The last piece of the diamond carapace slid into place silently. The vacuum of space being step one of the seal. Step two was molecular sized robots working on the atomic scale, weaving the new piece to the main body so seamlessly that, when all was done the capsule would be gas tight.
"That's it. This one's all done. Stage two, do you copy?" Leander said.
"We copy L. Our board just lit up green all across. 43 minutes until the seam closes. Why don't you head on in and grab a bottle of coffee. The insertion clock just went on for T-90 minutes."
"Roger that control. Heading in."
Leander unbuckled his suit from the diamond rings that studded various parts of the capsule and marveled at the scene. The diamond capsule was as long 400 meters long, by 100 wide and 100 thick, although the thickness belied what was actually inside. The capsule was merely a shell 3 meters thick containing the vacuum of space.
The purpose of the capsule was going to be one of several "floats" to buoy MB1 within the Jovian atmosphere. 15 of these dirigibles had already been constructed, and Leander's was overseeing the 16th and final. All that remained was to start up the rockets, move this behemoth into position and attach it to the rest of the flotilla.
2 kilometers away Leander could see the rest of the waiting flotilla already lashed together with the diamond braid that linked the zeppelins. The habitat, once constructed, would hang underneath the flotilla circulating around the gas giant mining helium3 and constructing other versions of itself for research and other mining operations.
Leander was excited about the habitat. After the 8 months it took to get into orbit around Jupiter and another year and a half extracting the minerals that Io spewed into space from its volcanoes to build the flotilla the habitat would seem palatial. Phase one of the habitat had the 43 of them living in a space the size of a 20 story office building. Electricity would be generated by the myriad of wind turbines studding the outside of the habitat. There would even be a pressurized dome at the top and bottom of the habitat where one could marvel at Jupiter in all her glory.
From they could finally be a real hub not leaching off of their neighbors and make the entire Jovian system self sustaining. They would be trading electricity and heavy metals for water from Europa, volatiles from Callisto and send further surveying teams to Ganymede and Io.
Leander was in on the ground floor and he could see his stock options piling up during his seven year contract away from home.
"Control to L."
"Leander here, what's up?"
"Phase your helmet. You're in the path of reflection as the other team moves the flotilla."
"Copy that control, thanks for the heads up."
Leander typed a command into his wrist plate and most of his view winked out as gold filters came down over his visor. Stars disappeared and Jupiter itself became a dim blur. He watched as the concave flotilla began a slow arc and reflected the sun's weak rays in a direction towards the planet. His shuttle lit up brightly for a second then returned to its ghostly gray.
The beam reached the disk of the planet and began a slow drag across one of the cloud layers. Leander zoomed in on where the light hit the planet and tapped the code for autopilot back to the shuttle. He still had 10-11 minutes of down time before he reattached to the ship.
The roiling clouds fascinated him. He would zoom on a section in his room and watch the colors change like a thick oil painting mixing.
The reflection made him do a double take. Something had glinted in the cloud layer. The beam from the flotilla was moving across the surface of Jupiter at hundreds of kilometers per hour but something had lit up under the clouds.
"Control did you just see that?"
"We did."
"You think it was the test habitat that we lost?"
"Negative. Test habitat was lost near the north pole. That was 20 degrees south of the equator."
"Yeah, that's what I thought. Any chance of getting the flotilla crew to spin the other direction and see if we could get it lit up again?"
"L, this is Cooper over at the flotilla, we're way ahead of you. Just waiting on clearance from ground control to delay insertion of your capsule."
"Ugh, that's 20 minutes from now!"
"Just c'mon back inside L, we'll clear a space up here for you."
No sooner had orbit control radioed him when the upper cloud layer flickered to life. Leander's jaw went slack. The dark side of Jupiter was full of lightning. Flashes were nothing new. Lighting bolts that, on earth, would stretch from New York to Chicago were old hat for the crew.
The light emanating from a small puff of white clouds in among a darker red area was simply turning on, then off, on, then off, in a time that that Leander could almost set his watch to.
Leander zoomed in his helmet cam and punched the code to record the feed.
"Control, please tell me you're getting this."
Showing posts with label Josh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Josh. Show all posts
Monday, November 7, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
You're packing a suitecase.
Don't like that one so I'm going with the next one: The smell of air in winter.
I never got tired of seeing It from the beach. Being a city dweller I would usually just get views of the beach and inland or on the back of It I would spend hours staring out to sea from Carparque.
My father used to say "You can only truly know a place if you've spent significant time away."
Not that I didn't love the city. Its where I grew up. Its where my family was its where my friends are. But I always agreed with him and would always try and find an excuse to leave the city, if only for that one view from the foot hills about a mile from shore.
That's where I was when the first snow flake of the season started to fall. The clouds were puffy but not all encompassing like they would be later in winter. I could still see Hope blotting out one quarter of the sky, its rust and mustard colored bands easily discernible. Chance, was low in the sky, almost behind the city but still visible. The city casting long shadows that almost reached to where I stood.
It had been cold for weeks and the sea had begun to freeze around the base of the city, but the carpet of redgrass had just now started turning light blue from the fall. The grass's dusky odor was a sure sign of the winter storms to come. The wind gusted off the sea, across the beach and the red grass and brought that cold bitter copper smell I grew up with. In the summer time the sea smelled sweet as the algae blooms turned the water yellow with flowers, but in the winter time they would die back and the sea would be a sullen gray, small waves breaking on shore.
And then there was the city. Even from here I could see lights and vehicles moving in and around it. It was hard to imagine something that big ever used to be alive.
My mother had been told by her mother that Earth had creatures similar to the city but much much smaller. She had called them crabs as well, but apparently on earth they only grew to be about as big as your hand. I always thought that would be something to see. A crab as small as your hand. The city was fully fifteen miles wide and stretched into the sea for four. Some scientists thought that this behemoth gave up the ghost as it pulled itself out of the water some 1,000 years before we even stepped off the first colony ships. While the crabs get big around here no one's seen one this big. Seems like the bigger the crabs get the more they like to stick to the depths. I wonder if our city crab had similar feelings I do. Head out of the depths to truly appreciate them.
Heading to Earth would be a heck of an adventure too, but I'd have to take Fora and the kids with me. There and back was a lone wolf's sport unless you had the money to ship your entire family. Even with cold storage we would age ten years and about fifty would pass here before we got back.
If I squinted I could make out my extremity. My family lived halfway up Leg12, further towards the sea than land, on the left side from where I was standing. I gave a wave in case my family was looking and then felt foolish, there's no way they could see me.
Some day maybe we could afford top Carapace or maybe even Subclaw, but that would take a lot of luck and planning. And then that's only if we wanted to move within the city and not to a farm here on shore. There were certainly pros and cons to both.
If we moved out of the city I would definitely miss walking down the boulevards of Body, or just getting lost for the day with Fora and the kids driving Capilicars.
But then there was right now, the view of the city, the crisp fresh, non-recycled air. And snow. Soon the entire continent would be covered in fresh snow and that was something to see.
Those kinds of decisions would have to wait, however. Fora was expecting our 3rd child and I was just accepted into the diplomatic corps. For now it was time to see what else was out there and to try and re-establish ties to one of the other colonies that had gone quiet a couple years ago.
I turned my back on the city and caught back up with the rest of the party that had just gone around the bend. It was going to be a while before I looked on home again.
I never got tired of seeing It from the beach. Being a city dweller I would usually just get views of the beach and inland or on the back of It I would spend hours staring out to sea from Carparque.
My father used to say "You can only truly know a place if you've spent significant time away."
Not that I didn't love the city. Its where I grew up. Its where my family was its where my friends are. But I always agreed with him and would always try and find an excuse to leave the city, if only for that one view from the foot hills about a mile from shore.
That's where I was when the first snow flake of the season started to fall. The clouds were puffy but not all encompassing like they would be later in winter. I could still see Hope blotting out one quarter of the sky, its rust and mustard colored bands easily discernible. Chance, was low in the sky, almost behind the city but still visible. The city casting long shadows that almost reached to where I stood.
It had been cold for weeks and the sea had begun to freeze around the base of the city, but the carpet of redgrass had just now started turning light blue from the fall. The grass's dusky odor was a sure sign of the winter storms to come. The wind gusted off the sea, across the beach and the red grass and brought that cold bitter copper smell I grew up with. In the summer time the sea smelled sweet as the algae blooms turned the water yellow with flowers, but in the winter time they would die back and the sea would be a sullen gray, small waves breaking on shore.
And then there was the city. Even from here I could see lights and vehicles moving in and around it. It was hard to imagine something that big ever used to be alive.
My mother had been told by her mother that Earth had creatures similar to the city but much much smaller. She had called them crabs as well, but apparently on earth they only grew to be about as big as your hand. I always thought that would be something to see. A crab as small as your hand. The city was fully fifteen miles wide and stretched into the sea for four. Some scientists thought that this behemoth gave up the ghost as it pulled itself out of the water some 1,000 years before we even stepped off the first colony ships. While the crabs get big around here no one's seen one this big. Seems like the bigger the crabs get the more they like to stick to the depths. I wonder if our city crab had similar feelings I do. Head out of the depths to truly appreciate them.
Heading to Earth would be a heck of an adventure too, but I'd have to take Fora and the kids with me. There and back was a lone wolf's sport unless you had the money to ship your entire family. Even with cold storage we would age ten years and about fifty would pass here before we got back.
If I squinted I could make out my extremity. My family lived halfway up Leg12, further towards the sea than land, on the left side from where I was standing. I gave a wave in case my family was looking and then felt foolish, there's no way they could see me.
Some day maybe we could afford top Carapace or maybe even Subclaw, but that would take a lot of luck and planning. And then that's only if we wanted to move within the city and not to a farm here on shore. There were certainly pros and cons to both.
If we moved out of the city I would definitely miss walking down the boulevards of Body, or just getting lost for the day with Fora and the kids driving Capilicars.
But then there was right now, the view of the city, the crisp fresh, non-recycled air. And snow. Soon the entire continent would be covered in fresh snow and that was something to see.
Those kinds of decisions would have to wait, however. Fora was expecting our 3rd child and I was just accepted into the diplomatic corps. For now it was time to see what else was out there and to try and re-establish ties to one of the other colonies that had gone quiet a couple years ago.
I turned my back on the city and caught back up with the rest of the party that had just gone around the bend. It was going to be a while before I looked on home again.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
You can have faith in _____
"You can have faith in me Ms. Newton. I am not the black wolf of the family my father was." Hendrick said.
Claire still stared at him dubiously.
"Black wolf?" She asked. "You mean black sheep or lone wolf?" His English was quite better than her Dutch but his mixed metaphores were beginning to get tiresome. She wasn't sure if his mistakes were intentional, trying to be cloyingly cute, or simply turns of phrase lost in translation.
"Either? Prost!" he asked with an easy grin. He raised his drink in a mock toast.
They had been sitting in the hotel's bar for almost 45 minutes. Claire kept testing him to see how much he may or may not have know about his father's murder.
She peered down at her meager notes.
"So you haven't seen your father in several years, but you spoke regularly. He seemed like a nice enough man when I met him. Why would someone want to murder him?"
"Someones." Hendrick corrected.
"Murderers plural? And your thinking on that is because?"
"Three car bombs go off across town from each other within seconds. That implies a group. I'm also positiving that you will see the explosives were at least a military grade derivative of C4 which you cannot manufacture in a sublet under a chain bulb."
"Sublet?"
"Sublet, under house." He pantomimed walking down stairs and turning on a light by pulling a chain."
"Basement." Claire sighed, dropped her pen on the table and took another sip of her cranberry juice. There had been no mention of types of explosives in any of the reports she had read, the going theory was some sort of IED. She continued:
"Why do you think it was military grade and not just some nut job with an axe to grind?"
"My father's careers were both varied and multiple. While he made some charming friends like you he made far more enemies."
"So which was he? A black sheep or a lone wolf?" Maybe a different tact would open up a lead.
"Difference? Maybe both. My grand ma ma was disappointed with some of his life choices."
"Really? Such as?" Claire was hoping something would drop into her lap.
Hendrick became distant.
"She never forgave him for marrying gypsy for starters. Was beneath his station."
"Ah, and was this wife number 1, 2 or 3?" she asked ticking through the profile notes.
"My mother... Number one. Grand ma ma says he only did it to get a rise out of the cousins, or my Grand Ma ma's sister." He looked very seriously into his drink.
"So why did you seek me out?"
He looked up at her eyes focusing directly on her:
"Justice. I will not get it from Inspector Hasbrouck"
"And why is that?"
"They were lovers and she is still too close to him to oversee this case properly."
"Why is she even on this case then?"
"She pulled some heartstrings to get it assigned to her."
Claire still stared at him dubiously.
"Black wolf?" She asked. "You mean black sheep or lone wolf?" His English was quite better than her Dutch but his mixed metaphores were beginning to get tiresome. She wasn't sure if his mistakes were intentional, trying to be cloyingly cute, or simply turns of phrase lost in translation.
"Either? Prost!" he asked with an easy grin. He raised his drink in a mock toast.
They had been sitting in the hotel's bar for almost 45 minutes. Claire kept testing him to see how much he may or may not have know about his father's murder.
She peered down at her meager notes.
"So you haven't seen your father in several years, but you spoke regularly. He seemed like a nice enough man when I met him. Why would someone want to murder him?"
"Someones." Hendrick corrected.
"Murderers plural? And your thinking on that is because?"
"Three car bombs go off across town from each other within seconds. That implies a group. I'm also positiving that you will see the explosives were at least a military grade derivative of C4 which you cannot manufacture in a sublet under a chain bulb."
"Sublet?"
"Sublet, under house." He pantomimed walking down stairs and turning on a light by pulling a chain."
"Basement." Claire sighed, dropped her pen on the table and took another sip of her cranberry juice. There had been no mention of types of explosives in any of the reports she had read, the going theory was some sort of IED. She continued:
"Why do you think it was military grade and not just some nut job with an axe to grind?"
"My father's careers were both varied and multiple. While he made some charming friends like you he made far more enemies."
"So which was he? A black sheep or a lone wolf?" Maybe a different tact would open up a lead.
"Difference? Maybe both. My grand ma ma was disappointed with some of his life choices."
"Really? Such as?" Claire was hoping something would drop into her lap.
Hendrick became distant.
"She never forgave him for marrying gypsy for starters. Was beneath his station."
"Ah, and was this wife number 1, 2 or 3?" she asked ticking through the profile notes.
"My mother... Number one. Grand ma ma says he only did it to get a rise out of the cousins, or my Grand Ma ma's sister." He looked very seriously into his drink.
"So why did you seek me out?"
He looked up at her eyes focusing directly on her:
"Justice. I will not get it from Inspector Hasbrouck"
"And why is that?"
"They were lovers and she is still too close to him to oversee this case properly."
"Why is she even on this case then?"
"She pulled some heartstrings to get it assigned to her."
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Write about smoke
So one issue I have with these assignments is that I frequently know what I would like to write about but that the prompt doesn't match my pre-concieved thoughts so then should I shoehorn what I want to write about to the prompt or am I missing the point of the exercise which is to stretch your writing muscles. If you always just walk around the block, you'll never see what's over in the next town or over the next ridge.
So I'm not sure what I want to do. Keep writing what I want to write? Keep shoe horning what I want to write to match the prompt, or try and branch out and grow with the prompt and see where it takes me.
I'm skipping my specific next one 'cause I didn't like it and going to the one after. I'm so far behind its not like if I skip one anyone will notice ;-).
-----------------------------------------------------
Write about smoke.
Sally yanked Mr. Buns from his seat, presumably so he could more easily access the black board. Mudsy, Tizzy and Ms. Whiskers all sat that their desks watching Mr. Buns be marched up, chalk in hand.
"Mr. Buns, I will not have you disturbing the rest of the class with your outbursts. I asked you a question. What is smoke?"
"If you don't know I certainly don't..." Mr. Buns replied. He aped a grin for the other three students.
"I know I know" Mudsy yelled from the center of the room where the student's shared table was, still covered in detritus from their make shift lunch.
"Its not your turn Mudsy and remember to raise your hand." Sally said. She gave the class as stern a look as she could muster, eye brows furrowed down, lips pursed.
"I think its time for tea." Mr. Buns said as he sat in front of the chalk board. He couldn't even seem to comply enough with Sally's wishes to hold onto the chalk, it kept dropping to the floor.
"It won't be time for tea until recess. So once more Mr. Buns, what is smoke? And I would like an answer before I get cross with you."
Mr. Buns looked up at her with his large black shiny eyes, seemingly on the verge of tears. (Sally was on to this trick as he tried it often to get out of trouble). Mr. Buns said: "Once more Ms. Sally, if you don't know I certainly don't, so why do you ask this stuff?"
"You must know." Sally's resolve was beginning to waiver. If these guys didn't know then hope was waning rapidly. This group of students were the best and the brightest. Huphalumps was too busy getting ready for nap time. Ralph hadn't even bothered getting dressed this morning. She was going to have to talk to his parents about that.
"But we know what it smells like. It smells like the camp fire daddy made last year." Sally said to the class.
"But it also smells kind of like leaves. Remember that time Daddy put all those leaves in the trash bin and threw in the match?" Ms. Whiskers said.
"Or it smells like Aunt Veruca's clothes and hair" Tizzy blurted out.
Sally crossed her arms and thought about that.
"Can I go back to my seat now?" Mr. Buns asked?
"I suppose". She escorted Mr. Buns back to his seat around the tea table, went back to the chalkboard and picked up the piece of chalk from where Mr. Buns had so carelessly left it.
Mudsy's arm was straining against gravity.
"OH, OH OH Ms. Sally I know."
"Very well, Mudsy. What do you think smoke is?"
"Ms. Sally," Mudsy paused, because he was very proper. "Smoke is a gas and comprises a collection of airborne solid and liquid particulates and gasses that are emitted when a material undergoes combustion or pyrolysis, together with the quantity of air that is entrained or otherwise mixed into the mass."
Mudsy looked at the others around the table, a smug grin creeping from between his tusks and under his trunk. The others around him just stared blankly at him.
Mr. Buns was first to break the silence, "What was that? I don't even know what the *#$%)@ half those words even mean."
"Language Mr. Buns!" Sally scolded, but then added "But, I agree with Mr. Buns." Sally said. Mudsy's cocksure grin started to fade. Was he wrong? It had seemed so obvious at the time.
"Would you care to expand on your answer?" she asked.
Mudsy slumped down and stared at the floor crestfallen. He had been sure it was the right answer.
"But he sounds oh so smart." Tizzy said. Ms. Whiskers nodded eagerly in agreement.
"Well, uh." Mudsy continued. "It is commonly an unwanted by-product of fires including stoves, candles, oil lamps and fireplaces, but may also be used for pest control, communication, defensive and offensive capabilities in the military, cocking or smoking..."
"That is enough, Mudsy. All right so now we know what it is. Would anyone like to tell the class what airborne, particulates or pyrolysis means?"
