Show off your writing.

[Archbob]

Here post you essays(no more than six pages please) that you have written. I'll post one now.



Why You Are Not The Center of the Universe:


Modern technology has had its positive and negative effects upon society. One of the pitfalls of this is that people no longer depend on each other as much for survival as they did in ancient times when bands of people needed each other for survival. Since people don’t need each other to live, some people have developed the despicable idea that he or she is the only one who matters in the world. These people foolishly think that the universe revolves around them. These people are often thoughtless and brush the lives of other people aside to get whatever they want without a second thought?
To those of you who think the world revolves around you, I have one thing to say-
--it doesn’t! The world was here long before you and will be here long after you die.
Generations of people who came before did not have you in their lives and did just fine.
What have you done to really affect the world? Did you create the world in 7 days? No, God did that. Did you start a new religion that gave millions a new reason for faith? No, Jesus did that. Did you develop a philosophy about life that influenced people for thousands of years or changed the way people looked at the world? No, those
accomplishments were made by people such as Aristotle, Plato, Newton, and Einstein.
So, if you have not done something earth-shattering, how could you possibly even begin to think that you are the center of the universe?
People who think they are the center of the universe often think that they should win everything they enter. For instance, a person enters a “reflect on the music
competition with a piece that’s relatively decent but not really a Shakespeare piece of writing and automatically says “When do I find out I won the 500 dollars?” Thus, this
person thinks that anything anyone else writes is not nearly as important or magnificent as his own writing. So, in this person’s, he must win this competition
because he thinks that this whole competition depends completely on his paper. If you are one of these people, I suggest you change the way you look at the world.
On this planet alone, there are 6 billion people. You are only one of the 6
billion. If you for some reason die, sure a few people will mourn for your death, but the rest of the 6 billion people couldn’t care less. To the vast majority of people in this world, you are nothing, and most people either don’t know you or don’t care about you. You are most likely not the President, the Pope, or anyone of great importance. No, you are probably just an average Joe in an ocean full of average Joes. You are a very small and insignificant piece of the puzzle that can easily be replaced if lost. The world(or universefor that matter) does not care if you live or die. The world will go on no matter what happens to you. In fact, the world cares little about the entire human race. All it has
managed to do is deplete the ozone, pollute the atmosphere, and drive other species to
extinction thus disrupting the ecological balance that existed before humans came into
being. The world would probably be a much happier place if humans never came to be.
The world went on when the asteroid killed the dinosaurs and will do so if some
disaster(such as nuclear war) destroys the human race.
So do you feel small and insignificant now? Well, you should. And consider this: the Earth is only one of the trillions of planets in this infinite universe. Most likely, other
beings, who are vastly superior to us have not bothered to contact the human race
because we are much too pathetic for their liking. So, you are only a very small part of a gigantic human race that is in turn a minute part of an enormous world that in turn is just a tiny speck in the universe. So, do not think for once that the universe revolves around you.




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Join me in World Conquest

<FONT COLOR="blue"><FONT face="lucida handwriting">
Would ya shoot someone? What if he also had a gun pointing at you?

</FONT c></FONT f>
Check out Arcade Portal and

 

[ASM]

Say thanks to all the great admins
Who delete your posts with evil grins
They keep flamers out of here
And make the trollers disappear.

They protect us from the jerks,
The losers, morons, and Kraftwerks
Without them, all would go to ****
And the average IQ would take a hit.

They patrol these pages all day long
In search people who do wrong
They make those wrongs into rights
And break up all the nasty fights.

They deserve our hearty thanks
For keeping order in the ranks
They work hard all the time
Keeping down corruption and crime

I do think that we really owe 'em
And that is why I wrote this poem
They need lots of recognition
For their devotion to their mission

This one question I will pose:
Was the meaning of this prose
To praise the admins lyrically
Or was it done satirically?

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Sorry it's not an essay, but I felt like writing a poem and I figured you'd like this.

 

[MrSparkle]

Here is a sample of my novel int the making

Trembling with excitement Briggs slowly walked towards the archway. This was it. This was why he entered the tower, maybe even why they were sent out from Tosham in the first place. To find a lost relic left behind by the elves that will help the scholars at Ides understand why the elves left Hollen.

The archway was two feet away from him. Briggs took a deep breath, closed his eyes and walked into the archway. His eyes opened. A table stood in the middle of a small room. Four lamps sat in each of corner of the table. And in the center of the table lay a leather bound book.

It was a rather plain looking book, but it was in perfect condition. Along the spine Briggs could see something written in plain black ink. Briggs was the first person in thousands of years to lay eyes on elvish script.

Briggs doubted that anyone would be able to decipher what the book says. Maybe the Magicians Guild has a spell that could translate but no one else would have a hope. He felt a sting disappointment. Briggs wanted to know what it said. After fighting his way here to find it, he deserved to be able to read the book.


