Month: March 2023

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A Tyrannosaurus on my Doorstep, Chapter 4

Written by Nicholas Driscoll.

Art by Sam Messerly.

Read from the beginning.

The police interview a dinosaur.

By this time, there were dozens of bystanders taking pictures, posing, and even asking for the tyrannosaurus’ autograph. I didn’t know what to say. For one thing, it was still difficult for me to know what I should say to a giant flesh-eating lizard. If I said the wrong thing, I thought maybe he would bite my head off—literally. But at the same time, I liked my garage. I liked my garage a lot. So, in other words, I had ample motivation to say something.

Thankfully, at that moment, the police arrived. Two of them anyway—though they did not look very intimidating. Not much does next to a rex.

“What’s going on?” said one, eyes popping as he approached the old lizard. “Is this some kind of prank?”

The tyrannosaurus turned to the officer.

“Hello there,” said the tyrannosaur.

“Officers, thank goodness you are here,” I said. “This tyrannosaur wants to steal my garage. Please arrest him!”

The policemen looked at the tyrannosaur, and then they looked at each other.

“I don’t think he would fit in the back of the police car,” said one.

“We will get this all sorted out somehow,” said the other, and he walked up to the tyrannosaur. “Did you try to steal this man’s garage?”

“No,” said the tyrannosaur. “The garage is still right over there. And despite the fact that I am a very large dinosaur, I think it is obvious I am not big enough to carry away the entire building. Plus, and this is the important part—this man Wal lives on my land. So his garage, and this entire town, are legally my property.”

Some of my neighbors were setting up lawn chairs so they could sit and watch what was happening. My neighbor Charlie’s daughter Harriet, always the little entrepreneur, had set up a lemonade stand and was drawing dinosaurs on the paper cups. The policemen just stared at the tyrannosaur.

“Please take a look,” said the dinosaur. And then he showed the police his feet, the fossilized footprints, and how well his feet fit the footprints, plus the hole where he claimed he had been sleeping. He even had a dinosaur-sized pillow.

“As you can see, I took a very long nap, and while I was sleeping, your country was built on my land,” said the tyrannosaur.

“Without my permission,” he added.

The policemen were listening, but they didn’t seem to understand.

“Do you want to see the footprint again?” asked the tyrannosaur. “Look, you can see every wrinkle and line from my feet. You won’t find another tyrannosaur with a foot that matches these prints.”

“Are you trying to take over the country?” asked one police officer finally after a long pause.

“Not the whole country,” said the tyrannosaur. “But this town is obviously mine. You will find more of my footprints all over the area.”

The policemen looked at each other again.

“Should we call the mayor, or the army, or both?” asked one of the officers to the other.

“This isn’t in the training manuals,” said the other. “Let’s just call everyone to make sure. And I think we need to take his fingerprints, too.”

“The big guy’s fingerprints?”

“Yeah.”

That afternoon was very long. Many people came. Many people talked. We had dozens of meetings. The tyrannosaur stayed cheerful throughout. Harriet made a lot of money from her dinosaur lemonade.

Finally, those in charge decided to take the issue to court—and I was called to be one of the primary witnesses. But how do you bring a dinosaur to trial?

Read the next chapter.

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A Tyrannosaurus on my Doorstep, Chapter 3

Story by Nicholas Driscoll.

Art by Sam Messerly.

Click here to start at the beginning.

The tyrannosaurus led me to my own back yard, talking all the way. The crowd of bystanders began to follow us as well. Everyone was taking pictures, but the tyrannosaurus didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he sometimes put his fingers up in a “peace” sign. Or maybe he was just waving. It’s hard to tell because a tyrannosaurus only has two fingers.

“Look, before we go any further, let’s at least exchange names,” I said. “Unless you just want me to call you ‘Rexy.’ My name is Walter.”

“Come back here, Wal,” said the tyrannosaurus. “Follow me. I think you will find this interesting. You know, I guess maybe you haven’t seen any dinosaurs for a while. And you can call me ‘your majesty.’”

“You are right about not seeing your kind around for awhile, Rexy,” I said. “You are all supposed to be dead.”

“You might think that,” the tyrannosaurus said, noting my insolent remark with a raised eyebrow. “But you would be wrong. Really, did you think we all just died? All of us? I heard people were pretty smart. Maybe it was just a rumor.”

“Don’t tell me there are more of you?” I said.

“There are more of us,” the tyrannosaurus said. “Of course there are. But maybe my friends aren’t going to come out right away. At least, not from your perspective.”

Behind my house was a clearing with a big lawn. Beyond the lawn was a rocky area, with plateaus and cliffs in the distance, most notably a large, towering rock structure relatively close to my property called the Pumpkin Smasher Rock. The Pumpkin Smasher Rock is a tower of stone poised precariously as if it could fall at any moment, though I am told it actually is quite stable.

Anyway, it’s a nice view, which is why I picked this place for my house. Who doesn’t like looking at big, dirty rocks?

We were starting to walk into the boulders and dust and what-not. While the stony structures are pretty in their way, I hadn’t often gone out there due to the possibility that there could be so many big poisonous snakes and spiders. But I had a passing thought that I would rather deal with snakes and spiders than a tyrannosaurus.

“What are we supposed to find out here?” I asked. “A rock with your name on it? Or maybe a 65-million-year-old bill of sale?”

“Kind of like that, Wal,” the tyrannosaurus said. “But it’s not a paper deed. I was actually sleeping out here for a long time. You wouldn’t be able to say my name.”