The class looked up at Ms. Sally, blank eyes all around. She sighed. This was going to be a long day...
So I'm not sure what I want to do. Keep writing what I want to write? Keep shoe horning what I want to write to match the prompt, or try and branch out and grow with the prompt and see where it takes me.
I'm skipping my specific next one 'cause I didn't like it and going to the one after. I'm so far behind its not like if I skip one anyone will notice ;-).
-----------------------------------------------------
Write about smoke.
Sally yanked Mr. Buns from his seat, presumably so he could more easily access the black board. Mudsy, Tizzy and Ms. Whiskers all sat that their desks watching Mr. Buns be marched up, chalk in hand.
"Mr. Buns, I will not have you disturbing the rest of the class with your outbursts. I asked you a question. What is smoke?"
"If you don't know I certainly don't..." Mr. Buns replied. He aped a grin for the other three students.
"I know I know" Mudsy yelled from the center of the room where the student's shared table was, still covered in detritus from their make shift lunch.
"Its not your turn Mudsy and remember to raise your hand." Sally said. She gave the class as stern a look as she could muster, eye brows furrowed down, lips pursed.
"I think its time for tea." Mr. Buns said as he sat in front of the chalk board. He couldn't even seem to comply enough with Sally's wishes to hold onto the chalk, it kept dropping to the floor.
"It won't be time for tea until recess. So once more Mr. Buns, what is smoke? And I would like an answer before I get cross with you."
Mr. Buns looked up at her with his large black shiny eyes, seemingly on the verge of tears. (Sally was on to this trick as he tried it often to get out of trouble). Mr. Buns said: "Once more Ms. Sally, if you don't know I certainly don't, so why do you ask this stuff?"
"You must know." Sally's resolve was beginning to waiver. If these guys didn't know then hope was waning rapidly. This group of students were the best and the brightest. Huphalumps was too busy getting ready for nap time. Ralph hadn't even bothered getting dressed this morning. She was going to have to talk to his parents about that.
"But we know what it smells like. It smells like the camp fire daddy made last year." Sally said to the class.
"But it also smells kind of like leaves. Remember that time Daddy put all those leaves in the trash bin and threw in the match?" Ms. Whiskers said.
"Or it smells like Aunt Veruca's clothes and hair" Tizzy blurted out.
Sally crossed her arms and thought about that.
"Can I go back to my seat now?" Mr. Buns asked?
"I suppose". She escorted Mr. Buns back to his seat around the tea table, went back to the chalkboard and picked up the piece of chalk from where Mr. Buns had so carelessly left it.
Mudsy's arm was straining against gravity.
"OH, OH OH Ms. Sally I know."
"Very well, Mudsy. What do you think smoke is?"
"Ms. Sally," Mudsy paused, because he was very proper. "Smoke is a gas and comprises a collection of airborne solid and liquid particulates and gasses that are emitted when a material undergoes combustion or pyrolysis, together with the quantity of air that is entrained or otherwise mixed into the mass."
Mudsy looked at the others around the table, a smug grin creeping from between his tusks and under his trunk. The others around him just stared blankly at him.
Mr. Buns was first to break the silence, "What was that? I don't even know what the *#$%)@ half those words even mean."
"Language Mr. Buns!" Sally scolded, but then added "But, I agree with Mr. Buns." Sally said. Mudsy's cocksure grin started to fade. Was he wrong? It had seemed so obvious at the time.
"Would you care to expand on your answer?" she asked.
Mudsy slumped down and stared at the floor crestfallen. He had been sure it was the right answer.
"But he sounds oh so smart." Tizzy said. Ms. Whiskers nodded eagerly in agreement.
"Well, uh." Mudsy continued. "It is commonly an unwanted by-product of fires including stoves, candles, oil lamps and fireplaces, but may also be used for pest control, communication, defensive and offensive capabilities in the military, cocking or smoking..."
"That is enough, Mudsy. All right so now we know what it is. Would anyone like to tell the class what airborne, particulates or pyrolysis means?"
The class looked up at Ms. Sally, blank eyes all around. She sighed. This was going to be a long day...
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
In my dream I was the first to arrive
"In my dream I was the first to arrive. I never am usually."
"What do you mean by that?" Dr. Arnett asked. She sat in her chair, blonde hair in a bun, horned rim glasses focused on me. In her lap lay the yellow legal pad that she
almost never took notes on.
"I mean that usually everything is already going on by the time I get there. This time I was the first." Even when I said it I could hear the value judgements being made in her head. Not professional but who was it who said: "Great claims require greater proof?" Yeah, this was one of those times.
"So when did these 'dreams' as you call them start?" She asked, bringing the clicker point of her pen up to her lips. I wasn't looking at her but I could tell her brows were furrowed. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea, but who was going to belive me. I thought a psychologist had been the best choice.
"About six months ago."
"Right, about the time you were laid off?"
"Yeah." I could see where she was going. "But, I don't know I don't think that had anything to do with it."
"But you said that its not every night and sometimes you dream them during the day? And it never happens when there's anyone else around."
"Not yet but..."
"What else do you have going on in your life? I mean losing your job can be very stressful. Your file said you're not married, no kids. You had a relatively active social life. Why do you think this has manifested itself with you?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out and I wasn't sure if I should see a shrink or a priest. Uh, no offense to the shrink comment." I sat in the chair becoming more and
more self conscious.
"None taken." She smiled.
"So, why don't you walk me through the first time it happened."
"If you think it'll help."
"You never know."
I proceeded to tell her about the first time "it" happened. Even now I can't figure out if it was a dream or it really happened. I had gotten my pink slip that afternoon at 4:45 on a Friday. 17 years of working there and bam, no "Sorry to see you go." No nothing just a pink slip on my desk after the all employee meeting. Biggs and Phil offered to take me out drinking so we hit our usual watering hole. We commiserate 'cause Biggs lost his job too. Phil bought us round after round and before too long we were pretty sloshed.
We were there till maybe 11 or so. The place started getting full of college kids and too noisy to talk any more so we decided to head home. Dr. Arnett stopped me there.
"So do you have this dream after drinking?"
"No ma'am. Just this first time."
"All right, please continue."
I thought for a moment. Since it had been a nice night out I decided to walk it back home because Biggs and Phil were too drunk to drive and I wasn't in that good a shape
either. The fresh air would do me good and I had all the time in the world right? About 20 minutes later I figured my head should be clearing but its not. It feels like someone has stuffed cotton in my ears, nose and mouth and that same someone is rubbing sandpaper and static electricity all over me.
"Does it always feel this way?"
"No, usually its worse unless I've been drinking."
"Interesting." That's all she said. I know the sound of 'Interesting'. It sounded more like "Right, I'm going to dial 9 and 1 and if you keep getting crazier I'm going to dial the last 1."
So I stopped for a minute to catch my breath. I'm 1/2 drunk and think maybe I'm having a heart attack or a stroke. I look up and see fire flies above me. Only they aren't fire flies. They're stars. First one star starts moving in an arc overhead and then another. Then 10 are moving, all in the same direction. I think, maybe its some sort of air-force jet or something but there's no noise. Then its 50 stars, then 100, then 1000. All moving and they're moving so fast that I start getting dizzy.
Now I know I'm having a stroke or something, so I sit down and put my head between my legs as best I can and try to take deep breaths. I say the alphabet and then say it out loud to see if sounds right. I get stuck between v and w although those two have always sounded funny to me. That's when I smell it. Its always the same smell. I don't know it smells like fog mixed with a flower shop mixed with the thump of a subwoofer when one of those low riding cars pulls up next to you. I know that's not a smell but you know, I'm already at the shrink so sue me that's what it smells like.
There's a breeze that starts up. At first its just enough to make the grass move but as more and more of the stars are moving over head the stronger the breeze gets. I stand up because at the middle of this circle of stars is a bright white light. And its just getting brighter and brighter. So now I'm thinking, "great I get fired and now I'm going to be hit by a comet. This day just sucks." But I figure there are worse ways to go right? I mean how many people's tombstones say "Death by comet" on them?
"That's pretty morbid. You think about this sort of thing often?"
"You asked me to tell you the story, and remember, I had just gotten laid off and was still 1/2 drunk."
"Point taken, keep going."
I continue. At first the wind is just enough to muss your hair, then it gets stronger and stronger and stronger. About ten seconds later it was so strong that I felt like I had to grab onto a nearby stop sign to keep from flying away. I looked around to see if other people were having the same problems but I didn't see anyone else around.
The stop sign started wobbling and before I could figure out what's going on we're both flying up to the sky towards those stars that were zipping around in a circle.
Dr. Arnett stopped me again. "So how did that make you feel, being out of control?"
"I was panicked, how do you think I should have felt?"
"Did you realize you were dreaming at this point?"
"It felt very very real. And except for how preposterous it was I'm still not convinced it was a dream." This last sentence caused Dr. Arnett's eyebrows to knit together.
"You think this was a real experience?"
"It was something. Look, Doctor. I know how this sounds. But I've also been dreaming my whole life. This was... Different."
She scribbled something down on her pad, which she tilted up towards her when she saw me peering over to read what she had written.
"Keep going." She said. "I feel like we're getting close to something here."
I flew up and watched the street fade into lines on a map then the lines disappeared and I could see lakes and hills and in seconds I could see the night half of the planet lit up like a Christmas tree, then the whole planet itself and the blinding light of the sun. I put my arms in front of my face and screamed bloody murder. There was no sense in how fast I was moving but the wind was still whipping around me and the stop sign I had let go of, was whipping around me in circle. I was convinced it was going to hit me so I tried to grab onto it. I must have blacked out because the next thing I know I open my eyes and I don't see the sun or the moon, I see this big white ball coming towards me. It looks like a snow ball coming at my face but it just kept getting bigger and bigger. It went from snowball to bowling ball to beach ball. I could start making out details on it and I realized that I was falling towards the surface of some crazy planet that was all covered in snow. I saw oceans on this planet as I augered in but they seemed to be frozen over. I didn't recognize any of the continents or anything but I saw details on the ground that were rushing towards me much faster than I could handle.
I was screaming bloody murder by then my voice was hoarse. I was sure that whatever part of my buzz I had starting this trip it was gone and in full sobriety I realized I was going to die, not from being hit by a comet but by falling onto a giant frozen mountain slope. As I got closer I saw that what I thought were clouds were actually smoke billowing up from a billion fires. I careened in trying to remember how I left my apartment and if there was anything truly embarrassing that my sister was going to find when someone finally reported me missing.
About 500 feet above the ground I started slowing down. Not like a nice gradual stop you make at a stop sign but rib cracking bone rattling stop like at the end of a badly running roller coaster. The wind was knocked out of my lungs and I flopped into a big circle carved in the snow about a foot wider than I was tall.
I took a few breaths of frigid air trying to figure out if this really was how heaven was supposed to look and I saw these things looking back at me from the other side of the circle. They were tiny, maybe about as big as my big toe and about as stout. They looked like little mice crossed with ants. Plump little things with whiskers, beady eyes and big ears and shells, too many limbs and antennae.
Blinking slowly and trying to figure out how many bones I just broke I saw this little knot of them, they were dressed in rags or something and one of them has what looks like a book being carried in one arm. The rest seemed to be armed with sewing needles and matches. The one with the book was waving its antennae all around and squeaking. The others got down on their bellies and just didn't seem to move.
I stopped for a second to see Dr. Arnett furiously scribbling things down on her pad.
"What do you think Doc? Should I admit myself?"
"I wouldn't do that just yet." she smiled. "But would you mind if I get my tape recorder to record the rest of our session?"
"Sure why not." She got up and went over to her desk and grabbed a little palm sized tape recorder.
"Excellent, Jim please keep going. What happens next? And let me just say that i'm impressed by your ability to keep your wits about you. Are you sure you didn't realize it was a dream?"
"Well hang on, let me tell you..."
I was still on my belly on the snow trying to figure out what the heck this little mouse-ant thing was trying to tell me when I heard it. There was a chittering from behind me. I craned my head and rolled over in the snow to see this smoke ball behind me. It was maybe basket ball sized and just looked like billowing smoke with four red eyes and two inch fangs.
Once again I'm sure I screamed like a little girl and began backing up only to find I couldn't move past the edge of the circle in the snow. It was like there was a piece of glass there that was strong enough for me to lean against and push myself up. Thankfully the snow wasn't too deep but it did make traction difficult and I slid as much as jumped towards the far end of the circle as that smoke thing came at me. it wrapped around the circle a little so it couldn't get at me. Big thanks for small miracles right?
The next thing I knew I heard a little squeak and felt a little crunch under my right foot. The mouse-ant thing with the book had been erasing the line in the snow behind me and I had accidentally stepped on it. As soon as the thing had breached the line I felt my ears pop and heard a sound like when you open a jar of pickles. I reached down and picked the poor squished little sucker up, mainly to see if it had left anything stuck in my shoe. At this point the other little mouse-ant things are skittering off in all directions. Before I had a chance to do anything the smoke thing passes through the far edge of the circle, I guess because the circle was incomplete now. It opened its smokey little mouth and comes at me all fangs and smog.
"What did you do?"
"I did what any red blooded American would do in this situation, once I got done screaming again..."
For a smoke monster it didn't seem to have terribly good traction on snow. Not that I had had a lot of experience with smoke monsters up to that point.
Dr. Arnett stopped me: "I'm glad you still have a sense of humor about this. That's a very good sign."
"Well don't say that yet."
So what did I do? As I had said, once I got done screaming and backing up I spent the next fifteen seconds trying to keep any extremity out of its mouth. That turned out to not be an easy task. I ran around the circle trying not to step on any more mouse-ants when the thing caught my foot. I felt at least 4 of its fangs go through my shin to the bone.
As I said that I hiked up my pant leg to show her the still red scars. It had been about six months ago so the skin was still pink and smooth. The smoke thing was remarkably heavy and I fell into the snow on my back. The thing let go of my leg and made a jump towards my chest. I rolled out of the way and as luck would have it my arm brushed the stop sign. With adrenaline pumping through my body I picked up the stop sign one handed and managed to fend off the smoke thing as it came down. I found out very quickly that either metal or paint, I'm still not sure which, and smoke monsters don't mix. It hit the flat red part of the stop sign and let out the most unholy cry I'd ever heard. It was like cats in heat playing with an angle grinder. It backed off but only for a second and rushed me again. I still wasn't to my feet yet and it caught my elbow here. I rolled up my sleeve to show her 3 two inch scars that were also pink and smooth.
"Not these here." I said, pointing to a cluster of five little dots that had just recently scabbed over. "Those were from a different time and some sort of frog thing. Its amazing how many of these things have teeth. Sharp sharp teeth."
Since Dr. Arnett kept scribbling and not saying anything I kept going.
It didn't get a solid grip this time either so I was able to rip it off my arm and actually heave the sucker a good 20 feet. Again it was the size of a basketball but it seemed to weigh more like a big bag of dog food. It looked at me and I didn't need to be told that it was sizing me up. I jumped up to my feet and grabbed the stop sign, trying to back up all the while and put some distance between me and it.
Apparently it still liked a taste of sweat and bar smoke and rushed me. I think it was more luck than anything that when it got within about five feet of me I brought the stop sign down edge-wise on it and sliced the thing clean in half. It let out another of those cat-grinder cries and then basically just exploded in what seemed to be ash, gray moss and pebbles. It twitched a couple of times and then stopped. I stood there still holding the stop sign realizing how hard I'm breathing. It seems like I can't catch my breath and my eyes are watering from the cold. I dropped the sign as it started feeling incredibly heavy and there was a pounding in my head. I could feel my vision beginning to flicker around the edges a little like a tunnel slowly closing in. I sat down in the snow not caring any more how cold it was and just wishing as I breathed that I could feel like I was getting a full breath of air.
A couple of seconds later I get the feeling of someone stuffing my head with cotton again and I can feel the sandpaper electricity on my skin and I pass out only to wake up on a street corner about five miles from my house next to a broken stop sign post. A police man was tapping me with his foot talking to me and writing me up for destruction of public property and public drunkenness. I had a splitting headache and the sun was beating down on me. I took the ticket and impressed on the policeman that I was ok despite the fact that I had blood on my pant leg and scratches on my arms. He attributed it to injuries sustained when I dismantled the stop sign.
I limped home and took a long shower then made a call to the doctor. Let me tell you how painful rabies shots are. The doctor said it looked like either a raccoon or a possum had gotten the best of me.
"But you don't believe the doctor do you? Look, I know how this sounds but you know the difference between a dream and something really happening to you. Besides, I thought you might take it this way so I brought this."
I handed over the miniature book the ant-mouse had. It was no bigger than a postage stamp but was about 1/2 and inch thick with paper thinner than an onion skin and crammed with tiny pictures and tinier writing. Dr. Arnett's eyebrows arched as she used her finely manicured fingernails to leaf through it.
"So you say this happens to you a lot? We'll call them fugue states for now as I agree I don't think dream is an appropriate word."
"Well not a whole lot. Maybe a couple times a week?"
"And this last one?" She handed the book back to me.
"This last one was different. I've only been to the same place a couple of times but never back to the mouse-ants. Except this last time. Usually it seems like I'm there after the action had started, but this time, this time I was first."
"What do you mean by that?" Dr. Arnett asked. She sat in her chair, blonde hair in a bun, horned rim glasses focused on me. In her lap lay the yellow legal pad that she
almost never took notes on.
"I mean that usually everything is already going on by the time I get there. This time I was the first." Even when I said it I could hear the value judgements being made in her head. Not professional but who was it who said: "Great claims require greater proof?" Yeah, this was one of those times.
"So when did these 'dreams' as you call them start?" She asked, bringing the clicker point of her pen up to her lips. I wasn't looking at her but I could tell her brows were furrowed. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea, but who was going to belive me. I thought a psychologist had been the best choice.
"About six months ago."
"Right, about the time you were laid off?"
"Yeah." I could see where she was going. "But, I don't know I don't think that had anything to do with it."
"But you said that its not every night and sometimes you dream them during the day? And it never happens when there's anyone else around."
"Not yet but..."
"What else do you have going on in your life? I mean losing your job can be very stressful. Your file said you're not married, no kids. You had a relatively active social life. Why do you think this has manifested itself with you?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out and I wasn't sure if I should see a shrink or a priest. Uh, no offense to the shrink comment." I sat in the chair becoming more and
more self conscious.
"None taken." She smiled.
"So, why don't you walk me through the first time it happened."
"If you think it'll help."
"You never know."
I proceeded to tell her about the first time "it" happened. Even now I can't figure out if it was a dream or it really happened. I had gotten my pink slip that afternoon at 4:45 on a Friday. 17 years of working there and bam, no "Sorry to see you go." No nothing just a pink slip on my desk after the all employee meeting. Biggs and Phil offered to take me out drinking so we hit our usual watering hole. We commiserate 'cause Biggs lost his job too. Phil bought us round after round and before too long we were pretty sloshed.
We were there till maybe 11 or so. The place started getting full of college kids and too noisy to talk any more so we decided to head home. Dr. Arnett stopped me there.
