Friday, May 20, 2016

2 Minutes. Go!

Hey, writer-type folks. AND PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO PLAY BUT DON'T IDENTIFY AS 'WRITERS' - all are welcome here! Every Friday, we do a fun free-write. For fun. And Freedom!

Write whatever you want in the 'comments' section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! You have two minutes (give or take a few seconds ... no pressure!). Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. So, tell a friend. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play.

Eyes so big, I'd hate to see you startled - I'd never do it, never scare you, never pull shady tricks on you. You gotta know that. You got small town bullshit covering you like sawdust. Time to shake the dust. Where we're going the buildings are diamonds. The whole goddamn city is like a Christmas service - just louder. 

You won't believe it, baby. Ain't no fucking diner where we're going, and you're hands ain't gonna be all dry and scabby. You got those eyes, and that ain't all you got. That hair, like a smudge of sunset. Curves, but not too much. They're gonna love you. You're gonna be a star. The best kind of star. Low pro. They'll all know your face, but not your name. That's mine, Jenna. Only you and me know that. Once we get to the city your name is Angel. You are one. You know that, right? You'll feel more legit in furs, dropping hundred dollar tips one everyone you see. Trust.

And you'll stay with me. I got a penthouse baby. California king. You can see two bridges from my window, draped like tennis bracelets - like the water's the court and the net just ... bling. You wait 'til you see it. You can get high and stare at those lights for ever and ever. Now, come on, honey. Shake that dust. It's time to shake the world. 


There's just one thing...

ATTENTION, I WILL IN AND OUT MOST OF THE DAY. BREAK THE BLOG FOR ME! AND GIVE ME SOME STUFF TO READ! Get 'em! :)

#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in!

87 comments:

  1. Ouch... there's always "just one thing," isn't there... Poor Angel...

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    1. I dunno Leland, having just done the small town diner road trip, I'd jump on it Angel, terms can always be negotiated...:)

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  2. Shadow sat at my feet in the subway car. A good dog, obedient and smart. I heard the conductor announce over the tinny speakers that the next stop was Times Square. I took a deep breath. This is where the man always boarded the train.

    I checked my watch. Right on schedule.

    I stroked Shadow between the ears, and whispered sweet nothings to her.

    The subway car was crowded. I was pretty sure that the only vacant seat was the one next to mine. We lurched to a stop and the doors whooshed open.

    The smell of Grey Flannel cologne arrived just a moment before he did. That was his scent.

    “Do you mind if I sit here?”

    I compared the voice to the voice on the tapes I’d listened to for hours, so I might be certain it was the same man. It was.

    I smiled. “Be my guest.”

    “Nice dog.”

    “Thank you, but please don’t try to pet him.”

    The doors sighed closed and we began to move. I fiddled with my ring. Turned it upside down, and opened its tiny hinged cover. Shadow whimpered.

    The train swayed in all the familiar places. I knew this track like I knew the back of my hand. And in three, two, one, the train swayed and I put my hand out as if to steady myself, and my hand met his thigh.

    “Ouch!”

    “I’m so sorry. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how rough the subway rides these days.” I flipped the cover of the ring closed in a practiced motion, hiding the tiny needle inside. “Would you excuse me, the next stop is mine.”

    Shadow led the way through the crowd to the door, and we got off the train.

    The next morning I heard on the news that the president of the biggest bank in the city had died of a heart attack on the subway.

    I was born blind. But I am an assassin by choice.

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    1. Dope twist at the end. Just enough little pebbles dropped along the way. Love it.

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    2. I like that--J.D--but hate the idea of human trafficking--in fact I'm glad you wrote it for the sake of awareness.

      Leland-How is it Shadow knew the scent of Gray Flannel? Just kidding. It's a great piece.

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    3. Nicely done. I enjoy the play of the character acting like they are avoiding a stalker, then turning out to BE the stalker.

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    4. I Love this one! So unexpected!Except I'd give him a more designer-y scent. With Grey Flannel it would be WAY too easy to kill the wrong guy on the NYC subway!

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    5. thanks Maybe Shadow can help distinguish the next one

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  3. There are cold mists and warm mists and mists that hide everything but the truth, but that morning, that morning, the fog was its own truth. Sunrise went unnoticed, blue skies out of sight. Sounds masked in dense droplets, even the birds feared to sing.

