After awhile they all become amalgam
A blur of possibilities, never becoming
The same emotions, hopes, obsessions
The same disappointment
Tying it all together at the end.
You were also a disappointment
With a different luster
The only exception
That never blurred.
Twenty years of fidelity
And Penelope is rewarded
With a return.
Twenty years is too long
But I have counted
Knowing to expect nothing.
Author: Mary
Things and such.
Roadblock
The prompts for this week are “the road is closed” and “flirt.” This was the first scene that I came up with, but it’s really super problematic. For one, it feels more like an opening to a story rather than a full story. For another, the main character doesn’t really do anything that seems to earn her the outcome (that being said, realistically, do any of us?) I suppose if extended out into a full scenario it could work, but I’d get bored of it quick. There’s a lot of stories like this.
Also, apologies if the flirtations are not flirty enough, I don’t know how to flirt.
Alice groaned as she approached the large, orange dividers blocking off access to the road. She had seen the reflective panels right after she had made the turn onto the road and had hoped that the road was open. But now she was close enough to see that she might have to turn around and take a different way home. She rolled to a stop as she eyed the street past the dividers – it didn’t look like there was any construction being done, nothing looked new or changed or wet. There were no people that she could see. This was her shortest route home and she was tempted to drive around the blocks and keep going.
She gasped at the sharp rap against her window, her head swinging towards the man standing there. She hadn’t seen anyone on her approach, but now a cop wearing a reflective vest stood at her driver side door, looking annoyed. He made a motion for her to roll her window down, and she complied. Her instinct when dealing with most policemen was to turn up the charm in the hopes that she could be let off the hook for whatever minor traffic infraction she had been caught doing.
Alice smiled wide as she leaned to look up at the man through her lashes, and asked, “I’m sorry, officer. I didn’t realize the road was closed. Is there some kind of accident ahead?”
He stared at her for a beat too long, shining a light directly into her face so that she couldn’t see him. She wondered if he hadn’t heard her. For a moment, she almost felt stupid, holding her smile in place too long. Then he finally spoke. “There was one.”
“Was,” Alice pressed, batting her eyelashes and doing her best to look and sound concerned. “I hope no one was hurt.”
“It was bad, but it should be cleared up by now.”
Alice internally cheered at her timing. Maybe the cop had been out here to remove the dividers. She smiled at him pleadingly, leaning herself forward in the hopes that her cleavage really popped. “Would it be possible for me to drive around the divider then? This is my shortest route home. I’ve had a long day and it would mean so much…” He paused again, and it was hard to see against the light he was still infuriatingly shining at her, but she had the victorious impression that his gaze flicked down.
“Give me a moment and I’ll have it out of the way.” The man walked over to the divider, shifting it aside to give her enough room to drive by. He waved her through, and she waved back at him happily as she drove forward. She couldn’t believe her luck.
But then she glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that he was replacing the divider, moving it back toward the center of the road. A strange sinking feeling caused her stomach to dip, but she ignored it and continued driving. Just don’t stop for anything, she thought to herself resolutely as she rolled her window back up. She gripped the steering wheel. She kept her eyes wide as she continued, looking for any signs of danger around her or on the road. She thought she caught the faintest glimmer of metal in the headlights, then heard a strangely loud sound. The steering wheel dragged hard to the right, and she gasped as the car slipped beyond her control – a tree loomed ahead – a cacophonous sound of metal crunching, air bag gas hissing, and glass shattering –
“She seems kind of weak. Do you really think she’ll make good game?”
Alice felt dizzy and nauseous, pressing her eyes closed tight as she became aware of the sounds around her. The words were alarming, but she could barely focus on them.
“Pretty though. Sometimes the weak looking ones surprise us too.”
“She’s already pretty injured. Gotta be a concussion. Hunting her isn’t going to be any fun if she’s already concussed.” The voice paused, and she felt a finger push against her head. An eruption of searing pain caused her to see lights behind her closed eyes and she gasped.
“Well, then what she would do?”
Sidequests Week 20
The sidequests for this week included going for a walk around the neighborhood, selling or donating something I don’t use anymore, and reading a chapter form a new book.
The book one was a little hard in interpreting – does the book only need to be new to me? Or new as in just recently published? But since I’ve still got my BOTM subscription, I decided to read my book from the previous month, so that would make it both new to me and a book published in April of this year. I started reading The Husbands by Holly Gramazio, and finished reading it by Wednesday night. I enjoyed it a lot, but we’ll see what I still remember when I do my reading write up at the beginning of next year.
