I'd like to introduce you to Phoenix's newest resident. He goes by many names, but I'll call him, Charlie. The recent heat wave in Arizona has drawn his attention. He had been looking for a second home and recently bought one in Phoenix. He hadn't even seen it yet at the beginning of this writing. He paid for it without even seeing anything more than two photos. He agreed to meet with me for a late night interview at his new home, where we would both see it for the first time.
Arriving at the home, I had wondered if I was at the correct address. I wasn't expecting such an old and worn down property. I got out of my car and walked up to the house. Why has this place not been leveled to the ground? Dear God, someone must have their work cut out for them if they're going to make this place habitable. I looked around to see where the nearest house was. There weren't any. This place was out in the middle of nowhere. As I turned toward the street, there was Charlie walking up to the sidewalk. "Hey Trevor", he called to me. "What do you think?" I smiled and looked back at the house, not sure what to say. "I think...I think it looks like a heap of shit." Charlie laughed loudly. "Are you sure then?"
Charlie walked past me, patting me on my back as he passed. "Come Trevor, lets take a look at my heap of shit." I smiled and picked up my pace to keep up. Charlie pulled a keychain from his pocket and unlocked the front door. he stepped into the house and began looking around. I went in behind him. "Charlie, why did you move here?" None of this made any sense to me. He told me, "I heard a lot about someplace up here being as hot as hell. I happen to be an authority on the matter so I thought I would have to see for myself and find out what everyone was talking about. I see now that its not as hot as I would have liked, but will make a nice second home. And maybe now that I'm here, I can find a way to turn up the heat."
"This house is amazing!", Charlie shouted. His voice echoed in the empty space. "This will be a great place to plan for the destruction of ... man would you look at this fireplace?" "That will come in handy, its so cold in here." I raised an eyebrow and looked at him sideways. It was 112 degrees outside. Charlie was a bit distracted as he inspected his new home. I just took my time looking around, waiting for moments to ask my questions.
"Where's all your furniture Charlie?", I asked him just as he was about to look in my direction. "It's not my first home, so I'm just having a few things delivered and I'll buy the rest locally. The guys should be here any time now." "What?", I said. "Its almost midnight." Charlie walked into the next room, talking loudly as he went because he wasn't facing me, "I have my own crew. They will do whatever I need." I followed in behind. Charlie stood in the middle of the room. "Wow!" Charlie exclaimed in a loud whisper. "This is an amazing room!" He slowly spun with his arms lifted half way up as if he was presenting the room to a crowd of visitors.
Charlie looked at the aging curtains. He reached out with his right hand and grabbed one, rubbing his fingers and thumb back and forth for a couple of seconds. I walked toward him and tripped over a loose floorboard. I kept from falling down. "You alright?", Charlie asked. "Yeah", I responded. He walked over to the floor board and scuffed a foot over it twice and then lifted his foot and stomped on it as hard as he could. The whole room shook, but the board didn't budge. Charlie scowled and walked away.
The front door squeaked open. I could hear someone walk in. Charlie spun around and walked briskly out of the room. I stayed for a moment. I could hear him giving instructions about which boxes needed to go to which rooms. It must have been his moving crew. "Put those boxes over there in the corner", he told someone. "And those can go in the kitchen." I joined him in the living room. There was a moving guy carrying some boxes into the next room. he must have been working very hard on his last job, because he was filthy.
I read one of the boxes. It said, 'Demon Movers.' "What kind of name is Demon Movers?", I asked. Charlie looked at me with a blank stare and then turned his head back while slow blinking. As his eyes opened, another of his guys squeezed through the front door with a red leather chair. Charlie's face lit up. "Come with me", he said. "Bring it into this room right here." He entered the last room we were in, the moving guy struggling right behind him. I came into the room last, thinking about how I had already seen this room and wanted to move on. "Right there. Put it right there", Charlie instructed. "Right up against that wall next to the floor lamp." I must have been tired, because I thought I had seen four glowing spots on the floor as if they were place markers for the chair legs. Even stranger, the moving guy placed the chair right where I imagined the spots.
Charlie walked to the chair. He reached out and caressed the leather. He closed his eyes and stood silent. It looked like he was communicating with the chair. "This is one strange dude", I thought. He opened his eyes as he turned his head toward me. He looked at me as if he had heard what I had just thought. "Come Trever. Come sit" I didn't want to, but I walked over to the chair. It looked kind of creepy. He extended his arm , palm up, offering the empty chair. "Go on, sit", he insisted. Reluctantly, I sat, but only on the front edge of the seat. It was hard and uncomfortable. I would rather be standing. Charlie smiled to himself. His face expressed a mixture of both understanding why I might be reluctant, mixed in with his wondering why I didn't just give myself over to the chair.
I thought about pushing back into the chair. Maybe the rest of the seat was softer than the front edge of this damn thing. My ass was already going numb. As I was about to shift back, the whole house shook. The front door had been swung open with such force, the house further settled into the ground. "What the hell was that?", I asked. Charlie smiled. "I have someone for you to meet", he replied. I moved my eyes from the doorway and looked at Charlie for only a second and then right back at the door way.
She was just standing there from out of nowhere. There were no footsteps across the floor from the front door. Her shoes looked like they were engineered by a tank manufacturer. A quick run throughout the house in those shoes would probably bring the whole place down. How did I not hear those things knocking the shit out of the floor boards? "Trevor, I would like you to meet Valerie, My queen."
If you like where this is going, be sure to upvote. Depending on the response, I can continue the story. Even I don’t know what happens next. I’m just making it up as I go. I’m hoping I can get enough upvotes, because I also want to know where this story is going.
When writing a story like this, it becomes a mixture of writing and then bringing in images to match. But it also works the other way, where I’ll be working on an image and come across another image that does not yet have anything to do with the story. I might really like the random image and think about how I would like to use it. And then I figure out a way to write it into the storyline. Sometimes it might be an object and isn’t too hard to include it. Other times I might have a great image of a person that I want to use which could lead to an additional character who didn’t exist until that moment.
I had written this story last night, but somehow deleted it before posting (a very hard lesson learned). Because of the nature of my writing, what I wrote this morning went down a different path. Many aspects were the same of course, but as I wrote it the second time, I made many different choices as I went.
It would be really interesting if I could evolve this process to the point where my followers contribute images and then I have to write a story to match them.
I process all pictures through Photoshop. I will generally start out with stock images and then modify them. For this post, I actually spent $45 on stock images. Lets see if I can get enough up-votes to pay for even one of them. ;-)
I hope you liked this. If so, don’t forget to up-vote, “re-steem”, and invite any whales to do the same.
Thank you so much!