ShakesQuill

Monday Mind Opener

2009-06-01T07:35:00.001-07:00

I am incredibly saddened and angered at the murder of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas. I don't want to cheapen it but I would love to hear any poetry or creative thoughts if you have them.

Rest in Peace Dr. Tiller.

Are you the next great children's author?

2009-05-04T08:50:00.000-07:00

Cheerios® is searching for the next great children's book author!

It could be you! Just enter your original children's book story by July 15, 2009. Limit 500 words.

The Cheerios New Author Contest encourages aspiring authors to write and submit an original story for a book for children ages 3 to 8. The (1) Grand Prize of $5,000 cash will be awarded. In addition to the cash prize, the Grand Prize winning story submission will be offered to a reputable Children’s Book Publishing company for possible future publication. Two (2) First Prizes of $1,000 each will be awarded. The $1,000 First Prizes will be awarded as checks made payable to each of the two (2) First Prize winners. You are not eligible to enter and will be disqualified if you are a professional writer, such as a novelist, magazine, blogger or newspaper writer who writes books or articles for pay, or you have authored a work of fiction that has been published or is about to be published in exchange for payment.

http://www.spoonfulsofstoriescontest.com/registration_form/

Monday Mind Opener

2009-05-04T08:04:00.000-07:00

Good morning and May the 4th be with you!!!

Speaking of which, Star Wars is a classic story of love, the fight for freedom, father/son relationships and cute fuzzy Ewoks.

You are hereby asked to write a story of your fight for freedom. Who are your main characters and what freedom are they fighting for?

Write long and prosper (yes, yes -- I know, that's Star Trek not Star Wars, I used to own a B'joran ear cuff for Maude's sake.)

Also, don't forget, you are all more than welcome to start submitting poetry, short stories and other writings for Shakesquill. So many people had writing that seemed to be flowing out about BADD on Shakesville, I wanted to encourage submissions. So submit!!

Monday Mind Opener

2009-04-20T10:17:00.000-07:00

Maude help me, it is 88 degrees at 9:30 a.m. and it's supposed to be over 100 today. Breaking records all over the place.

Speaking of records: You are writing a character who is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records, what is she/he listed for and how did that person become the kind of person to break records.

Write my lovelies! Write!

Monday Mind Opener

2009-04-13T08:05:00.000-07:00

Good morning Shakers! Hope you all had a lovely weekend.

Your assignment today, should you choose to accept it, is to let me know what, if any writing you are working on. If you are not working on any writing currently, what do you want to be working on?

Let's put it this way -- in the land where money is no object, you have a house in Big Sur with a view from your desk of the Pacific Ocean crashing against the rocks -- what are you writing?

Monday Mind Opener - for Tuesday

2009-04-07T07:03:00.000-07:00

Must apologize - I was at a conference yesterday and despite best intentions, never got up the Monday Mind Opener.

This morning, I'd like to ask, in light of the conference yesterday,

You have the opportunity to create an international conference.
You can have any speakers you like who are alive.

What is your meeting entitled and who is speaking?

Enjoy!

Monday Mind Opener

2009-03-30T11:35:00.000-07:00

It's almost always hard to say goodbye. Sometimes, holding onto something that isn't working just feels easier. However, saying goodbye to things and people that are holding you back allows room for new things.

This week the Mind Opener is to say goodbye to all the things you need to let go of: bad habits, dead people, alive people, partners, self-destructive feelings and behaviors, jobs, projects, re-occurring thoughts, etc. (borrowed from Learning to Love You More)

Call to Artists

2009-03-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

Shaker juliemania wanted to let writers know about an online art gallery and juried exhibit she is working on. She writes:

We are sending out Call to Artists, but I want to make sure that writers find out as well.

We are including Written Word as one of the categories and author Kate Wilhelm is our juror. Any help you can provide would be great. AND if appropriate I would love to provide this info to ShakesQuill, as they are my favorite folks on the web.

Here is our Call to Artists:

"Contemporary Perspectives for Change”

Infinity Art Gallery is making an international call to contemporary artists who creatively express their vision for change in today’s world through visual or literary art.

Entry Deadline: July 1, 2009

Exhibition Categories:
Two Dimensional Art
Three Dimensional Art
Digital art and Photography
Functional Art
Written Word

Prospectus/Rules and Guidelines: go to http://www.InfinityArtGallery.com
Each applicant may submit artwork to one category only. Each artists may submit one or two entries.

Awards: $3000 in cash prizes
Entry Fee: $25 USD, up to 2 pieces.
Entry Form: available at http://www.InfinityArtGallery.com
Grand Opening: August 1, 2009

Artwork is displayed in order of submission until the Grand Opening, when cash winners and selected finalists are announced and exhibited for six months – online, 24/7. Visitors to the gallery will participate in selecting the Viewers’ Choice winner in each category.

JURORS for the ‘Contemporary Perspectives for Change’ exhibit are the acclaimed artists: Kate Wilhelm, written word; Johnny Swing, functional art; James B. Wood, photography/digital art; Ellen Tykeson, 3D art; and Patric Baylis-Andre, 2D art. The impressive biographies for the artists are on ‘Meet the Jurors’ page of the Current Exhibit at http://www.InfinityArtGallery.com.

Infinity Art Gallery is a new online gallery that offers amazing opportunity for artists and art collectors. Founders Julie Weismann and Charly Pritchard Swing showcase the work of international, world-class artists selected for artistic excellence. Infinity Art Gallery is especially unique because it encourages people who appreciate and support the arts to purchase DIRECTLY from artists who compete in their juried exhibits, and they display the artwork of ALL qualified submissions prior to each grand opening.

Infinity Art Gallery will soon be the international cornerstone for the creative arts - where possibilities are boundless. Whether exhibiting or purchasing art, go online to http://www.InfinityArtGallery.com and participate in the interactive, international gallery which connects artists with art collectors.

Your ShakesQuill

2009-03-25T13:18:00.000-07:00

I want to know....

What do you want to see at ShakesQuill?

**Mind Openers to get your writing groove on?
**Words of the Day?
**Story Starters?
**Calls for Submission?
**Lit Crit?
**Book Reviews
**Brags by Shakesquillians?
**Something I haven't thought of?
**Fewer prepositions at the ends of sentences?

Let me know in your comments!

Monday Mind Opener

2009-03-23T06:48:00.000-07:00

Good morning all! As I am a West Coaster (Los Angeles to be exact), generally you all will start your mornings long before I will. There is nothing I can do about this other than wake up at 3 a.m. and that's just not going to happen. This has been a public service announcement.

Speaking of public service announcements, NBC (at least in the U.S.) has their "The More You Know" campaign. It's usually a 30 second public service announcement about a healthy breakfast, getting an annual physical and stranger danger. You are now an executive in the fictional NBC public awareness department and you have 30 words to inform the teevee watching audience about your issue. For instance:

Looking directly into the sun at sunrise, despite being really beautiful, will cause you to see spots on your computer for at least an hour and can cause permanent damage.

Go for it!

What to expect

2009-03-20T06:47:00.000-07:00

Good morning!

Shakers seem to be looking forward to the resumption of ShakesQuill! I have a Monday Mind Opener prepared and I suspect I will soon be up to my eyeballs in submissions.

Here's some notes on what we're looking for in addition to your artistic submissions:

I am also looking for a volunteer to take on Word of the Day duties.

Please feel free to email me any questions, comments or suggestions at soqueer (at) gmail (dot) com.

As GWB says - Bring it on!

State of the ShakesQuill II

2009-03-06T11:24:00.001-08:00

Hi all. I'm Faith, a regular commenter on Shakesville, author of That is So Queer... and various published works around town and I am honored to be the new ShakesQuill editrix. Thanks so much to Bill Wolfrum for all of his work as the founding editor, Liss for basically everything she does and all of the courageous and talented writers that have made ShakesQuill into what it is today.

This is what Bill wrote at the inception of ShakesQuill, it is brilliantly written and still stands true, so:

"One thing to remember about ShakesQuill - it's a work in progress, and it will likely stay that way. We'll always be looking outside of the box (and inside) for different ideas.

A couple words on submissions: Please give me the name you'd like to use for the piece as a guest contributor, plus any bio info you'd like added, as well. Please remember that we can't use everything. That said, I'll try and use everything I get."

I'll be restarting the Monday Mind Opener and I am completely open to ideas about what you would like to see in that department and any others.

I look forward to hearing from all of you. I can be reached at soqueer@gmail.com.

Faith

Un

2009-02-10T04:36:00.000-08:00

Some things are better left unspoken
Some things are better left undone

Let them think it's all over.
Let them think you no longer care.
You've forgotten.

Walk into the shadows, close your blinds
Skip into the sunshine, look for the rainbow.

Leave the door shut, the box closed.
Let the dust and let it remain.
Untouched.

Submitted by strangedillies

Cassandra

2009-02-10T04:34:00.000-08:00

I watch my fellow proles, ignorant of history, infatuated with trivia, preoccupied with trinkets, obsessed with ephemeral celebrity, seeking mindless entertainment. I shout a warning to help them see the truth, but my words evaporate in the anesthetic miasma of delusion.

I watch my fellow citizens as carefully crafted lies persuade them, as mongers of cynical words and cruel intentions exploit them, as their fears and desires are used as weapons against them. I cry out to them, trying to share my experiences and knowledge to prevent their loss, but my voice is only a whisper.

I watch my fellow Eloi, who live lives emptied of all meaning, who remain oblivious to their ultimate fate, who passively wait until the siren calls them to line up and feed the ravenous Morlocks. I scream at them to stop, to notice their approaching doom, and avoid an ignoble death, but my mouth is sealed.

My screams unheard, my words unpersuasive, my warnings dismissed as the rantings of a delusional mind. My massive, barely contained, righteous rage goes unnoticed in an uncaring world. My Cassandra's curse continues. Waves of nauseating disgust leave me feeling empty and exhausted.

Submitted by MikeEss

About the Author: "I am an observer of life, but not a participant.

Changeling

2009-02-10T04:31:00.001-08:00

Where are you?
True, your form is still fair,
You still bear that soft resemblance...
But the shade within is corrupt,
It is not the man I loved.

For he would never be so cruel,
So full of malice,
Like sweet Echo I am fading, O,
How I could smash that loathsome mirror!
That object, that symbol of your potent desire,
Where is it?

So deep within your wicked soul...
Now, like that lovestruck nymph,
I mourn for the man
That I lost to his own self.

Submitted by Ravenix

I Am Me, Can’t You See?

2009-01-28T17:15:00.000-08:00

I am a woman with many qualities, Can’t you see?
You see only a housewife indeed
I am much more than you perceive
Take your blinders off so you can see
Take the time to see the real me
I desperately want to be me

There is not much time left for you and me
My heart needs to be relieved
I will not live a lie, I shall be fre

Submitted by Heather Mirassou

Robert Emmet

2009-01-28T17:07:00.000-08:00

"Let no man write my epitaph."
The defiant rebel said.
"Let no woman eulogize me
After I am dead."

"I give my life for Ireland-
An Ireland strong and free
An Ireland that‘s united,
One free of tyranny."

"When my country takes its rightful place
Among nations of the world.
That day I will not live to see
When our banner is unfurled."

"On that day, and only then
Let my suffering be recalled-
and that I died for Liberty-
The sweetest death of all."

Submitted by Hobbie

No Hope

2009-01-23T19:27:00.000-08:00

I had the idea for this story before the inauguration, but for obvious reasons, I didn't want to publish it beforehand. On top of that, the real-world experience added some details to the story that wouldn't have been there otherwise.

"Honey do you know where my red tie is?"
"No, I haven't seen it, why?"
"I've got to pack it. The Congressman said we might be able to get tickets to the Inaugural Ball."
"Wow, the big one?"
"Yes, so I want to pack my best clothes."
"Honey, if we're going to the Inaugural Ball, you're renting a tux."
"Seriously?"
"Of course, have you ever seen one of these things on TV? Everybody is dressed to the max. Your blue blazer and red tie aren't going to cut it."
"Oh."
"Seriously, it's almost like you haven't even been paying attention to anything all this time you've been working in politics."
"What?"
"Never mind."
* * *
"Ricky. Ricky! Dammit, boy! Don't you ever take them damn headphones off?
"It's like you don't even live in the world outside those things. You know there are real people you could talk to, you don't have to spend all your time listening to strangers say dirty things about ladies and shooting people.
"Are you even listening to me? Can you even hear me?
"You know when we get on the plane they're going to make you take them off. I don't understand why, if the damn plane will break down because you're listening to your damn headphones, that doesn't make me feel very comfortable about flying, does it? How crappy are these planes, anyway?
"What would your gramma think about that crap you are listening to? Really? You would break her heart.
"I think that after we see Obama, we'll go see the Lincoln statue. I also want to stand on the spot that Dr. King stood on when he dreamed that dream. I wouldn't mind getting over to the JFK memorial, too. Do they have a JFK memorial? If not, they should. He was a great man. He wasn't no Dr. King or anything like the boys from Illinois, but he was still great.
"You ain't even listening, are you?
"Well, you better believe you're not going to have them damn things on when the president is talking. I'll take them off my damn self if you even try. This is important, son, and what kind of momma would I be if I let you miss it. This is the first black president. The first. If only your gramma lived long enough to see this. It would've almost made up for all the crap she went through back in the days.
"Did you hear a word I said? Well, take them off, it's time to get on the damn plane."
* * *
"Will you be checking in, sir?"
"Of course I will, boy, what the hell else would I be doing in this Godforsaken place? I'll have to be coming up here a lot now, but that won't make me liked the damned place!"
"Sir, is there a problem with the hotel?"
"What? No. No, boy, not the damned hotel. The damned city! I hate this swamp!"
"Are you here for the inauguration?"
"Of course I am. Wouldn't come to this hellhole if I didn't have to! Now I gotta be here for most of the next two years -- four if they actually vote me back in."
"Vote you in? You work in Congress sir?"
"Hell, yes! It wasn't my idea but the chairwoman said she needed me to do it after that damned pedophile got the boot last time. Can you believe what kind of sick people run for office in this country?"
"No, sir, I can't. Where are you coming from?"
"Boy I am now the junior House member from the great state of...."
"Congressman! Congressman. Welcome to our fine establishment!"
"And who the hell are you?"
"I am the manager of the hotel, sir."
"About time I got some VIP treatment around here! I mean this boy was fine, but I would think a member of the United States Congress could get a little bit more personalized service!"
"Of course, sir. Bobby, call the bellhop -- I think Marcus is working tonight -- and send him to get the Congressman's bags. Sir, we have your reservation set and the house tailor will be in your room about 9 a.m. to measure you for your tuxedo."
"Nine in the morning, Washington already start this early, son?"
"Is that a little bit to early for you?"
"Hell, yes! Especially after how much I plan on...embibing...at Dick Lugar's party tonight."
"Yes, sir, I'll change the appointment to noon, you can eat your lunch while the tailor takes care of you."
"That sounds a little better. Now, how's about we get a scotch. What's the house brand in your little bar over there."
* * *
"Hey, Sarah, I'm about to head out to the big concert. I wanted to call you and say hi before I headed out.
"Yeah, I don't know who all will be there, but I keep hearing different names thrown out -- the Boss, Jay-Z, Kanye, Puffy, Sheryl Crow.
"I don't really like her, either. I liked that one song, the one where was sitting on the beach in the video.
"Yeah, that's the one. Her other stuff doesn't do too much for me, though. I do like the Boss, though. There was that one time that he told Reagan that he couldn't use 'Born in the USA', but then he allowed 2 Live Crew to use it. That was hilarious.
"What?
"Oh, I'm in the purple section. It's pretty close to the front.
"I didn't get it myself. I probably couldn't get a ticket at all. I got it from one of the bloggers I met in Denver.
"Yeah, at the Big Tent. Did I tell you about all the free beer?
"That was a crazy time. Fun, but there was just too much going on.
"Yeah, I got both the regular digital camera and the flip video. I should be able to get some really good stuff for the blog. I'll also be livetweeting the whole thing. Although they've been saying that signals might not get through since so many people will be down there with mobile phones.
"Hopefully. I'll blog about it after I get back to the hotel room, but I'd love to get some live posts up from the site.
"Yeah, I hear it'll be under 30 degrees. I don't know how I'm going to type with gloves on.
"I think it's Robert Gates. Kind of strange that the only person they'd leave out in case of a terrorist attack is a Republican. If something like that happens, we're fucked.
"No, there's no reason to worry about anything like that. Didn't you see Cloverfield? I have a camera, of course I'll survive, the camera operator always makes it.
"Okay, maybe that's true.
"Yeah, well Blair Witch sucked, so I wouldn't even count that. Too much hype that didn't deliver. Now Snakes on a Plane, that delivered. And I hear Samuel L. Jackson will be here. I'd love to see him give Obama a terrorist fist bump. That would be the shit!
"Okay, gotta go get ready.
"I love you, too.
"Bye."
* * *
"Can you believe this shit?"
"Nope. Fuckin' McCain."
"Damned Rino. I can't believe he beat Huckabee. Huckabee wouldn't have lost to no brother."
"True, true."
"Hell, if we didn't live here, I wouldn't be nowhere near D.C. for that boy's inauguration."
"Me neither. I'd love to have been there for McCain's, though."
"What the hell for?"
"Palin, dude, Palin! She would've been the first VPILF!"
"True. Hand me another beer."
"You want Bud or Busch."
"Better give me a Busch, you know, for old times sake."
"Hey we'll get another Bush in four years, if we're still speaking English then instead of Arabic."
"No way, in four years it'll be Palin. Count on it."
"Yeah, could be. Now we're stuck with that prick for four years and there's nothing we can do about it."
"You and I both know there's something we could do about it."
"Yeah, I wish."
"Crap, we better pick up a lot of beers for tomorrow, during the inauguration."
"Yeah, we can do a drinking game -- every time someone says 'hope' or 'change' we have to drink."
"Ha! We'll both die from liver poisoning."
"Yeah, I'm so tired of hearing those damned words. They don't even mean nothing."
"Stupid fucking Democrats."
"Yeah."
* * *
"Baby, that was Jamie, the Congressman's personal assistant."
"Yeah, did we get them?"
"Yep, we'll be spending the evening tonight with President Obama and thousands of his closest friends."
"Awesome! You really think that many people will be there?"
"No idea. Probably. We waited in the line for several hours. I don't even think some of those people in line behind will make it in before the swearing in. That'll suck."
"I can't wait to see Hillary. She kind of got gipped in the election."
"Are you serious? She got gipped because more people voted for Obama in the election?"
"He only won because she's a woman."
"Again, are you kidding me? He's black. Who faces more discrimination than black people?"
"Obviously, you've never been a woman before."
"Well, there was that one time in college. But I was young and needed the money."
"Oooh, you have any pictures?"
"No, I was just kidding. That's gross!"
"I know. A woman can dream, though, can't she."
"Not if she's dreaming about that. Hey, who are those kids? They sound like crap. What the hell are they singing?"
* * *
"Ricky, put those damn headphones away. All kinds of people are coming on the stage and you should pay attention.
"I said put them away or I'm going to take them away.
"That's better. Every couple of minutes somebody knew comes on and you should pay attention, these are important people. These are the people who run our country, for better or for worse.
"Whoever that is, you better stop pushing! My eleven-year-old son is here and I don't want him to get hurt.
"I'm not pushing, people are pushing me!"
"I felt you pushing me, so don't give me no crap."
"Save the fighting for the afternoon, people, this is Barack's day."
"I ain't fighting nobody, I just don't want to be crushed out here. It's cold enough as it is, don't need to be crushed, too.
"Who is that on stage?"
"Howard Dean. He ran for president four years ago. Everybody thought he was going to win, but did that whole 'byeaah!' scream thing and he lost."
"He was also chairman of the Democrats since then."
"And who is that?"
"Al Pacino!"
"That's not Pacino, you moron, that's Dustin Hoffman."
"Ricky, don't listen to these people, let's just keep watching the screen and hope somebody doesn't crush us."
* * *
"Where'd you say you were from, boy?"
"Nebraska."
"I didn't know there were no damned Democrats from...what is it...the Cornhusker state?"
"Yes, that's us. We have a few Dems in office."
"What, exactly, the hell is a Cornhusker?"
"It doesn't really matter."
"You aren't one of those 'liberals' are you?"
"Sir, I really don't think...."
"Is that Newt? I've always wanted to meet Newt. I know he's a Republican, but he really has some good ideas."
"Yes, I think...."
"I'm going to go over and talk to him. I hope the 'show' doesn't start before I can talk to him. I really like what that boy has to say."
"Okay, sir...."
"Hey, Newt! It's me, Congressman...."
"Prick."
* * *
"Hey, Sarah. Just wanted to leave you a quick message. Apparently Aretha's about to sing the anthem or something.
"This whole thing was kind of a clusterfuck! The lines were backed up for miles, even in the purple section, which was supposed to be a VIP section.
"Anyway, the section was supposed to be reserved, but apparently the whole thing fell apart and the cops started letting anyone in. I think some of the people with tickets couldn't even get in. That's crazy. People came from hundreds, thousands, of miles and couldn't get in. I'd be pissed.
"Some of them were even calling it the 'Purple Tunnel of Doom'. We had to go in this tunnel under the street to get in. It'd be the exact kind of place you wouldn't want to be in a zombie apocalypse, especially if it's the fast zombies. Either way this whole thing was poorly planned. A lot of people are going to be very angry. What's happening on stage is fine, but getting in sucked and it looks like people are littering all over the mall and getting out of here will be even worse. I imagine a lot of bloggers are going to write some bad things about the way this thing was run.
"Oooh! I gotta go, Aretha's coming on. What the hell kind of hat is she wearing? Oh well, she's still a goddess! Love you, talk to you later."
* * *
"I can't believe he's walking out with that Nancy Pelosi bitch."
"Yeah, she really is a communist sympathizer and I'll bet she hates black people anyway. Most Democrats do, despite what they say. Byrd was in the Klan."
"Hypocrite. Plus, they all love welfare and affirmative action, which just keep black people down."
"Makes them lazy and turns them into...."
"What the hell happened to the picture? Hit the remote, change the channel."
"No, look, when I flip over to ESPN, everything's okay. It must've been that channel."
"Turn it up, what're they saying? They cut away from the game."
"Something about the inauguration. Wait, let me listen."
"Did they just say what I thought they said?"
"I think so."
"Washington, D.C. is gone? The whole thing?"
"Wow, is that a mushroom cloud?"
"Hey, you know what that means?"
"Yeah, we dodged a bullet. Gates is president."
"Yeah, now maybe he can do something about those damned terrorists."
"Good. Hey, get me another beer."
"Sure, I need one, too."

Pure

2009-01-20T06:47:00.000-08:00

She was a little flower

But someone plucked her petals

And now she can´t be beautiful again

She was a little hummingbird

But someone broke her wings

And now she’ll never fly again

She was a little butterfly

But someone took her cocoon

And now she’ll never be complete

She was a little dolphin

But someone locked her down

And now she’ll never be free again

She was a little girl

But something happened to her

And now she has to learn how to be herself… again

Submitted by Strings

ShakesQuill not down or out

2009-01-20T06:44:00.000-08:00

Hey, Shakesquillians. Just want you to know that things are far from over here at ShakesQuill, and posts will be coming more regularly soon. The problem, unfortunately, is with me, at the moment, as I just do not have the time to dedicate into what can really become a popular blog.

So bear with us, and thing will be rolling consistently again soon.

Bill

Summer Mud Summer Blood

2008-11-25T08:22:00.000-08:00

We rode our bikes through the mid-morning heat and after an hour we departed from the wide dirt road and onto a small path that slinked through the thick mix of juniper and prickly pear on the desert plane.

Before long we rode to the edge of a vast and ancient wash. Four hundred yards below a coyote lapped at the edges of a large brown pool of water and the breeze carried the smell of the hot desert summer; that of wild mustard plant and steaming yucca needles.

We stood on the trail watching the coyote.

You think he’ll come after us, Chris said looking onward.

Nah, he’ll probly run off once we start a’headin down. He already knows we’re here.

The trail heading down into the wash was tight and sandy requiring the both of us to walk our bicycles over the sand and rocks. It flattened for a bit and we rode on the edge of the trail so we wouldn’t get stuck in the sand and we rolled off a small shoulder-hill and down the rest of the way into the wash; coming to rest at the water hole.

Like I expected the coyote had run off and we saw him trotting up the other side; a spirit of the land, stopping every so often to look down at us. Chris stood at the muddy edge of the pool amongst the animal droppings and old tires. I threw a rock into the pool and Chris skipped one across the surface.

Too bad it’s so dirty—I could go for a swim right now.

You don’t want to swim in that—couldn’t anyway. It’s probly no more than a few feet deep in the middle.

Chris threw another rock and said, Yeah—maybe five feet max—you dare me to ride through this part?

He stood at a muddy corner no more than a foot deep and ten feet across and he tossed a small rock into its center to check the depth.

Sure, I shrugged.

He mounted his BMX bike and started down a trail heading due South and turned with a slide at a hundred feet or so down the trail. He stood straddling the bike in the middle of the trail and waved his hands.

Go!

Chris stood and mashed the peddles; his short arms pumped the handlebars from side to side leaving a skinny line of dust behind him that waved in the mirage that clung to the ground. When he got closer I could hear him huffing and puffing; his face beat-red looking like some kind of wild adolescent demon animal.

He stopped peddling when he got close to the edge and he lifted his arms and legs bringing the bike into the air as if he were going to try to jump over the watery span, but with no ramp, jump, or anything to help his trajectory.

