I participated in my fourth writing retreat with Red Cedar Writing Project through Michigan State University this week. It was a small and intimate group this year of people I’ve worked with at the previous retreats. I felt a relaxation and relief from anxiety I haven’t had since I’ve started attending. It felt good to feel no pressure to be perfect, and for me (at least) the chilly and damp weather was wonderful. I slept good, I enjoyed spending time lakeside, and loved listening to the rain while writing…

It was good.

I wanted to blog some of the pieces I wrote, but realized I had not put any of the pieces I wrote since the first year onto the blog. So I’m going to correct that. Be prepared for a barrage of posts with pieces I thought were particularly good (though not fully developed to perfection, ha ha).

The first piece, The Head and the Heart, came from a prompt I think I saw on Pinterest? “Imagine a conversation between the head and the heart” and this bit came out. When it was time to read it, my beautiful friend, Missy, read it with me – she being the heart and me being the head. I wish we had recorded that reading, because we each nailed the tone of our characters.

Enjoy

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The Head and the Heart

Head:  So, we need to talk.

Heart:  Yeah….you know I hate when you say that.

Head:  I know.  I know.  But.  You know…things right now…

Heart:  I don’t want to hear it.

Head:  I know you don’t want to.  But you need to.

Heart:  I just need a pair of hands.

Head:  Uh, what?

Heart:  So I can put them over my ears and yell “La La La”

Head:  You don’t have ears.

Heart:  Inconsequential.

Head:  Stop being hard-headed.

Heart:  Isn’t that your thing?

Head:  I’m ignoring that.  So…

Heart:  I’m heaving a big sigh.

Head:  I know.  But, I really need to point a few things out.

Heart:  You don’t have hands either, so it’s kind of hard to point.

Head:  Stop changing the subject.  First of all.  This girl from last night.

Heart:  I love her.

Head:  Love?  You met her and got her number last night?

Heart:  Yeah, but I can tell she is the one.

Head:  Did you figure that out when she stumbled against us?  Or when she threw up on our shoes?

Heart:  When she smiled at us from the other end of the bar.

Head:  So a girl smiled and you just decide that she’s the one for us?

Heart:  Yeah, basically.

Head:  Second, we didn’t even get a chance to get her name.

Heart:  No.  We got her name.  It’s like…well.  I think it starts with an “M”.

Head:  You think?  That’s rich.  I had to type “Drunk Girl in Bar” for her contact info.

Heart:  Yeah, but you know who we’re talking about, so that’s good enough.

Head:  You really are an idiot.

Heart:  I’m not the one with the brains in this duo.

Head:  Touché.

Heart:  Besides, you can always ask when we text her later.

Head:  You don’t think that’s super awkward to ask someone their name when we already have their number?

Heart:  Nah.  Oo!  Ask her how to spell it when you text.  That way we get the name and also look like we care!

Head:  That’s…that’s surprisingly smart for you.

Heart:  I have my moments.

Head:  Lastly.  I can tell how excited you got when she stumbled against us.  When she threw up on us.  When she gave us her number.  You need to calm down.  We really should get to know her before we jump into any hasty decisions.

Heart:  But I love her.

Head:  Again.  Let’s at least get her name.

Heart:  You make this so complicated.

Head:  It’s kind of my job.

Heart:  Fine.  I’ll try not to beat faster.  But, you should try not to be so cautious sometime.  Live a little.

Head:  Whether I function or not literally determines if we’re alive, so I live plenty.

Heart:  You know I kind of play a part in that, too.

Head:  Alright.  I’ll text her.  I’ll ask her name with your idea.  I’m typing away right now.

Heart:  Yes!

Head:  I can already feel you beating faster.

Heart:  I can’t help it.  Like I said, I love her.

Head:  Umm.  Him.

Heart:  What?  No that was definitely a girl. 

Head:  The girl at the bar was a girl.  She gave us a fake number.  This guy’s name is Jim.

Heart:  Why would she give us a fake number?

Head:  Her heart probably listens to her head more than you listen to me.

Heart:  Well, shit.  That’s unfortunate.

Head:  It is.

Heart:  Hmm.  Ask Jim if he’s single.

The good news…that fantasy story I wrote? From “Litterbug to Lovebug” for the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge? I got second place in my group! The top five advance to second round! Three days after finding out I advanced, I got the prompts for my next challenge.

2000 words, three days to write, with the following:

Genre: Political Satire
Subject: job hopping
Character: a rainmaker

I was stumped, to be honest. It’s not as if I don’t know what political satire is. I’ve watched enough South Park, SNL, various movies, and read enough novels to have the gist of it. Reading/watching it is way different than writing it. Especially with a small word count. The best political satire novels that were held up as examples are all ones that have a world build accompanying them, which isn’t easy to do with a 2k word limit.

I stopped and started a handful of ideas, but nothing was clicking. Time was running out. I did a lot of research on writing political satire, and I hope this comes across as a political satire piece. I’m not sure if I understood my research correctly, and I’m not sure if this comes off satirical, but I tried! We shall see at the end of May if I can advance.

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Eeny Meeny Miney Mo

He didn’t do it…on purpose.  What did he know?  He lied to his colleagues about his vast knowledge of Atmospheric Science because, hey, one does have to keep one’s job, especially a job with a large salary and insanely good benefits.  Congress was like that.  Untruths were part of his life.  Who could be hurt from a few little white lies?

Turns out, most of the country.

Well, he had a nice, fat bank account that he could use to disappear.  

A rainmaker, his wife whimsically called him once, comparing him to ancient humans gyrating around a fire to entice the gods with sacrifice and banging dance moves to bestow rain upon their crops.  Climate Change Czar was the official job title. 

Things, he admitted, did get out of hand with his promises to fix the drought and bring the world back from the brink of utter disaster.  Yeah, it was risky to mess with weather and all that, but hadn’t he read a book or two?  There were even some legit-looking YouTube videos describing the process of seeding clouds with…was it salt?  Something like that.

Anyway, it was some sort of mineral and it should work.  YouTube user “ScienceFan1997” assured his viewers that cloud seeding was the future.  Why shouldn’t he have faith it would work?  Wikipedia confirmed it, and everyone knows Wikipedia is a viable and reputable resource site.  It wasn’t as if cloud-seeding programs hadn’t worked before he got involved as the self-proclaimed leading Atmospheric Scientist in the world.  They did.  His plan should have worked.

It did kind of suck that everyone was calling for his head.  Those still alive, of course.  It hurt that no one liked him anymore.  He was used to being well liked no matter who he was that year.

He supposed he should have listened to the so-called experts when they warned that his cloud-seeding plan would have dire consequences, but what did they know?  Their doctorates, degrees, and years of education were no match for his YouTube and Wiki research!  Didn’t that education just indicate that they had money and not necessarily knowledge?  He had knowledge, too, and got it free!

The internet was a treasure trove of knowledge!  He became a great veterinarian at the young age of twenty-three, once he tired of working at Walmart stocking shelves.  You could use the internet to learn and to forge all kinds of credentials, and most employers never did a deep search anyway.  A few hacks here and there and he had a degree as an animal doctor (he forgot the exact acronym of the degree).  He’d had it printed at Staples and framed in cheap, plastic from Walmart bought with his then-employee discount.  

Sure, he had to leave that job for something else once too many of the animals didn’t make it.  One does get a reputation of incompetence in a small town when too many poodles pass away.  It was okay.  He was bored with checking the teeth of dogs and poking thermometers up cats’ butts and was ready for a change.

A fabricated MBA (he remembered that acronym because it was close to NBA and he was a huge Chicago Bulls fan), some fast talking, and a name change got him an executive position at some Fortune 500 company.  He never learned what exactly that company did.  Thinking back fondly on his time there, he had the impression it was something with agriculture.  That might have been what got him interested in farming, which was what he went for next after the company went out of business for reasons he didn’t understand, but was blamed for unfairly.

Agriculture was a fascinating business, and there was plenty of online information about it.  He was successful at running an agribusiness that provided seed, fertilizer, and some sort of other chemicals to farmers.  Generally, those farmers couldn’t afford it, but he’d get money from the government and in turn provided material for the farmers.  It was a win-win for everyone, in his humble opinion.  Farmers got stuff.  Government got feel-good press from bailing out farmers. His business got government money.  He got a big chunk of those government checks.

Maybe that contributed to a new interest in politics.  Some more hacking and fiddling with things on the internet, a newly fabricated life and name, and acquiring a wholesome and gullible young woman as a wife assured him an election win in a little west coast town to Congress.  

He loved his time in Congress.  He’d show up for votes and eeny-meeny-miney-moe his choice.  It was the easiest job in the world, and he was charismatic enough to keep that job for several presidential changes.  He showed up for some committee meetings, expounding his vast knowledge on a variety of subjects, all gleaned from YouTube and Wikipedia.  

