Wordzzle 97 - Marshmallow threats

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 41, for Wordzzle week 97.


Ten Word Challenge:

teflon,
idealistic,
marshmallow,
opportunistic,
kittens,
beef,
sawing logs,
slapped,
tickled,
scissors

The marshmallows rolled and tumbled over the land, burying everything in their path, the good little kids and the ones who ran with scissors, the invalid in the bed and the lumberjack sawing logs, the kittens and the pit bulls, the slapped and the slapper, the tickled and the tickler, the idealistic and the opportunistic, those who ate beef and those who ate pork and those who ate no meat at all. Everyone fell beneath them, everyone was buried by them, no one was spared. And still the marshmallows went on, mile after mile of them, until there was hardly any place in the land that they had not been, and they were now nearing the sea.

As they went over a low ridge, they found a knight waiting for them on the other side. His armor was dark in color, Teflon coated and flame resistant. He was more used to fighting dragons than marshmallows, but he stood firm before them and raised his sword and pointed it at them. "You have destroyed this land, but you shall not pass on to other lands. This ends here."

The marshmallows paused a bit, building up in height as the ones behind kept on coming, then they went forward, flowing at him and around him. He swung his sword through them, slicing into some but mostly knocking them aside. Again and again he swung his sword, and they kept on coming, as high as his waist, as high as his chest, as high as his shoulders, as high as his head. He continued to swing his sword, and after a while only his sword was seen, and then only the tip of it, and then only a ripple in the marshmallows, and then there was nothing at all.

The marshmallows came to the beach, and neared the very edge of the sea, and paused again, raising up in height, growing taller and taller.

A dragon flew in, huge in size, and landed before them. "How has this happened," the dragon said, "that you have come all this way, and the knight has not stopped you?"

The marshmallows continued to raise in height, building up in an arc in front of and around the dragon, and then there was a ripple coming forward, and something tumbled down the slope of marshmallows and landed in front of the dragon. The dragon looked down at it. It was an armored glove. The dragon slowly bent down and gently picked it up in his claws. "I always thought it would end when one of us killed the other, or when we died together, fighting. The battle between us has been going on so long, year after year, it almost seemed like it would never happen, though I knew one day it must. I never thought it would end like this." A tear rolled down the dragon's cheek. "What will I do with myself now, what will I do..." He took a deep, ragged breath, seeming about to burst into sobs.

And then he released the breath, in a stream of fire, blowing a long column of flame across the marshmallows, turning his head from side to side. An awful keening sound began to spread among them and the fire burned on and on, black acrid smoke going up, the fire growing so large that it created its own wind, which grew stronger and stronger, sucking everything into it. The dragon crouched down, wrapping his wings about him, and let the wind blow past him.

Finally it was done. The dragon raised his head and saw a desolate, blackened, gooey landscape. All the marshmallows were destroyed. He looked down at the armored glove he was still holding, then turned around and, still holding the glove, sadly flew away.

After a while there was some movement in the blackened landscape, and part of it heaved up, gooey strands stretching, and a dark figure emerged. He raised a fist at the dragon, now a distant figure, far away. "Curse you, Dragon! That glove cost me good money!"


Mini Challenge:

ripen,
shelve,
laminate,
goofy,
Siamese

The bookshelves were once like Siamese twins, bolted together, but the room had been redone, and they were unbolted and one was left outside all summer and then all winter, and was now like a fruit that had ripened too much and had gone into decay, its laminate faded and coming undone and peeling up and away. Sitting at a slight angle in the dirt, more like a country cousin now than a twin, goofy looking and bucktoothed, good natured but without much schooling, it stood there and pondered the outside world.


Mega challenge:

teflon,
idealistic,
marshmallow,
opportunistic,
kittens,
beef,
sawing logs,
slapped,
tickled,
scissors

ripen,
shelve,
laminate,
goofy,
Siamese

The marshmallows began to ripen, but were not yet ready to pick. The kittens ate their roast beef sandwiches, and wanted more. A Siamese twin was sawing logs, and dreaming of sawing off his brother. Teflon laminated itself along the sidewalks, and then laminated itself again. A person who was tickled slapped the tickler, who responded with a goofy grin and a portrait of a pair of scissors.

"Perhaps we should shelve this thing," a voice said. "What kind of world is this, that makes no sense at all?"

"Some people will think that of any world, while others, digging deeper, will find an underlying order."

"Those who are idealistic are unlikely to be happy with these results."

"Then let the opportunistic be happy, for there are many opportunities here. The idealistic are seldom satisfied anyway."

"Do you really think it can work?"

"Yes indeed. In fact, there's even room for a dragon and a knight..."

300th post

This is the 300th post on this blog. As with the second hundred, it came fairly quickly, in a matter of months rather than years. A couple of major events that happened this time were the transfer, with some modifications, of the files from my site at Yahoo Geocities, and the completing of a rough draft of a small novel for National Novel Writing Month.

My posts on these can be found here:

My time at GeoCities (Sunday, November 01, 2009)

National Novel Writing Month 2009 - Winner! (Tuesday, December 01, 2009)


Related milestone posts:

200th post (Friday, August 21, 2009)

100th post (Saturday, January 31, 2009)

Well, here we are (first post, Monday, August 22, 2005)

Dream - The road like a dog frame

Around October 8, 2008, I dreamed I was at a military base, probably in Arizona or New Mexico. A lot happened in the earlier part, at or around the military base probably, but I don't remember it anymore. There was a large warehouse-size room there, though.

Then I was driving, showing some other people how it was done, and what they had to do. It seems like some people were after us, or were going to be after us. I was driving through a mostly flat area with some low hills. It was mostly dirt, kind of an oily looking dirt.

I went to an area that had a road like a dog frame, as seen from the top and back and slightly to the side, like an inner frame for a toy or perhaps a stick figure outline for a drawing. There was also a faint body outline, but it was not part of the road.

I drove along the framework, watching from far above and maneuvering the car like it was a toy, making tight loops along the dark line of the frame, loops that also appeared dark like the road. The loops were so tight and close together that they appeared mostly as a dark mass, obscuring the line of the road. I was trying to show the people how they were supposed to drive, how to cover their tracks.

Toward the end I was getting very tired, and as I went down the last leg, at the back of the figure, the tight loops became zigzags with visible space between them. It was going to have to do, just finish it. I was saying something to the effect to them that they got the idea, anyway.

Dream - A block wall across the back yard

Around October 10, 2008, I dreamed that it was around midday, and I was in the house talking with my mother, who was somewhere nearby but not necessarily in the same room. Looking out a window, perhaps the one in the kitchen door, I saw a block wall in the back yard, and went out to examine it. I found that it was being built across the middle of the back yard, going from one side to the other, starting at the east side, but was only about one half or two thirds of the way across and was obviously unfinished. The dogs, the Pekingese and the Boston terrier, had been trapped in small rooms, boxes really, built of concrete blocks attached to the wall. They were apparently put there in the rooms/boxes, constructed for them, to keep them from bothering the person building the wall and also to keep them from escaping into the alley. The wall wasn't very tall, maybe three or four feet, but I think it was intended somehow to be a replacement for the old wooden fence by the alley.

I didn't know who was building the wall, or why they thought they had to do it. I talked with my mother about what was happening. I looked out at it now and then, but I was having trouble catching anyone actually out there working on it, though the wall seemed to progress sometimes between the checks.

I finally caught someone. He seemed to be some kind of Asian person, like a Korean. I went and talked to him and tried to explain that he couldn't be doing this. I seemed to be having trouble being understood, though. He seemed to be trying to ignore me most of the time, with an almost desperate look on his face. When he did talk to me, he was very hard to understand and his English seemed to be limited. Finally, he left.

After a while a middle-aged man came out. I guessed he was the house owner. I got the impression also that there was a somewhat thin teenage son involved earlier or who might have been involved. I had the impression that the Asian man was someone they hired, though it seemed that sometimes he might have had a tendency to change back and forth into the son, at least when he was back or in their yard.

The middle-aged man went over to where the wooden fence had an inset for the time, long ago now, when garbage cans were used instead of the large plastic containers supplied by the city. The inset was gone now. That part of the fence was taken down and the man was trying to put a heavy, bent, angled metal bar across a gap between the block wall of the neighbor and the remaining part of the wooden fence, which seemed to have been extended some at that point, perhaps by some of the inset portion that had been taken down.

The metal bar was about three feet long and had a pale coating of some kind, with a little rust showing through along the edges and an occasional spot of rust along the sides. It seemed to be intended to be part of the new gate, which by appearances was going to be slightly wider than the old one. Most of the rest of the gate was still just open space, though it had a vague something in the bottom third, like a bunch of one inch slats almost matted together.

