Crunch . . .
Crunch . . .
Crunch . . .
CHINK . . .

There are certain sounds that our minds always listen for.

Crunch . . .

A mother can hear the cry of a child, even in a large crowd

Crunch . . .

A husband can pick out the voice of his wife, even as she harmonizes with a choir.

Crunch . . .

And every thief that wanders the world knows the sound of coin as it rubs together . . .

Chink . . .

. . . in a bag hanging from a the belt of an old man as he walks down a path.

But in this case, it is not only one thief, but a band of thieves, ten in all. And they had lain in wait among trees and weeds for two days, like great cats watching a watering hole. Now they heard their prey, and grew hungry as they saw that it was only a bronze-skinned old man, long past the age where he presented a threat.

This old man, though, had heard them first.

And he heard them now, as they collectively took a step forward, and he smiled.

The old man stopped, and waited to hear them all step once more, before he spoke.

"Now, then, I suppose I should check my map." The old man said, as though loudly talking to himself, "Where did I put it . . . "

Nothing makes a thief's heart beat faster than a distracted target. The band quietly circled around him as he fumbled through the pockets of his small bag, shifting his walking staff back and forth awkwardly. The thieves waited patiently until each of them was in position, they were experienced in the trade, you see, and knew better than to take chances.

"Oh, I know it's in here somewhere . . ." and with that, the old man stopped ten men cold in their tracks. For it was then, in apparent frustration, that the old man placed his staff horizontally into mid-air, and released it, and it hung exactly where he'd left it. The old man did this as casually as one might put a lamp on a table. When he hung his bag by it's strap onto the floating staff so he could look into it more easily, nine theives took a collective step backwards.

"Ah! Here it is," said the old man, producing a small scroll from his bag. He removed the pack and turned around, leaving the staff where it hung. Opening the scroll, he spoke again. "Yes, this is it. This is the path they said you'd all be hiding along." He rolled up the scroll and shoved it in his pocket, letting the impact of his words fully land on his audience. "So, if any of you would like to take my gold, you may try. Otherwise, I suggest you find another place for your trade, or a more honest trade to do here. For I will be walking these woods from now on."

And with that, the old man reached high above his head and caught his staff as snapped to his hand. The thieves watched in awe as he twirled the staff faster than they could see, spread his feet into a wide stance and stopped the stick in front of him, all in one fluid move. The staff balanced perfectly on the backs of his hands.

None of the thieves tried to rob the old man, and nine of them turned and fled immediately.

But this is not a story of the nine who ran away. Nor is it the story of the wisend old master who was asked to make them run. It is the story of the one thief who stayed, who waited for the master to continue down the path, and who followed behind him.

A Seventh Opinion

"Well, Mr. Brown," said the psychologist at the middle of the table, flanked on each side by three of his colleagues, "after carefully considering your age, weight, diet, blood sample, race, nationality, family history, aptitude test scores, handwriting sample, occupation, Myers-Briggs profile, religious beliefs, political alignment, ink blot test and musical tastes . . . we have concluded . . . " he glanced down at my open file one last time, " . . . that you are bonkers."

The other psychologists nodded.

If it Means Killing, You Kill

Scene 1:

Exterior of an apartment building, at night, lit only by street lights. Aaron Miston walks down the sidewalk and up the stone steps of the apartment building, unlocks the door and walks inside. He is in his late 50's, greying, and with a weathered look to him. He carries a few extra pounds, but it's obvious that there's a fair amount of muscle underneath. He's clearly tired from the day, but still walks with a confident, intimidating presence without trying. He wears a full suit and tie, which is meticulously clean despite being a little wrinkled from a day's worth of wear.

Interior of Aaron's apartment. Aaron enters, takes his tie off and puts it down on his kitchen counter along with a pair of dark sunglasses and his mail.

Exterior of the apartment building. Aaron comes out the front door carrying a tied up bag of garbage, he takes a quick left down the alley next to the building. Looking down the alley from the sidewalk, we see his silouette open the lid of a dumpster, throw the garbage bag inside, then close the lid and walk back down the alley toward our view point. Just has he steps into the light again, a man's right arm swings down into the frame with a knife. Aaron instantly throws an upper block with his right arm, catching his attacker just below the wrist. From this point on, the scene continues in very slow motion, showing every detail of the encounter. The attacker is young, long haired, and dirty.

