Winter's Story Pick, Week 22

This week's Sunday pick comes to you from Madeline! Love this interpretation of my wacko prompt. =]

I Know You're Wrong, Boy

“Ah, God, the sink,” she moaned as the blood rinsed off her hands and swirled down the satin white basin.

“Don’t worry about it,” he whispered back to her, trying to restrain all of his tears. “Please don’t.”

She shook her head and looked around his bathroom. It must have been twice the size of her own room, even if her room was small. Everything seemed to be draped in gorgeous creamy satin white, and there she was. A bloody mess, staining his bathroom. “God, oh, God.”

“No,” he commanded. “Don’t you dare be sorry.” His voice shook with pain. Or maybe it was fear. “Please, don’t be sorry. Don’t.”

She itched her face with her shoulder, while he held her hands under the sink. She yanked away from the water, even if it was the cleanest she had ever seen. The water turned to steamy hot, and she couldn’t take it.

Shaking her hands, she drew a few pieces of glass from her palm, examining it in the light.

He closed his eyes tightly, wishing she would put the piece of glass down. He grabbed it from her hands and tossed it onto the ground, watching the shard shatter into even smaller pieces.

He began to cuss under his breath.

She reached for his wrist, and shot him a glance that he knew only she would give in a time like this. “You’re. . . you. . .” he stuttered. “I can’t. . .”

She didn’t say anything, but she nodded slightly. Her blue eyes cut straight into his. “Don’t blame it on yourself.”

He drew back sharply, but then regretted it. Her blood felt warm on his wrist, it felt warm on his icy skin. “Who am I going to blame it on? You?”

She sighed heavily and shrugged. “Accidents happen.”

“It wasn’t an accident, and you know it damn well.” His voice was finale, but a terrible amount of sorrow and regret hung in it. “It was an impulse. Why don’t you hate me?”

“I don’t hate you, boy. I just want to save you while there’s still something left of your soul.”

He took a step back, only to be mimicked by her taking a step closer. Her blue eyes were caustic and suffocating, and he couldn’t shake them from his memory.

Nor could he ever shake the memory from his eyes. She was physically scarred for life, and he was mentally scarred.

He didn’t mean it. He wasn’t angry. She was gorgeous, and he couldn’t even begin to admit it. He watched as her fingers gild across his ivory piano keys, the pedal meshing everything together as she created a beautiful song.

He hated to admit she was the most beautiful creature he had seen. He hated to admit that he had an obsession. And he hated even more to admit that it was a terrible unhealthy addiction.

The glass vase was the closest thing next to him, and he grabbed it, wrapping his large fingers around it angrily. He slammed it on the piano, onto his keys, and onto her fingers, shattering it over her palms.

He drew it back and held it above his head, ready to smash it right over her skull, when he saw a small tear fall down her red cheek and watched as her face transformed into one of sheer terror and pure fear.

He was a monster, she very well knew it, and he knew it too. She hated to admit that he was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. She hated to admit that he was a monster. And she hated to admit even more that she felt it was all her fault.

He insisted it wasn’t, but she knew it was.

He opened his eyes to see her starring him straight in the face, her eyes cutting deep into his. So deep, he was afraid she could see his heart.

Her hand grabbed the collar of his shirt, holding a fistful of cotton. She stared at him for a while, wondering who he was. She knew, but she wanted to know more.

“I don’t get you.”

“I don’t want you to,” he said. And he meant it.

“Oh, don’t say that.”

“I’m a monster.” He searched her face doubtingly. “I don’t understand you either. Why do you have to make everything your fault?”

She sucked on the inside of her cheek, never releasing the grasp she had on his shirt. “Because I’m dirty and bloody. You’re almost too perfect to be faulted.”

“Almost doesn’t count.”

His fingers curled around her wrist, pulling her hand away from him, holding it against her face.

“What if,” she began. “What if I’m really the monster? What if your perception is completely wrong? Your definition of monster could be wrong, and I could be the real monster, the real demonic one. Not you. Me.”

“You’d be wrong.”

“I’d be right.” She was far more monstrous than he was.

Winter's Story Pick, Week 21

Saturday feature by Jes! Such language, for one so young. :P

Nothing Nowhere and Nearly in Nebraska

It was a standoff. He stood before Shelley with the cool May rain dripping down a long nose, clothed in the kind of things people wear when they take kids away from their fathers. Behind him, the car idled. It was nice; a kind with four doors as if he had kids of his own, but Shelley had peeked through the windows only moments before and it was spic and span. Behind her spread the front row of trailers, most of them the same tone of the sky. The sky was a bright gray, so bright you could hardly believe it was raining, so bright you could tell that the sky wanted to be white but knew it was too dirty. All this part of the city was dirty, real dirty. The mud squished over Shelley’s bare toes.

“How old are you?”

“Go to hell.”

He looked around, his jacket getting wetter by the minute.

“You know where your Pa is?”

She stared him down. She knew she had a mean stare; it was something she’d figured as a necessity when she was young, maybe six, maybe four or five, when she’d ran away to her pop’s. Couldn’t quite be sure she was six when she’d left her mother’s home, but Shelley knew it was the year she was supposed to start school and didn’t, and that’d been three birthdays ago. She still celebrated them each year, even though she wasn’t sure of her age. But she did it quietly—with dignity—out back, pretending that the overturned tire atop the brush pile behind the trailer park was a giant cake all for her.

“Hey, girl,” the man said, stepping closer, “I said, you know where your Pa is?” To which Shelley said nothing. Not that it was any of his business, but she hadn’t seen her pa in a couple weeks. Hadn’t been her business to find him; she wasn’t his keeper. Just like he wasn’t hers. The man took another step.

“You get the hell away from me, boogerface.” He blinked at her. They were both sopping, dirty looking to be sure. “Can’t be more than seven,” he muttered.

“Nine.”

He looked a real long while at her. Brushed the water from his face one side at a time.

“Nine, then,” he agreed. “And stop your cussing.”

She nodded a tight nod.

“You like hot cocoa?”

