May Short Stories: Friday Edition

I am so dead, thought Alexander Craw, at 2:37 on a Sunday afternoon, just before the fuse blew.

At 10:13, Alex sat down to a comfortable, if tardy, breakfast of eggs and oatmeal. It was an awkward pairing at best, and with puffy, griddle-burned eggs that sucked the spit out of his mouth, he was soon relegated to drinking orange juice and having a staring contest with his baby sister, Chelsea, who was still young enough to stare without it being weird.

At 10:27, the kitchen window opened, and Alex' mother screamed and dropped the frying pan as their neighbor Jane ninja-somersaulted onto the linoleum.
Jane crashed into the table, making the orange juice wobble in the pitcher. She picked herself up and pointed at Alex. She was dressed completely in black, a black bandanna tied around her mouth. She looked like a cartoon bank robber.
"You," she said, "are needed on a mission."
Alex adjusted his glasses.
"To where?" he asked. He was used to Jane's dramatics.
She stuck her chin in the air and gave him a triumphant smile. "The town square."

At 12:03, Alex discovered exactly what Jane's vendetta in the town square consisted of. Their local Girl Scouts were doing a public fundraiser for an animal hospital in the city. And Jane hated the animal hospital. She took personal offense at the high number of rabbits and cats put to sleep there.
"They're nothing but moneymaking murderers," she hissed, watching the Girl Scouts, on a stage especially built for the performance, through narrowed eyes. The stage was propped up on cinder blocks, though they had been disguised--poorly--with streamers and pictures of frolicking cats. Jane and Alex crouched in the parking lot behind Alex' car, watching the activity in the square. Alex felt admittedly dubious about the mission. But then, Jane was his best friend.
Abruptly, she jumped up and opened the trunk, removing a suitcase. "It's go time. Are you ready?"
When he didn't answer, she glanced back at him and rolled her eyes. "Calm down. We're not doing anything illegal. Not in the purest sense." She threw him the suitcase, which he caught with clumsy hands.
"What is the impure sense of 'illegal'?" he asked. Jane ignored him, removing a second suitcase from the trunk.
"Now, your job is to follow me and be quiet."

Jane's suitcases were full of tomatoes.
"Tomatoes," said Alex.
"Yes," she said with satisfaction.
"Why tomatoes?"
"They tend," she said, "to be good for explosions."

He wasn't exactly sure how she got the wires hooked up with such apparent ease, crossing them over one another like snakes with biting metal jaws, until it became what would, Jane assured him, be an electric tomatoey circuit of doom. He watched her hands crossing back and forth, and they were quick and devious. He noticed she had a widow's peak.
Alex squatted beside her. "So why did you want me for the mission?"
"Your car, primarily, since I don't have one." Jane paused, her mouth pursing thoughtfully. "And the moral support. And the brains. Crap! Where did I forget to connect it?"
"Right here," Alex said, finding the alligator clip that still dangled amid the mess of wires.
"Besides," she added, "what's more fun than sabotaging Girl Scouts with someone like you?"
She completed the circuit and sat back on her heels, eyeing it critically. Alex' insides performed a tap dance. Tappity tappity tap...

At 1:49, they waited. Jane drew pictures in the dirt. She drew an owl and a sun and a crooked ring of stars, and Alex watched her again. He noticed the way her lashes curled onto her cheek, and realized suddenly that she was beautiful.
"Thanks for coming with me," Jane said softly. "There's no one else whose window I could have chosen who wouldn't have told me to get lost."
She stopped drawing and pulled her knees to her chest.
"It means something, that you've followed my crazy whim out here."
Somehow, their hands found one another. And squeezed.
"It's time to go," said Jane, letting go, and pulling her bandanna over her chin.

At 2:21, everything was in place.
They waited, their breaths scratching against the hot air. Jane had led the way, wriggling on her belly beneath the stage, and Alex followed with some confusion. Above them, the Girl Scout leader's voice droned on like a wasp. Every now and then, scattered applause responded, a bored acknowledgement. Alex suppressed the urge to join in.

At 2:29, Jane whispered, "It's time. Let's give them their finale."

