Blah
Now, before I get to the story, I you all to know that I got my maths exam tomorrow, and will be freaking out about how I did for most of the afternoon.
On a side note, today my music collection expaded to 21 Gb, because I stole my guitarist's MP4 and took it home and copied it.
Alright, let it rip. 23,272 words, 2,212 of them today,
I’m still quiet when we get home. I help Joan into his chair and he goes to the kitchen. He only had the Ocean Breeze while we were at the warehouse, and he probably wants a beer. I go to my room and turn on my computer, planning to annihilate an ancient civilizatian.
The Egyptians defeat me.
The Phoenicians defeat me.
The Israelites defeat me, and they don’t even have a home base. I turn off the game and sit there, staring at the screen. Thinking.
What’s so special about Bridge Kanulu? I don’t know. It’s just always been there. I open up Microsoft Word and type up what I know about Bridge Kanulu.
It’s not much. I pull up Internet Explorer and find Google. I type, ‘Bridge Kanulu’.
Showing 1-10 of approximately 21,000 results
I put it in quotation marks and try again.
Showing 1-10 of 217 results.
OK, two hundred and seventeen I can work with. I double-click on the first result. It’s a local history webpage, and only mentions Bridge Kanulu once, saying that it was here as a few logs across the river back when the town was being built, and no-one knew why it was there. Apparently it intrigued the people who found it so much the they set up camp there, then started trading, since it’s an easily accessible spot, and that’s how the town started. The page doesn’t look like it’s updated much. The homepage is still advertising last year’s Christmas parade.
I go back to my word document and take away the question mark, but other than that, it’s not very helpful. I check out the other webpages, but they’re all basically the same, if they’re any use whatsoever. There’s a blog of someone in town, telling anybody who checks his livejournal that on the twelfth of December he caught a shark underneath Bridge Kanulu. Yeah. Right. I like his picture though, instead of using one of himself he’s got a picture of Willy Wonka, sayng “Heh heh. You’re Weird,” which is funny because it’s from the movie. A conspiracy theory that it was built by aliens as a landing pad, since it was here first, but they think that about the pyramids, and we actually know why they’re there, so it’s not surprising.
After a lot of useless trawling I give up and turn off my computer. It’s no use right now. I’ll do some homework. The idea sticks in my head for about three minutes before I turn my computer back on for the sound system, and flop on my bed with a book, Jingo by Terry Pratchett. It’s very funny. I’ll do my homework later. I lie on my belly, book beside my face, reading lazily. The sugar’s gone from my system, from the internet trawl. I hate the internet sometimes. My computer’s thrown up a slow classical song, which I think is by Mozart, but I’m not sure. I drop off, wondering about Bridge Kanulu.
* * *
I’m standing beneath the bridge, right next to the water. It’s going past slowly, lazily, and it’s really, really blue. I look up and the bridge is so far above my head it may as well be on Mars. I flop back against a support, which rushes to catch me, and stare at the other side of the river, where Willy Wonka is fishing. He waves at me. There’s three sharks in a pile beside him, not moving. He’s already caught them, and he’s fishing for more, there’s a whole swarm around his line. I wonder what he’s using for bait? I look at the end of his line, but it’s deep in the water. I keep looking deeper and deeper, but when I finally figure out where it is, far below where the bottom of the river is, a shark swims in front of it, blocking my view. When it’s gone, another comes up from below and glides past it, going straight up. I get annoyed at the sharks, because they keep blocking my view, but it’s fine because I can just wait until he catches one and then I’ll see.
Right as I think it, a shark bites the end of the line and Willy Wonka starts reeling it in. I notice for the first time his fishing rod’s a candy cane. Maybe he’s using candy for bait? The shark’s getting closer and closer to the surface, and I can see something poking out of its mouth. Is it a bit of candy cane?
The shark comes out of the water, and the bit poking out of its mouth lolls downwards. It’s a child’s arm. I watch, horrified as Willy Wonka grabs the shark, with arms that stretch over the water and knocks it out with one punch. He throws it on the pile, and starts tying another child onto the end of the line. It’s a little girl, with pale blonde hair. Her eyes are closed. I have to stop him. I start wading into the water. He throws her in and looks up at me.
“Hey, James!” he calls. I dive forward into the water.
