“Mooching,” or “Excuse Me”

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted! I got into a bit of a frenzy with finding a place to live, and I’m only just now sorting it all out. I’ve got most of my stuff moved now, and I’m moving the rest, hopefully, by Monday. And classes start up the 30th. This semester, I’m taking Electronic Publishing and Typographic Form & Function. There won’t be as much writing this semester, perhaps the entire school year, so I might try to post more writing on here. This will have to do for today: an on-the-fly (re: hardly edited) piece inspired by my recent excursions from Bolton Hill/Mount Vernon to Downtown, on the free Charm City Circulator. Moving stuff a little at a time. This has been my life for the past two days. Work, eat, pack, move, pack, sleep. Repeat. I don’t expect tomorrow to be any different. Luckily, a friend said she’d help me on Saturday, so we can use her car instead of a bus. Which means I can get almost everything moved. 😉

In any case, without further ado, here’s a quick draft of a potential story I’m tentatively titling

“Mooching,” or perhaps “Excuse Me“

Raindrops in your hair. But the sky’s mostly blue. How can that be? Rain drops in your hair.

Out of the blue, it comes, the inevitable question you’ve been expecting yet not expecting, because who would? “Excuse me—sorry to bother you, but you wouldn’t happen to have an extra cigarette, cell phone, car, dime, or toothbrush, would you?”

You don’t stop. You’ve been practicing.

“Sorry, no,” you say, and continue to walk away. But you know it’s there; it’s all there. Deep in the recesses of your right pants pocket. You chuckle. Pants are underwear in the U.K.

But it’s all there. A lone cigarette tucked into the bristles of a dark, yellowed toothbrush, scrubbing germs and old toothpaste residue into your iPhone’s beautiful multitouch screen, a dime jingling against the metal of your ever-shrinking car—clack, cling, clack. Your baby. Your pride and joy. One day, it’s going to disappear completely and you’ll have to get a new one, but today is not that day.

No. Today, you’re on a mission to find cheap parking—street parking. You hope that dime will be enough to get you started. You don’t usually carry change. Clack-cling, clack. It’s 4:46 on a Thursday afternoon. Clack, cling-clack. As you walk, walk, walk down the sidewalk, you clack, cling, clack. The dime.

If they want cigarettes, why don’t they find a job and buy some? Second thought, you doubt they could afford the cigarettes and the toothbrush, so maybe just the toothbrush. Just don’t smoke. Simple.

You don’t smoke; you’re allergic to the poison. Aren’t most people?

“Excuse me,” they almost always manage to say. That gets you every time. You chuckle; you’re a chuckler. At least they’re polite about the mooching.

You walk.

Walk.

And there it is. The perfect spot. The rain drops away instantly, vanishes as the sun quickly peeks out of wet, metallic clouds for the first time since yesterday. Rays shine on the spot, highlighting it. Bookmarking it for you automatically, like a 3G Kindle. It’s your spot. You look. As you suspected: it has your name on it. Right on the curb. You walk up to the meter: a dollar. Minimum.

But that’s not right. It’s never been that high…has it? You don’t know.

What to do now? Take the car with you. You always take it with you. In your pocket, like a match box. But you don’t even smoke.

A blonde is walking toward you, on a cell phone, and you look up. You look him up—and down. Gucci. He’ll have 90 cents.

“Excuse me,” you say, without thinking, “sorry to bother you man, but—”

He doesn’t look. He doesn’t stop.

“Oblivion Cycle: A Spider’s Nightmare” Re-imagined

My writing exercise for this week was to take a completed story and rewrite it, intensifying the conflict, exaggerating the tension—even to the point of absurdity. Well, I chose a story that was already pretty exaggerated, but I managed to exaggerate it even more, and I cleaned up the prose a little in the process and made a slightly different setup (by adding specific sections to the story).

But first…

NOTE FOR THE READER (STILL APPLIES TO THIS REVISED VERSION): James Joyce ends his novel Finnegan’s Wake with a sentence that concludes only by going back to the very first page and re-reading the first line. When I first learned about this oddity, I found it to be an ingenious literary device and immediately tried to think of a story that could end/begin in this way. With “Oblivion Cycle: A Spider’s Nightmare,” I think I’ve captured, in miniature, the basic “never-ending” structure that Joyce used. I really like this story, overall. I like the cyclical nature of the story itself, as well as the disorientation and short memory span of the spider, living in its own mini hell—hence the word “oblivion” in the title. Following are my suggestions for reading this flash fiction, cyclical horror story. Start with whichever paragraph you like, even if it’s not the first one, and read the story from there; then read it again, starting at the next paragraph and reading from there; and then read it one final time, starting from the last remaining paragraph and reading from there. It may be necessary to wait a few minutes in between rereadings. I think it’s interesting to see how well the story holds up in each “version.” I like to read it from beginning to end, then from middle to beginning, so to speak, and finally from end to middle. Without further ado, the story, which I will now call

Part 1 then part 3 then part 2

So, with her ghastly device engaged, she tortured him, maimed him, brutalized him. The tiny, black, defenseless spider twisted and writhed on the tabletop, screaming in agony until he had used up all the air at his disposal. The drinking glass with which the girl had covered him made both breathing and escape impossible. His high-strung screams echoed off the walls of the glass, and his ears rang, and then bled. He stopped screaming and tried to draw in a breath but couldn’t.

