Poetry

It's a little off topic I know, but if anyone would like to check out my poetry here is a link

http://www.myspace.com/thetearsofphoenix
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Posrtfolios

Hey everybody, I will have the portfolios by friday next week. I have taken my vacation a little too seriously. Mike
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The Three Wise Monkeys

The three monkeys are
1) Mizaru, covering his eyes, who sees no evil;
2) Kikazaru, covering his ears, who hears no evil; and
3) Iwazaru, covering his mouth, who speaks no evil.
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Open Mic Readings and Stuff

This is the one called "Life Sentence" I was talking about in class today.

http://www.myspace.com/lifesentenceshow

and a couple more I found out while I was being a zombie on the computer...

http://www.lunascafe.com/calendar.html

http://www.wineandwordz.com/live/
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How it Feels to Want

This is my last contribution in the class. It's a short story. If you aren't going to be there monday it would be cool if you leave me some feedback here.


How it Feels to Want

I felt extremely awkward having dinner with my father at Lyon's Family restaurant down the street from my apartment, which he had never seen.

"I'll just have chicken strips and a coke."

"Are you sure that's all you want? I'm buyin." He reminded me.

"No, I'm good. I like chicken."

He had just gotten out of rehab and apparently decided this was the best thing for a sober father to do. Just pretend like he was always my father.

"So, do you have a boyfriend?"

"No." The nerve. Like that's any of his business. His inquiries were as cold and meaningless as the second fork they gave me wrapped up in my napkin, which I never use.

"So your mother says you play guitar. Maybe you can play me a song sometime?"

"Sure." I told him, but I never will. He's probably going to leave in a week and be gone for years anyway. He never stays sober for long.

"What else did mom tell you about me?"

"Not a lot. I wanted to get to know you myself. Look I know I haven't been around for a while and this is hard on you and I'm sorry. But this is hard on me to." He has no idea what's hard on me. This is a cake walk.

"Ok dad." The waitress came with our food. Polly. I bet that's not even her real name. I know that's not her real haircolor. The dark roots leading up to her cheap bleached blond hair reminded me how cheap of an effort this little reunion really was on his part. I ate my chicken and he had his steak. Apparently he likes it burnt. I would have figured him a rare as it can come kinda guy. He's one of those big burly men. He never liked that I wasn't a girly-girl. But that's his problem.

"Well that was nice dad. What did you want to do now?" I promised my mom I wouldn't bounce after dinner, but that's all I wanted to do.

"I want to show you my place."

"Where are you staying?"

"Downtown, it's about an hour drive." An hour? Fuck I haven't had a fix for more than three hours already. He's killing me. Again. I followed him in my car, I don't trust him driving. I don't trust him at all.


His house was clean, the bed was made. He probably just cleaned it before we met up so he could try to impress me. I'm not impressed. I'm coming down.

"So what do you think? It's small but the bills are low. It's close enough so you can come visit me anytime you want."

"Cool. It works." I said surveying the rest of the apartment. There were onloy condiments in the fridge. Typical bachelor. At least there isn't any alcohol.

"Listen, Michelle. I got a letter while I was in rehab. I know about how you got arrested for stealing that bottle and..."

"What? Don't go there dad."

"Don't worry I won’t. I've been there and I never want to go back. But you..."

"You don't know me." I peered at him and his eyes glazed over.

"Where is your bathroom?"

"It's down that hall." He pointed. I walked. He followed.

"Are you following me?"

"Yes." he answered.

"Is there something you wanna ask me dad?"

"Is there something you wanna tell me?"

"I'm outta here." I stormed out the front door and ran to my car. He can't make me cry, never again. My hands were shaking.


Coming back to my apartment was a huge relief. Home is where the what was? I can't remember. I need my fix. I pulled my stash out of purse and handled it. The phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Sweetheart what happened?"

"I don't wanna talk about it Mom, and I don't want to see him anymore." I can hear her worrying.

"I just thought he could talk to you, maybe he could help..."

"I don't need any of your goddamn help. So let me be me or just let me be ok." I hung up the phone and fell into my bed. I don't know why I hate him for everything I've become. It's different. It wasn't my fault it was his.


The next day I'm still in a haze when the phone rings again. Caller I.D. says it's my mom so I don't answer.

"Baby," The answering machine is talking to me, "Baby pick up the phone," she's crying this time so I go to it.

"Yeah mom what's wrong?"

"Did he call you?"

"Who?"

"You're father."

"I don't have a father."

"Don't say that." Why is she getting so serious with me all of a sudden. She acts like she didn't hate him for leaving us too.

"What do you want? I was busy."

"I'm coming over there."

I hid everything. I suspected she knew but she doesn't need to see that I'm a junkie like my dead beat dad. There was a knock at the door thirty minutes later. I opened it and she was standing there with a grave look on her face.

"He's dead." she said.

"Who's dead?

"He left his apartment right after you did. He was on his way here when..." her voice cracked and she held her mouth. Tears welled up inside my eyes. The disappointment that was waiting in the corners of my brain surged into the center of the room. I turned away from her. All I ever wanted was a dad. All I ever got was a father, every other five years or so. I can't handle this.

"Get out." I say. She has to leave, she can't see do what I wanted to do.

"What?" She asked.

"Get out! Get out! Get out!" I screamed.

"Sara beth needs to see you,” I don’t want to talk about her right now, but mom does “he was her grandpa and I don't think it's my place to tell her. You're her mother." Why is she saying this to me, Why is she hurting me? Can't she see I'm in pain? I need painkillers.

"Just go please, I'll come over in a couple hours." She stared at me, "I just need two hours mom."

"Fine I'll go but let me ask you one thing before I go. Are you gonna be an occasional mother to her the rest of her life, or are you ever gonna step up and off of that shit and be a mom?" I want to.
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The Crab

Here is the complete first draft.

Jason Conde
The Crab
1.
When Joel, Tito Ching and Aunt Daisy stopped over to offer my parents a cleaned halibut wrapped in parchment, Joel told me about their trip fishing deep-sea. We were sitting on the stoop in the alley, speaking in hushed tones because voices moved easily through our thin-walled duplex. Our fathers were in the garage, nursing cold bottles of San Miguel, my father on his homemade bench and Tito Ching in the rattan rocker. Aunt Daisy was with my mother in the kitchen shredding papaya flesh. It was evening, my father and I had just finished preparing dinner - jasmine rice and a sour tamarind stew of milkfish and string-beans - in the garage on portable propane stoves. The air was moist with tangy steam.
Joel told me about beer-drinking before noon with his father and men he didn't know, about the captain's daughter who made bacon for breakfast and burgers for lunch, and then about the beach he found on their way back. "It's by the bridge," Joel said. His long limbs jutted over the whole set of stairs, his feet longer than each step. His pale cheeks budded whiteheads ripe for popping, and chin hairs grew as full, dark patch. I sat with my stubby legs bent, my small feet perched on the step in front of me, my round face cradled in a chubby hand. We were both fifteen but I know we didn't look it.
I knew of beaches like this. I read about them in Playboy. There was even a picture. A lone brunette stretched out on shore, sand sprinkled and surf turning over her nude body, her thick hair wet, the sky clear, the ocean dark and glassy, cliffs in the background.
"There were two," Joel said, his eyebrows skyward. "One black, one white, just lying there butt naked."
We made the plan after dinner. The following Saturday I'd take the BART and meet Joel outside of the Civic Center station. Then we'd go the the beach.

The night before I thought about a story my father told me. "When I was a boy I dreamt once that I caught a crab," my father said. "In my dream it was night and I was at the beach down the road from our farm. I was crabbing where the stream emptied out into the ocean, and all I caught was that one crab. On the walk home, the crab said, 'You don't want to eat me,' but I kept towards home and then I woke up. That day your Uncle Nino started shitting worms, his nuts grew to the size of persimmons and a week later he was gone." I tried not to think of my father's story, but images of beaches at night, of my father's contorted face imitating the crab, and of worms riling in feces roamed wild in the darkness of my room.

The next morning I woke up alone in the house. My parents left early on Saturdays to work. A plate garlic fried rice, raw onions and tomatoes, corned beef and yolky fried eggs was Saran-wrapped on the kitchen table. I ate, packed a Gatorade and a siopao bun from the garage fridge, then left for the BART station.

At that hour Richmond was quiet. Most sound was the drone of traffic on the freeway. It was still too early for peel-out chirrups and sirens. The hills along the eastern end shaded our town until an hour after sunrise, our pocket of the bay kept cool for the commuters and the homeless emerging from the landfill jetty to collect cans. Some took its stench with them. Once the sun rises from the hills the air heats up but the breezes keep blowing in gusts. I never felt warm. It always seemed chilly and hot at the same time. It was all I knew.
We lived east of the freeway just along the base of the hill. From my window I could see the tip of Berkeley's clock tower, but we were too far to hear its bell sound. From the front door you could see the city, its piers, its skyscrapers, its towers and bridges. When I looked at the city from our front window, I thought that I could be anywhere there and it would never feel residential. There would always be some shop, a theater, a bar. Nothing like Richmond, where I walked by house after house on my way to the BART, which never seemed to get any closer until I was actually there.

From the station platform I could see all of the clock tower standing tall in the hills amongst low buildings. I tried to tell the time but the clock hands were too far away to read.
I waited on a bench under a long, low awning. Someone had written "Snitchmond" on the bench with a neon blue paint pen. Heavy breezes blew through the station like water through pipe. Shaded from the sunny, cloud-free sky I felt cold.
I wondered what we'd do at the beach. Would we have to undress? I had acne on my chest and shoulders.