“You were asleep for 65 million years?” I asked.

“Sixty-five million years, six thousand years, a day—it all feels the same when you’re asleep!” said the tyrannosaurus. “You try counting the years when your sleeping underground! Ah, here we are. Here is where I woke up.”

In the space the dino was indicating, rocks and dirt were broken away and a big hole had been ripped out of the ground. Something had definitely clawed its way out of the ground here. Stones and bits of dirt in all sizes were scattered around the terrain. Some cactuses and plants had been torn up, too.

“You can’t imagine the kind of dreams a fellow has when he sleeps that long,” the tyrannosaurus said.

“A smelly old cave doesn’t prove anything,” I said, and crossed my arms.

“Look beside the cave,” the tyrannosaur said. “I marked this territory as my own many years ago. You can see the proof and I can prove its from me.”

After searching for a few moments, we found what the tyrannosaurus was talking about: a series of huge dinosaur footprints imbedded in the stone. These were very old footprints, but extremely well preserved.

“These footprints are from my time,” said the dinosaur. “And as you can see, they fit my feet perfectly. I was here before you were, I claimed the land myself, I was sleeping on this land and so occupied it all along. You have to admit, this land—actually, this town, come to think of it, is actually mine.”

I almost fainted dead away.

Read the next chapter.

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“When the Mountains Move” Short Story, by Nicholas Driscoll

Originally published in G-Fan magazine.

On that morning, one of mountains moved. The people of New First City had been expecting this day to come. Many mountains stood around the city, and the sound of their breathing provided a cadence for the passing of the days. Many said that it was the breath of the mountains that provided the breezes, and the people of New First City often murmured their thanks to the mountains for the services they provided. The mountains were beautiful in their way, covered over with mosses and trees, shrubs that took hold as the creatures underneath the outer-rock skin slept.

But eventually, for reasons that the denizens of the city still did not fully understand, the mountains would sometimes awake. Rarely more than one at a time, but even one was a dire threat that could wipe out the entire city. One walking mountain could be hundreds of kilometers tall, and such a massive, god-like being strolling through the streets would be enough to cause untold devastation and the loss of many lives, even in their technologically advanced civilization.

Panic rose on the morning the mountain awoke. As the mountain began to rise, the evergreens, boulders and moss growing on the creature’s back and sides slipped and shivered, streams of soil fell in black waterfalls. The side of the mountain seemed to open, caves yawning and revealing darkness and secrets. At least a dozen caves opened along the front side of the mountain—perhaps nostrils, perhaps mouths, perhaps eyes. No man knew. All they knew was the blackness of the gawping maws that signaled coming death.

Arms along the mountainsides moved like a coming avalanche. The head shook, and a small forest broke away, twigs showered down. The sound of breathing roared, a reality-shattering rumble sucking in, gusting out.

The mountain was lumbered directly towards the city. They always did. Perhaps they were attracted to the lights, or they could sense the presence of life, or by some chance the mountains could read the thoughts of the citizens and were pulled towards their fear. Scientists made their guesses and their research a thousand times over, but just as they had never found a way to kill the giants, no one knew they had never discovered why they without fail approach the city upon awakening.

But the people of New First City had prepared for the mountain’s coming.

No conventional weapon was powerful enough to stop a mountain. Even the most powerful explosives would do nothing but dislodge dirt, rock, and trees—worthless detritus to be ground beneath the mountain’s feet. In times past, near other cities now long destroyed, when mountains awoke, when missiles and rockets were used, the explosions were known to do nothing but spur the creatures to move faster—enraged or perhaps excited by the attacks.

No, only one method had ever been found that could stop the mountains from coming, and that was the bullet men. They were coming out now, hurrying, stumbling in their haste as they burst from their doors, charged towards the cannons, desperately throwing on their peculiar armor.

Each bullet man wore thick metal armor and a stiff helmet that attached to the shoulder pads below. The suits were equipped with weapons, burst rays, explosives, and more for their mission. The armor was enough to protect them for the trip they had to make.

But usually, when the bullet men were deployed, at best, none of them came back. At worst, they all died.

Harris was the fastest that day. Not because he was the most athletic—he actually had a paunch now, and so encountered some difficulty in squeezing himself into the armored suit—a fact which prompted him to wear the metal all the time. No, rather than for his speed, he was first because of his personality. He lived in anxiety about the mountains, more so even than the usual bullet man, and so every night he barely slept, waiting for the alarm, tormented by nightmares of the coming doom.

He had been known on several occasions to run from his home, thundering down the road half-naked as he pulled on the rest of his gear, only to discover that the alarm he had been sure had sounded was only in his mind.

But this day, the alarm was not in a mere figment in his mind, and he was out and to the cannons with fleet feet. The cannon men were priming the cannons already, warming up the gears, the electricity buzzing, lights flashing. They welcomed him, eyes thick with a kind of detached sorrow. He felt their hands upon the armor on his shoulders, felt them checking his straps, the connections, running final diagnostics to ensure everything was ready.

Harris waited fretfully for the diagnostics check on his armor to be finished. He knew they would find no problems. He examined the armor every day himself, and was aware of even the smallest nicks and lingering kinks, the sections of cloth that were beginning to wear down, and everything on his suit was well above the acceptable rating required to participate in the Shot.

Standing there with those testing hands prodding so slowly, Harris wanted to scream, to just step forward, to leap into the air and into his destiny. And finally they gave him the okay with the sweat of fear dribbling down their chins, beading on their foreheads. Harris strolled forward, worried the other teams might be faster, that someone else might be shot first.

