Tornado
Waking in a Mall
The Strongest Empire
Monetary Inheritance
Pollitician
One Night
�Following my drive from my home in western Kansas was the tornado. I was very fortunate to have already been past the border and well on my trip already. Apparently the tornado formed essentially on top of my home, but, luckily I wasn�t there, and my wife who was living there had time enough to move the most important of our provisions into the basement.
�Naturally, I having lived with her in my home state for years am used to such storms, and we had already moved a good deal of our less mobile valuables prior to this storm into the basement for safekeeping. I don�t want to dwell on the matter which will probably be uninteresting, so in short, we had many other reasons for doing this other than the storm�our basement was twice the surface area of our two story house, and many of our junks and spare refrigerators were stowed there, under the hatches in our kitchen and living room.
�No, she was safe, there�s no need for sorrow or pity, and after the storm had crossed over the house en route east she called me on her cell phone. She told me what had happened and she said not to worry reminding me of our tornado insurance and also that if I needed to get a hold of her she would be at her families house west of ours. The tornado only passed over our house and took down a few more on the way out of town, ours being on the outskirts of our suburb community anyway; most of everything had been left intact including the cell-tower in town she used to call me. We wouldn�t have to worry much about insurance as ours was one of the few homes wrecked and our insurance would be less stingy to pay up than if the whole town had been hit.
�Finally after a lot of talk and sentimental things you wouldn�t want to hear-or I wouldn�t want to tell to someone smirking, she hung up after making me promise I�d continue my trip and not come back until I had finished my commitment. Around ten minutes after that a friend in another Kansas town called me on my cell-phone to tell me all about how the tornado now at the seemingly fixed speed 80 miles per hour had crashed into his place in and wrecked it and an estimates 16 others in a strait line through town. He wanted to know if I could pick him up and maybe stay at my place for a while until he had enough money to get an apartment.
�I apologized that I couldn�t help and informed him that our home was destroyed too. He now seemed to regret that with his dead end job he hadn�t been able (although I personally think he could have and just didn�t want to fork up the dough on an apparent chance having only lived in Kansas a little less than two years and never seeing the destruction of a tornado.) to invest his money into insurance for his mortgaged two bedroom, one bathroom shabby house. I stopped myself from scolding him for not listening to the advice from my wife and me and instead informed him that I was far from being on course toward Manhattan and my wife without a car and calling in favors herself. I would have said more, except suddenly there was a click, and my friend in a center for tornado refugees could hear me no more.
�I was obliged to try and call the building through the operator, but was informed by a cool voice recording that phone lines had been destroyed in the area code I was calling and my call could not be placed. So I just kept right on driving, my ford only stopping twice for gas and eating burgers from two fast food restaurants on my trip. Finally the sky became dark, and I decided to call my wife again, this time away from the wheel and while walking into an outlet from a parking lot. I wasn�t sure if her cell phone would be on despite the disaster and decided to call her family�s home from my personal handbook to no avail. Remembering the downed telephone poles, I decided I�d try her cell phone anyway. By this time, I had walked far from the parking lot and found myself sub consciously strolling into a model railway store; fine that detail isn�t important I admit.
�Anyway, I called and-yes I�m explaining my story and not my wife�s! Yes I�m getting to that but you must understand my tale is closely intertwined with that of my wife and the storm that continued to advance wherever�shrroough�I�m already telling the story rather fast, and yes I�m keeping it short and sweet too. I will�thank you. Now I called her and-how do you expect me to say anything if you keep on interrupting?
�Well what she said was that more phone lines were wrecked and a lot of miniscule things to you, and told me to be careful. This is important because I had now walked through that store and through the door to an electronic store with multiple TV�s and a dozen shoppers who seemed to have stopped their other shopping to compare the TV�s I supposed without a glance toward them. Meanwhile my wife was describing the oddity of the tornado that she had heard a few hours back was moving in a barely wavering line without wavering in speed, toward the border. I found this less interesting than her, and was more concerned with a fifty-dollar CD player I had found. She seemed to be getting the hint and finishing with sentiments being about to disconnect when I tripped over an unnoticed seeing-eye dog and crushed a plastic shelf loaded about the height of a computer monitor. Why it was there without more than a single box I don�t know; I was more concerned with a possible appearance as an innocent bystander to the now invisible vandal I�d make up.
�This was not to be, for the dozen television comparers had flipped around to grin at the heavy thud I imagined they hadn�t been focused enough to overhear. This was a bargain for mutual attention, I finally saw what they were watching as the clerk approached the noise. It was a monstrous tornado, it seemed to fill the screen as a hurricane would a newscaster was shouting, and this was when I first truly encountered the tornado.
�Admittedly, it was for but a second and more blurred than had it been viewed in a reality I feared, but the result was still the same: Dread. Something evil was in the churning black cloud that was hurling toward me and apparently, the camera man was a brave one�Or�I listened and I quote words I haven�t yet forgot; the experience being so impacting as though I were there, watching myself, as doom approached.
�As you know, our van has broken, and we cannot escape. We are transmitting this picture live. My name is Kenneth Baker, and Monica Brenkstone the reporter you�ve been hearing is more optimistic and has made a dash for it. I see no hope, and will transmit my final thoughts and my final video and job.� Stepping from behind the camera and through the LIVE icon stepped a stout and tall man.
��I hope it was worth it, I�m going to take the closest tornado pictures with this camera, to be the best ever taken. This camera is worth thousands and I know no one will ever take a shot better than this; I know no one would spend a camera such as this for a shot. I hope it amounts to something. My life is done, I have little to say, I just truly want this if nothing else to amount to something.�
�And then the man stepped along with a clerk outside of the side of my eye. The tornado was huge and looming, I don�t want to describe it, it truly felt, as it must have to the prior viewers to be chasing totally, pursing relentlessly, as though it would pass through the video itself. I was becoming continually distant with my surroundings; I no longer cared about escape or apology. There was the beast, as if alive, that had killed how many others, courageous as this man.
�I vaguely heard the comments of the people, mostly men surrounding, their attention seemed to have returned to the televisions themselves and some of them had turned it to a particularly blurry TV and put some sort of cardboard-plastic on their face. �Wow, this is awesome, we should have changed the channel sooner.� �I wonder how channel 4 is doing that?� �Broadcasting in 3D! Thanks for the heads up and the glasses Mr.�owner of the shop!� �He�s the clerk son, thanks anyway! That man over there doesn�t seem to hear anything, I�d give him a pair but he�s already in trouble already. That thing he landed on, the box contains a live GPS weather system and local television receiver. My friend bought one: in Detroit; cost him a whole three thousand-five hundred something dollars, I know! And that was a much older ship model! This thing will probably cost even more, don�t matter how much cheaper most gismos are here.� �Quiet! He might hear you and get angry.� �Don�t worry Darlene, he�s in a trance, I think that tornado has a much greater effect on him that us.�
�That was the last I heard for a while, the last comment seemed to have dragged me even deeper into the picture. I truly forgot that I wasn�t there in the swirling midst listening to a desperate reporter�s cries. I felt as though the wind was causing me to rock, and to stop myself from falling I dropped the phone I�d forgotten about to grip onto the shelf for a closer view and support. The reporter�s voice was drained by now, and hard to hear over the overpowering gusts of Smokey dust-. And the storm was surely approaching.
�I could see it therein, a shack was thrown as though made of Lego, but I didn�t care. It was fate, I couldn�t hear anything but the screeching winds; they were the only thing that mattered, the thing that had tried too to attack my wife. It was as though fate was somehow bound into the storm, I knew as though by prophesy or vision that my destiny would be changed forever by the storm. There was something about it, just something about the barking dogs it had caused to sound and be forgotten about nearby. Something I couldn�t always place, but knew myself to be. I knew that the storm was my storm.
