The Story and other stuff that dAN didn't write

[dANdeLION]

Flower of Doom: Part Five - The Revelation Part Four

“Increase magnification by a factor of ten, Data” Pickard spoke quietly.

“Aye, Captain”, Data answered, efficiently punching in the proper commands into the central terminal.

A spaceship appeared on the screen, escaping the gravitational pool of Gamma-Delta 5, a planet the Federation had been watching from afar for decades. The ship’s velocity increased as it rapidly shrank into the distance.

“Data, what information do we have on this planet?”

“It is an earth-class planetoid, Captain; capable of sustaining life for several millions of years now. The sentient species on this planet are very human-like; they have evolved to a level roughly equivalent to Earth’s Baroque period. In fact, I cannot ascertain as to how they managed to build a Citadel-class starship that is clearly several centuries old.”

“Citadel-class, Data?”

“That is correct, captain. She is Citadel-class starship NFG-1197-X, and was registered on Stardate 52.2.2347 as Southerland Pride, sir. Her origins appear to be Rigellian. I do not know why she was here on Gamma-Delta 5, but I do know she was disguised as Southerland Castle.”

“I see”, said Pickard. “Troi, can you sense anything from that ship?”

“I will try, Captain”. Troi closed her eyes and her face became a mask of calm sedation. “I sense confusion, Captain, as if nobody knew the city was in fact a starship. I do sense one more thing; an isolated sense of glee, combined with a hint of madness. I believe that’s coming from the captain of Southerland Pride, sir.”

“Thank you, Deana. That will be all for now.” Captain Pickard sat with an expression of mild consternation on his chiseled features. He turned to first officer Ryker. “So, Number One; did you know that was a starship?”

“No, Captain. Can’t say as I knew that truly helpful piece of information, sir.”

“How about you, LaForge? Did you know?”

“I think I would have mentioned that to someone if I had known anything about a space ship given the fact that it’s our job to know these sorts of things, captain.”

“And Worf, did you know?”

Worf remained silent but extended his middle finger in Pickard’s direction……

[aTOMiC]

Flower of Doom: Part Six - The Revelation Part Five
King Daniel’s supply caravan drew to a halt. The nearly endless line of camels and wagons stretched into the hazy distance, dust plumed into the clear desert air. A cacophony of squeals, grunts and calls went up from the various servants and animals that populated the procession. Aboard the lead wagon sat Treal, Wagon master. His eyes followed the exhaust trail that billowed behind Southerland castle as it sped toward the heavens. His deep blue eyes squinted as the soaring castle’s silhouette passed near the blazing, morning sun. Treal was forced to shield his eyes with his thick, work weathered hands. Stush sat next to Treal, a near twin to the Wagon master. He mimicked his brother, his motions and aspect.
“Treal?” Stush muttered quietly. “Did you know our home, Southerland castle, was a space ship?”
Treal continued to scan the skies as the bright star of the castle’s engines began to fade into obscurity. His gaze finally dropped from the sky and fell to the cracked and weathered wood of the wagon’s base board.
“You know, Stush. Do you truly believe I would have kept such a very important piece of information such as that to myself?” Treal grabbed the wagon’s reins, tied them off on a nearby peg, and leapt from the wagon to the warm desert sand. Treal stood next to the wagon with his fists on his hips. He stared off into the hazy distance in the direction of where his home had been.
“Treal?” Stush called to his brother. “What are we supposed to do?”
Treal ignored his brother’s query. He turned back toward the winding length of the caravan and shouted. “Did any of you know that Southerland castle was a space ship?” Treal’s thick, commanding voice echoed off the nearby canyon walls without so much as a whisper in response. A few moments later Treal pulled his longsword from its scabbard, placed its sharp tip against the skin at the base of his throat and…

[aTOMiC]

