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!

Thursday Therapy

  Sometimes you just need to go out and blow stuff up...like these guys did! But only under professional supervision of course! Play safely and have fun!

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.