The door to the cannon opened, the shining tube stretched up towards the sky. Harris squeezed in, his paunch squeaking against the sleek sheen of the barrel. He clenched his teeth, worried for a moment that his weight might disqualify him. But no one called him out, and he found himself with face centimeters from the edge, sharp scent of metal and residual explosive powder stinging his nostrils and driving his heart to run.

He had to wait in the darkness then, with the cannon moving into position, the vibrations of the movement numbing his muscles, pinching him where his joint armor shifted uncomfortably. He heard the countdown, and felt it, too, as the sound became part of the vibrations around him. He said the words, slurring the numbers against the metal armor, exiting his mouth in a rope of saliva that bit through his beard.

The final number was called, and then the explosion, and all he could feel was pressure and speed and a horrible kind of deafness, as if the world was gone from him. His armor around his middle burned white hot as his paunch pushed the plates against the bore. Everything was light and roaring sound, and he saw the landscape snap by below, the woods waving at him as he seared towards his target.

The cannon had been fired aiming at the spine of the mountain, just above its slowly bobbing head, which crouched underneath a hunched, bulking back. The only method discovered so far that could stop a mountain from crushing the city was to attack the spine, and it only worked with a human bullet. Usually hitting home was not an issue, as the mountains moved slowly, and so a well-aimed shot was nearly guaranteed to strike.

This shot—the Harris-shot—however, did not hit home. As the mountain took another step forward, its front leg sagged suddenly, throwing off the center of the beast’s weight. With a sudden jerk, the creature twisted sideways slightly—but even that slight movement was enough to cause the shot to miss its mark by some distance.

Instead of the bullet plowing through the dirt and bone into the spine growing up out of the back of the mountain’s neck, Harris found himself pummeled into the thick rocky skin of the mountain’s shoulder. Immediately Harris knew something was wrong. From simulations, he knew what burrowing into the vertebrae should feel like. He knew the solid slap of the bullet armor as it sank into the bone, and how the head of the armor then could dig through gristle and cartilage deeper down. The kind of resistance the material of the monster’s bones provided was a rough grind, a hard and tight feel, according to the simulations.

Instead of the tightness and grit, Harris felt something soft and flimsy, and a rush of warm, sticky fluid coating his armor. Harris’ heart redoubled in speed, chattering against his ribs as he hit the emergency reverse. The head of the armor spun backwards, pushing back, extricating Harris from the musculature. He fell out of the hole and into a waterfall of blood.

Part of the safety mechanism built in to the suit just for situations like this included pikes on wires automatically deploying from his armor upon impact with the beast. Not all of the pikes held in the flesh of the mountain, but enough did that Harris found himself dangling awkwardly in the air, swinging back and forth, shoulder skipping against the blood-slicked rocks that made up the area between the mountain’s shoulder and neck.

Harris knew he was the only chance now. With a failed hit close to the mountain’s neck, dozens of smaller holes in the side of the mountain had immediately gaped across the creature’s face, neck, and chest. Out of these holes surged thundering winds and battering rays of disrupting energy. Any further shots would be disrupted by the wind and fire that was exploding in waves from the creature now. There was no clear shot anymore, though Harris knew the citizens of New First City would almost certainly try again. Any further bullet men would most likely be thrown far off their mark, slamming into thick rock, or being sucked into one of the caves to impact harmlessly inside.

Harmlessly for the mountain at least. The bullet men shot now were also almost certain to perish in the attempt. Just as he was likely to do here, dangling and burnt, twisting in the wind, so scared his legs shook.

Harris scrambled to get himself up the wires, straining to reach up far enough to grasp one of the cables. His stomach burned against any movement, his armor still searing hot. Still, he grabbed the wire with his left hand, then up with his right, up, farther. Moments later he was clinging to the ragged lip of the wound, which was now oozing dark brown ichor.

The vertebrae. Where were they? Brain still spinning a little, Harris scanned the area, with a computer overlay across his goggles analyzing the stony structures surrounding him, probing the flesh in search of the nervous tissue underneath. The sensors caught something, a telltale icon began flashing, and at first in his excitement Harris thought it was the spine.

But the tone was wrong. The sensors had not identified the spine. They had identified a parasite lurking on the surface of the mountain. The alarm screeched in Harris ears, and he whipped his head back and forth while he tried to get a better purchase, partially pulled back into the hole he had made.

He saw it, and his guts turned.

It was like a shadowy goat with glowing red eyes and long, spidery legs that stuck into the rock and pulled out in long, arcing strides. Rather than balancing on the nigh-vertical slopes, it skittered sideways silentl except for a wet popping sound as its legs slipped in and out of the rocks and the mountain’s external, largely nerveless flesh.

Harris let out a yell. He had never seen a devil goat before, not in person—but more than enough times he had seen illustrations and video surveillance, seen training videos where bullet men were torn apart by those arcing legs. He aimed his right arm, swinging it towards the creature just as it pounced onto him.

One of the devil goat’s tentacles snapped through Harris’ left shoulder, but he barely felt it for the adrenaline. As the creature’s face bore down into Harris’ face, he pulled the trigger, and the bone-digging cannon built into the wrist of his right arm unleashed a guttering energy bar that liquified the goat’s abdomen, narrowly missing the creature’s head.

The devil goat’s red eyes jutted and faded, its mouth gasped silently, and the creature seemed to burst apart, falling off the side of the mountain in pieces. As the remains of the creature tumbled down, Harris felt something wet on his shoulder.

