Posts Tagged With: Fiction

NaNoWriMo: The Week 2 Blues

Posted on November 12, 2014 by caseykins

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The latest pep talk for Nanowrimo is not what I needed right now. And I need a pep talk. I’m feeling the week 2 blues set in. I was so excited to see that they had one up on the website, and I’m sure it helped someone move forward amidst some writers block. The thing about Nano, though, is that I don’t usually get writers block. I get writers block when I am worried that everything I’m writing is crap and won’t fit the tone of the rest of the novel. I get writers block when I don’t know how to write a scene and I desperately need it to work. In short, I only get blocked when there are stakes.

There are no stakes in Nanowrimo. There aren’t. However much you’d like to believe that you’re the next Hemmingway, I will have you know that your current novel is not up to those standards (that’s what editing is for). You should also know that’s a GREAT thing. It means your next line of prose doesn’t have to be genius. You also never have to show your novel to anyone, ever. All the “her troubles melted into the fondue pot of life”s and “their eyes met across the crowded room and stuff”s, all those horrible clichés, and the twelve adjectives you used to describe each thing; all of those are between you and the blank piece of paper. The blank piece of paper isn’t talking. There are no stakes

For me this time, there is only the realization that I hate these people a little bit. I don’t know why I decided to spend a month with them. He’s too nice. And why does he cry when she leaves? She’s going to help her country. He shouldn’t cry, he should be angry that she won’t listen to reason. Only he isn’t angry. He’s this warm, supportive, wishy-washy guy. And then there’s her, and she is such a reluctant revolutionary. She’s supposed to like excitement. The baby is supposed to be more than a glorified purse that she carries around and has to make sure she doesn’t leave at restaurants. The leader of the resistance is supposed to be the one that’s reluctant, but he seems ever gleeful to send everyone to their death.   At least Dad seems to be the asshole he’s supposed to be.

I know. It’s week two and we all feel this way. Every year I’m ready for it and make fun of the week 2 slump. But I’m always surprised by how genuinely I hate my novel. This isn’t “ha, ha. I’m over the thrill of week one.” This is honest loathing. I’ll get over it. I’ll feel proud of myself by the end of week 3. But how to charge forward through week 2?

I don’t know any way to do it except to put my butt in the chair and do some uninspired driveling. So that’s what I’m doing.

But I sure could use a good pep-talk right about now. Perhaps I’ll read Neil Gaiman’s (again) for the 1000th time. Or perhaps I’ll take my inspiration from Shannon Hale, who said that if engineers can land a probe on a comet, surely I can do something so simple as meet my word count goal…

Categories: Life, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fairy Tale

Posted on July 21, 2014 by caseykins

This story is on my Clarion website, (go to http://clarionwriteathon.org/members/profile.php, and click “Show/Hide excerpts at the bottom) but I liked it so much that I had to share here as well. It’s a fairy tale from Kwedregiol, the place where my first novel happens.

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Once there was, and once there wasn’t. In the long-distant days of yore, when haystacks winnowed sieves, when pixies played stickball on the cliffs of the Elums, and when I softly rocked my baby grandmother to sleep in her creaking cradle, a man walked the earth. He was a tall man, sleek and muscular, his frame rose bigger than a market stall and glistened golden like a bonfire. The people of the mountains called him Michegua, for he had no name of his own.

Michegua was a wise man. Michegua was a forgiving man. Michegua was a generous man. He gave the people of the mountains many things. First, he gave them the rising sun so their crops would grow hearty and hale. Next, he gave them fire to cook their meat and to give them safety from animals in the darkness. Third, he gave them laws.

Can you recite them with me? The five laws of Michegua? They bind us all, and so we must know them. Here, begin: Do not kill for aught but sustenance. Do not lie and do not steal. Rest one day, of the week to reflect on your blessings. Honor your betters. Strive in all ways to treat others as you would be treated.

Because of the great gifts of Michegua, the people came away from the mountains. They settled in green valleys beneath blue skies. They tilled the fields until the earth turned golden, tassels of corn waving in the wind. They settled by the sea and let the ocean breezes whip their skin into ruddy health. They became the people of the earth.

Only a few of the people stayed in the craggy, gray mountains, because they revered the place where Michegua had come first. For them, Michegua gave a trail of bright blue gentians. The little flowers dappled the mountain sides. This was so the people of the mountains did not miss the sea, for they had deepest blue growing on the hills. This was so the people of the mountains did not miss the waving corn, for the blossoms would wave in the wind. This was so the people of the mountains would always remember that they were the faithful who loved Michegua and the old ways the most.

Michegua stayed among the people for many years, but it came to pass that he had to leave them. In this time when fleas were barbers, and mountain goats were town criers, the people had a custom. They would give a gift to each stranger who came among them. Michegua was not a stranger anymore, but he was also not the same as the people of the earth. He was too tall and too golden. What could they give this splendid man who had already given them so much?

The oldest spoke first. “We will give him our worship,” he said. “We will make a God of him, that we never forget what he has done for us, though all the ages of the world pass by and those who are here have perished.”

The council nodded, and granted that gift.

The youngest spoke next. “We will give him increase,” he said. “We will spread across this world and thrive, because we have followed his teachings well. And everywhere on earth there will be people who know his name.”

The council nodded, and granted that gift.

The wisest spoke last. “We will give him a bride,” he said. “He will choose a woman from every generation. He shall mark her, and she shall be his. This way, he will come back to us one day.”

The council nodded, and granted that gift.

When Michegua heard of these gifts he saw that they were as great as the things he had given them, and he was touched. He called all the people together, the people of the earth, the people of the sea, the people of the mountains, so he could bid them goodbye. They met at the base of the mountains, where the sea and the land and the cliffs came together as one, the place called Kwedregiol. Michegua seemed taller that day than he had been when he lived among them. His skin flickered golden like the flames in the campfire. He took a deep breath, and shining white wings unfurled from his back.

“So you shall know me,” he said, “and also know my bride, by the wings on our backs and the love in our hearts that we both feel for you. People of the earth, go forth in my name and thrive. Multiply yourselves upon this place tenfold.”

His words echoed from the cliff face, and the people watched as he beat his wings upon the air and rose into the heavens. The wind from the down stroke of his wings brushed them all like a kiss across their cheeks. That was his parting.

The people made a white city on the place called Kwedregiol, carving it out of the land and the rocks, and in it they put the woman with the mark of wings on her body. There she waited, the bride of Michegua, for him to come back some distant day.

And as his bride was waiting, three apples fell from the sky; one for our story’s heroes, one for the person who told their tale, and one for those who listened and promise to share.

Categories: Fairy Tales, Fiction | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

The Sea

Posted on June 20, 2014 by caseykins

Originally part of a collection of short stories, A Blatantly False History of the World, But Mostly America.

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“Make your way to the sea,” He said. “There, we can hire ships to take us back to our homelands.” He whispered it to us in the darkness, when we had stopped toiling in the streets and in the house, serving the Romans for the day. We returned to our hovels under their vast, gilded courtyards and listened to His breath in our sleep. We dreamed.  In our dreams walked the Gods of our homelands, of the green country of our birth. We listened to His words, seeping into the heart of us, and remembered.

There were houses in the north, dug into the ground for warmth during the harsh winters. Thatch stood up from the earth like tiny hills. Snow covered the ground as the seasons turned, and those living there would press together to share heat. It was companionable, looking out the door as the snow swirled, knowing that it could not take your life as long as you were with these others. We told stories there in the cold; of the magic of the moon and the restlessness of the dead.  And then the Romans came, and there were no others, but only strangers.

Not all of us listened to His voice in the darkness. Not all of us felt His words pierce our ears with longing. Some of us were snatched from our homelands so long ago that the white marble of Rome was the only place we knew. It was tempting to stay, to try for the chance to become free again, given the ultimate gift for loyalty. But that kind of freedom was at the whim of the master. The kind He was whispering to us was something we didn’t have to rely on others to provide. It was something we would gain for ourselves. And so we left with Him. At first, we were just a small band of rebels on the outskirts of the town, living in the green hills peopled with boulders. They left us alone, and like bread dough, we rose. By the time our edges seeped from the hills, we were too big and scattered for them to bother with. This is what He told us.

He told us that the sea would be our life. If we could only get to the southern shore, we could pay the Cossacks to take us to freedom. They were no friend to the Romans, and they would help us. For enough money, they would do as we asked. This is what He told us.

