To Be Or Not To Be?

Mom asked a good question in email. Do I intend to keep this blog going now that I have set up the Putting Pen To Paper writing group? My initial reaction was "I dunno, what do you think?" because I'm a wish washy spinelss kind of guy. But now that I've thought about it a little, I think that keeping this one going is unnecessary.

I'll keep this blog open for a while so I can refer to all of the comments and get these stories spiffied up, but all my new writing work be posted first over on PPTP from now on.

So, anyone who finds this blog please visit the new blog, Putting Pen To Paper, where I hope to gather a whole bunch of writers , including my mom and bro and sis, and create a friendly and supportive place where all member writers can post their works for comment and critique by their peers.

Writerrific #1: Assignment #6

In this assignment we were to comb the newspapers for stories that got our creative juices flowing and then write a piece based on the stories. Then we were to edit it down as tightly as possible and then post the first 300 words and a summary of the rest. My piece tops out at 1,070 words and I posted the whole thing because I don't like posting partial stories. I'm such problem child.

The Path
By W. David MacKenzie

I hesitated, my pen poised over the documents, and wondered if I was doing the right thing. It wasn’t the first time I’d had doubts but I’d pushed past all of the previous reservations; I’d rationalized my fears and uncertainties until I was left with only one course of action, one right path to take. But now, when the task was about to be completed, it all rushed back at me; a tempest in my mind battering against the well-reasoned walls of my decision like inexorable waves pounding on that breakwater so many years ago.

--===--

The vacation was nearly over, just two sites left to complete our “Grand Tour” of lighthouses on New York’s Lake Ontario shore: Oswego Light and then Selkirk Light. When my father and I reached the end of West First Street in Oswego late that afternoon, I discovered that this lighthouse was going to be something special. Every lighthouse we’d visited that summer had been built on shore and after one or two they’d become pretty boring for a ten year old boy, but Oswego was different. It sat right out in the harbor, a white building with a red roof topped by a short tower that housed the automated light. It was surrounded by heavy gray skies and rough gray waves and tethered to the shore by a narrow curving breakwater like a bright balloon on a string.

Dad excitedly snapped a few photos with his Leica then jogged to the foot of the breakwater. My shorter legs struggled to keep up but soon we were both leaning up against a barricade that blocked our way. A nailed up sign declared the lighthouse “Closed to Visitors”. That’s it, I thought glumly, end of the line. But then something miraculous happened; my father bent over, threaded his wiry body through the planks and squeezed out on the other side of the barricade.

“Come on, son. No one will see us.” He held out a hand and beckoned for me to join him. A stiff wind blew off the lake and I shivered, but a conspiratorial thrill ran through me as well. He was as excited as I was for a chance to see the lighthouse up close. I followed him through the barricade.

At the foot of the breakwater, though, my courage deserted me. The causeway ran atop the breakwater, a narrow rough-hewn sidewalk only three or four feet higher than the waves that beat upon the breakwater’s stony sides. The causeway extended out into the harbor for two thousand feet then hooked sharply to the right and connected with the masonry caisson that supported the keeper’s house and light. There was no railing and if I lost my balance there was nowhere to fall but the turbulent water.

“Keep your eyes on the end of the breakwater,” my father said. He stood behind me, his hands resting on my shoulders. I was sure he could feel the fear that kept my feet cemented to the edge of that ribbon of stone. He bent down and whispered in my ear, “I’m scared too but it’ll be alright.” Then he pushed my shoulders forward slightly and I took a stumbling step just to keep my balance.

“That’s good. Keep going, I’m right behind you.” His praise buoyed me and the second step, still slow in coming, wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. Soon we were pushing onward at a steady pace. We walked directly into the wind and it didn’t seem that bad, but by the time we reached the hook in the path we were leaning into a growing storm. Waves pounded on the stones beneath our feet and washed over the breakwater, soaking our shoes and pants. Wind driven mist bit at our exposed faces and washed away my tears.

“We’re almost there, son.” My father voice fought against the roaring wind. “We just need to reach the lighthouse and we’ll be safe.” I looked at the fifty feet of causeway we had to travel to reach the caisson and the ladder we had to climb to reach the safety of the deck where the lighthouse stood. It was too much.

I shook my head. “No, we have to go back.”

“We can’t go back. It’s too far.”

Again, Dad nudged me forward, and like before I took a halting step, but this time I was at right angles to the wind and it caught me off guard. I swayed, struggled to find my balance, and tipped toward the chaotic water. Dad’s hand gripped mine at the last moment and pulled me to him. We dropped to our knees on the stone causeway.

We held onto each other while the wind and waves tumbled against us, then, when the wind seemed to slacken a little, we crawled the last fifty feet on hands and knees to the caisson. I grasped the iron ladder and pulled myself up it toward the deck ten feet above. Dad was right on top of me, shielding me from the worst of the weather while we climbed. Just as we reached the top of the ladder we were assaulted by tremendous gusts of wind and several huge waves crashed upon the caisson. I clung to the ladder with all my might and when the tumult abated I scrambled up the final two rungs to the caisson’s deck and reached back to help Dad…but he was gone.

“DAD!” I screamed into the storm until another set of powerful waves rolled me back from the deck’s edge and threw me against the iron walls of the keeper’s house. The storm continued to assault my crumpled body until I worked myself around to the lee side of the building. There, in the relative calm, I cried.

--===--

The pen quivered in my hand and my vision blurred, but I wiped away the nascent tears and swallowed the remembered pain. I put pen to paper and signed my name to the documents. “This is for you, Dad,” I whispered.

The Coast Guard legal officer took the papers, signed his name below mine, then handed the documents to the notary to finish off. He stood up and smoothed out his uniform before extending his hand to me. “Congratulations, Mr. Lloyd. Pursuant to the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000, you are now the owner of the Oswego Harbor West Pierhead Lighthouse.”

Writerrific #1: Assignment 4

The assignment was to choose a color to write about. Use the thesaurus function on your software or a printed thesaurus at least ten times during this exercise. Work to focus your writing and write tight. Make the assignment no more than 250 words. The example given by the instructor was to assume the personality of the color...be the color.

Apple White (184 words)

When I first appeared on the scene people were shocked. I wasn’t the tan or beige or buff they expected me to be. I wasn’t the black or steel or charcoal they hoped I’d be. I was something new, something innovative, something iconic.

Today, I shine like glistening snow in a world of soot and sand. For people used to oatmeal and cream I am as fresh as pasteurized milk. Basic black and traditional tan pale before my opalescent alabaster finish. I am refined and polished and posh. I am hip and cool, and cutting edge. One thing I am not is a flash in the pan. My affable achromatic appearance is aped again and again by apathetic artists and architects. Every “me too” iteration of my gleaming pearlescence highlights my own originality.

White says you have arrived. White says you are stylish and successful. White says you are cut from a different cloth, you’re your own man, you’re dancing to a different drummer. Gone are the days of rainbow colored fruit and bland boxes. I am white—-Apple White!

A Hard Day's Work (1292 words)

Blast, it was hot in this cornfield. You’d think they could have found a better place for me to work, someplace cooler or someplace with a stronger breeze, at least. No, it had to be here and the job had to get done today. The boss had been firm about that.

“It’s vital that this field be completed before noon today,” he’d said in his squeaky little voice. “The entire project hinges on this one field and you’re our best man.” Then he’d stretched out a spindly arm to pat me on the shoulder. Oh come on! What middle management seminar did that come from? My forced smile was reflecting his own when he dropped the real bombshell. “And you’re going to have to get the job done on your own. Jed’s called in sick.”

Sick! Can you believe that? I tossed down the wide-bladed tool I’d been using since before sun-up and wiped the perspiration from my forehead. When was the last time I’d called in sick? Uh…NEVER! To tell the truth, I was glad that Jed wasn’t here. He’d have just screwed things up anyway. If I didn’t watch him constantly he’d work the wrong section of the field or just lay around watching the clouds drift by. I should have gotten his scrawny butt fired years ago.

I kicked at a bent-over stalk of corn. This really was a thankless job: traveling away from my family for weeks at a time, sleeping in a dorm with a lot of unwashed students just killing time before the start of the next semester, and a real jerk for a boss. I sank to the ground and tried lying back. I clasped my hands behind my head and looked up at the sky. The hazy clouds were starting to break up and patches of blue showed through. I tried to see what Jed saw. Did they form shapes, like he claimed? Was that one shaped like a bird or a house?

On the other side of the field a bell rang, loud and slow. I sat up fast and looked around guiltily. I checked the watch hanging from my belt. Oh Blast! It was noon and my ride hadn’t showed up. I got to my feet, folded up my tool, and snapped it to my belt. I surveyed the field around me. I wasn’t going to win any awards for this job, but for all intents and purposes it was done, and today that was good enough for me.

There was still no sign of my ride, so I jogged across the field toward the sound of the bell and peered out between the standing cornstalks to gawk at the townies as they exited the large white church in pairs and family groups. Most of the people milled around the front of the church, not too eager to leave. I wasn’t religious, myself, but I’d worked enough fields in enough rural towns to tell what was going on. They were socializing, taking advantage of the one day each week when they could abandon their lonely farms and see someone other than their own spouse or parents or children. While the adults gossiped the kids ran and played with each other, wrestling, chasing, or waging mock battles among the tombstones in the adjacent cemetery.