His wife gave him a couple of kids, and those were fun to make, of course.  She was a good wife and his kids were nice, he remembered.  He didn’t pay much attention, but he did remember their names when it was important, and his secretary was good at reminding him of birthdays and anniversaries.  He paid his secretary well and took the young man on many trips for just the two of them alone.  

Sometimes he upset the young man, and he felt bad about that.  His eeny-meeny-miney-moe method sometimes forced him to cast his vote on things against the nature of his lover, but it couldn’t be helped, could it?  He had no control over fate, after all, and the secretary was always appeased with lavish gifts and gentle loving.

He had so much fun in Congress.  He felt important and gave long speeches sometimes.  He traveled all over, shook many hands, and kissed many babies, reminding himself not to do the opposite of kissing hands and shaking babies.  People sang his praises because apparently he helped pass many laws that made them happy.  He didn’t often know what those laws were, because he never read the bills that came before him.  The eeny-meenie-miney-moe method was good enough.

Everyone wanted to work with him, and because of everything he knew and his ability to talk and charm, he wound up on all sorts of committees.  He drifted from meeting to meeting when he was in the capital, giving his expert opinion on matters pertaining to education, homelessness, women’s health matters, and transportation.  Everyone listened to him with nods and tapping fingers while their personal secretaries wrote down the details.  There were even a few times where he led a hearing, enjoying the sound of the gavel as he clunked it on the surface of the desk in front of him to stop whomever it was from blabbering incessantly.

Being on these committees garnered him extra money and all he had to do was pass some laws or bills or whatever they were to make donors happy.  It was an easy thing to do, and he got cash, trips, and floor seats at the Chicago Bulls games.  There were lavish dinners and balls where he’d bring out his wife and dress her like a peacock (she was a pretty thing) to show her off.  She was almost as charming as he was, only without the brains.  Still, his colleagues liked her and she did her duty faithfully and perfectly.

Things started going dodgy, however, when they named him the Climate Change Czar.  Some environmentalists were really pushing for change and he was sitting on some committee that had to do with the environment.  The older members got tired of listening to the blah blah blah of the environmentalists, so they promised to make a sub-sub-sub committee with a ridiculously long name that he never remembered.   Because he’d made the mistake of choosing Atmospheric Science as his fake doctoral combined with his vast knowledge of weather and droughts and climate (all thanks to “ScienceFan1997”), he got the committee to choose him as Czar.

(It may also be due to how he helped cover up a few affairs here and there among his fellow Congressmen and Congresswomen with his internet skills.  These colleagues were so grateful for his interventions.)

He leaned on these helpful Congresspeople when the whiny science-y types (so different from “ScienceFan1997” with his engaging humor and clear-sighted view of the world) dared to suggest his ideas were absurd.  The Congresspeople threw their weight around, hushed a few people up, spread a few bucks here and there, and it was smooth sailing after that.  “Operation Drought Fix” was a go.  How else would one fix a drought problem?  Add more water, and to do that, you made it rain.  

Not like the costumed dancers of old, tapping their feet in a staccato rhythm that made the heart beat and ears of the gods perk up.  No, his costume was a custom-tailored suit and his dance was a ritual of handshakes, smiles, and waves.  He didn’t chant so much as he talked, but his words were magic and they all fell under his spell.

In hindsight, he probably planned for too much seeding of those clouds.  It’s not as if Wikipedia and “ScienceFan1997” ever said how much of whatever chemicals he needed to put into a cloud.  There wasn’t exactly a recipe or anything.  No “Place one cup of cloud chemical in cloud and stir” direction.  He made a guess.  

Usually his guesses worked in his favor!  He moved from career to career mainly due to his hacking skills, but once in a new career, he had to rely on guesses a lot, because he couldn’t always look on Wikipedia for answers.  He was lucky with his guesses so far, so he had no reason to believe that his guesses would be woefully wrong now.

Ah well.  His first wrong guess was a doozy, wasn’t it?  Massive flooding throughout an entire region resulting in an alarmingly high death toll, including his wife and however many kids he had.  Oh, and his beloved secretary as well.  The predictions that his meddling would alter the weather patterns worldwide and result in a climate disaster much worse in scope than what he was trying to prevent were somewhat concerning, but he had other worries on his mind.

Those helpful Congresspeople were also wiped off the map, so he had no protection anymore.  It was time to change and reinvent himself again.  Disappear and reappear in a completely new game and probably a completely new country.  However, he was a pragmatic soul with a positive outlook on life.  There were a few unstable regimes out there he could probably help.  All that Congress experience should come in handy, after all.  “President” did have a nice ring to it, especially once he picked out a presidential-sounding name.

He clicked on his trusty Wikipedia tab and typed “Countries of the World” in the search bar.  Over two hundred?  Surely, one was waiting for him to come and rescue it!  Surely, one of those countries was a nice place to reinvent himself!  He clicked on the first entry and hunched forward to begin his research.

I didn’t participate in any of the NYC Midnight challenges last year, mainly because when I checked the schedule for each one I might have participated in, the schedule overlapped a vacation time. I knew I wouldn’t be able to write something and hand it in when I was floating around the middle of the Caribbean on a cruise. The other challenges had similar issues, so I didn’t sign up.

This year, I saw that…yay! I could manage the scheduling of, at least, the Short Story Challenge. So I signed up, and was excited that a new(ish) co-worker of mine, who writes, signed up as well. We could cheer each other on!

The Short Story Challenge is the first NYC Midnight contest I entered a few years ago. I didn’t make it past first round. Honestly? I don’t think I’ll get past first round in this one either. When I got the prompts, at first I thought it would be easy. They weren’t particularly hard. It was a genre I’ve written before, and I thought the subject and character would be easy enough to incorporate.

I was so so wrong.

I struggled a lot with this one. I wanted to try something different with the character. Not something everyone in the group would go to. Stand out, so to speak. And, it made sense to me and I liked the concept, I just couldn’t think of a way to end it. So it feels rushed and off-kilter to me.

I don’t know. My friends who read it before I turned it in and Matt all liked it. I just hope it’s good enough to keep going. The challenge is fun and I’d like to get further than I did!

Genre: Fantasy
Subject: Summertime
Character: Litterbug

Eight days to write 2500 words. Enjoy? I hope!

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From Litterbug to Lovebug

In a forgotten valley far north of any substantial city, lay a small village, protected by rolling hills and sheltered from the worst of the weather. It was a happy village, full of plain, simple people who enjoyed their quiet and uneventful lives as the world turned slowly through the seasons.

This sleepy village, Wolfshaven, was a village where nothing out of the ordinary happened. The years plodded on as years do. People in the village grew up, grew old, and passed on to new generations who began the cycle anew. The most excitement the village had seen in ten years was the day Mr. Smith’s cow got stuck in the mud.

The villagers attributed their idyllic life to the protection of their fairy clan. All villages had a fairy clan, but some villages had good fairy clans, and some had bad fairy clans. Wolfshaven had a wonderful fairy clan.

The fairies in charge of the safety and well-being of Wolfshaven were ruled by their Fairy Queen, a lovely fae who looked as young as a child despite having taken the throne nearly a century before our story.  

The Wolfshaven Fairy Queen was a no-nonsense and categorical being, with a good head on her shoulders. When she took over the clan, she instituted new processes and procedures to make the care and protection of the Village of Wolfshaven more efficient and fair.

She was also a whimsical sort, and when she divided the jobs necessary for her fairies, she named them after the little insects so beloved by her kind. All fairies could do any spell, but when the Queen was a princess, she observed that many of the undesirable jobs were left for last. The fairies employed by the former Queen would do the jobs, but some were always left for last. Specifically the clean-up jobs.

So, the Queen initiated changes, the first of which was to establish that fairies would be assigned a role. The nicer roles were reserved for the elder fairies and the less nice ones were reserved for younger fairies or those on disciplinary duty. One could work their way up by doing their current role well.

Tumblebug Fairies took care of the well-being of the village children. Potatobug Fairies oversaw crops and harvests. Bedbug Fairies assured sweet dreams and restful sleep. Firebug Fairies were responsible for hearth and home. Ladybug Fairies attended the Queen. And so on.

One of the lowest positions, before being cast out and becoming a Bugaboo Fairy, was the Litterbug Fairy. These fairies were responsible for the cleanliness of the village. It was dirty work, even with magic spells, but it was the starting point for all young fairies. None of them liked the work, but all of them did it with the same faith and determination for excellence that all fairies possessed.

Other than being a Ladybug to the Queen, the most highly favored position was that of the Lovebugs. 

Lovebugs were in charge of the romance and love that ran rampant in even the most ordinary of villages. Wolfshaven was no exception. Though plain and nondescript people with little excitement in their lives, they were still human, and lived and loved with all their heart and soul. This was helped by the Lovebugs, who listened to petitions and accepted offerings to weave magic spells that sparked love between hopeful villagers one and all.

