Prompt Response #1: Brothers in Arms

Garus glanced about the battlefield as he mopped the sweat from his brow. Their lines had held in the midst of their grand charge, chasing their opponents from the field. The enemy was now scattered like so many startled birds caught unaware as those that remained on their feet ran from the battlefield.

Garus tugged at the sleeve of his mail shirt, straitening it. He wiped the blade of his sword clean and sheathed it at his hip. Today had been no less than a glorious victory for their numbers. They had quickly dispatched some great number of their foes and chased the survivors from the fields. Yes, today had been a remarkable victory.

“Julius,” Garus exclaimed, “We’ve won! We are victorious, my brother. Our enemy has been vanquished upon this field of battle!” As the soldier turned, he found no one standing beside him. His smile faded and he searched frantically from one ally to the next, hoping for some man to turn around and for him to be Julius. But none did. Garus called out for his brother, that he might answer him, telling him that he was alright. But no reply reached Garus’ ears. Panic had already set in and Garus grew frantic in his search.

Garus halted. Finally his eyes rested on the face of his brother, but not in some happy reunion. The young man lay on a cart among other corpses. His body buried slightly by so many more; dead like him. Garus rushed to the cart, shoving bodies away so that he could reach that of his brother. Blood was crusted all over where Julius had been struck on the side of his head. His eyes were closed and his lips were drawn taught. In the excitement of the moment Garus had somehow not seen as his brother received the fatal blow. Yet now, as he looked down at his brother’s lifeless form, the gladness the soldier had experienced in their victory was lost. Such things paled in comparison with the life of his brother.

Garus let his head droop. He touched his brow to that of his brother as tears began to slip from his eyes. The realization that his brother was dead had struck the soldier heavily and he wept. Victory, no matter how incredible, was not worth his brother’s life. For that matter, nothing was.

The soldier rocked the body of his brother to and fro as he cried. The hot tears raced down his face, burning paths through the grime and blood that was caked thereon. His grief was immeasurable. The body he held in his arms was flesh and blood of his own. They had shared so much more than simply a name. And now, his soul had departed and his body would soon be no more than food for the worms of the earth.

Garus carried the body of his brother away from the cart, walking; stumbling from the carnage of where the two armies had clashed in the throes of battle. Where he was walking was entirely superficial, but he wasn’t about to leave his brother in the pile of mangled corpses on the wagon. His brother, his own flesh and blood, deserved more than a soldier’s hurried burial. And Garus would see that his body’s resting place was one of respect and honor. The price of victory was indeed a bitter wine.

 

(Written In response to Prompt “Medieval Tragedy”)

 

Writing Prompts

A friend of mine and writing buddy suggested that we should really be posting more actively on our blogs. His suggestion was that we pitch prompts to one another, and write either prose or a poem inspired by the prompt. There will be no restrictions in place, aside from word count. The piece, if prose, can be no fewer than 400 words. Basically, that’s all there is to it.

Those who enjoy my literary endeavors will more than likely find these Prompt-inspired posts intriguing, since generally they’ll be tiny novelettes posted for your reading pleasure. This exercise ought to be an excellent practice in literary form, even in such a small scale.

Another friend already picked both his and my prompts for the week, so you can expect a post sometime soon concerning my first.

I’m very excited for this whole thing. I feel like it will be a healthy reprieve, and keep me writing constantly, even if only small sequences. You’ll have to keep your eyes peeled for the installments to this challenge.

That Darn Oil Filter...

Today was a day off from work, and days off from work usually are days where I can attempt to work on one of my own projects. My trusty Sidekick needed an oil change, and I had already picked up all the needed supplies for such a change sometime earlier last week, so I was all set. After a slow start to the morning, a coffee, and a couple donuts, I slipped into my jumpsuit and got to work.