�It didn�t feel anymore like I was just watching pixels in a fixed screen; it now felt as though I was there, moving my head an turning it to watch, my head shaking, from the winds and possibly some terror from what felt like a father and a hole substance that I was a part. My head was the camera; where I turned my head, the camera looked, where the camera turned my head turned. Every shake from the winds or the trembling hands of the photographer was my own, and no one else�s. It isn�t something easy to forget; and I repeat that it was not my last, but it was truly in itself an encounter with the storm, one which now had clouded the skies, making it hard to see anymore than a twilight that flickered as though like lightning, and with lighting controlled by the storm. It was coming I felt. For me, and toward me, and no matter where I went, it would follow.
�Undoable I would have kept on watching the dirt that flew up to be slammed with a mighty fist back into itself as though sandblasting on a highway a path infinitely closer toward me�I was sure that the path being blasted would send dirt in my face, any second now, the metal fling overhead, the darkness widening, it becoming hard to keep my feet on the ground as gravities pull reversed and tried to pull me upward and toward the cyclone��
�-Had I not scooted too close to the TV and wobbled, falling backward and onto a clerk, a dwarf who had on tip toes been obliviously tapping my shoulder. Fortunately he was humored and good-natured man, who seemed to find my constant falling more worthy of a laugh than a hindrance. He wasn�t in a rush to talk about fines, but tried hard to keep my attention from drifting, though I was both terrified and yet wanting desperately to rejoin my prior stance; my face flickering in the television� lighting as it would from the flickering of the storm�if I had only been there and not of near here�
�Finally I got a hold of myself and with an apology turned of the wide-screen I had been watching while keeping my eyes carefully lowered away from it. I turned back toward the many stares I was getting and answered a barrage of questions and statements that had built during my trance with what I hoped was an imagined fate. I started first and arrogantly with the questions on the storm asking my own of length and answering the questions on my interest in it with simple answers.
�I understand you also have your own questions, but it may be that my tale does last long enough that yours be answered while I find in myself the answers to many that I myself ponder. To continue�I first explained that I was from Kansas and that my home was among the first destroyed, with a chorus of awes as a response. �I quickly explained that I wasn�t there myself, but recounted even quicker a more detailed explanation than I�ve told you, yet, of what my telephone talks told me, and what I personally knew.
�I was very happy that they seemed to sympathize and began to see a possible route out of a heavier fine. Realizing that this was a poorer quality shop; possibly even a pawn one and one certainly with many used items for sale, I tried hard to appeal to their a natures. Quickly tossing the storm from my mind and using dramatization to describe the �injustices that my friend closer than a brother suffered as much devastation to his partially paid off home as did I and my happily wed wife�� Lets just say that I made an excellent speech, and fed those hungry for information on the incredible storm that had apparently been covered widely for reasons yet unknown to me, I was able to gain face and admiration.
�Finally, after telling few lies but many implications, I was able to awe the clerk and shoppers; who began to plead with him to �give the poor refugee a bone and cover the costs.� He gave in, and decided to reduce the cost in this one occasion, down forty-five percent. What�s more? All the shoppers actually helped pay the cost of the apparently broken system to my immense guilt by pitching in. The result? A $12,000 piece of machinery (explaining why it was on its own glass stand) cost me less than my nearly maxed $2,000 spending limit card I had deliberately chosen for additional sympathy.
While I felt like a total fraud and crook in particularly pretending that my credit card was already nearly maxed and with less than $500 left on it, it seemed more honorable to pay the man there with another�s money than leave in search of a bank and never return�Well, what was done was done, but I promised to repay the full discounted price to the clerk later; if he�d record in detail the contributions of all customers, repaying them the next time they entered the shop. (I was told all of them were regulars to his shop because the clerk-owner was so cheap and willing to discount in his costs,)
�So promising to send the money in the mail, I started to try and lift the box, but before I could, there was the owner and two customers lifting it and asking where my car was, causing another surge of guilt. He refused to accept help so I gestured trustingly handing my car keys over and described my car while hanging back to ask and answer more questions. The customers were generally equally kind hearted, perhaps they�d become so from befriending the clerk and were very helpful in any question including on Manhattan directions. They were so kind hearted they handed me five of the glasses they explained they�d been using to watch channel 4 in 3D to me in case I�d need it; I had certainly appealed to the right people!
�Struck dumb again, I thanked them, the storm now well driven from my head. The whole walk back toward the car I was pestered with blessings and wishes. Only when I finally had thanked them and drove off did I realize how much more they�d done. Inside the car were numerous boxes and backpacks filled with electronics that I guessed had been secretly put in the back while I was busy talking.
�Ten miles from the shop, I couldn�t bear taking advantage of such decent folks and turned around to head back. But when I got back to �Swan�s Boutique�s,� a metal mesh gate had fallen over it, and I realized that I had kept the store open past it�s usual closing time. Finding nobody, I reluctantly drove slowly through the darkening city until I was again on a freeway; this time a different one that a granny in the shop had suggested was more direct.
�I drove for a bit reflecting on my strange behavior with a common storm and the generosity of the folks I had taken advantage of. Glancing at my car�s clock which was still aligned with the time at home, I decided I could probably still call my wife at only seven P.M. I remember that because the time was seven distinctly when I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone.�
Writen before 6/05/03
What a Day! (Waking in a Mall)
How odd to retell: I woke up today with my shoes off, and with my head swollen and resting on an exceptionally stretched bar of soap. Only when I turned my head in a dream with the intent to bite into and chew up a slimy toad I had discovered my pillow to be in a dream, did my head, in actually, slip off the soap and into the frigid waters beneath it. Opening my eyes with a gasp, I sputtered in the soapy waters, and arose coughing and pulling bits of the tainted ivory colored bar soap from my teeth. Once I had recovered my breath and repressed the sour taste I felt fermenting from my newly soap covered teeth, I looked at my surroundings with a shudder. Somehow, overnight, I�d awoke in a silent, deathly hall, a weedy tropical jungle lacking life and sound.
Looking to behind me, I quelled the sickening feeling that I had not only sub-consciously wanted to bite into an imagined frog, but also that there were wide teeth-marks in the soap, soap that lay in the shallow pool at the base of a waterfall. Squeezing out the cold water out of my hair, I remember stepping off a cold boulder courageously; being reassured that I wouldn�t suffocate if I tool the wrong step. Here I am proud to say, that I accepted the starling circumstance without cowardice, springing from a rough surface I later realized was a border, I leapt barefoot in an attempt climb a nearby tree.
Now note, the entire jungle lacked a starry night sky, and was very dim, revealing little it�s dark shrouds other than a nearby palm tree, boulders surrounding a tiny rivulet of water, falling from a mound maybe ten feet tall, and a small crop of tropical plants.
I wanted to climb up the tree to better see my surroundings, and took little notice that the tree�s spikes didn�t cut, there were other�s sprouting nearby from moss, nor that every time a limb moved the tree shook and gave out a rather hollow sound, as if made of plaster and supported by concrete. Climbing onto puzzlingly rigid leaves when I reached the top, I felt a cold draft and for the first time realized that I was bare foot and wearing paper-thin shorts and a mis-matching shirt. All this I forgot when another gust hit, and forced me to look down at the ground I�d avoided viewing.
A small outcropping of grasses that didn�t move in the passive winds surrounded the remarkably boring waterfall that had stopped flowing. I was curious about the source of the water and finally was finally able, after my surprisingly long climb, was able to peer through the gloom. From my perch twenty feet higher than the rocks congregated at the summit of the falls I feared I would fall and again wake up, with fragments of a memory, and be forced to climb again. I now knew from where the winds came from.
There, around 35 yards away, I saw a monstrously large factory-like fan and air-conditioning unit. A strip of what was apparently cement separated it from the dried up pathway of the water before falling. The fans were off, and in this direction they were the farthest, and only object that I could make out other than the wilderness that marched toward it. Turning slightly my left, I saw nearby a skylight, which meant that what I�d taken to be an empty sky was in reality a ceiling.
