My First Night at the Hotel

As I mentioned in my previous work update post, I had something very weird happen on the very first night of work at my new job at the hotel. It was weird enough that I had to write about it, but I thought it was long enough that it deserved it's own separate post.

During the first two weeks I was working at the hotel, I and another guy were being trained by an older lady who had been there for years. She was moving out of state, and her leaving was the reason I was hired. The other guy had been working at the hotel for awhile, but he had just moved into the night auditor position the week before, so he was also pretty new to everything we had to do as well.

At around 3:30 in the morning an elderly woman clutching a baby doll slowly rounded the corner into the lobby. We have a front door across from the desk in the lobby that we can see, and a back door that enters into the hotel, directly behind the offices, far enough back in the building that we can't even hear it from the front desk.

So this elderly woman comes into the lobby, and all she can do is whisper, "hi. hi. hi. hi. hi. hi. hi." She's probably at least in her 80's if not 90's, and she can't even tell us her name, or where she came from. Because of the placement of the back doors, we can't tell if she's come in from outside, or if maybe she wandered out of a hotel room.

The woman training us went out to try to help her, but without a name, or knowing where she came from, there wasn't much she could do, but she did notice that the woman felt like she was freezing cold, which meant that more than likely she had come in from outside. This was the middle of April, but we had an unusually cold spring, and that particular week we'd had a cold snap. I was coming to work in my winter coat every night, and one morning I left work and there was a thick layer of ice I had to scrape off my car. So yeah, it was cold. Not knowing what else to do, the woman training us had the other guy go get her a blanket, which she wrapped around her, and then got her to sit down in the lobby, and sat with her.

I wondered if she had wandered away from a nursing home, since it was obvious that she had dementia. The fact that she could only repeat one word, as well as the fact that she was carrying a baby doll, which she was treating like a real baby, were all things I had seen a lot when we went to visit my grandpa before he died. He wasn't nearly this bad, but he lived in a dementia ward, and there were a lot of people there who would fit the same description of this woman.

The guy who was training with me decided to try to call the nearest nursing home, so I did a search on google maps. The nearest one was only 0.2 miles away, practically next door. It's so close that it had to be where she came from. It seemed obvious that she had escaped, except, having worked in a nursing home, and having spent so much time visiting my grandpa in another one, I kind of knew that there was no way that could have happened. The amount of security they have to prevent the residents from escaping, from locked doors to security alarms, means that there should be no way for someone to escape, and if they somehow managed it, someone would have been alerted before she got very far. She'd have to have been a complete genius to make it past everything, unless someone there was just completely incompetent.

So he called the nursing home, and the person who answered told him she didn't think they were missing anyone, but they'd do a head count and get back to us. And sure enough, they weren't missing anyone, all their residents were accounted for. They did send over a nurse though, to try to help communicate with the woman, but she was no more successful that we'd been. She couldn't get her to tell her anything, and she was still whispering, "hi. hi. hi. hi. hi. hi." over a half an hour later. The nurse asked if she could check her pockets, but she had no form of identification, she had no life alert or other medical emergency tags or jewelry, and her name was not written in any of her clothes like it would have been had she been in a nursing home or dementia ward.

Finally it's nearing 4:30, an hour later, and I suggested calling the police. I didn't know the number, or how to use our phone system yet, so the nurse gave me her cell phone, where she already has the non-emergency police number ready. So I called the police, but when they showed up, they're no more successful that any of us. The nurse finally did get her to answer yes or no questions by shaking or nodding her head, but even that didn't really help, because she did indicate that she had a husband, but in her condition, you never know if that's currently true, or if she's remembering something from a time long ago.

Finally around five or so, the nurse convinced the woman to get up and come with her, back to the nursing home. She said she'd find a room for her and try to get her warmed up, because it's at least an hour and a half later and she's still cold. The police helped get her out to the nurse's car, and I figured that would be the last we heard about her. We all got back to work to try and catch up on everything we hadn't been doing for the last hour and a half.

Another hour and a half go by, we've sort of caught up, not quite, but we made pretty good progress considering that two of us didn't really know what we were doing yet. About a half an hour before we left, around 6:30, someone, I'm assuming the nurse who came to the hotel, called us to let us know that they found out where the woman had came from.

The area surrounding the hotel and nursing home is full of apartments and townhouses where elderly people can live, without actually having to physically move into the nursing home. I'm assuming sort of like the independent living apartments at the nursing home I used to work in, except a lot more spread out, like a small neighborhood. This woman had been living with her husband, who does not have dementia, and he had basically been her caretaker. I don't know this, but I am going to assume he was around the same age. Evidently he'd left the door unlocked, or she knew how to unlock it, and she just got up and left in the middle of the night.

The people at the nursing home said they were going to try to convince the husband to let them take her, because it was pretty obvious that he can't care for her on his own. It was very cold that night, like, maybe 30 at the highest, definitely below freezing. It was a good thing that she just happened to wander into the hotel, or she could have frozen to death! Obviously I can't really go and find out, but I hope her husband did agree to let the nursing home take care of her, because she really needs to be somewhere where she can be supervised.

So anyway, that was my very first night at the hotel. The woman training us told us after everyone had left, "It's not always like this, I swear!" And so far it hasn't been. I've been here almost three months now, and so far that was by far the strangest thing that has happened. Nothing else really even comes close. However, if anything else weird does happen, you can be sure that I'll let you know about it. :p

Twist Ending 13

New Logo! Also, since it's been so long, if you're interested in the previous installments of this series, you can follow this link.

This post is way different than any of my other Twist Ending stories. Usually I have the first half be true, while the second half is fiction. This time, this story actually contains multiple real-life incidents that actually happened to me while at work, but they are all told within a completely fictional framework. These incidents are all very similar, so I decided I'd combine them into one long story.

The grocery store where I work occasionally holds fund-raising drives for various causes. Childhood illnesses, military veterans, disaster victims, etc. Every time we do these, the vast majority of people do not donate. And I am perfectly fine with that. I actually don't really even like asking people to donate to things, it's just kind of awkward all around.

However, awkwardness is no excuse for rudeness. To me, the most appropriate response to being asked to donate to something for which you might not feel you have the money, or whatever reason, is to just say, "No thank you," politely, and move on with the transaction.

That is not what (far too) many people do, and those people are why this post came to be.

~

"Hear ye, hear ye! Court is now in session!" A towering, angelic-looking man with four arms, wearing flowing white robes, stepped up to the bench and addressed the sea of people before him. He was at least 6 feet taller than anyone in attendance, and seemed even taller from his place behind the bench.

"For those of you afraid that this is the afterlife, and that this is your final judgement day, don't worry! This is nothing like that! Well, mostly nothing like that! This court is closer in relation to the human concept of karma, than of actual judgement. I am a judge here, but the cases I see are all strictly petty in nature, and none of them deal with anything even close to the kinds of cases my colleagues over in Finals see in their courts."

The judge sat down, but still towered over the people in front of him. "All right! All of you here today were pulled from your current time and place, moments after your transgressions took place. You are here to bear witness to your 'crimes,' and to hear your judgement in person, but you will not be permitted to defend yourself, as we have complete omniscience in all matters pertaining to your case. We know your every motivation and action, from the moment your offence took place, to now. We know what you would say to defend yourself, and we have already rejected it."

The judge began rifling through some papers on his desk, using all four arms, and pulled out a large file, opening it with his lower set of arms, while gesturing with his upper set. "When your case has been heard, and your judgement delivered, you will be put back exactly where you were when you were taken, and you will have no memory of these events. However, when you experience your judgement, or 'karma' as it were, you will experience something like a memory, and you will know exactly why your fate, whatever it is, has befallen you."

The judge started pulling papers out of the file with his upper arms, and examined them, making a stack on his desk. The number of papers in the stack was quickly surpassing the number of papers that the file seemed to hold, but he still had more. "I see that I have a surprisingly large number of cases that are the same, and this first bunch are all quite mild. It looks like the defendants in these cases will all be let off with more or less a warning. If I call your name, please approach the bench."

The judge, apparently calling a great many of their their names at once, said something that no one could understand, except, it seemed, for the people he was addressing. Dozens of people stood up at once, and they all stepped forward. "Okay, I think we can get all these over with at once. Every case here is relatively the same, let's review the evidence."

Behind the bench, a massive screen appeared, and dozens of videos, all showing the accused, began playing simultaneously. However, on every screen, the exact same scenario played out, and the exact same dialogue was spoken. The defendants were all customers at the same store. Their purchases had been rung up, and the cashier was asking them all almost the same question.

"Would you like to donate to, (and here the audio was overlapped as several different charities were named) today?"

"No," the customers replied, "I'm good." And here the videos ended.

