Storytime... (KISS)

...the twisted little way I have of writing...

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Man With Illegal Weapon Shot By Cop On Probation:

Man With Illegal Weapon Shot By Cop On Probation:
The jist of the story is this:
Fact One, There was a guy standing around in a bank parking lot.
Fact Two: Another man, an under-cover cop on probation, approaches the first man.
Fact Three: The first man drops what he's holding, what looks to be a box of flowers and produces a sawed-off shotgun.
Fact four: Then he tries to hurriedly load it.
Fact Five: The second man pulls a shoulder-holstered pistol and shoots the first man.
Fact Six: Witnesses say it was three shots, the cop reported two.
Fact Seven: The Cop did not call local police; instead he pulled blue-code and called his buddies from his own force.
Fact Eight: The first man was reportedly taken to a hospital. It was an hour and fifteen minutes before the local police were called.
Fact Nine: This happened last November in a small town: Chucktown, NC.
Fact Ten: News stations were issued a press-release the next day labeling the incident an attempted Bank Robbery.

Now… Knowing this, what would you do? What would you believe? What could have really been happening?
Story one:
A man plans to rob a bank with a weapon he has not loaded and has one last cigarette before entering the premises and beginning the execution of his plans. An under-cover who has had a spotty record but is trying to redeem himself got an inside tip and rushes to the scene to attempt to apprehend the perpetrator before someone can get hurt. Without calling in the locals or his own force, in case he was wrong. At the scene he immediately recognizes the man with a box of flowers as the alleged perp and approaches him. The perp realizing he's been caught, thinks his only way out at this point is to pull out the gun, load it and shoot the man approaching him. At this point the cop pulls his weapon, frantically shoots the man loading and realizing his insufficient pretences for killing a man calls his own force and buddies to help turn this whole thing into a good cop bad guy report.

Story two:
A man is being stalked by an officer convinced of his wrongdoing. After being questioned as a suspect in another case by this officer, he got the impression the officer obviously has some sort of personal problem with him. He brings this to the attention of the supervising officer and does so again after noticing he is being followed and watched by that same officer. The supervising officer tells the officer to lay off and gives him a one-week probation (fact). But during this term the officer continues to follow his subject. Feeling violated and wronged and feeling as though the police are not doing enough to protect him from their own, the man quickly obtains a weapon with which he may protect himself should it ever, God forbidding, come down to it. But who wants to be found carrying a loaded sawed-off shotgun? Looks fishy no matter how you slice it, it's a sawed-off shotgun. Feeling the urgent need to carry the weapon, he compromises by carrying it not loaded and concealed in an un-alarming package. Hoping to be given the chance to explain himself should it come down to it. The officer, however, learns of the subject's obtainment of an illegal weapon and decides to confront his man. Our shot-gun toting subject begins the process of moving to the next town over in hops of getting some sort of protection from those local authorities and getting some distance between he and the cop stalking him. While the first man is pacing in the parking lot of the bank he's about to open an account in, the one in the next town; he has a cigarette to calm his nerves. After all he's carrying an illegal weapon for protection and about to enter a bank; it would look bad to someone who doesn't know. That's when he hears a voice and turns to see the man who has been stalking him running towards him (witnesses state the man was "running after him") Our subject feels threatened and panicked. The man who has been stalking him is right there and he feels an urgent need to defend himself. And in a panicked state I would too. It is at this point the subject dropped his package and hurriedly began loading the gun. And in moments received slugs to the chest.
A man, being stalked by an undercover cop was killed recently, and the news stations all played it off as an attempted robbery because God forbid a cop was a little off and did something very wrong.

I don't know which story you want to believe, but if you want to know what happened, look at the facts at the top of this story.
~Shannon

I wrote this in the way that I did because I honestly felt the only relevant and clear part of the reports and the paperwork were the verified facts. I speculated both a logical way in which these events may have transpired and I tried to make sense of how the official version could have made sense. I do not believe or understand either, but I'm sure you can tell which one makes more logical sense to me. I hope all you get out of this is a tendency to question, speculate and a desire to follow the facts. Cold, hard, facts.

