Hi all!

Sorry for the extreme lack of posts. It’s been a busy semester/year. This is just a quick update that I may, as the tide tells throws me, post drafts of works I have no intention to publish at the moment. To begin this new trend in posts, here is a short story I wrote for class this past weekend.

Enjoy.

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How to Ruin Someone’s Life in Five Minutes

She’s in there now. She’s in the house at 3535 Elmwood Drive. The house is surrounded by a white picket fence, lined with geraniums and tulips. A yard of blue-green grass stretches out from the front steps, lightly brushing against the sidewalk. A blooming hawthorn shades the windows while a tire swing sways in the breeze. The house is a pale pink, trimmed with white, to her taste. The woman, the mother, the wife, is in there now, doing what she always does on a Sunday morning.

She is baking. Usually, she is baking bread, preparing for Monday’s tuna salad, Tuesday’s ham and cheese, Wednesday’s Reuben, Thursday’s salami, and Friday’s BLT. Usually, she is kneading the bread with her computer on, playing NPR podcasts. Usually, her brow relaxes as the chemical reaction of eggs, yeast, flour, and water release a pleasant perfume into the air. Usually, the perfume lingers and seeps into the curtains, the leather chairs, her denim jeans and white cotton blouse. But that’s not today.

Today is her son’s birthday. He has turned 7 at exactly 5:35 am. That morning, she had prepared breakfast as he was getting dressed. Today, he would chose his clothes; the X-Man T-shirt he worn the day the Giants won the World Series, the tattered denim shorts bought the previous summer (peppered with stubborn grass stains). His mother laughed at the sounds of his heavy feet as he stomped upon the hardwood floorboards upstairs. She cracked an egg into the pan, imagining him rushing to the bathroom in the hiking boots his father had bought him last August. The sound of 7 years of life mixed with the sound of sizzling bacon, eggs, and pancakes.

Her husband came down before their son, walked up behind her as she was washing her hands, placed his thick arms around her waist, and pulled her close to him. She leaned back into him, taking in the cologne and after shave with a kiss. Her husband was muscular, but his height always gave the illusion of a slim frail man. As their son raced down to dining table, hopped into his favorite chair (the one closest to the living room and TV), and began piling his plate with food, both smiled at the stubby child they’ve made. Her son poured strawberry syrup straight from the bottle onto his pancakes. Her husband had winked his left eye at her as he took his seat at the head of the table. She had chuckled, then, before announcing the necessary errand. They were out of several sundry items but she needed to be home to watch for a special delivery from Grandma. She had already missed the delivery man twice this week; if she missed him again, the package would be sent back to sender. Her husband volunteered to do the shopping and urged their son to come along for the trip. At first, their son looked up at them, wide-eyed with strawberry syrup dripping from his lips. He had asked why he had to go too and what about his birthday and several other questions of the like, but eventually her husband convinced their son to join in on the grocery expedition. Before he entered the blue-grey station wagon, she kissed her son on his forehead, brushing flaxen strands of hair away from his eyes. His eyes were the color of hazel nut butter and shone in the morning light. They were the same eyes as his father. They were lovely eyes.

She had watched them drive off towards the Safeway in the next town over, waving her hands as the car faded out into the distance. Once the car was out of sight, she went back inside and began making phone calls. First she called her brother, who lives three streets down the way. Then, she called the families of Emily Johnson, Thomas Fresno, Erik Bernard, Jacob Featherweight, Michael Ocean, Jessica Bunny, Susan McLanester, Anthony Bee Suzette, Rachel Airline, Desiree Jones, Frankie Miles, Jonathon Jacob, Ginger Jiggle, Frederick Hammersmith, Abby Church, and Mitt Vandersmith. She called each in turn, announcing her son’s departure and when they would be expected to make an appearance at 3535 Elmwood Drive.

“Oh, I hope you can make it Mr. Johnson. How is Tommy today, Mrs. Fresno? Are you free today Mr. Bernard? Yes, they just left, Mrs. Featherweight. Their welcome to come, Mr. Ocean. Yes, of course Mrs. Bunny, thank you. No, Mr. McLanester, that isn’t necessary. Yes, thank you Ms. Suzette. Whenever you’re able to make it, Mr. Airline. Yes, please bring the streamers, Mr. Jones. Please be sure Frankie will behave this time, Mrs. Miles. Oh, that’s fine Mr. Jacob, no need to worry. No, thank you Mr. Jiggle, I have that covered. Of course, Mrs. Hammersmith. God bless you too, Mr. Church. See you soon, Mrs. Vandersmith.”