There’s sharks all around me as I swim towards the little girl, whose eyes are still closed. A shark noses at her. There’s a nip at my elbow, and another at my ankle. I’m almost there when a shark grabs me by the shoulder and starts shaking me, trying to tear my arm off. I can hear Willy Wonka through the water. “James, c’mon you idiot…”
Willy Wonka turns into Joan, shaking me by the shoulder. I shake my head and look up at him.
“There was this girl…”
“Lucky you,” he cuts me off, “dinnertime, bro, c’mon. Dad’s waiting. You’re a bloody heavy sleeper, you know that?” He buzzes backwards out the door, makes a quick turn in the hall and goes for the lift. I stand up and follow him, after a quick shake to rid myself of grogginess, and my nightmare about Bridge Kanulu.
* * *
After dinner I go back to bed, and sleep without the nightmare coming back. When I wake up again, I’ve just got time for breakfast before I have to catch the bus. Joan’s already gone to the warehouse.
On the bus, I think about Bridge Kanulu. Why is it so special? The internet’s no help, but maybe that’s too big - I’ll ask Mr. Jean at the start of lunch …
“No, James, I don’t think I can tell you much about it that the internet can’t. It was here before the town, and originally was the boundary between two warring tribes. I believe it was the only place they could meet without killing each other, and they traded there. Any use?”
Bit of a turnaround, that. From the one place with no death to the one place with it. But I don’t think it really answers my question. I shake my head, no.
“Well, perhaps the Principaux could help you? I believe she studied local history quite extensively, once. More so than me, I studied world matters.”
“Mrs. Jane? Really?”
“Yes, she might be able to help you.” I think I will.
“OK, thanks, Mr. Jean. I wanna go to lunchtime now. See ya.”
“Goodbye, James.” He goes back to his desk, where he’s marking papers.
After school I run to Mrs. Jane’s office, real fast. I catch her just coming out, and I fall in step with her as she walks towards the exit.
“Hello, James. I haven’t seen you in a while. Is there something you wanted?”
“Yea, Mr. Jean told me to come see you. Do you know much about Bridge Kanulu?”
“Why do you want to know?” Her reply’s a little fast, but maybe she’s had a bad day.
“No reason. Just curious. I mean, it’s always been there.”
“Hmm, well, I assume Mr. Jean’s told you it was a peaceful spot? The stuff about the tribes and the start of the town?” I nod. “OK, after that the change was very fast. The details are a bit hazy, but from what I’ve been able to figure out, a couple of mafia members showed up in town one day, and tried to create a spin-off of the mob. I don’t know why they came, maybe they were kicked out. They started illegal businesses, and the first time anyone disagreed with them they took him to Bridge Kanulu and shot him. In the stomach. Six times. They drew a smiley face on his stomach, with bullet holes. Then they threw him off. The same thing, exactly, happened to the second person to disagree with them. Then a policeman who tried to investigate was found with a smiling stomach, downstream, and no-one ever disagreed with them again. That interesting enough?”
It’s something to think about, at least. “Wow, miss, how did you know all that?”
“Here and there. I think your brother’s waiting for you.” She points to Joan’s car, where he’s sitting, waiting, patient.
He’s always so patient.
“Yeah. OK. Thanks, miss. See you tomorrow, maybe.”
“Bye, James. If you have any other queries, I’m always happy to help.” I nod, wave, and dash towards the car. I’m not as patient as Joan.
“Hey, little bro. I see you’re back together with your woman. Nice job, that, but remember she’s a nasty one.” He waits a bit more, still patient, until I realize, and put my seatbelt on. He snorts a little, real quiet, and pulls away from the curb.
“Look at what’s on the dashboard.” It’s my phone. I grab it and turn it on. It’s so fast.
“I’ve loaded up the contacts list for you, with every gang member’s phone number. There’s a star beside the ones you already know, and in the contact information is what project they’re working in, and what area they specialize in. You can get to the contact menu by pressing up or down.” I check it out.
Joan talks me through all the functions of my new phone and I try them all out, getting a picture of Joan with his eyelids flipped up and his lips turned inside out, looking at me. He almost hit a rabbit.
