There’s always group of people outside the restaurant because the band plays so loud you can hear it from the street and it sounds like the sweetest crème and tastes like rumba squirming in your stomach.
Once I went there, and a boy asked me to dance.
I said, “Why?”
And he told me, “Because the night is dark and you are pretty.”
And his voice ran like silk sheets and the curve of his nose in the backlight of the warm windows swept so softly that I believed him and said yes.
Another time, when the street lights were working properly, another boy asked me to dance.
I said, “Why?”
And he told me, “Because you’re even more beautiful than the music.”
But he was short and had big, floppy ears so I called him a liar, even though he liked me in the light.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Some things written while waiting for science to happen.
1.
Sometime during eleventh grade, I woke up and thought that I could never sleep in my bed again.
It wasn’t that the bed was uncomfortable, or the room too stuffy, or that I had nightmares. I simply could not sleep there anymore. So I gathered my blankets and curled up on the floor for the hour I had before the alarm went off. I never fell back asleep.
My mother was surprised when she went into my room Saturday morning to wake me up before I slept the day away and I wasn’t there. She found me in the guest room, happily dozing between the starchy sheets no one else would put on their beds.
“What are you doing?” she exclaimed. After I’d woken up properly and come enough to my senses, she repeated herself.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I explained. “So I thought I’d try moving beds, and it worked.”
She accepted this well enough, but scolded me when she found me on the couch the next day.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked several mornings later, when I had curled up in an armchair for the night. “Why can’t you sleep like a normal child? You’re hurting your back!”
In truth, the chair had done terrible things for my neck. “My back feels fine. I just can’t sleep when I’m in my room.” It wasn’t a lie.
Months passed and I began sleeping anywhere that looked even remotely soft. I camped out on carpets and every couch in the house. The guest room was practically my second bedroom. On weekends when I could sleep in, I would wake up early with the rest of the family and fall back asleep, stealing my parents’ and brother’s beds when they’d vacated it. I even tried padding the bathtub with blankets and sleeping there, but the faucet dripped onto my feet. My brother and father would tease me, and my mother would complain, but my grades in school were still good and I still practiced piano daily and improved my rank in tennis. The jokes became banal and the complaints withered into grudging nods of approval.
Around midterms my friend Judith developed terrible insomnia. Her parents sent her to a psychiatrist so she could handle stress and still make good grades in all her advanced classes and volunteer twelve hours a week at the hospital and get into a good college.
I told this to my mother. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “You should volunteer too.”
Judith’s sessions continued into winter break. For Christmas, my parents bought me a mattress pad I could sleep on wherever I wanted in the house. I started walking dogs on the weekends for an animal shelter. My mother looked into sending me to Mexico for spring break so I could build houses or teach English or assist doctors.
I still used my room like a normal person, aside from the sleeping part. I used my computer for essays and an online SAT class, and sat at my desk to study textbooks and notes. I relaxed in the rocking chair my mother used to read me bedtime stories from and read classic novels, making annotations in the margins for class discussions later. Each night I laid out my school uniform and, when appropriate, my tennis uniform on the unused bed.
Spring came, and I tried sleeping outside. I imagined myself lying out in the grass with the stars above my head and making up my own constellations. But the sky was a dull, nameless color, and all I could see were so many streetlights, the neighbors’ flood lights, and the somber glow of downtown on the horizon. A tiny unwanted shaving of the moon, like the wax discarded from cheese, was all I had.
I didn’t go to Mexico for spring break, but I visited three in-state colleges.
I did forty points better than the goal my mother had set for me on the SAT, and she bought better sheets for the guest room.
Summer came, and I kept myself busy with a psychology course at a community college. Before class I would explore the library, and after class, I would take practice essays for college applications to the college’s writing lab. In the evenings when it cooled off, I kept up practicing tennis and took practice SAT subject tests with my window open. I slacked off piano practice, and my mother chastised me.
“You don’t practice, so your brother won’t practice,” she whined.
“He wants to play the guitar, anyway,” I replied.
She said, “He can do that is his spare time.”
“Like my tennis?” I asked.
“Exactly.” I didn’t like tennis.
I made an A in psychology and my mother complained less about piano, although she would periodically buy sheet music and leave it on my desk. I did my summer reading on plane rides to visit more colleges. I made sure to ask thoughtful questions and make a good impression at all of them. I realized our country is beautiful. I wrote an essay about it, including cameos from a three legged dog I walked and my wise grandmother who never bothered to learn English. I had never met her.
School started again, and I bought all-new supplies on sale. I dumped them on my bed and left them there for days because I still wasn’t using it. My favorite sleeping spot had become a corner of the living room, with the guest bed in a close second. I never slept in the same place twice in a row.
On the second day of class, a teacher caught me with my head on the desk.
“Isn’t it a little early in the year to be falling asleep?” she teased. I sat up to show her I had still been taking notes.
“No, ma’am,” I said. “I would never sleep in class.”
2.
Robert was a tree, and it baffled him that he could not see.
It started one day as he was reaching his branches up toward the sun, toward warm and pleasant, and he remembered that the sky was blue. The sky was blue, and so were the rain and the violets. Yet how could that be, if he had never seen them? And for that matter, how did he know the sky was there at all?
Robert called to the grass, “What color is the sky?”
The grass called back, “Blue like clear water, of course.”
“How do you know?” asked Robert.
The grass answered, “Because that is what blue is. It is the sky and water and birds and flowers. Everyone knows that.”
A crow had overheard them, and it cackled the way crows do. “You silly green things!” it said, landing on Robert. “You don’t know anything. Water is only blue sometimes, and only some birds are blue.”
