time to fly

The tinkering noises coming from Navem’s workshop were only rivaled in intensity and frequency by the accompany curses and groans.  He’d spent three days locked in a manic state of development.  His house guests had spent those three days nervously pacing outside his door, burying their heads under their pillows when they tried to sleep, and growing largely irritated by the never-ending stream of noise.

During a rare pause, Grace and Arlen cautiously approached the door.  Grace leaned in to press her ear against the wood to see if she could hear what was going on, and in a whisper Arlen asked, “What’s he building in there?”

Without pulling her ear from the door, Grace shrugged her shoulders.  “He’s never been at it this long before.  Usually Navem gives up after a day.  He’s full of good ideas he just doesn’t know how to make them come to life.”

Arlen grinned as he remembered Navem’s last attempted creation: a car that could run on vegetable scraps.  The would-be inventor had spent a whole day taking apart the engine of his truck only to realize he knew nothing about combustion engines.  He’d ended up having to get the truck towed to a mechanic to put everything back together.

Suddenly, the door flew open.  Grace stumbled and nearly fell into the room as Navem rushed passed his two roommates.

“I’ve done it!”

“What have you done?” Arlen asked the back of the retreating figure sprinting down the hall.

“Was he smiling?”  Steadying herself against the door-frame and straightening up, Grace turned to watch Navem disappear as he turned out of the hall into the garage.

“If you consider grinning from ear-to-ear as smiling…”

“What does that mean?”

“I have no idea.”

Grace and Arlen locked eyes and grimaced.  The implications of Navem having finally succeeded in building something useful hung in the air like an anvil hanging from a thread.  They were both waiting for that thread to snap and the anvil to come crashing down on their heads.  They flinched when Navem, stilling grinning like a mad man, came flying back into their view from the garage.

“You’ve got to see this!”

The two roommates exchanged another very concerned look and grudgingly made their way down to where Navem was standing.

“What did you ma-make?”  Grace couldn’t keep a slight tremor out of her voice.

Navem exuded pride, he beamed with happiness, he was exultant as he answered, “I made a kite.”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Word Count: 411

Another week, and I’ve come up with another silly submission for the Inspiration Monday writing prompt:

The Rules

There are none. Read the prompts, get inspired, write something. No word count minimum or maximum. You don’t have to include the exact prompt in your piece, and you can interpret the prompt(s) any way you like.

OR

No really; I need rules!

Okay; write 200-500 words on the prompt of your choice. You may either use the prompt as the title of your piece or work it into the body of your piece. You must complete it before 6 pm CST on the Monday following this post.

The Prompts:

WHAT’S HE BUILDING IN THERE?
MECHANICAL OASIS
ORANGE BLOOD
PHANTOM PAIN
PAPER LIES

close call

Richard tore his house apart trying to find the object of his desire.  He knew had one left.  He knew it.  He’d kept one hidden so that when his need was great it would be there for him to use.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t remember where he had hidden it.

His dresser drawers were taken out, turned upside down and their contents dumped unceremoniously on the bed.  He’d quickly sifted through the scattered contents and then moved on.  He had already emptied out his desk drawers, knowing he wouldn’t find it there, but needing a “logical” place to start.  After the dresser had been checked thoroughly he moved on to the shelves in his closet.  Every box was taken down, dumped out, and picked through.

He was beginning to panic.

Richard had known the day would come.  The first time he had been told he was no longer allowed to turn in hand written assignments at school, that everything needed to be written on a computer and sent in via email, or loaded to a shared drive, or somehow otherwise transmitted electronically to receive credit, he had known the day would come when the written word would go extinct.  Tragically, he had known that day would happen in his lifetime too.

He’d gone straight out and purchased as many writing instruments (paper, pens, pencils, crayons, paint brushes, paints, parchment, canvas, etc…) as he could afford and stuffed his car beyond capacity.  He’d used his resources sparingly over the years, not wanting to ever see the day when he ran out.  But that day was nearly upon him anyway.  His love for writing, and drawing, and creating by hand, analog if you will, rather than digital, had outweighed his concern for his future needs and one by one, albeit slowly, he had worked through his treasure trove.

