice was just sitting there in a dazed silence looking at Mikey, almost like she was willing herself to believe that it was not true. And then I did the most courageous, noble thing I could've done.
I threw up.
"Threatening a government official is also a crime that is punishable by death," said Bermuda, looking right into my eyes with a removed look that gave the impression he thought it was an inconsequential statement, but also managed to send shivers down my spine.
I took the hint.
They blindfolded us and led us somewhere. All I know is that it was a long way down a lot of steps. And when they took off the blindfold, I was in a cell with no bed and a hole for a toilet.
And now I'm sitting here wondering how the hell this happened, and why my normal life took this weird of a turn for no reason other than what seemed like pointless drama.
And what they did with Alice.
At first glance, MHS school seems like a very normal place. Students hanging out in groups or frantically scrambling to finish their homework, griping about a test they have to take, flirting with each other. The usual picture of life in high school. This, too, is what I thought, when I first came to the school.
But little did I know, that I would be dead wrong.
Many people believe that things are not always what they seem. But in truth, things are always not what they seem. MHS seemed ordinary. David seemed like a nice guy. McDonalds seemed like - well, McDonalds.
And none of this was true.
I should probably back up a little at this point, and explain. I came to MHS in my sophomore year of high school, and liked it immediately. People were friendly, and I seemed to fit right in. I did a musical, played soccer, hung out with John and David and Alice and Mikey after school. John was a football player, and he's the one who introduced me to the other three. He was very smart, but his problem was he just couldn't find any incentive to work hard. After his dad had died he had only wanted to play football. It worked like a pain reliever for him, that he could get all his unhappiness and aggression and anger out on the field. And so, in consequence, he was a really nice guy. David was extremely rich - his dad had co-founded Microsoft or something, and he had had one of the easiest childhoods on the planet earth. He was a good actor, and was in all the plays, but what he really wanted to do was start a rock band and be lead singer. Unfortunately for him, none of the rest of us had any musical talent, unless you count Alice's dancing. And Alice was a good dancer. Highest level class, in all the clubs, the whole sha-bang. She was good-looking, too, but not in a way that made guys objectify her. And she loved McDonalds.
Mikey was Mikey. To this day I still have no idea if he had any other talent than being a class clown.
Things were normal for maybe six months. And then, two-thirds of the way through the school year, I made a very important discovery.
I had been duped.
The events leading up to my discovery started on a rather cold February afternoon, when the four of us decided to go downtown for lunch. As we walked down the sidewalk, an argument broke out about where we were going to eat. Mikey wanted Stacks, David wanted pizza, I wanted crepes, and Alice wanted McDonalds. John had not said a word. Mikey was pointing out to Alice that she had wanted to go to McDonalds every lunch for a month and a half, and Alice was retorting that he had never actually let her go to McDonalds for a month and a half. I was about to back up Mikey's argument (since pancackes are alot like crepes and so I was willing to compromise) when out of nowhere, David exploded.
Almost literally.
He just went off, like a somewhat higher-pitched cannon. The phrase "Something inside him snapped" doesn't apply here. The "something inside him" just utterly ceased to exist. He started screaming at Alice, "LISTEN YOU LITTLE BITCH WHY DO YOU ALWAYS THINK YOU SHOULD HAVE YOUR WAY? WHY CAN'T YOU CONSIDER OTHER PEOPLE'S FEELINGS FOR A MOMENT? I'VE LIKED YOU FOR 3 YEARS NOW AND YOU HAVE NEVER, EVER SHOWN ANY SIGNS OF AFFECTION BACK!!!!!!"
Now let me just say that if there is one thing I truly and utterly hate about high school it is the drama. The completely pointless drama. But I felt like it was my duty to intervene, since David had just uttered a complete hypocrise and called one of my best friends a bitch.
But I never got the chance. David was still yelling his head off, now just calling her as many derogatory terms as he could think of. Alice had backed against a tree, and David was advancing on her, yelling "CUNT! HOR! SL-" Suddenly, he was gone. It took me a moment to realize that John had punched him. He was lying on his back on the sidewalk, blacked out! John checked his pulse, and then silently got up and kept walking towards downtown. Alice was still up against her tree, shaking slightly. "C'mon," I said. "I think we'll go to McDonalds today."
Mikey wholeheartedly agreed.
The three of us didn't see John or David again, and we didn't have any particular desire to go find them either. But after three days, we started to get worried. So we decided to go and see the principal to find out what had happened.
And so began the most important stage of my discovery.
We walked into his office, and he asked us to sit down. We began explaining to him what had happened, but I had only just gotten to the part where David started yelling when suddenly all the lights went out. Curtains had dropped over all the windows and somehow blocked out all the light. I immediately grabbed Alice and Mikey and yelled for the principal. He did not answer, so the three of us locked hands and got up, meaning to head for where we thought the door was. We hadn't taken a single step before a voice I did not recognize said in a calm, measured tone, "I wouldn't move if I were you." I could feel Alice freak out, but I squeezed her hand and after a moment or two she seemed to calm down a little. The lights came up, and I realized that I was no longer in the principal's office. Or at least, it didn't look anything like the principal's office. Just to add to the freakiness of it all, there were four men with machine guns trained on us flanking a man in Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian T-shirt. All I could get out of my mouth was "what the hell?"