Flower of Doom: Part Seven - The Revelation Part Six

Regaltheon, god of power and radiance, sat on his golden throne and considered the tiny world beneath him. The humans provided many an entertainment for the gods. Regaltheon had made many secret visits to human maidens while disguised as a handsome, minstrel. Regaltheon’s wife, Protura goddess of beauty and fertility, was unaware of her husband’s baser proclivities. Regaltheon had never sired a bastard child, until now. The boy was handsome and powerful, though he had yet to learn of his divine heritage. One day young Savoteen would learn the truth and Regaltheon’s secret would be revealed but a god-father’s pride in his unusual son was worth the scandal that would result.
Regaltheon’s legitimate son, Raesor, suddenly marched into the great hall breaking Regltheon’s concentration. The young god’s sandaled feet echoed off the hard marble floor and walls. He was the very image of his mother. Regaltheon’s face contorted into a scowl of displeasure at the approach of his child.
“Father.” Raesor chimed. “I have news. I have fallen in love with a human woman. King Daniel’s daughter, Rhinda. I demand you allow me to follow my heart and wed her as a mortal man!” Raesor fell silent, his clean, boyish face was a wash of defiance.
“Hahahahahha…” Regaltheon boomed. “You have my blessing my son. However I have news that you may find troubling.”
Raesor’s face quickly shifted to an expression of cautious concern.
“My son, your beloved has been transported beyond our influence. It seems that Southerland castle was in fact a space ship and was launched this morning by King Daniel himself. The ship is hurtling away from this world at a tremendous rate.”
Raesor was aghast. He stumbled forward a few steps and struggled to speak. “But…” Raesor searched for the words, grappled with his distress but finally composed himself to frame the question that was burning to be asked.
“Did you know that Southerland castle was a space ship?”

[dANdeLION]

Flower of Doom: Part Eight - The Revelation Finale

King Daniel’s laughter slowly subsided once the Southerland Pride’s hyperdrive engaged, hurtling the ship towards her destination at speeds greater than Daniel had ever imagined possible. He stared at the projection screen as stars hurtled by in endless streams of light, awed by the magnificent display. Minutes passed; perhaps even hours, before his reverie was interrupted by his trusted vizier, Corvaelys.

“Isn’t it amazing, Corvaelys?” asked the King. “It is indeed, your majesty, but I am afraid the affairs of your kingdom must now be addressed. In short, your humble citizenry desires to know a few things, and I admit that I share their curiosity.”

“Ask away, my good man; I will endeavor to answer to the best of my limitless knowledge.”

“Okay, I’ll start with this; do you know where we are heading?”

“Yes, but I prefer to keep it a surprise. Suffice it to say that this flight has effectively ended our war with Bayoman, and our landing will insure that we are the victors.”

“Very well, your majesty. On to the second question. Are we now in the habit of leaping to the heavens whenever we want to?”

“No, noble Corvaelys. My father was quite clear on this point. He said the Holy Launch button may only be used once every hundred years, give or take a few months. He mentioned something about solar generators recharging, or some such ‘technology’ claptrap; give me good old sorcery any day, and leave that technology to the madmen, I always say! In any event, once we land, that is where we shall stay. For at least one hundred years, that is.”

“I see” mused the vizier. “Well then, that leaves one final question. Did you know that Southerland Castle was a starship?”

A mad gleam shone in King Daniel’s eyes as his mind wandered back in time to the first and only time his father took him into the Holy Launch Chamber, and showed him the sacred button. “Remember, my son, this is only to be pushed in times of extreme emergency. You must first state the nature of the emergency loudly and clearly, and then, if the Gods will it, the button will glow a bright red, allowing it to be pushed. Once pushed, the Gods will do the rest.”

“But father, what does it do?” asked young Daniel. A mad gleam shone in young Daniel’s father’s eyes as his mind wandered back in time to the first and only time his father took him into the Holy Launch Chamber………

[___]

This is unrelated to the Flower of Doom tripe:

Hole in Space

By D. Southard
2001

Chapter 1 "Escape"

Captain Samuel Dante liked to be called Sam. This way, he felt his crew would
know that they would be treated like equals, not like slaves as he was on the
vessels he had served on in his younger days. He was forty-three, with thick,
curly brown hair kept short; gentle brown eyes and a face that seemed too soft
to belong to the battle-hardened man he was. Yet when Sam gave the order to
fire, his men obeyed without hesitation.