It was raining today, as Autumn has officially arrived in Washington, so I pulled Suzi’s hood into the garage so that I could stay mostly dry during the process. Draining the oil pan went smoothly. I didn’t spill a drop on the garage floor and in no time the pan was empty, so I moved on to the oil filter. The oil filter was quite the separate matter though. For some reason, I’ve always had trouble getting oil filters off the cars I work on. But Suzi’s always give me particular trouble. It doesn’t help, though, that the filter is in this tiny little empty space which hasn’t enough room to fry a cat. Thankfully, my dad has this oil-filter wrench which, in most cases, works splendidly at loosening up particularly tough filters. But I have this problem where I never really know which way to twist the darn thing. And after getting elbow grease all over everything, I realized, much too late mind you, that I had only succeeded in tightening the filter a couple quarter turns more, which made it only a couple million times more impossible to get the filter to release its hold. I yanked and I pulled, I pulled and I yanked. At some point yesterday I jammed my thumb, and every time I lost my hold and bashed my thumb against something hard It’d hurt like nothing else. I kept trying the loosen the thing just growing angrier as my thumb grew more and more sore. Then I lost my temper and punched my tires. I worked a sweat up and down, to the point where I had to take off my jacket and roll up my sleeves. But that filter was on good and tight and wasn’t about to let go.

As I sat and cursed at the ratty thing my brother sauntered into the garage to check on me. I’d been out there for a couple hours at this point and he was wondering what the hold up was. I’d changed the oil in my Sidekick a multitude of times (I used to drive just under a hundred miles a day and was doing oil changes at the end of just about every month.) and I had the process down pat by now. I cursed at the filter a couple more times before turning to him with a sour face and explaining what the trouble was. He shrugged and asked if he could try. Of course he could! Sure, I usually like to figure out my problems on my own, but when I’m having a lot of trouble with something, sometimes it takes passing the buck to whoever’s unfortunate enough to walk by at the time to make me feel a bit better.

So my brother gave the oil-filter wrench a try. No dice. I handed him a big, ol’ pair of channel-locks. Nothin’. Then I pulled out a biggest, baddest monkey-wrench I could find and he tried tightening that sucker down on the oil filter. And even though he swore he saw the filter budge a bit every couple tries, to me it only looked like we had succeeded in uglifying that oil filter until it looked like it had been in the middle of two head-on collisions, a T-bone crash, three side-swipes, and a rear-ending. It had dents and scratches like nothing else. But since my brother was the one breaking the sweat and not me, I rolled my sleeves back down and pulled my jacket on again. Then I threatened that I’d spend the money I was going to use on his Christmas gift on a new tool for getting this ridiculous oil filter off and he redoubled his efforts. Just about all my morning and part of my afternoon had gotten sucked into this usually simple task and I was getting desperate. But the filter still didn’t want to budge.

Finally, I told him to give me another try at it, and I slid under the car with the filter wrench. It first it seemed like things were going to go as they had before, but then I felt the filter twist just a tiny bit. I returned the wrench to starting point and tried again, this time putting a little extra effort into it, and again I felt the filter budge just a bit. With wild excitement, I wrenched on the filter a couple more times, rewarded by several squeaks and much progress. With only a couple more turns I was able to unscrew the awful filter with my hands and then it was off. I leapt up from under the car, embracing my brother and shaking his hands in appreciation. Sure, I’d gotten the filter off. But I was certain that he had loosened it up for me. He went back inside to clean himself up while I installed the new filter and filled up Suzi’s oil reserves. All that went as smoothly as usual, and my Sidekick was ready to rumble.

Moral to the story? I guess think really hard about which way the oil filter needs to turn before you try loosening it. And make sure you have a sibling or a friend (Or, even better; both…) within close proximity to pass your menial labor on to should you get aggravated.

Summer's End...

Wow! It has been far, far too long since I last updated. Honestly, about the only reason I don’t post updates more frequently is because not a lot of things have happened this past month. Work’s been much the same as it usually is. Although, a couple hands of our staff recently found employment elsewhere and will be leaving us soon. It’s weird. In the ten months I’ve been with the company, the hands sure have changed pretty frequently. I feel like it’s a totally different workplace these days.

Writing for me has mostly been in another short story. This one is set during modern times, or in the near future and is very relatable for me as the writer. I love writing fantasy and pieces of historical fiction, but writing something set in a period of time I understand better than others is a reprieve of sorts. We met for a couple writing meetings and decided on a new meeting schedule, although we’ve broken it already and will unfortunately do so again this week, but that just gives us time to work on extra content for the next meeting I suppose.

