yo

Not gonna put my bubble gum on that

My dears, my darlings...

Does this bedpost look like a giant butt plug, or is it just me?

Let's look at this binturong again

IMGP8482, a photo by greyweirdo on Flickr.

No cool pics yet, still sorting...

Photographic Pictures again

Not in Copenhagen

Twins in Death: Chapter Two - Part Three

Twins in Death

A Tale of The Weirdo

By Brett N. Lashuay

 

 

Chapter Two: Love Lost

 

 

 

 

March 27^th, 2001

11:01 p.m.

 

            Shannon and The Weirdo had been sitting in their bed, she now thought of it as theirs. He was sitting up, as she lay on the bed with him, trying not to feel foolish. He never seemed to feel or look foolish, but she felt foolish with him. He was so graceful, intelligent and powerful, she could never tell why he stayed with her here. There was something worshipful about her attitude with him, though she spent most her time trying to take him down a peg or two.

 

            “You know I love you.” She said.

 

            “Do I?” He asked, his bare back braced against the wind. “You’ve never said it before.”

 

            “I know.” She had said. “But I do. I love you.”

 

            “I love you to.” He said, his hand reaching out to touch her.

 

            “Will you love me forever?” She asked.

 

            “I will love you beyond death and rebirth.” He said.

 

            “But what about forever.”

 

            “Isn’t that forever?”

 

            “You tell me.”

 

            “Forever.” He said. “Always and forever.”

 

 

March 27^th, 2002

9:29 a.m.

 

            Under the bush, the child wiped her eyes with her tissue and tried not to totally loose it. She knew that she had to see this to understand, these things had to be. She didn’t like it any better for knowing that but there were things to do about it now. She had a job to do, and she felt she was too little to do it. She wanted not to blubber though. She wanted to be a Big Girl. Big Girls didn’t blubber, that’s what she had been told. The tears still rolled down from her eyes though, because they knew. Her tears, traitors that they were, knew she wasn’t a Big Girl and she let out another sob. She could have done something, but she had just stood there, doing nothing. The tears, they knew better than she did, she had let a light go out of the world. Next time she would not be so lax though. Next time she would do something about it.

 

 

March 27^th, 2002

11:45 p.m.

 

            His real name was unknown, but he was called Doctor Crazy. He lived in an underground laboratory that The Weirdo maintained for him. Little else is known about him, as traces of his history were obliterated years ago.

 

            The Weirdo had helped him during an extremely bad time in his life. At that time he had labs all over the city, researching one kind of science after another and using a complex criminal syndicate to fund the experiments. The Weirdo had seen something useful in the mad man and instead of killing him had captured him and placed him in the underground complex. These are really all the things you need to know of him. Every great leader of men and every great adventurer needs a man to make interesting toys. Doctor Crazy was that man for The Weirdo and his company.

 

            He didn't have any clocks any where in his lab, he had many timing devices, but no actual clocks that kept a regular record of what time it was. He lived without the hours and days that constrain most people. He made things without the constraint of cost analysis or requisitions. He simply made things and gave them to The Weirdo when they were ready. There was no science that was unknown to him, and there were no constraints on his genius, save sanity. He had been known as Doctor Crazy after all.

 

            Currently, he was performing not so much an autopsy as he was performing the job that an undertaker might perform. He was cleaning the body, wiping away blood, stitching closed the wounds that hadn't already been sealed by The Weirdo’s magic. He had been taking his time applying make up very gently and carefully. She had to look natural, and so he wanted her to look. He had been doing this for some time now and was nearly finished.

 

            Now he was performing a job, to make this beautiful young woman presentable for whatever funeral The Weirdo had planned. He looked at some readouts he had prepared for her only the other day. She had been so happy about the results that she had actually kissed him on the cheek when she learned the news. She had been so happy and lovely at that moment and now, less than forty hours later, she was dead.

 

            He looked at the body of this lovely young woman, the lost potential of it all and then, for the first time in nearly ten years, he sat down, held her hand and cried. He cried for her, and for the family that he once had. He cried for the wife and the child that he used to have. The world had done what they had done to him, and now they had done it to someone else as well. There should have been love and justice in the world, but there wasn’t room for such frivolities in this world of pain and misery.

 

            For that he wept.

 

 

March 29^th, 2002

1:25 a.m.

 

            The cabin was only called a cabin in that it was a house in the country, with a lake behind it. In truth it was the sort of place that would keep a rich family of ten in comfort. It was designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright, and looked like a series of blocks stacked together. The place had a modern feel to it, but also the empty feeling of a place one went to in order to get away. No one actually lived here, but you could stay here for a while. There always seemed to be food, spare clothes and all the other things you might need. The land that surrounded the cabin was wholly owned by The Weirdo for nearly five miles in any direction. You could look around and know you were totally alone.

 

            It was the lake that was receiving the attention at this moment. The lake was a mile and a half both ways. It was also very cold and deep. It had the sort of forbodding feeling that a dark cellar might have, and the same sort of view. It was a lake of dark silty water, always clouded, always dark. There didn’t ever seem to be any life in the lake, even insects seemed to avoid it. No one ever swam the dark waters and no one ever rowed out on it for pleasant Sunday jaunts.

 

            Yet there was a dock on the lake, a tongue of old pale wood on the dark lake. It stretched nearly forty feet out onto the water with its pale wood contrasting the dark water. Today there was a boat on the lake and a party stood together on the dock. A party that had stood together many times before, but now had one less member. The Weirdo stood on the dock and looked at the rest of them. He wanted their support, but just at that moment he didn't want them around.

 

            Tommy was standing with him on the long dock. In deference to the moment he was not wearing his usual blue suit, but a somber charcoal shirt and pants. When he had been at the home, it had always been his funeral suit. He looked at The Weirdo with the same color eyes that had looked at The Weirdo when she said she’d marry him. The two of them had carried her out to this point. They had been the only family that she had, which made them the only ones who could see her off like this. They had laid her out on the boat and were the only ones with her now. They looked at her, wrapped in the cloth that she had asked for in her will. The Weirdo had been angry about that, why did a twenty three year old need a will?

 

            He had a will, but he also kept a small supply of food and water in his car for emergencies, because he was that kind of person. He couldn’t see what reason she had for a will, besides the very obvious point that it had come in useful because now that she was dead they had to read it and follow the instructions she had carefully laid out. That had added to his anger, that something so dumb had actually had a use.

 

            “I should do this part alone.” He said to them.

 

            “You sure?” Tommy asked.

 

            “Yes.” The Weirdo said. “If nothing else, let me claim the safety issue.”

 

            “Okay.” Tommy said.

 

            Tommy’s feet tapped against the wood of the dock as he walked back to the congregation. They stood in the small group, watching him shake his head at them. The Weirdo hadn’t wanted them to come out like this. They had understood the small headshake. He had wanted to be alone, but he had understood they wanted to see her off. He thought it more important to let them come than to fight for his privacy.

 

            The Weirdo held up the length of wood, a broken quarterstaff with a piece of once bloody cloth on it. Her robe had been cleaned, and then soaked in oil and wrapped around the piece of staff she had broken over his head by accident when he had tried to teach her how to fight. The fight training had otherwise gone well, but there would be no more.  The Weirdo looked at the boat before him, solemn and quiet.  Shannon had been lain in a beautiful dress in the boat and had wood piled around her.  There was a lot of cotton batting as well.  She had looked more beautiful than this, but she looked as beautiful as she could under the circumstances.