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I am disrespectful to Dirt! Can you not see that I am serious?

 

[WarandPeace]

Sigh, I simply can't compete with a Mastermind...

But what's the point of this gallery for essays?

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<IMG SRC="http://www.ltolstoy.com/photos/thmbs/t1854.gif" border=0>

 

[ASM]

Let me tell you 'bout a man
And this project that he ran
He made a great strategy game
Civilization was its name.

You take control of a civ
And try to make it grow and live
You can win it by conquest
Or reach the stars before the rest.

But the civs that the AI controls
Try to keep you from those goals
They'll want to rule all the lands
And grab the world from your hands.

On higher levels like Deity
The AI can be quite greedy
It's too mean if you're the leader
And watch out, it's a cheater.

Its triremes cannot be lost
Which lets great oceans be crossed
Its boxes are much too small
It founds cities with no settlers at all!

You'll agree the game is fun
Especially if it was you who won
It's the best game, you see
And can only be matched by civ 3.

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here's another I just wrote.. hope you enjoy it. <IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/wink.gif" border=0>

EDIT: typo

[This message has been edited by ASM (edited August 12, 2001).]

 

[ASM]

double post.. sorry

[This message has been edited by ASM (edited August 12, 2001).]

 

[The Green Destiny]

This is a story about being Awake, I wrote it about a year ago, Enjoy!
Sandra rolled over, lifting her left arm around the space where her husband should have been. It fell quickly onto the bed as his absence was discovered. She opened her eyes and stared across the space where the shadow of his body should have blocked her direct view of the clock on the dresser. It read 2:04am. She immediately knew where he would be, and put her nightgown on to pursue. It was time for him to realize where she stood. He was hardly ever in bed at night, and lately she could sense a restless depression that seemed to be draining the life from the man she once knew. The man that loved to golf, the man that took pride in coming home and making dinner, the man who stayed in bed all night. She knew that there was a problem and wanted to be patient with him until he was ready to discuss it, but she also needed a husband.
She walked upstairs towards his study, lifting the switch to the hallway light as she passed. She didn’t even bother knocking on the study door, she wanted to resolve this awful mess quickly and get him to bed. She opened the door quietly, but with a swiftness that meant she wanted to speak first. She knew he had heard her footsteps coming from down the hall, regardless if he had seen the hallway light come on. He was working in complete silence to avoid this confrontation she was sure. There was only the soft hum of a computer fan between the ear and insanity. She abruptly broke the silence as she spoke. “What is wrong with you Emery? Tell me and we will get you some help, do you want to go to the doctor?” Emery wasn’t shocked the slightest by her presence or her statement and he continued to look at his monitor as he gave a soft chuckle and replied. “A doctor, I’m too busy to sleep and you want me to make time to see a doctor? Truly sweet heart, I’m fine, it’s just that I have so much work to do I can’t sleep.” She looked at him with accusing eyes, one that always made her checks turn light pink with frustration and said, “It’s not just your work Emery, most people work, but most people also sleep at night. I need you beside me tonight, why don’t you come to bed, and I’ll rub your back until you fall asleep.”
At the age of forty-one Sandra was still an attractive woman; the purple silk nightgown carried red pinnacle designs that curved along the edges of her body displaying her figure. She stood at the door and awaited his response. He released a small sigh and looked at her. “I will be down in a little while, I promise, you should go back to bed.” She took an angry step into the doorway and rebelled, “You won’t be down, you’ll stay right there at that desk until you have to leave for work tomorrow. You’re killing yourself, and you haven’t stopped to think how your that affects your family. I don’t think you even realize you have a wife!” She turned and pulled the door shut with a hard jolt leaving him to his work. She was too tired and angry to argue her point tonight, and she rushed to bed forgetting the light in the hall.
It was quick and mechanical, “tip tap.” The resounding noise had startled him from his thoughts and he turned the monitor off quickly. Reasoning that the darkness in the room might carry the sound better if it happened again and he could get a conclusive idea of what it had been. There weren’t many sounds in this house that he hadn’t heard, and this one was different. When his eyes adjusted he saw a fait light resonating from the up the hallway coming under the door and onto the wooden floor of his study. “Tip tap,” it came again with a deeper beat, he thought of his wife, that maybe she was up in the early morning to start a fresh pot of coffee, to initiate process of making up for the argument that had erupted a few hours before. With this thought he was happy to hear anything, besides the scattered monotonous sounds of a chattering keyboard.
Emery Tal had been in his study for over eight hours going over the all the books one more time. He knew his wife needed him, but it was their future at stake. He had owned his own company for three years now, and he was sure that it would still become profitable. His heart, soul, and personal savings had went into the idea of writing a computer program that would, record, translate, and speak two or more spoken languages simultaneously, a feat that the modern world had yet to accomplish. But now it looked as though his quest had ended, the company was going under quickly and he was financially impoverished. He couldn’t recall the last night he was able to sleep without the matter on his mind, it was bringing him down and even his wife had noticed a problem. He forfeited that maybe his mind just needed a break and the sounds where in his head. He ran his hand through his graying brown hair and reassured himself that if a burglar had broken in without his knowledge that he would at least have the common sense not to turn on the light. But the sound seemed to come from inside the study, a pounding echo, and again it beat. His curiosity about the noise matured into concern and he started for the door.
Getting up made his back hurt form sitting at his desk for so long, and he had to stretch for a moment before he could actually move. It was an intense effort that drained away his stamina, he felt weak and isolated in the emptiness the night delivered. Emery reached for the lamp switch as he gazed past darkness to the lock on the door. The desk lamp refused to relinquish it’s light but he saw the door was unlocked. As he stepped away from his desk he began to look around the study. It was calmer now that he had stopped working and he could see the digital clock on the bookshelf illuminated by the moonlight through the open curtains. It read 4:05am. Emery’s journey to the door ended and as he turned the doorknob he was meet with a flash of light so bright that it paralyzed his body. His first thought was that there had been some sort of explosion, and somehow the light had reached him from the hall window. But when the sharp pain shot into the back of his eyes he knew he was dying.
