Brad's Bad Day

What a terrible day, Brad thought as he finally reached the sanctuary of home after the prolonged journey from school and dropped his packsack beside his bed; flopping himself face down onto the soft pillows with a grunt.

It had started off well; he went through the day's events in his head: got a ride from Jerry so he didn't have to take the stupid bus, met up with Cheryl for a little pre-class 'face-time', but then in English class it had all gone to shit.

He got a D on his essay, even though he'd paid good money for 'Stankly' to write it for him. Then in science class, Raymond couldn't get their diluting experiment to work so they BOTH failed the assignment. He'd have to have a talk with those two geeks for slacking on HIS work.

At lunch, as he was telling the gang about the hilarious joke he'd pulled on the wheezy kid a few weeks ago on the stairs, Brad had choked on his water and some had come out of his nose in a spray and all his friends had laughed at him, even Cheryl!

After that he had been in a real bad mood, so when he had gone to his locker to put away his books for the day he'd kept messing up his combination, got angry and reefed on the door which had popped open with a sudden gust, causing all his pilled up papers and text books to come falling out onto the floor.

It had taken him forever to jam it all back in, so he was running late went going for the bus home, and as he sprinted to catch it he'd tripped on nothing at all and twisted his ankle, missing the bus as well. So he had had to wait and take the late bus with all the stinky creeps from the badminton team.

It was like his day was cursed.

Oh well, he perked up, at least it was done and he could play some video games before dinner.

Turning on the TV and powering up the consol, he sat on the end of the bed to play, but there was a glare on the screen and he couldn't see anything.

With an annoyed sign, Brad got up gingerly on his tender ankle to pull down the window shade.

At the bottom of his pull, he felt a sharp stab on the back of his hand as he caught it on a loose nail poking up from the window sill and gave a shout in pain, letting the blind slip out of his hand as it snapped back up to the top of the window with a loud bang.

The force of the retracting blind knocked the roll from its cradle and it flew up to hit the ceiling fan as its blades rotated swiftly around.

Flinging off the fan blades, the blind roll whipped into Brad's shelf filled with his judo trophies and flung them up into the air like a catapult.

Some smashed down onto his desk, cracking his laptop screen, while a few others crashed into his other shelf holding his collection of model WWII tanks, obliterating them all into shards.

But the heaviest one, he'd won first place in a tournament by choking out Warren Zelman, came flying, base down, onto his head as he watched dumbfounded.

Before he blacked out and crumpled to the ground, Brad's body turned toward the window, and in a dopey daze, he could see across the street; was that the wheezy kid wearing his dumb nerd glassed, just standing there, staring up at his window?

Out on the sidewalk across from Brad Gulfort's house, Simon looked up as he watched the chaotic events unfold through Brad's bedroom window.

As Brad went to his knees and then slumped out of sight, Simon smirked to himself and thought back to a few weeks early when the idiot had tripped him going up the stairs to their first period English class.

Everyone had laughed at Brad's hilarious 'joke', but the fall had caused Simon's glasses to drop off and break on the hallway floor.

So he had had to order a new pair; a very unique model off an occult site he had found on the internet, and they had finally come in yesterday.

He had worn them to try them out at school today, where he had first seen Brad in their first and second period classes together, then at lunch in the cafeteria with his blockheaded friends.

After school he'd passed Brad again in the hallway as he was struggling with his locker; then watched happily from his seat on the departing bus as his tormentor tripped on the sidewalk outside.

Simon took off his glasses and gave them a polish with the special cloth they had come with. Yes, they had been worth paying extra to get his prescription filled in a rush.

They worked just as advertise; these, Hex-ray Specs.

The Ballad of the Wolfman

Under the clear night skies,

The loneliest of souls does roam.

Lashing out at others; he does terrorize.

Yet, his only wish, a return to his lunar home.

Ripped away from his love so suddenly,

Like a beautiful blossom, stamped out too soon,

When a rogue meteor hit so randomly,

Casting him far down, from his loving Moon.

(Chorus)

This is the Ballad of the Wolfman,

A please to cut him some slack if you would, man.

Can't you see his heartbreaking plight?

The reason he howls throughout the night.

Aaaooo! Aaaooo! *Whispered* Aaaooo.

Now a prisoner of the cruel planet Earth,

Killing and maiming; his rage he seeks to quell,

Bathing in the faint full-moonlight, brings his only mirth.

Only in the mornings, he remembers his living hell.

(Chorus)

This is the Ballad of the Wolfman,

A please to cut him some slack if you would, man.

