The Caterpillar's Wife

Mary crawled up the trunk of the maple tree, she was feeling very flustered today. Actually she felt flustered a lot of the time, but it wasn’t her fault, no, no. Her mother had told her there would come a time when she would feel ugly. At the time she couldn’t image being and feeling ugly at the same time, but the time had come. She felt slow and heavy; all she wanted to do was sleep and eat. It meant only one thing: the change was coming.

Soon her entire existence would be altered. Her lifestyle, the way her body looked and functioned would change, she would be able to fly. A daunting a thought as that might be she had thought there would be someone to support her. Someone to talk her through this tough time; that someone was Carl.

He had been charming and sweet…for the first five minutes.

Now he ate and slept just as much, nay, more than even she did!

She tried to speak to him about it, but he would always shush her. Last time, he said it was very crass of her to even speak of such things. Crass! Crass! They were married! Before she could come up with a descent argument, he had gone back to eating. Indignant; she left to go down to sulk and nibble on the remains of the leaves she and Carl had missed.

As Mary reached the leafy branch that she and Carl had been eating at for the past few days, she took a sip of some dew. Panting from exhaustion she forced her soar feet to crawl to the branch where she had last seen her husband.

“Carl!” she called, “are you still here?”

There was no reply.

Odd, she thought to herself. There were plenty of unfinished leaves and dew on these branches. She couldn’t think of why he would have moved on.

  Maybe he came looking for me, she thought dubiously. No most likely he got eaten by a bird; serves him right for eating out in the open. Oh, well, more for me.

  A few hours later she had just finished off a leaf and was out to find another one when something caught her eye. It was brown, and curled up. Surely it can’t be a leaf! She thought shocked. That would me she was late changing.

Crawling closer to the brown thing she realized it was a chrysalis.

“Carl! How could you!?” She squealed in anger, “of all the selfish things to do!” she scolded the Carl-sized cocoon. “You get to sleep while I’m stuck out here it’s so rude, it’s…it’s – cosmopolitan! That’s what it is! It’s so rude the world, knows it! You just wait until you wake up and I’ll give you a piece of my mind!”

A College Story

I never really liked Terrance. Sure, he was charismatic and funny, he didn’t have a bad head on his shoulders either. No, it wasn’t his light, light blue eyes that always made him look high that caused me my reaction to stay away of him. It was something beneath the mask of personality he wore. I can’t really describe it either. I just know that the one time I sat next to him in class, I felt dirty. I took a half hour shower the moment I got back to the dorm. He didn’t even touch me, if he had I would have probably have needed to set that part of my body on fire to get rid of the feeling, and to keep it from spreading.

So, I can’t say I was shocked...well, yes I was shocked; the act in itself is shocking. The fact that one human-being could do something like that to another human-being is shocking, the fact that it happened at our campus, makes it even harder to swallow…Swallow, what a phrase!

The fact of the matter is because it was Terrance is the only reason I believed the story the first time I heard it.

  He killed Ellen by forcing her to swallow drain cleaner.

The fall of the Vase

The vase sat upon its pedestal and coolly serveyed his neighbors, if he had been in the possession of a nose, I am sure he would have been looking down it, and occasionally would have given the occasional disdainful sniff. None of them were even worthy of being in his presents. The only one close to his high rank would be the long legged marble topped table he sat upon, but even he was not above rebuke, he had one leg that was shorter than the other three and had a tendency to tremble when someone with a heavy step walked past. The vase had found it prudent to rebuke the pedestal on several occasions about this flaw, yet the table had failed to do anything about it, with the feeble excise that he couldn’t do anything about it.

  The last day of the vase began like any other day, but then the earthquake began. The vase began to rock back and forth upon the table. Vase began to scream at the table to stay still but like always, the table excused himself by saying he couldn’t do anything. The case rocked at first very quickly and in short rocks, but it didn’t take long for the earthquake to gain momentum causing the vase rocks back and forth dilate until the ornament was thrown asunder and crashed to the floor, breaking into a thousand pieces; and so, ended the tyranny of the vase over the other item occupying the living room. No one mourned the vases violent death, with the exception of the pedestal. Despite the vases snootiness, the piece of furniture had grown quite fond of him.

  As time elapsed, the table became apprehensive when he wondered who would take the vase’s place. Would it be worthy to adorn his fine marble top? He grew so frantic by his fears that he fell over, his short leg having cause the other three to grow weak during the earthquake. In falling he too broke and the two most distinguished of the living room’s items went out with the trash that Friday.

Fairy Gardens

                This is a short story that I entered into the OC Fair, and I have received a letter in the mail requesting my presents at the Awards Ceremony to accept my award! (Happy scream!) My sewn apron also won. Today I also passed my Driving Test. I'm very pleased with myself today.