The grass quivered in anger. “How could you say this!” it demanded. “Everyone knows that this is what blue is. This is why we have the word blue.”
The crow’s eyes glinted wickedly down at the grass. “Then what color do you think I am, you fool?” it asked.
The grass did not answer. Robert said, “Some birds are blue, but you are not. You are a crow, and so you are black.”
“This is why we have the word black,” muttered the grass. “It is crows and spiders and the centers of eyes.”
“Ha!” cackled the crow. “What do you know of eyes?”
Again, the grass did not answer. Robert said, “Crow, is your beak yellow?”
“No, you silly tree,” answered the crow. “Did you not hear what the silly grass said? I am black. Your blindness makes you so stupid!” And he flew away, cackling the way crows do.
“Yellow is the sun,” whispered the grass.
After a while, Robert wondered, “What if the crow is lying?”
The grass answered sulkily, “Why would he? He can see and we cannot. It is crueler to tell the truth, and he is a cruel creature.”
“Have you ever felt the sky?” asked Robert.
The grass fluttered about helplessly in the wind and said, “Who has ever felt the sky? But it must be there, because we have the word ‘sky,’ and if it was not, there would be nothing and no word.”
That night it stormed. The wind howled, the thunder crashed, and rain spilled down on Robert. He wailed, “Grass! Where does the storm come from?”
The grass screamed back, “From black clouds! Black like the crow and spiders and centers of eyes!”
Robert called back, “Then what is the color of the storm?”
If the grass answered, he could not hear it over the moaning and gnashing of the gale.
In the morning, the sun’s warmth found its way down to earth again, and Robert stretched in its heat. Morning birds were singing the way mornings bird do, and Robert heard a soft weeping.
“Grass, whatever is wrong?” he asked.
The grass was wilting in shame. “I know so many words, but I know not to what they belong.”
Robert said, “Yes you do. You know that blue is the sky, yellow is the sun, black is spiders–”
“That is all useless!” cried the grass. “How can I know what these are if I have never seen them? What is a song that I have never heard? What is a mountain that I have never climbed? What is the sky that I have never flown across? We live in a pool of ignorance.”
Robert did not answer, but the sun felt cool on his leaves.
When the sun was straight above and at its strongest, the crow returned to take refuge from its blaze in Robert’s branches. As it was picking at its wings, Robert suddenly announced, “I know sadness must be real for I can feel it.”
The crow cackled the way crows do. “You fool! Things do not exist simply because you can feel them. The horizon can never be touched, yet it is always there. Even if you felt joy, someone else will always feel sadness.”
“Surely some days everyone is happy,” muttered the grass.
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” crackled the crow the way crows do. “This will never happen, because I will always be here to make you miserable!” And it dove from Robert the grass, and began tearing it from the earth. “Ha! Ha! Ha!”
The grass cried, for it was grass, and it could do nothing.
“Crow! Stop!” wailed Robert, but he was a tree and he too could do nothing. And as his friend was mauled before him, he felt his sorrow grow and spread throughout all of him, through his roots so that it seemed to seep out into the ground, and up through branches into his leafs, where it oozed out into the sun. He felt all of himself at once, and every miniscule piece ached.
When there were almost no blades of grass left around Robert, the crow guffawed and flew away. The grass whimpered pathetically. It would grow, and it would be torn to pieces again.
The days passed, and the grass was silent and withered away. Robert thought about how brown is the color of dead grass and tree trunks so riddled with misery that beetles would not burrow into it and even fallen leaves seemed to hurt.
He cried, for his friend was dead, and he could at last see himself.
(I don't get it either.)
Sometime during eleventh grade, I woke up and thought that I could never sleep in my bed again.
It wasn’t that the bed was uncomfortable, or the room too stuffy, or that I had nightmares. I simply could not sleep there anymore. So I gathered my blankets and curled up on the floor for the hour I had before the alarm went off. I never fell back asleep.
My mother was surprised when she went into my room Saturday morning to wake me up before I slept the day away and I wasn’t there. She found me in the guest room, happily dozing between the starchy sheets no one else would put on their beds.
“What are you doing?” she exclaimed. After I’d woken up properly and come enough to my senses, she repeated herself.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I explained. “So I thought I’d try moving beds, and it worked.”
She accepted this well enough, but scolded me when she found me on the couch the next day.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked several mornings later, when I had curled up in an armchair for the night. “Why can’t you sleep like a normal child? You’re hurting your back!”
In truth, the chair had done terrible things for my neck. “My back feels fine. I just can’t sleep when I’m in my room.” It wasn’t a lie.
Months passed and I began sleeping anywhere that looked even remotely soft. I camped out on carpets and every couch in the house. The guest room was practically my second bedroom. On weekends when I could sleep in, I would wake up early with the rest of the family and fall back asleep, stealing my parents’ and brother’s beds when they’d vacated it. I even tried padding the bathtub with blankets and sleeping there, but the faucet dripped onto my feet. My brother and father would tease me, and my mother would complain, but my grades in school were still good and I still practiced piano daily and improved my rank in tennis. The jokes became banal and the complaints withered into grudging nods of approval.
Around midterms my friend Judith developed terrible insomnia. Her parents sent her to a psychiatrist so she could handle stress and still make good grades in all her advanced classes and volunteer twelve hours a week at the hospital and get into a good college.
I told this to my mother. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “You should volunteer too.”
Judith’s sessions continued into winter break. For Christmas, my parents bought me a mattress pad I could sleep on wherever I wanted in the house. I started walking dogs on the weekends for an animal shelter. My mother looked into sending me to Mexico for spring break so I could build houses or teach English or assist doctors.
