Rage

The perfect one word definition for Casey Selleck was anger. It was a quiet, almost imperceptible anger, but it was there, churning inside her with the force of a maelstrom. If one really cared to look, one could see that when she became enraged, her eyes would grow wide, her jaw tight, and her upper lip began to twitch. Of course, no one was even remotely close enough to Casey for that, nor did anyone care for it. She had alienated everyone, had no interest in friends, and didn’t even pat her dog. Her parents had worried and cried and tried to reach her, but soon found that all she did was become angry at them, and they retreated. The gap between them had morphed into a solid stone wall, unbreachable, impossible to get to, if either party ever tried. Friends had tried hard, and found her to be like an underwater volcano, easily set off, with great consequences. Then she had no friends left. At first she was mean and cruel when angered, but then she tried hard to mask the effects, and now the storm raged within, but showed no signs outside. She found annoyance in everything, from her teachers, to her fellow classmates, her parents, and the weather. The bane of her existence however, was her P.E. class. First off, she had no one to talk to, even a boy she’d always crushed on. Secondly, she hated sports, and she was no good at them. Thirdly, she hated each and every one of her classmates. There were another four girls in her class, which fell into one of two categories. Number one, Legion, as she called them, because the three girls all seemed to share a brain. They moved in unison, in the same direction, and seemed to share a personality. They all tried very hard to be the same, and they dress, eat, spoke, and laughed alike. They tried hard to not have opinions, and they consulted everything with each other. Casey hated them. She hated the fact that they enjoyed teasing her, that everyone seemed to love them, and their general stupidity. As loathsome as legion was (were?) she hated the fourth girl even more. Casey’s mental label for her is an expletive, so let’s call her B. B was the sort of girl who felt entitled. She felt she was the world’s best athlete, and she wasn’t extraordinarily far off and she felt like the world’s prettiest girl, a matter in which she was far off. Casey especially detested her because she was intolerant of others performing badly at sports, which was what Casey did daily. Not only that, B ranted about the “losers” in her class in the locker room. Loudly. And Casey caught every word. Her ire grew daily, and had anyone cared to notice, they would’ve seen it was dangerous. One day, everything was too much. Casey’s breakfast was burnt, the sky was dark and gloomy, she had math test first period, and then the dreaded P.E. and that day, their teacher, Mr. Burns decided B should help Casey. An excruciating forty five minutes later, Legion bounded over, a nasty smirk on their collective face. Right in front of the boy she’d always loved, we’ll call him X, they asked, loudly, whether Casey thought he was hot. That was the last straw. All the anger in Casey seemed to boil and explode like a volcano. It buzzed in her ears, boiled her blood, robbed her vision. All watched in horror and awe as the rage became so blindingly hot and powerful, that it cause Casey to melt into a bubbling puddle.

First excursion into magical realism…I think. FYI word count: 620.

Blue Planet

During the war, Raymond was more afraid of the bomb than the war itself. He wandered through life in the background, happily ignoring goals and achievements and ambition. He was the sort of man content to take a back seat and let the alpha take charge. At work he simply shuffled into his cubicle at the back, and read the labels as he reached his spot, Alvin Asher, Jacob Byrne, Colby Cutter, Nash Dexter, and himself, Raymond Jones. The small chair and desk were like old friends of his, and he regularly watered his now dead plant. However Raymond was a man afraid. A man afflicted by a sort of paranoia that would keep him up at night. His shadow was small and fleeting and his steps hurried, knees slightly bent. His biggest fear was to be left alone. Completely and totally alone, and his dreams consisted of nightmarish post-apocalyptic landscapes, and he in the middle, yelling at the wind. He’d wake shivering, feeling sand in his ears, his hands reaching out for his wife. As a child he’d hated the game hide-and-seek, because he’d open his eyes to find himself alone, the people once before him gone, scattered like dust in the winds. It was equally bad if he was hiding, because he’d eagerly find a spot, curl up, and find himself alone. The basis of his want for children was due to the fact that they were noisy. The Jones household was always loud, what with the three kids (Sue, John, and Jack, all freckly and redheaded like their father), the two dogs (Busby and Biloxi, both Irish setters) and the red steel gramophone Raymond had gotten at a fair several years prior. His first wife had passed soon after their children’s birth, her yellow hair and fair complexion taking insult at the sun, and delicate eardrums giving out. And then one day it happened. Just like any other day, Raymond followed his routine, kissing his wife’s freckled cheek, ruffling the kids’ hair, patting the dogs, (or was it patting the kids and ruffling the dogs’ hair?) and climbing into his old faded red car. He’d walked down the same gray hallways, along his usual route for maximum efficiency, and reading nameplates as he went (Asher, Byrne, Cutter, Dexter) and settling in his small dusty chair in the back office. Outside, the bomb fell like a goose diving into water. Then the light spread like a ring, right before the explosion. The sound was unlike anything Raymond had ever heard, like a thousand angry wild beasts and creatures roaring angrily and violently in his ears. His whole body shook, and he thought his lungs would never again be able to draw breath, and that his heart surely had been crushed. The heat licked at his body, and his clothes gave way in several places. Then it stopped. The silence after the End was like nothing Raymond had ever heard. He pulled his arms away from himself and stood from his spot on the floor. Outside, what looked like snow, but was likely ash was falling slowly, almost beautifully. The world seemed to be dyed blue, even the clouds covering the sun above. He was alone.

