Sunday, March 31, 2013
Sunday Movies
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Friday, March 29, 2013
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Things I think
I seem to have strayed somewhat from my original intent, but at least you know that shoving jelly beans up your nose doesn't cause cancer.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Monday, March 25, 2013
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Twins in Death: Chapter Seven – Part Two
Twins in Death
A Tale of The Weirdo
By Brett N. Lashuay
Chapter Seven: Face to Face
June 2nd, 841
12:49 p.m.
England
The mêlée was not a joust, not by any stretch of the imagination. It was the forerunner of a joust perhaps, but not a joust. It was not a contest of one man against another man. Rather it was two miniature armies pitted against each other. The field was just that, a large empty meadow that on any other day would serve the kings sheep. Today though, the two armies held sway, and fought against each other. It wasn’t exactly the ideal of courtly chivalry rather it was a bloody mess. There were already six men dead, and another twenty or so who would likely die before the sun rose tomorrow. The blades were blunted and the clubs and sticks had large balls of wool wrapped around them, but they were still deadly weapons. The swords had merely been turned into clubs and even with the heavy wool a blow of sufficient force could kill. There were also rocks and horses and just mean-spiritedness about. The field was beginning to look like a real battlefield, but no one seemed disturbed by this. The Weirdo looked around for a single disapproving glance, but when one man actually managed to take another’s arm off, the crowd roared with approval. He didn’t disapprove as such, it wasn’t his place to, but he knew he should.
The Weirdo watched the horses run back and forth, and watched her face as they charged back and forth. She seemed entranced as he rode past her, his coal black curls rolling out under his helmet. He looked at the hair, and then at her face. She and he were sitting together near the field, her husband sitting far apart from them. A feeling of unease came over him when he looked at her face and then at the face of her husband. He didn’t notice her though, he just watched his men ride around.
“Don’t you think he’s magnificent?” She asked him. “Isn’t he?”
“Yes.” The Weirdo said looking over at her husband again.
Her husband sat on the raised seat, watching the match between the two knights. The two of them watched the single man who had taken her heart as he sat stride his horse. He knew that they were both watching the same man, with different goals in mind. His eyes went back up to her husband, and noticed that not once had he looked at her. She had looked oft times at him, but he hadn’t noticed her at all. He was far too interested in the game that was going on in front of him to notice what The Weirdo was seeing. He was seeing it though, watching her eyes follow his friend.
“He is something isn’t he?” The Weirdo asked and looked at her. “Very virile I’d imagine.”
“Would you?” She asked, looking at him sidelong.
“I would guess he’d not spend all day watching the match, never giving a glance to his lady. Someone like him probably has a great beast deep inside him.” He had a few misgivings about encouraging such a thing, but what did it matter? If he brought down the kingdom it was only going to happen anyway.
“I’m glad someone thinks so.” She whispered to him, sounding relieved. “I’ve been sneaking away with him at night.”
“Have you now?” He asked, somewhat relieved.
“He’s not just good in the saddle you know.” She said smiling. “He’s quite a ride himself. A mighty stallion that one should not attempt to geld.”
She giggled into her hand and he looked at her through slitted eyes. He was relived though. It wasn’t to be his suggestion that brought down the country. The event had already begun, so the ball was well rolling by now. He looked at her gasp as her knight took a blow to the back. He leveled himself and remained steady though. The Weirdo watched as he caught the reigns and righted himself, turning to meet out vengeance towards the man who nearly de-horsed him. His eyes then noticed the woman watching the two of them.
She didn’t look angry, or annoyed, nor even triumphant, but simply interested. He thought that though she was across the field, in the other set of spectators seats, she knew what they were talking about. He looked at her and her eyes flicked away as soon as she noticed him watching her. Her hands came together to clap for another of the knights as he rode past the stands with a helmet in his hand. She looked back at him, noticing he was still watching, and nodded to him.
She knew, and he knew she knew. She knew and there would be the problem, he had nothing to do with it. He was leaving in a few days anyway, his time here was just about up. He looked at the woman to his right again her face was flushed as her champion knocked the last man down. He stabbed the remains of his lance into the air and pulled his helmet off. His face was covered in sweat and his hair was invisible because of the cloth coif that padded his skull. He tugged the coif off and the mass of black curls barely managed to move, plastered to his skull from sweat. He threw these things down along with his gloves and raked his hair back, revealing the moment that made her weak. He looked at her and could sense her arousal, in every line of her face.
He looked back at the woman across the field and saw that her eyes were watching them again. The sister of the cuckolded husband watched the adulterous wife as she watched her lover. She raised her hand in salute to him, and he back to her. He was going to have to talk to her, find out what she knew before he went. He would also have to find out what she intended to do with her knowledge. Then he realized he already knew, he knew and he would have to live with that. Besides it wasn’t his problem, not really. He was going to leave in just a few days, and this would all be just another memory.
He looked at the beautiful woman to his right again, and thought about her tragedy. She was going to have one no doubt, unless the books were all wrong. He wondered if perhaps they were. He thought he would like to come back later and find out, but knew he wouldn’t be allowed to. He was here to learn, not to interact. It was only by the impossibility of stopping it that he became a part of the local society for the brief time of his stay, if you call eight and a half years a brief stay.
October 24, 2002
3:05 p.m.
The Weirdo didn’t go directly to Rockefeller plaza, but rather he drove by it first. He didn’t know what he was looking for exactly. Perhaps he just wanted to find the lay of the land. This was of course ridiculous because he knew how the land laid. Rockefeller plaza had lain the same way for years, and didn’t look to change too much in the near future. Not only that, but The Weirdo had lived in New York for years and knew most the streets like the back of his hand.
He parked the car and walked away, knowing the car wouldn’t be there to get ticketed later. The car would be where he wanted it to be when he wanted it to be there. What the car did on its own time has always been thought to be its own business. He walked into the plaza and looked down at the statue of Prometheus. It wasn’t yet time for the ice rink to be frozen over yet so there was still a lunch café there. Tables with large white and yellow umbrellas at each one declared that this area belonged to the Seagram’s distillery company. This ownership was declared across the hanging flap of each umbrella where the word Seagram’s was followed by a small R in a circle declaring the trademark was registered.
