Too Late

Yet another short short from one of my English classes.  As I post each of these, I keep wishing I had posted them sooner after they were created.  Oh, well.  What's important now is that I'm getting my writing out there and continuing to practice writing.

Too Late

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I panicked.  I was falling at an alarming rate.  Not a surprising rate mind you, there is a difference.  Surprising would imply that I was unaware of how fast I would be falling, on the contrary.  I was falling just as fast anyone else who had just been pushed out of an airplane would fall.  It was alarming because I had now been falling for a good two minutes and my parachute was malfunctioning…rather inconveniently I might add.

Pull yourself together Darin.  The ground isn’t that close, there’s plenty of time…suuuurrreee.  It was surprising, not alarming, that I could form coherent thoughts in this particular predicament that I was in, but I wasn’t going to complain.  The ground, in all reality, was coming up a little faster than I would have liked but gravity does it’s own thing and doesn’t exactly obey my command.  As handy as controlling gravity’s force on me would be, the laws of physics were never my strong suite and I don’t think that would work very well.

I pulled again at the cord that was designed to release the parachute from its pack, but to no avail.  Ok, I wasn’t panicking. I couldn’t afford to do that, but I also couldn’t ignore the fact that the ground wasn’t getting any farther away.  I tried the cord one more time and felt it finally give but while I was pulling at the cord the ground had snuck up on me.  It was too late.  My world went black.

I pulled off my goggles, turned off the simulator, and sighed.  Maybe next time.

The Creature

This is an assignment from one of my writing classes at Northern Michigan University.  It was originally unnamed, I think out of haste for turning it in.  Upon going over it again, I think an apt title, as any, should have something to do with a key part of the story.  This isn't always the case but is probably a good rule of thumb to go by here.  I may change it later if I think of a better name but for now, enjoy the story as:

The Creature

by 

Teddy Izzo

10/26/10

It had now been two hours.  Everything he had slaved over up until this point was now going to pay off.  Allan peered down the mansion’s stairs in wait for the creature to ascend them.  Everything was in place.  The trap was set.  Somehow he had managed to construct the thing without the monster finding him but none of that mattered now.  Allan crouched down near the wall and waited and listened.  For twenty minutes he waited and listened.  After ten of them, he began to get nervous.

            The bait was nearly perfect, he thought.  Perhaps I didn’t use enough.  No, no.  I took careful precaution.  He assured himself that everything was in its proper place.  After all, it had to be.  He had made sure it was.   He wiped the sweat from his brow. The second ten minutes past.

            This can’t be!  Where is the horrible thing?  Just then, he felt something drip down his neck.  He spun around.  IT WAS BEHIND HIM!  The creature that he had been waiting and listening for, for over a half hour plus the hour on top of that, the very thing that he had been watching for, was watching HIM!

            How long, wondered Allan as his body quivered.  How long has it been watching me?  It must have been watching me construct the trap.  The whole time it must have been watching me.  Of course it was.  It always watches me.  It’s always there.

            He distanced himself from it for a moment, long enough to take in the full sight of the beast.  It was horrible to look at.  He could scarcely bare to glance at it and yet he couldn’t take his eyes away.  He hurriedly backed up to increase the distance between them but it followed.  And then, Allan’s world fell beneath him.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Red and blue lights flashed through the front doorway as they made their circles on top of the county sheriff’s car outside.  Just inside was the sheriff himself accompanied by a couple of uniforms and the county coroner.  The coroner was knelt down next to a body on the floor at the base of the stairs.

            “What’s the damage,” asked the sheriff.

            “A dozen broken ribs, his left shoulder is dislocated and he’s bleeding out of his ear.”

            “Well he took quite a tumble.  That’s a staircase and a half there.” 

            “It is but that’s not what he died from.  Fright was what killed him.  These are merely the injuries he sustained on the way down.

            “I wonder what scared him so much.”

            “Who knows?” As he said that, a fourth officer came down the stairs wearing a deputy’s badge and joined them.  The sheriff looked at him and asked, “Find anything of interest?”

            “Not much,” replied the deputy.  “There’s some rig up there.  Looks like a trap of some kind.”

            “Anything else?”

            “There’s nothing else up there but a leaky water pipe high on the wall.”  The deputy stuffed his fists in his jacket pockets in dramatic resolution.

 “Heck of a way to go,” said the coroner looking up the staircase.

“Agreed,” replied the sheriff.  “Come on boys, let’s go.”

At that, the two uniforms moved the body on a gurney and brought him out to an ambulance waiting outside, with the rest following behind.

Oops, I did it again.

Once again it has been too long since I've written last.  Let's see...

I graduated on the 5th of May, moved home on the 9th and am now looking for a job or two to save up some money to move back to Marquette.  I love it up there.  I love home too but for some reason I've just adopted Marquette.  I get all excited for my future when I'm up there.  Even if that's not where my future will be.  I don't know.  I hope it is.  At least part of it.  I know the last five years have gone by in a flash.

I'm going over some of my writings from all my writing classes.  I should have been uploading them all along but again, I get distracted and then out of the discipline of posting.  As always, it is my hope that I can get back into it again.

I DID get a job in Marquette.  Part time, but it's something.  I can't move up there yet because I won't be making enough to afford an apartment AND everything else I'll need to be spending money on.  But it's a step in the right direction.  Maybe if I can get another part-time job here at home and then commute, I can save up enough money to move up there in the fall.

