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Post by Kaez on Nov 5, 2010 1:50:49 GMT -5
SO THEN. This thread is going to be for all of my writing. And I mean, all of it. I'm tired of sorting around places looking for things I once wrote. So everything I want to have, goes here. Many I've posted on AWR, and they have their own threads: WOLVES IN THE DARK www.awritersrecluse.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=prof&action=display&thread=3251&page=1THE GROVE www.awritersrecluse.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=zawr&action=display&thread=2920STORMRUNNER www.awritersrecluse.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=ws&action=display&thread=1414&page=1UNTITLED www.awritersrecluse.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=s&action=display&thread=2319&page=1THE HOPEFUL AND THE DAMNED www.awritersrecluse.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=s&action=display&thread=2903JEFF IS MR. POOL www.awritersrecluse.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=s&action=display&thread=3059MY BODY www.awritersrecluse.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=s&action=display&thread=3209SEPTEMBER '10 WRITING ASSIGNMENT www.awritersrecluse.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=mwa&thread=3124&page=1#239022OCTOBER '09 WRITING ASSIGNMENT www.awritersrecluse.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=fuckme&action=display&thread=2393Many I've not posted. Many I'm just finding again after months, if not years. They'll be posted here soon. After that, my new material is going to start going here. I wrote this way back in April of 2009 as my first entry to one of the writing tournaments we were having here. Everyone really liked it -- I think it got perfect scores with the judges. I thought it had been lost in Taed's Folly, but I was just looking back through some old documents on my computer, and managed to find it. Mary, Mary“A full and active interest from their parents is absolutely vital to the proper development of any teenager. I mean, it’s a basic psychological reaction: parents who aren’t involved leave someone in such an unstable stage even more unstable! Without something to grasp on, they’re hopeless. Who knows what will come of hopelessness? Alcohol, drugs… oh, you know the drugs today. It’s not the way it used to be. I mean… crystal meth! Oh god, David, imagine our daughter on meth! This is why we need to do these kinds of things. We’re keeping our daughter off of the streets and in our arms!”
I blinked. I spoke casually and with a relaxed tone. That’d wind her up a little tighter. “Honey, are you aware that you just deduced not going to a football game as a cause for hard drug addiction?”
She turned her head and spit out that look; that open-mouth, squinted-eyes, neck-extended look of, ‘Are you that stupid, David?’
I hate that fucking look.
Stop sign – she slams the breaks. Now she’s upset with the universe for placing a stop sign so inconveniently before the intersection. Logically, she’ll take that out on me, myself being the nearest by carbon-based life form with ears and the capability to hate. I’m guessing the, ‘I’ll tell you something’ speech this time.
“I’ll tell you something, David.”
Bingo.
She continued ravenously, waving her hands dangerously away from the steering wheel at various times to accentuate her point. “I don’t think you want to – no, I know you don’t want to hear it. But you know what? I’m going to say it anyway.”
Gather round kids, another precious lesson in parenthood from the Mother of the Year.
“You… are an unloved father!” Her voice cracked when she spoke, as though she’d been given a short, sharp pinch halfway through the sentence. I’ll admit, I considered gasping sarcastically, but the headache was already coming on. I just wasn’t in the mood to fuel this high-maintenance rambling machine anymore. But I mean, come on, of course I’m an unloved father. Carrie’s a teenage girl. Teenagers are not supposed to love their parents. That’s just not how it works. It doesn’t make us any worse for it, it’s just… science, or something.
“I greatly appreciate your input, given your multiple parenting awards and advanced degree in sociology. You absolutely always have your children’s interest first, something which can absolutely not be said about me, or for that matter, any other parent who has ever lived that wasn’t you.”
I’m not sure how she replied to that. I stopped listening. I rarely listen to what she says, actually. When things have gotten to the point where anything she tells me can be logically responded to with, ‘You’re right, dear,’ or various other forms of conceding defeat, something, somewhere, went wrong. In fact, the more I think about it, a lot of somethings probably went wrong.
I’ll confess the blunt fact: she does put her children’s interests first more than I do. She’ll do anything for those kids, and generally that means doing too much for them. Her ‘How to Be a Loving Parent’ book’s chapter on personal space is a small one, and from what I can gather, consists solely of the word ‘unnecessary’, punctuated by a firm exclamation point before going straight to the next chapter: ‘Love Suffocation: A How-To Guide’.
I’m not so sure that Chris has asthma; I think it could just be the lack of decent oxygen around him due to his mother clinging onto him like a massive leech, deciphering his every move with her pseudo-psychology bullshit. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with a good psychological evaluation – but sometimes… things are just things. And that’s all they are. Just things. Not everything everyone does is a reflection of how many hugs they got as a child. The world isn’t made of perfect equations.
My thought breaks and I’m back to the world. Mary’s shut up. Maybe she didn’t respond at all (who am I kidding?). I sighed, seeing the stadium up around the corner. I didn’t have high expectations for the night.
We’d show up at the game and Mary would smile her big, fake smile at all of the other room mothers with their nineteen-fifties hairdos and their newest style of thousand-dollar purse filled with all of their ‘How to Be the Perfect what-the-fuck-ever’ handbooks, written by people who weren’t good enough at whatever it is to make a living at it, so instead they write handbooks .
So she’ll pull me by the arm and I’ll give a big smile to all of the other parents-of-cheerleaders who were dragged to the game by their wives. And all of them give me the same smile that I give them. The, ‘Please, God, Help Me!’ smile – the kind kidnapping victims would give to passersby.
I’m a the goddamn king of that smile. I’ve been practicing it for nineteen long years. I’m not too bad at the ‘It Looks Like I’m Reflecting on That Stupid Thing You Just Said But I’m Just Sitting Here’ stare or the ‘What Devastating News This Must Be In Your World Of Delusion’ gasp, either.
I grabbed the armrest. Christ, women can’t drive, I don’t care if that’s sexist or not. She screeched into the parking space and stormed out of the car and around to my side. When I got out – a task that required every ounce of motivation I could muster – she was waiting for me with a stiff stare. “You listen to me, mister,” she reprimanded. It felt a lot like third grade, when I punched Sheila Wilkins for stealing my candy bar. My mom used the same words, the same tone. My wife was becoming my mother. Hell of a thought, that. “When we see the other parents, you act like a normal, adult husband with an active interest in his children! Do you understand me? Hmm?”
“Yup,” I said, and walked around her. “Normal,” I said softly to myself. “Normal normal normal normal normal normal.” She huffed and walked by my side, her heavy hundred-dollars-out-of-my-paycheck shoes clicking on the pavement. Like a bird of prey, she already spotted the first couple. The Stemmlers. Oh, poor Mike. I remember in college, when he was such a great guy… we’d watch the hockey games together at his brother’s place and by the end we were always so smashed from drinking games that no one ever knew who won the next day.
Oh, Mike. What happened?
“Well hey there, neighbors! How are ya’? Wow, great night out, huh?”
“Mike!” Mary chirped with a lipstick grin. “Ah, just beautiful! Autumn is really coming on fast, isn’t it?” Big, fat, ugly smile. Fucking disgusting smile.
… I think I hate my wife.
That makes me a terrible person.
“Mary!” I had to stop myself from shielding my eyes at the approaching onslaught of photons. Cathy Miller’s hair looked as though she had managed to channel sunlight directly through her skull.
She was a brunette in high school.
Mary rambled on to her about the latest romance novel she read – that’s what they do. Their ‘thing’, you know, besides reading psychoanalytical bullshit. They have a book club. A romance novel book club. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, it’s essentially a group of middle-aged women (whose husbands are practicing abstinence against their wills) who gather around and talk about porn and pass it off as some sort ofsophistication. Hell, even the covers of the novels are always some bare-chested jock with tits bigger than Mary’s.
And yet she doesn’t let me buy Playboy. Figure that one out, psychologists.
Mike threw his arm across my back. “Dave, how are ya’, man?” ‘Man’ was pronounced with heavy stress. Was he trying to be casual? …God, they’ve really gotten him good. They sucked him right in to their vortex of white-picket-fence bullshit.
I told him that I was ‘magnificent’, and I stressed the word as hard as I could. If he can be fake, so can I. In all reality – hah! – I dreaded my very existence at this palce. I was, in fact, attending my wife’s affair.
