History from the Edge - A 9/11 Remembrance

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 9/11/09.

"History from the Edge - A 9/11 Remembrance"
by snowdog

Monday, August 27, 2001
Damn, I've come a long way, I thought as I gazed from the window of the 48th floor of 1 Penn Plaza. My first trip into Manhattan had been a horrendous experience. Did you know that there is a Newark Penn Station as well as a New York Penn Station? And that when mumbled over an aging train's PA system, the names sound almost identical? I had spent about an hour and half wedged into the small space between two packed New Jersey Transit rail cars en route to some vital training for my new job. As a born-and-bred Southerner with a mild fear of crowds, I don't need to tell you that I was less than mirthful.

For the moment, though, all was quiet save for the hum of the air conditioning. The other students were still at lunch somewhere in the bustling streets below. To one side of the skyline, there was the Empire State Building. I recognized that, having seen a certain giant stop-motion ape swat at planes from that perch some years ago. There was another building, a more Art Deco style skyscraper. I recognized that as well, but didn't know the name. It turned out to be the Chrysler Building. Then there were two towers that needed no introduction. The World Trade Center dominated the skyline in lower Manhattan. Having moved close to New York City only a month earlier, it would be a surprise to find out that this would be my last and only glimpse of those giants.

Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Two weeks later, I was back in my beige/brown cubicle near Edison (named for its famous former resident), New Jersey. Corey, a young intern from Canada poked his head around the corner and told me to check the news sites. A plane had hit the World Trade Center. It took several tries, but I was finally able to get a response from the Fox News website. At this point, I was operating under the assumption that it had been a small plane, perhaps a single-engine Cessna. The picture showed an awful lot of smoke pouring out of that tower, though.

I tried to return my thoughts to the Perl script I was writing, but then I heard someone shout that another plane had hit the towers. What the hell? On such a clear day? Corey poked his head in again and beckoned me into the cafeteria. Almost everyone in the building was gathered around a large TV tuned to CNN. I saw the footage. There were no small planes. Huge passenger jets were slamming into buildings in Manhattan! We were under attack! At that moment, I didn't know who was responsible, but I correctly guessed their religion and which part of the world they called home.

Back in my cubicle, the panicked news filtered its way to us via websites--which at this point were getting hammered with hits and had crawled to a near stop--, television, and a small radio that one of my colleagues had set up. Some of the reports turned out not to be entirely accurate, but that was understandable given the gravity of the situation. Another plane had hit the Pentagon. Another had gone down in Pennsylvania. How many more were there?

A short time later, an announcement came over the radio that one of the towers had fallen. I had a hard time wrapping my brain around that. Finally, I gave up trying to concentrate and walked to the back of office so I could hear the updates better. I found that Mary-Lou, our Administrative Assistant, was in tears. Her father worked in one of the towers as a security guard and she couldn't contact him because cell phones weren't working. (He survived.) About then, the radio reported that the second tower had come down.

We were all sent home around 3pm where I sat in stunned silence in front of the TV with the rest of the country and waited for the body count.


Wednesday, September 12, 2001 - August 2002
The next several days would bring the revelation that we had a branch office in the WTC and that we had lost one employee to falling debris. Our already crowded building made room for the rest of the displaced workers. My commute became harder for a few weeks because the Holland Tunnel was closed, presumably to make way for wreckage being hauled out of the city. With all the inbound NYC traffic having one less point of entry, the overflow spilled back onto the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway.

The classic rock station I tuned in for my drive was playing songs that they saw as patriotic. They weren't kidding anyone, of course. There just aren't that many pro-America rock songs. Still, "Volunteers" by Jefferson Airplane made me feel a little better for some reason. As that song played, a pickup truck came over the peak of the Raritan bridge, heading in the opposite direction. The driver had mounted a pole in the bed, flying a huge American flag, big enough to cover the entire truck, I suspected. "Counter-revolution, counter-revolution"* sang Grace, Marty and Paul. I couldn't help but smile. It looked like something you might see in the South. It was one of those moments that have really stuck with me.

About a week later, I went back into NYC to visit a friend. While waiting for him to pick me up in Penn Station, I stumbled across the entry-way walls where desperate family and friends had hung pictures of their missing loved ones in hopes that someone had any information. There were hundreds of them. My heart fell into my stomach as I moved from picture to picture, some pasted onto paper decorated by children missing their fathers or mothers. As hope faded, this wall would become a makeshift memorial to the lost.

On another trip in, my friend Joe guided me like a relunctant child into the confusing subway system that connects the station, which was now crawling with police and armed National Guardsmen, to numerous stops throughout the city. As we moved past a group of cops, one of them looked at me and started applauding slowly. In my confusion, it took me a moment to realize that I was wearing a NYFD T-shirt that I had bought to help support the families of the lost firemen. To my horror, it dawned on me that the officer was mistaking me for one of them! I couldn't come up with any words to stop him. After a moment, he seemed to realize his mistake and just said "Great shirt, man."

