Tag Archives: fantasy

February 10, 2014

Xerxes’ Neighbors

Do you remember Xerxes? Back on June 28, 2013, I wrote a story about a strange man living in a strange house in a dimension all by himself (he thought), called Xerxes’ House. It was clearly not a complete story and I always meant to continue, and now I finally have, almost eight months later. Go read the first one if you’d like (it’s good, I swear, and it has a ShyPhone 4 in it), but read this one too.

Xerxes’ Neighbors

Xerxes viewed isolation like a bee views honey: he liked it—a lot—and if it wasn’t available, he made his own. It was the whole reason he had bought a house in Dimension XZG-33332, or as the real estate listing said, “a house of unpredictable eccentricity, floating in an abyss of viscous ether. Total isolation guaranteed.” Weird and alone, just the way he liked it.

Then one day, he found a sock in his hall as he was wandering in to grab some lunch. It was a yellow sock and it definitely wasn’t his. He looked up, way up into the infinite void that stretched up above his hall. He hadn’t bought a ceiling for his hall, because he had thought he was the only person in this dimension but now it looked like there were going to be problems.

He strode the kitchen window and immediately Prescient Pigeon fluttered down. “Good morning,” it said, although it was almost five in the afternoon (in a empty dimension, it is very hard to keep track of time). “You want me to find out if there are any houses in this dimension. There are eighteen, one very close.”

At that moment, a small animal climbed up on the window sill next to the pigeon. It stood up on its hind legs and gave Xerxes a look of rapture. “Oh wow, I am so enthralled to meet you, sir. Your least command is my joy and delight.”

“Who are you, Hyperbolic Ferret?” Xerxes asked.

“Obsequious Otter,” the animal said. “I belong to the Henderson family next door. They requested I come here and invite you to a dinner party tomorrow night.”

“Oh my gosh, that’s such a great plan. Way to go!” -Obsequious Otter

“I’m not going,” Xerxes said. “Here, take this sock back to them if it’s theirs.” He tossed the yellow sock at the otter.

“I will bear this token to them as proof of your acceptance,” Obsequious Otter said.

“No, I said I wasn’t going.”

“Ah, I’m sure you’re being polite now. You probably feel it necessary to refuse four times before grudgingly accepting.”

“No, I told you I don’t want to go!” Xerxes shouted. “I’m here to be alone.”

“That’s three,” the otter said.

“Just go away.”

“I’ll take that as four,” the otter said and then looked hard at Xerxes. When he did not say anything, it continued, “Ah, I guess in your culture, some time needs to pass for everything to be polite. That is such a wonderful custom you have. I will be back in an hour.” It took the sock and scampered out of sight.

“I’m sorry, I can’t kill him,” Prescient Pigeon said, before Xerxes could ask. “It’s not in my job description. I could order you an Assassin Alligator, but I can’t have it here for two weeks.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Xerxes said.

He went into the laundry room and sat down. The laundry room walls contained the spirit of his ex-girlfriend, Penelope. She wasn’t dead, just inhabiting his walls against her will. It was part of the unique architecture of the building. They had never officially broken up, but considering that she hated his guts now, he had added the ex- part himself.

“What are you doing here?” she asked with a sneer.

“I’m having a bad day,” he said.

“And you expect me to make it all better?”

“No, I just like to remind myself that no matter how bad things can be, they can always get worse.” He sat there and endured the stream of abuse she leveled at him. Yeah, this was a lot worse. It made him feel better.

Finally, she got tired and ran out of swearwords. “So what’s wrong?” she asked.

“The next door neighbors invited me to dinner,” he said. “I came out here to be alone and to get away from people inviting me to stuff.”

“Good, don’t go over there,” she said quickly.

He looked up, intrigued. “Why not?”

“Just don’t.”

“Hmm, maybe I will now . . .”

“No, don’t,” she said. “I’ve been seeing the dining room wall from over there. His name’s Bumble. I don’t want you to mess anything up for me.”

“I think I’ll go,” Xerxes said. “I do need to be more social, right?” He sat there, smiling, as Penelope invented five minutes of new insults for him on the spot.

Obsequious Otter showed up an hour later and Xerxes said he would go. It clapped its little paws rapturously. “Oh, good decision, sir. Good decision! I knew that there were all sorts of social protocols to be followed. I will come here tomorrow at 6 to guide you to the house. Until then.”

