Ticket to Cal-Dex 9

Nodding Ellen put her IDten transit card on the counter and said, “That will be fine, one please.”

The synthbot gave her a smile that creeped her out, “You do understand the dangers of-”

Ellen cut her off. The last thing she wanted right now was a sermon from a repurposed, and only partially reprogramed, low end sexbot. “I waive the required warning protocol.” It didn’t matter what kind of clothing you draped over a one of these things, as soon as it spoke you could pick them off by the way their speech algorithms sounded.

The bot picked up her card and scanned it and then handed it back through the ticket booths opening. “Would you like to purchase a meal kit prior to departing?”

Ellen knew the bot was programed to upsell but the way it sounded, like she the bot was going to lick each and every item of the kit, just made her stomach turn all the more. “No thank you.”

“I understand, would you like to purchase a media bundle which features-“

Ellen cut the bot off again, “No thank you. The standard complementary stations are sufficient.”

Ellen took a quick glance around the lobby and that was when the bot said, “Are you looking for the facilities?” in a tone that suggested she was a very dirty girl. Ellen found herself shivering both internally and externally. The bot pointed and said, “They are located over behind the lockers.” Ellen started to feel another shiver coming on and stepped back and away.

She almost bumped right into a Versk had it not reached out to catch her in the back. Swirling around, she said apologetically, “I’m so sorry-“

In typical cold Versk fashion it, you could never tell what gender these bugs were as they all looked the same, didn’t seem to care and just stared at her with its black bulbous eyes as its antenna twitched about. A part of Ellen realized she missed the warmth of the sexbot as she made her way towards the locker area.

Ellen tried to put that incident behind her and reflect on the fact that she was going home. It wasn’t how she had envisioned she would be returning home but right now that didn’t matter so much as that she did. With the war finally coming to an end and the planets finally starting to allow commerce and trade again she had to take what she could get.

A sudden voice broke her out of her reflections as it said, “Excuse me did you drop this?”

My whiteboard at work.

Stop laughing at my lack of artistic skills.

A friend of mine suggested to me that I check out the Netflix series ‘Sense8.’ It was made by the Watchamacallit brothers siblings (not going to google this as I like the pun), of Matrix fame, along with J. M. Straczynski (I did google this), who is responsible for creating the Babylon 5 universe I love so much.

These people, while important in their own right, are not the focus of this piece. I haven’t finished the entire run of season one just yet, I’m currently on episode 10 of what I believe to be 12. I have been watching it on my train ride home from work as well as in bits and pieces during my lunch hour and breaks I can find throughout the day. Hey I’m a state employee, it comes with the cut in pay I had to take in landing this job.

Around episode six or so I heard one of the actors say, and I’m paraphrasing as I didn’t go back to check, “It is a parents job to do the best they can, it is a child’s job to forgive them.” That resonated in me only I hadn’t realized it at the time.

Days later, standing in the kitchen, as I’m yelling at my nine year old daughter to start her homework after having picked up my kids at daycare, and trying to figure out what kind of dinner we are going to have, this thought echoes its way back to the forefront of my mind.

My mind takes a mini-trip back to my own past where I can see my own mother doing stupid stuff because she is half crazy. She isn’t full crazy and for this I am thankful. No she is what I would call half crazy. She is the type of crazy that seems to fit in with society until you really get to know the person, only then can you get to the see the crazy that lies beneath the ‘normal’ normal looking exterior. I can’t tell you the number of times she has done something my teenage mind, which knew everything, could not make sense8 of except to say she was cra8y.

Now here I am twenty something years later shouting at my own ki8s to get ready for dinner and trying to do the 8est I can without going cra8y myself.

I hope one day they are a8le to forgive me.