Sincerely, the girl in the darkness.

Sincerely, the girl in the darkness.
I liked having my own room but I don't want it to be like this. I’ve always known a dark room with one shadow-less shadow everywhere. I want to know what sunlight looks and feels like. Mommy says it’s wonderful, like one of her warm protecting hugs. I remember how Mommy and Daddy used to tuck me in to bed and make the noise go away for the night. They said it was special I heard them and if I learned when to believe them and when not to I'd never have to worry about them being mean. I miss Mommy, Daddy too. Mommy said he is ok in Heaven now, but she still cried a lot before they took her away. The worst part of living with Grandma and Grandpa after that wasn't the "inner cleaning" or having to go to private church services and get drown almost every week or the punishments for hearing the noise, or the things they would say at night. They said I shouldn't be treated like this and that Grandma and Grandpa were really the evil ones. No; none of that was the worst part. I just missed Mommy and her night time song that made them go away...
Don't you listen don't you fear, you need not take their words sincere
Little girls like gods in heaven, need to sleep, will be forgiven
Nasty voices lye in reserve, without sleep we cannot serve
Special girls need special care and there's no more special anywhere
So now my child go to sleep and if those voices make a peep
Don't you mind them they snore too, sleep-talking always has proven untrue
In your mind they'll not creep near, they know you control the grim reaper.
…She used to sing it to me and she'd do something with a pot and fire. It would work and keep the voices quiet at night. When Grandma and Grandpa took me, they told me it was all just in my head and that I needed to stop pretending. I could not sleep for a week because they said mean things and when I tried to do what Mommy did, it didn't work and the sheets caught fire. The nice officer said it was sad that Grandma and Grandpa suffocated. I wasn't sad, and neither were the voices. At night now I still don't sleep, they show me lots of things about what some people are doing in other rooms and what they are going to do soon. Someone is going to try to cut me. And the voices don't like it at all.
Here I am in this room with a nurse and a door all to myself and I don't want to have my own room like this. I asked the voices what to do and they said I should let them take care of me. I did.
All the people are screaming, the doctors aren't really doctors or at least they should not be and the voices say what they are doing is cruel and wrong. I've seen them hurt people just to know what will happen and I think it is not right to do. The voices are taking over the doctors; the voices say they will make the doctors destroy all the bad people here. Bad people like the man who fixes things and touches little girls, and bad people like even the doctors themselves. The voices have taken over the nurses too. They have to have hands to serve and protect me they said and I told them I guess it would be alright. People who like to help and serve become nurses; don't they?
The nurses used to bring the really creepy fixes things guy into my room, point at things and say "fix it". The voices used to show me what the "fix it" would think about me. They... keep showing me. And they told me that my Mommy is here and that they told her what he wanted to do to me. It made her very upset and the doctors hurt her when she got angry with the “fix it”.
All the patients know what the bad people all want to do to me. Some of the mean people want to kill me, some, like the "fix it" man want to play bad games with me, some, think I need to be used for my special relationship with the voices. And the patients think this is wrong. At least the ones the voices call “the good ones” do. The voices say they will let them stay free so they can protect me and help the doctors destroy themselves. I think the voices are getting pushy but I just want to give them what they want so they will go away.
The voices say they will make sure all the patients will be free to protect me for as long as they are needed. They say my Mommy would be proud of me. She's going to die soon. I miss my Mommy, I can see her, and I know that she misses me a lot too. Last night I cried and it made the voices angry. I think that’s why they started spreading their shadow-less shadow.
So I'm taking my nurse, the voices gave her to me, and waiting in my room, my room with the plain green walls and the cold hard floor and no shadow, no light just me and my dark self, until all the voices get what they want. Then maybe it will all stop and the voices will go away let me see what sunlight looks like.
And I miss the way I used to have my own room with stuffed animals and big comfy blankets. I'm going to get the voices to bring me something warm to snuggle up in. That will make me happy and maybe they'll be happy too. That way it will be like Mommy said, and it won’t be long before I’m out of the darkness. It's been kinda really long. I just want soft blankets, silence, and light, lots of warm, quiet, it doesn't tell what you should think or do, sunlight.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

caterpillar and cynic I...

