Herr Chuck Wendig, the new Dad and Head Penmonkey over at the Terrible Minds Website/Zombie Army Recruitment Center, has issued a 1000 Word Flash Fiction challenge involving that most imminent of all holidays, Independence Day.
This is actually a sequel/continuation/postscript to my novel, which I haven't talked much about since its publication lo these many months ago. You don't need to have read it to get the story, although if you have read it, the characters and their relationships will be a lot clearer. (And should you want to, purchasing information is conveniently located on the sidebar.) But there's enough exposition here that you'll get the important parts, even if you haven't read it. (Which puts you in good company- 99.99% of the other life forms on planet Earth haven't read it, either.) (And, in the unlikely event you have read it, don't fret- there is a character in here who isn't in the novel. So you're not losing your memory.)
The story is called "Hello Goodbye"
It was a weird situation, but we liked it. I watched Kate run, thundering after a group of other wet, squirming preschoolers, following her with one eye while trying to stay focused on the conversation around me. It was just like they taught you in basketball- when you guard someone who doesn't have the ball, you follow the ball with one eye while following your opponent with the other. You get holistic- you try to take in the whole scene, trusting your instincts to tell you when it's time to focus.
I wasn't anything to Kate- not her father, though I was with her so often people assumed that. I didn't really mind- the truth was very hard to explain. Angela, her aunt, all legs and teenage awkwardness, was no relation to me whatsoever. Angela's mother, and Wendy's, who we all took to calling "Mom-Mom" because of her antipathy for "Grandmother", was also not my relative. But we were a family, a 20th century amalgam of those who loved this sweaty, bathing suited blond who was now involved in trying to catch the family dog, a friendly greyhound who put up with the little grabbing hands with equanimity.
One of Kate's "friends" (at 3, do you really have friends?) was born on July 4, which, I reflected, had to be a miserable time of year to be 9 months pregnant. So the girl, a pig tailed wonder named Grace, wound up losing her birthday amid the traditional pomp and circumstance. Grace's mom, a super competent, frighteningly pretty dark haired mom of 5, has begun what she promises will be an annual ritual, a barbeque/pool party/Independence Day party/birthday party. Her plan worked, their frankly gorgeous house now thronged with friends of all her kids, their relatives, and seemingly anyone who drove by.
We weren't mixers by nature, this family that wasn't. Kate was, of course- at her age, all you cared about was what fresh adventure the next 15 minutes would bring. You loved hard, and lost hard, and whatever you wanted, whether it was lunch or the toy truck that little boy was holding, you wanted it NOW. She was exhausting, but a refreshing reminder that every moment was important.
I heard Kate's wail instantly, a mix of pain and surprise and fear. Mom Mom told me I would get like this: before you're a parent, which I wasn't biologically but was in every other sense, every kid cry sounds alike. But when it's yours, you can hear it from a hundred yards. Kate had misjudged a wet, muddy corner, her sandaled feet sliding out from under her. She landed on one hip, sliding as if she were stealing second for a yard or so.
I resisted the urge to go to her, as I had been taught. Mom Mom's wisdom from raising two daughters was to wait and see if they could sort it out on their own. Sometimes the joy of play overcame the discomfort and they would pick up and move on as if nothing had happened. Kate saw me look, and that brought her to her feet and over towards me. She probably sees the chance for some free sympathy. I was willing to give it. Mom Mom had heard the cry, drinking white wine with the other parents on the deck. She caught my eye, seeing that I had it controlled, and returned to her conversation.
One sandal unbuckled, Kate made her way over to me, full cheeks red with sun and anger. I crouched onto one knee, like I was in an on deck circle, fingers reaching for her tiny shoe. Since her birth, I had more experience with buckles, bows, and straps than I ever had before.
"Unca Ray," she began. I was Uncle until she was old enough to understand the truth. "I falled."
"Yes, you did fall," I told her, fastening her shoe in place. "Are you okay?"
She climbed eagerly onto my knee, wrapping both arms around my neck. She sniffled once.
"Yeah. I think I OK." She untangled herself and dashed off to rejoin the fray. I stood up. My T shirt, a silkscreen of a photo with the longhaired, bearded, about to break up Beatles, had a stain of grass, water, and mud across George Harrison's face. I had long since given up the expectation that any clothes of mine would remain unmarked.
Angela had wandered off in search of teen company, leaving Emmeline standing there to look at me bemusedly.
"You're so good with her," she said softly. She always spoke softly, almost like she was trying to make sure you cared enough to listen. She had on a pretty patterned dress, light and airy in the July heat. She looked lovely, perfectly able to fit in with the other moms at the party. But she was my age and childless.
The other parents are your age, too, I told myself.
"Thanks," I said, not knowing how else to respond.
"It's nice that she has you. I don't understand it, but it's good for her. She loves you."
"I'm not sure I understand it either. But it's there." I couldn't say it any clearer.
"I can't help but envy her."
"Em, she's three."
"I know, but she owns you. You're always there for her." Her words were curling at the edges now. She was biting them off.
"I'm there for you, too."
"I just know where I rank, is what I'm saying." Emmeline walked towards the porch, her wineglass empty. I watched her walk.
I thought about the Beatles. "You say goodbye, and I say hello."
Saturday, July 02, 2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
100 Word Challenge: Pay Attention
Velvet Verbosity's 100 Word Challenge thinks "Cars 2" is unfairly maligned by critics- it is one of the best animated films about cars that takes place in England, Japan, and Rome that this online literary flash fiction challenge has ever seen. This week's word is "Resistance", and my entry is called "Pay Attention!"
Looking at her, brown hair with strands of gold, pert nose, and open, eager face, felt like worship. She was an exchange student from Norway. The collective response of the boys was awe, which made our female classmates deeply frustrated, all the more so because she was so charming and sweet with her English malapropisms.
I felt the silence before I heard it, looking quickly at my Physics teacher's expectant face.
"I'm sorry?"
"What property is described by the use of Ohm's Law?"
"Resistance?"
"Correct. Maybe you'll pay attention now?"
Attention? Yes, I'll pay attention.
Looking at her, brown hair with strands of gold, pert nose, and open, eager face, felt like worship. She was an exchange student from Norway. The collective response of the boys was awe, which made our female classmates deeply frustrated, all the more so because she was so charming and sweet with her English malapropisms.
I felt the silence before I heard it, looking quickly at my Physics teacher's expectant face.
"I'm sorry?"
"What property is described by the use of Ohm's Law?"
"Resistance?"
"Correct. Maybe you'll pay attention now?"
Attention? Yes, I'll pay attention.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Indie Ink Writing Challenge
The Indie Ink Writing Challenge comes from a plaid panted lass, who gives me "silence in black and white". My challenge goes to Ixy.
I still get the paper, the dead tree, old fashioned, thump on the driveway at 530am newspaper. It isn't very ecologically correct, nor is it logical in any way, since all of the information available in it is easily, and more quickly, retrievable elsewhere. But I am my father's son, and a day just doesn't seem like it has begun until I have sipped coffee with ink stained fingertips.
I was reviewing the front page with SportsCenter on in the background when my wife moved past me into the kitchen. We didn't talk, but we didn't need to. She still had the glazed look of sleep, so I elected to wait until she had something to say.
The front page was still covering the echoes of Tuesday's plane crash- the kind of story that dominates the news when there's nothing else to talk about. A flight coming out of Iowa City simply dropped out of the sky, undergoing a catastrophic failure soon after takeoff that only 21 of 311 people survived.
Today's angle was apparently a woman with "local ties" who lost her life in the crash. I was hopping over the story idly as my wife began sleepily, "I had the weirdest dream last night. You were in a hotel somewhere, and I was sure you were..."
I saw the shape of her name before I was able to process it. Surely it couldn't be her, could it?
"...and Giada DeLaurentis was there, and I kept telling her..."
It was. The details matched. Her parents' names, her brother, the high school, everything. I felt my stomach lurch. She had tickets for San Francisco, and was about to marry a doctoral candidate in literature that she met backpacking in Chile.