It began as a tickle in the back of my mind. The best way I can describe it that it was like a kind of sneeze that you can feel starting to come on but it never actually develops, at least not at first. Days into it the tickle grew into a something akin to what it must be like when a person, too lazy to take out the kitchen garbage can, instead shoves their foot down into it as they try to shove it further in.
I miss those days.
Stepping off from where she was leaning against the wall, the questionnaire lady moves to intercept me. “Excuse me sir-“. Not bothering to weave around her, she bounces right off my shoulder. She lets out a startled cry, “Hey!” She might have a bruise for a few days, it would go away. Her tone, now much sharper, shouted towards my back, “You don’t have to be such a jerk.”
Ahead of me and elderly man is standing beside a tree holding the leash to his little fucking rat dog. The little fucker is dropping it’s load but the man isn’t paying it much attention, his focus is on the stopped UPPS truck back a few yards off to his side. He is watching the driver bending over the ice and picking up the parcels she just dropped on the ice. I can see the corners of his mouth curl up in a perverted grin. I can only guess the last time he got anywhere something looking like that was back in the 70’s which is where his wardrobe had also come from.
The dog, finished with its business, starts yapping up to its owner. I find myself surprised at the discovery that the little bastards where even capable of stopping.
The jarring surging pulses of pain in my mind are in perfect sync with my pace. If there was any kind of upside to this is would be that I am making excellent time.
I pass by the old man still standing there and now have a clearer view of the UPPS woman still bent over. I think about cursing him out for his vulgarness but then catch myself as I discover the masterpiece the creepy crusty fart stumbled upon. She really is a piece of work. She looks as if she was born of the same mold used for the gods themselves. I guess that is one of the perks of working a physical job is that you probably never have to step foot into a gym.
My foot makes contact with the ground again and with it comes another surge of pain. This snaps me out of my Genghis Kahn like thinking and back to my own issues. I bring my focus back ahead of once more and that is when I spot the excessively expensive suit at the bus stop looking my way. No not my way, directly at me.
My brain starts to itch again.

Today is Jan 13^th. It’s been about a week since I came to a…’pause’ in my writing. I’m going to use the word pause as I can’t think of a better one at this time. I emailed out my two different drafts to a number of people and am still awaiting some responses as to which version they thought was stronger and why. I feel somewhat paralyzed or should I say crippled until I know more. Now before you go there with the “you should do what you want to do and damn the rest” thinking I just want to point out that this is kinda bullshit. I can do both styles as I did do both styles and both styles came out of me in a free flow with very little prompting. I consider it kind of like bilingualism where a child is brought up knowing two languages. They can use both as they see fit but also need to know when each might be more appropriate or conducive to use. I don’t consider that fear so much as trying to know when a tool is best used and when not to. I kind of equate it to being nude. Yes you have a penis but that doesn’t mean it’s appropriate to go waving it around in every situation when dealing with the public. I can have my naked waving sexy time on my own and shouldn’t use when going to pick up my kid at the daycare.

So, I wait….

I still have the desire to write and did a short rough 1,500 word piece about my trip to the FUn land of Canada a dozen years back. Still it’s not the same. I have also been working through a cold and with my head feeling as if it was about to ooze out of my skull I found that wasn’t very conducive to writing either. Still, I want answers.

(Voice of a fatherless child in the ghetto)”Are you my Daddy?” Yeah I hear your projections “that ain’t that funny. You having first world problems and poking fun at others who are less fortunate than blah blah). I’m not saying I’m better, I’m just saying I have the chance of figuring mine out and it is that possibility that is driving me nuts. I’m currently ridding the train into work again this morning and just a few minutes ago got to watch as the train driver ‘asked’ a reality challenged woman to exit the train with all of her worldly possessions and draped in garbage bags. It had a bit of dark laugh as I watched her flip out over the request and do something of a Wil Smith dance of ‘Getting Giggy With It’ as she grabbed her wheeled ice chest cart and cursed the driver out.

Oh, I heard that David Bowie died a few days ago. I can’t say this affects me a great deal. I think I read that he was 69. While I am but days away from my own 45^th birthday I can honestly say “why so young” but the more logical side of me says “70? That’s a decently old age.” I don’t want to die. I know I don’t want to die in any horrible kind of way but in the end understand what it is. I’m not ready but I think I can accept the inevitability of it. I and only I won’t know that truth until the time comes but I ‘have faith’ in my outlook.

