The Perfected Man-- rough draft part 1

It was all grass, long but thin wisps of light yellow-green blades blowing in the wind from the jets of their lander. The field was a large square that had begun to encroach out into the ruined buildings at its perimeter. The tendrils of flowing long grass slipped down streets and wrapped around corners, growing up through deep wide cracks in sidewalks and roadways. The buildings slumped, many had crumbled and large stones had tumbled from them, sitting askew with sharp corners jutting up toward the cloudless sky. Thin metal poles stood, bent, out of the crumbling stone and cement of the disused buildings. For endless miles from his perch inside the lander Tom Robleck could see the crumbling bones of an endless city. And then, just below, a single stationary man amid the chaotic sea of writhing golden green grass. He was clothed in only a single flowing robe with a muted cream apron bound about his waist. He stood, arms outstretched, his long hair blowing like the grass, his face up turned.

Behind Tom the pilot and his crew were yelling, as they adjusted for the unexpected gravity. By their calculations from orbit the planet should have had gravity comparable to Earth. However, now they found a much greater force pulled them down toward the empty field. Sudden, unexpected drafts of corkscrew wind made them drop, and then they’d jump, adjusting their thrusters. Every time they had evened out their decent a rogue burst would push them down. The humming of the black metal floor under Tom’s feet rattled his bones and made his skin feel fuzzy. The motion and a pungent odor of fuel vapor had begun to make him feel nauseated and light-headed. He’d put his head between his knees, and clutched the square cushioned seat he sat on. It was in this position that sudden gust had pushed the lander hard right, tipping it to the side so hard that if it hadn’t been for his already fanatic grip on the seat he would have flown out the wide open side of the lander. His head shot up and as the lander leveled off he’d glimpsed something. He thought it was a bright white spot amid the amber and green. His curiosity over took his acidic stomach. He clung to the handrail next to the gaping pod door and peered over the edge. Vertigo gripped him and another sudden drop threatened to throw him out. But he’d seen enough to know it was a man; an expressionless man waiting with unwavering everlasting quietness. Even over the din of the chugging lander engines and howling wind he could sense the silence of the man.
Finally the lander thudded to the ground with finality and a stillness that made his frenzied body’s overloaded senses feel like flames snapping in the wind. His fuzzy feeling fingers and vibrating bones began to calm as he sat in the pod of the lander, everyone else already having jumped to the solid planet surface below. He took a moment to breathe, and then with shaky arms he pulled his sluggish reluctant body up from his seat, and hopped down to the field below. Instantly he found himself immersed in tall, much taller than could have thought possible, grass stalks. The long thin blades batted his face with feathery lightness. It was wet around his ankles, and his whole body was damp from the collected dew. He flailed his arms and tried to twist back toward the pod of the lander. He could see the lip of the lander just above the touch of his fingers, and could touch it if he jumped. But jumping was difficult in the slick wetness of the grass floor. He could hear others in this party shouting, and rustling through the grass.
He lifted his leg as far up as he could and looked down. It was covered with a thin layer of gritty light green liquid. He twisted again to the lander, which now looked like it was even higher up on the grass. He must have fallen into a hole. The grass seemed to be tightening around him, stiffening. His lifted his arms over his head so they wouldn’t be trapped to his side.
Suddenly he realized he couldn’t lift his feet anymore. They began to tingle numb and cold as the wet soaked through his light boots and socks. Pins and needles crept up his legs, eating his ankles and then knees. The light began to be choked by the yellow whipping grass blades, which squeezed tighter around him, drawing him down. He tried to call for help, but his mind couldn’t find his mouth to form the words, or his lungs to push it out. He was numb up to the hips now. The tips of the grass obscured the bright sun above him, swaying above him. The edges of his sight began to blacken and the hole above him suddenly felt like it should have been down, and that he was being pulled up into a thick thatch of soft moist hair, which twisted tighter and tighter around his paralyzed legs. His head reeled, and his sight blurred. What was going on? Where was he? The hole below him became overwhelmingly bright; he had to close his eyes. A spot of brilliant blue lingered in the black of his shut-eyes, burning through his eyelids. He relaxed though and drifted off into bodiless thought.





Then a dark arm reached over the jagged lip of his encasing and a hand took hold of his hand. The grass loosened and he was pulled up into solid ground. He was covered in the green up to his shoulders. He sat coughing for a time, filling his renewed lungs. The grass matted under him.
The man he’d seen standing in the field stood over him atop the grass, the blades barely covering his feet. The man looked down at him, silent. Staring. Expressionless

Winnipeg continued IV

Wait!, if you haven't read the beginning, you should

Winnipeg, the City
part1:
part2:
part3:


We stopped in front of his house. The walks had been cleared of snow, leaving a thick milky sunken path up to his door. We knocked, and waited, watching our breath leave us and vanish into the blackening blue of the evening. A woman opened the door. She stood holding the knob and smiled at us. She opened the outer door and motioned us to come in. From inside we heard loud conversation, laughing and dishes clanking. I thought we’d come to the wrong house, but the look on the woman’s face was welcoming though tired. She was short, I could see over her head as she led us down the narrow hall with the pictures and wood-burned poetry. I could see into the living room, the sagging couch along the opposite wall. The room was full of people milling and talking and eating. The small woman invited us to sit, and asked what she could get for us from the kitchen. Ham? Potatoes, were we allergic to anything?
“No, it all sounds great.”
It was warm, and I tugged my gloves off and began unzipping my coat. Jones unloosed his bag. He pulled the hat off his head, leaving his hair staticy. He looked at me and shrugged. People looked at us out of the corner of their eyes, but nobody spoke to us. Where was Randy? For the first time I saw the room with the lights on. It had an orange warmth inside. Much of the tobacco smell had been masked by scented candles which bounced their light along the yellow papered walls. The magazines had been removed from the coffee table. It had been dusted, and the floors cleaned. The couch shrugged off its shabbiness for a homely feel. The tobacco and cigarette papers were gone.
The woman returned with plates of food for us. She set them down and then sat next to me on the couch.
“There, it’s sort of last minute, but it’s cold out tonight and you both look like you won’t mind if it’s a Safeway ham and instant potatoes.”
“It looks great.” I said. Where was Randy? “Randy didn’t tell us you were having a Super Bowl party,” I said as I scooted forward onto the edge of the couch, and stabbed a tiny bit of potato onto my fork’s tips.
“Well, he didn’t know. Actually, this is all sort of a last minute deal. He told me you were coming over. That he invited you for dinner, and I don’t know where he has hidden your phone number, honestly I can’t find anything out from him anymore. Then thinking of you two walking down here, all the way down here from you apartment and finding an empty house and a long walk home…”
She shook her head and closed her eyes, breathing out of her nose.
“Anyway, let me get you some drinks.”
She stood and walked quickly away, back into the kitchen. I looked at Jones. He looked at me and stuffed a thick pink triangle of ham into his mouth.
“I guess we eat.” He said. And watch the game, I thought. Television is on the list of don’t for missionaries; along with reading secular books, popular music and movies. Jones bounced on his seat like a child, stuffing his mouth with potatoes and nodding. I shook my head, and ate. Where was Randy? I could smell alcohol, but saw none. Some people left, some others came. Most hung around the small dinning area between the kitchen and the living room giving us sidelong glances. The woman was gone a long time.
“Jones, we should probably go as soon as we’re done.”
“It’s cold outside, and it’s the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl.” He dragged out the end of bowl. “No more tracting tonight, no one’s letting us in. And what if Randy shows up? Where is he anyway?”
“Jones…”
The woman came back with two clear plastic cups full of dark bubbly drink. She set them down on the coffee table.
“Sorry to leave you so long.” She said.
“No worries. Is Randy here? He seemed a little out of sorts last night and…”
She held up her hand, cutting me off. She sat with one leg pulled up so she could face me. I sat, twisting at the waist to see her. She pondered. Her hair was thin and cut short to her jaw, a squash yellow. She had a round face, with blue eyes set in thin webbed slits. Wrinkles spread from the corners, and ran along her forehead. Her nose poked out like a tiny soft hook. She must have been in her mid to late fifties. She smiled with thin pink lips.
“Randy’s not going to be around too much for a while. He—I don’t know what to do with him anymore.” He eyes became moist. She jutted her bottom jaw forward. Then closed her eyes and breathed in. When she exhaled she opened her yes and smiled at us. “Thank you.” She reached out for my hand, and I let her take it. Her dry hands rubbed along the skin of my palms. Knobby, early arthritic, fingers wrapped around my hand. “He liked to talk to you. Thank you for listening to him. I can’t do it anymore. I don’t know what to do with that boy anymore. When he hurts others or when he hurts himself.” Her eyes closed again, allowing just one streaking tear to escape. Her thin nostrils became red-rimmed as they flared with her breathing.
For a while we sat and I let Jones watch the football game. Gradually the people crowded in closer to us until they were in our midst. We were surrounded, ensconced among this thatch of family and friends who all stared at the television in the corner. Some bounced up and down and yelled and laughed and whistled. Some sat and chatted. Jones melted in.
We walked to Kimberly Avenue where we hopped a bus and slipped into our apartment just before nine.
Elder Jones was transferred the following Wednesday. I saw Randy once more after that, with my new companion Elder Crane. We went to his house, which had turned gray inside, and sat at his ashy table where he talked quietly of Mohammed’s sword and how his mother was torturing him.

(3)Winnipeg continued...

Before you read, here is a link to parts 1 and 2 of the story
part 1:
part 2:



Part 3:

I woke up with the phone in my hands, Jones leaning over my face saying dude.
“What are you doing dude?”
“Randy called, and I fell asleep talking to him.”
Jones loped over to the couch under the window, wrapping his blanket around him, and falling like a dead tree onto the cushions. His black-socked feet poked out the bottom, and his dark fuzzy hair out the top.
“What did he want?”
“He was scared. More than usual.”
Jones laid his discussion book on the floor, opened somewhere in the middle and rested his face on the precipice of the couch, one eye looking down. The discussions were the lessons we taught. Each one contained several principles that built upon the previous discussion. The first discussion is what he had taught to Randy. God, then Christ, then prophets, Joseph Smith and finally the Book of Mormon. At the end of each discussion is a commitment. After the first visit we ask them to read a chapter out of the Book of Mormon. Third Nephi, chapter 11. The discussions were to be memorized, and recited verbatim if possible, allowing the Holy Spirit to prompt us in our teaching. Each missionary found a sort of space and structure that allowed the correct doctrine to be taught and gave place for their own unique speech and personality. I had mine down so that I could teach each discussion in several ways, given certain restrictions, like time or age or degrees of common belief. Jones was still working to memorize his first discussion. I watched his eye become thick, and droopy.
“I think I told him we’d come over today,” I said.
“Anything is better than tracting,” Jones said. “What time?”
“I think he mentioned dinner.”

