The Riddle Rooms

"Wow, Jim, your aunt's home is pretty nice," Carl said.
"I know Carl, I've been here before," I said.
"Too bad she is dead now."
"At least she was nice enough to leave this to me."
"True enough."
"Let's split up and see what is around."
"OK."
I walk to the right and Carl keeps going straight. I try the first room's door, locked. I come to the second, locked, the third, locked, the fifth, locked, the sixth, locked. I walk down to the last door on the hall and try the last door, open. "I wonder why all the other doors are locked," I thought to myself as I opened the door. As I looked around the room from the bright yellow curtains to the faded painting in the corner I noticed the stark white note on the black bed sheets. Sitting on the bed I read it.

The only reason I left this house to you

and not anyone else is because I believe that

 you are the one who can solve the Riddle Rooms.

 The first is behind the bed.

A map of the house is on the dresser.

Calling down the hallway, praying that he would hear, I yelled, "Carl, come here!" Hearing Carl running down the hallway I knew that he had heard.

"What?" he inquired as he entered.

"Help me move the bed."

"Ok?" As we lifted the bed I got quick glances at the riddle, which only stroked my excitement. I looked at Carl and by the look on his face I knew that he was catching glimpses of it too. After moving the bed I read the riddle out loud,

"This riddle's key is hidden in the room where the owner is almost always gone, but the key hides with the invention that allows you to look through walls."

"What does that mean?" Carl asked.

"I don't know yet, but this note did mention a map." I replied.

"Let's look at the map then."

"Ok." Grabbing the map off of the dresser I noticed that we were in the guest room and that every door had a color and that the guests room's was red.

"Hmm... I think that I know what 'the room where the owner is almost always gone' means," Carl said.

"Well tell me then!"

"It is the guest room, but I don't know what 'the invention that allows you to look through walls' means."

"I think it means a window."

"That is brilliant!" Carl exclaimed, "Well, why are you just standing there? Look for the key in the window!" I walk over to the window and reach into the window tray. I grab something cold and metallic and pull it out. After opening my hand once I had it out I noticed a piece of paper on the key and I read what was written on it out loud,

"The color of this door is merry indeed, though it is often seen."

"I think it is the color yellow," Carl said.

"I think it is green," I said.

"Why don't we try both? The closer one is yellow."

"Ok."

"Ok." We walked over to the second door that I tried and Carl put the key in. The key fit, but it would not turn.

"See told you it was green," I bragged.

"Do not get so confident just yet." He replied. While walking over to the hall that Carl explored a little I admired the houses architecture. It was a very ornate, new Gothic combined with modern look. The green door was the second door on this hallway as well. I stuck the key in and turned it. Opening the door I saw a chest with a note on it and I walked over and picked it up. It read,

In this chest is the fortune of a hundred men.

Though the prize may seem won.

Ones work is never done.

As the dresser knows,

one always needs his clothes.

"We are rich!" I exclaimed. Though I did not know what the last part meant I was sure to check the dresser later.

Running

Right, left, breathe, right, left, breathe, repeat. "I can't believe I am doing this," I said out loud." Just a few months ago I was fine. I was healthy, I was safe, and life was easy. Now I'm here," I continued to mumble under my breath as my feet rhythmically hit the sand and the cold water lapped at my feet. "Far away from all I know, just running on this stupid beach, at night and my only light is that of the full moon. I was running from my problems at first and now from these terrorists.  Ever since I put that stupid satellite into orbit a few months back, everything went downhill. I hate making history at 15."

"There he is, get him boys!" I hear someone shout from behind me.  I break into full sprint.

"Stop!" I hear them yell, "We are here to help!" I keep running, feeling as if I could do this forever, and wondering if that was the adrenaline or the track practice.

"We warned you!" They yelled again as I felt something hit my leg. I fall. I see something above me, but my vision is blurring so I can't tell who it is. "Sorry," I hear the voice say, and it was the last sound that I would hear for a while.

- - - -

I bolt up. I look to the right, white wall. I look to the left, white wall. "Breath, calm down, you might be trapped in a white walled room, but you are smart, you can find a way out," I assured myself. "That is odd," I thought with my voice, "There is no ceiling, well at least there is a chair that I can sit in and watch the sky." Approaching the desk where the chair sat I noticed the note that was left there.

It read:

We have saved you.

“Who are they fooling?”

This is a test to prove your worth.

“I guess putting thing into orbit isn't worth then.”

Get out of the box within the hour.

“That shouldn't be too hard.” I thought it over for a second, and then decided to make a ladder. Pacing around the room before continuing I felt my foot get stuck on something. Looking back at my foot, I saw that my foot had found a secret compartment. Opening it up, I saw that it was loaded with tools and a note.

The note read:

I am not going to make it.

I leave these to you..

