Begin writing with the following sentence: "That was the time he stopped believing ______."

That was the time he stopped believing in armadillos. Irrational you may say and a psychiatrist would probably have more than that to say on the matter, but that was how it was. It happened when he was eight; he'd read about armadillos in a book and something about them had just caught his imagination. His parents had had another one of their major blow out fights and were doing their guilty, happy family routine, so it was a tense day at the zoo. He was so excited about seeing the armadillos, he was hurrying his parents along the paths towards their enclosure; they were speaking in low, tight voices as they followed behind him. They finally reached the enclosure and he ran up to the glass, pressing his face against it, searching. He looked and looked through that glass, peering into every corner of the enclosure as his parents voices got louder and louder behind him.

 "It's not there" he said quietly, to himself, unheard over the shouting behind him. And it was right then, in that moment, seeing his reflection looking back at him in the glass, he just knew. He knew his parents would separate, as they did a month later and proceeded to have a very nasty and messy divorce. It was like he saw a premonition of his future life, living with his Mother who became increasingly depressed and was less and less able to cope, with weekends with his Father, in theory, except that his Father gave more and more excuses as to why he couldn't take him until finally he just stopped seeing him at all. In high school there would be petty crime, graffiti, shop lifting... Then as he got a bit older, dabbling in drugs and drinking too much, just like his Mother. Then his semi-nomadic lifestyle, never staying in one place long, drifting around the country, always thinking there's got to be somewhere better than 'insert the name of whatever town he'd been living in a few months here.'

 It was as if he sensed all this, at eight years old, standing in front of that apparently empty enclosure, listening to his parents yelling, and he felt a sudden anger welling up inside him until he suddenly yelled "There's no such thing as armadillos!" and ran away down the path.

For whatever reason, in years to come that opinion stuck with him, though he never mentioned it to anyone, including himself. But it just stayed there, somewhere in the back of his mind, and sayings like "Prove it! I've never seen/heard that, and why should I believe you?" became commonplace for him.

That is, until one day around his 29th birthday, when he'd picked up and suddenly left another town and failed relationship number 'I've stopped counting' behind him and was just driving in the early morning, somewhere along the Texas and New Mexico border. He had no destination in mind, and very little else in his mind either at that moment, just staring out in front of him, when something moved on the road, just up ahead. He pressed down hard on the breaks, swerved to the right and caught the sandy shoulder, sending him veering right off the road and to a screeching halt in some brush.

He looked back to the road and watched the armadillo that had stopped him, as it safely reached the other side.    

A beginner's guide to getting up in the morning...

The trick is to outwit your morning self. Your night before self is coherent, rational, and aware. Your morning self is devious, sneaky, sleep deprived and willing to tell you anything it has to to get five or ten more minutes in bed. Night before self knows how important it is that you get up in good time tomorrow, it knows you've already been late for work twice this week and that if you do it again you may as well just walk up and slap your boss in the face instead. But not morning self, morning self will tell you that nothing is more important than feeling well rested, that you don't actually need that much time to get ready anyway, and that no one will probably even notice if you show up a few minutes late. These are lies.

Thus, to outsmart morning self, night before self must anticipate these arguments and irrational behaviour and plan for them. For instance, set your alarm with enough time ahead of when you actually need to get up for you to press snooze once or twice; this will fool morning self into thinking it's getting its way, extra sleep, but you still get up with enough time to get ready. Speaking of enough time, whatever you need to do in the morning, allow twice as much time to do it in as it would take you normally, anticipating that your sleepy morning self moves so slowly you could build up a traffic jam of impatient sloth's behind you. Finally, night before self should do as much preparation for morning self as possible; as in choose what you're going to wear the next day and lay it out, put a bowl, spoon, and the box of cereal out on the counter, and if you're taking a lunch the following day, pack it the night before and leave it in an obvious spot, like in front of the front door where you'll trip on it on your way out. This step, though it is often resented by night before self, is very important because it is the equivalent of you being your own butler, handing you things as you go and reminding you of what you need. Failure to do this step results in mishaps like you leaving the house in the morning wearing a crazy, mismatched ensemble with no underwear or socks, or in you forgetting your lunch, umbrella, or anything else you need because your drowsy morning self forgets things or can't be bothered.

So, the key to getting up and getting going in the morning is to remember that it is a battle involving guerrilla warfare between night before self and morning self. I have given you some strategies to employ in this battle, now go forth and conquer, good luck!        

Anita Le Fleur-The Moon Ladder

*Before reading this, please be sure to read the Anita Le Fleur post below it.*

Anita Le Fleur is sitting on the floor of her room. She is drawing away with pens and paper when she hears a noise and looks up. Her Father is outside her second story bedroom window, he waves in at her as he climbs past on a ladder. Anita stares out at him and slowly waves back...