The hills were very green, deep and lush. Small white flowers grew in patches, even up to the heels of the boulders. We hoisted our swords and watched them shine in the sunlight, new on the horizon. It had been ages since we felt the ungiving haft of steel, cold in our palms. We walked toward the sea. We felt the blades of grass brush our toes inside our sandals, scattering dew between our toes. We felt the rough cloth blow across our shoulders as we walked across the land. The sky was vivid blue and it stretched for days and into the future.

The hills changed. They became fields of wheat as we walked, golden to the horizon. Trees broke the line of waving grass in clumps. Sometimes, a cypress pointed to the sun above us as we strode by its shedding trunk. Once, we walked by a farm house. It was abandoned in the red sunlight, but a little dog barked in the distance. Some wanted to catch the dog; to taste the savor of dripping meat. Wheat is not always the best for a marching stomach. He convinced them we didn’t have the time.

We must always press forward toward the ocean. It is salt like our tears. It is salt like the sweat we shed for the comfort of the Roman masters, or for the life of our family in another existence far away. The ocean shall be our savior, and it shall return us to those we love.

The wheat became hills again, like a song that repeats itself. The trees stayed, to shelter the boulders and the little white flowers beneath. A hawk wheeled above our heads, dark checkered wings on the blue sky, blocking the sun as it flew past. It dipped to the green grass and pulled a mouse from the earth, tail twirling as it rose to the sky.

He said we were getting close. We wondered if the hawk could see it, so much farther could it see from its height. We remembered the ocean being vast and terrible. Sometimes it was a deep, swallowing, glassy blue. It was calm and deceptive when it looked like that, biding its time and lulling its prey into a false trust. It was black when it raged, froth shuddering over the timber frame of the ship. This is how it turned, mild to murderer in a swoop of cloud, a weeping of the heavens.

We were not at the end of the song. The ground changed again, and we could hear the rushing of the sea in our dreams from where we slept. It whispered to us in the darkness a faint crash-hush. Vast beaches spread sand before us, tan and glistening in the sunlight. The ocean was aggressive only in the way it beat its fists across the shore as we beat our fists against our masters. Gulls flew above, riding the wind in clumps. The wet breeze clung to our clothes and skin, making even our hair feel sticky with salt. We licked the brine from our lips and felt the spring stirring in our bones, the great rebirth.

Three days, we camped by the ocean. Three days, the wind blew salt into our being. On the third day, a messenger came.  It was not a good omen. A rumor went around the camp. The Romans were not happy they had no one to wait at their table. We were pinned on the coast now, nowhere to escape. The army of Rome, glistening gold helmets, red manes dripping from the gold like entrails; the army of Rome was on the march. No Cossacks would come to our rescue and give us passage across the sea to our homeland. Rome had paid them not to.

He was the first to flee, our fearless leader, the one who whispered no longer. He would go back to the hillsides, to the cave we had lived in before, He said. It would just be temporary until we could try again. We scattered to the winds. But like a blown dandelion, there is a center that is not subject to the will of breath. I am that center.

There are a handful that join me; those with ballast. Sleeping by the sea made me remember many things, and this is the tale I remembered most.

It is terrible to perish at sea not because of death. Those that fall into the foamy waves do not die. The God of The Sea is too greedy for that. Whole ships are swallowed by the blackness, and they sail beneath the waves. Seafarers make weedy sails from kelp, and skim the depths for eternity. The eyes painted on the side of their ship shine like the sun in the darkness. The God of The Sea is waiting until they are enough. When he has an army, he will send them against the God of The Land, and he will be the God of Everything. Until then, they decompose in the deep.

And with that memory, fresh and clean, came another from my childhood. They had married in my mind while I worked in this land, and while I walked across it. It was of my grandmother.

She smelled of mint as she bent over me and kissed me goodnight. “I have had a premonition of you, Geric,” she told me. “It was not good. It was full of water and darkness, and you were far from home. I will tell you a story tonight and some day you will need it. You will forget this moment until you need it, but store it away for the time when winter becomes spring. It is important.”

She told me of the Sea God, and also of how the dead cannot always die. “You can turn them to your will, if you are strong enough. You can turn them to your will for a little while, and for longer if they like your cause and agree to help you.”

This was the way: I needed a bone, even from an animal, but a real bone it must be; something that was part of the living but was now stripped of muscle and sinew, of everything that made it what it was. There was a rune to carve into the shaft of the bone. It must be exact, not a twirl or hatch out of place. If the bone was perfect, and the rune was perfect, the spell could take place. Take land from where the heels of the fallen walked. Mingle it with the living saliva from your body. Say the name of the rune out loud. Shout the name to the stars, and if they bless the bone with their light they have blessed you with control. As long as you wear the bone, you will be safe. As long as you wear the bone, you can command them. They will listen for a time before the sound of eternity echoes again in their ears and they will leave you.

It would be hard to do by the sea. The men I wanted to call did not walk upon the ground, and so I could not mingle my spit with the earth. The rune was a vague memory in my mind. The smell of mint echoed through the ages. I would remember, I whispered to my grandmother in the dark. I will remember like you told me to. There were a dozen or so like me who had not given up, who were still camping by the sea. For my homeland and their homeland, I wanted to try. I could not bear to go back and give up, of another day living in the hills and waiting to rise. I could not bear the thought of crucifixion if the Roman army found me here.

I did as my grandmother told me. Instead of earth, I mixed my saliva with the sea. When the moon was high overhead, I lifted the bone. I screamed the name of the rune to the sky. The other slaves, the few of them who were left, clustered at my feet and they, too, screamed the word to the sky. The ocean crashed between my words, and their words met mine.  I told the stars my anguish and ordered the bone to live. As I screamed, a bolt of light came from the sky. It burned the flesh off my fingers, and made the rune shine. The blood from my open wounds dripped into the sand at my feet.

It was cold the next morning, and a gray fog obscured the horizon. Drops fell on the sand, making divots in the dirt, pattering around me. The others stirred in their sleep.  I went to the ocean and the others followed me. The lips of foam pounded across my knees. I took hands with the others. I held the bone aloft, as I had last night. I held it out to the sea, to the gray sky, to the blue depths.

“I need to get home,” I yelled into the rain. The mist swallowed the sound. I waited. The surf seethed in and out. The rain pelted across my shoulders, growing with intensity.  I was drenched, dripping.

The ocean began to churn, out where the sea met the fog. It turned black, and a whirlpool formed from the chaos, whipping and turning in the deep. I could feel it from the shore, pulling my legs toward it, just as the earth pulled my feet to its own breast.

A flurry of weeds flew from the whirlpool.  A mast emerged. With a sucking sound and a pop that shook the horizon, a black ship rose from the depths. The hull was covered with barnacles and slime. In some places it was black as pitch, glossy and slick. In others it was a furry green. Tendrils of seaweed dripped from the deck. The painted eyes on the side of the bow gleamed white, new as the day the ship was christened. Seaweed trailed from the masts. As we watched, a group of things, brown and upright, tossed a small boat overboard. They rowed for the shore. They came to bring me home. I stood together with the others on the shore, lined up shoulder to shoulder, and felt the waves crash over my sandals.

My hand throbbed with pain where the lightning left it raw. Tears dripped over my face as I watched the small boat row towards the shore. I thought of my grandmother, the smell of mint, the thatched huts of my homeland.

Categories: Fiction, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Noir

Posted on January 6, 2014 by caseykins

Posting more fiction, because why not?  Also a candidate for inclusion in the Grad portfolio, but who knows.

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White Envelope:

He was waiting outside for me in a pool of streetlight as I walked out of the Times building: a tall drink of water in a pinstriped suit, fedora perched cockeyed across his forehead.  He stepped out of the light toward me.  The pool of yellow slid off his shoulders like water, and I felt that there was something so familiar about this man.

“You’re Joyce Cummings,” he said.

“I’m tired, is what I am,” I said.  I tucked my purse under my shoulder, pulled on my gloves and tried not to feel the weariness of the press conference this morning; the mayor in behind the podium, teetering in the heat until he collapsed on the stage.  The feedback of the microphone as it fell.  The frantic hours afterward on the phone to the hospital, begging for news.

“Well I’m Glenn Baker, and I’m a fan.” He stuck out his hand, “The work you did on the ‘32 Summer Olympics was art.”

I placed my gloved hand in his, and we shook.  “Thank you very much,” I said, and smiled.

“Let me take you for a drink?” he asked.

I tipped my head back to look at him and realized that, even in heels, the top of my curled coif only came to his chin.  His eyes were deep as a glass of whiskey, and the pinstripes of his pants hugged him well.

