BishopNeo

Wife edited and approved.  Hope you have as much fun reading as I did writing.  Comments (even critical) encouraged!

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Timothy lay curled up in the big bay window, his orange and white tail hanging casually off the edge, swishing  lazily back and forth while he ignored the seagull circling overhead.

When the gull landed on the railing outside the window he gave a big sigh but refused to otherwise move.

“Hey youse guys,” shouted the gull.

‘Seriously?  A Boston accent?” replied Tim lifting his head.

“Hey, I’m a gull from Bawston, whadda want?”

“Charlie, you live down the street, eat out of our trash and have visited Boston once.”

Tim put his head back down, hoping the gull would take the hint.

He didn’t.

“Believes what youse want cat.  Anyways, I gotta case for youse guys.”

Tim heaved another sigh, gave up on napping, stood up and stretched.

“Okay fine.  Whats the case?”

“This mook down the street was telling me his roommate got cat snatched yesterday.  He’s afraid it might be part of that there theft ring that’s going around. He asked me for help and of course I suggest he hire the Pack.”

Tim sat and started at the gull.  He squinted his eyes. He swished his tail.

“Theft ring?”

“Yea, there’s been a bunch of these animal thefts in da neighborhood lately.  Dogs, cats, even a couple rabbits.”

Tim swished his tail some more.

“I assume you mentioned our rates?”

“Forgetaboutit.  He can’t cover, I will. You know I’m good forit.”

“Right, ” Tim stared some more, “Bring your mook by this afternoon, I’ll let Sam know to expect you.”

“Fantastic.”

“And Charlie?  Lose the  accent.”

**********

Sam sat on the blanket on the floor facing the others with a small grey cat sitting nervously beside him.  In front sat 3 other dogs and 3 cats including Tim.  Sam had his black and grey tail curled up against his back while he waited for the others to settle down.

“Let me introduce everyone.  The black and white cat is Maggie, the two orange tabbies are Timothy and Sebastian, the white Schnoodle dog is Zena, the black and tan Terrier that can’t stay still is Harley, and the black and grey Schnoodle is Watson.  Everyone, this is Chester.  He was brought to us by Charlie.”

The little grey cat nodded to each animal as they were introduce.  Each dog bowed their head when their name was called, the cats merely swished their tail.

“According to Chester here, there have been several cats and dogs taken from their homes in the area over the last few days.  Yesterday his housemate Peri, who is a small grey Burmese like himself disappeared.  Chester is afraid Peri was taken by the thieves. All he knows is that Peri jumped into a window late in the afternoon, a window with a locked screen, and when Chester return from the litter box Peri was gone and the screen was missing.”

“Any information on this supposed rash of thefts?” asked Watson.

“It’s not ‘supposed’ replied Chester, I heard from Lula next door that the dog across the street was taken!”

“Relax Chester, I’m not doubting you. We take everything as conditional until proven. ” Watson shifted slightly on the floor, “It helps if we don’t go into things with our minds already set on catnapping.  Might miss something.”

Chester nodded.  He was still nervous being surrounded by so many dogs.  Charlie hadn’t mentioned there would be so many.  He licked his paw to help calm himself and tried to relax a bit.  It didn’t work.

“Bastion, can you escort Chester and make sure he gets home safely?”

“Certaintly.” Sebastian replied as he stood up and stretched, “Come on kid.”

Sam nuzzled Chester with his nose gently to encourage him along.

“You’ll be safe with Sebastian, he might not look like much but he can be tough when he needs to.”

Sebastian glanced at Sam, flicked his tail twice and headed out the door, Chester followed gingerly behind.  After they had left the room Sam stood up and began to pace.

“Something bothering you?” asked Zena

“Yes.  I’ve heard rumors about the rash of kidnappings recently, but this doesn’t feel like one and it’s bugging me as to why.”

Zena stretched out on the floor as Harley twitched around in a circle.

