Mr. Grandfather

by G!

Note: this is a short story I wrote during a writing workshop a few years ago. I first posted it on another blog in the original form. Due to my creative inability now days to work on any of my current projects, I've taken the time to edit the story a bit and post it here.
Enjoy (or enjoy again, if you've read it already) and comment!

Mr. Benjamin Xavier Grandfather, better known to folks in Grandville as Mr. Granpa, is the smartest old man in Grandville, population 700 and something (what it actually says on the You Are Now Entering sign). Nobody knows in the least how Mr. Granpa’s surname came to be Grandfather, however they do know that he likes the name shortened to just Granpa on postcards and letters, so when someone mails him a letter, it would begin with ‘Dear Mr. Granpa’, like a Christmas letter addressed to the person’s actual grandpa. It may be uncomfortable for some people to accept this name, but they just have to deal with it, because nobody argues with the smartest man in Grandville, at least not the senior citizens. Mr. Granpa is a very smart man, he is a world renowned architect; it was he who designed the local train station, the mayor’s office in Youngsville, and it’s rumored that he had lend a hand in the design of the White House, during its re-renovation. Architecture is Mr. Granpa’s greatest talent, he is also adept in other professions, but architecture is his strongest trait.

In his Mansion, Mr. Granpa keeps blueprints, drawings and sketches, and maps all crowded in the hallways, the unused bedchambers, the vacant kitchens, the silent ballroom, the dusty family room, the leaky den, and finally the twenty or so bathrooms (as an architect and an old man who is at risk of constipation, Mr. Granpa knows the importance of bathrooms in a house). In the backyard of Mr. Granpa’s mansion, there is a 100 acre garden flowering with a strange plant called the Rosebush-Haired Head-plant; they were a present to him from his son Wilfred (he will be mentioned again shortly). The plant was his son’s own creation, Mr. Granpa did not initially want to keep it, because it looks weird among the daisies and roses and violets his hired gardener had installed in his garden, but the plant soon flourished on Mr. Granpa’s over-fertilized soil and ate off all of the other plants, now his garden is full of clumps of head busts with rosebushes growing out of their heads, reaching a meter in height.

Except for this outbreak of a weird plant, the rest of the garden grounds are trimmed with soft grass and ideal for a picnic on a sunny day. Beyond his 100 acre garden is a 200 acre hedge maze. The hedges are grown by Mr. Granpa’s gardener, but each hedge design, each hedge cut into geometric shapes, animals, building, furniture, those hedge are cut by Mr. Granpa himself, exercising his talent of sculpting – one of his auxiliary skills in addition to architecture.  

Mr. Granpa is also an expert on kinesiology; he uses his understanding of human body structure to keep himself fit. Even at his advanced age of seventy-four, he is capable of storming the Normandy Beach on D-Day (and would have taken at least five machinegun pillboxes), wrestling with a Viking (and win), bungee-jumping off the CN Tower (without risk of heart failure), and inventing a magnetic explosives detonator to smoke out all the road-side bombs in Afghanistan (not to mention killing a few terrorists in the process of doing that), if only he can put his mind to it. None of it is really challenging, if one can grasp the full physical and intellectual capacity of the human being as Mr. Granpa so shrewdly does. With his thorough understanding of all this, Mr. Granpa is invincible. He can kick Albert Einstein’s butt any day; if only he can put his mind to it.

The reason Mr. Granpa can not put him mind to any of the awesome things listed above is because of a recent tragedy that struck him hard in all parts of his body, but especially his heart. It concerns the death of his only son, Wilfred Benjamin Grandfather, who never got to be a grandfather as his surname suggests.

Wilfred B. Grandfather was a big disappointment, as Mr. Granpa reflects. It all began when his mother, Mrs. Granpa the wife of Mr. Granpa, died giving birth to him. Mr. Granpa was devastated to learn of the tragedy, he was at work working on building a new skyscraper at the time, and was not there to hold her hand as Mrs. Granpa passed away; he blames this tragedy partially on himself, and partially on Wilfred. Mr. Granpa never remarried; instead he built himself a house at the outskirts of Grandville, and lives there in seclusion, working on endless projects to take his mind off the suffering he suffers.

From there, Wilfred became a bigger disappointment to Mr. Granpa when he learned that his son had not inherited a bit of Mr. Granpa’s talents, nor was he ever interested in architecture. Wilfred was a gifted naturalist, something Mr. Granpa could never understand. Wilfred became dedicated to studying wildlife, and discovered fifteen new species of plants; he had also taken up environmental activism as a hobby, something Mr. Granpa never experienced in his generation, and therefore couldn’t understand what all the fuss is about. Mr. Granpa holds the foolish belief that any work with the word ‘mentalist’ in its name had to be a bad apple; a mentally unstable is what it is, and environmentalist does indeed have ‘mentalist’ in its name. So Mr. Granpa disowned his only son. Wilfred did not however forget his dear old grieving father; every year he would send him a postcard, one from a different country each year, and kept him up to date on his travels and studies. Mr. Granpa didn’t know what to say, he did realize his son was a genius, just not the kind of genius he wants as a son. Wilfred had married, in his early twenties, and married he did to another naturalist, they had a daughter, and so Mr. Granpa became a grandfather true to his surname, all without fulfilling any particular duty as a grandfather he had no idea he should.

Wilfred and his wife died a few weeks ago, and Mr. Granpa was no sooner to receive the news; they had perished in the Amazon Rainforest. They were jumped by poisonous tree frogs while collecting samples. Foolish, Mr. Granpa thought, until he heard the news of Wilfred’s will: his son said he nor his wife wanted to be buried under a rock in a cemetery, they wish to have their ashes scattered over the Alps, where they had met; this news made Mr. Granpa so pissed off at that his son decided not to abide to the traditional way of burial that he was near a heart attack when his only son added that they do not wish to have a funeral because they didn’t want anyone to grieve for their absence; they only returned to nature, the will said. Mr. Granpa came out of the Environmentalist Agency in Brazil as red as a chili pepper and equally hot (with rage). Mr. Granpa, being the sole relative of Wilfred Grandfather and his dear wife, got custody of their daughter, his granddaughter whom he barely knew.

Mr. Granpa’s granddaughter is, as the child of two naturalists should be, a naturalist. To her, Mr. Granpa’s mansion is as boring a place as a video game. On her first day living with Mr. Granpa, she asked for a tent, a solar powered flashlight (Mr. Granpa didn’t have one, but he made one and insisted her to follow through with his process of designing and making it, and it took 1 hour but she fell asleep in the first 10 minutes), a rolled up mattress, and a kite. Then she staked out for Mr. Granpa’s hedge maze to explore and has been gone since. Mr. Granpa’s granddaughter, her name he can not remember, although she did repeat it to him five times the first day they’ve met, she asked why aren’t there any pictures of Wilfred around the house, and Mr. Granpa had told her he locked the only picture of his son in a metal chest and threw the key into the hedges, to be rid of the disappointing memories. At this, Mr. Granpa’s granddaughter told him excitedly that she’s going to explore the hedge maze, all of it, and find the key to the chest, as her first favor to her granddad. It would take a few weeks, and she would tell him how far she’s gone with the exploration using the kite to mark where she’s at. What a naturalist! Mr. Granpa thought, more interested in some hedges rather than the grand mansion itself, and finding the lost key in a 200 acre hedge, that equals the probability of finding a needle in ten haystacks! Where had the naturalist genes come from, from Mrs. Granpa? Speaking of which, Mr. Granpa never knew what his wife’s hobby was while she was alive.