I studied the townies by the church with all of my attention. If I could walk away from my life right now, would I find peace of mind growing crops and tending livestock? Would these bucolic folk accept me into their community? Maybe I could find a way to…. The scream pierced my brain like a needle thrust straight through my head. My hands flew to my ears, my mouth gaped, and my face knotted up even more than usual as I jerked my head around to face the deafening screech. A young girl in a frilly yellow dress, who must have snuck up on me while I was daydreaming about blasted rural life, stood in the green grass at the edge of the cornfield, just beyond my reach. She held a rag doll in the crook of one arm. The other arm, and an accusatory finger, was pointed straight at me. Oh great, this was going to go over really well with the boss.

I held out my hands, trying to get the girl to be quiet, but she just turned it up a notch and I yanked my hands back to my ears to try and block out some of the pain in my head. Motion in the corner of my eye caused me to look back toward the church. The townies, in their fancy church clothes, were running toward the girl…and me…and they didn’t look happy. The boys who had been playing in the cemetery launched themselves in my direction too, and they were closer. Blast!

I spun around and ran as fast as I could back toward my work area. I tore through the cornstalks, leaving an easy trail for the townies to follow but I didn’t care—I was trying to save my own skin! Already I could hear a dozen townies as they tore their own scattered paths through the corn trying to find what had frightened the girl. Their voices called out violent threats as they sought me out. One loud voice called out above the others and I heard the beaters change course as everyone honed in on my direction of travel. One of them must have seen the cornstalks moving as I rushed to the heart of the field. Blast them for being so tall! I tried to run faster.

Finally, I made it to the clearing in the center of the cornfield and spun around, looking for my ride. Nothing! I looked up, hoping against hope for some assistance, but the widening blue sky held only wispy clouds, daring me to find shapes and meaning in their high altitude water vapor. I was doomed.

When the stampeding townies burst through the wall of cornstalks they stumbled to a halt. Half of them didn’t understand how there could be a clearing in the middle of the cornfield. The other half just gaped at me. They hadn’t really seen me before, I guess, just acted on instincts triggered by the girl’s screaming. Now they didn’t know what to make of the gray little man with the big black eyes standing before them. When I heard the low whine above the breeze-rustled corn I breathed a sigh of relief that they weren’t going to get a chance to know me any better.

The bright light of the translev beam surrounded me like a spotlight and I started to float upwards. The townies spread out in the clearing as I rose higher. They pointed at me, then, as their gazed followed up the beam, they saw the ship for the first time. Some fell back on the bent cornstalks; others shielded their eyes to get a better view of the flying saucer hovering above them. I didn’t pay them too much attention, though; I was admiring the design I’d made in the cornfield.

A large round clearing lay at the center of the field, every stalk of corn bent, not broken, to lie flat on the ground. Three radiating lines thrust outward and each of those had a smaller circular clearing at the terminus. One of those smaller clearings was surrounded by a wider circle and beyond that a half circle. Off a little distance in one direction a triangular clearing pointed due north toward the next set of crop circles in the neighboring county. Yup, it had been a hard day’s work, but I’d done alright considering Jed had called in sick.
----
copyright 2006 W. David MacKenzie
photo copyright 2006 by Bob frank

Writeriffic: Lesson 2.1

Since there was no lesson 1 assignment I skipped ahead to work on lesson 2's assignment. This assignment provided us with five opening lines. We were to pick one and write a 300 word story with a twist ending. The assignment said we should limit our writing time to 5 minutes. HUH? This story took me two hours! What am I doing wrong?

My opening line was: Mary was “fed up” with Bob and...


Invention
By W. David MacKenzie
297 Words

Mary was “fed up” with Bob and his inventions. Every week it was something new and every one was a flop or an outright hazard. An electricity-saving windup carving knife replaced their plug-in model until it nearly lopped off Mary’s fingers when her bracelet jammed in the clockwork gears. A turbo-powered vacuum cleaner with a head as wide as the hallway would have shaved minutes off the time she spent on housework but sucked up and shredded a beautiful oriental rug instead. Motion-sensing motors were supposed to open the window shades, automatically brightening the living room whenever Mary entered, but when she raced from the shower to catch the ringing phone this morning she gave the paperboy an early education in human anatomy. That had been the last straw. That was when she had called the divorce lawyer.

Now, back from her initial consultation, Mary dreaded opening the front door, feared the piles of well intentioned but hopelessly flawed gadgets and doodads that littered the house like the mechanical droppings of a robotic elephant. Steeling herself against the chaos within, Mary plodded into the house, paused a moment in the foyer, then stepped outside again to double check the house numbers nailed to the doorjamb. Mystified, Mary crossed the threshold again and looked around in wonder. The obstacle course that had been their living room was once again a comfortably furnished parlor. Every busted widget and pointless gizmo had vanished.

“Bob?”

The kitchen door swung open and her husband hurried to her side. He pecked a kiss onto Mary’s cheek. The savory aroma of grilling steaks surrounded him and made Mary’s stomach growl in anticipation.

“What happened?” Mary asked, waving her hands around the spotless house.

Bob smiled. “I decided to invent a better me.”

A New Ed2Go Class Begins...The BNU Class Disappoints

Today is the first day of the new Ed2Go class -- Writeriffic. The first lesson was kind of a "what to expect" and "how to work" lecture and there was no specific writing assignment other than to introduce yourself and let everyone know what you expect to get out of the class. I'm looking forward to the class and seeing what I'm able to learn from it.

The Barnes & Nobel class has become something of a let down. Because there are so many people in the class, the instructor has a policy of not offering individualized comments on our stories and writing assignments. For me, this really makes the class a waste of time. How can I improve if the instructor is not going to tell me, personally, what I am doing right or wrong? I don’t have much interest in that class any more even though I think it helped me get two sections of a good story down on paper. Perhaps the new Ed2Go class will help me develop that story more.

BNU: Developing Extrapolations

Here's another mini-chapter for my Sharp Minds story. The assignment was to pick one of the extrapolations of our S.F. idea and write a passage that dealt with it but did not mention it outright. One of my extrapolations was that doctors and nurses would benefit from Modafimax because they traditionally work LONG shifts and suffered from fatigue which sometimes led to bad medical decisions. Now that Modafimax has been banned by the FDA the doctors and nurses on the front line are among the first to feel the hit.

This Chapter: 992 Words

Sharp Minds
by W. David MacKenzie

I flinched as the green-smocked emergency room nurse eased the bloody bandage off my nose. “I was just trying to get into the drug store to see my pharmacist,” I said. The deviated septum impaired my breathing and made me sound like a lisping Mafia Don. A trickle of wetness oozed over my upper lip and I tasted the metallic bite of my own blood as it seeped into my mouth. “I walked right into a full-scale riot.”

“Uh huh.” said the nurse absentmindedly as she blotted my nosebleed with a gauss pad. She retrieved a tele-probe from the cabinet and used one hand to tilt my head back while she guided the flexible probe painfully into my nasal passage. A holographic monitor built into the exam bed revealed the lurid mess on the inside of my broken nose.

“We're hearing about a lot of pharmacy riots, Mr. Preston,” she said, prodding deeper and twisting the probe to get a better view. I winced again and she eased off a little. Her eyes were fixed on the display but I could read the fatigue on her face. She was tired like she'd never been before. I looked around the large ER at the other nurses and doctors and saw the same weary gaze. Every one of them showed signs of a disease that had been all but abolished until yesterday—exhaustion.

A sudden crash off to the left caused the nurse to jerk the probe out of my nose and I cried out in surprise and pain. “We've got one! We've got one!” someone yelled and my nurse rushed off, leaving me to grope around for my old bandage. I found it and held it to my throbbing nose then looked in the direction of the noise.

A couple of paramedics had slammed their way through the ER doors pushing a gurney laden with tool boxes and beeping instruments. In the center of the cluttered bed lay a middle aged woman, her expensive business suit shredded to make way for the rescue team's probes and monitor leads. Like locust to wheat, every doctor and nurse swarmed to the gurney as it trundled through the ER.

“Are you sure she's...”

“She has all the early signs...”

“Has she started to...”

“Not fully, but I saw...”

“Get her into trauma two...”

“Someone call the CDC and...”

The gurney and the crowd of doctors and nurses and paramedics moved amoeba-like across the ER and into a large alcove filled with medical equipment. An nurse pulled a privacy curtain across the alcove and the main ER was suddenly empty and quiet except for myself and half-a-dozen other slack-jawed patients.

We've got one? Got one what? Got.... Oh my God. The news report said that fifty-nine people had died horribly. Could this be the sixtieth? I got off the exam bed and, still holding the bandage to my face, walked slowly toward the curtained trauma area. If I was going to die I wanted to know what to expect. The other patients in the ER watched me but no one moved.

As I neared the curtain I saw shadows move across its translucent surface but all I heard was a low murmur. The curtain's noise cancellation was working hard to send out the anti-noise necessary to mute all of the voices and shouted instructions as nurses and doctors worked to...what? Save her life? Ease her pain? Vivisect her in search of clues? Beeping monitors and the clang of metal, always difficult waveforms to cancel, punctuated the dull roar.

