Why Am I Dead?

I'm still trying to do exercises about characterization, but none of the tasks in the Novakovich book are floating my boat.

So I'm making this up as I go along. I started this story out with one of the murder scenes in the 1984 film The Terminator (which is why we never find out who the murderer is in my short story below). 

However, as far as the film goes. Sara Anne Connor's story ends when she dies. From my point of view, there's a lot more to tell.

This is just a draft. If it were a "real" story, it would probably be longer. I'd have to "flesh" a few things out, if you'll pardon the unintentional pun (you'll get it once you start reading the story.) 

I'm concerned that I'm having Sara forgive her husband too quickly and too easily, and that she might be seen as being co-dependent by asking his forgiveness, even though he's done his share of wrongs. I think you'll see my point though, once you've read how Sara's tale really ends.

Credit: terminator.wikia.com

My name is Sara Anne Connor and I'm dead.

That should be the end of my story, but as it turns out, it's just the beginning.

I didn't expect death to be like this. I was always taught that as a Christian, when I died, I'd go to Heaven to be with Jesus.

But I didn't. I just stood there, looking at my body, collapsed at my feet. I was shot six times by a man I'd never seen before. I answered a knock at my door. I wasn't expecting anyone. I'd just put my baby down for her nap. My little boy was playing with his Tonka trucks on the back patio.

I had the security chain on the door. I wasn't expecting anyone and I thought someone like the Jehovah's Witnesses might be coming around again. I opened the door. He asked if I was Sara Anne Connor. I said "yes". I thought it might be one of my ex-husband's friends trying to find him. Since the divorce, he hasn't been easy to find.

But the man with the coldest eyes I'd ever seen, like a fish, like a machine, slammed the door open, breaking the chain.

I saw the gun and I was paralyzed. I knew I should run. I knew I had to protect my babies. But I froze. I don't remember what I was thinking. It was like I was asleep and watching myself in a dream.

After he stopped pulling the trigger, he turned around and left. He didn't say anything. His face never changed from being impassive and emotionless. He turned around and walked out of my house. Then I looked down and saw my bleeding corpse lying at my feet. I opened my mouth to scream but I couldn't hear anything.

I was vaguely aware that Jenny was crying from her crib. Timmy came running in from the back. I could hear the screen door slam and his running feet pounding across our worn, hardwood floor.

"Mommy! Mommy!" He was yelling and shaking me, trying to wake me up. But I wasn't asleep. I was dead. I felt dead inside, too. Then my feelings came back to life and I started crying.

"Timmy, I'm right here. Mommy's right here," I tried to say. I reached down to him but I couldn't touch him. My hands, my real hands, were lifeless and cold. I couldn't console my son. I couldn't tell him everything was going to be alright.

That's because nothing was going to be alright. My children didn't have a Mommy anymore. Their Dad left months ago, giving up on our family rather than his drinking and gambling (and other women). He wasn't going to raise Timmy and Jenny. He wasn't going to get a job to support them. He wasn't going to spend time playing with them or helping Timmy with his homework. He wasn't going to take them to church.

My babies were abandoned and I don't even know why. Why did that man kill me? What's going to happen to me now? Why didn't Jesus save me? Why didn't he take me to Heaven?

I used to make jokes about attending my own funeral just to see what it was like, to make sure my favorite hymns were played at the memorial service, to hear my Pastor recite special psalms over my grave.

I watched my sister holding Timmy's hand as the funeral ended. Her husband stayed home with Jenny. I watched my sister help my little boy into her car. I knew she would drive him back to their home in Los Alamitos. I never thought she cared enough to provide a home for my children. I never thought that, when he found out I died, Jeff, my ex, would realize Timmy and Jenny needed a family.

I pushed my sister away because she and her husband weren't Christians. I pushed her away when, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how passionately I witnessed to her and told her how coming to Christ was the best thing that ever happened to me, she refused to become a believer.

I pushed Jeff out of our home because he couldn't hold a job but he spent every spare dime we had on horse races and his beer. I tried to get him to go to church with us, the kids and me, I tried. I thought if he could make friends with other godly men that it would help turn him around, help him be a good father and husband.

He didn't want to listen to me either.

Of all the people at church, Pastor Bill, Shelly and the other women in our Bible study group, my spirit, my soul doesn't visit any of them. Only Jeff, only my sister Emily, and of course, my sweet little children. Jenny cries missing me and poor Timmy is so heartbroken and mad at God for taking me away from him and his sister to go to Heaven.

It's been five months now and I'm still not in Heaven. What's wrong with me? Why doesn't Jesus love me? Why am I like a ghost haunting my family?

Dear God, I forgive them. I forgive Jeff for all his faults. I still can't believe I'm watching him go to his first AA meeting. Emily's husband Terry, I never knew, he's been a recovering alcoholic for over ten years now, he took him.

Now I'm watching Emily at her house, rocking the baby in her arms and reading to Timmy from his favorite Bible stories book. Why is she doing that? She doesn't believe, does she? She even started taking him back to my church.

She really does love my children. She and Terry never had kids. I never knew she could be such a good...mother.

I forgive Emily for hurting me by not receiving Christ into her heart. I forgive her for loving Terry more than she loved me. I forgive...

I'm dead. I don't breathe. Why do I feel like I'm short of breath? Why do I feel scared? I can't be hurt. Why am I hurting inside?

I'm already gone from this world. I can't touch anything and nothing touches me. I feel nothing...nothing...

