Before and After the Curious Appearence of Barnabus Lansky (Installment #2)

    June 14, 2013 Either 10:00 a.m. or 5:28 a.m. (depending on how you look at it)
    Barnabus waited. He felt The Story being written again.
    As he sat in the darkness, he thought about what he had called home during the last century: The Story. His story. The Pen-Maker should have chosen a more unique or intriguing title than The Story. Perhaps The Tales of Barnabus Lansky. He chuckled at his vanity, but he had been the first character, after all, to join.
    A faint light appeared from his window. He crept toward it, groping as to not trip over his accordion. The sunrises were lonelier recently. He remembered his first sunrise shared with another character. When asked how The Story worked, Barnabus had told his friend that living here was like swimming in a river. If you go with the current, it’s easy and smooth, but if you fight it, you will fail and it will hurt.
    But Barnabus was now swimming the river alone. Just like the old days, he thought. Just me and my accordion.
    This was not strictly true, but Barnabus kept to himself in between the writings of The Story.
    The sunrise was beautiful, just as it was any time someone wrote The Story. The light blushed a pale rose, and then, as it gained more confidence, a blazing yellow. Barnabus was able to make out the familiar lumpy, green hills and criss-cross farm patches. Sometimes it reminded him of quilt work, and other times, of a mosaic. The green was so bright a vital, it seemed that it was lighting up the sun, rather than the other way around. He never tired of watching this same sunrise. It meant another job- he loved his jobs. It meant another visit to the Real World.
    The current of The Story pushed him away from the window. Barnabus obediently dressed in a smart, green three-piece suit. I think I’d look more dashing in red, he thought, while oiling his handle bar mustache. Green makes me look like a leprechaun. Next time he had the pen, he would have to try again to make a few more edits. Changing the course of a river is a monstrous task, but if one is clever enough, it can be done. Barnabus had done it once before, but at a horrendous cost. Since then, he hadn’t been able to make the slightest change to The Story. But someday, very soon...
    His thoughts were interrupted when he remembered the lederhosens. He picked them up, wincing. He hated the things. The Pen-Maker must have written them in as a joke. He always did have a strange sense of humor. According to The Story, this was the first day since he was sixteen Barnabus had decided to not wear lederhosens. In reality, he had never worn them in his life. Today must have been somewhere around the sixty-seventh time he had first decided to not wear lederhosens.
    He stuffed his wrist watch in his pocket and his pocket hankerchief up his sleeve. The full circle of the sun could almost be seen over the furthest hill. Barnabus would have to hurry if he were to be on time. He climbed through his bedroom window (because it was faster than using the front door) and sauntered to the red speck several hills eastward.
    It was a fairly quiet walk, with only one rooster in the distance crowing every thirty seconds. It must have been in the west because the further Barnabus walked, the more distant its cock-a-doodle-doo sounded. The air smelled of manure and mist. He didn’t mind. It smelled almost pleasant in the morning. The fresh, young sunlight filled his spirit like a breath of cold, fall air fills a person’s lungs. He felt particularly cheerful about this job. He would get it done right. Not like last time... Barnabus shook his head. The past was the past. No need to dwell on it.
    “Good morning.” He said to a tan cow. The cow blinked its large brown eyes in return and swished its tail indignantly. Good morning indeed! She seemed to say. Don’t flatter yourself, sir. I’ve know all you’ve done and you are going to do it again now. Oh, no. This is not a good morning.
    Barnabus wondered how the Pen-Maker had gotten all that into a blink of a cow. He couldn’t have. The Pen-Maker didn’t know what he had done, did he? Barnabus stiffened at the terrifying thought. Luckily, he arrived at his destination before he could entertain that idea any longer. The red speck in the distance was now a smoldering fire only three feet in front of him. It gave off hardly any light or heat, so it must have been burning all night. The glowing embers were hundreds of blood-shot eyes, blinking at him, accusing him.
    Why so paranoid, Barnabus? There is nothing of which to accuse you.
    He rubbed his hands to warm them in the chilly morning air. “Is everything ready?” He whispered, right on schedule.
