After the realization (which occurred about twelve seconds ago) that I may be very close to forgetting how to write, I have formulated a plan. I don't mean I'm forgetting how to write persuasive, witty commentary -- you can't lose something you never had. What I mean is, I'm actually forgetting how to write in the quite literal sense; sentence formulation being at the base of it.

I could blame the system. I could blame the government. I could blame this world (for making a good man evil). But I won't do that. I think mostly I'll blame my university degree. What with communicating entirely in either predicate calculus or clingfilm wrapped around a banana and painted orange with a shoehorn stuck in it to represent life itself, there hasn't been much room for the English language.

So my plan is this: no one has to read this entry. I'm quite confident everyone will abide by those guidelines anyway. But what I am going to do (see? There I go, beginning a sentence with a conjunction. Damned amateur!) is raid the writer's block archives and provide a one-paragraph answer to as many as I can before I fall asleep at the wheel. Hopefully I'll slowly be able to maneuver my way back through the canyons and crags of the written word or, failing that, at least get in some good rocking spelling practise.

First prompt: Robert Frost speculated about the world ending in fire or in ice. Which do you think is likely to end us all: meteorite, global warming, nuclear weapons, zombies, or the superflu?

Thought I'd pick a nice cheery one to start things off. But then I didn't. My opinion has always been; none of the above. I'm no expert on the matter of the apocalypse, but it seems to me that with stars exploding all over the place and planets being destroyed, what gives Earth the right to think that it's exempt from the unbridled forces of the universe just because it sustains a bit of life on it? I am by no means qualified to have an opinion, but I think the universe is perfectly capable of destroying itself, thank you very much.

Our friends don't always know us as well as they think, particularly when it comes to likes and dislikes. Which popular book, movie, band, food, TV show, etc. would your friends be surprised to hear that you don't like?

My friends know very well which foods I don't like, but never cease to appear surprised. One of the great assaults on the taste-buds, in my opinion, is tomato sauce -- which obviously poses a problem, being that I've lived my entire life in New Zealand and never touched more than a rosebud of the stuff. I also don't like pasta or any other sort of food with a spaghettiesque structure. I don't like sushi, rice or baked beans. I don't like quiche or, indeed, anything which comprises itself almost wholly of a fluffy egg texture. I should stop now, before I get uninvited from all your dinner parties. To actually answer the question, though, I think my friends - those who I haven't already told - would be surprised to hear that I didn't like reading The DaVinci Code, nor do I (and this is where I really seal my fate), apart from a handful of songs, very much like Led Zeppelin as a whole. And (there I go again with the conjunctions) I really can't stand the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

If you could live in any era of history, which one would you choose?

I think I would have chosen, whilst being no historian, from the late 1950s-early 1960s onwards. I wouldn't want to go too far back, because then you've got hangings and witch-burning's to deal with knowing my luck. The middle of the 20th century seemed to have the most kick before mankind sort of tapered off into a dormant state for the turn of the milennium. People tried to get things done. I'm not saying they succeeded (clearly), but the spark of certainty that one was actually alive and functioning at a conscious level seemed not yet to have been entirely extinguished.

Do you ever do anything now which you swore you would never do when you were younger? What is it?

When I was nine, like every nine-year-old, I swore I would never like boys. I'm beginning, now, to move away from that way of thinking.

It's Limerick Day! Share a favorite or compose your own humorous five-line poem with an AABBA structure.

There once was a student from Auckland
Who had to write a limerick in shorthand
But couldn't think up
Any aural link-up
Or anything that rhymed with 'lemons'

Up late, each pore of mine felt like it was gathering a tiny pool of sweat, but never enough to wipe away. I didn't want to open the windows because I'd known from a very young age what lights on inside and an open window equaled... especially being top of the menu to every flea I'd ever met. That being said, the room had been shrinking for the last half hour and I needed to let out some of the pressure. It was baking me alive. The laptop on my crossed legs wasn't helping either - I'd found it legitimate to consider the difference between bold underline and underline bold.

