tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81338389484793334002024-03-04T21:56:58.003-08:00The Adventures of Pat O'NeilPat O'Neil, a regular guy from Iowa, somehow wandered into fighting Clan Platypus, a group of ninjas trying to take over the world by selling meth. At his side are his friend Douggy (himself half ninja), a group of genetically altered squirrel monkeys and, giving support and advice, Charles Lindbergh.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger137125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-61913302563843523662011-10-17T20:29:00.001-07:002011-10-17T20:45:26.292-07:00Now that I got a little free time...<div><p>"You'll do?!?!" I squeaked. "What on Earth is that supposed to mean?"</p>
<p>"It means," said the staff in a voice that came from everywhere and nowhere at once, "that you aren't the greatest man that ever lived, and that, given my preference, I would take someone else. Someone stronger. Someone smarter. Someone for whom magic was an everyday occurance. However, seeing as how you have dug me out of the ice, and you're not that bad of a person, all things considered, I will make use of you to destroy those who created and imprisoned me whilst simultaneously cleaning up this planet. And, since I am an incredibly powerful, fully conscious instrument of pure, strong magic which lacks only the ambulatory nature needed to complese this task and since you, sir, are basically decent and, more importantly, mobile, I will allow you to function in a transportation capacity and my ends will be met. That is what I meant. I apologize for being brief."</p>
<p>I wasn't too sure how I was supposed to respond to that kind of honesty. I managed to get as far as, "Oh, well, then, if that's..." before the staff yelled at me.</p>
<p>"Quit dilly dallying and pick me up, you fool! The necromancers have surely detected my release and are most likely oozing this way through the shadow realm right now."</p>
<p>I ain't gotta be told twice. I may not have much of what you might call book learnin, but I know anything that can ooze through the shadow realm, whatever that may be, is prolly bad news. And if a stick is saying I should grab it to protect myself from the aforementioned oozy thing, I would be remiss not to follow. Of course, by the time I'd finished this rationalization for myself, the staff was already in my hand.</p>
<p>It's hard to say what happened then. It was like I was still lookin at the world, but I was sorta lookin through the world, too, like the world was made out of a bedsheet and I was dressed as a blind ghost for Halloween. I could still see everything that had been there, the ghost army, Alistair and the mech, but I could see more. I saw all the pain and suffering that laid over thr world. I saw the iron hard determination that Alistair had to defeat Clan Platypus.</p>
<p>And a monster. I saw a slimy monster that looked like someone had glued a bunch of elephant tusks randomly on the world's largest hairball and then dipped the whole thing in extra slimy slime. You know, not that regular slime you get down at the feed and slime co-op, but the good, importec kind you get over at the slime boutique over on 5th. The kind that comes from them fancy French snails and the leavins<b> </b>in a caviar can. Real <i>slimy </i>slime.</p>
<p>Well this thing was droolin and gruntin and speakin some weird language of the sort you would expect from a monster of the type I was seein. Me, I was scared, and I ain't ashamed to admit it. I froze right up, as one might be expetin to do in that kinda situation. Despite that, I found myself flyin through the air, staff spinnin over my head like a helicpter blade, and me screamin some gibberish language. It was like that time I ate a jar of peanut butter a month after its expiration date, only without the throwin up.</p>
<p>"What's goin on here?" I thought.</p>
<p>The staff spoke to me. Let me repeat that. I thought something, and this thing responded. "I've taken over your nervous system to allow you to fight the most powerful magicians in this galaxy and not die in the process."</p>
<p>"How bout that," I thought at the staff. "And what is that thing we're flyin at?"</p>
<p>"That is what is left of Genji Nakahura, the least of the thirteen."</p>
<p>"And what is it we plan on doin when we get to...uh...what was that name again?"</p>
<p>"Genji Nakahura. We're going to strike him in the face, pull all of his magic out of him, and fill him with all of the pain he has caused in others, which he will experience fully and sequentially until he has felt the full implications of his evil."</p>
<p>And that's what we did. Well, the hittin in the face part, I know for sure happened. As for the rest, if it looks like oil rainbows bein sucked through a crazy straw and sounds like a cat with worn out brakes, then it happened. If not, then someone's got a belly full of oill and a cat that needs to be taken to the shop.</p>
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-19186010011261940352011-03-09T23:19:00.000-08:002011-03-09T23:53:17.354-08:00DigginNow, I ain't never been one to take on the hefty responsibility. When I was a lad, our class had to pick a hall monitor and, for some reason, all my school chums decided the job would go to me. I didn't want the job. I mean, it was bad enough havin to show up to school every day. But now I was expected to check every half hour to make sure the hall was still there?! It was too much, really. Of course, this was way back in the 60s, when there were giants roaming the earth, subsisting on the hallways of schools and, for some reason, Tang. In fact, that's why we sent all that Tang with them first astronauts, to lure them giants into space where they could be used to protect the planet from asteroids being thrown at us my Mars, but that story's not that interestin, and I'm pretty sure you know all about it anyway.<br /><br />So, my school chums thought it'd be h-i-larious to give me the job of watchin the hall and makin sure it was still there. I felt it shoulda gone to Chuck, this kid that had a lazy eye. I mean, hey, he was keepin an eye on the hallway anyways, why not make it official? But no, it had to be good ol' Pat O'Neil to get up every half hour to check to make sure the hallway was there. I did that job for three thankless years. Did anyone say, "Good job, Pat?" No. Did anyone throw a parade for Pat O'Neil? Yes, they did. But it was entirely unrelated to my duties as hall monitor. Did they ever, once say, "Thank you. Thank you, Pat O'Neil for keeping our hallway safe from those giants who may be better suited to defending us against the terrible Martian hordes?" No. But the one time a giant DOES eat our hallway, guess who has to hear all about it? Me, that's who. "Why weren't you watching, Pat?", "What's wrong with you, Pat?", "I can't see you clearly with my lazy eye, but if I could, it would be filled with sadness and disappointment, Pat."<br /><br />What was I going to do? I was eight. What eight year old is going to be able to stand up to the giants? Well, besides Genghis Timmy, the leader of the Martian hordes, who stood up to the giants, I mean.<br /><br />That whole experience there soured me on doing anything that required responsibility. For the next fifty years or so, I tried to live my life with as little responsibility as I could manage. I didn't take on any extra jobs no one gave to me. I didn't volunteer for nothin. And when I played air guitar, I'd always play the rhythm guitar part. Who needs all the showiness of playing air guitar to the lead? That's just fancy for fancy's sake if you ask me.<br /><br />Despite that, I found myself shouldering quite a responsibility there on Meth Earth. I was supposed to dig up this haunted stick thing, use that to drive off the cruel masters of the planet and restore the ghost dragon army back to some semblance of normalcy. I wasn't comfortable with it, but what can you do? When fate comes callin, you can't turn out the lights, hide behind the couch and pretend not to be home, like you can when it's your aunt or solicitors looking for donations to the Genghis Timmy Memorial Fund for the Prevention of Death in Children Due to a Severe Cultural Misunderstanding Resulting in a Serious Interplanetary War That Could Have Been Avoided by a Little Research on Behalf of the Martian Diplomat. No. You gotta get your butt up off that couch, quiet the dog, open the door, look fate right in the eye and then dig a couple hundred feet through antarctic ice.<br /><br />"One problem," I said, "I don't have a shovel."<br /><br />The ghost leader scratched his head. "Yeah, that's gonna be a problem. We're basically incorporeal, so we can't really dig."<br /><br />"But you just brought me here on your back," I pointed out.<br /><br />"Well, yeah," he said, "but that's different. We, like, don't have to work when we fly. Diggin's hard."<br /><br />"Well, I ain't gonna just dig through the ice with my bare hands," I retorted. "So what were you expectin us to do?"<br /><br />The ghost shrugged, "Dunno, guess I hadn't thought that far ahead."<br /><br />"Wait," said Alistair, "I've got an idea. Can you guys wait here for a bit?"<br /><br />It was my turn to shrug. "Don't see why not."<br /><br />So we hung out there on the icy plain for awhile, played a little cribbage. It was beginnin to seem like I wasn't never gonna get out of this and get home. But at least I had time to rest my feet and take a little nap. I slept like a little baby; wakin up and cryin every couple of hours, then tryin to stick my feet in my mouth.<br /><br />I'd just about got my right foot to my cheek when I saw the giant form on the horizon. The thuddin of the land grew as the enormous shape moved closer. It first looked like a man, but no man ever stood that tall. "What is that?" I asked the ghost dragon.<br /><br />"How would I know?" one of them said, "it's too far away."<br /><br />"Don't you have some magic powers or somethin? I mean, what good is it bein a ghost dragon if you're limited by a normal person's sight?" I asked.<br /><br />"Tell me about it," one ghost lady replied. "I was near sighted when I died and, let me tell you, it's darned near impossible to get glasses once you're dead. Bein locked in a box doesn't help none, either."<br /><br />A few of the other ghosts mumbled their agreement. By the time they were done sharin their optical complaints with me, I could finally see the shape. Alistair had gone back to where I landed and recovered the mech suit I wore during that first battle.<br /><br />"Chuck's Chain-Chuck-o-matic!" the ghosts exclaimed. "Of course!"<br /><br />I don't use the phrase stunning very often, but then again, I don't see a giant mechanical suit shooting chainsaw nun-chucks into antarctic ice over and over and over again that often. Then chainsaws punched through the ice like it was butter and they were still chainsaws. We cleared the path down to the staff in a matter of minutes.<br /><br />It lay in the ice, shining in the sun, like some sort of snake made of mercury. It was beautiful and frightening at the same time. A low hum seemed to come from it, too quiet to be heard, but it made my entire chest tremble in fear.<br /><br />"Well," said the ghost, slapping me on the back, "go on down there and get it."<br /><br />I stood, staring. Then slipped and slid my way down the sides of the pit. It was all I could do not to run away. I was about to be judged by something more powerful than everything I'd ever seen or thought about. What would I find? What would it say about me?<br /><br />I reached out to the staff, my hands trembling. As my fingertips touched it, a voice rang out in the silence.<br /><br />"Yeah, you'll do."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-34915657990656196252011-01-02T17:21:00.000-08:002011-01-02T18:03:11.952-08:00Sorry for the delay, babies are a ton of work."Well, now," I told them ex-meth addict ghosts, "that there was a humdinger of a story. Course, now that I give it some good thought, it seems like you never really answered my question."<br /><br />"How so?" came the ethereal response.<br /><br />"I mean, I know this story's gone on way, WAY too long, given the simple nature of the question, so I may be remembering all this a little wrong, but I sorta remember askin you what the Staff of Haruki actually WAS, not how it came to be and all that. I'm just as much of a fan of a good origin story as the next guy, but I think y'all been a little circuitous about tellin me what the staff actually is. You know, like what it does and why I need it to defeat the evil drug dealin ninja overlords of this here planet. That's really what I was askin about."<br /><br />"We know," they chanted together.<br /><br />"If ya know, then why'd ya give me all that rigamorale about killin gods and burnin a tree and giant fish eatin planets and whatnot?"<br /><br />The leader of the ghosts, a bluish apparition that looked as if he had neither eaten nor washed his mullet in the last four years of his life, scratched the back of his head up under a trucker cap that read "Ask me how to lose ten pounds of ugly fat. NOW" and shuffled a bit. Then he cleared his throat a couple times and looked around like he was expectin the rest of this ghost army to speak for him.<br /><br />Then, he alone spoke. After hearin that whole durned story told by a whole creepy group at the same time, I felt like my ears was gonna pop.<br /><br />"Look," he said, "we all been locked into bottles, jars, shoeboxes and whatever for a couple hundred years. Tom over there died in the desert and all the necromancer had on him to store the soul in was a fresh sheep's badder that he'd been peein in for a week. And, let me tell ya, them things is like to get ripe after the first decade or so. Point bein, we been locked up inside that volcano for centuries and ain't had no one to talk to. We's just lonely."<br /><br />"Oh." I felt kinda bad for harassin 'em. Of course, I was still standin on a post-apocalyptic plain, skies of death roilin above my head, and a group of ninjas prolly pretty angry that me and my copies had just taken over their planet with our robot army, so I was startin to feel a little sense of urgency, if'n you follow my meaning. Plus I was gettin pretty hungry, and I was bettin I wouldn't be like to get back to my tuna salad sandwich before we cleaned up this den of necromancers that was really pullin the strings.<br /><br />I tried explainin all this to the ghost army, and they took it pretty well. Well, after the wailin and gnashing of the teeth, that is. But they agreed to cut the whole thing a little shorter and just explain to me what the staff was. Then, to make up for the delay they'd caused, they also agreed to give me a ride to where the staff was embedded in deepest arctic ice. Also, they offered to fix the Deus Ex Machina. I told 'em that was mighty kind, but I didn't really understand how they knew how to repair a machine that was built just a few weeks before.<br /><br />"When you're trapped in a jar," they explained, "you got a lot of time for reading."<br /><br />And that's how I ended up flyin over a scorched planet on the back of a ghost dragon being chased by a spaceship full of squirrel monkeys. I'm sure you can all relate.<br /><br />"Now, about this staff thing we're supposed to be pickin up. What's it do?" I asked my mount.<br /><br />"The blood of gods and dying screams of a tome of black magic made the staff magic absorbant," they began. "Haruki and his minions, the teenage sons of Clan Platypus' ruling council on this planet, thought it was entirely magic resistant. So, in their descent into black magic, they practiced their spells on the staff. If something went wrong, and it often did, the staff would simply absorb the bad effects.<br /><br />"As the thirteen grew, they practiced more and more powerful black magic, stuff involving sacrifice and death and spirit power, and all of it was practiced on the staff. Once they realized their full power, they banded together to kill their fathers. There was a gruesome parricidal sacrifice that it's really best not to discuss, the power of which was all funneled through Haruki so that he could strike out into space, corrupting the minds of all the planets he passed. Of course, when you sacrifice your father, you can really only do it the once, so it's not like they had time to practice. The power proved too much for Haruki, and he exploded in a nimbus of black magic. It's that black magic that scorched they sky here. It also created the great meth mountains on the western plains. Those are gone now, by the way."<br /><br />"Sure, of course," I agreed.<br /><br />"But the staff was right there. It absorbed all the power of the sacrifice and the corrupting influence of Haruki, not to mention the bits of him that were flying about. With this final power and the strong will of the most powerful of the thirteen necromancers, the staff gained consciousness. It felt all the evil inside of it and, contrary to expectation, gained a pretty hefty guilt complex about all the black magic and death it had been involved in. In the first moment of self awareness, the staff decided that it would make people understand the suffering they caused. And that, now, is exactly what it does.<br /><br />"Legend says that when one approaches the staff, it measures their heart. If they are judged to be evil, they are shown all the suffering they have caused others. But it's not like a movie. They like the lives of those who suffered at their hands. They feel every moment of pain and degradation.<br /><br />"As you can imagine, with that thing lying about, Clan Platypus had a hard time doing their jobs. Planetary domination slowed to a crawl and no money was getting passed up to the real bosses. Finally, they had to bury the whole thing under a thousand feet of ice in the polar regions.<br /><br />"Then they got back to work. They harvested the meth mountains and sold them back to us. Those of us who resisted the drug were sent to "reeducation camps" where we were fed meth in our food and then forced to clean tile for hours on end. But now, Pat O'Neil, thanks to you and your clone horde, we can get exact our revenge on Clan Platypus, scour the planet clean of their influence, and get back to our afterlives.<br /><br />"Oh, here we are."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-66525706286334242042010-10-17T17:05:00.001-07:002010-10-17T17:45:10.127-07:00What happened?It was at this point in the story that I took it on myself to interrupt.<br /><br />"Wait, wait, wait," I cried out. "You're just gonna gloss over that whole thing where Odin just sat down and let that little punk kill him? What kinda goose droppins is that?"<br /><br />The ghost of the meth zombie scratched his dirty blonde hair through his trucker hat. "Well, I was gonna, you know, work it into the story there somewhere. I was thinkin maybe there'd be this big dramatic meetin between Hiroki and his gang and the leaders of Clan Platypus where they'd be all 'Oh, Hiroki, you're so powerful! How did that happen?' and then BOOM! he'd tell em what he saw in the book."<br /><br />"Naw, naw," I just shook my head, "it's gonna be crap if you tell it like that. Take it from me, I've told a story or two in my time. What you gotta do is just tell us now, so we ain't waitin the rest of the story thinkin 'What the heck happened there?' and cursin your name like we was watchin some overly dramatic movie starring the latest pretty boy actor in his 'break-out role' but it's actually just three and a half hours of people talkin quietly about stuff that doesn't really matter."<br /><br />"What, you mean, like, just TELL you what happened?"<br /><br />"Yeah, that's exactly what I'm sayin. I ain't standin out here in this scorched wasteland under this freaky blackened sky talking to an army of former meth addicts what has been turned into ghosts for my health, you know. I'm just tryin to make sure my home doesn't end up the same way, you know?"<br /><br />"Well," he spat, "I guess if that's the way you want it."<br /><br />"Sure do."<br /><br />"Well, allrighty then. It turns out that what Hiroki had seen on that paper was a recipe for breaking what was called the 'narrator spell'. I ain't gotta spell it all out for ya, but, in short, it was a spell that trapped a person in a story. And the writer of the story could get that character to do whatever in the heck he wanted him to do. The Grimoire of Necrography had cast this wicked thing on the first person who'd wandered by it in almost 30,000 years, which happened to be Hiroki. The whole trip to the world tree and the burning and everything was all a plan by the Grimoire to get Hiroki to do his bidding. You see, the book, being just a book, couldn't get all the ingredients it needed to make the spell permanent. Apparently, and I ain't no kind of wizard or whatever, to make a person under that kind of spell do what you want, you gotta write it in blood, which wasn't really a problem for the Grimoire. It just chewed up a couple rats that were wanderin the shelves and used their blood. But, to make the spell permanent, the caster had to write the victim's name in god blood, which ain't easy to acquire.<br /><br />"So the book concocted the whole scavenger hunt for ingredients to help heal Tommy, the deaf, dumb and blind pinball wizard. What the Grimoire didn't count on is that Odin, whether in a story or not, is a crafty old codger who's always lookin for ways to twist the fabric of fate. He also knows everything about anyone who eats and drinks in his hall. So, when Odin took Hiroki for the feast, he found out that he was under the narrator spell. Odin knew the Hiroki was gonna need god blood from somewhere, and on that tree, there was really only three choices.<br /><br />"Knowin all this, Odin contrived to hide for a bit and then follow Hiroki back to his master. When he saw it was the Grimoire, he knew he had to destroy the thing. He'd had some dealings with that awful book in the past, and knew it was evil from cover to cover. Well, except the title page. That was just bureaucracy.