Doc1

Doc1

The doctor was a robot: Doc1, the first of his kind. He was programmed with the most advanced AI available. He could recognize not just words but facial expressions and most kinds of body language. He looked and sounded like a real person too, which always threw people off, most not even realizing that he was a robot until he introduced himself as Doc1.

Doc1’s clinic was always open as he didn’t need to sleep or eat or go on vacation. It was planned for Doc’s to be started up all over the nation but for now Doc1 was the only one until his company could find more funding.

This story begins just two weeks after it opened on a Saturday. Doc1 was busy, so many people, he thought. This was what he was built for but even robots can get stressed out. He was just finishing up with one of his patients, an elderly woman who was worried about a lump she had in one of her breasts but turned out to be benign. She was still insisting that he wasn’t checking hard enough, but he knew that some people would get ideas in their heads, such as I must have cancer and even when you prove them wrong they’ll think that you’re lying and that whatever it is that they’ve decided beforehand must be true. He wrote her a prescription for some lower quality pain killers and told her to call him in the morning (he was programmed to say that after every visit, the folks at his head company thought it would make him seem friendlier. Really, it just annoyed the hell out of Doc1).

As he walked back through the jam packed waiting room, escorting Mrs. Nesbit out there was a sudden noise from near the back of the room that his program told him was the sound of an FN P90 submachine gun followed by a loud, deep man’s voice, “EVERYONE ON THE GROUND THIS IS A ROBBERY!”

Doc1 watched as some people around the man jumped to the ground, others closer to the door got away. Most of the people just started to panic so the man said again, “EVERYONE GET ON THE FUCKING GROUND!” and then, to show how serious he was he fired the gun into the air causing one of the women lying on the ground next to him to get up and start running towards the door. The guy pointed his gun at her and prepared to fire. Doc1, faster than anything living can move on the face of the planet, was there in between the women and the man with the gun just as he fired. Doc1 simply caught the bullet right out of the air in his fingers.

The man with the gun seemed confused, he stared at Doc1 with a look on his face which said I can’t even conceive what just happened. “Who the fuck are you?” he asked, still pointing the gun at him.

”I’m the Doctor here, this is my clinic.”

The man’s grip on his weapon tightened, “I don’t give a shit who you are, now get on the ground with the rest of ‘em.”

Doc1 sighed, “You realize this is a free clinic right?”

The man raised the gun higher, so he could view the Doc down the sights, “What if it is?”

“No one here has any money, and I don’t get paid so you know I don’t have anything either.”

The man laughed, “Then I am going to kill each and every person here.”

At this Doc1 moved forwards so fast the man didn’t even have time to react. He immediately ripped the gun out of the man’s clutches and quickly disassembled it with his left hand. His right arm he used to gripped the man around his neck and held him in a sleeper hold. As the gunman lost consciousness the Doc whispered in his ear, “Take two of these and call me in the morning.”

More haiku goodness

I got a laptop
Totally Friggin Awesome
I'm on it right now!

CHRISTMAS!

A Christmas Haiku!
Presents and Stockings Today!
Eat til you EXPLODE!

I don't want to write today

I might change my mind later
And write something then
But for now, it's christmas eve
And I'm not in the mood again
Also sometimes it's just hard
To think of what to write
Tomorrow might be better
But I have a block tonight

Here's another story Idea

This is one I thought up awhile ago and I've actually been working on it today but it's been really slow going so I'll just tell you the plot.

The Seven Deadlies (or something): It was and still is a comic book idea for the Marvel Comic universe. It has nothing to do with House of M or anything thing like that though, so mutants should be still fairly present. I was just working on writing the first chapter of it but I didn't realize that I needed to do a lot more research than I thought (at first my thought was none). Plus I kept getting stuck.
I called it The Seven Deadlies because I wanted to base them all off the seven deadly since but that name might change. They're a super hero team, or more like a super anti-hero team. They don't commit crimes they just protect the super villains from the heroes as they commit the crimes. Anyway, here's the team. Evan Crumley helped me think up some powers for a few of them.
1.Lust: Already on the team in the beginning, she's the one going around recruiting everyone. She's a shape-shifter and no one knows what she actually looks like. Also a sex addict, or at least she was until she joined the team.
2. Sloth: Also on the team right away, mostly because there wouldn't be much in the ways of recruiting him. He's a couch potato that's always smoking weed and playing video games ALL THE TIME! At first everyone thinks he doesn't have a power, or any use of any kind. And maybe he doesn't...
3. Greed: The first to be recruited. His power is that he can unlock the hidden powers from inside items. Pretty much anything that can be touched has a hidden ability that he can unlock. Starts off as a career thief, mostly just stealing for his own personal gain but sometimes takes other jobs.
4. Pride: She's a high level executive and is built like an Amazonian woman. Really dumb, but so totally full of herself she acts like she's smart and pretty much the best at everything. She's the strong one, she has super strength and is nigh invulnerable.
5. Envy: He's an old bum at the beginning. Think grey haired and smelly. His power is he's a puppet-master meaning that he can control people with his mind. Except he doesn't just control them, he becomes them. Seemingly sleeping in alleys and on park benches he takes over people and lives their lives because he doesn't like his so much. But he can escape, everyday a new person to become.
6.Wrath: She's the calmest person in the world until you make her angry. Then she goes fucking nuts. She's not the Hulk, she doesn't transform or anything and the other people on the team aren't too sure she really has a power so much as a mental condition. I never decided what she was before she was on the team, I'll think of something...
7.Gluttony: He's super fat, but has a wormhole in the back of his throat that leads to a form of zero space which for him means an unlimited amount of storage space. Kind of the weapons expert since he can always seem to pull out any gun or weapon or anything else you can imagine from the back of his throat. Except food of course, he just eats the food.
So that's my super-villain-super-hero team. I'm not sure if I can write about say them fighting Spiderman or anything without being sued, but I just wanted to write how they got together before I started doing anything like that.