Witchcraft

In Gedric County, which was bayou country by the way, there was a witch. I’d heard stories of her ever since I first visited St. Francis, a small speck of a town in Gedric, going to my grandmother’s house, and every summer since. The house was a nice old thing, stuck in time. The old vinyl record player warbled out tunes of decades past, with the voice of smooth charmers and female bombshells. The walls were covered in photos, mostly black and white, of me, my sister, my older brother usually in his Marine uniform, my father, a couple of my parents, and hundreds of old Hollywood movie stars, Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, Rock Hudson, the list goes on. The furniture was mostly blonde wood my grandfather had carved before his death, and a few of my father’s pieces, which he made after watching his carpenter father for hours. My mother still has a wooden bracelet my father made for her, carved with water lilies and their pads and frogs and fireflies. It also has her name, Eloise, carved on the inside. My grandmother’s house always smelled of cookies and cinnamon and burnt wood. The furniture smelled vaguely of cigarettes that my father and uncle smoked, and even my aunt Ursula. My grandmother, a small compact woman, white great white hair, always seemed to smell like apples and bread, because she spent most of her time in her orchard or kitchen. Her name was Astrid, as her parents had been Norwegian. The house was comfortable, and the lights were mostly yellowish in color, and in the evenings I’d sit in the old leather sofa while my grandmother read Sherlock Holmes aloud, and I’d curl up gradually, coming closer to her warmth, and the worn leather, which still smelled of brandy cigars and sawdust, like my grandfather had, before his stroke. The summers I spent there were enjoyable ones, filled to the brim with childish joy and watching sunsets from a tire swings and wading creeks up until my hips, trying to fish with my bare hands. As I grew my childhood playmates gave way to girls and football games and my first test drive behind the wheel of a friend’s pickup. Anyway, back to the witch. I’d heard stories about her, like everyone else. Lived in a small ramshackle house just on the town’s limits, at the end of a little traveled path the branched of the main road. Rumor had it that her house had been there even before the founding of St. Frank’s, belonging to Cajun witches and Native American sorcerers
. I had no idea whether there was truth in the story, but I did know that there weren’t many Cajuns in this particular county in Louisiana, and that the ones did live there were treated with suspicion. I heard stories about the woman, that she flew on a broom at night, cackling and trying to steal the moon. Stories about monsters and bog creatures and spells cast. A story I particularly remember is that she cursed the Thibodaux family with misfortune and sorrow until a seventh daughter present her with a pearl blessed by a priest. Whether there is any truth to the story or not, the Thibodaux’s definitely seemed cursed. Any business venture they had went belly up, their jobs were hard and paid badly, they never could advance themselves, even if their were smart or charming, and every generation it seemed their offspring had at least one drug addict, thief, or mentally challenged member. In my time at St. Frank’s it was Jeffie, who had Down syndrome. As limited as he was, we were all rather fond of Jeffie, because he was like a child, kind, with an easy laugh. Didn’t hurt that he had a pretty sister always looking after him. Tallulah Belle was her name. She was the seventh child of that generation, and I heard she went down to the witch’s house one autumn day. Won the lottery the next. Before that she bred clams for slaughter, and she always checked them for pearls. Like I said, people told stories, but I’d never seen the witch. Id catch glimpses of her house at times, but never saw her. The first time I saw her was the summer before I turned seventeen. My sister, only a year younger than me, spent the summer with my mother in France. She called me halfway through the summer asking for a love potion for our aunt Gigi. Gigi’s name was Georgia and she lived in Nantes where my mother and sister visited, and my sister said she needed a boost. She’d never married after all; instead she focused fully on her job as a jewel appraiser for banks. So I asked a friend for help and support, as my sister knew that I had to go to the witch. My friend only drove me as far as the house, but refused to go any further. I cautiously walked up the dirt path, the hot sun falling on my back. On the porch I tapped the door, which swung open. I called out as I took a cautious step inside, pulling of my baseball cap. “Come in boy, and shut the door.” A voice called from the far corner, while waving a white hand above her head. I closed the door and took in my surroundings. About five cauldrons bubbled and simmered, a few glowing odd colors, or pulsing. The air inside was heavy and sickly sweet, like venomous perfume. On the shelves were jars of conserves, pickled pig’s feet, and newts floating around in ether. The books on the shelves were in Latin and French, but I understood the dealt on witchcraft, and every once in a while on the ledges were bottles and vials of potions. The whole place was had the air of magic. After a few minutes, the witch stood and turned. I wasn’t prepared for the sight. She was short and pale like the moon or a new born calf or milk. One eye was all white as if it had cataracts and the other was a yellowish green color. Her hair was black with white stripes and her hands were young and lean. She was covered in freckles and her nails alternated from blood red to purple. “Well?” Her voice was soft and breathy, and it seemed to belong to someone else. “I…I...I need a love potion”. She stared and said, “Well, well. A handsome boy like you shouldn’t have girl trouble. Are your sure this girl’s worth it?” her voice had an accent to it, but it wasn’t Cajun. She made me nervous, and I jumped to show her she was wrong about me “No, it’s not for me, it’s for my aunt, you see.” It came out in a rush, and I blushed because I sudden like a puppy, eager to please. She looked at me again, but her eyes didn’t focus on me, and yet I felt the weight of her gaze. She reached out one hand and cupped my cheek, turning my face towards hers. My breath left me and I stood there silently, her hand cold on my cheek, her eyes unfocused. “Good” she said suddenly and turned away, and I took a welcome gulp of air. “Sit down, take a cookie. It’ll be ready for you in a minute” she turned back to whatever she was doing and I sat on her couch, which seemed to have torn and been patched up several times over the years, so it had a variety of fabrics and colors and patterns. It was darker there as the windows were closed, and uncomfortably hot. I noticed the coffee table was covered in old newspapers, which were also stacked all around. Feeling awkward, I reached forward for a cookie. It was chocolate chip and tasted wonderful. The chocolate was soft and melty; the cookie had just the right amount of sugar and butter. They remain the best cookies I’ve ever had. I took another and the crone called from her workspace “Glad you like ‘em” I blushed, cleared my throat and looked away. A Siamese cat jumped of the bookcase into my lap, and after my shock, I began to absently pet him. So much for the black cat myth. He purred and curled up in my lap. I looked at my watch, 3:45, so I had roughly three hours to sunset. It was then I must have fallen asleep, as the air was so hot and the smell so oppressive and seductive. All I know is the next thing I knew the sorceress was shaking my shoulder, and whispering “Wake up, boy. It’s ready. Its special too.” Rubbing the sleep from my eyes and wiping drool of my lips I accepted the potions and paid her her fee. It seemed small and as I left she winked. “Enjoy son.” So she thought it was for me. And she’d pitied me and charged me less. Outside I realized my friend was long since gone and I had to walk back. In town people were telling the story of my untimely demise at the witch’s hands.

