1. When working on a story, it is better not to tell everyone you know about it. If you do, that story will grind to a halt, and the plot points will become sticky as if covered in syrup.
2. As much as I would like to tell you about tomorrow's story, my previous observation prevents me from doing so.
3. Short stories seem to resist more than two key events per story. The first event boxes the characters into action. The second is the culmination of their actions.
4. I don't make the rules. But I can occasionally break them.

Hope to see you back tomorrow morning for Friday's story!

A parade of his classmates passed before him, some presenting the same items they had shown earlier in the year. Was it intentional? Did Jenny really not know that she had already brought her grandmother's locket from the old world? Did Jeff not remember bringing his amateur electronics kit from Radio Shack in October?

Chad remembered. He remembered taking one look at the amulet and knowing, just knowing that the jewelry was not 120 years old. It couldn't have been more than 20. He knew it was not made from pure silver, as Jenny had believed, but of some kind of cheap metal. Maybe aluminum. Chad looked at his teacher, Ms. Horvath, who was patiently smiling and nodding. Ms. Horvath didn't believe it was antique jewelry either. Chad was sure of the gentle deceit behind Ms. Horvath's kind face.

The electronics kit. Chad remembered Jeff's show and tell piece because he hadn't seen anything like it before. It was a piece of cardboard framed in plastic, with a dozen small metal coils wound into various solid-state electronic components. Capacitors. Resistors. Photoresistors. Light emitting diodes. A small speaker cone. All could be connected in endless combinations with the colorful bits of plastic-coated wire. Jeff had demonstrated how he had rigged a battery-powered buzzer that sounded when he touched the end of a wire to one of the coils. It was an extremely simple project, thought Chad, and not very interesting. He could do better.

And besides, the tension in Jeff's voice told Chad that Jeff hadn't built it at all. Jeff's much older brother had.

"That's wonderful, Jeff. Very impressive," said Ms. Horvath. "Chad, do you have any questions?"

Chad had been caught staring at the ceiling again. It happened a lot. He sat up, and ran his fingers through his unruly blond hair.

"Not for Jeff, no. Not today, at his time, Ms. Horvath," said Chad. "Sorry."

Chad's class was used to his awkward over-explanations. He knew that he could save himself a lot of trouble by just saying "no, Ms. Horvath," but he found himself unable to.

Ms. Horvath smiled. "You haven't brought in anything for show and tell lately, have you, Chad?" This was a rhetorical question. He had never brought anything for show and tell.

"No, Ms. Horvath," said Chad. "I haven't brought anything at all."

"Well, it's the second-to-last week of the school year," said the young teacher, standing from her desk.

Chad swallowed deeply.

"I hadn't planned on having show and tell next week, Chad, but you seem to have avoided bringing something to share with the class for an entire year. I believe it is also your birthday next week, no?"

Chad nodded slowly.

"So, for your birthday, I wonder if you wouldn't mind bringing something from home to share with the class. We'll have a special show and tell, just for your birthday. What do you think of that?"

"I think I'd prefer if we did not have a special show and tell, Ms. Horvath," said Chad. The class giggled at his formality, still strange and unexpected to them.

"Well, we'll discuss that privately," said Ms. Horvath. Several of his classmates turned to Chad, smiling. They knew Ms. Horvath was going to get her way.

"Don't forget a birthday snack for us," said Sue Brewer.

§

"I don't understand why I have to, though."

Chad was sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter. His after-school snack sat uneaten. Sliced apple. Milk. Two crackers.

His mother was grinning, as she always did when Chad related some uncomfortable story about school. "Well, sometimes we have to do those things, you know. We need to do our best to... blend in."

Uncommonly tall and pretty, Chad's mom was by far less embarrassing parent for him to be seen with in public.

"Nobody else was made to," said Chad. "It's always been... if you want to, you could bring in show and tell."

"Voluntary," said his mother.

"Right. Voluntary."

Her eyes betrayed a mixture of empathy and fascination. In some ways, thought Chad, my mother is as bewildered with these events as I am.

"Well," said his mother, "I think you should. I think it would be good for you. Why not?"

"Man!" said Chad, exasperated. His mother had made up her mind in favor of the teacher's position. There was no getting out of it now.

"It's still kind of a new school for you, and there's no reason you can't still try to let your classmates know a little about who you are."

"I've been there all year, Mom," said Chad, glowering. "It's not that new."

"Don't make it complicated," said his mother, sighing. "Just pick something simple. Bring your football."

"Only babies bring toys," said Chad, repeating something he had heard his classmates say when Alice Ambrose brought a doll to show and tell. His eyes burned. Chad knew that had been a cruel and confusing day for Alice, one that he would not have subjected on himself.

"Okay, well then... how about one of your model rockets?"

The thought of sharing one of his actual enthusiasms with his class twisted Chad's stomach. It would only make him more vulnerable. He said nothing, and stared at his food.

His mother looked at him. "Well," she said, "I'm sure you'll figure something out."

Chad poked at his apple. He already knew what he wanted to bring, but couldn't imagine a way to ask.

§

Ms. Horvath had called an independent study time for the class. While the rest of his classmates sat about the room reading or quietly talking, Chad pretended to concentrate on a worksheet.

"Um, Chad?"

Chad looked up from his worksheet. Jeff stood above him.

"Oh. Hi," said Chad. In the nine months of the school year, Jeff had never struck up a conversation with him.

