There’s no prompt for today! What gives, Writer’s Digest? Truthfully, I have been writing all day but longwinded as I am, I have not finished. So I cannot post it. No, you may not read anything until I am done with it. I don't even like talking about it so don't ask me what I'm writing. Ooh, crabby! Instead you get something old. Oh boo hoo, you'll love it.
This was inspired by a song. Guess which one.
The courtroom grew deadly silent. Ralph swallowed forcibly in his seat. The prosecutors stopped whispering to each other and looked up from their manila folders. One of them checked his watch as if he had somewhere else more important to be. Ralphs’ attorney, Mr. King, slowly wiped his brow with his handkerchief. It was eighty degrees inside the room, even with the overhead fans, no one was immune from the gloomy warmth that enveloped the place and dampened every page of Mr. Kings’ yellow legal pads. The judge had removed his glasses and was wiping them in small circular motions. He wore a sour expression while peering down at us. I reached through the separation banister for his hand. He pulled away from me and then gave me an apologetic look. I understood. He was facing a first degree murder conviction. The sentence was life in prison or death. That was enough to shake the foundation from under even the most solid mans’ feet. Would we make it through this?
I had stood by him for fifteen years, through the best and the worst our meager lives could offer us, which was mostly the worst. Fittingly, I met Ralph on a dark corner. My drunken father had just knocked me around for the last time. Ralph befriended me and taught me how to work the streets ‘like a lady’, as he called it. We made a great team. I stood by him when all his other girls had left him. They needed more money, they’d said. He’d acted furious, but I could see the hurt in his eyes. So I stayed with him and he kept his promise. He took care of me and looked after me. He always bailed me out when I got arrested, and was never mad. He never hit me, he bought me nice clothes, made sure I was fed, and kept a roof over my head. I brought him new girls I met, who worked for a couple of months and then left. He grew to accept their parting, not as rejection but as a natural part of the game. He told me as long as I kept bringing him the bread, I would always be his number one girl. But the time came when I grew tired of working, and instead of letting me go, he made me his wife. Ralph Bennett was no angel, but he was sure the greatest man I had ever known.
The sweat was beginning to run down my face. I looked in Ralphs’ eyes and found I could not breathe. I had never seen that in his eyes before. It was defeat. Could I let this happen? We had already decided that Robert was too young for his mother to go to jail. A 10 year old boy with a mother in prison and no father, would become state property. I could not let that happen and Ralph agreed. Even though he was not his natural father, he had always acted so. I loved them both more than I ever thought possible. It was Ralph’s idea to create this façade, to spin this lie and he stuck to it. But it was eating me alive. I felt the truth rise to my lips countless times during the trial, but I swallowed it. It was almost certainly too late for that now. We both faced his fate now, fatally and fully.
The air hung heavy and thick, teeming with tension. This was the moment. Six months of torture, testimonies, truth and lies were all culminating here in this, our sultry little corner of the world. The door on the far wall opened and the jury filed out. They must have felt our eyes, hot and piercing, on them as they took their seats but they would not meet my gaze, they only stared straight ahead. Then I caught the fleeting glance of the foreman as he rose to answer the judges' call for a verdict. It was searing and unbearable. He knew.
Everything after that happened in slow motion. The foreman handed the tiny piece of paper to the judge who examined it, nodded satisfactorily and motioned for the foreman to begin to read aloud. No, it would not end this way. I put a hand on the banister that separated us, accused from innocent, and rose, half unaware of what I was doing. My legs trembled under me and I lay my hand on Ralph’s shoulder. He turned to me, alarmed and saw the intent in my eyes. I love you , I mouthed to him. I drew my breath in sharply. The severe sound made the foreman turn in my direction. He was nodding at me. In the instant before I uttered the three words that were to change our lives forever, I saw Ralph shake his head no and reach out his hands to silence me. I saw the prosecutors and the judge notice the commotion and suddenly appear interested. I saw Robert out of the corner of my eye, with that innocent naïve gaze. I would never be able to look in my sons eyes again. No, this was my trial, I had lost . I closed my eyes and screamed,
“Let me testify!”