Can't you see his heartbreaking plight?

The reason he howls throughout the night.

Aaaooo! Aaaooo! *Whispered* Aaaooo.

(Reprise)

Castle Alverone

Can you see it? High up above; barely visible, but it is up there, that tiny speck that crosses the moon when it shines brightly on cool, clear nights.

Make no mistake, though, it's still there even behind the cover of clouds; there in the blinding light of day. It's always there, making its journey around us as we sit down here on the ground; through the vacuum of space, shining like a beacon with the reflected light of the stars themselves.

Orbiting the planet; a lone sentinel from a time long gone: The Silver Castle of Mount Alverone.

You doubt that it's true? There couldn't possibly be a castle made of silver rotating around above us in space, you say? How did it get there? Why is it up there; might be questions that come to mind.

Good questions to ask indeed, but perhaps you might mull over instead: who lives up there still, in such an unlikely of places? And what could have caused them to leave this Earth behind?

There have been many theories throughout the years; the greatest minds in history trying to answer the problem in vain.

Perhaps the lord or lady who dwells within ran a foul of a powerful dark warlock who cast a spell over the castle, causing it to float up like a balloon until it left the atmosphere, got caught up in the perpetual gravitational pull of the planet's orbit and is now forever stuck spinning in tandem with Earth's daily trip around the sun.

Or maybe it was an early scientist that created the world's first castle-shaped rocket, but once it blasted foolishly off the Earth's surface with powerful fireworks; it only had enough gumption to get stuck up there in its unending ellipse.

Another possibility altogether could be that an angry and bitter old wizard became fed up with the problems of the world and its people and build a magic castle to leave the planet behind; floating peacefully out in space, away from everyone.

Many a brilliant mind have gone mad before their time with obsession at solving the riddle, but no one has got it just right.

How would I know, you ask? How would a doddering old man in a shabby old suit, sitting here alone on a park bench know what the smartest of people throughout history have all wrong?

Well, let me answer that with a bit of advice for you; free of charge:

If you ever set out to build a castle made of material so light you could move from place to place, in order to visit the many lands your rule over, simply by picking it up with your one hand: make sure you tether it to your wrist with a damned string!

And make doubly sure that you do so if your lady wife asks you to go get some fresh milk from the farmer down the way, otherwise there will be hell to pay, whenever you figure out how to get the blasted castle back down again.

Bubble Bunny

A bubble appeared suddenly amid the high-reaching trees of the wood with a slight popping sound as it came into existence.

Floating a spans-width above the forest floor, the sphere shimmered as the beams of sunlight breaking though the leafy canopy above reflected off of its clear surface.

Inside, a small, white-furred creature slept soundly, curled up in the bubble's curved bottom. Several curious song birds perched on the tree branches above chirped inquisitively at the mysteriously floating bubble as the soft spring breeze blew through the leaves, adding to the serenity of the peaceful wooded scene.

Slowly, the bubble began to lower until its fragile exterior touched the pine needles and other natural debris on the ground and burst out of existence with a resounding pop, scattering the spectating birds and leaving the furry creature behind.

The jolt of pop startled the little creature awake and it looked, wide-eyed, around its new surroundings.

Its long, pointed ears rotated independently as they searched for origins of all the strange new sounds it was hearing as it took in everything it was seeing with its big, icy blue eyes.

Sitting up on its hunches, the creature sniffed the air with its heart-shaped nose that wrinkled at all the foreign scents as its front paws rubbed and patted the soft white fur on its chest and belly.

One scent in particular drew its nose to the right and it spotted a bushel of bright, plump blueberries in amongst the thicket of smaller trees and it bounded excitedly over to the heavenly smell of the berries.

Having just woken up from its slumber, the curious little creature was famished, but since this place was still strange and new, it was still cautious no matter how hungry it was. Thus, it leaned in to where a bunch of the big berries grew heavy on a branch and gingerly tasted one with just the tip of its tiny pink tongue.

There was no initial hint of anything poisonous or toxic, only the still overpowering scent of their wonderful fragrance, so it took the tiniest of nibbles with its petite yet surprisingly sharp front teeth.

The berry's juice burst out in a squirt, and as the exquisite taste coated the creature's tongue, its already huge eyes grew larger with the unexpected pleasure and it immediately started stuffing the berries into its mouth in pawfuls at a time.

As it gorged itself on its newly found favourite food, the creature was unaware of the visitor that approached the little copse from behind.

