Front Page!

Remember that Random Story Plot story that I wrote about a month or two ago? I polished it up a bit, and it was selected for the front page of the Piker Press today!

Go check it out!

Another Random Plot... Part 1

Another random story plot courtesy of Seventh Sanctum.

The theme of this story: humorous thriller. The main characters: unstable trader and newlywed archivist. The start of the story: lecture. The end of the story: advice.

"...As such, the technologies used for modern information archives fall roughly five categories. The first category is of course good old-fashioned optical media. This media is still around after so many years because..."

The lecturer's voice droned on and on, reverberating in Tom's head and lulling him rapidly to sleep. The caffeine buzz from his coffee had long ago worn off and it didn't look like this guy was going to be wrapping it up any time soon. He was enjoying the boring, tedious details of preserving information for future generations way too much. Tom wanted desperately to simply stand up and leave. He stayed because he wanted the comission for this sale way too much to offend the man with the power to say yes or no to the deal. 

For what seemed to be the thousandth time, he picked up the styrofoam cup and tipped it back, hoping against hope that some small drop of coffee would emerge. For the thousandth time, he was disappointed. At least it gave him something to do. 

"Guy's a pompous, pretentious fool isn't he?" The man in the purple jacket grinned his toothless grin as he perched birdlike on the seat next to Tom. Except for a slight twitching of his facial muscles, Tom ignored the man. Along with the fading effects of the coffee, his morning dose of anti-psychotics must be wearing off and the imaginary people were starting to reappear. 

"I know you can hear me Tom. Whether you want to or not. Let's blow this pop stand and find someplace without a cover charge where we can get totally smashed and..."

Tom stood up suddenly, the squeaky springs of the lecture hall seat complaining loudly as the seat hinged back up towards the back. The coffee cup fell to the floor and began rolling towards the front of the hall as Tom shuffled sideways down the row of seats headed for the door. Sale or not, he could not afford to have Harvey get into his head today. He needed to take a pill, and he needed some water to take it with or else he would be in much worse trouble than a lost sale. 

When he finally reached the aisle and started walking quickly towards the exit, he noticed more than one audience member glaring angrily at him. 

"These archivists are sure a fanatical bunch aren't they?" Harvey's cackling laugh followed him up the stairs. "Is crying fire in a lecture hall as bad as crying it in a theatre?" the voice continued in Tom's head and his heartbeat increased with the desire to turn and scream at Harvey. "How about instead of crying fire, we actually start one? Wouldn't it be a gas to watch all of these archo-nerds stampede all over each other to get out?" Tom's stomach lurched with the desire that image summoned. He fumbled in his pocket for the pills that he carried wherever he went. Just as he reached the door, he noticed a very pretty woman sitting in the last row. Instead of glaring at his rude and disruptive retreat, she continued staring entranced at the speaker, her eyes glistening with unabashed adoration.

Then Tom hit the crash bar on the door and was out in the foyer. Harvey was there before him. And Mr. Mouse was with him.

Leonard loved information. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than sealing the fasteners on a data container and knowing that short of a super-nova that future generations would be able to enjoy the information as much as he did. Of course, it was doubtful that anyone enjoyed information nearly that much.

The only thing in life that even came near was his new wife Martha. He still caught his breath when he remembered her walking down the aisle towards him in her beautiful dress, smiling that smile that nearly broke his heart with its beauty. Even more, she loved information preservation nearly as much as Leanard. In his life he had never met another human being, let alone a beautiful woman who would happily listen to him prattle on for hours about storage media and backup schemes like she would. She had even happily agreed to combine their honeymoon with a lecture tour that Leonard was taking. Never before had he been so happy.

He realized that he was lost in his thoughts, and had to scrabble at his notes for a second to find his place. 

"So with the advances in quantum storage devices, we can see that never again will anyone have to worry about losing their data. And never again will you have to listen to that lame old excuse: 'We don't have the storage space!'" The audience laughed at that, and Leondard felt the rush of pleasure he always did with a good audience. He was not sure he would get them back after the loud and very disruptive exit a few minutes ago, but it only took a few minutes for the audience to forget all about it.

