Flash Fiction Friday: "Get Back"

The Folks At Flash Fiction Friday have posited a fine little poser this week: take the 8th sentence on page 83 of the book you are currently reading, and use that as the first sentence of a new story. I chose (since, as per usual, I'm reading more than one book at once) Robert J Sawyer's "Fossil Hunter", and the sentence, "Lastoon felt his heart pounding as he ran on." (Lastoon is a dinosaur.) I'm going to cheat a wee bit and change it to "he", but hopefully the complaints won't be too loud.










He felt his heart pounding as he ran on. This was normal. He was running, playing a sport at the very highest level, so he was long accustomed to the constant motion. When you got to a certain point, you didn't feel the fatigue any more- it was just functioning, making dozens of decisions every second. Everything on automatic pilot. You had to play this way to survive at this level, so you learned to push aside what weekend warriors would call genuine discomfort. Run, but watch- there were always things you could miss.

When you didn't have the ball, you went into the practiced motions of the offense. Cut here, run there. stop. Wait. Now run again. Every option had options, depending on what the opposition did. The key was, of course, that everyone on the team saw the same option together. That was why they had practice. He set a pick, absorbed the crunching blow from the excitable two guard, then rolled calmly into the open space. The ball found him, and his brain instantly calculated angles, and vectors, and planes faster than the fastest laptop. He saw that no one could reach him in time, that the shot was within his range, that there were no better options. His decision made, he shot, catching the ball and rising and firing.

It felt good, and he was glad to see it drop through the hoop almost quietly. The home crowd cheered appropriately, and he exchanged a couple of quick handslaps. They were now on defense, though, basketball's fluid nature never allowing too much celebration, and he focused on the waves of blue opponents coming at them. It was one of the first lessons you learn as a youngster- get back, as soon as the ball changes hands. Don't think, just move. The team moved back, matching up with their assignments without a word.

Defense wasn't quite so regimented- it was reactive. Try to see what they are attempting to do, and disrupt it as best you can. The ball came in deep to their hulking center, and he took a few steps towards him, trying to disrupt his rhythm. He looked up at the big man, trying to read his eyes, seeing the ball returned to the perimeter. He jumped back to defend his man, who quickly gave it up. The ball circulated, a few more cuts followed by a shot of their own.

He couldn't explain it, but he had always had a sense about rebounding. Something about the way the ball rotated off the opponent's fingertips, he could tell whether it would come off long or short, right or left, bounding high or skidding like a skipped stone. He saw where the ball was headed, his feet taking him there before he could form the thought. He slipped between two opponents, jumping as the ball came off the rim, securing it in front of the baseline. Their quicksilver point guard was already on the move, hurtling towards the offensive end, and he threw him a pass, setting out on his own path.

The guard was headed for the middle, just like they taught you in grade school, so as to maximize your options. He saw the gap on the left- just run straight down the sideline, and we should have a two on one fast break. He started off when he felt a ripping, tearing pain right across his chest. It felt like some kind of muscle pull- had he hurt himself passing the ball? It wasn't that vigorous a pass, but this was a definite pain. The closest thing he could remember was when he got kicked on a double play playing high school baseball. It was that kind of pain- abrupt and very real. He remembered it was December the next basketball season before his shot came back.

He kept running, almost out of habit, but the pain wouldn't stop. He slowed down, watching the play develop in front of him, as Maxwell, the other forward, filled in on the right, taking an easy pass and guiding the ball home for an easy two. He smiled, feeling the game's momentum sliding their way, and then grimaced. It felt like someone was opening his chest with a rusty razor.

Suddenly, unbidden, legs that had brought him near the top of his profession felt watery and weak. The pain was a roaring furnace now, both sides of his chest aching and burning. His breath felt short and quick, and no matter how deeply he sucked, it felt like he couldn't get enough air. He couldn't support his weight any more, and he fell to one knee, then to both. He commanded himself to rise, get up, get back- the primordial basketball instruction. Don't let them get an advantage.

His body rebelled, his muscles and nerves suddenly commanded by a rebellious, angry guard. He looked up at one of the opponents, the lanky point guard, who signalled to the official for a time out. He heard the whistle blow while the pain seemed to be sending daggers into his stomach. He felt nauseous, but commanded himself not to vomit- he didn't want to lead Sportscenter for a week.

He looked up at his opponent, tried to speak, but nothing came out. The pain was like bands, hot, heavy, hard bands wrapped firmly around him and squeezing, constantly squeezing. He tried to get up and could not, and suddenly he felt the dirty floor against his face. He noted how quiet everyone was, how suddenly he heard his name, friend and foe alike urging him to get up, asking if he was OK, trying to tell him he would be OK. He looked at the bottom of the sneaker of one of his teammates, looming large in front of his face, and he knew that they weren't correct, that he wasn't going to be OK, that he was falling away from the game, away from his fans and his friends and his family and himself, and he noticed how quiet it was now, and suddenly he realized that it didn't hurt anymore.

