Project 4 Draft

TIER 1

Another late night at TrumanTech for Ash.  Thirteenth late night in a row.  Getting paid time and a half is nice, but it sometimes feels like the walls are sneaking closer.

A howler monkey hoots from down the hall, towards the kitchen.  Ash has never seen a howler monkey, but it's obviously a howler monkey.

Investigate: "Gonna need another cup of joe for the night anyway."

Keep Working: "The beans ain't gonna count themselves."

TIER 2

Investigate:

Ash sighs and punches in a few keys to lock his computer.  Probably some dumb prank.  Ash walks away from his desk a few steps.  He pauses and grips his keys between his fingers before continuing on.

Ash sneaks up on the kitchen.  Fridge, microwave, coffee maker.  He takes another step.  The kitchen lights flicker on.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  Ash grumbles to himself, making nonsense words.  Figures he either nodded off for a sec or these bland walls are starting to eat his brain.

Coffee: "Just one more hour without losing it.  That's all I need."

Go Back: "I've got that little pillow in my locked drawer...  Half-hour power nap should do me good."

Keep Working:

After a moment's hesitation, Ash opens a new page on his spreadsheet.  Looking back and forth between the open TrumanTeam tab (TrumanTech's fileshare domain), Ash continues to enter figures and names of foreign investors.

Five minutes later, more hoots, from multiple monkeys this time, bound around the office.  Ash stops typing for the moment.

Check: "Well, there's gotta be something, right?"

Ignore: "I'm nearly done.  Monkeys be damned, I'm so, so, SO nearly done."

TIER 3

Coffee:

Ash pops open the tooth-white cabinets above the sink.  Plenty of clean mugs.  He puts one under the coffee maker's downspout (whatever you call that) - presses "Right Blend" and "Large."  The coffee maker whirs to life.  Ash leans against the counter by the sink and closes his eyes against the fluorescent lights.

The coffee maker ch-gunks into its final stage.  Ash smiles.  Then something scratches at the kitchen doorframe.  Ash opens his eyes to see a purple howler monkey no taller than his knees squatting in the doorway.  The monkey is wearing a little green bowler hat.  Before Ash can address the monkey, a giant boomerang flies down the hallway and slices its fluffy little head in half.  Ash opens his mouth in a silent scream and pees a little.

A bald man covered in red tattoos and ritual scarring approaches the monkey's body.  The bald man appears to be wearing some kind of police uniform.  He bends down and pokes the monkey with his boomerang.  He hasn't noticed Ash yet.

Hot Coffee: "Hate to waste a cup, but God damn...  Guy just killed a monkey."

Keys: "I've got one shot while he's exposed..."

Go Back:
Ash leaves the kitchen.  As soon as he turns to walk back to his desk, he clearly hears more hoots.  This time, Ash can tell there are numerous monkeys.  Though the hoots seem to echo back to the cubicles, they're definitely coming from the Projector Room directly behind Ash at the end of this hall.
Projector Room: "It's gotta be a screensaver or something.  With howler monkeys.  I dearly hope so."
No: "Fuck the monkeys, this day's been long enough."

Check:
Ash steps away from his desk and walks over to the cubicles.  The office is dark ahead of him, but he can clearly see a couple dozen unoccupied cubicles, and at the end of the room, a small hallway leading away with more offices.  To the left are the bosses' offices, the kitchen, the printing hallway, and the Projector Room.  "Hello?" Ash calls.  "Is there anyone there?"  From the left, Ash hears a faint thump as something falls to the carpet.  Ahead, he hears someone bump into a wall and go 'oof.'
Left: "The monkey sounds came from that way."
Ahead: "Guess someone else is here.  I didn't hear anyone come in..."

Ignore:
Ash continues to enter data.  Several long minutes wear on.  Ash realizes he doesn't know many of these parties invested in TrumanTech's latest project.  Despite working with TrumanTech for almost twelve years, he's never seen many of these names anywhere in the books.  Several entries are just strings of symbols.
What feels like fifteen minutes later, Ash hears two people walk by his door.  Ash freezes.  A few minutes later, the office fills with terrible screams.  Ash hides under his desk and waits there for fifteen minutes.  After taking a breath and crossing himself, Ash scrambles forward and closes his door as quietly as he can manage.  Ten minutes later, Ash works up the courage to sit in his chair again.
911: "Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod..."
Might As Well Keep Working: "I've been up and down this office all night.  There's just no way that... that could have happened.  I just need to finish, and I can get the hell out."

TIER 4

Hot Coffee:

Ash slips forward, hooking a finger in the mug's handle.  The monkey-murderer continues to inspect his kill.  Ash swings the mug overhand into the crouched man's Hellraiser-white scalp.  The mug shatters with a dull crack and scalding coffee swallows the bald man's face, turning it red, already blistering.  The man screams and clutches his boiling face, dropping his boomerang in the process.