I still used my room like a normal person, aside from the sleeping part. I used my computer for essays and an online SAT class, and sat at my desk to study textbooks and notes. I relaxed in the rocking chair my mother used to read me bedtime stories from and read classic novels, making annotations in the margins for class discussions later. Each night I laid out my school uniform and, when appropriate, my tennis uniform on the unused bed.
Spring came, and I tried sleeping outside. I imagined myself lying out in the grass with the stars above my head and making up my own constellations. But the sky was a dull, nameless color, and all I could see were so many streetlights, the neighbors’ flood lights, and the somber glow of downtown on the horizon. A tiny unwanted shaving of the moon, like the wax discarded from cheese, was all I had.
I didn’t go to Mexico for spring break, but I visited three in-state colleges.
I did forty points better than the goal my mother had set for me on the SAT, and she bought better sheets for the guest room.
Summer came, and I kept myself busy with a psychology course at a community college. Before class I would explore the library, and after class, I would take practice essays for college applications to the college’s writing lab. In the evenings when it cooled off, I kept up practicing tennis and took practice SAT subject tests with my window open. I slacked off piano practice, and my mother chastised me.
“You don’t practice, so your brother won’t practice,” she whined.
“He wants to play the guitar, anyway,” I replied.
She said, “He can do that is his spare time.”
“Like my tennis?” I asked.
“Exactly.” I didn’t like tennis.
I made an A in psychology and my mother complained less about piano, although she would periodically buy sheet music and leave it on my desk. I did my summer reading on plane rides to visit more colleges. I made sure to ask thoughtful questions and make a good impression at all of them. I realized our country is beautiful. I wrote an essay about it, including cameos from a three legged dog I walked and my wise grandmother who never bothered to learn English. I had never met her.
School started again, and I bought all-new supplies on sale. I dumped them on my bed and left them there for days because I still wasn’t using it. My favorite sleeping spot had become a corner of the living room, with the guest bed in a close second. I never slept in the same place twice in a row.
On the second day of class, a teacher caught me with my head on the desk.
“Isn’t it a little early in the year to be falling asleep?” she teased. I sat up to show her I had still been taking notes.
“No, ma’am,” I said. “I would never sleep in class.”
2.
Robert was a tree, and it baffled him that he could not see.
It started one day as he was reaching his branches up toward the sun, toward warm and pleasant, and he remembered that the sky was blue. The sky was blue, and so were the rain and the violets. Yet how could that be, if he had never seen them? And for that matter, how did he know the sky was there at all?
Robert called to the grass, “What color is the sky?”
The grass called back, “Blue like clear water, of course.”
“How do you know?” asked Robert.
The grass answered, “Because that is what blue is. It is the sky and water and birds and flowers. Everyone knows that.”
A crow had overheard them, and it cackled the way crows do. “You silly green things!” it said, landing on Robert. “You don’t know anything. Water is only blue sometimes, and only some birds are blue.”
The grass quivered in anger. “How could you say this!” it demanded. “Everyone knows that this is what blue is. This is why we have the word blue.”
The crow’s eyes glinted wickedly down at the grass. “Then what color do you think I am, you fool?” it asked.
The grass did not answer. Robert said, “Some birds are blue, but you are not. You are a crow, and so you are black.”
“This is why we have the word black,” muttered the grass. “It is crows and spiders and the centers of eyes.”
“Ha!” cackled the crow. “What do you know of eyes?”
Again, the grass did not answer. Robert said, “Crow, is your beak yellow?”
“No, you silly tree,” answered the crow. “Did you not hear what the silly grass said? I am black. Your blindness makes you so stupid!” And he flew away, cackling the way crows do.
“Yellow is the sun,” whispered the grass.
After a while, Robert wondered, “What if the crow is lying?”
The grass answered sulkily, “Why would he? He can see and we cannot. It is crueler to tell the truth, and he is a cruel creature.”
“Have you ever felt the sky?” asked Robert.
The grass fluttered about helplessly in the wind and said, “Who has ever felt the sky? But it must be there, because we have the word ‘sky,’ and if it was not, there would be nothing and no word.”
That night it stormed. The wind howled, the thunder crashed, and rain spilled down on Robert. He wailed, “Grass! Where does the storm come from?”
The grass screamed back, “From black clouds! Black like the crow and spiders and centers of eyes!”
Robert called back, “Then what is the color of the storm?”
If the grass answered, he could not hear it over the moaning and gnashing of the gale.
In the morning, the sun’s warmth found its way down to earth again, and Robert stretched in its heat. Morning birds were singing the way mornings bird do, and Robert heard a soft weeping.
“Grass, whatever is wrong?” he asked.
The grass was wilting in shame. “I know so many words, but I know not to what they belong.”
Robert said, “Yes you do. You know that blue is the sky, yellow is the sun, black is spiders–”
“That is all useless!” cried the grass. “How can I know what these are if I have never seen them? What is a song that I have never heard? What is a mountain that I have never climbed? What is the sky that I have never flown across? We live in a pool of ignorance.”
Robert did not answer, but the sun felt cool on his leaves.
When the sun was straight above and at its strongest, the crow returned to take refuge from its blaze in Robert’s branches. As it was picking at its wings, Robert suddenly announced, “I know sadness must be real for I can feel it.”
The crow cackled the way crows do. “You fool! Things do not exist simply because you can feel them. The horizon can never be touched, yet it is always there. Even if you felt joy, someone else will always feel sadness.”
“Surely some days everyone is happy,” muttered the grass.
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” crackled the crow the way crows do. “This will never happen, because I will always be here to make you miserable!” And it dove from Robert the grass, and began tearing it from the earth. “Ha! Ha! Ha!”
The grass cried, for it was grass, and it could do nothing.
