Das Hier #11

Pay no attention to the eraser that was smartly used to hold the paper down as without it, it would have sat a stupid angle.

My helper Petrie was kind enough to let me use one of his many erasers as he took the photo.

He's no photographer, but he'll do until I can afford a better photographer or a new printer/copier/scanner.

As it is though, the current set up works. I do the art and he takes the credit.

So the candidates to my left, Pencillius Drawshedoes and Smoopsh, an alien from the planet of Smuh are vying to win the role of Das Hier's go to character of February.

They are not the only two in the running for this coveted role, which they are contractually obligated to say, at least once each appearance, whether they want to or not.

But more on them later as I haven't figured out who they will be, so I can't have instructed my aforementioned helper to carry out my vision, in the way that he does.

Yes, he does the actual drawing, but that's only because I don't have hands. And am not real. But those are just details. Trust me, I am the true artist, he's just my tool.

And he's surely not the sharpest tool, but what else can I do? I'm stuck with him.

Even if I came back tomorrow with hands and a body. But I like this just fine as it suits my quiet personality.

Of course, instructing him to put on his big drawer pants for the inside cover of his Mixed Media book of sheets, some of which he is sure to out and sell for a happy buck or seven, means that giving me hands is not high on the list of his priorities.

He has to keep it simple when he draws with inks of all kinds, because there is no safety net with this as there is with lead.

Not surprisingly, I am quite pleased with the job that he did. Or I wouldn't have given it my own seal of approval, which I have just decided to do. Starting now.

When I feel like it that is. I don't want to appear on all the good ones because I'd hate to appear all the time. It's tiring.

But this was supposed to be about them more than it was about me.

At least it should have been, though I am pretty cool in my own right and you will come to love me, Pencillius Drawshedoes and Smoopsh are cool in their own right.

Don't you think?

And they have publicly revealed their identities and I have not. I think that makes them courageous. I'm not ready to reveal what my initials of CP actually stand for.

Yes, it is totally coincidental that my initials are the same as my Petrie helper because believe you me, I could not bear to share the same name.

I've gotten laid far more recently than him for one thing.

Ha ha ha!

Take that Petrie.

Because ain't no one taking...

But I digress. I've embarrassed him enough as it is and who cares about the sex death of my helper anyway?

Yeah, to call it a sex life when it's a lack of one, is foolish. It's sex death.

Though he's far from the only one living with a sex death.

Pay no attention to the eraser, that was how I began the writing day, in the relative lateness of the final hour of the 2nd quarter which is a bad habit that I have fallen into.

And it's one that I need to change but that is easier said than done.

Not that it's stopping me from writing hard like my helpful Petrie who's just all kinds of cool for having done what he did in 2019.

What? You didn't know that he wrote 1,025,805 words? Where have you been, he's been tweeting that out like a drunk writer.

Oh, you don't follow him on twitter? You should, since it doesn't cost you anything. october_fish. 

Mind you, he really should hush about what he did then because that's so last decade and this is the 2020's.

Still, he deserved that shout-out, especially after I called him out for being unlaid for so long.

I'm calling out DHB's writer, whose name escapes me at the moment for having the entirety of the day and failing to write 2000 words with a paltry 1985 written.

I know, it may sound like bragging, but all the days that I've been at work this decade, my writing contributed to days of 2000+ words.

So I'm going to take over this day as he took over yesterdays, with one difference, he failed where I will succeed.

And no, I don't care that he failed as a story writer and I am going to succeed as something else.

The bottom line is word count you dummies and my word count to this point of the day is already 300 words ahead of his.

I win.

Period. 

Fine, I'm not yet ahead in the 3rd quarter, but that's only a matter of time as I'm ahead because of the 2nd quarter, where I wrote like a beast compared to him.

He did better in the 3rd, but as I said, I'll be ahead of his 3rd any moment now.

And if you think I'm going to sleep on the 4th like he did, then'you're just stupid. I've got this.

Also, my 3rd quarter is far from over.

But, should I not try and do a little of what's his face did yesterday and do some story writing to show that I am better than him in all aspects of writing while writting at least 500 words more in my full day than he did in his?

Yes, I surely should. And will! 

I just need to come up with a story. This might take some time. Though I have plenty of that.

So I am not worried.

Even if it takes me until the 4th quarter to come with that story, I'll still be ready to not only slip past what he did, but to better it by at least the promised 500 words.

And that ain't no slinging of bull. 

I can only hope that what's his face finds it in him to reply next week with a bounce back effort that brings him back in line with all the other days of the decade save for that lone day.

Well, it won't be the only day where one of us is a part of substandard day, because we are sensible and have emergency valvbe days, like yesterday's though neither one of us were thinking that it would happen so quickly into the new decade, because we both want to be a part of a millionized year, which would be akin to staking our claim as champions of the world.

So you can be sure that I will do my best on days like this where I am in charge of the writing of the day, where I will do better than he did each and every time.

Yes, what's his face should take this as a throwing down of the gauntlet, even though I am sure that he won't be able to pick it up because it's too heavy for him to lift,

Ha ha! 

Full confession time. I did what I was sure that I would not do when I knocked out as I was watching Family Feud Canada.

So I'm no better than him, in that regard. But I still have time to live up to my bold words and better his hand in the sad tally of not quite 2000 words. Not that there's anything wrong with a day where you write 1985 words, but being a part of a millionized year makes  that kind of tally substandard.

And substandard just won't cut it, which is why I must do better than him, because I refuse to be weak and go down like a wuss like he did. 