I went over to him and tried to explain that he couldn't just be doing this, that it wasn't right, that this wasn't his yard. He seemed to be having trouble with the concept though, and kept insisting that it was his right. I seemed to finally get through to him though, and he finally agreed to stop, and as a final effort got the metal bar to latch properly onto the wood. Then he left. I was left there with the unfinished work, and I would have to somehow get something put together with it myself.

Wordzzle 96 - Pixie party

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.


This is my entry number 40, for Wordzzle week 96.


Ten Word Challenge:

Badger,
roll out the barrel,
amazing,
a lovely cup of tea,
pressure,
frozen,
gandalf,
pixies,
top gear

"Roll out the barrel," the badger said, "and we'll have a lovely cup of tea." A gandalf and some pixies watched, and giggled merrily. "We'll eat and drink, and eat some more, and have some frozen treats. Then we'll shift the party into top gear, and dance amazingly." And the floorboards danced with them then, under the pressure of their feet, and even when the kegs ran dry, they never ran out of glee.


Mini Challenge:

smelly,
politician,
favourite,
token gesture,
garden

A garden grew on the compost pile, a somewhat smelly feat. It was a favorite politician's token gesture, an attempt to keep his seat. He said he cared about the land, and would stop eating meat. But alas his skills were a little too green, and he went down in defeat.


Mega challenge:

Badger,
roll out the barrel,
amazing,
a lovely cup of tea,
pressure,
frozen,
gandalf,
pixies,
top gear

smelly,
politician,
favourite,
token gesture,
garden

It looked like a lovely cup of tea, but closer examination showed it to be both frozen and smelly. He had no idea how that happened, particularly since he had just boiled the water a few minutes ago. He opened the door and threw the cup out into the garden. A gandalf, in the process of rolling out the barrel that held the small flowering bush, looked at him, startled. A badger, talking about something with some pixies, shook its fist at him. "Sorry," he muttered, and closed the door. At one time it would have been an amazing sight, but no longer, and he just wanted to block it out.

Things had been bad for a while now, since he had somehow insulted the little people, but it seemed to have shifted into top gear lately, and he was really starting to feel the pressure. Perhaps they had been bothered when he took out the mound and put in the garden. He wasn't sure, but it seemed to have started around then. He had tried to talk it over with them, but they had done a lot of yelling, and he had finally started yelling, too. He wasn't much of a politician in these matters. He didn't want to have to move, and he wasn't sure he could sell the house anyway with them playing tricks like this. It was probably too late to put the mound back. The dirt was long gone, and he wasn't sure he could recreate whatever it was they saw in it.

He fixed himself a lunch meat sandwich while he tried to consider what to do. When he tried to take a bite, though, the lunch meat shot out and flopped around on the floor like a dying fish. He stared at it and set the rest of the sandwich down. He wasn't hungry anymore. It had been one of his favorite foods, too.

He needed to figure out something pretty quick. He wondered if it would help to give them some food. He remembered reading that people used to set out butter for them, but all he had was margarine, and he wasn't sure that would be viewed in the same way. It needed to be more than a token gesture, though, and he didn't know if just getting some butter for them would be enough.

He heard a strange wailing cry and gritted his teeth. Maybe he should just leave, go somewhere, anywhere, even if he couldn't sell the house. He could just throw some things in a suitcase and find a motel for now.

He had finished packing and was about to leave when he heard a knock at the door. He opened it and saw a hooded figure holding a scythe. Beyond him was an old fashioned coach drawn by horses. The figure turned slightly and raised an arm toward the coach, indicating the open door with a bony hand. The man stared at the coach for a minute, then picked up his suitcase and walked toward it.

Nice of them to provide transportation.

Dream - Driving on a road on the side of a vertical cliff, then throwing an odd device into the backyard

Sometime in January, 2008, I had a dream in which I was driving, and the road became too steep and the engine couldn't produce enough power. I finally went to the right across the lanes, and the road got more and more lanes, lanes that kept turning up toward the left and going almost vertical, and the lane markings contracted to perhaps a foot wide at the curve and the painted dotted lines on the road turned to continuous stone ridges. I drove sideways across the lanes and the road was now for all practical purposes vertical and slightly bulging, a cliff that curved around, with me driving horizontally across the bulge.

I saw a few people and a small building or two on the land not far below, and I stopped and went down to them. It became dark, and I was looking with a flashlight in the building for something. There was some object in a far corner under a thick shelf that reflected the light back at me. I discovered that it was a small shiny dumbbell with cylindrical ends, with one of the ends almost pointed at me. I felt that it contained something dangerous, some device of some kind, and was not what it looked like. I left, and the room turned out to be the utility room at home. I told my mother about it and she was concerned, and so I went to have another look. I took the device and threw it out in the yard toward the fence. I thought it might be something left by a spy.

Dream - Crashing the car, then saved, then a woman who was drinking

On Sunday, August 25, 2002, or thereabouts, while sleeping in the afternoon, I had a dream. The first part of the dream is lost, but later in the dream I was driving somewhere, perhaps from Fallon, Nevada. I may have been going to Reno, but the roads were closer to what exists going back to Arizona. The road was not a complete match for reality in any case.

I was driving the dark blue 1987 Oldsmobile and was extremely tired. The road led uphill and was only two lanes. Rain was falling. The road turned to the right and leveled out. I turned the steering wheel, but had to turn and turn for the wheels to turn enough. I finally had the steering wheel turned all the way to lock, and it wouldn't turn anymore. It was still not enough. For some reason, the car couldn't turn at a tight enough angle, and instead turned in a broad arc that sent it around the corner and onto the opposite side of the road. The road bordered a cliff at that point, and did not have a guard rail. Both wheels on the driver's side went off the road, and then the car turned nose down and tilted until the windshield was pointed at the ground. I saw muddy ground and puddles far below, rushing up very fast. I wondered how I was going to get out of this one and grimly thought "God be with me."

There was a period of blankness and then I woke up, still in the dream, and found myself parked off the side of the road. I was still in the same area, but the road now had a long, wide paved parking area at the edge along the cliff and a guard rail. I was parked at a slight angle facing the guard rail. Another car was parked a ways back, along the way I had come. I was concerned that the person in the other car was watching me, but I was also amused by it.

I was not as tired after my nap, but I realized that I had forgotten to pick up the Saturday paper before I left town, and had completely forgotten the Friday paper. It was too late now for the Friday paper, but I figured I should go back to town and get the Saturday paper. I was reluctant to do this, but turned the car around and did it anyway. It was now early morning.

When I got back to town, a relatively short distance, it was evening. I drove through the parking lots of adjoining small businesses, directly from lot to lot, looking for a newspaper machine. Eventually, larger businesses appeared, such as grocery and other stores. They had large doorways on the sides, near the front, and I slowly drove through them into the stores and inside along the fronts of the stores, still looking for newspaper machines. People were in the stores shopping and paying for things, but the stores were not especially crowded. I felt that the stores had been built to allow cars to drive through like this, and nobody seemed to notice me, but I became increasingly disturbed and decided to go back into the parking lots after exiting this store. I went into the parking lot and turned right, heading in the direction of the street. It was dark, and may have been extremely early in the morning, just before dawn.

At some point I was no longer driving the car. A Mexican woman came out from the store. I felt that I knew her slightly. She was going home after working there. At the sidewalk, there was a dark spray pattern, in a Christmas tree shape a few feet long, like a bottle or glass had been violently knocked over. The stain was dry, but I felt that it was relatively recent.

The woman, who was perhaps in her thirties, thought that her sister had left it and was concerned that someone would find out that she had been drinking again. The woman searched for a cork that she was sure was there. She wanted to find it to remove the evidence. I finally found a small cork, but it was really tiny and got away when I tried to pick it up. It bounced energetically several times, perhaps going eight feet in the opposite direction, that is, behind me. I was not able to initially relocate it, but finally did. I woke up before securing it, however.

Wordzzle 95 - Other realities

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 39, for Wordzzle week 95.


Ten Word Challenge:

alternate reality,
shadows,
frantic,
tomatoes,
field,
lilies,
DVD,
snow mobile,
aggravation,
music

Tomatoes grew in the field, among the lilies, almost hiding the rusting snow mobile. The wind blew, and shadows ran across the field, like beings from an alternate reality. A DVD set at an angle among the plants, like some crashed flying saucer. Whatever stories or music it may have held, it kept hidden. A squirrel came and scolded it for a while, than turned and ran when the wind came through again. An ant came by and waved its feelers frantically at the DVD, then finally went around it. A raccoon came and picked up the DVD, but then an eagle swooped down and grabbed the DVD in its claws. The raccoon waved a fist in aggravation, then began sniffing around the snow mobile, and the scattered bones there. The eagle soared high in the air, clutching the DVD, but then it slipped from its claws and fell, turning slowly, catching the light, flashing brighter and brighter, blindingly bright. The man groaned, and tried to move his head away.

