What's a Shiv?

"Don't worry, Anna will protect you in the dark across campus."

Anna looked up from her half-painted fingernail at the expectant face of one of the younger girls and the sarcasm traipsing across the face of her co-worker.  Being one of the shortest and scrawniest people on staff, Anna was probably the person least likely to be able to defend anyone much less herself, if the occasion called for it.

So she nodded solemnly.  "Oh yeah, of course!  I've got pepper spray.  And a shiv in my purse."

The girl asked, "What's a shiv?"

Anna laughed in that Pssh, you don't know? sort of way and explained that it was a makeshift knife that could be used as a weapon.  The girl's eyes widened while Anna's co-worker smirked.  Of course, if this were a real rather than fictional shiv, it probably wouldn't have been allowed.  Anywhere.  Outside of prison.

"Have you ever used it?" Anna's co-worker asked, feeding the story but interested to see where it went next.

"Of course I have, on my ex-boyfriend's car."

Anna's favorite part of the whole storytelling experience was to watch the faces on her audience.  She could tell that the younger girl immediately believed in the maiming of a car but wanted to figure out for sure if it was true.  And her co-worker was giving her a look that said, Okay, but seriously now.

"Did he have leather seats?"

"Not anymore he doesn't."

"Did you carve your name into them?"

"Of course," Anna said, grinning wickedly.  Her audience went quiet, a mixture of skepticism and respect floating in the air while Anna bent her head down to finish up painting the nails on her left hand.  It was a couple minutes before anyone spoke again, and by then the conversation revolving around Anna's destructive streak could have dissipated.

A pause.  Then, "Did you really do that to your ex-boyfriend's car?"  Not the younger girl, but Anna's co-worker.

Anna just smiled and shrugged.  So what if I did?

"And though she be but little, she is fierce."

- William Shakespeare

Painkillers

"I haven't seen one of those in forever," she said, smiling and pointing at the neon orange and cream bead gecko I had attached to my car keys.

I stopped fumbling in my purse for my wallet and the correct change for my Tylenol and looked up to smile back.  I explained that I just found the gecko buried in a closet, but I loved it, which was true.

"I used to make those all the time," she continued, taking the ten dollar bill, the only thing I had in my wallet under twenty and above one.  She was quick about ringing up the change and handing it over, not even glancing at my penguin boxer shorts or the pink and white socks I had chosen to wear with my black clicky flats.  "Have a good night!"

I pushed the door open and left the building, shaking my head.  At 1:30 in the morning, this woman was not only awake, but smiling as she worked the front counter of a gas station and served nacho creations to the night owls in town who made comments about how a "pog would really make my day right about now."  As I turned the key in the ignition of my beat up mini van, I shook my head, still awestruck that I hadn't been judged for my strange apparel, my appearance in a gas station well after daylight hours purchasing only painkillers, or the fact that I was quite clearly not from around here.  Pulling up to the parking spot labelled specifically for me, I thanked whatever guardian angel had chosen to watch over me on this not-so-great night, sending me someone cheerful, positive, and even a little nostalgic.  Because just as much as the Tylenol, that was something I needed.

Free Books!

Parts of this are true.  Can you spot the fictional parts?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just the other day I got a text message from a stranger: free books at my house.  As I was typing out my response, it occurred to me that clearly this person knew me...because this was the most perfect way to kidnap me.  But when I sent my response, it was: where do you live?

I hopped into the rickety gray mini van that my brother and I share, and I cruised around the block as I waited for an address.  It wasn't long before I got a response that sent me a couple blocks south of my home, and around the block to a garage sale.  It was the garage on the corner, and I figured I would just drive past and look to see if the books were any good because I didn't need to get out of the car and talk to the creeper who texted me.

When I drove past in the wheezing gray mini van, I took a good look at the garage, and at the people who were running the joint.

The garage was full of books.  I kid you not, I'm fairly certain that every inch of the shelving in that garage was covered in books.  And the people who were running the garage sale were this cute old couple, neither of whom were bent over a cell phone and texting like mad.  In fact, from that distance I could tell that this couple's thumbs were probably not quite nimble enough to text with the speed required to have gotten me here so soon.  I figured I was safe, so I parked the mini van around the corner and strolled up to the garage sale.

"Hi," I said, smiling timidly.  "I heard there were free books here?"

The man looked a little grumpy about this announcement, but the lady was cheerful as she smiled at me and gestured at the shelves stuffed with books.

"Of course, take as many as you'd like!" she said, the very picture of a grandmother presenting her grandchildren with a bowl full of fresh Halloween candy.

"Take 'em all," the man growled, crossing his arms over his chest like a toddler in time out.

"Just ignore him, he doesn't understand the romance of a good book," the lady said, waving her hand at her husband.  I nodded sagely and plunged into the garage in search of a good book.  Or five.

Now keep in mind that I had just gotten home from the library where I picked up three books that were on my list and one book because the title Alien Tango intrigued me in an absurd sort of way.  So I had plenty to read.  There was no reason for me to pick up a new couple of books.  But I kept finding books.  I had my arms full of books within fifteen minutes because I decided that my best tactic was to be picky.  I could probably have fit a garage full of books in the mini van, but the problem would be when I got all those books home.

Smirking that I hadn't fallen for the free books trap just to get kidnapped, I thanked the couple profusely and made my way back to the car where I examined my finds.  I was halfway through my stack when I found a book that I don't remember picking up.

"That's weird..." I mumbled, slumping in the backseat of the mini van and paging through the unrecognized book.  As I flipped through the pages, it felt like the pages were starting to stick to my fingers with a velcro kind of urgency.  By the time I got to the end of the book, I felt my fingers sticking to the pages, the very tips of my fingers disappearing into the paper.  "What the hell..."

And with a gigantic slurp, the book swallowed me whole.  It was in that moment that I realized that I had been kidnapped after all.

"Be awesome!  Be a book nut!"

- Dr. Seuss

Challenge Day 10

In the flurry of job applications and good news and bad news and no news and multiple rejections in the course of a couple days, I've kinda neglected my blog.  I feel not too bad about it though because there haven't been any verbally angry outcries missing the randomness that belongs here, so if there's anyone out there missing consistent blog posts here...speak now or forever hold your pieces.  If not, I'll just stick to my non-existent schedule.

After writing today's poem for my Poem-A-Day Project on the actual day to which it belongs, I've decided to tackle another prompt from the daily writing challenge.  I'm making such progress.

Day 10: Start a story with: "She touched the little box in her pocket and smiled..."

She touched the little box in her pocket and smiled, running her fingertips along the edges and scratching at the hinge at the back of the box.  There was a certain amount of triumph to be felt when in possession of a box such as this, and it's true, Adelaide felt all the triumph and satisfaction that came with having a box just like this stowed away in her pocket.  In fact, as she walked away from her lunch break with Stan, she was downright smug.

