Friday, December 23, 2011

The Beads

The following is a very rough draft of a story I have in mind.

The man looked down at the large collection of beads filling the top drawer of the cabinet. He had filled it as high as he could with every kind of bead he could find. There were shiny ones and dull ones; red, blue, yellow, green ones; metal ones; small clear plastic ones; ones made from the small seashells and course glass ones.

He ran his hand over the top, sifting them slightly, listening to the sound they made as they ran against each other. He ran a single finger along the center, disturbing as few as he could but each one he moved disturbed its neighbor and those in turn disturbed the beads next to them. He thought about this for a moment. Surely even the bottom most beads were moved by this action, perhaps infinitesimally, but even so. He smoothed the beads into the drawer again, closed it, said a simple prayer hoping they would be enough and then he left the empty house forever.

Samantha walked into the old empty house alone, cold and afraid. It had been a windy night and the dark clouds now threatened to release their spite on her. “Hello?” she called again into the dark emptiness.

The house sat on the edge of an old, unused road rotting away with the ages. From the outside, it looked more like an old garage, the paint having been stripped long ago by the harsh rain and wind. The windows were so caked with grime they may as well be walls. The door she had come through was still on its hinges, but only barely.

“If there’s anyone here, tell me now”, she called at the stillness. “I’ve got a bat”, she lied, “and I can knock your head clean off your shoulders if you try anything.”

The wind rattled the windows in response but little else called out to her. Somewhere, far out in the fields a dog was barking. Samantha sighed with some relief and finally came fully into the house, laying her large backpack in the middle of the floor. It made a large ‘Kunk’ sound as the old wood took the weight of it. She reached into the bag and pulled out a flashlight.

The light from the flashlight was weak, the batteries dying, but even that much made her feel safer. A quick search of the building confirmed that it was a single floor house; a den, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. The water didn’t run and there were no light switches anywhere. There was no furniture anywhere in the house except for a single dresser in the bedroom. She checked the drawers; only the top drawer contained anything, it was filled with beads. ‘Great’, she thought, ‘I’ve probably stumbled into a horror movie.’ She shrugged off the shiver in her spine and thought ‘But it’s dry.’

Having given words to the thought, the rain began pouring in sheets. Samantha lay on the floor of the living room, where the roof leaked a bit less. As she had done many nights before, her backpack became her pillow and she sang herself to sleep while stroking the unborn child in her belly.

She would look at the beads again in the morning and find a note at the bottom of the drawer. It would read “If you would repay my kindness, bring flowers to my grave.” It would be more than ten years before she understood what this meant.

Samantha looked at the beads in the drawer. She remembered the beads she had collected as a child and the first necklace she had made of them; a necklace made for him.

Samantha sat in the parking lot swap meet feeling awkward. Her table filled with bead necklaces of every kind. She had selected every bead individually, surrounding herself with the little balls in the living room. She worked from sun up to sun down, stringing each bead according to her mood. This one reminded her of spending the summer with her aunt: greens and blues and occasional gold, that one of her first kiss: lots of red and pink with a bit of blue on one end. She had poured out her memories and given them form as necklaces. Now she was selling them. She wondered if that made her feel sad or proud. She locked away that emotion. Later, she would make a necklace that expressed it.

Samantha barely had time to sleep anymore. Between the baby and planting vegetables in the back yard and making whatever repairs she could make to the house, she felt as though awake 26 hours a day. The beads had run out. But she had somehow made enough to buy some paint, an easel and canvas. It had been just enough to paint a few landscapes and start selling those alongside the beads. She missed the beads. The 6 year old girls that came to her spot every week would make squealing sounds and pester their mothers all day with “Oh mommy, please, please, please. Can I have a pink one?” Occasionally parents would say ‘No’, which elicited tantrums and crying. She didn’t want them to cry of course, but it made her smile to think someone wanted her work so badly.

The paintings didn’t sell as well to the 6 year olds. She thought about painting something that would appeal to them, but she didn’t have a television and all the children seemed to talk about was “Princess Bubujubu: Warrior Supermodel” or “Transistor Formers: Collect all 250”. So instead, she poured her heart and soul into her paintings.

Samantha had woken in the middle of the night and listened at the stillness. The baby was asleep in his crib next to her bed. Her head spun for a bit as she cleared the cobwebs from her mind. She had been dreaming of the drawer full of beads. She kept hearing a voice in her dream that told her “If you would repay my kindness, bring flowers to my grave.”

In the morning, she would start a new painting. It would be a painting of the drawer full of beads, as she remembered it from that first morning. Within each individual bead, she would embed a tiny scene of each memory it elicited. The reds reminded her of his lips… The greens were a child’s feet running through grass… the blues were tears… and a single golden heart in the center where her baby slept in peace.

Samantha’s studio debut was a hit. She spent the night spinning around to shake hands with one person or another. Her work, apparently, was much sought after. It spoke of a life filled with heartbreak and triumph expressed in vivid tones with careful, deliberate strokes. The centerpiece of her show was the painting of the beads. She had struggled with the choice of selling it. At last, she decided against it. She had sold away all the beads; she needed something to remind her of the kindness someone had given her.

Samantha stood in front of the grave stone marked only with a name. “How did you know?” she asked. “How could you have known?”

Until this moment, she had not realized how much this stranger meant to her. Surely he could never have known what she would do with the beads, or even who she was. She lay the flowers on the grave and wiped the tears away.

Samantha closed the lid on the large box of paints and brushes. The box was filled with every type of color and brush. There were all kinds of reds, blues, yellows and every color in between. Every brush size anyone could ever need was nestled away in the box.

She didn’t know if anyone would ever come across it. She hoped someone would, and make use of it. With that, she stood up, leaving the box in the middle of the bedroom floor and left the empty house forever.

Friday, December 02, 2011

Items of Interest

I just want to give some recommendations to everyone today.

First, we've got Kevin Smith's and Scott Mosier's SMODCAST. I really enjoy this podcast and I can't recommend it enough. These two guys have such a great chemistry and it's always entertaining. Kevin Smith is always hilarious and Scott Mosier plays a great straight man and has the occasional observation that will leave you laughing your ass off.



My second recommendation is a game: Farm Frenzy. The gameplay of all the different Farm Frenzy games is pretty much the same. However, if you want to start with the best, start with Farm Frenzy 3. For part 3, the designers finally got all the elements right. The timing, the rewards system, the difficulty. Everything is perfect by the third version.



Give these a try, I love them. Listen to SMODCAST while playing Farm Frenzy. They're a great combination. You laugh, you play, you love.