That December, I purchased a surprisingly inexpensive plane ticket from Newark, where some of the terrorists had boarded, back home to Florida for Christmas. Round trip: $109.00. It took forever to get through security and I finally quit bothering to put my driver's license back in my wallet, but it was actually cheaper than paying for the fuel to drive.


September 2002
For the first time in years, my mother decided to fly up from Florida to see me. We got rooms at the Best Western in Times Square and I took her to see Aida on Broadway, the only show running that I wasn't afraid to take my mother to. Since it was within walking distance, we also went to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum and hobnobbed at a party of eerily real-looking wax celebrities, built to exact dimensions. An especially scary Woody Allen sat in the corner and gazed thoughtfully at us. I half expected him to launch into some neurotic rant.

The last exhibit on the tour was a tribute to 9/11. It was an exact three dimensional reproduction of the famous photograph of the firemen raising the flag at Ground Zero. All around the statues, slide shows were synced to audio from the police and fire communications of that day. The whole thing was more than a little overwhelming. Feeling my eyes tear up, I had to get out before I cried in front of my mother for the first time since I was a child. Here are a few pictures I snapped with a cheap digital camera.





Since it was Mom's first trip into New York, we went on one of these sight-seeing double-decker bus tours and saw the entire city. About two thirds of the way through we were dropped off in lower Manhattan, near Ground Zero. Although I had experienced much of 9/11 peripherally, I had never visited the site itself. We saw St. Paul's Chapel, the small church which had escaped the calamity unscathed despite being in extreme proximity to the towers.

The nearby park was gearing up for the one year anniversary of the attacks, preparing for a visit from President George W. Bush, among others.

From there we moved along with the other quiet, somber tourists to Ground Zero itself. We stood for a long time behind the chain link and gazed silently into the chasm. By now, the vast majority of the debris had been removed and it was mostly just a large hole with levels and tunnels visible. Construction workers still moved about in their task to clean up the mess in preparation for what was to come next for the site, a matter that is still the subject of some contention as of this writing.








There was little talking amongst the spectators as we shuffled back to catch the next bus and see the rest of the city, and from there to begin the slow process of healing that the years would bring.


...I need your kiss, but love and duty called you
someplace higher
Somewhere up the stairs, into the fire

May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love

May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love
--Bruce Springsteen

* After writing this, I found out that I had been misinterpreting the lyrics to "Volunteers" all these years which are actually "Got a revolution, got a revolution", but I decided not to change the essay since that was what I was hearing at the time.

Day 25,915 of My Incarceration

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 8/21/09

"Day 25,915 of My Incarceration"
by snowdog

Sept 17th, 2097. Day 25,915 of my incarceration

Damn, I wish the bastards wouldn't take up their fathers' profession. Seems like I had just finished celebrating the retirement of the one guard who once beat the hell out of me in the gym, then he reappears with a younger face and a grudge. Daddy told him to look out for me, I'll bet. Worse are the female guards. Most of them are nice, I must admit, but damn if they don't make me feel like I'm back in elementary school. "Ms. Halderman, may I take a piss?" At least most girls don't follow their mommies' dream of being a corrections officer.

Seventy-one years in this place today and no end in sight. I ran out of room marking the days on the wall long ago. Actually, I got punished for doing that sometime around day one hundred and seventeen and spent some time in cuffs while the walls were painted back to their cheerful bright white. White. Sterile. Cold. Could be worse, I guess.

I try not to let myself think back to that clinical trial that drove me to violent insanity, then took my ability to die. It tends to put me in the familiar depression spiral which I can see coming a mile off, but can't stop. I just needed a few lousy bucks to pay the rent on my fleabag apartment. It seemed like a good offer--free blood pressure meds, payment for my time. In hindsight, maybe I should have told them that I was addicted to heroin before I let them give me the other chemical they were testing. I wonder if the new drug made it to market? Does the label say "May cause immortality?"

You might not believe this, but I felt the pills hit my stomach. It burned like hell itself. I started screaming for the doctor. Everything went dark after that. Next thing I remember I had killed two of the lab workers in the room with various improvised weapons--I'm good like that--and was working on the doctor. I had him on the floor, both hands tightening around his throat. That's when I got hit from behind.

The corporate goon lawyers got a jury to believe that it was impossible for the drug to make a man violent. It had never happened before. It was the heroin they had found in my bloodstream. And, therefore, I was one hundred percent in responsible for killing those two girls. Then they pulled out the police record showing where I had attacked my father as a young man. That was all it took.

When they sentenced me to life in prison, no one knew about the other side effect.

I knew I shouldn't have started thinking about the past. Shit. There goes the son of that asshole guard now, eyes on me as he walks past my cell, just a little slower than the others. And a little smirk on his face as he fingers that stick of his. Punk.

I can't stay here forever. One day, one of the idiots they keep putting in the White House will be the death of this country. Let the Mexicans and the Muslims have it. I only hope I'm on the outside of the bars when the end comes.

On the other hand, I'm not sure I can wait that long. There is a faster way out. I could improvise a weapon to end it all today. Like I said, I'm good like that.