Everything around me seemed just a little bit taboo. Reaching out to touch something as simple as a coffee mug on my desk, in the hot, intoxicating small hours seemed to hold a hidden consequence that I couldn't know until I tried.

One of the things I want to do this year is read more. And I have been doing so. But, all this reading more is making me want to write more. So, I did so. It's just a short story, and I don't even know if anyone will read it, but I happen to actually like it, which is a nice change.

- - -

Poison Theory
By Sarah McCarthy

I could see the concern in his expression as soon as he tilted the neatly-cut glass back to down the last of his whiskey, and saw the soggy white substance - not quite dissolved - chase it down. Much slower than the liquid, but fast enough for him to quickly snap the glass back onto a horizontal axis.

“What is that?” He asked, squinting one eye into the bottom of his glass and sweeping a finger around inside it, coming away with a tiny gob of what looked like wet plaster. But of course, we both knew that was the one thing it wasn’t. The plaster part, anyway -- it did certainly appear to be wet, though

I shrugged, feet up on the desk, crossed at the ankles, and took a sip of my own drink. It hadn’t registered that perhaps I should check my own.

He looked up at me sharply, apparently shocked that I hadn’t rushed to his side, cooing and asking ‘who’s a big boy?’. The white substance was now evenly smeared over the pads of his thumb and forefinger, from him checking the consistency. I’m not sure what he’d been expecting to gage from that. Soft, fine, grainy -- anyone could see that just from looking at it. It certainly wasn’t Camembert.

“How can you be so nonchalant? Someone dosed me… or - or poisoned--”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic.” I shot back, successfully bringing the curtain down on his amateur production. “You don’t know that.”

This, apparently, didn’t impress him at all.

“Don’t… don’t know that?” He was even beginning to stutter. He held up his finger, with traces of whatever was in the bottom of his glass barely even visible now. “How much more evidence do I need?"

“Evidence?” I repeated, raising my eyebrows then lowering them back instantly into a frown. “You’re getting serious. Me no likey.”

I picked up a deck of cards (luckily within reach, since the blood had drained from my feet and it was much easier to just keep them crossed on the edge of the desk than face the wave of pins and needles) and began shuffling, hoping to create a diversion from the suddenly sapped atmosphere. I dealt us two each.

“It’s nothing.” I insisted, lifting the edge of my two cards to peer underneath. Then, because I knew he’d either argue with that, or yell at me, or both, I added; “Do you feel any different?”

He lifted one eyebrow at me, something which was normally my specialty. “You mean, do I feel high? Or do I feel like I’m about to roll my eyes back into my head and keel over?”

“Either.” I let the statement contort my facial features in an appropriately condescending fashion.

“Neither.” He repeated after a moment, defeated, as if the fact that he might NOT die any minute was a disappointment to him. “But what about the --”

“Probably just soap residue that was already on the glass. Will you drop it?” I said as I dealt the flop. Three cards - ace, king (both hearts) and a six of diamonds. A good bunch. I say good in the general sense of the word because, sitting on a three and a seven - spades and diamonds - they weren’t actually good for me at all.

When I looked up again, he seemed to have considered and partially accepted my half-assed guess as an explanation, but he still hadn’t looked at his cards. I saw that his fingers had drifted across his lap to his wrist, where he was idiotically trying to check his pulse. Again, I couldn’t tell what he expected to conclude, aside from the fact that the matter was definitely not dropped.

“I’m not gonna indulge you.” I said, sure he must have felt my eyes digging holes in him -- holes he wasn’t already digging himself from the face-reddening concentration he seemed to be putting into his pulse-taking. “You’re being paranoid.

“Paranoid?” His head snapped back up again. “Paranoid is…” He took a moment, in order to truly define what ‘paranoid is’. “Paranoid is checking the back of your neck each morning for a tracking device, or being constantly afraid that the men in the white coats and butterfly nets are coming to get you --”

“To be fair,” I interrupted. “If you’re already doing the first thing, I’m not sure that second one is avoidable

“Paranoid is NOT,” he ignored my quip. “being concerned about a powdery substance in the bottom of a whiskey glass.” He poked at it again with his finger.

