Back of the Envelope

I'll be hosting the next Storyblogging Carnival, the ninety-second, here at Back of the Envelope. It'll be going up in a week--sorry for the delay, I sent out the e-mail last week, but neglected to post on the blog.

So, if you use your blog to share your fiction, then the Storyblogging Carnival is your opportunity. Here we host any and all forms of storytelling in blog format. If you're curious about what this looks like, have a look at some examples of previous storyblogging carnivals. This next carnival will be going up Octber 7th.

If you'd like to participate, please e-mail your story submissions to me at dscrank-at-alum-dot-mit-dot-edu (or post in my comments), including the following information:

• Name of your blog
• URL of your blog
• Title of the story
• URL for the blog entry where the story is posted
• (OPTIONAL) Author's name
• (OPTIONAL) A suggested rating for adult content (G, PG, PG-13, R)
• A word count
• A short blurb describing the story

The post may be of any age, from a week old to years old. The submission deadline is 11:59 PM Eastern time on Saturday, October 5th. More detailed information follows (same as always):

1. The story or excerpt submitted must be posted on-line as a blog entry, and while fiction is preferred, non-fiction storytelling is acceptable.
2. The story can be any length, but the Carnival will list them in order of length, from shortest to longest, and include a word count for each one.
3. You may either send a complete story, a story in progress, or a lengthy excerpt. You should indicate the word count for both the excerpt and the complete story in the submission, and you should say how the reader can find more of the story in the post itself.
4. If the story spans multiple posts, each post should contain a link to the beginning of the story, and a link to the next post. You may submit the whole story, the first post, or, if you've previously submitted earlier posts to the Carnival, the next post which you have not submitted. Please indicate the length of the entire story, as well as the portion which you are submitting.
5. The host has sole discretion to decide whether the story will be included or not, or whether to indicate that the story has pornographic or graphically violent content. The ratings for the story will be decided by the host. I expect I'll be pretty lenient on that sort of thing, but I have some limits, and others may draw the line elsewhere. Aside from noting potentially offensive content, while I may say nice things about stories I like, I won't be panning anyone's work. I expect other hosts to be similarly polite.
6. The story may be the blogger's own or posted with permission, but if it is not his own work he should gain permission from the author before submitting to the Carnival.

If you'd like to be added to the e-mail list, please let me know. Finally, I appreciate folks promoting the carnival on their own blogs, and I'm always looking for bloggers willing to host future carnivals.

Welcome to the ninety-first Storyblogging Carnival. This is actually our fourth anniversary. I was considering doing something special, but I've been pretty busy lately, and I'm pressed for time.

So, on to the carnival.

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The Poetry of Dating
by Madeleine Begun Kane of Mad Kane's Humor Blog
A 150 word brief story rated G.

The story of a bad date in limerick form.

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Rozie
by Mark Rayner of The Skwib
A 100 word brief story rated PG.

Rozie was a helluva' dame ...

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Changes, Part V (First Part)
by Tom Harrison of Monday Evening
The next 500 words of a 4,000 word short story rated PG-13.

A fist-size window in a heavy door showed a hallway not much different from my cell. No padded walls, no hospital bed, no liars with clipboards. Part five of seven.

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Crossing Over, Part V (The Whole Story)
by Donald S. Crankshaw of Back of the Envelope
The next 2,722 words of a 17,473 word short story rated PG-13.

Continuing the CRFH fanfiction, Dave gets into a fight

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And Glory... (The first 13 chapters)
by Andrew Ian Dodge of Dodgeblogium
A 20,000 word excerpt from a novel rated PG.

"Considering the chaos in the EU right now…a bit of Eurosceptic cyberpunk could be seen as timely."

[Andrew says:

There is a new service for budding writers that is linked in this post. I think it might be interesting to your readers and contributors who are budding novelists.

Have a look. -DSC]

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This concludes the eighty-eighth Storyblogging Carnival.

If you'd like to take part in a future carnival, please contact me. I am also looking for hosts. Other carnivals can be found here.

The Storyblogging Carnival can be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival.

