The KWC Paper – Eleven Worlds

To Change The World

By Sir Charles Bingley, Esq.

Preface to the reader:

Near the commencement of the year I was approached, in conjunction with several well-known respected writers, by a literary acharya, who put forward a proposal that by our united endeavors, spread throughout the year in a division of months, we should thrust upon the world a series of essays that would undermine the fallen agencies of modern evils.

To my dismay however, it would appear that only I and one or two others even have time to change the world (which is what was proposed); but insofar that I consider myself to have but lightly touched upon a subject so profound and important as to be an instrument of change in every Christian’s life, I do humbly beg the pardon of the appearance, for I too, did not rise to the challenge as well as I had intended to do.

My first aspiration was but to inculcate into men’s minds the benefits of country living; then I shifted to the excellence of small creatures God has made, and ordained to be in our lives; but gradually I came to understand the most powerful thing I could do would be to spur even one soul on, and my own in the process, to a deeper life of communion with God in prayer.

This essay will be divided into five sections: firstly, why we should pray, secondly, the benefits of prayer, thirdly, inquiries into our failure to do it, fourthly, the joy of waiting on God, and fifthly, worshiping Him in prayer.

The King’s Cure

The roaring fire place crackled and burned while its bright golden flames lit up the little parlor where there sat a small girl, warming her toes by the fire. She was a pretty little girl wearing a long nightgown. Her long curls hung loose around her shoulders, framing her little face. She looked up smiling at her grandfather who sat quite still and silent beside her in his chair.

“Grandfather,” she said, “Tell me a story.”

Roused from his thoughts, he turned to his little granddaughter and said,

“What kind of story would you like to hear?”

She paused a moment to think and then her eyes lit up with excitement.

“Tell me a fairytale!”

“A fairytale? Well. . . Now, I don’t know,” he smiled.

She laughed and urged him further.

“Alright, alright,” he said, while pulling her up into his lap.

“Where should my story begin?” he asked.

“At the beginning, of course,” She smiled.

He hugged his little granddaughter close to him as she rested her head on his shoulder. The grandfather took a deep breath and began.

“Once upon a time, there lived a very old King. This King was no usual King, this King was a very lonely King. He had everything in all the world that he could possibly want. He had diamonds, gold, and an enormous palace, yet he was still very sad. One day, the King sat alone on his throne looking very downcast. Two of the King’s royal advisors came to visit him. When they saw how sad the poor King looked they became very concerned.

‘The poor King,’ whispered one to the other, ‘He looks so very sad.’

‘Yes,’ replied the other, ‘I am afraid it will affect his health.’

‘Do you think it might?’ asked the other, concerned.

‘Indeed. If the King finds no cure for his sorrow, what will the Kingdom do?’

‘We must do something to help the poor King.’

‘Yes . . . but what?’

What You Trust In

Down the quiet streets of Cattle Creek sauntered Edgaroni Stonewyck and two jolly kiddies in infant-cowboy state.

Adjusting his vest with a tug, Edgaroni raised his bandana up to his eyes and motioned to his two companions to follow him down a damp and dirty alley. His topcoat felt heavy in the hot humid air, but his gait was as free and confident as ever. He was so eager he barely even moderated his outrageous stride enough for the two youngsters beside him to keep up.

So much so that Little Buckley had to break off his whistling to catch his breath, and Chani’s legs hardly ever touched the floor for two seconds together as they tripped after Edgaroni.

Rays of golden sunlight glittered off of the hitch racks, casting long shadows on the road as the sun fell behind the horizon. From the verandah of the Flying Queens pretty Pam Dora nodded and smiled to the three as they tramped by.

“What a pretentious pair of sweet-looking infants,” sighed Pam Dora picking up her broom again, and laughing at their funny imitation of a cowboy’s gait as she watched their faded forms melt into the distance.

The alley narrowed and the sky darkened as they walked along, until it became hard even to see a foot ahead. But the path was well-known to Stonewyck. Many a time had he traced it in preparation for this day. As for his two companions, why, they had spent their whole lives in Cattle Creek and knew every inch of it like the back of their hands.

From up the alley came slight stomping sounds of a horse’s hoofs and the rolling of heavy carriage wheels. Startled, Buckley gazed up at Stonewyck’s face, but he saw no surprise written on Edgaroni’s countenance.

Wagons, gigs, and all such were infrequent in those parts, and it was rarer still to hear them out this late.

As they rounded the corner they came into view of two dim lights, one belonged to the hooded gig they had heard, and the other to the old Town Bank.

Tilting his hat lower, Edgaroni Stonewyck held a private conversation with the driver, who took the lamp that was hanging on the cab, jumped down, and fastened the horse to the Bank’s balustrade. Stonewyck and the children watched him walk off and then, turning towards the Bank, Edgaroni said with a thick yet quick drawl, “‘Kay kiddiwinkles. We’re makin’ millions tonight.”

