Photo Story: Commuter

I was standing out at the entrance of Tanimachi 4 subway shooting photos with my iPod 4 when I witnessed this event:

The man enters from the left as a normal commuter going into the subway.

He then stops.

He changes his mind to not go into the subway.

Then changes his mind again turning quickly to go back into the subway.

He disappears as the young student appears.

Another man stops briefly to make the same decision.

This is a nice little life narrative that unfolded in front of my eyes. It was unexpected, so I was happy to have been there to document this moment.

Flash Fiction Story: Cow Cutters

Flash Fiction story, 600 words or less, for the Google+ community Writer's Discussion Group Weekly Writing Exercise. This story wasn't published in the group.

Cow Cutters

Once we're inside the Earth’s atmosphere we have about one Earth minute to land on the surface, extract the pieces of cow and get out of there before the humans have time to realize what's happening.

We fly in two man teams for cow part extraction. We sell the parts to butchers in the dark side of Yuriba, away from the eyes of the Xeniack planet guards. What we do isn't legal, any inference with the human’s planet without special permission from the Xeniack government is punishable by a life sentence mining minerals on various moons throughout the system. Selling is easy, staying out of sight of humans is the important part. All of Earth’s transmissions are monitored by the Xeniack Earth Security Agency. Any mention of what the human’s call UFO, space ship, alien, or other keywords gets picked up by the agency then investigated, but mostly they just watch Earth TV.

From our telescope we can see the cows gathered in the field below the mountain. We fly down right under the trees that border between them. Once the door opens we move fast. First, we set the bait to lure the beast inside of the trees. From there we can work under cover without worry. One takes the bait, it starts wandering into the trees. Strike. We use a powerful sleeping agent so it won’t feel a thing. We then use our laser cutters to slice through the body with precision taking all the valuable parts as our bounty.

In the ship a motion detector has been triggered. The screen projects two humans on the mountain carrying flashlights and what looks like,

‘Cellphones.’

‘That means they may be recording us. What do we do?’

‘Abduction.’

‘Abducting without a license is a death sentence.’

‘I know but we have to erase their phones.’

‘We’ll have to move the cow too.’

‘Alright. Let’s do it.’

We raise the ship into the air. On the screen we can see the humans with that shocked look on their face. Mouths open, eyes bulging, disgusting. We shoot our tractor beams on the two of them pulling them up into the ship. We’re not quite equipt for abduction, but we can make this work.

Once they’re in the holding bay we spray the sleeping gas, the same stuff we use on the cows, on the humans. We take their phones to erase all the video and pictures of our ship. Using our telepathic ability, we enter the mind of the human to change his memory. We go back to the point where they saw our ship then implant a memory where they're asleep instead. When we’re finished we put them back on the mountain. We grab the cow’s body then dump it where it can't be found. Finally, we jet off into the open void of space to sell our meats.

‘That was a close one.’

‘Too close.’

At the Yuriba market we make a hefty 30,000 Xen for our trouble. Everything is going fine until we’re approached by the bounty hunter Orik.

‘There’s a bounty for your arrest.’

‘Why? What did we do?’

‘Your ship was caught on Earth. The Xeniack government wants to bring you in for questioning.’

‘That’s impossible.’

‘You ever hear of the Cloud?’

‘The Cloud?’

‘No. The Earthlings invented a computer memory bank that transfers their pictures and such from their communication devices to this bank through wireless signals.’

‘No. Never.’

‘You will soon.’

Flash Fiction Story: Craving

Flash Fiction story 600 words or less. Written for the Google+ community Writer's Discussion Group Weekly Writing Exercise.

Craving

‘It told me if I didn’t do this, than it would eat me.’

‘But it’s just not right.’

‘So I should sacrifice myself? Is that what you’re saying?’

    Holly didn’t speak.

‘Oh geez Holly.’

‘I was thinking.’

‘Maybe I should just feed it you.’

‘You wouldn’t?’

    Teresa smiled at Holly shaking her head side to side.

‘We’re getting close. Are you in or out?’

‘We’re gonna get in trouble Teresa.’

    Mocking her, ‘We’re gonna get in trouble. Blah. You make me sick, you know that.’
    Holly made an embarrassed face.

‘Alright. I’m in.’