The tires skimmed the surface then splashed down in the middle, sending a wave of brown water and mud forward into the air. At the end of the wave I saw his ankles flying through the air where his head should have been, and the outline of the bike stood still and the water came crashing down; water, mud, and Chris.

He landed on his back at the edge of the pool and rose from the water coughing and spitting the foul water from his mouth. Cursing and waddling he plopped down on the sand beside me and we observed his bike standing up; perfectly erect, peddles deep in the mud.

I collapsed in laughter as he shamefully retrieved his bike from the mud and he emerged from the pool covered in water and sludge; looking like a squat adobe shack.

I continued to laugh as he returned to the sand and sat down.

Mother fucker, he said shaking his head. Small chunks of mud and sand fell from his back.

Dude—you almost made it, I said through my laughter.

Fuck you.

Noon time found us sitting in the shade of an enormous Gambel oak. I sat on a berm emptying the sand from my shoes. Chris was stripped down to his mud-stained underwear laying his shirt and shorts out on a large rock to dry.

He walked back up to the tree; his skinny pale body was all stained the color of his underwear and darker drips were dried on his face and legs like brown paint. He waddled over joining me on the berm.

You wanna turn back, I said squinting in the dry heat.

Nah, we’ll keep going. I’ll be fine—just gotta dry my clothes out a little at least. Where you want to go?

Don’t know—thought we would cross the tracks down yonder to the south and head up towards the highway.

Sounds fine to me, Chris said watching his clothes dry in the sun, I aint got shit to do.

And, we sure didn’t. It was the summer break between our sixth and seventh years in school. We would often run off on our bikes all day exploring the desert. We never really looked for anything in particular, just explored.

Chris and I had been friends since we were born; our mothers being best friends. We were born a year and three months apart; Chris being the senior, but I was quite a bit taller and thicker. We grew up on the same street, and attended the same school.

Our dads ran off around the same time too; Chris’s mother told him he joined the army, but everyone knew that wasn’t true. She found him out back hanging from their old Ponderosa pine.

My dad took off to California. He sent me gifts on my birthday and Christmas the first two years, but then they stopped coming and so did the phone calls. I guess it’s all the same they weren’t around. Texas had no use for them, and neither did we.

Chris and kept each other company while our moms danced down at the bar. We didn’t have anyone to take us fishing, hunting, or any of that stuff we saw on the TV. We did stuff our way. It was the only way we knew how.

The sky was clear and the color of turquoise; small in the distance was a murder of ravens riding the thermals that spiraled upward from the desert floor. We sat there on the berm for thirty minutes or so before Chris walked down to the rocks to retrieve his clothes. The fronts were dry, but the backsides were still damp and mud clung to them still; dried and cracked.

We rode out to the south, still in the ribcage of the wash; Chris looking like a statue made of pumice breaking apart as it became animate. We walked our bikes up the steep trail that flanked the railroad tracks as it crossed the wash before they sunk once again into long trenches on either side; dug I imagine to keep the track level as it crossed the rolling desert.

Standing high on the railroad tracks we overlooked the waterhole far below.

Check it out, I said pointing to the corner of the waterhole. Darker fresh mud could still be seen in a starburst pattern radiating far from the bank.

What were you thinking pulling up on your bike like that, I asked.

He looked down into the valley. Dried mud still caked his hair and it hung like yarn.

No idea, he said continuing on; pushing his bike over the course gravel on the side of the tracks. I followed close behind.

I think that was y’er problem, I laughed.

He turned around with a big muddy smile and said, Pretty funny though.

Got that right.

We followed the tracks into the side of the hill and the vertical sides of the trench loomed down on us. The farther we ventured into the trench, the less chance we had of ever escaping in the presence of a train, but still we continued on. We looked over our shoulders every so often to watch for trains and even though there were none, we hurried our steps anyway. When the trench receded down to waist high we walked up over the side and into a small clearing.

On the top of another small hill we headed North again and onto a high desert plane thick with juniper trees. Then we heard the train passing.

Chris looked at me and motioned like he was wiping his brow in relief. I acknowledged him and we pressed on.

Chris and I mounted our bikes and rode single file on a narrow trail that disappeared into a juniper grove; our peddles slapping the hot leaves of the mustard and Mormon tea plants and we carried with us the smell of the desert summer.

The air hung still in the grove. Small birds chirped; quarreling in the ragged thickets and cicadas buzzed all around like downed power lines. The junipers became brown and singed before we entered a clearing surrounded by the dead and burnt junipers and there was a half burnt down trailer home in the center. Parked to its side was a pick-up truck that was burned down to bare metal and pooling plastic.

We rode through a corner of the clearing to the trail on the other side. Chris peddled up beside me and we stopped a little ways past the clearing.

Hey man, he said, we should go back.

Why?

Because—there could be someone in there. Or somthin else—who knows what.

I laughed in an attempt to belittle him, Yes—I know fucknose. That’s why I don’t want to go back. It’s obviously a meth lab or some shit. I aint messin with no dopers.

I watched him set his bike down and he started into the bushes; motioning for me to follow, C’mon fucker, he said, let’s just go and have a look.

I reluctantly followed him between two junipers and we moved on an animal path through the lower lying brush until we could see the trailer between the spans of trees. We crouched for a moment and listened before moving forward toward the trailer.

Chris lead the way as we purposefully lined ourselves up with the brush as to avoid being seen from the trailer, and once the gap was closed we were hunched over just beneath the only unbroken window on the backside of the trailer. Chris put his hand down over a scattering of ashes that had fallen from underneath the trailer.

Its warm, he said looking up at me; his hand still hovering over the ashes.

Of course it’s warm—everything’s warm. It’s a hundred and ten degrees out.

No—feel it.

I stooped down and held my hand where he had his, and I could feel it as well, Yup—fire hasn’t been out for long.

This discovery did nothing to ease my nerves. Chris crept around the back side of the trailer that wasn’t burned and I followed close behind. I concentrated on my ears and I listened for any stirring about. When we reached the other side of the trailer we could see fully the damage that had been done.

The far side of the trailer had blown out sending various charred items out into the clearing with aluminum shrapnel of varying sizes, and pink fiberglass insulation material. There were buckets stained with red phosphorous and black trash bags that had been ripped apart scattering empty bottles of ephedrine pills in the trees and all around.

There was a fire pit circled by melon sized river rocks in the center of the clearing and the lawn chairs that once sat around it were also blown against the trees with the pill bottles.

Told you it was a meth lab, I said kicking an empty ephedrine bottle. I added, Surprised the whole thing didn’t burn to the ground.

Yup, Chris said walking along the front of the trailer toward the front door that was slightly ajar.

I looked all around and didn’t see any fresh foot prints. I raised my head to see Chris opening the door.

He screamed as his body was pulled forward into the doorway and the door closed on his legs obscuring the rest of his body. It slammed onto his legs again and he kicked it away; banging the side of the trailer. I ran to him and just his legs could be seen kicking wildly; his screaming and a roar of some other voice filled the desert air.

I swung the door completely open and a man had Chris by the neck of his shirt. He breathed heavily through his groans and he lay on the floor pulling Chris into the burnt trailer. His legs looked like two melted candles and may have been stuck to the floor; his hair wet with sweat was pasted to his forehead. I wrapped my arms around Chris’s torso and pulled against the burnt man’s strength. His grip only further tightened and my 12 year old muscles were no match to his, even in his condition.

Chris used his other free hand to push and punch the man’s face and the man snapped at his fingers with his yellow teeth gnashing and snarling. And, all the while screaming, It was you—It was you.

I let go of Chris and he squirmed wildly; howling and screeching like a rabbit in the throws of impending death. I turned and ran to the fire pit and retrieved a cantaloupe sized chunk of sandstone. I pushed Chris to the side with my left elbow and threw the rock down on the man’s face, striking him square on the forehead.

Much to my surprise he didn’t let go right away. Instead he groaned and heaved deep in his chest and blood shot between his rotted teeth to the ceiling; covering Chris’s face and neck. I picked up the blood soaked rock once more and smashed it down, still holding it with both hands, directly into his gaping mouth.

Blood streamed from his ears and he loosened his grip on Chris; sending us both tumbling backward onto our backs.

We lifted ourselves to our elbows and Chris turned to face me; his heart thumping through his torn shirt. His face was wet with blood and mud irrigated with tears, like an Indian shaken with bittersweet victory.

He coughed and cursed catching his breath, and we both watched the blood drip through the burnt floorboards; usurped by the sand.

I rose first and offered a hand to Chris who was still quite shaken. He attempted to dust himself off but his efforts only smeared the blood further across his chest and he stood there looking around panting.

Is he dead, he said wiping the blood from his forehead.

I’m pretty sure he is—but I aint stick’n around to check.

He nodded and spat.

Just then a noise caught our ears and we turned in the direction of the main road. A column of dust filtered up through the trees. A motor roared near and the body of some vehicle clanked on its frame; making its way toward us.

Without a word we ran around the back of the trailer the same way we had arrived and grabbed our bikes and peddled feverishly down the trail away from the trailer and the unknown vehicle.

We made our way through the juniper grove until it broke to a field where the trail widened as it straitened. I could hear the sounds of old car doors slamming and shouts behind us, even over my own heart beating.

I caught up to Chris, who was leading the way, on a short downhill and passed him as we overcame a blind crest. The shadow of the crest was steep in the late afternoon and it hid a fallen Scrub oak which I struck at full speed.

I saw sky then dirt, and I was sent ass over teakettle down the trail like a rag doll. When I came to, Chris knelt over me looking over his shoulder, then down on me.

You okay, he said studying my face.

Nope, I struggled to say. My chest—

Chris moved his hands over my chest, Oh God. You broke your fucking collar bone—its all—man o’ man—I can see it from here—the right one—well your left one I guess.

I took a deep breath trying not to be too panicked. Look, I began solemnly, we have to get off this trail. They’re going to follow our bike tracks for sure. Help me up.

Chris now offered me his hand and I clinched my teeth tight as I was brought onto my feet. I motioned with my chin to a bundle of ocotillo a little ways off the trail and we walked, me with my left shoulder slung low, to the bushes.

Once under the cover of the brush Chris used his pocket knife to cut off my shirt from the back. He tied the sleeves together to make an impromptu sling, and I hung my arm in it close to my body. The sounds of the men shouting and things thrashing about could still be heard as we made our way back home avoiding the trails.

In the evening we walked along a ridge of sage brush. Our small tattered bodies cast long sweeping shadows over the red grassland, and our bicycles in true scale seemed to simply grow from our legs; our shadows moving across the land as one. We didn’t speak and even the birds hushed on our approach.

Nightfall found us a few miles outside of town, but still a long way to go home. It was far enough North that we saw it safe to ride on the trail so we caught the closest one heading our way and followed it till it glowed blue in the moon light.

Chris pulled his bike to the side and stopped.

How you holdin up?

My fucking chest and neck hurt so bad I could die. Arms aching too—throbbing like a som'bitch.

I think we better head into town. We’re so far out of our way now, we wouldn’t make it home by eleven.

And?

And, my moms gunna turn a switch on my ass! How did you expect this all to go down? Did you think we was just gunna waltz into the house at this hour—covered in blood?

I didn’t expect none of this to go down Chris—it just did. Killed a man for Christ’s sake. Late or not late—blood or no blood. I gotta get home.

I was so pissed off but the pain kept me from raising my voice. Chris stood there wild eyed in the middle of the trail. I could make out a tear running down the gulches of his face. He turned and gripped his threaded hair letting out a guttural scream.

Holler’n aint gonna get you nowhere, I said calmly.

Holler’n? Chris said turning around, This trail aint gunna get us nowhere. You’re all broken up—I’m cold—you’re cold. This whole thing is way beyond what I can deal with right now. We need to be call’n the po’lice and you know it.

For what? So I can land my ass in jail Chris? So they can lock me up?

No ones gunna lock you up. Shit—you saved my life. God knows what would have happened if you wouldn’t have done that. Som’bitch may bitten off my face for all we know.

I stood there thinking about our choices. I could see a light glowing off in the distance.

You don’t think they’ll lock me up?

Hell no. There aint a sheriff in this town that would bring you in—at least not for permanent. You saved them some time the way I see it.

I looked again to the light glowing across the fields.

We broke trail and headed to the East walking through the high grass until we found a small trail that lead us to a paved road. Chris rode ahead in the middle of it, and I in the back with only one hand on the handle bars. After about an hour after we broke trail, we arrived at a gas station. We rode up to the front doors and leaned our bikes against the wall.

You wait out here, I said. If you see anyone lookin suspicious you just go ahead and take off okay?

Okay, he said leaning with his bike against the wall. The light really showed the condition we were in, and to the untrained eye someone might think we had been shipwrecked and Shanghaied for ages.

The man behind the counter was balding in his late thirties and wore a blue vest as a uniform. I made my way to the counter and he looked at me like trouble incarnate.

May I help you, the man said under his mustache.

Yes sir—you got a phone I can use, I asked setting my right palm on the counter. I got to call the po’lice.

Damn boy—what the hell happened to you?

Some stuff just a’happened and I need to call the po’lice.

Where’s your parents? You can’t be more than ten years old.

Their busy—now how about that phone?

The man mumbled something then produced a cordless phone from behind the counter and I dialed 911 with my thumb; holding the phone in the same hand.

When I walked back outside Chris was sitting up against the wall picking dried mud from the frame of his bike.

What did they say?

Said their sending a car down here to meat us.

What did you tell them?

Nothin—I said that there was an accident and I broke my collar bone and I’d tell’em the rest when they got down here.

You gunna tell’em the truth?

I figured I would. No sense piss’en off the good guys too.

Chris nodded and continued flaking the mud from his bike and I leaned on a newspaper stand; covering it with sweat and blood in the process.

After about fifteen minutes or so a sheriff car turned into the service station. It drove up along side of us and we both stood up. The window rolled down and the sheriff hung his head and elbow out of it.

Y’all the boys that called the po’lice?

Yes sir. That’s us, I said.

He looked at the both of us and said, Looks like y’all got hit by a train.

No sir, I said, But—we sure caught everything else.

The sheriff looked us over once more and said laughing, Yeah—I guess.

---

There is something—isn’t there?

When someone ends a life.

The word ‘change’ doesn’t really capture it.

De-evolve?

Is that a word?

Maybe ‘mutate’ would be a better fit.

At any rate, that’s what happened to me; it’s what happens to a person after they have executed their most animalistic rights. To fly or fight. To die today, or put it off till some other time.

No one knows when.

I can’t even pick up a rock without think’n about that man in the trailer. It’s all I see. I feel his teeth shattering under that sandstone. And all the blood, God damned there was a lot—all gurgling in his throat. Dark blood, that made a foam all around his broken jaw, and the rock—like raspberry jello in a blender. Coughing and heaving, gurgling and spouting.

Somehow I think all that blood made me stronger later on. A 'right of passage' some might say.

Chris was a little more affected than me.

He was never right after that day in the fields—hell, no one was.

Guess things have a way of stick’n to some folks, others it just slides right off.

Last time I heard the name Christopher Wainscot was in the paper. I was turning the pages while I ate my breakfast down at Peggy’s Dinner on 3rd street. Paper says my childhood friend killed a man—a Marine in some shit-hole bar in Austin. Paper says he pleaded insanity. Shit, I know that’s right. Paper says he cried when the jury delivered their verdict. I don’t pay much attention to what the paper says these days.

Both our mothers came to pick us up from the po’lice station. Neither one of’um turned a switch on us. They just let us be. Thought they’d just be in the way I guess—let us work it out on our own. Just like everything else.

Po’lice did a pretty good job of keep’n the whole thing quiet. As it turns out the land was owned by Mr. Bradshaw the City Councilman. He was up for re-election, and didn’t need anything cloud’n up his name. But, for whatever the reason was; we come out clean.

Me and Chris, we stayed friends all the way up till high school let out. Few days after we graduated he packed up his shit and shipped out. Joined the Army—wanted to be a man. I told him there’s no sense and goin through all the trouble. There’s some gals down at the tavern that’ll take care of that real quick. But, he shipped out anyway.

He came back into town a different person. I guess there’s nothin wrong with that—he came back to a different town. Different than what he remembered.

His momma died on a rainy Easter Sunday while he was away. My momma went over to bring her fresh eggs from our coupe, and found her hang’n from that same Ponderosa pine out back—like it was planted by the Devil himself. Capturing souls one by one.

Matter of fact, that’s the first thing he did when he came back—cut that fucker down. I helped.

It reminded me of when we were kids. Chris and I stick’n together.

I’ll never forget one night in October when we were just in the fourth grade. Chris’s mom called us over to their place. Said there was an emergency.

We went over there and found that she was with child, or had been anyway. Some truck driver that worked at the quarry had knocked her up.

The baby—a little girl—came out much too early I reckon. She was born into this world deader’n a doornail, not bigger than both your fists put together. My momma was hold’n onto his momma real tight, and both of them cried n cried. Momma told Chris that he was the man of the house and to do the honorable thing, and me’n him did.

We took that little baby girl off the bathroom floor; blood all around—and wrapped her up in a scarf real nice, and put her in a two gallon pickle jar—laid her in a hole we dug out in Chris’s back field.

We stood out there in the dark. Two little men.

I never let those types of things change me too much.

A wise man has to know his limits. At least that’s what I’ve been told.

He has to be able to admit when he’s at fault, and when there’s no one to blame. When there’s nothing to be done, and to just let it be. He’s got to accept his life for what it is, and not spend all day cry’n about what it’s not. Gotta know that there’s some things that just happen—you cant take ‘em back.

I kept tell’n him it wasn’t his fault, but he never listened. Maybe he wanted it to be his fault. No matter how much you know someone, you never quite know whats goin on in their head. Maybe he was just look’n for an excuse to go crazy. If he was, then he found it—sure as shit.

A mans gotta be able to look inside—deep inside where no one wants to look, not even God himself. He’s gotta walk in that dark room; walls stained red, piled to the ceiling with people—memories. Papers with words; things that should’ve been, things that you shouldnt've done, things that happened to you—things that cant be taken back, or undone.

I walked in that room once.

I was my 24th birthday. I sat there on the banks of that same waterhole and let the desert breeze take me there, to that room. I didn’t bother clean’n up the walls. It was much too late for that.

I walked around in it for a while sayin hello to the bodies layin around on the floor; covered in papers. I moved’em all into the center of the room, and swept up each little scrap—all with words, stories, and names. Things that happened to me, things that happened to my momma, and all the things that happened to Chris—and his momma too.

I swept them all up in the middle of that room with all the people and their half forgotten faces. I piled them as high as I could and placed the papers that told this story; the summer of mud and blood, and placed them right on top of the whole heap.

I concentrated real hard and soaked that whole pile with gasoline. I soaked it till my nostrils dried and cracked and tears ran from my eyes. The papers became translucent in the dim light; their words ran off the page and mixed with the gas that pooled all around. I stood there at the door way and lit a match.

Burnt it all--burnt every last fuck'n thing in it. Burned that mother fucker right to the ground.

I don’t aim to ever go back.

So when you stand there and ask me, Have I changed; I got a real simple answer for you.

Ye’sir—ye’sir I have.

Submitted by Leslie Johnson

For more of Leslie Johnson’s writing visit TheLongDownwardSpiral.com

Gay in Florida

2008-10-28T04:45:00.000-07:00

My love in on the ballot, up for vote,
though laws against us long-existing stand,
"Defending marriage" as if I promote
destroying it with simple wedding bands.

No “substantial equivalents thereof”
means benefits for all will disappear
for anyone unmarried and in love;
They’ll find their rights are not protected here.

Hospital visitation could be gone,
and health care for partners both gay and straight.
And all they'll say when asked why they said yes
is that God's word can justify their hate.

Election day, the best thing you can do
Is vote for “no” on Proposition Two.

Submitted by Shaker Spiffy

About the work: "For English, I had to write a love sonnet, and I ended up writing about Amendment 2 in Florida. I thought it might amuse the people of Shakesquill, so I'm submitting it! Forgive the poor writing - it's a homework assignment, and therefore -3 quality points automatically, but hopefully still entertaining. "

Defining Love

2008-10-08T05:56:00.000-07:00

As I sit here I am aware of your every move. Even though I am turned away, I can feel your eyes look around the room. I turn toward the room, and immediately find you. You turn and catch my eye. You smile that amazing smile. I wish you wouldn't. Every time you do it make my heart leap, and my stomach drop. I take a deep breath to regain my senses. I open my eyes and look out the window, willing myself not to look at you. I hear your voice above the noise, and melt inside. I close my eyes and sink into my chair.

Your hands are on my waist, and my arms wrap around your neck. Your arms pull me into you, and our bodies' form into one another. I press my cheek against your warm chest, and close my eyes. One of your hands slides up my back, and to my face. You tilt my chin up, and lean in. I lean into you, and stand on my toes. Our mouths meet. A soft, slow kiss, that lives forever.

"Sarah? Are you feeling alright?"

My eyes fly open, and there he is; perfect in his own way. He looks at me with a soft expression, and opens his mouth again, but then stops.

"Yeah, I'm OK Mr. Baur," I reply softly.

"Are you sure?" he asked with a worried tone in his voice.

"I'm just a little tired," I lied with a smile.

He smiled back, and I melted again. He turned and walked away. I sighed inwardly. I heard the bell ring, and I gathered my stuff up. The class had emptied in a very short time, and I was almost out the door, when his perfect voice chimed in my head. I flushed at the sound.

"Sarah, I wish that you would take better care of yourself, you always seem tired in my class," he said as he walked over to me.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Baur. It won't happen again. It's just been a busy week," I replied quickly, realizing my excuse was getting over used.

"There's nothing to apologize for," he said, putting his hand on my shoulder.

I practically fell over.

"OK. I guess I'll see you at the football game later then," I said stumbling over words.

He nodded and smiled that perfect smile. I turned, and walked out the door. I could still feel the warmth of where his hand had been placed. I hated this feeling, but loved it at the same time. I loved him, but could never have him. That is life, and it was love.

--

I walk around the room, waiting for someone to ask me a question, as students usually do. I look around the room briefly and see her looking at me. I decide to meet her eyes. Her eyes lock with mine and I smile surprising myself. She quickly looks away, and looks flustered. I turn away, and divert my attention from her to the student in front of me. I look at the project on his desk. It could be better, but is still satisfactory. I give him my opinion on it, and look back over at her. Her eyes are looking out the window, and she is breathing slowly.

I am sitting across from her. She is so beautiful and looks like an angel. I reach for her hand. She mirrors my action, and our fingers intertwine. My breath gets shaky.

"You're not like other girls," I say slowly.

She smiles and hides her face behind her hair. I use my free hand to tilt her face back up, brushing back her black silk hair. She meets my eyes and smiles.

"What makes you so different?" I ask her.

"I have you," she replied with no hesitation.

I leaned toward her; aware of her hand that was resting gently on my leg, and the other that was slowly wrapping around my neck. I pulled her toward me. Her eyes closed, and her mouth met mine. It was an amazing moment, one that would last forever.

I soon come back to reality, and look over at her again. She had her eyes closed and she had sunk down in her chair. A brief worry crossed through my mind, but then a smile flickered over face. She looked so content, I didn't want to disturb her but something compelled me to walk toward her. I stopped about a foot in front of her, and I stood there looking at her.

"Sarah? Are you feeling alright?" I asked, curiously.

She sat up quickly and looked stunned at my appearance. I open my mouth, about to tell her something I shouldn't, but catch myself at the last moment.

"Yeah, I'm OK Mr. Baur," she said in the softest and prettiest voice.

As I listened to her speak I heard some sort of exasperation in her voice.

"Are you sure?" I ask her slightly worried now.

"I'm just a little tired," she said smiling.

There was something in her voice that I didn't believe, but I couldn't help but smile back. I turned away and walked back toward the front of the room, realizing that the class was almost over. The bell rang and the students quickly filled out of the room. Sarah was still there, stumbling with her stuff. She started to exit the room.

"Sarah, I wish that you would take better care of yourself, you always seem tired in my class," I said to her, as I walked over to here.

Her face was flushed as she turned around toward me. I smiled, because she seemed to have been caught in her bluff.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Baur. It won't happen again. It's just been a busy week," she stammered.

"There's nothing to apologize for," I said encouragingly.

As if at an impulse I put my hand softly on her shoulder. She took in a big breath and I smiled at her again.

"OK. I guess I'll see you at the football game later then," she stammered again.

I nodded, smiled, and watched her turn away. Her hair swung ever so slightly, and her walk was perfect. I watched the person that I loved but never could have walk away. It was forbidden for me to feel this way but I still felt it. That was life, and it was love.

Submitted by Sarah Bridges

On Broken Wings

2008-10-01T10:22:00.000-07:00

On broken wings did the bird learn to fly
Pity it not but watch
that fluttering leap in to the unknown
that first swing up in the sky,
that crash upon the cactus on the rock
that surge of strength to rest
and mend its broken heart
and then that desire to rise and take on the sky yet once again.

Submitted by Sangeeta Kapur

About the Author: "I interact with children, teaching them human values, my drop in the ocean to make the world a better place to be in. Poetry comes naturally to me."

CCCW Request Post For the Week

2008-09-30T18:51:00.000-07:00

Greetings, Fellow Feather Brandishers!

It's Tuesday, so that means it's time to hit me with your best shot for this week's chapter of the ongoing Creatively Created Creative Writing Story!!

If you are new to this, you readers leave comments - bits of action or dialog or narrative - and I, your humble writer, weave them into a story come Sunday. Something like...

I wasn't quite sure how, but the marmoset ended up on top of the armoire. Or was it a chiffarobe?

...or whatever you'd like.