A small twig snapped and the white-furred creature's acute hearing picked it up even over its own gluttonous eating sounds and it spun around to see a little brown-furred field mouse standing stalk-still, starting at the most beautiful creature the mouse had ever seen.

The creature froze but then realized that its mouth was still full with blueberry mush, so it swallowed and tried to clean off its blue stained face fur as best it could in a non-chalont manner, as the pretty dark-eyed mouse continued to stare at it.

The white-furred create looked down to see that it still had several blueberries in its paws, and so it hopped softly over to the still staring mouse and slowly offered them some.

Still in a daze, the little field mouse reached out for the offered fruit dreamily; gazing hypnotically into the stranger's gorgeously blue eyes as they brought the fruit to their tiny mouth and bit into the plump berry.

The two sat and ate their berries in silence as they stared at one another, the soft forest sounds around them fading into the background of their shared moment.

Once they were finished eating the berries, the white-furred creature reached its paw down to gently brush a bit of blueberry skin off the mouse's long whiskers, while the mouse in turn noticed a bit of berry juice on the corner of the stranger's mouth and tried to reach up to wipe it away.

Unfortunately, its delicate little paws were too short so, in frustration, the little mouse craned its head up and licked the juice off gingerly with its petite tongue.

The white-furred creature's bright blue eyes bulged out with surprise and the little mouse shied away in embarrassment, but before they could move away, the creature bent down and they touched noses.

After a moment that seemed to last the whole morning long, the field mouse pulled away and turned to hop a few steps away, then turned back coyly, inviting the strange new creature to follow.

With an excited jump, the white-furred creature bounded after the mouse and the two disappeared into the thick undergrowth of the forest floor, leaving the little open glen to return to its serenity as the tree branches creaked peacefully in the breeze.

Through the small green-screened monitor the forest scene did indeed look peaceful as the scientists looked on with envy.

"Well, now we know we can send one of the little buggers through the dimensional bubble." The broad-shouldered scientist in the middle proclaimed as he straightened from leaning over the control panel's monitor. "We just have to get all of these suckers into the gateway somehow."

His two colleagues looked from the inter-dimensional monitor, passed the silver hexagonal archway of the trans-dimensional gateway, to the rest of the lab that was overrun with hundreds of the white-furred creatures.

There were white rabbits in every nook and cranny of the lab; on, under, and in all of the expensive and delicate equipment, paying no attention to the three frazzled looking scientists as the bunnies procreated unabated and defecated on everything in sight.

"Then we'll have to get working on an industrial strength disinfectant." The bespectacled scientist on the left said with a shiver. "Those other dimensions are going to be so mad."

The Triangle

As she moved down the triangle shaped hallway, she found herself unable to stop and turn back the way she had come, even though she know she should.

Something about the pulsating light at the end of the dark tunnel reminded her of the reoccurring dream she had had all of her life.

The red, glowing triangle hanging in the dark void in front of her, beckoning for her to pass through it; what awaited her on the other side filled her with speculation, and dread.

In her dreams she had never reached the hovering shape of the illuminated triangle, only coming close enough to reach out and almost touch the space of its hollow opening before awakening from her sleep, still filled with the unease of the unknown the dream shape held within it.

She had always thought the dream was a representation of the fear of the future that always seems just out of sight and the worry of what might be there; yet, it now seems it may have been a premonition of this very moment.

The plan had been to meet her friends to celebrate her birthday with a night of drinks and dancing, even though she would have much rather an quiet night in with a nice bottle of wine; she had relented to their insistence of going out to have a 'wild night'.

So, she had arrived at the address they were to meet at to find several old, abandoned warehouses, standing eerily against the foggy night sky, grouped together in the amber lights of the streetlamps of the industrial end of town.

As she had moved back to the car she had come in to ask if this was indeed the right address, the driver had already started to turn around and drive away into the night; leaving her there all alone in front of the foreboding brick buildings that lined the street.

A blue neon arrow on the front of the building to her left was the only indication that she might possibly be in the right place. It directed her to the dark alleyway between the buildings where another blue arrow shinned its lighted point toward a door-less entrance on the side of the rough brick warehouse.

Having limited options, she made her way down the alleyway and peered into the dark doorway with its buzzing arrow pointing her way in. Sighing to herself, she went in, hoping her friends were already there and that this was all worth it.

Once inside, she tried to adjust her eyes to the pitch dark she had ventured into, but it had been too complete with seemingly no other sources of light to draw any sight from.

