Theme Two: The Heist!

The theme of this story: light-hearted crime. The main character: unambitious traitor. The major event of the story: travel.


“Hey, I don’t care what you say”, the masked figure sitting in the back said, “it wasn’t stealing!”

“Yes...it was!!” the other masked figure in the passenger seat replied.

“It was not! They gave all that stuff to me....I’m serious.”

A loud “pffffttt” erupted from the passenger’s seat while the above streetlight’s beams passed over the car...faster and faster.

Another masked figure in the back just sneered in their general direction and sat further into her seat. “What did these two know?” she thought, but making sure she kept a tight grip on her evening’s stash.

“Well, I remember when there was honor among thieves...it wasn’t all about the haul. It was about working as a team....getting what you could get, you know?” the passenger turned around to look at his comarde, adjusting his mandatory seat belt so it wouldn’t choke him half to death in the process. Pulling out his nightstick, he waved it at the figure in the back. “And, just so you know, you’re lucky I don’t use this on you!”

“Oh, bring it on!” he replied, realigning his hat emblazoned with a skull and crossbones on the front.

“Ok, that’s it! You two knock it off right this minute!” the driver finally spoke up. “One more word from either of you and I turn this car right around.....no trick or treating at the mall....no cross town haunted house....nothing! Johnny, you’ll be splitting your candy with Stevie....don’t think I didn’t see you slide your bag over his as old man Peabody dumped the whole bowl out. Honestly, you two act like you’re hardened criminals instead of 10 year olds.”

Theme One: The Road to Hell ('s kitchen) (cont.)

The theme of this story: humorous transformation. The main characters: nervous cab driver and unambitious assassin. The major event of the story: funeral.


     Max fought back a hard swallow as the bile seemed to rise in his throat. This woman...this gorgeous woman...really gave him a sense of dread and for no real reason. She didn't look very menacing, but the way she carried herself...the odd accent...the way she constantly smiled..it just un-nerved him.

     "Yes, MaHx, you see thees fun-ur-al I am goingk to is for a very vile man. And I should know just how vile he vas...I used to be married to him."

     "Oh wow...I'm...I'm...sorry to hear that." Max stammered as he rounded the corner onto 34th street, the part of Manhattan known as "Hell's Kitchen".

     "Don't be sorry...he deserved it. I only go out of respect to his family. You see, they were vonce kind to me ahnd I owe them a debt that I can never repay.

     Feigning a knowing nod, Max slowed as the traffic thickened and the rain began to fall harder. "Well...uh...how did he die? If ya don't mind me askin', that is..."

     "Of course not, MaHx. You see....he vas keeled by a professional ahssassin." Another smile crossed her blood red lips, "He vas keeled by me."

     Max's blood ran cold and his fingers gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. The woman in the back leaned in put her palm flat to the divider glass. "Oh do not worry, MaHx...I haf geeven keeling up. Besides, that line of work was just a passing fancy as I did not make much money frahm eet...nor vas it very fulfilling."

     "Yer kiddin'.....right? I mean...you an assassin? You don't look the type...and, if so, why ya telling me all this?" Max had never been so happy to see an address in all his years as a cabbie and he quickly slid to the curb and put the car in park.

     "Vell Mahx, one thing my many, many years has taught me ees that confession is good for the soul...the irony being that I do not have....a soul." Gazing into the mirror, Max watched in horror as the woman's perfectly white incisors began to grow, the whites of her eyes disappeared, becoming pure onyx and two, small, horns sprouted from just underneath her bangs. "Besides....you vill not tell anywahn....vill you?",the now decidedly demonic looking woman said as she quickly resumed her disguise of just your plain old, gorgeous, brunette.

     Shaking now, and sweating profusely, Max's heart hammered against his chest while he shook his head. "No...'course not..I wouldn't....uhhh...uhhh...AAAHHH..." Grabbing his left arm, Max suddenly slumped over, his head banging into the top of the steering wheel as he took his last breath.

