Month: December 2012
Entry #4:….and the Words were recorded by Scriveners. “
Augusta Writers: ….and the Words were recorded by Scriveners. “
“We are an ancient society of record keepers who brought words to your world,” she smiled when she added, “and contrary to popular writings, we are in fact, the curators of the oldest profession on earth.”
Although the conversation could not sally forward without the required history lesson of the role of The Writers; she was reluctant because of the urgency of the Reader’s quest. “There is precious little time to dabble in wordsmithery,” frustrated by him asking. “And you have weakened your gift by removing your hair; the history is in the strands!” Her anger was becoming apparent but she had just learned that although he appeared strong on the outside, inside, he was a fragile soul.
She rose from the chair and lightly touched his ear. His vision became blurred with tears as a protective coating covered the retinas and the brown irises became an iridescent blue. Inside of her pocket was a feculent paste that would regrow the hairs in record time. Three rapid swipes from her left hand covered his head forcing Akins to gag at the scent. The coffee beans from the display were quickly placed under his nose to keep him upright.
Standing upright was the least of his concerns as the itching began on his scalp. The Reader reached up to scratch his head or attempt to wipe away the foul goop but she stopped him touching the cream, “unless you are a Hobbit, I don’t think you would wish to voyage through this life with hairy palms.” She smiled at the reference to Tolkien, one this world’s more famous scriveners.
The itching only intensified as the hair began to rapidly sprout from his scalp. Once the hairs had achieved the length of yesterday’s growth, she doused him with the cold coffee rinsing away the residuals of the unguent.
“What the hyperbole was that?” he wanted to know.
“Your hair is important, it holds many truths, and you will be blind without it,” she stated in a much sterner voice that she had intended.
“Hell, I am almost blind now, what did you do to my eyes?”
Her only answer was to take him by the chin and turn his eyes back to the wall.
He could see it.
He could see the history.
The writing on her wall came to life in the form of an almost three dimensional Zoetrope. The Reader saw early man with colored berries scribbling on the walls of caves. The cave drawings morphed into early European Slavic and Indo-Germanic words that continued to dance into cuneiform as Nordic trade ships landed on foreign shores. Markings on cloths were recorded to capture the profitability of the trading. Hieratic symbols appeared which turned into hieroglyphs which evolved into Greek alphabet that the reader could identify.
Akins lids flickered as the phonetic alphabet flashed on the screen then Qin letters followed by Sanskrit. She was standing close enough for the Reader to feel her breath upon his neck. It was a struggle for the Writer to holster her need to prevent her essence from meshing with him. It was too soon. He was not ready.
She explained that it was still 200 years before Christ when the Tamil language separated words into verbs and nouns, “It was in that same time frame that the Romance languages were developed as the Romans spread throughout Europe.” The words which appeared on the screen made him pause. She knew they were running out of time. “The Rosetta Stone held three languages, Reader, Greek, Demotic and Hieroglyphs; these are the three important languages you must remember.”
Her manifestation was starting to fade. In the background he could hear the clatter of dishes as the café began return from it’s unmoving hiatus. The light show and people on the wall are moving faster and 1936 flashes in red letters on the wall. “A.J. Ayer said that language is a shared awareness. This familiarity, Akins, is confirmed through experience.” She continued on by telling him that his suspicions were correct, “you are being watched, every day of your life.”She helped him to the seat.
Then she dropped the bombshell. “In the last twelve years, languages have been disappearing from your world as commonly as nearly every two weeks.”
He turned his head to make eye contact with the apparition, “It is now up to you, but first, you must run, and now!”
The café was again in present time, three people had entered and the Writer’s things were gone. So was she. A cold pierced through his rib cage as he looked out the window and saw the figures identify him through the window. He reached for his glasses but quickly realized that what she had used to treat his eyes had given him perfect vision.
He could see he was in imminent danger.
I know right! It is getting more interesting every day. Check back for more, and you can follow along on my Facebook wall in the notes section, just in case you have missed an entry.
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Entry Number 3: The Reader and Writer Meet
Today’s entry takes us deeper into the plot of the story and we see the characters really start to take form. I will be very honest with you, I am having to really push myself and challenge my imagination.
