Category: Fiction

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Fan Fiction Fan Fiction

It’s been three years since I’ve posted anything. So why not restart with some AI-generated fan fiction? Someone on Twitter posted something about fan fiction and someone else agreed with it and someone else disagreed and so to be funny, I asked Chat GPT to write a piece of fan-fiction about the post. Here’s are the tweet I saw and the tweet it referenced:

I agree with hiatus, BTW. So here is what Chat GPT wrote for me (I made up the title):

Fifty Shades of FanFic

Leia sat cross-legged on her bed, her laptop perched on her lap. Outside, the rain tapped against the windowpane, creating a soothing rhythm. She couldn’t help but agree with the quote she had just read. Fanfiction had become her refuge from the monotony of recycled stories and profit-driven media.

Leia’s favorite show had lost its magic, replaced by shallow storylines and product placements. The characters she once adored had become hollow versions of themselves, mere puppets dancing to the tune of corporate greed. Disenchanted, she turned to fanfiction, seeking solace in the words crafted by fellow fans.

Her fingers danced across the keyboard, breathing life into a story of her own. Leia poured her heart and soul onto the digital canvas, weaving intricate plots and intricate character arcs. She wrote for the sheer joy of it, for the love she felt for the original material and the desire to see it flourish once again.

In her fanfiction, Leia found the depth and emotion that had been lacking in the mainstream media. The characters became vibrant and relatable, their struggles and triumphs resonating deeply within her. It was a labor of love, a testament to her devotion to the source material.

As the rain continued its gentle symphony outside, Leia’s imagination soared. Her story unfolded before her eyes, a tapestry of emotions, friendships, and adventures. With each word, she contributed to a community of like-minded individuals, bound by their shared passion.

Leia smiled as she finished a chapter, a sense of fulfillment washing over her. In this world of mass-produced entertainment, she had found her own haven, a place where creativity thrived and genuine love for storytelling reigned supreme. She knew that her fanfiction might never reach the same heights as the original work, but that didn’t matter. It was her own little sanctuary, a home-cooked meal shared with her friends who understood the true essence of storytelling.

Leia closed her laptop, feeling a renewed sense of purpose. Fanfiction had become her sanctuary, a refuge from the fast-food stories that left her empty. She knew that as long as there were passionate fans like herself, the spirit of storytelling would continue to thrive, even in a world dominated by profit-driven entertainment. And in that realization, Leia found hope for the future, one where the power of genuine love for the source material would prevail.

F’n brilliant.

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Matchup!

Writing Prompt: Write a story featuring a pathological liar, a cow, and a cardboard box.

Jamie signed his name at the bottom of the painting,on the side of a cardboard box, of a cow, then put the box on a shelf next to other boxes with similarly bucolic paintings.

He turned to face a crowd of reporters behind. “And that, ladies and gentleman, completes number 523. Questions?”

“Why boxes?” said a man near the front, holding a notepad and a pencil, dressed in a sloppy suit one size too big for him, battered fedora, five o’clock shadow, droopy eyelids, bottle o’ hootch in his back pocket.

Jamie gazed at the reporter for a few beats, his face expressionless. “Why not?” he finally said. He turned to another. “Yes?”

A woman in a mauve pantsuit, lots of hair, lots of makeup. “Jill St. Parable, County Gazette-Informer. ‘An op-ed in ‘Artist Review’ last week claimed that your farm credentials are thin, quote, ‘he’s as lea as the one from Star Wars.’ What is your response?”

Jamie lowered his eye, sighed, then turned to the box he’d just installed. He ran a finger gently along the line of the cow’s back. “I am capable of enormous acts of imagination. I am an artist, afterall. And yes, I could have wrought from the damp, dark, secret places of my soul these scenes. Green for grass, red for barn, blue for sky. Easy. But this… this cow.” He turned back to the reporters. “The truth is, this cow and I were lovers.”

The crowd of journalists remained silent. Until someone in the back said. “Sexually?”

Jamie smiled a grim smile. “Oh my. Yes. I don’t know how you make love, whoever said that, but if it’s with the pen, I’m afraid this is one arena where the pen is not as mighty as the sword.”

“So, bestiality,” said the one in the fedora.

“Were all animals, aren’t we?” Jamie said. He frowned. “Anyone who’s died the little death in the arms of another is an animal-fucker, yes? I know what I said may seem, well, shocking. But it’s not provocative because of the word you give it. Our forbidden love stands alone, take it however you like, you needn’t infantilize it with pro-homospecies nomenclature.”