Velvet Verbosity's 100 Word Challenge: "Fight Night"

Velvet Verbosity, whose failure to win a Tony Award can only be described as a massive oversight, chose "reflecting" as this week's word. I call this "Fight Night"
























"Mom- MEEEEEE!," Lucy said, her voice splitting the air. "Eva's doing everything I do!" Lucy walked into the kitchen, fists balled on her hips, face contorted with anger. "Make her STOP!"

Eva followed behind, shooting me a puzzled look. She saw her older sister and immediately adopted the same pose. "See?!??!?!?," Lucy cried.

I had a flash of memory, my own mother wading into a fight between my brother and I, holding us apart with two massive hands, bellowing, "Someday you're going to have children that are JUST LIKE YOU!"

I never knew what a curse it was.

100 Word Song: "Remember to Forget, Forget to Remember"

Friend of man and robot Leeroy and his humanoid buddy Lance issue this week's 100 Word Song Challenge with Damien Rice's "Elephant". This is called "Remember to Forget, Forget to Remember".










We were emptying boxes , seeing if there was anything worth saving. There often was not. He took out a white box with a red logo, a circle with a very dark looking elephant in the center.

"What's this?," he said.

"Computer disks," I said.

"What's on them?"

"No way to know."

"What if it's important?"

"It isn't. My father was smart enough to leave important things where they would be found."

"But what's on them?"

"Probably nothing. Forget it," I said.

"I don't wanna forget anything," he said.

None of us do, I thought.

Scriptic Prompt Exchange: "What's the Problem?"

(For the uninitiated, which this week includes most people, the Indie Ink Writing Challenge has indeed shuffled off this mortal coil and joined the bleeding choir invisible. In its place we find the Scriptic Prompt Exchange, which consists of most of the same people, wearing most of the same clothes, (though I can't speak for Supermaren, who may not be wearing any clothes) doing most of the same things, just like when Paul Rodgers sings with Queen.)


[For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Kat gave me this prompt: "Write a story about an empty glass." I gave Chelle this prompt: "Write about someone who has, or has had, or is about to have, a headache. Literal or metaphorical. Or both!"]


People aren't all that hard to understand, Stacy thought. Men especially so. It wasn't just that the list of things they could possibly want was so short (typically beer, or sex, or a sandwich, or, ideally, all three), but it was more that they were such linear thinkers. Subtlety and nuance and subtext were Scrabble words to them. She knew what most men wanted within minutes, and the ones she knew well, men like patient, earnest Thomas, sitting there with his blue gray eyes and his new haircut and the rakish knot in his tie, she could read them in seconds.

She knew the moment he had suggested they eat here, the new French place that was becoming all the rage, what he was planning. She could have claimed illness, or a conflicting engagement, but she didn't, putting on the dress and shoes she wore to a wedding in Texas last year, noting with dismay how snug it suddenly felt, and met him there a few minutes after 7, noting with mild sadness the Cheshire Cat grin he was wearing, the grin that confirmed that she had read him absolutely correctly.

They walked in together, her eyes playing over the fat confident faces of the other diners, listening to the gentle swells of Chopin being played through hidden speakers, her footfalls silent on smooth burgundy carpeting. There were no children, no loud conversations, no TV like the more popular, family style restaurants they usually went to, just darkness and flickering candles and a funereal hush. The maitre d led them to a cozy corner table, gallantly holding out her chair first. She sat, and then he did. When the tuxedoed waiter came around, he let him order the food and wine, his 2 years studying at the Sorbonne making him the expert in such things.

She watched Thomas speaking his rolling, smooth French to the waiter, who was smiling, his eyes hiding amazement at the fluency. Thomas was a good man. He was wise, and placid, and calm, never aggressive and seldom angry. He was neither too clingy and jealous, nor too distant. He had good taste in books, and film, and music. When the sewing circle, as she called it, convened at work, the young unmarrieds complaining about the latest errors made by their men, the last birthday forgotten or hairstyle unremarked upon, Stacy never had anything to add. Thomas never forgot anything, was nice to her mother, and joked about the Bears with her dad. "He's perfect," fat, single Jean said once, when Thomas' name came up, and Stacy laughed, but she had to admit her friend had a point.

Thomas was a nervous talker, though, filling silence with words, telling her now about how he had a chance to get a quarter share of a pair of Brewers tickets, good seats down the third base line, which would mean having to attend 20 or so games per year. He had taken her several times, and she had dutifully smeared on sunblock, purchased a few different girly baseball tops and a pink hat, and sat through the games with him, listening to his explanations of things she already understood, then driving home while he napped off the beer in the passenger seat. Baseball wasn't her favorite thing on earth, but every woman knew life with a man involved pretending to care about things that didn't matter. Baseball wasn't the problem.

The waiter had already refilled her glass without being asked. Stacy wasn't drunk, but she could feel a slight dissociation beginning to take hold. She couldn't afford too much more without any food in her stomach, she thought, and as if her thoughts had summoned him, the waiter was back with a pair of elaborate chicken dishes, setting them down before them with a flourish. Stacy looked down at her wineglass, swirling the liquid very gently. By the time this glass is empty, she told herself, you have to say it.

