Evernote stuff

I seriously loved Evernote. What I really liked about using it was the way it let me access my notes and projects literally anywhere. Like, even if my computer broke, I could just run up to the library and have all my stuff with me. It's cool. I'm a fan.  It was also really easy for me to access my notes to study them at home. While I would normally just save it to my email, this is much faster and just better overall.  It's also good to know that even if my email goes under, I still have all my important notes and stuff saved elsewhere. It's also nice that my notes don't get lost in the clutter of my inbox, that they have their own special place. I also don't have to handwrite my notes this way, which is awesome because I have terrible handwriting and am always forgetting my loose-leaf notes at school.

                Like I said, I really like Evernote. There are only a few things I dislike. The major one for me was that there was no spellcheck. Because we're typing on a smaller keyboard on our ipads, it's hard to be an accurate typer. All of my notes that I took in evernote are riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes. Another thing was the fact that I couldn't open Word documents in Evernote. or at least, I couldn't figure it out. Either way, I was working on something and it would have been much easier to go directly to the word document, but instead I had to do some weird copy paste thing. Also, if it could hook up to dropbox, that'd be sweet. Because those two things together would just be like file sharing/storing heaven. 

My iPad stuff

The iPads in the classroom were extremely useful. They let us get to dropbox really easily and efficiently, so getting assignments without wasting paper was nice. Also, if I lost the assignment sheet for something I could usually find it on there. Without the iPad, I would probably never have used dropbox. It also connected us to other helpful aps like Evernote. Evernote made it really simple to save projects I was working on so I didn't have to go through extraneous steps to save it. Also, by not saving it to my email, I ensured that I'd be able to get to the assignment at school (where the wifi blocks some emails) and even if my email isn't working. I still really think that the eco-friendly part of the iPads was really cool. We probably used half the paper that I did in other classes.  Overall, I think that the iPads really helped me learn this year.

                The few things I disliked about the iPads weren't really that major. I didn't really like the whole small keyboard thing, but that's just because I have arthritis and it's hard for me to type on small keyboards sometimes. I also didn't really like sharing it with the bio classes, just because whenever I had to take a picture for something, I had to go through pictures of dissected rats to get to my own pictures. But still, that's not really a major issue for me.  I didn't really like the quality of the camera, as it wasn't good for taking videos for projects or pictures that showed the image clearly. Youtube was blocked, which kind of sucked. I think Youtube would have been useful for certain projects. I also didn't like that I had no place that I could spell check my work. As there was no Microsoft Word, it would have been nice to have an ap that could edit some of my spelling and grammar for me.

                I don't think that getting ipads on a 1:1 basis would be a good idea. While they're useful, I think having kids bring them home would be a bit extreme. Because we're all teenagers, we're bound to break some stuff. And it would suck if that stuff was a super expensive piece of technical equipment. Also, with aps like Evernote, I don't really see a need for bringing the ipads home. Because you can have files at literally any computer, you don't need to have the same device with you. I think giving an ipad to each individual person would be a waste of money. On the other hand, getting more ipad carts would be a good idea. They were extrememly helpful in class, and I think that if they were in more classes, that'd be amazing. 

The House on Maple Street

The stories that surround the house that stood on the very end of Maple street are full of hushed up disappearances and gruesome incidences. They range from electricians and tax collectors that go missing mid-route to dismembered animal limbs found in the houses with yards bordering the mysterious home. A number of mental patients around the world have described a home exactly like the Maple Street residence, and, after describing it, all collapsed into fits of hysteria, muttering things about 'that wretched bowl', and 'the man, the man, his eye'.

One patient is recorded to have had his only known moment of clarity amid his muddle of insanity, and described what his nurses believe to be his experience in the home. He sat straight up in his hospital bed, completely lucid, looked straight ahead, and cried out, "I fell into the center of that universe in that house. And I don't think I can ever come out. I looked into the center and fell and fell and fell, and landed here. I don't think this is a permanent stop. I've seen horrors and atrocities of all of the world, and I am so scared. I looked into the bowl of gold and things shifted. Please, please help. HELP ME! I. AM. AFRAID!" He screamed this at a terrified nurse standing a few feet away at another patient's bed. He opened his mouth and let out one final, lamenting howl and collapsed back into his bed. He was drenched with sweat.

A few days later, the man had a brain aneurism and passed away.

____________________________________________________________________

Years before any of these stories had surfaced, the address at the end of Maple Street was known as just another abandoned house in a failing economy. The house stood in the very center of an otherwise empty lot, surrounded by a brown ring of dead grass. in a state of disrepair, it had falling down walls, sagging window frames, and chipped white paint that revealed the light brown color of rotting wood beneath it. It sat on a busy suburban road called Maple Street, surrounded by pastel houses and clean white picket fences."An eyesore to the entire neighborhood," they called it. It had always been believed to be abandoned, when one late August morning, a beige sedan pulled into the driveway. The car stayed parked there for nearly a week, when one day, the neighbors headed off to work and noticed that it was gone from the driveway.

