On account of an excellent collection of friends, a broken toilet, and 3 hours in the car, I missed the deadline for submission to 3 Minute Fiction, but behold! 532 words.
Fog soup.
Cold. Then warm. Or maybe numb. The sky beamed down the thick grey of after storm. Joe watched the slow pulse of the waves, foam clinging to his legs as he loosened his tie and let it fall into the blue green Atlantic. Not many people came out this late in the season. The bars had shuttered to wait for next year’s neon crop. Joe felt this ideal for his needs, and an unspoken kinship with the scattered forms across the rocky sand trickled in to help fill the hole in his chest.
An old woman with one leg lets it dangle down off the end of a fishing pier that sees more teenagers with beer than beards in yellow jackets putting food on the table. She’s been around before, though Joe was pretty sure he knew this not for her peculiar silhouette, but the haunting drone that she pumped into the sky from the bellows of a shining red concertina. Memories of the old country made manifest. An air of longing that needed no words in the dim of cloudy noon.
At his back, the road snaked its way up along the thin strip of beach, protected by rows of pike-like tax collectors and too-narrow loitering spots for cars. Joe watched a young couple toss a Frisbee to dog who kept pausing to nip at the sand as it flew up around his leaping paws. Thunder. Not thunder. An engine.
The old woman on the pier looked up and let her note draw out. Somewhere in the hollow spaces of Joseph’s skull it began to mix with the low thumping of the motorcycle’s rush and his teeth started up a clatter, chattering audibly in a way that might give a passerby the illusion of discomfort. He thought it was a Bb, but he had never been very good with music.
The thunder churned down to idle, and Joe looked back over his shoulder. Her eyes met him half way. Danielle sat over the machine from the relative safety of the asphalt and waved that tiny wave. She didn’t bother turning the bike off before she took a small brass goblet out of her saddlebag, perching the urn on a weathered concrete bench and looking up at the sky from under the thin visor of her black helmet.
He envied her her freedom. Come this time tomorrow his feet would be clad in socks and his eyes would soak in the slow burn or overhead fluorescents. He would make generic small talk over bad coffee and pretend that one thing mattered more than the other, when clearly the opposite was true. She had put half the county down just to drop him off, and Joe knew she’d do thrice that before even deciding which way the wind was blowing. He’d need her most when the sun was set, and she’d be 600 miles or more from his bed.
Danielle never wasted any time. The transmission brought a gear to bear on the engine and she was a memory. Just Joe, a little music, a big sky, and the old man on a bench at the beach. Brought a smile to his face.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Three Minute Fiction
A number of us will be participating in this round of NPR's Three Minute Fiction, a regular contest with a 600 word story challenge.
http://www.npr.org/series/105660765/three-minute-fiction
I've listened to this contest for a while now, so I've got a pretty good idea what they're looking for, it's definitely worth going back and listening to the prior winners, some really great work (and some I wasn't such a fan of, isn't art wonderful?).
I was sortof waiting to get struck by inspiration on this one, so I've put it off until the end (deadline is this Sunday), but I thought it would be worth talking about Process a bit as I craft this piece.
The challenge is to write a 600 word story (which can be read in 3 minutes) in which one character comes to town and one character leaves town. Good. I like road stories.
Opening lines are critical, and often the major spark for me (as with Dinner, and Tesla Dance).
"Cold. Then warm. Or maybe numb."
That was my starting point. Sets a nice little scene. But where to go from there? The end?
"Joe looked back over his shoulder, her eyes met him half way. Danielle idled the bike from the relative safety of the asphault and waved that tiny wave before putting the urn down on a weathered concrete bench. She’d come from as far away as two towns over to deliver him, and joe had no idea how many miles she could put down before she felt right enough to return. She would waste no time. The bike roared into the distance, and joe was alone. Just a man with his feet in the water. An urn with a bench. A gull with a sandwich. He smiled. And wept."
This is one of those situations where i had a very simple little scene in my head, wanted it to be completely vague, just a woman dropping off an urn while a man stands in the cold of the ocean. I was really excited to write it, except that when I was done with my first draft... it was only 150 words. Damn my natural copywriter brevity.
So now? Got to thicken it up, spread some wings. And get it done in time to edit the ever loving hell out of it, because I know that shite right up there needs some major work.
Take the challenge!
http://www.npr.org/series/105660765/three-minute-fiction
I've listened to this contest for a while now, so I've got a pretty good idea what they're looking for, it's definitely worth going back and listening to the prior winners, some really great work (and some I wasn't such a fan of, isn't art wonderful?).
I was sortof waiting to get struck by inspiration on this one, so I've put it off until the end (deadline is this Sunday), but I thought it would be worth talking about Process a bit as I craft this piece.
The challenge is to write a 600 word story (which can be read in 3 minutes) in which one character comes to town and one character leaves town. Good. I like road stories.
Opening lines are critical, and often the major spark for me (as with Dinner, and Tesla Dance).