Thomas was onto a work story now, telling about a deal that was on the verge of breaking down before his team managed to slap together some financing that made the whole thing work. He was into the details about notes maturing, and interest rate hedges, and how amazed his bosses had been when he showed them how much their firm got to keep. He was drinking wine, too, but he wasn't drunk. Alcohol made him more voluble, and Stacy was more than happy to let him lead the conversation. That made everything easier. It was annoying, but his overtalkative nature wasn't the problem.

What was the problem? He didn't hit her, or force sex on her, or gamble, or cheat, or lie. He made good money, he loved kids, he didn't have any more than the average number of psycho exes. He dressed nice, he smelled good, he loved nature, he cared about the right things, he was a perfectly competent lover. As soon as she felt this night coming, she immediately prepared herself for it. She had to be ready to answer yes, or she had to somehow cut him off before he could ask. She remembered her Vonnegut: what can you say, after someone says "I love you," other than "I love you, too?"

She had been thinking about it constantly. Was he the one? If he was, she had to be sure. And if he wasn't, she had to be just as sure, so she could get away from him before he asked. She couldn't let him ask, because she couldn't be the kind of person who said "no" when someone proposed. You can't let that happen. And as she went through her days, showering in the morning, standing in line for coffee, waiting for the afternoon meeting to begin, she kept going over Thomas like a geometry problem, trying to find the fault line, but she couldn't uncover it, the key piece of information that would open him up, displaying his faults for her to peruse.

The glass of wine was halfway gone, and she could feel the chicken and the rich sauce starting to counteract the heady alcohol feeling. Thomas had come along when she was a wreck, on the edge of losing her job after another messy breakup, an ex who decided it was a good idea to bed his intern in the apartment they shared. She had treated him abominably after they were matched up by chubby Jean, not returning his calls and cancelling plans without notice, but Thomas persevered, and eventually she saw the enormous kindness of him, allowing him into her life full time two years ago.

They did all the ritual visits, Thanksgiving and Christmas and holiday weekends and weddings and funerals. It was one of the first steps, she knew, feeling Thomas beginning to be integrated into her own family and her into his. She remembered clearly her mother's face, disappointed when they had not come home to announce an engagement, and the way she snuck in a message, scraping a Thanksgiving dish beside Stacy while Thomas watched football with her father in the other room. "He's a good man," she said in a low tone, traces of Ireland around the edges of her voice. "They don't grow on trees."

So what was she waiting for? What was this hesitancy, this voice telling her "no," "wait," "don't," "you can't?" She knew there were plenty of lesser men out there. Was this just cold feet, an inability to concieve of an entire lifetime with just one person, no matter how flawless? What was the problem? She took another sip of her wine. She looked into Thomas' eyes, holding his gaze. Was she really ready to spend decades with that face, raise children with him, never make a plan or an appointment without consulting him?

She looked down, staring at the way her thighs strained against the fabric of the dress. The truth was, Stacy told herself, that she needed urgency. Every relationship she had ever had had been one of need, of possession. She had to be obsessed, to want to consume, to be unable to bear being separated. She required this quickening of her heart rate, the out of control sense of a car chase in an action movie, to feel alive, and this feeling, this dark sweetness, was the farthest thing from her mind when gentle, sweet Thomas held her hand shyly on the couch after dinner.

"Stacy?," Thomas said. Stacy's glass still had a swallow of wine lingering at the bottom. Her stomach plunged when she registered the look on his face. Too late, she thought. She closed her eyes slightly. Stacy thought about draining the glass, sucking it back, standing up, telling him in a controlled fury that they were going too fast, that she couldn't settle down, that she wasn't prepared, that she never wanted to be anybody's other half. She thought about how painful it would be for him, how deeply she would cry on the way home, but how she would also feel the freedom, she was sure, of someone making a jailbreak.

She opened her eyes and stared for a moment. His chair was empty, and she had trouble registering it for a moment. Where had he gone? She thought about it for a moment, then suddenly registered a crowd over her left shoulder. The maitre d was back, holding a deep black bottle with gold lettering on it, and behind him were a few black clad servers, all looking at her expectantly. She was about to say, "What?," when she saw Thomas out of the corner of her eye, on one knee, looking up at her, one hand behind his back.

"Will you marry me?," he asked.

Stacy swallowed, and closed her eyes for another second.

"Of course I will," she said softly, and the champagne was opened, and there was extended, polite clapping from the staff and neighboring tables. She stood up, pulling her dress down over herself, and they embraced beside the table, Thomas pulling her in for a long kiss, and a long, slow squeeze.. Stacy felt herself starting to tear up, and she buried her face in his neck, his strong, muscular neck that smelled like oak trees and sweat, and she repeated the phrase again and again. "Of course I will, Thomas, of course I will, of course I will," she said into his neck, "of course I will," and she cried a little bit, and she hoped she was telling the truth.

Terrible Minds Challenge: Purple Toenails

Sir Charles of Wendig issues his customary challenge this week for his penmonkeys to choose one of eight settings. I chose "Aisle Nine", and this story is called "Purple Toenails".





Alexa was tagging, going down the long aisles of Fresh Food Markets Co. Inc. LLC and taking off yellow stickers that indicated last week's sale prices, replacing them with blue ones that indicated this week's. Alexa didn't feel well, and the work was pointless and stupid, but she went to work because she had to, in order to keep herself alive. She had experienced bad moods before, but this one was a beaut, a gray blanket of nothing that had coated her life for the last month, refusing to lift.