The hulking vessel that filled his view screen was accelerating away at an
alarming rate and had to be stopped. Innocent lives had been ruthlessly taken
and the murderers were still within the range of his weapons. The entire ship
shuddered as three nuclear torpedoes erupted from the forward launch tubes.
Earth/Space Force ships were the only police for the entire solar system and a
terrible crime had just been committed. Only moments before Sam watched
helplessly as all twenty hostages were vented into the vacuum of space for no
other reason than their rapidly expanding bodies would slow pursuit long enough
for the killers to make good their escape.

The Carolina wasn't as fast as Sam's patrol cruiser Barbados, but if she were
allowed to jump to hyperspace, tracking her down would be a waste of time, as
she could be at any of an infinite number of spots on an imaginary line between
here and the opposite end of the universe.

The torpedoes closed on their target in a matter of seconds and the marauders
attempted to intercept them with canon fire without any success. Then, at the
exact moment of their contact with the hull of the Carolina, all hell broke
loose. The Carolina disappeared under a wave of flames that erupted into the
void of space, exploding outward with a violent force way beyond the
capabilities of the objects creating them. They threatened to consume the
Barbados, and scorch the very stars of their galaxy.

If her shields hadn't automatically gone up, the Barbados would have been
cooked. As it was, she was severely buffeted by shock wave after shock wave,
sending her officers and crew flying about like food in a mess hall fight.
Lights flickered and dimmed, as power was lost, requiring back-up systems to run
life support, gravity, and other essentials until main power could be restored.

"What in the Seven Systems was that ship carrying?" asked First Mate Zelda Smith
as she picked herself up off the floor, bruised, but otherwise unhurt. Zelda was
a beautiful woman, in her early thirties (Sam guessed; she would never tell)
with a round face and full, pouting lips. She was all curves but tough enough to
take out an armed man with her bare hands, with flowing crimson hair and a
sparkle in her green eyes that hinted at secrets men would die to know. She was
his First Mate, in all the ways that mattered, and the only woman that a man
like him could love.

"Nothing that could do that," answered Sam, wiping the blood off his mouth with
his sleeve. "E/S.F. only knew about the hostage situation. The Carolina was only
carrying its planets' dignitaries to earth for their convention. But it's our
job to find out just what happened here."

As the Barbados' systems came back on line, Sam set his mind to the many small
tasks that always followed these chases, and the mystery of how three little
torpedoes could have made such a big bang. "Take us to the spot of Carolina's
destruction, Zelda," he said "And scan for traces of anything left behind. We
should be able to find something that can tell us what the Carolina was
carrying, and why she would go to such extreme measures to protect her secrets".
Zelda would be busy with that task for a while, so Sam ordered all injured men
to sickbay, then went there to get his lip stitched and went to his quarters to
sleep.

[aTOMiC]

one more flower of doom entry. I'll quit now I swear.