It was All Pumpkin’s Fault: Chapter 14

Prologue
Chapter 1: Cookie of Consolation
Chapter 2: Sam
Chapter 3: Who Stole the Cookie?
Chapter 4: Tradam’s Warning
Chapter 5: The Yellow House Again
Chapter 6: Treffellem Tagge
Chapter 7: Ambushed
Chapter 8: The EPA Chase
Chapter 9: The Ghostly Chapter
Chapter 10: The Frigid Urchin
Chapter 11: The New New Chapter
Chapter 12: The Things That Happened (At Last)
Chapter 13: The Evening Hornet

Chapter 14: The Breaking of the Orange Ball

When at last Pumpkin held the newspaper in his hands, he couldn’t bear to look at it.

“Twenty-three cents,” he wailed. “I’m broke! For life!”

Heedless, Rosy grabbed the paper from him and scanned the page with a practiced, rapid eye.

“Twenty-three cents!” moaned Pumpkin again.

“Why, look!” exclaimed Rosy, suddenly. “It says here that Semmes went missing and foul play is suspected. And here there’s a small note written beneath in red, ‘He’s in. Tell the secretary of WAS L-1 to prepare extra cells for the GOA.’”

Rosy paused in stunned silence. “He uses the newspaper to communicate with his particular mafia, because he knows nobody reads anything but the headlines! Did you newspapers make the headlines really big for the same reason that a baby-book does?” she added inquiringly.

Pumpkin frowned and thought. “Because it’s easier?”

“No!” Rosy exclaimed triumphantly, “To put the babies – and the newspaper readers, which pretty much amounts to the same thing – at their ease.”

The Nazarene

No man is born into the world
Whose work is not born with him.
—James Russell Lowell

Three hundred foxes, yelping and squalling, gamboled across the valley of Timnath in front of their captor, whose cheery laughter rang out on the evening air. He whistled and cracked his whip, giving an extra twist with his left hand to the thong that their hundreds of leashes were tied to. Then Samson turned to the boy walking by his side with a smoking basket of charcoal.

“You can set that down now, Halek,” he said. “This’ll be a good place to start lighting things up.”

“Yes sir.”

Samson slipped the thong around a handy fence post and grabbed hold of the two nearest foxes by the napes of their necks. He tied them back to back, braiding a brand into their tails. The small boy stood respectfully by, too scared to come near the yelping foxes, but too absorbed in admiration to run home, though Samson had dismissed him with a good-natured nod.

“What are you going to do with them?” Halek asked.

what would you do with 300 foxes?

It was All Pumpkin’s Fault: Chapter 13

Chapter 13: The Evening Hornet

When Pumpkin dared to look around the corner again, Tradam was folding up his beach chair and putting away his newspaper.

Rosy appeared to be in earnest conversation with him, and kept jumping every once in a while in a wild effort to read the name of the paper.

After watching her for some moments with exasperation, Pumpkin got her attention and made violent signs to her, moving his hand like a mouth and gesticulating with a finger to the paper.

“Does it say anything about the weather?” asked Rosy hesitantly, moving her head awkwardly from Pumpkin’s prompting to Tradam’s unapproachable face.

He only rolled up the newspaper in his left hand and smacked her on the head with it for an answer.

“What about…” Rosy paused and looked at Pumpkin in panic. “What about – the stock exchange? Are they up, or down?” she added, eagerly, reaching for the roll in his left hand.

He switched hands and asked cautiously, “Have you any?”

Rosy looked puzzled. “Have I any – newspapers?”

“Any stock,” Tradam clarified patiently.

“Without the T, I have,” replied Rosy, looking down at her feet. “Is that what you were reading about in the paper? Was it in the lost and found section?” she added, genuinely excited at last.

“On this page it shows a graph,” observed Tradam, ignoring her last remark as he carelessly unrolled the newspaper and showed her a corner.

It Was All Pumpkin’s Fault: Chapter 12

Chapter 12: The Things That Happened (At Last)

A madness that leads to the greatest success, is sure to be followed through with headstrong heedlessness of consequences by the fortuitous victor of circumstances.

“And that’s what I always say,” said Johnnie disagreeably, after the adventure was over. But then, the adventure hasn’t happened yet, so she hadn’t said it yet; so Pumpkin was following through with headstrong heedlessness of consequences as the fortuitous victor of circumstances.

It was not many moments since Pumpkin knocked on the door, when it swung inwards and an official beckoned them in.

“You have accreditation for entering without security checks, I presume?” he asked, carelessly.