Alexa was changing prices on a whole row of soups- cream of mushroom, bean, tomato, Italian wedding, and she groaned softly when she straightened up. She used to run every day, but it was now just easier to stay in bed, waiting until the last possible second before getting up to shower and change into the khaki pants and blue shirt and overbright name tag that marked her status. She stared up at the rows of flourescent bulbs that ran across the ceiling. One bulb above her head flickered to black, then shone brightly again, like it had changed its mind about burning out. .

Alexa was taller than most people she knew, and it felt good to arch her back now and reach up high, scanning the tags above her shoulders. It was nice to feel her blue shirt grow taut across her chest as she reached, the top gapping slightly in the back where her pants dipped down. She felt the cool air of the store on the suddenly bare skin of her lower back. She secretly hoped someone was checking her out, although she always felt revolted when someone actually was. Even her mother, sniffing around at the first hint of potential grandchildren, had stopped asking her about her love life, which was a relief because she had nothing to tell.

Alexa didn't want to work here for the rest of her life, but as the days slipped by into weeks and months and years, she was starting to grow genuinely frightened that she was going to. It was like that first mistake, not enrolling in even a community college, had now grown and metastasized to cover her entire life. Now she had bills, and rent, and food to buy, and a few single friends who depended on her to join the wolfpack on Friday nights, and suddenly she couldn't see any other way forward but the same path she was on.

A customer came around the corner as Alexa was marking the final variety of linguini that was on special. She had waves of brilliant red hair and a beautiful tan dress with a print of green and brown leaves on it. She was visibly, hugely pregnant, her midsection taut and hard like she was stealing watermelons, and she was walking in that way expectant women do, walking around her stomach. Alexa registered the woman's wedding ring, pasting an automatic smile on her own face in case she asked for help, but her eyes kept jumping back to that hard belly, the way the dress was plastered against it, then dropping away loosely at the bottom. A signal passed between them, but Alexa couldn't read it. Did the woman need help? Or was she just grateful that it was only the two of them in this narrow aisle?

Alexa had a couple of friends who were pregnant, and she hated what it did to them. They had no sense of humor anymore, and they were super emotional, like they had the world's worst PMS, and they had it all the damn time. They were so obvious, so blatant, the way they swelled up so huge, as if they were trying to say, look what I did, as if any 16 year old with a couch and 15 minutes and a boy couldn't have done the same thing. Alexa watched her walk, studying the woman as she looked at the different varieties of Shake and Bake. She looked decisive, calm, everything sharp and clear as she took a Southwestern flavor box from the shelf, bending with difficulty to lower it into her cart.

Alexa thought about rushing over to help, but that might seem insulting. Alexa looked down at the woman's toes, which poked out of her sandals, a bright, luminous purple. She couldn't possibly do that herself, Alexa thought. There's no way she could reach, as big as she was. Alexa thought about the woman's husband, probably a dark haired, rakishly handsome lawyer, tenderly painting the woman's toenails, and she felt herself beginning to cry. She didn't want to cry because she wanted someone in her life who would do that, although she did, she wanted to cry because she couldn't believe anyone could care about anyone that much.

100 Word Challenge: "Your Call Cannot Be Completed As Dialed"

Our friend Velvet, who has as many NBA Championships as LeBron James, has given us "slumber" for our word this week. This is called "Your Call Cannot Be Completed As Dialed"





"You should show enthusiasm," they said during her training, "making callers feel like you are delighted to help them." I'm a woman, Cindy thought. Faking enthusiasm shouldn't be a problem.


"EZ Slumber, where our low prices help you save while you sleep, this is Cindy, how can I help you?"


"Go get Donald. This is his wife," a woman's voice said sternly. Cindy didn't know red faced Donald was married. Cindy thought about the way he liked to stand behind her, looking down her shirt as she worked.


"Please hold," she said pleasantly, disconnecting the call.

100 Word Song: "Belly"

Say what you will about Leeroy and his carbon based pal Lance , they sure do broaden one's musical horizons. This week's song is called "Within Me" by Lacuna Coil, and I call this story "Belly". 

I had snuggled up with him as he half dozed on the couch. His hand circled my waist.

"Such a cute tummy," he said sleepily.

"You mean my gut?," I asked.

"Don't call it that," he said.

He was so simple. He never really understood me. He had no idea how that ball of flesh tormented me. It settled in around age 14 and never entirely left. I imagined cutting it out, fleshy, white and red and raw, and setting it before him, with blood running down my legs.

"It's mine. I'll call it what I want."

Terrible Minds Challenge: "A Toast Shouts"

Chuck Wendig, majordomo of all things Terribly Minded, issues a rather random challenge this week. Given a random sentence generated from a random sentence generator located here, use it as the first or last sentence of your 1000 word tale. My sentence was "A toast shouts," and this is called "A Toast Shouts".