"No, I'm good," the judge repeated, staring at the dozens of people before him. "No, I'm good. Do any of you hear the irony in that statement? Had you simply stopped at no, and preferably a no thank you, you wouldn't be here today. However, adding, "I'm good" to a refusal, polite or otherwise, to give to a child with cancer, or a hungry family, or victims of a storm, shows a complete lack of self awareness on your parts, bordering on a lack of empathy. You may be good, but those for whom the charity is collecting, definitely are not."

The judge picked up his stack of papers with his upper right hand, and began looking through them before continuing. "I know that most of you probably didn't think anything of that statement when you made, it, you just wanted to get your transaction over with and move on with your day. But those statements do not go unnoticed, and I really just want to make you aware of how you sound when you use them."

Using his lower arms, the judge began typing at a computer that had suddenly appeared before him, while while flipping through his papers with his upper arms. "In a minute I will be sending you all back to the moments you were pulled from. You won't remember your time here, but you will be acutely aware of your words, any time you use that particular phrase."

The judge finished typing and looked out at the people before him. "None of you will be able to say 'I'm good' anymore without cringing a little inside, even in benign situations. Eventually you will not be able to say it at all." He set down the papers, which immediately vanished. "Thank you," he said, gesturing with his upper right arm, "You're all dismissed." And with that, the crowd vanished.

Once again the judge began removing a massive stack of papers from his file. Holding the stack in his lower arms, he flipped through it with his upper arms, removing papers as he went. "Okay, looks like we're going to do another batch judgment. However, these ones won't be getting off as lightly as the last one." He repeated his call from earlier, and again, dozens, if not hundreds of people all stood up at once. In fact, most of the courtroom stood up at once, leaving just a few individuals still seated.

The crowd of people all approached the bench together, and as before, the same screen appeared and began playing in unison. This scenario was almost exactly the same as before, up until the customers' reply. All of them were variations on the same thought. "No thanks, I've already donated." "No, I donated yesterday." "Oh, I donated the last time you guys asked."

The screen vanished and the judge turned around and stared at the defendants. "Really? You expect us to believe that? You already donated? Not even the cashiers believed that." Across the crowd of people, several faces began turning red with embarrassment.

The judge continued. "Half of you said you donated 'last week,' or 'yesterday,' when the charity drive hadn't even started yet. If you're going to lie, at least make it believable." Using his lower arms, he began typing at the computer again, as he looked through the stack of papers in his upper hands.

"All of you committed variations of the same act of dishonesty, so all of you will be receiving variation on the same judgement," he said, still typing, and looking through the files. "All of you will be the victims of some very minor instances of dishonesty. Some of you will get tiny door dings on your cars from people who will not leave notes. Some of you will drop money, just something small, like a five or ten, and someone will see it happen and just keep it."

The judge finished typing and set down his papers, which once again vanished as they left his hand. "None of your karmic sentences will be earth shattering, just minor inconveniences. And from now on, you will feel more than a little guilt should you lie to a charity in the future, and eventually you will be unable to lie, and your default reaction will be to just donate immediately. Thank you, you're all dismissed." And the crowd was gone.

"Okay, that brings us to the individual cases," the judge said. It looks like we just have three today. I'd say that's good, but really, that's three too many. Justin Patterson! Approach the bench!" A young man slowly approached the bench, as the screen behind the judge began to play.

In this video, the cashier finished the man's transaction and began to ask that old familiar question, "Would you like to donate-“
“NO!” the young man snapped angrily, interrupting the cashier who looked stunned.

The screen vanished and the judge just stared at the man. "Really?" That's how you respond to someone who was asking you to donate to a children's' hospital? There are children literally dying in your own state, in your own town, and you angrily refuse to help them, while at the same time berating someone who was just doing their job? Shame on you. Shame, shame, shame on you. Your punishment will be far more psychological than the others'.

He began typing again, but he stared at the man the entire time, not even looking at the paper in his hand. "From now on, every time you see a sick child, whether on TV or in real life, the scene we saw today will play back in your mind. The only way to relieve yourself of the guilt will be to donate to another charity. You will lie awake at night, unable to sleep until your guilt has been assuaged. And that won't happen before you donate far more than you were being asked at the grocery store." He finished typing, still looking directly at the man, and he set down the paper which vanished.. "Dismissed." he said pointedly, and the man was gone.

"Hiram Daniels!" the judge called, pulling out another file. "Approach the bench!" Once again the screen appeared and a new scene began to play. The elderly man approaching the bench was in a grocery store with a younger woman, his daughter.

"Look dad," the woman said pointing out a sign by the checkout. "They are collecting donations for victims of that hurricane in Texas. Do you want to donate $5?"
"No! I'm not doing that!" the man abruptly replied.
"Dad!" his daughter was taken aback. "You've got a daughter down there!"
"So?" the man snapped back. "She's not getting flooded!"
"Dad!"
"What!? Nobody gave me money when my house got flooded! Why should I?"

"Why should I?" The judge turned around as the screen vanished behind him. "Why should you help total strangers in need? Because it's the right thing to do! It doesn't matter if no one helped you. If someone refused to help you, they will have their own day in court. You are responsible for yourself, and yourself alone."

The room began to slowly get darker. "Your judgement will be of your own doing. Your selfishness will be your downfall." In the distance, thunder faintly rumbled and the judge continued, slowly rising out of his chair. "Slowly but surely the people around you will realize how terrible your behavior is, and slowly but surely they will distance themselves from you."

The judge seemed to have gained several feet as he now towered over the old man in the quickly darkening room. "Finally, when you are all alone, you will die, lonely and friendless, with no one there to mourn your loss." Thunder crashed around them and the room was almost pitch black, save for the judge, who seemed to be eerily lit from below.

The old man stared at the judge in horror.

"Was that too much? That was probably too much," the judge said as the lights flicked back on and the thunder abruptly ceased. "Okay, here's what we're gonna do." He sat down and began typing as before. "No, you won't die alone, but you will push people away. Once you start losing people, you will vaguely remember the circumstances in my original judgement, and out of fear that something similar will happen, you will be forced to come to terms with the kind of person you have become. You will seek out those you have wronged to make amends, and you will be forced to humble yourself and ask for their forgiveness."

He finished typing and set down the man's paper which vanished. "In addition, whenever you see a donation drive for hurricane victims, no matter where in the world it's happening,  you will guiltily remember the scene we just watched, and you will donate twice the maximum of what the charity is requesting. Dismissed!" And the man was gone.

"Okay, on to the last case!" the judge said, holding up the final sheet. "Janice McMurphy! Approach the bench!"

A middle aged woman slowly approached the bench as the screen appeared once more, showing one last scene at the grocery store.

“Would you like to donate milk to the local food bank?” the cashier asked the woman, as they finished her transaction.
“Sure, I guess," she replied. "How much is it?”
"It depends on how much you want to donate," the cashier explained. “We have options for $2 for a half gallon, or $4 for one gallon.”
“What?" the woman exclaimed incredulously. "Forget it!" she glared at the cashier. "That’s ridiculous! You can buy a gallon of skim milk for $1.69!”
“Well, they don’t actually send specific kinds of milk to the food banks," the cashier replied, taken aback by the woman's sudden attitude. "They send out vouchers to the food banks to give to families who need them.”
“I don’t care," the woman snapped. "That’s insane. $4.00 for milk? I’m not wasting my money on that when they could get skim for $1.69. No. Forget it. What’s my total?”

The screen vanished and the judge glared at the woman who turned red, and then paled. "I have seen a lot in my 4000 years on this bench, but somehow, some people still manage to surprise me. Not only were you downright rude to your checker, but you tried to dictate how a charity uses the funds that they collect. Or worse, what kind of products those in need are allowed to have. What happens if someone has a dairy allergy? What if they have a malnourished child who needs the whole milk? Why should they be forced to drink skim milk simply because you didn't want to donate a higher amount? The selfishness of some people still manages surprise me in the absolutely bizarre ways that it can manifest itself in them."

The judge turned to his computer once again and began to type. "For your punishment, I feel like I need to get creative. For starters, you're going to develop a dairy allergy. You're either going to have to start buying the most expensive, lactose-free milk, or some other expensive and/or disgusting milk substitute. Either that or your going to have to buy a lot of probiotics, and those things are not cheap. Next, you are going to start meeting people exactly like you at your own job. A lot of them. They will be rude, dismissive, and just plain angry. It will happen every day, and will continue until you realize that these people are behaving exactly like you. You will be forced to come to terms with your own terrible behavior, and as you change yourself, those around you will change as well. Lastly, you will no longer be able to resist any charity. Every time you see a food drive, or donation box, you will remember the terrible interaction we just witnessed, and your shame will compel your generosity. Soon that new generous attitude will spread to other areas, and you will be donating to homeless shelters and clothing drives, and volunteering at food banks and hospitals. Eventually you will become a completely new person, and the person you once were, will only exist as a dark flicker in the back of your memory. Sometimes you will think of her, wince in quiet shame, and move on with your life, vowing to never go back to being that wretched person again. Dismissed."