The shadows on the curtain sharpened slightly and everyone started moving faster. The murmur rose in pitch and volume and distinct words escaped the overloaded noise cancellation.

“Final stage...”

“Fever spiking...”

“Neural collapse...”

“V-tach...”

“Defibrillator...”

The lights in the trauma area surged, throwing stark silhouettes on the curtain as the beeping monitors sounded an unblockable orchestra of alarm.

“My God, shes...”

“I'm not touching her!”

“I can't believe...”

The murmur died away and the silhouettes were motionless. The monitors stopped beeping and squawked shrill continuous tones instead. The bright lights flicked off and one of the paramedics fell backward through the curtain, picked himself up, and ran from the ER; his hand covered his mouth to hold back the obvious nausea.

The curtain was separated a few inches thanks to the paramedics hasty departure and I could see a sliver of the tableau beyond. Doctors and nurses stood scattered around the room. Some faced away from the patient. Some held their hands to their faces and wept unseeing. But most looked, wide-eyed, toward the woman on the gurney and the tangle of wires and tubes and devices surrounding her. Something unexpected had happened and each person was trying to cope with it as best they could.

I edged closer to the open curtain, trying to get a better view of the woman herself. She lay naked on the gurney, her body pierced by sensor wires and IV tubes. She wasn't breathing. I'd never seen death before but it was unmistakable. The news feed said they had all died painful deaths, but the woman's face was a relaxed and resplendent mask. She was at peace and she smiled.

The wall phone in the trauma room beeped...beeped again...and again. A nurse wiped away his tears and answered the insistent device. He listened then held the phone out to an elderly doctor in a blue lab coat. “It's the CDC.” He took the phone mechanically.

The nurse, still the only one moving about in the trauma room, noticed my face in the parted curtain and I took a step backward. He grasped the curtain and I looked into his still watery eyes. His wasn't the empty tired gazed I'd seen in my nurse earlier, but something deeper, something... resolute. I wanted to find out what he'd seen, but he pulled the curtain closed and disappeared behind wall of cloth and electronic silencers.

BNU: Idea In Use

Here are the instructions for lesson two part two...

Ideas can come fast and thick, but an idea alone does not create a science fiction story.
1. Return to the story idea you worked with in Lesson 1.
2. Write a one page passage from your story that embodies the science fiction idea on which your story is based.

Ok, here's a one page (well if you print it in small type it's one page) passage from the story evolving out of my "smart drug" idea. Let me know what you think...

This Chapter: 605 Words

Sharp Minds
By W. David MacKenzie

Even after nearly thrity-five hours at my workstation, words still flowed from my fingertips like fine brandy as I crafted the merger proposal between my client, IndusGlobal, and Petrolox, Asia’s third largest petroleum cartel. A corner of my mind stood aloof from the creative processes melding words and diagrams on the holographic display. It analyzed the proposal for financial impact, cultural sensitivity, and likely reception based on the psych profiles of Petrolox’s Board of Directors. The result? A win-win scenario that would create a world energy leader and net me a tidy four million in commissions.

The rosy sunset had deepened to velvet purple behind Mauna Loa when my comstar vibrated and a soft simulated voice sounded in my head. “Excuse me, Mr. Preston. You have a call from Mr. Wu.”

I touched the small bump behind my right ear to take the call. “Bryan, what’s up?” I said. Bone conductivity carried my words to the comstar implant and the nerve-link fed my partner’s frantic voice from the tiny satellite phone directly into my inner ear.

“Jimmy, have you seen the feed?”

“No, my agent’s on mute while I wrap up the IndusGlobal documents.” I looked into the computer display and sure enough, my personal agent icon was bouncing up and down, trying to get my attention.

“For God’s sake, Jimmy, turn it on! We’re ruined!” Bryan’s voice trailed off and I reached into the holographic image to tap the frenetic agent icon. The icon swelled into the handsome male face of my personal digital agent and moved to the front of the display.

“Good evening, Mr. Preston.”

“Good evening, Gerrard.” I said to the face. In my head Bryan let out an exasperated sigh. He never understood why I was polite to a computer program. “Do you have anything for me, Gerrard?”

“Yes, sir. If you have not already taken your evening dose of Modafimax then please do.”

“Ah, thanks, Gerrard.” I pulled the pillbox from my shirt pocket and took out one of the four magenta pills. I mused over the brightly colored tablet. Such a wonderful little miracle. One pill a day focused my mind, sharpened my intellect, and removed any need for sleep. This little pill was the boon of the business world. There was no limit to what one could achieve with twenty-four fully productive hours in every day. I smiled at the proposal that floated just behind Gerrard’s head. When this deal was delivered to IndusGlobal, I would be one very wealthy man and I owed it all to the little magenta pill between my fingers.

“Anything else, Gerrard?”

“Yes sir. There is a breaking news bulletin flagged urgent by the feed service”

“Show it to me, please.”

“Finally,” said Bryan’s voice in my head.

A full width vid window opened in the holographic display and a stern faced newswoman began speaking. “The Food and Drug Administration announced just moments ago that it was issuing a world-wide recall and ban on the performance-enhancing drug, Modafimax, due to a series of previously unknown side effects of long term usage. Fifty-nine deaths have been linked to the drug in the last two hours and sources close to the FDA director say those deaths were agonizing and violent. Modafimax manufacturer, Pharmastat, could not be reached for comment but the New York Stock Exchange has delisted the company and stopped all trading in the company’s shares to avoid panic selling….”

The reporter’s voice faded away as I contemplated the last few pills in my possession. My Modafimax-enhanced mind raced through the probabilities, considered the options, and reached the inevitable conclusion. “Bryan, we’re screwed.”

BNU: Research

Here are the instructions for lesson two part one...

In Lesson 2 we learned that ideas for science fiction stories can be found just about anywhere: in today’s news, in old magazines, online, or in the incidents in your own life.
1. Review a current newspaper, magazine or website for a data bit that has science fiction potential.
2. Describe the data bit, in a sentence or two, and the source.
3. In one or two paragraphs, describe the science fiction potential you see in this idea.

The Modafinil idea was inspired by a piece I'd heard on NPR a couple of days before so I'd unwittingly already DONE this assignment. Doh! So, just so I didn't rehash the same thing over again, I came up with another research idea. I call it "The Supernova Next Door".

Source 1: Space.com through CNN.com, “Ancient Rock Art May Depict Exploding Star”, June 6, 2006
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/06/05/rock.art/index.html

Source 2: National Optical Astronomy Observatory News, Press Release March 5, 2003
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/press/pr03/pr0304.html

Space.com reported that thousand-year-old rock carvings in Arizona may represent the supernova of 1006 AD. This supernova, thought to be the brightest such event ever seen by humans, was well documented by Asian, Middle Eastern, and European observers of the time.

Further research turned up a fact-filled 2003 press release from NOAO News stating that astronomers had calculated the 1006 AD supernova originated 7,100 light years from Earth and appeared to observers on Earth as about one-quarter the brightness of a full moon. Interestingly, all class Ia supernovas like the one in 1006 AD have the same luminosity characteristics and if seen up close at the time of explosion it would have been as bright as five billion suns for a few weeks and then fade over several months. The shock wave of the explosion sent stellar matter spreading out from the supernova at a speed of 6 million miles per hour or 1 percent of the speed of light.

My Science Fiction Premise: What if our closest neighbor star, Alpha Centauri, went supernova in a similar fashion? What would happen to humanity, Earth, and our solar system? Since AC is about four light years from Earth it would take that long for us to “see” the explosion. What would five billion sun look like from only four light years away? Would the light alone devastate our planet…our solar system? Would there be heat as well as light? Would all of the planets in our solar system be crisped before we could say “Robinson Crusoe on Mars”? Assuming we survived the initial light show, what about that shock wave of stellar matter? Traveling at 1% of the speed of light, it would take about 400 years for the cosmic tsunami to hit our solar system. What physical force would be associated with such a shock wave? Would mankind try to dig in and ride it out or leave Earth in search of greener pastures? Would we have the foresight to act immediately or leave it for our great great great great great grandkids to worry about?

Another question…did the AC supernova in my premise happen without advance stellar warning? Ailing stars usually let their intentions to explode be known well ahead of time, but maybe this one didn’t. What, or who, caused the supernova…and why?

BNU: Developing Story Ideas

This was the assignment...

As we have seen, there are a number of ways in which science fiction differs from "mainstream" fiction. Most significantly, a science fiction story depends on its science content, an idea without which the story doesn’t work. In completing this exercise, you’ll take your first step toward writing your own science fiction story.

1. Make a list of all the ideas you have for your own science fiction story.
2. Review each idea for science content.
3. Select one of these ideas, and explain it in a paragraph or less.

=======

This what I came up with but upon further reflection I wonder if my "science content" is eaily replaceable. Much like Star Wars is just a wester or soap opera in space, I wonder if this isn't just some noir movie with extra arms and cat-like vision. Anyway, here it is...