As for my art, I’ve only been doing a bit of sketching here and there. Nothing incredibly serious, but some fun pieces all of which I have been happy with. I’m mostly just doing my best to keep that drawing muscle in shape.

Also – my chainmail is coming along nicely. The coife is all but finished and I’m looking forward to moving on to the hauberk.

More recently, it’s gotten colder of late. Autumn seems to be officially here. I’ve had to wear a sweatshirt the last couple days at work, and only a couple weeks ago I was wearing shorts and we were all complaining about the sweltering heat. The temperatures have dropped, and so has the rain. The heavens have opened up and it has been pouring this last week. I find myself wishing we had had some sort of warning. All this rain came so suddenly!

Hopefully the time I post an update, I will have something substantial to post about.

Break the Silence

A lot of people, including many of my blog's readers, know how much I love voice acting. Many also know how, eventually, I'd really like to make a living, or at least part of one, through voice over. People are constantly asking me if I'm actually doing any work in voice acting.

 

Well. I certainly am.

 

A year ago I attended a week-long retreat called The Guild. It was hosted by Lamplighter ministries and its goal was to cause young, talented individuals to realize that God had gifted them with a life, and gifts, and a call to use all of that for His Glory and the furthering of His kingdom. I met so many incredible people, learned so many incredibly insightful things, and basked in the presence of like-minded teachers and students. It was nothing less then life-altering.

 

But what came of this life-changing retreat? Well... the hope, was that students leaving the Guild would join in partnerships to co-operate on projects. That their combined passions would ally themselves, forming masterpieces of quality and excellence.

 

One of these co-operations is a documentary film titled Break the Silence: Echoing the Voice of God through Dramatic Audio. And you can learn more about the project and its aim at this link. At that link, you can also donate to the project. This is a big step for the team, and we could use any and all the help you can give, either by donating to the film, or through prayer.

 

My involvement in this project is as the narrator for the film. But you can also hear some of my work via either the promotional trailer or a number of the audio bios on the site. So be sure to check those out while you're there.

 

 

Break the Silence: Echoing the Voice of God through Dramatic Audio.

Today's Exam...

Well now. It’s been a while since I last found myself in bloggersville. Part of that is the fact that I’ve been working a lot these days. And then part of it was also that I was studying hard for a CLEP test I was hoping to take sometime soon. Many already know that I have decided to CLEP my college degree, as in my case it is a more cost effective way to earn my college degree. The particular test I’ve been studying for though, I’ve kind of been putting off. Partly I’ve been putting it off because it will be my first and frankly I’m terrified, and also partly because I just haven’t felt ready to take it. I’ve taken a number of practice tests, some of which I’ve passed, and some of which I’ve failed. Recently, I felt very encouraged to finally take the test, so I filled out an application, and called in to make an appointment. The paper-work was filled out, and my name was on the calendar. All I had to do was wait. And all I did was study and worry. Wednesday, August Eighth was my testing date. Yep, today was the big day.

So I drove some 40 miles to the testing center, praying and fretting the whole way. I was very, very nervous. I didn’t want to be late, so I left much earlier than needed. I arrived with time to spare, got signed in, met the proctors and such, and sat down to take the test. But… well… the computer fried.

Turns out the testing center’s computers had only just gotten a major overhaul the day before, and didn’t actually have all the needed software installed as well as other minor problems. Communication had been buggered so the facility had no idea that they weren’t actually set up for tests. At least not until I and another student attempted to use the computers.

So I drove all the way to the testing facility for… well… for nothing. Needless to say I was peeved. I tried my very best to be polite and understanding. I of all people know how frustrating getting treated like dirt for something you have no control over can be. I thanked them for their time and for doing what they could, and headed back to the parking lot. But once I reached my car all semblance of calmness left me. All I could do was make guttural growls and stomp around. I almost threw my phone, but thought better of it and threw my keys instead. I shook my fist, and felt like kicking something in or punching something out. I spoke with my mom on the phone and she tried to calm me and I hung up with her, and climbed into my car where I immediately broke down. I guess the stress of the exam finally caught up with me and I just had to vent it. So I cried and prayed. I just asked Christ what He was doing to me. What was I supposed to do next? What was He teaching me? Then I wiped my eyes and drove home.