That was a while ago. Now, the backyard is full of colorful streamers, packages wrapped in ribbons, cards signed with happy wishes and stuffed with the occasional President Jackson. Adults are wandering around the yard, children are playing around their feet, and she is inside, baking the birthday boy’s cake. She has preheated the oven to 350 degrees and lightly oiled and floured three round pans. In a large clear bowl, she sifts together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In another, she whisks together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, red food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla. She uses the standing mixer she got on her wedding day to mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, until the batter is smooth. She is dividing the cake batter evenly between the three pans. She is placing them into the oven. She is sighing and wondering where her family is.

Five minutes from now, the cake will be forgotten. After my car pulls up to the house on 3535 Elmwood Drive, after she opens the door, after “Hello, Officer Hammersmith. What brings you here? Frederick is out back with the others.”  Five minutes from now, I will have to sit her down and say “Mary, Henry was in an accident.” Five minutes from now, she will ask a torrent of questions, “What accident? Is Henry okay? Where is he? What about Bobby?” And to each question there is only one answer, an answer that will toss a black shroud over her small frame.

But that’s not now, that’s five minutes from now. Currently, she is baking a cake for a little boy who will never see the sunset on his 7^th year and for the man who kissed his wife goodbye.

Ch.1

From a dusty window, orange light poured into a room filled with cardboard boxes. Some were labeled “books, clothes, shoes, and junk,” but most were labeled “fragile” in a haphazard pen. One box, battered and bruised, was labeled “Not Fragile, kick around to your heart’s content!” That one sat quietly near the trashcan by the door. Five large boxes labeled “Bed Stuff” and one small box labeled “Pillow” took up one wall while the other boxes were pilled high to the ceiling where an electric lamp flickered with wasted light. A loud snort came from the fabric boxes, and then a large sniff followed with a mucous filled spat. An arm sprung out from the fabric box closest to the window and hung listlessly from the side of the box. Clear thick mucous dangled from the finger tips for a while before being wiped off on the outside of the box. The hand, nail-bitten, bruised and stubby, felt on the ground for a moment, looking for something. Failing to find anything within reach, the hand and the arm retreated back into the box. There was a rustle, a mumble, and a very low curse as the box shook. Out from the fabric box the quilt-clad head of Corvus Parallax Ursa appeared.

Corvus, Para or CPU to her friends, lives, breathes, eats, and sleeps her whole life in a box. When her parents found her as an infant, she was in a box. Whatever she ate had to come from a box. For Halloween she would dress up as a box. For any formal occasion, including her cousin’s wedding, she would wear a dress with brown squares on it from a designer specializing in box fashion. She never goes out of her box, so long as she can help it. Unfortunately for her, though, she lived in a very non-box oriented world, a world where humans live peaceful (for the most-part) lives with beings of pure energy and beings that resemble animals, insects, plants, and everything in between. Corvus unhappily occupied the “everything in between” part of her world’s spectrum.

An orphan raised by a brain surgeon and a mechanic (both of which claim to be human but act suspiciously un-human), Corvus was soon found to be an ANGEL, an Anthromorphic Neo-Generation Electric Life-form. These beings have a distinct birth mark that resembles a pair of wings on their back, commonly called Wing Slits, which are used to identify ANGELs when they are born. CPU’s parents saw a simple pair of black wings on her back that happened to resemble crow wings, hence her first name. Of course most Wing Slits are black but who is to fault two loving parents. Being identified as belonging to a certain group is all well and good in CPU’s eyes, just another box to fit snuggly into, but ANGEL and international law dictates that once an ANGEL turns 2 they are to be assigned a personalized set of wings that match the mark on their back and a HALO (Hovering Analog Locating Office-port). The wings are usually hand crafted for the child by one of the elders of their village. Unfortunately for Corvus, she was an orphan living in a far away from any ANGEL village. As the saying goes, “ANGELs do their work in Maya, but live in Nirvana.” Since Nirvana is hard to get to, even by air, CPU’s parents had to go to a local wing dealer to get her a pair. Wing dealers use a government-backed system to produce wings for ANGELs born in Maya: they scan the child’s back, send the desired information into a computer, lay the child down on a cold metal table, and let the machine create and fit a pair of mechanical wings onto the child. It is a pain-less process, most of the time, and if the job is done in central Maya, the wings would not only be functional, they would be beautiful. That, unfortunately, was not the case with Corvus’s wings. Her parents went to West Maya to get her wings, an area notorious for both violence and mechanical know-how. They had a family friend, Jacob McNeal, who was at the time going into the wing crafting business. He was cheap, near, and a celebrated genius when it came to mechanized technology. Completely imbecilic when it came to children, safety regulations, and painkillers, but a genius nonetheless. Her wings to this day are among the most advance, black steel crow wings ever created. They are also the most painful. Corvus had to have her whole collar bone and part of her spine replaced with steel ones. Growing up, she was the only kid in class who wasn’t allowed to play with the magnets. And . . .