"Take it easy," the doctor said. "You've been unconscious for a few days, but it looks like you'll be alright. Next time you're on a snow mobile, though, spend a little more time watching where you're going and a little less time watching DVDs."


Mini Challenge:

grounds for divorce,
pink panther,
salutations,
wavering,
lasagne

It would be grounds for divorce, he thought, except that he wasn't even married, and didn't even have a girlfriend. He knew that lasagna had been in the refrigerator too long. It had been looking a little gray, but he thought if he had some wine to drink with it, the alcohol would kill anything. It didn't seem to be that simple, though. So he had some more to drink, and finally started talking some leftover medicine he had, several types of it, all of it expired, and most of which he didn't remember anything about. He still felt sick, but also a lot different, and he wasn't sure if that was an improvement. He started watching cartoons on TV, afraid now to go to sleep. The Pink Panther looked out at him from the screen, and seemed to wink at him. He lifted his wavering hand and raised his glass toward the figure and said, "Salutations." The Pink Panther lifted his glass, too, and they seemed to click together.


Mega challenge:

alternate reality,
shadows,
frantic,
tomatoes,
field,
lilies,
DVD,
snow mobile,
aggravation,
music

grounds for divorce,
pink panther,
salutations,
wavering,
lasagne

A pink panther moved silently through the field, gathering tomatoes and lasagna from the plants there. A nearby billboard for coffee had the slogan "Grounds for Divorce" and showed a happy, smiling couple. A snow mobile got up on little cat feet and moved away, casting shadows in various directions, none of which looked like it. A badger watched a DVD on a portable player, its mouth wavering and a tear rolling from an eye. Some lilies beside it frowned, and took an occasional drag on a cigar. From somewhere music began to play with increasing aggravation, reaching crescendo after increasing crescendo, while waves of alternate reality after alternate reality rolled across. A kind of tense, frantic silence followed, finally settling down into a simple stillness.

The pink panther paused at one of the lasagna plants, but finally passed it by, evidently deciding it was overripe.

"You're smarter than I am," a voice from somewhere said.

The pink panther turned and saw a man on the other side of a window that was floating in the air. The man raised a glass towards him, nodding at him. The pink panther produced a glass of his own from somewhere and raised it also, and the glasses met in the air in a kind of mutual salutations.

Dream - A game with superheroes and a villain

On Sunday, January 4, 2009, a little before supper, I fell asleep and had a dream in which I was driving in Nevada going north, and became involved in a game with people playing superheroes and a villain.

In the dream, I was in Nevada driving back to Fallon, on a small two lane road. I was apparently in some place like the area north of Beatty or maybe the Walker Lake area. It was an area with mountains around it.

I turned to the left, went a ways on a slight downhill grade, turned to the right, went a ways, turned to the right again, making three sides of a box, and went a ways on a slightly rising land, going by the side of a mountain. There were also mountains by the earlier sections of road, but they sloped back more. I then turned to the left, the land still rising some. I kept turning to the left, going around the other side of the mountain, finally making an almost U-turn and going down a slight slope through generally flat but slightly wavy land, with mountains around here and there.

I would get to around that area and then stop and redo it, over and over, sometimes not reaching that far. It didn't seem exactly like the scene was being replayed, it was more like a game was being played over and over, a new game each time. There were superheroes and supervillains, but they were just people pretending to be them, playing a part. They weren't professional actors either, just people, sometimes different people in different games. It was basically some kind of race, with the hero trying to beat the villain and the villain trying to beat the hero and each one trying to stop or hinder the other. Other heroes would show up along the way to assist. I was the main hero.

The villain was generally somebody bald and wearing dark glasses and some kind of tight, padded tan coat with dark raised lines outlining his chest and I think shoulders, some other places too. I kept thinking of him as sort of a Lex Luther type, but he seems more like something the Flash would have fought.

Sometimes he would attack me at various places and get the upper hand for a while, even being considerably ahead going across the wavy land, at least for a while. Sometimes I would get the better of him in the area with the turns, or if I didn't sometimes he would be caught by the other superheroes. I think one of them was kind of like Aquaman, one of them was kind of like Green Arrow, and there was also a woman who wore a mostly white costume and had black things around her eyes with long black costume rays coming out from them. She had some kind of small creature that was associated with her, though earlier I think it may have been more associated with the Aquaman type character.

The creature was a small, maybe golf ball size, vaguely gray thing, sort of roundish but with flatter ends, almost like a chunk cut off a branch, with long physical ray-like things coming out from it. Earlier they were more like long brownish strings, but later they were long, black, slightly transparent rays, very thin and flexible. It was supposed to be some kind of strange sea creature with special powers.

There may have been one or two more heroes. There was also an odd vehicle they had. It just seemed to be by the road without them doing anything with it, like it showed up with them like a prop, though I guess the thought was that it had flown in with them. It almost seemed like a Flintstones-type vehicle.

The people were all aware that they were just playing roles, and frequently all or most of them would get replaced with new people for the next game. It seemed to be some kind of touristy thing.

At least a couple of times toward the end, the villain, who had gotten past me, was stopped by the other heroes, who started showing up just before the second right turn and then in force between the second right turn and the left turn that eventually led to the wavy land. At least one time the villain glumly complained about his situation, about the heroes showing up and capturing him again.

Though I had been driving at first, the cars we were using got smaller and stranger, like they weren't really cars, just odd very small little vehicles of some kind, open, one person things, sometimes only a few feet long. Sometimes it wasn't much more than a strange chair with bars that looped around it and maybe wheels underneath. Sometimes it was something ridden standing up, maybe even being pushed along with one foot.

The last two times that the superheroes captured the villain in the stretch after the second right turn, I took the small sea creature and ran with it held out high in one hand. The first time pale brown strings came out from it, going way out toward and behind me, stretched out by the wind of my passage, the second time it was the black rays stretched out by the wind, wide initially but narrowing to points at the ends, a faded black, slightly transparent, very thin, like plastic the thickness of ashes. One of the points kept trying to get in my eyes, which was an annoyance.

The first time, an additional right turn appeared before the road turned left and I think this was retained with the second time, but the second time the road extended further back toward the way I had come, back toward Arizona, and the road went on to higher land and after a little while into and through the gas pump area of a service station. Both times the woman hero had made some kind of comment when I took the little creature. This second time she followed after me, talking to me and trying to get me to stop, to come back.

I think I went through the pump area but came back, maybe a couple of times. I was thinking that maybe I should get gas or maybe just food. Gas did seem to be a concern, though I didn't seem to be using a car at that point. Maybe I planned to later. The woman also seemed to be thinking about getting gas. I may have encouraged her to, also. She was still trying to get me to stop and come back.


There was also something about a big multistory old house, either before or after, something about going in and out of it, in and out the windows too, even upper story windows, and maybe going on the roof. Someone may have been after me or trying to get me. I also think I may have been looking for something, maybe something hidden in the house somewhere, perhaps even in the attic.

I was either awakened by my mother asking about supper, or I woke up by myself just before she came.

Wordzzle 94 - Slip sliding away

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 38, for Wordzzle week 94.


Ten Word Challenge:

space cadet,
silver lining,
wood,
turtle soup,
minaret,
ice,
grease,
sales,
mandala,
mug

"Have another mug of turtle soup," she said. "Space Cadets need to keep up their strength."

"Space Cadets are also not supposed to gain weight. Our superiors get mad when we do that. It costs more to send us into space."

"You won't be able to do your best if you're as skinny as a minaret."

"I think one will do, though," he said, putting down the mug. For some reason it seemed terribly greasy. He started chewing on the ice in his drink.

"There's not much nourishment in ice. You should finish your soup."

He reluctantly took another sip from his mug. It didn't taste any better.

"Why couldn't you have gone into sales, or something like that? Then we could have had a normal life."

"I didn't feel like I needed a normal life. There are advantages to this job, you know."

"There don't seem to be many. I do like that mandala they make you wear, though. It's very pretty."

"You mean the Space Cadet emblem? It's very nice, yes, but they give us a different one later on, after we've completed our training."

"Is it better than this one?"

"Some people think so."

"That's good. Now finish off your soup. You need all you can get."

He raised the mug to his lips and finished it off, swallowing it quickly. At least now she would quit nagging him. He set the mug down and put his fists on the table top, feeling very sick now. He looked at the wood grain on the table, and wondered if it should be this close. He realized, then, that his head was leaning down. He thought he should straighten it up, but it seemed like a lot of work.

"The only real silver lining here," she said, "is the insurance policy they give you. It covers death from anything, and pays off an enormous sum. It would be sad to have to use it, though."

He tried to say something, to agree with her, but found himself sliding to the floor.