The BART arrived on time and I walked into an empty car. I sat facing west towards the city. Soon the sun warmed my neck too hot so I moved where there were no windows behind me.
At the El Cerrito station a tall man with a book entered the car. He found a seat facing east and opened his book, which he held all the way to his face as he read. At each subsequent station, more and more people filed into the cars. A man with red, leathery skin, a woman with two little girls and an empty rolling basket, and a group of kids with tough faces who spoke out-loud about the passengers in the car. "Y'all pretending," one of them said.
The rest stood firm.
The tall man reading never brought the book away from his face. Not even after one of the kids, walking by to another car, knocked a sharp knuckle on its hardback cover.

Outside Oakland the BART dipped under the bay as it charged towards the city. Inside the car lights flickered as the train bobbed along the rails and for a moment I felt suspended in air.
When the car doors slid open at Embarcadero, the air flowing in felt different. It was cooler, tingled the skin on the back of my hands. It was easier to breathe, smelled as if it had been cleaned. The posters along the station walls were for movies I hadn't heard of yet. There was a greater sense of focus in the car. People checked their watches and pagers often, reading books and newspapers as they walked in and out of the cars without ever looking up. I didn't notice anyone looking up.
Once at the Civic Center station I walked out of the car and found a narrow staircase leading to the streets. I ran up and out into a courtyard. People walked in all directions and angles, pigeons fluttered, and leafy trees planted in circular patches of soil casted dappled shadows on the concrete. The solid shadows of the buildings diffused much of the the light, and their shade looked cold. The buildings themselves bloomed into the sky and the wind blew steady around them in erratic currents. A bushy man dressed in ragged layers pushed his can cart along the sidewalk. His hair locked in a stiff, flat dread that hung passed his waist and waved behind him like a beaver's tail.
Across the street I found Joel waiting at the bus stop. I looked for traffic to thin out before crossing, thinking of the beach as I waited. I looked for the beaver tail man to point him out to Joel, but he'd disappeared.

2.
The bus stop was at a corner of a six-way intersection. I'd lost my sense of direction since getting off the BART. There were so many angles and reflections and changing sounds. I became hungry. "Want some siopao?" I asked Joel.
"I just ate."
"When?" I asked.
"At home."
A few times Joel stood up from the bench and looked downed the street. Finally he said, "Alright, that's us."
The bus approached fast and passed the bench a length before stopping. As it did I saw my reflection walking with Joel's in the bus windows. Joel stood tall, almost extended, taking long strides, while I seemed square like a wobbly block.
We got on and sat at the furthest row back. The space above the windows posted ads for drug addiction clinics, recycling centers and abuse hotlines. There were few people on the bus. A hefty old man with a some shopping bags sat across three neatly-bearded men. The bearded men played a game with three green plastic bottle-caps and a dry cherry seed. The man in the middle missing a his right canine shuffled the bottle-caps, one of which concealed the seed.
The shuffler sat with his knees together shuffling on a piece of cardboard with a torn edge on his lap, saying in a voice that echoed through the bus, "Real easy ladies and gentleman. Just pick the right one. Just find the seed. Go ahead. Pick a cap, find your money." One of the other young men picked a cap.
The shuffler turned the cap over and revealed the cherry seed. The shuffler gave up a dollar and said, "You lose, you win." Then he turned to a woman sitting by herself with a rolling basket fill with bagged groceries. "You could win too, Missy," the shuffler said to the woman. She was wearing a long blue skirt that went down to her feet and a loose grey sweater. Her black hair was both thin and patchy. "Just like this young man. But you gotta play."
"Don't believe him," the hefty old man said. He had his arms crossed and scanned the ads above. "They're all in on it."
"Motherfucker," the shuffler mouthed. The other two exchanged looks. The bus came to a red light. There was quiet in the bus, the engine droned on at the halt.
When the bus got on the move again someone pulled the "Stop Requested" cord and a bell rang. The bus passed through the intersection then pulled to the sidewalk. The hefty old man climbed out of his seat, grabbed his shopping bags then exited through the backdoor. The shuffler threw his set-up on the floor, looked at the other two, then all three left through the same exit and followed the old hefty man down the street, whispering into one another's ears, punching ready fists into skin-cracked hands. The bus drove on, made a left, and all four men disappeared out of sight.
I looked at Joel, but he had his eye on the street signs. I wondered if he noticed any of it. After passing a few streets, Joel pulled the cord and I followed him out as soon as the bus stopped, keeping my arms close as I passed towards the exit.

We got off the bus at a playground in Chinatown where Joel and I had played years before. Children pendulated on swings and teetered on seesaws. Thick islands of soft foam replaced the sandboxes. Under my feet the foam felt bouncy. Old men gathered around the stone tables to play and watch chess. Parents and grandparents supervised children under the shade awning around the playground perimeter. The awning's perches were lined with spikes. "So dirty pigeons don't roost," my father once told me.
"Remember this park?" Joel asked. I remembered going down the tube-slide as a child after someone peed in it. On the drive back to Richmond my father called me Sponge. "That guy's hand in his pants," Joel said. I remembered that. A man lying on the bleachers at the back end of the playground, the sun in the sky, his hand pumping away until a few fathers approached him kicking.

We made moves up a hill, passing stands of local produce. There were bruises on tomatoes and the air smelled heavy like farms. A few stores showcased pink and purple tubs of water filled with turtles and frogs, piled on top of one another. A thin tube taped to the tub rim blew air into the water. Bubbles formed, surfaced, popped slowly.
Across the street a girl with her head down ran into a lumpy man picking debris off a dead chicken I saw him find in a trash can nearby. The chicken still had its feathers.
Plump, happy-looking women handed out paper menus and tried to convince us into their restaurants for congee and dim sum. A woman with small teeth smiled at me and I glanced back after passing. By then she already was smiling up some guy in a suit who kept his cell phone to his ear as he passed.
We went into a few medicinal stores looking for virility roots. We wandered among barrels of root bits and powders. Joel bagged ground starfish and I found tea containing catnip.
The cashier was plump and thick. Soft flesh filled her faced where wrinkles otherwise would. Her grey hair was held bundled in an orange hankerchief. A black-haired girl emerged from the back door. She carried a box with her chest pressed against the cardboard. I watched for a moment when the cashier said, "Okay, Okay. Goodbye."

3.
After passing a bright row of florists Joel said, "We make a right here, then another right at the end of this street, then the first left after that." Right, right, left. Simple.
After that first right all we walked by was house after house. There were gas stations, but then I realized, So? I thought of the sidewalks of Richmond, of the ivy islands along the sidewalks that seemed to have another world contained underneath its leaves, which were perpetually green. I thought of the shuffling I sometimes heard when I passed them, of the rats that lived beneath the low canopy.
I began to feel the weight of my clothes as we walked. They clung to my moist skin, soaking up my sweat. "Can't we get on another bus?"
Joel shook his head. "We'll just get lost."
"What?"
"We will. Trust me." So I did.
After an hour I began counting each street we passed, and after another hour I stopped. The sun was passed halfway above us. "You know where you're going, right?"
"No," Joel said, squinting his eyes. "I've never been there. I just want to take the simplest route."
"This is it?"
"We won't get lost."
"Can we take a break? I'm getting tired."
"We're almost there."
"Are we?"
"Yes. Let's just keep moving." At some point, we reached an unshaded stretch of sidewalk. There were no trees or buildings tall enough to block the sun. The cement beneath my feet felt as if it were pulling me down. A breeze blew but did nothing to cool me.
I don't remember making it back to the shade.
There was only sidewalk beneath each step when Joel said, "Make a right." After turning the corner we saw the first left a some hundred yards away, just before a long bend in the road. The bridge stood beyond, jutting over the bay's mouth.

The road to the beach curved at the end; it ran behind the hill and we couldn't see what it turned to. Trees lined the road that grew slanted out of the hills. Grey clouds rolled in, but the sun was still up, hidden in the overcast.
We could see the parking lot at the end of the road. The lot was filled with cars and as we approached I began to notice all the children. "This is it?"
"I don't know," Joel said.
"Were there a lot of kids there?"
"When?"
"When you saw it from the water."
"I don't think so. All I saw were those girls."
We continued on. Before entering the parking lot we passed a restroom building where, under outside shower spigots, mothers and fathers washed sand off their children. A bean-shaped lady took the diaper off her baby and washed him naked at the outside showers. She held him in the air away from her, her thick arms outstretched as the round baby writhed crying under the cold spray. A bald man monitored his sons washing. The man's head shined as he pointed at spots on his boys' legs. He pressed the shower button, and they'd wash off some more.

4.
I spotted shards of broken glass in the sand so I kept my shoes on. I told Joel but he took his shoes and socks off anyways. "I'll keep an eye out," he said.
People were beginning to leave. The sun was still out but a cold breeze blew in from the ocean. We headed north where the bridge was rooted to the city. There were no naked women. Most were in sweaters. One girl, thin and brown with long hair and big sunglasses wore a big sweater over her bikini. As she walked alone along shore I saw the the top tied around the back of her neck and the bottom fringe of the sweater hiked up her thighs. The cheek clefts of her ass poked out with each step. But that was it. "Where are the women?" I asked.
"Don't ask me," Joel said. "I never said anything was for sure."
I stopped. Joel kept walking, his arms, with a shoe in each hand, swinging at his side, his gaze at the sand. Around the beach people walked along the surf, dogs ran back and forth fetching Frisbees and tennis balls. Seagulls ran along the white water. The sand in my shoes seeped through my socks and mixed with my toe sweat. When I started again towards the rocks I couldn't spot Joel.

