Midterms

I know I haven't been very reliable about writing recently but midterms are in full swing and I don't feel right writing short stories while I should be studying. So with your patience I am taking another break to dedicate time to school work.

General Wellesley's Command VIII

I regretted when the week was up, the sergeant insisted on returning to camp to make sure that our captain or any other members of our regiment had arrived. All of us tried to tell him that if anyone connected to our regiment they would be able to find us no matter where we were hiding but he didn’t give us any say. No matter how friendly we had grown it wouldn’t change the fact that he was a superior officer given charge over us. We had to listen to it whether we liked it or not.

We had been right about no one else from our regiment being in camp when we got but Wellesley was happy to see us just the same. We had hardly been in the camp for more then half an hour when a soldier came and found us to tell us that we were wanted in the general’s tent.

“I was just wondering if I should send out scouts to find you but knowing the stories I doubted I would be able to find you. I would appreciate it if in the future you would let me know where you were going to be hiding before going on prolonged missions.” We all nodded sheepishly, I think that the sergeant took the small rebuke stronger then the rest of us did. The rest of were all loner sorts, unused to reporting anything to anyone outside of what we absolutely had to. The sergeant on the other hand was expect to remember who and what he was, he had become to much like the rest of us while he had been with us. He obviously was realizing that he had neglected his duties and I felt a little sorry for him. Wellesley was not known for being the most forgiving man ever to command an army. The rebuke had been gentle however, just a slight warning, and easily passed over.

“I have a job for you and any men that you can teach some of your ways,” Wellesley was talking to me, much to my shock. It wasn’t as if any of my regiment had any title or rank other then our captain. Unlike the other regiments we didn’t have corporals and sergeants, so Wellesley could have just as well been talking to Alice or Jon, but instead he was talking to me. “Can you and the other people in your regiment teach some of my handpicked solders how to survive behind enemy lines like you do?” Wellesley asked. It wasn’t an order to my surprise, but a genuine question. He was obviously not sure about whether or not it could be done but I didn’t share his doubts.

“We could do it,” I said with certainty in my voice which brought a slight smile to his usually grim face. “We have already almost taught the Sergeant everything that he would need to know sir,” I said, and then blushed slightly. It wasn’t right that I should talk about teaching an officer anything here in the proper army but Wellesley again passed it by. He seemed to understand that my regiment fell under different rules then he usually worked with and accept it.

“I will send you men in the morning, I understand that you are not an officer but I will need someone with your group who will be in charge so I am going to name you as an advisor and a temporary sergeant,” Wellesley ordered. The tone of his voice made it sound as if he had ended the conversation but there was something that I wanted to know before I left.

“Will the sergeant be leaving us then?” I asked, “Because we could still use his knowledge of the area for our training. It would be bad if one of our training groups wandered into enemy territory because they didn’t know any better.”

“You can keep him, though it might undermine your authority,” Wellesley warned and we all filed out of his tent.

“Congratulations on your temporary command,” the sergeant said, turning to me and grinning. I was relieved, I had worried that he would be jealous of me for having been almost been declared his officer. Wellesley hadn’t said as much but it had been clear that I was now in charge. With that off of my chest I just had to worry about the people from my own regiment, all of whom were bad at recognizing authority and even less likely to like it if I was raised out of the ranks to take charge of them.

To be continued...

General Wellesley's Command VII

I will admit that as we filed out of the general’s tent that my respect for the man had increased. It was odd; it was because the man had admitted to us that he didn’t know everything that I liked him more. Possibly it was just that it was an odd trait in an officer. The officers that I had encountered before had always acted like they knew everything, even when it was obvious that they had no more clue then the rest of us. Even my own captain, a man who I would follow to the gates of hell, would never admit to any of us if he didn’t know what he was doing.

“Nice to meet you Jon,” said the sergeant, sticking out his hand to introduce himself to our newest member, speaking of another officer acting out of character of officers. Officers did not shake hands with men put under their control. Jon was obviously shocked as well but he still shook the outstretched hand. “I’ve been thinking I’m kind of deadweight on this missions, it’s kind of silly all of you calling me sir, demanding respect from you seems like a salve to my ego and I won’t have it anymore. Except around other people of course because they expect it, the officers will have my head if they find out I have done away with discipline.”