Sedna 90377

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Second Annual Ultimate Snowdogging Competition. I chose the very first challenge from March 8, 2005 (then called the Gedanke Experimentieren) because it's short and I'm already late submitting. Again.

Sedna 90377

90377 Sedna is an electric terminal attached to a huge gear made of dark matter. It's slowly making its way around the galaxy to meet up with another of its kind, as yet undetected. In 2216, the two contact points will come together, then the universe will stop its expansion for several minutes. There will be an infinitely deafening, but unheard creak as the the gears and pulleys that control reality stop and re-engage. Thus will begin the Big Crunch as the arrow of time starts to run in the opposite direction and the universe will begin the fall in on itti no ni llaf nigeb lliw esrevinu etisoppo eht ni nur ot snigeb emit fo worra eht sa hcnurC giB eht nigeb lliw suhT...

A Study In Contrasts

A woman is pulled from near the Center Street dam by construction worker Jason Oglesbee on Tuesday. A man who was with the unidentified woman died in the Des Moines River. A rescue team from the Des Moines Fire Department tried several times to rescue the woman but could not get close enough to her. (Andrea Melendez/The Register)


Ms. Valerie Hudson of foreignpolicy.com believes we could do with a lot less of this sort of man, but let me assure her that the woman in the water is probably quite happy that Mr. Jason Oglesbee isn't some smooth shaven, hair-gel snorting, metrosexual.

The news story can be found here.

Ms. Hudson's opinion can be found here.

I'm just sayin'....

Snowdog's Untitled Western Vampire Story - Chapter 5

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 6/19/09

"Snowdog's Untitled Western Vampire Story - Chapter 5"
by snowdog

The sky over the desert which had started out a stark blue that morning sagged overhead now like a dirty grey blanket. Eddie cleared away the last of the paper plates and sandwich bags, using the cooler as a makeshift trashcan. He glanced at his iWatch and translated the binary in his head.

"Two thirty-three," he announced.

Bob was leaning against the side of the pickup. He stopped wiping down the shotgun long enough to survey the horizon.

"Should be any time now," he said, "if memory serves." He opened a trunk in the back of the truck and started sorting through the ammunition. Even in the subdued daylight, his skin was mottled with red patches. If the transformation were to ever complete itself, even overcast skies would be too much.

Eddie rubbed the day-old stubble on his head and wondered again what it would be like to never feel sunlight on it. It wasn't like he was the outdoorsy type himself, preferring cathode-rays to the solar variety. To be trapped indoors, though, that was altogether different.

Tess came walking from behind some dry brush near the front the truck, buckling her gun belt, somehow making it look fashionable.

"If you knew what time it was going to happen, why'd you bring us out here so early?"

"'Cause I don't know," he said, tossing her the shotgun and grabbing a second for himself. "I'm only guessing."

Another truck pulled up alongside. Richard had brought Josh and Eli along, but the brothers were looking bad. They were drenched in sweat and breathing heavily as if they had jogged to the site rather than riding in air-conditioned comfort.

Bob put his arms on the bed rail and leaned. "Thought you might not show after last night."

Richard didn't look at him as he flipped open the corrugated chrome toolbox in the back of his truck. "I said I'd he here," he said, reaching deep inside. "I still think you're nuttier than all my mother-in-laws put together, but I'm here. Not sure what that says about me."

"Look!" Tess shouted, pointing ahead to the West.

Eddie followed her gesture and cursed. A dark gray curtain of rain had obscured the distant mountains and was advancing in their direction at a startling speed. At that moment, green streaks of lightning reached toward them from the towering thunderheads.

Richard pulled the double-barreled shotgun from his toolbox and shoved some shells into it and handed the rest to Josh who had managed to get out of the truck behind his brother.

"Here it comes." Bob muttered, turning up the collar of his long rider coat, then taking several steps forward.

Eddie grabbed his pistol and went to his sister's side. Tess seemed mesmerized by the approaching tempest.

"I've..." she began and faltered for a moment. "I've never seen anything like it."

"That's because it's unnatural," he answered, pulling the antique revolver from his waistband.

As the storm grew closer, large drops of rain began to pelt them in advance of the main wall. Weapons were loaded and cocked. Hammers were drawn. No one breathed. One hundred yards. Fifty yards.

POP!

A bolt of blinding green lightning kissed the ground, just about thirty yards ahead. Another one followed immediately. Eddie was forced to shield his eyes as a third streak seemed to bend the air around it. Deafening thunder cracked and bounced among the mountains.

With another flash, a young woman fell to the ground in front of them.

"Suzette!" Bob shouted and dashed toward the still figure.

Then the rain was on them. Gusts of wind and water drove Eddie backward several steps before he was able lean into it with enough weight to stay in place.

Bob had made it about half way to the woman when another flash dropped a dead horse only a few yards away. He stopped in his tracks.

"Bob!" Tess shouted and ran after him before Eddie could stop her.

Then there was more green lightning. Several flashes in succession, each brighter than the previous, lit up the valley. Five figures stood between Bob and his lost love: four men and one woman.

