Saturday 26 September 2015

I Am Not Alice

Last Week, Chuck got us to make up a title each... and we posted it on his site in the comments section. This week, we get to pick out somebody else's title and use it. I had my pick of three I really liked...but I loved Tabitha Beth's title. The first few lines started up in my head and the story just led me along from there!

Enjoy!


They keep on calling me that name.

Alice…

But that’s not who I am.

I woke up in this cell this morning looking around not knowing how I got here, or why, and now some people came and bailed me out.
They were so disappointed in me, wondering what the hell had gotten into me to make me do what I did.

The problem is: I don’t know what I did either.

So, I’ve kept quiet. Stayed this way until they took me home – and what a home it is!
A mansion set back from a quiet street with a long winding driveway. A lot of land surrounds it and it seems that Alice is from a privileged background.
Looking down at my hands, I see I’m dressed in Chanel and my shoes are Prada – only brands I had wished I could afford – and I start trying to remember what happened the night before.
‘Alice! We’re talking to you!’
It’s dinner time, and the mealtime talk has been boring so I’ve taken a great interest in what we’re eating – lobster. For some reason, I know I can’t eat this as I’m allergic to it, so I pick at it.
‘Oh, um… sorry.’
‘Aren’t you hungry?’ my Mother asks.
‘Yes, but I’m allergic to lobster.’ I answer honestly.
‘No you’re not.’ Dad says, ‘Eat.’
I take a bite and almost immediately I can feel the hives start up all over. Just before I pass out, I hear them screaming for an ambulance.

‘I’m not sure what happened.’ The doctor’s muffled voice says from the corner of the room, ‘Alice seems like your daughter, but for some reason, she’s also not your daughter.’
‘She’s been acting strange since we picked her up from the police station two days ago.’ Dad says, ‘She’s been wandering around the house as though she’s never been there before.’
‘There is a scam going around at the clubs lately; and it’s not pretty.’ The doctor’s voice fades as I fall asleep again.
I wake up again to a nurse by my bed. She notices me and smiled, ‘Hi. What’s your name?’
‘They call me Alice.’ I say, ‘But I am not Alice.’
‘Okay… what’s the name you know yourself by?’ she asks.
I feel a smile creep onto my face, ‘I go by many names… you can pick one if you want.’
She shuffled in her seat, ‘Okay… I don’t know what you’re talking about, but give me a name to call you by.’
I look straight into her eyes and see her depression, feel it eating away at her being masked by anti-depressants. Leaning over, I take her hand gently, ‘I am the dragon you’ve locked out of your mind.’
Her demeanor falters and she rises quickly, leaving the room. I hear a sob escape her throat just before the door closes.

That felt good… I make myself comfortable as the door opens and the doctor walks in. I spot behind him the nurse on the floor with blood pooling at her feet and a pencil protruding from her neck as people scream… the door closes… shutting out the sound.
He looks at me, wondering who the hell I am, ‘What is your name?’
‘They call me Alice.’
‘You caused my best nurse to kill herself by just talking to her.’ He said, ‘What is your name?’
‘I have no one given name…’ I said, ‘And I didn’t cause her to do anything she wasn’t going to do in a week or two. I just got her to cut to the chase. You do know she was popping anti-depressants, right?’
Frowning, he takes a seat by my bed where the nurse sat, ‘No I don’t.’
‘She was right on the edge… so she prescribed herself…’
‘We’re talking about you, not her.’
I smile, ‘Right, because you want to know all about me.’
Like the nurse, he shuffles in the seat, feeling uncomfortable in my presence, ‘Who are you?’
‘I am the dragon, the keeper…’
‘…of souls.’ He finished.
‘You are not a doctor.’ I grin, ‘I shoulda smelled you right away.’
He stood, removed the lab coat that told me he was playing the doctor’s roll and revealed who he was, ‘Now, we can help you.’
‘There’s more than just you I have to kill?’ I slide off the other side of the bed, pulling out the IV’s as I go, ‘I’m happy in this body, she strong, she won’t die easy – not like the other one.’
‘Other one?’ he asks.
‘Why do you think I jumped bodies?’
‘Oh man, she was dying.’
‘Stupid Hunters. All you think of is killing things… you don’t think we want to live on.’
‘But she’s got a family.’
‘Yeah, and they’re loaded… wait until my family hears; and they’ll be jumping bodies just to inherit their fortunes.’ I smile at him, ‘That’s how we survive.’
‘But I’m not a Hunter.’ He says.
‘Says you.’
‘I’m not.’ He walks towards me, ‘I’m your cousin, a Firedrake.’  He quickly reaches out to me and I hear and feel the difference between a Human and my Dragon family, ‘Now, I can get you out of here, but it’s going to be hard with your family standing by, Alice.’
‘My name isn’t Alice.’
‘Well, you’ll just have to play her for a while.’ He says, ‘And stay away from the seafood.’
‘I tried to, they made me eat it.’
‘Trust me, I’ll get your true family working with this one… you’ll all be together again.’ He says.