Thursday, May 31, 2007
May 31st: Rattle Trap
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
May 30th: A Little Self-Indulgence
Disclaimer: I'm not too happy with this. I went way over the word count limit. But I've never been much for rules anways. Yep, that's me. The kid in English class who writes the seven page paper when only three are due. Well, so what? I like to write. And also, if you aren't familiar with The Dark Tower series, and mayhap even if you are, you might not know what I'm referring to here and there. But so what? A little self-indulgence now and then never hurt nobody.
As you'll notice, I lost steam halfway through (got interupted). I kinda just tried to wrap it up quickly, but not very neatly. Well, it's afternoon now, my nap time. Maybe they did have something good going with their rules after all. Oh well, so what? Here we go.
You've been going through a dry spell in the dating department, so you've been set up on a blind date. You're asked to meet this stranger at the food court in your local mall. When the date arrives you're shocked to find out that it's a famous fictional character. Describe the scene (who's the mystery date, how did you react and what happened the rest of the date). (500 words or fewer)
************************************************************************************
I change my mind. Yep, I’m going home. I’m drawing a bath, unplugging the phone and reading my book. This is the point where I stopped looking around for him and starting rummaging in my purse for my cell phone, some gum, a pen, anything to keep me from looking around, possibly locking eyes with my blind date. What kind of person arranges a first date in a mall food court? Was my date fresh out of high school? So much for first impressions. I am certainly not impressed. I sigh heartily and cross my legs. The bottomless pit that is my purse tumbles down my leg, spilling the contents-all twelve pounds of it- across the grey tiled floor. The girls at the Chick-fil-A counter turn and look at me. I don’t return their gaze long enough to read their expressions, but I could guess it was a mixture of amusement and pity. I simply bow my head and begin to gather the stuffing back into my bag. Chap Stick, keys, wallet, makeup bag with no makeup inside. Well, I’ll fix that later. Now is not the time to clean out my purse. No, not when I’m on all fours at the Riverwalk Shopping Center Food Court. This is when I begin to get paranoid. I’m making a spectacle and should my blind date actually be here, he is definitely noticing me now. Hurry up, Maxine. Hurry up and get out of here. A voice whispers to me. I feel my heart beat a little faster and heed the warning. I spot the last stray piece of my mobile life about three feet away. It’s my black 19 button I got a couple of years ago. Just black with the numbers one and nine in a white faded cowboy type of font. If you weren’t familiar with the story, you would never know. And I love the ambiguity of it. As if, I’m privileged. And then with a horror that makes my stomach turn, I realize someone else is reaching for it. Oh no you don’t. I think and start to crawl, not caring how stupid I look, willing to fight for that stupid button at that point. My knees knock clumsily against the hard floor. My hair swings in my face, blocking my sight. When I blow it out of my way, I see I am too late. The hand has reached my pin and has picked it up. Dammit. As I gather myself to rise, I notice the hand’s feet. They are clad in tired old boots. Great.
“Thank y-“I prepare my false gratitude smile and extend my hand, palm up. Then I stop. This old cowboy is rubbing the smooth surface of my button slowly and purposefully. His brow is wrinkled and his mouth is drawn down in a grimace. He is dressed in a button down shirt, jeans, and a hat. Not a big cowboy hat, but a worn leather wide brimmed one that covers half his face as he looks down at my 19 pin. Around his neck is tied a red scarf. You have got to be kidding me, I think. His shirt, maybe once white but now a tattered tan, is un-tucked and I can barely make out the faint criss-cross shape underneath. I notice my hand is still extended and it’s trembling. I don’t know if he’s on his way to a costume party- hell, anything’s possible in New Orleans- or if he’s gone batty, or if this was just a remarkable coincidence. Regardless, I know who he was or who he thought he was anyways. I see the forlorn expression he wore as he turned his gaze from my pin to me. My breath hitches in my chest when I see his face. Not just his face, his eyes. That crystal clear blue. I furrow my brow. I can’t help it. He is staring at me, into me. Those blue eyes darting back and forth between mine. My stomach flips and flutters. If this wasn’t Roland Deschain, standing here before me, than I was utterly insane. Had I conked my head on the floor back there? Was I dreaming? No. No, something told me no, and the something was right. He reaches out to return the pin to my still outreached hand and I jump a little in my skin. I see confusion and then recognition flash in his eyes. Bright and sharp like a sudden, intense light. I want to touch him. Want to reach out and poke him. Pinch him to make sure he was real. I was just finding that thought amusing when he spoke.