The wound. He was bleeding. Seeing the puncture from an angle, he knew suddenly he was hurt even before he felt anything, and by knowing it, suddenly the pain became real.

There were only very limited first aid capabilities built into the bullet suit. And Harris couldn’t really use them while dangling off the side of the mountain. He gripped the rocks with his right hand, scooting along sideways when the mountain moved in such a way as to create semi-horizontal land beneath him, using the mechanical strength of the suit to pull himself up onto a more stable ledge.

He rolled against a bulging crystalline formation to steady himself as it shifted gently below him. Almost immediately he saw a patch of red growing underneath where he lay. Pulling a thick device from his belt, he set it for puncture, and several hypodermic needles emerged from the front end, which he jammed into his shoulder. Pain killers, blood clotting mechanisms, antibiotics flooded into him, but the pain seemed only to redouble.

He had to stay awake, had to keep his brain clear. Harris bit down on his tongue, focusing on the pain as a way to stay cognizant, feeling his mouth fill with a metallic flavor.  He allowed himself a full minute’s rest to regain his bearings, but the nausea of panic continued hazing over the forefront of his mind.

The mountain continued to waver beneath him as the massive creature creeped forward. He couldn’t stay seated forever. The longer he waited, the more lives would be lost. He imagined even as he lay there that he heard another bullet man misfire through the air and impact uselessly against a rock outcropping.

Harris forced himself to stand up and keep moving. Worms of numbness crisscrossed with white stripes of pain across his shoulder. He clenched his teeth, blood squeaking against his molars. The augmented reality display on his goggles continued to scan the rocks, searching for an access point to the vertebrae underneath. Also, after the encounter with the devil goat, Harris found himself nervously glancing around to see if there were other parasites that might be looking for an easy meal.

Far above he thought he saw shadowy figures snapping across the cliff-face. Devil goats or rock worms or maybe something worse. Harris didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t have the luxury to think about it, the space in his mind to allow for distractions.

The AR system was flashing, a buzzer going off in his ear. A patch of inconspicuous earth ahead, indistinguishable from the surrounding rock and shrubbery, apparently was the closest access point to the mountain’s spine.

Shakily, painfully, Harris ran as he ignited the bone-digging cannon. Using the cannon was far from ideal. The original shot into the monster’s flesh had been his best chance for success. The cannon took longer, and it called more attention to himself, throwing up smoke and flashing lights that could attract unwanted attention—more devil goats could easily gather around and shred him in moments with his body half in the ground. There just was no choice in the matter. It had to be done.

Harris thrust the cannon down, the bar of light and fire colliding with the ground and instantly throwing up a cloud of dust and sparks. Soon he was choking and gagging, but he followed protocol, burning out a tight circle where he could fit into the hole, yanking out individual rocks and tossing them down the side of the beast.

Within moments he had hit skin, and ichor began to pool, gush over, sizzle and steam against the bar of light. The stench was nauseating, and Harris turned up the power, liquefying the muscle and skin and burying himself down into the body of the beast.

Now that he had made entry, he pushed in head-first, engaging his drill helmet. The body of his armor had grooves and even conveyor belts for taking away rock and bone from the hole so he could make progress. His body went down slowly into the muscle and mess. The heartbeat of the mountain began to ring in his ear, reverberate against his body.

The augmented reality screen showed that he was digging through bone, and that the bones were not thick here. At the rate he was digging, he should be able to implant into the nervous system, and…

A sharp pain slammed through his body. Something had just grabbed hold of his right leg. He could feel claws piercing through the armor, through his skin. Some kind of creature had indeed been attracted to the smoke and fire thrown up by the bone-digger cannon. It had followed him into the dark and was now trying to pull him out.

The suit engaged spikes that shot out in all directions into the surrounding bone and rock, holding him in, preventing him from getting pulled free. The creature—a horned stab beetle, or a viciolizard perhaps—continued to yank furiously at his lower leg, his skin raked and sliced in the process.

It wasn’t going to let go, and Harris couldn’t confront it or shoot the creature in the face. There was really only one solution. Taking a deep breath, bracing himself, squeezing his eyes shut, he engaged his escape and blew his right leg off.

The pressure was immediately gone. The monster that had been pulling so voraciously had been blasted right out of the hold while still holding on to the leg. With any luck, the explosion would send the creature plummeting to its death. The charge, too, had been set up inside his own leg in such a way that, when it blew, it automatically cauterized the resultant wound and prevented Harris from bleeding out. According to design, the explosion was also supposed to burn away his nerves so that he wouldn’t feel the loss of his leg.

In practice, it didn’t quite work that way. Not only did his right leg stump burn and smart, his left leg had been scorched by the explosion as well.

Harris suddenly felt as if his whole body had been battered and beaten, as if he were about to fall apart inside the mountain.

But he pressed on. There was nothing else but to press on.

The minutes ticked by, and Harris kept waiting for another beetle to snap onto his remaining leg. Nothing happened. The rocks continued to be pushed out, the helmet continued to spin, dust and dirt and ground up mountain meat. Through the haze of the medicines pumped into his system, Harris watched the indicators on the display on his goggles. He breathed hard through the tubes built into his suit, sucking the hidden oxygen tanks that had been cut into his sides when he had become a bullet man. He had to prevail. He had to succeed.

The heartbeat of the mountain thundered against him harder as if the massive creature knew what was happening just when the sensors bleated out their triumphant message: He had access to the vertebra, he was inside the nervous system of the monster.

