Chapter 1: Creator where are you?!
"He was the greatest creator we have ever come across; do we really have to do this to him?"
"I assure you my brother there will be more."
"Yes, but he was our friend; our mentor."
"And he has served his purpose. Now go to sleep little brother. We have work to do tomorrow: promising new ventures that will make us a fortune."
"Okay older brother, but whatever happened to 'it's not about the money?'"
"The money."
-------------------------
It was a cool dark dank night…
"What am I doing? That is a horrible way to start a story. It is so clichéd and redundant. I'm sure the readers are already bored and confused."
And after she ripped off her shirt exposing her bare breasts, she yelled out to the face-sucker aliens, "Keep your hands off me you damned queer aliens!"
"Oh great, now this is turning into a semi-porno alien story. And I probably offended half of my whole two future readers. Let me try this one more time."
He lives in a pineapple under the…grassy knoll...
"Ah, frick it; I'm done. I'll have to complete the assignment in the morning before class."
With a gentle snap, the lap top's soft illumination that once filled the room disappeared. And the frustrated young man hid underneath his blankets in shame. It was now 2 in the morning, and he still has yet to complete his short story assignment. His thoughts churned in his head for another hour until the sound of chirping crickets rocked him to sleep. One of the only worlds he would ever be comfortable with was the ones behind his eye-lids. His dreams were the epitome of his existence, and he was at the cusp of figuring it out.
-------------------------
"Oh my dreary whiskers, you're late, you're late, you're late," a rabbit frantically sang while jumping on top of the young man's chest."You're late, you're late, to a very important date. No time to talk, follow me, you're late, you're late, you're late!" The little pudgy rabbit with the red race coat started to annoy the once sleeping young man.
"Get the frick off of me," the young man groaned as he smacked the rabbit off his chest and into a near buy trash can. As the boy sat up and rubbed his eyes he noticed that he wasn't in Kansas anymore. "Where am I, and where is my dog Toto?" The young man ordered the rabbit with the giant pocket watch and now broken eye-glasses.
"Oh no, no, no, no, no, you're due, and we are really in a stew. No time to talk and come with me; you're late, you're late, you're late," the rabbit insisted. The young man ignored the rabbit started looking around the room, it smelled of earth and worms. It was dark a musty, and the walls were decorated with all sorts of clocks, including a beautiful ornate grandfather-clock. His legs hung over the edge of the rabbit-sized bed. He realized he must be in some sort of rabbit hole, but as he gazed up he couldn't find the entrance.
He focused on the rabbit again, who was still dancing around the room singing his song."Listen, you silly rabbit, Trix are for kids, and where the hell am I?" The young man demanded.
The rabbit stopped dancing for a second and fixed his glasses so they fit snuggly on his pink nose. He stood up straight, threw back his shoulders and tapped his watch. "You are L…!" and with that the boy grabbed a baseball that was sitting on the floor and hummed it the tiny rabbit. The rabbit was caught off guard and was carried across the room by the ball, abruptly stopping as they both smashed into the now destroyed grandfather-clock.
"How did you like that velocity?"the young man gloated as the rabbit twitched inside the grandfather-clock. The young-man stood up and started walking around the circular room, unaware of the trouble he was in.
"My clock. You broke my grandfather-clock! My grandmother will have a fit when she sees what you did to her husband. How dare you!" The rabbit's once white friendly fur took on a green-scaly tint. His eyes grew ferocious and blood-shot. His bucked teeth turned to fangs that hungered for revenge. He roared while his appendages snapped and grew twistedly long. "My turn" the demented rabbit said while picking up the baseball. The young man looked on in horror; he had nowhere to run.
"You know I was just kidding about the cereal? Yo-u…yo-u can have it all; I'll even throw some Trix yogurt, if you put the ball back down," the young man stuttered in fear. The crazed rabbit wasn't listening, he wanted revenge and took aim for the young man's man-hood.
"Time for the wind-up, and now for the pitch!" the rabbit crackled hysterically as the ball left his hand. "How about that velocity? Say hi to Sarah for me!" that rabbit sneered.
"Sarah? But how do you know my girl—"the boy was suddenly cut off while the ball struck his…
"Gigantically huge baby maker."
"Okay Mr. Scott that is enough of your story for today." Professor Lang interrupted. "I know I said to be creative with this assignment, but I think we can all do without the description of your 'baby-maker.' Just come and see me after class is over," he added.
Darien buried his face into his hands. "Another failure…" he whispered to himself. He cracked open a couple of fingers to see how his classmates responded to his story. Not good: one girl was in tears, another was shamefully shaking her head; the literary genius Markey C. 'Penisbreath' and his story about the alien who loves Reese's Pieces was laughing his ass off, and the rest didn't even look at him. Darien was ashamed of himself for being such a creative fool, and dug is face deeper into his palms.
