[MasterONaniFiqh]

the heart of all creative writing is the free write. it's opening your mind up and letting whatever's in it come out, WITHOUT judging yourself or it. it's very hard to get the hang of, then it's very hard to get back once you've gotten out of the hang of doing it. but it's very important. so, let's do some of that. because i really really really need to get back into the swing of things. (i should've used another play on "hang" there, but couldn't be bothered.)

so, yes. ahem. here. free write! stream of consciousness, baby. let's see what's in our heads. go for as long as you want in whatever style you want. try to develop whatever voices you may or may not have in your head. shake up the closet and let tumble forth the skeletons. i'm hoping for some literary type stuff, seing as this is the hallowed, "art, literature, and poetry" section.

so, go...

[MasterONaniFiqh]

The imam of Masjid Al-Fursat was clearly an idiot. Abdul Kareem Fahmi could tell this with just a single glance. The man had no beard. The man was wearing shorts. The man was speaking in Urdu. And the man was....a painter. A painter of people. Of animals. Of Animate life. Everyone knew! Everyone had seen the sketchook! Everyone!

And the people, Abdul Kareem reminded himself, as he sat quietly yet angrily in his usual position in the first row of the friday prayer, in the newly expanded prayer hall, the people, who had supported the new imam's hiring and positions, they too, were idiots.

Sinful, shameful, shameless idiots.

And today...today, he would make them all pay.

The sound of the young imam clearing his throat reverberated through the speaker system. He was about to begin his pre-sermon talk in English, before the Urdu sermon before the prayer.

His name, Abdul Kareem leered as he reminded himself, was...."Steven."

How? How on earth? A heathen name! A kafir name! How could they? How dare they! And knee-length cargo shorts!

It was too much. Last week he wore a shalwar kamiz and tried to hide his stripes. This week he showed his true colors. Not that it was necessary.

The imam started to speak.

Abdul Kareem stood up suddenly. Now was the time. Now they would all hear his righteous wrath. The other men in the front row, all the old timers, all the righteous ones, they all knew what time it was. They all knew that after weeks of quiet murmuring at the sidelines, one of them would finally speak out and shame these young fools for their irresponsible decision!

The imam, Steven ("Steven!" could you believe it?), turned to Abdul Kareem with a knowing smile. The arrogant young upstart.

Abdul Kareem opened his mouth.

And at that instant let out a monstrous, boisterous eruption of wind from under his white robe.

Silence gripped the room.

No one moved.

Even the five ceiling fans spaced out above somehow stopped.

Abdul Kareem's eyes were wide. His mouth was open in a complete, silent circle. His cheeks were suddenly very red.

The imam's eyebrows were raised in surprise.

A kickball came bouncing into the mosque with a slightly metallic "boing" through the open front doors, no doubt an errant shot from a game being played by some of the more hard-to-corral kids still outside.

But it came to a rest in the back row without so much as a notice by any of the congregants there.

Finally...interrupting the stillness...the imam cleared his throat.

Abdul Kareem slowly sat back down.

And the pre-sermon talk, on the topic of the mercy of the lord and the prophet, went on as planned.

[bluey]

Originally Posted by MasterONaniFiqh

The imam of Masjid Al-Fursat was clearly an idiot. Abdul Kareem Fahmi could tell this with just a single glance. The man had no beard. The man was wearing shorts. The man was speaking in Urdu. And the man was....a painter. A painter of people. Of animals. Of Animate life. Everyone knew! Everyone had seen the sketchook! Everyone!

And the people, Abdul Kareem reminded himself, as he sat quietly yet angrily in his usual position in the first row of the friday prayer, in the newly expanded prayer hall, the people, who had supported the new imam's hiring and positions, they too, were idiots.

Sinful, shameful, shameless idiots.

And today...today, he would make them all pay.

The sound of the young imam clearing his throat reverberated through the speaker system. He was about to begin his pre-sermon talk in English, before the Urdu sermon before the prayer.

His name, Abdul Kareem leered as he reminded himself, was...."Steven."