The long drive gave me some extra time to vent I suppose. But I was incredibly disappointed that the drive out to the testing facility was basically for nothing and that this test… well, it’s still lurking out there. I still have to take it, and there’s still the possibility that I’ll fail miserably. My prayer when I climbed out of bed this morning was that I would be a light and a witness, no matter the outcome of my test. I never figured I’d miss out on taking the test entirely! I just hope I responded in a Godly way that was mature and glorifying.

I guess I get a couple more weeks to study for my test after all. I really just wanted it done and over with, but apparently God has other plans. Hopefully I'll be able to take it soon.

The Airport...

The girl shivered as she sat on the carpeted floor. The floor of the airport was hard and uncomfortable and she was cold. She glanced around at the people who rushed past or came and sat in the rows of seats within arms’ distance of where she sat.

In her one hand the girl held tightly to a boarding pass and passport while her other hand was empty. Her clothing was thin and worn, giving her little warmth in the chilly airport. She turned her head and glanced out the window at the planes as they taxied up and down the runway in the dark. It was the middle of the night and the girl was tired, as well as hungry. She could barely keep her eyes open, despite her growling stomach. But she wouldn’t allow herself to fall asleep for fear of missing her flight. The girl was immensely lonely. Not a week ago her aunt had given her the ticket for the flight and now she shivered in an airport, waiting to take a trip to somewhere entirely new.

The girl’s aunt was quite poor, barely able to support herself, let alone her young niece. So she had saved, for years, a large enough amount to purchase a passport and plane ticket to send the girl to live with her grandparents in another country. It was a place foreign to the girl, but hopefully a better place for her to grow up, with more opportunity. As she sat on the airport floor now, though, the girl felt very alone and anxious.

A man rushed past to reach his flight’s gate. He was late to his boarding and worried that he might miss his departure entirely. It had been a pleasant vacation he had just recently enjoyed; a satisfying reprieve from work, but all too soon he’d be back to his old grindstone. As he hurried along, he spied the girl curled up on the floor. Her frightened and lonely face seemed to leap at him from the crowd of faces in the airport. The sight latched onto his brain, remaining there, unwavering, even as he hurried past and to his gate. His heart throbbed as the sight pricked him with pity. His legs stopped moving and he turned and looked back at her. She was alone. She looked cold and tired. She was probably hungry. He stepped towards her, approaching slowly. He stooped low.

“Are you flying alone?” he asked her.

She startled. Her mind was thrust from her faraway thoughts and back into the present. The girl glanced about, making sure the man was speaking to her, but his brown eyes were focused on her. She nodded and he smiled.

“You look cold,” he told her. He rose and glanced around quickly and said, “I’ll be right back.” Then he walked away briskly and headed for the nearest gift shop. He stepped inside and grabbed a bright-red sweatshirt, pausing only long enough to check the size on the tag. He smiled nervously at the woman behind the counter as he paid for the piece of apparel. Then he hurried back out of the shop, absentmindedly leaving the receipt behind. He flipped through his wallet and pulled out several large bills which he shoved into the sweatshirt’s large muff-pocket. Then he hurried back to where the girl was curled up.

“Here,” he said kindly, handing her the sweatshirt. “That ought to keep you a little warmer.”

The girl sat up and pulled the sweatshirt over her head. She slid her arms into the warm sleeves and hugged the warm fleece. She lifted her eyes and smiled at the man. “Thank you,” she breathed and he nodded. She wanted to ask him why he’d bought it for her. But he rose quickly.

“I need to catch my flight,” he told her, glancing at his watch and looking worried. “Have a nice flight, and good luck,” he told her before hurrying off towards his gate.

 

“Last call for flight 121,” the lady at the boarding ramp said into the loud-speaker. She scanned the crowds, hoping to catch a glance of someone hurrying to her gate. She spied a man making his way towards her in a mad flurry. As he approached the counter he thrust his ticket in her direction.

“I’m not too late for the boarding, am I?” he asked between gasps for air.

She smiled and scanned his ticket before handing it back to him. “Nope,” she said with a chuckle, “you’re just in time.”