Xerxes had not seen another actual human in over a year and he was not quite sure what to wear. His main motivation for going was to see this wall Bumble and to annoy Penelope, but he wanted to make a statement too. Finally, he picked out a set of chain mail and wrapped a purple bathroom around it, and put a tie on, the other way around so that it went down his back. Yes, he was going to try to have a good time.

To be continued (in the very near future)…

10 Comments | tags: fantasy, fiction, girlfriend, multiple dimensions, otter, quirky, real estate, xerxes | posted in Light

February 9, 2014

Jasper’s Lamp – full story

By David Stewart

This past Wednesday, I did a Friday Fictioneers story called Jasper’s Lamp. It’s a creepy story about five generations of women and their relationship to a lamp that has something growing inside it. The problem is, that the Friday Fictioneers stories are 100 words and I wanted to say more about it. So I wrote this one to tell the whole story. It’s a bit long, but if you like creepy, then enjoy.

“I brought it,” my mother says, and with those three innocuous words, a shiver of terror goes down my back. This is the moment I have been dreading since my grandmother showed me the lamp and told me it would one day be mine.

“I don’t want it,” I say. “How dare you bring that thing here?”

Her eyes are filled with the wearied horror that comes from years of caring for a monster. “Look, I promised my mother I would do this. Throw it away if you want. I don’t care. I’m sorry to do this to you, Sarah. God knows I’m sorry, but now I’m done. I’ve fulfilled my promised. I brought the papers too.”

With that, she stands up and walks to the front door. “I don’t want it!” I shout after her. I know it is useless; the front door clicks shut.

I go to the door in time to see her drive away. The lamp is sitting next to the door, covered loosely by a canvas bag. I am tempted to leave it there, but of course that is impossible. What if Evelyn, my daughter, sees it? What if the wind blows the bag off and the neighbors see the monstrosity that is underneath?

It takes all my willpower to knowingly bring that thing into my house; to actually put my hand under the glass globe and lift it, holding that terror so close to my body. A folio bound with a string is next to it, and after I bring the lamp inside, I get the papers and bring them into the kitchen.

They smell old, with a mustiness that reminds me of sickness. I make some coffee and then open the folio. My mother has told me about these papers, which my grandmother collected as a history of the lamp and an ongoing record of it. She loved it, my mother said, although I cannot understand why.

The papers on top are a bundle of yellowed, type-written transcriptions of an interview between my grandmother Ursula and her mother, my great-grandmother Celeste.

Ursula: Tell me about my father, Jasper.

Celeste: Jasper, he was quite the dashing young man. He was dark-skinned, and my parents didn’t approve of him, but he was a romantic. Always talking about places he’d been all over the world. He said he’d take me with him sometime, but I didn’t want to go. Getting malaria in some sweaty, God-forsaken jungle, no thank you.

Ursula: And when did he give you the lamp?

Celeste: The lamp. He sent it to me, if you can believe it. I don’t how it didn’t break, but he packed it tight into a crate with straw and paper and bits of rag. It was an oil lamp back then, not the electric lamp you’ve made it now.

Ursula: Can you describe the lamp?

Celeste: Describe it? You know damn well what it looks like! Fine though, I guess it has changed over the years. When I first opened the package, it was a brass oil lamp, with a glass chimney and underneath, a large glass globe. Inside the globe, there was a single eyeball floating, about as big as a cow’s eye. Gave me one hell of a fright. I found the note he sent with it. ‘I need you to look after this for me. Promise you will, it’s important. I’ll be back for it soon, but for now, keep the lamp burning. Keep it warm!’ That’s all he said, no ‘I love you’ or anything.

Ursula: And that was the last you heard of him?

Celeste: That was it. He was heading for Indochina when I said goodbye to him for the last time, but that note and the lamp was the last I got from him. Five months later, you were born. I did as he asked though, taking care of you and the lamp, keeping it lit, although I covered up the bottom most of the time. I couldn’t abide that big, staring eye just looking, always looking. I kept expecting it to fall apart, just decay, but as you know, it didn’t.

Ursula: When did you first notice it growing?

Celeste: you were about three at the time. You were toddling around and you grabbed at the skirting around the lamp and yanked it off. You screamed when you saw the eye first, but then you couldn’t keep away from it. You named it George, I remember. It was then I noticed it was growing, that there was more flesh behind it and another eye growing next to it, though at that time, it was dull and undeveloped.