I shrugged again, and laid down the Turn. Seven of clubs. Good, at least now I had something, even if it was only a pair of sevens. Not that it would matter -- I seemed to be the only one really playing, given that I was still the only one who’d looked at my cards.

Not that anyone else should be looking at my cards, but that’s not what I meant.

“What other explanations are there?” He continued, and I’m sure I felt a nerve flinch in annoyance. “It’s either a drug, or a poison.”

“Or soap powder.” I countered.

“ Kind of unlikely…”

“You’re not feeling any effects!” I almost shouted, impatience knocking.

“That doesn’t matter.” He insisted, now seeming hell-bent on his poison theory being right, regardless of what it meant for him. “Whatever it was had been dissolved, therefore diluted. It might take longer to kick in.”

I cocked an eyebrow, not sure if that was how it worked. “You’re gonna wait with baited breath to see whether you cough up blood or start seeing magical Liopleurodons?”

“Sure.” He insisted, although he was already beginning to fidget with the top button of his shirt. “My patience is pretty good, actually.”

“Right.” I said, and dealt the last card - the River. I’ll never understand why they call it that. “You did a lot of mail-order when you were a kid.”

“Something like that.”

I sighed, crucifying my poker face as I realized the last card I’d laid down was a Jack - also hearts. No help there. I threw in my cards -- the international gesture for ‘I’m beat, fellas. What’s next?’. I was certain I’d lost the one-sided game, even though my opponent hadn’t touched his cards, nor looked at mine staring at him face-up from the table, almost writhing in inadequacy.

“You’re not poisoned, and you’re not drugged.” I said for what felt like the tenth time, even though I think I’d only said it once before.

“Why are you so sure?” He asked, then something seemed to come to him, like a sudden and unexpected punch in the face. He looked at me in a different sort of way… not the way one friend should look at another. “Was it you?”

“What?” I asked, not sure myself whether the question was because I didn’t understand what he was asking, or because I did.

“You know what this is, don’t you?” He asked, going from mild to accusatory in four and a half seconds. “You know because you put it in here.”

“Don’t be… are - are you…” I struggled to find a sentence which would appropriately express my outrage. “Are you accusing me of slipping you a dangerous drug?”

“Or poison.” He piped up like a school kid in class.

“Your poison theory doesn’t fit!” I sighed, exasperated.

“So it is drugs.” It was like he was asking me directly now, rather than for my opinion. He was asking for the answers he knew - thought he knew - I had. He pretty much had me convicted.

“Look, I don’t always rinse the glasses out properly. Sometimes soap scum builds up. That’s it.” I said for the third time. “Let me know if you start seeing pretty colors, otherwise drop it.

There was a short pause, then he stood up and took his jacket off the back of the chair, shrugging it on. He was back to mild again, and just as quick.

“I’m going home.” He said. I raised an eyebrow.

“You’re convinced that you’ve got slow-acting drugs coursing through your bloodstream and you’re gonna drive?” I asked, wondering whether his concerns had been as bad as he’d made out at all.

“I’ll take the bus.” He said, proving that indeed they had been.

I didn’t say anything as he left, just drained my own glass and lowered my legs off the desk. My feet started to prickle and get hot as gravity righted the blood flow.

I leaned across the desk, and cautiously - even though I knew I was alone - lifted the corner of his cards which still lay untouched.

Queen and Ten, both hearts.

I looked at the cards laid out on the table, quickly realizing that he had the one hand which had eluded me - and many other card players - all my life: a straight flush, ace high. Also known as a Royal Flush. And he didn’t even know it. The probability of getting one of those was less than 0.01 out of a hundred. After a few moments, I realized my mouth was open, and shut it, sitting back in my chair.

I’d been surprised at how easily paranoia had given way to acceptance. Maybe he just truly didn’t want to believe he’d been slipped something - especially not by his best friend.