      ***

       The exhaust fumes floated up to Cynthia from the highway in a steady flow of hot stinking air, the fairy covered her mouth to stifle her cough. Most fairies didn’t go near the place, but she liked to watch the lights. She was flying about a thousand feet in the air when the feeling of her very soul being shredded came without warning. It was so over powering she froze and began to plummet to the Earth.

  Through the pain, Cynthia found her senses and forced her wings back open. Her eyes watered as her wings strained against the rushing air to slow her fall. Finding a light breeze, she used it to help her steer away from the deadly highway and towards some houses not too far from the road.

  Using the dim light from a street lamp, the fairy spotted the front yard of a house with long grass and she was maneuvering her way to it when she felt another rip inside her. The little fairy’s heart beat faster than her wings as she struggled to keep from crashing. Thankfully the grass acted as a net and kept her from being injured when she crash landed.

  Cynthia’s breathing was short and ragged as she lay still in the grass. She hadn’t felt this degree of agony in over three hundred years. It could mean only one thing, her garden was being destroyed. An equal dose of anger and fear filled her, giving her enough strength to stand and leap back into the air and fly to her garden.

  Cynthia’s garden was just down the street from where she had landed. She was able to keep down the pain of the garden’s destruction and concentrate on getting there. In just a few moments her garden was in sight, in reality it was just an abandoned property, but wherever there are growing plants: there is a fairy that guards and tends them. After the humans had left the house, the first thing she did was make it inaccessible by growing trees and bushes in front of the doors and windows to keep the local teenaged delinquents and realtors out.

  As she approached it, she could see one teenage boy throwing stones at the windows, hurting her bushes in the process. A boy and a girl were at the edge of the property, acting as scouts while they guzzled down some beers, throwing the empty cans to the ground. The worst of the worst was a boy who was swinging on the branch of her orange tree. There were two other branches on her tree that were hanging by mere splinters to the trunk. White hot rage filled Cynthia and she burst out of her fairy body and into her most powerful guardian form.

** *

 “What was that?” the one teen girl asked looking around.

  “What are you talkin’ ‘bout Kim?” Mark asked.

  “I thought I heard a fire cracker.”

  “I didn’t hear it,” the boy replied.

  “Hey Lawrence,” Bobby hooted, “Take it easy there.”

  Kim and Mark looked over to where Lawrence was swinging on the tree.

  “Boy, he sure found a good branch this time,” said the girl.

  “Yeah, I’ll say.” Mark replied. It was too dark for either of them to see the haze hovering over the base of the groaning branch.

* * *

Cynthia was making the branch more flexible, allowing the boy to swing farther and farther, without breaking it. Once she was sure the swinging boy had attained the undivided attention of his companions, in the peak of his next swing, she made some pointy twigs grow up beneath his hands. He let go with a yelp and was sent flying right into his stone throwing friend. They fell into a heap. Cynthia whizzed over and had some weeds grow over and around their legs, binding them to the ground. After their first attempts to get up failed, the two drinking came over to help them, leaving the six packs behind.

  Cynthia felt giddy; this couldn’t be going better if she had planned it. Floating over to all the beer, she used her will to create small holes in the bottom of the unopened cans. Once the rotten liquid leached out of the cans and into the soil, she gathered up the moisture and forced every drop through the ground and gather where the humans were still struggling with the weeds.

* * *

  “What the hell!” Kim exclaimed as she slipped and fell, landing her elbow in someone’s stomach and her face in the mud.

  “Watch it,” Lawrence shouted whose stomach she had hit.

  She spat out a mouthful of mud.

  “You look like a raccoon,” Bobby giggled till his face turned red. He’d taken a hit of acid before joining his friends so he could avoid sharing.

  Kim wiped her muddy hand across his face, but he still wouldn’t stop giggling.

  “What in the world,” she muttered as she spat out some more mud.

  “What is it?” Mark asked.

  “Get off of me,” Lawrence said trying to push her off.

  “The mud tastes like beer,” Kim replied rolling away from Lawrence.

  “I think you’ve had a few too many.”

* * *

* * * 

  “I swear you guys, I’ve opened only two beers and I haven’t even finished the second one yet,” Kim was saying as she led the others over to the drinks.

  “Yeah, right,” Lawrence said, rubbing his bruised arm.

  “Hey guys, what the heck,” Mark asked.

  “What?”   

  “These are all empty.”

  “That’s not possible,” Lawrence said.

  “Check it out for yourself,” Mark tossed him twelve cans bound together with one finger.

  “What are we going to do now?” Lawrence whined after he weighed the cans with one hand.

  “Go out and buy some more, dummy,” Bobby replied.