"Cold. Then warm. Or maybe numb."
That was my starting point. Sets a nice little scene. But where to go from there? The end?
"Joe looked back over his shoulder, her eyes met him half way. Danielle idled the bike from the relative safety of the asphault and waved that tiny wave before putting the urn down on a weathered concrete bench. She’d come from as far away as two towns over to deliver him, and joe had no idea how many miles she could put down before she felt right enough to return. She would waste no time. The bike roared into the distance, and joe was alone. Just a man with his feet in the water. An urn with a bench. A gull with a sandwich. He smiled. And wept."
This is one of those situations where i had a very simple little scene in my head, wanted it to be completely vague, just a woman dropping off an urn while a man stands in the cold of the ocean. I was really excited to write it, except that when I was done with my first draft... it was only 150 words. Damn my natural copywriter brevity.
So now? Got to thicken it up, spread some wings. And get it done in time to edit the ever loving hell out of it, because I know that shite right up there needs some major work.
Take the challenge!
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Exercise 4: Frost Heaves
Exercise 4: Frost Heaves
The radio hadn’t worked in months, but the wheels kept spinning and that was all Jackie cared about. He’d hit New England just in time for the horrors of late winter, that epic inverse of the calm before the storm. The job had been simple. The money stuffed into an envelope and sent home to mother. And now the trunk was closed on his spartan gear and the first mile out of the cold was behind him. Another thousand and he could take his sweater off and enjoy a shot of tequila like a normal human being.
It was just a little after midnight and the long stretch of commercial road was empty. Nobody drinks on a Wednesday in the middle of suburbia, so the little Japanese four banger rolled right on through all the green lights on motion sensors and a few of the red lights on timers without any trouble. Perfectly timed to be out of New Jersey by rush hour.
Jackie thought about the rhythm of the road. Out in the laughably monickered Heartlands it plays out long and slow. One hand at 6 o’clock, the other hanging out the window or resting pointlessly on a shifter that hasn’t needed shifting since Cleveland or fishing around in the passenger footwell for a Snapple bottle half full of something that isn’t exactly tea. The car banks from one side to the next, taking acres to complete its arc.
But here? Frost heaves hit the wheels hard and fast. Every 15 feet the old concrete roads that were first laid down during the industrial revolution have broken and risen like the White Mountains to the north. The rapping of the road could not have been good for his tires, but there was no slowing down once old Jackie got to going, so he began to play.
At first, Jackie sped up. The beat accelerated with the pressure of his foot and he bobbed his head. A good groove, something to move to, something to set a fast guitar to. He liked it. Rolled down his window for a moment just to feel the ice in the air.
Then he pulled back, let it ride for a bar, knew his little brother would have jumped at the opportunity to beatbox and spit a few lines of copycat hip hop into the night, and thought briefly that a subwoofer would fit in his trunk if he could find one cheap somewhere. Might make the drive go faster.
He pulled back father. His eyes wet in the yellow street light. His mind reached back and ruffled around. A waltz. Slow and steady. His mother in a blue dress, sitting on the porch with an old guitar, singing an old song while his father danced with hermanita in the dust and sand. He didn’t want to let it go, his foot stayed steady until the blue lights came on harsh behind him.
“Fuck.” The spell of the road was broken.
“License and registration, sir?”
“Evening, Officer. What seems to be the trouble?”
“License and registration, please.”
“Seem to have left it in my other coat, Officer.”
“Gonna need to see some papers, boy.”
Jackie looked at the broadshouldered blackboot, frowned, and pulled the trigger. Cops look for slow drivers. Might be easy drunks. No time for whimsy now. The frost heaves blurred as the engine roared all the way to the turnpike, and off into the cold sunrise.
The radio hadn’t worked in months, but the wheels kept spinning and that was all Jackie cared about. He’d hit New England just in time for the horrors of late winter, that epic inverse of the calm before the storm. The job had been simple. The money stuffed into an envelope and sent home to mother. And now the trunk was closed on his spartan gear and the first mile out of the cold was behind him. Another thousand and he could take his sweater off and enjoy a shot of tequila like a normal human being.
It was just a little after midnight and the long stretch of commercial road was empty. Nobody drinks on a Wednesday in the middle of suburbia, so the little Japanese four banger rolled right on through all the green lights on motion sensors and a few of the red lights on timers without any trouble. Perfectly timed to be out of New Jersey by rush hour.
Jackie thought about the rhythm of the road. Out in the laughably monickered Heartlands it plays out long and slow. One hand at 6 o’clock, the other hanging out the window or resting pointlessly on a shifter that hasn’t needed shifting since Cleveland or fishing around in the passenger footwell for a Snapple bottle half full of something that isn’t exactly tea. The car banks from one side to the next, taking acres to complete its arc.
But here? Frost heaves hit the wheels hard and fast. Every 15 feet the old concrete roads that were first laid down during the industrial revolution have broken and risen like the White Mountains to the north. The rapping of the road could not have been good for his tires, but there was no slowing down once old Jackie got to going, so he began to play.
