newnoise1 writes short story

Do internet users have time to read short fiction online? I wonder. Here's my latest attempt, Email blackmail - 1300 words.

Email blackmail

Julia pressed the send button and felt all the blood rush from her face. She had somehow managed to send the email describing what she thought of the company to the Managing Director and owner, Mr. Croft, and not her best friend, Sybil, as she intended.
Her heart beat like a cornered rabbit's. Her hands clammy, she picked up the phone and called Mr. Croft's personal assistant Mrs. Jules.
'Don't worry about it dear, I'll delete it from his inbox as soon as I see it,' Mrs. Jules laughed, 'You do realize that you owe me a big favor?' she added, conspiringly.
'Of course,' Julia tried too laugh but even to herself it sounded more like a dry bone being cracked in half. She collapsed into her chair, there was still four office hours left in which she would have too hide her mini-nervous breakdown from her co-workers.
A very long hour later, Julia noticed a mail from Mrs. Jules in her inbox. She frowned as she read it.

'Hi dear, I have DELETED your message from MR CROFT'S inbox. We must talk about the favor YOU OWE ME. Meet me after work at the Cozy Cups!!!'

Julia's skin crawled at the commanding tone. She was about to find out why her co-workers were weary of Mr. Croft's personal assistant. Could it be a practical joke? Surely blackmailers at least attempted too hide their identities? Or was she overreacting? Perhaps Mrs. Jules only wanted her to baby sit on Saturday or something harmless like that. Nevertheless, the message seemed sinister with the capital letters and exclamation marks worked into it.
Suddenly the company looked like the perfect place to work at if only Mrs. Jules didn't also work there. She glanced at the computer's digital clock. There were two hours left before she had to face Mrs. Jules.
Jake, her manager, walked into her office clutching a sheaf of papers, 'Julia, can you help with these, they're a mess, we've been trying to figure it out the entire week.' Jake's hair was a confusing ball of curls as always when confronted with a dilemma. He reminded Julia of a young Einstein.
'What is it?' she asked, knowing that she could solve the problem if it needed less than four seconds of her concentration.
'You look pale, something the matter?' he placed the documents on her desk.
'Headache,' she said, her mind working overtime as she glanced again at the clock showing she had 45 minutes to get herself to the Cozy Cups.
'Have a look at these and let me know what you think.' he said, and waited.
'Can I have a look at them tonight? I feel terrible, I have to go.' She hoped he didn't notice how her hand was shaking as she applied her lipstick.
'Can you call me when you're done tonight?' he said, surprised at her uncharacteristic lack of enthusiasm.
'Sure, I'll give you call the moment I'm done,' she placed the documents in her handbag.
'Have you got something for the head?' he called as an afterthought down the passage.
'Yes, I'll be fine.' she said over her shoulder as she tried to walk with her usual confidence on legs that wobbled.
The Cozy Cups was more or less empty. She found a table where Mrs. Jules could blackmail her in relative privacy, sat down and ordered a coffee. She removed Jakes' documents from her handbag. She wanted too seem in control of something when Mrs. Jules appeared.
The words on the front page swam in front of her eyes. Then a word or two that Jake had scribbled caught her attention. She looked closer, her heart starting to hammer in her chest.
'Hi there,' Mrs. Jules was her efficient self, her suit fit perfectly, not a hair was out of place.
Julia judged her to be around 50. She noticed that Mrs. Jules' smile did not reach her eyes which were ice blue.
'Well, let's get down to business,' Mrs. Jules wasted no time in making her demands quite clear. She needed money, urgently and regularly. She expressed her need in a husky voice in a few smooth sentences that made Julia suspect the woman was quite use to this kind of scene.
Julia started as her cell phone rang. It was Jake, still upset about the claims, 'I wanted to ask you, look specifically at the company named Cato's Catering. I don't even think Cato exists, I've been trying to call him the whole week, the company's not listed on the intranet. . .'
'Okay Jake, I'll have a look. I'll call you.' she thought quickly as she slowly returned the phone to her handbag.
'Mrs Jules,' she said, and tapped with a pencil on the documents in front of her, 'these documents are the claims you sent through to our office for payment.' she picked her words carefully as she announced, 'My Manager went through them and he's very unhappy . . . in fact his considering an audit of your entire office.' she held her breath as she waited for a reply.
Mrs. Jules turned nearly as white as the coffee cup that stood in front of her. 'I need the money you see . . . I'm desperate for money . . .' she stammered.
Julia shook her head, 'I can see from the clothes and haircut what you need the money for . . . let's make a deal," she said, trying to keep from hissing, 'you will resign on Monday and . . . these claims will disappear,' she forced her shaking hands to lie steady on her lap as she waited, not breathing.
Mrs. Jules held on to her composure, 'I still have the email,' she said, her voice firm.
'We both have documents.' Julia sipped her coffee.
'Let's forget the entire thing.' Mrs Jules, clutched at her handbag.
'No,' Julia shook her head, 'I will not be able to live with myself knowing you are still working for the company.' she said determinedly.
Mrs. Jules sat motionless, 'Very well, I will hand in my resignation,' she said and got up too leave.
'How many?' Julia blurted, not able to let go of the horror she had uncovered.
Mrs. Jules turned around, 'How many what?'
'How many staff members are you . . .collecting money from?'
'Enough.' Mrs Jules walked away her shoulders square, her head lifted proudly.
Julia ordered another coffee and called Jake. 'Are you still in the office? Could you meet me in the Cozy Cups?'
He sat down opposite her 15 minutes later.
'This morning I accidentally sent an email to Mr. Croft that I actually wanted to send to Sybil . . . ' she said.
'I've warned you so many times Julia!' he frowned.
'Yes,' she agreed and continued to tell him the rest.
When she finished he shook his head, running his hands through his hair.
'You are one lucky woman, you know that?' he said.
She nodded, her smile shaky.
'So what about the others, how do we let them know it's over?' he asked 'You promised the woman she won't be arrested for fraud.'
'We'll use the most effective form of communication, we'll spread the rumor that Mrs. Jules had to leave owing to some underhand activities.' she improvised.
'And Croft?'
'You know Croft, if it's not written down in black and white he doesn't listen to it,' she said trying too sound convincing.
'Have you learned something from all this?' he asked.
She nodded, 'Apply for a new position somewhere, but first, make sure Mrs. Jules doesn't work there already.'