"...but the colors were all wrong, but nobody would listen to me..."
My God, I thought, trying not to show emotion. I was over her, or, more properly, she was more than over me. We hadn't spoken since before Clinton was elected, so I couldn't properly say that I missed her. I missed who we were- the sad girl with long brown hair and the boy who was going to keep her safe.
"...and then there wasn't anyone working in the store, and no matter how loud..."
I loved her ferociously. I know now, with the wisdom of two decades, that it wasn't a relationship at all. She was an object of worship, and that's not a foundation for anything. But love her I did, and I felt her absence from the world.
"...and my Aunt Diana was there, and she had made pasta, which was weird..."
She was gone, ripped out of the sky in a panicked spasm of fire and failed engineering. I couldn't protect her then, and I couldn't protect her twenty years ago. You can't protect anybody, can you?
"...Are you listening to me?," my wife concluded, looking at me squarely.
"No, sorry," I said, closing the paper. "I was reading that story about the crash."
"Do you want some toast?," she said again.
"No, thank you," I said, folding the paper over once, and then again, as if I could disguise the news from myself.
- Posted using BlogPress
I still get the paper, the dead tree, old fashioned, thump on the driveway at 530am newspaper. It isn't very ecologically correct, nor is it logical in any way, since all of the information available in it is easily, and more quickly, retrievable elsewhere. But I am my father's son, and a day just doesn't seem like it has begun until I have sipped coffee with ink stained fingertips.
I was reviewing the front page with SportsCenter on in the background when my wife moved past me into the kitchen. We didn't talk, but we didn't need to. She still had the glazed look of sleep, so I elected to wait until she had something to say.
The front page was still covering the echoes of Tuesday's plane crash- the kind of story that dominates the news when there's nothing else to talk about. A flight coming out of Iowa City simply dropped out of the sky, undergoing a catastrophic failure soon after takeoff that only 21 of 311 people survived.
Today's angle was apparently a woman with "local ties" who lost her life in the crash. I was hopping over the story idly as my wife began sleepily, "I had the weirdest dream last night. You were in a hotel somewhere, and I was sure you were..."
I saw the shape of her name before I was able to process it. Surely it couldn't be her, could it?
"...and Giada DeLaurentis was there, and I kept telling her..."
It was. The details matched. Her parents' names, her brother, the high school, everything. I felt my stomach lurch. She had tickets for San Francisco, and was about to marry a doctoral candidate in literature that she met backpacking in Chile.
"...but the colors were all wrong, but nobody would listen to me..."
My God, I thought, trying not to show emotion. I was over her, or, more properly, she was more than over me. We hadn't spoken since before Clinton was elected, so I couldn't properly say that I missed her. I missed who we were- the sad girl with long brown hair and the boy who was going to keep her safe.
"...and then there wasn't anyone working in the store, and no matter how loud..."
I loved her ferociously. I know now, with the wisdom of two decades, that it wasn't a relationship at all. She was an object of worship, and that's not a foundation for anything. But love her I did, and I felt her absence from the world.
"...and my Aunt Diana was there, and she had made pasta, which was weird..."
She was gone, ripped out of the sky in a panicked spasm of fire and failed engineering. I couldn't protect her then, and I couldn't protect her twenty years ago. You can't protect anybody, can you?
"...Are you listening to me?," my wife concluded, looking at me squarely.
"No, sorry," I said, closing the paper. "I was reading that story about the crash."
"Do you want some toast?," she said again.
"No, thank you," I said, folding the paper over once, and then again, as if I could disguise the news from myself.
- Posted using BlogPress
Sunday, June 26, 2011
IndieInk Writing Challenge Pregame Show
The IndieInk Writing Challenge has thrown down the gauntlet once again. I am challenging Ixy with "Hell, it could be my fault" and I am being challenged by some plaid pants about "Silence in black and white".
I'm not ready to write my challenge yet, but my challenge to Ixy started my own juices flowing, so I wrote the following. I guess call it the PreGame Show to this week's challenge.
"Neither one of you is doing anything until I know who left those chips there," Mom said firmly. Her voice had that edge, that I'm-really-not-one-bit-kidding tone that made me feel a little queasy. I didn't do it. I knew I didn't do it. I don't even like those chips, the cheesy ones with the intense crispness and the biting cheddar. The plain ones were fine, super crunchy and jagged but with just the corn and salt taste. But there they were, a paper plate half full of cheddar ones with a gross looking grease stain off to one side of the plate.
I knew who did it. It wasn't Mom, and it wasn't the cat. It had to be Emily. She was my best friend, my constant companion, my only ally. There were still things that drove me crazy about her, though. She was taller than me, even though I was older, so she constantly got called the big sister, even though she wasn't. She didn't seem to care, would follow anyone anywhere, do any foolish thing because it seemed like fun. I hated that about her, the way I had to constantly be on the lookout. She had to know she did it. Why didn't she just say it so we could get our TV back?
I thought about saying it, just accusing her, straight out, "Emily HAD to do it. It wasn't me. I never eat those." But I knew how that went, "No I didn't!", "Yes you did!", until Daddy yelled, and everyone felt sad. I didn't want to go there, but I really wanted to watch TV. I thought about just saying I did, which was a lie, but might get us out of this circle faster. I didn't want to lie, but if it would work, maybe that was the best way.
I looked at Emily. I loved her. No one made me laugh like she did. No one understood me, what I was scared of, what I hated, like she did. She was literally the only person who knew what it was like to be me, because she had the same mommy and daddy. But she drove me crazy, too. She was sitting there, wearing a light purple shirt with these funny edges, all wavy and crinkled like the bottom of curtains. It looked like her arms were coming out of the edge of a cake. She looked through her glasses back at me. "Just say it," I told her in my head, "just say you did it, and this will be over." It drove me nuts, the way she just let the unfair punishment stand like this, when she could solve it so easy. I tried to push the thought at her, thinking it as hard as I could. "Say it, Emily. SAY IT!"
"Well, I didn't do it," Emily began. I knew that voice. She was trying to convince us of something, and so she was sounding extra persuasive, talking slow and saying each word carefully.
That's not true, my brain screamed at her. You did SO do it.
"But I'll clean it up. Is that OK, Mommy?" I felt a bolt of anger. That means she's covering for ME. And that's not right, because I didn't DO it! I hate those cheesy chips! My stomach flipped again. I wanted to yell, "That's not true!". I knew what would happen if I did, but the words came to my lips. I was just about to say them, then I swallowed them back, feeling like I had to force them down into my stomach, which lurched unhappily.
We both looked at Mommy, who looked down at us unhappily. She looked tired. All the moms I see look tired, I thought. Why are parents always so tired?
"Fine," she said to Emily uneasily. She looked a little mad, but she didn't say anything else.
Emily got up, unfolding her long legs like a spider, and picked up the plate and marched off into the kitchen. I looked at Mommy, who was watching Emily throw the plate away. I wanted to ask, but I was a little bit afraid to. It was so unfair- it looked like I did it now, when I didn't. I wanted to say that, but I didn't say anything.
"You can go outside now," Mommy said happily. I was up and at the front door like someone making a jailbreak, feeling Emily on my heels before I could see her.
I'm not ready to write my challenge yet, but my challenge to Ixy started my own juices flowing, so I wrote the following. I guess call it the PreGame Show to this week's challenge.
"Neither one of you is doing anything until I know who left those chips there," Mom said firmly. Her voice had that edge, that I'm-really-not-one-bit-kidding tone that made me feel a little queasy. I didn't do it. I knew I didn't do it. I don't even like those chips, the cheesy ones with the intense crispness and the biting cheddar. The plain ones were fine, super crunchy and jagged but with just the corn and salt taste. But there they were, a paper plate half full of cheddar ones with a gross looking grease stain off to one side of the plate.