Three hours later, she was on her way to a new home.

“Sweetheart, don’t you think that outfit just sends the wrong message? You’re at a tender age, my dear.” Shelley’s mother eyed her daughter’s reflection in the dining room mirror, watching Shelley finish her makeup while she had her martini. Shelley looked down. Of course a mother like hers would say something like that, and say it in the same tone as “Glen, darling, do you think these new curtains will impress the neighbors?” Or, “Oh my, I just can’t believe Senator Robert’s mother wore such ostentatious jewelry to the benefit.” Something like that, when she didn’t remember how old Shelley was or wasn’t any more than Shelley did.

“Nope.”

“Well,” her mother tapped an acrylic nail on the end table at the side of the settee, shifting the coaster with the martini glass just slightly “alright then. I trust your judgment.” Shelley kept herself from snorting, just barely. “Call me when you get to Desiree’s, won’t you? And don’t stay up too late.”

The alley was a black like the edge of a really bad bruise as Shelley and Des walked to the concert, the concert her mother didn’t know she was attending. Her mother annoyed the hell out of her. So fake. Her father—wherever he was—he was too real, and her mother, too fake. Better than state people, though, a bit. A bit. She was best off on her own, really.

“Passes?” The doorman at the back entrance was huge, and with his black shirt and pants and skin the whites of his eyes and teeth seemed to glow. Des flicked her cigarette down, ground it with the heel of her stiletto into the crumbling pavement.

“We’re Shelley and Des,” Shelley said cooly. Mean stare time. They went in. Des was sleeping with the bass player; the band thought they were nineteen but it wasn’t like age mattered that much. What mattered was what you knew. And Shelley, she’d known that for a long time.

The concert was great; the band was a hit and everyone was in the mood to get bombed after. K-tow and Des were hopping around the back stage mess like a bunch of drunk school kids, and pretty soon disappeared into the bath for a shower. Shelley wandered into the room with the other girlfriends while the set crew broke down everything. The ceilings were low and the girls had on a recording of Ellen, playing from a tiny, ancient TV, so old it had a bubbled screen. It was so screwy she had to laugh. One by one the girls turned to her from the array of mismatched furniture gathered in the room.

“You fucking one of the boys?” The girl who asked it had long dark dreds and looked like a Rasta who’d tried to find a Renaissance fair but gotten lost and settled for being a band member’s girlfriend. Four more sets of heavily-made-up eyes stared at her.

“Shit no,” Shelley said. The girls turned back to the TV.

“I like the dancing,” said the petite girlfriend. There was a half-smile on all their faces.

“Where’s your friend?” This from the first girl. She was Chris’ girl, had to be. She had the ring leader look, despite the Rasta fairy princess hair and clothes. Rasta fairy princess of hell, maybe.

“Shower.”

The girls all laughed. It tinkled in her ears. Of course they were all musical, but the sound had a metallic twang to it. They had some drinks. The band members trickled in, all but K-tow. More drinks. The set crew trickled in. More drinks. Another Ellen played; this time the show people danced to Christmas music at the end, even though it was summer. Shelley confessed she loved Christmas songs. More drinks. They all sang Christmas songs. More drinks. Christmas dancing. Songs. Drinks. Hanging lights, twinkle lights in the bus—

Wet.

Her cheek was wet. Her face.

Wet.

Wet grass.

Shelley pushed herself upright. Wet, and bright. She had swamp ass—swamp side really, from laying there so long. But where was there? Bright. She looked around. No city.

Shit.

The land was flat, barely sloping at all. Hardly any trees. Nothing. Kansas, maybe? How the fuck did she end up in Kansas? Her eyes began to clear. Damn, she needed food. No tour bus. No city, and no bus. She stood up.

That’s when she saw the man hanging from the fence.

Shit; shit.

She walked over to him. It was a tall fence, taller than her by a good shot, and made of wrought iron. She maybe recognized him—but not really—and there he was harpooned on one of the spikes as if he’d tried to fling himself over the height but got caught. It stuck clean through his thigh, and his bald head gleamed bright red in the sunlight, partly upside down. The blood was still flowing (up his thigh), but only a trickle; most of it dried into a purple just the color of figs on a pair of jeans.

“You alright?” Jesus, her voice even sounded shaky. He opened his eyes, raised himself partly to her. Grimaced, wretched. Seized at his leg. The guy looked around and began bellowing. Shelley backed up, still facing him, and kept going. Goddamn that bright sun. She tripped, stumbled backwards, and landed in a kiddy pool of water she’d not yet seen. The bright blue plastic crunched beneath her.

“Santa’s gonna be pissed about that, girl.” The fairy princess girlfriend stood above her, blocking the sunlight. In the glare her dark hair looked like ropes.

“Santa?” She allowed herself to be helped up.

“The guy who runs this circus. That’s his second pool you just crushed. The first one he had to get rid of after he found a dead guy floating in it.”

Shelley blinked at her. Actually, she looked pretty normal by day.

“You’re—”

“Kathleen, yeah. Chris’s girl. What the hell are you doing here?” Shelley blinked some more as a rush of burly men ran towards the wrought iron fence now some thirty feet away. Two of them carried ladders.

“I…I dunno,” she said. “Did you say circus? What the hell happened last night?”

“You mean the morning and night before? Beats me,” Kathleen said, shrugging her hair over her shoulders. “I passed out in the back bed of the tour bus and got out here when the driver woke me; this is where I work. Guess you followed, huh?” Screaming sounded from the fence. Kathleen’s eyes narrowed in the sun as she turned to watch as the men set up ladders around the upside down guy.

“Guess so.” They began walking. “Where are we?”

“Kansas, on the Colorado plateau, up by the border of Nebraska somewhere. Some land owned by a friend of Santa’s; we stop here this time every year.” The screaming grew louder.

“Shit! You serious? Nebraska?”

“Relax, girl. I said by Nebraska. We’re not there yet.” They came to a patch of clunky looking RV’s, dingy awnings popped open. Shelley could feel Kathleen eyeballing her as they walked towards the circus encampment. “Santa’s not big on tagalongs. ‘Specially one’s who break his shit. You got money to pay and get home?”

