Collabrative Story

[Lenguas]

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故事 by Lenguas
Chapter 1
Wyoming: The date is 2030. Sam is your average American boy. Sam gets up to watch the latest Chinese soap operas on his new internet tv. After he gets his Chinese soap opera fix, he puts on his trendy clothes just like on the latest runway in Beijing, and spends a half hour on his long hair styled just like people in China do. He wishes that short hair on boys would be fashionable one day in China. Before leaving for school, he does a few hair flips, just like the popular singer Xiao Mingpao, the new Justin Bieber, although from China, rather than North America. He then goes to school to learn how to write Chinese characters and speak Chinese, so he can go to Romania and communicate with the people. English has become obsolete as a lingua franca, and the young people in the Americas and Europe all learn Chinese. He still struggles with the tones, but he does the best he can. At least he's better at Chinese than his parents, who can barely say "ni hao". When he gets to school, he greets his friend Wang (his parents decided to give him a Chinese name, so people would think he was Chinese) who has just returned from the overseas department resort artificial island in the Pacific near Hawaii, that the Chinese installed in 2025 so they would have a colony, just like the Western Powers had.

[Bryon]

I'll play

"Hey Wang, how's it hanging?" asks Sam, chuckling to himself. With that out of the way, Sam goes to his first class of the day, Chinese Phonology. Most of the class is failing, and most don't even know that Chinese is a language with tones. Sam, on the other hand, is the star of the class, much like the red star with Chairman Mao's picture that he wears on his red hoodie. Walking into the classroom, he gives a big hug to his Chinese boyfriend, Zheng, an eternal-exchange student from Shanghai, the center of world culture.

Meanwhile, in another part of the city, trailer park queen Denise Lu is waking up at the crack of noon. She yawns, rolls over in bed, and...

[Lenguas]

realizes that she has missed half the school day. She barges into her mother's room and asks her mother why she didn't wake her up. He mother is fast asleep a bottle of liquor in her hand. Denise decides that there is no point in taking the bus several kilometers to school, and instead heads to the local library which is closer to her house. She needs to prepare a book report for her Chinese lit class. She is happy that she can right the report in English, because her grammar in Chinese is atrocious. She spends several hours in the library, before heading to the diner. When she gets to the diner, she sees Sam, who asked what had happened to her, and why she hadn't been at school. She explains the situation with her mom, and how she's been having insomnia lately. Sam says that he feels very sorry for her, and hope that things improve. The waitress comes over to them and asks if they are ready to order. Sam asks if they have any Chinese food. They do, so he orders the kung pao chicken. Denise is not quite ready to order food quite yet, so she just orders a Green River for the moment. Sam asks Denise if she had finished the math homework, because they are both taking Algebra together. She said that she was having trouble with problem 13 on page 812, so Sam offers his assistence. Math is his specialty. After they finish discussing math, and Denise had finished her Green River drink, the waitress comes over again and Denise decides to order a patty melt. She loves patty melts, so she savors every single bite. For desert, she orders delicious French vanilla ice cream, and Sam does the same. Sam pays for both of their meals, and invites her over to his house. They go over to his house. When they get there, Denise tells Sam that she has decided to become a Daoist. Sam is not very impressed, because he thinks that atheism is the best way to go. Denise says that her cousin had gone to China and heard a Xiao Mingpao concert, and got Xiao Mingpao to autograph her autograph book. She compliments Sam on his hair, because it looks just like Xiao Mingpao's hair. Sam does a hair flip. Sam tells her that his dad had just bought a bowling ball, and bowling pins and they could go downstairs and play a game of bowling. She says ok, and they go down into his basement and play several games of bowling. After a while, however, they get bored, and decide to go upstairs and play fooseball, because Sam has a fooseball thing upstairs in his living room. They play that for awhile, and then plays some popular Chinese songs on the piano for Denise. Denise tells him that he is a brilliant piano player. He thanks her and says he'll see her in school the next day. She leaves, and goes back to her place. Luckily her mother is no longer drunk, and helps her on her homework. The next day, Sam goes back to school and sees her as well as his other friends at school. In all of his classes, he doesn't get any homework. He is very happy about that. He invites Denise and Zheng and Wang over to his house to have Shirley Temples and listen to Chinese rock and roll music. They come over to his house after school, and he goes to the refrigerator/freezer to get ice cubes for their drinks. He has a purple refrigerator with the word 冰箱 written on the screen, to remind him of the word refrigerator in Chinese. He brings back the ice cubes. Wang asks him why he has a web-enabled fridge. Sam shrugs and says his dad thought it would be cool. Since the items in the 'fridge are not RFID tagged, it of course can't really manage the items inside of it, but of course one can always use the internet, standing up, in the middle of ones kitchen, whenever one wants to. After they finish their drinks, they decide to play Monopoly. Sam wins, and is very happy about that. His friends accuse him of being a cheater, but he knew that he didn't cheat, and insists to them that he hadn't. Finally they believe him. Then they decide to play charades. They all have a good time. Then they realize that it is getting quite late, so they leave Sam in peace, and he goes up to his bedroom. He falls asleep quickly. When he awakens, his clock radio wakes him up with Chinese rock and roll music (and this time it actually wakes him up at the right time. It has never been the same, every since he fixed it himself, and now it doesn't always keep the right time. It is also in a shoebox, because he couldn't figure out how to get the case back on properly.) He calls Denise to make sure she wakes up on time to go to school. His mom made Swedish pancakes and Chow Mein for breakfast. He hugs his parents, and leaves for school. Chinese lit is especially interesting today. They are reading a modern Chinese series about horses, and he loves horses. In another class, the teacher shows a film, and the students are really happy about that. The next day is vacation, and Sam's dad says, "Let's go to Montana!" Sam asks if he can bring his friends, and his dad says "Sure, why not?" So they all pile in the big SUV, and drive to Montana. Then...