That is to say, two weeks ago I was driving past the school on my way home from work and saw Mary with the coach of the football team, Norman Gandy. She explained later that night that she was talking with him about Carrie and Chris getting on the squad and team, respectively. “The children first, David.” Of course, it was a lie. Just like her smile. Just like her little how-to books. Just like her ‘intellectually stimulating’ book club.
Mary was a lie. Our marriage was a lie. My brother saw Mary’s car parked outside of Norman’s house on two separate occasions over the past two weeks, and a third time my father saw them out to dinner. Family interactions became a façade upon a façade. She was having an affair with the man who we’d come to see. What an encouraging thought, that was. I’m glad she reminded me to act normal, or else I might have actually been somewhat human and reacted to the fact that my wife was cheating on me.
No, ‘normal’ to these people means pretending. And that’s what I did. I played my role. Shakespeare said something about that, right?
She mumbled to the Millers a bit longer and we went to find our seats. We sat about half-way up, right in front of where the cheerleaders would stand. Mary got out a camera and I ran my face through my palms a few times. This was going to be a long, long night.
A woman with hair nearly as blinding as Cathy Miller’s sat down on the opposite side of me. She had enough make-up on to hide any real facial expression and wore a grey team t-shirt that read ‘Coach Gandy #1’. I made a quick realization.
To one side of me was Norman’s wife, to the other side of me was the woman that Norman was sleeping with.
And yet I was not, in fact, Norman.
I sighed and stared down at my feet – Mary nudged me in the ribs – it left a bruise, I found out later. The announcer hollered a loud ‘Let’s hear it for your Raiders!’ and the team and cheerleaders all ran out.
There she was, second from the right. Carrie wasn’t particularly built to be a cheerleader. Her chest was smaller than her stomach, for one, and she didn’t really smile very often. When she did, it was a smile just like her mother’s. Not to mention, she never seemed particularly agile. Every squad has one of her, really. You know, the one girl who only does half of an unenthusiastic split when all of the rest kiss the floor with their panties?
That’s my daughter.
To her right, though, was a real brick house. She looked old for her age, and she filled in the skimpy uniform wonderfully. Her long, curly brown hair bounced about on her shoulders. The tight skirt and shirt fit her snugly, and her full frame was clearly decipherable. Talk about stunning… she could be a model. Flawlessness. The things I would do to her…
Mary nudged me and pointed out to the field.
There he is. Number sixty-nine was my son, Chris. Upon asking him why he was given the number sixty-nine, he told me that he chose it specifically. This being spoken by my only source of porn magazines, this pretty much made sense to me. He was a teenage boy; that was his thing. Mary tried to deduce the psychological explanation for such behavior via three different books and an essay. That was a great night.
He played offensive guard and weighed less than anyone else on either side of the line. He was the weak spot of the offense and the other team always seemed overly aware of this. I have a theory that the only reason he starts is because his mother sleeps with the coach. It’s radical, I know, but it’s just a theory.
So the game started and the home team, the Raiders, got the ball. Magnificent.
When Chris fell on his ass for the ninth time, I stopped counting. The entire second quarter was a blur for me, so the half-time buzz was my alarm clock to reality. My wife dug a mirror from her bag and eyed her make-up. Her head faced the concession stand and her eyes watched Norman. Christ, was she even trying to hide it anymore? “Hon,” she said, “I’m gonna’ go get something to drink, mmkay?”
“Alright, sweetheart,” I told her, “I love you.” My sarcastic over-accentuation may have gone a bit too far. She scoffed and stormed down the bleachers. Eh, what can you do?
So there I sat. A forty-four year old, slightly balding man with an ‘Axis: Bold as Love’ t-shirt on in the middle of a pack of teenagers and moronic housewives at half-time. A beach ball bounced off of my head. One kid with thick-rimmed glasses was actually tossed about half way down the bleachers. His glasses went doubly far.
A kid walked past me who reeked of alcohol – cheap whiskey, maybe? I thought about following him for a while. But I didn’t. Of course not.
The cheerleaders were all gathered around in front of the field, most of them smoking. My daughter was the only one not standing and talking and smoking and otherwise being chearleadery. No, she was sitting against the fence, staring at her cell phone. I’d seen her do it before. She’s not actually texting anyone on it, I should point out. She’s just staring at the home screen, pretending to hit numbers and act like a popular individual. I had trouble feeling like a considerate parent.
That makes me a terrible person, too.
Standing at the far end was the girl. The older-looking one. And god-damn. She turned around to lean over the fence and puff her cigarette. Her legs with thin, but toned, in that sort of just-old-enough-not-to-be-jailbait kind of way. Her lower back showed (only tastefully so, thanks to a committee on proper team dress. Needless to say, my wife is an active member of said committee.) between the skirt and her shirt – was that a tattoo? You gorgeous young slut, you.
And then it all zoned out. Sort of like when a camera focuses on just one specific distance… everything else just blurs. She took another drag of her cigarette and glanced up at me. Her eyes. Her gorgeous green eyes. When she turned away from me, my eyes closed. There she was. Only her. In my world, she looked back at me and smiled. What a perfect smile. She tossed the cigarette down to the ground and stepped on it, twisting her leg as she did – her skirt swayed.
She winked and turned around to pick up her pompoms. The short skirt wasn’t long enough to cover when she bent over. She had an ass like Playboy couldn’t legally show. She was everything Mary wasn’t. She was real as real could be. Her body… her body was real. She walked over to the bleachers; her eyes never left mine. She took the steps slowly. Every step or two she’d bite her lip, or smirk at me, or exhale the slightest moan. Every step. Slow and steady, she got closer and closer.
She walked right up to my aisle. “Dave,” she smiled. Her voice was youthful and relaxed, the opposite of my wife. She strutted over to me, and leaned down. Her face, even so close, was flawless. I glanced down to her chest, but she was holding her pompoms over it. I was motionless and speechless. She stood straight up and bit her lip contemplatively, then swung her leg around and sat down on my lap. She leaned her face in close to mine, and our noses brushed. “My name’s Mary,” she told me.
Mary… Do I know another Mary?
Her cheek ran alongside my cheek, until her lips were next to my ear. I heard her soft, slow exhale, “Do you like my uniform, Dave?” Mary’s pompoms dropped the ground on either side of me. She brought her hands up to her chest and undid the first button on her blouse. Her eyes stared deep inside mine and she slowly undid the rest of the buttons, until her blouse fell open. My eyes fell down inside of it. Mary…
“David?” – Reality was back. My wife was back.
Son of a bitch.
“Huh?” I snapped. She kept on her odd look. She can’t even leave me alone with my semi-pedophilic fantasies? Thankfully, she couldn’t really say much – it’s not like she caught me doing anything. She just kept her narrow-eyed stare and sat down.
She pulled out her make-up kit and re-did her lipstick, or lipgloss, or whatever it is that was made imperfect by whatever it was she was just doing.
I tried to find the cheerleader again, but she was lost in the half-time crowd. And so my mind fell back onto my daydreaming and I had a sudden feeling of euphoria rush through me like an intravenous of bliss. I smirked, instinctively. I hadn’t allowed myself to think of that sort of thing in a long, long time.
Mary snapped her make-up kit closed and flattened out her dress with her hands. She’d actually forgotten to get a drink. I found that rather funny and chuckled briefly. “Just what’s so funny?” she asked.
“Nothing, honey. Oh look, the game’s starting.”
-*-*-*-*-*-
“Every decision I have ever made in my entire life, has been wrong. My life is the complete opposite of everything I wanted to be. Every instinct I have, in every aspect of life, is it something to wear, something to eat, it’s all been wrong.”
The relevance of George Constanza is not to be underrated at any time.
I turned from the TV and sighed toward Mary, whose keys I heard jingling. “Where ya’ goin, hon?”
“Store,” she said distractedly.
“It’s seven thirty at night and you’re going to the grocery store?”
“I forgot something, okay?” she exclaimed defensively.
“What are you doing in there?”
She stormed out the bathroom, her head tilted as she was trying to put in an earring. “I am putting on my make-up. Is that okay with you, David?”
I turned back to Seinfeld. This was our marriage; I sat and watched reruns while my wife went out and fucked a football coach. “Where are the kids?” I inquired.
