Marybeth Niederkorn

And He Knew

2012-02-01T22:21:00.003-06:00

"You're my nightmare," he said.
She scoffed. "I thought your nightmares were about the East China Sea and that swarm of bee things."
He stared at her, wondering without qualm if that gift he'd bought her was returnable.

Punk-Rock Bands I Am Sad Did Not Emerge from the '70s British Punk-Rock Movement

2012-02-01T22:12:00.001-06:00

-Anglo In the Dark
-Brit Sh*t
-Hallucinogeneric
-The Voms

Chalk Outline

2012-01-24T20:22:00.003-06:00

You know how everyone who's ever put words to page has a bucketload of advice for the beginning writer? Endless rows of books in the writing section promise guidance, bolsterment, and the ONE piece of advice that is GOING to UNLOCK YOUR AWESOME POTENTIAL.

And for a long time I bought into that. I took classes in creative writing, read endless books on the subject, still to this day read article after article online about how to break through the mental hurdle of whatever your demon might be.

I think that's how you can tell you're still a beginning writer. Not how many clips you have but how many articles you're reading on how to write better. Moving on--

I tried every method, every guaranteed-surefire-success-maker touted by writers I'd never heard of (and some I had), kind of like the overweight person who buys every diet book, diet food, diet pill, determined to figure out how to lose weight without exercise and sensible meal regulation. Point being? Yeah. I didn't see marked success with my writing until I made up my mind to let it happen. Not that I'm a millionaire novelist yet but I'm plugging away at it. I finally started a rigorous routine of writing a set number of words every day, whether it was fiction or poetry or journal entries. Some days, the words aren't so profound. But they're necessary.

And it started to happen.

I picked up a critique partner, a coach, a few people who wanted feedback on their work. I network, have made contacts, enter contests, and read literary journals. I subscribed to a listserv (CRWROPPS, so should you!), follow Duotrope on Twitter, and carry a notebook everywhere. Not just to jot down ideas, but to record books and authors to check out.

That's what's been working for me. Putting energy into activities that feel like they're moving in a positive direction, outlining ideas, building, building, ever building--staying conversant with the industry--this is what's working for me. And most important of all, listening to what's working for me, not what I'm told will be successful for me.

So when I quit trying to live the lives others have already lived, I found my voice.

A Walk Through

2012-01-23T14:02:00.003-06:00

I live a few blocks from the university where I'm taking a philosophy course this semester. That's my area of study, philosophy, with a healthy dose of English and writing. I like to think--I like to read--I like to think about what I read, and write papers discussing what I thought about what I read. It's not like I'm planning a sojourn into law school or anything like that. Philosophy sets my mind on fire, and when my mind's on fire, I have the most fun.

So that's been today, thus far, is walking to class, taking notes, walking back. Doesn't sound like much, put that way. But it was wonderful. Today's skies are sunny and almost warm, and late January brings the beginnings of re-waking. I felt the breeze in my hair, felt my leg muscles stretch and flex as I headed up and down hills, felt the small of my back pressing into the bookbag with its texts and notebook cheerfully snugged inside. I could smell damp earth, which, after last night's storms, I was surprised they were as dry. Yeah, it stormed last night--heavy rain, hail, winds. Tornado watch at this time of year. But the day after? No limbs down that I could see, no torn roofs, just a brisk breeze and scuttling clouds. And hints of green at dead edges.

1,200 steps from my front door to the classroom. I don't own an iPod, don't have music on my phone, don't have headphones or earbuds or any of that. Sure, I could be using that fifteen-minute walk to listen to podcasts or audiobooks, or I could use it to reflect.

I like reflecting.

Pop Ups

2012-01-11T17:09:00.005-06:00

Reading an online journal I hadn't seen before, enjoying the free-flowing poetry and prose, engaging with the work, I saw a familiar-yet-common name in the table of contents. I wondered.

Years ago, while studying creative writing at the nearby university, my professor told me I would be seeing fellow students out in the publishing world for the rest of my life. I believed her, sure, in theory. But while I've kept in touch with several friends and acquaintances from the department, it wasn't until today that it was brought home to me--people I studied with are finding niches of their own, all over the place, and that was strange and beautiful to me. Like the way the sun gilds storm clouds as they roll away. I waved a little at her, reading her essay about growing up in the same area where I grew up, our similar backgrounds fodder for her story in a journal I'd never read before today. And I think this will keep happening, again and again, seeing people I knew, people my work appeared next to in our student literary magazine, people whose pens scratched in tandem with mine while we worked our way through course material.

I can't wait.