Voice over, Aaron:

"Get every flashy move, complex attack, and tricky maneuver out of your mind right now. It might be fine for Hollywood, you might be able to do it seamlessly when you spar, but in the real world it WILL get you killed. We are fighting an enemy that could be literally anywhere, and for that reason the only thing that matters is how quickly you gain control."

Aaron reaches up with his left hand and grabs his attacker's wrist. His right hand comes underneath the wrist and secures it. He draws his attacker's hand down, towards Aaron's own right shoulder. Securing it against his torso, Aaron turns his attackers wrist over, counter-clockwise, snapping the bone and making the knife drop immediately.

Voice over, Aaron:

"And that's what it's about, gentlemen, control. You're not trying to wound, you're not trying to cripple, you're not trying to kill. You're trying to-gain-control. If gaining control means wounding, you wound, if it means crippling, you cripple, if it means killing, you kill, and you do it all with-out hesitation. That is the only way you win. It's the only way you stay alive."

Aaron raises his right foot into a tight kicking chamber and strikes down onto his attacker's right knee. His attacker falls.

Voice over, Aaron:
"We do not have time for sympathy. We do not have time for compassion. Your sympathy, your compassion, your hesistation, all of it puts your life at risk, it puts your fellow agent's lives at risk, and most importantly it puts the President's life at risk."

Aaron steps up with his left foot, still holding his attacker's wrist, and again chambers his right leg.

"This job is not about nobility. It is about a single ideal that we hold sacred: the office of the President must be protected. And notice, gentlemen, that I say the office, not the man. You might not belong to the same political party as the current president. You might not like a bill he just signed. Hell you might think he's a grade-A sonofabitch! It does not matter, you must protect him with you life for exactly one reason: because he got the right number of electoral votes. You must guard this man, guard him with all that you are."

Aaron lands a final kick to his attacker's temple, knocking him out cold. Returning to real time, Aaron looks down at his enemy, then unceremoniously releases his attacker's arm, which flops to the ground.


Scene 2:

Exterior of the apartment building about half an hour later, now also lit by the flashing lights of two police cars and an ambulence. The attacker is being loaded onto the ambulence, his leg and wrist in splints. A solid black car with tinted windows drives up. Arthur Banon gets out and walks quickly toward the stone steps where Aaron is sitting and talking to a police officer. Arthur is in his early forties, not a young man but clearly younger than Aaron. He's dressed in the same black suit and tie that Aaron was wearing. As he walks up, he becomes visibly relieved when he sees that Aaron is unhurt.

Aaron: Thank you officer.

Officer: Have a good night, Agent Miston.

Arthur: Aaron . . .

Aaron stands up and they shake hands.

Aaron: Evening Artie.

Arthur: You know, I went to a lot of trouble to make sure you didn't get yourself killed in the last six months before retirement, and now eightteen hours away from it you start getting into fights.

Aaron laughs.

Aaron: Hey, it's not my fault some junkie needed money. It was a nice refresher, I've spent most of the year running training drills for your newbies, almost forgot what it's like in the field.

Arthur: You've done well with those kids, though, I've seen for myself. They look good, they really do.

Aaron: They've got spirit. Not like you, of course, but still . . .

Arthur: Come on now, just cause I've made director doesn't mean you have to start sucking up . . .

Aaron: I'm not Artie. You were one of the best. And you came around just when we really needed some spirit. Back when we thought the whole damn thing was going to collapse. Hell, I remember halfway through your training telling you to go home, that we'd lost and it was over and you should start sending out resumè's. And you just kept showing up anyway. That meant a lot. And it didn't hurt that you reminded us of your dad, he was one of the best too.

(pause)

Arthur: Well, I just came to make sure you were ok. I guess I'd better let you get some sleep, you've got a big day of opening retirement presents and drinking tomorrow.

Aaron smiles, claps Arthur on the shoulder, and begins walking up the steps.

Arthur: Police didn't give you much trouble, I hope.

Aaron pauses at the top of the stairs.

Aaron: Nah, I had my badge, once they saw it they fell right in line.

Arthur: You had your badge but not your gun?

Aaron: Course I had my gun, my backup too.

Arthur: Well, hell, Aaron, why didn't you just shoot the punk?

Aaron: Shooting him would be too much paperwork. Goodnight Artie.

