Michael S. Atkinson's Blog, page 41

Second Life

This week’s Trifecta prompt was to use the word “pluck”:to move, remove, or separate forcibly or abruptly.  It is also a continuation of Constance’s Story. Enjoy, and happy Thanksgiving!

Constance didn’t go to the funeral. This was a slight breach of etiquette for a guardian angel, not to attend the departing ceremony of her charge. But Constance didn’t care. She hadn’t left the street corner where the accident had happened. She kept going over it, pacing back and forth on the sidewalk.

It didn’t make sense. None of it did. Constance didn’t even understand why she was so upset. When she had been alive, she’d seen quite a few colleagues in her treasure-hunting profession die, many of them in far more gruesome ways than a mere traffic accident. Take her loathsome squid ex-boyfriend Ben, for example…

Constance stopped in her tracks. Ben had died, all right. And she had brought him back. True, he hadn’t come back quite right, and she had been warned never again to pluck someone from the afterlife, but this time it could work. She was sure of it! Ben hadn’t come back right only because he was a creep to begin with. Amy wasn’t a creep at all.

She raced from the street corner to her tiny loft, but it had already been rented out to someone else. The new renter had not, it seemed, quite settled in yet; the loft was a veritable explosion of cardboard boxes. Constance pushed past the boxes until she reached her microscopic bathroom. One of the tiles in the shower was ever so slightly loose. Constance, thanking heaven that the new renter hadn’t gotten around  to repairing it yet, carefully prized the tile from the wall. In the space beyond was a dusty pottery shard, covered with Babylonian script. Constance could still read the words by the light of her halo. Completely ignoring the little voice in the back of her head that said this was a very, very bad idea, Constance held the pottery shard and began to chant the ancient phrases.

The little voice was right.

It was a bad idea.

A Matter of Taste

For this weekend’s Trifecta challenge, we were to pick our own word, and use it 3 times in 33 words. There’s a lot of good words out there which I’m quite fond of. Marina…kumquat…wafting…shipoopi.  But then I decided to go with one of my all-time favorite words. Enjoy!

“I will eat your spleen!” gurgled the alien.

“I need my spleen!” Sarah protested. “Here, have a waffle!  Better than spleen!”

It turned out that the alien liked waffles. Sarah was quite relieved.

Unexpected

This was written for Trifecta’s weekly prompt, and is another entry in Constance’s Story.

A cold January wind drifted down the street, footling aimlessly about with the few leaves left over from the autumn. Amy and Steven, bundled up in jackets and mittens, strolled uncaring down the sidewalk, holding hands in blissful sentiment. They’d even gotten matching jacket colors, resplendent in green, which they’d given each other for Christmas.

Constance, several paces behind them, was getting sick of the whole thing. The Christmas Eve wedding had been cute, but now, all this sentiment was grating on her nerves. She had never been that bad, even with her loathsome squid ex-boyfriend Ben.

As they approached an intersection, Constance felt Winifred coming up behind her. “Hey,” Constance said.  “And no, before you ask, we are still not talking about Christmas Eve. Ever.”

“I wasn’t going to ask,” Winifred said sadly.

“Honestly, I’m not sure being a guardian angel’s is my thing. Maybe Death would be better. You’re in that; what’s it like?”

Winifred wasn’t looking at her. “You don’t want my job. Really. You don’t.”

“Oh, c’mon,” Constance said. “Yeah, it’s a bit depressing, but….wait a minute. Why are you here? You’re not…”

She whirled, suddenly frantic. It was too late. There was a sudden scream of brakes, and a sickening thud. Steven had chivalrously let Amy go first across the crosswalk. Now he was on the curb, shaking in his new Christmas jacket. Its companion, smeared with red, lay on the pavement, partway under a bus that hadn’t stopped in time.

Constance’s face whited in shock. “You didn’t. You couldn’t. Not now. Not her.”

“I’m sorry,” Winifred ventured, her voice shaking. “I can’t choose, you know I can’t, and I only just found out-”

“Forget it,” Constance said bitterly. “Do your thing. Whatever. Maybe you’ll earn wings for this. You’ve sure as hell scratched mine.” She stormed away down the street, leaving the stricken death angel behind.

O is for Omnibabies

Last time in the Catrina Chronicles, things were looking even worse than usual for our heroine. Her kingdom had been invaded by a magical Atlantean fleet of sky-ships, her prince consort had turned out to be an unwitting Atlantean spy, and a meteor was falling from the heavens to wipe out everything. We resume our story as the meteor continues its descent….

Tamalyn Marmoset, daughter of Catrina, hadn’t quite got a handle on things yet. This was perfectly understandable, as she had only just been born. She was vaguely aware that she had been in a nice warm place before coming out into a world of bright lights and people making “Awwww” and other sentimental noises at her. She was also aware that she had gotten used to the lights eventually, and that the world outside had a lot of lovely sensations, food and warmth and occasionally a bit of music. Not to mention naps.