Richard tore his house apart trying to find his last pen.  As the only person he knew who still deigned to use such an archaic creative instrument, and having not been able to replenish his stores in several years, for all Richard knew it was the last pen in the world.

With a sigh of relief, he released it from the taped hiding spot on the fourth slat from the top underneath his bed-frame and clutched it protectively to his chest.   He let his breathing and pulse rate return to normal, crisis averted, and then went to write the last two items on his grocery list.

……….

Word Count: 405

This week’s response to the InMon prompt.  I know, I know, it’s another silly one.  What can I say?  I am Jester after all…

Want to play along?

The Rules

There are none. Read the prompts, get inspired, write something. No word count minimum or maximum. You don’t have to include the exact prompt in your piece, and you can interpret the prompt(s) any way you like.

OR

No really; I need rules!

Okay; write 200-500 words on the prompt of your choice. You may either use the prompt as the title of your piece or work it into the body of your piece. You must complete it before 6 pm CST on the Monday following this post.

The Prompts:

COUNTRY WITHOUT HISTORY
HAPPY HUNTING
WRONG NOTE
THE LAST PEN
THE CROWD GOES “MOO”

the sauce

Roberto prepared to spoon on the sauce.

This wasn’t just any sauce, mind you, it was his special creation: the culmination of his years of experience and expertise, his signature dish.  But, it couldn’t stand alone.  It needed something to be drizzled over to truly be complete.  Thus, he waited.

Carlo carefully plated his own masterpiece.  He took his time to make sure the presentation was perfect.  It simply wouldn’t do to have a single item out of place.  Genius cannot be rushed.

The two brothers, Roberto and Carlo, chefs extraordinaire, were known across the land as the finest cooks one could ever have the pleasure of being served by.  Their restaurant, Intingolo, had started humbly enough with the two of them working every shift on a shoestring budget and barely making ends meet.  Over the years word of the food had spread and the customers and rave reviews had poured in, allowing them to expand, hire help, expand again, and finally look around and feel like they had made it to where they wanted to be: working on their specialty dishes and leaving the rest of the business in capable hands.

Life had been good.

Then famous customers had started coming in, politicians, actors, sports stars, and the pressure to create works of art, pleasing to all of the senses, mounted.  Roberto and Carlo scrambled to find something that would define them and their restaurant, something that would appease the masses but also appeal to the more discerning palettes of their upper echelon clientele.

It was Roberto who had stumbled onto the sauce, and its secret ingredient, late one evening after the doors had been closed and the last of the staff had gone home for the night.  Carlo had worked countless hours after that to create a dish to compliment the sauce his brother had created and he too finally stumbled onto the right combination of flavors and textures.  They combined their creations, and, voila, they gave Intingolo a dish that would be raved about, craved, obsessed over and sought after through the country.

Roberto was clamored with request after request to give out the secret of his sauce.  The public wanted to know.  His peers wanted to know.  The world wanted to be able to at least attempt to make the delicious gravy in their kitchens at home.  He always refused.  He smiled, a knowing, sad and tired, smile after each attempt at getting him to divulge the ingredient list, but as long as the brother’s continued to garner fame and attention, as long as their restaurant was the one on the tip of everyone’s tongue, as long as they were the darlings of the kitchen, Roberto knew he couldn’t share the secret of his sauce with anyone other than his brother.

Carlo knew the truth of it, of course, he had been there the night Roberto had created it.  Plus, they were brothers and they shared everything anyway.  Roberto would have told Carlo how he had come up with the sauce even if Carlo hadn’t been there in those fateful late night hours.  Just as Carlo had shared the secrets of his dish with Roberto once he had perfected it.

They knew the “how” and the “what” of each others’ signature creation but they never once attempted to make them.  They were a team, they each had a role to fill, and they were okay with that.  It was as it was supposed to be.