How? How on earth? A heathen name! A kafir name! How could they? How dare they! And knee-length cargo shorts!

It was too much. Last week he wore a shalwar kamiz and tried to hide his stripes. This week he showed his true colors. Not that it was necessary.

The imam started to speak.

Abdul Kareem stood up suddenly. Now was the time. Now they would all hear his righteous wrath. The other men in the front row, all the old timers, all the righteous ones, they all knew what time it was. They all knew that after weeks of quiet murmuring at the sidelines, one of them would finally speak out and shame these young fools for their irresponsible decision!

The imam, Steven ("Steven!" could you believe it?), turned to Abdul Kareem with a knowing smile. The arrogant young upstart.

Abdul Kareem opened his mouth.

And at that instant let out a monstrous, boisterous eruption of wind from under his white robe.

Silence gripped the room.

No one moved.

Even the five ceilings fans spaced out above somehow stopped.

Abdul Kareem's eyes were wide. His mouth was open in a complete, silent circle. His cheeks were suddenly very red.

The imam's eyebrows were raised in surprise.

A kick ball came bouncing into the mosque through the open front doors, no doubt an errant shot from a game being played by some of the more hard-to-corral kids still outside.

But it came to a rest in the back row without so much as a notice by any of the congregants there.

Finally...interrupting the stillness...the imam cleared his throat.

Old Abdul Kareem slowly sat back down.

And the pre-sermon talk, on the topic of the mercy of the lord and the prophet, went on as planned.

Mashallah, you're good. It was very gripping, you just had to know what happened at the end.

I used to write fiction before, nothing complete, but short stories or just paragraphs. But I'm not sure how cool I am about sharing it or writing in public. I've never shared my work in public and I haven't written anything fictional in a long time.

Who knows, I just might [Or might not] give it a try here.

[Bluestar]

Yann Tiersen's, Comtine D'un Autre Ete: L'apres Midi piece was played to me in the humid, stale air of the four roomed wall. I did not hear it with my ears but it was still played to me. It was comfort, pure comfort. The wall of outrage and pain was broken down by this one piece. I could have forgiven anything.

In another's reality, the description of this dingy room would be plain, simple. Luxuries existed reflecting the affluency of a guardians' wealth, everything a young person would want. A comfortable king sized bed positioned near a radiator. A mahogony chandelier hanging proudly from the ceiling. Newly fitted carpets, newly painted walls.

If someone had asked me about the description of the room, it would have differed slightly. The room had a smell, the kind of smell which is the amalgamated scent of a 100 bodies each having spent their lives in this room individually and completely alone ageing slowly, decomposing and then vanishing into dust. The kind of smell which seemed as if these prisoners wiped their blood and sweat on the walls to leave some kind of proof of their existence or perhaps they were just clawing to get out. To fling themselves out of this room merely to breathe a second of fresh air on their way from the window to the hard ground below them.

"Eyes will never see me, i have no worth to anyone but that does not mean i do not exist".

There are faces, faces of a horrifying appearance, screaming in a dark room. Blood red lips and eyes terrorised to the depths of insanity. The scream existing beyond time and space. They cannot be touched or stopped, they only exist. This room, this room of the dead where i am alive and then i will be just another one of them. One, who has no importance with the ticking of a clock, time of day is insignificant. All that matters are how loud the shrill of the screams are and sometimes laughter. Which is worse, I have not yet found out.

This room, my "home" as somebody once mentioned it. This room was my world since memory could be stored. I slept, i stared and i read. I read until i was diagnosed with anorexia, they thought it was too long i had held that book. So many worlds i had explored within that room, I stood on the highest peak of the Iberian Peninsula, watched the battle of empires between the Ummayads and Abbasids, The Timurids, Sassanids and Ilkinids. I shook my head when I saw Shell and BP economically oppressed the Iraqi people for oil, when i heard the African slave sing the sweet melody of his ancestors and that being transformed into the Blues. I met Darwin and Pope Pius from the Crusades whom I successfully kicked in the backside.

He yelped like a small poodle.