(previous chapters are here)

Word of the Day

2008-09-30T05:15:00.000-07:00

Barrage

bar•rage
Pronunciation: \bə-ˈräzh, -ˈräj\
Function: noun
Etymology: French barrage barrier fire
Date: 1916

1 : artillery fire laid on a line close to friendly troops to screen and protect them
2 : a vigorous or rapid outpouring or projection of many things at once

"Despite being the subject of a publicity barrage, I couldn't get work. I'd burned through my United Artists salary and was flat broke — not an uncommon predicament for Hollywood performers."

— Tab Hunter, Tab Hunter Confidential, 2005

A Long Poem

2008-09-29T00:42:00.000-07:00

This is a long poem that I wrote in 1996, at a time when I was being consciously non-monogamous (and had been for 3 years). I'm monogamous now, not from any moral judgment about monogamy or non-monogamy, but because I have made some conscious choices about how I want to focus my sexual energy. I'm posting this poem because I've always liked it.

DOING IT DIFFERENTLY
or
MY LOVER'S OTHER LOVER
IS IN THE NEXT ROOM
WITH HER OTHER LOVER

They walk, who cannot
take another way,
but still have the
will to go on.

Each step a different one
on any trek, now pebble
under instep, now rock-
hard, sun-dried mud
bruising heel, now
delicious softness of the
pine-duff gathered under
the coolness of
branching shade.

This is how we must go.

There is no vehicle to
carry us, for no roads
have been built in this
terrain — no map shows
the way, and no
evidence of other
travelers here can
comfort us.

Some nights we will all
wander blindly about,
having not had the sense
to stop when darkness
fell — perhaps we will
forget to keep hold of
hands and become
separated — then we will
call out, bleating pitiful
into the black depths
until one lost soul comes
closer to another.

Perhaps we won't really
come upon one another
until morning.

Perhaps we won't hear
each other calling, or be
confused by the echoes
into frustrated apathy.

Perhaps we will just sit
down and cry with
exhaustion without
realizing
we are back to
back.

Some days we will have
very little to eat and
drink.

Some of us will have
saved our rations and
others of us will have
squandered them and
there will be important
moments of decision
about when it is
important to nurture
one's self first and when
it is necessary to share.

But,
truth,

we won't know when
those days or nights are
coming.

Sometimes, we will
double back over ground
we covered before
because the path we
thought led to the high
place went into a
dragging deep lagoon
with quicksand and
vipers instead.

Sometimes, we will
argue all day about the
way to the water that we
can smell and see and
almost taste far below
us, and in that arguing,
never arrive.

Sometimes, we will each
decide we know the way
and we will strike out
alone in separate
directions only to find
ourselves united at the
same destination in spite
of our pride and because
of it.

Sometimes —
we will come out of the
most frightening dark to
a glade so breathtaking
that we weep in one
another's arms, all
struggle of the trip made
worthwhile, and all hurt
forgotten in the healing
of that place.

Upon embarking,
whether or not we now
admit it, we gave up our
expertise,
and surety

beyond the
certainty of saying

"Yes. Here is a
sycamore before us. A
foxglove in bloom to the
right and these five
stones gathered under
the cliff."

So when we think we
are lost,
let us just stop and laugh
a moment.

Let us unroll the pieces
of parchment we've
carried in our packs and
fall down, helpless in
our mirth,
undone before their
blankness.

There is no way.

We are always lost.

We are never lost.

Creatively Created Creative Writing - Chapter XVII

2008-09-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

It had been a quiet week for Arianne and myself. We had several long talks, and she had finally convinced me to close my office and retire from active work as a private investigator. We also decided to put the place in the city up for sale and make the home up on Beech Mountain our primary residence. So I called a friend of mine who had extensive real estate experience and asked him if he would like to be our agent. He agreed, and within 48 hours he had found someone who liked the place and was willing to offer almost our asking price.

And so we headed back down to the city to set things up for the movers -- wow, I'd never had movers before, but now that I was wealthy it was a different world. All we had to do was decide what was to go to the new place and what was to go to various charitable groups. And once we had that sorted out, we met with Scott and signed all the paperwork on the deal, and cut him a check for his percentage.

We had a couple of days to kill before the movers were to show up and transport our things, so we figured we'd take a short trip and visit some out of the way places around Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee.

Which is how we ended up on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, axle deep in mud, with Arianne's friend Amelia and her new boyfriend Jason. And, don't blame me for getting stuck - it was as much Jason's fault as anything.

He had been going on and on (and on) about how much money he'd earned last quarter as an investment banker, and then insisted he knew a back way from Elizabethton (Tennessee) to Hot Springs (North Carolina) and, for some reason, I let him have his way, even though he hadn't yet shown that he actually knew about anything he was talking about.

Most of you may not know this, but back in the hills, cell phones tend to not be very useful. Jason's 3G iPhoneSuperSpecial with Massage Attachment, or whatever it was, didn't work. He pouted for a bit, as he was being shown to be a complete fool. The pouting wasn't working, so he tried stomping his feet. There's nothing more foolish than a 40-year old acting like a 4-year old.

Arianne tried hers ... no signal, and mine, well, I hadn't charged it in weeks. "How do you plan to get us out of here?" she sighed, obviously exasperated.

"No worries. I have a cunning plan!" I responded, my grin spreading. Her eyes widened before she planted her face in her hand.

"I thought we talked about this! No more MacGuyver-ing since you turned the cat pink trying to insulate the house!"

"Aww, I keep telling you, that wasn't my fault!" I looked around, hoping for inspiration to back up my mouth, but nothing came to mind.

"Well? What's your plan, Big Boy?" Arianne said to me.

I sighed and said, "Simple. I walk back to that last farmhouse we passed, and see if they can help us."

"I'll go with you, Guy," Jason announced. Every word from his mouth was an announcement. Arianne and Amelia both nodded emphatically behind his back, and Amelia mouthed 'You could even get him lost'. She had obviously begun to regret ever meeting the schmuck.

"Come on, then," I said, and began walking back down the road. As we trudged along, Jason continued 'announcing' the. whole. way.

"If the state would keep these country roads in decent shape, this never would have happened.... I'm gonna sue Apple, because this iPhone isn't working like it should.... Man, that Amelia is one hot chick, isn't she?... The Gothic rule in Spain is one of history's forgotten splendors."

He was about to get on my last nerve.

There was just no logical reason for him to suspect this guy except that niggling, gut feeling gnawing at him. Something-no; nothing about this slime was right. Like Amelia; I wanted him GONE.

I looked over at Jason sharply. "Did you hear that?", I asked, but he was too busy taking the back off his phone - presumably to 'fix' it - to notice me, much less the voices I sometimes heard out of nowhere.

Finally, after an eternity of listening to Jason spouting forth, we got to the farmhouse we had passed earlier. "Uh, you better let me talk to these folks, Jason. Mountain folk don't always take kindly to strangers." Especially obnoxious assholes like you, I didn't add.

"Finally!" Jason shouted. "I've got a signal. I'll take care of things, Guy." And he stopped in the road, dialing furiously.

I only half paid attention, as I was eyeing the farmhouse and hoping the owner wasn't trigger happy, but the conversation that followed sounded something like this - on Jason's end, at any rate:

"Who ate my pink elephant?"

"The blue frog standing by that stick-in-a-pot."

"What??"

"What what?"

"Why?"

"That you might cry."

While Jason stood there speaking gibberish to God knows who, I walked up on the porch of the house and knocked on the door. When it opened and an old man stuck his head out, I explained what had happened and asked him if he knew of anyone with a tractor, or if he could recommend - and call - a wrecker for me.

"Ain't got no tractor," he replied. "But I got a team of draft horses I use to drag timber. They can pull you out. Lemme go harness 'em." He paused for a moment, then said, "Is that crazy feller yonder with you?" and gestured at Jason, who was gesturing wildly as he shouted into his phone.

"Yes, he is, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't hold that against me." I replied, smiling.

The old man laughed heartily and said, "Well, there's one in every family, I reckon. C'mon to the barn with me. We'll hitch up the team and have you out in no time."

We walked around the house to the barn, and the old man started putting the tack on two of the biggest horses I'd ever seen. They certainly looked like they were capable of pulling my Woody out of the mud.

After he got the horses ready, he glanced toward the back door of the house, and then said, "Whew, that's some hard work. I think we deserve a swig or two afore we head up the road." And he reached behind a bale of hay and pulled out a jug.

"Here son. Try some-a this. It'll put hair on your chest - or curl what you already got!" He guffawed.

I took a small swig, and, realizing that it was some fine apple brandy, took another healthy swallow. "Thank you, sir. That's some mighty good brandy!"

He winked at me and said, "My pappy taught me how to make it, and he learned from his pappy. Now, let's go get you car out'en the mud." He tugged the lead and the team of horses obediently followed.

As we rounded the house, we could see that Jason was still shouting into his phone, so I called to him. "Jason, never mind. This gentleman is going to help us."

"Give him a shot of this," the old man said, holding out the jug to me. "If I know anything, that'll shut his gob."

I laughed and took the jug. "Here, Jason. Have some of this. All that talking, you must be thirsty."

"Hold on, Eric. What? The password is elephantism." he announced into the phone, and took a swig from the jug. I don't know who laughed harder then, the old man or me, as Jason started coughing and wheezing. Especially when he dropped his precious cell phone in a puddle.

Once Jason recovered from his initial fit of coughing, he joined us as we passed the jug back and forth, walking up the road. By the time we got back to the car, he had mellowed quite a bit, and I realized that I was not entirely sober, either, even though I had been taking small sips. Suddenly, I worried what Arianne would think when she smelled my breath.

Cheese. He realized he needed some cheese. A nice, smelly, salty, hunk of extra-sharp cheddar cheese. That would do it.

The old man looked at me and said, "Who the hell was that?" and I just shrugged my shoulders. He shook his head, already certain that we were a bunch of crazy city folk, and set to hooking the draft team to the front of the car.

"Now, you get in and help it along - give 'er gas gently, so as not to spook the horses," he said, and in no time the Woody was emerging from its sticky predicament.

Once we cleared the mudhole, I got out and offered to pay the farmer for his help.

"Never you mind that, young feller. I got plenty outta watching that guy."

"All right, then. I guess we'll be on our way, then," I said, looking up the road in the direction we had been traveling. My stomach was rumbling and I noticed that dusk was starting to fall.

The old man followed my gaze and said, "Road ends just around the curve yonder. There ain't nothing up there but my back pasture."

It was then I got that feeling. You know the one. It was that same sinking feeling you get when you call to see if your car is ready yet and the mechanic says, "Well, actually, we ran into a little problem."

For You

2008-09-26T06:52:00.000-07:00

This

Is for you

Because they told you

You’d never be able to fly without wings

And here you are

Soaring

Without a wing

Or a feather

In sight.

Submitted by Johanna Berliner

About the Author: "I am a writer, photographer, singer, actress, dancer, image editor, and pianist. I like Broadway musicals and contemplating life."

Accept ourselves

2008-09-26T06:43:00.000-07:00

Accepting that we are not perfect and flawless
Life is demonstrated, God is
Accepting all of life has faults
And the real world is not the Garden of Eden

Resigned to accept ourselves and others of who we are,
Not God, not perfect
Stop competing for the Virgin Mary traits
Be human and be yourself

Submitted by Heather Mirassou

Word of the Day

2008-09-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

Brobdingnagian

Brob•ding•nag•ian
Pronunctiation: \brob-ding-NAG-ee-uhn\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Brobdingnagian is from Brobdingnag, a country of giants in Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

Of extraordinary size; gigantic; enormous.

"The size of the proposed government bailout is of Brobdingnagian proportions!"

Thanks to Constant Comment for today's WOTD entry

ShakesQuill Submission Guidelines - update

2008-09-24T06:19:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to point out that I have made a change to the Submission Guidelines. In regard to "Reader Alerts" the reasoning for the alert will now be placed on top, and when possible, the opening of the work will be displayed. This change is being made to give the reader more information and a better opportunity to see what the Reader Alert is for and if they still want to continue.

Please visit The ShakesQuill Submission Guidelines to see the update and to make any comments or suggestions.

Bill

Word of the Day

2008-09-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

Verdant

ver•dant
Pronunciation: \VUR-dnt\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Verdant comes from French verdoyant, present participle of verdoyer, "to be verdant, to grow green," from Old French verdoier, verdeier, from verd, vert, "green," from Latin viridis, "green," from virere, "to be green."

1. Covered with growing plants or grass; green with vegetation.
2. Green.
3. Unripe in knowledge, judgment, or experience; unsophisticated; green.

"Drab in winter, then suddenly sodden with alpine runoff, the region turns dazzlingly verdant in spring."

— Patricia Albers, Shadows, Fire, Snow

Thanks to Constant Comment for today's WOTD entry

The Claus Conspiracy

2008-09-24T05:43:00.000-07:00

From ages back in Time,
A Bishop with his coins
Gave succor to unfortunates
And funds to dower daughters.

Although this saintly Nicholas rests
Through centuries of slumber
Something of his spirit lives
When we love one another
.
A gentle vast conspiracy
Arises round this man
A tale told to the innocents
By parents in all lands.

His myth now robed in red and white
His beard now white and flowing
He dashes round the world by sleigh-
Even if it’s snowing

The story seized by those who sell
Has taken on new life
He first appears at Macy’s bash
And with Rockettes each night

Perhaps a Grandmother or two
Has run afoul his sleigh
Perhaps he’s just a cookie thief
This elf to whom kids pray

All I know is evidence
Is everywhere to see:
Suspicious trails of cookie crumbs
And presents at our tree

Submitted by Hobbie

Creative Writing - the Request Post

2008-09-23T17:51:00.000-07:00

Greetings, Ye Agitators of Plumes!

It's Tuesday, so that means it's time to deluge me with snippets for this week's chapter of the ongoing Creatively Created Creative Writing Story!!

For those who are new to this, you readers leave comments - bits of action or dialog or narrative - and I, your humble writer, weave them into a story come Sunday. Something like...

The password is elephantism.

...or whatever you'd like.

(previous chapters are here)

Word of the Day

2008-09-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

Untouchable

un•touch•able
Pronunciation: \ˌən-ˈtə-chə-bəl\
Function: adjective

1 a: forbidden to the touch : not to be handled b: exempt from criticism or control
2: lying beyond reach
3: disagreeable or defiling to the touch

"They were the best years of our lives. They called them the swinging Sixties. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were the rulers of pop music, Carnaby Street ruled the fashion world...and me and my brother ruled London. We were fucking untouchable."

— Ronnie Kray

Word of the Day

2008-09-22T13:00:00.000-07:00

Diadem

di•a•dem
Pronunciation: \DY-uh-dem\
Function: noun
Etymology: Diadem derives from Greek diadema, "a band," from diadein, "to bind around," from dia, "through, across" + dein, "to bind."
1. A crown.
2. An ornamental headband worn (as by Eastern monarchs) as a badge of royalty.
3. Regal power; sovereignty; empire; -- considered as symbolized by the crown.

Function: transitive verb
1. To adorn with a diadem; to crown.

"Dead and gone is the British Raj in India, that most glittering jewel in the diadem of Queen Victoria."

— Jan Morris, "The Power Behind The Empire", Time Asia, August 12, 2002

Thanks to Constant Comment for today's WOTD entry

Natures Voice

2008-09-22T05:12:00.000-07:00

It is but with nature that one is truly alone if he desires.

There are voices in nature that one may hear if only nature is allowed to whisper its timeless treasured voice of reason.

The reason of existence, acceptance.

Its voice rings silently the tone of the seasons.

In Spring it is rebirth, in Summer it is joy, in Autumn it is sadness and in Winter, oh yes the cold, bleak frigid days and nights of ole man Winter, it rings the tone of death.

One may see that mans life is of but the tones of nature.

No more and no less.

He begins and he ends only to begin and end again, and again, and again …

You see this day I visited nature, nature and I together, alone, nothing more.

Nature spoke in the tone it knows only as Winter.

"Do not be fearful my child, it is only death.

Death may bring new life.

Nature is never wrong, only man is wrong.

Come listen with me.

Hear the sounds of death.

They are but beauty no less than the others.

It is frigid this day my child, bundle up as you come with me.

Hold my hand; do not be afraid, death in nature is but natural.

Listen; listen well as the lessons of life and death are revealed.

I say hush, … sh sh sh.

The voices come.

Did you hear it?

Listen carefully!

Hear the sounds of death.

Feel the stillness of solitude.

Feel the chill of the melancholy wind as it blows through the barren trees with frowns on their bark along the bayous edge.

Feel and listen to the falling snow so white against the shroud of gloom encircling us.

Run my child, run back to the warmth of your home.

You shall return to it one day, one day when you will understand Natures Voice.

It will always be the same, never changing, never erring, no never erring like the wickedness of man.

You see nature is perfect my child and man is not-death."

Submitted by David Allen Monier

About the Author: I am from Louisiana's Bayous. A warm welcome to my blog DAM is being extended to all.

Path

2008-09-22T04:58:00.000-07:00

Do you know what you want
Without a doubt in your heart
Can you seek what you want
Do you know where to start
Is it easy to go there
Do you feel it is true
You know you'll be ridden
Can you take me with you

Submitted by String

Creatively Created Creative Writing - Chapter XVI

2008-09-21T11:26:00.000-07:00

It was amazing how quickly the month had passed; the whole year for that matter. Seems like we had just celebrated New Year's and now it was the day before the Autumnal Equinox. And it was still snowing.

Funny, you'd think with all that snow, there would be more than a few inches of accumulation. Arianne seemed to think so, too. She was walking from room to room, looking everywhere. No snow in the kitchen... none in the laundry room. But she did get her trombone and start playing it.

Good ole Dixieland Jazz.

I watched her as she crossed the bedroom, playing "When the Saints go marching in", and then pause as she reached the closet. She looked around at me and said, "I hear voices. Lots of them."

I couldn't hear the voices, because I had The O'Reilly Factor turned up loud, watching BillO and Fred Barnes go at it about something... I wasn't really sure what.

"What should I do?" Arianne asked me, but I didn't answer because I was watching a commercial for a laxative that had some of the characters from I Love Lucy and The Flintstones in it. Slowly, carefully, she opened the door with the end of her trombone.

There was no snow, but Fred Thompson and Freddie Fender were in there arguing about Classical music with Georg Frederic Handel.

Arianne screamed and.....

I woke up trembling. And that was my dream.

Oh, except for one thing. And then everyone on the planet named Fred exploded. And suddenly it all made sense.

"Well, honey," Arianne said to me, "that's why "Sesame Street" and "Homeland Security" have no business in the same room together, much less the same sentence. Nightmares. Now c'mere and let me hold you."

Love To My Husband

2008-09-19T09:46:00.001-07:00

I am drawn to you like
The stars to the midnight skies
The Earth to the burning sun
Water to thirsting flowers

I am comfortable with you like
An old pair of boots
A faded pair of jeans
My favorite sweater and scarf

I am at peace with you like
Sitting in a boat in the middle of a lake
Taking a walk in silence in the country
Listening to rain drops fall in the dark of night

I am alive with you like
The laughter that is uncontrollable
The heart that goes thump, thump, thump
Running through wildflowers in the wilderness

Every ounce of my being
Mind, body and soul are riveted by you
I am alive with you, free with you, comfortable with you

I love you

Submitted by Heather Mirassou

I Forgot

2008-09-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

Threw out my heart when I got off the bus
I forgot to smile, forgot how to be happy
I left my cigarettes in your car, left my soul in ‘99
Met myself in the mirror that night, couldn’t question why
Danced in my pink shoes, they never fitted well
They asked me about that day, I said I forgot them well

Submitted by strangedillies

Novel excerpt

2008-09-19T09:13:00.001-07:00

Here's another installment of my not-yet-named novel. I wrote this novel for National Novel Writing Month, and I am now getting into the parts of the novel that I've spent less time on, and I would really love to get some feedback about ways to improve things.

So please, feel free to either leave constructive criticism in the comments or e-mail me at maurinsky@yahoo.com.

****************************************************************************************

Tina picked up the phone and dialed James' office. She made it through the voice mail system to get to his assistant, a woman in her 40's named Leslie.

"Hi, Leslie," Tina said, "is James available?"

"Good afternoon," Leslie said, in full professional mode. Tina wondered if one of the partners was nearby. That thought was confirmed when Leslie continued, "Yes, Mr. Torvald, Mr. Conroy will be available on the 17th at 10a.m. We have off-street parking located behind our building. Yes.....yes.....certainly, Mr. Torvald....." and then, Tina heard Leslie whisper conspiratorally "okay, he's gone. It was Clapsaddle, he gets cranky about any conversations that aren't billable."

"I figured," Tina said, sitting back in the office chair.

"So how's the wedding planning going?" Leslie asked, "is everything decided, have you arranged the seating so no fights break out at the Bari-Conroy nuptials?"

"Everything is settled except for one biggy," Tina said, "which is the dress, but I'm going to pick one out tonight, which is why I need to speak to James."

"Let me check if your honey is available," Leslie said, "he is here, so that should help."

Tina listened to the awful on hold station – she was being forced to listen to Chris DeBurgh warble "Lady In Red". She made a mental note to make sure the DJ at the reception did not play this song. It made her ears bleed.

"One sec, hon," Leslie said, and then Tina heard James rich baritone in her ear. She found the tone of his voice reassuring and calming.

"Hi, J," Tina said, "how's your day going?"

"Oh, you know," James said, "depositions, research, memos...the usual paper shifting. So what's up?"

"Kell is going to help me pick out a wedding dress tonight, at 6ish, so I was going to see if you wanted to meet me for and early dinner at Uncle Vito's at around 4:45 or so." Vito was her mother's younger brother who owned a restaurant around the corner from both James' law office and only a couple of blocks north of her aunt Dinella's dress shop.

Tina heard James let out a deep sigh. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

"I can meet you," he said, not answering her question, "I just have to get moving on one client and do a little reshuffling with a meeting I was going to have with Leslie....oh, she just yelled in to me that she can wait until tomorrow to talk to me, that I should go have a good time with my girl."
"Great!" Tina said. "I'll see you then. Love you, J."

"Love you, T," he said. Tina hung up the phone and looked at it for a moment. She had noticed that James became withdrawn and quiet everytime their conversation turned to talk of their upcoming nuptials. Tina was not comfortable with confrontation, but she wondered if he was experiencing the proverbial cold feet. “Maybe I can bring it up at dinner tonight”, she thought to herself. It might be good to get both of their fears out on the table. "In fact," she thought, "maybe he's acting exactly the same and I'm the one who is getting distant." She sighed and stood up. She had to get ready for a small group of Girl Scouts, they were trying to train a dog for a badge of some kind.

Tina walked out of the office, around the front counter and down a short hallway to the main play area. Tina had helped Tabby find the site for the facility, and she felt a certain amount of ownership of the place. It was always spotless, and although it smelled like dog, it smelled like clean dog. She opened the gate to the main play area and said hello to the excited canine throng that greeted her. The Dog House was located in an Industrial Park, and when Tabby first rented the building, it was basically just an open warehouse. But they had put up drywall and painted, laid down some easy to clean flooring that the dogs wouldn't slip on, and gated the 1 acre lot behind the building so the dogs could get time outside everyday. They planted trees and even had a garden of old fire hydrants that had been painted bright colors, just for a touch of fun.

"Quiet!" Tina ordered the dogs, calmly but forcefully. She had a manner that dogs seemed to respect, and she rarely raised her voice or had to repeat a command.

As the din quieted down, Tina gave the command for outside, and the dogs ran to the doggy door that let them out into the fenced yard.

"Laura," Tina said, as the diminutive older woman started heading out after the dogs and the other assistants who worked at the facility.

"Yes," Laura said, an affectionate smile on her face.

"I have some Girl Scouts coming in a half an hour, and I'm going to work with them in the training room, and do you have a minute?" Tina surprised herself by asking this last question.

"Of course, Randy and Joelle can handle the dogs outside," Laura said. "What can I do for you?"

"Well....I think I might need some advice from someone who's been married," Tina said.

"I've been married twice," Laura said, "so I'm not sure I am the best person to give you advice,"

Tina flushed a little. "Not your current marriage," Tina said, "but when you were married to a man." Wow, this was awkward, she thought to herself. Laura considered herself married now, but the law didn't recognize her current marriage, to a woman her age named Rose. Tina loved Laura and Rose, and she considered them a perfect pair, but she also knew that Laura's marriage to her husband had not been a happy one. She didn't know that Laura's husband had been abusive, but Tina knew that Laura was happy to have her ex-husband out of her life.

Laura smiled a sad smile, "James is nothing like the man I was married to." Laura had survived a brutal marriage, something she rarely talked about and tried hard not to think about, as well.

"Of course, I know," Tina said. "But do you think it's normal for a man to act…I don’t know, strange before he gets married? Like, distant, somehow?"

Laura tipped her head back, like she was thinking. "I'm sure it's normal, Tina," she said. "I think marriage – committing for a lifetime, can be scary, and they aren't sure how to deal with fears like that. But what do you mean by distant?"

Tina thought about it for a minute. He was sleeping in the guest bedroom, for one thing, but of course her mother had guilted him into that. But she couldn't really point to anything in particular as being odd or off about his behavior. James had always been a man of few words, and he'd never been the most affectionate man, either. He was tender and loving, but he never seemed to have some of the fire that some of her previous lovers had - there was something about his desire for her that was off. She didn't want to get into all of that at work, though.

"I guess it's nothing, Laura," Tina said. "Maybe I'm so scared that I'm projecting onto him."