When he was young, Wilfred liked to spend precious time in the forest, being fascinated by nature, like Charles Darwin. What Mr. Granpa’s granddaughter is doing with her precious time (the same what Wilfred had done), it is doubtlessly true and discouraging to Mr. Granpa that she is every bit the naturalist he was, and his much cherished talent in architecture is also every bit as dead as Wilfred. There is no more hope in Mr. Granpa that his endowment will resurrect in his descendant. The company which he founded himself, Grandfather Architecture Estate (GAE for short), will fall in the hands of the public once he’s passed away (because his granddaughter will surely sell it to buy insect specimen or something like that). The thought of it makes Mr. Granpa grab for the tissue box.

Once upon a time Mr. Granpa could run the Boston Marathon, play a hockey match at the NHL and arm wrestle Arnold Schwarzenegger, all in one day. Now days, however (and especially ever since Wilfred’s sudden death and the arrival of his granddaughter), Mr. Granpa constantly feels tired and beaten-down. Even his knowledge of human health cannot abstain his depressed behavior. Since the death of Wilfred, it only took him a month to gain thirty pounds from consumption of TV dinners, grow a medium-sized beer gut from a daily 2 liter intake of alcohol, and let his bushy white beard grow wild without trimming. Wrinkles appeared on his forehead, his walking pace slowed, and he sometimes has trouble keeping balance while standing; all within the time span of a month and almost a week!

Mr. Granpa hasn’t worked on a blueprint in five days, a new record for him for procrastinating; this is the sixth day and counting by hours! Mr. Granpa opens his eyes, lifts his head and gazes out into his 300 acre backyard from his lawn porch, where he had fallen asleep in an easy chair the previous night after some hard, depressing and totally unhealthy drinking.

It is a sunny day, a red and yellow kite is in the sky, the string leading from somewhere behind a hedge cut of the Alp, a sign that Mr. Granpa’s granddaughter is still at work, for the third week. Mr. Granpa then remembers that he had gone to sleep yesterday at 12 pm in this same easy chair he’s in at the moment, with an empty bottle of Merlot dangling in his left hand, his beard stained with…vomit, and his pants zipper undone, Mr. Granpa realizes what a terrible state he’s in. Aw, it’s all part of grieving, he thinks, and then another side of him thinks otherwise: com’on, old man, get up and get back in shape already, remember the days – I mean two months ago – when you could still knock out an ox at a Mexican Stampede? You gotta let grief alone now and move on. Your granddaughter will want her granddad to get over it. Look, she’s already over it. Why aren’t you? Get back in shape you old man!

At this thought, Mr. Granpa suddenly sits up tall and straight, and says – loudly but only to himself, because there is no one within his vicinity to hear him, ‘so you’re saying my granddaughter is better than me? Is that what you mean brain? Well think again!’ at this declaration, Mr. Granpa rushes into the mansion, run to the fitness gym, and kicks open the door, causing several blueprints on a table nearby to flutter into the air. That’s when a sick feeling hits his stomach and a newly defiant Mr. Granpa is forced to retreat to the nearest washroom, putting a get-back-in-shape mid-summer resolution on hold for the next 20 minutes, during which Mr. Granpa has to overcome explosive diarrhea, gut-wrenching somersaults in his stomach, and rapid toilet flushing. All this, Mr. Granpa concludes, is the result of last night’s drinking.

Even my stomach is having a hangover, and golly is the hydro bill gonna be big this month, Mr. Granpa thinks painfully as another shot of pain erupts from his scorching bowls. Just focusing my mentality on that this is not the end is using up all of my energy, Mr. Granpa thinks, how am I gonna get through the exercise routine after this? Miraculously, the bathroom stint ended after 20 full minutes of torturous laboring, which Mr. Granpa speculates is nonetheless as painful as giving birth.

After returning from the toilet bow-legged, Mr. Granpa does some stretches, twisting his left wrist and his neck in the progress. Five minutes on the treadmill (set at level one) later, Mr. Granpa concludes that his procrastination efforts for the last month has left him in a much more serious condition than he thought. Mr. Granpa decides to start with small steps. ‘That will have to be all the exercise for today,’ Mr. Granpa says ruefully, ‘I might as well go water the plants.’

It says Tuesday on the July calendar, or is it August already? Mr. Granpa is unable to tell which day of the week today is, or the date, for that matter. Finally he says ‘screw it…I can manage without knowing the date’. Mr. Granpa doesn’t remember the last time the grass in his garden being so slushy and wet under his sneakers, as he goes to water his rosebushes. It appears that the mud under the grass bed has been over-watered, to create a slippery dark brown gunk. From above and afar the grass bed looks nice and fine; a closer inspection is another story.

The rosebush patches are spread out a few yards apart around the house. As Mr. Granpa trudges towards them, he can feel the muddy slush invading the fabric of his Nike sneakers, which once white are now black. Did the gardener do this? Mr. Granpa thinks grumpily, and then remembers. Oh yeah, the gardener went on vacation two weeks ago. He said he wanted to leave Mr. Granpa in peace for a while. Plus, the gardener had said his daughter will tend to it during his absence. The gardener was sure Mr. Granpa’s daughter is gifted at gardening, his eye can tell. Well, Mr. Granpa thinks, he got it sorta right.

Here, Mr. Granpa’s sneakers sinks an inch into the muddy slush, as he gets nearer to the rosebushes he has come all the way from the porch to water. ‘Dingy, dingy, dang! I knew I should have gotten artificial grass for the garden!’ Mr. Granpa curses to himself, trudging on with temper building within his chest. ‘ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!’ Mr. Granpa loses his footing, trips, and falls face-flat onto the grass bed, which sinks, and his face is planted in the muddy brown slush. Mr. Granpa fumes in his fallen position for only a while, and then standing back up, he looks absolutely pissed.

‘Memory, you have died before me!’ Mr. Granpa bellows into the cloudless blue sky. Several birds change their flight course to avoid Mr. Granpa’s vocal blast of sonic energy. ‘Why did you lure me into this muddy grave without reminding me to BRING MY CANE? Now I have to do EXTRA laundry!’ With indignation, Mr. Granpa trudges and stomps back to his porch to get his cane to lean on, so he won’t fall again once he ventures back into the slippery underfoot of the garden. Having a coat of dark brown mud on the entire front side of his body, Mr. Granpa looks like a recreation of Clayface with extra facial hair. His beard (previously white) is now a dripping mass of dark wet goop that resembles tumbleweed that has tumbled through the sludge of the WWI Battle of Passchendaele.

Mr. Granpa, cursing in sailor tongue as he makes his way out into the garden, suddenly remembers why he had bothered to trudge into the garden in the first place: he is here, covered in mud, to water his rosebushes. ‘Where’s, my, water, sprinkler? MEMORY, YOU HAVE DIED BEFORE ME…AGAIN!’ He roars like a tyrannosaurus rex. A mile away, a retired old couple of former 911 rescue workers are driving down a silent country road, they are so startled by what appears to be the roar of the Twin Towers falling down that the husband at the wheel crashes their tiny Volkswagen into a roadside apple tree. A hailstorm of unripe apples fallen by the impact of the car against the tree trunk later, the husband, dazed, turns to his equally dazed wife and says ‘I think I just heard the Twin Towers falling down, again. Shall we go check?’ They have no idea that what they think they heard is the Twin Towers falling down is actually Mr. Granpa’s roar of anguish over memory-loss echoing through the countryside.

