text:
On the other side of our Human World, there was a Monster World.

There was a young monster named Davi.  Davi was a lonely boy.  He had seven brothers, but he always stayed home alone.

Davi cried everyday.  He wanted to make friends.

Davi went to talk to his grandfather, who was the guard of the gate which connects Human World and Monster World.

Davi asked his grandfather, "I want to go to Human World.  I don't have any friends here.  Maybe I can make friends over there."

Gradfather said "No, it's too dangerous.  No one in Human World likes Monsters.  You won't make any friends there."

But Davi went "Nobody in Monster World likes me anyway.  I want to at least try making friends in Human World!"

Grandfather decided to allow Davi 3 days in Human World, and gave Davi 3 gold coins, and told him "These coins may help you when you are in trouble."

Davi thanked his grandfather, and went through the gate.

Davi walked through the dark...

Davi landed on the street.  He was amazed at the sun, the sky, the tall trees, and the houses!

Davi saw a college dormitory in which college girls were petting a cat.

Davi sneaked into the dormitory and talked to the cat. "Mr!" said Davi.  "How can I make friends with humans?"

" Meow! " answered Mr. Cat.  "I am not going to tell you because you are a Monster.  We don't like monsters.  But I see you have three gold coins in your pocket.  If you give me one coin, I'll answer your question."

Davi gave him one gold coin.  Then Mr. Cat went "Ok!  All I do is mew and purr at people's feet."

Davi said "Thank you, Mr. Cat!"

Davi approached the college girls, who were busy chattering with each other, and purred and mewed at their feet.  The college girls turned around, and...

"AAARRRGGGHHH!!!  Monster!!!"  The college girls screamed in horror, and ran out of the building!

Davi was left alone in the dormitory.  He walked out on the street, and he cried and cried and cried all night long.

On the second day, Davi saw two young boys playing with a dog in a house.

Davi sneaked into the house, and talked to the Dog. "Mr!" said Davi.  "How can I make friends with Humans?"

" Arf!" answers Mr. Dog.  "I am not going to tell you because you are a monster.  We don't monsters.  But I see you have two gold coins in your pocket.  If you give me one coin, I'll be happy to answer your question."

So Davi gave him one coin.  Then Mr. Dog went "Okay!  All I do is bow-wow, and lick people's faces."  "Thank you, Mr. Dog!" said Davi.

Davi approached the two young boys, and suddenly licked their faces and BOW-WOWED!!

"AAARRRGGGHHH!!! MONSTER!!"  cried the two young boys.  They screamed in horror and ran out of the building!

Davi was left alone in the house.  He walked out on the street, and he cried and cried and cried all night long.

On the third day, Davi saw a huge house in which an old blind lady was feeding a small bird in a cage.

Davi sneaked into the house, and talked to the bird. "Mrs!" said Davi.  "How can I make friends with humans?"

"Chirp!" answered Mrs. Bird.  "I am not going to tell you because you are a Monster.  We don't Monsters.  But I see you have one gold coin in your pocket.  If you give me the coin, I'll be happy to answer your question."

So Davi gave her his last gold coin.  Then Mrs. Bird says "Okay!  All I do is chirp and sing a song!"

Davi started singing a song.  Then...

"Where does this come from?" the old blind lady approached Davi.  Davi was so happy.  "This is the most beautiful song I have ever heard,"said Old Blind Lady.

Then she touched Davi's face.  "Who are you? What is this?  Could this be a... AAARRRGGGHHH!!! Monster!!!!"  The Old Blind Lady screamed in horror, and fainted dead!

Davi was left alone once again.  He walked out on the street, and he cried and cried and cried all night long.

Davi went back to the gate.  He was very sad.  The trees, the sun, the sky didn't amaze Davi anymore.

Davi met his grandfather at the gate.  Grandfather went "Why are you crying?"  Then Davi answered "I tried really hard to make friends with humans, and asked Mr. Cat, Mr. Dog and Mrs. Bird for advise, and I followed their good advice, but nobody liked
 me.  Nobody cared about me anywhere.  I'll be alone for the rest of my life.  Nobody likes me!"

Then grandfather answered "It takes so much courage just to go to Human World.  And you were on your own Davi.  You are the most courageous Monster I have ever seen.  Everytime you cried, you learned to be stronger.  You don't need anyone else."

Davi listened to his grandfather.  "Now go home, Davi," said grandfather.

Davi walked back to his house, and opened the door, then...

Davi's seven brothers rushed to Davi, cheering "We've heard you were in Human World by yourself?!" "I wish I can be like you!"  "You are so brave!"

Davi finally smiled.  From that day on, Davi played with his brothers everyday, and lived happily ever after.

(Copyright @ myself)

title: An original children's story about a monster who tries to make friends with people

question: Who are the main characters of the story?

answer: Davi, his grandfather, Mr. Cat, Mr. Dog, Mrs, Bird, the Old Blind Lady

question: Who is Davi?

answer: Davi is a young monster from Monster World.

question: Why does Davi want to go to the Human World?

answer: Because he is sad he has no friends and his seven brothers don't play with him. He thinks nobody likes him in Monster World and wants to cross over to the Human World to try and make friends there.

question: What does Davi's grandfather do?

answer: He guards the gate that connects Human World and Monster World.

question: Write a ~10 sentence summary.

answer: Davi is a young monster from Monster World. He is sad because he has no friends and thinks nobody likes him. He has seven brothers, but they do not play with him. Davi wants to cross over to the Human World to make friends and asks his grandfather, the guard that connects both worlds, for permission. His grandfather agrees after warning Davi of the dangers and sends him off with three gold coins. Davi asks for advice from a cat, dog, and bird on how he can make friends with humans, but at one gold piece each. Davi learns the animals' secrets, but they don't work when he does it because he's a monster. Davi goes home dejected, but his grandfather cheers him up and says he is courageous and his failures made him stronger. At home, Davi's brothers greet him and say they wish they could be as brave. Davi now plays with his seven brothers every day.


split: train

text:
	Harry woke up last Tuesday morning. This wasn't a particularly unusual event, as he had woken up every morning in a similar manner for thirty-five years. He had developed the habit of turning the alarm off several times before crawling out of bed, and Tuesday was no different. He stumbled to the bathroom, scratched his stubble and emptied his bladder. All typical morning activities. He made his coffee, smoked a cigarette, and thumbed through the paper. Nothing atypical.
	He took a shower and pondered his existence. While this may have been an ordinary action at other times, Harry had come to a new conclusion: his life was no longer worth living.
	Harry was a thinker, and knew to take each thought with care. He kept this thought and studied it. There was validity to the thought. Harry's life was never really worth living; but, it wasn't really worth dieing for, either. He was typically caught in a penumbra of apathy.
	He finished his shower, and returned to his newspaper. Another school shooting. At a preschool, this time. The culprit was a war veteran. He unloaded his fully automatic assault rifle into the kids while they napped. The teachers were unharmed; they were fucking a few blocks away in a rented car.
	The shooter then walked down the street to a retirement home where he murdered three elderly women who were sitting on their porch. On Mondays, they liked to drink tea and knit. They found it quaint. The veteran found killing innocent people quaint. It takes all kinds.
	In his final act, the armed man walked into the main office and pulled the pin on a grenade. Twenty-five people died that day. Twelve children, ten adults, and three old ladies. But who's keeping a tally?
	Harry didn't finish the article. There had been another shooting a week ago. And another not too far beyond that. Harry had become numb to the slaughter. He grabbed his coat and drove to work, at a minor chemical manufacturer. He was a bench-chemist. He mostly cleaned glassware for people who stayed in school longer than him. But it was a job, thankless and hopeless.
	As Harry swirled a dilute sulfuric acid and potassium dichromate solution in an erlenmeyer flask, his earlier idea bubbled back into his brain. His life really wasn't worth living. The other people in the lab weren't particularly friendly. They all had families and friends and things to do. Harry often wished he had things to do.
	He wasn't an unattractive individual, but he wasn't attractive either. This enabled to go through life practically invisible. Most people never knew he was ever around. Even as a child, his family barely acknowledged his existence. He'd often have to walk home from practice or work or school simply because his parents had forgotten they had had three children.
	Once, Santa forgot about him on Christmas. He never forgave Santa. Another time, his family celebrated his birthday three weeks early. No one could remember when he was born.
	While he was studying chemistry, his parents divorced and remarried. His cousin had over-dosed on benzos. Three friends committed group suicide. His mother suffered a mental collapse and was beaten to death by her abusive meth-addicted second husband. His older brother got married, had children, and got a divorce. Harry didn't learn any of this until five years ago. It took his extended family over ten years to realize they hadn't told him.
	Harry didn't care much about his family. He was disowned by his father when he was sixteen because he smoked pot.
	Harry knew he had a gun at home. He'd stick the barrel to the side of his head and throw in the towel.
	As Harry finished his work and walked to his car, a stranger followed him into the parking lot. When Harry unlocked his car, the individual stuck the barrel of his gun to his ribcage and demanded all of Harry's possessions. Clothes, car and all.
	Harry laughed. "I'm going home to kill myself. Shoot me if you have to. You'll only hasten the process and preserve a shred of my dignity." The man shot him in the abdomen and fled. A woman heard the blast and came over to investigate.
	She saw Harry slumped on the ground, next to his car. She called an ambulance. She walked  next to Harry as he groaned. He was bleeding, as one could expect. She sat down and held his head. She stroked his hair. She said everything was going to be okay. She told him her name was Maggie. Well, Margaret, actually, but that's the name her mother used to call her when she was in trouble. Maggie didn't like that name.
	The ambulance arrived and Maggie rode with him. She lied and said she was his wife. Harry had never even been in a relationship longer than a week. Easy come, easy go.
	Maggie waited with Harry until someone close to him showed up. She was sure he had someone who would care if he got shot. Doesn't everybody?
	Nobody came asking for Harry.
	She stayed overnight, and read out loud from the book she had on her. She loved reading books out loud. Still no one arrived looking for Harry.
	Luckily, the bullet had missed the vital parts of Harry, and he was in no mortal danger. He was wounded and sore, certainly, but a far cry from dead. He woke disoriented and vaguely coherent.
	Harry wasn't a religious man, but he thought he had reached the equivalent of an after-life. He saw Maggie. An angel, certainly. The rising sun silhouetted her frizzed hair giving the illusion of a halo. Harry was glad to have seen her. Harry liked seeing beautiful things.
	"Where am I?" He asked towards Maggie.
	"The hospital."
	"Oh."
	Harry relaxed into his bedding and closed his eyes.
	"Is there anyone I should contact for you? I'm sure someone's worried sick about you."
	"Nope. What you see is what you get."
	Maggie moved next to Harry and held his hand. "I'm Maggie. It's going to be okay."
	Harry smiled. Maybe things were finally turning for the better. "I've got to go to work. I'll be back this evening." She left, and passed a medical school student on her way in.
	The medical school intern stared at a chart, then looked at the name on Harry's chart.
        "Harry is like Barry. It must just be a typo." The intern thought to herself. She attached the I.V. line into Harry's arm.
	Harry died later that afternoon. He had a major allergic reaction to the penicillin that the intern had pumped into his arm. Easy come, easy go.

