Elevator, pt 2

As promised, the long-awaited ending to Elevator!

Except this doesn't take place in an elevator as much. Oh well, at least we find out what HWA stands for.

Marcella shook her head in confusion. She really did hope she was dreaming, because she was now looking at a man in a zoot suit and another man in what she was pretty sure was mid-1800s garb having a conversation about that copy machine that didn't work anymore, and they should really get a new one. And now the doors had opened again, and a woman stepped in, dressed for the eighteenth century. Her huge skirt barely fit through the door.. The 1800s man greeted her with a "Good day, Miss Howard!" and she nodded kindly in response. 

"Please let me off," Marcella whispered. She had been smashed against the back wall by the woman's ornate  mint-green skirt. Light glistened off the thin gold thread that ran up and down, and when the woman shifted to face Marcella, the modern-dressed woman could see copious lace on the front. 

"Pardon?"

"Please let me off the elevator. Please."

Marcella was feeling extremely claustrophobic at the moment, and she was sure that if she didn't get off the elevator soon she would pass out. 

"Oh, of course."

The woman moved to the other side of the elevator, and both of the men hurried out of her way, almost knocking over Marcella. She stumbled against the corner and grabbed the hand rail to keep from falling over. 

"Oh my goodness," said the woman in the enormous hoop skirt, "are you all right?"

Marcella shook her head and pushed her way to the buttons. She pressed the button for the next floor, and, after glancing over her shoulder, jabbed it with her thumb several more times. After several long moments, the elevator slowed to a stop and the doors opened. Marcella stumbled out, clutching her purse and trying to ignore her fellow passengers' calls of "Don't forget to drink some cold water!" and "You look like you could use a lie-down, darling!" 

She was rather surprised to find that the hallway looked just like a normal hallway: fluorescent lights, a drinking fountain set into a beige alcove, bland beach paintings hanging on the wall in between identical wooden doors. And to think she had been expecting a Grecian garden with fountains, or some such like. She hurried over to the drinking fountain and pressed the hand that wasn't holding her purse against the side button and bent over the stream of water. When she straightened up again, she was thinking much more clearly. Claustrophobia: gone. 

She wondered if she should try the stairs this time, but decided against it. She couldn't see the harm in returning to the elevators. 

The elevator pinged as it arrived. Marcella shifted her purse farther up her shoulder and prepared to step inside. As the doors opened, a young woman in a form-fitting silver jumpsuit and white goggles looked up. 

"G'ing zup?" she asked in an unfamiliar accent. Her companion, a man who appeared to be dressed in a toga and sandals. 

Marcella let out a small shriek and sprinted for the stairs. The woman in the silver jumpsuit shrugged and turned to the toga man. 

"Vat 'us dat all 'bout?"

"Δεν ξέρω."

Marcella scrambled up two flights of stairs before wearing out. She slowed to a jog and it wasn't too long until she reached floor number ten. She leaned against the door and pushed it open ever so slightly, in order to get a look at what was outside the stairwell. 

The hallway looked identical to the one several floors below, except for the view out the windows, which was slightly higher. She breathed a sigh of relief and stepped out.

Marcella stopped a few doors down from the stairwell. Well, this was the room. Did she dare enter?

Yes. She dared. 

Steeling herself for the worst, craziest, or just plain creepiest, she boldly knocked and then took a step back. A few moments later, the door opened a short bit and then closed, but not before Marcella caught a glimpse of a crackling fire in a fireplace and some cushy chairs. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. She heard a chain lock being opened, and then the door opened for real. The man who stood just inside was dressed like the spawn of a zeerust B-movie and the entire steampunk genre. As he pushed his goggles onto the top of his head to take a look at her, a woman in pirate-y skirt and blouse combo with an ancient Egyptian headdress appeared. 

"Are you here for the Historic Welding Association meeting?" he asked pleasantly, while the Egytian pirate woman blew smoke from her cigar over his shoulder into Marcella's face

Marcella screamed and raced down the hall, still screaming and coughing. She retired to the country to take up beekeeping, and was never able to look at a history book again. 

LOL, Sherlock Holmes mythology gag. I'm not very proud of this, since it didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it to. Why do my two-parters always end up so disappointing?

WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN

...And Another

Y'know what? I'm going to be doing a LOT of writing this week. I'm super stoked for NaNoWriMo (Just a week left!) and I'm in that writing mood. Unfortunately, my phase outline's been all worked out, so I'm using 750 Words to write a short story almost every day. (I would link to it, but I'm lazy and tired.)

Here's today's offering. Enjoy.

He is the war that destroys us.

He is the pestilence that plagues us.

He is the famine that gnaws at our insides.

He is the death that takes us gently into that good night.

He will take us one by one. There's nothing we can do about it. 

Emma was taken last week. The week before that it was Derek. We don't know why he takes them, what he does with them, who he is, or who'll be next. Not for sure. We have our theories, but we have no way to prove them.

I have a feeling I'm next. I've been seeing strange things for weeks, and sometimes when I listen to a song the beat won't line up with the melody. Sometimes the color of the walls seems wrong or words pop into my head that have no reason to be there. Edge says not to worry, it's nothing. I hope he won't be offended when I don't believe him. Edge can be wrong sometimes, even if he pretends he's always right. 

"Caddy, look," he says to me, "there's nothing wrong with you. You'll be safe, as long as you stay with us."

He treats me like a child just because I'm the youngest in the group. He shouldn't do that. I've already proven I'm smarter and more capable than the rest of them combined. But we have to stick together, because we're a team and they need me. Edge may be the captain, but it's in name only.

--+--

I was wrong. It wasn't me. It was Edge. Our fearless leader is gone, taken in the night. It's my fault, I guess. I only turned my back on him for a moment, and when I looked back he was gone. I could hear his footsteps in the distance, but I couldn't tell where they were. I may have started crying when I realized he was really, truly gone for good. The others were very mad at me, and I don't think I'll ever live this down. I let Edge get taken. They told me with sarcasm, "Oh, aren't you a clever girl. Edge must be so proud of his young protege now!" Can't they see I'm hurting just as much as them over this? 

He took my Edge!

---+---

It's gotten worse now. I see shadows out of the corners of my eyes all the time, and my perception of reality is wonky. Onion or apple? I don't know anymore. Oscar is the leader now. He can't do as good a job as Edge did. Edge was the only one who could keep us safe from the one who's after us.

Or could he? He didn't do a very good job of keeping himself safe. Was he ever competent enough to keep us all safe from the thin one? I don't know what to think anymore. He took my life away, that one. My life and everything that I loved.

It must be almost my time to go with him. This gets worse every day.

----+----

He took me today. He took me away from Oscar and the others. What's the point of staying with them? I thought. Edge was the only one I liked. The others I don't care about. They can all get taken without me and Edge to help them. Serves them right for hurting me like that. 

I'm scared all the same. I pretend to be brave, but I am so, so afraid. I don't know what he will do to me. It's dark and I can't see much. There's a window, but it's night outside. Was it day before? I can't remember. Every so often everything goes gray fuzzy and it's so very loud. I hate that. I want him to go away. I can feel him standing behind me, and he won't go away. I want him to go away! I can't leave. 

Thanks for nothing, "friends." You couldn't protect me from him. I couldn't protect them from him, Edge couldn't protect us from him. No one can. Who does he think he is, taking us all like this? It's undignified, creepy, and feels wrong. He shouldn't be acting like this. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. 

There's something on the wall over there. It's a…thing. A list of names, names that I recognize. Edge's name is on there—his real name, not his nickname. And Emma's, and Derek's. 

My name is there. My full name. How did he know? 

How does he know me?

What will he do to me?

How long do I have to wait?

Please help.

Okay, you got me! It's a Slender Man story. However, I'm a total n00b, so this probably isn't very good. In fact, this isn't very good by my usual standards. Eh, whatever. I wrote it in about half an hour with minimal effort.

I'd encourage you to look up the Slender Man mythos, but only if you're feeling particularly brave. (I wanted to write "bodacious" there. I need sleep. And to start using my brain again.)

Yet Another Short Story

I wrote this up in about half an hour. It stars Alice, Bob, and Claire as well as some crap I picked up from a garage sale yesterday, and hopefully asks more questions than it answers. Fill in the answers yourself.

