Stories That Never Were #6

The request: Make up a title for a story I didn't write, and I will respond with details of those non-written stories.

The Title: 20,000 Geeks Under the Sea

The Result:
Roger realized the Titanic LARP had gotten out of the storytellers' control when the ship capsized for the 3rd time. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time, allowing the dot.com millionaires secure the locations - they had the money and energy to get each and every detail right to create a truly immersive gaming experience.

Even the lack of modern communication.
And the giant iceberg.
And, sadly, a poor ratio of passengers to life boats.

Ah, well. Roger, being a NPC in the band could do nothing else but play on.

Stories That Never Were #5

The request: Make up a title for a story I didn't write, and I will respond with details of those non-written stories.

The Title: "Seventh sneeze of a seventh sneeze."

The Result:
There is a well known myth, that the seventh son born of a seventh son will be possessed of a great power.

A lesser known, much rarer and darker myth, is that the seventh sneeze, caused by a germ transmitted by a seventh sneeze, if left unchecked, will be the sneeze that will unravel the universe.

It is because of this, that it is considered poor manners not to cover your nose and mouth upon sneezing – not because you may infect others – but because there is no way to know where your infection came from. To sneeze without appropriate handkerchief measures is the etiquette equivalent of announcing that you hold the world in great disdain and would destroy it in a breath if you could.

In some countries, this is crime enough to end in a quick and public stoning.

Always cover your nose and mouth when you sneeze.

Stories That Never Were #4

The request: Make up a title for a story I didn't write, and I will respond with details of those non-written stories.

The Title: Ignatia Hypotenouse And The Case of The Rusty Trombone

The Result:

Ignatia Hypotenouse’s fantasical name, like most names, was entirely the fault of her parents. In her case, she did not suffer the indignities of woefully inherited names that could be explained away by having been in the family for generations. Ignatia was an adopted child, and her parents felt that instead of assigning her the bland, recognizable names of their families: Mary, Ethel, Nana – or even, in fact, their family name, the detestably common Smith – these free spirits thought she should have a name that was entirely her own. So - they took their passions – homeopathy and mathematics (and not spelling), and an 8 year old Ignatia Hypotenouse was so re-introduced to a world.

A world which would, due to her name, taunt, tease and shun her in her formative years. Although she heard through certain channels that when of her fellow inmates at the orphanage had gone to some Disney fans, and had been saddled with the moniker “Tinkerbell” – eventually shorted to “Tinks.” As the story went, Tinks ended up an exotic dancer – since her name made it difficult for her to be taken seriously anywhere else. Whenever Ignatia felt badly about her name, she thanked heavens for that her name only gave her the sort of lonely difficulties that had chased her into books for companionship at such an early age – a passion for reading that had subsequently led her to become well versed in the fine art of detecting. It began with Encyclopedia Brown then Miss Marple and Sherlock Holmes. By high school she had tired of fictional cozies and had turned instead to the hardstuff – forensics, pathology, criminal psychology.

So – complain as she might, (and she did, often and to anyone who would listen) – Ignatia (or “Iggy” as she was known around the studio) knew she owed her career as head writer for CSI to her parents and their unorthodox naming methods.

In this role, she received many calls from fans and cranks wanting to give her an idea for her next big case – so when she started getting repeated notes regarding a “Rusty Trombone” she quickly filtered them into her trusty circular file. But one day, when the receptionist was out to lunch and Iggy had to answer her own phone, a strangely familiar voice came over the line. “Is this Ignatious Hypotenouse? This Tinkerbell Johnson – we…we were at St. Mary’s together.” A sob should the receiver. “Tinkerbell?” Iggy whispered into the phone. “Tinks, what is it?” “It’s the bandleader of the burlesque house – he’s missing and their blaming me because of some instrument they found in the dumpster of my building. Please, Ignatious, I need your help. I don’t have anywhere else to turn.”

Ignatious grabbed a well-chewed pencil and her notepad. “Slow, down, Tinks. Tell me everything. Start from the beginning. And Tinks..”
“Yes.”
“Call me Iggy.”