“Fuck, Kathleen. I don’t even know where my shoes are, let alone my backpa—aa—purse.”

Kathleen nodded. It was quiet in the encampment, all the noise was back over by the fence now. Bent horizontal blinds were pulled tight in all the windows.

“Well … we meet up with the band again in Boise. I could maybe have Big Sal talk to Santa and see if you could work off your debt to him — he’s a whine-ass about his stuff getting broken, he’ll charge you by how many hours of use he expected to get from it — and then you could hop in with the boys for the rest of their tour. You’ll just be a carnie for a few months, that’s all. And hey, isn’t Des nailing K-tow? Where’s she?”

“I dunno,” Shelley said, yet again. “Not here. I don’t have a phone anymore either.”

“Yeah, you’re screwed alright. You old enough to work legally?”

The tone was casual, but Shelley knew Kathleen knew. Didn’t matter. What mattered wasn’t age, especially when you didn’t know it.

“Of course I am.”

“Right. Well, I’ll talk to Big Sal and Santa. We’ll find something for you.” Kathleen walked over to one of the larger RV’s, fluffing her dreds as they walked. “Hey Big Sal,” she called, using that tinkling voice Shelley remembered from the other night, “Hey Big Sal, you in there, sweet thing?”

The volume made Shelley’s head pound. She grimaced, plopped herself down on a pile of stuff next to the fold-out steps of Big Sal’s RV. “God almighty, could this get any worse?”

“Sure it could,” Kathleen replied, her voice low and from the corner of her mouth, as they waited for the door to open, “you could be the last person who broke Santa’s pool.”

Winter's Story Pick, Week 16

Madeline's story this week made me sit up at the first line and open my mouth. I was TAKEN. By disgust, partially, but by originality, mostly! And I'm still wondering about that ending... enjoy!

Perfect Has a Death Sentence

I pulled the fork out of my mouth. Sitting back, I chewed.

Yeah, that was woman. Definitely woman. It didn’t crunch the same way as male did, it was much more delicate. Besides its tenderness, it just didn’t taste the same as man did.

My obsession burned as I stuffed another piece of meat into my mouth. There was barely a taste anymore, the flavor washed away with age, leaving me with a lacking piece of meat. Times were hard and I was living off whatever was in my pantry. The freshest meat was probably a week or two old, while everything else was about three months and older.

Of course I didn’t eat the hearts. No, I would never do that.

A while ago she left me empty. The drugs didn’t seem to help, either. I couldn’t shake the feelings I didn’t want to feel, and I couldn’t drown them out.


Sooner or later I came to my senses. I realized that there was no point in drowning the feeling out when I could feel once again. Why not fill myself with other’s hearts? Sure, it would be artificial feeling, but it would be feeling.


After a lot of secret prowling around and asking, I learned it takes about twenty three hearts that don’t belong to him to fill a guy up.


Ever since then, my cupboards had been growing with person meat and people hearts. It saved quite a lot of money eating the people you killed. I hadn’t stepped foot out into a grocery store for ages.


Quite frankly, I hadn’t gone anywhere in ages. I preferred to stay in my apartment, watching everyone that passed.


You see, there was a little catch. One of the twenty three hearts had to be perfect. The more perfect the heart, the better.


Being the procrastinator I took pride in being, I had left the perfect heart to be number twenty three.


Pushing my chair back, I listened to the metal legs scrape across the tile floor, cringing at the sound. I walked over to the window and sat down. Rush hour had just begun and people swam like fish below.


I smiled, content with the moment. Who would I see today? There was one girl in particular who I saw walk on the street below often. From above she always seemed to be glowing with perfection.


They told me perfection was something that could not be mistaken. Once you find someone with a heart you deem perfect, all other hearts’ perfection is negated.


On cue, a petite girl with long brown hair walked by, a messenger bag slung over her shoulder and a stack of books cradled in her arms.


I sprung up from my chair and flew out of the door.

I jabbed at the buttons on the elevator a few times, but the door did not open.


Growing impatient, I bolted down the stairs. I nearly tripped a few times, and I cursed at my bad knee as I stumbled onto flat ground.


As I weaved in and out of people, I tried my best to look unsuspicious and casual.


I’m pretty sure a man in his early forties dashing through a crowd of people in an apartment lobby isn’t exactly defined as “unsuspicious”, but hey, I was trying.


The spinning doors were rotating by themselves as there were already plenty of people inside. On the way out, I stubbed my toe on the door.


She was waiting at the end of the block, waiting for traffic to stop before she could cross the road.


The cars, buses, and taxis all came to a halt.


I stepped forward, keeping my eyes glued to the back of her head which was just a few people in front of me. It sure looked undeniably perfect.


She walked for a while on, her steps short and brisk.


Anticipation tingled in my knuckles and palms. My mouth watered as I followed her down the streets.


The crowds began to thin out and she was straight in front of me.


Cautious of who was watching, I slowed my pace down a bit, but was careful not to lose track of her head.


Finally, when she stopped walking she was in front of a small complex. She walked up the steps and knocked on the faded red door adorned with a rusty gold knocker.


Breathlessly I watched as I pretended to talk on the phone, making it look a bit more normal for stopping in the middle of a sidewalk.


A man came and opened the door, embracing her.


“Hey, Sellhare,” the man said as he nibbled her ear.


She pushed him away. “It’s Kate!” she giggled.


Good. She has a heart that’s already loving. She’s perfect.


And she’s Kate Sellhare. Sounds very perfect to me.

He laughed, too. “Let’s go inside,” he offered. She nodded and took his hand. The door closed behind them and I longed to go with her.


I was too happy to feel forlorn, though. I snapped my phone shut and walked back down to my apartment, trying not to sprint out of sheer excitement.

When I got in the door, the phone was ringing.


I ran over to pick it up. “Hello?” I answered.


“Ah, Paul. How are you doing today?”