"Hi. It's just... I saw you working on this yesterday," said Jeff. He held up the electronics kit. It was a mad jumble of criss-crossed wires.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry," said Chad. "I should have asked."

"Oh, no, I mean... that's okay," said Jeff. In the jumble of wires, a meter quietly pulsed, its hand jumping from 0 to 500 Ohms every second or so. When it did, a small LED on the opposite end of the board blinked. The light and the meter were patched to a sequence of capacitors resistors, the same ones that Jeff had tried so hard to describe the day before. The battery was not connected. but the tiny solar cell was.

"I just tried something," said Chad. "It didn't really work."

Jeff looked blankly at Chad. "How did you do this? It's blinking."

Chad realized that Jeff didn't know— how could he?— the purpose and the failure of his experiment.

"Oh, it's supposed to... if you take it outside, and measure the difference in the time between the blinks, you should be able to multiply the...." Chad stopped himself. Jeff would never understand, or even care, that Chad was unable to create a device to measure the usable years of light left in the sun. Chad knew it had been a failure because his father, a physicist, had assured a nervous Chad once that the sun would burn brightly and normally for another five billion years. This little device told him that the sun only had about two billion years left. This was an unsupportable difference in data.

"It blinks about once a second," said Chad.

"Wow," said Jeff. "That's really cool."

§

That evening, Chad's father was reading in his chair. Whenever his father wasn't in the basement, he could usually be found sitting in his chair, reading.

"Dad?" said Chad.

His father put down his book. "Yes, son?"

Chad always considered his father as much a caricature of a scientist as an actual scientist. He was tall, heavily bespectacled, thin, and awkward. His face was serious and kind, his hair unmanageable at any length, and he made frequent and appropriate references to the unlikelihood that he had married a woman as beautiful as his wife.
Given his resemblance to his father, Chad also hoped to be as lucky.

"I have to bring something for show and tell next week," said Chad.

"Okay..." said his father.

"I want to bring the box," said Chad, blurting on the heels of his father's reply.
Chad's father looked blankly for a moment, clearly about to say "what box?" But then the furrow in his brow settled.

"Oh, son," he said quietly, a tinge of sympathy in his voice. Chad heard the unspoken 'no.'

"But Ms. Horvath said that I should bring something important to me. To us. As a family," Chad said.

The box sat on a table in the living room, placed just behind the lamp. It was perfectly square, four inches long on each side, and appeared to be made of a polished, milky alabaster. The cube was quite heavy, and though his parents called it 'the box,' it didn't seem to have a lid or a means of opening.

His father took off his glasses. "It is important to us. It is important to us as a family."

The box had always held a special attraction for Chad, and that was even before it was revealed to be a strangely important family heirloom. It was indescribably beautiful to him, for a reason that he couldn't describe. Often, when he heard the word 'home,' Chad realized that his classmates were all visualizing the houses they lived in, or the families who loved them. When Chad heard the word 'home,' his first thought was of the milky box on his parents' table.

The only time the box ever left that spot was when he and his parents went on vacation. Chad initially thought it was to protect it from theft, but lately he'd sensed that there was another reason.

"I warned you not to mention that box at all," said Chad's mother from the study.

"Yes, dear," said Chad's father, his voice curt. "A million times noted."

"Why won't you tell me what it does?" said Chad, going for broke. "Why do we need it? Why does it have to come with us on vacation?"

"Son, I promise I will tell you all these things and more," said Chad's father, leaning over and placing his hands on his son's shoulders gingerly. "Suffice it to say, however, that you aren't old enough. And that box can't ever leave this house."

"Why don't you lock it up if it's so important?" said Chad.

His father smiled. "I'll tell you that someday, too. But for now, why don't we go into your room and pick something out for your show and tell."

"Model rocket," said Chad's mother's voice.

§

The weekend had passed with excruciating slowness, and Chad couldn't even enjoy the oncoming summer due to the task that stood between him and freedom. He felt even more uncomfortable and foreign in his own skin than usual.

He stood solemnly in front of the class, blue and red model rocket in hand.

"Well, class, not only is it Chad's birthday..." said Ms. Horvath, who began to clap, which caused the seated class to follow with an awkward round of half-hearted applause. Chad's felt his cheeks prickle, as if aflame. "...We also have Chad's first and last show and tell of the year! Whoo!"

The class sat silent.

"Okay!" said Ms. Horvath who, Chad thought, seemed determined to enjoy the moment. "What did you bring for us today, Chad?"

"It's a model rocket," said Chad.

"Does it go into space?" said Bill White, wiping a booger on his pants.

"No, it goes a few hundred feet into the sky," said Chad.

"Ooooh," said three of his classmates.

"Where does it land?" said Conor Johnson. "On your butt?"

"Conor, go into the hall and wait for me," said Ms. Horvath.

Chad swallowed, unsure if he was to answer the question in spite of Conor's dismissal. To his relief, Sue Brewer raised her hand.

"What did you bring for snack today?" she said to Chad.

The floor below Chad seemed to shift away from him, giving him the sensation of dangling dozens of feet in the air. He had forgotten to bring a birthday snack to share with the class.

"Um... I forgot."

In unison, the class gave a disgusted "aww!"

"Now, class," said Ms. Horvath.

The hour, the day, the year was slipping away from Chad. He would be remembered as the kid who didn't bring a snack on his birthday. All would be lost.