    I knew, somehow, before the phone rang, before the emails, that I’d lost you. Your goodbyes the night before were so earnest, so deep, so sad. I despised the miles between us, the miles that deprived us of one last hug, one last kiss.

    The mist that morning, that fateful morning, grew warm around me, and I knew I lost you. When the mists turned to rain, I touched a droplet with my tongue. Salty, not rain, but your tears, warm tears, flowed upon my cheek.

    And then the miles meant nothing, for you were with me, and we ran in the rain.

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    1. Such beautiful language, Leland!

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    2. All the imagery of rain and tears flowing into these three lovely paragraphs created a pool of sadness.

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    3. So Lovely...you use the language and repettion to frame up his anxiety. Almost like voices in his head. And then? A beautiful resolution.

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    4. thanks so much for the encouraging words

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  4. The grizzled old Englishman hardly even broke his stride. He smiled, tipped his silver-buckled cowboy hat, and greeted the folks in the rather-long queue he was skipping, as he strode right up to Saint Peter’s podium. He smiled to him, too, but the first Pope was visibly intimidated when he asked, “So are you gonna let us in or not, ya cunt?” He cocked a ring-studded fist, half-jokingly, but Saint Peter unhesitantly let him pass through the Pearly Gates, to his rock star Valhalla: there, he would sleep in till noon every day, play video games, drink whiskey, and snort bumps of speed, play fast dirty rocknroll music to a packed house every night, have his pick of an endless litany of tight-bodied young tarts, and wake up every afternoon feeling brilliant and ready for more.

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    1. Ha! Rock star heaven. Love it.

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    2. So it's official, even God don't make you go to rehab!

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    3. Fuck no. If you manage to be a decent person despite being an addict, in the afterlife you get to do all the drugs you want with no consequences.

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  5. When winter met spring, with fog in the air and snow on the ground, we walked, two fires in the forest. Dreams and hopes sparkled in the air before sunrise, and we listened to sorrow and regret gurgle into the creak. We had tomorrows and todays, and yesterdays were nothing.

    I tackled you and our faces were long inches apart. Your breath, fresh with mint, found its way into my lungs. We breathed the same air, you and I, and I fell into your eyes and you fell into my heart, and when the sun glistened on the snow, we kissed, cold on the outside, hot on the inside, and we tumbled down the hill, faster and faster, and neither of us cared.

    Too late, I realized we were coated in the sorrow and regret that made a sheen on the creeks waters, sorrows and regrets I thought we left behind.

    We stood up, realized what time it was, and walked toward the car. Mondays and promises and responsibilities were waiting for us, and we’ll never speak of that kiss again.

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    1. "Too late, I realized we were coated in the sorrow and regret that made a sheen on the creeks waters, sorrows and regrets I thought we left behind." Yes!

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    2. Soo romantic! I loved it--especially that sheen on the creek's waters....

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    3. And we'll never speak of that kiss again...I'm putting my money on NOT...Of course they will!

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    4. thanks! and who knows if the denial will hold up in the end? unrequited love... sometimes it lasts longer

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  6. The long-cased clock downstairs in the hallway chimed. The Westminster Quarters; measuring out the lengths of both their lives in a uniquely English style. Darren was from the mother country, a transplant from a land she'd never seen, his vigour unmatched by anyone she'd ever met. He'd been a competitive cyclist and a business man too, developing a saddle that could be matched to its rider, making a quick three million from his idea almost before the ink on the patent form had dried.

    That'd been five years ago. He was a completely different person today.

    Pulling the drop cord on the mirror, she blinked in phase with the tube-light until it stabilised, the glass becoming a doorway into her future. She'd grown old before her time; the grief and his constant demands ageing her even though she'd done her best. She still tried to look good for him but what was the point? The man she'd loved had left her on the day of the accident he'd had. Everything after that she'd done for a stranger. A man who resembled her husband in name only. A poor counterfeit that mewled and cried for her and gave her nothing back.

    She swept the foundation across her cheeks, her quick strokes covering the dryness and pale patches she'd developed. The fast food diet was killing her body almost as quickly as her circumstances ate away at her spirit, the memory of the woman she'd been fading a little more each day.

    No more, she'd said.

