Short Story

This is just a little short story I thought up.

I stood ankle deep in the snow and grabbed another big handfull. I wasn't wearing gloves, they only got in the way of my work. Luckily it had been a very wet and cold winter, so there was plenty snow to work with. I packed the snow onto the tall pillar, making it the same height as the one a few feet to the side of it.
"Would you hurry it up! It's freezing out here!" came a gravelly voice from behind me. I glanced back at the small group. Two men and three women, all bundled up in heavy winter gear. The man who had spoke shifted the heavy backpack on his shoulder, trying to adjust his coat's hood around the short antlers sticking out of his forehead. The shortest of the women threw a snowball at the back of his head. She laughed, tossing back her head and showing porcelain teeth. The laugh washed over me, the sound of wind chimes on a clear spring day. I hate spring.
"I can't rush it." I said in a icy voice, which is usual for me. When your body is almost literally made of ice it's hard to not be cold to people, pun not intended. "If I don't build it all by hand, it won't work correctly. We could end up anywhere in the castle. Do you really want that?" He grumbled something unintelligible and scuffed at the ground.
We are all that remains of our high school senior class. It was supposed to be a routine senior trip. We never made it home. A being came and stole us all away. She called herself the "Dame of Winter." She forced us all to work in her giant castle, I was forced to work out in the gardens, sculpting her snow statuettes. Some of those statuettes were my classmates, turned into ice and snow when she became offended. The offense didn't have to be real. You could blink to many times in a row and it would set the Dame off. The man who had spoke, I think his name had been Jeff, or Jed, had been forced to pull her sleigh. She'd given him the antlers, called him her "trusty reindeer." That cold bitch.
It was 4 years ago the 6 of us managed to escape. I'm still unclear how it all happened. I had made a new sculpture hoping to please the Dame, and maybe get in out of the cold for a while. Though at that point I hardly felt it anymore. It had been months, by my best guess, since I had been somewhere covered. Part of the sculpture collapsed, forming an arch. To my surprise a sort of portal opened inside. A portal that lead home. I'd grabbed the few others I'd been able to find and we fled through. Coming home hadn't been as happy as we'd hoped. Fifty years had passed, and we were not quite human anymore. Unfortunately we'd left the others behind. Now we were going back, and this time we would be prepared.
I packed the last of the snow to complete the archway. I spent the last 3 years trying to learn the secret of the archway. I had built it each winter, trying to shape it right and draw the correct symbols to make it open. It was last week I finally made it work. That I had remembered the secret words she used to I smiled grimly as I drew the last symbol and turned to the group. A low buzz, like a florescent light began to sound as the opening beneath the arch began to distort.
"Are we ready? There's no turning back after this." I watched as they all hefted weapons, cobbled together flamethrowers, molotovs and a few handguns. They all nodded in unison as the doorway shimmered and revealed the gardens of the Dame. I'll be damned. All the statues were still as I left them. I was the last to enter, only pausing to swing the iron pipe I carried into the arches side as I stepped through, collapsing the doorway behind us.

Why Mary-Anne, WHY?

So I enjoy reading. I learned to read at an early age, but I think I thought WAY to much about what I was reading, even as a kid. Take this for example



I'm sure many of you have read this book, or at least heard of it. It's all about a man named Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel (obviously.) Well all the big diesel digging machines are putting Ol' Mike and his shovel, Mary-Anne, out of work. He finds a small town and offers to dig the cellar in a single day. They laugh at him and he proves them wrong. Him and Mary-Anne dig that cellar just in time. Except he forgets to leave a ramp to get OUT of the cellar. HE eventually is offered a job as the janitor and Mary-Anne is converted into the city hall's boiler. A cute little kids story. That always bugged the hell out of me.

Get a good look at that steam shovel. It has eyes and a very obvious mouth. Now, never ONCE in this book do they say if it is just a design like you might suspect in a kids book, where anthropomorphizing something is common. Or is it like The Little Engine That Could? A thinking semi-living being? For some reason as a kid that bothered me. Was Mary-Anne alive? Her facial did expressions seemed to change, could she speak? If so, why does Mike get most of the credit? Obviously SHE did all the work, not him! He just sat inside her! How did it feel to have her insides literally ripped out to make room for boiler parts? Does she need to eat? WHY THE FACE? WHY DOES THE MACHINE HAVE A FACE!?

I guess in many ways I was a messed up little kid.

Video Games and me

So I'm a fan of video games. Apparently horror games more than anything. Looking over my achievement list, and save files... Capcom could possibly own the rights to my attention span. Between the Resident Evil games, Dead Rising, The Legend of Zelda's on gameboy, MegaMan, Asura's Wrath, and Devil may cry I may have played more Capcom games more than any other. I blame the fact that Capcom seems to fill every game with Zombies. I can't get enough Zombie killing.
Second place would have to go to Square Enix for their Final Fantasy and other RPGs. I do love me a big epic RPG that takes 80 hours to complete, and requires grinding and grinding and grinding levels. Plus I love the way the traditional Black Mage looks. I want me one of those giant hats!
Third place will probably just go to generic Nintendo. Zelda, Mario, and Pokemon games are other great games I play. Oh Pokemon... you fulfill my magic Darwinian cockfighting need. And my need for wordplay.
Anyone have any suggestions for games I should play? Feel free to comment.

So this is the first post on my blog. Aren't you all so lucky to be able to see the terrible, terrible jokes and rants to come? No. you probably aren't. But I promise it will be kind of fun! I am just not sure for who exactly. He's on first you know. Or in the Tardis. Take your pick!