Progress

As anyone who looks at the last post date might observe, I have been rather diligently avoiding writing. This has secretly been an attempt at channeling some unspent productivity towards more pressing work and even more secretly been the result of laziness/forgetfulness.

NO MORE! I intend to post something (though most likely not part of the ongoing story) everyday. This content will instead consist of my dreams. After all, if my brain is kind enough to come up with a plot and write dialogue in my sleep, then I may as well put it to some use.

Without further ado....

Dream Log 1:

Hitler was climbing over a fence. More accurately, a man in a brown uniform, with a tiny patch of mustache and a name tag identifying him as Mr. Hilter was tying to jump a fence. Why? I haven't the foggiest. And apparently, neither did my Dreamself. It decided that this set up was too confusing and thus converted the live action into a photograph, which I found myself staring at while traveling on a bus to ancient Mayan ruins during the full Moon. Oddly specific? Perhaps.

My classmates and I got out of the bus and encountered a man ready to teach us about Mayan voting procedure. This consisted of taking a ten foot pole, laying it across everyone's laps, and forcing everyone to notch the pole once for yes and twice for no. When I notched the pole, I accidentally put in an extra notch. Have you ever tried to unnotch wood with a pocketknife? It doesn't work in dreams either.

After the demonstration, we moved into a pavilion to discuss protocol before going into the ruins. I got into a conversation with another student in which I spoke German and he spoke Portuguese (which, by the way, is clearly a dead language because obviously, Portugal was destroyed by nuclear fall out in the pie wars.)

Having completely missed the orientation, we proceeded to the ruins. However, I decided instead to log onto my laptop and attempt to make a ghost program run properly. And by ghost program, I mean my computer was haunted. Shortly after setting up the program, the computer began to zip around on legs it spontaneously sprouted, trying to kill me by eating my toes with the USB ports. Holding my feet in the air while lying on my back kept the demon hardware at bay while I waited for the rest of the group to return.

After an hour of this, the computer and I became rather friendly. I was almost sad to leave it when the teacher came back and informed me that we had to go prevent a man from losing his mind do to an evil item in his possession.

As the other agents and myself approached the nearly mad man (because fighting evil items automatically makes us agents of some sort), I saw a sharpened hook in one of his hands and a red silk headband wrapped around his head. He sneered as he saw us and sprouted Shakespeare quotes. Unfortunately, I can't recall them, but I know for a fact, that every sentence he uttered made my stomach drop. He made it quite clear that he intended to kill his wife, who was the one that had contacted us, and that we didn't have much time. Finally, we determined that a bag full of sparkles was it, and we destroyed it. As soon as we did, the man broke out into a joyous grin, swinging the hook about. I grabbed a broom and let the hook catch and dig into it to stop him, afraid he was going into a murderous rage. However, the opposite was true. He had broken free of his blood lust and compulsive Shakespeare quoting. He thanked us profusely and led us out after offering us milk and cookies to celebrate.

The agents and I returned to our base, where I was happy to talk to the demon computer a bit more. Then, a few days later, the madman called us up. Instead of seeing this section of the dream from my avatar's perspective, I saw the man sprawled on his back on a futon, his hook bonded to his arm, dripping blood, his crimson head band tied firmly over his eyes. All he quoted, before I woke up fully: "Not a mouse stirring."

Random Insert: Red Anemone

"Are you a gardener, Mr. Boyle?"

He stepped towards the man kneeling, bound and bloodied, before him. No answer came from Mr. Boyle, only a stuttering sob around his gag. The man crouched down to a level with his prisoner.

"Have you ever had to weed?" Nothing but a wet choke in response. "It's a tedious job, but essential. If someone doesn't get his hands dirty pulling up the refuse, then the weeds will spread and spread until the tamer plants are choked out completely and the weeds are all that remain. It requires a diligent person, a devoted person, to do that job."

The man rose from his crouch and, turning away from Boyle, ran his eyes and fingers over the various tools hanging on the walls of the shed. A hoe. A trowel. A length of hose.

"Are you religious, Mr. Boyle?"