“Why don’t you take me out for a drink,” I said. Maybe if he hadn’t had that Hollywood smile I wouldn’t have said it.

“I know a place just down the street from here.”

“Then lead the way, Mr. Baker.”

The sign out front said The Florentine, and it was swanky inside.  A bar full of glass bottles lined the left wall and tiny, leather booths the right.  Chandeliers hung over each table, their light reflected in the mirrored walls behind them.  Gold drapes swished over every door, and clouds of cigarette smoke billowed. The place was packed with men in suits. A few women in tight dresses and too much makeup speckled the crowd, giggling over their drinks.  In the dim light, a jazz combo began to play something slow.

“I’m underdressed,” I said over the noise, looking down at my brown tweed skirt.

“You’re perfect,” he said.  “There’s a table in the back, follow me.”

We picked our way through the crowd to a booth in the corner.  It was quieter there.  I tucked my purse and hat next to my feet.  When I looked up, a girl in a low cut cocktail dress appeared at the edge of our table.

“What can I get you, Mr. – ” she said.

“– I’ll have a Gibson,” he broke in, “and the lady will have…”

“The lady will have the same,” I said.

Baker raised his eyebrow.

“I’ve been tossing them back with the newspaper boys for longer than you’d imagine,” I said.  “I’m used to being the only skirt in a room full of pants.  Now let’s cut to it.  Why did you really ask me out tonight?”

“I told you, I’m a fan,” he said.

I shook my head. “Nobody’s just a fan.  Maybe you liked my picture too.  Or maybe you think I have information about something and you want it.  Sure, you’re a fan.  But regular fans don’t show up at the office and ask to take a girl out.”

“So I’m not a regular fan,” he said.

“Then what kind of a fan are you?”

“The needy kind, I guess.” He rubbed the back of his neck.  “Listen, Miss Cummings, you’re right.  I like your work, but I’m also in trouble.  You seemed like the kind of woman who would be willing to help a guy.”

“I’m better at getting myself into trouble than getting others out of it,” I said.

“Look, I didn’t want to do things this way.  Let’s have a nice night, and then you can come back to my place and I’ll explain it all.”

I looked at the concerned crease between his eyes, and at his broad shoulders.  I leaned forward.  “I believe the standard currency for coming back to your place is dinner and a movie.  We can have a nice night, but you’d better tell me here.”

“I didn’t mean…” he said.

“Of course you didn’t, you just weren’t thinking.” I put my hand on his.  “Listen, don’t worry Mr. Baker.  Just tell me, what is it you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know.  I guess let’s talk about you.”

I laughed “I’m not very interesting I’m afraid.  Been wedded to work for years.  I don’t do anything unless there’s a story involved. Men don’t like that very much, so I assume you’re the same.”

“Where did you grow up?” he asked.

“Boring little town thirty miles east of here.  Nothing but orange groves and packing houses for miles,” I said.  “I left as soon as I could, and there’s no story there.  New subject.  Where did you grow up?”

“I guess I’d rather not talk about it,” he said.

The waitress arrived with our drinks.  She placed two martini glasses on the table, and winked at Baker. “You all just let me know if you need anything else!” she said as she turned on her heels and disappeared back into the crowd.

“Look Mr. Baker,” I said, “It’s loud in here.  The sooner you tell me what’s on your mind, the sooner you can stop worrying.  No one will overhear in this din.”

Baker grasped the base of his glass twice, and then raised it to his lips and drank.  The glass wobbled as he set it back on the table.  “I hardly know where to start,” he said.

“Wherever you’d like,” I replied.  The sweet aroma of a good story hung thick in the air. I could taste it.

“I guess it all started with Ida,” he said, “or rather, it started when Ida and I ended, and I found out how many debts she had racked up.” He took another sip from his drink.  “She had to have that mink coat, y’know, and the fancy dinners all over town.  And the gilded hotel rooms she visited with other men.  I thought we were in love, but she just up and left me with the bills one morning and it was then I saw who she was.  Pretty clear.  But by then I was up to my neck. I borrowed the money to pay the debts from people I shouldn’t have. It was the worst mistake of my life.”

I waited, watching the condensation gather on my glass.

“I have money now, plenty of it,” he continued, “but they won’t let me pay.  I’ve been performing little tasks for them for years.  Acquiring things. You know what I’m saying?”

“And where do I come in?” I said.

“You have my final payment.  At least, that’s what they said.  I don’t know how they would know.  A little white envelope the Mayor handed you this afternoon.”

A shot of adrenaline rushed through my veins like iced gin.  The sweltering heat of the afternoon; the Mayor collapsing on the hot pavement, foam gurgling from his mouth.  In the chaos, I was sure no one had seen me tuck the white envelope into my own jacket.  I didn’t tell anyone I had it.  I learned a long time ago not to let anyone know what you’ve got until the story is written.  They’ll just pat you on the head, call you darling, and suggest that it’s too dangerous.  Billy should take it from here.  I don’t know how Baker knew anything about the envelope.

“Who are ‘they’?” I asked.

“I don’t know.  If I knew, maybe I’d be outta this mess.”

“And what’s in the envelope?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” he said.

“Presuming I have it.”

“Well, yes.  Presuming you have it.”

“And presuming I’ve opened it, too.”

He cleared his throat.  “Well yes, that too.”

“I can’t help you,” I said.

He downed the rest of his drink in a single gulp and winced. “Yes, I thought you might say that.  I’m afraid I don’t have anything clever worked out in response.  Look, Miss Cummings, it’s a matter of life and death for me.  These guys don’t play around, and if I don’t cough up the envelope they’ll take it out of my flesh instead.  I’m not asking you to hand over the envelope this second.  I’m not even asking if you have it.  I’m just asking you not to refuse me help until you’ve thought it over.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Baker, you seem like a nice enough fellow,” I said.  I swirled the straw around in my drink. “But I can’t help you unless you help me.”

“Help you how?” he said.

I leaned forward. “The envelope is in code; a jumble of nonsense words.  I can’t read it.  I need a scoop to bring to the boys at the office.  I haven’t had a juicy one in months.  You get me the code, the letter is yours.”

A faint clapping filled the bar as the jazz combo switched to a new song.  I watched the surge of people moving through the bar.  Men breathed plumes of smoke into the air.  One held cigarette and high ball in the same hand, to wrap the other around a girl’s waist and whisper in her ear.  Serving girls distributed sloshing glasses of alcohol throughout the room.  Light glinted off the saxophone as the performers swayed to their music.

“Pardon, then.  I should have known,” he said.

“Known what?” I asked.

“I recognized that look in your eye right away, the cold behind your baby blues. As soon as you get what you need from me, you’ll leave me twisting, Doll.”

“I’m sorry Mr. Baker,” I shrugged.

“You’re not sorry,” he hissed.  “Lies don’t become you, Miss Cummings.”

I took a gulp of my drink.  It was sour as it trickled down my throat.

He laughed, dry and mirthless.  “You have me trapped just where you want me.  But I’ll be damned before I just hand it over.  If I get you the code, you produce the letter, and we translate it together.”

I took another sip from the martini glass before I reached into my purse and pulled out a slender cigarette.  I brought it to my lips.  He found a lighter in his pocket, and held the flame.  I pulled the smoke into my lungs and let it out in a slim, curling tendril.

I thought of the envelope tucked into the front of my jacket pocket. It would be so easy to lift it out and hand it to him, to forget I ever saw it.  He sat slumped in the booth beside me, lines creasing his handsome face, staring into the distance.  He swallowed hard.

I stabbed the end of the cigarette into my drink, and picked up my purse and hat.  “I should be going.  Walk me out?”

“Whatever you say, Miss Cummings,” he said.  He dropped some money on the table and we picked our way out of the crowded bar.  The night had turned cool, a crisp breeze pushing aside the heat of the day.

“Look,” he said, “Don’t go home angry.  I got a little hot in there, I’m a heel.” He grabbed my hand and I let him take it.

“You are most definitely a heel,” I said, “and you were probably right. About all of it.”

We walked a ways down the street to a row of apartments. It was quiet and the moon was bright.  A car drove past, and the headlights made the world of shadows spin around us.  We stopped walking.

“You’re beautiful, Joyce, you know that?” he whispered, pushing a curl away from my cheek.  He kissed my cheek, and his lips were soft.  The blood rushed in my ears.  My heart hammered.  I was alive.