At first, Jackie sped up. The beat accelerated with the pressure of his foot and he bobbed his head. A good groove, something to move to, something to set a fast guitar to. He liked it. Rolled down his window for a moment just to feel the ice in the air.
Then he pulled back, let it ride for a bar, knew his little brother would have jumped at the opportunity to beatbox and spit a few lines of copycat hip hop into the night, and thought briefly that a subwoofer would fit in his trunk if he could find one cheap somewhere. Might make the drive go faster.
He pulled back father. His eyes wet in the yellow street light. His mind reached back and ruffled around. A waltz. Slow and steady. His mother in a blue dress, sitting on the porch with an old guitar, singing an old song while his father danced with hermanita in the dust and sand. He didn’t want to let it go, his foot stayed steady until the blue lights came on harsh behind him.
“Fuck.” The spell of the road was broken.
“License and registration, sir?”
“Evening, Officer. What seems to be the trouble?”
“License and registration, please.”
“Seem to have left it in my other coat, Officer.”
“Gonna need to see some papers, boy.”
Jackie looked at the broadshouldered blackboot, frowned, and pulled the trigger. Cops look for slow drivers. Might be easy drunks. No time for whimsy now. The frost heaves blurred as the engine roared all the way to the turnpike, and off into the cold sunrise.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Exercise 3: Settle
Exercise 3: Listening to the house settle.
Johnny traced a pattern in the ceiling with his eyes, letting them draw slowly along the cracking plaster, out from the wall, about half way to the burned out bare bulb, and then arcing south where it spidered and split the aging white chalk into a thousand triangles.
The crack scarred Johnny. Something about the way it seemed to pulse as he stared at it, like his brain couldn’t quite work out the pattern he knew in his heart was supposed to be there.
His mother’s giggles wafted up the stairs and through his door. Sometimes he felt bad for his mother, she didn’t know that the house was haunted. She went about her day, getting him out of bed in the morning, sipping coffee on the front porch, making dinner for he and father in a red apron with puffy sleeves that had belonged to her own mother, and finally settling down to laugh with a glass of wine and the love of her life on the big leather couch Aunt Celeste had given them when she moved to Hollywood.
The moon was bright and Johnny had committed his eyes to the long highway of the crack a three count more when he heard the lock on the front door click into place, the sink run for a glass of water, and two pairs of feet, one heavier than the other, creeping slowly up the stairs and into the room down the hall. With the metallic thunk of the bedroom door, everyone in the house now purported to be asleep. A perfect time for ghosts.
Coyotes. Two pair. About a mile out in the woods and perhaps two miles apart. Their call drew Johnny’s gaze out the window with a start and he lost count. Curses. The moon was full and its silver light spilled across his bedroom floor like so much milk over lego cookies.
The legos. Johnny cursed again. This was it. The moon and the quiet and the carnivores calling. His eyes traced the crack again. He was pretty sure it was 64.
Johnny glanced back to the floor, straining to see if there were enough legos within arm’s reach to build a weapon. A cross, a spear, a magic gun that shoots anti-ghost rays. Anything. But no, he had been just a little too good at cleaning up, and now his soul would burn for an eternity.
65.
The crack seemed to get longer. One of the small triangles fell to the ground with a thud as a diesel engine rumbled down the hill on old Route 3 and let off the thunder of its engine breaking to save wear and tear on the pads. His eyes grew wide and he pulled the covers up comically far, covering his nose and ducking his scalp under his pillow to protect his precious skin. He prayed that the power stored up in the finely quilted Star Wars comforter would be enough to ward off the evil that lurked just behind the crack in the ceiling, but he sweat with nerves and questions.
He started the trace again. These might mark his last moments, and Johnny let a few silent words of prayer escape his lips and filter out into the universe so that his mother, father, brother, sister, and Skittles the hamster might make it out alive, that the evil in the crack would only claim him.
Another truck, and another tiny triangle of plaster on the floor. Johnny watched it for blood, and became convinced as his eyes moved slowly out form the wall to the arc and spider that the crack was now not only pulsing, but glowing blood red. He got down to the last few inches and his heart skipped a beat. When his eyes came to the terminus of the last crack, Armageddon would come to his bedroom and all would be lost. He truly wished he had told his mother about the burned out light bulb.
There it was. The end. 66. The crack pulsed. The moon shone. The coyotes wailed. And the next thing young Johnny knew, his mother’s smiling face was hovering over him.
“Am I… am I taken by the evil?”
“No, silly! It’s Saturday! Here, pancakes! But you’ve got to get out of bed, the repair man is here to fix the water damage in your room. No more crack after today, so let’s go! Up and at ‘em!”
“No more crack?” He picked up the fork and stuffed the fluffy sweet disc into his mouth.
“No more crack.” Johnny smiled and let his mother ruffle his hair.