Stan was a nice guy with calm brown eyes, he had a steady job and a nice apartment in a good neighborhood, and she enjoyed spending her weekends with him.  He'd even made a good impression on her parents, and he couldn't take his eyes off of Adelaide's little sister.  But he was always faithful.  A nice guy.

And Adelaide herself had a pretty decent job as a paralegal with the promise of advancement sometime in the near future.  Provided she keep smiling at the elderly boss who was always nice about complimenting her sweater set.  He tended to notice the best of everything.

Adelaide shifted the strap of her purse on her shoulder, and found herself drawing the box out of her pocket.  She couldn't help herself, she had to take another peek before she had to go back to work.  Slowing to a stop off to the side on the walkway up to her office, she held the box on one palm and carefully opened it with her other hand.  Nestled inside the box were two calm brown eyes that wouldn't get another chance to look at her sister again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I really hated the idea of going with the very obvious "engagement ring" here.  Maybe that's just where my mind goes, but that's where it went when there was a female touching a box that was pocket sized and smiling.  So if I'm the only one that thinks engagement ring when that happens, I'd like to know.  So there you go.  Hope you didn't lose your appetite.

"People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say."

- Kurt Vonnegut

Challenge Day 9

It has been a really rough week.  Lots of things happening, lots of people being seen, lots of hearts being broken, and lots of food being eaten at restaurants paid for with money that I don't actually have.  This is my life right now.  And this is why I'm writing a response to the daily writing challenge.

Though this is going to be difficult, because I don't really have one favorite city.  Oops?  And we're not going to talk about how these are probably not cohesive "stories," but whatever.  Anyone going to call me on it?  I should also mention that these are fictional.  Just sayin'.

Day 9: A story in 250 words or less about your favorite city.

Chicago

I’ve lived in this city for my entire life, I even went to school south of this city, and when people said they were from my city, I was allowed to get upset.  Because they were from the suburbs.  But I never really got to know Chicago for whatever reason.  I suspect it was fear.  Of muggers, gangs, tourists, everything.  This fear permeated my being even when you grabbed my hand and dragged me onto the El.

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” you said with the grin that always made me melt like cheese in the microwave.

“I don’t know…” I waffled, like I do.

“Trust me?” you said, raising your eyebrows and peering over the tops of your glasses.

“Never,” I joked.  But it was seeing the reflection of the skyline in your glasses that finally convinced me that everything could be okay.

Paris

“I don’t want to go with just Grandma, it’ll be a total drag.”

“Alright, I’ll go with you.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

A six hour plane ride, and we landed in Paris, France, the place I had been dreaming of since I realized French was a foreign language.  The only problem being that I never imagined I would have to cart around my grandmother who doesn’t speak a syllable of French.

“Pare—lay vooz English?” she asked, prompting a groan from me and a sigh from my mother.  Then Grandma whips out a handful of Euros and promptly informs us that she will be paying for everything during our trip.  And suddenly I can see all of my frustrations just melting away…

"Yet once you've come to be part of this particular patch, you'll never love another.  Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies.  But never a lovely so real."

- Nelson Algren, Chicago: City on the Make

Challenge Day 8

Remember that time when I said that I was going to do a daily writing challenge and then failed so miserably, but then kept writing based on those challenges anyway?  This is day eight.  For the record, I'm not too keen on writing this bit especially because I had no idea where the superhero post was going, and now I have to make up a back story?!  Back story is haaaaard....

Day 8: Write a prequel to that superhero.  Pre-superhero life.  Maybe their childhood.

On Electrolexi's eighteen birthday, her mother sat her down in the living room.  Electrostatic, Lexi's mother, looked like she had just swallowed a koala, and though it was fuzzy, it seemed to want to claw its way out of the woman's throat.  After the whole Iris VI fiasco a couple weeks ago, Lexi wasn't really sure what her mother had to say to her that could possibly be good.  Especially not with that face she was wearing.

"Mom, are you okay?  You look like you're going to throw up or something," Electrolexi said.  Despite it being her birthday, she was still the type of person who put the concerns of other people in front of her own.  Plus this was the woman who gave her life, and that had to count for something.

"Yeah, sweetie, I'm fine," Electrostatic replied, staring off into some space just past her daughter's head before gulping down the koala in her throat.  "But we need to talk."

"Are you...are you breaking up with me?" Electrolexi deadpanned.

"Alexandra, be serious.  This is important," her mother said, her eyebrows scrunching together in frustration.

"Okay, okay, what's this all about?"

"I have to tell you who your father is," Electrostatic blurted out.  The words sent an unintentional shock through the coffee table Electrostatic had decided to sit upon, and Electrolexi heard the piece of furniture give a little whimper.  The shock extended, of course, to Electrolexi herself, though not quite so literally.

"I, um, what?" was all that Electrolexi could really manage at that point.  "He's Superman, isn't he?!"

Electrostatic took a deep breath.  She didn't seem to be listening up until the point when Superman was mentioned, and the look that she gave Electrolexi was one that said "Come on, really?" without actually verbalizing it.

"Your father is Bad Horse."

"My father...what?  I think I heard you wrong, I could have sworn you said that he was Bad Horse."

"He is Bad Horse."

"Who the hell is Bad Horse?"

"He's...a horse.  Who's bad."

"You kinda have to give me a little more to go on than that, Mom," Electrolexi prompted.  The sinking feeling in her gut told her that whoever this Bad Horse was, he probably wasn't a cool superhero that was going to end up giving her some special superhero training when she came of age and came into her extra powers bestowed upon by him.

"He's the Thoroughbred of Sin," Electrostatic said, hiding her face in her hands.

For some reason, it was at this point when it dawned upon Electrolexi: "He's a horse, isn't he?"

Electrostatic looked up from her palms and nodded once gravely.

"My father's a HORSE?"

"A bad horse.  A very very bad horse."

Well, that explained nothing at all....

"I wanna do great things, you know?  I wanna be an achiever, like Bad Horse."

- Doctor Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog

Love Me Dead

There's a book out there in the world called 642 Things to Write About.  I saw it at Barnes and Noble the other day, and because I'm a cheapskate and because I bought a bunch of Sharpie pens that I didn't need, I didn't get this book.  But I DID shamelessly Google it and find a bunch of Tumblr posts from it, which conveniently provided me with a couple ideas for things I could write about here.  Go figure, right?

Today's prompt:  Write a story based on the title of your favorite song.

My favorite song is currently Neon Trees' "Everybody Talks," but I wasn't really feeling it...so I'm using another one of my top favorite songs, Ludo's "Love Me Dead."