Tamalyn had just been enjoying another lovely nap when she had been snatched from her cradle by the Atlantean admiral Lucia. Tamalyn attempted to express her displeasure at this by squalling loudly and making gestures with her small fists, but Admiral Lucia apparently couldn’t speak Baby and wouldn’t put her down. Tamalyn, for her part, couldn’t speak English, and so she didn’t follow a bit of the dialogue between Admiral Lucia, and her mother.  She kept on squalling until Lucia finally put her back down in her crib. Even then, Tamalyn was very much put out. She couldn’t possibly resume her nap now, after she had been so rudely disturbed. She was about to demand that she be fed, or played with, or something, when she saw the light of the descending meteor, shining brightly through the nursery window as it plunged towards Earth.

Tamalyn was a baby, not an astronomer. She didn’t know what a meteor was. Neither, as it happened, did her brother Timothy, who hadn’t been awakened by the Atlantean invasion and had slept through the whole affair so far. But Tamalyn did sense, in her small fashion, that the bright shiny thing was not a good bright shiny thing. And so, she stretched out her hand towards it and waved imperiously, in the supreme babyish confidence that it would stop.

Had she been an ordinary child, nothing would have happened. The meteor would’ve fallen and wiped out all of Shmirmingard in a titanic explosion.  But Tamalyn was not an ordinary baby. She had inherited the genes of her mother Catrina, who had died and gotten resurrected so many times that she had lost count, who had wielded the Red Sporksaber, who had discovered Mlrning, the Shovel of Thor, who had twice transformed herself into a newt, and gotten better. She had also inherited a bit from Perry, who had been under a magical Atlantean enchantment for a good part of his life. All those magical genes combined in Tamalyn and Timothy, and if they weren’t quite the Wonder Twins, and they didn’t have Gleek the space money, they were awfully close.   That explained why there was a sudden flash of yellow light, and a sudden shining dome of magical energy shimmered into being around the castle Shmirmingard. The meteor struck hard, and banked off the shining dome like the world’s biggest pool ball, ricocheting away into the atmosphere from whence it came. Shrmingard had been saved.

Tamalyn didn’t know what she’d done, and neither did anyone else. The dome faded away, passing into legend and song and eventually a TV miniseries several centuries later. Catrina, meanwhile, was as astonished as anyone else, and almost a little disappointed. She had been going for a tragic heroic breakdown, whereupon the meteor would dispatch her to Character Heaven, and she would live happily forever after. She had thought a meteor impact would be an appropriate way to end her saga, and a fairly smashing ending at that. But, it seemed, she had to go on again. “Well…” she said. “What shall I do now?”

Admiral Lucia was relieved that the meteor had gone away as well. Her part of the story had only just begun, and it would be a pity for it to end so soon. “Surrender,” she said to Catrina. “That’s what you’ll do. As I said before, I have transporter mages locked on-”

“Yes,” said Catrina, “but you’re not holding my twins anymore, are you? And, if I may say, that was an exceptionally bad move. Using my babies as bargaining chips. Very poor form.”

It was then that Lucia made an even worse move than before. She was still standing fairly close to the cradles where Tamalyn and Timothy lay, and she thought she might just be able to grab them again quickly and have her mages teleport her back to the ship. The invasion could still go on!  She reached for Tamalyn. But she had underestimated Catrina. The princess threw herself bodily at the Atlantean invader with all the fury of a storm unleashed. Admiral Lucia wasn’t all that good at martial arts; most of the Atlantean forces had grown dependent on magic, and had let their physical fighting abilities go to an alarming degree. Even if she had been, Catrina wasn’t fighting according to any style or form recognizable. She snap-kicked and punched and thwacked Lucia’s head into the floor and generally went after her like a kitten going after a string. Lucia quickly decided that discretion was the better part of valor. She had her teleporter mages locked on her; with a frantic thought of a magical phrase, she vanished away, back to her flagship. Once there, she dashed off to the infirmary. These people were insane. Absolutely insane. She had to contact her superiors immediately. Shmirmingard wasn’t worth the effort.

Meanwhile, Catrina found herself on the floor with no one left to pummel. She leaped upright, and discovered that Lucia had abandoned the other ten or so soldiers that had arrived with her. The Atlanteans stared open-mouthed at her. Catrina smiled coldly, and raised the Shovel of Thor. “Right,” she said, very calm, “Who’s next then, please?”