Before reaching the rocks I saw a big-bellied man wearing only feathered armbands, silver bracelets and sharp-edged sunglasses. His hair ran down to his waist and curled in coils at the ends, his long beard grew out in scraggles. In his hand he had a walking stick standing taller than himself and behind was a makeshift shelter of sticks and blankets. His skin was roasted orange and he looked at out to the ocean as if he were searching for something. I looked out and noticed the tide rising. A boat flashing light loomed distant in the water.
I kept watch for Joel but found him nowhere. I told myself he was there, somewhere near. My belly hurt and and the back of my head pulsed heavy. At the rocks I crawled up beyond the climbing surf and had some siopao and Gatorade. The siopao was cold but good. It was easy to eat; I still burn my tongue when they're hot.
The sun descended. The tide rose higher. The boat in the distance seemed further than before, smaller, but its light still shined bright. The aches were gone. My belly and my head felt fine. I could see more of the beach from my rock. I looked down at it all but still never found Joel.

When the surf neared my toes I started back for the parking lot. The sun, large in its bright dive, was half gone. The boat in the distance sat to the right of the sun, just a speck by the horizon line, its flash of light no longer visible. The naked man, now poncho-clad, sat under his shelter beating a drum. The sand was footprint-pocked, choppy, like the ocean's surface. Deep footprints, small footprints, dog prints, bird prints, even the prints of a long, tight spiral whorled in the sand, more and more catching the wash of night's climbing tide.

There was something rolling in the tide's fringe. It was a crab. It struggled on its back as the tide crept below softly. When I came close I saw that its claws were two different sizes. Its left was too small for his size but the right was even smaller. I could see it's soft newness in its translucency. The crab was a decent size, as big as my hand's palm. I thought it looked funny on its back. I was amused at its awkward position. I watched the crab struggle until dark then wrapped it in siopao paper, placed it in my pack then continued on to the parking lot. As I plowed through the sand the crab's shuffling tickled my back. I never found Joel.

5.
The night deepened as I climbed up the road. Trees outside the grasp of streetlights disappeared. I peed under the cover of shadows, afraid of the sterile gloom of the parking lot restrooms. Windows along cliffside mansions lit up. I couldn't see my feet. I trusted the concrete below.
I sat on a bench under a streetlight to clean the sand from my shoes and socks. Darkness encompassed the light. I set my pack beside me and as I shook out my shoes and whipped my socks against one another I watched the crab moving inside. As I slid on my socks and laced my shoes I wondered where Joel was, if he was still on foot, still at the beach, or somewhere in the city.

I hopped on the first bus that passed. I told the driver I needed to get on the BART. She pointed at the seat beside the stairway and said, "Sit there. I tell you where to get off."
The bus was empty. Sitting so close to the driver I wonder if she heard the crab rustling. As the bus moved on, I was lulled by purring acceleration, the brakes' steaming hiss and the drone of flickering lights. I watched my reflection in the window until my eyes sealed in sleep.

There are occasions when I'm almost fully conscious in my dreams, sometimes to where I have actual control over my actions. On the bus I don't remember falling asleep. One moment I was in the bus staring at myself in the mirror, the next moment I was sitting next to my father as he drove along an empty road that slashed past skyscraping tract homes. I had no control in this dream, it seemed unnecessary. We just drove in silence as more homes appeared before us, reaching higher and higher higher, their long shadows grouped in one, keeping away the sun.
I not never fond taking conscious control in my dreams, making things happen as I think they should. I enjoy my dreams more when I have no control. Those dreams have more meaning, and I don't wake up afraid.

I woke to the driver saying, "Wake up, this is you." For a moment I didn't know where I was. I thought I'd stumbled into a dream. "Cross the street here and wait for the 46. Then get off at Embarcadero."
I stood up. "Thank you."
"What's in the bag? Dinner?"
"It's a pet."
"A pet? What kind?"
"A crab."
"You get that crab at the beach?"
"Yeah."
"You gonna end up killing that crab. Unless it's a hermit. Where you gonna keep it."
"In a bucket."
"Is it a hermit?"
"I don't know."
"Is it small?"
"No."
"You gonna kill that crab," the driver said, then the doors hissed shut and the bus went off.

While waiting for the 46 I opened my pack to let the crab breathe. I was sitting by myself at a bench across the street from where I got off the bus. The crab had worked itself out of its wrapping and sat above the crumpled paper like it was a nest. The tiny claw had broken off, probably during his skirmish in the pack. It lay beside the crab, slowly opening.
I closed my pack as a bus approached. Its number posted 29. The bus stopped, its door opened, nobody got on or off. As it drove on I thought I saw Joel sitting in the back, asleep.

After sitting for some time my eyes had adjusted to the dark. Everything under streetlights I could see clearly. I could read the graffiti on the bench across the street, look into the shadows and make out lurking cats rooting through trash.
Few cars passed. Fewer than what I expected, anyways. This was the city. I thought there would be more cars on the roads. In the city I was keen on traffic, on the stop and go. I watched a white wagon coast through a series of green lights without another car around, its red taillight ribbon diffused by streetlights overhead.
A group of guys turned the corner and stood near the bench. They weren't boys, or teenagers or men. They were guys. They wore white shirts. We were quiet.
Soon the 46 arrived and they got on, each claiming a bench. I followed and sat behind the driver.

Three other passengers came onboard. First, a crouching, tiny woman who wore her grey hair in a handkerchief, then a boney man whose leathery skin looked pulled tight around his neck and face, and last the shuffler.
I couldn't see outside the bus windows. All I saw were reflections. Through his reflection I saw the shuffler digging through the pockets of his bomber. He looked at me through my reflection and I turned, keeping my eyes on my feet. Then I heard the clipping of fingernails. We all were quiet. I kept my head down.

The three other passengers were gone before the Embarcadero stop. The old woman and the boney man exited first, together. The shuffler exited a bit further. I watched him walk down the front steps, turn right, then disappear behind window reflections.
When the bus arrived at the Embarcadero station. The guys on the bus exited through the back stairs. I asked the driver where the Richmond-bound station was. "Follow those fellows," he said, pointing at the guys from the bus descending a sidewalk stairway. "Hurry," the bus driver said. "The last train is coming soon."

Just as I entered the empty stairway I felt vibrations beneath my feet. The walls hummed. A train approached but there were no indications it was slowing. I was at the platform when the train charged through the station in a blur. The air shook my body and the vibrations below massaged my achy feet.
I felt the crab turn over in the pack. It turned slow, first in feeble fidgets that finished as soon as they began, then in one swooping shift the crab rolled onto its other side and my pack flattened some. I felt the sudden desire to hurry home and get the crab in a bucket of water. I tried to remember where my father stored the fish tank air pump, which I planned to use in the bucket so the crab would have oxygen, like the turtles and frogs in Chinatown. The crab could die but I didn't want it to be at my hands as the bus driver prophesied.

When the train arrived I walked through its sliding door into an empty car. The smell wasn't like the one earlier in the day, which was fresher, not so human. The car's scent now was definitely of people: the flowery hints of women, of dust and cardboard from workers, of sweat, musk. The doors closed and the train started again on the tracks. There was a sudden dip, the air tightened and I knew we were under water.
The lights flickered as they had earlier, staying off for several seconds at a time. In the strobe I sat silent and unmoving, the crab at my back's small creeping in the pack. While the lights were off I heard a quick sliding sound followed by another. When the lights began strobing again I noticed the guys from the bus were at the other end of the car.

Each one was younger than I thought. On the bus I never really got to really look at them, but now, under lights dancing in flickers, I took them in.
The four of them looked younger than I first assumed. Pimpled, awkward in lank, the hairs on their faces sparse and splotched, having yet to bulk thick and cover the sinews of their necks and jaws. The short two looked identical. Twins perhaps, brothers at least. Filipinos for sure. I saw the Spanish in the pointedness of their shiny, brown noses, like Joel. The tallest one had a dense, inchoate afro mossed over his head. The last was a kid with red freckles and shaved hair, growing orange and stubby. He sat next to the tall kid conversing in whispers as he pounded a fist in an open hand.
They looked to be my age, the age of Joel, of the kids at school. If any older, not by much. They spoke of girls, of teachers, of classes. "We're never going to need any of it," I heard one say.
By Berkeley I'd been acknowledged by the kid with the afro. His hands were pocketed when he looked at me and nodded. There was no smile nor hostility, so when they approached I wasn't as nervous.

"What's in the bag?" the skinny brother asked, standing above me, his oily forehead reflecting beams of fluorescent light. The other sat slouched in a seat behind, looking off to his left were no one was. The red one stood by the nearest door to another car and the tall one stood by the sliding exits. Both made like the seated brother; red stared at the floor's dirt-trailed carpet, tall stared at the closed door in front of him.
I kept my gaze at my hands, fingers interlocked tight and resting on my lap. I felt the crab move. "Nothing," I said.
"Give me the bag," the skinny brother asked. I stayed still.
"Give him the bag," said the brother, keeping his stare left. I didn't move. The crab did.
I did nothing as the skinny brother removed the straps from my shoulders with frustrated strength. I feigned dead arms as he stripped the pack from me with one swift pull, jerking me forward with force. Before he could open my pack, the train slowed, so the skinny brother sat next to me while we stopped at Ashby where no one entered the car.