That evening we picked a short street in the north section of our area. A short J shaped cul de sac called Chernichan drive. We started on the east side of the street, knocking on doors. Each door we went to led to rooms packed with people. Nobody let us in. Halfway around the circle a man asked us why weren’t we home watching the Super Bowl. We didn’t know it was on I said. We left that door thinking it might be worth abandoning our tracting and going straight to Randy’s house, but I said we had to at least finish the street. Besides, we weren’t expected at Randy’s house for at least an hour. It had been a slightly warm day and some of the snow had melted into thick puddles that now formed shiny sheets of thick ice in the gutters. Jones slipped several times and became agitated, cold and quiet.
“Nobody is going to let us in on Super Bowl Sunday. Lets go home,” he said.
I wanted to go home. The cold had gotten into my coat. My ears had become frozen and I felt a heavy tiredness fall upon me. It had taken longer than I thought for us to walk from our apartment to this little street lined with large crammed-in houses. No buses ran where we were, and I couldn’t shake the impending trudge back home, and then down to Randy’s house. We would finish this street.
Three houses from the end all the lights were off. We knocked, and waited. Then as we turned to leave, a car pulled in the driveway and into the garage. A woman jumped out, and yelled from around the corner to hold on, she’d let us in. A moment later several lights popped on in the living room and she opened the front door.
“Come in, come in! It’s cold out,” she said waving her arms in circles toward her. She was tall, in her early forties with long shiny blond hair that she’d twisted up in the back of her head and stabbed with a pen. Her teeth were immaculate, white and large and straight. She wore a thick tan coat and a red scarf, which she peeled off, inviting us to do the same. Underneath she had on dark blue scrubs and a light blue long sleeved under shirt. We loosed our winter coats and Jones pulled the hat off his fuzzy head. I feebly tugged at the fingers of my gloves.
“ok,” she finally said, standing up straight with a bounce and clasping her hands in front of her. “Now, what is this all about.”
I told her.
“That sounds lovely.” She turned, motioning us to follow her into the dining area where we sat at her table.
“How does this work?” she asked.
I pulled my discussions from my bag. I had bound all my discussion booklets into one volume with a fat plastic ring binding. I put a picture of Jesus on the cover and a picture of Joseph Smith’s first vision on the back. I looked at Jones, and he started teaching.
Jones talked about God. She believed in God. I talked about Jesus. She believed in Jesus. Jones talked about the Bible and it’s prophets. She read the Bible and she believed in prophets. Jones paused after this.
“What would you think if there was a prophet in our time? Someone who spoke with God and received revelation.” I asked.
“Wouldn’t that be nice,” she said.
“There is.” I told her about Joseph Smith. I told her of his first vision, quoting from Joseph’s own account, holding the picture on the back of my discussions up so she could see.
“Through this and other experiences Joseph Smith was called to be a prophet, like Moses and Noah and all the other prophets we talked about in the Bible. He saw God.”
I paused, waiting for a response. She sat quietly, with a tired look in her eyes.
“What about wolves in sheep’s clothing,” she asked.
My throat leaped, hoping Jones would take the segue.
“I think that scripture says, ‘by their fruits ye shall know them.’” He said. “One of the fruits brought forth by Joseph Smith was what we call the Book of Mormon. Have you ever seen this book?”
She hadn’t. He handed her the copy we’d been carrying with us all night. It was still cold, and the pages were loud and crisp when she leafed through it.
“This book is a second witness of Jesus Christ. It is the record of the prophets of the people who lived on the American continent during much of the same time as when the Bible was written. Joseph Smith was commanded of God to translated it.”
Jones’ booklet fell off his lap onto the floor. His eyes widened, he looked at me. I smiled at him. He looked back at her.
“There’s a part at the end, Moroni chapter ten…” He rifled through to the end of her book to the correct page.
“It contains a promise,” he continued. “that anyone who reads it, can find out if it is true. He paraphrased from the book, ‘“if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.’ Will you read the Book of Mormon?”
She was quiet a minute. “The whole thing?”
“That’d be great, but for starters we’ve highlighted a chapter in third Nephi that is a good starting point. It is a fulfillment of the prophecy in the Bible when Christ told his apostles, ‘Other sheep I have which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice. And there shall be one fold and one shepherd.”’
I opened the book up to the right page, which had been marked with a card.
She was quiet a minute. “yeah,” she said. Then, “I don’t know why but.” Stopping then starting on a different tack, “I had a really crappy day at work. I just wanted to come home and scream and go to bed, and then I saw you as I pulled up and I thought you were salesmen. But I opened the door and there you were with your red little faces and your nice suits all covered up with those big coats and you looked like you’d had really crappy days at work too. So, I thought I’d let you in. And then all of the sudden I didn’t want to scream any more, and I became completely enveloped in what you were saying. I don’t know if I completely understand what you’re getting at. But I’m interested in giving you guys a shot.”
When we stepped outside we froze again, but walked upright, our bags bouncing with our springy steps. Checking my watch I suddenly realized we were almost late for Randy. We tried to run, but the air felt grating in our lungs. No buses passed us. Inside warm yellow windows people laughed and ate and watched football. We walked as fast as we could, and finally got back to our apartment. We walked past the front of our building and crossed Henderson highway, and barely caught a bus going south. We rode in silence, all alone in the bus, smiling at each other stupidly. I heard Jones’ stomach gurgle twice before mine twanged. We jumped off the bus and headed down the long slick sidewalk to Randy’s house.

the story continues

Convergence Excerpt 1

This is a quick chapter from a story I'm writing. The point of this chapter is to explain a scientific phenomenon that plays heavily in the rest of the story. These characters will likely not be found anywhere else in the story.

Patrick Quinn was chewing up the classroom. He was absolutely feeling it. He always felt this way while teaching Special Subjects in Science at the Metropolitan Community College of Omaha, Nebraska. This course was a survey of what Patrick liked to call physics’ greatest hits. He loved it, even if he barely grasped certain aspects of physics himself. Tonight was relatively special, am I right folks? he thought. Then, as if someone had actually heard the joke, he explained, special relativity, relatively special. Bada bing!

The topic was the many worlds, many minds interpretations of quantum mechanics. Too bad there were only fourteen students in attendance. Too bad they had all tuned out already. Who was he kidding, they had never tuned in. In fact, all but two of them had failed the last exam, causing him to have to apply a very generous bell curve.

He looked into their glazed-over expressions, am I the only one who gets to hear this? he thought. He walked around the first row of narrow tables, slid one of the chairs over and gently rested his hindquarters on the edge of the table that, in a full class, would have been occupied as the front and center seat. That table—all of the classroom tables at MCC, really—was bowed in the middle. The two inverted T-shaped legs had been attached too far apart, and Patrick knew that if he ever sat in the middle of the table the bowing of the table under his girth, might be dangerous to his reputation. So he sat on the left edge of the table, the left edge of the table would hold him.