[Æxylis]

as they're going around a corner in a rather hilly area, their SUV slips and rolls down the side of the hill. They narrowly make it out of the car alive but the SUV, unfortunately, is irreparable. They struggle to their feet in pain after a terrible fall down the rocky slope. They notice that none of them are horribly injured in any way but they have a bunch of scratches all along their bodies. The scent of the pine trees is almost overwhelming as they find their way through a forest that is very unfamiliar and rather unwelcoming. Sam mutters to himself in Chinese as he nervously plods along the forest floor, hoping that nothing unexpected happens that they would not anticipate and thus would be unprepared for how to deal with it. After walking several hours they think they're safe as nothing had happened up to this point, however...

[Lenguas]

just when they think it could not get any worse, it begins to rain, and they are now cold and wet. Luckily someone in a big truck comes along to assist them. With so many people it is quite uncomfortable. The trucker invites them to stay at his place for awhile, and his wife chops up some carrots, potatoes, and onions to make them some nice soup. They are very hungry by now, and wolf down their food as fast as possible. They stay for a few days, and offer to pay the family for their hospitality, but the family declines. Luckily Zhen has an uncle that lives fairly close by, and he drives them all back home. They decide to go home early. Luckily they had insurance on their SUV, because Sam's dad had just bought a new insurance plan, from a company that has the best auto insurance ads ever, that almost always have a...

[Bryon]

talking gecko speaking Chinese.

Since Denise lives on the outskirts of town, Zheng's uncle drops her first off. As she gets out of the car, she trips and falls into a mud puddle. As a stream of ripe curse words stream from her mouth, Zheng's uncle shuts the door, and drives away. Sam, looking out the back window, waves at his wet white trash friend. "I wonder why she pretends to be something she's not," Sam wonders to himself.