The system worked rather well and life moved on through the years with content fairies and, most importantly, content villagers. The fairies took good care of their humans, and the humans in turn provided proper offerings to keep their fairies happy.

It was midsummer when tragedy occurred. The river was low from a temporary drought, a common occurrence this far into the season when the sun scorched, temperatures soared, and breezes didn’t visit the sheltered valley. Heat hung over the village like a see-through woolen blanket and humans, animals, and fairies alike lounged around in lethargic poses in any shaded and relatively cool place they could find.

The last thing on anyone’s mind would be an errant fairy! It was too hot for fairies to be up to mischief. The idea of a fairy doing bad was shocking enough, but to perform any sort of wrongdoing when the sun was relentlessly baking crops and villagers was unheard of! It must be heat madness!

It was with supreme irritation and grumpiness from being roused from their drowsy states, that the fairies were all summoned to the Queen’s Clearing. The irritation soon cleared in favor of astonishment. For the first time in any of their memories, the Queen had called a trial.

——————————————————————————————————————-

“The Trial of Lala Evergreen versus the Fairy Realm of Wolfshaven will now begin.”

The booming statement rang throughout the Queen’s glade, tucked between a circle of ancient elms, shading the gathering from the harsh summer sun, though the trees did nothing to encourage errant breezes to cool the trial attendants. Fairy wings fluttered among the mushrooms, fanning a slight relief to flushed and sweaty faces. 

A few curious woodland creatures roused themselves from their shaded naps to attend the momentous occasion. A fox, two squirrels, a family of chipmunks, and an assortment of birds took their places on the edges of the clearing and on tree branches to watch.

With a dignified air, the Queen sat on the top of a tree root, gavel in hand and dressed in dark robes. Silvery hair was pulled back into a severe bun that forced her facial features into a stern expression.

In front of the root, atop a large mushroom, sat the accused. A lavender-haired beauty with a sweet and earnest expression. Her hair tumbled in waves between her wings, which dared not to move as she awaited the trial to begin, sitting demurely with her delicate hands folded on her lap.

The Queen nodded to the Ladybug drafted to act as bailiff for the trial. Fairy trials were rare, so there were no official court fairies and the Queen’s Ladybugs were called in to provide the court services as required. None of them enjoyed it.

“Lala Evergreen, you are accused of neglection of duty, as well as obstruction of the duty of another fairy. How do you plead?”

“Not guilty.”

A wave of titters rose through the assembled fairies. “Silence!” The clear voice of the bailiff echoed through the glade, sending the birds into a fit of chirps until the addition of a glare from the Queen cut off their noise.

When a hush settled over the crowd much like the heat of mid-day did, the Ladybug serving as prosecutor turned to speak to the masses. “Lala Evergreen did, on the fourth day of the moon waning, place the spell of love on the human Jacob Cooper. Jacob was scheduled to have the spell applied the following day by Lovebug Fata Clearwater. Jacob’s parents petitioned our Queen, with requests and gifts, to use fairy power to encourage Jacob to fall in love with Mary Wheelwright. Litterbug Evergreen made him fall in love with Anna Masters.”

“Litterbug Evergreen,” the Queen said, sending a stern glance down at Lala. “Please explain.”

“I am sorry, your majesty, but I thought it better that Jacob fall in love with Anna, rather than Mary.”

“And why is that?”

“Anna is already in love with Jacob. Mary is not interested,” Lala replied in a calm tone.

“That’s what the fairy spells are for,” the Queen responded in exasperation.

“Jacob and Mary would be unhappy, your honor. I know Anna would make him happy.”

“You are not a Lovebug, child. Nor are you the Queen. You have no opinion on such matters!”

“My opinion should be just as important as yours!”

Gasps sounded among the fairies. The wise, old Firebugs clutched at their chests. The other Lovebugs scoffed, offering up protests to the crowd at the presumption of the Litterbug. 

“How dare you think you are equal to me!” the Queen admonished.

“I do not think I am equal,” Lala said, lifting a hand. “I am merely saying I had knowledge that led me to my opinion. Knowledge of which your Majesty may not have been aware.”

“What knowledge do you possess?”

“While disposing of litter,” she said, making a disgusted face, “I found letters written by Anna about her love for Jacob. They are sincere and earnest, and I think she will make him happy.”

“His parents wish for a union with Mary!”

“Anna loves him!”

“Love has nothing to do with marriage!”

“Then why must we force mortals into love to enter the bonds of marriage?”

The statement sent another twitter through the assembly. The birds whistled in amusement and the chipmunks chittered excitedly. No one ever dares speak back to the Queen! 

The Queen’s face pinched and sweat broke out on her perfect forehead – not from the oppressive heat, but from the nerve of this presumptuous child. “Nevertheless, it was not your place to cast an unapproved spell on a human!” 

“But, they are happy now!” Lala protested.

“Their parents are furious!” raged the Queen. “I accepted the gifts given to us in exchange for the spells. I instructed my most trusted Lovebug to enact the spell. You interfered, child.” The Queen took a deep breath, retrieving some semblance of dignity after her outburst. “If you had a concern, you should have brought it to me, instead of taking it upon yourself. You are a Litterbug and should concentrate on those duties. Not the duties of a Lovebug.”

“Litterbug duty is so distasteful!”

“It is a necessity. None of us like to do it. Just as none of us like to be Humbugs. Yet, the happiness of our village depends on all of the fairies following their obligations. When we fail, the village fails.”

“Have you ever done Litterbug duty, your Majesty? It is filthy work. Worse in the midst of summer. I’m constantly hot and dirty, covered in refuse and sweat. Cleaning anything in this heat is exhausting, especially as the drought has kicked up dirt and dust. I am constantly behind. We are constantly behind,” Lala added, gesturing at the limp-winged, baggy-eyed Litterbugs there to support her.

“I understand that the work is hard and dirty, but we all must start somewhere. With diligence, you may have worked your way up to the status of Lovebug, or another more desirable role. With this example of irresponsibility, you’ve set yourself back tenfold.”

Lala dropped her head into her hands, sobbing. “I-I j-just wanted to do what was r-right,” she stuttered out.

“What you thought was right has put doubt in the villagers’ minds. How can they trust us after such a big mistake? It will take years to set this right.”

Suddenly, the ears of all the woodland creatures gathered to watch perked up, their eyes alert. A crashing sound in the distance scattered them, all except for the birds safe on the perches in the trees. They did send up a cacophony of birdsong, chirping to each other that a human approached. The fairies were in an uproar.

“Be calm, my children! Please be calm!” the Queen shouted, pounding her gavel on the tree root she sat upon.

Her calls did little to quiet the assembled crowd as the noise drew near. After a moment, a human female appeared between two of the elms. In a day of surprises, this topped them all. Never had a villager invaded the realm of the fae, and the Queen knew not what to do.

“Mary Wheelwright!” Lala exclaimed, hopping off her mushroom.  

“Sorry to interrupt, your Majesty,” Mary, a rosy-cheeked young lady with curly yellow hair, hanging limply from the heat, said. “I heard that you had put one of your fairies on trial.”

Drawing herself to her feet, balancing on the tree root, the Queen spoke, “That is true, Mary Wheelwright.”

“I am afraid this is my fault,” the girl said, wringing her hands before her as she seemed to fill the glade with her sheer size. “Please hear me out.”

The Queen could hardly refuse the request. “Speak if you must, child,” she said, gesturing to the expectant fairies as she looked up at the human girl.  

“I know my parents did ask for a love spell, but the truth is, your Majesty, I could not bear to think of Jacob falling under it. While Jacob is a fine young man and shall make a good husband, I knew Anna was already in love with him.”

“I know that, now,” the Queen replied. “However, your parents…”

“Yes, but your Majesty, you see, I am already in love with another. My parents do not know this, but we were planning on speaking to them soon. I found out about the spell and had to act quickly. Anna conspired with me, hoping her letters would be found.”

“You wish to go against your parents?”

“So many people would be unhappy, your Majesty, if the spell were cast. Anna will make Jacob a fine wife, and John shall be a good husband. Please, do not punish a good deed. Anna and I promise to make it up to you with gifts and offerings, and we shall make sure our parents and the village know this was the desired outcome.”

The Queen gazed up at the girl with a thoughtful expression. She was a good-hearted Queen and sympathized with both Mary and Lala. She knew Lala had the best intentions in her heart, and seemed to have averted a disaster that would have made four of their villagers unhappy. However, Lala did break the rules.

“Thank you for coming to speak to me, Mary. I’ll take your words under consideration.” With a flutter of her wings, the Queen floated down from her lofty position to land gracefully in front of Lala, who dipped into a respectful curtsy. “You must still be punished for your transgressions, Lala Evergreen, but your punishment will be lessened. You are removed from Litterbug duty and placed on Humbug duty until further notice.”