<br /><br />"Turns out that, a couple thousand years ago, Odin used that very book and the narrator spell to lock up his brother, Loki. They'd always been at odds and Odin was always pickin on Loki, cause he was the younger brother. One day, Loki decided he'd had enough and went to Baldr to ask for a hammer. He was plannin to nail the door of Odin's hall shut. It was just gonna be a little prank. He wanted to catch Odin comin out the window of his hall and was hopin his pants would snag on a nail or somethin and come off as he was comin out.<br /><br />"Baldr wasn't the brightest sun in the sky, though, and he thought Loki was askin him for a warhammer. He got to makin the hammer, but his muscles got tired. So, he set everything aside and went to bed. Going to his forge groggy in the morning, he got to thinkin about how his muscles were sore. He kept chanting to himself 'Sore, sore, sore" as he stoked the fire. Eventually, that turned into 'Thor, Thor, Thor'. And he convinced himself that he'd been making the hammer for Thor.<br /><br />"Needless to say, Thor was a little surprised when his uncle brought him the greatest warhammer ever created. When he asked his uncle why the gift, Baldr responded 'Oh, that's right! That was for Loki! He was gonna use it to get back at your dad!'<br /><br />"As you can imagine, Thor was pretty shocked. He went straight to his dad to tell him about this. Odin, being the totally level headed and rational being that he is, pulled out the Grimoire and wove the spell that would make Thor kill Baldr and get Loki blamed for it. Then, to make sure no one would undo the spell, he ripped out the next two pages of the book, which conveniently explained how to do just that.<br /><br />"And that's how those Norse gods got themselves locked in that terrible cycle they were in. Then, when Hiroki came along, Odin saw a way out for himself and his family. So, he got the two pages he'd ripped out of the book and, as I said before, followed the young ninja back to the Grimoire.<br /><br />"So, he sat himself down in that chair and showed Hiroki the way to undo the spell. The only way, according to the book, was to put a period on the narration. Sounds easy, but the catch was that the period had to be made with fresh god blood. When Hiroki hesitated in this, Odin let the page slip and showed him the narration spell that had been written for Loki and Baldr.<br /><br />"When he saw that, Hiroki knew that he wasn't just doing this for himself, but for Odin, too. Naturally, he didn't know where in the book the Grimoire had written his story, so Hiroki put all his might into the blow and drove the staff, with its flat, round end, all the way through the book, effectively putting a giant period on each page.<br /><br />"So, there ya have it, that what was goin on with the book. Satisfied?"<br /><br />"Almost," I said, thinkin. "What about that explosion, though? What happened there?"<br /><br />"Oh, that?" He seemed surprised I'd asked. "The Grimoire of Necrography, being one of the oldest dark magic texts in the universe, contained a whole lot of magic in its pages. When Hiroki destroyed the book, all that magic was released at once and formed, as magic will, a fiery hurricane."<br /><br />"And it didn't hurt him none?"<br /><br />"Not one bit. The staff, being made from a magic tree and soaked in the blood of three gods, brothers no less, soaked up all that magic and became one of the most powerful weapons ever known. And that's what you need."<br /><br />"Super," I said, "and where do I find this staff?"Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-83093436359808169762010-09-11T19:10:00.000-07:002010-09-11T19:57:21.381-07:00Two months for two pages.When Hiroki came to, he felt as if months had past. His mouth felt like a whole army of tooth gnomes had been in there pasting up Andre the Giant posters, got tired of that, and then decided to carpet the place in thick, deep, green 70s shag. You know, the kind of carpet you'd expect to find in the back of a van if it had a viking warrior riding a horse/motorcycle hybrid jumping over a tank full of vicious narwhals with laser beam eyes painted on the side. Which is, coincidentally, exactly what the young man had been dreaming about. And he was pissed that he was awake, laying in his dusty cold room filled with weaponry and poison instead of riding his horseocycle.<br /><br />"mmmmm" he mumbled into the floor.<br /><br />"What was that?" asked the grimoire. "I didn't quite catch that."<br /><br />Hiroki cleared his throat. "I said no."<br /><br />"No?" shot back the book. "No what?"<br /><br />"No," said Hiroki calmly, sitting up, "no, I won't do this. I won't be bound like some animal put out for show. All my life, I've been told what to do, who to be, who my father was, how to be him. Well, I'm sick of it. I'm sick and tired of being tied up, and I won't do it any more." As he said this, he rose unsteadily to his feet, using the staff to prop himself up.<br /><br />"What do you propose to do?" questioned the book, full of snark.<br /><br />"He'll do what he has to do," came a low voice from the corner of the room.<br /><br />Hiroki turned around to see Odin standing behind him. He looked older, much older than he had a week ago. His face had lost all the friendliness that Hiroki had seen when they first met. But, too, it didn't hold any of the anger he had expected to find there. Just, what, peace? Resignation? Whatever it was, it was solid as a marble statue sunk in amber and frozen in time.<br /><br />Hiroki bowed formally to him, knowing that the god could sweep off his head at any moment. "Sir," he stated, "I am sorry for the damage I have caused to you and your family. I know there is no way to make amends."<br /><br />To his surprise, Odin waved him off. "Bah," the old god almost shouted, "they were all gonna die anyway, eventually. Actually, I should be thanking you. Now I don't have to go through all that who-killed-who rigmarole again. Tell ya the truth, I'm pretty darn sick of living that cycle and I'm pretty excited to see what this one has to offer."<br /><br />"Don't listen to him," whispered the book, "he's up to no good."<br /><br />"You know what I love best about stories, boy?" Odin asked conversationally.<br /><br />"No, sir," Hiroki responded, wrinkling up his brow.<br /><br />"What I love best," continued the god, wandering around the room slowly, "is that each time you tell a story, you can tell it different. Sure, the gist of the thing still needs to be there, but you can change the little details. After all, a story belongs to the teller, and the teller can do whatever he wants."<br /><br />"Don't trust him!" shouted the book.<br /><br />Hiroki stood looking back and forth between the god and the book.<br /><br />"Problem is," continued Odin, as if nothing had happened, "people think that once something is written down, it's gotta be the same way forever. But that's small thinkin."<br /><br />He turned towards the table on which the grimoire lay.<br /><br />"Don't let him get too close!" yelled the book. If it could have sweated, it would have. But Hiroki stood and did nothing.<br /><br />The All Father went on, laying a hand on the book. "That's just the short view. In reality, books may last a little longer, but in the end, they ain't any more permanent than a story, or even a character in a story. I mean to say, a book's gonna break down eventually. They get passed around from hand to hand, sometimes a page or two falls out. In the case of a smart book, maybe it makes sure a couple pages fall out."<br /><br />He picked up the book and opened it up, seemingly at random. "Oh, what's this?" he asked, false surprise in his voice. He laid the book open on the table and turned it towards Hiroki, who didn't move.<br /><br />"He lies!!!" shouted the book.<br /><br />"It's ok, boy," said Odin reassuringly, "come have a look." He waved the young ninja over.<br /><br />And so Hiroki came, and looked at the book. He didn't know what he was looking for at first, so he read over the pages. Then he saw it. He looked up at Odin, an expression of concern on his face. "It jumps from 1488 to 1493," he said.<br /><br />"That's right," Odin nodded. "Seems to me, two pages musta fell outta that book somewhere along the way, and gotten lost to history. Course, if a man knows where to look and who to talk to, maybe he could find those couple of pages and maybe, if one were to see those two pages, there could be a way out."<br /><br />"And do you know where to look and who to talk to?" asked Hiroki.<br /><br />"I didn't trade my eye for nothin, boy," said Odin gruffly, reaching into his vest. "You see, I just happened to be carrying these with me for the past couple months or so," he pulled two pieces of yellowed paper from his pocket. "And it also just happens that these pages are marked, let's see..." he pretended to read them. "Oh, lookie there, pages 1489, 1490, 1491 and 1492. Isn't that amazing?"<br /><br />"Run!" Yelled the book to Hiroki. "Get away from this man! He will destroy us all."<br /><br />"Not quite," Odin said. "I think maybe, if a boy was smart and had the right tools, he could maybe read these couple of pages and then decide for himself what he wanted to do. And it also seems to me that anyone that wasn't willing to let him make up his own mind was maybe manipulating him into things. What do you say, boy?"<br /><br />"SAY NO!!!" Yelled the book, almost deafeningly. "SAY NOOOOOOO!!!!!!"<br /><br />But he didn't. Hiroki nodded, ever so slightly. Odin smiled a small, sad smile, and put the two pages back into the book. There was a moment of blinding light, and a sound like a frog being stepped on in reverse, and then the pages lay in the book as if they'd always been there.<br /><br />Strangely, the book was silent as Hiroki leaned over and read the two missing pages. Whether the two pages or fear had silenced the book, Hiroki couldn't say, but he didn't much care. When he'd read the two pages he simply nodded a bit.<br /><br />Then he looked up at Odin. "You're sure about this?"<br /><br />"Sure," responded Odin. "Seems like maybe couldn't be worse than the alternative."<br /><br />Hiroki thought for a moment, sucking on his lip a bit. As he did, Odin grabbed the book and sat down in a chair to read it. He made hmmm and awww and aha noises as he thumbed through it. He barely felt it when Hiroki's staff punched through his chest and buried itself in the book.<br /><br />Odin's head dropped back to regard Hiroki one last time. "Freedom," he whispered.<br /><br />The firestorm that followed will live forever shrouded in legend and mystery. Some say that ghosts tortured the residents of Clan Platypus headquarters for months. Others say that they were surrounded by fire that never burned and never consumed. Others say that they were plagued with laser-eyed narwhals that were kind and offered to clear the dishes after every meal. Regardless of what happened, at the end of it all, Hiroki stood in his room, his hair gone completely white, holding the staff still in his hand.<br /><br />His weapon now thrummed with a steady power. It was hard to say how it was felt. It was something like a warmth and something like a pressure, but not at all like either. He breathed deeply but steadily.<br /><br />"Holy cow! Hiroki?" Yelled his companions from his door. "Is that you?"<br /><br />"Yes," he said to the wall, "it is me." He turned to face them and they all gasped. The storm, in addition to turning his hair all to white, also took one of his eyes.<br /><br />"Are you....are you all right?" One of his friends asked.<br /><br />"Better than all right," he stated, plucking an eye patch off the end of his staff. "I'm free."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-66651575318948933382010-07-22T17:11:00.000-07:002010-07-22T18:05:13.409-07:00Returnin from a road tripYou ever been on a road trip? Sure ya have. Everyone's been on a road trip. Well, maybe not everyone. I bet there are some people somewhere that ain't got no roads or ideas of what a 'trip' is, and they prolly don't take a lot of road trips. They prolly also wear gourds over their junk and hunt with sharpened sticks, which is cool for them. I mean, I prefer wearin layer after layer of cotton and silk over my junk and I prefer huntin with a dull stick, but that's just my thing, you know?<br /><br />Anyway, if you ever been on a road trip, you know that it always starts out as fun, you and your buddies got a cooler full of fried chicken and pasta salad, a week off work, and the open road stretchin out before you. The cool wind of freedom is blowin through your soul and you feel like anything's possible. Maybe you'll drive to Vegas, break the house, spend all your earnings on a fleet of racing cars and C4, go out to the desert and blow the crap out of a pile of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">McClaren</span> F1s and, just to spite all those suckers who had to work, you ain't gonna take pictures of it. Or maybe you'll drive out to the coast, swim in the ocean, get caught up in the undertow and find yourself getting dragged down to a mysterious underground bubble city where the merpeople make you their king for a week and then you'll meet a beautiful mermaid who falls hopelessly in love with you, but you gotta tell her you gotta go back to Iowa because, as beautiful and enchanting as her undersea world is, it just ain't your world, but you primise you'll write, and you will, for a time, but it will slowly drop off until a day comes twenty years from now when you're wondering whatever happened to her and, just then, your doorbell rings and there's a boy of about 20, who looks to be 3/4 human and 1/4 fish callin you daddy and explainin that he just got accepted to Iowa State and could he stay with you for a bit while he gets his feet wet, no pun intended.<br /><br />Yeah, that first hour of a road trip is filled with hope and dreams. Then the farting starts. The guy sitting in the back sleep, lulled by the heat and the hum of the tires on the road starts drifting off and losing control of his methane. At first, you try to pass it off by laughing. After all, you ain't gonna let a little butt bubble get in the way of your pile of explodin cars or aquatic love child. But as he slips deeper and deeper into his car-induced trance, his breakfast of last year's cottage cheese mixed with a finely aged durian comes back to haunt everyone else on the trip. So, you gotta make a compromise and roll down the window, which changes the air pressure in the car and blows out everyone's ears. Now, there's no way to listen to the super awesome road trip mix tape you put together but you daren't roll the window back up for fear of vomiting in your own lap. And the sound has woken up Mr. Backseat, who is now all grumpy because his nap got disturbed. So he starts yellin about how it ain't fair he's gotta be stuck in the back seat and the two people in the front seat start yellin back about his fartin and a fistfight breaks out. Then you get pulled over by a cop for runnin over some endangered species of goose while you were takin care of business with Farts <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">McPoot</span> in the back seat and you find yourself in jail. And, because you don't want to give up the dream of the greatest vacation ever, you try gettin the other inmates into singin "Don't Stop Believing" but they're just not into it. Finally, you get released on your own recognizance when you've only got 12 hours to get back home so you can go back to work. So, the whole drive home is a bitter, sullen prolonged silence and, when you finally stumble back into your digs, all you want is a shower and a nap.<br /><br />That is exactly how young Hiroki felt when he got back to Clan Platypus' headquarters. All he wanted was a shower and a nap. So, usin all his ninja skills, he snuck back into his room. Being the prodigy he was, he avoided being spotted by the guards, the patrolling evil spirits and even the super advanced sentry robots. But, no matter how quiet and cloaked in shadows he was, he couldn't sneak past the Grimoire of Necrography, which was laying on the table of his room.<br /><br />"Did you get it?!" shouted the book as soon ad Hiroki stepped past the sliding paper doors.<br /><br />"How did you get in here?" asked the young ninja, knowing that he'd left the book in the library.<br /><br />"Perhaps I didn't make this clear before," the Grimoire stated, "I am THE GRIMOIRE OF NECROGRAPHY!!!! BOW BEFORE MY POWER MORTAL!!!!!"<br /><br />"No, no," Hiroki said, holding up his hand, "you made that clear. I just...I mean...you don't have hands or legs. Physically, how did you move from the library to here?"<br /><br />"Oh..." mumbled the Grimoire, much quieter, "I...well...promise you won't tell anyone?"<br /><br />"Sure, whatever," sighed the ninja.<br /><br />If the book had eyes or a head, it would have looked around to make sure no one was listening. "I got someone to carry me."<br /><br />"Oh," Hiroki nodded, "I guess that makes sense. I don't see anything wrong with..."<br /><br />"BUT I'M THE GRIMOIRE OF NECROGRAPHY!!!!!!" interrupted the book.<br /><br />Hiroki held up his hands again. "Shhhh. I know you are. You made that crystal clear before. Why is it a big deal if someone carries you? I carried you."<br /><br />"YES BUT..."<br /><br />"Shhhhhhh" Hrioki hushed the book again.<br /><br />"Oh, sorry, *aherm*" the book continued softer, "I'm the most powerful book ever created. I create and destroy kingdoms at a whim. I am used to commanding, but you ninjas, you're all about politeness. I actually had to say please to get someone to carry me. ME! I said <span style="font-style: italic;">please!</span>"<br /><br />"Oh, gee, that's too bad. I'm <span style="font-style: italic;">so</span> sorry you had to say <span style="font-style: italic;">please</span> to someone to accomplish something." shot back the ninja.<br /><br />"Are you being sarcastic?"<br /><br />"Who, me? Nooooooooo. Well, yes."<br /><br />"That's not nice," scolded the book. "You wouldn't understand how hard that was for me."<br /><br />"Don't talk to me about hard!" insisted Hiroki. "I killed two gods and burned a sacred world!"<br /><br />"I know."<br /><br />"You know?"<br /><br />"Yeah, I know."<br /><br />"How did you...how do you know?" asked Hiroki suspicously.<br /><br />The book sighed, "Open to page 458."<br /><br />The young ninja was taken aback. It couldn't be possible, could it? All that Loki said about being trapped in stories and unable to get out? He proved that wrong, didn't he? Loki was dead and so was Baldr. Lokie couldn't kill Baldr like the story said because they were both already dead.<br /><br />Hiroki's mind was racing as he flipped through the book and, at the top of page 458 saw<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"Then I am not responsible," said Hiroki standing, "for this!" He swung the saw in a wide arc, catching Loki across the throat. As a bright rooster tail of blood shot from the god's jugular, his eyes went wide with surprise.</span><br /><br />Then he fainted.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-38975210154858937672010-07-01T16:45:00.000-07:002010-07-01T18:14:32.570-07:00Mr. WilsonI only flew through space once. And when I did that, I was on a spacey pirate ship. You may remember that, it happened about a week before me helpin myself to wage war on this here meth planet, which is what I'm doin right now. I feel like I may have digressed from that story just a smidge, and I'm gonna get to tellin you how that whole mess went and got itself resolved and everything, but first I gotta finish this here thing with Hiroki and that stick he took away from the world tree that he burned right up.<br /><br />Like I was sayin, when I flew through space, I had myself some time to think. I ran into a little problem with that. You see, I don't much like thinkin. I prefer pontificatin or combobulatin or the occasional fancyin, but I don't hold no truck with none of that thinkin. So instead, I played me some cribbage. It's a great way to pass the time without thinkin. Some people will tell ya that a tv is the best way to have no thinkin time, and others will tell ya booze or other drugs is the best way to have non thinkin time, but they're wrong. In fact, they couldn't be wronger if they bought a wrong sized wrong directly from the wrong factory in Wrong, Virginia, paid for it using the wrong credit card number and had it shipped to the wrong address. All that stuff does is give you brain cavities.<br /><br />Cribbage, on the other hand, is the game of kings. Sure, they're drunken, belligerent kings that make up the rules as they go along, but they're still kings. It allows you to hone your wits and counting skills while you zone out and think about other stuff, like a bikini made out of donuts. The thing about cribbage, though, is that you need a partner to play it with. You can't play cribbage with yourself because you'll cheat. You know you will. You'll tell yourself that you're gonna play each side like you would play a normal game, not knowin the other hand. But you won't. You'll do as much as you can to give yourself the best hands possible just so when you're down at the local waterin hole, you can talk about the time you got a 23 point hand.<br /><br />I only ever knew one person who overcame that difficulty; old Mr. Wilson from over in Westerville. He'd grown up on a pig farm and so didn't have what you might call a refined sense of smell. He one time ran over a whole family of skunks on the road and got them lodged up under his car, sittin directly on his muffler. For a whole month, whenever he drove anywhere, people in a 30 mile radius could be treated to the delightful scent of hot skunk. But Mr. Wilson didn't know anything about it until his ol hound decided the skunk had been properly cooked and got himself up under the truck. Mr. Wilson had to go into town to get himself some fertilizer. So he walked out to his truck, saw the hound's fat tail waggin from under the truck, grabbed the dog and yanked. He pulled out one happy hound dog with a whole pile of skunk in its mouth.