“You thinking this wasn’t a catnapping but a run away?”  asked Harley

“It had occurred to me, but there is still too much we don’t know. You and Watson investigate Chesters house, focus on the outside for now.  See if you can find any evidence or clues that will give us a direction.  Zena, you canvas the neighborhood.  Talk to any dogs or cats or anything else that will talk to you about the thefts and see what you can find.”

“What shall Timothy and I do?” asked Maggie.

“I need you two to go talk to Malcom.  See if he can arrange some aerial surveillance of the area.  Maybe they can spot Peri or some kind of trail”

“And what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to try to talk to Gustav. If there is kind of animal trafficking going on he will at least have heard about it.”

This entry was written by anthony, posted on October 2, 2009 at 11:41 am, filed under Fiction. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

This isn’t my strongest piece and considering that I’ve been bad sick all week I probably should have stayed in bed and left well enough alone.

Yea, right.

This is also an experiment.  I’m decent at description but wanted to try doing something in pure dialog to see if I could carry a story that way.

Anyway here is my September 18th #fridayflash. Please comment below!

(more…)

This entry was written by anthony, posted on September 18, 2009 at 5:35 pm, filed under Fiction, Science Fiction and tagged #fridayflash, Fiction. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

He sat watching the television.

It wasn’t on but that hardly mattered since he wouldn’t really be able to pay attention to it anyway.

The pills were starting to take effect.  It wasn’t much, just enough to make him feel just a little drowsy and woozy.  The world had taken on a bit of a glowing haze.  He had just began to realize he wasn’t able to really focus on anything.

The realization that he had passed the point of no return hit him slowly.  He was past the point where, if he called the police right now they would never arrive in time.  The thought was pleasing, but he didn’t smile.

He had read somewhere that people who left notes were simply crying out for help, but he had left one anyway, not wanting his family and friends to live in doubt and wonder.  He wanted them to know why.  Wanted them to know he had simply reached the point where he couldn’t deal with anything anymore.  Wanted them to know he had simply given up.  He wasn’t sure how they would take or deal with it, but it wasn’t something he would have to worry about.

So he had the note.  He had purchased and taken 2 bottles of the pills. It hadn’t been easy, especially the last half of the second bottle, it had hurt badly, his throat being raw from all the swallowing.

The room was rented through the end of the month, but he was sure someone would look for him in a day or two.  If nothing else, to find out why he hadn’t been to work.

The feel of the room changed again.  It had gotten darker but the light hadn’t changed, almost like the sun had passed behind a cloud.  Slowly he realized there were only minutes left before he wouldn’t be able to keep his eyes open any longer.  Not much longer after that and all his worries and problems would cease.

He leaned his head back in the chair, partially surprised he still had that ability and closed his eyes.  The world swan for just a second and settled in around him.

He took a deep breath.  And let go.

***********************************

He walked steadly down the sidewalk.  He patted his coat pocket to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind. The timing had to be precise but it helped that he knew exactly where he was going and exactly what to do, after all he had been here and done it before.  Well, HE hadn’t actually done it, but it had been done and he had done it.

The circumstances ran circles in his mind, threatening to confuse him again even though he had a firm grasp on what will and had happened. As he approached the door he reached into his back pocket and removed the room key.

He slipped the plastic card into the slot and waited for the door to click.  Carefully he turned the knob and stopped, glanced at his watch and he waited.  He counted to himself and when he reached a number that satisfied him, he pushed into the room.

The room wasn’t dark, but it wasn’t exactly light either.  It reminded him of a sunny day when the sun was behind a cloud.  He again smiled.  Glancing around the room he saw the other sitting in the chair by the window just as he remembered, the  empty pill bottles on the nightstand next to him.

Again he patted his coat pocket then, satisfied that everything was in place, he reached in and pulled out a syringe.  He removed the cap and held the needle straight up in the air and pushed the plunger, removing all the excess air, just as he had seen in the movies.  Again the smile.

Slowly he walked over to the figure in the chair, pulled up his right sleeve and plunged the needle into his arm.

When it was empty he replaced the cap and stuffed the syringe back into his pocket and waited.