"So do you have this dream after drinking?"
"No ma'am. Just this first time."
"All right, please continue."
I thought for a moment. Since it had been a nice night out I decided to walk it back home because Biggs and Phil were too drunk to drive and I wasn't in that good a shape
either. The fresh air would do me good and I had all the time in the world right? About 20 minutes later I figured my head should be clearing but its not. It feels like someone has stuffed cotton in my ears, nose and mouth and that same someone is rubbing sandpaper and static electricity all over me.
"Does it always feel this way?"
"No, usually its worse unless I've been drinking."
"Interesting." That's all she said. I know the sound of 'Interesting'. It sounded more like "Right, I'm going to dial 9 and 1 and if you keep getting crazier I'm going to dial the last 1."
So I stopped for a minute to catch my breath. I'm 1/2 drunk and think maybe I'm having a heart attack or a stroke. I look up and see fire flies above me. Only they aren't fire flies. They're stars. First one star starts moving in an arc overhead and then another. Then 10 are moving, all in the same direction. I think, maybe its some sort of air-force jet or something but there's no noise. Then its 50 stars, then 100, then 1000. All moving and they're moving so fast that I start getting dizzy.
Now I know I'm having a stroke or something, so I sit down and put my head between my legs as best I can and try to take deep breaths. I say the alphabet and then say it out loud to see if sounds right. I get stuck between v and w although those two have always sounded funny to me. That's when I smell it. Its always the same smell. I don't know it smells like fog mixed with a flower shop mixed with the thump of a subwoofer when one of those low riding cars pulls up next to you. I know that's not a smell but you know, I'm already at the shrink so sue me that's what it smells like.
There's a breeze that starts up. At first its just enough to make the grass move but as more and more of the stars are moving over head the stronger the breeze gets. I stand up because at the middle of this circle of stars is a bright white light. And its just getting brighter and brighter. So now I'm thinking, "great I get fired and now I'm going to be hit by a comet. This day just sucks." But I figure there are worse ways to go right? I mean how many people's tombstones say "Death by comet" on them?
"That's pretty morbid. You think about this sort of thing often?"
"You asked me to tell you the story, and remember, I had just gotten laid off and was still 1/2 drunk."
"Point taken, keep going."
I continue. At first the wind is just enough to muss your hair, then it gets stronger and stronger and stronger. About ten seconds later it was so strong that I felt like I had to grab onto a nearby stop sign to keep from flying away. I looked around to see if other people were having the same problems but I didn't see anyone else around.
The stop sign started wobbling and before I could figure out what's going on we're both flying up to the sky towards those stars that were zipping around in a circle.
Dr. Arnett stopped me again. "So how did that make you feel, being out of control?"
"I was panicked, how do you think I should have felt?"
"Did you realize you were dreaming at this point?"
"It felt very very real. And except for how preposterous it was I'm still not convinced it was a dream." This last sentence caused Dr. Arnett's eyebrows to knit together.
"You think this was a real experience?"
"It was something. Look, Doctor. I know how this sounds. But I've also been dreaming my whole life. This was... Different."
She scribbled something down on her pad, which she tilted up towards her when she saw me peering over to read what she had written.
"Keep going." She said. "I feel like we're getting close to something here."
I flew up and watched the street fade into lines on a map then the lines disappeared and I could see lakes and hills and in seconds I could see the night half of the planet lit up like a Christmas tree, then the whole planet itself and the blinding light of the sun. I put my arms in front of my face and screamed bloody murder. There was no sense in how fast I was moving but the wind was still whipping around me and the stop sign I had let go of, was whipping around me in circle. I was convinced it was going to hit me so I tried to grab onto it. I must have blacked out because the next thing I know I open my eyes and I don't see the sun or the moon, I see this big white ball coming towards me. It looks like a snow ball coming at my face but it just kept getting bigger and bigger. It went from snowball to bowling ball to beach ball. I could start making out details on it and I realized that I was falling towards the surface of some crazy planet that was all covered in snow. I saw oceans on this planet as I augered in but they seemed to be frozen over. I didn't recognize any of the continents or anything but I saw details on the ground that were rushing towards me much faster than I could handle.
I was screaming bloody murder by then my voice was hoarse. I was sure that whatever part of my buzz I had starting this trip it was gone and in full sobriety I realized I was going to die, not from being hit by a comet but by falling onto a giant frozen mountain slope. As I got closer I saw that what I thought were clouds were actually smoke billowing up from a billion fires. I careened in trying to remember how I left my apartment and if there was anything truly embarrassing that my sister was going to find when someone finally reported me missing.
About 500 feet above the ground I started slowing down. Not like a nice gradual stop you make at a stop sign but rib cracking bone rattling stop like at the end of a badly running roller coaster. The wind was knocked out of my lungs and I flopped into a big circle carved in the snow about a foot wider than I was tall.
I took a few breaths of frigid air trying to figure out if this really was how heaven was supposed to look and I saw these things looking back at me from the other side of the circle. They were tiny, maybe about as big as my big toe and about as stout. They looked like little mice crossed with ants. Plump little things with whiskers, beady eyes and big ears and shells, too many limbs and antennae.
Blinking slowly and trying to figure out how many bones I just broke I saw this little knot of them, they were dressed in rags or something and one of them has what looks like a book being carried in one arm. The rest seemed to be armed with sewing needles and matches. The one with the book was waving its antennae all around and squeaking. The others got down on their bellies and just didn't seem to move.
I stopped for a second to see Dr. Arnett furiously scribbling things down on her pad.
"What do you think Doc? Should I admit myself?"
"I wouldn't do that just yet." she smiled. "But would you mind if I get my tape recorder to record the rest of our session?"
"Sure why not." She got up and went over to her desk and grabbed a little palm sized tape recorder.
"Excellent, Jim please keep going. What happens next? And let me just say that i'm impressed by your ability to keep your wits about you. Are you sure you didn't realize it was a dream?"
"Well hang on, let me tell you..."
I was still on my belly on the snow trying to figure out what the heck this little mouse-ant thing was trying to tell me when I heard it. There was a chittering from behind me. I craned my head and rolled over in the snow to see this smoke ball behind me. It was maybe basket ball sized and just looked like billowing smoke with four red eyes and two inch fangs.
Once again I'm sure I screamed like a little girl and began backing up only to find I couldn't move past the edge of the circle in the snow. It was like there was a piece of glass there that was strong enough for me to lean against and push myself up. Thankfully the snow wasn't too deep but it did make traction difficult and I slid as much as jumped towards the far end of the circle as that smoke thing came at me. it wrapped around the circle a little so it couldn't get at me. Big thanks for small miracles right?
The next thing I knew I heard a little squeak and felt a little crunch under my right foot. The mouse-ant thing with the book had been erasing the line in the snow behind me and I had accidentally stepped on it. As soon as the thing had breached the line I felt my ears pop and heard a sound like when you open a jar of pickles. I reached down and picked the poor squished little sucker up, mainly to see if it had left anything stuck in my shoe. At this point the other little mouse-ant things are skittering off in all directions. Before I had a chance to do anything the smoke thing passes through the far edge of the circle, I guess because the circle was incomplete now. It opened its smokey little mouth and comes at me all fangs and smog.
"What did you do?"
"I did what any red blooded American would do in this situation, once I got done screaming again..."
For a smoke monster it didn't seem to have terribly good traction on snow. Not that I had had a lot of experience with smoke monsters up to that point.
Dr. Arnett stopped me: "I'm glad you still have a sense of humor about this. That's a very good sign."
"Well don't say that yet."
So what did I do? As I had said, once I got done screaming and backing up I spent the next fifteen seconds trying to keep any extremity out of its mouth. That turned out to not be an easy task. I ran around the circle trying not to step on any more mouse-ants when the thing caught my foot. I felt at least 4 of its fangs go through my shin to the bone.
As I said that I hiked up my pant leg to show her the still red scars. It had been about six months ago so the skin was still pink and smooth. The smoke thing was remarkably heavy and I fell into the snow on my back. The thing let go of my leg and made a jump towards my chest. I rolled out of the way and as luck would have it my arm brushed the stop sign. With adrenaline pumping through my body I picked up the stop sign one handed and managed to fend off the smoke thing as it came down. I found out very quickly that either metal or paint, I'm still not sure which, and smoke monsters don't mix. It hit the flat red part of the stop sign and let out the most unholy cry I'd ever heard. It was like cats in heat playing with an angle grinder. It backed off but only for a second and rushed me again. I still wasn't to my feet yet and it caught my elbow here. I rolled up my sleeve to show her 3 two inch scars that were also pink and smooth.
"Not these here." I said, pointing to a cluster of five little dots that had just recently scabbed over. "Those were from a different time and some sort of frog thing. Its amazing how many of these things have teeth. Sharp sharp teeth."
Since Dr. Arnett kept scribbling and not saying anything I kept going.
It didn't get a solid grip this time either so I was able to rip it off my arm and actually heave the sucker a good 20 feet. Again it was the size of a basketball but it seemed to weigh more like a big bag of dog food. It looked at me and I didn't need to be told that it was sizing me up. I jumped up to my feet and grabbed the stop sign, trying to back up all the while and put some distance between me and it.
Apparently it still liked a taste of sweat and bar smoke and rushed me. I think it was more luck than anything that when it got within about five feet of me I brought the stop sign down edge-wise on it and sliced the thing clean in half. It let out another of those cat-grinder cries and then basically just exploded in what seemed to be ash, gray moss and pebbles. It twitched a couple of times and then stopped. I stood there still holding the stop sign realizing how hard I'm breathing. It seems like I can't catch my breath and my eyes are watering from the cold. I dropped the sign as it started feeling incredibly heavy and there was a pounding in my head. I could feel my vision beginning to flicker around the edges a little like a tunnel slowly closing in. I sat down in the snow not caring any more how cold it was and just wishing as I breathed that I could feel like I was getting a full breath of air.
A couple of seconds later I get the feeling of someone stuffing my head with cotton again and I can feel the sandpaper electricity on my skin and I pass out only to wake up on a street corner about five miles from my house next to a broken stop sign post. A police man was tapping me with his foot talking to me and writing me up for destruction of public property and public drunkenness. I had a splitting headache and the sun was beating down on me. I took the ticket and impressed on the policeman that I was ok despite the fact that I had blood on my pant leg and scratches on my arms. He attributed it to injuries sustained when I dismantled the stop sign.
I limped home and took a long shower then made a call to the doctor. Let me tell you how painful rabies shots are. The doctor said it looked like either a raccoon or a possum had gotten the best of me.
"But you don't believe the doctor do you? Look, I know how this sounds but you know the difference between a dream and something really happening to you. Besides, I thought you might take it this way so I brought this."
I handed over the miniature book the ant-mouse had. It was no bigger than a postage stamp but was about 1/2 and inch thick with paper thinner than an onion skin and crammed with tiny pictures and tinier writing. Dr. Arnett's eyebrows arched as she used her finely manicured fingernails to leaf through it.
"So you say this happens to you a lot? We'll call them fugue states for now as I agree I don't think dream is an appropriate word."
"Well not a whole lot. Maybe a couple times a week?"
"And this last one?" She handed the book back to me.
"This last one was different. I've only been to the same place a couple of times but never back to the mouse-ants. Except this last time. Usually it seems like I'm there after the action had started, but this time, this time I was first."
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Write what is underneath good intentions
Claire bundled up her bathrobe and took two steps back. It couldn't possibly be Andrew at the door. She watched the shadow of feet shuffle back and forth and with belated courage took a slightly longer look through the peep hole.
It wasn't Andrew. It could have been him but 30 years younger and taller.
She quickly ran back into the bathroom and yelled: "Who is it?" No answer.
Claire sprinted as quietly as she could back to the bed and her awaiting "go bag" and placed the gun in the pocket of her bathrobe, then with some presence of mind she put her shoes on, walked to the door, made sure the privacy latch was on and put her foot down squarely so the door would only be able to open a few inches.
"Room service?" she said as she opened the door.
"Mademoiselle Newton. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Hendrick Booten, Andrew's son. I wish we could have met under better circumstances as my father had only the utmost respect for you."
Claire was at a loss. Hendrick's brown hair had a slight curl to it, his dark gray Armani suit was immaculate. His shoes seemed to have just come from polishing. For the eccentric shabby sheik that his father had been, it was obvious that Hendrick had grown up with money and knew how to keep up appearances.
"I see you are not dressed for receiving guests. May I give you some time to freshen up? I understand your flight was long but we have urgent matters to discuss. May I invite you downstairs to the bar in, say twenty minutes? Would that be enough time?"
She realized she was staring. "Twenty? Certainly. I will meet you downstairs."
"Very good. Tot ziens"
He turned and strode down the hallway. She closed the door and ran back to the eReader to look up as much as she could about Hendrick for the next fifteen minutes. Only child, never married. CFO of an entity that ran a number of non-profit hospitals around the world but seemingly to focus on locations in the bottom 10 GDP countries.
On paper he seemed to good to be true and the fact that his smile could melt a glacier certainly didn't hurt. She didn't trust him for a second.
It wasn't Andrew. It could have been him but 30 years younger and taller.
She quickly ran back into the bathroom and yelled: "Who is it?" No answer.
Claire sprinted as quietly as she could back to the bed and her awaiting "go bag" and placed the gun in the pocket of her bathrobe, then with some presence of mind she put her shoes on, walked to the door, made sure the privacy latch was on and put her foot down squarely so the door would only be able to open a few inches.
"Room service?" she said as she opened the door.
"Mademoiselle Newton. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Hendrick Booten, Andrew's son. I wish we could have met under better circumstances as my father had only the utmost respect for you."
Claire was at a loss. Hendrick's brown hair had a slight curl to it, his dark gray Armani suit was immaculate. His shoes seemed to have just come from polishing. For the eccentric shabby sheik that his father had been, it was obvious that Hendrick had grown up with money and knew how to keep up appearances.
"I see you are not dressed for receiving guests. May I give you some time to freshen up? I understand your flight was long but we have urgent matters to discuss. May I invite you downstairs to the bar in, say twenty minutes? Would that be enough time?"
She realized she was staring. "Twenty? Certainly. I will meet you downstairs."
"Very good. Tot ziens"
He turned and strode down the hallway. She closed the door and ran back to the eReader to look up as much as she could about Hendrick for the next fifteen minutes. Only child, never married. CFO of an entity that ran a number of non-profit hospitals around the world but seemingly to focus on locations in the bottom 10 GDP countries.
On paper he seemed to good to be true and the fact that his smile could melt a glacier certainly didn't hurt. She didn't trust him for a second.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Another 2fer
And I'm almost caught up!
The prompts for this post:
Taking an unfamiliar road
Write about changing clothes
______________________________________
The seatbelt sign winked off and the cabin was suddenly awash in a din of business and reassurances as cell phones came to life. Claire waited until everyone had filed out until she stood up, massaging her calf muscles and takng her time to ensure that she had packed up everything in the away kit. There was part of her that was trying not to panic about taking a gun through customs. She had decided to omit it on the customs claim form before touchdown. Plausible deniablity had been its own entire course at the academy.
Claire picked her way by the cleaning and flight crews and took a deep breath on the jetway. There was no one holding up a sign for her. No one in a dark suit and sunglasses speaking into their cuff that "the eagle had landed." She was almost disappointed after her sendoff. The air had a weight to it when she breathed. Aside from the tang of jet fuel and carpet cleaners the humidity was almost palpable and the jetway walls were warm to the touch. She had taken off her blazer by the time she reached the top of the ramp.
Again, she had a slight pause to look around the masses. Again she was dissapointed. No one with a sign, no one to greet her. With rising trepidation she headed towards customs. Each step she tried to stand up a little straighter, shoulder a little more back. She was CIA! She had her passport, her conceled weapons permit her clearance credenctials and could probably produce a letter of introduction from the eReader if she really had needed to. She just hoped that customs agents in Europe were more what? Lax wasn't the word. Free? Again she broke out in a cold sweat trying to explain the gun. What did she need a gun for anyway? Forensic accountants rarely, if ever, needed firearms and if they did then the situation had definitely gotten out of her realm of experience.
The line had mostly disappeared by the time she reached customs. She had stopped off at the restroom and grabbed a coffee, her luggange all in an attempt to appear nonchalant. Then, she put on her best smile and most courteous attitude.
"Do you speak English? Sprechen ze Doitch? Parles Vous Francais?"
"English please." Clair replied. The customs agent looked up from his computer monitor, looked at her from head to toe then went back to his monitor.
"Passport and return ticket please. Do you have anything to declare?"
"I don't have a return ticket yet. Here's my passport and no. Nothing to declare." He took the passport and began scanning its bar code.
"Are you here for business or pleasure?" She noticed he looked at her left hand when he asked.
"Business, thank you."
"How long do you expect..." He trailed off and began earnestly reading his monitor. After a second he looked at her and maintained eye contact.
"Ah, Ms. Newton, you are expected. One second." After a quick burst of Dutch into his walkie talkie, a young customs agent came to the podium and there was a brief exchange.
"Ms. Newton, please follow Arnold and he will see you to your rendesvous."
Arnold then said something that sound like "Vol me up."
"I'm sorry Arnold, I don't speak Dutch." She said to him.
"That is all right Ms. Newton, he doesn't speak English so you two should be fast friends. Volgende in de rij, Next in line, Suivant en ligne."
Arnold took hold of Claire's suitcase and began walking at a brisk pace through the airport she followed, her heels clicking on the cement walkways. After a few minutes they arrived at an office, the frosted glass door opened to reveal only one occupant. Claire guessed the woman was in her early fifties. She had shoulder length gray hair, her clothes were muted blacks and charcoals, a pair of ruby stud earrings and a glold chain necklace were the only sources of color in her wardrobe. With flat shoes on, she was still at least 7 inches taller than Claire. She was speaking on her cell phone in bullet fast Dutch and held up a silenceing finger when they came in the room. Arnold pantomied "here you are." and left the suitcase. He spun on his heel and closed the door with a quiet click.
A second later the older woman closed her phone with a snap and spun to fully examine Claire. She looked her from the shoes up a slight scowl creeping across her face. Claire stood up striaght and tried to flush the beginnings of jet lag from her mind.
"Agent Claire Newton? I am Inspector Mariela Hasbrouck with the KLPD, specifically I am one of the KLPD's liasons with Interpol. You may address me as Inspector Hasbrouck."
"Yes ma'am. And you may address me as Agent Newton, CIA forensic Accounting division. A pleasure to meet you." She held out her hand. Inspector Hasbrouck made no move to shake it. Instead she said, "I had imaged you taller." With a sigh she said "Oh well. I am to be your liason during the investigation. I will act as an interpretur and I will be able to make introductions for you, but I am not your chauffeur, or your secretary. Now if we could get you to your hotel I am sure you are tired from your flight and I am sure you have a lot of work to begin on tomorrow." She opened the door and began to walk with long strides down the halway. Quickly Claire grabbed her suitecase and followed after. A minute later they were in an unmarked sedan taking an unfamilier road from the airport towards The Hague.