She stormed in again, this time putting on the other earring. “They’re at the basketball game! My god, do you know anything about your kids? Do you? Do you remember their names? They’re Carrie and Chris, in case you forgot! Fuck, David!”
Basketball. Chris goes to the basketball games with his friends. I think they just get high or something. I know that, wife. Carrie, though?
“Carrie’s at the game?” I asked.
“Yes, David, Carrie is at the game. She’s a cheerleader. That’s what they fucking do.”
“… she cheers for basketball?”
“Mother of --! David! Do you know any goddamn thing about your children? I mean--! This is--! Just--!”
Cheerleader.
She hopped for her purse, putting on a high-heeled shoe. “Wow, you’re really dressing up for the grocery store,” I said.
“Yes, David, I am. And do you know why?” She paused as though I may actually attempt to answer. “It’s because I like to look good. I care about my fucking appearance. Because I’m more than just a lump on a couch watching fucking TV, okay David? I am a living, breathing woman. I have drives. I have drives to succeed! I have drives to look good! I have drives to care for my family! I have a drive to feel, okay?”
That was as close as she’d ever come to admitting she was having an affair. What, did she think I was just going to take that as a, ‘Oh, grocery shopping in make-up makes me feel’ thing?
She snatched up her purse and shot toward the door. “Have a nice time, honey!” I yelled, “Hope you and Norman have a real good fucking time!”
She stopped dead in her tracks. I only smiled wider. “Get it? Good fucing time?” She strutted out and slammed the door without saying a word. I was focused.
Cheerleader.
I turned off the TV, put on a jacket, and picked up my keys as I heard the tires on her car screech away. I opened up the garage door and got into my car.
And I didn’t think about my wife once more that night.
No, all I could think about was Mary.
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Post by J.O.N ((Dragonwing)) on Nov 5, 2010 2:15:35 GMT -5
Your writing makes me want to hate you. You belittle me with written words. Bastard.
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Post by Kaez on Nov 5, 2010 2:18:32 GMT -5
Your writing makes me want to hate you. You belittle me with written words. Bastard. AW. Dragon. Thanks :] |
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Post by Kaez on Nov 5, 2010 2:20:22 GMT -5
This was a brief homage to Douglas Adams I once wrote. 1 – Of all the things in the universe, one of the most remarkable is flan. Another, though much less well-received remarkable thing, is life. Besides being, for all intents and purposes, completely unnecessary to the workings of the universe, life is almost impossible to get rid of once you have it. Life persists anywhere and everywhere, from the most lush, sustaining jungles of a perfectly-heated planet to just inside the outermost layer of the great gas giant of Heblib Four.
Though this life varies from the extremes of the largest creatures (which find their spherical shapes damned to mistake them for planets and lead particularly miserable lives) and the very smallest parasites sucking on the innards of a tape worm (who are, in contrast, quite content), they all seem to share one trait without exception: none of them are fully aware of their insignificance relative to the cosmos that surrounds them.
Some suggested that such was the way of evolution: a creature which was aware of its insignificance would be left doing absolutely nothing. The species would never progress. Others argued that the progression of the species was just as insignificant as the species itself and hence should just as well not have happened, and yet others persisted that significance was directly related to the amount of flan which a species was capable of producing.
This would have been most agreed upon by those of Earth, a planet only significant on a universal scale if flan were the measurement for such. That is, it would have if the inhabitants of Earth were involved in such affairs. For example, as it was, no one from Earth was attending the 983rd Tri-Annual Convention of the Species, nor were they aware of its existence, even though it was held just a few dozen star systems away from them.
For humans were relative to the rest of the galaxy’s species as tapeworms are to humans: parasitic nuisances who abused resources and were quite unpleasant in appearance. Luckily for humanity, they were ignorantly blissful, going about their daily lives on their pointless blue dot of a home, quietly amused by anything particularly shiny or large. They did not, however, go unrepresented completely. Earth was, as had been decided without their knowledge, part of Region 9 of the Milky Way and, as such, were represented to the Council via the Minister of Region 9, Happ Bittle. Happ was a small, blue sluggish thing which could be described in human terms best as the spawn of a snail and a roll of wet newspaper.
Of all things worth noting about planet Earth, according to the Universal Council’s 983rd Tri-Annual Convention of the Species, only three were fully understandable to anyone but the inhabitants of Earth itself, whose thought processes were completely foreign to most evolved, logical species. The Minister of Region 9 stood before the Council and, from a large dusty tome titled ‘Milky Way: A Beginner’s Guide to Nihilism’, began to read.
“Most Honorable Council,” Happ Bittle chirped. “I now report on planet 82930-B, ‘Earth’.” The councilmen eyed a large display on the table in front of them. Earth’s blue-brown sphere lit up and they proceeded to mumble and nod incoherently.
“It is rather small,” Happ continued, “Its most advanced species seems to be terribly confused, and its production of flan relative to the advancement of its species is approximately twelve to one.”
At this the councilmen’s heads bobbed more drastically and they grumbled noisily amongst themselves. “Then,” one of the hideous councilmen replied from his leftmost mouth, “We shall: ring. Ring ring. Ring ring ring. Ring.”
Ring ring.
George’s eyes shot open. The telephone stopped ringing and a large, red light on it signified a missed call.
George was on Earth. More precisely, he was in Pennsylvania. Even more precisely, 24 Second Street, on the first floor of the National Sales Inc. Plaza, hunched over, his face flat down against his desk, drooling slightly.
He rubbed his tired eyes and let out a long yawn. He had no recollection of his dream whatsoever other than the image of a few grumbling brown creatures in long, black robes. Maybe he didn’t want to remember, he imagined.
Picking up the telephone he pressed the large, red light which then went out. The small black-and-white readout on the phone said: Levinson, D. and gave the number which had called.
Of all the names George saw on the caller ID daily, “Levinson, D.” was never, ever, one of them.
As the secretary’s secretary at National Sales Incorporated it was commonplace to miss a phone call from time to time out of boredom-induced sleep. In this case, however, he seemed to be missing quite a lot. By the time he’d gotten a chance to read the name “Levinson, D.” the fax machine behind him began to make mechanical churning noises, his cell phone vibrated erratically in his pocket, and a quick flash of ‘New Mail!’ lit the bottom corner of his computer screen.
He pinched himself quickly on the forearm to ensure he wasn’t still dreaming and upon deciding that ‘Ow, that hurt’, he spun in his chair to the fax machine as he reached into his pocket.
The warm sheet of fax paper read:
George Cheese,
8th Floor, Room B, now.
- Donald Levinson
He’d received a text message with precisely the same information and before he even opened his email, he knew what it read.
Kaley Stanton came around from the corner behind him. “Cover me,” she said, and turned away.
George managed to bark out a, “No, wait!” She stopped, spun on her tall, black high heels, and gave him a make-it-quick kind of look. Kaley was Mr. Levinson’s secretary and, as George was her secretary, his direct boss – and she made sure he was fully aware of this fact at all times. The job title of ‘secretary to the secretary’ had removed, years ago, all courage or pride George had ever had. Talking back to Kaley Stanton was not on his list of daily activities. “I’ve got to go. Mr. Levinson just,” George began. “Well, called, faxed, phoned, emailed…”
Kaley’s expression was blank. “… Really?” she inquired in a tone of disbelief, her brow raised. She was stunned. Of all of the things she had expected to hear from George, Mr. Levinson wanting him fell somewhere between ‘I love you’ and ‘We shall send them an invitation to join the 294th Tri-Annual Convention of the Species’ (which was, coincidentally, the response Councilmen Agzbork gave Happ Bittle in regards to the planet Earth at the 293rd Tri-Annual Convention of the Species).
“Really,” George insisted, holding up the fax.
She let out a ‘huh’ and turned away. George pressed the ‘straight to voicemail’ button on his phone and followed her.
He had worked at National Sales Incorporated for twelve years now. His job hitherto had consisted of three main tasks: Answering various means of communication, sending said messages to Kaley Stanton, and being as bored as any human being had ever been. For example, this morning, between a fax from a ‘personal friend’ of Mr. Levinson, one Abigaile Siccibiri, and a phone call from a rival company’s secretary who seemed to enjoy his job far too much, George stared at his desk trying to think of a name for the color of off-white that it was, alphabetically. He had made it all the way to ‘Ivory’ before falling asleep.