"Well class, for the most part you all exceeded from your assignment giving you a break from King Lear. For tomorrow I would like you to finish the book and type a two-page response on why you think Shakespeare wrote this particular play. Have a nice three-day weekend." Professor Lang said as he dismissed the class like the king he thought he was .
Darien watched the professor sit down into his thousand-dollar throne, he bought EBay for two-hundred dollars; behind his ten-dollar recycled from plastic desk the college was filled with. He was a green-bargain shopper with an ego the size of a truck.
Darien sat there for a couple of minutes, with his face still hidden and waited for the rest of his classmates to leave. Lara, the girl who was crying, was the last to get up and went over to the Professor. She was still crying about something as she whispered to him. He looked at her in horror for a second and patted her on the shoulder. When she left the room he smiled and shook his head.
Professor Lang called out to him, "Okay Darien, how about you take a seat at my desk?" The seat he was referring to was his 'jester-chair.' A ridiculous painted chair that he splashes different colors on every year. It looked as if all the members of The Beatles took their turns barfing on it after doing some LSD. "So Mr. Scott, would you kindly tell me what inspired you to write that…interesting story of yours?"
"I'd prefer if you call me DS sir, it is kind of like my artistic alias," Darien proudly confessed.
"Darien…"
"DS, sir," Darien corrected Professor Lang.
"Yes um DS, you do realize that an alias is a separate name from your true identity? DS is just your initials it is hardly an 'other name'." Darien sat there and continued to look at the professor, un-phased by the comment. "Right, well, 'DS' what inspired you to write that story?"
Excited that his professor may have liked it, Darien's eyes started to sparkle, "Well I was trying to write it last night, and I really couldn't think of anything to write about. First my story started off kind of clichéd. Then it turned into a Planet of the Apes kind of porno-alien story. Well not really porn, I just had the main character rip her shirt off. Finally and sadly it ended as being a rip-off of SpongeBob, and I realized that I couldn't do that," The professor seemed annoyed with Darien's answer, so he skipped ahead. "And I went to bed. When I was sleeping I had the most wonderful dream, and when I woke up I wrote I down." Dairen sat their smiling trying to fool himself in believing that his story was good.
"Well 'DS', that was certainly interesting; however, all you did was rip off other stories and add your own twist." Darien's heart was shattered by his professor's opinion. "The rabbit that was Alice in Wonderland mixed with the Wizard of Oz elements. Him changing into a monster had an uncanny resemblance to the movie Gremlins. And you even through a reference in from the 1989 movie Major League."
"But sir…" Darien tried to interrupt.
"No Darien"
"DS," Darien muttered.
"There are no 'buts.' Let me not to forget to mention that you referenced a television commercial. You know, the whole 'silly rabbit' thing?" Darien sat there as the professor just royally shat all over his story. He knew it was a bad idea to reference a Trix commercial, but he thought it was funny.
"Darien the assignment required you to be creative; all you did was write a fan fiction. You ripped off of someone else's work and presented to me as your own. I'm going to give you the weekend to write another story." The term "fan fiction" repeated itself over and over in Darien's mind. "And try to stay away from writing about grandfather-clocks. Lara's father was killed when a grandfather clock fell from a ten-story building and struck him in the head," Professor Lang added laughing, and quickly realized it was inappropriate. "Um, well yes. See you on Monday Darien."
Professor Lang quickly packed up his things and left Darien to sulk in the empty class room. Fan fiction?, He thought. And in a quick rage, Darien spoke loudly to the empty room, "And by the way, DS is a throwback to the Nintendo DS. By chance, I love Nintendo and my initials spell DS!" Darien couldn't figure out why is professor didn't like his story? He didn't even let me finish it! His thoughts screamed.
Fan fiction my ass, he thought. I didn't even get to the best plot twist: Scooby-Doo was going to show up with Sarah and unmask the rabbit. Turned out the rabbit was Toto that whole time. He smiled at his own ingenious, ending.
Sarah, his girlfriend, seemed to like it when he read it to her at breakfast. That's right Sarah! He remembered he promised to meet her in the café before the long weekend. He awoke from his comatose state, grabbed his book bag and ran to the cafeteria. If there was one person that would listen to him complain, it would be Sarah.
-----------------------
"Hey loser," Markey snickered as he shoved Darien into the wall outside the cafeteria. "Nice story idiot, what inspired you, Nick Jr.?" he laughed while elbowing one of his lackeys for aproval. Darien just stared at Markey. He was red-faced one hundred-percent of the time with a head of fiery orange curls. His face was covered in freckles and his eyebrows were barely noticeable. He was bigger than Darien, but Darien didn't care. He put up with his crap in high school, but they were in college now.
"Listen, Penisbreath. You better get your stereotypical bully face out of my way or I am going to body slam you out a window," an empty threat from Darien. "We are in college now, and are you still going to bully me? Don't you have something better to do?" Darien added.
"If better, involves kicking your face in; eyuck, eyuck, eycuk," Markey laughed. "Relax; I just wanted to give you some good pointers. Didn't you love my story of the alien who loves candy? I especially liked the part when he paddled the snot nose brat. I you hate nerds!"
