Real Life RPG: Biology Specialization

Author's note: I tend to daydream that the world is a video game.  In video games, characters have different classes (wizard, warrior, etc.).  Why shouldn't people in real life?  People major/specialize in what they know best, and that is where they'd draw their abilities!

Biology general bonuses

• Target Mastery: Biologicals - All biologists gain +10% to hit and +10% to critical against living targets.
• Pre-med specialists can increase critical bonus to +20% against humanoid targets.
• Affinity: Science - All biologists gain an extra 3% effect with science or technology based items, including damage and healing.
• Evolved - All biologists gain +5% to all stats.
• Evolution/Ecology majors gain +7% to all stats.

Biology Buffs

• Inhuman Strength - Increases attack power by 15%.  This cannot be used in conjunction with Inhuman Speed.
• Inhuman Speed - Increases speed by 10%.  This cannot be used in conjunction with Inhuman Strength.

Biology Attacks

• Induce Mutation - Decreases two random stats on target by 10%-50%, value chosen randomly.  Also has a 10% chance to increase chosen stats by 10%.
• Genetics majors only: Induce Harmful Mutation - Decreases three random stats on target by 10%-50%.
• Devolution - Removes one random buff from the target.
• Ecology majors only: Trait Transfer - Steals one random buff from target and applies it to caster.  
• Enzyme Imbalance - Sabotages the target's metabolic processes, dealing damage and slowing their movement speed by 20%.
• Biochemistry majors only: Proteolysis - Slow effect lasts twice as long, and an extra 50% damage is dealt over 30 seconds.
• Nervous Overload - Overwhelms the target's nervous system, paralyzing them for 4 seconds.
• Neuroscience majors only: Nervous Stroke - After paralysis effect fades, target's attacks only deal 50% damage for 10 seconds.
• Drain Life - Deals damage to the target, restoring an equivalent amount of health to the caster.

Biology Ultimate Moves

• Genetics: Genome Rip - Transforms the nearest two enemies into mutated abominations under the caster's control, increasing damage dealt and attack speed by 50%.  After 40 seconds, the effect fades, draining the affected enemies of power, lowering their attack speed and damage by 50% for 40 seconds and increasing their damage taken by 20%.
• Ecology/Evolution: Apex Form - The caster becomes a force of nature, doubling attack speed and damage for 30 seconds.  During this time, 50% of all damage dealt heals the caster.
• Biochemistry: Biomolecular Mastery - The caster is able to alter all biological materials nearby.  Biological material may be converted into health for the caster or allies, or into catabolic enzymes, which deal damage to all nearby enemies.
• Neuroscience: Mind Control - Up to three targeted enemies are placed under the caster's control for 45 seconds.  Any beneficial buffs or auras on the controlled enemies are copied onto the caster.

Island Keyes

The first thing that Keyes saw, when he opened his eyes, was the seagull.  It was very close to his face, standing on the warm sand of the beach, and had a predatory gleam in its eyes, as if it still remembered when dinosaurs had roamed the earth.

Keyes sat up abruptly.  The first moment of disorientation was always the worst.  This time, however, things didn't seem to be so bad.  He was sitting on white sand, surrounded by several shattered crates and other pieces of wooden debris.  Smooth waves of cerulean lapped gently at his bare toes, and he could hear the rustling of the wind in the fronds of palm trees a few meters behind him.  Aside from the errant seagull, he couldn't see another soul.

The seagull was still giving him a baleful look, leading Keyes to take a step back, towards the treeline.  He glanced down at his own clothes.  He was dressed in a ragged pair of khakis, ending just below the knee, and a faded cotton shirt.  His pants appeared to be held up by a thick piece of rope.  He checked his pockets, only to find that he did not have any pockets.

A sudden thought made his eyes widen in nervousness and his hand shoot to his neck.  Thankfully, he felt the leather cord beneath his shirt and drew it out.  A large, ornate brass key dangled from the end of the cord, bumping gently against his chest.  Reassured, Keyes returned the key to beneath his shirt.  He still had his way out.

Okay then.  Still sending a couple of sidelong looks towards his beady-eyed companion, Keyes glanced over the wreckage littering the beach.  The wooden timbers appeared to have come from a sailing ship of some sort, although most had been smashed to splinters.  A few crates held glass bottles, most of them broken, and a white volleyball appeared to be floating in a nearby tidal pool.

"Well, this place certainly looks relaxing," Keyes commented out loud.  He reached down into one of the crates and withdrew one of the bottles that had managed to survive its voyage onto the beach.  He sniffed the neck of the bottle after wiggling out the rough-hewn cork.  Smells like rum.  He took an exploratory swig.  Definitely rum.

As he strolled up towards the gently waving palm trees, Keyes noticed the lack of civilization.  He was glad that he hadn't lost his key, but he couldn't see any nearby doors.  He took another gulp of rum.  At the moment, however, the lack of a door didn't faze him too badly.  The sun was shining, the breeze was blowing, the mountaintop was smoking . . .

Wait a minute.  Keyes dropped the coconut he had just scooped up from the beach.  He stared up at the mountain at the middle of the island, watching the plume of smoke swell and darken.  Even as he watched, Keyes felt a slight shudder under his feet.  This wasn't good.

With one hand, Keyes fished the brass key out from beneath his shirt.  He turned in a circle, searching for someplace he could insert it.  He could swear that the seagull was smirking at him.  Grabbing for a stick, Keyes hastily traced out a rectangle in the warm sand.  He stuck a board into the ground to serve as a makeshift handle, plunged the key into the warm sand just above the board, and turned.