Point #1...The World: A future earth where advanced genetic engineering can add dramatic custom augmentation to the human body...multiple limbs, heightened senses, animal attributes, etc.... Science Content: Soft science only in the beginning. We see the world as it is with augmented humans in every walk of life. Not omnipresent, but not rare either. They're gawked at or jeered by some and accepted by others, but most people feel at least a little uncomfortable around them.

Point #2...The Protagonist: A down-on-his-luck gambler trying to make one big score to set his life back on track. He's just an average Joe and what is colloquially known as a Virgin, i.e. he's never had an augment and is not likely to ever have one because he doesn't have the status to be given one, the money to buy one, or the guts to risk finding one on the black market. Science Content: None really.

Point #3...The Setup: The gambler loses big and can't cover his losses. The casino boss decides to make him an offer—take a mod, do a special job for the boss, then get restored to normal or play the punching bag for the boss's multi-armed body guards. He takes the mod. Science Content: Here's where we see the augment process and watch it happen instead of being told about it in tiresome exposition. How did the process evolve? How does it work? How can it go wrong? How can it be fixed?

Point #4...The Job: The gambler uses his new augments (ya, the boss did a double or triple mod on the gambler...very risky and very painful, but the boss is calling the shots) to break into a competitor's casino and steal some incriminating documents. Science Content: We see the augments in action, see how they help or hinder him as he adapts or fails to adapt to his new body.

Point #5...The Double Cross: The gambler finishes the job, gets the papers, escapes under impossible odds, and returns to the boss. The gambler overhears a flunky tell the doctor to make sure the mod reversal is bungled to kill the gambler. In self preservation mode and with his confidence buoyed by his experiences in the other casino, the gambler battles his way through the doctor and the flunky and escapes into the night to make the best of his life with his new mods. Science Content: We'd learn something of the gene-wash process but it's more of an action escape sequence and his reflection on the gambler's future options.

Barnes & Noble University

As the Ed2Go.com writing class ended one of the students posted about a FREE series of writing classes at Barnes & Noble University. I zipped right over there and found out they had quite a selection of classes. I signed up for "Writing Science Fiction with Gotham Writer's Workshop" and the class started this past Monday.

They also offer "Writing Poetry with Writer's Digest Books" and "Writing Fiction with Gotham Writer's Workshop". The course list I looked at a week ago also offered a Mystery Writing Class but I don;t see that on the list now so I'm not sure what happened to it...it's a mystery. :-) All the classes are FREE but you do need to buy a couple of course books.

The course is four weeks long, has eight lessons, and is self directed so you can work on any of the eight lessons at any time during the class. There probably a hundred people in the class judging from the "Introductions" section and even though I posted two writing asignments already, I have yet to get any feedback from the class or from the instructor. I guess it's still early in the course so we'll see if that improves. Reading the message boards in class, however, is very informative and the lessons and reading assignments are instructive as well. I'll post my assignment here as before.

One thing I noticed from reading the message boards in class is that many people seem to be taking the class for the second, third, or even fourth time. Hey, since the only cost is the two course books, why not take the free class over and over again if ithelps refine your writing?

I'm taking another creative writing class at Ed2Go starting on June 21st so I'll have a week of overlap in the classes...that ought to keep me busy, huh? :-)

2006 CNW/FFWA Florida State Writing Competition

Earlier this year I entered the above named writing contest with several of my blogged stories. Today I found out that I received 2nd Honorable Mention for "The Map". Pretty coll. No money, but still nice. I entered in 2004 and received 7th Honorable Mention for "Cool City Limit", so I guess I'm getting better. :-) It's odd, really, since I felt that both stories were somewhat lacking...but I guess I was wrong. With two semi-wins under my belt I think it's time to start submitting to more competitions.

2006 CNW/FFWA Florida State Writing Competition
WINNERS - SHORT STORY - UNPUBLISHED
1st PLACE - Barbara Bitela, Roseville, CA - "War Dogs"
2nd PLACE - Jason Belbey, Vancouver, WA - "Three Seconds Daily"
3rd PLACE - Arlene J. Schreiber, Boca Raton, FL and Floral Park, NY - "A Home for Kayla"
1st HM - Gary R. Hoffman, Pensacola, FL - "The Purse"
2nd HM - W. David MacKenzie, Seattle, WA - "The Map"

For a full list of winners visit these links... 2006 ... 2004

Epilogue (634 words)

Here's the first fruit of your Galumphing Chart. The words selected at random were: Hummingbird, Sales Clerk, and Church. I turned it into an epilogue to the bomber story.


Epilogue
by W David MacKenzie

My wheelchair bumped and bounced across the cobblestones as Joshua pushed me through the crowded colonnade. The open-air temple teamed with worshipers intent on begging the attention of the Buddhist saints and sages tucked away in every alcove and altar of the ancient complex. Every supplicant carried a bundle of foot-long incense sticks to build bridges of smoke and spicy odors between heaven and earth, to carry their prayers and dreams to their chosen patrons. Aged grandmothers sought relief from arthritic pain or pleaded for an ailing grandchild. Harried businessman petitioned for favorable negotiations or safe travel. Newlywed couples asked for healthy sons and daughters to enrich their lives.

I wasn’t here today seeking blessings or boons; I’d come to offer thanks for a blessing already given, for a life spared against impossible odds, my life. A large basket of flowers sat in my lap; red-petalled daisies with butter-yellow centers, enormous pink and white lily blossoms with long green stamens tipped with yellow pollen, towering spikes of salmon shaded gladiolas, and fuchsia orchids shaped like the outstretched wings of dainty butterflies. I struggled to hold the mass of flowers as I bounced along.

Joshua slowed as we neared the shrine of the Sage of Healing and Medicine and he maneuvered the chair so that I was close to the offering table but not so close that I could just reach out and place the basket of flower on the shiny metal surface. He locked the chair’s brakes and then stepped back and waited. For everything the sage had done for me, for sending the stranger to warn us of the bomb in my ice cream parlor, for sparing me from the worst of the bomb’s blast, for speeding my recovery in the hospital, I had prepared two gifts of thanks. The flowers were just the traditional gift.

I tucked the flowers tightly in the crook of one arm and used the other to grip the chair as I slowly lifted my body from the seat. My legs and back flamed with pain but I fought it back. Muscles that had been battered and torn in the explosion and had not carried my weight for a month screamed now at the abuse I forced upon them. I willed each wounded tendon and ligament to move in concert with my battered muscles until I stood, trembling, before the Sage and his offering table. Relaxing my clenched jaw, I began to recite the Sage’s mantra. I shuffled my left foot forward, then my right, and then my left again. I offered up my strength of will to the Sage and, when I reached the table, I added the basket of flowers to my offering.

I stood there beside the table, eyes closed to help control the pain and reciting the Sage’s mantra over and over in low tones. The scent of the flowers filled my nostrils with delicate perfumes and a soft buzzing swelled and faded in my ears. Curious as to the cause of this sound I opened my eyes. The gladiolas stood only inches from my face, green stems studded with peach velvet blooms, and dancing among the flowers was an iridescent green and blue hummingbird. It hovered over a stalk of blossoms and probed each one in turn with swift plunges into the flower’s trumpet, a backwards drift, then more delicate probing.

When it had worked its way to the top most gladiola, the Sage’s messenger floated before my eyes, a living gem of feathers and ceaseless energy. It had tasted my offering, and acknowledged my gifts. My hands flew to my astonished face and tears of joy trickled down my cheeks. The messenger hovered a moment longer then flitted up into the wide blue sky and vanished, carrying my gratitude to the Sage.

Reckoning (768 words)

Reckoning
by W. David MacKenzie

At the touch of a button, the scene through the binoculars snapped into focus and glowing numbers displayed the distance and declination of the target and the degrees off north. Those precision readings didn’t concern me, however. I was far enough away to avoid injury, high enough to avoid detection, and had a perfect line of sight to enjoy the mayhem to come.

Through the lenses, a preschooler pressed his face against the glass partition as the ice cream artist behind the counter swirled the hand-blended mixture around on the chilled slab. With a wrist-twisting flourish that was almost too fast to see, she scooped the entire concoction onto her mixing blade and slid it into a chocolate-rimmed waffle cone. A dark suited man entered the shop as she handed the treat across the counter to the boy's.

Without removing my eyes from the binoculars, I reached one hand into my jacket and retrieved a cell phone. It was one of several that I had for this mission. I thumbed the 2 key then hovered over the SEND button. In the magnified display, I watched the suited man gaze at the mother and child for a moment then step forward to place his order. I pressed SEND and held the phone to my ear as the ring tone began.

The man fumbled briefly in his suit pocket before producing his own cell phone. He studied it briefly then stepped away from the counter toward the store’s front window as he brought the phone to his ear.

A click, then Rafe’s voice transported me back to that summer six years ago. We were all stumbling around like a bunch of drunks, hiding our nervousness behind laughter and lunacy before putting our lives on the path to true adulthood—before things spiraled out of control. A chasm of silence grew while my mind wandered then Rafe’s voice came again and returned me to the present.

“I said, this is Agent Duardo. Who are you?” I watched as Rafe raked his fingers through his thick black hair, a habit he’d displayed in times of stress for as long as I’d known him.