“Ah, Treffelem Tagge!” exclaimed Pumpkin, slipping past him into the agent reception room eagerly. “I see you have been pro – ductive, recently?” he added, nervously, swallowing the word “promoted” in a flush of fright as he noticed Treffelem gathering his eyebrows of storms from the four corners of his face.

They dissipated quickly at the fine rounding of his sentence, and Pumpkin saw he had steered clear of shoals on one hand and land on the other.

“Certainly,” said Treffelem, tersely, but amiably inviting the rest of them into the agent receptive room. “Let me stamp your hearts quickly as you come in,” he added on second thought, taking a long stick with a camera on the end and preparing to fire it at Sam’s heart. “I’m security here. Big deal though.”

“What does that stick thing do?” asked Rosy suspiciously.

“It double checks the accreditation of personnel,” said Treffelem, pausing slightly. “And checks their heart rate, maybe. But I’m not completely sure about that.”

Sam coughed. “I wish you were,” he complained. “I’m allergic to it.”

“Excuse me. You’re allergic to – what?” asked Treffelem, slightly perplexed.

“Yes, very allergic,” repeated Sam. “I went to the hospital once.” All of which was strictly true, as Johnnie afterwards remarked.

“I’m also allergic,” volunteered Rosy. “To sticks.”

“It’s electric,” observed Treffelem.

“To electric sticks,” added Rosy.

Sobbing on the Shoulder

The cold wind whistled through the girl’s hair as she slammed off her music and opened the door to the car with a disgruntled little sigh. Ellie shivered a little as she stepped out and waved her phone in the air for a signal, glancing disparagingly at the flat front tire of her little Subaru hatchback. Back a little ways over the road she could see the glimmer of broken glass on the pavement in the faint moonlight that seeped through the treetops, and pulling an impatient little face she walked onto the bit of road ahead of her lit up by her headlights and glanced down again at her phone.

Still no signal.

Off the shoulder on the right a benighted squirrel smirked at her, rolling its puny, shining round eyeballs and turning to scamper up a tree, its claws rasping on the bark. She smiled at it hesitantly for a moment, trying to build up the gumption to decide to try and change the tire herself. It was hardly likely that anyone else would drive by at this hour of night, and if they did she wasn’t quite sure about stopping a random stranger to ask for help anyways. She was starting to wish she didn’t work at a restaurant quite so far from her parents’ subdivision and didn’t get back quite so late.

But she could do it. Ellie heaved a reluctant sigh and looked down at her small white hands.

Fun.

She flipped the phone flashlight on and walked towards the trunk. She had just laid her finger on the fob when something caught the light on the road behind her – it was the busted glass strewn across the pavement, but something was mixed in with it, just tinting it… red? She peered over to take a closer look and then turned away and decided against it. Whatever it was she’d rather not know.

A slight but distinct click behind her made her jump and glance around hurriedly. Slowly, Ellie made her way back to the front door of the Subaru, her back to the car, gazing around warily. She felt the handle in her grasp and jumped in hastily, locking all the doors behind her and shivering slightly.

It Was All Pumpkin’s Fault: Chapter 11

Chapter 11: The New New Chapter

After AV had said “You begin to see how deep it is?” and Pumpkin had looked at her significantly, Johnnie drew him aside and they held a hurried, whispered colloquy together.

“What do we do now?” began Pumpkin, lowering his voice even further.

“Tradam has taken over the WAS, and is letting his criminal buddies go free,” whispered back Johnnie, pulling a pair of sunglasses out of her pocket and putting them in her hair. “There’s only one thing to be done,” she added, punching the kitchen counter.

“You mean – beat him up?” inquired Pumpkin, unguardedly.

It Was All Pumpkin’s Fault: Chapter 10

Chapter 10: The Frigid Urchin

After a brief search, Johnnie was found holding out her Egyptian cutlass with her back pressed against the gilt wall and feet dug deep into the floor.

AV pushed the refrigerator out of the way and confronted her solidly, pulling out a Tac-Force gun shaped knife that reminded Johnnie startlingly of her own Apache Revolver and flicking it open with astonishing rapidity.

Observing this new development in the situation, Johnnie dropped her sword and pulled out both her pistols. “Don’t come any nearer,” she began sternly, “or I shoot. … You watch it,” she added, as AV advanced steadily, “You’re one against four, buddy, I wouldn’t do it if I was you.” Johnnie pulled a cowboy hat from the top of the fridge (which was where AV kept his 1865 collection of cowboy hats) and dramatically flipped her pistols in the air as she put it on in the intervening sweep, catching her pistols again and pointing them straight at AV’s breast.

AV, his own hat off, stopped walking forward and, looking about him, considered the situation thoughtfully.

“Nevermind, I guess it’s just three against two,” Johnnie corrected herself dryly, as Rosy slipped her hand into AV’s.