“Isn’t that illegal,” someone said.

Jamie shrugged. “That’s what artists do. We break rules. We push boundaries. We go to the uncomfortable places that everyone dreams of going but are too terrified to go. And we bring back hope, don’t we. We bring back love. 

“You were in love,” said fedora.

Jamie smiled at him, as if to forgive the boxes question, closed his eyes, and nodded. “Would I have loved Cleo if I weren’t an artist? Ask me if I would have shat different shaped feces if I’d eaten cheerios instead of muslix this morning. I am what I am. It is all that I am. If I were not an artist, I would not be.

“We had a very tender relationship, Cleopatra and I, and while I won’t deny, in fact I admit proudly, to our partaking in the carnal delights, there were also our moments of simple companionship. Sharing a glass of wine and a fistful of hay. Or talking about the moon, and lowing. She, lying on her side, gently snoring, while I sat against her bulging teats, scribbling meaningless doodles in my thick, care-worn sketch pad.

“I hear people say ‘She got me,’ or ‘he gets me,’ or ‘I want someone who understands me.’ Let me be clear. That is not what Cle and I had. She didn’t ‘get’ me. No one ‘gets’ a true artist. No one, not even the most sublimely beautiful, kind-hearted, devotional, self-sacrificing, three-quarters-ton bovine ‘understands’ what the artist’s self-torture is like. The isolation, the loneliness, staring with bruised eyes through tears of blood into that harrowing, soul-raping pit of hell we call ‘truth.’

“She was my temporary solace. And that’s all we can ask of our muses. Someone or something that can take us out of ourselves long enough to act as a conduit, a vessel to let the canvas drink the colors of said truth.” Jamie smiled warmly at fedora.  “Or cardboard, in my case.”

Fedora wept, as the other reporters scribbled furiously on their notepads.

“She knew she could never be a cure for the disease that is imagination. She could only be hospice. And I knew she knew. I knew she knew hers was to be ever the mistress to me, a man betrothed to art. And I loved her for it, as much as a man can love something other than the self-hatred that drives him to plunge into a sea of madness long enough to bring back a fish of… of…” A tear trickled down his cheek as his eyes held a far-off look.

The journalists ceased their writing, frozen, waiting expectantly.

Jamie smiled. “Well, words are not my forte, are they. I can only ‘speak’ with a brush and some acrylics. So, honestly, all I can say in response to this alleged ‘Artist Review,’ is this,” and with that, he held a hand up and swept it before his boxes.

Of course none of it was true. But the applause started in the back.

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New Holiday

Writing Prompt: Come up with a new holiday. Explain why and how it should be celebrated.

Next week is Armless Day. It’s a day for celebrating people who do not have arms. Take it how you want. People who literally have no appendages dangling from their shoulders. Or people who don’t have guns. Think of it like this. Armistice Day is the day we celebrate the end of world war something. Armistice, armisless, armsless, armless. Not much of a stretch. And you can’t carry guns if you don’t have hands. And you can’t have hands if you don’t have arms.

Although there are some fuckers out there. Guys born without arms or legs who practice up and can shoot a bow and arrow while doing a backflip through a flaming hoop. I don’t know when that would be a necessary skill. But I like the irony. Guy with no arms who takes that handicap and turns it into a youtube video. Armless day is for him. 

What should you do. Well, there’s options. Some folks pull their arms into the shorts and go through their day. Frankly, that’s ridiculous. But so is religion, and look at the hold that has on the world. Other folks strap all manner of device to their arms. Painful things, straps with barbs, rough stuff that tugs at their arm hairs. There they go with the religion crap again. The idea I guess is to not take arms for granted. Load of crap if you ask me.

If you ask me, here’s what I do. I go to a bar. What good is a holiday if you can’t go to a bar. There’s this culture out there that Xmas sucks, cause of family. Take your goddamn family to a bar. Get piss drunk with your Aunt Clorita. Have a fuckin’ fist-fight with your dad. Trust me, by last call, you all be in love again. So, I go to a bar, I get a booth, I get a few drinks in me. I trap my arm between me and the wall. Eventually my arm goes to sleep. Now I’m armless.

Is it much? No. But so what. President’s day, arbor day, christ, even armistice day. Who celebrates those anymore. If I had a time machine, I’d go back to when I was 15 and got my ass kicked by Lemar Washington. But then I’d go back to George himself, and say, guess what. They’re going to celebrate your birthday by putting sheets on sale. Still worth it, freezing your ass off at Valley Forge? Then I’d asked to see his teeth.