Part 2 then part 1 then part 3

The spider was suffocating, mouth cracked and dry. How long had she been at this? He couldn’t remember; he couldn’t tell. How long before she just killed him? Would she? Or would he have to live in complete agony for the rest of time, constantly pushed to the very brink of death only to be cruelly revived a moment later? While he pondered this, a distinct feeling of déjà vu overwhelmed his mind; it was as though he had had these thoughts a thousand times before, never arriving at a coherent conclusion. Suddenly, the drinking glass that was his prison rose high into the air, and he gasped, his lungs ablaze with a fire that grew more intense with each new breath.

Part 3 then part 2 then part 1

As soon as the spider had reclaimed his breath and his bearings, he charged off, away from the drinking glass and the girl, trying to escape certain death; but he was no match for her, in all her gargantuan, human glory. As quickly and easily as if she had done it a thousand times, she put the glass over him. His millions of legs darted toward the glass, again and again, as he tried desperately to run right through it, to no avail—and the air quickly evaporated into oblivion.

“Knot-Tangle” Re-imagined

Almost two years ago, I wrote a short short story called “Knot-Tangle,” and at the time, I felt like it was flash/micro fiction. A writing exercise just proved me wrong. The exercise asked me to cut half of the words in a previously written story. I chose to revisit “Knot-Tangle” and was pleasantly surprised by the resulting piece of real flash/micro fiction. The original (second) draft of the story, the one I published in the Writer’s Block at Wabash College, was 734 words, and this new version is exactly half that: 367 words. So, without further ado,

It glowed in the hazy moonlight: a knot, a beautiful tangle of brunette hair, wrapped around the headboard of my bed. Through overly moist eyes, I worked to untie it. The mass was thick, but I worked incessantly because she deserved her freedom.

“What’s her name?” Naomi said.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“Ja—her name is Julie.”

Silence, and then: “Oh, Julie! Don’t stop!” She arched her perfect back as best she could with her hair trapped, a prisoner of vigorous lovemaking. Her skin was smooth, damp with twinkly sweat.

“Stop it!” A tear fell from my chin and soaked her hair.

“Don’t tell me to stop. You should have stopped. What happened to love?”

Something died. Darkness poured in through a funnel, and I wanted her to hurt me. Somehow. Just hit me, I thought. “I do love you. I just—missed you, while I was away.”

“When you miss someone, you call them,” she said. “You don’t go out and fuck the first thing you see.”

I frowned. “I’m…sorry.”

Her face was empty, eyes gray and wet. “You cheated!” Tears leaked onto her pillow in two spots, forming a broken heart.

I couldn’t tell her what had really happened, that there was more to it than a bit of hot sex. That, paradoxically, my spontaneous encounter meant more to me than any lovemaking with Naomi ever did. It was something I’d always craved but never had the guts to try—because I loved Naomi.

“For Pete’s sake, cut it!”

Hesitantly, I reached into the end table drawer and pulled out a pair of scissors. “Are you sure?” I said, looking at her beautiful hair.

“Cut the damn thing off!”

At that, I sobbed uncontrollably, and my tears connected with hers on the pillow. Just a blob. It mocked us, me. I held the scissors up, and the brunette strands flowed into the metallic grip of the scissors. I hesitated again.

“I can’t do it.”

She grabbed the scissors and started cutting. The knot—the tangle—turned into a million dark hairs, in slow motion, and fell between bed and wall. She dressed, and then left. My tears kept coming, exploding, like supernovas in deep space.

NOTE FOR THE READER: In this story, I was intentionally mysterious and vague/ambiguous about a few things (not to a fault, though, I hope). This wasn’t the initial plan, but I had an epiphany soon after starting the story: I could make it sexually ambiguous, which would be very interesting, at least to me. As you read the story the first time, you likely read it as Naomi and her cheating boyfriend. I invite you to read it again but more deeply: Try to see it as Naomi and her cheating girlfriend, then again, perhaps most interestingly/shockingly, as Naomi and her closeted bi/gay boyfriend. I think all of those scenarios work well, but maybe that is my writer’s bias talking. In any case, this was a difficult story to write because of the logistics, the purposeful ambiguity. It’s actually quite a challenge to be unclear or vague on purpose!