Ursula: What do you think about the lamp?

Celeste: [sighs] I didn’t like it and I still don’t. It still gives me the creeps and if you didn’t have such a connection to it, I would order you to destroy it when I die. But Jasper’s last letter to me made me promise to take care of it and I did it for him. You can do what you like with it. For years, I kept imagining he’d come back and take it off my hands. I don’t suppose he will now though.

The transcript ends there. I heard hints of this from my grandmother, but not everything. The next thing in the folio is a battered,spiral-bound notebook. On the cover, it says, “The Book of the Lamp, by Ursula McIntyre-Willis”. I didn’t know about this.

June 5, 1958: I’ve decided to call the thing Jasper instead of George. Not that it’s Father, but I never met him and this is all I have from him. Sometimes when I look into the lamp, I can imagine those eyes speaking to me as they look unblinkingly into mine. I can almost understand, but not quite. It’s frustrating. Both eyes are full size now and a body is growing behind them.

I flip through a few pages. My grandmother Ursula has made detailed notes about its development and her feelings about it.

August 19, 1961: The body is taking on a definite shape now and I can see a head forming around the eyes. Last night I had the insane thought to open the globe, even though I knew it might endanger Jasper. I pried off the lamp part, but the globe is totally sealed, as if it was made whole. I don’t know how they did it. I will replace the lamp with an electric one, I think.

July 29, 1964: My husband Randy tried to smash the globe with a baseball bat. He’s always hated Jasper, but the bat didn’t even make a scratch. He knows not to try to touch Jasper again though. I made sure of that.

February 3, 1968: The kids never want to go near Jasper. I don’t care about Brody, but if Rose is going to take care of him after me, she needs to love Jasper as much as I do. An hour a week in the closet together should help their relationship. If she looks into Jasper’s eyes, he’ll speak to her.

March 28, 1970: I got the good idea to record my mother’s recollections of the lamp. She never loved him as much I did. I’m glad she let me take care of him.

July 2, 1973: The area over his eyes has been thickening for almost a year now. At first, I thought they were fading, but now I see it is the eyelids growing. Last night, I saw my dear Jasper’s eyes for the last time. Now they are shut and he is sleeping.

November 6, 2003: I am going into a nursing home tomorrow and I can’t keep Jasper anymore. My heart is breaking, but now it’s Rose’s turn.

At the top of the next page, my grandmother has written my mother’s name: Rose Willis-Hunter. But the pages afterwards are blank. At the back of the notebook, I find a letter from my mother to me. It has been crumpled up, but then smoothed out again. It is dated June 20, 2007, the day after my grandmother’s funeral.

Dear Sarah,

I feel like I’ve been living in a nightmare most of my life and the last thing I want to do is pass it on you. You were there for the reading of the will, but there was a secret clause about it. She left it to me along with her papers and a book of things that the thing inside has supposedly told her. She wants me to pass it on to you when I get old.

My darling Sarah, forgive me. I will keep it away from you as long as I can, but you have no idea what it was like living with her. She broke me, slowly but steadily. I hate that thing, but I can’t destroy it and I can’t abandon it. I dream about my mother even now and about that thing she loved. The hours she locked me in the closet with it before its eyes closed changed me somehow. I hate it and I hate myself for being so weak.

Your mother,

Rose

At the bottom, in red pen, my mother has scribbled, I threw this letter away, but decided to show it to you anyway. It was a moment of truth I don’t think I can bring myself to repeat. I burned the book of things it told her. I made the mistake of reading it and I may be weak, but I couldn’t let that survive. I left the notes she made of its history, so you’ll know the truth and be warned.

I close the folio and go out into the hallway, where the lamp is sitting. With a deep breath, I pull off the canvas bag.

The monster, Grandma Ursula’s Jasper, lays curled up inside. It is more developed than the first time I saw it, that time when Grandma brought me up to her secret library when my mother was away. This is Jasper, she said, as if introducing me to a friend. One day, he will be yours to take care of. Now, I can see a whip-like tail curled around the bottom, curved spines along its back and its hundreds of little legs curled up, each ending in a single claw. Its closed left eye is pressed against the glass now. I have a sudden image of it opening and I throw the bag back over the lamp. Somehow, I get the lamp down to the basement and bury it behind boxes.

I go out to do errands and come back that afternoon to find, with horror, my 8-year-old daughter Evelyn reading the papers about the lamp I have thoughtlessly left out on the table.