Copyright © Newnoise1, 2009

newnoise1 quotes writers on writing

Writers on writing

I've done some surfing and listed the following insights on writing from 5 of the authors I selected for my 100 favorite books list.

George Orwell - 1984

"It was a bright day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." First line from 1984

'A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?'

George Orwell - Politics and the English Language

http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit


Helene Hanff - 84, Charing Cross road

'Pride goeth.' First line from Apple of my eye

I’m working late in what’s left of the Guild offices when the phone rings and it’s Mrs. Helburn in New Haven. We had just mimeographed BY HAND 10,000 fliers with Away We Go. And Terry says to me, Helene, we’ve changed the title. You’ll have to rewrite the flier. The new title is…OKLAHOMA. Big deal! Back then it was the name of a state! Would you name a musical Maine or New Jersey? But we redo the fliers and hand crank out 10,000 new ones. Phone rings again…You’ll have to redo the fliers again. They want an exclamation point at the end. OKLAHOMA!

Helen Hanff - Underfoot in Show Business

http://www.wosu.org/blogs/classical/?tag=helene-hanff

Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse 5

'All this happened, more or less.' First line from Slaughterhouse 5

'My teachers wished me to write accurately, always selecting the most effective words, and relating the words to one another unambiguously, rigidly, like parts of a machine. The teachers did not want to turn me into an Englishman after all. They hoped that I would become understandable - and therefore understood. And there went my dream of doing with words what Pablo Picasso did with paint or what any number of jazz idols did with music. If I broke all the rules of punctuation, had words mean whatever I wanted them to mean, and strung them together higgledy-piggledy, I would simply not be understood.'

http://peterstekel.com/PDFHTML/Kurt%20Vonnegut%20advice%20to%20writers.htm

Kurt Vonnegut - How to Write With Style

Albert Camus - The Outsider

'Mother died today.' First line from The Outsider

'By the same token, the writer's role is not free from difficult duties. By definition he cannot put himself today in the service of those who make history; he is at the service of those who suffer it. Otherwise, he will be alone and deprived of his art. Not all the armies of tyranny with their millions of men will free him from his isolation, even and particularly if he falls into step with them. But the silence of an unknown prisoner, abandoned to humiliations at the other end of the world, is enough to draw the writer out of his exile, at least whenever, in the midst of the privileges of freedom, he manages not to forget that silence, and to transmit It in order to make it resound by means of his art.'

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1957/camus-speech-e.html

Albert Camus - Speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1957

Mark Twain - Huckleberry Finn

'The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.'

http://www.mamohanraj.com/Writing/twain.html

Twain's Rules of Writing

newnoise1 lists 100 books that make newnoise

Finally, my list of 100 books that still make newnoise


1. 1984 - George Orwell
2. 84 Charing Cross road - Helen Hanff
3. A burnt-out case - Graham Green
4. A deafening silence - John Miles
5. A dry white season - Andre P. Brink
6. A man for all seasons - Robert Bolt
7. A town like Alice - Nevil Shute
8. Alice through the looking glass - Lewis Carrol
9. All quiet on the Western front - Erich Maria Remarque
10. At Bertram's Hotel - Agatha Christie
11. At thy call we did not falter - Clive Holt