Cocky Jock and the Pansexual Nobody Nerd

My writing exercise for this week’s Fiction class was to “steal a plot.” Specifically, we had to take a legend, fable, or short short and rewrite it—making it for an adult audience, if it was originally meant for kids. I choose to do the tortoise and the hare, changing the tortoise into a high school nerd and the hare into a God’s-gift jock. No hard feelings, of course. I was just having fun with it. 😉

Any comments and criticisms would be appreciated and duly noted.

I call this 704-word story (or at least this draft)

There once was a nimble-footed, silk-wearing high school jock—we’ll call him Cocky—who was always bragging about his God-given sex appeal and speed. For years, the intellectually nimble nerd—the nobody—had listened to the boasting, but one day, he decided no more: He challenged the jock to a ten-mile race around the school’s cross country track, in front of anyone who would watch. And every student came to see the nerd lose to the obviously superior jock. But it was the principle of the thing that mattered, and the nerd was a young man of principles. He would race, no matter what.

A gun went off to signal that the race had begun, and the nobody nerd watched helplessly as Cocky the jock pulled ahead of him in the first ten seconds. No matter, he told himself; he could still win, and even if not, he would never quit, not against this jackass. He kept running, and before long, he came upon a boy, whom he had never met before and who started running to keep up with him.

“Hi,” the boy said, panting. “This is really brave of you.”

The nerd said hi, and from there the two carried on a wonderful conversation about high school politics, sexual orientation, and gender equality, but they soon realized that there was no spark between them; they were not compatible as lovers. They would, of course, remain close friends. Not long after parting ways with the boy, the nerd happened upon a beautiful girl, whom he had never met before and who also ran with him and talked about deep, important subjects before realizing that she wanted something else in a boyfriend; the nerd felt the same way, and the two parted ways with a hug. The nerd kept running as fast as he could go, which was to say not all that fast, and he soon met another interesting boy to explore.

Meanwhile, the jock was two miles ahead before he realized that he could not even see the nerd behind him. He stopped when he saw a hot blonde with large breasts sitting on the side of the track, crying. The nerd was way behind. What could a fifteen-minute break hurt?

“Hey baby,” he said, and smiled his gorgeous, cocky smile.

The blonde looked up and, despite her sourpuss, smiled back. The jock spent thirty seconds cheering the girl up, and then asked if he could fuck her. She told him yes, and he had his way with her, and then moved on down the path, running once more, the top button of his silk shirt now undone. Before long, he came upon another beauty and had sex with her as well. He started running again when he was dressed, save for the top two buttons of his silk shirt, but before he could go half a mile, he met another bombshell. What a lucky day! He stopped to have his way with this girl, too. But when he got back on the path, his silk shirt forgotten on the side of the road, he realized that he was getting drowsy and achy, and he saw a small, blackish red blob on his bare chest. He ignored it. With thirty steps to the finish line, he collapsed and died, yellow crust forming on his lips.

After meeting a beautiful girl and two cute boys, the nerd eventually caught up to another girl on the track, and the two struck up a conversation. They each realized that they shared similar values and opinions, that they were attracted to one another, and most importantly, that there was a spark between them. Together, they crossed the finish line, where they asked the school slut for a condom and went behind the bushes to make passionate love.

It was an hour before they were done and the nerd realized that he had won, that the jock had never even crossed the finish line. In fact, Cocky had died of rapidly-progressing complications from a sexual infection, a little gift given to him by his God-given sex appeal and speed. The jock boasted no more.

And the nerd was in love.

Red

My assigned writing exercise for this week came from What If?: Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers (Second Edition). I had to pick an exercise from part four, and I chose the one on psychic distance. The objective is essentially to create a story that begins far away from the character, using general/unspecific language, and then gradually focuses in until the narration feels specific and very close to the character—without slipping into first-person. I’m not sure if I succeeded, but I kind of like what I got out of the assignment, a simple piece of flash fiction that’s a lot horrific and a little magical/fantastical. 😉 As of now, I call it “Red.” Oh, it’s supposed to be “within 200 words,” but I just couldn’t get it under 200. I think it’s 205. Oh well.

The girl was removing her rouge and singing jazz classics when the wolves finally came. She’d heard them crying, and was frightened, of course, but she’d never let fear run her life. She didn’t care for that kind of thing.

“Sarah Harper,” she told herself, “don’t you be a ‘fraidy cat!” Sarah continued rubbing cleanser on her face—firmly, but not so hard that she’d go raw and be mistaken for a burn victim the next morning and rushed to the hospital or something.

When they scratched the door and pretended they had knocked and said, “Let us in, let us in,” she looked at the doorknob suspiciously. She thought she’d heard a scratch, but maybe it was a knock. She put down her cleansing pad and went to the door to let in chaos.

The wolves leaped, scratched, clawed, dug. In a rage, they tore her pretty face open like a hunter gutted deer. They fooled and embarrassed her, shamed and disfigured her. They made her bruised and swollen and ugly. And red. So much red. She abhorred the red—the blood and the raw, puffy, mangled mess that now masqueraded as a feminine face.

Sarah woke up the next morning in the hospital.