It seemed like ages had passed when he pulled away, but it was only seconds.  He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck.  “I shouldn’t have…”

“Let’s stop with the apologies,” I said.  “You know what I want from you .  Code for letter.  Best of luck, Mr. Baker.”  I walked away, feeling the light of the streetlight slip over my shoulders this time.  I knew that if I had been a different girl, that kiss might have melted me.   Still, something in me wanted to grip that letter tighter than the mayor had.

#

            He looked better than I remembered when he slid out of the shadows again later that week, and that air of deep familiarity struck me again.  There was a cut across his cheekbone now, and it gave him a rakish air that fit with his easy manner.

I smiled.  “I presume this means…”

“I have what you asked me for,” he said.

“Mr. Baker, you are my hero,” I said.  He had delivered on his promise.

“And if you have the letter with you, then you’re mine.  I don’t think I have much time and I might have been followed.  We can’t go back to the bar.  We have to go somewhere else, somewhere not public.  I know you said you wouldn’t come back to my place…” he trailed off.

I couldn’t invite him into the news room.  Not until I had the story wrapped up, with my name on the byline.  “We’ll go to my apartment,” I said.

We strode over the sidewalk together, headlights of cars wheeling past and casting circling shadows through the night.   I turned the key on the wooden door as he waited in the palm tree covered courtyard.  We stepped into my stark living room; only a bookshelf, a yellow floral couch, and a bare wooden table to break up the white stucco walls.  I tossed my things on the table and turned to Baker.

“Well,” he said, “you said you had it.”

“You first.”

He pulled a receipt from his hip pocket.  Black scrawl covered the back of it.

I reached into the inside of my coat.  The white envelope glowed in the darkness between us.  The letter crinkled as I unfolded it.  I spread it on the kitchen table and began to translate.

“Evidence that Franco Bianchi’s gang is blackmailing the city council is taped to the bottom drawer in my office.  Don’t tell the police, they’re on his side.” it said.

I closed my notebook and stood.  This was bigger than anything I’d ever had before, and the filing deadline for the paper was early.  I grabbed my hat and gloves absently, and walked toward the door.

“I have to get back to the office,” I said.

“Miss Cummings,” Baker said, and I turned.  “My envelope?”

I held it out to him.  My thumb and finger gripped it where the prints of the mayor had crinkled the corner.

He took the envelope from my hand as if it would shatter at the slightest touch.  A slow smile spread across his face.  The creases in his forehead smoothed.  He tucked it into the inner pocket of his own jacket.

When he removed his hand from the pocket, it was not empty.  Something glinted silver in the moonlight, and I saw that it was a small pistol with a wooden handle.

“Mr. Baker,” I said.  I grabbed the back of one of the ladder back chairs, moving my body behind the thin rails.  It would be no shield at all, I realized.

“If I’m going to kill you, we should be on a first name basis.  Don’t you think, Joyce?”

The silence filled my apartment.  My mouth was dry and I swallowed.  The back door was behind him.  The front door was too far to outrun a practiced trigger finger and a slick silver bullet.  I stood, still and tall.

“Fine, Glenn,” I said.  I willed my voice not to waver.

“Most people call me Franco,” he said.

In that instant in my living room I realized where I knew him; in the dim light, I saw his face as it appeared in the black and white pages of the paper.

“Franco Bianchi,” I whispered.

“You really are beautiful, Doll,” he said, “but I can’t have any witnesses, especially not witnesses from the press.  And I can’t let you write that story about the mayor.”

He pushed down the brim of his hat and fired.  The world spun, and my back hit the slick wood of the apartment floor.  I thought of the mayor and the way he toppled from the podium.  There was no one to rush to my side here, no one I could give a small white envelope.  The story would die with me.  I had been a fool, too eager for a byline and too trusting of familiarity.  Something warm, dark, and sticky seeped through my tweed jacket and into my hair.  I had tried to be the hard boiled reporter, and in the end I was still nothing but an easy mark.  The sound of the lock clicked and I realized I was alone.  I stared at the pattern of swirling stucco on the ceiling, watching the pattern fade and focus, and then fade out again.

Categories: Fiction | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ordeals

Posted on December 10, 2013 by caseykins

It seems so odd that I’ve been writing enough to make 100 posts, but this one is the 100th, so happy milestone to us, and thanks for reading!

I’ve recently decided to apply to grad school for creative writing and in honor of that, and of the 100th post, I’m posting one of the pieces I’m considering turning in for my 25 pages worth of writing sample.  I went from having nothing at all to having a lot of potential things that could go, and I’m having trouble deciding.   I’m trying to show range, and honesty, and good story, and still make the pieces the kind of thing I usually do.  It’s hard.  I’ve picked four, and I’ll let my family help me narrow it down to three.  This is one of the four.  I hope you enjoy!

Williamsburg

Ordeals

            The wound is guaranteed to be extra juicy this time,” said Rutherford’s wife over the breakfast table.  “I just love a water ordeal.”

A flicker of flame from the open hearth silhouetted her hair in a frizzy halo around her white cap in the dim wattle and daub cottage.  Rutherford’s stomach lurched.

“I can’t stand Ordeals.  You know that,” he said.  “The way they poke at the festering wound and deliberate for hours sometimes, looking at it.  I mean, I know God is supposed to be speaking through how much the wound is healing and telling us whether the offender is guilty or not, but I just can’t stomach it.  Wounds are the most disgusting things.”

“I should knock some sense into you with my ladle, Fordy,” Gertrude said.  “It’s blasphemous to not like Ordeals, I tell you.  I mean, how else are we to know if someone is guilty or not?” she rubbed her hands together and smiled.  “I for one can’t wait to see if that Crispus Hode is guilty,” she said.  “I’ve suspected he was no good for a long time.  I heard tell he was born on a Friday, and if that’s true it’s no wonder that he grew up to be a no-account thief, taking Odo Black’s perfectly good hog and eating it for dinner.  You know what they say about Friday babes.  I mean, I suppose you have to raise them as best you can, but there will always be the devil’s streak in ‘em, and no telling when it will manifest.”  She shook her head.  “When they held his hand in that boiling water two weeks ago, you could hear Crispus shriek clear across the village, you remember.  Extra juicy this time,” she smiled

Rutherford felt his stomach churn and he dropped his porridge spoon into his bowl.  He swallowed.  “I know you enjoy these things but I’d rather not talk about it, Gerkins,” he said.  He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his tunic.

“Well, that’s fine,” she said. “I’ll tell you one thing I can’t wait to see.  They’re picking the new head of the Witan town council at this meeting.  How long have you been on the Witan?  Ten years?  You’re the oldest of the group now, too, aren’t you?  I mean what with old Robin Miller croaking at the harvest festival and all… that was a disgrace, it was.  Face down in the pudding.”

“I’m the oldest,” Rutherford interrupted, “but I wouldn’t keep your hopes up.  No one in his right mind would make me the head of the Witan.  I just don’t have the stomach for it.  If I can’t talk about Ordeals, what makes you think I can govern one?”

“And who said anyone in this village was in his right mind?” Gertrude cackled.  “You sure are funny sometimes, Fordy.  I’ll bet you’ll be nominated for sure.  Eat your bacon, and then we’ll get to the church.  I just love a water ordeal.”

Rutherford sat in the first pew of the church with the rest of the Witan – eleven other men just as grizzled and portly as himself.  The rest of the town packed into the church behind them, leaning forward to get a better look as Burt Cooper, the current head of the Witan, unwrapped the linen bandage from Crispus’s hand.  Crispus winced as the bandage stuck and Burt gave a pull, dislodging it from the dried puss on Crispus’s wrist.  Rutherford felt the bile rise in his throat, and forced himself to focus on the floor.  There was a knot in the pine board near his toe.

The crowd gasped and oh-ed.  Crispus cried out in pain.

Silence fell across the hall, and a sticky, wet sound filled the room.

“Humuhuhnm…” moaned Crispus.  Rutherford gritted his teeth.  If only the sticky sound would stop, he might be able to bear the rest.

Rutherford felt a nudge in his side.  “Open your eyes, man.  What say you to that boil there?  Does the puss make the sign of the cross?”

“It looks more like a dog to me,” another chimed in.

“It is categorically a full moon over the rowan tree,” said another.

“Well, I’m seeing a sickle.”

The group huddled and argued.

“Oh for God’s sake,” said Rutherford, his eyes still closed.  “Just make a decision.”

“Attention all” Burt cried at last, his voice echoing in the rafters.  “I proclaim Crispus Hode not guilty under trial of Ordeal. The burn has categorically healed some.”