“Crow! Stop!” wailed Robert, but he was a tree and he too could do nothing. And as his friend was mauled before him, he felt his sorrow grow and spread throughout all of him, through his roots so that it seemed to seep out into the ground, and up through branches into his leafs, where it oozed out into the sun. He felt all of himself at once, and every miniscule piece ached.
When there were almost no blades of grass left around Robert, the crow guffawed and flew away. The grass whimpered pathetically. It would grow, and it would be torn to pieces again.
The days passed, and the grass was silent and withered away. Robert thought about how brown is the color of dead grass and tree trunks so riddled with misery that beetles would not burrow into it and even fallen leaves seemed to hurt.
He cried, for his friend was dead, and he could at last see himself.
(I don't get it either.)
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Collab-ish thing.
Previous
Unproofed joy:
Maddy found Theresa’s room at the end of the musty hallway with the rug that never seemed to stay straight. Her right hand was tight around the Ax, her muscles tense all the way up her arm and into her shoulder. The heavy wooden door was closed but not properly, as if Theresa had pulled it behind her as she walked out let go too soon, and a good kick flung it open.
It was balanced on Theresa’s bed, swinging its massive body back and forth as if inclined to pace, but the bed was too small. It noticed Maddy and grinned, showing off a row of razor teeth glistening with spittle, and hint of more teeth behind. It’s face was almost a man’s, but not quite, because there was something off about the chin and jaw, as if it was a distorted caricature and the artist had pulled the corners of the mouth too close to the ears and not bothered to level out the chin. The body was that of a lion’s, sandy red in the moonlight from the open window (the air conditioning had decided not to work that night), with a shaggy mane clinging in tufts to its neck shoulders. The tail was scaly, not quite green but not quite blue, and it’s tip was bloated and covered in tiny spikes.
The thing sat calmly in her daughter’s bed, but it’s draconian tail quivered in anticipation. Maddy’s eyes narrowed and she shifted to grasp the Ax in both hands, keeping it waist-high and aiming it toward the thing. She focused on the tail, not the horrible smile with the teeth and the putrid smell wafting toward her, and the tail, although flicking back and forth, was not leaving the confines of the bed. Theresa must not have given much thought to the rest of the house when she woke up.
Except that she had surely thought of her mother, which is why the thing watched her with the intensity of a cat on a canary as she carefully walked around the room so she stood a yard from the foot of the bed. She held the Ax level between herself and the thing.
She knew it would pounce, and she knew it would disappear when it did, but she still let out a gasp when it suddenly reappeared with its paw on her chest, pushing her down onto the floor. It stared at her for a moment with a single paw of her breast, perhaps puzzled by the rollers in her hair, but she had to act before it realized that even though it could see her, touch her, feel her, she was not what it was looking for.
Both hands were still on the Ax, but right now it was useless, and so she brought on knee up to collide with the thing’s unprotected belly. It roared and fell away, disappearing back into nothing. Maddy was back on her feet, scrambling toward the bed, but before she could get there, the tail connected with her shoulder, tearing flesh and her cotton nightgown, and sending blood splattering across her daughter’s floor. As the thing flickered out of existence again, Maddy cursed under her breath (don’t want to make the neighbor suspicious) and threw herself onto the bed, Ax toting behind her.
She stood on the small bed, much as the thing had, and waited with the Ax raised before her. Nothing happened for several minutes, except that her back began to seize up with tension and she was becoming more aware of exactly how much her shoulder stung. She was dripping blood all over the sheets (no blanket, too hot, too confining).
A thought occurred to her and, not sure it would work, she grabbed the flat sheet and threw it to the ground. When nothing happened for a while, she carefully climbed down from the bed and used her foot to spread the sheet out across the floor. She was acutely aware of the throbbing of her shoulder now and hand to hold the Ax with one arm.
Maddy was considering how to make a bandage with a pillow case when the thing reappeared, one paw on the corner of the sheet. She swung at it fiercely with the Ax, which cut deeply into the thing’s leg. It screamed a scream like a child’s and thrashed away, tail writhing. Maddy grabbed the Ax handle with her bad arm and managed to wrench it free before the thing could take her weapon with it.
She turned and tore the fitting sheet from the bed, sending Theresa’s lone pillow flying. She threw it over her shoulder and took a firm stance on the sheet on the ground and waited.
When the thing reappeared, on the other side of the bed sheet this time, she lunged for it. It reeled away from her, but she caught her free hand in it’s tangled mane. It bucked and she held on. Her whole shoulder felt as if it were going to rip free and blood tangled the thing’s fur further, and her insides were jarred in a most uncomfortable way, her head spun and she thought maybe she would be sick, but first she had to drop her Ax and throw the fitted sheet over the thing’s head.
She let go and fell away, barely avoiding the spiked tail again and the thing spun around widely, smashing the vanity mirror to pieces and tearing through the dolls Theresa never played with. Maddy hugged the floor and reached for the Ax. Stupid to drop it, really. She was out of practice.
The thing wheeled up to stand on its hind legs and tore at the sheet with it forepaws. Strips of cotton fell around it like confetti as it hissed in outrage. Maddy’s fingers closed around the Ax handle and she willed herself back onto her feet. The thing couldn’t leave now.
Again, she lunged. The soles of her feet were shredded by jags from the broken mirror as she flung her Ax into the thing’s back with the force of all her weight, but as it screamed its stolen child-scream and twisted about to glare at her with fiery eyes and hundreds of teeth, she didn’t care.
It snapped at her, but she dragged her Ax and herself away, spit splattering and burning her arms. Her mouth twitched upward at the corner and she spun with the Ax, gracefully dancing across the mirror bits back toward the unfortunate beast.
