Old F(r)iends...

I'm currently working on another story, this one of greater length but less meaning. It's based around a kid/man(depending on the chapter) named Kadota Haave. There are many Star Wars references spread throughout the story so far(see if you can find the one in this excerpt...). The storyline might be obvious to some people. I've been reading a lot of Richard Matheson's stories lately, so I'm sorta following that kind of line, as much as I try to avoid being influenced by other authors.
This section will, eventually, have a poetic message tied to it that links the chapters together and allows the story to flow a bit better. The title of this chapter implies something that happened before and happens later. In time, that's explained.

This needs revised, and it will be, again, in time, but I'd like to know if this is interesting at all? This isn't the main plot, just an introduction into the third chapter. The dog is a Pyrenees puppy named Teekay(was going to be named Leia, but Teekay seems to fit better). That will be expanded upon later.

So yeah, criticism and comments are always appreciated.

Old F(r)iends, Like Old Habits, Die Hard

1993

  On an exceptionally cold morning in December, a small, giggling child exuberantly bolted down the hall and into the living room. An exhausted, scruffy adult staggered behind, trying clumsily to navigate the narrow passageways. He growled at his plight; the walls were barely far enough apart for him to walk between, let alone run. In an effort to miss stepping on the dog, he stumbled and fell, hitting the ground heavily with his shoulder. The animal scurried away without care. The man looked up and saw the laughing kid watch him then turn the corner into the open room ahead. He stood and brushed the dirt particles and dog hair from his shirt and slacks.

  “He gets that from you, you know!” the man jokingly shouted over his shoulder towards the who was woman poking her head out of a doorway at the end of the hall.

  The woman laughed, “Nonsense,” she replied, “Come here, Sauro! Come to mommy!”

  The child reappeared from the living room in a blur, swerving just in time to escape the clutches of his father, and ran into his mother's waiting arms.

  “It's all in the delivery, Kad,” she said as she cheerfully swooped the child into her arms with a “swoosh”.

  Kadota folded his arms across his chest, “I tried that.”

  “Well odds are that you wer--”

  “You know what. . . Don't. Don't do that,” he interrupted.

  Puzzled, she inquired, “Don't do what?”

  “I don't want to know what the 'odds' are. You know how much I hate that.”

  She shook her head and patted her son's back, “Well, in that case, it's likely that you were angry when you said it. Sauro's a very sensitive child. He can tell when someone's even the slightest bit annoyed.”

  “Well can't he tell that running from me just makes it worse?”

  “He's barely three, cut him some slack.”

  “Wha—But—. . . You're the one that said he's psychic!”

  “Oh, shush. That's not what I said and you know it,” she shut the door in his face.

  He scoffed, “How dare you!” he shouted from the opposite side of the door, “You can't just shut me out like this.”

  The door opened. “Apparently not,” she said.

  Sauro pleaded for his father's attention.

  “Yeah, little buddy?” he asked as he knelt next to his son.

  “Mommy's right.”

  He roared, threw his arms up in the air and stormed out of the room and towards his bedroom. Nola could do little to refrain from bursting out in uncontrollable laughter. He had to admit to himself, as aggravating as it could sometimes be to have such an unruly child, his son's comments usually lightened the mood. As disobedient, with him at least, as his son was, he wouldn't change a thing about him. He was perfect, just like his mother. Life was perfect.

  He put his suit jacket on and slipped his work shoes over his socks and tied them, just as he'd watched his father do when he was younger. Memories of helping his father get ready for work always seemed to flood his mind when he was getting ready to leave. Comfortable memories; ones that made him feel like a little kid again. Those days were far behind him now. He was an adult now, responsibilities of his own, a family to support, and everyday issues he'd never imagined would coincide with raising a child. He had become his father in some many ways, yet so very different in others. He would never leave Nola. He made a lifelong vow to her and he intended to keep it.

  He went back to Sauro's room and hugged his son and kissed his wife as he did every day before departing.

  “Love you,” she said.

  He repeated her words back to her and walked towards the front door. He opened it and a flurry of icy wind and snow burned his cheeks and speckled his coat with white, glowing flakes.

  “Hun,” his wife called to him before he left, “you're forgetting your hat,” she said as she placed it gently on top of his golden hair and brushed the snow off his shoulders.

  “Thanks, Nola,” he said with a smile, enjoying the relaxing warmth of house more than before after he stepping into the cold and knowing he'd again return to it. H gave her another kiss on the cheek before marching back out into the cold.

  Yes, life was perfect.

New and upcoming story news....

I have published two stories through a site called Smashwords. Both of my stories are available for download, free of charge. You can download either or both in .rtf format for most reader programs(OpenOffice, Word, etc.), .txt, .PDF, and for various mobile readers as well(Kindle, Nook, etc.)