<br /><br />Well right then, he solved the mystery of why Sheriff Tom had caught him speedin, turned on his lights to chase, and then turned 'em right back off. No sheriff in his right mind was gonna approach that truck to write out a speeding ticket. I mean, his eyes would be waterin so much he couldn't see the ticket book anyway, so it was an excercise in futility. Ol' Mr. Wilson wasn't about to give up that kind of power, so he put the skunk pile back under the truck, and threw some pig slop on top of it in order to glue it down. Then he strung some chicken wire round the running boards of his truck to keep the hound out. And with that, he had himself legal immunity from most minor traffic offenses.<br /><br />Of course, the downside is that ol' Mr. Wilson, after spendin months drivin around in a cloud of baking skunk and pig effluviva, was havin major problems findin himself a cribbage partner. He tried playin fairly by himself, but fell into the same cheatin trap we always fall into.<br /><br />Always resourceful, Mr. Wilson thought himself up a plan. He'd play with himself, but between switchin hands, he'd hit himself in the head with a hammer. That way, he'd forget what the old hand was, and sometimes, his name as well.<br /><br />Mr. Wilson kept up his single game of cribbage until the day he, bein a little confused after playin 20 straight games, hit himself with the wrong end of the hammer, shut down his higher brain function, and wandered off into the woods, where he was promptly eaten by a bear. At first, we couldn't believe it. But we waited a couple days and the bear passed the hammer and the stinkiest pair of overalls you've ever seen, giving us definitive proof.<br /><br />Once we had the proof, we had to legally declare that Wilson was eaten by the bear after hittin himself in the head with the wrong end of a partially blunt instrument. As a consequence, the judge declared the bear to be the new legal owner of the Wilson pig farm because of some quirky law that's been on the books for an eon. It wasn't all bad. That bear has a knack for pig farmin and he stinks a whole lot less. We still see him down at the co-op sometimes and listen to him complain about the price of feed and how the politicians are ruining things for bears in this country.<br /><br />I guess what I'm tryin to say here is that, when you're in space, you got a lot of time to think. Hiroki found that out as he drifted back to his home planet. Like I said before, he was sick of bein told what to do, and especially sick of livin in his father's shadow. He needed to make a plan. He needed to get his head together. Most of all, he needed a vacation.<br /><br />**********************Author's Note***********************<br />I didn't want to put this as a seperate post, but I feel my readers deserve an explaination about the drop off in post frequency in the past couple of months. I've been meaning to say something for awhile, but you know how it is. If you're not interested, it's cool, you don't need to read this part. There won't be anything that affects the story. You know, except for the part where I tell you Hiroki is actually a woman and can shoot lightning out of her fingers. But, seriously, besides that, there's not going to be anything important for the story.<br />The simple fact is, I've got a lot on my plate right now. My wife and I are expecting our first child in October or November. We couldn't be happier, but it does require me to do some more around the house. Second, I am in the process of getting another bachelor's degree. We really want to raise our child in the US, but there are really no jobs for someone with my particular set of skills. Let me amend that. There ARE jobs, but nothing that is willing to pay me a salary that I could live on. With that realization, I need to get myself a different set of skills which can get me a job which will allow me to raise my child in decent surroundings. Finally, I have two other projects I'm doing. I am seeing some small success in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">DJing</span> as well. It's not huge, but I have gotten residency on an internet radio station (Boost.FM) and I'm playing shows there twice a week. I also have a weekly podcast I do with a friend of mine (Kings of Effin Awesome (adults only)). If you're interested, you can subscribe to it in the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">iTunes</span> store or at kingsofeffinawesome.blogspot.com.<br />With all that going on, I haven't had the time to spend on Pat that I would like to have. Also, to be honest, I keep trying to get to the end of this story line so I can get Pat back to a place of storytelling that suits him much better. I tried going big with this whole meth-world thing, and it seems to have gotten out of hand. However, because I read a lot myself, I'm not willing to kill a story in the middle and leave people wondering what happened. Right now, I'm sort of stuck in a position where the voice of Pat isn't being used right, but I need to bend the story back to a place where it can be used right.<br />I honestly don't know if I'll get back to posting with the frequency I was earlier. I've been trying to post once a week, but we all know how that has worked out so far. In the end, I still want to write Pat, and I want to write other things as well. I just have to get through what Ken Keasy called "the suck" in order to get it to the level it needs to be at. You deserve in and Pat deserves it.<br />Oh, and Alistair is secretly a robot. Take THAT giver uppers! :)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-46144143918757153902010-06-17T17:07:00.000-07:002010-06-17T19:22:34.383-07:00Bustin out all over"I believe this is your branch," said Loki to Hiroki.<br /><br />Hiroki just nodded his little head, bent down and got to work cuttin that branch. And let me tell ya, nothin clears existential dillema out of your head like a little bit of wood cuttin. I remember back when I was 18 or 19 or somewhere about there. I got myself hired down at the shoe factory, puttin the paper in the toes of the shoes. Of course, this was long before all that kinda stuff was outsourced to 2-year-old Chinese robots or whatever. Anyhoo, there was this guy named Tony who worked at the factory as a box polisher. He'd been polishin them boxes in 12 hour shifts for neigh on 15 years, so he was a little loopy in the head. People said he took the polish home at night to drink it, but I don't think that was true, because I figure his farts would be shiny if he did and, even though they smelled like turpentine, they sure as poop on a pringle wasn't shiny. Regardless of the reflective properties of his gas, this Tony was a real well read sort. He told me once that he had himself a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">PhD</span> in literature or some such thing, but didn't want to deal with all the politickin of a university job, so he polised boxes, read and wrote criticism in his spare time. At the time, I was gettin mighty interested in readin, but I could mostly only get my hands on old newspapers because I'd been banned from the library for reasons I won't go into right now. When Tony heard I liked readin, he gave me a couple books he said were like to blow my mind.<br /><br />He gave me a couple books by these guys Niet...Neechee....no, wait, there's a 'z' in there somehwere. Good lord, that boy's name is right hard to spell. Anyway, he's this guy who talks a lot about Superman for some reason and says God gone and died. Then he gave me this other book by this Kafka guy. <span style="font-style: italic;">He</span> wrote this story about a guy wakin up as a giant bug one day and his family gettin all mad at him because he can't go to work no more and feed them. Also, they don't seem to like bugs too much from the beginning. At first, I thought he was there when I went through the whole hullaballoo at the library, but then I read the intro and saw he had written that book quite a bit before the library thing, so either he was psychic or he was really writing about the plight of the working man in a society that only cared about his ability to produce wealth for the elite and then discarded him as soon as his productive days were over, showing that, in an industrial society, man has no inherent value as a person, but only as a means to an end. I felt this reflected somewhat on my position as a shoe stuffer. I started feelin like I wasn't nothin but a cog in this big machine, totally without control over my own actions. So, you know what I did? I cut down a tree. With a rock. Then I killed a rabbit with a piece of the tree I'd just cut down and roasted the rabbit with the rest of the tree. In short, I got right back to my primitive roots, where I was in control of my basic survival. It was right then I decided to forgo the whole shoe stuffin business for a couple years and light out for the territories, as it were. That when I got into all the alligator wrestlin mess and all that I believe I've gone over before. But if you don't remember, let me sum up. I wrestled alligators for a bit. There ya go, all caught up.<br /><br />I guess what I'm tryin to say here is that, when you feel like you ain't nothin but a tiny little piece of a great big ol' machine, ain't nothin better to cure your malaise than cuttin down a tree. Barrin that, you could cut off part of a tree that it roughly tree sized. So, based entirely on my own experience with ennui, I woulda said that Hiroki would have gotten his mind straight in sawin off that tree branch and then woulda gone out to wrestle some alligators for awhile before goin back home and accepting his place as a tool of the corporate machine. I guess in this case it would be a literary machine, but that don't matter none. But instead, he did somethin crazy.<br /><br />He was sittin there sawin at the branch and he asked, "So, whatever action we do has been chosen for us, right?"<br /><br />Loki nodded.<br /><br />"And so we our actions are not subject to our own will, but some sort of fate made by the story teller?"<br /><br />Loki nodded again.<br /><br />"Then I am not responsible," said Hiroki standing, "for this!" He swung the saw in a wide arc, catching Loki across the throat. As a bright rooster tail of blood shot from the god's jugular, his eyes went wide with surprise. Now, like I said, I may have wrestled an alligator or two so I could assert my independance and get in touch with my personhood, but I never really considered deicide as a valid option. I guess I was wrong. It worked out pretty well for Hiroki.<br /><br />Something had come loose in the boy. He was tired of everyone and everything telling him what to do and who to be. All his life, he was the son of this or the member of that. He was used as a tool by Clan Platypus and would never be anything more, if they had a say in it. And what was his rebellion? Pizza. What the heck kind of rebellion is going for pizza and playing pinball? That ain't hardly no rebellion at all. And now, now that he was thought he was doing something on his own, something good and kind, he was used as a tool by the gods. <span style="font-style: italic;">Gods</span>, for god's sake! Well, he wasn't havin none of that. He cut down his tree limb, covered both ends in Loki's blood and went on the hunt.<br /><br />First, he went to Al's cabin. He kicked the door of that sucker in so hard that splinters flew across the room and killed the unkillable pig. Spinning his new staff just like he'd learned when he was three, he went whirling and twirling through the hall of the undead warriors; a compact, woody tornado of death. And because his weapon was made from the world tree, those whom he killed stayed dead. There wasn't none of that "risin in the evenin to drink and carouse" stuff they'd been doin up until then. Many of them warriors, not realizin what was happenin, just drank and laughed, waiting for their turn to be slaughtered. Some jumped up and started swingin swords and axes just because they enjoyed doin that sorta thing. Sides formed in the room and the battle was joined full force. But Hiroki was his own side. He waited until one group of Vikings would form up behind him, hoping to press into the enemy ranks, then the turned and slaughtered those nearest to him. Thinking he was pulling a brilliant double-cross, the enemy side would group up behind him to press back, but they got the end of the stick as well. All the warriors in the hall died that day. Their souls did not move on to some better, more perfect world. They lay in the spilled grog and pig drippins on the floor of that hall, never to move again.<br /><br />After the slaughter of the Einherjar, Hiroki went to visit Baldr. The lame god saw him enter and attempted to arm himself. But, god or no god, it's right tough to move faster than a ninja when you got two bum legs. Hiroki's staff met him in the teeth and mingled the brothers' blood for the first time since they were in the womb together.<br /><br />But the killing wasn't enough. He needed to wreak a destruction such as had never been seen. Hiroki tore the shirt off of Baldr and wrapped both ends of his bo in rags made from the dead god's clothes. Then he spotted an oil lamp on Baldr's shelf. He smashed it with one end of his staff, covering the rags in the oil. Using his lightning ninja speed, he twirled the staff 180 degrees before the oil had time to splash on the ground and soaked the other end. Then he thrust both ends of his oily q-tip into Baldr's forge, lighting up the former tree branch with the fire of the gods.<br /><br />With his new firey stick of death, Hiroki ran through the tree, killing all those who came in his path and setting the limbs on fire wherever he could. The fire spread slowly at first, but when it reached the thinner outer branches, it ballooned. Before Hiroki could find Odin, the smoke and the heat began to overwhelm him. He took one final breath, held it in, and jumped off the planet. As he was slingshotting around the sun, Hiroki got one last glimpse of the space tree, lit up like the worst Christmas imaginable. He knew that Odin would be coming for him and he would be prepared. After all, he was master of his own destiny now.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-72602992770856316522010-06-03T16:39:00.000-07:002010-06-03T18:27:06.743-07:00Tales within talesI'm gonna admit right up front here that I ain't got much experience in the whole "gonna go do somethin that is gonna get someone killed and even though I don't wanna do it I've been told by a couple gods that I gotta do it so I'm sorta resigned to bein complicit in murder, but that's prolly ok because I <span style="font-style: italic;">have</span> been raised by ninjas, after all, but I still want to understand what's going on and is there really such a thing as fate" thing. I have, however, had quite a lot of experience with chicken wings, which is sorta the same thing. I been sittin on my porch of a Saturday afternoon thinkin to myself that what I could really go for is a whole mess of chicken wings, some fries and a pitcher of frosty barley pop while I'm watchin whatever's on the game. At that point in time, it's pretty well assured that I'm gonna find myself in Ed's Chicken Shack and Discount Record Store in a couple hours with a veritable charnel ground of chicken bones heaped up before me like I'm the barbarian who conquered the chicken yard, one or two fry ends sitting among a field of salt, a forest's worth of orangified, greasy napkins strewn about like the petticoats of a fast woman in the 50s and a quarter pitcher of my favorite ale sweating on the table as I work up the courage and stomach space to polish that sucker off. I know this is gonna happen as soon as the thought pops in my head. But I also know that I will wake at 1:30 am the following morning with a family of starving flame beavers attempting to chew their way out of my body, lower end first. So I sit there in my rockin chair, whittlin away at whatever project I'm currently on, and debate myself. I say, "Pat, them wings is mighty delicious." Then I retort, "I ain't denyin that, Pat, but that hot sauce ain't gonna do your stomach a good turn, and if you spend too many more nights sleepin in your recliner, your back's gonna be so twisted and deformed that you'll be able to sit a magazine on the toilet tank while you're doin your business and read it just fine. And you know you're gonna be doin a whole lot of business after them wings." Then I'll shoot back, "But PAT! They're delicious!!!!!" And so it goes. Before I know it, I'm sittin right where I knew I would be from the beginning, pile of bones up to the ceiling, leanin back in my chair and burpin fire, gettin ready for the pain to come.<br /><br />So, even though it ain't never led to anyone dyin or anything like that, I know a little somethin about inevitability. I bet Hiroki was feelin a little like confused-over-chicken-wings Pat when he was given the magical saw and sent off with Loki to get himself a piece of the tree.<br /><br />That's prolly why he started askin questions like, "Are you really going to kill him? Baldr, I mean?"<br /><br />"Oh, no," replied Loki, "I couldn't possibly kill my own brother. There's almost nothing worse than a fratricide. I'm going to have Thor do it for me."<br /><br />"But why? You're going to be chained to a rock and then destroy the world!" Hiroki was shouting by now.<br /><br />Loki lowered his eyes, "I know."<br /><br />"Then why do it?! Is a hammer so important?"<br /><br />Loki sighed, "I don't have a choice. And neither do you." Then he wept a little.<br /><br />The young ninja wrinkled his brow. This was very unexpected. "What do you mean?"<br /><br />Loki pulled himself together with visible effort. "I love my brother," he said. "And I hate seeing him die, but it happens over and over and over, and there's nothing I can do to stop it."<br /><br />"Why not?"<br /><br />"Because I'm just a story, that's why!" He shouted, throwing his arms into the air. "I'm just some words, some pictures in someone's head! And so are you!"<br /><br />Hiroki was taken aback. "I am not a story, I am Hiroki Hatayama, son of Tetsuo Hatayama, member of Clan Platypus, and I am a real person."<br /><br />"No," Loki replied, "no you're not. You are naught but words and imagination, Hiroki. So are my brothers, so is this tree, so is all of it."<br /><br />"It can't be true," Hiroki gasped. "How do you know this?"<br /><br />"A little birdy told me." Seeing that this answer didn't satisfy his audience, Loki went on. "As you may know, my brother Odin once hung himself in a tree for nine days, as a sacrifice to himself. During those nine days, a raven came to him and offered him omniscience in exchange for his eye. As you saw, he took it."<br /><br />The ninja nodded, "That's in the Havamal, I believe."<br /><br />Loki chuckled, "It <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> the Havamal. But yes, you know the story. What's not in there is that, in gaining omniscience, Odin learned something he could not bear alone. So he talked me into sacrificing for the knowledge as well."<br /><br />Hiroki looked at him askance. "You still have both eyes."<br /><br />"Smart kid," Loki shot back. "The raven didn't want my eye. I had to sacrifice something more. And so Baldr dies, I get chained to a rock with water dripping on my head for thousands of years, and when I get out, everything gets destroyed. And what do I get in exchange? I get to know that we're all really just stories.<br /><br />"Listen, boy, I know you don't like to hear it, but it's true. This place we live in, it's not as it appears. We're just words and images. And the nature of our universe is such that, when a story is told or remembered, it becomes real. So just now, when I told you of Odin in the tree, that was <span style="font-style: italic;">really happening</span>. Somewhere out in a far off corner of the universe, there was a real Odin hanging in a real tree somewhere.<br /><br />"And me, I can imagine a man standing on a planet speaking to an army of ghosts about this very story and <span style="font-style: italic;">that is real, too!</span> And maybe that man imagines, I don't know, a man sitting at a magic box where he presses some buttons and makes all those stories come to life, something crazy like that. Even <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span> is real. It's all real. And we're all imagining each other and making it real. We're all products of each other's imaginations, you see.<br /><br />"So whenever you read a story or tell a story or even remember a story, it becomes real all over again. Each time you read about me getting my nephew to kill my brother, it has to happen somewhere. But I'm omniscient from that first sacrifice and so I know that I do it over and over and over again. I have no way to stop it or to not know about it."<br /><br />Hiroki fell to his knees. "Can it be true? Am I nothing more than some ink, some words?"<br /><br />"It's true," said Loki.<br /><br />"Then how can I go on? What meaning does any of this have?"<br /><br />"That's a good question, boy."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-57552380619593028332010-05-28T00:00:00.001-07:002010-05-28T00:00:45.018-07:00Back to Bob'sHiroki got hisself up, said goodbye to the large, hairy men who he'd been havin his dinner with, and followed the two btohers out of the grand hall. When he got outside, he was right confuzzled for a second. He'd been in there so long that he'd plum forgot that the whole eating and drinking hall was nothin more than a broke down shack on the outside. He was fixin to ask his hosts about it, but they was engaged in a furious, but very very quiet, rhetorical contest of some sort, complete with hand gestures and not a little of subtle pushing.