Claire looked out the car window as they sped through the city then through farm land. She would watch bill boards and street signs zip by with far too many consonents in a row. She could feel herself beginning to drift off.
"So why were you chosen for this assignment?"
"I'm sorry?" Claire quickly snapped out of her daze.
"You're here to investigate the bombings. I didn't realize the CIA would send a forensic accountant to examine a bombing. As far as I can tell you are the only CIA operative on the scene."
"I knew one of the victims. We had worked together once."
"And the CIA flies you halfway around the world for that?"
Claire bit down on her tounge trying to decide how much of Inspector Hasbrouck's personality was lost in translation, how much was European and how much was just her general unpleasentness.
"Well the job needs to get done. You never know where the paper trail leads." She said trying to remain far more chipper than she felt. Mariela sneered.
"Which one of the victims did you know?"
"Andrew Booten. He and I had worked a case together in the Sahara a year or so ago."
"Is that so?" And that was the last Inspector Hasbrouck said for the drive. They arrived at a twenty story high rise hotel not far from the International courthouse.
"I will pick you up at 0700 tomorrow. That is seven AM for you yanks. Please be ready to go. I will take you then to the crime scenes and you can arrange travel from there. You can call me if you need anything else. Here is my card."
"Yes ma'am. I reckon I look forward to it. See y'all tomorrow morning." Claire said puting on as thick and as fake Texas accent as she could and rolling her eyes as she stepped out of the car.
She checked in, went to her room and looked out from her window. The architecture outside seemingly only consisted of acute angles, from ancient castle spires and brick buildings to sleek glass covered rhomboids. Fifteen stories below people walked and rode their bicycles everywhere through the narrow streets. She snapped a quick picture of the Courthouse less than ten blocks away and e-mailed it to her boss. "The eagle has landed" she wrote.
A second later there was a reply. When did he sleep she wondered? It was four AM back home. She opened the e-mail: "LOL, looks hot. Be careful Newton."
Opening the closet she found a terry cloth bathrobe and slippers, she pulled them out and laid them out on the bed. Halfway through unbuttoning her blouse she flipped on the flat pannel TV that hung on the wall and settled for world news on the BBC channel. She set the remote control down, finnished taking off her suit and spent a second luxuriating in the comfort of the bathrobe. She could feel herself getting lost in just rubbing her toes against the fabric of the slippers when she snapped to, picked up the suit and hung it up in the bathroom. She turned on the shower, slipped off the bathrobe and inhaled the steam deeply, feeling the water wash away the grime of travel.
Almost an hour later she still had a towel wrapped around her head, bathrobe cinched at the waist and was trying to decide if she had enough energy to order room service and if so wheather it would be a simple salad or something with herring in it. There was a knock on the door.
She laid the menu on the table and got up quietly. "Just a minute" she said, aiming her voice into the bathroom so she could get a good echo going. She snuck up to the peep hole in the door and stole a quick glance.
There in the hallway stood Andrew Booten.
The prompts for this post:
Taking an unfamiliar road
Write about changing clothes
______________________________________
The seatbelt sign winked off and the cabin was suddenly awash in a din of business and reassurances as cell phones came to life. Claire waited until everyone had filed out until she stood up, massaging her calf muscles and takng her time to ensure that she had packed up everything in the away kit. There was part of her that was trying not to panic about taking a gun through customs. She had decided to omit it on the customs claim form before touchdown. Plausible deniablity had been its own entire course at the academy.
Claire picked her way by the cleaning and flight crews and took a deep breath on the jetway. There was no one holding up a sign for her. No one in a dark suit and sunglasses speaking into their cuff that "the eagle had landed." She was almost disappointed after her sendoff. The air had a weight to it when she breathed. Aside from the tang of jet fuel and carpet cleaners the humidity was almost palpable and the jetway walls were warm to the touch. She had taken off her blazer by the time she reached the top of the ramp.
Again, she had a slight pause to look around the masses. Again she was dissapointed. No one with a sign, no one to greet her. With rising trepidation she headed towards customs. Each step she tried to stand up a little straighter, shoulder a little more back. She was CIA! She had her passport, her conceled weapons permit her clearance credenctials and could probably produce a letter of introduction from the eReader if she really had needed to. She just hoped that customs agents in Europe were more what? Lax wasn't the word. Free? Again she broke out in a cold sweat trying to explain the gun. What did she need a gun for anyway? Forensic accountants rarely, if ever, needed firearms and if they did then the situation had definitely gotten out of her realm of experience.
The line had mostly disappeared by the time she reached customs. She had stopped off at the restroom and grabbed a coffee, her luggange all in an attempt to appear nonchalant. Then, she put on her best smile and most courteous attitude.
"Do you speak English? Sprechen ze Doitch? Parles Vous Francais?"
"English please." Clair replied. The customs agent looked up from his computer monitor, looked at her from head to toe then went back to his monitor.
"Passport and return ticket please. Do you have anything to declare?"
"I don't have a return ticket yet. Here's my passport and no. Nothing to declare." He took the passport and began scanning its bar code.
"Are you here for business or pleasure?" She noticed he looked at her left hand when he asked.
"Business, thank you."
"How long do you expect..." He trailed off and began earnestly reading his monitor. After a second he looked at her and maintained eye contact.
"Ah, Ms. Newton, you are expected. One second." After a quick burst of Dutch into his walkie talkie, a young customs agent came to the podium and there was a brief exchange.
"Ms. Newton, please follow Arnold and he will see you to your rendesvous."
Arnold then said something that sound like "Vol me up."
"I'm sorry Arnold, I don't speak Dutch." She said to him.
"That is all right Ms. Newton, he doesn't speak English so you two should be fast friends. Volgende in de rij, Next in line, Suivant en ligne."
Arnold took hold of Claire's suitcase and began walking at a brisk pace through the airport she followed, her heels clicking on the cement walkways. After a few minutes they arrived at an office, the frosted glass door opened to reveal only one occupant. Claire guessed the woman was in her early fifties. She had shoulder length gray hair, her clothes were muted blacks and charcoals, a pair of ruby stud earrings and a glold chain necklace were the only sources of color in her wardrobe. With flat shoes on, she was still at least 7 inches taller than Claire. She was speaking on her cell phone in bullet fast Dutch and held up a silenceing finger when they came in the room. Arnold pantomied "here you are." and left the suitcase. He spun on his heel and closed the door with a quiet click.
A second later the older woman closed her phone with a snap and spun to fully examine Claire. She looked her from the shoes up a slight scowl creeping across her face. Claire stood up striaght and tried to flush the beginnings of jet lag from her mind.
"Agent Claire Newton? I am Inspector Mariela Hasbrouck with the KLPD, specifically I am one of the KLPD's liasons with Interpol. You may address me as Inspector Hasbrouck."
"Yes ma'am. And you may address me as Agent Newton, CIA forensic Accounting division. A pleasure to meet you." She held out her hand. Inspector Hasbrouck made no move to shake it. Instead she said, "I had imaged you taller." With a sigh she said "Oh well. I am to be your liason during the investigation. I will act as an interpretur and I will be able to make introductions for you, but I am not your chauffeur, or your secretary. Now if we could get you to your hotel I am sure you are tired from your flight and I am sure you have a lot of work to begin on tomorrow." She opened the door and began to walk with long strides down the halway. Quickly Claire grabbed her suitecase and followed after. A minute later they were in an unmarked sedan taking an unfamilier road from the airport towards The Hague.
Claire looked out the car window as they sped through the city then through farm land. She would watch bill boards and street signs zip by with far too many consonents in a row. She could feel herself beginning to drift off.
"So why were you chosen for this assignment?"
"I'm sorry?" Claire quickly snapped out of her daze.
"You're here to investigate the bombings. I didn't realize the CIA would send a forensic accountant to examine a bombing. As far as I can tell you are the only CIA operative on the scene."
"I knew one of the victims. We had worked together once."
"And the CIA flies you halfway around the world for that?"
Claire bit down on her tounge trying to decide how much of Inspector Hasbrouck's personality was lost in translation, how much was European and how much was just her general unpleasentness.
"Well the job needs to get done. You never know where the paper trail leads." She said trying to remain far more chipper than she felt. Mariela sneered.
"Which one of the victims did you know?"
"Andrew Booten. He and I had worked a case together in the Sahara a year or so ago."
"Is that so?" And that was the last Inspector Hasbrouck said for the drive. They arrived at a twenty story high rise hotel not far from the International courthouse.
"I will pick you up at 0700 tomorrow. That is seven AM for you yanks. Please be ready to go. I will take you then to the crime scenes and you can arrange travel from there. You can call me if you need anything else. Here is my card."
"Yes ma'am. I reckon I look forward to it. See y'all tomorrow morning." Claire said puting on as thick and as fake Texas accent as she could and rolling her eyes as she stepped out of the car.
She checked in, went to her room and looked out from her window. The architecture outside seemingly only consisted of acute angles, from ancient castle spires and brick buildings to sleek glass covered rhomboids. Fifteen stories below people walked and rode their bicycles everywhere through the narrow streets. She snapped a quick picture of the Courthouse less than ten blocks away and e-mailed it to her boss. "The eagle has landed" she wrote.
A second later there was a reply. When did he sleep she wondered? It was four AM back home. She opened the e-mail: "LOL, looks hot. Be careful Newton."
Opening the closet she found a terry cloth bathrobe and slippers, she pulled them out and laid them out on the bed. Halfway through unbuttoning her blouse she flipped on the flat pannel TV that hung on the wall and settled for world news on the BBC channel. She set the remote control down, finnished taking off her suit and spent a second luxuriating in the comfort of the bathrobe. She could feel herself getting lost in just rubbing her toes against the fabric of the slippers when she snapped to, picked up the suit and hung it up in the bathroom. She turned on the shower, slipped off the bathrobe and inhaled the steam deeply, feeling the water wash away the grime of travel.
Almost an hour later she still had a towel wrapped around her head, bathrobe cinched at the waist and was trying to decide if she had enough energy to order room service and if so wheather it would be a simple salad or something with herring in it. There was a knock on the door.
She laid the menu on the table and got up quietly. "Just a minute" she said, aiming her voice into the bathroom so she could get a good echo going. She snuck up to the peep hole in the door and stole a quick glance.
There in the hallway stood Andrew Booten.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Oranges and Apples (among others)
Oranges and Apples
She said to call her anytime
Taking an unfamiliar road
Write about changing clothes
Holy cow I'm 4 behind? I know this is somewhat against the spirit of the exercise but to get caught up, if we continue with the adventures of Claire Newton I think we can cover all 4 ;-) So here's the first two:
--------------------------------------------
Four hours into the flight Claire was having difficulties keeping her eyes open. Skimming through thousands of pages of abstracts and the files themselves, she still couldn't imagine what thread she was looking for that sewed the files together or the one that bound her to this case. Over Greenland, Aurora Borealis tinting the night sky greenish blue, she was reading a rather dry personnel section on Andrew Booten's international holdings. The fact that he had any was an interesting yet seemingly cursory fact.
While it seemed strange that a mid-level UN bureaucrat was so financially diversified, she had read other files regarding his family's holdings and how they had made countless fortunes over the generations as importers of all sorts of goods to Amsterdam and other locales within Holland. For example his family owned a sizable share of one of the larger South Pacific islands and imported exotic fish both for aquariums and for dining. He himself was a majority share holder in an Orange Grove near Valencia Spain, and actually owned outright an entire fleet of apple orchards near Yakima Washington. Claire thought to herself that she only owned her student loans, a 2008 Toyota Camry and other mementos that would maybe fill a closet.
The files had remarked on the fruit baskets he had sent Claire that Christmas and again for her birthday in May. Both baskets had taken up the majority of the apartment's coffee table. Oranges from Valencia, Apples from Washington, Pears from Nagoto Japan, Cheeses from Weggis Switzerland, two bottles of wine from Sonoma, a even a bottle of scotch from Scapa Scottland. She had had fun looking up on a map where all the components had come from.
But as the files dragged on and the hours crept by, page after page of invoice confirmations real-estate transactions and, business contracts took its toll on Claire's consciousness. Her eyelids began closing.
she remembered back to their few days together in the heat of the desert. How welcome that heat would be right now compared to the cold air from the airplane's vent.
Andrew had been a striking figure when he stepped off the plane in the Sahara. She had arrived a half day earlier to secure the records room at the administration building and to ease the way through the soon to be faced bureaucracy. Andrew Booten paused at the airplane's door. He took a deep breath and surveyed the airport. The plane seemed to have come straight from a Michael Curtiz movie. No jets servicing travelers here only a single shiny metallic Lockheed C101, its 4 giant propellers winding down and a handful of ground crew meandering towards the plane.
Andrew was fully two heads taller than everyone else descending the plane's stairs and he must have weighed at least 250 pounds more than anyone else around him.
He seemed to be the only man in the desert in a clean pressed white linen suit. He sported a white straw hat with a hat band with a very wide and stylized UN "continent" logo printed on it. A green silk handkerchief popped crisply from his coat's breast pocket. That one seemed merely for show as he kept another green cotton kerchief palmed most of the time to wipe the copious sweat from his brown and forehead. And then there was his signature scarf. "So European" she would think. Regardless of the temperature he would always wear it. It was, compared to the rest of the suit, a very ratty thing. It was sand colored, frayed at the edges, stained and discolored. He seemed to wear it more as a totem than as any particular fashion accouterment since it neither provided warmth or style.
They had shared a light dinner that night at a small bistro near their hotel. She looked at him in disbelief when all he had ordered at first was baba ganoush. A flicker of bemusement showed across his face.
"My dear mademoiselle" he said in English that was equal parts Flemish and Scottish, "Only you Americans choose to eat in such a barbarous manner. Food, like company, should be savored never rushed. Tonight we shall eat in eight courses. So for now choose an aperitif to whet the appetite."
Claire felt awkward at first talking with him. She was only five years out of grad school and seemed to have done nothing of note with her life. Even becoming a full field agent with the CIA seemed pale to the stories Andrew told. He was attached to accounting forensics with the UN currently, but before that he had had stints with the governments of Greece and Turkey, even Fiji. he had been in South Africa when Mandella had been freed. He had been in Germany when the wall had fallen. He had spent two years in Pakistan sussing a suspected opium export racket.
Some of his attachments with private consulting firms had been under less than ideal circumstances. He had reviewed Chechnen war debts to Russia when gunmen had stormed the building taking everyone hostage. After producing a convincing seizure, he had been released mere minutes before the Russian SWAT team had stormed the offices.
By ten PM, they were on to coffee. Andrew produced a silver flask from his jacket pocket and offered it to Claire.
"We have much work to do tomorrow morning mademoiselle. Would you like some Scotch to help you sleep?"
"No thank you" she had said, Jet lag already creeping around the peripheries of her vision. "I should be going to bed soon."
"Ah well. I'm told I shouldn't drink alone, but it is one of my favorite vices." She wasn't sure if he was talking about Scotch, drinking alone or both.
Claire gave him one of her business cards and she said to call her any time. The CIA had given her a satellite phone for the trip.
"Would you like to meet again for breakfast? And then head over to the records office" she asked?
He reached into the other side of his jacket and pulled out a business card a business card of his own, proffering it as he took hers..
"You have been a charming dinner companion this evening, indulging an old man and his tall tales. I look forward to tomorrow."
The plane touched down waking Claire from her nap. Bright sunlight streamed in through the windows.
She said to call her anytime
Taking an unfamiliar road
Write about changing clothes
Holy cow I'm 4 behind? I know this is somewhat against the spirit of the exercise but to get caught up, if we continue with the adventures of Claire Newton I think we can cover all 4 ;-) So here's the first two:
--------------------------------------------
Four hours into the flight Claire was having difficulties keeping her eyes open. Skimming through thousands of pages of abstracts and the files themselves, she still couldn't imagine what thread she was looking for that sewed the files together or the one that bound her to this case. Over Greenland, Aurora Borealis tinting the night sky greenish blue, she was reading a rather dry personnel section on Andrew Booten's international holdings. The fact that he had any was an interesting yet seemingly cursory fact.
While it seemed strange that a mid-level UN bureaucrat was so financially diversified, she had read other files regarding his family's holdings and how they had made countless fortunes over the generations as importers of all sorts of goods to Amsterdam and other locales within Holland. For example his family owned a sizable share of one of the larger South Pacific islands and imported exotic fish both for aquariums and for dining. He himself was a majority share holder in an Orange Grove near Valencia Spain, and actually owned outright an entire fleet of apple orchards near Yakima Washington. Claire thought to herself that she only owned her student loans, a 2008 Toyota Camry and other mementos that would maybe fill a closet.
The files had remarked on the fruit baskets he had sent Claire that Christmas and again for her birthday in May. Both baskets had taken up the majority of the apartment's coffee table. Oranges from Valencia, Apples from Washington, Pears from Nagoto Japan, Cheeses from Weggis Switzerland, two bottles of wine from Sonoma, a even a bottle of scotch from Scapa Scottland. She had had fun looking up on a map where all the components had come from.
But as the files dragged on and the hours crept by, page after page of invoice confirmations real-estate transactions and, business contracts took its toll on Claire's consciousness. Her eyelids began closing.
she remembered back to their few days together in the heat of the desert. How welcome that heat would be right now compared to the cold air from the airplane's vent.
Andrew had been a striking figure when he stepped off the plane in the Sahara. She had arrived a half day earlier to secure the records room at the administration building and to ease the way through the soon to be faced bureaucracy. Andrew Booten paused at the airplane's door. He took a deep breath and surveyed the airport. The plane seemed to have come straight from a Michael Curtiz movie. No jets servicing travelers here only a single shiny metallic Lockheed C101, its 4 giant propellers winding down and a handful of ground crew meandering towards the plane.
Andrew was fully two heads taller than everyone else descending the plane's stairs and he must have weighed at least 250 pounds more than anyone else around him.
He seemed to be the only man in the desert in a clean pressed white linen suit. He sported a white straw hat with a hat band with a very wide and stylized UN "continent" logo printed on it. A green silk handkerchief popped crisply from his coat's breast pocket. That one seemed merely for show as he kept another green cotton kerchief palmed most of the time to wipe the copious sweat from his brown and forehead. And then there was his signature scarf. "So European" she would think. Regardless of the temperature he would always wear it. It was, compared to the rest of the suit, a very ratty thing. It was sand colored, frayed at the edges, stained and discolored. He seemed to wear it more as a totem than as any particular fashion accouterment since it neither provided warmth or style.
They had shared a light dinner that night at a small bistro near their hotel. She looked at him in disbelief when all he had ordered at first was baba ganoush. A flicker of bemusement showed across his face.
"My dear mademoiselle" he said in English that was equal parts Flemish and Scottish, "Only you Americans choose to eat in such a barbarous manner. Food, like company, should be savored never rushed. Tonight we shall eat in eight courses. So for now choose an aperitif to whet the appetite."