‘Good. Just let me do all the talking. I don’t want you to give it away.’

They walked up to the door on Beverly drive knocking three times on the screen door. An older woman answered giving the two girls a judgmental look. 

‘Yes.’

‘Is Maggie home?’

‘Who would like to know?

‘I’m Teresa, and this is Holly.’

‘Hello.’ Holly said.

‘We know Maggie from school.’

‘Alright, just a minute.’

The woman went inside leaving the door open. The two girls heard muffled voices, then footsteps coming towards the door. 

‘Who is it?’

‘Hi Maggie. It’s me, Teresa. And Holly.’

‘Hi.' 

‘What are you doing here?’ Maggie asked.

‘We wanted to let you in on a secret.’ Teresa said.

‘What is it?’

‘We can’t tell you here. Can you come to the woods with us?’

‘I don’t know, I’ll have to ask my grandmother. Wait here will ya?’

‘Sure.’

Maggie went back in the house. The two girls again heard muffled voices followed again by footsteps. The door swung open. 

‘I have to be back in an hour.’

‘It shouldn’t take that long.’

The three girls walked towards the woods. Holly was very uneasy, pulling at her shirt sleeve. She wondered if there will be a lot of blood, or if Maggie would just, disappear. Or if anything would happen at all. Probably another stupid story Teresa made up to scare her, and Maggie is playing along. 

‘Up here.’

‘Is the secret something you want to show me?’

‘Yeah. Up here.’

    Teresa ran ahead. Holly and Maggie watched her jumping up and down, waving her arms into the trees..

‘Maggie.’ Holly said.

‘Yeah.’

‘Are you playing along?’

‘What?’

‘Did Teresa put you up to this? To scare me?’

‘Put me up to what? I’ve never hung out with Teresa before today.’

    Teresa turned around waving to the two girls, ‘Come on.’

‘You shouldn't go Maggie.’

‘I know Teresa is mean, but I'm bored so, why not.’ 

Holly opened her mouth to tell her, but Maggie had started running towards Teresa. She got about ten yards when a giant creature with beady green eyes and a bullet shaped black cobalt body stepped out from behind the tree. Maggie came to a halt. 

‘It’s alright. Come closer. This is it. This is the secret. Come take a closer look.’

Teresa continued, but Maggie didn’t move. Holly watched in terror while the creature’s eyes turned to red daggers. It opened it’s mouth full of jagged teeth then chomped them back down together. Its hunger was too strong. There was no more waiting as it bent down and picked up Teresa with its thin chopstick fingers.

‘No! Not me! Her! I brought her for you!’

The creature didn’t listen. It brought her up to its mouth and dropped her inside. Maggie screamed a high-pitched squeal that dogs in the next town over could of heard. The giant began walking towards them craving for more. Maggie turned to run while Holly watched motionless.

‘Teresa?’
    Maggie pulled on Holly's arm.

‘Come on Holly. We’re next.’

Holly felt her legs moving alongside Maggie, both running as fast as they could. Neither one ever turning to look back. Neither one ever returning to those woods again.

A Haunting on Nash Street

Whether you believe in ghosts or not this is a true story. All the events are told to the best of my memory. I have no reason to lie and there's no profit to be gained. All the events that occur may be explained with scientific fact and I'm open to those explanations. Until then, I believe in the paranormal and the presence of ghosts because of the events that happened to me on Nash Street.

In Akron, Ohio there is a house at the end of Nash street on the corner of Huntington Avenue where I lived for one year during my sophomore year of university at the University of Akron.

The Nash street house taken from Google maps, June 2011.



I went to the University of Akron from 2000 to 2005 to study music. I graduated in August 2005 with a Bachelors in Music Performance Percussion degree. During 2001-2002 myself and four other classmates lived in the Nash street house.

There are 5 bedrooms; 1 on the first floor, 3 on the second floor and 1 in the attic. There is a living room and a kitchen on the first floor, 1 bath room on the second floor, there is no bath tub just a shower stall, and another toilet behind the kitchen on the first floor next to the back door. Between the living room and kitchen is a flight of stairs leading into the basement, a very dirty, grimy place where we kept instruments, had parties and such.

