The Green-Walled Tower

September 9, 2013

Minecrack – The Confessions of a Recent Addict

When my good friend Mike finally got me into Minecraft, I went into it like someone who decides to take up recreational heroin. Of course, that was also the reason why I resisted buying it for so long: I knew it was insanely addictive. And now that I have it, it is exactly as addictive as I had expected, although in a good way (unlike heroin, in case someone thought this was a convoluted endorsement of hard drugs). Now, I find that anytime I have trouble writing or am just feeling too tired, the lure of the game beckons me. However, despite the slight loss in productivity, I still don’t feel that lingering feeling of regret when I finish playing, like that sour feeling you get when you eat an entire bag of gummy bears in one sitting (hypothetically). Here’s why:

Here is how I imagine the real Green-Walled Tower.

1. It’s Totally Creative: drool… This is the kind of program I have been looking for for a long time. This is the reason that I want to have a room full of Legos someday. A very long time ago, I had a Lego computer program that was similar, except nowhere near as powerful. After one house, the landscape started disappearing as the computer ran out of memory. But now, I can create almost anything that comes into my mind. And believe me, I can come up with some pretty freaky stuff. The only sticking point is time, since I like things big and you still have to place every block individually. Currently I’m working on a setting from the first novel I ever wrote. It’s a pool, surrounded by five temples, on top of a fortified hill, in a huge city in a deep cleft of a valley. After about an hour or so, I’m almost finished the pool.

2. It’s Open-Ended: I’m using both the creative mode to make the aforementioned pool/city, but also playing in survival mode, where you have to find food and not get killed by monsters. It is way better than most games because you can manipulate everything . Currently, I’m at the bottom of an abandoned mineshaft with monsters all around. In a normal game, I’d have to fight my way out to get back to my house and recharge. Not in Minecraft. There, I can block off a shelter, dig it out bigger, make a crafting table and make more weapons and armor, even smelt ore into metals, all while I’m stuck at the bottom of a mine. I can make my own staircases or ladders, dig straight in any directions or basically do anything I want.

The upper room, where the creative magic happens.

I realize I’m late in the game (as usual with technology; I just got a smart phone a few months ago) and that over half the world has already played Minecraft. But to those few out there who haven’t played it, I would just say that it’s awesomely creative and awesomely addictive. I’m still exploring what I can do, but I would like to make stories and set them in a Minecraft world that I create, recording the whole thing on video. So we’ll see. You never know what will come out of the Green-Walled Tower.

11 Comments | tags: addiction, blogging, creativity, games, gaming, Minecraft, outside the tower, The Green-Walled Tower, world-building, writing | posted in Uncategorized

September 8, 2013

The Hieroglyphics Teacher

By David Stewart

Ben was a teacher who worked in an archipelago. He had his own boat and would putter around from island to island, teaching hieroglyphics at the local schools. He taught at a different school every day of the week.

You learn your Bird Leg Bowls and then go from there.

This was just his day job, however. His real dream was to become an alchemist. He had a small alchemy kit he carried around and when his classes were finished, he would experiment and do his quiet research at a nearby bar or coffee shop.

One day, he was at a school on Sunny Island and had finished all his classes by lunchtime. One of the teachers came up to him.

“We want you to stay until the end of the day,” he said. “You are a teacher and that’s what teachers do.”

“Okay,” Ben said. “That’s fine, but where should I go while I wait for the end of the day?”

“Anywhere you want,” the teacher said.

This sounded like a great thing, except the school was so small that there was nowhere to go. Ben went first to the library. He had just set up his alchemy set when students began to trickle in. Immediately, they crowded around him.

“What’s this?” one asked, picking up a glass bottle.

“That’s Aqua Fortis,” Ben said.

“Can I drink it?”

“It will kill you in a very painful way.”

“What’s this?”

“That’s Sugar of Lead.”

“Sugar!”

“Of lead. That will kill you too.” Eventually Ben packed up his equipment. He wandered from room to room, looking for some place to sit. He ended up in a storage room, crammed between boxes of abandoned pencil stubs and the costumes from the school’s Cthulhu Day program.

