Life is shit

My mom bought me a washing machine.  I won't have to ration clean clothes anymore.

That's the end of the good news.

I have a bill of 55.73 due tomorrow.  I don't have that.  I have $4.36.

Earlier today my mother mentioned the taxes.  That's $646.95 due on the 18th.  Of course I don't have that.  Way past due on the insurance, $270ish.  $60 due on the 19th and 20th.  Nothing I can do there. A bit more than $20 due on the 27th.

Two credit cards I previously paid off completely are now maxed out because the bills are always more than the money I have for the month.  As near as I can tell the SSA didn't even notice my attempt to get them to realize I don't have the mystical magical income they think I have, so I'm going to have to get all that documentation shit together again and mail it to them and then wait for an eternity to hear what they've decided.

And I don't even think finances are what bother me the most.

I don't remember the last time I got a good night's sleep.  My computer is acting up again.  For a while I had no email and it was like the world disappeared.  If I go outside I feel like I'm going die, and every breath turns my mouth to dust.

I end up trapped in the one room in my house with an air conditioner.  Because being sedentary is really what I fucking need right now.

I want to write, as in fiction, yet I'm increasingly of the opinion that it's not fucking worth it.

Lets look at my last story posts:

• No comments
• No comments
• Two comments, one of them me
• No comments
• One comment
• No comments
• One comment
• No comments
• Three comments one of them me
• No comments
• No comments
• No comments

And then we're back to the last time I had a fucking concussion.

Other than me three people made a grand total of five comments on four stories.

Quick and dirty, and thus probably inaccurate, word count.  I wrote thirty two thousand words of story.  That was enough to provoke four responses and one follow up.

Except, this isn't even about that really.  It's not like theres some ideal comment to word-count ratio.  No, it's about the eight out of twelve stories that no one gave enough of a shit about to say anything.  It's about those twenty five and a half thousand words.

It's about them because they're my usual.  I write.  I post.  It doesn't matter.

I didn't start Stealing Commas for me.  Yeah, it's for me now.  It's my primary way of interacting with the world in fact, but it started because people wanted to read what I wrote and so wanted it to all be stored in one place.

It felt good to be wanted.  It felt good for people to care about my writing.

But now...

I can tell myself that the lurkers still like me.  I can tell myself that people are reading, and they probably don't hate it,  But it's hard to feel it when the standard response to what I have to say is resounding silence.  I can look at the stats, too.  I might not be able to separate the spam from the real stuff, but I can certainly recognize patterns and most of the traffic is really fucking obvious spam.

Add one or maybe two people to the three that have made comments since I had the concussion, and that might be everyone who reads this crap.

And that's when the bottom really drops out.

This place was basically my one success.  The one thing I wasn't a failure at.  If I'm failing at it too, maybe I deserve to get kicked out of my house when I can't pay my bills.

I just had a birthday.  I looked back at my life.  Thought of the years passed, and couldn't really come up with much in the way of anything I accomplished.

If people cared about my characters ... that would be something at least.  They did once.  I don't feel it anymore.  I'm even letting down the fictional people in my life.

The Survivors - Don't know why

[The setting for The Survivors is probably best described here.]

"What are you writin'" the kid asked even though the kid's accent said the terminal g should be there.

Karen looked at the notebook she'd looted from the department store they'd hit.  What was she writing?

After a bit of thought, she said, "Confusion."

"What?" the kid asked.

"Since we're almost certainly going to die," Karen said, "I wanted to leave something behind."

"You think we're gonna die?" the kid asked in a way that was curious rather than concerned.

"Don't you?" Karen asked.

"You protect me," the kid said, "and you have a big gun.  How could anythin' kill me?"

"Your faith in me is impressive," Karen said, "and misplaced."  She sighed.  "Anyway, I've never kept a journal before, but I thought I'd give it a try."

Karen closed her eyes.  Thought a moment, and said, "But I couldn't figure out to write."

"But you were writin' somethin'" the kid said.

"Yeah," Karen said, "something."  Nothing worth writing, much less reading.  Still, the kid looked interested.  She finally asked, "Wanna see?"

The kid nodded.

* * *

Jack took the notebook and looked at Karen's scribbled writing:

I don't know what I'm doing anymore.  In a way, things have been so simple and straightforward since the trial.  Everyone believed I was guilty, even if I'd found a way out there was no one waiting for me, and nothing to return to.  So when Unisol gave me a new life in exchange for working for them, they owned me.

I lived how they wanted, did what they wanted, and just mindlessly obeyed.  I'm not even convinced it can truely be called living, but I was so afraid of prison that I was willing to persist as a mindless drone.

Then this.

