Once a month, we stop practicing and invite you to show off your best work.
This might be for you if:
- You want to be published (in print)
- You want to drastically improve your writing
- You enjoy a little competition
- You like the Write Practice
You in?
Photo by Duane Tate
Show Off Your Best Work
Here's how the competition works.
You will submit a longer piece, between 500 and 1250 words, based around this month's theme: Winter Solstice. You can submit as many pieces as you want. After one week, on January 10, 2012, submissions will close and we will pick the winner.
Here’s the exciting part. If your piece is chosen, I will work with you on making it the best it can be. We’ll work on making your images shine, your prose sparkle, your dialogue sing, and your grammar… not suck.
Then, at the end of the month, we’ll publish it on the Write Practice where hundreds of people will get to read you at your very best. For example, read last month's winner, Patricia W. Hunter's story The Worst Christmas Ever.
It gets better though.
We’re going to do this every month for the next year, and in December 2012, we plan to collect all twelve of these pieces and publish them in a book. Real paper, real cover, real ink. So if your piece is chosen, you will be able to consider yourself a published author.
Ready to start?
SHOW OFF: RULES
The Theme: Winter Solstice
NOTE: your piece doesn't have to center around Winter Solstice, it might just take place on that day, which was December 21 this year in the Northern Hemisphere
Guidelines
- It should be a finished work. A complete story.
- Non-fictional and fictional pieces are both accepted.
- I’m looking for pieces between 500-1250 words. I will read every word, so please, nothing over 1250 words.
- You can post your completed piece in the comments of this post. You can post as many times as you want!
- The deadline is Tuesday, January 10 to post your piece. That’s a week, but start today!
And, of course, if you submit your work, you agree to let me publish your piece on the Write Practice and in a physical book.
I wish you the best of luck!
I’m so grateful to have had this opportunity last month. You are an excellent writer and coach. Your help and encouragement made working with you a joy. Thanks for everything, Joe….and the best of luck to everyone who enter’s this month’s contest.
You’re so great Patricia 🙂
Congratulations to Patricia! Happy to see her get this recognition.
Thank you, Nancy. So sweet of you to say so. You are a wonderful storyteller. You should consider entering.
The line went silent and I placed my headset back in the cradle, defeated. I’d tried every imaginable tactic but the fine folks at Giant Phone Company could not – would not – help me.
It was just days before the long holiday weekend and my plans to quietly inebriate myself with mulled wine, Jack and Coke and frozen Lean Cuisines while watching all seven seasons of Buffy on Netflix were suddenly and cruelly shattered.
For the past several months, I knew I wouldn’t be going anywhere for the holidays, but comforted myself with the idea of catching up on every small-screen guilty pleasure I had abstained from all year.
The upcoming weekend wasn’t the Christmas holiday for me – far from it. I planned to do anything and everything from the cozy comfort of my living room couch, my laptop and multitude of other wireless gadgets and beverages all within reach and all with the deliberate goal of reminding me it was just another day. Nothing special here, just a long weekend. No parties or dinners or presents to miss out on. Nope, just another three day weekend. I planned to turn off my brain for a few days, relax, write and not give a shit about anyone but myself. It was a good plan and I was looking forward to it.
No carefully wrapped shoe boxes surrounding the tree I never got around to putting up. No stockings stuffed with paper hanging from my mantle. No lights, no candy canes. I didn’t want it to be Christmas this year. I’d nearly done it.
My chair squeaked awkwardly as I slumped forward, dropping my forehead on folded arms, watching hopelessly as my non-holiday plans flashed mockingly before before dissolving completely.
“What the hell am I going to do now?” I thought. Without my Internet, I’d be forced to watch whatever crappy Christmas marathons were running on any of the three (yes, three) channels that had reception in my place. Unless I felt like working on my Korean or Spanish, which I didn’t.
It was too late for a back-up plan, and according to Giant Phone Company, too late for anyone to resolve my purported irreconcilable Internet issue.
“We can have someone out to repair your line on December 29th, ma’am” the 12th customer service rep cheerfully replied. I bristled at the young man’s use of the word “ma’am”. Adding insult to injury. Things weren’t looking good for me.
I took a deep breath and slowly reiterated, as I had 11 times before him, that I needed my connection up and running no later than December 23rd and he had to make that happen. I helpfully reminded him this was their fault after all, highlighting my decade-long track record as a loyal subscriber as sufficient motivation to take extraordinary measures to keep me as a “valued customer”.
I smiled smugly and paused for effect, waiting for the obligatory “I’m so sorry you’re having trouble with your service…ma’am, we’ll get this fixed right away”. Assuming service rep #12 was so moved by my plight he needed a moment to compose himself, I waited just a bit longer.
“Um, hello? Are you still there?” I pleaded, more than asked.
I must have startled him from his nap.
“Oh, yeah…well, like I said ma’am, there’s nothing I can do. But if you’d like to learn more about our other services you can visit http://www…” he paused.
I laughed menacingly, “I’m sorry, not only do you think I would ever subscribe to another one of your services again, but you’re seriously asking me to visit your WEBSITE? And how am I supposed to do that? Remember, you SHUT OFF MY INTERNET!” The office fell silent as I stifled my rage, my voice barely below screaming volume.
The rep quietly apologized again, reading the script from his screen’s prompter, no doubt under the section titled “Dealing with Difficult Customers”. He asked one final time if there was anything else he could do, and mechanically asked if I’d like to participate in their online survey.
I stopped short of telling him what he could do with his survey.
I snarled my final words as I informed him he had just lost a long-time customer. He brightened noticeably at my concession, sensing our call was finally coming to an end.
“Well ma’am, it’s been my pleasure serving you! Have a happy holiday and enjoy the winter solstice today!”
Of course, he had it all wrong. It was the longest day of the year.
Thanks for your entry, Jennifer!
.ANIMAL KINGDOM.
“Pretty dress, baby.”
“Better be. Short enough.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning you bought it. It’s December and you buy me a dress that’s too cold even on the Fourth of July.”
“But you wear it so well.”
“Thank you, James.”
“Love you too, Baby.”
James and Baby sat in the club. James adored Baby and her legs, the way the skirt pulled tight and pushed down into the fat of her thighs. He could pick out the lights and their multi-colored gels reflected on her skin. Baby pressed her middle finger into James’ left shoulder blade, sliding two inches left and sliding back the two, over and over, sinking her line.
II
Baby’s eyes drifted up to the stage. She saw a man, sitting.
“You see that?”
“What?”
“His hat.”
“Yeah.”
“Kinda low, don’t you think?”
“Maybe he has his hat pulled down low for a reason.”
“Maybe he’s ugly.”
“He likes the brim to push against his forehead.”
“The hell for?”
“Wants to feel like it’s sown to his head.”
“Who the hell does he think he is?”
“He wants to feel a resistance.”
“James, it’s a hat.”
“No doubt there’s method to his madness.”
“His madness is present and accounted for; he must’ve left his method in the cab.”
“Baby–”
“And the jacket–”
“Baby–”
“What’s this Easter-Egg purple bullshit?”
“Fashion statement.”
“Statement, yes. Does it have to do with Fashion? Yes. Fashion Statement? No.”
“You seek to break me?”
“No, I seek to illuminate.”
“Fooled me.”
“Calling his Velveteen Rabbit-Jacket a ‘Fashion Statement’ makes as such sense as watching the clean-up hitter die on three called strikes and calling it ‘athleticism.’”
“Sea snails…”
“Wha?”
“For the purple. They used to glean the dye from sea snails. Either you’d attack the snail, and it’d secrete it a defensive mechanism, or you’d crush the snail.”
“Why would someone crush the snail?”
“You get more dye that way. Less labor intensive.”
“Maybe he should’ve tried milking snails; might’ve helped him realize what a stupid idea it was to wear purple.”
“Baby–”
“If the good Lord wanted us to wear purple, He would’ve made it a helluva lot easier to make the color.”
“It’s a royal color.”
“On Palm Sunday, The King of Kings rode an ass into town.”
“Was the ass purple?”
“No, but keep it up and your face’ll be blue–”
“Baby–”
“You gonna sit here and watch old No-Name, fedora half-way down his face and wearing a jacket that makes him look like the Joker?”
“I’m an optimist.”
“You’re a fool.”
“And you’re a queen in that dress.”
“Thank you James.”
“I love you too, Baby.”
III
The Musician swung the trumpet to his lips, and James only had a split second before a note would break the air; the gap of Time where, if he felt like it, James could dive under the surface and make it last forever.
A stage light hit the curve of the trumpet bell, and James knew it beyond all shadows and valleys of doubt. James knew the golden glow of a new trumpet, the sheen of a polished horn and the leprous rust of a discarded instrument.
The Musician had painted the bell of his trumpet.
James saw the paint and the patten. He saw the orange enclose the bell and fade toward the front of the horn. James could count each black gash, from the edge of the bell on back toward the valves. Immediately he saw the Bengal Tiger in the pasture of light, in the most divided of split seconds before unleashing itself on its prey.
James’ mind tumbled and fell beneath the waters.
IV
When a child, his father took him out into the country. The Father collected his child while still asleep, and James woke in the car, still no sign of the sun outside. By the time his father stopped the car, everything recognizable and familiar had long since vanished.
James sprinted out of the car and into the maze of woods. His father’s voice receded to nothing but the faintest whisper. He turned to catch the fading voice, instead locking eyes with a family of deer; father, mother and baby. No more than ten feet away from him. He froze, as if he’d been wandering aimlessly and opened his eyes to find himself in the Tabernacle. James didn’t know whether to run, square his shoulders or fall to his knees. He wasn’t sure if it was Holy Ground or a Killing Field.
The baby deer bounced across the trail, paying no particular attention to James. James’ eyes shot back to the Father, who looked above and beyond James. If the Father was thinking about James, he wasn’t gonna let him know it. James fought for the Father’s eyes, all the while entranced by his antlers, extending out and up like two hands, palms out and pointed skyward.
The Mother scared him most. The Mother locked her eyes on James and never let him out of her sight. James looked in her eyes and saw her sleekness, her grace and flow. James knew Time was moving, but elsewhere. Locked in a trance with the Mother, Time had slowed. It had run out to sea, and James knew it was up to the Mother as to when it would rush back ashore.
At this moment, James realized he was ten feet away from a deer who could cover the distance in the most divided of split seconds and kill him.
All at once she showed him elegance and rage. Her beauty and Her violence.
V
James came up from beneath the waves in time to see the Bengal; hovering above the waters, claws extended and about to roar.
Thanks for your entry Dominic. I don’t read these until I have to make a decision so it’s fair for the people who post late, but yours was tempting. I wonder what all those Roman numerals hold 🙂
What I would give to be able to write a stunning dialog… Thanks for upping the stakes.
I second BoLane, great dialogue!
The morning light in the living room was strange, muted, as if someone had laid a huge gray blanket over the entire house. Eleanor was nowhere in sight, not even in the kitchen. He parted the dingy lace curtains at the front window, snowflakes swirling around the back yard between the weathered old barn and the gentle hills beyond. The snow seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere. He watched the wind die down, kick up again, then settle as the flakes grew larger and closer together, dropping straight down now. He wanted to stay at the window and watch it pile up on the gravel drive, slowly erasing the matted brown grass of the sloping field behind the house, fat white dots disappearing into the hole in the barn roof, but he knew he had to wake her.
She lay flat on her back in bed, the old red and yellow quilt tucked up under her chin. “Aunt Eleanor,” he whispered. “Are you sick? It’s getting very late.”
Leonard stood in the doorway, watching for her chest to rise and fall, listening for the sounds of her rhythmic breathing . He crept in and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“It’s very late now,” he said a bit louder. “Can you hear me?”
He could learn nothing from the expression on her face. He’d always had trouble reading faces other than happy or sad anyway, and hers was an utter blank to him now. Maybe she was just in a very deep sleep.
He sighed. Really, he knew. This was the day they’d talked about, usually after dinner so as not to spoil his appetite with worrying. He would miss her terribly, but he also knew he wouldn’t cry. He gently pulled back the covers. Her eyelids didn’t even flutter, so he reached out and put his hand to her cheek which was very cold and dense, like the ground outside.
His stomach ached.
He pulled the covers up over her face like he’d seen doctors do on t.v., and went to look for the phone numbers taped to the refrigerator. There were also numbers written on an index card taped to the inside of the cupboard door where the juice glasses were. These reminders were really for Eleanor — he didn’t need them; the numbers had been in his head from the start, like all numbers.
He ran a finger across the paper on the side of the refrigerator, tracing the feathery blue tendrils of her handwriting. True, they’d talked about this day, but now that it was here he couldn’t get his mind to make his body do what needed to be done. First call the police, she’d said, they’ll help you, then call the neighbors, they’ll help you even more. What to say? My Uncle Dan’s at Colonial Pines Rest Home and my Aunt Eleanor just died in her sleep? I’m all alone?
He opened the bread box on top of the old Frigidaire and took out the wrapped loaf. He should eat first. A peanut butter and sliced banana sandwich would suffice. No heating necessary. He prepared the sandwich but let the finished thing sit there on the counter, his mouth too dry to eat it. He wrapped the sandwich in a big sheet of wax paper and secured it with masking tape from the craft drawer which held the Elmer’s glue, loose rubber bands, little boxes of paper clips, envelopes stuffed with scraps of colored paper, recipes clipped from newspapers and magazines.
He tucked the tape back into the drawer next to a stack of tiny fabric swatches that Eleanor named the Soothing Squares. When he’d gotten agitated, Eleanor would set these on the faded green Formica table so he could arrange them by pattern and color. They felt nice under his fingertips and would slide softly around the table as he moved them about. He thought it was a rather childish task for a grown man, but he always felt better after he’d finished. He liked the red ones especially, and now reached in and plucked a royal Stewart plaid and placed it in his pants pocket.
By then the sky had darkened even more, and it was snowing harder. He didn’t call the police, but instead dialed the Drexels and waited through three rings before a recorded voice told him that the number had been disconnected or was no longer in service. He was told to check the number. After a short pause, the instructions were repeated, followed by static before line went dead. Leonard waited until exactly 10:10, then put on his Red Wings jacket and Cardinals cap, tucked the journal into his old Boy Scout knapsack and headed out.
Despite the thick gray clouds, the snow had slackened off a bit as he walked along the road. He felt invigorated, the pain in his stomach gone — he’d decided to eat the sandwich after all. There wasn’t a soul out and he was making good time. He felt better about the situation because he was doing something, not just sitting in his room waiting around for someone to help him as they always seemed to want to do. Most of the time he was fine with that, he’d gotten used to it, but there were times when he had to get out and do things on his own. That had often terrified Eleanor — she could be protective of him to the point of suffocation. He loved her like his own mother, but sometimes a man just had to be a man. True, his time with them had been so structured that he now felt dizzyingly buoyant, free to do anything if he could only get the butterflies to stop flying around inside him, or shake the feeling that he was walking a thin dangerous wire at a great height.
One time he’d walked five miles when Eleanor and Dan went visiting in Edmeston, and then a businessman had given him a ride as far as Fly Creek and he’d walked the last two miles to Ellsville. Late that night they’d had to pluck him from the Dugout Tavern and he’d passed out in the back seat on the drive home. Leonard felt bad the next day, because of the hangover, of course, but even more for the disappointment on their faces. That was always the worst: their silence was the same as his parents when he’d stayed out late drinking and they’d had to search the village for him, often finding him in the bar at the Red Toboggan Inn by the lake.
He hadn’t been on a binge for a year now and it felt good — Eleanor had a lot to do with it; she helped calm his mind with her projects, simple things that were meant to distract him. That’s why he’d loved drinking so much. He didn’t do it every day, just when he needed a break from his mind, when it all became too much. It helped to block out the constant barrage of numbers, statistics, facts, figures, dates, names, places. Lots of beer helped quiet the rolling wall of facts, the endless columns of text flowing by like credits of an epic movie scrolling ceaselessly past his eyes. Drinking helped quiet, fade this. It allowed him to enjoy watching games without so many numbers darting around — sometimes he just needed a rest. When he got to that point, he could let go for a few hours, relax, slow down, become more normal. He could look at people’s faces, linger on them, talk to them for hours without having to look away so quickly.
Leonard hoped he could get back home to Ellsville before sundown. There was no other place to go, no place he’d rather be. He loved the village, the feel, the smell of it. He knew it so well he could walk from one end to the other with his eyes closed. He pictured himself walking down route 80 through Fly Creek, and then past the old folks’ home on his right as he came into town. Maybe the Colonel would be out for an afternoon stroll. (The man fought in World War I, but hadn’t been an officer — he just looked like Colonel Sanders in his white suits and sturdy cane.)
Leonard saw himself walking past the old Ellsworth place as he crossed Grove Street, going down the hill and over the railroad tracks, turning left onto Reading Avenue toward the tiny Red Owl Grocery on the corner at Lindenberry Street. He might even buy a pack of cigarettes there. He hadn’t smoked in three years, but somehow it sounded good now. Nothing against his aunt and uncle, but he had a new sense of freedom, of a heaviness lifted from his shoulders. Theirs was a comforting routine, and they’d given him almost everything he needed, but he missed his long walks around Owananda Lake, stopping to sit and smoke in the woods. Striking out again was invigorating, if a bit unnerving. Things would be fine the closer he got to Ellsville.
He remembered the grocery’s quirky sign on the door that read ‘Thank You. Call Again’ from many years ago when he and his sister Jennie first went there for candy when they were young. By the time Leonard was 20, he would touch the sign as he went in for smokes, running his fingers along ‘Call Again’ and think about being a boy and how those same letters had been there all those years.
Now, he imagined the long straight shot down Lindenberry past the familiar old houses, and wondered if it would still be snowing. And the lake. Would it be frozen solid by now? He suspected it would be. He was anxious to see the old house. It was the one that he most associated with home. There was the smaller house on Cherry that he and his mother moved into after she’d gotten so frail, but they’d only lived there briefly and it didn’t seem as real or as important as the bigger house.
He walked faster.
He was reminded of a strange book his sister had read one summer about a man named Billy Pilgrim who could travel back and forth through time. Leonard hadn’t been very interested in the book, but he could clearly see in his mind the equally strange name on the cover: Kurt Vonnegut. There was a passage where Billy imagined himself skating on a frozen river in his socks while thousands of people cheered for him. Leonard remembered the words of the only part of the book that had caught his eye: “Billy Pilgrim went on skating, doing tricks in sweatsocks. The cheering went on, but gave way to time travel.” There were other words, but this was the passage that stuck with him — it reminded him of hockey. For years afterwards he had often thought of skating on Owananda Lake in his white sweatsocks in the moonlight. He was sorry he had never tried it.
He began to think more about time travel. If he walked long and hard enough, could he ever get back to a place where his parents were alive, where his sister was younger, where he was a boy and still beautiful, not the sad grown man he was now? There was a photograph of him and Jennie that used to sit for years on the mantle in the Lindenberry Street house. He was five, she was 12, and they were sitting on the back steps just after they’d moved into the house. He was wearing shorts and holding a toy train, Jennie’s arm slung around his shoulder. He looked like a porcelain doll, even with the little eyeglasses he’d been forced to wear, his pale skin so smooth. Normal. Where had that picture gotten to? He would look for it on the mantle. If he had to, he would walk forever to get there.
Entered! Thanks Jim.
Entered! Thanks Jim.
I’m in!
I can admit it, I was in near hysteria. At first it had seemed like such a great plan. The Wednesday before Christmas would be a quaint time at church, gathering together with our congregation to sing carols between readings of the Christmas story. What a beautiful plan.
I was behind the idea one hundred percent. It wouldn’t take too long to pull together and it would be fun to sing carols with everyone without the chill of going from one house to another. We decided to meet together the next Tuesday to discuss the details.
As I and a few others sat at the table that was set up in the back of our humble sanctuary, the man with the plans pulled out a manila folder – handing out stapled sheets to each of us – and a stack of CDs. I felt panic begin to rise. The sheets held a detailed itinerary including the music schedule, what verses our pastor was to read, decorations, and costumes.
I sat in dumbfounded silence as he went over the details of the hour-long program which he wanted to advertise on the radio and newspaper. He told me he’d ordered very nice, old country-style music for me to sing and hoped I would be okay with that.
Be okay? There were several problems here.
One, It was a little over a week before this program he’d come up with was supposed to be performed! I’m a very nervous singer, preferring at least a month’s advance before singing songs I don’t know very well.
Two, I pick my own music.
Three, costumes are for plays and this was not a play.
Four, something of this magnitude needed at least two months rehearsal, especially if you intend to invite a crowd that doesn’t know you from Adam.
Unhappy was an understatement of how I was feeling, but what was I supposed to do? He’d already spent money and started telling people about our upcoming, extraordinary Christmas production. A part of me wanted to very calmly remind him that I was the music leader and he should have consulted with me before taking it quite that far. My better sense (that part of me that attempts to keep a tight rein on my pride) said that would be wrong, so I held my peace until I returned home feeling overwhelmed and completely unprepared.
The 21st of December was looking to be a day that I’d want to soon forget, or better yet, sleep through. My feelings were a strange mixture of gladness to see so many people entering the door of our small church and at the same time equally fearful that I would soon have a panic attack and be rushed to the hospital for some emergency anti-anxiety treatments.
Overall the night was, indeed, unforgettable.
The music was far too quiet thanks to some tinkering beforehand that I wasn’t informed of. There were technical difficulties with the equipment that caused a several-minutes long vacuum of awkward silence. The singing was… interesting. There was a wealth of wholly unnecessary song introductions, including a long-winded speech on how the world is running out of frankincense, of all things.
I was partly horrified and partly humbled. While this poor man doesn’t quite have the talent he believes he does, he gives a lot more of himself than others – myself included. While he doesn’t understanding timing and themes of a program, his heart was in the right place. I can’t say the same for my own. When so little preparation takes place, it’s difficult to immerse yourself in the meaning behind what you’re trying to do.
Afterwards, presents were handed out to the children and the kitchen was opened, and no one eats better than Baptists at a fellowship meal. The children ran around the room, showing off their new toys and adults talked. Laughter echoed off the walls, along with mothers’ calls to their children to stop jumping over the pews.
I stood back and marveled at how an evening I’d dreaded for the last seven days had actually turned out to have some sweet and beautiful high notes. I suppose that I can always be thankful that while it felt like the longest night of my life, at least it was the shortest day of the year.
Thanks for your entry Melinda!
Thanks for your entry Melinda!
That is a beautiful picture. Story coming up soon, I hope. 🙂
Thanks, Laura 🙂 I hope so too.
Thanks, Laura 🙂 I hope so too.
I fear my muse has the flu…or maybe a cold. Either way, she’s not talking. Which, by the way, has me a bit concerned. Is it okay that my muse is female?
Muses are female by definition 🙂
I fear my muse has the flu…or maybe a cold. Either way, she’s not talking. Which, by the way, has me a bit concerned. Is it okay that my muse is female?
“It’s the Winter Solstice.”
“What?”
“The shortest day of the year. It’s today.”
“Really? It’s strange, I usually miss it.”
“Miss it?”
“You know, you wait for it, but it always seems to go unnoticed and then you remember a day or two later when you see a calendar.”
“I think that’s from Gatsby.”
“What is?”
“What you said, about missing the solstice. Except I think they were talking about the Summer Solstice.”
“I’ve never read it.”
“Never read what?”
“The Great Gatsby.”
“You’ve never read The Great Gatsby?!?”
“No.”
“Didn’t you read it in high school?”
“I was home-schooled.”
“Didn’t your parents have standards?”
“Just because I didn’t read one book doesn’t mean my parents… We got to pick our own books.”
“So, what? Harry Potter and TV Guide?”
“Hey! This coming from the woman who has never read Ayn Rand.”
“Oh, like that’s literature?”
“It is.”
“I’m sure. For right-wing nut-jobs, which I am not.”
“Just because one political movement has chosen to use it as a standard does not mean the book does not have value.”
“In one of those books, does a main character say ‘poor people, we do not need you’, or does he not?”
“Oh, so you have read it?”
“No, I’ve heard of it.”
“Well, that hardly makes you the proper judge.”
“Answer the question.”
“He does not say that. In so many words.”
“I rest my case.”
“Hardly. Abusus non tollit usum.”
“Say what now?”
“’Abuse does not abolish use.’ It’s Latin. Just because some people use it to defend their crazy philosophy does not mean the book is crazy.”
“I suppose that’s fair. Just like because someone says a book is good, does not mean that the book is actually good.”
“Like The Great Gatsby.”
“You take that back! It is a hallmark of American literature.”
“It’s about a womanizing moonshiner who gets shot.”
“F. Scott Fitzgerald is a treasure.”
“The man was crazy.”
“No, that was his wife. And art is born from pain!”
“That’s a coincidence, not a pre-requisite.”
“Like Ayn Rand was the sanest of people? Have you seen a picture of her? What was with that hair?”
“It was stylish.”
“For a man.”
“I disagree.”
“You’re a guy, you don’t know hair.”
“That’s sexist.”
“That’s a statement of fact.”
“It’s still sexist.”
“Reality often is.”