For Leonard, life was pretty good right now.

© 2009 Tyler Willson. All rights reserved

Another poem in the Piker Press!

Another poem in the Piker Press yesterday. And next Monday, my story Castaways will be the front page article!



Diving at Midnight


Enjoy!

Zeniff the Spaceman Part Two

I needed a break from editing my novel, and Bob and Larry were both driving me nuts. But I have to write something... So back to the dark and ominous planet where Spaceman Zeniff and his faithful droid have been shipwrecked.

Zeniff jumped to full wakefulness with the same claustrophobic panic that gripped him every time he found himself asleep in a space suit. Fortunately, he regained his senses before his scrabbling hands found the latch and removed his helmet. The sulfur dioxide atmosphere would have been much more suffocating than even the clumsy helmet. He sat still for a moment, waiting for his heart rate and breathing to return to normal. He closed his eyes and imagined the garden in his backyard back home on Earth. After a few minutes all of his bio-indicators were back in the green and he opened his eyes to survey his situation. 

The mining droid was still sitting precisely where he had ordered it to at darkfall. It was staring at him with its odd visual sensors, waiting for the next command. Zeniff puzzled for a few moments as to why it could understand and obey some commands and not others. When he had first set off from the wreckage of his ship and noticed it following him he had turned around to shut it down. When he saw the smashed control panel, he tried to use the wireless controls built into his suit's computer but to no effect. The thing was like a lost puppy that he had made the mistake of feeding. The annoyance he had felt towards it then was completely gone now. Somehow, it had understood last night that he needed light, and some shelter and so when he found a crater and took shelter inside it had joined him, even using its bulky body to further shield him from the wicked night winds that howled across the barren landscape. Still, he was just a little unnerved by the way it sat there staring at him. 

Zeniff brushed some of the orange dust off himself and struggled to his feet. His back ached from sleeping in such an awkward position against the wall of the crater and his feet were tingling as the circulation was restored. Stretching his sore muscles carefully, Zeniff took stock of his situation. Apparently, the navi-computer built into his suit was malfunctioning; it had told him that he had only a short walk back to the mining camp. Instead he had wandered for hours, watching the distance remaining jump up and down crazily. Still kicking himself for not staying with the wreck he wondered if it might not be better to attempt to return to it instead of pushing on into the unknown with a bad navicomp. Checking the water levels in his survival pack he treated himself to a few ounces and an energy pill. The fluid recycler built into the suit would ensure that he didn't dehydrate, at least not before he ran out of breathable air and suffocated. 

The thought of that brought back a memory of his panic at awakening and he knew that he had to get moving towards some objective to clear his mind at least. He stepped past the mining droid and began laboring up and out of the crater. The droid followed him instantly, an orange cloud of dust cascading off the battered chassis as it came to life. Zeniff climbed carefully over the broken, rocky terrain. The boots he wore were intended only for flyers, and were heavy and clumsy on the surface. Suddenly, one of Zeniff's feet slid out from under him and he started sliding backwards down the steep slope. Before he went more than a few meters, the droid was right there to catch him. He lay there on the slope and tried to peer into the machine's sensors again, as if he could read its expression and understand what it was thinking. Yet it was just a machine, and not a very intelligent machine as far as machines go. It was a single-purpose workhorse used to tunnel deep beneath the surface in search of the precious gravitonium. It's value was in its strength and durability, not in its ability to gauge when a human overseer needed help. 

Zeniff found that laying there pondering the inner thoughts of a dumb machine was getting nowhere, so he struggled back upright and continued his tortured trek up the side of the crater. When he reached the rim, he made a small circle while scanning with the sensors in his helmet. No signals of any kind, and the navicomp stubbornly insisted that he only had a kilometer to travel to the mining camp. After pondering the situation for another few minutes, Zeniff turned his back on the crater and set off resolutely, the droid following faithfully a few steps behind.

© 2009 Tyler Willson. All rights reserved

Bob without Larry for once...

A short episode of Bob and Larry today... I am not entirely sure where this is going, only that I want Bob and Larry to have an adventure of some sort together. In case you want to read the previous episodes...