Claire felt awkward at first talking with him. She was only five years out of grad school and seemed to have done nothing of note with her life. Even becoming a full field agent with the CIA seemed pale to the stories Andrew told. He was attached to accounting forensics with the UN currently, but before that he had had stints with the governments of Greece and Turkey, even Fiji. he had been in South Africa when Mandella had been freed. He had been in Germany when the wall had fallen. He had spent two years in Pakistan sussing a suspected opium export racket.
Some of his attachments with private consulting firms had been under less than ideal circumstances. He had reviewed Chechnen war debts to Russia when gunmen had stormed the building taking everyone hostage. After producing a convincing seizure, he had been released mere minutes before the Russian SWAT team had stormed the offices.
By ten PM, they were on to coffee. Andrew produced a silver flask from his jacket pocket and offered it to Claire.
"We have much work to do tomorrow morning mademoiselle. Would you like some Scotch to help you sleep?"
"No thank you" she had said, Jet lag already creeping around the peripheries of her vision. "I should be going to bed soon."
"Ah well. I'm told I shouldn't drink alone, but it is one of my favorite vices." She wasn't sure if he was talking about Scotch, drinking alone or both.
Claire gave him one of her business cards and she said to call her any time. The CIA had given her a satellite phone for the trip.
"Would you like to meet again for breakfast? And then head over to the records office" she asked?
He reached into the other side of his jacket and pulled out a business card a business card of his own, proffering it as he took hers..
"You have been a charming dinner companion this evening, indulging an old man and his tall tales. I look forward to tomorrow."
The plane touched down waking Claire from her nap. Bright sunlight streamed in through the windows.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
She took the red eye
Another apology for the tardiness, but it looks like I'm not stepping on anyone's feet with this entry so I'm going to go on with the one I was thinking about without further ado here we go:
----------------------------
She took the red eye out of Ronald Reagan Airport heading to Amsterdam with a connecting flight to The Hague. It was already two AM and her expected touchdown was going to be close to noon local time. She was filled with the same trepidation that she had when she had first flown to Western Sahara. The company had chosen her to go. Not Ernest, not Meyers but her and if there was going to be a next time or maybe even a foreign assignment she needed to show off, or at the very least be wildly successful. Problem was, she still wasn't sure what the assignment was.
Iverson had called her in that morning to his office. There was an "Away kit" as he called it sitting on his desk. This was new. He looked cross, brows knit, teeth clenched.
"Your scores are good but not great Claire, I want you to know that you can walk away from this assignment right now and I won't even mark it down on your record."
"I'm sorry, Chris, I don't follow."
"Your field scores. I've been looking over your file. You've been asked to go on a foreign assignment and a cursory look at the file tells me that this is over your head. You're a good agent and I want you around for a while."
"Where am I asked to go?" She had said, heart racing a little, palms beginning to sweat. The back of her head saying "Woo Hoo field Opp. Not Quebec! Not Quebec!!!."
"You have been asked to go to The Hague. You. Claire Newton. By name. Solo."
The voices in her head came down three notches, not entirely silent, but sobering quickly.
"Just before I called you last night a blue department e-mail came through. It was short and to the point, but it basically said that you are to go into the field in the Netherlands and Liaise with Interpol about the Booten incident. By yourself." He paused to let that sink in.
"Why me?"
"My thoughts exactly, but you know how the blue department is at answering questions. They just tend to send their commands from on high and they sent you an away kit via inter-department. So, while this is from blue department, I can tell them that I'm just not comfortable letting you go just yet, especially for a solo mission."
"Do I have a cover story?"
"Yes your story is you're a young CIA agent who has decent field ops test scores but could stand some improvement before she heads out into the real world. So again, I am giving you an out."
Claire definitely picked up on the hint in his voice that time. But it was blue department. It was Europe and there was an away kit in a box the size of an attache' case that demanded to be opened.
"If its all the same to you sir, I think I'm ready. You gave me high marks for Toronto last month."
"You were checking on a police station paperwork trail of a currency counterfeiter."
"And when I went to Africa last year..." Chris raised a hand to stop her.
"I don't want to get in your way Claire, Hell I want you to be my replacement in a few years, I just want you and everyone else on my team to be safe."
"With all due respect sir, I'm ready."
"Very well. Have a suitcase of clothes packed by 10 PM tonight, aim for fancier. You know how those Europeans are. You will be picked up then and taken to the airport. Don't let the away kit out of your sight between now and then. I'd suggest you head home and try and get some sleep between now and then. You will have time on the plane to get briefed."
"Thank you sir! How long do I need to stop my mail for?"
"Its been stopped already. You're scheduled to be gone for about five days."
"Yessir."
Claire stood up, grabbed the away kit which was startlingly heavy and headed to her desk. The rest of the day was a blur. Attached to the outside of the kit was an itinerary and a business class airline ticket on Lufthansa. A quick glance at the itinerary showed no formal evening galas which helped her clothing selection in packing.
Like clockwork at 6 a knock on her apartment door woke her from a light sleep. Through the peep hole she saw a man in a stereotypical charcoal suit with an ID badge at head height that showed him to be Glenn Takahashi, CIA.
Claire opened the door. "You're my ride to the airport?"
"Yes ma'am."
Ma'am, she could get used that. He grabbed her suitcase but left the attache, as he took her things to the car. The clouds had rolled in throughout the afternoon and now a steady rain softly but insistently pelting every surface.
Claire saved Glenn the indignity of playing chauffeur and rode up front of the black GMC suburban next to him. The ride was fairly quiet except for the slip-slap of the wiper blades. Any attempt to elicit conversation out of Glenn ended in either a monosyllabic response or merely a grunt. Halfway through she buried herself in her phone sending e-mails that she hadn't gotten to before. Her attention was roused when instead of the ramp up to departing flights was missed and they began heading towards the freight airline entrance.
"I thought we were heading to Lufthansa?" she said keeping a smile in her voice.
"We are ma'am."
"Shouldn't we be going up to passenger drop off then?"
"No ma'am. I'm to take you directly to the plane."
They stopped at the main freight entrance in between large hangers for DHL and FedEx. A security guard sidled up to the car.
"Can I help you two?"
"Just need to get through." Glenn said and flashed his badge.
"I see. hang on." The guard glanced at his clipboard. "Right, and today's color is?"
"Mauve" Glenn replied cooly.
"Excellent, one second." The guard went into the tiny gate house and raised the gate. Seconds later, Glenn stopped the truck at the bottom of a massive refeuling Airbus.
"Here you are ma'am. Enjoy your flight. The flight crew is expecting you."
"Right, why all the rigamarole to get me in here? I'm not even under cover."
"Its far easier to take agents in through the freight entrance than it is to try and get your average TSA customs agent to respect proper credentials and not spend hours detaining agents. Again, ma'am enjoy your flight."
"Thank you, ah you too." Claire said then mentally kicking herself for the non-suave send off. A baggage handler was already unloading her suitcase onto the trolley of waiting luggage.
She took the stairs up the outside of the terminal bridge and joined the queue of passengers. It looked like boarding had been going for a while as the line was orderly and quiet. She picked up snippets of French and German on top of the low murmurings of English.
Thankfully it was a Tuesday evening and the flight wasn't booked. Claire found she had a window seat assigned and no partner in the seat next to her. The middle rows were empty as well. A couple sat in the far two seats on the other side of the plane.
The plane reached its cruising altitude. Most every light was turned off on the plane. Her seat was the only one for 10 rows bathed in a little pool of light.
The stewardess brought her a coffee and with slightly sweaty palms she realized it was time to open the away kit.
The first thing that she noticed when she opened it was the glint of a 9mm pistol and 4 clips of ammo. A new shiny cell phone lay next to one of the ammo clips. Next she opened an envelope containing a money clip with about $1500 in Euros and a Black American Express card with her name on it. A pin number was attached via pink sticky note to the front, granted she didn't think she'd have much trouble remembering 4,3,2,1. A card with the contact info of the American embassy was attached to some very stodgy looking papers that seemed to describe some limited diplomatic status.
The last thing in the case was an e-reader. She turned it on.
"Please place thumb and forefinger on either box on LCD screen" the message said.
She put her thumb and forefinger on the boxes and the reader chirped.
"confirming ID."
"ID confirmed, Newton, Claire. Security level 42."
"WARNING. The information contained within is considered eyes only. Any person or Persons viewing or attempting to view the information within this device without prior authorization will be subject to prosecution and extradition to the United States of America up to and including the charge of High treason. If you have accessed this device in error know that your actions have been flagged, logged and you now have 5 seconds to stop browsing."
"Seriously?" Claire whispered. Nothing was actually *that* CIA at the CIA she thought facetiously. There was a severe dearth of paperwork so far and she just thought of the volume that would be waiting for her when she got back.
The little device counted down 5 seconds and then opened up showing her a massive table of contents. Reports totaling 15,468 pages and close to 5,000 images were stored on the reader. It took her almost an hour just to mentally catalog all the information that was being presented.
She had just started her fourth cup of coffee when she stumbled across it.
In a sub-file labeled "Miscellaneous, Important?" she found a detailed copy of the Christmas card Andrew Booten had sent her the year before. There it was as clear as if it had still been sitting on her kitchen counter with the others.
----------------------------
She took the red eye out of Ronald Reagan Airport heading to Amsterdam with a connecting flight to The Hague. It was already two AM and her expected touchdown was going to be close to noon local time. She was filled with the same trepidation that she had when she had first flown to Western Sahara. The company had chosen her to go. Not Ernest, not Meyers but her and if there was going to be a next time or maybe even a foreign assignment she needed to show off, or at the very least be wildly successful. Problem was, she still wasn't sure what the assignment was.
Iverson had called her in that morning to his office. There was an "Away kit" as he called it sitting on his desk. This was new. He looked cross, brows knit, teeth clenched.
"Your scores are good but not great Claire, I want you to know that you can walk away from this assignment right now and I won't even mark it down on your record."
"I'm sorry, Chris, I don't follow."
"Your field scores. I've been looking over your file. You've been asked to go on a foreign assignment and a cursory look at the file tells me that this is over your head. You're a good agent and I want you around for a while."
"Where am I asked to go?" She had said, heart racing a little, palms beginning to sweat. The back of her head saying "Woo Hoo field Opp. Not Quebec! Not Quebec!!!."
"You have been asked to go to The Hague. You. Claire Newton. By name. Solo."
The voices in her head came down three notches, not entirely silent, but sobering quickly.
"Just before I called you last night a blue department e-mail came through. It was short and to the point, but it basically said that you are to go into the field in the Netherlands and Liaise with Interpol about the Booten incident. By yourself." He paused to let that sink in.
"Why me?"
"My thoughts exactly, but you know how the blue department is at answering questions. They just tend to send their commands from on high and they sent you an away kit via inter-department. So, while this is from blue department, I can tell them that I'm just not comfortable letting you go just yet, especially for a solo mission."
"Do I have a cover story?"
"Yes your story is you're a young CIA agent who has decent field ops test scores but could stand some improvement before she heads out into the real world. So again, I am giving you an out."
Claire definitely picked up on the hint in his voice that time. But it was blue department. It was Europe and there was an away kit in a box the size of an attache' case that demanded to be opened.
"If its all the same to you sir, I think I'm ready. You gave me high marks for Toronto last month."
"You were checking on a police station paperwork trail of a currency counterfeiter."
"And when I went to Africa last year..." Chris raised a hand to stop her.
"I don't want to get in your way Claire, Hell I want you to be my replacement in a few years, I just want you and everyone else on my team to be safe."
"With all due respect sir, I'm ready."
"Very well. Have a suitcase of clothes packed by 10 PM tonight, aim for fancier. You know how those Europeans are. You will be picked up then and taken to the airport. Don't let the away kit out of your sight between now and then. I'd suggest you head home and try and get some sleep between now and then. You will have time on the plane to get briefed."
"Thank you sir! How long do I need to stop my mail for?"
"Its been stopped already. You're scheduled to be gone for about five days."
"Yessir."
Claire stood up, grabbed the away kit which was startlingly heavy and headed to her desk. The rest of the day was a blur. Attached to the outside of the kit was an itinerary and a business class airline ticket on Lufthansa. A quick glance at the itinerary showed no formal evening galas which helped her clothing selection in packing.
Like clockwork at 6 a knock on her apartment door woke her from a light sleep. Through the peep hole she saw a man in a stereotypical charcoal suit with an ID badge at head height that showed him to be Glenn Takahashi, CIA.
Claire opened the door. "You're my ride to the airport?"
"Yes ma'am."
Ma'am, she could get used that. He grabbed her suitcase but left the attache, as he took her things to the car. The clouds had rolled in throughout the afternoon and now a steady rain softly but insistently pelting every surface.
Claire saved Glenn the indignity of playing chauffeur and rode up front of the black GMC suburban next to him. The ride was fairly quiet except for the slip-slap of the wiper blades. Any attempt to elicit conversation out of Glenn ended in either a monosyllabic response or merely a grunt. Halfway through she buried herself in her phone sending e-mails that she hadn't gotten to before. Her attention was roused when instead of the ramp up to departing flights was missed and they began heading towards the freight airline entrance.
"I thought we were heading to Lufthansa?" she said keeping a smile in her voice.
"We are ma'am."
"Shouldn't we be going up to passenger drop off then?"
"No ma'am. I'm to take you directly to the plane."
They stopped at the main freight entrance in between large hangers for DHL and FedEx. A security guard sidled up to the car.
"Can I help you two?"
"Just need to get through." Glenn said and flashed his badge.
"I see. hang on." The guard glanced at his clipboard. "Right, and today's color is?"
"Mauve" Glenn replied cooly.
"Excellent, one second." The guard went into the tiny gate house and raised the gate. Seconds later, Glenn stopped the truck at the bottom of a massive refeuling Airbus.
"Here you are ma'am. Enjoy your flight. The flight crew is expecting you."
"Right, why all the rigamarole to get me in here? I'm not even under cover."
"Its far easier to take agents in through the freight entrance than it is to try and get your average TSA customs agent to respect proper credentials and not spend hours detaining agents. Again, ma'am enjoy your flight."
"Thank you, ah you too." Claire said then mentally kicking herself for the non-suave send off. A baggage handler was already unloading her suitcase onto the trolley of waiting luggage.
She took the stairs up the outside of the terminal bridge and joined the queue of passengers. It looked like boarding had been going for a while as the line was orderly and quiet. She picked up snippets of French and German on top of the low murmurings of English.
Thankfully it was a Tuesday evening and the flight wasn't booked. Claire found she had a window seat assigned and no partner in the seat next to her. The middle rows were empty as well. A couple sat in the far two seats on the other side of the plane.
The plane reached its cruising altitude. Most every light was turned off on the plane. Her seat was the only one for 10 rows bathed in a little pool of light.
The stewardess brought her a coffee and with slightly sweaty palms she realized it was time to open the away kit.
The first thing that she noticed when she opened it was the glint of a 9mm pistol and 4 clips of ammo. A new shiny cell phone lay next to one of the ammo clips. Next she opened an envelope containing a money clip with about $1500 in Euros and a Black American Express card with her name on it. A pin number was attached via pink sticky note to the front, granted she didn't think she'd have much trouble remembering 4,3,2,1. A card with the contact info of the American embassy was attached to some very stodgy looking papers that seemed to describe some limited diplomatic status.
The last thing in the case was an e-reader. She turned it on.
"Please place thumb and forefinger on either box on LCD screen" the message said.
She put her thumb and forefinger on the boxes and the reader chirped.
"confirming ID."
"ID confirmed, Newton, Claire. Security level 42."
"WARNING. The information contained within is considered eyes only. Any person or Persons viewing or attempting to view the information within this device without prior authorization will be subject to prosecution and extradition to the United States of America up to and including the charge of High treason. If you have accessed this device in error know that your actions have been flagged, logged and you now have 5 seconds to stop browsing."
"Seriously?" Claire whispered. Nothing was actually *that* CIA at the CIA she thought facetiously. There was a severe dearth of paperwork so far and she just thought of the volume that would be waiting for her when she got back.
The little device counted down 5 seconds and then opened up showing her a massive table of contents. Reports totaling 15,468 pages and close to 5,000 images were stored on the reader. It took her almost an hour just to mentally catalog all the information that was being presented.
She had just started her fourth cup of coffee when she stumbled across it.
In a sub-file labeled "Miscellaneous, Important?" she found a detailed copy of the Christmas card Andrew Booten had sent her the year before. There it was as clear as if it had still been sitting on her kitchen counter with the others.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
A Black and White photograph
Trevor picked up the black and white photograph out of the box a second time. This time the tears weren't those of hopeful joy but of abject loss.
Cindy stared back from the diamond frame at him. The picture had been taken only six months ago. Her long brown hair strewn halfway across the pillow. The playful smile making her eyes crinkle in that way he loved. He had snapped the picture casually, just playing around with the new camera that morning. The sunlight that highlighted half her face came in from an oblique angle from the big picture windows near the kitchen.
"This picture is only six months old" a semi-rational part of his brain reiterated, yet the yellowing around the corners despite teh diamond frame told otherwise.
He picked up the letter again and read it for the fifth time, still barely comprehending what was said. The stuffed 3 ring binder, left in the box with the food and first aid kits, supposedly corroborated it.
"Trevor,
They tell me you're not coming back, or if you are I won't be around to see you. I suppose deep down I knew this was a possibility. So much for hindsight right? Dr. Richards says that they're working night and day to figure out what went wrong. I hope he's successful but you've already been gone for 12 years and we haven't heard from you. We heard from your ship. Or rather we are still getting some sort of carrier signal according to Richards. I wish you would call us. Tell us you're all right. Tell us you made it safe and sound. I hope you get this probe. Congress has funded it... You're a hero back here.
Dr. Richards thinks that there may be time dilation involved between our end of the wormhole and that's what I tell myself. I come in every morning hoping that there's a new message from you but I know deep down that there never will be. I love you, Goodbye Trevor. I hope you are safe, wherever you are."
Trevor's eyes were misting up. He shook his head and looked over at the remains of his ship. It was still smoking, would never fly again that was for sure, but basically structurally sound. He had been lucky to arrive a few hours ago so close to a planet with an atmosphere he could breath on this side of the wormhole. The probe with the "package" he now sat next to had exited the hole a mere three seconds after he did. It had taken him hours to find the probe once he regained consciousness from the crash. It finally had struck him why all the dates were off from the packages inside. According to the computer several other probes had exited the wormhole hours ago while he was unconscious. Thankfully their transponders were still strong and he would find them soon enough.
His subconscious had already done the math and he knew he was in no hurry to send a message back home, if there was even someone there listening any more.
Three seconds between his ship's arrival and the first probe apparently equaled twelve years back home. It had taken him 45 minutes to traverse the wormhole. 2700 seconds had elapsed since he had entered the wormhole's entrance near Pluto and exited the hole wherever here was. Over ten thousand years had passed on Earth.
He looked at the black and white photograph again. There was a stain on one corner. "I'll love you always" inside a heart written in back.
Trevor picked up the binder from the box. The front page was a hastily scrawled note from Dr. Richards.