“How do you figure?”
“Reality doesn’t have a filter.”
“Like some people I know.”
“You are one to talk. You say everything that comes into your brain. I never have to ask you what you’re thinking, because you’re usually busy telling me.”
“Excuse me if I’m just an open person.”
“And yet somehow, my frankness annoys you?”
“I didn’t say it annoys me.”
“Oh, honey, that’s so sweet. And a complete load.”
“When are you going to get the kids up?”
“Already did. They left for school 15 minutes ago.”
“So early? It’s still dark out.”
“Of course, it’s the Solstice.”
“What?”
“The shortest day of the year. It’s today.”
Thanks Douglas.
This is an inspiration for me, Douglas. I want to be able to handle dialogue like that.
WINTER SOLSTICE by Cindy Trane Christeson
It’s winter in the world, and winter lingers in my heart. It’s cold. So cold. It’s cold and crusted over. Some may see it as white, but I don’t. It’s not really white, it’s just absent of color. It’s been absent of color in the world for me.
It didn’t use to be, and it won’t always be. It’s better already. But there will always be a jagged dividing line, separating ‘before’ and ‘after’. Before and after everything changed.
Winter solstice is defined by the shortest day and the longest night of the year.
My winter solstice began in June.
It was Sunday, June 3rd, 2007 and I didn’t even mind the long security line at the airport. I was too excited for the trip ahead to let the slow moving sea of humanity make a dent in the joy-filled mood I felt.
I was going to fly up to San Jose to be picked up by our youngest daughter Amy. I’d made it through the security line and was circling the gate, waiting to board when I got her cute little text. It was short, but communicated much. ‘Cantw82cu’ it said.
I was new to texting, but managed a response without too many deletes. ‘U2beautiful’ I replied.
Short, simple flight, and then she met me right where she said she would. Wearing orange. That strawberry blond, dimpled beauty looked gorgeous in anything, but she was particularly stunning that day. Her hair looked like liquid gold, elegant and glistening like the jeweled red-orange in a shimmering sunset.
“Ive never seen you travel so light before, Mommio, ” she said with a teasing smile after our hug of love, nodding to my absence of baggage. All I had was a large black purse, knowing that was enough for the drive from northern California back home to Newport.
“And I’ve never seen you wear orange before, Amo,” I replied. “You’re positively radiant.” She did a little jig back to the driver’s side of the white van, saying, “Thanks, it’s my new favorite color.”
We hit the road and we hit conversations. We covered many miles, enjoying miles of reconnecting.
Winter solstice is defined by the shortest day and the longest night of the year.
My winter solstice began in June.
It was Sunday June 3rd, 2007 and I didn’t even mind the long security line at the airport. I was too excited for the trip ahead to let the slow moving sea of humanity make a dent in the joy-filled mood I felt.
I was going to fly up to San Jose to be picked up by our youngest daughter Amy. I’d made it through the security line and was circling the gate waiting to board when I got her cute little text. It was short, but communicated much. ‘Cantw82cu’ it said.
I was new to texting, but managed a response without too many deletes. ‘U2beautiful’ I replied.
Short, simple flight, and then she met me right where she said she would. Wearing orange. That strawberry blond dimpled beauty looked gorgeous in anything, but she was particularly stunning that day.
“I’ve never seen you travel so light before, Mommio,” she said with a teasing smile after our hug of love, nodding to my absence of baggage. All I had was a large black purse, knowing that was enough for the drive from northern California back home to Newport.
“And I’ve never seen you wear orange before,” I replied. “You’re positively radiant.” She did a little jig back to the driver’s side of the white van, saying, ‘Thanks, it’s my new favorite color.”
We hit the road and we hit conversations. We covered many miles, enjoying miles of reconnecting. We sang with the music, laughed at each other’s silly jokes and munched on pretzels and carrots. Bright orange carrots.
Besides the catching up, we shared future dreams. Hers were the biggest. And brightest, and because they were hers, they were possible. Admirable. Commendable. Reachable. Doable.
That is, until our back left tire was no longer reliable. Or dependable. Or faithful.
It let us down. It let go. It changed our lives. It ended Amy’s.
In many ways, it ended mine. What once was ‘normal’ ceased.
Winter Solstice began that June. Shortest day. Longest night.
So cold, so hard. Absent of color. No Amy. No orange.
That night lingers still.
On the calendar, winter solstice is just a day, and then the days begin to lengthen, little by little. The shortest day of the year slowly stretches into ongoing months, inching its way into spring.
It’s taken time to add to my days, little by little. To lengthen and to strengthen and to stretch slowly into spring.
Held up by God and others, I’ve made one step after another through the crusted cold snow, and my steps are getting lighter. I’m no longer cold at my core. Winter has thawed and so has my heart. It beats with warmth. I feel and I see in color again.
Orange. I smile at orange. I wear orange. I smile, and I cry. I live in the key of bittersweet, but I harmonize in sweet.
We live in a new normal now. So does Amy’s husband, and my husband. And our other daughter. And so many other’s too. Amy’s life had a reach that was immeasurable, and her legacy lives on today, like a gentle river flowing forth and watering growth.
The barren trees of winter have new buds, even sprouting in distant lands. Dormant flowers bloom again.
And some of the blossoms are orange.
Welcome to the contest, Cindy. Thanks so much for joining us 🙂
Cindy, wow. Fabulous.
Loved your story Cindy.
The Summer Tease
by Melissa Mills
It did not feel like the Winter Solstice in Santa Monica. The early sun was beating overhead and when She breathed, it was so easy to take a gulp of fresh sea air, almost as if She could inhale forever and forget that winter was ever a season. Here She felt free to rollerblade near the beach, leaning into the curves of the path, getting lost among the young families teaching their children how to ride a bike and the runners gliding through another sunrise on the trails that lead to Malibu.
The sun glimmered on Her cool face, warming it until beads of sweat appeared on her brow. Scarves and Uggs and layers were ubiquitously peeled off to reveal skin and tank tops and the unmistakable scent of sunscreen lathered thick. It was a dichotomy. Summer in winter. Something felt off and yet so perfect. It meant a new season. It signaled exchanging the old for new. The heaviness of winter forsaken for the promise and lightness of summer. Would it last?
While the rest of Her surroundings easily masqueraded winter, the ocean, which She dared to dip her toe in it, could not lie. Her foot was submerged in an icy remnant of a wave but just as soon as She dared plunge it in, the shock caused Her to jerk her foot away, as if caught in a trap. Still, it was nice to pretend that summer was upon Her. Winter had not been kind thus far. It meant memories and loss. A broken relationship. A sad roommate. A Christmas that would shortly be glossed over because too much had happened this past year to really make the effort to celebrate wholeheartedly.
And yet this burst of summer energy, this secret unearthed at the beach among the graffiti artists of Venice and lone runners and Herself, was a reminder that things aren’t always what they seem. She thought back to the windstorm several weeks earlier. It had rained sheets. The windows shook with such a fury, nearly rattling out of their frames. They say winds reached 100 miles per hour evidenced by the 500 trees that were uprooted that night only to be toppled over like a full Monopoly board after an encounter with a toddler. Mother Nature had wreaked her havoc and the results equalled the Mayor declaring a disaster area. Driving was treacherous. Power lines were felled.
She wondered back then if this was a foreboding signal for worse things yet to come. Would winter settle here and stay? She remembered the biting, shallow breaths from winters of her past in Chicago during days when 30 below was the norm. Breaths that stuck inside the tight place in her throat where freezing air met hot droplets of steam, crystalizing instantly. Winter then was a long bony finger sticking out of a cage, tauntingly. It was silent but in those silences were long depressions. Unanswered questions. She did not want to go back.
California meant kept promises. It was sunsets and moments not missed, but experienced. Similarly, Winter solstice meant change was coming, but maybe not in the way she thought. Shifting seasons was always a bit unnerving in the beginning, but sometimes this became a welcome gift. A newness. The oldness not lingering, but growing into something different and good. Full of potential and possible joy. And so She decided in that moment when the seagulls were flying aimlessly over the palm trees and the scent of eggs and bacon were wafting toward her, intermingling with the sea salt, that she was happy. “Winter solstice, come all you want,” she thought. “While many see the day with the least amount of sun, I’m reminded that every day after will mean more and more light until summer isn’t just teasing me, but it’s real.”
Thanks Melissa!
Transitional Housing
by Katie Hauser
I had never eaten canned meat before. The church lady, who’s name was Jean but whom I called Mrs. Greer let me come into the church kitchen with her to make dinner. I don’t think she was used to children, because I was ten and she gave me a sharp knife and asked me to cut the bread. “It might be a little tough, it’s day old.” I stood at a wooden counter on a step stool, cutting while she opened a tin of meat, snapping the pull top the way my dad opened a beer. She turned the can upside down on the white plate that was gray in the middle from years of cut marks. She licked her lips as she worked and shook the can trying to get the chunk of mottled meat to come out. The can made slurping noises, much like Mrs. Greer, as she hit the bottom with her fist and pushed with her fingers. The fleshy hunk started to emerge, slowly, and with a sigh, landed on the plate, followed by a pink gelatinous afterbirth. I gagged and threw up all over the day old bread.
For one week, my brother, mom and I lived in the basement of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church with its dampness and warehouse size cans of Raid in the corners. We slept in a Sunday school room on crisp white sheets that hid the rusty springs of the roll-away beds. Mrs. Greer and Mrs. Hoffman, both in stretchy pants suits met us in the morning at 7am, making my mom a coffee and giving Joe and me thin slices of sticky cheese Danish. We each got a brown bag lunch to take to school, our lunches of peanut butter and jelly or tuna salad sandwiches soggy from being in the church refrigerator all night. Once Joe and I saw a woman we knew from the neighborhood dropping off a dinner of turkey tetrazzini for us in the church kitchen. You could tell she was trying to make it special, with heating instructions written on flowery note paper, a pan of brownies and ice cream sandwiches for dessert. By our last night I had memorized the names of the Sunday school children on the banner in our room – MATTHEW, NANCY, CHRIS, PAULA, LUKE, PETER, BETSEY. The names were cut out of yellow and orange felt and Joe and I weren’t sure if they were supposed to be flames or rays of sun coming off of the cross.
This stay at St. Paul’s was what my mother called transitional housing, Mrs. Greer called the “Friend in Deed” program and Joe called charity. We were there because we couldn’t get into our new apartment yet. We had to move after our dad left. My dad was never around much, so I didn’t realize he was gone gone until I woke up one morning to have the unexpected joy of a snow day ruined by mom screaming at us to shovel because dad was gone, “and this time for good.” He had never been around much, not the way my friend Martha’s dad was around: raking his lawn or pitching balls or taking us sledding with surprise trips to McDonalds. My dad travelled for his job and had a bar across the back seat of his car to hang his thinly striped shirts, his two sport coats and a special hook with clips for his ties. He also had a coffee cup that was wide and heavy on the bottom so it wouldn’t tip over. He always had Certs in the glove compartment and maps of Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. That seemed to be all he needed to do whatever it was he did.
Mom marked the day he left on the refrigerator calendar the same way she marked her period, our dentist appointments and our birthdays: with a big red felt-tipped asterisk. “That’s the day. December 21st. Shortest day of the year, ha! You’ll always remember that day.” Mom made sure of that, telling everyone we saw, at school or in the grocery store. People started bringing us lasagnas and spaghetti pie and everything tasted like it had a coating of egg on it. It was early spring when mom told us we had lost the house and were moving to an apartment above the TV repair shop in our town. We would have a parking spot in the back for our Vista Cruiser next to the service truck.
Looking back, Mom stayed stuck on December 21st, like the red asterisk, permanent, just faded with time. Her brown bob turned gray, but was still held off her face with a single bobby pin. “Of course he left you,” I wanted to say then. “Act like a widow, look like a widow.”
After our stay at St. Paul’s, mom started reading the Lutheran Daily Devotional. For a few weeks she made us read the prayer of the day together. “Hmm. Lets see what it said for December 21st. ‘Because of what Jesus has done, may my heart be made new and clean and appreciative. This I ask in Jesus’ Name. Amen. ‘ Ha. May my heart be made new, that’s rich”!
Thanks for your entry Kate 🙂
This is great Kate. I really caught a glimpse of what a child would think about living in a shelter. Was this fiction or nonfiction?
This is fiction. Thanks!
This is great Kate. I really caught a glimpse of what a child would think about living in a shelter. Was this fiction or nonfiction?
The Longest Night
by Clint Archer
I don’t believe in self-fulfilling prophecy, nor am I superstitious. I fancy myself an intrepid world traveller, possessing resourcefulness which my wife tells others borders on a freakish super power (I fed her most of that line, she added the “freakish”). So when that chubby, bespectacled kid who landed with us at Dublin airport declared, “Look mom, it’s Mary and Joseph!” it seemed more charming to me than ominous.
This was our first international foray as a young married couple, and yes, one of us was heavy with child. But we were determined not to let a little thing like imminent offspring bind our wanderlust.
We wrangled our frequent flier cards in such a way that we could snipe a bargain ticket detour from the rest of the group, with a one night layover in the literati’s Mecca. We both love dead Irish writers, and relished our scheme to race the daylight. The stakes of the challenge were only heightened by the twist of providence that we arrived on December 21st, the shortest day of the year.
As per my vagabond modus operandi, I hadn’t bothered to book a room. I condescendingly tutored nervous wifey in the ways of the backpacker. Hostels in Europe are as ubiquitous and affordable as McDonalds. When you’re brandishing a fistful of Euros as your harpoon, food and lodging are easy prey for the experienced grid skipper. “Trust me, honey.”
The hop-on-hop-off bus reeked of tourist, but on a one day trip it was mandated madness. We did the Trinity College, Book of Kells, Joyce-Stoker-Shelley-Synge whirlwind, and snatched a smoke-filled breather in the very pub Oscar Wilde would frequent before he was imprisoned for the crime of “buggery” (something I learned from an informative and gratuitously illustrative graffiti artist in the pub’s WC). It had been a full day. My feet were pulsing like a dashboard warning light. But I draw fuel from the ‘esprit de place’ of foreign soil. I hate beer, but since the rest of my party was nurturing life in the womb, it fell to me to exchange a day’s wage for the obligatory pint of Guinness. My puckered face didn’t elicit the usual giggle from my bride, so I figured it was time to steer this tour in the direction of a place to collapse.
We plodded to the tourism office which had once been a church. The desk was piloted by a delightful curmudgeon with a glass eye. I resisted asking for a picture with him, and just requested directions to the cheapest hostel.Without even pretending to glance at the computer, Cyclops dismissively grunted something inaudible. Someone had forgotten to kiss the Blarney stone. On the third attempt he articulated with some feeling that there were no beds.
The “I told you so” never left my sweetheart’s lips, but the accusation’s invisible presence wafted around the room like a homeless man’s BO.
“Ok, what’s the damage of an actual hotel? Half a star will do,” I quipped, trying not to stare at the stationary eye.
“No mate, you don’t understand. There aren’t any beds in any hotel, B&B or anywhere as far as Derry, four hours away.”
He pointed at a garish poster of some boyish rockstar I’d never heard of and his “Solstice Concert.” He didn’t look old enough to have covered “solstice” in school yet, but was presenting a one night offering of what I’m sure preteen girls would qualify as music. This star had apparently drawn every nubile off the Continent like spilled metal filings to a pubescent babe magnet.
No rooms, anywhere.
The clerk softened when he saw the mom-to-be dabbing her eyes with a grubby “I [clover] the Emerald Isle” neckerchief. He seemed apologetic, and proffered the suggestion to try the airport. At least it would be warm and dry.
We stepped onto the tundra of the sidewalk. At least the cold prevented actual tears from forming on my face. Crystals of unmanliness appeared on my bottom eyelid. They aided the appearance of my self-control, like Ulysses bound to the mast.
At the airport, every square inch of flooring, tables, and benches was covered by the sleeping bags of gloating backpackers, like colorful maggots squirming with the delight of their forethought.
Bear in mind this was after a day of packing, a sleepless international flight, a day of traipsing through cobblestones streets…and it was before another international flight. I needed sleep like a lethally wounded animal needs to be put down. And I wasn’t even pregnant. We eventually found the only unoccupied space in Ireland. The hard McDonalds benches were so narrow, one arm had to be gripping the backrest at all times to keep from falling. My sleep was snatched in the nanoseconds between drifting off toward the blissful oblivion, and being stunned awake by brace reflexes as I flailed off the bench. I think I got about 7000 of these quantum naps in the 3 hours we tried to rest. And guilt was my only pillow, as I listened to my wife tortured in the same way. It was the longest night of my life.
An undeterminable number of hours later we wordlessly boarded the 747 for our exodus from purgatory. We were seated across the isle from the fat nerdy kid who had been on our inbound flight. He was interrogating his mom about every advertisement in the inflight magazine. Her response was to patiently answer, all in soothing tones that weren’t anything like the violent reactions playing in my mind.
One of my sleep-deprived lobes issues a thought that buzzed around my brain like a drunk kamikaze; this was all the fault of that kid’s precocious “no room at the inn” prophecy. No. Irrational. Show some sympathy. Fatboy’s mother had obviously been stranded in Dublin too, though probably her layover had been less self-inflicted than ours. She too appeared to have no interest in Boyband-gone-solo and his Solstice suckfest.
I nudged my wife (we were on nudging terms by now) to look at the maternal scene. Here was an exhausted parent sacrificially enduring a litany of stream-of-consciousness questions from this thirsty little mind. Cute, right? He was asking about Winter Solstice. Mom did a great job at explaining the seasons, the shortening of days, and how the hemisphere we were heading into had the exact opposite effect. As our plane taxied to the runway the boy looked directly at me and said, “Hey Mr Joseph, we are going to the south hemisphere.” I was too tired to change my name back, so I simply smiled and nodded. Sleep was coming like a freight train for a welcome collision. As I was drifting off, to meet my wife in dreamland, I heard him say prophetically, “Where we’re going it’s the longest *day* of the year.”
As those words landed, my wife’s sudden piercing shriek was like an injection of adrenaline in my neck. I sat bolt upright as did everyone else in economy class.
“Hey mom,” piped the fat oracle, “Baby Jesus is coming today!”
Welcome to the contest, Clint. By the way, you have a great name for an author!
Uncle Jeff says hi (just kidding…I wish).
Ha!
Welcome to the contest, Clint. By the way, you have a great name for an author!
Uncle Jeff says hi (just kidding…I wish).
Great job, Clint. Can wait to read what happened when baby Jesus was born in economy class.
The Heart’s Solstice
by Christan Perona
“Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” – King David of ancient Israel
It’s a painful reality for some – even at Christmastime when winter’s lifeless trees are sprinkled with light and society boasts an uncommon goodwill toward others. We clothe ourselves, our homes, our communities with beauty and truly do try to embrace all the hope Advent holds. Yet, our wounds shout the moment we try to hide them with holiday bliss.
The winter solstice. The ache of a forever night. It’s deepened in midnight’s silence when rest and daily healing should be at work. The sun hides, causing the shadows to linger on earth’s face and even deeper onto human hearts. And the restless mind replays scene after scene, watching the clash of circumstance with what we hold to be true in our souls. Yes, weeping endures for many through the night so heavy it’s almost hard to breathe.
Yet the one, forever night is but a reflection of ancient history. Imagine four hundred years of silence. The world was lost in a spiritual solstice of sorts. God was silent – painfully silent – until the timeless Restorer brought morning after four centuries. Out of the darkness, He set His plan in motion to win back the hearts of people caught in a mess… the mess of believing a lie that He does not love them… the mess of running away from the very One who could heal their hearts forever.
And Zechariah, he boldly pointed toward Hope, promising the solstice was not as powerful as they imagined.
“…the Sunrise shall visit us from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
And I know He’s light eternal, but I’ve never called Him my Sunrise. Prince of Peace? Yes. Wonderful Counselor? Of course. Mighty God? Uh huh. Everlasting Father? Yes, that too.
But my Sunrise. My hope fulfilled. My beginning. Over and over and over again.
And should you be one who’s presently scorning reality when all the world seems to be singing, know that the Song is yours, too. And He rescues not only those weeping in the dark, but those painfully hiding in the shadow of death. He reaches for the very ones who must be guided back to the path of peace. Guided back to that for which we were created.
He lifts them out of the mocking solstice. And the longing to understand is swallowed up with His greatness. And the darkness, so heavy it taunts, births hope. And the tears in the dark find their Promise, their Sunrise.
May the joy of Christmas morning hold new meaning well into the New Year. May its sunrise represent more than a fleeting moment of bliss overshadowed by the coming night. May the hope of the Forever Sunrise laugh when your heart’s winter solstice returns. Yes, it will return. It always does. But it will never last forever again.
Thank you so much for joining us, Christan!
Thanks for the opportunity, Joe. I love the diversity of people you have reading your blog.
Wonderful, Christan. I love how you tied Winter Solstice with the darkness and our need for the Light of the world. Great job.
Tom, thanks for your encouragement. I appreciate your kindness.
Beautiful.
BoLane, thank you.
WINTER SOLSTICE by BB Scott
The icy wind caused Jacob no discomfort, just mild irritation in knowing that the wind could impact the task lying ahead. He picked his spot with infinite care so that even now, in the frail early dawn light, it afforded him a clear view of the snow covered park below. His grey eyes flicked once more over the terrain below before he turned his attention back to the light rifle in his hands. It was perfectly balanced, almost effortless to lift to the shoulder, even for someone as slight as he. With sure fingers he carefully adjusted the state-of-the-art telescopic sight to compensate for the increasing cross-wind before he gently lowered himself onto the plastic sheet he had spread on the ground. It might be a long wait. Like last year.
Though he was waiting for it, expecting it, he jolted slightly at the first movement in the park. He opened and closed his hands slowly to remove any stiffness and watched with mild interest as more and more people hurried through the park, eager to reach their warm offices. He noticed the woman stomping her feet in the cold as she waited patiently while her dog sniffed around in the fresh snow. The two regular chess players on the bench were not there. Too cold, he mused. Then he spotted the first of the group as they came into the park. The group of runners he was waiting for, jogging into the park from different directions, carefully avoiding the icy patches on the concrete pathways, their breath floating white puffs in the wind. For a moment he could not find his target. Unconsciously he held his breath as he nervously scanned their faces, urgently seeking for that one face. He exhaled slowly, a smile forming on his thin lips as he recognized the familiar red and white baseball cap.
Without removing his eye from the eye piece, Jacob leaned over onto his left elbow to adjust the focus. Patiently he followed his target, magnified in sharp focus, as the group milled about, his right index finger resting lightly on the side of the set hair trigger. He knew the right moment would come and waited with controlled patience. When the instant came he was ready. As his right hand gently closed on the trigger, he knew the shot was clean and true.
Fascinated he watched the spreading confusion in the park through his scope. One of the runners approached the man lying on the frozen ground, bending over to help him up, only to jump back with shock at the sight of dark blood slowly pooling on the snow. Someone started screaming hysterically. People turned, tearing away in all directions, slipping and stumbling into each other. He watched and waited. She would be there soon. Not long now. Like last year.
By the time when Lieutenant Dempsey arrived, officers have sealed off the area with bright yellow tape. With a sense of futility she scanned the surroundings, seeking the vantage points he would pick. She knew they would find no evidence to link the murderer. Since early this morning she had feared the moment when, inevitably, her phone would ring. On this day of winter solstice. Like it has rung on winter solstice these last three years.
As she approached, he carefully studied her face through the powerful scope, waiting for that first sign of horror, the shock that comes with realization. He watched closely as she kneeled beside the body, then reel backwards as the recognition hit her. He clearly saw the raw emotion, her hands shaking as she clasped her mouth and he smiled, keeping the scope fixed on her. Then she slumped down next to the dead man in the snow, her body convulsing violently as deep sobs tore from her chest. Someone took control of the situation and started barking orders at the officers. He knew exactly what to do next.
Eventually the officers found the spot where he had fired from, but he was long gone. No evidence left behind. No hair. No skin. No fiber from his clothes. He would have carefully folded the large plastic sheet he lied on and stowed it in his attaché before leaving. The only evidence would be the rifle. Immaculately wiped clean. Untraceable. Like last year.
Jacob walked the two blocks back to his car, unlocked the driver door and sat with his hands resting on the steering wheel. Slowly he exhaled, closed his eyes and dropped his head lightly onto his hands, waiting for his beeper to vibrate.
When it did, he reached for his mobile and dialed a number without reading the message on the beeper. He knew what it would say.
“Yes?” he said when she answered.
“It happened again… this time my brother.” she said, the sorrow shallow in her voice. “I begged him not to go out -” unable to control the sob escaping her.
“Where?” he asked, knowing the answer before she could reply.
“I’ll be there in 10 minutes.” he said and killed the connection.
He knew what to expect once he arrived at the murder scene. It would be the same questions, the same confusion. He would see the same glorious pain in her eyes. That familiar pain she has suffered when first her fiancé, then her closest and dearest friend, and now her brother was brutally murdered. She knew it was because of her they all died, but until she could figure out why, she was unable to stop this insanity. He smirked silently. His best detective, but he had refused her repeated pleadings to be put on this, the most important case of her life.