A rake. A rope.

"I am. I believe God must be a gardener. Look at the variety of people he's planted, the way he's organized them so aesthetically by color and size."

A shovel. A pair of branch cutters.

"Some people are his plants, some his tools."

A garden fork. A bottle of pesticide.

"Oh yes. There are people put on this world to help God cultivate it. They water and mulch...and they weed. They rip out the poison Ivies and creeping Charlies to make room for the men and women God finds worthy of his soil."

A chainsaw.

"For though God loves all things that grow..."

An ax.

"he does not want them all. Some men are nothing more than weeds..."

The hoe again.

"Like you."

A squeal

"And like me."

A squelch.

Reported Rapport

"SO WH4T H4PP3N3D 4FT3R COLL1N'S FL4M3 THROW3R 3XPLOD3D?"

"I'm getting to that," I replied, trying to recall the events of the previous night's party. "Collins passed out, though I think it was the drinking, not the burst that did it. I'm starting to suspect he's immune to explosions. Meanwhile the bat he was aiming at did a victory dance."

"B4TS C4N D4NC3?"

"That was nothing compared to Loki. Do you know anything about Norse mythology?"

For half a minute, the screen went still.

"NOW 1 DO"

"Did you just download all of Norse Mythology?"

"PL34S3. DO YOU R34LLY TH1NK TH4T'S HOW 1T WORKS? TH4T 1 C4N JUST DOWNLO4D 4NY 1NFO 1 W4NT?"

"Yes."

"<_<     >_>     <_< "

"OK4Y, Y34H."

I tried and failed to repress a smirk. "Well then it shouldn't surprise you that after swindling half the Guild out of their coins and drinking the other half under the table, he decided to, er, well, go Greek as it were."

"HMMM?"

"Well, I mean, you know how -um- Zeus and his-affairs-uh," I blustered. For a moment I had forgotten that this was supposed to be an official report. Without care, the conversation could easily veer off into a significantly less official gutter. I needed to redirect the discussion with my rhetorical skill and maturity.

"H3 TURN3D 1NTO GL1TT3R 4ND D1D TH3 MYTHOLOG1C4L N4STY D1DN'T H3?"

It seemed I'd have to handle the maturity and let 101010 come up with the rhetorical skill.

"Frankly, I don't really think that part of the night is relevant, unless the Fey plan on taking over the world with bedroom conquests."

"TH3N WH4T DO YOU TH1NK 1S R3L3V4NT?"

"Well...maybe...if you think about it..." I could feel 101010's digital gaze bearing down on me, daring me to come up with something useful. A cocked eyebrow, a twisted smirk, crossed legs and arms, triumphant in advance. The silence was taking shape and the shape was mocking me. "I rickrolled them."

"WH4T!?"

"Well, Eleanor knew I played piano. The band didn't care who took a turn on theirs. She insisted. I protested. I lost, and that was the only song I could think of."

"H4H4H4H4H4H4H4H4! OK4Y, TH4T S3TTL3S 1T."

"Settles wha-" The clang of metal on metal cut me off. I clambered to my feet and rushed over to the door through which I'd entered the submarine's little closet. Locked. I'd known when I went in that it would be the perfect place to hold a conversation with a Streamer unobserved. However, at that moment, privacy struck me has highly overrated.

"101010? What are you doing?"

"R3L4X. 1'M JUST GO1NG TO T4K3 YOU FOR 4 R1D3 TO TH3 N3TH3RL4NDS."

"OH! Well, that's perfectly ALRIGHT THEN! Just let me out for a moment and I can pack my clogs." Anxiety poured over me, sending icy rivulets across my back and through my lungs. The pit of my stomach sank, then sprung up again, bobbing on a wave of...was that fear or excitement.

"4ND YOU DON'T H4V3 TO C4LL M3 101010. My name's Alice."

An Un-suspicious Meeting

“Hold up a tick, Loki!” Orpheus called, huffing as he tried to catch up with the sprite striding out of the castle, “I must say, old boy, I'm curious. What's an immortal like you in such a hurry about?”