. . . .

SHUT UPPP!!!!!!!

Okay, I am taking over my own narrative! You gave them more than enough back story to satisfy even the most anal of critics. Yes, I like boxes, Yes Uncle McNeal, though sweet, is an incompetent boob when it comes to medicine, but for Gods sakes get over it. Oh and you there reading this, you probably forgot what was actually happening so let’s recap: it is late at night on the day I finally move into my apartment across the street from my university. I have just woken up from a very long nap (I went to sleep the moment I closed the door after Mom and Dad left). Oh and I am not 2. I am 23! And NO, I do not plan to keep these boxes around like this in my room; they were just for moving for Heavens sakes. Oh and that narrator you were listening to, THAT was my HALO. It talks. None stop. All the time.

“I do not!”

SHUT UP!

Okay, it mainly talks when it knows I can hear it. It drives me mad! But, before I get to that little mechanized mistake, I should probably get out of bed, I mean these boxes, I mean, well you know what I mean. Sheesh!

So here I am. . . Getting up . . . Just got to find my glasses. They must be somewhere in this box.

“Why not try, oh say, the box labeled ‘Eye Glass?’ You know the one by the foot of your make-shift box bed?” says my annoying government issued torture device.

There they are. Man, my room is a mess.

. . .

Aside from being a very bad morning person, CPU, is for the most part, deep down inside, a very good person. To everyone except her HALO. Where did all this animosity come from?  Well, it isn’t the HALO’s fault to be sure, but it may have something to do with how she acquires such a unique device. Most ANGEL’s receive their HALO’s after birth, right there in the hospital that same day as their parents rest. Receiving a HALO is all apart of the ANGEL registration process, you see. An ANGEL is born, registered into the hospital database, and their information is then even to ANGEL HQ where a blank HALO is selected for processing. Processing usually takes about an hour but on CPU’s birthday, something went wrong. Their was a malfunction at HQ during her, and countless other ANGEL’s, registration. Someone had hacked into the system in an attempt to send a virus into all new HALOs. Thankfully it was caught in time before anything too drastic happened. Unfortunately HQ could not destroy the virus programming in its entirety, they could only take away what made the program dangerous to others. In the end it was decided that the virus should be quarantined in the last HALO that was infected: CPU’s HALO.  It is a harmless defect, to say the least, but it did leave one very unique and disturbing quality to her HALO which has already been dealt with.

“And who ever heard of a flimsy metal disc that could talk and behavior like it is some higher sentient power! ARGH!” shouted Corvus into the darkness of her box-crowded room!

Still feeling the effects of a three day all-night packing binge, Corvus stumbles out of her box on her very shaky legs. Her hair is wild, curving up in little black tendrils all around her head. In the darkness she looks like a black sun rising above a mountainous range and into an orange sky. She kicks around some boxes, stumbles over the smaller ones and finally, with many blasphemies under her belt, she reaches the light switch next to the door. She releases a heavy sigh as she places her hands on her hips and stares blankly at her new abode.

“I guess I should start by fixing myself up, no sense in going back to sleep. Took me three hours just to get my happy ass up,” she says.

“Well, to be accurate you took about 4 hours to get up but who’s counting?” replies her imprisoned HALO.

“I want none of your sass today mister!” she replied.

Bending down by the trash can, CPU lifts up the badly bruised box labeled “Not Fragile, etc.” She peels back one side of the cardboard top and pulls out her silver HALO. With as little grace as it is possible for one of the female gender to perform, she tosses it on to her head and walks on before it has had sufficient time to connect to her DNA.

 

To be continued.

-Rose

You see, I have actually two story beginnings, both of which are for NaNoWriMo . . . One about a dragon and another about a sci-fi angel character. One is new and one is old. One has been a day dream for about a year or so and another was a past NaNoWriMo project.

The problem comes in where I don’t know which to put on the blog.

Solution?

BOTH!

Yes both!

Depending on my sporatic writing ideas and work-load I will post two different stories: One with the working title of CPU and the other DL (Dragon’s Lair).

Is this insane?

Yes.

Why do both in one month?

Because I am weird like that.

Look forward to CPU before Midnight tonight.

Also: GO OUT AND VOTE TOMORROW!

Much love,

Rose