<br /><br />The two brothers kept their heads bowed next to each other the whole way back to Bob's shack. So Hiroki didn't get much of a chance to ask the questions that was buggin him so much. He weren't no fool, that Hiroki. He'd done all his reading about mythology in his ninja propaganda classes. You see, mythology was a required area of study for all ninjas bent on world domination (and I imagine others bent on world domination would benefit from it as well) because it's a whole heck of a lot easier to dominate a culture when you can prove their god/gods/angry sea trolls approve of what your doin than if you just went in there with your fire and your swords and your crazy new language and food that smells like fish that's been wrapped in raw egg and sat in the sun for a good week before you went and threw it into that well. Heck, even the Romans knew that much about conquering stuff. But anyway, because he knew his history and his mythology and everything, Hiroki was sorta uncomfortable about the situation he found himself in.<br /><br />Despite Al's protestations to the contrary, our young antagonist was pretty durn sure the one eyed guy was Odin, the king of the norse gods. And with that bein so, that would make "Luke" prolly Loki, Odin's brother and a trickster. Finally, that would mean that Bob, who was makin the saw, was most likely Baldr, the third brother. Now, it didn't bother Hiroki so much about them bein brothers and all, but he was pretty uncomfortable about what was about to happen. Near as he could remember it, in the story Baldr was impervious to all weapons except those made out of Yggdrasil, the world tree.<br /><br />But there was all this jelousy that Loki was harboring because Baldr had made a super cool hammer for Odin's son, Thor. It's sorta like when your friend gets himself a brand new fishing rod that's got all the spinners and knockers and whatever other contraptions that they're puttin on them rods nowadays, and you really want to have one just like it but you've just lost your job down at the shoe factory and so you gotta go easy on the funds for awhile because, even though you've got some money saved up from that time you did pretty well in the lottery, you don't know how long you're gonna need that money to last and you're just hopin that you ain't endin up old and alone in a home somewhere with a giant guy everyone calls Chief because you think he just may bust out of there when the guy from that movie where he had the gay neighbor and that little dog and he was seein that waitress who was in that other thing about tornadoes or whatever with that guy who played the president a whole bunch for awhile there gets a chunk of his brain taken out and things just ain't gonna be the same again. It's a whole lot like that feeling you get then, except in the case of Loki and Baldr, it was a whole lot more murder-ey.<br /><br />And along with this, Hiroki also knew that Loki got himself a piece of the world tree, fashioned an arrow out of it, and tricked Thor into killing Baldr. For that, Odin chained Loki to a rock for the rest of time and turned his sons into wolves. Then, when Loki finally got free, it started the end of the world. So, you can see how our young ninja, who was in this thing in order to help people, might be a tad uncomfortable playing an active role in the end of all the world. I know I've seen some ugly stuff comin down the pipe, like when I'm asked to buy a cake for Aunt Edna's birthday, and I don't much care to participate. I could just imagine if that cake was full of suffering, death and destruction. Usually it's just strawberry cream, though, so I'm lucky there.<br /><br />Well, the three went on over to Bob's shack. As soon as Bob saw Loki, he dropped his forgin hammer and took up some super heated tongs, which he tried to use to beat his brother about the face and head, but "Luke" managed to dodge all the strikes. Now, I don't wanna sound like I'm disparagin the differently abled or anything like that cause Lord knows I got problems of my own, but when a guy with whithered legs is swinging at you, it ain't that hard to dodge, especially if you're young and in shape and a god to boot.<br /><br />In his rage, Bob was just swingin and swingin away, but he didn't hit nothin but air. If he'd been ragin against the oxygen molecules wanderin around his head, he coulda felt right satisfied that his work was done. But, sadly, he was ragin against a target that was a) seeable and 2) movin around, so he didn't get himself much satisfaction. And the whole time, he was yellin "No! I ain't doin it again! You hear me? It's NOT happening!"<br /><br />Eventually, the poker went cold and, since it wasn't tempered right, the end broke off in Bob's hands. Then Al sidled up to him and started whisperin in his ear. It went a whole lot like the conversation between Luke and Bob in the hall went. It started with a whole lot of no's, then some silence, then quiet aquiescence.<br /><br />Bob turned to his forge and grabbed the saw blade he'd been working on. It was carved all over with runes that glowed slightly blue. Other than that, it looked to be a pretty normal hand saw. He turned back to his brothers, tossed the saw gently into the straw at his feet, and then spit on it.<br /><br />"Here," he said bitterly, "take it. And gods damn you both."<br /><br />Al nodded to Luke, then picked up the saw saying, "We're already damned, brother. Some of us just don't know it yet."<br /><br />Luke turned then to Hiroki. "You want your staff? Get that saw and follow me."<br /><br />The young ninja looked to Al, who nodded and held out the saw.<br /><br />"I know what this is," declared Hiroki. "What if I refuse to take the saw?"<br /><br />Al shook his head slowly. "Don't matter. It's gonna get done somehow. It's all gonna get done. Only thing that changes is you getting what you came for."<br /><br />"I don't understand," said Hiroki. "Are you saying it's fate?"<br /><br />"Not exactly," said Luke. "Take the saw. I'll explain on the way."<br /><br />Hiroki stood still. Not believing he was a part of all this.<br /><br />Al shook the saw a bit. "Take it son. It's gotta happen."<br /><br />The ninja looked to Bob, who sighed. "He's right. It's gotta happen. Take the saw."<br /><br />And so Hiroki reached out his hand and took the saw. Luke clapped his hands together and giggled gleefully. "Great! Now follow me."<br /><br />Hiroki nodded and followed the young brother out of the shack. At the door, he turned back to Al. "Why did you lie to me?" he asked.<br /><br />"How did I lie to you, son?"<br /><br />"You told me you weren't Odin," stated the young ninja.<br /><br />"Not true," replied Al, "I just told you I was sick of hearin the question. Don't necessarily mean that I ain't him."<br /><br />Hiroki nodded, slowly, realizing that he'd been played like an accordian made of poker cards. Then he turned and left the cabin behind.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-7616517239825376042010-05-13T16:37:00.000-07:002010-05-13T17:31:50.670-07:00DinnerEat and drink they did. Al took Haruki to a long, low log cabin. It weren't no regular cabin, though. Maybe it was the shape of the tree or a trick of the light, or simply just exhaustion from workin all day, but to Haruki, that cabin looked much bigger on the inside than the outside. And I ain't talkin like when you go down to the IHOP and order yourself up a mess of pancakes and they turn out to be too much for ya because you guessed the size off the picture. So you gotta sit there and wait until you free up enough room for three or four half pancakes and while you're sittin there, your ex, Betty, comes into the IHOP with her new beau Bo on her arm and she's just laughin and havin herself a good ol time. And then she sees you and feels like she's gotta say somethin and so she asks you what you're doin and you explain to her you're waitin for pancake room to open up so you can finish your meal and get to work on that new project you got goin on and she just shakes her head and sighs. So there you're sittin full of heartache and pancakes wishin things could be different than they were, but they're not and you gotta leave without finishin the meal because you can't watch 'em anymore. At least, that's how it sounded when Jared told the story to me, but I wasn't there to say. But that ain't really the point here. Havin a pancake that looks bigger on the plate than it did on the menu doesn't really seem to compare to a cabin that looks like little more than a hobo hut on the outside and looks like a three mile long, gold covered dining hall on the inside. Or maybe it does. Like I said, I wasn't there.<br /><br />Of course, it was a good thing that the hall was so darned big, because it was filled straight to the brim with all manner of large, bearded men who were already well into their cups by the time the two arrived.<br /><br />"Gentlemen!" boomed out Al when he walked through the door.<br /><br />"Where?" responded a voice from the back. There was a rousing course of laughter.<br /><br />Al snickered. "This here's my friend Hiroki. He may not be one of you, but I vouch for him and expect you to grant him every courtesy that my hall demands."<br /><br />They all lifted their cups and shouted "HIROKI!!!" It sounded like giants playing patty cake. Then Al sat himself at the head of the table, seeing to it that Hiroki sat to his left.<br /><br />"Have a good time," he instructed the young ninja. "We may be here awhile."<br /><br />Hiroki and Al musta sat there for days, swiggin honey wine from animal horns and eatin pork that came straight off this magical pig that was wanderin around. You could carve a hunk right off the pig and, not only would it be perfectly cooked however you wanted it to be, but the pig would grow back right before your eyes. I don't know where this tree is, or even if it's still around, but I'd love to get my hands on one of them pigs. I could save me a ton of time in cookin and lookin up recipes and goin to the hospital to get my stomach pumped because you're apparently not supposed to cook pig medium rare.<br /><br />Out of the blue, Al leaned over and looked Hiroki in the eye. "I seen you lookin!' he bellowed.<br /><br />Hiroki looked around. Was this drunk giant really yelling at him?<br /><br />"Yeah, you" Al slurred. "I seen you starin at my patch! You wanna know what happened, don't you?! DON'T YOU?!" He slammed his drinking horn on the table hard enough to lodge the point in the wood. The hall fell silent. "A thrice cursed raven ate it! A RAVEN!!! Took my darned eye right outta my head an I couldn't do nothin about it! You wanna shee? Do ya?!?!?!"<br /><br />He was getting out of control and Hiroki was afraid the next place that horn might lodge was in his young ninja head. Al reached for the eye patch, began to tug. But he was drunk enough that gettin a simple eye patch off became an exercise in futility.<br /><br />"Again?" The voice echoed through the silent hall like a screw droppin through an engine, pingin off everything and somehow suckin the air out of the room. "Can't you bring someone here without getting drunk and getting into a fight, brother?"<br /><br />The voice got closer and closer. It belonged to a handsome young man, maybe 22 or 23, dressed in velvet and what looked to be cloth-of-gold. Most people these days and in this county would say that if he was wearin somethin like that, he'd have to be a little effeminate, but nothing could be farther from the truth. As all them writers of all them hero books may say, he cut a dashing figure.<br /><br />Al waved towards him dismissively. "'smy brother," was all he said in explanation.<br /><br />The young man bowed, deep and formal. "Pleased to meet you, Hiroki Hatayama. You may call me Luke."<br /><br />"How did you...?"<br /><br />Luke smirked. "I make it my business to know these things. Sure, I may not be as good at names as my brother here," he nodded towards Al, "but I have my methods."<br /><br />"Pleased to meet you," replied Hiroki politely but cooly.<br /><br />"You're in my seat kid. And I've got something my brother and I have to discuss. So, if you could..." Luke wiggled his fingers towards the ceiling.<br /><br />Hiroki looked to Al. "'sok. Hessnot gonna hurt me."<br /><br />So Hiroki stood, not knowing where to go. A group of burly men waved him over. He joined them to welcoming shouts of "Hiroki!!!!" And more mead guzzling. He ate and drank with the men, but kept his eye on the whispered, yet heated conversation at the head of the table.<br /><br />Al was yellin "No! NO! NOOOO!" Slowly, though, it turned into, "I don't think...I see..." and finally, "Ok."<br /><br />The two brothers stood together and walked over to Hiroki. Al slapped the ninja on the shoulder, somehow removing all the drunk and full the boy had felt.<br /><br />"Come on, kid," he said. "It's time."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-51227346093358428202010-05-02T19:28:00.000-07:002010-05-13T16:37:13.117-07:00Bob's shack<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">'Twernt easy, but after searchin high and low and everywhere in between, Al and Hiroki found themselves an ash stick that was perfectly straight and exactly six feet long, as the book had told Hiroki to do. Of course, findin the branch was only the beginnin of the work. Once they had the thing located, they had to find themselves a way to separate that thing from the tree what had given it life. And let me tell ya, that tree was none too ready to be partin with its parts, if ya take my meanin. Hiroki and Al musta worn through three Swiss Army Knives, a half a dozen handsaws and at least two chainsaws working their way through the first layer of bark. It got to the point where they just had to sit down and rethink the whole thing.<br /><br />"Look, son," Al said, wipin the sweat from his brow, "are you sure you really need this stick? I mean, do you really <i>need</i> this thing? Couldn't you just, you know, take some regular straight twigs and just tape them together?"<br /><br />"I'm afraid I cannot," replied Hiroki. "I am doing this project for my friend. I have saved his life and now I am responsible for him. I must to this to cure him of his blindness."<br /><br />"Well, I spose I know half about that," chuckled Al. "Listen, I got this brother that could prolly whip us up a saw. He's pretty good with his hands, but not so good with his legs." He laughed. "I guess you gotta meet him before you find that funny. Anyways, I imagine he could make us up a saw fit to cut anything we might want to cut. Let's meander down and see what we could talk him into doing."<br /><br />Hiroki only nodded and followed Al to another part of the tree. There, they found themselves a little, worn down hut that looked like it had been built a hundred years and fifty hurricanes ago. When they opened the door to go inside, they were blasted with heat and light that felt like a thousand suns had decided to have themselves a hugfest right in that shack. On top of that was this clangin, ringin sound like what you get when you put your timing belt on wrong. When they got into the shack, Hiroki saw that there weren't no bright, hot engine in the middle of the dirt-covered floor. Instead, there was a man swingin a hammer down onto some metal, sweat flyin off his soot-stained fists at every blow.<br /><br />With his barrel chest and arms like pythons what had swallowed elephants, he woulda been the biggest man Hiroki'd ever seen, ceptin for his legs. They was withered and twisted like licorice ropes that had been left out in the sun too long. Truth be told, the man looked like a bearded barrel standing on a couple of toothpicks. And he wasn't even really standin on them, he was surrounded with this leather and brass contraption that held up his torso and let his useless legs dangle underneath him. Not to say he looked funny, mind you. Despite his mobility difficulties, Hiroki thought the guy'd have no problems putting that big hammer of his through a bank vault door, if need be. Fortunately, he was usin that hammer to bend metal to his will. He and his contraption was placed halfway between an anvil and a furnace and, when Hiroki and Al walked in, the giant man seemed to be making a spiked hammer of some sort.<br /><br />While Hiroki was taking all this in, Al slipped quietly up to the man, laid a hand on his shoulder and whispered in his ear. Big boy furrowed his brow and looked at ol' one eye oddly before giving a quick nod. Al smiled, slapped him on the shoulder and turned to Hiroki.<br /><br />"This here's my brother Bob," Al told the young ninja warmly. "As you can see, he's a blacksmith. I'd go so far as to say he's the best blacksmith in this tree. If you ask nicely, I bet he can help you out."<br /><br />Hiroki gave a deep bow. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Bob."<br /><br />"You, too, kid," Bob returned. "What is it I can do for you?"<br /><br />Hiroki explained his situation. He told Bob all about his quest and the reason for it while Bob nodded slowly.<br /><br />When he finished, Bob said, "I see. So you need a saw that can get that limb off?"<br /><br />"Yes, sir."<br /><br />"Well..." Bob gave a sidelong glance to Al, who nodded. "I suppose I can make something to help you out, but you gotta promise me something."<br /><br />"Anything you wish," vowed Hiroki.<br /><br />"You can't let our other brother have that saw. You gotta keep it in your possession at all times and, when you're done with it, you gotta bring the saw straight back here so I can melt it down again."<br /><br />"Certainly," Hiroki bowed.<br /><br />Bob turned to his brother. "Al, I don't know...are you sure about this?"<br /><br />Al nodded and slapped his brother on the shoulder. "You worry too much, Bob. Look at this kid. He's trustworthy. What's the worst that could happen?"<br /><br />"I dunno," Bob shrugged. "The end of the world?"<br /><br />"Trust me," Al said.<br /><br />Bob turned back to his anvil. "That's what you said last time," he muttered before hitting the metal on the forge. "And look where that got me."<br /><br />Al shook his head, chuckling a little. He placed a gentle hand on Hiroki's shoulder and turned him towards the door. "It'll be a little bit," he explained. "Why don't you come to my place and we can eat and have a drink with some old friends of mine."</span><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-39279171906394481632010-04-15T17:42:00.000-07:002010-04-15T21:44:32.852-07:00Tree MeetingNow, findin a needle in a haystack ain't easy, as the old saying would attest to. But findin a straight branch on a world-sized ash tree is like findin a needle with a 15 milimeter hole in a pile full of needles with 14 milimeter holes. Maybe it's harder than that. Maybe it's like findin integrity in politics. Yeah. THAT hard. Haruki prolly wouldn't have been able to find it at all if he didn't have himself a guide.<br /><br />He was wanderin around that big ol' ash tree, just feelin overwhelmed at the enormity of the task and wishin his ma would just show up, eat everything and just be done with it all. But before he could sink too low in his depression and anxiety, that squirrel he saw before came runnin back to him, with an old man in tow. Haruki noticed two things about the man right away. First, he had himself a beard of epic proportions. I tell ya, there ain't nothin to make a man stick out in a crowd, on stage or in a tree like good beard. It's your best friend in the winter and your worst enemy in summer, but it'll get you through tough times and make you look regal doin it. If this has convinced you to grow a beard, you just go ahead and do it, but make sure it's a proper beard. Don't be growin no soul patch or anythin like that that's gonna just make you look ridiculous. And don't ever, never grow yourself just a mustache. Only cops and perverts have only mustaches. And the man approaching Haruki didn't seem like no cop or pervert. He weren't no cop because of the second thing that Haruki noticed about him, which was that he only had one eye up in his face and there ain't no one-eyed cops.<br /><br />He could still have been a pervert though. I ain't sayin everyone with an awesome beard is a pervert. I mean, I got me a stylin beard (you know, to cover my superfluous chin), and I ain't no kind of pervert or nothin. And if any of y'all try to insinuate that I am, well, them's is gonna be the last words that come through your teeth.<br /><br />Sorry, I'm just a bit riled up. The computin machine on which I usually do my writin and story tellin and yarn spinnin decided out of the blue for no reason to just not work any more, and I spent the last week tryin to fight it. I shoulda been doin other stuff in my life during all that time like, say, writin some stuff here, but the great and almighty computer didn't want to allow it. I didn't want to git on here and make another excuse for the delay, because I don't like doin it and I know y'all don't like hearin it. Soon, though, I'm gonna find myself an alternative. But that alternative might be handwritin everything and sendin this out as a chain letter, so be prepared to send me all of your addresses if I request them.<br /><br />Anyway, Haruki didn't have much time to think about whether this bearded fella was a pervert or not because the guy belted out with a, "How do, there, stranger?! Welcome to my tree!"<br /><br />"Thank you," said Haruki, bowing. "I do not mean to intrude."<br /><br />"It's no big thing," the stranger roared in a voice like rocks rattlin round a coffee can, "all are welcome in my tree. Even you, Haruki Hatayama."<br /><br />"How...how did you..." the young ninja stammered.<br /><br />"Oh, I make it my business knowin who's in my tree, don't you know," and the stranger touched the side of his nose and winked. "That and you're wearin your school name tag."<br /><br />Haruki looked down and saw that, indeed, he was still wearing his name tag. Funny that he had forgotten to take it off. It was even funnier that he didn't remember the school givin out name tags. But, if he was wearin it, they must have give it to him. Unless...<br /><br />"Wait," said Haruki, "are you Odin? I've read my Norse mythology, and you seem an awful lot like the Allfather."