Flower of Doom: Part Seven A - The Revelation Part 6.5

Shawn Carter slowly walked the hot sidewalk that ran along the street in front of the Terrace County Courthouse. He had spent the better part of the morning standing in line behind many of his fellow citizens waiting for his turn to pay his fines. Shawn understood the laws he had broken but it was a hard pill to swallow. Really, what was the harm in driving his car while high on crack? Shawn managed to sell just enough of his coveted drug stash to pay his fines and still held on to enough so that he could walk home and get really toasted. He would try to forget about his driver’s license being suspended and his car being impounded.
Shawn hadn’t eaten or drank anything since the night before and he was becoming dazed by the hot summer sun, the possible beginnings of heatstroke. Every step that he took seemed to compound Shawn’s inability to focus. Then suddenly there seemed to be a bright flash from the sun. Or was it inside Shawn’s head? He stumbled and his momentum sent him plunging toward the hard sidewalk.
Shawn’s head slammed unmercifully against the unyielding concrete. .
There was another flash and then darkness.
After a few moments Shawn seemed to recover, he managed to roll over onto his back. When he opened his eyes he was greeted by a bright blue sky dotted by several puffy white clouds. Off in the distance he noticed mountain peaks. Mountain peaks? Shawn lived in Florida. There wasn’t anything remotely similar to a mountain for hundreds of miles from his home. Shawn quickly sat up. The courthouse was gone replaced by a rocky slope. There was no sign of the concrete sidewalk upon which he was walking.
What the hell?
Then Shawn noticed the castle across a wide lake. It looked like the kind of castles he’d seen in movies and in pictures. It was beautifully reflected in the calm water. The castle was also surrounded by a vast army. Shawn guessed that the castle was about to be attacked. Then there was a thunderous rumble deep in the earth. Shawn could feel the powerful vibrations through the ground. Ripples appeared across the surface of the water. Then a flash of fire erupted from the bottom of the castle. A ring of flames blasted the army on all sides sending charred bodies hurtling into the air like a plume of dust. Then the castle began to rise above the ground. Shawn thought the flames beneath it resembled the exhaust that he’d seen during a space shuttle launch. Higher and higher the castle ascended, picking up speed as it soared into the sky until all that was left was a long trail of smoke, snaking upward into the heavens.
“I never would have guessed that castle was really a space ship.” Shawn muttered to himself.

[dANdeLION]

Flower of Doom: The Badger Part XII

The Badger rose in the cool night air;
Into the heavens he did stare
With beady eye did he spy
A castle-shaped ship passing by

This perplexed the badger much
It invaded his thoughts and dreams and such
So much so that he decided to speak
To the wizened owl, who was taking a leak

“I say, Mister Owl, did you happen to know
That the castle was a spaceship, hurtling to and fro?”
The owl turned his head round and round,
And proceeded to answer in a voice like a frown

“If I happened to possess such a useful lore;
Think you not I’d have told you afore?”
The Badger pondered such tidings with aplomb
And decided to mail the smart-assed owl a bomb.

[___]

Hole in Space

By D. Southard
2001

Chapter 2 "Redemption"



Sam awoke refreshed, and soon was back on the helm, asking for a progress report
on the earlier explosion. "You mean your inferno, sir?" asked Zelda, with a
smirk on her face that nearly erased the lines of fatigue that had appeared in
the last few hours. "My inferno?" he wondered, and knowing there was a joke
there somewhere, merely muttered "Cute", and pored over the report Holden handed
him. After a few minutes, he understood most of what happened, but there were
still a few questions. "Zelda, I see here that there are no traces of the ship
found. That led you to the conclusion that the Carolina had managed a jump at
the last second. But this also implies that the missiles didn't find their
target, if the Carolina indeed escaped. Yet we know they detonated, and what
makes no sense to me is why is there no residual radiation from the missiles?"
At this point, ensign Starke spoke up. Starke was a quiet man, barely 20 years
old, and yet his keen mind proved itself of infinite value in the few months
since his station to Barbados. "I believe that the Carolina jumped, but she
didn't escape, Sam. The evidence suggests that she was struck at precisely the
exact moment she jumped. The residual traces we are looking for are on the other
side of the jump. That is why we can't find them here." "Okay" Sam said "that
explains the residue issue. But what was that explosion about? We had only shot
to cripple her; that explosion was way too immense, and those flames; I've spent
twenty-some years in space and I've never seen a fireworks display like that
before." Zelda answered this time, in a small voice that told Sam that this was
only a theory (she trusted fact alone), and was only forwarded because eight
hours of searching could find nothing more. "We think it may be that the
combination of the nuclear explosion with the hyperspace jump tapped forces more
powerful than either could separately. Cosmic forces, perhaps. If the computer
isn't wrong, it's conceivable that these forces could have created a black hole.
It might not be large enough to show up on radar yet, maybe won't be for a
thousand years, or maybe it will expand and swallow us up in five minutes. I
know this is all very Star trekkish, but we can find no explanation that even
approaches standard logic."