Bob and Larry Part 1

Bob and Larry Part 2

Sunday dawned gray and colorless. Bob awoke refreshed. The fresh air and exercise from yesterday must have been good for him. He rolled out of bed and began his morning routine. After selecting his morning playlist on his MP3 player, got in the shower. After showering and shaving he sat down to breakfast. As he ate he scanned a few news sites on his laptop. Although he read several, the link on his shortcut list always pointed to the Tech section. Any other news bored him with its irrelevance to his world.

As he scrubbed his dishes off in the sink afterwards, Bob noticed the first few sprinkles of rain splattering across the kitchen window. Worry briefly flickered across his face but he quickly shoved it out of his mind.

When the power went out, Bob was immersed in a thick book of obscure technical knowledge. The sudden sound startled him back to the present and he realized that rain was pounding furiously on the windows and that the trees outside were whipping wildly in the wind. The sudden silence in the house felt thick and ominous, and what little light there was coming through the windows was sickly and yellow. Bob looked out nervously and watched pieces of a neighbor's roof fly past. The roar of the wind increased and now he could hear other pieces of debris hitting the outside of his house, then the sound of glass shattering. Bob jumped and ran away from the window, not sure what to do. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered hearing something about taking shelter in a bathtub, so he sprinted down the hall to the bathroom. With no external windows and no electricity, the room was pitch black and in his haste, Bob collided with the toilet and fell writhing in pain on the floor. As he lay there he heard a new sound, like a giant beast growling in fury as the timbers of his house began to fail under the strain. Bob scrabbled to climb into the bathtub and huddled on the bottom, shaking with terror as his house disintegrated around him.

© 2009 Tyler Willson. All rights reserved

Second Chances

It was a Valentine's Day gift for Emily. OK, so maybe it was for me too. I had planted a grapevine in Texas, but we moved before it was mature enough to produce fruit and I was always a bit sad about that. I had already decided to buy Emily a potted plant for Valentine's Day. I get tired of buying expensive flower arrangements that just wither and die in a week. Then I saw that Home Depot had grapevines on sale. They came in a two-pack, and I carefully looked for and found one that had two healthy and strong vines. 

Emily wasn't too sure about this as a V-day gift at first, (She is a pretty smart girl after all...) but she warmed up to it. Since February in Nothern Virginia is not really grapevine planting season, we set it on top of the aquarium where it immediately began shooting up. It was about four or five feet tall and starting to climb along the roof when we decided it was time to plant it. We set it out on the porch in preparation, but then the procrastination started. For one reason or another, we let it sit out there for another few weeks. It didn't seem to mind, it was sending out new creepers and leaves every day and looking very happy. Every time I passed it, I would tell myself that today was a good day to get it in the ground. If only I didn't have to... (fill in the blank. Any excuse will do...)

Then, we had a late frost. We woke up one morning to frosted windshields and wilted, brown grapevines. We were sad, and felt bad for having let this poor plant die through our neglect. The neglect continued however as we just let the package with its brown, dead branches stay out on the porch. Perhaps as a reminder of our failure. I thought a couple of times that maybe I should just put them in the ground anyway, that maybe they weren't completely dead. But procrastination seems to be a way of life at our house, and the poor thing just stayed right there on the porch where it died.

We had given up on our little vines, without even so much as giving them a chance. They died right there in their white plastic bags and we immediately wrote them off as just another thing that we "didn't get around to" in time. No second chances for grapevines around here! If the victory isn't easy, or if we experience a little setback we immediately throw our hands in the air and say: "Oh well, we tried." 

A wise person once said "Do, or do not. There is no try!" But that doesn't really make sense in this case. Another wise person once told me that "I will try" is just opening an escape route to failure. If it gets hard, if things don't go well, you can shrug your shoulders and say: "Oh well, I tried."

Our grapevines didn't make excuses and give up. Despite being left in their packaging for three months. Despite being frozen and left for dead, they kept on striving to succeed. And one day this week, I noticed something. Our vine was not dead! From out of the plastic wrapper that enclosed the roots, one of the vines had shot out a couple of cheerful green leaves. Quickly, before it died again I cut open the bag and put the vine in the ground at the corner of the porch where it will get plenty of sunshine and wrap itself around the porch railing and posts. I cut open the other one too, just to see. Sure enough, there were some small leaf sprouts there too. It was also quickly planted at the opposite end of the porch where they can each climb the railing and posts and creep towards each other. 

