Themes

I love that John Irving's wikipedia entry not only has a handy chart of his themes, but that the themes are: New England, prostitutes, wrestling, Vienna, bears, deadly accident, and absent parent.

I haven't read John Irving, just seen the cider movie. It was a documentary about making apple juice or something.

Louey Saves the Civil War

Starting to go stir crazy out here in Sherwood Forest. Living with parents is almost as bad as living with roommates. Anyway...

Possibly the last of my old writings saved before "the purge" - another anticlimactic relic from the 6th grade, this time with an apparently anorexic protagonist. I think I was into H.G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle at the time:

LOUEY SAVES THE CIVIL WAR

In the year 2062, there lived a man named Louey Jameston. He was a famous astronaut and scientist about the age of twenty-five. He lived during the second Civil War. The war was against high taxes. He was a well-known inventor of the Twenty-first Century. Louey was about six feet, eight inches tall and weighed about 130 pounds. He had fair skin and black hair. His voice was deep and he was very smart. Had he a beard? No, nor a mustache on his clean face.

One day he decided to visit his mother to see how she was doing. When he had reached the small house, he knocked on the door. No one answered. He got his key out of his pocket to open the door himself. He went straight to the dining room where she usually played cards with her friends. She wasn't there, but her friend Vivian was. She was knocked out and laying on the floor. When he woke her up she said, "Where's your mother? Oh yes, I remember."

"What happened?" he said.

"We were playing cards," she began stating, "when we heard the door open. We thought it was you so we remained calm. When I had just finished shuffling, two men came in. I yelled for help but they knocked me out before anyone came. They must have taken her for ransom or something."

"Maybe they left a note," he suggested.

They looked around until they finally gave up. On the way out Louey fell down. He noticed that there was a piece of paper under the table. He picked it up and it read:

Dear friends and relations of Mary Jameston,
We know you would like to see Mary again.
If you do, send her son,
Louey to Baskville Fort on
Sunday or you will never see her again.
Signed,
The Weasel

He immediately drove his hover car to Baskville Fort and hovered about 300 feet above it. He smelled the gunpowder of the enemies' base. He used his X-ray vision beam to see if she was inside the fort. He hoped its hypnotic sound would not let the soldiers sense his presence.

He saw her inside the fort guarded by five men.

First he attached a stun gun to the front of the hover car so when he rammed into someone it would knock them out for about fifteen minutes. Next he lowered the hover car and shot a hole in the wall, just large enough for the hover car to fit into the fort.

He surprised two of them and stunned them. he would have stunned the other three but the car wouldn't start. The other three guards started firing their laser beams right away. One of them might have shot him, had he not ducked and put a bullet-proof bubble over the top of the hover car.

He then started the car and charged the three soldiers.

After he had taken his mom back home, he went back to his house and thought about other inventions to work on to help the Civil War.

The Softening

[I wrote this story about 1997 or 1998 (exact date uncertain). I don't know if I was familiar with Android's Dungeon in the Simpsons at the time or it was just a coincidence.]

THE SOFTENING

I was heading to Android's Dungeon to see if the new annotated hardback edition of The Hobbit had yet arrived - my old copy was withering due to thousands of readings - when a thirst hit my throat. I pulled my bike to a water fountain to take a guzzle. This was in York Park. There are many hills in York Park, and I imagine that curious little hobbits live in the hills. I wrote a story about it for the school newspaper once, but the fools wouldn't print it. The editor called me unkind names and spit on me. I would've fought back (and probably slain the rogue), but I asked myself how Bilbo would've handled it: a peaceful retreat.

There's so much wisdom in those books.



Anyway, so I'm drinking at the water fountain (I like to pretend it's a well), and this girl comes up to use it after me. She's about my age, maybe ten or fifteen years younger, and I start to wonder if I can enchant her. Make her my comrade.

I have a theory that girls would be normal if given more opportunities to fight dragons. I haven't seen many dragons around, but constantly reading Lord of the Rings is a good substitute.



As I step back to let her guzzle some water, I say, "If you start reading Tolkien now you might have magical powers by the time you're my age. Then we could go on quests together and purge the world of evil and moral degenerates. Think about it. Here, let me give you a copy of The Hobbit. I always keep one in my backpack for occasions such as this."



