How Supervillains See the World: An Exercise in Description by Lenitschka

The exercise: Look at a landscape, describe it through the eyes of a character, but do not describe the scene. My assignment from Dima - a super villain from another galaxy who has just arrived on earth to kill everyone and suck dry all our natural resources.

Magnificent, wasn’t it? The power of it, the majesty, the sheer volume that lay before me.

A radiant yellow light glazed the surface below, another example of the sheer force of this place. Such a light could cause weaker men to collapse, or even burn, but not I.

You could feel it everywhere. I could hear it churning in the ground far below; raw and ready for the first person who could harness it. Such minerals to be wasted on mere mortals.

I could feel it whipping across my face with a harshness that left weaker beings cowering. The air looked still, but this far above it never stopped moving.

The mighty rocks stood far above the rest, just as I did; another symbol of power. Tall and immovable, until now that is.

Water.

Air.

Earth.

Fire.

Mine for the taking.

Mine to use, mine to burn up and leave nothing behind like a corpse; nothing left but the bones. I could see it in my dreams a memory of worlds before; a dried up hole in the ground, a few crumbling, barren rocks; a lifeless place. As still as it seemed now, I could picture a quieter scene, an emptier scene. One where all the light, all the life, and all the power, would be mine.

Burnt Tongue, An Epic Poem in Four Parts by Lenitschka

Side note: this is the backstory to one of Jonathan's poems

Part 1

That sip of tea was really hot

I think my tastebuds like it not

But then I want to be polite

So I raise my cup and try I might

To drink yet one more scalding sip

I hesitate, then purse my lips.

I cannot take one more swig, no no

Too bad; all eyes are on me in slow mo

And so I drink as I know I must

My tastebuds, however, have bit the dust.

Part 2

Three days since I sat at Eugene’s table

And still I eat and am not yet able

To savour a steak, a cookie, or ice cream

My favourite foods seem but a dream

For I cannot taste it, none of it

It slips down my throat bit by bit

And I enjoy none, not one swallow.

My belly is full, yet I feel hollow.

Curse you, Eugene, and your scalding tea.

I will avenge what you have done to me.

Part 3

Outside his parlour I do wait,

A scalding beverage will be my bait

I lay outside my enemies door, then hide

He will come when I lure him outside

He hears the alarm and Eugene comes running

Haha, no challenge to my cunning

He finds at his door my cup and saucer

Then picks it up, the silly tosser.

And soon he chokes and falls down sick,

As befits a tea of arsenic.

Part 4

Perhaps I should not have been so proud

Or at least not quite so loud

In my complaints against the dearly departed

My arrest was made before the autopsy started

My lawyer also could make no convincing case

When I cackled evilly in the judge’s face

So now I set in cell block three

Drinking thoroughly lukewarm tea.

And I am happy.

Great Expectations, by Dima

Bad Poetry Night Returns!

La dolcezza divora

l'amarezza della mia vita.

It’s amazing how

and I tremble now

the once-sweet life

once sweet, now strife

and I call it all bologna.

If I were to stop the tears

I would have to face all fears

I see again how sparse

the life, the life is farce

Progress razed by a zamboni.

Live to eat, not eat to live

there’s nothing that I wouldn’t give

I’ll take you back

I’d trade my snack

if all were not so phony.

But now I’m lost

I see the cost

I drown my melancholy in this cream

and hope that I will waken from this dream

I swim inside the tank of delicious, whipped, Italian sp...rinkles of nuts and fruity ripples of frozen dessert.

On Unhealthy Relationships: A Twilight Parody, by Dima

This is what happens when someone who's never read the books or seen the movies is given the general premise and told to write it.  Enjoy.

Beatty was the easy-going kind of girl who never really got upset over much.  Which is to say, she was the kind of girl you never meet, but keep believing you’ll come across someday, because, man alive, if this is all you’ve got to call a dating pool, you’re really screwed, aren’t you?

I’m sorry.  I digress.

Beatty, in fact, could think of only two things in her life that really distressed her.  The first was that she had such a stupid name.  Beatty.  Really.  She supposed it wasn’t the name that was so stupid as it was that everyone immediately had to make a comment about Warren Beatty and it’s ridiculous to ask if she’s related to him because, no, in Western culture we are not accustomed to reversing given and family names on a whim, but thanks for asking.  Ugh.

The second, far more recent source of discontentment was a boy by the name of Isaiah Miller.  Or rather, it was that Isaiah didn’t seem to be aware of her existence.  As much as she hated admitting it to her journal, which she did on a daily basis, she had a crush like an empty soda can, and he would never even make eye contact with her.