I knew who did it. It wasn't Mom, and it wasn't the cat. It had to be Emily. She was my best friend, my constant companion, my only ally. There were still things that drove me crazy about her, though. She was taller than me, even though I was older, so she constantly got called the big sister, even though she wasn't. She didn't seem to care, would follow anyone anywhere, do any foolish thing because it seemed like fun. I hated that about her, the way I had to constantly be on the lookout. She had to know she did it. Why didn't she just say it so we could get our TV back?
I thought about saying it, just accusing her, straight out, "Emily HAD to do it. It wasn't me. I never eat those." But I knew how that went, "No I didn't!", "Yes you did!", until Daddy yelled, and everyone felt sad. I didn't want to go there, but I really wanted to watch TV. I thought about just saying I did, which was a lie, but might get us out of this circle faster. I didn't want to lie, but if it would work, maybe that was the best way.
I looked at Emily. I loved her. No one made me laugh like she did. No one understood me, what I was scared of, what I hated, like she did. She was literally the only person who knew what it was like to be me, because she had the same mommy and daddy. But she drove me crazy, too. She was sitting there, wearing a light purple shirt with these funny edges, all wavy and crinkled like the bottom of curtains. It looked like her arms were coming out of the edge of a cake. She looked through her glasses back at me. "Just say it," I told her in my head, "just say you did it, and this will be over." It drove me nuts, the way she just let the unfair punishment stand like this, when she could solve it so easy. I tried to push the thought at her, thinking it as hard as I could. "Say it, Emily. SAY IT!"
"Well, I didn't do it," Emily began. I knew that voice. She was trying to convince us of something, and so she was sounding extra persuasive, talking slow and saying each word carefully.
That's not true, my brain screamed at her. You did SO do it.
"But I'll clean it up. Is that OK, Mommy?" I felt a bolt of anger. That means she's covering for ME. And that's not right, because I didn't DO it! I hate those cheesy chips! My stomach flipped again. I wanted to yell, "That's not true!". I knew what would happen if I did, but the words came to my lips. I was just about to say them, then I swallowed them back, feeling like I had to force them down into my stomach, which lurched unhappily.
We both looked at Mommy, who looked down at us unhappily. She looked tired. All the moms I see look tired, I thought. Why are parents always so tired?
"Fine," she said to Emily uneasily. She looked a little mad, but she didn't say anything else.
Emily got up, unfolding her long legs like a spider, and picked up the plate and marched off into the kitchen. I looked at Mommy, who was watching Emily throw the plate away. I wanted to ask, but I was a little bit afraid to. It was so unfair- it looked like I did it now, when I didn't. I wanted to say that, but I didn't say anything.
"You can go outside now," Mommy said happily. I was up and at the front door like someone making a jailbreak, feeling Emily on my heels before I could see her.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
100 Word Challenge: Rules To Live By
Velvet Verbosity herself may be on the DL, but her 100 Word Challenge, thanks to a little help from her friends, is on the 25 man roster and is playing every day. This week's word is "Game" and my entry is called "Rules To Live By"
There were rules to this game. Nobody told you, nobody wrote it down, but you just knew.
Don't be too happy, because Sara lost two in the last two years.
Don't be too sad, because Cindy has four and judges you if you're anything less than thrilled.
Don't be too matter of fact, because Andrea hasn't been able to have any of her own.
Don't be evasive, because Karen will grill you for every last detail.
Don't say that a tiny part of you wishes you weren't.
Just say "I'm pregnant".
There were rules to this game. Nobody told you, nobody wrote it down, but you just knew.
Don't be too happy, because Sara lost two in the last two years.
Don't be too sad, because Cindy has four and judges you if you're anything less than thrilled.
Don't be too matter of fact, because Andrea hasn't been able to have any of her own.
Don't be evasive, because Karen will grill you for every last detail.
Don't say that a tiny part of you wishes you weren't.
Just say "I'm pregnant".
A Barrel Of Awesome
The barrel of awesome that is Matt Potter's "Pure Slush" magazine has elected to publish a story of mine, "Campfire Story", a thankfully fictional work that you can read here.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Indie Ink Writing Challenge: Don't Be Cruel
This week, my challenge("New York City") goes out to the Cheshire Cat (and/or her smile) and I get the following from Transplanted x 3: "You (or your character) attend an auction for the left-over contents of a storage unit. You purchase one and discover 3 things. A dead body, a suitcase filled with money and a box of love letters from Elvis Presley." I cheated a wee bit- the body's not exactly dead- but hopefully it's still a tale worth reading. I call it, naturally, "Don't Be Cruel".
Kayla was a screamer. Not that kind of screamer, you pervert.
Wait. Well, she was that kind of screamer, too, if you must know, but this isn't that sort of story.
Let me start again.
Kayla screamed a lot. She screamed if she saw a spider, or a mouse, or a dead animal by the road. She watched those crime shows where someone gets killed in the first five minutes, and she would scream when they showed the body, every single time, even though anyone who watched those shows more than twice knew it was coming. She startled easily, and when she was startled, she screamed. She was a screamer, so it wasn't shocking when we pulled up the grey corrugated steel door, and she screamed.
She had been sealed up in our room, playing "Darkness at the Edge of Town" over and over, working on finishing the latest version of her novel. I was content to let her be. I could watch all the sports I wanted while she was shut away, and she could be a bit cranky when the juices were flowing. We ate our meals together, and she emerged to help me with dishes, trash, and laundry, but otherwise, we just kept to ourselves. I figured that was the way she wanted it- and when she wanted to be touchy and girly again, she knew where to find me.
So it was novel behavior when she was pulling on a short blue dress and dressy sandals early that Saturday morning. I was staring at the morning SportsCenter, hoping the Royals' 9-3 loss last night would have somehow changed by the next morning. She told me that her father Claude, a squat, intimidating man who always had money but never seemed to have a job, had an abandoned storage unit sale to go to this morning and wanted her help. She proposed a joint trip, and having no more pressing task than mourning the Royals' losing streak, I joined in.
The auction was conducted blind- you bought the contents, sight unseen, and were responsible for taking or throwing away whatever was inside by the end of the day. We pulled up to a dozen or so people, from senior citizens to eager young people like ourselves, and we sidled up to Kayla's father, who was, as usual, silent.
"Here," he said to his daughter. "I already got 433. You two go down and check it out while I try to snag another one." She handed him a couple of legal looking papers, and the two of us were soon walking down the rows of evenly spaced orange and black buildings. We reached the fourth building, and then circled it until the unit came into view. The owner had snipped the padlock that held it shut, and Kayla was standing before it, waiting for me to pull the door up.
I knew how she was, so I stepped in front, pulling the door open, hearing the rattle and bang of the ancient mechanism. I had let go of the handle, letting it settle into place above my head, when she screamed.
There was a dead guy in what I could only describe as a sarcophagus- a full length, floor to ceiling, Plexiglas lined coffin, leaning so that he was the first thing you saw when you pulled the door open. You think a lot of things when you see a dead person, I found out. First, you feel guilty, even though, as much as you may have drunk the night before, you're pretty sure a murder would have stood out. The second thing is that you start cooking up your alibi, even though you didn't kill him, and you didn't have possession of the dead guy until about ten minutes ago. I looked him over closely. It was Elvis- a full bodied, fat Elvis, with the rhinestoned white jumpsuit and the greasy pompadour and the whole thing. It lent the whole thing an air of unreality, and I had a half second where I wondered whether the whole thing was real or not. But I could feel sweat trickling between my shoulder blades, and I could hear Kayla sucking in air to scream again.
I turned to her quickly, focusing in on her beautiful green eyes. If I held her gaze for a second, I could usually talk her in off of most ledges. "Kay? Baby? It's a mannequin, hon. Look at it. The skin isn't right, and the body would spoil, and, well, Elvis is buried in Memphis, baby." I didn't know that for a fact, but it certainly was the only logical conclusion. She looked at me curiously, her head shaking very slightly, like she was trying to say "no" without moving her head. But she wasn't screaming, so I was pretty sure I had her.