Loki's mouth bent into a smirk. “I'm only immortal as long as I'm alive. It's the time of century when the faerie blood lust is up. Some of them are bound to attempt coordinating their assassination attempts on me, that is, unless I start sowing suspicions among allies now. Otherwise, I'll have to kill all those would be assassins at once, and mass pest control is tedious.”

“Ah, well then. Until the ball! Good day,” Orpheus declared, but Loki had already shifted into hawk form and was soaring off into a cloudless sky. Orpheus was about to head off to his van, which had gained a number of dents despite Fisher's driving lessons when he heard Aldrich's booming voice.

“Farley, come back for a moment!”

“What's this then? Here to berate me about procrastination and what not?”

“Would you just get inside? This isn't about you, and I don't want to explain myself more than once.” As relatively calm as the meeting had been, Aldrich still had a headache building behind his temples.

They returned to the main hall, where the society heads, apart from Eris and Loki, had gathered once more. “Are we going to the Supreme Wizard's study then?” Orpheus inquired.

“This won't take that long,” Aldrich explained, “Fifi, if you have a phone on you, could you turn it on?”

Seconds after Fifi hit the power button, her phone started to buzz. “I've got a text from my mom? She never -” her palm met her face before she could even finish her sentence. Without removing her hand from her forehead, she held the phone out to Aldrich, who read aloud.

“'Yo dawg. Heard you liked meetings, so I put a streamer in your phone so you can tell me wtf is going on while you're told wtf is going on.'

“Are you listening right now?” Aldrich asked the phone. It buzzed in response.

“'I'm all microphones.' Good, then I can begin. I am worried about the faeries behavior.”

Buzz “'What are you complaining about? You aren't the ones who got to have your neural network synced up to a computer as it's butchered.'”

“What do you mean, Arch Chancellor?” Fifi piped.

“I believe I know what he means,” inserted the Supreme Wizard, “he is referring to Loki and Eris's familiarity with one another.”

“Come to think of it,” Orpheus pondered, “they were a bit chummier than usual. In fact, did Loki ever threaten to claw out Eris's throat?”

“No,” Aldrich stated, “and what is more, no matter how far I read into her comments, I couldn't find a single insult in what Eris said about him.”

“How peculiar...”

“I'm sorry, but, er, why is that so strange?” Fifi asked.

Buzz “'Nymphs and sprites are like cats and dogs. You should know-'” Aldrich decided not to finish reading the sentence. “At any rate, the streamer is correct. When a nymph and a sprite get along, something is afoot, and given their histories, a plan hatched by Loki and Eris has a 99% chance of ending in war. I don't like those odds, and as a necromancer, it is my duty to prevent such reckless death.”

“Well, then, Mr. Necromancer, just what the dickens do you propose we do about it, hmm?”

“For now, I think it would be prudent to keep our eyes, ears, and, er, microphones open. We need to keep in regular communication on what we've seen. This may not be anything. This may be some strange faerie mating ritual for all I know, but caution never hurt anyone.”

“I could disagree with you there, but in this case, you may have a point,” Orpheus conceded, “I'll be sure to have someone else write you a letter every day.”

“Letters are not quite quick or secure enough for such a purpose,” the Supreme Wizard commented.

“Agreed,” said Orpheus.

Buz.

An Inauspicious Meeting

The Supreme Wizard and the Head Chancellor of Necromancy despised the first Wednesday of every month. Their lives would be a great deal less stressful without it. Unfortunately, the first Wednesday came without fail every month, right after Tuesday and just before Thursday. With it, came the society heads.

"I hope you remembered the tea cakes this time," harrumphed Orpheus Farley. He preened his impressive mustache as he pushed through the gates of the WAND's castle. "It's unnatural to have tea without cakes. There was nothing for it to wash down!"

Aldrich performed the first of many eye rolls as he closed the gate behind the Guild leader. "Don't worry, Farley. We've all learned to appreciate the importance of tea cakes." As long as they're going into your mouth, nothing else can come out, Aldrich wanted to add. He chose a more diplomatic comment instead. "The others have all arrived already. They're with Archibald."