Fuming like a steam engine, Mr. Granpa trudges back to the lawn porch, snatches the water sprinkler in a way that if it is to have feelings it will have cried out, and trudges back out onto the garden grass, dripping with double the mud. His shirt and pants are caking with slush, and some of it has leaked into his briefs. He trudges onward. Mr. Granpa sees the red and yellow kite in the sky, soaring in circles. He loses his footing, tries to stabilize himself with a cane he forgot to bring along with the bucket sprinkler, and falls heavily into the slush. ‘ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!’ Mr. Granpa lies on his back in the mud that has now completely coated his body from head to toe, screaming protests. ‘MEMORY, YOU HAVE DIED BEFORE ME…FOR THE THIRD TIME! WHY DID I FORGET MY DAMNED CANE!!! WHY!!!’ The water sprinkler is out of his reach for him to beat to a pulp and take out his anger upon, as is the cane, flung down back at his porch. He is now a full-body Clayface.

Mr. Granpa gets up on his feet – he has lost one of his shoes in the process of falling down, and doesn’t even think of finding it in the mud, he just wants to craw back to his porch now–

He loses his footing and falls again, face first.

‘ARRRRRRRRRRRG!’ Mr. Granpa is worn out by all the cursing he has done; his arghs are getting shorter. Panting, Mr. Granpa attempts to clumsily lift himself up onto his feet; and just as he gets his breath back… ‘ARGH!’ with this final argh of protest for the fall he’s forced by fate to endure, Mr. Granpa experiences everything afterwards in slow motion. Mr. Granpa feels as thought he is falling in limbo until his gaping mouth (opened wide to argh just now) is greeted by the dark brown sludge in the ground he presumes is mud. His final thought as his face comes into contact with the brown gunk, some of it will get into my mouth and later I’ll have diarrhea over it.

Having never tasted mud, it tastes awfully like…chocolate. Oh Lord, Mr. Granpa thinks, if the soil in my garden has been turned into chocolate, please let it be low-fat dark chocolate, my liver can’t handle the 40 grams of sugar per serving of milk chocolate anymore! Propped up by his elbows, Mr. Granpa bends his head to have another taste at the dark brown substance…it’s…it’s…LOW-FAT 100% DARK CHOCOLATE! (He’s sure of the flavor; other than being a great architect, Mr. Granpa is also a great chocolate taster.)

‘Surprise!’ Mr. Granpa’s granddaughter, her golden blond hair bathing in the sunlight, her face beaming with joy, gazes down at Mr. Granpa, who has just got to a sitting position to scoop up more handfuls of the dark brown chocolate from the ground to stuff into his mouth. In another time, Mr. Granpa might think it an undignified posture to have his granddaughter find him in, but now, he can’t care less.

‘AH!’ Mr. Granpa exclaims in surprise. A mile away, a pigeon nesting along the windowsill of a penthouse apartment is so startled by this cry that it falls off the sill for 25 stories and lands in the road moments before the wheels of a tow truck drives over it. Where’d you come from?’ Mr. Granpa gets onto his feet and takes a long, sweeping look at his granddaughter that suggests he misses her a lot. Mr. Granpa’s granddaughter is wearing a nightgown covered with stains of mud and bits of plants and twigs. Her bare hands and feet are even dirtier, altogether making her appear as someone who has lived the past month in the wilderness (pretty close to where she has actually been living at).

‘I came from where I went to.’ Mr. Granpa’s granddaughter smiles and says.

‘Why, what in hammers are you doing here?’ Mr. Granpa is still a bit shocked by his granddaughter appearing out of nowhere so all of a sudden.

‘I’m here to celebrate your birthday of course!’ Mr. Granpa’s granddaughter says excitedly. ‘It’s your own birthday and you’ve forgotten about it? Gosh, you are getting old, what happened to the old man who can stop a train in its tracks?’

‘Well, I-I have been slacking off lately…I must admit, and…’

‘Don’t say another word,’ his granddaughter steps over to put a sleeveless arm around a chocolate covered Mr. Granpa, ‘so, do you like my birthday present to you or what?’

‘Why, it’s-well it is WONDERFUL! But-but how did you-what did you do exactly?’

‘I hired the chocolate maker in town and told him to make enough low-fat dark chocolate to replace the soil in your garden with, he did and it was amazing! I also told him not to say a word to you, because I want it to be a big surprise. I think he likes me pretty well.’

‘And-and where did you get the money? This must have cost…oh Lord!’

‘Easy p-easy, I borrowed your credit card. Here’s the receipt, by the way.’ Mr. Granpa’s granddaughter gives him a strip of paper from a pocket on her gown. The grand total has 5 digits of zeros after a 1.

‘Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh dear.’ A deep, long sigh escapes Mr. Granpa’s throat. He musters all his will to maintain his composure, and says, ‘Lord, young lady! You took my credit card without consulting me first? You should have asked-I mean-oh Lord!’ with a chocolate covered hand pressed to his chocolate covered bald forehead, Mr. Granpa looks like he’s about to grab for the tissue box.

‘Well…I did think about asking you first, but you never would have said yes then and I’ll never be able to impress you (mind you, dad said you were a demanding father) and it wouldn’t have been a big surprise! Since you never did like dad (he told me), I don’t think you’ll ever like me much either, so I did my best to try to impress you, in secret of course.’

Something awakens inside Mr. Granpa with a pang that feels awfully like guilt; a big, enormous chunk of guilt.

‘That’s not true! I certainly do not not like you. You’re my granddaughter…and I love you…and I always will, I truly do, because you are a part of me. I can’t not love someone who’s a part of me, whatever the differences we have…I’m just…you know…kinda shocked at first that your father never inherited any of my interests, and there’s almost nothing in us we had in common, so I felt disconnected…and I didn’t have your grandmother there to cheer me up…and…I-I’m lost, really, really lost…I lost the understanding of love, it’s not like architecture, there’s no way to design love, to measure it…it just…transcends science.’

A chocolate covered grandfather saying these words is even weirder that an elephant tap dancing while singing Ode to Joy through its trunk, it is also, like an elephant tap dancing while singing Ode to Joy through its trunk, a marvelous sight to behold.

‘Aw, that’s okay.’ Mr. Granpa’s granddaughter gives her granddad another pat on the back, takes out a cup from a pocket in her gown. She scoops a cup of low-fat dark chocolate from the ground and gives it to Mr. Granpa. ‘I don’t know why you prefer this kind of chocolate though, it tastes bitter to me.’

‘Oh, young lady, you’ll understand once you’re my age.’ Mr. Granpa says, and chuckles a little. ‘Say, I never found out what you liked to do, what do you like to do? I never asked your father that question when he’s a youngster and I sure the heck feel guilty for missing that opportunity forever.’