“I need somewhere else I can go,” he thought, “like an alternate dimension where I can do my work.”

“…Or, some sort of simulacrum to sit here for me,” he added, after a moment of contemplation, in which he realized he had no idea how to open another dimension. For the next few weeks, he worked on his replacement until the fateful night when he poured the Elixir of Life into its head and brought it to life. It looked just like him, spoke in his voice and seemed reasonably intelligent. He still couldn’t turn lead into gold, but this was good for the time being.

From then on, he would bring the simulacrum (or Ben Two, as he called it) to school with him, then set it loose whenever classes were over and he could sneak out. This worked well, but it was difficult to carry Ben Two to school and dangerous to walk into school with it. Finally, one day when Ben was feeling especially tired, he sent the thing to teach his classes for him.

No one noticed.

From that day on, he sent Ben Two to teach all his classes, while he stayed home to work on his alchemy. That was the plan, at least, although he ended up just playing World of Warcraft and eating Pizza Pockets all day long.

One day, he was walking to the store to get more alchemical supplies and Pizza Pockets when a beautiful woman ran up to him and threw her arms around him. She gave him a big kiss.

“Ben, thanks again for last night. I had a great time.”

“Sure thing,” Ben stammered. He had never seen her before in his life. She gave him another kiss and then left.

That evening, Ben was waiting when Ben Two came home. The simulacrum came in, flipping through the mail.

“I saw a woman today,” Ben said. “She said she had a good time with me last night.”

Ben Two looked up. “You saw Gloria? Crap, why did you leave the house?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit suspicious to have you at the store while I’m at work? Anyway, you’ve gained a lot of weight. From now on, just give me a list and I’ll get whatever you need.”

“Yeah, okay,” Ben said.

“Also, don’t open any packages that come here. I’ve got some stuff going on.”

“Like what?”

“Don’t bother yourself about it, okay? I’m out there making a better life for both of us. You’ve got your hobbies here. Just stick to them, and ramp the curiosity down. This is everything you’ve wanted, right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Ben said. He was trying to work out if this was all a good thing or a bad thing.

(to be continued)

14 Comments | tags: alchemy, deskwarming, fantasy, fiction, hieroglyphics, Pizza Pockets, quirky, simulacrum, teaching, World of Warcraft | posted in Light

September 4, 2013

Knick-Knack Paddy Whack – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Knick-Knack Paddy Whack

Gut-twist, I call it—that hard, acidy stomach punch that comes when I smell the bright-red odor and see the crimson flowers blooming all over the walls and floor.

I do clean-up. Paddy lets all the red out and I collect it up in a bag, along with Miss Gone-Far-Away (it’s always Miss).

Paddy laughs at my knick-knacks, calls me a baby. But he lets me do it ‘cuz Miss Gone-Far-Away don’t need them anymore. So I take a coin, a charm, maybe a watch.

Sorry, I whisper to them every night. Sorry you met Paddy. I just do clean-up.

(Find this confusing? Want an explanation? Click here.)

49 Comments | tags: creepy, crime, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, knick-knack, mass murder, murder, souvenir | posted in Friday Fictioneers

September 2, 2013

Alone on a Boat – The Final Chapter

By David Stewart

Hi, everyone. Here is the 13th and final chapter in our continuing collaborative story, Alone on a Boat. It was put on hold for a few weeks since Sharmishtha had some unexpected, terrible flooding. If you’ve been following along, you can read all the chapters, including the previous one on her blog.

Or here’s the synopsis: Angelique is 20 years old and sailing solo around the world. Two men kidnap her in the Indian Ocean and bring her to an island where there is an ancient Indian temple. They get killed by monsters but she escapes and meets an old man, John, who brings her into the temple, which is full of treasure. Her father arrives the next morning because of a distress beacon she activated. He sees the treasure but before he can go in, Angelique is transported into the temple alone and confronts a naga woman. Because of Angelique’s honesty in not trying to take the treasure, she is rewarded with a nagmani, a naga’s third eye, that will take her back to the temple if she needs to go. Her and her father go back to the boat but he sneaks out at night to go find the treasure. She goes after him and finds him in an altered state, imagining he is at the temple and taking jewels, when he is only in the jungle.