Akins-Anderson Sydney: “I’ve seen these before.” Sydney said in an awe struck whisper. The ideograms, illuminated and project by azure light scrawled across the walls with vivid detail. Realizing his mouth had dropped open, he snapped his jaws shut and push back his glasses. As his eyes roved the arcane symbols he suddenly, and with less shock than he would have expected, noticed another thing. Everyone in the café had gone still. In a single sweep he saw that no one was moving. Like mannequins they had frozen in place. A Barista had been in the middle of pouring a mug of coffee, but now the liquid hung patiently in midair.
Sydney turned to the Writer.
Until now she had said nothing. Only observed. That would change.
“What is this?” Sydney asked with forced evenness.
The Writer cocked her head to the side and stared at him piercingly. He could feel her examining him; mind, body, and soul. It made him feel naked, yet strangely enough he wanted her to deem him worthy. And on the tail of that inclination he thought. Worthy of what? He returned her stared with great effort. The Writer sat less than three feet away from him and yet he could not see her. It was as if the nerves connecting his eyes to his brain had been laced with LSD. Her features changed, her clothes changed, and the more he concentrated the less he could make out.
“It’s easier if you don’t try to see me.” The Writer at last spoke. Like her features, her voice shifted with spagyric ease. One second he heard a child, the next an old woman, and everything in between. Yet beneath it all there was a unifying aura, a singular presence. .if only he could reach it.
“Forgive me for the shock of this occasion, but it was . . . necessary.” The Writer added.
“What is all of this?” Sydney asked bluntly. He was surprised at how well he was handling the unreality of the situation. Perhaps later he would go psychotic, but for now he wanted answers. The Writer turned and gazed at the spirituous transcript. Sydney sensed rather than saw a burning conviction in her. After a moment she turned back and engulfed him in the full maelstrom of her gaze.
“What does it say?” She demanded rather than asked.
“I don’t know.” Sydney said
“Who wrote it?” She continued
“I don’t know.” He replied
“Where have you seen it before?” She insisted.
“My dreams.” He answered.
She leaned back and considered his answers, yet her eyes remained on him. He sipped at the coffee she had ordered for him, but found it unappealingly cold. Her bombardment of questions had rattled him more than anything else thus far. In it he sensed, almost desperation. Why that should bother him so much he did not know, at the most it lent this seemingly inhuman figure a semblance of humanity.
“Can you read it?” she asked tentatively.
In her tone Sydney sensed a change in tactics.
“I don’t think so.” He said guardedly.
In a now pleasant tone she said: “Try.”
Sydney turned to the light blue script and tried. He did not know what language it was but it looked almost oriental, or perhaps Sanskrit; wavy and connecting in some places, geometrical and pictorial in others. Yet it all came together quite beautifully. He frowned, how was he supposed to read a language he did not know. He had no idea, but as he considered the unreality of all that was happening, who knew what was possible in this rabbit hole of a coffee shop.
“Something bad is coming from the void.” Sydney said. The words slipped out before he knew what they meant or where they came from. Immediately he turned back to the Writer and asked: “Why did I say that.”
She smiled; the expression both caliginous and bright.
“You read it.” She breathed with an air of relief, than almost to herself: “You are the Reader.”
Sydney didn’t speak, but simply waited for explanation. The Writer muttered something to herself the focused back on him.
“I have a story for you Reader; a very important one. So listen well and believe. It is an old tale that has been retold, reworked, and resold for as long as humans have looked towards the night sky and asked why. But for our purpose I think there is only one beginning that is truly fitting.” She drained her coffee mug and began. “In the beginning was the Word. . .”
You can continue to follow the story and provide us feed back on my Notes Page on Facebook.
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The Writings on Her Wall: A Facebook Novella, Entry #2
Thank you for coming back to our ever evolving tale of the Facebook perv who was called for higher purpose. To update you, if you are not on board, please see my previous post on Exercising Your Writing Muscle for the beginning of this story.
Once more, here is the definition of a Facebook Perv.
Facebook perve : A person who goes on facebook, randomly reading peoples wall to walls, and later discussing what they read. (Courtesy of Urban Dictionary).
We rejoin the story in progress picking up from where we left off. For the purpose of continuity, I am including the last section from The Reader.