“You’re too close to this one, Dempsey.”
It has been three years now since that dreadful winter solstice day in the drug store. The day Dempsey reacted instinctively in the face of mortal danger. The day the drug addict swung his gun onto her after he brutally shot the store manager in the face, his eyes wild from a drug induced frenzy. She fired two shots in rapid succession. Just as they trained her. The second shot hit the addict in the throat, killing him instantly. The first shot missed, ricocheted off the back wall and hit the male patron cowering behind the shelve displaying tooth pastes and dental floss. Dennis was always so diligent about flossing.
He died alone in the hospital two days later after surgeons tried to remove the gnarled lump of lead from his right frontal lobe. My Dennis. My secret lover. My agony. My guilt.
As a kid, Jacob never knew love. As a young man, leaving his mother and father to continue their drinking and fighting, Jacob never knew love. All his life and as he studied and slaved away at this job to finally make chief detective, he has been alone. Four years ago he met Dennis and he found love for the first time in his life. Four years they shared a delicious, secret love, hiding it to protect Jacob’s career. And then she took it all away from him. She must be alone, like he is alone now. Again. She has to be reminded, every year, like he is reminded, of the pain to lose someone you love.
Every winter solstice.
Thanks for joining in, BB. Welcome to the contest.
Thanks for joining in, BB. Welcome to the contest.
Wow BB! Very intriguing story. Great job.
Thanks Tom. Just read your The Long Night and I’m impressed. Loved how you brought so much emotion into such a simple scene. Love it!
Wow BB! Very intriguing story. Great job.
Great story. Another one I missed before, so glad Joe brought attention to it in his post today. Your entry had me thinking and wondering as I read and still I was surprised at the end, but the surprise made sense in the context of the story. Keep us posted on your progress – I think this one is going somewhere!!
Thanks for the kind words, Steph. I had fun writing this.
The Long Night
By Tom Wideman
June stared out the window, her breath softly fogging the single pane of glass.
“If I can just make it through today, I know I can make it through the rest of the winter,” she quietly said to herself.
Her husband, Morey, was pretending to ignore her as he read the sports page in bed. He rolled his eyes as he heard her force out a loud sigh.
“What the hell’s the matter with you now?” Morey asked, letting the paper crumple under his hairy forearms.
“Nothing, sweetheart, I didn’t mean for you to hear that.”
“Yea, right,” Morey said as he raised the paper back in front of him.
“But since you asked,” June continued, “you know I struggle with Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD as my counselor calls it.”
“Yes, dear, you’re sad.” Morey didn’t bother lowering the newspaper again.
“So today is Winter Solstice, the first day of winter, the shortest day of the year,” June explained. “I figure, if I can make it through this day, then tomorrow the daylight will be a little longer. And then every day after that will continue to get longer until the first day of summer.” The pitch of her voice instinctively rose and lightened as she said the word “summer.”
“So if today is the shortest day of the year, shouldn’t you get busy fixin’ breakfast?” Morey said with a smirk. It was June’s turn to roll her eyes this time, accompanied by an even louder dramatic sigh.
“All you want from me is to cook and clean for you,” she pouted.
“Now, that’s not true, June,” he said with a wink. “You know I need you around for other things as well.” With that, he threw back the covers, revealing his naked, over-indulged frame in all its hairtopian glory.
June huffed and stormed down the narrow hallway of their double-wide. Grabbing the frying pan from the bottom of the stack of dirty dishes sitting in the sink, she slammed it down on the large red burner. A week’s worth of grease and charred hamburger granules covered the cast iron skillet like a bad case of scabies. But June didn’t care. She secretly hoped he’d get hepatitis A and die. She carelessly cracked four eggs intentionally dropping specks of egg shell in the pan. As the eggs started to bubble and coagulate, June began to cry.
“I hate my life,” June muttered.
She looked out the window as the snow fell, covering the lawn and all the automobile parts scattered about. Her tears created a kaleidoscope of snowflakes and rusty transmission parts in her red eyes. Everything looked dark, even the white snow. She looked past the cardinal resting atop the carcass of their 87 Honda and noticed the wind had blown over her mailbox again.
It was the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, when daylight had the same life span as the fruit flies hovering over the spotted bananas on the kitchen counter.
June waved her hand over the bananas to shoo the flies away. As she stood there next to the stove, one hand on her hip, the other stirring up her special dirty eggs, she realized she was no different than those flies hovering over the rotting bananas. She’d been hovering over Morey the past seven years, all the while watching him rot in his own filth.
She scraped the runny eggs into the last remaining clean plate and called Morey for breakfast. She was relieved to see him come to the table with a shirt on.
“The Rams lost another one last night,” Morey said, dipping his toast in the bright yellow yoke.
“That’s too bad,” June sighed. “I think I’ll make banana bread.”
You overcame your writer’s block! Excited to read this. Thanks Tom 🙂
Forever Balaur
By Bo Lane
He lifted the left side of his red jacket and in one sweeping motion he unbolted the strap of the leather sheath with his right hand and pulled out the 9mm and raised it midway between his hip and his shoulder and pulled back the hammer and popped the safety with his forefinger.
I raised my left hand to cover my face and tilted my head slightly to the right. Before the ring of the first bullet deafened my left ear I noticed the custom gold inlay of a three-headed dragon and the words Forever Balaur that took the entire length of the silver barrel. And then flashes from the muzzle broke through the spaces where my fingers weren’t covering my eyes and I saw her body jerk slightly back and then she began to fall forward. The ringing prevented me from hearing clearly but, if I were to guess, I’d say at least four shots landed in her upper chest and neck.
Terrance was the oldest of Susan Frumos’ three boys and was in his second year at the University of Civil Engineering in Bucharest, Romania. His plane landed no more than three or four hours before he watched his mother’s body crumble slowly on the brown and grey linoleum that led from the living room to the kitchen. As her body finally rested on the floor, an echo of nothingness filled my head. No sounds of movement. No talking. No crying. Nothing.
I removed my hand from my face and looked slightly to my left where Susan’s body lay. I saw Terrance run around the island in the center of the kitchen and throw himself down next to her and mumble something indistinguishable. Another shot broke the silence and I saw a heavy stream of blood blow across the wall closest to Terrance as the bullet exited the left side of his face. It was quite evident that the pair was dead but I didn’t have much time to think about that.
As I felt the leather glove grip my throat, I realized for the first time that my knees must have given way. With a small amount of effort, he hoisted me back onto my feet and shifted my body toward him and tightened his left hand around my neck. He turned the top of the barrel sideways in his right hand and pulled it far behind his shoulder and then slammed it across the side of my face causing blood to fill my left eye. That was the first time I caught a glimpse of his face.
He was quite a bit younger than me. He wore a black cap that covered most of his bottle blond hair and hadn’t shaved in, I’m guessing, a week or more. He was panting and from the slight perspiration under his nose, I assumed he was quite anxious. But, because he forced the silver barrel of his 9mm into my mouth, those were the only features I remember about him.
I could feel the heat still radiating from the barrel against my tongue and it was the first time during this whole incident that I actually felt I would no longer exist, that I would die right there on the floor next to Susan and Terrance. I closed my eyes and tried as hard as I could not to choke on the pistol but that proved futile. Despite my unfortunate situation, my mind began to wander.
I thought about the last time I touched my wife’s face and brushed her hair over her ear with my finger. I thought about all the times I sat on the edge of my daughter’s bed and listened to her breathe. I thought about the time I dropped the hood of my ‘88 mustang and sped down the interstate as fast as the car would take me. I remember my hair whipping through the air and ignoring the ache in my stomach telling me that I was going way beyond my limitations.
For the entirety of my life I thought I was limitless. Well actually, I didn’t think much about it. Maybe that’s why every moment of this whole scene rings vividly in my brain. Maybe it was the first time in my life I recognized my limitations.
“What happened next, Mr. Kernbach?”
The words were so foreign to me that I snapped my eyes open and clutched my throat with both hands and gasped sharply for air. Two men stood behind a third man who sat in a wooden chair across the table from me. The table was the size of a small car and on it were a set of keys and a glass of water and a little notepad that the man had scratched some notes upon. But it was the blinking red light on the video camera just left of the man sitting across from me that caught my attention and brought me back to the reality of the moment. No longer was I in the Frumos home. I was in the presence of three police officers who were deeply interested and invested in my story.
“If you need a break, Mr. Kernbach, we can give you a few minutes,” the officer said.
I leaned slightly forward in the chair and took a deep breath and tried to continue to recount the events of that fatal morning but words were my enemy. I cleared my throat. “No, I’m good. Can you just remind me where was I again?”
As the officer loosely echoed my last statements, I fought to compose myself. I took the cup of water from the table and drank it entirely and fumbled it around in my hands and took another deep breath and began again.
His grip around my neck began to loosen and the force of the gun slowly receded from my mouth but I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes, or at least my right eye, quite yet. My left eye had already swollen closed and I could feel the warm blood begin to seep into my open mouth. If I were a betting guy, I’d venture to say that this went on for about a minute or longer. But as quickly as it began, it quickly ended.
The gun dropped from my mouth and I could feel the blood and saliva dripping off the front of my bottom lip. I opened my eyes and saw the youngest Frumos boy reach down and pull the hooked end of the crowbar out of the right side of the man’s skull. He bent upward and looked straight at me and held out the crowbar and said, “I believe you’re looking for this.”
I looked down at the blood dripping from the tip of the crowbar and after a brief moment I fainted.
“And that was that,” I said.
“That’s exactly what happened, Mr. Kernbach?” the officer said.
“What I said is what it was,” I said.
“Alright. Just one more thing,” the officer said. “Remind us what you were doing in the Frumos home the morning of December 21st.”
I reached up with my left hand and gently touched my eye, which was still quite swollen, and said, “I came to pick up the crowbar Susan borrowed from me a few weeks back.”
I took the paper cup and set it back on the table and looked up at the officer and said, “But, truth be told, I just assume they keep it.”
Thanks for your entry, Bo. Welcome to our little contest.
Thanks for opening up the contest and letting me participate. I’ve never written a piece for a contest before, so this proved both interesting and fun. Thanks for allowing me to open up my mind.
It’s our pleasure, Bo. Congratulations for taking the risk 🙂
wow. what a powerful story. Good job.
Thank you, Eileen. I appreciated the words on your website as well. Looks like we have a common acquaintance as well. Mr. Goins.
Powerful, indeed. I was there! … it felt like.
Thanks Jonathan!
In case anyone is interested, there is quite a detailed background to this short story. You can check it out on my blog, provurbs (dot) com.
Cool story behind the gun. Beautiful photographs on your blog, too!
Thanks Steph. I have a couple pretty adorable models (aka kids) that make my photography skills look better than they actually are! Also, I really appreciated the depth of your story. Good work.
Love the ending, and the descriptions–e.g., “bottle-blond hair.” The first sentence ran a bit long, and because it’s the FIRST sentence, I might break it up to draw the reader in right from the start. It’s a great story!
Thanks for your comments! And thank you for reading.
I had a feeling this conversation would come up sooner or later. 🙂 I sent the rough draft to my closest editor – my beautiful mother who believes that I could never fail – before I submitted this. She, of course, told me the exact same thing. So I rewrote it four different ways. And then I came to the conclusion that 1) the reader will either appreciate the style of writing and keep reading or 2) the reader won’t even bother. I was hoping for the former when I clicked submit.
Additionally, I am a big fan of Cormac McCarthy and his style seems to bleed it’s way into my head all too frequently!
Cronus
by Colin Ryan
“They called it Saturnalia.” It was the second time he’d said this, and he tried not to say it more loudly. Women in belted dresses, he guessed, weren’t interested in men who knew they weren’t listened to.
They sat, or rather he sat, on a promontory that overlooked the valley, jutting out spectacularly on a stilt of dirt and bottle caps. The lights below flowed in vague rectangles, broken by the airborne snakes of freeways and for-your-consideration billboards. Most of the guests had left, jostling their way into cabs, a savage city of assistants and baristas and accountants-but-who-cares atop the quiet hill. Others had given up, scrounging carpet space in an empty bachelor flat in the belly of the house. The princess of Denmark lived there once, the hosts told him. They showed him some of her mail to prove it, grocery coupons and parking tickets probably, though the latter was only a guess. Something about opening a former royal’s first-class mail without permission seemed wrong. They used the coupons, however.
She squatted down and turned to gaze at him dreamily, her eyes too black even for the night. “That so.” A moan rose in her throat as she petted the hairs of his arm with her fingertips. She grinned at having let it escape. “I like these.”
He tried hers. They were delicate, blonde, and unusually long. He seemed to remember reading that anorexia leads to an increase in body hair, but only seemed. “I’m glad I’m here with you,” he said. “I don’t feel like I’ve met anyone interesting since I moved here.”
“Who you callin’ interesting.” She winked, first the left eye, then the right for good measure.
“Do you know why?” he said.
“Probably because you find me attractive,” she said.
“I meant about Saturnalia.”
“Oh.” She lay back in the stringy grass, petting the blades the same way. “In honor of Saturn, I guess.”
“Well, sure.” He followed her down. “Do you know why he’s special?”
“Probably because they found him attractive.” She licked her lips. “Isn’t he the same as Zeus?”
“That’s Jupiter,” he said. He ran a finger along her belt, a wide, plum, vinyl number that other women would know to be a bold choice, but whose contrast he couldn’t make out in the dim light. She’d been adjusting it the entire night, taming the buckle that was always shifting to the right, digging into her breast. “Saturn’s the same as Cronus.” He began to unfasten it. She arched her back, helping him free her of it. “See, Romans believed Saturn ruled during this golden age. It was like the Garden of Eden. People enjoyed the fruits of the earth without having to till the land. Everyone was equal. It was heaven.”
She tore up a wad of grass and rolled a meager chiffonade. “Fruits of the earth,” she said. “Yum.”
He hadn’t been with anyone in months. He was always too embarrassed, too intent on being the person they were looking for to pretend. He’d been standing beneath the rented light kit when he saw her, touching her face absently. She had glitter in her hair. He didn’t know this was something real women did, but understood why when she sidled up next to him. She’d given him a playful hip bump before asking him whom he knew. She knew her ex-boyfriend.
“Saturnalia was like a temporary return to that time,” he said. “People partied all day, feasted, exchanged gifts, like we still do today. Masters even served their slaves.”
“Cronus. He’s the one who ate his kids, right?” She tried gnawing on the wad of grass, then made a face, flicking the blades away like bits of mucus. “I think I saw a painting of that once. Doesn’t sound like much of a golden age to me. Guy eating his poor, defenseless little kids.” She rolled over and started gnawing on his covered belly instead.
“That didn’t really have much to do with it,” he said, laughing. He unbuttoned his shirt. “It was the whole reversal part, the idea of going back to a time without hardship or divisions of class. The days stopped getting shorter, started getting longer again. Just as the sun was reborn, people were reborn. That’s not romantic to you?”
At this, she stood abruptly. He watched her dance to the promontory’s edge on the unpainted tips of her toes, his chest bare. “Not really,” she said, squinting down at the darkened homes on the ridge below. “I mean, think about those slaves. Sitting at that table, piled high with grapes and wild boar or whatever. Watching their masters get down on bended knee to serve them their wine, knowing the next day they’d probably be whipped even harder, y’know, once the hangover wore off and the shame kicked in. Here you are, oppressed every other day of the year, and this one day, you’re reminded that it’s all completely arbitrary, that it could just as easily work the other way, that there was a time when nobody had to enslave each other, when nobody even thought about it. Knowing it’s all going to go back to the way it is now, instead of the way it was then. Reborn, but in an open set of jaws, cocked and ready to chomp down on you.” Her voice echoed through the valley. “Sounds like it’s more about Cronus than you say.”
They’d danced, first to some techno, then pop. She’d varied her movements to match the beat and tempo as he moved back and forth, side to side in a kind of lazy line dance. Her ex-boyfriend watched placidly from the doorway, checking his watch as if to gauge when their lives would return to normal.
Stepping away from the edge, she trotted back over and climbed on top of him. “Don’t you just love this weather? Hard to believe it’s the middle of winter,” she said. She beamed and began removing his jeans.
Entered. Gracias Colin.
Winter Solstice
By Christine Javid
My mother called again last night, wondering when I would find another job. She’s concerned because I work on an Indian Reservation with “people who have so many problems…” My mother is not prejudiced; she just worries too much. I keep telling her that I’m twenty-six years old and can take care of myself. When I decided to get a social work degree, I told her that I wanted to work with people who need help. She smiled in her brittle way but didn’t say anything. She is constantly on me.
My job is to help the Navajo people get the services they need. Many need help finding jobs, quitting alcohol or drugs, raising their children. It does seem overwhelming at times, but I try not to think about it. I live in a small apartment in town, where my balcony looks out to a place called Sitting Coyote Mesa. I like to imagine the coyotes out there, slinking around the brambles. The reservation is just outside of Twin Lakes, New Mexico. I’m from Santa Barbara, and that’s another reason why my mother wants me to get another job—I’m too far away.
Last week I met Marcus, a five-year old boy whose mother is hooked on meth, his father is in jail, and his caretaker grandmother has crippling arthritis. How is he different than the other children I see? Other kids have similar problems, but Marcus is different because he taught me something that I don’t think I could’ve learned anywhere else, even if I tried.
Marcus is a small boy, with stubbly black hair. His grandmother wants his hair kept short, so I found someone willing to cut it for him every month or so for free. Sometimes the shaver nicks his scalp too close, and he has little bald spots around his head. His head is also rather misshapen; it reminds me of a big melon that balloons out on top in the beginning of the growing season, then just withers away around the bottom. His uncle Raymond calls him “flat head” and sometimes tries to lay an ashtray on it. I’ve seen him do it, but Marcus just stands as still as possible, waiting for him to go away. Wise boy.
Marcus wears jeans that are too big for him, with rolled up hems. His faded t-shirts have baseball teams like the Chicago Cubs or the St. Louis Cardinals on them. I asked him if he liked baseball. He shrugged and said he didn’t know. He doesn’t talk a lot.
I was heading out to Marcus’ house, which is just a cement block building with a tin roof. My car was low on gas, I noticed, as I headed down the road that leads to Marcus’ house where he lives with his grandmother, his Uncle Raymond, and three cousins, all boys. The dust wasn’t so bad this morning—it had rained the night before. Christmas was coming and some people had lights draped on barbed wire fences shaped like trees. I wondered if there would be presents in those homes. I knew things were getting bad for Marcus lately, and I was anxious to see him. I would be flying home next week and wanted to be sure Marcus was okay before I left. Raymond had been getting drunk almost every night and he would beat Marcus and his cousins, while Grandma would try to get out of bed to hit him back. Marcus told me this while looking at his shoes. I saw a bruise on his cheek and had asked him about it. We were in the process of finding a foster home for Marcus and his cousins, but until then, I was worried.
The sky was full of those puffy clouds that looked like the softest comforters ever made. I always got a warm feeling when I looked up at the New Mexico Navajo sky. The blue was like china, and the clouds were so pure white you couldn’t help but feel optimistic. I thought of Marcus. Everything about him, from his skinny ribcage to his dirty hands hissed despair, but then you only had to look into his eyes, dark pools of calmness. It was sort of eerie. I expected to see fear, or veiled anger or at least the deadness I saw in other children’s eyes. Some of them actually showed excitement and curiosity, those who were not so bad off. But Marcus had this calmness.
When I got to his house, he was outside playing in the yard, on his uncle’s old Chevrolet without tires. His cousins were there, too. They seemed happy at least.
“Hey, Marcus!” I had brought Christmas presents for him and his cousins—puzzles and paddle-balls. Marcus held on to his package and watched as his cousins unwrapped theirs, throwing the paper on the ground.
“You can unwrap yours.”
“I want to wait until tonight,” he said. “They’re all the same anyway.”
I felt embarrassed. “What’s happening tonight?”
“The winter solstice.”
Marcus still wouldn’t look at me. I wondered if Indians had a special celebration for the solstice.
“You’re so weird,” Raymond, Jr. said. He was the oldest cousin, at ten, and had abandoned his puzzle on the ground. He squeezed the paddle-ball in his hand nervously. “Marcus, I told you I’ll be gone for a week for the holidays. Do you know who will be coming to see you while I’m gone?” He finally looked at me. “Your mother! She’s coming home for Christmas.” He turned away again, watching Raymond, Jr. climb back into his father’s Chevrolet.
I stepped in front of him before he could join his cousins. I wanted to see if he had any new bruises, but couldn’t see any. “So what about the winter solstice?”
“Grandfather said all troubles build up ‘til then. If you can get through the long, dark night, everything will be okay.” He smiled a little, and his eyes were unfocused. I knew his grandfather had died last year from pancreatic cancer, untreated until the end when Uncle Raymond finally took him to the clinic. Marcus saw him struggle with too much pain for anyone to bear. My supervisor told me that it had a profound effect on him because his grandfather was one of the few adults that could be counted on, until he got sick. Grandmother, although pretty reliable, was not as warm and kind. And she rarely left her bed.
I touched his shoulder. “You miss your grandfather a lot.” Marcus ran from me and jumped into the car’s front seat. One of the boys had discovered that the horn still worked and was blasting it. I turned to leave. A small wind picked up the crumpled wrapping paper and it skipped across the yard, a bit of red and green Christmas cheer.
That night Raymond came home loaded. There was another fight. He shot Marcus’ grandmother and then turned the gun on himself. Marcus and his cousins all saw it from their bedroom. The therapist told me that Marcus was the only one who seemed unscathed by it, and wasn’t worried about being placed in a foster home. I thought of his young mind trying to process the destruction of his family, and remembered how he had told me about the shortest day of the year. If you could survive it, you would be strong enough to endure anything. “Like a brave warrior,” Marcus had said. The faith he had in his grandfather.
Thanks for your entry, Christine. Looking forward to reading it.
I like the imagery of the barbed-wire shaped like Christmas trees.
Thanks, Steph!
“Everything about him, from his skinny ribcage to his dirty hands hissed despair, but then you only had to look into his eyes, dark pools of calmness.” this and the part about his shrugging when asked if he likes baseball make me think of some children I worked with in the juvenile courts in Norfolk, when I volunteered their briefly. They just lose all hope and can become sociopaths. It sounds like Marcus will be saved from permanent coldness by the the faith he had in his grandfather. If the worst is really over then one must have something to look forward to. I like the description of the clouds looking like comforters too.
Really
All the light that shortest day held streamed through a window, and faded. Afternoon meetings hid the dwindling light, and when Kim emerged from the inner conference room, it was night. In her office, Sam lounged in a chair, legs crossed, pulling a paperclip apart, twirling it in his fingers. Kim plunged in, piling papers at the end of her desk, pushing them toward him.
“I saw your car, so I stopped.”
She smiled. “I hoped you would.”
“Should we go to dinner?”
“Sure.” Kim tidied her desk, and shut down her computer and her work day.
“We have to figure out where we go from here.”
“How about Louie’s?”
“Ha ha.”
“I meant for dinner.”
“I know.”
She didn’t raise her eyes.
“Louie’s is fine.”
The computer beeped and blackened. Kim pulled her coat from the closet. Sam reached around her to shut the door. The buzzing lights crackled when Kim hit the switch. Sam pulled the door and swept her into the hallway. She swayed.
“Let’s go.”
Sam’s footsteps echoed through the hall, down the stairs, and into the parking lot. Kim knew he was talking to her, saying meaningless words in the dark of the car, keeping a conversation alive. The streetlights flashed in the windows, highlighting the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. She smiled at him. She laughed with him. She sat next to him. She felt as if she were sitting next to herself.
She stole glances at his animated profile; he drove too quickly. He looked over at her, touched her arm. “We’re here.”
Over beer and nachos, Kim fought the idea that there was nowhere to go from here. She put her hand next to his, hoping he would brush against it. “I must be sixteen again,” she thought. It made her smile her first real smile in days.
“The budget’s a mess.” Sam dug into the nachos. “Where do we go from here?”
“We don’t cut anything,” she brazened, beer replacing fear in her speech pattern. “We make personal visits. Beg if we have to. But we don’t cut.”
“That’s a lot more work.”
She laughed.
“But we can do it together.”
Sam leaned over and moved the hair off her shoulder. “We can do this together,” he whispered, his lips brushing her cheek. Kim leaned into his words.
Her eyes closed, Kim wondered how he loved. Was he soft and lazy, lounging through life like he sat in her office chair? Fast and sure, the way he drove? Or salty and slightly undone from beer and nachos? She turned her head, meeting his lips with her own. Surprise surrendered to response.
“Where do we go from here?”
Kim shook her head. Sam was standing up, walking to the bar to pay the bill or to the men’s room, or simply away. While she closed her eyes and imagined him coming back, getting closer, he left, her imagination doing no better at living than she did.
Thanks Jennifer!
Travels plans would start on the first day of winter. Late afternoon, hitting the peak of city traffic in Philadelphia, PA. The sun, gone behind the dark clouds of winter, the snow dancing across the roads with each gust of wind. . This day was marking the beginning of the Christmas Festivities. When most people are celebrating on the 25th of December, this family traveled from one city to the next to join family on the 21st of December, marking an early Christmas celebration. They would arrive just in time for dinner, and then gather with family to open the gifts.