Emery slowly opened his eyes to look around but the darkness swallowed his sight. He drew his hand up close to his face, but his eyes failed to cross at the sight. The noticed the air smelled stale as he dropped his hand. His feet felt ******** to any sign of solid ground below him. Then he caught the movement of a rolling band of light closing in from the outer realms of his vision. It converged to a point only a few feet from his location. It began to glow with a mixing circle of purple and red design. The light extended vertically and came to focus on the draping silk before his eyes. Emery reached to touch the cheek of his wife’s face, but she begins to fade and flickers away like bright star on a cloudy night before he can fill his desire. Then it was dark again. His knees finally buckled as his placid body hit the floor.
The loud thump his body made on the hollow wooden floor woke her for the second time. She found him lying in front of his study door, eyes opened in a daze, hand stretched out, as if trying to take something that wasn't there. When she saw that his eyes where open she somehow knew that he was still alive. She had acted quickly calling 911, but she did not know how to perform CPR so she sat beside him on the floor with his head in her lap stoking his hair with her hand. She held her tears back in fear that if she cried he would not live. She whispered the bedtime prayer she had taught all of their children when they were young enough to speak and waited for the ambulance to arrive.
Sandra sat in the hall lobby outside of Emery’s room when a copiously dressed female doctor came towards her with an honest smile on her chubby face. She felt conspicuous sitting there with nothing under the coat that she had grabbed on her way out but her silk nightgown. She didn’t move as the doctor sat down beside her and spoke, “Hello Miss Tal, my name is Doctor Lindsey, your husband is stable now, but there is some bad news.” Sandra’s face widened with hesitation, "I don’t understand, what could have caused something like this?" she asked the doctor, as she stared at the checker boxed hospital floor. "Miss Tal, your husband is suffering from Hyperosmolar Coma, or in general terms your husband’s blood pressure and sugar levels have dropped too low to support his metabolism.” The doctor paused as Sandra nodded in comprehension. “Sometimes when this happens without warning for the first time the patient will become comatose” Doctor Lindsey then took Sandra’s hand into her own and squeezed it, sympathizing with the sorrow she knew this woman had to be feeling, but also preparing her for the bad news. "His health looked quite good on his last checkup, but sometimes this particular disease is hard to catch because it is easily mistaken for dehydration or exhaustion. Historically almost fifty percent of the people that go into the coma come out of it within forty-eight hours. There is a chance that your husband will not return from the resulting comma, or he could just wake up tomorrow, in any case these next few hours are going to be critical.” At that statement she could no longer hold back, and the tears overwhelmed her.
Doctor Lindsey held her close as a solemn rage entered her heart and her body started to jostle with cries of emptiness, why was this happening to her she thought? Had she done something so bad as to deserve this card life had so seemly dealt with such barbarity? She had faithfully loved her husband for twenty-four years, but it seemed just yesterday that they had first been married. There was always the heavy tow of achieving financial stability that kept him busy and out of pocket, and she was occupied by her social ring, and her new job as an assistant school teacher at the elementary her own children had attended. She remembered checking on him earlier to see if he would come to bed, and how his mind seemed to be so distant and occupied But she wanted to go back to the day before and talk to him, a long conversation about love and devotion. She remembered how he had kept explaining to her over the years that the hard work wasn't going to last but a few years longer then the business would be on it's feet and they could really relax and just enjoy life. And now that all of the kids where finally grown with a life of their own they could have that time that life had taken from them out of when they were younger. She started to weep again when she realized that all the time they had been given to spend together could be at an end. She realized that in many ways he had become a stranger to her, she felt cheated by time. If he didn't recover then she'd be left with nothing more than a heart filled with mourning and loss no matter how much money was left behind. The doctor interrupted the silence pulling away, "You should go home and get a few hours sleep, it's not helping anyone if you run yourself into exhaustion. We will call you if there is any change." At this she attempted a smile and wondered how she expected her to just leave while her husband lay unconscious on a hospital bed. "I have to call my mother now, then maybe I'll go home for some sleep. Thank you doctor, for all you’ve done," she muttered. Doctor Lindsey stood and shook her hand understandingly and then disappeared back into the busy hospital halls. She wanted to run back into Emery’s room and somehow find a way to wake him. The thought of having to live without him made her body go limp, she knew she couldn't go on without him. Sandra stepped back into the room and closed the door. She took the coat off and dialed her mother's number, in desperate need to find some vein of comfort. She had already called the children and they were on their way, but she needed someone now.
Her light green eyes were still wet with tears as she listened to the phone ring through the receiver. After the fifth ring there was still no answer, she thought of the time, it had to be at least 11am so maybe her mother was still out to lunch. She raised her wrist to look, but she had forgotten to put her watch on. She scanned the room for a clock without luck, but then saw that the nurse had left Emery’s watch on his wrist. She slowly turned his placid hand over and her eye’s squinted away the dampness and widened at the hands on the watch. They read 2:04am. She knew the watch should not have stopped because she had just bought it for Emery’s birthday a few weeks before. She gave it a hard “tip tap” with her index finger, but the watch failed to start. Again she tapped it twice, a little harder this time, with wild desire to make it work again. She looked up at Emery, his face was silent, his eyelids closed. Once more she decided to tap the watch as a terrible weight of sorrow flooded into her soul, but was recycled into a title wave of joy.
The first thought to enter his mind was the realization that the noise must have been someone taping on his watch. The light was blinding to his virgin sight, and a pale vision surfaced behind his eyes to reveal a swirled purple and red blur that became the silk of his wife’s beautiful nightgown. There was a faint voice the edge of his mind asking him “Emery, do you hear me?” He finally focused on her lips and the words began to register. He felt strangely alive as a new energy raced through his body. “Yes, I can hear you now,” he whispered quietly as he stretched his arm across the space where the darkness had been and touched his wife’s face.