Nothing except sorrow and loss...and regret.

Jesus, please forgive me for everything I've done wrong. Please take me into Heaven. Please take me into your rest.

You aren't going to forgive me, though, are you?

Emily's just put the baby down in her crib to sleep, and she's getting Timmy into his PJs so he can go to bed soon. She's reading him another Bible story about Jesus. What's that he's saying? "When I die, will I see my Mommy in Heaven?"

My heart is breaking for the thousandth time.

"The Bible says that if we repent and ask forgiveness from Jesus and from anyone we have hurt, we're saved and we go to Heaven when we die," she says, comforting him in a hug.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you yesterday, Aunt Emmy," Timmy starts to softly cry. "Will you forgive me?" If only I could take him in my arms. I so love Emily for being so sweet and caring to him.

"I forgive you, sweetheart. I always will," Emily smiles down at him, rubbing his tears away with a finger.

"Please forgive me too, Emily." I hear the words but it takes me a second to realize I'm the one who said them.

Oh God. I am so sorry. "Emily, I'm so sorry for how I've treated you. You're my sister. Jesus doesn't want me to not love you. The years I've stolen from you, years where we could have acted like a family. Years you could have been an Aunt to Timmy. He didn't get to know you, to love you, because I was alive. I was selfish. I was wrong."

"Timmy, please forgive Mommy. I love you and little Jenny more than anything. I kept you from your Aunt and Uncle who really love you, too. I am so sorry. Please forgive me. Jenny, please forgive me."

"Jeff, I've been hurt and angry at you for so long. I thought everything was your fault, like God made a mistake giving you to me for a husband instead of a Christian man. You tore my heart out when you walked out on our children...on me. I was too blind to see I'd pushed you away, too...that I stopped loving you when I gave my heart to Jesus. That's not what he wanted me to do."

"Please forgive me, Jeff. Please forgive me for not being a good wife to you. You really were a good husband and father and you would have stayed, I know you would have stayed...would have stayed and not started drinking, not started gambling, if I hadn't changed so much."

I don't know how long I've been crying. I don't know where I am. I can't see them anymore. I can't see Jeff or Emily or Terry. I can barely see Timmy asleep in his bed or Jenny's sweet little face in her crib.

"Good-bye my babies. Mommy's going away now. I'll always love you. But it'll be OK. Uncle Terry and Aunt Emily love you too, they love you so much. Daddy loves you. I'm glad he's visiting you and playing with you. I'm glad things are going to be OK."

I can't see any of them anymore. I've stopped feeling sad. I love my family, and I know Jesus will take care of them. I believe that. I believe it with all my heart.

I feel so peaceful. Bright light is all around me. I feel warm and weightless. I'm letting go. I'm forgiving. I'm forgiven.

My name is Sara Anne Connor...and I'm going to Heaven.

Transformation by Vision

I've now progressed to Chapter Three: "Character," in Josip Novakovich's book Fiction Writer's Workshop. I've found that describing a scene, particularly from memory, is more difficult than I imagined.

For instance, in writing a very short illustration of The Alley as taken from the 1984 cult classic film The Terminator, I had neglected a great deal of detail about the contents of the alley (I'd forgotten how many discarded newspapers there were, water pipes running up the sides of buildings, the shapes of the buildings themselves). I saw the film again over this past weekend, and realized that I had described mainly the darkness and what I remembered about alleys in general, not this particular alley.

How much more difficult will it be to describe a person and to make that person seem convincingly real? What sort of person should I describe? Should I use an aspect of my own personality, someone I know, some famous or historical figure, a mythic being from some ancient tale of lore...a combination?

In the opening pages of this chapter, Novakovich describes the "conversion" of the Apostle Paul, what changed about him and what didn't. Of course, he takes the traditional Christian view of the Apostle whereas, my own internal image of "Rav Sha'ul" is somewhat to drastically different.

So I have my starting point, I think...

For the basis of the following short character piece, please open a copy of the Bible to the New Testament, and read Acts 9:1-19

"I would never write about someone who is not at the end of his rope."

-Stanley Elkin

His traveling companions gently deposited the Pharisee at the edge of a sleeping mat in a small, rented room just off of Straight street in Damascus. This wasn't how they'd imagined entering the city, nor was Sha'ul the man with whom they had traveled from Jerusalem. Only hours ago, he was a fiery zealot (though not literally associated with the Zealots), breathing murderous threats against the disciples of a Rav named Yeshua, who had died and supposedly been resurrected, vowing their imprisonment or destruction for (supposedly) speaking against the Temple and the Torah.

Sha'ul's once penetrating gaze had dimmed, and wide-open but unseeing eyes had become dulled in the aftermath of the blazing light that bathed their party on the road approaching this city, and a voice only Sha'ul could clearly hear had spoken to him of things astounding and forbidden.

"We will take our leave of you now, my Master," Simeon nearly whispered to the once vital but now strangely shrunken, frail Pharisee. "We need to secure our own rooms." Sha'ul seemed deaf as well as blind for he did not respond. "We'll bring back food."

Without turning toward the speaking man, Sha'ul faintly nodded his ascent as if he could still see the unknown vision from the road. Simeon and his two cohorts quickly escaped the oppressive presence of the now sightless and helpless minister of justice against the religious sect they'd learned was called "The Way." Their once proud mission was reduced to ashes.

