Burning the Midnight Oil

5:52 AM....but up since 4.

Honestly, who decides it's a good idea to wake up at this time of night, especially when you're up in arms against a cold? Truthfully, though, it's nostalgic for me. As I sit here watching a movie and doing some typing, I remember when I was younger, waking to hear the faintest whisper of noise from downstairs. I knew what that meant! Mum couldn't sleep and was watching TV! I would go downstairs to see what was holding her interest ( once we got cable, it was usually an old movie) and see if she had decided on a late night snack of which I would gladly help her consume.

Simpler times.

Now I sit here wrapped in a blanket with a movie of my own on the tv, the volume only slightly moderated for I know that my housemates sleep like the dead. There is a sense of restlessness as I have recommitted myself to completing the first story I had posted on here, now titled 'A Dead Language'. I'm confident that by week's end, the rough draft will be completed, at which point I will begin the editing process. Having read over it several times, I have clued in on some elements that certainly could use a re-write or further explanation. Traditionally, editing is the worst part of writing for me. Oddly enough, I can find it to be rather cumbersome to read something I just finished writing! Nonetheless, I've learned the importance of going back over my work to ensure that when other's read it, it's in top form.

So, keep your eyes open for the coming of my first, true, completed work: A Dead Language. Are you bristling with excitement as much as I am? Well you had better be. Perhaps I should provide you with a little trailer to convey it's excellence.

COMING SOON!!!

" Bentley Square was a commotion, primarily due to Bendenshire Theater's opening of the new Vlamatti play, ' Barathrum'. From my third story apartment I could hear the clopping and rattling of horse drawn carriages as drivers chauffeured the rich and powerful to what would be a critically acclaimed evening."

In a time where elegance is the mask of the times, one man has uncovered a dark horror...

" Of Lamia

I furrowed my brow at the title. Was I about to embark on an early version of some sort of fantastic fiction? Perhaps a rewrite on the classical mythos?


' I write these words in the hopes that some will come to understand the horrors that have been unleashed upon the world. To understand and, I pray, put an end to them. I tremble even as I write this, for it was my own foolish actions that have given birth to the evils I will speak to you about. Such a wretched being am I. Could I, I would take the full measure of her
wrath upon myself, but alas, all I can do is offer up my mind to those who may stand a greater chance.' "

...a horror born in times long past....


" The myths of Lamia are as numerous as any tale told by a fireplace," I said as I stared down at the picture before me, " the earliest of record say she was a lover to Zeus. When Hera learned of her, she became jealous and changed her into a monster. One who feasts on children..."

....reawakened upon a world that has long forgotten of such....


I was catatonic, only able to stare back at the creature. It cradled the child as though she were it's own, even cooing softly to what it had reduced to be a cold corpse. Blood ran from it's lips and down over it's chin, while what was left within the child trickled from the savage gash the beast's teeth had rendered in her neck...




Coming Early in 2009....

A DEAD LANGUAGE

" Such things are fairytales; stories told at night to scare children into being good,"
I looked back at the tome before me and felt an all too real sense of gloom.
" Perhaps..."


So there ya go. Some of that was fabricated and may not actually be in the story, buuuuut...that's ok.

A Completed Work

This will read as the end of the story and truth be told, it is. However, it's completed in that I did what I set out to do. Warning: This story is not uplifting.


Jonathan watched through the port in the door as the oxygen flushed out into the vacuum of space. A white flash filled the hangar where the pod sat, fractions of a second before it jettisoned into the inky darkness. It spiraled, seeming to speed away at first, then drift more slowly the farther away it became. Small expulsions from exhaust ports along the sides turned the pod towards the red planet and gravity did the rest, pulling the small pod towards it's surface. He waited until it had moved past the limited field of vision granted by the port in the door, then turned and leaned back against it.

Beyond the door came the hum. At least they had not made him wait. His ears would not need to strain, searching silence for the inevitable. It had already come and soon would be knocking on the door. Still, he would not let them come in so easily. He smiled to himself as he crossed the room and ran a hand over the heavy welding he had done to seal the only door in. Then with a groan he staggered to the side, reaching to steady himself on a nearby console. His hand touched the eleven inch gash that stretched from his navel to his side and for a moment, his vision blurred. Blood had soaked nearly the length of his pant leg and he could feel his legs beginning to tremble. His eyes dropped to his hands and he realized how pale they had become. He was running on borrowed time now.

Summoning his waning strength, he crossed the room once more to another console, upon which sat the makeshift flamethrower. He hoisted the pack with a groan and winced as he maneuvered his arms through the straps, his vision blurring once more as pain shot through his side and a fresh trickle of blood leaked out.

The hum grew louder and now he could hear the clicks and scratches of their hands and feet on the floors of the corridor. He was the only one left on the ship and they could smell him. Feel him. Whatever sense it was they used, it had lead them to the only remaining life source. To him. Besides the lucky few in the pod that had jettisoned, everyone else was dead.

He felt a chill. Time was running from his wound. He checked the flame thrower, then reached into his pocket, withdrawing a crumpled packet of cigarettes. A faint glimmer of satisfaction played through him as he noticed there was one that had not been saturated in blood or broken in his pocket. He put it between his lips and ignited it with the pilot light of the thrower, just as the first assault on the door came. Shrieks could be heard now, the beasties on the other side frantically clawing and gnawing at the door. The steel began to creek and shift as the welding gave way and the doors began to push apart. Smoke filled his lungs and the nicotine found it's way into his blood stream for a final time.