The crowd let out a general sigh of disappointment.  Now there would be no fine levied against Crispus.  The fun was over.

Rutherford looked up.  In the colored light of the stained glass windows, Crispus was wrapping the bandage around his hand again, wincing as the linen touched his burn.

Burt continued, “And now, as it is the 23th of March and my duty shall be over in two days’ time, the village’ll choose another head from among the twelve men of the Witan.  Happy New Year to ye all.  I would like to nominate Rutherford Thompson to take my place, but the council will hear all nominations.  What names do ye put forth?”

Sounds of people rustling, moving in their seats, filled the church.  Someone in the back sneezed.  No one spoke.

“Anyone?” said Burt.

A shout arose from the back of the crowd.  “I second the nomination!”

“Second who’s nomination?” a voice shouted back.

“What about Fiscus Walter?” another yelled.

“I third Rutherford!”

“No one’s seconded him yet.”

“Then I second Rutherford.”

“And I third Rutherford!”

It only took a few minutes for the crowd to solidify.  “Rutherford! Rutherford! Rutherford!” they chanted.

Rutherford felt his heart warm in his chest as he listed to the town chant his name.  It was unexpected that they revered his wisdom so much.  His doubts melted in the warmth of his chest.  He could see it now: himself sitting in the grand wooden chair on the church dais, meting out wise advice to the confused villagers; tending to the extra strip of field allotted to the head of the Witan; being the most important person in town, his benevolence renowned.  He rose to face them, looked at their expectant faces, and felt power course through his veins as he raised his arms and the crowd went silent.

“I, I mean… I, well yes,” he said, and listened as his voice bounced off the rafters of the church as if they were important and decisive.  The crowd cheered. Rutherford felt Burt slap him on the shoulder.

“Congratulations,” Burt said with a grin, shaking Rutherford’s hand.

Rutherford grinned back, pumping his fist up and down.  “Thank you.”

It was not until the uncomfortable hour of midnight that Rutherford realized what he had done.  He sat awake in his curtained bed, Gertrude snoring beside him, and stared at the ceiling in panic.  As head of the Witan, he was now in charge of administering Ordeals.  Every festering wound he had ever seen rushed into his mind in the darkness, wet with pus and boils, oozing blood from between the crevices of a scab, streaked white and smelling noxious.  It was his job to hold a hand in boiling water while the offender screamed.  It was his job to poke through the festering wound two weeks later and make a decree.   His stomach churned and the saliva gathered in his mouth.  He would make a fool of himself in front of the entire town.

There was only one thing to do.  If Rutherford prayed hard enough, maybe he could avoid ordeals entirely.  He would keep his head down, pray for no breaches of law, and get out of office as soon as plausibility allowed.  Everything would be OK.   One term as head of the Witan was respectable.  Visions of mutilations rose in his head again, but he forced them out.  Everything would be OK, he repeated to himself.  If he kept calm, he would get through it.  Not every Witan had to administer an ordeal.  It would all end up alright.

It was not alright.

The night was crisp and sharp as Rutherford sucked the air into his lungs.  The needles on the trees that surrounded the village were extra green in the fading light and the lingering quiet of the countryside was broken only by the sound of the crickets chirping somewhere near the woods.  The corners of the thatched, wattle and daub huts showed as sharp as the air against the cold landscape.  As the sky darkened to indigo, even the twinkling stars that poked through the sky seemed more clear than usual.  Rutherford picked up the wooden bucket from beside his front door and went outside to milk his cow.

The quiet evening was interrupted by the din of clanging pots, cowbells, tools. Metal on metal rang through the night.  Voices followed, shouting “Beware! Thief!”  Rutherford dropped his bucket and put his forehead into his hands.  The Hue and Cry meant there would be a trial for sure.  Why? he asked the heavens.

The heavens did not answer.

Rutherford picked up his bucket again, and went back into the house.  There was no sense in milking Bessie now.  On his way, he ran into Sampson Hode and Fiscus Walter.  Sampson carried a rope and Fiscus had a large rock clutched in his hand.

“You going to apprehend the thief with us?” Sampson asked Rutherford.  It was the job of the entire town to catch the offender, and as head of the Witan, Rutherford’s absence would be obvious.

“I’ll be there,” Rutherford said.  “I’m just going to put this bucket in the house.  Do we know what happened yet, or what was stolen?”

“Nope.  We just heard the yelling and came out to see what was what.  I think it came from Leo Gregory’s barn, but I’m not sure,” said Fiscus.  “We’ll see you.”

Rutherford grabbed the requisite pitchfork from beside the door, dragging it behind him as he set off across the fields to the wood next to Leo Gregory’s barn.  The whole town was combing through the trees, calling, searching.  Two hours later, his feet tired and his brain sleepy, Rutherford called off the search, stood his unused pitchfork next to the barn, and climbed into bed.

Two nights later, Rutherford found himself sitting in a hard wooden chair at the front of the church.

“I do hereby accuse Mr. Leo Gregory of raising the Hue and Cry without proper cause,” said Hubert Ward.  His beard dripped down his chin practically to his navel, and Hubert’s arm got caught in the long coarse hair as he jabbed his finger in Leo’s direction.

Rutherford sighed.  How ironic that he was forced to mete out justice for a crime that wasn’t actually committed.  “Mr. Gregory,” he said,” did anyone else see the crime take place?”

Leo shook his head.  “No!  I was in the barn and I noticed that my good Scythe had gone missing.  I looked outside and saw someone running into the woods by my house, so I sent up the Hue and Cry.  I saw it, I say! I was robbed!”

“And you were alone?” asked Rutherford.

“My wife can attest to my good character,” said Leo.

“His wife’s word is as good as his own!” shouted Hubert.  “Worthless!”

“I’ll show you worthless Hubert Ward!” a woman shrieked from the pews.  Rutherford could see her rolling up her sleeves and attempting to dive from her seat.  The crowd converged on her, pushing her back down.  The room erupted into a cacophony of voices.  Rutherford stamped his foot on the wooden floor of the church.  It was no use.

“Ordeal! Ordeal! Ordeal!” the crowd chanted.

Rutherford watched Hubert place his fingers into his mouth.  A shrill whistle bit through the air and the crowd went silent.  “That’s better, ya harpies!” Hubert said, and then gestured to Rutherford.

Rutherford stood.  Every face in the crowd was eyeing him with expectation.  He cleared his throat.  “I… uh, suppose we will have to have an Ordeal.”

The crowd cheered.

Rutherford held up his hands, and the villagers went silent.  Rutherford sifted through his mind to come up with an Ordeal he could carry out without throwing up in front of the entire town. Unfortunately, all he could think of was his breakfast.  He was doomed.  “I hereby decree that Mr. Leo Gregory’s guilt will be decided upon an Ordeal of… ah… of… baking.”

“What!” Hubert shouted.

The crowd was muttering again too.

“I was hoping for Water.”

“What in heaven’s name is an Ordeal of baking?”

“Is he crazy?”

Rutherford stamped his foot on the floor again, and this time people paid attention.  “This has been divinely inspired,” Rutherford told them.  “You should not question the mysterious ways of the Lord.  This is how the process is to be carried out.  I will make a loaf of bread, but before it shall be baked, Mr. Gregory will spit into the dough.   If the dough rises and the bread is edible, he shall be considered not guilty.  If the dough should fall and the bread be corrupted, he will admit to his guilt and pay penance to the villagers for falsely raising the Hue and Cry.  So it shall be.”

The crowd paused.  Finally, the words “so it shall be,” echoed back to him in a monotone.  Rutherford’s baking ordeal had been accepted, and he grinned.  Everything would be just peachy now.

Everything was not just peachy.

Rutherford called the bread making meeting for the next morning.  All twelve members of the Witan, plus Herbert and Leo, crowded into the tiny, wooden mill just as the sun was rising over the bright green hills in the east.  The inside of the mill was streaked with yellow from sunbeams peeking through the slats of the poorly insulated walls.  One of the sunbeams fell across Rutherford’s eye, diagonally down to his opposite cheek.  He shifted, and the beam slid to his shoulder.

He cleared his throat. “We have gathered today to ask the Lord to reveal if this man before him, Leo Gregory, be guilty or innocent in his heart of hearts.  Let the countenance of the Lord shine down upon us this day and guide us in our endeavors that we may know the truth.  Amen.”

“Amen,” murmured the rest of the room.

