Once upon a time, in a small town in the heart of Illinois, there lived a young girl named Lily. She was known throughout the town for her curious nature and her love of adventure.
One day, while wandering through the town's quiet streets, Lily stumbled upon an old, abandoned store. The store was filled with all sorts of junk: old books, broken furniture, and rusted tools. It was a mess, but Lily was fascinated by the objects scattered about.
As she walked deeper into the store, Lily heard a faint sound. She followed the noise until she found herself standing in front of a dusty old record player. It was playing a scratchy old tune, the melody haunting and beautiful.
Lily searched through the piles of junk until she found an old letter. It was addressed to a man named Jack and it was from his ex-wife. As she read the letter, she felt a wave of emotions wash over her. It was a heartbreaking love letter, filled with regret and longing.
As she put down the letter, a man came out from the back of the store. He introduced himself as Jack, the man to whom the letter was addressed. He confirmed that the letters were written by his ex-wife and promised to tell Lily the story behind them.
Before she met Jack, Lily had been enchanted by the music and the letter. But now she could see that Jack was a little old and dirty, with a wild beard and a friendly grin.
As Jack began to tell her the story of his lost love, Lily listened with rapt attention. She learned about the joys and the heartbreaks that Jack and his wife had shared, and she realized that even the most broken hearts could heal with time.
From that day forward, Lily visited Jack every week, and they spent hours talking about life and love and everything in between. And although the store was still filled with junk, to Lily it was a place of magic and wonder, a place where she had discovered a new friend and a story that would stay with her forever.
Friday, April 14, 2023
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
Routine Traffic Stop
The policeman, or rather a policeman, Bill, and his partner, Adrian, saw that the man was throwing up out the window of the car, as the car was going. The driver had slowed the car down a little, but was still in the passing lane, so the vomit was spraying all over the median and much of it was ending up on his own car. They pulled him over and within a couple blocks he had pulled in to the parking lot of a bank. He said his name was Ted, and he had trouble getting out of the car, though he was able to find his ID. They asked him to do a sobriety check and he flunked it big-time. He was very drunk.
The car was not in very good shape either. It had a huge spider-web crack in the front windshield that made them wonder if Ted could see anything while he was driving. Ted said that Marlene did this with a hammer. Marlene was his wife, apparently, or perhaps ex-wife given the situation with the hammer. He tried to explain something about how he'd been at the bar too long and she had to come get him but she wasn't very diplomatic. There was no question he'd been at the bar too long.
While Bill was arresting Ted, putting him in handcuffs, reading him his rights, and trying to get him into the police car, Adrian did a cursory search of the car. Ted was still throwing up, in fact, more than even while he was driving. It was like his whole life was coming out from the inside out onto the bank parking lot. This car and this vomit might have to wait until morning, thought Bill. But he really didn't want to shove Ted into the back of his patrol car under such a circumstance. He knew they couldn't stand here forever in the parking lot, but he thought that if he stalled a few seconds it might save the upholstery from weeks of a wretched smell.
His partner, Adrian, was finding all kinds of things in Ted's car. There was a big jug of what could only be described as everclear, homemade alcohol, but also a chemical that she knew was intended to make the drinker throw up. Why would that chemical be in the car? Actually it was a little vial, labeled that way, but it was empty. Had Ted poured the chemical into his drink? Had someone else?
He had an arsenal of guns, all in the back, down by the feet of the back seat. Three of them, all loaded and ready to fire. Where did he say he was going?
Then came a quick series of actions Bill would remember forever. He was hesitating, standing next to his car with Ted in handcuffs; he was waiting for Ted to finish throwing up before he tried to push him in to the back of the police car. Ted made a weak call to Marlene but his throwing up was interfering with his voice. Another small car came into the bank parking lot and stopped suddenly. A woman jumped out of the car, started screaming, and attacked Adrian as she was backing herself out of the back seat of Ted's car with one of the guns she had just picked up. This gun was evidence; she didn't want to use it, yet she couldn't reach for her own gun when her hands were full. The woman was screeching and attacking her with her fists on Adrian's back.