Zombies, mutants, the streets running red with blood, and we're supposed to go in guns blazing and save the day.  I don't think anyone on my squad really believed that.  Saviors don't need to blackmail their minions into submission.

But the orders were straightforward enough.  Seek out civilians, get them to designated evacuation sites, and engage any hostiles.  It almost felt like we were doing something good.

Then we stumbled on something above our pay-grade.  It's difficult to say exactly what the special unit was doing or why they felt it necessary to kill those people.  I'd like to be able to say that I sprang into action.  I didn't.  I froze.

The third body hit the ground before I reacted.  I wasn't even the first.  It was Michael.  The one I never trusted because he was actually guilty of the crimes Unisol erased from his past.  He was the one who acted.  He was also the first of us to die.

We didn't save anyone.

True, we were outnumbered eight to five.  True, they had better weapons, better body armor, and better everything than us.  It was still a poor showing.  We finally tried to do the right thing and all it did was get three of us killed, separate Jacob and me --he's probably died of his wounds by now-- and draw the attention of outsiders.

And this is why I don't know what I'm doing.  Three people heard the shooting and thought they'd discovered rescue.  Police, national guard, Gun Nuts Anonymous, whatever.
I was able to save the kid only because everyone's gotten so in the habit of aiming at head level for an average adult that the initial shots passed right over him. the kid.

I changed my whole escape strategy, grabbed the kid and led dragged out of harm's way.  By the time the special unit adjusted their aim I had the kid around a corner.

It was almost like instinct, but that was one moment.  I keep on asking myself why I'm still with sticking with why I didn't

I don't know why I haven't ditched the kid.  I stand a better chance of surviving on my own.  I'm not a little girl anymore.  I don't believe in redemption.  When Unisol came to me with the offer to get me out of jail, get me a new life, I knew I was selling my soul.  If they believed I'd done the things I was accused of then they were monsters for even associating with me.  If they knew I was innocent then they certainly showed a distinct lack of interest in who was actually guilty.

For three years I've done everything they ever asked of me without a single question as to why.  It's entirely possible that one or more of the jobs I did played some role in the downfall of this city.

I'm not getting my soul back just for saving one child.

At first I thought I had it figured; when I got passed the delusional absurd idea that I had some shot at redemption here, the answer seemed obvious.  The kid reminded me of my brother.  The brother I loved.  The brother I haven't seen in years because my parents disowned me and wouldn't even let me see him while I was awaiting trial.

There was a lot of feeling there, and it made sense that I'd do a lot of stupid things to help a boy who reminded me of my brother.

That all went down in flames when we hit the department store.  I wish we'd found a place with showers, but you'd be surprised how much blood and guts the amount of cleaning what can be done with a sink, a towel, and a lot of determination.  Being mildly clean and changing into clean, freshly looted, clothes was like a dream.

And then I saw what the kid had changed into.  So much for being like my brother.  She was wearing had picked out looked pretty normal for a girl her age.

My brother does not look like a girl his age.  At all.

She still says to call her "Jack", not sure if I'll be able to ever really accept that "Jack" is a girl's name--

"My name is 'Jack'.  I'm a girl," Jack said.  "So 'Jack' is definitely a girl's name.  'Jack' is this girl's name"

"Whatever you say, kid," Karen said.

Jack returned to reading.

She still says to call her "Jack", not sure if I'll be able to ever really accept that "Jack" is a girl's name, but I'm definitely not disputing that she's a girl.

Any resemblance to my brother disappeared when she came out dressed up showed her true self.

This isn't some last minute conversion to good.  Good and I parted ways when I willingly became Unisol's slave rather than face prison.  There's no redemption.  There's no get out of Hell free card.

This isn't about the kid reminding me of someone I care about.

This isn't about This isn't anything that This is something I can't explain.  The kid's a stranger.  Someone I've known for all of twelve hours.  Why the FUCK am I risking everything to protect this kid?  I should be sprinting to an extraction point as fast as I can, instead I'm slowed down and forced to take indirect routes because the kid wouldn't make it the way I'd go on my own.

I'm going to die because of this and I don't know why.

Maybe it's How long has the kid been looking at me like that?  I'll come back to this later.

That was where the scribbles ended.

"Maybe you're helpin' me because it's the right thin' to do," Jack said.

"Yeah, because I have a history of doing the right thing," Karen said.

"I trust you," Jack said.

"That may be the stupidest thing you could do," Karen said.

Jack handed the notebook back to Karen.

"Well," Jack said, "I could be lettin' my feelin's get in the way.  You are really cute."

"You're about ten years too young," Karen said, "and way too feminine for my tastes."

"I wasn't gettin' my hopes up," Jack said.

"Why don't you pronounce your Gs?' Karen asked.  "Your accent is local, and locals pronounce eng."

