Greed - O Level

Re-creation of what I wrote for my O Level English paper. Obviously it's a whole lot sleeker and shinier than the original, thanks to my shitty memory and perfectionist streak. Major plot occurences have been left unchanged.

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Being an outlaw isn't easy. I have done burglary, small theft, big theft, robbery, armed robbery, been caught in a few gang fights and was even an assassin for a while. I was not too proud of that last one, and quit, but nevertheless I needed money again.

Johnny put his best foot forward and with a sharp crack, the apartment door came off its hinges. He was taking point this time and stepped onto the carpet with his pistol up, grinning from ear to ear. It was only on raids like this that he would smile. I would have blown the lock with a blast from one of the scatterguns we packed -it was a faster method of breaking and entering - but some locals tended to place their valuables just outside the front door.

On the other hand, it tended to give residents more of an advance warning. A shotgun protruded into the right side of my peripheral vision and I leapt forward, catching the business end and forcing it down. Somewhat surprisingly, my left hand managed to wrench it out of the girl's hand - the attacker was a girl - and then I swung the butt of my revolver upwards. It was only a glancing blow but she fell immediately.

Johnny hissed and checked the rest of the rooms. No one else was in. Hastily, my partner tried to replace the broken door and cover the windows, but there were no curtains. There was not much at all. Johnny's grin had faded, but we bound the young, half-conscious girl and scoured the house anyway.

The revolver in my hand was actually my father's. He would probably be spinning in his grave if he knew what I was doing with his lawman's sidearm now. He had a single letter carved into the barrel every so often, aiming to have his pet phrase on it like a signature. He had been proud of himself, my father.

"Greed," he would say to me on one of his rare nights home. "Never take more than you don't need. Corrupts you, turns you into a monster."

Eventually his salary petered out and he only ever got up to "Greed". I snorted at the irony and went back to throwing items into my sack. In the only other room Johnny had a slightly thinner sack. He had been a devoted communist before the Soviet Union fell apart. Johnny's brain had probably suffered the same fate - at times he would spend days on end at the casino, hardly eating. There was irony there too.

There was so little that it made more sense to put all the loot in one sack instead of dividing it between Johnny and me. During the transfer, the young girl started weeping.

"Please..." she whimpered. "We're poor..."

The sack that was holding it all ruptured and spilled out onto the floor. A big bunch of coins mostly, a little bronze-coloured medal, a couple of blunt knives, and a lot of dust.

"My father, please... he's a policeman."

I winced. It was all there, heavy on my shoes. Both of us, my partner and me, looked down at the pickings of the day. Tomorrow we'd be back at the casino, in the drug alley, in the brothel, in the gun shop, then back to this business.

"Please, I be -"

Johnny grabbed the girl and hit her across the head.

"Let's sell you, cunt." He was gripping her breast and pulling her up. "Let's just sell you."

"No, let's go," I heard myself saying. "Leave it and let's move on to the next apartment."

Johnny didn't budge.

"Come on. There's nothing here-"

"The world owes me!" He was suddenly shaking more than the girl was. "I need this. I need -"

Abruptly, he released the girl and stepped out over the ruins of the door. The girl cowered.

After a while, I unholstered my father's revolver, dropped it on the pile of things, and left.


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What was added in post-exam:
Additional descriptions
Father's quest to inscribe catchphrase on revolver.
Extra irony
Johnny's use of the word "cunt".
Johnny's shaking.
An explanation of why Johnny didn't just shoot the lock and push open the door.
The sack spilling out the loot and the symbolic meaning that came with it. In the original, the robbers just threw all the stuff into a pile.
This version's portrayal of Johnny is more sympathetic. In the original he started grabbing boobs when the girl revealed her policeman father, instead of being hit with the symbolism first.
More relevance to greed.

What was kept in:
The breast-grabbing. I am sorry to say that this bit made it into the version that I handed up for the O Levels.
"Let's sell you."
The girl's pleading.
The girl's father's occupation, and how Johnny winced at it.
Johnny and his past
Protagonist and Johnny's habit of wasting their ill-earned money on gambling and other pursuits (original version had no explicitly-mentioned drugs, brothels, or gun shops though)
The girl's shotgun and her getting revolver-butted
"The world owes me, mother-fucker!"
The character's extensive experience in the criminal world.
The symbolic meaning of the father's revolver
Protagonist's father being long dead.
Withholding of the protagonist's name.
The ending.

What was left out:
I remember harping on about how lawless the protagonist's lifestyle was, and as a result ended my composition with "I have rules, too." But I guess it was a little off-point, so I took it out.
The father's advice also used to be something about keeping to your principles, but in the middle of the exam I crossed that out and wrote something about greed to be more relevant.
Johnny was portrayed less sympathetically as a slightlty bigger dirtbag in the original incarnation.
My cock

The Will of E.

