Elevator, pt 1

Ye-ah, this is going to be kind of weird. Part 2 will come tomorrow!

Marcella stared up the glistening marble steps of the office building with a feeling of apprehension. Did she dare enter such a place, knowing virtually nothing about this weird organization? 

Yes. She dared. 

She hoisted her large tan leather purse higher up on her shoulder and bounded up the steps two at a time.

The advertisement had appeared in the paper the week before. 

HISTORY BUFF? WE NEED YOU! 

It was followed by the initialism HWA in bold type, their address, and, oddly, a request for corset size. No other information was given. Still, Ms. Snyder was a teacher of World History II at the local high school, and she fancied herself rather good. 

Just inside the glass front door was a stretch of cushy beige carpet that lead to a white desk. Behind the desk sat a young woman, maybe twenty-five, talking on the phone. This would not have been out of the ordinary, except she was dressed like she had suddenly fallen out of the 1960s, a random flower child in the world of 21st century business.

"Can I help you?" she asked in a nasally tone, setting down the phone as Marcella approached the desk, feeling more apprehensive than ever. 

"Y-yes. I'm looking for the HWA. There was this ad…" 

Marcella dug the newspaper clipping out of her purse, jostling aside a makeup compact, her wallet, and a few coupons for the local grocery store. She slapped the crumpled scrap of paper on the desk, and the took a look at it.

"HWA, huh? Groovy." She leaned back in her chair and kicked her sandaled feet onto the desk. "Tenth floor. Suite 101."

"Th-thank you?" Marcella ventured, before hurrying to the gilt elevator. Better hurry, didn't want to lose her nerve.

It wasn't a very large elevator. There was more plush beige carpet in here, and some numbered buttons, but that's to be expected in a fancy office building. The upper half of the wall was mirrored, while the lower half was paneled with golden-brown varnished wood. 

As the elevator doors closed, Marcella caught a glimpse of herself in the mirrors. She wasn't at her best today; she had left the apartment in a hurry and left her frizzy red hair unbrushed and untamed. She made a face at the mirror before returning her attention to the newspaper ad. 

"HWA," she murmured, tracing the letters with her thumbnail. "What does it even stand for?"

The elevator slowed to a stop to allow another passenger on. Marcella was jolted back into reality by her new elevator companion. 

Or maybe it wasn't reality, because apparently this man was wearing a dapper green zoot suit. He winked at her as the doors shut, and she shrank back into the corner, clutching her purse in front of her like it was a shield.

"Don't worry, darlin'," he said with a devilish grin. "I don't bite."

"I-I wasn't worried about that," Marcella replied, relaxing slightly. "What are you, a re-enactor or s-something?"

"Or something," he shrugged. "You looking for the HWA?"

She nodded and lowered her purse. "D-do you work there?"

"Mm-hmm."

The elevator stopped at floor four. The doors slid open with a whoosh, letting a haggard-looking young lady carrying a simply enormous stack of papers step through. After the flower child in the lobby and her elevator companion, Marcella was only mildly surprised to see that the girl was dressed in fashions that had been out-of-date since 1910.

"Morning," she told Marcella, attempting a bright smile. To the 1940s man, she said, "Be a dear and press for five, would you? I have to copy all these papers and return these to fourth, and then take the rest up to tenth."

"Sure thing," he replied. Marcella wondered if this sort of thing happened every day around here.

"I'm Elsie," the girl said to Marcella, shuffling the stack of papers into the crook of her left arm in order to extend her right hand to shake. "Elsie Pickett."

"Marcella Snyder."

They shook hands, and the effort caused Elsie to lose her balance drop all of her papers. Most of them slid out of her arms directly to the floor, but some floated elegantly to the floor. Elsie sniffed, looking like she was on the verge of tears, before shuffling the paper back into a messy stack.

"Here, I'll help," Marcella ventured, kneeling, as the elevator doors slid open behind them.

"No, that's quite all right!"

Elsie grabbed the last few sheets from Marcella before sprinting out of the elevator.

"You could have helped, you know," Marcella told the 1940s man as a woman dressed in equally ridiculous garb stepped into the elevator.

"Intern," he shrugged. "Poor kid."

I might as well change the subtitle of this blog to "Writing, Rants, And Digressing," for all the dreaming I've been doing lately. What can I say, it's a…thing. With that other thing. And, y'know, the other thing with the things.

(Yeah, I do remember that I stopped halfway through my Ireland thing. Anyone want me to finish it?)

...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.

Clique

You may be shocked to learn that I, Omnia Clepe, Geek Girl Extraordinaire What Knows All The Nerd, was once a fangirl (and I use that lovely word with disgust, in this case) of the pre-teen epic series The Clique. But that was the past! Yes, a past in which I had not yet discovered my identity as a proud geek.

Now imagine a glorious summer day, me curled up under a large oak tree with my pink bookbag (Which I still use, thank you very much!), reading from one of the books in The Clique Summer Collection. How that image disgusts me.

I feel completely justified in calling it an epic. Do you know how many fricken books are in that series? 20, including the Summer Collection! Twenty books devoted to the trials and tribulations of middle school, as seen through the eyes of the Libby, Massie Block, and her Girl Posse. And, yes, those chronically backstabbing, boy- and fashion-obsessed prima donnas are in seventh grade. I think I'm gonna call serious bull on that one. What planet are they living on, anyway? I swear, the series should be a scenario in some sort of weird Lotus-Eater Machine. And I never really got a satisfactory answer as to why Everyone Hates Layne, other than she was slightly annoying to the Pretty Committee and didn't wear shiny shiny name-brand clothing. I rather liked her, in fact.

Honestly, I don't know what I ever saw in the series. Bile fascination, I suppose?

Fun Facts:

The Clique also refers to a group of Victorian artists, including Richard Dadd, Augustus Egg, Alfred Elmore, William Powell Frith, and a host of other silly names. Fascinating, innit?

One of the major ships in the series is styled "Clam" for Claire/Cam. Which leads to me want to shout, "Stay away from Clamburg!" while reading the TV Tropes page.

"Hi…don't care!"

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

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