The Garage (Creative Writting Idea)

I had this idea for a starter for a creative writing exercise:

Ben and Kristen are newly weds who have just found their dream home.  Unfortunately, it's way beyond their price range, or rather it would be if the owner hadn't come up with an interesting compromise: He'll sell them the home for a fraction of the price as long as they promise to never go into the garage for a year.

He needs to sell the home quick, but he doesn't have his next home finished yet, so he's going to store some stuff in the garage and promises to move it out within a year max.  If he doesn't he says anything in the garage will become the property of Ben and Kristen.  If they open the door, however, they'll immediately be responsible for the full cost of the home.

Things to consider:

1) What qualities does the home posses to make it a "dream home"?  Remember it's not a mansion, just a dream home!

2) How do Ben and Kristen feel about this?  Obviously they accept the deal or else there would be no story, but are they both okay with this situation?  Would one of them be upset by the conditions?  If only one of them is okay with it does it create tension in their first year of marriage?

3) Do they make it the full year? What are some scenarios that might arise that result in the door opening?  What if the man never came back?  What if he came back frequently in the middle of the night (but only went into the garage)?

4) What do they find in the garage (do you even allow the reader to find out what he kept there, is the story about what is in the garage or about Ben and Kristen's first year of marriage together and how the mysterious garage affects that first year?)

(Side note, if you make a fun story from this starter, please send me a copy/link!)

The Garage (Creative Writting Idea)

When 1 = 2

(Grandma inspired short story time!)

We thought we were so smart.  We had the universe mapped out and explained.  We knew the life cycle of the very universe itself!  Or so we thought.  There’s so much to say, but so very little time left.  Where to begin explaining all this?

I suppose we’ll start with an example.  At the university where I teach part time as an advanced math instructor, each semester I make sure to run through the dangers of mathematical fallacies in their work.  In the example I start off by letting A=B, then by the end and some liberal use of mathematical principles, specifically using the variables of “A” and “B” to hide the fact that I divide by zero at one point, I end up with the answer that 1=2.  It’s a humorous exercise that’s always good for some chuckles and shocked expressions, but my point is what if you actually based your formula off this?  If you didn’t catch that you were letting 1=2 you could write massively complex formulas based of seemingly legitimate simple equations.  My application for them was to not be conceited and gloss over the basic algebra stuff just because they were in an advanced math class. How ironic that I failed to heed my own warnings! 

What does this have to do with anything you might be asking at this point?  I’m getting there, I promise, but first let’s go to the beginning when I first began to thing that something was amiss.

My first glimpse of the impeding disaster came in the 7th grade during science class.  I may teach advanced mathematics part time, but my passion is astronomy, and it started right in this class.  My science book explained how they had *proof* that the universe was expanding because they could look at the distant stars through a special telescope that analyzed colors and when they did so they saw every star had a shift in it’s natural color towards red.  This proved that the stars were getting more distant from one another.  In fact, the book said, a blue shift, a sign that the stars were getting closer had never been observed!  On the very next page, it told how the Milky Way, our galaxy, was approaching another galaxy and that in a few million years the two might absorb each other and become a single galaxy.

This news stopped me cold.  Oh I didn’t care that someday millions of years after I died the earth might be in peril.  I cared that they had just told me a galaxy was approaching ours, yet there had never been a blue shift, a sign of objects coming towards you, observed.  How could this be?

I should have left well enough alone, I should have continued in my pleasant ignorance with the rest of the world, but I had to have the answers and I charged ahead foolhardily!

I scraped and saved every penny I could from teach and devoted every bit of free time I had to building a series of small drones that would fly into deep space out beyond our solar system and perform high speed tests approaching and leaving one another at various angles.'

I should have grown suspicious when my lab was ransacked twice, and then seized by the government as suspected terrorist activity but I was too blinded to see the signs!  I went underground and through various secret donors completed my work for a fourth time.  I hid my drones on various private shuttle flights and waited patiently for the data to start coming in.

At first everything was going exactly as expected, as they approached one another there was a subtle blue shift and as the departed there was a red.  I wanted more though and so I sent them out farther and farther from one another and that’s when everything came crashing down.

None of the data made any sense anymore.  The drones were suddenly impossibly far from each other, then right next to one another. They couldn’t seem to travel in a straight line towards another it was if they thought they were headed towards each other then on the next signal find that they had passed each other or one was headed off into empty space.