Patron

2011-02-08T02:15:00.001-06:00

She trailed her fingers through the air between herself and the great works. Kept well back from the velvet ropes and security features, content to look, to be in a place of amazement. She didn't want to touch, to create the beauty for herself. She wanted only to look, to gasp, to think, to be transported without ever being the artist herself. Almost vulgar to press brush to paint, to trail and smear it across a virgin canvas, to decide where which color would evoke emotion. And with what? She imagined herself whispering to the canvas, reassuring herself as well as it that they would always have this moment, that others would see but by then it would be another experience, another time, another reason. To create art is to be entangled with art, to press flesh to bristle, liquid to yielding surface unforgiving in its eternity. She wanted no part of that. But to look, to imagine, to feel—oh that, that was sublime.

Heated

2011-01-07T22:25:00.002-06:00

She pressed the button on the space heater. Its red light blinked on—high power. The green light next to 60 lit up, and she pressed the button again. At 70, the heater ran for five minutes, then clicked off. She huffed absently, pressed the button again, again, again. At 90, she smiled and sat back. “You'll work forever now,” she said, and went back to what she'd been doing.

News!

2010-10-10T14:39:00.005-05:00

Two major developments in the last several days!

A longtime dream has finally come true. Well. Two longtime dreams have finally come true.

Since 2001, I've been writing for The Journal of Asinine Poetry under three names, all of which have their own social-media profiles, which is not in any way weird or creepy, thankyouverymuch. This site and all it stands for--community, laughter, parody, out-there-ness--has meant so much to me for so many years it's hard to remember what life was like, pre-asinine. They kept publishing me through the darkest times of my life, and the happiest. They published an anthology and included me, and at the book launch I signed autographs for the first time. They invited me to New York, where I read at a poetry club with other poets who have books published and everything. In other words, they gave me my first taste of what it really means to write, Kept me going through slow periods, revved me up through speedy ones. I own merch. (You should too!) And finally, finally, after nine years of submitting, I made the Halloween Issue. I'm very excited about this, see. The Halloween Issue is my favorite, the one I read and re-read every year, the one I desperately wanted into. Because Halloween is my favorite holiday and, try as I might, I couldn't write about it. Not as well as I wanted to. And even when I submitted the poem that made it in, I told the editor I had plans for a Halloween verse. Which he promptly pointed out was already in. You talk about a frabjous day, man. Frabjous.

Then, I decided to join PubIt! Barnes & Noble now has a program for authors to self-publish their books for free, royalties paid, etc. More about it here. I read through all the legalese, details, and guidelines. I put together an anthology of stories I've produced in the last couple months. I uploaded it. It's available now for sale. Not as if Penguin-Putnam has picked it up, or anything, but still, this is a move forward, and an exciting one at that.

And that's what I have today. A good day, this.

Apartment Complex

2010-10-06T11:48:00.001-05:00

I can't believe the last words I ever said to my best friend were “Hey, later!”

Because they weren't true, and they weren't enough.

I don't guess any last words between anyone are ever enough. Such finality and words aren't about finality. Language is alive. Maybe all last words should be in Latin.

But I'm okay now. That's more than any of them can say.

I was leaving Jenna's apartment. We'd been drinking cider and playing Pictionary. Two-person Pictionary isn't a lot of fun but the cider helped. We laughed, we joked, we drew pictures that only we thought were hilarious. And they were. To us.

It was getting late, and I had a test in the morning. I left. She waved as I yelled to her. The door closed behind me, and I was in the hall. No one was lingering or lurching, which was fine with me. There was this creepy guy who lived down the hall and I tried to avoid him whenever I could—he thought we were soul mates or some crap.

I headed out the front door, key in hand. I was walking down the concrete stairs, lightly like I'd done a hundred times before, not even holding the center rail.

I guess that's what saved my life.

I saw a group of girls standing at one corner of the building. I smiled and waved, and they waved back. Friendly place. But as I turned my head back toward my car, I heard a shink! and felt the stairs go out from under my feet.

They're concrete, how can they do that? I thought. But my feet went with the stairs and I dropped, rolled to my left. I heard the girls screaming, but it was like it was happening to someone else. I came to a stop and rolled over, looked first at the stairs, then at the building.

The stairs were a ramp now, sure enough. And the railing had bent and twisted and … grown teeth? It was buzzing, chainsaw-like, and I saw one of the girls standing to one side, holding a spurting stump that used to be her hand. Staring at it like she didn't know what was going on. As I watched she fell to the ground, eyes rolled back in her head.