Until the day his children arrived in that plain car, no one had even known the man lived there. There had never been a light in any of the decrepit windows, had never been so much as a sound that would show that a human being lived inside. Even so, when the body of the old man had been found, the adults of the community mourned as if they had lost a dear friend.

The children of the neighborhood, on the other hand, knew something wasn't quite right about the passing of the old man. on some odd occasion, most of them had been dared to sneak inside and take a decrepit artifact from the 'abandoned' house. Never had any of the adventurers seen the old man, or even evidence that an old man had lived there. Just a bunch of useless old junk. As a group of teenagers gathered in the basement of Pat Sinclair's house one Friday afternoon, the brave foursome decided that they would investigate.

"This has got to be the dumbest plan ever," Colleen said as she collapsed into a lumpy brown couch next to her brother.

"No one's making you come," Pat replied, his eyes fixed to the television screen where the gory murders of An Imperial Death were playing out. His hands on the controllers, he swerved his body with his digital counterpart, leaning into his teammate.

"Watch yourself," Charlie barked. Gunshots echoed from the screen. "I just saved your sorry butt."

"I'm coming," Colleen said firmly. "do you know how much trouble I'd get in if you died and mom found out I didn't stop you from going? Dude, there's no way you're leaving me to that."

"Suit yourself," pat muttered. "it's not like we're actually going to find anything. BRO!" he cried out, throwing the controller to the ground. "what was that?! What WAS that?!"

"The civilians were compromised," Charlie replied calmly.

"the CIVILIANS were compromised?! I was compromised! There's no coming back from that. There just isn't. God, you picked a TERRIBLE moment to go kamikaze, I was almost to the next level." Pat shook his head.

"why are we even going, then?" Chuck spoke for the first time since the group had arrived at the Sinclair household. His voice shook and his white hands gripped his legs.

"what?" Pat looked over at the heavy, pasty-skinned boy, irritated.

Chuck cleared his throat. "I... I asked why we were going. You know. If we're not going to actually find something." He glanced quickly up towards his brother, Charlie, trying to tell if what he had said was going to make him angry.

Pat just scowled at him. "God, do you have to ruin everything, Chuck? Why don't you just go home?" Chuck lowered his head, regretting having opened his mouth.

Charlie shoved Pat. "Shut up, man." he turned to Chuck. "this, little brother is a life lesson. We're going to investigate; to have a grand adventure, if you will." Charlie rose flamboyantly from the couch, raising his arm to his chest and letting his voice drop an octave. "On our quest into the abandoned manor on Maple Street, we shall not only solve the mystery of the ghost of a man who claims to have lived there-"

"His kids actually claimed that," Colleen reminded him. "He's been kind of busy. You know. Being dead."

Charlie nodded. "not only shall we solve the mystery of the ghost of a man whose CHILDREN claims he lived there, we shall also become better men-"

"And women!" Charlie glared at Colleen. "Fine, fine, I'll be quiet," she said, raising her hands.

"Egotistical, over glorified jerk bag," she muttered under her breath.

"we shall also become better PEOPLE along the way. We shall learn the lessons of many brave men before us, that exploring not only enlightens the mind, but also the soul. You, my wimpy little brother, shall find the heroism that you've long been searching for. And, well, Pat and I, we'll just find more of it." he sat down again and out his feet up on the coffee table, smirking. Colleen glared at him, and Chuck appeared even paler than before.

"Well, my goal is to find some stuff I can sell on eBay, but whatever floats your boat," Pat said, pick up his controller from the ground. "Another game, my good hero?" He also bent to pick up Charlie's controller, handing it to him with a grand flourish.

Charlie grinned and snatched the controller from Pat's hand "But of course."

Charlie started to set up the video game and Pat took some deep breaths. Everything will be fine, he convinced himself. It will have to be.

As the video game's noise filled the basement, Chuck and Colleen exchanged worried looks. Both had a sense of foreboding about the whole ordeal, but were too worried about looking like wimps to back out at that point. Not after Charlie's grand speech.

And they were right to be worried, but they'd unfortunately only had an inkling of the horrors that would await them in the abandoned house on Maple street.

__________________________________________________________________________

The creaking of floorboards and the smell of air that hadn't been moved in days were what greeted the four to the house on Maple Street.

"Charlie?" Chuck murmured. He spoke quietly, with reverence, as though he were afraid of waking the occupants of the house.

"God,  is he going to be like this all night?" Pat asked Charlie, startling the quiet of the house.

"Pat," Charlie matched his tone to Chuck's. "Chill. All is well." He turned to Chuck. "We'll be in and out in an hour. Deep breaths, and try to soak up all the awesomeness you can. "

He slapped Chuck's back and moved from the foyer into the kitchen with Pat.

Colleen stepped through the door and into the house, and stood next to Chuck. She tried using her normal voice, but it had the quavering tone of someone pretending to not be scared. "Let's just stay here," she said quietly, grabbing Chuck's arm.

He jumped and pulled away. "I'm gonna go to the kitchen," he mumbled, hurrying away. Colleen was left alone in the foyer, her eyes wide and terrified.

______________________________________________________________________________

Pat's eyes traced the edge of the dusty counter in the kitchen. Pots and pans were scattered across the counters, like someone had set out to make a huge meal but had abandoned it halfway through preparation.