“If that’s what you want, sir,” said Alice and then realized what she had said. “Sorry, it’s habit.”

“I don’t care if it makes you more comfortable, I just don’t want you thinking that I am insisting on it,” the sergeant said, shrugging. I promised myself that I was going to take advantage of this as much as possible; it was such a rare chance that it would be a crime to use it.

“So what do we do next?” I asked, as we walked towards the tents that had been given to us by a very surly supply officer.

“We’re going to continue to bother the enemy of course,” the sergeant said. “They will be on the lookout for anyone sneaking into the camp for a couple of nights after our raid last night so instead we are going to go after their patrols. It will hinder the enemy greatly if their scouts don’t come back and it will make the scouts wearier and less likely to take chances to sniff us out if their patrols start winding up dead. It would be even more interesting if we can start leaving the bodies around the edges of their camp where they can find them. That’s of course if you can manage it,” the sergeant added sheepishly. He seemed to think that he had asked too much of us, which of course the three of us took as a challenge.

“We can do it,” Alice declared smugly and Jon and I nodded in firm agreement. There was nothing in world that the 99^th regiment couldn’t do.

Our days took on a pattern the next week. We didn’t bother going back to our camp every night; it was too much of a bother to then return to enemy territory the next morning without getting caught. Instead we slept under the stars and ate what we could steal from the enemy. We would take turns deciding who would go out and look for enemy patrols while the rest of us lounged around camp for our scout to report back, it was an easy life. Once we had a target we would all spring into action, kill the patrol, loot their bodies, and return to our camp. Most patrols were on horseback but that wasn’t a problem since some of the horses I had released from the enemy camp the first night had found their way into our hands. Once it was night we would drag the patrol’s bodies as close to the enemy’s pickets as we dared and consider it a job well done.

To be continued...

General Wellesley's Command VI

Now came the risky part, even though the horses were untied they had been trained well enough that they still didn’t run. I was going to have to make some noise to get them moving and that was a risky business. I could only hope I could get away in time, I decided, as I primed my rifle. The horses scattered as my gun went off but I had the sense to grab onto the reigns of one of them. It had no saddle but it didn’t matter, I could ride bareback if I had to, though it meant that I would be sore in the morning. I swung onto its back, low to its back to make myself less of a target. Digging my heels into its side I galloped forward, already hearing the enemy guns discharging behind me.

“I thought they were going to destroy the entire camp looking for you,” complained Alice as she came up to the rendezvous spot, throwing down a pack next to me. “You made the whole camp on alert, trying to get us all caught?”

“I made a small fortune of horses escape and you are complaining?” I asked defensively. “How was I supposed to make the horses run away? Where is the Sergeant?”

“Coming,” said Alice. “We grabbed a couple of horses on our way out and he’s staking them up in some bushes.”

“Thanks to you we only managed to spike half of the guns,” the sergeant complained as he came into the camp. “With the whole camp on alert there was no way for us to continue work without getting caught. Couldn’t you have found a way to free the horses that didn’t involve telling the whole world that we were there?”

“We did our job, I doubt anyone will complain that we didn’t do enough,” I pointed out. I was right, when we rejoined the general, though he wasn’t smiling, he seemed pleased enough with what we had done.

“A very nice piece of work,” he praised, “and not one of you lost. I think I can find more work for you three. Four of you now,” he added and out of the shadows slunk Jon. I was extremely happy to see him, another member of our regiment; he was the best at stealth. If we were going to have any more jobs that involved things like what we had done last night I wanted someone who could travel through an entire enemy camp, while still in our uniform, without anyone seeing him. I wished that I could learn how he did it but it was never a talent I could master. I was more of a straightforward person when it came to fighting.

“Hello,” even Jon’s voice was quiet and unassuming. It was his lack of presence that was his greatest weapon; he made the best assassin out of any of us. Some people got nervous when talking to assassins but I found them a wonderful thing, so long I knew for sure they were on my side. My regiment had never once had a traitor, I felt confident that it never would, I had no problem with our assassin.

“Is the whole regiment gathering?” asked Alice, voicing what I had been wondering myself.

“I have no idea,” said Jon. All eyes in the room, even those of the sergeant, turned to look at Wellesley but he shrugged.

