Reay Jespersen

Just as a note, today marks precisely the half-way point of Tracy’s 100 words for 100 days challenge. I’m still going strong, sometimes just ensuring I make those 100 words minimum (Drabbles, and such), but as often doing more than that (and on occasion, much more; my daytime high thus far is slightly over 2200 words).

I already know I’m going to keep up the daily writing even after the challenge is done, but I’m looking forward to rocking the last half of it.

“I had noticed that not all cockroaches die, even when sprayed with the most toxic materials. This led to the discovery that some cockroaches which are dead come back to life. Not just a fact to creep out entomophobics or the squeamish, but a significant medical discovery.
These ‘zombie cockroaches’ are relatively stupid, and ignore other food in favour of eating living flesh, preferably cannibalizing each other.
Years later, I have successfully identified and duplicated the virus behind this biological anomaly. I’ve stored it in a secure place in my lab, where I’m certain nothing bad can happen with it…”

There are things that demand certain replies. Which isn’t to say that other responses are inherently wrong so much as they somehow… don’t suffice. Carson pored over his workbench, examining each tool closely; each one considered carefully. Dozens of possibilities.
There was a murmur behind him. Carson glared over his shoulder at the naked, gagged man strapped to the table; the man who had killed Carson’s only child and had gotten off on a legal technicality.
Carson turned back to his workbench, and his eyes fell immediately onto the right implement, glinting coldly.
There are things that demand certain replies.

Johann was the go-to man for anything that had to be transported. He took on the neutral stance of his motherland in his work, keeping him in business and, indeed, alive.
He had seen and shipped many things in his day: a shot man with one briefcase handcuffed to himself and another full of money offered for immediate transportation, crates with faded swastikas on them, and a book that faintly glowed.
He’d seen and shipped many things, but when the men in black wheeled aboard a cryogenic chamber with a frozen alien inside, he knew he’d never see everything.

Grayson the mason
was a trade master.
None could build bigger,
And none could build faster.

With mortar and cinder
he built up his wall;
the second of four,
then he would have all.

He sweat as he toiled
all through the hot night.
He would keep working
’til it was done right.

As dawn pinked the sky
he cracked a wide grin.
By noon that same day
he could pack it all in.

Another job done,
he stood back with pride.
His work gave him strength,
a good feeling inside.

Time to go home,
he caught the next bus.
He’d make it in time,
so no need to fuss.

He grabbed his packed bag,
bought a plane ticket south;
a small island he’d heard of,
just through word of mouth.

The plane took to air
and he started to smile.
Though a fast leave, he knew
he’d be gone for a while.

He sat on the beach
with a tropical drink,
looking out at the ocean,
indulging a think.

Grayson was liked by
all folks far and wide.
What was the reason
he was trying to hide?

The thing was that Grayson,
the jovial man,
had done his last job
as part of a plan.

The walls were the finest
that he’d ever done.
But in truth they were needed
to ensconce his fun.

The likable mason
had a side that was naughty.
And it would be decades
’til they chipped out the body.

Nothing he had ever seen or heard of could have prepared him for this. Waking up this morning, Jamie found he was alone. Not only his wife not lying beside him, nor their daughter gone, but as horrifying as those discoveries were, realizing it went so much further. His apartment building and the streets were empty, the highway strewn with crashed, empty cars. And it went beyond just the city. Friends in other countries weren’t answering their phones. It seemed there was no one else anywhere.
Six billion people gone in the blink of an eye.
Only one left behind.

Asger trudged forward, now more from habit than strength or willpower. His wrapped layers of furs couldn’t withstand the onslaught of the blizzard, and the ever-deepening snow was proving to be more than his match, champion warrior or no.
He stumbled and fell again, ice-crusted scabbard slashing at his booted leg, the pain crippling.
He pushed himself upright and moved on until he fell again. And again. Until he could finally push himself upright no more. Yet he was strangely comforted by that. Finally, a chance to rest and catch his breath. Perhaps sleep. Just briefly.
Just briefly…

Years back, I heard about a writing format that was an entire story contained within 100 words or less. The format began, the bit of research I did told me, when writer Neil Gaiman (whose work I’m enjoying more and more - check out his site, he has a link to a free version of his novel American Gods) had written a story on a Christmas card, which happened to be in the range of 100 words in length.

Always interested in trying out a new writing format (which was, along with the encouragement of Alex, what got me into writing screenplays), I started to play around with the sub-100 word style, which I found quite interesting. It tended to require overshooting the needed word total and then cutting back some here and using a different word to encapsulate a phrase there. I also found that while the pieces I was writing could technically be called stories, they more often tended to be pieces of stories, which in order to have their full impact, required the reader to extrapolate the before and after of the events within the story. All in all, a very interesting discipline.

Read more

While I’d seen the book around in various places, I’d been under the impression that it was an anti-huge corporation book. It turned out to be something far more interesting and deep than simply slamming another big company.

Author Tom Slee shows the reader in progressively complex ways how it is that the commonly-held view of how the marketplace works - that given options of what to buy, people will always choose what they most prefer, and that the most preferred product/company will therefore prosper while the less preferred will fade away - in fact works very differently. From what orange juice you buy to what car you buy, from where you live to what school you want your children to go to, there are many factors which are at play which skew the way reality works from the MarketThink (as Slee calls it) company line. What we choose, in short, is not indicative of what we would most like, but rather what is the best reasonable option given the choices available in view of those other factors. Hence, those who have the power and inclination to affect those other factors have the ability to alter what our choices will be, leaving us with fewer reasonable options to choose among.

Read more

Yesterday Jackie and I finally got a chance to get in our snowed-out dogsledding from a couple of weeks back. We had a really good time. It’s no small amount of driving - three hours, give or take, northeast - and ain’t cheap, but if you like dogs and want to try something different as far as winter activities go, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Read more