I'd once watched an eighty year old parrot named Salty snap a cleaned chicken leg bone in half. It sought fatty poultry marrow, which it picked out with its strong, sharp beak. One Sunday after lunch I tried holding him because of the enthusiastic insistence of an ex-girlfriend's peppy aunt. "Old Salty. He's just a tired bird," she said.
When Salty bit into the finger I'd held perched before him, I swung my hand back and forth with a certain violence that had no regard for the parrot. The bird was more than four times my age, but if Salty hadn't lost his grip so soon, I would have punched my fist through a fucking window. All I thought about was that chicken bone snapping, about its similarity in length to my finger.
I imagine the skinny brother felt the same way as he pulled his hand out of my pack with the crab's one claw clutched across his middle finger. His voice cracked in his shriek. Then he ripped the crab off and threw it against the window. The claw held tight to his finger, bending at its joints. Where the crab smacked against a window was a splatter wet with tiny guts, shell bits and sea water. Below laid the crab on its feet unmoving, its shell cracked clean in two.
The trained slowed again shortly, in El Cerrito, where the guys left with my pack.

There wasn't much time to think before Richmond. I sat alone for a while until I heard over the intercom: "LAST STOP." I thought about the dead crab while watching it tremble with the train's vibrations. I glanced at it as the train slowed towards the station. As I walked out of the car, I thought about my father's crab, how it wasn't real. Then I thought about the difference between dreams and life, fearful of the following day.
Read more!

Long Story # 2

Ok, I am turning this in here because we have a lack of stories for next week and I hadn't made copies of this one to bring in today because this one wasn't technically due until the last day. Sorry for the lengthiness, I had planned to shorten it before it was due but it's about a page over as it is. If you want to you can skip the last chapter, but that's the one with the most violence so you'll be missing out if you do!


Melissa Brewer
Long Story #2
English 410
Prof. Michael Crowder

Torrid Adaptation
Phillip (Robert) Williams III, September 2000

Robert's father was a firefighter who had died honorably on the job. Robert would dream of fire, burning his subconscious thoughts, charring his hopes, and leaving soot over all his fantasies. He would wake at the age of twenty eight in the same firehouse where his father woke on his last day alive, run his hands through his flaming red hair and catch the scent of the thick, black, piping hot firehouse coffee he enjoyed every morning.

His work kept him away from his family a lot and it put a strain on his marriage. His wife, Brooke, eventually left him and Robert let her have everything. There was no custody battle and she agreed to let him see the girls whenever he wanted. In return he gave her everything she wanted, much more than she needed. He visited Taylor and Clair as often as possible and even moved into a tiny apartment in the bad part of town just to be able to give them more. It was a lonely existence. With the exception of the guys at the firehouse, his only friend in the world was Peter, his neighbor from down the hall.

Robert was part of a unit of firefighters referred to as 'Hotshots'. They were wild land firefighters with extensive training, often called in on large fires that are endangering homes or other structures. Robert slowly got out of bed and went for a cup of that firehouse coffee, but he never got it. The emergency sirens blared, and it was time to go to work. The men scurried to the trucks, suited up, and headed out. A forest fire, about 30 miles off the highway. He thought to himself, "What was anyone doing there?"

They arrived at the scene; it was a four-alarm fire. The structure was a large round white facility, about 20 stories tall. It was blazing before them and quickly spreading to the trees surrounding it. Robert jumped down and out of the truck and ran to the hose. He could barely see through the clouds of smoke or hear anything above the sirens blaring around him. Robert and the rescue team braved the fire, intent to rescue anyone trapped inside. They saved several people, and Robert continued to search for more. He heard a man choking and hurried towards him, when the floor collapsed all around him. Robert was two stories up before he fell through the building into the middle of the inferno, and was rendered unconscious. By the time his team found him, the fire had burned through his uniform and began to scorch his skin.

Adesina, April 1988

Adesina was a woman born and raised to kill. Every day she woke in a large white room with high ceilings and nothing but paint on the walls, a white four drawer dresser next to her twin bed and a large mirror on the farthest wall from her bed that was too high for her to use. All she would ever smell is fresh paint. She would dress herself, brush her teeth and wait to be escorted to school, by men in white coats.

Her school was no different than most schools, except that it was on the other side of the large facility she had grown up in, and she went to school, by herself. She was taught math, history, geography and science the first half of every day. On the second half she learned combat training, military operations, high-precision sniper killing with moving targets, real-time training exercises in high-speed guerilla style strike-and-withdraw operations, and her personal favorite, the Brazilian fighting style called Capaoira. She was able to speak German, Russian, French and English fluently by the age of fifteen.

She knew what a normal life was, she knew that hers was quite unique, and she had a passionate desire to have a normal life of her own someday. The only man she knew was her Doctor, Dr. Ignacia. He would come and talk to her about what she learned at school while he checked her vitals at least twice a day. The nurses would come and go, but he was the only person constant in her life and even he seemed slightly detached from her for some reason, until the first day of her seventeenth year.

Dr. Ignacia had all the guards stand down from their duties to observe her room on this night. She was awakened by the doctors' heavy footsteps entering her bedroom. He approached her bed swiftly, held her down by her throat, and began to lick behind her ear. Before she had a chance to make any noise, he ravaged her body mercilessly, over and over until it was dirty with the sin and sweat he forced upon her. For the first time in her life she smelled something other than paint, and it smelled like unadulterated bile. She felt like her skin was boiling. She could still hear him huffing deep breaths over her body, having his way with her until her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fainted from anxiety.

Samara, January, 1972

Samara was strikingly beautiful. She had strawberry blonde hair, olive skin, high cheekbones, legs that seem to go on forever, and a beauty mark below her left eye. She could mute a room just by walking through it, and she could convince a man to change his mind about anything by whispering, subtly in his ear, an idea between drags from a Virginia Slim. She married young, to a scientist named Henry. She was twenty four years old and he had just graduated Oxford and moved to America for his Research. She was a Goodwill Ambassador for India. After they married, she would donate much of her husband's fortune to a colorful array of charities.

Samara was elated with joy when she found out she was pregnant at age twenty six. A boy, just as Henry wished. The pregnancy was going well until unfortunately when she was eight months pregnant, Samara stumbled upon secrets that revealed to her, that her husband Henry had crossed all limits of cruelty with his experiments. The information was caustic to her life. She planned to leave him in the night. Samara grabbed one bag of luggage and walked out of their mansion and around to the garage where Henry already had some men in white coats waiting for her. He knew what she knew; it was unfortunate she knew but never the less, he couldn't let her go. Henry's men forced her into the back of the white windowless van. The white coats entered the back of the van, held her down, strapped her to a gurney, and sedated her.

She woke up, locked in a large white room. Days turned into weeks in the white room, until one day while pacing back and forth her water broke. The white coats rushed in to obtain her and bring her to the hospital ward of this big white facility where she had been held captive. The labor lasted only two hours, but felt like ten to her. She all but forgot where she was when she held him in her arms and said aloud to herself, "Scott Ronin Ignacia, my beautiful boy." He then was taken from her by the nurse's and rushed out of the room. Now she was alone and frightened for not only her own, but the life of her newborn son. Her husband entered the room.

"He's beautiful isn't he?" Samara said with hope in her voice.

"Almost as beautiful as you my dear," Henry replied expressionless. He raised a needle to her arm; she was too weak from the labor and the painkillers to resist his advances.

"What are you doing? What is that?" Samara asked.

"I have to protect what I'm doing here Samara, it's very important and you won't understand, or you can't and It's better I take care of you than Mr. Grey, at least my way you will feel no pain. This is going to hurt me more than..."

"No! Please! Bring Scott back to me! I don't want him to never see me again!" Tears burst from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks as the medicine worn in and she slumped back into her hospital bed. Her consciousness faded and she was no longer a threat to anyone.

Kevin Bennet, December 1990

Kevin was born an orphan, adopted as an infant to Kathy and Donald Bennet. He was a rebellious child who never responded well to authority. His parents didn't seem to care too much about him, especially his stepfather. They never celebrated his birthday and he was raised in a very strict environment, early curfews, restricted diet, and strenuous interrogations from his parents on anyone who befriended him and came to his house. Sometimes Kevin wondered why they ever adopted him at all.

On his sixteenth birthday his plans to go to the river with friends was suddenly canceled when his parents sent him to his room, or if you asked him, his prison cell. About two hours later, he saw from his window a van pulling up into the driveway of their two story ranch style home. It was white with no windows except in front. Two men exited the vehicle wearing white coats. They moved swiftly, one of them had a briefcase. He went to the stairs to see who they were.

"It's all there." one of the white coats said to his parents.

"Will we ever see him again?" Kathy asked.

"That's not necessary ma'am." The other white coat replied as they both started toward Kevin's room.

Kevin felt his pulse quicken as he decided to run back into his room and out the window, down the fire escape and into his father's car. He knew how to hotwire a vehicle. This type of thing was elementary to him as experience from his rebellious years finally became of use. Sweat was beading down his wrists as he rubbed the wires together until a spark, and it ignited. The engine turned and he peeled out, burning the rubber off the outermost layer of the wheels, and he sped down the road fast as humanly possible to get away from whatever those men wanted to do with him.

Over the next couple of years he would live in exile, afraid he was being hunted by those men in white coats. He sounded delirious, if you walked by and heard him speak in his sleep on top of the cardboard box beds he made over the next couple of years. Eventually he met a guy named Kirk, a few years older than him but not many, who taught him the ropes and provided shelter for him in exchange for his help to knock off a few liquor stores, steal a car here and there, and a lot of small time stuff like mugging people on the streets for their wallets, jewelry and cash. He never felt comfortable with his criminal behavior, but sometimes you have to get your hands a little dirty to survive.

He did not succeed in avoiding the law, or the men in white coats. After about five years of running, he was caught running out of a jewelry store. They took him downtown with a couple other kids Kirk had recruited to work for him and Kirk as well. After they finger printed Kevin, they put him in a separate holding tank. Six hours later, much to his dismay the white coats entered the room quickly moving toward him, and plunging a needle into the crook of his elbow before he could think about kicking or screaming. He fell quickly into a haze of an undesired rest.