“What’s this?” she asks.

“Nothing,” I say, grabbing them.

“Do we have this lamp?” When I don’t reply, she continues, “Where is it? I want to see it.”

It’s like I don’t have a choice. With mute horror, I lead her downstairs and move aside the boxes, aware that I am continuing the chain. Show her now and she will be revolted by it, I think, to comfort myself.

“So this is Jasper. Wow, he’s so cool,” she says, gazing into the globe.

“It’s just a thing and it’s not cool.”

“But great-grandma Ursula called him Jasper,” she says. “He’s almost done, right?”

“Done?” I ask with alarm. “What do you mean?”

“Well, from the notes on the table, he’s been growing for years. So when he’s finished growing, he’ll wake up, right?”

“What makes you say that?”

“I don’t know. I guess I just assumed.”

“Look, Evelyn. Don’t come down here, okay? This thing is evil. I’m going to get rid of it, okay?”

“But I want to be there when his eyes open,” she says and my mind revolts at the smile on her face. Not for this! I want to shout. Not for you, Jasper. You can’t have her.

I lay awake in bed that night, thinking. I am all by myself since my husband left two years ago and I need to do something to stop this. I need to destroy the lamp, carry it to a dump, drop it into the ocean, anything to get it away. I fantasize about doing it, day after day, while I keep the basement door locked and an eye on my daughter. But I feel that time is running out. It’s almost done,” Evelyn said, and I feel it too. So I keep on, think about destroying it and do nothing and hate myself for doing nothing, around and around, in a maddening spiral.

But I have to do something. I have to. Before the eyes open.

16 Comments | tags: creepy, Family, fantasy, fear, fiction, horror, lamp, monster, Mother | posted in Dark

January 5, 2014

Life in the Sun – Sunday Photo Fiction

By David Stewart

Thanks to my friend at A Dragon Year for the inadvertent inspiration for this story.

Life in the Sun

It took a while to figure out that the mermaid wasn’t hostile. It took even longer to figure out it wasn’t a maid, it was a mer-dude. Then it took forever to find out what he wanted when he swam up the Thames and stared intently at Parliament. Mer-people could apparently understand English, but were not able to speak.

The press conference was conducted with a type of sign language, made more complicated by the merman’s webbed hands.

“Why are you here?” they asked.

“I am here because I have lived in British waters for my whole life but where has my representation been? You tax us by taking our fish but what do we get out of it? Give representation to the undersea inhabitants of the realm or there will be revolution!”

A year later, the mer-man, Sirenio, was elected the first MP from newly-created constituency of the Solent.

The next day, the Sun’s headline screamed: NEWLY ELECTED MERMAN MP CAUGHT EMBEZZLING SAND DOLLARS!

29 Comments | tags: Alastair's Photo Fiction, British, fantasy, fiction, funny, mermaid, ocean, Parliament, politics, quirky, scandal, tabloid, the Solent, the Sun, UK | posted in Light

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

September 25, 2013

They Say – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Well, it’s Friday Fictioneers time again. First of all, my apologies for not being able to read very many stories last week. I was out in the mountains for most of the week and even though I had a smart phone, it is very difficult to read a lot on it as well as write meaningful comments. I will do better this week.

Teenager, blue hat:

“They say the house’s invisible; only the doors are visible.”

Teenager, smoking:

“I heard it’s haunted.”

Teenager, red hair:

“My brother’s friend knew a guy who said the red one leads to Hell.”

Blue hat:

“I heard if you say ‘bloody skull’ in front of the white one at midnight, a witch appears.”

Red hair:

“They say they glow on Halloween.”

Smoking:

“They oughta know.”

Old man, long scar, approaches:

“I got caught in the white door when I was young. There really is a witch there.”

All three:

“Shut up, old man. You’re such a liar!”

38 Comments | tags: fantasy, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, ghosts, Halloween, haunted, hearsay, rumor | posted in Friday Fictioneers

September 24, 2013

The Hieroglyphics Teacher Prevails

By David Stewart

For some background (if you wish), read:

The Hieroglyphics Teacher

The Hieroglyphics Teacher Makes a Discovery

The Hieroglyphics Teacher Strikes Back

Ben learned two things that day: 1. Never put Elixir of Life in the refrigerator; and 2. Given the chance, broccoli just wants to watch the world burn.