“To maintain set routines and predictable schedules,” I said into the cell phone, “is to become vulnerable.” The words were verbatim from the training manuals. “It’s one of the first rules we were taught in surveillance class at Quantico, Rafe. Routines put and agent, and those around an agent, in danger.”

Rafe’s eyes met mine across two city blocks and through the lenses of the digitally amplified binoculars.

“What do you want, Reiner?”

“So, we’re not on a first name basis, any more, then?”

Rafe threw back his own silence, this time.

“No, I guess it wouldn’t do to be close to one as dishonored as I.” Rafe was making this easier on me than I’d expected.

“Reiner…”

“I’m here to admonish you for visiting that ice cream shop every Thursday for the last month. Instructor Burke would be quite disappointed in his star pupil.”

“What?” Rafe’s features twisted in confusion. “Burke didn’t teach surveillance, he…”

I thumbed the END button. No, Burke taught explosives.

In the binocular’s display, Rafe threw down his phone and held out his arms to the twenty or thirty people in the ice cream parlor, his Bureau credentials in his right hand. In the blink of an eye the diners went from calm human beings to stampeding cattle rushing for the single exit. The doors flew open and screaming mothers, teens, and grandparents burst out into the sunny afternoon.

As Rafe pushed the counter girl across the shop toward the door, I set a wide-angle view on the binoculars. I touched the 3 key on my cell phone and pressed SEND.

The ice cream shop erupted in a searing wave of orange and yellow light that rocketed Rafe through the plate glass window. It left him smoldering and broken in the middle of the street while black smoke roiled from the destroyed shop and debris fluttered down like a ticker tape parade.

I let the binoculars hang from their strap around my neck and dropped the cell phone to the gravel roof on which I was standing. They’d eventually find the phone and trace it to a dead end. I took a planner from my pocket and thumbed it open to a photo of five youthful agents posed comically in front of the FBI Academy. I withdrew the pen from the planner’s spiral backbone and drew an X over Rafe’s young and smiling face then returned the planner to my pocket and walked away.

Reckoning (1099 words)

Reckoning
by W. David MacKenzie

At the touch of a button, the scene through the binoculars snapped into focus and glowing numbers displayed the distance and declination of the target and the degrees off north, but those precision readings didn’t concern the watcher. He was far enough away to avoid injury, high enough to avoid detection, and had a perfect line of sight to enjoy the mayhem to come.

* * *

The bell on the door bounced and dinged several times as he entered the ice cream parlor. His craving for butter pecan ice cream possessed him 24/7 but since he'd received his initial posting to Seattle he'd successfully limited his sweet tooth to a once-a-week indulgence. The shop was filled with people enjoying their own ice cream delights, but he was happy to see that there was only one other person ahead of him in line.

The preschooler pressed his face against the glass partition as the girl behind the counter used her mixing blade to fold caramel chips into the hand-blended ice cream on the chilled slab. With a wrist-twisting flourish that was almost too fast to see, she scooped the entire concoction onto her mixing blade and slid it into a chocolate-rimmed waffle cone. The youth giggled and clapped then reached as high as he could when the clerk handed the treat across the counter.

“Oh no you don't,” said the boy's mother as she rushed over. She intercepted the cone and held it out of his reach with one hand; in her other hand she gripped a wad of paper napkins. She used the tantalizing cone as bait to coax her son to the last free table in the shop and sat him down. Displaying the dexterity God only grants to trapeze artists and mothers of small children, she kept the cone out of the boy's grasp while she tucked several napkins under his shirt collar and draped more over his lap. Satisfied that she'd done as much as possible to minimize the impending dairy disaster, she handed the cone over to her son.

Was he ever that young, he wondered? Nope, not possible. His society mother would never have allowed that kind of unrestrained frivolity.

The clerk smiled brightly at him as he walked up to the counter. She was cute enough in her pink and white uniform but she was a little too perky for his tastes. He liked women a little more calm and restrained, a little more like—whoa, whoa, wait. He didn't just—no, that's sick. He scrunched up his face and shook off the thought. The girl looked confused at his expression and he thought she was about to ask if he was okay, when the phone in his jacket pocket chirped.

Reflexively, he extracted the phone and stepped out of line, moving toward a secluded spot near the front of the shop to take the call. The blue characters on the caller ID showed a familiar area code, 703, Northern Virginia, but the rest of the number didn't trigger any memories and there was no name shown so it wasn't someone on his extensive contacts list. The phone chirped again and he answered it.

“Agent Duardo speaking. Who's calling?”

No reply. Had the call been dropped? He pulled the phone from his ear and checked the display. No, he was still connected. Duardo returned the phone to his ear and listened carefully. The line was definitely open and he thought he detected the sound of wind blowing…and…a pigeon’s cooing? What was this, some kind of crazy wrong number from a pet store on the other side of the country?

“I repeat, who is this?”

“One of the first rules of surveillance we were taught at Quantico, Agent Duardo,” a male voice said in his ear, “was to avoid habits of time or place or route.”

Quantico? That explained the area code. Was this something to do with his training at the FBI academy? Was it an internal affairs snap inspection?

“To maintain set routines, predictable schedules, is to become vulnerable. It is to put oneself at risk.” The voice paused then continued with a weightier inflection. “Rafe, it puts those around the agent in danger.”

The caller knew his nickname. He was someone close to Duardo but who? Duardo’s heart sank in his chest as he absorbed the full scope of the caller’s words. Duardo spun around to take in the shop and the twenty or thirty people seated around him. Teens, grandparents, mothers, babies, all in danger because a psycho was stalking him. He raked his fingers through his hair and forced his breathing to slow down.

“Who are you and what do you want?” he said.

“It is necessary to discipline you for visiting this ice cream shop every Thursday for the last month. Instructor Burke would be quite disappointed in your performance.” The call ended.

Burke? Burke wasn’t the surveillance instructor, he was… Oh, God. Burke lectured on terrorist explosives.

“May I have your attention, please.” Agent Duardo’s voice came out deeper than he’d expected but it carried easily in the enclosed shop and made him sound more confident than he was. Seattle was his first posting outside of Washington DC and it was looking like it might be his last. The chatter of the crowd died down quickly. “I am Agent Rafael Duardo with the FBI.” He flipped open his ID badge and held it out. The customers looked at one another and concern showed on their faces. “I have reason to believe that there is a bomb in this establishment. Please exit quickly and…” Screams and wails and crashing furniture swallowed the rest of his words, as thirty diners became a human stampede seeking the single door to safety.

The counter girl was the last one out the door. Duardo was close behind her when the air around him boiled away and a searing wave of orange and yellow light rocketed him through the plate glass window. It left him smoldering and broken in the middle of the street while smoke roiled from the destroyed shop and debris fluttered down to cover an entire city block.

* * *

The watcher lowered the binoculars and smiled. He slid his cell phone into a coat pocket then retrieved a planner from an inside pocket and opened it. A photo of five youthful agents posed comically in front of the FBI Academy was clipped to one page. He drew an X over the face of a swarthy skinned young man then returned the planner to his pocket and walked away.

My Creative Piece

The end goal of the writing class it to produce a 500 word creative piece that shows we've learned the lessons on form, style, and technique. This is my creative piece. It'll need some editing, I'm sure, but I wanted to run it by my familial critics first. Yes, it's my usual blend of death and destruction. :-) Let me know what you think and what needs to be changed.

==========

Reckoning

At the touch of a button, the scene through the binoculars snapped into focus and glowing numbers displayed the distance to the target and the degrees off north, but those precision readings didn’t concern him. He was far enough away to avoid injury and close enough to enjoy the mayhem to come.

A preschooler pressed his face against the glass partition as the ice cream artist behind the counter swirled the hand-blended ice cream mixture around on the chilled slab. With a wrist-twisting flourish that was almost too fast to see, she scooped the entire concoction onto her mixing blade and slid it into a chocolate-rimmed waffle cone. She handed the treat across the counter to the boy's mother and the woman led the boy out of the shop and out of his field of vision.

The watcher reached one hand into his jacket and retrieved a cell phone. He thumbed the 2 key then hovered this thumb over the SEND button. Through the binoculars, a dark suited man stepped up to the counter and started to place his order. The watcher pressed SEND and held the phone to his ear as the ring tone began.

In the shop, the man held up his hand to interrupt the girl and fumbled briefly in his suit pocket before producing his own cell phone. He studied it briefly then stepped out of line and moved toward the store’s front window as he brought the phone to his ear.

A click, then a voice in the watcher’s ear. "Agent Hawkins speaking, who is this?” The watcher said nothing and within three heartbeats he had control of the conversation. “I repeat, who are you?”

“The first rule we were taught at Quantico, Agent Hawkins, was to avoid routines.” The watcher’s voice was calm, monotone. “To maintain set routines, predictable schedules, was to become vulnerable.” The operative watched through the binoculars as Hawkins raked his fingers through his hair.

“What do you want?”

“To admonish you for visiting that ice cream shop every Thursday for the last month. Instructor Burke would be quite disappointed in his star pupil.” The watcher pressed the END button.

In the magnified display, Hawkins threw down his phone and began gesticulating at the other patrons in the shop. The doors flew open and he pushed screaming mothers, teens, and grandparents out into the sunny afternoon.