Harris let the drill dig a few feet more, deeper, deeper, waiting to make sure his entire body was inside for maximum contact. The pain in his shoulder was overcoming all the painkillers now, his missing leg as well. He could barely think, barely register where he was. He had to finish his mission. He had to hope that it would work.

He pulled the trigger. He whispered his last words.

“Goodbye.”

His body did not explode. An explosion would not slow down the mountain—not by much. They could shoot a hundred burrowing missiles to try to blast apart the inside of the monster with little effect. Cities had tried that before. Those cities were gone now. There was no destroying the mountain, there could be no successful assassination attempt against the monolith.

Instead, the back of the helmet broke open, and a harpoon-like structure shot out into the nervous structures of the monster. The harpoon was connected to a sturdy cable, and the cable was connected to Harris’ own brain. In a moment, in a snap of electricity, their minds were connected.

He felt all of the mountain’s emotions coursing through him. It’s desire to be free, to move, to mate. It’s fear as it saw the bullet men zinging through the air towards its neck. Its thick sense of touch as it walked, as it stumbled, as it lived.

And Harris engaged his training, sinking himself deep into meditation, sending out waves of peace and relaxation, out past his own panic and anxiety, deep breathing, deep concentration. Harris felt himself winking out of existence as his thoughts molded themselves into the monster, and the peace overcame his every worry.

And on the outside, the mountain began to falter. Its steps grew heavier, the wind pouring from the caves upon its cliff faces chuffed and puffed. One of its great feet reached out, fell down crushing several evacuated residential houses flat to the ground, and then stopped. Smoke and sparks of flame shot up momentarily around the foot, but the mountain did not move again.

Instead the mountain settled down, crumbling into a sitting position that shook the world, shattering windows for miles, knocking over furniture in a hundred houses.

Then everything was still again as the mountain dreamed.

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Taste of Cherry review–on finding meaning in boredom?

Will the Taste of Cherry save or destroy? Art by me.

Most of my life I have loved movies, but I have mostly prioritized genre flicks, often with a particular focus on the cheesiest, stupidest movies I could find—even going so far as to celebrate “Stupid Movie Night” as a youth, and regularly gathering with friends with horrendous movies such as the South African ET rip off Nukie (1987) or the “Christian” anti-drug horror film Blood Freak (1972) to laugh and gasp at and wish for my money back. Recently I decided to explore the opposite end of the quality spectrum and began investigating lists of the greatest films ever made. Enter Taste of Cherry, a 1997 Iranian film by celebrated director Abbas Kiarostami. As I’ve been watching films like Taste of Cherry or the Russian Mirror (1975) or Italy’s 8 ½ (1963), I noticed how much these movies demand to be evaluated on a different set of criteria than my usual taste for excitement, or camp, or clever stories. In the case of Taste of Cherry, a movie which apparently had no script, which largely did not use professional actors, and which can come across as confusing and mysterious, I found myself bewildered as to how to evaluate the experience.

The plot is simple and tragic—a middle-aged man named Badii is driving around Tehran looking for someone to help him commit suicide. The details of why he is pursuing this end are never explained and barely hinted at. Most of the action of the film features him meeting a new person, explaining his situation and his request, and the resulting (often awkward) conversation. Some of these conversations are depicted on screen with his vehicle seen driving around dusty roads while we hear the spoken words as mere audio played across the desolate imagery, but we don’t see the actors and their reactions. If there is narrative tension, it mostly comes from the idea of the premise and whether Badii will go through with his plan to its fatal end.

As mentioned in the opening paragraph, according to multiple sources I found, the movie had no script, and instead the director rode about with the actors and prompted them to speak in character. This decision profoundly effects the tone of the film, with the actors (many of whom apparently were not actors at all) deliver their lines in a stilted, unemotional manner that nevertheless sometimes hits home on an emotional level. After all, the entire story is about Badii asking a series of individuals to help him kill himself. The characters don’t really have deep relationships with each other, and the situation is surreal in the first place. The fact that their reactions to one another can feel a bit robotic seems appropriate to the surreality of the situation—compounded by the almost complete lack of music, and the ambiguity of character motivations and back story.

Knowing that the film had no real script, too, puts a different pressure on the dialogue performed. Perhaps my greatest pleasure after viewing the movie was debating the meaning of the film and the motivations of the characters with my former coworker who volunteered to view the film with me, and so we teased out the film’s artistic choices, and talked about the confusing conclusion. But if the movie was not closely planned, if the script was not even written out, then the meanings we tried to pick apart feel like happy coincidences, like a found poem. It can feel like a cheat, like as an audience member we are being invited to search for and construct meaning out of phantoms that had little craft. After all, Roger Ebert counted Taste of Cherry as one of his “hated films,” and his excoriation can still be read online on a website devoted to chronicling his most vitriolic movie reviews.

Yet… the movie remains one of the most celebrated films ever made. Does it not deserve its reputation? So much of film criticism can feel like an artificial pursuit built more on popularity polling and celebration-for-celebration’s sake, a construction of cinema canon clicked together from hazy critical parameters that slightly tweaked or re-focused could easily produce a completely different list of champion films. As different people will have different aesthetic focuses or may gravitate to film based on emotional or circumstantial meanings, and there are no universal “film quality” rules, nor have all the critics viewed the entire range of movies made in the world, the distinction of moving picture greatness seems even thinner, even harder to grasp or evaluate. For example, director Kiarostami claimed in an interview (viewable on the Criterion Channel streaming service) that he didn’t like movies that told a story or that aimed for emotions and that he prefers “films that put their audience to sleep in the theater”—a maverick delineation of quality if I ever saw one! I would further say that, once a film has been recognized as “one of the greats,” too, they become difficult to criticize—as if the movie is now immune to jeering because of the armor of reputation and the any critic could open themselves to the counter accusation that they lack artistic sensitivities. I mean, heck, that’s half the reason I am even writing this review or watching interviews trying to figure out why this movie is so beloved!