"What's an 'eng'?"

"It's the NG in ING."

"Oh, I just like the sound better when it's thinkin', feelin', sayin', and stuff," Jack said.

"I'm going to die because of a weirdo," Karen said.

"I don't mind bein' a weirdo," Jack said.  "But I'd like it if you'd start callin' me by my name again instead of 'kid'."

Karen sighed.  "Ok, Jack."

"Thanks," Jack said.

"Now you sleep," Karen said, "I watch.  And you better sleep because I need you awake when it's my turn to sleep."

Jack pulled a blanket and a pillow out of her bag and curled up on the floor.  The blanket, pillow, and bag were all things they'd looted from the department store.

"Night, Karen," Jack said.

"Night, Jack," Karen said.

-

[Original Work Index]

If your city were collapsing due to zombies...

So, we are positing a single city, not the whole world.

City is collapsing under the weight of a zombie outbreak, there's a military quarantine to keep people from escaping.  Obviously a lot of people are going to try to escape because it's not safe to stay in zombie city, but for the people stuck inside, what exactly would their priorities be.

Hospitals would probably be overrun because initially infected people would have been taken to them.  That means setting up field hospitals.

Wold people try to rob a bank?  The rest of the country would still be using the same money so...

1. Rob a bank in a zombie infected city because, honestly, what are the odds any surviving police would even give a shit?
2. Escape zombie infected city.
3. Be rich in the wonderful non-zombie infected world.

Not even a step of ??? before you get to "profit".  Great for the opportunist.

Returning to less self serving things:

You'd need to keep at least one pharmacy going, and it would probably need to deliver.

A fire department is a must because otherwise all of those people throwing Molotov cocktails at the zombies are going to burn down the city and, without buildings, where would you hide?

It might be a good idea to have some kind of news source, and while die-hard traditionalists would want it to be a newspaper, a radio station probably makes more sense.  Saves you the trouble of delivery.

You're going to want to work to keep the power on because no one wants to fend off zombies in pitch black.

Water running is important too.  Surviving the zombies only to die of dehydration is not a fun prospect.

But what else?

What does one do when in a city overrun by zombies?  Seriously, I'm looking for ideas here.

I think I want to make a book

I've always talked about aspiring to be a novelist, but that's not what I'm talking about.  Stealing Commas turns five at the end of next month and I think maybe I've made enough original stuff to collect it into a ... not quite anthology, but a book none the less.

A Job To Do, a ghost story for an anthology that never happened, may stand alone as my one complete story on Stealing Commas.  The rights to my one published story have reverted to me so that's two whole complete stories.  If I can finish Ash that would make a great addition.

A lot of fragments that I wouldn't consider stories can stand on their own.  For example: Super Artisans and (the needs a better title story) Getting the Girl, Worlds Building, The People From Away, Grendel, The Survivors: Mission Briefing, Magic School Snippet, and so much more.

I have some poems, though not all of them are necessarily publishing worthy.

I've got some things that are somewhat difficult to classify.

I've got a fair number of essays.

I haven't checked, that would take a lot of work, but I think I want to collect my stories, fragments, essays, poems, prayers (in English and Latin), and so forth and, edit them into polished awesome, and make a book of them.

Anyone have thoughts?  Questions, issues, comments, concerns, suggestions?

Watching the garden

[This popped into my head the first time I saw Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind; no idea why it took so long to write up.]

Alaric heard voices, which surprised him because he thought he was the only one in these secret underground chambers.  He followed them, hobbling with the help of a walking stick, and eventually was able to hear sword master Oba ask:

"You did all of this on your own?"

Princess Iphthime responded, "Yes."  Then she said something too quiet for Alaric to hear.  He kept walking toward the voices and heard, "But it's too late now, I'm shutting down."

Alaric walked through an open door and saw a garden more amazing than anything he could have imagined.  Lights were set up to let the plants grow underground, the water system was ingenious, and the plants themselves were things he'd only heard stories of.

"I've already cut off the water," Iphthime said.  "Soon these plants will wither and die."

Iphthime sniffled and it looked to Alaric as though she were about to burst into tears.

Alaric said, "Turn the water back on," without even thinking about it.

Iphthime and Oba turned to face him.

"I'll watch your garden until you get back," he said.

"I don't even know if I'm coming back," Iphthime said.  Made sense, she was to be one of the hostages taken by the conquerors.

"Then I'll watch it for a good long time," Alaric said.  "I can't show my face above ground, and I definitely couldn't make it to my own country, so I could use something to do."  Iphthime smiled.  "Besides, I owe you for saving me, giving me food, medicine, a place to stay, and clothes." Alaric gestured to the dress he was wearing.  One of Iphthime's own, if he understood correctly.