“The many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics postulates that there are large numbers of universes, perhaps an infinite number of universes.”

Patrick continued, “Because any type of process that in its basic state is an either/or scenario, somewhere in the universe both outcomes exist.” What he had just said was very difficult, and he had not stated it as clearly as he had wanted to. He waited for questions. There were no questions. So, he continued.

“For example, let’s say you’ve rigged some radio-active material to trigger a pistol to fire when the material decays. The radio-active material decays at the rate of about once every minute or so—causing your pistol to fire about once every minute or so. You stand in front of the pistol for one minute. What are the probable outcomes?” He wanted an answer from someone. “Jenna?” She had earned a 62 percent on the exam, one of the passers.

“Huh?” Jenna’s reply was disappointing.

“Anyone?” Patrick really wanted someone to make the connection without spoon-feeding it to them.

“You either live or you die,” Mark, 34 percent, called out from the back row.

“That’s right. Good.” Patrick paused to give Mark some positive reinforcement, One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, moving on. “According to the many worlds interpretation, both of those outcomes are recorded some how or—perhaps more accurately—somewhere in another universe.”

Jim, 12 percent, likely the dumbest of the lot tentatively raised his hand. Patrick tried to hide his surprise as he called on the lanky, unshaven young man, “Jim?”

“Yeah, um, so if I have, like, a yes or no question, then I can make both decisions?”

“You’re on the right track. What you have just described is, more or less, the many minds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Of course, in our part of the universe, the one that we can observe, you would make only one decision, but somewhere,” Patrick made a big hand gesture to indicate the vastness of multiple universes, “there is a version of you that would choose the opposite.”

Jenna, feeling her dominance of the curve slipping, jumped in, “So, let’s say I had a beautiful birthday cake, and I wanted to both eat it and keep it for display. The many worlds interpretation would allow me to have my cake and eat it too?”

“Funny.” Patrick was enjoying having others talk in the usually silent class, so he avoided punishing Jenna for her flippancy. “Generally, we think of these things more on the molecular level. But, I suppose that is a possibility.”

Jim’s hand again, a new record, Patrick thought.

“So, why can’t the universe record both decisions so we can see them?”

“Good question.” It actually was. “The reason for that is because we can’t observe from outside of our universe, to our observation, a wave function . . .”

Jesse, 39 percent, broke in, “can you define wave function?”

“Sure,” Patrick lied, “the wave function is a term used to describe the limitless possibilities of outcomes before an actual outcome becomes tangible.” Not bad, he thought to himself, for a definition pulled out of thin air. It might be close.

Patrick continued, “Because we can’t observe from outside of our universe, to our observation, the wave function collapses immediately when one of the possibilities actually happens. In other words, once one of the possible outcomes is realized all other outcomes disappear, or collapse, at least in our observable universe.”

“But what happens if the wave particle doesn’t collapse immediately?” Mark was feeling it too.

“The wave function, you mean.”

“Yeah, what happens if the wave function takes a minute or two to collapse? Is that possible?”

“Hmm, interesting idea.” This phrase has been used by many instructors throughout the history of academia to mean one of the following things: no, you are wrong, or you are an idiot.

“Let’s say,” Jim spoke again, “that a person has a way hard decision to make, like, so hard that he can’t eat or sleep or, you know, poop or whatever.” Patrick bit his lip, he wanted to laugh at the idea of a many poops interpretation of quantum mechanics, but Jim seemed quite serious, so he thought better of it. “Maybe, because humans are so, you know, complicated, could the wave particle, I mean, function maybe take some time to collapse? You know, in that case?”

Patrick stood, giving much relief to the bowed table’s left leg. He wanted to be careful in how he approached his answer, because he did not want to squelch the sprouting inquiry of these, what was the word? Oh yes, dumb students. “Um. That is an interesting idea, but I think it takes the interpretation a little too far. I am not saying it is beyond possibility, but I don’t know that it happens. The reason I can say that is because we have never observed it happening. We always, to my knowledge, can have only one outcome in that scenario, at least, in our observable universe.”

“That sucks,” Jim was truly earning his participation points tonight, another record, “’cause, I have a really hard decision to make, and I wouldn’t mind going both ways.”

“Well, ok.” Patrick was going to go there. He felt like he shouldn’t, but he was going to, “let’s imagine, just for the sake of argument, that your description of the many worlds, many minds interpretations actually works that way. How would it manifest itself?”

“He’d be, like, two people,” chimed Stacy, 45 percent.

“Both persons would be him,” Patrick pointed at Jim, “but they would also be completely separate, right?”

“Yep,” three students answered in chorus, 47, 44, and 42 percent, respectively.

“Ok. So, theoretically, these two new people could go about their lives separately and, in effect, would no longer be the same person. They would share DNA, family, name, social security numbers, memories up to the point of separation, and just about everything else, but they would be separate individuals.”

“Sounds like cloning to me. I bet my church is against you not choosing one or the other.” Patrick let himself laugh at Sam’s joke a little too hard probably, considering that Sam had scored a 34 percent on the exam.

“But it’s not not choosing, you know, it’s choosing both,” Jim continued, “and it would be cool to kind of monitor it and see which one worked out best and then after you’ve figured it out the wave function could collapse.”

“What would that wave function collapse look like?”

“I don’t know, just slap back together or something.”

Patrick was slightly veering off topic, but this line of thought was interesting to him, “But what if you can’t tell which decision ends up being the better one, or what if your two halves lose contact with each other?”

“I guess you just let them live their lives then.”

“Interesting, interesting theory, you might just be a physicist yet. Unfortunately, the wave function does collapse immediately.”

