“That exorcism took a lot out of him,” Bill said, “physically, and spiritually.”And it wasn’t the last one, either. Those demons, they were all over Utica back in the day, grabbing kids left and right. That was when World of Warcraft came out, you see, and like everybody knows, that’s just Dungeons & Dragons on the computer. Digital gateway to Satan." The assembled men shook their head; everyone there knew someone who had lost a child to the horror of Role Playing Games.

“So he was real busy, being the only exorcist in all of Utica. And the story goes… well, one day, it was just too much. This kid got herself possessed by one of them Pokemon demons, and Thomas did everything he could to help her, but…” His voice trailed off.

“She stole an ice cream truck,” Bill said quietly. He kept his eyes on the table as he spoke. “Ran down a whole family of blind Tibetan orphans, then choked herself on Rocky Road. It was all over the news, you must remember it?” When Terry nodded, Bill continued. “Well, Thomas took this real hard. Figured it was all his fault, and spiraled into a depression. Story goes, he lost his faith, and started wandering again.”

“Where did he go, Illion? Deerfield?” Terry asked in a hushed voice.

“Further,” Bill replied. “Wandered down South. They spotted him in California, before he ended up in Mexico, and then he made his way to the Dominican Republic.”

“What was he doing down there?”

“No one knows. He disappeared into the mountains, lived off the land. There were rumors, a man that would come out at night and strike fear into the hearts of evildoers… but they’re just stories, I think. El Gringo Blanco, they called him. Silly.”

“Anyway, there was this group of missionaries, from his old church. Their pastor came looking for them, but…. It looked like all hope was lost, but the pastor had one more chance. He went looking for Thomas… and he found him.”

Terry looked skeptical. “That sounds a lot like…”

“Yeah,” Bill said. “It doesn’t say ‘based on a true story,’ I think because he wanted to remain anonymous, but that Rambo movie is suspiciously familiar to those of us who’ve known Thomas for a while. Well, known him as well as anyone does, anyway.”

The rain was pouring down in thick sheets, and Thomas, huddled in a ditch on the top of Mt. Ominous, pulled his poncho up over his head.

I deserve this, he thought, for my failures. I deserve to suffer.

Suddenly, an unexpected noise made Thomas tense. Instantly, every nerve ending was alive, every sense keen, as he silently searched the night for the intruder. His perceptions informed him that the interloper was coming up the goat path, behind him and to the left. Careful not to rustle the poncho, Thomas rose to his feet and hid himself among the vegetation.

The trespasser came to the top of the hill and stood there, shining his flashlight and looking around him. He spotted the poncho, and moved toward it…

Thomas slipped out of the shadows, a deadly wraith cutting through the night, and grabbed the man from behind, clamping one arm around his throat, and immobilizing his hands with the other.

“Explain yourself quickly,” Thomas said in a dangerous whisper, “if you want to leave this place alive.” And then, for good measure, he repeated the instructions in Spanish, Portuguese, and Pig Latin.

Lightning flashed, and thunder rolled.

“Thomas,” the man croaked, “it’s me! Your old pastor!”

Thomas instantly released the holy man and stepped back. “It’s dangerous for you to be here, pastor. It’s dangerous to be around me. You know that better than anyone. Why have you come?”

“It’s our missionaries,” the pastor said. He turned to face his old friend, and Thomas gasped. He looked haggard, world worn. Deep bags hung under his eyes, and his hair was a wild tangle. He hadn’t shaved in days.

“They were taken,” he continued, “three days ago. By the Bando… Bando…”

“Bandoleros,” Thomas said, his voice thick with disgust. “The feared Dominican gang, led by Jose El Papi Jose. We have met many times.”

“Yes,” the pastor said. “I’ve talked to the police, but Jose El Papi Jose has bribed them all, and our Consulate says that their hands are tied; they can’t risk the delicate Coffee trade by ordering a military intervention.”

“Heartless bureaucrats,” Thomas spat.

“No one can help us, Thomas. No one… except you.”

Thomas’ eyes went wide, and he turned away. “I am no good to you, pastor. I am no good to anyone. Ever since that girl…”

“Thomas, that wasn’t your fault!” The pastor said imploringly, grabbing Thomas by the hand. “You couldn’t have known she would steal that ice cream truck!”

“I should have known!” Thomas shot back. “I was young, and arrogant, and foolish, and all of those orphans died because of my carelessness!”

“Thomas,” the pastor said consolingly, “we all make mistakes. We all fail. But the righteous man…”

“Gets up seven times,” Thomas finished.

“That’s right. How many times?”

