I awoke up to such darkness that I couldn’t be sure if my eyes had actually opened. My head was spinning and unlike most hangovers, I found myself sitting and hunched over. As I reached up, a heavy weight pulled at my waist and a thick pain kept my hands fastened to my lap. I twisted and the pain increased. Little hairs pulled out of my arm. A female voice moaned behind me. As I tried to adjust myself, I could feel the tape around our waists and a small bench beneath us. I leaned to face her direction, “Talk about being tied up in the situation.” She didn’t reply, which in my experience is never a good sign. “So, do you come here often?” I asked. The only response was a twitching of her shoulder blades. I figured she was just starting to realize our situation. Mimicking her, I twisted my hands and more hair pulled out.

“Whats going on?” she asked in a weak creaking sound; it reminded me of a vinyl being played with a broken needle. In my mind I envisioned a plain pale woman, maybe mid twenties, eyes swollen from crying. She would have been walking home from work, or coming back from the store when the world turned on her. When she woke up, she was here, in the dark, tied to me. Talk about a fate worse than death. The tape on my waist tightened. The bench tipped on two legs as she tried to pull her self up. “Let me go” she yelled. The tape cut into my sides as she strained. “Why are you doing this to me?” All at once she collapsed and the bench smashed down on the metal floor. The ringing of the metal was dwarfed by her echoing voice.

“I don’t think anyone can hear us.” I said, not knowing if it was true or not. People don’t really get kidnaped off the street and wind up tied together. This is really more of a movie plot device. “Maybe Bruce Willis is on his way to rescue us.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

“My name is Jason and I’m an alcoholic.”

“I’m Linsey, Linsey Parks.”

“It’s nice to meet you Linsey.” I pressed my back against her as a primitive hand shake. She must have picked up the idea because she pressed back for a moment before slumping forward. With our waists tied together I could feel her lower back stretch as her lungs expanded. Silent sobs magnified by the echos filled the room. “Not exactly the best first date.” I joked.

I felt her lungs fill with air. “Why me?” She asked. I sensed a bit of guilt, like she wasn’t surprised. Her lungs filled again. “What did I do? I’m not a bad person, I don’t steal cars or kill little babies.” She said expelling the last of her breath so she wouldn’t cry.

“You must be in the wrong place then. I steal cars to drive teenage mothers to abortion clinics for a living.”

Bright light flooded the room stunning my senses, the whole world went from complete darkness to overbearing white. Several silhouettes of men formed and grew to enormous proportions in the light. Linsey screamed and her back spasmed violently. As my senses returned, I got my first glimpse of our prison, a metal shipping container, like the ones you see on boats.

“This is the police. Don’t be alarmed, we are here to help.” An officer squeezed around us and cut the tape at our waist. He then leaned over and freed our hands.

“Thank goodness you showed up,” I said. “I was about to bust out my ninja skills.”

© Chris Richards 2009

“Will you marry me?” Fred knelt beside her in the middle of the restaurant.

She could see his hands trembling as he held out the black velvet box. Blood rushed to her face. She looked at the ring and back at him. He was blushing with embarrassment and fear. A hushed silence fell over the restaurant as other tables started to notice them. The waiters made big circles, so they wouldn’t interrupt this special moment. She picked up the ring. It was heaver than she expected. The cold metal stung her hands as she slid it over her finger.

“Yes.” she said.

Flying off the ground, his arms wrapped around her body and his soft lips found hers. The other tables started clapping. Somewhere, a table whistled.

The rest of the night they where on the phone telling everyone they knew. It was almost midnight by the time she got on Facebook to change her status. A message popped up.

“Congrats” Roy said.

“Thanks” Her hands trembled so bad she struggled to hit the right keys. “He’s very sweet to me” she added.

“I’m happy that you finally picked a good one.”

“And he never hit me.” The moment it appeared on the screen she realized that she shouldn’t have sent it. A shiver ran up her spine making her eyes tear. She pulled a blanket over her shoulders and waited for his response. She clicked on his photo album. Her red haired replacement stood smiling next to Roy in each picture. The girl had vine arms that suffocated him. He’s gained weight she thought. She lifted her shirt and ran her palm down her belly. I’m still too fat for him though.

Still he didn’t respond. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.” She typed.

“I just wanted to congratulate you, that’s all. bye.” Roy sighed off.

