Giggles & Klutz, Part 1

The story begins in darkness.  Next comes blinding white light, as the protagonist opens his eyes.  He finds himself in an unfamiliar stone room, lying under a white sheet on a cot about the size of a backboard.  The light is morning sun shining directly onto his face.  He can see a dirty ceiling, four blank stone walls, and a smooth, clean stone floor.  A chest sits at the end of his cot.  He sits up, the sheet falls away, and he realizes he is naked.

            Clutching the sheet to himself in case someone enters unexpectedly -- though he can't see how it would happen, he has noticed no door -- he opens the chest.  It only has a latch, no lock.  Inside are unfamiliar clothes:  a shirt more like a dress, coming to mid-thigh with an open neck and laces; woolen pants uncomfortably tight; thick wool socks, a pair of leather boots coming almost to his knees.  He also found a belt with a knife.  Turning red, he dressed himself.

            What kind of joke is this?  He thought to himself.  Some sick new reality show?  The last thing he could remember before here was a crowded bus.  The only thing he could remember was that bus, not even his name or where he lived.  What if he was asked his name?  He looked down at his shirt, pulling it out to get a better look at himself.  A black gryphon was stitched across it.  Griffin Black?  That was a plausible name, wasn't it?

            Now that he was dressed, Griffin -- or whatever his name really was -- inspected the room more closely.  He even moved the chest and cot, but he still found nothing more.  Pressing every stone he could reach, none moved in the slightest, let alone triggered some hidden door.  Finally, he resorted to what perhaps should have been his first instinct:  looking out the window.

            There wasn't much more to go on.  That he was in a castle wasn't much of a surprise, given that he was dressed in what he thought of as a medieval manner and woke in a stone room.  Unfortunately, the view from his window did not offer more information, as all he could see was a small courtyard.  His was a second story window, but there was no glass, and the outer walls were rough ... could he reach the ground without hurting himself?

            He lowered himself out the window, managed to find toe holds, found finger holds, tried to lower his weight to find new toe holds ... and slipped, smacked his face against the rough stone, and fell backwards to land on his ass.  Collapsing onto his back in pain, he decided he should have just dropped intentionally, at least that way he may have landed on his feet.

            Finally standing up, he looked around.  There were two doors.  Lacking a coin to flip, he walked to the centre of the courtyard and started to turn in a circle.

            "That looked like it hurt!  I'm coming down too, can you catch me?"  Startled, he whipped around to see a girl climbing out a window across from where he had fallen.  He hurried over to stand below her.

            "I-I don't usually dress like this," he said, though he wasn't sure why.  His face was burning, though the scrape on his right cheek may have been the cause.

            "That's okay, I usually wear panties.  Ready?"

            Griffin looked up, right up her dress.  Sure enough, she wasn't wearing anything underneath it.  "Uh ... I guess so."

            "Three, two, one!"  And she fell, her dress billowing up.  He caught her, clumsily, and she slid down his body laughing.  He realized he had pulled her dress up to her breasts, and let go as if burned, stepping backwards -- and tripped, again.  "Accident prone?"  She asked through her giggles.

            "I don't remember...."

            "You neither?  Should I call you Klutz then?"

            "How about Griffin Black?"

            "Ooh, is that your name?"

            "Uh, sure.  Do you have a name?"

            "No."

            Griffin looked her up and down.  She had jewelled hairpins and a red dress.  That was about it.  "How about Jemima Flasher?"  This set her giggling again.  "Or should I just call you Giggles?  Giggles Commando?"  She just giggled harder, but took his hand.  "Come on, lets explore some more."  The door he was facing seemed as good as the door behind him, so he led her over to it, and opened it.  He didn't shut it.

            Through the door was a hall, with closed doors stretching in either direction.  Turning right, Griffin and Giggles walked to the corner, turned right, walked down a similar corridor, turned right, walked down this one, turned right, and found themselves back at the open door.

            "I had hoped for something better than this ... I have a theory, let's try that door on the other side."  Sure enough, the other door led to the third hall.  It was just a loop around the courtyard.  "Okay, I guess we start opening doors?"

            They had no better luck, all the rooms on this floor seemed to be full of firewood and food.  There were no fireplaces or stoves though, which made it all useless.

            "Any ideas?"

            "I remember sitting next to you on a bus.  If we're both here, and can't remember anything, maybe everyone else from the bus is here as well?"

            "Where though, this hall doesn't go anywhere."