"I brought something else," blurted Chad.

The class fell silent.

"Really?" said Ms. Horvath. "Well, let's have it!"

Chad reached nervously into his bag, and gently lifted the box. As brightly as it seemed to self-illuminate in his house, it was even more warmly luminescent in the classroom.

The children were silent. Chad knew they sensed its inexplicable power as well.

"What is that, Chad?" said Ms. Horvath, quietly. Ripples of sunlight played upon the dappled surface of the seamless cube.

"I don't know," said Chad. "It belongs to my parents. It's a piece of my home."

The silence lingered in the classroom longer than it had all year. The children watched Chad turn the box slowly, as if grateful for each second of the opportunity.

A loud squeal of screeching tires broke the spell. Chad twirled around and looked out the window in time to see his parents' car pulling into the parking lot.

He gasped.

The box fell loose from his fingers, and shattered on the floor.

He closed his two eyes. At the moment of impact, his body felt as though struck by a strong breeze. For a glorious second, he felt the pent-up tension of a confused year slip away. His shoulders, his arms, his belly all relaxed. The bewilderment of being the strange kid in class was replaced with a powerful sense of purpose, a clear sense of identity. He felt an overwhelming rush of pride, confidence, belonging... emotions he had only felt in fleeting moments, often only while admiring the alabaster cube when his parents weren't around.

Chad opened his six eyes. He saw his parents emerge from the car, their transformed, bifurcated bodies glowing blue in the morning sun, their heads shining like polished opals, their many oral cavities bristling in angry expression.

He heard his parents' clicking voices over the screams of his classmates, who were beholding Chad in his native form just as he was seeing his parents clearly for the first time in his life. He instinctively understood the message from the alien creatures approaching the school.

Young man, they said, voices trumpeting and clicking from all over their bodies. You are in so much trouble right now!

(Need a copy for your e-book reader or phone? Grab a copy from Scribd.)

I'm planning on posting the 13 stories on Scribd as well, which fancies itself "the YouTube of Documents." Scribd offers offers easy instructions for transfer to various ebook readers and mobile devices, so if that's your thing, visit my page and give it a try!

I'm hard at work on this Friday's story, which seems to be about a technology writer who is given a golden (and illegal) opportunity to write about a not-yet-released smart phone. The unintended consequences go far beyond getting his apartment raided.

Hope to see you Friday morning!

This letter is uncomfortable to write. Maybe by the end I'll have talked myself out of what I intend to do, but I just don't think so. I could just pop over and see you in Nebraska, but I think this might be better. Sometimes it helps to work things out on paper, and you're the only person I really trust. You're the only person who knows who I really am.

I'm struggling to write in English. I've learned hundreds of languages, and I'm still surprised that this one went international. So inefficient.

How's your Mom, by the way? Is she still living with you, helping out with Lisa and Tim? She was always so nice to me... and so angry with me for not asking you out! What a sweet lady. And I'll bet Lisa and Tim are getting big.

I know it's been a year since the funeral and we haven't been in contact, but I want to tell you again how sorry I am about your husband. David was a good guy. Seeing a strong young man waste away like that... heartbreaking.

There are some things I need to tell you that I should have told you a long time ago. But first, I want to tell you what happened to me last week, and what brought this all about.

§

So I'm walking down the street the other day (52nd and Vine), when I see a full can of paint fall off a tall building right toward this lady's head. If it makes contact, the woman is dead. Without even thinking, I vaporize the can with my heat vision, and I manage to get most of the falling paint as well. It turns into a light dust. As an extra touch (no charge! ha ha) I give a hint of focused breath to dissipate the dust. Nothing touches the lady— or kills the lady— and she walks on unharmed.

I jog over to the lady (we'll call her Paint Woman) and say, "are you okay, ma'am?" A little false modesty, I admit. Of course she's okay. She shoots me a dirty look. She's got earbuds in, and her iPod is turned up pretty loud.

I say, a little louder this time, "I don't know if you're aware, but you almost came into a rather bad accident." Rather bad accident? I'm not sure what's up with my lingo lately.

Anyway, she says nothing, and clearly doesn't recognize me in my civilian outfit. So I decide to give her a glimpse of my uniform under my shirt, because maybe she'll think, "hey it's him! My son has an action figure of him at home, and he saved me! What a story this will make!"

I barely unlatch the first shirt button when she starts screaming and hitting me with her bag.

I say, "no, ma'am, you don't understand! I just saved your life!" Just to be safe, I close my shirt. After last year's paparazzi incident, I can't afford to be half-undressed in public anymore. "Caped Hero in Compromising Position." Ugh.

Some guy shoves my shoulder and says, "Hey, why don't you leave the lady alone?" This guy is all muscle, no neck. We'll call him No-Neck. I could send him flying with a poke of my finger, of course, but he's pretty strong for a regular human. And at the moment, he's looking like the good guy. Not me.

Why did I have to even tell her about the paint can? There was a time when I would have kept walking.

So while No-Neck is pushing me around, I get all these fantasies, you know? I imagine what it would be like to zap a tiny hole in No-Neck's brain with my eyes. I could leave him merely paralyzed, or on the ground pissing himself, or without the ability to speak. The world's best neurologists would never catch it, much less figure out how it was done. I imagine this guy sitting on the street, shitting himself and speaking in tongues.

"There's been a misunderstanding, sir," I say in my best 'good citizen' voice, the lady still shrieking.