Alone on a Boat – Part 13 (The final chapter)

By mid-morning, John and Angelique had gotten her father down to the shore. He came willingly enough, but often stopped to pluck imaginary gems out of the air and store them in his bag.

“Do you really think he will be okay?” Angelique asked.

“I hope so,” John said. “Get him far away from here and then see. It may take a while. I’m not sure; I’ve never seen this sort of thing before.”

“Thank you,” she said. “You saved my life. I’ll never forget you.” He smiled and held out his hand but she moved past it and gave him a hug.

“Come back sometime, if you can,” he said. “I will still be here, I’m sure.”

John helped her get her father onto the ship, then she brought him back to the shore. He stood waving as she pulled up the anchor and set the motor to bring them away from the island.

Her father was now lying on the bed, and was asleep when she checked on him. He continued to sleep all day and she checked several times to see if he was still breathing.

She made supper and went into the bedroom. “Dad, Dad, it’s time for supper.” She shook him gently, but there was no response. Was he in a coma? After a few minutes more, she went up on deck and ate supper by herself.

She had sailed solo for many days, but never had she felt more frightened and alone than at this moment, with her father unconscious inside. What if he never woke up? What could she do? What would her mother say?

The sun went down, extinguishing itself in the waters of the Indian Ocean. Angelique lay down and looked up at the millions of stars shining above her.

She looked down and saw that her shirt was glowing. She pulled out the nagmani. It was glowing with a reddish luminescence that grew brighter and then suddenly faded back to black.

There was a noise from the cabin and the door opened. Her father stood in the doorway.

“Are we on the open sea?” he asked. “Weren’t we on an island?”

“We were but we left,” Angelique said, going to him and giving him a hug. “You’ve been sleeping for hours.”

“I feel pretty tired. What happened? The last thing I remember I had taken a helicopter to come find you and I remember something about being on the boat.”

“Well, that’s passed now, Dad,” she said. “We’re heading for Jakarta; I can drop you off there, if you wish, or you can stay until Singapore.”

He nodded. “Either one is fine. I wonder what the name of that island was? I’d like to go back there sometime.”

A stab of apprehension went through Angelique. “I don’t know, Dad,” she said.

“Well, whatever. I’m so tired for some reason. I think I’ll go back to bed.” He went back in, closing the door.

Angelique leaned back and looked up at the night sky again. The stars seemed to be smiling down on her. She was happy now. She was ready for the next adventure.

5 Comments | tags: adventure, Andaman Islands, collaborative writing, fantasy, fiction, hinduism, kidnapping, Lakshmi, monsters, mythology, Sharmishtha Basu, temple, treasure | posted in Dusk

September 1, 2013

Phaeton Day

By David Stewart

This is a story for Alastair’s Photo Fiction challenge. It takes place in a virtual reality world, similar to the one in my story, The Horse Bridge.

Phaeton Day

I woke up in my virtual world of Lex to find a .80 caliber Helios “Sunkiller” rifle propped next to my bed. That meant only one thing: Phaeton Day.

Outside, neighbors were clustered together, looking up at the sun, each holding their rifle. The sun was already quivering around, dancing to and fro. Suddenly, it streaked across the whole arc of the sky from east to west. Shadows skewed crazily.

A few people took shots at it, but most waited. The world moderators had outlawed flying for the day and everyone moved slowly, suddenly ungainly at having to stay on the ground.

The day wore on and as the sun sunk closer to the earth, it began to get hotter. More people were firing now, trying to puncture the sun and unlock their Sunkiller achievement.

By mid-afternoon, everything was broiling. The sun was on high difficulty: it kept dancing everywhere, impossible to hit.