Word count: 1538, used for Thursday, Friday, and Monday.

Goody Two Shoes

When he found them, in the second hand shop, all he saw were old tennis shoes, with a few rips and tears and scratches. Salvageable, and obviously quite pretty once, he took them home, to his wife. His wife would stitch and darn and mend, and those shoes would go to his granddaughter. He didn’t see the pink flowers, faded now, but once vibrant and upbeat, with little smiley faces drawn on the by a girlish hand. He didn’t see the scuff marks due to long afternoons in the lazy days that come with the heat of July, where the girl in the sneakers jumped rope and played hopscotch. The wear on the soles from gym class, and the endless laps, when young minds go on autopilot, legs pumping up and down, eyes glaze and unfocused. The small nick near the toe inflicted by a frisky puppy, the first love of a child’s life, all fuzzy and pretty, with paws too big for its body and an adorable air of cuteness and vulnerability. A tear near the heel, from a bicycle spoke, whizzing down a road with the sun setting at the children’s backs, or perhaps from jumping a creek, cold water splashing and giggles pervading the air, or even climbing a tree, in search of victory, or a squirrel, or the ripest apples in the orchard, the flowers blooming all around, the air heavy and scented. All the wear and tear the silent witness of childhood take. The sneakers had clung loyal to maturing ankles, watching tears and laughter, and friends and enemies. The silent sorrow of the shoes as the growth of the child became more pronounced, the pink and purple flowers bulging uncomfortably. The grandfather, too busy and absentminded saw none of this. He didn’t see the shoes packed up in box, shoved to the back of a closet, while the clothes changed from Mickey Mouse and sweatshirts to low cut tops and blouses, skirts and make up. The walls filled with teen idols and pop bands. The floor littered with textbooks and binders and phone numbers. The dust gathering fast and thick on the box, on the innocence of childhood. The years spreading fast and thick like soft butter on toast, weighing down the bread, the body. Eventually though, the young girl moved from pimpled teen to young woman, to mother. And one day, cleaning out her old closet, she saw with some wonder that the shoes had weathered the years well. The old man had no way of knowing that she smiled then, looking at those relics of a past ages, running her hands down the smooth sides and picking at faded shoe laces. He hadn’t seen her wistful smile as she cleaned them up and packed them packed in their box. She’d driven down to the second hand shop, Love At Second Sight, and placed them on the register and received twelve dollars for them. He couldn’t see the attendant tag them with a price and set them up in the shop. But he was there next, picking them up and seeing potential buried under the years of gloomy closet dwelling, waiting for another little girl, another lifetime.

A Violin

Word count 1512, used for Friday, Monday, and Tuesday.