The uniformed man rolls back and forth, continuing to scream and claw at his face.  Ash stands over him for a minute, dumbfounded, before picking up the boomerang.  Another man in uniform, this one identical to the man on the ground before taking a mug of coffee to the face, rounds the corner by the cubicles.  "What the fuck," he says.  The man is holding a boomerang like the other uniformed man's, but it's down at his side.

New Guy: "Other guy doesn't have a face anymore.  I don't think I have to worry about him."

First Guy: "First guy's starting to stabilize.  If I don't have a weapon, I'm screwed."

Keys:

Ash dashes at the crouching man, keys held over his head, ready to tear holes in the murderer's white scalp.  A foot away from the crouching man, Ash feels something hard inside his stomach; something hard with wetness around it, wetness and cold.  Ash has stopped without realizing, still clutching his keys.  Ash looks down at the end of a boomerang protruding from his stomach.  He never saw the crouching man move.  The crouching man looks up at Ash.  "Oh 'ay.  You're the Typist.  Well then."  The crouching man pulls the boomerang out of Ash.  Ash falls to his knees as the man stands.  The man takes a blue cloth off the back of his belt and wipes the blood from his boomerang.  "Makes our job easier I guess."  Ash falls to the floor, vision growing cloudy, limbs getting heavier.  His murderer walks back down the hall in the direction he came.  "'Ay Toby!  You'll never guess what just happened."  The man walks away.

Ash bleeds out in little over half an hour.

But don't worry, Ash.  Death is not the end.  Nothing ever ends.

Projector Room:

The Projector Room door's almost fully closed.  Ash pauses and listens.  There are more noises: things climbing on tables, things being shuffled around.  Ash hugs the wall and raises his keys-fist.

Enter: "..."

Forget It: "What?  No.  Who am I, John McClane?"

No:

Ash shakes his head and keeps walking.  He turns toward his desk.  Instead of an office, there is now a plain blue wall with an old-timey steering wheel.  "Oh what the hell..." Ash mutters.

Spin It: "Ya know, I've never actually got to see one of these things up close."

Devil That You Know: "To hell with this.  If I can't work, I might as well see who's making monkey noises."

Left:
Ash follows the monkey noises to the end of the hallway to the left.  Nothing in the bosses' offices, nothing in the kitchen.  The noises are coming from the Projector Room.  The door is mostly closed.  Ash checks behind him for any sign of the person he'd heard before.  He grips his keys tighter, takes a deep breath, and gives the door a light push with his fingertips.  The door swings open.  Three purple howler monkeys of various size, all wearing fashionable green hats (one bowler hat, one top hat, one flat cap), are clambering around on a table, chattering and drinking tea.  The first half of the Projector Room is the same as always: off-black carpet, whiteboard walls.  The far walls have become jungle, of which Ash can see no end.  The monkeys stop their prattle and look at him.
Hi: "Might as well introduce myself.  TrumanTech HR are just plain ruthless to standoffish employees."
Kick em Out: "Haven't given the employee handbook the old look-see in a while, but I'm pretty sure monkeys aren't allowed on the premises."

Ahead:
Ash takes another step forward before calling out, "Is someone there?"
"No!" says a vaguely English voice.  "Just us office supplies, having a bit of a jamboree!"
"Shut up!  What are you doing?!" a similar voice says, whispering loud enough for Ash to hear clear across the room.
"Here at TrumanTech, our office supplies don't talk," Ash says.
"That'll probably change soon," says the first voice; quieter this time, as if only to his companion.  The voices giggle to themselves.
"True, true," says the second voice.  "But shut up."
Ask: "What the hell does that mean?  I don't want talking staplers.  They probably don't have anything very interesting to say."
Security: "I'll call Jan downstairs.  He'll give these jokers the what-for."

911:
Ash dials 911 on his office phone, making sure to face the door to his office as it rings.  Eight rings.  A little much for an emergency line...
Finally, a male voice picks up on the other end.  Before Ash can get a word in, the operator says, "We're sorry, but you are in a new nexus right now.  There are no interworld authorities near you at this time.  There are over ninety worlds nearby.  Please cross over to one of these nearby worlds, try again, and we'll have a response team out to you in no time.  Thank you and have a good day!"  Dial-tone.  Ash hangs up, befuddled.
Ash shakes his head and tries calling the police again, this time on his cell phone.  Same message.
Leave: "This is ridiculous.  I need to... I don't know.  Maybe I can leave the building, or at least find a working phone.  I just can't be stuck in here another goddamn minute."
Wait: "Great.  Nothing else I can do."