Thump.  Draaaaaag.  Thump.  Draaaaaag.  Thump.  Draaaaaaag.

This is the soundtrack of the afterlife.  When you're the only one wandering the burnt out streets of your hometown and you've suddenly lost all desire to speak more than a couple syllables, this is the sound you have to accompany your travel.

Thump.  Draaaaaag.

And that's because I twisted my ankle in some strange direction, and because the bone didn't heal right, or at all, I'm just dragging my sad left foot along through the dust and ash.  I feel like a weird cliche, but the shriveled remains of my brain can barely wrap itself around the concept of marbles let alone a cliche.

Westley whispered into my ear, "Death cannot stop true love, all it can do is delay it a little while."  And I believed him.  I believed that we would be together and we would love so much and so deeply it would embarrass the neighbors.  I believed that no matter how many times I received word that he had died, he would show up at the door that evening for dinner.

And I should have suspected somehow that his attachment was deeper than mine because he's gone off and died, and I'm stuck here.  He loved me just so much, his love isn't letting me die properly.  Which is great for me, I guess.  Prince Humperdinck doesn't really mind that I can't speak well or the limp I've got going on, and he's desperately wanted me for some time now.  Well, Westley, you had your chance, and now you screwed it up for all of us.  Thanks, thanks a lot.

"Kill me romantically, fill my soul with vomit, then ask me for a piece of gum.  Bitter and dumb, you're my sugarplum."

- Ludo, "Love Me Dead"

Geronomio into Jell-O!

Today we come to you with a prompt from my mysterious prompt box with the little orange slips of paper.

Today's prompt: Who filled the pool with strawberry Jell-O?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was her last day of senior year at Elk Valley Public High School, and she was sitting in homeroom when the announcement came over the PA system.

"To whomever thought it was funny to pour strawberry Jell-O mix in the school's pool, rest assured that you will be found and properly reprimanded.  That is all."

Everyone in the classroom started up a racket chattering about Jell-O and speculating about the possible culprit.  Grace O'Malley wasn't so thrilled about the shenanigans because she had swim practice later that day.  And if she was right about the brutality of her coach, they would be swimming through the strawberry flavored goo.

"Grace, who d'you think did it?" Ryan asked, leaning over on the edge of his desk and tapping Grace on the arm.  "I've got a sneaking suspicion that it was Bailey, he's got a shifty look about his eyes."

The two turned in their seats to look back at Marcus Bailey who was wrapped up in his jacket, as if he didn't have a locker.  The truth of the matter was that he kept so much shit in his pockets, he was reluctant to let any of it out of his sight.  And if the rumors were true, the things he kept in his pockets were less than pleasant.  Maybe strawberry Jell-O mix was one of those unpleasant things.

"Ryan.  Bailey always looks shifty.  Remember that time you snuck up on him the the hallway and he nearly knifed you with a spoon?" Grace replied.

"Better than spooning me with a spoon, eh?" Ryan countered, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively and earning himself a swat from Grace when she rolled her eyes.

"Shut up, twit.  It was probably Caroline anyway.  It's always the quiet ones, and she hates swim team, so she'd do anything to get out of practice," Grace said, giving the guessing game a try of her own.

"Why's she on the swim team in the first place then?"

"Parents forced her."

"Ah.  And they didn't think to force her into cheerleading or something productive?"

"Because swimming is less productive than badminton, right?" Grace asked, batting her eyelashes innocently as a scowl settled onto Ryan's face.  "Don't get me wrong, that birdie needs to be frequently beaten into submission."

"It's called a shuttlecock."

"Because that's so much better."

"Maybe it was Principal Wilson.  I mean, does he have anything better to do than sabotage a high school swimming team and the tortures of PE swim class?" Ryan said.

"Hm.  You've got a point.  He's got motive, opportunity, everything."

At that point, the PA system crackled into life once again, "The Jell-O culprit has been identified.  Grace O'Malley, please report to the principal's office immediately."

Grace's jaw dropped in a parody of every cartoon she had ever seen as a child.  She looked at Ryan helplessly before gathering up her backpack and heading out the classroom door to the hoots and hollers of her classmates.

"It's as if we spend our entire lives avoiding Jell-O but it's always there at the end, waiting."

- John Grisham

Time Goes By

Time goes by every day around noon, trailing wasted moments behind her when she passes the cafe.  Because every day there are wasted opportunities or missed trains just on the other side of those doors, and Time just lets them happen.  Because it's none of her concern that non one seems to notice her passing.  She tends to walk down the center aisle of the cafe, looking to either side of her at the tables lined up and the people wasting her away playing on cell phones or listening to music that they're not really listening to at all.

And every day, Time leans up against a wall next to the cafe's front counter where a clock hangs over her head, ticking away the minutes that no one really notices.  Every day she stands there, watching people come in and out of the cafe that doubles as a train station, none of them noticing her.  She let out a sigh and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Can I get you something?"

Time watched as a woman gathered up her newspaper and struggled with her briefcase as she heard the announcement that her train would be arriving soon.  The woman's face was lined with care and she looked preoccupied with some other thoughts, probably going through the list of things she would have to do when she got home from wherever she was going.

"Hello, lady, can I get you something?"

Time blinked and shook her head until she felt the tap on her shoulder coming from behind the cafe counter.  When she turned around, she saw that the person behind the counter, a pimply teenaged boy, was looking straight at her expectantly.

"Wait, what?" Time asked, blinking again as if her eyelids could erase the questioning look directed at her.

"I said, can I get you something?" he asked again, this time with a hand gesture that took in the espresso machine behind him and the case of baked goods on the counter.

"I, um, wait, whoa," Time said, holding up a hand connected to a wrist which wore three watches, each set to a different time zone.  "You can see me?"

"Yeah, I can see you, should I not?  Are you like a ghost or something?"

"No, no, I'm not a ghost.  Hardly a ghost, I'm just--just trying to wrap my head around this.  You can really see me?" Time babbled, not something she was used to doing, but stutter she did.

"Yes...like I said, I could not see you if that'd be helpful, all I have to do is close my eyes, really," the boy offered, closing his eyes so they were only slits as if waiting for the go ahead from Time.

"No, that's not necessary, let me just, let me just think, okay?"

"Sure, okay, take your time, ghost lady, I've got customers to take care of."

PROMPT:
Write something based on the phrase "time goes by" or any tense of the verb.

"Time is the longest distance between two places."

- Tennessee Williams

Braaaaaiiiins....

"I have a brain, but it isn't mine."

Grant was something of a collector, you would say.  Lining the shelves of his office were jars with wrinkled up balls of rubber floating inside an unidentifiable fluid.  Each of the jars had a neat little label attached to the front of it so he always knew which brain he was playing around with whenever he chose to shake things up a little bit.