“Maxine?”
I feel as if I might faint. I actually sway on my feet for a moment. Bright spots appear in my vision, bloom into darkness and then clear. I have a brief moment where I think I might say no. No, I’m not Maxine. Sorry to hold you up. Thanks for my button. And be on my way. I can see myself walking away, leaving him standing there. Him. The last gunslinger. The fictional character from my favorite book ever. Roland of Gilead. Old long tall and ugly.
“Are you Maxine?” he asks me again.
I couldn’t think. I don’t know. Am I? I hear my breath, loud, husky, and rapid.
“Uh-huh” I nod; shocked I had a voice- and a brain- after all.
“How did you get this?” he asks me, still holding my button between his index and middle finger. I get the impression he’s going to start flipping it down his fingers and hypnotize me any minute, but he doesn’t. How did I get that? I can’t remember.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I think we better sit down”
“I think we’d better”
************************************************************************************
Five hours later, I stand on the levee and face the river. He is beside me. I can smell something exciting on him. Something...otherworldly. Am I crazy? I ask myself once more. No, I answer myself. He has passed the test, answered the questions, it is him. Roland had recited his story to me. But he hadn’t needed to. It was one I knew all too well. Except when he finally caught up to the man in black, the one he’d been chasing across the desert, and the man had read his cards... it was different. And there was something else. Something he had this time that he didn’t the last. But, it was all there. The three doors, the drawing, the tower. But instead of the cards, foretelling the drawing the lady of shadows, it had been the 19th lady. And he had found me. Me, the 19th lady. I could hardly believe I was buying this. He didn’t know quite why I needed to come with him but that much was sure. The fact that I knew him and all his ka-tet, could recite his dead lovers poem to him, (bird and bear and hare and fish) had not shaken him. Now I was to become part of his ka-tet. Now I was to journey with him. To open the door to the territories, to the Baronies, to the land I had dreamed of countless times, to the tower, and walk straight through. The door lies at the bottom, he’d said. And I nodded and held my hand out for him to take. He tucked his shirt into his pants and grabbed my hand and I felt his three fingers that had been eaten by the lobstrosities, or so I thought. Except now, something was different. It was as if he had started from the beginning. But something’s different this time. Yes, it sure was, I thought as I looked down at his majestic guns slung in the old belts he’d crossed at his hips. There, just below the guns, hanging at mid-thigh, was the horn. I couldn’t contain my smile. He led me down to the riverbank and we waded into the water together. Grasping hands tightly as the sun took its nightly dip into the horizon. We had the horn this time. We could save the tower. And I knew we would.