The sand was flowing, but it held together long enough for the doorway to open.  Once it was at a forty five degree angle, Keyes wrenched the key out of the door.  He spared one last glance over his shoulder.  The volcano was now belching angry black smoke, and a dull red glow was emanating from the lip as the lava began to flow.

Keyes winked at the seagull.  "See ya never," he said, dropping through the doorway into the sand as the edges frayed and fell apart.

A moment later, the seagull was alone on the erupting island.

Rumblings

It is nearly midnight as I write this, and instead of sleeping, as I should be, I am lying awake listening to my stomach.

I don't know what I ate recently that is causing me such distress.  The disturbing rumblings that are rising up from my midsection may be due to the near pound of prime choice beef that I consumed last night (happy birthday to me, I'm twenty-three, oh god what am I doing with my life), or perhaps they are instead being caused by the copious amounts of syrup I consumed this morning.  I really don't know.

In any case, these sounds are becoming disturbingly loud.  Normally, given that I have my own room to which I am able to retreat, I would not be overly bothered by such emanations.  However, these are loud enough to cause my bed frame to slightly shudder.  While some of the vibrations are definitely arising from within my intestines, other sounds seem to be materializing out of thin air around me.  Several times, I have been startled by such noises, booming hollowly in my ear.

Currently, I am adopting the fairly safe strategy of remaining absolutely still, curled up and waiting for the bad things to go away.  However, a small but suicidal part of my brain is telling me, even now, that the best course of action would be to jump up and down, roll around a bit, work out all of the remaining pockets in a single stroke.  This is similar to the voice that tells me to shake a can of soda, ensuring that all the gas will be released at once and not trouble me any further.  While this may be technically sound advice from a purely logical view, I anticipate that the consolidated release will put me in serious, potentially mortal, danger.

I am currently experiencing a lull in seismic activity, but I fear that this is similar to the eye in the hurricane, the briefest moment of serenity before the next tidal wave crashes down.  I am in a trough of inactivity, nervously awaiting the next crash of chaotic release.  I know not when the next attack shall come, only that I must suffer through, and that it shall be gloriously horrible and destructive.

I wonder how gentlemen during Victorian times expressed sentiments relating to flatulence.  Obviously, these were not the topic of choice during afternoon tea, over cucumber sandwiches and small china saucers of the finest Indian import, but I am certain that several members of the upper crust must have documented such occurrences in journals and such, private writings that would not be shared with their fellow nobs.  I am certain that, although my vocabulary is extensive, I am still lacking many fortuitous words that would do an excellent job of depicting my current situation.  The loss of these journals is a grievous wound upon the literary world, I am sure.

Oh, here we go again.  It seems I shall get little sleep tonight.

Hay Bales, take 2

Author's note: After writing the last post, I'm not super thrilled with how it turned out.  I liked the idea, but I didn't like the storytelling, so here's another take.  Consider this to be a bonus post!

"Hey, y'all hear about what happened to ol' Ed, up north?"

I pulled my beer closer, took another drag.  I had been one of the first on the scene, but the flames had already been too high, too strong.

"Can't believe he got caught in that brush fire," the voice blithely continued.  "I mean, it's been a dry season, yeh, but I always thought Ed was one of the smart ones, he wouldn't be nabbed by something like that."

I finally turned in my seat, saw Jergenson was the one speaking.  Jergenson and I had never gotten along well; he had always seemed too eager to gossip, to speak ill of his neighbors as soon as their backs were turned.  A couple of the other farmers were turning in their seats, though, and they looked ready to share.

"Yeh, he talked with me a bit the other night, before the fire," one of the other farmers commented.  Benjamin, I thought it was, beneath a trucker's cap.  "Wuz sayin' something about his hay bales, that they were movin' around and such."

Another man, one I didn't recognize, nodded in agreement.  "Yep.  He was asking me if I had seen kids up there, moving them or something."  The man scoffed.  "Now why would kids want to go haul around hay bales, even if they could?"

"If so, maybe I could get 'em over to my fields, do a bit of work for me," another commented to a round of guffaws.  I took another drink.

Benjamin hadn't let go of the original idea, though.  "He thought there wuz somethin' inside the bales," he insisted.  "He wuz out stabbin' them, before this.  Said he kept trackin' em, they kept moving around his fields.  Had me out lookin' at my own bales, he did."

Jergenson sneered.  "Yeh, right," he said.  "Only things living inside the bales are weevils, if you're unlucky.  An' weevils don't move the bales.  Or set 'em afire."

At this, I slammed down my beer so hard that it splashed over the lip and spilled on the bar.  The others turned and looked at me.  "You leave Ed out of this," I said angrily.  "He might not have been quite right, at the end, but he died, and we don't speak ill of him."  I glared around at the others.

One by one, their glances dropped.  They turned back to their drinks, busied themselves in their alcohol, pretended that the conversation hadn't been started.  Jergenson tried to give me a hot glare, but it cooled and died.  Besides, I knew that, though they shrugged it off, laughed at poor ol' Ed, it had gotten to them.

Ever since Ed had passed away, I had been out, counting my bales, trying to see if they were still in the same places.  I had seen Wilkes, across the way, doing the same thing.  None of mine had moved yet.  But I was ready.  We all had a few gallons of gasoline sitting around.