The woman vanished and the judge was left alone in his courtroom. He set down her paper, which rose upward, as the previous papers reappeared beneath it. The judge gathered up the papers and returned them to his file. He typed some notes into his computer and checked his calendar. "Oh great," he muttered to himself. "I've got the nursing home cases tomorrow." He rolled his eyes. "Those are always a treat." And with that, he was gone.

Random Fiction Assignments!

So, the previous post got a bit long, so I decided to split it up and get two posts for the price of one. Plus it naturally felt like two seperate posts, and I need more content. :p

Anyway, as you will see, none of the following fiction is in my usual style. I usually prefer to write ridiculous things, and none of this is ridiculous. In fact, these really aren't even slightly amusing, and are serious enough that if I wrote this out as a full novel, I probably wouldn't even read this myself. Except for the last one, because if I'm going to read something serious, it's going to be science fiction.

We were given several prompts, usually to write just a single paragraph, during the first couple of months of class, and for some reason I kept using the same characters. That may have been part of the assignment, but I can't even remember what most of the assignments were, so I guess we'll never know. Also, these three all involve the same characters, but are not in any particular order, nor are they necessarily in the same continuity, I just numbered them in the order I wrote them.

These have no titles, so I'll just call them:

Jessica

1.

Despite the heat of the sun, she could not resist taking a jacket. "What if it rains?" Jessica thought to herself. "What if the temperature suddenly changes?" She couldn't help her neurosis. Her mother had instilled a constant fear of the "What if?" in her from an early age, and that kind of mentality is a hard thing to get rid of. Her mother had a "What if?" for everything. From terrifying scenarios like, "What if you're robbed at gunpoint?" To ridiculous ones like, "What if you run out of peas?" Her mother insisted she wasn't a worrier, just a realist, but Jessica's psychiatrist had a decidedly different opinion.

2.

When she thought back to that day, she'd remember it in two ways. Two parts. One great, and one terrible. The day had started out so well, it had been full of so many little victories, so many firsts. Jessica had successfully left the house with only a few things necessary for the day. Her purse, a bottle of water, and a protein bar. She had even managed to leave her jacket and cell phone, and she didn't even think about them once! She didn't wipe down the booth at Starbucks, she didn't use her foot to flush the toilet, and it hadn't bothered her! Much! It had been one of her best days since she'd started therapy. Then she got home and saw the missed calls and the text.
From Dad: Mom is in the hospital. Call me.

3.

After dinner, Jessica offered to help with the dishes. She really didn't want to, but the rest of her family was preoccupied with other post-holiday meal activities, like football and Catan. If she didn't help she would probably have to deal with her mother's chastising glances for the rest of the day. The glances may or may not actually happen, but when she was a kid her mother had been the queen of passive aggression, and as good as she had been lately, that never really goes away.

"Well! Nice of someone to show up!" her mom chirped, feigning cheerfulness.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm a saint." She grab the dishtowel and started drying. "Why haven't you guys gotten a new dishwasher yet?"

"Because we don't need one! Since you all moved out, it's just your dad and me. Besides, we had one and someone broke it, remember?"

"Good grief mom. I was 12. And that thing was ancient. I have never been convinced that it was my fault anyway. I know I set it right." She set another dish in the cupboard.

"Well never mind," her mom said, washing another dish. "What's done is done. I forgave you years ago."

Jessica rolled her eyes, but didn't say anything. She'd learned to pick her battles years ago, and this one wasn't worth it. They washed and dried in silence until Jessica set a pot on the counter.

"Don't put that there!" her mom said suddenly. "I haven't wiped the counter yet!"

"It's fine mom. The counter is clean. And it's not like anyone is going to eat off the bottom of a pot anyway."

"It doesn't matter. Give it to me."

Jessica handed her the pot and she proceeded to rewash the bottom and dry it herself. Jessica rolled her eyes and grabbed another glass to dry, but as she picked it up, it slipped from her fingers and crashed to the floor.

"Jessica!" her mom yelled.

"What? It was an accident!"

"Go get a broom!" her mom exclaimed, "I'll do this myself!"

Jessica went to get the broom out of the closet. This could not have gone worse. She was 27 years old, but her mom still treated her like a child.

"The glass is all the way over by the fridge." her mom said sharply. "Sweep that up before someone steps on it."

Jessica glared at her.

"Why do you act like this?"

"Like what?"

"Why do you treat me like a kid?"

"Why don't you stop acting like one?"

"What?! I am in therapy because of you!"

Her mom's jaw dropped, and she stared at her for what seemed like an eternity. Then she slowly put down the dish cloth, turned, and left the room.

~

My last one is probably my best one, and I think I actually do remember the prompt for this one. I'm pretty sure we were supposed to take a memorable scene from a book and put our own spin on it. Basically pay homage to a scene, but write something wholly original. The scene I chose was from one of my favorite books, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle.

Toward the end of the book, most of the characters escape the planet Camazotz, where the main character, Meg, has lost her little brother, and is injured when they escape. The inhabitants of Camazotz are basically human, but they are all either evil, or have been brainwashed by evil. They all then find themselves on another alien world, however here, the creatures are decidedly NOT human. They are so completely alien, that Meg is horrified at the sight of them, and repulsed when they touch her. However, by touching her, they are healing her, and despite their terrifying looks, they are actually incredibly kind, and they care for them until they are well enough to go back to Camazotz to save Meg's little brother.

That has always been one of my favorite parts of that book, and I love the idea of a person/creature that is horrifying to look at, but it's actually one of the kindest people you'd ever meet. It's kind of taking the old saying, 'Don't judge others by their outward appearance' to the extreme. So I decided to write something like that myself.

Also, this story is not about my brother Jacob, nor is it about either of my friends named Rachel. I just happen to like those names, plus the Biblical characters with those names were married, so I thought they would be a good fit for the couple in this story.

Jacob

Jacob froze in horror at the creature that was approaching them through the snow. It walked on four legs, vaguely similar to a gorilla, but had no features resembling anything even remotely close to human, and its two mouths were full of razor sharp teeth. He wanted to run but he couldn't, both because he was too terrified, and because he didn't want to leave Rachel. He tried to yell, but he found himself unable to make a sound.

The creature towered over them and looked down. It had to be at least twelve feet tall, with two mouths, and seven eyes. It stared at them but it didn't look like it wanted to harm them. In fact, its eyes looked... kind? With one enormous hand, it carefully picked him up, and with the other hand, it picked up Rachel's unconscious body as well. It held them close to its chest and as it did so, its body seemed to envelop them, wrapping them with something like very thin tentacles or very thick fur, until they were inside something that he could only imagine was like a kangaroo's pouch. When they were safely inside, the creature slowly let go and began walking, leaving the crash site behind.

As Jacob lay there, pressed against the creature's chest, he noticed how warm its body was, and how it had the softest fur he had ever felt. As he lay there, he could feel its hearts beating slowly, softly. Without even meaning to, he quietly slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.

~

And that's all I have from that class. I still have some even older assignments from my poetry class over a year ago that I really should get around to posting too. Actually, the amount of stuff that I have, poetry, photos from last year, etc. that I haven't gotten around to posting yet, is terrible. One of these days I'll get around to all that as well. One of these days... My photo blog really needs an update. Maybe I'll try to get at least one post done there this month. Maybe... :p

Random Writing Assignments!

So, it's been almost a year since I took my last fiction writing class, and I got to thinking today, I never posted anything from that class. (Aside from my final project, The Real Story of Little Red Riding Hood - If you missed it, you can find that HERE) So today I decided to just randomly post a bunch of the assignments.

One week our assignments were to observe people. In the first one we were sent out to walk around the campus and follow someone from afar, and write down everything about them with enough detail that you could describe them as though they were a character in a book. We were to give them a name, and read our descriptions to the class, fielding any questions about them that we could. Yeah, that was a weird assignment. So here's mine.

Joseph

I started inside Lagomarcino Hall, and watched out the window until I saw someone coming, so I'd have enough time to make observations and write everything down, without being seen. Once I found someone, I decided he looked like a Joseph, Joe for short. He was walking quickly, with his hands in his pockets, looking straight ahead. He was wearing a maroon jacket, jeans, and white sneakers. He had black hair and glasses, and he was wearing black earbud headphones, and carrying a black backpack. Once he'd passed, I left the building and followed him for a little ways. He cut between Science Hall II and Wilhelm Hall, and went into the backdoor of the Physics Hall. I did not follow any further.