Kevin woke up alone in a white room. He had no memory of what happened and he was afraid. The room he was in had a single white dresser, a bed and a door which he timidly proceeded to open. He felt his pulse quicken and noticed the fresh scent of new paint, and fear. He crossed the doorway and stepped out into a long, white, narrow, hallway going both directions. He bumped into a man in a white coat and said,

"Excuse me sir, I can't remember who I am, what am I doing here?"

"You are Ronin, and you're getting to work. These walls need to be painted," He handed him a bucket of paint and a roller, "Now get to work."

Kevin's first impulse was to throw the bucket of paint at the man but he resisted, unsure of why he even felt that way or who this man actually was.

"Yes sir," he began to stroke the wall before him with white paint and careful consideration.

Dr. Ignacia, March 1972

Henry Ignacia was the youngest man to ever graduate first in his class, from Oxford University. He held a PhD in Biological Sciences, specializing in Cellular Neuroscience at the age of twenty nine. His methods were at times unethical; however his findings were remarkably advanced, and often caused his superiors to turn a blind eye to his extortions.

Soon after he graduated he moved to America and went to work at The Forensic Investigation Center in Albany New York. This is the city where he met, fell in love with, and was married to the woman he would love until the day she died, Samara.

Everything was going well until he was denied funding for an experiment he had put many years worth of work and research into. His temper took hold and he was in a rage, nearly destroying his work, throwing files around his office when a man in a black suit and trench coat walked into the room.

"Dr. Ignacia. I am Mr. Grey, and I believe we have a job opening for you."

"What? Who are you? Who do you work with?" Dr. Ignacia demanded.

"Who we work with is not what you want to know, you ask the wrong questions. What we work with, that is what you wish to know. Come with me and I will show you."

Mr. Grey escorted Dr. Ignacia outside where a white stretch SUV limo was waiting in the driveway. Anxious as he was, Dr. Ignacia kept a cool demeanor the whole ride there. No words were said. They pulled up in front of a large round white building with lots of military looking men guarding the perimeter. He was taken inside and given a tour of various laboratories performing experiments of every kind possible. They stood in front of a room full of large cylinder shaped pods and Mr. Grey turned to Henry,

"I understand you are married. I also understand you have the intelligence enough to separate your work from your emotions," He said to Henry, and Henry nodded, "We will need you to take some of her blood, her saliva and hair samples. I suspect you know why I am asking this of you."

"Yes." Henry said. "I do, and I will."

Henry had never seen a research facility of this caliber. He marveled at his new opportunity in keeping with the cool customer exterior he projected while Mr. Grey escorted him back to the long white limo waiting out front. He gave Henry a manila envelope and said,

"So you will work here, and we will fund your experiments," Mr. Grey told Henry matter-of-factly, and he continued, "There is everything you need to know in that envelope, but your wife may never visit this place or know its location. You call me tomorrow." Mr. Grey nodded and walked back through the large white facilities' sliding glass doors.

Henry went home that night to find Samara had made a huge feast for two. She always went above and beyond his expectations. It caused him to think, about how he had the chance to conduct his research with no limits, and how she wasn't that important to him anymore. She handed him a glass of red wine.

"Hello my darling, this all looks amazing, you are amazing." He kissed her gently, next to the beauty mark below her left eye.

"I have something wonderful to tell you Henry," She paused, "I'm pregnant!"

His eyebrows reached for his hairline and he scooped her up spinning her around and yelling, "I'm gonna be a dad!" She had instantly regained her importance to him. Then he carried her into their bedroom.

"Henry what about dinner?" she asked.

"Ahh screw the dinner, we should celebrate today." They melted into one another and made love until the sun came up. Afterward, Henry continued to lay with Samara in the crook of his left arm sleeping. He could smell the honeysuckle in her hair and the cool morning breeze wafting in from the morning outside. Coddling his wife, his love, the mother of his future son, he deliberated his own secret achievement that happened earlier that day and finally fell asleep.

Flash Over, 1979

Adesina grew numb to her doctors late night visits, which happened at least once a week. She separated herself from reality when she needed to; focusing on the skills she was being taught every day to eventually use them against him. To teach him that giving in to his erotic desires wasn't going to go unpunished. The fury inside of her grew strong and fast.

She began stirring in her sleep, this did not go unnoticed by her nurse's and the guards on duty were doubled. She dreamt of fire, burning her subconscious thoughts, charring her hopes, leaving soot all over her long since stolen innocence. She woke in a fury with sweat beading from her forehead. She rose from the bed and let out a single searing scream that echoed in the large white room. Her face was grave as she extended her arms out to either side of her body. Her hands combusted, and flames burst out from her fingertips traveling in every direction she channeled her fury. The men in white coats entered the room and strategically strapped her to the bed.

"It's happened sir," One of the white coats said into a telephone mounted on the wall by the door of her room.

Dr. Ignacia walked into the room moments later and the flames burnt faster and larger until he sedated her with a syringe.

"It's ok my darling Adesina. Do not be afraid. Now tell me, how did you do that?" He asked.

"I don't know, what's happening to me?" She cried.

"That's alright. We will all know soon enough." He told her.



Her eyes felt heavy. She was heard the last crackle of the still burning fire echo to her like a lullaby, lulling her into a deep slumber.

Cecilia, October, 1991

Cecilia was born blind. She didn't know where or to whom or for what purpose. Her life went like this; she woke up, dressed herself and went to school. She was taught normal academics the first half of every day and on the second half she learned advanced martial arts, military operations, and weapons training with her Instructor Adesina. She had no idea what anyone looked like, but it was plain for anyone else to see that she had an uncanny resemblance to her Mentor. Strawberry blond hair, olive skin and even the beauty mark they both had just below their left eyes. The difference, Cecilia was about ten years younger and Adesina wasn't blind. Cecilia's skills in combat were much more advanced as well due to her ability to somehow suspend herself in mid-air.

People didn't talk to her unless they needed to. Conversations with her teachers, doctors and Adesina were all very short and to the point. She felt alone, and no one ever entertained her need to joke and be a girl until she met a boy. He came to her room to paint it. He could barely look away from her to do his job the first time he saw her.

"What is your name?"

"Cecilia, what's yours?"

"Ronin, I have to go but I will be back tomorrow."

He waved but she didn't see. Over the next few months she would usually enter her room as he was leaving it. She always smelled the fresh paint in the room when he had been there. The smell reminded Cecilia of Ronin, and she was always sad when she could smell it but he was already gone.

On Cecilia's fourteenth birthday she woke up, suspended in the air about five feet above her bed. She could see in the dark, not completely but in what could only otherwise be described as a type of infrared vision. As soon as she saw her bed beneath her she fell back into it, the men in white coats rushed into the room and strapped Cecilia to the bed with restraints she never knew were there. Then they made a call with a telephone that had never been used in her room before.

"It's happening already sir."

"What's happening?" She screamed and tried to break free, "How did I do that? Please, tell me what's happening to me!"

She felt a needle finding its way through the skin in the crook of her left elbow. The blurry red and orange mess she always saw faded away and she fell, fast asleep.

The Break out, September 2000

Adesina noticed Dr. Ignacia observing Cecilia's blossoming beauty. Adesina wasn't going to allow what happened to her, happen to Cecilia. So Adesina turned to the only other person she knew cared about Cecilia, Ronin. She passed him in the hall and slipped a note into his pocket. It was so covertly placed there that the cameras didn't even notice.

She waited to see if he would appear where she had instructed him to, outside of Cecilia's room at noon. If only to confirm the fool in love that he was, he showed up and he was prepared. They exchanged no words as Adesina reached for the lock and placed her hand over it, she melted the lock and ordered Ronin to hurry in and get Cecilia as she stood watch. The three of them ran toward an emergency exit at the end of the hallway. Two guards ran after them and Adesina turned to throw fire between themselves and the guards. The flame retardant paint on the walls kept it from spreading fast, but she persisted. Ronin opened the door and ran towards the forest surrounding the building.

"Keep running!" Adesina yelled.

Ronin and Cecilia ran so far away they couldn't see the building anymore, but they could smell Adesina's revenge burning it down behind them. They kept running.

Fuse, September 2000

Phillip Robert Williams was found unconscious beneath a pile of debris in the burning white building. Robert's fire crew carried him to an ambulance waiting outside. There wasn't a hospital anywhere near The Research Facility, which was by now an apocalyptic backdrop of flames raging behind them. The ambulance driver was in a hurry and barely noticed the woman that appeared on the road before the van. It came to a screeching halt.

"Get the hell outta here lady, we gotta move!" The Paramedic in the passenger seat yelled to her.

She walked closer to the ambulance. It was dark, but you could see her sultry figure moving gracefully forward with caution in the ambiance of the vehicles emergency lights spinning around her. She stopped about three feet away and tilted her head in consideration. She peered at the hood of the car intently and flames burst out from the engine beneath it.

"What the..." the driver yelled.

The woman was gone, no; she was in the back of the van.

"How did you get back...?" The ambulance driver curled back in submission to the icy stare she threw at him.

She slung Robert over her shoulders and disappeared into the hectic night. The ambulance exploded behind her. She had gotten them at least ten miles away from the accident already. She heard it boom, but didn't look back. She wondered for a moment if the men had survived, and dismissed the thought immediately, as she was trained to do.