Lala curtsied again, keeping her expression humble and meek, though inside she was thrilled. Humbug wasn’t ideal, but it was less hot and dirty than Litterbug. Now she would be helping sad and negative people in the village feel better, and that was a nobler duty in her mind than dusting shelves in a sweltering home.

Mary was happy. The other fairies were happy. Lala was happy. The Queen was happy. It took some sweet talking, but the young people convinced their parents that this was for the best. The fairies were forgiven, and peace and tranquility returned to the unassuming village.

And it was that many years later, newly appointed Lovebug, Lala Evergreen, did have the honor of casting her first official love spell on the son of Anna and Jacob Cooper to fall in love with the daughter of John and Mary Taylor.

It has been forever and a day!

I came back to post a story I wrote for another attempt at the NYC Midnight challenge/contest. I also want to post a few things I wrote at the writing retreat last summer. I just have to find those. I know I wrote some things. I know they are on my iPad somewhere. I just have to find them.

You’d think that would be easy, eh?

Since I last posted, I haven’t written much original material. A few things at the writing retreats. I didn’t participate in the NYC Midnight contest last year, so I had nothing new to add there. I also didn’t get much further on either idea for the original novels. Writing block for those things was a bitch.

I have gotten a lot written in fanfiction – including jumping into two new fandoms. One is Sk8 the Infinity, where I participated in two zines. I was pretty proud of that because when I applied, I had no samples of Sk8 fanfic to show. I got in on the strength of my writing in other fandoms, which I thought was cool. The other fandom I fell into hard was My Hero Academia, and the ship of BakuDeku (Midoriya and Bakugo).

Anyway, that’s a short update on things. Writing-wise at least. Will be posting the short story I wrote for the contest immediately after this. Just wanted them to be separate.

Thanks for hanging around!

In the immortal words of Staind (and probably many others) – It’s been awhile. I think it’s apt that I return with the first prompt from the writing retreat I have just returned from.

In 2019, I attended a writing retreat in Michigan, urged to join by my friend, Missy. It pushed me out of my comfort zone (and led me to create this blog in the first place), as I’m not used to sharing my writing. Well, actually, it’s easy to share it online – not reading it aloud to other writers. Jaw-dropping, amazing authors. Here was me, a little fanfiction writer, trying to elbow my way in amid published authors and poets.

What surprised me, however, was I did fit in and fell in love with my fellow participants. It broke my heart when the 2020 retreat canceled due to the pandemic. I wanted to meet up with my new friends and see Missy again. I wanted to share with them again, and hear their stories and words. Wanted that inspiration that left me in summer 2020 – when I couldn’t even bring myself to write my beloved Klance and KevEdd stories.

When I heard that the 2021 retreat was a go, I scrambled for the time off – an almost impossibility from my job in the summer. I could only squeak out a three-day trip – fly in for the first day, leave immediately after (Monday-Wednesday) – with no time to spend before or after with Missy. At least I was able to attend. Renew my relationships with former attendees and make three new friends. Absorb their beautiful prose and poetry. Write a couple of my own pieces (which I will share here and in a few subsequent posts).

The first prompt given to us was perfectly fitting…enjoy.

Pandemic Blues

Writing during the pandemic.

Stifling.  Stuck.  Stilted. 

A whole lot of ssssssssssuck.

Writer’s block.  Uncertainty.  Lost confidence.  I mean, I barely had it to begin with, and it’s quarantined now, too.

Well-meaning friends try to encourage by saying ‘look at all the free time.  You can’t vacation!  You can’t go out anywhere!  You must be able to get a lot of writing done.’

Except, for me my writing comes from a place of happiness.  Not that I have to BE happy.  But, it goes hand in hand.  The pandemic depressed me.  I normally write rom-com, silly stuff.  In June, I was writing two stories which had both come to parts full of angst and fights and homophobia.  Depression upon depression waves that wash over and stifle me, just as the three comforters did months later as I lay in bed recovering. 

Isolated from family and friends.  Shivering from Covid chills. 

‘You know!  You get two weeks off work now!  You should finish that story!’

Yeah, if I wasn’t buried under three blankets, fighting a cough and headache and the fear that I’d be dead in a week, sure.  I’ll get right on that.

If anything, now, I’m more determined, coming out on the other side.  I muddled on and got through my stories and shared them with my readers.  I posted the last of them a few weeks ago, almost exactly a year after the depression-induced writers block, and it brought me back to the happy place.

Everyone says it, but the truth is life is short and I’ve got more to say. 

To my surprise, I placed high in the second round of the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge. I placed respectably in the middle of the first round and figured I would need to place in the top three of the second round in order to move on to the third.

I placed second.

Here’s a little secret (for which Caz and Lex continually yell at me) for you – I have little confidence in my writing. I don’t know if it’s my general insecurity in everything…or that I’ve read and reread my stuff so many times during writing/revising/editing that I end up thinking it’s trash.

But I liked my second round story (“Kai’s Very Bad Day”). I liked writing it. It was fun. I have the most fun writing silly and funny real life stories. Unfortunately, I had little faith in it. I should trust my gut more. I thought it was good and it turns out, it was.

The feedback, received the day before round three commenced, was so positive and gushing that I blushed while reading it. The ‘things I could do better’ were helpful and nitpicky, which, I get – it’s a contest. There were comments in it that I should have developed scenes more. Given the 1000 word limit…well, let’s just say that is difficult.

On Friday evening as the clock turned to midnight going into Saturday, I received my third round prompts.
Genre: Drama
Location: Luxury Hotel
Object: Frankfurter

I woke up at 12:30am to go to the bathroom, checked my email, and then lay in bed until my 2:41am alarm went off thinking over the prompts. The frankfurter was the proverbial curveball. I wasn’t worried about the drama or luxury hotel part. Humor is my strong point, but I can write drama if needs be.

By the time I was done with my shower and downstairs on the couch, I had the story planned out and had half of it written before I left for work. I finished it later in the day during my lunch break and handed it off to my betas (Caz and Lex) and they had almost no corrections (!!).

I couldn’t believe I finished it so fast, leaving myself plenty of time to edit, revise, and get it under the 1000 word limit (first draft 1157). I submitted it Sunday night and now have to wait until December for results. I’m up against twenty-five people in my group and the top three advance to the final round!

And so, my friends, I present to you: “Common”

Common

“Common.”

The word, said in a voice dripping with disapproval, gave pause to Penny.  The silver knife buttering her bread stopped mid-swipe.  She didn’t need to ask what caused the criticism.  She glanced at her daughter in the chair next to her.  “It’s what she wanted, Mama.”

“Common,” her mother repeated.  Abby, happily oblivious, munched on this new delight – a hot dog – with gusto.  Penny conceded the street fare looked strange in this setting, nestled in the white-gloved hands of her daughter.

“Is there mustard, Mother?” Abby asked.

“I doubt it, little monkey,” she answered.

She continued to butter her bread.  A canary at the other end of the room sang in heartbreak, its voice rising above the babble of restaurant patrons.  Penny hated birds.  They reminded her too much of the woman across from her, who unconsciously mimicked the mannerisms of the beasts.  Her mother pecked at her food no matter how delicious or elegant it was, grasping with aged talons at her silverware.  Chirping gossip and mean opinions, beady eyes constantly darting around to look for something to critique.

Abby asked for another hot dog.  They’d discovered the treat on their stroll the previous day along the boardwalk.  Abby loved them, and Penny didn’t care that the catsup stain on her lace gloves would never come out.

It was nice to see Abby smile.

Penny stopped the waiter, asking him to fetch another frankfurter from the cart outside.  One would not expect L’Hôtel de la Mer D’or to sell common street food in their French restaurant.  The waiter was happy to oblige.  Her mother was rich and a regular guest of the elegant hotel, which made people want to bend over backwards for her.

“You should not eat such nasty food, Abigail,” her mother said.  “It’s common.”

That word sat like poison on her mother’s tongue.  Just as the look of disdain lived in her eyes.  The sour twist that graced her lips.  She doubted her mother ever looked happy, flaunting her ugly beauty as she flaunted her flashy diamonds and glittering gold.  Her mother had been quite the debutante as a young woman, but time and marriage turned her into a wretched old woman.  Penny pitied as much as hated her.

“I’m not stuffing Abby with foie gras all day, Mama,” Penny said, keeping her voice calm.  She needed money right now, so it was best not to start arguments.  Admittedly, the hot dogs were probably not the best idea.

“Why are you here?  Interrupting my holiday.”

Penny suppressed a sigh, glancing around.  It was mid-day and the dining room was full.  Men and women sat stiffly at the tables like mannequins, pretending to be happy as they automatically lifted food to their mouths, minding their manners in a show to impress everyone else.  Gold gilded the edges of the hotel walls and restaurant china, as it gilded the edges of the people, a show of richness – worldly richness that had nothing to do with the soul.