Laura smiled and wrapped her arm around Tina. "It's natural to be scared when you make a big change. But just to be smart, make sure you listen to your fears to see if they are trying to tell you something." She saw a look come over Tina's face, "I'm sure it's nothing, in this case, because James is a sweet boy, but don't dismiss your feelings, either,"

Tina looked at the tiny woman. "How'd you get so smart, Laura? Tina asked.

"Lots of mistakes, Tina," Laura said, "lots of mistakes."

Word of the Day

2008-09-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

Imbroglio

im•bro•glio
Pronunciation: \im-BROHL-yoh\
Function: noun
Etymology: Imbroglio derives from Italian, from Old Italian imbrogliare, "to tangle, to confuse," from in-, "in" + brogliare, "to mix, to stir." It is related to embroil, "to entangle in conflict or argument."

1. A complicated and embarrassing state of things.
2. A confused or complicated disagreement or misunderstanding.
3. An intricate, complicated plot, as of a drama or work of fiction.
4. A confused mass; a tangle.

"Worse still, hearings and investigations into scandals -- from the imbroglio over Clarence Thomas's Supreme Court nomination in 1991 to the charges of perjury against President Clinton in 1998 -- have overshadowed any consideration of the country's future."

— John B. Judis, The Paradox of American Democracy

Thanks to Constant Comment for today's WOTD entry

Clown Girl

2008-09-18T08:52:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the circus.

Presenting...

Clown Girl. She's so funny, don't you think?

C'mon, laugh at her,

Push her around!

She deserves it, after all,

She is only a Clown Girl.

She's got no real friends.

Just her words.

C'mon, laugh at her,

Push her around!

She deserves it, after all,

She is only a Clown Girl.

The clothes she wears,

So dark.

So different.

Always sitting alone.

She says she’s got problems...

That un-grateful girl.

Doesn't she realise what she has?

Life.

So hurt that un-grateful girl.

Tease that un-grateful girl.

Let her suffer for what she is.

She deserves it.

After all,

She is only a

Clown Girl.

Submitted by Emily Thurgar

About the work: "It's meant to be like a school yard. Teachers and students think that she’s just an attention seeker. They don't take her seriously. People stereotype her and judge her so she tries to pull herself away from the school community."

Remembering Mark

2008-09-18T08:52:00.000-07:00

Eerlong the rains have left me

alone under the weight of purple pretense

(pretense and a glass of milk)

yet now in Viridian dreamrooms

I am wandering in under-down-out-through.

The Ashen remnants of dark Decembers

still taunt and tear these Gordian thoughts

Perhaps when I release this loathsome labour,

and finally sip sweet plum wine sleep,

there may be born a most intriguing question

the answer lying lazily somewhere

Written by Mark

About the Work: "This poem was written by my son Mark at the age 17. He was a talented artist/writer who would often pen anonymous poems and stories and leave them on the New York City subways for some stranger to find. Sadly he never got credit for his work or the opportunity to cultivate his talent. He passed away in 1996 at the age of 20."

Word of the Day

2008-09-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

Hegemony

he•gem•o•ny
Pronunciation Key: [hi-JEM-uh-nee, HEJ-uh-moh-nee]
Function: noun
Date: 1567
Etymology: from the Greek hegemonia "leadership," from hegemon "leader," from hegeisthai "to lead." Originally of predominance of one city state or another in Gk. history.

1. leadership or predominant influence exercised by one nation over others, as in a confederation.
2. leadership; predominance.
3. (esp. among smaller nations) aggression or expansionism by large nations in an effort to achieve world domination.

"The hegemony of a single member state is not incompatible with a genuine confederation."

Thanks to Constant Comment for today's WOTD entry

A Poem for Robin

2008-09-17T08:59:00.001-07:00

I am writing a poem for you, Robin,

Because I have to write a poem for someone,

And I am out of ideas.

Tonight I started a grease fire in my kitchen.

Great white clouds of smoke, like ghosts

Made my eyes water, and I opened all the windows.

The moon was there,

Looking at me.

It looked like you, looking at me

From the outside of a window. I remember.

Do you think I don’t remember? Of course I do.

Fire! I kept the oven closed.

It burned itself out – No more fuel, no more air,

Nothing left but smoke hanging,

Irritating the walls, hurting my insides, making me squirm and seem to cry.

I’m tearing up.

I had a white dress on. Do you think I don’t remember?

It was warm and dark.

The kitchen is warm and dark, and filled with clouds,

Like summer.

Your arms were warm and it was dark.

Your skin was warm and it was dark.

It was warm and dark, like summer.

Do you think I don't remember?

I'm choking.

I'm out of ideas.

Standing at the window, breathing deep.

Dinner's ruined. Sorry, sorry.

Maybe we'd better go out instead. Leave the windows open, for the smoke.

Turn on the fan, chase out the ghosts.

Sorry, sorry. I remember

Nights and moons and words and whiskey and you, Robin, and tonight

I nearly burned down my apartment

Making dinner. Not sure why I thought about it.

Go somewhere, turn out the light. Fire's dying in the oven.

Warm, warm, warm and dark.

I remember. I want you to know.

Not that there's any point. I doubt it troubles you much.

But I have to write a poem for someone.

That's just how these things work.

I am writing a poem for you, Robin.

No big deal. Nothing special.

Just warm, and dark, and you and me.

Warm and dark

And you and me.

Submitted by Cecilia

One More Step

2008-09-17T08:59:00.000-07:00

The door closed behind him and no sound was made as the old oak door latched itself into place. The entry way was void of atmosphere as if the air had been vacuumed out and replaced with white noise. The staircase in front of Andy seemed to stop in blackness at the top as if when you reached the top you would be greeted with nothingness like the nothingness that existed before anything else came into existence. And inside this nothingness lay the promise of escape, of silence, of being absolutely nowhere. Andy had travelled for the last year and he had hated every minute of it; day after day in airports and night after night in the kinds of hotels where if armed with a black light would potentially reveal the birth and death of generations that had never made it past the sheets or floor or if the hotel was really bad, the tub. So in this house at this moment, Andy took the deepest breath he had taken in 364 days. The hangover he had from the night before finally washed away and the sense of being at home settled in its place. He stretched his arms and cracked his ankles and began up the stairs. The banister felt wet and a little sticky and the stairs felt soggy under his feet. But there was no water or evidence of water that he could see. And as he took the stairs one at a time, they became soggier and by the time he reached the top, he was standing knee deep in the final stair. The wood closed around his feet and felt cold and wet, but not quite like water. The banister had changed to but into more of a gelatinous substance and now seemed to hold his hand in its belly. That is exactly how it felt, like the belly of some blob creature. And that was it. The nothingness was right in front of him, but he couldn't take another step. His feet were too heavy to move and his hand was just stuck. Fear started to replace the comfort and dread began to replace the fear. As if coming from his own mind, a low resonating laughter filled his ears and echoed in the empty house. But it was not him laughing, it was the house. The house was laughing at him and it grew louder with each minute. Reduced to nothing more than the butt of this twisted joke, Andy closed his eyes and screamed.

The house seemed to hear his scream and the laughter stopped. He looked down and his feet were standing on solid wood again. The nothingness was gone and in its place there was an ornate hallway filled with priceless paintings and sculptures. Doors made of beautiful oak and aged to perfection with just the right amount of knotholes and creases – the kind of look people spent lifetimes creating and still not getting it right. The air had changed too. Instead of white noise now it felt more like a classical jazz piece with the perfect blend of harmony and melody with just a hint of dissonance to give it that rebel edge. It felt wrong to Andy. He had come to this place, this house, this stairway to finally find silence and darkness and nowhere. But now he was somewhere. He didn't know where, but he was somewhere. Could the house be taunting me, he thought to himself. There he stood, still frozen in place on that last stair, not because the house held him but because he just couldn't get himself to move. The surroundings now frightened him more. The perfection of the environment touched his deepest fears and cranked them up a notch. Something not right, something off, something maybe even evil had painted this picture and behind its facade, he knew there lay pain and perhaps even death. Andy closed his eyes again and screamed.

Submitted by Dan

Word of the Day

2008-09-17T06:30:00.000-07:00

Chimerical

chi•me•ri•cal
Pronunciation: \ky-MER-ih-kuhl; -MIR-; kih-\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Chimerical is ultimately derived from Greek khimaira, "she-goat" or "chimera," which in Greek mythology was a monster having the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a dragon.

1. Merely imaginary; produced by or as if by a wildly fanciful imagination; fantastic; improbable or unrealistic.
2. Given to or indulging in unrealistic fantasies or fantastic schemes.

"Her name is Dulcinea; her country El Toboso, a village in La Mancha; her degree at least that of Princess, for she is my Queen and mistress; her beauty superhuman, for in her are realized all the impossible and chimerical attributes of beauty which poets give to their ladies."

— Miguel De Cervantes, Don Quixote

Thanks to Constant Comment for today's WOTD entry

A Novel Introduction

2008-09-16T20:45:00.000-07:00

Howdy, QuillShakers! A little something different from me. Below is the first part of a novel I've been working on (and off) for a ... while.

If the urge strikes, comments/criticisms are welcome.

It began on a Monday.

I had awakened early, downloaded my mail and the day's weather forecast, as usual. The weather service said that strong thunderstorms were likely in the afternoon. My publisher, Dennis, was screaming for an outline, which I was supposed to have sent him a week ago. And still no reply from Janna. I fixed some breakfast and scanned the world headlines of the day. Only two terrorist bombings, one in Baghdad, at the occupation headquarters, and the other in Tokyo, at a bath house on the Ginza. Crude oil was lapping at the $125 mark again, and the stock market was on the downside of its manic depressive cycle.

All in all, the morning wasn't that unusual. Certainly, not with respect to the events that fate would unfold before me over the next... well, very long time.

Instead of working in the garden, which had been my nominal plan for the day, I decided to see if I couldn't fix the opening chapter of my new novel. I hadn't sent Dennis the outline because the story had veered sharply from where I had intended it, and the outline I had was no longer valid.

What started as political satire had somehow devolved into slapstick, and every time I tried to work on it, visions of Mel Brooks films would flash through my mind. Nevertheless, I sat down at the computer and got to work. I managed to snag a line of thought that I liked, and was soon engrossed in the story and oblivious to everything else around me. With much effort, I slowly steered the plot back onto the course I had intended.

Several hours later, I leaned back and stretched, and realized with surprise that there was rain falling on the roof of my cabin. I stood and walked to the front door, and was surprised to see how much rain had fallen while I was writing. Puddles of water stood in the small yard in front of the house, and even the leaves on the maples were plastered together, though only a soft shower was presently falling.

I stepped back inside and turned on the television to check the Weather Channel. After a story about skiing in Australia, two commercial breaks, and some strained banter between the co-anchors, the regional map of the Southeastern US came on the screen. The radar image showed several bands of heavy rain marching across the Appalachians, one of which was just about to reach the Toe River Valley of Western North Carolina, and my home.

I hurried back outside to double check that everything that needed to be was still covered, and got back on the porch just as the wind picked up and the rain began falling harder. Leaving the television tuned to the weather, I switched on the radio to see if any warnings had been issued. As I scanned the dial listening for weather statements, I began to hear thunder in the distance. Soon flashes of lightning began illuminating points across the valley, each one striking more quickly than the last. As a lover of electrical storms, I was out on the porch again, watching the lightning and the rain, driven almost horizontal by the wind, when a gust practically knocked me off my feet. At nearly the same instant, lightning struck two trees on opposite sides of the cabin. The hair on the back of my neck prickled as I felt the residual energies of the double strike. Then I remembered that the TV was on.

Cursing myself for an idiot, I ran inside and unplugged everything. Then I went back onto the porch and watched the rain fall.

When the storm had blown itself out, I plugged the power strips back in and turned everything back on. As the TV lit up, I saw nothing but static. I switched the signal splitter from satellite to antenna, tuned in the local channel, and the signal came in clear. At least the monitor and tuner were working. I switched back to the satellite and ... nothing. Okay, could it be anything besides lightning damage? I asked myself. Storm, rain, wind ... wind!

Snapping my fingers, I went outside and around the corner of the cabin so I could see the dish up on the roof. Sure enough, the wind had blown the dish out of line. I climbed up on the roof, reoriented the dish, and went inside to reboot the system. No change. There was still no signal.

That's just great, I thought to myself, Only a week after I figure out how to configure the software to pirate the signal, the fucking storm fries it! I opened the satellite descrambler program on my laptop to look at the code and everything looked okay. Then I checked the memory cache and immediately recognized that this was where the problem was. I had set up the program with a twenty second delay, to allow my decryption code to unscramble the signal, but there was several hours' worth of data in the memory buffer, and the translator algorithm was trying to squeeze it all into a 20-second file.

Pausing the program, I picked a chunk of data at random, to see if I could figure out what had gone wrong, and twenty seconds of Super Bowl VII played out on the monitor, followed by a radio broadcast in what sounded like Arabic, then a Swedish luggage infomercial. I repeated this with several different chunks of data and each time a seemingly random series of radio or TV segments played over my system. Some of the segments were current, but many were years or even decades out of date. I found this just a bit unusual, but was more interested in getting the TV to work again, so I saved all the data onto a USB stick, wiped the memory buffer, restarted the system and everything worked fine.

A couple of weeks later, I was again working on the satire. Needing to back up the text, by accident I picked up the memory stick containing the odd satellite data. I had experienced no further trouble with the system since the storm, but still hadn't figured out the source of the mysterious transmissions. Looking at the memory stick, I figured, what the hell. I was having trouble with the slapstick again, and needed to distract my mind with something else for a bit.

After saving the slapstick on an external hard drive, I plugged in the odd data. As when I first scanned it, I watched and listened to old broadcasts: I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Jack Benny Show, All in the Family, newscasts, World Series' and Super Bowls; I spent hours scanning through the data stored on the stick.

As I scanned, I sorted the data into separate TV and radio files, with English and non-English subheadings. While doing this, I found several news broadcasts. These broadcasts contained not only minor stories like "Farmer Jack's Mutant Two-headed Pig", but also major new items. The problem was, some of the most earth-shaking stories were news to me. I admit, I could sometimes get lost in my work, but it seemed to me that I would remember if the Canadian Prime minister had been assassinated. Likewise, a news feature about open warfare on the Korean Peninsula (not the UN 'police action' of the early 1950's, either).

I ran the sort program again, this time searching only the news broadcasts. As I scanned the results, I noted the ones that mentioned the date. Quite a few were in languages other than English, but of the ones I could understand, many were unfamiliar. Even stranger, of the ones that were dated, around forty percent were from the future.

I thought I was either losing my mind, or that this was some kind of hoax or scam. If it was, though, it was the most detailed I had ever seen. Like a lot of people, I had used PhotoShop or similar programs to create altered versions of recordings in the past, mainly as jokes for my friends, but what I was looking at now was as far from PhotoShop as the finger painting of a five year old was from a Renoir masterpiece.

So, either a very talented artist/hacker was behind this, or I had actually received broadcasts from out of time. As the former explanation was, by far, the most likely, I decided to check with some of my friends to see if they, or anyone they knew (or knew of) was capable of such beautiful work. I selected a few of the fluff stories (like farmer Jack's pig), copied them onto a memory stick, and called my friend Johann Meizher, who worked as a production manager for DigiFilms, Inc.

‘Johann Meizher’s office, this is Becky speaking,” the voice at the other end of the line announced.

“Good afternoon,” I replied. “My name is Will Lochrud. I’m a friend of Johann’s, and I was wondering if he was available to take my call."

“Please hold for a moment, Mr. Lochrud,” she answered. I was treated to twenty-five seconds of movie ads, then a familiar voice came on the line.

“Will! It’s great to hear from you! Are you in town?”

“Hey Johann. No, I’m in North Carolina, but I was thinking of flying out there for a couple of days. I thought I’d see if you had some free time coming up.”

“For you, Sugar? Always! Barry and I are both free next Tuesday and Wednesday. Will that work?”

I smiled into the phone and said, “I don’t know. I’ll have to check my calendar....”

Johann’s laughter came through the phone. We had known each other for over ten years, and he had produced a short of one of my stories that had garnered an honorable mention at Sundance. He was well aware of my predilection for solitude (some of my friends actually used the word "hermit"). He had visited my "camp" in the mountains of North Carolina many times over the years. “Let me know when your flight’s coming in and I’ll meet you at the airport.”

“Sounds good, Johann. I’ll give you a call back later this afternoon.”

The following Tuesday morning I drove to Asheville and caught the air shuttle to Atlanta, and thence to Seattle, where DigiFilms was located, and where Johann lived with his partner, Barry, who also worked at DigiFilms. They met me at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and we drove out to their house.

We spent some time catching up, then I explained why I had come out to see them. Rather, I explained the cover story I had come up with. I was reluctant to admit that I was actually considering the possibility that I had somehow received transmissions from the future, so I told them I had received the disk in the mail, with no return address and a Mexico City postmark. I also told them that I was sure it was a fake, and I just wanted to know who did it.

There was, of course, the possibility that they had dreamed up this whole thing - they were, after all, experts in the field of computer animation. What was not possible, though, was for either one of them to lie to me face to face - I could always tell - so, as I weaved my story of mysterious packages arriving in the mail I watched them for reactions.

“I’m guessing that neither of you had anything to do with this,” I said as Johann and Barry stared at the computer screen.

“I wish,” Johann said incredulously, as he looked over Barry’s shoulder. “It would take the entire production team around six months to produce any one of these segments.”

“I don’t see any telltales,” Barry added. He was referring to the various glitches (sometimes only a single pixel out of place) that often appeared in digital productions. “Do you mind if I play with the images some?”

I shook my head and said, “That’s why I came out here. To see if you guys could figure out who did this, and how. It’s impressive as hell, isn’t it?”

“Bloody right, Will,” Barry said.

“And then we’ll figure out how to hire him - or her,” Johann said as he booted up a second computer and the two of them began breaking down the stories into single frames and looking for telltales. By the time Johann dropped me off at the airport two days later, neither he nor Barry had found any glitches - and had both called in ‘sick’ for the rest of the week, so engrossed had they become in figuring out the mystery I had laid at their door.

With Johann and Barry, both of whom had much more experience in the field than I, working to solve the mystery, I returned home and to my work. The guys were keeping me updated on their progress, or rather their lack thereof, but my mind was once again on other things (satire was managing to hold back slapstick, but only just), and the potential significance of the mystery began to fade.

One late afternoon, about a month later, I returned from a day hike to find I had a voice mail waiting.

“Hey, Will. It’s Johann. Barry and I have examined every frame, pixel by pixel, and contacted everyone else we can think of who might have had anything to do with the creation of these recordings. We’ve found nothing, and no one, that we can point to and say, ‘Aha!’

"So, we surrender. You got us. Now, please call back and tell us how you managed this!”

I picked up the phone and soon I was saying, “I swear, Barry, I didn’t do it! I got the disk in the mail, just like I told you.” The first sentence was true, anyway.

“Fine, Will. I guess we’ll find out when you - or whoever - markets the software. In any case, it’s a helluva good job! I wish I could take credit for it.”

Creative Writing - the Request Post

2008-09-16T18:15:00.000-07:00

Willkommen, Ye Shakers of Quills!

It's Tuesday, so that means it's time to deluge me with snippets for this week's chapter of the ongoing Creatively Created Creative Writing Story!!

For those who are new to this, you readers leave comments - bits of action or dialog or narrative - and I, your humble writer, weave them into a story come Sunday. Something like...

Them taters won't cook themselves, ya know!

...or whatever you'd like.

(previous chapters are here)

Word of the Day

2008-09-16T09:00:00.001-07:00

Alibi

al•i•bi
Pronunciation: \ˈa-lə-ˌbī\
Function: noun
Date: 1743
Etymology: Latin, elsewhere, from alius

1: the plea of having been at the time of the commission of an act elsewhere than at the place of commission ; also : the fact or state of having been elsewhere at the time
2: an excuse usually intended to avert blame or punishment (as for failure or negligence)

"What I want above all is to destroy the idea of culture. Culture is an alibi of imperialism. There is a Ministry of War. There is a Ministry of Culture. Therefore, culture is war."

— Jean-Luc Godard

The Art Of Pain

2008-09-16T08:41:00.000-07:00

A portrait of my heart
Painted on the canvas of despair
In the colour of red
Tearing itself into shreds

A portrait of my heart
Vulnerable as a maiden
In a dark ominous land
Feet trapped in quicksand

A portrait of my heart
In the stigma of refusal
Into the throes of pain
`Slowly becoming insane

A portrait of my heart
On the canvas in flames
Becoming lifeless by the day
The blood ebbing away

The portrait of my heart
Is no more a work of art
But a living entity in pain
Waiting for death in vain..

Submitted by Siddhartha Mohapatra

New Thing

2008-09-16T08:36:00.000-07:00

“Our house is the last before the infinite.”

-Lawrence Weschler

They went to cut a passage through the ice
And in the end when there were only four left
they wandered around the Pole
for five years trying to get out

It was like a prison
No
It was worse than a prison

That must be why they dragged boats full of silverware behind them
leaving lines like wakes in the snow
They wanted to retain some semblance of beauty
of sanity

When the wide open expanses become like four walls around you
a polished silver blade reflecting back your own blackened face
explodes your amount of unwhite
unflurried scenery

There are days when I beg my husband to leave with me
with what we can carry and walk
Just walk until the four walls around us fall away
And we are left with nothing and everything

We could mourn for placemats and televisions
and pictures because we are beholden to them

Or we could step across the line of threshold and rejoice
in the wide open expanses as our four walls

And the mud will be our carpet
and every person we meet a wellspring of experience

A new thing

A polished silver blade

Submitted by Cassandra Long

Monday Mind Opener

2008-09-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

Ah, Mondays. Here's a little bit about my Monday:

I awoke early after spending the weekend with my in-laws. It's a one-hour flight from where I reside. I learned that having a cab driver blast through the streets of Belo Horizonte trumps several cups of coffee when you get up at 4 a.m.

It was a peculiar morning. After the flight touched down, my wife and I saw a tall man getting off the plane, as well. "Is that Oscar," I asked my wife. We were pretty sure it was. "Oscar" is Oscar Schmidt, the greatest basketball player Brazil has ever produced. Our town would fit well in Indiana, as in a soccer-crazed nation, basketball is a big draw around these parts and some of the top Brazilian players lace it up for our home team. Oscar was one of the first Brazilians I ever heard of after Pele and Carmen Miranda (who was born in Portugal, BTW).

Dropping my wife off at work, we saw the remnants of a motorcycle accident, with the rider still on the road alongside a woman on the road, as well. It turned out the woman was a co-worker of my wife's, and she suffered a severely fractured leg. I felt awful hearing that it was her. She had always been very nice to me and interested in the fact that I'm from the U.S. When I first met her, she was shocked at how white I was. I'm not sure what she expected. But she's just the kindest woman. I wish her well in her recovery.

And so the week starts. It should be an interesting one.
_____________

And now it's your turn, my friends. Tell me about Monday. It could be the Monday you are having today, or it could be your most memorable Monday. Or a poem about Mondays. Or whatever you like. Let's open our minds about Mondays.

Word of the Day

2008-09-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

Limn

limn
Pronunciation: \LIM\
Function: transitive verb
Limn is from Middle English limnen, alteration of luminen, from enluminen, from Etymology: Medieval French enluminer, from Late Latin illuminare, "to illuminate," ultimately from Latin lumen, "light."

1. To depict by drawing or painting.
2. To portray in words; to describe.

"In telling these people's stories Mr. Butler draws upon the same gifts of empathy and insight, the same ability to limn an entire life in a couple of pages."

— Michiko Kakutani, "Earthlings May Endanger Your Peaceful Rationality", New York Times, March 10, 2000

Thanks to Constant Comment for today's WOTD entry

Verb: To Crumple

2008-09-15T06:26:00.000-07:00

Reader Alert: Language

I stared down at my ramen noodles. A woman on the TV was selling jewelry made with pink tourmalines. The hand model turned her hand ever so slightly in the artificial light causing them to glisten through the screen. My wrist trembled causing my fork to clank against the side of the bowl.

The dark blue glow of the TV made shadows look long. The dark side of the recliner leaped off of the floor and traversed the ceiling above.

It took all I had to stand up. Scalding water spilled over my wrist and forefinger. It slowly crept down, cooling as it made its way to my elbow. I flipped on the kitchen light.

I pushed some beer cans aside to make room for my bowl. They screeched as they slid across the Formica.

I stood there staring at them, my reflection glaring back at me. I cupped my right hand under the side of the bowl and lifted with all my strength. The bowl flipped and splattered its contents across the sink and on to the side of the refrigerator burning my hand in the process.

"Fuck…..God damnit mother fu," I slammed the bowl on the kitchen floor. Cheap white ceramic scattered to all corners. Then the hum of the fridge beckoned me.My eyes squinted as the light from the fridge changed the chromaticity of my face. I pulled out a Pepsi.

Ssssslllump. The door closed.

I swayed back and forth as the cola filled the dirty glass. Bubbles popped and fizzed. Just right was always half full. The Captain will take the rest.

"Arrr me matey," I yelled raising my glass to the sky.

My hand drifted down till it was stretched out in front of me.

"You fuckers," I screamed as I stumbled forward.

"You mother fucker…you. You are a mother," I fell into the couch spilling most of my concoction.

I pulled myself up on to the back of the couch like a drunken cripple. I swayed heavily as I moved to the window.

"Why God. What the fuck," I took a deep breath, "Is this it? Is tonight the night you mother fucker?"

A stroke of lightning illuminated the back yard.

"You son of a bitch. You wont let me be happy will you," I pulled the glass to my lips and a stared at the bottom.

"Tonight is the night isn't it you fucker," I screamed. The backyard lit up casting white counter-shadows around me. It was God himself. He wasn’t going to miss this. This was his triumph. His glory. It was his masterpiece.