    A brown mouse scurried from behind a lone tree. It sniffed along the ground until it was opposite Barnabus, across the fire. It stood on its hind paws and slowly began to glow a light as red as the fire, though stronger than the fire and even stronger than the sun. It was a strange sight, except he was used to it now. He closed his eyes when the light became too bright and when it faded away, the mouse had transformed into a magic druid. Instead of fur, the druid wore a tattered brown cloak. The former mouse threw a red crystal into the fire, which blazed a little, sending sparks shooting into the air.
    “Of course it’s ready.” A melodic, high-pitched voice sung. The priestess threw back her hood to reveal tanned skin, dark hair and two different colored eyes: one as brown as the rich Irish earth and the other red like the embers. She was young. Her eyes were always opened wide. It made her brown eye look innocent, but her red eye angry and accusing, just like the embers. “You know what to do, Barnabus. Have fun.” Her mouth smiled, but he could hear a harsh voice in his head. Don’t let it happen again.
    Barnabus winced. He had only failed once- once in over a hundred years! Now all of a sudden he couldn’t do anything right? He twirled his mustache impatiently as the beautiful morning faded away. He wondered who had written the story this time. Who would he have to kill?

Before and After the Curious Appearence of Barnabus Lansky (Installment #1)

{1} June 14, 2013 10:15 a.m.   
    The three of them sat bent over their desks, waving their pens like magic wands over the paper. It was only the third day of Mr. Yates’ summer writing workshop, but I was frustrated that my writing couldn’t reach the level of the others’. Cameron, to my left, was probably whipping out some hilarious dramatic irony. She swung her feet impatiently because her pen couldn’t keep up with her imagination. I stared at my blank page. We were supposed to compose a scene in which something unexpected happened. How much more generic could you get? Something unexpected... wasn’t that all that happened in stories?
    “Writer’s block?” Elaine offered a look of sympathy from across the semi-circle of desks. I nodded. Elaine was the shiest in our group. She hated reading her works aloud, but I couldn’t see why. Her work with adjectives was always brilliant. “Just start spitting out words.” She whispered. “They’ll take you somewhere.”
    “Shhh! I can’t think when you’re talking so loud.” Sanders drawled sarcastically. “That is, if I wanted to think.”
     I rolled my eyes. Sanders may have acted like he couldn’t do anything, but he had a bigger vocabulary than Webster. I think he tried to make up for the lack of boys in the workshop by adding extra gore to his stories.
    “About eight more minutes.” Mr. Yates said, squinting at the clock. “Then we’ll hear what you guys came up with.”
    I tried to take Elaine’s advice and wrote the first sentence that came into my head:
    Bob didn’t expect this to happen.
    With a groan of frustration, I scribbled out the sorry excuse for a sentence.
    “I have to print out copies of our next exercise. I’ll be right back.” Mr. Yates walked out. Even though it was summer and he wore T-shirt and jeans, he still walked like a teacher. Maybe it was the authoritative, deliberate steps or the confidence with which he navigated the halls. I wondered if all teachers used a certain walk in school or if it was just at Anderson High School.
    Elaine wandered to the window. She tugged at her blond hair and chewed her lip. I joined her. “What’s the matter?”
    “It’s so nice outside.” She gazed at the wind bending the long grass behind the school. “See how sunny it is? And we’ve been sitting so long in here...”
    “Elaine, really. You looked forward all month to this workshop. Why-”
    “Shhh!” Sanders hissed at us. “Only six minutes left.”
    I stuck my tongue out and turned my back to him.
    “I need inspiration.” Elaine whispered, still staring out the window. “And if I happen to miss my turn for reading aloud, that wouldn’t be the end of the world...” She tore her gaze from outside and looked at me hopefully. “Will you cover for me? I’ll only be gone a few minutes.”
    “What should I say?”
    Elaine grabbed her cell-phone and stuffed it in her pocket. “Tell him I’ve gone to the bathroom or that my mom called me or... you’ll think of something. I promise I won’t stay too long.”
    With that, she had slipped out of the room. I sighed and sat back in my chair, clicking my pen on my desk until Sanders told me to stop.
    Click. Click.