Sam chewed on this for a while before answering. "Is there any other explanation
for these happenings?" he asked. Zelda replied, "The chaplain had a rather
interesting one, Sam. It's actually the reason for us calling it 'Your
Inferno'". After a brief but intriguing explanation, Sam ordered the Barbados to
move a few light years away, safe from any possible black holes. He then issued
his report to E/S.F., warning them to be on the lookout for a "hole in space".
They would probably think he was space happy, and require the whole crew of the
Barbados take a short vacation, but the only other explanation would get him
retired, probably to his own personal rubber room.

He chuckled as he as he thought of the chaplains' theory: "Our Holy missiles
smote down the forces of evil; they sent them straight to Hell at speeds
infinitely greater than light. What we briefly glimpsed was the fires of Hell
opening up to receive those dastardly men; the inferno that awaits all those who
sin in the sight of our Lord and don't beg Jesus for forgiveness." Sam laughed
out loud. "My inferno, indeed. With a little brimstone added in for good
measure. I can just see myself reporting to my commanders that I witnessed
Dante's Inferno, first hand." But deep inside, he knew the truth that lay in the
chaplain's words. After all, what else could make a man like him, who was by his
very nature bad, become a policeman, and try to do good. What, then, if not God?

[dANdeLION]

The Flower of Doom, Revisited

Perschwinn wept openly as he laid his dead wife to rest in the cold ground. His tears mixed with the soft dirt he piled atop her, and when he was done, he sat there for hours, mute and unmoving. Finally, he got up and walked back to the house that they shared, a house that would never be a home again. His thoughts were melancholy. If only he had been a bit faster, a bit surer, she'd still be alive. But he allowed doubt to enter at the final, fatal moment, and she was undone, never to light his morning with a smile, never to remove the aches of a hard day's work with a kiss. He walked woodenly around the house, picking up the few things he'd be taking on his journey, and soon left for the open road. Everyone who saw him coming took a wide berth around him, because they saw two things in his troubled eyes; one was the spectre of immanent death, and the other was the obvious fact that he had no earthly idea that Sutherland Castle was in fact a spaceship.

[dANdeLION]

The Flower of Doom, Trevlor's Song

Trevlor kicked his mule one last time for effect. It really wasn't necessary, given the mule had died over an hour ago, but Trevlor wasn't like us mortals, so who am I to judge. Anyway, now faced with the daunting task of carrying his ponderous weight over Tyke’s Bridge; Trevlor, never known as a being of action, surprised us all by walking straight towards the bridge crossing the Chipindell River. In a few hours we came to rest in the plains between Bayoman’s fortress and our destination, several leagues southwest of the deceased mule. As we set up camp, Trevlor sang softly in a tenor voice which seemed at once both angelic and bluesy, no doubt due to his dual nature, being the son of a mortal father and a mother who was universally worshipped as the goddess of phosphorescent light, and punctuality. As we supped, Dardainus, our second in command, once again brought up the fact that we had several other mules to ride, not to mention a few horses, and even two camels to choose from. Trevlor refused, and seemed oddly offended at the offer. "My mule is not so easily replaced, Dardainus; he was one of us, and it would be rude of me to so quickly discard of his memory. Once I've finished my mourning, perhaps I'll look to another mount; but for now, let us reflect on my glorious mule, old whatever the hell I called him". Yes, Trevlor was an enigmatic man, often confusing to the faint of heart. Still, I knew he'd take another mule in the morning; the man simply never walked for more than a couple of hours at a time. Besides, even if he did choose to remain afoot, we were very close to our goal. Or so I had thought at the time. It was to our eternal surprise then, when at noon the next day, while we were still a dozen leagues away, we saw the very castle we were travelling to lift off the face of the planet in a flowering plume of fire and smoke. Trevlor stood there, momentarily too stunned to speak. Then he turned to me, his trusted chief intelligence officer, and asked "Jomash, did you know that Sutherland Castle was a spaceship?"

[O-gon-cho]

As we set up camp, Trevlor sang softly in a tenor voice which seemed at once both angelic and bluesy, no doubt due to his dual nature, being the son of a humanoid father and a mother who was universally worshipped as the goddess of fluorescent light, and punctuality.

