The River, Again

Dragging someone out of a river is always a suspicious thing to do, nearly as suspicious as dragging someone into a river. The boy, realizing this, took as much care as is possible when dragging someone into or out of anywhere, and made his way back to his family’s home, suspicious but unnoticed. The girl, although she was not aware of this, had arrived at a fortuitous time, as if fainting on the banks of a river could ever be considered fortuitous. The boy’s father had been away on a fishing trip for quite some time, and would continue being away on a fishing trip for quite some time. The boy’s mother, well, he preferred not to talk about that. And so the two of them could pass unnoticed in the small village by the river, although the boy had no such intention. He wished she would awaken and say, “I’ve made a terrible mistake, I must leave at once.”

The girl, having just woken up, said, “I’ve made a terrible mistake. I must leave at once.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” said the boy, though he was neither sorry nor very. However, he knew that it is impolite to encourage a guest to leave, and added, “Although you are welcome to stay.”

“Then I will stay,” said the girl, and stay she did, to the boy’s dismay.

The River

I don't know where this is going, and I don't particularly care. We'll see if I can finish it. No word limit, no editing, just an adventure to be had! And that's all you can ever ask for, really.

The boy stared at the clear, slow moving river that marked the edge of the small fishing village. He would soon consider this peaceful place enemy territory, with as clear a conviction as he now called it home. He would often spend his afternoons here, wondering at the glassy surface of the water, without even a ripple to mark a single disturbance. And this, to him, was a sign of a good life. He was wrong, of course, not about his personal philosophy, but about the large waves currently forming at his feet. A girl swam quickly to the bank, and to the astonishment of the boy, crawled directly toward him. “Well, that wasn’t too difficult,” said the girl, and she promptly fainted.

 

A Scarred Existence

I know I promised a longer piece of writing to break my hiatus, but I have realized that after writing just one page of it (tentatively titled “Wanted Undead or Alive: or The Spelling Zombie”) I'll need a bit more time to complete it. So in penance, I’ll tell you an embarrassing tale from my childhood. I forget my exact age in this case, such is the curse of childhood amnesia, but never will I forget the mental trauma incurred on that fateful day.

As with most Scotts, I have been subjected to extreme, and in some cases excessive, normalcy. My first name, and indeed all three of my names, strike fear in the hearts of very few, if any at all. I can’t say how many times I have knocked into someone, quickly stuttering an apology, and then realizing that I had inconvenienced a trash can, an object which no doubt did not appreciate or even care for my politeness. Stupid trashcans.

Anywho, by the time I had reached the second or third year of my elementary education, I decided that I need an image change. Scott, so plain, forever destined to like vanilla ice cream and enjoy the company of drying paint. I cast aside my old identity with a wave of my hand, a hand that waved directly into the dining table’s sharp corner. Undeterred, I looked at the small cut I had received, and my new name was born.

“Scott?” my teacher had called the next day. I went obediently up to her desk, er...I mean, badassly up to her desk. “Ahem, I couldn’t help but notice that while you received a perfect score on your spelling test, you put your name down as Scar.” I smiled. My plan was working perfectly. The teacher, who determined the fates of all her charges, had recognized my new name, and soon all the wood chips in the playground would tremble at the mere whisper of my new identity.

“Scott? Are you listening? Please stop using that name, I’ve seen it on your other papers. If you continue, I’ll have to mention this to your parents.”

And so my dream, my fantasies of a life of adventure and proper first aid were crushed. Thus concludes my embarrassing memory, and I hope you will be blushing so furiously as to remember my cautionary tale. Think of my warning not from Scott, your lovable blogger, no. Always be yourself, says Scar. Be yourself, or else.

A Fuzzy Update

Dear readers,

I’m not the type to use that expression, but I know someone who absolutely hates the phrase, so there you go. I don’t have writer’s block or anything, but I feel like a short break from the blog is good every now and then. I guess you’ve noticed that I don’t live up to the title here even in the most productive of times. However! I’ve been thinking of this interesting idea during my time in the shower, and gosh you didn’t need to know that. But hey, Camus was a well known shower thinker, and look at him now. Dead. Um, but alive in all of our hearts, you know? What a guy. Ahem, so yes, that should be a somewhat longer piece of writing, and as soon as I finish it, this will be the first place to see it.

Interesting story, by the by, and I say that very lightly, as interesting things rarely happen to me. I settle for the mediocre. Well, I was playing tennis the other day, about the only obsession in my life, and I had an interesting realization about my vision. For those who don’t know, and I will assume that’s all of you, my eyes are about as effective as a drunken eagle’s. So...halfway decent. I have an odd mix of one eye which is far sighted, and the other near sighted. I’ve never really used glasses, though, so my brain has grown accustomed to managing. It manages all right, almost too well. This became rather apparent to me when I tried to put on a new pair of glasses while playing tennis. With the new correction, I could barely see the ball at all! As it came toward me, it split into two images. Weird, I know. So after whiffing on a few balls and hitting a few unlucky pigeons (that’s not true) I took the cursed pair off. It turns out, and this is just an educated guess on my part, that my brain shifts from one eye to the next as their respective strengths are needed. When the ball is far away, I use my left eye, and as it comes closer, I use my right. After playing for years and years in this manner, it’s too late to go back, and my brain keeps the same tactic even with glasses on.