I watched Victorian women live out their lives, Jane Eyre, Agnes Grey, Helen Graham, Lucy Snow. Not bound by space or time, I travelled to places known to be impossible, watching the sun set in the 7th century and rise again in the 18th. Then they found out, they realised this illegal sense of freedom, this shattering of the rules they erected on the walls surrounding this physical shell i dwelled in. The rotation of books was stopped, I died sitting on the window ledge, thinking of Khalid Hosseini, Charles Dickens and Mildred Taylor. The shrilling sounds of screams and laughter settled inside me, nothing else existed before or beyond that.

[zzze]

asslamau alaykum

oh

[MasterONaniFiqh]

Mustafa Gul was nearly complete. As a person, as a human being. It had been years this mission of his had started on this patchy grass field he was standing on. Years and years and years of repetitive motonoy all on this single day. Again and again it would come. And again and again he would wage his one man war...with the parking organizational mess of his mosque. I

t was called Masjid Al-Mustafa.

It was not named after him. But that did not matter. It was not his in the sense of ownership of it to him, but of him to it. That is how he had always felt and the feeling had always given him a sense of solace. A sense of place and belonging, and he thanked, silently, in his heart of hearts, the Pakistani immigrants who had some considerable decades earlier and through much strife of politicking and arguing amongst themselves, decided to build this mosque here. So close to where he would eventually come to live. Here, fresh after college. In this dingy little city in suburban Ohio.

Ater his studies had tapered out and his engineering job had left him, but his green card had arrived. And he had already become a citizen. So there was no question of him going back to Turkey. Not really. No. This was his place. Mustafa...of masjid Al-Mustafa. Devoted and devotee. Dilligent and quiet man of the mosque. He would come on weekends to help clean. He would do all the little rituals afforded convenience by his hostle being so near by. He loved this community Pakistanis and some Arabs and some black people and some Mexican converts. He loved them. Though they did not love him back.

Not on this day. For this day was the greatest of days for the community. This day was Eid. And on this day was his one man war against parking chaos waged year after year.

There was of course no committee to handle the parking matters. Oh yes, there was noise of a committee to do such things. There was posturing about the importance of such matters.

But Mustafa had noticed early on, somewhere in the mid 80s, that that was all it was. That despite that, as the community grew, the parking disorder of the Eid holiday only worsened. Never got better.

Mustafa would adjust his square-framed glasses and frown his squarish eyebrows set on his sqaurish forehead, and run a hand through his straight hair, neatly parted over from left to right, making for the appearance of his somewhat squarish haircut. He would swallow once, then twice. Every year after the prayer was done and the milling about and eating of foods from the stalls on the grounds was done and the laughter and the happiness was done and relief of having made it to the prayer on time for those who had, or the discomfort of having just missed it for those had not and had had to pray a make-up prayer afterward for it or instead of it with a smaller impromptu secondary congregation. And then he would watch...the chaos. The horn honking. The fights. The arguments. The crying babies, the screaming women.

It all reminded him of childhood in Kurdistan.

It would not do.

So, he set to work, first with stones and streamers to divide the lawn used as a parking lot, surrounding the simple white structure of the mosque. Then he would use cones and measured tape and long tracts of string.

No one objected to what he would do. No one really seemed to mind. They became accostomed. The hodge-podge assemblage of regular volunteers who had up till then gotten accostumed to standing about amidst the traffic chaos waving their hands ineffectually as the mess would take it's usual 45 minutes to unwinde itself tortorously each Eid morning, well, they came to look to Mustafa for guidance.

He would get up in the early morning the night before, whether or not he had had to work a long night shift at the convenience store nearby or not, and go to the mosque and set up his system for each year.

But the congregation would not yield to him. All many of them cared about was getting to the prayer in time (though often for many of them just at the last second), parking nearby to limit how much they had to walk to get there, and perhaps easily getting out again at the end. They did not care who they blocked in. They did not care who they blocked in. They did not care about the consequences at the end.