            "But we didn't start down here, we started up there!  I was waiting for someone to open my door, because there has to be a door if they put me in that room.  But then I saw you climb out your window, and company sounded like a better idea.  Maybe we weren't supposed to get out of our rooms yet?  We could be somewhere we shouldn't be."

            "So you were on the bus too?  You remember it?"  Giggles suddenly looked hurt.  Taking a wild guess, he said "You're very cute.  I don't even remember my own name, the bus is fuzzy."  She hugged him, smiling again.  "What do you think is going on here?  Some sort of game where we should still be up in our cells?  Do you want to climb back up then?"

            "I don't know, we've obviously been abducted or something.  I can't climb up, but there was a bed up there."

            "Maybe this is some rich-people reality show.  Abduct us and see what we do if we wake up naked with no memory.  There could be hidden cameras everywhere."

            "I don't know, that sounds like a stupid conspiracy theory to me."

            "Yeah, I know, but we haven't exactly got much else to go on, now have we?  So what do you want to do now."

            "Whatever you want me to."

            "You want to do whatever I want?"  She nodded.  "You're nuts.  I guess we could start digging through some of these rooms.  You know, build stairs up to a window on the second floor."

            "But I'll get all sweaty."

            "I like my girls sweaty."

            It was hard, time-consuming, potentially pointless work, but it gave them something to do and more importantly, kept her from teasing him so much.  The sun was setting when they finally had built a pile of boxes big enough to climb up and crawl through into Giggle's room.

            Griffin looked in her trunk and saw some leggings and threw them at her.  "Put these on, it's likely to get cold in here soon."

            "Leggings?  Ew.  They are not in fashion."

            "As if I'm wearing anything fashionable at the moment."

            "Don't you like my legs?"

            "I love your legs, Miss Commando, but it's a little distracting, you prancing around like that."

            "Well, since there's still no door, and we have a bed...."

            "Yeah, let's try this first."

            Griffin looked at the window, walked to the wall directly opposite, and punched a stone.  Biting his lip and cursing in his head, he gasped in some air and yelled "will you open up?"

            An oddly shaped chunk of the wall swung inwards.

            "Well that was a little foolish, now people can walk in on us."

            Griffin looked at Giggles and walked out into the hall.

            This hallway proved less helpful than the one downstairs.  There weren't even any doorways.  Griffin couldn't figure out how they were lit, he didn't see a source.  But they were more than adequately lit.

            "Hey!  I'm sorry if I offended you!  I could just really use a cheeseburger and a coke."  A door swung open seconds after Giggle's plea.  Moving forward cautiously, Griffin peeked around the corner to find a table with two chairs, a pyramid of cheeseburgers and a case of coke sitting there waiting for them.  There was nothing else in the room.  "Woah.  Is this place magic or something?"

DJ's Forest Adventure: Part 1

David Jenkins was slumped in his recliner, laptop open in front of him.  He looked quite dejected and was browsing through online want ads, looking for a job or anything at all to lighten up his life.  As usual, he wasn’t coming up with much.

            But then he saw it.  He almost scrolled right past it, but he paused and right-clicked on it with a shrug, opening it in another tab to take a look.  Without looking at it, he continued scrolling through ads until he ran out of new ones.

            What had caught his attention was one word in the title: Adventure.  The title was actually “Go on an Adventure at no Cost to You!” which was even better given the current state of David’s finances.  Opening the ad, it got even better.  The gist of the ad was simple:  Raise at least five hundred dollars, half goes to a cancer charity, and the other half goes into the pot to be divvied up by the winning competitors.

            What the adventure actually was wasn’t really clear.  It sounded like fantasy-role playing, but mixed with an extreme eco-adventure race.  It said he would have to sign a waiver, but David wasn’t too worried.  He had been a Boy Scout, after all.

            David spent the rest of the evening researching, the dishes and laundry forgotten.  He even missed his usual MMO raid (actually, he forgot he had cancelled his subscription to save money the week before!) and replied to all chat requests with half-hearted answers consisting of as few words as possible.

            What did he discover?  Costumes were encouraged; helmets were supplied (and required).  It started at sunrise and ended at sunset.  It was occurring on four-hundred acres of wilderness complete with a small river, waterfalls, swamps, cliffs, and wildlife.  A labyrinth of paths existed, with tunnels and bridges and fences.  At the opposite end of the property lay the goal.  It was that simple, from what he was reading.

            But David couldn’t find a map or even pictures.  The address was an old big-box store parking lot; they would be bussed to the mysterious location at night.