  “No, I’m calling it a night, this is getting too weird,” Kim said. She held up her keys. “If you guys don’t want to walk, pile in now.”

* * *

  Cynthia watched the humans make their way out of her garden, leaving their garbage behind. Her anger flared up again; had they learned nothing?

  Summoning up a wind, she sent all the cans flying, and the waste chased the teens out of her garden.

Another Writing Prompt

Here’s another writing prompt I got in High School “Right in the middle, the phone rang….” I remember that I was pressed for time, and this is what I came up with:

Frank and Jessica were having an argument when the phone rang. Neither wanted to answer it, they each had more that they wanted to say. The phone kept ringing until finally, Frank stepped up to the kitchen counter and picked up the receiver. It wasn’t for him thought, it wasn’t for Jessica either, it was a wrong number.

  Frank hang up even more frustrated than before, so they resumed their argument with a new vigor.

"How do you say that again?"

Tess tried to think of the English words to express what she meant. She had only been studying the language for three weeks. So, it made no sense to her why their teacher had decided to make her the guide for the American exchange student. Somehow Tess had made it through the day without completely embarrassing herself, now it was the end of the day and she couldn’t remember how to bid the American Adieu.

Oceanside Murder

  A body with several bullet wounds was found by Mr. Grayson on the morning off November 14 2009. After he discovered the body, he immediately called the police who arrived twenty minutes later. The body was removed from the site after the scene had thought to have been properly documented and recorded.

Mr. Grayson was questioned and allowed to leave. During the autopsy several finger prints were found on the body, and the police were able to make a positive identification three hours after the body was found and ten hours after the murder was estimated to have been committed. The victim was one Kent Portly, and local auto shop repairman.

  Five hours after the police found the finger prints, they matched one William Ferdinand, an ex-con and known friend of the victim. Ferdinand was arrested three days after the discovery of the body. Ferdinand admitted having met the deceased down at the beach the night before the body was found, and that they had an argument in which Ferdinand seized Portly, but according to Ferdinand, they did not exchange blows, nor did he kill Portly. He claims they had parted sometime after seven o’clock, still angry at each other, but Portly was still alive and very much in good health.  Ferdinand then claims to have returned home and remained there the rest of the night.

  Ferdinand was held on trial and found guilty of the murder, though he continued to deny it. He was sentenced to death six months after the murder. A case which seemed very straight forward, is now believed to be one of the biggest botch up jobs by law enforcement in the last eighty years, find out why, tonight at seven.