I change my mind. Yep, I’m going home. I’m drawing a bath, unplugging the phone and reading my book. This is the point where I stopped looking around for him and starting rummaging in my purse for my cell phone, some gum, a pen, anything to keep me from looking around, possibly locking eyes with my blind date. What kind of person arranges a first date in a mall food court? Was my date fresh out of high school? So much for first impressions. I am certainly not impressed. I sigh heartily and cross my legs. The bottomless pit that is my purse tumbles down my leg, spilling the contents-all twelve pounds of it- across the grey tiled floor. The girls at the Chick-fil-A counter turn and look at me. I don’t return their gaze long enough to read their expressions, but I could guess it was a mixture of amusement and pity. I simply bow my head and begin to gather the stuffing back into my bag. Chap Stick, keys, wallet, makeup bag with no makeup inside. Well, I’ll fix that later. Now is not the time to clean out my purse. No, not when I’m on all fours at the Riverwalk Shopping Center Food Court. This is when I begin to get paranoid. I’m making a spectacle and should my blind date actually be here, he is definitely noticing me now. Hurry up, Maxine. Hurry up and get out of here. A voice whispers to me. I feel my heart beat a little faster and heed the warning. I spot the last stray piece of my mobile life about three feet away. It’s my black 19 button I got a couple of years ago. Just black with the numbers one and nine in a white faded cowboy type of font. If you weren’t familiar with the story, you would never know. And I love the ambiguity of it. As if, I’m privileged. And then with a horror that makes my stomach turn, I realize someone else is reaching for it. Oh no you don’t. I think and start to crawl, not caring how stupid I look, willing to fight for that stupid button at that point. My knees knock clumsily against the hard floor. My hair swings in my face, blocking my sight. When I blow it out of my way, I see I am too late. The hand has reached my pin and has picked it up. Dammit. As I gather myself to rise, I notice the hand’s feet. They are clad in tired old boots. Great.
“Thank y-“I prepare my false gratitude smile and extend my hand, palm up. Then I stop. This old cowboy is rubbing the smooth surface of my button slowly and purposefully. His brow is wrinkled and his mouth is drawn down in a grimace. He is dressed in a button down shirt, jeans, and a hat. Not a big cowboy hat, but a worn leather wide brimmed one that covers half his face as he looks down at my 19 pin. Around his neck is tied a red scarf. You have got to be kidding me, I think. His shirt, maybe once white but now a tattered tan, is un-tucked and I can barely make out the faint criss-cross shape underneath. I notice my hand is still extended and it’s trembling. I don’t know if he’s on his way to a costume party- hell, anything’s possible in New Orleans- or if he’s gone batty, or if this was just a remarkable coincidence. Regardless, I know who he was or who he thought he was anyways. I see the forlorn expression he wore as he turned his gaze from my pin to me. My breath hitches in my chest when I see his face. Not just his face, his eyes. That crystal clear blue. I furrow my brow. I can’t help it. He is staring at me, into me. Those blue eyes darting back and forth between mine. My stomach flips and flutters. If this wasn’t Roland Deschain, standing here before me, than I was utterly insane. Had I conked my head on the floor back there? Was I dreaming? No. No, something told me no, and the something was right. He reaches out to return the pin to my still outreached hand and I jump a little in my skin. I see confusion and then recognition flash in his eyes. Bright and sharp like a sudden, intense light. I want to touch him. Want to reach out and poke him. Pinch him to make sure he was real. I was just finding that thought amusing when he spoke.
“Maxine?”
I feel as if I might faint. I actually sway on my feet for a moment. Bright spots appear in my vision, bloom into darkness and then clear. I have a brief moment where I think I might say no. No, I’m not Maxine. Sorry to hold you up. Thanks for my button. And be on my way. I can see myself walking away, leaving him standing there. Him. The last gunslinger. The fictional character from my favorite book ever. Roland of Gilead. Old long tall and ugly.
“Are you Maxine?” he asks me again.
I couldn’t think. I don’t know. Am I? I hear my breath, loud, husky, and rapid.
“Uh-huh” I nod; shocked I had a voice- and a brain- after all.