Ben had opened his fridge to see that everything inside (including the fridge itself) had come to life. He immediately had to stop the eggs from hurling themselves onto the floor in some pointless gesture of bravado. The broccoli threw the empty Elixir of Life bottle at him and the butter burst into heartrending sobs.

It took a while, but he finally figured out what had happened. The Elixir of Life had expanded and burst its seal, dripping onto the broccoli. It had come to life and had started spraying the Elixir onto everything else, out of sheer bloody-mindedness. Now Ben was starving, but he felt bad eating anything that could object vocally to the process.

Luckily, Pizza Pockets were frozen and the food in the freezer was still refreshingly non-living. He took out the box and felt the accusing eyes of the rest of the food on him, as if he were raiding the morgue for a quick snack. He shut the fridge door.

The question now (besides dealing with Ben Two) was what to do with the food. Now that they were living beings, it wasn’t a simple matter of just eating them or throwing them away. This is why the Elixir of Life bottle came with a warning on its side: May cause the endowment of inalienable rights. Use with caution.

He decided to take a count first. He opened the fridge door and caught an egg as it immediately hurled itself out into space, yelling, “Yee-haw!” He corralled the rest of the eggs, shut the egg carton lid and held it down.

In total, the sentient food included six eggs, a stick of butter, a head of broccoli, a half-empty bottle of soy sauce and an ancient box of baking soda that had been pushed into the back. It was lucky that he had not gone grocery shopping in a while.

“You can’t hold us, fascist!” the broccoli yelled at him. “We’ve got rights.”

“I know,” Ben said. “I read the side of the bottle. Where are you going to go, though? You’re all food.”

“So, it’s hopeless?” the butter asked and burst into tears.

“Well . . .” Ben said, thinking of the butter’s chances out on the streets. “Look, I really can’t deal with this right now. I’ve got bigger problems.” Having no other friends to confide in, he sat in front of his fridge and explained his problems with Ben Two to his groceries.

“Egg barrage!” the carton of eggs yelled in unison when he had finished. “We’ll get him good. Just throw us in his general direction.” The broccoli just snorted. The butter was still sniffling to itself and the box of baking soda was apparently asleep. The soy sauce said nothing.

“I don’t know if any of that would help,” Ben said, imagining the cleanup, and the subsequent nightmares.

“I have an idea,” the soy sauce said quietly. It had a smooth voice that made Ben instantly listen and respect its opinion. “Let me speak to this Ben Two, alone. I think I can solve your problem in a mutually beneficially way.”

“Uh, okay,” Ben said, rather nonplussed by such a self-assured condiment. “Whatever you want.”

Ben Two came in at about 5:30, carrying five 24-packs of beer. He seemed to have forgotten about the incident at the school.

“What are those for? Are you having a party?” Ben asked. Ben Two looked up at him.

“No, they’re all for me. I heard today that people like drinking alcohol as a way of relaxing. I’m going to try it.”

“But it won’t affect you; you can’t get drunk.”

“Well, at least it’ll make a good story.”

“Uh,” Ben hesitated. “The soy sauce wants to talk to you.” He led Ben Two into the kitchen. The fridge was whistling a blues tune softly to itself. He got out the soy sauce and put it on the table.

“Leave us,” the soy sauce said. Ben instinctively knew it was talking to him, so he went into the living room and pretended to read while straining to hear what the two were saying. After half an hour, Ben Two came in, holding the soy sauce.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll leave and let you teach your classes again. Kikkoman and me here are going to go start a crime spree.”

Ben coughed. “What? You can’t do that? They will think it’s me.”

“He has no fingerprints or DNA,” the soy sauce said, “plus I know exactly how to change his face to fool facial recognition software. And we will never, ever get caught.”

“How do you know that?”

“I have been aged,” the soy sauce said, “to perfection.”

With that, they walked out the door. Ben later found out that they had stolen his boat, but under the circumstances, he considered himself lucky.

And so Ben started on the long road back to somewhat normal life. He bought a kayak and through having to paddle between the different islands to teach his classes, he soon lost the weight he had gained. The food that had come to life soon adjusted to their new existence. The butter cheered up immensely after Ben convinced it that no one was going to eat it. Ben bought more food and the eggs guarded it from the broccoli, who had random fits of destruction at times. They all lived peacefully together, except for the box of baking soda, who expired peacefully one night.