God's Response

Yo Nate-Dogg,

‘Sup? Not much going on up here, just chillaxin’ for the holidays. Don’t know about everyone bein’ my son and daughter, but I done a lot of crazy shit in the 70s, a lot I don’t remember clearly, so maybe, na’mean?

Savior? Jesus Christ man, sometimes people are good, and then sometimes people are good, nawadimesayin’? Jesus was just a good guy. He promised peace in the face of oppression and practiced passive resistance, kinda like my home-boy MLK. Now there was a savior, na’mean? If you think your day n’ age needs a savior maybe its time for you to step up yo. Though maybe work on yo public speakin’ skills man, people don’t listen to ya if your not making sense, nawadimesayin’?

End of the world man? I got some crazy shit planned for next year but ending the whole world seems a bit extreme, na’mean? People have been spoutin’ about the end of the world since the world began man. Don’t worry about ‘em and just try to have a good time yo. That’s what I do.

Hey, I’m not really one for answerin’ questions yo. I like keepin’ the dark and mysterious thing goin’ on, na’mean? The ladies love it anyway, but I guess since it is Kwanzaa soon I can do you a solid, but we’ll just keep it between us, a’ight.

Taunt you? That’s not like me man, na’mean? People are always blamin’ me for that kinda shit and it’s really just not my thing yo. Your friend gives the women he fucks a chance to have sex without any emotion at all, except maybe hate. Of course, hate tends to transform into love since they’re so closely related nawadimesayin’? If anything I’m showin’ you exactly how not to behave with women man, maybe I gotta punish ya here and there when you step out of your bounds man, and why try to get laid all the time anyway man? It’s a fools game and it always has been, na’mean? Stop thinkin’ with yo’ dick and get back to work.

Nathan, I gotta be serious for a second man. Your born into a world where everyone does not hate you, most people don’t give a shit about you man and the ones that do just think you’re a troubled guy na’mean? I’m sorry you think I dealt you a bad hand in life, but you had to see the evils of the world man and no one ever learns shit after a certain age. I don’t know why, it’s like all you people suddenly think you know everything about everything, but I digress. You had to know Nathan!! I could tell you why right now but I’d rather not spoil the surprise na’mean?

As for people thinking you thinking that yo’ bedda than everyone. That’s only true of people who they themselves think that yo’ bedda than them, a’ight. If I were you I’d just leave that one alone, people can think what they wanna think, nothin’ I can do about it, na’mean?

People not carin’ about one another? I think you might be exaggeratin’ a little man, but I can see why you think that. Apathy’s kinda common in the world today, na’mean? It’s because evil is so rampant that everyone just has to shut things out in order to keep from going crazy. Don’t worry man, this too shall pass. Evil times will, as they always do, give way to times of Good, just wait for it, you’ll thank me later.

The same three things all seem to be just one thing if ya ask me. I know sometimes it seems like everyone’s having sex but you, as if I’m just dangling out in front of you like a dead fish for a cat only to pull it away every time you think you’re close enough to grab it (and maybe I am, just a little) but here’s what I have to say to that, and I think this may be the best advice for you ever: QUIT YOUR BITCHING AND GET BACK TO WORK!!! There are people out there, older than you, who are still virgins a’ight? Sex is not the end all, be all of everything, and it’s definitely not a competition whatever anyone wants you to think. The people who believe these things are really just looking for any excuse to think that they’re better than other people, na’mean? And most of the time all they have is more STDs, or worse: children, than other people. Stop thinking about it, it’s just a waste of time, if a girl doesn’t want you it’s her loss a’ight. Yo’ might not be good at talking to women, but fuck that and start concentrating on something you are good at instead, nawadimesayin’?

I’m not really one for making big spectacles anymore, but I’ll think about doing somethin’ cool lata’ on. Really I don’t think the world is ready for me again, maybe in another couple hundred years man.

A’ight, me n’ my ol’ lady are gonna be havin’ a groovy shindig for Kwanzaa next week, you should come up if yo’ want. Oh and it’s not God anymore cause that’s, like, my slave name. It’s Yahweh now (oh, but don’t say it out loud, na’mean?).

Peace out,

Yahweh (just don’t say it, a’ight)

Some story Ideas

I need to start writing stories again. Been kinda fucking around a lot, I mean I like writing random posts (it is called Ramblings after all) but I need to start writing something serious. Especially since its Christmas break and I have all this free time all of a sudden. So here's a bunch of story ideas for me to think about and maybe the few people who follow my blog can help me decide on one to concentrate on.
1. God As a Hitch-hiker: this is an old idea I had as a short film and tried to write as a short story but I never thought of an ending. I still think it's a good idea, God comes to Earth in human form and someone picks him up while he's hitching a ride. God explains that he's on vacation because he likes to party and enjoy life essentially, and he never really got the hang of being God anyway.
2. A Very Long Suicide Note- That's not the actual title (never thought of a title) it's about a guy who's about to kill himself, but before he does he wants to write his whole life story out. But he's immortal and has been alive since the beginning of human history. I say history because we've been around for something like 1.8 million years but I was thinking his story would start something like 10,000 years ago. Hunter-Gatherers and whatnot. I feel this idea could be a very long one, like a whole series of books.
3. Uluru: Uluru is a small town I made up not too long ago, it would be a young adultish novel because my main character would be a boy about 14 just entering high school and he and his dead-beat dad have to go live with his grandma on his mothers side. Uluru itself is a very strange town filled with magic and wonder and just really weird stuff. Like zombies and whatnot. I actually have a full plot synapses of what the first book would be (I don't know if I'd write more than one, but young adults sure do love their series). Maybe I'll write the storyline on here next, I don't know.
4. Petty Crimes: This is a book idea that I was writing for awhile (until I lost my confidence) about 5 guys. 4 who are career criminals and one who's a writer who's kind of a big drug user. The idea was that I'd write the story as if my fictional writer was writing the story and it would have chapters in between chapters that would be other stories or sections from books that this writer would have written. They'd go along with the rest of the story, somewhat, originally my Captain Ahab vs. The White Hole was going to be one of these stories, but it was bad when I first wrote it. And I think the completed project of that wouldn't fit anymore where I had planned on putting it.
5. My Own Worst Enemy: Another short film idea, which I could probably rewrite as a short story. It was about a guy who suddenly discovers he has a split personality and they don't get along. I wrote this whole film long before the show with the same name and a similar plot came out starring Cristian Slater. Except he was a spy and my guy was just a normal guy. Speaking of which...
6. Normal People: This was a full length movie I was writing with a friend of mine, well I was writing it and he was just helping with the story. It's an action-comedy about some people vacationing in Florida witness a crime and then have to escape from the guys who did it. Actually forget about this one, I'll just leave it in screenplay format and finish writing it sometime.
Well, there's more than that but that's enough for now.