After squatting onto my palm to clutch onto the tree more firmly, I stopped trying to jog my memory and figure out where I was. I had drawn my eyes down from the darkened ceiling and became momentarily focused on the fiber-like leaf I was clutching to; clearly there were wires in it. It was too much to handle, I turned away only to shake my head at another sight; a series of double glass doors that stretched far into the distance.
Rubbing my eyes, I looked again as far as my eyes could see, I could barely make out a sign: Katy�s Bookstore, was attached to a pole that either extended from an invisible wall, or was levitating on its own accord. I couldn�t make out the signs on the other doors, although one of them wasn�t in shape, and was carved into the model of a coffee-cup. I supposed that each was its own store, but still couldn�t figure out what that meant, or where I was. So instead my eyes swept over them, apparently from this distance, the shops lacked roofs�I probably just couldn�t see them.
I watched as the darkened doors marched on into the distance, other than a sudden gap where I assumed a hall divided two of them, the doors which probably contained shops seemed to march on forever, until faint specks, either having hit a wall or that I simply couldn�t see any farther.
Laughing despite my fear, I realized that the previous possibility of a wild animal or poacher was unlikely to attack. Not considering the chance of a suspicious security guard, I cupped my hands into a megaphone and made a cheerful shout.
�Hey! Somebody! I�m up here and need rescuing. Hey here in the trees! See me? Somebody? I think that somebody pulled a prank or something; it doesn�t matter, I�d just be grateful to get out of here, this place is creepy�I�d never think so during the day but after supper�Hello? Ha ha, whoever did this could show themselves here now, very clever how you stopped any janitors or late departing restaurant employees from answering! Seriously! It�s getting cold now so if you�d just, well, come over I�ll go home�I won�t mention this to anyone just, please��
Starting to quaver because of the lack of a reply in so quiet a place I realized that no one was there, and after a while willed myself to climb down; not even glancing at the mystery buildings that must lay to the right of the massive a/c unit. Sliding off the trunk, I tried not to thing about all the germs and potential viruses my feet might be picking up as I stepped off again onto the fake moss. Rapping my knuckles on the boulder I�d jumped off of, I turned a little left and stepped over it in search of the shops, some guard or something useful, and if fortunate an exit.
Written before:
6/23/03
(This story relates to a new nation built in the Pacific after a massive chain of unknown Volcanoes erupts in the Pacific in a ring. Scientists are aware of increasing volcanic activity in the region of the Pacific Ocean for months. After a chain of connecting land is constructed in seven months approximately to a year, the volcanoes begin to stop. Scientists and explorers examine the land.)
Exerts from a historian letter to current president of Moulton Enterprises.
�Continuing, on a personal note I cannot in any good conscience as a historian keep them off you forever. I appreciate the housing you�ve provided for my exiled sister, but you�re asking me to forgo my honor code. The only reason I�m aiding you at all is for her frankly. I really do appreciate your assistance, and our family is indebted to you and your nation, my blessings that it�ll live. Had you asked for me to delay publishing my assumptions on the mysterious events during the last four months for another week, I may have hesitated�you seem to know people very well�
�. To notify you, I have received your kind invitation to visit your Weathered land, but I was born here, and I intend to die here, only my studies will briefly draw me away. I just hope you�ll care for my sister and keep in touch�A lot of nations wrongfully feel that she advised the tyrants in Algeria, but as her sister, I know in my mind and heart this isn�t so�She is only a scholar, not a mastermind, please don�t arrest her until you�ve spoken to her personally, I know you�ll agree�
�Your land mystifies me. I�ve been trained in the science of objective viewpoints, and the nature of history, but your nation defies every other. Respectfully, how did you learn about the shifts in the Pacific Plates before scientists in Washington could? I�m also curious about how Molten scientists were able to learn the strike point and mobilize ships to reach the rim-islands before any Nasa scientists knew where the meteor Alison would strike.
Please, I promise not to publish any information until your consent is given-my sister knows this word is reliable, but your story has evoked mysteries that won�t be answered for millenniums in the new world-order I�ve for-seen. I know you have many specialized employees, many who no doubt owe you and your servants your life, but I beg to be let in on some of the secrets of this century�The pride I�d feel from being the first historian, in the world and the first woman in my country to learn the secrets of your world-wide nation would follow me my entire life. Many people I�ve met are terrified of you and sensing your veiled strength, they are right to keep distance, but having received hand-written letters from my candid sister you�re protecting by executive orders, I can�t help but admire your generous and courteous side. I would be content to compose a bibliography on you and your nation, should it be the last work I publish, please sir! One last favor!
Your indebted contact,
Arizona,
Exerts from the same day reply:
Your formal words but casual expressions hide that we�re long friends. There is no need to be so secretive; our courier is reliable. Do you still fear my newly forged strength; after all I�ve proved to you? Blood is thick I remind you, but mine is not thicker than you or your sister. Because our blood is far thicker than water, we were able to rest above it in our new world. I do hope it floats�I fear sometimes I confide to you that our nation has no base�should the hollow volcano tubes crumble on which we reside crumble�
You know I would love to have your famous and respected name published on a biography of me, but if I were to make one, I�d insist, in all my vanity, on writing it myself. As for a history, I am not dead yet! And many facts need to be concealed until success comes fast and easily, I want to build a nation for a change that isn�t based on our own countries� blood-shed, and of almost equally importance, that of the nations before us. For them to have been successful, they deserve respect from our countrymen, and I also don�t intend to turn the nation of greatest potential into a dictatorship, no matter how efficient a beneficial one become, and away from its high regard to come. As you are ignoring, publishing facts, or even theories, risks destroying the enviable position of surprise, mystique, and our United States/British press-planted, and easily apparent, underestimation. Doing so would increase the deaths in forging our utopia ten-fold. Do you remember our slogan, �One Hundred Years in One?� success would be achieved dramatically and with less destruction, you are under no illusions our success will come.
Until foreign affairs clear-whenever this may be, I cannot allow classified information on the orgins of this continent, nation, company, or anything related to be passed to you, the risk being of the capture of the scripts you work on by anyone. Please know that I trust you to make a well-written and painfully objective history, but the risk of its capture is unacceptable according to an appointed adviser I consulted. I will be pleased to aid you in publishing the first well-constructed, and accurately completed documents, on the affair, by providing information when available and safely transmittable. Once considered a reasonable possibility by my most trusted advisers, you may be the first official historian to publish a �Molten packed� organization and government backed primary source on the beginnings of our colonization of this land by way of corporation originally. Not only will I do this using your admired name by the well educated, but I will also be giving additional fame to an important friend and your sister.
A Promise is yours, that I will consult you with information on our origins before any other historian. I do hope your sole intent to publish is not merely the selfish desire for pride; no friendship would force me to advocate strong principles against excessive evils in the human character. I ask you to kindly not to reply to me on this matter, as I know you well enough, through time, to know that you always have hidden purposes for good, which you painstakingly conceal in seemingly evil purposes to ward of skeptism, and receive laughs. You have always been good at heart, so says your sister when I curiously asked her and one of my advisors about your request.
I will care for your sister, and I have personally appointed a reformist Chinese scholar to educate her in the fields of physics, history (Including in a few months some of ours.), and economics. I�ll appoint another soon to tutor her in mathematics, literature, and bio/chemical sciences until a school with a creditable degree may be constructed, publicly planned on the northwestern part of the island. I must go now, I hope to stay in contact with you throughout our lives, an urgent appointment has been called and I was just now notified.
Yours sincerely,
K. B.
President of Molten, Inc.