“Couldn’t it just give me one year? One year is more or less immediately compared to the age of the universe, right?”

“Yeah, I suppose it is. A hundred and fifty years is more or less immediate. Of course a hundred and fifty years would mean that the ‘slapping back together,’” Patrick used finger quotes to highlight Jim’s terms, “would happen four generations later. How exactly would that work?” No one had an answer for that question. “Good luck with it, Jim. Let me know if it works for you.”
Patrick then segued back into his lecture notes about the interpretation not meeting important requirements of Occam’s razor, and sullenly watched as his students segued back into their glazed-over expressions.

What Patrick, Jim, Jenna, Mark, and the rest would never know is that this class discussion had accurately described an actual and observable phenomenon that had taken place in Scotland, earlier that week. Unfortunately, none of the MCC students or staff knew, or had even ever heard of either of the Richard Murdocks—or is it Richards Murdock—that were now dealing with the unusual, but natural “slapping back together” of a collapsing wave function.

If they had known one of the two Richards, they might have been able to help explain that four generations ago one monumental decision had caused two outcomes that had sent one man on two paths simultaneously.

Winnipeg continued

Before you read, here is a link to part 1 of the story:
Winnipeg, the City: part 1


Part 2:

I looked at Elder Jones, and then back at this small man who had invited us in. I offered my hand, introducing myself. He took my hand, smiling at me with thin teeth.
“I’m Randy.” He said. “Randall Steinberger”.
I asked, “Have you met the elders before then?”
He spoke with a nostril pinched voice, cheerily high. His Rs were Ws and Hs. When he spoke, his features elevated on his face, wrinkling his oily forehead.
“Yeah, ohh, it must have been a year—year and a half ago. The elders would come over for taco dinner.”
I held up a Book of Mormon. “Did they ever give you one of these?”
“Oh gosh, I don’t know.”
I handed him the book. “You can have this one.” I told him and asked if we could share our message with him.
Eagerly he told me he believed in God and Jesus, and said he would like to hear our message. Jones fumbled in his bag, pulling booklets and flipcharts out, setting them face down on his knees, which held droplets of melted snow. I pulled my book from my blue standard issue MTC bag, and began the discussion.
“We’re out today sharing a message about our beliefs.” And spoke about the nature of God as a corporeal, everlasting being of infinite strength and wisdom and Mercy. When I finished I looked at Jones, realizing that this was his first time teaching. Panic choked me for a second, until he spoke.
“We also believe in Jesus Christ.” He spoke confidently, and I watched the red recede from his cheeks. We spoke of the Bible and its prophets. Flip-flopping topics, I asked if he’d ever heard of Joseph Smith. He nodded, but remained silent. I noticed the smell of the house had become a feeling. Sweat had begun to form on my back and stomach.
“What do you know about Joseph Smith?” I asked, unzipping my coat, and pulling it apart to reveal my white shirt and a green tie while I waited for his answer. He said he didn’t know much, but offered
“I remember he was a great man sent by God to spread his word.”
“Yes.” I confirmed for him. “He was a boy in the 1800’s who was caught at a time when there was a great religious revival. Along with the revival there was also a lot of confusion. Even within his own family people went to different churches all of whom said that they were right and that all the other churches were wrong.” I could feel my thermaled legs pulsing with heat. Individual hairs caught within the squeezing cords of the thermals. “But despite all the confusion he believed in the Bible and read it every night. One night while he was reading he came across a passage in James. Chapter one verse five. It said, ‘If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given him.’” I looked at Randy’s face as I had looked at many people’s faces as I told this story. His bottom eyelid was tucked up a little ways, his eyeballs pointed down toward my chest. His brow was furrowed.
“Joseph decided to take God’s promise. On a spring day in 1820 he went out to a small grove of trees. He knelt down and began to pray out loud. What happened next he says best in his own words. He said, “I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head above the brightness of the sun. When the light rested upon me I saw two personages whose brightness and glory defy all description standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name, saying, ‘this is my Beloved Son, hear him.’” I paused a moment. The dimness of the hot room was tactile. All around me were yellow brown walls and deflating furniture. The small TV sat opposite me on the far wall, antenna wrapped in tinfoil sticking up into the air. We sat quietly. The tobacco smell was in my throat. I could feel it wheedling into my pores and the weave of my clothing.
Randy looked up at me and finally spoke. “I finally get it.” His face flashed. “I’m the lamb! God is the Father. Jesus is the Savior. Joseph Smith is the prophet and I’m the Lamb. The Lamb of God.”
Sweat had huddled on his forehead. His smile created creases on his cheeks and his skinny teeth became a gradient in the dim light between the white of his tight smiling lips and the black of his open mouth-- his pink tongue flipping inside.
Jones said, “really?”
“Yeah! It’s my job to open the seven seals of the Apocalypse. The first seal was when the Berlin Wall fell. The last seal I opened when I commanded Oprah to say, ‘When you hate the hater, you become the hater.’
He became animated, standing up and going toward the back of the room, which led into his dining room where he paused suddenly, slumped a bit in the shoulders. He put his hand to his chin, and spun toward us. “The red are the communists. The yellow are the Chinese. And we’ll be living under rocks, literally under rocks in the last days. Don’t you see, these are the last days. Oprah was the sixth seal and there’s only one more to open before the last days.”
Jones, amused now, “What’s the last seal Randy?”
“I can’t tell you, because not even God’s angels know.” He walked back to us, sitting suddenly sodden onto the couch. “Oh, but their torturing me. They know that I like Whitney Houston, and they’ve got her. Have you seen her lately? She’s so skinny. That’s them, they’re torturing her to get to me.” He said torture, like turt-cher.
“Who’s torturing her?” elder Jones asked.
“The Communist! My mother’s one of them. She tortures me physically spiritually and mentally.”
“Why would the communists be after you?”
“They want my plans for space travel. I have the blueprints for a rocket ship in my brain. See, I was a child genius from the ages of one to three, I was a prodigy, but the Rockefellers wanted the plans, and uhh, I wish I could remember. You help me remember when you come over. It finally all makes sense when you’re here. Did you know I’m from America like you guys? I’m from New York State. But the Rockefellers were after my plans so we came to Canada. Like Mohammad the prophet, sometimes you have to take up the sword. Then you lay it back down when there’s peace.”
“Well, how do you know your mom’s a communist?” Jones asked.
“I can read her micro-facial expressions.” Abruptly he stood. This time pacing in front of us, back and forth, biting the tip of his left index finger. His eyes narrowed to slits, his jaw muscles flexing and loosing. His hair bobbed stiffly as he pivoted on his heels back and forth. The wood floor beneath him clapped with his bare-footed steps. Jones and I looked at each other; both thinking it was time to go.