Our two little vines didn't give up. They didn't try, they didn't make excuses, they just did.

 Yoda would be proud! 

© 2009 Tyler Willson. All rights reserved

Bob and Larry, continued...

The Assignment: Take a character you've used before (preferably a part of an ongoing project) and give them a day off.  That is a little break from the story line to lay back a bit, maybe collect their thoughts, and just take it easy.

Part One of Bob and Larry

Days off were pure hell. Bob saw himself with two choices: stay cooped up at home and be miserable, or go out and be miserable. He was really only comfortable in his office with his head buried in lines of code. Making his electronic slaves do ever more fantastic tricks by imagining newer and more novel ways to manipulate memory space, processor time, and bandwidth. His manager had long ago banned him from working from home. He thought it was unhealthy for Bob to spend every hour of every weekend working. Plus, the testing department just couldn't keep up with him.

Bob sighed and sat on the bottom step staring at his shoes, positioned neatly on the doormat. He had intended to go for a drive in the country, find a deserted country road where he could just drive for hours and be out of the house and alone. He clutched a Google map in one hand with directions to just such a road. And yet, he remained there on the bottom step, indecisively staring at his shoes.

Closing his eyes, he put his head between his knees and took a few long, slow breaths. Then, he resolutely stood up and walked to the door. Slipping on his shoes, he opened the door and stepped outside. The bright morning sun glared in his eyes, and he squinted up and down the road in both directions. When he was satisfied that nobody was coming, he locked the door and walked quickly down the stairs. He was fumbling to get his key in the car door when he was startled by a voice.

"Well Bob! Fancy meeting you here! I thought I knew everyone in the neighborhood, and yet I had no idea that someone from my office lived just down the street!"

Larry. His friendly smile as wide as ever and his happy face sweaty with the exertion of an early morning jog. Bob froze, staring at his own reflection in the window.

"Where you off to so early in the morning? Got a hot date or something? Good looking guy like you probably has to beat them off with a stick huh?" Larry guffawed at his own joke, but Bob started frantically jiggling the car keys in the lock. 

"You got a sticky keyhole there Bob? I got some WD-40 in my garage that'll fix that right up. You know what they say about that Bob? If it moves and it should stay still, use duct tape. If it stays still and it should move, use WD-40! Right Bob? Right?" Bob finally got the door unlocked, and wrenched the door open. He slid into the seat and slammed the door on Larry's self-amused laughter. His hands were shaking so badly that he had to fumble with the ignition too, but Larry still stood there, watching him and rambling on as if Bob was not behind a glass and sheet metal wall. Finally the ignition switch turned, the engine purred to life, and without another look at Larry, Bob pulled the gearshift into reverse and backed out of the driveway. As he drove off, he risked one glance at the rearview mirror to see that Larry was still standing there at the end of his driveway watching him drive off. One hand raised briefly in a farewell wave, and Bob flinched and pushed even harder on the gas pedal.

Hours later, he had finally found a place to relax. Although Bob was not a big fan of nature per se, at least he was alone and he had a good viewpoint so that he could see if anyone was approaching. It was a small state park at the site of some inconsequential Civil War battle, and after following a trail for a mile or two, Bob had found a scenic overlook at the top of a bald hill. He sat there in the afternoon sun, actually enjoying the warmth of it on his face. He forgot for a second his disgust at the filthiness of the wooden bench he was sitting on, as he reveled in the enjoyment of the pure aloneness he felt. No sound but the distant calls of birds reached his ears. Bob sat in that same spot for almost four hours, until he noticed that the sun was nearing the western hills. The thought of finding his way back along the trail in the dark petrified him and he sprinted almost the entire distance back to his car. He arrived back at the car just as the sun disappeared and pulled into his driveway long after dark.

Not bad, Bob decided, as far as days off go.

© 2009 Tyler Willson. All rights reserved