The Rest of the Story: The entire story can be found here.

This is awfully late for the Storyblogging Carnival, which should be going up soon (probably today). My excuse for both is that I've been busy. Hopefully I'll have enough time today to catch up.

This chapter contains the one scene that I wrote this story for. When I first imagined what would happen in the circumstances I describe, I really wanted to see how it play out. It seemed unlikely that the comic would explore this on its own, so I decided to write the scene myself. I think it worked well.

Once again, this is my one and only fanfiction. The characters, world, and events referenced belong to Maritza Campos of College Roomies from Hell!!!. Only the particular events described here are my own.

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Chapter 5

"But-but—" Dave tried unsuccessfully to get a word in edgewise.

"Can I come?" Marvin asked.

"Sure," Michelle replied. "You can be the good cop."

"Aw, man! I wanted to be the bad cop." It occurred to Dave that those disturbing comments that were somehow cute coming from Marsha were really creepy when Marvin said them. The "sexy stalker" just did not work when the roles were reversed.

"Hmm, maybe we should do bad cop/worse cop," Michelle said, as she and Marvin headed down the hall, Marvin's hand at the small of her back.

"I'm not Dahlia!" Dave shouted at them, but was ignored. Well, his friends tuned him out when they had been the other gender too. The other gender? What, am I just accepting this strangeness now? Why the Hell not? It's not even the weirdest thing that's ever happened to us.

"I think you need to come in and sit down, Dahl… uh, Dave," Mark said. "I sent Adam to check on Rose and the witches. It's probably getting crowded down there right about now. Would you like something to drink?"

"Sure, why not?" Dave said. "I could use some water."

Mark let Dave into the apartment, and went to get him a glass from the kitchen, while Dave slumped onto the couch. Mark returned with the water. "Don't worry, I'm sure we'll get this fixed soon," he said, as he handed the glass to Dave.

"And what do you mean by fixed?" Dave asked, taking a sip. The glass held almost as much ice as water, so the liquid was numbingly cool.

"Changing you back, of course," he said, remaining on his feet. He looked as if he wanted to pace.

"I was afraid of that," Dave replied, settling the glass on his knee. Chester had sat down beside him, and now licked at the hand holding the glass. "Look, Mark, I'm not Dahlia."

"You just think—"

"What if I told you that you were the one who was supposed to be a girl? Would you want to change into one just because everyone said you should?"

"That's ridiculous. A girl version of me? I can't imagine I'd be anything like what I am if I'd been born a woman."

Dave snorted. "Yeah, it sounds ridiculous to you, but believe me, everything looks ridiculous to me. Ridiculous or not, though, I'm staying the way I am."

Mark frowned. "I… I really wish you wouldn't. But… maybe it's better this way. Maybe, if there's no chance of us being together, then Satan will leave you alone. You'll be safe—" Dave slammed the glass down on the coffee table, causing the ice and water inside to slosh about but surprisingly not breaking the glass. Chester jumped away from him with a startled yowl.

"What are you—?" Mark began, but he snapped his mouth shut when Dave bounced to his feet.

Dave barely came to Mark's chin, but he still got up close, forcing him to take a step back. "You're doing the same thing to her as Margaret did to me, aren't you? You let her get close, then push her away. Again, and again, and again!"

"Can't you see that I'm trying to protect you?"

"Oh, I get it. It's okay for you to protect me, even if that means lying to me and hurting me, but God forbid I try to protect you. That's just smothering."

"Hey, that's different. I'm a man and you're a—" Mark staggered back, rubbing his jaw where Dave had just punched him. "Hey, what the—?"

"Don't you dare say that! Where I come from you're the woman, and you still think the same way," Dave said. Chester leapt from the couch and darted into the bedroom, probably going to hide under the bed. Good, it's best if he's not here.

"Well, I'm right. It's me Satan wants. If you'd stay out of my business, you'd be safe. There's nothing you can do to help me, so why can't you leave me the Hell alone?"

"You promised to let me help!"

"You blackmailed me into that promise! I thought you were sorry for that."