            David registered.  He couldn’t think of a reason not to.  He set up his fund-raising website and shared it on various social-networking sites he belonged to.  He emailed friends.  He put down his computer and lurched to his feet, going to his bathroom (managing not to trip over any wires on the way) to look in the mirror.  At first, he didn’t really see anything, the lights were too bright.  They always were, so he never really looked at himself.

            The man looking back at him was not the man David Jenkins remembered.  A thick mop of frizzy brown hair sat on his head, coming down past his ears but not long enough to tie back if he needed too.  The weight he had put on in the last several months was almost hidden by the unkempt beard hanging from his chin, patchy on his cheeks and proudly displaying bits of food it had managed to catch.  His unibrow was thicker than he remembered and pimples dotted his forehead.  He would have to start with a shower.  He’d shower in the morning.

            It was probably a good thing he hadn’t jumped straight into the shower, he decided when he reached his bed.  David’s sheets looked like they should have been washed weeks ago, and the room smelled like it too.  He actually hesitated before collapsing on the bed and drifting off to a restless sleep.

            David gave up trying to sleep at six in the morning.  He got up and opened all his windows, hoping to air out his apartment.  Then he started cleaning.  Two hours later he had two full garbage bags to drag to the dumpster.  When he opened his door, the cute girl across the hall was just locking hers and jumped at the sight of him.  She scurried to the nearest stairwell and was gone without even squeaking hello like she usually did.

            Next on his to-do list was personal grooming.  He had collected a variety of beard-trimming devices in the decade since High School as he liked a bit of facial hair most of the time.  It wasn’t easy hacking away at his beard until it looked presentable, and the bathroom needed to be cleaned again.  Then it was shower time.

            After David had forced a comb through his shaggy hair, he discovered that the only clothes he had clean were a pair of lounge pants and a t-shirt that wasn’t quite big enough for him anymore.  “Guess it’s time to do laundry,” he muttered to himself.

            It was three o’clock by the time he was finally ready to go out, and then he had to find somewhere to get his hair cut.  He settled on a nearby unisex salon where a grumpy middle-aged woman sheared off his hair significantly shorter than he had instructed and gave him bangs.  Bangs!  But he didn’t say anything, he just paid and left, nearly running back to his apartment.

            He had to leave again immediately as he didn’t have anything to cook for supper.

            That evening he attempted something he hadn’t since Junior High: a push-up.  He actually managed three before collapsing!

            David spent a few hours before bed researching training regimens; he didn’t plan on being so out of shape come event day!  There was a wide variety, none of which looked promising to him.  He didn’t believe himself capable of most of them, and others didn’t seem to be intended for the results he was looking for.

            The next day he went out in search of people he could ask for pledges from.  He quickly discovered that this adventure he was embarking on was difficult to explain adequately in a reasonable amount of time.  But he was liked well enough; he got a few pledges for ten dollars.  A good start, he told himself.

            That evening he forced himself to look for jobs again anyway.

Over the next three months David lost weight, kept his apartment clean, and continued looking for a new job.  He actually forgot about the website he had pointed everyone he knew online to; as the event day drew closer he started to fear he wouldn’t be able to participate.  He thought he only had $400 raised.

            But then he asked a friend if they would pledge him.

            “Dude, I already did!  I gave you twenty-five bucks!”

            “What?  I don’t remember asking you.”

            “Seriously?  You don’t remember spamming about that site?”

            “Uh … yeah.  Sorry.  I should probably check on that.”

            So he did.

            And he had almost five thousand dollars raised.

The day before event day, it was unbearably hot and forecast to be the same for the next three days.  David got his hair cut again – this time by a younger girl who chatted about video games and actually did a good job – and trimmed up his facial hair.  He put on his old walking sandals, a pair of floral-print swim trunks, and a stained white t-shirt that was now baggy on him.  He packed a lunch and his camera, and headed out to the meeting place.

            He wasn’t the first one there.  There were guys and girls, athletes and nerds.  Some were dressed as if for gym class, others were dressed up in LARP gear or Cosplay.  David didn’t exactly feel out of place, but he didn’t feel like he fit either.  He didn’t see anyone he knew, which was hardly a surprise.

Betty Goes to Mykhaylo Castle

Mykhaylo Castle is hiring.  We are a full-scale resort gearing up for our first season; we’re looking for a bit of everything.

·         Kitchen staff

·         Bar staff

·         Wait staff

·         Cleaning staff

·         Lifeguards

·         Customer service representatives

·         Various artists

·         Guides

·         Receptionists

·         Landscapers

·         Maintenance personnel

·         Security

·         Ride attendants

·         Cashiers

·         Dancers

·         Massage therapists

·         IT

·         Programmers

·         Baristas

·         Estheticians

·         Barbers

·         Stable hands

·         Photographers

·         Film crew

·         Labourers

Why would you want to work for us?