Eddie found himself rushing forward with the others, revolver raised, aimed between the eyes of the closest man. He cursed again and wished for a hat as the rain ran from his bald head ran directly into his eyes.

"I thought he said only one of them would be a vampire," Richard's voice came from behind.

For the first time, Eddie was able to focus on their faces. Even as he watched, the small amount of daylight that filtered through overhead had begun to blister their skin.

One of the men leaped high into the air, turned, and started running at an impossible speed toward the shelter of the mountains to the North. Another grabbed the lifeless figure of the woman and all four vampires followed the first.

Bob took off after them, but it was useless. In a fit of irrational rage, he opened fire with the shotgun. One of the fleeing vampires staggered briefly as he was hit with one or two slugs of buck shot. But a moment later, he was up to full speed again.

A low rumbling started. Lightning began to pop off again flickering so fast this time that it created an almost constant wall of light and noise. It was if the raindrops had turned into human figures dropping to the ground. A few of them lay still, but most took off across the wet desert after the others as if by instinct. Hundreds of them, Eddie guessed, streamed toward the shadows to the Rockies. Toward...

"Denver," Richard completed the thought for him.

Menace Day, May 19

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 5/22/09.


My holiday is called Menace Day, celebrated on May 19. It's a sober reminder to never, ever become a hardcore fan of anything or anyone because sooner or later... let's just say, for example, that you probably won't be lucky enough to have your favorite musician die immediately after doing his best work. Eventually that "fresh new artistic direction" will come. And it will suck.

We'll send those close to us sympathy cards to mark the passing of his or her object of affection into suckiness. Click on the card above to see the inside.

Electrohick

This is my entry to Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 4/17/09

"Electrohick"
by snowdog

Dear Cousin Jimmy,

Just two weeks ago, I'd have not thought it was possible, but I'm now convinced that I have a superpower. Yes, I know what you're thinking, but hear me out. Over the last several days, I've developed the ability to send electrical impulses through the air. The voltage isn't enough that a human being or a dog would be shocked or injured. Indeed, most folks would never even feel the slightest tingle. Electronic devices, on the other hand, well, few can escape me unaffected.

What is the origin of my superpower? Fair question, sir. You know that water tower in the center of town? Late one night, I was climbing it with a can of spraypaint in my waistband. Joe's sister had spread a rumor about me around town and I'd decided to return the favor. What I hadn't noticed was that storm clouds had been building to the West all afternoon. It wouldn't have mattered, though. There was no way I was going to let anyone get away with telling folks I had-- well, we won't go into that.

I made it to the top of the tower and started spraying letters in my prettiest handwriting: "J-E-N-N-I-F-E-R...I-S... A --" Then there was a bright flash of light. That was the last I remember until I woke up in the hospital. About a week later, on the ride home, I noticed that traffic lights kept turning red every time I got near one. All the way down down Broad Street, there must be ten or twelve of them. Every time my truck got within fifty feet or so, the signal would go yellow. I got pissed and blew through one of them, trying to break the cycle, but it didn't matter. Soon as I got close to the next one, RED.

When I got home, I sat down at my computer to twitter about my experience over the last week, but a pop-up box announced that it suddenly had a "virus". This had never happened before. Fortunately, I was still able to reach my free porn sites, though.

Later, I went to the supermarket for more beer and my superpower struck again! The automatic door didn't detect me right away and I damn nearly ran into it face-first!

I know that I have to keep my superpower a secret. If word were to get out, people would try to hire me to blow up their ex's microwave or sabotage their neighbor's leaf blower. No, it's better that I live out my days as a mild-mannered security guard and do what I can stop crime by night. Let the bad guys try to escape the police while catching every light in town.

I remain an enigma.

Your friend and cousin,
Bobby

P.S. Skynyrd!!! WOOO!

Wanna Be An Idol (Sucking Up To Simon)

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 4/10/09.

"Wanna Be an Idol (Sucking up to Simon)"
by snowdog

The try-outs came into my town one rainy afternoon
No music, only singing in a private little room
All alone, nowhere to hide, I nearly hit the floor
Before the Idol judges, they had gone from three to four

Now I'm sucking up to Simon
And his silly hair
Paula, are you stoned again?
What's with that glassy stare?
Randy, no I'm not a "dawg"
Please don't call me such
But I wanna be an Idol
An American Idol
Wanna be an Idol so much

I got my golden ticket, now it's on to Hollywood
Sang with a bunch of losers, I don't think they understood
I'm in this thing to win it, I don't want to go back home
I'll watch them go down one by one until I'm all alone

So I'm sucking up to Simon
And his snotty attitude
Someone prop up Paula quick
She's been into the 'ludes.
Randy played with Journey, dawg!
His outfit was a rush
But I wanna be an Idol
An American Idol
Wanna be an Idol so much

I made the final twelve or so, my friends and family cheered
Consensus in the web logs called me talented, but weird
'Though millions heard my singing, I'm still standing here alive
You want to see me next week? Then please dial in number five.