“I have no idea what your regiment’s orders are, I am not the one giving them. All that I know is that anyone from your regiment that does come in I am to put to work until your captain arrives at which time he will take charge. I am sure you won’t mind that, seeing as he probably understands your abilities more then I do, but I will try my best until he can take over.”

To be continued...

General Wellesley's Command V

The soldier inspected me with more interest as I approached. I had tried to find a uniform with as few blood stains as possible on it but I was sure they could still be seen if someone looked closely. By now I was counting on there being as little light as possible, I was sure my life was hanging on the fact that it was night. Not once did I stop to consider that a lot of regular soldiers in the enemy army probably had bloodstains on their uniforms as well. I was sure that the bloodstains stood out in a horrible way and marked me for what I was. Fear and stress had reached a climax when the soldier finally shouted a challenge and I stopped. I didn’t have to have however, the moment the challenge had been issued Alice had made her move. She stepped over the soldier’s body, his throat having been cleanly cut, and motioned me to join her inside the tent.

To our surprise the sergeant came with us into the tent. We both had expected him to remain outside while we worked. This was no time to be asking questions though, the only reaction Alice gave was a raised eyebrow and I just shrugged. The sergeant, with the general’s permission, had procured a large helping of mercury from the army’s medical supplies. Usually it was used to treat certain embarrassing diseases but now we were going to use it on the enemy. Anyone who had ever seen one of the soldiers who had gone through the treatment knew that it weakened them horribly. With the amount we mixed into the food we had in front of us I doubted that any man who got his food from the tent would still be standing. It wasn’t enough to kill, which was a shame because it would save us bullets, but it would keep them off the field for a time.

Having finished our work I remembered the body of the soldier and dragged it into a good hiding place, I considered us lucky that no one had seen it while we were inside the tent or it would have alerted the entire camp. My first thought had then been to drag it into the tent but that would have instantly warned anyone who found it that there was something wrong going on and there would be suspicion placed on the food. Instead I hid it in the bushes and hoped that it took them a while to find. There was just so much to think about and we had to hurry about everything.

Once I had come back from disposing the body the sergeant point that I was to go in the direction of the cavalry mounts and he and Alice were to go in the direction of some artillery pieces nearby. I knew what I had to do but horses made noise, he had given me the most dangerous job and I glared at him for a second to let him know that I realized it. Still I turned and headed in the direction that he had pointed, it was better for us to split up and then regroup in the place that we had agreed would be our rendezvous point then to wander around in a suspicious looking group. Also that way one of us got caught the others stood a chance.

The cavalry horses were tied to a long post laid on the ground and hammered in, it was too large to pull out of the ground which had been my first thought so I had to crawl along the ground, untying each individual horse. It didn’t help that here too were guards that had to be dealt with. My sword came into play here though by choice I use a rifle, the gun would have made too much noise. It was a tricky matter to kill the soldiers before they could shout out the alarm but I managed it, mostly through surprise attacks. My uniform was now covered in more blood then it had been at the start of this mission and now I was sure I would look suspicious in broad daylight. The largest comfort was that still none of the blood was mine.

To be continued...

General Wellesley's Command IV

“So what exactly are we going to be doing?” I asked. I could only assume that it was in his nervousness that the sergeant had forgotten to tell us.

“Bothering the enemy in any way that we can. Stealing or destroying food supplies, freeing horses, spiking cannons if we can get them, you get the idea.” I did and it seemed like far too large of a job for just the three of us, especially under a strange officer. If we had been under our own captain I would have felt slightly more confident about our survival rate.

It was a big job and our sergeant didn't actually seem to know what he was doing, or if he did he was scared to death of it. If the sergeant was scared of us, I couldn't wait to see how he would react to the enemy. Still orders were orders and there was no way that it would be possible to refuse them, and even more impossible to go to the General and ask for a new commanding officer. We were stuck with the one that we had so I had best make the best of it.

We met with the sergeant on the edge of camp the next day. I had been up late the night before making sure that my rifle and sword were in good condition. Most infantry men were restricted to bayonets but like in most other things my regiment was considered a little special. I suspected that we were the only non-officer foot soldiers that had real swords. The only thing that made me look all that different from the officers was the lack of a red sash.