Click the image to go to the page in which this story is available for free download(link will open in new window)

 Click the image to go to the page in which this story is available for free download(link will open in new window) 

And as a bit of 'news', a third story is in the works. Outline complete, trying to skip 'drafting' it and going straight into the nitty-gritty as I've done before.
It can be expected to be finished sometime in March, perhaps April, if all goes as planned. The title is yet to be decided.

After some number crunching...

 According to the "World Health Organization"(WHO), Alcohol: Approximately 2,500,000 lives claimed annually(6,849/day).
 According to history books, Hitler and the Nazi regime: Approximately 1,000,000 Jewish lives claimed annually.
 9/11: Approximately 2,800 lives claimed in one day.

 That means that, Globally, alcohol is 2.5 times as efficient at taking lives as Hitler and the Nazis were at killing Jews, and 2.45 times as efficient as an attack as devastating as 9/11 happening every day of the year.
 4% of all deaths worldwide are caused by alcohol; so much money goes into finding a cure for cancer, trying to stop terrorist attacks, trying to find vaccines for AIDS, yet so many more people are killed by something readily and legally available to anyone twenty-one years of age.
 Why is the most efficient of those first three things not only legal, but glorified in society; to the point that some people are shunned if they do not participate?

An introduction...

I've been sorting an idea out in my head for a few weeks; the plot is loosely based on an idea I had before I even started writing; it was an idea for a movie.
It's not going to have much action and, unlike my previous short stories, it will have dialogue. It's the story of someone named Kadota Haave growing up in New Hampshire(locale may change to a place I'm familiar with, for the sake of describing places from experience). He meets a kid named Sarth at his eighth birthday party. The two become friends, inseparable even. Sarth, though imaginary, is always there for Kadota. When he has problems with women, Sarth offers advice or counsel. When he's got issues with his job, Sarth encourages him to try harder. It's pretty much a story of someone with a ridiculously intricate imagination and using it as a companion, of sorts.

And in case you're wondering, it DOES have proper formatting; copy/pasting doesn't keep that formatting, though.

Without further ado, here's an introduction to the main characters.

1977

Kadota Haave is a seven year old boy growing up in New Hampshire; the only child of two immigrants, his father from Finland and his mother from Sweden, Kadota is far from being an average New England kid. Extraordinarily sociable, despite being teased about his thick European accent and very pale complexion. With an extremely wild and vivid imagination, he is sometimes caught talking to himself by his friends and family. It was something he was supposed to have grown out of, or so his parents were told. His fifth birthday, perhaps halfway to his sixth, they were told, it would stop and that he'd grow out of it. It only became more frequent. Despite being an outcast at school by those who have seen him talking to himself, he's outgoing to a fault, willing to befriend any stranger than might cross his path. It worried his parents to take him to a grocery store for, if they turn their backs for more than a minute, he starts conversing with anyone and everyone in sight. Exuberantly happy as well, he invariably tries to cheer up anyone that's sad or frowning; once, even going so far as telling jokes at a funeral being held for a friend of the family.

Starting in February, his parents took him to a psychiatrist specializing in dealing with children of Kadota's “special behavior” as his parents put it. The weeks following caused a stress between them to finally come to a head; it had been there, under the surface but unspoken and not admitted consciously to either one. Dormant. But taking him to a shrink twice a week awakened that stress. There wasn't anything wrong with their child, he was just different. That's what they had said day in and day out. To friends, to family, to the school board; to each other even. This caused a regression for Kadota. The occurrences in which he was found talking to himself became more frequent. One time during Grace at the dinner table, he started mumbling to himself. He was excused by his father after his mother ran out of the room, face in her hands, crying out “Dear God, what's wrong with my son?”.

That was when they stopped telling each other that there was nothing wrong with him. That was when they stopped lying to each other. And to themselves.

He saw the psychiatrist on a biweekly basis until the week before his birthday, the seventeenth of October, his parents ceased taking him when they realized it had only made matters worse not only for Kadota, but for them as parents and as a couple. It pushed their relationship to the verge of collapse. They found a way to make it work, either for themselves or because they both knew deep down that, if they separated, Kadota would be so overwhelmed that he would never be able to support himself as an individual. It would destroy his mind and he would be taken over by his imagination.

The seventeenth came; he'd been begging for a sci-fi themed birthday party ever since his parents took him to see the first installment of a space fantasy trilogy in the cinema back in May. They agreed to it, regardless of their disapproval of the film's theme. The entire plot irritated them, but Kadota enjoyed it thoroughly; all of it. From the space ships to the laser swords, he cheered through and through, over the hisses of the other moviegoers shushing him. It was embarrassing for his parents trying to keep him from expressing his excitement about the film.