Although it was highly irregular, Simeon would send one of their group back to Jerusalem with a message for the High Priest, who, a Sadducee, had consented to issuing letters of authority to the Pharisee Sha'ul permitting him to arrest and remove any disciples of this Rav Yeshua from the local synagogues and return them for trial. Would the Cohen Gadol have any instructions given these disastrous events? What were they to do with Sha'ul now?

"Why do you persecute, me he said," an abandoned Sha'ul muttered to himself in dim light and utter darkness. "Prosecute me? Prosecute him? How was I to know? How was I to know there was substance and power behind these measly group of heretics?" a still crushed and astonished Sha'ul murmured.

"How was I to know that you were the Moshiach, the Son of the Most High, the resurrected one?" Sha'ul abruptly screamed, as much to Yeshua as to the blind heavens!

Hearing no reply nor expecting one, the minutes lapsed and his rapid, ragged breathing slowed. Sha'ul supposed it was the traditional time for the Minchah, the afternoon prayers, and began to daven silently to Hashem, the Most High God, His God, who had abruptly become, if not a stranger, then at least the surprising source of something unexpected, as this new dimension of reality came into focus in the Pharisee's life.

Throughout his prayers, Sha'ul's mind raced in a countering subtext of desperate thought about who he is becoming now that he has been confronted by Yeshua, whose disciples he had condemned and yet how Sha'ul is condemned by the power behind and above the sect of The Way. Sha'ul had always been zealous for the Torah, for the sacrifices, for the Temple. He had kept every Law and tradition of his people in the manner of the Pharisees. He washed up to his elbows before eating every meal, kept all of the precepts so that he was always ritually pure, even when most of the time, he was away from Jerusalem and unable to make Temple offerings.

He was among the greatest of the Pharisees, in spite of his youth. A member of the tribe of Benjamin, a Jew among Jews. He had risen quickly among his peers, but then in those scant few moments of being blasted by the radiance of Heaven, he had fallen from the brightest heights and into total darkness; from the clouds to sheol.

Only his prayers offered faint luminescence, for even now, in his humility and humiliation, Sha'ul's hope was in Hashem, Maker of Heaven and Earth. If indeed this Yeshua is the Son of the Most High...

"How, Oh Hashem? How could I have been so wrong?" Sha'ul's prayers fell in disarray about his feet like wounded sparrows. "How can I put my hope in You when I have been so opposed to him? How could I have been so right and yet discover I've been so wrong?"

Sightless eyes wept bitter tears of contrition and repentance. This is the way Simeon found him when bringing Sha'ul his evening meal, which was repeatedly refused. This is how Sha'ul spent the next three days and nights, weeping, fasting, and praying, until another man who also had a vision, but a much more gentle one, came to Sha'ul's room and introduced himself to the future servant of Yeshua as the disciple Ananias.

Sha'ul was about to receive another revelation, the second among many. The Torah, the Temple, the Priesthood, the sacrifices were eternal. But in Messiah, they could now be experienced in ways Sha'ul had never imagined.

The Alley

One of the exercises in the second chapter of Josip Novakovich's book Fiction Writer's Workshop asks the writer to describe a setting from the point of view of someone who has just experienced a death, and another description of the same setting from a person who has just experienced a birth.

As with this assignment and yesterday's project, I decided to adapt the suggestion to something that speaks to me in my own "language."

I'm writing this from memory, although I never let too many months pass between viewings of this particular cult classic. Obviously, I have to develop more of a perspective on these characters than was revealed in the scene from the film I'm about to describe, particularly the first character. I guess that's part of what fiction writing is all about.

The alley reeked of urine, cheap wine, and rotting vegetables as he curled up in the shadows of a doorway behind some garbage cans. Mostly the smell of wine was coming from his clothes, but the majority of the contents of that last bottle made its way into his mouth, to his stomach, his bloodstream, and finally, blessedly, his brain.

His "old lady," the aging widow who occasionally took him in out of pity and sex, locked her door on him tonight because he was too drunk to "perform." "Who does she think he is?" he slurred through intoxication and a mouth missing several teeth. "Why'd she kick me out, the damn bitch?" he whined to himself in undeserved indignation.

This alley near downtown L.A. had been his haven before. If he kept quiet and out of sight, the cops wouldn't hassle him, and neither would the gangbangers who'd have been known to roll a drunk, shove a knife through the ribs, or the really scary ones who were rumored to pour gasoline on a guy sleeping it off, and light him on fire.

But because of wine and apathy, he was beyond being afraid or caring. He pulled the old, torn and frayed Army blanket, the last memento of his service to his country and the catastrophe two tours of duty in Vietnam had made of his mind and his body, over his slight, bent frame, and used his arms for a pillow.

This evening in May in Southern California meant the concrete steps he made his bed were only a little cold to the touch. His thoughts and senses were unfocused and confused, and as he tucked his head under the blanket to avoid the street lights reflecting into his refuge, he felt embraced by a sense of wilderness and familiar comfort.

The blanket held the odors of mold and sweat and mingled with the alley's other fragrances, most of them unpleasant, and while they spoke of abandonment and loss, they also whispered "freedom." No one could tell him what to do or where to go. There were no rules. Comfortably numb, he continued to mutter to himself, occasionally cursing his "old lady," and for one more night, calling this minor corridor off of Pico Avenue his home.

Pain! Bright light! It was like being born maybe. Reese's flesh felt like he was on fire (and he'd been burned once before) as the astonishing illumination abruptly vanished and he dropped into darkness, landing hard on his knees and elbows.