    At least Henry had happened to her; the maintenance man originally coming in one day a week to hang the pictures she'd begun to buy. Windows into another world she'd grown to love, their impressionist views coloured by the artists' characters, the rectangles lighting up the rooms for a while when she'd felt at her darkest. The walls had shrunk away and she'd bought more and more, until the time Darren insisted she stop, arguing that his home looked more like a gallery than somewhere he'd feel comfortable living in. And so she'd stopped buying them, moving all the paintings out of his rest room and hanging them where she could enjoy them, the handyman's measuring-tape and hammer growing busier as her husband's body grew thinner.

    An able-bodied man could always find work to do, Henry had said, and it was true – the house needed a man to serve it. There was always something more it needed. The 'one day a week' became two and then three and then suddenly it seemed that he was always there, his easy smile reminding her of another man she'd known.

    Henry could do everything, it seemed.

    Everything but this one last job she had to do for herself. And for Darren.

    She gave a heavy sigh and rehearsed it one last time in her head.

    Choose a pillow; one that's as big and as thick as possible...

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    1. Ohhhh... that last line... perfect build up and then the twist of the knife. Well done!

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    2. Thank you, Leland. I SO love Fridays and the company I keep here!

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    3. "the house needed a man to serve it." So did she! LOL Very creative.

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    4. I was having a lot of fun stacking up subtleties here. Thank you!

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    5. I Like it a lot especially the way she got it all engineered...

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  7. Every melancholic evening, this is what I do. I stare at the sun until it goes down. I hear your voice name the colors, the shapes of the clouds, the sounds of the birds’ evensong. And when it is dark, I light a candle, to your memory, and to guide you home, should your spirit wander by. I pour two shots of jack Daniels, one for you and one for me. I reach into the closet, once filled with your Wranglers and your shirts with snaps, now empty but for a dirty cowboy hat, and I hold it to my face, hoping that a few molecules of your scent, your soul, might find their way into me.

    And when the candle sputters out, and only stars light the night, I listen for the coyotes to sing their song of remembrance, their memories of you. And when they fall silent, I close the door, place your hat back on the shelf, and I go to bed in darkness. I close my eyes hard, and in the stars behind my eyelids, I can make out your face.

    I can no longer cry. The streams which fed my tear ducts are desert dry, desiccated dust. But one day, one day, we shall find each other, and we will laugh and cry and wonder. Until then, sweet dreams, cowboy. May the winds of heaven be always at your back.

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    1. You are filled with romance today and I love it. Especially the "desert dry, desiccated dust" in the tear ducts!

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    2. Beautifully rendered, not too much, not too little, yet to power of memory is all there.

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    3. Thanks! we've been having a lot of fog and clouds lately... I guess it put me in that mood!

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    4. I really love this: "I reach into the closet, once filled with your Wranglers and your shirts with snaps, now empty but for a dirty cowboy hat" - and the alliteration and the end. Really sings.

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    5. LOL, I was SURE you'd like the shirts... thank you!

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  8. Apathetic eagles lick the tree-line as the breeze picks up, lifting the bandana off your face. It's cold, but it is an alive cold. A cold with heartbeat and soul - let them laugh all they want. You're not afraid of people laughing at you. If you were, you wouldn't be out here, bundled up for the Iditarod, chasing slick, shimmering trout, moving your waders slow, thinking, 'mush, mush, - no, you don't care if anyone laughs. You care about falling in the water. A little about catching fish. A lot about silence. Natural silence, which can deafen you with its melody.

    The light reflects off the riffles in the pool and your heart catches. No reason. Or all the reasons. The beauty. The explosions of golden light on the cold water, ice on the banks. Ice in the guides on your rod. You laugh into the sky. Wonder at it. Wish you could believe that your Paupa is up there on a cloud, still saying, 'tick, tick, tick - and then you set the hook real gentle' - you feel his hard fingernail on the inside of your wrist tapping out the secret.

    You are more you when you are by the water. There are no people to talk to. There is no one to wonder at. What are they thinking? Why aren't you listening? Why are you crafting sentences before you even have anything to respond to? Fear. That's clearly it. But there's no fear out here. At least not that kind. There is hypothermia. There are possibilities. You might never make it out. It's OK.

    They might find you by the stream, and that wouldn't be so bad. Hell, maybe that would be great. An old woman, covered in snow. Frozen solid. Right down to the smile. Still holding that old fly-rod, and everyone will smile. Damndest thing.

    And you'll be a legend. The frozen woman of the stream.