What did it mean, not make it? All know is that I will not be like them, I thought as I picked up the screwdriver. I walked back over to the desk, and lie down. I search for the screws on each of the legs putting the four legs in a pile. The going back over to the tools I picked up the saw to create the edges of the ladder and the leftovers used as more cross beams. After fixing the ladder together with all of the screws that I had salvaged, I leaned the ladder against the wall. Climbing to the top and switching the ladder to the other side to get down, I wondered, what now?

Corrupt Wedding

Bride-
This is the most important day of my life! This is the day that every girl dreams of! I am living the dream! I have got the perfect husband. I can't wait for the I do's. I am sure that they will be magical! Oooh, here they are now! Why does Brett have a sullen look on his face? He is probably just nervous! Oooh, Brett is pulling out his card that he wrote his vow on! The priest, then looks at me and then at Brett and says,
"Would you, Brett, like to say your vows to Jenny?"
"Yes," Brett replies. He looks down at his card; I bet it will be beautiful! This is it! My dream come true! Brett gives me a ring and closes he finger around it and then sighs saying,
"I didn't want to be this guy, but-"

Photographer-
And zoom in and focus on the Brides face as they say the I do's. Now to check the picture, purfec- wait, why is the Bride's face shocked? The groom must have just switched the ring out for a better one. I bet the vows are beautiful, too bad I can't hear them. Now, to take another picture. Zoom, check. Focus, check. The picture look gre- wait, is the bride crying? Aww, that's so cute! I bet the groom's vows are so amazingly beautiful, I wish that I could hear more than ever now! I would be lucky if I could get a guy like that, or a guy at all for that matter. Time to take another pictur-, where is the bride? There she is! Wait a minute, why is she storming down the aisle and away from the altar? Well, I guess I interpreted what was happening all wrong! I better ask the groom's father what happened.

Groom's Father-
Yes, yes, all according to plan! Whoops! I have got to pay attention the deaf photographer is signing me. I have got to look shocked. She signs frantically, what happened? I sign back, he left her at the altar. She walks away shocked and confused.  I wouldn't blame her I had the most perfect plan! Telling Brett to leave her at the altar or she would be killed by me. Either he really loves her or he doesn't want to see me go to jail. I never could have hoped for the reaction I got out of the bride! I never like her anyway. Now to disappear before anyone wants to talk.

Blurred Tattoo

Beep. Beep. Beep. Click. Ah, just a normal day, the sun shining through the window filling this room with joy, illuminating the day and the misty places of my mind. There is only one place that the light does not touch in my mind, and I sit in my sky blue chair in the corner of my grass green room. My tattoo that I have had since birth had always been a little fuzzier than the others, but I had anything of it. I had thought I was going to day two days after my fifteenth birthday, so I lived my life in a monotone of black and grey for the past year. I had went to bed yesterday expecting not to awake to the monotone, and I was right I not living black and grey, but I was also wrong because I did not die forever entrapped within the a suit of the monotone life. All I have now is a brain in my possession. If I am 'dead' now that means that the body collectors are coming, I guess I had better get out. My parents must have let them a key under the mat out front and the collectors come at 12:00 on day after death. "What time is it?" I said to myself. 11:30 dang it, I don't have long to get out then. "What will I need?" I muttered under my breath while jumping out of chair, ran out of my room, dipping my hand down to snag my dirt brown backpack while on my way to the kitchen. "I need food," I said thinking out loud again, "Rice, beans, protein bars, water, and more water." All together I had three gallons of water, but just in case I have to get together parts need for a water purifying device. "Now what will I need?" I said to myself, " I'll take this, and this, maybe this, thank God we have a cat 'cause I'll need this, this, this, and finally this. Empty gallon jug? Check. Two sponges? Check. Scissors? Check. Cat litter? Check. Large pot? Check. Chemistry set? Check." KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK. I heard three knocks like trees being felled by lumber jacks at the door. Which raised a single question, why would they knock? It didn't matter now; I just had to get out. I quickly pushed open the garage door, quietly closing it behind me as I heard the body collectors enter. Slowly opening the back door of the garage, and backing out I see my father's knife scooping it up in hands I had an idea. What if I spied on them? I was armed, 'dead', young, and curious, but how? "Ah, the ladder," I mumbled to myself quietly as I remembered the ladder that my dad had put up to fix the gutters by my room's window. Crawling through the deep green grass to the edge of the ladder, where I gently put down my back pack down. As I started up the ladder, I put my knife in my mouth as I had always seen the pirates do in my childhood movies. Looking through the window I saw that they were looking around my room in a disinterested fashion. Then turning to one another one said,
"Well where is he Jim?" One of the collectors said. The one I assume to be Jim responds,
"I don't know Bill." Bill then states with a cold look,
"We might have another runner." I immediately say to myself,
"What's a runner and there have been more?"
"Hey, Jim did you here that?" Bill inquired. As soon as he said this I stared to slowly back down the ladder.
"Hear what Bill?" Jim said thinking he was imagining things
"It might have been nothing, but I sounded like it was coming from the window" Bill said skeptically as he walked towards the window.
"Almost there," I accidentally said out loud again, "And I'm down." I grabbed my backpack, took the knife out of my mouth and started to run.
"Ah-Ha, it was our runner that I heard, Jim!" Bill yelled. That was the last I heard from them as I entered the forest. I knew not where I was going, only that I could not turn back.