·         Full medical, dental, and optical

·         Bedroom with ensuite, locking door

·         Three meals per day

·         Internet, wifi

·         Tablet

·         Personal storage unit

·         Training

·         Uniforms

·         Tips, commission, other compensation

·         No more debt

The catch?  There is no paycheque.  You work forty hours a week, and receive amazing experience and benefits.  For every $15 000 of debt we take from you, you sign a one year contract.  Only owe $5 000?  Still a one year contract.  Owe $16 000?  That’s a two year contract.  $31 000? A three year contract.  Not bad, right?

Betty Dupree read the ad three times before she believed what she was reading.  Three years after graduating University with a useless degree, she still owed forty four thousand dollars.  Flipping burgers just didn’t pay enough, and rent was expensive.  This job sounded great … except it was a little vague.  Still, she opened her resume and started adjusting it.  The job fair was tomorrow, and she wasn’t working.

            She continued fretting over her resume until midnight, then crawled into bed.  In the morning Betty wasn’t sure if she actually slept at all; she could only remember tossing and turning.  She stumbled through her shower, got dressed – and changed twice – before sitting down to a bowl of cereal.  She drooled toothpaste down her top and changed twice more before leaving without her resume.  She got back down to the bus stop just in time to see the bus she wanted pulling away.

            By some miracle, Betty arrived at the hall with resume in hand just as they were opening the doors.  There were only five others there yet, and suddenly Betty was glad she hadn’t gotten there earlier.

            “Hello!  Before I take a look at your resume, do you have any questions?”  Betty blinked.  A girl about her own age was looking at her expectantly.  She was wearing black slacks and a white blouse with the Mykhaylo Castle logo embroidered on the left breast.  There was no name tag.

            “Hello, I’m Betty.  I—”

            “Hi Betty, I’m Leanne.”

            “Hi Leanne.  I was wondering where Mykhaylo Castle is.  It is in Canada, right?”  Leanne nodded, so Betty continued.  “BC?  Alberta, Ontario … I am prepared to move, but the first thing I want to know is where it is.”

            “Oh!  I didn’t realize we left that out of the ad!  It’s here in Nova Scotia.  The lake it’s on is only about forty-five minutes from here, but it’s more like a two hour drive to the castle itself.  Have to take back roads to get there; they’re pretty much logging roads.  Anything else?”

            “Where would I be living?”

            “You would most likely live in the staff wing of the Castle.  There are other accommodations for some positions, but almost everyone lives in the Castle.  How about I take a look at your resume for an idea where you’d be working?”

            “Oh, here.”  Betty waited awkwardly while Leanne skimmed through her resume.

            “Hmm.  Yes, you would be living in the Castle.  It’s a furnished room, just a double bed with a dresser, mirror, desk, and a small closet.  Oh, a little fridge too.  You’d have a bathroom to yourself, but a shower stall, not a tub.  The rooms aren’t painted yet, so pick a swatch and we’ll have it painted that colour.  And feel free to decorate!  It’s your home.

            “Your resume suggests you’d be working in our kitchens, and I’m making a note of when you showed up, so you’ll probably get mostly morning prep shifts.  But that’s just a guess; you can sit down and take our initial test right now if you’d like.”

            “Test?”

            “Don’t worry!  It’s not a test you can fail.  It’s fun, and gives us an idea of where your strengths lie.  An application form, that’s what you can think of it as.  Or a game.  Here, just sit down here and follow the instructions on the screen.”

            Leanne waved Betty into a chair and pulled a tablet out of a box, turned it on and tapped the screen a few times before handing it to Betty.  The first questions were easy; standard interview and application questions.  But it moved on to personality questions, followed by math.  Then there was what Betty recognized as an IQ test.  After that it was bizarre random trivia, and Betty lost track of time.  It really was fun.

            It ended with a screen that merely said ‘calculating preliminary assessment.’

            “Oh, you’re done, are you?  Here, let’s see that.”  Betty looked up to see Leanne and was startled to see the hall was now crowded.  “Hmm.  It is recommending you for kitchen, bar, or wait staff and indicates you might do well as a guide.  I’ll have to look over your answers to make a better decision, but … you’re hired.  If you want the job.”

            “Really?  Just like that?”

            “Yes.  I’m a good judge of character; we need people like you.”

            “When do I start?”

            “Orientation and move-in is next month, but we’ll be in touch before then.”

