The War Against the Bugs began long ago.  It started small, and mysterious.  A few small flies, about the size of a gnat, that would hover around the sink.  But they multiplied.  They reproduced.  And then they swarmed.  You see the fly scouts had managed to capture an important resource that had hid from the eye of our generals.  A banana behind the toaster.  What we had once would provide sustenence for our troops became a key base for the enemy army.  While blackened and degraded beyond usefulness to us, so much so that we forgot of it’s existence, this banana was able to launch a thousand bugs.  Soon there were clouds in our kitchen.  They’d send scouts to other rooms.  The bathroom fell victim.  We tried to fend them off, but they spawned faster than we could destroy.  We searched for their source but found nothing.  Finally the winter came, and as with Napoleon and Hitler, their war failed as the cold set in.  The flies were gone.

And for a time, there was peace.

But now, as spring approaches, a new rebel force is beginning to build up it’s forces.  It thinks it is hidden in the cabinets, but every now and then I catch a scout flying out.  I try and torture information out of them, for the most part they keep their mouths shut.  But one thing has become clear.  The moths are coming.

I want to commit myself to write a little bit every week (or every day would be even better), and in turn would like to find something that will not put a lot of pressure on me to write a lot or to write anything of some great quality.  iFanboy.com is a website I go for editorial articles about comics, and they also host my favorite comics podcast.  One of their columns is “200 Words With Paul Dini”, a weekly column written by the producer of the Batman Animated Series and writer of many comics, Paul Dini.  Basically every week he tells a story in 200 words.  I was impressed with what he was able to do with this number of words, and realised it would be a good amount of writing to commit to myself, so I will be trying to adopt this strategy.  Here’s my first attempt:

Santa Ana winds always give me an indescribably strange feeling. It’s discomforting to think that the weather can have such a strong effect on one’s emotions, especially when visibly it is not so drastically different from the regular California. There is no bleakness here, the sun shines as it always does, illuminating the rich greens and blues of the Conejo Valley and presenting an altogether picturesque vision of our landscape, and yet, something just feels off. Is it in the air? Do the winds themselves bring some sense of dread in their arms and drop it as if releasing some bomb from a plane on high? If so, where do they find it? The wind is howling at me now, pushing the branches and leaves of trees aside, making way, as if in some great hurry. Where is it going? And what’s its rush? This is the one time of year that I do not need to feel stress, that there is nothing important nudging me in the middle of my back, reminding me that I can’t relax, but the wind has taken it upon itself to make sure that I am always slightly off kilter. Always looking over my shoulder.