‘You mean other than exploring, planting plants, playing with animals, camping, canoeing, hiking, flying kites, staying up late, stargazing, sunbathing, ice cream, jumping in leaves piles, watching laundry spin, discovery channel, watering seeds, climbing trees, making sandcastles, swimming, biking, writing in a diary, making flower necklaces, running, dancing, mountain climbing, driving a car, scuba-diving, riding in a submarine, collecting insects, filming nature, recycling, reading jokes, drinking from a stream, watching sunsets, riding roller coasters, mountain skiing, snowboarding, going on waterslides, monkey wrestling, riding horses, racing horses, swimming with dolphins, looking at sharks, getting whales off beaches, collecting litter, collecting leaves, sketching, taking photographs, calamari, daydreaming about going to Antarctica and a few other places, flying kites, flying five kites at once, and a some other things I can’t think of right now?’

‘Err…yes, go on.’

‘I like charting. Making maps.’

‘You do?’

Yeah, I like making maps and drawing and sketching and all that. Oh right, I also like making birdhouses, should have never forgotten that, and harvesting honey, you get to work around bees, it’s interesting, and fresh honey tastes really good! You should try it out sometime…’

‘Wait, wait, wait! You said you have a hobby of mapmaking! Wow, me too, how come you never told me?’ Mr. Granpa suddenly sees hope that some of his talent might actually have passed onto his granddaughter, Mr. Granpa is so happy to feel this glimmer of hope he considers doing the chicken dance in joy.

‘You never asked did you?’ his granddaughter said, raising an eyebrow.

‘I never did. I’m so sorry. I-I should have got to know you better. How could I be so ignorant?’

‘Hey! Now’s my perfect time to get to know you too!’ Mr. Granpa’s granddaughter exclaims. ‘And look what I found in the hedges, it’s a key! Hopefully it’s the right one to the chest you mentioned, there’s surprisingly very few photographs of mom and dad around, they didn’t take photos that much, that’s why I do a lot. Do you have a picture of mom and dad getting married?’

‘Actually I do, it’s in that chest, let’s go now and open it! And then let’s have some breakfast…’

‘Actually, it’s 12 noon, it’s time for lunch.’

‘Oh, alright then.’ Mr. Granpa feels a tiny need to reach for the tissue box. I slept through morning! Oh, the horror! The horror, Mr. Granpa thinks. ‘And I think I’ll have to take a bath, to wash out the chocolate, and so must you, young lady, you look like you came out of a pigsty.’

‘Okey dokey! But you better get out again and get all the chocolate in buckets, there’s a rain coming, so don’t spoil your birthday present!’ Mr. Granpa’s granddaughter skips ahead of him towards the lawn porch, the red and yellow kite under her arms, her golden hair flowing in the light breeze.

About the follow his granddaughter into the mansion, Mr. Granpa remembers something very important, ‘Oh yeah! Can you remind my old brain again what your name is? I seem to have forgotten…’

Hearing his question, Mr. Granpa’s granddaughter turns around and comes skipping back to his side, ‘My name? It’s a long story, lemme tell you all about it…’

The end

A Something New

Here is a little bit of a spark of creativity I had around two weeks ago after watching some clips from the Sin City movie and thought, "Gee, it would be cool if I could write something like that." So I did, and what I wrote probably doesn't make any sense to you right now.
After that spark of inspiration, I've gotten around to jotting down some ideas for an extremely complex narrative that has something to do with what I wrote that day, here it is:

The room is black and white and completely square. The whitest part of the room is the single light blub dangling from the ceiling, right center of the black and white room. Technically, this is the brightest part of the room, but for the sake of a graphical novel setting, we’ll reduce the colors to simply black and white and all the gray areas in between. The blackest part of the room are the dark corners of the room, which, for some reason of trick lighting, aren’t illuminated by the bare light bulb even though nothing really obscured them from the light source. The second blackest part of the room is the suave young man with the shiny white sunglasses sitting comfortably, or as comfortably as he can in an old, five-dollar plastic lawn chair (this is indoors; the lawn chair is not in its correct setting). His entire form, shrouded in pitch black (this is despite him sitting right under the light of the bare light bulb) except the glowing white lenses of his sunglasses, is relaxed, leaned into the backrest of the plastic lawn chair, his heads pillowing the back of his head of neatly trimmed black hair. The lighting in the room is so ridiculous and defying of the laws of science that nothing of this young man’s features (which are presumably handsome enough to charm members of both sexes) can be distinguished under the darn lighting; he is simply a shadow of himself, his form only slightly blacker than his background, one of the four walls of the room.

For Stanton, he is having a lot of trouble trying to separate the shadow of the young man from the shadow of the background, since he is shortsighted. Stanton is also a young man, albeit a less handsome looking one, and somehow that warranted him the favor of the room’s lighting, unfortunately. Since his form is not completely shrouded in blackness, he can actually be described; he has quite a mean face, narrow beady eyes, a buzz-cut, and no small quantity of knife/glass/fingernail scars all across his visage. The only damper on this mean street-fighter’s face has to the explosion of acne stretching diagonally from Stanton’s right temple to his left cheek, concentrated around his nose area which made the face extremely undesirable for any parts of the body of anyone else to touch. Even hookers didn’t want to kiss Stanton’s face unless he pays them a bonus. People either get acne or they get freckles, rarely both; Stanton always envied people who get freckles, freckles can be attractive, acne, however, cannot.

I've always wanted to write something in the style of Catch-22, a book I read and admired greatly for the density of its narrative and its endlessly broad vocabulary. I'm no Joseph Heller, and I'll never be Joseph Heller, but I've finally been inspired with an idea that has enough characters to write a story that will make even my own head swim (exactly what Catch-22 did). If you want to see more on this story, or if you have suggestions about where I can take this story to, by all means tell me. Thanks!

G!

Facebook Smackdown

Transcribed by G!

As a Facebook user, I have come across numerous arguments taking place on the comment section of wall posts, here is a long example of one such arguments regarding a current event. All names have been changed because I did not ask for the consent of the participants of this argument to publish their comments, and therefore do not have the right to use their real names (I wouldn't have done that anyway).
The participants are represented by letters A through I, in-text reference to any of the participants by other participants are are enclosed in [], as well as third persons mentioned who did not participate in the argument
Insults that may reveal the occupation of any participants are generalized and stated as [insult]
Spelling and grammar are not changed from their original text.
I am posting this as an experimentation in short story writing, no ill intent whatsoever.
Overview:
The first argument occurs between participants B and D, the second the major argument occurs between A (the creator of the post) and F. E and G are frequent commentators to the argument and E briefly argues against A in a developing third argument before the post is terminated. C, H and I are onlooking commentators.

Original post:
A: If anyone wants some good debate practice, I recommend the first electoral debate which airs tonight between Romney and Obama.

