[stylist] Writing prompt

[Eve Sanchez]

Kind of a cute story, gave me a chuckle. I like the message relayed, but
have trouble with Fae wearing cowboy hats. It's okay though as it fits what
it is meant to be I think. I must tell you that it reminded my of college.
I went to Idaho State University. You may know, as so many people do, that
one of the professors at ISU is the world's foremost expert authority of
BigFoot. I can't remember his name at the moment, but he has been on tv a
lot like on the History Channel and such. Just came to mind from your
story. Thanks for the share. Blessed Be. Eve

On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 10:29 AM, Jacobson, Shawn D <
Shawn.D.Jacobson at hud.gov> wrote:

> Here's a story that I originally submitted for an NFB writing contest and
> refurbished.  It definitely has some fantasy elements in it.
>
> I hope you all enjoy it.
>
> Shawn Jacobson
> Mathematical Statistician
> Phone# (202)-475-8759
> Fax# (202)-485-0275
>
> The Faerie Choice
> by Shawn Jacobson
>
> Once back in the day, one of our professors theorized that faeries led
> cattle to higher ground before thunderstorms so they wouldn't drown.
>  Rather than keeping this idea to himself, as good sense would demand, he
> wrote a letter to the editor of the largest newspaper in the state.
> Well, you can guess what happened.  Everyone from the alumni association
> to the campus Bible study got up in arms about it.  Some alumni said the
> letter was an embarrassment to the university.  Some people thought it was
> evidence of the decline of rational thought at our great university, a sign
> of degeneration and imminent doom.  Still others said it just proved that
> these academic types lived in a world of their own and needed their heads
> aired out, preferably by a psychoanalyst.
> The whole thing climaxed when the regent's meeting, originally called to
> discuss dorm fees, was hijacked by the various intellectual combatants. The
> result was a shouting match where the usual people said the usual things
> about academic freedom, scientific inquiry, and public good. At least,
> that's what my older brother, who claimed to be there, said.
> Eventually, people moved on to the next scandal, I believe it had
> something to do with steroids.  In time a general consensus arose that
> having a nutty professor around added some character to the university
> making it more than just another cow college.  In a sane world, this would
> have been the end of the matter.  Yet, with the funky persistence of fish
> odor, the letter lived on taking its place in urban legend.
> It should not have surprised me at all the mad Merrill would have
> gravitated to the letter.  Don't get me wrong, the man was a certifiable
> genius.  Had he not been certifiable in other ways, he might have been
> teaching at someplace like MIT or Cal Tech.  No one said he was crazy, (you
> don't use that word for someone that smart).  Instead, they used words like
> eccentric, unorthodox, and maverick, to describe his work.  So it surprised
> me not at all that he had developed a way to test the theory at the heart
> of old Dr. Griffin's letter by seeking out the realm of faery.  What
> surprised me was that I had decided to help.
> For that I have Tim to thank.  "Hay Joe," he said, "you're into fantasy
> and all that stuff.  Why don't you come to Dr. Merrill's office with me and
> here about his new experiment; I promise you'll be blown away."
> I'd talked to Tim about my graduate work in the English department.  The
> point of my thesis was that space aliens were the faerie folk of the
> technological age.  The work was too good, and too fun, to be true.  Best
> of all, I could read authors like Gaimen, Yolen, Bradburry, and Swanwick
> and tell my mom that it was for my school work.  I had no idea that my work
> would get me out here, literally in the field, to play with a bunch of
> other crazies as a truly terrifying storm moved above us.
> "Hello" a voice boomed breaking my reverie "what you guys doing?"
> "Science" replied Dr. Merrill "very important research."
> "Same here" replied the voice "we're storm hunting. We heard that there
> was a big one just north of Boone, a twister, maybe half a mile wide.
>  We're checking it out.  We should get some great data and some awesome
> photos; real front page stuff."
> "Good luck" replied Dr. Merrill as the storm chasers drove off.
> "No one left but us fools" commented Dr. Jones, the campus skeptic.
> "So" replied Dr. Merrill "Are you including yourself?"
> "Hey" the skeptic replied "I got to see this.  I might even write an
> article about it in my newsletter.  I've just finished a piece about
> Baptists who think that God will protect their church from lightning, so
> they don't need lightning rods; I might be able to put together a special
> issue.  I could call it 'Wackies VS wild weather'."
> "He's such a good writer" chimed in Amanda, his assistant.  "His peace on
> Dr. Goode the psychic and the radio in his ear was a classic."
> "I'm sure it is" replied Tim as he scurried about hooking up Dr. Merrill's
> various arcane machines doing marvels with tape, clamps, pliers and other
> tools that would have made Merlin green with envy.  "If it ever comes out
> in Braille, I'll have to read it."
