Two dodgy vans I've seen

So far, it's just co-incidence.  Let's hope that there's not a third...

Something I wrote half a lifetime ago

So here’s the first paragraph of the first story I ever finished.  Grade 8, woo.  I have underlined all the parts that made me cringe and laugh aloud. 

The alarm clock played an annoyingly cheerful tune.  A hand patted the bedside table, in attempt to find the source of the noise without any success.  A sleepy,  still half asleep head popped up with a groan.  With the help of sight, Toshepsilon was finally able to find the clock and switch off the annoying alarm.  The clock read 6:30 am.  Tosh wondered why his alarm clock was set to go off so early or at all.  It must have been someone that knew that when Tosh woke up, he wouldn’t go to sleep again until bed time.  The only name that popped up was C.J.  Only she could have done such an evil deed.  Still half asleep, Tosh dragged his tired body out of bed.  It was useless to try to fall asleep again now that he was half awake.  After a trip to the toilet and a shower, Tosh was more refreshed, although still a little annoyed at C.J, who was obviously the one who set the clock.  Since it was C.J was obviously the one that set the clock, Tosh decided that C.J probably had something official or important so he put on his uniform.  Then he dried his emerald green hair and tried to tame it.  Tosh’s hair was impossible, it flopped this way and that, sometimes getting in his eyes.  He had given up on gel and it was still too short to tie up.  Tosh put his red cloth band around his forehead as a sign that he had lost something great and dear to him. 

This is how I would write the scene now. 

The alarm clock’s cheerful tune was full of sadistic pleasure.  When the swatting of his groggy hand did not end the torture, Toshepsilon groaned and begrudgingly lifted his head to squint at the illuminated numbers. 

6:30am.

Never in a million years would he have set an alarm for this ungodly hour.  It must have been the work of Commander Jaramiteey.  The commander, known affectionately by her tight knit team as ‘CJ’, never did anything without purpose.  So if she set an early alarm for Tosh, he knew that he’d best get up. 

A shower worked wonders.

So did his uniform. 

The red bandanna wasn't part of the standard issue.  It tamed his grass-green hair, but that wasn't why he wore it.  

Red Moon

Religious nuts had been on the radio all afternoon, saying that it was the end of the world.  The scientist in me scoffed, but a niggly part of me felt excited by the utter conviction in their ranting. 

Dinner was uneventful.  I kept checking the clock, but time wasn’t passing by any faster.  If anything, each time I looked, it seemed to slow down a fraction more just to spite me.  Perhaps the world would end tonight.  Of boredom. 

I didn’t wash the dishes after I inhaled the food off them.  It’s a bad habit I’ve developed lately.  But I usually get them the next day, so I’ll wash them before I go to work.  That is, if the world hasn’t ended by then.

At 7:15pm a shadow fell across the full moon.  It wasn’t red.  It was maybe a little bit brown.  The real eclipse was still a bit over an hour away so I drifted back downstairs to waste some more time on the computer.  The whole affair was a bit anticlimactic so far.  Perhaps the earthquakes and the blood rain and the terrible trumpets of the angels of death would come later.

I got caught up in reading some article about the Great Barrier Reef and almost missed the 8:30 mark.  At 8:32pm I raced back up stairs.  For a moment, there was nothing in the sky.  Then the clouds must have parted, or the Earth must have shifted a fraction, for there it was.

I slid the glass aside and stepped out onto the balcony.  The red moon looked like a bit of loose flesh in the sky.  The sight was both grand and disappointing, like finding out that the Easter Bunny doesn’t exist but you can still eat chocolate eggs every year at Easter.  In that moment, I felt completely affirmed.  ‘The world is everything and that is the case.’

The Earth shifted again, and the red glowed brighter.  As the soft rays of light fell upon me, I felt myself change.  Anger.  Lust.  Madness.  The sky upended itself, tipping power through me like a waterfall through a straw.  It washed away my twenty-something years of history and replaced it with a raw and timeless need. 

My last coherent thought was that they were right.  Damn it, those fanatics had been right all along.  The world would end, and it would be my doing. 

Mascot potplant

My partner said I should give it a name.  So I called it...

SQUALT CHOMONDELEY

so now me and Squalt hang out like super bros while I work.