Show Reveal: We filmed the first episode of our new show, Take A Bite with Phi. Hosted by Phi Nguyen of the Take A Bite OK Instagram account, the food series is all about getting people to expand their food horizons while getting to know the stories behind the dishes and even how to make some of the meals at home yourself.
Phi is a born and bred Oklahoman who spent 10 years in the restaurant and hospitality industry before her current downtown management career in the heart of OKC. Her love of food and passion for the ever-growing restaurant scene in OKC was the catalyst for Take A Bite OK. The mission of her hyper-local account is to share the vibrant culinary landscape of Oklahoma with others.
The series will premiere on The Show Starts Now Studios app later this fall. You can help us and get early access by joining us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/TSSNStudios
A writer is gifted with a mysterious card that will inspire them if they toss the card in a fire while sharing a scary story.
“The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.” I stepped back from the campfire, falling deeper into the shadows and waving my hands for dramatic flair. Plus, I was already hot, no thanks to the Oklahoma heat wave.
I placed a hand on my heart to check if the strange card I was gifted was still in my overalls. Good. I still have it. Let’s do this.
High school students from all over the state will arrive tomorrow at the Quartz Mountain resort for the intensive two-week residential school for professional training in the visual, literary, and performing arts. As an alumnus of the creative writing class, this place meant so much to me. I made new friends during a time in my life when that was a struggle. Being around other writers my age motivated me like nothing else, especially since I was the only one in my English classes who enjoyed writing stories. I’ve heard many others make this statement, but there was something magical about being surrounded by mountains, far from civilization, and high-speed Internet.
Because of my experience, I returned as an adult to work as a counselor as this was something I could do to give back. I would love to eventually become an instructor, lifting others how I was inspired. But first, I would have to be a successful writer, which required me to stop hitting blank pages.
With tonight being the last student-free night, I had no trouble gathering a few people under the pretense of sharing scary stories in the courtyard. I first sought after my friend, Hannah. We attended the summer program together in high school as cabin roommates while she took the film and video course. This year, she was part of the public relations team as a documentary videographer. She got her boss, Wren, to join us. Wren was down for a good scary story. Then a couple of guys, Danny and Nathan, who happened to be hanging out in the lodge lobby when I met up with Hannah and Wren, accepted my invitation to join. I squealed with glee, with an audience eager to hear my story.
The line about the abandoned cabin was fictional as this happened where my kids would be staying. I took some creative liberties with the beginning, fabricating details about finding dead bugs, unfamiliar howling in the distance, and the moonless night, but the rest of the story I was about to tell them wouldn’t veer from the truth of what happened a few hours ago.
I closed my eyes, centering myself as I continued the story. “My gut told me something was amiss, and I knew I had to investigate.”
“Well, you’re still here, so we know it wasn’t a serial killer,” Danny said.
Wren, the public relations manager, threw a marshmallow at her fellow staff member. “Let Burnie finish their story.”
“Yeah, maybe Burnie died and was replaced by a doppelgänger,” Hannah said, teasing me, too.
“Or maybe we are the ones that died,” Nathan added with some spooky hollering at the end.
I cleared my throat. “So, I walk up to the cabin. As I pulled open the door, I was hit with this aroma, like I was about to enter–” I paused to build suspense, “a coffee shop.”
The staff exchanged confused looks and giggles.
I carried on with my story. “With my phone flashlight on, I scanned the room. There was no one there. As I treaded deeper inside, the cabin door slammed shut.” I smashed my hands together to represent the noise. “The candle blew out, and my phone – with a full battery, mind you – died. My heart began to race as I tried to open the door. Then suddenly, I saw this light illuminating behind me. I turned around, and there was this spotlight on a woman beside a golden freestanding door. She wore this purple maxi dress fashioned for a greek goddess, and her luxurious silver hair danced in the windless cabin. I asked this woman who she was, but she only responded with the question, ‘Do you seek inspiration?’ I told her yes. I’ve been at an impasse on a new horror story.”
I whipped out the card like a salesperson who was an expert at handing out business cards. “The mysterious muse gave me this card. She told me that if I shared this tale, and then I tossed this card into a fire, we would experience a real horror story.”
I held up the card, showing the group. The dark purple card depicted a golden skull that shimmered in the fire’s light. The audience humored me with a few “oohs” and “ahhs.” Wren clasped her hands on her face in awe.