"Breathe, honey. Breathe. It's OK. It's just a mannequin, babe. Promise." I looked at it again. No question it was a mannequin, I thought. It has the Elvis wig, but the skin was plastic, fake and wrong looking in the morning sun.
I looked back at her. She took a deep, shuddering breath, color returning to her face under the super short haircut that she loved, I hated, and I knew better than to complain about. I stayed locked on her eyes until I was pretty sure she had her faculties again. "It's OK, hon. Kay? You alright?"
"Wow," she said weakly.
"Yeah," I agreed, stepping back to take her hand. "You want to go find your Dad? This suit alone probably pays for the cost of the whole thing."
"I bet it does, wow. Yeah. Um, in a minute, maybe. I'm kind of freaked out."
"OK, sure," I agreed. "You want me to wait here with you?"
"Oh, no," she said firmly. "He's going to want to know what else is in there. You better start going through it."
I did, looking through cartons of books, Elvis biographies and "As Told To" tomes from hangers on. There were boxes with video tapes, bootleg concerts and TV specials, and, of course, the movies, along with the beginnings of the same collection on DVD. Then there was the audio, albums, then cassettes, then remastered CD versions. Obviously, a pretty serious fanatic. I had my own obsessions, though, so I couldn't really judge.
One box had only a smaller box inside it, about the size of a shoe box, lined with soft fabric. Inside were torn envelopes with tissue thin paper inside. Love letters, obviously. I took one out and began to read,
"13 June 1957
Fraulein Maria-
I miss you terribly. Things are pretty crazy around here, but I think about you all the time. I wish we could be together here, live like man and wife the way we are supposed to-"
I stopped reading, my eyes jumping to the bottom, scrawled simply, "Love, E." I was staggered by the thought. Actual love letters written by Presley? If they were real, this could be worth thousands. I didn't know enough about the King to imagine what they would actually fetch, but the figure had to be enormous. There was also a suitcase, a black, hardened plastic thing that reminded me of the typewriter my father used to bang out science fiction stories on so he could add to his rejection letter collection.
There was a silver clasp at the top, and I released it, expecting to find the familiar, murder weapony heft of the ancient writing tool. This storage closet was not done surprising us, because inside was pile after pile of rubber banded stacks of what appeared to be hundred dollar bills.
"Holy shit," I gasped.
"What?," Kayla asked, her fear lessened enough to let her take a few steps into the container with me.
"Look," I said, and leaned back, letting her see the cash.
"Whoa," she said. "Can I see that?"
I lifted it onto a box full of Elvis records so she could see it more clearly. It was heavier than you thought it would be.
"Is that money?"
"Sure looks like it," I said.
"There must be...thousands," she said breathlessly.
"If they're all hundreds," I said. There was a shiver of nausea in the pit of my stomach. Something was wrong. That much money doesn't accumulate because of anything good.
Kayla shut the case and fastened it. "I'm going to go find my Dad," she said firmly.
"Well, leave that here, don't you think? Don't go showing it around."
"I'm not STU-pid," she said mockingly, swinging the case from one hand as she walked out of the storage unit. I watched her hips twitch under the short dress as she walked away from me.
When Claude walked in 10 minutes further on, I assumed she and her father had missed connections- she had walked in another direction, or she was looking by the exit while he stood over me, sweaty and tan. I showed him the haul, and he reprimanded me gently for handling the letter, but he was thrilled with the haul, as I knew he would be. He promised me a generous cut, and I was spending it in my head when I noticed our car missing from the lot at the storage complex. Claude shrugged his shoulders, and we commenced loading his truck with the treasures. He drove me back to our tiny apartment, and it finally came home to me what had happened when I saw that her toothbrush, her books, her clothes, and her laptop were all gone.
I was still trying to assemble the whole picture in my head, and trying to understand how I was going to tell Claude what had happened, when I saw it. On the back of one of my business cards, in the refrigerator leaning against a Rolling Rock bottle she knew I would go for, she had left a note.
In her simple, girlish hand, she wrote in purple ink, "Don't Be Cruel".
Kayla was a screamer. Not that kind of screamer, you pervert.
Wait. Well, she was that kind of screamer, too, if you must know, but this isn't that sort of story.
Let me start again.
Kayla screamed a lot. She screamed if she saw a spider, or a mouse, or a dead animal by the road. She watched those crime shows where someone gets killed in the first five minutes, and she would scream when they showed the body, every single time, even though anyone who watched those shows more than twice knew it was coming. She startled easily, and when she was startled, she screamed. She was a screamer, so it wasn't shocking when we pulled up the grey corrugated steel door, and she screamed.
She had been sealed up in our room, playing "Darkness at the Edge of Town" over and over, working on finishing the latest version of her novel. I was content to let her be. I could watch all the sports I wanted while she was shut away, and she could be a bit cranky when the juices were flowing. We ate our meals together, and she emerged to help me with dishes, trash, and laundry, but otherwise, we just kept to ourselves. I figured that was the way she wanted it- and when she wanted to be touchy and girly again, she knew where to find me.
So it was novel behavior when she was pulling on a short blue dress and dressy sandals early that Saturday morning. I was staring at the morning SportsCenter, hoping the Royals' 9-3 loss last night would have somehow changed by the next morning. She told me that her father Claude, a squat, intimidating man who always had money but never seemed to have a job, had an abandoned storage unit sale to go to this morning and wanted her help. She proposed a joint trip, and having no more pressing task than mourning the Royals' losing streak, I joined in.
The auction was conducted blind- you bought the contents, sight unseen, and were responsible for taking or throwing away whatever was inside by the end of the day. We pulled up to a dozen or so people, from senior citizens to eager young people like ourselves, and we sidled up to Kayla's father, who was, as usual, silent.
"Here," he said to his daughter. "I already got 433. You two go down and check it out while I try to snag another one." She handed him a couple of legal looking papers, and the two of us were soon walking down the rows of evenly spaced orange and black buildings. We reached the fourth building, and then circled it until the unit came into view. The owner had snipped the padlock that held it shut, and Kayla was standing before it, waiting for me to pull the door up.
I knew how she was, so I stepped in front, pulling the door open, hearing the rattle and bang of the ancient mechanism. I had let go of the handle, letting it settle into place above my head, when she screamed.
There was a dead guy in what I could only describe as a sarcophagus- a full length, floor to ceiling, Plexiglas lined coffin, leaning so that he was the first thing you saw when you pulled the door open. You think a lot of things when you see a dead person, I found out. First, you feel guilty, even though, as much as you may have drunk the night before, you're pretty sure a murder would have stood out. The second thing is that you start cooking up your alibi, even though you didn't kill him, and you didn't have possession of the dead guy until about ten minutes ago. I looked him over closely. It was Elvis- a full bodied, fat Elvis, with the rhinestoned white jumpsuit and the greasy pompadour and the whole thing. It lent the whole thing an air of unreality, and I had a half second where I wondered whether the whole thing was real or not. But I could feel sweat trickling between my shoulder blades, and I could hear Kayla sucking in air to scream again.
I turned to her quickly, focusing in on her beautiful green eyes. If I held her gaze for a second, I could usually talk her in off of most ledges. "Kay? Baby? It's a mannequin, hon. Look at it. The skin isn't right, and the body would spoil, and, well, Elvis is buried in Memphis, baby." I didn't know that for a fact, but it certainly was the only logical conclusion. She looked at me curiously, her head shaking very slightly, like she was trying to say "no" without moving her head. But she wasn't screaming, so I was pretty sure I had her.
"Breathe, honey. Breathe. It's OK. It's just a mannequin, babe. Promise." I looked at it again. No question it was a mannequin, I thought. It has the Elvis wig, but the skin was plastic, fake and wrong looking in the morning sun.
I looked back at her. She took a deep, shuddering breath, color returning to her face under the super short haircut that she loved, I hated, and I knew better than to complain about. I stayed locked on her eyes until I was pretty sure she had her faculties again. "It's OK, hon. Kay? You alright?"
"Wow," she said weakly.
"Yeah," I agreed, stepping back to take her hand. "You want to go find your Dad? This suit alone probably pays for the cost of the whole thing."