Weary little caterpillar. You are so very small.
I see you crawling there withall
Your feet in tidy rows and I am standing over you.
You neat pre-flutter self. You fool.
Your only work in life to feed, your only hope
Slow munch and crawl. Do you see the tree
With leaves that beg you come and feed?
Do you see me standing here in awe your tiny might?
Does the blood flow through your veins in such a way as mine?
Have any thought at all? Do you mind life’s great strife?
Mighty, tiny cat-er pill-ler. Feed and feel no scorn.
Scurry along the side-walk ground. Know not higher form.
For in your next life flutter-by, the one after job of sleep;
When your duty mate and die, know not us humans meek.
We shall chase and our children cry;
When you not caught just flutter by.
Know not what we think of you, our respect, our awe of flight
Know our touch though curling you we take from path of feet
Know our gently coaxing thus from hand to tree-leaf treat
Know not why we protect you, our careful hand you bite.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Burning Concrete

Solid and immovable and yet I see you burn
A figure in my life, a constant, never gone
I know your touch, your cold sweet death
You leave me needing more.
My solid constance;
My Concrete fiend;
My love afair once full.
You are sweet and immovable death
Why then, do you burn?
I've known you as a soldier,
Your strong-fought battles won.
I've seen your presence felt,
Hands grasping touch skin upon.
Within great walls of solitude,
You are wealth, you are hope.
Yet I watch you lying there,
The ground around you stoked.
Ashen burnt away and on your face
Black flaked cinder-stone
You were my constant foe
Such strong and steady death
I worship you
I fear you
How is it such a thing...
Does burn?

Thinking, smoking
Another cigarette burns.

Monday, September 11, 2006

The short story:

So I auditioned for a job yesterday and I was prompted to give the first few lines of a scary story. I figured I'd elaborate on it here:

A campfire-type ghost story of warning:


The deep darkness an expansive landscape in front of me, it culminated in a light, bright and eerie, a doorway at the end of this dark tunnel. The voice urged me on and I found myself unable to control my hands. Through the pervasive fear they clawed for an escape. The light flickered as a figure passed through the door. My eyes were adjusting, but I’d heard the screaming, I did not want to see this horror. The smell, it was bleeding flesh. The screaming has long since stopped and the figure was dragging something behind him, his heavy breaths, in uneasy convulsions, drawing ever nearer to me. I don’t even know how I got here, why I cannot leave. Why am I trapped? Why me? Why does he pursue me? The voice that urged me on, tells me not to fear. I am frozen by panic and I am distraught. I can see him now and the figure is in-human; An embodiment of this atrocity. A wide shine of a grin passes across his face like a glairing demon. It’s voice, continuing its lies, comforting words from that which I fear. The image and the smell… I want to close my eyes to this atrocity; But even in the darkness I can see that smile. And I can feel those hands upon me. I’m still trapped, and I don’t even know how I got here.


Now do me a favor and read it again, but this time keep in mind the memory of 9/11 and the stories of what those poor victims may have experienced and seen.

Friday, September 08, 2006

an assigment: R-MC and the Power Outage of Ernesto

re-written on 9.12.06:

Ernesto Reveals R-MC's Errors:

    Frustration and fun followed the onslaught of Hurricane Ernesto to R-MC's campus. One student said: "I saw Campus Safety tape one of the doors open, I guess one less thing to deal with." Security blunders like this were committed when electricity failed from 10pm Friday until 9am Sunday due to Ernesto. Other on-campus locations, like the international house, had no power much longer.
    When the bad weather hit, students found their own ways of dealing with all the problems that the storm caused and exposed. Some partied, and apparently "bonding" is what they are calling it these days. Many students cited "heavy Petting" and "drinking beer and milk" as the calmer of the party activities. And while the prim would consider sexual activity as dangerous, your common bartender would warn against alcohol and milk as the more dangerous combination.
    Students went to both extremes though. Some decided to drive back home and take a longer summer vacation; while others moved out into the halls, drinking, dancing and growing closer with their fellow students. This kind of interclass mingling and general socialization are seldom occurrences on Randolph-Macon's campus.
    Other issues included no hot water or AC. This left some students washing in the sink and taking cold showers; while others stripped down to their skivvies and enjoyed the company of one another and their otherwise warming beer. For one student who partook, Hailey Linton, the lights out was a blessing: "I met many women that night" said Hailey, a freshman in Smith Hall.
    Bill Blackmore, the man in charge of freshman orientation, said orientation leaders did a great job keeping control of things. From downed trees to security issues, at least the freshman class was kept mostly on their orientation schedule and further forced through what has been described as "Freshman Hell Week" by the majority of the freshman class.
    MayJean Deem, also a freshman, said she was "a little tiffed," She was frustrated saying: "I paid 36,000 dollars to go to a school and they can't even give me hot water!"
    Things may have been bad for a spot there MayJean, but it gave the campus, falling ten spots to rank 15th in party schools and 18th for beer consumption, ample opportunity to recover some of that lost ground.
    It can be said that Hurricane Ernesto has left the blinds open on the inner workings of Randy-Mac and all the problems akin to its administration, students and staff.
    Not all is doom and gloom there though. It must be said that some were going above and beyond their jobs and holding the sinews of the campus together. The housekeeping crew was posted outside the doors of many of the dorms all night checking IDs and making sure trespassers did not intrude. Estes, the on-campus cafeteria, had generators allowing them to produce their usual quality food; getting a hot, fresh meal to the student body.
    And despite freshman complaining about orientation, some of the mandatory programs were actually cancelled, relieving the need to waste time, effort, and money on what orientation leaders say are "rightfully disinterested students."
    With the return to classes and a sense of "normality" on the first Monday of classes, so returned MaconWeb and the ability to register for those classes. So too did the rest of campus return to something resembling right...
    All except for the international students who are still trapped in their house by fallen power-lines, left to think what they will about our fine country and this; Randolph-Macon, a fine school. ~Shannon Hollender, Senior R-MC

Original Draft:
Here's the assignment you assigned today:
I know it's kinda bad but I did what I could from what perked my ears...

"I saw Campus Safety tape one of the doors open, I guess one less thing to deal with." one student said about the frustration and fun that followed the onslaught of Hurricane Ernesto to R-MC's campus. Power was out from 10pm Friday until 9am Sunday for most of campus, the international house had no power for another day and a half.
When the bad weather hit, students found their own ways of dealing with all the issues that the storm caused. Some partied, and bonded. Citing "heavy Petting" and "drinking beer and milk" as some of the calmer party activities.
Some students went to other extremes decideding to drive back home and take a longer summer. While others moved out into the halls, drinking, dancing and Growing closer with their fellow students, a seldom occurrence on Randolph-Macon's campus.
Other issues included no hot water or AC. This left some students washing in the sink and taking cold showers; while others stripped down and enjoyed the company of one another and their beer. For one student who partied, Hailey Linton, the lights out was a blessing: "I met many women that night" said Hailey, a freshman in Smith Hall.
Bill Blackmore said orientation leaders did a great job keeping control of things
though. From trees being down and security issues, at least the freshman class was kept on their orientation schedule and further forced through what has been described as "Freshman Hell Week" by the majority of the freshman class.
MayJean Deem, also a freshman said she was "a little tiffed," She was frustrated saying: "I paid 36,000 dollars to go to a school and they can't even give me hot water!"
Things may have been bad for a spot there MayJean, but it gave the campus, falling ten spots to rank 15th in party schools and 18th for beer consumption, ample opportunity to recover some lost ground on its slow steady progression towards the bowels of bad school status.
Maybe this opinion of one of R-MC's senior students is not shared. But As far as I'm concerned, Hurricane Ernesto has left the blinds open on the inner workings of Randy-Mac and all the problems akin to its administration and staff.
Not all is doom and gloom here though, it must be said that indeed some were doing their jobs and holding things afloat. The housekeeping crew was posted outside the doors of many of the dorms all night making sure trespassers did not intrude. Estes, the local slop joint produced their usual quality food and were able to serve it hot and fresh for once.
And despite freshman complaining over orientation, some of those programs were actually cancelled, relieving the need to waste time, effort, and money on what orientation leaders say are "rightfully disinterested students."
With the return to classes and a sense of "normality" on Monday, so returned MaconWeb and the ability to register for those classes. So too did the rest of campus return to something resembling right...
All except for the international students who are still trapped in their house by fallen power-lines, left to think what they will about our fine country and this; Randolph-Macon, My fine school. ~Shannon Hollender, Senior R-MC (I stayed because of scholarships)