“Shall I toss it in the fire?” I asked.
“Do it!” Danny taunted. “Do it! Toss that bad boy in the fire.”
“That card looks too pretty to burn,” Hannah said. “But I don’t want your story to end, so go for it.”
Nathan and Wren gave approving nods. With everyone’s consent, I tossed the card in the fire. The stranger never revealed what would happen other than I would be inspired to write. After I took the card from her, she opened her golden door, which led to a coffee shop. The door disappeared like she was never there, but the card was my proof. When the card hit the fire, the fire turned bright purple like a firework, soliciting wows from the entire group.
The flames collapsed in on themselves and burst to life a five-foot giant scorpion, like the striped bark kind found around the area. The scorpion stung Danny, knocking him out of his chair. Hannah jumped out of her seat, utilizing the chair as a shield. Thankfully, there was no one else around in the courtyard. Nathan and Wren ran together to the hotel guestrooms while I stood frozen in shock.
“What the fuck is going on, Burnie?” Hannah said as she used the chair like a lion tamer in a circus act.
“I-I don’t know,” I cried. “I didn’t expect this to happen!”
The scorpion’s stinger pierced through the chair, missing Hannah and getting the chair stuck on the tail in the process.
Hannah retreated to my side. “Got any ideas on how to kill it?”
A spotlight beamed down on the impossible monster I brought to life. We looked at a firetruck flying like a drone or alien spaceship. The firetruck hovered in the starry sky, silent as a ghost. How long has that ship been there? Is it part of the card or something else? The scorpion smashed the chair against the ground, freeing the creature as two more emerged from the fire pit.
I couldn’t make out the details, but a person with dark skin–definitely human–aimed a white sci-fi-looking rifle at the scorpions. The sniper opened fire, emitting a low-frequency screech. One by one, the monsters collapsed as we took refuge under the artistic metal gazebos designed to mirror the Twin Peaks mountains seen from the courtyard.
A team of three people jumped off the firetruck, landing on the ground like superheroes without getting hurt. They wore bright white and orange uniforms, making them easy to spot. Why are they wearing such bold outfits?
“Get this human healed,” ordered the short black woman. “Then find everyone here and wipe their memories of tonight.”
Their commander answered my question. No need for secrecy when you could erase the unnatural like the event never happened. I cursed under my breath, but Hannah heard.
“You should run and hide,” she told me. “I’ll distract them.”
“Wait,” I whispered, but she gave me no choice as she ran toward them, flaying her arms in the sky. “Hannah…”
With the strangers distracted, I bolted for the nearby cave. I figured they wouldn’t expect anyone to be out on any of the trails, hiding in the cave.
I took the route behind the hotel guestrooms, hoping the building would shield me from the action in the courtyard and the lake to my right would keep me anonymous. As I passed the classroom pavilions, I prayed to the universe that the beams of flashlights scanning the area would miss me. I hoped the trees on the cave trail would cover me as more flying firetrucks flew overhead, landing in the parking lot on the other side. I begged my ankles not to give and my heart not to jump out of my throat.
I arrived in the cave alone and unharmed. Some force of the universe must’ve heard my wishes. Thank you. Then my brain warned me of possible snakes and normal-sized scorpions in the cave. With my phone still dead and no source of light on me, I decided to take my chance. I did my best to steady my breath to listen to any slithering or scurrying of desert creatures. I heard nothing. Perhaps my presence scared them. I did make a bunch of noise getting up the hill. The inside of the cave was about the size of my apartment, leaving little room to hide. Feeling a bit safe, I took a seat.
I woke up as the sunlight stretched into the cave, poking my face with sizzling kisses. I have no idea how, but my body collapsed into a deep slumber. I thought I would stay awake all night, but waiting around while nothing happened and being in darkness must’ve put my body to rest. Strange how the body works.
I didn’t know the time, so I returned to the courtyard. I brushed myself off to not appear as I slept in the woods–not that anyone would judge. To my relief–I think that’s the correct word–I saw some staff and faculty members walking out of their rooms and across the courtyard to the main lodge for breakfast as if today were a regular morning. I did notice one less chair around the fire pit where I tossed the card.
Hannah came jogging up to me. “Where were you last night?” I could tell by her scrunched face she was a bit annoyed.
