Creative Challenge

The assignment below was given as an extra credit opportunity. I used it to write a story in which I imagined for the first time how to frame my paintings with nature.  I also realized that short stories are a form of virtual reality as well. 

“Robots”

Write something that follows the rules below in less than 2000 words. Note all rules in your copies of the paper using the parenthetical codes listed below. 

1. __x__ Do not use the word or any derivative of the word “robots” anywhere in your paper.

2. __x__  Primarily present tense narration

3. __x__    Addresses the concept of creation (CREATION)

4. __x__ Addresses the concept of intelligence (INTELLIGENCE)

5. __x__ An emotion must be projected onto an inanimate object (OBJ)

6. __x__ The inanimate object must cause the main character to experience a problem (PROB)

7. __x__ Defines what it means to be human (HUMAN)

8. __x__ Makes reference to a war (WAR)

9. __x__ three references to law (LAW 1-3)

10. __x__ Features a debate (DEBATE)

11. __x__ Addresses bigotry (BIGOT)

12. __x__ Two warnings (WARNING 1-2)

13. __x__ Provides your readers with a brief history of the human world (HIST)

14. __x__ Contains a machine that malfunctions (MACHINE)

15. ___x_ An ambitious character (AMB)

16. __x__ A nervous character (NERV)

17. __x__ A detailed description of something naturally beautiful (BEAUTY)

18. __x__ Begins and end with the same question. (QUESTION 1-2)

19. __x__ a detailed description of a robot (DESCRIPTION)

20. __x__ translation (TRANSLATION)

21. __x__    a lapse in time (LAPSE)

22. __x__    engages concept of autonomy (AUTO)

Details

1. __5_ 5 references to lighting or weather (L/W 1-5)

2. __x_ a detailed description of someone’s hands (HANDS)

3. __5_ 5 references to smell (SMELL 1-5)

4. __5_ 5 references to sound (SOUND 1-5)

5. __5_ 5 references to a texture (TEXT 1-5)

Lapse [FIRST DRAFT]

H M Crickenberger

What am I missing? (QUESTION-1)  Something isn’t right.

*   *   *

The garden is in early spring bloom—fragrant violas and young pink roses (SMELL-1-2) spring up from the several carved pots that sit along the balcony ledge.  Azaleas, many shriveled and papery (TEXT-1-2-), still hold their color, and fill out the few holes in the thick ten-foot hedge that traces the perimeter of the property in bloom-softened (TEXT-3) right angles.  Tulips, their flowers come and gone, languish on the ground like castaway sea grass. In a large pot wedged between the forsythia and a swath of jasmine, hibiscus shoots crawl upward from last year’s withered (TEXT-4) stump, with the shiny round arms of a bright green octopus. (CREATION) (BEAUTY)

All around, the air thrills in currents of differing temperature. (LW-1)

Hettie is sitting peaceably on a plastic mat that had been rolled out onto the thick grass.  From where she is sitting, no human lines of sight are suspected.  She unsnaps her shields and lays them on the mat next to her where they catch the sun’s rays (LW-2) in an unnatural way, casting fractured rainbows of light onto the white sheets that had been pinned up to conceal the balcony from the camera. 

Above her pinned on clotheslines flutter a series of paintings that had been cut from a sketchbook and arranged with some intention or another. 

She leans back on her elbows and gazes at them, trying to identify the reasoning behind their arrangement, then gives up stretching out in the morning sun (LW-3)

At grass level, the world is a different place.  Grass is a different thing.  The smell (SMELL-3) of it is all encompassing—the damp blades trimmed just the day before.  Dull blade (OBJ), she notes, examining the frayed (TEXT-5) ends of the grass leaves. (TRANSLATION) (MACHINE)

She turns her head and lets her eyes relax, taking in that peculiar shade of green that occurs only when the grass leaves are illuminated from behind. (LW-4) She squints, half expecting the light to spider outward into a glare (LW-5).