Johnny traced a pattern in the ceiling with his eyes, letting them draw slowly along the cracking plaster, out from the wall, about half way to the burned out bare bulb, and then arcing south where it spidered and split the aging white chalk into a thousand triangles.
The crack scarred Johnny. Something about the way it seemed to pulse as he stared at it, like his brain couldn’t quite work out the pattern he knew in his heart was supposed to be there.
His mother’s giggles wafted up the stairs and through his door. Sometimes he felt bad for his mother, she didn’t know that the house was haunted. She went about her day, getting him out of bed in the morning, sipping coffee on the front porch, making dinner for he and father in a red apron with puffy sleeves that had belonged to her own mother, and finally settling down to laugh with a glass of wine and the love of her life on the big leather couch Aunt Celeste had given them when she moved to Hollywood.
The moon was bright and Johnny had committed his eyes to the long highway of the crack a three count more when he heard the lock on the front door click into place, the sink run for a glass of water, and two pairs of feet, one heavier than the other, creeping slowly up the stairs and into the room down the hall. With the metallic thunk of the bedroom door, everyone in the house now purported to be asleep. A perfect time for ghosts.
Coyotes. Two pair. About a mile out in the woods and perhaps two miles apart. Their call drew Johnny’s gaze out the window with a start and he lost count. Curses. The moon was full and its silver light spilled across his bedroom floor like so much milk over lego cookies.
The legos. Johnny cursed again. This was it. The moon and the quiet and the carnivores calling. His eyes traced the crack again. He was pretty sure it was 64.
Johnny glanced back to the floor, straining to see if there were enough legos within arm’s reach to build a weapon. A cross, a spear, a magic gun that shoots anti-ghost rays. Anything. But no, he had been just a little too good at cleaning up, and now his soul would burn for an eternity.
65.
The crack seemed to get longer. One of the small triangles fell to the ground with a thud as a diesel engine rumbled down the hill on old Route 3 and let off the thunder of its engine breaking to save wear and tear on the pads. His eyes grew wide and he pulled the covers up comically far, covering his nose and ducking his scalp under his pillow to protect his precious skin. He prayed that the power stored up in the finely quilted Star Wars comforter would be enough to ward off the evil that lurked just behind the crack in the ceiling, but he sweat with nerves and questions.
He started the trace again. These might mark his last moments, and Johnny let a few silent words of prayer escape his lips and filter out into the universe so that his mother, father, brother, sister, and Skittles the hamster might make it out alive, that the evil in the crack would only claim him.
Another truck, and another tiny triangle of plaster on the floor. Johnny watched it for blood, and became convinced as his eyes moved slowly out form the wall to the arc and spider that the crack was now not only pulsing, but glowing blood red. He got down to the last few inches and his heart skipped a beat. When his eyes came to the terminus of the last crack, Armageddon would come to his bedroom and all would be lost. He truly wished he had told his mother about the burned out light bulb.
There it was. The end. 66. The crack pulsed. The moon shone. The coyotes wailed. And the next thing young Johnny knew, his mother’s smiling face was hovering over him.
“Am I… am I taken by the evil?”
“No, silly! It’s Saturday! Here, pancakes! But you’ve got to get out of bed, the repair man is here to fix the water damage in your room. No more crack after today, so let’s go! Up and at ‘em!”
“No more crack?” He picked up the fork and stuffed the fluffy sweet disc into his mouth.
“No more crack.” Johnny smiled and let his mother ruffle his hair.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Exercise 2: Jungle
Exercise 2: Our hero(es) run for the last escape ship off a dying jungle planet.
Unedited.
Jerry felt the strain of competing force vectors on his body and struggled to keep up and running. Michelle had yanked, hard, on his arm to pull his head low even as she stretched her own long legs to bounce over the small scrub that so dogged them. A deer, or something that looked enough like a deer to make Jerry homesick in less strained moments, went whipping by, too fast to have taken notice of the tall man’s extraneous fleshy bits in the way. He was fortunate to have been jerked down.
Michelle struggled for breath. Every muscle in her body bulged and sweat wicked in messy blobs off her skin. Her eyes were thick with wet as well, though Jerry didn’t know if that was the ripping wind and adrenaline or the fact that her sister had just been cut down and left behind. Her mouth was moving. The same simple phrase. The last words her father had turned to her and said, about 20 seconds after the breakfast table had been cleared and an unnaturally warm wind had cut through the forest and melted the frozen fall dew.
Keep running. Keep running. Keep running.
She banked a hard right at the old North Trail marker and sped up, grateful for the relative smooth of the dirt and stone. Jerry struggled to match the speed of her footfall. He tripped more than once, but she only turned to help him the first time. The second time she had just let a hand trail back and clamped her long archer’s fingers down into his curly hair. He was bleeding, but upright and moving, and so had no cause to bitch. Every second still breathing was a blessing with hell on your heals.
“Ship’s just another mile! We’re almost there!”