 

            The Weirdo reached into his pocket and produced his lighter. It was an old silver Zippo lighter with a crest etched on the side. Military researchers among you might be interested to note that it was the crest of the lost 104th infantry division who vanished during the battle for Berlin when American forces took the city. He opened the top and struck the spark wheel, the flint made half a dozen sparks, one caught.  The fire came to life on the first turn of the wheel and a small flame dance at the end of the wick. He looked at the fire for a moment and then touched the flame to the oiled cloth, closing the lighter as the cloth slowly gained an aura of fire. He pushed the boat away from the dock with his foot with some force.

 

            The front end of the boat lifted as he pushed on it, and it sailed out into the lake. He watched the ripples, which moved listlessly and ceased long before they should have. The water let the boat move through it, and probably helped it along, but it didn’t let ripples, wake or tide form behind it. There was almost no sign that the boat had been there a moment after it had passed. It moved on an endless journey towards the other side of the lake. When it got far enough, he began to think about distances. He looked at the boat, then the flame, judging distance. With a strong over arm throw he tossed the lighted wood at the boat as it moved away.

 

            The spike of flaming wood turned over in the air, the flame staying oddly in the center and the wood stick orbiting around it like the tail of a bright comet. It landed on the boat, and the cotton batting caught immediately. The fire spread around the carefully constructed firebox of wood that they had made. The chambers of air allowed for the flames to spread quickly and build a lot of heat in a short time. The fire had engulfed the entire boat in a little over a minute. The flame would last until the boat itself began to burn, which could take hours. The fire leapt up over the lake and lit it with an orange glow.

 

            Just this once, the lake wasn’t dark, but a glowing orange. The fire seemed not to reflect on the surface, but to be reaching down from under the boat. It looked as if the fire were both reaching for the stars and trying to get to the lakebed. The unnaturally flat water reflected every detail perfectly, as the black smoke began to ride up along with the flames, and fall down beneath the boat.

 

            After a few minuets, The Weirdo turned away from the great bonfire that lay on the water and began to walk back towards the dock. He looked at them as he came towards the congregation made up of his friends. It wasn’t an easy thing to approach.

 

            “Is there anything we should say?” Jack asked.

 

            “I can’t even begin to find words.” The Weirdo answered, still looking at the lake.

 

            “I think we should just go home.” Marla said.

 

            “Perhaps so.” The Weirdo nodded.

 

 

 

© 2012 Autumn Knight Productions

 

I Think I Remember Differently

I was complaining about something in The Avengers the day we saw it, and I made some kind of comment that I don’t really remember at the moment. That’s sort of interesting, that I don’t remember the comment, considering the rest of this story. It was a detail about the Capt. America movie, or the Thor movie, and Syd made a mention that she didn’t remember it. She then said something that has been on my mind ever since.

“I never remember things like that. I sort of trained myself not to remember details for that long.” The reasoning was that her trips to the library as a child were non-existent and her trips to the bookstore to get new books were few and far between. As a result, she would have to read the same books over and over again, spacing them out just long enough for the details to have faded from her memory.

That started a long line of things, that all started to click into place for me. Syd’s seen a lot of movies with me and she’s read a lot of books. She’s supposed to know as much about the music of storytelling as I do myself. And yet, she’s so very rarely annoyed by the clichéd, the obvious, and the things that have been done dozens of times and can only seem clever if you’re completely new to movies or books. Now, partly, I’d always put it down to a tolerance for bullshit that I do not posses.

I do not laugh at the joke that I can see coming from miles away. The “He’s adopted” joke just made me curl my lip in disgust. Not only because it shits on adopted kids, but because I could see that joke coming from several miles off. I never laugh at a joke I saw coming from a long way off. Syd claims that there is some enjoyment for some people to get to the punchline before the delivery, like they solved the mystery before anyone else, but I can’t do that and enjoy it.

The same with the “Why should we listen to you?” bit with Capt. America. I knew what the punchline to that sequence was going to be three words into him issuing orders to the cops. I then had to endure 45 years of waiting for the damn line to be delivered so that we could get on with the rest of the movie. I just assume that all the people who laughed at that scene were ignorant of the fact that they’d just seen one of the oldest clichés in the action movie book, and that it wasn’t even done very well. They’ve probably never watched many of the action movies I’ve watched, they just don’t know any better. The fact that they might not have remembered that scene from 3 dozen films and a million billion episodes of tough guy TV shows never actually occurred to me.

Ignorance was an easier answer to be honest. And it’s easy to see, on the surface, how ignorance is the easy answer. Geeks particularly are not well versed outside their comfort zones. Sci-Fi geeks tend to stick to their sci-fi ghettos, only occasionally working their way out to the fantasy realms for supplies and girls in chain mail bikinis. As a result, many geeks will say that The Caves of Steel is their favorite Mystery novel that they’ve ever read. Normally they will neglect to mention, until you persuade them with a car battery and some wet sponges that it is also they only mystery novel they’ve ever read. I know enough people like this, who almost never stray from their chosen section of the book store, to use this as a working hypothesis. It explains why people think a single red herring is an amazing literary device, or that having a detective that listens to opera is innovative, or having the whole fantasy realm actually take place in a future realm that has reverted is new and exciting. If you don’t know… you don’t know. That people might have read or watched, and then forgotten, strangely never occurred to me.

Possibly, it’s because I remember everything. I remember every little thing as if it happened only yesterday. Now I know what you’re going to say, “That’s no way to treat and expensive musical instrument.” and, you know I love you, but you’ve got a hell of a lot to learn about rock n roll. Now, where was I?

I can remember fine details from a book I read when I was about 6. For example, I can easily remember who the monster at the end of the book was. No spoilers from me, I’m not that kind of guy. I can remember large swaths of history from one viewing of a documentary 15 years ago. I once recognized a movie from a thirty second scene nearly 20 years later. It wasn’t a particularly good movie, but I clearly remembered the scene, the day I watched the part of it I recognized, what I was wearing, what the situation was… I’ve got a lot of details stored up. I can remember the more or less, the plots of almost every book I’ve ever read. I might get a few Robert B. Parker books muddled here and there, but I can give you a beat by beat of a lot things I’ve read. In some cases can recite scenes, and I’ve annoyed people with my ability to rattle off a gestalt version of The Christmas Carol with a running commentary as to how different stage, film and audio versions have changed details. It’s only recently that anyone has ever mentioned that not everyone does some small version of this.

Not only that, but there is a constant comparison being run in my head. How did this movie do this kind of scene, how does it compare to what John Woo or Sam Peckinpah shot. What about Akira Kurosawa, or Sergio Leone. I can recognize visual references about as fast as I recognize audio references, which is more or less instantly. As I say though, it seems most people don’t do this, they just watch the movie. Sometimes, if something really sticks out, they may go “Hey wait a second” but usually it all sort of washes past them and it’s up to me to point out that it doesn’t work for a host of reasons I hand them as we leave the theater. Seriously, it took me less than five minutes to point out all the problems technical I had with Batman Begins. Does no one make pasta in Gotham? Or make tea, or take a bath? And how does an instant evaporation weapon go through metal pipes but not skin? I mean really!