I straightened up, even though he couldn’t see me. “I’m doing fine, Officer Jonah.”


He chuckled. “Good. . . Good. Listen, there’s been some commotion going on, and we were wondering if you would happen to know anything about it?”

“Me?” I said, trying to sound surprised and offended. “Why would I have anything to do with it? Why would I know anyone who had anything to do with it?”

“I’m not sure,” Officer Jonah said into the phone. “It was a murder, a murder of a young, young man by the name of Kurt. No one has found his body.”

“So how do you know he’s dead?” I asked wittily.

“It’s New York City we’re talking about,” the officer replied. “Tell me he’s been kidnapped with no ransom, and he’s still alive.”

I shrugged. Officer Jonah was right, Kurt was dead. More specifically, he was floating through the New York sewage system right now, if you know what I mean. Child meat was always the best, and with Kurt, I just couldn’t resist.

“I know nothing about it, officer,” I finally managed to say.

“Alrighty then,” he said. “Thank you for your time, Paul. You’ve been quiet good lately, so I’ll have to take your word for it.”


“Good bye,” I smiled as I hung up the phone. Another crime that slid right over my head.


I walked to my bedroom, still smiling. I shut the door behind me, it was getting late and I was tired.


The shrill ringing of my phone woke me up at 9:17 A.M.

Grumbling, I rolled out of bed and walked to the living room where I fumbled for the phone among a pile of keys and papers. “Hello?” I answered groggily, wiping the dried saliva off the side of my mouth.

“Paul! Good morning to you!”

“Officer!” I exclaimed, perking up a bit. “How are you?”

“Good, good. . . Look, I know I was a little suspicious last night, and I apologize.”

“S’kay. No hard feelings done.”

“I know I left the matter alone last night, and I’m sure you were thinking that I believed you.”

“I drew that conclusion, yes.”

“I didn’t trust you one bit. I just wanted to say that I was sorry for suspecting you to be the criminal.”

“Oh?” I asked, surprised.

“We found the culprit last night,” the officer informed me. “She was at her boyfriend’s house. She was charged for many things, one of them being the murder of Kurt.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I know it’s none of my business, but who, Officer Jonah?”

“Kate Sellhare. We found her last night at her boyfriend’s house, actually just a few blocks down from your apartment. There’s no need to worry, she’s in jail now and has received a death sentence.”


Perfect had received my death sentence.


"Once again, I hate to be nosy, but what led you to believe this?"

"There was billions of evidence," he mused. "I suppose this is the end of a perfect soul. I think she was going to be your twenty third heart, right? Too bad. . . You're never as smart as you think."

Winter's Story Pick, Week 15

Brooke's story blew me away with the absolute chills it sent down my spine. Amazing job, Brooke!

He drew his fingers to his face, framing the empty display between them. The little glass doors were shut and locked, but ready anytime to open and receive their prize. It stood out proudly among his collection of pinned butterflies, stuffed birds, and model airplanes.

He nodded at it, secure in the knowledge that it was perfect. He checked to make sure everything was set up for his return, swept his jacket off the chair and breezed through the door, heading off to pick up his treasure.

He remembered seeing it for the first time, the ink highlighted by the flashing strobe lights. Green, blue, pink, red. He saw it from every angle as its carrier moved her body, dancing among the mob of clubbers. Only the upper half had been visible, the dress having to cover some part of her body.

He wanted it, he needed it. His hand even reached out to touch it, but she was too far away, him being at the bar. His eyes wouldn’t leave it; he pictured it on his wall, proudly displayed for everyone to see, not hidden away by clothing.

She spun, breaking his gaze. And he got angry. He squeezed the glass in his hand until it broke, spraying glass and beer all over the counter. He stood up quickly, shaking his hand and moving away, his feet moving him toward the door.

Suddenly, he stopped, looked back, and headed onto the dance floor, weaving among the people to get to it. Words spewing out of his mouth without his control.

And the next thing he knew, she was smiling and saying, “I would love to. Pick me up at six next Saturday.” Slipped a paper into his hand, “Here’s my number.”

“So tell me more about you,” she turned the conversation skillfully. It was a vehicle she had mastered. “What does Monty care about? What does Monty like to do?”

He smiled shyly, shifted his weight. Draw her in. Act innocent. “I’ve always been fascinated by flying. Maybe an angel like you could teach me?”

She flipped her hair when she laughed, hiding the tip of the tattooed wing on her shoulder that he’d been staring at for the past half hour. He felt slightly peeved that he had to meet her eyes. Staring off into space would definitely not make her want to come with him.

“Maybe I could,” a wicked grin split across her face.

“Could what?”

Her smile slipped a bit. Shit. “Could teach you about flying.”

He chuckled, nervous for real this time. “Oh yes, sorry. I just… got lost in your eyes.”

She was back to him, her face lighting up like it was under lit by a flashlight. Her hand slid slowly across the table, enclosing his like an iron cage. He forced himself to keep smiling. It’s for the wings. It’s for the wings.

“So ah, let’s say we go somewhere, and I’ll teach you, hmm?” her eyebrows raised.

Genuine happiness showed on his face at that. “We can go to my place. You get our coats, I’ll pull around the car.”

He tested the knife tip against his finger, pushing just hard enough for two beads of blood to well up. Tunes buzzed from his throat as he approached the body laying face down on the table. He had removed her shirt to get the full view.

His finger trailed delicately along the feather outline. “You really have wondrous wings, my dear. Too bad they couldn’t carry you away.” He laughed at his own joke.

The knife sliced through her skin like paper, drawing it away from the muscle. His white gloves caught a red tint as he worked, but he didn’t mind. They were going to be burned anyway, along with his suit.

The last strand snapped with a sickening sound that made him laugh out loud. He held it up. Not a single mistake.

He used the bathtub to clean it. There were no windows for anyone to peak through. Then, leaving it to soak as the tanning book had said, he went on to the process of removing the body.

The trash bag was convenient but suspicious. Damn movies. After stuffing her into one anyway, he fit her into a cardboard box, hard but manageable.