    The fish will watch over you. The eagles will keep their distance. The wind and the snow will cover you with their absolutions. Or you will go home, make a cup of tea. Think about the fish and the eagles. The house will be empty, but there is a joy in that, too. It's been long enough.

    It's been long enough.

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    1. This may be one of the most beautifully descriptive landscape paintings I've read from you.... I was right there with her... and it was awesome... the repetition of the last line made for an excellent close... I really like this.

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    2. When bucket list meets Indian folklore. "There's no fear out here." It's her destiny whether she freezes or not. So creative.

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    3. You are more you when you are by the water...I feel that in every single pore...

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  9. Something smelled fishy. Dark musty hallways reminded me of walking through a property that used to be one of those beachy seafood places that had great views of the ocean but mediocre food. The curtains were drooping from their vivid, depressing past. These weren’t the type of happy, flowing curtains that saw daylight or children playing in the street. These were old insulated hospital curtains that saw nothing but sorrow, inevitable death. I burst into the room, happy to meet his weak, forced smile. “Dude. You have to get out of here. Like now.”
    He nodded with agreement and asked for his bedpan. “Yeah, no kidding,” he said with a scratchy sounding throat. One day ago, they removed the respirator.
    I wanted him to know he was needed and loved. “You’ve got lots to do, man. You know that right?” It came out sounding as if he had chores to do and leaves to rake.
    He smiled again and rolled his eyes. “No shit.”
    He had walked into the hospital with a stomachache and here he was in hospice. This was that tall, blonde guy you see windsurfing. This was the healthy looking guy who didn’t drink or smoke. This was the guy who was waiting for the right girl with a twinkle in his teal eyes.
    “Can you pull those drapes for me? I’d love to see some sunshine.”
    None of this seemed right and none of it ended with happily ever after. Whether a medical mistake or a divine push from above, we may never know what happened. And, as I pulled on the malodorous curtain, I knew we had to get him home.

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    1. Such strong tension... hope layered with despair... and ending in stubbornness... good stuff!

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    2. Oh dear...this makes us all wonder. What really keeps us going? And "Home" is the keyword here. Where is that, exactly?

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    3. I agree with Leland. Really taut piece. No cracks.

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  10. Can I try a two-parter?

    The sound of a rough, untamed horse squealing and kicking up the dust as it’s being broken to accept a man in a saddle on its back can be as gut-wrenching as the feeling experienced by the young man whose job it to climb aboard that back and hold on for his life or primacy.
    And so it was when the Circle-A’s head wrangler, Lew Bledsoe prepared to mount, for the fourth time that afternoon, the buckskin mustang with no name yet. The cowboys just called him Horse.
    “I really thought I had ‘em last time boys,” Lew said to the surrounding cowboys who’d knocked off early and come over by the breaking corral to see the show. Lew never sent an audience away disappointed.
    By the tall rails that surrounded the corral, ranch owner Andy Atkisson had to laugh.
    “Haw, That one ain’t getting broke, plain and simple, Lew. Probably gonna geld him and see if that takes some of the piss and vinegar out of him. Or better we should put him out of your misery,“ he called to his top wrangler.
    “I got a few more tricks under my hat, boss. Just you watch this time.”
    Horse was tied close to a snubbing post and one of the other wranglers had draped a blanket over his eyes. Lew once more cooed into the mustang’s ears, just as his teacher, the Arapaho Sam Talks-To-His-Horses taught him. Horse’s ears levered from flat to vertical and swiveled with each change in the wind, whispers or energy around him.
    “Hold pretty tight until I give you the nod, boys,” Lew told his helpers. But for God’s sake, stay still and numb-like until I do.”
    Lew leaned gently against the quivering colt and floated his hand from Horse’s jaw to his withers and back again, all the while chanting Sam’s prayer for a union between Man and Animal. The last time he brought his hand back to Horse’s withers, he grasped his best breaking saddle’s pommel, took a breath, bounced a bit on his right foot as he lifted his left into the stirrup.
    Just a little, Lew, he thought. Don’t want him spooked too much again. He pulled his weight up off the red dust that had been pounded hard by the twelve horses he’d already broken that day. He slowly lifted his right leg over the mustang’s back, pulled down his hat, took a long breath in, slowly let it out and nodded to the helpers.
    * * *
    At a cabin about two miles from the ranch, Inés Bledsoe was saying goodbye to a surprise guest, Bess Atkisson, Andy’s wife.
    “Now you be sure to give a holler if you need anything, Inés. We’re just a hoot over the hill and you know how fast word gets from here to there around here.
    Inés gave a small smile, and thought, Yes, and wait until I get Lew home and give him a piece of my mind for telling Andy that we’re expecting. Only thing moves faster than news is gossip and Bess beats gossip in every race.
    “I most surely will, Bess. You’re most kind to us. When the baby comes, I’m sure we’ll need some help for a day or two with Luciana. Her father can tame a thousand pounds of horse like falling off a log, but one nine-year-old girl is too much for him,” Inés said.
    Bess Atkinson settled her skirts around her and beneath the seat of the black buckboard and laughed.
    “Well, Inés, Little Lu might be a little wilder than the average mustang and is twice as smart. Or so I’ve heard from… Well, so I’ve seen,” Bess said.
    Yeah, you heard from your sister the school teacher, Inés thought.
    “Luciana’s charms precede her wherever she goes, I am afraid. You have a safe ride home, Bess. And thank you,” Inés said.
    When Bess’ buckboard disappeared in the dust surrounding the Bledsoe place, Inés returned to her housework, pouring some of the water she always kept boiling on the wood stove into one small tub to heat up the wash water and continued to clean the morning breakfast dishes.
    As she pulled Lew’s coffee mug from the wash water to slip it into the rinse water, Inés felt a sharp pain in her belly. She gasped as the mug slipped from her soapy hands and dropped toward the puncheon floor.
    * * *