It took his eyes several moments to adjust to the dim light around him after having been blinded by the startling brilliance of his brief but amazing journey. He shook off the pain, disconnected it, even as smoke rose up from his back. Then he looked up and around.

The buildings on both sides of him were whole, not burnt out ruins. Electric lights. Wires between buildings for telephones. The sounds of road traffic drifting in from the street at the far end of the alley. He was in an alley. He stood up and remembered he was naked. "Nothing dead can travel through time," they told him. Anything he needed to complete his mission he'd have to get once he got to the other side, the past, the time before the war.

"Hey buddy, did you just see a real bright light?" wailed a voice to his right. Reese cursed himself for his carelessness. He was a soldier, a veteran of countless battles against the machines, and still he hadn't noticed the frail figure lying in the shadows just six feet away.

Realizing the man was harmless, he looked around again. He'd made it. He was in the past. Reese felt the thrill of success, the thrill at survival, even as he made plans to find Sarah Connor. But first he needed something to wear. The old guy was drunk and wouldn't give him any trouble.

As Reese pulled up the stinking, moist pants he'd just taken from the man still lying in the doorway, a sudden bright spotlight illuminated him. Reese whirled around in time to see two police officers (he recognized them from an old history book he once found in the rubble of a school) getting out of a car and approaching him. He couldn't afford to be detained. They'd have guns. He ran the other way down the alley.

"He's rabbiting," one of the officers yelled as he chased the fugitive, ignoring the other man who loudly slurred, "He took my pants!"

As the two running figures receded in the darkness and the other officer drove away in his car, the older man pulled his blanket up around his shoulders thankful that the cops were ignoring him, and also crushed that he'd suffered yet another insult. He retreated into his despair as if he could melt back into the shadow of the doorway, and the pavement, and the night, and hoped the cops wouldn't come back for him. He just wanted to sleep. He just wanted to feel safe or if not safe, at least isolated from everything. That's what the alley meant to him. But it also meant a dead end, and end of time, at least his time, because a deep fear clawed inside of him, a knowledge that as he slept here he'd probably die here.

Reese's bare feet padded against the asphalt as he ran from the police officer. What was familiar to the owner of the pants he wore was an alien landscape Reese had only heard stories about from the very oldest survivors of the future nuclear holocaust, or seen pictures of in the few books and magazines that had been found in what was left of schools and libraries.

The grey cold light of street lamps, the rocks on the pavement that cut his feet as he ran, the slight chill in the air, the smells of garbage and car exhaust, all spoke of a life and a world that still had hope, that was still alive and free, of a people not yet dominated by the machines. This wasn't home. It would never be home, but if he could save Sarah Connor and somehow stop the Terminator, he could end the destruction of the human race before it ever started. The future's not set. It's just the beginning. All he had to do is survive.

Kyle Reese ran.

One Afternoon in Sodom

Continuing with the exercises in the "Sources of Fiction" chapter in Novakovich's book, the assignment is to remember a verbal or physical fight and write a fictionalized version of it. It's supposed to be an easy assignment, particularly the dialog.

When I wrote Jacob and the Angel's Curse, I based it very loosely on a fight between two girls I witnessed in high school (a very long time ago). When I read this assignment, the first thing I thought of was the time I was attacked and beaten by a group of men when I was 16 years old.

In the early 1970s, racial tension was running high all over the United States. I had gone to the Homecoming football game at my high school with some friends and after the game, I became separated from them and attacked, pretty much the same way I describe below. Not much dialog in the story because what I remember most is feelings of panic and helplessness.

Unlike the fictionalized version I've rendered, I've long since gotten past the feelings of being afraid of people all the time, but for a year after the attack, I was very afraid of people of color. I changed the situation from racial gangs to rape gangs below because I wanted to use a somewhat more "generic" group of attackers. Most everything else is pretty much the same. I used Biblical place names just because they were handy. Oh, and I've cast myself as an adult in the story below.

The rape gangs were roaming all over Sodom that afternoon. Rumors had it that affiliate gangs had been shipped in from as far away as Gomorrah and Zoar. The police were everywhere, except, of course, they couldn't be everywhere. That's where my problems started.

A group of us had just left the stadium after the football game and were walking back to the parking garage. It was pretty ballsy to not cancel the game and even more ballsy for the fans to go watch it, but the Mayor was putting pressure on the team owners and stadium managers to keep things running as normally as possible. I stupidly thought that if the Wildcats and Cowboys were playing, it was safe to go with my mates and watch these two rivals clobber each other.

Frankly, I think someone should have declared martial law. I wouldn't have gone to the game that day with my mates, but I also would have avoided what came next and the lifetime of terror that followed.

I don't remember how I got separated from my group. All I remember is that I'd been lagging. Half a block behind us at the intersection were five or six cop cars and a bunch of officers trying to keep the peace. Crowds of people were milling everywhere, and the rape gangs were mixed in with the rest of us, attacking innocents at will.

I was scared and confused by everything happening around me but figured with the police so close, I'd be OK.

About six or seven guys moved in front of me, blocking me so I had to stop. I was still hoping they just wanted to threaten me. I was still hoping the police were looking up the street at us.

One of the guys in front of me very gently touched my right hand and softly said, "Hey."

That's when the sky fell in. I don't remember any pain, just a feeling of helplessness and almost weightlessness, as if I had been wading in the ocean, been caught by a wave and pulled underwater.

