And now for something completely different You have the right to remain in-offensive. Anything you say or do may be used (against you) in one of Sarah's stories. She stood above the cliff overlooking the tangle of interstate; toy-like cars zooming along the lanes and overpasses like rats in a maze. Her long hair blew across her face from time to time and her clothing rippled in the wind. Dramatic yes; but annoying as hell. There. I've done it, I've used that opening that's been floating around in my head for the last year and a half. Now what? The Author rubbed her already reddened eyes and glared at the computer screen, hoping perhaps to will some kind of inspiration from the monitor to her unresponsive brain. FZZATT! "Geh!??" Her head whipped around, reflexively following the noise. A large stink bug, the largest she had ever seen, perched on the desk next to the speaker; right in front of her. The sun beat down on our heads and the word water had taken on a whole new dimension. At a sound beside me, I looked up from my stumbling, exhausted feet to find Rosie, grumbling to her new digital compass. "We lost?" I asked, half seriously. "Not as long as someone" she nodded toward our guide, a tall gangly man who looked as if he was as used to the desert clime as the local wildlife. "Knows where we are. Just don't ask me." She bent over the gadget again. As if called by out conversation, our guide stopped and turned around. "Ok, everyone, let's take a break here. Drink lots of water and rest, we've got a long way to go before we get back to base camp." He bounced over to where we sprawled, the crunch of rocks beneath his feet an odd percussion counter point to our groans of ache and exhaustion. I wondered, and not for the first time this week, why I had ever been so excited to take this field trip. I should have known it would be miserable, school trips always turn out that way. "Got a video game that applies to this situation? I asked Casey, who slumped against a rock next to me. "Oh, stop it." He said, a tired edge in his voice. "I haven't even brought that up since Tuesday." I held up my hands in a gesture of surrender. "Sorry. Geez." "Casey! Sarah! You two caught that Jackalope yet?" Our guide dropped to sit effortlessly (and painlessly, I might add) cross-legged in front of us. "No sign of it yet" I just groaned and picked at my peeling sun burn. The guide laughed, an annoying, patronizing laugh that seemed to reverberate through the rocks, echoing back for more. Suddenly, he stopped, staring fixedly past us. I turned to look. Gavyn was standing there, watching something on the ground intently. "Hey, Gavyn! What-" The guide's stern voice came from behind, drowning put the rest of my thoughts. "Gavyn! Leave it alone!" "What?" came the laughing complaint. "What is it?" I rushed over to look, Casey and Mike following close behind. Following his gaze, I looked I horror at the ground. It was a tiny yellow scorpion. I yelped and jumped back. Gavyn prodded the ground next to it with the toe of his shoe. The small insect reared up and snapped at him with its claws. "Everyone! Come over here! Come see what Gavyn's found!" "It's a scorpion." Mike stated dryly. "Why do you want us to get closer to it?" "That's not just any scorpion, it's extremely rare." Gavyn continued to stomp on the ground near it. "Oh, leave it alone, Gavyn." "It's gonna sting you. Come on." "Yeah, if you die, we'll have to go home." "I wouldn't worry about that, yellow scorpions don't pack much punch. A sting from this guy here would only make you sick for a while. You'd have to get stung by three or four of them to worry." "Thank you for that optimistic thought." I muttered under my breath. *CRUNCH* we all looked down. "Gavyn, how could you?" "It was an accident. It's ok, I didn't-" He stopped, listening. I looked up in horror, all around I could hear a faint chittering; the sound of stiletto legs clicking on rocks, the clicking of crustacean-like claws... "Hey, guys, come and look at this!" The author cried out, jolting everyone in the room out of their writing trances. "What?" "Look, it's a stink bug." Troy began poking it, trying to get it onto a sheet of paper. "Those things only smell if you kill them, right?" "How'd it get in here?" "Well, get it out! I don't want to smell it!" The author opened a window, hoping the large brown bug would fly out of it's own volition. Troy gave one more shake of the paper and the bug was suddenly on it; then flying out the window. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, then went back to their writing. *DING!