“I’m divorcing John.”

The heavy word fell onto the table between them, clattering among the china, crystal, and silverware.  Her mother stared at her in shock, as if Penny had reached across the table and slapped her beaky mouth.

“Penelope.”

Her proper name burned in her ears.  She hated it.  It reminded her of childhood, trapped in her home like the birds her mother kept in golden cages.  Penny sounded sweeter.  Simpler.  Was a different woman than Penelope – a name spoken with a sneer from her mother, her father, John.  The way they all said it, possessively and dominating. 

Penny, spoken in soft tones, caressing and silky.  She much preferred it as such.  It was…common.

“He beats me.  I won’t put up with it.”

“It’s a wife’s duty…” her mother began.

“No.  He’s lucky he never touched Abby.  Or you’d be bailing me out of jail.”

Her mother’s birdlike hand clasped at her pearls, the talons catching in the rough balls of white.  “The scandal…”

“I don’t care.  He used a cane last time.”  The pain still lingered in the bruise on her back.  

“And what will you do?  You’re not moving back home.”

“I have a…” Penny hesitated.  “…a friend.  Down state.  She’s offered us her home.”

“Who is her family?”

“No one you know.  They’re grocers.”

“My daughter and granddaughter will live as commoners?”

“It will be good for Abby.”

‘And me,’ she thought, her mind lingering on the brush of velvety arms, satiny thighs, unbound hair falling to the waist.

“How will you support yourselves?”

“My friend has friends in the publishing industry.  I’ll try my hand at writing.”  Penny wouldn’t tell her mother Rose’s name, or where she lived.  It would be easier to disappear with her love if Penny’s parents couldn’t find her.

“I won’t let you do this.  Not to our family name.”

“You don’t have a say.”  She now knew her mother wouldn’t give her any money.  

The waiter returned with Abby’s hot dog on a china plate.  The contrast of the common food on the delicate platter swept a wave of hilarity through Penny as he set it down.  She laughed – at the hot dog, at the stuffy people in the room, at the look on her mother’s face.  Her life was flipping inside out and upside down and all she could do was laugh.

“Come, Abby,” she said, standing.  She ignored the lacy napkin that fell to the floor.  “We must catch the train.”  To add a little dig, she added, “Like the common folk in coach.”

“Can I bring my hot dog?”

“Yes, my darling.  Eat it as we walk along.”  She took a last look at her mother, taking in the details of the pinched and sour face.  “Goodbye.”

Abby snatched the treat off the plate and, munching it with one gloved hand, she tripped along next to Penny as they left the hotel.

“Common…” was the last word Penny ever heard her mother speak.

The day before the second round of the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge 2020 was to commence, I received the results of round one as well as feedback from the judges. Out of 30 participants, I placed 7th. This earned me nine points (15 for 1st, 14 for 2nd, etc.).

I was pretty pleased with the result. My genre (spy novel) was certainly out of my comfort zone. I’ve never written anything for it, nor do I really read it (outside of the any on the 1001 Books To Read Before You Die list). I took a chance and made it more comedic. Still spy novel, but comedic along the lines of “Fletch” (yes, it was a book before it was a Chevy Chase movie).

The gamble paid off, much to my relief. The judges hands down praised me for the comedy in the story, saying my humor was spot on and the inner monologue of my character was hilarious and refreshing. Since I consider humor one of my strong points in writing, this naturally made me feel great!

Then, at midnight Friday going into Saturday, I received my next assignment for round #2 – with 48 hours to write less than 1000 words:

Genre: Comedy
Location: a Ferry
Object: a smoothie

You’d think I’d be thrilled to have Comedy as a genre. It actually intimidated me, in a way. With praise from the judges for my comedy in the spy novel genre, I felt even more pressure to ‘be funny’ for this one. I know, logically, that the judging is done anonymously – they won’t know it’s the same author – and it might not even be the same judges. But the pressure was still there.

I think I did well with this one. My Caz gave me excellent advice. She said that this genre totally fits in the type of fanfiction I write, so I should just ignore that it’s for NYC Midnight and write it like I’d write anything I’d write for my ships. So, I did. I had quite a few ideas for it and settled on what’s below, and I’m actually pretty proud of this.

Hope you enjoy!

Kai’s Very Bad Day

Kai was having a bad day. 

‘Kai’s No-good, Rotten, Horrible, Crap Day’.  Whatever that damn movie was?  Even if he could’ve been bothered to look it up, he couldn’t.  His phone was dead.

He scowled at the floor of the ferry, slowly chugging it’s way through the water, brooding over this awful day, and trying to ignore the sounds and smells around him.

Kai’s Bad Day started this morning, waking up late in the muggy heat of his tiny, shoebox apartment, to the sound of his stuttering hundred-year-old air conditioner stuttering its last stutter.  His phone, supposedly charging on his dumpster-dive side table, hadn’t charged.  Something – he didn’t want to know what – had chewed through his charging cable and his phone was dead.  Hence, no alarm.

The lukewarm water of the shower did nothing to fix his mood.  He was out of soap, so shampoo would have to do.  The small amount of steam added to the already damp atmosphere of his place, and whoop-de-doo!…the bread was moldy, so there went breakfast. 

The subway was packed, of course, and he didn’t even have the solace of music from his phone because, yeah, phone still dead.

Oh, that paper he thought was due today?  The one he’d worked on until three am as he plied himself with Monster Energy until his eyes crossed?  Yeah, it was due next Tuesday.  Not today.

He’d found out about it when he stumbled late into class, mumbling apologies to a professor who probably couldn’t care less.  He sat, sweating in the stuffy room, breathing in the stale apathy of the other students.  Or was that his clothes?  The ones he pulled from the dirty pile because the laundry machine in his building was broken and he hadn’t made it to the laundromat.

The day got worse.  He’d thought a mundane job collecting tickets at the movie theater would be easy.  A few extra dollars to add to his scholarship so he could afford his own place.  Except for the kid who threw up half-digested popcorn on his shoes, the Marvel fan who yelled at him for not knowing when the next film was supposed to come out, and the middle-aged woman with ‘speak-to-the-manager’ hair asking to ‘speak-to-the-manager’ because Brian gave her diet soda when she clearly asked for regular and how dare he insinuate she should lose weight!

So, after that long day, Kai was ready to return to his hot, stuffy apartment, make some ramen, and…he didn’t know what. Maybe he had a book somewhere.

He couldn’t stomach the thought of the subway.  He’d headed, instead, for the ferry.  It would take longer, but at least he’d have the breeze off the water.  Plus, it was free.

Except.  The ferry was just as crowded, just as smelly, and just as disgusting as the subway.  Rush hour passengers packed it like sardines, and Kai sat in the middle of a bench, crushed between some cute guy his age with his (working) phone, and a heavily-sweating, older man who smelled like all the worst smells of summer combined.  Kai could almost taste his body odor.

The cute guy was annoying; his leg, pressed against Kai’s, kept bouncing.  Both hands occupied, he scrolled through Twitter on his (working) phone with one, while the other held the brightest pink smoothie Kai had ever seen.  Beads of condensation from the plastic cup dripped onto the guy’s bouncing leg, creating a huge wet spot on his cargo shorts.

The worst was the sound.  He kept chewing on the straw, stuck through the plastic lid, and every bite moved it up or down, creating a high-pitched squeak that shot into Kai’s ear and onto his last nerve.  They were barely out of the harbor and Kai had to hold back from dumping the pink monstrosity on this idiot’s backwards baseball cap and shoving that straw somewhere where it would stop squeaking.

A flurry of thumb movements drew Kai’s gaze to the guy’s phone.  He was now on the text app, and, since Kai was bored, he glanced at the words rapidly appearing on the screen.

L:  OMG u wouldn’t believe how hot this guy is next to me

H:  Oh?  Cute hot or temp hot?

L:  C.U.T.E!  Srsly.  I’m so nervous.  I wanna say hi

H:  Give him ur number

L:  I can’t do that.  He’d think I’m a freak.

What?  Kai jerked his eyes away from the phone.  Did that mean him?  There was a woman on the other side of the guy.  It had to mean him.  This cute guy thought he, Kai, was hot?  Looking as down, dirty, and defeated as he did?  With unwashed clothes, sweaty hair, and the don’t-even-go-there stains on his shoes?

So the leg bouncing and straw chewing was nerves?  What should he do?  If he said something, the guy would know he’d seen his phone, but he couldn’t let this opportunity pass.  In a split decision (because what the heck?  If this went wrong, it would be par for the course today), Kai yanked his backpack from between his feet and dug through it.  He turned up a receipt from CVS and scribbled his name, number, and ‘text me’ on it.

The boat had barely stopped when he shoved the receipt onto the guy’s lap (ignoring his surprised exclamation), jumped up, and dashed away to the off-ramp.  At least Kai wouldn’t have to see the guy’s face if he was mistaken.