<br /><br />The stranger sighed. "You know, I am so sick of that question! Just because you got yourself one eye and a beard, and you happen to live in an ash tree with three nice old ladies, everyone goes around thinkin you're the father of the viking gods! It's inescapable!"<br /><br />"I'm sorry," said Haruki quickly, "I assumed too much. You have my deepest apologies."<br /><br />"It's all right," replied the stranger, "it ain't your fault. It just all adds up and gets frustratin. I'm seriously considerin just gettin a name tag that says 'Not Odin' on it, so as to avoid all this confusion."<br /><br />Haruki bowed again. "I am most sorry, sir. If you are not Odin, what may I call you?"<br /><br />"You can just call me Al," the bearded man said, slapping Haruki on the back. "And don't worry non about that Odin thing. Now, what can I do ya for?"<br /><br />Haruki explained his situation and his need for a straight branch from an ash tree.<br /><br />When he was done, Al nodded, stroking his beard. "Well, now, that's a mighty tall order. But it's for a deaf and blind kid, you say?"<br /><br />"Yes sir."<br /><br />"All right, then. I dunno where there's a straight branch on this whole tree, but I'll offer ya my services you help you find one."<br /><br />"Thank you, sir," Haruki bowed.<br /><br />They turned to leave, two men off on an adventure together. Then Al turned and looked at Haruki. "Wait, Hatayama..." he said. "You wouldn't happen to be related to Tetsuo Hatayama, would you?"<br /><br />"I am his son."<br /><br />"All right, all right," Al nodded vigorously. "Maybe when we find that stick for you, you could help me with this little problem I'm having with my brother. You're just the chap for the job."<br /><br />"I shall return your favor in kind," Haruki told him. "The Hatayama are an honorable family and we always return our debts."<br /><br />"Great to hear!" said Al, slapping him on the back again. "Now let's go find that stick."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-14275129551145129932010-04-01T19:53:00.000-07:002010-04-01T21:54:32.013-07:00Ash me no questions<p class="MsoNoSpacing">I'm just gonna come right out and say it. I hates me some shoppin. I hate everything about the shopping experience. I hate drivin all the way over to the Wal-Mart in the next town (which I gotta go to because of my aforementioned troubles). I hate walkin in and havin some guy who looks like an unwrapped mummy and smells like a truck carryin Vick's crashed into a truck carryin cream cheese tries to say hi to one last person before shufflin off this mortal coil. I hate seein roughly eight metric tons of back fat wanderin around stuffed into a half ounce of tank top. I hate how they're always tryin to reorganize everything so it's easier to find. I just wanna scream at Mr. Wal "Hey, doofus! Thing'd be a lot easier to find if ya quit movin 'em all over hither and yon."<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">A couple months ago, I went to get myself some toothpaste and they had it next to the candy aisle, which I thought was a pretty good lesson for the kids. But then, I went back in there a couple weeks ago and it was almost within reaching distance of the angry tentacle beasts. First, I had to wander all over the store to heck and back to find where it was, then I had to go into the garden center to grab myself a shovel with which to fend off the unwanted touch of them accursed pseudopods. Then, I had to get myself a plastic sandwich bag or a glove or something to pick up the toothpaste so the acid from the tentacle beasts' spit didn't eat right through my hand. I decided to use the sandwich bag. But, just as I was pullin the bag outta the box, this employee came around the corner and started tellin me that I was stealin and I had to buy that whole box of bags now even though I already had about a hundred boxes at home from when Douggy was tryin to make himself a floaty suit for the pool. But that's neither here nor there, just so long as you know I warn't wanderin in there ever intendin to buy me no sandwich bags. But I sure as heck walked out with some. That and they charged me for the tentacle beast that I had to whack in the head with the shovel because he was gettin a mite close to the Crest. And then they had the gall to charge me for the shovel, as if it was my fault that the blade dissolved after it met tentacle beast face. In the end, I went in for toothpaste and came out with a shovel handle, a box of sandwich bags I didn't need and a dead tentacle beast in a plastic bag. In all the excitement, I'd forgotten to buy the toothpaste and so I still ended up brushin my teeth with baking soda for the next week.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">I'm just tellin ya all this so that when I say that Haruki's collectin everything on his shoppin list what the Grimoire of Necrography gave him sounds to me like the worst thing that could happen to a guy, you'll be able to keep it in perspective and not go yellin about how he coulda been devoured by a Sarlak or somethin stupid like that. I know that it might be a touch more painful to get digested for a thousand years in the belly of a sand worm, I ain't stupid. But it still wouldn't match the sheer frustration of findin some of the stuff that Hatayama kid had to find to help out his pinball wizard friend.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">I mean, sure, the first stuff was easy and he just had to pop on down to the seven-eleven or the eight-twelve or the thirty six-twenty four-thirty six or whatever convenience store they had on his crazy planet. He could just go on down there and pick up all the coffee and gummy worms and actual worms and dried newt's eyes that he needed. Plus he coulda picked himself up a Powerball ticket while he was at it. I know, I know. He was super rich and inherited his dad's crazy big pile of money when his dad ran off, but it's still nice to win somethin once in awhile.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">His first big problem was in findin the, ahem, privates of a turtle what had killed a man. He looked all over high and low for that thing. He musta been in and out of a thousand stores and weird medicine shops. He saw enough turtle privates to last a normal person a lifetime, but none were labeled as to whether they'd been attached to a man-killer or not.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">He was gettin mighty despondent and started considerin himself a different career path. In that spirit, he bought a self-help book that urged him to "think outside the box" and "solve problems creatively". It was really inspirational. And not in that "Eatin Chicken Soup With Five Maurys on Tuesdays in Heaven" sorta inspirational, but inspirational in that it taught him somethin he didn't know before and inspired him to act. So, he acted. He killed a guy with a turtle, then "harvested" what he needed. Bing, bang, boom. Problem solved.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">In this way, Hiroki got himself all but one of the ingredients. Not in the "killin a guy with a turtle" way, mind you, but in a "thinkin creatively" sorta way. His final task was to get a perfectly straight stick, six feet in length, off an ash tree. And it couldn't be no trunk, either, but had to be a genuine branch of the tree. Now, I ain't no horticulturalist but I'm pretty sure that's near well impossible to do. I ain't even totally convinced you could grow yourself a tree with a perfectly straight six foot branch if you really wanted to.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">I gotta say, though, until I got mixed up in this whole squirrel versus ninja business, I wasn't what you'd call a great success in life. And I been told that I gave up a lot of stuff to easily but, really, tryin all the time to get yourself a bunch of stuff is a lot harder than pickin up a jar of "I don't care" moonshine and watchin the sun set from your front porch. People say the secret to success is persistence. Well, persistence and inheritin a giant pile of money. So I guess Hiroki had all the ingredients to be successful.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">So, he wandered around from planet to planet until he found the biggest durned ash tree in the universe. This thing was, at rough estimate, the size of a million, billion suns. I ain't seen it for myself or nothin, so I'm just goin on word of mouth here, but I'm relatin it as I heard it, so you can choose to believe that about its size or not.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing">Hiroki came up on this tree and saw these three old women sittin underneath in havin themselves a sewin circle. He politely introduced himself and clarified with them that this was, indeed, an ash tree. To which they responded that they knew durned well who he was and they knew that if he couldn't tell an ash tree from a hole in the ground, then he was about to have a lot more trouble than he realized. He just went on the assumption that these grumpy women weren't gonna tell him a whole lot more and so he might as well just go ahead and start lookin for the straightest branch he could find.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-85417637559673338382010-03-23T18:11:00.001-07:002010-03-23T18:59:29.943-07:00The importance of PinballThere was young <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Hiroki</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Hatayama</span>, sitting in the spooky section of the library, reading by candlelight and fending off the bats that would swoop down and try to bite him on the neck and other exposed skin surfaces. He pored over tome after tome while the lightning continued to strike outside, lighting up the dark corners of the library and making <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Hiroki</span> promise to himself never to look into some of those corners again.<br /><br />But it was late, and his eyes were heavy. His head tilted forward just a little, and he dreamt of pinball. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Ahh</span>, sweet pinball. I know y'all out there is young and don't recall how important pinball was in the '70s. Let me see if I can <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">spell</span> it out for ya. Pinball was, and I ain't <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">exaggeratin</span> here, really important in the '70s. In fact, I would go so far as to say pinball was really, REALLY important in the '70s. Does that help? I thought it would. I know me and my buddies would go straight to the pizza parlor (where all pinball machines were kept in those days) after a long day of building houses or shaving bears or whatever job we had at the time, and spend hour after hour just watching that silver ball bang and bounce around while the points racked up. Everyone under the age of 60 became a master in the game and, for a time, we considered doing away with elections in the House of Representatives and just selecting people according to pinball high score. I gotta say, after <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">watchin</span> C-Span over the last 20 years, I think we may have been a lot better off if we'd gone with that plan.<br /><br />Of course, where I was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">goin</span> with this is that, of course <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Hiroki</span> was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">dreamin</span> of pinball. We was all <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">dreamin</span> of pinball at the time. We weren't all <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">bein</span> awakened from out pinball dreams by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">hearin</span> our name <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">bein</span> whispered, even though we knew we was alone, which is the situation <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Hiroki</span> found himself in.<br /><br />"<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Hiroki</span>..." came the soft, seductive voice, like warm waves crashing over a supermodel.<br /><br />He awoke with a start, "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Wha</span>? Huh? Screw you tilt!! If you weren't aware, this was the most common thing to say when being awoken in the 70s, followed real close by, "Maybe big hair ain't that great," and "Peanut farming rocket scientist!"<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Hiroki</span> looked around, but he didn't see <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">nothin</span> or no one who <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">coulda</span> been <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">talkin</span> to him. He was about to dismiss it all as the large peperoni and anchovy he'd had for dinner and go back to sleep, but he heard it again. "<span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Hiroki</span>....<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Hiroki</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Hatayama</span></span>!"<br /><br />I ain't never been a ninja myself, but I've seen and heard enough about them guys to guess they <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">prolly</span> got themselves a high tolerance for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">bein</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">creeped</span> out. I mean, a regular guy like me, I see a spider that's got itself a little too much hair and I'm <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">screamin</span> like a schoolgirl and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">climbin</span> on a chair. Ninjas regularly make pets out of giant, hairy spiders that look like Yetis with eight legs and a dozen eyes, so it takes a whole lot more to creep them out. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">Hiroki</span>, though, that guy was right <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">creeped</span> out.<br /><br />He drew his sword and checked that his <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">throwin</span> stars and calipers were where he had left them. Then he dropped back into the shadows like he was taught, becoming part of the background. He slid along the walls like he was made of shadow, scanning around to find the source of the voice. He didn't have to wait long.<br /><br />"Come on!" The voice yelled out again. "I can still see you, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Hiroki</span>! No, don't try to climb that wall. Seriously, I can see you're reaching for a throwing star. Don't bother. Really, I can see you. No, don't pick your...Hey! I didn't need to see that. Wait, no, don't eat <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">tha</span>....<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">EWWWWW</span>! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!"<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">Hiroki</span> smacked his lips and dropped his eyes. The source of the mysterious voice had penetrated all his ninja camouflage powers and watched him eat that last slice of peperoni from his pocket. So he went for a different tactic.<br /><br />"Who are you?" He asked.<br /><br />"I am the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">Grimoire</span> of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">Necrography</span>!"<br /><br />"You're the...Grim...of..." <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">Hiroki</span> stuttered<br /><br />"That's right!" The voice said. "I'm the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">Grimoire</span>!"<br /><br />"A talking book, huh?" asked <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">Hiroki</span>.<br /><br />"Yep," the voice responded, "a talking book. Isn't that awesome?!"<br /><br />"Not really," responded the young ninja. "You're, like, the sixth or seventh talking book I've met in this section of the library. Seriously, it's a wonder anyone can get any studying done in this section of the library, between the talking books and the bats and having only candlelight to read from. There is such a thing as a desk lamp, you know!"<br /><br />"<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">Woah</span>, hey," said the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">Grimoire</span>. "Ease up there, little tiger. Don't get your panties all in a bunch. I just wanted to help you out a bit. But if you don't want my help..."<br /><br />"No, wait," said <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_43">Hiroki</span>. "I'm tired and frustrated. I didn't mean to take it out on you."<br /><br />"That's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_44">ok</span>," replied the book, "I forgive you."<br /><br />"So, what did you want to help me with?"<br /><br />"I know you're looking to help your friend Thomas," started the book. "And I have hidden <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_45">withn</span> my pages the spell that can do just that. The problem is, though, that it's written in a special invisible ink, so you can't read it."<br /><br />"That doesn't help me much then, does it?" The young ninja was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_46">snarky</span>, like all teenagers get around that age.<br /><br />"Well," said the book, "it could if you'd just shut up and listen. Look, I can't tell you the spell. But, I've seen the spell used before and I <span style="font-style: italic;">can</span> tell you what you need to read the invisible ink."<br /><br />"Really?!" gushed <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_47">Hiroki</span>.<br /><br />"Really," said the book, smugly.<br /><br />For the next two hours, the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_48">Grimoire</span> of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_49">Necrography</span> recited to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_50">Hiroki</span> a list of ingredients, quantities and where to get them, while the young ninja wrote everything down. As the sun came up, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_51">Hiroki</span>, with new hope in his heart thanked the book and turned to leave the library. The book chuckled lowly to itself.<br /><br />"What was that?" asked <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_52">Hiroki</span>, turning back.<br /><br />"Huh? What?" asked the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_53">Grimoire</span>, innocently.<br /><br />"That sound," said <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_54">Hiroki</span>.<br /><br />"What sound? I didn't hear anything?" The book was talking a little too fast.<br /><br />"It sounded like you chuckled lowly to yourself."<br /><br />"It...what? No, that's...that's.....well, here's the thing. I was thinking of this joke this other book told me."<br /><br />"Oh yeah?" <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_55">Hiroki</span> was suspicious. "What was the joke?"<br /><br />"It was...um...it...you see, it was a book joke, and you just wouldn't get it. But the punch line is 'rifle, rifle'...."<br /><br />"Uh-huh," nodded <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_56">Hiroki</span>. "I guess I'll just be going now, shall I?"<br /><br />"Yep, sure, go ahead and get those ingredients. Have fun." Shouted the book.<br /><br />As <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_57">Hiroki</span> turned to leave, he heard the book chuckling to itself again and decided he should find another library.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-37632563906993726492010-03-18T19:45:00.000-07:002010-03-18T21:29:04.582-07:00Teenage NinjaI guess from the time he organized all the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">chillins</span> in revolt until he reached adulthood, the ninjas tried to keep <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Hiroki</span> in isolation as much as they possibly could. But, you know how it is. Boy will be boys. And, sometimes, this particular boy killed all the guards outside his room with increasingly deadly poison and more advanced delivery techniques, and went down to the local pizza parlor to hang out and blow all his allowance at pinball. Naturally, this <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">bein</span> the 70s, he gave deference to this handicapped kid that came in to play. There was just <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">somethin</span> about deaf, dumb and blind kids in the 70s that made them sure play a mean pinball.<br /><br />Sure, in the end, the Clan Police would always show up in riot gear, shoot tear gas into the building and slaughter the customers as they came out, only sparing the sons of the ruling council, but <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Hiroki</span> thought his twice weekly pizza and time with other boys his age was worth the time he spent developing his tear gas resistance. Partly because <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Hiroki</span> loved him some pinball and partly because he built some good connections.<br /><br />First, he got himself hooked up with the sons of the entire Clan Platypus ruling council. To be fair, he didn't exactly make those connections just at the pizza shop. He actually met the group of thirteen when he first staged his little nursery room takeover. Thirteen of the kids in the nursery at the time were sons of council members and they remembered the impassioned speech <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Hiroki</span> made against parental oppression. When he later began to show up to the pizza parlor of a Friday night, he became default leader of the group.