“Miss Stanton?” George said softly. “Any idea why Mr. Levinson wants to see me?”
“Don’t talk to me,” she bluntly replied, stepping into the elevator and pressing the ‘8’ button before George had gotten fully inside. He slipped in, sideways, just in time for the doors to close. Kaley was quite pretty, George had always thought. She had rather sharp, north European features, light blonde hair, big, blue eyes, and a British accent which he would have rather liked if it weren’t always saying things like ‘Don’t talk to me’. The trouble, he imagined, was that she always kept herself dressed by the standards of 1940s American housewives and seemed to have a look of disgust constantly glued to her face, which George attributed to him being present.
His attention was diverted to the elevator. He had been in it three times previously: twice due to maintenance on his floor’s bathroom and once during the interview which got him this job in the first place. All three times were to floor two. Floor one, where he worked, was a large lobby for the most part. It had elegant, marble floors and a large gold-and-crystal chandelier hanging in the center. When one first entered the building, they thought, ‘oh, how nice’. After twelve years, it all blurred into one big, expensive nothingness. It wasn’t until he had been on floor two, which consisted of nothing but a few dozen cubicles, that he realized just how much he disliked his job. One sign of job dissatisfaction, he assumed, was when a cubicle seemed a fascinating workplace.
Floors three through six were a complete mystery to George, floor seven was where Kaley worked (and was, otherwise, a mystery) and floor eight was Mr. Levinson’s office, which officially qualified it as the most mysterious of all. Donald Levinson was, in George’s best description, odd. He got to work before even the earliest workers and left work long after everyone else had. The only time George had spoken to him face-to-face was when he had first applied to the job. Donald Levinson shook his hand, said, “Good to meet you, son,” and was gone. The interview itself was carried out by Kaley and was equally as abrupt in nature.
It comes as no surprise then that, twelve years later, four simultaneous messages suggesting the urgency of George going to see Mr. Levinson were baffling to all parties involved. He wasn’t sure whether or not he should be terribly excited or pessimistically nervous. If he had cared about his job any more than he currently did, the answer might have been more difficult, but in the end, George figured that the worst thing that could happen would be that he’d been fired. In all honesty, he had it coming. He had for years. George was competing for the closest recognition of one’s own significance that any human had ever achieved. He was a secretary’s secretary, had been such for twelve years, and in his life had done nothing which would be deemed significant by any other of his species let alone by the 983rd Tri-Annual Galactic Convention of the Species.
Wait, what? George thought.
The elevator doors swung open and Kaley immediately stepped out and seemed fully prepared to leave George behind, so he promptly stepped forward. The hallway was short; to the left was a door leading to what could only be a broom closet due to its positioning against the wall, and read ‘A’. At the end of the hall was a large, elegant wooden door with a stylistic golden ‘B’ on it. Kaley knocked shave-and-a-hair-cut, and a deep voice bellowed from the distance, “Come on!”
Kaley began to turn the doorknob, but hesitated, and turned around. Her normally stern and rigid expression was bubbling with strictness even unusual for her. With wide, intense eyes which made George a bit uneasy, she growled. “Listen,” she spoke through her teeth. “I don’t know what this is all about, but so help me, just be obedient and shut up, got it?” George, looking somewhat frightened, nodded. Kaley let out a long, slow exhale and her expression faded away. She came back with an icy smile. “Good,” she said, and opened the door.
2 – Though it was debated upon for twelve days in the Galactic Council, it was eventually decided upon by unanimous vote that nobody really cared at all how it was done. The invitation was given promptly to a messenger named Plop, and the matter was over with as far as the Council was concerned. |
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Post by Kaez on Nov 5, 2010 2:23:33 GMT -5
I'm pretty sure I wrote this for a time-based writing tournament we had one Christmas. Christopher“Alright, kids. Santa has to go back to the North Pole, now,” said the man in the plastic, pointed ears and green, pointed hat.
“Bye, Santa!” a choir of little voices rang in return.
Christopher Green, otherwise known as Santa Claus, waved and smiled before trotting off through one of the mall’s store-lined corridors. He checked his watch: just after two thirty. “Dammit,” he huffed as he made his way past scattered mothers trying to rush their children towards him. He was off; shift over, job over. It was December 23rd, the last day Santa visited the Rosstown Mall, and if things went as planned, the last year he would spent with a pillow wrapped around his stomach and an elastic beard stuck to his chin.
He made his way out of the building and into the back parking lot, in the middle of which sat a square, white van. The man sitting in the front seat smiled and rolled down the window. “Ho, ho, ho!” he called.
“Fuck you, Tom,” Chris sighed. He walked to the back of the van and knocked on the doors. They swung open and Chris hopped in, closing them behind him. The van smelled of cigarettes and mint, and a thin fog of smoke filled it. Chris ripped off the beard and hat as he unbuttoned his red, fluffy coat. “Merry Goddamn Christmas,” he said, struggling with one of the buttons.
“Happy as ever, I see,” said the woman in the passenger seat. “And here I thought you liked playing Santa.”
Giving up, Chris pulled the coat over his head and threw it aside, untying the pillow pressed against his stomach. “You can enjoy doing something and still not want to be doing it, Steph,” he snapped back.
“That’s right,” spoke the man in the back seat. “Chris here just does it for the women.”
Chris nodded sagely and squeezed his way into the back seat next to him. “Damn straight, James. You know how I dig those soccer moms.” He held out his fist, and James met it with his own.
“Oh, well, why didn’t you say so?” Steph said, far too accustomed to their sarcasm to fall back, and tossed a cigarette out the window. She and Chris had been friends since the first grade, when he found her the first and only equal competitor to himself in the fine art of snowball fortress defense and was even further taken aback the following year when she proved in front of him and the rest of the boys on the playground that girls really didn’t have a thing down there.
Fifteen years later, she continued to astound him with her natural charm. She was casual and open, the first one to point out awkward silences and the last one to be left behind in a debate. She was as intelligent as she was witty, and has vast knowledge of fields that no woman any of them had met did: she was familiar with every readily available aerosol cheese product, had seen each Die Hard and Lethal Weapon film at least three times (save the most recent of the former, which was, as she reported, ‘an abomination unto cinema’) and had an intimate knowledge of the Legend of Zelda.
Her brother, Tom, was her opposite in most ways. He was excitable, optimistic, quiet, and a lover of anything prefaced by the word ‘indie’. Chris was convinced that the two of them were not siblings, and given Tom looked so much like his father, informed Steph that she was not the rightful offspring of her parents. She agreed, and would later include her mix-up as a newborn as part one of her Advanced Literature autobiography in high school.
Tom’s best friend was James, the man who sat next to Chris in the back seat. The two of them fought pretty much of the time and it was agreed upon by the others that they would often take up a contradictory opinion on a given matter simply for the sake of annoying the other. Their arguments were entertaining, both of them being intelligent beyond their years and stubborn beyond their intelligence; no one complained. James moved to their neighborhood in the fifth grade, in the house next door to Chris’. The two befriended quickly, and together the four of them made up a square of relations and, from the sixth grade onward, remained close.
High school came and went, boyfriends and girlfriends there and gone, and the four of them graduated much the same way as they studied, tested, and planned for their future: unspectacularly and without a whole lot of effort. Steph went on to work at a game store and, after a few years, was promoted to manager. She attended exclusive releasing parties and used the opportunities to brag to the rest of them as thoroughly as possible. Tom and James went to college, Tom for biology, James for history and education. Both of them seemed to do considerably better collegiately than they did in high school, and each were on the verge of graduating into successful careers.
Chris was a writer for a local newspaper otherwise, namely as an entertainment critic. He covered films, music, technology and such. The pay was modest and he got a quiet apartment out of it. Despite adequate pay, every winter for the past three years he played Santa at two different local malls.
The van pulled over the curb and onto the highway with a bump and a thud, and they were on their way. Tom interrupted the brief silence. “Well, three hundred and fifty one days until Santa Claus time. Getting ready for next year, chief?”
Chris sighed, buckling his seat belt. “Christ, I hope not. I hope not.”
“I don’t get it,” James said. “You don’t have to do it, you don’t want to do it, why do you do it?”