He swallowed hard, letting his mind drift back to when he was eight years old and had entered the house for the first time. He shuddered and tried to shut his mind to the memories of screams and flashing lights and the missing posters that could still be found in the odd convenience store. It had been in here, hadn't it? Where they had first seen the bowl? Or was it the living room? His shook his head and cleared his thoughts. Tonight was not about that, he thought. Tonight is about getting some cash.

He grabbed a copper bowl that looked expensive and shoved it into the duffel bag he had brought with him.

"Strange they didn't empty this place out, huh?" Charlie mused, running his finger over the dust-layered counter. "I mean, when his kids were here. It just seems like they would have."

"Maybe they didn't want the memories." Pat said, moving around the kitchen, continuing to stuff wares into his bag. He didn't think about the fact that his older brother's room was still full of his things, and that it had been eight years since he had gone.

Chuck burst into the kitchen, his cheeks flushed. "Are you guys almost done?" He asked, his voice still little more than a whisper.

Pat groaned and stalked into the living room.

There, he saw it. The golden bowl.

He came to a sudden stop and fell to his knees. That night, he remembered. That night, his brother Joseph had gone missing. They were here, he remembered. They had broken their mom's vase and were going to steal another one to replace it.

And then there had been light and Joseph walking towards it. There were screams, he remembered. As Joseph got closer to the object, his mouth opened in an unending scream. Whether it was of pain or terror, Pat could never tell. All he knew was that he had run out of the house and never saw his brother again.

There had been someone else there, though. Pat realized this later. A strange movement in the shadows, an odd noise coming from the corner. In the house, he assumed it was nothing. Later, he realized that another person had been lurking, waiting.

Now, Pat quickly scanned the room, looking for the man or woman he had seen the night his brother had disappeared. He saw nothing, but then, it was very dark, and the moonlit room held many shadows to hide sinister things.

"Dude?" Charlie came into the room and clapped him on the shoulder. "You ok?"

"Yeah," Pat said faintly. "Just. Thinking."

"Well, don't think to hard now. We need to be home before midnight. Keep your thoughts short." Charlie headed back to the empty kitchen. "Chuck?" He called it quietly at first, then raising his voice, "Chuck?"

He poked his head back in the living room, asking Pat, "Have you seen Chuck?"

Pat looked up at him, a stricken look on his face, "No," he whispered. "I haven't."

Charlie noticed the haunted look in his eyes. "Seriously, are you ok?" He knelt down next to Pat.

"No!" Pat cried. "I'm NOT ok! And it's... He's... He's here and I can feel him and he- he- it was my fault!" Here, he started sobbing, a broken and jagged sound, crumpling until his face was held in his hands.

Chuck looked uneasily at him, then stood back up. "Look, you get yourself together. I'll find Chuck and Colleen, and we're leaving." He left  Pat crouched on the floor and walked through the kitchen and foyer.

He walked back into the living room, his face creased with worry. "They must have gone home," He said.

Pat raised his head. "Or maybe they never will." Now his voice was a whisper. The boy who had entered the house with such bravado had now shrunk to a shriveled figure on the floor, his face streaked with tears.  In the course of twenty minutes, the house had broken him.

"Pat. We're leaving." Charlie grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet.

"So soon?" A man, if it could be called that, came from the shadows. His face was half rotten, one of his eyes gone, leaving a gaping socket on one side of his face. The other was sagging, full of wrinkles, and still somehow sinister.

"You." Pat's face was flushed now, and he staggered in the direction of the man.

"PAT." Charlie grabbed his arm again, forcing him to face him. "What the hell are you doing?"

"He took my brother!" Pat roared, spit hitting Charlie's face.

"Your brother?" He asked. "He's been... Pat, you know he's...?" Charlie stared at Pat, wondering what he should say and what was going through his friend's head.

The man across the room chuckled, a rough and coarse sound, sounding more like a cough than a laugh.

Pat stared at him with intense fury. Now that he saw him, he knew he had been the one in the shadows that night. He was sure of it, more sure than he had ever been in his life. "Where is he?" He spat, moving even closer to the man.

The man continued to laugh. Or was it cough?

Charlie stared at his friend, not sure whether to be frightened or worried. At that moment, he felt a surge of both emotions. He was also suddenly very worried about his brother and Colleen.

"You stay here, ok?" He said in a quavering voice. "I'm... I'll be RIGHT back. Don't do anything. I need to make sure they're alright." He ran out the door, and out to the street. His feet made skidding noises on the gravel of the road as Pat heard him gallop towards his own house.

"He left you," the man said in a coarse, low voice. "Just like your brother left you." Suddenly, the man was directly behind Pat, at a place where his breath should have been tickling the back of Pat's neck. But it wasn't.

"You TOOK HIM," Pat yelled, turning around to face the man.

"Oops, over here now!" He had popped over to the other side of the room. Suddenly, the strange man vanished. His rough laughter filled the entire house, echoing off of the still air and dusty furniture.

"PAT." Charlie came rushing back in. "They're gone. They're both gone. They're not at home. Something's not right, dude, we need to call the cops."