Rutherford took a clay bowl out of the vast pocket of his belted tunic, feeling the prickly hairs on his neck stand up as he realized that everyone was watching him.  He walked to the corner of the room where burlap sacks of flour leaned against the wall, and unfolded the mouth of one of the bags.  He reached his fist into the flour and pulled out a handful.  Streams of grit fell from between his fingers, catching the light and sparkling in the morning sun as Rutherford dumped the handful into the bowl with a whuff.  He took a pinch of yeast out of a pouch in his pocket and dumped that into the bowl as well, and sifted them together.

“Someone grab me a dipper of that bucket of water over there,” Rutherford said.  The ladle full of water was passed through the crowd.  Rutherford took it carefully from the last pair of shaking hands.  He held it out to Leo.

“Spit,” he said.

“You’ll all see I’m not guilty and I’ve been robbed fair and square,” Leo said.  He gathered the moisture up in his throat with a sickening suction noise and then spat a fat loogy into the water.  Rutherford saw it floating on the surface, greenish and horrible as it bobbed in the water.  He felt the burn of bile as it rose in his throat, willed it to stop with all of his might, and then threw up his breakfast all over the flour, all over his hand, all into the water.

The crowd was silent.  They all stared unblinkingly at Rutherford and Rutherford stared back at them.  The vomit on his hand felt warm.

From the back of the room a tiny voice said, “Does this mean he’s guilty?”

“It means he’s innocent,” said another.  “We don’t need to have the Ordeal ‘cause the Ordeal ain’t gonna tell us nothin’.”

“I think it’s a clear sign that this Ordeal is stupid!” said a third.  “Water Ordeals are the way to go.  Nobody ever heard of a Baking Ordeal, and God don’t like it.”

“I say he’s innocent.”

“Guilty!”

Rutherford stood by and watched as the room began to shout at each other.  Most of them were old, grizzled men.  Their gray hair flew through the air and the loose sleeves of their tunics jumped on their arms as they gesticulated wildly at each other.  He pounded his foot on the floor for attention but it made no difference.

“Hey!” he yelled next, but his voice just mingled with the shouts of the room.

Rutherford dropped the sick filled bowl and dipper to the floor and wiped his hand off on his tunic.  He walked over to the water bucket by the front door, picked it up, and walked back.  With a swift thrusting motion, he threw it across the struggling crowd.  The water surged over them like a sheet.  They stopped abruptly mid shout, hair and clothes dripping, and turned their faces toward him.

Rutherford cleared his throat, embarrassed. “I’ll tell you what it means,” he said.  “It means that God wants Leo to have a second chance.  Leo, I hereby find you guilty of raising the Hue and Cry without cause, and order you to pay a fine to the church coffers of ten shillings.  The sentence, however, shall be suspended.  So long as you don’t commit said crime again, you will not have to pay the fine.”

“I’m not guilty,” Leo said.  “I take offense to that remark, but I suppose it’s OK if I don’t have to pay nothing.  It won’t happen again ‘cause it didn’t happen this time.”

“And it will go on the record books as guilty?” Hubert asked.

“It will go on the record books as guilty,” said Rutherford.

“Then I’m satisfied as well.”

The rest of the men in the room began to nod in assent.  One by one, they smiled.  Burt slapped Rutherford hard on the back.  “Good work, Witan,” he said.  Rutherford found that he could not smile back.

The group was meandering out of the tiny mill and onto the grass beyond.  Rutherford watched them trickle through the rough wooden doorway.

Hubert was the last to step out of the mill into the sunny morning.  Before he disappeared through the door he turned.  “Are you coming?” he asked Rutherford.

“I’m coming, I’ll be there in a minute,” Rutherford said. Hubert stepped outside and Rutherford fell onto his knees.  He thanked God for the amicable outcome and then he prayed that he would never have to assign an Ordeal again.  Then, he took a dipperful of water and rinsed out his mouth.  He felt relieved.  After all, the hard part was over now.

The hard part was not over.

Two weeks later, Rutherford found himself sitting in a hard wooden chair at the front of the church.  The rest of the town stared back at him from the pews.

“I do hereby accuse Mr. Hubert Ward of stealing my good scythe from out of my barn two weeks ago.” Leo Gregory said to the crowd.  He glowered at the bearded man on the platform with him.

The half of Hubert’s face not covered by beard was bright red.

“And what evidence have ye to present to the court that this crime took place?” Rutherford asked.

Leo walked to the platform and handed Rutherford a scythe.  The blade shined in the light from the stained glass window as Rutherford took the smooth, wooden handle.

“This is the scythe in question.” Leo said.  “It used to have my name on it, but it don’t no more.  See the bottom of the haft where it’s rougher than the rest?  It’s also shorter.  Someone sliced my name off.  I found this implement standing up outside Hubert’s barn yesterday.” Leo turned to Hubert and waved a fist at him.  “Caught in the ACT!” he said.

The crowd hissed.  “Caught in the ACT!” a few shouted.

Rutherford pounded his foot on the ground.  “He ain’t guilty yet,” he told the crowd.  He turned to Hubert.  “And what have you to say for yourself?  Do you have an alibi?”

“I don’t need no alibi,” said Hubert.  “That was the night Leo put up the Hue and Cry for no reason whatever.  The whole town saw me out there looking for the criminal myself.”  He turned to the crowd, his arms wide.  “Did you all see me holding a scythe that night?”

The audience turned to each other and began to murmur.

“Nope,”

“I don’t think so?”

“No scythe when I saw him.”

“I rest my case.” Hubert told Rutherford.

“He was kinda late on the uptake, though,” someone muttered from the crowd.

“Don’t you rest your case yet, ya burglar,” said Leo.  “I want to bring up an incident that many here may well remember.  Old John Ward, Hubert’s grandfather, was once caught with a herd of twelve sheep that didn’t belong to him, and he was regularly borrowing things and not returning them.  How many of you loaned him a hammer or even a plow blade and never saw it again?  Stealing things obviously runs in the Ward blood.  I demand for justice to be meted out!  That ought to be evidence enough for anyone.”

The villagers began to murmur again, and out of the myriad of voices a single chant began to emerge.

“Ordeal! Ordeal! Ordeal!”

Rutherford sighed, and then held up his hands.  The room went quiet.

“I suppose we will have to have an ordeal,” Rutherford said.  “It will be an ordeal of…” would they accept baking again?  What else was nonviolent?  He racked his brain.  “An ordeal of…  Um…”

“An Ordeal of Vomitus!” Hubert interjected.

“An Ordeal of Vomitus.” Rutherford declared.  “I mean… wait, what?”

“I make you spew across the church and I’m not guilty.  An Ordeal of Vomitus.” Hubert said.

“There’s precedent,” Burt shouted from the first pew.

“That’s right!” the crowd began to murmur

“Leo made him throw up last time and he wasn’t guilty.”

“An Ordeal of Vomitus,” the crowd approved, nodding in their pews.

“Wait, wait now,” said Rutherford.  “An ordeal of Vomitus isn’t dignified.  I mean… I mean…  Really!”

Hubert smiled a toothy grin at him.  He started the chant, but the villagers joined in quick succession.  “Vomitus! Vomitus! Vomitus!”

Rutherford looked around at the villagers.  There were no sympathetic faces in the crowd.  Even Gertrude was perched in a pew near the back of the church, her arm in the air, yelling with the rest.

“I hereby proclaim an Ordeal of baking!”  Rutherford yelled at the crowd.

“Vomitus! Vomitus! Vomitus!”

“An Ordeal of water?!”

“Vomitus! Vomitus! Vomitus!”

Rutherford threw his hands in the air.  “Fine, just fine.  An ordeal of Vomitus.”

Categories: Fiction, History, Medieval History, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Mechanicals

Posted on September 17, 2013 by caseykins

Neil had just dumped the garbage into the dumpster behind Budgen’s Grocery when he noticed the sign, flapping white in the darkness.  It was out of place, and it almost seemed to glow as its corners fluttered.  The acrid stench of rotting garbage rose as he flipped the black plastic sack into the pile of other sacks.  He brushed his hands off on his pants and raked his fingers through his wild hair.

It had not been a good day.  Neil spent most of it trying to clean up a pile of peaches that someone had knocked from their bin and then trod over, making the linoleum floor juicy and sticky.  He wiped up juice with a dingy rag that had once been white and meditated on sticky.  His whole life was sticky.  He thought when his mother passed that he might be able to leave Cromer.  The final, thin rejection letter from University of West London this afternoon confirmed that he wouldn’t. Eight colleges and no one wanted him.

