Short Story: The Beginning (part 1)

This is a story I wrote back in 1992... I dug it out recently, and I'm putting it up here for your (and my) amusement. The writing is a lot more immature and stilted than I'd use today.

Navigation: Forward to Part 2

All in all I had a very sheltered childhood. It was a time of naivety and innocence. I had two loving parents; Maria and Jubal Cherryh, who doted on me in every way, showing great strength in times of need and a fortitude that many families today do not have. Strong were the roots of their relationships, and strong was their love in one another. My father had a very just manner, pushing me into debates to decide the morality of situations and circumstances, showing great patience when I faltered, and great passion in his beliefs.

My mother was a very caring woman, whom I love dearly still, even now she and my father are gone. Steadfast with her husband, and able to show me the kinder sides of life without any of my father's cynicism.

Through my youth we traveled, moving from country to country. I was born in England, moving from there to Africa for four years, and then to Australia for another two. From the outback of Australia we moved to the fjords of Denmark, and finally we resettled in England when I was eleven, in the flat, beautiful countryside of Cambridge.

My secondary school in Cambridge was St. Brides Boy's school, where I excelled. Always questioning, I had a hunger for knowledge, studying far afield from the beaten track of the syllabuses set out for us. My school life was relatively peaceful - I have nothing but fond memories of that time. One incident, however, is pertinent.

It was the beginning of my fifth year at St. Brides, when a boy who'd been expelled from his old school joined us. His first few weeks were quiet, and then his true colours began to show through. Slowly, he began to cause trouble, picking on the younger boys at first, as they were able to put up less of a resistance, moving up through the years as older boys challenged him. I was unaware of him at first, keeping myself to my own group of friends; I was uninterested by the playground politics of the school, preferring to find other past-times to while away the break times. However, one day I was walking through the yard when I saw him beating up a first year boy. This enraged me - all that my father had taught me through the years about justice went against this act. I walked over to him and tapped him on the shoulder as he was drawing back his arm to lay another punch into the prone child. He dropped the first year and turned around in surprise and anger - who had dared to interrupt him whilst he was... having his own perverse sort of pleasure? I said to him, "Don't you think he's a little too small for you?"

He didn't reply, instead he swung his fist wildly in my direction. I dodged the blow. One of the now forming crowd of onlookers giggled at the sight of the failed attempt to hit me, angering the bully even more.

"It'd be healthier if you kept out of my business", he snarled, turning and attempting another blow. I was not so lucky this time - his fist glanced off my shoulder. With the sharp pain, doubt entered my mind - maybe this wasn't a good thing to enter into after all - and I readied to bolt. Alas, the now thick circle of people around us prevented this route of escape. I decided to try and talk again.

"Why do you think it'd good to pick on people?" I queried. "Do you get some kind of pleasure out of it?"

Whilst I was talking, he had swung again, striking my damaged shoulder once more. Again I looked around, trying to find a way to run, some way to break out of the crowd around us to lick my wounds and possibly save my skin, but there was no way out. The crowd around was just too thick.

"Or is it that you're so used to using your fists to get what you want that you're afraid to try and work for it instead?"

This stopped him. A glimmer of doubt entered his until then set eyes. He deflated slightly, no longer swinging for me. Indecision seemed to light his face, and then he spoke.

"You'll keep, for now. But I'd watch my back if I were you. You might not see me come for you if you don't."

With that, he pushed his way out of the circle, shoving people out of the way. The crowd around me cheered my name, patting me on the back (some nudging my damaged shoulder, but not out of malice - they could not know the pain it was giving me). The bully had lost face, whilst I had gained the respect of my fellow pupils.

As I walked home from a friend's place that night, I felt a warm glow (not merely that of the slow healing going on in my shoulder, though). Turning the corner of the road towards my house, I saw a dark shape standing in the shadows cast by the streetlight. My pace quickened, eager to safely return home. I fumbled for the door key, dropping it. I stooped down to pick it up, and when I stood back up and looked around, the shape in the darkness had gone.

End of part 1.

UNSEALED On Zoetrope: The Results

Well, it looks like people on Zoetrope like UNSEALED. So far, out of three reviews, all three of them have rated it as excellent.

Promising stuff! Mind you, I also dug out my old notebook, and found about 30 pages of character notes, plot ideas, and so on and so forth that I worked on with Joey back when we were putting it together.