Suddenly, when Ted called Marlene's name with his garbled voice, a shot rang out. Bill watched in amazement as Ted was hurled back into the policecar, a bullet through his heart. Marlene had shot Ted! Bill was shocked because really, he would have been an easier target himself. Ted was between him and the car itself, and she would have had to have been a markswoman to shoot Ted and not him. But that's what had happened.
And then another shot rang out; she'd shot herself. Again, it would have been easy enough to have shot Adrian. She'd got the gun; she had the advantage; for some reason she wanted to do her murder-suicide in dramatic fashion.
Later on, the ID never checked out; Marlene had been carrying something fake, which didn't lead to anyone. Ted was a local dealer and was known to get into trouble, but Marlene was a mystery. The best they could figure, she was a woman who had gone AWOL from the Army, had been specially trained in marksmanship but had a falling out of some kind. That woman, who the Army identified, hadn't been seen in several years, but in fact could have done the shooting that Bill and Adrian described. Bill and Adrian were both a bit shaken by the event but ultimately figured they were lucky and she really only wanted to kill him and herself, not the police; perhaps she liked the police. Whatever her secrets, she'd carry them to the grave.
Thursday, March 9, 2023
Mr. GeePeeTee
I had a dream last night and this arrogant guy was in it. He called himself Chat GeePeeTee. We were having cappucinos at the Starbucks.
He was saying that he'd just published ten sets of short stories this morning, all on Amazon. It took me nine years to write ten sets of short stories, but still I was proud, so I didn't display my jealousy or get mad at him. He was just a writer, cranking it out, doing the best he can in this world.
He of course had the best of marketing tricks. He didn't even have to pay to market; his handlers took care of it. He explained how they just used their knowledge to figure out what was the best way to get readers. They could also use statistics to figure out what the hot topics would be. You make a story with the right keywords, you have an automatic best seller. Then people tend to read the other stuff you wrote, because it all comes off your author page. At the rate of ten sets a day, he'll have quite a few.
He told me that having pen names was really quite useful, because he could keep the short-story author separate from the mystery author. All the money's in erotica, though, he said. You can write a lot of romance with good sex in it, but you might as well come right out with the good sex, put it right on the cover, let everyone know what the book is all about.
He'd read tons of it, and he'd read enough to know what sells. In fact he could program the statistics to figure out what sells. Obviously the authors that made it steamiest were doing the best. There's nothing wrong with just copying their style, he said. After all, it's just two humans rubbing their bodies together.
Something about the way he said "humans" tipped me off, like maybe he wasn't one of us. But I was kind of intrigued by the way he claimed to use statistics to make his books match the formula perfectly and become best-sellers. His erotica pen-name author was doing better than any of the others, he said, didn't take long at all for that audience to find him. It's like they're all just looking for something new. And here I am, he said, with really nothing new in the book, just mixing around the steam and the various ideas from plots that I pick up here and there.
The sun was going down outside the coffee shop, where believe it or not, there was a cornfield right up against the Starbucks on the outside edge of this town. I'd been thinking of giving up writing altogether, what with sales as low as they are, and family commitments and all, but this guy with all his arrogance made me want to keep trying. I'll tell you why. He was pretty sure it was just a matter of finding the right formula - look at it statistically, see what people want, give them what they want. Don't get all caught up in what you want to say, or how you want the world to see you. Just give it to 'em on a plate. Go for the money. That's what makes you feel good anyway. Once you're walking to the bank, who cares what you went through to get there?
Wednesday, February 22, 2023
My main character is a young student at Harvard in 1683. He has been at Harvard for about seven years, getting his A.B. (like a B.A.) in 1680 and now he has gotten his A.D. (Master's degree) in 1683. He loves the place; he will return and teach as a tutor for twelve years, and eventually become the President of the place. But for now, he has graduated and has to leave.
They have trouble getting presidents at Harvard. That's because they need a minister, and they need him to live on-site, and no minister can get their congregation to relieve them, because being minister is like a lifetime commitment. You don't just walk away from a congregation like that. So when Harvard needs a president, they have a hard time finding one.
THey have managed to talk one man into it, though, and he's due to come down with his family of five children, and move to Cambridge from Ipswich where he has been helping another man with a congregation. He's a qualified minister but not a full fledged one and that's why it will work. It takes a while, but finally he arrives and is inaugurated as president, right as our main character is leaving.