The garden in front of the building had opened and was screaming, a high-pitched grinding noise like a backhoe without an engine. I couldn't see the rest of the girls. I heard them, though. Oh. I could hear them.

But the building itself—that was the worst part. It had ripped apart in the middle, and I could see all kinds of crappy furniture and small electronics falling out. The building was shaking, hard, like a dog after a bath. I looked for Jenna and didn't see her. Everyone was screaming, shouting. People were trying to get out but couldn't get their feet under them—the floor was moving so fast they couldn't correct for it. And then the building stopped shaking and uttered a horrific cry.

“You will feed me, all of you!”

What did that mean, I wondered?

I thought I'd better move away.

I thought I'd better call the police.

I thought right.

I rolled further back, grabbed my phone, stabbed 9-1-1 onto the keypad, shouted my location, and begged them to hurry.

And then the apartment building exploded.

A fireball so huge it couldn't have come from the furnaces or the water heaters alone—it was like hell itself opened up from under the building. The whole hillside blew out in a fantastic shower of debris and rock and dirt. I felt myself get picked up and thrown back, toward the pool. I saw others get thrown, to the tasteful knot of trees, to the parking lot. They weren't as lucky as I was.

I hit the water, which was hot all right, but not boiling. I heard my phone splash and sizzle, and I pulled myself toward the ladder. I crawled out and lay on the deck, gasping, staring at what used to be my best friend's place.

Right about then the first fire trucks showed up, and ambulances, and the police cruisers. It being late at an apartment complex, they'd all been nearby anyway. I couldn't move. Not because I was hurt that badly (even though my ankle was killing me) but because I could not believe what I'd just seen.

And what I was seeing now.

The stairs flipped back into stairs. The railing was just a railing. The huge crater in the side of the hill was still a crater, smoking and spewing water and natural gas, but I started to wonder if I'd really seen what I thought I'd seen.

“Are you all right?” It was an EMT, holding an oxygen tank and a blanket. He rolled me over on my back and felt for a pulse. I nodded numbly at him, and he called for a stretcher.

They asked me about it.

I lied.

I have a life to live, after all.

Fisher's Wife

2010-08-12T21:19:00.002-05:00

Rain crackled onto the roof, and she looked up from her row of stitches. A strong one, she thought, and the twinge of worry was as routine to her as drawing the next breath. She paid it no mind. Her hands never stilled over the knitting. It was a double-cable sweater tonight, even though summer's heat had baked the life from the dooryard. Sweaters with this much stitching took months to complete, and she was thinking as far ahead as she dared.

She looped a strand around her finger, watched as the deep blue formed precise line after line. She had married this man whose moods were as the sea he sailed. When the sun opened the sky to cathedral heights, his heart was light and full. When squalls had ruined the trip, and his mood was black as the crashing waves delivering shells and kelp to ageless beaches, she held him close, felt his distance. The first time she'd looked in his eyes, she'd felt time slope dizzyingly away from her, reminding her of standing in the surf. Waves lapping her feet with deceptive gentleness. Sand crumbling from under her curled toes.

Her fingers trembled.

She drew a breath. The ocean, so vast, so outwardly placid. Older than time. It had formed the planet, she thought, made it what it was. She wondered if every wife of the sea had felt as a planet to her husband's ocean.

The wind picked up. A spiteful howl, she thought. Anger in this storm. That in itself was not unusual.

Then why was her hand shaking?

She sipped from her glass. Rarely did it hold anything stronger than water, as she knew how simple it would be to accept wine's deceptive calm. Tonight the tasteless wet filled her mouth but did nothing to slake her thirst.

Terror had dried her out.

She started at that thought. Terrified? She was merely sitting in her living room, knitting, as she had before, and would do again. There was nothing to terrify her in this storm. Her husband had returned from every one of them. Only once had he been injured, and that a mere scratch across his arm. He had not even taken stitches. Other fisher's wives had told of terrors their husbands moaned against in the night. Sleep stripped them of taciturnity. Sometimes they wept. But her husband—either he had never seen such things as the other men, or he was stronger of will than they.

It would be impossible to tell.

Her shoulders were tensed, her feet tapping. No music played. She thought that might be part of the problem. She set the sweater aside and moved to address that issue when the door blew open.

She screamed without breath. She saw nothing but driving rain outside the doorway, heard the howl of wind, but swore something watched.

She slammed the door closed, shot every bolt on its oaken face, jammed the prop in place. Panting, she leaned her forehead against the door, struggling against sobs that wanted to rise. She would not let them. Her dinner sat heavy in the pit of her stomach and would sit no more lightly if she gave in to her fear.