“Find a dead soldier from the other side and get yourselves a uniform,” the sergeant ordered Alice and I. I didn't actually have any problem with that order, it struck me as surprisingly practical from the impression I had received from the sergeant the night before. I had thought that he was going to be the uptight sort but his first order was to rob corpses, my respect for him grew. These were the realisms of wars.

When we were all assembled again, both the sergeant and I had carefully looked the other way as Alice changed, we headed in the direction of the enemy camp. There was the matter of language but we all figured we just wouldn't speak and we would be fine. The only time language would be a problem was if someone tried to give our group an order. Then we would be shot and killed as spies but that seemed unlikely somehow. That was always something that would only happen to someone else, or at least I liked to think so.

The enemy pickets were spread apart far enough that we were able to slip behind the lines, not that anyone was going to stop people in their own uniform. It was well known what happened to spies who were caught, few people tried it. The ones who did never did any real damage so the enemy had grown complacent it seemed, not that we didn't have to use a certain amount of stealth just the same.

Our group had agreed that we were not going to talk once we got into the camp. Nothing would make us more noticeable then if we were to start speaking English in the middle of the camp. The sergeant therefore only gestured to us to follow him as we sneaked towards the mess tent. There was no way that we could sabotage the actually cooking, to many cooks would notice us and stop us if we tried anything funny, but the supply tent was close. Now was where Alice and I earned our pay, I motioned the sergeant to get down and was happy to see that he actually obeyed. Sometimes officers got the wrong idea about the power relationship we had with them.

The sentry in front of the supply tent watched me with boredom as I got close. I had been on food duty once, only once, back before I had joined my new regiment. It had been one of the most mind numbingly dull experiences of my otherwise exciting life. The entire idea was to stop people from stealing the food, and it worked, but that didn't make it any more interesting. Behind him I could see Alice creeping, her knife already out, all I had to do was distract the guard long enough for her to get in place. There couldn't be any noise, if there was we were as good as dead, the best case scenario at that point would be that the sergeant wouldn't be connected with us and would get away. Not a great comfort when it got down to it.

To be continued...

General Wellesley's Command III

“99^th regiment huh?” asked Wellesley, looking both of us up and down. I knew the look of old. All you had to do was say the number of our regiment and people connected with the inner workings of the army got curious and uncomfortable. I had to give Wellesley credit; if we made him uncomfortable he hid it well.

“Yes sir,” I said, standing at attention. No matter what regiment you were in you still had to pay your respects to a general. My regiment was relaxed about most things, and lower ranking officers knew to step around us, but a general was a different matter. While he was inspecting us I took the chance to inspect him back. He seemed young for a general, dour, and serious. He looked like he had smiled about twice in his life at most.

“I was told you were coming but I didn’t expect you for another day,” the General said at last, as if this was somehow our fault. Our orders had had nothing in them about when we were supposed to report. I was going to ignore the comment but Alice jumped in.

“Sorry sir, we thought it better to report the moment we were in the area so as not to waste time.”

“Well since you are here I might as well tell you what is expected of you. You are to wait here until your captain arrives and gives you your true mission. Until then you will be under my direct orders, to use you as I see fit. I am told that you are worth ten soldiers each, I have my doubts, but I have no intention of leaving you idle.”

“Yes sir,” both Alice and I said in unison.

“I will be sending your orders with a sergeant as soon as I can. I can lend you each a tent and he will come to you there.” The general called in an aide to lead us to our tents and then we were left to our own devices.

“I wonder if the general will actually know what to do with us, or if he even really understands what we do,” commented Alice, from where she sat on my cot. I was sitting on the floor, a small amount of the gentleman I had once been had prompted me to surrender the only soft place to sit to my female guest.

“He seemed pretty sure of himself,” I said, shrugging.

“Being sure of oneself isn’t a guarantee of actual wisdom,” Alice pointed out.

“I am wondering more about the idea of seeing the captain again,” I said. “How many years has it been? Two or three at least, this must be really big.”

There was the sound of a cleared throat at the flap of my tent. It wasn’t the sound of someone who actually needed to get something from their throat; it was the sound of someone trying to announce his presence. I went and let the extremely nervous sergeant in. He looked around my tent like it might be hiding some sort of dark secrets even though I had only been in possession for an hour.