Hay Bales

It took a long time for Ed to notice that the hay bales always seemed slightly different.  Each night, before he headed inside, he would patrol his farm, taking a lap around the edges of the fields, walking between the massive head-height bales that littered the fields.

One night, Ed noticed that, by happenstance, three of the bales happened to line up, pointing towards the old oak tree near his house.  He thought nothing of this, until the next night.

The hay bales were no longer in a straight line.  They had moved slightly ajar, so the line appeared crooked.

Ed lived alone; his wife had left him two years previously.  There was no one else on the farm, and he knew better than to try moving one of the massive bales before it had finished drying.  He didn't touch the shifted bales and returned to his narrow bed in his house, but sleep was slow in coming.

The next morning, between chores, he strolled out to the bales.  They appeared exactly the same as any other time - Ed was beginning to doubt whether they had ever been in a straight line.  To be certain, however, he had carried a couple half-bricks out to the bales.  He dropped one of the brick pieces next to each bale, in line with the center of the roll.

That evening, on his stroll through the fields of the farm, he paused at each of the bales.  The first two still seemed in line with the bricks, and he began to relax.  However, when he reached the third roll of hay, it was nearly three feet from the brick.

This time, even though Ed returned to his bed, his eyes refused to close.  He dragged himself back out of bed, selecting a pitchfork from the edge of the shed as he stumbled out to the field.  He stabbed the shifted bale several times with the long tines, making sure that he spread out his thrusts.  The hay bale didn't seem to respond.

Lying back in bed, Ed tried to think of how the bale had moved.  He briefly wondered if some nearby teens had come by, trying to play a prank, but he didn't think that even a dozen teenagers would be able to move one of those bales.  Besides, why would they be back each night, moving each bale only a few feet?  He couldn't understand.

That morning, he went back out to his fields, ignoring the other chores.  The bales had shifted again, he was sure of it.  He squatted next to one bale, his head pressed against the rough, dry straw.  Could he hear some sort of noise from inside?  As he knelt there, he could swear that a tremor passed through the bale; some of the straws rustled and shifted.

Ed knew what to do.  Back in the barn, on his workbench, an acetylene torch was sitting on a shelf.  He ran back, grabbed it, grabbed a bottle of lighter fluid.  The bales had dried enough to go up with a few touches of the torch.  Ed was certain that each bale shuddered, tried to lean away from the torch.  He ran across the field, tagging each bale, not noticing how the fire spread through the crushed stalks, gradually encircling the field.

He sagged after he set fire to the last bale.  He had done it!  He had gotten them all!  He stared around at the wall of fire that encircled him, his thoughts stuttering.  At least the bales were dead, he thought, his last coherent one.  After that, all he could do was scream.

Phobias, part III

Author's note: This is part two of a short story; part one can be found here and part two can be found here.

Having pressed the doorbell at the golden gates of Heaven, I sat and waited.  Of all the mindless tasks I've done while dead, this was probably the most frustrating.  There was nothing to watch, nothing changing, no sense of the passing of time.  I had nothing to track how much time had elapsed since I had pressed the button.  But what else did I have?  There didn't seem to be anywhere else to go.

Eventually, on the far side of the golden gates, I finally caught sight of something moving, something that seemed to be slowly approaching.  As the shape drew closer, it resolved itself into an old man in a white robe, shuffling along with his head bent.

I waited impatiently as the man drew closer.  I spotted him a good distance away, still, but it took ages before he reached the gate.  Pushing on the gate, it swung open just enough for him to stick his head out.  He peered shortsightedly at me.  "What do you want?" he asked, sounding somewhat grumpy about being forced on his hundred-mile voyage.

What did I want?  "I want to come in!" I said, exasperated.  "I've been waiting here for days!"

"Days, huh?" he repeated, eyeing me.  "Why didn't you just open the gate?  We don't lock the thing."

If this was an angel, I wasn't sure if Heaven was run any better than Hell.  "I tried - they wouldn't open."

He stepped back, letting the gate swing gently closed.  "Try once more, then."  I did so, and once again, the gate didn't move an inch.

"You see?" I cried, exasperated.  "Just let me in so I can get on with whatever I'm supposed to be doing!"

The man shook his head regretfully.  "Afraid you don't qualify, it seems."  He looked genuinely apologetic.

"Qualify?"

"You weren't good enough during this life," he explained.  "Everyone has the chance to climb out of Hell.  Some people don't, of course.  They think that they belong down there.  In a way, I guess that makes them happy, that they're being punished for the crimes they committed.  But everyone has the chance to climb up, to make it to Purgatory."

"That big tree in the middle of the field," I guessed.  He nodded.  "It was nice there."

"It is nice, and some people spend their time there," he responded.  "But not everyone is allowed into Heaven.  I mean, this is the big finale!  You have to earn it."

"So how do I earn it?" I asked.  "I'm dead, obviously, so am I just stuck out here forever?  I failed the cosmic test?"

The man grinned toothily at me from the far side of the gate to Heaven.  "Of course not!"  He gestured at the clouds beside me, where, totally silently, a hole had opened up.  "You can jump!  You'll pop up somewhere back on Earth, and you get another shot at things!  If you're good enough there, you can come in next time you climb up here.  If not, well, try and try again."

I eyed the hole.  I couldn't see the sea of green through it; the tube merely disappeared into the clouds below my feet.  "Couldn't I just climb back down to Purgatory?  Relax under the tree?"