“Randy” I began.
Broken from his trance, “Welp, thanks for coming over guys.” His face snapped back into the wreath of welcome we’d seen when we arrived. We both stood, zipping coats, sliding our packed bags over our shoulders as we rose. At the door we stopped to shake his hand. Jones asked, “Do you think we’re communists?” He looked at us with quickly desperate eyes, watery, his brows lowered. I realized he was quite a bit shorter than either Jones or myself, maybe to our shoulders. He looked-- slump-shouldered, bent-postured, with his hand clapped to his forehead-- like a bent wire hanger. His hair made a wave above his gray hairy hand.
“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Jones looked at him in the eye, and after a small moment of silence said, “We’re not communists. You can trust us. I promise.”
Then we turned, finding the door openable from the inside, and stepped back out into the snow. The world left to us as it was, except the sun had sunken lower along the horizon. Shadows were long now, making blue weightless trees and mailboxes stretch out like slumbering babies on the snow. We followed our paths back to the compressed ice of the sidewalk. No buses came our way, but we both, without words turned toward home and began walking. We turned north off Jamison onto Brazier Street. We walked up, past Washington, Ottawa and Winterton Avenues all the way to Donalda. Brazier took a jog here, and we trudged west a couple streets out to Henderson highway, where buses were frequent. Along Henderson we tried to stop a few people to give books or cards to, but the few people out were too cold to stop and we were both lost in our thoughts. I walked in front of Jones, feeling the rub of my bag against my right hip starting to chafe. The wind was at our backs now as we walked northward toward our small brown apartment. It needled my naked ears, making them stiff.
We got all the way up to the powder blue apartment complex snugged between Bronx and Kimberly Avenues before we finally felt a bus shuffling up behind us. Then, despite our frozen joints, and bouncing book bags we broke into a sprint. Our feet skidded and slipped under us as we ran toward the thin metal post with the black bus outline and the thick orange T. We watched Helmsdale and Oakview and Hazel Dell Avenues slide by and I imagined the wind outside my window as a man with small eyes a long sharp nose and a tiny mouth twisted in frustration trying to get into the bus. The snow on the road flipped from behind the tires of the cars ahead, black from the layers of sand and dirt dropped on it for traction. Massive wiper blades swished silently at the flecks of black that hit the enormous square windows in the front of the bus. Black residue caked just outside the reach of the wipers drying there like black paint.
We stopped just after the loose elbow at Leighton Avenue in front of the Northdale Shopping Center and waited. To our left, across Henderson Highway, was Fraser’s Grove. It was a tiny street I’d tracted one time before Jones came. A man lived on that street who said we could come back. When we returned he wasn’t there.
The bus moved on, sliding up past Rosemere Plaza where we did our volunteer work with a group of seniors, and past Hawthorne and Edison. Finally we swayed to a stop on Springfield where we stepped off. Another block up we turned east on Sutton Avenue and then left again half a block later on Donwood Drive. I looked at my clock. It was a quarter to five. We went in the back way, up the three flights of stairs and down the white cinderblock hallway to our door.
Randy called us a few times during the next couple of months we lived in that apartment. Sometimes he’d tells us he’d “done somthin’ good”. Sometimes he’d call worried about Communists and Rockefellers. Once he called to tell us about his idea for curing 99 percent of all mental and emotional illness. He called it Good Anonymous. The concept was simple, drive somewhere remote, a cabin or a clearing in the woods somewhere. Then sit in a circle, facing inwards so that you can make eye contact easily. Then you wait. You wait for someone to say something either smart or nice. Then, you say to that person, “that was a very smart thing you just said.” Then, the person who said the smart thing responds to his/her complimenter, “thank you, that was a very nice thing you just said.” It could, from the description, go on like this forever.
After listening to the explanation on speakerphone, Elder Jones said, “Randy, that is a very smart idea you just had.”
“Well thank you, and that was a very nice thing you just said.”
“Thanks Randy, that was a very nice thing you just said.”
Randy’s voice began to elevate, tapping tinny on our phone with his emphasis. “Well thanks! That was a very nice thing you just said.”
“Thank you, and that was a nice thing you just said.” Jones remained even toned, but syrupy, his standard voice for Randy.
“Well thank you, and that was a very nice thing you just said.”
“Thanks, and that was a nice thing you just said.”
With this last compliment Randy broke up into a joyful giggle. “Stop,” He finally said, “you’re makin’ me laugh.”
Randy called on a Sunday night in late January at about eleven. I heard the phone ring in the living room as I lay in my bed, just tipping off the edge of a poignant liminal thought. Listening to the quiet noises of our apartment usually put me into the kind of trance that leads to sleep and lost genius. Pipes running, fridge buzzing, and the heater’s weak clank-clank-wuzzle sound as it started up. Jones breathing. Outside--nothing. The phone rang again, clearly audible but not so loud as to wake up Jones. I pulled out of my stupor, slipped out of bed, and became instantly chilled. Pulling my blanket around my shoulders I padded out into the living room suddenly felt ready for sleep.
“Hello,” I said into the phone tersely.
“Hey, it’s me guys. Randy. Guys. I’m scared.” His nasal voice pitched up on scared. “I think they’re really gonna get me this time. I think they’re really gonna get me this time.” I could hear tears slide down his cheeks. I could hear the red edges of his nostrils and the limp sweat-damp strands of his hair.
“I’m really scared,” He repeated.
“Randy, are there people at your house right now?” I didn’t know what else to ask him.
“No. But I can feel them coming. I think they’re watching me right now. I’m really scared.” His voice became hoarse. My body felt heavy, the phone felt heavy.
“I think they’re really gonna get me this time.”
“Randy, can I read something out of the scriptures to you? Something that Joseph Smith wrote after he’d been taken to prison?”
“I’m really scared, they’re gonna get me this time.”
“Randy, can you listen for a minute? It says, ‘My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;”
“I’m scared.”
“I know Randy. ‘If thou art accused with all manner of false accusations; if thine enemies fall upon thee. If they tear thee from the society of thy father and mother and brethren and sisters; and if with a drawn sword thine enemies tear thee from…’ losing my place I summarized, “well, your family”, and then picked up at ‘by the sword., and thou be dragged to prison and thine enemies prowl around thee like wolves for the blood of the lamb;’
Randy sniffed and smacked his mouth on the other end of the line, and I wondered if he still listened or if he’d fallen completely into his own mind.
“And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son,” I paused. “Know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good. The son of Man hath descended below them all. Are thou greater than he? Thy days are known, and thy years shall not be numbered less; therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever.”