The tomato bomb was enabled and ready to go more quickly than Alex could have imagined. Their hands fumbled on the wires as they nervously checked and rechecked the circuit.
"You hit the switch," Jane whispered. "You've earned it."
She scrambled away. Alex waited, his breath hot in the close understage air. His intestines seemed to be doing the worm. His hand was sweaty on the switch.
Time ticked on.

At 2:32, he felt Jane's hand on his back.
"Wait for my signal," she said softly. "It'll rain tomatoes out there. This is what we'll give them in return for all those helpless rabbits."

At 2:35, Alex whispered, "Jane."
He heard her shift slightly behind him. "Yeah."
"Thanks for inviting me on your mission. I think it's...it's fantastic that you care. About the rabbits. And about me."
Her answer was silence. He didn't mean to, but his head turned of its own accord. Jane was regarding him with a slight, sad smile.
"It's bizarre," she said. "But I'm a bizarre person."
"I think you're beautiful," he whispered.

At 2:36, her smile grew a little brighter, and she moved her hand upwards to stroke his cheek with her thumb. It was a little awkward in the semidark, but it was her thumb, after all. And he found he loved her thumb.

At 2:37, they realized they'd been staring at one another for an unusually long time.
"Now," Jane said suddenly. "Hit it now."
More clapping rang above their hands, followed by a rumble of steps as the Girl Scouts filed onto the stage. Without thinking, without breathing, Alex jammed the switch with a thumb and scrambled back, watching the tiny lights of the circuit light up one after another. One. Two. Three. They crowded into a back corner, crouching in the dirt as their hearts pounded, and her shoulder was bumping up against his, and she was there.
"Only seconds now," whispered Jane.
Their hands found one another again, and Alex realized just how much he liked her bizarre love for animal rights and ninja missions, the sweaty bits of hair that had puffed around her face in the heat and the way her eyes shone as they waited.
The lights bulbs were flashing on, and on and on and on, and his stomach was rising into his chest, and it was really going to happen, any moment now there would be an explosion and the flight of tomatoes through the air onto the Girl Scouts and the audience, defaming the animal hospital forever.
"Jane," said Alex, his eyes open. "I think I love you."
Jane's hand squeezed his. And even in the darkness, he caught her smile. And he turned his head then, because, really, there was no more convenient moment to kiss her.

At 2:38, the world exploded.

May Short Stories: Thursday Edition

You have to give him to me, the river burbled to Mirrea.

"Why?" she whispered. It pulsed a little, running over her bare feet like a dragon hungry for fingers and toes.

It's the only way he'll become a prince. 

There was a pause, in which the only sound was the slow throb of the waves as they rose and fell against the bank.

You do want him to become a prince, don't you? 

Mirrea clutched the jar to her chest.

"Yes," she whispered.

Then give him to me. It will be easy for you. 

"It won't be easy," she said, a little louder. "I'll think of him."

He has to grow. Don't you want him to come back and fight for you?

Mirrea's grip on the jar slackened a little. "Will you give him back?" she asked.

I'm a dangerous thing, said the river. Not all creatures survive me. 

"I think he'll die if I keep him. He's dying now." She closed her eyes, not wanting the river to see the droplets that leaked onto her cheeks. Then she opened them again. "You'll be...gentle with him? You'll give him a good current?"

There is a wind stirring. Lower him down now. 

A slight breeze curled around her cheek. Mirrea took a breath, then crouched on the cool bank. Quickly, she unscrewed the lid of the jar and leaned forward. In one motion, water fell into water; she could just make out the dark shape of a tadpole tipping into the dark river and, caught by the current, flying away.

She stood, holding the open jar against her chest with tired hands, staring down at the green waters. A leaf spiraled on the surface. Her skirts rustled in the breeze.

In Which I Speak of Summer

I'm home!

Everything is in! Papers are written! And yes, grades are received.

*slumps on the ground*
*hibernates*

Wake me when it's time to go back.

How strange, to dismantle the room and make it decidedly un-ours, putting furniture back into standard configuration for whomever will live here next. Down come the paper snowflakes, the posters from the walls, the notes from neighbors, silly pictures from vacation and letters from family.