Then they started slowing down.  The data showed their engines were running at the same speed, other drones could see the light from their engines, but they weren’t moving as fast as they should have and their internal time stamps were becoming corrupted often being weeks too fast or too slow than they should have been.

It wasn’t until I saw a picture of one of them suddenly being crushed when I realized what had happened.  Most people, when they think of space think of nebula and stars, galaxies and great distant planets, but the truth of it is most of it is black emptiness.  In this darkness with no light to absorb there is no way to see a black hole.

My little drones had flown right into a cluster of these behemoths each one having found a perfect balance pulling at and being pulled by surrounding black holes.

I made a new batch of drones, these equipped with delicate sensors to detect the slightest pull of gravity and sent them out mapping the space around our solar system.

We are surrounded.  There is no danger from them, oh no, they are in perfect balance.  Some of them are large, and some no larger than a penny, but we are surrounded.  It was then I realized that all our great knowledge about the universe was built on mathematical fallacies!  We thought we had mapped out the life of the stars, but it is a lie!  Black holes don’t just suck in matter they bend light itself.  All our constellations, the nebula, they are nothing more than the light of our own sun in its life being bent and refracted back among the black holes until they eventually find their way back to us.  The great white giants are just our own sun whose size and color is being distorted like a fish under rippling water.  All of our great assumptions built up about life in the universe were nothing more than bad math built upon an improvable assumption to give us the illusion of superiority, of being learned!  Those red shifts we see are just the result of the black holes stretching our the light as they bend and contort around the large black holes, or as the light is diffused by passing to close to one of the micro black holes.

It worse though.  So much very worse.  You see black holes distort time as well.  We are caught within a bubble of time being bounced and bent all around us keeping our sun forever young while the rest of the universe, vast and untamed, ages and dies all around us.  How many eons have passed the quiet earth by while the rest of the species of the universe grow smarter, while they war and rage against one another?  While their own suns die out?

What might a race who has survived to the very end of the universe do to keep from going quietly in that last night?  Might they learn to navigate the cluster of black holes that have kept us safe and isolated thus far?

And what might such a race do when they arrived in our time locked bubble and find such an ignorant and undeveloped species as ourselves.  A species that stands between them and a sun kept forever young locked in time?  What did man do to undeveloped species it encountered on its unending march of progress?

The government knew, they tried to stop me from finding out to let me live out my life in comfort and peace, but now my devices have let me see the truth too.  The north star isn’t a star at all.

We thought we were so smart, but in the end all our great knowledge was built on the belief that one equaled two.

When 1 = 2

Closing a chapter in my life

Matthew is a much better writer than I am. I am glad he has been able to write out all that has happened. Let me just say that I would not have made it through without Matthew in this situation. He was there for me when I thought all was lost. He was the brains behind all the emails which required extreme detail. He was the laughter behind the agony. He was the distractions behind the worry. He was the good listener for 9 solid days of stress. He was the logical one when I was distraught and confused. He was the generous one when I wanted justice to be served to her. He was the polite one when I wanted to yell at her for her wrong doings to me. He was the consistent one when I was in shambles. He was the rock when I needed him. Thank you for all you did for me during this stressful time Matthew. Although he was getting a little grumpy towards day 7 out of 9 ;) Thanks for hanging in there through it all!

Also thanks to all of you, who gave me advice, prayed for me and let me cry on your shoulder or had to listen to my complaints. Please continue to pray that she lets by gones be by gones and does not try to collect any additional dues from me as I have been stuck with a large sum of fees because of her. Lets close this bizarre and unfair chapter in my life!

Closing a chapter in my life

I wonder if I’ll finish this one…

The following is a new story that suddenly came to me.  It is the first chapter of a work in progress that I hope will one day turn into a fun story for my nieces and nephews.  And the picture to the left is a picture of me on crazy hair night.  Hope you enjoy both the picture and the story.

The Curious Life of Marlo T. Brandersnuff

Have you ever tried to read a sentence backwards? Here, try it with this sentence. backwards sentence a read to tried ever you Have? Did you read the word backwards differently with it at the front than you did with it at the back? Did you find it hard to read the words in that order? As if your brain knew everything was jumbled up? It’s not very easy to read a sentence backwards is it? At least if it’s written you can start at the end and work your way back to read it like normal, but what if it was spoken? Do you think you could work it out? This is a story about a man named Marlo T. Brandersnuff who lived every day of his life hearing sentence spoken out backwards!