12. Atlas shrugged - Ayn Rand
13. Brave new world - Aldous Huxley
14. Catcher in the rye - J.D. Salinger
15. Cat's eye - Margaret Atwood
16. Claudius the God - Robert Graves
17. Deliverance - James Hickey
18. Diamond mind - Rob Nairn
19. Dice man - Luke Rhineheart
20. East of eden - John Steinbeck
21. Evening class - Maeve Binchy
22. Exodus - Leon Uris
23. First lines - Gemma O'Conner
24. I never promised you a rose garden - Hanna Green
25. I, Claudius - Robert Graves
26. Illusions - Richard Bach
27. In cold blood - Truman Capote
28. Jung and the story of our time - Laurens van der Post
29. Life before life - Helen Wambach
30. Lila, an inquiry into morals - Robert M. Pirsig
31. Long walk to freedom - Nelson Mandela
32. Lord of the flies - William Golding
33. Mafikeng road - Herman Charles Bosman
34. Man and the meaning of life - Victor Frankl
35. Many mansions - Gina Cerminara
36. Matilda - Roald Dahl
37. Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
38. Misquito coast - Paul Theroux
39. Not a penny more not a penny less - Jeffrey Archer
40. Of human bondage - Somerset Maugham
41. One child - Torey Hayden
42. Operators and things - Barbara O'Brien
43. Ordinary people - Judith Guest
44. Pippy Longstocking - Astrid Lindgren
45. Promised land - Karel Schoeman
46. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
47. Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank redemption - Stephen King
48. Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
49. Seize the day - Saul Bellow
50. Selected to live - Johanna-Ruth Dobschiner
51. Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
52. Spud - John van de Ruit
53. Steppenwolf - Herman Hesse
54. Sybil - Flora Retha Schreiber
55. Tao te Ching - Lao Tze
56. The adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
57. The age of innocence - Edith Wharton
58. The anthology of fantastic literature - Alberto Manguel
59. The bell jar - Sylvia Plath
60. The Bible
61. The Border - A. J. Brooks
62. The Cinderella complex - Colette Dowling
63. The covenant - James A. Michener
64. The crucible - Arthur Miller
65. The death of Ivan Ilych - Leo Tolstoy
66. The devil's advocate - Andrew Neiderman
67. The devil's advocate - Morris West
68. The egg and I - Betty MacDonald
69. The electric kool aid acid test - Tom Wolfe
70. The fountainhead - Ayn Rand
71. The French leuitenant's woman - John Fowles
72. The glass bead game - Herman Hesse
73. The grapes of wrath - John Steinbeck
74. The hitchhikers guides to the universe - Douglas Adams
75. The importance of being Ernest - Oscar Wilde
76. The life and times of Michael K - J.M Coetzee
77. The little prince - Antoine de Saint Exupery
78. The millionaire next door - Thomas J. Stanley and William D.Danko
79. The money-changers - Arthur Hailey
80. The moon and the sixpence - Somerset Maugham
81. The outsider - Albert Camus
82. The outsider - Colin Wilson
83. The power of now - Eckhart Tolle
84. The power of one - Bryce Courtenay
85. The power of positive thinking - Norman Vincent Peale
86. The practice of the presence of God - Brother Lawrence
87. The prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
88. The richest man in Babylon - George S. Clason
89. The road to Mecca - Athol Fugard
90. The shoes of the fisherman - Morris West
91. The silence of the lambs - Thomas Harris
92. The sneeches on the beeches - Dr Zeuss
93. The teaching of Buddha - Bukkyo Dendo Kyoki
94. The trial - Franz Kafka
95. The vestibule - Jess E. Weiss
96. Two years before the mast - Richard Henry Dana
97. Voyage beyond belief - Terence Kelly
98. Your erroneous zones - Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
99. Zen and reality - Robert Powell
100. Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig

newnoise1 rushes the read

Rushing the Read


The saying goes that you shouldn't buy shares on media reports. This is easy to say but what are you suppose to do? Go out there and work for the company for a few years?

Look at the news I scanned through today:

One news report claimed that according to Ricky Ponting, the Australian cricket team captain, the pitches they were playing on are life threatening. Then, when I watched the game, the commentators couldn't get over how wonderful the pitch was. So, I probably scanned so fast and through some twist of fate still don't know where they were playing today. Okay, so I fell asleep once or twice during the game and missed out on that part.

So this left me quite confused in a day when I needed every bit of my alleged intelligence to try and understand why Julius Malema was raving on about Nedbank. It's like I've missed some important episode of Dallas - the one where JR got shot. How hard to I have to concentrate to know what's going on!!?? The entire thing sounds like you need to have at least some post graduate training to understand the issues. I think what I'll do is go to Nedbank and open an account and while I'm there perhaps they'll kindly inform me on what the hell is going on.

The other thing I picked up in the Business Report this week is that e-books will do well in South Africa but hand held reading devices are more popular in America. My conclusion in the end was that to download an e-book to your computer is probably cheaper than buying a reading device to do it with. Your guess is as good as mine.

Other confusing news is that FNB is quite optimistic about house prices starting to rise soon while Standard Bank isn't or something like that.



How's that for noise?

My snarky day so far

I am 40-something with a number of responsibilities that include not jumping off a cliff on the spur of the moment. To get me to laugh out loud twice in less than 10 minutes is quite an achievement. That's why I have added Miss Snark to my links list even if the blog is only open for viewing and closed for contributions.

In her blog, Miss Snark, a book agent, gives acidic editing advice to sometimes clever, more often clueless questions from what she has named her "snarklings".

No surprise then that you will find a category headed: "Miss Snark sets her hair on fire". If you have ever edited documents where the same mistakes are repeated over and over, you will feel like an alma mater of Miss Snark and pass her the blow torch. If you are a writer you will find a treasury of information on what to do too drive editors and agents nuts.