Not only that, but I tend to ask a lot of questions while the film runs. I think about how this character is handling things and how another character might handle them and if the portrayal is being handled realistically. Hence my statement “You’re in Germany genius, maybe you want to tell them to kneel in German, which is what they speak in Germany.” during that scene. Also, my complaint about people with military training using pistols when there were perfectly good rifles sitting around. I have been reliably informed that other people don’t do this.

Going back to the bit with Capt. America telling people to go and what to do, when he got jumped by the expected baddies, I was less taken with his awesome actionness and more asking “Why did they get that close? Shouldn’t you have shaken them before putting the cops at risk? Where is their back up?” and so on. Granted, I was kind of bored during the 9 hours of CGI pixels banging into each other while some green screened actors pretended like they knew what was attacking them.

I’ve only had it brought home to me that even Syd and my father do something I cannot do. I hesitate to use the phrase “Turn off their brains” because neither of them actually disengages their thinking bits. However, I have pointed things out about movies I didn’t like and had my father come back later and explain that now he has trouble watching that movie. However, they are able to get lost into the movie in a way I just don’t find possible. I am always analyzing the book, movie, play, song, particularly when I’m sitting in a dark room doing nothing but watching (Or listening/reading/whatevering) and not being distracted in the slightest. Under that level of scrutiny, the failures magnify and get under my skin, particularly if I’m not enjoying the movie very much. Of course, when I’m enjoying the movie I tend to be able to calculate how much I enjoy the movie.

Part of my problem is that I’ve seen it all and as a result I can see it coming. Now! Genre movies that stick to genre rules, they never bother me like this. So long as their fun, and they follow the rules, I can enjoy them. It’s sort of like music, you know the basic set up of a song when you by an album from a certain band or section of the record store* and you expect to get certain things. You can take changes in the music, even drastic changes, if the song flows. It’s when some pretentious wiener decides he’s going to mess with the formula, but can’t commit that I get annoyed. Brick messed with the formula of a Film Noir, and they stuck to their conceit of having the whole story told with teenagers. As a result, I loved it. It was crispy in just the right way. It’s when someone can’t commit, tries to have it both ways. That gets me annoyed most the time.

Also, I just get annoyed seeing the same thing play out over and over. When a big movie is predictable, that makes me sad. That is possibly why I do actually like movies like Graffiti Bridge. You can’t say that you know where that movie is going when you watch it for the first time. Mostly, because it’s kind of incoherent, but it will surprise you at least once. Or flabbergast, I’ll take flabbergast in a pinch. If you’ve got all the money though, I would like to see something new once in a while, particularly if you’re doing superheroes. Don’t give me the superhero equivalent of Titanic or Avatar. Give me the superhero equivalent of Dr. Strangelove, or the The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (a highly underrated movie) which never bored me and gave me lots of things to see, and think about.


So yeah, my brain works differently, and I don’t stop considering every scene and the implications of it. This is also possibly why I have a problem with stupid characters, I can see their downfall coming two or three seasons away on some TV shows. I don’t feel clever, or superior when the downfall comes, just bored that I wasted so much time when I knew exactly what was going to happen.





*For those of you who are only zygotes. There used to be these places called record stores, where you would buy music on a sort of black disc. Remember mp3s? You know how sometimes you’d get them off a cd? Well a record is like a CD only there were grooves that you needed to decode the music. And you’d buy one or two records at a time at a store that was JUST for records. Sometimes there were tapes (but we won’t get started on tapes) and eventually CDs, but then the internet came and swept them all away. And good riddance too, the people who worked there were usually assholes who hated whatever it was you bought and wanted you to listen to The Doors.

How fanboys ruin the thing they love for other people. OR How did you become more annoying than a sparkling vampire?

The guy who makes the Oatmeal made a comic extolling the virtues of Tesla. Like a lot of comics it was full of exaggerations. Like most things involving Tesla, it demonized Thomas Edison and regurgitated a bunch of things that have long since proven to be not true. Or, as we say in my business, lies. Forbes called him on it. The Oatmeal made a very weak response. And he goes on about that goddamn elephant. The one they were going to kill anyway… the one that had already killed three people… and they’d fed a bunch of cyanide to before hitting the switch. And Edison didn’t even flip the switch, or personally record the event.

And if Edison was a bastard (hint – he was actually) why is it never mentioned that Tesla was a nut?

In short, I get seriously irked when people tell me that Tesla invented everything that Leonardo DaVinci didn't invent. Mostly because, when you look into it... he didn't. He invented several things, a towering genius perhaps, but he didn't invent anything like the list his fanboys claim he did. Edison wasn't nearly as evil as Tesla fanboys (who need a villain for the story) claim he was. If you're lying to big your hero up, and put the other guy down YOU ARE STILL LYING! It does neither side any good when you lie. It makes people ignore everything you have to say. Even if this is just a comic, it’s a comic trying to tell people about how Tesla was awesome and Edison was a dick.

You are trying to get people interested in your hero, for that, you must be honest.

If you’re going to present facts, present facts. Otherwise, you will get called on it. Tesla was a great guy, a wonderful inventor, and a hell of a humanitarian that chose to save an entire company and all the people who worked for it instead of getting paid. The reason no one lauds Tesla like they’re supposed to is because once they start looking into claims people make, they find out most of they were told is lies and exaggeration. After they discover that the death ray and the communication with aliens is a lie, and the radar story is at best an exaggeration, they will decide that he probably didn’t really have anything to do with the electric motor. I’ve met a person that didn’t believe he had anything to do with perfecting Alternating Current because, “The death ray is a lie, the aliens thing is a lie, the transporter is a lie, everything anyone says about the guy is a lie.”

And that’s sad, because it’s the enthusiasm gone into overdrive for the thing they love that tends to push people who aren’t already fans away. It killed Firefly, it harmed Star Trek severely for decades, and now it’s ruining Tesla. And here we really come to my point, that fanboys have been slowly killing the things they love by driving people away. The internet has made this worse, because it focuses everyone into little bubbles where everyone agrees with them. That creates a slanted world view in which one side is the good guys and the other side is the bad guys and you are either on one side or the other. There is no middle ground between hating Twilight and being on Team Whoever… probably Abraham.

In fact, the guy writing the oatmeal makes the worst error possible. Near the end, he tells people they have to Pick a Side. NO! You don’t have to pick a goddamn side you stupid arrogant fuck. You can, in fact, straddle the mighty chasm you’ve artificially created and admire things about both men while deploring things about both men. You don’t have to drive away someone just because they admit there are things about Edison that they like. You can encourage learning about one man without having to tear the other down. In fact, it is that tear down that turns people off the most.

Again, allow us to talk about Twilight for a moment. On one side, you have people who pant after a sparkling vampire, on the other side you have these people who foam at the mouth and rant and rave about how horrible it is, how awful, how girls aren’t smart enough not to act like Bella unless we burn all those worthless books that this evil Mormon bitch (not that you’re a bigot mind) has wrought upon our world and smite the unbelievers.

…


The other side has a sparkling vampire. How did you become more annoying than a sparkling vampire? Seriously, take a good hard look at yourself and ask how you became more of an irritant to me than a vampire that… sparkles. That has to be one of the stupidest monster traits I have ever heard of, and you just got yourself pegged lower on the list than THAT! Come to think of it, the Jar-Jar haters become far more annoying than Jar-Jar ever was, because that movie only ran 2 hours where as the ranting goes on to this day.

We need to have a serious discussion about how the uber-fan and the anti-fan are hurting their own cause. So there should probably be a part two at some point.

See if you can spot the theme in these photos...