“Are you here with our orders, sir?” asked Alice, prompting him. As usual she was more merciful then I was. I was enjoying watching the man squirm.

“You are both put under my nominal command, though it is understood that your regiment does things in its own way. I have a lot of experience with the area around here so I am mostly to be your expert advisor,” said the nervous man, still glancing around franticly. I was starting to think it was more of him looking for an escape route more then anything else.

To be continued...

General Wellesley's Command II

“I meant where he is on the field,” I said, covering up my annoyance. I might not have known who Wellesley was but I wasn’t about to admit that to Alice, who had the tendency of getting smug.

“Headquarters is in an old farmhouse about a mile from here,” Alice told me, pointing in the direction. “We might even get a real hot meal there, if the general decides that he likes us.” I had to admit that sounded good.

“Will the others be there, or are we the only two forced to deal with each other,” I asked, accepting her hand up.

“Who knows,” Alice shrugged and I knew it had been a stupid question. The army had a policy against giving anyone any more information then what they absolutely required to get their mission done.

The army headquarters was as busy as any headquarters I had ever been in during a time of war. There were officers coming and leaving to receive orders, servants trying to work around the people, and general hangers on who just wanted a piece of the action and glory. No one gave Alice and I a second glance, no one had eyes for two people in what looked like private’s uniforms, unless you looked at the badges. That had been intentional, my regiment didn’t like drawing more attention to ourselves then we had to. Sometimes we did spy work, sometimes assassination, sometimes suicide missions that no other soldier would take on. Not being noticed, not even by your allies was a way of surviving. Special treatment was nice but not if it got you killed.

“We have orders to see General Wellesley,” Alice told the secretary who had set up his desk at the bottom of the house’s staircase. He cast a scornful glance over us.

“Do does everyone else on earth and you’ll have to wait your turn.”

“I promise you that our work is more important then anything your other men you have waiting for orders,” Alice said, throwing a paper on the table in front of the secretary. I recognized the royal seal and guessed that she was showing the secretary our commission. My regiment might not often march together but we were well known through the rest of the army, mostly as bad luck. I guessed the secretary had heard the rumors as well because he was instantly in a huge hurry to get rid of us. We were sent up to the general’s private room within minutes.

“Damn it Frothing, what took you so long to come up, take the long way around?” Wellesley bellowed when we knocked on his door when Alice knocked. Alice and I looked at one another, telling a general he was wrong wasn’t something either of us had the guts to do, even as an independent regiment, but we couldn’t pretend we were this Frothing, whoever he was, either.

“99^th regiment, Hill and Tobias sir,” announced Alice as we walked through the door, neatly compromising between telling the truth and getting our identities right. Alice had always been one of the more diplomatic then the rest of our regiment. She had a way with people none of the rest of us had.

To be continued...

General Wellesley's Command

I was technically standing on what was a battle field but the battle had lagged recently so I wasn’t in any danger. Only the occasional stray bullet flew over my head and I paid them no mind. This might strike you as an odd place to have a meeting but I was used to it. As of yet though my appointment hadn’t shown up yet, so I lay down and got ready to take a nap. My regiment was fairly relaxed about discipline, mostly because we were never together long enough to get offended with one another. We answered to no one, worked with no one, carried out our orders and got new ones; it was very rare for us to meet like I was about to. I followed my orders to the letter however; it was the only way to stay alive. I had been ordered to meet Alice on this spot, at this time, on this day and that was what I was going to do.

“Let your guard down,” said Alice, standing up from among the bodies lying on the field. I wanted to kick myself but I didn’t give her the satisfaction of changing my facial expression. I should have looked for her more carefully; I should have seen her among the bodies. We were on a battlefield, our regiment was not immortal, had she honestly been lying there dead I might have walked past her. She might have been carrying around documents that would then fall into enemy hands.

“When did you get here?” I asked her, as she sat next to me, still gloating about her small triumph.