The Proposal

Kelton paced back and forth, his light elfin feet didn’t so much as bend any of the virid undergrowth. He was waiting for Yastley to meet him. Elfin folk of the West were always punctual, following the clock of the sun, Yastley however was of the East, and they tended to be a more free flowing people, saying that “they’d get there when they get there and if the appointment was important enough to make, than it was important enough to wait for everyone one (namely themselves) to show up.”
Yastley scampered into the small clearing, her long carrot colored hair streaming behind her. As she came to a gentle stop, the only thing that kept her long locks from falling around her face was the fact that it was tied in the back with two ties as was the way of the East.
“You wished to speak to me Kelton?” Yastley asked, not bothering with a salutation to get straight to the point.
Kelton resisted a small smile, Yastley was so much like the rest of her brand of elf in so many ways: her comparatively tall stature, red hair, almond shaped green eyes, abundant freckles, and a proneness for being tardy, but at the same time she was unlike them too. Her somber tone and face Kelton had never at anytime seen on any other Easterner. Her manor was abrupt in a way that could be taken as rude, regular Easterners are known for being overly hospitable. Most of all, Easterners were reputed with the ability to empathize with anyone at anytime, while Yastley became disgruntled and uncomfortable whenever anyone came to her with their emotional woes.
“Yes, I did,” Kelton replied, “I wanted to ask you something.”
“If you need advice on your love life, you’d be better off with a Northerner.” She said bluntly, her body language changed ever so subtly as she leaned away from Kelton, ready to leave. (Northern elves were all involved with their work, and were the least social of all the elves, rarely did they ever leave their beloved mountains for any gathering of any kind, even during times of trouble. They found the “soul searching” of the Easterners a complete waste of time. Suffice it to say the North and East never truly saw eye to eye, though the East never considered themselves to be any one’s foe, they merely looked upon the North as the estranged cousin who was difficult to understand.)
“I’m not here for advice,” Kelton said, he tried to swallow down his nervousness. His emotions had been twisting inside of him like a wild horse, refusing to be broken.
“Oh?” She inquired, her eyebrows raised a fraction of an inch; obviously his inner strife had made itself apparent across his face.
“Yes, I would like to court you Yastley,” it was utterly unromantic and must have been an embarrassment to the Romanics of the East, but his prepared speech which he had been reciting while he paced had left him the moment Yastley stepped into the clearing.
“This is highly irregular,” she said after a barely noticeable pause. In which her face had turned to what would have been the perfect poker face, if it weren’t for the slight darkening of the naturally pink color of her cheeks.
“Yes, I know,” he tried to rush into some sort of explanation, but lost the words in his hurry and she cut him off before he could begin again.
“We would need permission from both councils, and not to mention, you would need to approach my father, and invite me to meet your parents. This is so unusual a notion that we will have to do everything to protocol to avoid a scandal.”
Kelton couldn’t believe his ears.
“You mean to say,” Kelton said “that you are willing to entertain the idea of a courtship between…you and I?”
“Yes, of course, though I must say you went about it the wrong way.” Yastley said calmly, though her blush deepened.
“I thought there wasn’t a wrong way to begin to love,” Kelton replied, he was quoting the Eastern representative in the West court.
“Only fools who don’t mind their lives ending in tragedy and the more tragic the more romantic the tale. I have no intention of taking part in a relationship that will end in banishment, do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Now the first thing to do is for each of us to see our local councilman and get an approval, now you go to mine and I’ll go to yours, and don’t you dare leave until you get it in writing.” Yastley paused. “What are you waiting for, go.”
“Don’t I need to make an appointment?” Kelton asked.
“He’s an Easterner Kelton; you just need to find him.”
“Alright,” he turned to leave the clearing. This wasn’t going the way he had planned, but at least, she hadn’t said no.
“Oh, wait, I almost forgot.” She caught his sleeve as he walked by her. He turned and she put her arms around him and kissed him full on the mouth.
Clanging bells went off in Kelton’s head, and his ears were still ringing when the two of them parted.
“There, now my mother can stop worrying about me,” Yastley said, evidently proud of herself.
“What?” he asked confused.
“I’ve finally kissed a boy, now maybe she’ll let me get some peace and quiet. Bye-bye,” she said before running out of the clearing, “see you back here later.” She called over her shoulder before she vanished between the trees.
Kelton headed out of the clearing and towards Easterner’s home by the ocean. Once he cleared his head he started to laugh quietly to himself. If this was any sign on how the relationship was going to go, then he was glad he asked.

The House Cleaner

Heather’s knees clicked as she finally stood up, she had been on her knees for far too long as she polished the legs to the wooden furniture in the Willis’s house. In her eagerness to got off the floor, she stood up too quickly and got a head rush, or a freebee as her friend Cathy would say. Once the dots had faded she surveyed her work. The room was sparsely furnished, there were no pictures on the walls, and the mantelpiece was dedicated to the diplomas belonging to the master of the house. Heather knew that he had a wife and kids, but you wouldn’t know it looking at this room. It was too phony, too much like a picture in a magazine, even more so since she had just finished whipping away the dust that had gathered since she had cleaned it last week.
Heather gathered up all of her cleaning tools and placed them in their closet next to the laundry room. The brand new chrome washing machine and matching dryer sparkled without so much as a scratch or smudge on the surface. Heather knew from speaking with the housekeeper that neither of these machines was ever employed, since all of the Willis’s clothes were dry cleaned in town.
After she put all the cleaning items away, Heather used the backstairs up to the nursery where the nanny would be keeping an eye on the Willis kids and Heather’s check since the housekeeper was out.
Knocking discretely at the door Heather needed only to wait a few seconds before the disgruntled nanny stepped out of the room, check in hand; she did not invite Heather in, nor greet her in anyway. So Heather let her self-introduction awkwardly fade off as she took the check the nanny offered her before ducking her disheveled head back into the nursery in response to a loud thump and muffled yelp from within the nursery.
Heather checked the amount on the check, which was written out in perfect script with a fountain pen. She tromped down the stairs and out the backdoor as she exited the Stepford house she sighed with relief, some things were just too perfect to be true, she didn’t know what kind of a price Mr. Willis and his family had to pay everyday for their apparently perfect lives, but it had to be a dozy.

Test of Time

  Rupert started walking down the concrete, he didn’t have a destination. His girlfriend had just broken up with him, and he needed some time to himself to sort through his emotions. He felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. That’d be Eddie, no doubt the news had reached him by now and he’d want to hang out, then they’d grab some beers until Rupert couldn’t remember why he was so upset.

  He wasn’t quite ready for that step in the “getting over it” process. After his phone signaled that there was a new voice message, he took it out of his pocket and turned it off. As he continued to walk his shoe caught in one of the cracks and nearly fell to the ground, the phone wasn’t as lucky. He didn’t bother to pick up the pieces as he continued his walk.