Twins in Death: Chapter Two - Part Two

Twins in Death

A Tale of The Weirdo

By Brett N. Lashuay

 

 

Chapter Two: Love Lost

 

 

March 27^th, 2002

9:27 a.m.

 

            The figure was dressed very oddly indeed for an early spring morning. The leather and silk ensemble would have been better suited for a summer's night rather than a March morning, when it was still cold enough to see one’s breath. The machine gun would have struck some one as odd as well, but there would have been no one around to see it under normal circumstances. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone there to see it any way. That had been part of the agreement. The person with the machine gun was to have privacy to do their work.

             

            The Weirdo's massive home stood on what was more or less a private island, and there were large gates keeping the very few occupants on the other half of the island off his half. It wasn’t like anyone could get to the grounds anyway. People seemed to loose their will to invade half way to the house, there was just something about the grounds that kept people off. This one had managed though, by means which will become obvious later. The fact that The Weirdo had made it his business to eliminate as much crime as he could manage while still having a life of his own was not a factor in the home life. They were never attacked at the home, no one ever came there, it was safe.

 

            The house was a fortress, like the castles of old. It was as unassailable as a massive stone building on a cliff face. It looked like a Pre-Victorian mansion, but felt like the last modern temple to security. There was something about the house, something that would not allow it to be assailed, but there had been the agreement. The agreement had allowed the person with the machine gun to perform this terrible task.

 

            The figure stood in front of a huge picture window at the front of the house, and watched the woman come down into the front room. A feeling of energy rushed through the blood as the eyes fixed on her body as she came down the stairs tossing her long brown hair, which fell in gently, loose curls about her shoulders. She was a vision of sex and beauty, which had the luster of a Goddess about it. She looked like a life bringer, and the person with the gun shuddered. It was a mixture of hatred and envy and self pity that moved through the figure.

 

            In a large and thick bush near the house, a child stood waiting. She wore a pale yellow rain coat, with the hood pulled up over her fair hair. She had the look of a child whose gentle beauty would only enhance with age at which point she should be elected to the office of goddess and be asked to live in the sky. She touched the side of the hood and gripped it with her hand in a worried way. She was only about four years old if that much, and she knew what she had come to watch. She had come to be the witness, to verify that certain things had, or was it, would happen? How do the threads of causality run?

 

            She couldn’t tell any more, but she had to watch this, that much she knew. Her eyes fixed on Shannon and for a moment, she thought about using her plastic backpack to break the window and scare her, to ruin the moment of opportunity. That would send the world into a spiral of uncertainty and she knew that it wouldn't work. Her heart thumped in her tiny chest as she watched the inevitable come forth. She could feel the waveforms of possibility collapsing around this situation. There was only one path left in the universe. She wanted to do something, to stop this, but it wasn’t allowed. There were rules, she had been told all of them. She couldn’t step in and stop this, she could only observe. Her tiny heart pounded in her chest and the sound of rushing blood was all she could hear save for her breath. She clutched at the hood, waiting for it all to be over.

 

 

           

March 27^th, 2002

9:28 a.m.

 

            The Weirdo had been able to fight his hand from taking the broach for a full minute. He knew that his strength wouldn’t hold his hand from its evil purpose. After the minuet had passed his hand began to move slowly but steadily towards the broach, ready to take it for all its evil intent. A chainsaw, a chainsaw, his right hand for a chainsaw, which was his intent really. When his finger came in contact with the thing, the sound began and distracted him.

 

            When you stop bad people from doing bad things all day you get to know the sound of a cheaply made Mac 10 like a biker knows the sound of a Harley Davidson. This was such a sound, a fast loud snapping of machine gun fire. The short sharp and rapidly repeating sound of the machine gun was accompanied by the sound of shattering glass. His mind didn’t get into gear so much as his body did, the knife flipping open and his body throwing itself into gear.

 

            The Weirdo turned, with what seemed to him to be infinite slowness; he began to run, leaping down the stairs. It wad like moving through a dream, one where he couldn’t make it in time. The Grey Man's hand slipped and the broach fell and clattered against the stone of the balcony. One of the gems popped from its setting and spun in the air, catching the light of the sun. The Weirdo jumped over the stairs and furniture to the front room. The Gray Man’s eyes closed, holding back tears, which trickled from the tightly held lids. He had succeeded in his mission, and had never hated himself more. He felt the shame of the betrayer as he watched The Weirdo leave. He wanted to put that pistol he had been given against the side of his head and see if he could indeed die.

 

            The Weirdo had flown down the three flights, his legs barely touching as he leapt. He had moved so fast, and yet not fast enough. She had already fallen when he got to the room and the blood had already begun. It was already too late, and he knew it.

 

            “Shannon!” The Weirdo screamed as he entered the front room.

 

            Blood pooled on the floor, streaming past and around the broken shards of glass. It formed a mosaic on the floor, which was horrific and terrifying. It was puddling in places, leaving her at an alarming rate. If she had lost that much blood in such a short span of time…

 

            Her hair was matted in the stuff, her blue eyes stared wildly and she seemed to be unable to breath. She frightened, hurt and going into shock. She looked confused and lost, like some one who's just fallen off a horse on a carrousel that hadn't even started to move yet. She tried to breathe, but the sound was like the gurgling of a faulty water pipe.  He slid towards her on his knees and scooped her up in his arms. He held her up against him, her blood soaking into his clothes, the warmth seeping against his skin.

 

            “No, no, no, no.” He whispered as he held her.

 

            His hands began to spark with magic; it tickled at her wounds but only served to close wounds that had let out as much blood as they reasonably could already. He held her close to him, his face desperate. He concentrated all his power in but it was useless, the wounds had closed but the damage had been too severe. She tilted her head back and looked at him. He looked down into her face, which had taken on the look that he had seen in the faces of many terminally wounded people. It was the peaceful face of some one who knew all their problems were over.

 

            “Weirdo.” She said, her hand touching his cheek. “I love you.”

 

            The fingers left a spot and then a streak of blood on his face, her fingers slipped away and she smiled again. He couldn’t think of anything else, but to say the one thing that must be said. He couldn’t have her moving on without having him say it one last time.

 

            “I love you, too.” He said.

 

            Her eyes began to close, but he was not about to give up on her. He held her close too him, using all his power and magic to try and keep her longer. Sparks danced from his hands and her body glowed golden, and yet it was all to no avail. His own hands began to burn from the power. Small cuts appeared across his hands, and a long gash appeared above his forehead. Her body stiffened for a moment, and then went limp. He pumped more of his magic into her, but she didn’t move.

 

            He buried his face in her shoulder and tried to breath in her scent one last time. He stopped trying to save her and the wounds on his body closed themselves immediately. He wanted to scream, but what would be the point? There was only one person he would want to cry his woes to and she was gone. He had come to that realization already, and some cold logical part of him had already accepted that. It would be waiting for the rest of him when it caught up.

 

            He looked up and a pale figure in a black dress looked at him as she left. The image was fleeting, like seeing a ghost or trying to remember a detail from a dream. He knew who the woman in the black Victorian dress was though. The Lady Death had come to collect the soul of his love, and had taken her away.

 

            One of the problems with being The Weirdo was that his mind had so much processing power for random thoughts that he had once actually considered all the possibilities of what he might do in this situation. He had several suggestions to choose from, but couldn’t manage to perform any of them besides pressing his face into her limp form.