Alison one day later:
I couldn�t wait for a reply! I know you probably have already sent me a reply, but I couldn�t wait for it, and I already know what you�ll write in your letter. �No, you won�t allot information or approve, the new nation will be great, and my sister is fine.� I respectfully feel more is to be considered on the issue, I am as you are aware, an excellent historian, I pride myself. It gives me little piece of mind knowing so little except theories on your nation, despite knowing you for years. Your mysteries, I plead that you will reveal the significant ones�
Another historian:
Dear Mr. Jaccoua Mitzoliargon,
I have high regards toward your successes in exploration. I have made a point to search online for information on your expeditons weekly, and I re-read/watch every piece of information, no matter how modest, that you submit.
To illustrate how little I as a fortunate historian, (And to thereby additionally give you an additional source of what most of us un-specialized, and media option-oriented poisoned Americans know; if you subtract from this modest and brief summary, you�ll know our impressions if you didn�t know them already. I write this because I myself respect all emerging nations, and secretive ones are no different, and contrary are interesting to study, I personally am one American who respects Tarn and recognizes it as a separate nation and Enity.) know�Here is a description of what I know happened as an objective historian, frank and bold. To clarify how I learned how to contact you, four days ago from the date I wrote this, I dishonorably read a diary entry at a fellow historian�s and (friend of mine�s) house, that I accidentally stumbled upon while my friend was using a bathroom. It was a short and recently written, it mentioned being able to contact you as well as the original sighter of Alison. While I read the disturbing entry, my friend walked in and I hastily put back the diary.
After I left I began to wonder if she really could contact you, but when I asked she denied it and demanded to know where I had heard the rumor, I haven�t reminded her yet that diaries don�t lie. First I returned home to write this letter which I intend to give to her to hopefully deliver, if she denies capability to contact you I�m prepared to beg for her to accept the letter and even break trusts by revealing I read her diary. Perhaps she has told you all this or you know her. In any case,
Due to so few details provided, and excluding most of the clearly known political statements:
The continent that the newest nation in human history inhibits is formed from one to two years of massive volcanic eruptions from a chain of somehow unmapped/missed suddenly appearing volcanoes. (The theories are that if they appeared suddenly they were erupting continuously but didn�t show on seismo-graphs, and if missed/mistaken for something else, the volcanoes were dormant.)
The volcanoes formed a loose apparently irregularly-shaped �circle,� larger than Austallia.
The lava from the volcanoes and flow vents was intense and quickly rose to make tiny islands from base to air, small frequent earthquakes ensured world-wide.
Sailors avoided these islands because of frequent storms at the time and dangerous, continuing to flow, vents of cooling lava and super-heated gasses.
The United States, China, Indonesia, and Great Britain each annexed about six of the larger, cooling islands. (As you know, Indonesia�s claim was rebutted, while none of the countries had sent humans on the islands.)
The islands became large enough that they stuck out of the water, some became dormiant volcanos, others grew longer and became mountains, only known because of Satelites.
Meanwhile a meteor in space began to aim past Earth and surpassed Mars. A secretive organization calling itself and controlled related companies various names, i.e. Molton, composed a fleet and mass of secret world-wide specialists they planned dispatch on ships around the storm ridden islands. Nasa was tipped off to the meteor, hypothized to be mainly composed of loosely fitted metallic elements. The meteor was named Alison, it would change direction upon approaching Earth and slow down-belived to be caused by a gravity fluke.
The islands linked forming a sometimes a mile wide, to a fifty mile wide ring with a couple loose islands outside and inside the ring. American scientists belive solid rock outcroppings underwater prevented the inter-change of waters between outside and inside the island-ring. Water is trapped in a sea larger than the Mediterranean in the center of a thin-as-crust continent.
The storms began to lessend and Moulton dispersed from multiple nations thousands of ships composed of barges to fishing boats, and carrying hundreds of thousands of specialists with resources, machinery, oil, gold, food, seeds, timber, construction metals, rare metals/minerals, housing supplies, small permit bought legalized arms, possibly illegal arms, and you no doubt no what else.
As the storms lessened, non-manned aircraft were sent to the new continent, 20% came back, the rest didn�t, and none landed. No one is known to have been on the black volcanic-rocked scorched islands yet.
Alison is changes course and increasingly slowly orbits four times, closing closer into Earth. Molton�s ships close around the continent while other nations ponder, some of the smaller boats set course toward the newest islands around the outer continent.
Leaders prepare to try and shoot it apart if it lands on land near civilization. An amazing twenty nations are loaned non-nuclear war-heads from world powers, various friendly nations are given them. How many, if any war-heads of any type could down Alison is unknown. Scientists predict that at its current speed and direction the hot asteroid, now a meteor will with no additional changes, land in the ocean. The only predicted problem is tidal waves and possible earthquakes, everyone has been baffled repeatedly this year but are relived to see the meteor break into several medium sized chunks, spread, and sizzle up on satlites and non-manned aircraft in a massive miss of smoke, after landing in the center of the newly-formed sea, in the newly formed continent.
Crime and �Jihad� Fanatics ratios to pre-Alison are reduced again as people no longer fear this is the end of the world�worldwide. The closest chance at world-peace broken, temporary unity against a potential foe is removed after 6 days of almost un-conditional co-operation after Alison�s sighting.
Volcanic eruptions have mostly ceased, underground cracks have begun to open up after Alison�s impact, much of the water in the sea has evaporated, and the parts of the sea are now slowly sinking away into volcanic tubes and underground. The sea had been reduced, and now the remaining sections are split, there are multiple tiny seas, and 3-4 large seas, a few of which are connected to the largest sea.
Hours after the potential death-day asteroid steamed away into tiny fragments, having seen the tidal waves broken by the previous ring-continent, now just a chain of hilly/sea level/mountainous barriers, the first humans land on the nick-named, �Black continent,� �New continent,� �Ring continent� �Molton continent� �Alison�s continent,� �Weathered land,� �Cursed continent,� �New America,� �Paradise,� �God�s Purified Land,� �Bomb Continent,� �Australia�s sister,� �New Australia,� �Island of the Lab Mice,� �Desolation,� �Land of the Hidden Sun,� �Neues Deutschland,� �Rivulet,� �Bismarkan,� �Sperren Sie Land,� �molton� �Nieuw Dutchland,� �Waterfall,� �Ruimte land,� �Espa�a Nueva,� �El Espacio Crea La Tierra,� �Sont L�-bas des Limaces,� �la Nouvelle France,� �Italia nuova,� �il Paese di Madre,� �la Casa di Mamme,� 'Novo Portugese,' 'Ny Nowegian,' 'Desserts palass,' �Charred Land,� �Ashgudassitgeds,� �Land of Scarcity,� �Training Realm,� �Blessed Crater,� �Construction of Knives,� �New Pandora,� �Politician Tincans,� �Land of Security,� �Rolling Thunder,� �Forgotten Fault,� �Land of Mystery,� �Moulton,� �the Secret World,� �Shaped of Elements,� �the Last Home,� �Silky White Sands,� �Savanna,� �Ashtray,� �Typhoon,� �Kamakazee,� �Cansteina,� �Canstine,� �Molten,� �One of the scientists, Tarn Canstein, was so eager to be the first man on �Water Crater,� that he jumped off a shipping Freight and swam ashore while his ship, the USS Restraint, was still anchored in harbor. Tarn Canstein was the first man on �the Gift from Space,� hed planted a paddle into a nearby black-sand dune, and tore off his Moulton T-Shirt, and smiled. Turning around to face his gaping colleages, he made a short, probably pre-made speech, and spoke with authority and seemingly rough passion in Latin, �To find new hope in new lands, we must first bring it from home,� he marveled at the endless stretch to the horizon of rough black pebbles, and jagged rocks to his right and left. �The day (At the beach) from left to right, we find to be a collection of white powdered sands, will be the day our unique (rough land) loses its edge, and must finally take its place alongside the soft and well-worn nations of the world�We may loose our edge in power, but we�ll gain friends (Visitors) from foreign lands.� Being religious, he converted into English, �In God�s name, a new beginning.� He then tied the T shirt tightly to the paddle and shoved it in the dune while his shipmates laughed.