title: Last Tuesday

question: Explain the irony of the ending.

answer: Harry, who has wanted to die all along, finally finds a reason to live when he meets Maggie. As soon as this happens, he dies due to being accidentally administered penicillin, which he is allergic to.

question: Why is Barry in the hospital?

answer: Presumably because he has some sort of bacterial infection.

question: What country does Harry live in?

answer: While it is not explicitly stated, it can be inferred that he lives in the United States.

question: Why did Santa forget about Harry on Christmas?

answer: His parents (who would have fulfilled the role of Santa) were not very attentive to him.


text:
[Apple Has Reportedly Forced Banks To Stop “Taxing” Mobile Payments]

When Apple reportedly struck deals with Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, I pointed out that those alone weren’t enough to put the iPhone maker in the retail payments business.

Now Tom Noyes, a former Citi executive, says that Apple has struck deals with the five largest card-issuing banks—JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, Capital One, and American Express.

Remarkably, Apple has not only gotten these banks to agree to accept iPhone-linked payments, but it has gotten them to offer rebates of up to 0.25% of the amount of a transaction on the credit- and debit-card fees, known as “interchange,” that Apple must pay. (Those rates vary widely, but you can think of them as averaging 1.5–1.75% of a transaction.)

  SEE ALSO: APPLE IS WALKING INTO PAYMENTS NAKED

In return, Apple will assume some of the risk of fraudulent transactions, using its TouchID biometric sensors, NFC, and geolocation data to assure itself and its bank partners that a customer really is the one conducting a transaction.

Apple Makes The Banks Cry Uncle

Apple has done a remarkable thing here: It has overturned a longtime tax on e-commerce transactions laid by the banks and shouldered by online merchants (and thus, ultimately, consumers).

Visa, MasterCard, and the rest of the financial establishment have long treated online purchases as “card not present” transactions, just because consumers type in their credit-card numbers rather than swipe the magnetic stripe. And those transactions carry higher interchange fees than regular retail transactions, ostensibly to cover a higher risk of credit-card fraud.

That system has persisted, even as e-commerce and mobile payments are increasingly showing themselves to be more resilient against fraud than traditional retail payments, as the massive hacks of Target and Home Depot stores have shown.

  SEE ALSO: HOME DEPOT’S MASSIVE CARD BREACH IS AN OPENING FOR PAYPAL, APPLE AND GOOGLE

Bill Ready, the CEO of Braintree, has long made the argument to me that banks should treat mobile transactions as more secure, not less secure, than retail payments. That’s particularly true given all the information you can gather about a consumer from his or her device. But that hasn’t gotten his company, now a subsidiary of eBay’s PayPal, a break on rates.

“We have a strong argument for why our rates should be lower, and the card networks have been a bit intransigent on that,” Ready recently told me.

By negotiating rebates with the big banks, as Noyes claims it has, Apple has essentially bypassed Visa and MasterCard. Or, put another way, it has found a way for Visa and MasterCard to save face and maintain the integrity of their rate structure, while cutting a side deal with their largest card issuers. (American Express, as both a bank and a payments network, has more freedom to maneuver with partners like Apple—though it usually sets even higher interchange rates.)

By getting a break on interchange, Apple at the very least won’t lose money on its payments business. It may be able to attract merchants by passing on these lower rates.

Breaking The Digital-Payments Logjam

And Apple could pull off something even bigger. By setting a precedent that the banks are willing to cut deals with mobile payments players, it may pave the way for PayPal, Google, and Amazon to strike similar rebate agreements—provided they’re willing to shoulder some of the costs of fraud, as Apple reportedly is. That may test those companies’ confidence in their fraud-detection algorithms and their software and hardware protections.

Apple may want to reflect a bit more on whether it’s really ready to shoulder that risk. Events over the past week have revealed security holes in its iCloud backup service. It may also have to take on some of the burden of customer service in exchange for the rebates it’s getting.

  SEE ALSO: HOW APPLE MADE ITS USERS VULNERABLE TO ICLOUD THEFT

Apple still has to persuade thousands of other banks to go along with its iPhone payments scheme. It must also sign up merchants—and sell lots of TouchID-enabled iPhones. On that last bit, at least, it has a proven track record of success.

_Photo by The Consumerist_

[]

question: Who did Apple reportedly strike deals with?

answer: Apple reportedly struck deals with Visa, MasterCard, and American Express.

question: Which additional card-issuing banks did Apple strike deals with?

answer: JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, Capital One, and American Express

question: How has Apple made it secure to avoid risk of fraudulent transactions?

answer: Apple has included the use of TouchID, biometric sensors, NFC, and geolocation data to assure itself and its bank partners.

question: What is the remarkable feat Apple has done in regards to banks?

answer: Apple has overturned a longtime tax on e-commerce transactions laid by the banks and shouldered by online merchants.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: With various card-issuing banks, Apple has struck a deal with them all. Apple has a secure system of transactions and has overturned a longtime tax on e-commerce transactions that were set by banks. Apple also takes most of the responsibility with risks and frauds, and incentivizes other companies and banks to join them.


text:
Large Spider in vehicle
June 13, 2010
This was in my coffeee cup in the m oning in my Ford Ranger, apparently crawled in through the window.
Jon Carlson
Yucca Valley Calif.

[]

Giant Crab Spider

_Dear Jon,
Are you entirely sure you didn’t pick up this Giant Crab Spider at Mickey D’s as some unordered protein with your morning coffee?  This Giant Crab Spider is probably in the genus Olios, and you can compare your image to photos posted to BugGuide.  Giant Crab Spiders are harmless hunting spiders with nocturnal rambling habits._

_[]_

Giant Crab Spider

What's That Bug? does not endorse extermination

question: Who is Jon Carlson writing?

answer: Jon is writing to What's That Bug?.

question: What is the response to Jon Carlson's message?

answer: What's That Bug? tells Jon that the thing in his coffee cup was a Giant Crab Spider and gives details about it.

question: What is a Giant Crab Spider?

answer: What's That Bug? describes them as harmless hunting spiders with nocturnal rambling habit.

question: What does Mickey D's have to do with Jon's message?

answer: It seems implied that Jon's coffee cup came from McDonald's.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: A person messaged What's That Bug? to help identify the bug in their coffee cup. What's That Bug told them that it is a Giant Crab Spider.


text:
KINA may refer to the following people:

Given name

-   Kina (musician) (born Kina Cosper in 1969), American musician and former member of Brownstone
-   Kina Collins (born 1991), American political activist
-   Kina Grannis (born 1985), American guitarist and singer-songwriter
-   Kina Konova (1872–1952), Bulgarian educator, translator, publicist and women's rights activist
-   Kina Malpartida (born 1980), Peruvian boxer

Surname

-   Gunsanad Kina (1840–1930), Malaysian politician
-   Laura Kina (born 1973), American artist and academic
-   Pascal Kina, Belgian field hockey coach
-   Sedomon Gunsanad Kina (1894–1966), Malaysian politician, son of Gunsand
-   Shoukichi Kina (born 1948), Japanese rock musician and politician
-   Tetsuhiro Kina (born 1976), Japanese football player
-   , Japanese wheelchair racer

title: Kina (name)

question: Define Kina.

answer: Kina can be either a given name or a surname.

question: Name three people with Kina as their given name.

answer:
Kina Collins (born 1991), American political activist
Kina Malpartida (born 1980), Peruvian boxer
Kina Grannis (born 1985), American guitarist and singer-songwriter

question: Name three people that have Kina for their surname.

answer:
Pascal Kina, Belgian field hockey coach
Tetsuhiro Kina (born 1976), Japanese football player
Laura Kina (born 1973), American artist and academic

question: How long did Kina Konova live?

answer: She lived up to 80 years old

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: Kina can be either a given name or a surname, depending on geographical location.


text:
Samantha Fitzhugh leads a quiet wall-flower life in the genius class of her high school. She never knew her father, and her mother is off in Antarctica absorbed in a career as an anthropologist.
A series of freakish events in the school have her on the verge of being expelled. Out of the blue, the hottest boy in the class invites her into his family to stay until her mom returns.
There she finds warm and loving parents even if they are a bit strange -- professor father with profound arcane knowledge and a psychic mother who reads minds and casts spells. They believe that the vestiges of some inherited power is starting to emerge from her. They caution her that high school is a hormonal time. If she wishes to go down this road, she must retain her chastity.
Meanwhile, a mad artist is spontaneously producing paintings of Samantha that have become a focus of worship for a gang of crazed meth-dealing bikers. They believe she is the descendant of Inanna, an ancient Sumerian goddess from the lost planet Nibiru.
The gang leader is a former professor with a murderous thirst for vengeance against those who drove him out of the profession. He believes in Samantha’s magical descent and her link to a planet with a 3,600 year orbit that will bring it smashing through the earth’s solar system.
He wants her and intends to possess her, no matter who he has to kill.