The white sign stood out brightly.  It was taped to the roof and it was made of butcher paper. Someone had written on it in black ink: Cornelius Cumberpatch, This Is Your Destiny.  A bolt of icy anger shot through his body, and years of taunting echoed through his head: “The Patch,” “Cornypatch,” “Horny Corny.”  He clenched his fists, digging his fingernails into his palms.  The asshole that thought this was funny would pay.

Neil charged into the brick grocery and up the stairs.  He climbed out the window of the break room and pulled himself onto the sloped tiles of the roof.   A moist ocean breeze blew the strings of his green apron behind him.  The sign flapped up over the edge of the ridge, curling.  Neil crawled over to it and ripped it towards him.  Triangles of white paper still clung to the tape on the shingled roof.

He laid the sign out on the gravely tiles.  It now read: Penny For Your Thoughts?  Place Penny Here, Place Hand Here.  There were arrows, and two circles.  One was the size of a penny, and the other was just big enough for Neil’s hand.  Neil blinked.  He could have sworn the sign had his name on it only a moment ago.

The break room window was still open, blinds tapping against the frame.  He expected to see his coworkers clustered, laughing at the look on his face as he took in their elaborate practical joke.  There was no one there.  There wasn’t even a plausible place for a hidden camera.

His eyes narrowed, and he looked at the paper again.  The letters shimmered.  Neil thought, why not play along?  He reached into the pocket of his blue jeans and pulled out a small, copper penny.  He looked at the letters again, considering.  He placed the penny in the small circle.  Nothing seemed to change.  He shrugged to himself, raked his hands through his hair, and placed his hand in the large circle.  The letters glimmered a coppery orange.

Around him, the world shifted to swirling gray fog, moving across his bare arms and drenching his clothes.  He was cold, and he could see nothing in front of him but the swirling mist and the droplets collecting on his body as he stood on – something.

The gray began to clear, and Neil realized that what he stood on was silver.  He was in the middle of a vast city of gleaming, copper towers.  Domed spires reached through the gray.  He was on top of a silver fire escape, looking down into a lustrous alley.  A copper cat with riveted joints cleaned its paws with its shiny tongue below him.  It ticked.

Neil looked around.  The paper had disappeared.

There was a silver ladder to his left.  Neil climbed down the slick, cold rungs.  As soon as he took a step onto the street the cat jumped.  It ran off down the alley, its paws pinging on the metal surface.  Neil followed it.

The cramped alley spilled onto a broad avenue.  Hundreds of copper people strode along the street.  Their joints were also riveted, with shiny silver balls in their shoulders and knees.  They wore elaborate dresses, or suits with top hats, all made of metal mesh.  It was like the pictures of Victorian Cromer had come to life and then warped to become all wrong.  The sound of a thousand watches ticking filled the air.

The middle of the street was crowded with moving vehicles.  They were all a combination of gears, rivets, wood, and pipes spewing gray mist into the sky.  They rushed back and forth.  Some sprouted wire wings that unfolded like accordions and rose up between the spires.  Neil felt something hard rub against his leg.  It was the cat.

“Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore,” he told it. It opened its mouth and let out a mechanical whirr.

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Summer Reading List:

Posted on August 21, 2013 by caseykins

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I usually try to keep a summer reading list.  I work year-round these days, so I’m not sure why a summer reading list is different than any other season.  For some reason it seems appropriate, though.  It’s fun to look back and see what you thought, what you liked and didn’t.  I was a little bit of a slacker this summer.  I didn’t read nearly as much as I usually do, due to afghans, no lunch breaks, summer school, and Hulu, among other things.  Still, I think it’s a pretty respectable list.  I started keeping track the week I graduated.  Chapman starts school next week (in which I’ll finish Archer’s Goon), so summer is officially over. 

  1. Anne of Green Gables – L. M. Montgomery (Read a thousand times before, and love)
  2. Anne of Avonlea – L. M. Montgomery (Ditto for all Anne novels…)
  3. Anne of the Island – L. M. Montgomery
  4. Anne’s House of Dreams – L. M. Montgomery
  5. The Blue Castle – L. M. Montgomery (Okay, maybe ditto for all LM Montgomery novels)
  6. Beauty Queens – Libba Bray (Hilarious mash up of the Miss America pageant and Lord of the Flies)
  7. Don Quixote – Miguel De Cervantes (Not at all like I thought it would be.  Much funnier, in a winky ‘you get the joke’ sort of way)
  8. The Thirteenth Child – Patricia C. Wrede (Alternative history, magic, and the frontier? Yes!!)
  9. Beyond the Great Barrier – Patricia C. Wrede (Continuation of the above.  Not as good, really, and ends on a cliffhanger.  Boo.  Still debating on whether I’ll read 3)
  10. The Enchanted Chocolate Pot – Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer (I’m now convinced I need to find someone to do this with me.  The letter game becomes a magical novel set in Regency England)
  11. The Grand Tour – Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer (And now they’re both married!!!  I admit this is smut, but I like it anyway)
  12. Spindle’s End – Robin McKinley (Sleeping Beauty kicks ass in typical fairy tale setting)
  13. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen (Another re-read.  Eleanor’s silent heartbreak is why I keep returning, I think)
  14. The Ocean at the End of the Lane – Neil Gaiman (Neil Gaiman!!! Need I say more?  It was better than any of his other things, and this is saying a LOT)
  15. Make Good Art – Neil Gaiman (Art book that oddly reads like he spoke it.  Brilliant.)
  16. A Matter of Magic (really two novels put into one) – Patricia C. Wrede (Oh, why do I love these things so much?  It’s smut, but it’s such FUN smut… This one has a coming out party!)
  17. On Being Ill – Virginia Woolf (Wow.  Short read, and highly recommended)
  18. A Safeway in Arizona – Tom Zoellner (Also another wow.  It’s so much less political and much more human than I thought it would be, and I loved every bit of it.  Heartbreaking in spots, and a lot to think about)
  19. Flannery O’Connor, The Complete Stories – Flannery O’Connor (I realized that I just don’t like her.  A lot of it is about southern racism in the 1950s and I just don’t understand and can’t empathize.)
  20. The Mislaid Magician, or Ten Years Later – Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer (The letters continue.  They all have children now!!!)
  21. Arthur – by some lady from Scripps College (I can’t decide if I find her argument that Arthur was real compelling because it is, or because I so want Arthur to be real)
  22. Four Queens – Nancy Goldstone  (Makes me very glad I wasn’t a woman in the middle ages, and yet I can’t put it down.  It’s gripping)
  23. Archer’s Goon – Diana Wynne Jones (Reminds me much of The Game, but more satisfying.  Not as well-written a book as Dogsbody or Fire and Hemlock, but infinitely fun and funny like most of her work.) 

I had hoped to get to these, but didn’t.  On the to-read list (and checked out of the library, so it will be soon):

  1. The Hero and the Crown – Robin McKinley
  2. Kung Fu High School – Ryan Gattis (a former teacher of mine with such an amazing command of craft)
  3. The Big Drop: Homecoming – Ryan Gattis
  4. Chalice – Robin McKinley
  5. The Name of the Wind – Patrick Rothfuss (because it was recommended as a must read)
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The Algonquin Cinderella

Posted on August 14, 2013 by caseykins

This is another story that started as a class excercise.  The assignment was to write a story based on a fairy tale, but to put it in a modern setting.  I hereby present the 2013 version of The Algonquin Cinderella:

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Tallika felt like wax, melting in the corner as the music reverberated through her chest.  She stood and watched the people thrashing all over the vast and modern living room, colored lights washed over their bodies.  The wall of glass windows looked out on a private beach, but she couldn’t see a trace of it.  All she could see was the dancers reflected back at her, purple and green in the lights.  She was a fool to have thought she was ready for this, so soon after the accident.

“It will be dark,” said her youngest sister.  “No one will notice the scars on your face and you should come.  You can’t hide forever, this will be good practice.  Besides, you can’t drink on your meds and we need a designated driver.  Take one for the team.”

“We can’t miss an Amos Andrews party,” said her oldest sister. “You have to come with us.”

So Tallika hid her face behind a waterfall of black hair, slipped on impossible shoes, and came.

She could see both of her sisters in the crowd.  One of them had her arms draped across a man’s shoulders, her legs entwined with his as they rocked to the music.  The other struggled to shed her white leather jacket, shimmying her shoulders and sloshing her pink drink across the white rug.  Tallika felt the hard expanse of wall behind her back.  She switched her full glass of water to her other hand and wiped the condensation on her floral print dress.