Still, perhaps because I was searching so hard to find something to enjoy in the movie, I did find it. Perhaps because I wanted so badly to discover artistic merit and purpose and depth, I inserted my own. I think there is value in that, too. Maybe there is more value in searching for the positive qualities in film and art regardless of its pedigree, regardless of whether the film snobs recognize this or that work as a superior piece fit for display in the equivalent of a motion picture museum.

The taste of cherry in the title is a reference to where Badii wants to die (under a cherry tree), and further to a line from one of the characters Badii tries to talk into helping him kill himself. The man in question tries to talk Badii out of his morbid task, and gives various reasons to find meaning in life—including the succulent taste of a cherry. Because of that one line, and because of the proposed death location, the oncoming ominous conclusion sizzles with a sense of a confluence of meaning The cherry taste seems to pull for life and for death simultaneously depending on the perspective of the viewer, since Badii wants to die under that tree, and his acquaintance wants him to live to enjoy a delicious cherry one more time—all against the backdrop of Tehran and the wandering cast of immigrants and secondary drifters Badii encounters, and their common, limping life concerns.

Does that sense of meaning make Taste of Cherry a standout for artistic merit above, say, a great sci-fi film with clever effects, a comedy with crafted gags that transcend culture and time and place to elicit giggles from all ages, or a tightly plotted and expertly edited action-suspense thriller that supercharges the heart to run? I don’t think it does, as each of those kinds of films serves different functions, and require different kinds of valuable artistry that can be evaluated in different ways. But I still appreciate Taste of Cherry for expanding my palate and helping me to find a new taste to enjoy my life today. And that’s enough for me to recommend it!

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A Tyrannosaurus on my Doorstep, Chapter 2

Written by Nicholas Driscoll

Art by Sam Messerly

Read Chapter 1

Chapter 2:

I found my voice after almost a minute.

“You want to live in my garage?” I said. I knew what the tyrannosaurus had said to me. I mean, I understood what he had said perfectly. But I still had to ask the question.

“Yes,” said the tyrannosaurus. “Thank you.”

Suddenly my thoughts cleared and I could talk again.

“Wait, wait, wait,” I stammered, waving my free hand. A strange image of a tyrannosaurus driving my brand-new truck arose in my mind. “You can’t live in my garage!”

“Why not?” said the tyrannosaurus. “I have thought about my problem carefully. I have no house. You have the biggest garage in the area. You have a very big door on your garage. If I duck, I can walk inside. I am sure of it. What is the problem?”

“The problem?” I said. “There are many problems! Not just one! Many!”

“For example?” said the tyrannosaurus. And he took another piece of caramel popcorn and ate it while watching me with one eye.

“My truck and my boat are in there,” I said. “There is no room for you.”

“Easily solved,” the tyrannosaurus said. “Just take the vehicles out. Look, your neighbors have their cars on the street. You can park them there, too. This popcorn is very good.”

And the tyrannosaurus somehow took a handful of popcorn (even though he only has two fingers on each hand). Somehow he managed to get the entire handful into his mouth without dropping one piece.

“I don’t want my vehicles parked on the street!” I said. I was upset. “And I don’t have a tyrannosaurus-sized toilet. I am not lending you my toilet. I don’t do that anymore.”

“I don’t want your toilet,” said the tyrannosaurus. “I can use the yard for that. Don’t worry, I will be discreet. I am a very civil tyrannosaurus.”

The popcorn was almost gone now, and for some reason that made me even more angry.

“No, you can’t!” I said. “I won’t clean up your mess in my lawn. I would need a dump truck. And anyway, most importantly, you can’t stay in my garage for one very important reason!”

The tyrannosaurus cocked his head.

“And what is that reason?” he asked.

The tyrannosaurus finished eating my popcorn with one incredible lick that cleaned out the bowl.

“Stop that!” I said. I got tyrannosaurus saliva on my arm, and it made me very uncomfortable.

By this time, many of the locals had gathered and they were watching us with curiosity. We were starting to make a scene, and I wanted to end this conversation as soon as possible. Like most people, I don’t like talking with unexpected visitors—even when they are extinct super predators.

“You can’t stay in my garage because it is my garage,” I said. “I own it, and I make the final decision. Please go away.”

The tyrannosaurus looked surprised.

“You don’t really have a choice,” the tyrannosaurus said. “After all, this isn’t really your land.”

“Huh?” I said. “What are you talking about?”

“Well,” said the tyrannosaurus lazily. “The garage isn’t really yours. It’s mine. This land is mine, and so your house and your garage are really mine as well. I can prove it to you.”

It was at that moment that I realized this was going to be one of the worst days of my life.

Read the next chapter.

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A Tyrannosaurus on my Doorstep, Chapter 1

This is chapter one of my dinosaur novel, A Tyrannosaurus on my Doorstep. I wrote this novel back in 2018 and 2019 originally, and have been trying to work out the best way to share it ever since. The novel has 98 short chapters, and I am hoping to post them here for free for anyone to read–and I hope to enjoy! Each chapter also has an accompanying illustration done by my friend Sam Messerly, and you can find much more of his work here. I am hoping to publish a couple chapters each week in two forms–one with just the chapter and art, but another with additional material designed to help Japanese readers of English study. My initial purpose for writing the book was that it could serve as enjoyable reading material for English learners in Japan, and I used the book in two of my reading classes years ago–to mostly positive results. Now I would like to make the novel available for any readers and teachers who might like to use it in their classes or for their own study–or just to enjoy. Thank you, and I hope you like the story!