Tara wasn't sure whether she should laugh or if she should remain straight faced as she sat in the chair across the desk from Grant.  Behind Grant were the five levels of shelving, each shelf packed with brains.  If the zombie apocalypse ever occurred, they could always send the zombies here and this office alone would feed the brain eaters for a week.

So she settled on clearing her throat uncomfortably and shifting her grip on the briefcase that was balanced on her lap.

"Um, excuse me?" she asked, pretending she hadn't heard what he said correctly.

"I have a brain...but it isn't mine," Grant repeated, this time with a gesture to the jars behind him.  There was no mistaking the poorly timed joke this time, and Tara choked back the bile climbing the back of her throat.  "Anyway, as I was saying, we're on the cutting edge of brain technology so I've had the responsibility of poking around the folds of the actual brains and learning what exactly goes where and what we can fiddle around with."  Grant said all this at a speed that slightly exceeded the speed limit for casual conversation, and indicated that he assumed Tara knew what he was talking about.

Which she didn't.

But he didn't need to know that.

"Mr. Newman, I would appreciate it if you would keep your jokes in check," Tara said primly as she pulled a sheaf of paper out of her briefcase.  "And I wondered if you could look through this and tell me precisely whose brain wrote this document."

"I...I'm not sure that I'm the right person to talk to about something like this, I'm not really a paper read-y type of person," Grant said, holding up his hands, palms out, as if in surrender.

"Please, Mr. Newman, I insist.  You are, after all, the brains of this operation, so called."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've been watching too much Dollhouse.  Luckily there's only one more episode left and then I get to figure out what new show I can use to procrastinate with.

"The vast majority of us imagine ourselves as like literature people or math people.  But the truth is that the massive processor known as the human brain is neither a literature organ or a math organ.  It is both and more."

- John Green

Challenge Day 7

That's right, folks!  It's time to celebrate, because here is the daily writing challenge!  I've finished a whole week's worth of the challenge in...about two months.  But we're not going to talk about that because today is a day of celebration!  Everyone should do a writing challenge and spread out the prompts like the last bits of butter in the container across an entire loaf of bread...it's all good!

Here we have Day 7: Create a superhero.  Have he/she save the day.  (We're not going to talk about the grammar mistake happening right before our very eyes, but I am going to shamelessly point it out.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Electrolexi's superhero name wasn't her idea.  She had wanted a name that was cool.  Like "The Inanimator."  Or something like that.  But her superhero mom thought that it would be clever to use little bits of the young superhero's name.  Alexandra turned into Electrolexi.  No relation to Electrolux.  Or maybe there was.  Superhero family trees were always so complicated, you would never know who was related to whom unless there was a slight similarity in name.  Batman and Batgirl?  Definitely father and daughter.  Wait, that wasn't right...

Anyway, Electrolexi's superpower involved being able to communicate with inanimate objects.  This was not exactly a power that gained you recognition among the superhero community, it was on par with being able to transform into a puddle of water or creating marshmallows with your toes.  Something like that.  Electrolexi's mother could control electricity and her father...well, not even Electrolexi's mother would admit who he was, though Electrolexi suspected he was Superman, but that was partially a case of wishful thinking.

On a February morning, Electrolexi turned on the television in her mother's living room to see a screen announcing, "BREAKING NEWS!"

"We've just heard word from NASA that their latest rocket, Iris VI has been hijacked by an unknown entity.  We can posit that the person climbing into the cockpit and throwing the prep crew out a window is a man from the body type observed on the surveillance cameras, but nothing else can be assumed at this point.  Superman was on the scene to save the prep crew being thrown out of the rocket, but has since disappeared, it has been reported that a Bruce Wayne who was funding the rocket's expedition may be on the scene any minute now to consult.  We will keep you updated."

"Ahem, 'scuse me, but could you 'old me a bit lighter?" coughed the television remote.

"Oh!  Sorry..." mumbled Electrolexi.  She hadn't even realized that she was gripping it white-knuckled.

Without a fully formed plan, Electrolexi grabbed her cape and ran out the door.  About halfway down her block, she got a stitch in her side and had to slow down to a brisk walk as she passed the bus that she would normally be taking to her high school.  Chances are if she failed in whatever she wasn't planning on doing, her mother would kill her for skipping school to save the world anyway.

By the time she got to NASA, Electrolexi had a vague idea of what she should do.

"Hey!  You can't be in here!" a bespectacled man yelled at her as she rushed down the hall to the control room.

"Trust me, I've got this handled!" she bellowed over her shoulder.  Though she probably wasn't the most convincing person the man had heard, considering she was a lanky teenaged girl running full speed down a hallway toward the control room of a gigantic rocket, but what did that matter anyway?

Barreling into the control room, Electrolexi yelled at the top of her lungs, "Let me talk to the rocket!"

A group of rocket scientists turned from their computer screens to take in the teenaged girl standing inside the door and panting to catch her breath.  None of them smiled, none of them found this even remotely funny.  There was an unknown man in the cockpit of the rocket and this silly girl was demanding that she be allowed to "talk to the rocket"?

"Pardon me, little girl, but who do you think you are?" asked a white-haired man closest to the door where Electrolexi was still panting.

"I'm Electrolexi.  Trust me.  I've got this.  Give me a microphone."

The rocket scientists were all so baffled by the presence of a teenager in their control room, they just handed her a microphone without any further questions.  The white-haired man snickered a little bit and shook his head before settling back into his seat.

Closing her eyes and concentrating, Electrolexi tuned into what she figured was the rocket's voice singing a tuneless ditty without words as it prepared to take off.  It didn't really care who was piloting it, it just wanted to fly.

"Hey, Iris?  Iris VI?  This is Electrolexi, can you hear me?"

"Electrolexi?  I don't think I know you.  Are you friends with the president?" the rocket asked, halting her song rather abruptly when she was interrupted.

"Yeah, we'll go with that.  Okay, I need you to stay put, alright?  If you get clearance for take-off, it's not from us."

"Right-o!"

Electrolexi let out a breath that she hadn't realized she had been holding.  That was easy.  Too easy...

To be continued...?

Saving Snickers

(based on a picture from my Writing Inspiration board on Pinterest)

Source: facebook.com via Katie on Pinterest

Snickers didn't want to be saved.  Having accomplished the miraculous feat of making a break from the green Victorian on Vine and scampering across the stretch of front lawn, Snickers had scrabbled up a tree on the parkway and now there was this grown man wearing spandex reaching towards him.  Snickers would have none of this.  Unsheathing his claws, Snickers brandished them at the man with all the threat his little bell-collared self could muster.

