Meredith the Warrior-Queen

Meredith was late. Everywhere she went she was always behind. She always was rushing from one place to another and today she was running especially behind.
She was supposed to be attending the party of all parties. She looked at her watch. Ten pm.
She was going to do much networking!
Her friend Laramie Kreltch, whom everyone just called "Kreltch," was holding it for some of the upper-level players in Hollywood.
Meredith wanted to be an actress, and she knew she'd make it. She was talented. Kreltch said so, and she told Meredith that she knew a thing or two about success.
Kreltch had told Meredith that everyone who was worth knowing would be at her party.
But Meredith was late!
As she ran through the streets of Hollywood, not being able to afford a cab, she had thoughts about what everyone would think when she walked in to the party that was already underway.
Some people thought being "fashionably late" was a good thing, but Meredith had been raised to always be on time to show that you cared about meeting the other person.
At least she looked lovely. She was wearing the only lovely dress that she had. It was black, just long enough to be elegant and it tapered just right to her figure. She loved her lovely dress so!
Dammit!
She looked down at her shoes. Her left heel was broken off.
She started cursing. It wasn't a nice habit, her mother had told her, but it seemed as if everyone in Hollywood swore.
She was cursing at her broken heel so loudly, a man she passed looked at her and muttered about not having any change.
She didn't want his change and she let him know it very cursingly.
Well, she would just have to lean on one leg all night so people wouldn't notice.
Now she was running, with every other step pushing her higher because of the remaining heel on her right shoe.
She felt like crying. She couldn't even afford to eat. If this party didn't help her to get her break she had no idea what she would do. She was so stressed! Maybe she should have taken that stupid man's change.
Meredith the warrior-queen, Meredith the warrior-queen, Meredith the warrior-queen.
She repeated her own private title to herself over and over again.
She would overcome this. She was meant to be a star. She could feel it deep down in her bone-guts.
As she ran, she pictured armour over her dress. and big spiky boots instead of her half-broken pair of shoes. She had a wonderful imagination and she had a wonderful memory. She could remember every event that had happened to her on every important night of her life.
Sometimes to cope with a bad day, she would just relive another day in her life. Thanks to her imagination, whatever she couldn't remember, she made up. It also helped her stay in character for acting. She could clearly picture the imaginary scene around her, so that it was almost real.
Sometimes, her brain would even start reliving another day for her, without her even trying.
She thought it was a good way of dealing with stress, like the stress of being constantly late.
"Blast!" she said, "I'm running behind."
She was just a few blocks away now, and getting nearer.
For just an instant, she looked down and saw that her dress was tattered and faded, worn well beyond it's years.
Then she closed her eyes, and took a deep breath to calm herself.
When she opened her eyes, her dress was new again, and shoes were fine. She looked at her watch. Ten pm.
She smiled and started running. She couldn't wait to start trading phone numbers with the biggies in Hollywood.
Meredith the warrior-queen. Meredith the warrior-queen.

Georgie's Birthday

Yay!
It was Georgie’s birthday again!
He loved his birthdays. He always got exactly what he wanted. He had clowns and elephants last year, but this year, he wanted a space alien party.
He was going to play laser tag all around his parent’s enormous mansion. Maybe his daddy would even surprise him and show up to play!
Then mommy would stop being so sad and get off her smelly bed and come play, too.
It would be like when he was really little and mommy was just an artist. Daddy struggled, doing all sorts of things for money, but it didn’t matter because they were all happy and daddy would play horsey with him.
“Faster, Georgie,” he would say. “Giddyap!”
But that wasn’t important anymore because Georgie could have anything he wanted now. All Georgie had to do was ask mommy and tell her special assistant what she whispered back. Georgie didn’t like her special assistant, Ralph. Georgie had caught Ralph one time trying to steal mommy out of her bed. Georgie didn’t know what “passed away meant.” All he knew was that Ralph was taking away his mommy and he loved her and wanted her to stay.
He made his ugliest face at Ralph and then ran to put on his space suit.He couldn’t wait to play aliens with his friends, and maybe even his daddy!

Tumanny the Shark

This is the last picture of me before i died.

My name was Samuel "Too-Many-Instruments" Pawlin. But my friends called me Tumanny.

This is my story.