Lost time.

The beating, pounding, thudding pain. The sound of my heart in my throat and I panic. I know it's here. I know that feeling upon me. I'm waiting for the pressure to release. And there is only one course of action...
Why time do you harp on my memory's weary hands. I see these hands in moments fleeting and gone. You move too fast for me time. I've watched shadows of what once was, flit before my conscience and be gone again. Why me? Why do you persist at this constant berrating of my mind. You walk faithfully by each other weary body, holding their hands and guiding. On my very heart you stomp your quickened pace; insisting upon running over my very flesh and turmoil. You left me only with the pain and the memory of the afair, so fleeting, that once was. Why, time, do you speak of me as a lover once long ago; as a lost soul. As one more memory of a person gone. I huddle here, watching these raw and beaten hands tremembling. I'm waiting for your return. I'm still alive. Have you forgotten me? I Wait.
Listen to that beating, pounding, thudding pain. Do you not hear me time?
I am anxious for your return. I want you to pass with me and take me from this forever moment in pain. Take me from this world, time. And heal me. I want the after. The tick, slow tick; Beating... Thudding... I Wait...

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Tid bit of my week and notes from class.

Tid bit of my week and notes from class. I must say, for being a Journalism professor and reported, the man is scarce with details and facts...

"Do you like to dance" He said. I didn't hear him. I really didn't care, I just heard the sweet music and couldn't stop moving. I danced, I moved, I felt the music swivel my hips and he watched me.
Chatter, The boys were all watching now, and I had not a care in the world. Too dark for those cameras to work.
I told them I charged for pictures and they all put their phones away. I danced and the boys started handing me bills. I stuffed them away and kept dancing. What did I care. I was clothed, I was having fun and the music was hypnotic.
It was late on a thursday night and the air was frigid, the storm was rolling into town as the carnival shut down for the night. Our only profitable day was now over and everyone was partying.
Party. The word didn't seem to fit better for anyone I knew anywhere. Fifteenth best party school on the list and even my college didn't compare to this. These were veterans, these were my people, these were carnies. And I was one of them, I danced.
It started with some simple boredom, they laughed and talked, smoked weed and teased the drunk chick. I had no part of any of it. So I found the radio, crawled into the corner, and I danced. The words flowed, and I sang to no one. Erica told me that she loved me and I kissed her briefly as I swayed by. She said she was starting a facebook fanclub for me and my dancing. I shruged. The boys had been out at the strip-club... They came back just in time to harass me. And to no avail. The only voice I heard was the one on the radio. The conversation soon surrounded me followed by the bodies and we danced. There was no booze, not anymore. I was sober all night, and I didn't smoke, I didn't need it. The party surrounded me. I had fun, I had attention, I had friends.
He asked me if I liked to dance. But there was only the sound of the music, I knew I didn't have to answer. We danced.

THE NEWS AND THE STORY:
1)collect info
Who
What
Where
When
To Whom

Problems with orientation
Bill Blackmore
Deans
Freshmen
What happened
Challenges and pitfalls
OL's
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