I finally decided to put my treadmill on facebook’s marketplace. Mostly I had been putting it off because I dislike interacting with people, but I haven’t used the treadmill in over a year and I don’t keep myself on it for any significant amount of time when I do use it. I have better luck just going to a gym. (although admittedly, I haven’t done that in a long while either)
It was only up for a few days, with a couple of people expressing interest, but mostly they just kept asking me to bring the price down. Finally found a person that seemed interested in looking at it in person and said that he didn’t intend to ask for me to reduce the price, but when I went to eat with my parents for Sunday, they offered to buy it instead. I apologized to the guy, collected the money from my parents, and then helped Dad get it into and out of his truck and situated at their house. Then I showed them how to use it. My Dad kept saying he felt more comfortable having it because Mom likes to go for walks, which made him worry. Lots of people in our town own dogs that they don’t keep very well contained, so it’s not unusual to see some happy-go-lucky fucker waltzing around enjoying some freedom. Most times they’re friendly, and it’s not like dog attacks are common place. But I have seen a few while living here, and Dad has had to fend off an aggressive dog on his walks before, hence his apprehension.
Don’t know if it will get much more use, but Mom does like to walk.
I also did sort through a few drawers and come up with some more clothes to donate, though I haven’t taken them to Goodwill yet.
And then the last one – for for a walk around the neighborhood. Rather than going around the neighborhood, I decided to walk down to a neighborhood feature I never realized was there before. On my drive to work, there is a park that is tucked in behind some houses. I only started using this route to drive to work once I moved into my current home, so I was unaware that the park existed. It’s usually abandoned, though still semi-maintained with the grass being mown regularly. It’s actually very expansive too – when I started walking along its length, I realized that it actually extended all the way back up towards my house. It kind of awkwardly looks into a lot of people’s backyards, and the entrances to the park are very narrow. There are a lot of places were water obviously stands after it rains.
And despite the regular grass cutting, the actual equipment isn’t maintained. The benches rusting, and the playground equipment looked like it was rusting as well, even though I think it had been plastic at one point. The swings were pretty good though. A bit further back was a tennis court, but the metal fencing on one end was completely absent, and there was no net. Even further back was some more tall metal fencing, but I couldn’t tell the purpose – maybe at one point it had been part of a baseball field? Closer to the ditch, set under some trees was some concrete. I think maybe a picnic bench may have sat there before, but now it was just a random patch of concrete in the shade. I didn’t see anyone else, just a rabbit and dogs in their back yards.
I suppose there would almost be some temptation to blame the condition on kids not wanting to go outside anymore, but in this case I think it was purely poor positioning. The park is tucked so awkwardly behind people’s houses that you feel a little like you’re out of place or invading privacy. I’ve lived near this neighborhood since I was a kid and didn’t even know the park was back there. Despite the size of the grounds, there’s zero parking available. And there’s plenty of other play options in our neighborhood, which has two elementary schools. So it just sits back, out of sight, out of mind.
The week was fairly quiet otherwise – due to work scheduling, it ended up being a 6 day work week, and I spent the day off cleaning. I did get a response from my penpal and have already mailed a reply.
denizens of dark
share the shadows with me
share the night blooms
draw near
like a moth
to the flames of desire
burn, burn in my fire
First Kiss
Prompt cards from Storymatic this time were “firefighter” and “first kiss.”
I kind of like the idea I came up with, but feel like it was too inexpertly plopped down. With a little research, it could probably be something longer and more touching. But the bare bones of the idea is nice, and as mentioned before, my goal with these was to force myself into flash fiction and quick stories.
Justin stared down the aisle as the music began, feeling himself flush. The heat crept up his neck and was probably turning his ears red. Maggie always made fun of him for that, and when she did he’d call her by her full name – Magdalena – because she hated it. People were shifting to get a look at her as the procession of bridesmaids and grooms slowly made their way to the front.
Their first meeting had been dramatic. He had been a new firefighter at that time, still quite fresh to the job. He could see Jim, her father, walking her down the aisle, and he reminisced over the first time he had seen the man. Soot covered, coughing, screaming that his daughter was still in the house.
Justin hadn’t been the one to save her from the fire, though he had helped bust out the window to the room she was in. She wasn’t breathing when she was passed into his arms through that window, and after carrying her a safe distance away, he had immediately begun CPR. In fact, she had been the first person he had to perform the kiss of life on – he had been that green around the gills, still bumbling and nervous and anxious. But his training always kicked in, thankfully, had kicked in at that moment.
He could remember the way that time seemed to slow down for him. He didn’t think it was working, had a moment of panic wondering if she was too far gone. Her coughing groan, her eyelids fluttering open to reveal those sparkling emerald irises – everything about those few seconds was burned into his brain. The first life he had saved.
The music faded as she stood in front of him. He reached forward, his hands strangely steady despite the thumping of his heart, to lift the veil away. His breath caught as he stared into those vividly green eyes, that knowing smile she always seemed to have. It all blurred from there.
The vows were spoken. The rings exchanged. “You may kiss the bride.”
He leaned forward and kissed her, his mind wheeling back to their first kiss when they started dating, and that first kiss of life when they had met. Here was another important first kiss, the moment emblazoning itself in his mind, as important as any of the others.
The first kiss of their married life.
mehryment 