Plus I would be part of back to back to substandard days, which would make me worse than him. At least in my own eyes.

But that will not happen to me, I am going to bring honour back to the Das Hier family. 

Sadly, I don't think I'll be doing it with the help of a story as I just couldn't figure one out, though, I put some simple lines together and it came out looking very much like a little body of water with fish and as I was drawing it, a soon not to be fish that was leaving the water for the last time.

Now we all came from the ocean before we came from Africa, but I wouldn't be saying that this fish leaving the water for the last time is us, because for that to be true, it would have to be set in the pre-historical past which would require an ungodly amount of research for it to resonate at any goodly level.

And I don't know about what's his face, but research is so not my thing.

So if it comes to whisper in my mind as a story, it won't be set in the distant past.

Of course, I'll have to figure out a reason why a fish is leaving the comfort of the water as he's about to evolve and there hasn't been any known evolution amongst the fish that we know of.

But it's of the genre where things like this happen.

Oh, yes. SciPow, which is not a genre to the best of my knowledge but the idea of it works as there's an overlap between science fiction and powers.

Only it won't be tonight that I figure this story out., as much as I would have liked it to, especially as it would have allowed to lord it over what's his face with both the tally and the quality of the writing because I am certain sure that my idea would of course be better than his.

What's become clear to me though is that he will have one thing over me, even as I will have the all important over all tally.

He will own the 4th quarter as I am too far distant from matching what he did.

Or that is how it is right now, though I have an hour to make up the distance. All I have to do is write another 945 words, in said hour, which while not impossible by any means, sure doesn't feel like something I am going to manage to do tonight.

Though I did get the surprise of Nos Glorieux winning, which has been stupidly rare since before the final weeks of the last decade.

And the early days of this decayear has been even more wretched, if that was even possible with bitter loss after bitter loss.

But in what my dreaming heart hopes was a positive turning point, as opposed to a negative one, they won an extra time goal that was only possible because they didn't sag to the depths like they had in all the other games during both wretched periods since the high of the season where they made a statement about being one of the better teams in the entire league.

Perhaps that was an illusion though as they immediately went on their first of two losing streaks of 8 games. points or no, losing is losing when the other team walks away with 2 points to your one, if you're lucky. And Nos Glorieux have not known much of that for too much of this season

Still back to back wins with one delivered by a torubled veteran of the league and a shutout the next game where the current keeper matched the record of one of the club's greatest has them pointed in the right direction.

Granted, they need another 8 like this to give us cause to believe in them like days of yore, or even latter days of same, but two wins are two wins and they're still not as low in the depths as the last champions were at a similar time just on season ago.

And if they play like the team that was world beating a time or five, which includes them getting back all the players that they lost to injury, which could make them that world beating team again, which is what they would need, then the sky's the limit.

Okay, I would doubt that they will repeat what the last champions did, but just qualifying for the greatest of tournaments after suffering through two terrible losing streaks would be a feat in itself. 

I might have given up on the idea of taking away his victory in thye 4th too soon as I have found my flow and his record is not beyond my reach.

And once I take his record away from him, I can surely think of ending on a high with the beginning of a story, which would make this victory all the more sweet.

Though it will be plenty sweet just to take away the 4th from him.

But enough of what could be, I have to focus on what is, I have a lot of writing to do, just as Nos Glorieux have a lot of winning to do, without the likelihood of two of those players returning this season and the one who will return, not before the end of this month, if that soon. He got a joggin' to the noggin and was rushed back too soon and is now back on the list of the sadly disabled.

So I have no time for math as mathing is not going to allow me to take away his record.

And I want that record. In fact, I deserve it! And by god, I'm going to take it too!

Fodi hadn't felt like himself in weeks, not since the bright lights,of that unexpectedly warm day, had woken him up and left him half blind and suffering from headaches for the next two days until he woke up on the third day feeling right as rain.

Though how he knew what rain was when he was a bottom-feeding fish and had never felt it in the whole of his life.

Yet there it was, he instinctively knew what rain was.

Somehow.

However, since then, feeling like himself was something he didn't want to feel again, at least not like the old himself that he had been since he was a wee little fishie, swimming in the deep dark pond.

He was no longer that wee little fishie and was instead, slowly becoming something else. Dare one say it, something better.

What that was though, was still to be discovered, it just wouldn't be discovered in the bottom of the lovely little pond.

I smiled as I found the story thread and had at it, not like there was no tomorrow, but nicely fast enough to take out any of the doubt that I was going to win the 4th, even if it was only going to be a single word, a win was a win.

But, what I wasn't going to do was bring the day back to the heights that were common during the first millionized year, according to the records that I have looked at.

I was going to make it close, but as of the last count, I was 500 words off of crossing from the camp at the base of the mountain, whatever that means, to the first good peak, which is another thing that I don't understand.

As it is, close is not terrible and I will be happy with the end of the day as I have already bettered his sad 1985 words by 700, which is impressive and has set the bar very high for him.

Almost surely too high if you ask me.

And as lovely as the bottom of the pond was, he wasn't going to miss it because he had lived alone for the whole of the time since he had left the comforts of his family's home.

But what even was love and companionship anyway? His parents had been happy and given him the right example to live by, but since he'd never known the touch and taste of it, he didn't know what he was missing.

So he wasn't going to take anything with him. Just his memories of course. those he was never going to let go of.

Charles Petrie

Date
01-13-20

Time

11:18-11:59=41, 16:45-17:59=74 And 21:37-23:59=142
257 Minutes

Word Count

567+670+1539=2776