Spooky Season: The Tootsie Incident.

As you reach into the bag of candy, you think you hear a voice saying, “Pick me, pick me!” The voice seems to be coming from the tootsie roll you just moved to the side. It is the sad, neglected piece of candy you always avoid when rummaging through your mound of treats on Halloween night.

You're exhausted and you're high on sugar. There's a good chance that the combination is making you hallucinate. A tootsie roll? Talking? There's just no way. But then you examine the candy more carefully, and see that it has eyes, a mouth, and ears.

Freaked out, you drop the candy and run to tell your parents, who are still giving out candy to the late night Trick-or-Treaters. They shrug off your peculiar news and continue their yearly ritual of watching Casper and eating roasted pumpkin seeds. You’re discouraged and are questioning, again, if what you saw and heard was real.

 You tentatively walk back into the bedroom you ran out of, and look for the discarded tootsie roll, but you can’t find it anywhere. It’s gone. You decide that you’ve lost your appetite for sugar for the night and head to bed. You sleep soundly throughout the night, except for the tootsie roll nightmare. The tootsie has grown to the size of a large man, and is now repeating his original phrase in a much deeper tone. “Pick me. Pick, me,” it says lethargically. Its beady eyes stare down at you and you know you’re done for. You wake in a panic—heart beating fast, sweat coating your temple.

But when you wake, the nightmare isn’t over. The tootsie is lying beside you! You’re confused as to how it got there, and once again afraid. “Pick me, pick me,” it whispers again. You must prove to your parents that it really exists. You bravely pick up the tootsie roll and carry it to your parents’ bedroom. Shaking your dad awake, you show him the piece of candy, explaining how it talked and moved around. But when you open your hand, the tootsie’s face is gone. It’s just another piece of candy. Your dad is frustrated and goes back to sleep.

You look at the tootsie roll for a long time, but its face never reappears. You throw the candy away and vow never to go trick-or-treating again. Happy Halloween.

Archie Smith, Boy Wonder

Archie Smith was a boy like any other, except for his keen ability to read the thoughts of those around him. It was a hidden talent, one that he kept secret and shared with no one, not even his parents. They say ignorance is bliss, and in Archie’s case, it may have been true. Archie was only eight, and most of what he heard, he didn’t understand.

His gift was one that he had not been born with. Just ten months earlier, he’d been playing with his older sister, Judie, when he heard her think that she was too old for his games and that he needed to acquire more friends. Not knowing that she hadn’t actually said the words, he ran off and began to cry. It wasn’t until he heard his mother think about how much she wished she’s married Ben Harper from down the street that he realized what was happening.

Archie wasn’t the most loved boy at school, and his new ability didn’t much help his self-esteem. He knew too much now, and drove his friends away after learning what they thought about him. He ate alone, played alone, and walked alone. His burden made him drift into silence, and he stopped speaking. Ten months later, and nothing had changed.

He felt as though he no longer mattered, and like no one liked him.

Until one night.

He was lying in his bed, awake, but with his eyes closed when he heard voices coming from his window. He was afraid and confused as to why there was someone at his window, but equally intrigued. He kept his eyes closed, and tried to listen to the voices the best he could.

A tiny voice asked, “Is he the one?”

“It could be possible, but he’s awfully small,” another tiny voice replied.

“We’ve been looking for months, and everything has lead us here,” the first and more feminine voice said. “He has to be the one we’ve been looking for. I sense his gift. He reeks of magic.”

“Let’s get on with it then.”

He was astonished to find that he couldn’t read their thoughts. He needed to know who they were, and he needed to know how this had happened to him. At this moment, he could no longer lie still. He turned over, eyes open, and spoke his first words in months into the darkness. “My name is Archie Smith, I’m eight and I can’t read your minds, but I can read everyone else’s.”

He couldn’t see were the voices had come from, but a tiny gasp came out of thin air in the corner of his room and two tiny people appeared. They were the size of mice, and their skin seemed to illuminate the room as if it glowed. They hadn’t been there a moment ago, and seemed to have been invisible.

