Project 4: Tape/Sandpaper and Project #?: Sewing

"I've done it!" yelled the man. "I've figured out how to live forever!"


He stepped back and admired his work, four and a half black boards full of equations and theories and philosophies and geographic locations. He had done it.


He looked around for someone to tell, but there was nobody in the room, so he rushed out into the hall, but still found no one.


He ran out of the university, into the streets, into the shops, restaraunts and appartment complexes. He ran into theaters and gymnasiums and yet he found no sign of anyone.


He sat on the rooftop of the house he had always dreamt of buying. He ran stop lights and wore a dirty tee shirt to a reservations-only restaraunt. For a time, these things kept him happy, but soon the emptyness began to consume him.


He became delusional, losing all track of time and space, of self, everything.


Inside the university, the trainee looked up from the blackboard, now half erased. "Why do we do it?" he asked. "Why do we keep erasing it?"


"I don't know," said his superior. "I don't get paid to care. Now hurry up and get that last bit so we can get out of here."


So the trainee took one last look at the remenants of the equation. "The secret to living forever is to search for the answer to living forever!" Such a strange thing, thought the trainee, but he simply shrugged and wiped the board clean.


Eventually the man, now fully in the throes of madness, found his way back to the university. He stumbled from room to room until he came upon the grand hall with five large blackboards.


He made his way across the room, reading the discernable bits. Hints of math, bits of theory, snippits of philosphy, and rough sketches of various locations. "Astounding," he said. "I think I can solve this." He pressed his fingers lightly to the board. "I can solve this. I know how to solve this."

So he grabbed the chalk from the tray and got to work.

Project 3: Water/Transparency

"I don't know about this," said Arianna, looking around the room for a sympathic face. "I heard this sort of stuff was dangerous." But nobody agreed. No one spoke up. They just placed their hands on the planchette.


Defeated, Arianna stared back at the ouiji board, with it's strange numbers and letters, and sat down on the couch with the rest.


Not a second after she laid her hand on the planchette, the lights began to flicker and a strong wind burst through the windows, sending papers billowing across the room. As the papers all fell to the floor, the group saw before them a woman, floating in place beside the lampshade.

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"It's a ghost!" they cheered. "A ghost on our first try!" And so, using the ouiji board, the group asked the ghost questions.


Strangely enough, the ghost seemed to be unspecial in any way. It couldn't possess people or make scary faces. It hadn't died horrbibly, and it had no words of wisdom from beyond the grave. She was just a normal woman. That was it.


Eventually it wasn't worth the effort to spell out the questions, so the group bid the ghost adieu and went off to find something more interesting to do, even Arianna, who was the most disappointed of all.

Project 2: Wood and Scratching

It was Randolph's twelfth birthday. He woke up at 6:14 and ran out to the driveway, ecstatic.


Soon all of the other children emerged from their houses, some holding baloons, others wearing cardboard hats. Each of them staring down the street, waiting, hoping. They were all twelve now, the magical age.



At 8 o'clock sharp, the summoners began to arrive. Some on motorcycles, some on horseback. They rode up right into the driveway and stared the children in the face.


"Okay," said the summoners, "Now that you're 12 we can reveal to you that you're special. You've got a destiny. You're the chosen one. It's up to you." And the children would jump into the spaceship or onto the dragon and fly off towards the world only they could save.


Randolph waited all day, but to no avail. Nobody came for him. He was not special. he had no grand destiny. He was not the chosen one.


"Happy birthday!" yelled his parents as he walked back into his house. "I'm not special," he said, oblivious to the cake and presents laid out upon the table. "I wasn't chosen."


"Oh, but you were chosen," said his mother, kneeling down to look her son in the eyes. "For the most important job of all, just like your father and I."


And so Randolph grew up, got a job, and made a family of his own. Years went by, and as heroes came and went, he and all of the other unchosen children kept the world alive and running. For it was their solemn duty and sacred task to keep it a place worth saving.

(Drawing 3) Project 1: Cardboard and Gravity

"Are you alive?" The scientist grabbed the monster by the shoulders and shook it roughly, searching for any sign of life, any small glimmer of hope.



The monster opened it's eyes. "I am alive," it said, holding it's arms out to it's creator.


The scientist, overwhelmed with joy, embraced the creature. "I love you, father," said the beast. "I love you too son," said the scientist, holding the beast even tighter to him as he wept with joy.



Only after many minutes of embrace did the scientist begin to wonder how the creature had responded, as he had never given it a mouth.

Project 12: 3D to 2D Designs

Who are we if not the records we keep of what we've done?

Project 11: Chest of Drawers

Morrison spent hours under that table, pressed to the door, finger to the trigger of his pocket handgun. He only had one bullet left.

After a time, the groaning outside stopped. The stillness of the world was a deafening cacophony, more torturous even than the hours of endless screams.

Tepidly, he moved his legs, long past falling asleep, out from under his makeshift barricade. Gun at the ready, he made his way slowly up, cringing at every creak of the floor boards.

He stared at the door before him. The windows were boarded up. He only had one way of knowing what was on the outside.

What does a man do when there is nothing left for him here? He must go on. He must go on, he thought. Janice was dead. Elwood was dead. Even Todd Fischer was dead.

He turned the handle slowly, finger on the trigger. His hands were sweating and he feared that should the moment arise, the gun might just slip out of his hands and he would be torn limb from limb.

Finally, he thought of Maria. She wouldn't have wanted him to live like this. That's why she told him to let her go. That's why she handed him the gun and took off her wedding ring. That's why she made him do it. She understood.

He opened the door, and to his surprise, there was no shambling in sight. No moaning. No ripping, tearing, or gnawing to be heard. The zombies were all laying still in the street. From each of their heads there grew a bed of flowers, vibrant and lustrous.

Stiffly, and without a word, he made his way through the house and out the back door. He stood in the yard, overlooking Maria. What had once been a hole in her chest was now a sapling, a great and mighty Redwood, just beginning it's ascent towards the sun.

He laid next to her in the grass. He put her ring back on her finger, and slowly drug her nail against his skin. A single drop of blood was all it took for the infection. All at once he felt it, his cells expanding, his mind awakening. He placed his hand in hers, and felt his chest raise up, as a thousand roots shot from his skin.

And so the Earth was reclaimed, and every love rekindled in the springtime, when the wind blows the wild seeds to new and secret lands.

Project 10: Relief Poster

"Lauren, I have something to show you," said Mayor Habbensworth gravely. "Promise me though....promise me you'll try to understand."

"Anything for you Ted," replied the young red-head, grabbing his hand and holding it to her cheek. "Nothing can tear us apart."

The Mayor took a step back from her and sighed deeply. "It's just that...."

He grabbed a fistful of his own hair and began to pull, his skin stretching and tearing. Shedding his flesh like a loose winter coat, he stood before her, a green cycloptic horror with dripping fangs and eight writhing tentacles.

"It's just that I love you Lauren," said the monster in a dark, husky voice. "Could you ever...I mean...could you..."

Without another word she threw herself on top of him. "Of course Ted, of course I still love you!"

Kissing him fervently all over his slimy exoskeleton, Lauren began to unbutton her blouse. It was at that moment, the Senator from New Jersey entered the room.

"What is going on here?!" shouted the confused, astonished and slightly aroused senator. "Er it's not what it...um...we're....we're doing a weird sexual thing," replied the horrible tentacle monster. "This is uh...what I'm into."

Ted was forced to resign when the media got whiff of the sexual scandal, but 20 years later, married to Lauren, living in a small house in Idaho, he never once did regret revealing his true form to her. Thank goodness nobody else found out though, or he would have had to eradicate mankind.