* She shook herself out of her daydream, fingers hitting strange keys on the keyboard. "Class is over, everyone. Save and log off" She got in one last word, no, phrase, no- "Sarah, log off and go to class." The slightly annoyed voice snapped from over her shoulder, Rats. Two clicks of the mouse later, she had grabbed her backpack and lugged it down the hall. She carefully placed her bulging backpack on the bathroom scale, then peered down in horror as scale, backpack and all, fell through the floor to the basement below. Hold it-isn't the scale in the downstairs bathroom? Fine then. She carefully placed her bulging backpack on the bathroom scale, then peered down in horror at the ten inch crater in the floor. She coughed once as a plume of plaster and dust rose up from the foundation of the house. That one black streak in the yellow- she could feel it. It seemed to radiate out to her, mocking her. No! You have to fill it in! It isn't done yet! Finally, she could stand it no more. Leaping up, she snatched the chalk from the dust tray and shaded in the missing spot in the diagram. With a gratifying 'SPACK!' she replaced the chalk, turning to take her seat, accompanied by the class's laughter. Grinning, she made a long, sweeping bow, gesturing toward the chalk board. The seconds seemed to pass by slower and slower as the teacher droned. She took out a pen she had found in the computer room -it had been siting there for two days so she figured anyone who cared would have reclaimed it by now- and began to draw on her hand with it. At first, they were just squiggles, but then they began to take shape. Purple stick figures danced with each other on her left hand, wiggling to the music in her head. She smiled, and the music grew louder. The figures leapt off her skin to do the tango on the pseudo-wood desk. As they dipped and whirled, spinning faster and faster. The room seemed to be getting larger- no, The Author was getting smaller. The music changed again, a bright and lively tune, and she found herself dancing along. "Ow!" Both girls reeled back, rubbing their heads. "Sorry, my fault." "Nah, I wasn't looking where I was going." Having accidentally switched bodies with her friend, The girl made her way to the bus stop, knowing her friend took the bus every day. Her only hope was to pretend to be the one who usually had this body until the next school day. She realized she had no idea where her friend lived, so, in a flash of insight, flagged down the bus going in the opposite direction. Her mind in turmoil the entire trip, when she got to the bus's final stop, she made a bee-line for the pay-phone. She sighed with relief when someone picked up on the other end. "Hi, I accidentally took the wrong bus and wound up at Glenmont. Can you come pick me up?" The Author rolled her eyes. "That was an awful book." "Huh?" The Author's eyes widened; she hadn't meant to say that out loud. "Uhh, nevermind." Looking out the window of the bus, she noticed a group of men talking by the side of the road. One of them was wearing medical head gear. Brown and leather, it looked like the stereotypical dogfighter's helmet. "You'll not escape this time, Red Baron!" He cried, banking the large red dog-house sharply to the left. Get Met. It pays. "The way she tells it, you're afraid of her." "What? Nah, I ain't afraid to call her, she wants me to come over to her house. We talked a couple days ago. She asked me over to her house." "Man, I don't know any guy who hasn't been over to her house." "Yeah, see, she had this party with all the guys at her old school, Blake or Blair or whatever over..." The conversation rambled on, as The Author desperately tried to banish an image from her mind. The girl in question, clad in a chain mail and leather bikini and stiletto heels, opened her front door to admit a never ending line of high school boys. The Author shook her head and picked up her pen. A flash of something gray caught her eye. She turned, and saw the tall gangly alien gracefully making its way down the steps of the bus. Upon closer inspection, she realized it was not wearing anything. Why shouldn't aliens need clothing too? It had always been a pet peeve of hers. The alien suddenly sported a brown trench coat and an oversized fedora. She blinked. The man in the trench coat raised his briefcase, signaling to some unknown friend and hurried off. The author shifted the weight of her back pack, and headed to the stairs to her next bus stop. She stepped onto the first concrete step; it glided smoothly upward, depositing her at the top. Glancing at her watch, she was surprised to see that it read 5:37. That's not right... She pressed a button. *BEEP!* No, not that one either. *BEEP!* *BEEP!