The assignment for last Monday’s class was to write a short story (5 pages, double spaced) in which the main character is dealing with a conflict of some sort. (It was at that point when I realized that most of my stories tend to be about the plot and much less about the characters.)
What I came up with is “Breakfast” which is filed in with the rest of my musings. Keep an eye out for a cameo by a certain fuzzy-faced denizen of these pages.
Enjoy!
Category Archives: Stories
Danger in Storyland
A little after 7:00, I walked into the classroom where my creative writing class is held. The first thing to catch my eyes as I walked through the door was the chalkboard at the end of the room, opposite the shelves full of used books.
The chalkboard is usually blank. Indeed, this was the first evening I could remember seeing any words on it. Tonight, in addition to the usual layers of chalk dust from past classes, the chalkboard bore a question, in large letters, covering nearly half the available writing area.
What is at risk for the protagonist?
“A good question,” I thought, but not one I would need to contend with. Someone had written another sentence directly beneath it, as if it were the answer. They’d even underlined it for emphasis.
Suspension of disbelief
At first, this didn’t seem like the sort of answer that would go with a question like that. Surely the question was about something within the story that the protagonist was at risk of losing. The risk of this loss is what motivates the protagonist to resolve the plot. But thinking about it from the protagonist’s viewpoint, I found myself agreeing that perhaps this was the correct answer after all.
Loss of the suspension of disbelief can be downright shattering to a protagonist. How many main characters are out there, trapped forever between the pages of a book that isn’t interesting enough for someone to finish reading? (Heck, how many stories are eternally trapped in this journal, waiting for someone to read them?)
To be certain, there are risks for the writer as well. If the reading public had been unable to suspend their disbelief and enter the world of Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling wouldn’t be nearly as well-known as she is now and might still be toiling in obscurity. But consider the risks for Harry himself! If the public interest hadn’t been sufficient for Ms. Rowling to write the rest of the series, Harry might still be living under the stairs in the Dursley residence!
On the Water
Laying on a lounge chair, Helen was enjoying the warm afternoon sun on her face. The chair transmitted vibrations from the deck as the boat raced across the lake. As the engine lulled her to sleep, Helen smiled to herself, “I’m glad we bought this boat. Wayne definitely likes his toy.”
Twenty minutes earlier, Wayne had looked toward the back of the boat and, seeing Helen napping, decided she’d had a good idea. Shutting down the engine, he’d stretched out on the other lounger. Now, feeling the deck’s vibrations through his own chair, Wayne smiled, pleased that his wife was enjoying herself and drowsily decided not to interrupt.
Standing on his hind legs, with one forepaw resting on the steering wheel and the other on the throttle, the family dog was enjoying the feeling of his ears flapping in the wind. Reflecting that this was much more fun than curling up on the deck, he resolved that next week he would teach himself how to drive the truck.
Explorer
I started to put Explorer in this space, but in the end decided it was better suited for the “Musings” part of the site. Tomorrow I may very well change my mind and move it back.
When you read it, the story is (pretty obviously) inspired by the Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity Mars missions. It’s not really tied to any one of those in particular, and with only minor changes could be adapted to the Viking missions as well. I just happened to find myself contemplating the probes’ arrival from the viewpoint of what it might have really looked like. We know how the landing sequence was supposed to go, and we know that the three probes did indeed arrive. But there were no eyewitness accounts.
At least, not until now. 🙂
Railroad Interrupted
The train thundered through the mountain pass. The roar of its passage echoing off the rock walls on either side was amplified until it could be heard clearly in the small town in the valley at the mountain’s base.
As the train crossed the peak and began picking up speed on the downgrade, the engineer began applying the brake. Deadman’s curve was just a mile ahead and it was always best to to approach it at a slower pace.
“Is everything OK tonight?”
Startled, Pete looked up from his reverie, blinking owlishly. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“Is everything OK tonight?” the waitress repeated.
“Oh, it’s terrific! Thanks!” And it’s true, Pete reflected. It had been a fantastic dinner.
As the waitress smiled and went back to work, Pete returned to his train of thought. But it was too late. While he’d been distracted, the brake had overheated and was now a worthless hunk of warped metal. Instead of the slower pace he’d planned, Pete’s train was now approaching Deadman’s Curve like a rocket and was still accelerating.
The train exploded off the track and crashed down the rock face, bringing half the mountain down with it. The town never stood a chance.
Deadman’s Curve had won again.
The Littlest Browncoat
I went to my parents’ house two weekends ago, partly to visit them, and partly to visit with my brother and his family who were also in town.
On Saturday, Mom and Dad took us to the local amusement park for the day. We were waiting for one of the rides when my sister-in-law drew my attention to the fact that without any prompting, my youngest niece had started singing. Then I noticed the tune, and then the words she was singing:
He stole from the rich and he gave to the poor.
Stood up to The Man and he gave him what for.
She was singing, The Hero of Canton! Just like her dad taught her.
So I did the only thing I could and joined in on the next verse.
Interstate 270, Clopper Road and Elvis
Back in June, The Gazette carried a Letter to the Editor wondering why I-270 is being repaved but Clopper Road through Germantown is only getting a quick patch job. It’s a fair question; after all, Clopper Road really is in dire need of some new pavement.
To the uninitiated, the answer would appear to be that Interstate 270 is maintained with federal highway funds while Clopper Road falls under county maintenance. The two separate agencies simply don’t have any connection with one another. The deeper answer however involves both Elvis and the fact that Clopper Road is just too curvy.