For now, I'm sucking up to Simon
That annoying limey git
Paula's up and dancing
In a dress that doesn't fit
Randy says to "check it out",
I think I've had enough
But I wanna be an Idol
An American Idol
Wanna be an Idol so much

(Instrumental)

Spoken:
Oh yeah, I forget. There's a new judge. What was her name, again?


Now I'm sucking up to Simon
That accent and that smirk
Paula's feeling flirty
Keeps touching on that jerk
Randy, no, hey, you're the dawg
Keep that hip-hop stuff
But I wanna be an Idol
An American Idol
Wanna be an Idol so very much

Yeah I wanna be an Idol
An American Idol
Wanna be an Idol so much

Drummer Girl

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 4/3/09

"Drummer Girl"
by snowdog

The stage lights dimmed by three quarters into a deep blue and the spotlight painted a white disk around her as she shifted from the song "It's Never Goodbye" into her last drum solo. The dark sea of people erupted into applause at the first clickety-click notes on the ride cymbal. Slowly, she built on the foundation. A heartbeat thumping from the kick drum, a gradual rumble from the floor tom, then all the lights flared into a catherine wheel of whirling reds and greens as she suddenly spiked the intensity and speed of the performance. Into the verse-chorus breach a final time, she thought.

It wasn't as easy for Karen as it had been during her younger days. Although few fans noticed the minute flaws, she could feel the slight ache in her limbs that was throwing her timing just a little. Richard had noticed, though. And it was his idea to bring the 2002 tour to a close with a farewell show in Paris. Later tonight, the Richard Carpenter Trio would go their separate ways after a career that spanned five decades.

CRASH-CRASH! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! CRASH! BOOM BOOM CRASH!

From their earliest beginnings as a jazz ensemble, through the seventies' soft rock hits and finally, the edgier arena-filling hard rock, the Trio had driven a long and sometimes bumpy road. Karen was certain that they never would have survived past the first few failed singles had producer George Martin not taken an interest in them early on.

It was the classic case of the right sound at the right place at the right time. The year was 1965. Martin had been producing a struggling young British band called the Beatles who simply could not stand to be in the same room with each other for more than ten minutes at a go. Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Pete Best simply were not a good fit. There was talk about removing Lennon as a remedy since his voice was the weakest and his ego the largest, but Martin had reckoned that it would make no difference. Were it not for a string of minor hits, such as "We Won't Work It Out", "Hard Day's Work", and "Please Me Now, Woman", the band would have split long ago.

Richard had met George Martin before a bar gig in New York City. They had struck up a casual conversation over bourbon, neither knowing who the other was. At sixteen, Karen had been too young to be in the bar legally, but no one asked any questions when Richard excused himself and joined her and Wes Jacobs onstage for a rousing set of jazzy covers of popular rock n' roll tunes. Martin had been won over after he heard the first of three original songs in the set list.

Karen had to snap out of her reverie for a moment to concentrate on some tricky hi-speed triplets on the snare and hi-hat. Not bad for an old lady, she smiled to herself.

The eighties had brought a new sound and a new set of problems. A switchover from Soft Rock to New Wave had alienated more than a few of their long time fans, but her well-publicized feud with Chrissy Hynde, contrived though it was, had won them a level of publicity that she had never dared to imagine. Sales of their 1982 album, You Again, doubled that of its predecessor.

Then came the anorexia. What had started as a strong New Year's resolution to control her weight had blossomed into a full-blown eating disorder. It was Martin who noticed her frail appearance and, along with Richard, coerced her into the newly opened Betty Ford Clinic. There was no doubt in Karen's mind that this act of tough love had saved her life.

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-A-THUMP-THUMP-SPLASH-SPLASH! CRASH!

In the early nineties, Nirvana had exploded onto the scene and it seemed for a moment that grunge would wipe out everything that had come before it. Indeed, countless New Wave and Hair Metal bands were swept away in a deluge of reheated Punk. It was a hard time for the Trio, but Richard and George reinvented their sound, giving it just enough of an edge to interest a new generation of rockers, but still poppy enough climb the mainstream charts.

It was at New Year's Rockin' Eve 1999 in Times Square that Karen had first begun to feel the stiffness in her joints, although at the time, she had written it off to playing in the freezing night air of NYC. To be safe, she saw her family physician while the band rested in Connecticut. There, she was diagnosed with a mild case of arthritis and told that the condition would worsen over time.

After several days of soul searching and more than a few tears, she decided that Richard was right. To paraphrase Def Leppard, it was better to retire gracefully than to slowly fade away in front of an audience.

BOOM! THUMP-A-BOOM! BOOM! Slowly building snare roll... and... CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

The cheers were deafening. Once again, accompanied by the Trio, she launched into the final chorus "It's Never Goodbye". The lyrics leapt to mind effortlessly and she sang into her headset mike.