The public house was open, and it offered warmth, light, friends. The walk down would be unpleasant, to be sure, but she found it mattered little to her.

What did matter was her sudden certitude that something in this storm waited for her.

Electricity split the sky, and she gasped. Silly, she scolded herself. Nothing but lightning, and would be followed by thunder. She began to count, hoping to place the storm's center.

She got to seventeen before she realized no thunder would follow that bolt.

A small cry escaped her throat. She ran to each window, closed curtains behind panes already shuttered. She dashed to the fire, built it up enough to choke the chimney with smoke. The embers bore her a sullen wrath. She ignored it. She found her hands gripping her broom handle, sweeping the already-clean stone floor. Rugs were pushed aside, furniture lifted. She would clean and clean until this driving need to have all chaos in its proper order had passed.

She heard, just then, a squawk.

She stopped. Froze. It could have been any number of things. A neighbor's cat, mad about being caught in the wet. A bird of prey triumphant with a night's kill. But she knew it was not.

And it had come from just outside her window.

She stepped away from the kitchen, backing toward the light and sanity of the hearth fire. Her knitting still sat in its pool of heavy blue, but she knew she'd never be able to calm herself enough to pick it up. She reached instead for the book she had hoped she would never need. The one her husband had gifted her with on their wedding night. The one he had given to her with one hand, while his other clasped hers. Even before they had consummated their union, he had given it to her, and bade her breathe one word to him.

Promise.

She remembered now how flustered she'd been. A week's festivities had left her drained, happy, eagerly awaiting what she'd been told was the best aspect of marriage. Union. Her husband of seven hours had led her to the marriage bed, silent, his eyes wide and blank on hers. She'd taken the book, promised, then asked--”What am I promising?”

He had smiled, a smile that aged him into oblivion. That was the first moment she realized what she had done in marrying a man of the sea. He would forever be more of the sea than of her. The enormity of that slammed into her, and she began to cry.

“No,” he said, and touched her face. “The time for tears is not now. When that time comes, you must have this, my love, my dear. This book will be all you need to guard against what will come.”

Now she thought of that night and felt the impact of his words all over again. The years between might have been finger-snaps. She withdrew the green leather volume from its hiding place, under skein after skein of yarn in her knitting basket. Once again she saw the quiet wink of semi-precious gems, felt the gilt-edged pages. A single tear fell. That was all she would allow herself for now.

She prayed to whatever deity was listening, for strength.

She opened the cover, watched with no real surprise as the text began to glow red. She began to read aloud in a language she had never before spoken—a language that had not been voiced for a thousand years.

The sea has a memory longer than any other.

Her entire voice rolled into pronunciation of every word. Her throat opened, voice drew from the bottom of her lungs. Energy curled into her, crafty, and she curved her fingers around the next page. The next. Then the next. Her grief for the man she loved clawed out of her heart and into her throat, struggled, found purchase, and bled out into every word she read. The syllables that followed no grammar seen by modern humanity throbbed with her pain, her horror, her anguish. The lilt in her voice took on a keening edge.

Her voice rose.

The wind began to calm.

She continued, now nearing the halfway point in the ancient tome. Her hands no longer shook. So much strength now flowed through her, she wondered that she did not rip the very fabric of reality.

Then she ceased to wonder at all.

Her fingertips began to glow, gold and blue against the green and red of the book. Still she read. The tone of her voice was joined by others, and others, until a chorus of rolling voices churned out of her throat. Smoke poured from her eyes, her hair curled into vicious tendrils around her face. Her clothes melted from her body in a molten flood of homespun wool and cotton. She rose from the little chair by the now-roaring fire, squared off as for battle, and turned to face the door.

It opened again, not with a bang this time, but with a slow reveal intended to terrify. The time for her terror was over, now. She met the wild war of elements with a calm eye, and the voice of everyone taken by every millennium of devastation wrought by the creature outside.

The book in her hands, she wasn't even looking at it anymore. With a shimmer of light and reality, it began to shift into a long metal sword, its haft of onyx, its blade of cold iron. The stones that had decorated its covers now wound themselves into the leather binding of the haft itself. She continued to speak as if she read from its pages, and perhaps she did.

One long leg extended through the doorway, followed by another, and another. Several more entered before the thing's monstrous body could fold itself against the ceiling. She stood, fire behind her, sword before her, incantations flowing from her. The beast roared, a mewling howl that came from nowhere so much as within her own mind. Still the words flowed from her, through her, toward the being whose presence would have driven her to madness mere moments before.