The years passed, the restaurant thrived, Roberto and Carlo were offered guest appearances on several cooking shows, were asked for critiques on up-and-coming chefs, and were afforded every opportunity to thrive and grow their business, but every afternoon they returned to Intingolo and made sure they were on hand to create their dish whenever it was ordered.  It was their passion, their calling, their true love.

Eventually the truth came out.  When someone, or two brothers to be specific, has a secret that other people want to know they will find a way to discover the truth of that secret.  Staff members at the restaurant were bribed, money exchanged hands, hidden cameras were set up to record the brothers’ movements and after several weeks of having to move the cameras around to capture the right angles and the right settings of every step of the process, the entirety of the steps and ingredients to create the sauce and dish were caught.

It took less than 24 hours for the news to go public, for the restaurant to get shut down, and for Roberto, Carlo, and a third, unidentified, man to get hauled off to jail where all three were held without bail for their crimes.  In hindsight it was a marvel that the secret had lasted as long as it had.  Expose after special after investigative report was thrown together to track how they brothers had gotten away with it for as long as they had and to ensure that other famous restaurants and chefs weren’t employing similar tactics.

Due to the overwhelming and damaging evidence, all three men plead “nolo contendere” to the charges leveled against them.  As first time offenders, despite the overall mass of their crimes against humanity, the brothers were only sentenced to ten years in prison.  The public was outraged that the sentence was that long as the two chefs were still generally beloved by all.  The third man, received his third strike, and was sentenced to life in prison with the first possibility of parole in ten years time.  Though it was still his third strike and the Judge could not overlook that, it was statements from the brothers claiming the man’s innocence as to the purpose of the drugs he had been dealing Roberto for the past several years that the court factored in to being slightly lenient on the man.

The drug dealer truly hadn’t known the mdma (ecstasy) he’d been selling the elder brother was being used in creating the world famous sauce.

……….

Word Count: 1,000

Written in response to the Weekly Writing Challenge.
“This week, tell us a story based on this photo”

Pictures truly are worth 1,000 words.

Conditions in The Matticus Kingdom today: long periods of SUNSHINE

Julie Chicklitasaurus over at Julie’s Chick Lit nominated me for a Sunshine Award:

“The Sunshine Award is an award given by bloggers to other bloggers. The recipients of the Sunshine Award are: Bloggers who positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere. The way the award works is this: Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them. Answer questions about yourself. Select 10 of your favorite bloggers, link their blogs to your post and let them know they have been awarded the Sunshine Award!”

Thank you very much for the nomination Julie.  We here in the kingdom really enjoy knowing that we are positively and creatively inspiring others throughout the blogosphere!  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

{QUESTIONS and ANSWERS}

What inspired you to start blogging?
I finally joined the blogging madness shortly after finding out I was going to be a father.  Initially the idea was to use the space as an archive for the journey towards becoming a parent and beyond, but…  well, the jester took over and now it is what it is.

How did you come up with the name to your blog?
The Matticus Kingdom – This is the name of a mix album I put together several years ago that spanned the various styles of my entire catalog of records: it started very low key with some progressive house, moved into some breakbeat, picked up the pace a bit with some trance (progressive, cyber, psy), and then finished off in a crescendo of furiously flying happy hardcore beats.  It encompassed who I was as a dj, and this blog encompasses who I am as a writer… it just makes sense.

What is your favorite blog you like to read?
What?!  What kind of question is that?  I’m not even sure I could narrow that down even if the question was more specific.  For example, even if the question was “What is your favorite blog from someone who lives in San Diego and has a son that went to the same college as you and has a husband who is a tugboat captain?” even as specific as that is, there are just too many wonderful choices to pick from.  Therefore, I’m declining to answer this question.

Tell about your dream job.
Writing novels.  Fantasy, mystery, westerns, comedies, yes, yes, yes, yes… getting paid to write the silliness that my mind comes up with.  That would be swell, thanks.  Why, can you hook that up for me?

Is your glass half empty or half full?
Half full.  However, it would be empty because I don’t leave glasses just lying around.  I’d either down what was left in it, or dump the contents down the drain and place the empty glass in the washer.  I don’t like leaving things around like that.