“Think of it as an anti-depressant.” Chris stared out the window at the mall complex as it passed behind them.
“An anti-depressant?”
“You’ve got to get in the mind of Chris Green to understand it,” Tom said from the front. “Chris lives off of negative energy. He thrived on everything unpleasant. So what you find depressing, Chris finds anti-depressing. What he hates, he loves.”
“That’s fucked up,” James remarked.
“I don’t hate it,” Chris retorted. “I like it. It makes me happy. I just shouldn’t need it to be happy.”
“Why, exactly, are you unhappy in the first place?” James slowly inquired.
“Here it comes,” Steph sighed.
Chris stared James down. “Why am I unhappy? Holy mother of shit, look around you! The days last for a whopping two hours and the nights are piss-freezing cold. The streets are covered in a grayish slime and you can’t drive for ten miles without coming across a car accident of some midlife-crisis woman who was rushing to the mall to get the newest pair of hundred-dollar Nike shoes or three-hundred-dollar cell phone that blows you off while you talk or whatever the newest Japanese electrical box is, so that her Twilight-reading daughter can be the coolest girl in the racially and economically divided slaughterhouse we call a modern school.
“The entire season is covered with advertisements for the newest this or the most expensive that. Stick a brand name on something, paint it a new color, and charge another fifty dollars for it and you’re the newest businessman in town. Our economy is in the shit for that very reason – we can’t afford to get the shiny thing two-point-oh, and so we get out our little plastic cards and ship our debt off to some foreign police state that made the damn shiny thing in the first place. And then two days later, once we’re bored of two-point-oh, two-point-one is released! And guess what? It comes in baby blue this time and can connect to the internet! And every little girl in the world begs their daddy for it and the shelves load on up.
“And the mothers all stampede to be the first one to get inside the store for the newest useless piece of shit. And they’ll punch and kick and stab for it and by the time ten women have their spoiled kids’ newest foreign deathtrap, one of them was already trampled on the way in. So the newspapers will get all excited over the funeral of the trotted woman, and CNN will interrupt covering of politics to talk about how some 300-pound wench in Rosstown was crushed by a raging pack of wild housewives.
“And the doctors will say that her weight was to blame, and damn right, it probably was, the fat bitch not getting out of the way. It’s what she gets for eating food in our world. Our chicken is filled with soy protein and our vegetables laced with a dozen chemicals unspeakable by the human tongue. Our water is poisoned, our air is toxic, our best exercise is trying to find the television remote and flushing the toilet. It’s no wonder everyone’s fat, because all of those new shiny Korean things we’re all so desperately after are specifically designed to make us do less effort than before! It’s all one giant fucking cycle, and the whole world is so caught up in it that it doesn’t even see what’s going on.
“Every winter, society collapses into this rubble. Christmas songs about togetherness and joy are still heard every day, but as advertisements. Some Mothers Association will say that some beloved classic song represents pagan beliefs or promotes homosexuality of some other crock of shit and they’ll ban it from the airwaves in Kansas and Utah. And all the kids want is presents.
“We tell ourselves, ‘oh, the meaning of Christmas is family and kindness’, or even worse something about Jesus – and on that, if I hear one more remark about Jesus being born on Christmas, I might move to a Hindu country – but no, that’s not what it’s about. It’s about the newest shiny thing. The kids don’t want to see their great-great aunt Mae, who’ll pinch their cheeks and say, ‘the last time I saw you, you were this high! Oh, you’re gonna’ have the girls after you!’ They want presents, and they want them now! And not just any presents, the presents they’re told they want by the Almighty and Omnipotent Television.
“But for a moment, just for a fleeting few seconds when a little boy sits on Santa’s lap at the mall and looks up at the jolly white beard and is asked, ‘what would you like for Christmas?’, none of that matters. All of the advertisements and the brand names and the conditioning, it goes away. The boy thinks about the loveliness of the idea that there is someone out there who wishes nothing more than to give him what he wants – to fill his little heart’s desires. And so this old, sick world we live in, filled with nothing but hate and increasingly disastrous generational technology that serves as nothing but a means to devour the grace of humanity, it’s good to know that there’s some sliver of decency left, and that it can still shine, if only for an instant, in the look of a child on Santa’s lap.
“But isn’t it just a little bit sad that to find any sort of decency in this world, we have to resort to strapping a pillow to our stomachs and wearing a fake beard? If it isn’t, by all means, inquire. But if it is, if it’s a valid reason for a bout of cynicism that the only way to find humanity in this damned season is to dress up as a fat old man who makes children sit on his lap, then dammit, James, don’t ask me why I’m depressed.” |
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Post by J.O.N ((Dragonwing)) on Nov 5, 2010 2:32:19 GMT -5
This was a brief homage to Douglas Adams I once wrote.
2 – Though it was debated upon for twelve days in the Galactic Council, it was eventually decided upon by unanimous vote that nobody really cared at all how it was done. The invitation was given promptly to a messenger named Plop, and the matter was over with as far as the Council was concerned.
What?! There's more! There must be, what is this! HOW CAN YOU JUST STOP?! |
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Post by Kaez on Nov 5, 2010 2:48:44 GMT -5
This was a brief homage to Douglas Adams I once wrote.
2 – Though it was debated upon for twelve days in the Galactic Council, it was eventually decided upon by unanimous vote that nobody really cared at all how it was done. The invitation was given promptly to a messenger named Plop, and the matter was over with as far as the Council was concerned.
What?! There's more! There must be, what is this! HOW CAN YOU JUST STOP?! But there's not more! I mean, there just isn't! I wrote the first few words of chapter 2 and just... stopped... writing. |
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Post by Kaez on Nov 5, 2010 3:07:56 GMT -5
Oh hey! Another assignment entry that got lost in the folly. Save date is November 17, 2008. Made of Star[/u] “Here’s to Walter!”
“To Walter!” The crowd shouted in return. There was a nicely sized lot of one hundred and seventeen of us, and oddly enough, one hundred and sixteen roared that honorary toast. Men, women, children, all gathered around our bonfire and sipping our ale, enjoying the welcoming heat of the blaze in this most bitter of Springs. Some danced and some sang songs, others were holding rigid branches over the fire, roasting hunks of venison. As for myself, I sat quietly against my tree, as always. Number one hundred and seventeen – the one who didn’t cheer. Never having a wife or children, I often found myself relaxing here… and just because tonight was an exceptionally celebratory night didn’t mean anything was to change for yours truly.
No, my tree was where I lay and my tree was where I’d intended to stay (if I weren’t to be eating or sleeping). As I admired the cheering group, a blue-eyed girl eyed me from the heart of the celebration, and I knew what was to come. Sometimes the children would come to me, being one of the eldest in the group, and ask me questions… silly children’s questions like “Why is the sky blue?” and “How come my second toe is longer than my big toe, but Elizabeth’s isn’t?” In all honesty, I didn’t mind the questions. The children were good company, and always were an egotistical boost to say the least.
On that very night, one of the younger girls stampeded over to me clumsily and without even a moments rest, as if she was boiling with anticipation, asked, “Mis’er Thomas, why are you at the tree?”
I chuckled at her. “I’m always at my tree, aren’t I?”
She shook her head at me, “No, why are you at this tree?” For the first time, I hadn’t an answer to the question. Why did I choose this tree? Why a tree at all? Why didn’t I sit in my cabin all the damn day? I smiled at the girl, proud of her for an especially inquisitive and serious question.
I glanced around myself swiftly, hoping to find something of interest about the area in needing to spit a response out. Being that the girl was of no more than seven years, it didn’t much matter how legitimate it was, just so long as it was an answer. Searching upward, through the towering oaks that leaned over our settlement, I found my answer. Two trees, one on either side, reached out for each other, just barely out of reach. In the gap between them, three especially bright stars lined themselves, granting me a straight peek at them. I looked back down at the girl, her eyes smiling brightly at me much the way that the stars so high above did. “It’s the perfect view of course!” I grinned, tugging her arm as she stumbled to my side.
“Look,” I whispered, pointing up between the trees. “D’you see them?” Her gapped grin was ear-to-ear as I caught the reflection of the stars in her eyes. “I’m watching them.” The stars moved, as I well knew, and that tomorrow they wouldn’t be in just that same place. Tonight, however, I was granted a perfect answer to the little one’s question, and in fact, a perfect view of the stars.