"I bet it does, wow. Yeah. Um, in a minute, maybe. I'm kind of freaked out."
"OK, sure," I agreed. "You want me to wait here with you?"
"Oh, no," she said firmly. "He's going to want to know what else is in there. You better start going through it."
I did, looking through cartons of books, Elvis biographies and "As Told To" tomes from hangers on. There were boxes with video tapes, bootleg concerts and TV specials, and, of course, the movies, along with the beginnings of the same collection on DVD. Then there was the audio, albums, then cassettes, then remastered CD versions. Obviously, a pretty serious fanatic. I had my own obsessions, though, so I couldn't really judge.
One box had only a smaller box inside it, about the size of a shoe box, lined with soft fabric. Inside were torn envelopes with tissue thin paper inside. Love letters, obviously. I took one out and began to read,
"13 June 1957
Fraulein Maria-
I miss you terribly. Things are pretty crazy around here, but I think about you all the time. I wish we could be together here, live like man and wife the way we are supposed to-"
I stopped reading, my eyes jumping to the bottom, scrawled simply, "Love, E." I was staggered by the thought. Actual love letters written by Presley? If they were real, this could be worth thousands. I didn't know enough about the King to imagine what they would actually fetch, but the figure had to be enormous. There was also a suitcase, a black, hardened plastic thing that reminded me of the typewriter my father used to bang out science fiction stories on so he could add to his rejection letter collection.
There was a silver clasp at the top, and I released it, expecting to find the familiar, murder weapony heft of the ancient writing tool. This storage closet was not done surprising us, because inside was pile after pile of rubber banded stacks of what appeared to be hundred dollar bills.
"Holy shit," I gasped.
"What?," Kayla asked, her fear lessened enough to let her take a few steps into the container with me.
"Look," I said, and leaned back, letting her see the cash.
"Whoa," she said. "Can I see that?"
I lifted it onto a box full of Elvis records so she could see it more clearly. It was heavier than you thought it would be.
"Is that money?"
"Sure looks like it," I said.
"There must be...thousands," she said breathlessly.
"If they're all hundreds," I said. There was a shiver of nausea in the pit of my stomach. Something was wrong. That much money doesn't accumulate because of anything good.
Kayla shut the case and fastened it. "I'm going to go find my Dad," she said firmly.
"Well, leave that here, don't you think? Don't go showing it around."
"I'm not STU-pid," she said mockingly, swinging the case from one hand as she walked out of the storage unit. I watched her hips twitch under the short dress as she walked away from me.
When Claude walked in 10 minutes further on, I assumed she and her father had missed connections- she had walked in another direction, or she was looking by the exit while he stood over me, sweaty and tan. I showed him the haul, and he reprimanded me gently for handling the letter, but he was thrilled with the haul, as I knew he would be. He promised me a generous cut, and I was spending it in my head when I noticed our car missing from the lot at the storage complex. Claude shrugged his shoulders, and we commenced loading his truck with the treasures. He drove me back to our tiny apartment, and it finally came home to me what had happened when I saw that her toothbrush, her books, her clothes, and her laptop were all gone.
I was still trying to assemble the whole picture in my head, and trying to understand how I was going to tell Claude what had happened, when I saw it. On the back of one of my business cards, in the refrigerator leaning against a Rolling Rock bottle she knew I would go for, she had left a note.
In her simple, girlish hand, she wrote in purple ink, "Don't Be Cruel".
Thursday, June 16, 2011
100 Word Challenge: The Nuts
Velvet Verbosity's 100 Word Challenge did not skate a single shift, but is willing to take credit for helping the Boston Bruins win their first Stanley Cup in 39 years. This week's word is "perfect", and my Wheel-of-Fortune-in-Las-Vegas inspired tale is called "The Nuts". ("The nuts" is a poker term. If one has "the nuts", then, given the arrangement of cards on the table, one has the best possible hand and cannot be beaten.)
Casinos are always bright and loud- the sounds and the smells and the lights make you feel like you've had too much coffee. I couldn't think about the checks that were about to bounce, the sick feeling I get when I buy my daughter's formula with a credit card.
But all that was over-it was time to win my way out. I had it all set up- I had played possum, luring the other players into a pot they couldn't win. It was a perfect plan- as long as that last card isn't a seven.
Casinos are always bright and loud- the sounds and the smells and the lights make you feel like you've had too much coffee. I couldn't think about the checks that were about to bounce, the sick feeling I get when I buy my daughter's formula with a credit card.
But all that was over-it was time to win my way out. I had it all set up- I had played possum, luring the other players into a pot they couldn't win. It was a perfect plan- as long as that last card isn't a seven.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
IndieInk Writing Challenge: N-V-T-S
This week on the Carousel of Bloggery Goodness which is the one and only Indie Ink Writing Challenge, I ask Amy to write something about a single kiss, and the inexorable Sunshine tells me "Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't".
"You're nuts," she told me. "N-V-T-S, nuts!," she said, using the old joke from the Mel Brooks movie. Her brown hair, intensely curly, framed her face in attractive ringlets. She looked hurt at what I had just said. "You can't do that," she said firmly, her mouth open slightly. She recrossed her legs, one leg moving smoothly over the other. Her body was amazing for someone with 3 kids. My eyes lost focus in the brown and white print of her dress.
"You're letting David come back? After what he did? You're joking, right? He cheated. He cheated, and then you took him back, and he cheated AGAIN. You know a leopard can't change his spots! Once a cheater, always a cheater!" Her voice was getting impatient, kind of lecture-y. When I saw her with her kids, she could sound like that now and then. I supposed it was a byproduct of constant corrections: "Don't touch that! That's not yours! Where are you going? What are you doing? We don't do that!"
"How can you do this to yourself? How can you do this to me? Don't you remember that first night, the way I stayed up with you until 3AM, listening to you cry? How I was almost late to drop the kids off the next morning?" She wasn't wrong. I had caught them, the curvy blond intern and David, kissing frantically in his car right outside our condo, then barricaded the door with a bookshelf and called her, breathless with hot, angry tears. Like a friend, she talked me down off the ledge, at the expense of her own functioning the next morning. Interesting, a part of my mind noted, how it became something happening to her, instead of something happening to me.
"He doesn't love you, hun. He never loved you. People who love you don't cheat. They don't mock you, or belittle you, or make fun of you when you twist an ankle. People who love you put your interests in front of their own. They make it all about you." She didn't really understand. Her, with all her years with clueless Clarence, didn't know what it was like. Yes, David sinned. He cheated on me with the 19 year old intern from the office, 40 year old women from bars, the woman who sold sneakers at Foot Locker. I took him back because he was someone to complain about Sarah Palin to, someone to make dinner for, someone to watch movies with. He gave my life drama, gave me something to complain about at work, kept me from obsessing about myself and my loneliness. If I hated him, I wasn't hating myself.
David wasn't enamored like Clarence was, in love with the idea that someone that gorgeous would spend time with him. David knew I was disposable- I was cute enough, but no cuter than 10 other girls who would come along as soon as he dropped me. I wasn't tall and gorgeous and secure and firm like she was, rooted into place with the man and the situation and the minivan, driving to soccer and ballet and Scouts. I was just another woman, to be used up and disposed of when I was no longer useful. I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything, looking down at the salad on my plate. I had no appetite. I hardly ate, which made me feel constantly dizzy and a little unhinged. I knew if I was ever going to have a body like hers, I had to either have children or add some fat to my diet. The prospect of either was nauseating.
"Honey, you can't do this. You can't let him hurt you again," she said, her voice now pleading, like she wanted me to finish my broccoli. Her cheeseburger was already gone, and she sipped gently at a Diet Coke. She didn't understand, with her devoted husband, cherubic kids, and perfect, organized life, how it felt when you were this close to the borderline. Taking him back was awful, but not taking him back was worse.