The man shrugged one shoulder at me.  "Course you can.  I'm not stopping you.  Do whatever you want."  With that, he turned and began slowly shuffling back into the distance from whence he came.

I shouted one last question after him.  "Where is everyone else?" I hollered.  "I haven't seen a single other soul!"

He glanced back over his shoulder at me.  He certainly wasn't moving too fast to hear me.  "They each have to take their own trip," he shouted back.  "No helping on this one!"  I had more questions, but I couldn't vocalize them, didn't know how, so I merely watched as he disappeared back into the distance.

I pondered that hole for a long time.  It had been pleasant, down beneath the branches of the massive oak.  I had felt in touch with Nature, with myself, with the world around me.  But it wasn't really living, any more than I was really living now.  It was peaceful, but it was stasis, and it would never get any better than that.

I wondered if I had been here before, had been faced with the same decision previously.  I couldn't remember any previous visits, any past lives.  What if next time I didn't get in to Heaven?  What if next time, I didn't even have the courage to climb out of Hell?  What if this was the best I could achieve?

For a long time, I sat on the clouds, thinking, looking between the ladder and the hole in the ground.  Finally, I stood, stretching my legs.  I had chosen.  My mind was made up.  There was only one choice I could possibly make, only one that I could live with.

Figuratively, of course.

Phobias, part II

Author's note: This is part two of a short story; part one can be found here.

So eventually, after what could well have been years of climbing, I made it all the way out of that Hell-hole.  Heh, literally.  The climb was long, but the long thorns protruding from the sides of the cave made it fairly easy.  I really don't think those devils were too intelligent.

After I hauled myself over the lip of the cave, panting, I found myself standing in a grassy field.  The grass was up to my thighs, and seemed to stretch on for miles and miles in all directions.  Off in one direction, I could make out a single tree, but that seemed to be it in terms of landmarks.  What else could I do?  I set off for that tree.

As I drew closer, I could see that the tree was a large oak, its branches spreading in all directions.  What type of oak?  Heck, I don't know trees.  I only knew it was an oak from the acorns.  Swamp White Oak, maybe?  As I came closer, I could see that it also had something stretching straight up, high into the sky.  I couldn't make out quite what it was, but it looked long and thin.

I spent a few days simply sitting at the foot of the tree, resting and enjoying the view.  Day and night certainly happened here.  During the day, the clouds were always white and puffy, and constantly changing shape, hypnotizing in their constant movement.  At night, the sky was alight with stars.  I could swear that every star in existence had to be shining down on me.  It was breathtaking.

Of course, even the most incredible sights can eventually grow to be mundane.  After some time, I felt the boredom begin to return.  Since I still couldn't see anything else but the endless plain of grass, I started climbing the tree.

As I neared the crown of branches, I could finally make out the long, thin object rising from the center crown of the tree.  It was a ladder, silvery and almost ethereal in appearance.  I reached it without too much trouble, and began to climb, rung after rung.

Once again, I don't know how long I climbed.  Day and night both passed several times, but I was focused on holding onto the thin and fragile rungs of the ladder, and couldn't keep track.  I climbed through the clouds, until the tree was a speck down below.  Eventually, I was surrounded by clouds.  Every once in a while, a small hole opened up through which I could see the sea of green below, but most of the time I was shrouded in white.

Of course, the ladder didn't go on forever.  It finally came to an end atop the clouds, a fluffy white plain.  I cautiously put a foot on the cloud, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it supported my weight, somewhat springily.  It felt like walking on a mattress.  A few hundred feet from the ladder, I could see a set of golden, intricately wrought gates.  I was momentarily annoyed that Heaven was so cliche, but I still headed for them.

When I reached the gates, I realized that they were closed.  They didn't budge when I rattled them, but a nearby button looked suspiciously like a doorbell.  I pressed it.  And waited.

Part III can be found here!

Phobias

I have to admit, my first few hours in Hell weren't too bad.

First came the clowns, but they really don't bother me.  The big shoes just make them easier to trip, and after a while it's easy to see the fear behind the painted smiles.  They're just ridiculous, really.

After the clowns failed, they sent in spiders and bugs.  Come on, I'm a scientist!  I had to be quick on my feet to squash the poisonous ones, but they certainly didn't scare me.  In fact, I managed to befriend one of the big African Camel Spiders by tossing it some of the bugs I crushed.  I was considering naming him "George," but I guess at that point the devils decided that the arachnids weren't working.

Darkness resulted in a few stubbed toes and some minor cursing, but nothing major.  I actually find small spaces rather comforting, so I enjoyed the chance to meditate on how my life had turned out.  I'm cautious about heights, but they don't really freak me out - besides, once I realized that I couldn't actually fall, I had fun jumping from high ledge to ledge.  What's the worst that could happen?  I'm already dead!

I've always been a bit of a showboat, so public speaking didn't bother me in the slightest.  I may have been in my underwear in high school, but I'm pretty sure that the cheerleaders actually paid me more interest than I had garnered in real life.  I was charming one of them, laughing as she blushed, when that nightmare faded away.  Dentists?  My uncle was a dentist, and he wasn't scary at all, except maybe his breath.

The pit of snakes just gave me a chance to gleefully shout Indiana Jones quotes.  Dogs are just irrepressibly cute.  Needles are sharp, but much less scary than a dagger or something with an actual blade.  Lightning and thunder make me sleepy.  Blood can be unnerving, but when the devils tried throwing me in a swimming pool full of the stuff, it really loses its edge.  I think they gave up on that idea when I started doing the backstroke.