Archibald's study felt fastidiously lived-in. Shelves packed tightly with tomes covered nearly every square inch of wall. Every gap in books corresponded to one of the twenty or so texts tidily situated on the mahogany desk. A stack of wood sat squarely to the right of a hearth where the remains of a recent fire waited to kindle the next one. The very idea of dust seemed wrong, as if the room simply didn't have the time to accrue any. Sitting in a padded arm chair, his white robes tucked neatly around him, was Archibald himself, looking as in place as a bookmark in a novel. Across from him sat a petite, pug-faced young woman with silky hair pulled into pig tails, a thin, pale man sitting sideways in his chair, an equally thin and pale ginger woman, and a computer. Two seats remained open, a heavily laden tea table in between them.

"Wow, guys! The Guildie figured out how to get here! Seriously, I'm in shock. This is going to change my life forever. Who wants to throw a party? Anybody? Huh?" The voice issued from the computer in the synthesized, yet surprisingly expressive tones of a text to speech program.

"That's a bit extreme, isn't it?" asked the pug-faced woman, cocking her head quizzically.

"Come on, Fifi! This is a big freakin' deal. I mean, just the fact that his decrepit, piece of crap pocket watch got him here within 6 hours of the right time is a mother freakin' miracle."

"WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT MY POCKET WATCH?" Orpheus boomed. He made it half way to the computer when Archibald blocked his path.

"As justified as your rage is, might I point out that we are having tea? It would be tragically improper to sully the moment with violence. Don't you agree?"

"Hmph!" Orpheus plodded to the chair beside the tea table and commenced one of the more curmudgeonly displays of sipping and nibbling the society heads had seen. "And who might you be?" he inquired of the young woman, grudgingly polite.

"Oh. Well, um, I suppose I'm the new head of the Peace Warriors, Fifi," she muttered, too bashful to lift her head fully, too hopeful to keep her eyes down. Aldrich, who had taken his seat on the other side of the tea table, felt the sudden compulsion to pat the tiny woman on the head. He quickly disregarded this as a ridiculous thing to do.

"Really?" Orpheus continued to inquire, "What happened to the last head, Harry what's-his-name?"

"Uhh, unfortunately, he isn't, well..."

"Someone killed him," the thin man on the other side of Fifi finished.

"Killed him, eh? Bit too close of a shave, eh?"

"I can't believe you would make a joke about a dead guy!" the computer wailed. "And a pun? How can you be such a horrible person? I hope you can sleep at night because I can't, thinking about the sort of people living under London."

"But," Fifi interjected as Orpheus reddened, "didn't you tell me a lot of Streamers are going by Steve Jobs on forums now?"

"Man, and I thought people like you were supposed to be loyal!"

"Who's Ste-" Orpheus began to ask before Aldrich thrust a confection into his open mouth.

"Have a biscuit. They're delicious," he insisted, glancing at the computer in the futile attempt to see if the Streamer had heard the half-formed question. However, it seemed that the manic giggling of the pale man and woman had drowned Orpheus out.

"Well then, if Loki and Eris would calm down, perhaps we might get down to business?" Aldrich suggested.

"ho-Al- hee-hee-Aldrich, how-hee- how can you not laugh? It's just so-ho-hee- ridiculous how important -heh- you humans make the most insignificant things," chortled Loki.

"Oh yes! A pu-heh-ocket watch? A pun? We didn't even have to-heh-heh- to help it along! Oh, what delectable discordance. I love these meetings," Eris snickered as the waves of laughter shrank to ripples, and then an eager stillness.

"At any rate," Aldrich continued, "the dump provided by the Guild has been working adequately and at this rate will last us another half a year at least, which should provide sufficient time for the construction of its replacement. However, I would like to remind no one in particular that having sufficient time is not the same as having time to waste.

"Our Necromancers Abroad Program has been quite successful except for a small incident in Japan at a relief center. Fifi, would you please inform your Peace Warriors that if they encounter a necromancer working in a public place they should not exclaim 'Richard, you old necromancer, how's the magic going?' It is quite inconvenient."