 

            Max had run from his room when he’d heard he shots, he had been asleep but had come awake suddenly when he heard the shots. He had been slowed by fumbling his gun from his coat before running down the long hall and then the stairway. In truth he was working more on his body’s automatic pilot than he was with his brain. He came down the hall and felt something terribly wrong as he made his way towards the silent room. His heart was sinking in his chest, because of the ominous silence. If things were all right there would be gunshots or some one crying out how much The Weirdo was hurting them.

 

            He pushed the door open and looked at The Weirdo’s back and somehow, he knew instantly. The Glock nine millimeter he had brought from his room dropped from his hand and clunked on the ground. His eyes filled instantly with tears as he walked forward his throat choking itself closed as he tried to walk.

 

            “Oh my God.” Max managed.

 

            “Pick your gun up.” The Weirdo didn’t shout, but his voice was commanding. “Might still be out there.”

 

            Max reached down and his hand picked up the square Glock. He then began to skulk towards the shattered window, looking out at the trees and bushes. He couldn’t see anyone, and the wind kept blowing enough to make everything move making it impossible to judge by them.

 

            “What?” Mrs. Pendleton asked as she came in.

 

            She stopped as she looked at the scene, and her heart nearly failed her. The Weirdo was on his knees, holding the bloodied form of Shannon. His clothes had been soaked through and for a moment it was hard to tell which of them had been hit. She then noticed that The Weirdo was still moving and it occurred to her which one of them was dead.

 

            She often had a though about The Weirdo’s sanity, that it was being kept in tact by the thin thread that Shannon maintained, and if she were ever to go, then so would the great mind. She now feared that he would become totally unhinged, in fact she knew it. There was going to be no place of solace for him now, and he wouldn’t be able to handle it.

 

            “Oh no.” She whispered.

 

            Her eyes failed to focus and tears dripped down from them, she held the doorway for support and her thin hand covered her mouth to suppress a cry. The old woman’s heart felt like it was breaking in two as she looked at the two figures on the ground. The tears kept rolling down her face as she wept silently.

 

© 2012 Autumn Knight Productions

 

This thing

IMGP0505, a photo by greyweirdo on Flickr.

This thing

HOLY SHIT! SQUIRREL!

IMGP6314, a photo by greyweirdo on Flickr.

Thing

IMGP1021, a photo by greyweirdo on Flickr.

Picture Post #65

Picture Post #64

A few more photos

Twins in Death: Chapter Two - Part One

Twins in Death

A Tale of The Weirdo

By Brett N. Lashuay

 

 

Chapter Two: Love Lost

 

 

March 27th, 2002

9:24 a.m.

 

            The Weirdo was happy, there was really no other way to describe his mood, at least no way that wouldn't spoil the perfection of the moment. The moment had that kind of simplistic perfection that was like making a single perfect brush stroke. You couldn’t and shouldn’t add to it, for that would ruin it. If one tried poetry the words would fall flat and ultimately destroy the simplicity of the moment. There are times when heavy handed words should be pushed aside and the most flowing verses should be told to go flow somewhere else.

 

            There was no other way possible to explain The Weirdo’s state at that moment, he was simply happy. His eyes opened as the late March sun shone into his room, Shannon's head on his shoulder. There was hardly any weight to her and what weight that was there was the confidence building sort of weight. It was a weight that told him he wasn't in a dream; he was in a stark reality. It was a weight he could believe in and belief in her was all he’d ever need. He smelled her hair and felt her warmth against him. He held her tight, squeezing her.

 

 

March 27^th, 2002

9:25 a.m.

 

            He was dressed in gray, and stood outside, watching the man with the machine gun. He thought, for a fleeting moment about leaving, but he had to be here, it was part of the narrative that he was entwined in. He could feel his insides gathering up, tightening. He knew what was to come, and it broke his heart to even consider the idea. However, he had a part to play, and he would play it. He watched as the other man checked the breach on the small sub-machine gun. He looked at the piece of jewelry in his hand, and considered again what he was about to do. He wondered if perhaps he hadn’t gone too far.

 

            There was no time to think about that now though. He had a job to do, a part to play. This wicked playlet would unravel itself, as it had to. He could almost hear the gun clinking against the extra clip of ammunition. He knew that the story was moving unrelentingly forward now. He would play his part as the directors had planed for him to do. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, and began to move to his position.

 

 

March 27^th, 2002

9:26 a.m.

 

            “Morning.” She said, a smile on her face.

 

            “Morning.” He said.

 

            “How did you sleep?”

 

            “Well.” He said. “I actually slept well.”

 

            It was then that the question he had been tossing back and forth in his mind came to him again. He hadn’t been stalling on this question because he was afraid of the answer, because he knew the answer. If anything he was worried about the effect asking this question could have on him. The existence of the question and her observation of it could change both himself and the question.

 

            He could feel two paths open before him, like waveforms of probability. On one hand he could ask this question, lay down his arms and walk into the glorious sunlight. The other path was much darker, lonelier, and would eventually lead to his ruin. Either was possible, indeed many were possible, but these were probable. He postulated the probability matrix in his head because he was a very odd person and he felt like doing it. He could make his way down either path, but he preferred the one of light. He began to walk towards the lighted path.

 

            “Darling.”

 

            “Yeah?”

 

            “Would you like to get married?”

 

            “What?” She propped herself up on one arm, exposing a breast.

 

            “I mean it. Do you wanna get married?”

 

            “Yeah.”

 

            “Good,” He said, “That’s settled then.”

 

            He fell onto his back and proceeded to stare at the ceiling with his hands crossed humming an old harvest tune from the 15th century. At least it was a song they sang during the harvest of 1432. He didn’t move, simply stared at the ceiling and looked at the ceiling and hummed his tune. It was a happy tune and about eighty percent of the words were double entendre, which he liked. There was something about singing a song and having people wonder, when you say lets thrash the wheat, what you mean by that. She looked at him, and looked at his crossed hands. She knew his little game; he was doing this so that she’d ask him why he was doing it. She’d ask why he was doing it and he’d respond that he was doing it to see how long it would take her to ask him what the hell he was doing. It was one of the things he did to be obnoxiously cute.

 

            However, Shannon was not going to play his little game today. After all it was she who had the shocker, and it she who was going to get to see the look on his face. She was going to win point match and set. For now though, she was going to defeat his little game, by not playing. It was the best way to win against him anyway. The best way to win was to change the game.

 

            “You want breakfast?” She asked.

 

            He thought about this for a moment, trying to see if he could get her to play but figured that in an instance like this he should cut his losses. He considered carefully because even though his manhood could easily survive the loss, it didn’t mean he necessarily wanted her to know that. He thought about this as he did about everything, he was a carefully thought out person. He was also thinking about what to have for dinner and would he shoot a bull elephant if he was being charged by one. It might seem odd to consider such a thing but The Weirdo thought about everything in advance, just in case the situation ever came up. He decided that he would simply try to find cover in the case of the bull elephant, after carefully considering the options that he could see before him.

 

            What he was considering even more was that Shannon was still leaning over him, her blue eyes piercing into his mind, looking for the nugget that was thinking about her. There was always a bit of his mind considering her, as it was impossible for any one thing to hold his attention, and that part was considering the idea of her naked covered with maple syrup. This was a silly and sticky thing to consider, but he was enjoying the image. It was one he thought he might try to arrange at breakfast if no one else was awake. He wondered what her reaction would be if he tossed her up on the counter and began to pour the syrup on her while lifting her nightgown. The idea he finally came to was this, he should stop acting silly and just get on with his life. This would include answering her question, which meant he would loose this round, and have to admit his adversary a clever one, but what the hell. If you going to loose to someone, it might as well be the best.