“What do you mean?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“You told me you wanted to share a ghost story by the fire, but you never came.”
“Hold on. Do you not remember the giant scorpions?” Hannah shook her no. There was nothing on her facial expression to indicate she was messing with me. “Do you remember the flying firetrucks?”
Hannah shook her head. “Was this part of your story?”
“No, this is what happened last night. Wait! Where is Danny? Is he okay?”
“Oh, he’s fine.” Hannah pulled out her phone and showed me a photo of a normal-sized scorpion. “He had a bad reaction to this scorpion in his room. He should be back tomorrow.”
I sighed like a person freed from a boulder. The strangers cleaned up well, but I had so many questions. Who was the woman with the golden door? What was this organization that saved the day? Was someone watching out for me? The truth of what happened would be left for my creative imagination to determine, just as the mysterious muse planned.
A new short story to kick off summer! This was written for a horror story contest to use this line as the first sentence: “The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.” Since I was at Quartz Mountain for the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute, I got some friends there to pose and slightly base the characters on them. The mysterious muse was the end-timer, Brigit, who was featured in The Winged Letter and A Question for the Writers.
When a herd of dragons visits the small town of Valley, the mayor decides it’s his civic duty to greet them only to get caught in a mystery.
There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Mayor Axepen was dead set on giving the unfamiliar herd of dragons a friendly welcome as part of his civic duty. In his 42 years of living on the Black Planet, Brutüs occasionally saw dragons fly throughout the skies, wait in line at the drive-through of a coffee shop, or deliver kegs of beer from a local brewery. Seeing over two dozen together was a rare sight.
Upon hearing of the arrival of dragons, Brutüs skimmed through Hugging Dragons: A Cultural Etiquette Guide to Befriending Flying Serpentines by Peigi MacLeòir. After all, Brutüs won the democratic mayoral race based on his platform of owning and reading the most books in the Valley. During his campaign, he also decorated his horns to appear less threatening, invited constituents to tea parties to listen to their concerns, and held ice cream soirées at the library while reading children’s stories. He successfully proved to the citizens of the Valley that he wasn’t some dumb, mean, brawny minotaur but a well-educated, compassionate, brawny minotaur.
Brutüs minded his steps up the hill of rainbow-colored flowers to not ruin the plants. He made a mental note to discuss adding gravel trails to the hill at the next town planning meeting as he thought all should enjoy the calming scents, colorful sights, and overall relaxing walk.
As he reached the top, he recalled MacLeòir’s advice on figuring out the leader. The book warned not to judge based on the size as sometimes the leader is the smallest one, or sometimes the leader was the largest, or the one with the most heads, or somewhere in the middle. The book said not to ask because if you happen to ask who the leader was and that was their leader, a fight would break out. Instead, the best course of action was to study the dragons to see who they watched the most. Everyone tended to keep an eye on the leader. However, with current technology, MacLeòir advised scanning the herd with a networker to find the answer.
Brutüs’ owned a networker designed to look like an ax, which he wore as a necklace. He lifted his networker and asked, “Networker would you tell me who is the leader here?”
“Scanning!” the networker replied in a cheerful tune as a holographic spinning rainbow ball projected out. “No information found. This appears to be an unregistered group. Sending out a request for more information.”
“Uhm,” Brutüs said, letting the network fall to his muscular chest. The holographic display faded off. “I’m glad I read that book first.”
Following the author’s advice, Brutüs watched the dragons, studying who they watched the most. Everyone seemed focused on a white, single-headed dragon, who was small by dragon standards but was still twice as big as himself, a 7-foot tall minotaur. He straightened his blue suit and decided to take a shot at welcoming the leader.
“Greetings,” Brutüs said with a big wave. “I am Mayor Axepen, and I welcome you to the Valley.”
The white dragon lowered her head in a bow, her spikes glistening in the morning sun. “Hello, Mayor Axepen. My name is Swift. We mean you no burden or trouble as we merely pass through to visit The Black Dragon.”