Mini Challenge:

broken bones,
slide rule,
garbage,
Chinese,
sanguine

"There's a slide rule here," he said. "If you get hurt using the slide, it's your problem."

"That's garbage. The slide attacked me. I have the broken bones to prove it. Is there no responsibility here?"

He looked at me sanguinely. "You did refer to it as being Chinese, like that was a bad thing."

"It has an American name, but it says it was made in China. That sounds deceptive to me."

"It's not deceptive at all. It was upfront about where it was made. If anyone is being deceptive it's you. You don't have any broken bones at all. I'm sure your arm was hanging that way when you came in here."

"It was not! Why, when I came in here I could do anything I wanted with it. I could swing it around my head if I wanted to."

"You could do that now if you wanted to, though you might have to help it out with your other arm."

"I'd rather not. In fact I feel faint even thinking about it. Maybe I'd better just lie down and wait for the ambulance."

"You're nothing but a troublemaker. Get out."

I moved off, grumbling to myself. There was nothing left to do now but fake a fall at the supermarket.


Mega challenge:

space cadet,
silver lining,
wood,
turtle soup,
minaret,
ice,
grease,
sales,
mandala,
mug

broken bones,
slide rule,
garbage,
Chinese,
sanguine

"Sales of turtle soup are not doing well," he observed.

"Maybe it's the broken bones in them."

"Exotic dishes are supposed to be exotic. It adds to the mystery."

"They aren't even turtle bones. They're chicken."

"How can you tell?"

"Some of them have the claws still attached."

"More mystery."

"It's certainly a mystery to me."

"Maybe I should have a block of ice carved into the shape of a minaret, or even a mandala. I could even use frozen grease instead of ice, make it even more notable. Something to bring in the curious."

"It would help if the food weren't so curious."

"I'll have you know I have authentic Chinese dishes, or very nearly authentic Chinese dishes, mixed with other cuisine."

"Your chopsticks aren't even wood. They're made of plastic."

"Yes, but they're made in China."

"What about these mugs with Space Cadets movie scenes on them?"

"They're made in China too, but I can't guarantee that they're authentic."

"What kind of customer are you looking for, exactly?"

"The kind of customer who is interested in something new, who likes the strange, the exotic, who isn't held back because things are a little different." He waved his hand around at the room. "I've tried to make this place different, full of unusual things, things you don't see everywhere else. See, I've even got some ancient Chinese slide rules."

"Those just look like strips of bamboo wired together. Why do they have English numbers on them?"

"How else would you use them?"

"Look, all this stuff is just a bunch of garbage. It's alright to try to be exotic, or strange, or just different, but this is just cheap. I'd like to say there's a silver lining, but there isn't one. There's nothing here at all."

"No, no silver. I do have some nice plastic place mats with silvery designs, though."

"That's what I mean! Nothing in here is real! Everything's fake!"

"Maybe so," he said, sanguinely. "Maybe so." He stirred the turtle soup and poured himself a bowl. "However, if a person believes that they are real, then to that person they are real, and if a person believes that they are fake, then to that person they are fake. I view it, then, as a problem on that person's part, a problem that can possibly yet be corrected. If you see a movie, all kinds of things may happen in it, even fantastic things, and yet some part of you must still believe it, or at least suspend disbelief, in order to appreciate the movie. Even if the acting is bad, and even if some things could have been done better, you must still believe, otherwise it becomes meaningless. We do the same types of things when we read books and stories. If people choose to believe, or choose to want to believe, then things can become real, even if just for a while. Now, I believe I'll have some turtle soup, Would you like to join me?"

After a pause the man said, "I believe I will."

Fun with the DOS prompt

Years ago, back in the 1990s, there was a man who was in charge of a computer network for a business. We worked mostly in DOS back then, and I changed his DOS prompt, which normally gave the drive and directory, to say "A file server could not be found", then a couple of blank lines, then the drive and directory, so it looked like the normal DOS prompt accompanied by an error message. The error message was the same as a real error message that sometimes appeared when there was a problem with a file server or the LAN (Local Area Network). He was there while I did it, so he knew about it, and endured it when it kept appearing on the screen.

Then he went into a program in which the DOS prompt did not appear. He was in there for a while, and when he exited it the fake error message appeared again. His eyes got big as he stared intently at it, then he calmed down and reached for the CTRL-ALT-DELETE keys to reset the computer.

I said, somewhat nervously, "You don't really have to do that."

He said, "Yeah, I know...," while doing it anyway.

Dream - Band of brothers

A long time ago, perhaps around 1973, I dreamed that I was part of a band of brothers, four or five of us in all, who went on a bunch of adventures and defended each other. It was a very long dream, but I didn't write it down at the time, and eventually forgot almost all of it.

The dream ended with us walking together in a field of grass perhaps a foot or so high, somewhere out in the country, in the early morning or early evening. I think everything that we needed to do was completed, at least for now, and what was left was being handled by other people. There would be other things ahead, though, other adventures, and, as the band of brothers, sticking together and defending each other, we would be able to face them when they came. It was a peaceful feeling.

Dream - Me and Mr. Monk

Wednesday, November 19, 2008, probably some time in the morning, I had a dream where we were at my grandmother's house in Arizona. It was night. There was some situation where someone broke into the house through the front door. There was some confrontation involving a few people, some of them neighbors, and the person stole something before leaving. It kept replaying itself, and eventually a woman was injured or killed and left lying in the living room. There were neat small piles of things, in rough short lines perpendicular to the direction of travel, evenly spaced before and after where she was laying.

Eventually, in a replay near the end, Adrian Monk, from the TV show "Monk", showed up. He was called in, I believe, and started to look at the body and the piles of things, head bent down slightly and his hands held up to frame what he was looking at. Everything was still dark. I don't think the lights were turned on in the room. The scene was slightly illuminated, but the light seemed to be coming from somewhere else.

Much more happened in the dream, particularly earlier, but I don't remember it.

Dream - Superheroes on surfboards

Very early Monday morning, September 1, 2008, I had a dream in which I saw some superheroes, one like the TV Superman, on motorized surfboards.

In the dream, I was in Nevada, at least for much of the time. The 1970 green El Camino with white vinyl roof (a car that was partly a small pickup truck) was in an early part of the dream, maybe just when I was in Arizona. I don't think I was driving it later. I was driving back to Nevada now, and I had possibly driven from there to Arizona earlier.

Much later, partway through Nevada, I saw some superheroes on motorized surfboards, one of them like the TV Superman, George Reeves. They were coming or maybe going through a pass cut through a mountain. I was going through that same area back toward Fallon or work. I was still a long ways off, and I think I passed them whether or not they were going my way.

This was a long dream, but I initially didn't write much down. Coming back to it two weeks later I found I couldn't remember very much more, but managed to fill in a little.

Dream - The inflatable boat

Around the end of April or beginning of May, 2008, I had a dream where I was in my bedroom, talking to someone, and I opened a package that I guess had been left there. It was perhaps fifteen or eighteen inches on a side and maybe a couple of inches thick. I was discussing with the other person about what to do with it.

With the wrapper off, it was densely folded heavy plastic. I started unfolding it and pulled some device on the side, activating it. I think it was a spur of the moment thing and I was a little surprised that I did it. The other person was more surprised than I was.

It turned out to be a narrow rubber raft or boat, that was now inflating. I took it out of the bedroom and down the hallway. It was already long enough that it was bumping and bending on things as I took it through the doorway and down the hallway.

In the living room it fully inflated. It was very long but not very wide, and the sides were very small and not very high. I looked at it in amazement. I thought it was a stupid design and would be difficult or impossible to ride in without the part where the person sat getting water in it.

There was more to the dream earlier, but I can't remember it now.


Early in May, no more than a few days after the dream, an issue of Discover magazine came that had a picture of a similar appearing boat, though the appearance of being extremely shallow was an illusion caused by it being very low in the water. It was an interesting coincidence. Perhaps I had a precognition of it in the dream. It was not the only time something like that had happened.

Dream - A car with the Golden Girls, and I become a giant and move my car by hand

On Thursday, July 3, 2008, I dreamed about driving over the hill from Scottsdale, Arizona, into Phoenix. Another car was with us, populated with something like the Golden Girls. Sometimes I was driving and sometimes I seemed to be controlling the car from the passenger seat, sometimes even from the back seat. It was hard to see sometimes, particularly to the side or back. I had to change lanes sometimes and it was hard to see if anyone was there. I had to get to the right because I was going to make a right turn sometime after I got over the hill.

I finally made it all the way to the right side sometime after going over the top. I turned too quick, though, and got on the wrong street. I should have turned on the next major street instead. This street had much more difficult going and led after a ways up and around a mountain. It was too late now. The other car also turned with me. Someone was with me in my car, but I'm not sure who.