Akins-Anderson Sydney: Sydney continued to stare at the computer screen, but he had long since stopped reading. His intuition had been correct. He was being watched, though until he knew by who he would act oblivious (He had his share of enemies). He sat a bit straighter in an effort to strain his peripheral vision-nothing. It was then that a new message appeared on the screen. He read it over, then re-read it. An encrypted code was neatly hidden between the words. The code was for a meeting. He made a mental show of thinking it over, but Sydney already knew the end result of such contemplation. He would go, if only to find out more about the woman (he was sure now that the aura he sense was that of a woman), and why there paths had crossed. A breeze passed behind him, and with it a feather light touch. He turned around, but saw nothing. She was gone. .
Augusta Writers: She waited at the coffee house on Broad Street wondering if her new victim understood what he was supposed to do; adding another sugar to the coffee, it always started this way, the game of cat and mouse. Twirling the lock in her hand, she sniffed the faint strong scent of the Reader and enjoyed the smell. It was woodsy, manly with a hint of an average soap. This one was not pretentious like the last Reader. This one, had possibilities; this one could be it. Again, another sip of the bitter liquid as she replayed in her mind the new quest to ensure that writers would be heard in such a time of need. Her personal quest to make certain that this town would not fall victim again. He new reader needed to be strong. Her new Reader needed to be a man that was sure of himself. She needed a hero of sort, one unafraid of the challenge. She gasped when the shadow appeared at the window……
Akins-Anderson Sydney: The morning air was laced with the strong scent of coffee and trepidation. Across the street loomed the Broad Street coffee house; the place they were to meet. Sydney took a deep breath of the crisp December air, and considered what he was getting into. In the message he had received yesterday, the woman had called herself simply ‘The Writer’. The title was enigmatic and seemed to hint at some esoteric knowledge. What did she write? Who did she write for? But most importantly, why did she want him? Those and many more questions tumbled about his mind like fire flies in a hurricane. Yet he knew there was only one way to get the answers he sought. High above an endless sheet of clouds blanketed the sky a lugubrious gray. Sydney had never been one for omens, but the weather was not optimistic.
Calm down, he mentally chided, stop taking cues from the weather. Encouraged by a cool breeze, he jammed his hands in his coat pockets and walked across the road. As a full time reader and part time writer Sydney had gotten into the habit of observing himself from an objective perspective. It helped keep him ground in reality when fantasy was so alluring. He found himself doing so now as a means of staying focused.
In his mind’s eye he saw himself walking across the road; a twenty two year old black guy wearing a gray coat and glasses over dark brown eyes. He was tall, six feet, and of medium build. On impulse he had shaved his head bald yesterday night, and as another spirited winter breeze chilled his scalp he found himself regretting it immensely.
It was halfway down the cross walk that he felt her aura emanating from the red brick building. It was strange, but not unpleasant. He likened it to the smell of white lotus, coffee (coincidently enough), and blood; sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter, yet always deadly. He slowed his pace when he reached the sidewalk and turned towards the door. It was then that he stopped. A lone form sat in a window booth. Sydney turned and faced The Writer.
Augusta Writers: She held up one finger and gestured for him to enter; slightly turning, she eyed the Barista, bidding him to bring another cup of darkened courage. As The Writer crossed Broad Street, she knew it was him. There! He held the same strong demeanor and posture, but today, unlike yesterday, he was hairless. If the Reader chose to never regrow the locks of hair, she held in her fist, the last remaining curl of his Samsonian strength.
He was younger than she had imagined, but looked fit for the challenge. The glasses covered dark brown eyes that seem to read so much more than just her words. He entered the café and took a seat across the table from the Writer. The waiter arrived with his coffee and he was surprised to find it was the way he liked it, or at least she ordered what she thought she saw him drinking at the Internet Café before.
The Writer’s eyes darted back and forth in an effort to locate in the air the right words to explain why he was here with her. She searched the room for ways to punctuate this conversation without the story being stale and trite. The Writer should at least tell the Reader her name, but there was not time for such trivial matters. If they both survived this, the pleasantries would then come forth, draped in civil platitudes, but for now, what she needed was him.
A flash of pearly whites put the Reader a bit more at ease, but he only sipped the coffee as she reached down in her bag and retrieved the Gobo. She rapidly applied the flashlight to illuminate the object which lit up the wall. Time seemed to stop in the café. The only two who were able to move were the Reader and the Writer. The writings were now on the wall. The Writer watched the Reader who was now reading the writings on the wall. A flash of realization came to him and his mouth dropped open.
There is still so much more to come. You can follow the live feed on Facebook or check back in a day or so for the latest update.