During the day Anthony DiNardo was the very image of a scared little boy. No matter that he was twenty-six; he looked like a child hopelessly trapped in a man’s body. Anthony had long thin hands, perfect for the violin, which was his one and only passion, the one true love he could ever conceive. When he played, the shy man child was transformed, playing with speed and dexterity and passion and grace, his hands flying across the instrument, his eyes closed, his body still and statuesque, a man possessed. The notes he pulled from the string were unbelievable, incredible, and impossible. He was a genius. A genius in music, seeing and playing what no one else could see, what no one else could play. But a painfully shy boy, he never could play in front of anyone, other than a few professors and his mother. All hoped he could move past that phase, and into the places they imagined him, glittering concert halls, champagne drenched receptions, spotlighted stages. A bright and glorious future for a most exceptional and talented young mind. Through his life, Anthony never would grow out of that awkward and painful second adolescence, try as he might. He lived in a small one-bedroom apartment, which he maintained with his meager salary as an employ at Barnes and Noble, where he never really talked to anyone. He was quiet and polite, and always distant and always the introvert. He often felt embarrassed at his social ineptness and felt great anger when he blushed his trademark pink blush. Everyone he knew and those few he let into his limited circle of friends tried to urge him out of his shell, but to no avail. He’d just quietly travel to and from his job, living in a world of contradictions, silent, but full of music, quiet, but full of words. Anthony’s pain might have been in his inability to leave his hermetically sealed world, but his greatest torture was in forever being out of reach. Out of reach of the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on, the woman of his dreams, Kayla Friedrich. She was a coworker of his, and he’d watch her as he shelved books, always glancing out of the corner of his eyes, and falling deeply in love with a woman, a goddess, he could never touch, never have. But in his dreams, and sometimes right after waking, Anthony was a different man. In his dreams, he would be standing at the opening of a cave, under a full moon. The forest glowing with the light and life of it, filling the air with the rhythms of cicadas and hooves, the ferns swaying in the breeze, the scent of it woody and damp, like freshly turned earth, the dark rich kind. After a few lungfuls of the thick generous air, Anthony would walk into the cave, which would seem to go on forever, and branch out into to tunnels, of which he always knew which one to take, going left right, right, left, left, middle, left, right, and on and on, and yet forgetting his route, knowing the place was a maze-like ecosystem where one could be lost and never found. On his way, he would hear bats and hear rats and moles and swallows going around in circles and patterns, all mindful only of their own lives and not disturbing others. There was a peace between species there that flooded Anthony, serenity. His footsteps gradually became quicker until he was practically running into a large cavern. The cavern was a perfect sphere, not made by the hand of man, or of nature. The rock which it was built out of was smooth and gray, but still strong. It felt like glass to the touch and seemed to pulse softly. Anthony would take his place in the very center of the chamber, and lift his violin, which he’d realize he’d been holding all along. Directly above where he stood was a perfect circle, that yet some how seemed pointed at its ends, and it let in the moonlight from above. When Anthony took his place, the moon seemed to move exactly above him and the light would transform the cave from mysterious and somewhat gloomy to a beautiful and yet sad place. Once the moon was in position, one could see that the walls were filled with ledges and niches and that all these spaces were filled with plants, most of them with closed buds where they would soon flower. There were also ferns, big and small with curled tips and moss covering edges of ridges. Anthony would stand and pull the bow delicately against the string once, which pulled from it a prolonged mournful sound that split the air and added a sense of anticipation. The buds would open and in the place of flowers, though still surrounded by petals, were eyes. The ferns uncurled to reveal green and yellow eyes and moss seemed to perk up to listen. An audience for a genius that could play for no audience of mere mortal men. He began to play, somewhat slow at first, like the first rolling tears of a widow or the first hiccoughy laughs of a newborn. Pollen would fill the air, glowing like drops of silver in the moonlight, bringing and eerie and breathtaking effect to the dark edges of the caves, sifting and swirling around, bringing more light to the audience, as they were not beneath the sliver of moonbeam. The air would fill with expectations and then Anthony the gifted would begin. The notes were both fast and slow, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once, gliding and crashing against each other, seeming to leave the bow two at a time, or not really be there at all. The music was skin crawling, eerie, beautiful, maddening, ghostly, unearthly, supernatural, perfect, angelic, delicate, radiant, flawless, and sublime. Maddeningly exquisite music that would have driven mere men to tears and laughter and insanity. Music to perfect for a human ear, the master to masterly. He knew then that his shyness was a divine caution, for if he reached full potential before mere mortals, they could not stand the radiance and crumble to ash. The melody, the harmony, the notes the tune and vibrations then seemed to come even more alive and take life of their own, pulsing with the walls, then vibrating fast and slower. Anthony would open his eyes then, and expectantly turn them to a spot on the far wall, what seemed to him the far wall anyway, and notice that there were less plants there, and a shadow on the surface, somewhat ragged, and yet a perfect arched portal. Out of that darkness she stepped, and the music quieted for that one perfect moment. Kayla Friedrich, the goddess, and in that realm, his. The music rose higher then, to pitches known not to humans, and they would dance, floating and not, with the grace and skill and ability of the notes themselves, free and chained only to each other, spinning and dancing, with the ability of gods, the freeness of spirits, the grace of sea dwellers. Another power moved them, a power greater and more terrible than any other, even love and magic. The music would move faster, hurtling at incredible paces to the crescendo, the climax, with a force and a horror and terror and beauty and elegance and then began its descent. Kayla slipped away, like a sigh, a puff of breath, like a wave on the sand. Anthony seemed to slide back to his place, in the perfect center, and retake the violin, rein in all the notes and restore order. The audience watched him avidly and silently, their eyes unblinking and excited, delighted, shocked, and awed. The pollen still floated around, with less force and more melancholy, like a mother lamenting the pass of her children’s years. Anthony then, drew the incredible concert to a close, with one long sad pull of the bow across the strings. Opening his eyes he’d see the flowers closing up upon themselves, wilting, their lives ambition complete. He’d heave a sigh and look up. The pollen would fade and the moon would rapidly disappear under the trees. The sun light would begin to creep in the circle, first pinkish then stronger and stronger, at a rapid pace, until the light would rush in thunder quick above his head and bathe everything in its heat. Then Anthony would smile a secret smile and make breakfast and head to work. When he woke his hands would be red and strained and sore, as if he’d really played all night, though his violin would be firmly and safely locked in its case. Sheets of music would be filled, but his hands had no ink stains. And for one glorious second, Anthony DiNardo would fully understand his purpose and message in life. Then it was gone and he’d go back to prepping for a day as a foot soldier in the corporate work force.