He wasn’t impatient or nervous, he knew what would happen.  It had happened already so there really was very little mystery.

Slowly the other’s eyelids fluttered and he woke slowly.

“Wha… where am I?

“Still in the hotel room.”

He smiled as the other started at him and squinted trying to focus.

“Don’t worry,” he told the other “everything will be fine. “

“I don’t want to live!”

“Yes, you do.  You just don’t know it yet.”

“What happened?”

He laughed to himself, “I saved you. “

“Who… who are you?”

“No one.”

“I’m confused.”

“Yes, you would be.  You won’t remember this conversation for a while, but you will live.  Things will change and they will get better. ” he said watching the other struggle to grasp hold of reality and as the medication began to take effect.

“You can’t know that.  No one can.”

“I do.  I know it for a fact.”

“How?”

“I can’t tell you that.” he said as he turned his back to the figure in the chair and smiled again.

“I can tell you that Ray will be here in about 10 minutes and that the drug I gave you will never show up on any toxicology reports.  It will appear to others as though he arrived in time to save you.

“Ray left this morning for New York.”

“No, I cancelled his flight and set it up so that he can’t leave until tomorrow.  The details are unimportant right now.”

He walked over to the door, opened it and started out.

“I don’t understand!” cried the chair bound figure.

Pausing he looked back at him still in the grip of the medication he had given him.

“You’ll receive a letter in about 15 years explaining everything.  It will take you another 5 years to accomplish your goal.”

“How do you know that!”

He reached into his other back pocket and pulled out a worn looking envelop, “Because you did.”

This entry was written by anthony, posted on September 9, 2009 at 9:26 pm, filed under Fiction and tagged #fridayflash, 2009, Fiction. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Apparently there is a discussion going around in some circles about whether or not kids books should be labeled for content.  It’s a tricky argument for me because on the one hand I think they (and in fact all books) should have them.  I don’t want to read a book that is heavily laced with violence and pornography and if I see that on the back cover of a book, I might not pick it up where I mgith have before but then thrown it out (or donated it, back off) before I got to far in because it wasn’t my thing.

On the other hand, I don’t know of anyone else qualified enough to tell *me* what I will or won’t like.  None of the Amazon, or Netflix ‘guesses’ having gotten it right and while I realize those are computer generated, I’m not sure a human will be much better.

A big sticking point for me is the fact that some people are arguing that it isn’t censorship to put a YA-14 label or “WARNING: NUDITY” label on a book or movie, or TV show.

It is censorship pure and simple, no matter how you try to argue it.

Why?

Because *someone else* gets to decide whats appropriate for you and your kids. Who says that having circumstance X and Y in a book means it’s PG-14 or whatever. I know some very mature 12 year olds that can handle certain things like violence and drug abuse in a book or movie better than some 20 year olds I know.  Hell, I know some 5 year olds that can deal with some things better than I can at 38!

And guess what, even if *I* read a book and decided that other books like it aren’t the kind I want to read I’m censoring myself.  For example Danielle Steele.  Can’t stand them.  Don’t ever want to read another one even though the last one I read was close to  20 years ago

To me it all smacks of the games they make kids play today where no kid loses, or they lower the requirements for passing a test or getting into something so that ‘Johnny won’t get left behind’ Guess what, those kids will be ill equipped for dealing with real life where there are winners and losers, and people DO get left behind.

God forbid parents should take an active role in knowing what their kids do, watch and read.  You don’t have to read *every* book, or watch *every* show, but knowing what Dora is like, or checking out a Harry Potter book or movie once in a while isn’t going to kill you.

This entry was written by anthony, posted on at 1:56 pm, filed under Life and tagged books, childrens, content, games, movies, ratings, responsibility. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

I was determined, come hell or high water (as my grandma use to say) to use some form of ‘skitter’ in this.

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Harley sat and waited.