__________________________________

Townsend “Boo” Radley IV sat in his small stock broker’s office with one of his bigger whales as they were called in the trade. A fish on the line. A sucker. A patsy.
Marvin Sfortz. Seventy-two years old. Sold a plastics extrusion factory in Belleville, New Jersey for twenty-six million and retired to a southern university town with a major teaching hospital and ACC basketball. Didn’t know what to do with himself now that he wasn’t bossing a pack of Puerto Ricans every day. Liked to imagine he could pick stocks. Had a nose for hidden value. Explosive growth.
“Well, down here with the grits and ya-hoos,” said Boo, “nobody much likes the action.”
“Bunch’a yokels,” Marvin echoed. “How did they fight the Civil War?”
Boo made a forced laugh. “It’s good to see a man who can take the torque of a roller-coaster ride on the market.”
“No guts, no glory,” croaked Marvin.
Sleazy old yuck with his dentures and foul cigar breath. It was just too funny to churn his account, make commissions on pointless trades. The man was in pre-Alzheimers and had no short-term memory retention. Couldn’t figure out he was losing money until tax time. And by then he had forgotten how all the transactions had worked.
The Yankees got drawn south by the low taxes. They all said it was the weather, but in fact their big government obsessions had ruined New York, Rhode Island, New Jersey. You hang on there, you’re just paying lavish retirements for a pack of parasite unionized civil servants.
So they flock south to a university town with “culture” not that you noticed it much. A teaching hospital to keep your sorry carcass upright. Buy up all the nice real estate and drive the penurious faculty out of the town.  Retired, nothing to do but carp with each other about how dumb the hicks are, how things were done so much better back where they came from.
Boo didn’t feel bad about what he was doing. He was young and needed to make his way in the world. Marvin had no use for the money. Just leave it to adult children that he constantly bitched about. Ingrates. Free-loaders. Moochers.
Marvin struggled to his feet, his brain already devoid of the trades the two had just agreed upon. Slapped a broad straw hat on his head like an Impressionist would use painting in the open air. Cataract glasses. He had one of those Medicare metal canes that you can adjust the height on. Couldn’t even carry a stylish cane carved from exotic wood. What good did 26-mil do him? Better it belong to Boo.
Boo had been the bottom of his prep school class and couldn’t get into the Ivies. One admissions director had actually laughed at him. Asked what “diversity” he would bring to the student body. “Old money wastrel? The vanishing New England WASP?” What a shit-head.
So he had come to the university along with the rest of the bottom of his class. Administrative fools actually fawned on them, believed they brought style to the place. Branded the school a “Southern Ivy.” Branding was big at colleges. What a joke.
Boo had been a lacrosse star. Had a mop of blond hair he could flip out of his eyes, wow the coed honeys. They all thought since he was from Greenwich he was rich.
Problem was, there was no Townsend family money. Or very little of it. During his college years, he liked to swank around in his fraternity and pretend he was a trust-fund boy. But his father could barely pay the bills. And after he blew his brains out in the embezzlement scandal in his investment bank, there were no Wall Street connections either.
So Boo got his broker’s license and stayed on in town. His high-performing pals from his prep school class had all been Dartmouth and Yale; now they were at Goldman Sachs. Always talking big deals. Who the heavy hitters were.  The big swinging dicks.
He’d tell them he liked the low-key atmosphere of the South. Honey-voiced belles. Mint juleps. Said he was thinking of buying a race horse stud. They were working eighty-hour weeks and sounded envious. They had no idea what a ratty state it was. Dead textile mills. Feed-lot hog farms. Hillbillies in the mountains.
Boo played racquetball and squash now, liked to work out over at the medical school health center. Med classes were half women. Keep his eye peeled for hot young honeys in white coats with stethoscopes. He knew the income levels of the various specialties by heart. Interventional radiology was right up there at the top. Cardiology.
He could picture himself married to one of them. Scale back his business and just manage her personal fortune. Take up fly fishing. They’d travel to New Zealand, Iceland, Chile. Make a regular thing of Christmas each year in Gstaad for the skiing.
A row of three dollar signs began blinking in the upper right of his computer screen.  Got him out of his reverie.
Good Christ, it had come in again. A cool million fucking dollars from a bank in Switzerland transferred once a year to Maeve McAlpin Fitzhugh jointly with her daughter Samantha. The sum was up to ten million now, and they never enquired about it, never withdrew any. They never fucking touched it.
And it just sat there in an account that paid maybe two-percent. He always got a home office congratulations letter on his mismanagement of that one. The New York office got to play with the money and pay the Fitzhughs peanuts for the use of it.
He had only met them one time when the total was six million. Maeve Fitzhugh had seemed bored by the whole thing. Totally disinterested. Kept checking phone messages.
He pulled up the photos of mother and daughter. The firm always kept pictures in case of identify issues. The mother was what his mother in Greenwich would call a “handsome woman.” Mid-forties. Clean face lines. Hair pulled back. Very outdoorsy. Wind-burned complexion. Did some kind of exploration thing.
The girl was just a junior in high school. But there was something compelling about her. Her eyes just pulled you in.
He’d sit and stare at her for long periods of time.
______________________________________________

If you read, please send feedback!!! I'm working on this in pieces, intending to produce something more substantial, so advice/suggestions/criticism/praise is appreciated!

title: Nibiru's Child: Who Killed Cressie Moon Child? (Part 2)

question: Why does the gang leader of a meth-dealing biker group want to possess Samantha?

answer: Because he believed in her magical descent and link to a planet with 3,600 years orbit.

question: What connection did Townsend have with the Fitzhugh's?

answer: It appears he was their account manager.

question: Who is Marvin Sfortz?

answer: A wealthy retired seventy-two-year-old man on the verge of Alzheimer's.

question: What can be said about Marvin's character?

answer: It might be implied he is an unpleasant grouchy elderly man.

question: What was the relationship between boo Townsend and Marvin?

answer: Townsend was a stockbroker who was helping Marvin manage his assets

question: Briefly describe "boo" Townsend.

answer: He was a young stockbroker who didn't have very good grades in school but was a star athlete. He didn't come from a wealthy background despite coming from Greenwich and obtained his broker's license in the south, where he schooled and worked.

question: In what currency did Marvin sell the plastics extrusion factory?

answer: It is not stated.

question: Write a ~8 sentence summary.

answer:
This story highlights the lives of two characters, Samantha Fitzhugh and Townsend Radley IV. Samantha, a quiet introvert who lived with her classmates' family because her mother was away in Antarctica for business, was believed by a group of meth-dealing bikers to be the descendant of Inanna, an ancient Sumerian goddess the lost planet Nibiru. Their leader was keen on possessing her because he believed in her magical descent and link to a planet with 3,600 years orbit that will smash through the earth's solar system.
On the other hand, Townsend Radley IV was Samantha's mother's account manager. He didn't have very good grades in school but was a star athlete. Later on, he obtained his broker's license in the south and became a stockbroker. He didn't have any family money thus, depended on his job to survive. He also never made it into an Ivy League school like his prep mates who worked in big companies and got big deals, but he liked to give them the impression that he preferred the low-key lifestyle of the south.


text:
Have you ever paused and thought, what if I died today?
If my ghost stumbled by would you have something to say?
These are two questions stuck consuming my lonely night mind.
Rife with fear, I fall unto ears and knees and I pray.
“God please protect me from the perils of the outside world"

But what if the biggest dangers came from inside my own head?
I imagine them mobilizing, and arrayed all over my bed.
I picture them crawling all over me while I play dead.
But then I replied with a move of my own,
I silenced them out with my boast and a shout

But what if they had managed to hurt the ones I love?

They broke down my wails and chanted their own,
Meticulously reciting as if they had designed a plan to make me fear.
I begged for my mommy and divine intervention to be near.
And then they grew.
they flew one by one at me with unprecedented speed.

The first announced himself to be Greed.
Avarice,
The consuming avatar of malice had encroached on my space.

"Bitch get the fuck out my face."
And that was that, his chains corroding to rust.

Then came Lust,
a disgusting manifestation of the ladies I have come to trust.
She pulled out a picture of the girl I’ve come to like and said,

“Baby would you like some head,
or maybe just bust while I do all the thrusts?”

Yes, I admit it, yes I was tempted
but then the actual girl sexted and I then repented.
“Look slut
you are beautiful and you have a thick butt,
but that pussy crust just won’t do,
and I’d rather have my balls cut off then spend a night with you”.

Ha! That’s two down
and if I remembered my Catholic studies correctly,
there were still five prowling around.

“Hello I am the Glutton,
I was wondering if you could help me button up?
I have this mutton would mine if we muttoned up?"

This one was tricky
obese and yet he moved quickly
Yet I was faster

“Damn you’re a disaster,
you’re the master,
of your own destiny,
and here you are trying to get me plastered,
You tempt me to indulgence you hefty fat bastard but I will remain stout,
take with you your scrapings and get the fuck out!"

And on to the next
The third test had come and gone,
I cheered above the rest,
but the battle was afloat I chose to ride on.

The fourth was Sloth, procrastination at it’s best,
but he crept forth timidly and whispered in my ears...

“You’ve got talent boy,
but the materials you work with are toys so stop,
Sit and chop it up with me,
learn what it takes to be
lavish excellency."

I knew he was right/
the truth hit me like a deer in headlights,

“Oh Sloth,
the only sin I’ve maybe betrothed,
your slights upon my honor are sour and vast,
but I refuse to be last.
So for now I’ll look to the past,
to all the situations where I’ve emerged victorious,
It makes me realize that no matter how much effort I put into whatever I do,
it’ll still be glorious.
and if not that then notorious,
I'll command the forces across the whole planet,
And I’ll be damned if my figure won’t be solidified in granite.”