Contains copious literary and mythological references, and is rather purple for my style.

"I'm so bored," Alice said, kicking her heels up onto the leather couch. 

Bob looked up at her thoughtfully. She rolled her eyes. Not once in the thousand years she had known him had he ever changed his expression. 

"Perhaps," he said, "perhaps if you took those ridiculous glasses off you'd be able to see something to do, for once."

Alice huffed and pushed her sunglasses onto her forehead. "They are not ridiculous! You have no taste, sweetie."

She had purchased the large, black-rimmed dark spectacles at a drugstore back in the Nineties. Since then, she had never taken them off, except to shower. They were as much a part of her as her golden eyes or curvy figure. Despite the time that had passed, Alice looked almost just the same as she had all those millennia ago, when the universe was born. The same heart-shaped face and jutting chin; the same beautiful but cruel eyes; the same tiny, perfect nose. Her hair was new, however. After seeing a picture of two celebrities in a magazine, she had dragged Bob to the salon and forced him into getting his hair cut with her. 

She fluffed her flowing black locks with one hand while Bob looked at her, his eyes briefly showing the despise he felt after the haircut incident. 

"What?" she asked, tossing her head. "It's just one of my many quirks! How would you like it if I took that little sword away from you?"

Bob's fingers curled around the hilt of his wooden dagger. Wooden, yes, but no less dangerous. The dagger had been carved from the wood of Yggdrasil, soon after Lif and Lífþrasir climbed down from its branches. In China, it had been inlaid with a red dragon by Guan Yu himself. Bob had come into possession of it shortly after Alice had demanded that her new friend Charles right a book about her. He recalled this because Alice had insisted that all references to the vorpal sword be removed from the text, although one had slipped by. 

"I would not like that."

"Bet you wouldn't."

Alice drew herself up from the couch like a cat and crossed to the large bay window, which looked out on the city of New York. Bob returned his attention to the television. 

"How much longer?" Alice whined, flicking her sunglasses back onto her nose.

"I don't know."

"I think you do know, but you're just not telling me!"

Bob set down the magazine he had been reading in order to massage his eyelids. They had been over this a million times, at least. Bob knew as much about the Great Death as she did, but Alice wasn't ready to accept that. 

"When is Claire coming back?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do!"

"I honestly don't."

Alice stomped her foot in frustration and tossed her head again. Bob rolled his eyes. 

She skipped across the rug again to toss herself onto the couch. She opened a drawer in the side-table and took out a silver box.

"Alice, don't," Bob said, with the barest hint of frustration in his voice. Alice stuck her tongue out at him and set the box in her lap. 

"I'll do what I like with my box," she said, but didn't open it.

She knew she shouldn't, not until the Great Death. Then she, Bob, and Claire would all open their boxes at the same time, and only then would they know what great secrets the boxes hold. All they knew was that they and the boxes represented Ego, Superego, and Id. Bob and Claire had tried to explain to Alice what that meant, but basic psychology was pretty beyond her. 

Bob slid a hand onto the shelf below the coffee table. On it was his box—a dark brown affair, with gold and red inlay. It was substantially bigger than Alice's. As he picked it up, he glanced up at the light on the wall. It was simply a brass box with amber-colored glass in and a lightbulb behind it, but to Alice, Bob, and Claire it was their signal for the Great Death. If Claire couldn't open her box right after the light went off, then eons of struggle would be for naught. 

Bob had a right to be nervous. He had suspected for a while now that the Great Death was growing close, and with the recent disappearance of both Claire and her box? It couldn't be a coincidence. 

Alice, meanwhile, had let her mind drift to the painting on the wall. It showed three silhouetted figures in greeny-blue garb poised in front of a large orange sphere. A sun going supernova. The one on the right held her hands over her head, cupped around a small yellow box. The one in the middle, a man, stood with one hand over his eyes and the other hand brandishing a sword carved to look like flames. The third likewise shielded her eyes, but her other hand gripped a stoppered glass vial containing a pearly elixir. It was hard to see her, because the light from the supernova had begun to eclipse her, although the other two were sharply outlined. 