I really do feel much better today than I did even yesterday. I know I’ve said before how long my days are but I don’t think they are that unique. It is a sad world when we are all so pressed for time that we lose the ability to even just relax for a bit and reflect on life the way we should. It was 9:30 last night by the time I finally got my son quiet and into his bed. I plopped down into my own and pulled out my…I can’t think of the correct wording at the moment…white-screen kindle device, and plopped it up upon my chest and started to flick through the book options on it. Just an hour before I had taken a swig of Nyquil and could feel its effects on my system. My wife came in and asked if I had put our son down already to which I said yes. She said she was upset that she hadn’t gotten the chance to kiss him goodnight and I groggily replied what time it was and she had plenty of time when she was downstairs on the couch texting and or candy crushing and not to bother now as she would only wake him or further prevent him from falling asleep.

I woke this morning and rolled off of my kindle to find my son wedged in between me and my wife.

Hello today. I expected my son to go to sleep in his own bed. My son desired to sneak into ours. What wins in life? I want to be a writer and keep pushing towards it but at what point does the ticking of fate say “It’s time to get off the train David.”

Oh FUn Canada

            The following is a true story. It took place in early June of 2003. It started off as would any other small vacation one might take upon being recently separated from ones spouse and having to divide our mutual belongings. I made sure to get all the essentials, like my passport and birth certificate, but not all the small little stuff.

I was working and going to school at the time and at the end of the semester took some time off from work to go up to Seattle to see a friend of mine. Being on vacation, and maybe because of my recent split-up, I had let my facial hair grow in some.

I packed what I thought I would need for my journey, which included downloading the maps into my HP palm device, my cell phone and a spare battery, my digital camera, some magic the gathering decks, and even some spare clothes. All the essentials a recent bachelor would need when visiting his friend. I had a truck locker in the back of my single cab ford truck and knew it had road spare water, road flairs, and other essentials already in there. I even went online and printed off a map of my route in addition to listing the location of gas stations and some of my banks ATM’s as a precaution. Being affluent in the ‘Laws of Murphyism’ I knew full well that ‘stupid shit’ could happen.

I get up there okay and do some sight-seeing around the Seattle area with him which includes a visiting a comic and game shop on one of the days. It was a spontaneous stop and so I wasn’t planning ahead. I had left my PDA palm back at his place and upon finding a number of comic back issues, which I wasn’t sure if I had or was still looking for, I wrote them down on the back of my printed off map list which I got out of my truck. I thought all was well.

The next day he had to go to work which meant I had the day to myself. I thought it would be cool to drive up and go into Canada to ‘look around.’ So I drive up Interstate-5 and reach the border crossing. It’s around eight in the morning at this point and I’m rearing to go. I’m wearing shorts, I’m a Californian after all, and a thick fleece poncho top with a huge kangaroo pouch in the middle which has my cell phone, spare battery (The ‘ex’ got the car charging cable), my PDA, my camera, my wallet, my passport, my spare roll of toilet paper (not really but I hope you get the idea).

The Canadian agent waives the cars through and as expected they have one pull over every so often for further scrutiny. My trucks plates are Californian so I wasn’t that surprised when they had me pull over.

The lady agent asked to see my identification and I reached into my pouch and pulled out my American Passport. She looked it over and looked me over, I gave her a big cheesy smile, and she asked, “What is the reason for your visit.”

Being the idiot I am, I had no reason to hide the truth, I answered, “To look around.” Of course in hindsight I probably should have said it more like this, “To take in the glorious land that is Canada and visit some of your lovely tourist attractions.” Did I mention I’m an idiot?

She asks me to verify my place of birth to which I reply, “Germany.” Yes that is 100% true. It even said so on my passport. My dad was a G.I. during the Vietnam War and was stationed there, hence me.

She asked me to get out of the truck and saw me in my shorts and poncho gloriousness. I realize she must think me in my scruffy California wardrobe are quite strange. Hey it’s not my fault my German heritage gives me incredible leg warmth. As I’m thinking of my scruffy nature, being a nerd, I can’t but help thinking of my favorite nerf herder.

She then asks, “Have you had any modifications done to your truck?”

Still being naïve, as well as a dork, I just wasn’t in a post 911 kind of mindset. With Star Wars on the brain I answered, “No, I don’t have any smuggling compartments on my truck.”

She nearly pulled her gun out on me right then and there by the look I got. She said “I am going to need to you come inside with me.”

Not wanting to start trouble I did as she ordered and went inside. Once in the building they had me go into a room and dump out the contents of my poncho pouch. I would learn later that they were fearful, due to my answer outside, that I had explosives of some sort upon my person. They x-rayed my stuff and then went through it by hand.