Eventually, I guess I was tossed back to the default punishment, where everything seemed to be on fire and there were spikes everywhere.  Here's a tip: once you're dead, you only feel pain if you believe that you are in pain.  Accept that you don't have a body any more, and the pain goes away.  I noticed that I was in a giant cavern and so, ignoring the jeering imps scattered around the cave, I started climbing spikes.

I have no idea how long I climbed.  Could have been days, could have been years.  It turns out that an internal clock is one of the first things to go.  Eventually, though, I reached the top.  Man, you won't believe what I found there.

Author's note: Part Two is coming in two days!  Stay tuned!  It can be found here!

Creation

He gazed out into the darkness, the nothingness, his fingers trembling with anticipation.  He could see nothing, but he felt the potential, building and sparking from his fingertips.

The first steps were always the same, a framework for later creativity to stand upon.  "Let there be light," he spoke out.  "Point source, coordinates x zero,, y zero, z one thousand."

Light clicked on above him, brilliant and blinding.  His eyes snapped shut reflexively.  He always forgot about specifying a brightness modifier.  He commanded the brightness to drop to seventy five, and then opened his eyes again to gaze out into the whiteness.

"Let there be earth," he announced next.  "Origin x zero, y zero, z zero, variation constant zero point two eight, z-min minus four hundred, z-max two hundred and fifty."  The land flashed out in all directions from his feet, the rough pixelated grid appearing in each square for a split second before it was filled in with generated terrain.

He paused for a moment to admire the newly created topography before his next creationary command.  He had learned early on to make the oceans and valleys deeper than the highest mountains, to help avoid cropping issues with the light.  The variation constant, however, had taken him years to perfect.  He nodded approvingly at the rolling hills that surrounded him.

His next command was much more complex, referencing several inserted templates.  Water was tricky to create, and he preferred to simply reuse the code that specified variables like light permeability, surface tension, flow rates, and so on.  Some purists rewrote their water code from scratch with each world, but he personally felt that doing so was just overkill.  He had written the original code he worked with, and knew every line.  He finished the command and watched approvingly as the bottoms of the valleys filled with clear water.

Now that the basics of the landscape were in place, he pulled up his assignment to check the specifics.  He was glad to see that this world was supposed to be lush with vegetation across a variety of biomes.  He had designed post-apocalyptic worlds before, when work had been scarce, but irradiated wastelands quickly grew repetitive.

He called up his subroutines and templates for grass, bushes, and trees.  He set the grass to a ninety five percent spread rate, where light levels were above thirty, and watched it grow outward from his feet to cover the distant hills.  Trees were next; he set a variable spread rate, from five percent up to sixty percent, knowing that this would give him both plains and forests.  With clumps of trees now dotting the landscape, he added scattered bushes, keeping them sparse enough to prevent them from obstructing the view.

Before moving on he stopped, drinking in the panorama.  The very first clouds were starting to form, and the sky was darkening from white to pale blue.  He coded a faint intermittent breeze, rustling the leaves of the trees and bending the blades of grass.

After a deep breath, he leapt up into the air, scanning for chunk generation errors as he flew over the land.  The buildings and animals would be added in later, lovingly released by their own individual designers.  For now, the world would wait, peaceful in green stasis.

He saved the new world, his creation, and specified the proper code names and extensions for the world to be linked to its project file.  He unplugged himself briefly from his terminal, stood up, stretched his arms over his head.  After a sip of rehydrated coffee, he opened his next assignment.  He called up a new file.

Plugging himself back in, he gazed out at the darkness.  His fingers tingled.

The Bear

It is definitely a bear.  No question about that.

I stare through my scrawny tree cover as it snuffles closer to my tent.  Fully grown, too.  It doesn't seem to have noticed me yet, but I think I remember reading that they have a great sense of smell.  Isn't that how they find their prey from miles away?  Maybe that's sharks.  In any case, the bear has found me, and that is all that matters in the world right now.

I try to remember what I've heard about bear encounters.  This bear has brown fur, so that makes it a brown bear?  It seems logical enough.  Now, brown bears can't climb trees, only black bears can, right?  Does that mean I should climb a tree?  The bear doesn't seem to want to attack me right now.

Oh, crap.  There's a granola bar in my pocket.  Can the bear smell that?  I haven't opened the wrapper, so shouldn't the factory seal keep it from being noticed?  I turn my head slightly, trying to figure out a path if I need to sprint away.  The bear has moved on to my backpack, pawing at it with a vague sense of curiosity.

Maybe I'm supposed to puff myself up, scare away the bear.  Do I roar at it?  I think I remember seeing someone in a movie rattle a tin can full of nails at a bear once.  I wish I had a can of nails.  Or am I supposed to play dead, and then the bear won't eat me?  I don't know what to do - I am paralyzed by indecision.

I end up sitting in that little grove of bushes for nearly forty minutes, watching as the bear disinterestedly paws through my meager belongings.  It does find the cooler I left next to the tent, but its claws can't gain purchase on the latch.  It bashes it against a tree once or twice, but gives up; maybe I am a tougher campsite to crack than most.  It never glances in my direction.  Eventually, the bear ambles off contentedly through the trees, never gazing back on the somewhat mussed and rearranged camp.