He then headed down the stairs with his box, calling a greeting to the little old lady in the next apartment.

She was a petite woman and it was easy for him to remove her from her confinings and hold her over the edge. The bridge was high, high, high. Perfect for her takeoff.

He took a deep breath, waited for the next breeze, and threw her, leaned over to watch. As she fell, her arms splayed out like a bird in flight but he knew it would do her no good. How could she fly? He had her wings.

Her impact sent drops of water onto his face. It felt cool and refreshing, free. He let himself enjoy the high for a moment.

Afterward, he promptly threw any evidence into the box, set it ablaze, and threw that into the river too.

“You’re amazing, you know that?” the voice drifted to him in the kitchen. “Not only do you have all these bugs and animals that you’ve preserved yourself, you also have all these airplanes that you builtyourself. These paintings are signed by others though.”

“Alas, I did not get the artistic ability,” he replied to her, opening the silverware drawer.

“What’s this?”

“What’s what?” he replied turning the corner into the living room.

“This thing in the glass case,” she said, turning to look at him, gesturing. Her hair shifted over her back, bare by shirt design, revealing more of the huge tattoo that completely encompassed her back.

He strode closer, staying a little behind. “It’s a skin made by Indians,” he pointed to the soft curves.

She looked at it again, “It looks almost human.”

He pulled the knife from behind his back.

Winter's Story Pick, Week 13

Hey, everyone! To round up the stories for this week, we've got Jes's story, which made me cackle, clap my hand over my mouth, and feel like a terrible Catholic for finding this all so very amusing. Awesome dialectical writing, too! Enjoy:

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Little Joy and the Matter of Heaven

The first time Little Joy saw a dead body she was six, and very tall for her age--that's why everybody called her "Little," because she wasn't. She’d had a whole mug of hot black coffee that morning, and then it was nighttime and visitation. When she looked into the coffin at her Uncle Pete, it seemed to her like he lay sleeping in a grown-people crib. But she knew that Uncle Pete, who was really just a love-uncle, was not sleeping and was in fact good and dead and gone. She figured they pushed his eyes closed so to make him look like he was sleeping but she wasn’t fooled for nothing.

The satin lining of the coffin was white; so was the skin of his forehead and thick, clay-looking cheeks, and the paleness of the two made his young beard look very, very dark brown and shiny. He was 35 and had died of dyed beets, she’d heard tell, but that part didn’t matter much to her. What mattered to Little Joy was that Uncle Pete wouldn’t come visit with her every Friday, or drink Mt. Dew with her on the porch in the hot Midwestern summer evenings, or bring her nice presents anymore. Because he was dead. Since she was tall enough to do it privately, Little Joy had a long, quiet look at the remnant of her Uncle Pete and made sure she knew what dead was and what it looked like.

While she stood there, her freckled, gawky neck protruding over the edge of the casket just so, an old lady with a big puffy church hat straight out of a movie came up behind her. “If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, huh, huh, huh,” was what hat-lady said. To which Little Joy twisted her gawky neck and stared her plain in the face, then turned on the heel of her right patent leather Mary-Jane shoe, and stomped away. But the next morning she was fairly satisfied with the service; the preacher spoke with a good soft voice of heaven and the angels, and the organist played nice songs that Little Joy could swing her feet to under the edge of her seat. Although she didn’t really see the point of singing songs for a person’s body. It wasn’t like Uncle Pete could sing along, after all.

On rainy days at the country schoolhouse the children got their exercise by tracing the gravel circle drive out front of the school that the buses used. One by one Little Joy's classmates jumped the puddles, alternately singing or chasing or pushing one another as they walked the giant circle in the slow rain.

"And so I says to her, well, you big know-it-all sister, you just leave it to me. I'll fix Mario up right quick." Amanda Marie was Little Joy's next door neighbor and best friend. Mandy Marie’s voice was loud like a boy and she could run very far without losing breath. Her big sister Kathy was a pain in the “b-u-t-t,” Mandy Marie liked to say.

"And so I took the cat, an' wha'dya think I did with him?"

"What?" breathed Sara, the preacher's daughter. " Oh good God and Jesus and Mary, did you save the kitten?"

"Well, I'll tell you what I did, I will." Mandy Marie threw out her chest and tossed her curly head into the brown-gray air. "I put him in the oven, and warmed him up. Used the dials and ever'thing."

"You what?!" Little Joy couldn't believe what she was hearing. Surely Mandy Marie didn't mean she cooked the nearly-drowned animal to eat it for supper.

"Well, yeah," Mandy Marie said, as if it were the most sensible thing in the whole wide world, "I sure did. Warmed him right up."

"But," said Sara, "didn't that, uh, kill the cat?"

"My grandma says curiosity is what killed the cat."

"Well I think she lied." Sara was the kind of girl who wore ribbons in her hair every day but it didn't fool her friends. In reality she was a bit of a monster.

“Well maybe she did and maybe she didn’t.” Mandy Marie’s nose went up in the air.

“So what’d it look like? Did you see the light go from its eyes? Did you see angels?” Little Joy couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to see angels. It was that nice-voiced preacher at Uncle Pete’s funeral last year that did it. He’d went on and on about their pure white robes and their pure bright voices and their pure gold hearts. It made quite the impression on Little Joy.

But Mandy Marie lowered her head.

“I didn’t see nothin’.”

“That’s because animals don’t go to heaven, stupid. It’s in the Bible like that, you can ask my papa. He knows all about it. And so do I. Ain’t no drowned and baked cat gonna get into heaven.”

“You shut up, you mean ole preacher’s-kid-know-it-all,” Mandy Marie screeched in that loud voice of hers. “You don’t know nothin’! You do cartwheels down the sanctuary and kiss boys behind the swing sets at recess! Oh, I know all about you, you and your blasphemin’, and your ways of sin! You and yours is goin’ t’Hell!” Mandy Marie then launched herself at Sara, and the two went down with a splash into a luckily shallow puddle.