"You're nuts," she told me. "N-V-T-S, nuts!," she said, using the old joke from the Mel Brooks movie. Her brown hair, intensely curly, framed her face in attractive ringlets. She looked hurt at what I had just said. "You can't do that," she said firmly, her mouth open slightly. She recrossed her legs, one leg moving smoothly over the other. Her body was amazing for someone with 3 kids. My eyes lost focus in the brown and white print of her dress.
"You're letting David come back? After what he did? You're joking, right? He cheated. He cheated, and then you took him back, and he cheated AGAIN. You know a leopard can't change his spots! Once a cheater, always a cheater!" Her voice was getting impatient, kind of lecture-y. When I saw her with her kids, she could sound like that now and then. I supposed it was a byproduct of constant corrections: "Don't touch that! That's not yours! Where are you going? What are you doing? We don't do that!"
"How can you do this to yourself? How can you do this to me? Don't you remember that first night, the way I stayed up with you until 3AM, listening to you cry? How I was almost late to drop the kids off the next morning?" She wasn't wrong. I had caught them, the curvy blond intern and David, kissing frantically in his car right outside our condo, then barricaded the door with a bookshelf and called her, breathless with hot, angry tears. Like a friend, she talked me down off the ledge, at the expense of her own functioning the next morning. Interesting, a part of my mind noted, how it became something happening to her, instead of something happening to me.
"He doesn't love you, hun. He never loved you. People who love you don't cheat. They don't mock you, or belittle you, or make fun of you when you twist an ankle. People who love you put your interests in front of their own. They make it all about you." She didn't really understand. Her, with all her years with clueless Clarence, didn't know what it was like. Yes, David sinned. He cheated on me with the 19 year old intern from the office, 40 year old women from bars, the woman who sold sneakers at Foot Locker. I took him back because he was someone to complain about Sarah Palin to, someone to make dinner for, someone to watch movies with. He gave my life drama, gave me something to complain about at work, kept me from obsessing about myself and my loneliness. If I hated him, I wasn't hating myself.
David wasn't enamored like Clarence was, in love with the idea that someone that gorgeous would spend time with him. David knew I was disposable- I was cute enough, but no cuter than 10 other girls who would come along as soon as he dropped me. I wasn't tall and gorgeous and secure and firm like she was, rooted into place with the man and the situation and the minivan, driving to soccer and ballet and Scouts. I was just another woman, to be used up and disposed of when I was no longer useful. I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything, looking down at the salad on my plate. I had no appetite. I hardly ate, which made me feel constantly dizzy and a little unhinged. I knew if I was ever going to have a body like hers, I had to either have children or add some fat to my diet. The prospect of either was nauseating.
"Honey, you can't do this. You can't let him hurt you again," she said, her voice now pleading, like she wanted me to finish my broccoli. Her cheeseburger was already gone, and she sipped gently at a Diet Coke. She didn't understand, with her devoted husband, cherubic kids, and perfect, organized life, how it felt when you were this close to the borderline. Taking him back was awful, but not taking him back was worse.
Friday, June 10, 2011
100 Word Challenge: After The Thrill Is Gone
Velvet Verbosity's 100 Word Challenge wouldn't play an entire NBA Finals 4th quarter and take only one shot. This week's word is "compliments" and the title is "After The Thrill Is Gone"
Some were simply too tight, the buttons pulling at the buttonholes, soft diamonds of skin showing through. Some were too loose and shapeless. She knew which ones brought compliments from leering men or jealous women. She tried a dark red, and then a creamy bone white, then light blue, looking for the right amount of curve without falling over into outrageous. "We're not quite lovers, but we're not quite friends...," the radio said. That was true. She didn't how how she felt about him any more, only that being with him felt better than being without him.
Some were simply too tight, the buttons pulling at the buttonholes, soft diamonds of skin showing through. Some were too loose and shapeless. She knew which ones brought compliments from leering men or jealous women. She tried a dark red, and then a creamy bone white, then light blue, looking for the right amount of curve without falling over into outrageous. "We're not quite lovers, but we're not quite friends...," the radio said. That was true. She didn't how how she felt about him any more, only that being with him felt better than being without him.
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
IndieInk Writing Challenge: Survival Gear
Opera Mouth challenged me this week to tell a story about being stranded on a desert island, while I challenge Christy with the single word "Balance". Here's my contribution, "Survival Gear"
I said I wanted to be alone. Well, I got that much of what I asked for.
Flying cargoes of I Don't Want To Know from God Knows Where to Not Even God Knows Where, being paid in cash to keep my ex wife's lawyers out of my pocket, I learned to ask for very little. I wanted a clean plane, simple and straightforward (if extralegal) instructions, and some hard currency in a duffel bag when I was finished. Other than that, I wanted no conversation, no entanglements, no deals- just cold beer and a comfortable place to sit by myself and relax during my downtime.
I missed out on the beer, but I got the alone part right. Jerry, my contact, part time mechanic and full time alcoholic, had assured me the plane, which looked like it had been assembled from discarded parts of other planes, was fine. "It may not look like much," he said, quoting Han Solo, "but it's got it where it counts." After a routine beginning, a sudden squall blew me off course, and then a fuel leak gave me all the drama one could ask for, 1200 miles from civilization and suddenly flightless. I tried all the emergency tricks they teach us to, quickly realizing I was about to become a smallish grease spot on the ocean surface.
A distress call was pointless- not only was I not exactly carrying Christmas ornaments, I couldn't even tell the searchers where to look. So I jumped, stuffing my gear into a waterproof bag and parachuting out of the plane's wake and into, eventually, the unforgiving water. I cut myself free, then crawled and sputtered and eventually swam my way to a tiny strip of land. It was large enough to play American football on, as long as you didn't mind the end zones being underwater. I spread out the gear I had managed to haul out of the sinking plane before it made an anticlimactic smack, sinking like the heavy object it suddenly was once the engines quit.
Windup radio/cassette player, a Johnny Cash cassette, a couple of paperbacks, some pens and writing paper and survival gear-poncho, canteen, dried fruit, flint and steel, fishing line and hooks, evaporator to collect fresh water, frying pan and eating utensils- this was my world, this and this tiny spit of dirt, trees and shrubs. I was alive, wet, but whole and relatively hearty. It beat being dead, but not by a whole lot.
I thought about the movies, TV shows and books about being stranded. "Hatchet", and "Gilligan's Island", and "Lost", and Jack London stories, and "Cast Away". They all managed to put it together, and make it work where they were until they got rescued. I had doubts about my own abilities, but with my equipment laid out in front of me, I felt more prepared, more ready to make a go of it. Besides, what choice did I have?
I was looking around for a place to keep my stuff safe from rain and sun, some sort of a cave or outcropping, when I heard what for all the world sounded like an airplane. It can't possibly be that easy, I thought. Rescue on Day One? No movie producer in the world would approve that script. But the more I listened, the more it sounded like an airplane, until suddenly one popped into view, a yellow and white seaplane, turning left, dropping out of the sky towards my tiny little outcropping of land.
It couldn't be. But it was, as the seaplane dropped lower and lower, finally dipping its long, angular skids onto the water's surface, slowing down, bleeding off momentum by using the friction of water against metal and fiberglass. Were they following me? In that gale, I could have been followed by the RAF and I wouldn't have known it. If so, why me? Were they aware of what I was carrying? If so, they certainly had something on me. Were they intending on stealing it, and my crash had spoiled their plan?
The engine slowed and finally stopped, two men getting out of the cabin carrying rifles. It suddenly occurred to me what their agenda was- whether their plan involved theft or monitoring, it had now changed. And it certainly didn't now involve rescue. I didn't bother running- there were two of them, with guns, and there wasn't any place to hide. They didn't say anything. The taller one made a long shadow against the desert sand.
Being shot wasn't like in the movies- it really felt like a punch, a startling, rude blow into my upper chest. The strangest part was the sound of it- I could hear the wet slosh of my tissues as the bullet punched through them. They didn't say anything, and as my life drained away onto the equipment I had so carefully unpacked, it struck me as funny how useless all this survival gear turned out to be.