"Bob, look," Alice whispered, slightly hysterical. "Bob, look at the picture! Look at Claire!"

Oh, guess what! You know how one of my tags says, like, "If I had a sword," right? Well, now I totally do, lawls. 'Cept it's made of wood and is technically a dagger.

A Note On Punctuation

Yes, boys and girls, today we're going to have fun with learning!

Punctuation is something that I, as an English nerd and mild Grammar Nazi, love to tiny little bits. Unfortunately, that is not the case for everyone, as I discovered last Friday.

Every October, the eighth grade class at my school does a project in which each student chooses a horror story to read and then writes their own short horror story. I could—and already have, as a couple of my good friends know—go on a long diatribe about more than half the class wanting to read Goosebumps, but I would rather focus on something that concerns me just as much. The lack of proper pronunciation in last year's stories.

Punctuation Exists For A Reason

Now, I'm fine with lax grammar in texting and IMing and whatnot. Even I do it. I'm almost as okay with lax grammar in emails and such, as long as I can understand what the other person means. That does not apply to the final copies of anything. We had to read some of the stories aloud in class, and I really wanted to stop and announce, "I really am a better reader than this! I'm only flubbing because I have no idea where this sentence stops and the other begins. It's madness, I tell you!"

I don't pretend to have perfect grammar, but some things are just wrong and should be corrected—don't worry about emails or what have you, I'm talking about things that might get you laughed at by future generations of eighth graders. Here are some simple rules for writing that might make it simpler to understand than you thought before:

• Periods tell the reader when to pause, because the sentence has ended now and the voice in your head can take a breath before going on. 
• Commas indicate a shorter pause, and also when to breathe in longer sentences. Don't, overuse, commas. The voice, in my, head, doesn't, enjoy, sounding, like Stevie, from, Malcolm, in the Middle—although, that does, make it, more, enjoyable. 
• The Greeks pioneered modern punctuation, like the above two rules. Lack of punctuation means lack of pauses.
• However, don't not use commas and punctuation or else you'll just go on and on without stopping and I mean this seriously I'm automatically holding my breath while writing this sentence and I don't know why. ALWAYS put a space after a comma, period, semicolon, end parenthesis, or end brackets. No, I don't want to hear it. ALWAYS.
• Quotation marks indicate when to change inflection, because you, the reader, is now repeating what the character said, even when reading to yourself. 
• Any time a character is directly quoted using a whole sentence, the punctuation goes inside the quotation marks. If it's just part of a quote, it goes like this: Suzie had said that she didn't want to "play so rough anymore," so Cameron backed off. If the partial direct quote is placed at the end of a sentence, it looks like this: Suzie's mom told him not to "flippantly dangle off those dangerous monkey bars." Cameron had no idea what that meant. This is always true in America, but other countries have other rules.
• "Yes," he said. If you follow a quotation with a "xe said" sort of thing, mentally write it without the "said" bit, and then just add it back in and change the period to a comma. Simpler: "Said" turns periods into commas. 
• Exclamation points should be used sparingly. You can usually get away with it in dialog, but only to get across strong emotion—anger, excitement…not usually sadness, though. Outside of dialogue, you really do want to shy away from it. Exclamation points mean excitement, and too much excitement can tire anyone out. In addition, a quote from Reaper Man: Five exclamation marks. A sure sign of an insane mind.
• "If you say said every time you speak, then that's just boring," I said. "If you use it right, it just sort of disappears. But do use, for example, whispered or laughed if the character is actually whispering or laughing their words." 
• "It seems complicated, but you'll get the hang of it," Claudia added.

• Don't Capitalize Every Word. That's Not How The Shift Key Works. Proper Nouns And The First Word Of A Sentence, People. You Just Look Like An Idiot Typing Like This.
• Random words Being capitalized changes How You read them. Just Look me in the Metaphorical Eye and Tell me it Doesn't.
• See that button up in the right-hand corner of your keyboard? The one in between 0 and =? That is only to be used for math problems and compound words, like right-hand. That is not how you make a parenthetical. Use -- if you have to, but for God's sake don't use -! (Aside note to Mac users: alt + shift + - equals —)
• Ellipsis…should be used…sparingly, lest you…wind up…sounding…like William Shatner… (Sidenote: Ellipses = Oval; Ellipsis = …)

Some mildly interesting Wikipedia pages on the subject of somewhat-obscure punctuation and grammar paraphernalia:

James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is.

Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den.

Other places you can find poor grammar corrected (AKA Grammar Made Fun!):

Cake Wrecks

Reasoning With Vampires

Wanton Cruelty To The Common Comma

Image Link

Good Morning! Good News!

Well, not exactly good morning, as it is the middle of the afternoon, but Good Afternoon! Good News! does not a pleasing post title make. Anyway, I'm absolutely 100% positive that in the future someone will be reading this in the morning.

Maybe it's you. Are you the one?

If you are, hi! If you aren't…still hi!

Despite the rest of my week being rather irritatingly crappy, or perhaps just irritating, today has been Le Awesomés.

==>End egregiously warped French.

Well, it might have something to do with the fact that NO SCHOOL FRIDAY! :) Yeah, teachers' meeting or something. Don't know, don't care. However, the fact that I got to sleep until, er, six thirty instead of six fifteen was incredibly pleasing. Also, I got to lay in bed with my laptop—

"Don't you do that every morning?"

I was about to say, I got to lay in bed with my laptop for much longer than usual. Also, I received a coffee from my dearest, darlingest mother.

Oh! And I went clothes shopping and didn't hate every last minute of it! That's incredibly unusual for me. Maybe it had something to do with my successful discovery of the missing pieces of my Rose Halloween costume. No, not Rose Tyler. Rose Lalonde. (Major spoilers there, though! Do not click link if you ever have the slightest urge to read Homestuck! It is an extremely spoilerific webcomic.)

"But Omnia," you might protest, "Halloween is a month away! Surely you could have waited a little while?"

"No," I would tell you. "No, I can't. Because Saturday, September 31st is Archon, and I will not be going to my first real con without a suitable costume."

Also, I got Coraline on DVD and Psychology for Dummies from the library. Today was a good day.

My Best Idea EVAR

For quite a while now, I've had this piece of brain crack floating around: I should make a video blog about (spoilers for the thing that doesn't exist yet!) two clones who live in parallel universes. One universe is fairly normal, except that most of the world is owned by a corporation whose name I will think up eventually. The other universe is kind of a post-zombocalypse world, except instead of zombies there are genetically altered creatures that have destroyed mankind and—Surprise!—the company from the parallel universe developed them! Gasp!

The post-apocalyptic-world clone's story arc is about her trying to figure out exactly what the creatures are and why they were developed, while the fairly-normal-world clone is trying to figure out why she remembers things that never happened. Subplots emerge. Stuff blows up. Nerf guns painted gray will most likely be involved. Story arcs…arc.

A question for the readers: Do you think I could do it?

Ireland, pt 6: The Next Day

Good news, everyone! I've invented a time machine that— No, wait, sorry. That's something else. The actual good news is that I found my Ireland notebook!

To summarize what happened in parts #1 through #5, I spent a couple of days at my friend's house before driving to the airport, where we waited for a while until it was time to get on the plane. Sadly, the plane didn't involve humorous humorous rapid-fire comedy and Robert Hays. I did, however, watch Meet the Robinsons and pretended to crush buildings with my fingers.

On my second day in Ireland, we drove around for a while and went to a mall. Then we went to the butter museum and then walked around for an eternity. It took ages to get out of the parking garage with our enormous van. Oh, and on the way back we stopped by a roadside tower ruin that had been owned by Sir Raleigh. Got home. Slept.

On the fourth day, we went to the Tall Ships festival and such. However, I SOMEHOW managed to skip day three, so I'll devote the rest of this post to that.

On the third day I woke up at the crack of dawn an spent a lot of time running around barefoot and eating yogurt, although not entirely at the same time. After everyone else woke up, a few of us decided to go on a tour of cool little shops that have their own tour, with a map and everything. There was a cheese shop behind which there were ducks, goats, and pigs. I don't know where the pictures of said animals went, so here are some pictures from the internet.