Jerry looked up and his face sank, or, would have had he the energy reserves to expunge emotion across the pale of his mug. He looked frantically down and reached out for Michelle’s shoulders, driving them both down into the shadow of a small dugout. He heard the soft, moist crack, but Michelle did not cry out. She would be down an arm for the remainder of the run. Off balance. Not good.
The sun, high to the east, reaching down to them with foggy tendrils as various tiny holes opened and shifted in the canopy, disappeared. Blotted out. The threat rolled noisily overhead, a rumbling tip to armageddon’s spear. It did not pass for some moments.
“I don’t think they saw us.” Michelle was openly crying now, but still silent as the salt cut long contrails down her face.
“Look, we’re going to be alright. Like you said, the ship is just another mile, we can make it. We can get off this fucking eden bullshit rock.” She stared at him. He thought she was going to strike and recoiled slightly.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Who cares if we make it? Everyone else is dead, Jerry. Are you getting this? Everyone! We’re it. Even if we make it, no one else is coming home.”
“That’s exactly why we’ve got to make it, Michelle! We’ve got to survives so that someone has!” She festered for a moment.
“Fuck it,” and she was on her feet, “try to keep up, hacker boy.” And she was off. Jerry scrambled to his feet, stumbled, and begged his lungs for just a little bit more oxygen.
He could hear the terror coming up from behind. He was sure trees were falling to its relentless onslaught. The birds and squirrels had long since made their own futile escape. The texture of the forest around them blurred as they ran, greens and browns all beaching out as they both slowly began to succumb to the extremes of exhaustion, first Jerry, soft as his ilk tend to be, and then Michelle, who had fought before she had run, and had little left to give.
The path finally crested atop Porter’s Hill, and the gleaming white cone of the rocket could be seen sticking cartoonishly out the top of a mock grain silo, erected some years ago for the aesthetics of the thing more than for camoflage or defense.
“Oh god, Jerry, we’re almost there.” Michele came close to a smile as the pair began their final downhill run. Smoke filled the sky behind them, and the atmosphere’s normal emerald color had been stained as burning iron. Their knees screamed and threatened to buckle as they let their full weight slam down step after step, but on they raced to the ship, the last survivors of a doomed expedition, bound for home to tell an untold trauma.
“We’re going to make it!” She was gleeful now, crying again, but for hope over despair.
Jerry stopped.
“Fuck… me…”
They had come within 100 meters, run with everything they had, and made it just in time to watch the scaffolding of the silo come crashing down around the spaceship. Steam jets whined and fuel lines automatically popped free of the long white tube. The violence of the fire was shocking. Someone had beaten them to it. Someone had made the same assumptions of loneliness. Someone was stealing their escape rocket.
Michelle cursed, and moments later became just another cloud of ash as the rocket achieved maximum thrust and began to climb from the launch, damping everything around it with fire and heat.
Jerry might have cursed as well, had he not died seconds earlier, the victim of a terrible head wound as a tree, a thirty meter beast of hardwood and leaf, crashed down under the weight of the lumbering violence.
The rocket disappeared with a glinting wink as the world ended.
Unedited.
Jerry felt the strain of competing force vectors on his body and struggled to keep up and running. Michelle had yanked, hard, on his arm to pull his head low even as she stretched her own long legs to bounce over the small scrub that so dogged them. A deer, or something that looked enough like a deer to make Jerry homesick in less strained moments, went whipping by, too fast to have taken notice of the tall man’s extraneous fleshy bits in the way. He was fortunate to have been jerked down.
Michelle struggled for breath. Every muscle in her body bulged and sweat wicked in messy blobs off her skin. Her eyes were thick with wet as well, though Jerry didn’t know if that was the ripping wind and adrenaline or the fact that her sister had just been cut down and left behind. Her mouth was moving. The same simple phrase. The last words her father had turned to her and said, about 20 seconds after the breakfast table had been cleared and an unnaturally warm wind had cut through the forest and melted the frozen fall dew.
Keep running. Keep running. Keep running.
She banked a hard right at the old North Trail marker and sped up, grateful for the relative smooth of the dirt and stone. Jerry struggled to match the speed of her footfall. He tripped more than once, but she only turned to help him the first time. The second time she had just let a hand trail back and clamped her long archer’s fingers down into his curly hair. He was bleeding, but upright and moving, and so had no cause to bitch. Every second still breathing was a blessing with hell on your heals.
“Ship’s just another mile! We’re almost there!”
Jerry looked up and his face sank, or, would have had he the energy reserves to expunge emotion across the pale of his mug. He looked frantically down and reached out for Michelle’s shoulders, driving them both down into the shadow of a small dugout. He heard the soft, moist crack, but Michelle did not cry out. She would be down an arm for the remainder of the run. Off balance. Not good.
The sun, high to the east, reaching down to them with foggy tendrils as various tiny holes opened and shifted in the canopy, disappeared. Blotted out. The threat rolled noisily overhead, a rumbling tip to armageddon’s spear. It did not pass for some moments.