The car was heavily loaded down with two little girls, one very pregnant mama, a trunk full of gifts and one bag remained in the front seat for quick access. Dad patted mama on the shoulder and asked, “are you okay? Do you need anything? Are you comfortable? Mama just closed her eyes and with clenched teeth said, “Just get there as fast as you can.” Mama was due to have a baby on December 25th. Since these two little girls in the backseat were the only grandkids, the grandparents decided to celebrate early as not to miss out on the excitement of Christmas with the little darlings.
The East Coast weather was not making for a quick, smooth sailing drive. A forty-five minute drive into Jersey City, NJ was turning the shortest day of the year into one of the longest. The little girls giggled and played with plastic bracelets. A gift that mama gave to keep little minds and hands busy on the car ride. Together they would take the bracelets, jingle them together, and raise their arms up and down watching as the bracelets would glitter and glow with each passing street light. Mama looked back, often, smiling over the hopes of a baby boy. After two girls she was ready for a change of scenery. After two hours in the car she was ready to get out and walk, but the weather was stormy on this heavily traveled freeway.
Papa, managed to keep a toothpick between his lips during the entire drive. Even when the girls asked him to sing “The Farmer and the Dell” the toothpick merely moved from one side of his lips to the other. Mama looked over and then squeezed his hands. Papa smiled back and said, “it’s only a few more miles until we hit the exit and then it’s two rights and Christmas begins.” Mama clenched her teeth, squeezed Papa’s arm a little tighter and then said, “no Papa, it’s going to be one right three, three lefts, and I will be taking this one bag.” Mama clutched the bag tightly. Papa looked to the floor. He knew it was time, but not the time he wanted.
On December 21, 1965 after one right and three lefts the hospital was in view. Mama told the girls that she was going on a little baby vacation. Mama said, “you girls will go with Papa to celebrate Christmas and the Papa will bring you to visit when the baby is here.” The little girls took off their bracelets, handed them to mama. One little darling said, “We want our new baby to have these for Christmas. We’ve been asking God for a new sister, and we think that He will give us our sister.” Mama took the bracelets and smiled.
Forty-five minutes after arriving at the hospital, mama had a baby girl. Papa missed the delivery. Alone, a cold and stormy night when winter is birthed , a little girl in her arms, the bracelets jingled on her wrists as she bundled her baby girl close. The first day of winter, the memory for years to come, the plan to celebrate Christmas early, and the plans of the first day of winter turned into the first day of life for baby girl number three. Unpredictable in every way, one turn of the calendar begins a new season, as a mother.
Thanks for this sight. I have been reading all your updates, studying and learning a lot. I write in my own blog weekly, I write a lot. My biggest critics (husband and daughter) constantly tell me to spell check and check my grammar. Which I realize when I write, I am just chatting on paper and there is no real punctuation in my head. So this entry is my FIRST ever. Be gently. Thanks
You’re very welcome, Elizabeth. Congratulations on taking a risk. I will be gentle, don’t worry 🙂
My time is almost up. I am not afraid to go.
It has been a long eighty-nine years, and yet when I look back, it wasn’t that long at all. There are still some things left undone, but that’s alright. I’m tired now. I haven’t the energy to do them any more. I should have done them a long time ago when I was still young and my body could do what I wanted it to do. But I’ve had a good life otherwise. We can’t have everything that we want. So much for champagne tastes on that beer budget.
My son, Alan, has to help me eat. My husband, Herb, has to help me sit up so I don’t choke, and I can’t hold my head up on my own. It’s hard to go out like this. I was born helpless and I’m helpless again. I think the only thing that’s bad about it is that I am quite aware of how bad off my body is. I am glad that my mind is with me.
I am grateful though. I have a family that loves me. I wish they could be here with me, but I know how tough times are now, just like times were hard when I was a girl, and my mother, sister, and I had to live with my grandparents. Not as bad as they were then, but still bad. I just want to see them again, before I go. But they know that I love them. My daughter is on her way. I can wait. My time isn’t that far off, but I’m pretty sure that God will let me see her before He takes me away. I won’t get to see my grand-daughters though. At least I will have my son and daughter and husband here. And Oliver is waiting for me on the other side. I’m not afraid. I am at home, in my bed, and there are people who love me here.
I’m tired. How much longer, I wonder? Before the New Year, I think. Isn’t it funny how I am dying as the year comes to a close, just as winter begins. This has been coming for some time now. Alan finally told Sarah that I wasn’t doing very well. He thought I was asleep. I’m glad he said something, although I told him not to. I know that she can’t afford to fly out here. I didn’t want to worry her. She’s coming now, though, so I guess it was good that he told her.
I am leaving people that I love. I am sad about that, and I cry at night when I wake up. And when I sleep I dream about the people that are waiting for me, people who love me. It’s been so long since I’ve seen Oliver that I can’t see his face in my memory anymore, but I know he’ll be there as soon as I go over, and I will recognize him then. Herb won’t mind. I know I’m not his first love, and he knows that he’s not mine. I love Herb, but Oliver is waiting, and I think that Oliver and I are both getting impatient.
My mother and my father. They hated each other, but they loved me. And I’m sure that when we meet, bygones will be bygones. It will all be made right when we get there. My sister, Emma. She called me Ga all of her life. She’ll call me Ga when she meets me. I’ve missed her these past three years.
Nana and Papa. What a reunion it will be.
I hope that Alan and Sarah remember that I don’t want my funeral to be sad. I suppose they’ll forget that I wanted a party with a swing band playing. I’m ready to go. I feel bad for Herb though. He’s outlived both of his wives. I don’t want him to be lonely. All of our friends have been dying off all of these years. There aren’t many of us left. I wish Sarah lived here. She’d be more of a comfort to him than Alan. She can’t leave her daughters, and she wants to see her grand-children, and I can’t blame her. Poor Herb. He’s so self-sufficient, but he loves company. Oh well, I guess I won’t be bothering him now when he wants to try to bake a loaf of bread. He can bake all he wants. At least he and Alan won’t be going hungry.
God is near. He has been good to me. He has given me a wonderful family. I love them so much that sometimes it hurts, a little. I am glad that I have hugged them all. I am glad that I have always told them that I loved them. I don’t have to leave them with any doubt. I enjoyed them so much, that I really don’t mind not having done all those other things. I think I got what was important. There are more interesting things ahead. And I will have so much to catch up with when I get to heaven that I won’t be in a hurry to move on to other things. I’ll have all the time in the world. And I will bide my time there, waiting for the rest of them to catch up with me. It won’t be so long. Time isn’t long when you’re my age.
There they are. Sarah, Alan, Herb. My friends still living drop in to see me. They don’t stay long, I get so tired. But I’m still glad that they came to see me.
I’ll just close my eyes for a minute.
My time is almost up.
I am not afraid to go.
Thanks for your entry, Kinelta. Very excited to read your work.
“Hades and Persephone”
by Casey Kinnard
I don’t think that Demeter was just grieving that her daughter had been taken away. I’m sure part of it was that she was really pissed off at me. I suppose sadness can make a goddess throw the world into a turmoil much like she does with her cloak of winter, but if there is a man involved, it just makes it a bigger mess. I’m her son-in-law now, but that didn’t stop her from trying to get my marriage annulled. Persephone made her own choice in the matter. I didn’t force her to eat those pomegranate seeds. All the same, I’m glad she did.
The underworld that I rule is a land of the dead. I am a god, but the subjects of my realm are only shades. My business here keeps me away from Olympus, and I was lonely. Lonely is too tame a word for what I was becoming. I was fading into a shadow myself, and it frightened me.
One day, in desperation, I fled from this place, and there was Persephone. It was fate that she was in that meadow, because she has been a light in this darkness. And she loves her mother. A woman with love already in her heart–well, love has a way of multiplying. I was hoping for a little corner in that love.
Persephone didn’t always love me. I can’t blame her, since I didn’t win her by entirely honest means. I did kidnap her after all, and I couldn’t blame her if she never did grow to love me for that fact alone. For a long time I regretted the means that I attained her. A selfish part of me didn’t, and still doesn’t, although it pained me to see her hurt because of her love for Demeter.
Then one day, at the winter solstice, she said to me,
“I don’t want to go back to my mother.” She looked at me, and her eyes that are the same color as a summer sky were not shy. They had not been since she returned to me in the autumn. So I was not entirely surprised to hear those words, but I was afraid to believe them. Wishes nurtured in the heart have a way of being stillborn.
“Your mother would be heart-broken. It’s hard enough on her as it is.”
“Is not the place of a wife at her husband’s side, even if it displeases her mother?”
“I don’t want duty,” I told her, and I meant my words to have a chilling effect.
She went on, as if she had not heard me. “I was just thinking about the coming of spring. It is midwinter already.”
“Is that all you’re thinking?” I asked.
“No,” she said, sitting up from the cushion on which she had been lounging. She smiled at me then, and I couldn’t fathom what she meant by it. Was she being coquettish? “I wish that I had eaten the entire pomegranate, husband.”
At this, I laughed.
Time passed, and we did not speak of the matter again. She made every effort to convince me of her desire, however. I wouldn’t have it. I braced myself for the spring when I would accompany her to the River and she would cross and go to her mother for six long months. Six months in the land of the dead, alone, and my light was above.
When spring arrived, I walked silent beside her, brooding and sulky and trying not to show it. I had heard the goddesses complain before about husbands who pouted to get their own way. I never wanted to do it to Persephone. For her part, she was distracted, and for the first time during the past six months, was not paying the slightest bit of attention to me. Her excitement at seeing her mother was palpable.
She stepped onto the boat waiting for her, and I watched as Charon ferried her across the Styx, his long oar dipping into the quiet waters, each stroke carrying her further from me. A bitter worm inside of my breast was glad that I had not taken her words to heart. It would make the separation easier, maybe. I wished she had not said anything about it at all, because hope (damn that Pandora!) swelled inside me all winter long. This was crushing.
Nevertheless, I watched her go, and would not leave until she and her mother had disappeared through the crack in the earth that took them above.
Demeter was waiting for her daughter on the opposite shore. She was eager and her face beaming, and she took Persephone into an embrace that made me relieved that at least my wife was going into the care of someone who loved her. The two of them stood there, arms about each other, Persephone’s face close to Demeter’s. They were so far away that I could not hear even a whisper of their conversation, only the lap of waves at my feet.
Persephone kissed her mother’s cheek. Demeter was pulling away from her daughter, holding her at arms length, surprise on her face. Her hand reached up to touch Persephone’s cheek, and it lingered.
Demeter was hugging Persephone again, her face over hidden over Persephone‘s shoulder. Demeter’s face was screwed into a rictus of agony that her daughter could not see, and I saw it clearly. Tears that must have burned her cheeks glistened. My own heart was throbbing for this mother. Then it was gone, and Demeter had pulled back to look at her daughter, lifting Persephone‘s chin, smiling, wiping her own tears, and a burst of laughter. I saw her lips mouth the word love.
Could it be? I thought to myself. I was riveted by what I was seeing.
And then Persephone was once more on the boat coming back towards me.
When her feet touched the black sand she was radiant and splendid and she was mine. And I kissed her.
Demeter watched from the other side, and when I looked out across to her, she lifted her hand to me. I believe she forgave me.
Demeter let Persephone go out of love. Daughters leave their mothers, and daughters begin lives of their own. Demeter knew this. But her mother’s heart still grieves. I understand that winter is always on the face of the earth now. Out of fairness for the living things on the land, Demeter gives respite to parts of the earth while the chill of her sorrow rest on another. The winter solstice of the northern hemisphere, and the winter solstice of the southern.
I always thought that was a sad story, and you animate the characters well. It is so hard when your child grows up and you know they will soon be gone, very sad. I used to identify with Persephone but now I identify with Demeter. Rewriting a myth is a hard thing to do and I think you did a good job.
I’ve always felt bad for Hades, poor guy. Guess he deserved it though. I was thinking a lot of what Demeter would feel, because my daughter will be the age that I married in eight years, and I wondered what it would feel like to let her go. that was hard because it is from someone else’s perspective. Had to watch a word count, too. 😉 Thank you.
Winter Solstice
It was a warm December, unusually warm for Detroit. Frost had glazed the windows, but the grass still remained green and bare. The lack of snow upset Mary’s family, and they constantly reminded her of the weather. It was as if more was needed to add to the lights, to add to the large waving Santa on the roof—that red suited man bloated, waving in the wind.
Mary enjoyed the last stretch of warmth before a real winter set in. It was December 21st, the Winter Solstice. Soon the ground would be ambushed with snow, reborn again with a white wash of heavy flakes.
While Mary’s mother began preparing the kitchen for tonight’s guests, Mary was preparing for her day’s duty. She had signed up several weeks ago to volunteer at a soup kitchen at a church downtown. Mary needed all the hours she could get for nursing school. The more she could add on to her application, the better it appeared.
She was standing by the door putting on her boots when her mother caught her.
“And where are you going off to?” She was a stout woman with the same large nose Mary had.
“Volunteering. I told you about it,” Mary said as she put on her coat.
Her mother pursed her lips. She raised her voice as she listed ingredients, recipes, names, all of the necessities for their party tonight. Mary didn’t interrupt. It was best not to provoke her mother who was already a nervous women. She had a constant buzz of stress around the holidays. Mary agreed to be home soon to help while her mother darted back into the kitchen. Her help was already expected.
She was still ranting as Mary headed out the door.
The church was an old, beautiful building that stood out in the messy rows of run down homes. Detroit had a knack for a glaring beauty, a rare charm of a building that survived within the rough, dirty remnants of a worn city. Mary knew she was in a bad area. She kept her purse tucked tightly under her arm as she walked up to the doors. A young white girl alone could easily be questioned and approached.
It had been years since Mary had been inside a church. She had forgotten the grand ceilings filled with oil paintings and gold trimmings. When she looked at the whole of the ceiling, she was struck by its size. Its reach for the sky seemed to take hold of it by right. It demanded its space; it stood resilient. When she looked closer at its paintings, some large and spilling down onto the walls, all she could see was the faces. Apostles or saints, she did not know. She never knew much about religion. But their faces each carried a solemn look, kind and serious—the faces of a guardian.
Mary stumbled through the church and joined the rest of the volunteers. There were only fifteen or twenty of them, mostly older adults that had been a part of the congregation or visitors who had come down to this place for years. They spoke of their families and of the guests that came by to eat. They always called them guests and informed Mary of this with a polite tone.
Mary helped prepare the salad, lettuce with bits of chopped onion mixed in. Dressings were poured into large containers on the side. She stood with the handful of volunteers who would help serve. They listened to the women and men in the kitchen hurry to get the first round of food out and ready for the guests. They had tables of food out just in the time as a line began to form.
Mary had never served food to anyone before. She smiled and was surprised at how many people greeted her.
Thank you, young lady. Bless you. Looks so good. Merry Christmas. Thank you.
She began to say hello to each one as she scooped out of the large heap of steaming mashed potatoes. Mary didn’t expect so many people. The room was full, and the line of unfed guests bulged through the doors.
“It’s always like this dear. We keep serving. We don’t close our doors until they are all fed,” an older lady told her. “It breaks my heart. Sometimes I swear I’ll see a kid I had taught in my own classroom. Most of them don’t make it very far from here.”
Mary’s shift was only for four hours. The time had passed but the line had not slowed. Another round of food was still cooking. She looked at the crowd of men, women, and families. She looked down at her phone. She already had a message from her mother asking her to stop at the store on the way home. That would just have to wait, she thought. When they asked her to stay, she couldn’t say no.
After the last guests were fed and the great cleanup began, Mary said good bye to the volunteers. She was surprised when she saw a light snow had touched the ground. It was nothing that could cause harm to her drive home. It was nothing to impress her family. She was not surprised, however, to find that her car had been broken into. The window was forced open. She had nothing of importance in the car. Her change collection had be swiped, the quarters and nickels that she tucked away in the middle counsel. Her mother would tell her it was probably a drug addict that she had just fed. She decided not to tell her mother anything at all.
Mary had forgotten to stop at the store, and was late to their holiday part. Her mother was sharp with her throughout the evening, and her father avoided both of them. The drive home was the only peace Mary remembers from that day, even if the snow had stopped and faded by the time she arrived home.
-Amanda Lewan
amandalewan@gmail.com
Good work. I couldn’t help but think if anything from this story was taken from actual events in your own life. 🙂
Thank you. The plot was not. The setting was definitely inspired by living in the Detroit area.
Thanks Amanda 🙂
My apologies. There is a typo in the last paragraph, first sentence. It should say party. Thank you.
Don’t worry about it. Unlike most lit mags, I’m not super strict about typos. That’s not license to have all kinds of comma splices and other grammar errors, though 🙂
Do I just copy/paste my story here?
Yeah. The post above says that you can just post it right here in the comments section.
Mark is rummaging through the dumpster at 1:00 am on December 22, 2012. He finds a man’s wallet on top of all the rubbish. No money inside. Just a couple of credit cards and a driver’s license. Mark looks at the ID. The man’s face looks very familiar.
Meanwhile, Walter stands on the Brooklyn Bridge. He looks down at the smooth surface of the East River.
Yesterday, Anne finally confessed to her husband, Walter, that their baby was not his. Anne thought that, because Walter was going crazy thinking about the foolish apocalypse, he would be too distracted to react harshly to the news. She was wrong.
Mark is not interested in the wallet. He keeps searching.
Walter checks his revolver. No more cartridges left. He had already fired them all. He throws his gun into the river. It slowly descends into the water, making a small splash. It is a very graceful fall, almost as if the gun was meant to be buried at sea.
Walter was furious. Anne was cheating with another man while they were engaged, and only years later, after raising the baby together, did she tell him about it! What hopes did Anne have left to rise to heaven tomorrow?
Mark finds a garbage bag with a familiar hand sticking out the top. He pulls the bag down.
Walter thinks back to a few hours ago, after he disposed of his trash. He sits on his patio steps, waiting.
He keeps looking at his watch. 12:01.
It must be running slow… Or maybe God is running a tad late.
12:30. Nothing.
Must do God’s work myself, I guess, Walter thought, no turning back.
Anne started to cry. Walter left to retrieve his revolver.
“You are hopeless, Anne. If we can’t be together in heaven, I guess we can still reunite in hell,” said Walter.
Inside the garbage bag is a dead woman with several gunshot wounds. Mark is happy to see her.
Walter jumps off the bridge. As he gets closer to the river, the water appears more and more treacherous. He had always thought of the East River as being very serene. A river seen as peaceful for his whole life is now unveiled to be more deadly than he could have ever imagined.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” shouted Walter.
“But hubby! I just wanted us to be happy together!” replied Anne.
“I will never be happy without you. What I am doing is to ensure that we will always be together,” Walter said, holding his gun up to Anne’s head. “We shall both die full of sin.”
Walter hits the water. It feels like concrete. The pain Walter feels is not graceful; it is unreal. He is deceived by nature once again.
Mark crawls onto his mother’s bloody stomach. He sucks her nipple. No milk. He cries until his lungs turn to raisins. But nobody can hear the baby stuck inside the dumpster. To everyone else, it is just 1:00 am on December 22, 2012.
Oh wow, Paul. That’s pretty intense. I’m not going to get the image of the baby out of my mind.
Thanks, Casey! I was hoping that the ending with the baby would come as a pleasant surprise.
Thanks for your entry, Paul.
It is right around noon as she turns the corner and heads into the last mile of her 10 mile run. The sun is high and behind her now and she suddenly gets a good look at her shadow and thinks how abnormally long it looks. Then she realizes what day it is and what that means. It means the days start to get longer and longer as the calendar year heads into spring and suddenly the darkness begins to recede.
It’s a hard place to exist but at this point in her life she can’t remember it being any different. Every year she watches the seasons start to change and the days become shorter, and she feels it creeping back. It lives in her year round; it’s always been a part of who she is. Dark and sad and confused with no path. In the spring when everything starts new and in the summer when it’s sunny and a happy and lazy time to exist, it’s easier to shove it far, far down into the deep corners of her soul. But when the leaves begin to turn and the air smells more and more of camp fires and cider and everyone else starts to anticipate the sights and sounds of the holidays, it begins to bubble to the surface.
She finds it nearly impossible to explain to people, but for the coldest months of the year in the Midwest she spends her days dealing with the oppressive darkness that threatens to take over. She questions who she is, what she stands for and what life even means. She sleepwalks through most days, going through the holiday motions of decorating and celebrating and spending time with family. But it seems fairly senseless and meaningless to her.
Then one year she had a good friend move away during one of her darkest months and only came out the other side of that year because she took to the streets angry at him and the universe. Four years later, she still runs and it helps her get through the hurt. But there are still the nights just before she drifts off to sleep the terror of death grips her, and all she can do as the thought actually makes her stop breathing is wait for the episode to pass.
She knows her biggest downfall is the fact she doesn’t believe in God. Growing up, faith was not a part of her world. While she found herself living in the middle of the Bible belt, her parents never attended church, didn’t talk about religion and basically left it up to their children to figure out their beliefs on their own. She fell more on the side of practical thinking and no where in her brain could she find a way to believe she was created by a man who lived in the sky. She had several friends whose families were religious and actually attended church with many of them. Several summers she even spent a lot of time participating in youth group activities. But the messages were always hokey and hard for her to believe in, so once she fell out of those friendships she fell completely out of religion. Unfortunately for her, the only belief left was the belief that one day it all ends for good.
No one can make themselves believe in something just for the sake of making things easier on themselves. She is simply stuck with what she believes (or doesn’t believe) regardless of hard it makes living. She knows every year the darkness is waiting to pull her into the depths of sadness. And no matter how hard she tried to convince herself of something else, she finally and quietly accepted this as her fate. But the confusion and resentment created from growing up without any beliefs makes her run harder and faster. As a writer, the suffering feeds the words she dumps on paper. And the sadness makes the happier times seem so much happier than they do to most.
There is no getting around the dark, short, cold days of winter that creep up on her every year and bring with them a hole she struggles to escape. But for today she knows the days have turned around and spring is just around the corner. And for this she is thankful.
Welcome to the contest. Thanks.
She threw the pile of mail down on the table in a hurry to get in the door, get the kids settled and head to the kitchen to put something together for dinner. There was more mail than usual, not surprising considering it was now just a few days before Christmas and the number of cards was running neck in neck with the bills. The envelope was midway in the pile and sat unnoticed for hours.
Hours later, the kids were finally in bed although probably not asleep. She wasn’t too worried and honestly, after the day she’d had, couldn’t be bothered going back upstairs to reprimand them again. A quick glance at the calendar confirmed that today was the winter solstice. Great, here she was with 100 things to do on the shortest day of the year.
She went to the fridge, pulled out a bottle of wine and poured herself a glass. She had a good hour of wrapping ahead of her and she was definitely going to need some wine to help get her through it. How could she be this tired of Christmas when it wasn’t even here yet? She gently tapped the glass of wine against her forehead and closed her eyes, the words “bah humbug” running through her head.
“Snap out of it”, she told herself, “this is supposed to be fun, remember?”
Halfway down to the basement she remembered the new pack of tape she bought, still in her purse. She turned and walked back to get it and on her way through the dining room she remembered the stack of mail. She was just going to ignore it. The bills certainly weren’t going anywhere and the thought of reading her sister-in-law’s Christmas newsletter was just too much for her tonight. But she stopped and ran her hand over the top of the pile and pushed it over, fanning the envelopes across the table.
It caught her eye right away. Something about the handwriting looked so familiar although she couldn’t place it. Her fingers slid over the face of the envelope, brushing across the jagged writing. She put down her glass of wine and pulled back a chair. Something told her she should sit down for this.
She flipped over the envelope and saw a return address written across the back flap, not one she recognized except to note it was a town not far from where she had gone to university.
“Uh oh.”
She didn’t meant to say the words out loud but when she heard them ring through the empty room, she had. Now she realized why the handwriting seemed familiar. It was from him.
She felt a jolt of electricity and she dropped the envelope to the table, still unopened. She closed her eyes and the memories came flooding back; fall days rolling in the leaves, cold winter nights huddled under a blanket, the way her chest clenched and her stomach fluttered every time he smiled at her.
She reached over, grabbed her wine glass and in one unladylike gulp, downed the glass. Her mother would be so proud. She took a deep breath and ripped open the envelope in one fluid motion, then pulled out the card inside.
There he was, his smiling face was older but she would have recognized him anywhere. She remembered hours spent tracing the lines of his face, the curve of his cheek. He had aged well, better than she had if she was being truthful. Time had been kind to him and, looking at the other smiling faces surrounding him, life had as well.
Her eyes moved quickly over the face of the woman beside him, she would need a minute before she could go there, and settled on the two children hugging their parents from behind. They were laughing, both had their dad’s dark curls. She looked back at the woman in the photo and noted, begrudgingly, that she was beautiful. One always hopes that the “woman after you” ends up being horribly ugly but life never works that way, at least not for her.