 

            “Yeah.” He said.

 

            “You wait here then, I'll go make some.” She stood from the bed, dressing barely in a silk dressing gown.

 

            “I love you.” He said.

 

            “I know.” She said smiling; she walked out of the room and began down the stairs. “I've got a surprise for you, something very important to tell you about.”

 

            She floated out of the room like a leaf on the breeze, at least the way a leaf would if it had hips like hers. His heart ached as he watched her walk away from him. Actually, yes it did. It may sound silly to us but he did actually experience a momentary ache in his chest while watching her leave. This is because, as I stated earlier, he was happy. The Weirdo was also in love and love is something that is difficult to discuss on any rational level. Any discussion in which love, real love, enters into becomes very embarrassing, sickening, and uncomfortable for anyone who is not directly part of the love that is being pontificated. There is no other way to put this really. We all know what love is like but when we are not part of that love we all tend to have the same thought i.e. “Is that what I look like when I’m that in love?”

 

            Besides, all that could be said about the greater points of love has been said on a thousand pop records. The great poetry of love, that was once so important that it seemed that was all anyone sang about, has been sung about so often by so many prepubescent idiots who don’t know the first thing about it that to speak of it has become trite. It has reached the point where to speak of the most important subject makes it the least important subject and an embarrassment to all.

 

            So since we already know how embarrassing the pontification of love can be and we already understand that The Weirdo and Shannon were very much in love perhaps we should move on. In fact perhaps we should make some attempt to stick to the facts, the true events, and go no further into the perhaps or those sticky subjects than we must. Feelings, emotions and syrup will be discussed later but for now perhaps we should simply let the moment lie.

 

            The Weirdo was getting up, about to follow her down the stairs, when he caught sight of a figure on the balcony. He stopped cold and looked at the shadow of the figure that was cast on the floor. Usually The Weirdo could sense the approach of anyone, and he wasn’t the sort of person to not observe someone’s approach. He began to stretch his legs to the floor, thinking of how many steps it was to the nearest weapon, and realizing he’d probably just grab the side chair that sat next to the balcony’s door if nothing else. He stood and looked at the figure, watching it with the careful movement of a hunting tiger. The figure didn’t seem to move at all, just stood where it was.

 

            He walked toward the balcony slowly, making a detour towards the desk instead of directly towards the doors. He reached towards the desk, picking up a pocketknife from the desk where he had carelessly tossed it preceding night. His hand reached out and he noticed for a moment how his fingers looked against the gauze curtain that fluttered ever so gently in the wind. He took hold of them, feeling the smooth soft texture of these particular curtains, which he had chosen for their softness rather than durability. The Weirdo was not someone who could put up with synthetic or particularly rough fabrics.

 

            The figure was looking at the ground, when the curtain was tugged away, his eyes lifted and the two men locked gazes. The Weirdo’s eyes fix on the sad gray eyes of his visitor, the eyes looked as though they may begin to cry at any moment. They were not gray as in a very light blue, but gray as in the color of a battle ship or the clouds on the prairies of North Dakota. They were the lack of color, or of joy. There was something profoundly sad about the color of those eyes.

 

            His hair was also gray, not white nor silver but a dull gray. His entire outfit was also gray. Not one single shade that made him look like some sort of computer villain  from a late 80’s TV show but rather a colorless panorama of shades, ranging from one shade of gray to another. The colors ranged from a gray blue to a charcoal near black. It was as if some great stress had taken the pigment from not only his hair but also his eyes and clothes. It was like they had turned the color down on a television screen, yet his face and hands still had their flesh tones. There was certainly the sadness enough to suggest that, such a profound sadness.

 

            “Good morning.” The gray man looked at The Weirdo as they came face to face.

 

            “You again?” The Weirdo asked. They had met on a few occasions, but this time The Weirdo could feel a difference.

 

            The man's gray eyes had a particular sorrow in them. His gray hair was disheveled and his gray clothes looked as though he had slept in them. He wasn't as well pressed as usual and looked as if he'd had a bad night, not as if he'd slept in a gutter, but simply he'd tried to sleep in his clothes and failed several times. The sleeping had obviously not gone well because along with the sadness was an incredible exhaustion.

 

            “You lost this.” The gray man said extending his hand, a small diamond broach in it.

 

            The stones, in their invisible style settings, were like teardrops that had been collected in his hand, shinning and shimmering as his hand moved. The stones glistened like tears plucked from a young child and frozen in time. A million years of pressure and a volcano’s fire had turned the coal into the sparkling crystals before him.

 

            “I don’t recognize it.” The Weirdo

 

            “It belonged to your mother.” The Gray man said. “You should have it.”

 

            “Ah.” The Weirdo said.

 

            There was a moment when The Weirdo thought if he reached for it something horrific might happen. It was a sort of precognition, but not like he usually had. This crawled like a worm under his skin, wriggling as it moved through his body. If he reached his hand out towards it the crawling feeling grew, and his stomach tightened. He could feel something emanating from the thing. It was as if there was something evil within the broach.

 

            There was an unaccountable feeling of dread attached to the broach, like a memory he couldn't quite get at, or a memory of something yet to happen. He could only think that there was a terrible event attached to the thing. Grandma had put the idea in his head. He couldn’t stop his hand from reaching though. Grandma commanded him and she wouldn’t take any excuses. The Gray Man looked at The Weirdo’s hand as it reached slowly out for the thing. It seemed to be taking him forever to take the broach, but it was time well spent.

 

© 2012 Autumn Knight Productions

 

 

Another set of photos. Mostly of things

Fence

IMGP0704, a photo by greyweirdo on Flickr.

OMIGOSH! IZ DERE MOAR PIKTURES?

Bowl and Window

IMGP0680, a photo by greyweirdo on Flickr.

Still Life

IMGP2143, a photo by greyweirdo on Flickr.

Twins in Death: Chapter One – Part Nine

Twins in Death
A Tale of The Weirdo
By Brett N. Lashuay

Chapter One: The Ballad of Captain Scourge

March 15th, 2002
4:49 p.m.

 The Weirdo and Max were walking along a street together, and The Weirdo was feeling edgy, there was a crime about. Max had found that the most disconcerting thing about being The Weirdo’s apprentice, certainly not a sidekick, was the difficulty faced in working with extra sensory gifted heroes. Tommy and The Weirdo could read each others minds and The Weirdo had a sense of what was going to happen in the future. They all did really, The Weirdo, Tommy, Jack. Even Max sometimes had the feeling they described, more than he’d like to admit really. It was something like a voice, but so far in the back of your head that by the time it came to the front of your mind it was like your idea, but you knew it wasn’t. They had a name for this tiny voice or gift or what ever it was. They called it Grandma, and it was never wrong.

 They hadn’t learned to trust Grandma, it had just simply never occurred to them not to trust the voice. Grandma gave you advice and you followed it, and Grandma was right. If Grandma didn’t always state a reason for things, it was still right. Usually though, a reason was given. Whatever Grandma was, it wanted you to make your own decisions. The reasons were given to the person receiving the message, but usually they just told the others that Grandma said.