"Yeah," Fifi blushed, "That was probably Thermostat. He, well, see he isn't the most, um, discreet person? I'll talk to him. Sorry."

Aldrich found himself again resisting the urge to scratch her head. "Moving on, Archibald?"

"I would like to request that Green Thumb pay another visit. It would seem the wizards have required more fuel than usual, and the gardens are nearly depleted of life."


"Oh, sure, yeah. That shouldn't be a problem, I mean, when he's free of course."

"And the Streamers need someone to come and give our bodies baths so we don't get real viruses. It has to be the Peace Warriors, girl."

"Uhm?"

"You are the chosen one!"

"Blast it all! Would you cease this confounded japery?!”

“You mad br-” Before the computer could finish, screeches and sparks sprayed from its casing. This was probably due to the claws embedded in it. The claws were attached to an arm, and the arm was attached to a shoulder, and the shoulder attached to a body, and the body had a head, and the head was smiling.

“As entertaining as the streamers can be, I'm starting to run short on time. Worse, I was getting bored with him. Does anyone want to argue with me about it?” Loki asked, still grinning.

Fifi raised a tentative hand. “Not arguing, but, er, well, question? How did your arm grow ten feet long and gain claws?”

Eris lay a finger casually against Loki's arm, which wrapped behind her shoulders, in front of Fifi, and planted in the computer at the other end of the room. “Please, Fifi, This? This is nothing compared to some of the things he's shown me.”

“Might I explain, Loki?” requested Archibald. Loki consented with a wave of his claw as he retracted it. As the arm returned to more typical dimensions, it may have brushed against Eris's shoulder just a bit more than necessary.

“You know of course that Loki and Eris are fey.”

“Well, yeah, but, doesn't that just mean they're, you know, immortal?”

“That is what it means to be a fey. That is not what it means to be a sprite or a nymph. A sprite, a male fey like Loki, has the ability to shift forms at will. A female fey, or nymph, can exert a certain persuasive influence over those around her.”

“And just, um, just what does that mean?”

“Don't worry about it, Fifi, sweetheart,” Eris cooed.

“Okay.”

“Well then,” Orpheus cheered, face glowing beneath his mustache, “shall we get down to business once more now that the streamer is out of the way? I believe it was my turn.”

In point of fact, the Peace Warrior usually followed the Supreme Wizard. However, no one present had a particular desire to convince Orpheus to wait. He rattled off the successes of the Guild's latest STORM, details for the upcoming Fey-Guild ball, modifications to contact information for one or two assassins, and finally a perfectly superfluous report on how far behind the Guild had fallen in product production for the Streamers. Fifi, Loki, and Eris all then made considerably succincter reports and requests. With that, Aldrich adjourned the meeting.

Demaskiert

Ich spiele vor

vorzuspielen.

Wie ein Monster

an Halloween,

entferne ich meine Maske.

Niemand merkt,

niemand glaubt,

dass Monsters wirklich sind.

Ich gleite durch die Mengen

wertloser Versteller.

Ich bin durch ihre Masken

sicher versteckt.

Ich strecke meinen Kiefer                                                               

erstmals seit einem Jahr.

Ich schüttele meine Haut,

um den glatt gestrichenen Pelz zu lockern.

Die Nacht gehört mir,

ich kann mit ihr machen, was ich will

Wenn du die Magierkappe

abnimmst

und die karminrote Gabel

zu Boden legst,

entschlüpfe ich aus der Nacht

und wieder in eine Haut

zu dünn,

um von Dauer zu sein.

Unmasked (and unrelated)

I pretend

to pretend.

Like a monster

on Halloween,

I take off my mask.

No one notices,

no one believes

monsters might exist.

                      

I glide through throngs

of paltry masqueraders.

I am safely hidden

by all of their masks.

So, I stretch my jaw

for the first time in a year,

and I shake my hide

to loosen sweat slicked fur.

The night is mine

to have my way with.

When you take off

the wizard cap

And set down

the scarlet pitchfork,

I slip out of the night

and back into a skin

too thin                                                           

to last.