“Last night, during the battle, I fought my way here and then lay down with the dead. I wasn’t sure if the battle was going to slow down before we were supposed to meet so I figured I’d get here early just in case.” She stuck a bloody knife into the ground next to her; it looked like it had received a lot of hard use in the recent past. It was Alice’s weapon of choice and she could beat a man with a revolver with it. I nodded, she had been logical; it was what I would have done in her place as well. I had been too far away when I had received the order to attend the meeting to show up early. It had been marching double time that I had reached here when I did.

“So what are we supposed to do?” I asked, getting right to the point. Our regiment is full of loners and people who work best alone. Not all unsocial, just people who don’t like others getting in their way. We are good at what we do so we are given special privileges and a certain amount of leeway. On a few occasions however there were jobs that one of us couldn’t do and then they would make us a group again. If I had to work with Alice then something big was going to go down.

“My orders said that we were to go talk to General Wellesley after we had met up.”

“Where is he?” I asked, hoping it was close.

“He’s the one in charge of the troops in this battle,” Alice told me, making it clear that I was being stupid. I sighed, I was willing to fight for my country, and my king, with vicious loyalty, and it should be enough. Instead people seemed to think that I would care about army officers. My policy with army officers was that so long as they didn’t bother me I wouldn’t bother then, there was a reason I hadn’t done well in the conventional army.

To be continued...

The Interview III

Interviewer: Did you feel loyal towards strange recordings for giving you your start? Your band never recorded with anyone else did they?

Roy Hilt: Well there was a lot of loyalty, as well as a contract. We never had any reason to complain, Strange Recordings always treated us well. I know some companies treat their singers like they aren’t really people, just money makers, Strange Recordings was our friend more then our bosses. We were mostly a family matter; my father took over as our managers which was nice. Greg’s mother sewed a lot of our stage costumes, even after we hit the big time. She was very offended the few times that we decided to buy our clothing.

Interviewer: So when did the band start fighting one another, and why?

Roy Holt: Well the fight started out about Miranda. You’ve seen the posters; she was pretty, and charming. One of those girls where every guy in the room falls for her the moment she enters. So talented, so funny, so nice, I fell for her myself. So did Greg and Seth however and it was fine so long as she never showed any interest in any of us. Jealousy is a horrible thing though and when she started showing that she liked Seth I started to hate both of them. Him for being attractive for her, her for finding him attractive instead of me, I didn’t say as much but I don’t think I was subtle.

Interviewer: So what triggered you to kill them?

Roy Hilt: You don’t have to sound so awkward asking me that, I’ve heard it a lot recently. Don’t forget I pleaded guilty, I admitted it; you are allowed to call what I did murder. I am not proud of it and I would hate for my fans to copy me but that was what I did. I walked into our dressing room area back stage from a live show and I found them kissing. I confronted them and they both insisted that it had just been all the adrenaline in their systems from the concert that had driven them to make out. I saw the look in her eyes when she talked to Seth and I knew it was more then that. They thought I was crazy and they were trying to pacify me. I couldn’t stand the thought that Miranda thought I was crazy, so in a fit of rage I picked up a metal cigarette stand and used it like a club.

Interviewer: That was Miranda and Seth, what about Greg, why did you kill him?

Roy Hilt: I don’t actually remember, I have a vague memory of him trying to stop me but I was past stopping by then, I just wanted to keep hitting. The manager of the venue found me covered in blood over their bodies and not one of them was alive. If Miranda hadn’t thought I was crazy I wouldn’t have done it. Well that’s it.

Interviewer: Thank you very much for your time.

Roy Hilt: Not at all, I told you, I don’t have a lot to do. Feel free to come and talk to me when ever you like. They don’t give you a lot to do on death row.

The Interview II

Roy Hilt: The next person we got was our singer. We had heard there was this amazing singer in our school, sang solos in the choir and everything. I wasn’t really thrilled on the idea of having a choir singer in our band, we did more rock, but Greg insisted we go and check it out. I’m glad we did because it turned out Miranda had one of those voices that could do anything, and that included rock vocals. We invited her to join our band and she said yes. I don’t think she took us seriously at first but we showed her how much the band meant to us and she got just as into it as we did.

Interviewer: And Seth? How did he join your group?

Roy Hilt: None of us actually knew him until he joined the band. We knew we needed a drummer and we didn’t have any idea where to find one, so we put the word around school that we were looking for one and Seth found us. He played for us and he was good, and he had his own drum kit, so we let him join.