Maybe my encounter with the bear sounds anticlimactic.  I certainly didn't fire off a pistol or stare down the bear in an intense Man-vs-Nature battle.  But that chance run-in reminded me, and still does, of our own insignificance.  All it took was a few minutes in a bush, ten feet from a wild bear, for me to lose all my control, all my calm, all my knowledge and training and teaching.

Maybe someday I'll meet the bear again.  Maybe things won't go my way next time.  I hope I will be ready.

Rant: Email Sorting

So I'm going to take a day off from writing short stories to rant about emails.  I tend to sort my emails into general categories, and determine whether to read them based on what category they fall into.

Spam (From: ladksfjadlkfawe69696969@hotmail.com Subject: 3nl4rg3 j00r p3n15)

These are spam messages.  They are almost never opened, unless I want to get a good laugh out of how much bigger I could make various body appendages.

Updates and Deals/Advertisements (From: Cheap-4-U Deals Subject: Save 11% on Brazilian waxes when you bring a friend!)

These aren't spam, but most of the time I treat them as such.  They are almost never opened unless they pertain to something super relevant.  Most of the time, I can get the gist from the title of the email without ever needing to read them.

Facebook (That one friend you haven't talked to in five years has just poked you!)

These are almost always deleted, except for wall posts, which I will read in email format if I don't want to be bothered to visit Facebook.

Important emails (From: My girlfriend Subject: Innocuous title that could have deeper unpleasant implications!)

Girlfriend messages are always read.

Replies (From: Professor Subject: Re: your unexcused absence in my class)

Replies are always read.

But here's the annoying category:

Messages that are important enough that they should be read, but pertain to vaguely uncomfortable life decisions (From: Graduate program that raises feelings of unworthiness Subject: Information to know about applying to us, better have references lined up!)

These messages are too important to ignore or delete completely, but I don't want to open or read them - they just take too much effort!  I don't want to have to invest this much energy and worry in an email, so I tend to simply ignore them.  This results in them piling up in my inbox, still at the top of the stack, still patiently waiting to be opened, but never actually touched.  This, dear readers, is my procrastination.

Horrible news?  I'll read it and groan.  Great news?  I'll read it and cheer.  Slightly disappointing news?  I will leave it alone, never reading it, and put it off forever.

Homeless

Okay.  Time for my nightly tally of all that I own.  Let's see how today fared.

Four shirts, two pairs of pants, my coat, my shoes, my hat, and my gloves.  One of my shoes is starting to develop a hole.  That's going to be tough, because it's difficult to find my size.  Next time I'm at Goodwill, maybe I'll get lucky.

My sign.  I keep it with me.  Making a sign seems pretty easy - cardboard is everywhere - but I have to spend money on a marker, and that same amount could buy me a hot meal.  Every dollar counts.

Sunglasses.  Have you ever stood outside next to a line of cars in full sun?  It's agony.  I might seem less personable, less real, when I'm wearing them, but they save my eyesight.

My backpack.  Sure, having a picture of a superhero on my backpack may look ridiculous, but beggars can't be choosers, right?  Heh, heh.  That's kind of clever.

A pocketknife.  A knife does a thousand different things.  I thank God that I haven't had to use it on any people, other than to cut my own hair.  I pray that I will never have to make that choice.

My water bottle.  It is rather ironic that I got it at a job fair, from a realtor agency no less!  At least, I assume that it's ironic.  I don't laugh much these days.

My wallet.  Inside is five dollars for emergencies, my library card, and my driver's license.  I guess that's another funny thing, me having a licence but neither an address nor a car.  But there's so much that can't be gotten without photo ID these days that it is really worth the $20 that I need to spend every couple years to get it renewed.  And I don't really have any other forms of ID lying around, so I need it.

My journal.  I thank the college student that tossed this half-used notebook away; I've made far better use of it than he did, I'm sure.  I flip open to my daily total, count the droppings that people deemed worthy of donation.  I am worth $57.64 today.  I make careful note of this. 

It will cost me $20 for my bed and dinner tonight.  I get up and shuffle down the block to the local branch of the bank.  A few of the patrons give me looks of disgust as I enter, but I have become immune to such gazes.  One of the tellers knows me.  Her smile is the brightest part of every day.

"Here for your daily deposit, Mr. Andrews?" she greets me, ignoring the dirt on my hands, the crumpled appearance of the bills, the unsorted change, the smell of me.  Somehow, I am still worthy of a smile.  "How much did we bring in today?"

I hand over $37, and she makes a careful note of the amount, her hands so neat and manicured.  I am never as clean.  I don't think, even with a year to bathe and scrub, I could be as clean as everyone else seems to be.  She takes the money and places it in a drawer.  I used to longingly eye that drawer, the bills inside.  Now I am apathetic.

"Do you want to know your total, Mr. Andrews?" she asks.  I already know the total.  It is in my journal.  It is not much.  But it is my last refuge, my last measure of worth.  Someday, I will have enough for an apartment, for a job, for a life.  I shake my head and shuffle back outside, back into the cold, to make my way to the homeless shelter.

Writing practice: ACTION!

I sprinted down the darkened street.  Fortunately, the previous barrage had knocked out the power to the street lamps, cloaking my mad dash in darkness.  I could hear the blades of the helo above me as its searchlight panned across the ground.  They were still looking off to the left, where they had seen my previous muzzle flashes.