Due to rising waves, and because of his landing at a low-tide, where he planted his �flag,� first is normally inaccessible, and the location has been contested despite camcorder footage from the shipmates.
Another man, Jaccoua Mitzoliargon, was the first man to assemble a settlement on a cliff near the landing point, and claims to have been the first man on the continent, despite landing from the East, and that Tarn�s landing was videotaped with a clock.
The first ships unloaded on the western part of the continent, followed by landings on the surrounding islands, north-western part of the continent, and eventually eastern, and then Southern parts of the island. Within two days of Tarn�s landing, every ship had unloaded.
New settlements were constructed, the north-western part of the continent was planned as a trading post, the remote south-eastern, and north eastern parts of the continent had mountains on the costs, and gold laden lowlands which were discovered three months after the first settlements were assembled. The coastlines were settled first, as well as the seas near the center of the island, some becoming swamps. The outer coast were black ash, the inner mainland, was of more normal terrain, mostly dessert, forests of dead Kelp, and swamps. Some seas probably stayed alive from eventual streams that flowed from ceartin western and northern mountains. Some are belived to have became fresh-water lakes and we assume your men have stocked.
Two days after the first landings when all ships had unloaded, communications with most satellites viewing the continent, and all precision zoom satellites ceased. Fresh satelites that focused on Molten refused to operate, and then fell dead in space. Only four international weather satellites remained intact, and monitering the �Patch in the Pacific�
After re-asserting control over panicky segments, significant meetings are that the UN calls together a joint meeting as does Nato and the United States Congess and Cabinets. All share their information if not explaining how attained, most members agree that the radio, telivison, and internet broadcast claims to �Tarn,� re irrelevant, and all nations are eligible (Though Indonesia seemed universally dismissed.) to claim Tarn if they could prove their control over their segment of land. Citizens world-wide were still celebrating life spared from Alison, forgetting that the �government/governments had it all under control.� Additional investigations are carried out.
Three days after the first landings, 3 United States Oil Tankers, one Japanese Barge, and an Austalian Helicopter �vanish,� they have broken radio contact simultaneously and the Australian Helicopter is off radar, passengers and cargo lost also. The Oil-tankers� disapearence goes unnoticed for weeks, its assumed the tankers vanished in light of sonar records on the same day the Japanese Barge vanished.
Four days after the first landings, two more barges vanish off sonar after leaving a Japanese harbor. Seven private passenger planes break off radio contact, flight paths, and eventually off radar along with two Indonesian helicopters and a New Zealand commercial passenger plane. On this day and throughout the next week, eighteen Middle-Eastern, Russian, and American Oil Tankers break radio contact.
Day Five after the first landings on the new continent, an official claim is made by Queo~rose Werenhen to the continent as a representative of Moulton Enterprises, and broadcasting live images of pre-drafted, signed laws complete with a constitution from Saudi Arabia and Centralia television stations, relayed then by Nato countries� press.
Countries� elected leaders publicly draft a formal response and appoint meetings when asked their feelings on the matter.
On the days between five days and eight days after the first landings on Tarn, thirteen various Boeings and other large commercial airplanes vanish in mid air along with uncounted of military/commercial helicopters, private/war planes, and Jets in countries bordering Tarn. Some planes seem to vanish right off of air-fields, and at least nineteen are found dismantled or destroyed. Reports of stolen cars sky-rocket, mysteriously, particularly in Japan and Hawaii. Hundreds of fishing boats, yachts, and private/commercial ships vanish or crash/sink into rocks. Unchecked or unreported for weeks is the number of land and naval armed forces that vanish.
Declarations of increased security and investigation are launched, even by unaffected European and energetic, but incapable African countries. Airspace is more closely regulated, men working professions by sea or air are panicky.
Mobs of un-rulely citizens for weeks launch riots, world-wide for seemingly unimportant reasons.
A three minute video-broadcast from Tarn of established wooden buildings are sent from Oregon and Vancover before relay; historians here
Do you think our friend would be angry if I told a newspaper she had contact with you?
Jonaren R. Inhalf
Exerts from letters received a day after Jonaren R. Inhalf�s letter
Dear Mr Jaccoua Mitzoliargon,
My Daddy said that if I typed a neat letter and enveloped it, he�d stamp it and send it to you. He�s very fond of you, and I am too��So I was thinking, with all that said, could you please consider his request? For me?
Hello, my name is Joe Encarpen, I was told that you might be contactable if I gave a simple typed letter to the secretary here���Mr. Jonaren Inhalf told me that I could��.So with that known, there are some questions I�d like to ask you�� The most important is how many charity organizations are you subscribed to if any, and which ones? I offer a����generous donation would help me to get back on my feet to start a pro-efficient program to save the starving children in Connecticut��.Submitted to the public at your choosing����Magazines would provide you with additional publicity����..Please consider my proposal.
Hello, a friend of mine said I could reach you��.I represent a non-profit organization of scientists working on genetics��..Our work is crutial to the human race����could improve our knowledge of the human body, with this men and woman could live substantially longer and longer lives means more exploration and productivity for potential immigrating settlers���.Our next month�s budget is behind by approximately $4.3 million dollars��..institute or museums will not fund additional research��..project to be shut down���The monkeys and experiments will be stripped and sold into public zoos if the project fails to���Additional donations might���..I appreciate your concerns and for reading this. Please consider the consequences of idleness and help our organization to continue our project, in ten years its possible our project could with financial assistance lengthen the average dully-medically insured human life-span by 2 months. Lets make a difference, for the future generations with treatments we might just see.
Dr Mk. Arifal.
My patient told me that he�d diliver my writings to you sir, if I discarded his medical check-up bill for brochutus�� ����..Sir, I was in the United States Navy as a medic for four years and have some questions I�d like to ask you����� Permision to ask freely sir ���..about how exactly two oil rigs disappeared off the coast of Saudia Arabia, and were found the next day on the Eastern Coast of Australia the other day? Did the Lurking Sharks have a marine-corps before the raids of the shore of Japan, before the first landings on Tarn? I�d also like to see a copy of the blue-prints for one of the war-aircraft, or war-outfitted captured ships that I�ve been hearing about on the news, only for my curiousity, I�ll even return the prints after I read them, you can laminate them or have one of the men I know must be planted in this county watch over my shoulder while I read sir. I won�t tell any one, or write what I saw on anything, not even in my diary, nor to my wife, that is how serious I am. I rode in some helicopters back in the war-raids with North Korea and know a little about air-craft��.you must hear this type of thing all the time from people who can contact you, but I swear secrecy, admire your accomplishments, and would love to keep in contact, I�m patriotic but I don�t agree with the foreign policies exhibited by my nation toward a peaceful outpost. I�m not the only one either; nearly every man, woman, or child, of any age, has their own opion which contrasts with that of the pollitcians they elected. While like everyone I can�t symphatize with occasional piracy, I can ceartinly recognize the first claim to Tarn was Moulton�s and that you�re here to stay. I personally think our leaders fear yours and want a piece of that huge chunk of land that has changed currents and shipping routes along with weather I�m told. They aren�t happy about the vast influences and multinational well-spokeb friends that your leaders seem to have met everywhere, and they are jelous and scared that their current technological, diplomatic, millitarical, and even economical edge in trade is being slowly being lost to a growing, withdrawn nation.
You are becoming something of a hero here, particularly amoung the Hispanics, I myself was amazed by your �little hike� through an erupting volcano. How did you record that footage on tape anyhow? You ought to have explained that in the broad-casts, a few of my buddies understandably don�t belive that your little stepping stone footage was real, they think it�s a fraud to shove miracles into the eyes of other nations and into the hearts of your�s. I know it did happen though or else the moving footage would be smoother and your crafty crew wouldn�t have broadcast the footage.
Could you patch that through to your superiors, or to whoever you need as I�m dying of curiousity, I�d truly on behalf of my old friends in the Navy and my speculating clients and co-workers appreciate it.