"So did I, but now it's obvious that it was the only way to get you to listen to reason. You're going to get yourself killed if you try to fight him all by yourself."

Mark loomed over Dave, shaking his finger in his face. "What makes you think you can help? Since when did you become an expert on Satan?"

Dave pushed the finger aside and said, "Since I had my soul torn out, went to Hell, came back with part of me in a cat, and then had Satan try to put me back together before God smote him. What are your qualifications? Bad dreams?"

Dave leapt back when he saw the uppercut coming, so it didn't have the full force it should have, but Mark's knuckles still made contact with his chin. Dave landed poorly and nearly lost his balance, but managed to remain upright. He fingered the tender spot underneath his chin. Mark let his fists fall to his sides, where they trembled as he fought to control his hoarse breathing. He said, "You know nothing of my nightmares! Nothing!"

"Do you know what your problem is, Mark?" Dave said. "It's that you believe those dreams. You should"—he charged—"know better!"

Dave tackled Mark, arms around his waist, and they both went down.



Margaret knelt on the floor and looked under the bed, to where "Dahlia" was hiding. Chester, or whatever it was called now, watched carefully, but made no move to stop her. "Um, Dahlia?" she said. It was hard calling him that, but it was how he—she—perceived herself. "You can come out now."

"Are—are they gone?" came the quavering answer.

"Yeah, Mike and Marsha went downstairs to check on Roger and the Satanists."

"What are they?"

"For Cthulhu's sake, Dave! They're Mike and Marsha!"

A hand reached out from under the bed and Margaret grabbed hold before it could withdraw. A moment later the head appeared, the long brown hair laced with dust. The girl-Dave sneezed, puffing up a cloud of the substance. Margaret helped her to her feet, and she just stood there, eyes downcast. "I'm not Dave," she said. "And I don't know who Mike and Marsha are. They had, I mean, they were…"

"They're mutants," Margaret said, firmly. "Just like you."

"But I'm not!" she insisted, sniffling again. Margaret wondered how much of that was dust and how much emotion. "I'm not a freak!"

"I'm not saying you're a freak," Margaret said. "No more than the rest of us, although that's not saying much."

"How could I be a mutant and not be a freak, huh? You called me one yourself! It's weird enough that I have a soul-cat, but nobody notices that."

"Hey, sure, you have laservision, but that's like having the coolest superpower ever. I mean, Marsha's wings come close, but given the choice, I'd want the laservision."

"Dahlia" smiled, just a small upturning of the lips. "You always were a gun-nut."

"So you believe me now?" Margaret said.

"Maybe. I think it's weird enough to be a blue mushroom trip, at least."

"Yeah, welcome to our life," Margaret said. "Though, personally, I think it's too weird for an hallucination."

"I don't get it, though. The Mark I remember is a man's man, a martial artist and a marksman, a survivalist. You claim to be a female version of him, but I can't imagine any woman being remotely like him."

Margaret forced herself not to get angry. If any man had questioned her abilities, she'd demonstrate them until he begged for mercy. She'd given Dave ample demonstration, and he'd never even questioned her ability, although her attitude clearly bothered him. Having this female Dave express skepticism of Margaret's martial spirit was infuriating and, maybe, a bit worrisome. Margaret tried not to think about such things, but sometimes she did worry that something was wrong with her. Something that Satan was trying to exploit. "Look, I'm just as tough as any guy," she said. "In fact, I don't know any guy who can keep up with me. Except maybe you."

"Me?" she squeaked. "I'm not tough. I'm a wimp, really. Are you saying boy-me is some macho hero?"

Margaret snorted. "I'd hardly call you that. For the longest time I thought you were a wimp, and a coward. You aren't, though. I've seen you keep going when I wanted to lie down and die, because you were unwilling to give up on me. Maybe it's only danger to someone you love that brings it out of you, but you're tougher and braver than you give yourself credit."

The cat—Chelsea, Margaret thought—mewed from the bed, and girl-Dave turned around to pick it up. When she turned back, she said, "You're nicer than Mark is, at least. He keeps pushing me away just when we start to get close."