The thing wailed like she had heard so many times as blood and intestines spilled form it body. She dug the Ax further into its side, and grunted when its tail smacked against her back and legs over and over. The thing’s paws batted at her face, but she kept her face down and her already ruined shoulders took most of the damaged. She could feel her body fail, being ripped to piece, so much of her flesh already gone, but as she dragged her Ax through the thing, she could feel it slipping away too.
Finally she let go of the Ax and began pulling things from inside the thing, letting them drop to the now red floor. A rook from a chess set, a watch, a rusted sardine tin, a roof tile, a pillow fresh as a midday nap, bits and pieces of a smashed kitchen appliance (she suspected it was a blender). The thing gave out one last angry sigh and went limp.
Maddy was sure most of her calves were now a sticky goo on the floor and the tail of the thing, and her feet barely had any skin on the bottoms to speak of, but she managed to stagger down the hall to the bathroom, dragging the Ax with her.
As she peered at herself in the mirror, she concluded she was an absolute mess. While her face and stayed mostly in tact, what were left of her hair rolled were now completely lost on a mat of ash brown hair. Here night gown was in tatters, and underneath the tatters was a horror of sticky red and black.
Maddy groaned. It would take days to put herself back together, not to mention the disaster that was now Theresa’s room.
Unproofed joy:
Maddy found Theresa’s room at the end of the musty hallway with the rug that never seemed to stay straight. Her right hand was tight around the Ax, her muscles tense all the way up her arm and into her shoulder. The heavy wooden door was closed but not properly, as if Theresa had pulled it behind her as she walked out let go too soon, and a good kick flung it open.
It was balanced on Theresa’s bed, swinging its massive body back and forth as if inclined to pace, but the bed was too small. It noticed Maddy and grinned, showing off a row of razor teeth glistening with spittle, and hint of more teeth behind. It’s face was almost a man’s, but not quite, because there was something off about the chin and jaw, as if it was a distorted caricature and the artist had pulled the corners of the mouth too close to the ears and not bothered to level out the chin. The body was that of a lion’s, sandy red in the moonlight from the open window (the air conditioning had decided not to work that night), with a shaggy mane clinging in tufts to its neck shoulders. The tail was scaly, not quite green but not quite blue, and it’s tip was bloated and covered in tiny spikes.
The thing sat calmly in her daughter’s bed, but it’s draconian tail quivered in anticipation. Maddy’s eyes narrowed and she shifted to grasp the Ax in both hands, keeping it waist-high and aiming it toward the thing. She focused on the tail, not the horrible smile with the teeth and the putrid smell wafting toward her, and the tail, although flicking back and forth, was not leaving the confines of the bed. Theresa must not have given much thought to the rest of the house when she woke up.
Except that she had surely thought of her mother, which is why the thing watched her with the intensity of a cat on a canary as she carefully walked around the room so she stood a yard from the foot of the bed. She held the Ax level between herself and the thing.
She knew it would pounce, and she knew it would disappear when it did, but she still let out a gasp when it suddenly reappeared with its paw on her chest, pushing her down onto the floor. It stared at her for a moment with a single paw of her breast, perhaps puzzled by the rollers in her hair, but she had to act before it realized that even though it could see her, touch her, feel her, she was not what it was looking for.
Both hands were still on the Ax, but right now it was useless, and so she brought on knee up to collide with the thing’s unprotected belly. It roared and fell away, disappearing back into nothing. Maddy was back on her feet, scrambling toward the bed, but before she could get there, the tail connected with her shoulder, tearing flesh and her cotton nightgown, and sending blood splattering across her daughter’s floor. As the thing flickered out of existence again, Maddy cursed under her breath (don’t want to make the neighbor suspicious) and threw herself onto the bed, Ax toting behind her.
She stood on the small bed, much as the thing had, and waited with the Ax raised before her. Nothing happened for several minutes, except that her back began to seize up with tension and she was becoming more aware of exactly how much her shoulder stung. She was dripping blood all over the sheets (no blanket, too hot, too confining).
A thought occurred to her and, not sure it would work, she grabbed the flat sheet and threw it to the ground. When nothing happened for a while, she carefully climbed down from the bed and used her foot to spread the sheet out across the floor. She was acutely aware of the throbbing of her shoulder now and hand to hold the Ax with one arm.
Maddy was considering how to make a bandage with a pillow case when the thing reappeared, one paw on the corner of the sheet. She swung at it fiercely with the Ax, which cut deeply into the thing’s leg. It screamed a scream like a child’s and thrashed away, tail writhing. Maddy grabbed the Ax handle with her bad arm and managed to wrench it free before the thing could take her weapon with it.
She turned and tore the fitting sheet from the bed, sending Theresa’s lone pillow flying. She threw it over her shoulder and took a firm stance on the sheet on the ground and waited.
When the thing reappeared, on the other side of the bed sheet this time, she lunged for it. It reeled away from her, but she caught her free hand in it’s tangled mane. It bucked and she held on. Her whole shoulder felt as if it were going to rip free and blood tangled the thing’s fur further, and her insides were jarred in a most uncomfortable way, her head spun and she thought maybe she would be sick, but first she had to drop her Ax and throw the fitted sheet over the thing’s head.
She let go and fell away, barely avoiding the spiked tail again and the thing spun around widely, smashing the vanity mirror to pieces and tearing through the dolls Theresa never played with. Maddy hugged the floor and reached for the Ax. Stupid to drop it, really. She was out of practice.
The thing wheeled up to stand on its hind legs and tore at the sheet with it forepaws. Strips of cotton fell around it like confetti as it hissed in outrage. Maddy’s fingers closed around the Ax handle and she willed herself back onto her feet. The thing couldn’t leave now.