Eventually, as the years rolled on, a police man or two, passing by in his car, as the community grew and the cars spread out of the parking lot even and along the street before the mosque, all along its chainlink fence there, centered by the black pole with the square white sign that said "Masjid Al-Mustafa", the police cars would come by and try to help with the traffic. But they could not do it. And they looked to Mustafa to guide them, as well.

Certainly the Muslims would not fight with the police men or argue with them. But really, Mustafa noticed, their influence only extended for a few meters around them. They would secure one lane of traffic into the lawn and that everyone got out in that same lame without bumping into each other. But once they were in the lawn, once they were on his grid, they were his to handle.

This year. Finally, it had all come together. Orange guiding tape had been laid to divide the space into long horizontal rows. Spaces were left for lanes between them. One long exit route extended along the left side of the field. Volunteers, coralled early by Mustafa, were placed at crucial positions at corners and mid-lanes to guide the incoming cars. The back entrance on the fence had been opened to allow another access/exit point.

And in came the cars, like the drops of a waterfall, all moving in tandem. A perfect cataract. Each was a glorious little gem, shining in the sunlight. Dominos falling into place.

Mustafa watched them. He did not have to call out with his languid, birdlike calls of "Ah! Ah! Na! NA!" waving his arms frantically left or right to herd them along. No. He just watched as the volunteers made easy, casual motions with their hands and the cars obeyed and rowed up like peaceful early morning congregants themselves.

He was standing there, beside the basketball court that was in front of the mosque. (Keeping cars from parking on the court had been one of the earliest battles to win, years ago.) And he felt so good.

Even the policemen had left, feeling undeeded.

It was just a minute now till the prayer would begin. He would forgo the first congregation and join in with the second to insure the ease of things. He would get up as quickly as he could then to make sure it all unfurled as planned in the end. But it would. It was goind perfectly.

Then, suddenly, there came a loud...honk.

He turned to the right. There, at the left, at the head of the exit route, the lynchpin of his entire exit strategy. There...now parked was a big...white....conversion van. It's owner, a rotund little man with wild hair and a frazzled mustache was walking happily away. The honk had come from his alarm remote. He was tucking it snuggly back into his shirt pocket. He wore a blue buttoned short sleeve dress shirt and gray slacks. His face was flustered. He was obscured for a moment by some passing prayer-goers.

Then he saw him.

It was Feroz....Feroz Punjabi.

His arch nemesis.

[MasterONaniFiqh]

Feroz' eyes met Mustafa's...and he smiled under his fiery eyebrows.

Mustafa started to move to try and cut him off. He had to reach him before he reached the prayer tent next to the basketball court. If Feroz started to pray any extra prayers, or if he was even able to sit down and the sermon able to start, it would be too late. Mustafa heard the imam clear his throat on the loud speaker.

He started to run without realizing it.

Feroz started to walk quicker through the cars on the lawn.

Mustafa climbed up onto a cadillac, bounded across its roof, up onto an SUV and then unintentionally over the round hood of a Volkswagen Bug with a squaking "Waaa!" Just before Feroz could make it through the opening between two cars in the last row he found Mustafa suddenly rolling onto his feet before him.

Feroz recoiled like a cornered mongoose, hands out at his side in little clawed anticipatory shapes.

"What you wanting, convert?"

"Turk! I am Turk!"

Feroz seemed to hiss. He smiled a disengenuous smile. The same one he always smiled. "Oh, so sorry brother. Not to realize. You are so white."

Mustafa's eyes narrowed. He nodded back to the big white van with the flame job parked two rows back along the fence, blocking the exit path.

"Your car! To move it, okay, brother?"

"What is my car is? It is not for a problem, brother."

"Is block lane for exit! Is block it!"

"No," said Feroz, smiling evilly. "It is not to block brother, I am simply--"

There was a glint in Feroz' eyes. Mustafa couldn't place it. He had seen something...something behind him!

Suddenly there was the sound of the muezzin clearing his throat on the loud speaker. The voice started in on the call to prayer that would mark the start of the service.

"Ha ha!" Feroz pointed at him. "Too lating!"