The little, glowing people stood there with shocked looks on their faces for quite some time. It was Archie that made the first move. “Are we going on an adventure? Can I wear my pajamas?”

“Oh, dear. It seems he is the one. Hello, Archie. My name is Claude Frobisher and I’m 214 years old. We’re from a magic place, and we would like for you to help us save it.”

Scare Tactics: A Test

[Glen, trapped inside his own mind, recollects how he ended up in this predicament]

I can't move, breathe, speak or hear and it's so dark all the time. If I knew it would be this lonely, I would've been cremated instead. An eternity of nothingness, alone with my own thoughts, I rot. As the time wastes away, my loneliness turns to rage and my confusion turns to violence. I must get out of this damned box. How did I get here? Who put me here? Where is my family, my wife and daughter? Where did they go? Is wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was supposed to go someplace magical and happy. I’ve been cheated. Cheated…

This is James’ fault. He’s the reason I’m here. If he hadn’t been driving that night, if he’d been sober… I wouldn’t be stuck in this perpetual darkness! James is to blame. He’s the one that needs to pay. If I ever get out of this box, he’ll pay.

[The powers that be decide that Glen deserves his revenge and lets his soul free from the confides of the box. Consumed with rage, he thinks only of his unfinished business]

There he is, James the criminal. He sits in his armchair, asleep with the light still on beside him. For what seems like an eternity, I’ve been trapped in a box in the ground in constant agony and mental torment, and waited for this moment.

I lean in close to his ear, and then I scream. He doesn’t stir. I slap him and I kick him, and still he doesn’t stir. What is this trickery? Why can’t he feel my wrath? I’m blind with rage, and I keep at it until he wakes.

He seems unhurt, except for the tired look in his eyes. A look of guilt, I’d never seen on him before. This pleases me, and I float back to my darkness. But where there should be nothing, a bright light consumes the earth and swallows me up.

On the other side, my parents are waiting for me with a six pack of beer, a hot dog and the Royals Game on. Maybe death’s not so bad.

Keeping it Reel

Parenting can be a daunting task, and we certainly don't make it any easier. As teenagers, we frequently forget that our parents are just as lost as we are. They do the best they can, and try to do what's best for us, but sometimes, they make mistakes. As children, we see our parents as these perfect, flawless people that we should strive to be exactly like. They're our heroes. Growing up, we begin to see the cracks in their once perfect armor, and it's disappointing. Nothing is as it seemed in our simple, child minds. It's confusing and it causes us to be angry and disrespectful and rebellious. Most of the time, there's no reason for our harshness and we're too hard on our parents. We don't know why we act this way, and we know that it's not fair, but we can't stop ourselves. Words pour out of our mouths uncontrollably and we are constantly justifying their wrongness (Question 27). We often feel as though our parents have forgotten what it's like to be our age; how tough it is to change and how uncomfortable we feel. We know that they must have felt this way at one point, but they act like we're just being insolent and uncooperative. They treat us like our behavior is just supposed to be accepted and that our outbursts don't really mean anything. Newsflash: they mean something to us. Parents: talk to your kids. Listen to them; really listen. And don't fake it. We can see through it now. Be genuine and don't get so caught up in trying to be a parent that you forget to be a friend and a mentor (Question 2).

Dan was a columnist for a newspaper who wrote about how hard it is to be a family, and advice on our to parent your kids. It would be interesting to write a column from the perspective of the kids. If i were to write for a newspaper, being a columnist would be really cool. I'd have control over what I wanted to write about, and could live in my own little paper world (Question 3).

As a child, my dad loved to use nicknames. To him, I was Taytor-Tot. It was silly and it drove me insane, but I secretly liked that he had his own name for me. It made me feel special.