"Come on, Snickers, just come on over here," the man was saying as he clutched at the trunk of the tree and reached out for the cat.  The old woman who lived in the green Victorian and provided Snickers with cat nip every week on Friday stood at the base of the tree, looking up.  She tilted her head so far back her big round glasses slid up the slope of her nose and rested on her face.  Snickers fostered little pity for the old woman who had her young grandchildren come visit on the weekends and pull his tail.

"Why don't you fly, Superman?" yelled a skateboard-toting boy from the sidewalk.  The man in spandex ignored this jibe because evidently he didn't deem it necessary to rise to this occasion.  In Snickers' opinion, the man in spandex would probably be able to better coax his feline self to come down if he displayed some level of inhuman skill.  Lex Luthor must have had the day off otherwise why would this man who called himself "Superman" be climbing a tree to retrieve a cat?

Snickers did not find this amusing.  He bristled at the hand reaching towards him and promptly slashed it across the knuckles, drawing blood and leaving little carvings of parallel lines across the hero's extremities.  Superman immediately stuffed his bleeding fingers in his mouth to stifle the un-super hero-like curse that threatened to escape.

"Come here, Snickers, Granny's got a nice new ball of yarn for you to play with if you come down," the old woman beckoned, her face still tilted to the sky and her eyes squinting through her glasses at the bristling ball of fuzz that was Snickers who was still unconvinced that his adventure needed to end here and now.

Superman pulled his fingers out of his mouth and slowly returned his grip to the tree branch where Snickers was standing.  His face seemed to soften into a guilty expression and he looked at Snickers, speaking softly,  "Look, Snickers.  Let me level with you.  I'm kinda not having the greatest day.  Lois is moving out to focus on her career, Lex Luthor TP-ed the Fortress of Solitude, and I have a wicked hangover, so if you could just come on down, you'd really be doing me a favor."

The man in spandex let that sink into Snickers' little cat head and little cat thoughts.  He could see that Snickers was relaxing his muscles, toning down the bristles.  The cat's eyes softened and his scowl relaxed into a far more neutral expression.  Which is when Superman reached out and picked up Snickers with a grab as fast as a speeding bullet, realizing only too late that Snickers still had his claws out.

"If cats looked like frogs, we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are.  Style.  That's what people remember."

- Terry Pratchett

Challenge Day 6

Here we go with the daily writing challenge!  Day 6: Start your story with: "He glanced at his watch impatiently..."

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He glanced at his watch impatiently, having already run out of other ways to check his watch.  He'd already tried out "cheerfully" an hour ago, and his attitude towards his watch and the passage of time had rapidly descended into "curiously," spiraling past "irritably" and straight into "impatiently" where it seemed like it was bound to stay for good.  Vincent Traver had been sitting on the same uncomfortable park bench for what was, in his opinion, far too long.  But that was the the nature of meetings like these, he was at the mercy of whoever deigned to speak with him.

"Is this seat taken?"

Vincent looked up to see an Asian woman standing over the empty half of a bench and pointing at the seat.  She was wearing mirrored sunglasses and a not quite smile, not quite frown, a face somewhere in between that Vincent couldn't decide if it was meant to be friendly or just...that's when Vincent realized he was staring.

"No, please, sit," Vincent said, casting a glance around the park to break his stare and noting several completely empty benches across the way.  Odd.

Vincent slid even further down the bench to allow the woman as much room as she wanted on the other end.    As it turned out, the woman didn't take up much space at all, having the same build as a fairy or something equally delicate yet dangerous.  Yes.  Fairies are dangerous.  Moving on...  She pulled a newspaper out of her black bag and shook it open.  Once her face and mirrored sunglasses were hidden behind the newsprint, she asked, "So I hear you like gardening."

Quirking an eyebrow, Vincent turned slightly towards the woman and her newspaper.  "I beg your pardon?"

"Gardening.  Shovel, dirt, plants.  I hear you like it."

"I actually prefer water skiing," Vincent said with a slight shrug, turning to face front again.

"I see.  It's rather nice in Miami this time of year," the woman commented thoughtfully, the newspaper held firmly in front of her.

"It's always nice in Miami," Vincent chuckled.

As if this was some kind of signal, the woman folded up her newspaper and stuffed it back into her purse.  She stood up, leaving behind a white envelope with a tri-colored fleur-de-lis seal holding it closed.  All of this happened so quickly, Vincent was left on the park bench staring straight ahead with his mouth hanging open. Shaking himself out of his confusion, he grabbed at the envelope and tore it open.

"My name is Chen Fan.  I was sent as a decoy.  You will find the real message under the third cafe table at 6322 N. Cloudgate.  If you do not collect the message within 24 hours we will be forced to terminate your contract.  Good luck."

Potter Noir

This morning, I dipped into my prompt box.  Once upon a very long time ago, I made myself a prompt box.  I think I needed time to forget what I had written on all the little strips of orange paper, because when I first attempted to use it, it didn't go so well because it seemed that I was looking for specific prompts.  I vetoed using "My saddest memory is..." for today though.  Mostly because I'm trying this new thing that involves my trying to be positive.  It's hard though, and I'm not even sure if I'm doing it right.

So today's prompt: Take a passage from a book, a favorite or a least favorite, and rewrite the passage in a different style such as noir, gothic romance, pulp fiction, or horror story.

I was so close to using Pride and Prejudice, but I think I've been watching too much of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and I don't want to be influenced by that.  So Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban it is!  We're going to give this a try with the scene where Snape catches Harry out of bed with the Marauder's Map and the Map commences to insult Snape.

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Professor Snape was a cold, hard-boiled man, his dark eyes flicking between shadows.  He knew Potter would turn up sooner or later, so he was just biding his time.  Leaning up against one of the cold stone walls, Snape tossed a silver Sickle into the air, catching the flipping coin as it descended.  He did all of this without looking because he had been practicing this routine in his bedroom since adolescence.

Sure enough, Potter slipped into the middle of the hallway, bold as brass.  With a lip curling sneer, Snape intercepted the teenaged Boy Who Lived.

"Caught red-handed.  Did you really think you would get away with it, Potter?" Snape asked.  His voice was barely a whisper, but since the portraits slumbered in their frames, Potter was certain to hear.

Potter shifted into a defiant posture, his spine loosening and his arms crossing over his chest.  He knew he was caught and there was no getting away from Snape this time.

"Gotta hand it to you, Potter, you really did give me the slip at the last Quidditch game, but the Dementors made sure you didn't get very far."

"What's it to you where I go?  You're not my mother," Potter sneered, clutching at the worn piece of parchment Snape had neglected to notice so far.  Or so it seemed.  But at the mention of Potter's mother, Snape's eyes glazed over momentarily.  Lily.  Snape shook himself out of the incoming flash of memory and grabbed onto Potter's arm.