We moved in to the house and began school in late August. Nothing out of the ordinary happened for the first few months except for 9/11. The first occurrences that I noticed starting happening after that between late fall and early winter.

The first noticeable phenomenon was the disappearance and reappearance of objects. These occurred almost exclusively in the kitchen with the silverware. Typically it would go unnoticed but on one occasion my roommate blamed me and began an argument.

We were both standing in the kitchen while he was busy making food probably chatting about school. He put his spoon down on the counter then turned around to get a bowl. He returned to the spot where he had left the spoon and it was missing. He turned to me and said, "Did you take my spoon?" I had not taken his spoon and explained to him I had no need for it and wasn't playing a joke on him. As he turned around back to the spot the spoon had returned. He asked, "How did you do that?" I explained again that I didn't do anything and he had not seen it the first time which he agreed because it wasn't there.

The most frequent observable occurrences occurred on the second floor. The bathroom's east wall is shared by the stairs leading into the attic room. While showering it was common to hear footsteps running up and down the stairs. This phenomenon was experienced by everyone living in the house. The first few times it was beleived the roommate living up there was the cause. When we would exit the shower the door would be closed and the roommate's car wouldn't be in the driveway. Maybe he had quickly came home to grab some items and left.

When we questioned him about it at school he explained that he had not been home that day. He typically did not stay at the house and would go to his mother's house in Brunswick going directly to school.

Explanation number 2 became the pipes. The house was old so the water running through the pipes banging against the wall in a rhythmic pattern was conceivable. But why would they go from the bottom to the the top if the pipes led down the the sewer?

I didn't believe the pipes theory and was now convinced there was paranormal activity occurring within the house. This ghost wasn't hurting anyone, didn't cause any trouble and became a good story to tell to our friends, although it never appeared to more than one person at a time.

These were the typical occurrences through the winter and spring. The roommate living in the attic didn't stay at the house very often and never reported any strange happenings when he did stay the night. He kept in his room his pet ferret who had leukemia and spent most of it's time sleeping. When the roommate was away I was asked periodically to check up on him. When I was in the attic room alone nothing unusual occurred and things were pretty normal.

Sometime in the spring we acquired a dog. Friends of ours had found him on the street and because they were living in the dorm at the time couldn't take care of him. They reached out to us to keep him at our house until they could find a home, but one of my roommate's fell in love with him and he ended up staying with us until we moved out.

I am not from Akron or Ohio at all. I'm from Indianapolis in the neighboring state of Indiana, about a 5 hour drive from Akron. At the end of the school year I went home for a week and returned to the Nash street house. One roommate was from Idaho and went back for 2 months or stayed with his girlfriend, for whatever reason that I can't remember he wasn't in the house for most of the summer, and the other 3 lived in the greater Cleveland area and went home often as well. I was alone most of the time between late May and early July.

During one of these summer nights I came home from practicing at the school to find the dog home alone. We ascended the stairs to find the door to the attic room open with the light on. I called up to my roommate, but there was no answer. The dog who had followed me up the stairs was growling and gave a few small barks. I figured he was barking at the ferret and told him to stop. He kept looking up as I opened the door to my room. I turned around to call his name when suddenly a picture frame fell from the wall and tumbled down the stairs. The dog got spooked folding his ears back with an expression that he had been punished. A bit spooked myself trying to reason the events that just unfolded I carefully took a quick a peek up the stairs. There was no one there. Even more spooked than before I called to the dog and we both went downstairs into the living room and outside onto the front porch. I remained there for a while until finally someone came home. I told them what had happened and we went up stairs to see the picture frame still lying on the floor, the door open and the light on. I set the picture in the doorway, turned off the light and shut the door.

By late July most of the roommates had returned. One summer afternoon my roommates and some guests were sitting out on the front porch. I was in the basement playing the drum set we had set up down there. During this jam session I got the feeling I was being watched. I looked up to see a transparent figure standing at the bottom of the stairs. It quickly turned and began to run up the stairs. I could see it's milky white legs ascend the stairs. I stood up and went to the stairs and went up. I went out the door and saw my roommates on the porch. I went up the stairs to the second floor but didn't see anything. I went out to the porch and asked if they had seen anything, but unfortunately they hadn't. I told them what had just happened and they cautiously believed me.