Maybe we should have a toothless day. A fella could make a killing selling fake wooden fake teeth. I mean capitalism, right. That’s all holidays are good for anymore.

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Writing Pseudonym

Writing Prompt: You’re afraid that your name and personality just don’t fit your writing style. To help sell your work, come up with a pseudonym and an alter ego for it.

Tex McNabb. Call me Tex. My real name. Some folks say, what’s your baby name. I tell ’em I don’t got one. The say nah. The name they called you when you was born. I say I don’t got one. That shuts ’em up.

I live in a house my grandma built with her own two hands, mostly. Had some help, here and there. Met a man, did what she needed to do to get the rest of the house built, had my mom. She run off to be a trucker. Truck broke down one day, she did what she had to do, and then there was me. I live with my grandma, mostly.

The place is piece outside of Washout, a little town a ways from a little but bigger town a ways from a place no one ever heard of. If I need an airport, there’s Tulsa. 

But I don’t never need no airport. Everything I need is in Washout. There’s the general store, for bacon, cornmeal, coffee, the occasional vegetable. There’s the nail shop, for repairs on the cabin. There’s the typewriter store, for ink ribbons, paper, and such. Sometimes, when times is lean, I do what I have to do for paper.

You see, I’m a writer. Crime novels mostly, sometimes I’ll write one of them there thrillers. I wrote a romance once. Under a pseudonym, of course. Who’s gonna buy a romance novel from a fella name of Tex? For that one we went with Flora McNabb. The review on that one was brutal. One feller for one of them newspapers in one of those cities wrote, “What the hell did Flora McNabb do to get this piece of trash into print.” I wrote that man a letter. “She did what she had to do.”

Folks ‘spect I write westerns. Well, let me tell you. I could. I’m out here in the brush. There’s horses. There’s rattlesnakes. Clemmet, fella who runs the general, he’s one fourth Comanche.

But there’s nothin’ in it. Fella keeps to himself, rides his horse, eats corn cakes and bacon, drinks coffee, shoots a rattlesnake here and there. Then there’s a piece of trouble. He don’t want to get mixed up in it, but he does. There’s some woman, says she’ll do what she has to do to get him to help, and him, well, he doesn’t even give her the satisfaction, just helps her anyway. There’s no justice in it.

Next thing you know, his horse is run off, his rifle is out of bullets or ammo or rounds or whatever you call ’em, and the woman is dead. He’s hell-bent on revenge and boy does he get it. And then he finds his horse. But beans don’t taste like they used to, now he’s killed a man or twelve. So that’s it then. The rest of his days is ridin’ the range, tryin’ to right wrongs. 

I’ll pass, thanks. I’ll stick to the crime novels. Easier to write, if I’m truthin’. Some feller in the big city with a slick name, like David Harbrace or maybe Gregory Oldencraft. Hardened by a life on the streets. He’s broke as shit and drinks too much and when someone’s daddy gets plugged for seeing a mob hit go down, he lets whoever do whatever they need to do to help ’em. He’s a sour son of a bitch but he’s kind that way. Solves the crime, goes back to drinkin’. Not that he ever stopped.

Me, I tried drinkin’, but it didn’t sit to well. I did all of the things. I got a few bottles of whiskey from the general. Got one of them glasses, the fancy ones, crystal, cost me two hundred bucks. Had Clemmet work a connection, get me some rough-cut cube-shaped ice. Drove into Tulsa, attended a seminar on how to put the ice in just so, how to pour the liquor, how much water to add on top. The lady who ran the seminar, she was a nice old gal. A big one, for sure, but the big ones’ll sometimes do what they got to do for a hell of a lot longer than them skinny gals on Sheridan by the airport. Let me tell you.

But like I said, it never took. Got through, maybe, four or five bottles, a quantity of ice cubes, wore that damn glass out. It was a rough weekend. Had to trash most of what I wrote. “She crawls up on the roof to watch the sun set. A cigarette keeps her company. And then when it’s dark, she crawls back down, goes back inside, opens a can of soup for her dad.” You see what I mean. Trash is the right word.

That’s okay though. Nothing ventured, as Clemmet will say now and again. Got a call from that seminar woman a while ago. She said her boy’s thinkin’ of becoming a writer, did I have any tips for him. We had a nice conversation. I told her to tell him that writin’ ain’t nothin. The real work’s when you’re done and you want someone to read it. She asked what he should do. I told her to tell him to do what he had to do. That’s what I did. I think she knew what I was sayin, cause she said she’d tell him, and she didn’t seem too tore up about it. Nice gal, all things considered.