,
5/13/03
A Monetary Inheritance
As you know, I�ve been kept in the dark for years about my spontaneous inheritance. I was very much surprised when I received a formal letter informing me of a meeting between the relatives and family members of the chief owner of World Mart, and that my name was on the list because of a distant name that I remembered knowing, and yet couldn�t place. The letter was remarkably vague, and told me not to worry, this would be standard to �the usual proceedings.� I got the impression that a generic letter had been addressed to me on the assumption I already knew what cause had been important enough to call on me.
I thought hard about whether to attend the conference to take place in a few weeks, but decided that despite its occurrence in a nearby city, (I wondered if there was someone, or everyone critical lived near me or if I was indeed important enough to call a meeting close by, or if I was just hoping that the letter was more important as well as the appointment than it really was.) it was not worth attending with so little information on its purpose. I tried to send a reply to the return address on the letter twice, but the first letter came back having not gone through, while the second didn�t come back at all�but neither did another letter from the elusive sender. I gave it up; although while being driven past the city of the upcoming appointment later, the meeting scheduled a week and a half away, I told the driver to kindly detour and help me search for the building where the conference would take place. She agreed, and we quickly found the building. (This was a miniature, rather rural city of only around two blocks of dirt flatlands, and the building stood out being the only office building, and taller than the city hall itself.) I derived upon my feet�s striking the cement in the parking lot that the driver I accompanied, was wrong in suggesting that a mistake had been made in sending me the letter. As I looked at the polished chrome and glass complex that seemed to sparkle a golden sky-scraper among the undeveloped congregated houses, liquor stores, garages, and nearly barren farm and wastelands, I wondered why this site had been chosen to plant an obviously new and unmarked building and why a professional group had invited me to this wonder.
Even the shallow parking lot seemed state-of the art-both I and my friendly driver had missed the fountains and sparkling glass rainbows made from mists that seemed to pour out of the planted trees themselves to for man-made wonders that glowed faintly in the sun for minutes before both the water spouting pools and colored mists lapped to a stop or ceased to release water as if not to allow a rhythm to develop and appearing patterns to drag away beauty from the two isolated un-beckoned guests. When we had mustered the courage to step away from the amazing water effects, we sprinted away from the car, hopping up the steps and over a bridge covering a short spanse of artificial fish-filled rivers and grassy meadows in common trying hard not to gawk or stop to be intiminated by wealth and lose our nerve to enter the approaching double doors.
Relived that the doors appeared normal and boorish, we slowed down to walk through at a comfortable pace. It was only when we were near the at first glance solid wooden horizontally boarded doors that we realized the entire door was made constructed of painfully inserted strips of wood from what my driver counted to be twelve types of trees, with every strip of wood a quarter inch wide, and somehow stuck nearly seamlessly to the other polished fibers to form a seemingly new type of wood from which the door came. Windows near the door that appeared shaded from a distance were now cler and through them I saw a vast lobby with Ivory desks, fancy rugs, and lights in shapes and shades I had never seen in a store. The doors were automatic, but instead of sliding apart sideways, they fell into a rosy wooden doorstep, seemingly vanishing into the floor , doorstep included. A plainly dressed lady lying on a green couch that was shaped like a curled leaf or cocoon woke up at the sound of the door opening and rolled out to ask us about our destination, day, name, purpose, and whether we required food or a man to follow and serve us while we stayed. Wanting to appear good natured and self-reliable I refused and tried to repress whatever expression I had on my face to a less casual smile than my friend, and more formal and serious expression that didn�t appear ready to drool saliva from an open mouth onto the pretty dear skin we had stepped onto. My friend must have saw the contouring expression on my face, and she tried to cease making a spetacle of herself and restrained herself to keeping her head and feet in one direction. I hoped dearly that I was doing a better job than her in looking professional as if I�d already seen everything, while being sure not to cause my skin to cling to my face with a clenched jaw, or to hang lose and open with the slacked jaw that was tightening into a bony skull on my friend�s face. The jointly casually and professionally dressed lady led us toward an elevator so we could talk with some privacy on the trip toward another level.
If there was anything special about the elevator, neither I or my friend saw it being busy contending with a security guard and a barrage of questions while we tried to take in the situation and reflect on it all. I explained that I�d received a letter, and pulled the wrinkled thing that had an orange-juice stain out of a pocket in my conspicuous slacks, and was ushered through a door on the our secound stop. (I was surprised to see so few people in the lobby and on the floors that I visited on my first visit to what I learned to be both the expensive recently constructed private residence of the top owner of World Mart, and also a commerce building for guests; meant to leave a lasting impression of wealth on business visitors, press, and a handful of World mart office workers/planners.)
The first stop was so that a security guard could scoot around a short hall�s corner to check our baggage and interigate us while I explained our reason for being there to both the apparent greeting secretary, and to the security guard, who determined for us which button to press to reach a floor while not explaining why we were visiting it.
Finaly, when we reached floor number 8, the elevator door I had found being shoved into it by a wary security officer to be brass opened. Despite that I was closest to the door and that I really have never found myself or my friend suspicious, the guard quickly brushed by me and with a bulky frame blocked all of the hall behind him except the door to my left which he gestured toward franticly, how he kept a polite posture and smile while jutting his boot, eyebrows, lips, and a normally rude middle finger toward the glass door I don�t know looking back; maybe I just was so awed I thought he was polite. By anycase, when I twisted the door knob open I heard a beep, followed by a more beeps from two plastic shelves on either side of the door-frame; I thought a metal detector was more efficient on the first floor, but then I realized how easy it is to sneak objects through lobbies. The secretary and guard ignored the beeps while the secretary explained that he owner was a little conscious about security with a gesture toward a closet door knob�s key hole.. The security guard informed me that a mini-camera was actually hidden in that keyhole, and the reason the spectacles started on the parkinglot was because of some telescopic video cameras on the roof.
Sometime 2003
Political Mistake
�Damn it all, damn you Charles, damn the whole of congress and especially its reporters!�
�Calm down you old man, half of it was the alcohol, I�m sure that half of it was imagined so you have little to fear!�
�It was no dream! No hallucination, and the stares were VERY real!�
�You know not whatst you say, you must calm down, before you have a heart attack and I am blamed for your death by bringing up a the stressful topic I now want to drop in any case.�
�Ha! A heart attack may be better than what those heindless vermin have in plan for me, �Oh, poor Ihad should have thought twice before trying the Karaoke!� I can imagine just what they have in plan for me, a stack of law books I approved, so as to cause me to blush on national Television when they recite the very quotes I made against alcohol, and then they will propose to impeach me!�
�Oh relax! It isn�t that bad, you just had a little clumsy moment.�
�You call this a little clumsy moment!�
�I�m sure doctors can have that removed, they�re be no detection, everyone will forget.�
�I agree, in my dreams.�
�Why don�t you just take a flight away for a while�relax�we can talk about this another time when you�re calmer.�
�And go where? Where can I go without a stare or chortle? Used to be I could walk about listening to sighs of admiration and free food in exchange for autographs; now I�d be surprised if the waiters serve me!�
�Just trust me it isn�t that bad, and your real friends and family won�t care no matter what happens on TV, or on your appearance.�
�I don�t want to talk about it anymore, I hold you responsible for driving me. You should have known better.�
�Wink, you were threatening to tell about my involvement in pardoning that innocent man�the one some already media-poisoned Americans think to be guilty without more attention drawn to the case and the reelection only I, and not you have to worry about.�
�Maybe he is, like me.�
�No, I spoke with him myself, before I called in favors but this isn�t the issue.�
�Yeah, your driving without a license is our issue.�
�No, your pride is. Now listen, your little newly acquired flaws can all be removed, and one of the first things to do is forgive your daughter. She�ll understand if you reason with her, you can�t blame her for starting a fuss with you after watching television; she�s upset because she cares. And honestly, not only do your allies in congress-who will forgive you so calm down! -Care but so will a few friends of mine who are judges, ones who care, but not about what you�ve done, and but about your well being, my friendship, and our money. Don�t feel upset or, well, don�t be offended when I use the word but jealous, either, because it isn�t a high connection that I have as you see it, but a dishonorable one. So if you�re worried about law, don�t be, its covered. Only your reputation, and more importantly your pride is a problem. Both have a solution, now are you ready to relax so that we may find a good one lacking confrontation in peace?�
�I suppose�
---------
(Three minutes later both are sitting, or in the case of one lying on sofas instead of standing in the same room.)