One of the soldiers attempted to throw a magic plasma bolt at her. Catrina swatted it away with the shovel as easily as she might have swatted away a fly. The plasma bolt ricocheted backward and knocked the soldier headlong into a small collection of stuffed animals. “Oh, dear,” Catrina said. “You’ve upset the animals. Tamalyn is very fond of those. Especially the bear. The bear that you appear to be lying on. I do hope you haven’t damaged it. If you have, I shall be very upset. You would not like me when I’m upset.”

The soldiers wondered, if Catrina hadn’t been upset before now, just what had she been. They immediately decided to take the prudent course and surrender. Catrina had them swiftly bundled off to the castle cells. She would question them later, since they probably possessed a good deal of valuable intelligence that she would need to use against the Atlantean fleet. For the moment, however, she needed to take a moment alone with her twins. If everything else had gone to smithereens, at least she had them. For once, Atlanteans and meteors and treacherous prince-consorts aside, all was right with her world.

This has been another episode of the Catrina Chronicles. For previous episodes, go here.  For my Amazon page where you can buy a collection of the first year of Catrina stories, go here. And, as always, thanks for reading.

Always Watching

This story was written for Trifecta’s weekend prompt. Ordinarily I don’t go in for scenes of the particular nature they were asking for. But, then, well, my muse suggested something to me , and it related to Constance’s Story, and I couldn’t resist.

When Constance popped in on the newlyweds, her eyes went dinner-plate wide. She hadn’t expected that.  And certainly not that. And so soon.  True, when she was alive, she hadn’t exactly been a model of chastity with her loathsome squid ex-boyfriend Ben, but she had never…..  and was that even….clearly, her biology class had left out a few details. She hadn’t even thought that was physically possible.

She coughed, though of course they couldn’t hear her, and busily set about shining her halo, studiously ignoring the energetic activities of the happy couple. Being a guardian angel was so awkward sometimes.

Happy Ending, Maybe?

This was written for Trifecta’s weekly prompt, and is another entry in Constance’s Story. Enjoy!

They were married on Christmas Eve. Constance had arranged for snow to fall outside the little church, just enough to be romantic, not too much so as to make the streets icy and unpleasant to drive on. She stood there invisibly by the minister’s side, beaming with angelic joy as Amy and Steven said their vows. The whole thing was her doing, after all. She had happily elided the fact that she hadn’t meant for them to get married at all, that she had knocked Amy into the Salvation Army kettle by sheer accident. Constance preferred rather to think of it as serendipity. It had all turned out happily, anyway. Amy and Steven were a wonderful couple, and their marriage promised to be a long and happy one. What could possibly go wrong?

It was a sign of Constance’s inexperience that she didn’t see the peril in asking that question. She also didn’t see the trail of smoke floating in a dim corner of the church. The smoke trail wafted out the door and into the snowy night, gradually materializing into a shadowed form.

The demon was not pleased. Not at all. His superiors weren’t happy either. Amy wasn’t supposed to give anything to the Salvation Army man. She should have been selfish and thought only of herself. That choice would have started her down a long, dark path. It was all beautifully planned. She would have been a ruthless corporate raider on Wall Street, but then her illegal insider trading would’ve been found out by the SEC, and she would just barely escape arrest. From there, desperate for money, she would have used her knowledge of chemistry to sell crystal meth. During an unfortunate incident in a chemical plant, however, Amy would have fallen into a vat and morphed into a horrific green rage monster, rampaging across half the city. Now all of that was in ruins. “I’ll remember you for this, angel,” the demon snarled. “Oh, I will.”

Sporting

This story was written for Trifecta’s weekend prompt, which was to depict a god of our own devising out of thirty-three. Enjoy!

“Right, let’s call roll. Thor?”

A crash of thunder.

“Thor, check. Athena…..Jupiter ….Bill. Bill? What are you?”

“Fantasy football, sir. Smote a quarterback yesterday.”

“Oh. Well. Keep up the good work then.”

Christmas Spirit

There’s two radio stations in my area that have already begun playing Christmas music. Started the day after Halloween. With that in mind, for this week’s Trifecta prompt I’ve decided to write another entry in Constance’s Story, in which Constance learns the true meaning of Christmas. Maybe.

It wasn’t exactly the best Christmas assignment ever, Constance thought glumly, waiting in the fitful light of the streetlamp. She had hoped for something like helping a poor man down on his luck, showing him what the world would be like if he hadn’t been born. Instead they had relegated her to a task that would never get its own television movie.  She’d never get her wings now.

The target, Amy by name, approached, huddled under a huge black umbrella. It looked like she was going to walk right by the Salvation Army man ringing a bell at his kettle. Constance sighed, and drifted invisibly towards the target, sending  her some vague thoughts about starving children in distant countries, who might not know it was Christmastime at all.