"Yeah?" he says. "Pervert!" He definitely has me pegged for some kind of flasher or molester.

It makes me think about the first unarmed person I killed.

§

About fifteen years ago, I caught some guy alone with a little girl in an alley. I won't go into specifics, but I secured the man, and flew the kid to a hospital. I then took the man to the police. A pretty cut-and-dried evening.

But the man was released the next week due to lack of evidence. The little girl wouldn't testify. And of course, I understand that. I mean, come on, what was she? Six or seven? Traumatized for life. It's not her fault. And even though I am who I am, an immortal person of no fixed address isn't really a star witness. When the judge calls someone to the stand, they prefer that the witness not be able to fly and live forever.

It was too much for me.

I scooped the guy up off the street, and no one even saw. Up we went. The air traffic controllers might have seen me cross the airspace, but that's probably it. They know me. They wouldn't have thought anything of it.

The guy stopped screaming and punching at about 12,000 feet. He was unconscious at 16,000. He lasted longer than I thought he would. We were pretty close to space when he died, the earth between us and the sun. It was quiet, cold, and uneventful.

I took him about halfway to the moon. The effects of decompression on a normal human aren't that interesting, and it didn't satisfy me at all. I placed him back in the atmosphere above the Indian Ocean.

I knew how long it would take him to start falling again, but I watched anyway. I watched every damn minute of those four hours. I enjoyed them. He started to disintegrate, and I followed him down. I watched his skin crisp like paper. I watched his body crease at the waist as he fell and burned. I watched his unrecognizable parts splash into the water.

Who knows how many robberies I could have stopped, how many drowning kittens I could have saved, how many murders I could have prevented during those four hours? But for some reason, I believe killing that man made it possible for me to carry on for another five years.

§

The Paint Woman is still shrieking, and her new friend No-Neck throws a punch. A real haymaker. To keep up my disguise, I have to take it, which I've come to hate (another of the many things that never used to bother me). It doesn't hurt, of course, and I'm pretty good at pretending to take a punch. This guy is clearly surprised I don't fall down, though.

So I throw a dazed look in and let my knees buckle, reclining awkwardly on the pavement.

"That'll teach you, you fucking pervert!" he says.

I must not put a hole in this man's brain. I must not put a hole in this man's brain.

"Police!" yells Paint Woman. By now there is a crowd, and a couple of cell phones either making calls or taking pictures.

The second time I killed an unarmed human, there was a crowd, too.

§

Ten years ago, one particular politician, a member of the president's cabinet, insisted that we blow up this little country with which the US was having a crisis. We'll call him Senator Nuke. For him the nuclear option was the only option. I disagreed, respectfully. That was back when they used to let me into those meetings.

Senator Nuke had gotten into my face, forehead red and bulging, and poked my chest with his finger. "You... aren't one of us!" he said. I told him that I was more like him than unlike him, that every human belonged to the brotherhood of man, and that I wanted peace to carry the day. Swear to God, a couple of people in the room started clapping.

"You'll never be one of us!" he yelled, cutting off further response. "You'll never understand the stakes of being human, being mortal! What are we, some kind of passtime to you?"

I assured him that wasn't the case, and other voices of reason brought the room back on topic. A diplomatic decision was reached, and it occurred to me that this guy was always going to be at these meetings. He was never going to get his way as long as cooler minds were present.

It also occurred to me that he might be right. Maybe I never really was going to get it. What was it to die? Even the clever attempts of my most hardened adversaries hadn't been successful in killing me. I would never die at the hands of a human. Maybe I am just passing time.

I was thinking about this as I watched him at a rally some months later, where he was working a crowd into a frenzy. "Now is the time to move against our enemies!" said Senator Nuke at the rally.

The crowd went nuts. I watched from a safe distance. No one knew I was in the arena. I'm known for hanging out in a different metropolitan area.

"Your voices join together and shake the halls of justice! They shake the activist forces! And when we deal with our enemies, all options will be on the table!" The crowd was eating it up.

I thought about him having access to more than the president's ear. I thought about his finger on the button. I thought about him in the oval office, forehead red and bulging in the middle of a crisis-filled night, meeting with his own cabinet. No cooler minds in the room.

Enraged, I burst the man's appendix with a focused, imperceivable shock wave.
He collapsed at the lectern, and died horribly and painfully. I sat on the moon for weeks, surprised to find that I had become an assassin.

(I should apologize to Iceland, by the way, about the dam break. You know the one. That happened when I was on the moon, and I totally could have fixed that.)

And then, instead of forgiving myself, I came to terms with it. I am an assassin. I've broken the code. Things can't go back to the way they used to be.

§

A crowd gathers around me and No-Neck and Paint Woman, and I can hear the voices of the cops a couple of blocks away. Officers George and Alan. They won't recognize me in my civvies, but they're reasonable guys. I'm sure they'll tell everyone to just move along.

No-Neck decides that hitting me wasn't enough, and puts a boot in my face. I have to go on my back. I'm getting annoyed. It's times like this that it would help to conjure some nose blood or something, because my nose should have shattered like a plate. People notice when you don't bruise or bleed. I remember when I walked out of a battle in the Peloponessian wars unscathed, when everyone else in my unit was killed. That was hard to explain, and led to a bunch of promotions. Anyway, that's another story.