A quick trip to the nearest convenience store to spend the last of his money for the week on a new charger and a fast run to his hole-in-the-wall apartment later, he held his phone in shaking hands waiting for it to charge.  Kai’s heart beat fast, and not only from his run.  Come on, come on.  Power up already.  A moment later, he yelled as a notification popped up on the screen.

            Hey cutie from the ferry…

Kai was having a great day.

Because I’m a glutton for punishment (seeing as how I’m part of three separate fanzines, with stories to write for each of them – two of which are due in July and participating in a month long writing prompt thing for one of my fandoms) I decided to once again attempt a writing competition.

It’s from the same people that put together the other writing competition I did earlier this year (in which I didn’t make it past first round). This one was slightly different, however. It’s a Flash Fiction challenge and, once we had our prompts, we had 48 hours to write 1000 words or less. Of course it coincided with the same weekend one of my fanzine pieces was due.

I also was not all that thrilled with the prompts! My genre was Spy. My location was a factory. My object to include was a bedsheet. I know very little about Spy genre – I don’t read it willingly and I’m not all that fond of Spy movies. And how the hell do I fit a bedsheet in? After mulling it over for approximately ten hours, I started writing and went for comedy.

Thanks to my dear husband for looking it over a few times. Thanks to my dear co-worker Joel, who read the first draft. And to Caroline, Lex, Kelly, and Carole, who all took time to make suggestions and check my grammar.

I won’t know until August 26 to see how I did. I know I get to participate in round two. Whatever you place in round one gets you points. Same as round two. Added together and the top five from both rounds gets to advance to round three. Wish me luck!

I present to you my Spy story in a factory with a bedsheet. Enjoy.

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

A Glamorous, International Spy

Okay, he knew being a secret agent or spy or whatever you wanted to call him wasn’t going to be glamorous.  James Bond was fiction, and no matter how cool he thought being a spy was as a kid, he knew it wouldn’t be all awesome tech gadgets and hot babes.  He wasn’t dumb.

If he were dumb, he wouldn’t have passed the initial tests to get into ‘spy school’, let alone pass with flying colors.

He knew it would be boring work most of the time.  There would be a lot of computer stuff, paperwork, and sitting around waiting for something to happen.

Reality was mostly ridiculous.

He’d found a great hiding place, thank you very much.  A dusty, unused office that overlooked the entire floor of this run-down, former ribbon factory.  Granted, crouching on the uneven and rough wooden floor to peer through the hole in the wall wasn’t fun.  His legs started to cramp, and splinters bit into his sensitive butt cheeks every time he moved.  No, spying wasn’t easy, but what could one expect?  He’d been in worse situations.  That time in Tangiers…

His informant for this case – ivory trafficking from Africa – hinted that this ramshackle factory was the base of operations for the smugglers.  Perched high above the factory floor, the office seemed a perfect observation post.  Everything was coated with a thick layer of dust, while the rest of the factory showed signs of recent use.  Dozens of wooden crates lined the floor below, all of which looked too new to hold one hundred-year-old ribbons.  He’d have to investigate the crates once the evil-doers left.  More tedious work.

His inspection came sooner than expected.  The criminals – two greasy, slick-looking guys and three muscle men, stretching out their silk suits with their bulging biceps – decided that the office was a perfect place to discuss business.  A nuisance, really, to have to change his stakeout location.

After slapping a tiny mic under a broken-down desk (okay, so maybe he did have some cool gadgets) he slid down a support pole to the factory floor, managing to avoid some serious friction burns in sensitive places.  His best option was probably one of the crates, so he crept among them, quietly testing the lids before finding one that didn’t squeak and wasn’t nailed down.

He thanked the gods of several religions (to be safe) that his training had been thorough enough that he didn’t scream at the top of his lungs at what he found when he slipped into it, pulling the lid into place.

He wasn’t alone.  

He ran his hands over a lumpy and mostly stiff dead someone covered by a cloth.  And, if his sense of touch still worked, it felt like a man.  “Sorry, dude,” he whispered on instinct for getting handsy, though he was sure Mr. Stiff didn’t care anymore.  He hoped he wasn’t sticking his hand in any blood.  For a handsome, rugged, international spy (secret agent, whatever) who had seen and done many questionable things, he was squeamish about blood.

Grumbling internally, he switched on the receiver for the mic.  The voices of the traffickers came to his earpiece loud and clear.  He listened intently, ignoring Mr. Stiff.  Why couldn’t this damn crate be full of hundred-year-old ribbons or elephant tusks?

At least he gathered enough evidence to further his case.  A shipment scheduled for next week with a location and time.  Enough to set up a sting operation with his buddies from the agency.  It would be nice to stamp a “Case Closed” on this file, shut down the smugglers, and hopefully save the elephants.  

Uh.  Shit.  What did they just say?  Did the muscle boys take care of the ‘problem’ yesterday?  ‘Yeah, boss, he’s in one a dem crates down dere.’  ‘Where you taking him?’  ‘We figure some rocks fer his pockets and a boat ride on the lake.  No one’ll find ‘im.’

Well, that had to mean his new friend underneath him.  Unless there were dead guys in all the crates.  Time to slip out once again for another stakeout change.  Criminals could be so rude.  The crooks were still talking, so at least they weren’t on their way down yet.  He eased the lid of the crate to the side, fingers clutching the edge tightly to prevent it falling away with a loud crash next to him.  

He made sure he didn’t leave any of his limited, but cool, gadgets in with Mr. Stiff and, lying as flat as he could, eased his leg over the edge.  Now that the dim light of the factory illuminated half the inside of the crate, he glanced down to see.  Once again, he thanked those patient gods, but this time that he didn’t burst out into hysterical laughter.

The corpse was covered alright.  Wrapped sloppily in a garishly floral chintz bedsheet.  Green, pink, and purple hues assaulted his eyes.  He thought it a mercy this guy was dead if that’s what he had to sleep in.  Well, it could have been the bedsheets of one of those muscle guys.  It amused him to think of Muscle McMuscleton trying to explain to his wife where her favorite bed linens were.

Quietly laughing to himself (and mentally apologizing to Mr. Stiff), he moved the lid in place.  The voices droned on in his ear, but now he also had the plans to dispose of the dead guy. He would slip that info to the local police.  At least that case could be closed.

And, as he tucked himself under what looked like a rusted out ribbon-winding machine, he knew his case should be closed soon, too.  He stifled a sneeze, checked his recorder, and settled down again to wait for the crooks to leave.  ‘Ah,’ he thought, brushing away a curious spider, ‘the glamorous life of an international spy.’

We got the go ahead to share our submitted stories for the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge. I posted it on the NYC Midnight forums for feedback. I’m curious as to what others think of it. The judging is currently taking place and we will be informed of the winners of the first round on March 31. What a long wait.

However, we were informed that we could share our stories in any way we chose, so I’m throwing it up here on my blog as well as the forums. Thank you for reading – and please give me an honest opinion!

As a reminder, I had eight days to write less than 2500 words that utilize the following:
Genre: Ghost Story
Character: New Mother
Subject: Reenactment

Here’s hoping that I make it to round two!

Like Mother, Like Daughter

There’s a pull.

I feel it every moment, like an annoying sound just beyond your range of hearing.  If you listen close, you should hear it, but you never do.  I feel as if something isn’t right and I’m not where I’m supposed to be, or I misplaced something, but can’t remember what or where to look.

I can’t find the answer in my daughter.  She goes about her day-to-day business, watched over lovingly by me.  I never take my attention from her for very long.  Not that she needs it.  I gave birth to a strong one.  She has grown from an independent toddler to an amazing young woman, who learned everything she needed to know with a determination I never possessed.

She didn’t have the answer as she learned to walk, learned to say ‘daddy’, went to school the first time, played her first softball game, excelled at school, suffered through her first crush.

She didn’t have the answer as she questioned herself, experimented with boys and mild drugs, went to college, fell in love, fell out of love, fell in love again (repeat ad nauseam).  I kept looking for her to let me know, but she didn’t.

She is a beautiful young woman now.  I’m proud of her in a way I can’t describe.  I celebrated every victory by her side, cheering her on as only a mother can cheer – from the moment she was born when I felt the thrill of motherhood the first time.  A new mother – overwhelmed with the knowledge of how to raise a child.  Knowledge I immediately knew didn’t apply to this little girl.  

That delicious chill that went through me the first time her hand touched my cheek, the little fingers points against my skin, sharp nails delivering a pain/pleasure I didn’t mind.  I’d give up many things to feel her scratchy touch again.  

She’s not perfect.  I’m not mother enough to claim that.  She’s stubborn and outspoken, quick to anger and slow to forgive.  She gets it from me.  She’s done bad things – things she doesn’t know I know.  The marijuana she’s smoked, the cigarettes she snuck from her father’s pack, the couple of times she lifted things from store shelves and put in her pocket, sex when she was fourteen.  Those kind of things.  Yet, even with those things, she was an (almost) straight-A student and a ‘model citizen’.  

