Glenn’s arm was already a bit tired. He hadn’t been on duty since February, and he’d forgotten how heavy the town revolver felt. He could always stow the cursed thing in the all-too-worn holster; that’s what most did while making the round, but today was not a day to go easy.

The boy behind him deliberately snapped twigs with his shoes, like stepping on cracks. The irony was all but lost on Glenn, but the noise was not.

“Gar-bless it, boy, I told you about that! This is no kind of game.” 

The boy glared scornfully back, bringing his worn-out left Nike down on a grouping of pine-cones. The sound reminded Glenn of the time they found a decrepit fryer on the road out to Fort Wayne. Overlooked in the back of a gas station. Both the fryer and the gennie on their last legs, and the “fried” rabbit tasted, no, it felt to Glenn like the time the town grandmother had washed his mouth out with soap. His father had loved it, though. He’d been around before, “when everything folks ate came from one of these,” he’d said. “Glenn, folks back then knew how to live.” 

He considered giving the boy a swipe with the pistol-butt. It’s surely how his father would’ve handled such an attitude. He took a long look at those willful gray eyes (almost begging him to do it!) and knew he would not.

They were both quiet for the next mile.

———————————————-

“You know I wouldn’t ask it of ya if I had another choice, Mr. Early,” the Mr. Click had said. “Truth is, everyone’s so busy with the harvest that it shoulda been done a week ago, but… well, we been afraid to ask.”

“I know.”

“So, you remember the drill? Take ol’ Gertie here, and her holster in-a case something unexpected comes yer way, walk on out due east about a mile ‘na half, till you hit the first one. Best bring yer boy, too. He c’n carry the rabbit-sack and learn from his pa.”

Glenn Early had put up a fight on that point, but for a weak-worded man such as himself, there was no arguing with “Mayor” Click. No one in town had time to watch a boy of 12 who talks too little and fights too much, not during harvest time (or anytime else, Glenn suspected). 

He was too absorbed in re-arguing with Yancey Click that he nearly missed the first marker. A perfect square of bark carved from a dying oak tree, too high to be buck clearing velvet from its antlers, too perfect to be anything but man-made. He tapped it twice with the revolver to show his son.

“Half a mile to the first one. These tend to draw the meat-eaters out, so step light or I carry you like a child.”

His son let out an indignant snort at this, but moved more softly. So softly, in fact, that Glenn had to check over his shoulder three times to be sure the boy hadn’t run off. Glenn would hardly blame him if he had—there was usually a fog between them so dense that neither light, nor sound, nor touch could penetrate it. Truth be told, it’d likely be the best thing for the boy. 

When they reached the first trap, he stood, suddenly more relaxed. One dead squirrel wasn’t drawing anything larger than a fox, and if it did he was sure the town would be grateful for the extra meat. 

“Come here, open up ‘yon sack.”

“I know what to do.”

“Sorry.”

“Is it dead?”

“Better it than us. Now, hold it open.”

Glen noticed that the youngest of the Early family tried hard to suppress his compulsion to shrivel his nose at the smell of the thing. He saw how his son’s eyes lingered on the way the vermin’s neck bent at the bottom of the sack, no longer capable of supporting even the slight weight of its head. 

“I can take that.”

“It’s fine.”

“I know how it looks. It’s just like-“

“I SAID it’s FINE.”

Such was the last sentence either said for the next three traps.

Lately, as I’ve been flirting with starting another novel (I have about 15 “Chapter 1’s” saved on this particular hard drive, I’ve been thinking more and more about whether or not creativity truly exists. This comes from two locations, similar in many ways but still an unlikely pair: Stephen King’s Dark Tower series and Zack Snyder universally-panned film SuckerPunch. 

Both of these films combine disparate elements from popular fiction in different ways—King’s series does it in an attempt to tie together his library into one multiverse; Snyder’s film is more a vehicle for him to play with elements of film that he thinks are badass. Special Ops ladies shooting steampunk Nazi zombies? Badass. A B-52 with one prop engine and one jet engine dogfighting a dragon? Super Badass.

My point is this: we live in a world fixated on breaking genre tropes while at the same time strictly fulfilling those tropes, that simultaneously has made everything a lasting memory in the collective consciousness of the Internet. While all this is happening, is it even possible to write a truly original story?  To truly create something that does not on some level originate with some grandfathered version? 

Every original plot schematic has been used. Inception was practically a shot-for-shot remake of a Scrooge McDuck comic. We’ve now seen every permutation:

• The hero gets the girl
• The hero loses the girl
• The girl is, in fact, the real hero
• The girl is not some prize to be won (you ma girl, Jasmine)

So, when it’s all been said before, how does a writer tell his/her story? I don’t think there’s much of an answer. But just because we, as a society, have basically acted as the room full of monkeys with their typewriters and randomly told all variations of interesting fiction, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try. But it does give me a hell of an excuse to not write another Chapter 1 and watch the Butler game instead. 

Happy Lentferendum, everybody, and look for a new Chapter 1 (#16!) sometime this week. 

I thought this was the year.

As I took the a baseball bat to a dilophosaur’s knee, and yelled at Sarah to get in the jeep and gun it, I felt a wave of disappointment wash over me. I thought I had outgrown this crap. I thought whatever this was had finally stopped.

I should explain.

Ever since 1993 (that is, every year since I was 9 years old) I had had a recurring dream about the Steven Spielberg film Jurassic Park. This year (my 26th of living, my 17th living with incorporeal dinosaurs in my sleep), I had not had the dream. I realize that going 365 days without this particular nightmare isn’t a real milestone, but to progress from my last day of 25 to my 27th birthday felt like one. It felt like progress. Felt like my subconscious was no longer terrified of being torn apart by velociraptors. 

So when last night’s slumber was upset by visions of John Hammond’s cloned monstrosities chasing after me and my loved ones, I couldn’t help but be disappointed.  

I’ve tried a few times to psycho-analyze this dream, as obviously it is important to my life in some way besides the fact that I’ve always loved both dinosaurs, Spielberg and Samuel L. Jackson (“Hold on to your butts”). I’m no expert, but here’s the best interpretation I can figure the different elements mean:

• The whole “dinosaurs are trying to eat my friends and me” scenario: I’m thinking this is the good ol’ “fear of change” chestnut. You know they’re coming (I’m always aware within the dream that we’re in Jurassic Park, and that the dinos are about to get loose), so it’s all about how you deal with them.
• Velociraptors: The scariest (and smartest!) of all the dinos, I think velociraptors represent death. 
• Tyrannosaurus Rex:  This was my favorite as a kid, and it never actually kills anyone in my dreams, so I think it probably represents something that is both scary, but not actually scary. Like having kids. Yeah, big rexxy is totally fatherhood. Just look at him.
• Pterodactyl: These are just awesome and, I believe, only show up because I like to make the noise I imagine they sounded like. KRAWWWWW!
• Dilophosaurus: Since this guy showed up last night and threatened to eat both my own face as well as Sarah’s, he has to be the wedding. He even has frills!

So now that I’ve made a completely UNeducated guess at what it means, I suppose it’s time to deal with it. Just accept the fact that, for the rest of my life, I will dream about people getting eaten by robotic dinos. It’s not so bad, really, and as I somehow managed to make it through the dream without ANYONE dying last night (except the unfortunate dilophosaurus that I clubbed), it’s probably best to accept it as a good omen and move on, dealing with life one giant lizard at a time.

iamdonald:

Here’s the video for Freaks and Geeks. Enjoy.

HERE

If you go on May 18, this is the kind of dopeness we will witness.