We were all sitting there, mute and itchy in unfamiliar clothes and wobbly shoes. I was at an age where I knew where this went. Sit quietly, smile a lot, pick at your food, and then, once pictures are taken and the rituals performed, go find your flip flops and do whatever you wanted. All you were was a Barbie doll, dressed up to appear as an ornament. Like one of Beyonce's dancers, or a chorus girl in an old show. Just a backdrop.

The best man was speaking now, a friend of Kenneth's from college. I knew him distantly. I knew them all distantly, to be honest. I was Emily's roommate freshman and sophomore year, and then we drifted in different directions. These things happen. I knew a few of the other bridesmaids- Emily's little sister Caitlin, tall, blond Shannon, who edited the student newspaper, and the social butterfly, the maid of honor, dark, vivacious Chloe. I sat there, just another pretty maid in a row.

The room looked like a Greek temple- or what I imagined a Greek temple would look like. We certainly were engaged in a ritual here. Costumed, perfumed, and pretending- everyone in their role. Everyone secretly thinking their thoughts about the bride and groom. "She doesn't deserve him." "He doesn't deserve her." "That dress is hideous." "I wish she were marrying me." "I wish he were marrying me." "I can't wait to start drinking." We all have secrets, and we all smile like we don't know anything.

I still wasn't listening to Kenneth's friend. I shifted my weight from one side to the other, uncrossing my legs and crossing them again. One foot now screamed with relief while the other began to suffer, all the weight now on that tiny spike, the burr of pain underneath my heel. He was going on and on about how he never expected Kenny to settle down, on what a wild man he was. He then slid neatly into the standard rap about how different he was, how he had settled down now. You could slide this clown out, slide in any one of a half dozen best men speeches I had heard over the last couple of summers. Same words, different face.

Kenneth was indeed quite the Lothario in our student days. I didn't fall prey to his charms, but many did, and more than one late night visit to the Health Center followed his conquests. We all knew who he was, how he worked. We all hated him, the way he used us up and moved on, consuming us like Fritos, and we all secretly wanted him to turn his gaze on us, to be that desired. He was a beautiful man, tall and dark with abs of steel and a Superman curl that fell into his eyes, and if he looked at you, you were beautiful too.

The best man didn't know about Kenneth, his eyes bleary with drink, cornering me after the rehearsal dinner. He didn't know about how he backed me into an alcove, one where a phone booth used to be. He didn't know about the way Kenneth yanked up my dress, and the way I gasped and let him, the way I knew what I was doing, what he did, what I was letting him do, kissing my neck, probing for my weak spots, the way I knew it was wrong, and I didn't care. It wasn't even that I was in a dry spell, although I certainly was, it was about the way the spotlight of his attention was on you, and for a moment, you cared for nothing else except for how to make it stay. Kenneth's best friend didn't know about the way the rain was falling as I walked to my car afterwards, how I took off my shoes and walked on the pebbles, soaking my hair and my two hundred dollar dress.

Kenneth's best man, now winding his speech up with more platitudes, piling false sentiment onto fake praise, didn't know the way a toast says nothing, and he didn't know the way, sometimes, a toast shouts. A toast shouts.

100 Word Challenge: "Don't Look At Me"

The redoubtable Velvet Verbosity, just back from scoring an overtime goal to send the New Jersey Devils to the Stanley Cup Finals, issued a 100 Word Challenge this week centering on the word "spectacle". This is called "Don't Look At Me".





Thin, pretty Catherine hated spectacle. Don't make a fuss, she thought. Don't notice me, don't point at me, don't talk about me. Just pretend I'm not here. When the ebullient secretary Judy sent a company wide notice that it was Catherine's birthday, she cringed, expecting a tidal wave of well wishes and forced conversations. As the day proceeded and the silence deepened, Catherine wondered if she had finally forced her way out of everyone's life, as she said she wanted.

She didn't start crying until she finally left for home that night.

Terrible Minds Challenge: "Flint Smoke"

Our pal Chuck Wendig left BabyTown long enough to issue a challenge, titling a 1000 word story with a color lifted from a list of paint colors. This is called "Flint Smoke"





"What's that 'smoke' song you played in the car?," Rose said.

" 'Smoke On The Water'? 'Smoke Gets In Your Eyes'? 'Smokin' In The Boys' Room'? " I was smiling as I said it. I was being obtuse, and she knew it.

"No, no," she said. She was sitting on my couch, her knees pulled up to her chin, wrapping her arms around her bony ankles. I looked at her legs, trim and beautiful, but starting to thicken with age. I didn't care. I liked that she had more mass now. It made her more corporeal, more earthbound.

"The one where he says he can smell the smoke." She was watching me toss the Caesar salad I was preparing. Her eyes, which looked flint gray in the fading sunlight, were following me intently.

"That's Ben Folds. It's called 'Smoke'."

"Yeah, that one," she said. She turned her head to look at the stereo. It was silver, expensive, and looked like it was from the future. Van Morrison purred from the speakers.

"At the end of the song, he says 'you keep on saying the past is not even past/and you keep on saying/we are smoke.' " The oven dinged, and she watched me spin, put on oven mitts, and remove the garlic bread, pale yellow and white on a dented silver tray.