Again, she lunged. The soles of her feet were shredded by jags from the broken mirror as she flung her Ax into the thing’s back with the force of all her weight, but as it screamed its stolen child-scream and twisted about to glare at her with fiery eyes and hundreds of teeth, she didn’t care.
It snapped at her, but she dragged her Ax and herself away, spit splattering and burning her arms. Her mouth twitched upward at the corner and she spun with the Ax, gracefully dancing across the mirror bits back toward the unfortunate beast.
The thing wailed like she had heard so many times as blood and intestines spilled form it body. She dug the Ax further into its side, and grunted when its tail smacked against her back and legs over and over. The thing’s paws batted at her face, but she kept her face down and her already ruined shoulders took most of the damaged. She could feel her body fail, being ripped to piece, so much of her flesh already gone, but as she dragged her Ax through the thing, she could feel it slipping away too.
Finally she let go of the Ax and began pulling things from inside the thing, letting them drop to the now red floor. A rook from a chess set, a watch, a rusted sardine tin, a roof tile, a pillow fresh as a midday nap, bits and pieces of a smashed kitchen appliance (she suspected it was a blender). The thing gave out one last angry sigh and went limp.
Maddy was sure most of her calves were now a sticky goo on the floor and the tail of the thing, and her feet barely had any skin on the bottoms to speak of, but she managed to stagger down the hall to the bathroom, dragging the Ax with her.
As she peered at herself in the mirror, she concluded she was an absolute mess. While her face and stayed mostly in tact, what were left of her hair rolled were now completely lost on a mat of ash brown hair. Here night gown was in tatters, and underneath the tatters was a horror of sticky red and black.
Maddy groaned. It would take days to put herself back together, not to mention the disaster that was now Theresa’s room.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Writing prompts! (possibly followed by whatever few lines my brain spat out afterwards)
1. "He never did forgive Her for growing up to be a girl."
(They used to sit in the sun and dig in the terra-cotta dirt, cracked into shapes like a map, until his mother came out and yelled the sun was too strong, and they'd go in and let her slap sun screen on them until they felt slimy. Then they'd go back outside and get the hose and water the terra-cotta dirt until it was mud, and they'd pretend it was clay. They'd make dinosaurs and army men out of the clay-mud and the figures would drip and melt into lumps before they could dry in the sun, but they always kept track of what was what.
Then one day She wasn't Alex anymore, she was Alexandra, and She sometimes wore dresses when he went to Her house, and She didn't want to play with the mud-clay...)
2. "She's pretty, but she's a man."
3. "What was so special about Egyptian cotton anyway?"
4. "And that's when he knew he was so very screwed."
5. "After her gag reflex suddenly caused her to spit the partially chewed thing back unto her plate, she stared at it for quite some time, thinking it looking like a piece of brain matter or maybe her ex-husband's hand after she'd wrestled it into the shredder."
6. "I keep seeing goddamn mice out of the corners of my eyes but they're too damn fast to catch in proper view."
7. "But where are your CLOTHES?"
(They used to sit in the sun and dig in the terra-cotta dirt, cracked into shapes like a map, until his mother came out and yelled the sun was too strong, and they'd go in and let her slap sun screen on them until they felt slimy. Then they'd go back outside and get the hose and water the terra-cotta dirt until it was mud, and they'd pretend it was clay. They'd make dinosaurs and army men out of the clay-mud and the figures would drip and melt into lumps before they could dry in the sun, but they always kept track of what was what.
Then one day She wasn't Alex anymore, she was Alexandra, and She sometimes wore dresses when he went to Her house, and She didn't want to play with the mud-clay...)
2. "She's pretty, but she's a man."
3. "What was so special about Egyptian cotton anyway?"
4. "And that's when he knew he was so very screwed."
5. "After her gag reflex suddenly caused her to spit the partially chewed thing back unto her plate, she stared at it for quite some time, thinking it looking like a piece of brain matter or maybe her ex-husband's hand after she'd wrestled it into the shredder."
6. "I keep seeing goddamn mice out of the corners of my eyes but they're too damn fast to catch in proper view."
7. "But where are your CLOTHES?"
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Emo poetry?
someday you will see
how much i love you
because
you are
so soft when you touch your hand to the side of your face, thoughtful sigh watching the fountain in the park, are you lonely? Chipped nail polish red on your fingers, your lovely lovely fingers, so long and slender and lovely touch your face rub your eyes, are you tired?
you used to come here
with him
but now you’re
free
and i will have you
are
so gentle, as you put your purse next to you on the bench where he used to sit, but he’s gone and you come here anyway, looking at the fountain, the ducks are gopne too, but you come here anyway, and pretty and soft and gentle like the sound of a slamming door could break you, or maybe you’d just waft away like blowing steem from boiling water you look so soft
like
water
are you lonely?
no one is here for you anymore more, not him, not the ducks, you sigh again so sad so very sad and soft and lovely
i love you so much
like all the water
in the sea
and you don’t know
i exist
and you come here, even though they’re gone, and i watch you, and you don’t even notice me, even though i’ve always been here for you you you bitch how could you not see me when i am so near i’ve always been here but you don’t see me you don’t see me
they
left
you
whore
but i still love
you
are so soft why can’t
you
see me?
am I transparent
like
water?
i’m here
for you
come here
i will tocuh you like he did, but where he told you lies, i will tell you truth and that i love you, you are so gentle, so lovely, i will be all he is and more, so much more, i already beat him, you know, because i love you so much, and the ducks too, i love you the most and i will always be here, as i have since the start
bitch
don’t
leave
i want you, your gentle finger pads, because i love you so so much, like air and water and life and water, please don’t go, don’t leave, why do you always leave
the fountain
when i am here? i did all this for you don’t you see?