A few dead leaves tumbled through the concrete covered area towards him, picked up from the street in a small tornado of wind that could only be discerned by the leaves fluttering around in it. They spun in their tight circle, moving in towards him as he watched them move. The cyclone died and the leaves scattered around him. He bent down and picked one of them up. It was the leaf of a maple tree, or had been once. Now it had turned brown, curled in on itself and was so sapped of moisture that it had become hard and brittle. He closed his hand on it, relishing in the feeling of it crumbling in his hand, he moved his fingers back and forth across his palm, shredding the leave to tiny pieces. When he opened his hand, tiny flecks of brown leaf tumbled from his hand, caught by the slight breeze that was left of the cyclone and floated away.
There wasn’t a large crowd at this time of day, but there were people in the Plaza. There wasn't really a large crowd, but Rockefeller center wasn't deserted either, not really deserted. Not that it's ever what a person would call deserted, by any stretch of the words meaning. The Weirdo wouldn’t have called it deserted. Even though there is suspicion that The Weirdo had spent his entire life in cities it's obvious to any outside observer that he had not. The main difference being the definition of deserted.
In a city dwellers mind, an empty street is one where there are no people for some way. It's a street where you can't see anyone at this moment even though you know that there are plenty of people about. In fact a city dweller is likely to get a little nervous walking down a street that genuinely doesn’t have any one on it.
In The Weirdo's mind deserted meant that there were no people anywhere. He never thought of any place in New York City as devoid of people. There was never an empty street, or a truly deserted park. There were always people around here. You were never really alone in the city. You were alone in the country, where you could be on a road for miles before seeing anyone else. That is what deserted meant to him. It can be surmised by this, that he must have at least grown up in a suburban if not a rural environment.
Still, even for an urban environment, the place wasn’t deserted.
“So I’m here.” The Weirdo muttered, and concentrated on his surroundings. He tired to feel himself, somewhere out there.
He stretched his mind out and tried to find something like himself, without it being himself. He found he could do it, but he couldn’t lock it down. It he could figure out where this man was he might be able to track him. The feeling was fuzzy, and he suspected that what he was feeling was himself. He would have to meet this man face to face. He had been told they had turned him up to eleven, which would create a slightly different resonance. If he could lock that feeling in, he could find this Loki McCrazypants person.
He stood alone in the middle of the plaza and looked around, trying to locate the feeling he was having. He saw a member of the Streetz Thugaz standing at the edge of the Plaza, which was odd since their territory ended far north of the plaza, in Harlem to be precise. He looked to another side and saw a member of the South City Dragons who weren’t supposed to venture outside of Chinatown standing with a member of the New Dead Rabbits. This was particularly odd because the two groups had been at war with each other the last he knew. After he kicked the Mob out of town, The Weirdo had been concentrating on gang violence. This had required learning every group, and the constantly shifting affiliations. He had to admit though, he hadn’t been around much in the last few months and perhaps something might have happened.
They didn’t seem to be guarding, or even trying to block him in. It looked to him like they were just observing, wanting to see what happened. He could see the expression of anticipation on their faces. He also thought he saw a look of dubiousness, as if they expected that this little event would prove something once and for all.
Loki, for his part, knew what was being proven. They had seen Davey and P-Mang’s bodies earlier, and they had understood why that had to be done. It wasn’t, he had carefully explained, because of some perceived failure. It was because they had gone against the specific instructions he had given. He had wanted only one thing, for no one to be able to verify The Weirdo’s whereabouts and Davey had prevented it. They understood he thought, but now that wasn’t enough.
He had to hold his own against his brother now, his big bad brother. The Weirdo had a lot more physical mass than he did. Even from here that much was obvious. Loki looked at his own narrow shoulders in the glass of the window and compared them to The Weirdo’s, four floors down. He looked at the phone in his hand, and touched the send button. He didn’t actually depress it, just touched it. He wondered if he should climb out the window before he called, or should he call and talk while climbing? He looked at The Weirdo again and then at the corner where he expected to steady himself. The ledge at that recessed corner was a little wider than the rest, and he could get his shots off more easily. He touched the rifle and opened the window. He didn’t climb out just yet, but he was ready to.
He looked at the powerful man in the gray coat and took in a deep breath. He might have worked out longer, but Loki had natural talent. He had more than natural talent, he and P-Mang had been testing it lately in secret, which of course was the real reason P-Mang had to die. P-Mang had been the only one who knew that he wasn’t sure what the full extent of his powers were. Now that they were sure what they were, P-Mang had needed to go in order to better give the sort of impression Loki had been giving. He pressed the send button and slid the earpiece into his ear a little deeper.
© 2012 Autumn Knight Productions
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Friday, March 22, 2013
I Will Judge How Ever I Like
Here are some arguments about books that I am frankly tired of having.
Idiot: You can't judge a book by its cover!
Me: There are six thousand titles in this particular book store, not counting the three odd hundred monthly magazines that they stock. As I am not inclined to read the back of EVERY(!) SINGLE(!) BOOK(!), or look up a review of EVERY(!) SINGLE(!) BOOK(!) quite often the only thing I have to go by is what is on the cover. I only have so much time on this Earth, and I only have so much reading space within that time. You will forgive me, if I make certain judgments based upon the covers.
It may not be a final and immutable judgment, but all you said in your asinine and half understood repetition of an annoying cliché was that I was not allowed to make a judgment. You didn't add and conditions to the idiotic cliché, you just spewed it. You made it a blanket statement, and that makes you and idiot.
I am maintaining that it is impossible for me to do anything other than that. It is impossible not to judge, because our brains do it automatically. If you're going to talk idiotically, I am going to treat you like an idiot. So here we have my answer... Yes, I can, I just did.
Moron: You can't apply your modern views to a book from XX32!
Me: Because you have a full and complete contextual understanding of the 14th century while allows you to fully and completely judge The Canterbury Tales based on the morals and society of the time when it was written? Do you also fully and completely understand 5th century BC Greece? Because if not, how do you read Herodotus? Ignore the fact, for a moment, that anyone who answers "Yes" to either of those questions is a liar because people who have spent their entire lives studying those periods have told me they don't really understand what it was like. I have only one culture and live in only one time period.