She had a tough early life.  Partially my fault, of course.  I failed as a mother in many ways.  She had to rely on her father, and he did a great job.  As hard as it was for her, my absence was equally as hard for him.  I should have been there, participating.  Watching did nothing for her self-esteem, her confidence, her character, her happiness.  Watching meant I was only watching.  Not helping.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to.  In spite of the pull I felt in one direction, the pull to orbit her was stronger.  I couldn’t look away and regretted my weakness.  It was the one time I was selfish and I will never forgive myself for it.

I hope she forgives me.

I think she does.  I think she understands.  I’ve watched her enough, hovering on the edge of her vision and awareness for years.  Over two decades.  Close and never touching, but there.  I think she knows I’m there, too, though I’m so distant.  I think she feels when I caress her face or pat her hair.  She reacts, at least, and it gives me a certain satisfaction.

She even talks to me.  Those are my favorite times, when I know she hasn’t forgotten me.  I listen and hope she knows.  It was precious when she did it as a child, babbling to me about her stuffed animals and the adventures they had.  She had such a vivid imagination.  As a teen, she would talk to me about boys and the mean girls at school.  I would stroke her hair as she sobbed out the newest cruel gossip circulated around the school about her.  She’d tell me about college and the professor that threatened to fail her if she didn’t sleep with him.  I somehow gave her the courage to turn him in, causing a huge scandal.

She changed her major that year to law, determined to help other young women fight against their predators.  I hope she knows how proud I am.  How much I love her.  It’s hard to let her know, but I do my best.

Because I didn’t have a present mother either.  She killed herself when I was a baby.  A bottle of pills and she was gone.  Postpartum depression, they called it.  I called it selfish.  I hated her then, as I grew up, with a stepmother who couldn’t care less about me.  A father who wouldn’t talk about her.  

It wasn’t until I was older when I finally understood.  I understood as I stood there next to the cradle, holding my beautiful first child.  I understood the hurt, the hopelessness, the pain, the rapture, the outright fear that this was my life now.  I was responsible for a human being and the pressure of it was unbearable.  The monotony of caring for her draped over me like a soggy blanket, complete with a mildew smell.  I felt weighted down and desperate.  She wouldn’t stop crying.

I’d done everything I could think of.  Accessed every vague memory of parental advice given to me from the moment I announced I was pregnant.  Searched online for any idea, any way to get her to just stop.  Nothing worked.  She was teething and feverish.  Medicine didn’t help, cold washcloths, a swipe of whisky over her gums, nothing.  Her father was at work and I’d had no sleep for days.  I felt unclean, frumpy, and miserable.  How could I raise a child when I couldn’t even quiet her crying?  This should be a simple problem to solve!  What happens when the big problems come if I can’t fix the simple?

When I was old enough, they told me what my mother did.  All the details.  My father’s sister, an aunt I always hated, seemed giddy as she related everything they pieced together.  She was home alone with a crying baby.  She found prescription pills (Auntie didn’t remember which ones), stood next to my crib, and drank them all down with a fifth of whisky.  They think she didn’t suffer, just went to sleep and didn’t wake up.  Next to my crib.

As I stood next to my own daughter’s crib, I thought about this scene again, as I had every day for this sleepless week.  And I understood.  

I reenacted it.  Let it play out a second time.

I went into the medicine cabinet for my husband’s pills.  I’d done a little research and knew these should do the trick.  There was whisky in the kitchen, too.  A gift from my husband’s boss last Christmas. 

I returned to my daughter’s crib, listened to her continued crying.  I thought about my own mother and how right she had been.  She had the answer.  

I opened the bottle of whisky.  She continued to cry.  I screamed at her to shut up, but she didn’t listen.  

The pills didn’t go down as easily as I hoped.  They weren’t large, but to swallow a mouthful almost made me choke.  Ironic, I thought, if I should choke to death instead of letting the poison do it’s job.  I didn’t want to choke, it sounded undignified.  Falling asleep sounded better.  I ended up spitting a sticky mass back into the pill bottle – half of what I first attempted.  I wasn’t sure how long it would take, so I bolted back four half-mouthfuls of pills with the whisky.  Then tried to drink the rest.

I didn’t make it to the end of the bottle.

It wasn’t painful.  I felt a rush through my body, but that was all.  Like the light-headed feeling one gets when one stands up too fast, only more pronounced.  I felt lethargic, and my limbs wouldn’t respond to commands.  I remember slumping over, falling asleep, and not long after I stood to the side to watch.

My husband found me and I felt a slight pang in my heart for his distraught sobbing.  He truly loved me, unlike my father, who tolerated my mother and her depressive episodes.  My husband was supportive and did his best to help.  Sent me to therapy and always encouraged me to take my depression meds.  I felt sorry for doing this to him.

I moved to the side of the crib, stepping over my lifeless body and sobbing husband, to look at my daughter.  She wasn’t crying now.  She blinked up at me with a startled look, the tears standing in her eyes.  Did she see me?  I reached to touch her, brushing non-existent fingers over her cheek and realized what a mistake I made.  I couldn’t feel her.

Would I never luxuriate in the texture of her hair as I ran my fingers through those curly locks?  The velvety skin?  That scratchy feeling from her nails as she reached for me?  The yank of her fingers when she grabbed at my clothes?  

I leaned down and kissed her cheek, but couldn’t taste the tears.  I took a deep breath, but couldn’t smell her.  The only sense working was my hearing.  She gurgled in the adorable way babies do when something catches their attention.  She stared at me, reached up to touch my cheek, but there was no contact and she looked confused.

I never left her side after that.  Something pulled at me, but I felt I wasn’t ready.  Even when I turned to it, it eluded me.  I wasn’t sure which way to go, though the voice sang through my heart and left me yearning for something else.  

Did I regret it?  Yes.  Every moment of triumph or hurt, when I wanted to hug her close, I couldn’t.  It was a continuous ache, but there were good things, too.  Her father never remarried, but devoted himself to her care, worked hard for a promotion to make it easy for him to work from home so he could raise her.  

I watched her grow, turn into a woman, get married.  I stood at her side as she said her vows, patted her hair, and brushed fingers against her cheek.  I think she felt it, the muscle twitched and she shivered.  I took it as a sign.

I watched as the baby grew inside her and her excitement for it.  The preparations they made – painting the nursery, attending the three baby showers thrown for her, organizing the baby things, picking out names, reading the books, singing to the baby in her stomach.  They were so excited.

I was anxious, though.  I knew she was strong, but her mother was weak.  Her grandmother was weak.  I was afraid those genes would manifest during a hopeless night when the baby wouldn’t stop crying and the pressure became too much.  My daughter knew what happened to her grandmother and me.  I feared for her.

A boy arrived, a bundle of perfection, and I hovered over him as I used to hover over her.  He blinked at me as well, as if he could see me.  He was happy and smiled all the time as I made faces at him over my daughter’s shoulder.  Anything to keep him happy and not crying.  My daughter needed to live for him and not be weak like me.

All my efforts were in vain.  I could see the cracks in my daughter’s shell.  The small bursts of anger, the way her mouth set into a thin line as she changed a diaper for the third time in an hour, the wrinkling of her nose as she swiped up vomit from the couch.  It was the little things, ones her doting husband likely didn’t notice, but he didn’t watch her as much as I watched her.  I dreaded the approach of teething, when babies are at their worst.

When the time came, I saw her descend.  Her inner strength couldn’t fight her inner demons.  My weakness and her grandmother’s weakness proved strong.  It enveloped her like a soggy blanket and, in spite of the fact I couldn’t smell anything, I could sense the mildew smell that made her face scrunch as the baby cried on and on.

What could I do, however?  I couldn’t interfere.  I couldn’t touch anything and the baby wasn’t responding to me.  

“Mom.  I understand.”

She sounded so hopeless and I felt desperate.  I thought about my helplessness, the things I couldn’t do as I watched her sink.  She glanced to the door and I could read her thoughts.  I screamed at her, but she hardly reacted.  She glanced in my direction, but it was like a sound out of her range of hearing, something she couldn’t quite grasp.  

She looked at the door again.  I knew there were drugs in the cabinet and whisky in the kitchen.  I read her intentions on her face.  This nightmare again, but now I knew the consequences of a second reenactment.  Saw an empty future for my grandson.  I couldn’t let it happen.

I drew strength I never had before.  From where, I don’t know.  It flowed in me as I remembered times I’d touched her.  The small indications she could sense it.  I reached for her.  That cheek I couldn’t feel myself.  I let all my love and sorrow and guilt and shame flow through my fingers to her.  Please let this work.  Please break this chain.

This baby boy needs her.

She gasped, her hand touching her cheek through my ghostly fingers.  “Mom?”  Her voice was broken and muffled through her sobs.  My heart ached and I wished I could do more.