“Watchin’em?” She inquired.
“Of course! You don’t watch the stars?” I smirked.
She raised her eyebrows and shook her head at me, her little brown pig tails waving.
“Well you just don’t know what you’re missing! You’ve got to watch the stars!” She smiled childishly at my enthusiasm (which I must admit, is a bit surprising for my age) and I poked her tummy. “You never know when you’re going to see something incredible!”
She giggled at me, like all little girls do, and pointed to the sky. “Where are the stars?” – Another impressive question!
“Oh,” I smirked, “Very, very far away. So far in fact, that you could spend a whole life time just traveling to one!”
She snickered at the epic scale of my response. “I wanna’ go to a star!” She showed off her gapped smile showing again.
“Well maybe,” I spoke sagely, “If you’re just lucky enough… a star will come to you!”
Before she had the chance to gasp, her mother called for her brutishly. “Molly! Hey!” The girl scrambled away into the illuminated field. I sighed at the drunken mother, tossing her a wave which was returned by some sort of unsteady wailing of her arm. Letting out a sigh, I rest my head against my tree and brought my attention back to the stars. “One year,” I chuckled to myself. It was exactly one year before that I sat at the tree for the first time. Exactly one year. And oddly enough, on the anniversary of the day, these three stars granted me a perfect view.
“What rare beauties you must be,” I spoke softly as I felt my eyelids began to grow heavy. I followed my closing eyes downward, taking another glance at the roaring fire and the dancing and drunken idiots as they swirled around the flames… and I fell asleep.
-----
I awoke to a biting wind as it howled through the trees. Opening my eyes, I caught a final glimpse of light before the people surrounded nothing but a pile of wood and ash. As quickly as our settlement was void of light… it was void of sound. Mothers hushed their children and men pondered silently in the darkness. ‘Why weren’t they going inside?’ I wondered. A storm was coming, as it was quite obvious to me. Why were they standing there so blindly? And then I made a realization: The fire was out, no other fires were lit, the night sky was the most absolute of blacks and yet… I saw them quite fine. And that’s when I saw them.
My stars, my three beautiful stars, shone so brightly… so vividly… I felt if I could only stretch far enough, I could reach out and touch them. I watched the memorized people stare ignorantly at the glorious trio of light, in complete bafflement at this odd spectacle. Only to break their awestruck expressions was a high pitched whirl; a sharp, piercing siren, as if a demon were screaming though the forests. I gasped, holding my head in agony to the monstrous sound. Men fell to their knees, their wives grabbing their children, trying to protect them from this all-penetrating screech… Where did it come from? What was that ripping sceech?
…Before I’d the time to search for its source, they came.
At the time, I knew no name for them… no origin or understanding. At the time, I’d never been so horrified in my life. They were white, pure white. Like soulless ghouls they shone, the most horrifyingly pale creatures one could ever imagine. They howled their sharp cries and stormed through the village. In the light of the stars they were luminescent, their ivory skin glistening. They towered over us; They were three meters at least of pure witchcraft. Their flesh was tight and glowing, their faces skeletal yet not foreign, as if some malformed man had decayed.
Why did no one run? Why wasn’t I running? I tried to stand and I didn’t even budge. I had no energy, no will, no control over my own muscles… I was paralyzed in every sense of the word. I was a sitting piece of flesh and bone and soul, waiting to be taken by these ravaging beasts, completely unable to defend myself in any means. The creatures grabbed everyone, their hollow eyes watching each of them as they sobbed and were carried away. No one ran, no one resisted. No one could.
I grew nauseated and vomited all over my useless self as I watched the creatures carry everyone away… I trembled in fear, under instinct… my heart was nearly pounding out of my chest as my lungs struggled to keep up. The horrible, violent scream still echoed in my ears, my head pulsating in what felt like a blistering fever. Each time they tossed another person away like a ragdoll, I knew I was next, yet never was I. My entire home… everyone I knew… they took. They ripped it from me, and never did anyone have any say. They couldn’t resist… they couldn’t plead… Those savages created helplessness.
And then they stood there, motionless, terrifyingly. Twelve of the creatures, staring straight at my resistless form, their black mouths dangling open, their hollow eyes burning me. I wept pathetically, I screamed like a child, “Oh, God, no! Please!” I sobbed. “Stop! Stop!” I yelled as they stood blankly. With a final grunt, I felt my breath escape me, and the creatures faded away.
Again, I slept.
-----
Cold stone licked my cheek. My eyes struggled open in the golden morning sun as I glanced to my side. Six tanned legs stood before me, a spear tip against my face. “He- hello,” I grunted. Struggling to my feet, I wiped the sleep from my eyes and nodded at the men, readjusting my vision with a few blinks. The one in the back stepped forward, returning my nod. “My name is Falling Horse. I come as a friend and to speak with you.” I nodded at him again, “My names Thomas, Thomas Heel.”
The memory of the night before slapped me, as my eyes widened. I stumbled backward a few feet. It wasn’t a dream. Oh, God, it wasn’t a dream! “It is good,” He assured me. “Now it is fine.” My friends… my home… “But I need to know,” He further inquired, “What happened here? Where are your people?” Gone! They’re gone! The images of the pale visitors came to my mind… Again, I was terrified, as if my mind were torturing me, showing me image after image of the hollow-eyed men…
Nearly breaking into tears I choked, “They’re gone, they… took them, all.” The Indians glanced at each other, their eyes holding an odd suspicion. In any case, it was enough to spark the curiosity that kept my tears away.
“Who took your people?” The English-speaking man in the front asked.
“The,” I stuttered, realizing just then that I hadn’t known a name for them. “The people of the stars,” Was all I could manage.
The translator turned to the older men behind him and whispered to their widening eyes. They spoke quickly to each other, peaking around me for a few of my abandoned home. When one of them drew a knife, I almost ran. “It’s all fine now,” The front-most one spoke to me. “They are gone.” The knife-wielding Indian walked to my tree, nudging me aside. “Come,” the translator spoke, taking my hand, “We shall take you to food and warmth.”
They seemed to be very knowledgeable on the whole scenario, which baffled me. “What.. what are they?” I mumbled, still unsure of the whole scenario, being so early in the morning.
“You know what they are, Thomas.”
“What is he doing to my tree?” I asked, not realizing how attached to it I’d grown until I was being escorted away.
“Swims by Fox is letting anyone else know what happened here.”
“What didhappen here?” I questioned.
“The People Made of Star came, Thomas. They are the Croatoan.”
I swallowed hard, staring ahead, almost relieved.
The Indian rest his hand on my shoulder and I thought of the little girl… |
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Post by James on Nov 5, 2010 3:10:07 GMT -5
Oh hey, that was a Cup piece against Lilam!
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Post by Kaez on Nov 5, 2010 3:11:25 GMT -5
This one was in response to a challenge of writing a story in which the protagonists were all animals, none of whom were named or anthropomorphized. Obviously, extremely experimental. Dated June 30, 2009. I
THE WOLVES ALL STOOD UP on the hill and waited. The biggest one and the black one sat in front of the rest and the rising sun cast their shadows long and thin down the hillside. They had spent the last, long, cold night with hunger clawing at their stomachs. No food for three days. The black one’s eyes were glossy and determined. It eyed the forest below with intent, deep, irresistible intent. Somewhere through the rustling trees, strolling ignorantly through the dew-laden grass, was an animal drawing its last few breaths.
Pillows of frosty steam puffed from the big one’s snout. The little ones and the white one and gray one all stood about behind them, catching the morning sun on their damp bodies and drying. The little ones were the hungriest. They might have still been eating slop had their mother been there; full and satisfied, watching the rest of them stalk the quiet woods. The white one paced quietly behind the rest and trudged over the gray one’s tail to his yelp. The big one and the black one swung their heads around to the whimpering wolf. When he saw them watching, he quieted.
The white one stepped back and sat down with her head dangling and the gray one stood up with the others. He was smaller than the black one or big one, but his stance was firm. The sun finally crept into the birth of the woods and glistened like starlight on the soaked leaves. The big one yawned and the black one stooped his head and lifted a front paw. At this, the two little ones stood and pranced through and under the rest to the white one. She stared at the black wolf, his fur blowing back in a gust of wind. Scent spiraled from the woods on the current and the four all took a deep inhale. The little ones glanced about.