And then, removing the pictures from the door and locking it one last time.

A road trip seemed like a good, temporary goodbye to college life, so a friend and I piled our belongings into her car and took off for North Carolina.


Then Charleston:

Then Savannah:

....which included some interesting detours to the Savannah Scottish Games, a fantastic afternoon on which men in kilts threw heavy objects to prove just how rugged they were, wore clan tartans with pride, and presented fork art -


....and the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist:

Other adventures abounded, of course, including run-ins with a squirrel, an angry mother cat, skin-staining Icees, sailors, and some free-spirited travelers in Tennessee.

Now, I'm home, and ready for a vacation. And the new free time does have some benefits.

Primarily, I'll have more writing time!

*does a happy dance*

As is plain from the activity on my figment page, college caught up to me. I've been plain out of the loop, but now I'm getting back and working on those last few chapters of TDS that have been bugging me. Lilla, I hope, will be chugging along too.

There will be more short stories coming, hopefully this week, as well! I really enjoyed working on the April ones. It was a great challenge, and now I'm up for it again!

Also, I'll enjoy being home. Home is nice, though my skin feels odd in the summer air and I miss the Hill. Home is good.

Daily Short Story, Monday Edition: Part II

Bringing back a story from April that I really like. 

Riding Red, Part II

The woods aren't as dark as the dovecote. There are doves here, though. They titter to one another, wheeling above the glade where Rosie lays, her hair scattered over the moss.

Rising, she makes her way to the creek, feeling her way along the foreign objects of the ground with bare feet. Sun sparkles on the rocks. Two fat trout laze in the shallows.

Her aunts were wrong. The woods aren't a silent place.

Rosie settles on a boulder, letting the warm water trickle over her feet. Her lips still remember the goodbye kiss he gave her this morning.

"You must be hungry," she teased.

He laughed, squeezing her. "The better to eat you up."

"Eat you up," call the doves, wheeling above her.

Daily Short Story: Saturday Edition

Winter

After he left, Pia named him Winter.

The winter boy treasured her heart like a robin's nest. Somehow, without her permission, he found his way in, without knocking, without her even noticing that he stood outside. Her fingers grew chilly. She pressed closer to him, shivering, begging for kisses.

The winter boy was icily beautiful, made of coolness, and smoothness, and sweetness. But he didn't fill her.

Instead, she emptied.

His going was hard and quick: a splinter, a needle, a puff of freezing air.

She laid her barricade's first bricks. Her heart stopped noticing the chill.

Daily Short Story: Friday Edition

Autumn

Fall turned Pia vibrant like the trees lining the street. She thrived off of romance. When he forgot it, she invented some for the both of them.

Walks quickly turned grudging, though, and she worried at the ache in her chest. She felt bruised like a fallen leaf, sap running dry and dull down her shoulders.

Maybe, a whisper suggested, it wasn't really love. 

Not-real-love, as it turned out, just wore her down. The two of them faded away. She lost her autumn color.

She ducked away in a secret place, wishing she hadn't glanced his way, asked him for a midnight walk, worn a blue dress and danced.

He didn't seem to mind.

(A Little Late) Daily Short Story: Thursday Edition

The Weather Up There


Jonah Simmons is too tall.

"Getting to be such a big boy," his mother crooned nervously to him in his infancy, hitching the diaper up around his chubby legs.

"He's tall for his age," said irritating acquaintances, eyeing Jonah as he hulked miserably beside his mother, caught in the act of shopping for extra-long jeans.

"He takes after his father's side," Mrs. Simmons whispers in the cool cucumber-sandwich air of the tea room. 

The girl across the street has hair the color of milky tea. It hangs down her back like a rippling curtain, a place to hide as she peeps shyly out at Jonah. They talk over the white fence that boxes in the Simmons' yard, their fingers searching between the spaces where the paint has grown gritty with dust. 

The girl's name is Mia. Her smiles flashes through the curtain of hair. He can see the curl of her eyelashes, the freckles on her nose, a smudge of makeup on her cheek. 

"How tall are you?" Jonah whispers through the fence. 

Mia's eyes smile a secret as she whispers the number back. 

Just his height.