The Code

We tore the place the apart. Top to bottom. Jeff was no where to be seen. " I don't get it." I say worriedly. The wiery Urkranian man jabs me with the shotgun. "Stop stalling and fix your mess." "What do you want me to do?" "Put things back the way they were." I gulped and guided them into the room with the computer. Papers and garbage were thrown about the room. The only light in the room was the one coming from the computer screen. The wirey man laughed upon seeing the computer. "What's so funny?" I ask him. "Your computer. It's so old." "It's not mine." "Whatever I don't care. Just fix the problem." I sit down in the swivel chair and stare deeply into the monitor. "Now!" He shouts to me impatiently. I take a deep breath. I have absolutly no idea what I am doing. The driver cracks his knuckles while the wirey man positions his shotgun. I try the only thing I can think of. I type the words PARENTS OF THE BIRD, and hit enter. A short moment later a red light flashes and sirens erupt out of no where. The wiery man and his driver panic. "What the fuck did you do?" "The only thing I knew how to do." The floor around me sinks down. "Shit, shit, shit. Let's get out of here." The two men run away as I get pulled deep down into a sub basement. Eventually the chair stops descending and I am alone in the dark. I hear footsteps inching closer to me. My chest muscles tighten up. The lights turn on. " Well done!" I hear a familiar voice exclaim to me. It's the Dean I met months and months ago. "You passed the test. However, we still have much work to do."

Convincing the Captor

With the shotgun to my back I was forced int the back seat of the black SUV. The man at the other end of the shotgun was wirey and sweaty. He spoke with a nervous Ukrainian accent. " Do you have any idea what you did? Did you have any idea what you fucking did?" He screams at me. "Obviously not if I'm here." I respond. "Don't test me. Don't you dare test me." He shouts while pointing the shotgun at me. I choose my words carefully. " I din't mean any harm." He psychotically laughs. "You didn't mean any harm? That's a sweet thought." "What is going on?" I ask. He adjusts his leather coat. "You adjusted the natural order of things." "So?" "So, you brought nothing but chaos." "Chaos isn't always bad." He smirks. "Oh I know about the joys of chaos, but only to bring about a much needed change." "Maybe a change was in order." "You don't understand." "What don't I understand?" He clenches his fist. "You are messing with things you don't understand you just... You can't do this." "But I didn't." " Who then? Who is responsible for all this?" "He's with you isn't he?" "Who?" "Jeff, I don't know his last name." He inches the shotgun closer to me. "Listen, I don't know what kind of shit you are trying to pull, but there was no one else in the house." "What?" "You heard me, nobody." "Then someone else must have gotten to him first." I try to explain. "Who?" "I don't know." He speaks to his driver in his foreign tongue and then turns to me. " I have a problem." He explains to me. "And that would be?" "I really want to kill you, but you may know something. So we will go back." He snaps his fingers. The driver turns the car around. He squints his eyes at me. "Let us see if we can find this Jeff"

The Chase is On

No time to worry. No time to think. Just time to run. Run as fast as I can. I should be running in the opposite direction, away from the scene of the crime. But I am not an asshole. I should at least warn him about any possible danger. I zig and zag through the neighbors backyards and gangways. I hope that I have confused my stalkers. Though I am not sure, I can still hearing the black SUV speeding in the background. Eventually I reach the backyard to Jeff's ranch house. I try not to look too suspicious as I creep up to kitchen window and slide it open. I hop inside. The lights are off and it is eerily quiet. I turn on the lights. "Jeff, we need to get you out of hear." I listen carefully. I hear voices talking in the other room. Someone is here. I grab the closest thing I can find for protection. It is a wooden spoon, but it will do. Clenching the wooden spoon tightly, I gather all my strength and head into the living room. It appears to be vacant. The voices I was hearing were news anchors. They talk about a tragic train derailment. Apparently the train derailed right after taking off from the local train station. I place my spoon on the ground and pause and reflect for all the poor souls on the train. That's when I hear the the cocking of a shotgun. An angry voice cries out behind me. "Stay right where you are!"

Coexisting Realities

Everything is bright. Everything is beautiful. The sun is out, summertime creatures are scurrying around, and the neighbors and passer by's dumbfoundedly scratch their heads as they stare at the sky. They wonder how exactly the weather can go from one extreme to the other. I watched how it was done and I am still in disbelief. I don't get it. I don't understand it, but like it. Yes, a little sun and warm weather does seem to take one out of the dull drums. And when one feels better, thinking dramatically improves. Though the more I walk through the outdoors, I feel there is something off. I listen closely. There is a humming. A vibration that is going on. It buzzes and seems to get louder and louder the more I notice it. "Don't pay attention to it." You might say. Much easier said than done. Much like a cut in one's mouth. As soon as you notice it, it is impossible not to. So the buzzing becomes louder and louder. It is almost like Jeff did not change the weather at all, but rather put an existing program on top of the previous on. So right now we basically have two realities intermingled with each other. This does not feel good. This does not feel good one bit. I have to get back to Jeff. Tell him what he did. Maybe he can fix it. I start to rush back to to the house. It is then that I notice I am being tailed by a black SUV. "That plot thickens." I think to myself. I run off the sidewalk and take a detour through a neighbor's lawn. No time to waste.