I first met Marlo the summer after I turned 27. I had just graduated college, and was excited to get out into the world and find a job. I had recently moved and was enjoying a peaceful cup of coffee in a quiet little corner café I found. As I sat there drinking my coffee and enjoying a newspaper, a strange man about my age sat down next to me and said, “Well, I suppose that’s everything then. Thanks for being such a good friend to me all these years and be sure to remember to give the book back to me when I’m 71.” I barely had time to look up from the newspaper before the man had up and left, leaving behind a curious, small, leather-bound book.

Intrigued, I picked up the book and examined it. It was a simple book. It had no fancy picture on the cover nor a summary of the book on the back cover. A utilitarian, magnetic clasp reached around the right side to keep the book shut tight and the leather cover was worn from frequent use. It was, in fact, similar in every way to the book you are now holding. Including the titled that spread across the front cover, which read, (as I’m sure you already know) “The Curious Life of Marlo T. Brandersnuff.”

It was the title that gave the otherwise plain little book such an air of mystery to me. I sat there and wondered what adventures lay within the pages of this book. What mystery was held bottled up by the magnetic clasp. What action lay waiting to burst out for whoever dared to open it?

“Return the book to him?” I muttered to myself. “What on earth could he have meant?” Despite the intrigue the book seemed to promise me, I was determined to enjoy my day of getting to know this new city I found myself in. I quickly finished off my coffee, placed the book in my backpack, and began my grand tour of this new city on my bike.

Whenever I moved somewhere new, I would get on my bike and head off in any given direction. I would follow side rides and rabbit trails just to see where they led and to see if I could find my way back home. It was great fun as well as a great way to learn the area. Once I was done exploring, I would know 5 different ways to get from my house to anywhere in town.

Today, however, my mind just wouldn’t focus on where I was. Three times, I almost ran into a tree or a person, twice I ran through stop signs without stopping, and once I even rode my bike right into a pond! It was a small miracle that I didn’t ruin that curious, leather-bound book right then and there, but fortunately when I ran into the pond, I fell off my bike and landed in shallow water keeping my backpack nice and dry.

“Alright,” I said to myself with a laugh. “I know when to stop fighting my own curiosity. It’s time to read that book!” With a broad grin, I carried my bike out of the pond and found a nice spot under a giant oak tree. Even though I had spent the whole day exploring points of interest and biking around town, I couldn’t help but feel energized with excitement as I laid out a small sheet to sit on.

Sitting down, with my back to the tree, I took a moment to enjoy the view. The pond was located in a small park on the west side of town. The tree I had chosen let me face the sunset as it slipped down and gently kissed the horizon. It was summer time and I knew that even with the sun setting, I had another good hour of sunlight left. Plenty of time to start the book and bike back home before dark.

I removed the magnetic clasp and chose to indulge myself in one of my few bad habits. Rather than start at the front of the book and be surprised by the ending, I chose to skip straight to the last page and see what was written. What I read there was what I consider the beginning of my strange and amazing friendship with Marlo T. Brandersnuff.

I wonder if I’ll finish this one…

Hey remember that story?

You know it was a story I was doing back in March about a dream I had? Well I hadn't forgotten about it, just didn't have time to finish it. I'm gonna do that this week (or at least try). So if you want you can refresh your memories with

Part 1

and

Part 2

Part 3 is posted here with some changes and a little extra at the end. I basically stopped it before I was ready to stop it last time, and took it on to the point that I wished to end this section. Also fixed were spelling mistakes (the ones I noticed a least) and some continuity/word changes to make it flow better with the rest of the story.

So, without further delay, Part 3:

I stepped out onto the harsh, unforgiving area surrounding the mountain and immediately felt the unforgiving wind attack. Relentlessly, the wind tore at my skin and bit at my eyes. Raising my arms to shield my face, I approached the mountain and began to search for a path over it. Its jagged terrain seemed equally inhospitable no matter where I looked. The mountain slopes seemed to have been forcefully discharged from the Earth at a daunting angle as if it had been rejected by the ground that once harbored it. Though a part of me desired to find a less severe path, the longer I spent on the scorched ground, the less my makeshift shoes protected me from the severe heat. Already I had to constantly swap my weight from foot to foot to keep either from burning.