Might As Well Keep Working:
Ash opens up a new TrumanTeam tab, looking under the Tasks heading.  His grip on the mouse tightens almost to the point of cracking it when he sees something he missed: writing up a summary of TrumanTech's new project specs for the investors to breeze over.  Ash opens the attached document.  He pushes his glasses into his eyes for a second.  At least an hour's worth of work, and no way he's going out there to get coffee.

Ash reads the latest non-condensed TrumanTech project specs until his eyes glaze over.  Most of it sounds like technobabble garbage for half of the reading.  Something about energy fields and "parallel strings" and "sink-field depths."  Forty minutes later, Ash feels like he's on the cusp of something grand, close to deciphering the TrumanTech engineers' insane gibberish.
Then the room begins to move.  Or at least that's how it feels, to Ash.  Downward, downward.  The sounds of a raucous party grow ever closer, ever louder.  People are bellowing in strange voices, drinks are popping every second, and what's worse: the party has a polka band.
Ash's room clicks to a stop, the party sounds blaring right outside the door.
Yell at Them: "Good Lord are there some noisy neighbors in this office.  Nothing a little talking-to won't fix."
Ignore Them: "No, I'm so close.  Close to what, I'm not sure; but I'm close."

TIER 5

New Guy:

Ash throws the boomerang overhand at the new character with all the strength he can muster.  The newcomer barely draws his weapon when the other boomerang carves his head in two.  Ash's boomerang clatters to the floor by the cubicles.

Ash feels cold, stony, as he watches the bisected man crumple to the floor.  The man on the floor groans and paws pathetically at Ash's shin, pulling himself closer.

Finish the First Man: "Can't take any chances, right?"

Leave Him: "He's not going anywhere."

First Guy:

Ash swings the boomerang down at the floorbound man.  As Ash's weapon plunges into the first man's neck, the other man's boomerang severs Ash's head.

Well uh...  That's all she wrote, I guess.  Thanks for playing!

Enter:

Ash grips his keys tighter, takes a deep breath, and gives the door a light push with his fingertips.  The door swings open.  Three purple howler monkeys of various size, all wearing fashionable green hats (one bowler hat, one top hat, one flat cap), are clambering around on a table, chattering and drinking tea.  The first half of the Projector Room is the same as always: off-black carpet, whiteboard walls.  The far walls have become jungle, of which Ash can see no end.  The monkeys stop their prattle and look at him.

Hi: "Might as well introduce myself.  TrumanTech HR are just plain ruthless to standoffish employees."

Kick em Out: "Haven't given the employee handbook the old look-see in a while, but I'm pretty sure monkeys aren't allowed on the premises."

Forget It:

Ash shakes his head and pockets his keys.  He doesn't make it three steps before bumping into a bald man about his height.

This man is certainly not a TrumanTech employee.  His skin is a sickly white and his head is criss-crossed with various piercings and ritual scars that look like some sort of map.  The bald man's wearing some kind of police uniform; black, with red patches.  "Where do you think you're going?" the man growls in Ash's face.  His breath smells like sleepytime tea with a hint of mulch, and his accent is vaguely English.

Another man peeps out from behind the first uniformed man.  This second man is identical to the first, down to the treasure-map scars and the width of his nose.  "Looks like you caught a mouse, Antilles."  Even the second man's voice is the same.

"'As right...  A mouse scurrying 'tween the walls."  Antilles leans in until that hot tea-breath steams Ash's glasses.  "Well, mouse?  Where you headed?"

Lie: "Geez, couple of unsavory fellas."

Truth: "They don't exactly seem reasonable."

Spin It:

Ash grips two of the wheel's pegs - ten and two, like his father taught him as a young lad back in the eighties.  Ash smiles and turns the wheel to and fro, humming the music from Steamboat Willie.  Ash stops.  His smile broadens.  He gives the wheel a mighty spin, like he's on a game show.  The wheel spins and spins and blurs together, with Ash watching and smiling.

The blue wall opens.  Water floods out, immediately drenching Ash and sweeping him away towards the cubicles.  The wave becomes a riptide, a cascade spilling out of where Ash's office used to be.  Ash instinctively clutches at his glasses.

Ash treads water the best he can.  He can see the water flooding out into the hall ahead.

Swim: "I might be able to grab onto a cubicle."

Tread: "No point in fighting this current."