"Trevor
I hope this note finds you well. Know that we're working around the clock to bring you back but you've been gone for so long. Public interest, of course, has waned and these things do and to tell you the truth, we're having difficulty continuing funding for project Prometheus.
The signal from your ship, shows us that the time difference within the wormhole are significantly more extreme than any of our probe's data would have suggested. I apologize. This miscalculation will haunt me to the end of my days. You are a good man and will be missed.
By my estimation, this probe will likely land almost when you do. Stay safe and know that we won't forget you. Don't ever forget us!
It looks like there's a habitable planet nearby. You should have everything you need to survive.
-Dr. Samuel Richards"
10,000 years separated Trevor and the photograph in his lap.
Trevor stood up and took a deep breath of the thick loamy air. He had to shade his eyes looking up into the sky. The incandescent output of the wormhole cast a painful bluish tinge to everything. The wormhole itself resembled a whitish blue fire turned on its side, roiling from over head pointing down towards the horizon.
It was then that the portable radio unit on the rock near him began to buzz.
"Promethesezu hona kill're... Sodo freeha hiz" Trevor stared at it.
"Promethesezu hona kill're... Sodo freeha hiz"
Trevor walked over to the radio.
"This is Captain Trevor Sands of the ISS Prometheus do you copy. Over?"
Cindy stared back from the diamond frame at him. The picture had been taken only six months ago. Her long brown hair strewn halfway across the pillow. The playful smile making her eyes crinkle in that way he loved. He had snapped the picture casually, just playing around with the new camera that morning. The sunlight that highlighted half her face came in from an oblique angle from the big picture windows near the kitchen.
"This picture is only six months old" a semi-rational part of his brain reiterated, yet the yellowing around the corners despite teh diamond frame told otherwise.
He picked up the letter again and read it for the fifth time, still barely comprehending what was said. The stuffed 3 ring binder, left in the box with the food and first aid kits, supposedly corroborated it.
"Trevor,
They tell me you're not coming back, or if you are I won't be around to see you. I suppose deep down I knew this was a possibility. So much for hindsight right? Dr. Richards says that they're working night and day to figure out what went wrong. I hope he's successful but you've already been gone for 12 years and we haven't heard from you. We heard from your ship. Or rather we are still getting some sort of carrier signal according to Richards. I wish you would call us. Tell us you're all right. Tell us you made it safe and sound. I hope you get this probe. Congress has funded it... You're a hero back here.
Dr. Richards thinks that there may be time dilation involved between our end of the wormhole and that's what I tell myself. I come in every morning hoping that there's a new message from you but I know deep down that there never will be. I love you, Goodbye Trevor. I hope you are safe, wherever you are."
Trevor's eyes were misting up. He shook his head and looked over at the remains of his ship. It was still smoking, would never fly again that was for sure, but basically structurally sound. He had been lucky to arrive a few hours ago so close to a planet with an atmosphere he could breath on this side of the wormhole. The probe with the "package" he now sat next to had exited the hole a mere three seconds after he did. It had taken him hours to find the probe once he regained consciousness from the crash. It finally had struck him why all the dates were off from the packages inside. According to the computer several other probes had exited the wormhole hours ago while he was unconscious. Thankfully their transponders were still strong and he would find them soon enough.
His subconscious had already done the math and he knew he was in no hurry to send a message back home, if there was even someone there listening any more.
Three seconds between his ship's arrival and the first probe apparently equaled twelve years back home. It had taken him 45 minutes to traverse the wormhole. 2700 seconds had elapsed since he had entered the wormhole's entrance near Pluto and exited the hole wherever here was. Over ten thousand years had passed on Earth.
He looked at the black and white photograph again. There was a stain on one corner. "I'll love you always" inside a heart written in back.
Trevor picked up the binder from the box. The front page was a hastily scrawled note from Dr. Richards.
"Trevor
I hope this note finds you well. Know that we're working around the clock to bring you back but you've been gone for so long. Public interest, of course, has waned and these things do and to tell you the truth, we're having difficulty continuing funding for project Prometheus.
The signal from your ship, shows us that the time difference within the wormhole are significantly more extreme than any of our probe's data would have suggested. I apologize. This miscalculation will haunt me to the end of my days. You are a good man and will be missed.
By my estimation, this probe will likely land almost when you do. Stay safe and know that we won't forget you. Don't ever forget us!
It looks like there's a habitable planet nearby. You should have everything you need to survive.
-Dr. Samuel Richards"
10,000 years separated Trevor and the photograph in his lap.
Trevor stood up and took a deep breath of the thick loamy air. He had to shade his eyes looking up into the sky. The incandescent output of the wormhole cast a painful bluish tinge to everything. The wormhole itself resembled a whitish blue fire turned on its side, roiling from over head pointing down towards the horizon.
It was then that the portable radio unit on the rock near him began to buzz.
"Promethesezu hona kill're... Sodo freeha hiz" Trevor stared at it.
"Promethesezu hona kill're... Sodo freeha hiz"
Trevor walked over to the radio.
"This is Captain Trevor Sands of the ISS Prometheus do you copy. Over?"
Monday, July 11, 2011
In her fantasies about ________
In her fantasies about being a CIA agent, they never had involved this sheer magnitude of paperwork. When Claire Newton first started it was going to be ball gowns and diamonds and expense accounts in Monte Carlo. Feining a twitter of laughter as the Duke of Upperlower-Eastwestchester the fifteenth just delivered a particularly piercing bon motte towards the heir apparent Sultan of Siam her eyes would be constantly scanning the crowd for "the mark" so at the last minute she could scream at the duke "Down, that man has a gun!". She would simultaneously draw her service pistol hidden in one boot while upending an hor d'eurve tray with the other to deflect incoming bullets.
Now, six years later she spent another late night reviewing her expense reports from "abroad", the most recent exotic locale of which had been Ontario Canada. "Wet ops" where you even had a chance at that sort of fun were more and more being doled out to Army and Air force special agents. No one seemed to have need of a covert op any more.
Her most exotic posting had been the four day stint where she accompanied a UN ambassador to Western Sahara 1 year earlier. All four days had been spent in a windowless non-air-conditioned building in El Aaiun counting and correlating export records of some 16,483 telephone poles that the Moroccans had insisted on collecting from some obscure debt from World War Two 60 years later.
While there was a three pole discrepancy (Western Sahara had shipped three too many poles) the true thrill had come that night when the UN dignitary hadn't answered his door for dinner the night before they left.
She had knocked with no answer. The innkeeper hadn't seen him leave. They had considered themselves lucky that their rooms had window based air conditioning units. Not so lucky in that the rolling blackouts across the city had kept them turned off most of the day. She knocked again.
"Mr. Booten?" she announced cautiously. The door was unlatched and she pushed it gingerly trying to peek around it but also trying to maintain Andre's privacy.
Andre Booten was in his mid-60s and quite morbidly obese with quite the penchant for fine scotch and barring that any red wine he could get a hold of. Add to that his European propensity for wearing scarves no matter time of year and the fact that it had been a sweltering 124 degrees Claire was none too surprised to see him laying on the floor of his room wearing nothing but boxers, and undershirt and his signature scarf. His skin color was off however. He seemed paler than normal and a tipped over chair next to him made Claire's heart race a bit.
"Mr. Booten, I'm coming in, are you alright?" No answer.
She saw a broken bottle of scotch on the floor near the table, a glass still half clutched in his hand. His chest, however, was motionless. Clair flew into action, she put her cheek to the man's mouth. Heat yes, but no breath. Forefingers to the carotid artery showed no pulse. A quick search showed no other signs of foul play. She placed both hands on his ribcage. One and two and three and four and cover the nose and mouth blow. She watched the chest rise and fall. She kept reciting the ABC's of CPR in her head as she continued.
On the third cycle she saw Andre's eyes open wide, her mouth on his followed very shortly by an explosive gust of scotch and half digested shwarma and hummus from lunch. She had seen it coming quickly enough to at least move her head a few inches away and close her mouth, but still, even in retrospect, the thought still nauseated her. Andre Booten began coughing and sputtering, color returning to his cheeks. As soon as his airway was clear of lunch he began thanking her, in between wheezes, gasps, and hacking coughs.
In her fantasies about being a spy they had been so much more about dressed and guns and Monte Carlo, not sitting in a 120 degree room in Africa with a half naked man's half digested lunch and what appeared to be about 1/3 of a bottle of scotch drying on her best Liz Claiborne evening wear. She remembered trying to comfort him and barely managing to hold onto her own lunch for the hour and a half it took an ambulance to arrive. Over a year later she still couldn't look at glass of scotch without gagging or turning green. It had been a funny departmental holiday present exchange that year. Funny to everyone else at least.
Now a year later she looked over at the clock. 11 PM. And she hoped that El Aaiun wasn't going to be the most exotic or interesting part of her career.
Her cell phone chirped, breaking her concentration. Caller ID announced department head Iverson calling.
"Newton here."
"Claire, its Chris. Am I disturbing you?"
"Not at all, just going through some paperwork."
"Excellent. I need you to come into my office first thing in the morning. Clear your calendar for the next few days."
"Can I ask why?"
"Its about your old friend Andre Booten."
"I was just thinking about him. I need to go count some more telephone poles?" She hoped that came out as joking as she meant it and not sarcastically. Lack of enthusiasm for any assignment no matter how dull or depressing was a fast track for future desk-ville.
"He's dead."
"Really?" She wasn't completely surprised but more disappointed. He had sent her the best Christmas card that year. "Heart attack?"
"Surprisingly no. Car bomb. His car and three others seemed to be targeted outside The Hague earlier today, you can catch up on the public information on CNN right now I'll have a dossier in my office in the morning. You'll be heading to Holland shortly afterwards to liaise with Interpol."
"Yessir." She said but the other side had already hung up.
Now, six years later she spent another late night reviewing her expense reports from "abroad", the most recent exotic locale of which had been Ontario Canada. "Wet ops" where you even had a chance at that sort of fun were more and more being doled out to Army and Air force special agents. No one seemed to have need of a covert op any more.
Her most exotic posting had been the four day stint where she accompanied a UN ambassador to Western Sahara 1 year earlier. All four days had been spent in a windowless non-air-conditioned building in El Aaiun counting and correlating export records of some 16,483 telephone poles that the Moroccans had insisted on collecting from some obscure debt from World War Two 60 years later.
While there was a three pole discrepancy (Western Sahara had shipped three too many poles) the true thrill had come that night when the UN dignitary hadn't answered his door for dinner the night before they left.
She had knocked with no answer. The innkeeper hadn't seen him leave. They had considered themselves lucky that their rooms had window based air conditioning units. Not so lucky in that the rolling blackouts across the city had kept them turned off most of the day. She knocked again.
"Mr. Booten?" she announced cautiously. The door was unlatched and she pushed it gingerly trying to peek around it but also trying to maintain Andre's privacy.
Andre Booten was in his mid-60s and quite morbidly obese with quite the penchant for fine scotch and barring that any red wine he could get a hold of. Add to that his European propensity for wearing scarves no matter time of year and the fact that it had been a sweltering 124 degrees Claire was none too surprised to see him laying on the floor of his room wearing nothing but boxers, and undershirt and his signature scarf. His skin color was off however. He seemed paler than normal and a tipped over chair next to him made Claire's heart race a bit.
"Mr. Booten, I'm coming in, are you alright?" No answer.
She saw a broken bottle of scotch on the floor near the table, a glass still half clutched in his hand. His chest, however, was motionless. Clair flew into action, she put her cheek to the man's mouth. Heat yes, but no breath. Forefingers to the carotid artery showed no pulse. A quick search showed no other signs of foul play. She placed both hands on his ribcage. One and two and three and four and cover the nose and mouth blow. She watched the chest rise and fall. She kept reciting the ABC's of CPR in her head as she continued.
On the third cycle she saw Andre's eyes open wide, her mouth on his followed very shortly by an explosive gust of scotch and half digested shwarma and hummus from lunch. She had seen it coming quickly enough to at least move her head a few inches away and close her mouth, but still, even in retrospect, the thought still nauseated her. Andre Booten began coughing and sputtering, color returning to his cheeks. As soon as his airway was clear of lunch he began thanking her, in between wheezes, gasps, and hacking coughs.
In her fantasies about being a spy they had been so much more about dressed and guns and Monte Carlo, not sitting in a 120 degree room in Africa with a half naked man's half digested lunch and what appeared to be about 1/3 of a bottle of scotch drying on her best Liz Claiborne evening wear. She remembered trying to comfort him and barely managing to hold onto her own lunch for the hour and a half it took an ambulance to arrive. Over a year later she still couldn't look at glass of scotch without gagging or turning green. It had been a funny departmental holiday present exchange that year. Funny to everyone else at least.
Now a year later she looked over at the clock. 11 PM. And she hoped that El Aaiun wasn't going to be the most exotic or interesting part of her career.
Her cell phone chirped, breaking her concentration. Caller ID announced department head Iverson calling.
"Newton here."
"Claire, its Chris. Am I disturbing you?"
"Not at all, just going through some paperwork."
"Excellent. I need you to come into my office first thing in the morning. Clear your calendar for the next few days."
"Can I ask why?"
"Its about your old friend Andre Booten."
"I was just thinking about him. I need to go count some more telephone poles?" She hoped that came out as joking as she meant it and not sarcastically. Lack of enthusiasm for any assignment no matter how dull or depressing was a fast track for future desk-ville.
"He's dead."
"Really?" She wasn't completely surprised but more disappointed. He had sent her the best Christmas card that year. "Heart attack?"
"Surprisingly no. Car bomb. His car and three others seemed to be targeted outside The Hague earlier today, you can catch up on the public information on CNN right now I'll have a dossier in my office in the morning. You'll be heading to Holland shortly afterwards to liaise with Interpol."
"Yessir." She said but the other side had already hung up.
Friday, July 8, 2011
I remember once in ___________
So if I was supposed to go on the 4th then I needed to have gone again on the 7th but wound up too busy cleaning the kitchen floor. How sad is that? So to pre-empt Chrissie, I'm going on the 8th, with the 7th topic whether anyone likes it or not ;-)
__________________________________________
"You'll get used to it. The shaky knees, the butterflies. They don't go away altogether but you learn how to incorporate them..." Morris's eyes caught sight of a man in a charcoal suit and gold tie leaving the subway entrance. "Follow me, keep up, be close enough to hear but above all, don't be seen, we don't want to spook him."
Morris folded his newspaper, put his sunglasses on and began walking briskly towards the man in the gold tie. Lee counted to fifteen as he was taught, never turning his head to look at Morris, merely memorizing people as they bustled past the brownstone steps they had been sitting on so he could retrace Morris's route.
"13...14...15..." it was go time. Now or never. Lee wanted, more than anything, to feel the reassuring bulge of the gun in his shoulder holster, but that might have drawn undue attention. He walked quickly past miss Teen red hat towards Mr. running late with briefcase. He inched past the newlyweds taking up more than their fair share of sidewalk. At noon in the city, the sidewalks were packed with people. He had completely lost sight of Morris and Mr. Gold tie.
In his gray hoodie's pockets, his fingers kept busy count of the 23 people who had passed him while waiting for go time. By Lee's estimation he was now only a quarter block behind Morris and a half block behind Mr. Gold tie.
Seconds later he came up on Morris and MGT at a news stand. Both had their backs to each other. Morris was flipping through a racing form. MGT set a copy of Vogue in the the slot of Time and began to walk on. Morris followed.
Lee hurried over to the newsstand just as a bus was discharging its passengers, a startlingly large number of them heading towards the magazines.
He picked up Vogue from the Time slot and began flipping through it.
"What's your interest in the magazine?" the newsie asked.
"What?"
"Guy like you, dressed like that.." the disdainful emphasis on 'that', "comes running over, picks up a copy of Vogue, what's so interesting? You're the second guy to come over in five seconds."
"I, uh. I like the model on the cover."
"Yeah? What's her name?" The newsie's eyes narrowed.
Lee looked at the cover only to find it was a group shot. "This one" he pointed lamely. The butterflies in his stomach started flapping harder. An envelope slipped from the magazine onto the ground.
"What's that?" the newsie asked eyebrow raised. "Is that drugs? Wat are you doing?"
"No" Lee said, apparently not convincingly enough wile stooping to pick up the envelope. It was thin. Too thin. This wasn't right. The envelope was supposed to be a manilla envelope. This was just a regular white one, although filled with at least 8 sheets of paper.
"I don't allow druggies or pushers around here. Police!"
Lee swore to himself and stuffed the envelope in his hoodie pocket.
"POLICE!" the newsie was now shouting.
"Shut up! It ain't drugs." Lee threw the magazine at him and began walking off, fast but not too fast he hoped. "Always walk, never run" Morris had said. "People remember a runner. No one remembers a walker."
Lee rounded the corner, put the envelope in his front jeans pocket and removed the hoodie which went into the nearest trash can. He was wearing a green flannel vest and black t-shirt underneath.
He was half way to the rendezvous point traveling down an alley when he felt the hard metal gun barrel slide up under his vest from behind. Lee stopped, hands, not up, but not anywhere that could be misconstrued.
"you call that subtle? A newsie shouting for police, at least 23 witnesses?" Lee couldn't place the voice with its thick Brooklyn accent. A quick sidelong glance back showed a beat cop staring back at him.
"That was awful." The policeman took the envelope out of Lee's front pocket and stashed it inside his shirt."
"I remember once in Prague I almost screwed up this bad. Almost had to shoot 4 KGB, but that was back in the 60s and I had to do it all in pitch perfect Czech. And I had just been placed the day before. Kids... I go up against the KGB, you're taken down by a beat cop. You're from Jersey, this should have been a walk in the..."
Lee spun around hoping to catch the man unaware. He heard the click of the firing pin, and in the corner of his eye saw the officer squeeze the trigger, barrel still pointed squarely at Lee's core, Lee hadn't moved enough. A billion thoughts racing through his head, not the least of which was the fact that he hadn't registered the pain yet... Or the sound of a firing gun."
The officer caught his roundhouse before it came within inches of his face.
"Its a good thing this was just a training exercise otherwise this gun might have been loaded. I don't see what Morris sees in you. Better luck next time if there is one."
Lee stood back dumbstruck to be alive, or at least not plus one bullet writhing on the ground waiting to bleed out. MGT and Morris both came around the alley corner, MGT an inscrutable mask. Morris looking disappointed.
__________________________________________
"You'll get used to it. The shaky knees, the butterflies. They don't go away altogether but you learn how to incorporate them..." Morris's eyes caught sight of a man in a charcoal suit and gold tie leaving the subway entrance. "Follow me, keep up, be close enough to hear but above all, don't be seen, we don't want to spook him."
Morris folded his newspaper, put his sunglasses on and began walking briskly towards the man in the gold tie. Lee counted to fifteen as he was taught, never turning his head to look at Morris, merely memorizing people as they bustled past the brownstone steps they had been sitting on so he could retrace Morris's route.