My glasses sailed into the air and were gone. It was the last thing I saw. I tried to curl up into a fetal ball with my eyes closed and my arms crossed over my head.

Then everything stopped and a new crowd surrounded me, police and ambulance attendants. Another guy with a camera ran in front of me, stopped briefly to snap a shot of me being scooped up out of the gutter, and ran off (my bloody face would be plastered all over the front page of the morning and evening editions of the local newspaper the next day).

A steady stream of blood poured out of my nose. As the ambulance guy tried to lift me out of the gutter, I felt a sharp stab of pain in my lower right back. Later, I found out one of the gangsters whipped me with a bicycle chain.

The gang bangers didn't have time to get my pants off, so they didn't get to live out their name as a rape gang, not with me anyway.

It doesn't even make sense to me why there are rape gangs and why they're so open about it. They used to only roam at night in bad neighborhoods, or that's the way I naively thought about certain parts of town. Now, they want to take over whole cities, making their own law or just taking apart the ones we're supposed to live by. Chaotic anarchists who want to run the world.

For the next week or so, I was in a lot of pain (well, the drugs helped). I couldn't bend at the waist and either had to stand straight up and walk very gingerly, or lay flat on my belly. My mates came over to say hi but they didn't want to stick around much. Maybe they felt guilty that I got hurt and they got away.

The police interviewed me while I was being put back together at the hospital, but I couldn't remember what any of the gang members looked like. I really wanted to identify them, too. I wasn't scared to say who they were, not then. But it all happened so fast. I didn't remember seeing any faces. I didn't feel any of the individual punches or being whipped by a chain. I didn't even remember being afraid.

I just knew I had the results of being beaten all over my back and face and the pain to go along with it.

I suppose if it had happened today, someone would have recommended counseling but back then, psychological treatment for assault and trauma victims wasn't common.

Eventually, the police rounded up the gangs and they either ended up in prison or deported. The streets were "safe" again, but not for me.

I'm not just terrified of groups of people but even of being alone with stranger. I remember I was riding on a bus to my job across town a month after I was attacked. There was only one other passenger so I wasn't too scared. Then the bus driver stopped at a transfer point and left to use the bathroom.

I can't really describe what it's like to be that afraid. I wasn't trembling or sweating, but every muscle in my back and shoulders was stiff and painful. I kept watching and waiting and planning how I'd curl up into a ball and hope I didn't get hurt too bad. The four or five minutes the driver was gone and I was alone with this guy seemed like an hour.

But nothing happened. The other guy probably didn't notice me. In fact, he completely ignored me and kept reading his newspaper. But being alone with him for even a tiny march of minutes was a nightmare. I have a lot of nightmares, especially when I'm awake.

I don't go out much anymore. I go to work because I have to, because I have to live, but that's about it. Shopping for food and a few other things I need. I watch TV now instead of going to the movies. My mates have lost interest in visiting me since all I want to do is stay in and play cards.

A lot of time has passed but I still think about the others like me, the other victims. I wonder if they're still as afraid and alone as I am. I wonder if they still hate their attackers and rapists as much as I do. I have violent fantasies of what I want to do with each of them, but they're just fantasies. If I were alone with even one of them, I'd be too paralyzed to do anything.

Nothing will be normal for me again. Sodom will never feel safe. Sometimes I wish the whole place would be wiped from the face of the earth.

The Improbable Rescue

This first chapter exercise from the Novakovich book is supposed to be longer than what I've written, but it's also supposed to be based on the earliest childhood dream I could remember. I can't remember very much of it. Also, I'm supposed to write it as if it isn't a dream. I suppose I should have kept that from you, but it's pretty hard to pass off a six-year-old's imagination for anything resembling real life, even the "real life" of fantasy or science fiction. Oh, I don't have an older brother. I just made one up to embellish the story a bit. EDIT: One last thing, I was this young in the early 1960s.

His massive frame was a black silhouette against the gray dust swirling in the dim light as he effortlessly carried the little boy across his left shoulder. He could have been the model for the ancient golem or even the Fantastic Four's Thing or the Incredible Hulk. His basic shape was blocky, as if he had been assembled from bricks or stones, a rock for a forearm, another for his hand, thinner rocks for each finger, a small boulder for his featureless head.

He was as silent as a stone, impervious to the struggles and screaming of the child in his invincible grip.

In spite of his apparent weight, his footfalls were deathly silent. There was no vibration as he took each ponderous step. No dust exploded from under his soles as they collided with the ground.

They were in a city, monster and boy, but one without life and light. In spite of his panic, the boy could barely make out the shadows of tall buildings all around. It was like a post-apocalyptic scene from one of his older brother's science fiction or horror comic books. It was like a burned out city, ravaged in an atomic war where there were no winners...

...except the monster that had somehow stole into the boy's bedroom late at night and spirited the child away to this other world.

What is the answer to the proverbial question, "If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear, does it make a sound?"

If a little boy is crying and screaming for help and straining against unyielding stone sinews with all his tiny might, and his captor, the only thing living or at least moving under it's own power is the only one present, can the terrified child be heard?

No sound from the monolith on two legs tramping down the streets of a city of ash. The child didn't hear anything the stone monster did and he could barely hear even himself.