He looked at the fissure in the sidewalk and wondered how long it would be before it too had grass growing through it like many of the other cracks in the sidewalk. He wondered if there was anything in this entire world that would stand the test of time. Little things might make it through, but, nothing is going to look the way it did right now.

  He supposed the Earth would still be here, even through concrete it had found a way to live. He guessed he could do that, struggle to live, and he’d win a little at a time.

Totem Poles

James stood on his tiptoes in order to see the third face on the totem pole. He liked this one the most, it depicted a face with round eyes and mouth with a bulbous nose, it reminded him of an English teacher he had back in junior high. Even back then, James had been known for his tenacious nature, it was this trait that got him to graduate a year early in high school, and wrap up a degree in Archeology in just under five semesters. Now here he was in the dense jungles of South America, fulfilling his dream of studying newly found tribal grounds that had long been deserted. The only things remaining were hundreds of totem poles; it was probably a religious sight. Many of these poles were remarkably preserved.

  There had been some minor setbacks, well major setbacks; several members of his team had gone missing since the team had arrived three days ago. This left James alone with two other members: Daphne and Tim, both of whom he had known for nearly two years now. This was longer than he had ever known anybody.

  “Professor East?” Tim asked, from behind him.

  “What is it now?” James asked, kneeling down to scribble some notes in his journal.

  “Have you seen Daphne?”

  “Do I look like I’ve seen Daphne?” James replied taking a few steps back to take a better look at the pole.

  “No, you look like you have you head shoved up your own ass.”

  “Excuse me?” James asked, looking up. Tim was a quiet person by nature, and not prone to out breaks.

  “Daphne is missing.”

  “How would you know that?” James asked.

  “Because I can’t find her.”

  “Exactly, you can’t find her, don’t let us jump to conclusions.” James made another note.

  “No, let’s just pretend everything is alright and that every member of this team isn’t disappearing without a trace.”

  “Nothing disappears ‘without a trace’ Tim, except in the moves.” James looked at him, “Honestly and you call yourself a scientist. ‘Without a trace,' indeed.”

Tim walked away in a huff.

  James shrugged and returned to his notes.

  Later that night James returned to camp and Tim was nowhere in sight.

  He must have returned to collecting water samples from the river. James thought. Good, that’ll calm his mind.

  Several hours went by and James finished making dinner and Tim did not return. James took out a flashlight and headed to river.

  “Tim!” James called out as he neared the river. “Are you close to a breakthrough on that mystery mineral in the water? Either way you’re going to have to call it a day: it is dinner time.”

  Silence.

  “Tim,” James pointed his flashlight beam up and down the bank there was no sight of his companion. Raising the light to look across the bank he saw a figure just beyond the opposite river bank.

  “Did you find something?” James asked, thinking it was Tim.

  When there wasn’t an answer, James guessed the noise of the river was drowning his voice. Finding a shallow place, he crossed the river. Upon approaching the figure, he found it wasn’t Tim, but another totem pole. Directing the light at the face that was at his height he thought it looked a lot like Daphne.   As the light shined higher and higher on the pole, to James’ horror, he realized that all of the faces resembled his fellow professors and scientists. When he brought the light back down to the very bottom face, which looked the newest, it looked precisely like Tim. James tried to scream but he couldn’t, open his mouth. He watched in terrified as the hand holding the flashlight turned, not into stone, but wood.

The Book I've been Reading

“Edgar Allan Poe Complete Tales and Poems” is what I’ve been reading lately. Another eighteenth birthday gift it contains 73 short stories and 48 poems. So far I’ve read four of the short stories so I’ve barely managed to scratch the surface, but I think it’s a must have: Edgar Allen Poe is a great writer and he writes on a variety of subjects, and has a vast vocabulary, it keeps me thinking and I do love it. So: “Edgar Allan Poe Complete Tales and Poems” not for the simpleminded or the bigheaded: you have to be selfless enough to go and pick up a dictionary.

Weekly Report

Well, this week has been pretty good in my writing world. I got back into the swing of things despite my little break to go up to Sacramento. I tried to look up some agents who are known for dealing specifically with collections of short stories for the purpose of sending out query letters for my “A Slice of Life Death” and found that there really isn’t anyone like that out there, the collections that generally get published are by authors who have already been established in the writing world, in other words, my chances of my first published book being either one of my short story collections are slim to none. However, that is still good to know, even if it’s not good news.
This week I decided to enter a short story into the Orange County Fair, so I put my short story “Fairy Gardens” through a fine-toothed comb, and I am now satisfied that it is as perfect as it can possible be, and it’s all printed out, all nice and pretty and ready to go. For safeties sake, I’m going to be bringing it to The Coffee House Writer’s Group, and see if they have any helpful suggestions.
I’m still editing away at my novel “Survival” and have boosted up the number of chapters. I haven’t been adding information; I’ve just been splitting up the longer chapters up. The last time I blogged, for those of you out there who are keeping track (yea, I should be so lucky to have people that interested in my writing passion) I last said that I had about forty-one chapters, well, now I have forty-six. This might not sound like much of a change, but I’m happy. For some reason, even though I know nothing about the story has actually changed, just the bigger number makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something. Call me silly. I know I am!