"No way!" Mustafa grabbed the keys out from Feroz' shirt pocket and made a break for it, squeezing past between the little Pakistani and the Volkswagen and then running toward the van.

"Hey! Hey! You crazy! Give back to it! Give back to it!" shouted Feroz running after him.

"Exit lane!" shouted Mustafa. The call to prayer was going on behind them. Echoing out across the empty lanes of cars. Some of the parishioiners sitting under the tent had heard the noise and were starting to turn. But then the imam began to speak.

Feroz was just halfway through a shout of "You cra--" when the imam's voice began, and he quickly silenced his cry in reponse, but continued his chase.

Mustafa was in the van now, revving it up. Feroz popped out in front of him on the lawn. They shared a look through the windshield. Their eyes narrowed. The van motor revved.

There was stillness for a moment. Then Mustafa's eyes narrowed tighter and Feroz's suddenly went wide. "No!" shouted the Pakistani.

Mustafa's foot pressed hard on the gass and the van sputtered forth with a jerk. Feroz rolled out of the way, just as the van lurched out and turned sharply to position itself perfectly at the end of the row of cars beside it, making up the long row of cars along the fence and the exit path.

The engine stopped. The door opened. Mustafa stepped out of the car, his feet landing right in front of the fallen Feroz's nose. Feroz was on his back looking up at Mustafa. Mustafa looked down at him, silhouetted against the morning light. There was uncertainty in Feroz's eyes and sweat pepperd his brow.

Then a pair of keys landed on his belly.

"Ramadan mubarak," said Mustafa and strode toward the tent.

"Allah-u-ackbar," came the call of the imam.

[shsh]

i was in downtown. riding the bus. well, a lot happened before i got on the bus. i had just stepped out my class. the building was hot. outside would be hotter, i thought. it wasnt. the breeze felt good. only for a few minutes though. then it got cold. i knew i should have took my hoodie before i left. i started walking the six blocks till the bus stop. damn. it was far. the walk wasnt bad though. so many people in to look at and so many things to think about while walking. what was a killer was the smell of food and coffee coming from all the restaurants. i was dying for something to munch on and to sip on some coffee in that cool breeze. couldnt. fasting.

the first four blocks were fine but after that i wanted to rest. sitting in the same room for three hours listening to my professor's monotonous voice talk about spectophotometry wasnt really my idea of a good saturday morning. and then there was the walk. damn. almost there. the bus stop. i could see it. next block and over was the bus stop.

finally. on the bus. riding the bus. i had my double sided knitting needles with me. i was knitting away. this little african american girl came and sat next to me. at first, she was just staring intently as i knit. then...

"what if you stab yourself?"
"i wont"
"you could"
"i dont think so"
"what if you do"
"well then it wouldnt hurt much"
"no?"
"well i dont know, i dont think so"
"will you die"
"i dont think so, these needles are pretty thin"
"what if you poke yourself and the bus comes to a quick stop and the you get a little rip in your body"
"..."
"will you die then?"
"...."
"...."
"maybe..."
"ok. that looks great. bye."

the rest of the ride home, i was thinking about how i could have easily died on the spot in the bus if Allah wanted me to. i could have accidently poked myself and the bus could have come to an abrupt stop and i could have died. bled to death. sure people could have tried to help me. but what if it was a big rip. loss of blood. death.


(this actually happened...but the lil girl didnt say those exact words)

[MasterONaniFiqh]

A middle aged man in slightly tight pants walks into a gas station convenience store. “Hi. I’d like to buy a packet of Marlboro Lights.”

“Ok, sir. Just one second,” says the prim, skinny lady in the red glasses and red apron behind the counter. She turns around, grabs a packet of cigarettes from the stacks against the wall and then turns back around. “Here you go. That’ll be four dollars.”

“Allright,” says the man, reaching for his wallet.

“They’ll kill ya, y’know.”

“Excuse me?” The man looks up.

“What? Sorry?” says the woman innocently.

“Did…did you just say something?”

“Oh, no. Sorry. Not me. Must have been the radio.”

“Uh. You didn’t just say “they’ll kill ya, y’know?’”