> Tim made the last connection putting together a mess that would have fit
> into from Dr. Frankenstein's yard sale.  The main piece in all of this was
> the electron flipper, a gismo that looked like an oversized grill with
> connections to a lot of other stuff, a generator, a range finder, a
> generator and a bunch of other stuff.
> Dr. Merrill had explained it to Tim and me the previous week.  Dr. Merrill
> had explained that spinning an electron once got you an upside-down
> electron.  You had to spin it again to get pointing in its original
> direction.  He theorized that there was an alternate reality where the
> electron was right side up after one spin.  This, he theorized, was where
> Dr. Griffin's faeries might live.
> I pulled myself back to the moment and fired up the computer.  "You're a
> magician out there" I said to Tim as I invoked a wizard to connect the
> computer to the range finder.
> "It's engineering" he replied "best damned magic in the world."  He sat
> down and asked in a shaky voice "could you hand me a beer?  I've always
> been willing to do anything for someone who will give a blind guy a chance;
> now I'm not so sure that was wise."  Tim seemed worries that I wouldn't be
> the only one blown away by Dr. Merrill's latest experiment.
> As I invoked the powers in the computer to align the system, Dr. Merrill
> and his assistant Beth talked about dark energy, thought forms, strange
> matter astral projections, charmed quarks and planes of existence.  Where
> the physics left off and the occult stuff began I couldn't tell, so I
> contemplated Clarke's law, that any sufficiently advanced, or weird,
> science is indistinguishable from magic.
> "Time to test the system" I said finishing my computer wizardry.
> "We're ready here" Dr. Merrill said as I pointed the field projector, a
> contraption that looked like a cannon, capped by a magnifying glass, at an
> empty stretch of field.
> "Testing it now" I replied as I clicked the start icon.  A droning sound,
> like a hive of disturbed hornets, arose and something that wasn't light
> began to gather at the target.  Suddenly, a patch of strangeness appeared
> about thirty feet in front of the projector.  The black thunderheads that
> had been wallowing across the sky looked even darker viewed through the,
> whatever it was, than they had before.
> "We're drilling right into the astral plane" cried Dr. Merrill with the
> profound joy of lunacy.
> "Looks empty to me" Dr. Jones replied "it looks like the faeries are
> staying in where it's dry.
> Suddenly a bolt of lightning lit up the sky on the other side of the dark
> region we had projected.  The new territory, or maybe the darkness within,
> seemed to act as a prism breaking the light into a fearful spectrum that
> also expressed the darker colors of the rainbow, a sight more awfully
> wondrous than beautiful.
> "You can turn that off now" Dr. Jones said with a voice trembling with
> awe, or perhaps with fear.
> I played around with direction and field width to make sure I know how the
> controls worked.  Then, to Dr. Jones relief, I clicked off.
> "Be on the lookout for strange behavior from the cows" admonished Dr.
> Merrill as Tim went back to checking the connections and I made sure
> everything worked.  The sky continued to darken.  Clouds with great black
> distended bellies full of rain crowded a sky that felt ten months pregnant
> with a storm; I was sure that the water would break at any minute.
> Ironically, it was Tim who noticed something happening.  "Hay folks!" he
> exclaimed; the cattle sure sound upset."
> "OK, turn it on!" yelled the physicist.  I hastily fumbled with the keys
> to get maximum width and tried judging how far it was to the milling herd.
>  I hit start and gasped.
> The droning began again and the preternatural dark was back, but this time
> it wasn't empty; beings, faeries I suppose, flitted about the cattle using
> prods, or were they magic wands, to get the attention of the beasts and to
> move them towards a low hill in the middle distance; it seemed to be
> working.
> As for the, well call them faeries for want of a better word, they were
> small, I'd say between six inches and a foot tall with iridescent wings;
> they shimmered against the bizarre darkness.  The ones herding the cows
> seemed dressed like cowboys as envisioned by Disney; the one supervising,
> the faerie queen I called her for it was definitely a she, was not dressed
> at all as if clothes would not dare trespass upon the golden beauty of her
> body.
> "The next time you run this," Professor Jones quipped striving to stifle
> the reverence in his voice "you should get a grant from Playboy to study
> nymphs."
> I think his attempt at humor was meant to shore up his battered fortress
> of rationality; what it got him was a slap in the face from Amanda.
> "I don't think this is going in any skeptic's magazine" muttered Tim.
> I continued to scan the scene, the weird cattle drive, the rationalist
> losing his reason, the academic discussion between Dr. Merrill and his
> assistant now suspended by high weirdness.  The faerie queen then turned
> and it seemed she was looking directly at me saying "I at least thought you
> had enough sense to come in out of the rain."  Suddenly, thunder blasted
> through the gravid air with a sound like the world being sundered and
> torrential rain slammed down from the sky.  We were instantly soaked.