"Well I got news for you asshole. That's right. I got some fucking news for you. You can't win," I laughed, "you wont win," I chuckled, “ I’m going out there tonight.”

For a split second I had recognized what I had said. The words never really left the air. I swayed looking at the crumpled wreck.

The sheriff said they had left her personal affects in the vehicle. The man at the wrecking yard wanted $65 a day to keep her car there. It was…
"Highway fucking robbery! You don't think I’m strong enough? I'm strong eno," my words trailed off as I made my way to the back door. My feet were heavy.

I opened it and the sound of the rain engulfed my ears. It had been raining for three days. Two of those three days I had locked myself inside that place. The cold damp air filled my body and my clothes. It felt like I was sneaking out with her for the first time.

"Emily, don’t you remember," I stumbled back a little.

"Don't you remember," my eyes welled up.

"Emily don’t you remember when we snuck out to go sit in the park and look at the stars," I asked the ceiling. Tears streaming back towards my ears.

"Emily, don’t you remember it was late. And we walked through the park. Honey …..and the sprinklers turned on," I laughed out loud. Tears stormed down my cheeks.

"And we ran. Ha ha! We ran Babe. We fucking ran! Don’t you remember," I paused.

"You were so beautiful…… Ahhh Emily. You were so beautiful. We….we…."

Emily and her family moved into the house on the corner when I was 15 and we quickly became best friends. We would spend our afternoons in my room exploring the depths of our memories and making new ones. I knew everything about her, and she knew everything about me, except that I was completely in love.

As our senior year was winding down I became increasingly nervous about what would happen to us. She had plans to go to Northwestern, and I didn’t have many plans at all except working at my dad’s insurance office and going to community college. She was so excited to start her life on her own, meeting new people, and experiencing everything that college had to offer. I was genuinely happy for her and excited too, but being happy wasn’t what kept me up at night.

Unlike all prior school dances, we decided to go to our senior prom together. I’m not really sure why we hadn’t gone to a dance together before then, but it probably had something to do with every guy in the school asking her to go with them. I was always left asking a mutual friend or going stag, the latter being more common.

11:45 snuck up on me. The gymnasium was quiet for a second. The DJ’s voice cracked through the speakers.

"Ok Class of ’85! Grab that special person and head out to the dance floor. Its time for the last dance!"

My lungs were filled with bricks. Emily slowly walked over to me as Open Arms by Journey poured through the sound system. Her sky blue dress flowed around her like an apparition as she walked along the side of the dance floor. Her eyes rose and met mine. We didn’t say a word. She brushed a few strands of her golden hair from her face and held out her hand.

As we slowly moved back and forth I tried to take in every detail. I didn’t want to look back and wish that I had taken in more of the moment. Her head seemed light on my shoulder. My palms became sweaty as I rested them on the small of her back.

"Charlie. I’m worried about you," she said quietly. A few strands of her hair tickled my face, but I wouldn't have moved them for the world. I said nothing.

"You haven’t even said anything about what you plan to do after all of this, you know, High School."

My fingers fidgeted with the ruffles of her dress. Her arms slid away from my neck and she placed her hands on my shoulders. She looked at me inquisitively. The thin blue and green strands of her irises were the threads holding my entire universe together. The linings of my lungs stretched and split sending bricks tumbling into my legs. We stopped dancing.

"Charlie, what do you want to do with your life?"

The disco ball sent little patches of light swirling all around us. They jumped and soared from the floor, up the folds of her dress and blazed across her eyes. My heart raced as I knew the song was coming to an end. The ends of my mouth quivered.

"I want..I want to sp..spend it with you." I dug deep. Good or bad I wasn’t going to say sorry or that I was just kidding. I wasn’t going to laugh, and I wasn’t letting her go. She looked right through me. A shard of light from the disco ball danced off of a tear on her cheek.

I stood upright holding my ground. The sound of jostling polyester dresses faded away with the music. The punch bowl tipped and flew through the wall. Rented tables and chairs flipped upside down and tore through the gym ceiling crashing through the lights unleashing a shower of sparks.

My eyes focused on hers.

The walls groaned, tore from their foundations and disintegrated into flying oblivion. Blue and silver streamers were sent screaming after faceless students as they were sucked into the abyss. Strips of wood from the gym floor broken free from their nails twisted and rattled, then peeled away leaving empty black spaces underneath. The wind rippled the fabric of her dress in slow motion and space moved away from us toward some unknown singularity.

A single light shined down onto us through the emptiness. All was still.

Her lips met mine.

Water crashed over my forehead. John the Baptist dunked Jesus's head beneath the cold river.

"Emily," I shouted stumbling down the stairs.

"Emi….Emilllly," I cried. My left hand slid along the side of the house as I walked to the back yard.

Emily ……Emilllly!

The neighbor’s porch light turned on.

"Emily."

I could see it. The light blue glow of the flood light showed every droplet on the twisted wreck and I ran to it shielding the rain from my eyes.

"Emily," I screamed running my hands through the beads of water collecting on the trunk. My hands slid upwards and onto the roof of the car. The windows were opaque with microscopic droplets of water that refracted the flood light. Water infiltrated every fiber of my sweater and it hung low. I breathed heavy. Rain dripped from my nose, only to be inhaled into my mouth and spat out into the night.

"Emily," my hand was on the passenger door handle.

The sheriff said it was quick. He said it was a shame. He said she must have been on her way home. The revolving blue and red lights raced back into my mind. My hand gently lifted the handle.

Click.

I could feel my pulse in my fingertips. The door opened with a little resistance, and it let out a screech as I opened it.

The sheriff warned me. He said not to take it back here. He said it wasn't worth it. He said there wasn't much left. He said that she was conscience for a little while after they arrived. He said she mumbled about me. He said she died with my name on her lips.

Charley.

The sound of my heart was all I could hear.

I struggled to see inside the darkness. The flood light made large dark gaps in between light shades of greenish blue.

As my eyes adjusted, more artifacts drifted to the surface.

The driver’s seat was popped up and turned, its back resting on the passenger seat. CDs littered the floor accompanied by the contents of her purple corduroy purse which was also lying on the passenger side floorboard. My eyes made out some makeup including lipstick that was clearly melted to the inside of its clear plastic cap.

I opened my mouth to scream, but only a squeal came out. A pool of coagulated blood and broken glass looked like a red and blue mosaic covering the dash board. The car smelled like her. Like her perfume, mixed with the iron smell of steamed metal pipes.

Water ran down my pants and into my shoes. I felt as if I were sinking. My breath became shallow and interrupted by sobs. I coughed and picked up the purse, holding it to my cheek. I hated that purse. It didn’t match a damn thing she had, but she wore it anyway. It was a birthday gift from her friend Emma last year. I think she bought it just to piss me off. She knew I would hate it.

Her wallet and some more makeup fell out as I held the purse to my face. I breathed in deeply through my nose, making sure to take advantage of every last scent molecule. The wallet was open revealing an empty space where her driver’s license was kept. The plastic covering stared at me as if she were erased. I haven’t been able to look at her license since the sheriff gave it to me. I folded my hand around it and buried into my pocket.

They called at exactly 2:46 am. I was up watching reruns of Family Matters. It was the episode where Steve Urkel builds a machine to turn himself into his sexy alter-ego Stephan.

No one ever calls the house phone except my mother, and apparently the sheriff. He asked if I was the resident at 2215 Glenwood Crest and if I knew Emily Charleston. I said I did, and explained that she was my wife. He told me that there was a police cruiser out front. I checked. There was. He told me to get into the car and the officer would take me to the scene of the accident. There was a knock at the door.

I placed her wallet back inside the purse and set it back onto the floor uncovering a folded paper on the seat. I picked it up and started unfolding. I struggled to make out the words in the darkness.

Charlie,

I am writing you this letter because I cant seem to tell you how I feel and I think writing you a letter is the best way I can tell you. First of all I promise I will never walk out like I did tonight. It wasn’t right for me to do that and I am sorry. But it was the only thing I felt I could do. I just had to get away for a few hours. It’s the way that you talk to me Charlie…

Sweat from my thumbs and forefingers soaked the paper. I knelt down resting my elbows on the seat as my knees sunk into the flooded grass. They were too numb to feel the cold. I tried my hardest to hold the paper still, moving it into a better sliver of light.

…you make me feel like an idiot and I am not an idiot. I know that you say you don’t mean it or you are just kidding but I know you’re not. I know that it’s the way your father speaks to you. I have heard it myself. You sound just like him. Things are going to have to change Charlie if you want this to work.

A knife pierced my abdomen. It inched slowly towards my sternum as it flipped upright and slid across the bottom of my rib cage. It moved, twisting, fraying the cartilage, separating connective tissue from bone. Heat filled my ears as a scalpel carefully slit every capillary in my body. Blood burst into the whites of my eyes. My skin and hair ached.

Again I screamed, but nothing came out. Lighting illuminated the cars interior, and for a second I saw her.

Snot ran from my nostrils. I could taste saltiness in my mouth. My lips became numb.

I hope you do Charlie because I love you. I really do and I hope that you love me enough to make a real effort to change. I hope that you love yourself enough to make a change too. Charlie, I love you and I always will. And I am sorry.

Love,

Emily

I could hear hairline fractures run through my bones, splitting and spiraling, compacting, bending and snapping, their percussion rattling my innards. I winced, clinching my teeth. Silver fillings came loose as each individual tooth cracked in half letting the sensitive nerves escape through the crevasses. Chips of bone slid off slicing through my muscles as I collapsed. I rolled out of the car and onto my back. Water splashed up onto my arms and side. I held the letter up to the light. Rain collecting on the paper pooled then soaked through making it seem translucent. Blue ink flowed, spread and swirled. Her words became slurred and incoherent. I rolled over onto all fours.

I tried to shield the paper by placing it under my chest but it was no use. I held the letter in my left fist and wildly pounded the wet earth with my right. My fist sloshed into the soft wet grass. The blades gave way exposing the dark mud beneath and it splashed onto my face, hand, and the letter.

What started as a whimper quickly rose to a roar, "this doesn’t happen. Who…this isn't happening! This isn't fucking happening!”

Saliva and mucus dripped from my face and joined the million gallons of rain on the lawn. I looked into space and screamed into nothing.

Camera 1 started from behind me and slowly rotated counter-clockwise around me. I screamed again, and again only a whisper could be heard. The soundtrack started.

Camera 1 continued to rotate taking in the mangled car. Blue paint gave way to twisted steel. Metal folded over itself, the drivers side door was completely smashed in and clung to its hinges, and wires hung down to the grass. Magma flowed through my veins. Screams were dulled by the sounds of soft piano.

A minor, C Major, A minor, F major7

Hard Cut to Camera 2 positioned just above the flood light. Individual rain drops could be followed as they passed through the blue illumination.

I screamed again causing a crescendo of violins.

Camera 2 descended downward toward me. The sound of my breath was slightly audible under the orchestra. Still descending over my rain soaked hair it reached the side of my face. It focused downward to the mangled grass. The letter in my fist. My cheek and ear were out of focus, but in frame.

The music stops. Lighting flashes, and thunder rolls overhead.

I whispered, "I'm sorry."

Submitted by Leslie Johnson

About the Work: "This is a short story based loosely on a song I wrote in high school."

Movie Review

2008-09-15T05:29:00.000-07:00

I never saw any promos or trailers, but the impact
of the sudden, nationwide release was undeniable.
(Later I heard they were shown in a few test markets,
but nobody paid much attention.) The marketing guys, the suits
must have loved the way we were all transfixed in our seats,
ignoring the oily smell of popcorn.
The title was inspired: no words, only a number
redolent of panic and screaming sirens, simple, graphic.

Obviously, the special effects were top-notch. I admired
the ironic beauty of the weather, that beloved clear bright blue
as a backdrop to flame and smoke, and the way the screen darkened
as the plot unfolded. The scene kept cutting to the crowd on the street,
upturned faces standing in for us, the audience,
conveying our shock, and later, running,
frantic with the terror we were meant to feel.

The pacing was odd. I kept waiting for an iconic figure
to emerge from clouds of dust, an Arnold or Bruce or Mel,
dragging a bloodied villain to justice. There could have been
a plucky girl, too, who distracted the bad guy
at a crucial moment, and then limped into the light,
disheveled, a photogenic smudge on her perfect cheek.

The guy who finally made the big speech was all wrong for the part.
There were plenty of rumors about the real reason
he had been cast, but none of that mattered
once the thing was a hit.

And it was, a mega-hit, a blockbuster, nobody talked
about anything else for weeks. It changed cinema forever,
or until the Next Big Thing. Everything since
has been big-budget thrillers, spy flicks, gritty
battle sequences, things going kaboom. At least
we got a new set of villains out of it. We were getting bored
with Nazis, even the neo kind.

What I remember most is the multiple subplots. There was
that immigrant guy who worked in the restaurant;
the couple having an office affair, leading to a tense
whispering scene in the copier room: that's what I call drama.
The stockbroker who had just found out she was pregnant
was one of my favorite minor characters, but in the end
there were too many of them, with too little screen time.
We never learned their names, just saw glimpses and flashbacks,
I suppose because they were not not the movers and shakers,
they didn't drive the plot.

I have to say, it's not my kind of movie.
I tend to prefer dialogue to explosions,
but they don't make them like that anymore.
I do know one thing:
there's a killer sequel in the making. Hold on to your hats, folks.
It's going to be big.

Submitted by Sandra Larkin

Creatively Created Creative Writing - Chapter XV

2008-09-14T21:59:00.000-07:00

This week's chapter is a collaboration, so "Thanks, again, Jen, for your help."

It had been a quiet few weeks up on the mountain. We were starting to really like being there, and weren't looking forward to heading back to the city. The weather was getting cooler, with just the slightest hint of color change in the leaves. Yes, life at 5500' elevation was pretty good.

The Lutefisk Case, as Arianne had started calling it, came to a resounding conclusion; or rather, our involvement in it did, after I had a dream insight. In my dream, I was standing at the edge of a yawning chasm filled with the most noxious fumes imaginable.

And then I woke up to find the cat inches away from my face. Only problem was, we don't have a cat. Turned out I had left one of the sliding glass doors open a little bit, and the cat had come on inside to check things out.

After I put the cat outside and shut the door, I started thinking about the lutefisk that was stinking up the mini refrigerator in the basement recroom. I was wide awake after that whiff of Stygian cat butt air, so I went on downstairs to ponder. As I made the last turn on the stairs, I thought that cat had gotten back in, because I was getting that whiff again, but as I walked into the room, I saw what had happened. Either that cat had opened it somehow, or one of us had left the minifridge open.

I was leaning towards the former - because we had consumed a couple of bottles of some of the lesser wines in the cellar, and had both been feeling a bit giddy before we went to bed. We had also built a fire in the downstairs fireplace and had roasted marshmallows. Near the end of the evening, Arianne had mentioned how "mashmellows and wine were nice together, particularly at a time like this!"

I went to nudge the fridge door shut and, there on the floor beside it, I saw the dish where Arianne had been keeping the evidential lutefisk sample, now licked clean.

I picked up the empty dish and carried it out to the trash can, then came back in and decided to go ahead and empty the minifridge, because the smell had permeated the whole thing. I carried it outside to air for a while and went back to bed, thinking that was the end of that.

We were eating breakfast the next morning when Arianne saw the cat on the deck, looking in through the sliding glass door and pawing at it.

"Look at that," she said to me, "isn't that a cute kitty?" I told her what had happened the night before, with the door being open and the cat eating the lutefisk, and she decided that, since the cat had found food once, we were now obligated to care for it.

I explained that the cat probably belonged to one of our neighbors, but Arianne rightly pointed out that we had met all the neighbors, and none of them had a cat matching the one now sitting and staring at us through the plate glass.

I conceded the point, Arianne got up to open the door, and we became cat owners. The cat went straight for the recroom, but when she saw that the minifridge was gone, came back up the steps and sat in the kitchen, looking from the main fridge to us and back again. This was some pretty impressive behavior, Arianne and I agreed, but it was nothing compared to what happened over the next couple of weeks or so.

A couple of days later I realized that Felicity - the name seemed to fit - was getting larger, and I mentioned this to Arianne.

"Well, she's just eating better, is what it is."

"No, I mean she's getting larger. Eating better doesn't make a cat's legs grow longer and head grow bigger. Look at her."

"Huh. I do believe you're right."

By the end of Felicity's first week with us, it became obvious that something abnormal was going on. When she had found her way into the house that night, she had been an average sized housecat. She was now closer to the size of a mountain lion.

That was strange in and of itself, but what began happening next made us forget all about the growth spurt.

Felicity began reading books.

I walked into the study one afternoon, and there she was, sitting in the desk chair, a copy of Gray's Anatomy open in front of her. I had been at the desk a few minutes earlier, taking care of some insurance paperwork, and Arianne had gone to the supermarket. And then maybe the post office and bank. In any case, she was out of the house and I hadn't put the tome on the desk.

When I walked in, Felicity looked at me... and then politely moved out of my favorite seat, picking the book up in her mouth and carrying it over to the better light by the window. She laid it down and, as I stared dumbfounded, continued reading. Turning the pages and everything. By the time Arianne got home, Felicity had finished Gray's Anatomy and was reading Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time.

Things were getting pretty surreal in the vacation house on the mountain, let me tell you.

Especially the next morning when Felicity looked at me while Arianne and I were having breakfast and said, matter-of-factly, "Hawking has some good ideas, but his presentation leaves a lot to be desired."

"Honey," I said to Arianne, "did you hear what I just heard?"

Arianne just nodded, staring in shock at the now wolfhound-sized feline.

Felicity then sat back on her haunches, put her front legs up on the table, looked at each of us in turn and said, "I can not believe that some of you humans are proposing that John McCain person for president. I've heard of some dumb things, but... but... that would be like nominating Simon Cowell for Supreme Court Justice!"

We could only agree.

That afternoon, Felicity asked if we could set her up a lab in one corner of the recroom. By this point, I was just rolling with it, and agreed. I wondered how she would use any of the equipment, but then I noticed that her front paws had changed. The dewclaw had lengthened and now looked like a functional opposable thumb, and her toes had lengthened into what were nearly fingers... albeit ending in sharp claws.

Using the proceeds from an auction of some of the artwork that really hadn't done anything for either Arianne or me, I purchased some basic lab equipment and had it delivered, and set Felicity up as best I could.

A couple of nights later I was sitting by the fireplace, enjoying the latest Dean Koonz detective novel, when I heard Felicity muttering, "Well. We'll just have to integrate around the singularity." I looked over at her, and saw a man standing out on the deck. When he saw me, he turned to run and, in the moonlight, I noticed that he was the same man who had grabbed the stolen package of lutefisk and taken off without saying a word.

The next morning there was a strange van parked just down the street from our driveway. We had seen it in the neighborhood, often parked in front of a house that we knew was empty for the season. And we knew it didn't belong to any of our neighbors who lived nearby full time.

As I was looking out the window at the van, wishing I had my surveillance kit - which was at my office back in the city - Felicity walked up and said, "They're after me. They know I ate that lutefisk. I've got to get out of here, because you and Arainne are in danger as long as I'm here."

I looked over at her - not down, as she was now standing on two legs - and replied, "Well, you can't just walk out the door. A two legged cat-woman? In fact, you shouldn't even be standing near the window. Let me figure out how we can get you out of here, and you think on where we should take you.... We could hide you inside something... I have never wished that I played the tuba more in my life."

"I'll figure something out, Guy," Felicity said, handing me a slip of paper. "See if you can find some place like this."

I read the note she handed me, briefly amazed at the excellent handwriting from someone who, a week before, didn't even have hands, and began thinking while in the background I could hear Felicity rummaging through one of the closets.
She was looking for a place at the end of a rural road; literally a dusty backwoods place chock-full of peace and quiet.

"I've got it!" I cried, turning to tell Felicity of an old mountain cabin I had seen about an hour from nowhere, but I began laughing instead as I saw her standing there, dressed in one of my shirts, Arianne's jeans, and a big floppy hat.

"So, here's what we do," Felicity said after calling Arianne into the room and filling her in. "Guy, you go out and check out the van. If they are watching the house, they'll have to leave when they see you coming to talk to them. They can't do anything to you in broad daylight in front of your neigbors, after all.

"And, as soon as they leave, Arianne and I take off in the Woody, and she drops me off near that cabin. Then, sometime in the next week or so, you bring me my equipment."

"We should pack you some food and such, Felicity," Arianne said, but Felicity flashed her still sharp carnivore's teeth and said, "You don't need to worry about that. I can hunt for my food. After all, I do prefer a fresh kill to that packaged crap you humans eat."

So, I went outside and walked up to the van, but before I got to it, the engine started and they drove away. As soon as it disappeared around the curve, I waved and Arianne backed out of the driveway and took off in the other direction. I spent a tense couple of hours waiting and wishing I'd gone with them, but finally I heard the purring of the old Plymouth motor and met Arianne at the door.

She ran towards me and it was like the ending of one of those classic war movies where the soldier comes home: we met, I swung her up and gave her a kiss, hugging each other tight until our ribs were groaning. We went back inside, shut the door, and tried to get back to our normal lives.

The next day I remembered that I had told some of my investigator friends that I would attend a symposium starting on...I checked the calendar...September 15. I reached for the phone to call, trying to decide how to explain my absence. I considered blaming Costa Rican Independence Day...it's always a national holiday somewhere, right?

Word of the Day

2008-09-12T07:00:00.000-07:00

Malversation

mal•ver•sa•tion
Pronunciation: \mal-vur-SAY-shun\
Function: noun
Etymology: Malversation comes, via French, from Latin male, "badly" + versari, "to be engaged in, to take part in."

Misconduct, corruption, or extortion in public office.

"The Inspector General Act was designed to protect patriotic whistle-blowers who seek to reveal malversation in government."

— Arthur Schlesinger Jr., "How History Will Judge Him", Time, February 22, 1999

Thanks to Constant Comment for today's WOTD entry

Word of the Day

2008-09-11T06:10:00.000-07:00

Melange

me•lange
Pronunciation: \may-LAHNZH\
Function: noun
Etymology: Melange derives from Old French meslance, from mesler, "to mix," ultimately from Latin miscere, "to mix."

A mixture; a medley.

"Many books in popular psychology are a melange of the author's comments, a dollop of research, and stupefyingly dull transcriptions from interviews."

— Carol Tavris, "A Remedy But Not a Cure", New York Times, February 26, 1989

Thanks to Constant Comment for today's WOTD entry

ShakesQuill Submission Guidelines

2008-09-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

Like any rules here at ShakesQuill, the submission guidelines are open to review. Questions and recommendations are accepted and appreciated.

(Update No. 1: Altered Rule No. 3 on Reader Alerts - Sept. 24, 2008 - WKW)

-- Bill

ShakesQuill Submission Guidelines

1. Submissions are open to everyone, regardless of writing experience. If you have tried your hand at literature and want to share it in a supportive atmosphere, ShakesQuill is the place for you.

2. Submissions can be rejected for any reason. That said we will incorporate a very liberal policy on accepting submissions. If a writer has made an honest effort we will likely accept their submission. Submissions with racist, sexist, ableist language and themes with no other redeeming value will not be accepted, at the decision of the Editor.

3. Submissions with graphic themes will have a "Reader Alert" placed on top with the reasoning for the alert ~~placed on the bottom of the story~~ on the top of the story. This is in by no means any type of warning to the author. It is a warning to the reader. Powerful work is accepted, but we'd like readers to know what they're getting into.

4. Please submit your work via e-mail to wkwolfrum(at)gmail(dot)com. Please either include your submission as an attachment in a MS Word document or Notepad document. Do not just place a link as your submission.

5. Submissions should be single-spaced. If your submission requires special formatting, please note this in your submission e-mail.

6. At the bottom of your submission, please note how you would like to credited for the story, as well as any info about you or the work that you would like to include. One outside link per customer (you can link to any site you may have up at the Editor's discretion.)

7. The Editor is pretty easygoing and open-minded. Please don't hesitate to ask any questions you may have.

Home

2008-09-11T05:27:00.000-07:00

(Reader Alert: Strong subject matter)

I lay in the unpleasant stillness of my empty room, running my fingers against the grain of the harsh wood floor.

Alone.

Frost covers the hopeful leaves outside my window and I watch the purple sky leak the last of its frozen tears.

I lay here, my body protected by little other than a t-shirt and my long blanket of black hair.

I meditated on the monotony of my frostbitten breaths, memorizing the height at which each puff of frozen air melts and disappears.

This is what I want, I tell myself. But I am not listening.

I give up, allowing my mind to wander around the petty and the trivial, skin unfeeling, wide eyes unseeing.

Home.

Submitted by Taylor Renee

Between Pride and Paradise?

2008-09-11T05:06:00.000-07:00

(Reader Alert: Strong subject matter)

The jasmine was dying. She hadn't noticed it until now. Maybe it was the change in perspective that made it all suddenly so clear. It occurred to her that "change in perspective" was severely understating her current position, lying on her back in the dirt with her head under the jasmine bushes, hair tangling with the discarded, dried and crushed blossoms. She felt a chuckle rising from her belly, like a bubble inside her. She parted her swollen lips to let the laugh emerge, and then turned on her side and began to vomit. Her whole body shook and jerked against the dry earth, some areas flaring painfully with each convulsion. Tears rolled down her face, making her cuts and scrapes sting. She remained in the garden, caught somewhere between laughter and tears as she continued to be violently ill.