...I must learn of this rival...

[dANdeLION]

Should I change it to 'goddess of phosphorescent light'?

[Menolly]

*wicked grin*

Hey, it's your story...

[dANdeLION]

Well, I'm definitely changing 'humanoid' to 'mortal'.

[dANdeLION]

Milo and his Monkey

Milo was happy, and so was his monkey. Nestled deep within the bowels of the Galactic Alliance heavy cruiser Magus-Toyle, surrounded by the dull thrumming of her engines, Milo, a ship’s mechanic for all of his adult life, was in his version of paradise. His monkey, never one to venture forth opinions on such matters, nevertheless seemed equally content to breathe in the hot, oily air of the mechanic’s quarters. Milo had been worried he might not get this assignment, due to his increasing difficulties with the physical aspects of his job. He had a particularly hard time climbing in the maintenance shafts, no doubt due to his advancing age. Still, his knowledge of interstellar overdrive engines was second to none, and he had trained his monkey to do the shaft work admirably. The bigwigs back at Helsing Academy were amazed at how well the monkey executed Milo’s orders; they assumed it was due to the fact that Milo came from the planet Draughtat, whose people were known for their empathic, and sometimes telepathic abilities. Milo had never shown any empathic prowess, however, and certainly never showed any telepathic ability. The truth was, Milo didn’t believe in any of that mental claptrap, and scoffed at any discipline that didn’t involve reading technical readouts, or working with hydrospanners. In fact, Milo would have laughed in the face of anybody who told him that he had an empathic link with machines, and that was why he had such an amazing track record in the field. He was, in short, a hero among his colleagues; the time he repaired the photon damaged thrusters on the Magistrate back in the Plasma Wars of ‘forty-seven in twelve-point-nine minutes flat (these were the Magellan 2395-L-T7’s, by the way; not the much easier to fix Yosef 4990’s); the time he disassembled, then reassembled an Achibald 55HR hyperdrive unit in under ten minutes in front of several Alliance dignitaries, while blindfolded….he had performed hundreds of similar feats in his legendary career. So, when Milo was able to prove his monkey could do the things he no longer could, the Alliance gladly handed him the assignment. There was really no way they could have known that the monkey was the telepath; not Milo.There was no way anybody could have leapt to the incredible conclusion that the monkey was from a shape-shifter from the planet Hellispore; a hyper-intelligent, telepathic, nearly indestructible race who kept themselves hidden from the Alliance so well that most people thought they were just a fictional species. And the few who did believe that Hellisporians did exist had no real inkling of their true abilities; none would have suspected they were the ultimate infiltrator. Yes, Milo was happy. And so was his monkey.

[dANdeLION]

The Origin Of Kevin's Watch

The Watch was created in December of '69, a couple of hours after danlo woke up from a drug-induced coma in the empty field where Woodstock had happened a mere three months earlier. His first thought was, 'Man, Jimi ROCKS!". Then, the dream came back to him. See, during danlo's drug-induced coma (did I mention his coma was drug-induced?), he drempt of the illustrative characters we have come to know and grudgingly accept as High Lord Jay, Alynna, Vain, Sevothtarte and the like. And danlo drempt of a special place where they all lived; a place filled with all sorts of cool people dedicated to truth, justice, and repelling the evil forces of the Terry Brooks Hack Team, and the one known only as the Dark Bird. Oh, and he drempt of the THOOLAH idiots, too. That's what you get for dropping acid, danlo.

Anyway, back to my riveting story. Lying in the field next to him was a young Bill Gates, and when he awoke, danlo described his dream to him. Intrigued, Bill agreed to create and market small, affordable 'Personal Computors' for people to own and use, so that danlo would have a venue to house his concept of a 'Kevin's Watch', and get filthy rich in the process.

Albert Gore happened to be wandering nearby when he overheard this fascinating discourse, and agreed to help danlo and Bill by inventing an 'Internet' by which danlo could share his wonderful ideas with the rest of the world (and help Bill get richer, while winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his altruistic efforts.).