"Sit down," he said "and let me explain something to you." We sat back down on the couch, but now it was a hard wooden bench. This was slightly less troublesome at the moment than the machine guns and the man in bermuda shorts, who had continued to talk. "I will not tell you my name, but I can tell you that I work for the government of the United States of America, and so you have nothing to fear. Please just listen to what I have to say to you. Your friend David was part of a top-secret U.S. intelligence test run. He was an android." "A what?" said Mikey. "An android. A robot in the form of a human. You see, he was a test to see how well our androids would function in social situations. And I'm sure you'll be very pleased to know that he passed with an abundance of flying colors."
I was none too pleased to hear this, but I didn't think Bermuda man really cared.
"Unfortunately, he was programmed to be adaptive, and he adapted so much to the social environment at MHS school that he began to feel sexual attraction, and to get involved with the intense and pointless drama that goes on at your school. And when he began feeling attraction to someone he was programmed to be friends with - that would be you, Miss Alice - he blew a fuse in his command processing unit and went out of control. You are very lucky he didn't cause you any physical harm."
I was utterly shocked and somewhat disbelieving of this fantastical story this man was unweaving for us, but I did not miss the irony of the fact that something inside David had broken when he had attacked Alice.
"Your friend John saw to that," he continued. "But unfortunately, he also committed a felony in destroying the most expensive piece of technology in our history. A felony that is punishable by death."
"What?" yelled Mikey, shooting up off the bench. "Listen Mister, I don't know who you think you are, but this isn't fucking funny! Let us out of here right now or I swear to god I will take your small intestine and shove it so far down your rectum you'll be able to pull it out of your -"
A deafening sound echoed through the room, and it took me a second to realize what it was.
Gunfire.
In what seemed like slow motion, I looked at the floor where Mikey had been standing and saw him lying in a pool of blood, not moving. Alice was just sitting there in a dazed silence looking at Mikey, almost like she was willing herself to believe that it was not true. And then I did the most courageous, noble thing I could've done.
I threw up.
"Threatening a government official is also a crime that is punishable by death," said Bermuda, looking right into my eyes with a removed look that gave the impression he thought it was an inconsequential statement, but also managed to send shivers down my spine.
I took the hint.
They blindfolded us and led us somewhere. All I know is that it was a long way down a lot of steps. And when they took off the blindfold, I was in a cell with no bed and a hole for a toilet.
And now I'm sitting here wondering how the hell this happened, and why my normal life took this weird of a turn for no reason other than what seemed like pointless drama.
And what they did with Alice.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Call Me Bruce
Call me wallace
Because I'm flawless
Or call me Jim
'Cause I love to swim
I am many things
You can call me anything
But I don't care
Because my real name is Bruce
There are a few things I probably should have figured out before I jumped.
For example, it might have been a good idea to ask someone knowledgeable in the subject if wombats can fly. It also could have been prudent to check if there were any parachutes or wingsuits lying around. Or even a lifeboat.
The problem with both of these ideas, however, is the fact that I didn't have time for any of that. It was jump now or jump never. And I am proud to say that any self-respecting wombat would have done the same thing in my place.
Another problem is that I was not accompanied by anyone who might know the answer to either of my crucial (possibly life-changing) dilemmas, and so in asking would only waste further time in which my crafty escape plan could have been thwarted.
Oh Well. Sometimes we must make the best of a situation with what we are given. If not, we would spend our lives always looking for something better, for the perfect situation. And we would be very boring pieces of matter.
That's right, pieces of matter. I am a scientific thinker. At least, that is one of the terms that was used to describe me back at home. But there were lots of names they used. There were oh so many names. They weren't bad names, but they weren't good. They were nothing more than labels. I was a wombat, and a scientific thinker, and a forager, and a swimmer, and a mammal, and a male, and a diplomat to the platypi. I was Mr. Higgins and Professor and Sir. But never, ever, would anyone follow the simple instructions which I so politely gave upon meeting them.
Call Me Bruce.
And the humans didn't humor my simple request either. The most civilized race on the planet did nothing less than the exact opposite. And that was why I had to jump.
The water is approaching at a tremendous rate. My prospects of staying alive look to be pretty slim.
But hey, it's better than going to a zoo.
Because I'm flawless
Or call me Jim
'Cause I love to swim
I am many things
You can call me anything
But I don't care
Because my real name is Bruce
There are a few things I probably should have figured out before I jumped.
For example, it might have been a good idea to ask someone knowledgeable in the subject if wombats can fly. It also could have been prudent to check if there were any parachutes or wingsuits lying around. Or even a lifeboat.
The problem with both of these ideas, however, is the fact that I didn't have time for any of that. It was jump now or jump never. And I am proud to say that any self-respecting wombat would have done the same thing in my place.
Another problem is that I was not accompanied by anyone who might know the answer to either of my crucial (possibly life-changing) dilemmas, and so in asking would only waste further time in which my crafty escape plan could have been thwarted.
Oh Well. Sometimes we must make the best of a situation with what we are given. If not, we would spend our lives always looking for something better, for the perfect situation. And we would be very boring pieces of matter.
That's right, pieces of matter. I am a scientific thinker. At least, that is one of the terms that was used to describe me back at home. But there were lots of names they used. There were oh so many names. They weren't bad names, but they weren't good. They were nothing more than labels. I was a wombat, and a scientific thinker, and a forager, and a swimmer, and a mammal, and a male, and a diplomat to the platypi. I was Mr. Higgins and Professor and Sir. But never, ever, would anyone follow the simple instructions which I so politely gave upon meeting them.
Call Me Bruce.
And the humans didn't humor my simple request either. The most civilized race on the planet did nothing less than the exact opposite. And that was why I had to jump.
The water is approaching at a tremendous rate. My prospects of staying alive look to be pretty slim.
But hey, it's better than going to a zoo.
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