Color

Runt of the Litter

Derek Chatwood

runt

I remember my first. Mr Wiggles. He was a runt, probably would have been eaten by his siblings if his mother hadn't eaten his siblings. Little guy hid under a rock, I thought it showed good survival instincts. He turned out to be the toughest I ever had, even tougher than Bixby. And Bixby ate half of North Carolina before they put him down.
 
Wiggles had a gentle way about him, or maybe we just bonded after I ate his mother. Probably pheromones or something. He would do this little purr snuffle thing, like those, what did they call them, dogs? Like dogs and something that purrs. It was adorable, even with the mucus.
 
Anyway, I just wanted you to know that it isn't how big she is, it's the heart. And I can already tell that your little cutie has tons of heart.
 
So, what are you going to name her?

The Rainbow Vomiting Pandas Of Interestingness

Derek Chatwood

rainbow pandas triple head
Ling Ling grazed on her usual fare, flowers and sunsets. She found some kittens at sunset that tasted like lemons and butterflies.

Hsing Hsing started on her latest interest, winter wonderlands and airplanes floating on the Hudson. But it would soon be St Patrick’s Day, and Hsing Hsing was already tasting the emerald tang of shamrocks and green beer.

Wang Wang explored Eastern Europe, and settled this day on Poland. The churches and streets were also very filling. A river of light for desert.

Finally, they were fed, stuffed and ready to burst. The three as one escaped to the sky, able to hold it all in no longer.

And like the day before and the day next, they burst.

The Rainbow Vomiting Pandas Of Interestingness were starving. It was time to eat.

Inspired by the work of Rev Dan Catt.

Freedom: hard to win, easy to lose

Derek Chatwood

freedom_hand

I asked if she had voted yet, she replied no. Shopping and soccer practice and dinner came first. She said she would do it tomorrow. The ballot sat on the table.
 
We took the square again, and demanded the dictator leave, and called for real elections. Secret police were everywhere, beating people, women and children.
 
I asked if she had voted yet, she replied no. The commute was awful, and the evening was for some wine, and a bath. The ballot sat on the table, under the mail.
 
A gas canister hit him in the face, fired from only feet away. He lost the eye, and most of his hearing. He marched with us again the next day.
 
I asked if she had voted yet, she replied no. She didn't really know anything about who was running, and the ballot was lost. The ballot sat in the trash, out in the yard.
 
The secret police attacked the foreign journalists, beat them, destroyed their cameras. They wanted the world to forget we were here. We are still here.
 
I asked if she had voted this morning, she replied no. The lines at the polls were long, and it was raining. She would do it in the evening.
 
We found our voice, and our will. If they refuse us a ballot, we will vote with rocks and bricks and fire. But we will vote, and we will be heard.
 
I asked if she had voted this evening, she replied no. She had forgotten.

Die Hard. Over and over again.

Derek Chatwood

die hard

John McClane was losing his mind.
 
Since the incident at Nakatomi Plaza, his life hasn't been the same. After the reporters and the news cameras left, it wouldn't stop. The incidents. When he took his wife and daughter camping, John noticed something strange about the campers up the trail. They turned out to be eco-terrorists hatching a plot to poison the forest with radiation (except they really turned out to be working for a real estate mogul trying to buy up the land). John had to fight for his life. Again.
 
Three days later on Career Day, a group of white supremacists took over his daughter's school, threatening to release the Plague (except really it was for nazi gold buried under the gym.) A week after that, a street gang seized his wife's Fun Run For Breast Cancer (princess in exile). McClane didn't want to leave the house anymore, and started to drink again.
 
His daughter's birthday was coming up, and he couldn't let her down. Terrified, he ventured to the mall anyway. As soon as he spotted the prison tattoos on the guy at Orange Julius, he knew it was a mistake. He tried to look away, only to see another felon at Sbarro. And another at Panda Express. When they started nodding to each other, he knew whatever their plan (hold the mall hostage for ransom), and whatever they really wanted (diamond encrusted chihuahua sculpture), it was about to hit the fan.
 
John McClane was losing his mind.

Haiti: World Without Superheroes

Derek Chatwood

haiti

Grandmère, Mathilde asked, what would happen if the superheroes were not here? Grandmère told her to hush, and drink the water the nice flying man made out of the air. His head was on fire, Grandmère noticed, but he did not seem to mind. Mathilde persisted, and wanted to know. Grandmère sighed, and tried to explain. She told Mathilde to look around her, and see what they were doing.

Down the hill, Superman held up the entire side of a collapsed building, while Flash and Animal Man scoured the interior for survivors. Zatanna, just across the street from them, spoke something Mathilde could not understand, and all of the dead bodies in the street vanished. A Green Lantern cleared the street of tons of debris, while another Green Lantern created an entire hospital out of green light, so the doctors and surgeons could work. Grandmère told Mathilde it would be too horrible to imagine if they were not here. Even with aid from all over the world, it would be overwhelming. There would be no food, no water, no medicine. Many many more people would have died, if not for them.
 
Mathilde thought about it, and told Grandmère that she was right, it was too horrible to think about.
 
A plastic man stretched past, pausing briefly to make a clown face and offer Mathilde an ice cream. She laughed, and thanked him.

Versus

Derek Chatwood

double feature

"No! We can't leave him!" Billy shouted. His mother pulled his arm nearly out of the socket. "We have to go, Billy! Now!" Sara checked the hall, tried to move toward the stairs. Too late. They swarmed from under the landing, flowed from the stairs, squealed and skittered across the hall. Sara and Billy were cut off. "Oh god," Sara said quietly. "They're everywhere." She pulled Billy close, braced against the wall.
 