PS: After reading his last entry, I have to up my writing game.
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Exercising Your Writing Muscles
As many of you are aware, I am constantly on Facebook promoting the art of writing. I love stories and I think that everyone has a story to tell. I have authored two books on how to get the story out of your head and onto paper as well as hosting quarterly writing workshops at the downtown library. I do not use Facebook to solely promote my work, but often share the works of other local and national authors as well.
Just to keep my writing skills fresh, occasionally, I offer a weekly writing challenge. I am sometimes amused and often amazed at what comes back. Last week I posted the definition of a Facebook perve.
Facebook perve : A person who goes on facebook, randomly reading peoples wall to walls, and later discussing what they read. (Courtesy of Urban Dictionary).
Here is what came back.
Akins-Anderson Sydney: And as Sydney pressed ‘like’ he mused: Does randomly reading this make me a facebook perve? He shuddered the implications. . .
I decided to play along.
Augusta Writers: The writer silently watched Akins-Anderson Sydney from across the crowded internet cafe. It was only mildly amusing as the watcher watched the watchee read the Facebook postings. The irony was not lost on the writer as voyeurism of another’s wall could not actually constitute perversion; it was close.
Here is where it starts to get interesting.
Akins-Anderson Sydney: Sydney considered the thought a moment further but stop when he felt another’s presence. Pulled from his line of reasoning he looked up from the computer screen and gazed around the cafe. It was fairly busy at ten three in the morning; strangers going about their quotidian existence. He casually glanced at a few faces, nothing, and yet. .it was as if he were being watched. For a few seconds longer he scanned his sensorium, but nothing came of it. Just a vague intuition. Sydney shrugged and thought: All those John Grisham novels have made you paranoid. Then sunk back into the E-book he had been reading.
So, the Writer penned back.
Augusta Writers: With a flick of the wrist and a sleight of hand, the words were penned upon the screen, knowing he was watching, knowing he would read the posting. Inside the message was an encrypted code of where to meet and at what time. The writer knew it would take a moment for the implication to register with the reader. The bait was set, the plan was in place, all that was needed was an acknowledgement. Ahh, there it was, a turn of the head in realization that the reader was being observed. The watcher passed behind her new prey, and quickly snipped a locket of Sydney’s hair. Smelling the lock, it wouldn’t be long now.
The Reader responded…..
Akins-Anderson Sydney: Sydney continued to stare at the computer screen, but he had long since stopped reading. His intuition had been correct. He was being watched, though until he knew by who he would act oblivious (He had his share of enemies). He sat a bit straighter in an effort to strain his peripheral vision-nothing. It was then that a new message appeared on the screen. He read it over, then re-read it. An encrypted code was neatly hidden between the words. The code was for a meeting. He made a mental show of thinking it over, but Sydney already knew the end result of such contemplation. He would go, if only to find out more about the woman (he was sure now that the aura he sense was that of a woman), and why thier paths had crossed. A breeze passed behind him, and with it a feather light touch. He turned around, but saw nothing. She was gone. .
It is now my turn.
There is still so much more to come. You can follow the story on my Facebook wall or check back here for weekly updates. I am enjoying the story, hope you will too. I even went as far as to create a mock book cover. Post your comments or inbox us on which way you want the story to go.
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Living a Cash Only Life
This month, I was hit out of the blue with something that could financially cripple me for a few months to come. I am angry with myself, but life, is sometimes not fair. I splurged on my vacation. I went out to lunch one time too many. I bought a new wallet and purse when I barely use the 30 I already have.
I need to be financially smarter.
I need to monitor what I am spending.
I need to be cognizant of my savings.
I need to stop being a dumb consumer.
I need to think.
I have decided to live a cash life; only problem, I don’t know how. It’s not as simple as one may think. There has to be a method to the madness. So I have made a business proposition to someone who does, the founder of Built to Prosper Companies. I have sent a message to Hashim and Debra Francis and requested a copy of the Cashology book series.
In return for allowing me to test run the system for 90 days, I will blog three times a week about my progress and what I have learned.
It is not going to be easy for a spoiled and pampered wife, but I must do better. I have to do better. I will do better. But first, I have to learn how. Give me your feedback if you have tried the cash only life.
Stay tuned as this story develops in the meantime, read more here http://hasheemfrancisblog.com/
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