Driven only by my determination to obey the lamb, I stepped onto the mountain, grasped a rough outcropping and began to scale what seemed to be as good as a place as any. My efforts were quickly rewarded as I climbed above the wisps of dust and left the heat of that unforgiving ground behind. My victory was short lived, however, as the intensity of the wind rapidly increased. Each inch I climbed was a painful battle that taxed my weary muscles against the downward gusts that threatened to tear me away from the mountainside and fling me into the air.
Slowly, painfully, I dragged myself up the mountainside. After what seemed to be an eternity, I found myself past the extreme slope at the base of the mountain and before a great, winding path as unwelcoming and devoid of life as the base of the mountain. I found a spot relatively free of wind and lay gasping for breath and assuaging my weary muscles.

Having regained some strength, I stood and peered over the wall I had just scaled expecting to find a great distance between myself and the ground below. To my dismay, I found that I had only come 10 yards at most from the mountain base. Dumbfounded, I began to struggle along the craggy path before me as I silently wept.
Each step I took along the path was fraught with pain and danger as my foot slid across the uneven ground. The shoes that had protected me against the heat now threatened to end my life as they leaked what little water they still contained. Though I tried to step carefully, the ground seemed to be ever changing. What I thought was flat ground actually tilted to the side. What I thought was slanted was actually a jagged point that nipped at the soles of my feet. Each stumbled threatened to send me tumbling all the way to the base of the mountain. No matter how I stepped, my feet would either find a sharp point or slide into a pinching outcropping.

As I stubbornly pressed on, I finally began to grown thirsty and hungry. I searched for some gathering of water that could have pooled from some previous rain, but despite the dark clouds that loomed above, I felt that the mountain had never been touched by the gentle kiss of rain. I wearily plodded onward hopping that the end of this mountain would reveal an area like the field I had left. It was then that I became keenly aware of time’s relentless march. Where before I was certain that many days had passed while I wondered in that beautiful field without ever growing tired, I now needed frequently increasing breaks.

Abruptly, I found myself at the precipice of an intimidating cliff. Gazing out, I saw an endless, flat expanse. Like the mountain, the expanse was devoid of life. Long dead trees were speckled amidst a sea of blood red sand. At once, I felt both a surge of hope at finding such plentiful wood to burn and a sinking despair that I could find no way down this cliff nor a way back up burdened with wood.

For a moment, it seemed as if the wind’s relentless torrent against my skin abated and instead wisped around me gently as if trying to caress my face or wipe the sweat from my brow. In that moment, the wind seemed to carry a fragrance that made my heart leap. I felt as if I should know this smell, like the scent of a grandfather or grandmother, but the moment was fleeting and left me feeling bitter and abandoned.
Resolved to build a fire, I began to descend the wall of the cliff. Each handhold tore and pinched at my skin, bit and gnawed at my toes, jarred my knees and scraped my face. I had hardly begun my descent when a gust of wind lifted me up and flung me into the air.

Time held its breath for me as for one perilous moment gravity failed to assert its hold over me. Then slowly, like many tiny hands reaching up and grasping at my clothes, I began to fall. Quicker, faster the ground rushed up at me. In vain, I grasped for the wall, but no matter how I moved, it remained just beyond my grasp. With one final desperate lunge, I reached for the wall. Despite all odds, my hand managed to find a hold and my body slammed into cliff face with stunning speed that caused my head to strike a rock jutting out from the wall. The world spun as I hopelessly struggled to regain my senses.

I managed to clear my head just in time to realize that when struck my head, I released my grip and was presently falling head first toward the sandy expanse. Before I had time to try anything, I hit the ground, and the world exploded into stars, then immediately sunk into a black, soundless darkness.

Hey remember that story?

Story part 3

If you notice a change in the quality of this part of the story, it's because I've reached the point where I really want to skip a head to the climax but am having to force myself to tell the story up to that point :p


I stepped out onto the harsh, unforgiving area surrounding the mountain and immediately felt the unforgiving wind attack. Relentlessly, the wind tore at my skin and bit at my eyes. Raising my arms to shield my face, I approached the mountain and began to search for a path over it. Its jagged terrain seemed equally inhospitable no matter where I looked. The mountain slopes seemed to have been forcefully discharged from the Earth at a daunting angle as if it had been rejected by the ground that once harbored it. Though a part of me desired to find a less severe path, the longer I spent on the scorched ground, the less my makeshift shoes protected me from the severe heat. Already I had to constantly swap my weight from foot to foot to keep either from burning.