This is probably when our main character meets the new president's daughter, whom he will marry in twelve years.
In the year the main character is gone, the new President gets established, but then dies in the middle of a solar eclipse. This is 1684, so there's no telling what people thought of that solar eclipse.
When he comes back, he's a tutor. He's in a better position. He's set to live there for twelve years and ultimately to take over the place. But the daughter is now gone; she's married and had four children, losing two of them. When she comes back, he'll marry her anyway. She's the one for him.
Sunday, February 19, 2023
I was sitting there at my computer, trying to write about exactly how I felt. I was totally in the moment, in touch with my feelings, ready to expound on why I felt the way I did. But all of a sudden, a portal opened up and I slipped through it, right as I was sitting there.
All of a sudden I was in a world where everyone had special powers, in particular the power to time travel wherever they wanted, and people were showing up from all places, all times, just to see me. I was like a novelty to them, so they wanted to see what I was all about. Some of them had come from as far as the fifth century BC, or in one case Tasmania, 1725. Sometimes I didn't even understand what they were saying.
Two of them got into a huge fight that had something to do with the potato famine. Maybe they had been on different sides and one of them had been hungry for what, a couple hundred years. I felt like getting that one some french fries but then I remembered that they were addictive and it was like giving somene cocaine. Some favor! I decided to keep my mouth shut.
In the end I learned that being from this time, this place, right in front of my computer and all, isn't really all that special, and that really there are interesting people in every corner of the space-time continuum as we know it. I did find one distant relative of mine but he said he was from the Canary Islands or some such place, and it was an incredibly long story how we were related, but I said I had time or at least I thought I did, and then, instead of waiting to hear exactly how we were related, I just borrowed five bucks from him since I figured, if we were related, that had to be good for something, no matter what space-time we were dealing with. When I got back to my computer it was actually before I had even left, but the five bucks was gone, maybe I spent it and forgot. That happens a lot anyway; I don't especially need a portal to slip into an alternate state, and then spend the rest of the day figuring out where I went and what happened to the little candies I thought I was carrying around.
All of a sudden I was in a world where everyone had special powers, in particular the power to time travel wherever they wanted, and people were showing up from all places, all times, just to see me. I was like a novelty to them, so they wanted to see what I was all about. Some of them had come from as far as the fifth century BC, or in one case Tasmania, 1725. Sometimes I didn't even understand what they were saying.
Two of them got into a huge fight that had something to do with the potato famine. Maybe they had been on different sides and one of them had been hungry for what, a couple hundred years. I felt like getting that one some french fries but then I remembered that they were addictive and it was like giving somene cocaine. Some favor! I decided to keep my mouth shut.
In the end I learned that being from this time, this place, right in front of my computer and all, isn't really all that special, and that really there are interesting people in every corner of the space-time continuum as we know it. I did find one distant relative of mine but he said he was from the Canary Islands or some such place, and it was an incredibly long story how we were related, but I said I had time or at least I thought I did, and then, instead of waiting to hear exactly how we were related, I just borrowed five bucks from him since I figured, if we were related, that had to be good for something, no matter what space-time we were dealing with. When I got back to my computer it was actually before I had even left, but the five bucks was gone, maybe I spent it and forgot. That happens a lot anyway; I don't especially need a portal to slip into an alternate state, and then spend the rest of the day figuring out where I went and what happened to the little candies I thought I was carrying around.
Sunday, January 29, 2023
Westbound
I had this incident once when I got on the train going out of New York City. This very intense young man sat next to me for about fifty miles, but got off somewhere in Westchester or beyond. I was going up to Albany and then all the way out to Colorado so I was about to settle in for a nap. But the guy was quite intense.
I had a newspaper in my hand and he pointed out that the killer referenced on the front page had just been in Manhattan. "As were we all," he said, looking around at the people on the train. It seemed like a pretty normal train-car full of people, all ages, both genders, even some families. But this young guy could have been a killer, and I realized that, even as he was insinuating, it seemed, that maybe I was.