It roared again. She felt her joints go liquid, fluid, ready for attack, ready to defend, ready to avenge.

Its eyes were a purple more noxious than swamp gas. They assessed her as she assessed it. Coolly her mind ticked off points of vulnerability. The monster had many. Probably the creature had existed as long as it had thanks to its tendency to instantly render men to gibbering madness.

But now it was dealing with the woman of one of those men, and all the fury of hell would not be penetrated by his insectoid form.

Her voice rose again.

The monster screamed again, this time in pain.

Her mouth twitched into a smile.

The words still fell from her lips, faster now. The monster began to cringe, to shake, and finally it charged. She dodged, deft, and sliced one of the monster's legs at the knee. It ripped, dangled, attached by stretching skin. Its scream was one of wretched fury, and worse, of surprise. She thought, detached, that the monster had not been surprised in some time. If ever.

She punched upward with the blade, its point digging into the thing's hairy stomach. It howled, and she heard the wind pick up. Lightning crashed. Rain foamed in the streets. She paid it no mind. A tree branch crashed against the side of her house. It might have never happened. She rose her voice still higher, louder, with all the aid she could take.

The smile never left her face as she sank the sword into the beast again and again. Once she pounded the sword in far enough that her wrist tasted its blood. Still the beast's ridiculous fangs did not touch her, his sense-hairs on his legs (what's the word for those???) did not score her with their venom. She thought he was more of a show than a horror, but still she fought, madly, balancing on the edge of her endurance as she dodged, faked, stabbed.

She howled, then.

The storm blew itself silent.

The monster's orange ichor gushed onto the fresh-swept floor.

Its legs curled underneath, and after one great shudder that wracked her rafters, it was still.

Triumph filled her, and the chorus of voices rang out in a crescendo of joy. Finally, the ravage of the sea would destroy no more.

She plunged the bloodied blade into the air, laughed once, twice, then felt her humanity return. Divinity ebbed from her, edging first out of the blade, then out of her arms, her legs, and finally her heart.

She fell to the floor, clutching her sides, her grief crashing into her harder than any wave. The book clattered to the floor beside her, its cover now a brilliant red, its pages scribed in her husband's hand, the words every one a murmur of his love for her.

Lion in Wait

2010-07-28T19:02:00.001-05:00

He sat impassive, huffed a breath through the mask's airholes. The real-like whiskers fluttered and he observed the effect. Not particularly threatening, but he didn't need the whiskers to be threatening when he himself was doing such a good job. Obviously. Nary a straggler had been by yet today, and normally this place was crawling with unsuspecting folks just out for a drink of cool, refreshing water. He thought about going for a sip himself, but that would invite unwanted attention. Give away his position, like. No, he didn't want to do that until it was absolutely necessary. When would that be? He didn't know, but he was willing to bet he'd know it when it happened.

He drew in another breath, flattened himself against the wall. And he spotted her. Clad in a smart business suit the color of peacock feathers, heels clicking against the wood-laminate flooring, hair blowing behind her in defiance of hairspray—yes, he thought, yes.

Swiftly he checked the room for observers. No one, at least not this minute. Everyone was at his or her desk, ostensibly working, probably on the internet. He smirked. His jumpsuit was the nondescript blue-gray of the building's janitorial staff, whose rounds were not until later in the day. He'd checked. He'd checked everything about this place before even thinking of installing himself behind this water fountain, and waiting for his first victim.

Here she was, moving toward him with bored purposefulness. He doubted she even realized what a figure she cut, unaware that her last moments in this world were at hand.

He tensed, ready to spring. She was getting closer, closer—soon she'd be standing on the big X he'd marked in front of the water fountain, and that's when he'd spring from his hiding place, neatly decapitate her, and let out his feral roar. Then they'd know who was king of the jungle, oh yes, then they'd know. They'd all know. No one would doubt how amazing was his prowess, how full of raw power was his masculinity, how keen was his blade, how powerful his ability to ensnare any victim he chose.

She was walking, licking her lips. The world seemed to slow. All he could think was not even coherent—just a low thrumming beat, a kind of soon soon soon through his mind as he crouched, knife at the ready. Her eyes were glued to the water fountain, its gleaming nozzle facing her, offering sweet release from the torment of thirst. She came nearer, nearer to him. He watched, barely daring to breathe, knife held in a hand both tense and loose, leaning forward just the tiniest fraction of a degree, every muscle attuned to the moment he'd--

Wait--

Wait, what was she doing?

She was stopping …

Standing …

Oh, she was standing, all right.

But not on the X.

