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)
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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”
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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
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