Story Time #4

April 22, 2013April 22, 2013 meisajDaily Life

Thought I’d start a random story since I haven’t written anything in a while. This is straight from Rory’s Story Cubes, although I wasn’t able to get a picture of that this time.

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01102011AJC Once upon a time there was man named Jim. He was a happy sort of fellow. A little carefree, or at least that’s how people viewed him. He smiled a lot, unfortunately for Jim his smile had that weird slightly skeptical look to it, making people question whether he was smiling or confused often.

But Jim didn’t know this, nor would he have cared either. He was rather proud of his “It doesn’t matter what others think” mindset. He liked to take adventures and chances and didn’t have a lot of stability in his life. He had his friends of course, they stayed put, and put down roots, but Jim liked adventure. Even if it was dull adventure. He moved several times in his adult life. Enough to learn the truth about himself. Wherever he moved too ended up extremely similar to every other place. He went out several times a week, whether just for coffee or for a drink, had a few places he loved to eat, and had one or two hobbies that got him outside often.

That was his life, that was his routine, and he was ok with it. It wasn’t the big adventures in stories he had read. He loved to think someday he’d have one of them, but he knew better. He was the guy who everyone referred to as a wanderer (although he lived in each city for a year or more), and he was the guy who had “crazy adventures” but those were all details. Day to day, year to year, his life was pretty predictable, and he was ok with it.

Jim lived in Arizona right now. He didn’t have close friends or family here, but he had a large plot of land he rented, a small house (more of a shack) on it, and a lot of time. He worked at the home improvement store in town a few miles away. It paid well enough that he could live comfortably, but he was exactly ‘making bank.’

Jim passed his time away reading and hiking. He liked that sort of thing. He listened to horrible late night radio talk shows (Coast2Coast AM was his favorite) and spent a lot of time just staring at the stars next to a small camp fire in his backyard. This fall’s experiment for Jim was a sweat tent. He wanted to call it a lodge, but Jim wasn’t that great at building this sort of thing, and his enthusiasm exceeded his reach often. It was more of a canvas TeePee with a hole in the top and a small wood stove with stones on top to produce steamed heat. One of his neighbors called it a crappy sauna, and Jim didn’t really think he was wrong.

Tonight Jim was relaxing in his “sweat tent” with George Noorey in the background talking about some sort of alien appearing somewhere. Jim just like the openness of the show. Anyone could talk about anything. Aliens and conspiracies were his favorite shows. He laid in his tent thinking how where he was living was where that stuff should happen, alien invasions and the such, but he knew it was all made up crap.

“Still fun… fun to think about” Jim thought. Just then an arrow came shooting through his tent.

Confused, as anyone would be in this situation, Jim left his sweat tent to see what the hell was going on. He had been in there for several hours so when he took his first step he immediately fell flat on his face. He called this wobbly feet. It happened often. Others usually said their feet were “asleep,” but Jim was certain his feet never slept. He had whole cartoons and stories about how his feet went off and had adventures without the rest of his body. Hence wobbly feet. And wobbly feet left Jim half in half out of the tent.

Thankfully his face was the half out of the tent, and when he finally was able to look up he saw a little gray man staring him. An Alien. An Alien with a Bow and Arrow. That had shot at him.

It would have been hilariously funny if not for the fact that wobbly feet left Jim face down in the dirt and he swore that as he was looking through the dust he saw the alien laughing at him.

As Jim started to get to his feet he saw the alien slowly ascend through the air. Before Jim could reach him he was as high as Jim’s house and when the alien was at tree level it looked down and waved at Jim.

Jim scratched his chin in absolute confusion, and watched as the alien disappeared from sight.

“Messed up,” Jim said to himself. “Guess it is time to stop using the sweat tent.”

Story Time 3

January 30, 2013 meisajDaily Life

A cane is generally nothing special.

Its indicative of intelligence, obstinate, or being something unique. That’s what movies and tv told him. But really, in the eyes of an 8 year old it was nothing special.

Jack, he had a cane. He stole from a store. He was pretty good with his hands, especially for an 8 year old, so stealing a cane, not a problem.

Now that he had it though, he didn’t know what to do with it. He didn’t even know why he stole it. Just that it was there, by the door, and he was on his way out. Other kids left the mall with toys, games, and other childish things. Jack though, he stole a cane and just kept walking until he was out of the store.

The mall was close to his hide out. Jack built it in the woods near his house. Just a lean-to made of sticks and some tarp he had found. He kept a stereo there, some books, and some apples in a basket. Now he kept his cane there too. If his parents looked closely out the back window they could see his lean-to, but everyone else would just see the woods.

Jack had an unusual amount of trust from his parents. He often was allowed to stay out in his hiding spot late into the night. He would lay there, with the tape deck listening to tv shows he had recorded until he heard his parents scream for him from the back porch.

If he closed his eyes and listened he could picture the shows in his head. Not what was on the tv, but how he thought they should look like.

Tonight however, he listened to the woods instead of the stereo. He looked at the branches, the leaves, hear the rustle and squirrels jumping around and felt completely at ease.

He laid there for hours, just staring. The dark welcomed him. Starting slowly however, he saw a yellow spot. At first he thought it was the moon shining through. Although the forest canopy usually blocked the moon, when the wind blew hard enough he could find it. But this light grew larger and larger, like something was coming down through the trees.

Jack, for some reason, wasn’t scared. He did however clutch the cane in his right hand. The light couldn’t be more than ten feet above him, but at the same time seemed miles away.

Then it dropped….

Story Time #2

November 23, 2012 meisajDaily Life

It began with a question.

“How could this be?”

Fred considered all the alternatives. His mind was racing in 17 different directions at once.

He rolled the die. It came up 3. That mean turn left. Right? Go Straight?

Fred had no clue actually. Which made his certainty that he had to be right confusing to all of the others around him.

Of course Fred couldn’t see anyone around him. He was in his own world and regardless that he standing on the sidewalk of a busy intersection, in his mind he was in a maze made of cardboard boxes shaped like the Great Wall of China. And in his mind he was supposed to find the treasure, the flame of life that opened up everyone’s eyes.

Fred just stood there staring at the die in his hands. He looked at it with wide open eyes, waiting for it to change. This was ridiculous of course. Although Fred had gotten it from a strange hobo after winning a Yahtzee game against him. The hobo told him it had magical powers, that it had led the hobo to that exact spot where he eventually played Fred (Strange enough that spot was under a bridge in Hoboken.

Fred knew the die wouldn’t lie to him. He just had to wait long enough. So he stood there… staring at the die in his open hand waiting for something to happen.

And then it did….