After a while I was a giant figure outside the car, moving it along the road with my hand. The wheels on the car became or had added to them big thin metal disks. The asphalt road became divided with several grooves like car treads. I was moving the car forward, pushing it along so that the metal disks stayed in the grooves. I had to move the car over to the left, though. It was all the way to the right and in the way of cars coming toward us. (Looking back at this now, I'm not sure whether this is correct, since we drive on the right. It may be that another road was joining this one while this one curved. I remember something like that happening.) There weren't many cars coming that way, though, and I got it moved over, in steps, in time.

The road was very hilly. It finally got to where it went almost straight up for a considerable distance, and then twisted and turned over and went upside down for a little ways before turning right side up again and then going down a steep hill on the other side. This worried me. Although I successfully made the car follow the road, moving it with my hand, the car was still subject to the rules of gravity, or should be. I thought of how terrible it must be to have to come from the other way, almost impossible to do without the car falling off, and yet I had done it before long ago.

There was a sharp left turn near the bottom to a picnic area that I should have gone to but missed the turn. It was a place I had been before. I was thinking about going back to it somehow.

Dream - Working as a policeman, mistaken for a black woman, and the pie-slice shaped books that I took without paying

On Friday morning, September 12, 2008, I dreamed I drove to Fallon, Nevada, and parked on a dirt lot in front of apartments where I was or had been staying (in the dream), more in the area of the first place I had stayed in real life rather than the second. A woman joined me and kept part of her stuff in the vehicle I was driving. It might have been a car at first, but later it was more of a little pickup with a camper shell or maybe a small station wagon, though it just seemed to have two doors. I seemed to be sleeping in it, at least part of the time, maybe laying down in the back. She slept in it too, at least sometimes, sleeping in the passenger seat sitting up. She also had a dog of some kind, something like a cocker spaniel or a little larger. She seemed to have to wait for me for some reason, I'm not sure why now, maybe I had to unlock the entrance to the apartments for her, maybe she just wanted to check in with me, but it seems like something more.

Then I somehow got a temporary job as a policeman. Someone who was a policeman wanted me to do it. I think it was only part time at first, but then it changed to full time. I was a little uncertain about it. I'm not sure my normal boss was even told about it, it might have gone through higher channels. I would walk around town on foot, normally with another policeman, the one who wanted me I think. Sometimes another policeman or two were there also.

There was some kind of a problem with crumbling concrete or cement. They were massive blocky supports for something, though in some cases there may only have been a partial structure above them, like a small overhang. In some cases the concrete may have been part of a building, maybe a corner. The concrete, looking like stucco, crumbled like dried mud when poked at. I was showing someone who I think was supposed to be a detective. He looked like the Range Manager at a place I used to work, a medium size man with reddish hair and a mustache. He poked at the concrete too when I showed him. In some ways he was a little in his actions like Captain Stottlemeyer on the "Monk" TV show. We were near and at a corner where a shopping area started a little beyond.

At a bookstore in the shopping center, I took two copies of a sequel, a collection of very short anecdotes and advice and recipes. The books were triangular, like wide pie slices. At first I think they were hardcover with slipcovers, but later they were softcover. I simply took the books without paying. They were sitting outside with others on a table and I just swooped through going from south to north, looking at them briefly and then taking them with me. I thought at first that it was okay because I had the earlier book in the series, but later I started to worry about it. I thought that I probably wasn't entitled to them after all and worried about getting them back somehow, maybe just walking in and dropping them off and walking out. I continued carrying them around. I walked out and back down the street, going east, and then turned right at another street going south, gradually circling back toward the shopping center.

Halfway along I met some black women who were visiting from somewhere else. They were fascinated by me and almost acted like they knew me. I was partially disguised as someone else and as they talked I was slowly changing, becoming more disguised, finally seeming to be a black woman, though I think they thought I was from the beginning. (Normally I am a white man.)

I finally managed to leave them and continued walking, turning right at the next road and going west. I turned right again, then, onto the road that headed back toward the shopping center.

Reaching the shopping center, I went through a small eating place and picked up a very small double or triple sundae. I don't think it had bananas. It was in an elongated paper cup type thing with a stiff paper wrapped around it. I was holding it in one hand and the books in the other. I worried about getting ice cream on my fingers and then on the books. I was eating the ice cream by sticking my mouth down on it. I finally wandered off and left the shopping center again. In some ways the area seemed a little like the area in part of Reno.

I wandered way back toward not too far from where I was staying and was sitting at a small rectangular table near the sidewalk. I was on the other side of the main road, which went east and west, and the small neighborhood road cross-street was a little to the north. I was with one or two other people.

The visiting black woman and her friends came by, then. They still thought I was a black woman. She sat down and happily talked to me, but she seemed increasingly upset about the books. I'm not sure why. She kept looking at them. They were stacked upside down and nothing was printed on the bottom. She may have wanted one or she may have wanted a look at one. She finally got up and left, looking very upset.

I left shortly afterward, and walked back toward the shopping center and the bookstore to try to give the books back. The books were starting to look less new after all the carrying around. I thought about trying to get someone else to do it for me, maybe the detective.

I changed to stealth mode, where people simply didn't pay attention to me, and I became or was represented as not much more than a pair of dark shoes surrounded by a round shadow, though in reality I may have simply been there but unnoticeable. I was going through a downtown area, crossing streets, trying to stay out of the way of people and cars.


A couple of months or so previously, in July 2008, I had another dream where I took books from a bookstore without paying.

Dream - Taking a book without paying, then getting attacked by people

On July 17 or 18, 2008, or possibly slightly earlier, I had a dream in which I took a book and some other things from a bookstore without paying, intending to bring them back, and then being threatened by people and sometimes getting into fights.

In the dream, I was at a mall. It had outdoor walkways between between rows of shops. It seems like it was partly paved with asphalt, old now, and was partly dirt, kind of a pale dirt with some large sand or very small rock. The parking lot was similar. The walkways and stores were not entirely level and some areas were on slightly different levels.

I was looking at some books in a bookstore in the mall. I don't think I had much money with me. I think my mother was somewhere in the area, but I'm not sure where and she didn't show up later in the dream.

I went out of the bookstore holding a small book and some papers partly curled in one hand. I hadn't paid for them and was coming back, I wanted to check the other bookstore. I went out and walked to the right down the line of shops. The light was dim and there were a few other people around, including some threatening figures. The area by the shops was broad, but after walking for a while I turned to the right to a narrower area that led to where the other bookstore was. The other bookstore was slightly lower and the walkway dipped down some and the surface became irregular, changing in large part to unpaved with an irregular hill-like area as it went down before reaching the door of the bookstore, which was across the path to the left.

I went in and looked for a while without finding anything I wanted. The bookstore seemed similar to some bookstores in other dreams, being relatively small and having a larger back area than the front, with a room or rooms at the back that led off to the right. I held tightly to the small book and papers in my hand the whole time. I was hoping that they would look like they belonged with me and not the store. It began to bother me, though, and I started to worry that someone at the store might question me about them. They weren't actually mine and still belonged to the other bookstore, and the store might not be able to distinguish them from its own books and might think that they belonged to them.

I went to leave and an employee had gone to the door and was crouched down low, working at something around or on the door frame. He was in the way and I would have to go right by him, maybe even stepping over him. I went toward him and as I reached him he moved slightly to the side, still working on whatever he was working on. I squeezed by him, pushing at him some as I went. I think I gently pushed at his hip with my hand as I went by, encouraging him to move a little more, which he did, and then I patted him a little as I went on by.

I was back out in the dim outdoor light, then, making my way up the irregular slope, intending to go back to the other bookstore. Sinister figures were ahead and to some extent gathered around me from the sides and behind as I walked. The ones who gathered around me kind of converted to my side. One of them came up and talked to me briefly as we walked, saying something like he understood what I was doing and would support me, or something like that.

We came then toward the group ahead, a larger group with its own leader, a group my group had been part of. The other group apparently expected my group to still be part of it and support it and waited cockily for me, talking some among themselves while they watched me approach. They were just beyond where the narrower walkway joined the broad one.

When I reached them I went through them, though, and kept walking, turning to the left. The people with me went into the others, distracting them and drawing them aside. The leader of the larger group and some others started walking a little behind me and to the sides. The leader seemed puzzled and curious as to what was happening. He still seemed cocky or at least acted like it. I went down the length of the mall toward the parking lot. I turned, though, and went back for some reason, going back along the line of stores.

I saw a woman coming from a smaller side branch. She had dark hair and was tall and somewhat muscular for a woman. She was a worker at a store and was now leaving the mall after working late figuring up the books. She was still carrying some books and papers and some other stuff. She was somewhat nervous about going out into the broader area, fearing what might happen. She had had a bad experience before, she had been attacked at some earlier time, perhaps weeks or months before. She had physically recovered but was now somewhat fearful. She didn't know me and seemed to think I might be part of the group of bad people who were still following me around. I walked toward her, intending to reassure her.