But before I could give the little imbecile the sacred work, she ran off, looking at me as if I was the weird one. She went off to a woman, probably her mother, and pointed at me. The little girl was snared already, caught by the deviance of an unwise generation.



I rode on.

I tried to figure out what Bilbo might have done to rectify the situation - but found no answer. Some people just don't like wisdom. I had done my best to save an infidel, but had to conclude that this society likes evil.



When I got to Android's Dungeon I started to calm down. That little girl had been quite an ordeal for me, but I was now in safe territory, among my own. The smut of this foul orb had to battle the forces of Good to enter Android's Dungeon.



"Hello, Steven," I said. "I bet you know why I'm here. Can you guess?"

"Oh yes, Chester. Every day it is the same. And I can't really blame you. Anyone of the faith would do likewise."

That's what I mean. Steven understands The Way. My younger sister believes that Steven says what I want to hear so I'll buy stuff from his store every day. If she only knew.



"So has it arrived?" I eagerly implored.

"Alas, no. But it will surely show up tomorrow."

My loins let out a sigh of disappointment. No, that's bad, Chester. Learn patience. Strength. Wisdom. Good, calm yourself. "Ah well, guess I'll have a look around to see if anything can hold me over for another day."

"You do that, Chester."



I looked at some D&D supplements and some neat pewter figurines, but I'd seen them all before. I liked to imagine filling my mansion with dragon statues and elf posters when I was rich, wise, and old. That is my dream, to live in a hill-shaped mansion called "The Burrow" and spend my afternoons writing fantasy novels to purge the world of evil. I will use a quill and ink bottle and write on vellum in strange runes, sipping apple juice between chapters. The publisher would sigh when he saw my manuscripts, knowing the labor involved in translating my texts, but be enticed on by the wisdom I would unveil to the wicked world.



When I got to the magazine section of Android's Dungeon, I read an article on the pros and cons of Druid spells. It made some good points. Why isn't the rest of the world interested in important things like this? Instead they think about economics and war and end up killing each other. It's just not a safe place for a hobbit to live in.



And then I saw her. She was on the cover of Dungeon, staring right at me. Holding a flaming staff laced with mystical runes. Chanting a powerful incantation to ward off evil, no doubt.

She was wearing a filthy robe over glistening gold armor. Her face was rugged and elfish. I could see her pointed ears and imagined them poking into my belly. I don't know where that thought came from.



And then I was in the magazine cover with her, just above the UPC code, ready to battle whatever monsters might come our way. But there are no monsters! Not even one golem. What are we to do now?



She looks into my wise eyes and understands me. She knows why we do what we do - why we must not cringe from the dark battle. She begins to take off her filthy robe. What can she want from me? My blood churns in my boiling heart. I think I'm getting an erection. Why am I being tempted?

And now she slips out of her shiny armor to show me her perfect body. Me, me alone. Her skin is hard and smooth and she licks her lips. She comes closer to me. Closer.



She reaches into my pants and grabs my penis. Her mouth eats it like a sleeping bag, and she doesn't make fun of it like the guys in the locker room at school. I begin to bump and grind. It's like riding a horse toward buried treasure. I feel it squeeze and rumble.



This is magic! I've discovered it, Gandalf! It's beating a path through me. This is just what they said it would be like. Will it be an ice spell? Or levitation? Invisibility? No, I feel the heat like never before - it must be a fireball!



I explode against the magazine rack and bang my head with grunting. Has the spell backfired? I'm drooling on the latest issue of Mage. My penis is chafed. The magic power drains away from me. I've failed.



"What the hell are you doing, you little retard? You got cum all over my magazines!" Steven kicked me as I zipped up my pants. I grunted like Bilbo in the animated version of The Hobbit.



"Hey, Steven, there's no need for that. I'm a paying customer. We know The Way. I'm not evil."

"You clean this cum up right now, you little bastard, or I'll call the cops!"

"All right, all right," I tried to soothe him. "There's no need to get nefarious."

After I wiped off the magazines with my shirt, Steven rudely knocked me out of the store. He told me never to show my face in Android's Dungeon again or he'd kill me. That was fine by me, now that I know he's not one of us. I'm only angry that he won't give me back my $50 deposit for the new Hobbit. I didn't damage that many magazines.



Anyway, my big problem now is to find a new store. After going to Android's Dungeon for six years it's not going to be easy. This must be what it's like to get divorced.