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  11. In the one-room schoolhouse two miles south of the Bledsoe place and an equal distance from the Circle-A, Luciana Bledsoe was done listening to Miss Cornelia drone on about Jesus and something called con-joo-gation of verbs like it’d been handed down to her by Jesus Himself.
    Luciana, called Little Lu since she was three and tried riding the family dog, turned toward the window and imagined her papa melting wild mustangs into the beginnings of all manner of ranch stock. She imagined climbing atop wild mustangs, too. She’d be known as Little Lu Bledsoe, Girl Wrangler of the Circle-A.
    “Luciana Maria, you quit that wool gathering, fold your hands as in prayer and look front and center of this classroom,” Miss Cornelia said. In her hand was her dog-eared copy of the King James Bible, which she was known to use for boxing the ears of inattentive students of either gender.
    “Horses again, Luciana Maria?” Miss Cornelia said and raised her Bible as if she planned to smite the Girl Wrangler of the Circle-A. But instead, she slapped the book down in front of Lu and pointed to a verse from Psalm 32.
    “You will please stand and read this aloud for the class…and yourself.”
    Lu picked up the book, stood and squinted at the tiny print.
    “Yes’m, Miss Cornelia,” she said and read:
    “Psalm 32, Verse 9. Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.”
    “Do not be as the horse, Luciana Maria. Get your head out of the clouds and become educated. I do not wish to hold you in with the bit or bridle of harsh discipline until you do,” Miss Cornelia said, turning and returning to the front of the classroom.
    “I bet my papa could give them horses plenty of understanding with nothing than a hackamore made from this belt and your mama’s apron strings,” Lu whispered to her friend, Marisol Eugenia Pillow, who giggled in response.
    “You will write that verse fifty times after class, Luciana. Shall we continue?”
    * * *
    The Circle-A cowboys lifted the limp body of Lew Bledsoe through the rails of the corral. The back of his head poured blood from a crescent-shaped wound, where the mustang called Horse had stomped upon him after flipping onto his back, pinning the wrangler beneath his half-ton body. As Andy Atkisson said, this was a mustang that never would be broken. Would rather die first.
    “Boss, who’s gonna tell Inés?” said Johnnie Pillow.
    “I’ll fetch Bess and we’ll both go over and tell the poor girl,” Andy said. “Now fetch me my Marlin from my saddle, Johnnie. I got another job to attend to first.”
    * * *
    Inés Bledsoe wiped cheeks and picked up the pieces of Lew’s china coffee mug. She didn’t know what to tell him. He’d used it every day since before they were married. Again, Inés felt a pain in her belly. She made the Sign of Cross, kissed her fingers and began to sob just as the sound of a rifle shot raced in her door like gossip from the Circle-A.
    At the school, Luciana had just begun her thirteenth time writing Psalm 32. Lu thought maybe she’d better obey Miss Cornelia before the biddy fitted her for something like a schoolmarm’s harsh Mexican bit like her papa once showed her.
    Lu looked up at Miss Cornelia, reading her bible at her little table. She thought the teacher, with her long nose pointed down at God’s holy word, looked like a picture of St. Luke from her Grandma’s big bible. Or maybe like Mr. Atkisson’s gray gelding. She giggled, which felt mildly blasphemous, so she returned to copying King David.
    She never noticed the crack of the .30-caliber Marlin repeater as it raced across the flatland. It was as if it bounced off Miss Cornelia’s wall like sin off a saint.
    In the corral at the Circle-A, twelve newly broken horses settled down after Atkisson fired a bullet into the head of the mustang with no name. Next to the horse squatted Lew Bledsoe’s hat, crown-side up and crushed. Onto its big brim the dust of a day’s dirty business settled, too, slowly turning it from a sweat-stained dawn yellow to sunset red.
    (Thanks for your kind indulgence)