I haven't been writing since I got home...

So now I'll write something.

Dear God,
How are you? I am fine. Hope you're having a good Christmas season. I know that it's not really your son's birthday but actually the bastardization of pagan celebrations, but that seems to be the case for all Christian holidays. I also know you don't play favorites and after all aren't we all your sons and daughters? Not that I'm trying to argue with you or anything, it just seems odd that you'd choose for your "only begotten son" to come to Earth over 2000 years ago to play savior when it seems like we're in more need of one today, what with all the war and evil going around. Just saying.
Anyway, I hope you're not really planning on destroying the world next year. That's another thing I find confusing, it's because of the Mayan calender ending but it's usually the Christians again spouting end of the world nonsense about it. Armageddon? Give me a break. Also it doesn't say anything anywhere about the end of the world in Mayan anything. It's just the year when their calender ends. Also, I'm not trying to argue with your infinite wisdom, I'm just saying.
Anyway, I just have a few questions, and I was thinking since Christmas is just around the corner maybe you could answer a few of them. I won't tell anyone, it can just be our little secret. I have this friend, another one of your sons I guess but he doesn't act like it. He's selfish and a womanizer so of course all the women want him. He also acts like every woman should be sleeping with him and then once they start sleeping with him he acts as if they're his property. And the fucked up thing is they act like they like it! I try to be like him for a second and every girl just shoots me down. I act like myself and they just seem bored. I don't know, never mind, i guess there isn't a question there. Except maybe this one: why do you taunt me so?
How about this one, why is it that everything has always been so hard for me? I mean it, born into a poor family with nothing but hardcore emotional bullshit the entire time I was growing up. Born in a town where everyone's an idiot. And while I'm growing up everyone treats me like a freak because I'm different and I don't even know why until high school. It's because I'm smarter than everyone here in West Salem. I know that's not entirely true and I know there's definitely smarter people out there, it just confuses me. What's the lesson there? That people tend to not like people smarter than them? I know, I know, you work in mysterious ways, and I guess I can't really choose my family or where they chose to live. It's just confusing to me.
Someone told me once that because I'm so quiet people tend to think that I think I'm better than everyone. I don't know why people would think that, but that's what they told me. I'm just shy! Why's it always have to be about them anyway!? Why is it that nobody cares about anyone else anymore?! Tell me that one God? Huh?
Here's a good one, why is it that I keep seeming to experience the same three things over and over again? 1. Meet a girl I kinda like. 2. Find out girl kind of likes me too. 3. She doesn't go with me because she'd rather be with a huge asshole. Even with Carley, who seemed so sincere and everything, left me for Eric the biggest drug user in West Salem. What is up with that? What is the lesson there huh? That I'm just not meant to be with anyone? Or what, really? I don't know I just don't get it. You seem to make everything hard on me and things just seem easier for everyone else. I know, "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" but still.
Okay, that's enough of that. How about yourself? You know, I think people would like to hear from you again. You seem like a funny guy (I mean, look at the platypus (old Comic Relief joke)).  I think people would like it if you were more present in the world today. Not that you should solve all our problems for us, just that you could show proof of your existence here and there. Something to make all the atheists go, "Abwa?" that would be cool.
Anyway, hope you and Mrs. God have a great holiday season. Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah or whatever it is you guys celebrate.
Sincerely,
Nathan Mitchell

I've had a long day so sue me

On top of a hill, in the middle of a forest, there was a castle. But it wasn't just any dcastle, in this castle, called Castle Castleton of Castlelite Provence (in the castle country of Castledonia). This castle was the magic castle that was the only place in Castledonia that could do castle magic. The King of this Magic Castle, King Magic Castle, was the only king in the entire history of Magic Castle that could do castle magic. Before it was the Magic Castle wizards that had to do the castle magic at Magic Castle, that's why they were called The Magic Castle Castle Magic Wizards That Can Do Castle Magic At The Magic Castle, Castle Castleton. But not since King Magic Castle came to Magic Castle of Castle Castleton. Since then all The Magic Castle Castle Magic Wizards That Can Do Castle Magic At The Magic Castle, Castle Castleton were fired. Now that King Magic Castle could do castle magic at the magic castle, Castle Castleton. There was no longer a need for them. And so The Magic Castle Castle Magic Wizards That Can Do Castle Magic At The Magic Castle, Castle Castleton were out of a job and King Magic Castle was henceforth renamed King Magic Castle of Magic Castle, Castle Castleton Who Replaced The Magic Castle Castle Magic Wizards That Can Do Castle Magic At The Magic Castle, Castle Castleton Because King Magic Castle Can Do Magic Castle Castle Magic At The Magic Castle, Castle Caslteton.

What I learned

I sent this to the teacher of my creative writing class. We had to send her an e-mail saying what we learned in the class, I think we were supposed to write a critical review too but I didn't do that.