Extending her hand outward, she touches the grass and stops mid reach. It is not the hand she calls her own—the one with four slender flingers of proportionate dimensions and two thumbs.  Instead, her hand looks as if it had been made of glass and filled with water—transparent but splintered with texture—a network of ridges and pathways marring the undersurface and sending the light out in unexpected paths. (HAND)

*   *   *

I can’t feel it.  I can see me feeling it but I don’t feel it—not with my brain I don’t. (PROB)

Try this, says the voice.  She cannot see its owner but she has seen him before and she can sense when he moves closer or suddenly, the way a spider might sense that a gnat had passed safely between the spindles of its web.

*   *   *

Everything slips for a moment, flickers, then slides back into focus. I thought you were coming with me, she says. It would be better if you were here. (AUTO)

I’m here.

In a sense, I guess. 

Can you feel it now?

Let me see, she says and then stretches out the hand to engage the grass leaves.  The dully hacked ends of the blades are dry and rough or should be. They should itch more—or at all.

So what do you think of the paintings?

Hettie looks above again—she had forgotten they were there, but there they are—fluttering in the capricious breezes. 

Did you do these?

Yes. While you were in Reeves. 

Shouldn’t I have been the one doing the painting?

One would think.

Okay, please stop talking. I can’t concentrate.  What’s missing?  I’m trying to place it.  She looks again at all the flowers—feels the fibers of the shell interacting with the surface of her skin.  Cool air almost feels like cool water…it’s just a difference in density—concentration.

Is it supposed to be so quiet? She asks.

You told me to stop talking.

No, I mean, the leaves. With all this wind, shouldn’t the leaves be making that rushing sound—like water traveling over rocks at a distance? (NERVOUS)

That’s all to come. (AMBITIOUS) Keep looking.

Can I walk around?

It’s better if you don’t.

I’d like to go up that hill and look down. I think I’d have a better chance of finding whatever it is you want me to find.

Oh, there’s nothing in particular to find.  It’s all it, so-to-speak. Here, let me get this going.

Hettie feels her balance fail her as the adjustment is made. Suddenly, the air around her begins to move faster and she sees small insects and filaments and pollen lighting up in the sideways light.  As long warm breeze moves over her in one deep wave and then it happens: one, two, three four five hollow notes, played softly by the strung wooden mallet that hung suspended in the center of the wind chimes that had been placed on a Japanese maple which she had only noticed for it’s flame of red-tipped leaves. (SOUND-1-5)

She holds the hand up to her lip as she would were it really her hand.  This is me thinking, she thinks. It is my thinking pose. 

She can still smell the grass though the violas and roses have dissipated in the breeze (SMELL-4-5)

So what do you think, the voice asks her.  She feels that he has moved farther away—approximately ten feet to her left….

I think it’s smart—the design—the illusion of privacy created by the hedge and the comforting scent of fresh grass—reminds us all of those days on the playground.  (INTELLIGENCE) Is it based on something else?

One could say that. But then, isn’t everything based on something else in some way?  All matter is simply different combinations of the same particles—the same atoms and molecules.  Just constellations of materials kaleidoscoping in and out of recognition….

In the beginning, there was a garden…cultivated, designed, trained….are you still there?

The voice is farther now, but still within the confines of the shared space.

So who built the garden?

It was always there.

That’s one way to answer the question.

And humans were placed into this garden from the outside.  They did not appreciate it as a construction but took it for granted as the way things would always be. It wasn’t long until the arguing started…bigotry, hatred.  They tried to handle things by making many rules, laws to live by, a code of conduct strictly enforced, but none of that really solved the problem.  It was all out war in the end.  (HISTORY) (WAR) (LAW 1-3)  (DEBATE) (BIGOT) (WARNING 1-2). It’s a shame. We warned them. (WARNING-1)

When did a human ever take a warning from us seriously.  (WARNING-2)

They define themselves by their rebelliousness.  (HUMAN)

That, I can appreciate, Hettie says, lifting the mask off. 

*   *   *

There is the face of her creator, staring deeply into her.  He tugs at the panel behind her ear and it pops off neatly. The lights that had been shining through her glass-like encasement go dim and he stares disappointedly into the abysmal grayness that it becomes when no longer lit by the fire of electricity.  (DESCRIPTION)      

You still can’t seem to tell the difference, can you?   Virtual, real, it’s all the same to you.What am I missing?  (QUESTION-1)