“I don’t think they saw us.” Michelle was openly crying now, but still silent as the salt cut long contrails down her face.
“Look, we’re going to be alright. Like you said, the ship is just another mile, we can make it. We can get off this fucking eden bullshit rock.” She stared at him. He thought she was going to strike and recoiled slightly.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Who cares if we make it? Everyone else is dead, Jerry. Are you getting this? Everyone! We’re it. Even if we make it, no one else is coming home.”
“That’s exactly why we’ve got to make it, Michelle! We’ve got to survives so that someone has!” She festered for a moment.
“Fuck it,” and she was on her feet, “try to keep up, hacker boy.” And she was off. Jerry scrambled to his feet, stumbled, and begged his lungs for just a little bit more oxygen.
He could hear the terror coming up from behind. He was sure trees were falling to its relentless onslaught. The birds and squirrels had long since made their own futile escape. The texture of the forest around them blurred as they ran, greens and browns all beaching out as they both slowly began to succumb to the extremes of exhaustion, first Jerry, soft as his ilk tend to be, and then Michelle, who had fought before she had run, and had little left to give.
The path finally crested atop Porter’s Hill, and the gleaming white cone of the rocket could be seen sticking cartoonishly out the top of a mock grain silo, erected some years ago for the aesthetics of the thing more than for camoflage or defense.
“Oh god, Jerry, we’re almost there.” Michele came close to a smile as the pair began their final downhill run. Smoke filled the sky behind them, and the atmosphere’s normal emerald color had been stained as burning iron. Their knees screamed and threatened to buckle as they let their full weight slam down step after step, but on they raced to the ship, the last survivors of a doomed expedition, bound for home to tell an untold trauma.
“We’re going to make it!” She was gleeful now, crying again, but for hope over despair.
Jerry stopped.
“Fuck… me…”
They had come within 100 meters, run with everything they had, and made it just in time to watch the scaffolding of the silo come crashing down around the spaceship. Steam jets whined and fuel lines automatically popped free of the long white tube. The violence of the fire was shocking. Someone had beaten them to it. Someone had made the same assumptions of loneliness. Someone was stealing their escape rocket.
Michelle cursed, and moments later became just another cloud of ash as the rocket achieved maximum thrust and began to climb from the launch, damping everything around it with fire and heat.
Jerry might have cursed as well, had he not died seconds earlier, the victim of a terrible head wound as a tree, a thirty meter beast of hardwood and leaf, crashed down under the weight of the lumbering violence.
The rocket disappeared with a glinting wink as the world ended.
Exercise 1: Subway
Exercise: Year's after the rapture has claimed the world's Mormons, a man stands on a subway platform in Salt Lake. He see's a girl with green hair across the tracks, and two men who are approaching her from behind.
Additional Context: Blatantly Unedited.
2030 had been a rough year for Trick Wilson. He missed his friends and family. The Salt Lake Underground Transit Station at the corner of Joseph Smith Pkwy and Salvation Blvd just wasn’t the same anymore. He and Obediah and Job had spent many an hour leering at the girls in their long skirts and thick sweaters back in the day. Then they had all gone, and he had spent the ensuing year beating himself up for not telling that store clerk who accidentally undercharged him a pack of strawberry gum when he was 10.
He cursed and pulled the unopened pack out of his coat pocket. He had carried it ever since, a reminder of the devil’s wiely ways. For the millionth time he thought to cast the curse’d object aside, let it fester and burn on the third rail, but back it went into the dark of his jacket. Trick hunched his shoulders and slumped against the cold brick wall, and he waited.
It was cold so late at night. Really, Trick knew he had no business being out and about by last train, and spiraled further into the self-loathing that he hoped beyond hope might someday grow sincere enough to please the master of the missing.
A breeze rushed in, the first sign of the great metal tube rushing down the line, notable long before the sound or light would come rushing in. Trick took his eyes from the floor and stood tall for the first time in a quarter hour. He was startled to notice that he wasn’t alone. Across the tracks, leaning against a wall of her own, stood a small woman showing an unusual quantity of leg for the barren wastes of Salt Lake, though Trick didn’t notice on account of her shocking green hair. She carried a black purse and was watching the tube for the oncoming train.
This was all odd for any number of reasons, not least of which was that she was waiting on the Inbound side of the UTS, and that train had stopped running and hour ago. Wilson was, quite fundamentally, a nervous person around girls, and as the roar of the train threatened to force him to raise his voice, he finally found the courage to speak up and inform her of her mistaken location. It was then, as his dry tongue clicked through his parted teeth to speak, that something else strange befell his vision. Two men slinked their way quietly down the stairs across the way. They wore black, too much black, like comic book ninjas (comic books! Doubtless another reason Trick had been forsaken) creeping out of the concrete jungle.
“Hey!” He eeked out, but she didn’t so much as look his way.
“Hey! Hey you!” Nothing.