As the sounds of the fleeing crowd reached the watcher on the rooftop a block away, he lowered the binoculars and enjoyed the unassisted view. He thumbed the 3 key on the cell phone, and pressed SEND.

The ice cream shop erupted in waves of fire, smoke, and thunder.

The watcher smiled, then took a planner from his pocket and opened it. A photo of five youthful agents posed comically in front of the FBI training facility in Quantico, Virginia was clipped to one page. He drew an X over the face of one of the agents in training then returned the planner to his pocket and walked away.

Choosing Powerful Words

For this assignment we were to re-write the sentences to make them powerful, vivid, and unique without becoming cliche, melodramatic, or overwritten. My before and afters are below.


BEFORE: There were so many winding curves as I drove in the blazingly bright orange sunlit glare of the everlasting road that I was utterly exhausted by the endless ordeal and thought I might faint if given half the chance.

AFTER: The road snaked endlessly through the sun-tortured badlands.

---

BEFORE: The leaves were red.

AFTER: Crimson and scarlet and burgundy splashed across the late summer mountainside.

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BEFORE: That horrible tornado was like a raging bull charging a red cape so it could blast everything we owned to smithereens once and for all.

AFTER: Mechanical, inevitable, and somehow sentient, the tornado bore down on our farm as we raced for the storm cellar.

---

BEFORE: John thought Jane was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, and he knew he would love her forever.

AFTER: Their eyes met for a moment as they scanned the crowded room from opposite corners, then her glance moved on. In that heartbeat John’s life changed forever.

Candle (142 words)

The harsh white glare of lightning and a cannonade of thunder pierced my senses simultaneously then, a heartbeat later, darkness and utter silence swallowed my home. This actually happened with some regularity in my neighborhood so, after the initial Oh-My-God moment, my hands deftly sought out the lighter and small jar candle on my desk. A click, a flash, a brief pause as the butane-fed flame kissed the candle’s wick, then near darkness again. The newborn fire struggled, surged, receded, then confidently enveloped the blackened stub of string and grew to a tall flickering tongue of flame that pushed back the invading darkness and restored rudimentary caveman technology to my writing desk. The gentle summertime aroma of lavenders flowed from the candle’s illumination but did nothing to muffle the oppressive silence that filled the house. Now, where did I put that iPod?

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Story Copyright 2006 by W. David MacKenzie

Bus Stop (183 words)

Martha stared, unblinking, unbelieving, as John stepped slowly off the bus and faced her, hands thrust into his coat pockets and feet planted firmly in the ice-cold slush at the side of the road; a Mexican standoff in an arctic wasteland. Damn this blizzard and damn the frozen starter motor that forced her to leave her car at home and trek through the snow to this particular bus stop at this particular time. John’s pig-headed immobility caused the other riders to slowly twist and snake their way around him as they exited and compelled Martha to stand face-to-face with her abusive ex-husband that much longer. It seemed to Martha that the moment would never end but, with a tremendous effort of will, she pulled her eyes away from John’s and pushed past him onto the bus. John didn’t look back as the bus lurched away from the curb and soon his shape was lost in the blowing snow, but Martha knew John wouldn’t just disappear—she’d have to move again and this time it would have to be farther than just across town.

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Story Copyright 2006 by W. David MacKenzie

Beachcombing (229 words)

Beachcombing
by W. David MacKenzie

With the careful steps of old age, Eunice eased her stooped body over the grassy dune and out onto the windswept Bodie Island beach. Salt spray and grains of sand pelted her weathered face and the stiff Atlantic breeze caught at her wicker basket as if it were a parachute and tried to rip it from the crook of her arm, but she turned her body side-on to the gusts and trudged on. When Eunice reached the edge of the beach, where the waves crashed upon the shore and chased sandpipers with foamy tendrils of seawater, she kicked off her sandals and walked barefoot in the cool surging surf. Years seemed to melt away from her as she strolled along the beach, bending down now and then to pick up a small piece of driftwood or a particularly pretty shell. Eunice placed each nature-made trinket into her basket and made a mental note of just where she’d place it in her rockery or herb garden to add the perfect accent to her amateur agricultural efforts. After years of twice-a-week walks on this beach Eunice thought she’d seen just about everything the sea could toss ashore, but when her fingers closed on the small hard disk and she thumbed away the salt and sand to reveal the stamped face of an ancient golden coin, she knew she’d found something unique.

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Story Copyright 2006 by W. David MacKenzie

Insurance (676 words)

Insurance
by W. David MacKenzie

Presidente Santos International Airport in Cahama, Angola was a joke. One grass runway, one tiny building, one mechanic/porter, and one customs officer. The only thing that made it “International” was the charter-only crop duster that shuttled back and forth from Namibia for oil and diamond execs to inspect their wells and mines. That’s why I chose it, easy in and easy out.

“Você tem qualquer coisa declarar?” asked the solitary uniformed customs officer in bored Portuguese as he finished flipping through my passport.

“I have nothing to declare,” I said flatly in English. I met his gaze and held it. Red surrounded the nearly-yellow white of his eyes, like someone had colored them in with a crayon and a dried up highlighter pen. He blinked and unzipped my suitcase.

“Eu não tenho nada declarar.” I repeated. His dark face looked up at me. That got his attention, all right. He didn’t expect me to speak Portuguese. I placed a hundred kwanza note on top of my luggage. His next move would either be to close the zipper and stamp my passport or proceed with the inspection. These rural inspectors were hard to figure out. Sometimes they’d be needy enough to take the bribe and other times they’d flex all the righteous bureaucracy they had at their disposal. The inspector opened my luggage and the note fluttered to the floor.

So be it.

With carefully practiced carelessness my toiletries were dumped on the floor, shattering a vial of cologne and improving the aroma of the customs shack and my polo shirts were piled onto the open inkpad next to the inspector’s passport stamp. He rummaged through all of the clothes in the suitcase and finally came up holding my conservative, yet still nicely tailored, business suit like he was strangling a chicken for dinner. Those wrinkles were never going to come out, but I just stood there, unmoving and without expression as he thrust a hand into each of the pockets looking for some bit of contraband he could use as an excuse to arrest me. He found it.

“Ayyyy!” he screamed and yanked his hand from the left inner pocket. He dropped the coat on top of the open suitcase in surprise then he dropped to the floor himself, writhing in agony as the venom-induced pain moved up his arm. I leaned over the inspection table and looked at the man as spasms began to wrack his body. Soon he’d be frothing at the mouth, then paralysis and death by cardiac arrest. It was a bad way to die.

I gingerly grabbed the side of the suitcase and flipped all of the remaining contents onto the convulsing inspector then snapped the apparently empty case closed and set it on the floor beside me. A small movement caught my eye as my “insurance policy”, the delicate death stalker scorpion, climbed to the top of the pile of clothes, assumed the classic pinchers-out tail-up pose, and proclaimed itself king of the laundry.

As the customs inspector quieted and neared death, I brushed aside the ink-stained polo shirts and used his stamp to validate my passport. I picked up the suitcase and the disassembled sniper rifle secreted in the false bottom, walked confidently out to the porter who was chatting with the pilot of the idling plane, and handed him my documents. He found the Angola stamp and returned my passport then helped me aboard the small aircraft, handed my luggage in after me, and closed the door.

The pilot and the porter traded thumbs up signs then the engine raced and we were on our way. I looked at my watch. I’d made good time at Presidente Santos International Airport and I was right on schedule to meet with my target. The death of the customs inspector might make my exit a little tricky but maybe the porter would find the hundred kwanza note and consider himself well paid to chalk it up as an accident. No matter, really, it was a sunny day and I had backup plans aplenty.

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Story Copyright 2006 by W. David MacKenzie

The Incident On Snake Road (1557 words)

The Incident On Snake Road
by W. David MacKenzie

I awoke suddenly, sat bolt upright, and listened to the total silence outside of our tent. I'd never been creeped-out like this before. I reached over to touch my wife as she slept next to me and found only an empty sleeping bag cooling beneath my fingers. I looked franticly around the small space searching for her then crawled to the tent flap and climbed out into the moonlit night.

The forest was utterly still and deathly quiet, so the one sound present immediately drew my attention. A dark shape, spread out near the glowing embers of our nearly spent campfire, made soft sucking sounds, like boots slogging through swampy muck. As my eyes focused on the shape I saw a large beast, clad in dark shaggy fur, hunched over, chewing and sucking at the neck of my motionless wife.

I launched myself headlong at the beast, catching it unaware, and sent it tumbling off Karen’s limp body into the glowing ashes of the campfire. Its flailing limbs brought the embers to life and its fur smoldered and burned, sending an odorous smoke into the air. In silent agony, the beast stood up on its hind legs and beat at the flames with its hands.

In shock I saw that it wasn't a beast that burned before my eyes, but a man, and what I had mistaken for fur was a shaggy and battered ankle-length coat. Just as I thought to try and rescue him from the fire the man gave up on his attempts to beat out the flames and bolted into the forest. He moved with surprising speed and in a moment his fiery shape was lost behind the close-growing trees.