So policemen George and Alan get there, and they do their whole "what's going on here" thing, and put their bodies between me and No-Neck and Paint Woman. Everybody's yelling. Bystanders are pointing and showing the police cell phone pictures of what just happened. Alan, at least, gets a firmer hold on No-Neck, presumably after seeing video of the boot kick to my head on someone's cell phone.

Nobody's asking me what happened. I'm still reclining on the concrete, in a defensive pose. I just need enough people to look away, and I'll be gone.

§

I'm talking in circles around what I really want to say to you. I've done a lot of bad things, but I've been able to abide by my code: kill only when necessary, and never the innocent. Fight for the side I believe in. Disappear when things get too heavy. Let the mortals sort out my origin and death stories.

There are lots of stories about how I got my abilities and, more interestingly, how I have died. I've apparently been killed by an arrow to the heel, entombed alive by my apprentice in a magic cave... all kinds of made-up stuff. People can't deal with it when you just up and leave. There always has to be a story.

I've found it helpful to have an advisor, someone with whom I can confide my secret. And that's been you, this time around. Your generation prefers to see me in a cape and tight pants for some reason. Hell, I don't care. More comfortable than a tunic, I guess, or a suit of armor. As long as I get to do some good. Only you, though, know who I am without the cape.

Doing good used to be enough. It isn't so much anymore. I think I'm starting to lose my grasp of what "good" really is.

I try not to get too emotionally involved with a mortal advisor, and never romantically. So, regardless of what your mother may think, I avoided dating you not because I wasn't interested in you. I've seen countless lovers, wives, and mistresses to their deathbeds, and many more I've had to leave behind in order to protect.

You were different. If you were my lover, I knew I could never leave you, regardless of how bad my situation became. You would almost certainly be in constant danger by your association with me. So, I made you my advisor. Close enough to confide in, distant enough to be safe. I thought that would help. It really hasn't.

§

After a while, police officer George kneels down to talk to me, and asks me if I'm okay. I tell him I'm fine, and that this is all a misunderstanding.

"I believe that, pal," he says. "Look, you wanna press charges on this guy?" George gestures over his shoulder at No-Neck, who is against a wall talking with officer Alan. "Because I think both the lady and the man who kicked you are ready to walk away from this if you are. You don't look too much worse for wear."

You have no idea.

"Yeah, I'd just like to move on, if that's okay," I say.

Officer George smiles, and says "sure, kid." I can only imagine his relief at having to file less paperwork.

I look up, and Paint Woman is glaring at me. So is No-Neck. They don't even know me, and I can feel the hatred radiating out of their eyes. And it gets me to thinking.

It always ends badly with you people.

If I help you, you're happy for a moment, and grateful. But then you want me to go away.

If I don't help you, you're cursing the heavens and wondering why I failed.

Innocence? A temporary state. The pure of heart? Not for long, usually.

And even the rare grateful, gracious person only lives for a blink of an eye, then they're gone and I'm left with the assholes again.

I'm left with Paint Woman, whose life I spared by saving her from an accident. I'm left with No-Neck, whose life I spared by keeping my temper. And both of them are wishing me dead.

But I've changed, too. I'm not okay getting by without an acknowledgement. I need recognition. I need validation. For the first time, I need to be needed, and it's not working well for anybody.

My code is broken. This all has to stop.

I think of all the ways I could bring the world to an end. Some of them are pretty painless, actually. I could cleave the planet in two with a shock wave. The concussion would kill nearly everyone instantly. I could hurl the moon into the sea. It would all be over in a few minutes.

Then I think of you, and the debt I owe you.

§

I killed your husband. I consider him the third unarmed person I killed.
I didn't do it directly. I didn't create the liver cancer, or cause it to grow faster. But I could have stopped it.

I saw it growing as I peered at him, seething with jealousy and hating myself for it, at your wedding. I saw under his skin. I could have mentioned it then. It was quite treatable. Heck, I might have even been able to do it myself.

But I didn't.

He got sick after the birth of your second child, and like a jealous child myself, I didn't say anything. By then it was too late to do anything about it. Even for me.

I am so sorry.

§

This world, as I've gotten to know it over the last few thousand years, hasn't really changed. I probably won't destroy it. I may just let a stray asteroid take care of it. (There's one coming as it is. If I do nothing at all, your kind only has 374 years left anyway.)

I haven't talked myself out of it. Not yet. But I will wait. And I will disappear.

It won't take long for people to notice I've gone. Some terrible thing will happen, and they'll shake their fists, and they'll forsake my name. For their purposes, I will be gone. But not for yours.

I hope you don't think it too creepy, but I'll be around, and you will never see me. No harm will come to you or your family. Don't ask for me to appear, because I won't.

But I will be around, repaying my debt as best I can. Please have a happy life. Give my love to Lisa and Tim. Tell them not to worry about anything.

Your friend,

Gerald

P.S. Timmy will probably be experiencing a tooth abscess in about a week. From what I understand, they're pretty painful, so a preemptive dentist visit might be a good idea.

(Need a copy for your e-book reader or phone? Grab a copy from Scribd.)

Okay, that's the short reason. If you want to know more, read on. If not, I hope you'll consider coming back this Friday morning, checking out the short story, and giving me some feedback and criticism.

Rebooting my amateur creative life

I've been gainfully employed since my college graduation in 1996, and I enjoy a reasonably satisfied work life. In my free time, I have written or co-written over 150 songs, participated in February Album Writing Month and Fifty Songs in Ninety Days, and finished National Novel Writing Month twice. I also get together with friends about once a month for a loud jam session.

