Dreams of the Quill

So uh… I don’t have Gauntlet and the Broken Angel ready. I don’t have the next chapter of the Hunter Chronicles ready. I don’t have a stable internet connection readyǃ�and am thusly not posting much of meaning on the forums. I’ll get to my current RPG(s) once they fix the phone line (and once I can download anime again zomgyay~).

In the meantime, here’s something I just wrote for my English class.

The assignment was to do a 3-4 page excerpt from Chapter 17 of our murder mystery novel. Over the last few weeks we read some LA detective book and watched a bunch of old Noir films. The idea was to incorporate some of the archetypes, etc. of the genre into what we were writing. The seventeen is just an abstract place marker.

Ch.17

The door swung on its hinges, creaking like so many old joints. I stood in the doorway, mouth wide like some filthy cave, awaiting an explanation.

“Mr. Locke, I need you to find my cookie.”

“Ma’am, it’s just a cookie,” I sighed. Sitting before me in my office was a lady, no older than eighty and absolutely gorgeous for her age. Behind her, my desk. Or, more accurately, a couple wooden corners sticking out from a mountain of papers. I walked around her slowly and took off my jacket. Seating myself behind the desk, I waited for her to turn her chair to face me before continuing. “Please allow me to be frank.” She nodded. “I’m never going to make it in this business unless I ask my clients to make appointments.”

That’s what I said, but really making it or not making it didn’t matter too much anymore. I was just getting tired of the surprises. They came one after another like so many unwanted children. Too bad I couldn’t just toss them out.

“Mr. Locke, this is an urgent matter,” the woman insisted.

“How did you find my address?”

“I need you to find my cookie.”

“Ma’am, it’sǃ�”

“It’s not just a cookie!” she yelled. I admit I was taken aback by her cry. I’d seen a fair number of new things in the last few days, but women who looked to belong in retirement homes, holding some kind of little dog, had never before barked at me. Previously, it had always been the dog. Filthy critters.

“Yes, yes, ma’am, it’s not just a cookie,” I replied, shuffling some files around on my cluttered desk. The logs from that bank transaction that I found on Saturday next to the body of my last client. The poorly scrawled death threat that was jammed under my door yesterday morning. The contract that had been pushed upon me by that Henderson guy, who I hadn’t heard from since the morning of the killing.

“Can you do it, Mr. Locke?”

“Call me Harry,” I said, running my index finger over the fine print of the contract, “everyone does. I’m not used to formality.”

“Harry, then. Can you find me my cookie?”

“Well, ma’am, it depends. It depends on whether or not you’re going to give me more to go on than the word ‘cookie.’ It depends on whether or not you’re going to give me your name, and contact information, with which to contact you once I’ve found this ‘cookie’ of yours.” I paused. “Oh, and a telephone number please. I’m not in the habit of barging into people’s rooms. Not living people, at least. Finally, it depends on whether or not you plan on letting me pay next month’s rent on this office.”

She didn’t respond. Just sat there looking kind of defiant. Finally, she drew in her breath and spat out one word: “young’un.”

“That’s right, ma’am, I’m young, a dazzlingly refreshing forty-six years of youth. I’m going to have to insist that you respond to my stated demands in some way, or that you respond to this: get out of my office.”

“My name is Phoebe Hunt.” I looked up from the contract I’d been gazing at the whole time. Hunt. The name of the dead man.

“Do you have any idea what significance this might have?” I asked quickly, leaning over the desk and brandishing the transfer statement, holding it in such a way that my fingers covered the name of Ron Hunt. Mrs. Hunt squinted at the paper for a bit and then shook her head. I sighed, though I had expected as much. “I expected as much, Mrs. Hunt. You don’t look to be the kind of woman to participate in the revolutions of the information age.” She shook her head again. “I expected as much, Mrs. Hunt. Now, allow me to tell you the meaning of this number. Oh, but firstǃ�you pay me.”

It was a hard life for us failed writers turned drunks turned private detectives. Especially living where I did, where the business was so slim that the only cases I came by were nut-cases. Making ends meet was hard like the liquor I so often turned to over the past years, and I had yet to procure a home for myself. Even this office was not in my possession, its first month’s rent paid for by Henderson. That contract on my desk bore my signature like I was a dog and it, some bastard tree.

Unsurprisinglyǃ�and I like that, unsurprisinglyǃ�the old Mrs. Hunt didn’t waste time in grabbing her purse. Judging by the pearls around her neck and the many silver rings and bracelets she, and perhaps her whole family for generations, was rolling in money. Rolling in other things, too, but definitely rolling in money. Retirement home, alright, but an elite one, complete with golf course and mausoleum, and lunch with the kids every day.

“Am I right?” I asked, and then realized that I’d voiced my question aloud.

“Is this much enough?” Mrs. Hunt asked quietly, placing a stack of bills on my desk. I put the transfer statement down and picked up the cash. Thirty hundreds. Enough for a couple months’ rent on this miserable hole. And then there was food, and preferably insurance. Maybe my first visit to the dentist’s in a dozen years. Despite how satisfied I was, I’d learned something in dealing with Henderson, and I put on a face like I was discontent. “I’ll double it when you find my cookie,” she added quickly.

“Very well,” I conceded, pocketing the cash. “This numberǃ�” I indicated the statement, “ǃ�six hundred thirty-four. In ASCII code, the sum of the letters of the word ‘cookie.’”

“Ask… what? What is that, Harry?”

“Computer stuff, Mrs. Hunt. Actually, any number of letter combinations could add up to six hundred thirty-four.” I wondered why I was telling her this. Ron Hunt was dead; his bank transactions meaningless. The knowledge of obscure things such as the number values of the entire Roman alphabet in ASCII was something I prided myself with, but it was also something I often berated myself for taking time to learn. Cookie. Yeah right.