* * * * * * * *

Nadira was a dancer. She had been dancing since she had learned how to walk; it came as naturally to her as breathing. Everything in her world was the source of a unique movement, crying to be released from her body, which would express these movements almost of its own volition. Even at her mother's funeral, the sobs of the women and the glint of light from their tears came to her as a twisting step across the floor that ended in a sprawling stretch. All she earned with her expression of grief was a sharp slap across her five-year-old face for her disrespectful behavior. In her uncle's house, her eccentricity was tolerated, albeit barely, and explained away by her lack of father from infancy. When her uncle's wife would see her floating from room to room, following the light of the setting sun, she would cluck her tongue.

"This is what comes from being raised by a dreamer like Kamila, no father, no sense and no discipline."

If Nadira made the mistake of dancing when there was company, there would be a swift and painful punishment, which began to increase as she got older. Nadira wished she could be more obedient, but she couldn't stop, no matter how hard she tried. To stop dancing would be as if she had been asked to stop breathing. Luckily for her, there were enough children around that she could manage to sneak in a shoulder wiggle to the dripping faucet when her uncle's wife wasn't looking. There were five children in her uncle's house when she arrived, and two more not long after. The two eldest were boys, but all the rest were girls, so alike in form and face that, if they had not been different ages, it would have been next to impossible to tell one from the other. Indeed, as they grew older, it became increasingly difficult to do so. Nadira was the only one that was immediately identifiable. This was despite the fact that she was mostly unremarkable. Next to her cousins, she was like a weed in a patch of roses.

She was short and quite rotund. Hers was not a face that inspired poetry, or could incite men to go to war; it was not even particularly memorable, with a broad, round nose, full lips and a wide shiny forehead prone to acne, crowned with a pair of thick eyebrows. She had a strong jaw and a chin that almost shouted a stubborn countenance. If one bothered to look however, her eyes were an experience all of their own. They were large and round, and seemed a washed out grey from afar, but, upon closer inspection, swam with flecks of blue, green and just a touch of gold. Her gaze when fixed was that of a sphinx, unwavering and full of all the riddles in the world. You could go mad as the object of that gaze, eyes the color of insanity seeing down to the depths of you.

To top all of this off was her one beauty, her hair. She possessed a head of thick, curly hair, the color of honey when the sun shines through it, which seemed to have an independent spirit all of its own. Her hair did everything it could to defy any and all attempts to tame it. Each day, it would have to be broken into submission, forced into a braid or a knot with a strong comb and pulling, bony fingers. Yet, no matter how tight the weave of the braid or how thick the elastic band holding the knot in place, over the day bits of her hair would escape their confinement and wreathe her head like clouds of spun gold.

As she grew, most people who looked at her did not see gold, or the riddles of existence. She had been blessed ("cursed" she thought) with the body of a Stone-Age goddess. She had wide hips, for birthing and labor, and large breasts for nourishing and feeding and, apparently, for others to stare at. It did not matter what she wore to try and conceal her curves, her clothing always strained across her chest and behind, as if her attributes were trying to escape from her. Once she began her cycle, her aunt started poking and teasing her.

"Good child-bearing hips, girl," the woman would chuckle, pinching the girl's waist, "but you'd best hope those children get their looks from their father. God help them if they end up with your face." She would then wander off, shaking her head at her own cleverness when pointing out the painfully obvious.

In the mornings as the girls were dressing, Nadira would jealously steal glances at her cousin Narjissa, who was a year older than she, and possessed delicate features, long legs and a slim waist, with a cascade of dark chestnut, almost black, hair that flowed down her back. Nadira would watch Narjissa hog the one long mirror in the girls' room and try on outfit after outfit, or carefully inspect every inch of her face for imperfections that may have sprung up overnight. Her younger sisters, Werdiyya and Yasmeen, would fight like alley cats for a chance in the mirror before it was time to leave for school.

Because of her body's betrayal, her childhood eccentricity was no longer tolerated in the least by her uncle's wife. She was caught once in the garden, dancing her love to the jasmine bushes and the rose trellis and even to the narcissus around the small pond. Her uncle's wife beat her severely, with sharp words accompanying every blow of the wooden spoon with which her aunt had been cooking, "Have you no shame girl? Do you know what you look like? Jiggling yourself everywhere? Do you know what the neighbors would say if they saw you?" She hit her over and over again, spilling Nadira into the dirt in the garden and leaving grains of rice stuck to the girl's shirt and unruly hair.

Once the spindly woman had run out of anger, she helped Nadira to the bathroom, "Clean yourself up and count your blessings that it was me who found you and not your uncle. We can't have one of our girls acting so wickedly."

Never mind Narjissa's habit of going out with boys for "coffee." If it couldn't be seen, it did not happen. Nadira understood that it wasn't about what you did; it was about not getting caught. Since she did not wish to be punished again, she managed to restrain her choreography to the room she shared with the other girls. It meant tolerating thorny comments from her self-involved cousin Narjissa, but she didn't mind and neither did the younger two girls. As long as she didn't have to stop, she could tolerate anything the older girl may throw at her.

"You look like a sack full of yoghurt, shaking like that." Her cousin said one morning.

"When you insult people, your face wrinkles up like a raisin," She responded quietly, fixing her cousin in her steady gaze, "Keep going like this and you'll look like your mother before you reach twenty."

Narjissa glared for a moment, careful not to crease her forehead, then quickly looked away from her cousin's eyes.

"I'll tell Father about your?'dancing'" she threatened, spitting the word out as though it tasted foul.

"Then I'll tell him about your trips to the coffee shop with Anas, or is it Muntasir, or Farid? Who is it this week, cousin?" She looked at the girl inquiringly, doing her best to affect honest curiosity.?

Narjissa's face turned purple as she turned on her heel and stomped out of the room with absolute hate in her eyes and a toss of her hair. Nadira danced alone to the retreating rhythm of her cousin's angry footsteps.

She could not, and would not, stop dancing. As she danced, she felt her heart expanding inside her chest and filling the whole room; breaking through the white walls and kissing the sky, embracing the moon, sparkling like a star spinning in the darkness.In these moments, she found it: a sense of self that her uncle and his family would never know or understand.

* * * * * * * *?

One Saturday, Nadira found herself with the rarest of rarities, an empty house. It was a joy she never could have dreamed of, her uncle, his wife, and the children who still lived at home had all gone to visit her uncle's wife's sister, who had just given birth. She had been excused from attending the endless bore of women chattering about babies, and marriage. If she had to hear one more older woman talking about how many sons she could manage to bear, she would scream and start tearing at her hair. Since Nadira had no real connection to that family, when she pled illness her uncle's wife was more than happy to leave the embarrassing girl at home.

As soon as she was sure that everyone was gone, Nadira padded into the living room barefoot. She couldn't dance in the garden, it was too risky, but she could open the sliding doors to the garden and have the light and the scent of the earth and the flowers to dance with. She flung open the sliding glass, and just stood at the open door for a moment, letting the smell of the garden sink into her skin.

She felt it start, a twitching in her toes that traveled up her legs to her arms and out through her outstretched fingers. She threw her head back and began the dance. Her wild hair floated out from her head like strands of silk waving in a breeze. She traveled across the entire room, dipping weaving, lifting herself upwards, and retracting to the ground. A playful little wind drifted in from the garden and teased her around and around, spinning her through the room. She leaped, defying gravity and for a split second seeming to hover above the ground, before landing lightly and letting her body crumble down. She stayed on the floor, expanding like a cat, then contracting like a closing flower.

She was so involved in the movement that she did not realize that she was not alone until the first blow landed. She felt a powerful jolt across the back of her head. A moment later the stars cleared, and she saw the enraged face of her aunt hovering in her still blurred vision. The woman lost no time in striking her over and over again. She had removed her high heeled shoe and was flogging the girl with the heel, screaming insults all the while.

"Ungrateful wretch! Worthless orphan! How dare you? How dare you mock all we have done, all we have sacrificed for you? How dare you?"

There was a pause in the abuse as her uncle's wife stopped to draw breath. Panting loudly, Nadira pulled herself up to her knees, and grabbed the bottom of the older woman's dress.

"Please Aunt," she gasped "please, I did not mean to offend. I am inside and alone, no one can see me. Please?" Her uncle's wife brushed her hands away, and spat at the girl.

"You slut! Narjissa told me what you were up to, why you really wanted to be alone today. Who is he Nadira? When is he meeting you here?" the woman's eyes burned with an unholy rage. Nadira was shocked into true stillness, possibly the first of her life. In a flash she saw, so clearly, what had happened. Calmly, she looked her uncle's wife dead in the eyes, fixing her with a sphinx glare.

"I am meeting no one Aunt, I only wanted to dance" The older woman slapped her backhanded across the face with a blow that was enough to rattle Nadira's teeth. She felt one of her teeth gash open the inside of her cheek.

"Don't lie to me, girl. Narjissa told me the truth" the woman hissed "or would you like to call MY daughter a liar?"

Nadira spat blood from her mouth and looked back up at her aunt, gazing at her steadfastly.

"Yes" The next clout sent her sprawling back on the floor, knocking her head into the ceramic tiles. The woman heaved, taking huge gulping breaths. Nadira slowly, and dizzily pulled herself back to kneeling before the incensed woman.

"Your Narjissa has been meeting different boys after school for the last year," she said quietly, keeping her eyes fixed on the floor. She waited for another slap, expecting it to fall at any moment. When it didn't, she dared to glance upwards. Her uncle's wife was standing above her staring into the garden with her hand to her mouth. Her high heeled shoe dangled in her other hand, seemingly forgotten. Suddenly, her aunt seemed to come back to herself, her face turning purple just as Narjissa's had that morning in the bedroom. She swung at Nadira, sending the girl falling onto her back on the floor. The woman fell upon her and began battering Nadira with her fists, screaming "NO!" over and over again. Nadira tried to twist away, to get her face out from below the rain of blows.

Her uncle's wife continued to wildly assault Nadira, hitting everything she could reach, as if trying to beat the truth she wanted into being. She stood up, dragging Nadira up by her hair, with murder on her face. Nadira twisted away, kicking her legs out and accidentally kicking her aunt in the foot that was still wearing a shoe. The high heel broke and the woman fell backwards, arms flailing. Her head met the tiles with a sickening crack, and she was still. Nadira lay on the floor next to her in the sudden silence, just trying to breathe.

A playful little wind from the garden, scented with jasmine, rose and narcissus, ventured into the room, and teased her, lifting her hair from the floor, and beckoning her outside. She managed to get her bruised, trembling legs under her and tottered to the door. She stumbled over the door jamb and into the garden, falling with a thud on the dry earth under the jasmine bushes.

The jasmine was dying. She hadn't noticed it until now. Maybe it was the change in perspective that made it all suddenly so clear. It occurred to her that "change in perspective" was severely understating her current position, lying on her back in the dirt with her head under the jasmine bushes, hair tangling with the discarded, dried and crushed blossoms. She felt a chuckle rising from her belly, like a bubble inside her. She parted her swollen lips to let the laugh emerge, and then turned on her side and began to vomit. Her whole body shook and jerked against the dry earth, some areas flaring painfully with each convulsion. Tears rolled down her face, making her cuts and scrapes sting. She remained in the garden, caught somewhere between laughter and tears as she continued to be violently ill.

She wiped her face and spit the last of the taste of sickness from her mouth. She lay back on the ground and continued to chuckle and cry. As she laughed and cried, she felt her heart expanding inside her chest and filling the whole world; breaking through the white walls and kissing the sky, embracing the moon, sparkling like a star spinning in the darkness.

Submitted by Dori

About the Work: "I really am not sure how much I should tell you about it except that it is both a story from the perspective of an Arab woman in the Middle East, and a story from the perspective of an American girl who had to put aside her dreams due to not meeting certain arbitrary standards."

Word of the Day

2008-09-10T06:28:00.000-07:00

Banal

ba•nal
Pronunciation: \bə-ˈnal, ba-, -ˈnäl; bā-ˈnal; ˈbā-nəl\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Serbo-Croatian ban 'lord, ruler'

commonplace; tired or petty

"The consciously perceived message is often banality in its purest form, but the hidden message, designed for the subliminal perception, may be exquisite."

— Wilson Bryan Key, The Clam-Plate Orgy: And Other Subliminals The Media Use To Manipulate Your Behavior, 1980

Love

2008-09-10T04:54:00.000-07:00

Why do people always expect love to have the drama and the fireworks? Why do people always expect love to be ground-shaking and earth-shattering?

What if love doesn't come with the bells and whistles? What if love just creeps into your heart and settles there quietly, silently, firmly?

What if love is not about setting your heart a-flutter every time you think of the other? What if love is just about enjoying moments you spend with the other?

What if love isn't about the fanfare? What if love just is?

Maybe I am jaded by love, but I think love is way too over-rated.

What if love doesn't send you to seventh-heaven, but reminds you to keep smiling while you are on earth? What if love doesn't sweep you off your feet, but reminds you there is someone else willing to walk beside you?

What if love doesn't come with a big bang? But just sits with you, thinks about you, cares for you, asks you out, makes you laugh, writes you SMS-es, knows that you like spinach yet sends you broccoli instead because it looks prettier in a bouquet.

What if love is not the answer to why you go on living? What if love just is one of those things that make you glad you are still breathing today?

Submitted by dEliRiuM

About the Author: "A dreamer by day, a writer-in-progress by night. Contemplating life is my life." Read me from dEliRiuM at Manic Moment.

Word of the Day

2008-09-09T15:00:00.000-07:00

Canorous

ca•no•rous
Pronunciation: \kuh-NOR-us; KAN-or-uhs\
Function: adjective

Richly melodious; pleasant sounding; musical.

"But birds that are canorous and whose notes we most commend, are of little throats, and short necks, as Nightingales, Finches, Linnets, Canary birds and Larks."

— Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica

CCCW Request Post, Week 15

2008-09-09T14:07:00.000-07:00

¡Hola, ShakesQuillyites!

It's Tuesday, so that means it's time to inundate me with snippets for this week's chapter of the ongoing Creatively Created Creative Writing Story!!

For those who are new to this, you readers leave comments - bits of action or dialog or narrative - and I, your humble writer, weave them into a story come Sunday. Something like...

"But... that would be like nominating Simon Cowell for Supreme Court Justice!"

...or whatever you'd like.

(previous chapters are here)

Word of the Day

2008-09-08T16:00:00.001-07:00

Redoubt

re•doubt
Pronunciation: \rih-DOUT\
Function: noun

1 a : a small usually temporary enclosed defensive work b : a defended position : protective barrier
2 : a secure retreat : stronghold

"Much of the city’s devastating violence originates from these heavily militarized redoubts."

— McClatchy Newspapers , U.S. Military Erects 'Gated Communities', April 21, 2007

Welcome one and all

2008-09-08T06:56:00.000-07:00

We've had a very pleasant couple of weeks here at ShakesQuill, with many new readers and writers coming on board.

For this, let me give out some thanks. First, ShakesQuill was honored by the folks over at Blogger chose ShakesQuill as their Blog of Note last Friday. And over this weekend, Bill Austin was good enough to award ShakesQuill with a Blog of the Day Award.

Both honors are highly appreciated, and I strongly recommend doing some surfing at both Blogs of Note and the Blog of the Day Awards and take a look at some of the interesting other sites they've honored, which cover a wide range of interests. A sincere thank you to both sites.

And we welcome with open arms the new readers and contributors that have made their way to our humble literary home. We've had some great new submissions, and will have more coming. So welcome to all and thank you for helping us continue our voyage.

Bill

P.S.: If you've sent me something and I haven't responded, Or if you have any other questions please send me an e-mail to wkwolfrum(at)gmail(dot)com.

In An Aeroplane

2008-09-08T06:50:00.000-07:00

up in the sky where we see the world go by,
clouds of various shapes and hues
float below the prism blue
whispering messages, "we are passing clouds and will sail to pastures new,
life is a journey between two points of time
and not haggling over yours and mine."

Submitted by Sangeeta Kapur

Creatively Created Creative Writing - Chapter XIV

2008-09-07T12:44:00.000-07:00

(Previous chapters available here.)

It had been a quiet couple of days up on the mountain, and Arianne and I had been relaxing and enjoying our stay at the Beech Mountain home. It was late summer, and at the higher elevation we were enjoying chilly nights and cool days. We spent a lot of time looking around the house and seeing what was there, and our best discovery was the small wine cellar in the basement.

I hadn't known that Dirk was a wine connoisseur, but there were about a hundred bottles of wine stored down there. It wasn't all good, and we had a rude awakening involving a bottle of spoiled wine.

Janey Hicks, my new realtor, stopped by to make sure everything was going alright, and brought us a welcome basket with some fresh baked bread and a couple of casseroles. Arianne courteously accepted the basket and was pleased to see the contents, if a bit hesitant. She didn't want to appear rude, but she was tempted to ask,"Is this real; or is it processed cheese-food type substance?" But she was very impressed with the bread - which was saying something, given her own proficiency as a baker.

We invited Janey to stay for dinner, but she begged off. "I'd enjoy it, but I have to get home. There was some road work done in front of my house, and we're still cleaning up the mess the construction workers made. The driveway is almost completely blocked and we haven't been able to locate our mailbox. As you might imagine, that's very frustrating."

"Well, we'll have to have you over some time, Janey," Arianne said as the two of them walked to the door. "Thank you, again."

"Have a good evening, y'all, and if you need anything, don't hesitate to call me," Janey replied as she left.

We also got to meet some of our neighbors. Most of them were people who, like us, had these homes as vacation properties, but there were some full-time residents and they were eager to meet us.

We immediately hit it off with one couple, Joad and Callie Steiner. They were a retired couple who had moved to the mountains of North Carolina from Iowa, where they had operated a large farm. Their oldest child, Melanie, had taken over the farm almost five years earlier, and they had lived up on the mountain ever since.

They invited us over for dinner, and we all talked and laughed like old friends. After we ate, we went out on their deck to enjoy the cool evening weather and watch the sun set over the mountains to the west. Both Callie and Joad regaled us with tales of their life on the prairie, and I told some stories about my experience as a private investigator.

I started with the story of the paternity case that hadn't quite gone as I expected. It had ended with me being charged with being the father of the child whose paternity I was trying to establish, but I managed to straighten things out.

"You just never know how things are going to turn out; I've dodged many a bullet in my life," the old man said as he laughed.

"That's a fact, Joad," I said as I finished telling how I stubbornly persisted until I proved that not only was I completely unrelated to the child, but that the father was, in fact, the local city councilor - who, of course, based his political career on "family values." Which, in in this case unlike many others, cost him his seat and his political career... and many thousands in child support.

Callie then told a tale of life on a farm in the middle of the 20th Century, and of the hardships they had to endure. She was chain smoking as she talked, and the image was very intriguing. The words left her mouth, wreathed in blue smoke. They drifted upwards to hang above her head like her own little cloud. "It's just not in my nature to quit."

Joad nodded as she finished the story, his love for his wife evident in every word.

Later that week, Arianne spent some time shopping in some of the antique malls over in Boone, coming home with several things, some of which I really liked, and some .... not so much.

I was at the desk in the study, looking through the microscope at the sample of lutefisk that Arianne had scooped up when I helped nab the "intelligence challenged" criminal who tried to rob the General Store across the parking lot from the police station. My curiosity had indeed gotten the best of me, and I was trying to figure out just what was "in the lutefisk", as the man had yelled while the cops were hauling him away.

Since I was woefully lacking in any sort of biology knowledge, I couldn't really tell if there was anything abnormal about the smelly brine-soaked fish.

Anyway, I was engrossed in contemplating the cellular makeup of questionable foodstuffs as Arianne walked in from her first shopping foray and plopped down her purchase on the desk next to the microscope. I looked over ... and looked again, not sure what to think. "What the hell?" I said, unable to contain my disbelief. "Where in god's name did you find that, and why the fuck is it dressed like a sailor?"

It was a large, metal gecko, wearing full 19th Century British Naval Admiral's regalia.

"You don't like it?" she asked me, raising an eyebrow and tapping her foot in the playful way that I was really starting to enjoy.

"Well, it's... umm, it's nice and all, but what the hell is it?"

"It's a gecko, silly," Arianne responded as she trailed her fingers up my neck and lightly tangled them in my hair. "I think I'm going to go get in the hot tub. What are you doing?" Her fingers started teasing my hair and neck.

"Umm, nothing important," I replied, no longer thinking about the geckos or lutefisk.

In no time, the office was empty and, if you'd been nearby, you would have heard giggling and sighs coming from the deck. The cast iron gecko sat atop the paperwork, rusting gently.

Word of the Day

2008-09-05T12:00:00.000-07:00

Ubiquitous

u•biq•ui•tous
Pronunciation: \yoo-BIK-wih-tuhs\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Ubiquitous derives, via French, from Latin ubique, "everywhere," from ubi, "where." The noun form is ubiquity.

Existing or being everywhere, or in all places, at the same time.

"Before Tarzan, nobody understood just how big, how ubiquitous, how marketable a star could be."

— John Taliaferro, Tarzan Forever

Thanks to Constant Comment for today's WOTD entry

Prince

2008-09-05T09:12:00.001-07:00

At the garden where reality and fancy intertwine,
Greets me a prince with utmost surprise,
Why art thou so fettered asks he, meeting mine
Eyes as he brushed my chains aside,
Swept away was I then, by his gentle breeze of words,
Forsaken my ties to truth for his cherished gaze
And modest smile; where find I perfection so absurd,
My hand he kissed, my heart set ablaze,
But confuse me not with thine honest lies,
Sullen laugh, and heartless love, for my steel heart
Doth break, like glass; and with thy genuine disguise
Shattered the windowpane of my heart,
This affection have I shackled then since,
For 'twas foolish to love the sweetness of a prince.

Submitted by Jenny Huang

Word of the Day

2008-09-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

Unctuous

unc•tu•ous
Pronunciation: \UNGK-choo-us\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Unctuous is from Medieval Latin unctuosus, from Latin unctus, "anointed, besmeared, greasy," past participle of unguere, "to anoint, to besmear."

1. Of the nature or quality of an unguent or ointment; fatty; oily; greasy.
2. Having a smooth, greasy feel, as certain minerals.
3. Insincerely or excessively suave or ingratiating in manner or speech; marked by a false or smug earnestness or agreeableness.

"He approached Sean wearing a smile so unctuous it seemed about to slide right off his face."

— Naeem Murr, The Boy

Thanks to Constant Comment for today's WOTD entry

Monsters

2008-09-03T10:16:00.000-07:00

What are monsters made of?
Light, and air,
and a special kind of love.
Everyone is their own monster,
and
everyone has a secret monster.
Monsters are real.
Are there imaginary monsters, too?
Yes. Of course. Why not?
Imagine your best imaginary friend.
You can do it, can't you?
Of course you can.
Why shouldn't you be able to imagine a monster?
All of your imaginary monsters are real.
They might just be in a different form than you imagine.
Imagine a monster
fifteen feet tall,
with three eyes
and fangs
and shaggy blue fur…
they tell you he doesn't exist.
Hold your tongue.
All that matters is that you know the monster is real.
They tell you it's all in your head,
but you've seen him lurking on the corner of Main Street,
cigarette in hand,
with a bulky briefcase tucked under one arm.
They will tell you monsters are only made out of evil,
but remember,
everyone is made
of light,
and air,
and a special kind of love.

Submitted by Johanna Berliner

Doorway to Heaven

2008-09-03T10:03:00.000-07:00

The TSA has released details today on an experimental form of travel that it plans to implement in the next 12 months. TSA spokesman states, "Since the collapse of the internet in 2010 and telecommunications soon to follow, our global presence has all but disappeared and communication has been reduced to letters and face-to-face communication. We have no choice but to fast track this project. We are now looking for volunteers to help secure final approval."

The sweat dripped slowly down his unshaven face. The line was moving a little more quickly now and Elliot's stomach seemed to churn at the same pace. He glanced down at this ticket, number 876. The news stories that had flooded the media in the last week played again in his mind as he ran the three numbers through his mind and the possible finality that lay within them.

"This is Laura Jennings reporting from what some are calling the Doorway to Heaven. Heaven or hell, are you willing to glance at the possible doorway to your demise? That is what this once highly sought after technology has proven to be for some very unlucky travelers. The odds are simple, one in a thousand."

Elliot took another step forward. Was this deal really worth the risk? Did he really have a choice? He could have driven but with the price of gas now reaching $100 a gallon, neither he nor his company could afford it. And with the government imposed moratorium on all air travel there was only one choice left, Alternative Travel. So now here he was, number 876, standing and waiting for either the most amazing experience of his life or his final one. Reaching for his wallet to take yet another look at the photos of his wife and son, Elliot's mind drifted back to his home, back to his room, back to his bed, back to his wife.

"Number 873, please step forward."

Three more people to go. His odds were decreasing with every successful trip. The news stories echoed in his mind once again.

"The death toll now reaches 100. One hundred people, now dead. Is the trip worth it? I am here onsite at Alternative Travel, Inc standing in line with many people that seem to think so. With more than a thousand people in line, it is clear that despite numerous warnings from the government and the fact that one person in line will die, the crowd still gathers. One in every one thousand fail to complete the transition phase and will find themselves facing whatever is on that great other side. I have asked several people waiting what is their motivation and the answer has been a simple one, it's my job. Seeking that next deal, meeting with clients, or maybe even looking for a better opportunity, the end reason always is a job. I do believe that some are here for other reasons, too – but I haven't found any. We have reached number 678 in line and number 678 is about to take the trip. OH MY GOD! The sight is horrible! I have never seen anything like this. It is as if her body just dissolved into drops of blood and tissue. Are you fucking seeing this, this is barbaric! But the people don't even flinch. And now the count starts all over and the odds are back in their favor. I think I even see smiles on some of their faces. I have to get away from this creep show. This has been Laura Jennings with E666 News."