So he vanished,
and in the midst of his departure,
All the hatred I have banished,
over the years, suddenly reappeared,
It was neither man or woman but simply a shade,
garbed in all black and brandishing a blade.

“I am Wrath, and I come to offer thou revenge
A chance to avenge all the harm done against thou,
we can cut them open with a mere strike of my plow."

Wow, a chance of revenge? I suddenly thought of Miss Kang,
or the cops who made me break my bong.
But no it was wrong.

“My friend, this opportunity is a great on but this I must not allow,
I wouldn’t be able to deal with all of the pain caused because of me,
I’ll take a knee."

That was a close call
I still remember how that one freaked me out the most of all.
Then he popped up,
The douche who stole my buttercup.

“What the fuck do you want?
You already haunt me whenever you can."

Standing up, I rushed at him headfirst.
Fueled with Wrath, my breath grew heavy as I battled with Envy,
He cut across my path,
but I had already done the math,
had him fooled,
I laughed at him while my head cooled.
He was gone.

It was five in the morning and still I had no break,
struggling for I knew these sins were out to take,
my soul,
digging holes in my chest,
but I was the best and I laughed, reflected,
and what came next was something I never expected,
Thinking of all the strides I had to make to keep myself vigilant and awake,
my body began to quake,
my soul began to shake,
my heart accepted a new ache,
I made a fatal mistake,
I cried while my body died and my soul swallowed alive by the tide,
brought around by my very own consuming Pride.

title: [Capital Vices:Life's Seven Spices] Xpost from poetry

question: What does the text say about the ability to fight off bad behaviors?

answer: The narrator faces off with each of the seven sins. He is able to stand up to Greed, Lust, Gluttony, Sloth, Wrath, and Envy. Fighting some sins seem to be harder than others due to different temptations. In one occasion, he's able to fight off Envy with Wrath. However in the end, the narrator is not able to fight Pride.

question: What does the text say about dangers from inside the mind?

answer: The narrator fears that the dangers in his mind could hurt the ones they loved. He believes they are intentionally planning to make him fear. The narrator realizes these dangers are the seven deadly sins, and he sees them as trying to take his soul. He battles all of them, but is defeated by pride.

question: Summarize the narrator's relationship with wrath.

answer: The narrator can feel Wrath coming on when they notice all of their banished hatred reappearing. Wrath arrives in all black with a blade, and tells the narrator they have a chance for revenge for him. This makes the narrator think of a few people he'd like to take revenge on. The narrator finds strength to fight off this desire and rids himself of Wrath. However when Envy appears, be channels Wrath to fight it.

question: What does the text say about the power of love?


text:
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (WABC) -- A driver in a stolen semi-truck led California Highway Patrol officers on a high-speed chase for hours on Tuesday before surrendering.

The incident began at around 10:30 a.m. PST in Apple Valley, where the driver failed to yield, according to San Bernardino County sheriff's officials.

The truck took off southbound on the 15 Freeway and continued all the way past Box Springs, Riverside and Moreno Valley, at times reaching speeds of up to 70 mph.

The driver told police that he was not armed and that he did not want to go back to jail.

The suspect also drove onto the eastbound 60 Freeway, speeding through Gilman Springs and Beaumont.

The driver surrendered shortly after 1:30 p.m. PST.

The truck belonged to "ACT Enviro," a company that transports hazardous material.

A spokesman for the company told ABC News that based on the manifest of the vehicle there are no explosives, no radio-logical hazard, no biological hazard, and a limited flammability risk.

The truck originated in Sunnyvale California and was enroute to US Ecology in Nevada, he said. It was reported stolen at 6:30 a.m. and CHP was contacted immediately.

The spokesman said "the contents are pretty mundane."

The thief deactivated the GPS tracking mechanism in the truck, but the truck has a secondary system that they were able to track, he said.

---

_Information from KABC-TV and ABC News_

Copyright © 2020 WABC-TV. All Rights Reserved.

question: Where did this story occur?

answer: Riverside, California

question: What is the source of this article?

answer: WABC TV

question: When did this occur?

answer: Some time in 2020.

question: How was the stolen semi-truck located?

answer: With a secondary GPS tracking system.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: The driver of a stolen semi-truck in Riverside, California finally surrenders after a high-speed chase. The driver was not armed and the truck did not carry any dangerous materials. The police managed to track the truck with a secondary system that the truck has after the driver deactivated the GPS tracking mechanism.


text:
First short story submitted on here. Feel free to give me feedback. Hope you enjoy :)

“The Mansion”
 – by BRAVE-NEW-W0RLD

There’s no sleep for me tonight.

What a mansion we live in, floating on a cloud of comfort.  Dressed to kill we numb ourselves with drugs that turn our veins to ice, all the while basking in the warmth of fast cars and sex appeal. Sobriety is a thing of the past, reality shifts back and forth with our revolving door of high-class friends spinning like the cylinders of a snub-nose. We ponder pulling the trigger for a moment, but the gun falls from our hands and our friends are already dead.

We’re alone now, and the halls of the mansion are littered with shattered chandeliers and a sea of champagne bottles. Death is knocking at the door but the valet won’t stamp his ticket. The sun is too bright to see the riff-raff below, the men and women who are itching with envy, the ones who could never live in this house of glory if they tried for a thousand years.

 Just then, our Breakfast is served with a pamphlet on the fast-track to our morality and the church of good men gone before us. Frank Sinatra is playing faintly somewhere in the empty halls, which are now spotless. We can smile. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and if riches make you Jesus then we should have all been crucified long ago.

The absence of the substance becomes a bother now, and on demand a needle slips back into the shell we call a body. I’ve got you under my skin, Sinatra sings. It’s only a matter of time before your conscience is comatose. Now the numbness is back, and reality becomes fantasy once again. “Pilgrims of the Promised Land” is the headline on the magazine today, and all we can do is smile and wave for the cameras. Jesus can’t save us anymore. Maybe an apocalypse could wake you up. When you awake, maybe you’ll be surrounded by ash…but not me. No, I’ll be up all night just to see this place burn down. You see, there’s never any rest for the wicked.

There’s no sleep for me tonight.

title: "The Mansion"

question: Who are the main characters of the story?

answer: The narrator and his friends.

question: Why can't the narrator sleep?

answer: He's waiting for the apocalypse that might come.

question: Where does the story take place?

answer: Inside a mansion.

question: What is the substance the narrator is talking about?

answer: Drugs.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The narrator is in a mansion doing drugs with friends, slipping in and out of reality. There's no sleep for him because he wants to wait for the apocalypse that may come.


text:
Benji Kingsley

I snatched up Sunday’s sports section and peeled it open to a random page, holding it taught and high and close enough to my face that the words went double. I sank low into my chair and prayed—please, oh please, for the love of all that’s Holy, don’t let him see me. I felt unnatural and foolish but, most of all, safe from an awkward encounter with a guy who never ever seeing again had become one of my life’s major goals. I didn’t need to look up. I already knew.  I put down the paper, and as sure as hellfire singes ass-hair, Benji Kingsley was standing there looking down at me (I never hated a man as much). “What was the score?” He asked.

“A lot to a little!” I said as sarcastically and dismissive as I could.

 See, Bengji Kingsley was the kid who was always last one picked to a team for Battleball. Not because he was slow or fat or grossly incompetent, which he was, but because he was a loathsome, obnoxious scoundrel. He was a prankster and a good one, too. No one was safe. He would steal for the sake of stealing, never keeping anything he stole unless to frame someone else for the crime. He would alter another student’s answers before passing their exam forward. I remember he once stole official school stationary and sent out letters to parents regarding their child’s excessive absences. Sometimes he would bring the teachers flowers or candies, never out of kindness I’m sure. If he wasn’t playing pranks, then he was showing off with some outwardly disgusting act, like drinking the last sip of soda from a bottle then spitting it back into the container, then drinking it again and spitting it, again and again. Everyone hated him. Any kid would have given anything just to have the opportunity of hurling a blood-red, rough-skinned ball of compressed air and hatred at his pudgy melon-head..

He looked completely different than the way I remembered him. He was trim, not fat, dressed in a beige suit and light blue undershirt. He looked better than nice. He looked important. Uninvited, he sat in the chair at the side of my table rather than the one across it and flagged one of the young waitresses walking by. “Excuse me, sweetheart, won’t you get my friend here another margarita, and I’ll have a glass of ice water, with lemon if you’d please.”

 “Actually, I was just leaving.”

“No, stay, I insist,” he said. “I won’t take up much of your time.” I said nothing, wearing my impatience on the outside.  “I’ll get right to it, then. Over the past year I’ve been a part of a twelve step recovery proam, and—”

“AA.? But I remember you saying you were allergic to alcohol.”

“I am. I never touch the stuff. But it’s become a way to redemption for me, all the same.”

“Let me guess—you’re on the step that requires you to personally confront everyone you’ve wronged and apologize.

"Bingo.”

“How are you ever going to find the time?” I teased.

The waitress came back with our drinks, and Benji quickly jotted a note on a napkin and handed it to her along with a hundred dollar bill. The girl was as stunned as I was. She read the note and looked at him and then looked at me and then back at him. He seemed to nod, but perhaps not. After she left he went on with his apology, it was something that I had long since forgotten about. The waitress came back with the check which Benji paid and slipped the girl another hundred dollars, which she pocketed guiltily. We said our goodbyes, shook hands, he left, and that was that. Leaving the café feeling quite good, happy to know that even the worst kind of guy can turn things around, I couldn’t help but notice some kids through the café’s window, pointing and laughing. I felt they might be laughing at me, but I quickly dismissed it because the window was probably mirror-tinted on the inside.