I was happy to see it finally after everything that had happened. A final cadence to the long summer because  of personal reasons we decided not to live together anymore and had made arrangements to move out of Nash street by mid August. So unfortunately that was the last encounter I had with the ghost of Nash street

Two years later I played in a band with a guy who had lived in the house after we had moved out. I told him about the ghost and the things that had happened, but he never had any experiences with the ghost.

I've always wanted to return to fully investigate the paranormal activity. After that experience I have learned a lot about ghost hunting and would love to have proof that a ghost truly resides in that house. I can't say that I truly believed in ghosts before this experience, even though Ghostbusters is one of my favorite movies, after all this I can say for sure, I believe.

Snow White's Brothel

The guys teeth were missing. The ones he did have were all black and yellow with a filed down look as if he had been chewing on rocks. He put his hand to his mouth and made a cock sucking motion and in his best English said, "Suck, suck." The look on my face must been a complete horror show, but I mustered up the courage to ask in my best Japanese, "How much?" He didn't understand. I tried again but no response. I didn't have enough money to blow on blow jobs anyways so I waved my hand in a 'no' gesture and walked away.

I sometimes think about what those girls up there might of looked like. The maddening curiosity that I have now about the type of girls he was pimping based on those teeth should of been enough for me to say, "Fuck it. We're doing this."

I was living in Mie for one week when I had my first holiday. I had little money and nothing to do. I had been living in Osaka with my brother previously for one month, job searching and partying like crazy. The night before I left we had an awesome sayanora, good bye, party with all you can eat meat and karaoke. My Japanese friend had come along who I had met at a party for forienger people to mingle with Japanese or vice versa. We had a great time together and finally hooked up the night of the good bye party going to a love hotel. 

The sex was a bit tough on my cock. I hadn't anticipated the small size of Japanese condoms and had to pull and squeeze into that thing pretty roughly. By the time I got it on I was completely limp. We got on with it though and eventually it all worked out.

I left the next day right in the peak of the cherry blossom season taking the Kintetsu train from Osaka to Yokkaichi. I found the job through craigslist in Japan. The interview process had been a Skype interview with a guy living in California who had worked at the school a few years back.

When I arrived I was picked by the current teacher in his little pick up truck. We drove to the apartment through the city I would call home for the next 2 years. Riding in the car the guy seemed pretty nice, but as with all things in Japan looks can be decieving. 

He would jet off after work leaving me alone in the apartment or sit in my soon to be room playing computer games. One night I plugged in my laptop to watch a movie. I was confronted with the dilemma of unplugging the TV or the internet. I did the best I could find the source of each plug but unplugged the internet. Suddenly a barrage of cursing came out the room, apparently he was online gaming. He never mentioned it or said anything to me directly. He was very passive aggressive. 

Once the week of training was over he packed his truck and took off. I never saw or heard from him again. I was alone in a new country, new town, new apartment, new job and little understanding of the language. 

Each day I would venture out to explore this new place to quickly make it old. I was low on money and needed to exchange some traveler's checks. In the city it was no problem, except the exchange rate was terrible at the time. 1 dollar for 85 yen, roughly. In the country it was a bit more difficult. I went to one bank, but they denied my request and gave me a map to the main branch where to could do an exchange. I went there in the main city center where the main train station is located. 

The country train is an amazing and beautiful experience. Standing on the degraded platform in the spring sun waiting for the old train that comes twice an hour. On that platform for the first time, unprepared for the waiting, quickly learning to write down the arrival times and memorizing them by heart. 

In the heart of Yokkaichi I found the main branch of the bank to exchange my money. I was barraged with plenty of questions - 

Who are you?
What are you doing here?
What do you need money for?
Why do you want to exchange here?

Luckily enough the man behind the counter could understand how to use a dictionary to translate from Japanese to English. When I couldn't speak in Japanese he began writing out the questions from his dictionary for me to answer. The only answer besides my name was, "たべもの。おなかが空いた。" Which translates to, "Food. I'm hungry.' It wasn't a lie. I needed money for food because I was hungry. After he understood this he decided to exchange my traveler's checks and sent me on my way. 