You can say farewell if you must
You can use any word you like
You can say it's forever, I promise it's never
It's never goodbye, never goodbye,
Never goodbye

The Kiln

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 2/26/09

"The Kiln"
by snowdog

I bent down for a closer look. It was another of those hard-shelled chewy pieces of brightly colored candy. This one was green. To make sure, I took the pen from my breast pocket and poked at it to reveal the white "S" printed on the under side. This was the second one I had found less than twenty yards from the crime scene. Either some child had been careless or...

Glancing back toward the rowhouse where the body of the woman had been found, in the general direction of the first candy, I drew a mental line outward and started a slow sweep in the direction of where another might lay. Burger wrappers. Condom packet. People in this city are swine.

A child involved in something this heinous? At the back of my mind, I dreaded this trail leading me into a domestic situation. Why do people have to drag law enforcement into family business? In my four years on the street, I had managed to avoid arresting anyone in a spat with relatives. It's a place the law just doesn't belong. These days, of course, cops are required to make an arrest.

As I stepped over a section of sidewalk that had been partially upended, probably by a tree that had long since been removed, I spotted another one. Another green candy lay glistening in the hot sun. That confirmed my suspicion. I flipped through my yellow pad for a blank sheet and started making notes of their locations, using the lines on the paper to make a rough scale approximation of the distances.

This had been one of the more gruesome crime scenes I had witnessed in my time as a detective. Immediately after ducking under the yellow tape, I had begun to notice the red stains: a footprint on the welcome mat, bloody ax on the white sofa, a smear along hallway wall.

The occupant of this middle rowhouse had harbored a number of arcane interests. Strange shapes cast in glossy ceramic lined the shelves and bookcase. I didn't recognize any of them--fertility gods perhaps. All of them were vaguely human-shaped creatures with grotesquely distorted parts. One had arms that bent backward and wrapped twice around a helpless female victim. Another had hands on the end of its legs. A third had huge, frightening eyes.

Presently, another candy lay at my feet. This one was red.

After updating my pad, I glanced around the street, a nervous habit formed in my early years. No one gave me a second glance; in fact, there few people about at all. I picked up my pace a bit, confident that I knew where to find the next candy. And there it was. Purple.

Now I stood on the corner of a busy intersection. The light had southbound traffic backed up as far as I could see along Warren Street. Which way to go? I decided to first try going straight across. Hopefully the child had been careful enough to mark the intersection closely. And, with any luck, the next candy wouldn't have been eaten by one of the many rats that inhabited the homes in this area.

The officers had led me down into the basement of the house where the body had been found. This was the source of the obscene statues: a dimly lit ceramic workshop. More grotesque shapes adorned the shelves in this darkly paneled room in various states of completion. A woman with overly long arms and legs and giant, shark-like teeth sat next to several open jars of paint. A man with octopus tentacles for arms sat half dried, awaiting his turn in the kiln.

The kiln. That was where what was left of the body lay. The woman had been hacked into pieces and left to bake there, probably for the better part of a day. My stomach had churned at the odor of cooked flesh.

After walking fifty yards along the street, I had spotted no more candies, so I turned and backtracked to the intersection, crossed the street again and headed South, with traffic. Store fronts lined Warren Street beckoning passersby inside with carefully displayed wares, protected by wrought iron bars. There it was. Another yellow one wedged into a crack in the walk.

I noted the location and picked up my pace again. A purple one. A green one. Another green. Then no more. I strolled back to the last candy and found myself beneath the awning of a doughnut shop. Through the window, a policeman chatted with the cute female clerk, either unaware or uncaring about perpetuating a stereotype.

A staircase to the right of the shop led up toward the second floor of the building and a sign in the window offered an apartment for rent. It seemed like a long shot, but I decided to check it out. Halfway up the stairs, I noticed a red piece of paper, as if someone had torn open a candy wrapper. I had stumbled into the right place.

On the landing at the top, I found a black door with three flower pots, all containing dead plants. Just as I was about to knock, the door flung open violently and a thin man stormed out.

"Forget it, Jeanne!" he shouted back into the apartment, pulling on a ragged baseball cap. "I'm not gonna do it again! You deal with them!" He turned to leave and was startled to notice me standing there. After a moment he shook his head in resignation. "Have at her," he said and took the steps down two at a time.

My first impulse was to stop him and ask some questions, but that was preempted by the sound of a child screaming inside. I drew my pistol and banged on the door.

"Open up! It's the police!" I shouted. No answer. The door was unlocked, so I invited myself inside.

The kitchen was tidy, but spartan, sporting only a bare dining table and four chairs. Pistol in front of me, I made my way to the right, into a hallway.

"Police!" I shouted, checking the bedroom to my left. Empty. A tall, middle-aged peroxide blonde woman appeared at the end of the hall.

"Police?" she rasped, "Oh, Jesus, that's just what I need." She took a long draw from a cigarette, stared at me for a moment, then turned away and walked back into the living room.

"Ma'am, I need you come back here."

"No," she shouted, "You come here."

Cautiously, I followed her into the living room. She stood with her hands on her hips and nodded toward a pretty teenage girl who was curled up defensively on the sofa.

"I'm sorry," the girl said. "I didn't mean to scream."