Karen’s head rocked slightly in my hands and guilt flooded over me that my attention had been anywhere but on my wounded wife. My hand on Karen’s neck was wet with hot arterial blood and I attempted to staunch the flow. Karen’s eyes fluttered open. She screamed.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I whispered repeatedly in calming tones. I caressed her cheek with my free hand while she thrashed about wildly. “I’m here. You’re safe now.”

Slowly she calmed but I was afraid it was due more to shock and loss of blood than from any comfort I was giving her. I struggled out of my t-shirt and tied it around her neck as tightly as I dared then worked to get Karen to the Land Rover while she mumbled about “his eyes”. I spared a moment to look at my wife as I buckled her into the passenger seat, fearing it could be my last sight of her alive.

The only hope of saving Karen’s life was to get her to a doctor in the town at the foot of the mountain, but the treacherously steep switchback road made a mad dash impossible. Karen slumped in the passenger seat like a wilted rose and crimson rivulets trickled down her bandaged neck. New determination coursed through me and I ran to the driver’s door and climbed in. Thrusting the key into the ignition I brought the powerful engine to life, then flipped on the headlights and recklessly shoved the transmission into drive, I floored the accelerator and raced over the short stretch of flat trail and onto the aptly named Snake Road to begin the dangerous decent.

Almost at once the left shoulder of the road dropped away to black nothingness and the right side soared up becoming a granite wall, leaving me on a narrow ribbon of packed earth that wound down into the last darkness before the approaching dawn. The Land Rover hugged the wall, seemingly as afraid of the drop off as I was. A wave of anger and regret washed over me. I stole a glance at Karen then pulled my eyes back to the road to see her attacker standing in the road ahead. Without thinking, I jerked the SUV to the left, to the edge, to disaster.

It was a miracle that I kept the truck on the road. I felt the tires slip but I pulled hard to the right, found solid purchase again, and drove on. I did not look back, though I desperately wanted to. How could he have been there on the road? He should have been a maimed and charred lump in the forest, not standing there like a road block. Whatever the explanation, he was well behind us now. Karen, unconscious, jumped and bumped involuntarily as I recklessly navigated the pitted road.

The faintest pink glow was defining the horizon when the man again appeared in my headlights. "Damn him!" I hissed to myself. The road here was too narrow to go around him and I was not going to stop. This whole thing was his fault and revenge surged in my heart. I grasped the steering wheel tightly and set my eyes on the road beyond him. At the last possible second the man soared upward into the sky and an emotional whirlwind of sorrow and loneliness and pleading blew through me.

Into the sky? What the hell was going on? I had barely asked myself that question when I spotted a rockslide in the dim pre-dawn light and slammed on the brakes. The Land Rover skidded to a stop. I threw open the door, rushed to the obstruction, and began flinging small boulders over the precipice to clear the road.

A sense of tranquility and remorse flooded over me and I spun around to see the man standing a few feet away. Just standing. Sorrow and desire and guilt filled my mind and I realized these emotions came from him, but how?

“I have to clear the rocks,” I wheezed, breathless from my exertions. “I have to get her to a doctor.”

NO

The word formed slowly as if the speaker had forgotten the art of speech. Then I realized that there was no speech and the word was in my mind, not in my ears.

“She’ll die if I don’t.”

SHE IS NEARLY DEAD NOW

I panicked and ran to the passenger door, wrenched it open. Karen slumped forward, restrained from falling out only by the seat belt. I pushed her back into the seat, unfastened the belt, and called her name, trying to wake her, but she was unresponsive.

I CAN SAVE HER

I stared at the man incredulously. “Save her?” I shouted, “You did this to her!”

Sorrow and regret pulsed through me again. He was sorry for what he did, but....

IT WAS AN ACCIDENT—I DID NOT SEEK HER DEATH—I SOUGHT HER COMPANIONSHIP BUT THE HUNGER OVERCAME MY LONLINESS—I CAN STOP HER DEATH BUT—

“But what?” I screamed. Then my eyes grew wide and the color drained from my face. On a gut level, I think I knew from the beginning, but my mind was only now catching up.

I MUST HURRY—DAWN COMES—SHE WILL BE SAFE BUT SHE WILL NOT BE YOURS

Not mine…his…but alive and not dead…but dead to me and dead to everyone in my world. I loved my wife with all of my heart and I wanted her to live, but would she want to live as...as...like that?

Urgency and desire and longing and loneliness poured from him to me and I saw that beyond his monstrosity he was a pitiable creature. I saw that he was not evil for evil’s sake, that he could love, could be a tender being. I backed away from Karen and he rushed in.

The vampire, for that is surely what he was, or as close to that as myth realized could be, moved swiftly to Karen’s side, bit at his wrist until his own blood flowed freely, and held the gushing wound to Karen’s lips. His blood covered her mouth and cheeks and oozed over her jaw line to mingle with her own blood at the poorly bandaged neck wound, but nothing happened. Trepidation and despair emanated from him—was dawn rushing in too soon, had his actions come too late? I was caught up in his emotions and I too worried that Karen was lost to both of us after all, either from lack of time or from my delayed decision.

A soft sucking sound rose to my ears. It hesitated then resumed, stronger than before. Soon Karen was nursing at the vampire’s wrist like a newborn at her mother’s nipple. Her eyes opened slowly and in the growing light I saw fear in her eyes, then excitement. Hunger, and urgency, and a will to live caused her to suckle harder until she was sated and reluctantly detached from the fount.

SHE IS STILL WEAK BUT SHE WILL LIVE—WE MUST HURRY BEFORE SUNRISE OVERTAKES US

Karen looked deeply into my eyes and I tried to look beyond her blood-smeared face to see the woman I married. Her love, and gratitude, and sadness coursed from her mind to mine and I believed that she could sense my own jumbled emotions as well. I hoped she could sort them out better than I was able to do. The moment passed and, picking Karen up like a doll, he scaled the sheer rock wall like it was a gentle slope and they disappeared into the dark forest at the top of the cliff.


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Story Copyright 2006 by W. David MacKenzie
Photo Copyright 2005 by Spencer Platt

Abducted (631 words)

Abducted
by W. David MacKenzie

The prison is quiet at last and I am alone. I'm probably in shock over my abduction and torture because things just don't seem real to me. My amputated stump is only now causing me pain though it's been hours since it was…since I was...and I can now feel my life ebbing away like the steady drip of rain eroding rock.

There are protocols to follow in situations like this, of course, but as a scientist I never thought I'd have any use for them myself and now I don’t know if I can actually carry them out. Hope of rescue and the urge to cling to life are new emotions to me, but I need to be realistic and accept that I am probably as good as dead already, so, taking that last measure to ease my end should not be too difficult.

I need to relax a bit and stretch some to get the juices moving again so that I can reach the recorder. Ah, that feels a little better. Well, time for me to begin, but I've got to do this quietly so I don't attract any attention from the beasts.

“This is Shasathashawinthistiss recording my final report on my explorations of planet Lanastathanlasish. I have been under deep cover among one of the larger populations of the dominant species of the planet studying the social interactions of the populous under climatic stress. My observations are recorded in earlier entries if my body is ever recovered.”

“Approximately six hours ago a small group of the communal vermin of this world raided my study population with the obvious intent to cause bodily hard to my subjects. In accordance with our non-contamination policies I initially adopted the local custom of immobility during the raid. I observed that the creatures seemed likely to harm a young native near me so I broke the rules, slightly, and made an insignificant movement that caught th attention of the animals. I do not believe that this breech of protocol caused a contamination and it did have the desired effect…the youthful native was not molested. The creatures, however, attacked me instead, violently removing me from my station and carrying me back to their tribe.”

“The physical abuse and tortures to which I was subjected were many. They tied off small pieces of my skin to restrict the flow of fluids, they suspended heavy weights from my extremities, they burned me with glowing hot cords, and they screwed sharp spikes into my amputated stump. The glee with which they performed these acts was truly barbaric.”

What was that sound? Are they coming back for more torture?

“I must conclude this report as my captors appear to be returning. As per protocol, I will burst the poison sack within my body and so end my life as soon as I complete this recording. It is my hope that a future expedition will be able to home in on my transponder and benefit from the years of research I have performed for the Imperium.”

There's that noise again. I must act fast.

-----

“Jody, what are you doing out of bed?”

“I was listening to the Christmas tree, Mom,” said the youngster in a loud whisper. “It was making funny noises and the twigs were moving back and forth.”

The woman picked up her five year old son and carried him back into the bedroom. “Now, Jody, what have I told you about telling fibs? Do you want Santa to pass you by without leaving any gifts?”

“I wasn't fibbin', Mom.” Jody's face became a frown. “Do you think Santa will forget me?”

“No, I doubt it, not for such a little fib.” Jody's Mom tucked him back into bed, kissed him goodnight, and turned out the light.


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Story Copyright 2006 by W. David MacKenzie
Photo Copyright 2005 by David Anderson
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Swamp Mist (986 words)

Swamp Mist
By W. David MacKenzie

Steve crawled out of the small tent, twisting and stretching as he stood up and breathed the invigorating aroma of swamp and coffee. Jeff held out a cup and Steve took a long drink of the steaming brew and gagged.

“Dang, Jeff, I’d forgotten how bad a cook you are. This is awful!”