* 3:31 more like it, the bus should be here any second. The face of her watch shone with the reflected sunlight for an instant before it sprouted feathered white wings and fluttered away. That man The author noticed, looking at the passenger across from her, has had his hand between his legs since he got on the bus. She thought back to the previous afternoon, when she had skimmed a page of one of her mother's books; open to a page on emotional disturbance. Wasn't that one of the symptoms? She thought Public masturbation? I guess he could think he's being discreet, but still. What if... Her thoughts were shattered as the bus suddenly stopped short and she was thrown against the seat. "Nobody move!!" The man bellowed in a gruff voice. He stood in the middle of the aisle, gun raised. He fired one shot into the air, giving the stuffy bus a bit more much-needed ventilation. All the passengers began screaming, they ducked under their seats and out their hands over their heads. The Author tried to sit still and breathe in the hot airless bus, wincing as her ears were assaulted with multiple kinds of music blaring loudly from several pairs of ear phones. Just a little more She reminded herself, knowing she was almost at her stop. She saw the battered piece of skateboard lying in the grass beside the sidewalk. She kicked it over, moving it to the center of the cement path. It was only big enough for one shoe, so she stood on one foot and balanced for a while. With the other foot, she shoved off down the hill, the piece of skateboard gliding along on non-existent wheels. But you can't skateboard. So? My friend, the qualm. The little mental debate was soon over however, when she realized she was still where she started. With a sigh, she started off down the hill toward home. The man was watching her, she realized, halfway to her house. She could see his eyes, meeting her own, flicking away. She kept walking, waiting, watching. He continued to walk toward her. The stranger couldn't have been more than a yard away when she realized she had been right about him; but by then, it was too late to run. She never broke his gaze as his hands flicked out, sweeping them to the side and coming in with a fist under his ribs. With the added weight of her backpack, the momentum was enough to send the man sprawling to the sidewalk, groaning. Adjusting her backpack, she ran for home. The man was watching her, she realized, halfway to her house. She could see his eyes, meeting her own, flicking away. She kept walking, waiting, watching. He continued to walk toward her. When he was about a yard away, she felt all her muscles tense, preparing for a fight. The Author and the stranger locked gazes as they passed each other on the narrow sidewalk and continued on toward their destinations. 'ARGH! My muse seems to have taken an impromptu vacation to Aruba, and left me with a (terminal?) case of writer's block. While the miracle worker responsible for all those five-page-one-night stints is relaxing on in a hammock and sipping nectar out of coconut shells (and, no doubt, billing it all to me), I'm sitting here staring at a screen that is pretty much the same as it has been for the last few days. I think I've been averaging about four sentences per day. Four sentences!! I know, I know, quality over quantity, but this is me! the person who always turns in ridiculously long stories, making the rest of the class groan when they realize the 5 page, double sided monstrosity I've just handed them is in font size ten, single spaced. Maybe it's just this sudden need to document my real life that's been bouncing around in my head for the last few weeks. Maybe it's just that I haven't had to turn anything in for a month. Heh, maybe it's just that I'm getting tired of this story, or at least to a low point. That's not good-- there shouldn't be any low points. I'm trying to come up with something that people will actually pay to read, (hey, what easier way to make a little money?) Now that I think about it, this also might have something to do with that headache that's been plaguing me on and off the last few days. Maybe they're drugging my food. Wow. I just looked up at what I've written in oh, about ten minutes or so. Yeah, that's how it usually comes out. Gah. It's not fair.' A hand touched her shoulder as she sat typing at the computer, startling her. "My clients decided they need the work done tomorrow, so I'm going to be flying down to West Virginia in the morning. This means you're probably going to get paid for some babysitting tomorrow afternoon. The small prop-jet burst into a fire ball as it impacted into the side of the mountain. She swallowed, the scent of her father's after-shave lingered in the air and she resisted the urge to leap up and hug him and never let go. With a few, final definitive clicks, the Author wondered why she used so many Sets Of Three in her writing. She hadn't planned to end it like this, but she knew all it would take was one good jab with something sharp. A pencil even. She quickly rolled the pencil out of reach, and finished her story, almost without intending to.