Pat's eyes looked dark. He ran into the next room, screaming a wordless roar.

"Who the HELL are you screaming at, Pat? NO ONE IS HERE." Charlie yelled this into the house silent of all noise but Pat's howls.

To Pat, the house still had the rotten man's laughter bouncing through it.

Charlie stood stock still. He closed his eyes, trying to think. Trying to come up with some way to solve this insane situation. From behind closed eyelids, he could see flashing golden lights. When he opened them, he sank to the ground.

Pat dashed back into the empty living room. He came to a sudden stop. "Charlie?" He whimpered. The whole house was now silent.

Suddenly, he could hear steps from behind him.

"Follow him." A hushed whisper came from behind him.

Pat, feeling a strange sense of calm, almost numbness, walked towards the shining golden bowl sitting on a coffee table in the dead center of the room. Come to think of it, it was the only thing that he had seen that night that wasn't dusty. His feet made plumes of dust rise from the carpet.

He picked it up, running his hands over the ornate designs.

"If you look into it, you can see the world." The man was on the couch now, his remaining eye fixed on Pat.

Pat's eyes were tracing the patterns. Amid the flower design, there was some sort of animal, perhaps an elephant. It was hard to see in the few rays of light that the moon gave him.

"The bowl holds the secrets to the universe," the man on the couch said. "It holds the key to understanding mankind."

Pat looked at the man, tired. "I don't care about mankind." He said quietly. "I care about where you took my brother. Now where is he?"

"The bowl can tell you," the man reiterated. "if you look into it, you can see all."

Pat stared at him blankly.

"Just know," the man continued, "That knowledge comes with a cost. If you understand the ways of your people, it may drive you past the point of no return. To insanity, if you will."

Pat opened his mouth, then closed it. "Is this what my brother did?" He asked finally. The man nodded. "Why? Why give this to a ten year old child?"

The old man looked , tired, at Pat. "I looked into it at that age. And here I am. The guardian of the world's secrets."

Again, Pat looked at him blankly.

"I'm trying to find my replacement," the man explained. "You, you have potential. You see things. You understand them. If you look into the bowl, and you can bear it, you can be the protector of this house and the golden bowl. You can be the protector of the world's most important secrets. Haven't you ever dreamt of being special?" Pat nodded hastily, his eyes straying back to the bowl. "This could make you special!"

The old man got up and walked towards Pat. "Be special!" He whispered in a harsh tone, and promptly disappeared.

Pat took a deep breath. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, opened them suddenly, and stared deep into the depths of the bowl.

Instantly, the world flashed before his eyes. But it wasn't what he had anticipated.

Images of concentration camps, of brutal murders, of cult suicides. Teenagers with a bottle of pills slumped over magazines explaining how to be happy, crowds screaming in support of a stoning. Small children working in factories and women getting abused. Nooses, guns, gangs, and scars. Car crashes and drugs and drinks and tears and screams and so much blood.

He was suddenly looking at Charlie, Colleen, and Chuck. All of them were lying in a ditch, dismembered, lying in a pool composed of a mixture of their blood. Pat let out a small cry.

The final thing he saw was a little boy, couldn't be more than ten years old, lying in the very living room he was standing in. Surrounded by a rusty puddle, the young boy was frozen with an eternal scream on his lips.

The final thing he heard was the old man whispering, "He couldn't handle the weight of his own world."

______________________________________________________________________________

Pat woke up twenty years later in a mental hospital. For the first time in such a long time, he could remember who he was. Desperate to warn someone, he cried out, "I fell into the center of that universe in that house. And I don't think I can ever come out. I looked into the center and fell and fell and fell, and landed here. I don't think this is a permanent stop. I've seen horrors and atrocities of all of the world, and I am so scared. I looked into the bowl of gold and things shifted. Please, please help.

            "HELP ME!

            " I.

            "AM.

            "AFRAID."

Poe's Obsession With Death

Nicole Bade

03/16/11

1st hour, Honors American Lit   

                                                Poe's Obsession With Death

            The time period in which Edgar Allen Poe lived, the years 1809-1849, was full of disease and death. With very little access to medicine, the world the man must have lived in was no doubt wrought with frightening images of corpses and sickness. It is no surprise, then, that this atmosphere translates clearly into his writing. He filled his stories with gore and garish descriptions. His fascination with death is evident in many of his short stories, such as The Black Cat, The Premature Burial, the Facts in the Case of M Vladmir, the Masque of Red Death, and the Fall of the House of Usher.

         One of his short stories, the Black Cat, has some extremely descriptive illustrations of the murder of a man’s cat, and then his wife. The way Poe uses imagery and descriptions, it is clear that his mind has spent a lot of time puzzling over these situations and is infatuated with the idea of murder and death. His description of the murder of the cat is incredibly unsettling and disturbing, “I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; -- hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart” (Poe, "The Black Cat 2). He describes the murder of the cat as clearly as if he had done it himself, which while writing this, he probably imagined it hundreds of times. Poe later goes on to describe the sudden and violent murder of the main character’s wife, with an ax that was intended for the new cat. He is shown feeling almost no remorse, actually feeling happy because the cat had disappeared and he was free of him at last. This is another clear indicator the Poe idealizes the murder of the animal. The fact that he portrayed the murder in such a way, combined with the fact that almost all of his stories are centered around death, shows that Poe had an unhealthy obsession with death. Some of his other stories also showed death in such a positive light, for instance,  the short story the Masque of  Red Death.