She glanced up at her own family photo on the wall. Her critical eye noted her grey roots and saggy chin but then a smile teased her lips when she saw her two girls. The picture seemed lopsided though, a puzzle missing a piece. This was the second year that “dad” was missing from the photo. He now had his own photo, with his new family.
She turned back to the card in her hands and flipped it open to read the message inside. A standard holiday greeting, wishes for a wonderful season and a great new year. So cold and impersonal. Her eyes moved to the bottom of the card where he wrote that he ran into a mutual friend who had passed along her new address, as he understood she had moved. Understood she and her husband had split was what he meant but was a big enough person to leave it unwritten.
She knew who the mutual friend must have been and made a mental note to rip a strip off her the next time they spoke. Her friend always liked him, thought they should have stayed together. In fact, when it all came to an end the friend tried to make her see that she was making a mistake, choosing the wrong man, but she didn’t listen. When everything started to go so wrong in her marriage, at least she was kind enough not to say ‘I told you so.’
She didn’t have to though. The sentiment was sitting right here in her hands, wrapped up in a beautiful holiday card showing a beautiful family, enjoying a beautiful life. This was her ‘I told you so.’
She could feel the tears coming, the weight of the sadness, loneliness, the stress of raising two girls essentially by herself, all coming down on her. And now this, on top of everything, this reminder of what could have been, tonight of all nights. She had spent many a night huddled in a blanket sobbing the hours away and she could feel herself going back there, back to the place she vowed would never take her again.
“Enough. No more.” This time she meant to say it out loud. She needed to hear it, loud. She was done with the self-pity, the regrets, the disappointment. She had two beautiful girls and despite their difficulties, they were her reasons for getting out of bed in the morning. No matter what her ex had done, he had given the girls to her and for that she would be thankful.
She slipped the card back in the envelope, stood up from the table and turned toward the living room. Halfway there she stopped and paused. Instead she turned and walked to the kitchen, opened the cupboard door and threw the envelope in the garbage under the sink.
Over and done with.
She grabbed the wine bottle out of the fridge, walked through the dining room to retrieve her empty glass and the package of tape and headed down to the basement. She had Christmas presents to wrap.
Thanks for entering your story, Trisha.
I’ve received one of those Christmas cards before. You’ve captured the kick in the gut pretty well. 🙂
This is a topic that deserves more fiction! I felt with the mother all the way through your piece. And yes, everyone hopes that the woman or man after YOU is uglier. 🙂
By Leah Martin
It was four days before Christmas, the shortest day of the year, and she hated the holidays. The product of a broken home, she marked her year with which holiday would be spent where. Thanksgiving with her father, Christmas with her mother, then the opposite the following year. As a child, she couldn’t handle it, emotionally, the back and forth and back and forth. She had felt like her life was a game of ping-pong, and she was the ball. Like most children of divorce, her parents occasionally engaged in verbal and emotional tug-of-war, with her as the rope, and it always left her hurt and offended for whichever parent had been the victim of a passive-aggressive remark.
Now, as an adult, she felt no different. But she had learned, as most well-adjusted people do, that tantrums and acting out are not socially acceptable methods of expressing frustration. Although some days, she wished they were.
She shut the blinds to the sunset, settling in to ride out the longest night with a bottle of wine and her favorite book. Strange things happened to her at night; the darkness infiltrated her soul, casting a melancholy over her that sometimes lasted into the following morning and for days on end. The wine was a bad idea, she knew that; you could never solve your problems by drowning them in alcohol. They couldn’t be killed that way, they simply came back to life to follow you around some more. The monkey on your back. The elephant in the room. You tried to ignore them, but they always began to seem like Glenn Close in that movie where she was crazy. “I’m not going to be ignored, Dan.” She had yet to find a way to make them leave for good.
Her phone rang, the obnoxious beeping sound she’d assigned to her father’s number. She held the phone in her hand, her finger hovering over the button with the little green phone icon, weighing the consequences of ignoring the call. She had been avoiding calls from her family for weeks, why stop now?
She filled up her glass as she tried to shut out the sounds of wintertime merriment coming from outside. It was the family who lived upstairs, she knew. They were the perfect little nuclear family, 2.5 kids, and it made her sick. They were all playing outside in the snow, soft and white, freshly fallen that afternoon. Afterward they would go inside and have hot cocoa and watch a Christmas movie, just like the cliché that they were. And she hated them for it.
She had always felt a surge of jealousy for people whose parents were together, whose families were still whole and intact, not broken and fractured like hers was. It was a stab to her heart, inevitable and unstoppable, and it always managed to cast a dark cloud over her.
Her phone rang again, her mother, and this time she didn’t hesitate before ignoring the call. She went to take a drink of wine and found the glass empty. She poured another glass, she couldn’t remember what number that made it, couldn’t remember draining the previous glass. She took a drink, letting it warm her, making her head spin.
Her pulse jumped as the phone beeped again, her temper beginning to flare. Two voicemails. She knew what they would say; it would be yet another admonition from both her mother and father, she had lost count of how many angry voicemails they’d left her, scolding her for not picking up the phone again, or worrying that she’d been killed or kidnapped, or had she simply fallen off the face of the earth?
She was tired of her family, sick and tired of all the drama the holidays brought. Sick of being pulled in a million different directions. Her heart pounded as she thought of all the crap she’d been through, all the bullshit her parents had put her through. If she could undo it all, change it so that her parents had stayed together, she would. But the truth in the pictures she had hanging in her apartment stared her in the face; not one was of her with her mother and father, the three of them together. She couldn’t even pretend otherwise.
She fought the tears brimming, trying to will them away as she took another drink; she’d cried over it too much already. It was still a wound that went deep, far to deep to be healed now.
“Damn them,” she thought. “Damn them and damn Christmas.”
Blood wasn’t thicker than water. It was your family who could hurt you worse than anyone.
She got another bottle of wine from the kitchen, settling in for the longest night, resolving to drink until she even forgot it was almost Christmas.
Sorry, at the top it should say “Broken” as the title. Whoops.
Got it. Thanks Leah.
Thanks for entering Leah.
“Winter’s End”
By: Karra Barron
The Mayans predicted that the end of the world would come on the shortest day of the year. December 21st, 2012.
But the end didn’t happen like everyone had been expecting. The Earth didn’t shake or split right down the centre. The oceans did not rise up and crash against the land, swallowing up people and buildings alike. A giant meteorite didn’t descend from the heavens and collide with our planet. There wasn’t even a loud explosion. In fact, there was barely a sound at the end of the world.
All you could hear, if you really listened hard enough, was the whisper of the ash falling from the black sky onto the stark, desolate ground.
But an hour before it happened, the sound of Kaya’s frantic breathing and the pounding of my heart against my ribs pierced the air. I struggled to support Kaya as we raced through the woods, searching for Shelter. It was only early afternoon, but the night had taken away what little sunlight was left. Even the stars were gone now, replaced by an eternal cloud of dark grey.
We ran past a dying tree, its branches clawing over our bodies. Kaya grunted painfully as he clutched his right side, which was nothing more than a sickening mess of blood and flesh torn right to the bone. Kaya loved to taunt the Hunters and play tricks on them no matter how much I urged him not to. He always managed to outsmart them before they could touch him, but just like the rest of the world, his luck eventually ran out.
“Was it after the oak tree, Kaya?” I gasped, doing my best to avoid more trees. “Kaya?” I glanced at him. There was a pained look on his pale face and I knew he was struggling to keep up with me. He knew how important it was to get to Shelter. But his gold-flecked green eyes were dull; he was fading. I was going to lose him.
The doomsday clock had started quietly ticking five years ago. No one saw it coming. That day was marked only by a small, uneventful earthquake. It happened in a city where earthquakes were so frequent that nobody gave it any notice. If only they had known to expect the extraordinary in the ordinary, they would have seen the darkness beginning to engulf the light. If they had paid enough attention, The War might have turned out differently.
Kaya and I might have turned out differently.
I brushed past a tree branch, sending a cloud of ashes falling on our heads. It made Kaya cough violently and his grip on me suddenly loosened. He fell from my arms and on to his knees. I called out his name.
“Are you alright?” I said, kneeling beside him. “We can rest if you like.” Without waiting for his response, I forced him to lie down and placed his head on my lap. The howls echoed in the distance; the scent of Kaya’s blood was going to lead the Hunters straight to us, but I no longer cared. I brushed dirt and ash from his forehead. He was ice cold.
“Kai, just leave me here,” Kaya said, weakly. “You need to save yourself. It’s all over without you.”
I shook my head, my long blonde hair sticking to my sweaty face. I tried to hold back the tears. “It’s over for me without you.”
Kaya was my perfect match. Created especially for me just as I was created to be his. We were born sixteen years ago in Shelter, the only home we have ever known. There had been ten of us before the clock started. Five perfect genetic pairs, one male and one female each. Five perfect chances to build the world up again after it had fallen. But we never anticipated the rise of the Hunters or that these beasts would come after us. Kaya and I were the only ones that escaped with our lives.
“K-Kai,” he sputtered. Flecks of blood flew from his mouth and my heart clenched at the sight of the scarlet droplets on his handsome face. “It’s not just us anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“We…we weren’t the only ones that survived. There’s one more out there.”
I stared at him, too stunned to speak.
“I s-saw him yesterday…before the Hunters attacked us.” I saw his hand crawl through the ashes towards me. His fingers shook as they clutched mine. “You have to live to find him, Kai. He’ll help you finish the plan.”
I shook my head. This was madness; it was doomsday talk all over again. I wanted him to stop speaking about the end, to talk instead about getting better and staying with me, but the pool of blood from his body was growing around us.
The howls intensified. The Hunters would be here before I was ready to leave.
Kaya’s fingers stopped shaking and his face took on a serene quality I’d never seen before. I held his hand tighter, hoping it would be enough to keep him here with me.
“Go Kai. Please,” he begged. His voice had grown so quiet that I had to concentrate on the movement of his lips to understand the rest of his words. When he was done speaking, I started to sob.
There were two things I had been born knowing: that I would save the world someday and that I would love Kaya forever. Now I was going to have to let go of one of the only things I have ever known.
I laid him gently on the ground and kissed his blood red lips one last time. Then I turned my back on him and ran.
My creator once told me that people used to celebrate the Winter Solstice, a day that occurred on December 21st and signaled the return of longer days. It meant the rebirth of the sun gods and festivals were always held in their honour. But today, there would be no celebrations. There was no longer any sun to celebrate.
It didn’t take the Hunter long to find me. I moved blindly through the woods, stumbling in the darkness. It had been a year since Kaya and I had fled Shelter and my memories of the path we took away from it were hazy. Tears and ash stung my eyes as I ran. I wanted to distance myself from Kaya, but losing him only made me realize the futility of what I was doing.
I stopped running and stood among the trees, my breath coming out in painful gasps. It was impossible for one person to save the world. Whatever was left of it was doomed now without Kaya as my partner. I was suddenly so completely without hope that I was paralyzed. I could only scream and it was a sound that came from the depths of my soul, weakening every part of my battered body. I didn’t want this life anymore.
A howl joined my agony. I was done with running from the inevitable. I didn’t turn to face my Hunter. I didn’t even flinch when I felt his hands around my neck, his claws digging into my skin and drawing blood.
It was December 21st and the ash fell steadily like it had always done. An ordinary presence on an extraordinary day.
The day that my world ended forever.
Thanks for joining us Kara.
Excited to be here Joe! Awesome contest idea to get people inspired and writing 🙂
Great job Karra! Loved reading it 🙂
Amazing writing Karra!!
Great job Karra! A little morbid but wow, so imaginative! Loving the whole Mayan 2012 “end of the world” craze everyone is on. Good stuff!
Well-written.
Great job, Karra!
Great job, Karra! Really enjoyed the read
So good! So impressed!
Fantastic! Great read Karra!
So much story captured in very few words. Amazing descriptions and wording
Fantastic job Karra ! I was captivated till the end !
Fabulous job, Karra! You are such a beautiful writer. I love reading your stuff and I can’t wait to see more from you. Ruv! <3
so when is the book coming out? xox
Great work Karra! Captivating read!
Great work Karra!!!!!
Loved it! Such intensive imagery within the first few paragraphs, I literally felt my heart beating when they were running. … where is the rest!!
OMG Karra! I was totally captivated by this story. Such an amazing short little gem…I’ll be first in line for your first book 🙂
Awesome story Karra!
Karra! I despise reading but your story kept me hooked! I’m so proud of you!!!!! A++++++++
Amazing story – love it! Agreed, very imaginative.
The details behind this has gotten my imagination running all over the place. Awesome take on the theme. Can’t wait to read the rest of it.
So let me get this straight, the FBI knew the police drug squad was in on the drug deal!?
You are an amazing writer. I even teared up as I was reading it.
Keep up the excellent work – so proud of you!!!
loved it, Kar! 🙂 always been a fan 🙂 Keep it up!
Beautiful!!!!!!!!!!
Great story Karra!!!
BOOM! What an ending. Kept me on the edge of my seat.
Amazing!
My Winter Solstice Story
Winter Solstice
Frozen mist hugs the snow-crusted ground obscuring the countryside, as I steer my rental car to the shoulder of the road and turn off the ignition. I sit quietly collecting my thoughts, hearing only my own breathing. I have come three-thousand miles in search of answers, but I know some of those answers will never be found. Through the window I see the trail in the snow, the only evidence that I’ve been here before—twice, to be accurate, on each of the previous two mornings.
I zip up my jacket until I feel the cold metal against my neck, then I tug my hat down over my ears, finally I push my fingers into black leather gloves. A warning buzzer comes to life as I push the car door open and step out into the frigid, early morning December air. Outside I hear the car engine tick as it cools. Brittle snow crunches under my boots as I walk around the car. Bending between two strands of barbed wire I step onto the cleared frozen path made by my previous visits.
I look out onto what were once the grounds of one of the worst mental hospitals in northern Italy. The place where Mussolini sent his wife when she became an inconvenience; the place where sixty-years-ago impoverished people were imprisoned; and the place my grandmother spent the last fourteen years of her life—ignored and abandoned. The buildings are gone now, demolished and bulldozed into the hillside; but a spirit of ugliness remains. The whine of a gentle breeze against bare branches of sleeping trees is like the voice of a ghost longing to tell its story to someone willing to listen. Someone like me.
. . .
In nineteen-thirty-seven a crushing poverty had settled over northern Italy, veiling it in hunger and disease. World War II loomed, but its beginnings had already ravaged the countryside, destroying structures built to endure the test of time, not the trauma of bombs whistling from the sky. A hungry populace watched as powerful armies advanced through once well-maintained farms, turning fertile ground into muck and mire. At night, mothers’ lying in their quiet beds heard the sobs of their hungry children, while listening to the distant guns of war shouting out the insanity of the world around her.
My grandfather had already immigrated to America, but when Italy joined the Axis powers he was prohibited from sending money to his family, as he had done for two years. My grandmother and her five children were left to fend for themselves at a time when life was being cheapened by war—no one would notice the loss of a lone woman and her children. As winter moved forward crusting the land with frozen mist, people starved; some died of easily-cured disease; and some were separated from their families due to poverty and ignorance.
On a cold Sunday morning in March my grandmother stoked the fire in the kitchen stove, hoping to provide warmth for her sleeping children. Satisfied that she had done all she could, she wrapped herself in a scarf her mother gave her years ago as a gift, and then she quietly walked out into the cold.
Santa Maria Del Assunta had served the residents of Bresimo for over one-hundred-years. Angela Emma Severino had found comfort inside the walls of this church for as long as she could remember. The church where she and her five children were baptized was warm and only half full that morning. The service had just begun, and as Father Pietro walked to the altar the old wooden doors of the church burst open. Framed in the morning brightness a man began shouting.
“Fume! Fire!”
All eyes turned toward the door as the man turned and ran. The men seated in the pews were the first to stand and follow him, then the women, my grandmother among them, filed out quickly. Father Pietro’s long black robes swirled over the white marble floor as he hurried past the empty pews and out into the bright cold air.
My grandmother ran when she saw the dark plumes of smoke rising from her house—the house where her children slept. At the edge of the low wall surrounding her home a group of women held her, preventing her from running into the smoking house. A long line of men passed buckets of water to each other to douse the flames. Within a few minutes a man named Gino, his face darkened with soot, came out of the front door and announced the fire had been extinguished. He turned and ushered the children through the door. The freightened children ran to their mother and surrounded her as she fell to her knees. She hugged and kissed each of her children in turn, then raised her eyes to the clear sky and thanked God for their safety.
. . .
It didn’t take long before her neighbors, people Angela knew for most of her life, began to accuse her of setting the fire on purpose; an attempt to kill her children rather than watch them suffer. Her cries that it was an accident fell on deaf ears.
Filled with fear and stress, she staggered, then fainted, falling to the cold ground. The authorities were summoned, and when the Carabinieri arrived they asked Father Pietro to help in taking my grandmother into custody. When she awoke her children were gone.
“Where are my children?” She looked around nervously, her eyes becoming wide with fear. “Where are my children!” she shouted.
“It’s alright, Angela.” The dark form of Father Pietro hovered over her, his black robes hanging almost to the ground, his short, rotund body silhouetted by the setting sun behind him. Specks of grey ash spotted his black hat, his face was pinched—his lips were a thin straight line. “The children have been taken to safety.” He said softly.
“They are safe with me. Where are they?”
“They are with family, Angela. Come with me to my house. “
“Father, I have done nothing wrong.” Turning, she shouted to her neighbors, “I have done nothing wrong, please help me!” Father Pietro took her arm and helped her up. As she stood her shawl slipped from her shoulders and fell to the ground, revealing her thin white arms.
Her cries for help echoed through the valley below, where there was no one to hear them. As Father Pietro led her away, her shawl remained behind in a dark silken heap on the snow-covered ground.
She was sent to the hospital where she would remain until she died.
. . .
I step along the path in the snow and walk around the rise in the hill to the place on the old map that indicates the area where the hospital’s patients were buried in unmarked graves. Here on the southern slope the sun has melted the snow and I am able to trace the route of my previous visits and look for signs of old graves; an indentation in the ground, an unusual rise, stones that look out of place. I search and search but find nothing.
I scan the desolate hillside and my resolve begins to ebb as the cold seeps into my body. But then I realize that today is the Winter Solstice; a day or rebirth—of renewal. Stiffening against my disappointment at finding nothing, I continue my search with renewed resolve.
1248
Nice. Thanks Angelo.
I’m new here and learning my way around. I hope you liked the story.
In that case, we’re very glad to have you. Usually, I wait until the contest is closed for submissions before I read the entries. That way I’m not jaded either way. I’m excited to read yours, though, Angelo. Thank you.
Nice story. I really enjoyed the imagery.
That is so sad! What a story.
I missed reading this – I’m glad you got “Runner Up” to make me come back through here! I agree, it is begging to become a novel. Is this a true story?
Well done Angelo. Love your prose.
Great story! I agree with others that it has potential to become a novel, I would love to read more. I was hooked!
“You know we’re going to be busy tonight?” asked Jane, my best friend, as we walked in the staff entrance of Friends of Saint Francis Animal Hospital.
I raised an eyebrow, “Do tell why three days before Christmas you think a Wednesday grave yard shift, the slowest of night shifts, dear Jane is going to be busy? Unless of course – are you referring to the flirtatious banter that’s been escalating between you and Dr. Time?” I teased.
As confident as always, Jane rolled her eyes and replied, “It’s the winter solstice Ann.” When I didn’t respond she continued. “You know, the longest night of the year. After tonight the sun will be out longer and longer until of course, the summer solstice. Tonight’s the darkest night of the year.”
“The winter solstice! That’s right, I totally forgot!” I joking replied. “It sounds kind of gloomy to me.”
“You mock, but you won’t in the morning. The winter solstice isn’t just dark nights it’s also new beginnings. I’m off to work in the kennels. Have fun in the barn doc.” And she was off.
Jane, my oldest and best friend – eccentric and unconventional, beautiful from the inside out, she was a wonderful vet tech. I was lucky to have her on my staff that night. As I made my way to the back of the hospital, out the double doors and to the barn, I silently prayed she would be wrong about being busy tonight. I had a soon to be momma horse to watch tonight, and my instincts told me tonight was the night she would be giving birth.
As I entered the barn I was greeted by a small whinny. Sunny was such a beautiful horse. She strongly resembled my own gelding, Harvey. As I passed his stall and gave his nose a rub he impatiently stomped his feet, reminding me it had been several days since our last walk around the hospitals wooded grounds. He hated third shift almost as much as I did. I was relieved tonight would be the last night I tucked myself in at dawn for a few weeks.
I peeked into Sunny’s stall, and sure enough, she was looking very pregnant, and ready to give birth. I walked over to my desk to call her owner Chris and let him know that tonight was probably the night. An over the road trucker, Chris had been requesting frequent updates on Sunny. Having a horse of my own, I understood his love of her, and the fact that she was a gift from his late wife made her all that more special.
Just as I hung up the phone, Jane bounced into the barn and my pager beeped at me. “Whoa, looks like you’re going to have a baby tonight.”
“I’m not, but Sunny is.” I smirked at her. Are you on my barn rotation tonight?
“Reporting for duty now doc.”
“Excellent.” I said as I put my pager back in the pocket of my scrubs. “It looks like I’m being paged for a goat consult in the ER, and I wouldn’t want Sunny in anyone else’s care while I was gone. I called Chris and he should be here in a few hours.”
“Chris? Oh, you mean Mr. Watson? I didn’t realize you too were on a first name basis.” Jane continued. “How is Mr. Watson? And do I detect a faint blush rising in your cheeks doctor?”
Jane never missed anything. “Considering we’ve been talking several times a day for the last two weeks, it’s really no surprise we’re on a first name basis is it?” I could hear my voice rising slightly. “And really, it’s chilly so no, I’m not blushing. I’m just… chilled.”
Jane raised her eyebrows but remained silent. Her grin revealed she saw right through me. But I wasn’t ready to admit any attraction I might be developing on Chris at the moment. “Page me if anything changes. I’ll be back.” I said to her with a faint smile and turned to leave.
“Would Mr. Watson, I mean Chris’s arrival warrant a 9-1-1 page?” Jane hollered as I was walking through the barn doors. All I could hear was her laughter as the huge doors swung shut behind me.
My trip to the ER went from one goat consultation to telling a very surprised owner that her boy rabbit was in fact a girl rabbit and sending her home with a litter of three baby kits. After that I was called on to exam a black Lab that had eaten his owner’s sock, help with a nasty cat fight abscess, stitch up an Australian Shepard’s paw, and lend an extra hand on what would hopefully be our last trauma visit of the night. A little poodle named Chippo had gotten loose and hit by a car. Fortunately his owner was familiar with emergency care for pets and it looked like the little guy would pull through.
At approximately 4 AM I made it back into the barn. “You were right.” I admitted to Jane as I rounded the corner to my desk, looking down at my cell phone for any last calls. “Tonight has been long.” I looked up just in time to avoid bumping into a very anxious looking Chris. God, he looked handsome tonight.
“Ann, it’s almost time for the delivery. I’m so glad you made it back.” Chris reached and shook my hand warmly. “It’s good to see you again.”
“I was actually just getting ready to page you.” Jane chimed in. She had that sheepish grin on her face. Perhaps the chemistry I was starting to feel between Chris and I wasn’t my imagination. Jane sure seemed to sense something amusing. From the look on her face I could tell she thought there was something going on between us.
“Well then,” I turned to Jane, “let’s go deliver this foal. Jane, could you grab the delivery kit?”
The next few minutes were a blur. Jane got back just in time for the delivery. We all watched in awe as Sunny’s foal entered the world. I went to work checking over mom and baby right away.
“Well Chris, it’s a girl! Congratulations!” I said.
“Ann, should I get a camera?” Jane asked. There was that grin of hers again.
“That would be wonderful!” Exclaimed Chris. “I didn’t think to bring my camera with me. “
“Sure,” I replied. “I think there’s one in the supply stall.”
Jane made a rather speedy exit as I turned to Chris. “Do you have a name picked out for her yet?”
“Winnie, I think.” He stated. “After her mama.”
“Whinny?” I asked. “I’m confused. What does a whinny have to do with the sun?”
Chris laughed. “Sunny is short for Summer’s Solstice. And Winnie would be short for Winter’s Solstice. Tonight’s the Winter Solstice. Are you familiar with the solstice? It signifies the end of darkness and new beginnings.”
“I am a little familiar, now that you mention it.” I replied with a smile. “To new beginnings then.”
“To new beginnings.” His eyes locked on mine. “I’m ready for a new beginning.” And then he kissed me.
Thanks so much for joinin us, Jessi.
The Winter Solstice of the Soul
By Ken Fallon
Maybe it’s my glass-half-empty tendency, but I look at the Winter Solstice not for its promise of longer days, warm sunshine or candy thrown in neighborhood parades, but for the here-and-now: the longest night of the year, the broken heart of winter, the despair of darkness that seems to block out any hopes of the light.
Not that long ago, I felt like I was facing that dark night. Looking back, I’m not sure it was anything so worthy of despair, but it felt that way: I had just broken up with the girl I thought I would marry, the girl who seemed to fulfill all the dreams I had for a wife.