Robert woke up in his home the next day, with no burn marks anywhere on his skin. He thought it was all a dream. He got up, got dressed and rushed out to one of his regularly scheduled father-daughter days. He took with him a bag of garbage he intended to throw in the dumpster in the alleyway behind his apartment complex. When he entered the alleyway he saw a group of young men kicking and spitting on Pete, his friend from down the hall. They were bashing his head against the red brick wall of the building and Pete was now lying, beaten to a bloody red pulp beneath the men encircling him. Robert flew into a rage and threw himself toward them. Pinning one man to the ground, he reached back, clenched his fist and the man began to scream, they all screamed, like little girls. He looked back and his fist was on fire. He got up and all the men ran off without looking back.

"How did you do that?" Pete asked. Staring blankly at the fist Robert was still holding together in front of him. Smoke rose from his knuckles. He looked at Pete for a moment, he said nothing and then he turned and walked away.

"I have to see my girls... What the... This isn't even... I have to see my girls." Robert mumbled as he walked away in what seemed to Pete to be almost like a trance.

Flicker, September 2000

Robert arrived alone at his ex-wife's house to see his daughters Taylor and Clair. Brooke opened the door and gave Robert a friendly hug.

"Are you okay?" She put her hand to his forehead, "You're burning up." She looked at him with her blond eye brows shifting forward with concern.

"No I'm fine, I'll be alright, I'm not sick I swear. Where are the girls?" He asked

"Taylor's out back playing with the dog and Clair's in her room. Are you sure you're ok? Something is going around because Clair is sick in bed as we speak and..."

"I told you, I'm fine." Robert responded.

"Ok but make sure Clair takes her medicine and never let her outside without a coat this weekend ok? The doctor says the fever is high but it should be gone by tomorrow night."

"Daddy, Daddy!" Taylor, his twelve year old daughter came in and hugged him tight then released him and jumped around saying, "You have to come quick and see the new trick I just taught to Ember!"

"Alright just a second ok sweetheart, I'm gonna go check on Clair first." He hugged her and then proceeded up the stairs of the house while Taylor ran back outside.

Clair's room had pink walls and butterflies hanging from the ceiling. She was turning seven years old that weekend. He knelt down beside her bed.

"Aww sweetie. I wish I could make you all better for your birthday." He stroked the hair stuck to her cheek with sweat. He sat up a little to kiss her on her forehead. Then stroked her forehead and this time it wasn't hot. The fever was gone. He thought to himself "What happened to her fever? What is happening to me? I have to get away from here. No one is safe, what if I catch fire on one of my girls!"

"Baby, if you can hear me please understand I have to go but I promise I will be back soon." He ran out of the room. He told Brooke he had to leave. She stuttered searching for the words to ask him for an explanation through his frantic behavior but he ran out too fast.

He was lying in his bed that night, wondering if maybe he should go talk to Petey, and see what he thinks about all of this. There was a flicker of light by his bedroom window, he looked and a woman was perched there.

"Who are you?" Robert sat up and asked.

"I am Adesina, but that's not important, you ask the wrong questions. What am I?

"What are you?"

"I'm a clone. My DNA is mixed with a serum designed to enable me with the ability to control temperature through my skin. I can make it rise, and I can make it fall."

He thought about his daughter's fever.

"I saw what happened to you. I can help you. I know you have my ability now as well. But you are sloppy with it. You can't control it and I am the only one you can trust who knows how to teach you. But first I need your help."

"What do you want me to do?" Robert asked.

"You're going to help me expose the man who did this to me, to us, his name is Henry Ignacia."

Firefly, July 2001

After two months of extensive training with Robert, Cecilia grew jealous of Robert. She couldn't wait for this to all be over so she and Ronin and Adesina could run away to some deserted island somewhere. She was tired of hiding out at Roberts's house, and having to eat whatever food he brought home. She hid the fact that she had been able to completely master her levitation powers, even from Adesina.

Robert's training was going well. He was able to master the rise and fall of temperature through his skin so well he would upon occasion flick Petey on the forehead and give him a brain freeze whenever he felt like it. Petey helped out by repairing the broken appliances Robert accidently destroyed before he mastered his skills. About nine months after the break out, the day for Adesina's revenge came and Adesina led Robert to where The Ignacious Institute was being rebuilt.

"The son of a bitch is back to business as usual." Adesina was looking at the building that appeared before them as if it had never been burned at all.

She led Robert around to a back door, a guard was posted.

"Shh." She put her fingertips to her lips and gazed at Robert sternly before she leapt out onto her hands and snapped the man's neck with her feet before he could even reach for his gun.

"What the hell? You can't just kill people, what the fuck!" Robert yelled.

"Keep it down before someone hears you and kills us. This was the only way to get in and trust me; he wasn't a good man anyway." Adesina used the man's badge card to swipe and unlock the door. Robert followed hesitantly but close behind her. They traveled down a long narrow white hallway, hiding in corners when the men in white coats passed. Adesina seemed to have their routines memorized.

They reached a door, Adesina swiped the card again and they hurried in, locking the door behind them. It was Dr. Ignacias's office. They kept the lights off.

"What are we looking for?" Robert whispered, sifting through papers on a mahogany desk.

"Anything that will expose him," Adesina answered, "It shouldn't be too hard."

A man entered the room and turned on the lights.

"You son of a bitch!" Adesina's entire body caught fire instantly and she lunged toward him, he tried to run but she thrust him down to the floor and got on top holding him down.

"How do you like it when I'm on top Doc?" she held him down and placed her hand on his face, he screamed. His skin was boiling from the fire generating from her palm, Robert could hear it sizzling, he could smell the burning flesh and he tried to reach for her, to stop her, but his power to cool himself in a fire wasn't advanced enough to prevent him from burning in the sweltering inferno of her rage. The fire was quickly spreading around the room.

"Adesina you're killing him! Wait, that was your plan all along wasn't it?"

"You might as well just get outta here Robert, and make sure the file I just had gets destroyed, It's about you." She answered.

"But you..."

"I said RUN!" The command in Adesina's voice could not be denied. He ran. He heard the last squeal of Dr. Ignacia's desperate plea to be released, and turned around. Robert ran back to her. He found her dead body lying next to what was left of the doctors. The room was hot boxed and he had to get out before he inhaled too much smoke as Adesina apparently had. He picked her body up and carried it through the fire. When he reached the outside, Cecilia was floating before him, with her eyes wide and blurring,

"What did you do?!?!?"

"I didn't... she... I'm sorry Cecilia." He began to weep.

Cecilia lowered herself to the ground. Walked quickly and with authority toward Robert and paused. She took Adesina's body with one hand, and placed the other on Roberts's chest infusing a blast that would send him flying back into the wall of the white building. He slid down and landed on his back writhing in pain. He raised his head to see Cecilia not just levitating, but flying away with Adesina's body.

Mr. Grey stood, on top of a hill about fifty feet away, with a bird's eye view of the whole event.

"Interesting," he said aloud to himself. "How very interesting..."
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Dark Night

To continue our totally class related discussion from last Wednesday...

Dark Knight. If you haven't seen it. See it.

Agree? Disagree? Thoughts?
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Friends?

Melissa Brewer
Long Story #1

July 14, 2008

Sheryl pulled her car up into the parking lot outside the Chevy's Restaurant, where their friend Christian worked as a waiter and began primping her shoulder length blonde hair in the rear view mirror.

"You should stop chewing your hair; it's getting really fried at the ends." her friend Natalie said.

"I think Christian likes you" Natalie says to Sheryl.

"Whatever, we’re just friends. You know I don’t need a boyfriend to hold me down, and he’s such a dork anyway. Even if I wanted a boyfriend it wouldn’t be him." Sheryl said rolling her eyes.
Christian came out ready to party; he had changed in his work's bathroom before they came so they could go straight into town where their friend Amanda had been planning her roommate Mallory’s 21st birthday for months. Christian was about 6 foot 7 inches tall with brown hair, dark eyes and light skin. He might look Italian if he ever got some sun. He was wearing a white button down t-shirt and loose fitting blue jeans. Natalie caught Sheryl checking him out before Sheryl blushed and looked away. Christian hopped in the back seat, you could smell all too well the musty cologne he must have sprayed on just before coming out to the car, and they drove off.

Along the way they got stuck at a red light behind a Mac Truck and unanimously decided to do a Chinese fire drill. They all got out of the car, ran circles around it and in the midst of the drill Sheryl went to the truck driver ahead of them, bummed a cigarette and got back into the car, now in the passenger seat with Christian driving and Natalie in the backseat. They had the radio on full blast and were singing along to Sublime’s self-titled album the whole way there.

They arrived at Amanda’s three bedroom house in Chicago about 20 minutes later. When they walked up to the house, Christian opened the door.

"Thanks." said Natalie flashing a little bit of a sympathetic smile to his obvious efforts to impress Sheryl.

Sheryl followed, saying nothing and then Christian after her. You could smell the Tequila and Whiskey that had already been spilled through the course of the night upon entering the room. The chatter of the people within a two foot vicinity as you walked through the room was all you could hear over the blaring radio.

Christian headed straight into the garage where a game of Beer Pong was in progress. His height gave him an unfair advantage and he was a beer pong pro. Sheryl and Natalie started to make their usual round around the party before settling on a room.

"Dude, you're here, you totally missed it!" Amanda, a tiny red headed girl came rushing up to them.

"Carolyne totally thought the oven was a toilet!" Amanda laughed and caught her breath to finish the story. "She pulled the lid down, peed in it, wiped her ass with a paper towel and walked away like no one just saw her do that ahhh hah hah hah." Amanda was holding her chest which had turned as red as her hair she laughed so hard.

"Damn I wish we would have came earlier!" Sheryl said, Natalie laughed quietly behind her.