He left me alone until his stop, at which point he got off rather quickly, and then I realized that he'd left his phone on the seat. The phone was dead. There was no way I could reach him anyway, even if it were charged. He was there, the phone was here. I wondered if perhaps my charger, which I always carry with me, would work on it.
The train was an Amtrak and it had a club car, and believe it or not way up there I found a plug and was able to plug it in. I thought of handing it to the authorities right away, namely, the conductor on the train. After all, it was really between him and the train; there was no reason I should even be involved, not to mention using my own charger to charge his phone.
There was a card game near where the plug was and some guy with a white Panama hat noticed me messing with my charger, which didn't fit his phone, and came over and offered his own charger which he was pretty sure would work. It did. But now I felt obligated to go sit near the card game since I was using this guy's charger to find out about what was on this phone. Deep down, I thought this guy was the killer. You couldn't tell from the picture in the newspaper; that was a police artist's sketch and it was like a horoscope, it could fit just about anyone. You could look at that police artist's version of a young guy with a handsome face, and a winter hat, and intense eyes, and if you were in the mood half the people on the train would fit that profile. So I figured I had to get into that phone to learn more about the guy who had been sitting next to me.
The card game broke into a raucous fight as two guys accused the guy with the Panama hat of cheating. Apparently, they said that while he got up to get me the charger he'd looked at this other guy's cards. There were two guys pummeling him and trying to take this wad of bills that he'd cleared from the table in winning. "You cheated! they yelled, "Give us the money!" I felt like I had to do something, though I really didn't want to get involved, so I started pulling on the back of the largest guy, a big red-headed guy who turned out to be George.
The fourth card-player was a woman. She was quite beautiful, and did nothing but put the chips in order and watch.
Two men burst into the club car and came up to us with guns drawn; one had an Amtrak uniform. They told us all to line up near the wall; this was near the outlet so I took the phone and charger and just tucked it away. They had the woman against the wall too; there was me, the two big guys, the guy with the Panama hat, and the woman. They patted down the fanny pack of the guy with the Panama hat and found a gun. "What's this?" they said. The fanny pack was clearly in the spot where he'd been sitting.
"It's not mine! That woman put it in there while I was helping this guy with the charger!" He looked at me like he wanted me to say something in his defense. He was pretty sure nobody else would.
But he was wrong. George said, "That's right! She put it in there!"
"That's your gun, George," said the woman.
"Everybody off the train!" they said. The train was stopping; we were in Albany. My plan had been to get out here anyway, to look up an old college friend; he knew vaguely that I was coming. We lined up in front of them to get off the train. The other guy, the guy with the red bandana, whined about some stuff he didn't want to be separated from. He was pretty sure that, off the train, the train would go on without us, and his stuff would still be under his seat. They assured him that he'd be back on the train in time. I wasn't so sure, but I didn't care; I didn't have stuff.
The minute we got off the train George set off and disappeared in the crowd. They couldn't shoot at him because he was running behind random people who were getting off the train. He was a big guy, but really they just appeared to be Amtrak security and didn't really want to shoot anyone anyway. The money we were talking about was just a fistful of bills, mostly ones, that George and the man with the hat had been scuffling over; the guy with the uniform had those. He had the gun, too.
We stood outside the train while people finished getting off and others started getting on. It was a warm spring day, a little cool out, but the sun was shining. "This fight was about this money, right?" the guy in the uniform said. "But this fellow ran off," he said, referring to George, "so I guess the money's yours, huh?" and he gave the money to the guy with the hat. "But I'm keeping the gun. You can't have a gun on these trains. Now get back on there and behave!" He and the other guy turned on their heels and left, leaving us, me, the man with the hat, the woman, and the guy with the bandana, to board again. The guy with the bandana was relieved and went straight to his stuff.
I had a split-second decision to make: whether to change my ticket for a ticket tomorrow, and go visit my college buddy, as I'd originally planned, or to just get back on the train with these two, the guy with the hat and the woman, spurned and abandoned by George. I decided to stick with them and get back on the train. My college buddy could wait; I'd be coming back through in a couple weeks. But the main reason was I didn't want to deal with anyone from Amtrak, ticket master, anyone. I didn't want to give them the phone. I think they handled the incident well enough, I just didn't want any more to do with them.