Number 876, please step forward. Elliot stepped onto the glass disc. A nice looking brunette with her dress just a little too high and her blouse just a little too low handed him a clipboard.

"Please sign here indicating your full understanding of the risks involved." She handed him a pen. His hand was shaking, but he signed. She flipped the page. "Please sign here waiving all rights to any kind of legal action form either you or your family should anything happen during your trip." Again he signed. "And lastly, please remove all of your clothes and place them inside the bin next to you." Elliot unbuttoned his shirt and took off his shoes. He slid his pants down and took off his boxers. There he was standing there in front of over a thousand people, naked except for his socks. He bent over and removed those, as well and turned around to face the glass wall before him. A mist sprayed over him cleaning his body of any potential bacteria or germs that could hinder the transition phase. He turned back around and a glass tube descended over him. If all went well, he would be instantaneously transported to his destination. Two speakers located over his head spoke. "Where are you headed today, sir?" It sounded almost casual and completely void of any emotion. "I am headed to sector 687." There was a pause and he heard almost what sounded like a moment of recognition from the voice on the other side. We will start the ten second countdown in 1-2-3. Ten, nine, eight – Elliot's heart began to beat wildly. He suddenly panicked. He thought of everything and nothing. "No!" He screamed. "Get me out!" He pounded the glass tube but no one responded – Five-Four-Three. "Please, he begged almost sobbing now. Two –One! A light flashed and the tube shook slightly.

"Number one, please step forward."

Submitted by Dan

Word of the Day

2008-09-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

Vicissitude

vi•cis•si•tude
Pronunciation: \vih-SIS-ih-tood; -tyood\
Function: noun
Etymology: Vicissitude comes from Latin vicissitudo, from vicissim, in turn, probably from vices, changes.

1. Regular change or succession from one thing to another; alternation; mutual succession; interchange.
2. Irregular change; revolution; mutation.
3. A change in condition or fortune; an instance of mutability in life or nature (especially successive alternation from one condition to another).

"Max had rescued his father's gold watch through every vicissitude, but as it didn't go I took it to a watchmaker."

— Edith Anderson, Love in Exile: An American Writer's Memoir of Life in Divided Berlin

Thanks to Constant Comment for today's WOTD entry

Apart

2008-09-02T09:50:00.000-07:00

As a child we'd go up north

a trip that seemed to last forever

in my mother's rickety old van

I'd count each roll of the wheels

as being closer to Grandma

as mom talked about her job

and the economy

with dad silent in the front

Grandma and I would play by the beach

and as the boys ran over the dunes

tumbling down the hills

laughing and dirty

I'd laugh and chase them down

Grandma would say that

we would make a cute couple

someday

when I was older

When I was older I would sit

by the hospital bed

wondering when the ravages of time

has visited

and why I hadn't noticed

I stared at Grandma's hands

the veins like roads on a map

straining out through parchment

Her fingers made careful movements

as we played chess

and she would ask

"When is the wedding?"

Still later, when I was still older

With a career that kept me up late

and cats to keep me company

and little time to drive up north

I sat at the dusty table with my mother

and the words tumbled out of me like

dice rattling out of a hand

"I'm gay"

Mom laughed and said she had suspected

and that it would be all okay

and wasn't it nice that we lived

in a world that it could be okay

There was a long hug, then a pause

A whispered caution

"Don't tell Grandma"

Submitted by Cassandra

About the Author: "I'm a 17 year old feminist. This poem isn't autobiographical, but it popped into my head one day at work and wouldn't get out." See more of Cassandra's work at NoLittleLolita.

Word of the Day

2008-09-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

Vamp

vamp
Function: verb
Etymology: short for vampire

To practice seductive wiles on; to act like a vamp.

"But Lestrange's 'love' fails to cure Mircalla, and she is soon back to vamping her fellow-students with renewed sexual vigor: willing maidens continue to fall ecstatically under her kiss."

— Harry M. Benshoff, Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film

CCCW Request Post, Week 14

2008-09-02T08:21:00.000-07:00

Howdy, QuillShakers!

It's Tuesday, so that means it's time to inundate me with snippets for this week's chapter of the ongoing Creatively Created Creative Writing Story!!

For those who aren't hip to the scene, man, you readers leave comments - bits of action or dialog or narrative - and I, your humble writer weave them into a story come Sunday. Something like...

He sighed contentedly as he stroked her svelte body. There wasn't much in the world that made him happier than holding his cat.

...or whatever you'd like. As the old lady in the Holy Grail Roger the Shrubber scene said, "Do your worst!"

Again, I apologize for posting the latest chapter late. I shall endeavor to do better this week.

Monday Mind Opener

2008-09-02T07:26:00.001-07:00

Hey kids, it's your old pal Bill here with this week's Monday Mind Opener. And yeah. I'm aware it's Tuesday, but I'm a renegade that way. Actually, with yesterday being Labor Day, I decided to hold off until today for the MMO for those of you who do most of your interneting while at work.

We're going to keep it simple this week, as my wife gave me a nice little idea that I thought would make an interesting writing exercise.

The mission: Pick a fruit and write about it. Orange, Apple, mango, wev. You can go completely literal, or let your creativity run wild. You can write about the texture or taste of the fruit, or you can give it a personality and family. You can have a grapefruit run amok through the streets of New York squirting juice and pulp into people's eyes.

It's up to you. Let's get fruity.

Hurricane

2008-09-02T07:01:00.000-07:00

Purposeful activity, you kids get back

Takin' boats up the river to sink 'em

Sky bright blue but heavy

Cotton shirts clinging from the weight

Of sweat and humid air

Worried looks, knowing nods

You kids get back

Boxes piled on tables one on another

Clothes, books, photograph albums

Higher and higher

Seeking safety

Plenty of time, nothing much to do,

follow the barometer's drop

Watch the flow of the tide

Coming in hard and high

You kids stay back

Quiet somber telephone exchanges

Is it time to leave or should we stay

A little longer, what isn't done?

You kids stay back.

The breeze, heavy with anticipation,

Darkening sky, the air still and eerie

Brown water licks the back steps

A plastic laundry basket floats

Across the yard spiraling the length of the garage

You kids get your shoes on.

You drive the truck, I'll get the car

And the kids.

Lock the cats on the porch

they'll be okay. Cats don't like water.

They'll be okay.

You kids get back.

Back seat, be quiet. Night's coming fast

And the breeze is now a steady blow

Palm trees drop their fading fronds

The water's on the road.

You kids quiet down now.

Glad greetings, thank God you're here.

Come in. It's looking pretty bad out there.

You kids go in the bedroom and pick your spot.

Coffee'’s on the stove, sandwiches wrapped

In waxed paper. Five gallon bottles of water

Line the hall, just in case.

You kids settle down now

Dark, winds shrieking and shouting down

The hum of voices in the kitchen

A rise and fall of voices, deep and manly,

Soft and womanly, strong and fearful

All we can do is wait. Wait it out.

You kids go to sleep.

Midnight dark, the power's gone

Sharp cracking sounds, the groaning

House holds its own against the storm.

The windsong a harrowing tune, pounding

And pounding rain against the boarded windows.

I cry and want to find a friendly lap

And someone's arms to hold me.

I'm afraid and alone in the dark

And the world is blowing away.

Go back to bed now. Everything's alright.

Hush now.

The storm rages through the night,

Early the eye of the hurricane passes

In it's clarity we run outside

To find the shredded trees, trunks

Broken and twisted, thrown through roofs.

Buildings gone from where they were.

You kids get back inside.

You kids find something to do.

You kids don't know

It's about to begin again from the

Leeward side of the storm.

Somehow it's better in the daytime.

What's done is done.

You kids get back

Submitted by Rachael Pankey

Rusty

2008-09-01T07:01:00.000-07:00

Dedicated to all of those affected by Hurricane Gustav. My thoughts and best wishes are with you all.

Josephine sat calmly in her favorite chair, scratching Rusty's ears and watching a television that had long lost its reception and was just a blizzard of snow. Josephine was aware that something was about to happen, but couldn't completely process the information. So she scratched Rusty's ears and gently cooed to him.

Rusty was terrified. The nine-year-old mutt that Josephine had saved from the streets sensed that something extremely bad was coming and every molecule of his being screamed for him to flee. But he stayed next to Josephine. She was his family, his pack. She loved and cared for him. Sure, sometimes Josephine would go days without putting food out for him, or feed him repeatedly throughout the day, but that's how life worked for Rusty and he had been through much worse in his day. So he would stay by Josephine's side regardless of what terror was coming. They were in this together.

Forgetting the fresh cup of tea she had just made herself, Josephine got up to make herself another cup, and Rusty followed her to the kitchen as he followed her everywhere. He held out hope that she was leaving, but that was not his main concern. He just liked being around her. Rusty would follow Josephine anywhere.

Getting to the kitchen, Josephine went and sat at the kitchen table as she intended. She looked down with loving eyes at her loyal dog that was returning the favor. "We've been through a lot, haven't we, Princess." With perfect recall, Josephine remembered how she and Princess would play for hours on end on her parents' farm. They had such delicious adventures together, often roaming for hours and hours to see what things they could find, Princess always leading the way, thrilled with the life she was living with the little girl.

Josephine's eyes welled up slightly as she looked down at Princess. She recalled the time she had pneumonia and how Princess sat with her the entire time. How her mother came in and sat on the bed next to her, stroking her hair and telling her that everything was going to be all right soon. "I'm here, Jo," said her mom in a soothing voice. "And so is Princess. This is just one of God's tests, is all, and we'll never ever leave you."

Two hours after sitting at the kitchen table, the wind rattling her tiny home rattled her awake. Josephine looked around, her mind almost completely blank. A thought came to her that something was happening. Something bad. As she started to get upset over her inability to remember things these days, she looked down and saw Rexie. The upset and worry that were building in her stomach quickly dissipated. Rexie. My little hero.

When Robert would come home from the bar drunk and angry, he would often beat or berate her. She shuddered at the thought that he'd be home soon. But Rexie would always be there afterward to console her. Rexie who spent most of her time hidden in the basement to avoid the boots of Robert. Rexie who would lovingly lick her hands and feet when Josephine would hide in the basement, as well. Rexie who kept her from tumbling into a place where she could never return, who kept her convinced that love really existed. Little Rexie.

Josephine was jolted out back to reality by the sound of the wind slamming into her home and blowing through the open window in the kitchen. "The basement," said Josephine aloud as if the words had been placed in her mouth. What about the basement? Josephine stood up on shaky and sore legs and walked over and closed the window. This wind just wasn't normal, Josephine thought. The basement. She had to use the bathroom. Rusty followed her in and then followed her as she slowly made her way back to her living room chair.

"It's windy out there, isn't it Puff?" Josephine asked the little Shi-Tzu that Bobby had gotten her after Robert had passed on. "I found this little guy, Mom," Bobby said. "I think he needs a home." Josephine smiled and then laughed out loud looking down at the little dog at her feet. "Puffy, you fat little thing." Oh how that little dog loved his food. Rusty looked up at Josephine, still gripped with fear, but sensing that he might be getting something to eat soon. His mouth started to water. Rusty liked food quite a bit himself.

"Bobby," said Josephine to no one in particular. Her little boy. With the howling of the wind growing, she had a moment of worry. "I wish he'd come home already," Josephine thought. She looked back down at Puff and marveled at how much he had helped her. She had a job because of Puff. Taking care of him helped her take care of herself. The strength and independence that was buried deep inside her from years of living with an abusive husband had resurfaced because Puff believed in her and loved her. She had become the woman she had always wanted to be, in no small part to this little dog with the crazy fur. The moment then passed and Josephine again dozed off.

She awoke to water at her feet and rain drenching her and her dog on her lap. She slowly petted Rusty and realized that she'd have to call Charlie, her father's best friend who was "the best plumber on the planet," as her father used to say. Josephine looked up at the sky and saw the storm. She briefly wondered how she had gotten outside. Then clarity came. The Hurricane was here. But even as the rain pelted her and the wind screamed, a calm had taken over her. No one was coming. Not Robert, not Bobby, not Princess, Rexie or Puff. But they were all here with her in the form of a frightened little dog.

Josephine looked down at the little mutt on her lap. Her eyes welled with tears of love for the little dog. "You're such a good dog, Rusty," she said through her tears. "You are such a good boy." The final clear thought of Josephine's long life came to her. She was staying. This was her home, her life, her memories. She would stay no matter what came. She continued petting Rusty as the thought left her tired mind.

The tenseness of his body was being somewhat relaxed by being rubbed and loved. Rusty knew what was coming but had already decided to ignore his instincts. He could never, ever leave this wonderful woman. They were in this together.

--WKW

About the Work: The main impetus for this story was having to hear those that have who are not evacuating from New Orleans being called "foolish" among other things. We are all allowed our own choices, regardless of opinions of others, and I am sure those that stayed have their own reasoning, and that's to be respected. The central theme is based on my love of dogs, as well as the recent story where a dog stayed in the woods with his dead owner for three weeks, fending off coyotes. And also to my wife, who once had a terrible relationship and had dogs that helped her stay sane and strong. The dogs named throughout the story are dogs that have been in my life, while Josephine was my grandmother. Rusty is the name my grandfather bequeathed to several different dogs he had and loved. Finally, this story is also a tribute to those in my life who have suffered from Alzheimers.

Drawn and Quartered

2008-09-01T04:53:00.000-07:00

Four chambers...but one purpose,
Four Gospels live to tell,
A Sacred Heart...so wounded,
A lance launched straight from hell.

Our brokenness...bloodletting,
True Mystics judged insane,
King Science...throne ascending,
To deaden all our pain.

Four riders... on four horses,
Steeds rearing for a treat,
Our corpse...nears rigor mortis,
For Art not Logic meet.

But wait...a ray of His Glorious Sonshine...

One part...scholastic logic,
One part...mystical sight,
One part...scientific wonder,
One part...artistic light.

...and if ever two lungs breathed forth,
East-West...air that is sweet,
Aloft they'll send His Body,
Heartbeat...Heartbeat...Heartbeat.

Submitted by Mike Rizzio

Creatively Created Creative Writing - Chapter XIII

2008-08-31T19:33:00.000-07:00

NOW UPDATED!!

(PLACEHOLDER

Due to ~~Labor Day Weekend~~ ~~election ennui~~ ~~astrological alignments~~ ~~a YouTube vortex~~ ... okay, laziness on my part (and a touch of writer's block), this week's chapter will be delayed until morning.

The staff apologize for any inconvenience this causes the patrons, and the writer will be punished.)

And here it is, finally, with special thanks and kudos to Jen for helping me:

It had been a quiet week in the city in the mountains. The final paperwork had gone through on the inheritance, and I found out I would only have to sell a third of the paintings and other artwork to pay the taxes, so that was good. Arianne and I were settling back into our relationship comfortably, and had decided to go up to the house on Beech Mountain for a few days. I had hired an assistant, a young man by the name of Albert Cerrano, and told him to keep my desk chair warm and refer any clients to Fizzy Joines, a private investigator that I had worked with often in the past.

So we threw some stuff in the back of the Woody, Arianne grabbed her laptop, and we headed up the Blue Ridge Parkway towards Banner Elk and Beech Mountain. Like a lot of the homes up on the mountain, Dirk's house had been available for weekend rental during the times he wasn't using it. We figured we would do the same, so once we got to the top of Beech Mountain, we pulled into the lot of Beech Realty to sign the paperwork and pick up a set of keys to the house.

Arianne decided to go next door to the General Store while I took care of things with the Realtor, so I was alone as I walked into the office. I didn't see anyone, so I called out - "Hello?"

"Be with you in a minute," I heard a woman's voice call out from behind a closed door. Then I heard a flush and the door opened. The woman who walked out of the bathroom wasn't what I expected in a Realtor's office. She was dressed conservatively, as Realtors tend to be, but something about her gave me the impression that she would be more comfortable in a logging camp or on a soccer field.

"Whew! Hope you don't need to use the facilities, friend," she said, waving her hand in front of her face. "That's why you don't light a candle in the bathroom," she added, then burst out laughing.

"Janey Hicks," she said, holding out her hand and taking mine firmly. "How can I help you?" She stepped over to the front window and saw the Woody in the parking lot. "Oh! You must be Mr. Noir. I recognize Dirk's car. So sad to lose him, but life goes on. Let me get the paperwork and we'll be done in a jiffy. I'm sure you want to get on over to the house and check it out."

We were going over the documents when her computer beeped. While I continued reading the rental details, she opened the incoming email and read for a moment. "It's from my worthless ex boyfriend," she said to me. I could tell just by looking at her that, after reading the email, she wanted to reach through the computer screen and smack him for his burning stupidity. "Best day of my life was the day I told him what he could do with himself. We were at the marina over to Watauga Lake, waiting for some friends we were gonna go boating with, and I just had enough of him. He was drunk again - as usual - and when he tried to paw me right there in front of God and everybody, I punched him in the gut, smacked his face and shoved him in the water. Bam, pow, oof, splash!"

I smiled with her and then she burst out in a loud guffaw, "You probably think I'm an awful person, don't ya!"

"Not at all, Ms. Hicks. Sounds to me like he had it coming. So, I just need to sign here?" I added, wanting to finish up and get over to the house.

"Yep. That takes care of things at this end. As soon as you and your ladyfriend figure out when you're most likely to want to come up here, you just let me know, and we'll block those dates from the rental schedule. Welcome to the Village of Beech Mountain!"

It shook her hand again as she handed me the keys and took my leave, smiling at the Mountain Woman image made flesh. Arianne wasn't back to the car yet, so I walked across the parking lot to the store. As I was climbing the steps up on to the porch, I heard a voice cry out, "Stop him!" and a young man came barreling out the front door.

My finely honed instincts kicked in and I reached out to grab the fleeing miscreant. He goosed, then ducked. Unluckily for him, though, I'd been nabbing perps for longer than he'd been alive, and was wise to their tricks. I tackled him, and the package he had tried to get away with went flying.

The rogue lay there for a moment, stunned by the impact with the sidewalk, and then moaned loudly. He wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it with his own eye - there was his other eye, looking back at him. He reached out and picked it up - I could see it was glass at that point - and popped it back into the socket.

The Village Police Station was just on the other side of the real estate office, so it took only a moment for an officer to run over and take control of the would-be (and, frankly, not very intelligent) thief. As the cop was securing the prisoner, I could hear the young man babbling. Much like the Internet, there was some useful, possibly even vital information hidden amid the rambling and bravado. He swayed on his feet, clearly intoxicated, and let loose a spew of colourful bile on the sidewalk - it furthered the metaphor, and I was delighted.

Arianne stepped out the front door of the store as the crook shouted something along the lines of "It's in the lutefisk!!" and jerked his chin toward the package, which had burst open as it hit the concrete sidewalk. Arianne walked over to it and I joined her there.

"What is he talking about, Guy?" she asked me.

"Not sure," I replied, squatting down to look at the contents. It had the consistency of pudding, but the scent wafting off its quivering bulk spoke volumes about un-emptied dumpsters and forgotten stacks of crusty socks. "Definitely lutefisk," I said, moving to stand upwind.

"I'm gonna snitch a bit of it so we can check it out," Arianne said, pulling a small plastic container out of her shopping bag.

"I'm on vacation, Darlin'," I said as I smiled at her, knowing that she knew that I wouldn't be able to resist the mystery implied in all these goings on. She scooped some of the fishy stuff into the container, and stood as a man in dark glasses came out of the store and strode directly to the package. He quickly gathered up the contents, and carried the mess back into the store, without saying a word or even looking at us.

I had to make a statement to the cop, but there was no problem once Janey came out of her office and vouched for me, and then Arianne and I headed on over to the house.

I had been to Dirk's house several times, but it was Arianne's first visit. She was quite impressed as she walked through the rooms, and positively thrilled when she saw the hot tub on the deck off the master suite upstairs.

"I think that, after the drive and the excitement at the store, we deserve to ... relax... in the tub for a bit," she called to me.

I walked out onto the deck to join her. "Sounds good to me, but you better read the house rules over there," I said, pointing to the carved sign hanging on the wall.

She stepped over and read for a moment, then turned to me. "Naked?" she cried, aghast. Then she burst out laughing and quickly stripped down.

All I could do was join her....

Some time later, Arianne was looking around the house and found an old microscope that Dirk had used on a couple of cases involving priceless collectible Tibetan Hopping Spiders.

Few are privy to the inner workings of the insular world of competitive arachnid collection, but Dirk had shared a few anecdotes with me at the time. I knew, for instance, that the insanely intricate yet frequently modified qualifications for any given year's Prize Specimen made for lively discussions and heated controversy at the biweekly meetings. All in all, the Arachnid Fanciers' gatherings were a morass of strong opinions loosely held - and loudly expressed.

On a shelf beside the microscope, Arianne discovered a prize specimen specially mounted in a small glass box. She slid it under the lens and bent to the eyepiece.

Looking into the microscope, her first thought was how much the spider looked like Dame Penelope's insufferable Yorkie, Ewok...but with more eyes.

To be continued....

Question: Erotica

2008-08-30T05:37:00.000-07:00

I bring this question to you, loyal ShakesQuillers - should any type of erotica be permissible here? And what about fiction that contains graphic sexual interludes?

I ask this mainly because it's just not something I had thought about before. And when I thought about it, it wasn't something I could immediately answer. My initial instinct was no to outright erotica as this being a safe place was more important than anything else. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was a question I couldn't immediately answer.

Work that has only the purpose to titillate won't be accepted, but obviously there are works that can combine erotica, great story telling, social commentary, etc. And I'm hesitant to make blanket rules on writers who are truly making an effort.

At this point my opinion is thus: Anything that I personally think is too graphic yet worthy of consideration would be tagged as such on the front page and then jumped, so that to continue reading it would be the reader's decision.

Mainly, the words "safe place" are important to me and I take the responsibility given to me here seriously. And while I'm confident my judgment is solid (and even then, there are others whose judgment will override mine), I think this is a discussion we should all take part in. So let me know your thoughts, please.

Bill

Word of the Day

2008-08-29T14:30:00.000-07:00

Abscond

ab•scond
Pronunciation: \ab-SKOND\
Function: intransitive verb:
Etymology: Abscond comes from Latin abscondere, "to conceal," from ab-, abs-, "away" + condere, "to put, to place."

To depart secretly; to steal away and hide oneself -- used especially of persons who withdraw to avoid arrest or prosecution.

"The criminal is not concerned with influencing or affecting public opinion: he simply wants to abscond with his money or accomplish his mercenary task in the quickest and easiest way possible so that he may reap his reward and enjoy the fruits of his labours."

— Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism

Thanks to Constant Comment for today's WOTD entry

Word of the Day

2008-08-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

Haughty

haugh•ty
Pronunciation: /ˈhɔti/
Etymology: obs. haught (sp. var. of late ME haute < MF < L altus high, with h- < Gmc; cf. OHG hok high) + -y

1. disdainfully proud; snobbish; scornfully arrogant; supercilious
2. Archaic. lofty or noble; exalted.

"I don't know why, but he despised me even beyond all measure and looked at me with an insufferable haughtiness."

— Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes From Underground

Word of the Day

2008-08-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

Thaumaturgy

thau•ma•tur•gy
Pronunciation: \THAW-muh-tuhr-jee\
Function: noun
Etymology: Thaumaturgy comes from the Greek words for "wonder" (thauma) and "work" (ergon).

The performance of miracles or magic.

"There was ever a cautious hesitancy on the part of the clergy to recognize evidence of thaumaturgy, and the superstitious use of relics."

— John Mcgurk, "Devoted People: Belief and Religion in Early Modern Ireland", Contemporary Review, September 1998

Thanks to Constant Comment for today's WOTD entry

Another installment of my unnamed novel

2008-08-27T10:58:00.000-07:00

Tina had inherited her father's work ethic, but she was too risk averse to start her own business, so instead, she was the manager of a successful dog training school - dog daycare - kennel facility. The Dog House took care of up to 40 dogs in the daycare section each of their three facilities, with locations in central and Eastern Connecticut. Tina worked almost every day, either hanging out with the dogs, doing paperwork, or teaching training classes. She was a firm proponent of positive reinforcement training, and had introduced some new techniques to the owner of the company, Tabitha "Tabby" Hunter.

Tabby was a Shar-Pei enthusiast with a lot of time and money on her hands. When she was training a newly acquired puppy, she decided that there was not a satisfactory school for dog training around. She spoiled her dogs, and couldn't make herself pull a choke chain on one of her little darlings. So she hired a consultant to research less negative training theories, and the consultant introduced Tabby and Tina after meeting a friend of Tina's father who had hired Tina to train his new puppy and raved about her ability to communicate with dogs. Tina had helped Tabby create a curriculum for positively based training methods, and had helped Tabby pick out an appropriate space for the first Dog House facility. The first class Tina led was a puppy kindergarten class, basically designed to help socialize new puppies and begin the process of training the owners how to train their dogs with loving guidance rather than harsh authoritarianism.

Tina loved the fact that she could bring Rosco and Bela with her to work. She arrived early in the day, although Laura usually opened the building up.

"Good morning, Laura!" Tina said. Laura Carvalho, Tina’s co-worker, was a tiny woman, standing just under 5 feet tall, and thin, although she had that wiry appearance that suggested strength.

"Mornin', and good morning you little boogers!" Laura said, as she kneeled down and greeted Rosco and Bela. "You guys ready to go to school?" Laura asked the dogs, as she did every morning, and as they did every morning, Rosco and Bela wiggled their tails and Bela barked excitedly. Laura gave each of the dogs a treat and led them to the play area. She returned after handing the dogs off to the two teenaged girls who were working for minimum wage as dog sitters.