What they did find was my computer printed off listing with hand scribbled notes on the back. They asked me what that was all about. I answered, still not being sure what they were thinking, that it was a list of Gas Stations and ATM’s leading up Interstate-5 all the way to Seattle. What got them rattled even more was the code names I was using on the back of it. You see what they thought it was is a map of places I was robbing along with Al-Qaeda code words scribbled on the back. As naïve as I was I can only imagine how stupid a terrorist must be to google map a route from their own front door to their contacts front door in Seattle. I’m also having trouble believing that any terrorist worth their indoctrinated salt would use ‘Captain America’ or ‘The Incredible Hulk’ issue numbers as part of their coding system. I had to spend several hours explaining to them that I was essentially nobody and this was all a big misunderstanding. They admitted during this time that they had never had a person answer the ‘modifications’ question in such a way as I had. I know Star Wars was a huge financial success but I had no idea the movie never made it to Canada. Just think of the profits George Lucas must have lost out on due to this simple oversight.

It also turns out that they weren’t done with me just yet. It was during this interrogation time that they asked me to release to them the key to my lockbox in the back of my truck that housed my road supplies. I had already surrendered my keys to them and mentioned it was on the ring. It wasn’t. Apparently that was one of the things I had forgotten to get off the other key ring from my ‘ex’. They said they were going to have to break it open since I was unable to produce a key. I then asked that they not do this and just let me go home instead of causing me a couple hundred dollars’ worth of damage.

The agent eyed me and said slowly, “Can you repeat that?” To which I did. I saw no reason to be there and have my stuff busted when I could just turn around and call it a big misunderstanding. His response was, “So you are attempting to flee?”

I quickly replied that I just wasn’t looking forward to having my stuff busted up if I could avoid it. It was settled, they weren’t going to let me go. I then asked if I could contact a locksmith to come out and open it without ruining it. Apparently Murphy has a sense of humor because they agreed. They brought in a phone book, finally figuring out that I was from out of town, and let me call a locksmith. I searched for an American locksmith, not a Canadian, but an American locksmith. It cost more because they had to travel out and was going to take longer but god damn it I didn’t care.

Hours later my locksmith arrived and he popped open my truck with me present as the Canadians didn’t want it to explode without me being at ground zero.

Once opened they looked through it and I feared they were going to have an issue with me carrying my two road flairs as incendiary devices or something. Apparently they had enough of me at this point and returned all my stuff and told me I was now free to enter Canada.

The first thing I asked was “Where is the return lane to get back to America?”

They gave me puzzled looks and I said, “Aside from this taking most of the day I also wasted all of my spending money hiring the locksmith.”

Only after leaving, and making sure I was on the American side again, did I pull over and get out so I could give Canada the bird. I stood there for close to another half hour before going back to my friends place.

-FUn Canada

Okay, so I wrote out a chapter of a story in as quick a way as possible. I then rewrote that same chapter hoping to fill in on the brevity I had put in on the first version. I have emailed this out to several people INTENTIONALLY not informing them as to which version came first to get an honest sense of what they thought between the two.

It’s been a mixed bag. So far with 4 people reporting back it’s been an even split. I am currently working on expanding my pool some to get a better sense of where a divide might lie but with so few people utilized so far it’s kind of aggravating.

GGGGRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!***

* is the shorter version – Sup-Her – Me Version

** is the longer version – Sup-Her – Myself Version

*** is me being aggravated

**** = I’m a smartass

I’m going to attach the two version here in hopes that anybody wanting to read these ugly bastards might help me out. My email address is (NO SPACES) The Write Dave (at) gmail (dot) com. Keep in mind today is the 7th of January 2016 so if you are reading this at some point some weeks from now it probably won’t do me a whole lot of good as I will have moved on to another piece of senseless drama in my pathetic writing life.

Thanks and Tootles for now…

Dave

I have almost no motivational energy right now.

I just want to sit down and….sleep…..

The coughing sucks too.

Going to try and keep myself as low key today in hopes of fighting this thing off.

Hopefully with a new outlook as well 🙂

I need to promise myself to be more diligent and focused in getting things done.

High expectations or just minimum output? -sarcasm :p

Back to my train writing 🙂
Day 3 stuff of Sup-Her