Rache

The following story is one based on the staple literary theme: revenge. How far will someone go to achieve it? How crazed can someone normally sane and rational become? After a long literary tradition of both brilliant and chilling stories of vengeance, here goes my amateur attempt. If it offends, forgive. If it chills, I succeed. If it fascinates, comment, and feed my ego. By the way, this is a thousand words, so this is my entry for both today (Wednesday) and tomorrow (Thursday).

Lester Jones walked slowly up to his house. A drab two-story, brick, faded and aged, like Lester himself. A drab house, in a drab town. Lester shuffled up the walk, his body bent and old, but still strong, a coalminer’s body. He’d worked in the mines since he was sixteen until it closed down five years prior. He and his wife lived of his meager pension and his job as a foreman for a construction company and her job as an elementary school librarian. Lester allowed himself a small smile at the thought of Joy Jones, for she’d been beautiful and they’d been happy once. Many, many years ago. He smiled broader as he thought of Thumper, his black Scottie dog. Lord knows, the one creature on earth Lester Jones loved was that dog, he’d probably have paid more attention to Thumper than his kids had he had any. Keying open the lock, Lester was surprised to find that Thumper wasn’t rushing down the stairs to welcome him. “Probably just napping”, he thought “After all, the old boy is getting on in years”. Still the disappointing feeling unsettled him, and he slipped quietly into the dining room, where Joy was to serve him dinner. He sat in an old dark wood chair, and waited for his wife’s entrance, while he stared at the old table, the worn and mended table cloth, stained with decades’ worth of meals, grease smears, wine stains and cigarette burns. He waited, in the dim light of the cheap plastic hanging lamp above him, the light a reddish orange thing that made him think of the days when the house felt like home. Joy walked in presently, holding Lester’s dinner plate in her hands, its contents letting off a pleasant warm steam. She was a serious, strict looking woman, with a tired lined face, like someone whose life has been very difficult and unhappy. Her hair was once bouncy and blonde, but was now ashy gray and pulled back from her face. Her eyes, once filled with light and life, blue and dancing, were now flat and dull. She set the plate in front of Lester, and wordlessly turned back to the kitchen to fix him something to drink and presumably check on dessert. The meal for the evening was as follows: some form of meat, served up in a thick orange and tangerine sauce, which let off a heavenly aroma, which was accompanied by wild Chinese rice, which in turn was topped by a heavy black sauce and four cranberries. Joy walked back in wordlessly and presented Lester with a Guinness in a tall glass. He ceremoniously took a sip of the beer and began his meal. It was absolutely delicious, perhaps the most delicious meal Joy had served him in a long while, but something felt wrong. At first he thought it was because of Thumper’s prolonged absence. It hurt him slightly, to think perhaps the dog loved him less, or that he’d begun to age so terribly. But as Lester took another bite, he realized that it was because of the meal itself. The meat, though soft and delicious, tasted wrong somehow. As if it was incorrect for it to be on his plate. The rice was fine, sweet and sour and something a chef could be proud of. However, his taste buds couldn’t fully appreciate the rice, as the meat was so preoccupying. He was even sure what meat it was. It definitely wasn’t beef; it wasn’t that strong, that hard. It wasn’t chicken either; it was less greasy and lacked that trademark chicken taste. It wasn’t salty like pork either, and didn’t taste like lamb or goat. As he took another sip of the beer that so reminded him of sea water, Joy began to speak to him. She spoke in the soft but commanding voice of a librarian. “I’m leaving you Lester. I simply cannot take you anymore. You’ve killed my soul you see. God, how long has it been since you loved me? Since I loved you? When did we kill this? Maybe when you started sleeping ‘round with Jenny Reilly. Don’t give me that look, you knew I knew. And God damn you Lester Jones you’ve loved a dog more than me.” She paused, as if to take a breath, but mostly so she could stop herself from crying. Lester looked at her, and realized he didn’t know her. In fact, were he to think about it, the woman he’d shared a bed with for twenty three years had long since become a stranger. Joy seemed to have controlled herself, so she looked him straight in the eyes and said, “I hate you Lester. I think I always will. I may have loved you once, but never again. Do you hear me?” He stared at her, unused to them speaking so much to each other, and surprised to find that a spark of passion had crept into her eyes. Mechanically he took another bite of the sickly sweet meat and a sip of beer. Where was Thumper? He didn’t really care what Joy was saying, if she wanted to leave, so be it, but where was his dog? If anything, the only thing making him anxious was the fact that he wanted to see his beloved animal, and perhaps the next thing on his mind was the disgustingly delicious meat, whose origin he still hadn’t managed to pinpoint. “Joy?” he ventured, “What kind of meat is this?” Joy smiled then, and for a second she was that young, beautiful school girl he’d fallen in love with so many years previous. “It’s Thumper”.

