fandomhigh | Campfire Stories & Songs #2, 5/30/06, Main Campfire, Evening

[OOC: I screwed up the scheduling by counting Week 1 as a story-telling week, so I've pushed you all back a week, except for Lyta who will team up with Demyx for the finale.
Week 2 (May 30) - Walter Dornez (Spooky Dude)
Week 3 (June 6) - Tim Desmond (Faerie-Tale Dude)
Week 4 (June 13) - Nadia Santos (Buenos Babe)
Week 5 (June 20) - Jude Lizowski & Hamlet
Week 6 (June 27) - Greg Sanders
Week 7 (July 4) - Demyx & Lyta Alexander
The rest of you will get names when I can think of something :) The more you tell Ted about yourself, the easier it is for me to come up with a name. Also, names are subject to change based on my whims, la. If the date you've chosen becomes a problem, grab someone and ask to switch with them. Then just let me know and I'll make the change. Also, I apologise for not interacting last week. Things will be different from now on, but you still won't get responses until night time because I'm asleep during your day.]

"Hey dudes, welcome to this week's workshop! I'll get us started, and then it's Spooky Dude's turn to tell a story this week."

Ted cleared his throat and began to tell his story. "Once upon a time, there was a girl named Doritathy. She was blonde and British and had curly hair and weird glasses. Anyway, she had a dog named...uh, Johnoto that she loved like whoa..."

Even though she was blonde and British and all that, she lived in a place where there were lots of tornados. Then there was this witch that hated Doritathy named Ms. Listie who was also blonde, and liked to beat people up. She wanted to take Johnoto away from Doritathy, but Doritathy didn't want her to, so she ran away. But then she came back - I dunno why, babes are confusing - and then there was a TORNADO. The tornado blew through the house she was hiding in and it swept her up and up and then all of a sudden the house came down and she found herself in technicolor! Oh, and there were these leprechaun dudes there.

But then she found out that her house had landed on a witch! So she totally stole the witch's most excellent footwear. The witch's sister, the Wicked Witch of the South-By-Southwest got totally pissed. But then this good witch, who was all Amazon-like and toted this Big Damn Gun, told Doritathy to follow this path to the Sapphire City where the Emperor dude could get her home.

So Doritathy and Johnoto went off on the unpaved road, because the local government had a totally bogus Department of Transport and Roads, and then they met this scarecrow! And he was a most handsome looking dude with a straw hat and floppy hair and everything. And he said "Hey babe with really cool shoes! Where you goin'?"

And Doritathy said "The Sapphire City, handsome-strapping-scarecrow man. Will you come with me?"

And he was all "Totally! Most excellent!" Because Doritathy told him that the Emperor would give him a new amp since the crows pooped all over his last one.

So she got him down off the thingy that was holding him and his guitar up in the corn field and they kept going. Then they found a man made totally of steel. He was muttering and cursing and they oiled him up - not dirty - and he thanked them.

"Why are you made of steel, Steel Man?"

"My name is Automobile," Auto the Steel Man replied. "I'm supposed to be made of steel, except my shiny red paint wore off."

"Do you want to come to the Sapphire City?" Doritathy asked, because she was nice like that.

"Sapphires?" Automobile asked. "I'm there."

So they kept going! Then they ran into a giant puma! That's kinda like a lion, only not. And the puma said "Rarr, give me your votes!"

So Doritathy kicked him in the shin and he started crying.

"I didn't mean it! Don't hurt me! I was just joshing you!"

So they all forgave him, and decided to call him Josh since he was just joshing them, and 'puma' is a weird thing to call someone.

Then they kept going and they got to this poppy field. Everyone was totally allergic to poppies, so they were stuck! But then this DINOSAUR comes along and says "Hey, I'm Tom-Tom the dinosaur" and because he was a fire-breathing dinosaur, he burned down all of the poppies and then they got to the city.

Uh, so then there was this stuff with the Wicked Witch of the South-by-Southwest, but to cut a long story short, they set her flying chinchillas free and got her to run away to Guatemala by calling her fat or something, and then they got to the Sapphire City. But Automobile tried to steal the city, so they all got kicked out by the Emperor and they started a commune in Fiji.

THE END."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Walter was still a bit surprised at being called "Spooky Dude," but it was better than other options, he supposed. Like "Wally."

"Right." Walter cleared his throat and realized he hadn't really given his story much thought. After lighting a cigarette, he started in on his story.