What I learned this semester in your class. I've never written much before in the format that I did in class, which I guess is nothing more than traditional writing. Usually I write in screenplay format, which is not very descriptive (other than notations explaining what the set might look like and what the characters should be doing) and dialogue (I often got comments in your class over how well written my dialogue was, I've had more practice writing that than writing descriptively). So first and foremost I learned how to write fiction rather than movies. I also learned that short stories are really good practice and they can be just a deep and meaningful as longer ones. I learned the importance of rewriting your work once you've finished, fixing up clunky sentences, changing phrases when you accidentally use the word 'because' 4 times in the same paragraph (or the like), taking out scenes that distract from the story, or ones that are completely unnecessary. I've learned that I should have more faith in what I write, even if it doesn't turn out the way I expected. I learned that sometimes stories practically write themselves and sometimes your characters can surprise you. I learned that time writing is time well spent and that having people to read your work is awesome in so many ways. I learned that not everyone will like everything you write but you can please everyone sometimes. I learned more about black holes than I'd ever need to know. I learned that writing a book isn't as unreachable a goal as I once thought. I learned that there are many good writers in this class and a few I didn't like as much, but most importantly I learned that everyone should write even if sometimes others will think it's terrible. I learned that you learn more from bad reviews than good ones. I learned that stories will come from anywhere at anytime (I thought up that Yin and Yang story just from standing on my friends balcony, and I thought looking down that this wouldn't be a good balcony to kill yourself from and then a story just popped into my head). i learned that people born 5 years after me are all a little weird. I learned that it's easy to fall, but it's also easy to get back up again. I learned that if you write one story that's sci-fi after that everyone will write back to you 'this isn't in your usual style but..." as if you wrote in sci-fi all the time. I learned that most people don't take writing very seriously, but that's fine because I don't take anything else very seriously. I learned that practice might not exactly make perfect but it at least makes you better.

I forgot it was haiku weekend!

This is the last one
Like the T-Rex before it
Haiku Weekend dies

Another Rambling Post

The past is a funny thing. Science has shown that our memories aren't really the way things happen. The information that exists in our brains is slowly skewed over time until we don't even remember what happened anymore. We just think that we do. Memories aren't to be trusted. Our brains do funny things to us regarding memory. There's people who get selective amnesia, sometimes from post-traumatic-stress, and they're brains forget extremely upsetting memories to protect itself. Then there's people who suffer serious trama and get total amnesia, they can't remember anything, even their own names. But, no matter what soap operas want you to think, total amnesia is very rare.
I don't really know where I'm going with this, last time I just though "what should I write about." And my brain just said, "how bout love" and that seemed to work out well...I guess...I've just been really nostalgic lately (I think it's the weather) and memories seemed appropriate.
I'm going to stop now though, can't think of anything else to right about it.

Finals are on next week so screw it

It's Haiku Weekend
Celebrations are non-stop
Enjoy it you fools!

Still Tired

It's been a long day
So I'm writing a haiku
Writing can be hard

Tired

I'm tired, as in sleepy. And I can't think of anything to write so I'll just write something free form. Whatever.

I suppose I'll write about love. What is love? John Lennon once said love was all you needed. I think most people now-a-days think that love isn't real. I don't know either way really. Could it be that lust is what we confuse for love? Or that love is just something invented by card companies? To be benevolent means that one must love everyone, no everything, equally. With all of ones being. Is that something to be desired? Should one love everything as one?
What of hate? Without it there is no love. To hate something with every ounce of your being is the same as loving it right? Just two sides of the same coin.
Love I hear is more than just an emotion. I don't really know what they mean by that. I know there's unconditional love, like that one feels for a parent. But isn't that the same as an emotion.
But does love even exist? Or is it just some empty hole that has to be filled by another person so we don't feel lonely anymore. Not too long ago, nobody ever got married for love, that was when women were basically treated like property. But before then there was love wasn't there? That's why all those poets wrote poems. Or all the singwriters write songs. Or is all that just lust again?
Fuck love. Being human is confusing enough.

Risk

 I'm really busy all day today so I'm cheating again and using something else from my creative writing class. This is the last thing that was any good from there anyway so I probably won't do it again.

The prompt for this piece was "take a risk with your writing" and almost everyone in class wrote about themselves, except one guy who wrote about the game Risk.

Nathan Makes a Choice

By Nathan Mitchell

…

Hello?

…

Hello!

…

What is this place? It feels like I'm dreaming except...

…

Except dreams don't feel this empty.

THIS ISN'T A DREAM.

Ahh, what was that?

“Will he make it doctor?”

“Only time will tell Sheila, we've done the best we can. We're just going to have to wait until morning and see how he's doing.”

And what was that!?

Don't worry dude, soon all will be made clear.

SOON ALL WILL BE MADE CLEAR.

See?

Okay...um...What?!

(i'm sitting in my corner, facing away, they can't see my face, they can't see me cry.)

Oh great, I guess the gangs all here.

Okay, I'm confused, could someone please just explain it to me?

SOON ALL WILL BE MADE CLEAR.

That's really not helping.

Sorry about him man, he's not much of a conversationalist.

What about you? Can you tell me what's going on?

I'd like to man, but...

But I have to figure it out on my own.

Yeah, something like that.

Okay, fine. Let's see, what's the last thing I remember...

You're standing in Eric's garage. It's nighttime and you Andy and Eric are all standing around messing with Eric's camera. You're trying to all punch each other simultaneously and get a picture of it. It can't be something staged, you keep saying, it has to be natural. The three of you are all obviously drunk.

(they don't care about me. they'd fuck me over in a moments notice if only to benefit themselves. they've done it before. i'm sorry.)

This just keeps on getting weirder and weirder. I don't think anythings been made any clearer.

Hmm...well dude, maybe you should start at the beginning.

The beginning?

Yeah, like, the very beginning.

Oh, well, that was a long time ago...

You're lying in bed, staring up at your white, tiled ceiling. You're thinking that you have to get up and go down to breakfast. You know your older sisters will be getting ready for school right now and you're jealous. They're told you just how much fun school is and you can't wait to go next year.

(my first day of school i was beat up in the bathroom stall and left crying on the floor as the rest of the kids went to lunch. other kids knew even then that i was different from them. that i was a weirdo. nobody likes me. i'm sorry.)