I can only reflect upon any book I read, the morals and cultural understanding of my culture onto any book I read. Even if I know enough to understand that my culture is different from this one I'm reading about, any and all interpretations are going to come from my understanding of the world I live in. Anything else would be borrowed understanding, taking another person's interpretation and trying to make it my own through osmosis. That is fundamentally a dishonest interpretation, because it would not be MY understanding, but allowing another person to understand for me. That may be useful to some extent, but it also means that any understanding I have will be colored by the prejudices and misunderstandings that person built their interpretation upon. This means that someone who doesn't want Sherlock Holmes to be gay, or Dracula to be a story about the dangers of foreign investment, or thinks the Oz stories shouldn't be allegory for American economic society can either ignore or deliberately misinterpret the signs that are there. Likewise, someone who does want those things can ignore the parts that say that TOTALLY isn't what's going on or deliberately misinterpret parts to shape the book to their views.
And in that, even studying other books of the time, I can find justifications for some things. Books where gay men were closeted, had the gay man in question acting very much like Bertie Wooster. Drug addicts, even in books written at the time, DO act like Sméagol behaves in Lord of The Rings. And Fagin is a child molester from the mold of banned and illegally sold books of the era. These are things you can take from BOOKS OF THE TIME!
To put it more succinctly... Yes, I can, I just did.
Complete Asshole: You can't not like a book because you don't like the *Story *Characters *Writing Style *Greater Message *Racism *Constant Rape Scenes *Cut Of The Writers Jib You have to like the book because of the *Story *Characters *Writing Style *Greater Message *Racism *Constant Rape Scenes *Cut Of The Writers Jib
Me: Fuck! You! I have been told that I am not allowed to dislike books for all of these reasons, and that I am required (evidently by law) to keep reading a book I don't like because of some other quality. Well, no, fuck you and fuck your momma! If I have turned against a book, and am not enjoying it, there are roughly a million billion other books I can read. Why must I read it because you have chosen to forgive something? It's horse shit like that that leads to people either not reading, or not talking to you about what they read or saying to me "Don't be friends with that prolapsed asshole of a fuck-faced hipster shithead. All they ever do is tell you what a moron you are for not reading books on their approved list of books." That, by the way, is a direct quote from someone to me about a person who turned out to be a prolapsed asshole of a fuck-faced hipster shithead who told lots of people they were morons for not reading books from his approved list of books. Eventually (seventeen minutes late) I had enough of him and never talked to him again.
You like Harry Potter? Read Harry Potter. I think it's a terrible group of books, but I really won't think you're a moron for liking it. You like Twilight? Read Twilight. Again, from what I know it's a horrifying series and not because of the vampires, but far be it for me to tell you not to read something. You like Ender's Game? It's okay, Orson Scott Card probably wouldn't recognize the guy who wrote that book if he met him in the street. You don't have to consider everything he's done and said since if you don't want to. You like old Regency romance novels? Go ahead and read them in an empire dress while fingering your oddly curled hair.
You have a perfect right to like whatever book you like on whatever terms you have decided to like it. You also have a perfect right to dislike something for whatever reason you've decided to turn against it. Someone can say "Let me persuade you otherwise" and then try some reasoning, but anyone who says you're stupid or less worthy for liking something is an asshole and you have my permission to stop talking to them.
Anyone who tries to use the entertainment you consume as a tool for judgment about you is kind of an asshole anyway. Even if they decide you're okay because you also enjoy sitting in a theater to listen to someone sit in a chair and read excerpts from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in a squeaky voice. I wouldn't hang out with that person, if they're only prepared to accept your society under those terms.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
May I introduce to you...
They're not in any order, BTW, just laying out there as they landed.
Nick and Nora Charles
Sean Dillon - Formerly of the IRA
Nero Wolfe and his man Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday Archie Goodwin.
Bilbo Baggins - Of Bag End, Hobbiton
Dorothy Gale
Bertram Wilberforce Wooster and his valet Reginald Jeeves
Spenser (no first name given), Susan Silverman, Hawk and Pearl the Wonderdog
Peter Parker
Alice (possibly Liddell)
Philip Marlowe
Raoul Duke (Dr of Journalism) & Dr. Gonzo (esq)
Samuel Spade
Elric (formerly of Melniboné)
Bruce Wayne
Rincewind
Now, one must note, I am speaking of books here. The movies and TV shows that might also ensue will be another grouping later. There are just the people you should get to know book wise, and I feel like this is merely a sample.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Easter Display
I'm pleased with the results, but it took a lot of tape and I had to weight the baskets down with bags of candy to get them to stay put.
PS - The photos are crappy because I took them with a cell phone. Cell phone pictures are always crappy. ALWAYS! If you try to print cell phone pictures at my store I will punch you in the soul.
Monday, March 18, 2013
We lack a wave
As some of you may know, I don't read a great many new books. I have read three of the Harry Potter books, and World War Z. Those may be the newest books I've read. No, I take it back, I have also read all of Sarah Vowell's books save for her first one. The point, if I may make so bold, is that I am mainly a reader of the past. Anyone who has actually heard me utter the phrase "Tootle Pip!" can attest that my set of phrases is from an outdated vernacular. I often wonder if I'm not looking for something in those old books, in those past generations that I can't find in my own generation. Sometimes, I look for echoes of my own experience, hoping that it wasn't just those of us born in the late 60s and early to mid 70s.
Generation X is not a happy generation. We never really learned things properly. If I felt like blaming the elder generation, I might say we were never taught things properly. However, that would be a *You* statement, and not an *I* statement. The point is, we were failed by our elders and failed by ourselves. Always told there would be someone else to look after things, we allowed other people to look after things. I have noted that we were never so much as taught how to balance a check book, which is something I'm told kids are learning now a days. Basic bookkeeping any way, check books are old hat what ho!
And what comes from that? We had no war to protest, we had no social wrongs to right. We were kind of told that it would all be taken care of. You must remember that when we were young and energetic, the whole gay thing looked to be sorted by about 1999. Had we not sat on our haunches, it might have been too. Sorry about that. We were told our parents' generation would handle it, like they handled everything else. Should have set off warning bells at the time frankly.