Zheng, putting his arm around Sam, whispers "Mä rakastan sua" into his ear. Zheng had been an exchange student in Finland two years earlier, and ever since he had been keeping up his knowledge of Finnish from listening to famous singers such as Paula Koivuniemi, Jenni Vartiainen, Chisu, Katri Helena, Vesa-Matti Loiri, and Tea Hilloste (who had risen to worldwide superstardom in the past 20 years), as well as talking to other Finnish people, and watching TV programs and movies. Finland, along with the rest of Northern Europe, had resisted this wave of Chinese influence, and was enjoying an era of great Finnish entertainment. With the waning of English entertainers, Finnish entertainers rose in their places. As Sam and Zheng were enjoying their moment, Zheng's uncle arrived at Sam's house and dropped them off. Once inside, Sam and Zheng put on soothing Chinese classical music, and prepared for bed. Since the time was already 11:30pm, they had no intention of setting their alarm for school the next working. As the drifted off to sleep, Sam was suddenly awakened by...

[Lenguas]

the sound of his cell phone. When he answered it, it turned out to be the wrong number, so he padded downstairs to the refrigeratyor to get something to eat. As he walked past Zheng's bed, he was sleeping like a log, so he didn't bother him. He found a chicken leg in the refrigerator, and ate it, along with some candy, and some decaffeinate Chinese tea. Delicioso. He then went back to bed. The next morning, when everyone in the family awoke, they decided to all spend the day watching tv, which was a nice change after their harrowing travel experience. On tv was a marathon of...

[Bryon]

Wo ai Xiao, a modern Chinese adaptation of the American classic I Love Lucy. He was surprised at how much Chinese he picked out of the show. Zheng, on the other hand, wasn't able to understand much at all, and instead spent his time with his laptop, watching Finnish TV series, including Kymppitonni, which was now in it's 6th decade with Riitta Väisänen as host.

After a few hours of watching the show, the phone rang, it was Denise. Sam asked her why she wasn't in school, and she replied that she was still feeling too bad after all the trauma of yesterday. Feeling sorry for her, Sam invited her over to his house to watch Wo ai Xiao with Zheng and himself. "Absolutely! I'd love to come over and visit you guys," replied a suddenly enthusiastic Denise.

Returning to the couch, Zheng showed something to Sam on his computer, it was...

[Lenguas]

a password cracking program! Zheng had found his old journal that he had written in Microsoft Word when he was 7 years old, password protected the file, forgot about it and recently re-discovered it. He said it shouldn't take more than a few minutes to find out the password, because he knew the password would have been pretty simple. After a few moments, the password cracker found that the password was..."ilovecomputers". He showed Sam his journal, which turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, because he couldn't spell very well when he was 7, so it was very hard to understand. Mostly it was a story about a kong (probably "king"), and a princess, and a flog (probably "frog"). They laughed about it. Denise knocked on the door, and came in, and said "ni hao" to them. She said that on the way over there, she had found a mysterious looking multicolored rock that looked very interesting. The rock...

[Bryon]

was shaped into a point at the end.

"That's not a rock," said Zheng, taking the arrowhead from Denise, "it's a Native American arrowhead."

"Who?" asked Denise.

It was clear Denise never listened to anything in school, and had no cultural knowledge besides a limited awareness of what was popular in China. Sam and Zheng took the arrowhead and examined it, since it was the first one they had seen with their own eyes.

After sitting through two more episodes of Wo ai Xiao, the trio decided to go out and get something to eat. In the past 20 years, the popularity of Chinese food had skyrocketed in North America, however American ripoffs like Kung Pao Chicken were no longer eaten, since the public had discovered that such foods were not really Chinese at all. Once they arrived at the restaurant, and ordered their food, the discussion shifted to the latest developments in the state of Wyoming. The most recent census figures had just come out, and Wyoming's population had declined again. Only 387,911 people lived in Wyoming as of 2029, and after English, Mandarin Chinese was the most spoken language, with Spanish coming in third. The most populous state, California, had a large portion of the country's population, with over 65 million inhabitants.

Finally, when the waiter served their food...