Back in the club car the man with the hat bought us coffees with the money in his fist that he'd won nefariously; he admitted that he might have looked at George's cards. There wasn't all that much of it anyway and it didn't go that far since coffee was like a fortune on an Amtrak. I settled into the booth and tried to figure out what the relation of George and the woman was; clearly they'd known each other. I asked her if he was her husband or what, and did she expect to see him again? I kept my eye out for the guy with the bandana but didn't see him.
She said they were actors going to play a show in Cleveland and she was aware that he had a rough side; she knew about the gun; but she'd agreed to go with him on the train to Cleveland as it was better than traveling alone. She didn't know what motivated him to bolt in Albany or what he would do on the streets of Albany. Amtrak had his gun. Maybe he'd try to get it back.
The man with the hat claimed he was going to Cleveland too; he was the actor, though, I figure, and was interested in the woman. I was too, but not enough to interfere or to get off the train in Cleveland. We played cards most of the night with an old deck of cards with presidents on them, but only after they agreed to my demand that no money be involved. I remember raking in some chips over an old Garfield card that was like king of clubs or something, but my pleasure was short-lived because the woman was really the best at cards. It turned out, though, that the phone was the phone of the killer. I gave the charger back and we looked at it together; it opened right up without a passcode or anything, and there were plenty of signs that the owner had used it for bad purposes. After a point I agreed to take it straight to the police in Chicago, which I did, and I just told them I couldn't hand it in to Amtrak for my own reasons. It wasn't that I was mad at them or anything; I got right back on that Amtrak later in the day anyway for the long ride out to Colorado. You never know who you're going to meet on those trains.
I had a newspaper in my hand and he pointed out that the killer referenced on the front page had just been in Manhattan. "As were we all," he said, looking around at the people on the train. It seemed like a pretty normal train-car full of people, all ages, both genders, even some families. But this young guy could have been a killer, and I realized that, even as he was insinuating, it seemed, that maybe I was.
He left me alone until his stop, at which point he got off rather quickly, and then I realized that he'd left his phone on the seat. The phone was dead. There was no way I could reach him anyway, even if it were charged. He was there, the phone was here. I wondered if perhaps my charger, which I always carry with me, would work on it.
The train was an Amtrak and it had a club car, and believe it or not way up there I found a plug and was able to plug it in. I thought of handing it to the authorities right away, namely, the conductor on the train. After all, it was really between him and the train; there was no reason I should even be involved, not to mention using my own charger to charge his phone.
There was a card game near where the plug was and some guy with a white Panama hat noticed me messing with my charger, which didn't fit his phone, and came over and offered his own charger which he was pretty sure would work. It did. But now I felt obligated to go sit near the card game since I was using this guy's charger to find out about what was on this phone. Deep down, I thought this guy was the killer. You couldn't tell from the picture in the newspaper; that was a police artist's sketch and it was like a horoscope, it could fit just about anyone. You could look at that police artist's version of a young guy with a handsome face, and a winter hat, and intense eyes, and if you were in the mood half the people on the train would fit that profile. So I figured I had to get into that phone to learn more about the guy who had been sitting next to me.
The card game broke into a raucous fight as two guys accused the guy with the Panama hat of cheating. Apparently, they said that while he got up to get me the charger he'd looked at this other guy's cards. There were two guys pummeling him and trying to take this wad of bills that he'd cleared from the table in winning. "You cheated! they yelled, "Give us the money!" I felt like I had to do something, though I really didn't want to get involved, so I started pulling on the back of the largest guy, a big red-headed guy who turned out to be George.
The fourth card-player was a woman. She was quite beautiful, and did nothing but put the chips in order and watch.
Two men burst into the club car and came up to us with guns drawn; one had an Amtrak uniform. They told us all to line up near the wall; this was near the outlet so I took the phone and charger and just tucked it away. They had the woman against the wall too; there was me, the two big guys, the guy with the Panama hat, and the woman. They patted down the fanny pack of the guy with the Panama hat and found a gun. "What's this?" they said. The fanny pack was clearly in the spot where he'd been sitting.