Before she could get close, however, a puff of smoke materialized over Amy’s left shoulder. Constance recognized that puff immediately as her diabolical heckler. With all the craft it could muster, the demon suggested that helping starving children was all very well, but surely Amy could see about it tomorrow. Right now, however, she needed to get home. Too much to do tonight. Tomorrow, surely.

“Oh no you don’t, you twithead!” Constance snapped, flying into a fury. Unfortunately she forgot to keep her concentration, and her invisibility slipped. Amy was quite startled at seeing a woman materializing out of nowhere right next to her. She backpedaled rapidly, without looking where she was going, and crashed right into the Salvation Army man, knocking the kettle clean over and spilling its contents into the street. Amy was so distressed and apologetic that she emptied her pocket and even produced her purse and wrote the man a check to cover the lost donations.  The Salvation Army man was so grateful in turn that he offered to take her to dinner, and two weeks later married her.

“Huh,” Constance said. She hadn’t quite meant to do that. But then, there was more than one way to shine a halo.  

 

NaNoWriMo 2013, and the Writing Process

NaNoWriMo is four days in now; alas, I am rather behind on my word count.  I had two big law school exams last week on consecutive days, and after the second one I was quite burned out, as it were, and in no mood to do anything other than have a marathon of the BBC’s “House of Cards” show.  That being the case, I did get words written yesterday, and I do plan to keep trying. Especially since it’s quite a fun story. It’s basically a spy novel involving Santa Claus. Also, my spy’s name is Jason Waterfalls. Yes, it’s a pun. And it’s only the beginning.

At any rate, I haven’t done a post on writing itself in a while, as I’ve mostly done stories and such. So, having a few free moments today, I thought I would explain just how exactly I go about doing this. So, first things first: where do the ideas come from?

I have no idea. Well, that’s not entirely true; I often rely on random writing prompts, such as the Trifecta challenge or whatnot. Then sometimes I’ll think of an interesting twist on a particular story. For instance, the Santa spy novel came about because of a classic Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, where Calvin hears the “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” song, and notes particularly the lyrics “He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake…” Calvin ponders whether Santa is a “kindly old elf, or CIA spook.”  I’d also always been interested in Christmas stories, like Tolkien’s Father Christmas letters, and so from there, I had the idea for a spy novel about Santa. 

Now, the fun thing about writing wacky random stories like I do is that you don’t really have to do that much research. Some, yes; I spent a good part of yesterday researching whether Westminster Palace has a helipad. But, for instance, many of the Catrina stories are set in a medieval 12th century England-like country. I’m not necessarily going to do an in-depth study of the 12th-century period, making sure the dialogue and the wardrobes and such are all pristine and accurate. This isn’t a straightforward period piece like Downton Abbey, after all. The story’s about fun, continuity errors, incongruous situations, and Shovels of Thor. I’m pretty sure Thor never had a shovel called Mlrning in the classic Norse mythology. But he does now. So, I guess I like to be semi-accurate, in that if Westminster doesn’t have a helipad, I’m not going to put that in there. But if they do, I’m not necessarily going to dig in and go for an in-depth and accurate description.

Another thing about writing is the audience you’re shooting for. I like to include references to Monty Python, Douglas Adams, and the like, because I hope that my readers will get it. But I might throw in a bit about “Friday” or “What Does the Fox Say”, because that’s a lot more popular and more people will get it.  There’s no fun in making obscure references to make people laugh, if no one understands them.

One final thing about writing, of course, is editing. And that is something I’m not terribly good with. Most of my stories, like the Catrina Chronicles, I tend to pour out in a rush, and then move on. I don’t often go back and pore over them for continuity errors and structure and whatnot (which is one reason why continuity is sort of a hit and miss thing with Catrina).  I also don’t think overmuch about symbolism or interpretation or What This All Means. There may be some deep symbolic resonance when Catrina, for instances, faces off against Cthulhu and gets him to play Rock-Paper-Scissors with a chupacabra; maybe it says something Meaningful about the Human Condition, or whatnot, like Moby Dick. (which, by the by, is a classic novel I just can’t stand. That man badly needed an editor).  But honestly, I just wrote that because it’s amusing. Cthulhu normally doesn’t play Rock-Paper-Scissors, he creeps about and makes people go mad from not comprehending him. It’s the incongruity of it all, I suppose.

Anyway. Back to writing! Only 26 days left! Eek!

Assignments

This weekend’s Trifecta prompt asks us to write 33 words based upon the following quote from Maggie Stiefvater:  “It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.”  So I thought it was time for another entry in Constance’s Story. Enjoy! 

As Raphael finished the daily duty roster, Constance nudged Winifred with her elbow. “You’re up!”

“Can’t you take it?” Winifred pleaded.

“I got Christmas prep, yo. Cheeriness. Minor miracles. All that.”

“Lucky you…”