And I'm off...

National Write a Novel in a Month has officiall begun, and this morning, I wrote the prelude to my novel, so I figued I'ld share.

Enjoy

Prelude:

It was a dark and stormy night, with the subtle exception that it was neither dark, nor stormy, nor was it night, for life in the Midwest would NEVER qualify for anything even relatively as interesting of a start as “it was a dark and dreary night”.

No, rather it was a plain, drab Midwestern winter day. A day where snow would burn ones retinas out with little more effort then an elephant crushing a cockroach while accidentally sneezing.

This was the type of day it was, bright, snowy, blindly drab when Joshua arrived at his woodshed of an apartment in the dreary suburban hollow of Grover’s Grove Minnesota. When Joshua had first read about the apartment in the Grover’s Grove classifieds, he distinctly remembered words such as “quaint”, “studio”, “spacious”, and “breathtaking view of a lake”. However upon viewing the place, he found that it was little more then an 8X8 back room of a run down house with a stove, a closet, and a small rectangular window that overlooked a sewage treatment lagoon.

But on the salary of a Wal-Mart employee, the price was right.

Grover’s Grove was the type of community that old people went to die. Well, not so much die but slowly fade into obscurity and banality. Grover’s Grove was not without it’s charms mind you. The local Wal-Mart was the social hub that any swinging night club would be, without the music, or high society drinks, or…well culture. But it was a good place for one to go and converse about things such as the weather. As things were in Grover’s Grove, much of the talk about the weather revolved around…snow. Occasionally it would focus on things like tractors, and corn. However, since there were few tractors and even fewer cornfields to be found at this time of year, much of the conversation revolved around snow.

Hideously, mind numbingly dull conversations on snow.

So, when Joshua arrived at his hovel after a hard day of folding shirts into neat little piles at his menial job at a menial outlet store in a menial suburb, he found it rather enlightening to discover that his small cubicle that he called home was in fact on fire. For it would mean that tomorrows conversation would not, in fact, revolve around snow.

“This wonderfull,” He said aloud to his landlord Suzanne, who was running around wildly with her arms flailing like a goose who had just been sucked into a jet engine. “Thank you, thank you Jesus.”

Suzanne was a woman of rather stout nature, whom one could conceivably call “pretty” only if “ugly” was rapidly bringing up the tail of said compliment. She wore her weight poorly, like a sumo wrestler that had let himself go. Her matted red hair fell across her forehead like straw falling out of the lower intestines of a milk cow. Half obscured was, in fact, a preferred way of viewing her, as her face was horribly scarred with a rash breakout of acne which had developed shortly after the release of Domino’s “steak lovers pizza”.

“Joshua” she shouted with a voice that reminded him of Satan, if Satan had in fact just inhaled 500 leters of helium and had just taken a good whacking to his privates. “The building’s on fire.”

“So I noticed.” He said, staring with a cheery expression.

“Whub, it’s…AIIIEEEE….FIRE!” She screamed amid throwing her hands up and subconsciously reciting an ancient Native American rain dance in the hopes that the Great Spirit could be bothered long enough to send a quick shower.

He didn’t, instead, he sent more snow.

And this time, it wasn’t the pleasant snow that you so oft find in Christmas greeting cards, the kind that gently kisses evergreen trees with the light airy wings of butterflies as they dance across the heavens.

No, the Great Spirit, who at this particular time had grown quite prissy from playing hand after losing hand of strip poker with the ancient god Nebaroo, decided to just piss on the situation at hand.

He sent snow, snow unlike anything the world ever experienced. A snowfall so horrible that, upon watching the morning news coverage of it caused Rolland Emerich to stand up and scream “YOU SEE, YOU SEE YOU FOOLS! DAY AFTER TOMORROW COULD HAPPEN JUST LIKE I SHOWED! AND EBERT CLAIMED IT WAS NOTHING MORE THEN A HORRIBLY CRAFTED EXCUSE FOR LIBERAL PROPAGANDA! THE FOOLS! THE FOOLS!”

The Great Spirit sent the equivalent of a Category 5 Hurricane in snow, which fell, oddly enough, in the shape of Ludwig Von Beethoven’s Signature across a 2 mile area. With the exception of the “I” in Ludwig, which was terribly misshapen and somewhat resembled a Q. This can be contributed to Suzanne’s horrible jello like form contorting wildly during her ill timed freak-out.

And quite unfortunately, Joshua’s building fell smack dab in the upper curly-q of the “B” of Beethoven, and thus was completely unaffected by the saving grace of having 500,000 gallons of frozen water dropped on top of a rather hot object.

In fact, the only thing that it DID actually do in regards to the situation at hand, was to completely isolate the burning building from the rest of the outside world, making it completely impossible for the fire department to actually come to the rescue.

This, in fact, wouldn’t have made much of a difference at all, since the Fire Department in Grover’s Grove consisted of a single, often drunken, Vietnam vet who would fly into flashback induced convulsions as soon as he saw the smallest of flame. This, would oft cause quite a humorous confrontation at local bars when someone tried to light a Zippo to take a drag off of their cigarette. With the Fire Marshal convulsing and often times leaping across the billiard table and trying to smother the 9 ball with his body thinking it was a live grenade.

Needless to say, Joshua was rather screwed, and yet, oddly happy over the entire affair. That was until he came to the realization that his prized possessions were in fact no leaving this plane of existence in one horrible pillar of smoke.

“My baseball cards.” He said in despair. “I was so close to having a complete set.”

The complete set in question was that of the 1987 baseball season, produced by the Topps baseball card and bubble gum company. He had taken this rather menial task when he returned home from watching his first baseball game at the tender age of 12. And he had come so close, missing only card #204, Sammy Stewart.

The complete irony of the situation was lost on him, as Sammy Stewart himself was only barely aware that he had even played major league baseball in 1987, much less that there was a card issued of him for that year.

Trapped within a wall of ice with a raving walrus of a woman, and discovering that his life work was slowly drifting away to the heavens, Joshua despaired.

And from the heavens, Beethoven smelt the acrid smoke of burning bubble gum looked down, noted his signature, and began waiving his arms furiously at the misshapen “I” in Ludwig. This, quite unfortunately, accidentally prompted the third chair Angel to begin a trumpet solo.

And the Gods all crapped themselves, because like it or not, the big song had begun, and like the bastards they were, they were completely unprepared.

This was indeed going to be one crappy Apocalypse.