Her arms caught her head as it came crashing down on the desk. “Fuck”.

A sharp beam of light filled the room. The door opened and Fred walked in. “Are you alright hunny?”

She wiped her face on her arms before sitting up. “Yeah, I just hit the desk.”

“Why don’t you come to bed baby?” He walked up and put a hand on her back. He looked at the screen and saw a single message from her coworker, Jessy, that just said ’Congrats.’ He reached over her and turned off the computer. “We still have some celebrating to do. If you know what I mean.” He nudged her side with his hand.

“Of course sweety. I just need to clear my head a little bit, you know? All this excitement and everything, I just need to drive around a bit.”

Every ounce of puppy dog oozed though his eyes. “Okay.” He said and kissed her. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” She left him standing in the den while she slipped on her shoes and into the car. She drove past the restaurant and down back alleys. Eventually she found herself downtown. The street lights made the city glow yellow. It seemed almost magical, everything was so barren and yet so beautiful. Before long she was driving down a road that seems familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. All of the houses had faces, like old friends welcoming her back. She stopped in front of a house that looked like a football player. Black bushes below the windows looked like war paint. White gutters crossed in front of the red roof making a helmet. She just sat and starred at the house for a while. Then it winked at her.

Her pajamas were melting into her skin. She rolled down the windows to let in the fall breeze. Panting, she felt like melting into the leather seats. I just need to move around a little she thought. She got out of the car and started walking towards the footballer house.

Bright red and blue blinded her. A police car flashed as she froze in the lights.

The officer approached her. “Ma’am, do you live here?”

“Uh, no, I was just—”

“Can I see some ID?” He shined a flashlight into her eyes.

“I uh, didn’t…” She blocked her eyes.

The officer brought out a pair of handcuffs. “You’re coming with me, you are in violation of your restraining order.”

“What? No! I wasn’t trying to see him, I was just…” She looked at the house again and realized why the neighborhood looked so familiar. The house, the one with the inviting footballer face, belonged to Roy. He was poking his head out of the curtains, watching as the officer took her away.

© Chris Richards 2009

The last version of my Canvas app let you pick different brushes and draw on the grid. If you played around with the line brush you might have noticed a small bug. The line erases everything it passes over.  This is because the line has no idea what the image was supposed to look like before we started drawing.
(more…)

This time I’ve taking the actual drawing out of the canvas object so we can have different brushes. I’ve also included a bit of code to get the color from the current cell and compare it with a hex color.
(more…)

Chris stood in the middle of the empty seats. He looked to the stage below where Roland and Jaime chatted with each other. Chris clicked the microphone button on his belt. “Alright let’s get started. Roland and Jaime, this is your first encounter. Jaime, you need to allure to your ulterior motive. The audience should start to suspect you. Roland, you are captivated by her good looks. This is the first living woman you’ve seen in 6 months.”

Roland shook his body, getting into character. “Alright.”

Chris turned down the lights, “Action.”

Roland mimed opening a door. “Wave, stay back.” His foot pushed a small plush dog behind him. Entering the room, his flashlight made slow security sweeps across the floor. The light stopped on a pair of black heels. Roland gulped. The light creeped up her long tan legs, slowly reaching her knees, and then up her thigh and the bottom of a black pencil skirt.

“Excuse me.” Jaime said.

Roland shook his head and rushed the light past the white dress shirt and into her eyes.

She blocked the light with her hands. “Hey.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Roland brought the light down, stopping on her chest for a moment and then finding the floor.

“Are you?” She asked.

“No, not a zombie.” He walked closer.

“No shit, zombies don’t use flashlights. Are you a survivor?” She held out her forearm. Roland shined the light on the tattoo of an Egyptian Was, a symbol representing a staff.

“Oh … yeah I am.” He moved the light to it illuminated his Ahnk tattoo.

Jaime walked to the edge of the stage, “Wait a minute.”

Chris clicked on his mic. “Yes dear, what is it?”

“I just don’t think the audience is going to get it.”

“Isn’t going to get what?”

“All this Egyptian symbol stuff. Hell, I’m in it and I still don’t get it.” Her body slumped. The neatly pressed lines of her shirt mangled into a mess. “I just think it’s a bunch of smoke that no one really cares about.”