It’s been three weeks and one by one, the Human family I chose have all be switched into my Dragon kin. It didn’t take much; just a night out here and there and my family slowly showed up in the mansion.

First it was my brother, Daniel, who was swapped over. I first noticed him at breakfast one morning. He looked up over the pile of croissants in between us and smiled at me. It was so good to see him again! It wasn’t until afterwards that we met up at the stables and talked.
‘How long until the rest of the family join us?’ I ask.
‘Another week or two.’ He says, ‘Our cousin at the hospital is working on it.’

‘Good.’ I smiled, ‘Soon our kin will take over all the rich Human families throughout the world, turning them into Dragon-kind. We will live again.’

Saturday 12 September 2015

This Is The End...

This week, Chuck has us doing a Space Opera.  I'm not sure what that is exactly. So, I looked it up. I still didn't quite get it (damned comprehension problems kicking in at the wrong time!). Anyhoo, I have had this story kicking around in my head all afternoon - thought it would be a fun Space Opera-type story to upload. 

Enjoy.


This is the end… beautiful friend.

How ironic those words were when Jim Morrison wrote them into that brilliantly sung song ‘The End’ in the early 1970’s. This song’s words couldn’t have become more true than now at the untimely end of our home, our planet…

… our beautiful friend.

Today is the last day of my life on planet Earth. I woke this morning to my triple glazed bedroom, which overlooks the Brisbane River (or what’s left of it) and the melting city of where I used to roam quite freely. I have fond memories of the lovely green grass under my feet and the fresh, breezes cooling my skin.
The officials told me that I could pack as much into my module as I wanted – so long I had enough room to move around, make food, have proper sleeping quarters and the place didn’t look messy for inspections.

I really don’t think I did too badly.

I dressed in the NASA suit they let me have (we no longer have to pay for them) and looked at myself in the mirror, ‘Well, Grandma did say I’d be goin’ places…’  I thought to myself as my emotions got the better of me and I started to cry again – just like I did last night.

I cried over the wasted crap of my home planet. She no longer has any resources to support her huge population. The oceans are now dead – so much so that their flat blueness is just a sign of how little life there is below the surface; let alone the abandoned fishing industry. The stark, lonely cries of birds screaming from tree to tree, searching desperately for food is heartbreaking. And those trees’ branches reach up to the bleach blue sky of nothingness – of no clouds overhead – as our world is coming to an apocalyptic wasteland of an ending.
The only thing which keeps going on this place are wars. I can hear the distant gunfire getting closer as the last few gates are destroyed around my safe haven of where I’ve lived in the CBD of Brisbane.

Yes, it’s time to pack the last of my things which I’ll be taking with me, to take off from this godforsaken place and leave this planet for a much richer planet of…

“Billy!” Mum’s voice calls from downstairs, “Billy! It’s time for lunch!”
I sit back on my heels as I look at the world I’ve created in my bedroom. The bed fort is huge, and utter perfection. I had three pillows off my bed, two off my brother’s bed and both our blankets smooshed around them to make it look like the destroyed world of Brisbane… and then, I pulled out a huge blue sheet from the linen closet to show the empty ocean (I’m sure Mum won’t mind her good silk sheet being on the floor of my bedroom with my Play Doh creatures on it!).
The Lego Millennium Falcon I got for Christmas is sitting on the end of the bed, ready and waiting for take-off as I posed my little Lego dude to be about to climb into the driver’s seat with this NASA outfit painted onto him and his helmet shoved onto his yellow pointy head.
“Billy!” Mum’s voice is closer now, showing she’s just down the hall, “Do you need an engraved invitation!”
Maybe I shouldn’t have used her good silk sheet for this… the one of mine would be have been much better… man, I’m gonna get into so much sh…
“Billy!” the door of my room opens and she stands there, “What are you doing?”
“Um… this is the end of the world as we know it.” I smile presenting my idea of what the world would look like to her, hoping she’d understand it.
Sighing she looks around my bedroom, “Space travel again?” then she spots her silk sheet…


… it really is the end, my friend.