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LIVE!

 

[The Green Destiny]

This is the first chapter of my autobiography, and it sets up the background for the part 1, the story of my brothers two struggles with Leuikemia, There is no doubt in my mind that this book will one day be published, Hope you ENJOY!

My Brother’s Keeper

I
My brother was always fearless when he was pushed over the line from delightful pacifism into distempered anger. He stood crouched before me in the runner’s stance our stepfather had taught us. I could sense the final play swirling in his mind. “Down.” I had beaten him every time this week and he had pledged revenge earlier on the bus ride home. “Set.” The ground was damp from the early spring shower and the moist greening grass matted itself to our clothes. It littered Adam’s healthy face and boldly declared its presence in the contrast of his golden blonde hair. The score was tied. “Hut,” our stepdad shouted, and took the ball into both of his hands dropping back for the pass. The half-square acre field behind my grandmother’s home where the three of us played was to be our new front yard. The end of the shinny new tan singlewide mobile home marked the back of the end zone my brother ran towards. I paced his steps and worried that the slick soles of my shoes would slip in the wet grass and cost me the game. Suddenly, Adam erupted with a burst of speed for the goal line with the seething determination to topple my rein.
I pleaded with my lanky legs to carry me faster when I saw his blue eyes twinkle in sight of the ball. I jumped with my arms stretched above my head to deflect the incoming prayer. But they missed their mark and the ball found my brothers hands. I closed my eyes and wrapped my arms around his slender body as we fell to the ground. “Touchdown,” Lee shouted with arms raised high. I got up quick examining the imaginary goal line to make sure he had in fact made it across. Adam followed in a slower effort holding his shoulder with one hand and caressing the victory ball in the other. “Are you hurt?” I asked. “I landed on a rock,” he uttered joyfully. “I told you I would get you today! Touchdown!” he yelled lift his hands to mimic our stepfather. Lee pulled his personally designed crimson Pirates Little League Football hat down to his thick black eyebrows, “Jeremy, you better watch out son, Adams gonna take your place at wide receiver next year.” We were already training for the next peewee football season, and Adam, despite his two-year deficit, was making better progress between us. I tried to demote the win and save some face in the mist of my coach. “Well I’m going to pack now, good win Adam.”
We were still moving our things across the branch from the smaller trailer on opposite foothill within sight of where I was standing. We were scheduled to officially make the new place our home on the approaching Friday the day my father was picking us up for the weekend. I hurried out of the field on my bike to the natural bridge that traversed the creek before the excitement of Adam’s win wore off and reminded Lee that he wanted me to pick up limbs that had been cleared to prepare for our new homes arrival.
***
For a young man at the age of nine moving can bring on a great deal of excitement no matter how meek the distance. The fact that I was aware of this knowledge only reminded me to use a little more caution in sorting through the silver metal chest. I knew there was no reason to be too hasty in my decision. The creek frogs hadn’t even started they’re afternoon croaking ritual and that meant there was plenty of time before the sun would say goodnight. I had brought my important personal items with me out onto the makeshift porch to sort through the toys that could make the final cut and be deemed valuable enough to take with us on the trip across the branch. The rain clouds where gone spring Florida Panhandle sky and the afternoon sun continued to dip down below the tree line. Bright rays of light escaped through the tall scrub oats and slowly moved they’re way across my face. One happened to find a direct path to my involved eyes, and distracted me long enough to turn my attention away from the broken plastic light saber and onto my brother walking barefoot up the driveway. Adam had almost made it past the old watershed opposite the tiny two-room tailor we were vacating in earnest when he called out to me. “Jeremy, come here and look at what I found.” He was holding a broken tomato stake in his hand and had turned to the corner of shed poking at something invisible behind the stack of half-rotten firewood. With one swift motion I lifted my legs out of my Indian-style seat on the porch and paced over to the woodpile to evaluate his find. “I think it’s a black widow,” he spoke with a voice of innocence, turning the wood over with the stake. The spider was crouched down in what was left of the broken web with her evil red hammer shinning proudly in the exposed air. I didn’t like the look of the angry beast, and voiced my disapproval. “Man you should cover that back up, don’t you remember grandma telling us that when you find a black widow you’re in for a spell of bad luck?” Adam nodded, verifying he remembered as he tried to coheres the spider onto the end of his broken stake. “It’s ok, I’m going to capture her, then there’s no way she can give us bad luck, go get a jar.” With that statement he looked at me to see if I would obey. Being the eldest I was accustom to given the orders, but his argument had enough logic to it, we couldn’t just let the spider go free only to allow her cast spells of bad luck on us after we were gone. I knew just where an old Mason jar was waiting that still had it’s lid, and hurried off to get it.