We had the energy, but we had no direction. We had the will, but no idea what to do with it. In the end we turned inward, naval gazing in the great pastime of my generation, he said without a hint of irony. We wanted to learn, wanted to grow, but wanted to feel we'd done some of it on our own, without the elders' constant influence, always pointing out how they'd done it better when they were our age. Whatever it was we did, they'd got there first and told us we weren't as good as them. Rock? Beatles! Sex? Hefner! Drugs? Thompson! Our explorations into these things couldn't even be taken with the abandon of others, we still had our parents in there, telling us how it was awesomer when they were doing it for the first time. They also didn't have AIDS to contend with... or M.C. Hammer.
I come from a generation that was always living with the feeling of being shoved aside. The baby-boomers, not wishing to admit that they were old, kept invading our spaces. We couldn't even be young without some old fart constantly trying to muscle in and leach off our energy, to suck off our youngness, in an attempt to stave off the inevitable for just a few moments longer. As a result, we became a Generation of Bertie Woosters. Not the affable idiot, but the creature described by Bertie's archest of arch nemiseseses, Aunt Agatha Gregson...
"It is young men like you who make the person with the future of the race at heart despair! Cursed with too much money, you fritter away in selfish idleness a life which might have been made useful, helpful, and profitable. You do nothing but waste your time on frivolous pleasures. You are simply an anti-social animal, a drone."
Okay, one might argue that she's talking about Hipsters there, but I disagree. Hipsters are at least a movement. They have a name and a uniform... and stupid facial hair. When hipsters saw something was wrong with the banks, they started the Occupy Movement. Okay, it was ineffectual and in the end it doesn't seem to have worked, but they tried. What did Gen X do? We went to Lilith Faire and turned Woodstock into a debacle. We've never really made anything of ourselves, we're still sort of slouching to one side, hoping the next generation will leap where we simply looked.
But then, I don't know that we were ever given a chance to make up our own minds. We were caught between different adults and their philosophies, concepts, and methods. They were just learning what the problem with some of us was, and misdiagnosing the hell out of it. The changes in education that actually did some good, came too late. We were brought up by a slew of false gurus that were taking our parents for everything they had. Gen Y and The Millennials are far less of a mess in my view. They're more polite at any rate.
Anyone who wants to argue can come down to my job and watch Baby-Boomers, Gen Xers, and the So-Called Greatest Generation act like entitled fuck bends who have an emotional breakdown every time we don't have exactly what they want versus the young people who softly ask if we have what their looking for and when told no say thank you and either make another selection or go somewhere else. These kids are far more polite and respecting than any of the others that preceded them. No one else gets told their rude so much as these kids today, and no one deserves it less. But this isn't about those kids, it's about the rude jackasses that make up my age group.
In some sense, I suppose I feel this way because we're talking about MY group, that I would probably feel this sense of failure no matter what generation I was a part of. I can't help though, but feel that we never amounted to anything because we were so often told we wouldn't that we believed those who told us. And now I see those people going to Zen-Apache Shamans, offering the wisdom of the Indians (Asian or American continent, your pick, it's all gibberish anyway) as a way to fix whatever they think is ailing them this week. We might not have amounted to much, but we didn't turn into total idiots like they did.
I keep going back to The Wave Speech, and wishing we had something like it
" There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning ....And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave ....So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark —that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."
Granted, Thompson was just writing about the universal failure of any youth movement, but I never really felt we had one. There is no equivalent of that speech from a member of Generation X that I know of. We had no cause, to war to protest. Individual things like sexuality and spirituality seemed to be sorting themselves out without our help. We have no high water mark, if anything I've often felt that we were the antithesis. Not only that, but we were constantly reminded of the place where the high water mark was. An older generation that WOULD NOT shut up about that fucking wave was always pointing to the place where it broke.
We always have a feeling of having not done the thing. When we had the energy, if we'd had the will, we might have been able to make something of ourselves. We could have been somebody, we could have been contenders... but there I go, fading into the past again.
We did though, we had all those music festivals and learned how to cook, and use the internet. I've often thought that we became foodies and knitters in a desperate attempt to make something, anything, on our own without the constant interference of the elders. These were things we could learn to do without our parents looking over our shoulders at ever hour of everyday. Always trying to pry their way into whatever cool, youthful, sexy thing we were doing at the time.
AND YET!
We have made a few things. I can cook fantastically well. I know people who can knit little bobbles in the shape of Dr. Who characters. We have, through great effort, learned to do a few things here and there. We have made homes, some of us have started families, and we have sort of quietly stated that it won't be like last time. We're trying not to get in the next groups' way, trying to let them explore and fail on their own. Giving them the room to do something, and not crowding them too much if we can manage. Generation X has been admirable in our ability to get out of the damn way, as far as I've seen. And in that, maybe we will have done something. Or maybe someone will write this exact same set of complaints in 20 years, bitching that the Gen Xers never got out of Generation AA's way long enough to let them become something.
Or maybe, you can stand on a hill somewhere, and with the right kind of eyes see the hundreds of places, where wave after wave hit and then rolled back. Maybe we were as much as part of one big wave as any other, performing the same pattern of erosion that every other generation performed, only we weren't as able to see it because we were too aware of what had come before.
Either way, I'll be very put out if no one spots the Nero Wolfe reference in this thing.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Twins in Death: Chapter Seven - Part One
Twins in Death
A Tale of The Weirdo
By Brett N. Lashuay
Chapter Seven: Face to Face
October 24th, 2002
2:25 p.m.
The Weirdo felt like he was moving through a patch of water, as he went down the servant’s stairs towards the wine cellar. Not that these were really servants stairs anymore, there hadn’t been servants in this house in years. Not since the late sixties when Tommy finally closed the house up for good. The Weirdo still thought of the old place as it had been when they first came here though. In the old order of things, these were the servant’s stairs and they went to the old kitchen, store rooms and wine cellar.
There had been no reason to come to the cellar in the old days, but there had been changes since then. It was during the seventies and eighties that the underground complex had been built. While the house had been officially closed up, men with digging machines had come. There was a natural cave system under the house, and steel had reinforced it. Concrete had lined the caves and millions of dollars had given them all the comforts of home. There was now a complex nearly twice the size of the house underground, under the house.
It was called The Hole, because you had to have a short hand name for the place. Names like Bat Cave, Fortress of Solitude and Shadow Gallery had long since been taken, so he came up with something simple. The Weirdo opened the door to the wine cellar and looked at the old velvet covered bench against one wall. He and Suzy had misbehaved down in this room, amongst the bottles. He remembered the last night with her, just before the explosion that ripped him from his life. She had bent over the bench and had to bite down on the cushion to keep from screaming. He wondered whatever happened to her, after he vanished.