Driven only by my determination to obey the lamb, I stepped onto the mountain, grasped a rough outcropping and began to scale what seemed to be as good as a place as any. My efforts were quickly rewarded as I climbed above the wisps of dust and left the heat of that unforgiving ground behind. My victory was short lived, however, as the intensity of the wind rapidly increased. Each inch I climbed was a painful battle that taxed my weary muscles against the downward gusts that threatened to tear me away from the mountainside and fling me into the air.
Slowly, painfully, I dragged myself up the mountainside. After what seemed to be an eternity, I found myself past the extreme slope at the base of the mountain and before a great, winding path as unwelcoming and devoid of life as the base of the mountain. I found a spot relatively free of wind and lay gasping for breath and assuaging my weary muscles.

Having regained some strength, I stood and peered over the wall I had just scaled expecting to find a great distance between myself and the ground below. To my dismay, I found that I had only come 10 yards at most from the mountain base. Dumbfounded, I began to struggle along the craggy path before me as I silently wept.
Each step I took along the path was fraught with pain and danger as my foot slid across the uneven ground. The shoes that had protected me against the heat now threatened to end my life as they leaked what little water they still contained. Though I tried to step carefully, the ground seemed to be ever changing. What I thought was flat ground actually tilted to the side. What I thought was slanted was actually a jagged point that nipped at the soles of my feet. Each stumbled threatened to send me tumbling all the way to the base of the mountain. No matter how I stepped, my feet would either find a sharp point or slide into a pinching outcropping.

As I stubbornly pressed on, I finally began to grown thirsty and hungry. I searched for some gathering of water that could have pooled from some previous rain, but despite the dark clouds that loomed above, I felt that the mountain had never been touched by the gentle kiss of rain. I wearily plodded onward hopping that the end of this mountain would reveal an area like the field I had left. It was then that I became keenly aware of time’s relentless march. Where before I was certain that many days had passed while I wondered in that beautiful field without ever growing tired, I now needed frequently increasing breaks.

Abruptly, I found myself at the precipice of an intimidating cliff. Gazing out, I saw an endless, flat expanse. Like the mountain, the expanse was devoid of life. Long dead trees were speckled amidst a sea of blood red sand. At once, I felt both a surge of hope at finding such plentiful wood to burn and a sinking despair that I could find no way down this cliff nor a way back up burdened with wood.

For a moment, it seemed as if the wind’s relentless torrent against my skin abated and instead wisped around me gently as if trying to caress my face or wipe the sweat from my brow. In that moment, the wind seemed to carry a fragrance that made my heart leap. I felt as if I should know this smell, like the scent of a grandfather or grandmother, but the moment was fleeting and left me feeling bitter and abandoned.
Resolved to build a fire, I began to descend the wall of the cliff. Each handhold tore and pinched at my skin, bit and gnawed at my toes, jarred my knees and scraped my face. I had hardly begun my descent when a gust of wind lifted me up and flung me into the air.

Time held its breath for me as for one perilous moment gravity failed to assert its hold over me. Then slowly, like many tiny hands reaching up and grasping at my clothes, I began to fall. Quicker, faster the ground rushed up at me. In vain, I grasped for the wall, but no matter how I moved, it remained just beyond my grasp. With one final desperate lunge, I reached for the wall. Despite all odds, my hand managed to find a hold and my body slammed into cliff face with stunning speed that caused my head to strike a rock jutting out from the wall. The world spun as I hopelessly struggled to regain my senses.

I managed to clear my head just in time to realize that when struck my head, I released my grip and was presently falling head first toward the sandy expanse. Before I had time to try anything, I hit the ground, and the world exploded into stars, then immediately sunk into a black, soundless darkness.

Story part 3

Story part 2

Build a great fire.

There was neither doubt nor hesitation in my mind that I should obey the lamb. I had chosen to follow to follow it already obedience to its undeniable authority seemed to be a given. I left immediately to gather the wood to build this great fire and presently found myself before a great, jagged mountain range. This range encompassed the field I had been in and created an instantaneous division between the meadow I had been in and the rest of the world.