While I am sad that Miss Snark's blog is now closed it is also a relief. At least I will not be tempted to send her a book proposal in the early morning hours after a bottle of wine or five.

Miss Snark gets the newnoise badge of the week.

Further on my snarky day, I am rereading Alice in Wonderland for my intended plan to identify newnoise in books. I am a bit stuck with progress on Alice as I've also just picked up a copy of Deliverance by James Dickey and it's quite a promising start. Also I have been reading for 4 hours straight about blogging and so forth.

My list of 100 books that make newnoise

I have an ambitious plan. The plan involves listing 100 books that I have read more than three times and that I feel contains newnoise. I wil then do a short analysis on why I think the book makes it to my newnoise list. I am not looking at the date the book was printed, a book that was written 2 000 years ago can have more newnoise than a book printed yesterday.

I'm sure I can learn something through doing this and I hope that this micro-analysis will inspire you to find your voice. My first submission will be Alice in Wonderland.

District 9 - the best disgusting movie I've ever seen


In District 9, Director Neill Blomkamp, is saying something like nobody has ever said it before, in other words, its pure newnoise.

Starting with the hilarious notion that if aliens should visit earth, they will, of all places, hang around Johannesburg for longer than a week, the film zooms in on the slum conditions the aliens soon find themselves in after being secluded behind razor wire in District 9.

The new government, having followed the seclusion solution as set by the apartheid government, now proceeds to follow it some more by getting rid of the aliens through forced relocation. The relocation is documented on video and during the filming an entire subculture of alien life emerges. Crime, especially. As one poor human in the film complains about the aliens, "They steal your tekkies off your feet while you're walking down the street." Crime . . .South Africans joke about it like communist Russian's use to joke about the KGB.

It's not just the fantastic science fiction special effects or the disgusting habits of the aliens that makes this a must see. The mockumentary brilliantly brings together the global apartheid between the rich and the poorest of the poor. Spine chilling sensations crawl down your back as you realize you don't need aliens for these slum conditions to arrive at a theatre near you soon, they have always been around. To top it all you have paid cash to have all your illusions ripped from your head.

Soon you will be gagging on your pop-corn as you realize that you to could mutate, become poor and join the ranks of the aliens. You too will develop cravings for cat food and love to eat from dustbins. You to will be seen as the refuse of society, misunderstood, unable to operate in a technologically sophisticated world, uneducated and encouraged to have an abortion if you are pregnant. The government could even decide to use you in medical "research" and nobody will know.

While I watched the movie, the guy next to me was eating his pop-corn kernel by kernel as pop-corners like to do. This normally freaks me out to the point where l I feel like grabbing the pop-corn bucket and flinging it to Mars. Then, about fifteen minutes into District 9, it dawned on me that at least pop-corn is clean and I'm sitting in a soft seat in an air-conditioned movie theatre. I felt comforted by the normality and watched the screen, closed my eyes every two minutes, held on to my lunch as best I could and enjoyed the comforting, crunching noises the pop-corn eater made.

Revolting, disgusting . . . if any woman older than sixteen can sit through all of that without closing her eyes, at least once, I suspect she has seen sides of life that's not worth seeing.

All in all, the aliens turn out to have, despite their prawn like features, hearts that beat to the same rhythm that human hearts do. Seclusion has a way of stopping us from seeing this, as wires and walls tend to do.

The film refuses to include any of South Africa's famous tourism hotspots such as Table Mountain or the Apartheid Museum or any breathtaking, sunny beaches, or even one of the big five. It's Mad Max slumming it, all the way as the space ship hangs in the air above Johannesburg like a gigantic ball of pollution. Ironically, the film was shot in Soweto named by the apartheid government - SOuthWEsT, one of the biggest "townships" in South Africa, where high electric lights use to shine night and day to keep track of what residents were up to.

This is a must see, even if you see it with your eyes closed half the time.

Remember to make some newnoise this week, find your voice!