The Fence

Rachel stood back to examine the picket fence her brother-in-law was building for her. She could see that it was crooked yet, when she tried to tell him so, he just said that getting it straight would be the last thing he did before he painted it. She had shaken her head and said that’s not the way it works, only to be promptly told that she was not the one who did this for a living and should not expect to know anything about it. Rachel had remained silent and went inside. From that point on she was verbally slapped every time she saw her brother-in-law or her sister. If she asked them how their day was, they would reply fine, but they were dealing with some clients who thought they knew everything about building and kept telling them how to do things when they clearly had no idea what they were talking about; or how much they resented the “know it all types”.  

  Rachel bore it all in silence. She couldn’t think of what to say or do. The fence was finally done being built, all that was left to do was paint it and the entire structure was very lopsided. If she brought up how crooked it was, she risked getting another verbal lashing, but if she said nothing, would it ever be fixed? If she hired someone else, her sister and brother-in-law would both be offended and she would never hear the end of it. Every family gathering will be brought around to her failure to help out her family during this tough time in the economy. None of these scenarios were acceptable, so she decided the best thing she could do was pick the most livable of all the evils; and she knew she could not live with that lousy fence.

  Picking up the phone she called a professional fence builder and had him out there that afternoon and he gave her an estimate to fix it. The price wasn’t too bad, so she told him to get to work on it as soon as he could. Once that was scheduled in she felt a tingle of apprehension. How should she tell her brother-in-law? She decided that sooner rather than later was better. Ever since he started building, he had been very unprofessional about his working hours. He just showed up every once in a while, put a few posts in, or nailed a couple of boards then left. Making it abundantly clear to Rachel that her fence was far down on his priority list. She never knew when he’d show up, he could literally drive up any minute now, and then she’d have to take his bawling on how inconsiderate she was not to call him to say she hired someone else, and he had driven with all the stuff up here just for her.
  Snatching up the phone she quickly dialed his cell phone. She, of course got his message machine (did that man ever pick up the phone?) Leaving a message she hung up and dialed her sister, Rachel thought she might be over doing it a little, but she would just feel better once she talked to one of them, she got the feeling that her sister and brother-in-law didn’t listen to her messages on purpose.
  Thankfully Helen picked up.
  “Hello?”
  “Hi Helen, this is Rachel.”
  “Oh, I was expecting someone else.” Helen replied, not bothering to hide her impatience.
 “Then I’ll make it brief, I’m having some people from the office come over for lunch next week – “
  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly come over; my husband and I are booked every day for the next two weeks.”
  “Well, that’s not really why I called.” Rachel said carefully, she felt as if she were walking of hot coals. “I know how busy you are, and I just wanted to let you know that I’ve hired someone else to finish up my fence, because I really would like it to be finished in time for this lunch – “
  “If you had let us know sooner, we could have rescheduled.” Helen said in false sweetness.
  “It was kind of a last minute thing,” Rachel said carefully.
  “Well, I think we could come over and finish it if it’s really that important.” Helen replied, backpedaling.
  “Oh, no you don’t have to do that – “
  “What are sisters for?”
  “You see I’ve already hired someone else, and they have me scheduled in,” Rachel explained.
  There was a pause.
  “Tell your hubby to call me back so I can send you guys a check, ‘kay?” Rachel asked, trying to sound cheerful.
  “Talk to you later,” Helen said coolly.
  “Okay, see you, bye.”
  Helen hung up.
  Rachel hung up with a grimace, she had the feeling she had just released the dragon.
  However, to her surprise, when she talked to her brother-in-law he sounded downright relieved to be let out of the making of the fence. He said the work had been beneath him anyways, and he wished Rachel the best of luck with the next crew, though they couldn’t possibly measure up to himself ,they were going to have to do. She said she hoped they would too and wished him a good day.
  After she hung up, Rachel wondered how two people with C grade averages could have such big egos.             