Slowly, the black one lowered his paw, then moved the rest into position and crept forward more. The other three stood their place. He stooped his head lower. The leaves rustled and the wind blew and the wolf stared. The wind was strong, but the rustling was stronger. The gray one took a few slow steps. The big one lifted a heavy paw and froze but the black one kept creeping. A deer, a thin, lanky deer. She hadn’t much meat to her, but that was more than none and that was enough. The white one turned to her side and watched the other three.
The black one charged. Not an instant later, the gray one and the big one were at his sides. A small, round leaf tumbled from the deer’s mouth. The black one was still in front, but the gray one was catching up and the big one paced behind them. The white wolf jogged forward with the little ones ducking around her. The gray one veered right. The deer’s head swung and her deep oak eyes shot her away with every ounce of speed she could muster. She bolted right and trampled noisily upon leaves and twigs and roots. The gray one gave the chase all of his might.
The black one was tailing her but the gray one had her side. All he needed was the chance to make his move. The big one kept his pace behind them and the white one was just getting into the woods with the cubs. The leaf that had fallen from her mouth tumbled gently onto one of their little heads as they did their best to keep up. Her hoof smacked against a log hidden amongst the bushes and the gray one veered inward. He was a dive away and didn’t hesitate. She was going too quickly for her own good now and there wasn’t any chance left for her when he sprang.
His claws, sharp and deep, pierced her golden flesh. He pulled the rest of his body behind him and his jaw was wide. His teeth sunk down and her blood poured and flowed onto his tongue. Her legs failed her. The black one sprang from behind and pounced down upon her back. She pulled and sprang and jerked but the wolves were stronger and heavier and the big one caught up. He tumbled forward and bit down again and again on her neck until she stopped moving altogether. Her ribs made thin, parallel indentations along her fragile body. There wasn’t much meat to be found here and it has been so long since they’d gotten any. This was enough to keep them full today, but tomorrow they’d need another hunt.
The white one caught up and found a place between the others to tuck her head in while the little ones went up toward the front of the deer. Their faces dripped with blood and flesh and fur. Their tongues were pleased and their stomachs were thankful and their tired paws could be ignored for now. The gray one lifted his head to pant for a moment and stopped cold at the sight. Far into the distance, pacing confusedly, was a small, young deer. The gray wolf stepped a few paces from the carcass and stared. The black wolf watched him and turned to the sight.
The gray wolf turned to him but the black one showed his red, stained teeth and turned back to the deer at his feet. The gray one’s stomach urged him to get back to eating, and he did.
II
BIG, BLEAK, GRAY BEASTS rolled across the blue. They growled and roared and wrestled about, shaking the sky and echoing from the mountains and hills. Rain drops splashed onto the stones and sunk deep into the soil at the break of the storm. The white one and the little ones were all nestled snugly in the back of the den. She sat watching over the two as they danced and wrestled, thrusting their tail-ends into the air and barking mediocre chirps. A few pellets of rain dropped onto the big one’s snout and he shook his head before heading toward the den.
A loud, booming rumble of thunder shook the place. The little ones were a bit startled and stumbled back into the white one. Her eyes were fixed out into the rain, which was coming down heavier and heavier by the second. Resting out on the rock that overlooked the deep valley were the two others, their fur getting wetted down and slick in the downpour. The black one watched the distance, as he always did. His eyes, deep and dark, reflected the birth of the forest in the distance where they’d hunted that morning. He was already growing hungry.
They gray one at his side shook his head in the rain, splashing about. His fur was dirty and his paws were a mess but still, he wasn’t satisfied. He, too, was still hungry. He had been hungry all day and would be hungry all night. Their hunt the next day was inevitable now, but it hadn’t been. Such a fragile, frightened creature was the little deer. Startled and confused – it wouldn’t have put up a chase worth a full sprint. They could have been on it and feasting and full for nearly another day or two’s worth. But they hadn’t.
He glanced at the black one, who still stared off, and saw the look he had given him that morning. Subtle, it wasn’t. His stomach grumbled again. He nearly shone his teeth to the black one before standing and shaking, turning back toward the den. Cold, hungry, and sore – he could use a night’s rest, if he could get it. He curled onto the ground between the others and the white one and big one still watched. He didn’t move. If he didn’t for the rest of the night, it wouldn’t be unusual. He was searching, and would keep searching, and that was that.
A flash of lightning set the dark sky alight. The distance saw no signs of letting up and it had already been late. Rain through the morning would mean a difficult hunt until at least the afternoon. The black one paced around the side of the den, where the others couldn’t see him anymore. The hills that climbed into the distance were green and empty. Both thankfully and sadly so, they were devoid of anything but the grass and wind and rain that topped them. So thankfully? Really so thankfully?
He huffed and sat down in the muddy grass and closed his eyes and hung his head. The rain poured off all sides of him and his fur was slick and black, like on single jacket across his body. A glistening onyx, drenched with rainwater, extruding from the sloppy earth. He exhaled slowly and the white one in the den lay down next to the little cubs at her side.
Long and deep was his howl. Only once, but that was enough. Anyone could have heard that.
III
THE HORIZON LIT UP DIMLY in the foggy morning air. Rain still pitter-pattered on the rocks, but it was softer now and dying out. When the big one awoke, the white one was already leading the cubs outside. Behind him, the gray one snored soundly in the otherwise empty den. He stretched and tromped outside, leaving the gray one to his sleep. When the big one came out without him, the black one strolled in, pawed his head and came back out. After a long yawn, the gray one jogged out to the others and they were off.
The black one led them straight into the hills to the east. There weren’t many animals around here, so it was odd that they would head that way. So open and barren, it was nearly impossible to beat out a wolf where he had room to run and everyone knew it and stayed clear. Where, then, were they headed?
The air had a stench that was fierce and pungent. The big one made ahead and followed the smell to veer left. He caught a glimpse of something and ran ahead and the others followed suit, the white one leading the little ones in the back. Spread across the open field was a newly fallen corpse that the flies and maggots had yet to even find. The black one had spotted it in the middle of the night last night, moaning and stumbling and galloping about. It was, like the deer they scavenged the morning prior, small and thin and wouldn’t have as much as they’d like, but this wasn’t a deer.
An elk, a full-grown and male elk, no matter how thin and sick and old he was, had more to him than any hind did. The big one made a few bites at its neck before feasting on its back side and the others all came and ate and filled their stomachs and the little ones made quick work of their meal. The meat was tough and it wasn’t fresh but it was meat and they were hungry and that was enough. The little ones sat contently, having already eaten nearly a stomach’s full the morning before, and watched the other four devour the corpse into not much but a pile of bone and fur.
Nearly full, the lot of them. Two days, maybe three, they could make it. Content, they sat, and watched the distance. More than a week had gone by since a proper meal filled their stomachs and they could afford to sit and lounge for their digestion’s sake if only a moment. After not long, the black one stood up and the big one followed and they headed through the hills and into the woods. The gray one had heard something move once or twice but didn’t bother with it. His stomach weighed him well for now and he was thirsty and cold and everything was still wet.
The sun in the distance was breaking the clouds and it sparkled the stream water with its refracting light. They drank and washed their faces and splashed across to the other side where the sun was breaking through the thin trees and when they found a spot that was drying and warm they lay again for a while to bake. The gray one and the big one napped pleasantly in the afternoon rays as the storm rolled out into the mountains and the distance. A millipede – a big, long, brown millipede had caught the little ones’ attentions before they had a chance to rest and they waltzed with it until it wasn’t a millipede but a squished, flat, foul-smelling smudge so they lay down too.
After an hour or more of a nap a sharp crack startled them. The whole group’s eyes sprung wide and bold and they turned to where the noise had been made. The hare hopped through leaves and out into the forest. Heavy, long exhales: it had only been a critter. They wouldn’t be back to sleep this afternoon so they made their way back out of the woods and saw their way past the hills and into the deeper forest. They were warm and dry and full and awake making the trek all the easier on them and they didn’t stop until they got there.