“No. Sir. I’m terribly sorry. Oh my gosh. That’s horrible. Horrible thing to say. I’d never.”

“All right, all right” he reaches for his wallet again, looking down a bit as he does.

“Whatever you say Johnny Black Lung. Not my kids crying at the funeral.”

“Hey now!” he looks up and shoots an excusing finger at her.

She is shocked and gives a startled little yelp and raises her arms straight up. “Ah! Is this a hold up!?”

“No! You said something. You called me Johnny Black Lung!”

“Oh, sir. Please! I’d never say something like that! That’s horrible. I’m just trying to sell you these cigarettes!”

“I heard you! I heard you say it!”

“I promise you, sir, I did not.”

He keeps his finger up for a moment longer, looking at her sternly but still unsure. Finally he lowers it. She puts her hands down with a sigh of relief.

Now, eyes still on her, he slowly starts to reach for his wallet.

“Hope you’ve got a good will. A new lung’s gonna cost a whole lot mo—“ she puts her hands over her mouth to stop herself. "eep."

“Aha!” he says with a point of both fingers this time. He jabs them at her as he talks. “Gonna cost me is it? Well. I think someone’s going to end up paying a little more than me. I wanna talk to your manager, sister! Yeah!”

The woman lowers her head sadly. She reaches over to the intercom mic, sighs and says “Maury to the counter, please…Maury to the counter.”

The man folds his arms triumphantly over his chest. “Yeah, we’ll see who shoulda rethink their lifestyle choice.”

The manager steps up to the counter. The man smiles.

The manager smiles. He raises an electrolarynx to his throat and says “What seems to be the problem, sir?”

[Purple_alien]

I can't believe I feel sorry for her. She betrayed an entire city, perhaps the whole journalism profession. She makes me as a young, Black journalist from the suburbs look bad, and yet, I feel her pain. I want to find her, learn from her mistakes. I want to let her know that I understand why she did it. The Washington Post is a respected newspaper, and the famous reporter Bob Woodward was her editor. How can you not be the best there? It is one of the great newspapers in the country and they were telling her they would give her a chance. She had to blow them away.
Janet Cooke has the potential to be my literary idol. We have similar upbringings and similar likes. Sure, she liked fancy clothing when she was my age, but I never said we were carbon copies. I felt like crying when I read about her downfall. She has disappeared now. I hear she has changed her name and went back to school for art.
She's about 53 now. I have to find her. I have to know why she did it.

[MasterONaniFiqh]

"God damned writer's BLOCK!" Mr. McFinney through his cup of cold coffee right straight at the window of the nursing home and it bounced off the glass of the sliding glass door and almost hit him in the pants leg. But he didn't care.

Kenny, his nurse, pudgy and pink under his aqua smocks, rushed to close the blinds and clean up the mess. "Oh, oh, oh my goodness, I am so sorry, Mr. McFinney! I am so sorry!" He closed the blinds. He got a towel off the dresser and starts to clean up the half a cup of coffee on the floor. "I forgot to close the window. I know how it bothers you. I'm so stupid!"

"It ain't you, ya little piglet! It's them! Them!" McFinney pointed a bony finger out at the now blinded window. "The writer's block! THE WRITER'S BLOCK!" He stared, seething at the window. His old eyes fixating tightly underneath his skinny spectacles. His other first was balled tightly.

"S-s-sorry, s-s-sir," said Kenny as he kept his gaze averted and mopped up the mini-mess on the otherwise spotless floor. He knew better to talk too much when Mcfinney went into....the trance.

The Shady Days retirement home was directly across the street from a block of real estate that had been purchased the previous year for a new, tax-funded writer's commune and arts collective. It was commonly known as "The Writer's Block." Things had progressed at a rapid pace on the project and tomorrow would be opening day.

By virtue of fate, Mckinney's room faced out across the side lawn, directly opposite the building. He had seen it grow from first groundbreaking, to eventual swelling of color and vibrant, simple, art-deco infused life.

And soon, it would be full. Full of living, breathing, functioning writers.