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    1. Wow.... absolutely awesome! Nice story-weaving, and a sad tale to tell... I like the symbolism of the cup and hat, too...

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    2. Are you transitioning from cowboy to writer because this is dope!

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    3. Thank you very much, folks. This is a first-draft story I wrote Wednesday. No, never a cowboy, though I have this incredible urge to write Westerns as well as my gritty city tales (besides my poetry). Of course, the market for Westerns is as dry as the Sonora these days.

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    4. Actually, I stumbled across a new category of western on Amazon the other day... it was under Science Fiction! and it had stuff that sounded a lot like Firefly!

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    5. Gorgeous work, guy. The subtle inter connectedness of events? Brilliant!

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    6. Yup, I agree with everyone else. And I love western form. You did it really well. "Only thing moves faster than news is gossip and Bess beats gossip in every race." Love it.

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  12. They put the wires in your spine and you can't even feel them. But you know they're there. You know you wouldn't do it if they weren't. It's not up to you. It's not a choice. That helps. The blood still turns your stomach, but it helps to know it's not your fault.

    Sometimes, you can hear static. Radio waves or something. A buzzing. To keep you distracted, which will keep you focused. They're fucking smart. They know what they're doing.

    That's the thing - you can't beat them and it's not a question of joining them because you don't even know how to find them. And they know exactly how to deal with people who become too curious.

    If nothing else, you know all about that.

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    1. ohhhh... science fiction? or the meanderings of a madman? Either way, I like it!

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    2. This evokes a feeling that I get any time I am in for a procedure. One never truly knows what has happened when one is under, but one suspects.

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    3. EEKS! That feeling of conspiracy...so right on!

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  13. Don't move! Lol. They are watching....

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  14. My grandmothers died confused. I guess you could say that's better than dying in pain, but you could say the opposite, too. You could talk about different kinds of pain. You could talk about it forever. For me, it meant that they were scared, which I didn't like. And it hurt in a way you can't put into words. Two women: kind, constant - the women who made me tell jokes because they thought I was funny. The women I told jokes to even though I didn't like telling jokes. The women who cooked things they knew would make me smile. The women who never yelled at me. The women who held me when I was scared -held me in a way no one had before. And no one has since. It hurts when those women call you by the wrong name. Get irritated. It hurts when you know they're lost in some gray abandon and you can't pull them out. The doctor's words hurt. And, soon enough, everything becomes hurt. Except for brief moments when they are traveling. Telling you that Billy will be here soon and they need to get ready for the date, giggling schoolgirls dreams. Makes you want to smile while you break something.

    I never met anyone named Billy. And Pa's not coming back - he died long ago. Sometimes you tell them. Sometimes you don't. I tried to swallow it all. Call me John, that's OK. He died and I'm alive and you loved us both. I get it. It's fine and it makes you smile and I can bury this hurt.

    It was the looks that killed me. The fear, but also the paranoia. The sudden turns. One minute, holding an old, soft hand. The next, feeling like I'm a peeping Tom. A pickpocket. Something. Those eyes, rheumy, accepting on some level that they will never leave this hospital room. Wondering if you're to blame. If you're in on it.

    It was a long time ago, but I don't think it will ever stop being unfair. I could have handled a swift death. It would have hurt me, but I could have handled it. It was the expanse of death. The weeks and months spent saying: "It can't possibly be too much longer." Wondering if your hope made you a bad person or a good person or just a person.