Devil That You Know:
Ash doubles back to the Projector Room.  The door is mostly closed.  Ash grips his keys tighter, takes a deep breath, and gives the door a light push with his fingertips.  The door swings open.  Three purple howler monkeys of various size, all wearing fashionable green hats (one bowler hat, one top hat, one flat cap), are climbing around on a table.  The first half of the Projector Room is the same as always: off-black carpet, whiteboard walls.  The far walls have become jungle, of which Ash can see no end.  The monkeys have tied a balloon to the table that reads "WELCOME, TYPIST!"
Top Hat Monkey jumps off the table, landing in front of Ash.  "You are late, o Typist!" the monkey says.  The other two monkeys nod profusely, going "O yaa, o yaa" in Wisconsin accents.
Typist?: "I mean, I guess I type things, but..."
Late?: "Late?  Did I miss something on the TrumanTeam schedule?"

Hi:
Ash clears his throat before raising a hand.  "Uh...  Hello.  I'm Ash, representing-"  The monkeys explode into cheers and screeches.  They jump up and down on the table, slapping it with their fancy green hats.  Ash hears fireworks and a polka band deep within the jungle, though he cannot see any such thing.
Flat Cap Monkey rears back and raises his palms, as if in supplication to a pagan god.  "Ash!" the monkey cries in ecstasy.  "The Typist's name is Ash!"
Bowler Hat Monkey, the smallest of the three, jumps down and takes Ash by the wrist.  Its grip is strong, but gentle.  "Come!  We have much to do, and no time to do it!"  The monkeys scamper into the jungle, dragging Ash along with them.
Break Away: "I feel I need a little explanation before I follow a bunch of monkeys into a jungle that shouldn't exist."
Go With It: "Not every day I get to follow a bunch of monkeys into a jungle that shouldn't exist."

Kick em Out:
"I'm sorry," Ash says, "but TrumanTech does not allow any animals besides humans on the premises.  If you can understand me, please leave, or else I'll be forced to call security."  The monkeys look at each other.  Bowler Hat Monkey shrugs.  Top Hat Monkey doffs his top hat, reaches in, and pulls out a bottle of bubbles.  Top Hat Monkey blows bubbles toward Ash.  Before Ash can admonish the monkey for this silly behavior, the bubbles explode.  A net jumps out of these exploding bubbles and ensnares Ash.  The monkeys then pick him up and run off into the jungle with him.
Demand an Explanation: "This is ridiculous.  Why would these monkeys want to kidnap me?"
Complain: "This net is chafing."

Weekly Writing 4

            A rope plops through a hole in the store’s ceiling.  The store is dark and there are no people around.  A tall, athletically-built girl with orange-blonde hair descends the rope.  She’s strong, so she doesn’t slip, but the rope twists and bounces on the floor enough to betray her lack of spelunking experience.  The girl’s feet, clad in heavy boots, touch down on linoleum.  She’s clad in a simple tunic and brown trousers.  The girl claps her hands together like she’s smacking off dust.  She puts her hands to her mouth.  “Okay,” she whispers as loud as she can, “throw me my shit.”

            “Give me a second to put it in the bag, would ya?” a boy whispers back.  The boy stuffs the girl’s armor, short sword, and buckler into a shapeless canvas sack.

            “Whatever,” the girl whispers.

            The boy is a slight thing, with bright blue eyes the girl can see even in the mall’s darkness.  The boy keeps his sunflower-blonde hair crammed under a brown knit cap.  The boy zips up the bag.  “And stop being so loud…”  He tosses the bag down to his friend, who catches it in both hands.  The bag, heavily padded, only makes a dull shuffle when it hits the girl’s hands.  “…Ya clodhopper.”

            The boy descends the rope.  The girl bends down and unpacks the bag.  “Dweeb.”  The girl puts her red armor on, then the buckler on her right hand.  She pokes around the bag a little.  “You didn’t bring a weapon?”

            The boy gives the rope a practiced ripple-and-tug.  The rope pops off the pipe it was tied to.  The knot unwinds and flops obediently over the boy’s arm as if charmed by its young master.  The boy turns his winning blue yes on his much taller companion and holds up one of the rope’s ends.  “Ta-da and duh-doi?”

            “You are not using that stupid little rope to fight monsters.”

            “It’s not little, and I’m good with it.  Shit, I almost beat you.”

            The girl starts uncinching her buckler from her arm.  “Almost beat me when I had a wooden sword, Warren.”

            Warren eyes the loosening buckler like his friend’s butchering a cat.  “What are you doing?”

            “You’re at least taking my buckler.”

            “No!  No, genius, I can’t use the rope if I’m wearing the buckler!”

            “You’re a sitting duck without something, Warren.  Jesus, you don’t even wear armor!”

            “Cuz I don’t work like you!  Why can’t you get that through your-”  The two friends argue closer and closer, eyes barely having adjusted to the mall’s darkness.  Then, from a stone’s throw away toward the women’s jeans: a rumble.  Not the rumble of an object dragged, but the rumble of a toothy monster.  The teens’ mouths snap shut and they don’t dare move.  Warren’s voice drops to breeze volume.  “Dana?”