[Æxylis]

Denise looked at it and shrieked, "eeek! why is the food moving?!!" Apparently a new trend unknown to them was to serve live semi-cooked insects that resembled the look and texture of peanuts. "I knew we should have ordered something we'd had before... at least then we'd know that it doesn't contain 'nutbugs'!", Zheng said. "Nutbugs?! What the french are those?!", Denise cried with a trembling voice. Zheng explained to her that a recent trend in Chinese food was to include raw and sometimes even live animals and animal parts in the food. "Gives more texture, or so they say", Zheng laughed maliciously. "Well I for one don't want to eat anything with live bugs in it... that's just gross!", Denise said with an expression of extreme disgust. "Haha... you can be such a prick sometimes Zheng, but I love it, and I love you for it.", Sam said to Zheng with an endearing smirk on his face. Then Sam and Zheng proceeded to make out in front of everybody in the restaurant. Denise wasn't quite sure what exactly to make of this bizarre turn of events. First of all, she was quite taken aback by the whole 'nutbug' thing, and now this... well... Denise stood up and started to speak. She said...

[Bryon]

"I'm a lesbian!" At this the entire restaurant turned around to look at her, since she shouted it. Even Sam and Zheng stopped kissing, and looked in her general direction, mouths open. Not that many people had anything negative to say, since same-sex marriage had been legal in the United States for the past 15 years, it was just a surprise that a girl in dirty clothes, who had been complaining about her food just moments before would stand up and shout such a declaration.

"Are you really?" asked Sam.

"Nope, I just wanted attention," replied Denise, "you were getting too much of it."

Since their food was so unpleasant, they decided to leave and go to Dairy Queen. Walking hand in hand down the street, Sam and Zheng attracted smiles from an elderly couple. "Imagine, something like that would have been extremely rare just a few decades ago, but now it's commonplace" said Sam to Zheng, and his trailer park friend, Denise.

Eating their blizzards, they discussed what to do next. Denise wanted to go to the lake, but Sam and Zheng wanted to go to the movies. Since it was only 4:30pm, they decided that they would go first to the...

[Æxylis]

the new outdoor theater on the lake! Everybody in town has been raving about it. Of course, one would have to either ride a boat or cross a rather long bridge to get to it, but it is well worth it. Not only do you get to see a great movie on a gigantic outdoor screen with epic surround sound, but you also get the serenity and beauty of the lake around you. It was a perfect compromise. Denise was happy that she got to go to the lake. Since fishing had been banned there a few years ago, the lake and the city itself had lost a lot of tourism, but hopefully this new outdoor theater would bring it back. They all sat there content with their movie and Sam and Zheng enjoyed the time they had together in a loving embrace watching the latest romantic comedy.

Chapter 2: The beginning of a strange adventure
Sam awoke suddenly when something hard hit the wall outside near his head. He sprang out of bed to see what was the matter. He rushed outside, forgetting all about the fact that he was scantily clad in some rather revealing pajamas, and noticed something strange on the ground. There was a rock, and attached to it was a letter that appears to have been written in blood. Sam read it in shock, amazement, and a little bit of trepidation. It read...

[Lenguas]

that Chinese should be banned from all new road signs in the city, since it cost the taxpayers a couple of cents extra, and since according to the latest census, only 0.63% of Wyomingites actually spoke Chinese natively, even know a great deal of them learned it in school, and even though that was a huge increase from before, it still wasn't enough to justify multilingual signs, and many of the older generations didn't know any Chinese, and it was distracting for drivers. It was signed, "The Citizens Against Multilingual Signs Group". Sam was rather annoyed, because he liked the fact that he got to improve his Chinese for free, by looking at the road sings. He rolls his eyes at the politicians. Sam quickly gets dressed, and tosses the rock and the letter in the river. Then he goes over to his friends to ask it they are hungry. They decide go to the nearest store to get some food. They decide to get the...

[Bryon]

lutefisk. Ever since Zheng was in Finland, and had visited Sweden where he tried it, he had been raving about lutefisk. He was shocked to see it in a supermarket in Wyoming, so of course he bought enough for the three of them as soon as he saw it.