    So many years ago. But those memories throb. They smell like peach cobbler and coffee cake. They sound like the shuffling of cards for games with rules so complex you can't navigate them. They sound like the clang of the dinner bell and they're as deep as the well. My kids may never hear that clang. They may never see an honest to God well. They may never work a pump handle and splash cool water on their faces when it's so hot the air moves.

    They'll hear stories. And I'll wish I was a good enough story teller to do the stories justice.

    But I'm not.

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    1. But you are. And this story proves it... the scents, the smells, the sounds... so amazingly awesome... truly a beautiful piece.

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    2. Memories that smell like peach cobbler gave me pause-made me think you are an amazing story teller.

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    3. Wondering if your hope made you a bad person or a good person or just a person. That's the whole thing, right there. Terrific!

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  15. Splashes of light played across her face, reflected on her glasses. It was mostly blue, though there were plenty of other colors involved. The room was a bit dark, so the colors glowed and shone more brightly.

    Here was a photo of a mangled dog. A flash and the scene changed to an apartment fire, a real inferno. It switched again to an older man and woman screaming into each others faces at a supposed debate.

    She looked for something happier, some moment of that would spark a childhood memory, or simply make her smile. There was nothing, no matter how deeply she dug.

    With a sigh, she stroked the cat in her lap and turned Facebook off. "Let's go find the kitty treats, shall we?"

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    1. Aw, sweet... and what a good thing to remember... Facebook CAN be turned off! But wait! there are CAT VIDEOS! and cute dog pictures!

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    2. Well said--sometimes you create the happy and that can outplay anything on FB.

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    3. No Kidding...Facebook...there is always something realer than that...

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    4. I like this! Clever, but not at the expense of the writing.

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  16. An old man: "Sometimes I think the only important things that happen happen between a woman's legs."

    A young woman: "That sounds like something you would think."

    "Today I saw a ladybug with no spots. Just a flawless shiny bloodred dome moving on a leaf. It looked more like a machine."

    "It is a machine. We're all machines. Soft, wet machines."

    "But a female machine. Or we wouldn't call it lady."

    "I've never used this word to describe anyone before, as it's the type of word you only hear in movies or read in books, but you're incorrigible."

    "Listen, chica. When I was a tiny boy, I believed. I prayed to the big god they told us about in church and in school. I asked that god to help me when I felt sad or lost. I fought in a war and took refuge with a whore, and while I knelt and was tender and attentive, I asked that I become a better lover. I was present when my daughter was born and I asked that same god to make me a good father. I'm an old man now and the final darkness is not too far away, yet I gotta say out loud that I've spent most of my life waiting for anything resembling a response."

    "That's a lonely thing."

    "You got that right."

    "So that's why you're here?"

    "Kinda. Why do you want to know? I pay you and I get what I want and then we're done."

    "Because it's more than that. I know you. You may be an old bastard, and a cranky one at that, but you're not some anonymous client. I watched you cry that time."

    "Fuck that. I was a pussy back then."

    "No you weren't."

    "Anyway, I thought you said we're all machines. None of this matters, if that's the case."

    "Nothing sadder than a sad robot."

    "…"

    "See? Okay, I gotta ask. Are you depressed?"

    "That's a simple question with a complicated answer."

    "So answer. I got time."

    "Ha. You're a tenacious little cunt, aren't you? But okay. I'll give you the simple version, since you're like a pit bull chewing on a femur and I like that the same way I admire Jack Nicholson's character in that movie with the big Indian. Or perhaps the big Indian himself. Hell yeah, I'm depressed. But I'm no more depressed now than I was last week, last year, last decade. You learn to deal. And some days I deal better than others."

    "Tell me more."

    "What are you, my therapist?"

    "Nah, I'm curious."

    "Right. Okay, you wake up in the flat grey morning of a gloomy Sunday. Sometimes that feels like the end of things, other times it feels like it's the low point you might climb out of. Or rise, like that firebird. It's always there, a giant fucking shadow. If you let it, it will drop from above, a tear-soaked canopy, and impede your every step. You won't be able to escape your bed, let alone some mythic fire. But you can't. You can't let it win. You gotta keep finding ways to let the light in. Fill the days with good. Could be a handful of blue M&M's one day, a Warner Bros cartoon the next. Things that are light, and free of that awful weight."