Except.
Except for the nagging feeling, literally in my gut, that something wasn’t right. To this day, I can’t identify it, I just knew I couldn’t continue down that path. And, stupid me, I tried to explain the unexplainable, which only added to her pain.
I walked away from her, from the church we attended, from the life I thought we were planning to build, and turned back to the life I knew before her. It was there, in a church I previously attended, that I met the woman who turned out to be my life partner. She was pretty, had a wicked sense of humor, and tolerated my penchant for tacky sweaters. And I was scared to death.
Perhaps it was fear of repeating my mistakes, or exposing my heart. Of foolishly believing God when he says he plans to give me a hope and a future. But it took me more than four months between the day I met her and the day I asked for a day in her life.
She said yes, thank God, or I might possibly have crawled into my Winter Solstice of the Soul and made plans to live there year-round, rearranging the furniture in order to best host my pity party. Then, making clear she had expected this, she added, “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
In retrospect, it probably wasn’t that hard, but at the time I thought: Oh, sweetheart, you have no idea.
Seven months later, we were joining our lives as husband and wife. That’s not to say, however, that everything has been warm sunshine and free candy since we said “I do.” For parts of the first two years, faced with the stresses of a new child, a new business, and two 30-somethings trying to mesh years of singlehood into a partnership, I told God I couldn’t divorce her and couldn’t kill her, so I was leaving it up to him to take care of the problem.
I don’t know how this could be, but apparently I was the problem, and God took his scalpel to my heart with a surgeon’s precision, cutting away (parts of) my selfishness and replacing it with a little compassion and more love than I knew I had the capacity to show. Beyond the superficial qualities that initially drew me to her, I have fallen deeper in love as I’ve seen her wisdom, her patience, her perseverance, her support of my endeavors, and her tolerance for my idiosyncrasies (though most of those sweaters went to Goodwill). Two beautiful daughters have added to my joy, and shown me repeatedly how much work the surgeon still has to do.
When you’re in the midst of that Winter Solstice of the Soul, it’s tough sometimes to lift your eyes toward the promise of longer days, to believe that the night will end and things will get better. But as Maria said to her new stepdaughter, “you cry a little. Then you wait for the sun to come out. It always does.”
But even though the sun always comes out, it still feels death-defying to make a change when something’s not working, to move beyond the fear that holds us back, that keeps me from pursuing the life God has for me. What if she doesn’t like me? What happens if that editor declines my manuscript? What if my business doesn’t succeed? The sunrise, whether literal or figurative, is beyond my control. But God wants me to look to him, to put in the effort of lifting my eyes, of seeking the sunrise and the hope that inherently rises with the dawn. Or, as he says through the psalmist: “I look to the hills! Where will I find help? It will come from the Lord, who created the heavens and the earth.”
The effort to look toward the hills might include — and this is me preaching to me right now — stepping away from the darkness, physically moving in the direction of the light, doing your best to discern the most effective path toward a better tomorrow and then following that path with all the passion God has placed within you. And sometimes the effort to look toward the hills might include allowing him to cut away the scar tissue and replace it with something healthy and indescribably wonderful.
Imagining that effort might seem like childbirth combined with a workout with Satan’s personal trainer. But as you take that first step, if you listen carefully you might even hear God say, “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Awesome. Thanks for submitting this, Ken.
Oops, I realized one thing is confusing: the reference to Maria is from the Sound of Music; I had a link to the quote when I wrote it on my blog, but forgot that it doesn’t carry over to here!
This sentence– “She was pretty, had a wicked sense of humor, and tolerated my penchant for tacky sweaters.”–made me have a crush on your writing!
Thank you, Lisa!
Fragmented
December 21
4:07 AM
Analeigh burrowed into the cavern of pillows and blankets. The glow from her clock blinded her as sleep rolled away like a receding blanket of fog over the fields at daybreak. Sleep evaded her as fragmented thoughts and memories rushed about in her head.
“They’re going too fast over the bridge. I should have driven,” Analeigh thought aloud. Tires spinning. A blur of blue as the truck spun around in front of them.
It was always in fragments. As if her mind was protecting itself from the self-destruction that hid just behind the truth.
4:48 AM
The furnace clanked and hummed to life. Analeigh dragged the comforter over her head.
Icy waters. Later, frostbite would be the only reminder of her bare hands gripping the frozen guardrail. Her instinct had been to dive in after them. Screams. Hers or theirs? Hands digging into her flesh. She couldn’t get to them. Their faces like ghosts as the water enveloped them.
5:41 AM
Analeigh slid into that place where dreams tangle with the present. Her mind never granted her the solace of deep sleep on these nights. However, even here, the fragmented blur of the past spun around her head.
Their faces, suspended beneath the glass of the car window, beneath the ice of the river. Screaming again. Definitely hers.
7:23 AM
In the grey sheen of early morning her furniture and various knick-knacks seemed to morph into one another. Analeigh liked this in-between place. There was the pretence of peace here between the tormented world of her dreams and the relentless onslaught of her memories. Sometimes, just as the sun peeked over the horizon, their presence was palpable, as if they were watching her from the foot of the bed. Just maybe, time would stop here forever. Analeigh closed her eyes as the sunlight stole in like a thief.
Analeigh wiped a bit of frosting from the corner of his mouth, “Two years old. Well, you’ll always be my baby.” He giggled as she buttoned the top button on his coat and kissed him on the nose.
She looked at the two, the youngest a miniaturized copy of his father. “Remember, it’s icy out there. Drive slowly, we’ll follow behind.” She stretched to her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.
7:41 AM
The tinny ring of the phone pierced the silence and Analeigh slithered down deeper into her warm cocoon. After three rings the answering machine clicked on, “Analeigh, it’s Mom. I know you are still in bed. You can’t do this every year. Please get up and answer. Talk to me. You shouldn’t be alone today. Analeigh? Well, I’m here.”
But she had done the same thing every year for four years. Every year since the accident on December 21st, she spent a sleepless day in her bed. She didn’t shower, comb her hair or even shed her clothes from the night before. She would get up for her morning cup of coffee, only to return to her place of refuge.
9:39 AM
Squeals, tender and free. His smile spread warmth slowly through her body, warm honey seeping into every recess of her soul. Shrieks, helpless and pleading.
Analeigh squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Her fists dug into her ears only acquiescing to the dull ache. The sunlight persisted and she finally relented and sat up fully in bed, swung her feet over the side and gazed out the window. The aroma of coffee beans drifted in from the automatic coffee maker in the kitchen, like sweet earth.
Clumps of snow cascaded from tree branches to the ground. Outside, a child’s scream sent a shutter through Analeigh petite frame and she sprang to her feet. Only when laughter floated through the air, did her heart slow its race and her breaths deepen from shallow pants.
She walked to the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee. Her first sip burned her tongue leaving it feeling like a carpet had been laid over it. Holding the cup under her chin, she let the steam warm her face.
She watched as her neighbor’s three children played throwing rocks into the stream. She imagined ice slicing downstream like shards of glass. She fingered the frayed ribbon of her nightgown.
As they rocked, he fingered the unraveling strip of silky cloth as his eyelids drooped. A smile snaked across his face pushing his cheeks into even bigger puffs.
“Mommy! Mommy! Nadine fell into the water. Come quick!”
Analeigh’s coffee cup slid from her hand, crashing onto to stone counter top.
Screaming. His elbow slammed against the window several times. He couldn’t break it. “No! No!” she screamed as she tried to jump in after them.
“You can’t go in there. It’s too cold. You can’t swim! Help is coming.” Whose hands were digging into her arms, why wouldn’t they let her go? She had to go. They were supposed to be together.
Analeigh stopped, in shock, as the sharp cold stung her face. She had run outside. She continued running until she reached the stream where to two oldest children were huddled, crying. Their mother, screaming frantically, was rapidly approaching.
Analeigh looked down the bank to where a grayish hand clung to a branch jutting out from the earth. The water rushed and pulled at the small body. Analeigh’s feet carried her down the short decent. Rocks, like blades, stabbed through the soles of her thinned worn slippers. One finally drew blood leaving a crimson trail on a melting patch of snow.
Unable to find a flat part of the bank, Analeigh rested one foot on a large rock embedded into the ground. She stretched the other one into a shallow part of the stream as she grabbed onto an overhanging branch from a large oak tree. She reached until she felt the tiny hand. It felt more like a piece of cold, raw meat than a child’s hand. She stretched until she clasped the child’s tiny wrist. She screamed, low and guttural from the deepest recess of her soul, and heaved the child on top of her. The two collapsed onto the slope of the bank as Analeigh embraced the child. Even as the tears slid down her cheeks, Analeigh felt a release and she was lighter, weightless under the tiny body that rested on hers.
As she walked through the front door, he ran to her and enclosed the bottom half her legs in a tight bear hug, nearly knocking her to her feet. She laughed and rubbed her hand along his cottony, ebony curls. She lifted him into her arms and for a moment,
disappeared in his warmth and the smell of lavender and vanilla wafers. This was her favorite moment of the day.
“Oh, thank you, thank you. My baby. Oh my sweet baby,” the mother yelled down to her as three firemen hoisted a fourth in a safety harness down the bank and lifted Analeigh and the child up to safety.
Analeigh was surprised to see that both the police and fire department had arrived. She watched as the mother cried and stroked her child’s head as the rescue workers checked her over.
As a worker approached Analeigh to check for injuries, she waved him off and walked back to her house. Once inside, she started for her room, still darkened by the window shades. She stopped at the bathroom door, “I think I’ll start with a shower.” This day would be different.
I enjoyed reading this. I could feel Analeigh’s anguish at the beginning of the story, and the rebirth of her spirit at the end. Nice job!
Thanks! I really enjoyed writing it. It actually triggered my own sleeplessness the night that I finished it because I couldn’t get Analeigh out of my head.
Sleepingmuse put my thoughts into words exactly.
The Last Winter Solstice by D.L. Rose
December 21, 2012
Liza sighed and looked at her phone for the billionth time. No bars. She had to hand it to her dad. He sure knew how to build an underground bunker. Now if only he’d just let her out of it. But he was busy working on some project. She wasn’t sure, but it looked electrical. All she knew was if he asked her to power this place by riding a bike, she would feel completely justified in smashing a giant can of beans over his head and busting her way out of there. Assuming she could figure out how to do that.
“Dad, you do realize that like, a super volcano or massive earthquake will totally still kill us down here, right?” No answer. Not that she’d expected one. He’d stopped trying to convince her of his plan weeks ago. She should have known better than to think that meant she’d won. He’d just tired of the arguments. She’d gone to sleep in her bed last night and when she’d woken up this morning, it had been on the threadbare mattress of one of the bunker’s beds. You’d think her father could have at least sprung for nicer beds. If the nuclear holocaust happened, they’d be sleeping on them for at least seven years.
Before she could open her mouth to tell him just that, the floor began to shake. Jars tinkled against each other on the shelves in the pantry, telling her she wasn’t just imagining the movement. She let out a noise that laded somewhere between a moan and a scream and her father looked up from his project. He moved more swiftly than she’d seen in a long time and turned on the small television that sat in front of her. Her mouth dropped open as he began to flip channels. He’d put cable in the bunker? He hadn’t been willing to pay for cable in years. He glanced at her face and shrugged.
“I wasn’t going to spend a decade in a bunker with a teenager and no cable. Besides, I stole it from the neighbors just yesterday. Special for the apocalypse.”
“And you weren’t going to tell me?” she complained. “I’ve been sitting here doing nothing all day.”
“It wasn’t for you,” he said, matter-of-fact. “It was for me. So you wouldn’t drive me completely bonkers.” As if football would continue on, unhindered by the apocalypse.
He continued to channel surf until he hit the news. And then her jaw really dropped.
Holy crap! My dad isn’t crazy!
The newscaster’s words of warning sounded like static to her ears as her mind tried to make sense of the pandemonium she was seeing. And then the screen went dark. She turned to her dad for comfort or at least an explanation, but just then the lights went out as well. As the emergency backups glowed to life, Liza looked at her father’s silhouette.
“Well,” he said with a sigh. “So much for the cable.”
I absolutely loved the concept of this. I thought you captured the light-heartedness – of an otherwise seriously intense life-altering event – quite well. I had so many questions while reading. What was life like for the family before the event? What did the bunker look like? What sort of images of the event played on the screen? Who else was in the bunker? What led the father to plan for such a moment? …fear? …religion? Good work.
I also felt that the heart of this story belonged to the father. What were his motivations? His connections? How did he know?
I definitely laughed at the end of this piece, Debra. Excellent gallows humor. “So much for cable.” Wonderful.
The Driver
21 December, 2011
Lila reached past the steering wheel and adjusted the volume on the radio. “A wave of at least 14 bombings ripped across Baghdad this morning, killing at least 60 people . . . .” For years she had found the calm voices of the news reporters on NPR soothing after a long day, and this day was no exception.
Without a word, her husband reached out and twisted the volume dial back down so that Lila had to strain to hear voices. “The developments heighten fears of a new round of Shiite-Sunni sectarian bloodshed . . . .” She squinted through the glare of the streetlight as it reflected off her spectacles and could barely see where the yellow line separated the turn lane from the road. White gusts of snow swirled angrily across her windshield. Lila switched on her blinker and pulled into the turn lane. Earlier that day, the perky girl-of-a-meteorologist on the television had been calling this a winter storm watch and warning people to stay inside if they could, if they had nowhere else they needed to be. Lila resented this warning. The girl appeared to be in her late thirties, young enough to be her daughter—if she had ever had one. And if she had had a daughter, she would have taught her never to wear a bright red suit like this woman wore, or tacky pink lipstick that poked out toward the camera every time she used the phrase, “Winter solstice.” Apparently this woman was keenly interested in the fact that tonight would be the longest night—the most hours of darkness compared with hours of sunlight—of the year.
It was dark out. A gap in the steady flow of headlights opened up ahead, and Lila turned left into the parking lot of the diner. She would not be kept inside. She’d been born and raised in a snowstorm. “A suicide bomber driving an explosives-laden vehicle blew himself up outside the office of . . .” She pulled into a parking space and turned the key toward her breast. The calming voice of the reporter cut off immediately. A cold, dark silence ensued. She counted in her mind, waiting for the inevitable crabby announcement from the passenger’s seat: One, two, three—“Oh, hell. Let’s just order at the drive-thru.”
Right on cue, she thought, turning the key toward the dashboard and allowing the engine to cough, inhale, sputter, and then groan back to life, resurrecting the voices from NPR along with it: “After the guards let the ambulance driver through, he drove to the building where he blew himself up.”
Shifting the car into drive, she pulled through the darkness surrounding the diner and pressed the brake when she came to the speaker planted smack in the middle of the enlarged menu. “May I take your order?” a disembodied voice asked. She hated the drive-thru. She wanted to turn around, park, and go into the clean, well-lit diner. She wanted to demand they eat a meal at a table together, but the language between them had dissolved some time ago. She couldn’t remember exactly when. Before his affair—she was sure of that. But how long before, she was never able to say. He’d told her he was sorry a hundred times, but his apologies sounded like a flute solo masked by the discordant bellows of one hundred bassoons. He’d offered to file for a divorce, if that was what she wanted, but she’d told him she wanted to work things out. But really, what did she want? She knew the answer to this, of course, but the answer looked so repugnant when she allowed herself to look at it face on that she preferred to lie to herself and say she just didn’t know what she wanted. The answer was that she wanted to stay married because she enjoyed making him suffer. She wanted to make herself a scar, a maimed finger or a burn—stretched pink skin, like raw, dried out meat, right across one cheek. A reminder of his misstep that he must look at every single day, for the rest of his life, and remember how beautiful he used to be but wasn’t anymore.
The problem was, her punishment didn’t seem to be working anymore. For a while—a year at least—he had been like an abused dog, his head hung low, his eyes dull, his motivation gone. But now, now he seemed to have established a certain level of immunity against her punishments. He’d been playing cards with the guys on Tuesdays, just like he did before the affair. The number of times he called her each day dwindled from five to one—and she felt the one would return to zero rather soon. So now what? She was nearing retirement, childless, unhappy in her career, and unhappy in her marriage. He’d called her bluff, and now she was going to have to file for divorce. But worse, her main source of enjoyment—tormenting her husband—would be gone. Forever.
And so, as he cantankerously shouted his burger-and-fries order over her lap, and as she contemplated the value of a diet coke over a chocolate shake, an invisible haze floated between them.
“Do you want to get away for a while,” she asked, eyebrows raised with sincerity.
He looked up at her, surprised. “Where?”
“I don’t know. Florida maybe? Or Vegas?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know if we can afford it right now.”
Why had she ordered a salad? She didn’t really like salads. In the past she had eaten them to keep her weight down, to keep herself healthy. But now, neither of those mattered. She did it out of habit, she supposed, pulling forward to the pickup window where she accepted her dinner.
When had this become her life? A thoughtless, unexamined crawl toward, toward what? But, there was always a choice—wasn’t there?—a well-lit diner even in the darkness of a winter solstice. Her mind wandered backward through the news report . . . .
Outside the streetlights stood like guards uniformed in holly, red ribbon and shrouded in snow. She exited the parking lot and slowed the car to a stop behind a line of about fifteen other cars waiting for the light to turn green. Waiting, she was always waiting. It was at this moment that she realized her hands were shaking. I’m cold, she explained to herself. It’s so cold outside, so dark, the darkest day of the year. And then a thought appeared to her like a prophecy, and a shiver of delight slid down her spine. The sound of a siren and red, flashing lights in her rearview mirror forced her to inch to the side of the road. The thought glowed on her dashboard, shimmering, looking through her, and the sensation was like nothing she’d felt in years. “You’re listening to NPR news. It’s 5:30.”
Her trembling hands turned the wheel to the left and her foot made its way to the gas pedal. “Lil? What are you—“ The siren roared. And then a crash, glass shattering, metal bending, demons screaming. The thought had become flesh.
When the second ambulance arrived just minutes later, both the old man and the woman were proclaimed dead upon impact.
“Long night?” the police officer politely asked the EMT.
The EMT lifted the first shrouded gurney into the falling snow. “The longest.”
“…but his apologies sounded like a flute solo masked by the discordant bellows of one hundred bassoons.” Great line! I enjoyed the story. Although I understand the word restraint, I wish the development of the crash would’ve been more descriptive. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it. Good work.
Thank you, Bo! I had the hardest time trimming this down to 1250 words. I so appreciate the feedback! All the best,
lisa
Lisa, I loved this! I thought the emotions of this woman were laid bare with just the right touch, and the darkness of the solstice was a nice undercurrent.
Thank you so much, Ken! I wanted Lila to be relatable and crackers crazy at the same time.
Great work, Lisa. I love how you focus the lens on this one particular moment, yet it’s informed by so much that came before it. Tragic. Well-written.
Thank you so much, Dominic!
What a great story Lisa! Congratulations on your win.
Good job Lisa. I could almost feel Lila’s hopeless dispear.
This so good! Congrats on the win. Loved your description here, “She wanted to make herself a scar, a maimed finger or a burn—stretched pink skin, like raw, dried out meat, right across one cheek. A reminder of his misstep that he must look at every single day, for the rest of his life, and remember how beautiful he used to be but wasn’t anymore.”
Oh Joe Bunting… a hundred comments now…. how scalable is this biz model gonna be. CONGRATULATIONS ANYWAY.;) No time to do Winter Solstice, but am thrilled to read what everyone else is contributing. There’s some really good stuff here!
Just Another Wednesday: The Solstice
By: Brian Wu
The day felt different. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. Just different. I felt it the moment I woke up when I noticed the sun shining– at 5:30 am. I rolled out of bed and looked out the window. It was quiet and calm. An unusual sight for Los Angeles on a Wednesday in late December. I looked at my wife and she was sound asleep. It was always a reassuring sight to see her, my angel, dreaming about a place I could only hope I was a part of.
The temperature was unseasonably warm. I went outside to take my dog out for his morning walk. Empty. By this time, there were usually at least a couple other morning souls who need to take their dog out before the dog colors their sofa or carpet. As I walked around the corner of my block, the scene was surreal. The glowing lights, the beauty, and the sheer brilliance blinded me. I closed my eyes and tried to squint. My dog, ever the sweetheart, just sat there wagging his tail, oblivious as usual.
And a few seconds later, I blinked and I saw the usual suburban block I was so used to. I looked around. I thought to myself that couldn’t have been real. Maybe I got up too early today. I walked a little further and then it happened. When I reached the very place the lights started, I realized I wasn’t in Los Angeles anymore. I clicked my feet frantically to try to get home. I checked my cell phone but it was shut off and wouldn’t turn on. I looked at my dog, who somewhat comfortingly, looked back at me with those big brown eyes and with a wag of his tail I calmed down. I tried to get a gauge for where I was.
The road I stood on was lined with trees with golden leaves. The sky was a bright, almost blinding, white color. There was no pavement under my feet, just more white space. For some reason, I wasn’t scared and felt oddly secure standing on what seemed like thin air. I looked behind me and the same scene seemed to repeat infinitely. The whole experience felt peaceful and inviting. I decided to keep walking with my dog who took the time to still relieve himself on the nearest tree, and the next one after that.
After a few minutes, I decided to close my eyes and just sit. I guess that was a bad decision because as soon as I did that, I started falling. It seemed like I was on a giant slide but there was nothing for me to grab or reach for. I could see my dog, splayed out on his belly, sliding right there with me. I held him tight and we just continued to fall. I felt scared at first but after a few seconds, I realized how fun and unbelievable this was. I felt like a kid again and decided to put my dog between my legs and raise my hands as if I was on a roller coaster. The air, wherever it came from, felt amazing.
I landed as if I had just got off a giant slide and patted myself off, looked back at where I came from, which still looked like a giant, infinite white space, and stood up. I now seemed to be at a giant playground, except there were hundreds of men and women of all ages here, some with kids, some with dogs. Everyone seemed to be having the time of their lives. There didn’t seem to be any worries or cares here. Just smiles and laughter and love. My dog looked at me once and then eagerly tried to run free. I let his leash go and watched him immediately run to the other dogs and play.
I decided to ask someone where I was. So I went to the nearest person I could find, a kind looking older gentlemen, who was sitting on a bench. I sat down next to him and asked him where this place was. He looked at me inquisitively, and asked me, “What do you mean, where?” I was shocked by his answer or rather, question. I wasn’t sure how to ask another question. He could probably see the confusion in my face, so he said “I take it you’re new here. All I can tell you is that, this is a place that I’ve never wanted to leave.”
At first I thought I could see why he said that. But then I looked around and saw what appeared to be families together. I felt suddenly naked and incomplete. Where was my family and why couldn’t they share this experience with me? I quickly turned around and ran as hard as I could. I don’t think the others noticed, but then I wouldn’t blame them. I kept running and running but I seemed to just now be in a vast, empty, white space. I stopped running, out of breath and afraid that my dog wouldn’t be able to keep up, he was after all out of shape. I looked around at the emptiness and couldn’t believe any of this. It clicked andI remembered how I got out of the road with trees and therefore took a few deep breaths, pet my dog, and sat down. Almost instantly, I opened my eyes and I was back on my block. I checked my phone and it now said 5:43 am. I walked back to my house, gave my dog some water, and went up to my bedroom.
As soon as I saw my wife, I immediately smiled and felt comforted. She unfurled from her curled up spot on the bed, opened her eyes, and looked at me. She smiled softly and said, “Mmm, I just had a dream about you. You wouldn’t believe it.” I thought to myself, there’s no place I’d rather be.
Just Another Wednesday: The Dark Solstice
By: Brian Wu
The day felt different. Something felt off about today. Maybe it’d just be easier to stay in bed the rest of the day. Is that a fever I feel coming on? I really don’t want to go to the 7:00 am meeting. Who makes a meeting at 7:00 am anyways?
I decide that taking the day off would be worse than trudging over to work. Of course though, it’s raining and there’s traffic on the I-10 freeway. Looks like I’ll be late anyways. I hear on the radio that it’s December 21st, the winter solstice. Big deal, I think to myself, winter solstice, winter smolstice.
After the 1.5 hour drive, I finally get to work at 7:45 am. When I get to the meeting, I realize it’s an executive meeting aimed to let people go who haven’t been performing up to their standards. How great that I end up getting to the meeting 45 min late. It was a pretty easy decision for them to let me go. I had an hour to pack up my things and head out.
I think to myself how I spent 1.5 hours driving, 5 minutes finding out I was fired, and now have to pack my things for the next hour. What a great day I’m having. By the time I get home, it’s 11:00 am. I think I have enough time to get lunch with my girlfriend. I decide to give her a call. It’d be great to hear a friendly voice, eat some good food (hopefully on her dime), take a nice long nap, and then just forget about this whole day.
Of course she doesn’t pick up. I guess that’s to be expected since I’d normally be at work. Since she works from home, I thought I’d swing by and pick her up for lunch. When I get to the door and am just about to ring the doorbell, the door swings open and out rushes Betty. I ask what’s the rush and where she’s going? She says she can’t talk, gets in her car, and rushes off.