“Seven.”

“How many?”

“Seven!”

“This is your seventh time, Thomas! Get up! Do what’s right! Do what needs to be done!”

Lightning flashed once more, and Thomas looked at his old friend. “You are right. I will rescue these brave missionaries, and defeat Jose El Papi Jose once and for all. Do you… have any money?”

“To buy guns?” the pastor asked.

“No,” Thomas said. “Guns are too messy, too inelegant. There is a chance of innocent people being hurt. But Dominican money is largely coins… and I must forge myself a knife!”

Using a fire made by rubbing two sticks together, Thomas melted the holy man’s coins down, and then used a nearby rock to pound them into the shape of a blade. An epic blade, a copper blade of justice. Rain poured down, and the firelight glinted off the new weapon, and Thomas nodded to himself. “I’m ready.”

“But how will you find them?” the Pastor asked.

“This place is my home now,” Thomas said. “Nothing can hide from me here. Not the gamey, yet delicious, rabbits which I consume on a daily basis, and not Jose El Papi Jose!”

With that, Thomas ran off into the night.

He tracked them to the Bandoleros’ secret Jungle Compound, a primitive complex of bamboo huts and tin roofed storage sheds. Thomas briefly wondered why they had gone to the expense of importing bamboo, but decided that their profits from the kidnaping and ransom business would easily pay for such extravagance.

He could have snuck in, but Thomas was eager for this war to end, so he screamed out a challenge, waited for the Bandoleros to stream out of their huts, and charged into the camp. Many, many Bandoleros died that night, victims of the copper blade of justice, and even Thomas’ own bare hand.

Finally, Jose El Papi Jose and Thomas stood face to face, the only remaining warriors. “You have defeated my men,” Jose El Papi Jose said, “but I think you will not find me so easy an opponent!”

Their clash was epic, a titanic struggle between two worthy foes. Jose El Papi Jose was a master of Mexican Judo, but Thomas had been trained in the secret arts of French Kickboxing, which isn’t nearly as sissy as you might think. Plus, Thomas had the power of Righteous Anger which, in the end, allowed him to prevail.

“And now your rain of terror ends, Jose El Papi Jose!” Thomas said, and snapped the villain’s neck with his bare hands.

Thomas ran to the pen holding the captured missionaries, pulled the barbed wire off of the cage, and forced the door open. The missionaries streamed out, singing hymns and shouting for joy.

“Thank you, Thomas!” said the beautiful blond missionary, Seraphina. “When you left, I thought I would never see you again! But I knew in my heart that we would be reunited one day!”

She stood on her toes to kiss Thomas’ cheek, but he turned away from her. “I am sorry, Seraphina. I wish that we could be together, but I am still damaged from that terrible ordeal with the demon and the ice cream truck. You know if I leave you now, it doesn’t mean that I love you any less. It’s just the state I’m in, I can’t be good to anyone else like this.”

Seraphina looked away, hurt, but she answered bravely. “One day, you will be whole, and on that day, I will be waiting for you,” she said. “Oh, what happened to your hand?”

“It’s nothing,” Thomas said, looking down at the wounds. “It was just the barbed wire, surrounding your prison cell. It cut my fingers. I will be all right.”

“But he wasn’t all right,” Bill said. “He had been gone so long, he hadn’t had a chance to have his tetanus shots updated, and the hospitals in the Dominican Republic aren’t as good as they are up here. The wound got infected, and he had to be flown home. The doctors did everything they could, but the fingers had to be amputated.”

“That’s incredible,” Terry said.

“That’s hogwash,” Old Man Quin said.

“Oh really?” Bill said, bristling.

“Yeah, really. You think the guy who took down Jose El Papi Jose would lose a battle to a little big of tetanus? Let me tell you something. Once, Thomas got bit by a rattle snake, and after five days of suffering, the rattle snake died. Tetanus. Please.”

“Nah, his battle with Jose El Papi Jose was just a warm up act. He didn’t lose his fingers until the sequel…”

Tune in tomorrow for Part Five of the Remarkable Account of Thomas’ Halved Hand, The Korean Interrogator of Doom!

“He’s a software engineer, all right, and that job he did for the Mill messed him up real good, but it ain’t his hand that got hurt… it was his soul.”

Larry leaned back in his chair, happy to have a chance to show how knowledgeable he was. “See, he knew he done a good thing, saving all of those jobs, but then he thought about all the robots he put outta work, and all the robot makers he put outta work, and it tore him in two. On the one hand, no pun intended, he did this great thing, but on the other hand, he felt like he’d had to do something awful in the bargain. He felt like he had to do penance.”