“Crush” didn’t even go far enough, to be honest, although that was the limit of how vulnerable she let herself become in the critical eyes of her notebooks.  No, she was definitely infatuated, even maybe obsessed (that one she hadn’t confessed even in the quiet conversations in her mind), and that made it all the worse, because she hated knowing that a little unrequited puppy love (she had to add in “puppy” when she thought it to keep from feeling like a complete idiot) had entirely consumed all her waking thoughts and was keeping her up way too long at night when she’d always been that reasonable girl who was never unduly bothered by anything!  Ugh.

Concerned that she was overthinking things and that worrying was just keeping her from actually moving ahead, and suddenly, at 10:36 PM, intent that she was going to do something to get Isaiah to notice her and she was going to do it right this moment, she’d run out to her truck, which she hadn’t driven since her stepdad had presented it to her in an effort to make up for five years of absence, and sped off in the direction of Isaiah’s home.  And so, sitting in the driver’s seat and driving faster than she ought to and feeling her heart pounding ridiculously fast, she was, she realized, possibly at the beginning of what might turn out to be the third major source of grief in her life.

Oh, well.  No turning back now.

Almost as if in a movie, all of Beatty’s thoughts seemed to pour out and play in front of her on the windshield as she sped to the Miller farmhouse.  She remembered seeing Isaiah for the first time – not when she’d just seen him the first time, but the first time when she really saw him and was, like, whoah, what’s going on? – and remembered how he’d looked at her and they’d made eye contact and his eyes were such bright blue and he’d smiled just before he turned the corner and walked away.  Beatty had just about melted to the ground.  She replayed the times they’d worked together in their math class, the times she’d strategically chosen her seat so that they’d end up working together again, the times she was certain he’d been looking at her when he thought she wasn’t paying attention and he’d been thinking the same should-I-shouldn’t-I thoughts she was.  And she recalled, with a stab of despair, how just as she’d been ready to give up on flirting and actually ask him on a date or something, he never seemed to look at her or talk to her and even notice her anymore.  Had he ever?  There were the many nights when she laid in bed and stared up at the ceiling for hours, playing out their encounters over and over again, trying to figure out if what she thought had happened had actually happened, or if she’d just been seeing the past couple of weeks through some infatuation-tinted filters.  She’d never been able to come up with an answer for sure.

As she pulled up to the home and stopped the truck by the wide and twisted oak tree that stood watch beside the driveway, she was no more sure.  Was this going to be a horrible mistake?  Would she cringe every time she thought of this night for the next few years and every tim-

No.  Stop.  She was not the girl who let herself get bothered by things.  She was not going to live with regrets.  No matter what happens, she decided, it’s okay.  Everything always works out fine.

And besides, she was already here.

The whole house appeared dark, except for one upper-story window.  Beatty was surprised; the Millers had always struck her as night owls.  But her surprise – and all other thoughts, really – disappeared as a figure filled the lit upper window.  It was Isaiah.

Beatty thought that he looked down at her, and the thought didn’t fill her with worry, to her surprise.  She just saw his eyes and again felt like melting.  But then he moved away from the window, and all she saw was a square of light blocked by a few branches of the oak tree.

It was too perfect.  It was a sign.  This was why she was here.  With agility she didn’t realize she possessed, she pulled herself from bough to bough on the oak tree and in less than a minute was perched right outside Isaiah’s window.  The momentary doubts about being too creepy left her mind after just a second; this just felt right.  Everything was going to change tonight. She knew it. 

Leaves, it seemed, fluttered between her stomach and her lungs, and she was excited.

Isaiah stepped into view again, coming to stand at the foot of his bed.  He was shirtless, wearing just his jeans and a belt.  Beatty could feel her mouth fall open a little.  He was definitely cut.  How had she missed this before?  She must just have been too caught up in his eyes.  But those arms... there was nothing else she wanted right now than to have Isaiah wrapped those big arms around her.  The leaves were fluttering again.  Beatty had visions of crawling right up to his window and him noticing her and him slowing pulling up the window pane and both of them leaning slowly toward each other, across the gap, reaching out and-

But she didn’t have to do that, because he turned abruptly and came toward her.  He walked directly toward the window, and looked straight at her.  He didn’t seem surprised.  He just stared.  And then... he smiled.  It was all Beatty could do to keep from falling giddily off the branch she was on.  She smiled back.  They both smiled, and Isaiah opened the window.

Beatty waited, happy to let him do the talking.  But he didn’t do anything.  He just stood there, looking at her.  She didn’t care.  She could stare at him all night.  So they stared.

At first she thought she was losing her night vision, but then she realized it was him.  His... outline.  He seemed blurry.  It seemed like he was changing shape.  Beatty was a little concerned, but she felt hypnotized.  She certainly couldn’t move.

She watched as Isaiah stretched out his arms.  She watched as his whole body darkened.  And then, in a flash, his entire form snapped in.  Where Isaiah had just stood, a bat flapped.  Beatty was terrified.  But she still couldn’t move.  She could only watch.  And then, without warning, the bat sped out the window toward her.