�I�ve never been so ashamed in my life.�
�It wasn�t THAT bad!�
�You try standing up there and you�ll know how it feels.
�What is going on in here?� A woman stepped out from behind a curtain, with an expression on her face that any politician knows is the one that shows concern and is comforting, while the real intent is to learn more information. But to be fair, the secretary claimed she had been working in the District of Columbia for less than a month, and so her innocence in displaying these easily deciphered messages around veteran�s in the word of the tongue was understandable. �I�ll get in trouble if my supervisor knows I tried to take a short-cut back from break, I�m not supposed to enter this new room�I just got a little curious�Please don�t tell, ok good, thank you good gentleman. I�m sorry about overhearing but Just was afraid when I heard footsteps that it�d be a friend of the boss, so I ducked around this to hide, and I couldn�t see, and because I couldn�t see, I was afraid there another accompanying you two that would recognize me, so I stayed hidden. Now that I can see, I do see that it may have been for the best had I just stayed there.� She quavered, as if suddenly aware of the murderous expression on one of the men she�d first appeared startled by.
�Don�t worry, we understand perfectly, there�s nothing we said that we wouldn�t mind sharing,� said the younger of the two men, his calm voice betraying no worry or concern while sounding forgiving and outgoing, and with the gray in his mostly black haired shimmering in the halogen lamp�s light.
�What! Are you daft! She�ll report this to press! And now she knows EVERYTHING! She�s probably a lying reporter, that�s why she didn�t step out. I know all of the supervisors in this building; all of them are too nice to their employee�s! Only that pirate Swarth of security gives anyone pain, and do you think she�s a security guard?�
�My supervisor has been in a bad mood lately because I�m so clumsy, she�s mean and maybe I�ll quit,� she complained adjusting one of her pant legs.
�SHE�S BEEN TAPING US! THAT PANT LEG HAS A TAPE RECORDER UNDER IT! YOU TRAITOR! SECURITY! -�
�I�m sure she is genuine- (And then to his companion�s interruption) oh shut up pig-killer!)-I mean, refrain from personal comments until I offer you a drink in my private office later Mr. Sung.�
�No Girt, I won�t, trust me on this; I have more experience than you do, how did you get in here? I won�t give you an interview, don�t give any recordings to anyone.�
�Please Mr. Sung! Relax, she isn�t a reporter, my intuition has never proved me wrong, you�re just imagining things, and besides what does she have to gain by revealing herself? Nothing!�
He twisted his head to hide his face�s angle from the unexpected guest and lowered his tone to almost a whisper.
�You�re just ashamed she heard us talking personally but there is nothing you or I can do about it, so quit imagining excuses or ways to intimidate her and fall silent and follow the lead, I�ll convince her to keep this secret. No need to get paranoid Rip Van Wrinkle!�
(Rip Van Wrinkle was one of the many nick names and personal jokes that the two over many years the two had known each other since their first introduction in congress when they learned they were from both representatives from the west Wisconsin area. This particular tease was due to a recent instance two days back when his friend, whose full name is Ihad Sung Bade, had dashed toward the Senate stand, late, and with an unshaved beard, bathrobe and swollen red eyes. Even worse, after managing to make the strong speech opposing construction of a dam in his home town he�d rushed hard to make, the issue changed to the matter of whether genetically engineered fish-food was safe for aquarium fish to eat, he fell asleep on the stand on national TV, in front of giggling reporters and roaring reporters. Because this wouldn�t on tape later be embarrassing enough, his mouth had to be as wide open as those watching with laughter, and so drool seeped out and soaked into the signatures about the meeting�s issues, including the dam one back home, ruining them; and forcing the matter to be put off until another paper could be drafted. Relived to be leaving early, Ihad sprinted forward to take the lead of the departing representatives. Only to learn the next day when he had the courage to read the newspaper, that his bathrobe had partially fell open, and that his running had brought the attention of even the few pre-occupied broadcasters, as well as every colleague in the room who were too honorable to point it out to him.)
Ihad got upset, but managed to control his temper, even when he saw the words �old man� mouthed, before his colleague turned to face the girl who had taken what she�d assumed to be a silence and Ihad�s attentive obedience to retort and introduce herself. Neither had heard much of what she said due to the silence scolding, except that she was a new employee and that people called her Pourish, just because her father liked naming all of her fourteen siblings odd names.
�Yes maim, we should have introduced ourselves earlier, I am Grit Toothed, one of the members of the House of Representatives for Wisconsin, of my second term, and this is my friend Ihad Bade, an unlucky senator from the same county as I in our common home state of Wisconsin. Perhaps the only thing we have in common!�
He and the Pourish laugh, except for Ihad who is straining his mind to think of an excuse to drag his friend away so that he can shout at his lack of knowledge and experience before continuing their personal conversation.
�Honored, no matter how many celebrities I meet, I�m still fascinated, maybe later you could sign my signature book-I�ve started one because of all the famous people I thought, and I have begun to meet.�
�Certainly, if you�ll simply hand it here I�ll write in it before you leave.� He gestures with a fixed smile, toward an olivewood table.
I suppose I�d better keep my mouth shut, Ihad thought, realizing that he couldn�t leave without causing a scene, and speaking would serve no purpose. He turned his eyes around the room, this was his friend�s private lobby; he found it suspicious that anyone working in the Capital Building for a month would try to take a short-cut through this room which was a dead end and then hide when the owners arrived�He was about to say so when he remembered his vow of silence and reminded himself that she could just claim she took a wrong turn anyway. So shoving his thoughts aside, he glanced around the moderately sized office room that was full of fancy decorations, but still had pockets of cluttered boxes where his friend hadn�t yet had time to unpack after he was forced to change offices.
The room was about 5 yards long, and about the size of his parent�s house�s old living room, but with carpeting and bars that his parent�s could never afford. His mom would have been pleased to see the view from the netted balcony, and through the regularly polished windows, the gates crowded with tourists, lawns, and beyond. Grit�s office has a better view than I do, Ihad steamed with jealousy as he thought about how much longer he�d been working in the capital. And look! There was his office�s window, the one that is shrouded from view by that lousy piece of fabric that as always blocks my balcony view except on half-staff or stormy days. To think that I dreamed of seeing the United State�s best landscaping from an office in the Capital Building, and now as a Senator, I can only see it from another�s office�Why is it that only when the flag whips about in the clouds that I can glimpse the view, or on the days that friends I know here die? Is it a symbol�maybe I can only see the bad�Like the lousy dirt that smudges my windows only in all the offices in Congress because the window washers don�t take the trouble to wash behind that flag which should be flown from a grounded flagpole, not some an antenna-like wire that protrudes from the roof?!
Realizing that his face was burning bright and that his thoughts had drifted, he snapped his head around to the conversation he�s forlorn to find both his colleague and what was apparently already his good friend to be staring at him.
�What are you so upset about? I said I was sorry.�
�He does that sometimes, don�t be offended, he�s well past middle age and his mind drifts, in this case its easy to imagine where it�s drifted too,� he said with a glance toward the floor.