E A O I D H N R S T U Y C F G L M W B K P Q X Z
This is supposedly the order of the alphabet, arranged according to usage from left to right
"E" is said to be found in almost every single piece of text. Upon reading this bit of information, my mind has been distracted from its heavy burden of memorizing countless formulas into trying to form a simple piece of text, avoiding the use of "E" as best as I can. In fact, I had wanted this post to be absent of the alphabet "E". Alas, it is a near impossible task. Oh well, if anyone of you, the rest of the Pebblefort-ers and our dear readers, are able to create a text without even the single usage of "E", please, do share.

"Astartes, to arms!" (Part I)

It really has been a while since I last posted anything of much interest on this blog. Heck, I have my own blog and even that I don't update as much as I would like to. So I've decided to drag myself to the dashboard and start typing woohooo =P

I've been reading lots of Warhammer 40K books of late, and the storyline of this particular series, The Horus Heresy, basically appeals to me:

1. Tells us that the path of man's good intentions always lead to doom or something like that as the saying goes(I forgot the exact saying).

2. Betrayal (I mean COME ONE, the word Heresy is a dead giveaway riight?)

3. Immaculate descriptions of everything; from war to the five senses of the human body, from planets to landscapes. Use the phrases if you wanna blow your English teacher away to Mars or something.

4. How eugenics is being used and its effects on the human race.

5. MORE BLOOD AND GORE!

6. You're Mom. Whoops, just kidding (;

So here's the story in a nutshell.

It's the year We have the Imperium of Man, which is of course the humans la dey. Their leader is the Emperor of Mankind (fancy title) and after winning control of Terra (that's Earth for us), he's on a Grand Crusade to conquer the outer reaches o the universe to bring glory to Mankind because hey, they just needed a reason to go about killing stuff ^^

Even the Emperor could not be everywhere at the same time, and accordingly he created twenty Primarchs using his own DNA. Primarchs, genetically modified superhuman beings who are second only to him in skill, ability and sheer power and most importantly, completely loyal and devoted to him.

Let's pick up the pace. However while the foetal Primarchs where still maturating inside of womb-vats, the Chaos Gods (bear with me here) somehow managed to spirit them away. Unable to destroy them, they still were able to scatter the Primarchs throughout the galaxy. However not everything was lost, and using samples collected previously from the Primarchs the Emperor was able to create Space Marines. In the creation of a particular legion he only used the material of a single Primarch. This created twenty distinct Space Marines Legions which he led into the Great Crusade. Note, a Space Marine, or commonly known as Astartes, were to a Primarch as the Primarchs were to the Emperor.

So the Emperor of course continued with his Crusade nonetheless, perhaps after watching Meet The Robinsons (the joke is in the context and the moral of the story in the movie =D). But one by one, he stumbled upon his Primarch sons in the worlds that he conquered. The first one to be found, was Horus Lupercal. Yeah, Horus Heresy is about Horus' betrayal of the Emperor. So how did he do it?

I'm too lazy to continue now, and also because it might get a bit too long for just one post, so stay tuned for part 2 (;

Murderous Spelling

I'm sick and tired of spelling errors in Panzer's posts (no offence, bud). xD

See, 'tumulous' is spelled as "tumultous"!

'dedided' is "decided"

'blatent' is "blatant"

xD I'm only doing this because I'm bored so yeah. Again, Panzer, no offence.

The Math of English.

As we all know, we are currently banded for English and as of late, I am quite positively pissed with the way English is taught in schools in Singapore now. We try to force "good" descriptions and bombastic language nobody uses in real conversation and encourage then to pen them down on essays with have virtually no plot, no life at all. Just to get a good score.

What happened to the time when we nurtured creativity, ideas and individualism in writing? Not to mention supporting something that was simple yet brilliant? I have to admit for the sake of a nice score and something to show my parents that chinese is for n00bs, I also find myself going to thesaurus.com more often than my entire schooling life. Reading sample essay of which "model" descriptions only makes me more pissed. Seriously, is this how cambridge determines the ability of a writer? By his vast vocabulary and "ability" to describe it out? Used properly, I really do feel that simple vocabulary like for example "a dark night" is more powerful emotionally than " darkness shrouded the night sky". It just sounds so...cheesy.

If you give me a medicore score to tell me my story was bad, thank you. If you gave me a lowscore because I didn't use the amazing descriptions you gave me..WTF.

-Panzerz (ideas paint far greater pictures than words can imagine)

"Gay Rights" is NOT an Oxymoron, you Moron!

Oxymoron
ox·y·mo·ron [ok-si-mawr-on]
Rhetorical figure by which contradictory terms are conjoined so as to give point to the statement or expression; the word itself is an illustration of the thing. Now often used loosely to mean "contradiction in terms."
[Online Etymology Dictionary ]

Gay Rights
Definition: equal civil and social rights for homosexuals
[Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English]

Now that we have the above terms properly defined, I feel that we are ready to go on.

As some allege, an example of an oxymoron, is "Gay Rights". However, I feel compelled to point out the definition of an oxymoron as shown above refers to a "contradiction in terms", which is clearly absent in the term "Gay Rights". By any rule of the English Language, I can thus prove once and for all that "Gay Rights" is NOT an oxymoron, unlike "Cruel Kindness" and "Slow Lightning".