Written From the Aftermath

The morning was sunny and bright like

A new promise

But like the future,

On the horizon I could see

The dark clouds loom

On the cloudless promise of now

The wind picked up

As if it was warning

Yet, we are cats

Caught in this un-tangleable web

That is life,

Just because we are curious

Curious about the dew of happiness

On a web on despair

This is the web I saw

In the window on the door to my shed

If only I had listened to the wind

I would have seen the blue turn

Turn to yellow predicting the future

The future that moves closer like storm clouds,
Slow like time and then fast like death
Until, like sleep, it is all at once upon you
But the sky was still blue and the grass green
When my nephew asked
Uncle may I fetch my plane
Being the uncle that I was I replied
Sure it is in the shed
Once more I looked out the window
Seeing the clouds I thought were slow draw near
But still thinking them far off, thought nothing of it
If only I had looked at the western wheat fields
I would have sent for him
But now because of it I am the wheat field
Bent and broken
Now the sky was yellow
Like a metaphor for life
Because the sky so would turn sour
I looked then across the street
And saw all the neighbors running inside
I was again caught looking at the sky
It was turning a dark red,
As if it was saying
Run, but I was never one for signs
So I walked back inside
And I waited for my nephew to come back
When I heard the wind pick up again
Stronger than before
I knew it could only be one thing
I left to my storm cellar
Forgetting about my nephew
The thought of him blown out by the wind,
Until I heard the cellar thump shut behind me
Did I remember what I had left behind
I tried to open the door
But the winds were to strong
Which leaves me here writing from the aftermath
In a dark room
With a candle about to go out
A perfect metaphor for what just went down
As I tried to open the doors
I knelt to pray
And as my knees hit the ground
I felt the earth shake
And a deafening boom
Knowing he was gone,
I cried
Because he was like a son to me

The Patience of a Tree

The years pass

The leave fall

And a ring grows

But yet natures view is never changed for me

Because against a back drop of the stillness of nature

I stand, tall looming

I looming like the skyscrapers I see in front of me

That are in an ever changing environment

One un-adapted for me 

But they missed me so much as to create a replica

That being a skyscraper

The nest gen of the tree

They do not bear fruit

But yet grow offices

Not growing rings with age 

But groaning with cracks against it

This struggle of the nest gen could be avoided

But that environment is not adapted for me

I see them fall and crumble

But yet I still hear the rumble

Of rubble, like a phoenix, resurrected

Born again stronger, taller, better

I do admit they grow faster than I ever would

 Maybe it is patience that creates strength

Strength only the patience of a tree can provide

I have heard from the pollen about "green" places

Places where threes are planted

And the world around them is adapted for them

I love and fear these

For I have heard that you must stay small

For if you were big as me, you would not exist

For me it is easy to see that nothing compares to the patience of a tree

I have seen lovely couples

As they prancing through this hallowed forest

Like jesters in a court

And I have seen that fade

Only to return with another

I have seen buildings fall

And nest gens built

Only to be replaced

Because nothing is longer than the patience of a tree

For humans patience is as long as 10 seconds

For the tree it is 10 years

Years riddled with change

For it is the only constant

Written about by wistful poets

Wishing for the moment the leaves turn to last

The tree's patience stands

The birds and the bees nest with me

All of which leaves me in the winter

But yet a tree's patience stands

Winter is lonely so I gaze off to the distance

Seeing the nest gen, rising through the mountains mist

Gray and dull as always

Siting in a world of Chaos

And a world of Chaos never stands

It only kneels to destruction

An orderly world does stand

But only with help from a pillar

And that pillar is patience

And that patience is a tree's

You see if trees ran the world
I would be green
No one would worry
All would be calm
All would be quiet
All would be order
And all would be patience
All would be saved
Because if the world was run by trees
Everything would have the patience of a tree

American Problems in 5 tweets

#1st world probs

I was waged at McDons today

Listening to conversations

I couldn't help but overheard

About someone’s life that was pretty rough

She was upset bout

How hard it is to be lean

Sayin how Africans had it easy

She drank down her diet cola

Finished sayin the food here is so good

#1st world probs

Same customer overheard

Talking about the new Iphone

Sayin how she just got the 5

And that the new ones 1 month away

But she wasn't done

Just thirty minutes before coming in

She dropped her fav Ipod

And it hit her fav Ipad

Shattering the screen

#Sad Stories

All I have to say is

Oh the humanity

Over all this calamity

#First World Problems

People of the Union, By the Queen (Durham in 100 Years)