And so Ignatious Hypotenouse began the strange case of The Rusty Trombone – her first hands-on investigation and…the following year, her first Emmy nominated episode.

Stories That Never Were #3

The request: Make up a title for a story I didn't write, and I will respond with details of those non-written stories.

The Title: To Hell in a Handbasket and Back

The Result:
Mary Sue squirmed in her seatbelt. “Insulated my ass,” she muttered. It hadn’t been difficult for Martin to convince her that Hades would be a grand vacation adventure now that the underworld had opened its doors to tourism due to the increasingly high cost of torture. “Rekindle the old fire, ha ha” he said. How easily he sold her on the “Jesus Special” (“Descend into Hell – Return on the 3rd Day or Your Money Back!”) as a good way to get the lay of the land without making too much of a financial or spiritual commitment. And how calmly he assured her that the advertised “Handbasket” mode of transportation was just a clever marketing euphemism for “Coach Class”

Now, strapped tightly into sharp, leaking wicker that was allowing the River Styx to stain her best travel clothes, Mary Sue cursed Martin under her breath. She didn’t know why she listened to him –things always ended like this. Mary Sue miserable thanks to Martin’s machinations – from which Martin inevitably & elegantly extradited himself at the last moment. Not that the heartattack had been elegant, exactly, but at least it didn’t involve his pores being permanently infused with sulfur.

On the plus side, the resort had called to confirm her trip, ensuring her that Martin had already arrived (This was promising, the prompt service – their call came before the hospital’s did). At least they’d still get to have the weekend together. And she could give him one last piece of her mind.

And then see if she could exchange an extra torture or two for him in order to get herself a travel upgrade for the return trip.

Stories That Never Were #2

The request: Make up a title for a story I didn't write, and I will respond with details of those non-written stories.

The Title: In One Word--Umbrellas!

The Result:
In a future world where both written and spoken language are forbidden to anyone outside the powerful elite, a young girl discovers a relic hidden in the bottom of her dead grandmothers jewelry box. At first she assumes it is a dirty rag, but something in the imagery stops her – the markings seem deliberate. Ordered.

As working class, she has never encountered words before – even grunting is forbidden to those taught only to communicate via simple body semaphore. Because speech is forgotten to them, no one has whispered to of legends times past when things were different. And she wouldn’t have understood them even if they had.

What she did understand was that her grandmother had kept this thing – safe and secret for a reason. And when she unriddles it’s meaning, with the help of the young boy to whom she has assigned no name (never knowing why she should), she will shake down the oppressive phylarchy like the trumpet tumbling down the walls of Jerhico in word—“Umbrellas!”

Stories That Never Were #1

The request: Make up a title for a story I didn't write, and I will respond with details of those non-written stories.

The Title: Was it Really Gazpacho?

The Result:Edgar Anderson was a trustfund baby, raised, along with his interest, by a board of financiers and the blind old family Nanny who often had time distinguishing Edgar from the family dog, (also named Edgar, as his mother, exhausted from childbirth, couldn’t be troubled to think of a second name at the time), which was given to Edgar as a gift on the occasion of his birth by his perpetually absent father. By age 5, he had stopped correcting Nanny. By age 7, he had begun seeking inward for those intangibles he couldn’t find around him. By 7 ½ he had suffered his first existential crisis. By 16, he had subscribed (and made sizable donations to) most of the world religions. At 21, and fully in control of his finances, Edgar exhausted them immediately, in search of a mythical yogi atop a distant mountain, about whom he heard whispers in every cult, ashram & “estate” the board of financiers had spent his teen years rescuing and deprogramming him from. At 23 – he succeeded, and was able to ask this wisest of wise men one question.

The book begins with Edgar at 24, trembling, broke, exhausted, half-way around the world from everyone and everything he ever knew….preparing to make a new life for himself armed only with the cold coffee left in his thermos and the answer to the question that had plagued Mankind throughout the ages. Join Edgar as he makes sense of his life among the ruins, and wonders, each and every day at this wisdom of the ages, whispered so succinctly from the weathered lips of the old man. Was it really, “gazpacho?” Or had the yogi merely mistook Edgar for the young man who regularly took his lunch order?