Interviewer: So how did you become as famous as you did? You hold the rock music chart records in three different countries. That’s a big achievement.

Roy Hilt: Well it wasn’t easy. We went from my garage to local bars and school dances. I started writing some songs, Miranda wrote some others, and we started getting people walking up to us after gigs talking about how much they liked us. Greg burned some demo CDs on his computer of us and we started selling them for some extra money at shows. He even sent some in to local radio shows though we didn’t really expect them to play us. Imagine our surprise when a local disc jockey got his hands on our CD and actually played it while we were listening. Pretty soon we had a lot more people asking us for our CDs and we had to expand.

Interviewer: So did you find the head of Strange Recordings, or did he find you?

Roy Hilt: We found him. We sent our demo CDs to every record company we could think of and he was the only one who even responded. He told us that he didn’t think he could feel right signing us on a deal at the moment but that if we sent him another CD in a year and had improved he would consider it. I don’t think our band ever practiced as much ever again as we did that year. We were all still in high school and I can still remember sitting in science class, writing sheet music during lecture. I stopped even bothering to bring a regular notepaper to my classes because I never took any notes anyway. All I wrote during class was music. I’d sit in the back of English and tap out rhythms with my pencil. I think all of my teachers just got used to the idea that I wasn’t going to think of anything but music and gave up. I’d take the music to Miranda and play it for her and she showed just how amazing she was at writing lyrics. The music seemed to run through our blood back in those days.

Interviewer: So you met the standard of Strange Recordings by the end of that year?

Roy Hilt: He said that he had never seen a band improve so quickly. He said that we had shown potential but he had never expected us to get as good as we did. He signed us right away, said he had to get us before someone else did. After that we seemed to just blast into fame, everything seems like it worked in fast forward. One day I was a struggling high school band member, the next day I was pasted all over walls in front of good sized stages. Strange Recordings is good at advertisement and they put in a lot of effort to promote our band.

To be continued...

A week long break

I am not going to stop writing this week but I would like to take this week to work on my novels. I feel like I have been spending too much time on short stories recently.

The Interview

Interviewer: Thank you for taking the time to speak with me like this. I’m sure our readers will love to find out more about it. There has been a great interest in you recently.

Roy Hilt: Not a problem. We have all of the time that you want.

Interviewer: First of all can you tell me a little about yourself? Your early history, where you grew up, things like that?

Roy Hilt: Well I was born in a small town in Nevada but we didn’t stay there for long. My family moved when I was two to Montana for my father’s work. We stayed there for some years, and that is where I went to school until I was in seventh grade when we moved again. This time it was to Mississippi because my parents had heard there was work to be had there.

Interviewer: How was your school life at the time? Did you have any memorable friends?

Roy Hilt: Oh, I had my friends. And my family was always very supportive, if that’s what you are going to ask next. I had a very healthy social life. It was around seventh grade that I decided that I wanted to become a musician.

Interviewer: Your family liked this idea?

Roy Hilt: I told you, they were very supportive. My father bought me a guitar and I practiced for hours a day. Pretty soon I found some other guys who played instruments and a girl who said that she could sing and we would practice in our basement together about once a week. We were horrible but we called ourselves a band and some people said we were pretty good for our age.

Interviewer: So what happened to the band?

Roy Hilt: You know how teenagers are, you get in a fight and pretty soon no one is talking to each other. I don’t even remember what it was the fight started over, but I remember that the singer and our drummer were going out and the fight ended with them breaking up. I don’t remember if that was the cause of the fight in the first place or not but that’s what it ended with.

Interviewer: Well obviously you continued playing music, so what did you do next.

Roy Hilt: Actually I took a break for a year, I even stopped practicing. In ninth grade though I mentioned to one of my friends that I had played the guitar and he made me bring it out. I handed it over to him and he played this amazing riff on it. It made me want to take it up again and he would bring over his guitar and we’d have jam sessions. My parents never complained, though I was always worried that they were going to. I think that they knew that I had talent and that it was my passion to play music. That friend was Greg.

Interviewer: So the band was just you two at first?