"And what might that be?" he asked.

"Nothing.  Bit of parchment Ron got me from Hogsmeade," Potter said, nervously shifting in Snape's ironclad grip.

"Oh, and you're just so attached to it you carry it around when you're wandering the halls after hours?  I don't think so."

Snape flipped around and dragged Potter off to the dungeon.  His office.  The hallways were dark, in shades of gray and black, because that's how Snape saw the world.  Everything was in shades of gray.  Forty-nine.  Forty-nine shades of gray.  Once they reached Snape's office, he shoved Potter into a very uncomfortable chair on one side of his desk, tearing the scrap of parchment out of the boy's hands.

"Show yourself," Snape commanded the parchment, poking at it with his weapon.  Snape's weapon of choice was a wooden model, a stick of a wand as dark as his eyes.  The parchment lay on the desktop, doing nothing spectacular.  "That's an order, bub."  Nothing.  "Severus Snape, the law of this joint demands you give up your secrets."

The parchment remained motionless on the desktop, but words began to appear on its surface as if a typewriter were clicking out each letter.

Mr. Moony addresses his compliments to Severus Snape and expresses his complete bafflement that a goon like that could swindle Albus Dumbledore.

Mr. Padfoot concurs with Mr. Moony and would like to add that Snivellus Snape is an insufferable dog.

Mr. Prongs comments that Snape is a lowdown good-for-nothing greasepot that can't get a girlfriend.

Mr. Wormtail bids Mr. Snape good night and advises that he wash his hair, the slimeball.

Snape looked up at Harry Potter with murder in his eyes.

"As though an invisible hand were writing upon it, words appeared on the smooth surface of the map."

- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Challenge Day 5

So here we go, daily writing challenge!  This is Day 5: A story revolving around an object in your room.

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It was my grandma's desk.  She had always wanted to be a writer, so when I started showing writing tendencies, my dad figured that my room was the best place for the piece of furniture.  I would put it to good use, see.

I spent the majority of my writing time sprawled out across the carpet in my bedroom because Grandma's desk was turned into a place where I threw things.  I'm talking about receipts from evenings out eating pie, programs from shows I went to see, random objects that I found in my pockets after a weekend out of town, things like that.  If there was ever an original piece of writing written on that desk by me, it was a to do list on a Post-It on the corner of the thing.

I wasn't really interested in using the thing for my writing because I wrote more while I was on the go than when I was sitting alone at home, so I grumbled and griped when my mother told me I needed to clean the desk out.

"But Mom, it probably hasn't been cleaned out since Grandma died!" I said.  Needless to say I wasn't looking forward to a Saturday afternoon looking through probably empty drawers and dusting them out.

"Then it shouldn't be a problem, should it?  You know, if the drawers are all empty already?" Mom reasoned, dragging the laundry down into the basement and ignoring any further protests.

I probably shouldn't have complained as much as I did, especially if the thing turned out to be empty.

The first couple drawers were empty except for a couple crumpled up candy wrappers.  The last drawer, like in all good mysteries, was jammed.  I struggled with the handle, jiggling it and trying to wedge it open.  Right about the time when I was going to call it a loss or grab a crowbar, the drawer sprung open and bit my finger on top of everything.  Shoving my finger in my mouth to ease the pain, I peeked into the drawer to find a leather bound book.

"What the..."

The book looked like it had been there since just after the tree that made the desk was turned into a desk-like form.  It was covered in a layer of dust, so much that I didn't feel it necessary to move right away, not without a glove or a paper towel or something.

And all I kept thinking was why had no one noticed it before?

To be continued...?

Challenge Day 3

I'm doing such an incredible job keeping up with my daily writing challenge, that I figured I should just keep plowing on.  The whole concept of a "daily" writing challenge is really just an exercise to get me to keep writing, right?  The fact that I'm writing a poem a day is irrelevant.  Basically, I really want to get back into writing fiction, but right now...all my fiction is kinda centered on certain life changes that have recently come to pass.  Moving home, for example.  Being newly single again, for another.  I wouldn't say that I'm poisoned or anything, just that I'm kinda extremely focused on these things.  You wouldn't believe how boring the poems about the same thing over and over get.  Okay, maybe you can, especially since these blog post tend to be the same thing over and over again.  I apologize for nothing, I'm just having a hell of a good time.  So here we have Day 3: A story that takes place pre-1950.

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Once upon a time long before the advent of time-keeping devices or the creatures that deemed them necessary, there lived a dinosaur.  This dinosaur was the kind that only consumed greens and things that grew out of the ground rather than the kind that ate other dinosaurs.  This dinosaur's name was Gilbert, and he liked to think that he was a kindly sort, never starting arguments with other dinosaurs and never eating more than his daily allotment of grasses and berries.  (Though this was a timeless land, it was not a land without government.)

Gilbert was happy enough, he wandered the land, visiting with his friends when he stumbled upon them and sidling past the carnivores in the neighborhood when they looked a little peckish.

On a day that dawned like any other, Gilbert woke up in his dinosaur bed and scratched his dinosaur head, stretching and yawning before pulling himself out of bed and heading out in search of breakfast.  There was a patch of grass that he had in mind for the morning's meal, and he had gone to bed thinking about it.

Though Gilbert's dreams had been filled with the emerald hues of this particular patch of grass, when he arrived at the patch, he found three elderly dinosaurs munching on it and gossiping.

"Oh, and I heard that her scales are actually surgically shined every season," one of them said through a mouthful of grass.

Another gasped and exclaimed, "No!  It couldn't be!" before squinting at the patch of grass and picking a particularly succulent bite.

"Oh yes, I heard it all from Gertrude.  You told me all about it, didn't you, Gertrude?" the first one said, nudging the third in the shoulder.  The third dinosaur either hadn't been listening or was hard of hearing so she squinted up her dinosaur face and said, "Whaaaat?"

Gilbert shook his dinosaur head and turned dinosaur tail to trudge in the opposite direction in search of breakfast.  He didn't go very far when he stumbled upon a beautiful bright yellow creature growing out of the ground.  She possessed the same brightness of the sun anchored to the ground by a green and leafy stem.  Needless to say, Gilbert was smitten the moment he saw her.

"I think I'm in love," he whispered to himself, checking in either direction to see if some other dinosaur was listening in to what he considered a soliloquy.  "She's so beautiful..."

The flower swayed in the wind, making little circles with her leaves, but said nothing.  Mostly because flowers aren't very talkative in the first place, but also because she hoped that if she stayed very still...the dinosaur that was looking at her so intently would lose interest and wouldn't eat her after all.

Gilbert sidled up to the flower, so close that his dinosaur breath set her to swaying again.