She appeared to be about fifteen or so. I dropped the pistol to my side. "Then why did you?"

She looked hesitantly at her mother.

"Because she doesn't want to be sent away again," the older woman answered impatiently and then blew out a billowing cloud of cigarette smoke.

"You sent her away?"

She motioned around the apartment. "Look around! Do you see any food in here? In this economy, we're lucky to keep ourselves alive, much less two children."

"Two?" For the first time, I noticed a small boy hiding behind the arm of the sofa. I waved. "Hi kid." Then on a hunch, I asked, "Where did you get the candy?"

"I stole it," the girl said, now scowling at me slightly.

"Okay, why don't you tell me what happened, honey. No one's going to hurt you."

She sighed and glanced at her mother again. Then she focused on my eyes and pointed.

"My mother made her boyfriend take us out into the city, trying to get us lost. He..." she paused for a moment and wiped away a tear. "He got into a car with another man and left us on the street!"

"He left you?" I looked at the mother.

She just shook her head. "He was supposed to take them to a shelter. At least they could get food there!"

The girl glared at the woman and continued. "Jared left a trail of candies, but on the way back, we smelled cookies coming out this rowhouse... gingerbread. They smelled so good and we were so hungry. I knocked on the door. This woman answered and invited us in!"

Completely mesmerized, I sat down in on the edge of a rickety coffee table and looked in eyes. "And she gave you the cookies?"

The girl nodded. "But they made us sleepy. She made us go downstairs with her. Then she..." Tears welled up in her eyes again.

"What did she do, honey?" I asked, images of the grotesque statues filling my head again.

"She said she was going to eat us!"

The room was silent for several seconds.

"I know!" she sobbed "I know you don't believe me! But she tried to put Joshua into this big oven she had in the basement! I had trouble standing from the drugs, but I found an old ax behind the wood stove!" With that, she buried her face in her hands and wailed.

I stood and pulled the cell phone from my belt. The mother looked at me suspiciously.

"Who are you calling."

"Someone I swore I'd never call, ma'am." After a couple of rings, a woman's voice answered. "Hi Susan, get me Child Protection Services, please."

Return To Glastonbury

This is my entry to Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 1/15/09

Return to Glastonbury
by snowdog

This is it, I'm dying. Three of my six legs are broken, my wings are useless and worst of all, the stinger from one of those Killers protrudes from my abdomen, filling my system with toxin. I can only lie here on my back and listen to the buzzing in my head.

The coming of the Africanized Killers was foretold in the Wax Prophesies which date back to our beginnings on the European continent. Their arrival was to be a sign that we should follow the ancient ley lines back to Gastonbury Tor, to alight on the edge of the Holy Grail and to taste of the Healing Wine. Glastonbury is the place where the First Queen took flight. It's our destiny to be renewed there before we return to our toil which men find so useful.

I laugh bitterly as I recall the first time I heard the term Colony Collapse Disorder, as if we were being killed off by pesticides or that great hoax called Global Warming--heck, I wish it were warmer! The flowering season would be extended, our pollen collection would-- well, that's not important now. Time is short. The toxins must be affecting my brain.

No, it's not Colony Collapse Disorder. It's war! The humans don't seem to notice that aerial combat surrounds them, although to be fair, much of it happens at higher altitudes, just above the trees. That is most dangerous place to be a bee.

I remember the day the killers arrived. I was making a meal of some particularly nice Begonias, sipping the sweet nectar and getting that sticky yellow stuff all over my legs. It was so warm that afternoon, I began lingering inside each flower and fanning my wings to cool down before leaping into the air again to move on to the next bloom. It's strange how you don't know how great life is until it changes.

As I flew between the carefully spaced plants, a worker named Tzue fell past me to the ground. I buzzed down next to her to see what was amiss, but she had already gone silent and still. Then I heard the ungodly noise overhead. There were only three Killers, but I could only watch in horror as they latched on to another of my fellows in mid-air and drop him into the damp mulch. Jeek brought one of the buggers down with him, though, as the stinger failed to disengage.

I jumped into the air above the garden and moved as inconspicuosly as I could, ducking behind leaves and fence posts until I was out of their sight. Then I made a beeline for the hive, ignoring the countless pink blossoms below me. The Queen would know what do to. I had only get past the guards.

It took some time and lot of phermone, but I convinced them of the danger and the four of them escorted me into the Royal Chamber. It took me several minutes to describe what was going on and to relay the deaths of Tzue and Jeek. She listened and wiggled her antennae in that way the does when she's agitated. She called her guards and had two of them escort me to the South Garden, where I had seen them.

The two remaining Killers engaged the guards. It was a good fight, but when the guards had fallen one Killer still remained. It was an act of war our colony as was foreseen a thousand years ago.

Again, staying low to expose myself as little as possible, I made it back to the hive to relay the news to my highness. I was right. She knew just what to do. Within the hour, she had named a list of fifty-two workers, myself included, to seek the ley lines that would return us to Glastonbury Tor. I worried for her, but I could see in her multi-faceted eyes that she had already sacrificed her life for the colony. It was all done but the deed itself.