"It's not mine! That woman put it in there while I was helping this guy with the charger!" He looked at me like he wanted me to say something in his defense. He was pretty sure nobody else would.
But he was wrong. George said, "That's right! She put it in there!"
"That's your gun, George," said the woman.
"Everybody off the train!" they said. The train was stopping; we were in Albany. My plan had been to get out here anyway, to look up an old college friend; he knew vaguely that I was coming. We lined up in front of them to get off the train. The other guy, the guy with the red bandana, whined about some stuff he didn't want to be separated from. He was pretty sure that, off the train, the train would go on without us, and his stuff would still be under his seat. They assured him that he'd be back on the train in time. I wasn't so sure, but I didn't care; I didn't have stuff.
The minute we got off the train George set off and disappeared in the crowd. They couldn't shoot at him because he was running behind random people who were getting off the train. He was a big guy, but really they just appeared to be Amtrak security and didn't really want to shoot anyone anyway. The money we were talking about was just a fistful of bills, mostly ones, that George and the man with the hat had been scuffling over; the guy with the uniform had those. He had the gun, too.
We stood outside the train while people finished getting off and others started getting on. It was a warm spring day, a little cool out, but the sun was shining. "This fight was about this money, right?" the guy in the uniform said. "But this fellow ran off," he said, referring to George, "so I guess the money's yours, huh?" and he gave the money to the guy with the hat. "But I'm keeping the gun. You can't have a gun on these trains. Now get back on there and behave!" He and the other guy turned on their heels and left, leaving us, me, the man with the hat, the woman, and the guy with the bandana, to board again. The guy with the bandana was relieved and went straight to his stuff.
I had a split-second decision to make: whether to change my ticket for a ticket tomorrow, and go visit my college buddy, as I'd originally planned, or to just get back on the train with these two, the guy with the hat and the woman, spurned and abandoned by George. I decided to stick with them and get back on the train. My college buddy could wait; I'd be coming back through in a couple weeks. But the main reason was I didn't want to deal with anyone from Amtrak, ticket master, anyone. I didn't want to give them the phone. I think they handled the incident well enough, I just didn't want any more to do with them.
Back in the club car the man with the hat bought us coffees with the money in his fist that he'd won nefariously; he admitted that he might have looked at George's cards. There wasn't all that much of it anyway and it didn't go that far since coffee was like a fortune on an Amtrak. I settled into the booth and tried to figure out what the relation of George and the woman was; clearly they'd known each other. I asked her if he was her husband or what, and did she expect to see him again? I kept my eye out for the guy with the bandana but didn't see him.
She said they were actors going to play a show in Cleveland and she was aware that he had a rough side; she knew about the gun; but she'd agreed to go with him on the train to Cleveland as it was better than traveling alone. She didn't know what motivated him to bolt in Albany or what he would do on the streets of Albany. Amtrak had his gun. Maybe he'd try to get it back.
The man with the hat claimed he was going to Cleveland too; he was the actor, though, I figure, and was interested in the woman. I was too, but not enough to interfere or to get off the train in Cleveland. We played cards most of the night with an old deck of cards with presidents on them, but only after they agreed to my demand that no money be involved. I remember raking in some chips over an old Garfield card that was like king of clubs or something, but my pleasure was short-lived because the woman was really the best at cards. It turned out, though, that the phone was the phone of the killer. I gave the charger back and we looked at it together; it opened right up without a passcode or anything, and there were plenty of signs that the owner had used it for bad purposes. After a point I agreed to take it straight to the police in Chicago, which I did, and I just told them I couldn't hand it in to Amtrak for my own reasons. It wasn't that I was mad at them or anything; I got right back on that Amtrak later in the day anyway for the long ride out to Colorado. You never know who you're going to meet on those trains.
Wednesday, January 18, 2023
The Bog
In the middle of the night, maybe four in the morning, I woke up from a bad dream and couldn't get back to sleep. Normally I get back to sleep right away, but the puppy sleeping beside me was having a bad dream too, and in the process of comforting him, so that he could get back to sleep, I started worrying about all the things in life that generally keep you up at night. In my case, there are plenty. Giving up, I went downstairs and sat in my chair.