I'm pretty happy with my curriculum vitae as a creative amateur. My hobbies have given me balance, and have been good for every aspect of my life. I've made lots of friends during these challenges, and I've also been able to deepen friendships and family ties that I've had for decades. I recognize the joy that these activities bring me.

But I'm getting bored.

Ain't no water in the well (and the creek's run dry)

The last several times I sat down to write a song, I felt a resistance that I couldn't pin down. I thought it was writer's block, or maybe some kind of a funk (and not the good kind). I now know it's boredom, plain and simple.

Same thing happened the last time I tried NaNoWriMo, which was in 2007. I'd conquered that challenge, and didn't feel compelled to conquer it again. Lots of people do get something out of completing the same challenge multiple times. I don't think I'm one of those people.

The only creative activity I still thoroughly enjoy is the monthly jam session, but scheduling conflicts have meant that we sometimes go two or three months without meeting. I needed something I could do on my own.

(Re)Enter writing fiction, and the terror that ensued

For the last few months, I've been waking up willingly at 5:45 AM to spend about an hour writing. It has given me my creative spark back. I love it. To deepen my experience and to get some feedback, I decided to take a class at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. While completing a short story to hand out to the class for critique, I discovered something I did not expect.

Sheer, unadulterated terror.

Though I've overcome the fear of singing in front of strangers and posting songs for the review of superior musicians, showing my creative writing to others opened up a previously hidden vein of dread.

My classmates were very generous and supportive, and gave me a lot of great tips. As awesome as that feedback was, a more important gift appeared to me. I have uncovered a whole new zone of fear to exploit.

Following the fear

Many of my songwriting peers are enjoying Fifty Songs in Ninety Days right now. I've decided to piggyback on their idea with my own 13 Stories in 90 Days Challenge. I will write and post 13 short stories in the (almost) thirteen weeks between July 4 and October 13 (and yes, I'm already off to a late start!). I will plumb my fear of other people reading my work by facing that possibility week after week.

Although I'll try my best, I don't know if they'll be any good. Anyone who has completed Nanowrimo or FAWM (or 50/90) will understand the freedom of releasing the crap as it comes. Some of you who have read this far might think that's a waste of time. That's okay. I would, however, urge you to give one of those challenges a try before you pass judgement. You've got nothing to lose.

The only thing I have to lose is another layer of senseless fear. Let's see what happens! See you bright and early on Friday morning.

Special thanks

I'd like to thank my wife for seeing me through doubt, my family and many creative friends for encouraging me, and to Denys Gareau, Ben Carroll, and Greg Wright for following through on their own creative cliff dives in very inspirational ways.

I've like a number of albums this year, but only two have blown my mind. First up, Future of the Left's incredible Travels With Myself and Another, which is released nationwide tomorrow.

If you want to get into the backstory of the two members of McLusky that formed this band, be my guest. But this second album by Future of the Left requires no previous entry point; it is loud, tight, boisterous, bilious, and hilarious. Totally recommended for thirtysomething cubicle drones who used to really like Husker Du and still listen to Pixies on occasion. Or, if you liked McLusky.

I am also the ten-millionth blog owner to sing the praises of Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest. You may have seen this bizarreness:

Though they don't sound much like middle-period XTC, Veckatimest reminds me of the way XTC's albums continued to unfold over many listens, revealing layers and shades that I swore weren't there on the previous play.

Also growing on me is St. Vincent's similarly complex Actor.

When I first heard her previous album Marry Me, I liked it. It grew to be among my favorite albums of the year. I like Actor quite a bit, and I like it a little more each time I listen to it.

The most challenging aspect of nature writing is to describe the natural world without overtly anthropomorphizing it. That prairie is motionless; it is not calm. That tree is old, but it is not wise. That mule deer that passed by you? It did not commune with your soul as you looked in its eyes. It actually didn't even wonder if you were going to eat it. It can't wonder. It's a mule deer.

(The other really hard part about nature writing is accurately identifying plants and animals, but that's a topic for another day. I merely wanted to point out that it wasn't a mule deer at all. It was a regular old whitetail. Be more careful next time.)

I wish, in my struggle to conquer anthropomorphism, that I had known about the love dart.

The love dart is a mating tool used by some snails and slugs. In word alone, the love dart suggests at least one obvious parallel with humans, but it cannot be stressed enough that we don't have anything like this. For one thing, the love dart is only found in some hermaphroditic snails. Feeling the distance already?

It's a small, sharp projectile made of calcium or chitin (depending on the species of snail) that grows near the head of the snail after the first time it mates. Most darts are about 5 mm long. The love dart is not, I repeat not, a penis. It is not even necessary for successful mating.

But assuming that the snail has mated before, and the love dart is developed, here's what happens. During the (predictably slow) mating ritual, pressure builds up behind the dart. The snails jockey for position, trying to get their sperm in the other's genital pore. Sexy, right? Once one snail touches the other in just the right way, blammo, the love dart fires.

And brother, can it fire! Sometimes the force drives the dart into the internal organs, or even through the body and right out the other side. How much luckier can a girl/guy get? Apparently, even if there's a love dart to be fired, there's still luck involved; a third of all love darts either miss the body or fail to penetrate the skin. Sorry, dear. I thought I was ready.

After that, the snails mate.