"Thank you," Iphthime said.

"I hope it gives you something to look forward to," Alaric said.  "Getting back to all this."  He gestured to the garden.

* * *

[And then much later in the story I see this scene:]

A guard collapsed to the floor and from the darkness behind him Iphthime saw a familiar face.  She would have shouted, "Sword Master Oba!" but the fear of alerting other guards forced her to muffle her enthusiasm.

When the two made their way to the exit they joined a third person who had been acting as lookout.

"Prince Alaric!?" Iphthime said when she saw his face.

"Of course not," Alaric said.  "Alaric is the fugitive ruler of a conquered nation who would be arrested on sight.  Sword Master's apprentice Alara, at your service," Alara bowed.

"I guess you liked my dresses," Iphthime said.

"I did indeed," Alara said.  "And don't worry about your garden; I always make sure I have time to check on it."

With the conversation over, Oba led the two away.

-

[Original Work Index]

-

[Added:]
Random notes:
Alaric is initially in Iphthime's clothes simply because they're what's available and the occupiers might think it weird for the locals start bringing male clothes into the "There's totally not a guy here" place.  Obviously it works out for the best.

Iphthime is the sister of Penelope from the Odyssey and really the coolest female name from that work I could find other than Nausicaa.

Oba comes from nowhere in particular, and it's not surprising that I couldn't find a name as cool as Yupa.

Alaric just sort of came to me.

In Nausicaa a princess was rescued but she died soon after and thus had no reason to be hidden in the secret underground rooms where Nausicaa keeps her garden.  As such ... no idea where the idea above came from.

Nausicaa's garden is, by the way, a form of awesomeness through SCIENCE!  On her own, in private, she'd done more work to understand the Toxic Jungle that threatens the world than anyone else has in a thousand years.  Some of that is because she has the good fortune to live somewhere Jungle adjacent but not Jungle threatened (thus samples are no problem, nor is her lab at risk of becoming a death trap) but a lot of it is that she's willing to do the hard, sciencey work.  And that's awesome.

If I ever figure out the story surrounding my three characters, I want their garden to have a similar dynamic going on.

I thought it might be a good idea to share the garden that inspired this.  Since Blu Ray is allergic to screengrabs, this is my camera taking a picture of my computer screen:

Finances suck

So I just paid my utility bills, I also had one credit card that had to be paid at the beginning of the month.

I'm left with $47.29.  I have $274.87 in regular bills to pay this month, at least that much $267.50 in an overdue insurance payment, and property taxes of $646.95 are due on the 18th.

When am I supposed to start panicking?

Good news is that my birthday is the third and thus I might get some money.

The bad news is that it's not going to be $1,189.32.  And it looks like the SSA completely ignored me sending in financial records so I'll have to do that again and hope they finally admit that I in fact, making the money they thing I am.  (I know I've said this before, but I asked for money to pay tuition and used it on tuition for fuck's sake.  That  That's not a steady income.  It was one fucking year.)

I'll see if I can have a less vexing post up sometime today.

Six word stories

First off, the classic Twilight Zone version:

"To Serve Mankind", it's a cookbook.

* * *

For myself, I'm not the best at this, better at hints of setting:

-

I was dead at the time.

Being on the moon with Steve.

Helheim is invaded by flying saucers.

Carter served three terms back home.

Mirrors are the worst guarded gateways.

Yesterday depends upon what happens tomorrow.

When an AI tells you, "Run. . ."

The aliens want our Dijon mustard.

(And the sequel:)

The troglodytes want our yellow mustard.

Zombies are ok; others are terrifying.

Time till oxygen reserves depleted extended.

Do not touch the planetary soil.

So, we blew up the ship.

Robots are fine; humans in revolt.

It's not the Earth I left.

Naglfar has collided with Planet X.

Avoid the Rapture; move to Mars!

All it took was a toaster.

Easter Island was the Alien FOB.

We learned to fight without seeing.

Exchange rates fluctuate faster than light.

All they wanted were some rocks.

After the war, we were wanderers.

Moon mining is much safer now.

Let's nuke the site from orbit.

It ate our command crew; perfect.

In zero gravity, skirts aren't recommended.

We should run and hide now.

Reversing the polarity usually doesn't work.

Anyone receiving this message, run away.

Peace with the squids is advisable.

It's always, "Fix technobabble or die."

Of all possible worlds, why Earth?

We killed their god by accident.

We've evolved a more enlightened imperialism.

I love this falling apart ship.

An overthruster replaced the flux capacitor.

Particle, wave?  Who cares?  Let's surf.

I will have hated time travel.

* * *

And so on.

[Original Work Index]