Beatty wanted to scream but couldn’t.  She couldn’t do anything.  She could only watch as the black-as-sin creature descended to her neck.

Mopeds Make a Good Escape Vehicle, by Lenitschka

“Is he dead?”

It was lying still, so Maurice poked it. Its mouth hung open slightly, eyes closed, dripping wet. As if he had washed ashore from a shipwreck like Eric in the Little Mermaid.

I was so not singing Part of Your World to him.

This end of the beach was deserted. The teenagers who came out on Wednesdays, Thursdays and other days that were “almost the weekend” to play volleyball looked like little ants in the distance. Maurice and I liked to walk all the way around the inlet. The most interesting parts of the beach were the deserted ones, as evidenced by our friend Eric here.

“Maybe we should call 9-1-1,” Maurice said.

“I don’t bring my phone on rambles, and neither do you.”

“Oh yeah.”

He was wearing hiking boots, a curious thing for such a warm part of Asia no where near any good hiking trails. Even the idea of socks made me feel too hot around here.

“Do we drag him somewhere, or go for help?”

Maurice was looking at me expectantly. Oh right. Eric probably needed to be rescued.

I leaned over his face and opened his eyelid, then jumped back.

His eyes were green. Not just the pupils either, like the whole eye. And glowing.

“Maurice,” I said. “I think he’s an alien.”

I glanced nervously at the teenagers playing volleyball. We didn’t actually know them, but I had never liked the look of them. They were so peppy and loud, and they took up a lot of space whenever they came.

“No way that’s an alien,” Maurice said. “He’s so well, normal looking.”

“So was Superman.”

“Touche.”

We picked up Alien Eric. He was heavier than he looked. We moved him down the beach, careful to avoid the eyes of the teenagers. They were busy showing off, but one blonde girl turned and looked at me. Was it me or did her teeth look extra pointy?

“What are you staring at?” Maurice asked.

“That blonde girl.”

Maurice turned in the direction of the volleyball net. Most of the girls were blonde.

“That one. The one right next to the net. Our side of the net.”

“Oh. Denise. I know her.”

“You do?”

“Sure, I asked her once what she wanted to be.”

“Why would you do that?”

“We were stuck in traffic. There was nothing else do. She said she wanted to be famous.”

“Like a star of the screen?”

“Yup.”

“Did you notice anything weird about her teeth?”

“Oh yeah, I’m pretty sure she’s a vampire or a werewolf or something.”

“Vampire out in the sun?”

“Werewolf then.”

“Any reason why a werewolf would hate an alien?”

We didn’t wait to find out. We loaded Alien Eric as best we could onto the back of Maurice’s moped and drove away, the unconscious extraterrestrial sandwiched between us.

“So what are you planning on doing with this guy?” Maurice asked.

Before I could answer, Denise the Werewolf/Volleyball Player appeared on the road behind us, still in her swimsuit and riding another moped that easily caught up to ours. She grinned maniacally as she rode alongside, on the wrong side of the road, I might add.

“We meet again my old friend,” she said to Maurice.

“I thought you said you only talked to her once.”

“Yeah, but I eventually cut her off in traffic. She really didn’t like it.”

“Oh.”

Nemesis/Werewolf Girl laughed.

“You have something I want.”

“What this guy? We found him first," I shouted. "And we’re going to, well, I don’t know what we’ll do, but I hope he’s the kind of alien that sticks around because I have lots of questions about outer space.

“What that? Oh that’s not what I want. I want your bumper sticker.”

I glanced behind at the familiar green and blue letters. “Transmorgfication,” it read. According to Maurice it meant the moment of delight you receive when you take that first bite out of an apple and it is delicious. His mother had given me him the bumper sticker as an inspiration to get his learner’s license just before she had died in a freak elephant training accident. It was why he loved mopeds so much and refused to buy a car. The bumper sticker was all that was left of his mother.

“We will never give you the bumper sticker,” I said. “But you could probably find the same one on ebay if you looked really hard.”

All of the sudden a tree fell onto the road in front of us, and the other Volleyball teens leapt out of the woods. Maurice swerved, and we went careening off the road and into the jungle. I clung onto the alien and shut my eyes. I didn’t dare look until the bike cleared the trees and went sailing through a chicken farm.

When I looked up. Chickens were everywhere. Clucking, fluttering, and in general acting stupid and terrified. Like chickens. Maurice had some nasty scratches across his face, but was otherwise unscathed.

“Awesome,” I said. “Let’s go home and see if we can wake up Alien Eric.”

“Eric?” Maurice said in confusion.

“Yeah, I named him after the Little Mermaid.”

“Okay. What do you think he’ll tell you?”

“Umm, what life is like on other planets, how he got here, whether Star Trek, E.T. or Alien is more accurate, you know, the important stuff.”

“Right. Well, I’m rooting for Star Trek.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Turns out it’s not completely like Star Trek, but close enough Eric agreed to cosplay with us.