Together, they decided to contact a professional writer to write several books that would be the basis of the whole 'Kevin's Watch' concept; the writer they chose is known to us all as the inmitible Stephen R. Donaldson (Stephen King, their first choice, threw them out of his house, shouting "O, Discordia!"). The reason the Watch appears to be only five years old is because A) these ideas take time to complete, and B) danlo crashed his VW bus into the arch of time, bending it somewhat.

And thus, so born was Kevin's Watch.

[Menolly]

[dANdeLION]

My grandmother just turned 90, so we had a dinner for her Friday night, and a big party for her yesterday. It was nice celebrating her life; she's always been such a positive person, and believe me, she's overcome plenty of obstacles in her life that would have made me a hell of a lot less than positive. Unfortunately for me, the celebration was a bit subdued due to my finding out I'm getting laid off this week. So, at the party I kind of hung out on the outskirts, which is what I usually do anyway, because I like to see everything, and you can't see everything from the middle. Anyway, there were several relatives I haven't seen in decades; one of them was my cousin Monica, who is a few years older than me and part of my earliest memories, though I haven't seen her since right after my oldest son was born. Monica has Down's Syndrome, and has always been one of the happiest people I've known, which kind of helps the stereotype, which is categorically not true (my old roommate worked at the McDonald's Training Center and I was there a lot volunteering before I got married, so I know), but in Monica's case, it is true. So, I sat at the table behind her while several of my relatives made fools of themselves doing karaoke and having a generally great time. Even my grandma did a song. But, the thing I found most interesting was Monica; she sat there looking up and to her right, carrying on a conversation with someone I could not see. She was having a good conversation, too; and I kept thinking "She's talking to God", and I wished I could talk to him, too. I mean, especially after the Friday I had; I kept thinking if I could talk to God, and know he was listening, it would totally be worth everything I've ever suffered in my life; the migraines, the divorce, the miscarriage, the childhood abuse...everything. Pretty wild, huh? I mean, there Monica was, talking to somebody, even though nobody was there, but I never doubted her sanity, or chalked it up to her imagination, or thought it was my late grandfather...no, I was sure it was God, and I was sure it was real.

[aliantha]

Good post, dAN.

[dANdeLION]

Bruce and Dick’s Vacation

It was supposed to be a vacation; a chance to escape the darkness and depravity of Gotham nights. A chance to get off earth, and relax in an ancient, alien castle. Not that the people of Southerland Castle looked in any way different than Dick or me. In fact, they even spoke English, though theirs was more a derivative of the King’s English.

But, instead of playing blackjack in the Southerland Casino, or sunning ourselves on the sandy shores of the Theremann Sea, Dick and I found ourselves stalking the bowels of Southerland Castle in search of our usual prey, the criminal dregs of society who too often preyed on the weak and innocent, which now included King Daniel’s beautiful daughter, Rhinda. As we followed her trail downward, we passed several curious machines, alien in origin, yet suspiciously familiar in function. Also, there were dozens of small tunnels hewn into the bedrock beneath the castle, all heading outward form the slowly arcing corridor we were traversing. Once again, we came to another downward staircase, and heard voices coming from the bottom, arguing over something, presumable Rhinda. Then footsteps, running up the stairs towards us too lightly to be a man. Dick and I crouched into one of the smaller tunnels as the lovely, yet clearly disheveled Rhinda bounded past us. Dick and I prepared ourselves for battle, but there were no sounds of pursuit; the two men just continued to argue. It was then that the rumbling started, followed by the smell of oil and ozone. My suspicions were correct; and we needed to make a hasty retreat. Forgetting justice for the moment, we ran further down the tunnel, and towards daylight. Finally, we reached the end of the tunnel, and flung ourselves into a trench before the pursuing flames could scorch us. As the dust and ashes settled, we saw in front of us the devastated remnants of what appeared to be an invading army of some sort. We then looked skyward to see Southerland Castle ascending to the heavens. Dick looked at me and said “Holy Launch Button, Bruce; did you know that Southerland Castle was in fact a spaceship?”