He continued to sit, and continued to wait but now added ‘glare’ to his action list.  He had considered simply staring but glare had more menace and considering that as a Silky Terrier he was taller sitting than standing it made more sense to glare and sit.  It hadn’t moved for several minutes, teasing him. He remained perfectly still, only his hair moved now and again blowing in the occasional breeze.

Suddenly it twitched!  A slight wind was starting up again so it made sense that it would move, but he had to be on his guard in case it decided that was the perfect chance to escape.

Carefully, he raised his back haunches and shifted, with extreme care, into a position more suitable for stalking.

Slowly he lifted his left forepaw.  No movement.  He slowly extended it out in front of him and shifted his weight slightly.  Still no movement.  Carefully, oh so very carefully, and slowly, he lowered it again and shifted his weight forward more.

A twitch.

Harley froze.

Had he been seen?  Did it know he was there?  Should he pounce now?  It was too far away to get to in a single jump, but it might be possible in two.

The breeze came again.  A double twitch!

He crept forward a tad faster now.

Suddenly the wind gusted faster, lifting it into the air.  It was escaping!

Harley gave chase.

It drifted upward slowly, just out of leaping range.  He was about to give up when the wind died a little and it sank back to earth, skittering across the ground.

He sped up and just as it began to lift into the air again when the wind picked up he pounced.

He grabbed it securely between in his teeth, lifted his foot to free it, turned and trotted back to the porch with his head held high and a grin on his face as he carried the yellow candy wrapper.

This entry was written by anthony, posted on September 4, 2009 at 9:56 am, filed under Fiction, Fun and tagged #fridayflash, dogs, Fiction, Fun, harley. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

(be gentle, this was written in about an hour on the train this AM.  I just learned about #flashfriday yesterday (thursday) and wanted to join in)

David sat on the couch. The television was on but he was reading the funnies from the newspaper while scratching behind Zena’s ears while she struggled to occupy as much of his lap a possible.

The noise served to distract him, as did reading the comics. His girlfriend has left him recently so he was trying to avoid thinking about anything as much as possible. She hadn’t broken up, just left. Moved to a different state.

She had come by, told him of her plans, hugged him, kissed him, said see you later and drove away. She didn’t ask him to come, and she didn’t tell him where she was going other than another state. It wasn’t that she avoided telling him, it just had somehow never come up.

As a result of his efforts everything was serving it’s purpose. The TV, AC, comics and Zena’s wiggling had kept him distracted for the better part of 10 minutes.

The piercing beep that started coming in from outside also distracted him. But it mostly distracted him from his distractions. Annoyed he grabbed the remote and punched the button to increase the volume.

In defiance the beeping increased it’s volume as well.

Grumpily David forced himself off the couch and went over to the window and closed it. The AC had been on for the noise, and he casually reached over and turn the fan up louder.

He stood there staring out the window in utter disbelief. In front of him was a truck. A big red rig with a flatbed. The truck itself wasn’t unusual, but the fact that it was in his driveway and backing up was.

He made his way down the hall to the back door trying to figure out what could possibly be happening.  He quickly thought of everything he might have ordered over the last couple of months, none of which seemed to require a truck this size to be delivered. He hadn’t ordered a hot tub or swimming pool or a new anything really.

David walked out the door with his head down deep in thought and barely saw Zena dash past him and leap down the porch steps, missing them all. At the bottom of the stairs he turned left to look at the truck, raised his head and stopped dead in his tracks.

There, in the reflection of the side mirror he saw the driver. Or what should have been the driver. Instead a gold face with two black spots in the area where the eyes should be, and a black strip running down the center of the face stared back. Carefully he turned his head and, for the first time, saw the figure on the back of the flatbed standing near what appeared to be a giant gold and black rectangle.

The figure had the same black and gold face, as well as a golden body with black accents in various places. The thing that most drew his attention was the what the figure was wearing: golden bandages wrapped around his body like a mummy.

David continued turning his head and saw yet another figure. This one was practically identical to the second except he was standing in Davids vegetable garden. Or more correctly it was straddling the fence that cordoned off the garden from the rest of the yard.

“Excuse me,” said David finally, “what exactly is going on?”