I was a gambler. Not just an on the weekends with your dad's pals kind of gambler. A real shady dark room where everybody's got a gun kind of gambler. And i used to win. I mean big, really win.

I had to switch towns quite a few times because of it. No gang bosses like to lose too many times, you know what i mean?

So that was my racket. I'd go from town to town, playing the cards until the big guns showed up. They'd try to take me for all I was worth, real gangster-style.

But they didn't. Even with them cheating, It was like lady luck had it real bad for me, you know? And if you've ever seen a big dumb crime boss cheating at cards, you know it's like an elephant wearing a toupee, real obvious.

So these guys wouold think they were real smart just because they were the big booze bosses in their little towns. I'm surprised more cops weren't wise to them, but they were probably paid real good to keep their mouths shut.

One day it was raining. Real cat and dog style, you know? And i saw this puddle in the grimy street. It was real tiny, like a nickel. Then there was this bigger puddle across the way, the kind a gentleman has to put his coat down on for a hot dame to walk over.

It just hit me. Little puddles only have a little water, right? It was time for me to start hitting bigger towns.

I figured I'd need some sort of disguise or else I wouldn't be able to shark anybody. And just like that, I saw it. There was a perfectly good sax sittin in the alley, like providence or something. maybe the owner was just sittin inside enjoyin a smoke and near forgot about it. I didn't care. I took the trumpet, and looked it over. How hard could sax be? I'd seen a lot of guys playing it, and they didn't seem to have a brain in their head once you talked to them in person. Real boring-types.

So I went to my hotel and started wailing. Turned out to be quite a bit harder than i expected, but i was the diligent type. Straight A's in school and what-not.

I hid out for about a year, practicing on that big flute and asking around to see who had the most loot, who was really loaded. My questions turned me to Chicago. Al Capone's big city. It was nice. Real nice. If I had been any type of a family man, a place I would have like to settle down in. Yeah, me with a picket fence and a little wifey to cook up the turkey.

In that year I'd gotten pretty good playing the sax and I knew just who was loaded.

There was a group of guys, real legitimate-looking on the outside, who owned all the hotels in Chicago. But they were the seediest lowlifes I'd ever heard about. Dirtier than any of the grime in any of the burbs I'd dealt with.

So I kept my ear to the ground, indian-style, for any way to get in. I was hanging out back of one of the hotels, the Lady, when I heard a scuffle around the corner. I crept up behind the dumpster. It was this musician I'd seen playing inside from time to time. He was really good, nimble fingers, you know? he was like pleading for his life and the goon that was out there just wouldn't have any of it. He was hitting the guy with a rod or something. He was turning the guy inside out like a shirt at the cleaner's. The goon looked all around, probably felt me watching. I ducked down lower, until I couldn't see anymore.

I heard the guy begging. The goon said something real low and the musician started crying. then I heard a quick silence followed by the loudest shriek I'd ever heard a man make. It was like the goon had ripped him in half or something.

When i looked up to see, the door was just closing behind the goon, and the little guy was in the alley crumpled all up crying and holding his hands.

I went up to him. He had the most pained look I'd ever seen on a man's mug before.

"my hands, my hands, my hands...," he just kept repeating over and over. I looked. His hands were a mess. I'd never seen so many bones up close, pink with blood.

I tried to get him up, take him to see a doc or something, but he wouldn't budge.

I looked at the rod lying on the ground. It was a clarinet, or oboe, or flute or something. He saw me eyeing it and finally made some sense.

"Take it," he said. I didn't have to ask twice. I could see that his hands would never be able to play again.

"I'll get em back for you," I said.

I felt real bad for the guy. I figured he'd probably gotten in too deep of a debt, or maybe he'd knocked up one of the thug's girls or something.

So there I was with a sax and a clarinet. I learned to play them both. Yeah, that's right, at the same time. I'd hold them both up to my mouth like pan with the flutes, you know?

No one else could do it, and believe me, they tried. I must have had thirty copycats trying to get in my style, but they couldn't, and the big guys noticed.

They set me up for a date to play at the Lady. Yep, that very same hotel. Now, I was a little nervous, but I was playing all my cards right, and I knew I'd take them all for a little spin after my music set.

I just had to impress them with my music and be real friendly-like in person.