~

The next assignment that was to describe some friends or family. Not so much their personalities, this was more about the way they look or dress, in enough detail that could be used if you were writing them as a character. So I chose my cousins, Shaina, Sasha, and Sarah. They are all sisters, but they are all completely different, and that is very evident, even in just the kinds of clothes they wear, so I thought they'd be perfect for this assignment.

Shaina

Shaina usually wears jeans and t-shirts, though she often wears blouses layered with sweaters. She likes to mix up her look a lot. One day she could be wearing a blouse she got in Latvia, and the next she could be wearing an outfit completely inspired by the 80's. With everything she almost always wears sneakers, and while in the house she wears socks. She has a rather large jewelry collection, with a very eclectic mix of styles. She has everything from vintage 80's jewelry, to a single T-Rex stud that she wears in one ear.

Sasha

Sasha only wears vintage dresses, in sensible styles, usually of a single color, and she probably has around five that she switches out regularly. At least two of them are completely covered in paint splatters, and, as she does a lot of paint/craft work, those are probably the ones she wears the most. When she goes out she usually wears one of the nicer ones, along with a pair of flats. And while she wears flats out, in the house she is always barefoot. She doesn't usually wear much jewelry.

Sarah

Sarah always wears flowy, flowery, full length skirts, along with single color t-shirts or three button tops. On top of that, she almost always wears an apron. When she goes out she often wears a scarf, usually a light silk one, and she usually wears sneakers or boots. In the house she switches between being barefoot and wearing socks. She usually wears earrings and/or a necklace, and many of her pieces of jewelry are inspired by nature, with little creatures like birds or foxes on them.

~

At the end of that week, we were told to listen to people on the bus, or in public, to see if we could overhear any interesting conversations, and then the next week we were to bring them to class to turn into a story. Well, if you know me, then you know I do that already. In fact, I'd already had a conversation ready for the class without even realizing it. (A conversation that you've probably already read HERE.) However, this story was supposed to be written with a partner, taking both of our overheard conversations,  and combining them into one. I'm not sure it was that successful, but you can still read it for yourself.

~

Eustace & Marie

The elderly couples sat quietly, eating their mashed potatoes and meatloaf.

"So I just read about something called biphasal sleeping patterns," Marie said, Breaking the silence.

"What?" asked Eustace.

"Biphasal sleeping patterns." Marie repeated. "There was this study in Minnesota about sleeping patterns." she explained as Eustace turned up his hearing aid.

"There was monophasal, biphasal, and poloyphasal, but biphasal is the best."

"What's that?" he asked.

"That's where people take two, four hour naps instead of sleeping eight hours at night."

"Why?" he asked, just as their cell phone buzzed.

"It's Dylan," Marie said, looking at the phone. "He texted earlier, and said his friend Jaden told him we were dope, so I texted back and told him that I was sorry we were dopey, and he just replied, 'No grandma, being dope is good!' So I guess things have changed. Back in the day, calling someone a dope was an insult!"

"Mmhmm." Eustace replied, and went back to his meatloaf.

~

So that was a bunch of my random fiction class assignments. I do still have a few more though, and those are a lot more fictional than these turned out to be. These ended up being more about real people with some fictional elements thrown in. I'll put together the rest of the actual fiction assignments, and I'll put them out as a seperate post in a couple days.

Overheard 3

Well, it's been a long time, a year and a half to be exact, but I am back with another post of overheard conversations! In case you don't remember, or missed the other two times I did one of these, all of these anecdotes are real conversations that I personally overheard and then wrote down to share later. Some days it pays to blend into the background. You never know what kind of weirdness people will say when they think no one is listening! Or when they don't care. Either way can be funny.

If you're curious, the previous two posts can be found HERE and HERE.

I've been collecting these since I did the last post, so I have quite a few new ones to share!

The most obvious place for me to overhear things is at work. Some customers will say anything, not paying attention to anyone around them. It's like they think we're a part of the store and not autonomous humans that can listen to everything they're saying. I suppose I should be insulted, but as long as they're not rude to me personally, and I get a story out of it, I'm kind of okay with being ignored. :p

A grandmotherly-aged woman was talking to her husband while looking at her phone as they came through my checkout line.

"I got a text from Dylan and he said his friend Jayden said 'Your grandparents are dope!' So I texted back and told him I was sorry we were dopey. And he just replied and he said, 'No grandma, being dope is good!' So I guess things have changed. Back in the day calling someone a dope was an insult!"

Earlier this year we had a total solar eclipse pass over our part of the country, and I heard a lot of people talking about it the day after. This was by far the weirdest one. It was from an old man, if that makes any difference.

“Well, I didn’t turn into a werewolf in the holocaust!”

In the holocaust. The HOLOCAUST. Just let that one sink in for a moment. No one corrected him, and he seemed completely unaware of what he had just said.

Another day, a mother was buying several boxes of macaroni and cheese, and as she unloaded her cart she said,

"My toddler just loves to eat the cheese dust out of the macaroni and cheese boxes. He calls it 'Shake shake.'"

Initially I laughed, and then I realized that, as she was buying quite a lot mac&cheese, she must have no problem with feeding her toddler copious amounts of processed chemical cheese dust, on a regular enough basis that he has given this 'snack' his own name, and I wasn't sure if I found it so funny anymore.

If you've shopped anywhere within the last six months, you've probably noticed that the credit cards with the chips are becoming more and more common. Unfortunately my store does not have the best chip readers, so it can take anywhere from 5 to 15 seconds longer than a normal swipe reader for the transaction to process. For some people this is an inconvenience of the highest caliber, about which they must loudly and rudely proclaim their anger and frustrations over. Those customers' stories I will not share here, though I may eventually end up killing one or two off, in my other series of work-related stories, Twist Endings, but once in awhile I will get one of the sainted few who decide to make a joke of the *extremely minor* inconvenience of the chip readers. Case in point, the elderly woman who couldn't quite figure out what to do with her new card right away.

"Oh dear. I’m never going to live long enough to remember this."

Across the store one day I heard a whole bunch or racket so I looked toward the pet aisle, and I saw three little girls incessantly squeaking everything in a display of dog toys. Suddenly their mother appeared behind them and exclaimed,

“Unless you have 4 legs and a tail, put those down!” 

Speaking of kids, the single most common type of overheard conversation comes from them. I have so many of these. They're all wildly different, and they're all hilarious.

Last year there was a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie released, and as with most new blockbuster films, we got a big cardboard display to set up in the store when the DVDs were released. Not long after the stand had been set up, a little girl with a very fit dad came through my line. By 'very fit' I mean that the dad was wearing a tight t-shirt and he had noticeably bulging muscles.
The little girl was probably around two or three, and as I rang up their groceries, the little girl was looking at the movie display. It's worth pointing out that these new Ninja Turtles are a bit more humanoid than the cartoony versions from the 80's and 90's, but they're still buff, green turtle monsters. The girl was studying them for awhile, and then turned to her dad, pointing at the display.

"Look! Daddy! Daddy, it’s you!"

The dad turned to look at what she was talking about, saw the muscular turtle-men, and quipped:

"Oh, thanks sweetie! Not sure how I feel about that..."

Another day a mother and child came through my line.

Child: "Mom! Mom! Can I have some chapstick?"
Mom: "No, you don't need it!"
Child: "But mom! My chips are chapped!"
Mom: "Your chips are chapped?"
Child: "Mom! No!! My lips!!"

Last year, one of the biggest online trends was the 'Bean Boozled Challenge.' The candy company, Jelly Belly, makes a game(?) where they package a bunch of different random flavors of jelly bean, with identical jelly beans of awful flavors. For example, the light green jelly beans might be lime, but they might also be boogers. For awhile, every other YouTuber was buying these jelly beans, and then they'd get together with a friend, and make a video, documenting their outrageous reactions to eating terrible flavors, like Skunk Spray, or Stinky Socks. And for some reason, this made these jelly beans insanely popular, and we were selling a lot of them. This was the funniest conversation around them that I heard during the craze, between a little girl and her mother.

Little Girl: "Mom! This one has dead fish! And rotten eggs!”
The Mom, feigning interest: "Oh!"
Little girl, very excitedly: “Last time I only got one bad one, and my brother got all the bad ones!"
She opened the package: “Mom! I found a barf one! And boogers! I don’t like those. Lawn clippings is okay though, right mommy?
"
Mom, as they left the store: “Well…”
Girl, interrupting: “There’s coconut! That’s a good one! But not baby wipes!”
Little girl, from far away: “I’m so excited!!!"

It's not always little kids, I've overheard some teenagers too. Like this one, where a group of boys came in to buy a bunch of Mexican sodas, which come in glass bottles. One set his bottles on the counter and turned to his friends.

“These bottles make great hammers! I used one of mine to pound in a tent stake!”