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A Blood Dead Sea ch. 1

(a noir-pirate mashup)

This is my substitute for pistol and ball.

It were a calm night at sea for a change and The Pretty Panoply anchored well. Me and Cookie, the bosun’s mate, were in the galley, enjoying a bucket of salty rum popunders, aye, and a game of Dead Man’s Bones. One-Eyed-Pete was in the forecastle, looking for his other eye, while Dog was cuddling with Rapeclaw, the ship’s cat. The rest of the crew were barnacles on the ship of this here tale.

And then she walked in. Her well-oiled coat from shoulders down to the top of her boots, thick black boots that only a woman could wear, or perhaps a small man. Her tricorner hat cocked at a jaunty angle, although I keep forgetting to ask Cookie what ‘jaunty’ means. Her hair of spun gold, except much more coarse, and not gold as much as a kind of sea-dirty brown. And her eyes as black as the Arabian sea at midnight. Or any sea, really, or, I suppose, pretty much any place at midnight that didn’t have a source of light.

Captain Nobeard, she was called. Under her coat she carried two pistols, a hook, and a stump, just in case. She’d never danced with the sharkies, not yet, our cap’n, but we knew she were eager to do so one day, arrr. 

And me? Call me Larry.

“Where’s Filthy Tina?” The cap’n growled. F.T was the first mate. 

Cookie and I both shrugged. Not knowing where F.T was meant she weren’t where you were which meant she weren’t laying into your back with the cat-oh-eleven tails. Cruel one, she was, adding two extra tails likes that. 

“Did you try the hold, cap’n ma’am?” Cookie said. “Seems Little Davy were in need of a morale boost, I overheard.”

Nobeard just stared at the man. A snarl began to form on her lip.

Cookie gulped. “P’raps I’ll be the one checkin’ the hold, ma’am, cap’n ma’am.” He scuttled off. More popunders fer me.

Nobeard grabbed a mug and dipped it into the grog barrel, quaffed. She gave me a surly glare, and I found a new way to arrange the bones on the table ‘fore me.

“Larry,” she menaced.

“Aye cap’n.”

“It were you who found Dog’s left boot, the one he lost while chasing Rapeclaw for his midnight cuddles a fortnight ago, aye?”

I chanced a glance. She had one eyebrow raised, and her eyes glowed like they shouldn’t in all that inky dark. “Aye.” I said. “Crushed down ‘tween the mizzen and a tangle ‘o sheets down the orlop, arrr.”

“You’re good at lookin fer things, are ye?” she said, squintin’ at me.

“If it pleases ye, cap’n. Course there’s a difference ‘tween lookin for things, and findin ’em.”

She scowled. “You good at findin’ things too, ya scallywag?”

“Can find me own arse, usually, if ye let me use both me hands.”.

She chuckled at that, quaffed once more, then threw her mug into the deep sink. “May have a job fer ya, Larry, when we make port at Blood Island. Come see me in my quarters for yer off catchin yer next disease.” Then she left the way she’d come. 

I popped another popunder over me teeth and gulped it down. Not the best ingredients in these salty rum abominations. That’s why me stomach was feelin’ queasy of a sudden, I thought to meself.

Cookie walked back in, sat down heavily in his seat. His skullcap was askew, his shirt was in tatters. He took up the last of the popunders, gobbled ’em.

“Ye find F.T.?” I asked.

“What do you think?” he curred, blood in his yes. Literal blood, maybe not even his own. So the answer was yes.

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A Vampire Says Hi

Hello, My name is Terrence Von Diesel. I am a vampire. It’s extremely nice to meet you. I must say, you have a very nice neck. And how are you today?

My apologies. I know that can be a bit off-putting. I’m a bit of an expert, you see, and, well, sometimes I can’t help but admire. Never fear, I’m not planning on biting you. Not yet! Just a joke. Please, sit down.

A little about me- I am not a count. I don’t mind the cliche, really. I mean, culture, right? But no, I am not a count, despite being a vampire and having the “von” in my name. I had to change it, see, as the name is Dutch by origin, and was originally Van. But I can hardly allow myself to share my name with a Hollywood celebrity. Did you know I met the man once, Van Diesel? Charming fellow. He tasted of clover, more than anything, which I found curios.

