Scenes in my head

Okay where to begin? Typing in the dark is deefeecult... But it's 2 a.m. and I'm as awake as rain, if that makes any sense. I left work early today and crashed at 5 p.m til 1:30 a.m. My weird schedule has me completely spent. Gotta work on getting the whole sleep schedule thing under control. The issue last night was that I worked late and didn't fall asleep until after 2 a.m. or so, and I had to be up before 7 a.m. to take a relative to a conference. First alarm went off at 6 a.m. Youch. I was already sleep-deprived to begin with.

There are two stories rumbling around in my head, and they've been beating at the inner membrane for months now. The problem is, they're more like scenes, not words. As in movie scenes. One would look great animated. But on paper? I don't know if I have it in me. I haven't written a short story since high school, that I can remember. I tried something or other in college, without success.

I haven't read fantasy-fiction of the spaceship or wizards and warriors variety since probably middle school... but these two stories definitely fit the fantasy bill. I wonder why? I don't think I'd be very good at writing fantasy, seeing as it bores me to read about these elaborately drummed up societies and caste systems and feudal worlds, with all their maps and heavy verbiage. Nope, never got into Dune.

But tonight I put some meat on the bone, at least internally. I woke up with a bit of a back-story on the tip of my tongue... The character's name is Berlin Strummer. He's in a bit of an amalgm world, kind of like Flash Gordon or the animated film Heavy Metal, where there are both robots and planes, but also wizards and warriors (I think). Tonight I decided he is the son of "visitors"... Earth-humans who came to the planet he grew up on before he was born. Or maybe he was born in space? Hmmmm... I was thinking mom was from Argentina and dad was from Minnesota, mostly because I like the idea of him trying to remember and then sound out the words.

Where I started with Berlin Strummer in my head was that he was on a cliff, surrounded by "the enemy." He had a gun or some kind of weapon, but he was reluctant to use it because the bad guys had turned his family or friends into mind-controlled weirdos, zombie-ish or flesh-eating. If this were animated, the 'camera' would pan across grandma and grandpa, mom and dad, and then little Timmy -- who is growling with his hands clawing at the air. It'd be comic I tell you. Comic. But not so comic that Timmy would actually be saying, "Brains!"

Anyway, Berlin isn't about to shoot his family or adopted family or teamates or whoever they are on that cliff. So he says, audibly, but quietly, "I'm sorry," fingers his weapon, and then he falls backwards, off the cliff.

He's scared but kinda making his peace with death internally as he's falling. That's when -- badda bing! -- this lithe winged angel-creature shows up. We would have introduced her earlier as a captive of the bad guys, or a carnivale attraction held against her will. Anyhoo, she's all giant wings and feathers, and she doesn't so much catch him and get tangled up with him, and they fall earthward in a ball. It's mildly sexual, see? But innocent. Funny, if it's written write.

There's also "the little man." He's a midget (little person?) who rides a flying skateboard. The only problem with this character is it's so familiar, I'm afraid I might have plucked him from Heavy Metal. In any case, little man and Nimh (the winged woman) manage to prop up Berlin Strummer, and he falls to the ground a-okay.

I had different takes in my head... Instead of Nimh and little man, a Mytzylplk-like character shows up (that's the all powerful trickster from Superman who doesn't really mean the protagonist any harm but likes toying with him, like Q on Star Trek). I think I'll scratch that.

Well, it's tough to write a story around a scene. You're beginning in the middle. I gotta get my character to the cliff, and off the cliff. Hmmm.. I'm getting sleepy.

My second story is even more involved. There's a girl who wants to defeat this creature or bad person who has the entire world living in fear. The world is really a collection of tribes, loosely but not necessarily exclusively based on race. Each one has a different skill -- Asians have martial arts, African tribe has the spear, Indians have arrows, etc etc. There's a white kid from a kind of Nordic Viking tribe, who has Thor's hammer or something.

But she's the only girl, about 14, and she's the leader of a group of boys, one from each tribe. They're off to defeat the monster... but she gets them all killed. Maybe they just get turned to stone or something in a kind of "final battle." In any case, they're done for.

She's kind of a proud leader. So right before her own death, she casts a wish to put others before herself, or something like that. Basically, she learns humility. The moment that she learns that, the kids are returned to life. She still fails to kill the monster, but somehow, a minor character (lets say a gnome-like creature that they carry as a mascot) is able to televise her plight to all the tribes all over the world, and then channel the power of all the tribes in a kind of spiritual ultimate weapon aimed at the creature.

It sounds goofy, I know, but you gotta think big. Big! Like soda pop. Whoever invented that wasn't no small thinker, no sir.

I have a bunch of characters and scenes in my noodle, but they're mostly just that-- scenes. There's no story around them, at least, not really.

In one, there's a team of space mercenaries who are shipping cargo illegally for some evil empire, until they realize the cargo is children from the major planets around their galaxy. They're furious and they switch sides. The most self-serving and wimpy of the bunch lures the bad guys into thinking he's on their side, but then he blows up their "mother ship" or does something equally courageous. I've thought at times that he has hidden tentacles and rooms in his stomach that can store devices. So he hides poison gas in his tummy... but it's not poison to him. I've also thought that the captain of his ship, who is more respectable, blows up the mother ship, but then this tentacle dude teleports onto the ship before it pops and takes the captain's place (there's only one teleportation device, and it's one person per trip).

At some other point, I've thought of pairing these mercenaries up with their opposite-sex counterparts (there would be one lesbian couple) on the same planet that Berlin Strummer is from. Hmmm....

Somewhere in the child-trafficking story is the story of a girl and her baby cousins or baby brother. She gets captured and place in a cargo container, which is presented to the king of this warrior-race that is doing the trafficking, on his homeworld. The problem is that the homeworld is oblivious to the trafficking, which is being conducted by the king's son out in space for huge profit. The son is maybe telling the king he's protecting shipping channels or mining or fur trading or something. But somehow the king gets to sample the wares. He's an odious Jabba the Hut-like lump with lots of tentacles. The queen, in contrast, is this sexy warrior Ninja. Her body guard, the sergeant at arms, is the strong, silent type and it's implied that they're lovers. He has kind of a Native American warrior ambience to him.

Anyhoo, the king sends the sergeant at arms to open the cargo box... and out pops the girl, shivering and shaking, with the baby cousins clutching her legs and huddled behind her. She has a bow and arrow in her hand and she lets it rip. It hits the sergeant at arms in the arm, but he barely does more than flinch, more intrigued than injured.

The corrupt son sends his men to kill the girl but the Jabba the Hut creature rips their heads off. with a tentacle. He wants to know why there are kids in the cargo box. Slowly, the son's subterfuge begins to unravel. The queen takes the girl under her wing, and she and the sergeant at arms and her maids in waiting (who are also, secretly, trained ninja body guards) travel into space with the girl to see for themselves, and somehow enter the fight.

Okay, it's 3 a.m., and Im outta here!