"Jews are from Jerusalem ?" they heard Stoner Nick asking Christian as they walked through the garage. Christian for some reason was already engaging in one of his well known historical facts lectures, this time about the holocaust. Stoner Nick thought a Jew was just something you call someone when they didn't share. Nick was also Sheryl's ex-boyfriend, but they were still friends. Natalie leaned in and whispered in Sheryl's ear.

"You really do know how to pick ‘em, Sheryl. Let's just make a couple rounds and then go home ok?" Sheryl ignored her.

They continued through the house heading out back where there was a keg right by the door, and a bonfire in the middle of the huge backyard, surrounded by large rocks stolen from the river earlier that summer. That's where they found Carolyne surrounded by people oblivious to the fact that she was puking up what looked to be Enchiladas, Beans and Rice.

"Serves her right, she's such a bitch." Sheryl said and laughed, then preceded toward a group of guys with her flirty, I want some tonight, walk. Carolyne used to be Sheryl’s best friend until it seemed Carolyne dropped her like a bad habit and became best friends with Mallory, who they still hadn’t found to wish a happy birthday to yet. Natalie helped Carolyne up, carried her through the crowd of people in the house and toward the bathroom. Along the way she saw the news was on the T.V. There was a cow that had gotten stranded on top of a house and Stoner Nick was still talking to Christian.

"What is a cow’s natural enemy?" Christian asked Nick, "I mean all domesticated animals used to be wild and had natural enemies, but who's natural enemy had been the cows?"

"No one dude, I'm telling you man, who's got beef with a cow?" Nick replied.

After holding Carolyne's hair back for about fifteen minutes, Natalie went to the backyard again and found Sheryl in a lip lock with her next bad boy toy. Natalie had never seen this guy before but wasn’t surprised. Sheryl had an affinity for the wrong type of guys, especially ones they didn’t know. Natalie didn't date much at all, she barely went to parties and when she did she never smoked or drank. She was usually the sober driver. This party however, had a surprise for her. Mitchell Davies. He was her childhood crush and best friend from the 6th to the 10th grade. He had moved away and she hadn't seen him in five years until she ran into him by the chips and dip table.

"Holy shit! Natalie?" Mitchell yelled excitedly. "Damn girl, you are lookin good! Come hang out with me, I'm about to blaze a joint." He was looking good too she thought. He had gotten pretty tall, not as tall as Christian but much more muscular. He had sandy blonde hair, gorgeous blue eyes and the softest skin as he grabbed her hand and pulled her toward one of the backrooms. She almost hesitated, only for a moment, and then followed quixotically behind him.

There were about five other people in there, no one she knew. As usual she didn't say much. The room quickly filled with smoke and laughter. Natalie got stoned, pretty fast. When it got back to her the fifth time around it was nothing but a tiny roach (the butt of a joint). She held it up to Mitchell and said.

"What do you want me to do with this?"

"Put it in your pipe and smoke it." He responded with humor in his voice.

"But I don't have a pipe." Natalie said. Everyone laughed and she didn't know why. The room cleared out once the joint was over and they were alone. He looked at her with his sly little grin and moved closer. They had a lot of catching up to do.

“So, what have you been up to sweet thang.”

Natalie giggled and began to tell him how little she had been up to since he left.

About 2 hours later...
"I think I might be pregnant." Sheryl was done making out with that guy and was now talking to their friend Crazy Katie, in the living room. Of all the people there, Sheryl knew she could talk to Katie about anything.

"From that guy Dave? The one who you screamed Dan, over and over, while you were having sex with him?" Katie asked.

"Yep. That would be the guy. Haha, he stopped me too and was like "I'm Dave." Sheryl laughed.

"So what are you gonna name the baby, Dan? or Dave?" Katie asked.

"I'll probably intend to name him Dave and then write Dan on the birth certificate. He won’t know until he turns 18 and tries to get his I.D. at the DMV. The lady behind the counter will be like, here you go Dan, and he's gonna say "I'm Dave". Oh my god, look at Natalie!" Sheryl pointed, Katie turned. Natalie was full on making out with Mitchell in the corner of the room.

"Niiice" Katie said. "Let's go have some shots." Natalie agreed and followed her into the kitchen, where Christian was now in a heated debate with Amanda over whether you can put steak and hamburger patties on the same plate in the fridge without cross-contaminating them.

“They come from the same cow!” Amanda claimed, stuttering her words and not realizing she made little sense.

A few minutes after they took their shots and spent time bullshitting with other guys at the party, there was a knock at the door. It was a couple of fireman. Amanda answered it.

"Ma'am, we have reports that you have a fire in your backyard. We're going to have to take a look at that." Amanda led them out back, managing to keep a sober composure for them.

"Well it is safely contained by these rocks, but you're not allowed to have a fire like this unless you're cooking something." One fireman said.

The guys surrounding the fire, who had been playing and singing along to acoustic guitar jams, were suddenly holding marshmallows on sticks up to the flames.

"We're making S'mores!" their friend Anthony said and flashed a cheesy smile to the firemen. The firemen exchanged a glance, one shrugged at the other.

"Alright then, just make sure you don't leave it unattended, and put it out when you're done, carry on." One of the firemen said before exiting the party. Anthony, a heavier set guy with an amazing voice and talent for music, ate his marshmallow, threw down his stick and picked up his guitar. He continued the song he and Jonathan (another one of their good friends) was singing about a 'fish' with 'big tits' and everyone around them was laughing and singing along with their beers and lit lighters held up and swaying side to side in the air.

A few hours later the party was dieing down. Sheryl decided she was too drunk to drive home; besides, Natalie had already passed out with Mitchell on the couch anyway. Funny she thought, I still haven't even seen Mallory to wish her happy birthday. She asked Amanda where she was but Mallory had already gone to bed. She found Christian in the garage explaining to a few people historical facts about Chicago and the Chicago & Illinois Western Railway, saying they should be proud of where they live when Sheryl butted in...

"We're staying the night, I'm tired and still a little too buzzed to drive anywhere. Ok? I have to pee now." She walked back through the house and into the bathroom where Carolyne was sleeping, on the floor. She didn't wake her. Instead she stared at her, almost feeling sorry for how stupid she made herself look. She did her business and walked toward the living room to see if there was still a free couch to crash on when she felt a hand on her forearm pull her back around. It was Christian, next thing she knew he was kissing her, with a passionate fervor she had never seen come from him before. A fervor she had never before felt when being kissed by any man before. She pulled away, confused. She looked at him, his brown eyes gazing hopelessly into hers.

"What are you.. Wait. Come here and do that again."

She pulled him back to her, their lips locked; he pulled her arms around him and scooped her body up and into his. He carried her into the spare room and laid her down on the bed. They spent the rest of the night wrapped up in each others arms. He was shocked she was so receptive once he got the balls to finally go after her; she was in awe of his aggressive side that she had never seen before. Either way, they both lay, all night, barely able to put the butterflies in their bellies asleep so they could sleep too.

The next morning Mallory of course, was the first one up.

"Man that was a cool party." she said to Amanda. They were cleaning up. Sheryl and Christian came out of the room just as Mitchell and Natalie were waking up.

"Let's go to the river!" Mitchell said.

"Yeah!" They all replied almost in perfect unison, just as Carolyne stumbled out of the bathroom and said...

"I wanna go too, but can I have some water first?"

Amanda and Mallory put down their cleaning utensils, locked up the house and they all walked out to Mitchells green VW van. Mitchell opened the passenger door for Natalie and slapped her ass as she hopped in. As Carolyne stumbled onto the shag carpet lining on the floor of Mitchells van, Sheryl helped lift her into it, and then snuggled up next to Christian on a bean bag chair in the back of the van. Natalie turned and smiled at Sheryl and Christian from the passenger seat as she grabbed a piece of hair to chew on; while she grinned with that I told you so face. Mitchell turned the ignition key, winked at Natalie, and off they all went, to the river.
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Brit-picking my bogies.

hypermarket n :

supermarket of unusual size.

housewife /howswief/ /huhzif/ n :

sewing kit, syn. ditty bag.

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Radio

There was a good program on NPR's "Forum" last night regarding the current state of the short story as a literary form and where it stands in the publishing world. Google "forum" and "krasny" (the show's host) to find it and give a listen if you have the time.

Jason
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I'm Here - Good Reads

Hey, I'm finally blogging. Thanks Jason for getting that sorted out.

I just wanted to add a couple other extra reads if you guys are looking for good short stories to help you with your craft.

In chapter 2 of our text, is the story "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien. It's one of my all time favorites. The rest of the book of the same title is just as good.

As far as classics go, I also am a fan of Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado." Poe also writes a good essay (I think) on the creation of a short story. A lot of it just bolsters what we've learned from our curren text. But here's links if you want to look.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/poe/composition.html (The actual essay)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philosophy_of_Composition#Poe.27s_philosophy_of_composition (The wiki cliffs notes)
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Briticisms

So, when I wrote my story a couple weeks ago about the two boys in England, I told you all that there are Brit-picking websites. Well, I can't find the one I saw a while ago, but I can give you a lot of links to look at so you can see the extent to which this is important to people. (All pages will open into a new window.)

Fiction Alley's Britpicking Forum This is from a popular Harry Potter archieve, and you can ask questions and get answers to some Briticisms.

British-English Lexicon This site will alloy you to put in words and see what their counterpart would be. Fun and interactive. ;)

British Dictionary An alphabetical list of words in British with their American counterpart listed.

Hope that helps! :D
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Adminstrative Privilges Granted

Guys,

I have granted administrative privileges to all.

Jason
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Fiction

I like this story. Give it a read if you have time.