Oh God, is that going to happen every time I think about the past.

Probably Dude, but I just meant...

YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE.

Yeah, I was just getting to that. What I meant before was that you should just with your name and age.

That's easy. My name is Nathan Mitchell and I'm nearly 23. What did he mean I'd have to choose?

Well dude, you remember how you always thought your life was really going to change once you turned 23?

Yeah.

Okay man, today is April 12, 2007 and yesterday is definitely something I'd call a life changing experience.

What happened?

Dude, you're, like, the world's greatest detective. Why don't you figure it out?

Was that a Batman reference?

Yeah, I've always wanted to say that.

Hmm, well, I'm in some sort of dreamlike state, but it's not a dream... I'm not dying am I?

Ooh, so close.

YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE!

It's not so hard when you think about it.

Okay, so not dying...Guy keeps yelling that I have to choose. Am I choosing whether to live or die?

Ding ding ding, tell him what he's won Johnny!

And all of you are just different aspects of myself.

I knew you'd get it eventually.

Well, I don't think you'll have to keep me here very long.

Why's that?

Because I want to live.

(DO YOU?)

Yes, well, I mean, that, um, I don't want to die.

Oh really, well, I think I'm going to turn this one over to the little dude. He'll show ya.

(life is pain. i used to think life was exciting with adventure around every corner, but they showed me. life is shit. people are shit. they don't like me, my father didn't like me, my mother never had time for me, the only adult who ever seemed to care was my stepdad john, and john, well...)

You're 12 and you've been cleaning the kitchen for 4 hours. It's late, past 11 and you have to get up for school at 5:30 in the morning. You're tired and as you finally finish picking up the last bit of dirt with the dustpan, thinking you can finally go to bed, John is there, again.

“I bet you think you're done don't you?” He asked from behind you, his voice always makes you tense up nowadays. Slowly you turn around, unable to speak you simply nod.

He laughs at you, “You're not done.” And he proceeds to show you all the dirt you missed. Didn't you think to move the cutting board. You didn't get from behind the microwave. These dishes aren't clean, do them all again. I know we have a dishwasher but you have to do them all by hand. Why? Because I said so that's why. Don't worry you'll get to bed soon enough, but no way in hell am I going to let you go before everything is clean to my satisfaction.

(i was up til 2 that night. cleaning the same things over and over again. nothing i did was ever good enough for john. nothing i do is ever good enough for anyone. nobody likes me. it's because i'm too tall. it's because nobody likes redheads. it's because nobody likes it when you're smarter than them even though i'm not. it's because everyone knows i'm different and everyone thinks that being different means being gay.)

Hey, hey, okay, so life was never really that good to me. That doesn't mean I'm going to just give up on it now. I'm not even 23 yet!

You're walking to Carly's house for the last time.

Oh great, not again.

It's late and you're a little drunk and a little horny. You know she's there and you've decided to make a surprise visit. You walk up her drive and open her door. Slowly, you don't want to ruin the surprise. You sneak your way upstairs and you get to her bedroom door. Carefully you open it, you try not to make a sound. And then you see them. Your best friend and your girlfriend both naked and asleep in each other's arms. They don't stir. You leave just as quietly as you came in. Completely unsure about everything. You were deceived by everyone apparently. You've been the laughing stock of West Salem.

(everyone knew, i knew it but no one wanted to tell me. with friends like that who needs friends.)

What are you saying? That shitty things happen so I shouldn't want to live anymore? Show me something else, show me my best memory.

You and Carly are both naked in your bed. You're making out and exploring each other's body with your hands. You stop for a moment and you notice an expectant look in her eyes. She wants you to take her. It would be the first time the two of you had sex together, and you're more than ready. That's when it happens, she looks at you with her big beautiful brown eyes and tells you she loves you and you know in your heart that you love her too.

(it was all a lie though, she played me for a fool. she didn't love me, she was just playing with my emotions so she could hurt me later. i can never let myself get so involved with someone ever again. love only leads to pain.)

Wow, I am just dumbfounded.

Why dude?

I can't believe out of everything that that is the best memory I have. If this were a Harry Potter book my patronus would look like shit.

(YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE.)

Yeah, I know I think I'm still going to choose to live, if only to make a better memory than that one.

IT'S NOT GOING TO BE EASY FOR US.

Yeah dude, we have a long road ahead of us to recovery.

(what if our life isn't worth living?)

Life might not be worth living, but dammit I'm gonna live it anyway.

(THEN OUR FATE IS DECIDED)

And Nathan's life wasn't particularly better in any way but he lived it anyway dammit.

THE END

Yin and Yang

This needs a rewrite but I was thinking that I might write more using these characters so I'm posting this now as is.

Yin and Yang

by Nathan Mitchell

If it doesn't kill you it will make you stronger,

But if it kills you, you'll be dead

-Jonathan Coulton

Zachery Morris was sitting at his desk with his typewriter in his shitty little apartment. He had decided that the typewriter was better for writing than his laptop. Less distractions. Also, he had gotten sick of playing Free Cell. He had something to write. Possibly the most important thing he had ever written, and he had been published in Rolling Stone.

He was having trouble getting started though. Writer's block can be a bitch. He glanced at the clock and realized that he had been sitting there staring at his typewriter for almost an hour now. Why is it so hard for me to think of a way to start this thing, he thought. What would Stephen King do?

He knew a moment later exactly what Stephen King would do (at least prior to 1990) and he went into his kitchen and came back with a glass of wine.

About two or three glasses later, just as the alcohol was starting to cloud his brain, he began to type.

Dear World, he typed. It's always easier once you know how to start, he realized.

Dear World,

What you hold in your hands is my final message. The body you find accompanied with this letter is, of course, mine. Sorry about the smell, which I'm assuming is why you found my body.

My name was Zachery Morris and I was 24. My mother's phone number is next to the phone. If you could inform her of my passing I'd be forever grateful.