         In the Masque of Red Death, death is symbolized as a party attendee who brings death to the ball with him. Poe's diction in this story illustrates the horror and unpleasantness of the man, while at the same time glorifying him. He wrote, "... No ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation... the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum" (Poe, "Masque of Red Death 4). Poe describes him in such a way  that the reader would think Poe admired the man for his bold costume, and that his appearance was daring and brave. When he goes on to describe the scene in which the Prince attempts to have him arrested, people treat the man dressed as Red Death with a terrified sort of reverence, suggesting Poe felt the same way. He then portrays Prince Prospero as an angry, red faced man, someone who the reader could not admire. In this way, he paints death as almost a protagonist, someone who the reader would prefer to Prince Prospero, and really, any of the other characters. This shows Poe's obsession with death in how he reveres death, and makes it seem preferable to the ugly way some people (such as the prince) would choose to live. Making death an, if not likable, admirable character, shows Poe's fascination with death and how it fits into peoples' lives. This is also illustrated by the personification of death, and how Poe used a human man as a symbol for it. Poe has many clever ways of discussing death, such as the unique way he portrays it in the Facts in the Case of M Vladmir.

         The Facts in the case of M Vladmir clearly shows Poe's obsession with death. The entire story is about a dead man being hypnotized so that he lives beyond death. Poe's curiosities about death were illustrated through this piece as he explores the other side of it: perpetual living. Again, Poe shows death in a positive light, portraying an old man who, though he agrees to the experiment, in the end is just desperate for death. At one point, when asked if he was asleep, he cries, "Yes; asleep now. Do not wake me! -- Let me die so!" (Poe, Facts in the Case of M Vladmir, 3). In this story, Poe shows his obsession by way of showing death in a way not normally thought of by other people. By telling the story of a half dead/half alive man, he is demonstrating the many different elements or ways of looking at dying, such as immortality or life after death. His obsession with the matter is completely clear from this story, as such a strange and different perspective on death would be necessary to write about such a subject. Another perspective of death that Poe excelled at writing on, was the fear of it.

         The Fall of the House of Usher is unique for Poe's short stories, as death is neither glorified nor used as a symbol for anything remotely positive. Instead, it is written as a complete horror story, with madness playing a key role.  The house itself is used as a kind of metaphor for death, with everyone who lives in it eventually succumbing to madness, and then, as it would seem, death. The narrator states, "It was no wonder that his condition terrified - that it infected me. I felt it creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions" (Poe, the Fall of the House of Usher 6).  This seeming contagion of insanity is Poe showing fear of death, and how it can spread from person to person. He is probably illustrating his own fears of the matter, because as his mind was constantly occupied with  thoughts of death, these fears had probably arisen. The fissure at the end of the story was a symbol for death, swallowing the house whole. His obsession with death is shown here as a constant fear that the character (and he) carried. Similarly, the Premature Burial also shows Poe's fears about death.

         In the Premature Burial, Poe again explores the darker side of death. The way he writes about being buried alive shows an intense paranoia. In both the Fall of the House of Usher and the Premature Burial, death is shown as a kind of a trap that the narrator could fall into.  At one point the narrator thinks that he has been buried alive, "I endeavored to shriek-, and my lips and my parched tongue moved convulsively together in the attempt -- but no voice issued from the cavernous lungs, which oppressed as if by the weight of some incumbent mountain, gasped and palpitated, with the heart, at every elaborate and struggling inspiration" (Poe, the Premature Burial 5).  This passage shows Poe's inner thoughts and fears about death, much like the Fall of the House of Usher did. His fascination shines through with this, as his paranoia is evident.  Using being buried alive as a simple metaphor for death, Poe conveys a fear many people share of death, and one he most likely carried himself. By using it as a powerful symbol, Poe uses death to portray his obsession.

         By writing, Edgar Allen Poe explores his obsession with death. From glorifying death to exploring different elements or sides to it, he shows how his mind is fascinated with the subject by his many works focused on it.  Whether Poe is writing to personify death or show his paranoia, he uses it as a symbol in almost all of his works. Poe's ability to write about death from all perspectives shows an avid obsession with the subject.

        

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Giordano, Robert. "Welcome to PoeStories.com." Edgar Allan Poe, Short Stories, Tales, and Poems. Edgar            Allen Poe. Web. 15 Mar. 2012. <http://poestories.com/>.

Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Black Cat." Poe Stories. Web. 15 Mar. 2012.        <http://poestories.com/read/blackcat>.

Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Premature Burial." Web. 15 Mar. 2012.                <http://poestories.com/read/premature>.

Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Masque of Red Death." Web. 15 Mar. 2012.      <http://poestories.com/read/masque>.

Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Facts in the Case of M Vladmir." Web. 15 Mar. 2012.          <http://poestories.com/read/facts>.

Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Fall of the House of Usher." Web. 15 Mar. 2012. <http://poestories.com/read/houseofusher>. 

Gothic story - THE MAN

THE MAN

                A number of years ago, there was a couple who lived in a town near a city near a lake that was right next to their state's national park. Their house was situated five houses down from the Wife's mother's, and four houses away from her sister's. The Husband was never really pleased by this.

                They got married in their twenties and settled down in this house in this town near a city near a lake right next to their state park. The years went on, as they tend to do; and the couple began to bicker, as they tend to do. Small things such as leaving the milk carton empty, turned to bigger things, like the Wife screwing the mailman.

                As the rift between the two grew larger and larger, the Wife  grew more and more aware of the obnoxious habits the Man  she had married carried. He was a CEO at a bank that made their fortune giving faulty loans and demanding enormous interest rates.  He relished sending notices that payments were overdue, and often insisted on paying people a visit in person to inform them that their house was to be foreclosed on. He was incredibly messy, and often left a week's worth of clothes strewn across the bedroom floor. He insulted his sister- and mother-in-law at every turn, insisting that anything to do with them was disgusting and he would take no part in it. He also formed secret separate bank accounts, slowly shifting their money into them which left her scrambling, trying to figure out where all the money was going. She was never aware of the secret bank accounts, of course, but she always had an inkling that her banker husband was bamboozling her out of her money.         

                All of the fault couldn't be put upon the Husband, though. The Wife wasn't exactly agreeable.  She talked incessantly about the state of their finances, forced him to spend three meals a night either with her mother or with her sister, and she insisted on keeping the house in a complete state of cleanliness.

                "You never know who's going to see it," she said once as they were cleaning in preparation for a vacation. When he pointed out the obvious ludicrousness of  the situation, she replied, "If our house catches  on fire while we're away, I won't be having the firemen judge us." He reluctantly continued cleaning, but he could feel his annoyance building in the pit of his stomach.

                And, of course, she had the unfortunate habit of sleeping with the man who delivered mail on a daily basis. Not that her Husband particularly cared. They had married young, and as his parents' marriage had failed, he harbored no expectations for theirs to be a happy one. It was about the pride and principle of the matter to him, and as long as his Wife remained an avid Christian, divorce was out of the question. And so they lived on, trapped in complete and total hatred of each other.

                Over time, they both developed coping mechanisms for dealing with each other. The Woman found comfort in cleaning; she spent hours scrubbing bathroom floors and organizing kitchen cabinets. She would even stop by her mother's and sister's homes and straighten up a bit, which annoyed those family members considerably. The Man took to driving. Being a successful banker, his pocket never hurt for gas money. He would drive for hours, to no real end, just trying to get away from her. He often took up residence in a hotel or B&B for a stretch of time, collecting a string of impermanent friends, girlfriends, and assorted favorite restaurants.

           

             One hot and dry night, the Man found himself driving down a long stretch of highway. Having driven for over five hours, he made the decision to stop and stay at a motel along the side of the road, thinking that he would return home in the morning, as he had four foreclosures set up for the next day.

            Next door to the motel was a rundown bar, a red and orange blinking sign read, “Ho e’s Bar and Grill”. He hoped that the “P”’s bulb had just run out.

            He closed the door of his car with a loud, “thunk”, that seemed to resonate across the empty parking lot. Even though it was almost midnight, the heat from the day had left steam rising from the asphalt, creating an ominous veil as he walked towards the motel. He paused and looked over his shoulder at the bar.

            “One drink couldn’t hurt,” He said to himself. His words had the strange muffled tone that comes from sound in an otherwise silent area.

            The inside of the bar was no more cheerful than the outside. While it became obvious from a sign hung over the door that the name actually was ‘Hope’s Bar’, the place seemed to have very little of it. Formerly shiny, red linoleum booths were ripped and faded. Stools at the bar were broken and chairless, just metal poles sticking up from the ground. The wall’s paint was chipped, the white paint giving way to the green underneath.

            As the Man walked in, the bartender looked up, surprised. “Hey, there!” he said in a gruff voice, clearly meant to sound friendly, but said in a rather tired and unwelcoming way. “Haven’t had customers in here for some time.”

            “Hello,” the Man said warily. He sat down at one of the remaining stools. “I’ll just have one beer.”

            “Anything in particular?”

            “Surprise me.” The Man took off the light jacket he was wearing, putting it on the seat beside him. The air conditioning was apparently broken, and the heat was stifling. The Man just hoped the motel wasn’t in the same condition.

            The bartender slid the glass across the counter to the man sitting alone. “You actually caught us on our last night in business,” he said absent mindedly.

            “Oh, really?” the Man took a sip of the beer. It tasted sour, but not in an altogether unpleasant way.

            “Yeah, not that many customers around here. Surprisingly.” The bartender smiled sadly at the man, who just stared in response. “My daughter’s gone, anyways. We were only keeping it open in case she needed something to fall back on. My wife and I, that is.” He paused, took a cloth out of his apron and started wiping the bar in slow circles. “Hope. Her name was Hope. She- we lost her.”

            “I’m so sorry,” the Man said slowly, not sure how to respond.