He knew now that such dalliances with a maid who worked for him was wrong, but he hadn’t known that in his youth. He sighed for a moment as he thought about the fact that he only looked three or maybe five years older than he had in those days, which belied the aging that had gone on. He was far older than he looked, but that had been because of Weirdness and his troop of minions. Or maybe it was that Weirdness was another minion and they were all under some force. The same force that caused Grandma’s voice to come to him in times of trouble. Perhaps they were all servants to some other force.
There aren’t any servants any more.
He wasn’t sure what that voice was, but it was right. The servants had all been dismissed when the house had been officially closed up. Now everyone wanted to be here. They were all private contractors, or people who had their own money. They weren’t here for a paycheck anymore, but they had a job to do.
They had to save mommies and daddies and people who can’t save themselves.
He shook his head to try and shake this thought away. He had to focus on the task at hand, just as La Kin would have told him too. He took a deep breath and reached out for the last rack of bottles. He looked at the only bottle with no label on it. He sighed for a moment and then pulled on the metal switch. It didn't have any fancy electric power to it, it wasn't a mess of gears, and in fact it was almost a one-piece switch. You pulled on the switch, and the spring released an old steel latch. The rack of wine bottles lurched forward ever so slightly. A single bar of steel went from the switch to the latch. It was such a simplistic and stupid way to get into a secret lair. It had so little technology and such a lack of grace or guile that it had never been discovered by anyone, because anyone who found it would think it was too stupid to be the way in.
He then pushed slightly on the wall and the spring latch opened and reveled the secret wall way. There was an elevator and a set of stairs, both of which went down. He looked at the stairs and thought maybe, just maybe, he should conserve his strength for now. He turned to the elevator and pressed the call button, surprised to find the door sprung open immediately. He didn’t know why this surprised him exactly, but he had thought the elevator should be on the lower levels. He stepped into the large fifteen-person elevator and pressed the button for the fifth floor. The elevator was large enough to take a surgical gurney down to the lower levels where they had a clinic.
It was on the lower levels that Doc Crazy, with all his inventions and genius, spent most his time. He never came up to the house if he could help it, and only went out through the tunnels that lead to the city when he needed something. Other than that he just stayed below ground and worked on all his little inventions that The Weirdo would use and then sell for him on the open market. There was a particular enhancement of cell phones and a new process for making fuel for cars that had more than paid for the good doctor’s experiments that never went anywhere. The Weirdo wasn’t headed that way today though, he was headed towards the computer.
On the fifth floor, almost the entire fifth floor in fact, was a massive computer. It was sort of a network, but only in the vaguest sense. In truth it was the sort of impressive super computing device that would make the average worker in the computer science division of any department of the government down in Adams D.C. drool and turn many a color with envy. It was connected to the computer terminals upstairs, and could be accessed from there, but there was something about being in the room, hearing the few mechanical bits turn and the gentle trickling of the liquid coolant as it moved about.
There was something about being with the computer, having it in the room with him, that made it all seem that much faster. He would only be able to take a few minutes, but he thought that would be enough. He knew he wasn’t going to be killed at this meeting, but you must remember to jump when you are, he needed to know who he was dealing with though
There had been a scientist that had disappeared sometime ago. He was working on human cloning until he’d vanished. There had been crucifixes spray painted on the walls of his home and “Thou Shalt not Play God” in the blood of his wife and infant child. He had not been found though, not a single sign of him. A burned body had been found, and there had been some suggestion that it was him, but no one was sure. Dental identification was proving very difficult since someone had evidently smashed the person’s face in before setting them alight.
That wasn’t what he was really looking for though and he knew it. He needed information for now, not something that was apparently going to happen thirty years from now if Loki was to be believed, and he probably wasn’t. The whole thing was lies and bullshit, there was something deeply wrong here.
He went quickly through the back doors he had long since hacked into the FBI computers and put some pieces together. It was already clear to the NYPD that The Weirdo had been ripping someone’s arm out of his socket so any evidence that appeared at the crime scene relating to him was only being examined as far as someone deliberately trying to frame him. The FBI had moved in already though, because of a series of fairly brutal crimes that had been committed by this person already. The glyph he’d put on the wall was evidently something of a calling card for him.
Oddly enough the evidence showed that the same killer who had done over Jorgaes’s friends had quite a long history. He had killed fifty-two people, eleven different families. Upon investigation, there was a single disturbing thing about the families that were targeted, the fact that nothing disturbing was found about them. There was never a hint or suggestion of infidelity, the children were well behaved and did fairly well at school. Every member of the family seemed to be pretty much well liked and to all purposes, they seemed to have all been the perfect family. The killer had a habit of setting them up for meals, or sitting around the TV, or he would put them to bed. Every time there had been a place for the killer to join the family once they had been killed. The Weirdo read a little deeper and found another interesting fact.
There had been four survivors of the attacks, all teenaged girls. He had raped them, and had almost always made them watch as he would sodomize himself and masturbate, but he had left them alive. Two had since committed suicide, one had been committed to an insane asylum, and the last…
Now this was, again, interesting. The last was a woman who had vanished, though Interpol suspected her of several things or at least in connection. There were three blurry pictures from a surveillance camera that wasn’t working properly. There was a notation that she had probably come back to America. The New York police had a note to investigate a house on Long Island. He filed that back and switched the screen of the computer off. He looked at his pocket watch and noted the time. There had to be a dozen clocks and chronometers in the room, but he pulled the watch out, popped open the cover and looked at the slowly turning hands.
He pursed his lips for a moment and thought about whether he should even go to this nut job’s meeting? He thought he might give it a miss, but the idea of him training a rifle down on just anybody stopped him. If he was telling the truth, and he was a clone of The Weirdo, he would have all those angry violent impulses to deal with. He figured he would have to go then, and get himself shot at a few times. If he was as good as he thought he was, he could get the bastard first.
© 2012 Autumn Knight Productions
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Friday, March 15, 2013
Slow Clap
As for his spiritual redemption though, he's only getting a slow sarcastic clap from me.
It leads me to believe he never REALLY opposed marriage equality, he just wanted to look like he was because it played well with his voting block. I assume that he will still oppose women's rights, the rights of minorities, the rights of the poor, the rights of those who can't afford health care, and on and on and on...