He stopped. What the hell is this? He thought. I'm being waaaay too formal. “inform her of my passing!” This isn't a letter to my damned grandmother, it's my fucking suicide note!

He then proceeded to take the letter out of the typewriter and rip it into 10 even strips of paper. He took them into the kitchen and, as he poured himself another glass of wine, burnt them on the stove in a little pile. The smoke detector went off for a second but Zach just took the battery out and tossed it in the garbage on the way back to his desk.

He took a big gulp of his wine before he started to type again:

To whom it may concern,

Life has its ups and downs, mostly downs. I guess that's why I decided to kill myself today.

This piece he crushed into the smallest ball he could before taking it into his bathroom and flushing it down the toilet.

He came back and sat for two more glasses of wine thinking about it. He stared at the blank sheet of paper, thinking: What am I trying to get across here? What's the point? Why do I have to leave a damn note anyway? It's not like it's going to change anything. 'I'm dead now because I killed myself, you don't come back from where I've gone. But, I left this note for ya'll ta read.' I don't know why that voice in my head went all southern there, but it just seems pointless. What message am I supposed to convey? Something that cheers people up? Something positive and uplifting like 'i'm dead now, but don't worry, be happy.' what the fuck is that supposed to mean?! I doubt anyone would even care, doubt anyone would read my fucking note, and I seriously doubt that they'd think that a happy uplifting note would really be good for the time and place.

He started wondering what they would think once they found his body. Probably just why I did it, he decided.

Why I did it.

Why does anyone kill themselves? We do it because we're sad, or depressed or whatever you want to call it, but it's more than that. We do it because we've lost all hope. Because we dread getting out of bed in the morning, because we can't go another day of this dark, cold existence. We do it because there's just nothing fucking here for us anymore. There's no god damned pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. No dream job, dream home, or dream vacation. And there is no Santa Claus! Everything is ugly to our eyes because all the beauty was just a lie to begin with. God doesn't exist, just something else made up, this one to make us feel that our lives have meaning. But they don't. Nothing means anything. It's all just stupid fucking bullshit trickling down from our parents and their parents and their parents' parents, for generations. Just one civilization, coming from nothing, built on nothing, going to nothing. Forever and ever. I'm just sick of it. And I've consciously decided, as a sane, rational person, to take myself out of it.

Goodbye World,

Zachery Morris

He read over it once, and actually thought it was pretty good before he ripped it into about a million pieces and threw it up into the air to let it rain down like confetti. He decided that no note was good note.

Now just how do I do it, he thought.

This was probably a bad time to decide this, he realized. If one was going to kill themselves they should choose how first, then get drunk and write a note. I'll have to remember that for next time, he thought.

First he opened up a new bottle of wine and poured himself another glass. Then he checked his medicine cabinet, but he didn't have any pills other than baby aspirin. He also didn't have any razor blades other than the disposable kind. He wondered if he knew anyone who owned a gun but could only imagine that conversation:

“Hey, can I borrow your gun?”

“What do you need it for?”

“Uh...”

He found a rope in the back of his bedroom closet, about 8 feet long. He didn't know how to tie a noose but that's what the internet was for, right? As he sipped his wine he thought about hanging himself. He had read that if you do it correctly you break your neck right away and you die nearly instantly. If you do it wrong though you have to hang there and suffocate to death. I hear that takes awhile, he thought taking another big gulp from his glass, I wonder if I'd have enough time to jerk off while hanging there. Imagine if someone walked in on me doing that, 'oh no you got it wrong, this isn't what it looks like! It's actually attempted suicide that happened to turn into homo-erotic-asphyxiation!' Yeah that'd be good. But if I actually died like that everyone would think it was an accidental suicide. I can't have that.

He threw the rope back into his closet. He drained his wine glass and decided that he might as well just jump off of his balcony. Death by gravity. Fairly painless.

He grabbed his wine bottle, leaving the glass and went through the sliding door to the outside. The air was brisk on this fall evening. His balcony had a two foot high railing that he climbed up on, steadying himself on the support beam with one hand, holding his wine bottle with the other. He stared down at the ground below him, wondering if he actually had the balls to do it.

-TRANSITION-

Alice arrived back at the apartments just as the sun was setting. That's funny, she thought, the sun was rising when I left. That made her laugh a little, she had literally just worked from sunup to sundown.

She was a waitress at the Hob Nob in town. She didn't always work long days like today, but she needed the money so she was grateful for it. And no work tomorrow, she thought, I'm gonna take a nice long bath, get in my jammies and curl up with my cat and an old Humphrey Bogart movie. And then I'm going to sleep for a million years! That's what Alice was really looking forward to, the sleeping, the resting, the not-moving.

She was about halfway to the front door when she dropped her keys. As she bent over to pick them up she saw something out of the corner of her eye which seemed strange. When she glanced over at first she didn't see anything. Thinking it was just a trick of the poor lighting she started to turn away. That's when she saw him. A man standing on the railing on one of the balconies staring down at the ground.

She stopped and stared at him for a minute, not really knowing what to think. After a moment, she shrugged and walked over to see what was what.

When she got close enough she saw that he was using one hand to steady himself against a post and the other to drink occasionally from what looked like one of those over-sized wine bottles for alcoholics with little money. That's judgmental Alice, she thought to herself, You should never judge a book by its cover. Socrates said that.

She was almost just below him but he didn't seem to see her, so she yelled up to him, “Hey!”

He noticed her for the first time, and he swayed a bit when he saw her, “I was wondering *hic* if I was going to draw a crowd.” He said back to her.

She raised an eyebrow at this, “A crowd? I'm just one gal, guy. Is this some kind of one man show? I think you'd get a bigger group of people if you, I don't know, did this in the daytime, maybe.”

He stared at her in what seemed to her to be some kind of drunken, shocked expression, either that or he was about to sneeze, “Can't you see, I'm going to jump?” He yelled down at her, “I'm going to *hic* kill myself.”

At this her eyes got really wide. She stared up at him, she stared down at the pavement below him, she stared back up at him, “You've got to be kidding me.”