She was leaning over the back of the nozzle, coming in for the water stream from behind. Very like a predator herself, he thought with a red buzz of rage. She wasn't on the X. He couldn't strike. He would be seen. He sank back against the wall, listened to the quiet hiss of water abruptly quit, heard her small purr of relief, listened as her heels clicked back off in the direction she'd entered from.

He glared after her. Well, he thought, so much for today—we'll try again in the morning.

He slid the mask from his face, tucked it into his back pocket, and left the building.

The Real Monster

2010-07-06T20:38:00.000-05:00

She found a corn chip shaped like Georgia, dunked it in cheese sauce, imagined the screams of Charleston as the fearsome monster laid ruin to their fair city. She maybe could do without all those Godzilla film festivals.

Goat Seek

2010-07-05T20:36:00.000-05:00

They called him Seeker of the Goat. What they didn't know was what he would do when he found it. But they could guess.

Faux Pas?

2010-07-04T20:34:00.002-05:00

“We're having a clown and butler convention here at this old abandoned church! You should come!”

“No … thanks.”

A World Apart

2010-06-25T22:23:00.004-05:00

He looked up, locked eyes with me.

“What are you … how …” He sputtered to a stop, dropped the book in his hand, and launched himself across the porch at me. The look on his face was so horrified, so elated, that I started to step back. Too late—his arms were around me, and he was kissing me.

It seemed like forever, that moment, with his hand on my hair, his nose pressed to mine like it had always had a home there. I must have made a sound, because he broke from me and looked deep into my eyes.

“What’s the matter?”

I didn’t have an answer for that one.

But I said it anyway.

“Are we—together?”

His face went white. His eyes widened, but only slightly.

“You’ve been gone,” he told me, like that explained anything.

“No, I haven’t, I just went for a walk. This morning. From my place, I was headed here, and there was …” I stopped. He was looking at me with a calm sympathy that I would have found obnoxious if I’d had any idea what was going on.

He took my hand and stroked it.

“You’ve been gone for eleven months,” he said.

I shook my head.

He nodded.

I shook my head again.

He touched the side of my face, and I felt nothing but warmth and love from that touch. I took a deep breath and thought back to that morning.

I’d gotten up early, gone for a walk. Scarf wrapped around my throat, good walking shoes on. I was going to see a friend of mine who lived a few blocks away, never minded my dropping in. I was watching the scenery go by, looking at the houses with their tidy gardens, the lawns of green and gray, the trees throwing their annual striptease. The sidewalk had jagged cracks, the same as always—dust drifted into them, dust with microscopic seeds that would grow into life come spring. Further along there was a fresh crack, one I didn’t remember, one that looked like it had glitter caught in it—one that I suddenly very much wanted to cross, one that shimmered at me, one that once I went across, I felt different. Calmer. At the time I’d chalked it up to someone spilling leftover craft supplies, but now, suddenly, maybe a little too late, I wondered.
I could feel memories bleeding in from the edges, memories of being with him. Memories of doing just this almost every morning—taking a walk, dropping by his apartment, and there he’d be, sitting out front with a book and a mug of coffee, then looking up like he’d been waiting for me. And he had. But there was more—trips we’d taken. Movies we’d seen. Nights spent on the couch, curled together, old episodes of shows no one else watched anymore, popcorn. All the mundane things couples do, but with him, they all meant more. Added up to a reality I didn’t want to believe was possible.

“I thought I imagined all of that,” I said. Daydreams, that’s all. Odd moments when the sun slanted just right, and I would dream of what it would be like to be with him—if he was there with me, holding me, asking me, touching me just as he was doing right now. I mean, I knew I had a hell of an imagination. But had I imagined this into reality? That was just crazy.
He folded me back into his arms, and I laid my head against his chest. “If you did,” he said, and hooked his chin over my head, “or if you didn’t, all that matters is, you’re home now.”
I relaxed against him, felt his head dip, and he kissed the side of my head. Tiny tears squished against my eyelids.

This was pretty crazy, all right. But I could get used to it. Again?

We went to the little table on the porch, a little table I was very familiar with all of a sudden. I traced the mosaic pattern with my middle finger, saw him watching me. I smiled at him, and he looked at me like he still couldn’t believe it.

“Tell me,” he said.

I blinked at him. No words would come.

His face went hard. “Then I will. You left,” he said. “Didn’t say a word to anyone. We found your purse, had everything in it, on the sidewalk. The last time I saw you …” His face contorted then, and I saw he was trying not to cry. Then he cleared his throat. “We had fought.”
I was starting to remember.

“You wanted to get married.” I said it. His eyes narrowed.