Ruby stares out her bedroom window one night, unable to sleep. She is looking at nothing specific, and thinking of nothing in particular, when suddenly a ladder appears outside. She freezes in terror and stares out the window. Before long, a man appears on the ladder. Ruby is about to yell out in fear, convinced she is done for, but she doesn't have time. The man doesn't even pause at her window, he just keeps on climbing up past it. After a few minutes, when Ruby is fairly certain he's not about to suddenly reappear, she creeps cautiously to the window. Peering out, she can make out almost nothing in the dark, so she carefully opens the window, puts her head out, and looks up. The ladder seems to stretch on and on into the night sky, she can't see the top, and there's no sign of the man. She pulls her head back in, closes the window, gets back into bed, and waits. After a long time feet appear on the ladder, followed by legs, a body, and a head. But just as before, the man doesn't pause or look in the window, he just keeps climbing down and disappears from view. And then the ladder is suddenly gone too! It's like it disappeared behind him.

At work the next day Ruby can't stop thinking about the mysterious man and his apparently magical ladder. She thinks about it all day and wonders if he will reappear that night; and he does! Just like before, the ladder appears, he appears, then disappears up the ladder, then after quite a while he reappears, then disappears, and then so does the ladder. For the next few nights Ruby stays up late and waits for the ladder man, and every night it is just the same. Where does he go? What does he do? Ruby wonders, until finally, one night she waits right by the window, just on the other side of the glass. As the man on the ladder appears she looks right at him and waves. The man sees her and is so surprised he leans back from the window and starts to fall off his ladder, arms windmilling wildly. Ruby quickly throws open the window and grabs him by the front of his shirt, pulling him back to safety. For a minute they just stare at each other, then Ruby says "I'm Ruby, who are you? And why do you climb this magical ladder? And where does the ladder lead?" The man stares back at her, then says "My name is Paul and I climb the ladder up into the night sky, where I light the moon." Ruby blinks. "But the moon is always light; you can even see it during the day sometimes." To which Paul replies "Yes, but it's brighter at night isn't it? Someone has to turn up the brightness, well that someone is me." "Oh" Ruby says, then pauses. "Can I come up with you?" After a long moment of thought and deliberation Paul decides to let Ruby join him, just this evening, to light the moon.

Ruby climbs out the window behind him and together they climb and climb until they stand at the top of the ladder, beside the moon. Paul lets go of the ladder and jumps lightly onto the surface. "Let go" he says, reaching out his hand. Ruby is nervous, she looks out at the stars, then back at Paul, then she lets go of the ladder and floats towards the surface of the moon. Paul takes her hand and guides her down. Her feet touch the surface, it's smooth and a little bit soft, she smiles. Paul shows her the contraption, with all its levers and dials, which he uses to turn up the brightness of the moon, and how it then slowly fades until he turns it up again the next night. "Why is the moon brighter some nights than others?" Ruby asks. "Well, sometimes it's the weather, you can see it better on some nights than others, but mostly it depends on my mood. Sometimes, if I'm happy and in a good mood I like to make it a bit brighter." He smiles at her, then turns the brightness right up, she smiles back. Ruby and Paul spend almost all night on the brightly glowing moon, admiring the stars and picnicking on moon cheese. Finally, they climb back down the ladder to Ruby's bedroom window. "Well, good morning Ruby" he says. "Good morning Paul, see you tomorrow night!"

Every night after that Ruby met Paul at her window to talk before he climbed up to light the moon. Over time, they fell in love, and then Paul lived with Ruby and she would see him off every night at their bedroom window as he started climbing the magical ladder... The moon had never shone so brightly.

Anita Le Fleur is enjoying the view from the roof of her house very much; she leans her head back and stares up at the sky. Just then, her Father reappears at the top of the ladder. He stares at her, mouth hanging open. "Anita?? What are you doing up here?? How did you even get up here? Right, wait there I'll come and get you and carry you down, your Mother's going to have a thing or two to say about this I shouldn't wonder..." 

Anita Le Fleur

Rough waves tossed and collided, sending spray into the air. The choppy waters rose and fell, throwing ships about. But one by one they rode majestically over the swell, cargo ships, fishing boats, a large yellow duck...

Anita paused. She carefully observed the frothy bath water around her. Upon further consideration perhaps the rubber duckie wasn't in keeping with the feel she was going for. She carefully picked him up and placed him at the side of the tub. Perhaps in a different scenario Mr Duck.

Just then her Mother came in. "Anita! Look at this, there's water everywhere, the whole floor is soaked! What have you been doing in here!?" Anita stared at her neutrally. "Rough seas" she stated. Her Mother sighed and left.

Anita Le Fleur is five and three quarter years old. She is a creator of worlds, which she populates with people and events according to her tastes and in keeping with the worlds in which they exist. These are her stories.

*Now, a small editorial note here. Anita Le Fleur is a collection of little stories I'm working on, so whenever I have one in this series I will just post it under the 'Anita Le Fleur' heading, possibly with an additional title, like the one directly after this. These stories are designed, as mentioned, to be from the mind of a young child, parts of them come from musings I remember having when I was little, but I think following a train of thought into your own world is a common trait of most children; a delightful one which it's a shame we don't do more of as adults. These stories are meant to have (hopefully) a child-like feel to them, but they are also only first drafts, so they may be quite rough around the edges. That being said...as you were, pardon the interruption, do carry on!*

It was the first time he had ever gotten into a fight, and it was in a _______ of all places (I chose 'petting zoo').