Writers like McFinney had always wanted to be. Had tried to be. Had almost started to actually, really be. Until that fateful day in the middle of his 24th year of life when it all just dried up. When it went away. When he was hit by

"The WRITER'S BLOCK! THE WRITER'S BLOCK! THE WRITER'S--ACK!" The old man clutched his chest. "Peaches!" he gritted out through yellowed teeth and doubled back onto his bed.

"Oh no! Code blue!" yelped Kenny, hoisting the whole of his pudgy pink bulk up to smack the intercom help alarm beside the bed. "Breathe, Mr. M! Brea--" he was cut off by a stiff smack to the face and he stumbled back.

McFinney got a hold of himself and struggled back up, just as a couple of other nurses skidded to a halt outside the open door to the room.

"Just...a...just a test run again, suckers. Get back to your bed pan wetters!" he said without turning to the new comers outside. Seeing it was another false alarm, they grumbled annoyance and disappeared whence they'd come.

Kenny was huddled against the sliding glass door, on the verge of bawling. McFinney looked down at him and a slight break in his grim expression broke. He reached down a hand to the young man. "Ah. Get up, kid. That's another one I owe you."

Furtively, Kenny took the hand and got up. Rubbing his cheek he collected the towel he'd been cleaning with and started to head out. "Sorry, Mr. M. I'll remember not to leave the curtain open next time. Sorry that transfer to the other side of the buildling you wanted didn't come in." He was almost the door now. "And thanks for putting the good word in with the boss for me last month." He smiled a red-cheeked smile of commiseration. "It got me that raise. Seven bucks an hour. It's p-prettys sweet. I can go to the Demloition Derby tomorrow now. Say, you wanna come along Mr. M.? You could, you know, get to miss all that stuff you don't wanna be around for across the street tomorrow."

McFinney was almost back in his bed to try and settle in for his afternoon nap as Kenny had blathered on. He had been ignoring him for the most part. He had put his glasses on the side table. Had fluffed his pillow a bit and laid back. Trying to get his senses back after the spell. Trying to not think about that latest attempt at a short story he was still not being able to write today. Trying to figure out how to block out the ruckus that would be ensuring across the street for this big bloody stupid grand opening ceremony, when suddenly, two words that the little nurse had blurted out struck McFinney like a bolt from Jove himself.

His old eyes gleamed a milkly silver gleam and his mouth crooked a slanted grin as he asked, "Tell me, boy, did you say, 'Demolition Derby tomorrow?"

[Yahya]

Assalamualaikum

this is my first attempt, so forgive me for my bad grammer and lack of creativity ;o

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He stood staring into the gloomy tunnel. It wasn't fear, he was sure. He looked at himself in an almost comical, childish manner. He didn't know, that's what it was, he didn't know.

But he couldn’t get his head round it. What was it he didn't know, what was he supposed to know, he didn’t even know what he didn’t know?

A scurrying sound brought him back to reality. He looked down to see a rat hurry past, now that rat looked busy, knew what it was doing, why didn’t he?

He stood, almost inanimate, save his chest gently heaving to keep the blood pumping to his brain so that he may keep puzzling, puzzling which only sought to increase that puzzle, the more he thought, the greater it grew, he couldn’t describe, put into words. How could he explain that which he did not know of that which he did not know, it was an endless cycle, it would have drove him to his death were it not for his will to live.

And that, what was that, like a safety chip within a robot to save it from self destruction, why was it there, what was there?

Suddenly he moved, swinging around he took a long hard look behind him; the same long dark, damp tunnel. Save that he knew that which he had passed along the way, surely it couldn’t be so different ahead? So why was he so hesitant?

Turning back, he let out a sigh, at the back of his mind, that puzzle began to grow, like a tumour with a mission, like an explosion ripping through, rippling through the compressed and cramped little rooms in his head, pushing forward like some crazed zombie eating its way through his head, until he felt it, the pain! Ah the pain! Slicing with monstrous ferocity through the nerves, clasping his head letting out a gasp, a sob, and feel to his knees.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

wassalamualaikum warahmatullah
Yahya