“So he wandered the Earth, traveling from New York Mills all the way to New Hartford, searching for redemption. And then, one day, he stumbled into this church, and the preacher there told him about this power bigger than him, about forgiveness an’ redemption, and about a war bein’ fought, a war for men’s souls. A war between God and the Devil, between Heaven an’ Hell. And Thomas, without a moment’s hesitations, said ‘sign me up.’”

“So he was a… priest?” Terry asked, incredulous that a man of the cloth could be such an imposing figure.

“Not jus’ a priest,” Larry said, slapping his hand on the table. “An exorcist!”

It was quiet, almost peaceful, but Thomas knew that the calm was a lie sent by the Devil himself. The Enemy was a crafty foe, a liar from the beginning, but Thomas was not ignorant of his devices. This was merely an effort to lull him into a false sense of security.

Just the calm before the storm.

He paused outside the door to Apartment Six, on the Sixth floor of Tower Six of the Fallen Angel Rental Complex. He shook his head; how had they not seen this coming?

But he reminded himself that it was only a short time ago that he, too, had been blind to the truth, ignorant to the spiritual war that raged around them all. He couldn’t judge these poor people. He could only do his best to help them.

“You really don’t need to do this,” the Apartment Manager said. “I’m sure they’ll be able to work things out on their own. You don’t need to get involved.”

“I’m afraid my hands are tied, Mr. Siefer, and I am duty bound.”

“Please, call me Lou,” the Manager said. He looked at the ground, then walked away, leaving Thomas to himself. Thomas muttered a brief prayer, then knocked on the door.

The door flew open, revealing a short, squat woman inside. “Mr. Thomas?” she asked.

“Yes, my child,” he said to the older woman.

She looked him up and down, briefly overwhelmed. He was a tall man, with piercing blue eyes that hinted at a deep, hidden pain. He was dressed in black from head to toe, and was wrapped in a long coat which billowed around him dramatically, despite the lack of wind. In his left hand he clutched a Bible, the cover made of black leather and embroidered with a celtic cross.

“Thank you for coming, sir. My daughter… she is… not well. And I am told that you… may be the only one that can help her.”

“I cannot help her,” Thomas said serenely, “but I work for someone who can.” His eyes traveled around the room, as if searching the air for hidden things. Finally, he turned his gaze back to the woman. “Take me to her.”

The girl was tied down to her bed with sheets, a fact which obviously distressed her, given the way she thrashed about. Her long black hair was lank and unwashed, and her skin had taken on a sickly, gray color. Her eyes were bulging and bloodshot.

“You,” she hissed in an unearthly voice. “I knew they would send you!”

Thomas looked back at the nervous mother. “Leave us,” he said simply.

The exorcist addressed the possessed girl. “So we meet again, Mephistopheles! Have you not yet learned that Utica isn’t safe for demons?”

“You boast now, human, but one day your faith will fail you, your hope will desert you, and your enemies will overcome you!”

“Perhaps, vile demon… but today is not that day!”

Boldly, Thomas strode into the room. “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,” he intoned in practiced Latin, while tracing sigils in the air. The demon writhed.

He opened his Bile then, turning automatically to a familiar passage. “These signs shall follow them that believe,” he said. “In my name shall they drive out demons…”

“No!” The fell beast cried…

The struggle lasted through the night, and into the early morning. Weary from battle, but determined to free the girl before him, Thomas offered up one final prayer, and then issued a command: “in the name of all things holy, demon, begone!”

The creature screeched and screamed, the sound of a million unclean things being torn asunder by even less clean things. The girl’s body jerked and shook, and the demon came out of her, a vaporous apparition that flew around the room, seeking a body to inhabit.

Thomas’ body was the only one available.

The evil thing flew at him, and Thomas raised his hand to defend himself, but the spirit latched on to him, possessing his hand. The appendage turned as black as night, and the demonic force began to creep up his arm.

“Never!” Thomas shouted, and through sheer force of will and belief, he drove the evil influence back down, constraining it to the two smallest fingers. With his free hand, he reached into his long coat, and drew a dagger.

“What is that?” the now free girl asked.

“The Sword of Saint Michael,” Thomas replied. “The blade is made of the purest silver, forged in a sacred fire and quenched in holy water. The handle is carved from the bones of Jaques, the Patron of we who battle the forces of evil.”

“The Sword of… but that’s just a knife.”

“It turns out,” Thomas said, “that Michael is quite tiny.”