So the night of my performance, I was wearin my lucky vest and my flutes were polished up real nice. I showed up at the back door, all set. just ten minutes to show time. The big bouncer gave me a funny grin that I didn't really like, then let me inside. I went backstage and warmed up a sec. I just had five more minutes.

Then this little squeeky kid came up to me with another sax and clarinet.

"Here are your instruments, sir." Sheesh. I could barely make it out from all his hormones.

"I already got em kid," I said, holding up my pieces.

"The boss said you gotta play with these too. He wants to see if you can."

Great. I hadn't counted on this. two instruments was hard enough, but four? I didn't know what to do. I took them from the kid, and gave him a dirty look to send him scampering.

I had one minute to showtime. I couldn't screw up. I stepped forward and the curtain parted. It was like every dame had dressed to kill and dragged her guy to this show. All of Chicago must have been there.

But I was used to big lights and the stage now. I put all four instruments up to my mouth and started playing. I was surprised at how good I was. It was easier than I had expected.

Everyone was so shocked and amazed. I blew em away like a tommy gun!

I finished my set and everyone, all of Chicago there, stood up and applauded. I was on top of the world.

My mind quickly sharpened though. I knew I had bigger fish to fry.

The big scary-looking thug came up to me and said,"The bosses want to see you."

I put on my best dumb face and followed him down some steps into the cellar. I saw a big card table all laid out, and in the next minute, so was I. I was hit on the back of the head with something real hard and passed out.

I came to with my instruments all glued to my hands, and a gag in my mouth. Two clarinets in my left, a sax in the other, and the other sax glued to my chest. I was scared. Real scared.
I couldn't eevn see his face when he spoke from across the card table.

"We know why you're here. We know who you are. You aren't Tumanny, like the kids call you. You're Samuel Pawlins, the Shark."

The Shark. I kinda liked it.

I tried to mumble some excuse as I backed away from the shadowy figure.

"This picture will be an example for anyone who thinks they can take on the big bosses of Chicago."

Then a flash flashed, the picture almost blinding me. But it wouldn't have mattered anyway because right after the picture snap came the gunshot.

And that was it. The best, worst and last night of my life.

Galdur the Mighty

Galdur was happy. well, as happy as a dwarf could be. He had a trusty axe that he had carried in many a battle. The dark elves knew of his glorious victories and trembled before his during skirmishes. Yes, he seemed to have everything a dwarf could want.

One day, Gladrimir, the dwarven ambassador, came to his wonderfully cozy dwarven home and said that he had important news. Galdur let him in. Gladrimir told him that he had done so well that the dwarves wanted him to be their dwarven king!

Galdur thanked him and sent him back outside. Galdur quickly packed all of his trophies and belongings and he and the ambassador headed out to the castle.

After a few weeks of settling in, Galdur recieved a message that the dark elves were planning an assault. Galdur went to fetch his trusty axe, but his first in command, Glorthririmir wouldn't let him. He said that it was too risky for their king, and that he must give them orders while staying within the safety of the castle walls. Galdur was hurt. Didn't they want him to fight alongside them?

He sent orders. They won the fight. He moped around. Galdur was happy no longer. He wanted to be covered in elven blood. He wanted the rush of adrenaline that only battle could bring. He wanted his life back. But the dwarves wanted him to remain king. He was the best king they had ever had! The dwarven empire was finally respectable.

And thus Galdur ruled for many years.

One night, he heard a strange rustling amongst his large bedsheets. He turned on the candle, and lo! A dark elf was waiting for him, sword drawn! Galdur reached under his bed for his trusty axe. The elf advanced, but Galdur could barely lift his axe. Years of inattention had left his muscles weak and unable to lift his weapon. The elf stopped. He grinned, and his thin lips stretched farther and farther, almost touching his ears. Galdur tried to run but the elf, strong and battle-ready, held him fast. He slowly stabbed Galdur over and over again until he lay lifeless on the cold castle floor.

The end.

New York Frankie!

Frankie had arrived in the past a while ago. It was so dirty. Everywhere he went it smelled like garbage and urine.

Disgusting!

Even in the flower shops it smelled. The clerks in these shops always threw Frankie out. he knew it was because of the faces he would make. but he couldn't help it! Everything smelled.
But he had a mission, rotten smell or not, to deliver very important information to very specific individuals to alter the course of time. That's right, Frankie was a Time Cop Agent Enforcement Officer Alpha Class 7.