Up ahead, I could see the outline of the safe house.  They must not have decoded its location from the missives, or it would have already been razed to the ground.  Ducking to keep a low profile, I quickly keyed in the combination to the front door's electric lock.  The bolt snicked open and I ducked inside.

I wasted no time making my way to the concealed weapons cache behind the hallway wall panel.  Most of the items within were nothing more than I expected; I hastily reloaded my handguns with fresh clips, slipping reloads into the pockets of my coat.  A larger, bulky case behind the assault rifles caught my attention.  I heaved the case out of the compartment with a grunt and laid it upon the floor.  I flipped the latches open and lifted the lid.  Despite my anxiety, a smile grew across my face.

I stepped out onto the front porch of the house.  Frustrated with my disappearance, the helo had resorted to a grid pattern, and was even now slowly panning down the street.  I lined up the tube on my shoulder, squinting through the laser sights, and pulled the trigger.

Boom.  The chopper erupted into a fireball, a momentary artificial sun hanging blazing in the sky before crashing to the earth.  The flash of red lit up the light.  Unfortunately, it revealed another danger.

I cursed as I ducked below the railing and slotted another charge into the rocket launcher.  The death of the helicopter had revealed a line of tanks rolling down the street.  It would be easy for them to trace the path of the rocket, and even as I reloaded, the second floor bedroom of the safe house gained a new window.  I shielded my eyes as chunks of debris rained down.

I didn't stand a chance in a face to face confrontation with a half dozen Abrams.  Vaulting the railing, launcher still in hand, I unloaded over my shoulder as I sprinted across the street towards the commercial buildings on the other side.  The lead tank made a grunting noise as the rocket round blew it apart, but its fellows were already leveling their main guns.  I dropped the empty weapon.

The tanks couldn't catch me as I wove between buildings, but I could now hear the thwomp of another incoming helo.  My eyes strained as I looked towards the sky.  I caught the flash of a neon sign off the blades as the chopper swung down towards me.  The spotlight clicked on, sweeping towards me, and I knew that I'd soon hear the rolling thunder of its autocannon.

I dove unceremoniously into a bush as the helo swept past.  As soon as it had passed over my hiding spot, I rolled out, drawing my 1911 with one hand and grabbing for an alternate clip with the other.  I chambered the alternate clip and slammed it into the gun with a practiced, smooth motion.  The incendiary rounds tore through the fuel tank of the chopper.  "That makes two," I thought to myself as it burned a hole into the ground.

I switched back to normal rounds for the 1911 as I ducked my way through the darkness.  I still had to make it to the extraction point, but I had given my opponents something to consider.  I was not going to go down easily.

Conversation 1

"Look, I'm just saying that it's really hard to get published. Have you ever tried to enter a writing contest?  Million entries. We've got no chance."

"Yeah, everyone wants to be a writer. That's why I don't want to be one."

"What?  Why not?"

"It's like you said. Everyone is trying to be one, right?  Submitting manuscripts and stuff?"

"Well, yeah..."

"But no matter how many are submitted, only a few are accepted. It's an inverse. The more people want to enter, the lower their chances. So when everyone's entered, your odds are pretty much zero."

"Yeah, I got that. So I really might as well not bother entering then."

"But everyone's gonna think that. And all of a sudden the editors are all starved for material and start publishing left and right."

"So I should submit my writing."

"But everyone's doing the same thing. You've got no chance again."

"Lemme see if I've got this... There's plenty of demand for my writing, but only at the wrong times?"

"Exactly. The time to submit is when you're not submitting."

"I don't get it. Do I just keep resubmitting constantly, then, in hopes of hitting that right time?"

"Ah, but that's what they're all doing."

"I can't win at all, can I? Man, I give up. I'm out."

"And now my own chances have gone up, since you've dropped out!  That's why I'm telling this to everyone."

"I get it!  The more hopelessness we cause, the more hope there is for us. It seems kind of sick and twisted though."

"Oh, it definitely is. Haven't you ever wondered why all the most successful writers are so insane?"

"So I can't make it as a writer because..."

"...because you're not enough of a sociopath."

"I don't think I want to read anymore. I'm going to be wondering about the writer's intentions. Maybe I'll just watch some TV instead."

"TV?  Do you have any idea how competitive screenwriting is?"

Godsend - first glimpses

The godsend entered the village, and the people murmured.

It had been many months since a godsend had passed through the village.  Of course, there was always a few straggler, a few scraggly youths, sporting their father's rifle, the dirtiness of their clothes matched only by the glint of false hope in their eyes.  Those were not true godsends.  They had not made a kill.  They had not yet brought down a god.

This man was different.  It was something in how he stood.  The villagers could see that he was a veteran, that he had watched an avatar fall, brought down a god, slain the unkillable.  He walked with the clink of weaponry.  The villagers admired the long hilt of the heavy sword rising over his right shoulder, the pair of machine pistols hanging at his waist.  He walked with the deadly grace of a killer.

The godsend stopped at the general store, replenished his supplies of food.  The owner, Hanson, later swore that he could see the reflections of the dead gods in the man's eyes.  It was nonsense, of course; Hanson was known to make up stories for attention.  But the man was a godsend nonetheless.

The godsend did not tell the villagers where he was heading.  He did not tell them who he was hunting, whether he was in pursuit of a new avatar, whether he was tracking his next prey.  The villagers would not have known what to make of such information.  It would not have helped them.  The godsend merely continued on his way, passing through the town and out the other side, borne on the wings of whispers and stares.