 Booming. If I had one word to describe Durham the word would be booming. Ever since Durham was made the center of the space law industry it was booming. This only slowed on November 2063 November ninth when Durham's oldest symbol of riches, the American Tobacco Campus, got  bombed in a wave of terrorist attacks that swept the eastern seaboard. These attacks followed nine years after Britain's famous Big Ben clock tower was almost toppled by a similar wave of terrorist attacks.  These waves of terrorism resulted in the British and Americans forming one country united against terrorism threats. The leaders of the two now unified countries called it the British-American Union or B-AU for short. The B-AU's next move was on April 19th 2075, when the United States Half of the Union decided to make the Union official by replacing the executive branch with Britain's Monarch, but retaining the Judicial and Legislative branches. The monarch also had the power to overturn the Bill of Rights. After King Taylor the Wise died his daughter Queen Georgia took his throne. Queen Georgia issued a decree in 2100, fifteen years into her reign. It included four categories and thirteen points each of them falling into their respective categories. The thirteen points and categories are as follows:

I. Education and Professional Preparation:
 The Union will carefully prepare for the future by thinking strategically about family history, intellectual capacity, and special talents.

   1. Trade families (i.e., plumbers, electricians, food services, etc.) that have children will send their children to school until grade 8 and then will find an apprenticeship or a vocational school. The union recognizes that these people serve an important role in the Union and will have heavy benefits and a good salary.

   2. Children that are not from trade families will take a test upon graduation of eighth grade to determine their Adult-Job training field. After four years of training they will receive their job for life.

II. Population Control:
The Union will carefully maintain its water and food resources by the following the following rules:

   3. All couples interested in having children must obtain a license through a background check, and interview phase and a life science baby sustainability course given by the union.

   4. There is a Union regulated two child rule. This means that per household there can only be two children.

   5.  All children that are born to unlicensed parents or to a family with two children already will be seized and made Children of the Union. Children of the Union will be taken care of adequately.

III. Health and Well-Being:
The Union will remove obesity from the Union by the rules that are stated here.

   6. Each Person of the Union will receive free medical care from a union-approved doctor. All medicines prescribed by doctors are free, as long as a doctor's note is provided.

   7. All able-bodied People of the Union will complete at least 90 minutes of physical activity daily. The amount of physical activity will be monitored by a union licensed fitness trainer.
      A. Video-games, TVs, and interactive playthings will be taken and placed under Union operated amusement vendors. The People of the Union will be 30 minutes a week to play with such devices.
      B. People of the union who complete more than the minimum of 90 minutes of physical activity will be rewarded. The reward will either be an approved dietary treat or more screen time. All People of the Union that do not meet the minimum time can expect dietary restrictions.

   8. All so called "junk food" is prohibited. The People of the Union will get a free meal for them at break feast, lunch, and dinner that was prepared by a Union approved nutritionist. The People of the Union can also eat out at all restaurants approved for them, but will have to use their own money.

IV. National Security:
The Union will protect its founding principles, even at a low toll to personal freedoms, the following will take action.

   9. All weapons will be seized unless they are being used to hunt at the Union Hunting Park districted for your area

   10. To monitor terrorists the People of the Union will need to obtain special passports to travel outside of all lands governed by the B-AU.

   11. All able-bodied males at the age of 18 are to serve in the militant reserves for three years. All reserves will continue with their job training through those years.

   12. No People of the Union will be allowed outside their homes after midnight till six in the morning. The exceptions include but are not limited to sporting events, jobs, religious ceremonies, and cultural events.

   13. All books, magazines, newspaper and other reading materials must have an official Union stamp to deem them safe for distribution. The Union will also continue NSA observance of activities.

Finally, my brain dump about Durham in one word is done. Now it is time to go to the local park to see my friends on this lovely afternoon. I walk down the stairs feeling their suspension bounce with every step. As I enter the kitchen to leave the house through the back door, I hear my mother step in to the room.

"Hi Ren, I am home!" She said.
"Hey mom," I respond.
"Are you done with your homework?" She inquired
"Yes, mom," I replied
"Is it good enough for the Queen?"
"Yes."
"You may good then, just be back by six."
"Ok, bye."
"Bye."
I looked down at my wrist phone and saw that I had 90 minutes to get to Orchard Park and come back after talking to my friends. 'Well, I guess I will just have to take my hover-board then' I thought as I opened the garage door. If I had had more time I would have taken my roller-blades as usual. After I had exited the garage I noticed a flyer posted to the outside of the house and thought 'I will check that out when I come home'. As I flew off in the direction of Orchard Park I closed the garage door.