“Ya, it is,” Jeff agreed. “But it’s the best damned coffee for fifty miles around.” Steve just grunted and took another drink then went to get his gear.

Jeff had scored a coveted permit to bag two alligators in the Everglades and now, camped on the edge of the swamp and staring into the gator's home territory, they were eager to get started. The sun had cleared the trees but the morning mist was still rising from the murky wetlands like a translucent curtain that blurred the scraggly pines and muted the already dull colors of the swamp.

“So, do we have a game plan?” asked Steve dejectedly. “Do we have to wait for this mist to burn off?”

Jeff looked out over the swamp and frowned. He was about to tell Steve it would be safer to wait when he spotted something moving a hundred yards or so off to their right. It was walking very slowly toward the swamp. It…that was the only label Jeff’s mind could grasp onto and he just pointed.

“Oh My God” Steve breathed, “I can't believe it. It's a Skunk Ape!”

Jeff pulled his eyes away from the shambling creature and looked at Steve incredulously. “What the hell is a Skunk Ape?”

“You damned Yankee! Sasquatch, Bigfoot, Skunk Ape...they're all the same.” Steve hurriedly patted his pockets and pouches in search of his digital camera but came up empty. “Damn! I forgot my camera.”

“Camera?” Jeff spat and swung his rifle up to his shoulder. “Who needs a camera when we've got these?” He took aim and forced his breathing to steady. He wasn’t sure he could kill it from this distance but he’d sure as hell wound the monster. Jeff squeezed the trigger but at the last moment Steve thrust out his arm and pushed the rifle up sharply. The shot went way above the creature’s head and, alerted to the hunters’ presence, it lumbered with a bit more speed toward the safety of the swamp.

“Why the hell did you do that?” Jeff exploded.

“You can't shoot it. What if it's the last one?”

“To hell with that. Do you know how rich we're gonna be when we bring back a real Bigfoot? Proof, Steve!” Jeff studied the beast for a few moments then started jogging toward it, hoping to get a better shot at it before it moved into the misty swamp. “Look at it move,” he called back to Steve. “It's limping. It's already injured. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity!” Steve wasn't convinced that this was the right thing to do but he wasn't going to stay behind either. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and ran after Jeff and the Bigfoot.

The tall hairy figure reached the boggy shore ahead of the hunters and plunged into the mist and muck. At the edge of the morass Jeff and Steve launched themselves into the water. They were soaked up to their thighs and their feet battled with the mud as they slogged through but they kept the Bigfoot’s shape in sight and Jeff again fired off another round. An unearthly wail pierced the mist.

“Got him!” cried Jeff as he reached a hummock and pulled himself out of the water. It wasn't down yet, though. Jeff took another bead on the Bigfoot and fired. The eerie cry sounded again as the beast fell into a shallow bog with a soft splash.

The stench assailed them as they eased closer to the fallen beast. “God, it stinks!”

Steve dropped his rifle and waved his hand in front of his face as if that meager breeze could drive off the sulfur-like smell. “They don't call it a Skunk Ape for nothin'.”

“Hey, be careful.” Jeff called as Steve knelt down to examine the Bigfoot.

“You're a good shot.” Steve said pointing to the blood oozing from the gaping wound in the creature's head. “He's dead.” Steve ran his hands over the contours of its face. It wasn't human, and it wasn't quite like a chimp or gorilla either, but Steve could see something that told him this creature wasn't just a dumb animal.

“This is friggin' AMAZING!” Jeff said excitedly. “We're gonna be famous!”

Steve found another wound on the Bigfoot, not a gunshot, more like a ragged tear that ran down the length of its thigh. He pushed the fur aside and found several shards of yellow plastic. “I think he was hit by a car before we spotted him.” Steve said as he picked a piece of plastic out of the fur and turned to show Jeff. “That would explain the limp....” Steve's voice trailed off as he looked up at Jeff, then his eyes went wide.

Jeff heard the low rumbling sound behind him and in one fluid motion he spun around and brought his rifle to his shoulder but he wasn’t fast enough. The impossibly tall Bigfoot that stood behind him swung a huge hairy arm down on Jeff's shoulder shattering his collarbone. Jeff cried out in pain and fell to his knees beside Steve.

The two men huddled together as more shapes emerged from the mist. Soon half-a-dozen Skunk Apes surrounded them. Their leader squatted down, picked up the fallen rifle by the barrel and raised it high over it's head like a club.

The screams didn't last long but they woke a nearby alligator. The reptile launched its twelve-foot body into the swamp with a speed that belied it's size and swam quietly off to find a more peaceful spot for it's mid-morning nap.


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Story Copyright 2005 W. David MacKenzie
Photo Copyright 2005 Jim Damaske
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The Map (683 words)

The Map
by W. David MacKenzie


His cheeks burned as the frigid dawn wind clawed at the hood of his parka. His hands were icy and numb but still he trudged onward. His robotic steps brought him to the crest of the snow-covered hill and then over it into a protected valley where he didn't feel quite like an arctic explorer.

Not that exploring the arctic was beyond his capabilities—he prided himself in his back country and harsh weather skills—but these winter gales were a bitch!

The slope leveled out and he stopped to get his bearings. After flexing his fingers repeatedly to get the blood flowing again he reached into a zippered pocket in his parka. He wasn't exactly nimble-fingered yet, but he had regained enough dexterity to pull out the envelope and retrieve the folded document from inside. He reviewed the sheet of laminated paper, scanned the terrain, reviewed the paper again, turned to orient himself correctly and looked straight ahead. Yup, that's it, he mumbled to himself,and started toward the trees.

He moved slowly at first, but exuberance got the better of him and soon he was jogging through the calf-deep snow, wheezing great gusts of condensing breath.

---

When the bellboy at the ski lodge handed him the envelope the night before he thought it was odd. No one knew he was vacationing in the remote resort. Inside was a laminated topographic map of the ski trails with grease pencil markings indicating a path into the wooded hills. A scrawled circle at the end of the trail enclosed what looked like a number one. A few lines of cryptic text were written in the boarders.

Two pines lean left, four cedars lean right
Your reward lies between in dawn's early light

What the f...? He turned the map over, nothing. He flipped it back and looked at it again. Was it a joke? A test? From whom? Then it clicked...the geocachers!”

A few months ago he joined a geocaching club. The members spent their weekends using GPS systems to play high-tech hide and seek. Someone would hide a “treasure chest” then post its GPS coordinates on a web site. Other members would note the coordinates and hunt for the prize. Someone in the club must have found out where he was staying and sent this low-tech treasure map as a test.

---

The trees, two scraggly pines on the left and four snow-shrouded cedars on the right, towered above him as he gasped for breath in the bitter cold air. He turned this way and that, looking for his prize. Nothing. It must be under the snow. Picking a spot between the marker trees, he walked in an expanding spiral, dragging his feet and kicking at the snow until he hit something solid.

His ego swelled as he dropped to his knees, discarded the map, and brushed at the snow with his hands, eager to get his reward and start the trek back to the lodge. He pushed more and more snow out of the way until he realized what he was uncovering—a man—dressed in winter gear and frozen solid.

He jerked back reflexively, landing on his ass in the snow. His heart raced and he shook his head in denial. That's when he saw the man in arctic camouflage fifty feet away aiming a rifle at him. The sound and the slam to his chest were almost simultaneous.

---

The man in arctic camouflage lowered the rifle and watched the man in the bright yellow parka sprawl backward into the snow. He walked over and stared down at him as his hot blood stained the snow then leaned down and picked up the map. He used his gloved finger to rub out the mark in the middle of the circle then took a grease pencil from his pocket and wrote a number two. He folded the map and slipped it into a new envelope then scribbled a name on the outside. He tucked it inside his camouflaged jumper and walked back toward the ski resort as snow began to fall.


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Story Copyright 2005 W. David MacKenzie
Photo Copyright 1998 Phil Schermeister
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The Lamp Post (248 words)

The Lamp Post
By David MacKenzie


“I wasn't always a drugged-out thug, you know.” Carlo whispered to me as he raised his head slighlty. Our eyes locked. “I was a kid once, a good kid, a clown even.”

I studied Carlo's watery red-rimmed eyes. I peered past the green irises and tried to see beyond the tainted soul of the multiple murderer to find the innocent youth he was remembering, but I lost my way among the dead bodies. I closed my own eyes and swallowed hard, determined to get on with my job, but Carlo was still staring at me when I opened them again.

“I remember one winter when it snowed and my best buddy...” a brief smile danced across his face. “He dared me to lick the frozen lamp post and...” Carlo's already soft voice trailed off and he blinked, freeing me from his hypnotic grip.

I quickly moved behind him and busied myself with the routine tasks so I wouldn't think about his words and I wouldn't meet his gaze again. I tightened the bands around Carlo's head and chest then moved to the controls on the wall behind him. I stood ready.

The warden’s perfunctory voice came from the overhead speakers. “Carlo Anthony Fuguerro, do you have any final words?” A heart beat passed, then another, and another, but Carlo was silent. A red light blinked on and I flipped the switch, closed my eyes, and tried to forget the snow, the lamp post, and my childhood buddy.


Story Copyright 2005 W. David MacKenzie
Photo Copyright 12/23/2005 Mason Thompson