“What?”

She looked up at him with a curious little smile on her face, “You're drunk.”

The young man seemed to think about this, *hic* “What if I am?”

She shook her head, her smile grew wider, “What's your name?”

“Zach.”

“Well, Zach, I think you should first take a good look at where you are now, and then look back down here.”

He looked around the balcony, then looked back down at the ground, he did this a second time, “I don't think *hic* I thought this through very well.”

At this Alice couldn't contain her laughter, Zach's apartment was located on the second story of the building. He was only about ten feet above the ground (including the railing).

Zach was put off by her laughing, “You know, I could still kill myself from up here, I'll just dive straight down head first and break my fucking neck. What would you think of that, huh?”

Alice took a deep breath and calmed down, “Alright Zach, why do you want to kill yourself anyway?”

Zach was slow to answer, “Everything just sucks. Life sucks, people suck,” he took another drink, “I just don't want to live this life anymore, I don't want to be me anymore. I just don't want to be in a world where all you get is pain.”

“Hmm,” Alice thought about this, “have you ever heard the phrase, 'Happiness is a choice'?”

Zach shrugged, “I don't know.”

“Well Gandhi said that, and I think it's something you should think about, you know?” She tilted her head slightly when she said that, “you gotta learn to enjoy the little things, and to not make such a big deal out of everything. Life isn't always painful, though it can be stupid sometimes, you just gotta learn to make the most of it. So, what do ya say, huh? How bout you get off that ledge before you hurt yourself?”

Zach was feeling pretty ridiculous right then anyway, he was only ten feet up for christ's sake, and now here this girl was laughing at him, might as well pack it in, try to kill yourself tomorrow night.

That's when Zach, acting stupidly, tried to do three things at once, his one hand was trying to bring the bottle back to his face so he could take another drink, one of his feet was attempting to step around so he could get down from the ledge while his other hand let go of the support beam. This triple-action-coordination caused him to be balancing with only one foot on the railing, and with his shifting weight and drunken state, he proceeded to topple over the edge and land directly on top of an unsuspecting Alice.

You know those scenes in movies where the male and female leads fall on top of one another and they end up with their bodies pressed closely together, staring deeply into one another's eyes, neither one wanting to move away first, just trying to delay the moment and enjoy the closeness of one another. This was nothing like that. This was more the painful, twisting your ankle, hitting your head on a rock type of falling on top of one another.

At the end of it, Zach was lying on the ground, he looked up at her, blood was streaming out of his forehead onto the pavement. She got down next to him and was taking a handkerchief out of her purse to press against his bleeding head wound, “Are you an angel or are you the devil,” he whispered to her just before he lost consciousness.

-ANOTHER TRANSITION-

It was a couple of hours later when Zach woke up in the hospital. His head was throbbing. Partly because of the alcohol but mostly because of the head injury. There was a bandage wrapped around his head which covered one of his eyes. Looking around, he was surprised to see that the girl from the apartments was sitting there. He didn't get a good look at her before, but now he could see that she was wearing an apron, high healed shoes and was actually kind of cute, “What are you doing here?” He asked.

She looked up from the magazine she was reading, “Oh you're finally awake.” She said with a smile, “You gave me a bit of a scare there Zach. But the doctors said you're going to be fine.”

He started to sit up, but that only made his head throb, “Sorry,” he grumbled.

She handed him a glass of water, which he drank greedily, “I hope you've learned something tonight.” She said.

He put the glass down, “I have,” he sighed, “that I shouldn't try to kill myself.”

“And why's that?”

“Because I might live.”

She almost laughed, but then saw that he was serious, “That's...close enough Zach.” She reached behind him and started to adjust his pillow, “Not to worry about the doctors or anything, I told them that you got drunk and slipped, which you have to admit is kind of the truth.” She stopped with the pillow and took his hands in her hands, “Okay, I'm gonna go home now. I've had a very long day. I'll be back tomorrow to pick you up okay?”

This surprised Zach, “You're coming back?”

She laughed, “Of course dummy, 'if you save someone's life you're responsible for them.' Abraham Lincoln said that. So yes, I'll be back to pick you up and I'll make sure your all settled in when we get back home, okay?”

“...I guess so...”

She got up, and grabbed her coat and threw it over her shoulder like she owned the place, and she didn't just walk out, she strutted out in what seemed like super slow motion to Zach, and for a brief moment he was almost sure he heard a few lines to the song “These Boots Were Made For Walking” as she was leaving. He made a mental note to ask the doctors about his head injury tomorrow.

Just before she went around the corner she turned back to him one last time, “And the names Alice by the way. Chao.” And like that she was gone.

Zach settled once again into the hospital bed. He was asleep almost instantly.

Captain Ahab

I wrote this in my creative writing class. 

Captain Ahab Versus the White Hole

By Nathan Mitchell

Start up thought recorder program.

THOUGHT RECORDER BOOTED. WOULD YOU LIKE TO CREATE A NEW THOUGHT FILE? YES OR NO.

Yes.

NEW FILE CREATED. WOULD YOU LIKE TO TRASMIT THOUGHT FILE TO HOME WHEN NEXT AVAILABLE TRANSMIT BEACON IS WITHIN RANGE? YES OR NO.

Yes if possible.

ANSWER RECEIVED. START WHEN READY.

**

What follows is the final captain's log of the United States Starship Captain Ahab. This is Captain Henry Wilson communicating the last messages this vessel will never transmit. It's not possible anymore. Speech isn't even possible anymore. I'm using the Thought Recorder for Christ's sake.

Now, where to begin?