“Gnuh.” replied the figure straddling the garden fence.

“What? What did you say?”

“Gnuuh!”

“Look, I can’t understand a word you are saying but could you please get out of my garden?”

“Gar. Den.”

“Yes, garden. The thing your almost standing in. What are you? You look kind of like a mummy but your not human. Robot maybe?”

“Gnuh.” replied the garden mummy as he pointed to the box on the trailer.

“Gnuh,” he said again as he pointed to the garden.

“You want to put that thing in my garden?”

The garden mummy nodded.

“No chance! Thats’ my vegetable garden!”

“FFFoooood.” replied the garden mummy.

“Food. Yes, that is food.”

Suddenly the mummy on the trailer leaped to the ground which a huge thud. David jumped and stepped back as it walked over to the garden mummy and stood in front of it. It began emitting beeps and whistles and flashed some kind of light for a few seconds then turned to David.

“We are Cybex.”

“Cybex? What is that, some kind of nationality?”

“We are Cybex. We are not from this planet.“

“Wait… what? Aliens? From another planet?”

The second mummy nodded.

“Aliens from another world that look like robot mummies? Aliens from another world that look like robot mummies standing in my vegetable garden? Aliens from another world that look like robot mummies standing in my vegetable garden trying to bury a giant box? Wait, wait wait…”

“Sarcophagus.”

“What?”

“Sarcophagus.”

“What?”

“Aliens from another world that look like robot mummies standing in your vegetable garden trying to bury a sarcophagus.”

“That’s a… your trying to bury a sarcophagus? In my garden? Why?”

“Food.”

“Food? That’s your food? Your storing your food in a sarcophagus?”

David put his hands to his head and covered his eyes and shook his head and sat down. Meeting aliens would have been bad enough on it’s own, but meeting aliens named Cybex who were trying to bury a sarcophagus in his garden was a bit much. He had just had breakfast, it was too early for complicated thoughts.

Slowly he stood, took a deep breath, wasn’t too sure he enjoyed it and let it back out rapidly through his mouth. He glanced at each of the three mummies in turnt.

Okay. First things first, how can you speak english?”

“Assimilated from listening to you speak”

“Okay. Second question, why are you trying to bury a sarcophagus in my garden filled with your food?”

“Not our food.”

“Huh? You said it was food.”

“Yes, food for the plants.”

“For the… you mean like fertilizer?”

“Fertilizer. Yes, it is fertilizer.”

“Okay, fertilizer. But why my garden?”

“It was there.”

David stared with his mouth slightly open. Shocked. Or surprised. Either worked.

“Let me get the straight. You, a bunch of aliens from another planet, want to bury a sarcophagus full of plant fertilizer in my vegetable garden, just because it’s there?”

“Yes.”

David stared again. He thought about all the possible options. One, let them. Two, don’t let them. That pretty much exhausted all the options he could think of at the moment.

He glanced between the mummies in the garden and the sarcophagus on the trailer and back again.

Then repeated it several times while rubbing his chin with his right hand.

Then repeated it several more times without rubbing his chin.

He stopped glancing and looked straight at the second mummy he had seen, the one that had done most of the talking and said:

“Okay”.

This entry was written by anthony, posted on August 28, 2009 at 12:09 pm, filed under Science Fiction and tagged #fridayflash. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

If you’ve been visiting my Project: Magnus site recently looking for new photos and wondering if I’ve abandoned the site the answer is a resounding no.  The problem is that there is a consistent error when trying to upload images.  It’s apparently an ‘out of memory’ bug that I can’t seem to find and squash.  I am looking into it and will hopefully have it solved soon.  Ish.

This entry was written by anthony, posted on August 21, 2009 at 10:47 am, filed under Project: Magnus, Site. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

I’m starting to wonder if the ‘death’ of the Master at the end of Series 3 was planned. And by that I mean planned by the Master himself. We know his wife is returning, and we know he was on Earth 18 months before the events of the series Drums, and we know the Doctor didn’t met him before that. So what if the Master planned that if things went wrong (because they always do) he had an escape plan. He was killed. And failing anyone else to do it, his wife would step in and take the shot. Perhaps he wasn’t really dead but drugged or something.