If you could go anywhere for a week’s vacation, where would you go?
Where I do go every summer: camping and/or backpacking in the Sierra.

What food can you absolutely not eat?
Mold.  I don’t have any food allergies, that I know of, yet.  However, I can absolutely not take mold based medicines.  Something about hallucinations and hives and just general unpleasantness.

Dark chocolate or milk chocolate?
Yes.  In copious amounts please.  *holding my hand out waiting patiently for the chocolatey goodness to be delivered*

How much time do you spend blogging?
Far too little and far too much.  I don’t get to read and comment as much on all the wonderful blogs out there as I’d like, but I also spend more time than I should scrolling through them, liking them, commenting, replying to comments, replying to replies, thinking of new posts, writing new posts, checking stats, etc…

Do you watch TV, and if so, what are some of your favorite shows?
Bones, Castle, How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, Simpsons…  those are the staples.  I thoroughly enjoyed Sopranos and Deadwood.  I also really enjoyed Dead Like Me.  I watch Dexter when I can but I’m a few seasons behind right now.  I will also watch Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and NCIS if they are on and there is nothing else competing with them.  CSI used to be in that rotation too, but I haven’t been catching it nearly as much as I used to.  Hmm, I think I might watch too much TV.

{NOMINATIONS}

Each of these bloggers has inspired me through their words, through their artwork, and through their creativity.  I think that fits the Sunshine Award bill perfectly:

Jonathan Hilton
Matrone Bell
The Imaginator
Steph Rogers
Jen Rosenberry
Jenn
Rutabaga
Revis Edgewater
Dave
Wiley Schmidt

Daily Prompt: (2012) Time Capsule

Today’s Daily Prompt asks us what we would put in a time capsule from 2012. 

An intriguing question, to be sure.  Should I put items in of historic national and international importance?  Should I put items in of personal importance only?  A mixture of both?  Songs?  Books?  Knickknacks?

How big is this time-capsule?

I think items of national and international significance will probably be covered in other posts, so for my time capsule I’m going to keep it all personal.  Note, after creating the below list I was sad that I hadn’t included anything specific about my wife or the rest of my family and I was halfway through adding some additional items when I remembered I was keeping this time capsule “personal.”  So, this one is mine.  If I was going to create other capsules I would definitely include things of significance and remembrance related to my family.

….

thematticuskingdom Time Capsule contents:

Elizabeth Pass – obviously I can’t fit the whole mountain into my time capsule, so I will just throw in some photos and notes related to the experience of coming down the pass on my backpacking trip from September.  I’m including this partially because it is an experience I never want to forget: because it was amazing and because I never want to forget to never do it again.

Ultrasound photo – the wife and I are expecting our first, and we got our first look at our child back in August, tiny and perfect.  The photo embodies so many different emotions and thoughts from that first moment seeing it on the screen and hearing the heart beat throughout this whole journey.  It will be amazing to pull this out of my time capsule in the future and have all of that come flooding back.

Sierra Storm – my NaNoWriMo project from this year.  It was so much fun to write and get feedback and encouragement on from my faithful followers.  I’m in the process of editing it currently and will be sending it off to try to get it published eventually and while it won’t be done in 2012 I started it this year so it makes sense to include it in my time capsule – plus it would be fun to pull up in the future and see the difference between the first draft posted at thematticuskindgom and what it eventually became, and what I manged to write since then.

Technic Turntable – 2012 marked the year I dismantled my decks (“I’ve got two turntables and a microphone” – okay, actually I have four turntables, a Numark Mixer, a Chaos Pad, a couple microphones, a Gemini CD turntable, and a Mackie speaker) to make room for a crib and other assorted baby gear.  This year marked a huge transition in my life from the DJ I was to the father I’m going to be.  But, I never want to forget that prior part of my life and when I open my time capsule and see that turntable I will remember and relive the hours spent beat matching and blending songs together in my room and in the clubs.

The December page ripped out of a calendar with the 21st circled – I would include this final item as a reminder of how silly we can be at times, for a bit of humor, and to have me think back on all the crises the world has survived since the 21st of December, 2012.