"It reminded me of what Dr. Almond said about Faulkner. How he said 'the past is never dead,' " she continued. She was looking down at her bare toes.

I didn't say anything. I was laying out silverware, delivering plates of hot pasta and sauce, putting the garlic bread slices into a basket. She was watching me. She had already asked to help, but the kitchen was too small.

"Then he said, 'it's not even past,' " I added. She unfolded from the couch to come to the table. She didn't dance any more, but she still moved with that smooth, leonine grace. I watched her move.

"Yeah," she said. She added some garlic bread to her plate, and served herself some salad. I poured her a glass of wine.

"Do you feel like your past is....past?," she said. I served myself, watching her chew a bite of salad.

"I tend to follow Rafiki's advice. I keep my behind in my past." I took a bite of bread. It was too hot, but it felt good, melted butter and hot, stringy bread. The sun was coming through the window, making the spoons and forks shine.

"Rafiki?," she said.

" 'The Lion King,' " I said. "The monkey. Robert Guilliaume."

"Oh yeah," she said. She said that sometimes when she didn't know what I was talking about.

"Do you miss....do you wish....do you ever wish you were younger?," she said. I looked over at her shoes, silver flats that had been covered with glitter. They looked like the shoes someone would wear if she wanted attention.

"No," I said. "It's hard enough being the age I am. Do you?"

She chewed a bite of pasta and swallowed. "Sometimes. I wish I was still dancing. It used to make me feel so important, so alive. People counted on me. I wish I were that girl again, the one who hadn't made any big mistakes yet."

"I think you're important now," I said. I finished off my glass of wine and poured another one.

"Thank you," she said. "I think you're important too." She sliced through a piece of meat in the sauce, and it cut easier than she thought, since the knife sliced right through and scraped against the plate. It was an angry sound.

"Why are you thinking about the past?," I asked.

"It's easier than thinking about the future." I could hear a siren in the distance, since I had left the windows open.

"Fire truck," she said. The child of a firefighter, she could always tell. She looked over the top of the trees. She raised her thin arm, pointing. "See?," she said. A tendril of grayish whiteness was rising above the trees. It looked like the pulled apart cotton balls I used to glue onto model kits. I thought about the old Don Henley lyric, "Somebody's going to emergency, somebody's going to jail."

"I think you have a bright future," I said. "You're smart, you're funny, you're pretty, you're-"

"I'm not anything," she said, cutting me off. "I'm nothing. I want to disappear. " Her eyes swam with tears. It made her eyes look almost blue. "Like in that song. I'm smoke."

"I don't think that's true," I said. "Jeannie likes you, and Professor Fitzpatrick, and..."

"I'm not anything," she repeated. "I'm not. I'm just....I'm not anything to anyone. I'm smoke," she said flatly.

She got up, pushing in her chair neatly, then went into the bathroom, closing and locking the door. She turned the exhaust fan on, which probably meant she was crying. I took another bite of salad and chewed it, listening to the sound of my own teeth grinding, loud inside my head. Outside, the sirens got closer, then stopped. There was another, farther off sound, which was either another engine responding, or some other emergency.

There was always another problem.

Trifecta Writing Challenge: "Flight Delayed"

My Pythagorean amigos at the Trifecta Challenge have posted a picture challenge this weekend. I won't post the picture here, because it's not mine, but if you follow the link above, you can look at it. I call this "Flight Delayed".







It was so late even the pseudo pushcart vendors selling sunglasses and worthless plastic toys had closed up shop. Thunderstorms crossing the Texas prairie had set up a chain of delays that put him into his home airport several hours later than he had planned, in the bizarre emptiness of 12:34 AM. Everything was still there- the darkened McDonalds, the sports bar with a chain in front of the door- but everyone was gone, as if the apocalypse had come and no one told him.

Dave had performed a weekend in Indianapolis, which went well, besides a few hecklers to quiet using well honed putdowns, a drunk waitress who kept ignoring his protests that he was married, and a morning radio DJ who wouldn't let him complete a thought before segueing into a Nicki Minaj record. Annoying, but part of the job. Dave shrugged off the indignities of the weekend, walking through the empty airport towards his car and finally, blessedly, back to his tiny home.

The money wasn't great, but it was enough. The travel was aggravating, but it provided loads of anecdotes he could stretch and contort into material. Dave walked down a long hallway that led from the terminal to the parking. He could see out either side, watching the road below. A shuttle left the brightly lit terminal, taking no one nowhere. In the end, Dave thought, he did it because it was all he knew how to do and get paid for.

It wasn't curing cancer, Dave thought, or inventing the next iPhone. It wasn't defending the unjustly accused, or feeding the hungry, or inspiring inner city teens to pass AP Calculus. It was what he could do, and even if he saw less talented peers getting wealthy from TV deals, he was OK with the long nights and long, dull days, because over 100 people per show, six shows per week, left the room happier than they came in.

Flash Fiction Friday: "Unnecessary"

Our friends at Flash Fiction Friday have a simple task for us this week: 1000 words, as long as three of them are frenetic, cummerbund, and hobbit. This is called "Unnecessary," and it is humbly dedicated to my main man Lance, who, if he does not know whereof this character speaks, soon will.