When I returned Adam had somehow corralled the undoubtedly frightened arachnid into a small crater in one of the logs that hadn’t been chopped. “Ok, I’m going to lift the stick and you put the jar over it.” My blood pulsed hard with the thought of being bitten by the widow. I didn’t know exactly how dangerous they were, but I was sure it would cost a ride to the hospital if my hand happened to slip. “Ok,” I said, “We’ll count to three and then you lift the stake.” “One,” We said it in harmony as I looked into my brothers eyes, “Two” there was no sign of fear in them, he knew that I would succeed and it gave me strength. “Three.” He quickly lifted the stake and I pounced on the hole with the open end of the jar, the spider rushed in and I slammed the lid down and twisted it on tight.
We both let out a sigh of relief walking back up the driveway. We migrated to the porch using the half extend electric tailgate of the white ford we had borrowed to move as a step. We sat down on the end of the porch facing out towards the branch and examined our prisoner. “I bet we’re the only people on earth that has a black widow for a pet.” Adam said. “I think I’ll go out tonight and try to find her some dead flies to eat.” I looked at the jar in my hands closely and then handed it to Adam, “well if you don’t put some holes in the lid she’ll never make it until morning.” I dug into my pocket and pulled out the Charm’s lollypop I’d be saving all day. The capture of such a poisonous spider was worthy of a small celebration. Adam lifted the jar above his head to get a look at the widow’s underside. “Your right,” he said, “I’ll go back to new trailer and ask Lee if he knows where to find the ice pick. That reminds me, I was sent to tell you he wants you to come down there and pick up those limbs.” “Damn, I thought he had forgot about that,” I muttered.
I was going to take the time to finish the toy draft and let a few more minutes of daylight burn before answering the summons when I noticed my bike leaning up against the porch. The sparkling ten-speed was my pride and joy and I knew it had to go on the truck first so I could wash the swamp mud off the chassis, but it would be a tough job by myself. “Hey Adam, wait and help me lift my bike up onto the porch first so I can get it on the truck.” I said, taking the Charm from my mouth. He stopped at the door and spoke hesitantly. “Alright, but you’ve got to make it quick cause I’ve got to get some air into this jar.” We leaned over and pulled the bike up on to the shaky frame of the rusty porch. I put the kickstand down and enjoyed a long slurp of the cherry lollypop. “Hey, you know there might be screwdriver you can use in the toolbox of the truck.” I hopped over the lowered tailgate into the truck’s empty bed and hit the lever to lift the gate flush with the edge of the porch so I could walk my bike right on. Adam watched me for a moment and decided to make the leap into the bed before the gate was fully contracted to get the screwdriver. His movement startled me as I imagined his bare feet getting caught in the moving hinge. I moved my hand a few inches, turning to tell him to wait when the electric motor came to a halt. I felt a sharp pain in the middle finger of my left hand and looked down to see what had caused it. My eyes came to rest on the sight of my middle finger trapped between the upper latch of the gate and the back end of the bed lining. My only reaction was to reverse the motor and hope the tip of my finger was still attached. The second the gate released the slashed vein the blood began to gush from my finger. The tip of it was gone, my eyes had confirmed it, but my mind was not yet willing to accept the fact. Adam had successfully made the jump into the bed, and I inadvertently pointed my newly circumcised finger in his direction. My blood flamed out onto his shirt and arm. My lollypop dropped from my mouth and onto the gate as I saw the look of shock on my brother’s face that only got deeper when I began to yell. “Mom!” I cried running for the front door. “Moma!” I knew I was loosing a lot of blood, and my mind wasn’t working properly when I grabbed the doorknob because I was unable to turn it. I didn’t want to get blood all over myself or on anything else matter, but the blood kept coming and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I began to feel apologetic and foolish for putting myself in this terrible situation. Adam stood behind me in a fright unsure of what to say.
My mother rushed out of the house in a panic with the look of maternal fear glazed in her eyes. “What have you done?” She took my face in her palm examining the red stain the lollypop and left on my lips. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Did you swallow your…” her voice trailed off as I lifted my finger from behind where she had opened the door and blood shot across the side of the trailer like Kool-Aid from a water gun. “Oh my god, son!” My eyes watered with tears as she grabbed my arm and took me into the bathroom where we applied pressure with a cloth. “I’m sorry,” I felt the need to apologize once again; we’d have to make that hospital trip after all.