            “Made friends with the wrong sort of people. We always warned her…” He trailed off, staring at the counter. He looked up suddenly. “Anyways. Enjoy your beer.” He abruptly turned and walked through a door behind the counter.

            “Crazy old man.” A whisper beside the man made him jump out of his chair, facing the newcomer.

            “How long have you been standing there?"

            The stranger just smiled, exposing one gold tooth, "I've been here the whole time. Hadn’t you noticed?” He tilted his head as he asked the question, his long, greasy light brown hair falling in sticky strands across his face. Other than his golden tooth, his teeth were almost blindingly white, and strangely sharp, giving the man an odd, wolfish look. He looked about sixty, with frown lines creasing his forehead. His eyes were a light, muddy brown, an almost yellow color near his pupils. The thing that struck the man as he looked at the unfamiliar person was how skinny he was. He looked almost emaciated.

            "Name's Ron Morgan." The stranger said, leaning close and shaking the Man's hand firmly. He smelled musty and woody, like he had been locked in a dry and warm room for quite some time.

            "Nice to meet you," the Man replied hurriedly, still trying to figure out when the other man had come in. He pulled his hand away quickly, realizing that his hand was sweating profusely.

            "I haven't seen you around here before," Ron sat down on a stool two down from where the Man had been sitting. He had on a long trench coat that folded underneath him when he sat. The Man could see beads of rain dotting the collar.

            "Just driving through." Ron stared at the man intently, like he was trying to see through the layers of skin and see the person buried underneath. The Man shifted uncomfortably, suddenly even warmer than he had been when he had entered the bar.

            "I'm going to make you a deal." Ron pulled out two packs of matches and set them on the counter of the bar.  "I'll give you what you most desire, and you'll give me what I need."

            The Man started. Was this some sort of drug deal? Maybe a pimp? He wiped his hand across his forehead, wiping beads of sweat away. "And what is it I supposedly desire?" He questioned cautiously. Could he get arrested for even talking to someone about this sort of thing? And what sort of thing was it, anyways?

            Ron laughed, leaning casually against the counter. It was an odd position for a man of his age. He looked completely at ease, despite his withered frame. His trench coat hung off of his shoulders, looking like a shirt with missing shoulder pads. His suit, while finely tailored, was rumpled and baggy on him, clearly not intended for such a skeletal person. "Freedom," He replied simply. There was a bulky gold watch on his wrist, and it hung limply near his palm, his wrists too skinny to support it.

            "Freedom." The Man repeated, weighing the word in his mouth. "From what, may I ask?"

            "The devil herself," Ron smiled, a joke with himself. "Your wife, of course!"

            "Oh," the Man stated. "Her." For some reason, despite the ridiculous circumstances (a stranger at a bar offering to get rid of his wife. Clearly realistic.) his head began to swim with the possibilities. No more dinner with his in laws, no more cleaning five times a day, coming and going as he pleased, he'd finally be able to focus on his work, no more awkward encounters with the mailman. Ah, yes. The mailman. Maybe it would be for the best if his wife were to simply go away.

            "And, in return, all you'd owe me... Well, let's just say it's a favor." Ron flashed another eerie grin. "I won't even ask for it until you're on your deathbed. That's a guarantee."

            "Freedom." The Man said the word again, trying to comprehend its meaning. "Alright. Say I agree. What would I have to do? Hypothetically, of course." He rushed the last three words out, not wanting to agree to anything too early.

            "Have a smoke. That's all it takes. One cigarette." Ron picked up the box of matches farther from himself, a red, plain box and fished around in it for a bit. He left a black box sitting on the counter. Finally, he pulled out a solitary match. On the side it was etched one word, "freedom". Out from his coat pocket, he pulled another box. This time he didn't poke around at all, just slid out a single cigarette. Now he looked into his companions face. "So, are you game?" His mouth wore a bitter smile, almost as if what he was saying was a cruel joke. His eyes, though, told a different story. They were dark and serious, and reminded the man of a predator approaching his prey.

            "Why not," the Man forced a laugh. "It's not every day you get the chance to ditch your wife!" He could feel his smile growing hysterical, the corners of his mouth turning up until tears sprung to his eyes. Why was he doing this? He didn't want to do this. Or did he? Did it really matter? Ron was obviously crazy. What's the harm in humoring a clearly mentally ill man? What if he wasn't, though? What would this deal even entail?

            He was suddenly aware of his surroundings again. The broken chairs. The chipped walls. The forlorn looking booths. He looked down and saw that his feet had left imprints in the dust. His swallowed hard when he realized that the man standing next to him had no such footprints surrounding him.

            The Man looked up suddenly and grabbed the cigarette and match.

            He closed his eyes as he inhaled, smelling the harsh smoke and feeling his mind clear.

            His eyes still closed, he heard the bartender open the door and re-enter the room.

            He didn't open his eyes as he heard the bartender scream at Ron to get out, to never come back, that he had been told that already, cries that he was not welcome in this establishment.

            When he finally opened his eyes, the bartender was sobbing quietly, his face buried in his arms on the counter. Ron Morgan was gone.

            There were still no footprints.