<br /><br />Second, he made friends with that deaf, dumb and blind kid. They began hanging out and challenging each other to beat high scores. After some time, they became fast friends. Their bond became much stronger when, during the Friday raids, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Hiroki</span> protected the kid from certain death. You know, there's usually two ways to make life-long friends. You can A) meet people who are going to die pretty soon or B) keep people from dying right after you meet them. Either way, you really gotta put yourself in a lot of dangerous situations in order to make real friends. In fact, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Douggie</span> and I met one another on a plane full of promising young rock stars one winter as they were traveling across the country to deliver presents to orphans and be reunited with long-lost fathers. Ain't no more dangerous place to be, really, because that plane had a 90% chance of crashing. It never did crash, but still, it was a dangerous situation, so my point remains valid.<br /><br />Anyway, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Hiroki</span> spent a lot of his free time with the deaf, dumb and blind kid (who was named Thomas, by the way), or thinking about how to help him. Because of his isolation and intelligence, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Hiroki</span> had mastered the ninja arts by the age of fourteen, and was allowed to pursue any area of study he saw fit. He spent a year or so studying conventional specializations (advanced beheading from a distance, pirate weaknesses and particle physics) and then moved into more esoteric arts. By the time he reached sixteen, he was an avid practitioner of magic. And this wasn't no "oh look at me, I can stand on one foot for a week" kinda crap like what passes for magic nowadays. It wasn't even none of that "make the Statue of Liberty" disappear kinda magic. One, it wasn't just illusion and two, they didn't have no Statue of Liberty. The closest they had was a statue to the Great <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Narlock</span>, Eater of Hearts. Oddly, both statues had the same inscription on them;<br /><br /><i>Give me your tired, your poor,<br /></i> <i>Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,<br /></i> <i>The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.<br /><br /></i>Except the statue of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Narlock</span> finished with, "So I can eat their hearts."<br /><br />Regardless, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Hiroki</span> wasn't <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">makin</span> that statue disappear. He was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">doin</span> himself some honest-to-goodness, plain, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">ol</span> fashioned magic. Stuff like <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">turnin</span> sticks into snakes and snakes into ladders. Sure, there's an easier way to turn sticks into ladders (it's called rope), but it ain't as flashy. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Hiroki</span> pursued magic for two straight years, giving all of his non-pinball-and-pizza related waking hours to the project. He was really looking for a way to help out his friend Thomas. I don't think Thomas ever really asked for ninja help with his deafness, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">dumness</span> and blindness. I mean, he seemed to be <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">doin</span> all right with his pinball career. I guess <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Hiroki</span> never asked or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">somethin</span>, but he wasn't aware that Thomas had been featured in international news pieces and had optioned his life story to a promising young rock band. I don't know if anything ever came from that, but he'd made about a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">bajillion</span> dollars off the deal.<br /><br />Well, as it turns out, magic ain't a great way to cure purely medical problems. I guess it'd be the same thing as if you'd had a demon and you tried <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">gettin</span> rid of it by <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">hosin</span> it down with hand sanitizer. I ain't gonna go into all the sordid details right now but, trust me, that ain't the way to get rid of a demon. But that little <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Hiroki</span> kept at it. He tried all <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">sortsa</span> different formulas to get rid of Thomas' problems, but <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">nothin</span> seemed to work. So, he ended up <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">doin</span> himself some research in the forbidden part of the library. You know, that section they have in every library that's sealed off with heavy chains, always seems to be wet and dark and, even though the rest of the library's spotless, is always covered in dust and cobwebs? Yeah. That's the section he did his research in.<br /><br />Now, I don't wanna sound like I'm just <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">tellin</span> ya any <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">ol</span> story here, but there's some things that's always true. If you punch a bull in the nose, he will get mad. If you meet a guy named "Bad, bad" Leroy Brown, you can bet there ain't a man in the whole damn town badder than that guy. And, if you start <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">doin</span> research in the spooky section of the library, you will end up <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">practicin</span> black magic and nearly destroying all life on the planet, even if you do it with the best of intentions. It's just a rule of nature. And that's precisely what the teenage ninja did.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-1027859275214358292010-03-09T18:11:00.000-08:002010-03-09T19:56:14.740-08:00LemonsNow, I ain't gonna stop <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">fightin</span> them or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">nothin</span>, but I gotta admit there's one advantage a person could get from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">bein</span> a ninja. Them guys know when opportunity is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">knockin</span> at the door with a box of girl scout cookies and a check from Ed McMahon. That is to say, they know how to take the lemons of life and turn it into hard lemonade. This kind of behavior ain't always good for people who isn't ninjas, but I imagine it'd be pretty darn good if you was a ninja yourself. You ain't a ninja, are ya? I don't want no ninjas <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">readin</span> this here thing. It's got all my plans and deepest thoughts in it. I mean, it's got ninja <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">killin</span> words in it. It's full of words so powerful that, if you happened to be a ninja and someone just told you about this here blog, your head would blow like you had stuffed your nose full of m-80s just before you remembered you was allergic to gun powder. So, no ninjas <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">readin</span> this.<br /><br />Like I says, them ninjas can make some great lemonade out of life lemons, and that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Hiroki</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Hatayama</span> kid represented one heck of a lemon. He was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">sittin</span> his sad, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">cryin</span> butt on the ground, just <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">wishin</span> one of his parents would come back and give him some food or help him wipe his nose or whatever it is abandoned kids think about, when a couple of members of Clan Platypus, who was out for a head <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">clearin</span> stroll, happened to spot him. I know, you think I'm <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">bein</span> too hard on the kid. After all, you say, that poor kid was just left by his parents. But I would have to point out that you forgot that I myself went through this same sorta thing. Sure, my parents didn't turn into hideous creatures, and my pa fell through the crust of the Earth instead of giving me an existential dilemma before leaving, but other than that, it was just the same. And let me tell you, when your parents have left you to fend for yourself with nothing to take care of you but ninjas or, in my case, harbor seals, you gotta wipe away the tears, pick yourself up by your bootstraps, and grow the heck up.<br /><br />It may just be me, but I think that is he hadn't wanted so badly to be coddled, things <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">woulda</span> turned out mighty differently. But things weren't different. Things happened exactly as they happened, which is how things always happen, if you notice. And as it happened, in this case the kings that was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">happenin</span> was that the ninjas was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">bein</span> super nice to the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">cryin</span> kid they found because they remembered him from the family picnic and they knew he was the son of the most famous killer in the universe.<br /><br />So, the ninjas picked him up, wiped the boogers off his upper lip, offered him some milk and cookies and took him to their underground volcano base. Now, at the time, Clan Platypus was still <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">pretendin</span> to be a friendly, happy corporation that was just <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">tryin</span> to do good for the world. I gather they was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">tryin</span> to look like a manufacturer of paper plates what could be washed and stored after use. If it were real, it <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">woulda</span> been a pretty solid idea. Sadly, they was actually <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">makin</span> the plates out of plastic that had been made to look like paper because A) it was cheaper and B) they was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">plannin</span> on slowly <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">replacin</span> the plastic with woven <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">meth</span>. But, at the point in time as these <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">happenins</span> was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">happenin</span>, they was still just <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">usin</span> plastic. I ain't <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">sayin</span> they was right in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">doin</span> that or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">nothin</span>, but, if you ask me, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">havin</span> a plate made of plastic is a whole heck of a lot better than <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">havin</span> a plate made out of a drug that's gonna keep you up all night and eat your bones. Maybe that's just me. But, because the Clan was still <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">tryin</span> to act like responsible corporate citizens, and so they had themselves a pretty nice Child Care Center inside that volcano base.<br /><br />It was into this Center that they put little <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">Hiroki</span> while they went to talk to the CEO, Ted, about what they should do. He responded by calling them a couple of idiots and told them they had to run down, collect that kid and make sure they oversaw every aspect of his education and life until he was grown up enough to do it for himself. They agreed that was probably a good idea (mostly because their other option was dying in a pit full of grizzly bears covered in razor blades) and ran themselves right back down to the kiddie room.<br /><br />When they arrived, they were met with a hail of missiles that had been quickly, but efficiently, carved out of bottles and wooden blocks. The child care technicians had mostly been taken hostage and the security guards were trying to negotiate with the terrorists who had taken over the play room. In the end, Clan security lost eight good men, two of the baby sitters suffered irreversible psychological damage and it was discovered that the mastermind of this situation was none other than the young <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">Hiroki</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">Hatayama</span>. In the fifteen minutes it had taken the ninjas to get yelled at by Ted, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">Hiroki</span> had organized the children into a well equipped and disciplined army that was attempting to secede from the rest of the company and form their own country with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">Hatamaya</span> as Great Grand <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">Poobah</span> In Chief.<br /><br />When they saw this, the ninjas who had picked <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">Hiroki</span> off the beach knew they had something special, but very, very dangerous, like a Christmas package filled with nitroglycerin. They took charge of the situation, removed <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">Hiroki</span> into his own apartments, arranged tutors for him and raised him as if he were their own, very dangerous, son.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-8547314677728985322010-03-04T15:48:00.000-08:002010-03-04T17:03:38.987-08:00Be a goose, Win a gooseI know I may have mentioned this a time or two, and I ain't one to beat a dead horse, but dead people are talkers. They are the chattiest bunch of Chatty McChattersons that ever chatted their way out of the chat factory in Chattanooga. They just go on and on. You'd think that, in their years of life and subsequent years where they were dead but not allowed to shuffle off this material plane, they would have heard of summarzin. After this conversation with the ghost dragon army, though, it would appear that's not the case at all. In fact, I would say they was right up among the five or six most long-winded supernatural beings I ever had to speak to. I'll tell ya about the other members of that group some time when you got a month or two to kill.<br /><br />For now, though, I'm gonna just go ahead and give you the rest of the story as I remember it. It seems to me like I've given these ghosts far too much ink lately. Of course, this bein the internet, by "ink" I mean "bits". I ain't exactly sure what a bit is, but I know they must be made out of gold or some equally precious material. The guy I have come clean out my internet tubes every week charges me per bit he finds down there and my bill last week was nearly $150. So, because I don't wanna keep cloggin up my tubes with someone else's nonsensical ramblin, I'm just gonna go ahead and replace it with my own nonsensical ramblin. That way, I'm payin for what I make. It's like if you was to have a fiber eatin party and afterwards, you had to call out the roto rooter guy. Sure, some of that down there is yours, but most of it is someone else's, and that's just nasty.<br /><br />So, accordin to them ghost dudes and dudettes, Hiroki Hatayama saw his mom turn into a giant, planet eatin fish and then saw his dad just wander away after shoutin, "You should not be!" at his son. Now, my pa used to call me a lazy, layabout, good-for-nothin flapper. I'll admit, that hurt sometimes. Especially seein as how I was only tryin to get into this goose imitation competition they have over in Gooseville every year.<br /><br />I spent two years perfectin my goose costume; gettin the wings just right so that, with the smallest flick of my wrist, I could soar to the highest heavens. I spent day after day jumpin off our barn roof, furiously pumpin my arms and, more often than not, fallin on to the cold, unforgivin ground, breaking a major limb. It was on one of my many, many hospital visits that my pa called me a lazy, no good flapper. But I was determined to show him wrong. I worked and worked to fly. Day after day, from before sun up to after sun down I would build and jump until I could fly like the birds. Finally, the day of the big contest came.<br /><br />I passed through the first round, which was a round-robin double elimination tournament. I then breezed through the quarterfinals, where I was up against a Scotch terrier in a hand-sewn outfit. No one expected him to do that well, really. I mean, he couldn't even fly or make goose noises. Sure, he was adorable, but you don't win the Gooseville "Be a Goose, Win a Goose" contest on looks alone. Then I moved to the semi-finals, in which I was up against the 1976 Harlem Globetrotters. They had developed a new trick where they joined bodies in such a way that they looked and flew like a goose.<br /><br />I don't know if you've ever seen you some Harlem Globetrotters, but those are some mighty large men. I bet, if you're old enough, at some point in your life you've met a guy named Tiny. And, if you're anything like me, you were shocked to learn that this Tiny was, in fact, gigantic. Now, imagine that there are about a dozen guys the size of Tiny, and they've all joined hands and legs to form a giant goose. That would be a mighty large goose, wouldn't you say? In fact, that goose would be so large as to warp time and space, transporting the 1976 Harlem Globetrotters to some different time every time they formed that goose. If you was a member of the squad, this would prolly be very bad news. However, if you were Pat O'Neil or the Washington Generals, then this would be excellent news because they Globetrotters would forfeit any contest of skill that they were entered into. If you was the generals in this case, then you would advance your win/loss record to 2/100,000,000,000. If you was Pat O'Neil, and I was, then you would be automatically passed into the final round to compete against Goose X, the greatest goose imitator Gooseville had ever seen.<br /><br />And that's exactly the situation I found myself in. I was guaranteed at least second place, which was better than anyone really expected me to do, so I was happy just to have the opportunity. My opponent, though, was something else. He'd been competing in this contest for thirty years, and for thirty years he had been undefeated. He was the unbeatable king of goose imitation, but no one knew who he really was. He always showed up in full costume, maintained his goose character throughout the competition, and wandered off into obscurity as soon as he'd won the prize. This was to be a great challenge.<br /><br />We stood on the launch platform. I was as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Then, because I was in goose mode, I got even more nervous because I'd just thought about a cat. I was so worried that I almost missed the launch signal. Fortunately, the start gun woke me from my panicked reverie and we were off. Goose X and I ducked and dove around the sky, passing over and around each other. We honked to the best of our ability, both obviously making the best effort to imitate a goose. But then, a mere three hours into the round, Goose X made a fatal mistake. I don't know what that guy had for breakfast that day, but he apparently couldn't hold it any longer. He dropped himself a little fudge log right on the judges' desk. This, in itself, was not enough to disqualify him.<br /><br />What Goose X must not have counted on was one of the judges being a Biologist specializing in Goosology, or the study of geese. That poop landed right in front of Professor Goosey McLovesgeese (actual name). He took one look at it and declared the contest over and me the winner. Why was Goose X disqualified, you may ask? Well, it turns out that Goose X was so durned good at imitating geese because he was an actual goose, albeit an unusually large goose, standing just shy of six feet tall. He had been careful for three decades not to reveal his secret, but now it was out. Let me be clear here, no one had a problem with his being a giant goose. The people of Gooseville ain't a bunch of speciests or nothin. It's just that the contest was for imitatin a goose, and a thing can't imitate itself.<br /><br />So, in the end, I got myself a free goose. I took it home to pa and he apologized for callin me lazy. He wouldn't take back the flapper comment, though, which I learned to live with. Goose X ended up hittin all the daytime talk shows and told Donahue that he'd been entering the contest all those years because he loved the taste of gooseflesh and couldn't very well capture and kill them himself. He later went into a treatment center. Last I heard he was working as an addiction specialist and helping people with interventions.<br /><br />I guess the whole point is this; if your pa calls you a lazy, good-for-nothin, it hurts. But at least you can prove him wrong. But if the last thing you ever heard from your pa is "You should not be!" that's got to mess with you a whole bunch. I mean, you can't even do anything to make up for that. So, I'm tryin to understand Hiroki's side of this story, because he turned out to be a pretty messed up guy, as you'll see soon.<br /><br />But, like I says before, you best be glad that it's your ol' buddy Pat tellin ya this story, because them ghosts took forever to tell the thing and went off on all sortsa tangents that didn't have nothin to do with the actual story. Not me, though. That just ain't my style.