“Ain’t no animal gettin’ into heaven with the angels, you stupid Lutheran fool! Heaven’s for people, not cats! Gettoff me! You’re so stupid!” Somehow the two scrambled apart before the teachers got over to them.

“Reason I didn’t see nothin’ is they wouldn’t let me, Mom and Grandma pulled me back and made me go outside” Mandy Marie told little Joy in confidence as Sara stomped off ahead of them. “But I dunno … you think she’s right, Little Joy?”

Little Joy watched as Sara disappeared into the schoolhouse a ways away. Sara had a showy manner of walking that was more like a bounce. Plus, Mandy Marie was right; Sara did do cartwheels during her father’s sermons and kiss boys on the playground behind the school. Everybody knew that. Which meant she wasn’t necessarily a believable person on matters of heaven. As far as Little Joy was concerned, going to heaven was a matter of a preacher saying you was going to heaven. And that happened at funerals.

“I dunno either,” Little Joy said. “But we better do somethin’ about it, just in case.”

That afternoon Mandy Marie and Little Joy sat quietly on the long brown sofa of Mandy Marie’s grandmother’s parlor, biding time. Their feet swung above the orange shag carpet. Soon they knew, Grandma Esther would pad by them slowly, smile, and then go watch recorded soaps in her bedroom like she did every other afternoon. After she was out of sight, the girls seized the chance and scurried for the front door, careful not to let the screen slap as they left.

Out back, under the shadow of a particularly large bush they found a mound, and under the mound, a very cat-shaped heavy pillow case. Just like Kathy said they would — which was good, because Mandy Marie had promised to do the dishes for a month, and Little Joy had promised to give over her lunch money for a month. Because this was serious business. This was the business of heaven. This was the business of God.

Taking the pillow case, they ran down the hill and jumped the barbed wire fence that marked the cow pasture, and then ran some more to where the pasture sloped gently back into woods again. When they reached the pond they stopped for breath. There, in a dark gold light that filtered through the oak trees at the edge of the pond, Little Joy dropped the bag and looked around.

“Yeah,” she said, grabbing at her ribs for breath, “this is perfect.”

“Sure is.” Mandy Marie clutched at her ribs too.

After a few minutes, they pulled the cat from the pillow case and arranged it carefully. It wasn’t quite a full-grown cat, really, but it wasn’t still a kitten either. It was a sleek but crumpled orange thing with thin white stripes and then two big white splotches on its ears. It also, Little Joy decided, didn’t look like a dead body. She knew dead when she saw it, and this cat didn’t look it.

But seeing as how cats were supposed to have nine lives, they’d accounted for this possibility by bringing along a stick of dynamite and a lighter they’d found in the barn. Carefully, Little Joy tied the stick of dynamite to the cat’s tail with the lace from her left shoe. Mandy Marie brought over the makeshift raft they’d built earlier that day, right after school and in the dark safety of the barn with the dynamite in it. With what could only be called reverence, they placed the possibly departed Mario atop the threshed-together raft. Then, lifting slowly, they shuffled down to the pond with the cat suspended between them, and slipped the cat’s raft into the cattail reeds where the water met the mud of the bank.

“You goin’ do the preachin or am I,” Mandy Marie asked.

“Well, you killed it. I reckon I oughta do the preachin, to be polite.”

“Yeah. That’s fair.” Mandy Marie smoothed her shirt down and stood up nice and straight, then clasped her hands behind her back like they had to do in school when reciting their multiplication tables. Little Joy stood up tall as well. She cleared her throat.

“In the presence of God, Miss Amanda Marie Hoermann and Miss Virginia, Little Joy Wilson do solemnly swear to bear witness to this beloved friend, pet, and mouse killer—”

“Mario,” Mandy Marie hissed loudly.

“Mario,” Little Joy continued, “as he makes his way to his lawfully pearly white and gold heaven.” Truth be told, Little Joy didn’t remember much of her Uncle Pete’s service, and she so desperately wanted to get this right that she tacked on whatever important sounding phrases she could remember. All in all, she was quite pleased with the results, this far at least. At the word “heaven,” Mandy Marie stooped, and solemnly lit the dynamite fuse with the old blue lighter. It sizzled and popped as it burned. The two girls looked down at it for a moment, then at each other, then stoically back to the pond’s surface.

“We shall miss Mario,” Little Joy continued, her voice heightening in volume to drown out the sizzle of the dynamite. “But we know he goes to a better world than the one he leaves.” At the word “leaves,” Mandy Marie prodded the raft hard with her foot, and it floated loose of the reeds and into the open water of the pond.

“We bid you farewell, oh Mario, and pray that the light of this flame,” and by now Little Joy was practically yelling, for over the sizzle of the lit fuse, a low caterwauling sounded from the raft now a good thirty feet into the pond, “will show you the way to heaven and the angels and God’s gracious arms!”

“He’s alive! He’s alive” Mandy Marie jumped up and down, half laughing and half crying. “He’s alive! It’s a miracle! God and saints and angels! It’s a miracle! He’s alive!”

“Go into the water,” Little Joy yelled, casting her arms wide above her head, the cat now whipping back and forth across the mess of sticks that made the raft, his base of his tail flinging one way and then another as he tried to shake loose the heavy dynamite stick, “and revel in it, for it is the baptism of the spirit that will take you straight to God!” Now she knew this was pretty straight close to sin, but it fit the moment so well Little Joy couldn’t resist.

“Straight to God,” Mandy Marie screamed in echo. They were now both jumping up and down. The cat went this way and that on the tiny sizzling raft, and then there was a very loud and fiery bang!

And the cat and the raft were no more.

It was by far the most successful endeavor they’d ever managed. They finished the service with a loud rendition of “This Little Light of Mine,” for Little Joy finally realized the song part of a funeral was not for the dead after all, but for the living. Then the two girls had a good long laugh about it, and their hearts were gladdened with the knowledge that Mario the cat was now certainly in heaven.

Winter's Story Pick, Week 12

I expected some awesome perspective for this prompt, and Brooke definitely served it up. The ending gave me shivers!