Darien didn't know what to say, he just stood there with his jaw gaped. "Are you for real? You laugh like Goofy, your story was basically a gay version of E.T., and you just referenced a bully from Revenge of the Nerds." Darien angrily shouted as he jammed his index finger into Markey's bulging chest. "How about you go indulged in some good fiction, like Watchmen. You kind of look like Rorschach already; maybe you will learn something valuable like how much your mom should charge for blow jobs." Dairen closed his eyes and stepped back for a second realizing he might be in for it.
Hesitantly he opened his eyes a little to see the look on Markey's face. Bad move, his face was so red that his freckles on his face looked purple. He shut his eyes to an image of Markey raising his fist, when suddenly someone stepped in front of him.
"Move you fugly witch! I'm going to wail on your boyfriend! Maybe break is glasses too!" Markey roared.
Sarah cocked her hip to the side while she placed her hand on the other side. "First of all he is NOT my boyfriend; second of all what the hell are you talking about? He doesn't even wear glasses! And finally take your Abercrombie shirt and your stupid man-crocks and walk the other way," Sarah screamed as she exploded on him.
"I love crocks, and my mom bought me this shirt," Markey whimpered.
"With her blow job money?" Darien added as he stood safely behind Sarah wincing for a second.
"You know what; I don't have time for this. Me and a couple of hot chicks are going to play miniature golf tonight, I need to get ready. See you hosiers!" Markey boomed as he walked away laughing with his lackeys.
"What? You aren't even Canadian! Do you even know what the means?" Darien angrily out after him stepping in front of Sarah.
Markey turned around and yelled back, "Hey watch out next time I see you. Instead of saying 'Who killed Kenney?' they'll be saying 'Who killed Darien?'"
As Darien was preparing to say something else Sarah stopped him. "You know what Darien you need to stop these stupid references to different pop-culture. It is getting ridiculous, you almost got your face punched-in. Look at your readers! They already seem bored and confused; can we get on with the story?"
"Um Sarah? Did you just break the fourth wall?" Darien laughed. "Only Deadpool is allowed to do that."
Sarah's face turned to stone, and then she started to laugh. "I can never stay angry at you."
"So are you going to take me up on that date proposal?" Darien asked. He has been asking Sarah for the past year, but she always quietly refuses. He likes to think that they are a couple, but she always refuses the notion. She just wants to stay 'friends."
Sarah put her finger on her chin as if she was pondering the question, "No. Anyway how did your story go?"
"Mr. Lang said it was fan fiction, he wants me to write a new story by Monday," Darien lamented.
"Well it kind of was Darien. I mean I thought it was good, but lately you seemed to be infatuated with other peoples' work. You're like the perfect example of consumerism gone bad." Sarah was communications's major and ever since her communication theory class she believes people are too obsessed with brand names. She stands by the notion that consumerism has been sucking the creativity of our culture since the 1980s.
"Sarah, I like the stuff I like. I couldn't live without my television shows, movies, videogames, or comics. "Darien sternly told her,
"But do you really need to wear a superhero t-shirt every day? Play every new Nintendo game that comes out? Have an obsession over zombies? You need to free yourself," she said as if she was doing an exorcism.
Darien was tired of hearing how bad others peoples work was form him. He knew he had a problem, and he couldn't think on his own. Everything that came out of his mouth was a movie reference or quote. He didn't like Sarah pointing that out.
"Just drop it," he yelled at her. "What are you doing this long weekend? Do you plan on going home? If you are then there is no point for me to stay here and waste my weekend being bored." Darien and Sarah were both sophomores at the Rubark State College. The dorms sucked, and most students go home on long weekends. But Darien would stay at the school if Sarah would stay, then he wouldn't feel the need to hang himself with his superhero t-shirts.
"No I'm going home. My brother is getting married tomorrow. I told you yesterday," Sarah said annoyed that Darien didn't remember.
"When did you tell me?" he asked.
"When you were playing that Super Metroid game for the umpteenth time. It was probably why you can't remember. You were too busy to listen to me." She said.
"Probably. I was trying to get my best speed run. You know it is impossible for me to retain information when I'm gaming," Darien selfishly added. Right away he noticed he said something wrong. Sarah's face swelled up, he couldn't tell if she was angry or sad. He figured it was 'that time of the month.' "Are you okay Sarah? I'm sorry is it that 'time' again?"
"What? No! You know what Darien Scott? I don't have time for you. And you wonder why I won't go out with you? You don't listen to me, you don't pay attention to me; all you do is complain, complain and complain about your problems." She angrily shouted as she turned on her heal and stomped down the hall. "Good day to you sir! And have a nice long, long weekend by yourself!"
Darien knew he should feel bad. Sarah was his only friend, but he couldn't help to notice that she quoted Willy Wonka. He gave a half nervous smile and walked the other way. Friendless for a weekend.
4