Inspiration (Story)

The artist stared at the blank canvas as she had been for the past hour. Occasionally she would pick up one of her brushes, and then would debate what paint jar to dip it into. Then deciding she didn’t wasn’t the brush she had first chosen, she fumbled in her helter skelter pile of brushes before choosing one more to her liking. Picking up a jar of the lightest grey with determination, she dipped in only the very tip of her brush. Then gazing at the canvas again, decided to apply a little more paint to the brush. After all of this fuss, she returned to her prior employment of staring at the canvas with not so much of a whisper of an idea of who or what image to begin to create on the empty canvas.
So many possibilities, the canvas was the empty universe, and she was god, she could do anything, create anything she wished. She had the instruments, the power, and yet she could not bring herself to think of anything worth taking the time to create. To have all the power and being unable to come up with a subject was quite the conundrum. It would have been comical, if it weren’t so frustration.
What she needed was the first building block to begin laying the foundation of creativity and that was inspiration. Inspiration could come in so many forms, she knew this, and yet she came up with nothing. The numerous subjects for the painting, and the endless ways of getting an idea for the painting are so plentiful, that it seemed impossible that there should be a lack of an idea. Yet, here she was with nothing.
An empty canvas, making her the artist: a failure.

Catherine Griffith

Amentia: A-m-e-n-t-i-a. Catherine wrote out the final word on her spelling list which she would take home and study. It was an interesting looking word: she had no idea what it meant though.
Her teacher, Ms. Hoper’s, never taught them what the words meant; she just concentrated on getting her students to pass the test, nothing more. If they passed the test then forgot all the word the next week, it was okay with her. It didn’t reflect on her work at all.
Catherine finished writing the word, then slipping her hand into her desk and felt around for her thesaurus. Finding it she quietly pulled it out, she didn’t want to disturb the rest of the class, who had not finished their lists yet.
Thumbing through the worn book, she found amentia. It said the synonyms were mental defect, and mental retardation.
She couldn’t resist a smile. She could use the word amentia as an insult towards someone and they’d probably have no idea what it meant, and thereby prove her point.
An involuntary giggle escaped Catherine’s throat which did not go unnoticed by Ms. Hoper.
“Would you mind sharing with use what is so funny Miss Griffith?”
“Hmm,” the girl looked up.
Humpbacked Ms. Hoper limped towards the girl, her cane making a loud click on the tiled floor, followed by the soft shuffling sound of her tan leather shoes.
“What is it that is so amusing that you find it necessary to ignore your spelling in order to enjoy it?”
“But, I’m done with my spelling words, I was just-
“Then you should have sat still until the rest of the class was finished as well.”
“But-
“‘But’ nothing,” the teacher snatched away the Thesaurus without even looking to see what it was. “You will sit still, hands folded on your desk, facing straight ahead until the end of the lesson. Then you will remain in class for the next recess for your disrespectfulness.”
“Aren’t you behaving rather like someone with amentia?” Catherine ventured. “You don’t even know what I was doing.”
“For speaking in class, you will have lunch here as well.”
Catherine suppressed another giggle. That old troll clearly didn’t know what she had said: otherwise she would have been in a lot more trouble than staying in class for lunch.

A Bad Day at the Pet Store

Hanna gazed into the cube shaped fish tank. The dull looking fish with the unpronounceable name stared at her with its huge eyes with pupils as large as their stomach, or at least, according to the tour guide. The guide led Hanna and her group away from the tanks and into the furry animal section of the store. It was about time, he had started out with the snakes and tarantulas, which were things to be eradicated in her opinion, not kept as pets. By the look the guide, Chad, had on his face as he passed the slithering things around for Hanna’s classmates to hold (she had refused to take one) he had a different opinion. He talked like they were the greatest pets ever.


Fish came next, boring combined with high maintenance Hanna had said when the guide had asked what she thought of them; she hadn’t made it a secret that she didn’t like reptiles and bugs.

She cheered up as they made their way out of the fish section; leaving the stink of filthy tanks only to be replaced by another unpleasant smell.

“Mink,” the guide said as he proudly pointed them out to her.

“Rodents with silky pelts,” Hanna said covering her mouth as she headed out of the section. “At least I know not to work at a pet store,” she said passing the teacher. “I’d throw my chips if I had to smell all of this all day.”

“Shh,” the teacher snapped.

“What do you like then?” another student asked.

“Dogs, cats, you know, real pets.” Hanna fought back a cough.

She got some muttered agreements from other classmates.

“Unfortunately, our dogs and cat section in closed and the animals have been relocated to another store until the remodeling is done.” The guide said for the whole class to hear.

Hanna didn’t need to voice her disappointment her peers did it for her. She closed her eyes, like that was going to help her churning stomach.

She began to reflect on the day and wondered how else a trip to the pet store could go wrong, even if she puked.

That’s when she felt something hit her head.

“Eww!” her classmates squealed.

She reached up without thinking and her peers screamed louder as she looked as her hand to find it covered in bird poop.