At any rate: not a Count. There’s an earldom I could make a claim to, if enough people died. Not really worth the hassle. The hassle of making the claim, that is. Getting that many people to die wouldn’t be too much trouble. But I don’t want to talk shop, as they say. Let’s talk about you. Have you done speed dating before? This is my first. I’m a bit overwhelmed, if you must know.

Please, call me Terry. As in “I’ll terry your throat out!” Just kidding! You’re safe, I promise you. Look, if I was going to devour you, I would have done it by now, And if I was planning on doing it later, there’s really nothing you could do about it. Some people actually find it peaceful to have their fate in another’s claws, I mean hands. 

For example, a few months ago, I was in a 24-hour cafe, doing a crossword puzzle. I admit, I’m not very good at them! You’d think, being nearly three hundred years old, I’d have learned a thing or two. And I have, but not when it comes to trivia, it seems. Still, I try. 

So there I was, staring at this folded newspaper, when I finally realized that someone had been talking to me. I pulled my eyes off the page and looked up- it was a waitress, holding a pot of coffee, asking if I wanted more ‘joe.’ I just stared at her for a moment, still stuck in my train of thought. Ten down, a nine letter word for tasty. I looked at her neck, and then the answer popped in my head. “Delicious,” I said.

And do you know what she did? She set the coffee pot down, then took a seat across from me. Our eyes locked. And she, well, she just sighed. I could have had her right there. Or, I could have stood up, taken her by the hand, led her to the alley behind the cafe, and had her there. She was at peace. This woman, maybe in her middle forties? Probably a mother, a teenage son, born before her own life had even started, a few grey strands, some laugh lines, but I tell you this: she was beautiful. Deliciously beautiful. I was very moved.

Then some cretin in the back yelled something about an order being ready, and the reverie was broken. She got up and left without another word. I went back to my crossword, and filled in ten down. 

Why am I telling you this? Your neck reminds me of hers. The way you’re looking at me now. I don’t know how these speed-dating things are supposed to work, really. If we have a connection, do we simply leave together? Are there some forms to fill out? 

Do you– I’m sorry, a very personal question. Do you have a next of kin?

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Review: I Came Upon My Beverly, Clearly

I Came Upon My Beverly, Clearly, is an anonymous epic poem written in a style utterly unlike anything by Edmund Sears, which tells the story of a man, named Nomens, who reads Ramona The Brave as a child, falls in love with the character, and as he grows, so does she, in his mind and in his fantasies about her: 

Run Ramona, run from your
Childhood through menses through my
Age-appropriate dreams, you, now, my
Collegiate coquette. 

In his dotage he struggles with Alzheimers, confusing the character with her misspelled author, and relives the terror of his middle-aged years when he was diagnosed with a low sperm count, which rendered his ejaculate less cloudy: 

As clear as weak tea, unsweetened,
For 'tis sugars, yea, that giveth
The impregnating potable its ironic
Briny breath.

In order to hide this infertility he chooses to “finish” any sexual episode onto the heaving bosoms of his imaginary beloved, giving the impression that it is this modus interuptus that leaves them childless, and not the failings of his swimmers: 

I came upon my Beverly
Clearly, splashed my alibi for
Making no new Nomens on her
Moisty mamms.

Nomes tries to provide solace to his imaginary child-now-grown-wife-bride as she silently cries and wipes his inadequacies from her perkies: 

Come, Beverly, for I have,
Let me pat thy ample rump
As an inadequate means of
Soggy succor.

Saddened, Nomens seeks his own solace in a three-volume set: Normal Sized Nutz: One Man’s Journey Toward Humility, Normal Size Ass Nuts: The Return of Donkey Balls Edwards, and Ass Balls 3: This Time It’s Personal. The vast majority of the poem concerns Nomens’ meditations on this trilogy of tomes, specifically: did the author believe, before he found that his nuts were normal sized, that they were large, with gnashing teeth, or did he think they were diminutive and peering?

Shark or titmouse, again I say
How hath this Edwards seen
His erstwhile mansack, bedanglin,'
Vainly viewed.

In mirror, window front, or the crayoned
Imaginearings of his own scribblin'?
A self-portrait on the page in
Pauper's pink?

Toward the end of the poem, Nomens has a revelation while being interviewed for a taxidermy periodical called Boner Magazine, shouting:

Dead be the cloud that kept me clear!
For now I see without Alzheimer's haze 
Mine own unhaze was hazarded by but
Balding balls! 