Looking for food, a place to buy food or eat food, I walked through the shopping arcade. The arcade has two or three pachinko parlors, some expensive restaurants and a few boutique stores near the station. I didn't exchange very much and needed it to last until my first pay day so the expensive restaurants were out of the question. I walked deeper into the rabbit hole to find nothing but darkness and despair. Small shops holding on to life somehow, most shops used just for storage and most with big metal shutters over the entrance. You see this a lot in small Japanese towns. It's the Walmart effect similar to America, a giant shopping center comes to town and puts all the small businesses out of business.

Down and out one of the sides I came across a park. A very nice yet dirty park. There was a fountain that wasn't on, some playground equipment for the kids and a police box at the end. I walked around the park to the other side where there was a street. I walked down the sidewalk and from the distance saw a sign with Snow White sitting with the seven dwarfs eating a meal. Aha! At last, a place to rest my tired legs and eat. I walked up to the doorway to find a menu and Surprise! A man with no teeth appears before my eyes trying to usher me up the stairs. 

I never went back there, I probably never will. A little place in this world that exists or did exist, maybe it's not there anymore or maybe it is. Regardless if it's there or not, I hope that poor man finally fixed his teeth. Hygiene is important. 

Art Storm

Written for the Google+ Writer's Discussion Group: Moderator Selected Writing Exercises. The goal is to write a short story (less than 600 words) about a photograph within one week. The story has to reference the photograph in some way or another. To view the picture, post and other entries visit the page here.

Art Storm

“What does it say about people?”

“That we are getting too fat?”

As two men discussed the possible meanings in Yuka's new sculpture, I can only think of the movie Attack of the 50 Foot Woman we watched almost a year ago. A source of inspiration that maybe held some meaning, or the thought, 'it would be fun to make a giant bra and panties.'

The gallery's theme was about big things. Because of the size of most pieces, the gallery decided to hold the show outdoors. A terrible decision due to the ugly weather coming this way, but as the curator protested, 'the show must go on.' So here we are, watching as the wind blows stronger and ominous clouds roll in from the east.

“A comment on he overtly erotic society we've become.”

“A satire on pop stars performing in their underwear thinking they are larger than life.”

The two men prattled on as a gust of wind came blowing in hard. The giant underwear went sideways, pulling hard on the line that held it up off the ground. The two men backed away and headed into the gallery. Yuka ran up, panicked.

“Help me take it inside.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

We looked at each other with anxious eyes. The wind got stronger and the line started to snap. I decided to act. There was a service truck next to the gallery that had helped put all the pieces together earlier that morning. I ran to the truck and found the ladder in the back. I pulled and it came sliding out.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to pull it down. You stand at the bottom and try to pull the line as hard as you can, so it comes down before the wind catches it.”

“OK.”

I opened the ladder and started climbing. The giant bra whipped back and forth. Yuka's hands couldn’t get a grip. She’s yelled something, but I can’t hear her through the howling breeze. I grabbed the top of the bra pulling as hard as I could with one arm. The panties, next to me, slapping my face. I’m surely going to have nightmares about this for days.

The bra is still holding onto the thin wire binding. No matter how hard I pull, it won’t come loose. Yuka waved her hands signaling me to come down. I gave up and started to climb down. The ladder shook, then my foot slipped bringing my face down on one of the steps. I bit my lip. Tasting blood, the wind heaved a big blow forcing the ladder on one leg. I panicked and reached out for the line, but instead found myself gripping onto the panties. The ladder went crashing down. Yuka's faint scream echoed around the wind. 

I was gripping onto the crotch, dangling six feet from the ground. Another powerful gust and the bra snapped off the line, then the panties snapped off too. I reached my other hand up to get a two arm hold on the underwear. The bra flew off into a building while the panties carried me over the parking lot like a parachutist coming in for a landing. 

After I landed, I tried to reel them, but they were pulling me across the asphalt until my body slammed against a red SUV forcing my hands to let go. The panties went flying, followed by the bra flopping off of the building not too far behind. There they went, into that gray sky.

A few days later, I was recovering in my apartment with Yuka sitting next to me. I opened the newspaper and saw a picture of a giant bra and panties stuck on a tree with three children underneath pointing in disbelief.

“Yuka! Look!”

“Oh my god. Where is it?”

“It says they landed in, Oakwood.”

“Let’s go!”