Brutüs nodded. The Black Dragon was the oldest and most influential living being on the planet. Although officially, The Black Dragon wasn’t the planet’s ruler – unofficially was a different matter. As a town leader, Brutüs was in charge of the yearly tribute in which the most talented artists competed to send their works of art to The Black Dragon. Fame often followed the winners as only the best would win. With The Black Dragon being practically immortal, the dragon would often auction or donate the works in the future for a significant profit. Brutüs viewed the tribute as a win-win and held neither a positive nor negative opinion of The Black Dragon. Although writing about The Black Dragon in his journals was a tiny bit of an inconvenience as The Black Dragon had no pronouns or titles. However, such an “inconvenience” was a nonissue matter for respecting one’s personal preferences.
“Very well,” Brutüs said, straightening his red and black striped tie. “If you are interested in obtaining coffee before your long journey, the drive-through at Gratitude Coffee can accommodate you.”
Fun fact about dragons: dragons are caffeine sensitive, and what would be a large coffee for a human would often be the perfect size for a dragon.
“Thank you, Mayor,” Swift said. “We may consider that.”
As Brutüs was about to leave, he caught sight of a tattoo of a human woman in a green dress with a green door on Swift’s arm. “If you don’t mind me asking, Swift, what is the story behind that tattoo?”
“Why do you think there’s a story?”
“I’ve never seen a tattoo of a human on a dragon before, that’s all.”
Swift brought up her arm to see the tattoo in question. “This…This was someone special to me. She saved my life. It’s a long story.”
“I do enjoy a long story if you enjoy sharing one.” Brutüs sat on a clean patch of ground. “I do have the time.”
Swift laid in a rested state. “Well, a long time ago, when I was about your size, I was an actress, and she was a director. She had a fiery spirit like the mightiest dragons – for a human. I later learned she was a time-traveler, but that’s getting ahead of myself.”
“A time-traveler?” Brutüs repeated, trying not to scoff in disbelief. In the entirety of Brutüs’ library, he only owned one book about time-travelers. In How to Survive an Encounter with a Time-Traveller by Filip Webb, the 150-page book only consisted of the word “Avoid” written on each page in different languages, font styles, and graphical representations.
“I sense your skepticism,” Swift said, “as I was a skeptic myself. To this day, she was the only time-traveler I met.”
“My apologizes,” Brutüs said. “I mean no disrespect. Please, do continue.”
Swift nodded. “This happened around when people believed rumors that a dragon’s spikes were potent aphrodisiacs. As I was leaving a solo act one night, I got mobbed by a gang. They had me chained and in a cage before I knew what was happening. They were professionals.”
A red tear ripped the clouds above Brutüs and the dragons. A ginormous spaceship–larger than the field of dragons–flew out from the portal. The sudden, looming shadow and the engine’s raging hum gave away the ship’s presence. Swift stood up, fully alert, while Brutüs sat in confusion.
“Gods,” Swift cursed. “Did you scan us by any chance?”
“I was trying to figure out who the group leader was,” Brutüs said.
Swift groaned and faced her fellow dragons. “Everyone, Evacuation Formation Beta. Rally together at point 13. Go!”
The dragons flew away, splitting into eight groups and going in separate directions. Without saying another word to the mayor, Swift left, joining up with one of the groups. Brutüs watched them leave as the ship opened fire on the dragons. He felt like someone had given him a prologue to a book while keeping the rest of the story for themselves.
I wrote this story for a short story contest at Vocal. The challenge was to write the first chapter of a fantasy novel with the following first sentence as a prompt: “There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.”
Thanks to Janine De Guzman for bringing the scene of Brutus and Swift meeting at the Valley.
I know this story has a total jerk ending, which I was playing to this being like a prologue. I may continue this saga if the story is well received. 😉
Back to the Basix at ARTSPACE Untitled encompasses the new works of Jordan Tacker. These paintings include the old sparks and color of Tacker’s past work with the classical method of oil painting. As a student at Laguna College of Art and Design, Tacker has been exploring an atelier and representational method of creating artwork. Rather than reaching for something new, she hopes to rediscover the power of painting from past masters and explore the interconnected world around her through these paintings.
This exhibition is on display from Tuesday, June 7, 2022, through Thursday, June 30, 2022. Learn more at https://www.1ne3.org
While at Quartz Mountain as part of the PR team for the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute, Kyle came to me with this idea for a short film starring the camp’s mascot. We recorded this short comedy film for the Hedgey social media account and I went fancier than Kyle expected. This short has been a huge hit with everyone and so I wanted to share what we made here.