Nomens rushes home, creates a makeshift-merkin out of donkey-hide, dons is, and ejaculates into his now menopausal imaginary mate. He then describes the result of the creampie, saying:

Judging from the drops like pearls
That drop from her now-laughing lips, 
White shine on wrinkled rose, a
Jocose juxtaposition, 

I have busted a legion of angels to fall
From labial heaven to hoary underworld,
The carpeting 'tween our bed and that
Bubbling bidet.

He dies, and is buried with the books, offering them to St. Peter as payment for admittance to heaven.

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Rico. Over Quya.

Helicopters aren’t what they used to be. Not a bad thing. Fuel injected, fewer parts, not reliable but more reliable. Rico has managed to secure one, or, more precisely, secure the services of a helicopter pilot who has one. A Spinoza Whirlyjet, fast, small on radar, and silent. Relatively speaking, as even the quietest ‘copter will still out-shout the loudest Ford Fiesta.

His manly man-breath, hot, spicy, redolent of tacos al pastor, cheap tequila, cheaper putanas. Caresses the microphone on his headset, bathes it in humidity, making it wet and shiny like a lover’s taut nipple. “There,” he says. 

Why am I shivering, the pilot, Forutna, thinks to herself. This is Solis, a tropical island nation. Mean temperature: 27 degrees. Celsius. I’m 27. I’ve been 27 for what feels like years now. And still not a woman. And yet this man. What did he say? She’s a little girl again, warm, safe in her papi’s arms, pretending to sleep as he carries her up to her room. His calloused, strong hands laying her gently in her bed, the kiss on her forehead, and the sweet, sweet succumbing to sleep. Papi always smelled of cerveza, sweat, she remembers, like every other man in the village. But something else, something more. Leather.

“A little lower, I think,” he says. A growl, but smooth, like a puma’s, seduces her. She’s shivering. She’s sweating. Her heart is pounding in rhythm to the Whirlyjet’s Turbo Mecca Ariel. She wants to abandon the controls, rip off her headset, leap over the seat, sink her teeth into this desperado’s neck, and as the chopper falls out of the sky, devour him whole, coming alive, finally, at 27, with the fiery crash setting the jungle ablaze and splashing the atmosphere with the stink of this man’s lambskin-soft leather jacket, her lust.

Rico belches. Lime, cilantro, onions. Opens the door, throws himself out without ceremony. Six hundred feet above the Bautista building. Trades the roar of the Whirlyjet for the roar of Galileo’s  nine point eight meters per second per second in his ears. Five hundred. Three hundred. One. Pops his ‘chute, conquers the din, floats. His contact waits below. Her name is Izzy. She’s a spy, gathering intelligence for the Army of Chaos, a rebel born. 

Later, Izzy and Fortuna will discuss Rico. Oh yes they will.

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Exercises in Style

Today my niece was watching me do a bit of writing, and asked why I had written a certain sentence. I explained to her that I was writing in a certain style, and we decided to write our own story to practice different styles.

First, I asked her to think up a place, a person, a problem, and a solution. She came up with:

  • The beach.
  • Izzy and her uncle.
  • Crabs were pinching us.
  • Use a rock to push the pinchers away.

This is the story we wrote:

One day, Izzy and her uncle were at the beach. They were having a wonderful time, but then crabs started to pinch them. Izzy said, “Let’s use a rock to push the pinchers away!” So her uncle found a rock, and tried Izzy’s solution. It worked! They went back to having a wonderful day.

Here’s the same story with shorter sentences:

It was day. Izzy and her uncle were playing ball. The ball was at the beach. It was fun. But then there were crabs. They pinched. Izzy said, “We need a rock!” Her uncle found one. The rock stopped the pinchers. Hurray. They played more ball.

Here’s the same story again, with me showing off and being extremely silly:

On a glorious summer’s day replete with heady sunshine and the kind of breeze that made you pine for chocolate ice-cream under a snow-white veranda, Izzy, aged 5 and her uncle, who was too old to count, were frolicking on a sandy beach that stretched from left to right for miles and miles. They were having so much fun, they didn’t even see the hoary legions of crabs that were marching forth-with from the frothy surf. So, it was much to their dismay when the fell crabs began their pinching. Such woe and suffering. But Izzy, aged 5, had a brilliant idea, the likes of which had not been seen on God’s green earth since the invention of bread cut into slices sufficient for making toast and/or sandwiches. “Find a rock, Uncle, and put to rest this foul and most horrendous succession of deeds accomplished in a pinching fashion.” And lo, her uncle searched the expansive sand-bars and found the perfect amalgamation of stony pebble construction. He pushed it, with puissance and determination, into the pinchers. The crabs were thus thwarted. And so, Izzy and her uncle were able to return to their most joyous adventures of fun-having.