She felt her teacher tug on her arm. Through the roaring in her ears Hanna heard the guide giving directions to the bathrooms.

Once they got there, Hanna bent over the sink without being asked and she felt the freezing water hit her scalp and it almost made her jump. Then she felt something crawl over her sandal and she did jump and she banged her head on the faucet.

“What was that,” Hanna asked pulling away from her teacher. Looking on the floor and clutching her throbbing head,she saw a scuttling lizard just as it ducked behind a stall door.

“Where did all these animals come from,” Hanna said backing away from the thing.

“We’re in a pet store, where do you think they came from?” The teacher retorted.

“They’re supposed to be in cages, not flying and crawling everywhere,” Hanna said not calming down.

“Sometimes they get loose. Now get your head back under the water, or we’ll miss the rest of the tour.”

“How did they get loose?” Hanna asked as she leaned back over again.

“I’m sure they didn’t plan it Hanna,” the teacher started to scrub.

“Just like I didn’t plan to get pooped on, don’t scrub so hard!” Hanna said through gritted teeth.

“Toughen up already.”

Hanna held her tongue, she wanted to think that this day couldn’t get any worse, but she didn’t want it to start raining in the bathroom.

Lovy's Writing Prompt

The last two Short Stories I’ve written “The Lion” and “Maggie Stuart” were based off of some writing prompts a fellow writer came up with (if you’re reading this Lovy, they’re fabulous and I hope you’re feeling much better). If anyone wants to read some of her stuff her blog is Lovy Boheme here's a link: http://lovyboheme.blogspot.com/

One prompt was “You take one last gasp, mutter an apology and pulled the fire alarm at the mall” I used that in “Maggie Stuart” which at the time had no titled. I began by wondering what would push me to pull the fire alarm at the shopping mall, not a dare or prank; it would take something like, what the fire alarm is supposed to be used for: an emergency. Thinking of exciting scenarios I picked, I confess the easiest for me to write about, then ran with it and I got the story which would eventually be titled “Maggie Stuart”.

The Second prompt had something close to this “When I first took the picture I didn’t realize it might cost me my life” I know that’s not it, but you get the general idea. I kept the danger in the situation but let the main character, a passionate photographer, feel perfectly at ease in the situation, transferring the feeling of safety to the reader, who may very well be terrified of lions, and no one dies.

It still amazes me how a story can be developed from only a sentence or phrase.

Maggie Stuart

Maggie’s heart beat faster than the cycles her wheels made on the concrete as she sped through the parking lot of the shopping mall where her mom worked. She zigzagged through cars as an insane speed before she finally reached the front doors. She needed to get there before the bomb went off.
Her friends had told her not to piss off the drug lord, but she hadn’t seen another way to keep her boyfriend alive. Now she wished she hadn’t interfered.
The heads up about the bomb had come fifteen minutes ago from the lord himself. He called it his “final warning” – the “last scare” before he went for everything she has ever cared about until she begged for death, or took her own life, or ran.
Her car wheels screamed as she slammed on the brakes right in front of the mall doors. She’d get away in her mom’s car. They wouldn’t even go home, they’d just run. Grabbing her purse with the plane tickets, Maggie ran into the building.
Her sneakers squeaked on the waxed floor as she brought herself to an abrupt halt to check her watch, five minutes, there was no way she would get to security to warn them in time.
She whipped her head around, trying to find a solution to the problem.
An eternity wrapped up in a moment went by before she spotted it: the little red box. Rushing over she broke the protective covering with her elbow.
Maggie gasped from the pain. That probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do. Everything she did the past week was stupid come to think of it. But she had to do this. Taking one last gap she mumbled an apology and pulled the fire alarm at the shopping mall.

The Lion

Agnes cautiously approached the sleeping lions. The African sun beat down on her as she raised her camera. Others would have used the camera’s zoom from a safe distance, but the picture quality was never very good, and she wasn’t afraid of the lions.
The gathering of beasts were lying beneath the shadows of a small group of trees. They were all aware of Agnes’s presence and they weren’t concerned at all. She was obviously alone, having left her jeep a good fifty feet away and her baggy t-shirt made it more than a little clear that she wouldn’t be any kind of a good meal, humans didn’t taste very good anyways.
Finding the perfect angle she started taking pictures.
One lion yawned.
“Oh perfect,” she whispered snapping away.The true essence of the lion during the day: a sleepy fur ball with a mouthful of teeth.
The sun was beginning to set when she was done, drawing her hand across her sweating forehead she unclasped the water bottle off her leather belt and took a long drink.
Taking one last look at the pride, she raised her bottle in a salute.
“Thanks a lot my friends.” She took another swig.
Slinging her camera over her shoulder she headed back to the jeep, satisfied with her days work.