“I’ve thought a lot about that conversation,” he said. “Had a lot of time to. I wanted you, wanted to make you part of my life, wanted to make you happy. And I thought I was doing all right at that.” Like a dagger, right into my heart of hearts. “You kept telling me how much you loved me, how fast the future was coming on, and so I thought … I thought that’s what you meant.” He was talking fast, in a rush to get words out that were so hard for him to say.

I laid my hand on his.

“The police said you’d run off, especially after I talked to them.” He took a deep breath, steadied himself. “I knew that wasn’t right. But you’d been kind of distant, like you were thinking about something that you didn’t want to talk about. I respected it,” he said, and looked dead at me. There was heat in his eyes, and I didn’t blame him. “I respected it, damn it.

“So where did you go?”

I closed my eyes, lowered my head. Trying so hard to remember. I knew exactly what he was talking about, could remember what I was thinking while we’d been having the conversation—remembered that I had wanted to be with him, but was terrified that life would end for me if I went through with it. Remembered that I’d walked out, furious, feeling trapped, had been walking down the road, heard someone approach, but after that, nothing. Nothing but a vague unease and blackness. And my other life was there, laid over it like a projection of a film I starred in but couldn’t remember the lines.

“I don’t want you to think I’m making excuses.” I was looking at my hands, folded in my lap, fingers twisted together. “Please, listen until I’m done, that’s all I ask.”
He didn’t say anything, so I plunged ahead.

“I was scared. I was mad. I felt … I felt eternity closing in on me. I wanted to think, didn’t want to have a panic reaction, you know? So I left. Went home. Was going home. And this’ll sound insane, but … all of a sudden … I wasn’t here anymore. I crossed into that other life, the one without you.”

I looked at him then. He was staring, but not angry.

“So you went to a place where we weren’t together.”

I nodded.

“For eleven months.”

He sat back, rocked his heels.

“I don’t know what happened, but I do know that I hurt you, that my being gone … really hurt you.”

“It damn near killed me.”

I cringed. Sorry wouldn't come.

“Am I too late?”

He closed his eyes. Without opening them, he began to speak. “I never stopped thinking of you.
Even when everyone said there was no hope, that you’d just been grabbed, that you were going to turn up in a reservoir, I still thought … no, I knew. So I kept looking, waiting, hoping. Do you know what that’s like? Do you know?” He was looking at me now, his eyes blue fire. I sat very still. He looked away. “And here you are. A miracle.”

“But it’s not me.”

He slanted a look at me.

“I mean, it’s me. But I don’t think it’s me the way it was before.”

Tears rose in my throat, near choking me. “I can’t make you understand. I don’t understand it. I just … you were my friend, this morning, and … and I can remember being with you, I can remember not being with you. I don’t know what that means.”

He sat for a moment, quiet. “You’re not too late.”

“But?”

“But. But nothing. I loved you, I love you now, and I know you love me too. You said we were friends?”

“Yeah. Yeah, we were.”

“You were alone when I met you.”

I felt the smile start, grow, bloom. “So I was. But not anymore.”

“No,” he said. “Not anymore.”

He opened his arms to me, and I went to him. Again.

Corporate Gag Gift

2010-06-24T23:08:00.001-05:00

“Listen Frank, I don’t want to do this anymore.” He slammed the stack of papers on the desk.

Frank thinned his lips between his teeth. He was about at the end of his rope with this guy. “You were hired for a job, here, fella,” he said, and was met with a glare of an intensity he used to think only he could match.

“I never asked for this part of it, Frank,” he snarled. “You want to get personal about it, fine, but don’t you call me anything you wouldn’t call yourself.”

“We all call ourselves things we wouldn’t call others. You know that as well as I do.”

Frank stood, hands clenched, shoulders relaxed. It was a forced posture, he knew, but it looked good and would fool anyone but the closest observer.

Just his luck.

“What made you think I would want to do this shit anyway? It isn’t like I have ‘Slave’ tattooed across my forehead.”

“Might improve your looks,” Frank said, and watched with grim unsurprise as his look was returned with a vigor that did not surpass his—but it was a close call.

“Why don’t you do this yourself if it’s so important?”

Frank strode around the desk in three quick steps, long steps that were not lost on his companion. His hands reached for what might have been a bad idea—clamping onto another person’s throat, never a good idea. He managed to stop himself in time, however, collected his thoughts and took in a deep breath. He let it out and tried a smile. Really he ought to be more patient, he reminded himself. He was in a leadership capacity here after all.