A couple with their arms moving frantically under each other’s clothes stumbled out of the crowd and into Tallika’s elbow.  Water sloshed across her front.

“Hey!” she said.  The man waved an apology, but did not dislodge his lips from the other girl’s mouth.

What a fool for dressing up for this travesty.

She watched the surging crowd and considered leaving; breaking the girl code and going home to her soft bed.  But her sisters would be stranded.  In a house with strange and drunk men.  Who knows what would happen to them.  She sighed.  The water on her leg was warm now.  She looked at the glass, thought of the ocean, and resolved to find the door to the outside.

Tallika took a deep breath and then plunged into the horror of the light hallway, her head down. She did not meet anyone before she stumbled upon a glass door that led out to the sparkling pool rimmed with hydrangeas, and then down to the beach.  It was quiet here, only the faint sounds of music bumping through the night air.  The blades of sea grass brushed her knees, and her high wedges sunk sideways into the sand.  She kicked them off and carried them.  A breeze whipped her skirt across her legs.

The grass gave way to pure gray sand, stretching out before her.  It was low tide, and she could barely see the glimmer of water in the distance.  Instead, the moon glistened on the dark wet sand, making a silver trail to the sea.  In the sky, the Milky Way blazed another white trail through peppered pinpoints of stars.

Her sisters danced in the house behind her.  In a back room somewhere, the couple that ran into her were stripping off their clothes thinking only of each other.  She would never have that now.  The scars on Tallika’s face felt hot.  She began to cry.

“Surely it can’t be that bad,” said a deep voice to her right.

She turned.  A man in jeans and a white sweater sat against the dunes.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know anyone else was here, it’s just… it’s my first time since…”  Tallika started sobbing outright, gulps of air shaking her body.

“Hey, hey,” he said.  “Are you OK?  Do you want me to call someone?  What happened?”

Tallika struggled to swallow the lump in her throat.  “No, I’m fine.  Really I am.  I just haven’t been out in a while.  I mean, out to a party, and it’s harder than I thought.”

“If someone’s hurt you, we should do something about it.”

“No, it’s nothing like that.” Tallika said.  “I promise I’m fine.  No one has hurt me.  I…” she took a gulp of air.  “It’s, it’s this,” she turned, and pushed her hair away from her face so he could fully see it.

She pictured what he saw.  A pink melted mass of skin that dripped over her forehead and across her cheek, grotesque.  “It happened about six months ago.  My older sister, we shared an apartment.  There was a party one night, and she passed out with a lit cigarette in my bedroom. It was an accident. ”

He shook his head.  “Hell, that’s a tough break.”

Tallika felt a hysterical laugh rise in her throat but she bit it back.  “A tough break?  It’s a lot shittier than that, my friend.”

“Hey, it’s probably not as bad as you think it is.  Your hair covers it, I wouldn’t have known if you didn’t show me.”

“And it’s dark,” she said.  “Yeah, that’s what they tell me. I’m still getting used to not having a face.” She sat on the sand near him. “So what’s your story, why are you out here away from the party?”

“Really it’s because I can’t stand those people.  My sister says that wild parties and girls are good for my image,” he said, “so here I am.  But I don’t have to like it.”

“Good for your image to be seen at one of these?” she asked.

“Well, sort of… OK, you told me yours, I’ll tell you mine… uh,” he cleared his throat.  “Amos Andrews, nice to meet you.  My sister thinks hosting these parties are good PR.  I mean, I guess they are too.”

“Nice to meet you.   Yours is much worse than mine.  No wonder you ran away!”

“Oh don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?” she asked.

“I have a brilliant idea.  Let’s just be normal people, OK?  With superficial problems that don’t mean anything.  We can keep each other company.”

Tallika smiled.  “I’d like that very much.”

Hours later, Tallika looked over at him, throwing his head back and laughing in the moonlight.  His curly hair bobbed, his smile was a perfect crescent.  A single star fell out of the sky and streaked toward the earth.

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Tim, not Tam

Posted on July 9, 2013 by caseykins

I thought I’d post more fiction.  This was an assignment for a class I took last semester.  It had to be exactly 300 words, each word could only be a syllable long, and it had to mimic a sound.  It also had to be a complete story, with a beginning, middle and end, and I was given the first line.  I went for a typewriter:

The phone rang twice. Tim peaked at the time. It was too late for calls. Tim tipped his seat to take it.

“Tim. Talk,” he said.

“Tam…” the tone spat, “Tam’s time ticks.”

“No, not Tam. Tim,” said Tim.

“We stab Tam soon-”

“What?” Tim broke in, “Don’t you know it’s close to twelve? Trashy tales waste my time. This isn’t Tam. I’m Tim.” Tim hung up.

Night tickled the room. Tick, tock the clock clicked.

Tap, Tap. A tree branch hit the pane.

Tim touched his palms to his brow. I’m too tired for this, he thought. The clock struck twelve. Time to turn in. Tim stood, and stepped toward the stair.

Tap, Tap. The tree branch turned. It was a hand. It bent and twitched at Tim. “Tam…” it squeaked.

Tim turned. “No, not Tam. Tim.”

“Tam… you took it. You didn’t ask. You tried to take it by tricks, but now it will take you.”

The sill creaked. Many a piece of tall, trim Night met at the center of the room.

“My title is Tim, NOT TAM,” said Tim.

“Tim, not Tam?” the tone asked.

“Yes!” said Tim.

“Tsk, tsk. Sorry,” the Night squeaked. Then it left.

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Emer’s Diary

Posted on February 9, 2010 by caseykins

May 26, 1033

I went to the magic shop today, and the owner, Drand Oakenshield offered to rent me four hats of disguise if I put down a considerable deposit and had them back within 48 hours unharmed. I’ve been in there a couple of times since my first trip, mostly to drool at the items in the case, and we chat about the local happenings. It was good of him to do me this favor. I think with the hats and my spell of silence, we should get out of the university quite easily and completely pass for men once were at the races. It will be much less dangerous that way. The girls say that Madam Glerda is sound asleep by 10:30 every night, so we shall take our chances tomorrow evening!

 May 28, 1033

We had an epic time out last night. Truly, it was an evening for the poets and the song makers. Ananalie, Randa, and Smailey were the three that braved the city with me, and it was wonderful. We each adopted a teacher’s look to get out of the school, and then changed to four unknown youths, looking slightly like ourselves so we would recognize each other, but completely different at the same time.

We went to the Dog Racing first, at the arena two blocks from the university. The only women in the crowd were what Madam Samanda used to call “Working Girls”, suggestively attired, and hanging themselves across their man’s arm. The air was thick with cigar smoke, and the acrid smell of cheap beer and dog dung clung to everything. Smailey insisted on buying us all a beer, so we would look authentic and we settled down in the stands to watch. It was quite exciting, really. I could see how much more exiting it would be if you had money on the race, which of course none of us did. We cheered and yelled and slapped each other on the backs to our hearts content, like the crowd around us. The greyhounds were beautiful and lithe, racing around the track, and it could have been something I would have really enjoyed had the atmosphere been different. As it was, I had an exciting time.

When it came time to go to a tavern, they insisted on going to the Thirsty Zombie, the roughest one in town. We had dinner there at the bar, trying to keep our noses down, but looking around every once in a while to see what we could see. There was a man all in black who kept whispering things into his bag as he ate in the corner, and two small quick men who seemed to be everywhere at once, practically dimension dooring from this side of the room to the other. We decided to leave when a fight broke out near the door and the burly half-orc behind the counter had to break it up rather roughly, to the cheers and hollers of the other customers.

We were nearly caught sneaking back into the dorms. We had forgotten to switch ourselves back to teachers with the hats of disguise, and we just managed to duck into an empty classroom as Portho, the old door warden, did a midnight sweep of the halls. Other than that, our trip was quite successful. I hope the girls have the roaming spirit out of their hearts now. I don’t know if I have the desire to go again, though the first trip was all kinds of dangerous fun!

June 8, 1033

Today is the feast day of Corellian Lariethan, and it’s nice to be in a place that celebrates it again. At my home in the valley, where I lived with my parents, they always made much of this day. I almost feel like I’m back there and a child again, though it’s different. They have the marketplace festival, and the flags flying from many of the houses here, but you get the impression that it’s more about the excuse for a holiday than Corellian Lariethan himself. Still, it’s been a nice day. Annandale suspended classes (though he spent it in his office with the research books and not out in the city), and Lillias and I are planning to go dance in the square this evening. Any excuse to put on that burgundy dress is a good one!

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