It was at his own birthday party that he'd meet who would become his best friend; a boy named Sarth. When asked where he was from, he said “somewhere else”. When asked about his last name, he shrugged and stifled an oscillating grunt. He was a strange child in comparison to others, but completely predictable to Kadota because this child, Sarth, it just so happened, was imaginary. Nothing more than another character invented by Kadota's mind; a world that's vibrant, joyous, hopeful, and far from ordinary or dull. Real—real enough—to Kadota, at the very least. Peaceful. Real life was never peaceful, but when he escaped into the deepest realms of his imagination, there was peace unlike any other. And freedom. Oh, how free it was in his mind. Freedom to do anything at anytime for any reason. Without necessity or boundary, without restriction or rule.

Finally...

At long last, I have finally finished the story I've been working on for over two months... Two months and a whopping fourteen pages, it was a debilitating, difficult writing effort. It was a very slow effort due to the need to use definitions of words to change the definitions of them(the robot being insane by, essentially, its complete sanity).
I need to go back through it and fix any errors, but it is finished as an entire story. And I couldn't be happier.

Third excerpt

You know those movie trailers where they show the exciting parts of the movie, then when you see it, you find that the dialogue and half the shots in the trailer aren't even in the movie?
For instance, Star Trek VIII: First Contact, the USS Voyager makes an appearance. In the trailer. It's replaced by, I think an Akira-class starship for that particular shot in the actual movie. It also used scenes from Next Generation and Deep Space 9 episodes, as well as Star Trek VII: Generations.
Yeah, those... The ones where it makes people go "Oh, that's going to be in it?" only to rip that possibility from them.

This is called "Hearing The Silence". It is one such scene--it will not be in the finished short story.

HEARING THE SILENCE

Familiarity is often the basis of love or compassion. Having become accustomed to seeing someone, speaking to someone, communicating with someone, one becomes likely to develop a fondness—a certain type of compassion; a love that exists between the superficial and the sincere, between the plain and the bold, the bland and the profound; but it is not at all lukewarm.

Familiarity became the basis of their relationship; PDM-512-0753 and a human with a name unknown. The human would appear on a once-every-other-week basis, then became more frequent, showing up weekly. At first, the human would stare at PDM-512-0753 for minutes at a time, increasing almost daily until it was spending hours every one or two days. No longer just staring, it would communicate with the machine. One of the first things it said was its own designation: Lorraine. It would speak of situations and struggles it had faced, family, friends, enemies, and yes, even love—especially love. It was overwhelmed, almost obsessed with the topic. For this reason, PDM-512-0753 was fascinated by the creature and its tales of life. Love, it had said, was necessary to live. Like water to a plant, it said. These statements puzzled the machine even deeper so. PDM-512-0753 grew accustomed to this human's presence, and began to understand familiarity.

One day, Lorraine asked why the machine never spoke. It stared at her quizzically before answering “Because you can not hear me.”

Lorraine scowled, “How did you know?”

PDM-512-0753 took a step back from a sort of shock—even the computer could be surprised when occurrences were beyond understanding, but this biological unit understood it. It knew what it had said.

“Query; you are capable of perceiving my communications?”

The human laughed, “More or less; I'm becoming deaf. I read lips.”

There was a brief pause as PDM-512-0753 seemed to scan a memory bank; “Designation: Production Display Model Five-Twelve, Oh-Seven-Fifty-Three, Etude line. Please state my purpose.”

“You want me to state your purpose?”

It remained silent a moment. “Please?” it pleaded in complete desperation.

“But I don't know what your purpose is.”

“Do I have a purpose?”

“I don't know,” the human responded, lifting and dropping its shoulders in a short, quick movement; “Well, bye,” the human said with a wave of its hand as it began walking away.

The machine watched intently as the human departed.


This scene was going to develop into several pages and tie in with the original ending, but it seemed out of place and somewhat meaningless to the story as a whole. Granted, a few more pages would be great to add, this is not the route in which I'm looking to add those pages.

Dialogue... Bleh!

Just an update...

  I'm going to resume working on the robot-based short story soon. Not sure how many people actually read this, so could be just spittin' in the wind here, but nevertheless, I've gotta get that stupid thing finished. I've got a plan for another story and would like to at least get this'n out of the way before continuing with another. Have plans, too, for getting a story booted up--based on NaNoWriMo that a friend introduced me to, but at my own standards and at a time of my own choosing; ie. not in November(too busy of a month here), but maybe March or April, a time when everything is coming to life and the world itself seems to ebb with inspiration, imagination, life and hope.

  Also, been thinking about a major for college a lot. Need to discuss something with someone who already majored in what I want on majoring in(music, possibly composition or production), though it's being recommended that I go for English... Again, something to discuss with someone who has or is majoring in it. The reason I emphasize 'want', when referring to majoring in music, is because the career field for someone who's majored in music seems to be pretty slim pickings. Not that English would have more going for it, in regards to possible careers based on it, it's just that my interests are playing and writing music, as well as writing lyrics/poems(if they can be called 'poems' when lacking so many basic poetic devices) and stories.

  College is something I'm looking forward to, but am also scared senseless by it at the same time.