Comments:
B: I call Romney
C: As of 10:09 pm on CBC, 75% for Obama, 19% for Romney, 6% unsure.
B: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...well there goes america's economy
D: [B] ur a racist
B: how, just because I don't support Obama I'm a racist?
D: wanna debate whether ur a racist or not?
E: Hm....That will be a great debate for sure. I'm for Obama,but wouldn't debate on it.
C: "Republican", not "racist", would be a better adjective, now that you can debate about.
B: Obama had a 1.3 billion dollar debt for 2011...thats bad leadership
D: were not talking about whether obamas bad or not, were talking about whether ur a racist or not. [B] get ur head in the game
B: Im not a racist
D: u support hitler, your argument is invalid
B: I do NOT support hitler
D: i clearly remember what u said last year
E: Oh,yes. I do,and I bet at least 5 people could remember what he said about Hitler in our maths class,[makes a joke about B's name]
D: ^[E]'s killer chirps
B: I said hitler was a good leader not a good person and i have never once in my life said i support him
D: does a good leader cause millions of deaths?
B: no a good leader is able to take a country from a depression to ruling half of europe. A bad person kills millions of people. The two statements are not intertwined...plus when stalin took over he killed anyone that did not support him, does that make him a bad leader? NOPE. Stalin like hitler is a bad person but a good and effective leader.
D: so theyre proficient leaders. not good. good means pleasing and approved of. do u find hitler pleasing? u probably do, coz ur a racist
E: Um. From what I see, A trait for great leader, in many cases, is the leader who achieve those by avoiding as much deaths and disadvantages(that are handed down to the minority or disadvantaged) and achieve greatness to his/her nation.
A: [B], you told me and [other person] we were Hitler's mistakes. I'm not even Jewish asshole.
E: [A]. Which [other person]?[#1]  [#2] or [#3]?
A: [#1]
E: Oh,I see.
F: I am 100% advocating the Chicago School of Economics, but Romney is obviously the worst of two evils in this case.
E: Support your reason why Romney is obviously the worse of the two evils.
F: Look, as a basic principle, the best government in a modern, liberal state is a limited government. While some intervention can be beneficial in the case of an oligarchical market, socially intrusive policies are almost guaranteed to backfire by a) coercing people to adopt certain mindsets or b) inciting insurgence. Alas, Romney's social policy is too invested in wombs to not be coercive and morally patronising...the role of the government is not to impose moral agendas. Romney wants to metamorphose it into some male-privilegesque, white-supremacist, non-secular vision of his personal ethics.
E: I see why. So,if that's so,then would Romney's conservative policies will try to force people into certain moral agendas that he (or the Tea Party) likes/believes in,which would basically force the people to follow and leave the others who are deprived and disadvantaged?
E: *believes in,and will force the people
F: Since he is planning to enforce some of his beliefs legally, yes...there's so many factors into why limiting freedoms is wrong, ranging from justice, to role of the gvt, to homogenisation and its sociopolitical repercussions to potential civil disobedience.
E: Absolutely. Those will,from what see, threaten the nation and its people indirectly or directly,as well as dividing and oppressing the different social and racial groups.
From what I've read from a French novelist,diversity and speciality is an integral part of survival.
A: But [F], you speak of why government needs to have a smaller and less apparent role. yet, are you not aware it is a traditionally republican standpoint for less government?
G: clearly Romney was better prepared
A: Also [E], are you actually using Voltaire? Also, diversity and specialty are not exactly Voltaire's key focus. Have you actually read his works...also [F] are you not aware that Romney isn't allowed to just go off and force his beliefs because he wants too? They have this thing called the constitution and this other thing called congress.
G: the country is ran by congress, not presidents
A: Exactly
F: No, a republican government is in fact more socially intrusive than a liberal one, which is a point I raised a few comments before. Additionally, knowing that Romney's legislation is potentially going to get congress seats in the prospect of his election, his proposed laws that restrict abortion (coercive: fact) and grant rapists parental rights (coercive: fact) become a looming possibility...Romney's economic policy is also not centred around the actual principle of a free market but, in fact, aims to fortify this gross misrepresentation of actual skill in the face of wealth. Whoever thinks investing money in coprorations in an attempt to generate jobs in an economy that is home to some of the world's most profitable businesses will change the market landscape, rather than aggrandise this fabricated inequality is a contemptible thinker. Markets create jobs and those are fired mostly by the average consumer, rather than corporations.
G: unlike Canada, in the US, presidential election is separate from the house and the senate...personally, i think neither Obama nor Romney should be the president
F: House and Senate members of the same political party basically follow the same agenda, so my point stands.
G: what do you mean? obama is a democrat and yet there are more republicans in the house of reps
E: [A]. It wasn't from Voltaire.
A: Well actually no they don't [F]. If you had any understanding of American politics
F: Please enlighten me on how they never ,IN PRACTICE, have followed a common agenda.
A: Ahhh I see. So basically you are generalizing. If you had ANY knowledge of American politics you would realize that congressmen do not necesarilly vote on party agenda, instead on Lobbyist intervention, and personal beliefs. It isnt like Canada where everyone follows a straight line. Also how can you tell what happens at the next congressional election? Also your insinuation that all Republicans are for legal rape, and religious intolerance, is exceptionally offensive to me. As I am a republican who is for abortion, religious tolerance, and a free enterprise based economy...and one more point, Fay you may be a great debater. There is no doubt about it. But you know nothing about how the world works, and yet you like to pretend you do.
F: If you had any idea of how the world works, or the guile behind it, you would not be disregarding the past practical manifestations of this example. Nobody mandates that party members have a shared agenda, yet they do - because there are political forces such as donations driving politicians' actions and because THE MAIN STATES THAT WOULD ELECT MITT ROMNEY ALSO CONTRIBUTE THE MAJORITY OF CONSERVATIVES IN THE CONGRESS & SENATE, HENCE ENSURING THAT THE MAJORITY HAVE SIMILAR AGENDAS. When you learn how to differentiate between how things theoretically and practically work please comment on my knowledge of not just how a tiny pocket of politics called "American Politics", but also THE WORLD works...you sound libertarian, NOT CONSERVATIVE to me. I am also a libertarian, which is why I am not a Republican.
A: No [F], I am a Republican through and through. I am simply stating that you should not go on pretending you have an actual understand of American Politics, and do not call then a "tiny pocket". If you had any world knowledge you would understand that what will be happening in America is one of the single most important elections in the coming decade. Now here is the thing. You have an exceptionally large vocabulary, which it appears you attempt to hide behind. As anyone who can understand what your are saying would understand that it is senseless gibberish that is basically repeating the same thing over and over again...you are a drone, If I may say. You have no understanding of what you are actually saying, you only understand how to convey your ever impressive vocabulary. Which in life, as much as you may hope, will get you 0 friends
F: [A], I put forward two very functional arguments on why your ideology rarely works. I guess though, I am anything, if you may say.
A: Honestly I am quite sick of this asinine conversation. So I shall resort to my default response. Quiet yourself [insults F]
F: Oh dear, liberty and justice embodied have spoken. Lo and behold how they abstain from casual contradiction like few before.
A: Go fuck yourself.
F: Shhh, it shall all be alright...calm down.
A: I'll reiterate. Go fuck yourself, also get off my post.
F: Reconsider why you are so insistent on berating ME rather than my argument and CALM DOWN BRENTHEN, DAMN.
A: Let me reestablish my position. Go fuck yourself.
H: Y'all ball so hard.
G: Ye shall cease your dispute.
H: Everyone calm down or I will be forced to get involved. And then dat shit cray.
G: my comment has been eaten alive! i shall demand justice! 
A: Oooohhhh [H], he so Cray cray!!! He fuk shit up in da ghetto! He one badasss muttha fucka
E: Um...Sorry to disrupt but,I'll read a part of the Introduction Sheet that we received during the meeting:
'Debating Etiquette'. 3. "....Refrain from using any type of name-calling or insulting during the debate."
4."Conform to the standards of formal speech practiced in debating by eliminating colloquialisms,slang and swear-words from your vocabulary during the debate."
A: [E]. Fuck off.
E: Oh,really? It's you who should calm down! You weren't following the basic etiquettes that are necessary in debating! You kept asking [F] to f**k off,saying that she'll have 0 friends,calling her [insult] (even though she is),which wasn't an appropriate title.
A: [E], you seem to be confused. This isn't a debate. Did you not know that? Did you miss the memo? So why don't you stop playing the people's advocate and instead, go with my saying of the day. Go fuck yourself. Don't you have some girls to stalk [E]?
I: hm, now this is getting personal.
A: Yep.