“I’ve put the word out that you’ve got a phone, and everyone’s got your number. If you need anyone, call them. I’m paying. And you can call me anytime.” He stops in front of the warehouse and pulls his own phone out of his pocket. “Always near me. I gotta go, but you know what to do. I’ll see you at five. Job’s in there now.” I shut the door and he drives off. I walk into the warehouse. I can hear the clunking of the guns being made even before I push the door up.
“Hey, Job!”
“Hey, James!” He stops the machine and it’s quiet.
I show him my phone, and he mutters something about it being awesome. He looks tired.
“You tired?”
He nods, and swipes his card out.
“We’re still doing 9mm pistols. I’ve been working at this since noon, and before that I was doing what Joan’s doing now.”
“What is he doing now?”
“Selling 9mm pistols.”
I figure it’s fair enough, and swipe my card in.
“See ya, Job.”
“See ya, James.”
I walk over to the machine and turn it back on. The clunking starts up again. Everything’s working, so I go over to the bar and make myself a cappuccino. While I drink it I play about five games of solitaire on my new phone. I bet I can load Age of Empires onto this thing. I check the wireless internet access, and there’s three in range. Two are passworded, and the passwords are good. Joan told me that sometimes the passwords are just there to keep kids out, and they’re the name of the port. The third’s not even passworded. It belongs to the factory across the road. I log onto it, and get to google.
“Mafia”, “Bridge Kanulu”
Showing 1 of 1 results.
The webpage that comes up is kind of a blog, but it’s set up like a webpage. It says what Mrs. Jane told me, and something about the mafia spin-off either going underground or dying out. Apparently the cops stopped investigating after three years with no hints. Three years is a long time, but I suppose they did kill a cop. They wouldn’t have liked that.
I drink a glass of cranberry juice, which reminds me of Joan’s ocean breeze. I try one, a very small one, with a tiny amount of vodka. It makes me dizzy, so I don’t have any more.
I set up an email account, then sign up to every blog I can think of. I read a few webcomics, and play online games until Julius shows up at exactly 5:00. I stay for a bit, and Joan drives up at 5:02.
As we leave, he says something awesome.
“I can’t keep driving you to and fro. I can for a while, but how would you like to learn to drive my motorbike?”
On a side note, today my music collection expaded to 21 Gb, because I stole my guitarist's MP4 and took it home and copied it.
Alright, let it rip. 23,272 words, 2,212 of them today,
I’m still quiet when we get home. I help Joan into his chair and he goes to the kitchen. He only had the Ocean Breeze while we were at the warehouse, and he probably wants a beer. I go to my room and turn on my computer, planning to annihilate an ancient civilizatian.
The Egyptians defeat me.
The Phoenicians defeat me.
The Israelites defeat me, and they don’t even have a home base. I turn off the game and sit there, staring at the screen. Thinking.
What’s so special about Bridge Kanulu? I don’t know. It’s just always been there. I open up Microsoft Word and type up what I know about Bridge Kanulu.
- Always been there
- Oldest bridge in the area
- Killing spot - never been a murder anywhere else
- Here before the town?
It’s not much. I pull up Internet Explorer and find Google. I type, ‘Bridge Kanulu’.
Showing 1-10 of approximately 21,000 results
I put it in quotation marks and try again.
Showing 1-10 of 217 results.
OK, two hundred and seventeen I can work with. I double-click on the first result. It’s a local history webpage, and only mentions Bridge Kanulu once, saying that it was here as a few logs across the river back when the town was being built, and no-one knew why it was there. Apparently it intrigued the people who found it so much the they set up camp there, then started trading, since it’s an easily accessible spot, and that’s how the town started. The page doesn’t look like it’s updated much. The homepage is still advertising last year’s Christmas parade.
I go back to my word document and take away the question mark, but other than that, it’s not very helpful. I check out the other webpages, but they’re all basically the same, if they’re any use whatsoever. There’s a blog of someone in town, telling anybody who checks his livejournal that on the twelfth of December he caught a shark underneath Bridge Kanulu. Yeah. Right. I like his picture though, instead of using one of himself he’s got a picture of Willy Wonka, sayng “Heh heh. You’re Weird,” which is funny because it’s from the movie. A conspiracy theory that it was built by aliens as a landing pad, since it was here first, but they think that about the pyramids, and we actually know why they’re there, so it’s not surprising.