"Reel" Talk: Movies

To me, the world of film is magical place where anything and everything can happen, and one can witness the events right before her eyes. I watch movies the way Teddy Roosevelt read books, more frequently than most and more often than one probably should. I have a habit of watching my favorites repeatedly, which drives those around me bonkers. I could never limit myself to one, all-time, favorite movie, but I could probably cut it down to my top ten.
1. Cloud Atlas
2. Forrest Gump
3. Pride and Prejudice
4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
5. Meet Joe Black
6. The Princess Bride
7. What Dreams May Come
8. The Wolf On Wallstreet
9. Fight Club
10. Four Rooms

While most of these movies lack a common theme, setting, and story line, they do all have phenomenal acting and dialogue. To really sell a story, you need both.

I'm usually not a fan of westerns, spy movies, or action-thriller dude-flicks with no actual plot (a.k.a. every single one of the Fast and Furious movies).

Watching movies is usually a family affair, and I almost always watch movies with at least my sister around. That's not to say that I never watch movies by myself, because I do plenty of that as well; especially when ma famille has grown tired of my frequent fliers and doesn't feel like watching Four Rooms for the ten thousandth time.

The Test Your Movie Personality Quiz says that I'm 92% open to new experiences, 83% agreeable, 67% emotionally stable and extroverted, and 58% conscientious. It suggests that I watch movies to feel miserable and aesthetically pleased, escape reality, and learn stuff. All true. 

If my life story was made into a movie, Shailene Woodley would play me. It would include the night my parents convinced me that we had super powers, the day my sister was born, my first days of middle school and high school, and my 16th birthday when I found out that I was going to France. My life has been happy for the most part, and as long as nothing devastating happened, I don't see why my story shouldn't have a happy ending.

Movie Quotes

Not This Again: Discussion on the Future

Mr. Odom, our guest speaker from Monday, hadn't planned on pursuing a career in writing. He got a degree in Finance, got married, and had children before he even considered exploring his talents. He is proof that the decisions we make in our youth are not the deciding factor of what we become or do with our lives. 

He spoke about his lack of confidence in his writing before he joined his critique groups. By attending these sessions, he was able to see the reactions of his readers, and realized that he was actually pretty good. At these critique groups, he would provide copies of his work to each person and read it aloud.

A question I would've and should've asked was whether or not he still wrote, and if he had only written the one book, I'm a Brat. It's incredibly difficult to make a career out of writing, especially when you only publish a few books.

Parents, teachers, counselors, and even friends have been hounding me about what I want to be, where I want to go to college, where I want to live, etc. And when I respond with "I'm not sure yet," they assume that I'm a nincompoop that hasn't thought about her future at all. They don't realize that my future is all I think about. I make lists of possible majors, colleges, and careers almost everyday. I take quizzes that are supposed to tell me what I should study and where I should go. I take practice ACTs online. It's not that I don't think about it. It's that I have too many ideas and thoughts to make decisions right now. I'm also really afraid that people will put me down or try to change my mind or make me doubt myself or force their own opinions upon me if I tell them.

So you ask, where I'd like to be in a year? I can't even decide what I want for breakfast, let alone where I want to be in a year. But, hey, I'll give it my best shot. I want to be completing my college applications after scoring high enough on the ACT to get into the colleges I want to go to (fingers crossed). It will be my senior year, and I'll probably be struggling to transition of being a child and becoming an adult. I'll have to start making adult decisions and doing adult things, like applying for loans.

In five years, I'll be 21. I hope by this point, I will have figured out the great mess that is deciding on a major, career, etc. But knowing myself and knowing my tendency to be indecisive in moments of great importance and stress, there's a good chance I will still be lost. I'm hoping that I'll get to study abroad at some point in my late college years, possibly in France or Switzerland.

In ten years, I'll be 26! The only images I have of people in their late 20s are those that exist on TV shows (Friends), and my parents. I haven't given much thought to what my life is going to consists of during this weird period of educated and inexperienced. I expect that there will be a lot of working during this time. I'll be in a new career, and I'll have to start from the bottom and work my way up. I don't see myself having a family at this time, but I'm open to it.