I would never get divorced. It's not a good idea. When I find my perfect sorceress girl and we're living in "The Burrow," nothing will tear us apart. She'll soothe me and bring me apple juice and I'll teach her new spells. We'll live like that forever, slowly spreading goodness to Earth, slowly spreading the magic.

THE END

African Adventure

Today's episode features an oft-requested short story from the Ninja-tek archive, "African Adventure". Composed in the 6th grade (1991).

AFRICAN ADVENTURE

Hello. My name is Joe Clydesdale. I am a millionaire who lives in Washington, D.C. I own many great museums in the country. One of the greatest is the Marine Museum in Chicago. I often go on trips around the world looking for newer attractions for my museums.

I flew in my privately owned 747 to Lake Victoria to catch a rare fish for my Marine Museum. The name of the fish is the Fireblue fish. There are only forty-six known worldwide.

As I flew over the country of Zaire, I soon realized that I would be landing in Jinja, Uganda, a city north of Lake Victoria in less than three hours. I decided to take a nap to pass the time.

I woke up at 3:32 P.M. and my captain told me that we would be landing in just a few minutes.

By 4:45 P.M., I was in a taxi heading for the coast of the lake. We were going down the road at eighty-five miles per hour when the driver suddenly put his foot on the brake and came to a sudden stop.

I was about to ask the driver why he came to a halt, but I looked ahead and found out for myself. Hundreds of people were dancing, marching, and singing in their native tongue. There was a festival blocking the whole street.

I decided that the lake was close enough to walk the rest of the way.

I got out of the cab, paid the driver, and got my luggage out of the trunk. I had two pieces of luggage and realized that it was about half a mile to the lake.

I was about to get started when a boy about the age of ten said to me in Swahili, "I will help you carry your luggage if you pay me a dollar."

I decided that my luggage was pretty heavy, so I said, "Sure!" I responded in his native language.

After he had helped me carry my luggage to the coast, I took out one dollar from my pocket and handed it to the kid. When he was about to take the money, he kicked my chin, grabbed the dollar, and ran away as fast as he could. He did it all in one motion.



I started to yell at him in English, but I realized that he wouldn't understand and he was already too far away to hear me anyway.

I never trusted another African from then on.

The kid had taken all of my clothes and two hundred dollars, but I still had nine hundred dollars left.

At least the kid had not taken my diving equipment. I knew that I could not replace that equipment here in Africa.

After I had set up camp and had a dinner consisting of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I decided to go to bed early because it had been such a long day.

The next morning, I woke up at 6:12 A.M., to search for the Fireblue fish. I decided I was going to search for him so early because he glowed a bright red and blue color in the morning, and it would be easier to catch.

I went down into the lake at 6:30 A.M., with a diving suit, mask, air tanks, and a large net to catch the fish.

I was starting to get bored after about fifteen minutes with no sign of the Fireblue fish, when a big black cloud of gas got in my vision. Then I felt a fish bit me in the side. I hit it on the head three times, but I realized that it would not let go!



I decided to try to swim to the surface. I was about twenty-five feet from the surface of the water when the fish released another cloud of smoke. I had to do something quick!

I took the air hose out of my mouth while I held my breath and shoved the hose up his nose. He released his grip!

I netted him quickly, put the air hose back in my mouth and swam to the surface. I would have just let him go, but he had been such a nuisance and I had never seen this type of fish before.

After I had put the fish in an aquarium, I looked him up in my fish guide to see what type of fish he was. He was called the Smoke Fish because of his color and the smoke he discharges to capture and eat his prey. It also said that it was only found in the Sea of Japan and that there are only eighteen know worldwide!

This would be even better than the Fireblue fish. I decided to pack up and take this fish instead of the Fireblue fish.

After I got back home the fish made a fortune for me, and I lived happily ever after.



NOTES

* What's with the OCD use of numbers?

* Every paragraph seems to start with "I".

* When the African boy kicks Joe Clydesdale in the "chin" I think I meant to say "shin".

* Jinja, Uganda is a real city.

* I made up both the Fireblue fish and the Smoke fish. They're not real.

* I don't see how the Smoke fish (only known to be found in the Sea of Japan) made it to Lake Victoria. Lake Victoria is a fresh water lake anyway.

* My favorite line is: "I never trusted another African from then on."