After a lot of useless trawling I give up and turn off my computer. It’s no use right now. I’ll do some homework. The idea sticks in my head for about three minutes before I turn my computer back on for the sound system, and flop on my bed with a book, Jingo by Terry Pratchett. It’s very funny. I’ll do my homework later. I lie on my belly, book beside my face, reading lazily. The sugar’s gone from my system, from the internet trawl. I hate the internet sometimes. My computer’s thrown up a slow classical song, which I think is by Mozart, but I’m not sure. I drop off, wondering about Bridge Kanulu.
* * *
I’m standing beneath the bridge, right next to the water. It’s going past slowly, lazily, and it’s really, really blue. I look up and the bridge is so far above my head it may as well be on Mars. I flop back against a support, which rushes to catch me, and stare at the other side of the river, where Willy Wonka is fishing. He waves at me. There’s three sharks in a pile beside him, not moving. He’s already caught them, and he’s fishing for more, there’s a whole swarm around his line. I wonder what he’s using for bait? I look at the end of his line, but it’s deep in the water. I keep looking deeper and deeper, but when I finally figure out where it is, far below where the bottom of the river is, a shark swims in front of it, blocking my view. When it’s gone, another comes up from below and glides past it, going straight up. I get annoyed at the sharks, because they keep blocking my view, but it’s fine because I can just wait until he catches one and then I’ll see.
Right as I think it, a shark bites the end of the line and Willy Wonka starts reeling it in. I notice for the first time his fishing rod’s a candy cane. Maybe he’s using candy for bait? The shark’s getting closer and closer to the surface, and I can see something poking out of its mouth. Is it a bit of candy cane?
The shark comes out of the water, and the bit poking out of its mouth lolls downwards. It’s a child’s arm. I watch, horrified as Willy Wonka grabs the shark, with arms that stretch over the water and knocks it out with one punch. He throws it on the pile, and starts tying another child onto the end of the line. It’s a little girl, with pale blonde hair. Her eyes are closed. I have to stop him. I start wading into the water. He throws her in and looks up at me.
“Hey, James!” he calls. I dive forward into the water.
There’s sharks all around me as I swim towards the little girl, whose eyes are still closed. A shark noses at her. There’s a nip at my elbow, and another at my ankle. I’m almost there when a shark grabs me by the shoulder and starts shaking me, trying to tear my arm off. I can hear Willy Wonka through the water. “James, c’mon you idiot…”
Willy Wonka turns into Joan, shaking me by the shoulder. I shake my head and look up at him.
“There was this girl…”
“Lucky you,” he cuts me off, “dinnertime, bro, c’mon. Dad’s waiting. You’re a bloody heavy sleeper, you know that?” He buzzes backwards out the door, makes a quick turn in the hall and goes for the lift. I stand up and follow him, after a quick shake to rid myself of grogginess, and my nightmare about Bridge Kanulu.
* * *
After dinner I go back to bed, and sleep without the nightmare coming back. When I wake up again, I’ve just got time for breakfast before I have to catch the bus. Joan’s already gone to the warehouse.
On the bus, I think about Bridge Kanulu. Why is it so special? The internet’s no help, but maybe that’s too big - I’ll ask Mr. Jean at the start of lunch …
“No, James, I don’t think I can tell you much about it that the internet can’t. It was here before the town, and originally was the boundary between two warring tribes. I believe it was the only place they could meet without killing each other, and they traded there. Any use?”
Bit of a turnaround, that. From the one place with no death to the one place with it. But I don’t think it really answers my question. I shake my head, no.
“Well, perhaps the Principaux could help you? I believe she studied local history quite extensively, once. More so than me, I studied world matters.”
“Mrs. Jane? Really?”
“Yes, she might be able to help you.” I think I will.
“OK, thanks, Mr. Jean. I wanna go to lunchtime now. See ya.”
“Goodbye, James.” He goes back to his desk, where he’s marking papers.
After school I run to Mrs. Jane’s office, real fast. I catch her just coming out, and I fall in step with her as she walks towards the exit.
“Hello, James. I haven’t seen you in a while. Is there something you wanted?”
“Yea, Mr. Jean told me to come see you. Do you know much about Bridge Kanulu?”