“You’re always with me.  Thank you,” she cried.

With that, she drew her phone from her pocket and called her husband.  I knew he couldn’t understand what she said, but he arrived soon after, comforting her as I wished I could.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  She was okay.  She would be okay.  To know she reached out at her lowest instead of giving in to despair made my heart soar and the pull at my soul increased.

I turned toward the pull and saw my path, clear for the first time.  My answer.  My daughter would be okay.  Her son would grow up with a mother.  I could move on to what came next.  

It felt good to answer the pull.

When Matt and I got married, the talk inevitably fell at one point to the honeymoon. Where would we go? What would we do? “Europe!” I said, emphatically. “I’ve always wanted to go to Europe!” and thankfully, I had a future husband who whole-heartedly agreed with me.

Two weeks. We planned two weeks. But where? So many options! London. Of course, London. Both of us had it at the top of the list! I suggested Hungary. Budapest. Where my great-grandparents came from. Bonus, because it was a cheap destination with a lot to do!

Oh! How about Prague! I was, at the time, looking to add a little excitement to my life and considered teaching English abroad through a program in Prague. Wouldn’t it be nice to see if we’d even like Prague before we did. Cool. That’s decided.

I noticed, then, that there was a few days between when we planned to be in Prague to when we’d be in Budapest. Looking at the map to see if we could add another city to our two-week itinerary, I saw three options. Vienna, Austria…Bratislava, Slovakia…and Krakow, Poland.

Vienna had the most to do, but was quite expensive – both for accommodations (even in the hostels we planned on using) and sight-seeing. Bratislava was cheap, but there wasn’t as much to do. Krakow won.

Now, here’s the thing that appealed to me about Krakow, though using the word ‘appealed’ makes me uncomfortable. At the time, I had read through a lot of Holocaust history and watched many documentaries on it. I had just finished the Diary of Anne Frank. I knew the concentration camp, Auschwitz, was near Krakow and you could easily buy tickets and transportation from Krakow to the camp and go on a guided tour.

Yes, Matt and I went to a concentration camp on our honeymoon.

That may sound morbid and very non-honeymoony. I agree, it is. However, my logic was as follows: we were in that part of the world already, Matt and I were both interested in it, and who knew if we’d ever be in this area again in the future.

Early that morning, we embarked from our nice hostel into the rainy, wet, and chilly March morning to walk to the meeting point for the bus. We boarded and were met by the driver, who told us the drive would be approximately forty-five minutes to an hour, and he had a small video to show us about the liberation of the camp.

The video played, in English, and the black and white images provided us the story of the Russian Red Army discovering the remaining prisoners of the camp. The other, healthier (and healthier in Auschwitz terms meant they could still walk) prisoners had already been force-marched away from the camps by the escaping SS guards. Watching that was hard enough.

The bus took us first to the second camp, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, where we met our guide for the day, Michal. Michal was a serious and earnest young man, a college student at the time, who volunteered as an Auschwitz museum guide. He was knowledgeable, well-spoken, and an excellent guide.

Auschwitz Birkenau was built to hold more prisoners and make the killing and burning of Jews and other prisoners more efficient. The gas chambers and crematoria at the original camp, Auschwitz I, didn’t kill and dispose at a fast enough rate for the Nazis.

There is not much left at Auschwitz II. The Nazis did their best to destroy the evidence before they fled, blowing up the gas chambers and crematoria before escaping. Enough is left there, however, and the sorrow hangs heavy on this camp. We saw replications of the bunks that housed Jews and other prisoners, their so-called toilets and beds. Heard their stories from Michal. It was horrifying.

Yet even here, with the weight of what happened over you like a wet blanket, there was still a slight disconnect. You saw the place. You felt the place. It just didn’t seem like it. Yes, there was the train tracks leading in. There was the train platform where the SS pointed you left or right. There was the concrete hole used as a toilet twice a day only.

It just didn’t seem. Real.

Then we went to Auschwitz I.

The original camp is what everyone thinks of first when thinking about the concentration camp. The infamous sign hanging over it “Arbeit Macht Frei” – “Work sets you free”. Michal pointed out to us the upside down “B” in ‘Arbeit’ – believed to be an act of rebelliousness from a Jew who did it on purpose.

Auschwitz I is misleading. At first glance, it looks like a town or a cluster of buildings that one might see on a college campus. Possibly a row of dorms. The buildings are mostly similar, square and made of brick. There are sidewalks and inviting steps leading up the doors. If it wasn’t for the barbed wire and electric fences – and the utter weight of emotion descending on you – you might not know at first glance what this place was.

Michal led us on the tour, earnestly explaining things to us. Many of the buildings which housed prisoners, or the experiments of the notorious Dr. Mengele, are converted to museum exhibits. When the Nazis ran from the camps as the Red Army bore down on them, they didn’t have time to destroy all evidence of their crimes. Many things were left behind and exhibited in the museum to draw attention to the scale of the genocide.

Thousands of suitcases, piles of clothes, shoes, prosthesis, glasses, children’s shoes (that was hard to see) and every other little thing the Nazis took from the prisoners shoved through that gate. Each exhibit was worse than the last.

Then we saw the hair.

Two tons of human hair. Two tons.

Think about that for just one moment. How much does your hair weigh? Not much right? Think about how much hair has to be in one place to weigh two tons. A small fraction of the hair shaved from prisoner’s heads was left behind. The museum unbaled the hair and put it in an air-tight display room. Some even still in braids.

It’s heart-breaking.

The exhibits were bad enough. Then Michal took us to the wall. The execution wall, where prisoners were lined up and shot. The thousands of bullet holes that riddled the wall are still there, a background for the hundreds of prayer stones left every day at the site. The windows of the two buildings on each side of the alley are blocked, so prisoners in there wouldn’t see the executions and panic. They could, however, hear the gunfire.

The worst was the gas chamber and crematoria. Those were destroyed at Birkenau, but left intact at Auschwitz I. We were not allowed to take pictures inside, of which I’m glad. It wouldn’t have occurred to me.

We walked into the gas chamber, a dark and large space, complete with fake shower heads. We were shown where the gas would drop in, as well as old, used cans. When the gas dropped, the youngest and oldest would die quickly, but the others took longer and would know what was happening as they suffocated. There are still fingernail marks on the walls from victims desperately trying to escape.

Then we were taken from there into the crematoria and shown how small the ovens were there – hence the building of a more efficient system at Birkenau.

When we left the camp and got onto the bus to go back to Krakow, I was numb. No one on the bus spoke a word the entire hour back. I have never been on a full bus where the silence is that oppressive. We were all lost in our own thoughts. I say thoughts, but I had none. I had trouble processing what I’d just seen.

I’d read the books. Seen the documentaries. It didn’t hit home until I was there, because I can’t stress this enough. You feel it. The pain, terror, sadness, hate, despair – it hangs in the air. It presses down on your head and squeezes the air out of your lungs. It is truly a horrifying experience to feel that much.

It’s nothing you can prepare for, and while I say it’s one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had, it’s also one of the best. I can’t explain what I mean by that, but it’s something I think every single person on this earth should experience. Because this can (and has) happened again since then.

I kept a journal during our honeymoon and, until that day, it was full of bright descriptions of our adventures. I was so excited to be in Europe and explore the places I’d been wanting to see my whole life. Pages and pages were loaded with stories.

And then came the day of our Auschwitz visit.

Six words. “We went to Auschwitz. I can’t.”

That’s it. Everything I described above is from my memory. I don’t have a written record of it. I’ve never forgotten it though.

We sat in our hostel that evening, not hungry and not motivated to do anything. We barely spoke, and I think that we were both just so drained. It was, of course, a sobering experience, and we both had trouble processing it. I didn’t know what to do.

“Let’s go to the mall,” I suggested.

I expected, and got, the strange look from Matt.

“The mall?”

So we went. Across the street from our hostel was a modern mall. When we first arrived in Krakow, the train station sat near a mall, which sat near our hostel. I had mentioned that I’d love to see what a Polish mall was like. I don’t know why, but it sounded like a good idea after the trip to Auschwitz.

I think sub-consciously I knew this was the perfect antidote. This bright, shiny, loud, crowded mall helped. I’m not a ‘mall’ person, but it helped to see young kids laughing and hanging out with their friends. Old people walking hand in hand. Little kids running around with their frazzled parents trying to keep up. Other than the Polish words on the signs, it was like any typical mall here in the United States.

It helped.

Life went on. Life goes on.

One hour’s drive from one of the most deadliest places in history. A place that continuously weeps from the horror of what it has seen. We ate ice cream and watched people living their lives and it helped.

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Today is the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp – and also Holocaust Remembrance Day. Consider visiting Auschwitz if you ever can. If not, follow @AuschwitzMuseum on Twitter. It’s necessary.