Chris brought up the house lights. “It is a minor detail. I’m fine if you want to play it down, make it something you notice but don’t make it the centerpiece. Is that alright Roland?”

“Yup, sure” Roland walked to his starting position.

The house lights dimmed. Roland mimed opening a door. His flashlight swept across the stage. “Wave Shhh!” He held the plush dog out of the room. The beam stopped on a pair of black heels. Roland’s sneaky posture straightened as the beam walked up her legs. “Are you the survivor?” He asked.

She held out her forearm. The beam hovered on the staff tattoo before moving to her face. “Where’s the rest of the rescue party?”

“I’m it.”

“You?” She walked slowly with each heel making an echoing click, hovering over him. “You’re going to rescue me?”

Roland dropped the flashlight. He bent his legs and felt along the floor for the light, not breaking her deadly gaze. Finally finding it, he picked up the light and straightened to his full height. Her eyes still burned just a few inches above his. He broke into a smile. “Ever been with a midget?”

She started laughing and turned her back to the audience.

Roland smiled. “I could be 7 foot too, if I had 3 foot heels.”

The house lights came up. “Alright guys.” Chris said. Jaime and Roland stifled their laughter while Chris talked. “I really liked the whole dominance through height, and the dropping of the flash light. But Jaime, you have to be nicer, more seductive. You’re pulling him into your trap, you’re a black widow. Right now you feel like ice queen.”

Billy stood up in the audience and faced Chris. “Can I be in this scene? Please? Just once?”

Roland shrugged at Chris. She waited for Jaime’s objection but none came. “Sure kid, take your place.” The lights dimmed.

Roland mimed slowly opening the door.

Billy pushed past him and ran into the room. “Come on.” His own flash light waved wildly about the room.

“Wait!” Roland ran in after the boy. Billy screamed. Roland’s light found him, he way sitting on his ass as his flashlight rolled away. Billy’s light stopped rolling and focused on a pair of black heels. Roland’s eyes walked up the well defined calf muscle as he picked Billy up.

On his feet, Billy walked up to the woman in a long pencil skirt and white dress shirt. “Are you the survivor?”

She bend over and held out her forearm. “Well I’m not a zombie.”

Billy ran his little fingers down the staff tattoo on her arm. “It feels weird.”

“Where’s yours?” she asked him.

Roland put his hands on Billy’s shoulders and pulled him back. “He doesn’t have one.” Roland held out his arm showing his own tattoo. “He’s just a little kid I found.”

She flipped her hair and smiled keeping her back straight, showing off the several inches she stood above Roland. “Of course. Nice to meet you, my name is Jaime.”

The house lights came back up. Chris boomed over the speakers. “Billy, I think we might have to keep you.”

The actors broke position and walked to the front of the stage.

“Alright, time for a break everyone, We can pickup from the introduction when we get back.”

© Chris Richards 2009

I didn’t have a story last week because I was/am sick. I’ll have one up for this weekend.

After I died, a lot of things changed. As a ghost, time streamed together giving me the opportunity to watch the world in a way I never could before. The first thing I did was to head back to my old high-school and sit in the girls locker room. I watched the cheerleaders-those snooty bimbos that wouldn’t give me the time of day when I was alive. I watched and judged them as they changed in and out of their outfits. Every inch was exposed to me, I could almost feel them, but they were always just out of reach. So I sat there and watched. Every year a new batch of fresh young girls would come in and the older girls would leave. To me, they all blended together creating an endless supply of young supple bodies.

Then all at once, the locker room was empty. The girls stopped showing up. It wasn’t like during summer break. This was much longer, the paint faded and peeled before my eyes, like a time lapse video. The room deteriorated taking the memories of the girls with it. Eventually light broke though the walls and the whole locker room fell into a flowering field. I figured it was time to move on.

I wandered around for a while trying to find something I remembered. The city had changed so much since I had died. All the old back streets and short cuts that I used to take were now large 5 lane highways filled with never ending traffic. My old university had grown exponentially in my absence. Electric shuttle busses zoomed around taking students to-and-fro. Everything was a blur of motion and activity. When I walked into a lecture hall I expected people to notice. I knew they couldn’t actually see me, but for some reason I still expected them to notice. Back when I was alive, if you walked into a room, people would notice you, even if they were trying to ignore you, you could still feel that they could feel you. That they knew, somewhere, that I existed. Walking in and out these busy lectures, no one had noticed. No one knew that I existed, or that I had ever existed. In one of the larger lecture halls I found a nice spot above a projector screen to sit and watch. I could see the entire audience and they would look back at me. Even if they weren’t actually looking at me, noticing me, it was comforting to pretend they were.