�I�m apologize too and I forgive you,� he breathed trying to catch his breath and calm his erratic breathing, �forgive me also for not comprehending, but did you ask me something?�
�Yes, I wasn�t sure if you were listening, but I would just like to ask you some questions if you wouldn�t mind.�
�Are you a reporter?�
�For crying out loud Winkle, she�s denied it plainly three times! Just know this, she is only curious after overhearing our�conversation.�
Ihad sighed. Fine, I�d be interested in your shoes too, and besides, I owe it to her for being so rude, and I need every ally no matter how small now after all that�s happened. He thought. What he really said was far more wordy and cunning.
�Ok, just don�t tell anyone what I say.�
�Very well, first question: yesterday, what was your reaction to the newspaper.�
�You already know, I was upset and I ran off from home to get a bear, and do some typically lower class recreation to cool down. To start first I unintentionally parked my Lexus in a fire lane, one where the paint was so faded that it was hardly visible.
Date of compostion lost. Presumably in or before the month of 6/30/03, which is the date of most likely all files on the floppy drive this story was found on. (Note added 2/8/2005, while organizing stories that had been moved in a roundabout way from backup.)
One Night
One night, a unfortunate soul came about drunkedly
swaying near the waterfront. Apparently he had a hard
day at work. As he walked he heard a stream of voices
enter his mind like, "Lei! you loser," and "you drink
too much." When he reached the end of the waterbout,
he heard a shrill cry, the cry became so loud that he
had to cover his ears. It was a woman who couldn't
stop screaming because her baby and husband had been
killed by a serial killer! When the drunk Chinese man
saw what was going on, he ran towards the woman to
comfort her from her trauma. " They stabbed my
husband and shot my baby!" Then she resumed crying
when the man thought,(I'll get revenge, for this lady
my kungfu skills will teach them a lesson!)
So the man's journey has begun.
As the drunken man named Lei was hugging the lady, a knife flew through the air from the shadows and struck the wife in the back narrowly missing Lei's hand and stabing her in the heart. Her eyes bload-red and crying she stambered, "I love my husband, avenge me." And then her eyes rolled back and she collapsed in his arms-The killer's assistance watched from binoculars as Lei cried not feeling a pulse. He looking up from the corpse which he'd dropped gently on the floor he suddenly smashed a bottle's bottom into the concrete floor creating a dangerous weapon of jagged glass. The assistant watched as the killer slept closer to the get-away vehical that had been prepared. It was a speedboat. He glanced back at the drunken-man who was screaming and running randomly and correctly in...
...the direction he'd assumed the knife came from, staggaring a little in his drunken state but determined and making ground surprisingly fast. The killer who had been sneaking away quietly accidently stepped into a puddle and made a loud splash on dock. The druken man the accomplish saw was now running toward the sound which echoed in the still night giving away his possition. The killer broke into a run and jumped into the boat. "You didn't have to kill her," the accomplish said coldy. "Its better this way kid, no witnesses." "Why didn't you use the gun? Why a knife, what if you missed?" "Then I'd use the gun, I don't trust silencers, just trust my judgement-you've never killed yet, you wouldn't know." Hawk finished untying the saftey rope and the boat started to drift into...
...the waves. "We should have used a car or at least a bigger boat." "Yeah, but how did I know the waves would be this high." He pulled the chain and the boat started to fight back agianst the waves and make headway down the coast. "HEY! Where the hell are you going!" Lei yelled from on deck-he'd just caught up and was waving a bottle in the air. "I should have killed that drunken fool earlier when he was with that girl. Hurry up Hawk! Lets get out of here so that I won't leave any more bloody bodies around." Hawk turned the steering wheel, "Aren't you going to kill him, he saw you kill her!" "So, what is he going to say? You saw him! I drank some booze and then a woman I never saw before came up to me and hugged me after screaming that her husband was dead. Then she got stabbed by...
...a knife, but I didn't see who did it but she got stabbed." He pointed, "Turn a little right, that way we're ride the waves more unstead of fighting them straight on." Hawk did and the boat pulled a little closer to shore. Lei was screaming curses and running not far behind them on dock. The killer pulled out his pistol and took off the silencer. "That fool has blown our cover with all his yelling anyway. I'll shoot some shots off toward him and hopefully scare him off." He t
wisted around and after unscrewing a cylinder, he dropped it in the puddle in the bottom of the boat.
...a knife, but I didn't see who did it but she got stabbed." He pointed, "Turn a little right, that way we're ride the waves more unstead of fighting them straight on." Hawk did and the boat pulled a little closer to shore. Lei was screaming curses and running not far behind them on dock. The killer pulled out his pistol and took off the silencer. "That fool has blown our cover with all his yelling anyway. I'll shoot some shots off toward him and hopefully scare him off." He t
wisted around and after unscrewing a cylinder, he dropped it in the puddle in the bottom of the boat. And with that he started firing some gun-shots in the air. That just made Lei curse louder. "This fool must be either very stupid, or very drunk!" "Could be brave," said Hawk with admiration. The killer sneered.
�Looks like I�m going to have to shoot the guy, he doesn�t look like he�s going to stop.� He pointed the gun toward Lei and aimed, Hawk knew he was good shot despite bumpy waves.
(OoC If we won't finish this and just start another story here is the ending agianst all rules just for fun-you can write an alternate ending.)
...And then, before 'the killer' could shoot, 4 creatures looking like mermaids/merman jumped onto the boat and dragged him into the water where they quickly strapped on his cursing head in bag they must have found floating in the ocean and dragged him a few feet under the ocean, letting him slowly suffocate. Hawk saw all the weapons save a knife Hawk carried fall under the ocean and knew he couldn't aid in anyway-and was very shocked. He quickly sailed away while in night vision gogles saw 'the killer' receive divine vengence from a walmart shopping bag. He also saw Lei (Though he only knew his name because he'd screamed that Lei would have revenge.) talking to a fat officer Hawk had somehow overlooked when a beam of light fell from overhead and the fat cop started to rise into the air, before the beam stopped and the man started falling (He was heavy and hard to lift.) before the beam caught him agian feet above the pavement and lifited him into a cloud. The fat cop would live a happy life savagely eating engineered foods, and running on tread-mill like machines to the amusement of his alien masters.
Lei and Hawk were breathless at these spetacles, particuarly when they saw the previously dead woman and man start creeping slowly with bloady fangs showing toward Lei-before a cloud over the moon moved and a ray of light fell on them causing them to vanish. Then Hawk saw a breathless and bewildered Lei rewarded for the capture of a murderer and being offered a chance to rejoin the police department by a detective before suddenly blinking into a giant squid. Hawk gasped as a wide eyed squid swayed knocking over two apartments and squishing the detective. Lei would spend two hundred years nearly invincible in this form, his energy and minerals preserved from a night 200 years before including the alcohol which would cause him to ignore many sentimental memories and rampage through cities. It would be 197 years before mankind was able to invent a method/weapon to kill the beast. Lei hated his new life and was happy to die in a stretching string of melted lead.
Hawk had seen enough! He turned away, but not before he saw a manhole turn into a sprouting redwood tree, and a confused man turn into a pine tree. Apparently a building that had became a giant labordor favored the pine tree, and stood near it for hours before both were exploded by a laughing anarchist. Hawk wanted out of there! He already was moving at full speed away, but still he found his secound wavering foot pressing tightly on the gas pedal with the first. While he was thinking about religion, a hand grabbed his neck from behind. He reached down to pull out his knife..."I'll kill you if you do," Hawk froze, "we'll take you to a place of paradise and stop causing additional mayham if you don't kill anyone." ....*Okey*...Hawk thought. "Yeah...of course..."
And no more additional people were transformed, curses placed, agian. Hawk married several wives and had several different looking kids (All with fins as he married mostly mermaids.) in a palace beneath the seas...He inherited the underwater kingdom as a gift to a daughter's husband by a dying father and lived happily ever after. The end!
LOL! So what did you think?! Stories should always be finished! Otherwise it�s a mystery!
Hawk!
(No I'd hate being stranded in no matter how beautiful a palace, one without a sky!)
4/9/2003