My niece, by the way, is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.

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Things Sure Do Get Boring Without You Here

fiction by Jason Edwards

Remember that time we ate thirteen ninjas? We spent the summer building a time machine and then went back to medieval Japan and impersonated a particularly evil overlord. When the ninja showed up to assassinate us we let him, since that’s the only way to return to your own time, but not before getting into a wicked katana battle and covering ourselves with his DNA. Boy, you really know how to swing a sword, I’ll give you credit for that.

Then we used the blood to clone him and grew him in a vat and ground him up into hamburger and had a nice little barbecue. But you put way too much relish on yours, man, and that kinda made me mad. And I tried to tell you, but all you wanted to do was tell me some anecdote about the first time Amos Tvesky tried to order a hamburger with relish in Michigan. And I kept saying “who the hell is Amos Tvesky” and you kinda got mad at me for saying that over and over. You never did finish your story, and I’m sorry about that. I really am.

And then one day we’re walking down the street, I think it’s 5th or 15th or 125th or something. There was a five in it. Between Nickerson and Mount Baker. Or Bakker with two Ts? Anyway. Walking along and talking about baseball and, I don’t know, Helga Lovekaty or whatever, and all of a sudden you’re like: “He wasn’t a ninja.” Then we got coffee.

And we got into this deep existential conversation about how just because we had, like, a firefighter’s DNA, and we cloned him (you kept saying “or her” like we needed to be feminists, and it almost derailed the conversation, and it was only later that I figured out you were saying it because the barista could have been listening and she was cute in that not-gorgeous-but-attainable way, which is, when you think about it, a really sexist way to describe someone, dude) if that clone had never fought a fire, was it a fire fighter too? Our ninja clone never went around ninja-ing stuff. You can’t ninja in a vat.

I’m going to be honest with you, I forget who was saying “definitely ninja” and who was saying “definitely not ninja” by the end of it. We talked about destiny and potential and collapsing wave-forms and social constructs and crap. I pointed out that a table with only one leg wasn’t a table, except it was, and you pointed out how using a cardboard box to hold up a plate of spaghetti while you watch TV wasn’t a table either, except it was.

We got back to our time machine. Coffee jittery and sort of itchy. It was hot that day, our allergies were going nuts, the ninja-clone-growing vat had this weird smell coming off it, like formaldehyde dancing with pine-sol and a stack of old strawberry-scented scratch-and-sniff stickers. I got a sudden craving for root beer. And you said “Fudge it,” and shoved me into the time machine. You never could curse very well.

The first ninja we found got away because, while we were waiting for him, lurking in some bushes and giggling, I pulled out my cell phone. It’s like a habit. I don’t know what I was going to do, maybe play Angry Birds. But I had two bars! I was getting a cell-signal! In medieval Japan! So when the ninja comes waltzing along you sprang out and grabbed him but I screwed it up. I mean, sorry, not sorry, finding out there are cell towers in medieval Japan seemed like a more worthwhile thing to pursue than capturing, killing, field-dressing, butchering, barbecuing and eating a damned ninja.

Okay sure, we figured out that the signal was coming through our time machine from the future to my phone. But still. That in and of itself was pretty cool. Those service providers who talk about comprehensive nation-wide coverage? Being able to say that have not just any-where but any-time coverage? That would be one hell of a commercial!

Whatever. Next ninja, not as easy as the first. He got away too. Good for us, though, he came back, with friends. Man, you really know how to swing a sword. Did I say that already?

We got a taste for it, I’ll admit. Back home, you and me, another walk, 6th this time, or maybe 16th, or 166th, talking about how when you were a kid you thought “a quarter-after three” meant 3:25. And I kept asking “PM or AM?” Did you know, when you get frustrated, your face turns this weird purple color? LIke fuschia, but angrier.

I tried to change the subject. Which baseball teens would specific porn stars probably root for? Like, if they didn’t just root for the Angels since most of them live there? And I don’t know, the conversation just naturally kind-of moved into eating ninjas and how we sorta had a taste for it, and you said you wanted to go back and try one with relish.