On the way home, Denise asked Zheng if he could drive past her trailer so she could get a change of clothes. Reluctantly he did so, and after Denise got out of the car, he asked Sam if they wouldn't just be better off going on home without her. Before Sam could answer, Denise came running back into the car with a frightened look on her face. "What happened to you?" asked Sam, but Denise didn't reply.

Once they arrived at home, Zheng prepared the lutefisk just like he had seen in Sweden. Denise took one look at it, and decided that she couldn't stand eating it, her barbarian taste buds just weren't accustomed to such a delicacy. Sam however, absolutely loved it, as did Zheng. "Thanks for the meal, kulta," said Sam, giving Zheng a thank you kiss.

Suddenly, a pounding sound came from the front door. "Oh God, they're here," moaned Denise...

[Æxylis]

Before they could even get to the door, a man clad entirely in a black suit kicked down the door and pumped his shotgun, aiming it directly towards Denise. "Son of a...", Denise said with an annoyed look on her face. "Shut your trap Malifekias, or I'll riddle your body so full of bullets you'll look like swiss cheese!", the man said with a look of utter seriousness on his face. "I can't believe you actually tracked me down AGAIN!... I thought I got rid of you when I blew up your headquarters back in Hong Kong!... Was it you who made our car veer off the cliff earlier?!... Also, I thought I told you, I don't go by that name any more!", Denise said in a suddenly completely different and rather articulate voice. Sam and Zheng looked at one another very confused. "Are they sure that they have the right person?... is Denise really that important?", Sam thought to himself, very puzzled. He heard Zheng snicker "hehehe Malifekias... really?" Sam poked him with his elbow, "Quiet! He'll hear you!"

Denise merely rolled her eyes and started to walk away like nothing had ever happened. The assassin yelled at her, "Where do you think you're going, li'l missy? Is the great Malifekias really running away?! Hmph! What a joke..." At which point he lifted his shotgun again and aimed it at the back of Denise's head. Sam and Zheng's eyes went wide with fear, not knowing what to expect. Before they could give it a second thought Denise spun around, landed on her knees, and had pulled out a tiny pistol with a silencer and shot the assassin right between the eyes like it was nothing. She spun the piston on her finger and blew off the still smoking barrel, then put it away in her purse. "Did that really just happen?!", Sam thought to himself in amazement. At which point Denise turned to them and said...

[Bryon]

"We're getting out of this hole. Let's go Finland. Stat."

***Story hijack! No more Chinese **

From the tiny, one-runway airport of Cheyenne, Wyoming, the threesome departed for Tampere, Finland, the first stop in their new Finnish lives.

Several hours and three connections later, their plane finally touched down in Helsinki. "I can't believe I'm here again," said Zheng, giggling with glee to be back in his favorite country. From Helsinki, they boarded a train to Helsinki, and there Sam finally spoke about the elephant in the room.

"Denise, what really happened back in Wyoming?"

"Oh. That was all an illusion, and my name is still Denise. I had to come up with something to get us out of that boring state. The biggest city is barely the size of a small village!" she replied.

Arriving in Tampere, and after checking into their hostel, their first trip was to Prisma, to get some much needed food and other supplies. Walking in the door, they were met with Kangasala's own Marko Vanhanen, and pride of Lahti, Pasi Viheraho, who were using the bottle deposit machine in order to collect Marko's semiannual paycheck. "No, mun täytyy dyykata kun oon ollu pitkäaikaistyötön," they overheard Marko saying as they passed by.

"No, no," exclaimed Marko as me saw the trio pass by, "where you are from?" he asked, while filming their feet with a video camera, something which would invariably end up Marko's infamous youtube channel.

"We're from Wyoming," replied Zheng.

Turning around, Pasi invited them to his radio show, which he held every Friday from his very own basement studio. An invitation which was quickly accepted.

Then...