"Hello.  I don't mean to sound forward or anything, but I think you're beautiful, and I might be in love with you," Gilbert said, his dinosaur nerve managing to take him all the way through the proclamation without stuttering.

The flower said nothing.

"Heh, I mean...I'm sorry if this is awkward, but it'd be great if you could say something."

The flower remained silent.

Without encouragement, Gilbert shuffled his dinosaur feet and pursed his dinosaur lips.  "I...I mean, this doesn't really change anything.  I do think you're beautiful.  I do love you.  I'm just sorry you don't feel the same way.  I'm...just gonna go then..."  So Gilbert walked off, a little bit of his dinosaur pride chipped away, and feeling a little bit hungrier than before.

And the flower wept for what might have been.  A terribly Shakespearean love affair that she could never give voice to.

Challenge Day 2

Well, I started this post on January 2nd.  And then I realized that I should procrastinate as much as possible to prove how spectacularly bad I am at sticking to things.

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Here we go, the second day of my daily creative writing challenge!  I'm really excited for this month, actually, despite my anxieties about keeping up with it, but you know what?  It'll be alright.  Day 2: Write a fan fiction.  What's great about this is actually that I loathe fan fiction.  I went through a phase a while ago, probably around middle school, when I read Harry Potter fan fiction, all stories about the Marauders, specifically romance between James and Lily.  Because even back then I was a major sap.  I even wrote a story or two that were fan fiction in nature, and they were wretched, I can tell you that right now.  So here we go, here's a look at some of the worst seat-of-my-pants fan fiction I could be prevailed upon to write for today's challenge!

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The library was a quiet place, which was to be expected considering the number of vulture-like librarians staring down their long and hooked noses over the circulation desk at the tables lined up between the bookshelves.  No one would dare make a sound under the eyes of those creatures.  A young girl with golden blonde hair sat at one of the tables, running her hands through her curls and tugging at the locks.  She sat staring at a blank notebook and a Bic crystal pen lying next to it, uncapped.

When the TARDIS landed, it landed with a groaning whooshing noise characteristic to the police box, materializing bit by bit in the midst of the library's bookshelves.  The door faced one of the bookshelves, and when the occupant of the police box opened the door, he realized his error and scurried back inside to disappear and reappear once again.

"There now, that's better," the Doctor said as he flung open the door to the police box.  "Hello, good people!"

The Doctor, in his brown tweed, elbow patches, and maroon bow tie, was met by a disapproving "SH!" from the circulation desk as a line of hooked-nosed librarians looked up from their computer screens and scowled at him.  None of them approved of his volume, and only one approved of his manner of dress.  And somehow, he could just tell.

"What, bow ties are cool," the Doctor muttered, straightening the accessory as he mentioned it.  Shaking off the disapproving looks of the library vultures, the Doctor took a stroll out into the center of the room, following the aisles up and down between the tables and finally settling on the girl who seemed to be pulling her hair out.  He sidled up to her and placed his elbows on the table in front of her, propping his head up and blinking.  "Why the long face?"

Considering his entrance, the girl shouldn't have been as shocked as she was to see a strange looking man propping his head up on the table in front of her, and his appearance itself shouldn't have surprised her as much as it did, but as it goes with stories like these: the girl was shocked, and jumped half a foot out of her chair.

"Who are you?" she asked, green eyes blinking behind purple rimmed glasses.

"The Doctor, just The Doctor, of course, here to fix problems, and I'm not really quite sure what," the Doctor rattled off, swaying side to side and regarding the girl thoughtfully.  "And you are?"

"Oh, I'm just Anna," she said with a shrug, her fingers finally releasing her hair.  The Doctor could practically hear her scalp sigh with relief.

"And what seems to be the problem, 'Just Anna'?"

"Just plain old ordinary writer's block, as usual," Anna grumbled.  This seemed to be a constant problem for her, the writing and the failing to write, and the wanting to write, and the having writer's block problem.  And writer's block was an affliction for which there was no cure but time or copious amounts of alcohol, neither of which Anna had very much of or inclination to abuse.

"Ah.  Well, let's see then," the Doctor said, reaching into his jacket and pulling out his sonic screwdriver.  To Anna it just looked like a strange tool, and when he aimed it at her head and it made a strange buzzing noise, she wasn't quite certain how to react.

"What are you do--"

"Sh."

Anna obeyed, and when the Doctor ceased the buzzing sound and regarded the screwdriver thoughtfully, he screwed up his face in thought.

"You have a bad case of the nargles," he said, finally.

"The what?"

"Nargles.  You've read Harry Potter, right?  Well, Luna Lovegood had it right, nargles get into your head and make your thoughts all fuzzy.  They actually feed on good ideas, and so it feels like you don't have any ideas at all.  Makes it really difficult to pick out your clothes in the morning," the Doctor explained, nodding as he did.  He replaced the sonic screwdriver in his inner jacket pocket and began digging around in his other pockets for something.

"So what do I do about them?" Anna asked, alarmed that something like a fictional creature could be munching on her very real ideas.

"Here, eat this," the Doctor said, shoving a Hershey's bar into her frozen fingers.  "The sugars will deter them and they'll just fly out to get away from them."

Anna followed instructions without really thinking about them, biting off a bit of chocolate and swallowing before she thought to ask, "Fly out where?"

The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment, Anna let out an explosive sneeze that caused all the librarians to look up at her and scowl, holding their fingers to their lips, "SHHHH!"  She looked apologetically up at them, but then her eyes widened and she grabbed her pen and started writing immediately.

"Thank you so much," she said, grinning at the Doctor as he flounced back to the TARDIS and pushed the door open.

"Any time you need a muse...just give me a call," he said, giving her a wink and setting off for another adventure.

Challenge Day 1

Here it is, the first day of 2013, and the first day of my daily writing challenge!  I'm super excited to see what comes from this, especially since I'll also be continuing my Poem-A-Day Project until further notice.  So here we go: Day 1: Re-write a classic fairy tale.  Unfortunately because I happen to be starting off this year with a little bit of scatter-brainedness, it's more going to be a collection of scraps of re-written classic fairy tales.  YAY!

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Belle sat alone on the floor in the castle's exquisite library, surrounded by a circle of open books, all of them untouched.  Instead, she had her laptop sitting on top of a short stack of books, and she was typing away on a review for Amazon's Kindle posted as "RosesThorn":

...coldly lit screens imitating the old pages that inspired them.  Their memory stores entire libraries within their sleek frame, but I am constantly drawn to paper.  It's so much more difficult to literarily eavesdrop when I'm looking over the shoulders of e-readers and every page looks alike.  There are no covers to judge on these books, which I guess is a good lesson for society to learn, but still.  How many phrases go by the wayside when books become endangered?  What happens to libraries?  Will they become museums?  I don't understand why someone would need to carry an entire library with them when they can only read one book at a time anyway.  Carrying actual books, and you can really alternate if you must.