The emergency room at Wiregrass Community Hospital in Geneva, Alabama was busier than usual, and we had to wait in the lobby for what seemed like hours. My severed digit throbbed with the aching reminder that the apex of my finger would never grow back. Adam sat across from me starring down at the blood stained washcloth my mother had found on the bathroom sink. “Does it still hurt?” He asked. My tears had dried, but echo’s of the pain still surged though my body. . “I think it’s getting better.” I wanted to show my brother that I was going to be strong in my misfortune. “Are you afraid to look at it?” His questioning blue eyes held with them a deep sorrow for the pain he knew I had felt. “I’m not afraid to look, but I don’t want it to start bleeding again.” I had been in this same lobby before when I cut my leg on and shard of glass constructing a hideout. I squeezed my hand tight around the rag and saw my mother walking from the front desk holding a brown clipboard with a pen chained to the top. Adam spoke before she was close enough to hear, “I think you should kill the widow when we get home.”
My mother sat beside me and looked around the lobby, “Where did Lee go?” My stepfather had driven to the hospital rather fast utilizing his abilities acquired from years of amateur stockcar racing and had relaxed the bladders of the entire family. “I think he went to the bathroom,” I said, still tending to my wound. She looked down at my hand and found some way to make light of the incident. “Well, you can always look at it this way, you won’t do any homework with a hurt writing hand.” I took pleasure in the thought of cheating the education system out of its tyrannous edification agenda. And tried to block my nervousness about the stitches I knew I would encounter soon. “I still don’t think it was worth it mom.” She smiled to reassure me she was not angry about the incident.
“The Green Destiny” the speaker boomed into the lobby. I saw a broad shouldered nurse bent over an ancient microphone traced by the bright lime wallpaper lined inside the emergency room. “Right here,” my mother answered loud rounding up her things. Lee met us at the double swinging admittance doors that would mark the entrance into the first hints of Adam’s illness. A male nurse with curly red hair and a mustache led us to a small cubical in the rear of the room. “Does your son have any allergies maim?” I could see my mother’s bloated stomach, nearly ripe with the fetus of my second brother as she walked beside the nurse. “No, he’s not allergic.” He rolled the blue privacy curtain closed around us and I carefully climbed up onto the bed in the middle of the tiny square. Adam sat in our mother’s lap as the nurse came to me. “Let’s have a look at it,” he said pulling the towel away from my hand.
I slowly looked down and saw the white bone exposed where the fingernail should have been and cringed with the next throbbing upsurge of pain. “How did you say this happened,” the nurse asked. Lee spoke out adding his normal dose of dry humor to the tale. “Well, you see he decided he really didn’t need but about half of that finger and squashed it in the electric tailgate of my truck.” The nurse cleaned the wound and shook his head. “Well, there’s no doubt we’re going to have to stitch this one up, the doctor will be here in a minute.” He worked quickly and put fresh gauze around my finger then disappeared behind the curtain.
Looking at my mother’s eyes as she gazed at the sliver lamp only a few feet above my head, I could sense her motherly intuition was still alert from the mishap. I wondered if she would still allow me to go to my father’s for the upcoming weekend, when lee began to speak. “I guess it just hasn’t been your day, son.” He said with slow accent of a country singer, “Adam beats you for the first time ever and you cut your finger in the same day.” I’d hoped that the conversation wouldn’t turn back to the game, but Adam wanted to savor his victory. “It was only a matter of time.” He smiled and raised his arms above his head remembering the catch. “Touchdown!” As the word left my brothers mouth my mother’s attention darted to his exposed shoulder. “What is this,” she asked him. The dark brown bruise wasn’t hard to see, and I remembered where he got it. “Didn’t you hurt your arm earlier today after the catch?” He looked back at me lowering the arm. “Yeah, I landed on a big rock.” My mother pulled his white Oakland A’s tee-shirt back up to examine the bruise further. “This happened today?” She asked, he shook his head yes. “Sometimes you have to sacrifice your body to come away with a victory, mom.” He said the words with pride and courage, unaware that his body was being attacked by merciless cancer. But they were words that would fill my mind as the doctor stitched my wound. When we left the hospital less than an hour later the nurse with the curly red hair wished us a good night. “Hopefully we won’t be back for a long time,” my mother replied putting her hand on my brother’s bruised shoulder to lead him out the door.