Then a rush of wind like a cyclone from above, and a brilliant bright streak of red and yellow light appeared in the sky. Abruptly, the little boy could now hear who he had been calling to for help all along. He remembered that at the end of one of his favorite cartoons, the main character had said if anyone watching needed him, just call for help and he'd come.

So the boy called, he called with all his might. And his hero came.

"Here I come to save the day!"

Six-year-old Jimmy Winters didn't need to see or hear anything else to know he was about to be rescued by Mighty Mouse. In a few minutes, the silent animated sculpture would be a pile of rubble and Jimmy would be back in his own bedroom at home safe and sound. He couldn't wait for his parents to wake up in the morning so he could tell them all about it. Now his older brother Billy would have to admit that Mighty Mouse was a lot more cool than those other dumb heroes in the comics.

Jacob and The Angel's Curse

I took some liberties with the first assignment from chapter one in Novakovich's book and I really took liberties with my source material. This is only a first draft and I'm sure it could use some polishing, but I wanted to get something "out there" while my enthusiasm is high. Let me know what you think. It's the story of something that should have gone right but ended up being terribly wrong.

Jacob held fast to the Angel of God all the while begging for a blessing. This wouldn't have been unusual if it was happening just after Jacob crossed the ford of the Jabbok or if I were reading my Bible, but I saw this just outside the admin building at my high school.

It was a really ugly fight, not just two guys punching or swatting at each other, but vicious clinging, clawing, and scratching, Jacob was ripping the Angel's shirt right off his chest.

"Why are you doing this," cried the Angel. "Let go. I don't want to fight."

Jacob had never been a well-wrapped kid. I can't say that I know him, but he's one of those guys everyone knows about and tries to avoid. This isn't hard since he's a loner, spends most of his time studying in the tents of Shem, a private if somewhat shabby library on the other side of town (although there's some dispute as to whether the proprietor of this "study hall" is really the original Shem).

And Jacob's a chronic liar. He lied to his Dad, he lied to his brother (bad mistake, Esau has a terrible temper), he lied to his uncle. You just can't believe a single thing he has to say.

In fact, I wouldn't have believed he was actually wrestling with an Angel unless I, and a bunch of other students (the fight was drawing a pretty big crowd) weren't seeing it for ourselves.

But while the Angel kept trying to escape, Jacob was clinging to him like a maladjusted toddler clutching at his Mommy while throwing a tantrum.

"Bless me! Bless me!" demanded Jacob.

In the next day or two after the fight, I tried to find out where the Angel came from or why he picked that Monday afternoon to visit Jacob, but nobody was sure. The prevalent theory is that Jacob found some ancient tome Shem had been hiding that let this crazy kid summon up the Angel.

Who knows? Jacob's life is a mess. I can see why he'd want a blessing from an Angel of God. The thing is, the Angel didn't want to give.

"I will not let you go unless you bless me," Jacob's ultimatum seemed sincere.

By now the Principal and some teachers were trying to break the fight up, but this being a supernatural affair, the closer they got to the two combatants, the more they looked like they were being pressed down, as if something invisible and pretty damn heavy were pushing them onto the grass.

The Angel was weakening. He wanted to get out of there and back to Heaven in the worst way, but Jacob's grip was unbreakable. The Angel's chest was covered with bruises and scratches, although the Angel managed to land a wicked punch on Jacob's thigh.

"Alright!" the angel gasped. "What is your name?" That caught me by surprise, I figured being an Angel, he knew just about everything.

"Jacob!" yelled Jacob excitedly, probably thinking his blessing was just around the corner.

"Well, your name is going to be 'Mud' in just a second if you don't let go," snarled the Angel. "I'm late for an appointment with the Big Guy, and He doesn't like to be kept waiting."

"Tell me your name," replied Jacob, apparently mistaking a schoolyard brawl for a networking session at a cocktail party.

"Oh now you've done it," the Angel's tone was increasingly threatening. "My name is hidden! 'Mud' is too good for you."

Then, quicker than you could say "Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt," the Angel pushed Jacob, making him shift his weight to his injured leg. Off balance, Jacob lost his grip of the Angel and then the Angel was gone.

The Angel was right. Being called "Mud" for the rest of his life might have been better than being turned into stone, which is what happened to Jacob. No one said a word. All of us who had been witnesses were taken over by shock or astonishment. Like a ring of iron filings surrounding a magnet, we were silently, slowly drawn closer to the stone statue that used to be Jacob.

It was a very realistic statue, especially the facial expression of exquisite horror mixed with just a hint of disappointment that his desired blessing was delivered as a curse.

As our fascination with Jacob's statue wore off, I realized that the police had arrived because of the strobing of red and white light I caught out of the corner of my eye as their cruiser pulled up. But what could they do?

They took statements from all of us. Said they'd follow up by interviewing Shem (I heard that when they got to Shem's place, they found the old bugger had already pulled out taking every last arcane scroll with him).
Jacob's parents were heartbroken, especially his mother Rachel. Old, blind Isaac, Jacob's Dad, always liked Esau better, but even he was sobbing.

For his part, Esau, who I always thought would end up killing Jacob someday, was torn apart by Jacob's death, if you can call being turned into sculpted art "death".

The Abraham family wanted to take Jacob's body for a proper burial in the cave of Machpelah, their private cemetary plot, but being a spiritually created statue, it was unmovable by people or machines. So Las Vegas High School was granted a new if macabre piece of stone artwork just in front of the main administration building.

That was six months ago, but I still get kind of startled when I come come around the corner of the building forgetting Jacob is there.