Even stranger, I’d never said that I hadn’t.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... but mostly it was the best of times. Winter was slowly perishing behind us, and a brighter future lay ahead both figuratively and literally. For most of us, High School was nearly over forever and some of us had just purchased a new coffee mug with the Starbucks logo on it for a reasonable price. Things were looking up.

But alas, this tale not labors the fortunate few,
who get most out of life and start each day anew
with a breath in and out... even a heartbeat or two.

The Ghost of E14, this grim, miserable soul,
who wanders the halls to keep out of the snow
but snow cannot touch incorporeal bones
she returns to her resting place to shudder alone.

Listen now, but draw the curtains tight.
This is best read alone on a still, dead night.
Fire up a candle, you may need the light.
Because this story is scary, not because you have bad eyesight.

Well, I don't know. You might.

Anyway.

T'was a dark and stormy night,
when the wails, rattles, shudders and screams of The Ghost of E14 tore down the hallways of upstairs E-block (and probably a bit of downstairs, too, if the insulation is anything to go by). This tortured soul, this epitome of innate misery, had just realized she had gotten into her sleeping bag without brushing her teeth.

Papers swirled around the classroom, joining her in anger as she got up and crossed the room, seizing her ghostly toothbrush out of the filing cabinet and trying to think of anything else she might need before getting back into bed. She had been lucky with this filing cabinet, managing to take out all drawers but one to convert it into her cleverly disguised closet/medicine cabinet, with still a bit of space to store essay papers. Modern decor never fails. So far, she'd managed to keep her students away from it, but there had been an incident today which had shaken her. A boy in her Year 13 English A class - bright boy, bit hyperactive - had asked her for his marked essay back.

"It's in the filing cabinet." She had replied foolishly, and she cursed herself for that foolishness now (not literally cursed though, cause you know, ghosts can't do that. Really only witches and demons can do that).

"Okay." He had said so casually, never even considering that he was only inches away from discovering her deadliest secret. After all, the school board is never too impressed to find a teacher living in their classroom. All the more, if they found out she was a semi-tranlucsent ghost confined to the final resting place of her classroom, tortured and cursed to teach mediocre English students for all eternity, having killed and possessed the real English teacher, she'd be fired for sure!

Realizing she had made a crucial mistake, she stretched out an alarmed hand as if to pull him back through sheer force of will. Eyes bugging out, she screamed; "Noo!!" The boy had jumped, alarmed, and she took the opportunity to dash in front of him, open the cabinet a crack and pull an extended text paper out.

"I'll get it." She panted, trying to sound casual as she crushed the paper into his hands.

"Miss, this isn't my paper." The pest had complained, but she was too close to give up now.

"Yes it is. You're Kevin, aren't you?"

"Rober-"

"Close enough. What are you complaining about, anyway?" she waved him off, indicating he grade. "You got an excellence. Now go sit down."

When he finally had turned away to go back to his seat, eyeing her with what appeared to be great caution, immense relief flooded through her - better than anything she had ever felt before. It was better than redemption, better than seafood salad, better than learning to use her new eftpos card! One more obstacle had been overcome, and while she swore to herself she'd never be as careless again, her secret was safe - for now.

Back to present time, her ghostly teeth had been brushed
The cleaners had gone, the building was hushed
And she pushed down her worries, as we all must
The Ghost of E14, alone with the dust

To be continued... by someone other than me.

No, really. I did.

I'd almost forgotten that the latest issue of the College Herald was out this morning, and took a detour on my already-too-long-for-time route to buy it. I have a habit now of not looking at it until I'm at school in my form class (or first period class, depending on how late I am). So once I was warm inside H6, I looked at the first page and there was my latest article. I thought 'cool'. Then I saw the blue box with 'Editor's Choice' printed inside. I thought 'omgYAY!'.

So that's pretty much the whole, slightly mundane story. I'll get to go to the award ceremony again and I'll get a new laptop for college! I'm glad too, because the one I have now is not too good. Well, it is pretty good for a nine-year-old laptop. But I was meaning more in the grand scheme of things.