Sunday, July 27, 2008

Posts from the abandoned Story

These are the posts that I made to the guestbook version of write101.com's The Never-Ending Story. As I stated earlier in my post on September 11, 2007, the story was begun on two pages on the website and then continued on the guestbook. The guestbook version was finally discontinued and the story was partially restarted as a blog, with people continuing the story by means of comments.

The guestbook version had many interesting characters and situatins. Sometimes a person would make an entry that killed off a main character, more than once even killing off the main character, Dr. Morgenes. The characters were almost always revived later on by other people. One of my posts, in fact, revived Dr. Morgenes.

Some of the other characters that appeared were Morgenes' wife Maria, his mother-in-law Lucinda Carlotta Borgia de Corlione, the adventuress and actress Viburnia Hedgerow, Father Wetherly, a talking giant Gerbil, a talking Yak, a talking Yeti (abominable snowman), a talking dog, a talking Anvil (practically everything talked), Elvis, and a man named Phillis Diller.

The Never-Ending Story was restarted as a blog on January 18, 2005, though I did not find out until much later. My last entry to the guestbook version occurred on August 28, 2005. The story on the guestbook was not getting many new entries at that time. Most of the potential writers may have been aware of the blog version. The text copy I have of the guestbook version ends with my last entry. The guestbook version may have in fact ended with my last entry, but I don't know for sure. I only accessed the story occasionally, and probably the next time I tried to access it was the time it failed to load, even after a long wait.

Toward the end, the format of the guestbook version changed. One of the changes was the removal of carriage returns from the posts and the merging of all paragraphs into one. This change apparently occurred late in 2004, perhaps in October of that year. It was in effect for my last post, and so it appeared there as one long paragraph. It appears here, though, as I originally intended.


Name: Stephen
Homepage: http://www.geocities.com/stephen_m99/
Hometown: Arizona
Sent: 2.54 PM - 3/28 [2004]

The door in the gumboot opened and a tall figure emerged, dressed in a dark cloak, a dark helmet, and a dark mask. His breath hissed noisely. He turned to Morgenes and said, "Join me! Come to the dark side."

Morgenes, taken aback by this apparition, found it hard to make a reply, but finally stammered out "What if I don't?"

The dark figure raised a flaming sword and said, "Then I must use this."

Smithy, the ancient sailor, who had somehow returned unnoticed in all the confusion, squinted at the dark figure and said, "Is that you, Luke?"

The figure paused, raised the mask, pulled a corncob pipe out of his mouth, and squinted back at the sailor.

"Is that you, Pappy?" he said. "It is, it's me Pappy, after all these years! You don't happen to have any... spinach with you, do you?"

Morgenes stared in shock from one to the other. What did this mean? And did the strange dark figure still want Morgenes to join him, or was the dark figure now joining them?

Meanwhile, no one noticed a hand emerge from a hole in the air and reach for the flaming sword...



Name: Stephen
Homepage: http://www.geocities.com/stephen_m99/
Hometown: Arizona
Sent: 1.07 PM - 7/29 [2004]

Morgenes suddenly sat up, trembling. "What's happening, man, a bad dream?" said Richard. Morgenes said, "A dream? No, I fear it was a vision, a omen of disaster. And don't eat the eggs."



Name: Stephen
Homepage: http://www.geocities.com/stephen_m99/
Hometown: Arizona
Sent: 10.31 AM - 9/17 [2004]

"Wait here, " the beautiful woman said, "and I will get us some drinks."

Morgenes watched, a dreamy expression on his face. Had he been somehow transported to Heaven? Surely, Heaven held no angels prettier than what he was seeing now.

From a distance, a yak and a shaggy, man-like figure watched, as the woman took a strange bottle that she had somehow concealed upon her person (but where?) and poured something into one of the drinks.

"Should we intervene?" the Yeti asked, stratching his shaggy head.

"Nah," the Yak said, "it's just getting interesting."



Name: Stephen
Homepage: http://stephen-has-spoken.blogspot.com/
City: Arizona
Sent: 08/28 03:28 AM [2005]

Morgenes stared at the apple core. He couldn't believe that he'd actually eaten that apple. It had tasted horrid. He had been so hungry, though... He had a vague memory of having died (again), and come back to life (again). And what had been that bit about the boy and the giant talking dog? Morgenes stared at his drink suspicously. Had he been poisened again? He suddenly felt very warm.

He took off his long, grey beach coat and went over to the closet to hang it up. He opened the closet door and paused. A strange man, wearing long sideburns and a sparkly white jumpsuit, stood there. The man took the coat from him and hung it up. Morgenes stared, then abrubtly slammed the closet door and stood with his back to it, his face pale.

The beautiful dark-haired woman paused, frowning. Had Morgenes seen what she had hidden there?

Phillis Diller had turned back from the ocean and was watching, drink in hand, a strange expression on his face. He opened his mouth to speak...

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The Post Unlaced

This is another poem that was originally posted to a message board, to a thread about poems. While it was posted to keep the thread going, it is one of the better poems I have written for such a purpose.

This poem is dated 4:49 PM, December 17, 2006, Arizona time (MST).


THE POST UNLACED

At this time
With some haste
I leave this post
All unlaced

With lines askew
And reason frayed
It fell from
The bed it made

Perhaps another day
Will come
With other posts
That are more fun

This day I leave
This post for you
All unlaced
but spirit true

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