His parents and brother visit him every weekend, laying flowers by his feet. His Mom especially thought that Jacob was going to grow up to be someone special, to have a unique legacy.

That's not going to happen now, at least I don't think so. On the other hand, we got a new student transfer in from the other side of the Jordan last week. His name is John, and the other day he said he could raise up children of Abraham from stone.

I Want to Write What I Don't Write Well

Allen Steele: Credit: Wikipedia

So I just finished reading a collection of short stories called Tales of Time and Space written by Allen Steele and I discovered I've been bitten by the bug again.

Don't get me wrong, I've been a published author for over a decade and at my "day job" I'm a technical writer for a software company, so I'm writing every day. And although I don't contribute to this blog very often, I'm frequently seen or at least read at My Morning Meditations and The Old Man's Gym, so again, I write very frequently.

But the one thing all of the works I've ever produced (or almost all, but I'll get to that in a minute) have in common is that none of it is fiction.

The first writer who ever made me want to write fiction was Harlan Ellison. I don't know what it was, but something about his style and how easy it was to believe his characters were real human beings you could talk to, touch, and connect with, made me want to create people and worlds, too.

The first (of two) creative writing classes I took was in high school. I think I was a senior. It was for an English credit. We were assigned to write all sorts of poetry, trying to learn the styles associated with, among other things, Shakespearean and Spenserian sonnets. We even got to try our hand at haiku.

But when it came to writing fiction, my big problem was that the characters and the situations I created were too derivative. They were always some variation of something I'd read or seen on TV.

My second creative writing class, the one I took because I'd been reading Ellison, was a UC Berkeley extension class which, interestingly enough, was held in San Francisco. I was living in Berkeley at the time, little income, and few friends, and consequently, I had a lot of time on my hands. You'd think that in my early 20s, being more mature than I was in high school, would make a difference.

So I took this class. I don't remember very much about it except that I had the same problem I encountered in High School. I didn't even believe my own characters were real. How could I expect anyone else to?

I should say at this point that I took another UC extension class from cartoonist Dan O'Neill at about the same time, and this class also addressed fiction writing, but from a very different perspective. I still have an unused copy of The Big Yellow Drawing Book which was the "textbook" for the class (I highly recommend it for anyone wanting to learn how to draw or for teaching your kids to draw).

But while I drew cartoons for family and friends over the next several decades (I only do so occasionally now), I never was successful at professionally writing or cartooning or being published in any sense whatsoever.

The bug that originally bit me in the 1970s buzzed off and only rarely visits its old haunts, probably because it knows it won't overcome my inertia, not for long anyway.

A few years back, reading a self-published online comic strip called Westward resulted in me coming up with a plot line and drawing a series of comic strips I planned to put online. In the end, I realized my story idea and drawings weren't very good and I abandoned the project (and unfortunately, Westward's creator eventually discontinued producing new material for the strip).

I've read two science fiction anthologies before Steele's, one about robots/artificial intelligence, and the other on Mars, but science fiction about Mars that could have been written before the mid-1960s, before we knew that there were no canals, no atmosphere that could sustain animal life, and no hope of finding a "lost civilization" on the Red Planet.

Only these stories were written in the past several years by science fiction writers working in the 21st century.

I could hear the bug buzzing around my ears.

So I finished Allen Steele's collection of short stories earlier today and returned it to the library.

It wasn't just reading Steele's stories that got to me, it was the paragraph or two he wrote to introduce each one. Steele presented the background of each tale, what inspired it, and what (if any) portion of his actual lived experience he injected into his creations. He gave me a taste of how a science fiction writer writes and where it all comes from (at least for  him).

Since I was at the library anyway, I decided to look up "how to write fiction" in their catalog system. The catalog number for books of that nature is 808.3, so, being quite familiar with the layout of the Boise Public Library, I took myself over to the northwest corner of the second floor, found that section, and looked around.

Sadly, books like Orson Scott Card's How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy weren't immediately available, but the first edition of Josip Novakovich's Fiction Writer's Workshop caught my eye (not literally, of course). On an impulse, I checked it out (as well as a copy of Steele's novel The Jericho Iteration which, now that I look it up on Amazon, may not be his finest novel, but I didn't want to wade into his "Near-Space" or "Coyote" series just yet).

I may or may not use this blogspot as the platform for trying out some of the writing exercises in the Novakovich book, but just publicly (to the limited number of followers of this blog) declaring my intentions may push me a little bit farther along this path than I might otherwise go.

I've started and quit a lot of projects over the years, and as far as I know, this is just one more of them. After all, just because I'm reading a book about fiction writing and practicing writing exercises is no guarantee that I have any actual talent at writing fiction.

I'm a writer. I want people to like my writing. I like it when what I write is deemed "good" or otherwise appreciated (I get paid). I've probably got too much on my plate right now to take on anything more, but the bug has once again bitten and until the venom wears off (or it doesn't), I'll go where my low-grade fever takes me.

I just wanted to let someone know.

Telling a Story

When facts become so widely available and instantly accessible, each one becomes less valuable. What begins to matter more is the ability to place these facts in context and to deliver them with emotional impact.

-Daniel H. Pink
from Part Two: The Six Senses
Five: Story, p.103
A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future

I've been thinking about this while preparing for a meeting this afternoon to discuss with the various stakeholders where I work the next steps we should take in our documentation and knowledge management planning.