“So it’s meaningless.”

“As is everything you’ve told me. Mrs. Hunt, your name is not Phoebe Hunt. Phoebe Hunt is dead.” Next to the body of her son Ron, on the kitchen floor. Two knife wounds to the neck. The old lady frowned. I was done playing her game, and she knew it. Three thousand dollars be damned, I wanted to get out of this alive. Justice for the Hunt family was on the back burner.

“Find me my cookie,” she commanded.

“You’re not making any sense, ma’am, but I suppose it’s better that way. More honest.” She wrinkled her nose. It was then that the resemblance became clearǃ�she looked like a small dog, just without the small. My initial wonder at seeing her in my office was over where the chair’s armrests had gone.

“My cookie.”

An idea struck.

“Ma’am, could you write your name, address, and number on this piece of paper?” I handed her a sheet and a pen, the latter of which vanished, gone to join the armrests. She set to scrawling, and a few minutes later thrust the sheet in my direction. On it, Phoebe Hunt’s name. “Your name, damn it.” I glanced over at the death threat, lying off to the side on my desk. “Well, never mind that. Right now, you’re going to tell me who put you up to this.” It was all I could do to keep from yelling. The handwriting matched like a pair of laughing idiots. “Was it Henderson?”

And then it struck me that I might have just eliminated my only chance at survival.

First off, forums! Of most noteworthy win is Kefka’s return. Besides that, within the last week both Cheeks’s RPG and Nate_dawg’s RPG started. Also, we got close to 200 posts in about 10 days, saving May from being a terribly inactive month. Oh, and we have a new member! Says he’s a friend of Black Shard’s, or something.

Next, art! TheNewHorde promised us the pictures, but the pictures were invisible.

And now, community (/money-making, etc.)! I am moving forward with the idea of making DotQ t-shirts available for you all to get through zazzle.com. But first, several issues must be dealt with—colors, logo, back text, etc. Share your thoughts in this thread.

Finally, writings.
The Amazing Adventures of Flak come to DotQ’s main sections with the release of TAAOF Issue 01!! Woot! Uh, it’s awesome, and stuff. Four original shorts by KCG are packaged together along with one guest story and a page of “Flak sez,” which is pretty much me making an ass of myself (as per usual). The issue is even better than the forums for its spelling fixes and added footnotes, etc. Uh, grab it here.

>>http://dotq.org/dream-part-2

I didn’t see anything interesting last night, but still I remember the night two years ago and the epic journey I had in my sleep—a dream that I failed to put into words.

EDIT: I learned something in school today that’s going to further immortalize the date of May 9th for me. 5.9.’07, the day that a handful of meaningful words were spoken in my direction.

I posted some art. I got my new computer. I witnessed how amazing it is. I wrote something emo. I made my first youtube video. I started working on my first AMV. April took the title for month with most forum activity.

It was in watching an episode of Card Captor Sakura that I realized this about myself. Sakura and company go to an ice skating rink by bus, and, as they approach, Terada-sensei announces that they’ll be there soon. They cheer, being the impatient little munchkins they are. I frown slightly as I realize that were I on that bus, I’d be disappointed.

Disappointed, eh? you might ask. It’s a skating rink. You go to have fun, not to get emo.

Yeah.

I’m someone who dislikes change, and this may just have to do with it. I hate getting into a vehicle like a bus or a car if I’m comfortable where I am at the time, mainly because I like being where I am and moving isn’t really my thing. But once I’m in a car… or a bus, or a train, or even an airplane for that matter, there’s this silent wish for it to never reach its destination. Until now, I’d never clearly identified this wish. I wonder if I’ll ever leave a vehicle happily again.

It’s an interesting question to me. When did I come by this wish?

Why did it stick to me?

And why did I have to notice it?

I have come to the realization that I enjoy being in transit. To be shuffled around from place to place, or rather, non-place to non-place, to never reach a goal, to never be burdened with responsibility. The reason for my dropping of every instrument I picked up was that realization that with a desire to improve came responsibility, and responsibility is up there with change as one of the things I dislike the most. It sucks the fun out of things and makes technicolor bland. And yes, improvement is a type of change��?��?��?one that frightens me more than any other if only because it enthralls me unlike any atrophy.

Changing for the better thrills me; praise and compliments admittedly boost an ego that accepts them all too willingly. I’ve taken to warning people against praising me, telling them that they will make my ego through the roof. I tend to be overly modest, and people take that as fishing for compliments, but really, it’s because I’m afraid of whatever’s being praised. With skill comes responsibility, after all.

Maybe the school bus could be a symbol for growing up and taking on the weight of a real world where all my half-assing and immaturity just won’t cut it. And maybe I want to ride that school bus eternally, much like the outlaws of “Tooi Sakebi.” Unlike “Tooi Sakebi,” however, do I want to remain nameless and unknown? Quite possibly, dead anonymity would suit me better than some of the more conspicuous things I’ve done…

There are things that I love, as detailed in my essay “Summer in AIR“—Tahoe’s summer and Berkeley’s mornings, the romantic whimsicalities of artistic eternity… I guess I should add to that the lull of the car, that gentle swaying motion that gradually calls me to rest. I don’t think it’s overly suicidal or dark of me, but I imagine I’d like to die in a motor vehicle. Not in a crash nor in any other kind of road accident (or wherever the hell else you drive) but gently, in the back seat of a some transport, of disease or old age or what have you, called to rest by the gentle swaying motion. Accompanied by the humming of a motor. And a blue sky outside my window, dotted with those masshiro clouds.

But enough about death—I should like to never arrive there.