The School
by Donald Barthelme

Well, we had all these children out planting trees, see, because we figured that ... that was part of their education, to see how, you know, the root systems ... and also the sense of responsibility, taking care of things, being individually responsible. You know what I mean. And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don’t know why they died, they just died. Something wrong with the soil possibly or maybe the stuff we got from the nursery wasn’t the best. We complained about it. So we’ve got thirty kids there, each kid had his or her own little tree to plant and we’ve got these thirty dead trees. All these kids looking at these little brown sticks, it was depressing.

It wouldn’t have been so bad except that just a couple of weeks before the thing with the trees, the snakes all died. But I think that the snakes – well, the reason that the snakes kicked off was that ... you remember, the boiler was shut off for four days because of the strike, and that was explicable. It was something you could explain to the kids because of the strike. I mean, none of their parents would let them cross the picket line and they knew there was a strike going on and what it meant. So when things got started up again and we found the snakes they weren’t too disturbed.

With the herb gardens it was probably a case of overwatering, and at least now they know not to overwater. The children were very conscientious with the herb gardens and some of them probably ... you know, slipped them a little extra water when we weren’t looking. Or maybe ... well, I don’t like to think about sabotage, although it did occur to us. I mean, it was something that crossed our minds. We were thinking that way probably because before that the gerbils had died, and the white mice had died, and the salamander ... well, now they know not to carry them around in plastic bags.

Of course we expected the tropical fish to die, that was no surprise. Those numbers, you look at them crooked and they’re belly-up on the surface. But the lesson plan called for a tropical fish input at that point, there was nothing we could do, it happens every year, you just have to hurry past it.

We weren’t even supposed to have a puppy.

We weren’t even supposed to have one, it was just a puppy the Murdoch girl found under a Gristede’s truck one day and she was afraid the truck would run over it when the driver had finished making his delivery, so she stuck it in her knapsack and brought it to the school with her. So we had this puppy. As soon as I saw the puppy I thought, Oh Christ, I bet it will live for about two weeks and then... And that’s what it did. It wasn’t supposed to be in the classroom at all, there’s some kind of regulation about it, but you can’t tell them they can’t have a puppy when the puppy is already there, right in front of them, running around on the floor and yap yap yapping. They named it Edgar – that is, they named it after me. They had a lot of fun running after it and yelling, “Here, Edgar! Nice Edgar!” Then they’d laugh like hell. They enjoyed the ambiguity. I enjoyed it myself. I don’t mind being kidded. They made a little house for it in the supply closet and all that. I don’t know what it died of. Distemper, I guess. It probably hadn’t had any shots. I got it out of there before the kids got to school. I checked the supply closet each morning, routinely, because I knew what was going to happen. I gave it to the custodian.

And then there was this Korean orphan that the class adopted through the Help the Children program, all the kids brought in a quarter a month, that was the idea. It was an unfortunate thing, the kid’s name was Kim and maybe we adopted him too late or something. The cause of death was not stated in the letter we got, they suggested we adopt another child instead and sent us some interesting case histories, but we didn’t have the heart. The class took it pretty hard, they began (I think, nobody ever said anything to me directly) to feel that maybe there was something wrong with the school. But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the school, particularly, I’ve seen better and I’ve seen worse. It was just a run of bad luck. We had an extraordinary number of parents passing away, for instance. There were I think two heart attacks and two suicides, one drowning, and four killed together in a car accident. One stroke. And we had the usual heavy mortality rate among the grandparents, or maybe it was heavier this year, it seemed so. And finally the tragedy.

The tragedy occurred when Matthew Wein and Tony Mavrogordo were playing over where they’re excavating for the new federal office building. There were all these big wooden beams stacked, you know, at the edge of the excavation. There’s a court case coming out of that, the parents are claiming that the beams were poorly stacked. I don’t know what’s true and what’s not. It’s been a strange year.

I forgot to mention Billy Brandt’s father who was knifed fatally when he grappled with a masked intruder in his home.

One day, we had a discussion in class. They asked me, where did they go? The trees, the salamander, the tropical fish, Edgar, the poppas and mommas, Matthew and Tony, where did they go? And I said, I don’t know, I don’t know. And they said, who knows? and I said, nobody knows. And they said, is death that which gives meaning to life? And I said no, life is that which gives meaning to life. Then they said, but isn’t death, considered as a fundamental datum, the means by which the taken-for-granted mundanity of the everyday may be transcended in the direction of –
I said, yes, maybe.
They said, we don’t like it.
I said, that’s sound.
They said, it’s a bloody shame!
I said, it is.
They said, will you make love now with Helen (our teaching assistant) so that we can see how it is done? We know you like Helen.
I do like Helen but I said that I would not.
We’ve heard so much about it, they said, but we’ve never seen it.
I said I would be fired and that it was never, or almost never, done as a demonstration. Helen looked out the window.
They said, please, please make love with Helen, we require an assertion of value, we are frightened.

I said that they shouldn’t be frightened (although I am often frightened) and that there was value everywhere. Helen came and embraced me. I kissed her a few times on the brow. We held each other. The children were excited. Then there was a knock on the door, I opened the door, and the new gerbil walked in. The children cheered wildly.
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Pandora

I don't remember who said something about Pandora but thanks for mentioning it - I am addicted!
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Thursday in The City.

My girlfriend and I went to the SFMOMA yesterday. I liked the Frida Kahlo exhibit, especially the gift shop at the end. The contemporary Chinese art exhibit was nice. It was windy out and by evening we wished we'd brought thicker sweaters.
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authors@google

Guys,

If you google or youtube authors@google, you'll find a lot of author-reading videos. My favorites: Aimee Bender and Junot Diaz.

Jason
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My World is Upside Down

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Long Story

Hey



Has anyone started on their long fiction story yet? How is it going?

Delia
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Class 07/02/08

Hi Jason,
Would you mind letting me know what I missed Wednesday? I got hung up at work =(
Thanks, Wendy
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Rockford Springs

What did everyone think of 'Rockford Springs'? My favorite character was Edna. I liked how she knew deep down she wasn't going to make it too far with Earl. She just went along with him at first to prove to herself she was still brave, but then when she was faced with the real prospect of starting over she just couldn't do it. It reminded me of a little kid who decides to run away, tells everyone what he is doing, makes a big scene, then ends up circling the block and returning home for dinner. I liked this story better than 'Gryphon'. ~ Wendy
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Gryphon

Things I like about good short stories (including Gryphon):

- the specific details of the story, such as:
a) setting (place and time/historical setting/social setting/cultural setting)
b) the development of the main characters in terms of developing a more rounded understanding of the world and people around them and well as themselves
c) the development of tension/conflict through plot
d) perspective and tone (3rd person/cynical, 1st person/whimsical, past tense 1st person/stoic, etc.)
- the creativity of the of the story, i.e. it better be original
- the range of grasp (emotions, culture, subject, theme, etc.)
- structure/hierarchy of detail

Given, this is merely an overview, and my overview at that, so it's definitely subjective. Whatever good is found is always good as long as it isn't used up.

Also, I don't think stories should be read in regards to why we like them as readers. Part of the fun of short stories for me is reading them as a writer.

What I especially like about Gryphon are all the subtle details. The school setting, the otherness of the substitute teacher, children as characters and the focus on their relationships with adults, the tension in discomfort, the non-judgmental, descriptive tone of the narrator, the mythology and lore, all these things make Gryphon fun to read.
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Gryphon

I am not really sure what I thought of this story ‘Gryphon’. I honestly didn’t see the point. I understand that this substitute teacher introduced the school children to more abstract thinking but other than that… I am going to re-read it a few more times but this was my first thoughts. What did everyone else think? What am I missing?
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Last Wednesday the 18th

Hi Jim - Yes we were suppose to turn in our response paper to Big Me on Wednesday. I wasn't there, so my assignment will be late. Are you sure you are going to drop? Sometimes things are hard in the beginning, but I am getting into the fast pace of things, because it does not allow me time to 2nd guess every damn sentence I write. None of us are professionals (yet) and we all start somewhere. Plus, just think of all the free advise we will get from everyone and it will be honest because we really don't know too much about each other so we can't 'fill in the blanks'.
Good Luck ~ Wendy
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Last Wednesday (the 18th)

Hi Jason,

As I understood the assignments (someone correct me if I got it wrong), we should have turned in a response paper for 'Big Me' already, and a response paper on 'Gryphon' is due on Monday.
Professor Crowder is now allowing us to kill off our characters. He hinted that he would love to see an old west / cowboy / wild west story, and if we want to get on his bad side, we should immerse him in a world of elves in our short stories. He wants us to write literary fiction, as opposed to popular fiction (don't ask me, I'm still trying to figure it out).

Thanks to all of the feedback in class, especially from those that contribute a lot. I am still a beginner at writing and don't have a strong background in english, so if I'm mostly quiet in class, it's not because I don't care or don't want to give good ideas, I just think that the more experienced writers can give better advice than I can.

Professor Crowder asked us to be more critical during the workshops, and I understand his reasoning on this. I do fear, however, that if we don't find at least one or two positive things to accompany the criticisms, that some of us might get discouraged from writing. Maybe that's not a professional way to look at it, but that's my two cents. He did say we could have a 'love fest' here, to counterbalance the criticism, but it doesn't look like we have many folks posting here.

I may have to drop the course. Between a full-time job and a chronically sick wife, whose health has taken a turn for the worse lately, I am having trouble keeping up on the assignments. Still, I am enjoying everyone's stories, and it amazes me that we 'amateur' writers are able to produce such entertaining stories, even though many might not be totally polished.

Thanks to All
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