some day you will see
how much i love you
with your lovely hair wisping about
and your lovely lovely pretty fingers soft and limp
and your pretty lips parted in a forever sigh so soft and gentle
always
like water
how much i love you
because
you are
so soft when you touch your hand to the side of your face, thoughtful sigh watching the fountain in the park, are you lonely? Chipped nail polish red on your fingers, your lovely lovely fingers, so long and slender and lovely touch your face rub your eyes, are you tired?
you used to come here
with him
but now you’re
free
and i will have you
are
so gentle, as you put your purse next to you on the bench where he used to sit, but he’s gone and you come here anyway, looking at the fountain, the ducks are gopne too, but you come here anyway, and pretty and soft and gentle like the sound of a slamming door could break you, or maybe you’d just waft away like blowing steem from boiling water you look so soft
like
water
are you lonely?
no one is here for you anymore more, not him, not the ducks, you sigh again so sad so very sad and soft and lovely
i love you so much
like all the water
in the sea
and you don’t know
i exist
and you come here, even though they’re gone, and i watch you, and you don’t even notice me, even though i’ve always been here for you you you bitch how could you not see me when i am so near i’ve always been here but you don’t see me you don’t see me
they
left
you
whore
but i still love
you
are so soft why can’t
you
see me?
am I transparent
like
water?
i’m here
for you
come here
i will tocuh you like he did, but where he told you lies, i will tell you truth and that i love you, you are so gentle, so lovely, i will be all he is and more, so much more, i already beat him, you know, because i love you so much, and the ducks too, i love you the most and i will always be here, as i have since the start
bitch
don’t
leave
i want you, your gentle finger pads, because i love you so so much, like air and water and life and water, please don’t go, don’t leave, why do you always leave
the fountain
when i am here? i did all this for you don’t you see?
some day you will see
how much i love you
with your lovely hair wisping about
and your lovely lovely pretty fingers soft and limp
and your pretty lips parted in a forever sigh so soft and gentle
always
like water
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
I remember this time...
I don’t even remember where we were, but my hands were sticky from cotton candy and my hair was sticky with salt water in the air. And there was a carousel.
It was all lit up and I could see every color, every blue and yellow and lavender and vermillion. And the horses, they looked like they were flying, flying around, with their legs tensed in a gallop, but they weren’t galloping they were flying. Flying and leaving a trail of brilliant color behind them, color in their coats, in the ribbons in their tails and manes, in the patterns on their saddles, and in the clothes of the children happily riding them. Happy. Laughing. Waving at their parents.
“Wanna have a go?” My uncle asked. I never liked him. But the horses, they were so pretty, and they were slowing down, and the children were swarming off them, and it was all so pretty pretty pretty.
So I nodded and my mother took my by the hand onto the metal platform and our foot steps went thunk thunk thunk in a not so pretty way, and she helped me climb onto the prettiest horse I could find free, which was cream and had the faintest pink mane and tail, horrendous in hindsight, but I thought it was so very lovely. It was on the outside row, and my mommy said,
“You can wave to me from here,” and then she was going where was she going I thought she would stay on with me.
There was a strap on the horsey but I could get it right why did mommy leave she was gone and there we big kids all around me, except for a baby, and the baby was crying and now we were moving, moving, up down up down so fast. And there was mommy and uncle jim and aunt martha and they were waving and me and laughing and I was crying crying why would no one help me up down up down the babying was crying and everyone else was laughing and the horsey was creeking and the strap wasn’t on wasn’t on oh im so scary mommy where are you youre there and now youre gone and youre laughing at me and everyone is laughing at me except that baby why doesn't anyone help it why doesn't anyone help me help
now we’re stopping and I’m not going up down up down so much and the baby is stopping its crying and oh, mommy’s running to me even though the horses are still moving inch by inch. The big kids are getting off.
“What’s wrong, sweet pea?” She asks and I jump into her arms and she hugs me but then puts me down saying I’m a big girl.
I don’t say anything, I just let her lead me back to Uncle Jim who had no idea, no no no idea at all.
“Haha, too much for ya, squirt?” He asked and I hated him at that moment hate hate hate.
“I’m fine,” I said back. “Can we go back tot the kiddy section?”
I guess it must have been at an amusement park, that time.
It was all lit up and I could see every color, every blue and yellow and lavender and vermillion. And the horses, they looked like they were flying, flying around, with their legs tensed in a gallop, but they weren’t galloping they were flying. Flying and leaving a trail of brilliant color behind them, color in their coats, in the ribbons in their tails and manes, in the patterns on their saddles, and in the clothes of the children happily riding them. Happy. Laughing. Waving at their parents.
“Wanna have a go?” My uncle asked. I never liked him. But the horses, they were so pretty, and they were slowing down, and the children were swarming off them, and it was all so pretty pretty pretty.
So I nodded and my mother took my by the hand onto the metal platform and our foot steps went thunk thunk thunk in a not so pretty way, and she helped me climb onto the prettiest horse I could find free, which was cream and had the faintest pink mane and tail, horrendous in hindsight, but I thought it was so very lovely. It was on the outside row, and my mommy said,
“You can wave to me from here,” and then she was going where was she going I thought she would stay on with me.
There was a strap on the horsey but I could get it right why did mommy leave she was gone and there we big kids all around me, except for a baby, and the baby was crying and now we were moving, moving, up down up down so fast. And there was mommy and uncle jim and aunt martha and they were waving and me and laughing and I was crying crying why would no one help me up down up down the babying was crying and everyone else was laughing and the horsey was creeking and the strap wasn’t on wasn’t on oh im so scary mommy where are you youre there and now youre gone and youre laughing at me and everyone is laughing at me except that baby why doesn't anyone help it why doesn't anyone help me help
now we’re stopping and I’m not going up down up down so much and the baby is stopping its crying and oh, mommy’s running to me even though the horses are still moving inch by inch. The big kids are getting off.