--post terminated--

About Dennis...

I have been writing the story of Dennis Raveley on this blog for some time, and since when I started, the novel developed into something slightly different (and hopefully better) from what I had in mind originally, so I've decided to do a rewrite, starting from chapter one, on a new blog!
Here is the link to this new blog that will begin to produce a revised version of the story of Dennis Raveley very soon:

http://dennisraveley.blogspot.ca/

To all who read the first draft so far, I sincerely thank you all for simply reading it. As you might have realized, I've not posted something for a while after that unusual chapter 18. From now on, this blog will be dedicated to my infrequent poems, occasional ranting and the tossing around of ideas and topics. The novel posts will be moved to that blog, link above.
The revised novel will still feature the events from the version here (Raymond will still have a bazooka dropped on his foot), it will keep the title, the characters will be unchanged, the only difference may be that the pacing of the new version will slow down considerably.
I hope you will enjoy reading the story so far a second time, and find it even more enjoyable.

G!

Oh yeah! I changed my template!

Wilby Lake

By G!

There's a lake at Wilby Lake.

There's a town called Wilby Lake that used to be right next to Wilby Lake. Now, Wilby Lake is at the bottom of Wilby Lake. Because some years back, the St. Lawrence River got so high, the town built in the lowlands two kilometers away, flooded.

There’s rumored to be zombies in Wilby Lake; zombies of the inhabitants of the now underwater Wilby Lake.

There's a bus stop that stops right at the fringe of Wilby Lake, that bus stop has stopped there a long time ago, but busses don't stop there anymore.

Confusing, eh?

“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” – Luke Jackson

People have always had trouble understanding me. It began I think when I was four years old, or maybe five, I can’t remember; it was sudden and totally uncalled for. As I was told, one day, I walked into the kitchen in the morning and told my mother I’d like pancakes for breakfast. My mother told me she just stared at me then because she couldn’t understand what I was talking about, and she asked me to repeat the sentence, I did, and she failed to understand what I said, again. I didn’t understand how my mother did not understand the sentence “I’d like pancakes for breakfast please”, I still don’t. It turned out to be, as she explained after she told me I had to get the pancakes myself from the pan for her to get what I was going at, that she did not understand the way I said “I’d like pancakes for breakfast please”. It seemed odd, and it has been so ever since.

It’s not that I don’t think properly, or that I have trouble forming comprehensible speech; the problem seems to be the fact that to everyone’s ears except my own…well, an example then, since I don’t even believe such nonsense myself: when I think “I was talking” and I say “I was talking” and to my own sound ears I hear “I was talking”, to other people (so they say), it would sound something along the lines of “Talked ised me.” If you didn’t understand that transition, neither did I and neither did the fifty or so speech therapists my well-to-do parents took me to who all exclaimed in horror at my horrid speech patterns (actually, they told us my speech lacked pattern, that was apparently the problem) which I did and do not feel I actually have. I was at a complete loss; it was clear to everyone that I have trouble speaking English properly, everyone that is, excluding me! I am the only person in this whole world I live in who does not have trouble understanding me, or rather, me speaking, but since people are society animals and talking is in the fundamental genes, talking weird makes communication a heck lot difficult, for everyone but me, that is. So here’s my conclusion: I understand my thoughts, I understand what comes out of my mouth in words because I hear it in my head as I’m quite everyone does in theirs, and nobody else understands what I say, and later, what I write. What may look and sound like “I have to go to the washroom” sounds like such incomprehensible syllable mash-up gibberish to other people I gave up trying to find out what other people are hearing of my words in kindergarten. I chose to speak as infrequent as humanly and communicatively possible.

All this happened before Simona was born, so everyone in the family took some time getting used to my apparently sudden and mysterious speech change except her. She listened to my so-called difficult speech growing up while I babysat her and thank heaven and earth she didn’t copy my speech and grow up to speak just like I do (or so they say I do). My grandmother was especially horrified to learn of my inability to communicate verbally with people, she had high hopes I would become a senator in the parliament, which would require a lot of public speaking chops. Well, when her hopes were dashed she had a heart attack soon after; she joined my grandfather, who I had never known in the Sims family plot down in the cemetery. My ever-supportive parents were quick to assure me I had nothing to do with the cause of my dear grandmother’s heart attack and ensuing death, though I’m quite sure if it weren’t for the extra large inheritance she left behind they’d loath me quite badly. Fortunately, the outcome of events was most well in my parent’s favor they forgave me for bearing such a fatal flaw (so they say), while I swear on my own grave in the future, I DON’T HAVE A SPEECH PROBLEM…well, depends who you trust more, the narrator or the characters.

‘Okay, so what do you do when you see a stop sign?’ Simona asks me.

‘That’s easy. I stop the car.’ I reply.

‘Did you mean you’d stop the car?’ She asks.

‘Yes.’ I clarify.

‘Next question, what do you do when you turn right at an intersection, that doesn’t have signal lights?’

‘I stop at the stop sign if there is one, I stop if there isn’t one anyways, I look right and left for pedestrians and incoming vehicles, and then I turn right.’

‘Um, can you…say that in a few sentences?’

‘Sure. First, I stop at the intersection. Second, I look for pedestrians and other cars. Third, I turn right.’

‘I think you forgot one technical detail.’

‘Hum, let me think here…oh yeah right, I have to flash the tail light, gee, always forget that part!’

‘Um, what do you mean by…turning car rear light bulb on slash off?’

‘Did I say that?’

‘It sounded like it.’

‘Geez! Okay, what I meant was I need to flash the lights at the rear side of the car, to signal to the car behind me that I am turning right.’

‘Okay, I get it. Let me write that down here…’ My sister keeps a notebook - or several for that matter - and records all of the gibberish I say that she can’t comprehend; the next time I say something along such lines, there’s the notebooks for reference.

 ‘How long do we still have until the exam?’ I ask; I never carry around a watch with me.

My sister checks her watch. ‘Oh my gosh! I think we went overtime!’

‘What’s the time?’

‘It’s already ten o clock. Don’t you have to be there by ten thirty?’

‘Holy darn, you’re right! I got to get going, wish me luck!’ I sailed out of the front doors in a matter of minutes, turned back in a great frenzy to blow Simona a kiss, and took off for the bus station as quickly as humanly possible. In that instant I looked back, I saw Simona standing on the porch, looking slightly confused. Well, I guess she didn’t get my good bye phrase. I didn’t have time to check if she is writing whatever I said down in the notebook – the vocabulary dictionary of Simcoe Sims, isn’t that just daisy?