I had one bullet left when the sun zoomed overhead. I felt the intense blast of heat and fired upwards. There was a splash of flames and the disk of the sun fell onto my house.

“Congratulations!” a voice said out of nowhere. “Umm, sorry.”

14 Comments | tags: achievement, Alastair's Photo Fiction, fiction, flash fiction, mythology, Phaeton, photograph, rifle, science fiction, virtual reality | posted in Light

August 31, 2013

Korean Place Names in English

By David Stewart

Generally, in North America, we don’t think about what place names mean much. Either they’re in English (e.g. Grand Falls, Red River) or they come from French, Spanish, German, or any number of native American languages, and often very corrupted from the original language.

In Korea, however, all major place names can be written with Chinese characters, which makes it easy to look up the meaning. The notable exception to this is Seoul, which cannot be written in Chinese characters. I have made a map of Korea with the meanings of all major cities on it in English. (In case you’re wondering, the name “Korea” comes from a former kingdom called Goryeo, which means “high beauty”.)

I live in Perfect Area. (original map from es.rice.edu)

28 Comments | tags: Chinese characters, English, geography, Korea, map, meaning, place names, Seoul, translation | posted in Korea

August 29, 2013

A Spider Web to the Face

By David Stewart

I had a bad day today. This is my response to it.

There are a million and one opinions on almost anything you could name, but one thing most everyone can agree on is that walking suddenly and forcefully into a web of sticky filaments, filled with mummified insect carapaces (and if you are truly unlucky, the furious, eight-legged occupant) is a perfect way to start a Bad Day.

Such was the case for Francesca Guinevere Dubois IV, who went by the refreshingly plain name of Pat. Pat began the day in a comfortable, caffeine-supported middle ground of routine. She got ready for work and left the house, cutting through the idyllic little wooded area to get to the bus stop.

Whap! Something soft and clinging hit her in the face. A second later, she was clawing frantically at the spider web, trying to wipe it off her face and pull it out of her hair. Dead bugs dangled next to her earrings in filthy parody.

At least there was no spider, she thought. Her hair was messed up and her makeup smeared and she had no choice but to go back to the house and get herself back together. She had almost reached it when she felt a tickling on her neck as the spider that had been sitting quietly on her shoulder decided to look around a little more.

In the ensuing terror-induced flailing to get the uninvited passenger off her neck, Pat whacked her arm into a light pole, bruising her elbow badly. For the first time, it occurred to her that this might be the beginning of a Bad Day.

This little guy just arrived from someone’s nightmare.

There was no time to ice her elbow but she cleaned off her clothes and redid her hair and makeup. She did not dare go back through the woods and so had missed the bus by the time she got to the stop. Finally, 20 minutes late, she stumbled into work.

“Where have you been?” John, her supervisor, asked.

“I got a spider web in the face,” she replied.

He gave her a suspicious look. “Was the spider poisonous?”

“No.”

“So it didn’t bite you?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t seem like a good excuse then.” He walked away, looking disappointed with the world in general.

Typing was painful with her bruised elbow and Pat worked very slowly. Things did not improve when she spilled coffee on her keyboard and had to go down to maintenance and request a new one, as well as explain the whole situation several times over. She was far behind on her work when lunchtime arrived and was now thoroughly convinced that this was a Bad Day.

They were out of her favorite food at the cafeteria and a woman at her table complained about being cold (in August) and wouldn’t let them use the air conditioning. The icing on the cake came when she got back to her desk and John informed her that the director had asked to see her.

“I think it’s about your low productivity,” he said and then walked away with an expression that lamented that a phrase like “low productivity” even existed.

Pat crammed herself into the elevator with ten large men who had just gotten back from a long run. The elevator stopped at every floor until she finally got off on the 20^th floor. She waited outside the director’s office for ten minutes before she was escorted in.

“Please, sit down,” he said. “So, can you guess why I called you in here?”

“Yes, I think so, sir,” Pat said. She wiped her hands on her pants and found them already damp. That was the point when she realized they were wet with the transferred sweat of one of the large men she had been squeezed up against. Suddenly and completely, the terrible, horrible Bad Day won. She broke down in tears.