Hopefully a couple more people will review it soon - if so, it makes it onto their Top Rated scripts list (it only needs 4 to qualify, but it's running out of time). And if it does, maybe someone will take notice. I'd love to see it as an hour long drama on HBO or ShowTime. Heck, I'll even take the Sci-Fi Channel :)

Beards and Skirts ... and Sh*t Hitting The Fan

   

 
Good Economic Times - Illustrated

Believe it or not, fashion can demonstrate exactly how well a company, or a country is doing. It's a phenomenon called The Environmental Security Hypothesis. Here's how it works.

During good economic times, statistically, men will prefer blondes. Skirts will go up - literally. They'll get so short you could... well... read a girl's license plate. Men will go clean-shaven. Both sexes will prefer people with big, wide, trusting eyes. Everything's happy in the world, and (as a guy, I really appreciate this), girls will be wandering around showing more flesh than a gynecologists convention.

Why?

Well, I'm not personally sure on the hair color. Brunettes? You're economically immune. Huzzah! Red-heads? Well, the study I was reading didn't actually cover red-heads. Consider yourselves a force of nature unto your own not bound by the space-time or the economic continuum.

 
Harsh Economic Times- Illustrated

Bad news for the blondes though. In harsh economic times, all of the sudden the pendulum swings the other way. Men prefer girls with dark hair. Women prefer men with beards. (Actually, men prefer men with beards too, and by that, I don't just mean bears - that goes for hierarchies of men in society too, not just men who... well.. enjoy other men). The smaller your eyes are? The more attractive, and the more friends you'll have. Even though you have little beady eyes.

It's not just beards either. Anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists and economists have all turned to that bastion of persistent cultural data - Playboy Magazine - and studied the measurements of the girls within. (I'm sure they also read the articles). The result? In times of economic strife, men prefer taller, heavier and older girls with smaller tits.

 
Playboy Magazine: The choice of anthropological
socioeconomic psychologists everywhere

I've seen this myself. We're entering a recession. We've got about a hundred people in our office - mostly young men. Statistically, according to the studies, you'd expect the preference to shift by about 3-4% towards wearing beards.

Guess how many people grew beards over the past 6 months, since the economic downturn started to really pinch?

Yep, that's right. 4 people grew beards, right in line with the study. Or got more scruffy at least. One guy has been growing a moustache since October, and he still hasn't shaved it. He looks like a 70s (the era of stagflation, Carter) porn star. That's dedication.

I Know What You're Thinking

What can you do with this information? How can we make this useful?

Well, on a micro level, look around the company you work for. Are things going well? Or badly? What does your gut tell you? What signs can you see?

How To Tell If You're About To Get Laid Off, or if the stock market is about to crash...

• Assuming you work in an industry where you're lucky enough to see women, did any women in your office get breast reduction surgery recently? Or get taller? Or both?
• Has anyone dyed their hair from blonde or brown to black recently?
• How many guys have grown beards, or grown scruffy, 80s-style George Michael stubble? (If the reason is not that the woman or man in their life is driven wild by the facial hair, count them as subliminal converters)
• Bring copies of Playboy into work. Are the models as old as your mom? Are any of the models your mom? If so, we might be experiencing economic hard times. (Or at the very least, your mom might be).
• Has anyone switched from glasses to contact lenses, giving them the "Mr. Magoo" effect where their eyes are now just tiny dots? Lasik counts.

Things Not To Do If You're CEO Of A Company And Don't Want To Freak Out Your Employees

The Unexpected CEO Beard:
A Serious Business Faux Pas

As a leader, there are certain expectations you have to uphold. You're not allowed to hold all night hooker and blow parties unless you invite most of the senior staff.  You may only have three reserved parking spots at the office for your variety of expensive sports cars, even if two of them are registered in your wife's name for tax reasons. You can't blow the morale budget on that nice set of golf clubs you saw in the Sharper Image, with the built in GPS tracker in each golf ball.

Most importantly, before calling a random all-hands meeting, you must not - under any circumstances - suddenly start sporting a full beard. Especially if you didn't have it the last time any of the staff saw you. Even stubble is out. There's a reason the bad guys in the mirror universe in Star Trek all had goatees, you know.

Travel Craziness: Cheaper to fly than to go by rail

It's currently £20 cheaper to fly from Manchester to London than it is to take the train. And it takes half the time.

Something is wrong here. I mean... never mind that its $40 with the exchange rates, and everything, which actually makes it a toss up... but still... that's ludicrous.

Price of a single ticket from Manchester to London:

by rail: £61.40 (2hrs 24mins)
by air: £43.40 (1hr)

Cost to get to Manchester airport vs. Picadilly - about the same. And you need a day pass for the tube regardless of where you end up once you're at Euston anyway.

The world has honestly turned upside down at this point.