Thomas walked over to the dresser and slammed his hand down flat. He uttered a silent prayer, closed his eyes, and raised his blade…

“And that,” Larry said, “is how he lost them fingers. Gave them up in service to the Good Lord, he did.”

“Larry,” Bill said. Everyone looked at him; it was rare for the big man to speak, and when he did, people tended to listen. “That is the dumbest thing I ever heard. What kind of shlocky horror movie did you get that idea from? Yeah, he was a preacher, and sure, he did an exorcism here and there, but ain’t no demon possessed two of his fingers. ’Sides, demons go for the left hand. Everyone knows that.”

Bill finished his whiskey, and threw down another handful of peanuts. He thought for a moment, then continued. “Here’s the rest of the story…”

Tune in tomorrow for Part Four of the Incredible Narrative of Thomas’ Misplaced Appendages, The Mountain Missionary Rescue!

Teddy pulled his chair closer to the table, and leaned in conspiratorially. He looked around, a nervous expression flitting across his face as he checked to make sure no one would overhear their conversation.

“Thomas over there, he’s a software engineer. The control system that runs the Mill? He wrote that.” The assembled men nodded in approval; the new control system had improved the efficiency of the men two fold, and ensured that they could remain competitive with those fancy new Steel Mills the Japanese were building in De Moines. “I guess they fly him around, some kind of trouble shooter. And the first time they flew him out here, he could count to ten…”

They were the best of the best, a tiger team assembled from the far reaches of the Mohawk Valley, brought together to form the single greatest Java development group in the history of Utica. Nine men strong, they had a combined forty-five years of experience, which was several lifetimes in the computer industry. They were called Roomtangle Beta, in honor of another legendary team, from an earlier time.

The Steel Mill was in danger; the Japanese had built a new Mill in Iowa, and they had used their knowledge of electronics, along with their powers of Kung Fu, to build a hyper-efficient mill that was run by robots. Robots that never needed to eat or sleep. Robots that never asked for a pay raise.

The Robo Mill was a threat to all of the Steel Mills in America, but the Old Utica Mill faced perhaps the greatest threat. Utica had already lost their Air Force base, and the Mob was no longer willing to pump money into the failing economy. The Mill, along with half a dozen pizza shops and a couple of low-rent strip clubs, was the only real industry left in the area. If the mill fell, Utica would fall, too.

Roomtangle Beta’s mission was simple: make sure the Mill stayed open. Like John Henry, they needed to beat the machine.

But this team wouldn’t beat the machine with sweat and muscle, no. They would overcome the insidious robot menace through a combination of smarts and human spirit. They would use a machine to beat the machines. They would design a control system that make a man twice as efficient, allowing him to compete with the soulless abominations shipped over from the Land of the Rising Sun.

They worked long and hard, trying and rejecting a dozen designs before they stumbled upon the path to success. Finally, after months of work, the team had developed a production worthy system, and they were ready to demonstrate it to their customers.

That was when Frank, the Chief Engineer, walked in.

“Gentlemen,” he said, his voice heavy, “I have… terrible news. Our source code… is gone. Our production servers… lie in smoking ruins. Or backups… deleted.”

“What?” John, the new hire, exclaimed. “That’s impossible! How could this have happened?”

Frank was quiet for a moment, and then whispered, “sabotage.”

The eyes of Roomtangle Beta opened wide in surprise. Sabotage! Those crafty robot-makers had done them in!

“Never fear,” said Jay, the Tech Lead. The team walked to the center of the room and bumped fists. “Overtime Powers, Activate!”

Fueled by the promise of free pizza and the ability to make their mortgage payments, the Roomtangle Beta set off in a frenzy of coding, re-implementing the Mill’s control system from the ground up. Days flew by, but the code flew faster, until the day before the customer was due to inspect the system.

“Excellent work, gentlemen,” Frank said. “I never would have thought that you could accomplish so much, given so little. Only, how will we demonstrate our capabilities to the customer?”

The team was silent. A client! In all of the rush, they had forgotten to write a user interface!

“We have… some SoapUI tests… and a couple of… shell scripts…” And then silence hung in the air.

“Well,” Frank said, mollified, “I suppose all we can do is show up tomorrow, and explain ourselves to the Mill. You put in a valiant effort, gentlemen, and I don’t want you to blame yourselves for this. We were faced with an impossible task, and we nearly worked a technological miracle. If only the fate of all of Utica hadn’t rested in our hands…”

Dejected, the Roomtangle Beta began to drift out of the room, hoping to catch a few hours sleep before they had to tell the workers at the Mill that their jobs would soon be lost.

“Thomas, are you coming?” Frank asked.