What I often do in situations like this is play online boggle, or the bog, which is an intense little online world where, in the process of trying to find words in a cube of letters, in this situation sixteen of them, I get my mind off whatever is bugging me and into a more mundane, relaxing but competitive sport. Some programmer set it up so that it runs by itself, with a new game every few minutes, and in the daytime up to thirty or forty people will compete, all with different names, but in the middle of the night, maybe only five or six.
On this particular night, there were twelve, and two of them were the Fosters, a man and a woman. The woman was slightly better than the man; she'd place maybe third while he placed fifth. Back when they were a team, Team Foster, they'd win every game the whole time they played. The game allows you to be a team, but then the rest of us only see your collective score under Team Foster, and don't get to see the individual players. But occasionally one would quit before the other, or start before the other, or perhaps one would get up to get coffee, and we'd see only the one player: Team Foster: Carl or Team Foster: Izbla. I assumed that that last one was Izabella, or something like that, and that they were married and probably lived together. But over the years we saw a spat, and then we saw them break up, and then they were never Team Foster anymore. So I had made a couple of assumptions, which I was aware were based on flimsy evidence, that Izabella was no longer a Foster. For years they said nasty things to each other through the names they used for themselves on each boggle game. That's because you can change your name each game you play, eliminating the team if you want, or adding it, or just speaking to someone. One night I clearly remember, in about third place: TeamF got new bff and in fifth place Teamf gotohellIzzy. In their names, they were not using the "Team" function, not playing as a team, but speaking to each other using "Teamf" and carrying on their marital dispute. At least they were enjoying games of boggle though.
In boggle, you make as many words as you can from a cube of four letters across, four down, sixteen altogether, or you can play the five by five board, which is twenty-five altogether. In that little window of time you spell out as many words as you can, and believe me, some people can get an incredible number of words, fast, from those boards. You'd be surprised how many words there actually are, and after a while, if you study the ones you've missed, you get more of them, you get better at it, you become quite a fast typer. This had clearly happened to Izzy and Carl, perhaps even before they'd married, but I often pictured them, even during their marriage, both typing away at perhaps a kitchen table, maybe shouting out the words they got or found. It's a pleasurable way to pass the time. One very rarely wins, because so many people on there are so good at it. Some, I suspect, have found a way to cheat; perhaps they got a computer to list out all the possible words and they just type them in? I'm not sure, but people get incredibly high scores. I almost never win, and it's all I can do to keep from coming in last, especially in the late nights when the hard-core players are all out there, and almost everyone gets way more points than I do.
So on this night they were both there, and they were both talking to each other, and it was about three in the morning. But suddenly I got very disturbed by the names they were giving themselves. Izzy was in trouble. In the higher position I'd see teamf help carl to which he'd reply, the next game, teamf whatsupizzy. She, as her name, used teamf imtrappedneedurhelp and his name was teamf wtf. She used teamf needoutofhere and he used teamf thoughthewasbff. She used teamf hesamonster and he used teamf getonfbnwelltalk. She used teamf cantheswatching and then she disappeared. He played a number of other games, asking her questions, but they went unanswered; she was gone.
In the middle of the night, I'm trying to calm my mind, thinking of words given a number of combinations. Game after game relaxes my mind, and keeps it off of my own problems, which are sometimes overbearing. But now I was in the middle of Izzy and Carl's problem. She fell in with the wrong guy. Carl was her only way to get help, get her out of it. Carl undoubtedly at least knew where she lived. Carl could at least do something about it. I had no idea even what city they were in, or where. I thought I remembered, from some earlier thing one of them said, Virginia somewhere. Virginia is for lovers, I thought. But it's also for a whole range of other things, too, I'm sure. Some lurid drama was playing out there in Virginia that night, I imagined. If I were Carl, I'd head over to her house, even if she were an ex.
But then, I had no idea how bad their breakup was. I figured it was a good sign that they could still get on the online boggle and play a few games together at night, even if they weren't a team any longer. But really I had no idea if Carl could stomach getting involved with some controlling new boyfriend that Izzy had. Would he come to her rescue?
I guess I'd have to stay on the bog to find out.