The pain had dulled in his side and he felt strangely disconnected. Everything was beginning to feel so far away. He leveled the nozzle of the flame thrower at the door and smiled softly while tendrils of uninhaled smoke curled out from between his lips and cut trails of white through the air before dissipating.

" Oh Danny boy, the pipes...the pipes are calling..." he sang softly as he squeezed the trigger
briefly to test the thrower and was rewarded with a brief cloud of fire.

The doors had pushed apart several inches, allowing a dozen, finger-sized tendrils to slither in and adhere themselves to the doors. The hum was almost deafening now, broken only by the frenzied shrieks of frustration.

"...from glen to glen and down the...mountain....s...side..."

He watched on with glassy eyes as more tendrils forced their way in and began prying at the doors.

"...the summer's gone...and...all...the...ro..."

Fire spit from the charred nozzle of the flame thrower and engulfed the door for several seconds, spilling out into the hallway. The shrieks rose up over the hum and most of the tendrils retracted. Some curled and writhed momentarily before withering in the flames. He thought he could smell something...acrid... smoky...

" it's you, it's you who must go and I must bide."

They came in full strength, dozens upon dozens of tendrils flooding in, some several feet in length. They viciously grabbed at the door, some seeming to turn from fleshy tentacles into hardened talons to claw at the barrier. Another flash of fire, this one lasting several more seconds, brought a fresh chorus of infant-like wailing but failed to drive them back. Nothing would drive them back, but he would see they remembered the last few moments of his life.

" But come ye back-"

They came through just as everything began to turn white. With a soft cry he pulled the trigger for the last time, watching as a brilliant eruption of fire consumed the approaching host, it's mouths and tendrils reaching for him. There were only screams and as he drifted into an eternal sleep, he smiled.

If Sound Effects Could Kill

I was browsing through the comments left on my previous entry and had a memory triggered by Ave's response. I decided to write a small passage regarding the memory. Embarrasing moments often make great stories.

I work as a commissioned salesman selling lawn and garden equipment, a job I've been at for nearly three years. This involves selling tractors, mowers, pressure washers, grills, etc. At the time, I was trying to devote a bit more time to my music. I had become frustrated due to the fact that I would think up guitar riffs and melodies at work, then forget them by the time I arrived home. After reading many accounts of musicians carrying small tape recorders around with them to jot down their ideas on, i figured this would be a brilliant idea!

So I purchased a small digital recorder and the next day took it to work. On my way I thought up a short riff and knew that I would want to play it when I returned home. I pulled out the recorder and made a vocal recording of the riff, using the stereotypical, heavy guitar 'choogch' sound. I then put the recorded back in my pocket, quite pleased that I would have a chance to explore this riff later that evening. Throughout the day, several more ideas came to me and I stole away to record them in private.

However, there is one problem with a device like this. The buttons are easy to hit while it is in your pocket, as there is no lock for them. As it happened, I was squatted down to show a customer the finer points of a particular pressure washer they were interested in when all of the sudden the unmistakable sound of 'choogch chuk chuk cheeewr' could be heard coming from my pocket at a volume which permited the entire department to hear. My five other co-workers, along with all the customers they were helping, stopped and looked directly at me.

I frantically reached into my pocket, hitting every button my thumb would run across as I withdrew the recorder, but to no avail. I finally, in a desperate attempt to end the embarassment, yanked the back open and violently pulled the batteries and threw them across the floor. My customer looked at me in a blend of shock and amusement and said 'I think you had a real winner there.'


It's amazing how red my face can get.

Hello, 20-09 (or, 'Where Are the Flying Cars?)

So, the new year is upon us. Four days in, already. I've set some fairly specific goals for myself this year to try and get myself back on track. I've allowed myself to become lax in too many areas and it's not going to help propel me forward to allow it to continue.

I was thinking back on some advice my Auntie left me as a comment for one of my blogs. It's a well known phrase to anyone doing any sort of writing: Write what you know. The past few days have had some high levels of creative activity up in my mind, but with little external creation. I realized part of this is because I simply don't have a good enough grounding on how to write the things I want to write. You can't just sit down and BAM!, produce a novel. Or even a short story for that matter. So, thinking back on the first piece I began posting on here, I decided to read a couple of pieces based in the associated time period and within the genre of mystery.

First I picked up the first Sherlock Holmes short, entitled A Study in Scarlet. I am finding it quite easy to read and quite enjoyable. It's helping me to retain a more firm grasp on the dialect used during that time as well as giving obvious examples of plot twists and the sort. The other book is an Agatha Christie novel about Hercule Poirot. I enjoy her method of writing, as it is always moving forward. She does not spend a great deal of time with drawn out discriptions of needless banter. She's very direct.

My reading is a bit slow, as I have a hard time reading just one book at a time. Perhaps that is something I should practice, but reading for me is much like listening to music. It all depends on my mood. Sometimes I want to read a sci-fi...sometimes a modern day piece...sometimes a fantasy and so forth. Therefor, books are slow to get completed, but at least I'm always reading.

We'll see what this year has in store for me. I'm hoping to have myself squarely focused and be able to get some real work done. I guess that all depends on me, doesn't it?