I hoped the window was mirror-tinted on the inside.

title: Dead Wings Still Soar Benji Kingsley

question: What does the story say about the narrator's relationship with Benji?

answer: The narrator sees Benji in a bar and tries to avoid him, but Benji insists that they have a drink together. The narrator and Benji used to go to school together, and the narrator recalls that no one loved Benji because he was a prankster. Benji tells the narrator that he wants to apologize to him for something he did a long time ago. Later, the narrator leaves the bar and sees some kids through the bar’s window, pointing and laughing. It seems     Benji pranked him again.

question: What does the story say about what Benji wrote to the waitress?


text:
After years of looking for his one true vocation, a seminary professor of Christian spirituality considers an alternative picture of vocation. What if it’s not a single star we should follow but a constellation?

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

I’m sometimes jealous of those star-following magi we call the wise men. They walk briefly onto the stage of history with one task: pay homage to a newborn king. They have found their vocation, and they pursue it single-mindedly.

Leadership expert Jim Collins would be proud. The magi epitomize what he calls a “hedgehog”: they know one big thing. They’ve discovered what they can do best.

They follow their star.

That’s the prevalent vocational advice we give to both leaders and organizations: Focus. Discover your passion. Live and work at that one intersection “where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet,” as Frederick Buechner famously put it.

I’ve co-authored a book that gives this very advice to declining congregations: discover the one thing you do best, then prune, prune, prune your list of programs and ministries. And I think it’s still good advice.

Most of the time.

Because I know there are leaders who have heeded that advice and yet can’t wrestle their communities into committing to just One Big Thing. Their organizations simply won’t follow just one star. Their tentacles of service and commitment stretch too far.

And at 42, I look at all my efforts to find that one thing -- my one star -- and realize, sadly, that I’m running out of time. I’ll likely never develop a single expertise; my areas of gladness are too diverse for me to acquire complete mastery. I’m condemned to be a generalist, or (as I imagine others call me) a dilettante.

That is, until I consider this one liberating possibility: maybe vocation doesn’t have to be a single star. Maybe for some of us -- leaders _and_ organizations -- vocation will be more like a constellation, several stars forming a coherent image, each star burning bright at different seasons of life.

In that case, discerning vocation lies more in finding the pattern among one’s various gifts, passions and gladnesses and letting each one shine brightly at the right time.

I saw this at work in my own life recently. I left a pedagogy workshop to finish my reading for the course I was taking on spiritual writing but instead turned my attention to my application for a spiritual direction training program. I’m also working on leadership, preaching and spirituality syllabi for my seminary’s new curriculum.

And what I’d really love to pursue -- but don’t have the money for -- is a master of fine arts in creative writing. I have a couple of children’s novels outlined.

When I have this many irons in the fire, I feel the weight of Quaker mystic Thomas Kelly’s judgment from 80 years ago: “Before we know it we are pulled and hauled breathlessly along by an overburdened program of good committees and good undertakings.”

But I take heart when I see others who also have many irons in the fire. I’m thinking of a new missional community in an economically distressed borough near where I live.

Three Thursday nights a month, the community hosts a neighborhood meal. They engage in a ministry of empowerment called Circles out of Poverty. They host legal and health clinics, sublet their space to an adult day care ministry, and stay active in community development. They offer two Bible studies a week, and they worship together each Sunday night.

I can imagine a consultant looking at this community and seeing their energy dissipated in too many directions.

But I see something else: a community committed to discerning what God is up to in the wider neighborhood and joining in. It’s a coherent constellation with several stars, because God seems to be up to quite a lot.

And when I’m being generous, I can see the same in myself. Taken together, my interests outline my overarching joy in helping individuals and communities become open to what God is doing in their lives and respond in faith.

Sometimes I do that through writing, sometimes through teaching, sometimes through speaking, and sometimes through sitting with an individual and helping her discern _her_ vocation -- whether a single star or a constellation.

There is a danger that the image of vocation-as-constellation can be used as an excuse for distracting ourselves from our vocations when they get difficult or boring, when acedia sets in. Individuals and communities should remain mindful of this danger.

But a bigger danger I’ve discovered is that the lure of expertise -- the siren call of specialization, with its promise of both mastery and recognition -- might cause the constellation that is my vocation to become lopsided and eventually unrecognizable.

Sometimes we need to give ourselves the gift of ignoring the conventional wisdom, the gift of allowing ourselves to be guided by a constellation -- many stars that form one picture -- without feeling guilty that our vocations don’t conform to the expectations of others.

They are, after all, _our_ vocations, not someone else’s. And who knows? Maybe I’ll write that children’s novel.

question: Summarize how the author thinks we should pursue our paths.

answer: The author thinks that wise people follow their star-they know what they are good at. They listen to their inner voice, and they follow it. Additionally, they are skilled communicators, and adept at culling support from followers.

question: Summarize why the author thinks he will never develop one expertise.

answer: The author does not believe it is likely that he will ever develop one singular expertise because his areas of interest are too diverse. He hasn't allotted the appropriate or necessary time in his life to the study and mastery of one particular area over all the others. He also notes that there are plenty of singular pursuits in which he would have been happy to indulge but he does not have the type of money and resources typically required for that level of devotion.

question: Summarize what the author has to say about what one can do if they are more of a "Jack of All Trades" type.

answer: The individual can ascertain patterns from the multitudes of their pursuits-what is a common thread in all the things at which they excel? For example, someone who is great at customer service jobs of all kinds might have a knack for reading people and assessing the tone. This skill set could propel them to a higher-paying position in public relations or human resources, for example. The author of this article encourages you to look into what gives you joy, and see if those things have anything else in common.

question: Summarize what kinds of burnout exist across different vocational industries.


text:
I retreated to my room after a severe beating.
I had spilled salt onto the table and this time it was the last straw.
My face was red from embarrassment, black from the bruise that had already formed
under my left eye, and green from the healing bruise under my right.
My head was pounding and my whole body hurt.
It took every ounce of strength I had to climb the ladder,
so I could obey the command “Get out of my fucking sight before I do something even worse.”
This wasn’t the first time he had hit me, and it wasn’t the worst.
This time I was lucky.
I could wait a few days til the bruise turned a lighter shade of angry and cover it with thick makeup.
I’d wear sunglasses to cover the blood vessels that had burst in my eye.
I knew all the tricks to concealing the bruises, scratches, and scars.
I invested in every cream on the market that claimed to rid your body of
those unholy blemishes.
They half-assed worked on the smaller ones, but like the one from the kitchen knife
while I washed the dishes had to always be cleverly covered by  a scarf, or large necklace.
It reached from one shoulder to the other.
The doctor had a hard time stitching it up.
The emergency room had heard every one of my excuses.
I could tell from the pity in the eyes of the nurses that they didn’t believe a damn word that I was spewing,
but they couldn’t do anything about it since we were two consenting adults, and I refused to press any charges.
Pressing charges only makes things worse.

It took me several minutes to will my muscles to move enough so I could get to the attic,
which was my new “home” within my house.
I was banished here shortly after the honeymoon.
He couldn’t put up with me in bed,
and he only ventured to my accommodations in order to satiate his primal “needs”.
I learned quickly not to resist and the proper noises to make at the proper times.
Even then, there was hardly a time that I wasn’t subject to his abuses, verbal and physical.
Surfacing through the hole in the ceiling to my bare furnishings took every ounce of strength that I had.
I had clawed my way up to what I thought was my temporary sanctuary only to find a noose hanging in place of my stuffed bear that sat in the corner on his little chair.
I choked back a sob.
Not for the sight of the noose, but because I had had that bear since my early childhood.
It had been my only friend and confidant.
Now it was gone and I had nothing.
Was this the sign I had been begging for all of these years, or just a sick joke my mind or “husband” decided to play?
I found myself drawn to this instrument of self destruction.
It hung on a thick beam.
No one would ever know.
I had til five o’clock to decide my fate.
That’s when I had to begin preparations for his dinner.
I wasn’t allowed to eat with him.
I served him in the dining room and I ate in the kitchen.
I never feel like a wife, just a servant, an indentured servant that could never buy her freedom.
I reached for the rope that was tied into this sinister knot, and pulled with all of my strength.
It was sturdy.
I certainly weighed enough to commit this final act, according to the things my loving “husband” relentlessly told me.
Oh how tempting this was.
I wondered if it was his idea.
He would often bring drunk women into our “home” during the witching hours and expect me to undress them and have them waiting
he would please himself and them, then punish me as soon as they sobered up and left.

The noose became more and more appealing as the clock ticked away minutes and seconds.
Minutes and seconds that I was wasting.
I needed to make a decision.
In my mind there were no cons and only pros.
I had no family that cared, no children, and a husband that wanted me dead.
Why not take my life into my own hands and end it before he had the pleasure of doing it?
My hand had not left the rope.
It was coarse and didn’t stretch.
It was perfect.
I could still hear him screaming downstairs in the dining room.
I never wished death upon him, only myself.
Every time he beat me, I prayed this would be the time that he took it one step to far.
I prayed he would plunge the knife a little deeper,
hit me just hard enough,
break my nose and shove cartilage into my brain,
throw me down every flight of stairs in our house, not just one,
or just shoot me.
He had threatened me with a gun seven times to date.
He wouldn’t have if he knew that it would have caused me immense pleasure to have a fatal entry and exit wound through my head.
He was a surgeon though and a sadist.
He knew exactly where to plunge the knife so it wouldn’t hit anything vital.
He knew where he could hit me to cause the most pain, but not kill me.
He always missed me nose when he lunged for my face.
He knew at my stature and weight, the right way to shove me, so I wouldn’t hit my head tumbling down the stairs.
He never kept bullets in his guns, but he didn’t know I knew that.
He also didn’t know that I cleaned his guns better than he did, or that I knew the password to his gun safe.
There’s not much to do when you’re left home alone all day.