 Grandma said was a good enough reason to do anything, even shoot a team member. If Grandma had told Max to shoot The Weirdo, he would have done it, trusting that Grandma knew that the hell it was on about. Grandma had never suggested anything of the kind though, so it wasn’t an issue.

 “Come on.” The Weirdo said running down the street towards a large bank branch.

 “The bank is being robbed.” Max whispered.

 He always found himself whispering whatever Grandma’s message was. It was something he did that made the message real for him. It also allowed him the feeling that his thought processes were not being influenced by outside forces, which was something that clearly bothered him. He wanted to be his own man, even if he was taking direction for unknown forces.

 The bank was a large one, probably the head office of this particular bank. It wasn’t of the classic design with a lot of marble floors and stonewalls, with a lot of reflected noise and no light. It was of a more modern design, bright with huge windows and carpeted floors. Not real carpet of course but that cheap sort of short pile that is used in offices only because leaving the exposed concrete floor would cause too much noise.

 There were eight of them, in hockey masks and suits, waving large automatic weapons about. The Weirdo reached into his coat and pulled out the Thompson sub machine gun, which is a pretty good trick. It was a good trick because there was no way in hell one could conceal a Thompson sub machine gun under a trench coat, particularly one that flapped in the breeze like his did. He looked at the men and slipped the machine gun away again, electing to take the Colt model nineteen eleven forty-five out instead. He checked it and returned it to whatever he used for a holster, which must have been a hole in time because if you looked you wouldn’t find a gun.

 “You stay a step back.” The Weirdo said. “If it starts, go right.”

 “Okay.” Max said, thinking that he should just leap forward if it starts and shoot everyone.

 The Weirdo’s eyes moved constantly, recording the distance between the desks and the counters where people could sign their checks and fill out deposit slips. The way the men were spread out. It was a fairly good spread for covering a crowd and for watching the police. Two of the men were calmly talking to a person who was presumably the bank manager, a woman of about fifty. She looked terrified and prepared to give them whatever they wanted.

 “The money is insured by the federal government you know.” The Weirdo said as they stood at the cusp of the stairs.

 “Not the point.” Max said. “Principal of the thing.”

 “Should we be risking so many lives?”

 “We can do this without any wet works.” Max said.

 He had heard the phrase in a movie the other night and thought he would try it out. Unfortunately The Weirdo wasn’t all that impressed with the phrase and gave Max the sort of look one gives a pot of yogurt that has begun to speak. That is to say a rather disgusted look because The Weirdo was not a big fan of yogurt, even if it had strawberries at the bottom of the cup.

 “By that do you mean we can do it without killing anyone?”

 “Yeah.”

 “Well I wish you’d just say that. You sound like you’re trying to read lines from a really bad action movie script.”

 They walked up the stairs and right through the front doors, which was an unusual move and the bank robbers hadn’t prepared for it. The Weirdo entered with his usual grace and apparent lack of understanding of the situation. Two of the men turned and aimed their weapons at him. They were the ones standing on the desks, to more easily cover the cowering crowd. The manager looked to him with horror and then slumped to the ground.

 Max could see that she hadn’t fainted, but she was trying to appear as thought she had. He wondered if The Weirdo had an actual plan or was he just screwing around and would say he had a plan the whole time. You could never tell when he had a plan and when he was making it up on the fly. If he told you the plan then you’d know, but most of the time he would just take your reaction into account and not tell you about the plan because it was easier for him that way. The Weirdo didn’t seem to have a plan this time though.

 There was a moment where no one moved or spoke. Essentially it was the sort of moment that The Weirdo loved. It was like the last moments before beginning a passionate encounter, when you still weren’t sure if you were going to get lucky or not. It was that lingering just before the kiss that would lead to foreplay and then the event. The Weirdo enjoyed these moments because he was comfortable with both women and violence, and he knew how things were going to turn out. He was smart enough that he could always work out what was going to happen and thus was never surprised, thus was the curse of genius.

 This it can be argued is like having a plan, but it’s not really, its just working things out as you go along. Which is what The Weirdo was doing, working it out as he went along. The action was planned out for him a full three seconds ahead of time, which is a long time for some people.
 
 “Um, hi.” He said waving at everyone.  “I want to open a savings account for my young friend here.”

 “Oh sure, drag me into your delusions.” Max said,

 “Can I speak to a teller please? If I am to open the savings account for my friend’s college fund, I’ll need to speak to a teller of some variety.” The Weirdo said walking into the center of the lobby, between the two men who were aiming their rifles at him. With any luck they’d shoot each other instead of him.

 They were all watching him now, which meant they weren’t watching Max. Max could have done the turkey trot at that moment and no one would have seen him do it. This was because they were all watching The Weirdo, which was bad. Watching The Weirdo was as good as watching a smoke cloud, you’d never get hand on him and a simple gust of air could send him in any direction. Also, if it turned out to be a poison gas cloud, by the time it was on top of you, you were already dead.

 One of they men in the black suit and hockey mask walked up to him and pointed his pistol at The Weirdo’s head. He stopped about three inches away, which should be close enough to scare someone but far enough not to accidentally bump them. One must really admire The Weirdo’s guts. He didn’t blink when the barrel touched his forehead. He didn’t break either a sweat or this guy’s neck showing a great amount of self-restraint. He looked right into the guy’s eyes and began to stare him down through the mask.

 He turned his head and looked at one of the men who had been aiming a rifle at him, he was now covering Max. That was the attention of one of them lost, but he felt he could get it back if he was outrageous enough. These fellows had planned things, but you can’t plan for someone like The Weirdo. He was like a force of nature, and thus went under the insurance heading “Act of God” as far as planning went.

 He turned his attention back to the man holding the gun at his head. His dark eyes watching with amazing calm the dark green eyes that stared out at him. Then looked down at the suit and up at the mask, the suit was bulging ever so slightly at the chest, as if he were wearing a thin titanium and Kevlar vest. He noted how stupid the whole ensemble was, how dumb they were being. This was not Tokyo they would be discovered in these black suits with white shirts.

 “You were going for Reservoir Dogs but ended up at Heat.” The Weirdo said, his voice so deadpan that he could have been asking about the weather to a man on the street.

 “Lets not fuck around here.” The guy said. “Just get down on your knees and you won’t get hurt.”

 “Is that the whole offer?” The Weirdo asked.

 “Don’t be a smart ass with me pal.” The man in the mask said.

 The Weirdo knew exactly were Max was, but also knew that unless he diverted attention, there was nothing Max could do without being shot. He looked into the man’s eyes and then looked at one of the other men in the room. His eyes also noticed a bank customer, who had a fantastic pair of legs on display from her hiked up skirt.

 “Is there someone else I could talk to then?” The Weirdo asked. “Someone who I could be a smartass with? Only it’s hard for me not to be one, because it’s fundamental to my nature.”

 The guy didn’t blink or get confused or anything, The Weirdo admired his restraint. Most people would have said ‘Huh?’ by now and been on the ground. He was dealing with professionals here and would have to use the one thing that could work on a true professional. He would use the method described by Eddie Izzard in order to get into the new que.

 “Look!” He shouted pointing. “There’s a badger with a gun can you see?”

 He didn’t turn away, this guy was too good for that, but his mind was caught off guard for one brief but crucial second. He blinked, which was a perfect signal. The Weirdo’s head moved out of the path of the gun, his hands came up and he twisted the gunman to the ground and punched him in the side of his chest where he was fairly certain he didn’t have any body armor. He was gratified to hear a wet snap of bone when his fist connected with a rib. And then the first second was over.