    "I never heard you say so many words."

    "Well, you asked."

    "I did do that."

    "I like something else about you. Can you guess what?"

    [To be continued on my blog later, as this one wants to keep on going...]

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    1. "To be continued..." are the sweetest words you write... looking forward to the rest!

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    2. I just had a discussion with a friend about how car engines only last five to ten years as opposed to the human engine which God made to last almost a hundred.

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    3. Loving this. Awesome dialogue. And this is so good: ""Nothing sadder than a sad robot.""

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  17. Over there, in the darkest corner of memory, behind the cobwebs of remorse, you see her waiting. Waiting for someone to disturb the symmetry, the design she built so carefully, with such intent. Patient she is, even when hungry. A million eyes see every mote of dusty longing.

    The buzz puts her on alert. She tenses in anticipation until her prey is caught in the silk of stories half-remembered. She scurries aerialist-style to prevent the breakage of her construct, to wrap the struggler in soft filaments, for future gratification.

    Once you open the door to Grandma’s stories, she never lets you go.

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    1. Do they come with milk and cookies? Nicely played.

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    2. Love that comparison--would make a nice poem--or maybe it already is one.

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    3. Poem is an amorphous word in my mind. Everything is poetry. Or nothing. Regardless, this is lovely.

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  18. Writing papers is never fun, but when the topic is one that the student is already quite familiar with, it can be an excellent writing exercise.

    She looked down at the paper she was working on, deciding to just plow right in and add the statistics and references later.

    "Cats are excellent companion animals. They are not tame, however. True to their nature, they are hunters of the highest natural order. They care considered to be a top predatorial threat to wildlife. Statistically they are blamed for the global extinction of at least 33 species.

    Most of those extinction statistics are based on the introduction of feline species to environments where they did not naturally develop and so became apex predators in an amazingly short period of time. The species in question did not have time to evolve proper self-defense modes to ensure their survival. This is what happens when humans demand pets that are not native to their habitats.

    Various avians, canids, vulpines and members of Leporidae have enacted similar atrocities around the world."

    She thought for a moment, then added, "Not to mention homo sapiens."

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    1. Hehehe! I just came back after leaving my 3 cats for 4 days with plenty of food water, etc.Even then, my acceptance back into the house was decidedly conditional...

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    2. It's truth, and it's a good story

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    3. Yup, agreed. And cool tone/voice. Really sets the piece.

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  19. "You shouldn'a be coming into low places like this," he grumbled as followed her through the door. Liam feared no disguise would hide Kait's demeanor or grace.

    "I have been in worse, I assure you," she said in an undertone. "Find us a spot, will you?"

    Boldly moving away from him, her stride and carriage changed suddenly. She bellied up to the plank that passed for a bar.

    "'Ere now!" she called over the noise. "I'll 'ave two, if it please yer ta take me coin!" She held up a pair of dull coins in grimy fingers for the barkeep to inspect. He drew forth two coarse clay mugs, pulled them mostly full from a bunged cask behind him, and traded them deftly for the coins. Kait took the mugs up carefully so as not to spill them on some unworthy lout, and turned to scan the room for Liam.

    He'd found a spot in the inglenook, his back against the wall. She plunked the mugs down on the rickety little table before easing herself onto the bench beside him.

    "Best ah could do," he muttered.

    "Well enough," she replied. "Watch the brew. 'Tis nigh unto poison, but not bad for this sort of custom."

    So saying she lifted her mug, saluted him with it, and took a deep pull of the murky fluid beneath the dirty looking foam.

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    1. Great scene-setting, and you taught me a new word! I didn't know what "inglenook" was, other than a winery! Thank you!

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    2. Agreed about the scene, but I think I'm more impressed by the authenticity of the dialogue. Hard to pull off, and you did. :)

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  20. Writing without a safety net, he bared himself. Only his words to show what he was or what he hoped he'd be. Passing from brain to hand, his thoughts stuttered, running dry like a summers' well and then coughing again. Nothing and everything, loves and trials he'd fought, small victories and crashing wordlessnesses, they all mirrored him, the man sitting in the dome beneath his brow. Maybe he was just dreaming. Maybe he was the dream. Maybe none of this would matter. Tomorrow might be the test of it all.

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    1. I like it.... the first line most of all... "Writing without a safety net..." brilliant.

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    2. Yes. A small snatching of words. Dope.

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