Doesn’t this look like fun?

Chapter 1

One day I found a tyrannosaurus on my doorstep. I was very surprised. He knocked on my door when I was eating popcorn and watching a movie in my living room. I don’t remember the movie. You forget things like movies when you find a tyrannosaurus on your doorstep. Anyway, the knock was very quiet. I did not know a tyrannosaurus could knock on a door very quietly. Now I know. Be careful if you hear a quiet knock on your door.

I flopped around looking for my remote and almost knocked over a pile of broken cell phones I needed to fix yet.

After pausing my movie (Death Dancers and the Swing Thing—it’s really good if you haven’t seen it), I walked to my front door. I thought maybe it was my neighbor, Charlie. Charlie always wanted to borrow something from me. For example, one day he borrowed my truck. Another day he borrowed my best hat. Another day he borrowed my toilet. I mean he actually took my toilet to his house. “I will give it back to you tomorrow,” he said.

He still has my toilet.

I hate Charlie.

So, I opened the door. I expected to see Charlie. Instead, I saw two trees in my front lawn I had never seen before. I was surprised. I don’t expect to see new trees in my front lawn. I think it is very rare for a tree to visit your house. Have you ever seen a tree visit your front lawn? Of course not.

And then the trees moved. And I noticed that the trees were wearing pants.

And then I saw the trees were not trees. They were legs. And the legs belonged to a brown tyrannosaurus with slashes of bright orange. And the tyrannosaurus smiled at me.

“Hello,” the tyrannosaurus said. “I am a tyrannosaurus, and I am interested in your garage.”

I was very surprised. Have you ever been very surprised? I mean, very, very surprised. I could not move. I could not run. I could not speak. I think my face looked very funny because the tyrannosaurus’ smile became much bigger.

You never know who is going to be at the door.

“Don’t worry,” the tyrannosaurus said. “I won’t eat you. Look at my teeth.”

I looked at his teeth. They were not sharp teeth. He had very big, very white, very… friendly teeth. Can teeth be friendly? His were beautiful, friendly teeth. I think a person could sell toothpaste with such beautiful teeth. I saw my face reflected in his two giant molars. I noticed I was scared out of my mind.

“I am sorry,” I said finally. “Do you want some popcorn?”

I didn’t know what to say. You try talking to a tyrannosaurus sometime. Probably you won’t know what to say either. Also, I was still holding a big bowl of popcorn. From that movie I was watching. I thought maybe it was rude if I did not offer the tyrannosaurus some popcorn.

It was caramel popcorn, in case you were wondering. Probably bad for a tyrannosaurus’ teeth. Which means probably they are bad for my teeth, too. And I wondered how much popcorn a tyrannosaurus could eat. I realized that I think about stupid things when I see a tyrannosaurus on my doorstep.

“That is very kind of you,” the tyrannosaurus said. He took one piece of popcorn between two fingers and tossed it into his mouth.

“Delicious, really,” the tyrannosaurus said. “But I am not here for your popcorn.”

The tyrannosaurus moved closer, and I almost dropped my bowl of popcorn.

“I want to live in your garage,” said the tyrannosaurus.

Read the next chapter.

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The Fabelmans–a magical filmic fairy tale with heart

Along with many other movie fans today, I can say that Steven Spielberg has had a huge impact on me. His energetic, artistic, powerful, passionate films have again and again inspired wonder and excitement in my soul, and I generally count one of his movies as my favorite of all time–Jurassic Park, if perhaps not for artistic reasons entirely, then for its huge sense of astonishment, its incredible tension, its fantastic achievements in effects, and because it came out on my birthday and became one of my best memories at the movie theater when I went with my family back in 1993. Spielberg’s latest film, The Fabelmans, is pretty much a straight autobiographical tale of the great director’s life, made with his long-time collaborator John Williams on the music, and Janus Kaminski once more responsible for cinematography (they have worked together on 20 films!). This latest movie has a lot of heart and nostalgia and pathos to spare, though perhaps some of the movie magic can feel forced before the last scene can shimmer onto the screen.

The basic story follows Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle, The Predator [2018]) as he grows up within the constrains of a dysfunctional family, in a dysfunctional society, and uses movies to escape and to construct his world through 1950s and 1960s USA. His father, played by Paul Dano (2022’s The Batman), is a workaholic who is sweet on his family but creates chaos with a series of upheavals due to his job(s). His mother, played by Michelle Williams (The Greatest Showman [2017]), is a flighty artistic type who causes chaos due to mental instability and, err, relational issues. Sammy navigates the mostly loving storm of his family life by forming his fears and excitement into a series of amateur films with his sisters, friends, and family–and the films both help him to overcome and create new trauma and drama as the film progresses.