And then, in the distance ahead of her, the red glow of the triangle had appeared, casting a soft light, allowing her to see faintly that she was in a long tunnel of a hallway that was also in the shape of a perfect triangle.

Looking back behind her, she found that the entrance was gone and only absolute darkness filled in the space where she had come.

Furrowing her brow with impatience, she turned back to face the pulsating triangle that she now recognized as the shape that had haunted her dreams, and started to make her way slowly towards its red glow.

Now, she was nearing the massive triangle of light and could see how it took up most of the space in front of her, which seemed to have expanded to an immeasurable abyss that the triangle was a gateway to.

Slowly reaching out her hand, she moved ever closer, inching her way along the smooth onyx coloured floor, until the enormous angled lines of the triangles two sides loomed high above her and the points of her high-heels almost touched the base line that ran along the ground like a red slash in the flooring.

Her trembling hand outstretched, she closed her eyes and held her breath as she readied herself to move through the structure and finally find out what lay on the other side of the unknown.

As she took a step forward, she felt her hand move through a heavy velvet curtain and she could feel welcoming warmth in the air; a contrast to the damp chill of the dark she had just walked through.

Moving fully through the black curtain that hung from the triangle door's frame and opening her eyes she found herself in a dimly light room full of people that stood in line in front of counter where two pretty girls where taking coats in exchange for numbered tickets.

It was the coat check.

From behind the other set of steel doors to her left, also in the shape of a triangle, she could now hear the throbbing beat of dance music being played inside the factory-converted club.

"Wendy!" squealed a chorus of voices excitedly calling her name from across the room and she looked over to the washrooms on the right and saw her friends coming out as a waving, giggling pack of enthusiasm.

Wendy exhaled a sigh of relief and disappointment. This was going to be a long, annoying birthday.

Destroyer

What had he done?

Along the shore of the coastline, the sheer cliffs rose up from the swirling black waters of the sea as the dark clouds gathered overhead.

Flashes of lightning rumbled with thunder inside the ominous clouds as the storm within grew, threatening to unleash itself upon the green farm lands that lay a top the high-reaching cliffs.

Haemal stood on the rocky shore that led out from the hidden cave entrance to meet the crashing waves of the angry waters that swelled under the darkening skies.

He had only meant to exact revenge on the farm folk that had banished him from the little village above; the village he had lived in all his life; his home.

All for what? Believing he had brought the drought that had caused the crops to wither and die out before they could be harvested?

What reason would he have had to bring about a famine that affected him as well as them?

Just because they thought he had delved too far into the 'black arts'. As if they knew the difference between natural healing and true Black Magic.

Simpletons.

Had he not cured many an ailment with his skills in apothecary? In fact, he had saved no small number of the village's children, who would have surely died without his knowledge of simple healing plants and herbs.

Yet, to the idiot villagers, his medicinal potions were no different than the blackest of magics.

So when they needed to place blame for a run of bad weather, they turned their anger and frustration to him and threatened to do him harm if he did not leave the meagre little hamlet.

Pelting him with the rotten and spoiled crops from their failed harvest, they had run him out of town and forced him to seek shelter in the cold, damp caves of the cliffs below.

There, he had given into his anger and ventured into studying the very subject he had vowed never to practice: Black Magic.

Within the darkness of the caves, he had pored over the volumes of primeval texts he had taken with him and found an incantation that promised to bring punishment to one's enemies.

Little did he know that behind all Dark Magic, laying in wait behind the words written upon the ancient pages, a sinister force awaited a fool to perform the ritual transcribe and release its evil upon the world.

He had been a fool indeed, he thought as he stood in terrified awe of the darkening scene in front of him.

From the depths of the churning waters he could see a humongous shape emerging, its hideous tendrils branching out and reaching up toward the surface; the intangible size of the thing filled Haemal with dread that boarded on madness.

Lightning cracked above and the bright flash lifted his eyes from the dark waters of the sea to the clouds converging above.

And the sight weakened his legs to cause him to drop to his knees and weep.

For the sea had only been the murky reflection of the creature emerging from the darkness of the cloud-filled sky.

What had he done?

In his foolish pursuit for revenge, he had become a puppet of the evil he had been persecuted for.

Screaming in aguish as the tentacles reached down from the clouds that veiled the beast's true form; his last thoughts were the terrible realization that he had brought about the end of all things.

Gnorman

Once there was a gnome named Gnorman who lived near the edge of the woods that bordered the suburb, which in turn bordered the big, sprawling city to the south.

But Gnorman had never ventured that far away from his house; hidden within the exposed roots of an old oak tree, just a little ways in from where the backyards of the well-kept neighbourhoods touched the forest's edge.