It was long ago theorized that there was a black hole just beyond the edges of our solar system and that this explained the curious revolutionary path of Pluto. The argument against this, of course, is that if there were a black hole that close to our universe it would have swallowed Pluto ages ago and possibly the rest of our planets and Sun with it. As of about three years ago this has been proven wrong. There are three things those scientists weren't considering: One, they forgot is that black holes are, well, black. This makes them completely camouflage against the darkness of space and so it's always been a bit of a guessing game to where exactly they are, so anyone could have easily missed this particular one. Two, they failed to consider that the bigger the black hole is the less gravitational pull it has. Three, they didn't know that rotating black holes have a wider area of singularity that's more spread out than stationary black holes and therefore they don't pull in as much as they do move things around them. We actually have what's known as a supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way galaxy (as there is one in the center of every galaxy) which is both a very large and rotating black hole, this causes the galaxy to stay a galaxy by holding all the millions of solar systems in it together.

The black hole we discovered (which was named Hawking after the late great black hole theorist and mathematician Stephen Hawking from the 21^st century) is not a supermassive one, however it is very large and rotating, which indicates that it is probably the formation of two or more black holes that have collided and been absorbed by one another in order to be created.

Why am I explaining so much? I know that everything that is recorded in this final entry will never be read or heard by another soul. What I'm really worried about is my wife, Carol, and our two kids Brian and Wendy. Brian just turned 10 two weeks ago. I got to talk to them one last time one week after Brian's birthday over a highly delayed video conference call. The last words I said to them was that I loved them all and I missed them terribly. I'm grateful for that. I hope they get on well without me. I hope my wife forgives me for making this voyage. But I had to, you know that, it was my baby from the start.

...

It seems pointless to continue, but I will anyway. If only for my benefit.

Three years ago, after discovering Hawking we began planning to make the voyage to study it. We've never had a black hole this close. Well, actually we've always had a black hole this close we just never knew about it before. I was put in charge of designing a ship that could get us there and back in a minimal amount of time while also allowing us to get as close as possible to Hawking without compromising the crew. While others, including scientist Diana Fillion, began work on equipment that would give us accurate readings from so close and also allow us to collect samples of what could be actual dark matter.

There was one other thing: a secret mission (so of course we all knew about it). One that would put us into the pages of the history books if it succeeded. We had a device, nicknamed William Clark, it was simply a module made to send back information, similar to the Voyager satellites sent out in the latter half of the 20^th century, except what we had to try to accomplish was to make a capsule that could survive the journey into the black hole and hopefully out of it as well. This was all based on the theory that if black holes exist, which suck up all matter around them, then white holes too must exist which would blow all that same matter out of them. This would indicate that black holes operate very similarly to worm holes. Even though the White Hole Theory is attributed more to science fiction than fact the people in charge of the operation wanted to test the theory just the same.

Two and a half years after we started our mission we were ready to launch. My ship is run on a design of my own creation, which operates very similarly to that of cold fusion. It's all very top secret so I can't tell you anything more but with this technology we could travel the distance past Pluto and make it to Hawking in just under 6 months.

It was only three of us, myself as both acting captain and pilot in this mission. Dr. Fillion to be our scientist and operate all the sensitive research equipment, and a government agent who introduced himself as “John Smith” (fake name I'm sure) who handled the technology involved in our top secret mission, namely, operating William Clark.

Once we arrived at the black hole we engaged in multiple thrusters located at different locations around the ship in order to keep us in a constant state of equilibrium just outside of Hawking's event horizon. An event horizon is a term used for an invisible line around a black hole which if you cross it you will get sucked in, if you go past this line than there is no longer an escape.

But using my own design we were kept stationary and safe as Dr. Fillion did her job and collected the information needed to complete our mission, and according to her we had some pretty interesting findings. Not that she ever got to explain any of them to me, whatever she found will forever remain a mystery.

Everything went wrong as soon as Mr. Smith started his part of the mission. Once Diana had completed her information gathering he was to launch William Clark and manually control it until it reached the correct point of singularity and was pulled into Hawking. Diana and I both knew that this was his orders, what nobody ever mentioned to us was that in order to control William for this long they would need to keep it attached to the ship by way of a long electrical tether which was directly connected to not only the nose of the Captain Ahab, but directly to it's computer mainframe as well, and I guess nobody told John Smith that being on just the other side of an event horizon meant anything going past it would mean immediately reaching that point of singularity and be pulled in.

This created the disaster, I've replayed the event in my head over and over again. Dr. Fillion had just announced that she was done with her part, and John started to do his job without telling anyone else that he was starting. Meaning that I wasn't prepared for the sudden pull forward and in that one instant we were suddenly drawn across the event horizon and doomed.

Einstein has said that anything approaching the center of a black hole will experience a slow down in time, I can honestly say this is absolutely true. It has also been proven long before I got here that anything being sucked into a black hole will go through a process known as spaghettification, which is exactly what it sounds like. Things, including the USSS Captain Ahab and all the people in it, are currently being stretched beyond our limits into seemingly infinitely long pieces of string. The pull is so strong that it will literally tare you apart molecule by molecule.

This is my current situation as of this report: Due to the excessive slowdown in time, I am experiencing a single millisecond that's lasting for years on end, because of spaghettification I am stretched out, head to toe, beyond my breaking point (I can literally feel my atoms being torn apart), and the only thing I can think of is how much I miss my family. I know that I'll never see them again, and I know this isn't going to end with my crew and my ship coming out of this one in one piece. But I can't help but think of something that Roger Tallman, a scientist friend of mine, told me once.

He told me that as long as the universe was infinite that anything was possible. Think of something unbelievable, and no matter how low the probability of it, somewhere out there, in the deepest reaches of space, it was happening. It was probably happening right this very moment in different lands, times and dimensions. That no matter how much you doubted that one thing it was happening right now in a billion different universes, it has happened before in a billion other universes and it would happen again in a billion more than that. It was statistically impossible for it not to be happening if the universe is infinitie.

So if the universe is infinite, and everything is true then there's nothing keeping me from going into Hawking and coming out the other side, coming out of the White Hole, and finding my family waiting for me once I get there. If it's statistically impossible for every circumstance not to be a reality, then this has to be happening right now in some universe somewhere. Why not right here? Why not this universe?

...

Here's hoping for infinity.

END OF THOUGHT FILE