Change the Weather

I think people are more afraid of their own limitless potential than anything else. I guess we are all guilty of this one way or another. I know that I am definitely no exception to this rule. Right now Jeff is trying to give up his ghosts. The one's that tell him to ignore his intuition. To settle down an lead a "normal" life. It is fun stuff really. He stares at the computer screen, lost in a another world. I will be completely honest I have no clue what he is doing. I sheepishly admit this, but I am terrible with computers. Something I should most likely correct. Learn more about it. At any rate I trust what he is doing 100%. "This could be it." He says enthusiastically still staring deeply into his monitor. "We're gonna change everything." He continues. "What exactly are you doing?" I ask him. "In short I broke into a government main frame and changed some basic codes around that would affect the current weather." "Wait, are you trying to tell me that the government controls the weather?" "They have been for quite some time." "What?" "Don't be too surprised. Think about it. If the weather is crappy, you feel depressed, and if you feel depressed you are a lot easier to control." I slip back in my chair. " I guess that all makes sense. But won't there be repercussions from this?" Jeff glares at me. "Perhaps." He types furiously at his keyboard and hits enter. "Well aren't you nervous?" "No, I'm sick of being told what to do and how to live." Jeff ushers me up.He guides me out of his office and through his living room. He opens the front door. It is a spectacular view. A bright blue sky with a full rainbow and birds chirping in the distance. He looks over at me. "Today is a bright, shiny day."

Brainstorming

I couldn't take it. I just could not take it anymore. I knew that there was something to be done. I knew that there was some place to go. But where? I sprang up from the leather couch and rushed out Jeff's front door and into the cold morning air. Everything was grey. Everything was so grey. Frustrated, I grabbed a stone from the ground and threw it as hard and as high as I could into the winter sky. Of course it was only a matter of seconds till it hit the pavement and made a loud clank. Jeff heard the clank and stumbled outside. "What are you doing?" he asked me groggily. "I'm sick of it. I'm sick of winter." I tell him. "Yeah? Join the club." "I just... I can't think when the weather is like this." "I know, no one can." "I wish there was something we could do." I say. "There is." "And that would be?" "We wait." Jeff replies wryly. Jeff turns and begins to walk back in his house. Suddenly a thought occurs to me. "Jeff, you know a lot about computers right?" "I guess enough. I mean it is part of my job." "How good are you with math?" "I'm not a genius, but I have a good understanding." I smile. " I think ..I just may have an idea." "And that would be?" "We use your computer to break into some sort of main frame to alter the earth's weather." Jeff stares at me blankly. "What?" "Yeah, think about it. It makes sense." Jeff puts his face in his hands. "Ok I'm listening." "Think about it. If everything goes back to math, then all we have to do is change some algorithms and ..Bingo! Perfect weather." Jeff continues to stare. " And what would I break into?" "I don't know we'll figure it out." Jeff sighs. "First of all what makes you think I'd be able to do this?" "Because Ms. Rosalyn is your grandmother. You have gifts. You just don't want to admit it." Jeff rolls his eyes. "Second of all, why would I want to?" " Because you are curious. Because you want more to life, and that you know that you could do amazing things if only you let yourself try. And because this weather sucks." Jeff sighs and walks in. "Ok, sure. I'll put on a pot of coffee." I smile to myself. "Minor victory."

Paradise Lost?

While Jeff sits in a stupor and gazes at the images coming out the television, I clank around in the kitchen.I am looking for the passage way to the purple haired woman. My efforts are in vain. The wall that I slashed with a kitchen knife looks as good as new. Doesn't even look like it was patched up. I slink back into the living room. "Why am I here?" I ask Jeff. "Beats the hell out me." I sit beside Jeff and he offers me a beer. I shake my head No. "I viewed paradise, you know." "Oh yeah?" He responds. "Yeah." "What made it paradise?" "Just a feeling of bliss, I guess." Jeff lets out a belch. " Well, this is bliss to me." "You don't feel like you are missing something?" Jeff scratches his head. "No, I feel content." "I don't." Jeff is some what offended. He points to the front door. "If you don't like it here, there's the door." "I didn't mean your house." "What do you mean?" "I'm not really sure." Jeff laughs to himself. "You got a lot of stuff to figure out, boy." "Tell me about it." I grab a hand full of cheetos and tune into the images on the T.V.