Students herded in, found places, and then herded out again. This blur of action and stops gave me time to watch the fashions. The girls wore tiny shorts with skinny long legs. Dark colored shirts with long sleeves. Then they shifted into tight pants with tiny tank tops. Eventually they were back to long shirts and sweaters. Their patterns cycled and repeated. The clothing thinned out only to become covered again. The outrages of the corrupted youth seemed so ridiculous to me now. Nothing ever really changed, everyone was just another version of someone else. After their entire lives, after my entire life, everything amounted to little more than just another meme.

I needed to break out. I grew tired of always watching, watching the same thing over and over again. I figured there must be something to show, something for a life well lived. I decided to seek out my descendents, to find some sort of evidence that I once lived. This proved harder than I thought. Books were simply out of reach to me unless someone else had it opened, computers were the same. I could never do anything on my own, I was stuck watching other people. My predicament had never occurred to me before, originally I just wanted to watch, but now I found that I had no choice. I did nothing but sit by as my own life passed me by and now as a ghost I had to sit and watch everyone else’s life pass me by.

I stormed around the university library, running though walls and pushing on book cases. I tried to create cold spots, appear in photographs, anything to get attention, anything to get a second chance. A chance to conquer the fears that held me back in life, a chance to help others conquer theirs. Anything to just say to the world, “I existed.”

© Chris Richards

Red and yellow light flooded my face. The explosion echoed from the Dolby Surround Sound vibrating my ribcage. I gripped the seat as the main character drove a fire engine red 1952 convertible across the raised highway, dodging ufos falling out of the sky. Could he make it to the power station in time? What if one of those ufos fall on the car? Blue light blinded my row. Instinctively I threw up my arm to shield my eyes.

“Hello? Yeah I’m at the movie.” A black teen with an oversize white tee-shirt and white cap talked into his cell phone in front of me. “No we haven’t gotten to that part yet.” The blue light of the cell reflected off his gold tooth as he talked.

I leaned forward and whispered. “Please be quiet.”

He sat up in his seat and turned to face me. “Get out my face, cracker.” He yelled. Other people in the audience started hushing us. The teen sat back down and talked into his phone. “Nothing man, just some stupid ass cracker looking to get his ass beat.”

In one smooth motion, I stood up, snatched the phone from his hand, and threw it down the theater. It’s blue light flashed as it hit the cement. It split in pieces as the light flashed a final time.

The teen stood up and pushed my shoulders back. “What the fuck you think you’re doing you racist cracker. I’m going to kick your little punk ass.” He pushed my shoulders again. Someone ran out of the theater.

I looked him in the eyes. He was shaking, his eyes darted around the dark room and a hand reached around to his back pocket.

Does he have a gun? A knife? The possibilities filled my head. He was too close for a gun, I could grab it. A knife I’d have to parry. I don’t need this, I just wanted to watch the movie. I looked at the screen quickly to see the main character’s arm had been transformed into a tentacle. How did that even happen? I needed to diffuse this situation quickly. “Just turn off your phone.”

“What?” he pushed me with his free hand. “You’re a bitch ass cracker. Come on then” he pushed me again. “What you got bitch?” His hand was still behind his back.

I looked around at the crowd. Everyone was focused on us. Earth could be blowing on on screen and no one would notice. A guy behind the teen nodded his head. I took it as a sign of support and clenched my fist.

“Come on bitch, what you gonna do? Huh? What you gonna do, cracker?” He pulled his hand out from behind his back. A switchblade glinted the projector light. He pointed the blade at me in his right hand and motioned for me to attack with his left.

I grabbed his right arm and forced the blade into the seat. With his hand pinned I swung and caught the left edge of his jaw with my fist. The crowd cheered as he let go of the knife and fell over the seat. The movie flickered white and the house lights came up. Ushers ran in and up the aisles. People emptied the row so they could get to the teen. He was holding his face crying on the floor. They picked him up and walked him out and down the stairs. The big bad gansta was crying.

The manager came up to me. “I’m so sorry, are you hurt?”