A vent cover fell near their feet. A blur of movement, and the hand landed in front of them. Billy smiled. Sara stared in horror. The hand crawled across the hall, keeping itself between them and the rats. They enveloped the hand, gnawing and tearing. The hand fought with a supernatural strength, crushing and squeezing and throwing rats in every direction.
 
The hand pointed frantically to the bathroom. "Mom! In there!" Billy yelled. The hand followed, skidded across the slippery tile and pushed the door closed behind them. The rats crushed against the door but for the moment, it held. Sara caught her breath, checked Billy for bites and scratches, and then realized a dismembered hand was standing on the bathroom floor, looking for all the world as if it were.. out of breath. Sara screamed, grabbed at the plunger and started swinging. "Mom, no, stop!" Billy implored. "It's ok, Mom! He's helping! He saved us! He's.." Billy paused, knowing it would break a promise. ".. He's Dad!"
 
Sara sank onto the toilet seat. "What did you say?" she asked, drained and dizzy. Before Billy could answer, the hand jumped onto the counter and slowly crept towards her. Sara pulled back, revulsed. And then she saw it. The ring. Her grandfather's ring, the same one they had to resize to fit her husband's thick finger. The hand stood motionless, as the tears welled up in Sara's eyes. ".. Nathan?" she whispered. The hand stepped back and nudged itself up and down, nodding. "How.. how did this.." before she could finish, the door began to give. The rats had chewed their way through the thin wood and were beginning to break through. The hand leapt to the floor, a straight razor from the sink between its fingers. It turned and pointed emphatically to the window. Sara and Billy moved into the bathtub and started prying the small window open.
 
Nathan turned, flipped the razor between thumb and forefinger, and stood between the rats and his family.

Challenging Commute

Derek Chatwood

commute

He squinted against the rusty sky, locked the helmet in. Pressure was off, but a few fumbling turns on the O2 brought it back up. The first steps out the airlock sent sand and dust blasting mercilessly across his body. Visibility barely reached the vehicle. Once inside, he hooked in the juice and life support, started the silent engine, and rolled out on the massive tires.
 
The vehicle rocked from the pounding winds as it slowly made its way across the barren surface. He missed seeing water, but the stark landscape was hauntingly beautiful to him. The endless sea of boulders and craters reminded him of a zen garden.
 
A light flashed on the dashboard. He forgot to enable the infrared, and had driven off course. He cursed, brought up the map in hopes of finding a reroute. He had been here for nearly 16 months, but still had difficulty with navigation. The map displayed a new option, not the best route, but he was relieved he wouldn't have to backtrack.
 
He adjusted his course, exited I405 at Wilshire Blvd, and headed west into Santa Monica.

The Last Winter

Derek Chatwood

lonewolfandcub

The winter was hard. Father hardly spoke, just kept us moving. I think it was difficult for him, being a single Dad. Plus Yagyu Clan trying to kill us all the time. I know it was exhausting, but he never showed it. Not to me. We were on the road a lot, doing the vengeance, but he always took the time to be a Dad with me. I think he took his frustrations out on the ninja. And there were a lot of them, I mean a lot, so most of the time Dad seemed pretty relaxed.
 
I still don't even know why they wanted us dead, really. I think it was a lot about professional competition maybe. Like, Yagyu got Dad fired, but then that wasn't enough. They knew he was really good at his job. The best. And if they didn't kill him, he'd eventually be better than they were, and they'd lose their company and he'd take over. Or something.
 
I remember that winter, because it was the last. They sent everyone at us, everything they had. But Dad didn't fall. Not until they fell first. All of them.
 
Not until I was safe.
 
I hope I can be as good a father to my son.
 
With fewer ninjas, maybe.

Life in the Sky

Derek Chatwood

hongkong

"This is my place," he told her. He proudly revealed it cost him $30,000hkd, a tenth of what a similar sized place would cost below, but with a much better view. She smiled nervously, confused. She really liked the boy, but this was the first time visiting his home, and now she saw why he waited so long. "But we're standing at the top of the stairs," she pointed out. Three children ran past them laughing and kicking a small football. "Isn't this a walkway?"
 
"When I'm not here it is," he explained. "But when I am here it is my home." He demonstrated by leaning a small board against the top of the stairs, unfolding a small table and two chairs and placing them in the middle of the walkway. "Here see now it is my living room. Sit please and I will make you some tea." As she slowly sat he stood up and slid open an accordian door, revealing a shallow cubby space in the wall opposite. Inside was a small table with fold-out shelves, a sink, stove, oven, microwave, rice cooker, blender, television, dvd player, radio, laptop, books, bedroll, wine rack, pantry, clothes and shoes, and a small assortment of spices. He busied himself with the tea, while she looked up and down the passageway, listening to his neighbors and their lives. The small football rolled near her feet, yet the children stayed at the end of the hall, stopped seemingly by an invisible wall.
 
She nodded to herself and stood, kicked the ball to the children, and began to help with the tea. She could not imagine what life would be like here above. But he was a very nice boy, and it really was a wonderful view.

Calamity Dynamite

Derek Chatwood

calamite_dynamite

Fueled by youth, a time machine, and quickness with a gun, Jane Saunders left her modern world behind and stepped into the 1879 town of Prescott, in the Arizona Territory. Breezing into town like a hurricane, she fucked and shot her way through the men, and recruited the women with a new way of thinking. She told them about a world where women were almost equal, where they could vote, and fuck who they wanted, and run companies. But it wasn't perfect, so she came back to give Women's Liberation an early jump start.
 
By 2010, the adventures of Calamity Dynamite, as Jane came to be known, would be required reading for every school girl.
 
Boys weren't allowed to go to school.