The alarm clock on the floor next to my bed read 4:30 pm.
Had four and a half hours actually elapsed since that beating?
My knees did hurt, but I had attributed that to having my ass kicked again.
My hand was red from handling the coarse rope.
The realization of the time had brought me back to my semblance of reality,
and had given me the sense of urgency that I needed to formulate a plan.
It was now 4:35.
I would not go downstairs at five o’clock.
I would wait for him to come to me.
He wasn’t going to win the game this time.
He was going to get his.
I wasn’t going to hide my bruises or scars anymore.
I took my place on the chair where my bear had sat, and slipped the noose around my battered neck.
It fit like a glove.
I steadied myself and waited.
The time dragged on.
I could hear every second pass.
I could feel every last minute slip through my fingers.
At five o’clock an alarm downstairs went off.
I was screamed for.
I was told to shut the damned thing off.
It took two minutes and forty five seconds for him to turn it off himself,
and to start his search for me.
I could hear him yelling for me in the kitchen.
Calling out what he didn’t know were going to be idle threats.
He went to his bedroom.
The bathrooms.
The dining room.
He screamed my name one last time before it occurred to him that I now slept in the attic.
I heard him approach and pull the string to the ladder to bring it down.
I heard him take his first step.
His second step.
His third step.
The abusive words grew louder with his approach.
His sixth step.
His seventh, eighth and ninth steps.
There were 13 steps all together,
and him being a tall “man” his head was about the attic floor, and he could see me.
We locked eyes.
He stood paralyzed for a second then smirked.
He told me I didn’t have the guts.
He didn’t believe me even after I had jumped from the chair, and swung back,
crashing through the attic window and as the rope was severed by the force of my jump and the
shattered glass, I landed on the sidewalk in front of the house.
Bloody, bruised, and thankfully dead.

title: A Scream That No One Will Ever Hear. (Trigger Warning, major themes are abuse and suicide in a marriage)

question: Where became the narrator's new "home" in her house?

answer: The attic.

question: Who are the characters in this story?

answer: The narrator, who is an unnamed woman, and her husband.

question: What are some themes of this story?

answer: Domestic violence and suicide.

question: What is the husband's occupation?

answer: The husband is a surgeon.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: A women endures horrible mental and physical abuse from her husband. She finds comfort when alone in her attic. She contemplates suicide and one day, she kills herself in front of her husband.


text: Okay so there was this kid,lets name him Timmy. He's in kindergarten and there's this 1st grader,lets name him Tyler, that always picks on him and beats him up. Well one day Tyler throws him down and little Timmy's glasses fall and shatter on the asphalt.. Little Timmy knew he couldn't take him on alone so he went around and gathered 5 of his friends and they waited until they saw Tyler go inside to go to the bathroom and then they followed when they got in there he turned around trash talking them and they just looked at each other and then...Little Timmy gave the signal and they all just tackled him to the ground and started biting,punching,kicking, and pinching and they finally stopped after 15 minutes of the beating and then from then on Tyler never touched Little Timmy again...

title: Little Timmy's Revenge..

question: Describe Timmy.

answer: He is in first grade and always picks on Tyler.

question: Describe Tyler.

answer: He is in kindergarten and always bullied by Timmy.

question: Summarize the scene in the bathroom.

answer: Timmy and his friends followed Tyler to the bathroom, and there they beat him for 15 minutes.

question: Why did the kids beat Tyler?

answer: They want to retaliate for picking on Timmy.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: Tyler is a first-grader bully. He always picks on Timmy, a kindergarten kid. To get his revenge, Timmy gathers his friends and they beat Tyler in the bathroom.


text:
The 2006 FAMILY CIRCLE CUP was the 34th edition of the Family Circle Cup women's tennis tournament. This WTA Tier I Event was held at the Family Circle Tennis Center in Charleston, South Carolina, United States and played on outdoor clay courts. Nadia Petrova won the singles title.

Finals

Singles

Nadia Petrova defeated Patty Schnyder, 6–3, 4–6, 6–1

Doubles

Lisa Raymond / Samantha Stosur defeated Virginia Ruano Pascual / Meghann Shaughnessy, 3–6, 6–1, 6–1

title: 2006 Family Circle Cup

question: What is the Family Circle Cup?

answer: It is a WTA Tier 1 Event featuring women's tennis

question: What edition was the 2006 Family Circle Cup women's tennis tournament?

answer: The 34th

question: Summarize everything relating to the winners of the tournament in both singles and doubles tennis.

answer: Nadia Petrova defeated Patty Schnyder in singles competition, 6–3, 4–6, 6–1, while Lisa Raymond / Samantha Stosur defeated Virginia Ruano Pascual / Meghann Shaughnessy, 3–6, 6–1, 6–1 to win the doubles title.

question: Where was the 2006 Family Circle Cup held at?

answer: The Family Circle Tennis Center in Charleston, South Carolina, United States, and played on outdoor clay courts.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: The 2006 Family Circle Cup women's tennis tournament is a WTA Tier 1 Event held at the Family Circle Tennis Center in Charleston, South Carolina, United States, and played on outdoor clay courts. Nadia Petrova won the singles title, while the tandem of Lisa Raymond and Samantha Stosur won the doubles trophy.


text:
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This wine combines freshness and structure. It opens with a lovely fragrance of blue flower and perfumed berries, with a whiff of spice and new leather. The rich palate delivers ripe black cherry layered with cinnamon-spice and balsamic notes alongside velvety tannins. It's already extremely accessible so enjoy now. Kerin O’Keefe

-   rating

    91

-   Price

-   Variety

-   Appellation

-   Winery

Print a Shelf Talker Label

-   Alcohol

    14.5%

-   Bottle Size

    750 ml

-   Category

    Red

-   Importer

    Multiple U.S. importers

-   Date Published

    11/1/2014

-   User Avg Rating

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question: What does the excerpt say the wine combines?

answer: Freshness and structure

question: What does the customer have free access to?

answer: Nearly 300,000 wine, beer, and spirit reviews

question: How is the fragrance of the wine described?

answer: A lovely fragrance of blue flower and perfumed berries, with a whiff of spice and new leather

question: Is the perfume accessible?

answer: It is extremely accessible.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: A wine review is described as customers subscribe to the newsletter.


text:
EVERDON STUBBS is a 29.5 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest south-east of Everdon in Northamptonshire.[1][2] It is owned and managed by the Woodland Trust.[3]

This woodland site has areas of acidic free-draining soil, and other damper areas. It is described by Natural England as an important site for fungi, and there is a diverse range of breeding birds. There are locally uncommon plants such as wild daffodil, orpine and bitter vetch.[4]

There is access from Stubbs Road, which goes through the site.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

title: Everdon Stubbs

question: What is Everdon Stubbs?

answer: It is an area with locally uncommon plants, fungi, and various breeding birds.

question: What uncommon plants are found in Everdon Stubbs?

answer: Wild daffodil, orpine, and bitter vetch.

question: What organization owns and manages Everdon Stubbs?

answer: The Woodland Trust.

question: What is the relevance of having areas of acidic free-draining soil and other damper areas?

answer: Fungi thrive in these areas.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: Everdon Stubbs, which is owned by the Woodland Trust, is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest because it contains rare flora and fauna.


text:
Getty Images
From Shakespeare to _The Secret_, the idea that our thoughts and perceptions shape our reality is recognized as a powerful truth. As the Bard wrote, “[T]here is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

While charlatans have long used this belief to promote bogus cancer cures and get-rich-quick schemes, psychologists are now actually beginning to understand how “faking it ’til you make it” — or alternatively, psyching yourself out with negative thinking — works in the social world. Two fascinating recent studies — one on confidence; the other exploring social fears — reveal how our own positive and negative stances work to alter our relationships and careers.

The first study, published in the _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,_ explored the positive effects of overconfidence, showing that it enhances social status by presenting a false image of competence. If you’ve ever wondered how the utterly clueless rise to the top, or why managers often seem to make worse decisions than dart-throwing bonobos, this research provides some insight.

(MORE: Baboon Study Shows Why High Social Status Boosts Health)

In a series of six experiments, researchers led by Cameron Anderson at the University of California, Berkeley, showed that when you think you’re better than you are at certain tasks, people tend to believe you. In groups, people are easily persuaded by others’ confidence, even if it’s unjustified.

The first study involved 76 undergrads, who worked on a geography task in pairs. Before starting the task, each student was given a blank map of the U.S., labeled only with rivers and lakes, and was asked to locate 15 specific cities. Then, they were asked to rate how well they thought they did on this test; a comparison between that perception and their actual performance was used to gauge their level of overconfidence. (Their actual performance wasn’t disclosed to them.)

Afterward, the participants collaborated on the same task with a partner. Once they finished, they privately rated their partner’s performance as well as whether they thought he or she had high social status. The status rating was based on whether the partner had led decisions, otherwise influenced them or was seen as worthy of admiration or respect.

The researchers found that ratings of both high status and high competence were linked with the person’s level of overconfidence. “In fact,” the authors write, “overconfidence actually had as strong a relationship with partner-rated competence as did actual ability.” In other words, people who think they are good at something are seen as being good at it, whether or not they actually are. (Even dogs demonstrate this effect: ever watch a chihuahua intimidate a much larger dog?) Unfortunately, even in the absence of actual ability, the illusion of strength and competence that people exude makes others see them as good potential leaders.

(MORE: Why College Binge Drinkers Are Happier, Have High Status)

In a similar experiment involving 243 first-year MBA students, researchers replicated the results. They first measured each participant’s overconfidence at the start of the semester, this time by presenting students with a list of historical names, events, books and poems — some real and some made-up — and asking them to identify the ones they recognized; those who picked the most fake “foils” were classified as having the most overconfidence about their own knowledge.

Throughout the term, the students all worked in groups of five or six students — the same groups for seven weeks. Afterward, each student filled out an online survey rating the status of their group members. Again, overconfidence was linked with high ratings of leadership and status from others. People didn’t perceive overconfidence as arrogance; rather, they seemed to like overconfident types more.