"War time is a time when ghosts are 'born' in great numbers. People who are killed suddenly sometimes want to argue about whether or not they're dead when the Grim Reaper comes to call. I'm sure Death who lived down the hall from me knew all about that, but he's not here right now.

"I'm from London, and during the Blitz, people lost their lives in their homes where they thought they were safe in their beds.

"Don't ask me how. I could never sleep through the sirens, but it happens.

"In a neighborhood not far from my own, there was a man, a black marketeer named Bernard Watkins. I remember him. He was a big, fat man, not just fat, but tall. All of the kids would call him Big Bernie. Bernard liked good bit of nosh, and he was a real dipso. Get him sloshed and he was dead to everything.

"One night, the bombers flew, and he really was dead to everything. He never knew what hit him.

"But there's a war on. People cleaned up, patched up the holes in the house, and life went on.

"Except for the people who moved into Big Bernie's house. You have to remember, there's a war on. You can't just pop down to All and Sundries and find anything you want on the shelves. We're an island under attack, so we have to ration.

"But the people who moved into Big Bernie's started having problems with their rationing. Mum asked Dad where the food was going. Dad asked the kids. The kids pointed fingers at each other. Nobody would admit to taking more than their fair share.

"Dad even stayed in the house during a couple of air raids, to see if maybe someone was sneaking in while the family was out in the old Anderson shelter in the back yard, but nobody saw where the food was going.

"Until one full moon night - the Germans almost always bombed under the full moon and Big Bernie died on a full moon night - Dad finally saw the culprit.

"He'd been asleep in the kitchen with his P17 in his lap when he heard a creaking sound from upstairs. Mum was a small woman and this was a big creak. The creak crossed the floor and started down the stairs. Dad got up, but he didn't see anything. He went out into the living room and could hear the sound of feet walking down the stairs - big, heavy feet - but still he didn't see anyone.

"When he went to the foot of the stairs, a cold breeze blew right through him. 'Through my soul,' he told the neighbors the next day when they asked him why he was packing his family out of the house. It knocked him off his feet.

"When he got back up, the noise had moved into the kitchen and he got there in time to see the ice box open. Under the light of that full moon coming in through the kitchen window, Dad saw Big Bernie eating.

"He said he might have been able to stay, except that Big Bernie had lost his head to shrapnel and was carrying it under his arm, stuffing the family's roast beef into its mouth, where the food disappeared instead of falling out the hole in his neck onto the floor."

Nadia was a fan of ghost stories and, well, it was her boyfriend telling it, so she stayed quiet throughout the story, just nodding slightly.

Walter sat back after the story was over and grinned. It might not have been the best student story to get told during the workshop, but it was the first, which meant so far, it was the best.

"Nice job, 'Spooky Dude',"

"Thanks. I like 'dollink,' but it would probably be really weird if Professor Ted called me that."

"Definitely weird. Wonder how he decided you were spooky?"

"I don't know. Maybe he's afraid of waistcoats."

"They can be threatening, as far as articles of clothing go. What story do you think I should tell?"

"Not as threatening as certain articles of women's clothing, from my prom experience."

He shrugged. "I don't know what story. Something someone told you?"

Nadia thought. "I don't know. I want to tell a ghost story, too, but those are always scarier if they're local. We're not likely to run into Big Bernie in Fandom, are we?" She blinked. "Of course, now that I said that, maybe we are. . . ."

"You had to say it, didn't you?" Walter bumped his shoulder against hers and shook his head in mock-disappointment. "Have we learned nothing here yet?"

"Don't offer mysterious anthropomorphic animals help when you meet them in the woods?" Nadia said innocently, then smiled. "Maybe I'll go to the computer lab at some point and see if I can find a local-ish legend or something."

"A war story?" Pip said as he lit a cigarette. "I might have known. Good one, though."

"It's only a war story because it happened during the war and Bernie was killed by a bomb."

"Very nice." tim complimented him. "Have you ever seen...stupid question."

"Big Bernie? Or a ghost? I've never seen Big Bernie."

"But you have seen a ghost?"

"No. I don't think I have. Monsters a'plenty, but no ghosts. Have you?"

"Do Banshee's count? They're people who've died."

"Your guess is better than mine on that."

"A most excellent story, Spooky Dude. You're living up to your name already! So what did the dude do? Did he shoot Big Bernie? Take him to a small claims court? Inquiring minds must know."

Campfire Stories & Songs #2, 5/30/06, Main Campfire, Evening

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