 Then it all started.

 Max did indeed run to the right, sliding across the floor and behind a large table where patrons could write out their deposit slips or suicide notes depending on their temperament and account balance. Once there he reached behind his back and pulled out the two guns he kept at the small of his back in their holsters. The Glock and Beretta were both nine-millimeter weapons, a fact that will become important later. Two shots tore through the table and sent splinters spiraling around him.

 The Weirdo stood, tossing the man’s gun into his left hand and drawing out his forty-five with his right. He stood up and fired a shot towards the center of the chest of the man standing on a table and firing at Max. The forty-five slug struck him directly in the chest and sent him off the desk. The man fell on the ground and got a nasty knock about the head, which knocked him out if the impact of the bullet against his body armor hadn’t.

 Max stood up and fired both guns at the second man on the table, catching him one shot in the chest and a second in his left arm. The man stumbled off the desk and hit the ground. Max ran towards him and kicked at his head as hard as he could, sending the helmet flying from the man’s head from the force of his strike. This had two results, one the man fell unconscious to the floor, and two Max hurt his leg on the stupid mask.

 The Weirdo realized soon after firing the first shot from his colt that he was not going to be the sort of person who ran around with a pistol in each hand and decided to toss the other one away. Two gun antics might be all well and good for the younger generation but he had standards to keep up. He fired at another one of the men and the shock of his shot into the right part of the body armor was enough to knock him down.

 Max, meanwhile, was in full swing. He ran up to a desk and jumped on it, then leapt from the desk, leaping over one of the men shooting him in the left foot and missing him with the other shot. When he landed on the ground and spun around he caught the man’s right arm and chest, which at least took care of the rifle he was carrying. The Weirdo actually stopped what he was doing to watch as Max did other truly silly things with his two guns. He had only fired two shots so far and had to actually stop in mid aim to watch his young protégé in his balletic antics.

 “Maximilian!” The Weirdo shouted.

 Max landed on the ground and looked at The Weirdo, suddenly embarrassed.

 “Sir?”

 “We are not in the matrix. I can guarantee you this is the real world and not a computer simulation.”

 “Sorry.”

 “We are also not in Hong Kong.” The Weirdo said. “One gun should be sufficient.”

 Max looked at the two guns in his hands and then held the weapons up defensively. This was not the first time they had gone through this argument and at this point Max could only use one defense. It wasn’t a really good one, but it would do.

 “I like two guns.” Max said defiantly.

 The last man wasn’t going to wait to be gunned down like his partners. He looked at the door and then at the two men allied against him. He stood suddenly and began to run, shooting through the glass of the door as he hit it. The safety glass spun through the air, landing like small pebbles on the ground around the door. He kept running down the street, his gun in hand, which cleared the way for him.

 “Well?” The Weirdo said pointing. “Go get him.”

 The man ran down the sidewalk and threw his mask off letting it clatter to the street behind him. Max and The Weirdo were in better shape than the young man who ran from them and as The Weirdo was falling back on purpose, it was Max who caught him. He didn’t tackle the black suited Reservoir Dog reject, because his left arm wouldn’t go up that high yet. He still could only raise his left arm level to a position parallel with the ground, after that he could go no higher. Instead Max shoved the man’s shoulder blades and swept one foot out to trip him. This had the effect of overbalancing the man and sending him into the pavement, while leaving Max standing, knees unscuffed. The man fell face first, and then tumbled and rolled on the ground. A patch of his forehead was scrapped away from the fall, but he was other wise unhurt.

 The man in the black suit tried to scramble away, but Max kicked him in his side as hard as he could. He fell over and another kick landed across his hip. The man lay on his back and looked up at Max, panting heavily. He looked at his gun, which was only a few inches from his hand, and then up at Max. Max was aiming the Glock at the man’s head and looked inclined to use it. The Weirdo caught up to them as they sat in the stalemate for a few seconds, until Max caught his breath well enough to speak again that was. He looked at the gun and then looked the man in the eyes.

 “Now I know what you’re thinking.” Max said. “You’re thinking did he fire six shots or only five? Well to tell you the truth in all this excitement I’ve kinda lost track myself. But seeing as this is a Glock nine millimeter and carries fifteen rounds I’ve got nine or ten shots I could pretty much get most you’re head off with. It’d be messy though. So you’ve got ask yourself one question. Did I put on clean underwear this morning? Well did ya? Punk?”

 The Weirdo knelt down and picked the man’s gun up from the ground and then looked from Max to him. He was smiling in the sort of way that sometimes made people think that he’d had one too many of whatever it was he had on a night out. He gave the man the smile again and when he spoke, it was in a stage whisper.

 “Someone got him the Dirty Harry movies for Christmas, just play along like you’re impressed with his ad-lib.”

 “Wha?” The man said.

 “I think we’re going to start monitoring his sugar intake as well.” The Weirdo said glancing at Max over his shoulder and then standing.

March 15^th, 2002

5:21 p.m.

 

            The police had come and gone and there were many comments about whether these guys trying to dress up like the guys in Heat or Reservoir Dogs. It wasn’t that funny a joke, but they said it anyway, because it annoyed the robbers. Many comments were made about the fact that The Weirdo had foiled a bank robbery and no one had died. One of the paramedics offered to take his temperature if he wanted. They also offered to take him to the hospital to run other tests. The Weirdo’s ability to put up with these jokes was wearing thin so he and Max left early.

 

            “Why does everyone assume that I have to kill people?” The Weirdo asked as they began to drive away from the scene in the midnight blue sedan.

 

            “I don’t wanna say.” Max said.

 

            “Why not?”

 

            “You’ll use Duck to hit me.” Max said looking at the stuff yellow plush duck in the back seat.

 

            “Nonsense.” The Weirdo said.

 

            “You kill a lot of people.  I mean a lot, as in a lot.”

 

            The Weirdo looked at the road, and nodded. He then reached into the back seat where a stuffed duck sat in its hat that kept it from rolling around the back seat. He pulled Duck from his top hat and did indeed whack Max upside the head with it. He then returned the duck to its top hat and situated himself in the seat again.

 

            “Turns out you were right.” The Weirdo said. “I didn’t kill anyone today. Okay some of those guys will have extended rest periods at the local hospital before going up the river, but they all lived.”

 

            “Yes.” Max said, and then added. “Why are you worried about this all the sudden?”

 

            “You ever think about evil?” The Weirdo asked.

 

            “After being around you for a sufficient amount of time,” Max said, “I find that there are few subjects I haven’t had to think about for at least a little while. You rather force the issue of thought.”

 

            “I don’t want to be evil.” The Weirdo said. “I don’t want to be some sort of dark force of terror.”

 

            “So don’t.” Max said “Go with the path of light and fuck ‘em if they think it’s funny. You’ve never cared what anyone thinks about you anyway.”

 

            “Good answer.” The Weirdo said.

 

            “We just gotta do what we do.” Max said. “Or something, I dunno.”

 

            “Oh good.” The Weirdo said. “I’m riding with a sage who want me to be peaceful and one with my world, or some junk.”

 

            “Works for me.” Max said, and put his feet up on the dashboard and tilting the back of the seat down.

 

            “You are exceptionally young.” The Weirdo said.

© 2012 Autumn Knight Productions