Daniel knew when he was not necessary. Living in a house with three women and four cats, he developed a keen sense for the parts of life he was needed for, things like grilling burgers on major holidays, opening jars, and killing spiders. The rest of the time, he told his pal Steve at work, he just tried to keep out of sight. It was a matter of survival.

He sat in the living room, halfheartedly looking at a trade publication. The television was playing ESPN silently. He had passed by the girls' rooms upstairs, observing the frenetic beehive of activity at a distance. The bathroom was in constant use, doors slamming, girls in towels leaving one room, entering another, then leaving again and going back to the first one. He followed his usual dictum, grabbing what he needed and abandoning the upstairs to the fairer sex.

He knew this day was coming. Every father with girls did, and it was another one of those knife edge moments you faced, where your instincts and your deep emotions had to be tamped down by your logic and reason. He didn't want tonight to happen, but he knew he couldn't stop it, so like so many things, just take cover and wait for the storm to pass. He trusted them to make the right decisions. The boys? Not so much.

He was pretty sure they would be OK- they had talked about drinking, and drugs, and sex, ad nauseum, with their daughters, for years now, getting their full quota of eyerolling and long sighs. In the end, it was like his colleague Diane had told him years ago, clucking with sympathy at the thought of two teenage daughters, "you tell 'em, and you tell 'em, and you tell 'em- eventually, you just have to hope they listened."

Daniel stared at the condensation forming on the side of his Diet Pepsi. He wanted a beer. Needed a beer, really. But he didn't need to ask if that would be OK. He knew it wouldn't be. It was diet cola until the cummerbund clad boys and begowned girls had assembled, been fluttered around and fussed over, and then bid farewell. Lara would probably go upstairs and cry about her lost youth, and he would switch over to the Royals broadcast, open a beer, eat some chips, and see what new method they had divined for blowing tonight's game.

A door slammed, and he heard the solid sound of high heels on wood. As with any two sisters, Nicole and Justine had their little differences, quirks of personality that made them fully present individuals instead of carbon copies. Nicole was the girliest, wearing a skirt to any event more formal than gardening. Justine was always more reserved, quieter, more observant, spending one summer reading "The Hobbit" over and over while her sister tanned and painted her toenails and performed elaborate weddings between Barbie and Ken.

They were in Nicole's world now, updos and mascara and wardrobe tape in places he didn't want to think about and Daniel imagined Justine would be uncomfortable all night, secretly eager to shed the uncomfortable shoes and return to Jane Eyre and sweatpants as soon as possible. Lara loved every moment of the process, probably quietly reliving her own days as the center of the world before college and real life and age pushed you to the periphery of everything.

Daniel thought about his own prom, Sarah, so angelic and round hipped, who kissed him frantically in the limo on the way home, but demurred when his eager hand found her warm thigh. It was a weird formalized dance- they expected you to try, so you did, knowing they would decline. It was a confirmation of the pseudo adultness of the whole process, a nod to the effort spent making themselves attractive.

He actively, aggressively did not want to think about these boys, callow Duane and suave Robert, who would walk out of here with his daughters' manicured hands on their arms. He didn't know what the rituals were like these days, but he figured they couldn't be far different than his day. Lips would find lips, a perfumed, powdered neck, and then...what? Lara probably knew if they were virgins, but Daniel never asked. If he had to guess, he would say Justine was, and her sister was not, but he really didn't want to know. It was one of those walls, made of something as clear as Saran Wrap but also hard and bulletproof, that came between them now. Was this to be a shining, momentous night for one of them, a night to be recalled long into their own grandmotherhood, with him just a distant memory, buried under a grassy hill?

Daniel shook his head, watching Chris McKendry animatedly describe an auto race, then narrate a Kings team trying to defend the Stanley Cup. It was different now- different teams were winning, different things were important. Everything was different, and nobody asked you what you thought about it. It was prom night, and he was reduced to being a cheerleader, approving of everything and judging nothing. He thought about driving the girls home from the hospital, almost two decades ago, helpless and tiny, weak and soft, and it seemed inconceivable that these strong young women, with long legs and limitless potential and passionate opinions, were even the same species. Someday, he warned them silently as they eased their way downstairs, step by step, elegant, pointed toes exploring each step carefully, you'll have kids of your own, and you'll go back to being helpless again.

The Return of Velvet Verbosity's 100 Word Challenge!

Though she has yet to involve a robot like our friend Lance, the mighty Velvet Verbosity, bloodied but unbowed, fresh from battling Russian cyberpunks and making the world safe for her wordnerd minions, has returned to the field of 100 Word Challengedom. This week's word is "fragile", and I call this entry "Like Copper, Like Tin, Like Lead."




"Divorce?," Ella repeated. She had heard the word, but it suddenly had a flavor she didn't remember. She stared at the place in front of her, where the sound waves that came from her mouth had traveled. Words were such fragile things, she thought, just a waving of some molecules, a gentle sweep of air pressure changes that fill the room and then fade away. The word she said was now attached to an idea, though, thoughts and feelings and concepts in her head, weighted down like copper, like tin, like lead. Solid and unbreakable.

"Yes," her father said.