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Stop Blaming Art
Listen, Ayn Rand wrote a stupid, little book that I personally find less appealing to read than having a sewing needle shoved unlovingly up my urethra. I personally think that Atlas Shrugged is less a book than an overly long pamphlet on objectivism. I can't summon up much hate for the book though. It's barely a novel, and it's not an engaging or interesting book. I never even finished it, I was so bored I gave up and quit. That's my thought. I think, if anything, my views on Ayn Rand's work is probably worse than those who froth at the mouth with hate. Mine is just dismissive. I just don't care.
I cannot bring myself to agree that Atlas Shrugged makes people into assholes. I've met people who have read the book, some of them have taken in the ideas and held them close to their heart, some have rejected them and found other philosophies. When it comes down to it, the person mattered way more than the art ever did.
You can argue that art is powerful, and often times it is, but the only change that art makes is by giving real people a way to phrase things. I have rarely ever seen a book, movie, video game, painting, song or interpretive dance really change someone's mind on a subject. I have seen it give people a way to introduce a subject in conversation, encourage them to inform themselves about a subject, or (most frequently of all) articulate an idea they already had.
You take the St. Crispin's Speech from Shakespeare's Henry V...
That is either the worst piece of warmongering ever immortalized in the English language, or the single explanation anyone ever needs to point out the beauty of the brotherhood of arms. I have heard both interpretations given quite eloquently. My personal view can be best expressed by saying "Or? What's this 'or' shit?" The point is that people have been having the argument about whether Henry was cynically exploiting his troops or did he mean it for centuries and no one has been able to bring a final answer to the question.
Because art doesn't do that.
I don't believe that anyone reads a book and becomes an asshole. Assholes read books and find articulation for their views. They were going to be dicks, no matter what, this just gave them something to fall back on besides their own words. Good people don't become better for their books either. They just find articulation for good ideas they already hold. Society has more hold over people than any book, movie, play, sculpture, radio play, live sex show or collectable figurine from the Franklin Mint that only had 965 firing days.
Art can give you a reference, it can give you a common place to explain an idea, but it rarely gives anyone their ideas independent of actual people. It may express your idea better than you could, or give you a new way to think about a problem, but the influence it has is remarkably small when given the enormous impact we have with other human beings.
And if I may, allow me to express some things I am not. I am not a drug-fueled sociopath who runs rampant through the desert. I am not a hard bitten private eye, who screws both his secretary and his partner's wife. I am not a burglar, roped into an adventure by thirteen whining dwarves. Not a gangster, nor a gritty cop in search of gangsters. I'm not a pre-war 1%er who always find himself in sticky situations that only his trusty valet can get him out of. I'm not a womanizing spy with a penchant for martinis. I'm not a Jedi knight, or even a pirate who shoots first. I am not an occasionally resurrected spree killer with a fetish for hockey masks. I am not an orchid loving detective who weighs a third of a ton, nor his smartalec man-Friday, Saturday, Sunday Monday, Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday. I am not a failed wizard with an animated trunk. I'm not even a thriller writer who had to fight his own evil twin to the death via the medium of sparrows. There are a lot of things I'm not, and while some of the things I've enjoyed have helped to inform and cement my views, I don't think any of them were that instrumental in actually FORMING my views. They were my own views, and I would argue my parents, my sister and the people around me were far, far more instructive than any entertainment might have been.
The most art ever did was to give me a way to talk about the ideas already in my head, and the only reason I ever wrote, drew or painted, was because I didn't see MY ideas expressed quite in the way I wanted them to be.
So no, I don't think Ayn Rand turned anyone into a monster. I think the most she ever did was to give a monster a phrase they could use to justify their monstrous behavior. The same applies for all the good and bad done in the name of whatever gods happen to come your way. People's views are their own, and all they're ever doing is hiding behind what their holy book claims their god said because they know that otherwise their views would be indefensible. But asshole behavior can't be blamed on The Bible, The Koran, Hop on Pop, or The Legend of Zelda.
Likewise, I don't credit The Bible, The Koran, Hop on Pop, The Legend of Zelda, Black Orchids, Transformers: The Movie, or even Mark Rothko with any good behavior. A person who is going to be good, would probably do good works no matter what their reading or viewing material might be. Good people sometimes might need a bit of guidance as to what area they aim their goodness, but a good person is going to be a good person without being told by a book or game what to do.
An organization, inspired by a TV show, might be able to encourage a person to commit money to a charity, but now we're talking about a group of people again. Trekkies do good and get all that money for worthy causes because they're good people. The good messages they get from Star Trek resonated with something already good within them and as a group they encourage each other.
But as powerful as I believe art to be, it's nothing when compared to the power of people who consume that art. People are important. Ideas are transitory. You'd do better to try and convince someone not to be an asshole than you will shoving a book under their nose and expecting them to get the non-asshole idea on their own. And maybe they won't anyway. I've personally rejected hundreds of philosophical ideas, not because they were good or bad, but because they didn't resonate with whatever frequency my own internal barometer hums at. Even the most pervasive propaganda in the world is only as effective as the audience experiencing it.
So stop blaming art. Art is innocent. Art is neutral. Art is only good or bad by the people who consume it.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Voice of a Generation.
I'm barely my own voice, much less that of a generation. Okay? Also? Not much of a content creator. I photograph things, that makes me a content recorder.
Okay, I wrote a couple of novels that no one read, but I feel that adds to the Not The Voice vibe more than it confirms my status.
And really, if this generation is confirmed by MY voice, that would make me feel a little sick.
Monday, March 11, 2013
No one cares about what I'm reading
I've read most the Charles Paris books by Simon Brett, and I rather like them. Some of the mysteries in first ones are a little rough, a little too Golden Age, but the stories are good. These are good books, even if the early ones are predictable mysteries. (they get a lot better around book 4) I like the character of Charles Paris quite a lot. Not a bad little set of books, even if I could guess the killer 9 out of 10 times.
Trying to decide what to read after I get done with the last two books. I might read more of Simon Brett's work later, but for the moment I need a bit of a change.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Twins in Death: Chapter Six – Part Six
Twins in Death
A Tale of The Weirdo
By Brett N. Lashuay
Chapter Six: To Plan a Meeting
June 1st, 1390
12:01 p.m.