Ben still had to stay at school until the end of the day, even when he had no classes, but such is life.

6 Comments | tags: alchemy, clone, Elixir of Life, fantasy, fiction, funny, groceries, hieroglyphics, police, quirky, simulacrum, teaching | posted in Light

September 20, 2013

The Hieroglyphics Teacher Strikes Back

By David Stewart

For some background (if you wish), read:

The Hieroglyphics Teacher

The Hieroglyphics Teacher Makes a Discovery

This can’t be happening, Ben thought. There was an artificial copy of himself (which he had named Ben Two) out there who was planning on making an army of other magically animated robots to help him take over the world, or at least help him do less work. As Ben Two’s creator, Ben couldn’t help but feel slightly responsible for the situation.

Ben had let Ben Two teach all his classes for him while Ben just sat home and played computer and ate Pizza Pockets. But now he would have to go out and stop Ben Two.

But first he played an hour of World of Warcraft and had a couple Pizza Pockets.

The first place he went was the police station.

“Hi, I’d like to report a . . .” It wasn’t a crime, really. “I’d like to report a situation. There is a simulacrum teaching my classes.”

The police officer on duty gave him an easy-going, if totally uncomprehending, smile.

“It’s a magically-animated robot,” Ben said.

“…who’s teaching your classes for you,” the officer finished. Ben nodded. “And who exactly are you?”

“I’m the hieroglyphics teacher for the archipelago. But I also practice alchemy. I made the simulacrum.” The officer was staring at him in such a way that Ben felt compelled to keep giving information. “Then I told him to teach my classes for me, but now he wants to make more of these robots to replace other people.”

“And…?”

“And I’m worried. There has to be a law against that or something.”

Finally, the officer looked down. “Okay then, so where is this robot-thing now?”

They took the police boat over to the island where Ben’s classes were that day. Ben felt incredibly awkward as he followed the two police officers into the school and into the classroom where Ben Two was teaching. The students were watching a movie with hieroglyphic subtitles. They all gasped to see a copy of their teacher walk into the room, identical except much more disheveled and overweight.

“Excuse me, sir, but this man says you’re a copy of him,” the officer said.

Ben Two stopped the movie. “Actually, I created him,” he said. “Thank you for returning him to me.”

“That’s crazy,” Ben said. “I’m obviously not the simulacrum. Do an X-ray on us and you’ll see.”

“Would you submit to that?” the officer asked Ben Two. Ben Two shook his head. The officer turned and shrugged at Ben. “Sorry, we tried.”

“But who would make an overweight robot?” Ben protested. This all seemed like a bad dream.

“I was curious to see if I could,” Ben Two said. “I also programmed him to believe that he was a human and I was a robot.”

The officers nodded. “Well, you sure did a good job with that part.”

“But why would anyone do that?” Ben asked, becoming almost hysterical.

“My life lacked zest,” Ben Two said in a contemplative tone.

“I’m sorry to have disturbed you, sir,” the officer said. “What should we do with this thing?”

“I’m a human!” Ben screamed. “Quick, watch me eat something.” Then he remembered that he had made Ben Two able to eat as well. “He can’t go to the bathroom though. Come and watch me go the bathroom!”

“Oh dear, its modesty circuits are malfunctioning again,” Ben Two said. “That happens sometimes. Just drop it at home and I’ll fix it when I get home.”

Ben was dragged off by the police, screaming, “I’m not an it. I’m a human being!”

In the police boat, the police officers poked around for Ben’s off-switch for a bit, then just knocked him on the head a few times. They dropped him off at his house and posted a guard outside.

It really was like a bad dream. He went to get some Pizza Pockets out of the freezer and heard a giggle. He looked up to see the fridge smiling at him.

Fridges are not designed to smile at all, but somehow the blocky, metal appliance gave off the unmistakable impression of smiling.

“Oh, great.” Ben said. “The Elixir of Life…”

“Yep, it spilled,” the fridge said. “The eggs are bouncing around inside me like crazy and I think the butter is crying softly in a corner. Do you want to look?”

Ben was sure that he didn’t want to look, but he opened the fridge door (with another giggle from the fridge). The inside was a sea of activity.

(to be continued…)

5 Comments | tags: alchemy, clone, Elixir of Life, fantasy, fiction, funny, hieroglyphics, police, quirky, simulacrum, teaching | posted in Light

September 17, 2013

The Hieroglyphics Teacher Makes a Discovery

By David Stewart

Here is the first of the Hieroglyphics Teacher stories.