the story continues here

Winnipeg, The City

Winnipeg, the city-- is filled with a deep snow that patiently waits to swallow you up and a restless wild wind that tries to blow you into pieces. The snow piles on top of itself all winter, first ankle, then shin, then knee deep, making roads and sidewalks taller, mailboxes and houses shorter. The snow moans, crunching as it gives way under your foot. Sound splits the frozen air and travels without hindrance. All around you hear the crunch of boots in snow and the clack of feet on icy walkways. The air itself sparkles with dazzling flecks of frozen water vapor. It stiffens your nose hairs and eyelashes after only a moment, giving each breath drawn through your nose a tingling sensation. Time seems to smear away from you through the cold and wind and snow, crunching along with wind sliced ears and frozen-faced.

But I arrived in the summer to a city full of heat and clinging humidity; which harried my lungs and instantly lined my forehead with beads of sweat. I stepped off the small plane out onto the airstrip with my carryon slung over my shoulder, my white shirt sucking up next to my slimy skin. The drive downtown to the mission office was heady, sliding down slanting city streets, jumbled at strange angles with five or six streets coming to a head at any given intersection. The buildings whizzed by, exactly like any American city, except all the restaurant signs had a small red Canadian maple leaf tucked somewhere in the logo. The air-conditioned car was pleasant, and I felt relaxed and tired. So tired, I relied on nodding at people and ignoring the assault of questions. I read --without comprehension-- page after page of training materials without comprehension. Without comprehension I took each booklet, pamphlet, registration form, name badge, phone number, and reminder and slid them into a manila envelope, which bulged with its load.
Then we went to a house, which was cool and big and full of comfortable furniture. There we ate and talked, though I mostly sat still and listened without hearing. That evening we met our trainers, the person we were to spend the next six weeks to three months shadowing 24 hours a day. Mine was a short, stocky and pink fellow who cut and combed his hair meticulously everyday. He laughed often and smiled even when his high adle hernia was trying to kill him.

But that was in the summer, and by the next winter, which, by the way, comes in August, I was the trainer and the easy sort of blowsy air of the damp summer had frozen into all those shimmering ice crystals that blow around in that knifing wind. It was only six weeks since I'd been greenie-busted, but I had become the trainer. I tried to emulate my own trainer by laughing often and smiling always. I learned to cut hair, and I even tried to be a bit pinker. But it was winter and that snow kept sucking the world down and that wind kept trying to slice parts of me off.
The kid I was assigned was Andrew Jones, a thick droopy guy whose coarse dark hairline went halfway down his forehead. His eyes were deep set dark and slithery. He had come from Arizona, where a month before he was wearing shorts and barbequing in his sun soaked back yard. He had no gloves or coats or boots when he arrived, and I had to take him down to the mall to buy some gear. We bought thermals together across the street from our apartment at Zellers, and then I bought him a drink out of the coke machine outside the store. He drank it in great gulping swigs, which were followed by glum, stomach rolling, slumps of silent “oh poor mes”. He sat on the brown wrap-around couch under our window, which was thick with ice. Our heater was positioned below the window, melting the ice outside enough for it to run under the mal-fitting track, and then would shut off allowing the ice to freeze again inside. We couldn’t open or shut that window in the winter, but why would we want to with that wind waiting to get in and cut us up.
When we didn’t have anyone to teach we tracted door to door. That is when the time would span out flat in front of us as we crunched to a street we’d chosen from the map that hung on our wall. We didn’t have a car, so we rode the orange cubey buses that swayed and bounced like hammocks strung between two wobbling towers. Then it was walking. Walking through snow- loose white knee-high sand that clung to our pants like barnacles. So as to keep our gloves on, we used the spines of the books we carried to knock on door after door, their bottom corners becoming frayed, standing like proud flesh after a few doors. Many saw us out of their windows and ignored us. Some opened their doors a crack, telling us we shouldn’t be out in such weather, letting a warm waft of air out to tease our red noses and cheeks. Then they would shut their door again, rattling their sagging wood porches.