Light from the train flooded the station, and long shadows erupted from all four figures. The girl with the green hair looked over with a notable start as one ninja’s shadow crossed over the gentle little bump in her skirt where her legs connected to her loins. Trick damned himself for noting this, but by then it was too late. The train had come and blocked his view. He ran to tell the conductor, but stopped when he found only blinking robot eyes in the cockpit. He jumped inside when the bell rang that the train would depart momentarily, and planted his face firmly against the far window to discover the girl’s fate.
At first, he saw nothing. His heart sank. Then he saw blood, and his heart leapt into his throat. All in all, it was quite the workout for poor Trick’s heart, especially since the next thing it did was damn near explode. The train raced away from the station, and then the banging started. It was the girl! She was holding on to the outside of the train, desperately trying to get the doors open. He ran over and pried with all his might, but couldn’t budge the hydraulically shut slats. Trick looked around, and reached for the emergency stop button, but he heard the girl screaming at him.
“No!”
“What? Why?”
“Don’t stop the train!”
Flustered, the young Wilson quickly walked down the length of the car. Ducking his head under one of the seats, he found a strikingly convenient loose bar. He grabbed and pulled at the metal. It came loose in his hand and he wasted no time jamming the sharp end into the rubber slit of the doors to pry them open.
The pipes hissed violently as the twin panes parted. Wind filled the car and she fell in. Trick gasped when he lost control of the pipe and feared the sharp end in her gullet, but she stood and handed the metal to him with a smile before kicking the doors. They closed without effort and some semblance of calm was restored to the car.
Trick stared at her, but she paid him no apparent mind and so he didn’t catch it. She ran her long painted nails down the clean white front of her all too short dress, returning the hint of her red panties to their naturally hidden state. She pulled a cigarette from her coat and then searched the rest of her pockets.
“Got a light?”
Trick didn’t say anything, his habit of staring had taken his eyes down her legs and back to the floor. He stammered. She followed his eyes.
“Oh. That. Yeah. Never know, since… you know.” The hatchet lay inert on the pale floor of the train car, a small spattering of blood thinning out as the inches grew away from the blade. Trick nodded, though he didn’t really know.
She looked at him. He couldn’t believe how long her lashes were.
“Well, no light, huh? How ‘bout some gum or something? You gonna keep staring at me like that I’m gone need something in exchange. Tit for tat and what not. But no tit, not like that. Not yet, anyway.”
Trick reached into his pocket and took out the unopened packet of strawberry chewing candy. He looked at it, the red package filling his palm. He sniffed once and dug a fingernail under the little thread marked, “tear here.” He wondered if it would even still work, so many years had passed since tiny Vietnamese children had stamped and filled the foil.
The wrapper came off with a noise that was barely audible over the sound of the train as it rushed through another tunnel. Trick’s ears were flooded, and he felt almost faint as he slid a silver stick out and handed it to the strange young woman with the ninja stalkers and bloody hatchet.
“You know ninjas are monks, right?”
“What?”
She took the pinkish red stick of gum and stuck her tongue out to accept its sweetness beyond her lips, pulling it in slowly. Trick was mesmerized.
“Ninjas are monks. Agents of god. They were here to save you.”
“Save me? From what?”
“From completing your sin.”
“I’m… I’m sorry, miss, I’m very confused.”
“Exactly the way the devil wants you.”
She turned and bent, Trick felt his loins a rattler as the fabric tightened to the pronounced cleavage of her perfect ass. She picked up the hatchet and smiled, chewing loudly.
“It’s time, Trick Wilson.”
The next thing he saw was how pretty her toes looked in peeking out the ends of her high heel shoes, and then he saw fire, an eternity of fire, all for want of some gum.
Additional Context: Blatantly Unedited.
2030 had been a rough year for Trick Wilson. He missed his friends and family. The Salt Lake Underground Transit Station at the corner of Joseph Smith Pkwy and Salvation Blvd just wasn’t the same anymore. He and Obediah and Job had spent many an hour leering at the girls in their long skirts and thick sweaters back in the day. Then they had all gone, and he had spent the ensuing year beating himself up for not telling that store clerk who accidentally undercharged him a pack of strawberry gum when he was 10.
He cursed and pulled the unopened pack out of his coat pocket. He had carried it ever since, a reminder of the devil’s wiely ways. For the millionth time he thought to cast the curse’d object aside, let it fester and burn on the third rail, but back it went into the dark of his jacket. Trick hunched his shoulders and slumped against the cold brick wall, and he waited.
It was cold so late at night. Really, Trick knew he had no business being out and about by last train, and spiraled further into the self-loathing that he hoped beyond hope might someday grow sincere enough to please the master of the missing.
A breeze rushed in, the first sign of the great metal tube rushing down the line, notable long before the sound or light would come rushing in. Trick took his eyes from the floor and stood tall for the first time in a quarter hour. He was startled to notice that he wasn’t alone. Across the tracks, leaning against a wall of her own, stood a small woman showing an unusual quantity of leg for the barren wastes of Salt Lake, though Trick didn’t notice on account of her shocking green hair. She carried a black purse and was watching the tube for the oncoming train.
