Caves and Vampires

It was a dark and stormy night.

The sky was black, the rain hailed down, and in the distance lighting crackled. Sometimes there is no place better to be then in a cave. Jeremiah huddled by the fire, idly scrapping at his bowel of porridge. Laid around the cave, his companions slept on the hard ground. Wind blew through the cave spraying sparks off the open fire: the sky flashed.

The heavens thundered in response. Jeremiah starred off into the endless rain. Sighing he placed the bowl on the floor. All around him was no-man’s land. A barren wasteland filled with rocks and mud and swamps and vampires. One must never forget the vampires. Jeremiah chuckled.

The fire dimmed, the last few embers glowing a dim red. Shadows danced on the roof of the cave. Jeremiah laid back watching the flickering lights, listening to the pounding storm, hearing footsteps pound above him. Footsteps pounded above him.

Jeremiah sat up: eyes wide. The rain splashed on the small awning, the wind howled, and one of his companions snored. Jeremiah looked around. His comrades slept peacefully near him, bundled up on their robes on the dirt. After having walked a hundred miles in the desert, they slept.

Jeremiah felt sore. His legs hurt, his back ached, and his feet were numb. His body felt tired, but his mind felt awake. He gazed into the entrance to the cave as the lightning flashed.

A man stood at the entrance of the cave.

Jeremiah blinked, and he was gone. His heart pounded. He crouched.
The embers died. The shadows flickered above. The bodies of his comrades were devoured in the growing gloom. Jeremiah stood there, ready.

The cave went dark: a man laughed.

Strunk and White

I am, for many reasons, greatly indebted to the authors of The Elements of Style. I offer here a toast to them. May their writing instruct another generation to write more clearly.

“Show! Don’t tell!” Mr. White shouted. He wrote the words on the black board. Turning to face the class, he glared. Two hundred freshmen eyed him back. Their eyes were glazed over. One yawned. Another snored.

Mr. White took term paper off of the stack on his desk, and read, “Susan was happy today. The people she met also felt happy, it seemed to her that the world was an interesting place full of fun and very unique adventures.” He dropped the paper into the trash. He spat out, “Jennifer, what is the problem with ‘very unique’?”

The a girl in the middle of the room stared back. The color drained from her face. “Uh…” She stammered.

“Very unique. If something is unique then there is only one of them. Something is either unique or not unique. It can’t be very unique.” Mr. White chided. On the board he scrawled out “Rule 13: Delete useless words!”

Grabbing another paper from the stack he read: “The game was going so well, but Jena was hit by the ball. She got angry and James got hit by the bat that was thrown by Jena.” He paused, tossed the paper into the waste basket with its comrades, and growled, “Stuart, what is the problem with this… this thing?”

Stuart responded with a snore. The yardstick cracked down on his desk. He opened his eyes and yawned.

Stuart looked around the room, a long haired man who was dressed in an half buttoned, un-tucked shirt and baggy pants was lecturing in front of the class. He listened for a few minutes to the lecture, promptly got bored with his teachers command to ‘feel what you write’, and went back to sleep.

Stuart smiled at Mr. White, and chirped back, “Rule 10: Use the active voice.”