We have a nifty new web platform upon which to impress our wisdom and will for the consumption of our customers, partners, and prospects, but between me, customer service, and product, we all have differing approaches to the direction our company should be taking.

I realize in reading Pink's book, that the reason I blog so much (I only infrequently blog on "A Million Chimpanzees," while I blog incessantly elsewhere). I write in order to tell a story, the story of whatever is happening to me at the moment.

But why do I tell these stories? To entertain others? To elicit knowledgeable responses from experienced readers about some puzzle or conundrum I've encountered?

Yes and yes, sometimes. But more often than not, I write in order to process my lived experience, so that I can externalize, by writing my own words and then reading them, what has only existed internally up until I blog about it.

I suppose I could tell my story, that is, I could speak it. But as articulate as my spouse says I am, stories make more sense to me when I write them and read them. Information, all by itself, doesn't have all that much meaning until placed within the context of the story.

Then the light bulb clicks "on" above my head.

On page 105, Pink quotes Ursula K. LeGuin:

"The story--from Rumpelstiltskin to War and Peace--is one of the basic tools invented by the human mind for the purpose of understanding. There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories."

In deconstructing clunky User Manuals and API Guides, I'm faced with the challenge of convincing a group of highly technical Left-Brain-dominated workers and managers that the best way to convey what our customers need to know about our product is to tell them a story.

In fact, Pink suggests that there really is only one relevant story that is told describing the journey of the Left-Directed (L-Directed) knowledge worker through the sometimes painful transitory process of becoming a Right-Brain-Directed (R-Directed) conceptual storyteller, the story of a hero.

I'll spare you another "blockquoted" paragraph of text. You can find an example of the hero's story in Joseph Campbell's 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

In brief however, the hero story has three parts:

1. Beloved hero is confronted by visitors who convince him/her that he/she is worthless/useless and must abandon his/her country.
2. Hero reluctantly goes into exile, but with the help of kind mentors in a far-away land, becomes transformed into the hero his/her land both wants and needs.
3. Hero returns as "the master of two worlds" and improves both of them.

I don't know that the Write the Docs conference I attended last May qualifies as my "hero's journey," but having never attended such an event before, I was reluctant to go. I hate change as much as the next person.

But now I have returned from my journey possessing some minor sense of transformation, and I've been looking for an opportunity for expression.

Today may be that opportunity (OK, just one more quote).

And Xerox--recognizing that its repair personnel learned to fix machines by trading stories rather than by reading manuals--has collected its stories into a database called Eureka that "Fortune" estimates is worth $100 million to the company.

-Pink, p.108

So in the future, when a customer visits our support website, keyboards a query in the Search field, and then presses Enter, the initial response should always begin (metaphorically), "Let me tell you a story..."

I hope to tell a good story this afternoon.

My 19 Days of Python: Interlude 1

OK, it happened. The engine stalled and I haven't been able to get it started again. One of the things I know about programmers is that they program all the time, whether they're at work or not. Some of them keep brutal, late-night hours banging away at the keyboard, trying to solve arcane puzzles and get their code to work.

But it's been over two weeks since my "stall" and I've been avoiding Python and this blog like cancer.

To be honest, I have also been distracted by other priorities, so it's not like I've been sitting idle, staring at a blank blogger composition page, and wishing the muse would whisper something into my little, shell-like ear.

In the meantime, I've noticed two competing philosophies that relate to my current project and dilemma: should non-programmers code or not code? Actually, opinions vary, but I guess it depends on why you're invested (or not) in non-programmers learning to program.

Don't worry. In my case, the chances of me inflicting any program I may write into a professional setting is non-existent. The only place I will (and have) publish the fruits (such as they are) of my labors is here among the millions of chimpanzees vainly attempting to recreate the complete works of Shakespeare (or maybe just a sonnet or two).

Today, I realized that I ran out of excuses reasons for not returning to this project. The only question now is if I should try to pick up where I left off, or go all the way back (not that the distance is exactly vast at this point) to Day 1 of Downey's book, and start fresh (No, I wont write "Day 1A" and "Day 2A" if I choose the latter option)?

The first step is for me to go over everything, including the comments that have been languishing, and see where I stand. Hopefully this will mean that Day 4 will be forthcoming.

"The single most important skill for a computer scientist is problem solving." -Allen B. Downey

Why bother to blog?

So why am I here? I've resisted blogging for quite awhile. It seems like, as a culture, we are obsessed with communication and self expression. Anyone can create a blog and post any inane or banal content to the web (and some of you reading this may consider me part of that club). If I'm against producing content for its own sake, why am I blogging? I suppose my hope is that my content isn't for its own sake. I write for a living, so it's not a matter of posting that I've just had a cup of coffee or that I'm taking aspirin for a headache (though I've seen both on twitter). I hope is to use a blog to express something about the creative experience that'll be useful to someone. Doc Searls at the Linux Journal just posted a link to an article on that subject on twitter (speaking of) which is what finally pushed me over the edge to create a blog. I've tended to think of most bloggers as "a million chimpanzees" who have refuted the old saying about a million chimps, some typewriters, and the complete works of Shakespeare. Frankly, most bloggers need to learn how to spell and an elementary English composition class wouldn't hurt them either (at least for those people who speak and write English as their first language). As I continue to configure this blog, anyone reading it will be able to comment if you'd like or register some sense of insult if you feel I've mischaracterized you as a chimpanzee. Of course, I could be just proving that I am too.