So what's the point of the love dart? Well, isn't it obvious? Yeah, I didn't get it either.

Apparently it wasn't at all obvious until recently. Scientists now know that the love dart contains hormones which increase the likelihood of sperm survival within the target snail, and therefore improve the chances of successful mating. So in spite of appearances, it's actually a good thing to be shot through the neck with an enormous spike of calcium while you're doing the nasty. It means you're twice as likely to become a daddy/mommy.

My previous point about the love dart being a good cure for anthropomorphism is hampered, of course, by the fact that love darts are only found in snails and slugs. Snails and slugs are some of the least relatable surface animals on earth. No one who isn't a hardcore biologist has ever thought, "hey, this snail and I share similar struggles in this existence." I knew a kid in school who always had mucus on his upper lip. He might have been able to relate, I guess. But I bet he didn't.

Anthropomorphism isn't about identifying similarities. It's about assigning human attributes that don't have parallels outside of humanity to non-human entities. Why is that dangerous? Why is it not better to think "Hey, that snail has feelings too?" Because then we only value the natural world we can relate to.

When we see elephants holding a funeral, we can relate, find value, and empathize. But the natural world that is counter to our empathy—and even some of our own goals—can hold less value for us. That's reckless. Simply because the snail is slimy, hard to relate to, and fires a missile into its mate when it gets excited doesn't mean it is less deserving of our consideration.

And what do we do when our assumed stewardship of the earth conflicts with our empathy for these animals? Those elephants who capture our hearts by displaying grief for their dead are also depleting the vegetation of the African bush at an unsustainable rate. As the author of the above article asks, how do you cull an animal that grieves?

There are no easy answers. But as mankind takes more of the world for itself while trying to manage its protection, it would be good to consider the mechanisms we use to dole out respect, affection, and salvation to the natural world.

Richard I (you may know him as Richard the Lionhearted) only lived to be 41 years old. If he really did everything they say he did—and by 'they' I mean Wikipedia—then he had a busy 41 years. He managed to put down revolts against his father, King Henry II. He had a major role in the third crusade, engineered by his father and Philip II of France. Somewhere in all this, Robin Hood was running around making mischief in Sherwood Forest, and pioneering the use of green tights.

But that's not the fun part. No, the fun part comes in 1199, after he returns to Europe. Richard I is running around and fighting with the French (who, by his later years, weren't getting along anymore with the English). Laying siege to one castle in particular, he notices a boy defending the walls of the castle with a frying pan and a crossbow. This amuses Richard. Wouldn't it amuse you? Some kid skulking around the castle walls, batting down arrows with a griddle while taking potshots at an army who, presumably, is either about to kill him or take him prisoner?

Little does Richard know that this kid blames the king for the death of his father and two brothers. This is a kid with nothing to lose. The best possible outcome, with death or capture inevitable, is to kill the king.

So the king stands below the castle, amused and without his armor, and applauds the kid's clownish bravery. In the medieval equivalent of the full-court basketball shot, the kid shoots Richard the Lionhearted in the shoulder with a crossbow as he's standing there, hooting and hollering at the boy.

Richard doesn't die right away. The gangrene gets him (presumably horribly and painfully) a couple of weeks later. In a moment of appreciation for the circumstances, Richard is said to have actually pardoned the boy, sending him on his way with 100 shillings. Nice shot, kid. Here's a pouch of booty. Go buy your widowed mother something nice.

I don't know if I buy that, but it's kind of immaterial. The boy was flayed and hanged upon the death of the king by a mercenary named Mercadier. Mercadier was probably roguish and good-looking, by the cut of his name. He stormed the castle again after Richard died and killed everybody left standing after the last siege.

Having had his father and brothers killed already by the same army, I expect that none of this came as a surprise to the kid.

Why do I like stories like this? Incredibly grim? Horrible deaths? Flaying and hanging? I attribute part of it to my father, who spent my formative years singing folk songs which ended badly for their protagonists. At best, there was some revenge involved, but everybody died at the end—especially the just and the undeserving of death.

One story in particular stuck with me, and that was the song of "The Golden Vanity." It's the Peter, Paul, and Mary version of "The Sweet Trinity," a nasty ballad of bravery and false promises. There are a few variants, so I'll stick to the one I know. A ship is in danger of being taken by a Spanish galley. The cabin boy, the lowliest member of the crew, says "Hey, Captain! What will you give me if I swim over to the enemy ship, bore a hole in its side, and sink it?"

"Why, silver and gold!" says the captain, twirling his moustache. "And my fairest daughter's hand in marriage! That would be awesome!"

The cabin boy does as he has promised but, not having the kind of upbringing I had, is surprised to find that the captain won't let him back on the ship. The authority figure reneges on his promise. The boy is hoisted up by his shipmates, but dies on the deck, his heart broken and his view of the world seriously (but temporarily) broadened.

If the cabin boy were a little more like the French king-slayer, he would have gotten the agreement in writing first. Why? Because he already knows that happy endings are for chumps, and the best you can do is to wing the king in a Hail Mary crossbow shot.

One feature of the early Greek satyr really stands out; they had perpetual erections. Permanent stiffies. They might have been like those Viagra victims who suffer erections for more than four hours, whose first call is supposed to be their doctor. You and I both know that isn't the first call they make, however.