>
> .............................................
>
> I don't remember much that happened after that save that we lived through
> it.  I do remember that the tortured electronics gave out and the electron
> flipped exploded sending balls of actinic fire into the sky, but from where
> I was at the time it seemed like nothing more than a Roman candle burning
> in the storm.
> I had gotten up from my computer and walked into the astral plane, or
> wherever it really was, that evening and had conversed with the faerie
> queen and her people.
> People have asked what this was like, the police who rescued us from the
> storm, my parents, reporters from the local newspaper, even Dr. Merrill and
> Dr. Jones before his premature retirement.
> However, I have never been able to give justice to just what happened.  It
> all seems to have transpired in some dream state where we talked in the
> language of spirits and angels.  To translate these things into English
> seems akin to trying to translate the works of Shakespeare into COBOL, or
> some other language meant for mere machines.  I seem to have sensed a
> playful affection from the faery queen and I seem to have picked up the
> impression that the faerie folk cared deeply about all of us, but this I am
> interpreting and the whole interpretation process seemed fogged in dubious
> comprehension.
> Tim was the first person to hear a coherent version of the tale.  This
> might have had something to do with being drunk, perhaps that breaks down
> some of the berries, or maybe that the time had come for the message from
> the other side to be made clear, I really don't know.
> "You're not going to pose the question to the world are you?" he asked in
> a slurred voice.  We had both at several beers too many and neither of us
> was real clear in our speech.
> "I don't think I can refuse" I answered "It's like I'm compelled by magic
> or really advanced science or maybe it just doesn't matter what it is.
>  Maybe it's just what it is and you have to accept the mission you're
> given."
> "I'm not accepting any of this" said Tim raising his voice.  "You may
> think it's OK to have the faeries run your lives for you but I can't stand
> the idea.  I've been in the Braille school for thirteen yours having people
> decide everything for me, like I couldn't think for myself, and, let me
> tell you, that was God's plenty.  I'm not going back, not willingly, not
> without kicking and screaming, not if I can help it at all."  He turned
> toward where he heard the bartender.  The barkeep was talking to folk
> halfway down the bar, "another beer for me and my friend" he said in a loud
> forceful voice.
> "You really don't think that people are just going to choose to have
> someone run their lives do you? I asked trying to calm Tim down.  The
> bartender walked reluctantly toward us as if walking into uncharted
> territory, a place where he feared to tread.  "No one I know would choose
> that.  Don't worry" I continued trying to allay my own fears.
> The bartender took our order doubtfully, as if he were thinking of cutting
> us off.
> "I wish I were that certain" continued Tim echoing some of my own secret
> fears "but I see so many people who are so busy and talk about how they
> wish they could get some rest, cast their cares on someone else, get out
> from under all the responsibilities they have as if there weren't people in
> the world who would die for their busy life.  Maybe they would think that
> the faeries would solve all their problems.  Thinking for your self is a
> lot harder than just being a sheep and if you don't know what that's like
> you might think it's not half bad to live that way."
> "Then" Tim continued his voice rising "there are people who would gladly
> sacrifice their freedom to make sure that other people were protected from
> themselves.  They'd just be happy to have faeries run these other people's
> lives for their own good, or the public good, or, I can't talk about it
> anymore, it just makes me sick."
> "Damn" I said "I'd not thought of that.  You might be right."
>
> And so I prepare to walk out on stage, into the wasteland of daytime
> television.  "OK Joe, you get ten minute" my handler says thinking me nuts;
> well, who can blame him.
> So I give my speech of the fair folk and their love and how they feel
> about us.  I speak of their anger and pain at how we treat each other and
> ourselves.  Our stunt with the electron flipper in the midst of the storm
> wasn't the stupidest thing man has done, but it was what got their
> attention, what had finally prodded them into action.
> They had always guided the lesser animals, the beasts, away from danger,
> but they had always left man to his own devices figuring us to have enough
> intelligence to protect ourselves from danger.  But now, they were no
> longer sure that leaving us to ourselves was wise.
> So now they ask us to make our choice.  Live for ourselves and live
> wisely, or let the faerie folk rule over us and protect us from harm.
> My allotted time came to an end; my handler started making hand signals
> for me to wrap up my speech and make room for the next fool to speak his
> peace.
> Watching the on-stage audience I remembered, as if from a dream, the last
> part of my communion with the faerie queen.  I remember her getting in my
> face, though she seemed too small and delicate to do so as she gives me the
> final message, a message meant for all mankind.
> "The fair folk have one more thing to say to us" I said preparing my exit.
>  "This time, don't be stupid."
>
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