So...no punchline, just something I found fascinating. Until next time.

If you call someone dreamy, does that mean they're forgettable?

I have a few ideas swirling around in my head for a couple of stories, all of which would take minutes to write, but for some reason I don’t feel up to it. Chalk it up to laziness, warm weather, or laissez faire politics, but today is not the day for 100 words. Instead, I want to talk about something real. Something so underrated, it never sees the light of day. I want to talk...about dreams.

I had a dream a few nights ago that I still remember rather clearly, which is rare for me. Usually I can remember the situation, or an interesting event, but it fades away after a few minutes. Or, in a lot of situations, I don’t dream at all. Now, I’ve thought about this for a bit (Otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this, but that should be obvious, so let me get to my point) and I’ve found that there are three exceptions to my apparent dream amnesia.

1)    I know someone in the dream. Whether it’s about them, or they’re just randomly there, it doesn’t matter, having someone you know allows you to cling to the situation surrounding them. The whole dream might not come back, but you’ll say “Oh, so and so was in my dream, they ate a cheese sandwich” and you’ll feel all warm and fuzzy inside knowing that they make an impact in your sub-consciousness. I still remember a dream in which a certain someone stabbed me in the chest with a hot iron. Needless to say, I woke up rather quickly. You know who you are!!! Which leads me to my next point.

2)    The dream puts me in a life-threatening situation. Nothing says a dream to remember like your mother driving you off a cliff or your father being chased by a serial killer. I can still remember a lot of the details of both dreams, even though they occurred many months or years ago. Dreams in this case behave like memories. People rarely remember what they had for afternoon tea, but they might remember that their butler poisoned their crumpets and in a wild plot twist the maid was their mother and also a secret agent and foiled the butler’s plans to inherit the estate. So...yes.

3)    However, this third situation doesn’t really scream “remember me!” In these dreams, I’m put into a very pressure filled situation. However, the pressure is always artificial and in rather mundane situations. I have an essay due in an hour, or I forgot my bike key, or I overslept for a meeting with a friend. No wait, that wasn’t a dream. Anywho, these dreams are defined by immense pressure, the sense that something bad is happening and you have to make certain decisions that are unfavorable. And when you finally wake up, it almost comes as a surprise, as the dream felt so real. But then you realize that you don’t even recognize the teacher, or that you haven’t lived in that house for a few years. At that point a wave of relief rushes over you, and maybe that’s what triggers the great memory. Knowing that your dream elicited an emotion so great as to make you feel relief when you wake up, rather than the usual morning routine of...whatever. The dream in question involved a book report in which I had not prepared for. While I was scrambling to make something up, the teacher started calling names to present, and I panicked. However, he stopped the first student after one sentence. Weird I know, but it gave me sudden hope. I had chosen some book that I had never read, and I doubt even exists, but when he called my name, I just winged it. I went with a book I know very well, Watership Down. I started talking about the courage it takes to change locations and blah blah blah, and then he stops me after a sentence or two. At which point I wake up, relieved. But the feeling of stress remained.

Now, what can I conclude from such dreams? Why would I be put in situations where stress is being applied? Aren’t I sleeping? Shouldn’t I be dreaming about beaches and happy places? Well, my take on it is rather simple. My brain is either preparing me for the situations in which I need to react to high stress and being unprepared, or maybe it’s trying to teach me that being unprepared in the first place is no bueno. Who knows? I’ll have to ask the next time I travel to dream land.

A request, a plea, what have you.

You might have noticed a certain number next to the label I so appropriately titled “100.” Or perhaps you haven’t. I’m not one to judge observancy. Well, whichever it is, that number at this moment in time is 99. A nice number, for sure, but with the addition of 1 more story, I will have reached a pretty darn cool milestone.

However! I have decided to torture you for a while longer, and won’t write one for a bit. So I shall ask right now a favor of sorts. In the next week, which oddly coincides with some important finals, I hope to showcase some of your writing. Anybody can participate,

“Yeah, yeah, we know the drill, Scott. 100 words, and you’ll submit it before we can say ‘don’t submit that!’”

No! Nope! It can be close, but make sure that your story is anything but 100 words. 98 words? Great! 103? Never better! 101 Dalmatians? Sure, go ahead.

I have nothing really to offer you if you do help out, but you will always hold a special place in the empty void certain people call a heart. Thank you.

Find my contact info here.