Roy Hilt: We weren’t exactly a band at that point. We were just two boys, playing in my room, even if what we were playing with were guitars instead of video games. The constant playing made me improve in leaps and bounds, I started to get noticed for real at that point, and so did Greg.

Interviewer: How did the other members of the band come into the picture?

To be continued...

Gravity IV

First of all I have the pleasure to announce that I have now reached 200 posts with this one.


The delegation that went to talk to Death about mediating was Time, Justice, and I. It was not a delegation that got along well and we had argued about every subject imaginable between the woods where we had met and Death’s domain. We weren’t worried about her being there, Death was always home.
Death’s country was one of blackness and we only barely entered and then stopped. Future had once made the mistake of walking farther in and had gotten lost. Death had had to find her in the end and save her. Death always seemed to know where everything was and what went on in her realm. An example of this was that she was there to greet us within five minutes of our arrival.
“No,” was her first response when we told her what we were there for. “I have no interest in getting involved in your little fights, leave me alone,” she turned to go and Time caught her arm, much braver then I was.
“Just give us an answer, you are the least subjective one our group,” Time asked.
“It’s a stupid thing you’re asking of me, that’s why I refused. There is no way to judge such a thing. I know the feelings of humans better then any of you; it is part of my job. It isn’t that the humans fear one of you over the other, you are too different to judge in a contest like this.”
Both Time and I deflated and even Justice looked a little sheepish. I mean it had been so obvious for so many years and yet we had carefully overlooked it for the sake of our pride. Death turned back to me for a moment.
“Congratulations on being named, you are the last one aren’t you?” her voice was sincere so I didn’t bristle like I would have had it been Time who said it. Instead I just nodded, and then she was gone.
I have mentioned it before but I am much older and much wiser in these days. There are moments when I even release my hold on people completely for just a split second because it is amusing. I spend a lot of my time around science labs that study me because it is fun to break the rules right in front of them, and watch them dismiss every anomaly as impossible. I no longer have any interest in competing with Time, but I have become very good friends with Death.

Gravity III

The first thing that I learned about humans was that they were more complicated then I had thought. They were very easy to convince to believe something but at the same time they were slow to observe. For instance they had already figured out about Time but they still hadn’t learned about me, even though not once did they escape me.

I knew to be careful, I didn’t want to kill any of my future believers, but I did experiment with the making people weigh more or less as I pleased to see if they would notice. They never did, they would talk about how they felt odd and move on. As I grew more frustrated I started making rocks fall and smash a home, or a prized horse, but still no one gave me a name. Instead everything was granted with blessings; to whichever god it was that this set of people had created. All of my hard work went to that quarter and I remained unnamed.

I suppose that I can count myself lucky that there was never an end date given to the contest or I would have run into problems. Instead the bet had simply been that I beat Time in human respect. With no deadline that could happen whenever I managed it. Centuries meant nothing to us and therefore the others didn’t complain as I continued to try. I probably should have given up but I was far too stubborn to admit defeat even as I made no progress at all.

It wasn’t until I had a chance meeting with Newton that I finally gained myself a name, and even then it wasn’t a huge one at first. That was so long after our bet that I had trouble imagining that the others would even remember we had had a bet. It wasn’t until I did finally become a constant topic of conversation that I realized the other flaw in our bet, which was that there was no unit to measure respect in the human mind. If you were going for mention in conversation it didn’t really work because Time and I were abstract ideas and that wasn’t always what people were talking about when they said our names. I called a meeting of the others again and we talked it over.

“You’re still going on about that?” asked Future, though she didn’t seem really surprised.

“I hate to lose,” I admitted. I was getting older at this point and while I would have bristled at her comment at one time I was now willing to take the criticism. I was being a little silly but the personification of gravity has little to do with his time rather then waste it. The job comes with an eternity of no job description.

“We need someone to judge I guess, one of us who knows all about humans,” said Justice. We all knew she wasn’t talking about herself. Justice kept away from humans as much as she could for fear that she would be corrupted.

“There is always Death,” said Wind, doubtfully. I looked at her in disbelief.

“Do you really think that Death will take it well if we go to her and tell her that we want her to mediate a meaningless dispute like this one?” I asked her.

“You never know until you try,” said Time, shrugging. As the other contestant he got a lot of say.

To be continued...