Indeed, even the atmosphere had a dramatic change. The sun that had been so gently warming me had presently vanished behind a great furry of black clouds. Every so often, a deep rumbling of thunder would reverberate through the irregular crags of the mountainside. As each boom of thunder rolled across the mountain, small rocks rained from above as if the lifeless, rocky mass was so brittle it was threatening to collapse in on itself.

There was no gentle transition from the vitality of the field to the inertness of the mountains. The life that had flourished everywhere the eye could see in the meadow immediately stopped 50 feet from the base of the mountain range. In the place of rich, soft soil of the field, the ground surrounding the mountain was rough, and cracked as if beaten down by countless years of brutal sunlight.

The mountains loomed before me so fearfully, so majestically terrifying that I first recoiled in horror at the thought of traversing this mountain. It was only with the thought of that mysterious lamb that I was able to draw forth the courage to and step out onto that hostile ground and approach the mountain.

At once, I became aware of the fact that I had no shoes, nor any form of foot protection. In fact, my entire attire seemed tailored only for the perfect environment of the meadow. A white, simple shirt and matching loose pants rippled pleasantly in the wind of the meadow, but in domain of the mountain, it offered as much protection as my bare skin. The wind furiously charged down the side of the mountain and spun away in tiny circular torrents as the impacted the ground. Each gust brought with it new pinpricks of countless dust particles the wind tore from the ground and chafed across my skin.

The ground sizzled from the moisture of my skin and scalded the sole of my foot the moment I took a hesitating step onto its unwelcoming surface. Though I wanted to surrender and abandon the instruction of the lamb, I found myself unable to accept the thought of disappointing it. For some time I walked up and down the mountain range searching for some area that was less harsh than the rest, but no matter how far I went, the schism between the mountain and the meadow remained resolute.

As I stubbornly plodded along determined to find a way across the mountain, my foot brushed past an oddly soft and large leaf. As my foot touched it, it released a soothing aloe that eased away the pain in my feet and cooled the burns of my sole. Stooping, I inspected the plant and found that each leaf was roughly the size of my foot and was impossible to rip save tearing the leaf from the steam of the plant. Moreover, the steam was wrapped in a fine, thin vine-like string that coiled its way up and down the steam of the plant.

Taking off a single leaf, I placed it on dead ground of the mountain and firmly pressed my foot against it. Though it sizzled loudly, the heat was diminished to a tolerable, if not slightly uncomfortable, level. At once, I took several leaves and with the string-like vine fashioned a crude pair of shoes for myself. As I finished and stood proudly with my hand made shoes, I thought for a moment the wind held in it the gentle fragrance of the lamb. I briefly considered looking around for the lamb to ask if it knew where I could get some proper shoes, but I felt as if time was pressing and choose to continue on instead.

Story part 2

Story part 1

Here's the first part of a short story I plan to submit to DBU's writing contest thing. It's based on a dream I had a while ago and I had written (and posted) just a telling of my dream on my xanga site. I had wanted to turn it into a short story, but I never really did, I think I may have done a quick, rough version, but I decided this time to flesh it out and tell it the way I wanted to. I think an drawn version of this story would be really cool. Let me know what you think of this first part.

It was silent. No, it was more than that. It was mysteriously serene. If forced to describe it, I would call it the feeling one has in the moments before their parachute opens after jumping out of a plane. The air rushing past them, the profound silence that encompasses them as the plane roars out of sight, the wondering, “Will my chute open this time?” Time holds and in that moment there is an acceptance of what might happen and the adrenaline stops pumping and there is a smile. But in the next moment, the feeling is lost as the parachute bursts from its package and the wind bellows it into a proper shape.

This serenity, so mysterious, so profound, suddenly flooded my being where before there had been nothing. I knew before I opened my eyes that I lay in some kind of field, devoid of all animal life. The only thing that seemed to exist was the sound of a perfect breeze rustling through tall grass. The sun bathed the area with a gentle warmth known only to lethargic cats sprawled out in front of a sunny window.

It seemed odd to me that I did not know where I had been just a moment before. I felt that I had just before been nowhere and had suddenly come to exist in this somewhere. That did not make much sense but I felt that where I had been before did not matter and the only true pressing question I had to face was whether to continue lying here or open my eyes and walk around.