    “I asked you to stop.” He was really frustrated now. Maybe his character hadn’t died as dramatically as he had hoped.
    But I had stopped clicking my pen. I held my empty hands up to show him.
    Click-click. Click.
    I turned to the only other person in the room. Cameron was still scratching away at her paper, so fast I could have sworn sparks were flying from her pen. My jaw dropped. Sparks were coming from her pen. Each time one appeared, a sharp clicking noise could be heard. They faded into ash and harmlessly drifted to the ground. Cameron could feel both Sanders’ and my stares. She slammed her hands over her paper, like she was afraid we would read it. The sparks stopped as soon as she took her pen off the page.
    “What?” She asked accusingly. Her expression was hard to read. Had she seen the sparks? I just shook my head. Maybe it was just the sun shining on dust motes, but what about the clicking noise?
    Before I had much time to wonder, their was a prolonged smacking sound, like someone knocking his tongue on the roof of his mouth. It came from under Cameron’s desk, so naturally that is where I looked. I stifled a squeal. A real, live, brown mouse scurried over Cameron’s shoes and then disappeared, vanished, poof. Like magicians do into clouds of smoke. Only the mouse did it without smoke.
    Cameron jumped at my small scream. “There wasn’t a mouse under my chair, was there?” I nodded, speechless. Cameron’s eyes widened, then she laughed. “Never mind.... forget you saw it.” She giggled a little more and kept writing.
    Never mind? Forget I saw it? “Sanders,” I whispered and poked him. “Did you see that? Am I going crazy?”
    He didn’t look up from his writing. “You are crazy if you think I’m going to fall for that. There is no mouse. Now, shush. I’m trying to finish my scene.”
    “But you saw the sparks, didn’t you?”
    Sanders had a slow, deep voice, so anything he said sounded sarcastic or condescending, even if he didn’t mean it to. “I saw my three hours of sleep and double espresso.”
    SNAP!
    A fist-sized red crystal appeared somewhere in the air and fell right on Sanders‘ desk. He couldn’t ignore this. “How did you do that?” He asked.
    “I didn’t do that! That’s what I’m trying to tell you. First, these sparks, then a mouse, now this rock...” 
    When Cameron spotted the rock, her face contorted, like she was torn between being pleased with herself and terrified.
    “Are you alright?” I asked her.
    “Fine, Nicole. I’m fine.” She answered hurriedly while writing.
    The rock vanished out of Sanders’ hand. He looked under his desk to see if it had fallen, but no. It was gone, just like the mouse. Cameron giggled.
    “Hold it.” Sanders eyed Cameron. “Let me see what you’re writing.” He snatched her notebook before she could refuse and scanned the pages.
    “No- wait. It’s- it’s not me!” Cameron stammered. What was she talking about?
    “Hmm... It’s only talking about a sunrise... and now a country landscape... this guy- it doesn’t mention his name, yet. Ah, just as I thought. There’s a fire and a mouse, no, the mouse is actually...” His voice trailed off, but his eyes still went back and forth over the pages. “Oh, the guy’s name is Bar-”
    A popping sound like someone had blown a bubble gum bubble as big as a house, then poked a hole in it filled the room.
    “Barnabus Lansky.” Sung a deep Irish accent.
    For a split second, I wondered if Mr. Yates had walked back into the room. But Mr. Yates does not have an Irish accent. We turned toward the voice. There, just as the sparks, the mouse, and the stone had appeared (only much larger than any of these) was a man in a green three piece suit, twirling his mustache. He had dark hair and freckles. A gold wrist watch hung out of his pocket. Cameron’s smile was so big, I thought her face might crack in half.
    “He’s just like I imagined.” She sighed, happily. “All except the lederhosens.”
    “But you forget.” Barnabus said wearily. “This is the first day-”
    “This is the first day you decided to not wear lederhosens!” Cameron finished excitedly.
    Sanders and I were too in shock to react yet. I kept blinking, wondering when this  man would disappear. Sanders was making some sort of gagging noise. Suddenly, I remembered our last writing exercise.
    “My writer’s block is gone.” I muttered to myself. “I know just what to write about.”