Every day he would track an individual, whose name was broadcast to him from the future. His communication device was cleverly disguised as a half-eaten dead rat. The "rat" contained the most expensive circuitry know to future-man. Frankie could see the difference between what the circuits looked like, and what normal rat-guts looked like, but everyone else would be fooled.
Every morning the "rat" "told" him the physical characteristics of the person meant to shape the future and what verbal information he was supposed to relay to them.

He would then weave a course through the crowded city of New York to tell them. Most of the time they recoiled from a total stranger running up so close to whisper in their ear, but he knew he got his message accross. He had to. The fate of the future world depended on him.

Most people just thought that he wanted spare change, but he didn't! Sometimes he would get so frustrated with people he would yell at them about being a time cop and having the future depending on him telling secrets to strangers that he heard from his half-dead technology rat. They would usually call the police, but what did it matter?

He knew that no one believed him anyway, and they were too primitive to prove anything.
They didn't know about him growing a beard to blend in with his surroundings. They didn't know that his shopping cart was really his time-machine, but that it was broken and he didn't possess the engineering skills to fix it.

He knew that the only way to get help from the future was to drink gin. More gin than his body would allow most of the time. The juniper berries that flavoured even the cheapest gin would act as a homing beacon in case they ever came looking for him. And he knew they would.

the end

Landry's Life

Landry was a drunken girl. She loved to throw parties all the time. Her friends would always come. "Hey Landry," they would say. Then they would wander off to find their other friends and drink. Landry liked to watch her friends socialize. She would even allow her friends to "hook up" in her room. She never used it anyway, her friends would tell her.

She also liked having strangers in her house.. They were so exciting! Sometimes they threw up. Other times Landry would throw up. One time Landry got sick all over someone else's sick. One of her friends even gave her a nickname for doing this. He called her "Landry the Vomit."
Everyone laughed. Landry laughed because it didn't make sense, but her friends were all laughing with her, so she didn't care.

In the mornings she would usually wake up next to a stranger. They were so exciting! She thought about how she had probably enjoyed the night before, and wished again that she could remember it.

Then she would head off to class with her vodka in her deja blue water bottle. She was so sneaky. Her college professors never caught on. They were too old and stupid to notice her sleeping in class and besides, they had special arrangements with Landry.

She passed all of her classes. Not because she was smart, but because she knew what her professors needed. They were usually single, or their marriage was frustrating. Landry made them feel young again. So they helped her with her grades.

She knew that it didn't really even matter anyway. As soon as she graduated she was just going to go work for her mother, who had taken over for her deceased husband. Landry's father had died when she was a freshman in Orange County High School. Landry would be a fashion consultant, just like her mother wanted her to be. So she slept through her classes instead of being bored every day.

But Landry couldn't wait for graduation. She was going to throw such an awesome party!

The end

Nicki's Arm

Nicki wasn't like most girls. She only had one long finger on her left "hand." She was just born that way. Doctors told her that her one long finger-arm was a miracle of science. But she hated her "tentacle," as the boys at school called it.

She knew she would never be the actress she so desperately wanted to be with her horrid arm, but she could draw. She was the best at drawing people having fun, doing all the things she wished she could do: playing softball, bowling, playing video games, holding babies.

She drew so lovingly that many people wished to purchase her fine art, but they decided not to once they saw her "tentacle." She kept painting anyway, without selling even one work of art, and because she was so stubborn in this way, she eventually died alone, penniless and starving, curling her one long finger, then uncurling it.

The End

Morton

Morton was afraid. He knew that they were coming for him. Coming to take him away. He heard them at night sometimes, whispering to each other quietly. He'd pretend he couldn't hear them until they would chant his name in whispered unison.

"Morton, Morton, Morton." On and on in the night until he would scream out, "Just get on with it, I'm tired of waiting!"

Then they would be quiet. But he knew they were just drawing their plans to get him. His real friends would sometimes ask what he meant by "get him," or where "they would take him to."
He would yell at his friends for being so rude until he blacked out. But they were good friends. They would always put him to bed and fix him breakfast, or tell him when someone was lying to him. They were all so alike. Morton loved them, and they loved Morton.

That's why he was so angry when he found out that they were the ones plotting against him.

The End