My curiosity eventually won over the great peace I felt in lying there and with a large stretch I sat up and opened my eyes. Slowly, I became aware of field surrounding me, as if my senses were turning on in stages to prevent the pristine purity of the field from overwhelming me. Where before I was aware only of the tranquility of the wind and the warmth of the sun, I now took notice of the enormity of the field itself.

As I stood up and looked around, I realized that I had been lying on the top of a hill in the middle of the most beautiful place I have ever seen. Each blade of grass rose high and began to slightly bend under its increasing weight. The wind blew across the meadow as if it were a great conductor leading the grass in grand ballroom dance. As far as I could see, the meadow stretched on in gently rolling hills. Each hill was attired more majestically than any King or Queen could ever dream of achieving.

And the aroma! Gazing out on the flowered hills, my nose became aware that it should wake up and experience the divine aroma permeating it. Anywhere else, such a densely packed field of flowers would immediately overwhelm me and send me running for the nearest Air condition controlled environment. But here, in this impossibly serene field, I found only the comfort of the sun, the majesty of the dancing grass, the regality of the elegant hills, and the intoxicating fragrance of the flowers.

Dumbfounded, I stood there. Unsure of how I came to be here and if my presence somehow marred the perfection of this meadow. Slowly, as if waking from a stupor or some deep sleep, I decided to pick a direction and search for way to remove myself from this place. I walked for some time without the sun growing in intensity or diminishing in beauty. I traversed hill after hill before realizing that I had grown neither hungry nor thirsty nor even weary. I knew somewhere in my mind that I should be wondering about this, or perhaps concerned, but though I observed these facts, I did not seem to worry about why they existed.

Suddenly, I found myself in a part of the field that expanded in all directions as a great flat expanse. From the midst of this expanse, I saw a solitary lamb approach me. It seemed to be a young lamb, only a single year old. I was covered not with the great, woolly mess that plasters older sheep, but a soft, dazzling pure white coat. As It came directly before me, it seemed to be surrounded by a unique fragrance, almost as if it had been covered in costly perfume. Coming before me, the lamb stopped and looked at me.

Follow me.

The lamb had not spoken but in my heart the words resounded with power and dropped me to the ground. The little lamb lovingly nuzzled my neck and again those words rippled through me. Each word felt full of power and compassion, of authority and understanding. It was a command and a request, one I could accept or reject.

Follow me.

The lamb gazed at me and standing I followed it. It felt as if we had traversed a great distance without going anywhere at all and bringing me before an area where the grass was cut low it stopped and addressed me again.

Build a great fire.

Story part 1

A Big, Bad, Social Blunder

I wrote this story a while back ago as a spoof on the well known story of, "The Big, Bad Wolf, and the Three, Little Pig". I thought it was mildly humorous and hope you enjoy it. (By the way, it's supposed to an article from a newspaper)

In local news today the mayor hopeful of Nowherevilles made a social blunder that may have cost him the political race.

He was supposed to be attending the vegetarian society, however spokesanimal Baa Ram Hugh claims that “Mr. Wolf’s daytime planner was tampered with to show that he was meeting at the live pig buffet society.”

When Mr. Wolf arrived at the vegetarian society meeting, still believing he was attending the live pig buffet society, he spotted three succulent pigs and decided to begin the buffet.

Little did he realize that the three little pigs he had set his eyes on when local congressanimals Dewy, Cheatem, and Bob.

When Mr. Wolf begin to attack, Congressanimals Dewy and Cheatem attempted to seek shelter in the real buffet. Congressanimal Dewy hid in an appetizer of hay while Congressanimal Cheatem hid in a platter of bamboo sticks.

Mr. Wolf had little trouble blowing away the poor protection the two congressanimals sought shelter in. Then to the horror of all present he made an opening course of them. After finishing with them, he turned to Congressanimal Bob.

Congressanimal Bob wisely sought shelter up the brick fireplace. It was while attempting to climb the fireplace without soiling his suit that the Police arrived and, to the relief of all, arrested Mr. Wolf.

Mr. Wolf will be place on trial latter this week for assault on a congressanimal. Pending being acquitted Mr. Wolf plans to press charges on whoever played this horrible prank and as Mr. Wolf believes, “destroyed [his] chance of being mayor.”

A Big, Bad, Social Blunder