The rest of the research expanded further on these findings, with experiments elucidating the types of social behaviors that make overconfident people seem so competent — speaking more often in groups and in more confident tones, for example, and working with others in a relaxed and comfortable way. “Overconfident individuals have a behavioral signature that, to observers, looks like actual competence,” the authors write.

Experiments also showed that people are driven to overconfidence because they’re seeking high social status. The authors conclude that although selecting leaders is one of the most important tasks for societies and groups, “we are often forced to rely on proxies for ability such as individuals’ confidence. In so doing, we as a society create incentives for those who would seek status to display more confidence than their actual ability merits.” That, of course, leaves us vulnerable to picking those who can best exhibit confidence, not competence.

(MORE: Why Pot Smokers Are Paranoid)

The second study, published in _Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes_, looked at the flip side of confidence — paranoia — and how people’s negative perceptions of the world can become their own self-fulfilling prophecies. The authors, led by Jennifer Carson Marr of the London Business School in England, found that people’s fears about being viewed negatively by others actually influenced those views themselves.

The researchers examined what they called “motivation to acquire relationship-threatening information,” or MARTI. Having MARTI basically means being paranoid that other people are talking trash about you behind your back or are otherwise undermining your social status, and being driven to learn what they’re saying. Some of us take a “don’t ask, don’t tell” perspective when it comes to other people’s opinions of us; others want to reduce uncertainty about their social lives by finding out the bad news, now.

In one experiment, involving 93 people in their 20s, researchers found those who had high levels of MARTI were more likely to assume negative intent when presented with ambiguous scenarios. For example, if they heard laughter in the lunchroom and it stopped when they opened the door, those with high MARTI were more likely to assume the laughter was directed at them.

Another experiment, this one involving 506 adults taking an online survey, examined whether people with high levels of MARTI were more likely to engage in behaviors that monitor or test another person’s loyalty, such as eavesdropping on phone calls or reading private emails. Not surprisingly, those who wanted to find potentially relationship-threatening information were more likely to snoop.

Other experiments in the study looked at how others respond to people who focus on potential disloyalty and relationship threats. The consequences weren’t pretty: paranoid people tend to elicit increased anger and outright social rejection from others. As the authors put it, “Taken together, our results suggest that individuals high on MARTI may in some ways provoke the very harm they are trying to avoid.”

And so, while being overconfident won’t cure your cancer, nor will thinking negatively necessarily get you fired, being self-assured and deciding to believe that what other people think of you is none of your business will make your social and business life both more pleasant and more successful. Although, it would be kind of nice for the rest of us if you build your confidence on genuine competence, too.

_Maia Szalavitz is a health writer at_ TIME.com_. Find her on Twitter at_ _@maiasz__. You can also continue the discussion on_ TIME _Healthland’s_ _Facebook page_ _and on Twitter at_ _@TIMEHealthland__._

question: What did Shakespeare write about thoughts and perception?

answer: He wrote that our perception shapes our reality, noting that nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

question: What did the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology say about overconfidence?

answer: It says a false image of competence enhances our social status.

question: What was the conclusion of the experiments led by Cameron Anderson (University of California, Berkely) on confidence?

answer: The conclusion showed that people are easily persuaded by others' confidence.

question: What was the conclusion of the research led by Jennifer Carson Marr (London School of Business)?

answer: The conclusion showed that negative perception of the world can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer:
According to Shakespeare, nothing is good or bad, only thinking makes it so. This means that our perceptions not only shape how we see that world but influences the outcomes of our dealings with it.

An experiment conducted at the University of California, Beverly, led by Cameron Anderson, shows that people are easily persuaded by other people's confidence.


text:
White Light

I was excited for tonight. However slightly nervous at the same time. I hadn’t seen all these people in so long. Were they going to like me still? Did they even remember me? Did they miss me as much as I missed them? All these questions running through my head was giving me a headache. I decided to take a quick shower. After I got out the shower I noticed I had a missed call from my old friend Tom. I immediately called him back.

“hey Tom what's up?” I asked.
“oh nothing” he replied “just wondering if you were going tonight that’s all”
“yeah of course I am, I wouldn’t miss it for the world” I said
“aw nice one! I was thinking, if you wanted to, you should come round early and help set up everything?”he asked
I hesitated for a moment, he always was a bit flirty.
“yeah okay sure, gives us time to have little catch-up before the party”
“it's a date!” Tom exclaimed.
“okay, bye”
With that I ended the call. Tom and I have a past that I don’t really want to repeat.

The next 2 hours flew by and I found myself driving to Tom's house. Once I arrived I walked straight in and no surprise he was in his bedroom rolling what he called 'doobies'. He offered me one (as he always does) but I declined, I didn’t want to be 'high' while I was seeing everyone again. Tom was much taller than I remembered. He still had that noticeable scar under his left eye, which I still to this day don’t know how he got. His long blonde hair flicked across his brow almost covering his eyes. I did notice however, that his clothes seemed to be on the tight side. His nipples were clearly visible through his plain, green t-shirt.

By around 10pm most people had arrived and I was I feeling slightly unsettled. I didn’t really know anyone here. I mean I had talked with my old friends but they all seemed like they had somewhere better to be. So there I am just sat there on the crinkly, leather couch drinking alone. I start to notice that in fact, everyone was acting unnatural. I liked to people watch, it became a habit of mine once I started my new college. Something was certainly not right, I had to get out of here.

I stood up and took a brisk walk to the door only to get intercepted by Tom.
“leaving already?” Tom asked.
“yeah kinda feeling a bit ill, one to many beers I think” I gulped.
“I have just the thing, follow me”

Feeling slightly apprehensive I followed. He lead me through a maze of people, to the outdoor sofa's. Surprisingly it wasn’t cold out, considering it was the middle of November. It was a clear night and the garden was illuminated by the full moon. We took a seat next to the smokers, they all had longish hair and looked like the stereotypical stoner’s you would see in the movies. Tom proceeded to pull out a doobie. He lit it and puffed away on it. I was starting to wonder why he brought me out here. He then sticks out his hand with the lit joint and beckons me to take it. I was slightly anxious about taking it, I had only ever smoked while I had been sober. I ignored my gut instinct not to take it and took a few big hits and passed it back.

“not so bad, eh” Tom chimed.
“hmm I suppose, I don’t feel any different” I lied.
Inside my head was spinning. My vision was blurry. However I felt fine now, more at ease. That was until I detected everyone staring at me. What was happening, everyone looked odd, but I couldn’t put my finger on what was different about them. Then it clicked. They weren’t humans.

I had to leave right now. I chucked my coat on and stumbled to the door. Fortunately for me it was open. I ventured on my journey across town, I debated calling a taxi but decided against the idea as I had no money. I got about halfway down the street when I heard someone calling my name. I swiftly turn around to see Tom stood there.

“I need your help they're trying to get me” he shouted. Before I could answer him back one of the people from the party leapt onto him and started ripping him to pieces. I watched as this red-eyed creature, denatured my friend. I let out a whimper.  What was this thing? I just witnessed my best friend savagely ripped apart in front of my very eyes. I sprinted away as fast as my legs could go. I finally made it to a supermarket where I found refuge in a older man. I blurted out my story and he offered me comfort and a place to stay, to which I accepted gratefully.

I shakily climbed into his shiny black ford and closed my eyes as we sped off. I felt a cold shiver down my spine and I slowly opened my eyes. He was one of them. I manage to catch a glimpse of his blood red eyes and my worst fears came true. The car screeched to a halt and the old man got out. I made a split-second decision and flung the car door open and made a run for it. I was one step behind.

The creature hooked its man like hands around my arms and pulled me towards it. It stopped for a moment and examined me. It proceeded to stare deep into me almost like it could see my soul quivering in fright. His arms jerked down towards my legs and I watched in agony as he dismembered my body, limb from limb.
I saw the light and all my pain was gone.
I was dead.

title: first draft of my coursework story, all feedback is welcome thanks. 1010 words

question: What does the text say about Tom?

answer: Tom is an old friend of the narrator, and they apparently have a romantic past, which the narrator doesn't want to repeat. He smokes marijuana, is rather tall, has a scar under his left eye, long, blond hair, and his clothes are on the tight side. He is apparently the only other human at the party.

question: What is the twist of the story?

answer: It is revealed that everyone at the party except the narrator and Tom are not human. The narrator rushes out and sees them tear Tom apart. She seeks shelter in a supermarket and encounters another one of the creatures, which implies that the entire town may have been inhuman.

question: Summarize why the narrator hasn't seen her friends in so long.


text:
There is a road that stretches lazily out from the driveway of our little house for 22 miles until it hits the sea. It rolls and climbs underneath a canopy of ancient redwood until the final few miles, where a stellar explosion of orange and pink cherry blossom guides it kindly towards the water. Its gorgeous at this time of year. The colours are burnt, vivid and warm. The air is clean, crisp and fresh. When it’s sunlit, it looks like heaven, man. I don’t know why I’m saying all of this. You know it like the back of your hand. You love it as much as I do. We’ve meandered sleepily through the bends on our bikes a thousand times.

I’ve built this sort of routine that I’ve been keeping up for the last 7 weeks. Firstly, I’ve stopped working. I don’t mean that I do a little bit of work, sometimes – I mean that I do not work, at any time. I do not open my computer or answer my phone unless it’s my mother, my sister or Matthew. My office sits dusty and functional. There is an unopened pile of mail on my desk and the sketches from my last project are half finished all over the whiteboard. I pay any outstanding invoices when they arrive but I don’t send out new ones. It’s not really a decision I make actively. I just don’t consider working. It rarely enters my stream of consciousness anymore and I assume that gradually I will forget the memory of it altogether. I have enough money. I don’t need much.