I said I wanted to be alone. Well, I got that much of what I asked for.
Flying cargoes of I Don't Want To Know from God Knows Where to Not Even God Knows Where, being paid in cash to keep my ex wife's lawyers out of my pocket, I learned to ask for very little. I wanted a clean plane, simple and straightforward (if extralegal) instructions, and some hard currency in a duffel bag when I was finished. Other than that, I wanted no conversation, no entanglements, no deals- just cold beer and a comfortable place to sit by myself and relax during my downtime.
I missed out on the beer, but I got the alone part right. Jerry, my contact, part time mechanic and full time alcoholic, had assured me the plane, which looked like it had been assembled from discarded parts of other planes, was fine. "It may not look like much," he said, quoting Han Solo, "but it's got it where it counts." After a routine beginning, a sudden squall blew me off course, and then a fuel leak gave me all the drama one could ask for, 1200 miles from civilization and suddenly flightless. I tried all the emergency tricks they teach us to, quickly realizing I was about to become a smallish grease spot on the ocean surface.
A distress call was pointless- not only was I not exactly carrying Christmas ornaments, I couldn't even tell the searchers where to look. So I jumped, stuffing my gear into a waterproof bag and parachuting out of the plane's wake and into, eventually, the unforgiving water. I cut myself free, then crawled and sputtered and eventually swam my way to a tiny strip of land. It was large enough to play American football on, as long as you didn't mind the end zones being underwater. I spread out the gear I had managed to haul out of the sinking plane before it made an anticlimactic smack, sinking like the heavy object it suddenly was once the engines quit.
Windup radio/cassette player, a Johnny Cash cassette, a couple of paperbacks, some pens and writing paper and survival gear-poncho, canteen, dried fruit, flint and steel, fishing line and hooks, evaporator to collect fresh water, frying pan and eating utensils- this was my world, this and this tiny spit of dirt, trees and shrubs. I was alive, wet, but whole and relatively hearty. It beat being dead, but not by a whole lot.
I thought about the movies, TV shows and books about being stranded. "Hatchet", and "Gilligan's Island", and "Lost", and Jack London stories, and "Cast Away". They all managed to put it together, and make it work where they were until they got rescued. I had doubts about my own abilities, but with my equipment laid out in front of me, I felt more prepared, more ready to make a go of it. Besides, what choice did I have?
I was looking around for a place to keep my stuff safe from rain and sun, some sort of a cave or outcropping, when I heard what for all the world sounded like an airplane. It can't possibly be that easy, I thought. Rescue on Day One? No movie producer in the world would approve that script. But the more I listened, the more it sounded like an airplane, until suddenly one popped into view, a yellow and white seaplane, turning left, dropping out of the sky towards my tiny little outcropping of land.
It couldn't be. But it was, as the seaplane dropped lower and lower, finally dipping its long, angular skids onto the water's surface, slowing down, bleeding off momentum by using the friction of water against metal and fiberglass. Were they following me? In that gale, I could have been followed by the RAF and I wouldn't have known it. If so, why me? Were they aware of what I was carrying? If so, they certainly had something on me. Were they intending on stealing it, and my crash had spoiled their plan?
The engine slowed and finally stopped, two men getting out of the cabin carrying rifles. It suddenly occurred to me what their agenda was- whether their plan involved theft or monitoring, it had now changed. And it certainly didn't now involve rescue. I didn't bother running- there were two of them, with guns, and there wasn't any place to hide. They didn't say anything. The taller one made a long shadow against the desert sand.
Being shot wasn't like in the movies- it really felt like a punch, a startling, rude blow into my upper chest. The strangest part was the sound of it- I could hear the wet slosh of my tissues as the bullet punched through them. They didn't say anything, and as my life drained away onto the equipment I had so carefully unpacked, it struck me as funny how useless all this survival gear turned out to be.
Friday, June 03, 2011
100 Word Challenge: Assume
Velvet Verbosity's 100 Word Challenge is busy growing its playoff beard. This week's word is "unconscious", and my story about unconscious bias is called "Assume".
Her pregnancy had been a seemingly unending series of bad news, restrictions, and rules. You can't do this anymore, you're not allowed to have that. I was sitting next to her, facing her as she sat. The curtain parted and a tiny woman with tight brown curls and cute glasses came through, holding a chart.
"We've decided we're going to induce you in the morning," she said firmly in a little girl voice.
I had come quickly to my feet. "When did the doctor decide that?," I asked.
"Just now," she said. "I'm the doctor."
Her pregnancy had been a seemingly unending series of bad news, restrictions, and rules. You can't do this anymore, you're not allowed to have that. I was sitting next to her, facing her as she sat. The curtain parted and a tiny woman with tight brown curls and cute glasses came through, holding a chart.
"We've decided we're going to induce you in the morning," she said firmly in a little girl voice.
I had come quickly to my feet. "When did the doctor decide that?," I asked.
"Just now," she said. "I'm the doctor."
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
IndieInk Writing Challenge: Ashamed
This week, as part of the IndieInk Writing Challenge, I challenge Manju, asking her "What do you want from me?", while I am challenged by The Onion, not the satirical newspaper but instead someone with lots of layers (onions have layers, as Donkey told us). This tear inducing vegetable asks me to write about a time when I felt shame. There are no shortage of those, for sure.
I don't typically write about personal things. (I used to. In my archive are post upon post whining about my personal problems.) I do this because I'm a coward- I find it easier to put my feelings into people that don't exist. I've been wrestling about this challenge, because I'm not sure exactly which event would both fail to cause terminal embarrassment and somehow provide edification and/or entertainment.
But I'm going to try.
Evan Dando would argue that it's a shame about Ray.
Billy Joel would instead argue that he is Shameless.
John Lennon, quoting Fats Domino, would ask us Ain't That A Shame?
I've been thinking about this question all week. I've tried approaching this question politically, poetically, fictionally, and factually- and all my efforts have come out pathetically.
What is wrong with me? There are so many blogs, full of confessions about rape, pregnancy, incest, abuse of all sorts. Brave people, baring their souls to try and comfort humans they have never met. And then, there's me: unwilling to tell even the smallest embarrassing story. What am I afraid of?
I guess, in the end, the thing that I feel the most shame about is my inability to talk about anything meaningful. I wish I had the bravery to show my vulnerabilities.
- Posted using BlogPress
I don't typically write about personal things. (I used to. In my archive are post upon post whining about my personal problems.) I do this because I'm a coward- I find it easier to put my feelings into people that don't exist. I've been wrestling about this challenge, because I'm not sure exactly which event would both fail to cause terminal embarrassment and somehow provide edification and/or entertainment.
But I'm going to try.
Evan Dando would argue that it's a shame about Ray.
Billy Joel would instead argue that he is Shameless.
John Lennon, quoting Fats Domino, would ask us Ain't That A Shame?
I've been thinking about this question all week. I've tried approaching this question politically, poetically, fictionally, and factually- and all my efforts have come out pathetically.
What is wrong with me? There are so many blogs, full of confessions about rape, pregnancy, incest, abuse of all sorts. Brave people, baring their souls to try and comfort humans they have never met. And then, there's me: unwilling to tell even the smallest embarrassing story. What am I afraid of?
I guess, in the end, the thing that I feel the most shame about is my inability to talk about anything meaningful. I wish I had the bravery to show my vulnerabilities.
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Sunday, May 29, 2011
Terrible Minds Challenge: More Noodles, Please.
New Dad and old superhero Chuck Wendig has posted yet another Flash Fiction Challenge, the first one since the birth of Little Dude Wendig. The subject is "an uninvited guest" and my story is called "More Noodles, Please".
"So did you send that packet off?" My mother had washed her makeup off, but she still had her real estate expression on, all false fronts and illusory control over events. She got this tone, a brassy, too loud edge to her voice that said she was asking your opinion, but she didn't really want it.