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-66626295959898476752010-02-17T08:56:00.000-08:002010-02-17T08:57:37.036-08:00It's comin, it's cominMan's gotta have a vacation every once in awhile. I ain't had the time for relayin all the rest of what went on on that there meth planet lately, but I'll be gettin to it. It'll likely be next week, or mayhaps the week after. I apologize for any and all inconvenience this may cause.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-16330405134268379542010-02-02T15:07:00.000-08:002010-02-02T16:51:26.907-08:00Picnics are no picnics"<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Tetsuo</span> lived in wedded bliss for eight long and wonderful years. In that time, he and Suki produced a son, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Haruki</span>, named after <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Tetsuo's</span> first son. In those eight years, Clan Platypus worked <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Tetsuo</span> into their corporate structure.<br /><br />"Like anyone else, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Tetsuo</span> had to start at the bottom. No amount of reputation, money or threats of death could change that. He began as a runner, then an interplanetary runner, then he spent some time as a logistics manager. By the time <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Haruki</span> was born, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Tetsuo</span> was working as an actuary and occasionally being given assassin jobs. On the weekends, he still committed acts of genocide, but it had become more of a hobby than a quest. Suki said that he was just doing it to relive a romanticized youth that never really existed. But she tolerated it most days. All was looking up for the man who had once vowed to wipe out all life forms in the universe. Looking up, that is, until the family picnic."<br /><br />"Picnic?" I asked, incredulous.<br /><br />"Yes," they replied, "the yearly Clan Platypus Family Picnic and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Meth</span> Zombie Race. It's a very popular event for the office workers in the Clan. They still hold it most years, but the budget has expanded so it's more of a yacht party than a picnic, but they kept the name for tradition's sake. Ninjas, as you may know, are very traditional."<br /><br />"I was aware," I allowed.<br /><br />"Regardless of all that, the picnic <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Tetsuo</span> attended with his family was the beginning of the end for him. Legend says he didn't even really want to go. He claimed that he had gutters to clean, there was a big game on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">tv</span> and he really needed to get that lawn mowed. Suki, however, knew better. Wives always know better. She knew that as soon as she was out of the house he'd be off planet somewhere slaughtering a whole village of innocents. Instead, she proposed, he could spend some quality time with their son, to which he acquiesced. Even the strongest men will do what their wives ask in order to avoid problems.<br /><br />"<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Tetsuo</span> arrived to the picnic grumpy. All he could think about was the people he wasn't killing, the screams for mercy he wasn't hearing and the lawn that he wasn't cutting. But, after he got a couple of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">hotdogs</span> in him and some money in his pocket from betting on the Zombie Wrestling match, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Tetsuo</span> was surprised to find he was having fun.<br /><br />"In his buoyant mood, he encouraged Suki to join the fishing contest. The woman who landed the biggest fish was to be given a riding lawnmower and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Tetsuo</span> thought that would really help their family out. Suki was hesitant to join. This being a Clan outing, the women were expected to land the fearsome Knife Tooth Laser Fish, which can only be caught using your own child as bait. The trick is to allow the fish to approach the child and lunge. As the fish is in mid lunge, the child gets yanked out of the way and the fish makes another lunge. If everything goes right, you end up with a mean, inedible fish. If you do it wrong, you end up with a heart full of sorrow and a "Participant" ribbon.<br /><br />"Suki had landed herself a number of Knife Tooth Laser Fish in her time, those being the main source of protein in her home village. And because she'd seen more of those fish than anyone else in the competition, she knew what they didn't, that Clan Platypus had replaced the regular stock in that lake with <span style="font-style: italic;">radioactive</span> Knife Tooth Laser Fish. And as any fool knows, you have to use a totally different bait for radioactive fish than you do for regular fish.<br /><br />"While all the other wives tossed their children into the water, Suki tied herself to the end of her line and wrapped the rest of the slack around a tree, making a kind of primitive pulley. Then, using the strength and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">persistence</span> she'd learned in her eight years of marriage, dove head first into the water."<br /><br />I interrupted, "She got herself <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">et</span>, didn't she?"<br /><br />"No," the answered. "It was much worse than that."<br /><br />"Worse than <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">gettin</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">et</span> by a radioactive fish?" I couldn't believe that was possible.<br /><br />"Much, much worse," they replied, adding a little drama to the whole thing. It must have worked, because now I was really ready to find out what happened to this lady. Had they said something like, "A little worse," or "About the same but less convenient," I <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">woulda</span> just give up right then and there, but since they said "much" twice, I felt I had to stay.<br /><br />"It was not Suki's first time with radioactive fish. Every time one came near, she jerked her rod and pulled herself a little closer to shore. She knew that, once the water got shallow enough to stand in, she could wedge her fishing rod between its jaws, flip the fish over and heave it onto the shore for cleaning and consumption. She was within ten feet of the shore when the unthinkable happened.<br /><br />"The fish she'd been tempting had completed its final circle and was coming in for the kill. The sweat of concentration beaded on Suki's brow. Like a torpedo, the fish launched itself at her. She waited, knowing that if she pulled too early, the fish would lose interest. The fish closed quickly, shrinking the hundred feet between it and Suki to fifty feet in the blink of an eye. Still, Suki waited. 40 feet. She braced herself. 30 feet. Her arms tensed. 20 feet. Her grip tightened. 10 feet. Suki yanked with all her might.<br /><br />"Two things happened simultaneously. First, Suki was hit in the face with her snapped fishing line. Second, the fish took her foot. Suki screamed out for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Tetsuo</span>, who rushed into the water, stabbed the fish with its own tooth, grabbed Suki and headed for shore. In the few seconds it took for all this to happen, Suki's leg began to swell.<br /><br />"As she was laid in the grass, bleeding and delirious, Suki began to beg <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Tetsuo</span>. 'Kill me!' she whispered. 'You must kill me.'<br /><br />"But <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Tetsuo</span> couldn't. 'You'll be <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">ok</span>,' he promised as the doctors were tying cords around her now elephantine leg to stop the poison. 'You'll be <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">ok</span>.' He repeated through his tears.<br /><br />"The doctors did their best, but they could do nothing against the swelling. The tourniquets they tied were ruptured as Suki took on more mass. All the time, she whispered to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Tetsuo</span>, 'If you love me, you'll kill me. Please, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">Tetsuo</span>. It must be done.'<br /><br />"Still, he couldn't let go of the one thing that brought light and warmth to his otherwise cold and dark life. Still weeping, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Tetsuo</span> turned away from his swelling wife. In a rush, he remembered how full of suffering and pain the universe was. He gained new strength in his lost mission and resigned from the Clan right then and there.<br /><br />"To punctuate his resignation, he killed all but two participants at the picnic. The two left were Suki, who had grown to the size of a small hill and began to take on fish-like features, and his son <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Haruki</span>.<br /><br />"<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">Tetsuo</span> picked the child up. As per his vow, he knew he shouldn't let it live. On the other hand, it was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">Tetsuo's</span> son, and he couldn't bear to see him die. As <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Tetsuo</span> was contemplating the child's fate, the young boy gasped. 'Daddy, look!' he yelled, pointing at the still-growing form of his mother.<br /><br />"'My god,' <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Tetsuo</span> whispered. Suki's transformation was almost complete. She had rounded out and become a fish with a woman's face. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Tetsuo</span> recognized the form from his youth. His wife had become a planet eater. She was still small enough that she was eating the planet one bite at a time, but it appeared that, at her current rate of growth, she would gain full size in a matter of weeks. Then she would become the scourge of the universe, eating entire star systems with no thought. All of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Tetsuo's</span> work, his years hunting down each planet eater, his guilt for wiping them all out and his millions of years of meditation to make up for it, were all for naught. His life was a sham.<br /><br />"Standing on that field, watching his former wife devour a mountain range and holding his child in his arms, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Tetsuo</span> saw the full cold cruelty of the universe. His mind broke. He set the child on the ground, looked it in the eyes and yelled, 'You should not be!' Then he <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">lept</span> off planet.<br /><br />"That was the last anyone ever saw of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">Tetsuo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">Hatayama</span>. Clan Platypus, feeling partially responsible for all this, raised young <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">Haruki</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">Hatayama</span> in their own headquarters. But, in the end, they were like the woman rescuing the cobra from the cold."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-59380517797589061762010-01-30T20:11:00.000-08:002010-01-30T21:06:20.666-08:00Leashing a Killer"So, wait, now," I said. "You mean Clan Platypus actually stopped a guy that was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">tryin</span> to kill everyone in the universe dead? Ain't that a little counterproductive to their plan?"<br /><br />"Actually not," Alistair answered. "If you'll recall, Clan Platypus is attempting to make everyone their slaves. The whole 'killing everyone' thing is just an unfortunate byproduct of their means of slavery."<br /><br />"Then why'd this <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Morihito</span> guy or whatever hook up with them ninjas?"<br /><br />"<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Hatayama</span>," the ghost army replied.<br /><br />"That ain't an answer," I kindly pointed out to them.<br /><br />"Nevertheless, it is his actual name. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Morihito</span> was a universally famous chef and the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">inventor</span> of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Mojito</span>. He <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Spanishized</span> his family name in order to make the drink seem more tropical. Sadly, he died in a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">muddler</span> duel."<br /><br />"I don't see how that's in any way relevant to the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">proceedins</span>," I told them.<br /><br />"It's not," they admitted, "but it's an interesting story."<br /><br />"Well," I allowed, "be that as it may, hows bout we just skip over that one right now and you tell me what I need to know to defeat these ninjas. I mean, jeez, we been at this for what seems like hours now and you still ain't mentioned <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">nothin</span> about no staff or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">anythin</span>, which is what you said all this was about in the first place."<br /><br />They defended themselves, "Yes, yes, we're getting to that."<br /><br />"I wish you would."<br /><br />"We are."<br /><br />"Good," I stated.<br /><br />"Good."<br /><br />We eyed each other a bit. I gotta be honest. After <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">standin</span> out here in the middle of nowhere on a dark planet <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">talkin</span> to a bunch of ghosts for this long, I was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">startin</span> to get a mite fed up with this whole thing. I figured maybe we could send this ghost army after the ninjas and bore them all to death. I mean, seriously, how long does it take to tell a simple story? Guy's family gets killed, he kills some giant fishes, sits for a long time, vows to kill everyone in the universe. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Bam</span>. Done. See how easy that was? But, I guess if you been dead and trapped in a bottle for a hundred years or so, and you're <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">prolly</span> gonna <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">disincoporate</span> right after <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">finishin</span> the story, you might just stretch the thing out, too.<br /><br />"Can we go now?" they asked.<br /><br />"Yeah, sure," I grunted, "go on ahead."<br /><br />"Thank you. After his announcement, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Tetsuo</span> began fulfilling his vow, one person at a time. He snuck in late at night and murdered whole villages, slaughtering all the people, pets and livestock. He would even burn out all the ant hills and squish all the weevils. The people of the universe were living under a shroud of fear, never knowing who or when <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Tetsuo</span> would strike.<br /><br />"Then one night, he attacked a village on Quark, the planet of the scientists. He thought he would, just like always, sneak in quietly, eradicate all the life forms and then make himself an omelet from whatever the people had in their fridges. However, he didn't take into account that scientists generally keep different hours than other people and he walked right in on a meeting of mathematicians and discussing population models.<br /><br />"This discussion was relevant to his current task, so he stopped and listened. In that meeting, he learned that his quest to kill all life in the universe by himself was a losing proposition. In fact, for every life form he eliminated, two were born somewhere in the universe to replace it. At that rate, he was falling behind in his mission daily. So he slunk off and thought of another plan."<br /><br />I interrupted, "You mean to say he didn't kill them math guys?"<br /><br />"Oh no, he killed them," they countered. "As a matter of fact, he killed them slowly and painfully, torturing all of their math secrets out of them. I hear the desire to die in those men became so strong that it shattered glass."<br /><br />"Wow."<br /><br />"Yeah," they sighed. "That was not a man you wanted to deal with."<br /><br />"I <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">spose</span> not."<br /><br />"So, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Tetsuo</span> needed a larger group to help him do his work. He tried various assassin's guilds and mercenary armies, but they all wanted too much money and they had to be micromanaged. In the end, they were really just more hassle than they were worth. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Tetsuo</span> needed to find an evil organization with a ready army and another income stream. He asked around wherever he went. Well, to be honest, he tortured for information, but when you're the most feared man in the universe, they're pretty much the same thing. A little torture here, a little torture there, and he found himself on Clan Platypus' door.<br /><br />"They agreed to a partnership right away, seeing the potential in this killer. But they had no interest in eliminating their customers just for the sake of eliminating. Sure, if the customer owed them five dollars or was talking a bit too loudly during a Clan member's favorite movie then, sure, they'd go ahead and kill them. But to kill someone to set them free from pain? That was simply unthinkable. So they needed a method of control.<br /><br />"They offered money and power, but <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Tetsuo</span> wasn't at all interested. Wine and women held no sway over him. Even the chance to own his own pizza chain didn't entice him. Then they turned to science. In fact, this is when Clan Platypus began experimenting with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">FTL</span> travel for the first time. They built and launched a fleet of ships to travel at above-light-speed in every direction on a secret quest. They knew that they were sending most of these people into certain death but, again, these guys are super-evil, as you know."<br /><br />"I do," I confirmed.<br /><br />"It turns out that the Clan had unlocked the same secret that the army of Pats now crawling over this planet has. That is, that in an infinite universe, everything that can possibly happen is happening all the time somewhere. That meant that a copy of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">Tetsuo's</span> wife was around somewhere, and it would just take some serious searching to find her.<br /><br />"The clan sent thousands upon thousands of ships over two decades. Most never came back. The ones that did rarely had good news. There were two special ships, though. One came back entirely covered in grape jelly and without any crew of any kind. It's still quite the mystery. The second came back, after an absence of only 5 years, carrying a copy of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">Tetsuo's</span> wife, Suki.<br /><br />"And it was his wife, in every way. When he first saw her, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Tetsuo</span> cried like a baby. Then he cried like a slightly happier baby. Day by day, he cried less and less. He began to believe that the past <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">millennia</span> were all a horrible dream and that he was finally being allowed to wake up. For a year after he was reunited with his Suki, he hardly killed anyone. There was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">Xynok</span>, but that whole planet had it coming and no one blamed <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Tetsuo</span> for wanting to kill everyone on it.<br /><br />"Before that year was out, Suki was pregnant and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Tetsuo</span> was becoming a regular family man. He'd been moved up to middle management and was angling to get his own office. Clan Platypus thought they had reigned in their secret weapon. But the arrival of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">the child</span> signaled the beginning of the end for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">Tetsuo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Hatayama</span>."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-27291029373281177712010-01-18T21:29:00.000-08:002010-01-18T21:35:13.459-08:00In another life, I'm a DJIt's true. In addition to writing Pat O'Neil, I'm also a DJ. I like to think of myself as a modern day Renaissance Man. Why do you care, you ask? Because you have a chance to help me out. I've entered myself into the Let's Mix Next Generation DJ contest. The top prize is a chance to play the Winter Music Conference in Miami, a DJ Contract and some other spiffy stuff. However, in order to progress to the next round, I need to get 200 votes on my mix by January 31. I know it's not much time, but I think we can mobilize the Pat Masses (or, if you want to call the readers something else, I'm cool with that) to vote, and get everyone they know to vote, and I can make the cutoff. It would really mean a lot to me if I could get your support in this. Just go <a href="http://www.letsmix.com/mix/27720/harder_than_calculus">here</a> and throw me a vote. Thank you very, VERY much.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-75207938257739631462010-01-18T21:28:00.000-08:002010-01-18T21:29:28.888-08:00Tetsuo's Speech"<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Woah</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">woah</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">woah</span>!" I cut in. "What's all this 'good news of your impending death' stuff?"