ver·nac·u·lar ban·dit
robbing from the native tongue
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Some Christmas Writing
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
And she came walking.
The reptile sprang from its hiding place.
From the earth under the rotting boards, up beneath the feet of the girl and mouth larger than Jonah's whale, swallowed her up.
It burped, smiled and skittered away.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Tick Tock
"Beep! Beep! Beep!" Vladimir tiredly glanced down at his watch. “It couldn't be 23:01 already.” He thought, “That meant only fifty-nine more minutes were left until the New Year. Only fifty-nine more minutes to find something to do. Or rather, that all important New Years Job - someone to kiss on the stroke of midnight. That all important 24:00. The only problem was the blizzard. Silly Canadian weather. Why did he ever move to this country? It wasn’t as if there were even that good of jobs for tailors. At least, not like there was back in the old country. These new-fangled people with their love of speed and time-keeping. But, this year would be different. If he could kiss the right woman right at 24:00:00 than he could go home. Back to his little room behind the cathedral. Back to a world without the constant reminder of the flow of time.” Vladimir glanced down at his watch once more. . . 23:59. He quickly glanced up, “She should be here,” he thought. “Yes, there was a woman in a flowing orange dress. Now was his time.” With these thoughts Vladimir crossed the room, bent down, and kissed the old woman on her cheek. “Smack!” The slap reverberated around the room and as Vladimir’s mind cleared he looked up into the face of Brother Jerome. An angry Brother Jerome. “Where are our new cassocks Vladimir?” he demanded. “You said they would be ready by the new moon!” Vladimir immediately hugged the shocked Brother Jerome and went to retrieve the cassocks. He was home. No more clocks.
The Time Breaker
After digging one out, he grabbed a stool and climbed up for the clock. Me changed the battery, but the second hand didn’t budge. He shook the clock. Nothing. He looked at the microwave to see what time it really was and was amazed to see the timer. He knew he had set it for 3 minutes, but it was frozen at 1. The microwave sounded like it was running, but when Me looked inside, his bowl of KD was still. Me pulled on the door. It was stuck and the off button did nothing.
Me ran to check the other clocks in the flat, but all were stuck on 3 AM. After some contemplation Me knew that somehow time must have gotten stuck, but how was he to get it restarted. Perhaps this was what he got for getting up to eat at 3 AM or perhaps he was going crazy...
Sunday, October 11, 2009
200 wordish story beginning :P
The Timesuckers
Two of them watch the people scatter in and out of the bank through their head-coverings. But number one with no eye slits in his hood paws the ground with his tattered brown gloves. He mutters, “There awr ovar (are over) two hundwed people on the first flawr (floor) alone. And time? We have less of thawt (that). When the bomb goes off at the clock tawar we will have 15 seconds to get in there and extrawct (extract) the time.”
“I’m afraid. I’m sick of losing my time to the banker, but I don’t want to lose my life. If we’re dead we won’t be thinking anything. Can you guys hear me? Am I getting through to you? I’ll take fifteen minutes of life over no life,” number two shuffles his boots nervously.
The next silence is extremely uncomfortable.
“If you were talking I missed it. I missed your message,” The third says cupping his ears from inside the hood. “I heard number one, despite his lagged words but number two, you’re fuzzy. How are we supposed to do anything if we can’t communicate?”
Another awkward silence.
“Who said fighting a god would be easy number 2? And what is the sense of living if you are being robbed of your very time? The banker is a thief who calls himself a god. He isn’t. Because the three of us, despite being blind in 3 different ways. We will take him down. It’s in our blood. It’s in our family name,” number 1 takes off his hood revealing his pink, broken ears, wise brown circles for eyes, long snout and a grey sniffer.