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LIVE!

 

[ASM]

The Green Destiny- Man, that is good writing! Just one suggestion, though.. learn how to use apostrophes.

Use apostrophes with contractions, for example:
won't (will not)
can't (can not)
wasn't (was not)
it's (it is)

Use apostrophes to show possession WHEN THE NOUN IS NOT A PRONOUN, for example:

the cat's
my sister's
my sister's cat's
Bob's

do NOT use apostrophes when showing possession with pronouns, for example:

its (the cat licked its paws)
yours
his
hers
theirs

do NOT use apostrophes when pluralizing, for example:

cats
sticks
cars
echos

do NOT use apostrophes with the 3rd person singular conjugation of verbs, for example:

he talks
she wants
it feels


I know you didn't make many mistakes, but still.

 

[The Green Destiny]

hehe Grammar is for the editor. . .thanks for your comments though I'm glad you took time and read it!

 

[Simon Darkshade]

This is a little English tute paper I cooked up between 0130 and 0230 at night. It is a "creative response" to Dr Strangelove, and has no aspirations to true originality or whatever.

“Mein Fuhrer! I can walk!” cried Dr Strangelove as he arose miraculously from his wheelchair. As he did this, the War Room began to shake with tremors, and he was cast aside with the rest of the arrayed officials. The lights illuminating the big board blazed bright, and then died into darkness. For several heartbeats no one stirred from their resting places, strewn across the floor like the discarded dolls of an ambivalent deity. The foreseen Doomsday was seemingly upon them.

A shrill telephone rang out, and, as if heralded by the noise, the lights hummed back to life. General Turgidson stumbled up and grabbed at the phone.
“Yes? Baby, I told you before not to call here. Things are pretty darn tense here right now- What? I see. No, it’s all settled down now, so just get back off to sleep, sugar, and Bucky will be back before you can say “Armaggeddon.”
He raised himself up to look over the other occupants of the room, who gazed up at him with a mixture of dread and puppy-like hope.
“Uh, Mr. President, that was just my secretary. There was just a minor earthquake in the Washington area, but the radio doesn’t report any major damage.”
“That is all well and good, General Turgidson, but at this moment in time, I would prefer to hear about that B-52 over Russia, and particularly its thermonuclear payload” snapped President Merkin Muffley.

As if on cue, a red telephone buzzed softly, grabbing the attention of the whole room. Three generals scrambled towards it, but only succeeded in crashing into a heap. President Muffley shook his head at them, and answered it himself.

“This is the President. Ah, Dmitri. It is good to hear from you. Very good.
You think it is good too? Well that’s lovely. What’s that you say Dmitri?
Your fighters shot the plane down? The bomb failed to explode? This is good news, Dmitri- what was that you just said? The Doomsday device has malfunctioned?”

This last piece of news caught the attention of the entire War Room. All the officials stood transfixed, awaiting the explanation. Even Ambassador De Sadesky ceased his intrepid covert photography, and edged closer to the President.