She stopped and waited, looking uncertain and afraid. She had brought some stuff with her to protect herself and started to throw things at me I think. I threw things back I think and as we got close to each other she was hitting me with something and knocked me away. I guess I rolled or something and got ten or twenty feet away.

Nearby I saw some kind of small ornamental wooden table. It had tall, old fashioned legs that had been turned on a lathe. The tabletop was perhaps eight by twelve inches, perhaps even six by ten. The legs were very tall though, making it around three to four feet tall.

I grabbed the legs of the table, holding them squeezed mostly together in one hand, and went to her and hit her in the face with the table, more than once I think, knocking her back and down. I then threw her a long distance.

She lay on her back, then, some of the stuff she had been carrying still by her. Her face had blood splattered on it and there was blood splattered on her clothes. She lay there with a grimace on her face, and her eyes closed, her face turning slowly a little to one side and then the other. The place I had thrown her was a more open area, past where the mall ended on one side, though there was another building or buildings a ways to the side and back past a broad undeveloped looking area. There was something a little to her right that may have been a gully or creek.

I didn't intend to hurt her badly during the fight and I hoped that I hadn't. I had needed to subdue her, though, to stop her from fighting me and so I could talk to her and explain the situation. It didn't look like she was able to fight any more, but that was not actually certain. It looked like I would have to wait a while to be able to explain the situation to her, but I thought that she would be on my side when I did, and follow along with me like the others.

It started to get a little lighter now, not so dim, like it was early morning before dawn. I went back toward the parking lot for some reason, I'm not sure now why. I think I was concerned that someone may have been waiting for me, perhaps my mother. I think I left the woman there at least temporarily. There seemed to be some urgency about things.

There was a broad dirt road by some mostly dead vegetation, bushes and small trees, kind of undeveloped looking. Beyond the mall area and in front of it, cars were parked there.

As I went to and in it the situation seemed to became more ominous and threatening, like I was going to finally be attacked by the people following me. We had picked up some others as we had walked around, including some teenagers. Some of the people were getting closer to me as I moved back and forth on the dirt road. I looked things over as I walked, nervously watching the unpleasant developments.

Someone came up by me, I'm not sure who. I think it might have been the person who had joined with me earlier and controlled the others, but I'm not sure. If it was, he now seemed to have turned against me. He was bent toward me, his head down and saying something to me. He talked low and seemed somewhat mad. I think one of his hands was on me, the other hand was holding a very small pocketknife that was partly open. It looked like I was going to be killed.

I tried to draw back and was thinking, "NO!" and found that I was also holding a very small pocketknife, perhaps even smaller than his. The blade was less than half open and was only a couple of inches long. I put it up to the inside edge of his lower jaw about halfway from his chin and after a pause, pushed it slowly in while he stood there, bent and tensed, his head slightly tilted away from it. I was just shoving it in along the inner side of the jawbone, near his tongue, but I was afraid I was somehow killing him, or that there might be a chance I was doing so. It felt bad that I was having to attack him, maybe even killing him, especially since he may have been the one who helped me earlier. It was terrible how these things sometimes worked out.

About ten or twenty feet away toward the edge or a little beyond the edge of the road, a tall teenage boy stood. He had black hair and was medium build with a bit of a soft look. When I stabbed the man under the jaw, the boy's eyes got big and he cried out, "No!" Evidently he was the man's son. I felt really bad about all this. I still wasn't absolutely sure the man had been attacking me, though it sure looked like it. I wished I hadn't had to do it but there didn't seem to be anything else I could have done, though it seemed that there should have been, that there should have been another way.

The mall reminds me a little of the old Town and Country mall in Phoenix, with some features of Coronado High School and perhaps some things from malls in Reno and Carson City.


In September 2008, about two months after this dream, I had another dream about taking books from a bookstore without paying. In the later dream they were pie slice shaped books. The later dream was much more pleasant.

Wordzzle 93 - Food fright

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 37, for Wordzzle week 93.


Ten Word Challenge:

spaghetti,
woe is me,
mythology,
avarice,
windy,
pathetic,
paper towels,
water,
all my children,
books

I unwrapped the glob of dripping paper towels, and found a soggy mass of spaghetti and meatballs. I looked at it and sighed. We're really going to have to get some more paper plates, I thought. Maybe even some paper bowls. I looked around to see if anyone had something I might want to trade for, but theirs seemed to be just as pathetic as mine, sometimes even more so. If we were said to suffer any form of greed right now, it was simply a desire for something decent to eat, and any great desires for wealth or power, any feelings of avarice, were forced to the distant edges of our minds.

I looked around again, but there wasn't anything better than what I had. The one next to me, in fact, must be one for the record books. It looked almost like something you would read about in mythology, as some eternal punishment someone was condemned to. I shuddered and took a drink of my water and looked away. Thank goodness it was windy out here, and carrying away the smell.

"Woe is me," the man said. "All my children made this for me, and I have to eat it." Then he looked toward me with desperate hopefulness and said, "Want to trade?"


Mini Challenge:

best deals of the week,
Nobel Peace Prize,
sleep deprived,
cauliflower,
practice

I should get the Nobel Peace Prize, I thought, for not throwing it at them. The frozen broccoli and cauliflower packages had been listed in the ad among the best deals of the week, and I had bought ten of them. When I opened them, though, I found that the contents were covered with frost and had lots of dark spots. I had decided to go ahead and eat them anyway. I hated to take them back. Not only would I have to go to the trouble of doing it, it would mean admitting I had made a mistake. I couldn't throw them away, either, as I didn't want to waste the money, even if I hardly paid anything for them. It had been several days now, and I was about halfway through them.

I dumped the contents of the package in the pot of water and stared at it, feeling sick and sleep deprived. I looked at it and sighed, and added an extra large glob of margarine to it, then some salt. Maybe that would help, I thought. Maybe I could keep it down this time. Practice makes perfect.


Mega challenge:

spaghetti,
woe is me,
mythology,
avarice,
windy,
pathetic,
paper towels,
water,
all my children,
books

best deals of the week,
Nobel Peace Prize,
sleep deprived,
cauliflower,
practice

"Are you sure you wouldn't want my sauerkraut and cauliflower and hot dog casserole?" the man next to me said, his eyes watering. "It's really very good."

"No thanks," I said, feeling sick at the thought, raising the mass of paper towels and spaghetti to my face to take a bite. "I'm trying to cut down."

He turned back to his food, staring at it, a look of disappointment and pain on his face. "Woe is me," he mumbled over and over. "Woe is me."

I looked at the other people there. Some were trading with each other, though we didn't seem to have the best deals of the week here. I took another bite of the spaghetti. We were going to have to buy some plastic forks, too. My paper bag tried to blow away and I grabbed it, then flattened it and set the paper towels and spaghetti down on it. It was getting a little too windy, but I wasn't complaining. I could hardly smell any of the food now.

"Why do these things keep happening to me?" the man said. "I like to think I'm a good person. I don't suffer from avarice or sloth or any of those other things. I'm faithful to my wife, and kind to my children. I'm even kind to animals. And yet this keeps happening. Why me? Why?"

I tried not to listen. Listening reminded me of his food.

"I bought them cookbooks," the man said. I bought them all cookbooks. My wife and all my children. And still, still this happens. Woe is me, woe is me."

I didn't reply, trying to appear absorbed with my spaghetti and meatballs.

"If anyone should get the Nobel Peace Prize, it's me," he said. "For keeping my peace."

I groaned. He just didn't want to stop. "Maybe with enough practice they'll get better."

"Practice doesn't help," he said. "They practice on me." He looked at the casserole again, tears running down his face. "I'm such a pathetic figure," he said. "Not even in legends and mythology has there been anything as bad as this. Woe is me, woe is me."

The sleep-deprived looking man on the other side of him, who had been staring at a bowl of mottled cauliflower and broccoli, turned toward him, a haunted, hungry look in his eyes, and said, "Want to trade?"

Dream - The Old West town in another dimension

More than once I've had a dream like or with elements of this one. In the dream, which probably happened somewhere around 2001, give or take a couple of years, I went up a mountain and then inside it through a wide opening that narrowed toward the back, until at the back it was just a wide horizontal crack maybe two or three feet high. I looked out with others down a long slope toward a broad, fairly flat area, a plain that was partly covered with short green grass. Beyond the plain was more high ground, more mountains, In the plain, an Old West type town sat, several miles from us. It was apparently a re-creation of one, like a theme park. I think not too many people were there, but there were some.

It seems that this area on the other side of the mountain, where the town was, was in another dimension. Some bad people were trying to get us, and I went back and forth quite a bit, both to the town below and also just back and forth up and down the mountain. There was also, in this dream or a similar one, in the town or near it, a clear-walled circular shaft with an elevator, that led to a city under the ground. I took the shaft down a time or two, in the struggle against the people trying to get us, and spent quite a bit of time in the city there.

