The New Record Chapter 2 Part 1

Bill and Modern Psychiatric Parenting. The story continues.

The New Record: Chapter 1 Part 3

The conclusion of the first chapter of The New Record!

McRib

"Nature's first green is gold," read the general manager, Cameron Sondren, of the Ventura Avenue McDonald's on Wednesday morning. The early morning staff all had their heads bowed, hats removed. Sondren recited all of Frost's poem to the small, somber collection of employees, family, and close friends. 

"We knew it would happen. And we knew when, but," Susan Derigrass, a close friend said, pausing for a moment to collect herself. "It just never seems real until it happens." She excused herself.

As of midnight the night before, the orders from corporate were clear: McRib season was over.

Sondren finished the poem and a moment of silence befell the room. "We mourn our loss, but only because what we'd had was so great," Sondren reminded the staff and others gathered for the memorial. "We must carry on. Steve, take down the posters. Anna, fire up the friers."

As Steve took down the window-sized posters, a hush fell over the crowd gathered outside the restaurant. Some wept openly. Others laid bouquets of flowers on the sidewalk.   "I told myself, I'd get one tomorrow," said one witness. "I'd had one maybe a week ago and it was good. Nothing amazing, but it was there and ready so why not?" 

It seems as though there is an understanding between the employees and management at Ventura. "This isn't Cameron's fault. It's no one's fault. It's just a thing that had to happen," said Anna as the friers began to boil. Then she shot a glance towards her co-workers. "I don't really get what the big deal is. It's just a sandwich. It will be back next year."

Outside, the reaction wasn't as calm. "What do we do now?" Our anonymous witness cried out towards the sky. "What are you trying to tell us? What have we done wrong?"

Though the flags fly at full mast, in the hearts and minds of many a great piece of the year has escaped them. A moment in time never to be recaptured for another 10 months. Nothing gold can stay. 

The New Record Ch. 1 Part 2

Ongoing series of Bill and Gazoo and Howard and so on and so forth!

Writing Warmup 2/25/13

Writing Warm-up from 2/25/13 after the jump.

The New Record Chapter 1 Part 1

This is the first segment of a novel I began writing over a year ago called The New Record. It's a science fiction tale about aliens, space travel, and the end of the Earth. Think Cat's Cradle crossed with Breakfast of Champions. Anyway, I told myself I wouldn't drink until I finished writing a novel. Well, I got about a hundred pages into it before, well, whatever. Anyway, I'm at a point again where I'm trying to accomplish things and after having reread these pages, I think they're not altogether terrible and I may want to finish this damn thing. Here's a blurb to entice you. Full text of chapter 1 part 1 after the jump.

From Ch. 1 Part 2:

Bill drank beer because it was a depressant and relaxed him. It calmed him down and after the second one, he felt a warm and numbing sensation move up the back of his spine and into the base of his skull, and it was good. Beer is a mix of water, grains, and tiny little specks of life called yeast. These little specks of life, like all life, have to eat. So they eat the grains and drink the water and they fart out this thing called alcohol. The wonderful thing about these little yeasty beasties is that their farts can really mess a person up. They can make a person act funny, speak funny, and if a person drinks down too much alcohol, they can even die.

Drinking yeast farts was a great past time in Bill’s country. Though there was a time when drinking yeast farts was illegal and people who made them were arrested and put in jail. This was mostly brought about by ugly women that were tired of being told by drunks how ugly they were. That’s not on the record, it’s just something I noticed at the time. I was still new to this job then, but I saw it all the same. When everyone else in the country realized how mean the ugly women had been, they used democracy to change the law and then they all had a drink, and it was good.

Brotherhood of the Box

He speaks above the whir of fans in the darkness where the crispness of the air has a bite that stinks like old yogurt.  "Legend holds that, in time before time, there were but two factions: the perishable and shelf-stable. But as way gives on to way, the division of loyalties grew greater spread yet. Along the wayside of history fell the shelf-stable: archaic relics gathering dust and forever un-rotated. The custies required more from their product. And our founding father, Adam Trask devised a way to ship fresh products from land to land. In Trask we trust. We persevere. We are lords of the cold."
"We are lords of the cold." countless voices repeat in the darkness.
"It is through our might that the custies gain the grace of fresh food. It is our tireless toiling that grants them sustenance. We are the beginning and end of civilization."
"From time immortal man sought freshness," a choir of voices responds.
"There's none fresher than that which we give willingly."
"We are but chill on the frost," the voices chant.
"Today we welcome to our ranks young Stephen. He is being awarded the rank of neophyte. I grant unto him the green hoodie of initiation. The green of his hoodie represents a new life that he is born into," the speaker wears a black hoodie, all but imperceptible against the shadows of the room.
Stephen, shivering, takes the sweatshirt from the outstretched hands and burrows into it.
"We are the frost, we are the hum, we are the-" the voices begin to reply as  the fluorescents come up. Stephen's eyes grow wide. As light bathes the narrow and white-walled room, a door opens with a hiss like an airlock and beyond it stands the figure of a man, smiling.
"Stephen, come on," says the newcomer. "You work in a grocery store." Amidst the man in the black hoodie stand others, shrouded in hoodies. The hem of their cowls almost reaches where the light bounces against the diamond plating of the floor.
"You have no authority here," shouts a shrouded monk. The man at the doorway smirks.
"Nor you. C'mon, Stephen." The gathering of hoods hisses as Stephen rises from his knee and walks towards the door.
"None have ever left the brotherhood of the box and lived to tell the tale," says the man in black. Stephen quickens his pace.
"Of course they haven't," says the man at the door. "They've got better things to do with their lives."
Stephen slams the door behind him as he leaves. Several men in their twenties stand around in hoodies staring at the one in black. Among them, one speaks up, "he had tiny hands. He would have been perfect."
Stacks of yogurt and milk-crates surround the men in hoodies. "You think I don't know that?"
The man in the black hoodie shrugs. He takes his hood down. This is Fred. Fred sighs. "Just restock the eggs and the orange juice and get back to me." Two men in brown hoodies salute him and Fred sits down on a throne made of overturned milk-crates.