The Green-Walled Tower

A Face Only a Wife Could Love

“Dang, I’m hideous,” Alex thought as he glanced down at his reflection in a puddle. He avoided reflective surfaces and envied vampires for their inability to see themselves in mirrors.

A woman’s face appeared next to his in the reflection. Now there was real beauty.

“What are you looking at?”

“Just myself.”

“Narcissist.” She laughed and kissed his cheek.

“Does it bother you that I’m ugly?” he asked.

“I don’t think you’re ugly.”

“Do you think I have a face only a wife could love?”

“You’d better. You don’t get to have a girlfriend now.”

He smiled and took her hand. “Perhaps you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right. Now can we finish crossing the street? We’re holding up traffic.”

15 Comments | tags: Alastair's Photo Fiction, beauty, fiction, flash fiction, marriage, reflection, ugly, wife | posted in Light

October 23, 2013

Broken Piano – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Broken Piano

The casket was empty as far as I was concerned. I had come to pay my respects to my former teacher, the piano virtuoso Horace Thornhill, but as I approached, all I saw in the satin-lined box was a dead body.

I looked at the hands that had drawn exquisite aural elixirs from ivory vessels and the face that had worn an expression of such concentration and sublimity in the midst of his performances. They were empty—as cold and silent as a marble statue.

There was nothing more than a broken piano now; the music had flown far away.

46 Comments | tags: death, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, funeral, music, Piano | posted in Friday Fictioneers

October 22, 2013

Close Call – Micro Fiction

By David Stewart

Close Call

The pit bull died alone, poisoned by the flesh of the world’s first and only zombie.

Humanity never knew.

7 Comments | tags: close call, dog, fiction, micro fiction, pit bull, zombies | posted in Dusk

October 21, 2013

Super Teacher

By David Stewart

“I always wanted to be a super teacher, but I never wanted to be Super Teacher, you know? That’s not why I got into the profession. I became a teacher to mold young minds and impact lives, not to be some sort of educational freak show.

“It all started on a field trip. We were touring a high-energy laboratory, which in retrospect was a poor choice for a Grade 2 class. Anyway, as you know from the news, there was that malfunction and of course I jumped in front to save my kids and got hit with that experimental beam. The next thing I knew, I could fly and lift things with my mind.

“It was great at first. I didn’t have to drive to work and if I forgot some paperwork at home, I could fly home and get it and be back before the next period started. I could tap students on the shoulder with my powers from the front of the room and collect homework without standing up. It was awesome.

“The rest started innocently enough. First, my students wanted me to pick them up: all of them at the same time. Why not, right? It was fun until the other classes wanted in on it too. The whole school would line up and I spent my lunch breaks throwing kids up into the stratosphere and flying them over to finish their geography assignments on France, in France. Suddenly I’m the cool teacher and all the other teachers are jealous of me and I don’t have time to finish my grading and lesson plans.

“And then the school board gets in on it. They want me to go around to different schools, talking about drug awareness and staying in school, whatever that has to do with superpowers. And of course, they insisted that every presentation end with me crushing a car with my bare hands. I got into teaching to show students how to use the power of their minds, not their bodies. When I brought up that objection, the superintendent said it was okay to crush the car with my mental powers. That wasn’t what I’d meant.

“Anyway, I finally got my class back, but it’s not the same. The students just want to see me use my powers, the paparazzi are buzzing around the school at all hours and now there is that super-villain in the southwest that everyone keeps hinting I should go deal with. I just feel like I’m losing focus. What should I do, doc?”

The psychologist straightened up. “Well,” he said. “I’ve never said this to a patient before, but if you want my advice, stop whining and suck it up. You can fly at Mach 10, lift 100 tons with your mind and you’re making millions of dollars in endorsements. I think you can find some way of adjusting. Oh, it looks like our hour is up. That will be 40,000 dollars, please.”

9 Comments | tags: Education, fantasy, fiction, funny, quirky, super teacher, superhero, superpowers, teacher | posted in Light

October 20, 2013

Guardian – Alastair’s Photo Fiction

By David Stewart

I’m back in the blogging world again. I’ve been quite busy/tired/distracted for the last few weeks, but I hope to do more blog writing and reading in the future. This story is rather dark, but I meant it to have a glimmer of hope at the end. I hope that is how you take it.

Guardian

“What’s that?” I asked my father, when I was five.

“Our family crest.” His deep voice echoed through the long passageway.

“No, above it.”

“The guardian,” he said, turning quickly and starting to walk away.

“It’s scary.”

“Quiet!” He turned so forcefully on me that I bit back a cry.

From that day on, I never asked again; never told when the thing lurking over our shield began appearing in my dreams.

I tried to take it down as a teenager. My father caught me and beat me. I saw then that he was afraid, and there was fawning obeisance in his touch as he carefully replaced it on the wall.

I did nothing when my mother died, when my sister went insane, when my father drank himself to death, but I felt that dark presence looming more and more over the now quiet house.

The night my younger brother died—falling down the stairs—I tried to smash our precious guardian, but my courage failed and I fled.

A friend once told me that if the devil exists, then God must exist as well.