The godsend was no longer quite like the others.  He was still a mortal; he still bled from his wounds, he still tired from his work, he still required food and sleep.  But he had gazed into the face of immortality and survived to pull the trigger.  He was tasked by Thoth to keep order in the world, tasked to hunt down those new gods who grew too powerful.  He carried out his orders.

He was a godsend.  His title was his job, his mission, his core.  The godsend exited the village, and the people murmured.

Reflecting on the GRE

So I took the GRE yesterday.  That’s right – grad school, baby! 

In any case, I felt that I could offer a few thoughts on it.  Sorry that this isn’t fiction writing, but I’m feeling slightly burned out and I figured that some nonfiction could snap me out of the funk.

First off, time management is your friend.  I am an incredibly fast reader (not to brag or anything, of course), and I still found myself keeping a nervous eye on the countdown timer.  Especially in the math sections, time goes fast.  There is an option to “hide the clock” – don’t ever do it. 

Second, the GRE is a section-adaptive test.  This means that, depending on how you do in the first sections of math and reading, the second sections of math and reading become correspondingly tougher to keep you challenged.  In my case, this meant that I breezed through the early sections, at times even wondering if I was missing some twist because the problems just seemed so damn easy.  Then I hit the second sections, and everything changed.

I made it through the first quantitative and verbal sections with about fifteen of the thirty-five minutes remaining, giving me plenty of time to go back and check answers, doodle on the scratch paper, try to pull up the Internet on the computers for a quick Facebook break, etc.  In the later sections, however, I would finish the last problem, without having gone back to check any of my work, and realize that I only had five minutes left on the timer.  So be prepared for a major jump in difficulty.

Looking back on the test, verbal really wasn’t my problem at all.  I can only recall a few words where I wasn’t certain of the meanings; some of this comes from the amount of time I spend with my nose buried in a novel, of course, but a lot of it seemed to be common sense, or simply finding the word that was different from all the other, similar, answer choices. 

Quantitative reasoning, on the other hand, was much tougher for me, given that I have not taken a math class in four and a half years.  Several of the problems were very time-intensive to work out, and while I am fairly certain that a formula or two might have helped to speed the process, I was forced to resort to brute-force computation to derive the answers.  I did end up scoring slightly lower in quantitative reasoning, likely due to this approach.  I wish that my study book would have covered more math problems, rather than focusing primarily on verbal, but this is likely due to my time spent away from math classes.

The thing that I love the most about the GRE is that it gives me the unofficial scores immediately after hitting submit – no need to wait 30 days for the results, as was required by the MCAT!  I find the waiting worse than the knowing, so this was a huge relief to me.  When those scores flashed up on the screen, I felt the vast majority of my anxiety drain away.  Of course, the writing sections aren’t yet scored, as they require human readers, but I at least know that my spelling and grammar was largely correct, so I doubt they will bring me down too far.

Preliminary scores: 167 verbal, 164 math.  We will see if these change when I receive my official report in a few weeks.

A Buzzing in the Brain

Foreword: I thought of this story late at night, and was immediately repulsed by it.  If you're squeamish or don't like to think of things in your ears, you might wanna skip it.

Buzz.  Buzz.  I can't get it out of my head.

Heh heh.  Literally.  God, I can feel it moving.

It all began in the bathroom the other day.  I was cleaning my hands but one of those tiny flies was buzzing around.  It was one of those really small ones, the type that are impossible to see or catch, but sound like a helicopter is coming in for a landing whenever they get near my ears.  The thing kept on swooping in front of my eyes and diving around my head, oblivious to my ineffectual swatting.

The damn thing finally landed in my ear!  Seizing the opportunity, I grabbed for a cotton swab while keeping my head still.  As soon as the swab was in my head, I vigorously ground it into my ear.

I had thought that the fly was just sitting on the surface of my ear.  Unfortunately, the thing had been perched right at the entrance to my ear canal, and my vicious swabbing forced it deep inside the ear.

The fly went berserk!  The buzzing of its wings sounded like jet engine attempting to take off inside my head. I could feel the sensation inside my ear, something painfully thumping against the walls of my inner ear.  I screamed, now clawing at the ear with the swab in hopes of dislodging the insect, or at least killing the horrible thing.

My attempts were futile.  Instead of dislodging the bug, it crawled even deeper into my ear.  I was on the floor, twitching, trying to find something to do.  Finally, after an agonizing eternity, I remembered that water or oil was supposed to wash foreign objects out of ears, lifting them up as the ear filled.

I grabbed for a cup sitting next to the sink and, panting as I struggled to control my movements and not flail wildly from the pain and disturbing sensation, I poured a cup of water into my ear.  At first, it did nothing, but then I felt that unmistakable sensation of water entering my inner ear.

Nothing was happening.  Nothing was happening!  I screamed again, from equal parts helplessness, pain, and rage.  But then, the buzzing ceased!  I felt a final brief scrabbling of horrible hairy lags inside my ear, and then the insect stopped its movements!  I threw my head to one side, and as the water flowed out of my head, I saw the hated fly emerge, trapped in the liquid.  I crushed it into oblivion with my thumb.

That was almost a week ago now.  The next morning, when I woke up, I could hear it.  A very faint buzzing noise that always seemed to be coming from my right, no matter which way I turned my head.  It's been there for the last two days.  Water won't flush anything out.  I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow.

I think it laid eggs.