"So," Tina said, "who's here?"

"Digby, Buckley, Snow and Frosty, and we're waiting for a bunch more, including Cyrus," a word that caused Tina to scrunch up her nose and say "Ew." Cyrus was a spaniel mix, a high strung dog and devoted coprophage. Tina had been trying everything she could think of to stop Cyrus from eating his own shit, but nothing seemed to work.

"You know," Tina said, "before I worked here, I never thought that there might be some dogs I don't like, but I don't really like Cyrus."

"Oh, he's not so bad," Laura said. "He's no Silver, anyway." Tina laughed at the mention of Silver, one of the most difficult dogs she'd ever dealt with. Silver, a dolorous looking bloodhouse/border collie cross, had become a student of The Dog House after being spectacularly destructive at the home of his owner, a very nice but rather clueless about dogs woman named Bonnie. When Bonnie's children went away to college, she felt lonely at home with just herself and her husband, so she decided she would get that dog she always wanted. But she never really researched how much work a dog would be. Bonnie left Silver confined in the kitchen during the day while she was at work, and one evening, Tina received a call from Bonnie, who was sobbing so much Tina could hardly make out what Bonnie wanted. Eventually, Tina pieced together the story. Silver, being a rather intelligent dog, had been chewing on the cabinets and the chairs while Bonnie was at work, and Bonnie just decided to let it go, since the kitchen was in need of remodeli ng and both items were scheduled to be replaced. But Silver apparently got bored with chewing on the same old stuff, and started working on the refrigerator. At some point while Silver was chewing, he managed to open the refrigerator, and started eating everything he could get his mouth around. After Silver was done pillaging the fridge, he leaped over the barrier that kept him out of the newly decorated living room, and threw up all over the couch.

At first, Bonnie wanted to sell the dog or give it to the pound. Tina talked her into signing up for some obedience classes, and suggested that Silver might benefit from being occupied during the day as well. Silver became a regular at the Dog House after that, but he was such a bright and stubborn dog that Tina had to work hard to stay a step ahead of him.

Tina went into the small office behind the main counter. In addition to all the dog day care services, they sold some retail items, include some specialty dog foods and toys, and various dog spoiling items that were more for the owner's entertainment than the dog's pleasure, like sweaters and little boots. Tina also occasionally offered private coaching for persistent bad dog behaviors, like dogs that didn't seem to be able to be housetrained, barkers or biters.

She was working on some paperwork when the Laura buzzed the office extension from the main desk. "There's a reporter on line 2," Laura said.

"Thanks, Laura," Tina said as she took the call.

"I swear, the Senator and I are just friends," Tina said as she picked up the phone, knowing that her best friend Kell was on the other end.

"I'm done looking for a boyfriend," Kell said.

"You're done as in you've found him or you're done as in no more men? Or have you decided to become a lesbian?" Tina teased.

"I'm not kidding, Tina," Kell said. Tina was surprised to hear the serious tone in her friend's voice.

"What happened?" Tina asked, suddenly concerned. Kell was a frequent dater, going through men like Kleenex during allergy season. She usually followed up a date with a post mortem call to Tina, but Kell rarely seemed serious, either in looking for a partner or in complaining about her dates.

"He picked up another woman while I was in the bathroom," Kell said. "I came back to the table and he was sitting across from this little Bratz doll, with collagen lips and D cup sized implants on a size zero body."

"What a prick!" Tina said, outraged on her friend's behalf.

"And this little human equivalent of a vaginal wart had the nerve to call me Plus Size Barbie!" Kell continued. "I've been dating for a lot of years, and I've had some great times, and I've had some clunkers, but lately, it feels like I'm actively seeking punishment by going on dates! So I did some thinking last night. I'm a sexy, intelligent woman, I have a great career that I love, and I have a wide selection of sex toys available to me. What more do I need?"

Tina, good friend, said "I can’t think of anything."

"Tiiiiny," Kell whined, using Tina's brothers' nickname for her, "I need someone to take care of me when I'm old and crumbling, that's what I need."

"Kell, I'll always be here to take care of you," Tina said.

"I need someone to warm up my side of the bed in January before I get under the covers," Kell continued.

"Get a dog," Tina offered.

"Tina," Kell said, sounding tired. "I'm lonely. I'm getting older. I haven't ruled out children. Everyone tells me they love me - you're gorgeous, you're dynamic, you're funny, you're intelligent...why doesn't anyone want me?"

Tina couldn't remember a time when her friend sounded so low, so lacking in confidence. Tina wasn't quite sure what to say to her.

"Fuck anyone who doesn't want you," Tina said. "Anyone who would turn you down is just stupid, that's all." Tina knew her friend had trouble compromising, but Tina also knew the rewards of friendship with Kell, and it was truly worth the trouble, in her opinion. Kell was a person who stood by you no matter what, and would always be honest with you.

"Aauggghhhh," Kell exclaimed. "Damn, my editor is staring at me, I have to go. Can we get together tonight?"

Tina knew she was supposed to go to her aunt's dress shop to look at wedding dresses, but she thought her friend would need her more. "Sure, I just have to cancel my dress appointment at Zia Dinella's." She felt slightly relieved to once again put off the appointment, but her hopes were dashed when Kell replied, "no reason we can't bitch while we're shopping. I'll meet you at D's at 6ish?"

"Okay," Tina said, with some reluctance. "We'll solve your problems and find my wedding gown before my mother can complain anymore,"

"Of course," Kell said sarcastically, "and then we'll solve world hunger and end the proliferation of nuclear weapons."

Tina laughed. "Bye, chiquita," she said.

"Adios," Kell replied.

Word of the Day

2008-08-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

Zeitgeist

zeit•geist
Pronunciation: \TSYT-guyst; ZYT-guyst\
Function: noun
Etymology: Zeitgeist is from the German: Zeit, "time" + Geist, "spirit."

The spirit of the time; the general intellectual and moral state or temper characteristic of any period of time.

"Like other figures who seem, in retrospect, to have been precociously representative of their times, Kerouac was not simply responding to the Zeitgeist, but to the peculiarly twisted facts of his own upbringing."

— Jack Kerouac: The Beat Goes On, New York Times, December 30, 1979

Thanks to Constant Comment for today's WOTD entry

CCCW Request Post

2008-08-26T07:14:00.000-07:00

¡Hola, ShakesQuillites!

It's Tuesday morning, and so I come to you, word processor in hand, to ask for your input for this week's chapter of the ongoing story. You know the drill by now - you give me snippets of action or dialog, and I weave them into the story. Something like:

I stepped outside to stand in the cold rain, and let it cool my overheated body.

Hit me with your best shot, everyone!

The story so far can be found in its entirety here.

Critic's Corner

2008-08-25T19:14:00.000-07:00

I've spent part of the past week at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario. I've been making the pilgrimage to Stratford since 1970, and it has been a major influence in my love of theatre ever since.

Part of my secret identity as a theatre scholar is that I have a doctorate in playwrighting and dramatic criticism. So it's only natural that I would write some reviews of some of the plays I saw when I was there.

First, here's a video introduction to Stratford and the festival.

Here follows my thoughts on three of the plays I saw.

Fuente Ovejuna
Unless you're a theatre scholar -- or you took Dr. Delmar Solem's theatre history classes at the University of Miami -- you probably never heard of the plays of Spanish playwright Lope de Vega (1562-1635). But this contemporary of Shakespeare was probably the most prolific playwright in history, cranking out over 1,500 full-length plays, with about 450 still extant. Compared to Shakespeare -- and Lope de Vega is often called the Spanish Shakespeare -- the bard of Stratford-upon-Avon is a piker with his mere 37 plays.

The best-known work of Lope de Vega is Fuente Ovejuna. As Dr. Solem explained to me, the title translates literally as "The Sheep Well," but the play is not about a hole in the ground where sheep drink. It is a small town in Spain, and Lope de Vega wrote this play relating an actual event that occurred there in 1476.

While under the command of the Order of Calatrava, a commander, Fernán Gómez de Guzmán, mistreated the villagers, who banded together and killed him. When a magistrate sent by King Ferdinand II of Aragon arrived at the village to investigate, the villagers, even under the pain of torture, responded only by saying "Fuente Ovejuna did it."

That sums up the plot neatly, but in the new translation by Lawrence Boswell, the play explores much more than just a village rising up against tyranny. It explores the people's view of their status in Spanish society, the role of women in that time and their stature, and the intense feeling of community that brings these common folk together to stand up for themselves.

I must admit that when I first read the play, over thirty years ago in a translation that did its best to convey the language of the time, I didn't find it any of those. But in this production at Stratford's Tom Patterson Theatre (a converted curling rink) Mr. Boswell has done a masterful job of finding nuances in words and characters that surely must have been intended by the playwright. The villagers are as multidimensional as Shakespeare's characters, and the plot, while complicated by the politics of the time, moves along smartly, never taking your eye off the real story, and that is how the people of this benighted village respond to their mistreatment at the hands of their government. There are powerful performances by James Blendick as the mayor of the village, Sara Topham as his daughter Laurencia, who is abused by the Commander (the wonderfully villainous Scott Wentworth), and Jonathan Goad as the peasant who initiates the confrontation by having the nerve to stand up to the Commander by protecting Laurencia's virtue. Robert Persichini does a wonderful job as Mengo, the shepherd, who provides both comic relief and the brutal truth in the role of the classic clown.

This play, as the villagers state under threat of torture, is not about them as much as it is about the sense of community: "Fuente Ovejuna did it." There is a populism to this drama, and where Shakespeare enlightens us and delves deeply into the human character, Lope de Vega shows us those human characters working together as one. (Shakespeare did not write a play with only the name of a town in the title and turn it into the main character, and no, "Hamlet" doesn't count.) Fuene Ovejuna is the main character in this play, and yet we never forget that there people who live there.

Hughie and Krapp's Last Tape
Brian Dennehy is a force of nature. With just a look he can hold an audience breathless for as long as he wants, and for a big man, his subtle moves, his sly grin, his glaring eyes will tell you what he's thinking.

Mr. Dennehy is appearing in two one-acts on a double bill here at Stratford; Hughie by Eugene O'Neill, and Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett. Both plays are unusual for each playwright; Hughie, set in the lobby of a 1920's fleabag hotel in New York, is a short and succinct piece, which, for those of us with the sitzfleisch to make it through three-plus hours of Mr. O'Neill's other works like Long Day's Journey Into Night, is a change of pace. But Mr. O'Neill gives us as full and compelling character in the person of Erie Smith, a down-on-his-luck gambler, as he does in any of the Tyrones, and watching Mr. Dennehy take him through the intricacies of his reminiscences of his late friend, Hughie, make you understand him in a word that would otherwise take a page or a scene.

Krapp's Last Tape is an unusual play for Beckett; starkly real and harsh as compared to the absurdism and other-worldliness of End Game or Waiting for Godot, but with touches of humor and even slapstick, albeit given that minimalist treatment by the playwright who made Harold Pinter seem verbose. Again, it is Mr. Dennehy's portrayal of Krapp that makes it work. In the opening moments of the play we see Krapp sitting at a table surrounded by his tapes and his tape recorder, but it's the eyes...the haunted, terror-filled, angry, lost, and eventually pitiful look in them that holds you and doesn't let up, even when his back is turned.

There's a central theme to both plays, and that's the sense of loss the main character feels and cannot overcome. And in both plays there is a listener that acts like a chorus. In Hughie it's the Night Clerk who stands by passively and responds in a few words that cuts right through to the truth and reality, providing a counterpoint and a foundation to Erie Smith. In Krapp's Last Tape it is the tape recorder, playing back Krapp's words from thirty years ago and brutally reminding him of what he was, what he wanted to become, what he never achieved, and what he lost.

It's Mr. Dennehy that makes these plays work so well, and once again Stratford has proved its ability to choose both the right plays and the right actors to make it work.

Casear and Cleopatra
George Bernard Shaw always has something to teach in his plays, whether it's something as profound as Jack Tanner discovering the life force in Man and Superman or something as basic and class-defining as speaking properly in Pygmalion. Once again we have the teacher and the pupil in the form of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, and once again we have the situation where the master becomes the pupil.

Christopher Plummer takes the stage here at Stratford like the consummate performer that he is, and regardless of how many other things you've seen him in, be it in film or on stage, you never think of him as Christopher Plummer, but as the character, and that is the true hallmark of a fine actor. You're not seeing Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music or General Chang in Star Trek Six, as millions of movie goers think of him; you're seeing Julius Caesar. And not the Julius Caesar of Shakespeare, either, but a man with a sense of humor, limits, and self-awareness that isn't seen in any other portrayal of him. Shaw's voice is very clear in this play, but it's not so overwhelming that you forget that you are looking at a historical figure about whom everyone thinks they know and who's famous utterance, "Et tu, Brute?" is so well-known it shows up in cross-word puzzles every week. Mr. Plummer handles the role with effortless grace and charm so that you care deeply about Caesar, regardless of his manifestation as a conqueror.

But he would have a lot rougher go at it if he didn't have the amazing counterpoint of Nikki M. James as Cleopatra. She is both a girl and a woman, a petulant child and a powerful queen; endearing and frightening. Shaw knew how to write women of equality, and he does so here, but in the free-flowing and utterly devastating performance Ms. James gives, you feel as if Shaw's vision of a 16-year-old girl taking on and holding her own against a much older and more experienced warrior was written with Ms. James in mind. She's given the thankless job of taking a character who has been portrayed in so many ways and has become such an archetype that the mere mention of the name "Cleopatra" gives you visions of Elizabeth Taylor (and Tallulah Bankhead) that all you can think of are the really bad jokes about asps (i.e. "fangs for the mammary"). Not this time. Not only does Cleopatra become fully dimensional, Shaw even tweaks Shakespeare by giving us a prequel, as it were, for Antony and Cleopatra. In this case, take the Shaw.

The rest of the cast does a great job, including Diane D'Aquila as Ftatateeta and Steven Sutcliffe as Brittanus. The set, by Robert Brill, was simple yet powerful with towering sandstone pillars and portions of a sphinx. The Festival stage, which was the original three-quarter thrust designed by Tanya Moiseiwitsch, was the right venue for this play; Shaw does well in three dimensions, and director Des McAnuff knew how to make it work without making the actors look like they had to be constantly moving to be seen by the audience; a technique a lot of directors in thrust and round have yet to master.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Word of the Day

2008-08-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

Boffin

bof•fin
Pronunciation: \ˈbä-fən\
Function: noun
Etymology: origin unknown
Date: 1945

chiefly British : a scientific expert; especially : one involved in technological research

"Prior to pairing up with Andy, the wandering electro boffin had formed a pretty-boy-going-on-pervy synth band called Depeche Mode."

— Richard Smith "Being Boring: Erasure", Seduced and Abandoned, 1995

Monday Mind Opener

2008-08-25T12:42:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday, ShakesQuillers! In this episode of MMO, we're going to do some dialogue work. Basically, we're going to make this thread a conversation. During this conversation, we want to try and make the two characters as three-dimensional as possible, as well as create a storyline. Here's the set up:

Sandy entered the room and saw Bob sitting on the sofa. She felt conflicted upon seeing him, knowing that they needed to have this conversation. Yet it was a conversation she dreaded for so many reasons.

"Hello, Bob," said Sandy.

Bob's trepidation was equal to hers. He had longed for this discussion, yet feared it with the same intensity.

"Hi, Sandy," he said.

Feel free to add action in as I did, but focus mainly on the two speaking to one another.

So now it's your turn. Let's have a conversation.

Apple

2008-08-25T06:25:00.000-07:00

That – is your wife – leaning against the tree?
Ahh! She is lovely,
boughs and roots
& two fine apples in her dress.
Do not be angered – she is beautiful.
Look how she looks over the land,
seeing how everything is
lit with the setting sun.
She wears a face like longing.
I could love her, here
here – in clean air & dying grass
new, together
finally, effortlessly new.

Do her thighs smell of apples, there in your bed?
Oh, the darkness presses thick on the windows then,
& her skin is tired to you.
The sunset has all faded from her face.

Look how she looks over the land,
unseeing you or I.
The wind holds her dress tight to her hips.
With one hand
she tries to push it away.

Submitted by Shaker F. Lynd

Creatively Created Creative Writing - Chapter XII

2008-08-24T21:12:00.000-07:00

Arianne sat in her car, the engine off, and stared at the Acme Building. She knew that Guy would be up in his office, but she just couldn't get herself to open the car door and cross the street to the building.

And then the pipe exploded.

Arianne stared in amazement as the manhole cover fifty feet in front of her car flew up in the air, borne aloft on a stream of waste. Almost immediately the stench hit her, giving her the impetus she needed to leave the car and head for the front door of the Acme Building. A gust of wind blew some of the airborne shite her way and she got splattered just before she got to the door.

She pushed her way past a group of teens staring out the door, pointing and laughing as people ran from the excretory rain, and headed for the ladies room to clean up. She looked at the empty towel dispensers in disgust, and then stepped back out into the lobby. A quick glance at the news kiosk by the stairs caused her to shake her head. Then she had an idea....

It had been a quiet week in the city by the mountains. Despite their threat, the Cousins Avaricious decided to not contest Dirk's will, and I was in the process of getting all the legal stuff taken care of so that I could take possession of Dirk's estate. The Woody was a real blessing for me. I had already saved twenty or thirty bucks in cab fare, plus people smiled and pointed when they saw it coming down the street. Jimmy had fully recovered from his food poisoning and was back at work at the Five Spot, so my drinks were just the way I liked them again.

The only thing I didn't have was a case to work on, but after the events of the last couple months... I didn't really mind that much. And so it was that I was leaning back in my chair with my feet up on the desk, dozing, when my office door opened and Arianne walked in. At first I thought I was dreaming, but then a ... smell reached my nose. A smell that heretofore I had not associated with Arianne.

Seeing my nose wrinkle, she held up a hand to silence me before I could ask, and said, "Have you looked out your window in the last ten minutes?"

When I shook my head no, still somewhat taken aback at seeing her in my office, she told me what had happened and finished by saying, "...The paper towels were used up and there was no newspaper. I muttered something the kids couldn't hear and started ripping pages from the phone book to clean up the mess. And then I came on up, since I was in the building and, well, didn't want to go back outside."

"Hello to you to," I said, standing and crossing to her. I started to reach out and hug her, but a strange weakness hit me.

His once strong arms felt as though he had been heaving bales of hay onto a truck all day.

I looked at Arianne and said, "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"That voice... It seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere." She looked at me quizzically and I hastily added, "Just kidding. Damn, it's great to see you!" My arms worked just fine this time, so I hugged her tight.

"Oh, Guy, I'm sorry I just ... left before. I was still messed up from the incident with the Samoan lawyer, and dealing with the police and all, and...." she trailed off as I put her head on my shoulder.

"None of that matters now. You're here. And, ummm, you smell like shit." I smiled at her to make sure she knew I was being playful, and said, "Let's blow this office and get you to a shower."

As we started down the hall she said, "Wait. My car's out front, and probably covered with...."

"Don't worry, kid," I replied. "I've got my own wheels now. And it's parked in the back lot." I told her about Dirk leaving me his estate in his will as we rode down to the basement in the elevator.

Freddie the custodian was standing by the back door as we walked out, and asked, "Where are you off to, Guy?"

"It's Tuesday, and that means it's time to wax the cat!" I shouted to him as we got to the Woody. Arianne laughed at his look as I put the car in gear and pulled out of my parking space.

We got to the apartment and while she was cleaning up, my cell phone rang. It took me a moment to realize what the sound was, as I'd only had the thing for a couple days and wasn't used to it, but then I pushed the button to answer and said, "Noir here."

"Hey, Guy. It's Frank Kirby, with the metro PD? I don't know if you remember me, but -"

"Yeah, sure, Frank. I helped you guys out with the DiNozzo case last year. How you doing?"

"I'm doing all right, but my cousin Jim, who works as a detective at the Department over in Waynesville, could use some help. They've got a case that's just up your alley."

"Can it wait til morning," I asked, as Arianne came out of the bathroom wearing only a towel. "I've got something I ... need to look into this afternoon."

"Sure, Guy, just stop by the station over there in the morning and ask for Jim. I'll let him know you're coming by. I owe you one, Noir," he said and hung up.

Arianne walked over to me and reached her arms up to my neck, and the towel fell to the floor....

The next morning, bright and early, I slipped out of bed without waking Arianne, got dressed and drove over to the Waynesville Police Department. I was still getting used to driving and not riding in the back of cabs, which meant I did more looking at scenery than I really should have.

As I drove past the shopping centers, I could sense the excitement in other drivers; the abundance of parking lots with empty parking spots is always a strange thrill in the suburbs. The whole scene was as nice as ever. Nothing ever changes, not ever, out here in suburbia.

I pulled into the police station and walked in. I told the desk sergeant I was there to see Detective Kirby, and he pointed me down the hall. My first take on Detective Jim Kirby wasn't all that good. He was in his office, which he shared with the K-9 unit, and, all things considered, Jim was having far too much fun with the Jiffy-Lam 3000 laminator. The dog looked at him reproachfully.

He looked up from the machine as I walked in and said, "You must be the PI cousin Frank said was coming over. Jim Kirby," he said, holding out his hand. We shook, and I asked him what the case was.

He explained that a Mr. Ralph McMahan had died of arsenic poisoning after eating dinner at the annual Kiwanis talent show. They had several suspects, but couldn't get the goods on any of them. He gave me a list of the names, with addresses, and I told him I'd check them out.

I read the report, including the statement of the deceased's wife, "He said, 'Sure; it was a small town fund-raiser, but that was by far the best plate of enchiladas he'd ever had.'" was about all she could say, and then I left the station to go interview the suspects.

The first name on the list was Dr. Emma Jones, Professor of History at the university in the city, so I called her office to make an appointment to stop by. On my way over there, I tried to come up with an excuse to be seeing a History Professor, as my general process is to talk to suspects without letting on that I'm checking them out. That way I get a feeling of them as a person. My intuition had rarely ever failed me. I was stuck for a bit for a topic to start on, but then I remembered about my great-great grandmother.

I walked into the office and introduced myself, then told the tale of my great-great. She really had died of mysterious circumstances, and the date had been lost for a long time. I told Dr. Jones the story, finishing up with, "The class of 1857's class letters had provided me with a general idea about her death – some time after October 4, 1862, but not more than a couple weeks. I can't get any farther than that, though. Do you think you can help me?"

While I was telling her my story, I had been getting a strange vibe, and the itch just wouldn't go away. She seemed excited to hear my tale, but not in the "oh boy, a history mystery" way. It was more the "oh boy, someone died mysteriously" way. In fact, she was way too excited, and my radar was pinging like mad. But I didn't want to move to fast.

Catching hardened criminals is like landing a fish. Always give them some line, and then set the hook. I learned that from Snappy Leftowitz. About criminals and fish.

So, I left her my phone number and asked her to call me if she found out anything, but that I would check with her in any case in a couple of days. She said that was fine, and walked me out to my car with a gleam in her eye.

By the time I pulled out of the parking lot, I was sure that The professor was the murderer, and just had to figure a way to prove it. So, instead of checking up on the other people on Detective Kirby's suspect list, I headed home to Arianne.

I got there and suggested that we go out to dinner, but she wanted to cook, so we went to the market to pick up some things. While we were out, we went by and got her car and took it to the car wash - and ran it through twice.

I offered to help fix the dinner, and while we were chopping veggies and prepping the meat, Arianne started asking me all kinds of questions about the case. I was still so thrilled to have her back in my life that I forgot all about professional ethics and was telling her all about the case before I realized it. In the Private Investigator biz, there are things you just don't share, but there was no holding back now. I told Arianne all my suspicions and just why I felt the way I did, and how my intuitions were almost always spot on. Not since Snappy had retired had I shared that secret with anyone.

Arianne was thrilled by the whole process, and asked if she could go with me when I confronted Professor Jones. I was going to refuse, but one look in her eyes and I had to say yes.

Two days later, Professor Jones called me, and asked if I could come over to see her, that she had some info on my great-great grandmother for me. I said sure, and she gave me directions to her house, as she had no classes or office hours that day. Arianne and I got in the car and headed over to the address.

We were met at the door by a maid, who led us to the Professor's study. I introduced Arianne, and we sat down while Dr. Jones went through the information she had gathered about my ancestress - all of which I already knew, of course. She was almost finished when we were interrupted by a loud squawking. Arianne and I looked at each other, confusion writ large on our faces, and then a parrot came riding through the study on a miniature tricycle.

As it crossed the room, it said, "Put the arsenic in the enchiladas. He'll never know what hit him! Hahahahaha!"

That was all it took. I called Detective Kirby and detained the Professor while we waited for him to show up and arrest her.

As the uniformed officers were leading her out in handcuffs, I overheard her say, "This is the last time," she said to herself, "the very last time I will let the parrot ride the tricycle."

And so, another case went into my book.

Word of the Day

2008-08-21T06:45:00.000-07:00

Bowdlerize

bowd•ler•ize
Pronunciation: \BODE-luh-rise; BOWD-\
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: Bowdlerize derives from the name Thomas Bowdler, an editor in Victorian times who rewrote Shakespeare, removing all profanity and sexual references so as not to offend the sensibilities of the audiences of his day.

1. To remove or modify the parts (of a book, for example) considered offensive.
2. To modify, as by shortening, simplifying, or distorting in style or content.

The president did not call for bowdlerizing all entertainment, but stressed keeping unsuitable material away from the eyes of children.

— "Conference a start toward loosening grip of violence", Atlanta Journal, May 12, 1999

Thanks to Constant Comment for today's WOTD entry