-------------

Two angels sat on a cloud, their legs dangling over, crossed at the ankles. They didn’t talk or even look at each other. In fact, neither one knew the other was there. They were both too engrossed in their newspapers.

And it just so happened that they were reading the same one. Today’s article was on 2012, supposedly the end of the world. Of course, all the angels knew that was ridiculous; that wasn’t scheduled until 2102. Humans were, once again, looking too far into things. In a compassionate, humorous way, the writer agreed.

As the first angel read, he said to himself, This man has truly been gifted. And when he reached the end and saw the advertisement, This must surely be God’s will.

As the second angel read, he said to himself, This man must have been great on Earth. And when he saw the advertisement, It would be unrighteous not to go.

They both flew away, one one way, the other another, still without noting each other’s existence.

But their meeting was meant to be. Later that very day, they bumped into each other just outside the pearly gates. They then took notice of each other for not often did anyone venture beyond.

“Why are you here?” The first angel asked curiously.

“Why are you here?” The second wondered aloud.

“I’m headed to a lecture down on Earth.”

“Me too. Who are you going to see?”

“Reil Nodham, the newspaper writer.”

“Again, me too.”

“Then it must be God’s will that we should go together.”

So they went, falling through cloud fluff and chatting all the way. The topics of wing care, harp playing, and nonviolent video games were discussed vigorously until finally the second angel said, “I don’t know how I feel about the location. Coming down here for entertainment feels unrighteous somehow.”

“I get what you mean. I feel like I’ve lost something, being here with no assignment, no purpose. Nodham must have a good reason. Maybe it has something to do with the mood he wants to portray. Artists are like that,” the first angel mused.

“Maybe.”

They came in sight of a city, its tall buildings sprawling up into the sky and its streets congested. The skyline was not unfamiliar to them. God often sent them to that particular piece of countryside. The place definitely needed their help. It was riddled through with poverty, disease, cruelty.

The angels flew close to the dark and light-colored heads below, eyes peeled for the address. The numbers and street signs whizzed by, but their divine sight caught every character. The four numbers 6336 jumped out and they stopped, hovering inches over the hard concrete.

The theatres’ front doors were spread wide, the inside dark. As the angels approached, the first, out of habit, knelt and kissed the head of the homeless man sleeping on the side walk. He started to snore.

The soft shine from their halos lit the hallway as they floated forward. Another set of doors stood open at the opposite end. Inside, their lights joined hundreds, maybe thousands, of others. Every possible place held an angel. All the white was blinding.

The pair scooted along the edges of the room, ‘excuse me’s and ‘sorry’s following close behind them. They finally found two seats whose cushions weren’t completely degraded by rats. Just as they got their heavenly suspended tushes situated, a voice boomed through the overhead speakers, “Ladies and gentleman, please dim your glows.”

Halos winked off like burned out stars. All eyes were on the heavy curtains stationed across the stage. They parted ranks and a collective gasp swept through the room.

Reil Nodham stood there, but he was definitely not an angel, nor was he a man. He had four arms, one set right on top of the other, and each hand possessed six dirt-encrusted nails of extraordinary length and sharpness. Only sparse clothing covered his body, allowing an open view of his scaly, cracked skin and thick, double-kneed legs. His face formed to a snout, teeth poking around and through his lips.

His most prominent feature however, was his horns. They curled long, in two directions, forming what appeared to be some twisted hairdo gone wrong. The color of oil, they devoured all the light around them.

He looked like a demon straight from hell. Which he was.

His smile was terrifying, his skin split and bleeding black. “Ah, it gives me such pleasure to see all your shining faces.”

The rush for the door was instant; everyone moving like salmon upstream. But they were locked in. Miniature, not-quite-as-terrifying versions of the demon on stage stood in the way, guarding the exit. And the angels could not overpower them for they could not touch their impurity.

As one, they fell to their knees and prayed, their voices loud in the enclosed area.

Plead the first angel, “This cannot be your will, oh God. Banish these demons from whence they came.”

Plead the second angel, “Oh Lord, save us from these unrighteous creatures that would seek to destroy us.”

Nothing happened. Minutes dragged by. The angelic words became laced with desperation. Jeering and taunting erupted from the demons, adding to the din.

Reil smiled and turned to a nearby devil, “Do you think he’ll give up the world now?”

Winter's Story Pick, Week 10

Haha, another wonderful Caitlin story from Michael. I thoroughly enjoyed this - I lol'ed quite a bit. Hope you do too!

It was two against two: Gaseous Girl and Mayor Flanbury vs. the two zombie penguins that had once been Princess Caitlin and Charlie Sheen. Such odds are not particularly good, but then the mayor made it worse by a sudden burst of stupidity. Completely losing his head, he snatched the bottle that had once held Charlie Sheen’s mystical essence, raised it over his head like a club, and charged the two zombie penguins with the wildly unrealistic hope of bashing their heads in. "WINNIIIIIIIIING!" he yelled, feeling this an appropriate battle cry. It was not. It was, instead, his last word. Zombie Penguin Sheen’s beak snapped forward, the mayor staggered and dropped the bottle, and all at once there were three zombie penguins converging on Gaseous Girl, still emitting their signature horrible squawk.

Gaseous Girl tensed herself, ready for battle. She had read all the literature, and gotten all As in the two Advanced Zombiology classes she’d taken in her junior year, so she knew exactly what she should do. She knew, for example, that fire can be a troublesome way to defend oneself with zombies, as they take rather a long time to burn, and in the meanwhile they’d still be coming at her. However, Gaseous Girl also knew that she could generate a blast of fire powerful enough to instantly reduce all three of the zombie penguins to ashes, brains and all. She was on the point of letting loose when she paused. Something had been bothering her about this entire attack. All at once thoughts tumbled together in her mind: it was too fast. If a person was bitten by ordinary zombies, it was supposed to take at least 23 hours or more before they zombified. Nowhere had she ever read that the transformation happened instantly. And she had NEVER heard of anyone mutating into penguins, zombie or otherwise. If that rule could be broken, then maybe the other rules didn’t apply as well, like the one that said that you couldn’t turn zombies back. And if there was still hope…

Gaseous Girl decided in a twinkling. She wheeled about and dove through the open window of the mayor’s office, flying outside and dropping down onto the street. A tall, auburn-haired woman was standing there, clad in white and looking rather sad. "Hello," she said, raising her hand in greeting, "My name is Maralyn. My daughter’s Caitlin."