Three months! Three months we spent tweaking that damn time machine, trying to figure out how to take a jar of relish back with us. The experiments! A plastic bottle of ketchup and a visit to colonial America. I never told you this, but that lieutenant? From the 6th dragoons? He didn’t give me indigestion. I was just mad because I thought this was such a stupid idea. But I bet you kind of already knew that. Or that packet of soy sauce we took back to the Battle of Hastings. You, running around, shouting “Why does everyone know the date for this battle? Why is it so important?” and then you got a bow and arrow off a guy and, who knows, maybe you’re the reason everyone knows that date now.

We were on our cots, remember? Looking up the ceiling, where we’d pasted those glow-in-the-dark stars to accurately depict what the night-sky would have looked like in medieval Japan on a clear autumn night. Man I was I tired. I don’t remember what you said. I thought you said we needed to go to a 7-11 on the other side of the country and get some lemonade. But that’s silly, of course that’s not what you said. And I was so tired, I should have pointed out how we live, like, really close to a 7-11. There’s on on 4th or 144th or something. I said, “Let’s just make our own.”

You jumped off the cot. Started screaming. Called me a genius. Scared the crap out of me. “We can make our own!” You shouted. Shoved me into the time machine. Medieval Japan. Again. “Now let’s go find some pickles!” you said.

Well, the didn’t have pickles back then did they. Did they? Fine, we hunted up cucumbers. None of those either? We went to China. China! Oh man, can I tell you something? Your face, when we finally got back to Japan with that sack of cucumber seeds and a jar of sea salt, and we found that old farmer, and he was eating pickles. Serendipity? You were so mad, you killed that farmer, made a quick relish out of what was left of his pickle, and screamed and screamed about how bad it was. So we told the local constable or whatever the called ’em, what we done, got executed, and when we got back home, we broke into Heinz.

It’s funny how things work out, I mean, all those ninjas we fought and killed and ate, and there we were, going full-ninja on that Heinz break-in. We were one with the shadows, weren’t we? I don’t think they had key-card locks and motion detectors in Medieval Japan, but we made it through just fine. Found that secret recipe, on that computer. I’m not going to say I told you so, but when we were kids? And you called me a nerd because I liked computer games more than baseball? Just sayin’.

And the whole time you were reading the recipe. Shaking your head. “I knew it. I fudging knew it.” You never were good at cursing.

One thing I always liked about you was how fearless you were, and how many ridiculous fears you had at the same time. You’d take a sword into a crowd of ninjas like it was nothing. But then you’d see a black cat and freak the fudge out. I’m bleeding from, like, fifteen different places, you’ve got ninja blood up to your knees, and you’re standing behind me, gripping my shoulders, yelling at me. “Make it go away! Make it fudging go away!”

That’s what got you killed, you know. Those stupid fears. That’s my theory, anyway. We killed and ate our twelfth ninja. With our homemade Heinz recipe relish. Fine, I’ll admit it, I can see sort of maybe why you liked it so much. And then one more ninja showed up, and I had my crossbow all ready, and you we’re like, “No way man. Thirteen is an unlucky number.” I guess we need to get back anyway. You had that paper to write and I was supposed to pull a double shift at work.

But, like, what if we had killed him too? And we’d eaten him? See, thing is, we’d already eaten thirteen if you counted the first vat-ninja. I guess that’s ironic. I guess you were right. Because we got back and everything was fine for a long time. We dismantled the time machine and sold the cloning vat on Craig’s List and you got married and I started seeing Jackie and life was just life, you know? We robbed a few banks, a few casinos, a train, even. No big.

I guess I’m telling you things you already know. How we were rappelling down the side of First National because there was a company on the 14th floor that had some files you wanted. We could have gone through the front door. We could have just asked for them. But you said stealing them would make them more valuable. And your stupid fear of the number thirteen, telling me how tall buildings never have a thirteenth floor.

But First National was built, like, three years ago. Superstitions like that are dead, man. Wrong floor, security guard, and you with no sword. I like to pretend, sometimes, that you traveled here, to this timeline, from the future, and we grew up together, and when you got killed you just went back where you came from.

Look, I have to go. I’m supposed to see my parole officer this afternoon and she gets all snotty if I’m late. Here’s another jar of relish. I’m sure the cemetery custodian keeps taking them, because they’re always gone when I come back. But I like to think that, somehow, you’re the one who takes them, wherever you are. Fudging relish.

You know what? I just thought of something. My parole officer? She’s Japanese, I think. And she’s always wearing black. Huh. We’ll see I guess. I’ll see you later. Things sure do get boring without you here.

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