But I digress. Marsyas was walking around one day as he always did, enjoying some wine and his undying boner, when he found a double flute, an aulos. Sick of screwing and getting drunk, he decided to master a musical instrument. You have to admire the fortitude of a man who takes up a vocation when he has an inexhaustible supply of alcohol (from his buddy Dionysus) and can fornicate at will. Marsyas was a satyr with vision.

He did not know, however, that Athena herself had cast aside this aulos in a fit of pique, having been told by her buddies that the flute made her cheeks puff out in an unflattering manner. Nobody likes to be told they look fat. She had cursed the aulos, dooming its future owner to a horrible end. As Marsyas danced through the forest, prick and flutes akimbo, he was heading for a showdown of mythological proportions.

Marsyas was getting pretty good at the aulos, so he decided to challenge Apollo to a riff-off. Apollo played the lyre, a three-stringed instrument invented by his buddy Hermes. Having mastered the lyre, Apollo then modded it out with an fourth string, a sunburst finish, and a Seymour-Duncan pickup, further adding to his renown. Apollo could shred.

"So what should the stakes be?" said Apollo.

"I say, whoever wins gets to do whatever he wishes to the other," said Marsyas, no doubt planning on hitting the vanquished Apollo with a pie in the face.

"Okay," said Apollo, who was known for starting plagues when he was cranky.

The aulos vs. lyre battle was epic. Marsyas actually won the contest, but as he was departing—and the books really say this—Apollo turned his lyre upside down and played the same song again perfectly. That's right. He went all ZZ Top on Marsyas' ass.

"I can't do that with my flute!" exclaimed Marsyas, referring to the musical instrument and not his perpetually pert penis.

"Too bad," said Apollo, who then flayed the poor bastard alive for his hubris. I kid you not. He skinned the dude, and displayed his hide for all to see.

Why can't I help but think of Marsyas this morning? Why am I telling you this story? Moreover, why are you still reading?

I don't really know. My wife wanted to get up early this morning and catch up on studying for her graduate-level class, so to help her out (and to capitalize on her ambition) I said "hey, let's get up early together! I'll do some writing, and we'll keep each other motivated!" Monday night is full of such... hubris.

Before dawn on Tuesday morning with coffee in hand, regret in full effect, and with nothing to write about, I looked up a random Wikipedia article for inspiration. An article about the city of Arles appeared. Arles must be the most boring city in France, and was no help at all. A few years ago in Arles, they found a stone bust of Julius Caesar in the nearby Rhone river and, being French, promptly got into an argument about who put it there. This didn't interest me either.

But they also found a statue of Marsyas there in the Rhone. And that dude had quite a story, don't you think?

I believe that Marsyas challenged Apollo on a Monday night, and woke up Tuesday morning for the duel. I bet that come Tuesday morning, as the birds above his head woke him, he probably regretted his decision a little. By the break of dawn, I'm sure he fully realized his folly. Tuesdays are like that. We go to bed having somehow conquered Monday, which is supposed to be the hardest day of the week. And why not? It's the beginning of a trudge to the next weekend.

But Mondays have a lot going for them, not the least of which is the restfulness from the weekend. Tuesdays don't have that. They have all of the charm of waking up after a minor skirmish on the way to a full invasion. Even after the worst possible Monday, we spend the night having conquered the odds, thinking everything might turn out okay. By Tuesday morning, though, the hope is gone, and we're off to a duel using instruments we think we've mastered but barely understand.  We do it every Tuesday. Some Tuesdays, we survive to see Wednesday, which is a different story altogether.

The moral of the story? If Apollo challenges you to a game of Guitar Hero, decline.

What bought us to this point? Rave culture? Radiohead's knob twiddling in the early '00s? Brian Wilson's solo albums? Freak-folk? The Blue Man Group? Those Dairy Queen TV commercials with the talking lips? All of the above, perhaps?

For a band that follows their muse as relentlessly as the Animal Collective does, their new album Merriweather Post Pavilion feels like one for the fans. I mean that in the best way possible. At their best, the AC is capable of trippy, ecstatic journeys that expand your mind and keep your feet moving. At their aimless worst... well, why dwell on that? Their new album is focused and amazing.

A good litmus test to decide whether the Animal Collective is for you; visit the HD version of "My Girls," and turn up your speakers as loud as they'll go before the neighbors complain. If it doesn't do anything for you, you can move on to the more conventional but equally excellent indie rock choices below.

Andrew Bird - Noble Beast

Andrew Bird returns with another measured dose of stately chamber pop. He doesn't seem to have a video out for any singles yet, but the above performance of "Anonanimal" captures his skill and appeal nicely. Note the inventive and effective use of a looper.

I'm thinking about starting a write-in campaign to see if we can get the BBC to consider hiring Andrew Bird as the first American Dr. Who.

A.C. Newman - Get Guilty

Why would the main man behind the New Pornographers need a solo project? A quick listen to his 2nd solo album Get Guilty suggests that it gives him an opportunity to let his hair down. Now, Carl Newman doesn't have much hair, so the differences between his solo music and the New Porns' are somewhat academic. Nonetheless, Get Guilty is a little shaggier and less devoted to a super-pop sheen, while still sporting more killer hooks than a full tackle box.

I'm also looking forward to the February release of the debut album from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.

Everything I've heard from this band suggests that they are serious students of early '90s shoegaze pop (Pale Saints? Yes, please!), and with any luck their album will spark a huge revival of that long-lost genre.

Okay, probably not, but at least it sounds like it could be a decent album anyway.