It was on one of these endless days, wading through loose knee-deep snow that we approached a small two-story house in the middle of Edison Avenue. Jones was complaining. Cold. Bored. Hungry. Toes feel fuzzy. Hear heart in ears. Eyes hurt. He was a week in, home sick and miserable, and we still hadn’t taught anything to anyone. It might have been early afternoon, because the sun was bright, though low on the southern horizon. Our knees were tight, our shins cold and our feet frozen. Half way down Edison we spotted a bus.
“One more house” I said, “then we can hop that bus and get warm”. Jones didn’t say anything, but he followed me. The house sat squat, blown snow sloping up along its cream-colored wood sided walls. The snow along its walks and on its cement steps was as deep as the snow that covered the lawn. There were no track marks in the snow leading to or away from the front door. There were two windows looking out toward the street. Like most houses in the neighborhood, one would be a small office, or a converted extra bedroom or perhaps dining room. The second window would be a sitting room. The kitchen would be in the back of the house, as would the garage (if they had one) connecting to a small dirt path that led to the alleyway between Edison and Kingsford Avenues. Thick twisty icicles hung from the edges and corners of yellow eaves like giant wild opaque carrots. We cut our way through the snow leaving four jagged snake trails until we found the stairs where we had to coax our knees to bend enough to climb up to the doors. First there was a black metal door with a thumb push handle missing a large square pane of glass and screen in the middle. The second door was of solid light brown wood that stood resolute when I tapped it with the bottom of my book.
I looked down the street at the bus that was shuffling its way toward us-- with red-cheeked faces looking out of the boxy windows that lined its grime covered orange sides-- anxious to get on and out of the wind. Just to be somewhere warm, somewhere moving made me jumpy and ready to abandon this quiet house. Almost I turned to go to the bus, ready to flash my bus pass and find a seat among the blue and white splatter-patterned seats; to loosen my coat zipper, and pull my gloves off. To flex my red fingers and feel the heat of my blood pound feeling back into the tips; to look around at the slack faces and dreamy glittery eyes on the bus, bobbing and leaning together in that collective, uninterested sway; to sit for a time and find that rhythm—both the swaying and the squrunching hum of the engine and hydraulics—and loose my thoughts.
Then the door opened, and a man appeared, framed by the missing panel in the outside door. As soon as the door opened I was hit by a wave of hot humid air, thick with must and tobacco odor, which cut sharp tingling sensation onto my chapped nose tip and cheeks and made my eyes water. The wet air that rushed out of the house froze in front of our eyes, making millions of tiny frozen ice flecks dance like winking rainbows.
The man said immediately, “I’ve been waiting for you guys to show up.” And then disappeared into his dark, hot, house, saying, “come on in” as he went. I tried the thumb push, but couldn’t budge it. So, I pulled my cold-tightened legs up and crouched my back, making my single-strap bag slide around to my front. I squished in through the missing door panel, and spun as I stood, my trailing leg pulled straightly through, to follow our host, hoping to be neither left behind nor seen by him. I suddenly hoped also that I hadn’t unwittingly ditched Elder Jones, who was a bigger man than I, in that small entrance. But then I heard him huffing and clumping into the entry. I followed our host down a dim hallway, lined with old pictures and wood-burned poems, into the living room. In the corner, directly across from me was a brown couch with the posture of an old hound. He motioned for us to sit down. I stepped around a brown, lacy-carved wooden coffee table that looked heavy and greasy. It had two tiers. On the top of the table was a jumble of tabloid magazines and TV guides. On the bottom level were more magazines, a brown homemade looking ceramic ashtray and a small tub of tobacco. On top of the tobacco sat a cigarette roller and several white unrolled cigarette papers.
Our host sat next to me and Elder Jones sat in a worn yellow chair; whose arm was touching the arm of the couch, next to me. Our host sat at an angle, his knees tight together, his feet parted on the ground, toes pointed inward. He wore brown moccasins and white socks that disappeared into gray sweat pants. He was thin, and his loose white t-shirt made him look even thinner. Pale, hairy, stick-like, arms poked out of his sleeves, like aspen limbs covered in a dark brown moss. His head was set akimbo on the tip of his neck, from which grew several wisps of long hairs. Along his neck and chin and cheeks he had a dark short days growth of stubble. His nose sat beak like above thin white lips. His eyes bunched along the bridge of his nose, the inside corners tipped up; the outside corners drooping. His skin was naturally swarthy, but ashen gray from lack of sunlight. His brown hair parted on the side, falling down to one side in a thick greasy thatch, and flipping out the other way in a few thick strands.

the story continues here

Stuff to check out

I found this podcast in iTunes and thought I'd pass it along. Wise man once said, "writing is a conversation".

http://www.americanwriters.com/

The Plastics We've Become

A Poem For Ryan

Plastics....
corporate shills, peddling our masters wares.
We're on a road that started in the land of endless ambition and ends in obscurity.
It goes to that gaping void that,
on a brighter day,
in a simpler time,
opened its maw and sucked --in lighter news-- President Clinton up.

Its a road where the foot that falls in front of yours is startlingly yours as well.
Like heavy tar boots splattering your liquid life with each step...
leaving a trail of your mulched soul along behind you.




Our dreams of senility at 18, and toothbrush brawls: gone cold, smoothed over to the touch.

A CALL FOR STORIES

MUSE: (myuz)
n.
1. Greek Mythology Any of the nine daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus, each of whom presided over a different art or science.
2. muse
a. A guiding spirit.
b. A source of inspiration.

fin·ick·y (finikee)
adj. fin·ick·i·er, fin·ick·i·est
1.Insisting capriciously on getting just what one wants; difficult to please; fastidious: a finicky eater.

As our muses are often finicky (other wise we have no need of editing)this website... ok blog... is designed to help appease their demands. This is meant to be an open forum for anyone who writes (or hopes to write) creatively. It is a way to send out your ideas, your little darlings, into the world to, in effect, slay the weak and strengthen the strong.

So, please, write your stories and put them up here. We're hoping to get a better website, but until then we really would love to help unpublished authors find an outlet to share their stories, short and long. We also encourage charitable criticism. Feedback and comments aimed at helping the author understand what works and what doesn't. Don't pull punches, but don't use the brass knuckles either. Remember, it is about the WORK not the person.