This was all odd for any number of reasons, not least of which was that she was waiting on the Inbound side of the UTS, and that train had stopped running and hour ago. Wilson was, quite fundamentally, a nervous person around girls, and as the roar of the train threatened to force him to raise his voice, he finally found the courage to speak up and inform her of her mistaken location. It was then, as his dry tongue clicked through his parted teeth to speak, that something else strange befell his vision. Two men slinked their way quietly down the stairs across the way. They wore black, too much black, like comic book ninjas (comic books! Doubtless another reason Trick had been forsaken) creeping out of the concrete jungle.
“Hey!” He eeked out, but she didn’t so much as look his way.
“Hey! Hey you!” Nothing.
Light from the train flooded the station, and long shadows erupted from all four figures. The girl with the green hair looked over with a notable start as one ninja’s shadow crossed over the gentle little bump in her skirt where her legs connected to her loins. Trick damned himself for noting this, but by then it was too late. The train had come and blocked his view. He ran to tell the conductor, but stopped when he found only blinking robot eyes in the cockpit. He jumped inside when the bell rang that the train would depart momentarily, and planted his face firmly against the far window to discover the girl’s fate.
At first, he saw nothing. His heart sank. Then he saw blood, and his heart leapt into his throat. All in all, it was quite the workout for poor Trick’s heart, especially since the next thing it did was damn near explode. The train raced away from the station, and then the banging started. It was the girl! She was holding on to the outside of the train, desperately trying to get the doors open. He ran over and pried with all his might, but couldn’t budge the hydraulically shut slats. Trick looked around, and reached for the emergency stop button, but he heard the girl screaming at him.
“No!”
“What? Why?”
“Don’t stop the train!”
Flustered, the young Wilson quickly walked down the length of the car. Ducking his head under one of the seats, he found a strikingly convenient loose bar. He grabbed and pulled at the metal. It came loose in his hand and he wasted no time jamming the sharp end into the rubber slit of the doors to pry them open.
The pipes hissed violently as the twin panes parted. Wind filled the car and she fell in. Trick gasped when he lost control of the pipe and feared the sharp end in her gullet, but she stood and handed the metal to him with a smile before kicking the doors. They closed without effort and some semblance of calm was restored to the car.
Trick stared at her, but she paid him no apparent mind and so he didn’t catch it. She ran her long painted nails down the clean white front of her all too short dress, returning the hint of her red panties to their naturally hidden state. She pulled a cigarette from her coat and then searched the rest of her pockets.
“Got a light?”
Trick didn’t say anything, his habit of staring had taken his eyes down her legs and back to the floor. He stammered. She followed his eyes.
“Oh. That. Yeah. Never know, since… you know.” The hatchet lay inert on the pale floor of the train car, a small spattering of blood thinning out as the inches grew away from the blade. Trick nodded, though he didn’t really know.
She looked at him. He couldn’t believe how long her lashes were.
“Well, no light, huh? How ‘bout some gum or something? You gonna keep staring at me like that I’m gone need something in exchange. Tit for tat and what not. But no tit, not like that. Not yet, anyway.”
Trick reached into his pocket and took out the unopened packet of strawberry chewing candy. He looked at it, the red package filling his palm. He sniffed once and dug a fingernail under the little thread marked, “tear here.” He wondered if it would even still work, so many years had passed since tiny Vietnamese children had stamped and filled the foil.
The wrapper came off with a noise that was barely audible over the sound of the train as it rushed through another tunnel. Trick’s ears were flooded, and he felt almost faint as he slid a silver stick out and handed it to the strange young woman with the ninja stalkers and bloody hatchet.
“You know ninjas are monks, right?”
“What?”
She took the pinkish red stick of gum and stuck her tongue out to accept its sweetness beyond her lips, pulling it in slowly. Trick was mesmerized.
“Ninjas are monks. Agents of god. They were here to save you.”
“Save me? From what?”
“From completing your sin.”
“I’m… I’m sorry, miss, I’m very confused.”
“Exactly the way the devil wants you.”
She turned and bent, Trick felt his loins a rattler as the fabric tightened to the pronounced cleavage of her perfect ass. She picked up the hatchet and smiled, chewing loudly.
“It’s time, Trick Wilson.”
The next thing he saw was how pretty her toes looked in peeking out the ends of her high heel shoes, and then he saw fire, an eternity of fire, all for want of some gum.
FTM is committed to the idea that all art requires extensive practice. The most barebones version of this is the old adage that one must take 100 photographs to produce 1 decent picture. We practice our art, our music, and our writing every day. FTM has engaged with some friends to start writing short fiction on a daily basis, and we will be sharing some of these stories for the sake of our own enjoyment. These stories have a 1000 word cap.
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