"Well, um…" Margaret cleared her throat. "Let's get out of here. This apartment isn't exactly safe for those without superpowers."

"Huh?" She looked around. "What do you mean?"

"Okay, I guess the laundry pile is just as afraid of you as you are of it, but the kitchen tends to breed things, and sometimes they get loose. I never come here unarmed myself."

Girl-Dave was nearly tripping on Margaret's heels as she followed her to the girls' apartment. Once they were settled, Margaret got her some water and they sat down on the couch. Once "Dahlia" had washed down the dust, Margaret tried to work her way around to the question she wanted to ask. It was weird, but it might clarify a few things. "Tell me about this Mark you remember."

"Why? You don't think he really exists," she replied.

"Well, no, but I do want to know what a male version of me would be like, whether he's real or just a faulty memory," Margaret said. What I really want to know is whether he's normal. Is the only thing weird about me that I'm a woman who's into these things, or… is there something else?

"Well, he's kind of a jerk," girl-Dave said. She wasn't looking at Margaret. Instead she was hunched over, her eyes on the coffee table where her finger was tracing patterns in the moisture left by the glass, so she didn't see Margaret flinch. "Like I said, you're much nicer. He's self-obsessed, thinking everything's about him, and paranoid, although not without reason, I guess. I was crazy about him at one time, but he just kept hurting me until I finally let go."

"Wait a minute," Margaret said. She suddenly had a very clear image of Mark doing to "Dahlia" some of the things she had done to Dave, and that image made her nauseous. "Are you saying that Mark hit you?"



Dave's head was whipped to the side as Mark's roundhouse punch made contact, and he toppled over. Dave was clearly overmatched. He didn't have Mark's mass or his training, and he'd barely managed to keep up for this long. His arms had been twisted in directions which they weren't meant to go from Mark's attempts to pin him in some wrestling move or other, his legs trembled at the mere thought of supporting him again, his chest and stomach ached from the bruises Mark had given him. His face was the least injured, although there was a burn from the carpet along one cheek where Dave had slid along the floor, and that last punch was likely to leave him with another black eye. In truth, though, Dave thought Mark was going easy on him. No matter how many times Dave attacked him, he always seemed to let up the moment he came close to really hurting him. Right now, he stood over Dave, but he made no move to take advantage of Dave's supine position.

"Stop this, Dahl—Dave. I don't want to hurt you," Mark said.

Dave tried to catch his breath, pulling himself up with one hand clutching the arm of the couch. "You think this hurts? No matter how many times you beat me up, it never hurt as much as what you said." He stood there with his hand on the couch's arm. He didn't think he needed it to keep standing, but it was comforting that it was there.

"You think I… hit you before?"

"All the time," he said, panting. "And I took it. You were the girl, and even if you were a psychopath, that's what I was supposed to do: take your abuse and not fight back." Dave pulled his hand from the couch, and though he tottered, he stayed on his feet.

He took a step forward and swung at Mark, but Mark was ready for him. He blocked the first punch, and the second. The third was a feint which allowed the fourth to get through, but Dave might as well have been hitting rock as Mark's stomach. Still, he'd scored a hit. Playing defense isn't working for you, is it? Apparently Mark thought the same, and when Dave attacked again, Mark caught his arm and threw him onto the floor. The air went out of Dave's lungs in a rush as his back hit the carpet and his head thumped against it, and for a moment all he saw were stars. He was beginning to appreciate the carpet. Ugly as it was, it at least cushioned his fall. A little. When he could make out the ceiling, he rolled onto his stomach and levered himself up so he could see Mark, who was standing over him.

"Stay down! Don't make me hurt you!" Mark said.

"I never stay down," Dave said, coming to his feet. "I'm too stubborn and stupid to know what's good for me."