“Why do you want to know?” Her reply’s a little fast, but maybe she’s had a bad day.
“No reason. Just curious. I mean, it’s always been there.”
“Hmm, well, I assume Mr. Jean’s told you it was a peaceful spot? The stuff about the tribes and the start of the town?” I nod. “OK, after that the change was very fast. The details are a bit hazy, but from what I’ve been able to figure out, a couple of mafia members showed up in town one day, and tried to create a spin-off of the mob. I don’t know why they came, maybe they were kicked out. They started illegal businesses, and the first time anyone disagreed with them they took him to Bridge Kanulu and shot him. In the stomach. Six times. They drew a smiley face on his stomach, with bullet holes. Then they threw him off. The same thing, exactly, happened to the second person to disagree with them. Then a policeman who tried to investigate was found with a smiling stomach, downstream, and no-one ever disagreed with them again. That interesting enough?”
It’s something to think about, at least. “Wow, miss, how did you know all that?”
“Here and there. I think your brother’s waiting for you.” She points to Joan’s car, where he’s sitting, waiting, patient.
He’s always so patient.
“Yeah. OK. Thanks, miss. See you tomorrow, maybe.”
“Bye, James. If you have any other queries, I’m always happy to help.” I nod, wave, and dash towards the car. I’m not as patient as Joan.
“Hey, little bro. I see you’re back together with your woman. Nice job, that, but remember she’s a nasty one.” He waits a bit more, still patient, until I realize, and put my seatbelt on. He snorts a little, real quiet, and pulls away from the curb.
“Look at what’s on the dashboard.” It’s my phone. I grab it and turn it on. It’s so fast.
“I’ve loaded up the contacts list for you, with every gang member’s phone number. There’s a star beside the ones you already know, and in the contact information is what project they’re working in, and what area they specialize in. You can get to the contact menu by pressing up or down.” I check it out.
Joan talks me through all the functions of my new phone and I try them all out, getting a picture of Joan with his eyelids flipped up and his lips turned inside out, looking at me. He almost hit a rabbit.
“I’ve put the word out that you’ve got a phone, and everyone’s got your number. If you need anyone, call them. I’m paying. And you can call me anytime.” He stops in front of the warehouse and pulls his own phone out of his pocket. “Always near me. I gotta go, but you know what to do. I’ll see you at five. Job’s in there now.” I shut the door and he drives off. I walk into the warehouse. I can hear the clunking of the guns being made even before I push the door up.
“Hey, Job!”
“Hey, James!” He stops the machine and it’s quiet.
I show him my phone, and he mutters something about it being awesome. He looks tired.
“You tired?”
He nods, and swipes his card out.
“We’re still doing 9mm pistols. I’ve been working at this since noon, and before that I was doing what Joan’s doing now.”
“What is he doing now?”
“Selling 9mm pistols.”
I figure it’s fair enough, and swipe my card in.
“See ya, Job.”
“See ya, James.”
I walk over to the machine and turn it back on. The clunking starts up again. Everything’s working, so I go over to the bar and make myself a cappuccino. While I drink it I play about five games of solitaire on my new phone. I bet I can load Age of Empires onto this thing. I check the wireless internet access, and there’s three in range. Two are passworded, and the passwords are good. Joan told me that sometimes the passwords are just there to keep kids out, and they’re the name of the port. The third’s not even passworded. It belongs to the factory across the road. I log onto it, and get to google.
“Mafia”, “Bridge Kanulu”
Showing 1 of 1 results.
The webpage that comes up is kind of a blog, but it’s set up like a webpage. It says what Mrs. Jane told me, and something about the mafia spin-off either going underground or dying out. Apparently the cops stopped investigating after three years with no hints. Three years is a long time, but I suppose they did kill a cop. They wouldn’t have liked that.
I drink a glass of cranberry juice, which reminds me of Joan’s ocean breeze. I try one, a very small one, with a tiny amount of vodka. It makes me dizzy, so I don’t have any more.
I set up an email account, then sign up to every blog I can think of. I read a few webcomics, and play online games until Julius shows up at exactly 5:00. I stay for a bit, and Joan drives up at 5:02.
As we leave, he says something awesome.
“I can’t keep driving you to and fro. I can for a while, but how would you like to learn to drive my motorbike?”