            “Yeah twerp?”

            “Sorry.”

            “It’s okay.”

            Warren doesn’t look away from Dana.  His blue rescue-dog eyes jump to the left.  Something there.  Past a few displays of discounted perfume, still hiding among the trousers.  “Do you know what’s supposed to be down here?”

            “No one’s really sure.  That’s why it’s a dungeon.”

            “They ranked this a Level 1 adventure when they literally know nothing about this place.”  Fiberglass creaks against fiberglass far behind Warren.  Dana thinks she sees something.

            “The Sunken Market’s been under a mountain since the Yesteryears.  They just uncovered it like, six months ago.”

            “Doesn’t help me.”  A thump.  Like a peg leg, from the corner of Warren’ right eye.  “Us.”

            “Warren?”

            “Yeah?”  Dana’s hand tightens on her shortsword.  She stares at the first monster, first of seven, encroaching on her and Warren, right in its dead glassy eyes.

            “You think the guilders are punking us… and are you really that good with that rope?”

            The first mannequin’s fiberglass chest is close enough to raise the hairs on the back of Warren’s neck.  “Yup.”

Project 4 Pitch

You'll step into the role of an office worker working late and alone at TrumanTech when the rules of reality start to unravel.  By clicking through a branching story presented as a directory of folders and readmes, you (as the worker) can try to escape, roll with the adventure, investigate the "mystery," or even just try to stay on task.

Weekly Writing 3 (2.25.2014)

“Their old wrongness is more informed than your young rightness.”  Cerai’s watching coverage of a protest on TV.  She’s watching slumped on the floor in front of the couch, legs crossed under her.  Cerai’s watching without humor, her glum expression as dark as her Pakistani hair and skin.

            Philosophical for a guy frying eggs, Cerai thinks.

            “Did you want pepper in these?” Lewis, the philosopher, calls from the kitchen.  Lewis isn’t really a philosopher.  Just a family friend.  The news is showing a view of the protest from a helicopter.  The protest is in one of those huge Chicago parks.  Why are they picketing for gay rights in a park?

            I mean, go team equality go, Cerai thinks, hugging her knees to her chest, but a park.  Really.

            “Hulloo?” Lewis calls.

            “Not a lot, thanks,” Cerai calls back.

            Lewis, a red-haired and balding man both beefy and pudgy, reaches for a small white cutting board full of onions next to the stove.  “Okay.  You’re getting more onions then.”

            “Okay,” Cerai says.  She’s afraid she sounded too quiet, too ungrateful.  She isn’t a huge fan of onions, but Lewis is a far better cook than her parents, so she trusts his judgment.  Lewis forgot to turn off a burner on the near side of the stove.  Soon as his meaty forearm touches it, Cerai says “okay” again, louder and sweeter this time, hoping Lewis didn’t hear the first “okay” so she won’t sound like a crazy person.

            Lewis shouts like a soldier grazed by a flying slug.  The cutting board tips and a battalion of onions patters to the floor.  He instinctively brings the cutting board up, catching the rest of the onions, and slams them down into Cerai’s pan like a tennis serve.  The sizzle is huge, the sound of a closet of snakes.  Lewis blinks in the cloud of steam.  “Never mind,” he calls.  “Normal onions.”

            Cerai squeezes her eyes shut and bites her knuckle to stop up her giggling.  Oh Lewis.  Or “Oh Loo-eese,” like Louise or Luis, as her mother always said it.  Cerai pauses, teeth still sitting on her knuckle.  The television dyes her dark skin a dark blue in the mostly-dark den.  She goes back to hugging her knees.

            She remembers an old face, a wide and rumpled face like one of those toads that blends in with the bed of a marsh so you can accidentally step on it.  His teeth are too small, capped, and his eyes too saggy.  “You’re getting older, Cerai,” he says.  She wasn’t supposed to be in his study.  Three books, two blue and one green, lay open around her.  “You can play big-girl games now.”  He spoke in English.  Uncle Shan was the only one of her mom’s three brothers that spoke to her in English.  Whether she asked or not.

            “Hey,” says Lewis.  A protestor is leaning over the police barricade.  Something is in the young man’s hand, and he’s aiming for the head of the cop by the camera.  Cerai looks up at Lewis, standing beside and above her, lowering a plate of eggs like a giant Irish god from on high.  “You okay?” he asks.  Lewis had been a “friend” of Uncle Shan first, really just a colleague, a resident at the same clinic.  Cerai’s parents first insisted Shan bring him dinner again because they loved Lewis’s height; they found it fascinating.  But really, how do Anglos get so fucking tall?