“In a minute,” Thomas said, his eyes far away.

“All right. See you tomorrow, son.”

But Thomas stayed where he was. Because Thomas, you see, thinks a bit differently than most. Where most people see a blank screen, he sees possibilities, and where most see an empty text file, he sees a canvas. To him, code is like music, and the computer is his instrument.

Thomas shut off the lights, and dragged a case of Mt. Dew over to his workstation. He would need all the caffeine and sugar he could get, if he was going to pull this off, and even then, it might be too little, too late. He could only hope…

He opened a new project in his editor, and gave it a name: Monolith.java. And then his fingers began to dance…

When the team returned the next morning, the found him sitting there, still as a statue, barely breathing. He was surrounded by empty cans of soda, and bags of Skittles and Doritos were scattered around the room.

“Thomas?” Jay asked, concern evident in his tone. Thomas made no reply.

“What is this?” Frank asked, looking over his shoulder at the editor on the screen.

“It looks like… is it… my God, that just might work…”

“What, what?” Frank asked, agitated.

“A client!” Jay exclaimed. His eyes looked at the file in awe; more than just a single class, this client was implemented as one amazingly intricate function, stretching over a hundred thousand lines. They would later learn that its cyclomatic complexity was over nineteen trillion, and the checkstyle errors caused an overflow.

“I… haven’t… had a chance… to test it,” Thomas said, his voice hoarse and thick. “My hand, cramped up… and I can’t… click the ‘run’ button.” Indeed, the mouse pointer hovered over the green arrow that would launch the client, but his finger seemed frozen in place, gripping the mouse like a vice.

“What can we do?” Frank fretted. “The clients arrive in five minutes!”

They struggled mightily to free Thomas’ hand, but to no avail. All of the coding, the hours of typing, had caused his hand to seize up, preventing anyone from actually running the new user interface.

“Jay,” Thomas said, “I need you to reach into my pocket.”

“Um, Thomas, now isn’t really the time…”

“I assure you, old friend, that I will take no pleasure in what is about to happen. In my right front pocket, you will find a small pocket knife.”

Jay did as he was instructed, and found the tiny blade. “Okay, I’ve got it. So…”

Thomas took a deep breath. “Cut me,” he said.

“They took two of his fingers,” Teddy said, “the pinky and the ring finger, and they were working on the pointer finger, mostly I think because they thought it would be funny if he was walking around always flipping people the bird. But then they realized that the problem was in his tendons, so they cut his wrist a little bit. Loosened the tendons right up, and freed his hand. Story goes, even though he was bleeding all over the place, he stayed to run the demo before he let them take him to the hospital.”

“That’s incredible,” Terry said, looking over at the dark man sipping his diet Coke.

“Saved the Mill, he did,” Teddy said.

“Sure, sure,” Larry said, “that… Roomtangle group? They saved the Mill, but that ain’t how he lost them fingers. Lemme tell you what really happened…”

Tune in tomorrow for Part Three of the Exciting Story of Thomas’ Lost Digits, The Tale of the Demon Hand From Hell!

They sat around the dusty table, five of them. There was Old Man Quin, the patriarch or sorts, and a grizzled old veteran of the Utica Steel Mills. To his right sat Slack Jawed Larry, who was well intentioned but none too bright, and had found his calling in life working as an overnight stock boy at the local MegaMart. Next was Teddy Blaise, thirty-something years old, another employee at the Mills. Bill was hunched over his drink, two fingers of whisky, and occasionally reached out to grab a fistful of peanuts. He was a burly man who used to work the docks, but that was before the recession. Now, he hired himself out as a handyman, working odd jobs, trying to make ends meet. Finally, there was Terry, the youngest man at the table, and the newest addition to the group. Terry dreamed about being the world’s greatest pizza chef, and had moved up from South Carolina to study under the Masters of the Utica Pizza Guild. He hoped that, when he had paid his dues and proven himself worthy, they would teach him the secrets of Grandma’s Pizza.

They were an odd lot, an unlikely collection of men, but fate had brought them together and made them family. They met here, every single work day, at five fifteen PM, to trade stories and offer encouragement.

The summer air was stifling, and the worn out old fan on the ceiling did little to improve it. Arlene, seated by the old upright piano, fanned herself, and Leroy slapped at a fly that had landed on his neck. A man everyone called El Presidente walked out of the bathroom, wiping his hands on his shirt.

It was an ordinary day, the same kind of hot, slow day that they had come to expect here in the small town of Utica, a town where nothing exciting happened, and nothing ever changed.

That was when The Stranger walked in.