“It didn’t work because the computer parts had been stolen and sold on the black market? That is a relief. No, Dmitri, I’m not happy that the people’s property has been stolen. Now don’t get upset Dmitri, I was simply saying that perhaps this was in all of our interests. No, I don’t mean to say that it is in the interests of the United States to condone crimes against a sovereign state- Dmitri! Dmitri! Are you there? What was that noise?”

President Muffley looked up, his face a picture of aghast shock.
“Mr. Ambassador, I think you should come over here. There was a burst of shots, and yelling and screaming.”

De Sadesky waddled over and took up the receiver. “Tovarisch Secretare? Yob tvoyu mat! Da… da…. Spasibo, General! Dosvedanye.”
He looked up impassively.
“Nothing to worry about, Mr. President. It seems that former Premier Kissoff suddenly decided to retire from his post, due to ill health. I must return for consultations immediately. I do hope our next meeting will not be under such “extreme” circumstances.”

As De Sadesky glided imperiously from the room, Turgidson sidled over to the President. “You know, sir, if we were to hit them now, during what seems to be an opportune leadership crisis, we would really surprise them. I mean we could blast those Commies so quickly-”
The President took him by the shoulders, drawing their heads together and looking the General in the eyes. “I think we’ve all probably had our fill of nuclear war for one day, General. Now is a time for patience, I believe.”

Looking up over the room, President Muffley addressed the gathered men. “Gentlemen, we have seen today what can happen. We have a lot of work to do now, and I might also add, none of this ever happened.”
-----------------------------------------
(Six months later, those involved have all seen their fortunes rise as a result of what is now known in secret archives as “The Ripper Bombers Crisis”. General Turgidson overcame his initial disappointment with the failure of the ‘war’, and was promoted to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He immediately went on indefinite study leave with a group of two dozen female secretaries to study the feasibility of the mineshaft proposal.
Colonel ‘Bat’ Guano was made a general, and subsequently appointed military attache to the Maldives. The late General Ripper was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honour posthumously, and was buried in a fresh water lake. Dr. Strangelove spent a great deal of time in public view, featuring on the cover of Time Magazine for his invaluable work in the US space program, until he took a protracted vacation to visit some “old colleagues” in South America. Group Captain Mandrake returned to the RAF, and shortly afterwards retired to his families seat in the House of Lords, where he became Lord Fforbes-Nazi.
Of the others in the War Room that day, some 24 had either died of very natural causes, or retired to isolation.
In the Soviet Union, Dmitri Kissoff was “retired” to a country dacha (actually a shallow grave in the woods), and replaced by a troika of Leonid Raisinez, Alexei Costygun, and former Ambassador De Sadesky, who was awarded the Order of Lenin for services to Soviet photography.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sun shone brightly into the Oval Office, where President Merkin Muffley sat with his Vice President, Lee Harvey Kennedy, and his National Security Advisor, Dr Henry Kisser (a distant émigré cousin of ex-Premier Kissoff).
“So Henry, you mean to say we actually got away with it?” asked Muffley jovially.
“Most certainly, Mr. President”, Kisser replied in his trademark heavily accented English “My polls and reports tend to support the conclusion that the average American in 1962 has learned to stop worrying about nuclear war, and even love it to an extent. Definitely the deification of Jack Ripper through cartoons and cereal box toys has given the whole of SAC a public relations boost.”
“Do you concur, Lee?”
“Well, uh, I would, uh have to say that we should ask not what the average American thinks of nuclear war and SAC, but what SAC thinks of the average American. Good, worthy, upright citizens worthy of the best defence.”
“Except the Reds,” interjected Kisser.
“There will, uh, always be some exceptions, but-”
“And the beats, the Negro’s, the Jews, the fellow travelers, the hipsters, the bikers, the educated elite, and the urban poor, to be precise.”
“Gentlemen, please don’t act in an unseemly way in this office. What type of example will it set for Presidents 25 years in the future? The issue is that we never get to the brink again, and more importantly that the public don’t know about it. They do like to panic.”

The red phone on the President’s desk buzzed. He picked it up.
“Ah, Premier De Sadesky, it is good to speak to you. How are you? Fine, I see. We’ll leave it at that, yes. Now, how can I help you today? Yes, that deal about the water supply is still on, of course, as we agreed. You organize your dastardly communist conspiracy with fluoridation over here, and we fix up our capitalist imperialist sabotage in your lovely neck of the woods. You need a suggestion of where to start? Well, you could try San Francisco, there’s an area by the name of Haight Ashbury. No, not to worry, only a few ne’erdowells there who will never account to anything. OK, Dmitri, I’ll see you at the arms conference on Tuesday, and don’t forget the vodka. Bye.”

Muffley stretched back “Now, where were we?”


Sorry for the length, but it needs to be viewed in its unadultered form.

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Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you.
- N.S.Khrushchev