The Fabelmans‘ story is powerful, with touching imagery, and a sometimes searing, sometimes mawkish series of emotionally-electric set pieces as Sammy creates magic and mayhem with his cameras. Spielberg’s adoration of film bleeds through the screen as he remakes the amateur shorts and projects of his youth with a living sense of wild nostalgia, and for me the most emotionally-resonant sequences were those showing Sammy immersed in creating his movies and innovating with effects, editing, and directing. Near the midpoint of the film, Sammy makes a terrible discovery about his family through his film-making, which acts as a powder keg storytelling moment, searing the screen with the painful metaphor of film as simultaneously savior and destroyer in his life. The creation of his films and Sammy’s relationship to movies imprint and punch through every major event in the movie, and in that relationship lies the movie’s greatest strength, but also some clunky weaknesses.

Maybe the biggest weakness of the film for me was that Sammy’s movie wizardry occasionally comes across as overindulgent as a plot device–like we are supposed to be so taken with the kid’s ability, and Sammy’s movies are supposed to be so powerful, that they manipulate not only his life, but the lives of those around him. Over and again we see audiences oohing and awing at his creations, and the films become like magical touchstones to the plot. Even a bully, who was previously seen viciously beating Sammy, later is so profoundly moved by Sammy’s depictions of his (the bully’s) physical prowess that he collapses into an emotional wreck. This even after Sammy tonguelashes the bully for his bad behavior. The scene came across as so outlandish that I was wrenched out of the narrative, even feeling embarrassed for the actors.

I probably shouldn’t feel bad for them, though. Even with a few misfires, the acting throughout is well-done from all involved–with perhaps the most discordant performance being the semi-minor role of Sammy’s girlfriend late in the tale. LaBelle is magnetic on screen as young Spielberg/Fableman, Dano is deeply emotionally wrenching–but the greatest performance for me had to be Williams as Sammy’s mother. As events play out, she proves to be the most complicated and tortured soul in the movie–and we see that in her actions, she causes as much good and bad as Sammy’s films. Several scenes focus in on her ebullient presence, and she crackled on screen–especially in one scene where she is forced to watch one of Sammy’s films and witness a big surprise.

I couldn’t help but wonder, though, given that the characters in the film are based on real people, just what Spielberg was feeling as he made the movie. From other articles online, I found images that showed that the costumes and hairstyles of the cast were closely based on the real appearances of Spielberg’s family, sometimes almost to an eerie degree. The actors also seemed to have been chosen for their resemblances to the parts they were playing. How bizarre and emotionally trying it must have been for Spielberg to work through recreating scenes with actors dressed as the most precious people from his past! I started to wonder if maybe Spielberg asked LaBelle to act more closely to how he remembered himself from his childhood, or if he gave tips to Williams or Dano on the quirks of his parents’ moods and behavioral ticks. Given that the movie deals with his family’s failings as much as their successes, too–including some details on betrayal–the sense of raw openness and emotion made me feel conflicted. What could Spielberg have been thinking when he made this movie? I’ve seen it reported that he named the film “The Fabelmans” instead of “The Spielbergs” as a means to avoid the accusation that the film was an exercise in self-aggrandizing, but even still the movie does stick close to real events for the most part–even more than some “based on a true story” films that can at times fudge details with abandon. Still, the title seems to indicate that Spielberg was a bit conflicted in creating this film, too.

I also saw some reviewers comparing this film to The 400 Blows, the celebrated 1959 film by legendary director Francois Truffaut–which was also autobiographical in nature and covered Truffaut’s childhood in similar, often heartbreaking fashion. Of course, The 400 Blows was Truffaut’s first film as director, and so he was in a very different position compared to Spielberg in reference to their careers and fame at the time the respective films were made. Still, both deal with familial strife and stressors in school, although Truffaut’s focused more on the dictatorial teachers he had to deal with, and Spielberg turned more towards anti-Semitic bullying he had to endure. More striking for me–and this is a bit of a spoiler–was that both Truffaut and Spielberg include scenes in which they as children/youth discover their respective mothers cheating on their dads. Apparently with Spielberg, the scene is fabricated, and he had actually lived much of his life blaming his father for the disintegration of the family, so the change does feel self-serving in this case. (Even as I write that, though, I look back on the movie and think those scenes where he discovers and confronts her infidelity are some of the most powerful in the movie…) Truffaut’s movie, however, feels almost introspective, with the movie exploring the director’s trouble-making past and the troubles he dealt with partially as a result of his own actions. Unlike with Spielberg, Truffaut’s film does not feel doused in nostalgia, either. Both films are well-worth watching, though, and movie lovers might find an added enjoyment by viewing them as a double feature.

Perhaps unfairly, I was a little disappointed in John Williams’ score. Given that this is probably the last collaborative film between Spielberg and Williams, I was hoping for an iconic, bombastic, and glittering aural landscape like his most classic compositions from Raiders of the Lost Ark or Star Wars or Harry Potter. However, the music here is much more subtle, with his contributions often soft piano numbers reflecting Sammy’s mother’s background in performance on the ivory keys. So much of the music in the movie instead turns to licensed golden oldies, which I still loved… but I wanted so much to thrill to Williams’ melodies particularly, so I couldn’t help but be a little bummed.

The Fabelmans occasionally cloys, and some sequences can drag slightly, but Spielberg still shows his power with story and set up, and there is an undeniable impact and affection that overpowers the screen. While maybe not one of Spielberg’s best movies, there is a lot to love here, with a set of great performances, sparkling nostalgic cinematography, and a sense that we are getting a glimpse at Spielberg’s deepest heart for his childhood and love for his family–and not just another slam-bang action vehicle. Recommended cinematic goodness.

I also did a YouTube video in Japanese, embedded below. It’s just my ramblings in Japanese after watching the movie, but I wanted to give it a try. If you can speak the language, or if you’re just curious, maybe give it a watch.