I stand at her door, in the rain, wondering what just happened. I shrug it off and decide to go to our favorite diner down the street. I pull up into the driveway, forget that there’s the big bump, and hear the scratch of my car on the pavement.
One of those days, I tell myself.
I get into the restaurant and ask for a table for 1. The waitress, a pretty but rude young lady, rolls her eyes and says, “that sounds about right.” I decide to ignore what she says and that I’ll just leave no tip. What seems an incredibly long fifteen minutes later, she finally returns to take my order and by then I’m extremley hungry and quite grumpy. I quickly ask for a BLT sandwich with fries and she tells me, they’re out of bacon and fries– plus I don’t need the extra calories. By this point, I’m pretty incredulous about the whole situation. I decide to just get a cheeseburger with no fries.
After having the waitress spill water all over my shirt, it was time to leave without paying. I leave the restaurant just to get more wet in the rain. At this point, I decide to simply take a walk in the rain. I’ve always felt that I could look on the bright side of things, tut today really challenged that belief. I end up walking to the nearest park. It’s empty of course– no one ever wants to play in the rain. I decide to forget about all my worries, fears, and concerns, and I jump on the swings. Those few moments defying gravity and enjoying the rain, the wind, and the serenity, reminded me that even though the day has been dark and cloudy, I’m a lucky guy to be alive and well.
On that walk back to the car, I get splashed and honked at a few times by passing cars.
When I get back to the restaurant, I see my girlfriend holding an umbrella with a big box, wrapping paper, and a ribbon. I can’t help but to think she’s meeting someone else since she eagerly had to leave me alone earlier in the day. Much to my surprise, she hands me the box, tells me to come inside and have a good meal. I couldn’t believe my luck. The waitress from earlier was gone and I had a hot cup of coffee waiting for me at the table. Maybe the day wasn’t so bad after all. That’s when I decided to open the box.
Just Another Wednesday: The Bright Solstice
By: Brian Wu
The day felt different. I buy lottery tickets always thinking I’d win but never managing to net more than $2. But still the first thing I do when I wake up is check the lottery numbers. 7 9 17 29 43 with mega ball number 11. That was a perfect match. I pinched myself thinking I must be dreaming. And I was.
I woke up from this dream and couldn’t help but chuckle and feel a little sad that I missed out on the $200 million dollar payout. I decided to go ahead though and check my lottery ticket numbers since I had them. I did manage to get a 3 number match with the mega ball, enough to net me $150. That’s still a pretty good way to start the day.
I get to my local 7-11 and decide to cash the ticket. The clerk congratulates me and I decide that today just might be my lucky day. I buy a $10 scratch off and decide to surprise my wife with it later that day.
I eat a quick breakfast on the go and arrive at work at 8:50 am. My boss calls me in and tells me that he appreciates my hard work and punctuality– an unusual thing for someone from Los Angeles. He kindly offers me a promotion and I quickly accept it.
To celebrate, I decide to treat my co-workers to the Italian restaurant in our building. A few congratulations and a bit too much wine later, I return to work to see a gift on my desk. I’m confused because the box has no note on it. When I open the gift, there lies a note. It’s a scavenger hunt.
I look around to see who could have possibly left this for me. I decide to investigate after work is over. I could hardly wait to figure out the surprise.
At 5:00 pm, I rush out of work, and follow the first clue. Luckily, I’m told that all the places are within walking distance. The first clue reads: this is the place where cows provide. The only thing I can think of is the local grocery store where milk is sold. When I arrive, I see another clue hiding in the milk section.
The second clue reads: this is the place where we first met. I realize now it’s from my wife! I rush off to the Thai restaurant where we are regulars. They owners smile at me when I arrive and hand me a sheet with another clue on it: this is the place where kids will run and play, and now you will too. I run over to the local park where I’m trying to find another note. Instead, I see a nerf gun with my name on it. I pick it up and start moving as if I’m now the main character in a video game.
Bang. I see a nerf dart fly by my head as I turn and see my wife with a gun pointed straight at me. I start running in the opposite direction while firing 3 shots at her. Before I can even tell though, she disappears behind the slides.
Bang. I see another dart fly by and this time I see the neighbor’s kids with two guns pointed at me. I jump inside the slide I’m standing next to and try to climb up as fast as I can. I should have stayed in shape all these years because I manage to only get half way up the slide before I have to turn around and slide down. That’s when I am hit with too many darts to count fired from the kids and I decide to start running back to my house.
I open the door and see my wife standing there with her gun pointed at me as I’m dripping in sweat. I smile and laugh and she does too.
Bang. She pulled the trigger and the dart hits me right on my glasses and gets stuck. I hug her as she screams that I’m all gross.
I decide now is as good a time as any to tell her about the amazing day that I’m having. She kisses me on the cheek and tells me I deserve it and it must be the lucky winter solstice. I give her the scratch off I had bought in the morning and waited anxiously as she went ahead and played. She starts to scratch off, looks up and gives me a big smile.
Just another Wednesday: The Yellow Solstice
By: Brian Wu
The day felt different. The sky was a burning bright yellow and not the usual cool blue. When I shook off the strange feeling I had, I scooted out of my miles high abode and flew the thousand feet or so to prepare breakfast for my family. I perched on the floor and scanned the ground below for what looked tasty to eat. At over 100 mphs, I swooped down to pick up a few fruits and vegetables and returned them to our eating area. By this time, my family arrived, eagerly awaiting the morning feast. I smiled and looked around my humble surroundings. This was my home. To my west lay the beautiful ocean with its gentle breeze. The north contained the beautiful wineries that would provide some nice drink after a tough day hunting. To our east were the high mountains where we knew to stay away from our natural predators. We often frequented the southern plains that contained bountiful crops we were could graze and store for the winter solstice.
We had a wonderful home among the many families of the area. Together, we lived in peace and had a bustling community. One of my favorite activities would be to fly over the humans and watch them down below. We always wondered what they did each day, walking the streets for a few minutes only to disappear in these large buildings. We could see only humans sitting at what looked like giant rocks, smacking their hands against it. We would also laugh at their foolishness and vanity of the humans who thought they could break rocks with their bare hands.
Today, I decided to fly down and see what I could observe. I should have listened to my mate who also said the day felt different. I told her nothing will happen and started flying the miles it took to reach where the humans lived. I saw a glimmer in the sky and for an instant thought it best to return home. But I was too late and at the next moment, I was no longer flying and was standing on the ground surrounded by humans. All around me were the humans walking to and from their destinations. They wore elaborate clothing, carried strange objects, and talked to their hands. I panicked and tried to flap my wings to get off the ground when I saw my arms. There were no more feathers and instead there was a gangly, naked arm with fingers at the end. I looked down to the rest of my body. I had a maroon jacket with strange letters on it, blue coverings over where my beautiful legs use to go, and these extremely uncomfortable objects over my feet.
I was nudged by one man who glared at me like it was my purpose to slow him down. Next thing I knew, another human grabbed me around the shoulders and started pulling me along with him. “Come on,” the man said, “we’re going to be late for class.” We walked (I later found out that’s what moving on the ground is called) in silence for a few steps as I wasn’t sure what was normal for a human to do. That must have been a normal situation because this human, named Matt, now kept talking about another human, named Jennifer, and how she wouldn’t give him a “date.” It’s four days before Christmas, he said, and it’s just one dinner. It’s not like I want to run away to the Bahamas with her. By the time he was finished telling me about Jennifer, he was about to start talking about some sort of game called basketball. Before he could talk more, we arrived at some sort of large group of humans sitting on rocks. I tried to stand and perch on the rock in front of me. Matt looked at me funny and told me to stop being weird. I decided it would be best just to follow his lead from now on. So I sat on my bottom and tried to get comfortable in this strange position.
For the next hour and a half, I learned about these humans in this class called anthropology. What a fascinating species! I couldn’t believe all of the wonderful things these humans have accomplished. What a different world from what I was used to.
I left with Matt and asked him many questions about Los Angeles, where I learned we were now and where my families home was next to. Matt could only answer so many questions before he saw Jennifer and left me standing there on the side of the street. I took a few steps to try to follow him, when I was hit by these huge contraptions called cars.
I woke up back with my family. I turned around and peered down to try to see below. I was miles above the Los Angeles I was just walking through. I told my family everything was fine and wanted to see what would happen if I flew down one more time before the winter solstice was over.
As I flew down again, at the same point I saw the glimmer in the sky, I was again instantly on the ground — except this time it was empty.
Just another Wednesday: The Red Solstice
By: Brian Wu
The day felt different. I don’t feel like a special man. I work a regular job, 9-5. I have a wife and two kids. It’s the all-American dream. But something about today made me feel like it wasn’t going to be like all the other days.
Breakfast was the usual eggs, bacon, toast, and orange juice. The kids lunches sat on the kitchen counter and we sent them off with their usual kiss and have a good day at school. My wife and I got a few minutes alone to talk about our weekly date night and when we should expect the babysitter to come over. I loved date night with my wife and with the invention of online half off deals, it became an exciting, relatively inexpensive way to connect and have a fun time. Tonight was pottery classes.
As I kissed my wife and left the door, I found myself in the middle of a battlefield, holding onto one of those muskets I would see in the old war movies. There were explosions going on not too far from where I stood and everyone seemed to be running at full speed towards what looked like the British army. I checked to make sure my helmet was on and ran for cover. I had to get my bearings straight. I had no idea what year it was, where I was, how to get out, or what I should do just to survive.
Another soldier came up to me to find some shelter too, but also asked if I was alright, that I was looking extra pale. Before I could answer, there was a huge explosion right near where we were and we had to run to find some more cover.
When we got to a small ditch, I checked to make see if he had any injuries. That’s when I saw a huge cut on his arm, with bright red blood dripping down his uniform. I knew we had to stop the bleeding, at least that’s what I always saw in the movies. I found a handkerchief in my backpack and wrapped it tightly around his arm. He thanked me and said that we would have to keep going because we were being attacked from both fronts. He gave me the news that there was only one place where we could rendezvous because reinforcements would arrive and then we would be able to return to camp.
We ran as fast as we could, hiding behind the trees, and stopping to help those who needed tending to. At one point, the enemies had caught up to us and we hid underneath a small bridge as they ran by. Our hearts fluttered as we knew how close we were to being caught and that we lost the quickest route to the rendezvous point. Our small group of seven men stuck together and traversed the hillside. It was quieter now as most of the enemies had either retreated to their camp or were now well past our position. We moved quickly but carefully from each hiding spot to the next.
After a couple hours, we finally saw the rendezvous site but it was surrounded by the British. We knew we had one more obstacle before we would be safe. With only a few pistols, we were badly outmanned and outgunned. There was only one way to get to the site and that would be to somehow force them to leave. We took our time to devise a plan but came up with few realistic options. We settled on the one that seemed the most farfetched but the only one that might possibly work. Before we began, I told my fellow soldiers that as Americans, we may have lost the battle. but that I knew definitively that we would win the war and it’s important that they lived to fight another day.
The plan called for me to serve as a diversion and lead the men away from the entrance, which would buy the rest of the soldiers a chance to get to the site safe. They could then find other soldiers to form a large enough group to be able to come find me at the place where we had originally devised the plan.
I sprinted and shouted, “Let’s go. Follow me.” That was enough to draw their attention and have them believe that everyone else would follow. In the rush to follow me, they didn’t realize that no one else was coming. The soldiers who were previously with me ran to the entrance and met up with another small contingent that was waiting for other soldiers at the rendezvous point. Before I could even turn to further see what happened, I tripped over a large root in the ground and stumbled down the hill in front of me. I tumbled and smacked my head hard on the ground. I tried to open my eyes and could barely make out the British soldiers surround me. I closed my eyes then and knew what was about to happen.
Buzz. My alarm clock went off and I awoke in a sweat. My wife asked what was wrong and I said nothing, I just had a nightmare. I rolled out of bed and passed my hand through my hair. I felt a large bump at the back of my head and when I reached the bathroom, I saw an old American flag pin my grandfather had given me. I smiled and thought to myself, I’m getting too old for this.
Saying Goodbye by Nancy Roe
The first day of winter was the day I met two grieving families. I usually associate the first day of winter with dreary weather, but this year I felt dreary. I woke up knowing how I would spend my day and wished it was time to go back to bed. The day before I learned that two people I knew had passed away.
Frank was a former colleague. Although I hadn’t seen him or talked to him in years we had mutual friends that kept me updated on the status of his pancreatic cancer over the past six months. Frank was a genuinely nice guy and sixty-seven years old.
Susan was the wife of a former colleague and fifty-six years old. I remember the last time my husband and I had dinner with Susan and her husband was at Outback Steakhouse several years ago. Since that time we kept in touch with Christmas cards. Susan had been sick for about six months when she suffered a stroke and spent the last two weeks of her life in the hospital. Susan was a kind person who loved her grandchildren.
I wondered why two people who had so much to give the world would have their lives cut short.
My husband and I, along with three friends, went to see Susan’s family at the private residence. We took ham, sweet potatoes, rolls, pie, and a veggie platter. Christmas was only a few days away and this food was appreciated by the family. We met with Susan’s husband, their three kids, four grandchildren, and a new puppy which was an early Christmas present for two of the grandchildren. We stood in the kitchen and reminisced about happier days.
As we left the house I thought of the grandchildren. They would never be told another bedtime story or be given another hug by their grandmother.
The next stop was the funeral home. Frank’s visitation was to begin at five o’clock and we wanted to be there on time. We knew there would be a long line because his family, friends, colleagues, and church members would want to pay their respects. Even though I had only seen her at a few parties, I remembered Frank’s widow. She was as nice and genuine as Frank.
I thought of all the lives Frank and Susan had touched. Both had been active in the community and in church. They had both raised three children, been wonderful grandparents, and would be incredibly missed by their families.
Before I drifted off to sleep that night I wondered if I had been the one to die, would my life have made such an impact on so many people?
I do not understand why good people die. Is it because it makes us think about our own lives and whether we are living our lives to their full potential? Is there some aspect of my life that I need to change to feel better about myself?
The first day of winter was a day I will not soon forget.
This was just the kick in the butt I needed! Thanks for doing this. It was great to have a prompt that let me just write and with just the right amount of motivation for a reward. I look forward to more of these!
It definitely seems like your butt got kicked. Four entries! Well done, sir.
If no one comments on your story does that mean no one likes them?! Haha I guess that’s to be expected for first time writers.
…
The massive stone door opened slowly. Fresh air rushed through the chamber and no one stirred. The men were exhausted beyond comprehension; some were shaking, trembling and the freshening air had little effect. A rumbling in the distance shook Octavo awake. He heard the commotion before the other enslaved pugilists.
Not today! Not today! Terror took over his mind.
Octavo’s rapidly beating heart was audible over his rushed breathing. He knew what that sound meant. It wasn’t fair, Octavo fumed. How could this be, today of all days!
The stronger men began to stir, climbing up and over the crumpled remains of the dying men, trying to find places where they could see out to the world beyond. Battered faces peered through holes in the thick dry walls trying to catch a glimpse of the approaching doom. The marching men rumbled the stone loose, leaving a choking dust in the air.
Coming slowly into view, Octavo could see these men were different. They were fresh and full of life. Where had they come from? Many were wounded; some serious, some simple flesh wounds. Most had long, straw-like reddish and blonde hair. These were not the scraps of men that were usually brought in; these men were killers, soldiers captured from a faraway place. They had vitality, and Octavo knew his only, and last chance for survival, would be the solstice reprieve.
“Captain … Captain … Captain! Octavo was frantic.
The Captain appeared before the sentry could rain down an assault of deadly consequences.
“That’s enough Octavo!”
Captain Zerbenor brought more than fresh air with him, standing abreast of the Captain was a stranger, a dark hooded figure with a menacing grip on his tool of destruction.
“Octavo – the great Octavo, you shall soon have your freedom, and it will not be the solstice reprieve you so dearly covet.”
“Who are these marching men, Captain?”
“I don’t mind telling you Octavo.”
“It seems Salacia, the prime concubine of Emperor Vincentius, secretly sent word to her father, King Bal-Sarra, informing him of her whereabouts” … “until then it was not known the Emperor had a princess in the royal harem” … “these men are what’s left of Bal-Sarra’s army, the failed rescuers.”
…
The interruption had briefly taken Octavo’s mind off of the solstice reprieve. I must survive today’s torturous festivities, Octavo thought. The day would be a macabre journey through torture and death. The odds were grim, but he might still earn the one freedom reprieve given by the Emperor at the annual Winter Solstice games.
Ben Octavo Cerilius had survived this dungeon, this nightmare, longer than anyone before him. He witnessed the death and torture of many hundreds of prisoners, many on the very day of the solstice games.
Octavo’s hope – the only reason he fought – was that he knew one day he might find a way out of this nightmare. Octavo was captured for this spectacle many years ago. His village was far away and surprised by the invasion. The marauders had no interest in the weak; they took the rest of his family – all the women and children – to the Village Square where the executioners had their way with them. There were a few escaping groups, and Drazen; Octavo’s only remaining seed, was hidden away with them. Octavo lived for the day he would be reunited with Drazen.
…
Over the years, Octavo had become a ruthless killer. He enjoyed the killing. He dispatched his opponents quickly, to the delight of the bloodthirsty crowds. Others would not be so lucky, the crowds would cheer him on to frenzy … then, and to the delight of the Emperor, he would slowly torture his opponent. Each killing he took part in, every time he plunged his trident spear into another savage’s chest, Octavo knew he was one day closer to freedom – and the search for Drazen.
“This stranger, Captain” began Octavo.
“Aaaahhhh … I see Octavo … you’ve noticed my new friend … Loodque. The Emperor appointed Loodque to this position just for this wonderful day, and you shall soon see the games have changed.”
Octavo’s outrage was building. The games had been held for centuries in the same way and now when Octavo had more kills than anyone, the games have CHANGED! The kills were a lottery – the more kills the better chance for reprieve. Octavo could only listen, crying out in complaint would only enrage Captain Zerbenor, and Ben Octavo Cerilius needed all his strength for the games.
“There will be only one survivor from this dungeon, Octavo. “
“One survivor?” Octavo interrupted.
“Yes, and the Winter Solstice reprieve is the prize … Loodque will remain in this dungeon until the games begin. We do not want you to get a head start.”
“There’s more” … the Captain began.
The captain started up to the top of the rubble. He wanted to say his piece only once, he could not remain in the pit much longer. The old man did not have the stamina to get to the top and motioned for Loodque to help … quickly to oblige, Loodque stowed his weapon. … ‘Take the chance now, destroy these two men, escape with their heads?’ Escape was not certain. Octavo put his thoughts away.
After the instructions were given, Octavo sank to his knees in despair. The games were to be a massacre, a complete massacre. The new prisoners would fight in the arena first – to the last man standing. Then the prisoners in this dungeon would face off until the last man, and then the final two would face off – the victor would secure the winter solstice reprieve and be free.
…
The men heard the battle in the arena above. The lions and beasts from the south found there way through the catacombs to the passageways leading to the arena. The animals appeared a few at a time. The men below could envision the scene above; they had all been there. Appearing in that arena was at first disbelief, then terror, and then the fear would nearly burst your heart. Weapons were finally thrown to the men. The scramble for the weapons caused the beasts to attack. More than half of the men were killed during those first few moments. Archers took to the air, assassinating platoons of men. Chariots appeared from nowhere, the Emperors soldiers with spears and tools of destruction took to the task of finding the champion amongst the remaining marauders.
It became clear there would be one man left standing … a towering specimen, a man slightly different from the others. His hair dark, his features carved from stone. The beasts, the Archers, and the Emperors soldiers were no match for the final warrior. Different from the rest he stood alone in the center of the arena awaiting his fate.
Octavo took matters into his own hands. Loodque stood no chance guarding the dungeon. Octavo made quick the task of killing Loodque and the men below. When the time came for the final battle the arena outside was quiet as Octavo appeared from the darkness.
Octavo placed his hands over his face and sunk to his knees in anguish, he knew all hope was lost!
“Father … Father … It’s me … Drazen, aren’t you happy to see me?”
Ha! Clever twist there at the end!
Thank-you for reading my story Steph … I made a new years resolution (silly right … lol) to work on my writing more and Joe has such a grreat platform here for doing just that.
thanks again!
Robert
Not silly at all! Before you know it, your resolution will be a habit. Keep it up!
Thank-you Joe for providing this platform! My first submission ever …
Congratulations Robert! I hope it’s not the last 🙂
Congratulations Robert! I hope it’s not the last 🙂
“Jacqueline! Jacqueline…”
I slowly drifted out of my incoherent state and peered through one slit of an eye at my baby sister. Excitement was clear from the high-pitched persistent tone in her six year old voice.
When I didn’t reply, she sighed and jabbed me in the ribs with her finger.
“C’mon sleepyhead. It’s the first day of winter –and you gotta look outside!”
At this revelation, my eyes popped open, and Elizabeth’s chubby hand found my own, dragging me out from under the quilted coverlet and to the frosty window. Together we looked out on a world quite different from the one we had fallen asleep to.
For children living in the Appalachian Mountains, snow meant lots of happy things. When delicate snow crystals fell on the Rossi farm, it was as if the household was blanketed with magic.
Snow meant a glorious day of sledding, snow boarding, and all-out snowball fights. It meant long hours cuddled up with a blanket and a favorite book. It signified shared laughter, board games, and the tingling delight of thawing fingers and toes after being out-of-doors in the cold.
Mom’s savory soup would be bubbling on the stove, and hot chocolate with unlimited marshmallows would be our treat. Best of all, snow meant a delightful break in the mundane routine of school.
For a few moments, Elizabeth and I sat together soaking up the silent wonder of the scene outside our window. Then a second sleepy sister shuffled into the room, tousled curls attributing to her recent awakening.
“What’s up?” she murmured sleepily, yarning and rubbing her eyes, which widened as she leaned over to peer out the window with us.
We all started when Mom’s soft voice suddenly sounded from the doorway.
“Morning, girls! Pretty, isn’t it?”
Three heads bobbed enthusiastically and she smiled.
“Well, you girls should get your sleepyhead sister out of bed and get a move on. Those horses are going to be thirsty with the pond frozen over.”
She turned as if to go, then said over her shoulder with a meaningful upward tilt of her eyebrow, “Better hurry if you want to play.”
Excitement erupted as mom disappeared down the stairs. Within minutes, stockings, woolen socks, scarves, hats, gloves, coats, and boots were all flying about as each sister searched enthusiastically for her garments.
Sleepyhead Sara was quite unceremoniously roused, all the while grumbling that snow days were for sleeping. But even her cantankerous mood couldn’t dampen the excitement that filled the Rossi household.
Longing looks out the window weakened resolve and we could not resist temptation. The windowsill came up, and caution was thrown to the wind as eager hands reached out the second story window to the overhang below where billowy puffs of snow were piled. The white stuff was touched, tasted, and tossed about amid playful banter of four sisters.
“Girls!”
A sharp call from the bottom of the stairs brought us back to reality. The window was quickly and carefully put back in its place, all lingering telltale signs of the unruly act eliminated. Four girls cheerily tumbled down to breakfast, each taking the stairs two and three at a time.
Outta Time by Jim Woods
Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt. I hung the phone up to silence the dial tone. Then I heard the clock.
Tick tock, tick tock. It was December 21st 2011, 11:06 AM. The clock ticked louder and louder. My thoughts jumbled together and it was impossible to focus. The air became thick and my heart pounded harder in my chest. My face then hit the cushion as I collapsed on the couch.
Maybe it was all a mistake. A typo by a flippant secretary or a forgetful nurse in need of a cigarette break; a mix up at the lab; maybe even a computer error.
I was 28 years old and felt fine. At least fine before that phone call.
If it is in fact true, how was I going to tell my parents? What about Tina?
Every second mattered and I was wasting time feeling sorry for myself. The doctor said I had roughly a week, maybe two if I was lucky. 150 to 300 hours left. That’s not exactly a lot of time.
Did I want to spend the time with Tina, or with my parents? I quickly realized this would be more of a week-long last meal before the execution. I wasn’t sure I loved Tina. We had only been together a few months. I couldn’t put her or myself through a drawn-out ordeal. It was best to disappear.
I left the apartment and walked into the brisk December air. I hopped in my car and went to the bank. What a complete waste of time, doing a task like this with only a few hours left. I pulled a wad of cash out of the machine and sped off.
I woke up on a golden beach with the sun rising over turquoise water. I wasn’t sure how I had gotten there. I had a few hundred dollars in my pocket and nothing surrounded me but the brown-sugar beach, palm trees and the sparkling green water. Then I noticed a building further down the coastline. It all came back to me. I flew here last night. I was in Maui.
After a quick Hawaiian breakfast, I came back to the beach with a surfboard under my arm. I paddled out into the blue-green water and turned around to catch a wave. I tried to pop up and immediately lost my balance. I faceplanted into the water. The waves crashed down and beat my body without remorse. I found the surf board on the beach and tried again to bear the same result. And again. Same result. My body told me to quit, but my spirit wouldn’t let me. I tried again and rode a small wave for about 5 seconds. A mixture of adrenaline and freedom overflowed as I approached the shoreline.