It took me little more than no time to get to the bus station, just in time to see the bus leaving it. I ran after the bus all the while screaming at the summit of my lungs. The bus did not slow down in response, which it did not give, so I picked up a chunk of gravel off the road and hurled it at the bus in a fashion that might have impressed a shot put athlete. The gravel connected with the rear of the bus, shattering its tail light, and that action and result must have made considerable impact on the driver, because the bus grinded to a halt. I ran up to the sliding doors before the driver can exit and discover what damage I had inflicted on his bus and was let in.

‘What was that noise? Did you see? Did the exhaust backfire or something?’ The driver inquired as I entered.

‘Never mind that, take me to the driver’s school.’ I said, panting.

‘What’s that you say? I didn’t catch it.’

‘Never mind that.’ I said, and I fed a ticket into the slot and parted to the rear for a seat.

Thoughts

when a thought tries to exit my brain,
onto a sheet of paper, a keyboard,
a sheepskin even,
when that thought is in its prime,
still fresh, still very young,
it is the best opportunity,
to get that thought out and going.
when that epiphany strikes,
it is sadly unfortunate,
that I must always be occupied,
by mountains, called work.
work, the mountains are called,
because there's mountains of it
work, it is the harbinger of stress
it distracts the thoughts
work, though it is necessary
more often not than are
and work, it does borrow thoughts
but not in any way
beneficial to thoughts
for work mostly works for itself
not for thoughts

Heat Lightning

Our English classes are performing a drama play. My group decided to do an adaptation of Heat Lightning by Robert F. Carroll, a play which I found to be way too serious in tone and not quite to my taste, so I rewrote it, adding characters, adding lines, and giving the Narrator a personality. Here's the masterpiece:

Heat Lightning

Adapted from the play Heat Lightning by Robert F. Carroll

Adaptation by G!

Characters

Narrator, Man, Girl, 2^nd Man, 2^nd Girl (The Narrator and the 2nd Girl are characters not in the original play)

Scene: Bus station

Narrator – early summer, it is a stormy day, and lightning flashed and thunder cracked, and the rain is mighty. Outside the lone old bus station, it looks like midnight, but actually it’s only eleven pm, anyways, beside the point, here we go with the story. In the station, this well dressed, thirty-something year old Man (the man enters from the Man’s room) is alone; he’s wet from the rain, so he’s drying himself off.

A twenty-something year old Girl bursts into the station from the main entrance, dragging her companion, another Girl of similar age and appearance behind her. They are both soaked through by the storm, and quite disheveled. The first Girl slams the door behind her and puts the bolt over the door, locking it. The Man observes this scene without moving.

            Girl – Thank God! You’re here! Thank God!

            Man – What-what is it? What’s going on?

2^nd Girl – (to Girl) Will you calm down? (To Man) Look, sorry about this… (Tries to calm her friend down)

            Girl – Help us! Please help us!

            Man – Gee, you guys are in a terrible state. What happened?

            Girl – Don’t let him in! Please. He’s after us! Please don’t let him in!

            Man – Who’s after you?

            Girl – He’ll be here any minute. Help us!

2^nd Girl – (tries to calm the girl down) She’s in a state, I’m sorry. She said she saw something terrible…

Man – I see. (To Girl) Now please, try to tell me what happened. You’ve locked the door. No one can come in. now try to calm yourself. (This has no effect on the girl, who continues in a state of hysteria)

2^nd Girl – you’re waiting for the bus, aren’t you?

Girl – please don’t leave us!

Man – there, my dears. Of course I won’t leave!

Girl – The bus, what time-tell me it will be here soon!

Man – the last one’s due any time now. The storm has probably slowed it down…

Narrator – the storm has worsened, and it’s quite a strain on the power lines out in the roads, I think they’ve already gotten hit by lightning a few times…

Man – (To narrator) I’m not finished!

Narrator – well what am I supposed to say? Give me some credit! They hire me to every play that’s ever been made and what do I do? All I get to do is deliver the damn introduction!

Man – okay, but this scene is vital to the development of this story, can you come in at a…more appropriate time?

Narrator – fine, fine, and fine! Go back to where you left off, I’m listening.

Man – okay, (to both girls) now listen to me, I shall do whatever I can to help, but you must tell me what has happened.

2^nd Girl – we were at a party, and my friend here decided that we shouldn’t stay for the night. She was going to drive us both home because she enough she had enough gas…

Man – where do you live?

2^nd Girl – about eight miles from here (the Man nods), and a mile from here, her car ran out of gas, so we decided to walk down the road and catch the bus, and then we’d go back for the car later. She took the flashlight because it was getting really dark and all, I guess she got ahead of me when I stopped to tie up my shoelaces, and it’s really dark, suddenly I couldn’t see her anymore, so I stayed put since I don’t have a flashlight. A while later, she’s sprinting and screaming back in my direction and dragged me running all the way here…

Man – (to the Girl) what did you see?

Girl – I - I must have walked ahead of her - just a little way - I don’t know - and I noticed a car pulled off into a lane. I thought I’d call to them and ask if they could help us-if they might have some gas.

Man – did you?

Girl – no – I – I didn’t get the chance. I walked near enough to the car to be heard, but – before I could call out, I saw someone. The front door of the car was open and someone – a man – he was – he was pulling something out of the car. I couldn’t see at first – and then the lightning – and I – I saw her hand – and then her head – her hair was light and long and it dragged in the mud!

Narrator – the thunder is now even louder!

Man – yes, thanks for the description but you’re ruining the suspense.

Narrator – fine, fine, fine! It’s not like I don’t know the cue or anything. Gosh!

Man – (Back to the girl) did the man see you?

Girl – maybe my flashlight – maybe I screamed – I don’t know – I don’t think so, I was too frightened. I dropped the flashlight and started running, I ran back to my friend and we ran off the road. I could hear him chasing us, we ran into the woods and I think we lost him…wait, he’ll be here! I know he will! Oh, God I’m scared!

2^nd Girl – so all this time this is your story? I don’t believe it, how… (Trails off)

Man – (to 2^nd Girl) I think she’s telling the truth. (To Girl) The bus will be here soon and you’ll be alright. Listen, you’ll have to get to the police as soon as possible.

Girl – No – I couldn’t. I don’t want to – it’s that – I don’t have any evidence, I don’t even remember, I can’t go back. I’m afraid.

Man – I’m sure you will remember something, the flashlight, you could identify that, couldn’t you?

Girl – yes, but –

Man – there, you see! Now look, (points to the ‘Women’s’ room) go in there, dry your eyes and fix yourself up. You’ll feel much better. (To 2^nd Girl) I think you should go and help her a bit, she’s very upset.

2^nd Girl – you won’t leave, will you?

Man – of course not, my dear. I’ll be right here.

The Girl starts for the Women’s room, and suddenly she sees a man’s face pressed against the glass outside. She screams. The door rattles viciously.

Man – (pushing the girls into the women’s room) Get in there. Stay until I tell you to come out.

2^nd Man – let me in! Open this door! Let me in!

Man – (alone in the main lodge) what do you want?

2^nd Man – I want to get out of this storm. What the hell do you think I want?

The man unbolts the door and the 2^nd Man enters quickly.

Narrator – the second man, a nondescript sort of person, tall, nice looking and about thirty years of age, he is soaked through by the storm and…

Man – thanks, but we can all see clearly what the 2^nd Man looks like, you don’t need to read off a description.

Narrator – fine, fine, fine! Well I gotta do something, right?

2^nd Man – (continues where he left off) you’ve got no right to lock that door – keeping people outside in this kind of weather. Has there been a bus?