“How did you get this?” he asks me, still holding my button between his index and middle finger. I get the impression he’s going to start flipping it down his fingers and hypnotize me any minute, but he doesn’t. How did I get that? I can’t remember.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I think we better sit down”
“I think we’d better”
************************************************************************************
Five hours later, I stand on the levee and face the river. He is beside me. I can smell something exciting on him. Something...otherworldly. Am I crazy? I ask myself once more. No, I answer myself. He has passed the test, answered the questions, it is him. Roland had recited his story to me. But he hadn’t needed to. It was one I knew all too well. Except when he finally caught up to the man in black, the one he’d been chasing across the desert, and the man had read his cards... it was different. And there was something else. Something he had this time that he didn’t the last. But, it was all there. The three doors, the drawing, the tower. But instead of the cards, foretelling the drawing the lady of shadows, it had been the 19th lady. And he had found me. Me, the 19th lady. I could hardly believe I was buying this. He didn’t know quite why I needed to come with him but that much was sure. The fact that I knew him and all his ka-tet, could recite his dead lovers poem to him, (bird and bear and hare and fish) had not shaken him. Now I was to become part of his ka-tet. Now I was to journey with him. To open the door to the territories, to the Baronies, to the land I had dreamed of countless times, to the tower, and walk straight through. The door lies at the bottom, he’d said. And I nodded and held my hand out for him to take. He tucked his shirt into his pants and grabbed my hand and I felt his three fingers that had been eaten by the lobstrosities, or so I thought. Except now, something was different. It was as if he had started from the beginning. But something’s different this time. Yes, it sure was, I thought as I looked down at his majestic guns slung in the old belts he’d crossed at his hips. There, just below the guns, hanging at mid-thigh, was the horn. I couldn’t contain my smile. He led me down to the riverbank and we waded into the water together. Grasping hands tightly as the sun took its nightly dip into the horizon. We had the horn this time. We could save the tower. And I knew we would.
1,437 words
May 30th, 2007
2:33 pm
NOLA
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
May 29th: Memory Avenue
Today's Writing Prompt: Walk us through your very first memory. (500 words or fewer).
My memories elude me. They taunt me, tease me. They extend ghostly fingers dipped in ancient scents and sounds, and then just as I reach out to touch that one- it’s fuzzy like a blanket-, they pull back. I can almost see them grinning. There’s another one. It’s sweet, like a rhyme and a melody, a song. Oh mister ocean, oh mister sea...How does it go again? Sometimes if I close my eyes, I can feel them, my memories. Swirling around, enveloping me, and then blending into and disappearing into the air. If I stay still and quiet, I can hear that one, it’s warm like a term of endearment. Hey lovie. This one feels tingly, like laughter. That one feels cold and polished, like a doll. This one over here feels like velvet and lace, lipstick and blush. That one, like satin bed sheets. One feels warm and bright like sunshine, her. One feels mysterious and strong like the moon, him. Those taste of olives, those smell like biscuits baking. These over here are sharp and tender, best not to touch those. Best to just let those be. These over here smell like cookies, taste like pure sugar, and feel like the warmest warm. No, I have never been a warmer. But these over here feel like mud in your toes, smell like pine trees and melt when you squeeze them. Because they were never meant for holding onto. They were only meant for there and then. And then this one comes around again. I betcha, betcha, betcha that you can’t catch me... And then it blows past, never stopping, never slowing down. Just holding me, hanging around me, shaping me into this person that I am. This person, whoever that is.
My memories elude me. They taunt me, tease me. They extend ghostly fingers dipped in ancient scents and sounds, and then just as I reach out to touch that one- it’s fuzzy like a blanket-, they pull back. I can almost see them grinning. There’s another one. It’s sweet, like a rhyme and a melody, a song. Oh mister ocean, oh mister sea...How does it go again? Sometimes if I close my eyes, I can feel them, my memories. Swirling around, enveloping me, and then blending into and disappearing into the air. If I stay still and quiet, I can hear that one, it’s warm like a term of endearment. Hey lovie. This one feels tingly, like laughter. That one feels cold and polished, like a doll. This one over here feels like velvet and lace, lipstick and blush. That one, like satin bed sheets. One feels warm and bright like sunshine, her. One feels mysterious and strong like the moon, him. Those taste of olives, those smell like biscuits baking. These over here are sharp and tender, best not to touch those. Best to just let those be. These over here smell like cookies, taste like pure sugar, and feel like the warmest warm. No, I have never been a warmer. But these over here feel like mud in your toes, smell like pine trees and melt when you squeeze them. Because they were never meant for holding onto. They were only meant for there and then. And then this one comes around again. I betcha, betcha, betcha that you can’t catch me... And then it blows past, never stopping, never slowing down. Just holding me, hanging around me, shaping me into this person that I am. This person, whoever that is.
312 Words
May 29th, 2007
12:57 pm
NOLA
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