As you may have heard, The Weekly World News this week ceased publication of its print edition. (The online version will remain, at least for now.) The Weekly World News (WWN) has long been one of the last bastions of investigative journalism, covering such under-reported topics as the reports that not only had Fidel Castro been hospitalized, but that his doctors were Space Aliens and that “Bat Boy” (a half-human, half-bat found living in a cave) had been recruited to help seek out the cave Osama bin Laden is living in.
The decision to cease publication was first made known to the federal government some six months ago, and that’s why this summer has seen a spate of interstate highway construction projects on the East Coast.
Part of the lore of the interstate highway system is that when it was first being laid out, one of the requirements was that a minimum of one out of every three miles had to be straight. That way, in time of war, the interstate highways could also be used as emergency runways for jet fighters. If you’ve ever seen the Space Shuttle return from a mission, then you already know that jet planes aren’t the only things that need long, smooth-surfaced runways.
With the termination of the WWN‘s print edition, the interstates are going to be put into service as the newspapers’ editorial staff leaves the planet to go to their new assignments. And that’s why Clopper Road isn’t being repaved – it’s too curvy to be used as a runway.
The road construction is certainly inconvenient, but there is some good news. At the same time that the WWN‘s staff is leaving, Elvis will at long last be making his comeback tour.
Crossposted to Germantown Info.
Return to Camp Barkalot
Riley has come back to visit for a few days. When I went to pick him up, MJ asked whether I needed food for him. I laughed and explained that during Riley’s last visit he and Wylie had just ended up eating each others’ food, so there probably wasn’t much point.
I don’t think MJ was completely convinced that I wasn’t pulling his leg. It certainly sounds funny enough to be a joke, but sometimes reality is funnier than anything I can dream up.
Less than two minutes after I brought him into the house, Riley was nose down in Wylie’s food dish and Wylie was busy giving me “The Look” because I hadn’t set up Riley’s dish yet. Sure enough, a few minutes later, Riley had cleaned out Wylie’s bowl and Wylie had cleaned out Riley’s.
After some initial running around barking and getting to know each other again, the two dogs are now quietly taking turns laying in front of one of the fans I’m using to supplement the air-conditioning. All is calm and Wylie and Riley are getting along just fine.
Hopefully they’ll be able to get though the next couple days without getting their heads wet again.
Post Office News We'll Never Hear
Somehow I doubt we’ll ever see anything like this on the evening news.
News Anchor: Good evening, I’m Greg Daniel and this is Evening News Tonight. Today’s big news story comes from Long Island, New York where physicists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory have stunned the international physics community by creating neutronium in their relativistic heavy collider. For breaking details, we take you to our On the Spot Witness News science reporter, Candace Barr. Candace?
Candace: Hello Greg. I’m standing outside the Brookhaven National Laboratory. With me this evening is Doctor Edith Von Secondberg. Doctor Secondberg, thank you for joining me this evening. Can you please explain to our audience what neutronium is?
Dr. Secondberg: Good evening Candace. Well, simply put, neutronium is the densest form of matter possible in our universe. It usually forms under circumstances of extreme gravity when a star collapses and all the electrons, protons and neutrons are forced together.
Candace: (laughing) But you didn’t collapse a star, did you?
Dr. Secondberg: (also laughing) No, no. What we did was to accelerate a collection of atoms to 20 percent of the speed of light and then cause them to smash into one another. This collision caused them to come together with a force similar to that in a collapsing star, allowing them to form the super dense material we call neutronium.
Candace: When you say this material is “super dense,” can you give us some idea what you mean?
Dr. Secondberg: Well, if you were to picture a block of steel a foot on each side, that would probably weigh several hundred pounds, right? Neutronium is so dense that a mere thimbleful would weigh more than Mount Everest.
Candace: A mountain! You didn’t use a mountain for your experiment, did you?
Dr. Secondberg: (laughing again) Oh no. All told the piece of neutronium we produced is only the size of a grain of sand. I doubt it weighs more than 20 or 30 tons.
Candace: I see. And where is the neutronium right now?
Dr. Secondberg: Oh, we shipped it out to California about half an hour ago so our colleagues at Berkeley can verify that we’ve created what we think we’ve created. You probably saw the truck leaving as your news crew was setting up.
Candace: No, we must have missed it. The only truck we’ve seen since we arrived was the mail truck.
Dr. Secondberg: No that was it all right.
Candace: (puzzled) A mail truck? But you said it weighed 20 or 30 tons. Wouldn’t that require some sort of special equipment to move?
Dr. Secondberg: Not at all. People think scientists have no concept of economy, and I suppose it’s true that some of our colleagues can be spendthrifts at times. But no, we just sent it out through the mail. All told, it cost less than $10.
Candace: How is that even possible?
Dr. Secondberg: Oh, it was easy. My lab assistant Carl had a flat-rate envelope that he’d picked up a few weeks ago. The post office will deliver anything you can fit into one those envelopes to any address in the US for a very reasonable rate, no matter how heavy it is. And this was only the size of a grain of sand.
Piracy
Recently, I encountered a fellow who was wearing a black T-shirt with a skull and crossbones emblazoned across the front. Beneath that was the text, “Arrrrrrrrrrr.”
Looking at the shirt, I commented, “Y’know…. there are 25 other letters in the alphabet.”
That stopped him in his tracks. It wasn’t anywhere near the reaction he’d been expecting.