            “Yeah,” says Cerai, taking the plate with a soft smile.  Lewis steps over Cerai.  She turns back to the TV right as the protestor slaps the cop on the back of the head with a dildo.  Cerai stuffs a forkful of eggs in her mouth and swallows it whole.  She digs up another forkful.  “What the hell does-”

            “Don’t say Hell,” Lewis quips as he sits on the blue couch.

            “What the fuck does ‘their old wrongness is more informed than your young rightness’ mean?”

            “You sound angry,” Lewis replies, gluing his eyes to the screen like Cerai.  Lewis’s den is huge, but it’s more of a parlor trick than anything.  It’s the size of a small garage, taking up most of his small house.  The other four rooms in the house are about the size of Lewis’s pocket-sized galley kitchen.

            “I’m not,” Cerai says.

            Lewis grunts, swallowing his eggs.  “I think you know what I mean.”  Cerai leans into the pads of the couch, not taking her eyes off the broadcast.  “You can be spot-fucking-on, the rightest young person in the world,” Lewis slurps more eggs, his over-easy to Cerai’s over-hard, chewing while he speaks, “but you have to remember that whatever an older person thinks,” the cop turns around and screams in face after face, brandishing his nightstick in his search for the dildo-wielder, “the people who run the world, no matter how big of a dick they really are,” Lewis looks down at his volcanic mess of bleeding eggs, “they have crazy-more experience to base their bat-crazy, idiot opinions on.”  Lewis stares at his plate a moment longer, freckles bunched in constellations while considering.  He licks egg-slime off the edge of his plate.  Cerai tries her hardest not to glare at the TV.  Lewis looks over at Cerai, holding his fork like a human being again.  “It’s an upward battle, that’s all I’m saying.  So don’t get all bunched up about it.”

            Cerai’s immobile, eyes glazing just a moment.  Wide face, with eyes too saggy.  Closed eyes.  No longer brown, black and white under the word OBITUARIES.  Closed mouth that doesn’t show teeth that are capped and too small.  Cerai hangs her head, shading her bright child-star features from Lewis and the television.  “Was Uncle Shan ‘more informed?’”

            Lewis’s plate and fork clank in his lap.  He gives a distressed sigh and starts to lift a hand towards Cerai.  “Heyyy, c’mon…”  Cerai, age ten.  She’s feeding the dog.  Lewis is sitting at the table with Cerai’s father.  They’d just struck common ground a few weeks ago: they “just don’t know about Shan.”

            “I mean, he just brings up some of the weirdest sh – stuff sometimes,” Lewis said with a nervous smile.  He was never the gossiping type.  Cerai’s father leaned back in his wood chair and laughed.

            Cerai decided to join in.  She asked Lewis, “Does he ever talk about playing games?”  Cerai’s father fell silent, as did Lewis, and looked at his daughter.

            “All the time, Cerai.  What game are you talking about?”  Back with the couch and the TV, Lewis frowns and puts his hand down.  He imagines – Cerai’s seven-year-old chest exposed, Shan’s hand creeping forward like Lewis’s had just been; the front door slamming, Lewis coming over uninvited; “Hey Shan!” – Shan looking out of his study, seizing up like a cornered scavenger; turning back to Cerai; “Game over!  You lose!” – a quick tickle on the ribs.  Present day, Cerai, age fifteen.  Cerai, still shaded in her own hair, shrunken and shrinking despite her army jacket.  Lewis is looking down too.

            “Well,” says Lewis, making an attempt to straighten up, “at least he’s in a better place right now.”  Two hours closer to the sun, Mr. and Mrs. Gavankar stand in a crowd of mourners, the only two bored-verging-on-annoyed faces.  Lewis picks up his fork.  “Like hell.”

            Cerai smiles.  She imagines – Lewis taking Shan out for dinner; pulling over a few blocks from Shan’s house, hitting the “lock” button; a question, a heated conversation; Lewis hitting Shan; Shan diving out of the car; Lewis’s resignation.  Lewis taking another bite of eggs.  “Don’t say Hell.”

Weekly Writing 2 (2.18.2014)

“You ever get nuts-lint?  It’s a thing, I swear.  Like, lint.  On your nuts.  Really similar to belly button lint – like I think they might be cousins.  Except I think nuts-lint involves more dead skin.  Like I’ll be shaving my privates and what looks like dandruff or dust is popping off – it’s just natural, really.  Dust is human skin, mostly.  Plus dirt, I guess.  So we gets dusty nuts.  My point with the dust is, I think that’s a primary component in nuts-lint that isn’t really in belly-button lint.  Dead skin, I mean.  Or actually…  Actually, I’m not sure.  What is in belly button lint?  It’s fibers and loose crap from your clothing, I know that much.  Even though it all turns out red, blue, or black.  What, you haven’t gotten red belly button lint before?  But with belly button lint, you sometimes get that…  I wanna call it “residue?”  That kind of waxy stuff?  Not like you stick your finger in, scoop around, and come up with goop.  Oh god, just felt my stomach give a little tumble.  Naw, but it’s like earwax almost, some slightly-greasy yellowish crap that gets stuck under your fingernail easy.  I guess if you had to Venn-diagram the two lint families, Nuts and Belly Button, you’d get dust on the left, waxy stuff on the right, with clothing fibers in the middle.  I don’t know what that means.  Are there are other kinds of lint?  What secrets do these two lints – and their commonalities – foretell?