"13...14...15..." it was go time. Now or never. Lee wanted, more than anything, to feel the reassuring bulge of the gun in his shoulder holster, but that might have drawn undue attention. He walked quickly past miss Teen red hat towards Mr. running late with briefcase. He inched past the newlyweds taking up more than their fair share of sidewalk. At noon in the city, the sidewalks were packed with people. He had completely lost sight of Morris and Mr. Gold tie.
In his gray hoodie's pockets, his fingers kept busy count of the 23 people who had passed him while waiting for go time. By Lee's estimation he was now only a quarter block behind Morris and a half block behind Mr. Gold tie.
Seconds later he came up on Morris and MGT at a news stand. Both had their backs to each other. Morris was flipping through a racing form. MGT set a copy of Vogue in the the slot of Time and began to walk on. Morris followed.
Lee hurried over to the newsstand just as a bus was discharging its passengers, a startlingly large number of them heading towards the magazines.
He picked up Vogue from the Time slot and began flipping through it.
"What's your interest in the magazine?" the newsie asked.
"What?"
"Guy like you, dressed like that.." the disdainful emphasis on 'that', "comes running over, picks up a copy of Vogue, what's so interesting? You're the second guy to come over in five seconds."
"I, uh. I like the model on the cover."
"Yeah? What's her name?" The newsie's eyes narrowed.
Lee looked at the cover only to find it was a group shot. "This one" he pointed lamely. The butterflies in his stomach started flapping harder. An envelope slipped from the magazine onto the ground.
"What's that?" the newsie asked eyebrow raised. "Is that drugs? Wat are you doing?"
"No" Lee said, apparently not convincingly enough wile stooping to pick up the envelope. It was thin. Too thin. This wasn't right. The envelope was supposed to be a manilla envelope. This was just a regular white one, although filled with at least 8 sheets of paper.
"I don't allow druggies or pushers around here. Police!"
Lee swore to himself and stuffed the envelope in his hoodie pocket.
"POLICE!" the newsie was now shouting.
"Shut up! It ain't drugs." Lee threw the magazine at him and began walking off, fast but not too fast he hoped. "Always walk, never run" Morris had said. "People remember a runner. No one remembers a walker."
Lee rounded the corner, put the envelope in his front jeans pocket and removed the hoodie which went into the nearest trash can. He was wearing a green flannel vest and black t-shirt underneath.
He was half way to the rendezvous point traveling down an alley when he felt the hard metal gun barrel slide up under his vest from behind. Lee stopped, hands, not up, but not anywhere that could be misconstrued.
"you call that subtle? A newsie shouting for police, at least 23 witnesses?" Lee couldn't place the voice with its thick Brooklyn accent. A quick sidelong glance back showed a beat cop staring back at him.
"That was awful." The policeman took the envelope out of Lee's front pocket and stashed it inside his shirt."
"I remember once in Prague I almost screwed up this bad. Almost had to shoot 4 KGB, but that was back in the 60s and I had to do it all in pitch perfect Czech. And I had just been placed the day before. Kids... I go up against the KGB, you're taken down by a beat cop. You're from Jersey, this should have been a walk in the..."
Lee spun around hoping to catch the man unaware. He heard the click of the firing pin, and in the corner of his eye saw the officer squeeze the trigger, barrel still pointed squarely at Lee's core, Lee hadn't moved enough. A billion thoughts racing through his head, not the least of which was the fact that he hadn't registered the pain yet... Or the sound of a firing gun."
The officer caught his roundhouse before it came within inches of his face.
"Its a good thing this was just a training exercise otherwise this gun might have been loaded. I don't see what Morris sees in you. Better luck next time if there is one."
Lee stood back dumbstruck to be alive, or at least not plus one bullet writhing on the ground waiting to bleed out. MGT and Morris both came around the alley corner, MGT an inscrutable mask. Morris looking disappointed.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
She wore flowers in her hair
Author's note, since I thought I was going on the 4th I'm going to try my hand at this one even though I really liked Chrissie's. I had some ideas just no time for the 4th. And if I get a chance maybe I'll swipe Chrissie's entry for today ;-) So here we go:
----------------
Sally Nelson had always had time to stop and smell the flowers. As a girl she would spend endless summer days behind her house, exploring the fairy trails her uncle Max had called them. Most of the trails led to the creek about a quarter of a mile away from the back yard. In the summer, sunlight would dapple the moss covered rocks. The creek almost tried up would be a haven for tadpoles. All around morning glories would climb up the trees turning the green moss covered bark of ash and brown bark of cedar blue with their trumpet blooms.
Those flowers were most coveted because Sally's favorite color was blue. For most of the year she would have to settle for a dandelion behind each ear. When her brown hair was long enough to be styled into a bun, she toyed with the idea of a lone stalk of lupine rising up like a feather, although when ducking under branches to follow the fairy trails, dandelions were more robust.
Every once in a while she would run into Jeremy and his older brother Louis and their gaggle of friends. Sometimes she would play capture the flag with them, but usually she would sneak off on her own.
Her uncle Max had said that some fairy trails will put you to sleep. And some will take you to far away lands, but above all you should always be polite and courteous to whomever you meet because you never know if they are a prince or princess who are in need of help.
The thought of meeting a princess always excited Sally. A magic princess would be best of course. Maybe a princess who could teach her to fly, or one who could snap her fingers and her trusty steed would appear from behind a tree.
Usually when she was "'splorin" as she told her mom, she would try to gather up a handful of other flowers, just in case she met the fairy princess that day. Today was a wonderful flower day. A dandelion behind each ear, a tiger lily from mom's front yard tucked in the bun behind her head (and fastened with hair scrunchi's) and a handful of dandelions, bachelor's buttons and straw flowers she had taken from behind the lot where that new house was going up, she felt ready to meet any traveler along the fairy trails.
She heard the gaggle of boys cruise down the dirt trail on their bikes. She hid behind a tree as they went by. Only Chuck huffing and wheezing in last place might have seen her, but if he did, he was too intent to catch up to his friends to say something.
Today just felt different. Maybe the sun coming through the trees was a little more green. Maybe the thunderstorm from last night had made the creek run just a little higher than normal. She wasn't sure, but there was definitely something in the air.
Sally chose a relatively unused left fork today and came down to the bend in the creek. Her slip on shoes made very little noise as she walked through the brush. The smell hit her even before she made it to the clearing.
She had never smelled anything like it and held her handful of flowers up to her nose to try and mask the scent. She could barely describe the smell later to her mom. It was a mix of that time they had gone to Uncle Max's cow farm and the time the neighbor's St. Bernard Duke had gotten stuck under the house and was covered in leaves when they got him back out. The smell almost made her eyes water.
Bursting out of the trees she was intent washing her face with creek water because even that would smell better. She stopped short of the creek, nearly dropping her bundle of flowers. A bear was lapping water from the creek not 8 feet away from her. Sally stood still, terrified and looking at each matted hair of the bear that appeared to have not noticed her. Seconds crept on and curiosity overtook fear. It wasn't a bear. It was alternately lapping up water like Duke, and cupping its hands to drink. Suddenly, whatever it was, stopped drinking and crouched,looking around intently. Thick matted brown fur covered almost every inch of its body, except for its face, hands and feet. The face was almost human, the hands and feet definitely were.
It looked right at first, and Sally thought about running away, but then remembered what her Uncle Max had said.
"Excuse..." her voice gave out and the meek word died on her lips. The thing's head whipped around on a thick neck and it looked at her with golden eyes. It stood up suddenly, but wasn't much taller than Sally's 4 feet. Quickly it turned to face her full on, she could see the muscles bulging under the fur, its breath picking up. Its mouth opened slightly and she could see long pointed teeth in four corners of its mouth.
"Excuse me." she said trying to find any shred of confidence, as she knew she couldn't run faster than it. It sniffed the air the way Duke did with rapid short sniffs, but its eyes never left hers.
She slowly brought up her bundle of flowers and held them out as much of a shield as it was an offering. "Are you lost? Would you like a flower?"
It backed up a step as her arms came out, but then began to close the distance between them. The entire time it was sniffing the air. Step, sniff. Step, sniff sniff. Sally's eyes began to water when it got within four feet of the creature. It was the worst smell she had ever experienced. Even worse than the time her grandma had cooked liver and onions and lima beans. Her arms lowered slightly and the tears in her eyes turned from the pungent smell to fear.
In a heartbeat, whatever it was and plucked out three bachelor's buttons and all the dandelions from her bundle and retreated a few feet away. Before she could protest it had popped all the dandelions into its mouth and seemed content to chew them while examining the bachelor's buttons.
A few seconds later it stood up and darted back to her. This time it got so close its breath tickled her ears and ruffled her hair.
"Stop that!" she giggled and moved back up the trail. It moved back a few feet and watched her.
"Would you like some more dandelions?" She pulled the dandelions out of her hair, fear abating somewhat. And held them out. Like lightning it swiped the dandelions out of her hand and popped them in its mouth. A crack of the brush across the creek whipped sally's attention from the thing in front of her to the much larger thing across the creek. She had decided that the thing next her was a gorilla, escaped from the zoo, but the the thing across the creek was so much bigger. That "gorilla" was several feet taller than her dad. Its hand grabbing a tree branch so high off the ground it would have taken Jeremy and Louis all day to devise a way to climb up to it. The near "gorilla" looked over then loped its way towards the other one. Seconds later both had disappeared into the trees.
She left the rest of her flowers next to the creek and came back later that day with an armful of dandelions. The next day she came back to see the dandelions still there. Thankfully at this time of year, it was easy to replace the old harvest with new. She added a few flowers too, to see if they were taken. Her mom told her that night that roses, nasturtium and a whole lot of other flowers in the garden were edible and much to her mother's chagrin, the next day most of the edible ones had vanished from the garden to be bundled into a little package.
On the third day when she went to check on the flowers, there was no sign of her bundle. The dandelions, roses, nasturtium, all were gone. In place of the package was a single flower with multiple shades of blue, some shades she had never seen before and it smelled so sweet she just had to take out the dandelion she was wearing and put the new flower in her hair.
----------------
Sally Nelson had always had time to stop and smell the flowers. As a girl she would spend endless summer days behind her house, exploring the fairy trails her uncle Max had called them. Most of the trails led to the creek about a quarter of a mile away from the back yard. In the summer, sunlight would dapple the moss covered rocks. The creek almost tried up would be a haven for tadpoles. All around morning glories would climb up the trees turning the green moss covered bark of ash and brown bark of cedar blue with their trumpet blooms.
Those flowers were most coveted because Sally's favorite color was blue. For most of the year she would have to settle for a dandelion behind each ear. When her brown hair was long enough to be styled into a bun, she toyed with the idea of a lone stalk of lupine rising up like a feather, although when ducking under branches to follow the fairy trails, dandelions were more robust.
Every once in a while she would run into Jeremy and his older brother Louis and their gaggle of friends. Sometimes she would play capture the flag with them, but usually she would sneak off on her own.
Her uncle Max had said that some fairy trails will put you to sleep. And some will take you to far away lands, but above all you should always be polite and courteous to whomever you meet because you never know if they are a prince or princess who are in need of help.
The thought of meeting a princess always excited Sally. A magic princess would be best of course. Maybe a princess who could teach her to fly, or one who could snap her fingers and her trusty steed would appear from behind a tree.
Usually when she was "'splorin" as she told her mom, she would try to gather up a handful of other flowers, just in case she met the fairy princess that day. Today was a wonderful flower day. A dandelion behind each ear, a tiger lily from mom's front yard tucked in the bun behind her head (and fastened with hair scrunchi's) and a handful of dandelions, bachelor's buttons and straw flowers she had taken from behind the lot where that new house was going up, she felt ready to meet any traveler along the fairy trails.
She heard the gaggle of boys cruise down the dirt trail on their bikes. She hid behind a tree as they went by. Only Chuck huffing and wheezing in last place might have seen her, but if he did, he was too intent to catch up to his friends to say something.
Today just felt different. Maybe the sun coming through the trees was a little more green. Maybe the thunderstorm from last night had made the creek run just a little higher than normal. She wasn't sure, but there was definitely something in the air.
Sally chose a relatively unused left fork today and came down to the bend in the creek. Her slip on shoes made very little noise as she walked through the brush. The smell hit her even before she made it to the clearing.
She had never smelled anything like it and held her handful of flowers up to her nose to try and mask the scent. She could barely describe the smell later to her mom. It was a mix of that time they had gone to Uncle Max's cow farm and the time the neighbor's St. Bernard Duke had gotten stuck under the house and was covered in leaves when they got him back out. The smell almost made her eyes water.
Bursting out of the trees she was intent washing her face with creek water because even that would smell better. She stopped short of the creek, nearly dropping her bundle of flowers. A bear was lapping water from the creek not 8 feet away from her. Sally stood still, terrified and looking at each matted hair of the bear that appeared to have not noticed her. Seconds crept on and curiosity overtook fear. It wasn't a bear. It was alternately lapping up water like Duke, and cupping its hands to drink. Suddenly, whatever it was, stopped drinking and crouched,looking around intently. Thick matted brown fur covered almost every inch of its body, except for its face, hands and feet. The face was almost human, the hands and feet definitely were.
It looked right at first, and Sally thought about running away, but then remembered what her Uncle Max had said.
"Excuse..." her voice gave out and the meek word died on her lips. The thing's head whipped around on a thick neck and it looked at her with golden eyes. It stood up suddenly, but wasn't much taller than Sally's 4 feet. Quickly it turned to face her full on, she could see the muscles bulging under the fur, its breath picking up. Its mouth opened slightly and she could see long pointed teeth in four corners of its mouth.
"Excuse me." she said trying to find any shred of confidence, as she knew she couldn't run faster than it. It sniffed the air the way Duke did with rapid short sniffs, but its eyes never left hers.
She slowly brought up her bundle of flowers and held them out as much of a shield as it was an offering. "Are you lost? Would you like a flower?"
It backed up a step as her arms came out, but then began to close the distance between them. The entire time it was sniffing the air. Step, sniff. Step, sniff sniff. Sally's eyes began to water when it got within four feet of the creature. It was the worst smell she had ever experienced. Even worse than the time her grandma had cooked liver and onions and lima beans. Her arms lowered slightly and the tears in her eyes turned from the pungent smell to fear.
In a heartbeat, whatever it was and plucked out three bachelor's buttons and all the dandelions from her bundle and retreated a few feet away. Before she could protest it had popped all the dandelions into its mouth and seemed content to chew them while examining the bachelor's buttons.
A few seconds later it stood up and darted back to her. This time it got so close its breath tickled her ears and ruffled her hair.
"Stop that!" she giggled and moved back up the trail. It moved back a few feet and watched her.
"Would you like some more dandelions?" She pulled the dandelions out of her hair, fear abating somewhat. And held them out. Like lightning it swiped the dandelions out of her hand and popped them in its mouth. A crack of the brush across the creek whipped sally's attention from the thing in front of her to the much larger thing across the creek. She had decided that the thing next her was a gorilla, escaped from the zoo, but the the thing across the creek was so much bigger. That "gorilla" was several feet taller than her dad. Its hand grabbing a tree branch so high off the ground it would have taken Jeremy and Louis all day to devise a way to climb up to it. The near "gorilla" looked over then loped its way towards the other one. Seconds later both had disappeared into the trees.
She left the rest of her flowers next to the creek and came back later that day with an armful of dandelions. The next day she came back to see the dandelions still there. Thankfully at this time of year, it was easy to replace the old harvest with new. She added a few flowers too, to see if they were taken. Her mom told her that night that roses, nasturtium and a whole lot of other flowers in the garden were edible and much to her mother's chagrin, the next day most of the edible ones had vanished from the garden to be bundled into a little package.
On the third day when she went to check on the flowers, there was no sign of her bundle. The dandelions, roses, nasturtium, all were gone. In place of the package was a single flower with multiple shades of blue, some shades she had never seen before and it smelled so sweet she just had to take out the dandelion she was wearing and put the new flower in her hair.
Friday, July 1, 2011
This is what was overheard
The GROVER (Gamma Ray Observatory Verification Enhancement and Research) satellite hung in space, seemingly unmoving although its actual velocity relative to earth was close to 20,000 kilometers an hour. Its long solar collectors pointed towards the sun, its radio dish pointed towards the earth which the sun would occlude in another three months. After that, the satellite would be on its own for another two.
The satellite's main job was to track gamma rays and other highly charged particles from the space, its far orbit putting it outside the earth's zone of impact so its readings could be as close to natural as possible.
At this distance it took signals from earth almost 15 minutes to reach it, and its return signals an equal time. However in the constant night of space there was never anything so important that a 30 minute round trip couldn't handle. Almost nothing as it turned out.
On a typical day its detectors would pick up the faint but constant static ticking of gamma rays as they traveled the hundreds or thousands of light years from stars and supernovas. Tick then silence. Tick tick, then silence. In its fifteen year life the most busy day had been a super nova in the right arm of Sagittarius as NGC-15550283 had gone nova. It had registered a burst of twelve gamma rays over an hour's period.
Almost one hundred and seventy million miles away Sheldon Tavish dropped his half eaten subway sandwich on the console. Over the span of two bites, his station had gone from all green lights to amber to red and finally watching the real time data stream end in a "connection terminated" warning on his screen.
He began pouring over the incoming data. There was a flood of it. Much more than normal. He turned the gamma ray detection output to audio to hear the gamma detectors go from the sound of the first stages of popcorn being popped to in the span of about 30 seconds the roar of the ocean, then nothing.
After three days of sending the reboot sequence Sheldon's team gave up trying to contact the wayward satellite. It just wasn't responding any more. Jerry, over in mechanical systems, had put up the temperature gauge screen and they watched as the temperature gauges went from the 3 degrees Kelvin of space to 10 to 20 to 40 to 80 eventually surpassing the tested range of the thermometers. Sheldon kept pouring over the gamma ray data.
Four days later and the last video picture had been deciphered, the camera had automatically swung towards the first fault and began snapping images in timed intervals. The images were that of the port solar collector ending in a smooth edge, some sort of material fluorescenceing in a trail perpendicular to the probe, the vapor trail growing as the solar collector shrank.
By sunrise of the fifth day, Sheldon took his glasses off ran his fingers through his hair and tried to stifle a yawn. The readouts just didn't make sense. It was like the probe had passed through something that had ended up melting the entire craft and ripping it apart into its component atoms.
The amount of data that came in over the probe's last thirty seconds had been incredible. It had filled up all bandwidth channels. In fact there was so much data that the probe had automatically shut down its incoming channels from NASA to use those for outgoing broadcast as well.
Sheldon stopped massaging his temples and looked again at the reams of paper telemetry that had been spat out of the computer.
"Singh," Sheldon called, "Singh, come over here a sec would you?"
"What's going on? You finally find which battery faulted and caused the meltdown?"
"No, look at this. See this little cluster of gamma rays here?"
"Right, that's where we think the plutonium casing got cracked by the micrometeorite the probe hit."
"Yeah, but look, here's a same cluster and here, and here. Its a pattern that gets repeated."