I've been visiting.  About an average of once a week.  A day here, a few days there.  It's been nice.  I miss living there and I look forward to the potential of living there again in the near future.  For now though, I am enjoying my time here at home.

In other news, I'm writing more.  Not on here of course though I would like that to change!  But I've been writing here and there.  Now I just need to do that with videos.  Especially videos seeing as that's what my degree is in.

Anyway, that's all for now.  Off to Marquette in the morning for a visit/work training.  Going to watch Torchwood, fold laundry and go to bed.

It's been too long!

A significant amount has happened since I last wrote.  Suffice it (for now) to say that things are changing in my life and just when I think I know what's going to happen, something else does entirely.  But all I can do is "keep trucking".

To the future, I'm looking for an apartment and (possibly) a roommate.  And of course, a job.  I budgeted out what I would need.  If I worked 40 hours a week at at least minimum wage, I'd make enough after groceries and such to afford rent up to 400-500.  600 if I don't ever want to have any spending money, which of course, isn't the case.

But before all that, there's still a month left in this semester.  And a lot to get done at that.  And all I can do is take it one thing at a time.

Insomnia The Third

Chemically Induced insomnia.  The culprit?  A delicious, caffeine infused smoothie from Smoothie King. Watching How I Met Your Mother seems to be doing the trick.  Not that it puts me to sleep...It doesn't...it's an amazing show.  But watching the screen is making my eyes tired.  I know...not an incredibly ponderous blog post but I just wanted to make an update.

Thanks.

Friday, 1:59pm...The next day.

So to be fair, that was a fairly short post and rather an making another one, I thought I'd just edit the one I already created.  Besides it's really the same story.

The smoothie is still kicking.  I decided that though I could keep watching TV shows, I did need to sleep eventually so I finally went to bed around quarter to five and then woke up five hours later not feeling very rested.  I would have slept longer but I had work in a half hour, a shift which I had been late to once and too early to twice and I didn't want to mess it up again.  I was feeling groggy but when I got to work the caffeine that was still in my system picked up where it left off when I went to sleep.  I still feel groggy but I'm tired too.  It's similar to when you're really tired and you start getting punchy from a second wind?  It's sort of like that except I don't feel like I have that second wind.  I feel really sleepy but I'm acting like I'm energetic.  Alright so that sound the same, but I promise you it's different.

The good thing that I got from all of this is that I know what I can get when I'm going to need to stay up for long hours.  See, I consumed that smoothie between the hours of 3 and 5 (it was a medium).  And instead of feeling the effects from the caffeine and the sugar with in the following hour or so, it was as though the caffeine was slowly released into my blood stream continuously even now, nearly 22 hours later.

This smoothie has great power, to be used only in extreme circumstances. Because, in the words of Uncle Ben Parker with great power comes great responsibility.

Your's In Writing

Starting something I can't fini...

I think part of the problem with writing for me is I'm afraid of starting something I can't finish.  I'll get going on something, lit by some unseen fire, and then the fire dies out before I'm anywhere near the end of the story.  Maybe I should just write "To be continued" at the end of whatever it is was writing once the fuel for the fire runs out.  I'd get some doozy cliffhangers out it, let me tell you.

Maybe this is the case in life too - starting something I can't finish.  I could never tell a girl how I felt.  Maybe it was because I knew what to say, but I didn't know what to say after that.

"Hey, I like you..."

I know some people think that that's all you really need to say but there's so much more to it than that.  There's the response.  What will it be?  Hey, I like you to?  No, sorry.  I don't see you that way."  The worst is some variation of, "I value our friendship too much."  That's not really an appropriate response.  You value our friendship too much for me to like you?  Or for you to like me?  No.  It's one thing if the person saying it really means it.  I don't have a problem with that.  But to say it, make me think you mean it, and then not even make an attempt to be friends with me afterwards......come on now.

After the response, there's the awkward time figuring out what to do next.  I don't care if it's mutual interest or not.  You know it's awkward either way.  "So, should we date then?"  "So, can we still be friends?"  So, what should we do now?"  Capital AWKWARD.

Sorry.  Tangent.  Back to writing.

So anyways, I have two books with good starts, but that's all they are: starts.  And one of them all the credit and half the writing goes to a friend for that particular story even getting started.  I have all these ideas, but I never have any full ideas, only parts.  Or I'll have a great idea or maybe a conversation will play out in my head, and by the time a get somewhere where I can write it down, only half of it is left.  And only half of that gets written down.

I'm sure this is something every writer goes through at some point.  And I do have plenty that is finished.  But they're all assignments that I've done in the past.  Nothing that I've started on my own has ever gotten completion.  Even now, I'm having trouble finding an end for this rant of mine.  I guess this will do.

Two Zero One Two

My resolution last year and, incidentally, my default resolution when I can't think of any, was to not make any resolutions.  This year, I actually made one.  I resolved to start the morning out by doing pushups.  The wood floor in my room at home isn't too pushup friendly so I decided to wait on starting my resolution until a got back to school.  Then I didn't really feel like it when I got here so I told my self I'd start the first day of school.  And I did.  First day went well.  Ten pushups.  And now, six days later, I haven't done a single one.  Does that mean I should give up?  Toss the resolution in the circular file cabinet?  No!  I will keep trying at it.