Love

Have you ever been truly liked for yourself? Has anyone loved you without blame and consequence and greed? The question runs rampant through your mind, depriving you of sleep and peace of mind. All your accomplishments seem to pale, seem to add to this fraud, to this false self that others love. Will no one see you as just a man? Will no one love you, for being? Then, inspiration. Like a lightning bolt to the forehead it comes, and with it you see the face of one who perhaps loves you best. You race, as a sickening nausea spreads through you, across time and space, to a time long since past, a life that you lived, that seems pale and frayed at the edges of your memory, where only the most vivid things are still memorable, and even they, in their locked cabinets within your mind have paled and aged, losing health and vitality, like old men and women, forgotten by family, left to die in old pastel nursing home rooms. It takes a while, but you manage to pry open the stubborn locks of the trunks in the vast memory storage of your mind, until finally, you unearth the resting place of your friend. You run, perhaps to the only friend you really had. You stop, breathless, before a white wooden closet door. Stalling, you take a breath, before your shaky white hand slowly pries open the creaky door, and reaching up you move aside boxes and knickknacks, all worn and torn and dusty. Finally you arrive at your prize, a long wooden box, deep, filled with relics of the past age. You pull out the cedar sarcophagus and open it up, the air within it musty and melancholy. You pull out white paper, miles and miles of white paper, and discover objects long forgotten, chewed up baseballs, tiny baby shoes, a lock of someone’s hair, an old second grade art project, a deflated football. Finally, there, at the very bottom of this cave of childhood wonders, lies you prize, all cloaked in its funeral garb of white paper. Your hands tremble as you reach for it, pulling it softly from its crypt. Reverently, you peel of the paper in one smooth stroke. What it is reveals is an old yellow teddy bear. The one creature on God’s green earth to love you for yourself. It is an old and faded thing now, its soft downy texture turned rough with years. It color, once a strong golden sort of sunflower tone, now a bleached plain yellow. It seems small now, dwarfed by your hands. Its face, once so genial and kind and cute, is now eclipse by a sense of decay. One of its eyes is missing, the stitches that make up its mouth now loose, one of its ears now hanging lopsided. Smiling, you realize that you love him, as he is, for what and who he is, and now more. You embrace you friend and feel that a wave of happiness and peace finally washes over you. Now, you can sleep.

Field of Dreams

Theodore Hawkins greatest dream came true one sunny Thursday morning in May. He’d long since dreamt of strawberries, and boysenberries, raspberries, cherries, any kind of red berries. Where he lived the weather and soil was good for grapes and wheat, but nothing else. They had goat too, and some sheep. The village was so isolated it could only be reached by a narrow winding road so risky only Emil, the ancient grocery store owner made the dangerous journey for new wares. Sometimes missionaries came through the town, trying to turn their heads away from their ancient harvest gods, but the townspeople met them with calm smiles and measured explanations. Theodore was in fact the son of one such missionary, who had lived long enough to give the boy a name, before a cholera epidemic wiped him and half the village out. Theodore lived with his mother and stepfather and four stepbrothers and sisters now, but he had his father’s looks, texts, and gift of a vivid imagination. He read books about his father’s home, and recipes, and magazine articles the missionaries brought. He had dreams about rushing into his father’s arms, whose face he only had to half imagine, as his mother owned a picture of Theodore Hawkins Senior. In the dream, his father lived in a picturesque hunting cabin he’d seen in a magazine once, and he had a kitchen filled with wonderful imagined smells, and his mother smiled like before, and his stepfather graciously let his wife move in with Teddy Sr., because Theodore liked his family and wanted them close by. Next, in his dream, the fields sprouted full of red berries, and they all ate until their bellies felt they might pop. Usually, he woke up next, because either his baby sister Marta would begin to cry, or his brother Mahel would begin to snore. He dreamt of the taste of strawberries, which he could fully picture, or he’d desperately try to grasp a raspberries texture, or a cherry’s juice, which would collapse to ash when he was closest to feeling it on the taste buds of his mind. He spent thirteen torture years, tortured, torn between the traditional goat flavored taste of his mother’s world, or the impossible boysenberry or his ghostly father’s. He prayed, half in his mother’s tongue, to her gods, and half in his father’s to his one almighty God. His mother couldn’t fully understand him, but she let him be such a different boy because he was her blessing, the son of the only man she ever loved, gifted with a better grasp on Teddy Sr.’s far off world. His stepfather, Bach, mostly treated him as a friend than a son, because the boy was incomprehensible in his mind, but somehow agreeable. Theodore’s closest sibling, both in regards to age and affection was Mahel, but they didn’t even understand each other, they were friends, and that as good enough for them. So, they let him pray, and so he did, until he prayed into a feverish pitch at the Leah Festival, for the goddess Leah. It was a sunny Thursday in May. He fainted, and when he woke, he found the field in front of the festival was full to bursting with the fruits that so often haunted his dreams. The villagers were so impressed with the power of the prayer of the missionary’s son that he was immediately elected village chief. Ever since, the Leah festival has ended in the villagers wandering out to eat the once-a-year berries to their heart’s content.