They were walking a well-trodden road; the two men moving from one place to another. They were possibly just a pair of men going about their business. One of them seemed to be dressed in the faded once black gray of a priest’s cassock. He might have been an adventurer though. It would be hard to tell without looking closer at him and inspecting his person. Unfortunately he did not look like the sort of man who would invite investigations. The other man was a writer.
“So I’ve got this idea about a knight.” The writer said.
“Oh yes?” The Weirdo asked.
“I’ve written some of it already.” He said.
“Is that the idea you had about the pilgrims?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a bit ambitious Jeff.”
“Am I?” Jeff asked.
“This is the fifty third idea for this poem you’ve come up with so far.” The Weirdo said. “I’m not sure you could get it all done in time.”
“Maybe not.” Jeff said. “But we can discuss it a bit, work out what should be kept and what should be left behind.”
“Sure, why not.” The Weirdo said.
“Besides.” Jeff said. “It’s important to let people know how their heroes act, and not just how they should act. Parody is very important you understand, by making a broad joke you can revel the narrow truth.”
“So long as you can throw your talking penis in?” The Weirdo asked.
“Well, it’s a laugh isn’t it?” Jeff replied.
October 24th, 2002
2:17 p.m.
The Weirdo walked past one room with an open door and looked at the network television, which screamed at him from the hallway. He walked in and found his protégée, Max. His feet were propped up on the arm of the couch and his head was resting on several throw pillows. His left arm was placed across his stomach, being the only place he could comfortably rest it anymore.
Maximilian Zane was about twenty-one and had begun college this year, but still lived in The Weirdo’s house and worked with him. Unlike the rest of his housemates, he dressed more like an average person his age. He was usually wearing blue jeans and a good shirt. His brown hair was an acceptable length, and it was combed in an average style.
He wasn’t slouched on the couch though, as slouching caused pain. He still ached from a pair of bullets that had meant to take his life, ten months earlier. He also couldn’t drape his left arm over the back of the couch since his left arm couldn’t raise that high anymore without significant pain. The bullets that should have killed him had at least created a significant discomfort.
The events in the freezing lake had also started some arthritis in his left hand. He wasn’t sure if he was prone to the painful joint disorder or if the bullets which struck the vest which he had worn had started it. He had pain in his left arm that had started from the cracked ribs and having to pull himself up from the freezing water, but it had lingered well after the body as supposed to have healed.
The Weirdo walked into the room and sat down. He looked very much unlike a rich superhero to Max. He wore a T-shirt and sweat pants most of the time. Usually the shirt had three or four buttons running down the front to give the illusion of something more than just a T-shirt. He was also wearing a thin cotton dress shirt over his shirt today. He pushed the thin shirt open and ran his fingers along the buttons.
“Can't you feel your brain melting?” The Weirdo said.
“Fortunately.” Max said, “I've been subjected to this for so long that my brain became an unrecognizable goo long ago.”
“Oh,” The Weirdo said nodding, “I see, no change then? Just a bit of churning going on, a bit of percolation?”
“Oh, shut up.” Max said and then turned to The Weirdo “What are you up to?”
“I am wandering about the house. I am bored and not doing anything.”
“So watch TV.”
“Nothing good on.” The Weirdo said. “I'm just not digging TV today.”
“Digging?” Max asked. “Do people still dig things?”
“In some parts of the world I’m sure people still dig things, and even catch the funky groove once in a while.”
“Glad I live in a civilized place.” Max said.
“Enjoy your TV watching.”
“Thanks.”
“And do your homework.”
“Have done already.”
The Weirdo got up and walked out of the room, he almost always felt at least a little better after talking to Max. It was like reaching out to a part of himself that hadn't died with that chestnut haired beauty on the floor of the front room. He often wondered if it wasn’t as Mrs. Pendleton had suggested that Max was like the son he didn’t have. That in Max there was something of the boy he used to be.
He moved into the hallway again, he moved past a small Victorian table with a portable phone on it. The phone suddenly chirped in something slightly resembling a ring. An electronic tone is not a ring. He looked at it and thought about the possibilities that this phone would ring at this time. He reached out and picked it up.
“This is The Weirdo.” He said.
“Hello there, brother.” A cheery voice said on the other end. “This is your clone talking.”
“Sorry,” The Weirdo said. “I have no siblings. I was birthed out of sea foam like Aphrodite.”
“Don't hang up.” The voice on the other end said. “I've got a surprise for you. You're gonna love this.”
“Love what?” The Weirdo asked.
“This is Angie.” The voice said. “Say ‘hi’ to The Weirdo, Angie.”
“Oh God, help me!” She cried into the phone.
“Angie is a hooker, I had to sodomize and kill her boyfriend earlier today. He was kind enough to give me ownership of her before he died though. This is what it sounds like when I cut Angie's pinky off.”
There was a moment, less than a second really, when The Weirdo was able to form a perfect mental image. A straight razor, the flesh of a finger being cut, the way the blade caught resistance for a moment when it hit the cartilage. The fact that for a moment he could hear it didn't help. There was a scream, the throat clenching in the special way. The blood pouring down over the crevices of her hand and dripping onto her shoe was clear to him. The Weirdo put a hand over the phone.
“Max! Trace this call.”
“And this is what it sounds like when I cut off her ring finger.” The voice came over the cries of pain.
There was another image in The Weirdo’s head of the blade cutting into the ring finger. He could see the spurt of fresh blood and then he heard another blood curdling scream.
“It's a cell phone, registered to someone in Pakistan.” Max responded after a moment.
“What the hell do you want?” The Weirdo snarled into the phone. He could hear sobbing for a moment before his question was ignored and the voice on the other line continued.
“And this is her middle finger.” There was a scream that cut off half way through. “Damn, she fainted. Listen though, you can hear the flesh tearing away.”
The Weirdo could see the image in his head the faint sounds through the phone seemed unnecessary when compared to the ones he heard in his head, the hand gripping the finger and tearing it away from the hand. The finger had to be twisted quite sharply to get it to rip off from the hand. The Weirdo could picture the image completely, he could even tell which part of town the call was coming from.
He could feel the annoyed look on the face of the person talking to him. The person was hoping to draw this out longer but Angie had failed him, there was a feeling that he should have expected this from her.