            “There was a big period where I got nuts-lint pretty often.  Find it the pubes, mostly.  Or was most of it actually on my sac?  I was linty.  Often.  Like every other day, I’d be scrubbing, look down, and be like “Hey, lint.  A bunch of it.”  Got a lot of belly button lint around that time, too.  Why so linty?

            One time I thought my belly button was bleeding, because I looked down in the shower and there was a big dollop of red lint in there.  Before and since The Linty Period, belly button lint’s been a semi-regular occurrence again.”

            This is commonly known among Anatomy students at UIC as The Day Mister Robbin Lost His Shit.

            Mr. Robbin was always something of a suspect; between his alleged “drinking problem” to being caught with an illicitly-dressed mannequin in his classroom closet.

            Marissa Schruen, a thin brunette who always sat in the front row Mr. Robbin’s class, raised her hand.  “Mr. Robbin?”

            Mr. Robbin pointed at Marissa, face as bright as if he were teaching an ordinary lesson – say, on each vertebra and the effects of damaging each one, as the curriculum stated.  “Yes!  Marissa!”

            The silence of eighty eyes on the back of Marissa’s head filled the lecture hall.  After taking another breath, Marissa chose her words carefully: “…Why are you talking about this?”

            Some of the athletes-and-biology students that sit in the back of class sniggered.  This was not the first of the sniggering.  There was a first wave of sniggering, mixed with some sputtering, with a dash of outright donkey-laughter, when Mr. Robbin first said “nuts lint.”  Over the course of those first ten minutes, the sniggers and snorts and peeps died as the students realized, one by one, that Mr. Robbin was totally serious.  “I’m glad you asked, Marissa,” said Mr. Robbin, stepping back towards the dry-erase boards up front.  Mr. Robbin detested dry-erase boards, and longed for the blackboards of yesteryear.

            Chris Smith, a boy in the upper-stage-left corner of the hall, raised his hand.  Mr. Robbin noted Chris, but before Mr. Robbin could call on his student, Chris blurted out, “I have a hypothesis, Mr. Robbin.”

            “Great!” Mr. Robbin replied, beaming.  He swung his fist, a chummy gesture.  “What is it?”

            “Boxers leave the least amount of nuts lint.  Then probably boxer briefs, tighty whities with the most.”  Smith’s stark jawbones were bent in a poorly-hidden smirk, knowing full well that Mr. Robbin was not okay.  Mr. Robbin smiled and nodded.  “We’ll need a control group with no underwear though.”  A few students chuckled at Chris’s comments.  Several, including most of the students around him, turned around and gave him looks like he’d used the term “retard” in casual conversation.

            Mr. Robbin began his little march around the front of the room, his usual flight.  It’s a Mr. Robbin trademark to engrain himself deep in his lesson, voice carrying like he’s standing beside your desk, hands fluttering like an opera singer.  As he would enter this revelatory state, Mr. Robbin would weave around the front of the room, on and off the little stage and around his instruments, in an erratic one-foot-over-the-other kind of intricate dance, marking a seemingly random Family Circus path, effectively hypnotizing his students into diving just as deep into the day’s lecture as Mr. Robbin.  One student who attended class on shrooms claimed to see patterns in Mr. Robbin’s flight, repeating a fifteen-minute “phrase” of sorts.  Mr. Robbin began this dance, just like any normal lecture day.  “That’s a very good idea, Todd.”

            “Chris.”

            “Chris, yes.”  Mr. Robbin never forgot a name in his eighteen years of teaching.  “And we’ll address that right away, but it’s only fair we address Marissa’s question first.”  Mr. Robbin’s dance ground into slow motion, his shiny black shoes clopping on the linoleum with cavernous echoes.  He was stepping towards the podium.  “You see,” clop, “ladies and germs,” clop.  Mr. Robbin stopped at his podium and spread his hands like a preacher, turned his face up in a way that the lecture-hall lights not only ignite his paste-white teeth against his half-Peruvian skin, but illuminate his glasses like flashlights.  “…We are all puppets.”