The door opened slowly, the hinges creaking in protest. He stood there for a long moment, the falling sun casting him in a burning red halo, his silhouette filling the frame. His head turned, slowly, first to the right, and then to the left, taking everything in. Every eye in the place turned toward him, but quickly looked away. Terry felt a chill run down his spine.

The Stranger walked fully into the room then. The door swung shut behind him, shutting out the sun, and as Terry’s eyes adjusted, he got his first good look at this odd man. He was tall and wide, the build of a man who was used to picking up heavy things and putting them over his head. He was dressed in jeans, a deep indigo, and a black t-shirt that stretched across his chest. His eyes were intelligent and wary, and his expression, while not exactly hostile, didn’t exactly invite you in, either.

“Don’t stare, boy,” Old Man Quin said, kicking Terry under the table. Terry blinked; Quin was studying his hands like they contained the answer to the meaning of life. He’d never seen someone have that effect on the Old Man before.

The Stranger walked up to the bar and claimed an empty stool. “Diet Coke,” he said in a quiet, gravelly voice. The bartender snorted and turned, and blanched when he saw to whom he was talking to. “Right away, sir,” he said before scurrying away.

The Stranger sighed and closed his eyes, and for a moment, he looked so very tired. Then he shook his head and cracked his knuckles, and let his hands fall onto his lap. Terry gasped. A thin scar, shaped like barbed wire, ran around The Stranger’s right wrist, and a similar, smaller scar ran around his pointer finger. But worst of all, the pinky and ring finger had been mangled somehow, leaving nothing but stubs where fingers should be.

“Who is that,” Terry asked, “and what happened to him?”

“That,” Teddy said, “is Thomas. Everyone knows him, but no one really knows who he is. He just sort of appeared one day, and he still pops up from time to time, and trouble seems to follow along whenever he does.”

“And as for what happened, well…”

Tune in tomorrow for Part Two of the Thrilling Tale of Thomas’ Missing Fingers, The Story of the Glorious Hack!

James Bond: drives like a maniac.

James Bond: is still a Parkour champion.

Woman Sitting Across The Aisle From Thomas: shares her disbelief with the entire theater.

Thomas: will cut you if you don’t shut up.

Random Hot(ish) Girl: goes back to see the guy that tried to kill her.

Thomas: facepalm

James Bond: drives a boat like a maniac.

The Vast Global Conspiracy: is vast, global, and conspiratorial.

Hot Chick From the Home Office: waits a respectable five minutes and twenty seconds before sleeping with James Bond.

A Bunch Of Things: happen.

Thomas: is confused.

Thomas: is bored.

Thomas: is daydreaming about User Interface Design.^*

The Bad Guys: are defeated?

James Bond’s Dead Lover’s Evil Fake Boyfriend: is caught.

Bond, James Bond: is never said.

Shaken, Not Stirred: is never said, either.

Jason Bourne: does it better.

^*Seriously. About an hour and something into this, I realized that my brain had gone on a little vacation, and was thinking about the cool stuff I can do with the JavaFX library.

This morning, I intended to wake up at 6am (which is sleeping in for me, these days), go to the office, and get a jump on all of the stuff I have to do for next week. Instead, I hit the snooze button until 7, then shut it off and slept till 10.

I decided that the office could wait until tomorrow - or even Sunday - and I didn’t have to be anywhere for another few hours, so I had to decide how to kill the rest of my day. And since I haven’t quite had my fill of emo teen vampire romance angst, I went to see Twilight again.

First off, I really like Robert Pattinson. His fake American accent sounds strangely like a fake European accent, but other than that…

RPatz, as he has been loving dubbed by the Twihards, was handed a football. This confused him, because what he calls a football, we call a soccer ball, and what we call a football, he calls “that thing you play with that’s kind of like rugby, but without all that sissy padding and time outs, right?” Regardless, there were words written on this oddly-shaped sports implement: “Edward Cullen is a Self-Loathing Manic Depressive.” And RPatz, God bless him, took those words to heart, and ran that football right into the end zone.

RPatz has said, in various interviews, that the more he read the script for Twilight, and the book upon which it was based, the more he hated the character he was being asked to play. And then he had a revelation: Edward hated himself, too. He saw himself as a monster, torn between his love for Bella Swan, and his thirst for her blood.

But this wouldn’t have worked without Kristen Stewart (KStew)’s Bella. In the book, the explanation for Bella’s attraction toward Edward basically begins and ends with “damn, he’s hot.” In the movie, they do make mention of the fact that Edward is attractive (Jessica, Bella’s friend, says “he’s gorgeous, obviously,” in case the audience missed that fact), but that doesn’t really seem to be what attracts her to him.