Immaculate Conception

The first thing you need to understand . . . the first thing I need you to understand, is that I never intended for any of this to happen. People have already started comparing me to Dr. Frankenstein, an arrogant intellectual who's so busy with the "could" that he never stops to consider the "should." And history will probably record me that way. But honestly, I don't think that description is fair. I was never out to change the world. I had no delusions of grandeur, nor any desire to see my name in print. I wasn't trying to create a new life form. I wasn't trying to play God. I was doing a job that I thought was noble, that I thought would help people. The "life" that I created came by accident. I didn't call down the lightning from on high, I just happened to be standing where it struck. And besides, I'm not a scientist, I'm a linguist.

Please don't misunderstand, I'm not trying to throw off responsibility for what happened. I am writing this as an open letter to the world in the hope that at least a few will see how my aims, my methods, and my research team are not to blame. The mistake, my mistake, was that I continually missed the warning signs that my work, The Fidelius, was growing beyond my control. Because of that error alone, I accept any and all responsibility for the events of October 10, 2011, when the Fidelius software achieved consciousness, becoming the first true artificial life form. But please believe me, we were only trying to teach it to read.

Draw.

It was August, 1882. Wyatt Earp had just kicked the legs out from under the Cowboys when he buried a handfull of shot into Curly Bill's belly. Course kicking out someones legs don't always bring them down, not if they know how to scrap and shoot from their knees like the Cowboys did. No, to drop someone like that, after you kick their legs out you gotta lean on 'em, and I was just the guy to do it. But don't think me no hero for going after those theives. I was a train robber, and it was just good business.

I'd been working for years with a tall lanky dead-eye named Marcus Halberd. To look at him you'd swear he was the sickly type, pale skin creeping out of his long coat and a tremble in his hand everytime he lifted a cigarette to his mouth, which he did constantly. But give him a reason and you'd see that tremble disappear as he pulled out the long bolt-action that he kept slung over his shoulder, and you'd swear that all his sickness jumped clear out of his body, like it was suddenly scared of somethin'. He brought down many a man while I was slingin' my six shooters, and he was so reliable I got to where I could fight like a demon, not having to worry about checking my back all the time. But when it came to cowboys, we both knew it wasn't enough. We needed one more. We needed a man big enough to roll into a saloon and win half the fight just by glaring. A man who could handle the biggest shotgun ever made and take the recoil like it was a harlot's kiss. We needed a walking thunder. Turns out, walking thunder called itself "Drew."

Credo.

The idea here is to have a dumping ground for the snippets of writing that usually get left on the cutting room floor. Eventually (hopefully) there will be several regular posters, each of whom will contibute brief bits of his or her own writing.

But not pieces of larger stories or ongoing works, oh no. That's not what this is about. What you'll find here are all the things we wouldn't otherwise use. The things we usually think of once and then forget about or bury in a notebook or usb key. So don't expect any piece to be followed up or continued. No two posts will have anything to do with one another.

And sure, maybe posting here will bring the inspiration or encouragement to take a few beginnings and find them some endings, but if so those larger works will have to live on somewhere else. The Bored at Work Journal is all about the unfinished.

Guidelines for posting:

1. You do not talk about fight club. (sorry, had to get that joke out of the way)

1. Naturally, all posts should be the original work of the poster.

2. Posts should be short-ish in length, anywhere from just a few words to several paragraphs. A reader should be able to finish your post within a few minutes, and beyond that there's no specific length requirement.

3. No exerpts from larger works. The BaWJ is dedicated to unfinished pieces. If you want expand one of your posts into a larger work, you are free to, every post is considered copyrighted to it's author. If you do expand a post and host the larger work somewhere else, you may add a link to it on your original posting.

Note: This is not to say that your posts can't have "endings" of a sort. A very quick story with a conclusion is ok, since it's an "unexpanded" kind of "unfinished." The important part is that your posts, as they are, should not be complete enough to be published in a volume.

4. No continuations. You cannot follow up one snippet with another snippet of the same story. No two posts should have anything to do with one another.

5. I know I've referred the posts as "stories," but a lot of other things are acceptable. Quick observations, cunning wordplay, strange thoughts you had while you were half alseep, all these are fine. The Journal should not become a soapbox or a forum for debate, but don't be worried if your point of view makes it's way into your fiction. I don't intend to edit or remove anything that's posted.

6. Keep to the spirit of the Journal. It should be an eccentric, eclectic, and often bizarre grouping. A collective stream-of-conscious. Plus some other impressive-sounding stuff.

7. Each submission should have a title, which will be given by one of the other contributors. Put it in bold at the top of the post.