As a result, I feel extrememly compelled to assume that when you say " 'Gay Rights' is an oxymoron", you are actually implying that members of the homosexual community are are to be denied rights to be themselves? To be denied freedom, a principle which many fathers of fathers fought for, and swore their loves to uphold? Rights that make us human, rights that make us unique from other mammals. Am I right to assume you want these people to be deprived of their rights and freedom, and instead to be classified as animals with homosexual tendencies?

So please, for the love of the Language, keep it in your heads to not use powerful words such as "oxymoron" to further your cause to deprive our fellow homo sapiens, who happen to belong to the category we give them as "Homosexual", of their rights.

Speaking of which, the word "Homosexual" contains the prefix "Homo", which is the genus of us humans. Thus, I beseech anyone who reads this to please uphold their rights as human.

-Giant

Quintessence;

The purest or most typical form of something. So the quintessence of (let's just say) sex would be for human reproduction, so I don't know why all you peeps are so hyped up about sex and all, when it's just an act of reproducing.

"You got a socket? C'mon, I got a plug, and there're humans to be made."

So now we move on to ubiquitous. Omnipresent; seeming to be everywhere at the same time. Seriously, this word looks friggin' cool, but only if you know how to use it (;
So let's say that oppression is ubiquitous, just that the oppressed don;t know that they're BEING oppressed and the oppressors don't even know that they ARE oppressing. Interesting, no?

"Yeah yeah I know, porn IS ubiquitous. And that sucks, period."

theres a first for everything. and heres mine.

yep. to all you who actually bothered to keep count, this is my first post.

so, after the sleep inducing post on "Alien Therapy", the Intro, the introduction of Epilepsy courtesy of Lime and Wikipedia, and the 500 word long essay, it looks like its my turn..

seriously, i think there really isn't much to talk(write) about.. so i'm just gonna do up a little recommended reading list (which translates to MUST READ OR DIE!) for the politically, socially, and conspiratorially aware.

1. Ninety Eighty-Four - George Orwell
2. A Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
3. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
4. Animal Farm - George Orwell
5. as many Wikipedia articles as you can possibly read

There we are. Of course this is done with a subjective tone, as it is what i feel..
No hard feelings eh, mates?

-Giant left his mark

The Pebble Fort - Original Story

So here it is, the original Pebble Fort. It doesn't mean something special to the rest of the guys, not even to me (the author) but hey, if it sounds cool...
I wrote this one for a short story competition. Submissions were supposed to be aimed at 4-8 year olds. It taught me something: I don't ever want to dumb down my standards for some toddler to understand. Fuck them anyway. All they ever do at that age is chew on Honey Stars and watch Pikachu digivolving into Kirby.

One day I'll fully explain the symbolic meaning of the pebble fort.


THE PEBBLE FORT
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I thought I would never get there, but I reached the top of the hill in good time. If I wanted to, I could stay for a few hours, drinking in the moist air and fresh green grass. Sitting down gingerly on the soft, slight slope, I shut my eyes and shut out the present.

I drifted into a blurry memory of my younger days on the hill. It was like being in a big, choppy sea. I swam around blindly for something solid. And then, it hit me clearly like catching a pebble in my hands.

I said it aloud suddenly, wanting to know if I had got it right after all these years. The empty air had no reply. Of course.

She had only told me her name once, just that once when we first met on this hill.

She snorted when she heard mine. “That’s a lousy name.”

“Well then, what’s your name?” I challenged meekly.

I wasn’t impressed by her answer. “I didn’t come here to argue about names,” she shrugged.

She had come to escape her family. An ugly, controlling lot that created frowns on her face. My background was different – my parents didn’t care at all – but the feelings between us were the same.

Gradually but surely, we moved beyond discussing random events under the stars. Once, in the privacy of night, she confessed that she didn’t know what to do after leaving school.

I smiled and said recklessly, “Who cares? Only now matters. Us. And here.”

Our busy days meant that we gave up sleep to come to the hill through the secret entrance, but it always seemed more alive to us than our real lives. We did a million pointless things: climbing the tallest tree, racing stick-and-leaf flying machines, spotting fish in little ponds by flashlight.

One night she arrived with beautiful flowers in her hair and a tear-soaked face.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Nothing. Let’s make a pebble fort.”

We gathered pebbles from the hill’s bottom, but I was worried about her. Both of us built the fort quietly. I noticed flashlights shining, approaching, but she was absorbed in slipping flowers in between the cracks in the pebble pile. She took my hand and looked at me like she wanted to disappear into a crack, too.

I looked at the lights behind her, growing brighter and understood… so the real world knew, and was coming.

“No – the pebble fort isn’t finished – ”

She pushed me down the hill.

The last I saw was her squinting against the lights on her face, and the pebble fort coming apart at the tip of her foot, cascading down the hill like a landslide. I ran away from my childhood.

Now, right now, the sky is turning dark, but I don’t think she’s coming. So I busy myself with gathering pebbles, and rebuild my past, alone.

And then, the sun finally and truly set on my pebble fort for the first and last time.


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I had good comments on the story that noted it was "sweet" and "nostalgic". DYA? EYA.