It was up to Irne's sense of the lines--a hatchling skill only few of us possess--to get us going in the right direction. I knew that other colonies would soon be sending their own swarmquests, if they hadn't already. It was possible that our brothers and sisters in Europe had already been wise to the Killers and were sipping from the Grail even as we departed. Presumably, only a single pair of workers need drink to fulfill the prophesy, one male and one female, but we couldn't take the chance.

We were ambushed somewhere near the west coast, just as we were going to make that Northward turn toward what the humans like to call Alaska. I tell you there were three thousand Killers if there was one. We fought valiantly for our colony and for our all honeybeedom, but in the end, we were lost. Finally, one of the Killers wrapped his forward legs around me and buried his stinger straight through my belly.

I can feel the toxins clouding my mind now. My vision has gone blurry and purple, like looking at the sun from the inside of a Wysteria bloom on a windy day. I think of my Queen and her many children. May one of us reach Glastonbury Tor and bring Renewal...

Workin' Them Angels Overtime

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 12/26/08

Workin' Them Angels Overtime
by snowdog

Herald slid his time card into the machine and was finally able to relax a bit when the kachunk! pronounced him off-duty. He glanced at the stamp on the card: JAN 1 1998 0300.

"Hey, you're blocking the line!" A finger poked him hard on the neck.

Herald glanced behind. A towering bearded angel stood close, grinning mischieviously as he continued to poke him with a thick finger. He stood at least six-foot-five with a broad strudy build. His sword was slung over his right shoulder, protruding down between his wings and back.

"Hi, Joshua," Herald said, letting out a sigh as he picked up his own sword and duffle bag.

"What's wrong, dude?" Joshua asked. He stepped forward and punched his own time card. "You look like you got them guardian angel blues." He held the card close to his face and silently mouthed the date and time to himself, as if memorizing.

"I don't know, man. Well, it's snowdog."

Joshua slid the card into the wall-mounted rack and motioned for Herald to lead the way to the lockers. "You're having trouble with snowdog? Didn't you brag a few years back about how easy he was to take care of?"

"Yes, well, that was before..."

"Before..." Joshua prompted.

Herald shook his head and sighed again. "He doesn't believe in us anymore. And since that happened, he's become..," he struggled for the word, "reckless, taking more chances with his life than ever. I think the irony escapes him."

Folding his wings back, Joshua sat on a wooden bench in front of his locker and set about removing his sneakers. "Sounds serious," he said tossing the left shoe behind him. "I'm guessing he partied in the New Year last night?"

Herald nodded. "You could say that."

"Details, Harry. I need details!"

"He started right after work. His boss always gets a ride home with him, but this time they bought a keg and talked a bunch of co-workers into meeting them out in a dark field, just outside of town."

Joshua snorted and tossed the right sneaker over his shoulder. "Eh, so he pounded a few beers. You outta see my guy."

Herald gave an sarcastic laugh and continued. "No, not a few beers. A lot of beer. I quit counting when he drove that huge boat of a pickup back to the store for another case."

"Out driving, huh. Asking for trouble."

"They all sat drinking for hours, right up until about 11 pm. Then his boss talked him into driving them both to a friend's house for a party. Snowdog was very drunk at this point. On the trip there, his nose kept running, and having no hankerchief, he would wipe it on the back of his hand and wrist as he drove."

"Yuck! Man, even I wouldn't do that."

Herald was lost in the horrible memory now. "When they got to the party, snowdog stretched his hand out to the host and noticed that it was covered with streaks of blood. His nose hadn't been running after all."

"No, man, you're making that up!"

Herald ignored the accusation. "It didn't really matter to anyone. That's when the bottle of rum came out. And this where gaps will start appearing in his memory of the evening, I suspect. Snowdog didn't have a lot of experience with hard liquor up to last night. The party itself was a blur. He'll remember the little kid running around among the wasted adults. He'll remember seeing the Ben Fold's Five video to "Brick"... strange details, but no real events or conversations."

"I'm afraid to ask how he got home." Joshua had all but forgotten about changing clothes.

"Sometime around 2 am, his disbelief attracted some hellhounds. There were four of them, so I had my hands full trying to stop them. While I wasn't looking, he climbed into that huge Dodge Ram and started the thirty minute trek homeward. Fortunately for everyone, he lives out in the woods. There was almost no traffic. Strangely, his motor skills were still partially intact. But he spent some time driving in the oncoming lane, just because he could. And then he switched off his headlights for a while and drove by moonlight. I've never been so scared in my life."

"I can imagine."

"Then he thought about the unattended little boy at the party and started sobbing uncontrollably."

"He what?"

"He cried like a baby the rest of the way home. He'll realize tomorrow that hard booze messes with his head. I'm hoping he'll come to his senses in some other ways."

Joshua shook his head. "That's rough, man. But it's not like you'll ever quit this job. We've worked together for a long time, and you have more years in than I do."

"No, I guess I won't quit. But I'll make damned sure he never does anything like that again."