It might be that his resurrection is a result of being brought back by the TimeLords during the Time War. There is so much we don’t know about the TimeLord ability to regenerate that it is possible that he is able to delay the regeneration and when it does occur he is better able to control it and keeps the same face but with some physical characteristics different. (blond hair).

Remember, we never see who is actually wrapped in the white cloth on the funeral pyre. We just assume it is the Master.

A stretch I know but it’s the only thing that makes sense to me and accounts for all the odd variables.

I could also be way the frick off base and it’s something totally off the wall.  Remember, in Doctor Who, they have to be able to explain it, but it doesn’t have to actually make sense ;)

This entry was written by anthony, posted on August 20, 2009 at 10:09 am, filed under Television. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Ugh.  I can’t believe I’m about to do this.

So Beck mentions to me the other week that she found some of the stuff I had written here many, many years ago (okay, 10).  Most of it was poetry.  Now, I have no problem posting up poetry.  I love poetry.  Some of my favorite books are poetry.  Shel Silverstein, Maurice Sendak and Dr. Suess are great examples.

No, the problem I have with the poetry I’m about to direct you to is that it is so… well, sappy.  And by sappy I mean dripping, thick.  I mean pour over your pancakes thick.  I’m surprised I didn’t scare Beck away with it.

I will admit.  I’m a sap.  I’m a romantic.  Chivalry lives on so long as I do.  I hold doors, and say ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’.  And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told not to call someone ‘sir’ or ma’am.  I even call my niece (currently 8) ma’am.

Point being, I’ve always been very flowery and sappy when it comes to certain things.  But some of this is way off my own deep end.

You can read them on the Poetry page.

The other thing she found was a digital copy of a story I wrote in high school.  It was submitted to the writing contests and won the school contest but lost in the regional.  It’s a true story about the day I found out my father had died.  I was 14 I think when it happened, on December 12th.  So you have an idea when Christmas isn’t my favorite season.  (Halloween is if you care to know).  The story is called Final Goodbye, read it here.

All of these can always be accessed via the Scribblings page.

Anyway, enough for now.  I will post more on the development of the garden shortly.  Here’s a hint: I harvested some summer squash the other day!  I didn’t take pictures mostly because they met their fates later that same day :)

This entry was written by anthony, posted on August 12, 2009 at 11:27 am, filed under Site. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

So I’m working on the finishing touches of this when I notice that WordPress 2.8 is out and this site is still running 2.7.   Well!  That simply muct not be allowed so I promptly upgrade.  And break it.

For some reason I begin having delimiter errors every time I create or attempt to edit a post or page.  It didn’t happen before so it must have been something I did during the upgrade.  So I download it again.  And… it’s broken.  Okay.  Phase 2.

As anyone who has worked with WP in the past knows, when all else fails start deactivating plugins one by one till the problem goes away.  Then you have your culprit.  Except I even went so far as to delete the blasted things and still didn’t fix it.

‘Well now’ I say to myself.  ’I upgraded 2 other site recently to 2.8 and they both work fine.  I’ll just copy them over and change the theme and plugins’

So I did.  And it didn’t work.

I then go back to the other sites that are running 2.8 and start playing around.  And guess what? THEY ARE BROKEN!

At this point I’m totally confused and lost.  I’ve even tried a clean install, new DB, everything short of wiping the hard drive and starting over.  It DID cross my mind!

So I do the one thing men hate.  Ask for help.

Turns out it’s all because I had a trailing forward slash at the end of my siteurl.  GAH!

For those that already knew the answer, bite me.  Seriously :)

Anyway, it’s 1:2 in the morning, I get up at 6 and I’m dog tired.  Enough blabbing, time for sleep.

This entry was written by anthony, posted on July 6, 2009 at 1:10 am, filed under Uncategorized. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.