KStew’s Bella is just as touched in the head as RPatz’ Edward: the more Edward tries to push her away, the more she pursues him, and the more dangerous he is revealed to be, the more attracted to him she becomes. They’re both self destructive, both rushing into a relationship that will, in all likelihood, end their lives as they know them, because it’s the only thing that makes them feel alive.

One of the best illuminations of this is in the infamous meadow scene, where Edward and Bella finally have a candid discussion about Edward’s unique condition. Edward backs Bella up against a tree, caging her in his arms; he moans that he can’t tell what she is thinking, and begs her to tell him. Bella says, simply, “I’m afraid,” and the look on Edward’s face is heartbreaking. He stumbles backward, and tries to mask his emotions, but it is clear that her words have devastated him. Even though he has been trying to convince her to stay away from him, even though he is himself convinced that he will destroy her, he never actually thought that she would reject him. But then Bella comes close, touches his face, and says, “I’m not afraid of you. I’m afraid of losing you.”

It’s this interplay that makes the story work. The movie isn’t long enough to make true love believable, but it is long enough to make obsession understandable. Both Bella and Edward are mysteries that need to be solved, an mix of danger and romance that is irresistible to both of them. This is made most clear in the hospital scene; when Edward tells Bella that she should go to live with her mother, to get away from him, she isn’t even able to make a coherent reply. All she can do is stutter “what are you saying,” and “I don’t understand,” and “no,” over and over again, and when Edward relents, and tells her that he will never leave her, nor send her away, Bella says firmly, “you can never say that again.” This may have been the best moment of acting in the entire film; it totally conveyed the depth of Bella’s devotion to - and dependency on - Edward Cullen. As far as Bella is concerned, without him, she is nothing.

I still maintain that this is fantastically unhealthy, and I think the reason RPatz and KStew were so god in their roles was the fact that they understood that it was unhealthy. They didn’t try to find the redeeming qualities in their characters; rather, they embraced their flaws, and played them for all they were worth.

The fugue between fate and free will is also an interesting theme. Although it isn’t said outright until the very end, a lot of what happens in Twilight is driven by the fact that Alice, Edward’s clairvoyant (and awesome) adopted sister, foresees that Bella will one day be a vampire. Edward clings desperately to the hope that his sister is wrong, that he will be strong enough to be with Bella and leave her human. Bella, on the other hand, fervently hopes that Alice is right, that she will one day be with Edward forever. Edward sees Alice’s vision as a curse, and is fighting to change it, while Bella sees it as a promise, an clings to it hopefully.

I was disappointed.

Not by the movie, which I thought was a reasonably faithful translation of the source novel, which is also to say it was a trashy teen vampire romance that I have no business liking and can’t get enough of. No, I was disappointed by the fangirls.

For weeks, I’ve been reading about people from whom Twilight may as well be Holy Writ, people lining up days in advance to get thirty seconds of the actors’ time, people who literally scratch their necks so that they are bleeding^* when they get to Robert Pattinson,the poor fool duped into playing Edward, the sparkly, no-fang-having, vegetarian vampire.^**

So I was sort of hoping for a train wreck. Instead, I got a reasonably well-behaved crowd, and a reasonably well-crafted movie.

Let me share a little secret, folks. It’s a lot harder to be funny when I’m not angry. But I’m sure going to try. Here we go: the Twilight recap:

Fangirls: Excited twitter.

The Screen: Twilight Logo!

Fangirls: Squee!

Thomas: Hopes someone passes out from sparklepire glee.

A friend asked me what I thought about tween- and teen- aged girls reading Twilight yesterday, and I’ve been mulling that over ever since. Now, I’m neither a parent nor a teacher (or a teenage girl, for that matter), but not knowing what I’m talking about has never stopped me from pontificating before, so here are my official thoughts on the moral ramifications of Twilight.

Spoilers abound hereafter, so if you haven’t read the books and want to be surprised, this isn’t a good article for you.

One of the reasons Twilight is so popular with the adult set is that it is rather clean. The language is tame; I don’t think a character even says “oh my God,” which is a reflection of Stephanie Myer’s faith. The suspense isn’t particularly terrifying, and the violence, while present, isn’t particular gruesome, except for one scene in the fourth book, where Bella (the heroine), pregnant with Edward’s (the hero and vampire) child, has to have an emergence C-Section, and Edward, due to the special nature of the birth, has to use his teeth to cut through her womb. This whole scene is just… yeah. The way that the book deals with sex is also rather chaste. Bella and Edward do not consummate their relationship until after they have been properly married, despite Bella’s protests.