The Final (?) Indie Ink Writing Challenge: "I Won't Say Goodbye"

[Author's Note: There is some trouble in IndieInk land. It is unclear whether or not, or when, there will be more IndieInk Writing Challenges. Plus the site appears to be down at the moment. I do remember my prompt, "To [You] With Love", but I do not recall who sent the prompt and who recieved my quote, an Ernest Hemingway line from one of his letters. Sorry about that.]




[Author's Other Note: This is fiction. Made up. Not true. Bullpucky. Nonsense. "Not intended to be a factual statement," as the office of Senator Jon Kyl once put it.  "Hooey and Applesauce", as Dave Dameshek says.]








Dr. Kelly-

It's hard to know how to begin. There's so much to say, but it all tastes like ashes in my mouth. I can't make sense of it all. But I can't do this without trying to explain. It's up to you whether or not you believe it.

I can't really explain this. But I have this feeling I just need to tell you these things. These things are important, and I really feel like I need to tell you.

I know this probably isn't making any sense yet. Maybe it never will.

This thing isn't your fault. If you skim down this letter. you're going to get the impression that you should call the police, or an ambulance, or a doctor. Don't bother. I've been thinking about this for a while. I've been thinking about very little else. So by the time you see this, it will be far too late. I'm going to leave this in your mailbox late on a Friday, after I know you've finished for the day and taken your little red Accord home through the city streets. You won't see it until Monday morning, and, as I say, it will be impossible to change things at that point. Don't try.

I really want to add, at this point, that it's really not your fault. Not at all. You are probably going to think that it is. I understand that, but it's really not. You should try to remember that. All this happened because of me, not because of anything you did or didn't do. Cold comfort, I bet. But that's all I can offer.

Do you remember the first day of class? I certainly do. It was still warm out, and you were wearing a dark brown dress, which was almost tan where the sun hit it. I think I fell in love with you at that moment. Your perfect, pretty shoes with the little rat a tat sound they made on the floor. You were so fired up about teaching, so cute and gawky and just so very beautiful. The moment your first lecture finished, I knew.

Nothing could happen immediately. You were faculty, I was a student. It was ridiculous to think anything different. But my brain wouldn't stop, counting down the days until I could tell you, when finals were over and we were no longer bound by convention. I knew people would talk, but people always do. I knew I could win you. I was sure of it.

Even as I type that, I blush a little bit.  How monumentally stupid! To think that you would have ever...ah, never mind. Forget it. I was just dumb, dumb, dumb.

Did you know I followed you home once? Yeah, I know. Creepy. But I did. I waited until your car pulled out, then followed you all the way home to your little three story house, squashed on either side by other houses. After I knew where you lived, I would drive by sometimes. I don't know what I expected to find. Of course, if you sunbathed in the nude, that would have been great! But I didn't think you would do that. I just had to know something about you, something about what you were like when you took your shoes off and relaxed after a long, hard day. Did you drink wine? Watch sad movies? What were you like in "real" life?

Then, of course, your Mom died on that horrific weekend, right before Christmas. It was so awful to watch you struggle through that day's lecture, and then the fill ins were obnoxious. You finally came back after break, and we all sent you cards, and you were so kind to handwrite those notes to all of us. It was so neat, seeing your handwriting expressing real feelings instead of just all the endless notes you put on the board. I have it here, pinned to my cork board above my laptop screen. You loop your "j"s in this really special, unique way. I've never seen anybody do that before. I read it a thousand times, and honestly, just the first line and the last, those were the ones that hooked me. "To Thomas," and "Love, Lori."

I'm blushing again. To see those letters, those words- it set me on fire! It reminded me of that line from "Araby"-"But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires." It was marvelous. I feel stupid to have felt that way, but at the time, that's where I was.

Of course, I soon learned you signed everyone's note that way.   

I can't believe I let myself think that way.

I'm so stupid.

Please remember that this isn't your fault at all. This is kind of what set it off, but if it wasn't this, it would have been something else. I just wasn't built for this world.

Do you remember when you were talking about Hemingway, and you cited all the different things, his father, all the wounds, all the concussions, before he died? How those things were "necessary, but not sufficient" causes of his depression? That's kind of like this. This whole episode by itself isn't enough, but it just tops off a bunch of other things that I never told you about. Trust me, there are plenty of other reasons.

There's a line that I heard on the comedy channel. This comic was smoking a cigarette, and he said, "Look, if you've sat through the first half of a movie, and it's terrible, what makes you think it's going to get any better in the second half?"

I won't say "Goodbye" or anything dumb like that.  

Thomas

100 Word Song: "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"

My compadre Leeroy, along with his somewhat more human pal Lance, have renewed 100 Word Song activities with none other than the Fab Four and "Revolution". My entry is called "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised".




















"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,
He told us when the Sixties died."

I stared at the words, cold and lifeless. I stole them from a dead man, recorded before my birth, forecasting a world we're still waiting for. I tried to feel his fervor, the certainty that rebels have that the force of their rightness will win out.

My parents tried to change the world, then got fat and moved to the suburbs. It's hard to imagine that they really meant it way back then, young people still naive enough to believe that the world can change.