In the end of the time in the city under the ground, I was in a residential area, with one or two others I think. It was night, and there was an occasional distant explosion in the sky. I was trying to calculate where the other people in my group might be. They had their own missions, in other parts of the city. I was also trying to figure out where the enemy might be. Someone came, then, and told us that it was over, that we had won, that the enemy had been conquered or had given up or had run away, or perhaps some combination of these. I don't remember the details. I was a bit surprised, though, that it was over now, so suddenly. Now we could have peace. Now we could leave, now we could go home.

Going home was different than getting there. It was more a matter of intention, of specially willing it. Some, I think, went fairly quickly, but I walked on with some others through the dark neighborhood streets for a while, sometimes looking up at the "sky" above us, looking like a featureless gray overcast at this distance. I felt I could reach through it with my mind, and will myself home, but it didn't seem to be happening yet. I continued to wander through the neighborhoods, with the others, as time passed. As the night grew later, I became tireder, and frowned more, and the others were starting to wonder about me I felt, wondering why we didn't just go home. Eventually I did get there, but some members of my family, perhaps including my mother, came to meet us partway, and we walked the rest of way with them, through a neighborhood that became my own.

Dream - Hidden areas under the ground covered with a layer of hard dirt

I've had dreams over the years of hidden areas under the ground covered with a layer of hard dirt, no more than a few inches thick in places, with big chunks coming off and falling in. Sometimes, depending on the dream, the areas are big enough to stand in, but sometimes they're only a few feet deep, and sometimes, at least in places, they're only a few inches deep, or even less.

In real life, I saw when voting in the presidential primary at a new place in January or February 2008, that at the side of the building was a long dip in the ground for runoff, and an area by it toward the building that was apparently opened up by the water, with a pipe coming from the building to some kind of box or enclosure with other lines coming and going. The whole area around it was opened up by the water with the sides of the hole sharply undercut into the surrounding land by some unknown but deep amount, eerily reminding me of my dreams.

Dream - Using a computer that shows a list of news stories

I've had lots of dreams at various times in the past involving working on a computer in a room that was frequently on a second story, or sometimes higher, of an apartment building. Sometimes the place had tiny rooms and sometimes the rooms were very large. Generally there was some difficulty of access, such as narrow steep stairs, or frequently a hole in the ceiling of a lower story with a steep narrow stairway or even a ladder, perhaps something that sometimes that had to be pulled down to climb up on.

The computer had a screen with DOS-like elements. I tried to use it to access a site I used to go to frequently in dreams and hadn't for a long time. Sometimes, perhaps frequently, I had trouble accessing it, had trouble finding it or determining if it was actually the same site. It seemed part of the communication was through sound or music. Finding the site was something like tuning a radio dial to a channel. In the old days, perhaps usually then on the first (or only) floor in a large darkened room, it showed a list of news stories that scrolled up and stopped on a DOS-like screen, and I thought about how I used to access it all the time.

Actually using a radio was sometimes part of the experience, at least in some later dreams, and sometimes after fiddling with the radio to find the right channel, I had trouble finding it again later, and wondered if the program I was looking for had been canceled or moved, to a different time or even a different station. It was important to find the radio program, because it was connected to the news website, and sometimes talked about it, sometimes even having coded messages or even special access codes for it.


Near the end of April 2009, it occurred to me that the Whitley's World website (by Whitley Strieber) used to have a screen that was somewhat similar, as it had a centrally displayed long list of news stories on a dark background, interspersed with things he wrote, some of which later became journal entries at the unknowncountry.com website, which replaced Whitley's World and was laid out entirely differently. This list of news stories may have been in part an inspiration for the dreams, particularly since he did the Dreamland radio program, which later became available only over the internet. However, the voice I heard in the dream wasn't his, which may be because I usually fall asleep listening to the radio, which would have something else on it. Unlike the dream, too, the news stories didn't automatically scroll into position, though there were some delays in displaying parts of the screen because of the slow dial-up connection. I think though, that the dreams may have started over ten years ago, before I ever accessed his website, so the original inspiration must have been something else.

Other possibilities are the iwon.com and myway.com websites, which have pages with lists of news stories. I used to access them a lot years ago, but the lists have white backgrounds and don't resemble the lists in the dreams, and they don't scroll unless I make them scroll. Also, I think I was already having the dreams long before I started visiting the sites, though iwon has appeared in some later dreams in a different way.

Yahoo.com also has lists of news stories, but has the same problems matching the dreams.

I did write a program many years ago that showed a scrolling list of equipment, color-coded by operational status. The list didn't stop scrolling, though, unless a command was given. It was also much wider than the list in the dreams, and was in various colors instead of just white, though I did have an almost never used black and white setting.

It's possible the original inspiration for the dreams may have been an actual website that I accessed for a while over ten years ago, but can no longer quite remember.

Wordzzle 92 - The Scarecrow and the King of the Turtles

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 36, for Wordzzle week 92.


Ten Word Challenge:

sugar,
mortgage,
logical,
roller skates,
outlandish,
Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,
cumberbund,
unexpected,
photo album,
scarecrow

The Scarecrow looked outlandish in my roller skates. The cummerbund didn't help, especially since it tended to slide down to his knees. I watched him as he rolled around, his boneless body flowing back and forth as he tried to keep his balance. The visit had been totally unexpected, and I still wasn't sure why he came.

He finally rolled up to me and, bracing himself against the house, took the skates off. He then took off the cummerbund and handed it and the skates to me, thanking me as he did so. I said I was going to have some tea with sugar and offered him some, but he declined, saying that liquids were bad for his straw. I folded up the cummerbund, something my grandfather had owned, and put it back in its drawer, and the skates back in the closet. Then we sat on the couch and talked for a while, and I showed him my photo album.

When it was time for him to go, I remarked that it was good that he had come when he did. I was behind in paying the mortgage, and it looked like they were going to repossess the house. He unbuttoned his shirt a little and reached into his chest and pulled out a large sum of money, tens of thousands of dollars, maybe more, and handed it to me, telling me to take it. I looked at it, surprised, and finally slowly took it. I asked him where it came from, and if he was sure he wanted me to take it. He wouldn't say how he got it, but assured me everything was alright. And yes, he wanted me to take it, that he didn't need money himself and it was logical for me to have it, and this was something he wanted to do. I thanked him profusely, and he nodded at me, and looked happy and a little embarrassed, if a scarecrow could look embarrassed. We hugged then and he left. I watched him go, ambling loosely along, an occasional bit of straw falling out. Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he came a little early this year.


Mini Challenge:

tomatoes,
turtles,
basement apartment,
circumference,
make my day

The King of the Turtles came slowly toward me, a large creature with a huge circumference. I had hidden in my basement apartment, but they had found me anyway. "We have the building surrounded," he said. "Yield your tomatoes to us."

I got up and went toward the refrigerator, trembling a little, and got out the bag. I picked up one of the tomatoes from it and held it for a moment, looking at it and at the King. "Go ahead, make my day," went through my mind, and I thought of throwing it, as I had thrown some others that day. The King's massive presence, though, and the thought of the others waiting, many of which would surely come in, took away any will to fight. "Sure," I said, handing him the bag. "All you had to do was ask."


Mega challenge:

sugar,
mortgage,
logical,
roller skates,
outlandish,
Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,
cumberbund,
unexpected,
photo album,
scarecrow

tomatoes,
turtles,
basement apartment,
circumference,
make my day

The King of the Turtles sat on his thrown, or, rather, lay in it. A bag of tomatoes was on the floor beside him. "It was as you said," he told the Scarecrow. "We found him in his basement apartment. He gave us the tomatoes without a struggle."

The Scarecrow nodded toward him, bowing a little even. "I'm glad to hear that, your highness," he said.

"We knew we could count on you," said the King. "Your detective skills are widely known. I have your fee ready, plus a little more." A line of turtles slowly walked in, pulling a small cart filled with an outlandish sum of money.

"This is most unexpected, your highness," said the Scarecrow. "This is enough to pay off a whole mortgage."

"Nevertheless, I want you to have it. I have far more money than I can ever spend, and finding the perpetrator has made my day. It is only logical that you take it. Think of it as a little extra sugar on top."

It was more than a little extra sugar, thought the Scarecrow, not that he ever consumed such things. A little extra straw was all he needed, as he sometimes lost bits of it along the way. "Thank you very much, your highness," he said.

"Let us take some pictures of the occasion," the King said. "For the royal photo album."

A ramp was brought up and the King slowly made his way down it, his massive circumference swinging to one side and then the other. The Royal Photographer came up, then, and the camera was erected on its tripod, and pictures were taken of the King and the Scarecrow and the money in various official poses. The Scarecrow then thanked him again, bowing low, and took the money and walked out, turning and bowing again at the doorway.