It was all the fault of that damn goat. Well, the chicken helped, but most of the blame lay squarely with that little grey goat. But did anyone want to hear about how the goat (and the chicken) started it? No, it was all Garry's fault according to them. Garry, an accountant with a major city bank, who really had no business being in a petting zoo in the first place since he wasn't much of an animal person anyway, not since he found his goldfish, Fred, floating belly up in its bowl when he was five. Since then Garry had always kind of associated animals with his abandonment issues... Anyway, the point was, he'd been in charge of his niece for the day and he was returning to his sister's house with a black eye, a ban from Pete's Petting Zoo, home of fluffy animals and fun, and straw all over his expensive slacks and sweater combo. He'd taken his niece to the petting zoo because he thought she'd enjoy it. By the time he discovered he was supposed to get in the pen with the animals it was too late to change his mind. So he was in the pen, trying not to invade the personal space of a grumpy looking sheep, when a chicken decided to try for a better view by hopping up on the back of a little grey goat. There were three problems with this, the first was that the goat was not expecting it, the second was that the goat was standing right behind Garry when he was startled into charging forward, the third was that the large gentleman in front of Garry had a temper and didn't take kindly to being shoved into the mud, especially when you blame it on a goat. Damn goat. And your chicken too.

Write a scene where the only spoken dialogue is "Uh-huh," "Umm," "Urrr," and "Mm-mmm."

Walter and Sam stood there, just staring. After a minute or two Sam looked at Walter, raised an eyebrow. Walter nodded his head slowly and kept staring. "Uh-huh" he said. Minutes passed as Sam and Walter watched a completely shit-faced Riley stumble around, bottle in hand, murmuring to himself. Suddenly, Riley veered sharply to the left and started to pick up some speed as he swayed and stumbled along. "Umm..." Sam ventured hesitantly. But it was too late, Riley's feet got all tangled up and with a grace-less twisting motion he fell...right into that giant mud puddle that had been slowly developing near the cattle pens for about a week now. A startled "Urrr" and a few bubbles were emitted from down in the muck where Riley's face had landed. "Mm-mmm" sighed Walter with a long, slow shake of his head. "Mm-mmm" responded Sam. Then they headed over to pull him out.

You've just realized that you've lost something valuable in a nightclub (a necklace, a wallet, a phone). What happens next?

Shit. I can't believe I left my phone...where would I have put it down? I was dancing, then I went to get a drink and sat on that bench tucked back in the corner... then I checked the time on my phone... it must be there, it might still be there, I mean it's kinda tucked away. "No, excuse me, I just have to get back in for a minute, I left my phone. Yes, here look, I have a stamp! Thanks."

Damn, it's not here. "Excuse me, have you seen a phone? I think I left it here... No?" "Bartender, hey! Hey, excuse me, has anyone turned in a phone? It's black and has... No? You're sure? Ok, thanks anyway..." Great, well I guess I know what I'm going shopping for tomorrow...

"Hello. Yes this is she. Yeah, I did, last night. Really? Fantastic! I can't believe someone actually found it! And tried to return it that is. Thanks so much, why don't we meet at the corner of Smith and Eighth, there's this great little coffee place called... Yeah, that's the one, you know it? Great, I'll see you there, thanks again!"

"Hey Mum, Dad, this is... what, do you know each other? How can you know each other, we've only been dating two months and I haven't...my phone?... Wait, so, when you found my phone you called the numbers in my contact list until you found someone who could give you my home phone number to call so you could return it, and you chatted to people along the way, ending with my Mum? Wow, that's...really sweet actually. A little creepy too maybe, sure, but sweet. Thank you."

Tell a story that begins with a ransom note...

The ransom note arrived the way any other piece of mail might. It appeared in the mailbox on a Monday morning in a plain white envelope with a blue stamp. I never liked Mondays. Who does? But this white envelope, with its blue stamp...this one contained a life. The words on the single sheet of paper in the white envelope with the blue stamp detailed the two directions a life could go. It could go on, or it could stop. The terms of this direction were what you would expect, lots of money. Cliché, but what else were they going to ask for? No one barters a life for an endless supply of avocados or a good parking space in the city. It always has to be lots of money, they'll decide what to do with it later. So really, the price of a person's life has not been set in this moment, its worth will be determined later in quantities of yachts in the Caribbean, seaside villas, or fast cars and friendly company perhaps? But it never goes that far. It never comes to that. People in exotic locales translating the worth of a stranger's life into material goods and services. From the words on the single sheet of paper, in the plain white envelope with the blue stamp a counter plan will be hatched. Professionals will do what they do best, money will stay in bank accounts, and the life in the envelope will go on being lived, they'll be home by Wednesday. I always liked Wednesdays.