The director blinked in surprise. “It’s nothing bad,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “I’m not like this usually. It’s just that this morning I took a spider web to the face.” She told him the whole story.

The director’s expression turned to shock. “And you still came in to work? You are an uncommonly strong person. I’ve seen grown men curl up in a fetal position for hours after walking into a spider web. I think you should go home for the rest of the day. Also, go get your elbow treated. You were coming to work so we’ll cover it under our health plan. Take tomorrow off too, just to be sure. Did you drive to work?”

“I took the bus.”

“Do you have a license? You do? Okay, take one of the company cars home. We just bought a Ferrari under our new Corporate Excess program. You can test it out for us.”

“Thank you so much,” was all Pat could say. She stood up and started to leave.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you the reason I called you in here,” the director said. “I wanted to let you know that you won the company charity raffle. Talk to my secretary and she’ll give you the $2000.”

As Pat drove home early in a brand-new Ferrari, $2000 in cash in her purse, she took a deep breath and smiled. It was a Good Day. She might have to go find that spider and say thank you.

19 Comments | tags: bad day, Ferrari, fiction, raffle, short story, spider, spiderweb, work | posted in Light

August 28, 2013

If I Were a Poor Man – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

If I Were a Poor Man

“If I were a poor man, my dear,” he said, “I would come here and imagine buying you these jewels. I would get a second job, just to buy one diamond for your beautiful, swan-like neck.”

She looked at him quizzically. “But you’re not a poor man. You just bought this mall.”

“But I want you to know that I would. Would it mean more to you if I did get a job? If I worked hard to buy you some token of my love?”

“That’s dumb. Let’s just buy some now.”

He sighed. “Fine. Pick out what you’d like.”

57 Comments | tags: fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Jewelry, marriage, poor, romantic, Shopping, wealth | posted in Friday Fictioneers

August 26, 2013

Good Intentions

By David Stewart

“This place needs cleaning up,” the Superintendent of Parks said. “This new garbage can will help.”

“Should I take the plastic wrap off?”

The superintendent’s face took on a look of horror. “What, and get it dirty?”

6 Comments | tags: funny, garbage, photograph, trash | posted in Light

August 24, 2013

The Wish Gate – Visual Fiction

By David Stewart

I am on the road at the moment, taking a trip for work and writing this post on my phone. So, please forgive the occasional spelling mistake. I am in the coastal city of Samcheok, in Korea, across from their actual wish gate.

Jack had passed the Wish Gate earlier in the day. It was the sappy sort of tourist trap he usually avoided. Couples were lined up, waiting their turn to go stand under the arch, make a wish, and ring the bell. A photographer was making a killing selling portraits to the masses of young lovers. Jack stayed on the bus and got off instead at the beach.

Now, however, as he walked back to his hotel from the beach late at night, the gate had taken on a whole new aspect. He walked over to it, now standing alone and empty, abandoned by the lovers and profiteers. A sign to the left instructed him to step up, make a wish, and ring the bell. “What’s your biggest wish?” the sign inquired.

But Jack didn’t have a wish, not a big one, at least. He thought of the people who had been there during the day: those who wanted love and those who wanted money. He did not have much of either, but somehow to Jack they both seemed trite. Money flowed in and out; as permanent as the sea-soaked sands on the beach. Love–at least the infatuated, ephemeral kind the couples he had seen represented to him–was no comfort to him either. What else was there in life to dream of: fame, power, happiness?

The moon rose above the ocean and broke through the clouds right in the middle of the Wish Gate. To Jack, it had never looked so achingly beautiful. He suddenly had an urge to go there. Not the actual moon–that was more dead and barren than life on Earth–but the thing that the moon and all the unknown longing in his heart represented. He longed for that one Real Thing amid all the emptiness of life, as lovely and seemingly unattainable as the moon in its field of infinite nothing.

Jack stepped under the arch. “I wish to find a wish,” he said, and rang the bell.