“Oh what the hell. Might as well.” There was one sudden bang.
“You just shot her, didn't you?”
“Yes,” he said. “A nine millimeter, and now that I have your attention let me spill the big secret.”
“Big secret?”
“There's a government project in the works right now. It won't be perfected for another thirty years or so, but it's there. This doctor, I won't give you his name just in case, perfects human cloning and gene manipulation to a point where he can take a person's DNA and turn it up to ten. After all that he's going to make a clone of you. He's going to turn your DNA up to ten, maybe even eleven like in that movie Spinal Tap. They put him in a bad home where he was abused and beaten. Then someone found a way to release Loki from his prison in Niflheim, and put him in this perfect body they made. So now I’ve got resources, and I’ve got means and I’m going to take my revenge. I came back in time and I’m going to take my revenge.”
“How are you going to get your revenge though?” The Weirdo asked. It was the only thing he could think of after a bombshell like that. “What do you want?”
“I want you. With worms coming out of one of your eye sockets.”
“Lovely.” The Weirdo said. “How does that help you in the vengeance department?”
“Do you know what pain it cause me, with those rocks on me? That snake, dripping on my head? Or what they did to the boy who was here before I got this body? I’ve got to deal with the personality that is you in this body as well. It’s quite tough, and we’re not having a very good time together so I’d like to kill you as soon as possible.”
“How does that help you though?”
“Doesn’t matter if you see or don’t see the plan.” Loki said. “You get killed and I’ll worry about the rest.”
“So when do you want it?”
“When?” The voice asked. “Oh, when? How about you walk into Rockefeller Plaza and let me cap you there?”
“Why should I do that?” The Weirdo asked wondering what kind of verb was 'cap' anyway? He internally sighed for the American educational system.
“Because you don't want me shooting into the crowd.”
“Did it occur to you that I've got friends who could help me kill you?”
“I did think of that yes, but I'm more resilient than you are. I think I could take them on.”
“So, you want me to just walk into my death?”
“That's the plan. Otherwise I might take a machine gun down to the plaza and just start cutting people down. Maybe it's won't be Rockefeller, maybe it'll be Time Square, maybe I'll go to the White House.”
“What stops you from going there after?”
“Nothing, but you won't have to worry about that.”
“Why should I worry if you decide to take out the White House?”
“Good point, but I could go to a schoolyard.”
“So, you'll go on killing people at random unless I show up to a place to get shot at. Afterwards you'll go on killing people at random anyway?”
“That's the plan, man. I know it's not very fair, but I'm not a fair guy.”
“Am I supposed to wear a target on my back or anything? No guns, stuff like that?”
“Oh, hell no. Bring an entire arsenal if you like. Shoot back, it'll make the game more fun.”
“I see.” The Weirdo said.
“Anyway, must go. The police will be here to find out what that bang was and someone might notice the fact that a stolen cell phone's being used and shut me down at anytime. See you in about an hour. Must go, bye.” He hung up.
“Well?” Max asked as he moved into the hallway. “You gonna go?”
“I don't suppose I have much of a choice, do I?” The Weirdo said. “He just killed a woman over a phone line with no other reason than to prove that he would.”
“Yeah.” Max said.
“Yeah.” The Weirdo said, opening a closet and pulling his coat out.
“Thing is.” Max said.
“Yes?” The Weirdo asked.
“That conversation you just had with whoever it is…”
“What about it?”
“You didn't notice anything odd about it?”
“Like?”
“Like it sounded like you were having a conversation with yourself. You sounded exactly alike.”
“How would I know, anyway?” The Weirdo asked. “Who recognizes their own voice?”
“Well I kinda thought you would.” Max said
“Almost nobody can recognize their own voice. The only people who can are some people in the media who are such ego maniacs that they listen to their own shows.”
“Yeah, I know.”
He pulled out a forty-five automatic and primed a round into the chamber. This was not a chrome or nickel-plated model. This was barely blue steel. It was clearly a utilitarian weapon. It was something that said to the person on the wrong end that the guy holding it was probably not going to take 'oops' as an excuse for beating an old lady to death or the old 'she was asking for it' as defense for gang rape. This was the weapon of someone who seriously wanted to make people not alive anymore. He slipped the gun back into his coat and wondered how a gun could say so much. For a hunk of steel, it sure was a chatty little weapon.
I’ll have to jump when I die. The thought echoed around in his head again. It won’t happen now, but I’ll have to jump when it does.
“You want me along?” Max asked. The Weirdo pursed his lips for a moment and slid the gun back into his coat.
“Yeah.” The Weirdo said, “Get Jack and Tommy, too; but only as backup. No interference unless you have to. I can just hear the news people screaming about me being a blight on the community now.”
“Probably.” Max said. “I'll call the guys and tell them to come back you up.”
“On my call.” The Weirdo said.
“Right.” Max said, “He’s nuts isn’t he?”
“Hmm?”
“He thinks he’s the God Loki?”
“No he doesn’t.” The Weirdo said. “He’s gotten used to telling people he’s the God Loki, his name might actually be Loki but he’s telling people he is. He’s probably got a little batch of losers convinced he is Loki doing his bidding for him.”
“What did he mean by revenge though?”
“Oh I spent some time among the Nordic Gods for a little while when I was, ya know back in the day.” The Weirdo said. “I helped get Loki locked up.”
“So how does he know this?”
“That’s an interesting question. One which I shall find the answer for later.”
“How do you know he’s lying then?”
“It’s in the tone of his voice. He doesn’t actually believe the last part. He believes everything up to the point were he starts claiming to be a god. I think he’s told other people that he is the god though, so he might begin to believe it soon. We’ll just have to give Stewie McCrazypants a kick in the ass before he gets to that point.”
“Loki McCrazypants.” Max said.
“Yeah whatever.” The Weirdo said.
“So we wait for you?”
“Yeah.” The Weirdo said. “I’m gonna go check something down in the hole and then I’m going to go to Rockefeller center and see what I can see.”
“You sure you don’t want us to just go with you?”
“No.” The Weirdo said. “Let me check him out on my own first, if anything he said is true he’ll probably be expecting you guys to show up. It’ll keep him off balance longer if he doesn’t know the power of our force.”
“If you say so.”
“And I do.”
© 2012 Autumn Knight Productions