Okay kid, good luck with that.

Another time I overheard two younger teenage boys, discussing problems at school, culminating with one declaring everything he was going to do to fix it, 'Once he became president.' The other one replied,

"Yeah, well, when you're president, you're not going to care about middle school issues anymore."

Another place that I got a lot of great overheard material from this past year was at college. I'm out of school now, so that well has kind of dried up, but I collected a lot while I was there, especially from one class in particular. I had one teacher who was always coming up with something funny to say, and as this was a creative writing class, so were all the students. Here are some of those exchanges.

One of the first days, the teacher was trying to get to know the students.

Teacher: "What's your job?"
Student: "I'm a dog groomer."
Teacher: "Well you must be good at it because you don't have any chomp marks."

The teacher was talking to a student during role call.

Teacher: "So what did you do this weekend?"
Student: "I picked up my boyfriend from the airport. He was studying abroad in England."
Teacher: "Oh, that's exciting! Did you link pinkies all the way home?"
Student: "No..."
Teacher: "Oh... Well I would have."

During another role call:

Teacher: "Michael. Do you prefer Mike or Michael?"
Michael: "How about Mike when you're talking to me, and Michael when you're talking about me."

A student was talking about a guy he had seen, during an exercise where we were to observe a stranger for awhile and notice things about them that would be worth writing about if they were a fictional character.

Student: "He was playing a game on his phone."
Teacher:"What was he playing? Tetris? Farmville?"
A different student chiming in: "Well hello Mr. 2005. Did you know there's going to be a black president in three years?"
Teacher: "I have heard such things, yes."

The teacher also had some very random quips during conversations and lessons that just struck me as hilarious.

"It's not a good idea to eat lentils before a three mile race through the woods."

"I think she was an animal science major, because something just seemed, like, animal science-y about her." 

"Did you ever play with paper dolls? You seem like someone who liked to color and snip." 

This next one was from a completely different class, one that was optional for me, this class had the same teacher as the one I'd just finished, both advertising classes, and the teacher had invited my class to sit in for the guest speaker in his next class. There were two girls near me from that class, for whom the class was not optional, having a public, private conversation before the guest arrived

Student 1: "What even is this?"
Student 2: "This girl's coming in to talk about being a copywriter."
Student 1: "What even is that?"
Student 2: "A copywriter?"
Student 1: "Yeah."
Student 2: "They like, write all the copy. In ads."
Student 1: "Ooohhhhhhh... Do we even have to be here?"

This next one was just a random student I heard, I don't think he was in any of my classes, I think he was talking about a test he had to take, and it may actually have been in Sunday school at my grandma's church.

"You know that song by 'Bohemian Rhapsody'? Like, "I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me," that's how I feel right now."

I mean, I've only ever heard a handful of songs by Queen, but even I know that it's the SONG that's called Bohemian Rhapsody.

One of my favorite classes in my last year of school was my poetry class, which was largely due to the teacher. She was just such a great person to be around, always friendly, always talking about random things that had happened in her life. Since she was a poet, this makes sense, as she mined her life experiences for  poetry ideas. She also like to give life advice, such as this little gem, from her first marriage during her time in a traveling rock band.

"You should never marry your heavy metal guitar player. Just a little life advice for you guys."

Well, I think that's going to be all for this post. I actually still have more than this, I didn't really even touch on most of what I've overheard at church, but I think I'll save that for next time.  Hopefully I'll get to the next one sooner than I did for this one. :p

Twist Ending 12

I haven't done one of these since 2014. I suppose I could have, but most of my "bad" experiences are usually just minor annoyances. Ames is generally such a friendly city, I never have any encounters with people mean enough to immortalize in fiction. I probably see hundreds, if not thousands of people a day, as opposed to the maybe a couple hundred, at the very most, that I see at home, and I really can't complain because most everyone in Ames is just super nice.

Sadly, this story happened at home. Literally my second day back. Not even kidding. My cousin even joked about me being inspired to write another story as soon as I got back to work. We laughed, but little did I know that her joke was practically a prophecy. Why is my small town so much grumpier than a big city?

Since I haven't written one of these in so long, I haven't even created a logo for the series. I think I started doing logos for my different series after I'd written the last one. Anyway, since I like my stuff to have images,  I decided to quickly whip one up. I really hope I never have anything worth turning into one of these stories again, but just in case...

"Give me a pack of Pall Mall Blue 100's," the elderly man demanded.

"Sure thing. Do you have an ID I can scan?"

"F@&#! Why the h@% don't you type in a birthdate like everyone else?"

"We're not allowed to, we have to scan everyone's ID."

"Don't give me that $#!!, you could skip it if you wanted to!"

"I'm sorry, only the managers can skip the ID, I'm not a manager."

"Yeah, I can see why!"

"I'm sorry, but unless I call a manager to override the system, I have to scan an ID."

"Yeah, you just wait until I get this whole place shut down!" He exclaimed angrily.

~

That night, as the man sat in front of his flickering, 12 channel television set from 1975, eating a lukewarm, Swanson's frozen dinner, his doorbell rang.

"Who the #@&% is it at this hour! It's 6:30 at night! Why aren't you people in bed!?"

He hobbled over to the door and swung it open angrily. Outside there was a pale man in a black suit, holding a legal pad on a clipboard. On his lapel was a tiny pin shaped like a scythe.

"I was told you had a complaint?"

"What? What are you talking about? I have a complaint about you interrupting my dinner!"

"My records indicate that you had a complaint regarding the way an employee was following his company's policies. Do you care to elaborate?"

"Yeah, can you get that place shut down? Can you fire that guy?"

"No, that's not really my area. My area has more to do with karmic justice." The pale man began scribbling on his clipboard.

"Karmic? What's that? Are you some kind of freak? Get off my property before I call the cops!"

The old man slammed the door in the pale man's face and turned around to go back to his chair, but the pale man was suddenly inside, right in front of him, holding his clipboard.

"What!? Get out of my house!!!" the old man yelled.

The pale man tore the top sheet off his legal pad, handed it to the old man, and tucked the clipboard under his arm.

"You are hereby ordered to cease and desist from all temporal operations, both present and future. From this moment on, you are being reassigned to a new plane of existence. In the meantime, you will be required to complete a standard metaphysical training seminar to help you deal with the issues that brought you to the point of cosmic intervention. Someone will be along shortly to escort you to your next destination. Thank you for your cooperation, and I look forward to our next meeting. Good luck on your journey."

And with that, the pale man was gone, and the house was silent, save for the television, still flickering in the corner.

"I'd like to solve the puzzle Pat!"

"Go right ahead, Stever!"

"'Don't Fear the Reaper By Blue Oyster Cult!'"

"You are correct!" Pat exclaimed, and the audience burst into wild, cheering applause.

The REAL Story of Little Red Riding Hood

The last time I worked on this story was May 11th, 2014. I had written a few other "Real" fairy tales around that time, and I had planned for this one to be a sequel to my Goldilocks and the Three Bears story. You can find that HERE if you're curious. But after writing the first act, I kind of got lost.  I always planned to get back to it, but I'd never found the right way to continue the story.

Last semester I took another fiction writing class. I needed to write a story approximately twenty pages long in order to pass the class, and I had no idea what to write about. A few other people were talking about finally finishing stories they'd worked on a long time ago, and then I remembered this one. I thought about revisiting it, but didn't make my mind up until some of the other finished stories started coming in.

No one else in the class had anything like this story. Almost every story that was turned in was some kind of a romantic tragedy or story about suicide. They were all mostly dark, violent, and depressing. There were a few exceptions here and there, and some people did actually have some great stuff, but no one else was writing any comedy. After a while I really wanted some levity in that class, so eventually I decided, that the way that was going to happen, was for me to open this story back up.

I procrastinated, like I usually do, until about three weeks before it was due. I really had no idea how to pick it back up. I loved my first act, but I didn't know where to take it after that. When I finally had an idea, I worked on it straight for hours. Every day I spent at least a minimum of two hours, sometimes far longer, writing and rewriting the story until I was finally happy with it.

When I finally turned it in, it was a huge hit. Everyone loved it, multiple people told me it was their favorite story of the semester, and one guy, on the day of the critique, walked into class, dropped all of his stuff dramatically, spun around, pointed at me and exclaimed, "You! Thank you! You turned my whole f$@#!%g day around!!!" It was the nicest expletive that's ever been directed at me. :p

There were still issues with it of course, but after the critique day, I had a ton of pointers from the class, so I knew how it needed to be improved. By the end of the semester I had finished it, and it was probably the longest peice of fiction I'd done so far. It's probably not perfect, but I am still quite happy with it. I hope you'll enjoy it too. :)

Red & Gold

(The REAL Story of Little Red Riding Hood)

Jonathan North

Sirens screamed and spotlights scoured the edge of the woods as Goldilocks ran into the darkness. She had been a prisoner at Emerald City Juvenile Corrections for a year and a half on multiple charges, breaking and entering, destruction of property, assault; and those were just the charges in the Three Bears’ case. Who knows what else she might have done that she was never charged with.