He walked away from the Royal Castle/Residence/Burrow, stuffing the money in his chest and musing to himself. Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Now maybe he could get some roller skates and dress up fancy, maybe even wear a cummerbund, something he had always wanted...

The bedtime prayer

This is the prayer my mother taught me to say before going to sleep. The last two lines are different from the more common version. I wasn't even aware of the more common version until late in grade school, or possibly not even until high school.

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
And when I wake another day,
I pray the Lord to guide my way.

Jumbo Elephant

This is a song the teacher taught us in kindergarten or first grade:

Jumbo Elephant, Jumbo Elephant,
You have such a great long nose,
Jumbo Elephant, Jumbo Elephant,
It reaches to your toes.
Jumbo Elephant, Jumbo Elephant,
You live in a great big zoo,
Jumbo Elephant, Jumbo Elephant,
We'll come and visit you.

There was also a song about a giraffe, but I quickly forgot that one.

Wordzzle 91 - No telling

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is two weeks after the previous one, as a week was skipped for Thanksgiving.

This is my entry number 35, for Wordzzle week 91.


Ten Word Challenge:

edge,
haven,
sunglasses,
sprightly,
telling,
frazzled,
juicy,
quartet,
tied,
necklace

There was no haven here. His eyes, hidden by sunglasses, looked out, surveying the land. More dirt crumbled from the edge of the cliff, taking a chunk of pavement with it this time. The man stepped back slightly, and checked the time on his broken watch. It didn't tell him anything useful. Looking a bit frazzled now, he stepped back a little more. From somewhere, it seemed, he thought he heard the sound of a quartet singing. It was a sprightly tune, or could be, but it seemed distorted by distance, almost slowed down. Looking at the edge again, he noticed a spiderweb on one of the posts. Just the thing for catching juicy flies, he thought. Not much good for larger things. His shoes needed polishing he noticed, and one had become untied. No matter. It didn't seem important now. He started to look at his watch again, and then put his arm back down. He loosened his tie, and finally took it off. Women are lucky with their necklaces, he thought, and don't have to wear these choking things. He wadded it up and tried to stuff it in a coat pocket, then finally got frustrated and threw it away. He watched it sail out over the cliff, slowly turning. That probably wasn't the most prudent thing to do, but it was just the latest in a long line of not-so-prudent things. He walked back and forth a little, then tapped his foot in impatience. The sun was setting now. This certainly was taking a long time. He almost looked at his watch, then stuck his hand firmly in his pants pocket. It used to be you could depend on things, but there was just no telling now.

Finally, a large white horse trotted up. It had a saddle on it, but no rider. He was unfamiliar with horses, but this would have to do. He put a foot in the stirrup, then swung into the saddle. It felt right, somehow, to be sitting there. He peered out over the cliff one last time, at the burning car far below, then rode away.


Mini Challenge:

bees,
crackling,
wooden,
staple,
earful

The bees buzzed boundlessly,
all across their flowered spot.
The crackling footsteps going by
disturbed their working not.

The squirrel got an earful and looked
from its wooden home to see.
A bear, in the woods that day,
peered out from behind a tree.

A caterpillar munched happily
upon a tasty leaf,
for leaves were its staple food
and its food in chief.

The woman strode upon her way,
no creature did she see.
Oblivious to the world she went,
lost in reverie.

In dreams of colored cloth and colored thread
and sewing merrily,
and contemplating the age-old thought,
of whether to bee or not to bee.


Mega challenge:

edge,
haven,
sunglasses,
sprightly,
telling,
frazzled,
juicy,
quartet,
tied,
necklace

bees,
crackling,
wooden,
staple,
earful

"Mind your own beeswax," she said.

"Huh?"

"You heard me, keep your nose out of it."

He sighed, in a frazzled sort of way. He knew he was going to get an earful if he kept this up, but there seemed no other way. "Look, we've got to settle this..."

She turned to him and pulled his sunglasses off and punched him in the eye, then put them back on. "That settle it for you?"

"Ow!" he said, in what he hoped was a sprightly manner. "Not really!"

She started to reach for his sunglasses again, and he stepped back quickly. "Surely we can talk about this."

"Enjoy yourself. Let me know when you're done."

"That's not very helpful."

"Apparently not. Let me try this." She took off his necktie, wrapped it tightly around his mouth, and stapled it together at the back of his head. "How about that?"

"Ib's harb bu balk bike bis."

"I'm glad you noticed." She then began to staple the sleeves of his coat to his pants.

"Mmmph!"

"You brought this on yourself." She reached down and untied his shoes, then tied them to each other. She put another quartet of staples in his pants at the knees, binding them together.

She turned and started to walk away, and he hopped after her, then tripped and fell on the wooden floor. He hoped the crackling sound he heard wasn't him. He squirmed and twisted and managed to pull his sleeves lose, with a sickening ripping sound. He then tore his necktie loose, and let it fall on his shoulders like a strange necklace.

"I wish you hadn't done that," he said.

"We all have our dreams."

"I have to know the year you were born. It's not like I'm after some new bit of juicy gossip. I have to have it to do a proper astrological chart."

"I told you," she said, looking frazzled, "that I'm not going to tell you."

"But how will we ever know if we're compatible?"

"Look," she said, a real edge in her voice, "you're driving me crazy."

"At least it's a short trip."

"What?!"

He wasn't sure what happened after that. The nurses at the Merciful Haven Hospital kept the charts hidden, and the doctors weren't telling.

National Novel Writing Month 2009 - Winner!

On March 20, 2009, I joined nanowrimo.org as user Stephen_M_99 for National Novel Writing Month 2009, which occurs in November. Shortly before 5:00 AM, November 28, 2009, I completed the rough draft of the novel (all that was necessary was that the word count be sufficient). The word processor I was using (MS Works) gave the word count at 52,110, but after after encrypting it as suggested (by changing each letter to "a") and uploading it to them for verification, the word count came out at 52,111. I had read earlier, though, that different programs can give different word counts, so I was prepared for a difference. I was happy and surprised that it was such a small difference.

Among the goodies offered to winners were the following web badges. Though I am showing them all here, I'm just going to put the tall one in the sidebar.






My novel is science fiction, and I described it as follows in the Novel Info section:

Synopsis:

A man finds himself going through time and other dimensions and has several adventures, unknowingly being trained by a secret organization, and in the process essentially creating his own past, and even himself.


Excerpt:

The cave seemed to be mostly a tunnel, and wound around, turning this way and that. After the first few feet, he couldn't see anything. Then he saw a lighter area ahead, and walked faster, glad that he would soon be out.

He walked though the opening and then abruptly stopped. A man lay in the sand, about ten feet away, face down, his head toward the cave. It looked like he had been heading this way when he had fallen. Jack looked around at the gray sea and the rocky land, and at the slime. Oh no. Here again. He was already having trouble breathing, already tasting the acrid metallic flavor of the poisonous air. Someone else had come here, someone who didn't make it. He wondered if the man was still alive, if he still had time to get him out.

Jack rushed to him and put his arms under the man's shoulders and lifted him partly up, and began to back out with him, hurrying as much as he could. He was already out of breath, and it was hard with all this extra weight. He managed to get him out into the tunnel, though, and he could somehow breathe there, like the air from the place didn't follow them there. After a while, he realized he was going a different way from the way he had come. Even though it was dark, he could tell that the turns were different. Where was he going now?

After a shorter time than it had taken the first time, he found himself going through an exit from the cave. It's a good thing it was shorter, it was exhausting to have to drag a body along with him. He got him partway out of the cave, and laid him back down. He lifted his head up a bit and turned it to the side, then froze, stunned. It was himself! It was his body! Well, it wasn't really a body, he had known for some time that it was breathing, but it was himself!

Jack stared at him, having trouble understanding it. Was he going to go back there again, and fail to make it, and then be rescued by his earlier self? Then it hit him. This was his earlier self he was looking at. He hadn't made it earlier, after all. His later self had come and rescued him, and left him here. He looked around. The tracks of the cat were there, like before, but now his own tracks were there, too. He had to get rid of them. He went and pulled a leafy branch off a bush, and began carefully brushing his tracks away, making the area smooth. He suddenly stopped and straightened up. Oh no! He had wiped out the cat's prints, too! Now what?

Suddenly, something small rushed out of the cave, brushing against him as it went. He looked at the ground, and the tracks were back. He looked at the way it had headed, but all he saw now were more tracks. They seemed to blend with the old ones, the ones that were left. He guessed it was all okay, then. He carefully backed away, brushing out his tracks and leaving the cat's, feeling incredibly ashamed and sneaky. He was putting one over on himself! It didn't get any sneakier than that.