In FIFTY years, I'll be 66. Fifty years is a long time. Maybe I'll be retired and traveling the world with a spouse or my sister. Maybe I'll still be working. Maybe I'll be dead! I'll be well past my half-life, and I most likely would've hit my peak long before this. I hope that by this point, I will be able to look back on a life of success and love.

A Woman's Reality

I hadn’t planned on working that night. Molly asked if I would cover for her because her son had caught the bug and was throwing up all over the place. Normally, I would’ve said no, but I felt inclined to do her this solid with Christmas right around the corner. It was a time for giving after all.

The night had been fairly slow due to the small blizzard raging on outside. Most folks had enough sense to stay in, rather than risk running about the icy streets. Joe, the cook, was on with me that night and we spent most of our shift joking around and refilling ketchup bottles. Joe was a nice guy of fifty or sixty who always had some raunchy story to share about his youth. I liked working with him and he never tried to flirt with me or grope me the wrong way like some of the other guys there. In fact, sometimes he would even beat the boys that got a little too frisky with me after hours. Yeah, Joe was a real nice guy.

He was in the middle of one of his bawdy story about a broad from South Dakota, when three men dressed in all black walked in. They wore their cigarettes in their mouths like a prize and their hats shielded part of their faces. The guy to the left took off his hat, revealing a full head of brownish red hair.

“Hey sweet cheeks, table for four. We got another comin’,” he said. The way the words rolled off his lips, they almost sounded like a threat. Absurd, I know. The words themselves held no malice, but his voice was as sharp and cool as a knife.

So I seated them and do my usual cordial routine, attempted a little small talk and left them to their business. I was both afraid and intrigued by this group of men, and silently awaited the arrival of their forth companion in my corner with Joe.

Thirty minutes passed before their friend joined them. A man so tall, he’d be called a freak just for walking down the streets. He wore a clown suit of bright white that seemed to blend in with the snow from outside. His face was painted as a clowns usually is, but it was faded, slightly, as if he’d been wearing it for a few days. The red and white paints has begun to blend and the black around his eyes was smeared. This man looked rough, and like the sort of person you avoided. I definitely wouldn’t have trusted him around my children.

As the peculiar men sat around their table, not one laughed. They spoke in quiet, hushed voices and their tones were stressed and sharp.

When I came for their orders, the sketchy clown instantly began to grin. He grabbed at me and pulled me into his lap. The heathen smelled of gasoline and cigarettes and his eyes were a threatening black.

“I want to eat you up,” he said. “Screw the burgers, I want to eat you.”

I tried to pull away from him, but his arms held me to him. I was trapped. He put his hand over my mouth and began smelling my hair. I began to shriek. I bit down hard.

He threw me off of him and yelled some choice words my direction. Joe burst out of the kitchen and came to my rescue. But when all the men squared up, it was four to one. And I sensed the ones in black carried weapons. I reached for the nearest phone and began to call the police.

But by the time they arrived, Joe was on the floor, beaten bloody and moaning. The clown looked furious and tried to escape the ambush of cops, but he was too slow. As it turned out, these men were convicted felons, and had reeked a lot of havoc with women all over the country. They were rapists.

And I could have been their next meal. 

Heads Spinning

Who is the man behind the apple?

I’m afraid it is a baffle.

We know not how, or when, or where.

Just that he is there.

Maybe he smokes cigars,

And owns twenty cars.

Maybe he counts his dollars

And argues with scholars.

A baffle indeed,

All apples supersede.

I live on a rock that floats in the sky.

Down below, people squabble and cry.

I watch and do nothing,

Accepting their suffering.

We take our notes and record their history,

Taking no sides and keeping the memory.

Centuries go by and by and by,

And never do we care to ask why.

I’m living a lie because

I live on a rock that floats in the sky.