New Year

One

Two

Three

Four

Open the shutters

And tear down the door.

Crack open the windows

Repaint the walls

Let in the new air,

Rush out the old,

Time to welcome in

The brave and the bold

Out with the rusty, tired and old.

It’s finally time

To say goodbye

To the old year, bent and milky eyed

In comes the New Year, rosy and fat

It’s time to lay down our welcome mat,

For good tidings and things to come,

Goodbye old year, it’s been a good run.

A Fairy Tale... (Written For Both Wednesday and Thursday)

A very long time ago, in the age of sorcery, was a kingdom, ancient even then. The kingdom was one that had been built through hardship, sweat, blood and tears. It is said that the blood of the battles fought for the land had soaked straight through, staining the ground so that it became brick red. When the winds reared up like angry snakes it seemed like the gods had painted the world with red paint. It was hot and arid in the low lands, but chilly higher up. The buildings were a light orange, made from the red soil, mixed with brown water and left in the sun to dry and bleach. In the exact center of the country was the capital city, and in the city’s exact center was the Palace. The palace that kings, queens, princes and princesses had occupied since the placement of the last stone, their slippers sliding gracefully on blue tile, their elegant hands skimmed black walls and their wise eyes delighted in rare animals, like the blue Ih-jel bird from the south. The broad ornate ceilings had housed great rulers like Tiger Jan and beautiful queen Malah. It had also held terrible rulers, like Tahbet Hul, or the feared and cruel Lady of the Crows. Sometime past the seven hundredth summer of the red realm, the old and beloved King Spider began to die. His reign had been one of peace and tranquility and booming trade. As King Spider lay on the opulent royal death bed, he knew two things, one: his enemies would soon attack his realm, jealous of its riches and angered by how he’d cleverly maintained peace. Two: he had no sons, therefore no one to lead his armies. He had however, one extraordinarily intelligent daughter, who’d been gifted by a share of her mother’s legendary beauty. Her mother had been the famous Queen Ariana, beautiful like the blazing sun and shining moon. She’d died two years previous, having many years before become barren due to birth complications. Their only child was their daughter Drach-Lu. She was known as Little Moon. Little Moon knew her father's concerns. But she knew also that she was not weak, or stupid. She had studied defense under her father’s head general, and spent long afternoons watching the soldiers train in one of the courtyards from her balcony. She knew combat, and she also knew magic. Her grandmother, know as Raven, had taught her for hours, sometimes days, in the hot, fume filled dungeons that were used as a witch’s workshop. Little Moon had learned curses and hexes and spells and blessings. She’d stirred potions and poisons until her arms felt so sore she’d suspected they might fall off. All those around her had trained her to be king. Her father had never really realized this, but even Queen Ariana had schooled her daughter in politics, when she realized she’d never bear a son and that her husband wouldn’t divorce her or take up a concubine. Little Moon was a girl with a destiny, and she knew this well. As her father began the first hours of his agony, she called together all the important officials and wizards and soldiers in the Grand Meeting Hall, tiled with white and gold, the ceilings filled with skylights and pink edges and images of gods and men. She had them wait and begin to slip on the black mourning bands. Little Moon then returned to her father’s, room and held his hand, and listened to his delusions about her mother being in the room with them, and heard him both profess love for her and curse her for not being for a boy. Within two hours the silver death bell rang throughout the city. Men and women fell on the ground wailing for the lost and beloved king, and afraid that Little Moon would see her father’s kingdom torn asunder. Little Moon sat for a while, alone, holding her father’s cooling hand, and shed a few silent tears for him, his big white moustache and his brown skin and how lovely he'd looked on his horse and his ringing laugh. She stood up, and wiped her face. Grieving would come later, but she had a kingdom to save. She walked briskly down to the meeting hall, her hair and coat flying out being her. The talk went on at length, and Little Moon listened carefully and politely to all the ideas about how to defend their kingdom. She sat calmly, head slightly tilted, nodding and looking serious and comprehensive. Finally she cleared her throat and held up her hand for silence, which spread like wildfire throughout the hall, until it was so quiet you’d think they were ghosts instead of men. She had a plan, and she was High Queen now. She told them that they had to create such an intense fear of the Red Realm’s power, and make it so costly in lives and resources to attack them, that no one would dare threaten them. This was something they all knew, but the path to this eluded them. It did not elude Little Moon. “What we need” she said, “is a dragon.” At this, the listeners were both awed and aghast. They all seemed to wail in one pathetic desperate voice “But Princess, sorry, Queen, it cannot be done! There haven’t been dragons in this territory for ages, and we couldn’t tame one if there were! It would be a feat my Queen, and definitely gain us terror and respect! But how…” they would’ve gone on for hours, had Little Moon not raised her hand for silence once again. She had a plan, of course, and had only managed to share half. She knew of a spell, a spell of transformation, which worked only if the heart and intentions were true. And she had golden thread into which the spell could be spun, and then used to sow cloth. Thus, Little Moon, Raven, and hundreds of sorcerers, and enchantresses, and seamstresses and tailors worked for three months, under sun and moon. The gold thread was worked into a great beautiful silky green fabric, and in turned made into a breathtakingly beautiful robe, trimmed with the magically charmed white fur of the Oftun-Gard bears of the cold island countries that resided northward. When it was finished, Little Moon washed her hair, painted her eyes, donned her crown, and slipped on the robe. With the magic words, she went from a beautiful teenage queen to a roaring, scaled monster with acrid, fiery breath. She said the words to undo the spell, slipped of her crown, and smiled. Then she turned to her assistants, who helped her strip herself of the robe. She handed the crown to another assistant and asked that both items be properly stored. She then went to bed for the first time in many, many days. The next day, she began her terrorizing of her enemies. She roasted armies encroaching on the west, clawed and gutted those in the east. She roared through the night above the houses of the southern neighbors, and destroyed buildings in the north. Soon the word of the Dragon on the house of the Spider was known and feared. Thus, Little Moon saved a kingdom, became a great queen and gave an invaluable weapon to monarchs to come. She also gained a new name, as she and her house were then called Empress Dragon.