By the time she’d come up with a plan of escape, she could not take one more day in this hellish green prison. She was sick of the food, she was sick of the emerald jumpsuits, she was sick of this hideous prison haircut that made her look like a Munchkin, but most of all, she was sick of being told what to do.

Goldilocks was used to being able to do pretty much whatever she wanted. She was only twelve, but for all intents and purposes, she was on her own. She had never known her father, and her mother was always off somewhere drinking, or gambling, or doing yoga with her girlfriends. Sometimes all three at once.

A few months ago Goldilocks had made friends with one of the wardens, a wolf who was sympathetic to her story. He too had had a rough childhood, and told her he saw a lot of himself in her. He’d purposely looked the other way as she made her escape, and made sure to give her a head start before pulling the alarm.

Goldilocks was not heading home. Her mother had been out betting on the gnome fights, gambling away her last unemployment check the day Goldilocks was arrested, so they got her on charges of child neglect. She’d been in prison for as long as Goldilocks had, so going home wasn’t even an option, even if she’d wanted to.

~

The only member of her family that Goldilocks could ever count on, and the only one she even liked, was her grandmother. Her grandmother was her idol. She’d been an assassin in her day, going by the name "The Red Shawl," she had done plenty of things that would make the most hardened criminals whimper in fear, crying and sucking their thumbs.

A few years earlier, a number of particularly nasty jobs had taken their toll on her, and The Red Shawl had decided to retire. She had emerged from those final battles victorious of course, that pack of wolves, Biff the Giant, the two-headed dragon of Gelth, not to mention that ogress and her seven husbands, they were all deader than doornails. But that had been such a stressful day that she’d had to stay in bed recovering for almost a week, and she just hated having to miss her Zumba and water aerobics classes. So at the age of 72, she’d decided it was time to hang up her shawl, and she moved into a little cabin in the forest.

~

Goldilocks fled over the river and through the woods until she could no longer hear the sirens behind her. She had no idea how far it was to her grandmother’s house, so when she came upon an old shack that seemed to have no one home, she broke the door in, climbed into the bed, and immediately fell asleep.

~

The next morning, she awoke to the glorious smell of gingerbread wafting through the entire house. She sat up in the bed and saw a little old lady hunched over a fancy new Maytag brand cauldron.

"Who are you?" Goldilocks asked nervously, not sure whether or not the old woman would be upset about the door she had broken, or the fact that she had spent the night in her bed.

"Well, my name is Grunhildabeth, but I think a better question is, who are you?" the old lady asked, a slight smile playing at the corner of her mouth. "Why are you here?"

"My name is... Pollyanna..." Goldilocks lied, thinking it would be best to keep her identity a secret. Pollyanna had been this extremely annoying little girl that Goldilocks had met in Emerald City. The girl would NOT shut up about how glad, Glad, GLAD! she had been that she had been caught in the middle of her candy spree because this would give her a chance to turn her life around.

"Oh, really?" Grunhildabeth asked, hobbling over to her on a gnarled looking walking stick. "THE Pollyanna? The infamous tri-county candy thief?"

"Um... Yes?"

"Because I’ve met Pollyanna." the old woman continued, shaking her stick in Goldilocks’ direction. "I caught her tearing the shingles off my garage last year. I forgave her and offered her a place to stay while she hid from the police, but after a couple of days she just up and bashed me over the head with a lamp and fled! For no reason!” She shook her head sadly. “I have no idea why; I'm such a sweet little old lady.”

Suddenly she perked up. “Care for a doorknob?” she asked cheerfully. “It's dark chocolate coconut truffle!" She bent over and pulled the knob off the door that Goldilocks had broken down. "It's ok, I'm baking up a fresh door right now."

"Your door is edible?" Asked Goldilocks, taking a bite from the doorknob.

"Oh, yes." Grunhildabeth replied. "My whole house is. I just love children so much; my house is specially made for any who might happen to wander by. Help yourself to any furniture or appliances if you like. I can always make more. Care for a hunk of ceiling fan?”

The old woman reached up with her walking stick and knocked down a large slab of chocolate. Unfortunately, the fan was still on, and the missing blade set it off balance. The whole thing rocked back and forth a few times before it snapped off the ceiling, flew across the room, and took out a huge plate glass window.

"Whoops!” Grunhildabeth said cheerfully, handing the fan blade to Goldilocks. “Oh well, I’ll just add sugar glass to my to-do list! So, anyway, who are you really? And why exactly are you wearing that green jumpsuit?"

Goldilocks looked at the old woman like she was insane, but took a bite of the fan blade anyway. It was actually pretty amazing. "Okay, fine. I'm not Pollyanna," she admitted, taking another bite of the fan blade. "But I can't tell you who I am. Other than your awesome candy skills, I have no reason to trust you."

"Well, those green jumpsuits aren't exactly haute couture you know. It's obvious you’re here because you need a place to hide. But I really don’t mind, you can stay here with me. My home is your home. I LOVE children, and I really don’t care what you did. This is a 100% judgement free home. Judgement free, not sugar free!" She cackled to herself.

"I’m really sorry, but I can't stay," Goldilocks said, handing the fan blade back to the old woman. "As delicious as this place is, I really need to get to my grandmother's house. By now she’ll probably have heard what happened to me, and she’ll be worried."

"Please, at least just stay for a couple of days." the old woman pleaded. "I'll make you a cherry chocolate cheesecake filled marshmallow fondant throw pillow with licorice cross-stitch and fringe!"

"Sorry, I really need to go."

"No,” the old woman said, suddenly deadly serious. "You can never leave."

"What?"

"You heard me. You aren't leaving. Ever." Grunhildabeth pointed her walking stick at the oven which flew open, shooting out the new door which fixed itself in the doorway and locked into place. She turned and pointed her stick at Goldilocks, causing a huge cage made of thick candy canes to materialize around her. “You’re going to stay here, and you are going to eat my house, and you are going to get nice and fat, because I am sick of eating my own appliances, and I am starving for a fresh, juicy child!”

"Forget this, you frickin’ cannibal!" Goldilocks yelled, and grabbed the bars of the cage with all her might. She had spent the last year and a half doing almost nothing other than working out in the prison yard, and summoning all her strength, she snapped out two of the oversized peppermint sticks, and leapt out of the cage. "Take this, you witch!" she screamed, and cracked the old woman upside the head, knocking her backwards into the cauldron. She kicked open the freshly baked door, and ran for her life.

Ignoring the old woman’s shrieks and wails, Goldilocks ran back into the woods, and kept running until she could no longer hear the angry cursing in the distance.

~

Goldilocks walked in silence for a while until she eventually found the path again. At least she hoped it was the right path, they all look the same when you’re this deep in the forest. She followed the path until she came to an intersection, marked by a sign with a bunch of arrows, all pointing in different directions. One of them was pointing back in the direction of ‘Grunhildabeth’s Candy Cottage,’ and another arrow, pointing down an overgrown path, was marked ‘Mother Melgrid’s Tower Salon: We Don’t Do Haircuts!’ There were seven small signs underneath those, all pointing in the same direction, marked with the names, Happy, Sappy, Grumpy, Dumpy, Sneezy, Wheezy, and Kevin, and below that was a small, obviously newer sign that simply read ‘Grandmother’s House.’

“Well, that’s convenient,” she said to herself, looking at the arrow that seemed to be pointing her toward her grandmother. “I hope it’s actually MY Grandmother, and not some random old lady.” She figured it probably was her grandmother. What other grandmother would want to live out in the middle of the forest? Besides that old witch of course. And the witch probably wasn’t even a grandmother. Who would have ever wanted to marry that ugly sack of wrinkles?

Just then, she got the distinct feeling that she was being watched. Afraid that Grunhildabeth might have followed her, she decided to go back through the forest and try to keep going in the general direction of the arrow, staying close enough to the path that she wouldn’t get lost, but far enough in that she could remain hidden.

As she was about to go back into the forest, two little children burst out of the trees and crashed into her, sending one of them, a little boy, tumbling to the ground. "Owie, mister!" he exclaimed, rubbing his rear end.

"I'm not a mister." Goldilocks sneered, "What’s wrong with you?”

"Well, you're wearing pants," the little boy said. "And you have short hair. Only boys wear pants and have short hair."

"Someone needs to let go of their antiquated gender stereotypes, little girl," Goldilocks glared at him.

"I’m not a little girl!”

“I’m the girl!” his sister exclaimed.