Instead of that, I wake every day at 5.30am and pull on yesterday’s jeans, my boots and rifle around for a clean t-shirt. I float on autopilot down the wooden stairs, through the open living room into the kitchen, where I flick the radio onto a show I found that plays old jazz and has a really funny host that must be 75 years old.  I brew a very strong black coffee. While it bubbles and brews noisily, filling the house with a rich, dark aroma,  I feed Charlie cat who loops gracefully in and out of my legs impatiently until I’ve given him a can of tuna and some attention.  I then make a single honey sandwich on the thick, brown home-made bread that my mother insists on delivering every Monday afternoon. It’s not really about the bread. I think she thinks that she just needs an excuse to come out here to see me. When the coffee is done, I pour it into my flask, wrap the sandwich in foil and throw both into my rucksack. I wrap my neck and mouth with my scarf, turn out all of the lights, let Charlie out for his morning ablutions and lock the door behind me.  I slip out into the drive and kick my bike noisily into life. In one motion, I roar out into that same road that we rode together a thousand times, and disappear.

When I first started this routine, I’d just ride. It wasn’t really a ‘routine’ as such – I’d roll slowly and deliberately through the road’s varying graduations, waking up under the trees until I hit that beautiful stretch downwards towards the sea. Of course, it’s too early for traffic up here at that time so I’d rarely see anyone. You know what I’m like. It suited me perfectly. But about two weeks in, I started to commit to it a little more. I started to give it a little more of myself. Every day, I’d ride a little bit harder than the day before. I don’t know why. Then, I started setting myself daily speed tests to outdo the last – and now, frankly, it’s out of control. At this point, I fucking burn that road, man. I destroy it. I watch the speedometer climb militantly towards and then easily past 100 miles per hour every single morning. I am fairly confident that it is impossible for me to ride that road any faster or more aggressively than I do now. The bike will not give me anything more than 107 even though I found the handbook in the attic and it said that it was built to hit 111. But she’s an old machine, so I guess I can give her that. I lean heavy as hell into every corner as if it’s the last I’ll ever take. I’m gutsy and brave with my decisions because I did the maths – at that speed, I’m covering more than 145 feet per second. I’m hurled noisily past anything that might have the audacity to share the same space as me, tearing around them and into the apex of the bend, and level out onto another straight, swaddled by a thick, heavy swirl of deep autumn reds and oranges.

The temperature has dropped in the last ten days and now it’s only a few degrees above zero at dawn. My arms and chest are tender and stiff as the wind and the cold batters my body, and it feels like all of my senses are heightened. The air feels like it’s freezing my lungs. I am completely aware that at any given time, I am one split-second, one spot of bad luck or mechanical failure away from certain death. If the initial impact doesn’t kill me, then my skin will be razed happily from my body by the asphalt, my muscles stretched and torn and my bones shattered as my ragdoll body is thrown towards those solid trees, or into the river, or over the drop of any of those sheer ravines – but I am utterly unafraid. Occasionally, as I force the old bike to maintain such phenomenal pace, draining every ounce of agility from its strong frame, I’m ambushed by a crosswind or an unsuspecting animal that jumps out into my path, and I need to remain completely focused to pull a clever swerve, or we’ll both be killed instantly.  I stopped wearing my leathers and my helmet about three weeks ago so that firstly, I’d be lighter, and secondly, so that I’d be completely unburdened by gear. The freedom is unreal – and I’m faster than before. I have to wear sunglasses to keep the wind out of my eyes, though. They help with the glare sometimes too. The sun creeps above the sea on the last four miles in the morning and the light blasts in all kinds of directions across my face through the space between the trees. As a result of all of this, I’m a far, far better rider than I was 7 weeks ago. I’m actually quite brilliant now.

Often, as the bike screams and begs underneath me in fifth gear, I lose myself entirely and I think of you. The noise, wind, momentum and machinery fade quickly and I am left with you. Your heart shaped face. Your golden hair, and the arch of your back. How utterly good and kind you are. Your affection for children, Charlie cat and my mother. She absolutely adores you. Your patience and your laughter. Your perfect cup of tea. How talented you are at painting. How you could do anything with your young life and you choose mostly to give it to others. Your thoroughly absurd dress sense – but absolutely immaculate taste in music. How bad you are at singing, and how hilarious I find it. The wind and sunlight through your hair in the dunes when we walk my sister’s dog for hours on Sundays, jeans rolled up to your knees, strolling carelessly along the shallows of the coast.  The first time that I met you — and those first days that I fell in love with you. The weeks we spent living in that tiny box apartment before we moved out of the city — and how I knew I would do anything — without reservation — to share the rest of my life with you. About the way that I love you, and how it’s an absolute, and with no equivocation. In those moments, I am a shooting star, burning through a clawing, crawling version of time that is drenched in syrup and molasses  — and I fly through a complete, echo chamber silence with you. And then it’s shattered. I hurtle back into reality as I scream into another bend, tearing like a spirit possessed through the voluntary chaos that I create every morning — 145 feet of bone-shattering concrete per second — a single moment of misfortune away from catastrophe.

I pull sharply through the cadences and the rhythms of the bends beneath the blossom down towards my sister’s house on the sea. She’s given me a key because I’m there so much.  It’s usually before 6am when I arrive, and so I park up, let myself in, fill and boil the kettle for her and take her old dog Alfred out onto the beach. Alfie is my best friend and he is almost always the best part of my day. He misses you too.  He just doesn’t carry it in the same way that I do.

title: The bends beneath the blossom

question: What is this story about?

answer: A man who misses his girlfriend.

question: What does the man do to chase death?

answer: He rides his motorbike at dangerous speeds.

question: Where does the man drive to every morning?

answer: His sister's house.

question: What is this story about?

answer: Love.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: This is a story about a man who drives his motorbike every morning to his sister's house to chase the memory of his beloved out of his mind, or to pursue her; he is not sure.


text:
{i wrote this some time ago. it was meant to be the opening chapter to a story I never finished. If i could get any feedback on this at all, itd be whether or not reading this made you want to read more. Thanks}

Darryl Zimbargo lay in bed with his wife, Jillian. For twenty eight years Darryl had slept in this bed; knees tucked to his chest, back facing toward his spouse. The bedroom had looked much the same for all those years. Same night stand, same television, same rug and even the same bed sheets and pillow cases. The only thing that had ever changed was the addition of a bright red rotary telephone eight years ago.

Jillian often wondered about the phone. After all, during the eight years since Darryl had brought it home, it hadn’t rung once. She knew better than to ask her husband about it, as she knew that he worked for the government on a number of highly classified projects; the nature of which she did not know or dare inquire about. Needless to say, Darryl was sworn to secrecy. Although Jillian sometimes recalled the one time she had asked her husband about the red rotary.

Eight years ago she had won an antique brass plate that was riddled with long, snake-like markings on it at an auction out of town. Upon bringing it home she scrutinized every flat surface of their home in order to find just the right spot for it. Due to her being a bit of a hoarder, literally every place was already inhabited by all of her other antiques, causing Jillian a great deal of discontent. Eventually she resolved to remove the red rotary telephone from their bedroom and place the brass plate in its stead, knowing that there were plenty of other spots for it. Besides, at the time the phone had only been there for two weeks and hadn’t rung once, what use could it be?

That night Darryl came home from an unusually long day at work. Like every other day, he walked in carrying a familiar yet almost alien smell on his clothing, slipped off his Testoni’s, and went to their bedroom to change into his casual wear. As Jillian was setting the pot roast on the table for dinner, Darryl ran into the kitchen with the brass plate in his hand and upon seeing the red rotary on the edge of the sideboard where she had left it, exploded into a fit of rage. He told her to never touch the phone again and threw the plate across the room. He then plugged the phone back into the wall and carried on as if nothing had ever happened. During the twenty years that she had been married to this man, Jillian had never seen her husband blow up like that and hadn’t any time afterward. It scared her.  So much in fact, that she hadn’t spoken a single word of the silent rotary nor even acknowledged its existence since.

She knew nothing of that phone other than that it was clearly very important to Darryl, or maybe more specifically to the people he worked for. That was all she knew and she was content not knowing anything more. What Darryl did at work was his business; who was she to pry into government affairs? The way she saw it, the phone was just another mystery about her husband that she had no interest in solving. If Jillian could simply live out the rest of her days tending to her garden, cleaning the house, making breakfast, lunch and dinner and sleeping silently at the end of each day—she’d be content.

Only on this particular night as the two slept soundly, the silence was broken. Jillian opened her eyes in confusion. It was midnight and there was not a noise to be heard all throughout the house. Except for that beeping. What was that beeping?

Beep
Beep
Beep

She wondered but somehow knew, subconsciously she knew exactly what that noise was. Suddenly Darryl sprung out of bed and snatched the red rotary phone’s receiver faster than she would have ever thought possible for her aging spouse. He brought it to his ear, saying nothing as if waiting for something. Then, permeating through the silence of their bedroom, a voice spoke two words that would echo in her ears for the rest of her life. The words frightened Jillian; she didn’t know why but it frightened her more than she had ever been in her life.

“UT-ZAH 1689”

title: [MS] The Red Rotary

question: What does the story say about the type of person Darryl is.

answer: He has been married to Jillian for twenty-eight years and sleeps with his back facing toward her. He works for the government on highly classified projects. When she tries to move the red telephone he keeps by the nightstand, he smashes a plate and explodes into a fit of rage.

question: Summarize the main source of conflict in the story.

answer: Darryl keeps a red rotary telephone on the night stand in his bedroom. His wife, Jillian, tried to remove the phone from their bedroom one day. Darryl exploded in rage and told her never to touch the phone again. One day, the phone finally rings, and someone on the other end utters nuclear launch codes.

question: What does the story say about they type of person Jillian is?

answer: Jillian knows better than to ask her husband about anything work-related. Due to her being a bit of a hoarder, the house is inhabited by all of her antiques. She is content knowing the phone was important to Darryl and not knowing any more. She'd be content to live out the rest of her days tending to the garden, cleaning the house, cooking, and sleeping silently.

question: What does the story say about Jillian's job?