“What’s wrong, sweet pea?” She asks and I jump into her arms and she hugs me but then puts me down saying I’m a big girl.
I don’t say anything, I just let her lead me back to Uncle Jim who had no idea, no no no idea at all.
“Haha, too much for ya, squirt?” He asked and I hated him at that moment hate hate hate.
“I’m fine,” I said back. “Can we go back tot the kiddy section?”
I guess it must have been at an amusement park, that time.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Half a meme!
List 12 characters and GO!
...screw that, I'm using real people.
1. Kylie
2. Justin Bieber
3. Jesus
4.Charles Darwin
5. Tara
6. Madame Curie
7. Borges
8. Susan
9. Alexander the Great
10. Mrs. Snodgrass 8D
11. Tom Waits
12. Me 8D
1. Who would make a better college professor, Madame Curie or Tom Waits? What subjects would (s)he teach?
Madame Curie, who would teach chemistry. And make radioactive mutant servants out of her students.
2. Do you think Charles Darwin is hot? How hot?
Have you SEEN that beard? He has some major chin-sweat going on there.... hot, hot hot.
Altneratively: Darwin had like ten kids, resulting in a pretty high fitness value. Since woman are picky, we can turn to the Sexy Son Hypothesis, by which we can predict that yes, Darwin is hot.
3. Me 8D sends Susan on a mission. What is it, and does it succeed?
Her mission is to get me dumplings. It fails because she doesn't have a car and eats them at home and alone.
4. What is or would be Alexander the Great's favorite book?
"How to Polish Armor with Abs Engraved into It for No Useful Reason"
5. Would it make more sense for Justin Bieber to swear fealty to Madame Curie, or the other way around?
This depends on if Madame Curie is a pedophile and/or a fan of girl's choirs.
6. For some reason, Tara is looking for a roommate. Should (s)he share a studio apartment with Alexander the Great or with Mrs. Snodgrass?
Mrs. Snodgrass because she doesn't hate her.
7. Justin Bieber, Borges, and Me 8D have dinner together. Where do they go, and what do they discuss?
We go to Chuck E. Cheese. First, we get a high chair for Justin. He says something about me needing one too and I kick him in the face. But actually, since Borges is there, I'm really just an idea the waiter had, and my foot goes through his face, and I realize I don't exist and go home to cry myself to sleep. Then Justin goes to play in a ball pit and Borges eats pizza by himself.
8. Jesus challenges Mrs. Snodgrass to a duel. What happens?
Well, we all know Snod harpooned a bear, and so she harpoons Jesus. Then Jesus comes back to life, and Snod's like "sht. D:" Then they have a rap battle.
9. If Kylie stole Susan's most precious possession, how would (s)he get it back?
By poking her RELENTLESSLY IN THE SIDE.
10. Suggest a title for a story in which Borges and Me 8D both attain what they most desire.
Writing Things That Make People's Eyes Bleed and Brains Atrophy
...and now I'm bored 8D
...screw that, I'm using real people.
1. Kylie
2. Justin Bieber
3. Jesus
4.Charles Darwin
5. Tara
6. Madame Curie
7. Borges
8. Susan
9. Alexander the Great
10. Mrs. Snodgrass 8D
11. Tom Waits
12. Me 8D
1. Who would make a better college professor, Madame Curie or Tom Waits? What subjects would (s)he teach?
Madame Curie, who would teach chemistry. And make radioactive mutant servants out of her students.
2. Do you think Charles Darwin is hot? How hot?
Have you SEEN that beard? He has some major chin-sweat going on there.... hot, hot hot.
Altneratively: Darwin had like ten kids, resulting in a pretty high fitness value. Since woman are picky, we can turn to the Sexy Son Hypothesis, by which we can predict that yes, Darwin is hot.
3. Me 8D sends Susan on a mission. What is it, and does it succeed?
Her mission is to get me dumplings. It fails because she doesn't have a car and eats them at home and alone.
4. What is or would be Alexander the Great's favorite book?
"How to Polish Armor with Abs Engraved into It for No Useful Reason"
5. Would it make more sense for Justin Bieber to swear fealty to Madame Curie, or the other way around?
This depends on if Madame Curie is a pedophile and/or a fan of girl's choirs.
6. For some reason, Tara is looking for a roommate. Should (s)he share a studio apartment with Alexander the Great or with Mrs. Snodgrass?
Mrs. Snodgrass because she doesn't hate her.
7. Justin Bieber, Borges, and Me 8D have dinner together. Where do they go, and what do they discuss?
We go to Chuck E. Cheese. First, we get a high chair for Justin. He says something about me needing one too and I kick him in the face. But actually, since Borges is there, I'm really just an idea the waiter had, and my foot goes through his face, and I realize I don't exist and go home to cry myself to sleep. Then Justin goes to play in a ball pit and Borges eats pizza by himself.
8. Jesus challenges Mrs. Snodgrass to a duel. What happens?
Well, we all know Snod harpooned a bear, and so she harpoons Jesus. Then Jesus comes back to life, and Snod's like "sht. D:" Then they have a rap battle.
9. If Kylie stole Susan's most precious possession, how would (s)he get it back?
By poking her RELENTLESSLY IN THE SIDE.
10. Suggest a title for a story in which Borges and Me 8D both attain what they most desire.
Writing Things That Make People's Eyes Bleed and Brains Atrophy
...and now I'm bored 8D
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