“No I’m fine.” The knuckles on my right hand burned, each vain throbbed individually. I held my hands next to each other, blood pooled around a small cut.

“Are you sure?” he asked again. I nodded. He pulled the knife out of the seat. “Thank god for that.” He walked back to the aisle and down to the front of the theater. “We’re going to restart the movie for you. I’m sorry about this fokes, if you don’t want to stay you can get a refund.”

©Chris Richards 2009

I’ve always been interested in the idea of software that evolves on it’s own; software that can write itself. I’ve come up with all sorts of ways this can happen, from neurons to dynamic methods, to my latest effort, a sudo assembly language.

Note: I’m not trying to replicate or create an actually assembly language. I’m just using concepts from it to achieve my own goals.

The idea is that the assembly would act as sort of a DNA for the programs. They run the code and are ranked by their effectiveness. The most effective will continue to live and be breed to start a new generation. Those that aren’t effective will be deleted.

First step is to build the sudo assembler. I figured being able to print out the Fibonacci sequence would be a good test. My assembler doesn’t have any predefined variables, just a stack you can push things onto. The different methods would just pop what they need off the stack.

Alright enough talk, here is the code.

#
# Simple byte-ish interperter.
# No real assembly or byte code, just made up stuff.
# By Chris Richards 2009.
#

class ByteInterpreter:
    """Runs predefined Byte commands"""
    stack = []   #Varables that can be used by the ByteCode
    command_index = 0  #The command to be evaluated next
    once = True;

    def Run(self, command_list):
        """Run the commands from the start to end"""
        while self.command_index < len(command_list):
            self.Interpret(command_list[self.command_index])
            self.command_index += 1

    def Interpret(self, command):
        """Interprate the command and run the correct method."""
        #Break the command into it's parts
        parts = command.partition(" ")

        #get the method they want
        method = getattr(self, parts[0])
        #call it
        method(parts[2])

    def push(self, value):
        """Store the value on the top of the stack."""
        self.stack.append(value)

    def pop(self, ignored=True):
        """Remove and Return the top value on the stack."""
        if( 0 < len(self.stack) ):
            return self.stack.pop()
        else:
            return None

    def peek(self, ignored=True):
        """Return the top value on the stack without removing it."""
        if( 0 < len(self.stack) ):
            return self.stack[len(self.stack)-1]
        else:
            return None

    def duplicate(self, times):
        """Duplicates the top of the stack the number of times specified."""
        times = int(times)
        for i in range(times):
            self.push(self.peek())

    def add(self, ignored=True):
        """Pops two values, converts them to ints and then pushes the result back on the stack"""
        val1 = int(self.pop())
        val2 = int(self.pop())
        self.push( val1 + val2 )

    def subtract(self, ignored=True):
        """Pops two values, subtracts them, then pushes the result onto the stack."""
        val1 = int(self.pop())
        val2 = int(self.pop())
        self.push( val1 - val2 )

    def jumpnz(self, line):
        """Peeks the top value, if it's not zero it will jump to the line."""
        line = int(line)
        val1 = int(self.peek())
        if( 0 != int(val1) ):
            self.command_index = line-1

    def shift(self, amount):
        """Shifts the top value back the amount specified."""
        amount = int(amount)
        self.stack.insert( len(self.stack) - amount-1, self.stack.pop() )

    def prnt(self, ignored=True):
        """Does a peek and prints that value to the screen."""
        print "print " + str(self.peek())

if __name__ == "__main__":
    fibonacci = ["push 1"
                 , "push 0"
                 , "push 10"
                 , "shift 2"
                 , "shift 1"
                 , "duplicate 1"
                 , "shift 2"
                 , "add"
                 , "prnt"
                 , "shift 2"
                 , "shift 1"
                 , "push 1"
                 , "shift 1"
                 , "subtract"
                 , "jumpnz 3"]

    runner = ByteInterpreter()
    runner.Run(fibonacci)

That prints out the first 10 Fibonacci numbers. So Now I know the assember works properly. The next step is to create a program that can create critters with random code. Then we can run their code and see if they can evolve into producing the Fibonacci sequence.

I didn’t have the new story up over the weekend because my MacBook isn’t working. So I spent the weekend reformatting hopping it isn’t a hardware problem, it is.

I’ll have the new story posted up sometime this week.