"So the CMOS chip got stuck. It was a catastrophic meltdown man."
"No, no no look." He shuffled the papers. "look, there's that pattern, now look at this bigger pattern here. And then a bigger pattern here."
"So its just the feedback from all the CMOS chips as they wink out."
"Are you sure? Because doesn't this pattern look like something else?"
"Well on the surface it looks like a broadcasting sine wave. But its way too complicated and way to powerful to be TV or even Military."
"Bingo!"
"You need some sleep. You think you just picked up on E.T. Radio? I thought those SETI guys said anything ET would send would be in the microwave band not in gamma rays. Sheldon think how much power it would take to send any meaningful information via gamma rays. Then add that to the odds and incredibly off chance that poor little GROVER happened to intercept it? The numbers of zeros alone boggle the mind"
"They do but the SETI guys assume that ET has the same power problems we do. What if ET doesn't worry about fossil fuels. What else melted GROVER that also contains data like this?"
"A micrometeorite hit the plutonium casing and there was a small fission reaction."
"GROVER had time to call for help. He winked out slowly over 30 seconds from the left solar panel thru the body to the right. A fission reaction would have taken it out in less than a second and from the center. Look, the temperature gauges didn't all heat up uniformly. If you look at the telemetry it looks like GROVER hit the edge of something that got denser the further in it went. My estimate was that this is a concentrated gamma ray beam about 10 kilometers across."
"Keep dreaming man. There's nothing we can do about it now. Take your papers home and we'll meet about it on Monday."
Sheldon shuffled out, papers in tow. He wasn't heading home that was for sure. He needed to make a quick stop by a friend of his.
Five years and countless man and computer hours later Sheldon became vindicated. The 30 seconds of data had proved we were not alone. In five years Sheldon and his friend from the SETI team had figure out that A) the beam GROVER flew through had contained as much data in each second of transmission as the entire earth had generated since radio was discovered. B) that there was more to decode in "Sheldon's 30" as it became known as than would ever be understood in his life time. and C) when the time came for the first indication of what we had overheard ET saying, that it would be Sheldon's turn to announce it to the world.
He looked nervous up at the podium. It had been decided that the UN would be the best place to make such a historic announcement. The auditorium was silent. Five years and one phrase had been teased out of the code.
"Before I start, I uh, just wanted to, uh, thank everyone on my team and the generous donations from Microsoft, Apple and Sun for the computing power and for all the linguist specialists." He realized he was mumbling. "Um, look this is going to be difficult. I know according to the last Pew poll that, like, 67% of the world thinks we faked this. And..." He stopped and sipped from a glass of water." "And um. Well. um. I don't think this is going to help sway you. And before I... I'm just going to read it. We've been able to translate one phrase so far from the data. There's a bit of context missing but we've got a shitload of. Oh, oh crap, can I say that at the U.N.? Um, sorry, we have a boat load of other markers so we think its accurate, or as accurate as we can turn it into english and..." He saw Singh motion for him to hurry up from the front row.
"So ah the phrase, um that we translated is: Sirius Sentients 22, Orion 18. Um, that's it. We think we over heard ET announcing some sports scores." With that the entire auditorium broke into shouting and chatter.
The satellite's main job was to track gamma rays and other highly charged particles from the space, its far orbit putting it outside the earth's zone of impact so its readings could be as close to natural as possible.
At this distance it took signals from earth almost 15 minutes to reach it, and its return signals an equal time. However in the constant night of space there was never anything so important that a 30 minute round trip couldn't handle. Almost nothing as it turned out.
On a typical day its detectors would pick up the faint but constant static ticking of gamma rays as they traveled the hundreds or thousands of light years from stars and supernovas. Tick then silence. Tick tick, then silence. In its fifteen year life the most busy day had been a super nova in the right arm of Sagittarius as NGC-15550283 had gone nova. It had registered a burst of twelve gamma rays over an hour's period.
Almost one hundred and seventy million miles away Sheldon Tavish dropped his half eaten subway sandwich on the console. Over the span of two bites, his station had gone from all green lights to amber to red and finally watching the real time data stream end in a "connection terminated" warning on his screen.
He began pouring over the incoming data. There was a flood of it. Much more than normal. He turned the gamma ray detection output to audio to hear the gamma detectors go from the sound of the first stages of popcorn being popped to in the span of about 30 seconds the roar of the ocean, then nothing.
After three days of sending the reboot sequence Sheldon's team gave up trying to contact the wayward satellite. It just wasn't responding any more. Jerry, over in mechanical systems, had put up the temperature gauge screen and they watched as the temperature gauges went from the 3 degrees Kelvin of space to 10 to 20 to 40 to 80 eventually surpassing the tested range of the thermometers. Sheldon kept pouring over the gamma ray data.
Four days later and the last video picture had been deciphered, the camera had automatically swung towards the first fault and began snapping images in timed intervals. The images were that of the port solar collector ending in a smooth edge, some sort of material fluorescenceing in a trail perpendicular to the probe, the vapor trail growing as the solar collector shrank.
By sunrise of the fifth day, Sheldon took his glasses off ran his fingers through his hair and tried to stifle a yawn. The readouts just didn't make sense. It was like the probe had passed through something that had ended up melting the entire craft and ripping it apart into its component atoms.
The amount of data that came in over the probe's last thirty seconds had been incredible. It had filled up all bandwidth channels. In fact there was so much data that the probe had automatically shut down its incoming channels from NASA to use those for outgoing broadcast as well.
Sheldon stopped massaging his temples and looked again at the reams of paper telemetry that had been spat out of the computer.
"Singh," Sheldon called, "Singh, come over here a sec would you?"
"What's going on? You finally find which battery faulted and caused the meltdown?"
"No, look at this. See this little cluster of gamma rays here?"
"Right, that's where we think the plutonium casing got cracked by the micrometeorite the probe hit."
"Yeah, but look, here's a same cluster and here, and here. Its a pattern that gets repeated."
"So the CMOS chip got stuck. It was a catastrophic meltdown man."
"No, no no look." He shuffled the papers. "look, there's that pattern, now look at this bigger pattern here. And then a bigger pattern here."
"So its just the feedback from all the CMOS chips as they wink out."
"Are you sure? Because doesn't this pattern look like something else?"
"Well on the surface it looks like a broadcasting sine wave. But its way too complicated and way to powerful to be TV or even Military."
"Bingo!"
"You need some sleep. You think you just picked up on E.T. Radio? I thought those SETI guys said anything ET would send would be in the microwave band not in gamma rays. Sheldon think how much power it would take to send any meaningful information via gamma rays. Then add that to the odds and incredibly off chance that poor little GROVER happened to intercept it? The numbers of zeros alone boggle the mind"
"They do but the SETI guys assume that ET has the same power problems we do. What if ET doesn't worry about fossil fuels. What else melted GROVER that also contains data like this?"
"A micrometeorite hit the plutonium casing and there was a small fission reaction."
"GROVER had time to call for help. He winked out slowly over 30 seconds from the left solar panel thru the body to the right. A fission reaction would have taken it out in less than a second and from the center. Look, the temperature gauges didn't all heat up uniformly. If you look at the telemetry it looks like GROVER hit the edge of something that got denser the further in it went. My estimate was that this is a concentrated gamma ray beam about 10 kilometers across."
"Keep dreaming man. There's nothing we can do about it now. Take your papers home and we'll meet about it on Monday."
Sheldon shuffled out, papers in tow. He wasn't heading home that was for sure. He needed to make a quick stop by a friend of his.
Five years and countless man and computer hours later Sheldon became vindicated. The 30 seconds of data had proved we were not alone. In five years Sheldon and his friend from the SETI team had figure out that A) the beam GROVER flew through had contained as much data in each second of transmission as the entire earth had generated since radio was discovered. B) that there was more to decode in "Sheldon's 30" as it became known as than would ever be understood in his life time. and C) when the time came for the first indication of what we had overheard ET saying, that it would be Sheldon's turn to announce it to the world.
He looked nervous up at the podium. It had been decided that the UN would be the best place to make such a historic announcement. The auditorium was silent. Five years and one phrase had been teased out of the code.
"Before I start, I uh, just wanted to, uh, thank everyone on my team and the generous donations from Microsoft, Apple and Sun for the computing power and for all the linguist specialists." He realized he was mumbling. "Um, look this is going to be difficult. I know according to the last Pew poll that, like, 67% of the world thinks we faked this. And..." He stopped and sipped from a glass of water." "And um. Well. um. I don't think this is going to help sway you. And before I... I'm just going to read it. We've been able to translate one phrase so far from the data. There's a bit of context missing but we've got a shitload of. Oh, oh crap, can I say that at the U.N.? Um, sorry, we have a boat load of other markers so we think its accurate, or as accurate as we can turn it into english and..." He saw Singh motion for him to hurry up from the front row.
"So ah the phrase, um that we translated is: Sirius Sentients 22, Orion
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
This is the hand you were dealt
Jake wiped his brow with a bandana and pushed his hair back. He tried to do this every time so that he wouldn't tip anyone off if he was truly nervous. Like this time. A Jack of diamonds, a two of clubs, a six of hearts, a seven of clubs and an Ace of diamonds. House rules, he could exchange three cards. Was his truck really worth this hand? Too bad there wouldn't be another.
"Mr. Winston I do believe its your turn to call?"
Jake was still deep in thought. The truck door slamming shut as Grace started the long walk back to town. The vision of tears in her eyes made his jaw clench. The way she kept one hand protectively over her belly made his knees buckle ever so slightly under the table. Was this hand really worth the truck?
"Some people just can't get it together. Jake are you one of those people?"
Grace had asked him that question that very morning while he was drinking his coffee and looking at the blank lines in the checkbook.
What was he really worried about losing? He had circled back and pleaded with Grace to get back in the truck, but he knew at one of these times that she was in for a walk and he was in for a long quiet ride home. She turned off onto a path the truck couldn't fit down. Problem was there wasn't much of a home to walk back to anymore. The tornado had taken out their house and its not like he could afford insurance. His dad always said insurance was for suckers anyway. The FEMA trailer wasn't bad, if only Grace would get used to it.
"Jake, if its too rich for you, you can fold, but you're already all in so..." The fat man said.
Jake looked at the piles of hundred dollar bills in the middle and sitting on top of it all were his truck keys.
"FEMA's just handing out checks man! Go get yourself some of that cash!!!" his friend Benny had chided. Wasn't too bad. FEMA gave you a trailer to live in, MRE's to eat and a check.
"Don't worry about the fine print on the back, dude, just cash it!"
Four pairs of eyes around the table were looking at him. Three pairs anyway, as Chaz (as he called himself) wore reflective aviator glasses.
"Grace, we're doing fine. Joe says that they're going to start building those houses again up on the bluffs and he said he'd make me foreman this time!"
"And what do we do when those houses are built? If they get built? You really think people want to move here? We need a plan Jake. We're going to be a family and we need more than just you pretending to be a foreman."
"What do you mean pretend?" He could feel his cheeks flush. "Its not like I have a college degree or anything. We can't just up and move to a city and I can find work."
"Why not? We could leave this town. We could sell your dad's house and with the money we could get a fresh start somewhere."
"I don't want to sell my dad's house. Its a perfectly good roof over your head too."
Its amazing how much crow tastes like chicken.
Jake took the two, the six and seven and laid them on the table.
"Hold your horses, I'm still all in. Give me three cards."
"Mr. Winston I do believe its your turn to call?"
Jake was still deep in thought. The truck door slamming shut as Grace started the long walk back to town. The vision of tears in her eyes made his jaw clench. The way she kept one hand protectively over her belly made his knees buckle ever so slightly under the table. Was this hand really worth the truck?
"Some people just can't get it together. Jake are you one of those people?"
Grace had asked him that question that very morning while he was drinking his coffee and looking at the blank lines in the checkbook.
What was he really worried about losing? He had circled back and pleaded with Grace to get back in the truck, but he knew at one of these times that she was in for a walk and he was in for a long quiet ride home. She turned off onto a path the truck couldn't fit down. Problem was there wasn't much of a home to walk back to anymore. The tornado had taken out their house and its not like he could afford insurance. His dad always said insurance was for suckers anyway. The FEMA trailer wasn't bad, if only Grace would get used to it.
"Jake, if its too rich for you, you can fold, but you're already all in so..." The fat man said.
Jake looked at the piles of hundred dollar bills in the middle and sitting on top of it all were his truck keys.
"FEMA's just handing out checks man! Go get yourself some of that cash!!!" his friend Benny had chided. Wasn't too bad. FEMA gave you a trailer to live in, MRE's to eat and a check.
"Don't worry about the fine print on the back, dude, just cash it!"
Four pairs of eyes around the table were looking at him. Three pairs anyway, as Chaz (as he called himself) wore reflective aviator glasses.
"Grace, we're doing fine. Joe says that they're going to start building those houses again up on the bluffs and he said he'd make me foreman this time!"
"And what do we do when those houses are built? If they get built? You really think people want to move here? We need a plan Jake. We're going to be a family and we need more than just you pretending to be a foreman."
"What do you mean pretend?" He could feel his cheeks flush. "Its not like I have a college degree or anything. We can't just up and move to a city and I can find work."
"Why not? We could leave this town. We could sell your dad's house and with the money we could get a fresh start somewhere."
"I don't want to sell my dad's house. Its a perfectly good roof over your head too."
Its amazing how much crow tastes like chicken.
Jake took the two, the six and seven and laid them on the table.
"Hold your horses, I'm still all in. Give me three cards."
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Italian Quarter
Italian quarter.
My brother and our friends on the street used to say it like an epithet, almost a racial slur. Kind of like "Jewing him down." or being an "Indian giver." Or even the more mundane "What a gyp!"
I don't know if it started out financially. "Hey, you trying to cheat me out of my share? Don't you be givin' me that Italian quarter."
Or maybe it was a little more pedantic going back to Mussolini and the fact that he was known for not giving any quarter to partisans in world war 2. "Hey, what gives? I stopped, you can stop too! Don't give me that Italian quarter!" Which would usually result in a purple nurple or a dead arm.
Either way it was in our lexicon, and none of us could figure out how it got there. Its not like any of us were Italian. None of our parents were from Italy, and none of us had a more than average passing interest in history. The closest to Italy any of us ever got when we were growing up was the time when Chuck's sister spent a summer abroad in France.
My brother, Lou, was always the ring leader since he was oldest. He would always puff himself up and say "Age doth have its privileges." which would result in a slug in the arm. He was three years older than me and got to stay up an extra hour at night which never seemed fair. He'd also get me up early in the summer time. He'd fix me a bowl of cereal and together we'd wolf down our coco puffs, eyes glued to channel 22 (they had the best cartoons during the week) before slapping on shorts and tee shirts.
Grabbing our bikes, Mike would usually be waiting for us as the garage door opened. He was almost Lou's age but a lot taller. He wore the same clothes every day until they could stand up themselves. I wasn't much on personal hygiene but even that went too far for me.
The three of us would go over to Eric and Steve's place next. They were heavy sleepers and it usually took at least 5 minutes of straight knocking on their window to get them to start moving. At first I could never tell them apart. Supposedly they were identical twins. Lou said they were clones whatever those were. But Steve had a scar on his left knee that was always a dead give away in warm weather.
The twins would move painfully slowly in the morning. Threats of leaving them behind or pranking them later were the only ways to get them going. They had the squirt guns though. The battery powered kind that could shoot up to thirty feet. So leaving them behind was never really an option, especially since their parents were the best about buying batteries.
And the last person of our crew that we'd pick up was Snot. His real name was Charles, but we all called him Snot. Two guesses as to why, summer hay fever wasn't good for him.
His parents traveled a lot. And it was his sister who had been to France. She was just about to graduate high school next year and we could never figure out how the two of them had come from the same parents. They were night and day different. Water and fire. Lou said Snot was adopted, from a traveling circus. Snot himself was pretty cagey which is why we kept him around.
In dodge ball he was only OK, a decent side arm throw but always too slow to dodge. But, in capture the flag, he was definitely the guy to have on your side. The weirdest thing about him was that he could hold his breath for nine whole minutes, a full 5 minutes longer than Lou and 7 minutes longer than me.
That was our crew from East Hemlock street. And that was the ritual we would follow every day of summer vacation.
My brother and our friends on the street used to say it like an epithet, almost a racial slur. Kind of like "Jewing him down." or being an "Indian giver." Or even the more mundane "What a gyp!"
I don't know if it started out financially. "Hey, you trying to cheat me out of my share? Don't you be givin' me that Italian quarter."
Or maybe it was a little more pedantic going back to Mussolini and the fact that he was known for not giving any quarter to partisans in world war 2. "Hey, what gives? I stopped, you can stop too! Don't give me that Italian quarter!" Which would usually result in a purple nurple or a dead arm.
Either way it was in our lexicon, and none of us could figure out how it got there. Its not like any of us were Italian. None of our parents were from Italy, and none of us had a more than average passing interest in history. The closest to Italy any of us ever got when we were growing up was the time when Chuck's sister spent a summer abroad in France.
My brother, Lou, was always the ring leader since he was oldest. He would always puff himself up and say "Age doth have its privileges." which would result in a slug in the arm. He was three years older than me and got to stay up an extra hour at night which never seemed fair. He'd also get me up early in the summer time. He'd fix me a bowl of cereal and together we'd wolf down our coco puffs, eyes glued to channel 22 (they had the best cartoons during the week) before slapping on shorts and tee shirts.
Grabbing our bikes, Mike would usually be waiting for us as the garage door opened. He was almost Lou's age but a lot taller. He wore the same clothes every day until they could stand up themselves. I wasn't much on personal hygiene but even that went too far for me.
The three of us would go over to Eric and Steve's place next. They were heavy sleepers and it usually took at least 5 minutes of straight knocking on their window to get them to start moving. At first I could never tell them apart. Supposedly they were identical twins. Lou said they were clones whatever those were. But Steve had a scar on his left knee that was always a dead give away in warm weather.
The twins would move painfully slowly in the morning. Threats of leaving them behind or pranking them later were the only ways to get them going. They had the squirt guns though. The battery powered kind that could shoot up to thirty feet. So leaving them behind was never really an option, especially since their parents were the best about buying batteries.
And the last person of our crew that we'd pick up was Snot. His real name was Charles, but we all called him Snot. Two guesses as to why, summer hay fever wasn't good for him.
His parents traveled a lot. And it was his sister who had been to France. She was just about to graduate high school next year and we could never figure out how the two of them had come from the same parents. They were night and day different. Water and fire. Lou said Snot was adopted, from a traveling circus. Snot himself was pretty cagey which is why we kept him around.
In dodge ball he was only OK, a decent side arm throw but always too slow to dodge. But, in capture the flag, he was definitely the guy to have on your side. The weirdest thing about him was that he could hold his breath for nine whole minutes, a full 5 minutes longer than Lou and 7 minutes longer than me.
That was our crew from East Hemlock street. And that was the ritual we would follow every day of summer vacation.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)