He was content with staying in the woods of his ancestral home and did not feel the draw to the big city like so many of the other gnomes his age; roughly 108 years old in human years, yet still just a youngling in gnome society.

While others his age wanted to move to the big human city to fill one of the many positions there, Gnorman felt he had a duty to stay and take up his father's district; covering the subdivision that had been their family's responsibility for many hundreds of years, possibly since the very beginning of humans settling in the land so long ago.

Each day Gnorman would wake up before the sun rose, have a good breakfast of mushrooms and moss porridge and then head out to along the twisting and winding path to the old fishing pond that lay safely hidden away in the deep woods.

Setting up his rods, nets, baskets he would sit on the soft green grass that surrounded the glimmering waters of the pond as the morning sunlight filtered down in beams through the canopy of trees and cast his line in.

Soon he would start to drift off to sleep to the sounds of the birds chirping in the distance and the soft breeze blowing through the branches of the trees; until a bite would come on his line and startle him to alertness as he gripped his rod and began reeling in his catch.

It would not take long once the first bite was on the line before his baskets were full and he was at his limit for the day and it was time for him to head home with the afternoon sun hanging high in the sky above.

Once back in his cozy little tree home, Gnorman would prepare all of that day's catch for that night's outing and after a tasty lunch, lay down for a nap before heading out again once the sun set and darkness blanketed the night sky.

Heading out under the cover of night, Gnorman headed out toward the houses of the suburb, lit by the street lights lining the roads in the front, yet the darkened back yards still made it easy for the little gnome to approach unseen with his knapsack full upon his back.

Slipping in to each house by the little nooks and crannies that the humans failed to pay attention to, he would make his way to the bedrooms of the sleeping children, dig into his sack and sprinkle the good dreams he had brought to put into their slumbering minds.

It filled him with a great sense of pride to know that he was tasked with bringing all the children of this subdivision their happiest of childhood dreams from the magical pond of wishes back in the forest.

He smiled as a child he had just sprinkled a dream of flying through space in a cartoon rocket ship on grinned in their sleep, but then a movement in the corner made him frown and stare into the shadows there.

From the dark of the corner, two red glowing eyes appeared and were joined by a crooked, toothy grin. Gnorman gave a little growl as a dark gnome stepped out of the shadows with its own sack full on its back.

Stalking around the room, the two little gnomes circled each other as Gnorman tried to keep the dark gnome away from the still sleeping child.

"You get out of here, Ggordon!" Gnorman hissed in a whisper. "I've already given the child their dream for the night; they don't need you mucking it up with your rotten ones. Now get!"

Gnorman lunged at Ggordon but the other gnome did not flinch, only smiled mischievously and tried to edge his way closer to the child's bed; always keeping his eyes on Gnorman.

"I've just as much right to do my job as you do." Ggordon croaked hoarsely. "Gotta have some bad dreams too, ya know." He said as he tried to jump up on the end of the bed, but Gnorman pulled him down.

"Not your brand of bad dreams." Gnorman whispered loudly as he dragged Ggordon back down and pushed him towards the window. "I know you've been putting a little extra darkness in those dreams of yours, kids ain't supposed to be havin' those kinda nightmares yet."

With a sweep of his leg, Gnorman kicked Ggordon in the rear as the dark gnome growled and rounded back to tackle him.

The two pint-sized gnomes rolled around on the floor of the moonlit room, gnashing and clawing at each other trying to get the upper hand, until they hit into one of the play table chairs and knocked it over with a thud.

Both gnomes froze and looked over to where the child lay in their bed and saw their eyes fluttering open; woken from the noise of their scuffle.

Forgetting their scrap, the two gnomes scrambled for the windows on the opposite walls from each other, leading out to the east and west sides of the house.

Clambering up to the sill of the west window, Gnorman looked over to see Ggordon was breathing heavily as he stared over at him from the east window, still sneering bitterly.

Taking a last look at the child, he saw that they were looking from him to Ggordon with sleepy disbelief, before the two gnomes slipped out of the house and into the night.

As the child sat up in bed, they tried to decide whether the little bearded men they had seen on the windows had been real or jus part of their dream. In the end, they figured it was just part of the dream and tried to fall back asleep so they could get back to the awesome space adventure dream they had been having.

From now on, Gnorman thought as he headed back home before the dawn's light broke over the horizon; he was going to have to keep an eye out for that jerk, Ggordon and his sack full of bad dreams.