<br /><br />The ghost army responded, "You've never heard the 'Impending Death' speech?"<br /><br />"No," I replied, "no I have not."<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Alistair</span> scoffed. "Seriously? You've never heard the "Impending Death' speech? One of the three most famous speeches in the history of the universe?"<br /><br />"No," I repeated, "I certainly have not."<br /><br />"Jeez, man," said the ghost army, "do you live in a cave or something? They play that speech on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">tv</span> and the radio all the time. You'd have to live in some god-forsaken backwater in order not to have heard that. Where you from again?"<br /><br />"Iowa."<br /><br />"Which one?"<br /><br />Alistair cut in before I could question this. "Iowa 4871-j3."<br /><br />The eyes of the ghost army widened. "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Ohhhhhhhhhhhh</span>," they said in that way that says 'I just found out something embarrassing about you but I don't want to make a big deal out of it' way. "So, then...yeah...You really haven't heard it. That's, um, that's too bad. It's quite interesting."<br /><br />"Would you like to hear it?" Alistair asked me.<br /><br />"I dunno," I responded, "you think I should?"<br /><br />"Sounds to me like maybe you should," he said. "And we've got a copy of it on the ship. We could probably broadcast it easily."<br /><br />And with that, he scampered into the ship, made some things click and pop and I heard the whole speech. Here's how it goes:<br /><br />I am <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Tetsuo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Hatayama</span>, destroyer of the Planet Eaters, and I bring you the good news of your impending death.<br /><br />For many years, I have investigated this universe, and all I see is weakness and failure. You, the living beings of this universe, are unable to see past your own small concerns. You are too weak or too lazy to think past your own lifetime. Even more, most of you can barely see beyond your own family groups or tribes. Thus you take from others, murder them, destroy their happiness and that of their <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">descendants</span>.<br /><br />I, myself, have been guilty of this. When I was young, I erased an entire species from the universe. The planet eaters were slow, dumb creatures, who knew not what <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">havoc</span> they wrought on lives and families. They devoured my own family, and I revenged myself on them. It took me many years, but I hunted each and every one down and killed them. But in their deaths, I found no peace.<br /><br />Perhaps I expected the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">family</span> shaped hole in my heart would be filled by the death of a species, but it wasn't. The only thing I gained for my revenge was guilt. I could not understand why I had to have so much pain and suffering. So I went into seclusion and meditated. I learned to stretch my mind and consciousness throughout the universe. I learned to inhabit other minds. I sat in the minds of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">millions</span> of creatures, watching them live their lives from birth to procreation to death. And I saw the same things over and over again. Now, I am ready to share the truth with you.<br /><br />Each and every one of you thinks you are special. More than likely, you have elevated your feelings that you are <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">privileged</span> into a religion that tells you that you or your tribe or your species was created by some super being in <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">order</span> to live out his, her or their will. But you are not special. You are just another in a line of beings that stretches back to the beginning of the universe. There were millions of lives before you and there will be millions of lives after you. You, personally, are meaningless.<br /><br />I can feel the reaction beginning already. You are shouting "That's not true!" You are becoming angry, or sad and that is inevitable. That is the fundamental nature of live in this universe. You believe that you are special, but the universe disagrees, and this causes conflict. You constantly think of the world as you would like to be, as it should be, as you were told it would be. But still, you live in the world as it is. And this gap, the deadly space between ought and is, is where you suffer.<br /><br />You do not get the things you want. You get the things you don't want. Those you love die. Those you hate prosper. Your whole family is devoured by a giant fish, or disease or war. You are subject to conflicts you didn't start. You are forced into modes of life you hate by people you will never meet and have no power over. And this, all of this, just isn't fair.<br /><br />And you are right. It is not fair. But it is true. All of this causes pain in each life. It causes us sleepless nights of anguish. This situation allows us to build dreams of what things will be like if we can just get this or that. But then the universe crushes us by not allowing to have this or that which we desire. All of this points to one, inescapable fact: the universe doesn't care about you.<br /><br />In the cosmic perspective, you do not matter. You have no importance. You are a mote of dust that survives for an <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">eye blink</span> on a summer afternoon. You are nothing more than a drop of dew that will evaporate in the morning sun, unloved, unknown, unheralded. If you do something amazing, maybe your name will last a thousand years or so. But, in the end, it all disappears and the universe keeps going.<br /><br />This is how we suffer.<br /><br />There is only one remedy to this situation, and I am he. The universe will never be anything other than what it is. It will never become what it ought to be. The only way to eliminate the gap between is and ought is to eliminate all those who wish for ought. Sadly, every sentient being does this. Therefore, I, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Tetsuo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Hatayama</span>, have made it my goal, my mission and my vow, to kill every sentient being in this universe.<br /><br />Only then will there be no more suffering. Only then will the gap between is and ought be eliminated. Only then can the universe rest, at peace with itself.<br /><br />I am coming."<br /><br />When the speech finished playing, I couldn't say anything for a bit. I think I peed myself a little, but I wasn't totally sure.<br /><br />"S...so...um," I stammered, "is he coming to kill me?"<br /><br />"No," the ghost army replied. "His plan didn't work out quite as well as he'd hoped. It's theorized that the turning point is when he hooked up with Clan Platypus."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-2216602341291349762010-01-13T17:05:00.000-08:002010-01-13T17:06:03.479-08:00When he stood"Once <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Testuo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Hatayama</span> stood, the universe changed. No one knew this at first, of course, but the lives of every man, woman, child, beast, man-beast, woman-beast, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">childbeast</span>, man-woman, man-child, woman-child and man-woman-beast-child would be forever changed.<br /><br />"It all began very slowly. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Hatayama</span> returned to society under an assumed name, Joe Smith. He posed as a drifter for many years, wandering around space stations and planets, washing dishes and doing odd jobs to feed himself. He spoke little, but he was a hard worker, so his bosses never noticed him. He spent many a year hitchhiking around the known universe. He would get rides whenever possible, so as not to risk giving away the secret of his identity. But when it was time to move on and he couldn't get a lift, he would go somewhere quiet and isolated and simply jump off the planet.<br /><br />"<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Tetsuo</span> was not washing dishes for the sake of work, though. In his years as a drifter, he was collecting information. If you want to gather information, silence is often your best friend. If you remain silent long enough, most people will start talking, just to fill up the void that you are leaving. And <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Tetsuo</span> was a master of silence. His subjects would begin talking and, just before they felt they'd sufficiently filled the silence, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Tetsuo</span> would deepen his silence, causing his subject to talk more about more significant things. In the end, he built up the universe's largest collection of rambling, pointless stories about ordinary lives, which was exactly what he wanted."<br /><br />"Now hold on just a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">durned</span> minute," I cut in, "I, myself, got a big <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">ol</span> collection of pointless <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">ramblin</span> stories, but they ain't never done me no good unless I wanted to put a roomful of people to sleep, which I only ever needed to do that once. No, I ain't proud of it, but I had to make that deal with those gypsies to get Albert back..."<br /><br />"Have you sat in meditation for <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">millions</span> of years?" they interrupted.<br /><br />I scratched the back of my head. "Well, no, can't say as I have."<br /><br />"Then you hear stories differently than <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Tetsuo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Hatayama</span>."<br /><br />"How bout that."<br /><br />"You, like all mortal beings, hear stories simply as stories. Maybe they entertain you, maybe they teach you a lesson, but no more than that."<br /><br />"There's more to stories?" I asked, amazed.<br /><br />"Yes."<br /><br />"What?"<br /><br />"To <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Tetsuo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Hatayama</span>, each story contains a piece of the story teller's soul. In the stories he heard, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Tetsuo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Hatayama</span> could see the minds of his subjects in more detail than they could ever see it themselves. He saw their happiness, their sadness and, most importantly, he saw their limits and their weaknesses. Through their need to fill the silence, the people who spoke to this mysterious Joe Smith were giving their listener the tools he needed to control them, to dominate them and even to kill them."<br /><br />"I gotta stop <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">tellin</span> stories..." I mumbled.<br /><br />"Not so fast," they reassured me, "there's more to come. You may want to listen to the rest before you make any major life changes."<br /><br />"<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Allright</span>," I said, "I can live with that. Please continue."<br /><br />"We shall."<br /><br />"Shall away."<br /><br />"Yes," they cleared their ghost throats all at once, which is near to the most disgusting sound I ever did hear in my life. "During his time as a drifter, in addition to collecting deep <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">psychological</span> profiles of everyone he talked to, 'Joe Smith' was also hearing little bits of his life story, disconnected from one another, to be sure, but still recognizable to one who had lived through them. It was as if, walking along a beach, he saw bits of wood scattered about and knew that they had all come from the same boat. Snippets of his legend survived. Like a spinster with cats, he collected these <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">snippets</span>, locked them away in a room and never, ever cleaned up after them.<br /><br />"Slowly, painstakingly, he pieced together what had happened to the universe while he'd been sitting. He figured out that intelligent life had spread out to more planets, new societies had formed and died, people had fought wars, loved, hated, had children, but, as a whole, not advanced in any way in the previous couple of million years. People were the same. Societies were the same. Sometimes their technology would advance and then they would be overtaken by greed or stupidity, and would tear themselves apart, letting their <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">decedents</span> to clean up the mess and begin the cycle anew.<br /><br />"He also learned that he, personally, had enough money to interrupt this whole cycle. The first step was to visit the planet where the bankers overseeing his fortune resided to get an <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">exactly</span> measure of his wealth and reach. It took them four years to confirm his identity. If you think it's difficult trying to get a new driver's license when you've lost yours, you should try accessing a fortune large enough to buy galaxies after an absence of several million years. Only because they were bankers, used to detailed thinking, were they able to do it in a mere four years. Most people could spend their lives trying to do it and die unsatisfied.<br /><br />"Once his identity was confirmed, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Tetsuo</span> ordered all investments to be called in and no more to be made. This was a shocking idea to the bankers. They had spent many thousands of generations overseeing the growth of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Hatayama</span> Fund. Many of the bankers secretly believed that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">Hatayama</span> was dead and that they and their <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">descendants</span> would be able to manage the fund until they owned everything in the universe. They all committed mass suicide when it was told this would not come to pass. Following this, the head of the banking clan came to see <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">Hatayama</span>, to beg him to allow the investment to continue. He sited the suicides, the opportunity that existed for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">Tetsuo</span> to never have to work again, no matter how long he lived, and the real <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">likelihood</span> of galactic economic collapse. In response to the banker's passionate, reasoned arguments, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">Tetsuo</span> pulled the banker's heart out of his ears and ate it.<br /><br />"After that, the bankers were quick to pull out of all investments and update their resumes. It took twenty years, four thousand lawsuits and, as expected, total, universal economic collapse. But, in the end, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Tetsuo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Hatayama</span> had gathered all his wealth in a single account, which only he had control over. Then he scorched the banker's planet. He killed every living thing on the surface of the world. He made the earth black, the seas boil and the sky constantly gray. He then found all the bankers that had accepted jobs in other firms and killed them, quite often brutally and gruesomely.<br /><br />"Finally, secure in the knowledge that he, and he alone, knew the extent of his financial power, he settled into a cross legged <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">position</span>, expanded himself into the universe and broadcast his unforgettable announcement into the mind of all living beings. "I am <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Tetsuo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">Hatayama</span>, destroyer of the Planet Eaters, and I bring you the good news of your impending death.'"Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8133838948479333400.post-36365764214465230362010-01-10T16:39:00.000-08:002010-01-10T17:14:39.070-08:00Tetsuo SatI just wanna apologize for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">takin</span> an unscheduled week off there in the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">bloggin</span>. I got myself all tied up <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">doin</span> this thing I had to do. I didn't think it'd take as much as it did in order to get it done, but, in the end, it took exactly as much as it took to get it done. And let me tell ya, I was none too happy about it. But it's all over now and it's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">lookin</span> like I got some good chunks of freer time this week that will allow for the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">writin</span> and the story <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">tellin</span> and, if I'm lucky, the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">nappin</span>. I'll try to get you the rest of this here question 2 nonsense this week and then move on to tell y'all about <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">goin</span> after them ninjas and all the hullabaloo that was. Now, where was I in this thing? Right...<br /><br />The army of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">meth</span> addled ghosts continued their explanation. "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Tetsuo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Hatayama</span> came back from his campaign against the planet eaters as a paradox. On the one hand, he was handed fame and fortune. He was hailed by all intelligent species as the greatest hero to ever live. He had, single <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">handedly</span>, freed everyone in the universe from the fear that, on any day, a giant fish could come and swallow them up. He was rewarded lavishly by every planet that knew his name. His rewards added up into a significant holding; enough to buy and sell several planetary systems.<br /><br />"But <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Tetsuo</span> did nothing with his fame or fortune. In fact, he shunned the spotlight and the money for years. After his years in space, killing the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">unkillable</span>, he flew to an uncharted, ice covered planet and built himself a simple wooden hut to pass his days in. Many thought he was simply waiting for his death to come. Others believed he was trying to transcend his own body. Still others were positive he was communing with the spirits of his lost family.<br /><br />"Religions were born around these ideas. They grew from legends and half-truths about <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Tetsuo's</span> life and thoughts. Then, they started to argue with each other about which of the half truths was more true and, finally, they ended up destroying each other in a series of bloody theological battles. And still <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Tetsuo</span> sat.<br /><br />"His legend grew and died. And he sat.<br /><br />"Statues to his memory were built and crumbled. And he sat.<br /><br />"Cities rose and fell. Still he sat.<br /><br />"Planets sprouted life, grew and withered. And <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Tetsuo</span> sat.<br /><br />"Stars were born, grew, became suns and collapsed on themselves. And through it all, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Tetsuo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Hatayama</span> sat in his simple hut on a ball of ice somewhere out in the universe.<br /><br />"Then, without preamble or warning, he returned to society. He had been gone so long most didn't know his name. Among those who did, most had only seen his name in scraps of manuscripts that had survived from the time of legends. That last group, though, knew exactly who he was and what he had done. But they knew because it was their job to know.<br /><br />"When <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Hatayama</span> had disappeared, his money was put into a savings account with the interstellar banking clan. Due to the amount of money, three bankers were assigned to watch his money full time. They accepted the responsibility with heavy dignity and took their duties incredibly seriously. Really, if you're going to manage the money of a man you know can kill planet eaters, you're not going to slack off. Those three bankers invested often and wisely, seeing returns of 5-6% per year, which is very good for that kind of investing.<br /><br />"Years turned into centuries and the money in the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Tetsuo</span> fund grew from amazing to truly stunning. Along with this, the number of bankers who were tasked to oversee his account had grown from the initial three to almost three billion. They all occupied the planet of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Klaxxon</span> and worked around the clock seeing the fund grow and prosper. In their non working hours, they would share what stories they knew of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Tetsuo</span> and imagining how he would reward them when he returned.<br /><br />"And reward them he did, but not in the way they expected. When <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Tetsuo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Hatayama</span> stood up, he stood with a plan. And the army of bankers with more money than had ever been seen in one place in the universe was just the beginning."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0