I came up to the beach and fell onto the sand. I thought of my family and Tina for a few seconds and drifted asleep.
I woke up a couple hours later to the sound of a couple kids playing on the beach. I thought again of my parents and Tina. I wondered if I was doing the right thing in completely disappearing. Maybe I should call the doctor.
I walked past the lodge and the warm sun beat down on my shoulders. I noticed a motorcycle in the driveway of one of the beachhouses for rent. I knocked on the door. A twenty-something blond surfer came to the door.
“Sup dude?!” he said. I slightly chuckled at the cliché introduction.
“I’d like to rent your bike for a few hours,” I replied.
“Sure dude,” the surfer said.
“How does three hundred dollars sound for the rest of the day?” I asked.
“Awesome man.” he responded.
The wind tugged on me as I flew down the road. My ears popped as the road curled up the mountain. I looked over at the lush greenery surrounded by blue water thousands of feet below. I knew I didn’t have much time left. I thought about doing my own version of Thelma and Louise. I could end things on my terms. No crying, no experimental treatments, no bed pans, no hospital rooms. I kicked the bike into neutral and soaked in the moment. I turned the throttle and listened to the engine growl beneath me.
I put the bike in first gear and took off down the road. Faster, faster, faster. Closer, closer, closer to the edge. I hit the brakes and swerved.
The owner was excited to get his motorcycle back a few hours earlier than expected. I wondered over to the hotel and went into the lobby.
I swallowed and held the phone to my ear. Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrt.
Letting It in Again
I. The Solstice
God’s eyes slowly shut upon the earth.
The ink rises, first to knees, then to waists, and then, finally, above heads. It drowns vision and forces us to other senses.
But in the frigid landscape, no thing wastes a particle for the nose to apprehend. And still, still: Not a creak from the thick black ink.
Softly, slowly, dear ones: The ice will slice. The freeze will bruise. We must respect the dark, and the cold.
The world, yesterday our provision and place of play, today will not be understood.
Today we must withdraw to the shelter of what we know, where we mouth the mealy fruit and stay alive.
II. Winter
These are winter. A set-back, death. Questions, not answers. Divisions, not love. Emptiness, not growth. Mourning, not celebration. Pain. Loss.
Out in the ink, unseen snow grips landscape. Friend water, once flowing, now steel. Once life-giver, now imprisoner. Once trusted, now traitor.
Barren trees arch their backs and reach toward heaven. They ask, they implore, and then finally, they sleep.
Seed has long fallen from mother. It is buried beneath the snow. Has it made good contact? Yes, of course it has. But has it?
I am Old Farmer, sitting by window, eating shriveled harvest of past bounty. Only wind moves. I look for but do not see change.
When will you bring the thaw, Lord? When will you bring the life? When will you bring the spring?
III. Hope
I know this day. It is my one thousandth solstice, my five thousandth dark day. Yet with each, my mind takes new offense. How could He? He could not have meant for this to happen. And then goes to war with itself.
“The dark must come.” Yes, yes. “The light must yield.” Yes, yes. “All must die.” Yes: All must die. “Say it.” I know that all must die. Of course all must die. “But what?” But oh, Ink. Must you invade with such heavy boots?
Must you crush the dear? Must you smash hope and grind it into the rocky soil?
What of my desire? Must you thieve even desire?
“It is so this sleep will have a matching morn and this dusk a reflecting dawn.”
Yes, yes.
But oh, God, what immortal hand or eye would frame such fearful symmetry?
Quiet. And then: “‘tis a loving hand.”
Yes, ‘tis. It is a loving hand. I know this.
Because for me, now teacher, now student, and now teacher again: There are a thousand more dark days; five thousand more solstices.
And then: Eternal spring.
IV. Epilogue
But now: The pasty faith must whither, the pale hope must make way, that sinuous new loves may bud in their place, and then themselves learn.
As with the day, so the years; as with the year, centuries.
And so it will be until the world receives her due.
Mark Almand
January 10, 2011
Well, hello again, Mark! Great format. I’ve read it twice so far. Very free and creative, yet also very full. I see that we share some common themes in our writing!
Hi Joe, not sure you want to allow my entry, which is a prose-y, poetry-y kind of thing.
Thanks Mark. I think it should be fine. I’m glad you submitted something 🙂
Yowza. I had a heckuva time reformatting this in the little comment window. Hopefully it shows correctly. Is there an easy way to do this? Thanks for the “winter solstice” challenge!:
Marielle’s snowshoes – her “bear paws,” as Grandmother called them – made a muted fwump, fwump sound through the thick powder of snow that covered the ice. Her belly cramped with each stride as she padded across the frozen lake.
She gritted her teeth against the pain, and searched for something else to think about. Beneath the fwump, fwump and the strain of her breath, she heard the gentle rattle of the corn seeds in her pocket.
It was the evening of the winter solstice, and the sun had already died. She had spent the short day with Grandmother, who still kept some of the old ways, and, together, they had blessed the seed corn, the ceremony that began the new growing season. After the blessing, they had filled dried gourds with the corn seeds and buried them in the cellar where they would sleep in their hard, dark wombs until the ground thawed.
Come spring, they would canoe to the garden island and plant the seeds the way their people had for centuries. The Three Sisters – corn, beans, and squash – grew together. The squash protected the beans from the slugs and called the bees to pollinate their bright yellow flowers. The bean tendrils climbed the corn stalks. The corn alone had a strong back, but it could not grow tall each year without the beans that nourished the soil. The Three Sisters helped each other grow and produce; they taught the people how a community should work.
When Grandmother wasn’t looking, Marielle had dropped a handful of seeds into the deep pocket inside the front of her parka to keep for herself.
Now, she allowed herself one last look over her shoulder. The only disturbance to the perfect, flat blanket of snow was her path of “paw-prints,” silver-rimmed with moonlight and trailing away like an extension of the braid down her back.
There was no flashlight scanning in the distance, an uncle or a cousin or a neighbor that Grandmother might have sent into the night to find her. Grandmother snored hard; Marielle came and went through her bedroom window as she wished.
She hated to admit it, but she had hoped as well to see the headlights of Henry’s pickup truck blasting over the lake to catch up with her and whisk her home for a happily-ever-after.
That wasn’t going to happen.
The world behind her was dark and quiet, though not as hollow as the darkness that lay ahead. Far off to her right, she could see the shadowy slum of fish-shacks where, night after night, the men pulled up slimy eelpout from holes in the ice.
Henry was undoubtedly there. Smoking. Drinking. Fishing. Having a good time.
She took a few bold steps toward the shacks. She could head over there and pound on those flimsy doors until she found him.
But making a scene would only make things worse.
So she resumed her march, past the fish-shacks and around the mound of granite that rose like a grave above the snowy sheet of ice that was the winter lake.
Finally, in the distance, nestled into the cove of an island fortress of ancient pines, she saw the glow of the old woman’s fish shack. The old woman had the medicine to cure the awful pain in her gut.
Marielle labored through the snow, which drifted thick as she approached the island. When she arrived at the shack, she collapsed against its corrugated metal walls and hugged her knees to her chest. She hurt. Maybe she wouldn’t need the medicine after all. When the wave of cramping passed, she rose and looked for blood on the snow where she had sat. Her imprint was white, so, having no choice, she unbuckled the leather bindings on her snowshoes, leaned them against the shack, and rapped on the door.
“Come in,” called a raspy voice from inside.
Marielle stepped through the door. Lantern light bounced off the reflective walls, blinding her for a moment. She rubbed her eyes against the brightness, and when she opened them, they slowly adjusted to the scene before her: a fishing pole propped in a corner hole with a red and white bobber floating on the icy water, an army cot against the far wall, and a prune of a woman gutting a walleye on a card table. It still twitched.
The old woman probed inside its abdomen with her knife. She extracted it and held it up to show Marielle the slimy sac of eggs that shimmered on the flat blade. “Caviar?” she cackled. Her grin was full of holes.
Marielle clutched her belly with one hand and fumbled for the latch on the door with the other. “I need to go outside.”
The old woman nodded and fired up the burner under a kettle of water that sat on a propane stove next to the emptied fish. Then she plunged the knife into the icy fish hole and wiped it dry with the hem of her oily apron.
Marielle’s fingers finally found the latch, and she fell out of the unsuspecting door onto the ice. She kicked the door shut and half-rolled, half-crawled to the rear of the shack.
She vomited.
The smell of the fish. The sight of the knife. The cramping in her belly. Maybe she would lose the baby on her own, right here on the ice, without the old woman’s help.
She collapsed and cried. She decided to just stay outside and freeze to death, like the sun had six hours earlier on the edge of the pink-frosted horizon. She had heard that it was a painless death once the numbness set in. It would be the easiest way to take care of them of both.
She felt a burst of warmth against her neck. She looked up into a fog of steamy breath coming from a long snout. She scrambled backward. Freezing to death was one thing; being eaten by a wolf was another. The beast didn’t pursue her. It lapped her vomit up from the ice instead.
The light from the fish-shack window showed a mangy wolf-dog with a side of ribs that protruded even beneath its winter fur. Two pups, with the tips of their ears still curled shut, dangled by their mouths from the creature’s sagging teats. When the wolf-dog had cleaned up Marielle’s mess, she drug them, still attached to her underside, back into a cave she had dug in the snow bank against the back of the fish shack. She lay down to nurse, covering the pups with her scrawny tail.
Marielle pulled herself up, strapped on her bear-paws, and began the long trek across the lake, toward Grandmother, toward home. She proceeded slowly now, criss-crossing her old fish-shaped tracks in the setting moonlight.
Fwump, fwump. She walked without pain now; the cramping had left her belly. And the corn seeds rattled in her pocket with every step.
At the shanty town of fish shacks – where Henry probably sat over his fishing line in a hole with a beer on one knee and a new girlfriend on the other – she didn’t swerve or stall; her tracks stayed true to their course. Soon it would be midnight on December 22, and she had seeds to tend to. Spring was just around the corner.
Wow, Steph!
Aw, shucks, Mark. You just totally made my night. I’m finally getting a chance to read all the other entries…and I’m feeling so outta my league here. So many creative people out there! This is such a neat forum.
I just read everything on your blog at http://writex3.blogspot.com/2012/01/winter-solstice.html. What else you got?
Goodness. Thanks for visiting, Mark! I’m flattered! Beyond my meager little blog, I have only the tattered pieces of my first novel, which I shot to smithereens out in the back forty. Yah, it was that bad. I’m currently working on my second attempt, this time writing only while handcuffed to my outline and wearing a bridle with blinders to restrain my POV. How ’bout you?
Don’t feel bad. It took me 10 years to finish my first book. And it’s really, really short! I think it’s especially important to get the first one right, especially if it’s been cooking inside for while.
Thanks for this great story Steph, really enjoyed it.
Thank you for reading and commenting, Lily O. I enjoyed yours, too! Bears, O My!
This one beats all! I really love the way it is.
Thanks for reading and for your encouraging words, Oddznns. I wish you had entered! Next time?
Great story, Steph. You incorporate all of the senses in your writing; makes the reading much more engaging. Well done!
Thanks for reading and commenting, Dominic. I’m especially glad you did because I completely missed your story in this tangle of comments. Your dialogue pops. It stands alone, speaks for itself. I need to re-read some dialogue in my WIP and see what I can do to free it up like you’ve done. You set the bar high!
A Bruised Cheek
by Jonathan Parnell
Her lip was bleeding. Blame it on Winter Solstice.
If December in Minnesota wasn’t hard enough on a three-year old’s playtime, throw in the shortest day of the year and a couple younger siblings cooped up in a two-bedroom apartment.
I’m not even sure how it happened. And it doesn’t really matter. At some point she got injured. My oldest daughter’s full-throttle energy in all things cost her.
Now, it was only a little cut. That’s all. I checked it out. But if her eyes then were telling the story now! She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t talk. She begged for a bandaid on her face.
And then she got all profound on me.
Tucking her in later that night, I knelt down by her bed to pray. It was my typical prayer, asking Jesus to give the kids rest, both for the night and forever.
So I began, “Father, please give Elizabeth and H—” “Pray for my lip!” she snapped. It was more cute than rude. I couldn’t be upset.
Without missing a beat, like she petitioned, I turned the prayer towards her little cut. “Father, please help Elizabeth to trust you in—” “My lip! My lip!” now with more urgency she interrupted me, as if she were too vague the time before.
I chuckled inside and started again. “Please make Elizabeth’s lip to feel bett…”— “Ask him to heal it!”
This time she was different. Her tiny voice had one of those screechy sounds somewhere between desperate and angry. She had cussed me out with her tone: “Damn it, Dad. My lip is hurt. Are you for me here or not?”
I didn’t say anything now. I just stopped. I didn’t move. I couldn’t be mad at her for the caption I projected beneath her plea. Knelt there by her bed, face in my hands, the only thing worth rebuking was how I pray.
It was a plain request. Her lip hurt and she wanted God to heal it. And there I was appointing as many theological governors as I could. My seminary-trained mind couldn’t settle for it so simple. It seemed a good time to teach her about what really mattered — you know, not the healing, but the sovereign will of God, the way it works in the real world. “Look, sweetie, here’s tested, persevering faith.”
But the kid just wanted her lip to feel better.
And she knew God could do that.
She knew it, not me.
Had my soul gotten so grown? Old. Hairy. It was sitting there in its rocking chair, a crotchety ass, alone in a stagnant room, huffing and puffing in some spider-web infested piety. And a child ran in, looked the geezer straight in the eyes and slapped him across the face.
“Out of the mouth of babies,” Jesus said. Now I knew it was true.
The sun may have gone down a little sooner on that day. But in that moment, it had risen on me.
Yikes! I meant to post this as Jonathan Parnell. I was accidentally signed into my work’s Twitter.
A Bruised Cheek
by Jonathan Parnell
Her lip was bleeding. Blame it on Winter Solstice.
If December in Minnesota wasn’t hard enough on a three-year old’s playtime, throw in the shortest day of the year and a couple younger siblings cooped up in a two-bedroom apartment.
I’m not even sure how it happened. And it doesn’t really matter. At some point she got injured. My oldest daughter’s full-throttle energy in all things cost her.
Now, it was only a little cut. That’s all. I checked it out. But if her eyes then were telling the story now! She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t talk. She begged for a bandaid on her face.
And then she got all profound on me.
Tucking her in later that night, I knelt down by her bed to pray. It was my typical prayer, asking Jesus to give the kids rest, both for the night and forever.
So I began, “Father, please give Elizabeth and H—” “Pray for my lip!” she snapped. It was more cute than rude. I couldn’t be upset.
Without missing a beat, like she petitioned, I turned the prayer towards her little cut. “Father, please help Elizabeth to trust you in—” “My lip! My lip!” now with more urgency she interrupted me, as if she were too vague the time before.
I chuckled inside and started again. “Please make Elizabeth’s lip to feel bett…”— “Ask him to heal it!”
This time she was different. Her tiny voice had one of those screechy sounds somewhere between desperate and angry. She had cussed me out with her tone: “Damn it, Dad. My lip is hurt. Are you for me here or not?”
I didn’t say anything now. I just stopped. I didn’t move. I couldn’t be mad at her for the caption I projected beneath her plea. Knelt there by her bed, face in my hands, the only thing worth rebuking was how I pray.
It was a plain request. Her lip hurt and she wanted God to heal it. And there I was appointing as many theological governors as I could. My seminary-trained mind couldn’t settle for it so simple. It seemed a good time to teach her about what really mattered — you know, not the healing, but the sovereign will of God, the way it works in the real world. “Look, sweetie, here’s tested, persevering faith.”
But the kid just wanted her lip to feel better.
And she knew God could do that.
She knew it, not me.
Had my soul gotten so grown? Old. Hairy. It was sitting there in its rocking chair, a crotchety ass, alone in a stagnant room, huffing and puffing in some spider-web infested piety. And a child ran in, looked the geezer straight in the eyes and slapped him across the face.
“Out of the mouth of babies,” Jesus said. Now I knew it was true.
The sun may have gone down a little sooner on that day. But in that moment, it had risen on me.
All too familiar… Good work.
Great site. Great contest. I’m blown away by these entries. Beautiful!
This is beautiful.
I like how your story captures your mc’s growth. Hard to do in so few words!
Thanks, Steph! I blame the brevity on Zinsser and copy-blogging. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.
Zinsser … always good.
Zinsser? Quien es?
Here you go…
http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-Nonfiction/dp/0060891548/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1326301828&sr=1-1-catcorr
Oh yeah. Duh. I know that one.
OK, gotcha on the Zinsser, thanks to your link. And what exactly is copy-blogging?
Copy is basically sales writing. So copyblogging is writing sales copy on a blog. It was coined (I think) by Brian Clark of Copyblogger.com.
They featured The Write Practice recently, by the way. Very cool:
http://www.copyblogger.com/creative-writing-blogs-2011/
Right on, Joe. And it was Copyblogger that led me here!
I should have mentioned the whole name and title for Zinsser in the first post. Sorry! I thought if I did everyone might be “Duh, we know that. Superfluous.” And then again, the last name thing might procure a little street cred:)
It’s been fun over here the past couple days!
Nice, Jonathan. Glad you did 🙂
Oh yes, Jonathan, lots of street cred! Oh wait. I have neither street nor cred to dole out (did I do that right, Write Practice?). 🙂
10 street cred points for using neither / nor correctly in a sentence.
I like it, Jonathan!
Thanks, Gary!
Good work, bro. Love it!
Great job!
This touched me, Jonathan – so relevevant to something I am experiencing right now in my life. Thank you for showing me through the eyes of a child!!
Glad to hear that, Carol. Thanks for encouragement!
LOVE this story! And the fact that you used “crotchety.” And “ass.” As a mother of a three-year-old, my internal captions write the word “ass” more frequently than I’d ever admit in my play groups 🙂 Also enjoyed this description–“Her tiny voice had one of those screechy sounds somewhere between desperate and angry. She had cussed me out with her tone:”
Give Dr. Seuss credit for the “crotchety.” He etched it in my head with that goldfish in “Cat in the Hat.”
Thanks for the encouragement, Lisa!
Congratulations, Lisa! Brilliant story!
Great job Jonathan…You make me excited to be a dad and write my own stories.
Thanks for reading, Andrew. I look forward to reading your stories to come.
A Winter Solstice Tale-By Lillian Ortiz
“Adam, be quiet. I’m trying to take a picture,” Brian Towers told his brother.
They froze and waited; the deer started to walk away while they kept their distance and followed. The twins knew how to walk quietly in the woods, avoiding stepping on twigs, and making sudden movements.
Adam lost track of the deer, and realized they far from the campsite. “We went too far and we need to go back,”
His brother, making his way to the top, stopped and looked all around him, but there were no familiar markings. Naked trees and brown grass surrounded him. He missed the familiar sounds of summer camping. “I think we’re lost.
“Let’s just trace our steps backwards until we get to the place we noticed the deer and we should be OK.”
After they had turned around and walked for 5 minutes, Brian sounded off. “It’s no use we. We are lost; we need to call for help. Get out the walkie-talkie.”
“The power button isn’t lighting up. It won’t turn on,” Brian said
“Let me see that, Adam said as he checked the battery slot.
“You took off with a radio that doesn’t even have a battery? How stupid can you be?”
“Hey, I got it from one of the dads, how did I know he forgot to put a battery in it,” Brian yelled
“Ok, let’s just keep walking towards the camp, and be listening for the guys calling us,” he reassured his brother.
“Let’s follow this path; it might lead us back to the campsite.
“Don’t be stupid Brian; the camp is more to the west, so we need to go the opposite direction, towards where the sun is setting.”
“Look, the trail leads to that hill; we might be able to see the campsite from there. I’ll race you up, Brian said as he sprinted up the hill.
“You jerk; Adam said as he followed, trying to keep up and focusing on the Cross Country Team logo on the back of Brian’s shirt. Their 8th grade team had a different shirt, but Brian bought the shirt from a high school sale.
At the top of the hill, they spotted a cave opening.
Panting, Adam asked, “So crazy brother, what kind of animals could be in that cave?”
“What, you don’t know that rodents hibernate in winter, as well as skunks, chipmunks, raccoons, hamsters, and bats,” Brian recited. “Of course the big ones are Black Bears.”
“Black Bears, well I don’t think they’re dumb enough to make a den this close to camp sites. Can you see anything from up here?”
“Let’s find out if there’s anything in the cave,” he urged his brother.
“No, we need to get back, it’s getting darker.”
“You’re scared?”
“No, it’s just a stupid idea.”
“I’m not leaving till I see the cave,” Brian pouted.
“Fine, you’re such a baby. One quick look, then we leaves. As the boys entered the cave, Adam kept the flashlight beam in front of him and Brian took his flashlight and swung it around. The cave was deeper than they thought, and there was a fruity odor in the air.
“See,
nothing, let’s leave.”
“Come on, I just want to see how far back it goes,” Brian said as he grabbed his brother by the shirt and dragged him towards the back of the cave.
“Brian, please …”
“Damn” Brian bellowed.
Adam stopped dead in his tracks when his flashlight beam revealed a big furry animal sleeping, rolled up in a ball with his backside to them.
They both walked backwards out of the den.
“It’s so cool, a real American Black Bear,” Brian whispered as he took out his camera.
“What are you doing? We need to get out of here,” Adam pleaded.
“No way, I’m taking a picture; besides, he’s in hibernation. Even if he woke up, it would take him 5 minutes before he could move. I learned that from Mr. Scott in Science class,” Brian said.
Adam couldn’t believe his brother went back in the den to take a picture of a bear, and he was following him.
“You have to see this; he sleeps with his eyes open.”
Adam joined his brother reluctantly, and he got just as spooked when he saw the bear’s face between his forepaws and his two large eyes staring right at him but not moving.
“I think he’s dead,”
“I don’t think so, he doesn’t smell dead. I think he’s just a sound sleeper, “
“Whatever, we need to leave now.”
The teens quickly walked back to the cave opening.
“What time is it?
“It’s 5:30,” Brian replied.
“Wow, it’s getting dark already?”
“Don’t you remember, it’s Dec 21st, Winter Solstice.”
“Oh yeah, the longest night of the year”, Adam said. “How are they going to find us now?”
Brian was so excited. “We could stay here for the night.”
“You’re an idiot; we need to get out of this cave now! We brought flashlights, and we know the direction of the camp. Besides, the coach and the rest of the adults are probably looking for us right now. Come on, go.”
As they started down the hill, Brian stopped. “I dropped my flashlight back there. I’ll be right back.”
Before Adam could say anything, Brian took off. A flicker of light caught his attention down the slope in the woods. He tried to get a better look; it might be people with lights.
“Help!”
He immediately knew his brother had gone back to bother the bear. He ran into the cave, and saw Brian plastered against the cave wall in front of the bear, terror in his eyes and the bear was clanking his teeth.
“What did you do?”
“I just wanted to see if he was really alive; I couldn’t see him breathing, so I tried to listen for a heartbeat. Then he started moving,” Brian whispered
“Brian, come on, let’s go!”
“My legs won’t move,” Brian said with teary eyes.
He knew his brother was scared to death. So was he, but they had to get out of the cave before the bear came fully awake.
“On the count of three, you run. You hear me, just like that day at the race when you thought you couldn’t start. Do you hear me, on the count of three,” Adam ordered.
“Alright,” his terrified brother said as he slowly brought his hands down to his side.
“One, Two, Three, go!” Adam yelled as he turned to run and heard the bear huffing behind them.
Brian ran past him like the Flash!
“Thanks a lot, loser,” Adam said running as fast as he could.
“Is he coming?” Brian yelled as he scrambled down the hill.
“How the hell would I know, I’m not looking back!”
As they reached the bottom of the hill, the twins stopped to catch their breath.
“Look, he’s just standing there, sniffing the air,” Brian smirked.
“That’s because he can’t see in the dark, and he’s trying to smell us. I thought you were the animal expert, ugh”.
“You shut up,” Brian said as he hit his brother on the arm.
A whistle stopped their fight.
“Hey, they found us. I’ll race you.” Brian said as he took off.
“Stupid, I hate when you do that,” Adam yelled as he ran after his brother.
I have a feeling that the dad who sent them out with dead walkie-talkies is going to have to answer to their mother!
Do bear caves really smell fruity? (I’m not going to head out into the woods to find out for myself!) I was wondering if they gather fruits and nibble on them during their groggy awake times in the winter?
Good choice on using the bear cave for your setting. It was an immediate tension-builder!
HI Steph,
Thank you for your comments. I did do research and bears do eat lots of fruit plants prior to going into hiding out for the winter. You picked up on one of my clues. Most people think bear dens would smell, however, they are actually pretty clean.
I rushed writing the story but I am still working on it, I might turn it into a children’s story book. The ending I wrote is not to mysatifistaction. So I still tinkering with it.
I love this blog, I get to my baby writting steps with other writers.
Lily O.
Karra, your imagination is incredible! I could visualize the story in my head as I was reading. I don’t like to read but you kept me wanting more! Great work, loved it 🙂
Put me on your mailing list please, nice site