What I often do in situations like this is play online boggle, or the bog, which is an intense little online world where, in the process of trying to find words in a cube of letters, in this situation sixteen of them, I get my mind off whatever is bugging me and into a more mundane, relaxing but competitive sport. Some programmer set it up so that it runs by itself, with a new game every few minutes, and in the daytime up to thirty or forty people will compete, all with different names, but in the middle of the night, maybe only five or six.
On this particular night, there were twelve, and two of them were the Fosters, a man and a woman. The woman was slightly better than the man; she'd place maybe third while he placed fifth. Back when they were a team, Team Foster, they'd win every game the whole time they played. The game allows you to be a team, but then the rest of us only see your collective score under Team Foster, and don't get to see the individual players. But occasionally one would quit before the other, or start before the other, or perhaps one would get up to get coffee, and we'd see only the one player: Team Foster: Carl or Team Foster: Izbla. I assumed that that last one was Izabella, or something like that, and that they were married and probably lived together. But over the years we saw a spat, and then we saw them break up, and then they were never Team Foster anymore. So I had made a couple of assumptions, which I was aware were based on flimsy evidence, that Izabella was no longer a Foster. For years they said nasty things to each other through the names they used for themselves on each boggle game. That's because you can change your name each game you play, eliminating the team if you want, or adding it, or just speaking to someone. One night I clearly remember, in about third place: TeamF got new bff and in fifth place Teamf gotohellIzzy. In their names, they were not using the "Team" function, not playing as a team, but speaking to each other using "Teamf" and carrying on their marital dispute. At least they were enjoying games of boggle though.
In boggle, you make as many words as you can from a cube of four letters across, four down, sixteen altogether, or you can play the five by five board, which is twenty-five altogether. In that little window of time you spell out as many words as you can, and believe me, some people can get an incredible number of words, fast, from those boards. You'd be surprised how many words there actually are, and after a while, if you study the ones you've missed, you get more of them, you get better at it, you become quite a fast typer. This had clearly happened to Izzy and Carl, perhaps even before they'd married, but I often pictured them, even during their marriage, both typing away at perhaps a kitchen table, maybe shouting out the words they got or found. It's a pleasurable way to pass the time. One very rarely wins, because so many people on there are so good at it. Some, I suspect, have found a way to cheat; perhaps they got a computer to list out all the possible words and they just type them in? I'm not sure, but people get incredibly high scores. I almost never win, and it's all I can do to keep from coming in last, especially in the late nights when the hard-core players are all out there, and almost everyone gets way more points than I do.
So on this night they were both there, and they were both talking to each other, and it was about three in the morning. But suddenly I got very disturbed by the names they were giving themselves. Izzy was in trouble. In the higher position I'd see teamf help carl to which he'd reply, the next game, teamf whatsupizzy. She, as her name, used teamf imtrappedneedurhelp and his name was teamf wtf. She used teamf needoutofhere and he used teamf thoughthewasbff. She used teamf hesamonster and he used teamf getonfbnwelltalk. She used teamf cantheswatching and then she disappeared. He played a number of other games, asking her questions, but they went unanswered; she was gone.
In the middle of the night, I'm trying to calm my mind, thinking of words given a number of combinations. Game after game relaxes my mind, and keeps it off of my own problems, which are sometimes overbearing. But now I was in the middle of Izzy and Carl's problem. She fell in with the wrong guy. Carl was her only way to get help, get her out of it. Carl undoubtedly at least knew where she lived. Carl could at least do something about it. I had no idea even what city they were in, or where. I thought I remembered, from some earlier thing one of them said, Virginia somewhere. Virginia is for lovers, I thought. But it's also for a whole range of other things, too, I'm sure. Some lurid drama was playing out there in Virginia that night, I imagined. If I were Carl, I'd head over to her house, even if she were an ex.
But then, I had no idea how bad their breakup was. I figured it was a good sign that they could still get on the online boggle and play a few games together at night, even if they weren't a team any longer. But really I had no idea if Carl could stomach getting involved with some controlling new boyfriend that Izzy had. Would he come to her rescue?
I guess I'd have to stay on the bog to find out.
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