I hope he is right: my search becomes more and more desperate as I feel the darkness growing around me once more.

15 Comments | tags: Alastair's Photo Fiction, creepy, Demon, fantasy, fiction, flash fiction, guardian, monster, spirit | posted in Dark

October 17, 2013

Cartman – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Cartman

Ross polished the bars of the shopping cart until they shone. He had status now and he had to act accordingly.

After Boom-day, when gasoline ran out, bicycles were big. But as tires cracked and chains broke, they were discarded. Now, the man with a shopping cart was king.

Ross overtook Jenks on Broadway, carrying a huge load on his back. Ross nodded officiously; Jenks sneered.

“So high and mighty with your cart, aren’t you? But that front wheel is wobbling pretty bad. How long until you’re like me?”

Never, Ross thought. He was somebody now. He couldn’t go back.

36 Comments | tags: fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, post apocalyptic, Shopping cart, status | posted in Friday Fictioneers

October 14, 2013

Happy Thanksgiving! Who is thankful for you?

By David Stewart

No, Americans, you didn’t read that wrong. Today is Thanksgiving in Canada. Of course, in Korea we don’t get the day off and since they don’t eat turkey here, we have to make up our own traditions. In our case, we went out for pizza and watched a creepy movie.

I told my students about Thanksgiving today and asked them what they were thankful for. This is usually what we do on Thanksgiving: take a moment to reflect on the things that we are thankful for in our lives. This is a good practice, of course, and keeps us from taking blessings for granted. However, I realized that it is a passive, recipient-based question, so I decided to turn it around.

Who is thankful for you?

The point of thinking about the things we are thankful for is to count up the blessings we already have. However, the question “Who is thankful for you?” is much more active and has implications for the future as well. In other words, who can we make thankful for us? On a day like Thanksgiving, who can we inspire gratitude in by making their lives better, even in a small way? I don’t need to give you examples: we all know of lots of ways, big and small, to help people around us have a better day or a better life.

Go the extra mile. Try it. Just do it, right?

That is my goal for myself at least: to make others around me thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving.

P.S. Because I have a big Chinese test coming up next Sunday, I won’t be posting anything this week except the ~~Wednesday~~ Friday Fictioneers story. (现在我需要学习很多。)　I’ll be back in full strength next week though.

6 Comments | tags: Canada, Canadian, Chinese, gratitude, Korea, Thanksgiving | posted in Uncategorized

October 11, 2013

The Day “R” Said Good-bye

By David Stewart

One day, people woke up to find that “R” had said good-bye. No one knew why it left, but all keyboads suddenly had a blank between “E” and “T”. It was quite distubing.

It affected the Bitish and the Fench quite a bit, along with the Koeans, although I think the Ussians complained the loudest (not that Bazil was too thilled). Canada didn’t mind, although people began calling Toronto “Toonto”, when they knew full well it should be hyphenated. Huge swaths of the population became cold and hungy as they suddenly had to eat ice all day: beakfast, lunch and suppe (ice pilaf is just not the same.) Potatoes stayed the same, but bakeies began selling nothing but bead.

What made me the saddest was that all my friends became fiends.

14 Comments | tags: alphabet, fiction, quirky | posted in Light

October 9, 2013

The World is my Stage – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

The World is my Stage

“1 billion hits by midnight or New York City is gone!” screamed the title of the live Internet feed. Seven hours left: 540,000,000 hits needed. The CIA considered them a credible threat and now the whole world watched, breath held.

Jason sat in front of the nuclear weapon mock-up, webcam capturing everything except his own screen. Members were reporting from all over the country. Everything was almost ready, and then the real strike, the hammer blow of vengeance, would fall.

The first rule of sleight of hand, Jason thought. Keep the audience focused anywhere but where the real action is.

46 Comments | tags: bomb, crime, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Internet, nuclear weapon, sleight of hand, terrorism, video | posted in Friday Fictioneers

October 8, 2013

Nike was on to something

By David Stewart

There are a lot of mottoes and slogans like “Carpe Diem” and “the early bird gets the worm” but no one puts it as succinctly and bluntly as Nike’s longtime slogan: “Just Do It”.

I think this is going to be my new motto since I tend to struggle with being consistently productive. I’m a great one at making lists and goals and schedules, but it’s a whole other thing to actually stick to them. It’s not a matter of being too busy, it’s just a matter of…just not doing it.

It’s not usually the pressing things; those get done right away since they need to. I prepare for my classes and pay my bills, but the larger, more long term things often get put off.

As an example, I have an elderly relative whom I write letters to from time to time. She is probably the last person I know who doesn’t have Internet access. However, I haven’t written to her for months. I’ve thought about her a lot, but haven’t written. How long does it take to write a letter? 5-10 minutes, at the most. So, why don’t I just do it?

The same is with submitting stories to literary magazines. It’s something I want to do and is part of my (hopefully) future career, but I haven’t been as proactive as I’d like to be. I’ve submitted some, but not nearly as many as I could have by now.

So what’s the answer? I’ve been trying to be very disciplined in how much time I spend on time wasters like games (read Minecraft) and online videos and I’m trying to make small goals each day.

What do you do to make sure you get the things done that you need to?