Man – no – not yet.

2^nd Man – Late, huh? Good.

Man – why?

2^nd Man – why? I’d have missed it if it were on time, wouldn’t I? There are other people here, right?

Man – what do you mean?

2^nd Man – I saw someone – two girls, when I looked in.

The two men stare at each other for a moment. Then the man goes over the women’s room and knocks, on the other side, a conversation is happening.

            2^nd Girl – so what do you think of the man?

            Girl – he seems trustworthy, what do you think?

            2^nd Girl – (shrugs) it’s too early to judge, wait, he’s knocking.

The Man opens the door and the girls come out, the Girl appears frightened to see the 2^nd Man. The 2^nd Girl is surprised too. The Man brings a finger to his lips, indicating silence.

            2^nd Man – I thought you said-

            Man – I didn’t say anything.

2^nd Man – you tried to tell me there was no one else here. I knew there were. What was the idea of lying?

            Man – I wasn’t conscious of lying about anything.

            2^nd Man – oh well, forget it. How far you going?

            Man – just into town.

            2^nd Man – and you, Misses?

            Girl – not far.

2^nd Man – (advancing towards the girl) it’s pretty late, isn’t it? I was in luck, don’t you think? I told that to our friend here, but he didn’t get it. (To Man) I bet they’re both smarter than you are.

Man – yes – I suppose they might – be.

2^nd Man – (to Girl) Say, you look pretty nervous about something. Storm upset your plans? If people were smart they wouldn’t be out on a night like this. Just try to get somewhere when it storms – can’t be done – especially if you’re in a hurry.

2^nd Girl – we’re in no hurry.

2^nd Man – well, I sure as hell am – and there’s nothing I can do about it. (Notice the Girl’s increasing nervousness) say, you’re really upset aren’t you? Has somebody been bothering you?

Girl – it’s – it’s just the storm.

2^nd Man – afraid of storms?

Girl – yes – I – am.

Man – hey, she’ll be alright, why don’t you leave her alone?

2^nd Man – Yeah! Sure!

Man – (walked to the girl) here! Have a cigarette. (The Man lights a match)

2^nd Man – don’t mind three on a match, do you?

Man – of course not (gives him a light). (To 2^nd Girl) Do you want one?

2^nd Girl – no thanks, I don’t smoke.

2^nd Man – God! What a night! Always wonder what brings people out on nights like this. Wouldn’t catch me out if it weren’t pretty important, (to Girl and 2^nd Girl) how about you two?

2^nd Girl – we were visiting – with friends.

Girl – I should have stayed the night.

2^nd Man – Oh! You’re not together then?

Man – er – no.

2^nd Man – I see. (To 2^nd girl) How far did you say you were going?

2^nd Girl – not far – about eight miles.

The 2^nd Man notices the Girl distancing herself from him, he looks puzzled.

            2^nd Man – I never saw anybody so afraid of a storm.

            Girl – It’s the lightning – I –

2^nd Man – lightning. I used to be afraid of it, when I was a kid, but I got over it. All by myself too. (Takes Girl to the window) look! Come and I’ll show you. Watch the sky next time there’s a big flash. One of the really beautiful sights in this world if you look at it right – like a great big Fourth of July. (Lightning flashes) Look! See, what did I tell you? (Girl breaks away) you wouldn’t even watch it. You’ll never get over being afraid of things if you won’t face them.

Narrator – The sound of a motor in the distance, gradually coming closer through the heavy rain.

2^nd Man – I guess that’s it – yep – looks empty.

Girl – Empty!

Narrator – and the sound of breaks…

2^nd Man – well, are we going?

Man – no.

2^nd Man – what?

Man – I’m not going.

2^nd Man – why?

Man – I don’t suppose it’s really any of your business.

2^nd Man – no, I guess you don’t at that. (Looks at the girls) In that case, I guess we’ll keep each other company, won’t we?

2^nd Girl – come on, let’s go. (To second man) Yeah, we’re coming.

The Girl looks stunned; she looks at the Man who is standing behind the 2^nd Man. The Man shakes his head and only she sees.

            Girl – no, I don’t think I’ll go either, I’ll wait…

2^nd Girl – what? What are you talking about?

2^nd Man – I think you’d better come on, your friend is coming and we got the bus all to ourselves.

Girl – no, no, I won’t. Leave me alone. I’m going to stay here…with him.

2nd Girl – what are you doing? Get over here! This is the last bus of the night! It won’t do any good to stay. Wise up, it’s time to leave!

Narrator – the sound of a horn can be heard from outside.

2^nd Man – leave them be. (Looks from Girl to Man) I get it. Waiting for a bus! (Laughs) No wonder you had the door locked! Come on, looks like it’s just you and me.

2^nd Girl – (to girl) I guess I’ll see you at home…later

The 2^nd Man and Girl exit the bus station. The girl rushes over and slams the door behind them.

            Girl – thank God! You had let him in! Why?

            Man – he was making a racket out there. Besides there was really no way to tell for certain that –

            Girl – I guess it wasn’t, no, I somehow don’t think it was…

            Man – you remember something, then?

            Girl – I seem…no, no...

            Man – Yes, yes you do! You know that wasn’t the man! Why? I knew it would come back to you!

Girl – no, only that he left…he left…

Man – first, you would say that wasn’t the man because I remember, and then later, that was the man because I remember. Yes. You would remember!

Girl – No! Oh no! The light!

Narrator – the light is about to go out.

Man – don’t worry, dear. You’ll have light. (Takes out a flashlight from his pocket, the very same flashlight the Girl had dropped when she witnessed the murder)

Narrator – what a twist! Look who’s the killer turned out to be!

Man – I’m sorry, Narrator, but you’re spoiling the thrill.

Narrator – what? You’d at least have the decency to let me explain some plot points the slower audiences would not understand at first, wouldn’t you?

Man – the point is, you’re interrupting –

Girl – Narrator! Help me!

Narrator – what am I supposed to do, I’m the Narrator; I don’t participate in the story.

Girl – but you can! Please help me!

Man – oh come on! Get real! Can we go back to where we left off?

The narrator is in deep thought; he decides to deliver a short speech.

Narrator – audience members, I have been in countless plays, since the early Greek tragedies to the stuff that get nominated for Tony Awards today, and not once in the history of theater have I actually done anything of value to a play. I communicate what playwrights are too lazy to convey through the play’s actual characters, and this disregard for me, the valueless Narrator, has angered me since the very beginning. Today, on this stage, I have decided against political correctness to do something out of the ordinary. (The Narrator takes a deep breath and walks into the scene)

Man – hey! You can’t do that.

The Narrator is holding a long stage tool. The Man eyes the metal rod nervously.

            Man – what are you going to do with that? Hey! What’s the meaning of this?

The Narrator raises the metal rod and prepares to strike the Man. The Man has lost control of his muscles to bewilderedness; he is frozen in a still position. The Narrator looks triumphant, the Man looks confused, and the Girl looks relieved.

Man- (shocked) I thought you’re only the narrator!

Narrator – Never judge anyone by appearance! (Strikes the Man down with a blow to the head)

A moment of silence hands in the bus station, then the Narrator exits the scene, putting the stage tool back in its place. The Girl leaves through the entrance of the bus station and the Man lies still on the floor.

The end