Dave's clumsy punch missed by a mile, but at least he avoided Mark's attempt to catch hold of him. Months of trying to avoid Mike's tentacle had at least improved Dave's ability to evade grappling holds which didn't involve any superfast and superstrong tentacles. His second swing was on target, but easily blocked by Mark, who punched back this time, striking Dave square in the stomach. Dave doubled over, arms cradling his sore middle, and if Mark had swung again, he might have knocked him out. Instead he backed up.

After forcing himself to take a few painful breaths, Dave said, "You can't win, you know."

"Huh? You can barely stand!"

"No, not against me. Against Satan. You can't beat him…" He drew another painful breath.

"I know I can't stop him," Mark said. "But maybe I can make it impossible for him to use me, and stop him from hurting you."

"Alone! I ran out of breath before I could say that. You can't defeat him alone."

"Do you really think you can help me, Dahlia? What can you do?"

"Not just me. All of us. Mike—Michelle and Marvin, Adam and, um, Rose. Dahlia. We only stand a chance together."

"It's a nice sentiment, Dahlia, but what makes you think it's true? Wishful think—" This time Dave's punch scored a direct hit. Mark would have a black eye from that. Before Dave could follow up, though, Mark hammered him in the chest and he stumbled backwards.

"What do I have to do to make you stop?" Mark said as Dave staggered forward again.

Dave paused, his arm lifted and ready to swing. "Just tell me the truth."

"The truth? About what?"

"Just once, tell me how you feel about… me. No more lies, no more hypotheticals. Just say it, so I know."

"All right! All right. I feel that you're a stubborn idiot who's going to get yourself killed because you don't know what's best for you, but no matter how hard I tried to stop it, I still love you."

Dave let his fist drop. "Yeah, I thought so." He sighed, and it felt like all the strength in his body fled with that breath. His vision lost focus, and everything went dark.

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This is a 2,706 word except of a 17,473 word short story.

So, I was thinking a bit about economics. People in my Thursday night small group were talking about how guilty they felt that they lived in one of the richest countries in the world. Even a low income family in the US ($30,000 two income) was richer than 97% of the rest of the world. I pointed out that the natural state of human beings was not being rich, but being poor. We come into the world naked and with nothing, and we need to work to create anything. The question we should be asking is not, "Why are some people poor?", but "Why is anybody rich?" And if the inequality bothers us, then we can add "How do we make more people wealthy?" The exact wrong question to ask is "How do we stop people from being rich?" That's been tried. That's what communism was all about. The idea was that if we could stop people from being richer than others, then everybody would be equally rich. The problem was that everywhere communism was tried, everybody became equally poor. Why was that? Well, I'm not an economist, so I may get some of this wrong, but the number one reason is the following:

Rule 1: Economics is not a zero sum game.

Way too many people, including bright, college educated people, think that it is. They think that if some people are rich, it must be because they took their money from other people, making them poorer. This basic misconception is behind a lot of bad ideas, including political movements and public policy.

Wealth, unlike energy and matter, can be created and destroyed. When a carpenter buys wood, and using hammer, nails, saw, and lathe, makes it into a chair, he has created something more valuable than the wood he bought. He then sells it for more than the cost of all the things he put into it, because it is more valuable than everything he put into it. He created wealth, and he earns a profit because he did.

Rule 2: Profit is the result of creating wealth.

In the ideal case, the amount of profit you make is roughly equivalent to the amount of wealth you create. From the carpenter to the office worker to the CEO, your compensation should reflect your value. Which leads us to:

Rule 3: The wealthiest people are those who create the most wealth.

And yes, this applies to nations as well. The US is the richest nation in the world not because it stole from everyone else, but because it creates the most wealth. Other nations do not get poorer because the US is so wealthy--in fact, they can and do get richer.

Rule 4: Creating wealth benefits everyone.

It is true, certain people are misers. They hoard their wealth rather than spending it. Most people, though, spend wealth. Rich people spend more money. This redistributes the wealth, making more people wealthy. People in the US, in general, have more, because the wealth that is created is spread around. It is not distributed evenly, but it is distributed well enough that even the poor in the US are richer than most other people in the world.