     "No, I guess you von't." The woman chuckled as she stepped out of the cab, her long legs carrying her to the door where a figure in a hood and cloak met her...it's face obscured by shadow, but it had a definite skull like quality. Setting what looked like a large, shiny silver, scythe against the door frame, the cloaked figure motioned her in.

     "There ees another vone out in the cab for you. Now, where ahr the hors d'oeuvres?", she smiled.

Theme One: The Road to Hell ('s kitchen)

The theme of this story: humorous transformation. The main characters: nervous cab driver and unambitious assassin. The major event of the story: funeral.

     The only thing worse than traffic in New Amsterdam was traffic in New Amsterdam....in a thunderstorm. No, scratch that....Max Tremble had found something worse than New Amsterdam traffic in a thunderstorm...his current fare. In the 25 years that he had been driving a cab for the DePalma Cab Co. he had never gotten a case of the 'standing neckhairs' like he did when he stole a glance in his rear view mirror. The gorgeous brunette in the black cocktail dress flashed him a smile every time their eyes met. While she was a definite knockout, a "fox" as they used to say when he was younger, she still gave him the heebies.

     "So....uh....where....uh...where ya goin' down 34th street?" Max ventured a conversation starter. Conversation always seemed to get him better tips, so he figured, why not?

     "MaHx", the woman said in some sort of foreign accent that Max couldn't quite place, "I yam go-ink to a fun-ur-al."

     Max's eyes bugged just a bit as she spoke his name, but then remembered his license plastered on the back of his seat. "Ah...gotcha. Sorry ta hear 'bout that....those things are never fun...er, I mean..."

     A soft chuckle erupted low from her throat as she shifted her position in the old seat. "Oh MaHx...usually, I vould ahgree wit you...but...noht in thees case."

     Now Max's eyes did bug out...."Huh?"

(to be continued...)

A quick note..

For exercise purposes, I'm going to try using the random story generator over at the Seventh Sanctum site.

Nuts and Bohlts: Operation Loose Screw

   A work in progress....obviously.

    No one is really sure just when, exactly, the human race started working on actual time travel. Rumor has it that the old U.S.S.R was one of the first organized (if you would classify the old U.S.S.R as 'organized') government bodies to say “Yes, (or “Da” as they said in the old U.S.S.R) let's actively look at traveling through time and, maybe, space.” Every piece of data I've ever seen on the subject also says that the Russians started this back as early as the 1930s...a sort of 'side job' while they looked to the stars and wondered how to shoot a monkey or a dog into the stratosphere. Ah, those crazy, vodka soaked, Russians. By the 1950s more and more countries were looking at time travel, secretly of course, as a means to not only make money, but to get a 'temporal leg up' on the impending Cold War.

Story Synopsis 1

I put this together about a year ago, but haven't done much with it....

The 'far, flung' future holds many wonders. Cats have decided to start speaking again, almost everyone can control the local weather, and nearly everything is automated. From the 'techno-boom' of the the early 21^st century came the “A.I.s” or Automated Investigator. “Sam” Bohlts was one of the first but, quickly, became outdated. There was nothing wrong with his neurals, mind you, but his plastonian endoskeleton, which was covered in a layer of generation one transdermium, just wasn't the technological marvel that it once had been.

Now, struggling to make a byte, he takes any case that the Agency offers. Even a missing sentients case. He hated, as much as a N.U.T (Non-combat Utility Tool) can 'hate', missing sentients. Mainly due to the fact that if someone in The Society was missing, it was usually because they -wanted- to be missing. Not everyone was happy in the utopian society that arose from the Great Collapse. Some yearned for the days of yesteryear....conflict, non-conformity.....adventure! Usually, locating someone in Newmerica wasn't much of a challenge, but a holo star with a lot of points at her disposal was a different story.

Write on, brutha!

     I've decided to try something a little different (for me, at least) in terms of 'blogging' to sort of help me regularly exercise my writing muscle. My personal blog over at Wordpress will be for the random thought, rant, announcement, etc., while I'll use this blog to try to write something....anything...at least once a week. I know it's going to be a tall order, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. To get things going, I'll post a story synopsis I came up with a few months ago and then the start of a variation of that synopsis. Good or bad, let me know what you think.