“See?” Goldilocks replied. “It doesn’t feel very nice to be misgendered, now does it?”

“What?” the little boy asked, totally confused.

"Can you help us?" The little girl interrupted. "We're lost and we need food."

"Yeah! We're starving!" the boy agreed loudly.

"Oh, hey, yeah!" Goldilocks exclaimed, feigning excitement. "You kids should go that way." She pointed to the sign and motioned behind her, back in the direction she’d come from. "There's a huge house all made of candy and gingerbread and chocolate and junk!”

“Junk? It’s made of garbage?” the little boy asked.

“Not literal junk, geez!” she said, reverting back to annoyance. “It’s a figure of speech! The house is made of candy! You can eat it!” She switched back to faux enthusiasm. “Plus, there’s a nice lady who lives there who will give you all the food you want! And I think she’s magic!”

"Really? Awesome! Thanks mister!" the little boy exclaimed, and the children ran off in the direction of the witch’s cottage.

"Yay! Run! Go get that sugar!" she hollered after them. "Good riddance," she said to herself, and continued on her way, no longer worried that Grunhildabeth would come looking for her.

~

Goldilocks followed the path for a few more hours. Around three in the afternoon she found a small apple orchard and decided to stop to get something to eat. A sign on the fence around the orchard read, ‘Queen Grimillian’s Totally Not Poisoned Apples!’ “Hmm,” Goldilocks said to herself. “Sounds legit,” and she helped herself to a few of the biggest apples she could find.

As she ate, she thought she heard someone walking up the path outside the orchard, and instinctively she reached for the taser in her pocket. Unfortunately, it had been confiscated when she was arrested, so she shimmied up a tree and out of sight. She really needed to get a new weapon ASAP. As she watched from the branches, a wolf appeared around the corner and sniffed the air. Suddenly it looked directly up at her.

“My, my, my… What have we here?” asked the wolf, in a deep, powerful voice that sounded like a rich fusion of Morgan Freeman and James Earl Jones. “A little girl like yourself should not be alone out here! What would your mother say?”

“Steppen?” Goldilocks asked. “Is that you? What are you doing out here?”

“I could ask you the same thing!” the wolf replied. It was the same wolf who’d helped her escape the Emerald. “Why are you out here? I thought you were going to your grandmother’s as soon as I’d gotten you out!”

“I’m on my way,” Goldilocks said, climbing down from the tree. “My grandmother lives out here somewhere, but I have no idea how far away she is.”

“Well, lucky for you, I was the one who found you, and not one of the other wardens. There have been people combing the woods for you since last night, you know.”

“Oh,” Goldilocks said. In all the excitement with the witch, she’d kind of forgotten that there might be a manhunt out looking for her.

“I have an idea on how to get them to call off the search,” the wolf told her, “But you’re going to need to change your clothes.”

“Oh, believe me, I’d love nothing more, but if you haven’t noticed, these woods seem to be rather lacking in Walmarts.”

“Okay, here’s what we’ll do. I’m pretty sure there’s a house not far from here, I can smell smoke from a wood burning stove. We’ll stop there and get you some clothes. Then you give me your jumpsuit, and I’ll tear it up, and take it back to Emerald. They’ll just assume you got eaten by a bear or something, and give up looking.”

“A bear, really? You realize I took down three of those on my own, they’ll never believe I let one get the drop on me!”

“Okay, fine, we’ll set it on fire and tell them a dragon got you!”

“Now that’s more like it!” Goldilocks exclaimed gleefully. “I’d never stand a chance against a dragon!”

“You’re a very odd little girl,” the wolf told her. “You know that, right?”

“I have been told that before,” she said, smiling.

“Okay, let’s get going,” he said. “We’ve got a death to fake.”

~

They set out on their way and after a while they came upon a small, brick house. Goldilocks knocked on the door and a moment later it opened a crack. A little pig poked its head out, but it took one look at the wolf and squealed, “Not again!” and slammed the door in their faces. From behind the door they heard several deadbolts click, and shortly they heard the sound of an engine roaring to life. They looked around to the back of the house and saw the pig fly out of the garage on a motorcycle as fast as it could go.

“Nice!” exclaimed Goldilocks, and picked up a rock, chucking it through a huge plate glass window.

“Well, that’s one way to do it,” the wolf said. “Or we could have just gone through the garage.”

“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?” Goldilocks asked, carefully climbing over the glass.

Inside the house, they found some clothes that fit her. The pig was about her height, but he was much rounder, so she had to use a belt to keep the pants up.

“Well, this’ll have to do,” Goldilocks said, stepping out of the bathroom and handing the jumpsuit to Steppen. “Not sure about the smell though.” The clothes smelled like mud and old ham, with a hint of… taco seasoning? Whatever it was, it was gross.

“You’ll just have to put up with it I’m afraid,” the wolf said. “This is the only way to get them off your scent.”

Goldilocks gave him a look, and he laughed.

“Thanks so much for that,” she said sarcastically.

“Don’t mention it,” The wolf said, ripping a leg off the jumpsuit with his teeth.

“Wait!” Goldilocks exclaimed. “I thought we were going to set it on fire!”

“Oh, right.” The wolf spit out the leg and found a lighter next to the pig’s stove.

Outside, they burned away about half the material, but made sure that the prisoner ID number was left intact.

“Why don’t you stay the night here,” the wolf said. “It’ll be getting dark soon, and I doubt that pig’ll be back. I’ll take the jumpsuit back to Emerald, hopefully they’ll call back the search party right away, and you should be good to go in the morning.”

“Thank you so much, Steppen,” Goldilocks said. “If I was that kind of person, I would hug you right now.”

“Please don’t,” the wolf said, smiling slightly. “Goodbye now. Good luck.”

“Thank you! I hope I’ll see you again someday!”

“Definitely!”

~

The next day, Goldilocks set out again. She walked for a few hours before she finally spotted a small house off in the distance. Grandmother’s cottage! She’d finally made it! She knocked on the door, but no one answered, and the door creaked open slightly as it had not been latched. She pushed it open and found the whole place was a mess. Chairs upside down, the bedclothes were everywhere, the nightstand and mirror were both overturned and broken, and there were gouges in the floors and walls, like someone had gone crazy with an axe. An axe which was now lying in pieces on the ground outside, next to the back door, which had been broken out of its frame. Upon closer inspection, Goldilocks realized the the axe looked like it had been bitten in half, bitten in half by something with very sharp teeth. There was no blood though, so maybe her grandmother was still okay? She was a trained assassin after all.

Goldilocks ran out the back door. “Grandmother?” she called. “Grandmother!?” There was no answer. “GRANDMOTHER!?” This was pointless. If her grandmother was still alive she was going to have to find her herself. But first she would need a change of clothes and a weapon. The little pig’s clothes were rank, and she was even more eager to get rid of them than she had been the jumpsuit.

She went back inside and opened the closet, glad that she and her grandmother were roughly the same size. She pulled out a dark colored dress, and then she saw it. There, inside the closet, was her grandmother’s infamous red cloak. “Perfect,” she said to herself, and put it on over the dress. If her grandmother was dead, she was sure she would have wanted her to take it, and if she was alive, she could return it when she found her.

Glad to finally be out of the smelly clothes, Goldilocks began searching the house for a weapon. Obviously the axe was out, but there had to be something else around here. Her grandmother would not have become one of the most feared assassins without a collection of weapons.

She looked in all the kitchen cupboards, under the bed, even in the bathroom. Finally she began pulling books off the bookshelf, hoping to find a hollowed-out book hiding a gun, but when she pulled out the Encyclopedia of Cupcakes, the bookshelf shuddered. Creaking and groaning, it pulled away from the wall and slid to the side, revealing a staircase leading down to an armory, almost the same size as the main room of the house!

The armory was absolutely FULL of weapons. There were swords and daggers, guns and crossbows, maces and mace, there was even a large selection of tasers! Her favorite! Goldilocks grabbed a taser that looked a lot like the one she’d used to take down the Papa Bear, and a can of mace, like the one she’d used on the Mamma Bear. Knowing that her grandmother was probably unarmed, she grabbed a huge sword, her grandmother’s weapon of choice. She thought about grabbing a gun too, just in case, but none of them were loaded, and she didn’t know how to load them. Oh well, three weapons should be plenty. Goldilocks found a sheath and strapped the sword to her side, and set out with the cloak covering her and the weapon completely.

~

Goldilocks followed the trail as best as she could for about a half mile before she came to a clearing with a pond and cave on its shore. She thought she heard noises coming from the cave, so she crept closer.

“I’ll never give up, you murderer!” a familiar deep voice shouted. “I know you killed my parents! You will pay!”

“Steppen?” Goldilocks asked aloud.