That's totally what happened.

D'aww!

Perfect!

After that, we visited the Kells Priory, which has no relation to the Book of Kells. (Look out for mention of that later!) I skulked around, acting gothy. What can I say, I like creepy, old stuff! After that, I bought a mini-tube of Pringles at a small store, visited a pottery with a dog names Faust, and had hot chocolate and pancakes at a cafe in town for lunch. We walked around the mall—a different mall, this time—before heading home. 

And that's it, pretty much. I've declared the Priory to be the Dunnottar Castle of my Ireland trip, although that only makes sense if you've heard me go on a love-rant about the aforementioned castle. 

Deathly Hallows

I saw the last ever Harry Potter movie last night at midnight. If you don't like Harry Potter or are trying to avoid spoilers, you might wanna skip this whole post. Look! I have travel diary above!

Yes, I went in costume and carried a wand. While I was holding down the fort in the theater and my mom was buying me candy, I took a picture for the girls sitting behind me, and one of them asked if she could hold my wand during the picture. ^_^ (That was a very long, confused sentence.) And I got to sit next to Hagrid…who kept checking the time on his iPhone.

(Random sidenote: I also saw a preview for the second RDJ Sherlock Holmes movie. Benedict is my favorite Sherlock ever, but I still want to see it.)

Okay, back on track. I noticed a couple of things in the movie. One, Professor McGonagall enchants the Hogwarts statues to bring them to life. In the first book/movie, she casts a somewhat similar spell on the chess set protecting the Philosopher's Stone. Two, in the Room of Requirement, there are a bunch on Cornish pixies that fly out of a pile of junk. Could they possibly be the same pixies that Lockhart let loose in their second year? There was something else, but now I don't remember what it is.

The entire theater erupted into applause when Molly Weasley shouted at Bellatrix Lestrange. Also at just about everything Neville did. Can you say character development? Wow. (Emily, Claire, stop laughing.)

I swear, if there had been just five more seconds of Snape crying, I would have started bawling my eyes out…more than I already was. But I couldn't help thinking there was something I missed snickering at…it's on the tip of my brain…

Ah, there it is.

Okay, I think I'm done now.

Oh and weren't all the li'l kids adorable? And—

Barcodes Are Easy

So, I couldn't sleep last night. Partly because of my own 'recklessness' or what-have-you, partly because I knew I had to get up in the morning, so, of course, I couldn't sleep.

BUT! One good thing came out of my insomnia. I can now read barcodes! It's easy, really. Kind of like binary, but not at all. And now I will teach it to you.

…

There are fat black bars, skinny black bars, white fat spaces, and white skinny spaces. The skinny white spaces are just the spaces between the numbers, so don't worry about them.

Skinny black bars represent 0's.
Fat black bars represent 1's.
Fat white spaces represent dashes.

At the beginning and end of every barcode is an asterisk. (Like this: *) Asterisks are represented by a series of bars, or 1's and 0's, that are identical at the beginning and end of the barcode. So, the easiest way to figure these out is to compare the beginning and end of the barcode. Take the fat bar/skinny bar combination from the very end and find an identical combination near the beginning. From that place on back is the asterisk, so you find the matching combination at the end and take those away.

Really, just throw them out. We don't need them. They're on every one.

Now you just have the plain barcode. My advice is to write out the 1, 0, and - combination, and then make a mark every 5 numbers. This doesn't include dashes. Actually, if you do it right, there will be two digits, a dash, and then three digits every time.

The combinations are arranged like this:

• 0 is 00-110
• 1 is 10-001
• 2 is 01-001
• 3 is 11-000
• 4 is 00-101
• 5 is 10-100
• 6 is 01-100
• 7 is 00-011
• 8 is 10-010
• 9 is 01-010

(If I ever get a tattoo, it will be of the above list.)

This is only the most basic and common form of barcodes, and it doesn't work on packaging. You can't read your mail wrappers like this. At least, that's what the Wired website told me. There are a few other kids of barcoding, but my arm started hurting after that, so I just went to bed. 

And now you know. 

Happy Father's Day! *waves random flag*

(*Go back to the instructions, you moron; this isn't a footnote!)