But what if our vision is greater than just the US? What if we want the rest of the world to get richer, too? Well, we could just give them money. That seems to be the way some people want to do it. This, at best, just spreads the current wealth around. At worst, however, the inverse of Rule 1 comes into play. Wealth can be created, and wealth can be destroyed. When wealth is consumed rather than exchanged, we are effectively destroying the wealth. This actually hurts, not helps, from a purely economic point of view. Of course, I'm not advocating letting hungry people starve. I am saying that a much better way is to help them be wealth-makers too. This means things like free trade, outsourcing, all the bugaboos of people who prefer to just give the needy money rather than help them make money.

Rule 5: The rules aren't perfect.

This is also a hard one, as lots of people think they can, by the force of regulation and legislation, force the rules to be perfect. They can't. This is a fallen world filled with imperfect humans. And all monetary transfers are based not on the true value of something, but on the perception of it. Some people are way overpaid for the work that they do, and some are way underpaid. Some people are given less opportunity to create wealth, and others are given more. Some live up to their promise, some fall short, and some go above and beyond. And of course, some people do make their money not by creating wealth, but by taking what others make.

Lots of wealth is wasted on things that aren't as valuable as they seem, lots of wealth created isn't properly compensated, and lots gets lost in the black holes of bureaucracy and litigation.

But, you know what? We can live with that. As long as we're creating more wealth than we're destroying, we can afford losing some.

Rule 6: Economics isn't everything.

As I said earlier, wealth can be destroyed. And a lot of things that we consider very important destroy wealth without creating more. As I said before when talking about waste, we can live with that. Wealth, and the creation thereof, isn't everything. And some things that don't have any obvious wealth creating benefits should be done simply because they are the right things to do. And this works as long as we're creating more wealth. If that ever stops, if we're just consuming and redistributing it, then anything that destroys wealth is intolerable. This is why rich, western countries can afford things like welfare and universal health care and social security. They create enough wealth that consuming it in that way doesn't destroy the economy. Poorer countries aren't so lucky.

So I've been thinking a bit about Obama. It shouldn't be surprising that I'm not his biggest fan. He talks a lot about post-partisanship and reform, but he has no record of doing it. In fact, he has the most liberal voting record in the Senate. Despite that, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, to believe that he means well and believes what he says. Why the disconnect then? Why does he talk the talk, but not walk the walk? Why does he speak out against racial obsession, corruption, and extremism, yet have such disturbing connections with the likes of Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, and William Ayers? It may not be so much that he's a hypocrite, but rather, that he tends to take the easy way out. He came into politics in Chicago, where Wright, Rezko, and Ayers were among the movers and shakers. True, they have disturbing pasts, and do and say disturbing things, but why rock the boat? Why not just go with the flow, and deal with the people everyone else deals wtih, rather than take a principled stand?

In the state legislature, why fight the system? Why not just go along with it? The one thing he most cites as a demonstration of his good judgement, being against the war in Iraq, hardly goes against this. He was in the state legislature at the time, and representing one of the most liberal districts in the state. Everyone he knew was against the war, so once again, he goes along with it.

In the Senate, the pressure is even stronger, especially for a junior Senator. Support the Democratic agenda, vote with your caucus. Don't make waves. It's no accident that he has a perfect liberal voting record. Once again, it's the path of least resistance.

I'm not sure running for President was all that different. People were talking about him running even as he was saying he wasn't ready. He was being encouraged on all sides. Why not toss his hat into the ring? It's not like he stood a chance to win anyway. Being against the war and for withdrawal was hardly an act of moral courage--at that point, with the war going badly, most people were against it. And with a record of being against it from the start, he had a decisive advantage in staking out the popular position that everyone else was scrabbling for.

I really think he means well, but I don't think he has a consistent philosophy or principles strong enough to hold against the tide. When pushed to explain why he believes what he believes, he fumbles. When his position becomes unpopular, he retreats. He talks about hope and change, because those are popular things, but his agenda is the same as the liberal agenda has always been.

Now, I could be taking him wrong. This is an impression from an engineer who's been paying only cursory attention to the election to this point. But it is what it looks like to me.