"Yup." That seemed safe. I hadn't. It was still tucked into my school bag like an unexploded bomb. I was supposed to mail it after school today, to make sure the admissions office got it by the end of the month. In the press of events, I had forgotten all about my promise to send it off. Now I had one more secret to conceal from Miss Snoopybritches over there.
Lea, my over investigative younger sister, piped up. "But she was home at-," she said, choking off her reply when I shot her a look.
"3, yeah," I finished for her. "The line was short," I lied desperately.
My mother was serving us our pasta. My guts clenched at the thought of eating, but I would have to force something down. She was supersensitive to the symptoms of eating disorders, and she would start to fuss over me if I stopped eating. That was one thing I couldn't have, her monitoring every shift in my biology.
Who are you kidding? By graduation, your biology is going to be the main topic of conversation!
It was like those stages of dying we learned about- denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I had moved through them all in about a week. Ironically, it's not dying that I'm worried about. More like the opposite.
Yeah, that's one way to think about it. Another way is that it doesn't matter whether or not you send off that packet. You're going to be taking tests in the fall, just not ones that grade on a curve. They are more pass/fail type things.
Lea was babbling, something about how this boy was cheating off her paper, except the teacher didn't believe her and he wouldn't stop. Lea, theatrical to the last, carried on about how unfair it was. That's not the only thing that's unfair about boys, I thought.
What, you mean how they tell you all these sweet wonderful nothings, then leave you once they get what they came for? How they can just go, leaving the damage behind them like it was a messy room or a unpaid cell phone bill? How they just forget about you, making you feel used up and ignored? You mean unfair like that?
My mother served herself last, settling in at the head od the table. She wore a semi attentive face, letting Lea think she was being fascinating. I knew the face, kind of a bland face, with eyes that held her gaze so she thought you were listening. I used the same gaze on her too. You couldn't listen to everything she said, not and still stay sane.
You've got something to say that will definitely be listened to. So just say it.
I cut a piece of chicken, then slid it into my mouth. It was fine. She tried to make it sweet and sour, and it came out fairly well. As I chewed, my stomach fluttered nervously. I tried to calculate how much I could eat to keep her suspicions at bay.
Honestly? How much longer do you think you can keep that game going? Two weeks? A month? You already don't fit into those nice black jeans you just got. You have to tell her. You'll feel better if you just say it.
"I saw Kelly at lunch," Lea said accusingly. "She didn't eat anything at all."
"Honey? Is that true?" My mother turned to me with her concerned face on. It registered concern, along with a little bit of Rottweiler "I'm going to keep after you until you spill it" mixed in. "Are you sick?"
That's one word for it. It is something you go to the doctor for.
"I had an apple," I said defensively. "I was just nervous about a test." That was half true. I didn't eat an apple, but I did have a test. English. I barely remember it.
"How did you do?," my mother asked. Her features softened. She seems to have bought that.
It was positive. Tell her. Tell her the test was positive.
"Fine," I lied. It was on Macbeth, and I hadn't read beyond Act I. I left almost half of it blank.
You're not accomplishing anything by doing this. Lea already made a crack about your breasts spilling out of that top you wore yesterday. It's going to get more and more obvious, until you can't hide it at all. You can see it in the mirror when you get out of the shower. How much longer until you can't hide it from anyone anymore?
"You look upset, Kel. What's wrong?" My mother's tone changed instantly, right back to the detective pressing a suspect tone.
She can tell. Just say it.
Lea turned her tiny face to look at me. She looked smug, secure in the knowledge that someone might be in trouble, and it wasn't her.
"I'm fine," I said, shoveling in a mouthful of noodles. My stomach ached at the thought of the food making it's way down there. I had the distinct, odd feeling it would be making the return journey. Soon.
Just say it.
"Mom?"
"Yes, baby?"
"Are there more noodles?"
"I think there's one more spoonful," she said, taking my plate up to the stove.
Lea eyed me suspiciously, like she knew something was up.
She doesn't know how right she is.
- Posted using BlogPress
"So did you send that packet off?" My mother had washed her makeup off, but she still had her real estate expression on, all false fronts and illusory control over events. She got this tone, a brassy, too loud edge to her voice that said she was asking your opinion, but she didn't really want it.
"Yup." That seemed safe. I hadn't. It was still tucked into my school bag like an unexploded bomb. I was supposed to mail it after school today, to make sure the admissions office got it by the end of the month. In the press of events, I had forgotten all about my promise to send it off. Now I had one more secret to conceal from Miss Snoopybritches over there.
Lea, my over investigative younger sister, piped up. "But she was home at-," she said, choking off her reply when I shot her a look.
"3, yeah," I finished for her. "The line was short," I lied desperately.
My mother was serving us our pasta. My guts clenched at the thought of eating, but I would have to force something down. She was supersensitive to the symptoms of eating disorders, and she would start to fuss over me if I stopped eating. That was one thing I couldn't have, her monitoring every shift in my biology.
Who are you kidding? By graduation, your biology is going to be the main topic of conversation!
It was like those stages of dying we learned about- denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I had moved through them all in about a week. Ironically, it's not dying that I'm worried about. More like the opposite.
Yeah, that's one way to think about it. Another way is that it doesn't matter whether or not you send off that packet. You're going to be taking tests in the fall, just not ones that grade on a curve. They are more pass/fail type things.
Lea was babbling, something about how this boy was cheating off her paper, except the teacher didn't believe her and he wouldn't stop. Lea, theatrical to the last, carried on about how unfair it was. That's not the only thing that's unfair about boys, I thought.
What, you mean how they tell you all these sweet wonderful nothings, then leave you once they get what they came for? How they can just go, leaving the damage behind them like it was a messy room or a unpaid cell phone bill? How they just forget about you, making you feel used up and ignored? You mean unfair like that?
My mother served herself last, settling in at the head od the table. She wore a semi attentive face, letting Lea think she was being fascinating. I knew the face, kind of a bland face, with eyes that held her gaze so she thought you were listening. I used the same gaze on her too. You couldn't listen to everything she said, not and still stay sane.
You've got something to say that will definitely be listened to. So just say it.
I cut a piece of chicken, then slid it into my mouth. It was fine. She tried to make it sweet and sour, and it came out fairly well. As I chewed, my stomach fluttered nervously. I tried to calculate how much I could eat to keep her suspicions at bay.
Honestly? How much longer do you think you can keep that game going? Two weeks? A month? You already don't fit into those nice black jeans you just got. You have to tell her. You'll feel better if you just say it.
"I saw Kelly at lunch," Lea said accusingly. "She didn't eat anything at all."
"Honey? Is that true?" My mother turned to me with her concerned face on. It registered concern, along with a little bit of Rottweiler "I'm going to keep after you until you spill it" mixed in. "Are you sick?"
That's one word for it. It is something you go to the doctor for.
"I had an apple," I said defensively. "I was just nervous about a test." That was half true. I didn't eat an apple, but I did have a test. English. I barely remember it.
"How did you do?," my mother asked. Her features softened. She seems to have bought that.
It was positive. Tell her. Tell her the test was positive.
"Fine," I lied. It was on Macbeth, and I hadn't read beyond Act I. I left almost half of it blank.
You're not accomplishing anything by doing this. Lea already made a crack about your breasts spilling out of that top you wore yesterday. It's going to get more and more obvious, until you can't hide it at all. You can see it in the mirror when you get out of the shower. How much longer until you can't hide it from anyone anymore?
"You look upset, Kel. What's wrong?" My mother's tone changed instantly, right back to the detective pressing a suspect tone.
She can tell. Just say it.
Lea turned her tiny face to look at me. She looked smug, secure in the knowledge that someone might be in trouble, and it wasn't her.
"I'm fine," I said, shoveling in a mouthful of noodles. My stomach ached at the thought of the food making it's way down there. I had the distinct, odd feeling it would be making the return journey. Soon.
Just say it.
"Mom?"
"Yes, baby?"
"Are there more noodles?"
"I think there's one more spoonful," she said, taking my plate up to the stove.
Lea eyed me suspiciously, like she knew something was up.
She doesn't know how right she is.
- Posted using BlogPress
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