“Well it’s a good thing I’m a patient woman!” she heard her grandmother yell. “As soon as I can get my hand on one of those cave spikes, you’ll be dead in a second!”

“Well, why don’t you let me go, so you can grab one?”

“Nice try, you smelly bathmat! I’m not going anywhere! As soon as I’ve finished with you, I’m going to dye you pink and turn you into a toilet seat cover!”

“You won’t live long enough to try!”

Goldilocks crept into the cave and saw something that was, quite frankly, pretty hilarious. Her grandmother, a woman in her 70’s, still in her nightgown, had apparently wrestled the wolf to the floor of the cave, and was sitting on his back, pulling his front paws up over his head so he couldn’t move.

“Grandmother!” she shouted.

“Goldilocks!” her grandmother cried in surprise.

“Steppen!?” Goldilocks shouted. “What are you doing!?”

“Wait,” Goldilocks’ grandmother said, “You two know each other!?”

“What do you mean, what am I doing!?” Steppen continued, ignoring her. “I’m getting my revenge! Your grandmother killed my parents!”

“What!?” Goldilocks exclaimed, thoroughly confused. “What do you mean? How do you know?”

“When I was just a pup, my parents disappeared without a trace. There were rumors that they had been slaughtered by an ancient evil, cloaked in crimson! When you told me all about your grandmother’s “amazing exploits,” I knew she was the one who’d killed them! That cloak you’re wearing is proof enough! The Red Shawl!”

“You don’t know that! How could you know that?”

“Come on dear,” Goldilocks’ grandmother said, “Let’s be real. If his parents were wolves, I probably did kill them. Now will someone please tell me what’s going on?”

“He was one of the wardens at Emerald.” Goldilocks explained. “He helped me escape! I thought he was my friend!”

“We could never be friends after what your grandmother did to my parents! I was just a puppy! She murdered them!” He turned to her grandmother, “You murdered them!”

“I was hired to do a job,” Goldilocks’ grandmother said. “It wasn’t personal.”

“Yeah, well it is now!” The wolf thrashed with all his might and threw her across the room. She rolled into a row of stalagmites, breaking several of them off, and was still.

“Stop it!” Goldilocks shouted drawing the sword. “I don’t want to hurt you, but if you’ve hurt my grandmother I will! Why did you help me? If we weren’t friends, why would you go through all that trouble to help me escape?”

“I did like you at first, I wasn’t lying when I said you reminded me of myself, but once I figured out who your grandmother was, it didn’t matter. I helped you escape so you would lead me to her. I’ve been looking for her for years, I couldn’t let this opportunity to finally get my revenge pass me by. I’m sorry, Goldilocks, this was never about you. I wish you weren’t here to have to see this.”

The wolf leapt toward her grandmother with his teeth bared, but with one swift motion, Goldilocks’ grandmother leapt up, throwing one of the stalagmites with all her might, stabbing the wolf in the chest.

“Well, it seems like luck is on your side, old woman,” gasped the wolf, staggering backwards.

“Yes, it would seem so.”

Goldilocks ran toward them.

“You know I’m not giving up, right?” he said weakly. “You’re just going to have to kill me.”

“Why, Steppen?” Goldilocks asked. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“Oh, but it does,’ the wolf replied. “All my life has been leading me to this moment. From the moment my parents died, I made it my mission to seek justice on their behalf. I can’t let their murders go unavenged.”

“Hand me my sword, dear,” her grandmother said, and Goldilocks passed her the blade.

The wolf looked at her pointedly. “I’m sorry, but if you’re going to stand in my way, you’re going to have to go too.”

Summoning the last of his strength, the wolf leapt towards Goldilocks, but she was prepared, and before his teeth could even brush her skin, he was on the ground, writhing with 50,000 volts. As he lay twitching on the floor of the cave, Goldilocks’ grandmother plunged her sword into the wolf, and he was dead.

“Grandmother!” Goldilocks cried, dropping the taser and running forward.

“Oh, Goldilocks,” she replied, as they fell into an embrace.

“I’m so sorry,” Goldilocks said. “I never should have told him about you!”

“Don’t worry about it dear, you didn’t know. Besides, I’ve been needing new carpets anyway. He’ll make some fine mats for the bathroom.”

Goldilocks laughed quietly.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” her grandmother asked, pulling the sword out of the wolf. Last I knew they’d sent you up the river!”

“Well, that’s kind of the problem,” Goldilocks said. “I sort of need a place to stay. I may or may not have just escaped from prison and faked my own death.”

“Oh, that’s my little girl!” her grandmother exclaimed happily, putting an arm around her as they left the cave. “Of course you can stay with me! After what happened this morning, I’m pretty sure I’ll be needing help fixing my house anyway!”

“Thank you, grandmother! Oh, and I’m assuming you’ll be wanting this back.” Goldilocks began to take off the red cloak, but her grandmother stopped her.

“No dear, you keep it. After your amazing performance today, I think you deserve to keep it. Who knows. Maybe one day you can follow in my footsteps. Perhaps you could be the next Red Shawl.”

“Really? I know how much this cloak means to you.”

“Think nothing of it,” her grandmother said, stopping at the pond outside the cave to clean her sword. “I’ve lost count of how many of those things that I’ve owned. You really think that I’ve had the same cloak for 50 years of assassining? Those things wear out way too easily, especially when you fight things with claws!”

Goldilocks handed her the sheath.

“I can make myself another cloak,” her grandmother said, strapping the sword to her side. “You keep this one.”

“Thank you, Grandmother. I’ll wear it always.”

Her grandmother laughed. “Well, at least until it gets shredded in a bear fight or something.”

“Hey, I came out of that fight without a scratch! And there were three of them!”

“Of course, but I meant wild bears. Oatmeal eating, chair sitting, bed using, domesticated bears don’t count. Plus, one of those was a baby!” her grandmother said with a mischievous smile.

“Grandmother…” Goldilocks said, laughing.

“Goldilocks…” she replied, playfully mocking her tone, then stopped. “Goldilocks. Hmm… How would you like a nickname? If you’re going to follow in my footstep, you need an alias.”

“Really?” Goldilocks asked.

“Of course!” her grandmother exclaimed. “Goldilocks sounds too sweet. Too innocent. Why do you think I called myself The Red Shawl? I couldn’t go around killing monsters with a name like Rosemary, could I?”

“Well, I guess not,” Goldilocks replied. “But what do you think I should be called?”

“I think that cloak really suits you,” her grandmother said. “Let’s call you, Red.”

The REAL Story of Little Miss Muffet

It has literally been years since I've written a REAL story based on a fairy tale, but as I was flipping through one of my old notebooks in my fiction writing class, I came across a short one I'd written a couple years ago for a class. It's pretty short, and not nearly as ridiculously elaborate as some of the other ones I've written, but I decided to type it up here anyway.

For those of you who need a refresher, here is the original poem.

Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey;
Along came a spider,
Who sat down beside her,
And frightened Miss Muffet away.

And now here is the REAL Story. Or my version anyway. :p

Little Miss Muffet

Sarah had won, but she was not happy about it. She had not wanted to enter the “Little Miss Muffet” competition, but her mother had insisted. Her mother was always trying to live vicariously through her. Gymnastics, ballet, now beauty pageants. And it would have to be this one. “Little Miss Muffet.” She hated muffets. They were far too crunchy. Still, she’d rather have one of those, than the mess she’d been packed for lunch.

She looked into her lunchbox with disgust. Curds and Whey again? Her mom was such an awful cook. Who actually liked eating this slop anyway? It was like watered down cottage cheese! With sugar sprinkled on it! Sick! But then again, it was all she had. She decided to get away from the pageantry for a while, but first she had to escape the paparazzi. They were relentless. They were popping up all over the place trying to take her picture. Even her dressing room wasn't safe, so she opened the window, climbed out, and took off into the forest.

Sarah walked for quite a while before coming upon a large, squishy looking thing on the ground. She’d heard them called tuffets before, but she still didn’t know what that was. Some kind of a mushroom? A wild marshmallow? Still, it was pretty big, and looked like it would be comfortable, so she sat down.

As she choked down the disgusting concoction that would have to pass for her lunch, she heard a quiet skittering noise beside her on the tuffet. Sarah looked down and screamed, flinging her lunchbox into the air, showering the forest floor with curds and whey. Beside her was the most hideous tarantula she had ever seen. She flew off the tuffet and ran down the path and out of the woods as fast as she could, launching herself through her open window, back into her dressing room.

Back in the forest, the spider chuckled to himself as he flipped through the photos on his tiny camera. “I can see the headline now!” he said to himself, looking at the photos of the lonely, then terrified little girl. “Newly Crowned Little Miss Muffet Abandoned in the Woods by Hateful Parents!” Fanciful Enquirer would pay big bucks for these pictures, he could smell the cash already.