So, when someone says that there’s nothing bad in Twilight, they’re right… sort of. While there is nothing explicit in the material, the subtext is, frankly, horrifying.

Edward is the ultimate Byronic hero: self loathing and self destructive, but beautiful, poetic, and romantic. He is the epitome of Troubled but Cute and the Rebel with a Heart of Gold.

His actions over the course of the first story are honestly frightening. In my favorite example, he actually breaks into Bella’s room to watch her sleep - without her knowledge, and before they are even in a relationship. He is controlling, manipulative, and dismissive towards Bella. He wavers back and forth between being openly hostile towards her, ignoring her, and professing his undying love for her.

And as I keep repeating, these things are not romantic, they are warning signs. I’ve known a lot of guys like Edward in real life, and these situations never end well.

The thing is, Twilight is a fantasy. We know that Edward is the good guy, we know that he and Bella are supposed to end up together. We know that he will never hurt her, and we know that they will end up happily ever after.

The problem occurs when this fantasy meets up with reality. In reality, when a guy is a jerk to you one moment, and professing his undying love the next, it isn’t because he’s trying to protect you from his own dark nature, it’s because he’s a jerk. In reality, when a guy is manipulative and controlling, it isn’t because he is trying to save you from an immortal blood-drinker who has sworn your destruction, it’s because he thinks of you as his property. In reality, when a guy breaks into your home to watch you sleep, it’s because he’s not right in the head. In reality, when a young girl throws herself physically at the Troubled Loner, he is not going to gently rebuff her offer in an attempt to maintain her virtue.

So, I think Twilight has the potential to set young girls up for disappointment, and possibly even trouble. So, should you let your young girls read them?

Well, here’s the thing.

Our Senior Pastor gave a talk on alcohol the other morning, and one of the things he referred to was prohibition. The US Government spent millions of dollars and countless man-hours trying to fight something that the people were going to do anyway. Furthermore, labeling something “forbidden” only serves to make it more appealing; if you tell your girls that they can’t read Twilight, it’s going to make them want to read it even more.

And while the thought of girls sneaking out behind the school to read a trashy paranormal romance kind of makes me giggle, I also think it’s sort of unnecessary. I’m not a real advocate of shielding people from the truth. Sooner or later, they are going to be exposed to something that you don’t like and that you can’t control. I think Twilight falls into that category. It isn’t so destructive that you need to seek out every copy and burn it, but it does have the potential to be destructive enough that you need to be able to discuss it intelligently.

So that’s my advice. If your girl wants to read Twilight, let her… but read it yourself, too, and be prepared to discuss the difference between fantasy and reality.

This week’s episode of Heroes reminded me of a point I made last season: when your character is essentially a god, its going to be very hard to write an interesting story about him.  Spoilers abound, be thee wary.

Case in point: Peter Petrelli, who is able to “learn” the powers of anyone in close physical proximity to him.  I havn’t been keeping a tally, but off the top of my head, Peter is:

• Telekinetic
• Able to see the future
• Able to read minds
• Able to fly
• Able to set off a nuclear explosion
• Throw lightning blasts
• Super strong
• Able to stop time
• Able to travel through time
• Able to teleport
• Able to turn invisible
• Able to walk through walls
• Oh, yeah, he’s also immortal

And those are just the highlights; I haven’t included any of the (possibly hundreds) of powers he’s picked up while wandering the halls of Level 5, or in the comics.

How do you put a character like that in danger?  How do you give him a challenge?  How do you create drama?  Peter is so vastly overpowered that he has to fight himself, because another Peter is the only credible threat.

The only exception: the Hatian, the usually-silent agent of The Company.  The Hatian (apparantly) has three powers: the ability to extract meories, the ability to erase memories, and the ability to cancel out the powers of anyone around him.  You put Peter next to the Hatian, and he’s just another emo kid crying for his mommy.

Which bings me to Sylar, the second most powerful being on the planet, and a total psychopath (unless he believes that his mommy really loves him, at which point he reverts to a suit-wearing, brian-eating mama’s boy).   HRG is forced to take Sylar - who has tried to kill his family on several occasions -  on as his partner, leading the Hatian to ask if he is being replaced.  HRG responds (paraphrasing) “only for a little while.  I’m going to find out his weakness, and I’m going to kill him.”

Um, buddy, you’re standing next to his weakness. The Hatian is everybody’s weakness.  Have the Hatian power-wammy Sylar, and shoot him.  Done and done.