            “Good, that gives me time to get out of my lease and current job.  What now?”

            “Sign here and pick a colour.”

            Leanne passed Betty the tablet back, and Betty clumsily signed ‘Betty Dupree’ with her finger.  Then a colour wheel popped up and she spent a minute picking a colour.  She held out the tablet for Leanne.

            “No no, that’s yours.  It’s full of information for you to read over, videos to watch.  It’s set up with your company email.  Here’s a charger for it, and we’ll talk more about your new career in a week or so!”

            Betty walked out to catch the bus in a daze.  That afternoon she called her landlord, who informed her that that worked out perfectly as her apartment had extensive work that needed to be done and she wouldn’t even have to look for someone to sublet.  Then she spent the rest of her afternoon putting furniture she didn’t want to keep on Kijiji and going through her closet.

            A week later she got an email from Leanne with pictures of her room and a move-in date.  Boxes and paper were dropped off a week before the move, and Betty packed up her stuff.  Then it was cleaning out the apartment and getting rid of the things she wasn’t putting in storage.  Which is when she realized how big a change she was making in her life.

            Betty was in a daze as she helped load her things into the cube van with the Mykhaylo Castle logo on its side.  They went to another building and a guy still suffering acne and not bothering to shave the bit of scraggly hair that grew on his face loaded his things into the truck and mumbled his name when he sat next to Betty.  He promptly turned on his tablet and ignored her.

            Betty watched the countryside slide by, full of spring growth and promise.  It was almost a shock when the van pulled up to a massive building that seemed out of place.

            “Storage units are down here.  We’ll get you unloaded, and then someone will be along to take you to your new home.”  It didn’t take long.  Betty was handed a key.  “You’ve got twenty-four hour access.  Here’s Leanne, so it’s time for me to go find more newbies.”

            “Betty, Matthias, lock up and come along.  Bring your bags, we’re going to your rooms, but you’ll have a chance to look for anything you need later.”  Betty shouldered her backpack and heaved her suitcase out of the locker, locked it and walked to Leanne, but she could hear Matthias muttering about his ‘precious’ computer and he took his time.

            Thankfully they took an elevator up to the third floor – from the second basement – where their rooms were located.  Betty was pointed into one room and Matthias another.

            “Go ahead and make yourself at home; I’ll be back in about half an hour to get you.  Oh, the wireless password … it’s ‘IWorkHere’.”

            Betty had her clothes put away and her toiletries set out in the bathroom within five minutes.  She found a set of white sheets and a white comforter folded on the bed, so she made the bed.  Not having anything else to do, she curled up on the bed with her tablet and brought up the castle map.  It didn’t take long to find her room and storage locker.  She started exploring and next thing she knew, there was a knock at her door.

            “Betty, time to come have dinner and meet the others.”  Betty got up and went out the door.  “Here, put this on.  There are over a hundred of you.  Oh, and I forgot to give you your key, here.  Wouldn’t want you to leave your door unlocked.”  Betty pinned on her nametag, locked her door, and waited for Leanne to lead the way.

            Dinner was a massive buffet in a huge dining hall.  Betty heaped food onto her plate and made her way to a random seat.  As the table filled up, she found herself with a shaggy guy on her left and a petite girl on her right.

The guy was pretty non-descript.  ‘Shaggy’ pretty well covered it, but so would ‘brownish’.  He was slightly tanned, his hair a generic brown, his face obscured by facial hair but not in an off-putting or memorable way.  He wore brown clothes.  He introduced himself as Mitchell.  He didn’t say much.

The girl was picking at a vegetarian dish.  She had long dark hair and smooth pale skin.  She looked scared.

“Hi.  My name is Betty,” she tried.

“Veronica,” was all she got back.  Veronica looked a bit panicked so Betty went back to her food.  Just then everyone’s tablet dinged.

An email had come in.  It was essentially explaining how to use a social networking app that had been developed for the employees of Mykhaylo Castle.  And challenging them to add everyone they met that evening.

Betty quickly filled in the basics of the profile and let it take a picture of her through her tablet’s camera, then turned to Mitchell.  “Hey, mind if I add you?”

“Only if I can add you.”  It took all of thirty seconds and the conversation died again.

“Veronica?  Can I …” Veronica was nodding and Betty’s tablet dinged with the incoming request.

The rest of Betty’s night was spent brushing off the advances of cocky guys and resisting the attempts of cliquey girls to assimilate her.  The drinks were flowing and her contact list was growing, but Betty soon found herself yawning and slipped off to bed.