"Nice to meet you," Gaseous Girl said quickly. "Now, unless you have an emergency, I’ve got to-"

"You don’t understand," Maralyn said. "I’ve come to tell you; I know what’s causing all this. I know what’s behind the Zombie Penguin Apocalypse."

Gaseous Girl stopped in her tracks and turned to face Maralyn. "REAL-ly. Do tell."

"Well, it’s a very long and complicated explanation, and…no, there is too much, and we’re about to be messily devoured by zombie penguins. Let me sum up." She took a breath and blurted it all out in a single British-accented rush. "You and I and my daughter aren’t real people. No one here is. We’re all characters in a story. Our author wrote a death scene for Caitlin, my daughter, but she didn’t want to die and so she resurrected herself. Unfortunately that broke one of the fundamental rules that govern the relationship between authors and their characters, and that has thrown all our fictional worlds out of kilter. Do you understand?"

Gaseous Girl actually began to laugh, rather surprising Queen Maralyn. "Perfectly. It’s all so clear now. I knew something wasn’t right, I knew these weren’t ordinary zombies, and now it all makes sense! Brilliant! Right, so, all we have to do to stop this is tell the author to write a happy ending, and boom goes the dynamite. Right?"

Maralyn’s face fell. "No. I’m sorry. But there’s nothing you can do. When my daughter broke that basic rule, she snapped the connection between us and our author. He couldn’t help us now even if he wanted to. Worse, this has affected all the fictional worlds. Anyone can come back now, and there are no more happy endings. Even the happy endings that there were have changed. The Death Star just blew up Yavin 4, the Thanagarians did turn the Earth into a hyperspace bypass, Sauron found Frodo and claimed the One Ring for himself. There’s nothing we can do about any of it, for we have lost our author, and there’s no one else to appeal to."

She stopped then, partly overcome by emotion, and partly because Gaseous Girl’s face had screwed up as if she had a sudden pain. The superheroine pressed her fingers hard against her temples. "Wait…wait…I’m thinking…I’ve got it! Maybe we’ve lost the author, but there is someone else to go to! Think! Who does our author, any author, depend on? Who validates his work? Who makes the characters come alive in their own minds as well as his?"

Maralyn’s eyes grew wide with the realization. "You mean…"

"Exactly! Have you ever read Peter Pan?"

"Not while I was alive, but in Character Heaven, there was a rather large library and….wait…you’re not thinking…Chapter 13?"

"Why not?"

"But-"

Maralyn was on the point of asking how, when something black and white hurtled out of the sky, emitting a horrible squawk and landing right on top of Gaseous Girl. Caught off guard, Gaseous Girl instinctively reverted to traditional modes of combat; her sharp right knee shot upwards, slamming into Zombie Penguin Caitlin’s stomach. If it had been a man, he would have recoiled away and fled, howling in pain and clutching his stomach. But as a zombie penguin, Caitlin felt no pain. Instead, her beak slashed forward, biting Gaseous Girl in the shoulder. Gaseous Girl burped fiercely, the explosive blast of power sending Caitlin flying off her and into a nearby bush, but the damage was done. Already she could feel icy tendrils racing down her arm. "Maralyn," she gasped, "Run. Run now. Call the readers. Tell them-"

But her voice dissolved into a growing squawk. Maralyn didn’t look back. She ran pell-mell down the city streets, darting into alleyways and dodging round building corners, until she found herself in an open parking lot that seemed deserted. She came to a stop, gathered herself, and looked up into the night sky and the smoke-shrouded moon. Her heart faltered. Suppose it didn’t work? She didn’t even know whom she would be talking to! But there was nothing else for it. The world depended on her. Caitlin…And so she drew a deep breath and spoke to the cold air.
"I don’t know who’s out there, or if there even is anyone reading this right now," Maralyn began. "But if you are, I ask you, please, help us. Some of you may be mothers like me, or…or maybe you’re fathers, or girlfriends, or boyfriends, or cousins, or something. Surely there’s someone in your life who is closer to you than your own heartbeat, who is the moon in your every night, who you love more than anything else…if there is, whoever that person is to you, Caitlin is that to me. She is my daughter, my only girl, and…and I cannot bear…" her voice choked, and her hands worked in agitation. "She can’t end like this. I know she shouldn’t have done what she did, and if you…" Maralyn didn’t want to go on. She didn’t like the thought that darkened her heart.

"Even if you don’t think she should be saved, even if you think she ought to stay what she is now, trapped forever as that horrible creature, think of all the other people. There’s billions in this world, men, women, children, and none of them know anything about what Caitlin did. They don’t deserve to end as zombie penguins for her mistake." She heard a distant low squawk and a crash, and knew she didn’t have much time left. "So I beg you, whoever’s out there, readers or editors or random passers-by, please, believe in us. We’re not fairies like Tinker Bell, we’re only story characters, we may not seem real to you, but we’re real to ourselves, and we don’t want to go out this way! So please, if you believe in us, if you believe in my Caitlin, or in any of the people in all the worlds of story, please, clap your hands, don’t let us die!"

She saw them now. Rank upon rank of zombie penguins filing into the parking lot, cutting off her every escape. "Please," Maralyn gasped, "in the name of heaven, please!"

Slowly they moved towards her, Zombie Penguin Caitlin in the lead, waddling ominously, and now they began to chant, their cold zombified beaks clacking. "Squawk. Squawk. Squawk."

"

Please, oh please, oh please…"

"Squawk. Squawk. Squawk."

"

Caitlin, Caitlin, don’t-"

"SQUAWK!"

…