She felt rather strongly about this.  Belle brought a finger to her chin, looking critically at that last sentence and shaking her head.

"Belle, that one's not going to work," she mumbled to herself, hitting the 'delete' key and starting over on that last sentence.

As she pondered what she could replace that last clunky sentence with, her Facebook flashed a notification. Belle navigated to the tab that held open Facebook and scrolled her feed to find the post.  It was from her father, tagging her.

So sick.  My only consolation is I got to see my Belle one last time.

Belle's eyes widened and she stifled a short sob.  Not only because of her father's sickness, but because of the sentence fragment.

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Rapunzel's favorite thing in the world was pizza.  Unfortunately, the tower in which she lived was not conducive to making pizza if only because the one time that she tried...her mother had not been very happy because it had gotten close to burning down the place.  That might have been due to the fact that she didn't own a pizza stone, but she wasn't really thinking.

So the only way she could possibly get her pizza fix was by ordering delivery.  Every single day.

"Yeah, it's me again.  I'm the one in the tower.  Can I get a Hawaiian pizza today?  And a new take-out menu, because the one I had fell out of the tower and it didn't really end well," Rapunzel said, chattering into her brand new smartphone, the one she got for Christmas.  "Absolutely bacon is okay, is that even a question?  You can send your usual delivery guy, he knows what to do.  Thanks!"

Rapunzel did a little dance around her tower, rejoicing in the imminent arrival of pizza.

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And that's all I've got right now aside from the idea of Snow White running a dwarf brothel which just might show up in a poem one day just because that idea amuses me.

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” 

- Albert Einstein

30 Day Creative Writing Challenge

Alright, so I'm thinking I'm going to do a 30 Day Creative Writing Challenge that I stole from HERE.  I need some regular writing of things, possibly fiction, possibly poetry, possibly a little bit of both as well as some stream of consciousness-ish things.  So we'll see what happens.  These will start on January 1st.  Ready, set, GO!

Day 1: Re-write a classic fairy tale

Day 2: Write a fanfiction

Day 3: A story that takes place pre-1950

Day 4: A poem using the words: blue, mistrust, half, twang

Day 5: A story revolving around an object in your room

Day 6: Start your story with: “He glanced at his watch impatiently…”

Day 7: Create a superhero. Have he/she save the day.

Day 8: Write a prequel to that Superhero. Pre-Superhero life. Maybe their childhood.

Day 9: A story in 250 words or less about your favorite city

Day 10: Start story with: “She touched the little box in her pocket and smiled…”

Day 11: A story where the characters go without power for a day.

Day 12: Find 10 random words and create your own definitions.

Day 13: Begin with “I thought I saw…”

Day 14: randomly find someone in your yearbook. Create a story about their life today.

Day 15: Write about a stranger you see. Either their back-story or what they are thinking in the moment you see them.

Day 16: Go to iTunes, put your music on random. Write a story about the first song that comes up. (250 words or less)

Day 17: Use time travel in a story

Day 18: A story set in a ghost town.

Day 19: Write an obituary for a historical figure

Day 20: Use these words in a story: grandfather, photo album, post office, and folder

Day 21: He or she sees their crush in a library. describe the incident.

Day 22: Write a story based on a dream you had

Day 23: Describe/fictionalize a childhood memory

Day 24: Write a story that takes place 100 years in the future

Day 25: Write a story about a mythical creature.

Day 26: Write about the 30th picture on your phone or computer. Write about the story behind it, or make up the story behind it.

Day 27: Story taking place during a sporting event (any sport)

Day 28: Story on a ship. Past, present, or future.

Day 29: Story about space

Day 30: Story or poem about ice

Selfish or Selfless?

Anna sat in her bedroom, painting her toenails the darkest shade of blue she owned.  She was crunched up in a position that in any other situation would have been considered uncomfortable, but when it comes to painting one's toenails, one discovers the ability to contort one's body into the strangest shapes in order to reach every angle of that tiny little nail.  The music drifting from her laptop was provided by her most random Pandora station because she didn't much feel like listening to Christmas music despite the nearness of the holiday.

At that moment, there was a knock on her door.  And while she was silently narrating her life in the third person, she briefly pondered the idea of a knock arriving on a door.  It was a odd phrase because a knock wasn't a thing, so it couldn't exactly sit on a door, it was more of an event that happened without the door's knowledge or consent.  So shouldn't a knock "accost" a door?  Rather than just "be" on a door?  Anna shook her head to dislodge such narrative thoughts.

"Come in."

"You sure?" said a male voice from the the other side of the door.  He poked his head around the door and raised his eyebrows at Anna who rolled her eyes and waved impatiently at him to make a decision about whether he was entering or not.  Taking that as his cue to "stay or go," Rhys let himself in and sidled over to Anna's desk chair which he flipped around and settled into, doing all this before saying, "So how are you?"

"I'm just grand," Anna mumbled, flicking another coat of polish on her pinkie toe.  "I'm alive."

"And how are you handling your first break-up, sweetie?" he asked, leaning forward in his chair and tilting his head at an awkward angle so he could catch Anna's eyes which were bent down to concentrate on her toenails.

"I'm fine, no thanks to you, selfless bastard," Anna said, deigning to look up at Rhys and flash him a vicious smile.  "Can I refer to you as that from now on?  'Selfless bastard'?"

"I think the official term is 'selfish bastard,' darling," Rhys commented dryly.

"Yeah, but you're not really, that being why I would want to call you 'selfless bastard.'  Plus I enjoy the mislead in making people think that I was made a mistake of calling you the wrong thing," she said, twisting the cap on her nail polish and nodding in satisfaction.  Only half of that satisfaction really being in finding a new term of "endearment" for Rhys that she was pleased with.  "It pleases me that I can speak about you in an unexpected way."

"Do what makes you happy."

A silence fell over the conversation at that point, because that was always his advice, and that was always the advice that ended any argument about what Anna should do whether it be for her choice of dinner or choice of classes for the next semester.  Her happiness was always one of Rhys' top priorities, even though Anna argued that he should do what made him happy every now and again, and that was when she was met with "Making you happy makes me happy."  Which Anna should have smacked him for or maybe rolled her eyes at, but it always worked.  And that was why he ended things, because ultimately it felt like even if in the shortrun she was grumpy, painting her nails dark colors and listening to moody music, in the longrun it's what would make her happy.  And she couldn't even hate him for it.

"I am a greedy, selfish bastard.  I want the fact that I existed to mean something."

- Harry Chapin