Weekly Writing 1 (2.4.2014)

A young woman, we’ll call her Lindsay, is walking.  Where is she walking?  This way.  You can’t tell where I’m pointing.  Well, if you could, you would see that I am pointing down a back road outside of a village.  The village is Lindsay’s village – it is called Tockwell.  It is home to many good machinists, and it is only a few miles from the larger Towns.

            This back road is largely dirt and worn down rubble.  It may have, at one time, been paved.  To the right, all is woods.  They aren’t the thickest or darkest woods.  Should a child get lost there, they can find their way back if they have a good head about their shoulders.  Even if they don’t, someone from either Tockwell or the village over can hear them yelling for help.  Still, the stories propagate – goofy little tales of trickery and evil, meant to scare young ladies into the arms of their suitors.  On the left, if you stop to stare between the trees, you can see houses again, just over fifty yards away.

            Lindsay is frustrated.  She lives with her boyfriend Jora back in Tockwell.  That’s not why she’s frustrated, though.  For a long time, things between Lindsay and Jora were fine.  Before that, they were great.  Lindsay works as something of an accountant for Tockwell’s shipping yard.  She takes inventory of the goods that come though, helps in budget management.  Jora rarely holds a job for more than a few months.  He’s good at finding jobs, just not keeping them.  Up until today, Jora was a logger.  Up until today.  Lindsay isn’t frustrated because Jora’s lost another job.

            Lindsay came home from a long day of work.  She’d found Jora playing guitar on their back porch.  They live on the bottom of a two-flat.  Jora’s dark brow was even darker today, and clouded together – his eyes distant.  Lindsay asked him what was up.  She received no response.  Lindsay and Jora have been together three years.  When Jora pretends not to hear you when playing guitar, he has bad news that he hasn’t been thinking about.

            Eventually, Lindsay got his attention.  She asked what’s wrong.  Jora blurted that he wanted to move to the Towns.  This didn’t sit well with Lindsay.  She doesn’t hate the Towns, but Tockwell was good enough for now.  The Towns changed people.  Especially people like Jora, people that never seemed to find solid ground.  For another matter, it’s already off-putting enough to the homely people of Tockwell that Lindsay and Jora live together, and have been since being together just two years.  To take off for the Towns out of nowhere, and for what chance?  Lindsay asked this of Jora, knowing and fearing the answer.

            His music.  Jora wants to take off because he thinks there’s “more people to make it with there.”  Lindsay had a quick feeling, like a rising sneeze, that she could put a stopper on this nonsense.  That feeling passed.  She was home early – and Jora’s almost never home from logging before six.  Lindsay asked how Jora’s home early.  He said if they’re going to talk about moving, they shouldn’t change the subject.  With a few more prods, Lindsay confirmed what she’d suspected: Jora quit the logging job.

            They’d had a fight.  Jora called Lindsay unsupportive, claiming she was calling his dreams childish.  She insisted that wasn’t the case.  She’s not mad because Jora quit “yet another” job (that got him boiling), but he’d been taking steps behind her back to have less to leave behind should they decide to move, placing the burden on her.  In any event, Lindsay took off for a walk.  It’s only natural she’d find the same back road she’d walk on as a young girl whenever the children at school called her things like “Drifter Kid,” “Dandelion Fluff,” “Homeless Girl,” all because her father has to bounce between the Towns for his job.

            At last, back to present time, when Lindsay steps on the heel of a wee, stooped man with a pack twice his size.  The pack is at least three feet in diameter, almost spherical with how many odds and ends are pushing against its seams.  The pack looks quite like this little man’s oversized shell.  The man begins to howl, like an old man being subject to a cruel prank where a young boy pops from behind a tree as he’s disguised as a monster.  Lindsay yelps and steps backwards.  She’d been so lost in thought, she hadn’t noticed this man and his cart-sized backpack walking in the same direction as she, in the exact same path in the road.  The man continues his pathetic howl, though he doesn’t fall at first.  His steps just grow smaller, slowing his pace.  Then he drops to one knee, still moaning, then the other, before at long last, the pack pushes him flat against the ground, snuffing out his howl.

            Lindsay has a hand to her breast, stunned silent.  I’ve killed a man, she thinks.  I tripped a man and killed him.  Skipping out for the Towns doesn’t seem like such a bad idea anymore.  The fallen man, barely visible beneath his voluminous pack, muffles a cry against the ground.  His arms wave feebly, like an overturned beetle.  Lindsay issues a sigh of relief.

            The moment after Lindsay’s finished congratulating herself on not killing a man, she scurries forward to help him up.  She’s barely taken the man by his shoulder and forearm when he begins to thank Lindsay profusely.  It wasn’t exactly true to say the man’s pack pinned him flat against the ground.  He was actually somewhat arched, roly-polied even, because of his overlarge stomach, like his pack in miniature.