IV
IT WAS GETTING DARK OVER the ranch that sat atop the plains in the distance. The fields were green and flowing and dry and the horses in the fields sat quietly eating. The ranch was wooden and short: big, but not a tenth of the massive fenced fields that surrounded it. Horses, mainly, filled them. Brown, white, calico and grey, they were all standing around lazily until the wolves made their way out of the wooded shade and into the grass. A few bucked and stood and tromped and neighed and most just jogged away.
The white one stayed far behind now and she watched the others between glances at the cubs. The big one crept low and the black one and gray one stood their ground, stepping slowly into the grass, their eyes locked on the ranch. For minutes they stood and stared, watched and waited, but nothing came. When it was safe, the black one sat, and the others followed with the white one and the little ones still sitting behind. The place was calmer than it once was and they got at ease before the sun began to sink past the hills.
This was no place to sleep and the white one and the big one took the cubs back a ways into the woods to spend the night. The black one stayed and the gray one watched him for a long while. So long after, and he still couldn’t stay away from the ranch for more than two or three days at a time. Always watching, always waiting. Staring into the distance, seeing nothing, he was always. It was getting cold and the sun was nearly gone and the dim lights of the ranch were all that made up the distance. The gray one watched them for a while, and then headed back. The black one stayed.
It wasn’t long before they were all asleep and when the morning rose they were warm but none too rested. At the edge of the wood, as he was the night before, the black one sat staring. His focus was otherwise and he didn’t hear the others as they walked up behind him. When the white one pawed him he shook his fur and stood and they all walked back into the woods. They drank from the stream and the little ones jumped at little fish that swam by, but they were too slippery and too quick.
The black one sat motionless at the creek side while the big one and white one drank. A splash of water fell onto him and he shook it off. The gray one stood, his tail wagging up into the air, pawing the water against the black one before tumbling into the creek and rolling in the water. He hopped out, his tail soaked and high and his head titled at a sharp angle. The black one stood and stepped back as he leapt and kicked, tossing up stones with his snout and burying his paws in the grass and tossing dirt.
The big one watched him and jumped the creek and tackled him. The two gnawed at each other and splashed at the black one, who finally joined in before the white one and the little ones, too. And they played and splashed and wrestled before letting out a few daring howls and running on downstream. They came to a big, rocky beach and rapids that swirled white, untamed waters through curling dives and falls. The wolves walked around it and the little ones eyed the foreign landscape curiously.
The creek fell into the river and the fish got bigger. Big, silvery fish plopped into the water and hurled up again. Deep into the distance, the rapids calmed and something bright and odd and out of place lay near the river. The wolves walked up slowly and the gray one went up first and sniffed it and sat back. The black one caught its scent a yard away and growled and stood his ground. The white one and black one stayed behind him. The piece of orange cloth was torn and muddied, made of a thick, smooth fiber.
They growled and snarled and the big one turned back from it and walked back up the hill when the deep, echoing gunshot rang out.
V
AND THEY RAN FOR WHAT must have been nearly forever through forest and hills. They kept on running long after they couldn’t hear the men anymore or the howls or see the plains and ranch. They’re paws were tired and their coats were muddy and wet and scratched by branches that swatted and licked them as they stormed through the trees. When finally the black one stopped, the others fell beside him and panted. Exhausted and beaten, their legs collapsed under them and they sat in the shade and cooled.
The white one and gray one sat over by the little ones who were nearly dead with exhaustion and fright. The black one still stood and listened and watched behind them, but there was nothing. The afternoon sun was long forgotten but was still hot and cooling off was a slow process. It was ages until they’d all stopped panting and finally their legs were steady enough to walk again. The den wasn’t far. The shelter of their home would be welcomed tonight.
The three just sat, with the cubs between them, and didn’t move. A light wind rustled the leaves and branches of the trees in the distance and they watched it. The den was empty. The black one walked out and they others followed. He perched himself up, overlooking the sweeping greens and browns. For so long had this been his dominion and for how much longer would it be?
He howled a mighty tone that rose and fell with the winds and the leaves and the grass and the others joined him with even the little ones barking their best. The stars above were glittery remnants of what they had been not long ago – when the black one’s mate and the white one’s cubs and the big one and his brother would all stand there and howl with full stomachs and a warm den. When they ventured out toward the ranch they hadn’t known what to make of things, until the shots rang out. Foreign, metallic cursing – it was a foul sound.
First went the cubs. They couldn’t keep up with the rest in the stream and when they stumbled and slipped the things fired. And they were followed that night, though they didn’t know it, and that’s when the big one’s brother was lost. They’d been safe for a week afterward but a chase had taken them closer than they’d hoped and the bluish one was gone, too.
And every few days since then, the black one took them up to the ranch. She never came home. And this time, they lost the big one, too.
The black one still stood on the stone when the others went back in the den and slept. There had to be a hunt tomorrow, and they’d go west. As far away from the ranch as was possible, and that was one place they’d never go back to.
VI
THE MORNING HUNT WASN’T AS easy as it had been the last time. The deer was bigger and they were tired and the big one wasn’t there for the final blow. By the time they’d got it down, they ate what they could of it and left immediately. SO THAT'S IT for my old stuff.
Everything hereafter will be new. |
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Post by Kaez on Nov 5, 2010 3:12:12 GMT -5
Oh hey, that was a Cup piece against Lilam! Yes! Yes it was. And I was on pace to win that one too, based on popular opinion, but the judging never went through. |
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Post by James on Nov 5, 2010 3:13:44 GMT -5
Oh hey, that was a Cup piece against Lilam! Yes! Yes it was. And I was on pace to win that one too, based on popular opinion, but the judging never went through. If I remember correctly though, we were still in the 'Group Stages' and you had lost to Kat, who in turn had lost to Lilam. And so you guys were all going to end up on the same amount of points. |
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Post by Kaez on Nov 5, 2010 3:15:39 GMT -5
Yes! Yes it was. And I was on pace to win that one too, based on popular opinion, but the judging never went through. If I remember correctly though, we were still in the 'Group Stages' and you had lost to Kat, who in turn had lost to Lilam. And so you guys were all going to end up on the same amount of points. Oh man, I've got -no- idea. That's entirely possible, but my memory of that whole event's pretty vague. Though I do recall losing to Kat at sometime by -one point- because Schro thought I used 'O' too frequently in my story where Lucifer was the protagonist and the Archangels were villains. |
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Post by o ding on Nov 5, 2010 18:27:33 GMT -5
...*cough*...
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Post by Kaez on Nov 6, 2010 1:10:03 GMT -5
This was actually my dream last night. The last line, the single line of dialogue, was something I knew upon waking up that I'd heard before. And I spent all day trying to figure out what it was and I finally did -- it was something Dragon had as his away message a very, very long time ago. Something he spoke himself, and hence nothing googlable. Absolutely bizarre, amiright? A DreamWe sat in the room, picturesque, all eight of us. Our brows were glazed over with sweat, our hands tired jittery, relaxing for the first time in such a long while. I leaned back in the chair deeply, my head sliding down the back of it until I nearly lay in the thing -- a full, low slouch to relax my whole body as it sunk into the soft cushion.
My comrades stood around me, the lot of us forming a semicircle upon each other, all of our faces visible save one (who stood leaned against his horizontal forearm, staring out the window and away from us.
It was a long silence. A deep, warm silence with no matter of uncomfortableness whatsoever, the sort entirely agreed upon by everyone involved to be a time for quite contemplation. No one made a hassle or a sound. We all took the time to breathe, to relax, to return to a calmer reality. I stared at the clean, wide carpet and occasionally glanced up to the others -- they did the same, but our eyes never met.
Evening was settling down outside, the twilight nestling onto the window and I imagined outside of it one might see the first stars of the night rising in the sky. We would not sleep tonight, that I knew. The day had been long, but our hearts had pumped too much today for any sleep. Part of me imagined that we would sit, much like this, straight through until the dawn.
And we stayed like that for quite some time, under the sweet blanket of a decided upon stillness, some collective consciousness taking a soothing pleasure in the idea that one was not alone in such a time of contemplation and introspection. It always was an encouraging thought to see the masses act in unison.
But in time, when the day had faded entirely, when the crickets began to sing outside, I sat upward and leaned forward, my elbows upon my knees and my head, which hung low, turned upward at the rest.
"I, for one," I spoke for the first time in hours, "will remember this as the day the fish took to the beaches." And a chorus of nods and mumbles replied in understanding. |
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