“I brought you on board because there are certain parts of this job I don’t want to do,” Frank said in what was, for him, heartbreaking agonies of truth. “Paperwork being one of them.”

“What made you think you not wanting to do them would make those aspects any more appealing for me?”

Frank paused.

“Yeah, you have a point there.”

They locked stares. A long moment passed, one heartbeat, two, three. Frank would not be the first to break the gaze, but it was looking like he wouldn’t have a choice.

Just then, the door opened.

“Mr. Gascar, your eleven o’clock is here.”

The door closed.

“That was close.”

“I won’t argue with me. I mean, uh, you.”

“Well … ” He paused for consideration. “Can we agree that this is new to both of us, and we ought to work on just keeping from killing each other for the time being?”

“Yeah.” Frank closed his eyes. Never did he think this would wind up being so complicated. Otherwise he might have thought twice before going ahead with the process. “Maybe the rest will sort itself out.”

“Due time. It’ll tell.”

Frank turned his back and walked toward the window. Its wide vista showed rolling hills and a few buildings, none of which were important to anyone but those who worked and lived inside. Frank had never wondered about their occupants. He didn’t have much of an imagination, and thought that maybe this was part of what had led to the present situation. But there was no real objective way to tell. He shook his head, not even sure what he was denying, and went back to the conversation without turning around. Addressing the window seemed the safest course of action for the moment.

“I guess you’re right. But it seems like maybe … someone’s bound to catch on.”

“Your secretary there didn’t seem to notice anything.”

Frank huffed out a short laugh. “She doesn’t tend to.”

“Didn’t she order the kit for you?”

Frank stopped again, looked his way. He nodded. “You know, you’re right. I hadn’t thought about it, but she did tell me she thought it was a great boss’ day present. Double my work output, you know, we both had a laugh, oh ha-ha, then I put it on the shelf over there and didn’t think anything more about it … until, well, you know.”

“The Winkerman account.”

Frank grimaced. “Yeah, that one.” He still had nightmares. That night, when he’d been sitting at his desk, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, fifteenth cup of coffee cooling next to the desk organizer, finger-shaped furrows plowed through his hair, a living embodiment of every stressed corporate stereotype, and his eyes had lighted on the gift box. Some stupid corporate gag gift, he thought. A corporate gag … but he had a break coming, and after seventeen hours of staring straight ahead at line after line of bullshit, he was more than ready to believe anything. Or something, anyway.

And the direct result was now staring him in the face, a problem on top of a problem, whose presence was supposed to be a solution but had wound up as a serious complication.

“I don’t even know what to call you,” Frank said.

Frank grinned back.

“I don’t know what to do with you. Everything I can do, want to do, I already do. So what good are you?”

Frank continued to smile, but Frank thought it started to falter.

“You’re the one wanted a clone, Frank,” Frank said.

He waited. Frank didn’t answer.

His hand moved.

Frank froze. His throat wouldn’t work to push words out. But his mind knew exactly what he was going to say. To the syllable. But Frank’s dawning terror had gripped him. And hard.

Frank reached for an award he'd won for fifteen years of loyal and faithful service to the company. Finally coming in handy.

“Frank,” Frank said. “Now, Frank. Don’t do anything … hasty … you know, bloodstains can be a bitch to … get out of carpet … Frank … Frank!”

Frank wasn’t listening. But he was advancing. The chain clinked steadily against the heavy bar—a very heavy bar, the kind that wouldn’t bend when used to tighten a cinch. Why he had this in his office, he couldn’t say, but it was certainly coming in handy. If Frank would just stand still!
He was cringing back, pressing himself into the wall as though hoping Frank would forget he was there. But there would be no such luck, tonight.

“You were right about those bloodstains,” Frank said, and his voice sounded very far away.

Frank’s panic broke. He snapped out of his position and went running across the room, making a break, Frank realized, for the giant plate-glass window overlooking that view he was so fond of.
A plate-glass window that would be a real pain to replace.

Frank ran toward himself only to see him strike the window, full-force, but instead of leaving a Frank-shaped hole, he left a Frank-sized skid mark as he rebounded and bounced off the floor.

He was knocked out.

Frank smiled. As if his job weren’t easy enough.

He wrapped the chain around his throat, and the twisting began.

Look for another version of this story at this loverly web site!

Results

2010-06-24T23:05:00.002-05:00

To be a writer, write!

My desktop fills with pieces I've completed. I'll post them here, for feedback, for enjoyment, for results--to show myself that writing has a purpose, an outcome, a concreteness.

Please, let me know what you think. I do love comments, oh yes.

First story will be up momentarily.