Awake

At night sometimes,

Lying awake,

The midnight hour long since past,

Your face drifts in,

Again.



Where are you now?

Our time has passed,

Long ago,

But yet,

You haunt

My night time hours.



With your face,

Your smile,

Your scent.



I miss you.

Mice, and wings, and coins, and things

Why are we so attached to the Tooth Fairy/Raton Perez tooth myth? I mean, why teeth? That being said, I’d rather explain why I’ve come to babble about teeth, the reason being that I was brushing my teeth when I came home, as I couldn’t after lunch, and just realized that as a child, a huge part of me was hinged on my next wiggly tooth and the nice mouse coming for it. I remember I had a book about the Raton Perez sneaking all the way into a hospital to collect a boy’s tooth and leave him his coin. I don’t think the appeal is based on the money, but rather on the tooth itself, because it’s such a big part of a child’s life. The teeth that were so painful to grow in babyhood have begun to give way to the permanent adult teeth, signifying growing up. The child is also feeling every ache and pain, and the feeling of loss. Of losing a previously “permanent” fixture and kind of ease in to the discomfort of puberty, which will come soon after the end of the tooth loss or towards the end. So I believe it’s a cultural ritual to celebrate a child’s first move into adulthood, one we don’t really recognize. I’d like to find out more about it, to see the roots of giving coins for teeth in antiquity. Coins are of course another way of recognizing that a child is growing, as the child will now recognize the value of money, and a more adult reward. My next question is why we choose the Tooth Fairy or El Raton Perez as the tooth collecting figures. Why would we choose a mouse? Aren’t mice and rats and rodents in general despised as filthy dangerous creatures? I mean if you take a step back you realize that as a child you may have idolized a sewer dwelling mouse that takes teeth in exchange for money? I remember also being told that the teeth would be used to make the Mouse Queen’s palace. A little spooky if you think about it. Still though, haven’t bracelets and things been made of teeth in the past? Maybe it was a return to our indigenous origins, or the Spanish myths about them. The queen bit definitely betrays our former status as a colony under a foreign sovereign. The mouse might be us, despised by other powers acting upon us. The next analysis befalls the Tooth Fairy. Fairies have always been beloved creatures, the good ones any way, and since the fairy is mostly a north American figure (also Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and much of the UK) the children would’ve grown up on varied media featuring fairies. The fairy is mostly said to be a beautiful feminine winged humanoid which gifts the children with money of some kind in exchange for their tooth, but I’m fuzzy as to the details into why she wants teeth. Maybe she doesn’t and it’s all about kindness and goodwill, which would also serve as a teaching to the kids.

Answers

A. What is the difference between a blog and a book?
Blogs can link, ramble, change topics, not really be about anything, and most importantly, the oldest entries are at the back, not the front, unlike a book, where the first chapter written is first.

B. How have blogs changes recently?
They are not so much about links and “pre-surfing” the web, but about the blogger him/herself.

C. Why might you read a blog?
Because I’d be interested in its general topic, even if the topic is the blogger.

D. Is there reason to doubt the objectivity of a blog? Why? Why not?
Yes, because it’s so much more personal than other forms of writing and much more subject to bias.

E. If you kept your own blog, what would you title it?
Words

Welcome

This blog is destined to be the destination of my Creative Writing works. I'm in ninth grade right now and am writing this for a class, but make no mistake. I am a writer by choice, and these works have parts of me in them. I'd write even if it weren't for this class, and I'm pleased that we get to post our works on a blog, and so I am allowed a larger audience. Thank you for visiting, have fun reading, and happy trails.