Ben, the resident hieroglyphics teacher for the Costa Meh archipelago, was not adverse to work. However, when he was given the option not to work, he took it. It came the night he created a simulacrum called Ben Two that looked and sounded so much like him that no one noticed when it went in and taught a class for him. Soon it was teaching all his classes for him.

It was about two months later that Ben discovered a very small detail: Ben Two did not know hieroglyphics. Ben discovered this when he was looking through his briefcase and came across a worksheet.

“Hey, these sentences don’t make any sense at all,” he said.

“Yeah, I know,” Ben Two said. “I just make stuff up and tell the kids that it’s right.”

“You can’t do that!”

“No, it’s okay,” Ben Two said. “They totally believe me. It’s not a problem.”

For the first time, Ben began to feel twinges of guilt. These combined with the creeping realizations that his life wasn’t as good as it had been and created the seeds of some Grade-A remorse. He had created Ben Two so that he wouldn’t have to stay after school and could work on his alchemy experiments. But now Ben Two was teaching his classes (and teaching them gibberish) and Ben was just playing computer games and eating Pizza Pockets. Ben Two had also somehow gotten a girlfriend (something Ben had failed to do in several years) and seemed to be taking over.

“I think maybe I should start teaching my classes again,” Ben said. “I can’t have you teaching them nonsense.”

“You can’t yet,” Ben Two said. “You’re about 20 pounds heavier than me by now. People will wonder how you gained all that weight overnight.” He sat down in front of the TV and lit a cigarette.

“You smoke now? How can you smoke? You’re a simulacrum.”

“Well then, I’m the only one who can do it safely,” Ben Two said. “At least I’ll never get cancer.”

“But you can’t even enjoy it.”

“It makes me look cool.”

“But no one’s here to see you.”

“You are. Don’t I look cool?”

“No. Can I at least look at the package that came today?”

Ben Two blew a cloud of smoke into the air. “I’d rather you didn’t. I have my fingers in a lot of pies right now.” He pulled out a stack of bills in a plastic bag and threw them to Ben. “Here. Go buy yourself something nice tomorrow.”

Ben went to his room. There was $500 in the bag. He didn’t know where it came from, but that nagging feeling that things weren’t right kept increasing.

Ben Two did not have to sleep, but he did get restless and usually went out for a swim around 3am. As soon as he was gone, Ben got up and opened the package that was sitting in the hallway. It was full of alchemy equipment and supplies—very much like something he would buy himself. But why would Ben Two want it? As he was looking through it, he realized that these were supplies for making more simulacra; it even included a bottle of the Elixir of Life.

Also, there were guns in the bottom of the package; big guns that looked designed to fit inside a body cavity. Ben took the Elixir of Life and hid it in the safest place he could think of: the fridge.

The next morning, when he came out for breakfast, Ben Two was waiting for him at the kitchen table. He was smoking five cigarettes at once and the air was hazy and thick.

“You opened my package,” he said.

“So what? This is my house, after all, and you bought it with my money.”

“Actually, since I’m the one working now, it’s my money. Where’s the Elixir of Life?”

“I dumped it down the sink,” Ben said, knowing this was an obvious lie. A liquid that turned inanimate objects into living creatures was not something you wanted to put into your average sewer system. “What were you planning to make?”

“I thought I would switch some of the principals at the schools with copies,” Ben Two said. “They’re always making me do things I don’t want to do, like teach. It’d help if they were on my side.”

“And give them guns?”

“Why not? It seems like an obvious upgrade. I’m surprised you didn’t give me guns that could shoot out of my fingertips or something.”

“But how are you going to build them? You don’t know anything about alchemy?”

“Sure I do. I know everything you do.”

“Except hieroglyphics.”

“Yeah, except that. I guess that was a glitch in the process.”

“I’m going to try to stop you, you know.”

“Okay, have fun with that.” Ben Two took the five cigarette butts and threw them into the sink. “Well, I’m off to work. I guess if you don’t give me back the Elixir of Life, I’ll have to order some more. Luckily, I know a guy who can get it to me fast.” He picked up the package and walked out the door.

(to be continued…)

7 Comments | tags: alchemy, clone, Elixir of Life, fantasy, fiction, funny, hieroglyphics, quirky, simulacrum, teaching | posted in Light

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)