            The Man returned home the next morning to the flashing of red and blue lights in his driveway. The police cars were parked haphazardly, the front wheels ending up on his carefully manicured lawn.

            He walked in to his home in a town near a city near a lake near the state park, the one that was five houses down from his Wife's mother's home, and four houses away from his wife's sister's home. He walked in and almost ran straight through yellow tape.

                His Wife was on the floor, wearing a white dress. Her hair was in a tangled cloud above her head, spread out above where she lay on the ground of the living room. The most noticeable thing, though, was the rusty stain pooling from her chest. If it had been a  picture, the Man would have found the stark contrast between the red blood and her white dress strangely beautiful.

                But it wasn't a picture. It was his Wife, on the floor, a steak knife thrust into her chest, her eyes looking off into the distance, glassy. He still felt very little remorse, though. He noticed that above everything else, including his wife's death: how incredibly not-sad he was.

                He felt the cold metal of handcuffs biting into his wrists as two policemen forced him out the door.

                His sister- and mother- in- law were sitting four houses down, on the porch, crying. The mother glared at him with incredible fury. The sister was too hysterical to look up, her shoulders quaking with sobs.

                As he was forced into the police car that had ruined his beautiful lawn, he saw a UPS truck situated two doors down. He could see the mailman inside with his head in his hands. He noticed how strange it was that a man who had never even lived with his wife felt such pain in her passing, and he didn't even feel a thing. Funny how the world works, he noted.

               

SOME TIME LATER

                Death row is a strange place, he noted. But possibly not stranger than the rest of the world. Either way, you're just waiting to die.

                Death row had made the man very existential.

                He remembered the day he had come in. The room he had been placed in was situated next to a girl named Hope. Both of them had been sentenced to death. Both for murder. Hope had killed her friend. Even after three years of living side by side, she still maintained that she hadn't done it, that she'd been framed. "I hated him," Hope sobbed, "Dear god, did I hate him. But I didn't kill him! I didn't!" Her voice would always rise to a scream, her indignation filling the prison.   

                The day he was moved to the prison they shared, she was having one of her "episodes" (or so the staff liked to call it). She was shaking and crying in the hallway, screaming that the devil had made her do it, that he had forced her hand. He was being led down the same hallway at that time. She saw him and gave a piercing scream.

                "He's gotten you too!" She screamed, pulling at her long dark hair. Her eyes were ringed with red and she was frighteningly skinny. "You sold your soul." Here she lowered her voice to a whisper and got very close to the man. "You're doomed, just like me." It was then that the staff pulled her away and locked her in her room again. They always meant to send her to a mental institution, they said. They never seemed to get around to it, though, and after three years living next door to the man, Hope died in her sleep, the night before she had been scheduled to be killed.

                The Man was fairly happy in prison. The only thing he ever missed was telling people that their homes were being taken from them, and the looks on their faces. He enjoyed the solitude, and found he had a lot of time for reading books. While other prisoners went insane around him, he seemed to thrive on the schedules and rules of the prison. Time passed, and, if possible, his soul grew even colder. Remembering Hope's words, though, he took to praying every day with incredible zeal. He never forgot Ron Morgan, or the promise he had made to him. He didn't believe in the devil, but if that's what Ron was, the man wasn't going to be taking any chances.

                Slowly, his day of reckoning was approaching. The night before he was set to die, he got his last look out a window.

                It was a hot and dry night, much like the one on which he had met Ron Morgan in the first place. A fog had rolled in as well, although he couldn't tell if it was natural or coming from the asphalt. He took his last look around, and again noticed that again, he didn't feel anything. No fear, no happiness, nothing.

                What a strange life I've lived, he thought with a sigh. A strange life indeed. For the first time in years, he thought of his wife. Despite her death, his memory of her was still tinged with hatred. He only remembered her as a vile woman and didn't regret his decision to do away with her at all.

                A sudden noise from behind him gave him a start.

                He turned. He wasn't surprised to see Ron Morgan standing behind at his cell door.

                "Long time no see," the Man said resignedly. Ron smiled. If possible, he looked even more emaciated, the bones in his arms stand out sharply.

                "Cigarette?" He asked simply, holding out a pack. The man shook his head slowly. "Well, you know why I'm here."

                "To  collect your debt." The Man suddenly remembered something. The night Ron Morgan had first come to meet him, he had been wearing the same trench coat he was wearing now. Its collar had been covered with little droplets of water, like Ron had recently been out in the rain. If the Man remembered correctly, that night had been during one of the driest stretches in that area's history.

                "To collect my debt." Ron took the black box of matches out of his oversized trench coat pocket. He lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. He threw the used match on the ground and crushed it with his foot.

                The Man crumpled to the ground. A black fog slid from his body and filled the room. Ron inhaled deeply and smiled.

                His skeletal body began to began to fill out, his suit slowly stretching to fit the way it had been made to. He stood up straight, now looking more like a man of twenty rather than sixty. As the Man's soul was sucked into Ron's body, he became revitalized.

                Satisfied, Ron's eerie grin returned to his face, and he looked around the empty cell. No signs of the man that had once lived there remained. He turned and walked away, leaving the cell door ajar.