The Could-have-been…

As always, I wrote multiple stories for the NYC midnight competition. This was the story I’d been going to submit, until I wrote the one I actually submitted (on the Thursday night prior to the Saturday night deadline). It’s not a bad story, but it didn’t really feel like me.

Perhaps it’s the better story for it…

 

 

 

Best Date Night Ever

 

 

He looks… kinda like his picture?

Except, well… shorter.

And … greasier.

And he’s wearing chewed-up khaki cargo shorts and flip flops. In January. In Chicago.

To be fair, it’s not like his picture showed what he was wearing, but… really? Flip flops in January? In 15 degree weather?

I bite back the internal monologue and paste a smile on my face.

This could work.

He could be brilliant and kind and funny.

Or he could be a weirdo wearing flip flops in January.

Still, I smile, and stand up from the table where I’ve been waiting twenty minutes for him to show up.

He picked the restaurant, so you’d think he’d know where it is.

Sigh.

I brush non-existent crumbs off of my favorite sweater dress, stand up on the impractically high heels I wore tonight and extend a hand. The heels will hurt like hell if I stand on them for more than five minutes, but…. Look at them. They’re so cute, aren’t they?

I digress.

He takes my hand with all the enthusiasm of someone being given a cold mackerel.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hello,” he says, as he looks me up and down.

“You looked thinner in your photos,” he says. “That’s ok, though. I’m ok with chubby chicks.”

Ugh.

No.

No ugh.

I’m hopeful.

Well, maybe I’m not hopeful, but my Mom is hopeful, so I’m hopeful for her, if that makes any sense.

I believe that life particularly likes to kick you when you’re down.

After all, life kicked me all the way from California to Chicago, when my Environmental Science degree with a minor in Marine Biology got me zero job opportunities, and the professor I’d been working for had his grant rescinded, which in turn, rescinded my paycheck, which caused me to lose my apartment, which caused me to move here, to live with my mother and work as a waitress, and which, ultimately, led me here, to this very fancy restaurant that I couldn’t afford in my wildest dreams, and this dude, who I met on a dating app.

As with so many things, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

And as with so many other things, my mother encouraged me to do it.

I wouldn’t have even downloaded the stupid app, if it weren’t for my stupid Dad. Apparently, my college graduation caused him to realize that had not yet done what he wanted to do with his life. And that realization included the fact that my mother was no longer on his to-do list.

So now, he’s living on a kibbutz in Israel, stomping grapes and smoking pot, and I’m in Chicago, accompanying my Mother in the grand, horrifying  adventures of online dating.

Let’s do it together, she said.

It’ll be fun, she said.

My mother approached this new venture with her customary boundless optimism.

And, looking at this guy, I hoped to borrow just a little of that optimism tonight.

His picture was cute.

He appeared to be able to formulate complete sentences, punctuation and all.

He appeared sane, and employed and … well, normal. And at this point, that was good enough for me.

And when he chose this restaurant, I was hopeful. Because you don’t take someone to a special place if you don’t think they’re special, do you?

I shake off my misgivings and try to focus on the, erm, gentleman sitting in front of me.

“So, how was your day?” I ask, diplomatically. “Busy at work?”

“Haha, nope,” he says, scanning the menu rather than looking at me. “I’m actually kinda between jobs.”

“Oh. I thought were a project manager at a tech startup?”

That’s what his profile had said, at any rate.

“Oh. I don’t do that anymore… I kind of, decided to leave the company. Or… I mean, they asked me to.”

“Why?”

He puts down his menu to give me a frustrated look.

“Do you know, they expect you to show up every day at nine?” he huffs. “Like, cut a guy a break, right? What if I get a flat tire or like… traffic’s bad, or whatever?”

“Oh. Um. Right. I guess.”

“Anyhow, if you don’t show up ‘on time’” – he air quotes the last two words – “They write you up or whatever and apparently that’s enough reason to fire you. It’s fucking bullshit, man.”

“Yeah, right. I guess so.” I lean over and sneak a peek at his footwear. Yup. Still flip-flops. I hadn’t imagined those. “Right. I mean, I should’ve figured you weren’t working today… It’s not like you could wear those shoes to work, huh?”

“Oh. These?”

He lifts up his foot and wiggles his toes to demonstrate the item in question. If there’s something on this planet that’s more gross than a dude’s feet, I have yet to discover it… These are a particularly grungy specimen. Almost completely gray, like a cross between stone and a rotting tree, with discolored toenails and some sort of fungus growing on the sole of the flop.

“I wear these everywhere,” he says. “All year round. Yup… no season too cold for flip flops for me.”

“Maybe there should be,” I mutter under my breath, desperately staring at the menu.

“What’s that, babe?”

“Nothing,” I say, attempting to paste the smile back on my face.

I’m grateful for small miracles as the waitress makes her appearance at our table. This is a nice enough restaurant. The wait staff wears black trousers with white button-down shirts. The name of the restaurant is embroidered on the cuff of her sleeve and the material of the shirt looks fine enough to be some sort of silk.

I gulp and swallow down a little shame as she eyes my date’s outfit. Honestly, I’m not sure how they let him in here… Isn’t this place black-tie only?

But she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she carefully pastes a smile on her face, not unlike my own, before speaking.

“Welcome to L’etoile,” she says, plastic smile firmly affixed. “Do you know what you would like  or would you like some time to consider our menu?”

He slaps the multi-page menu shut with a decisive snap.

“We’ll each have a filet mignon, with twice-baked potatoes, and a couple of miller lites,” he says.

She must’ve been working here for a while because the expression on her face doesn’t falter.

“Very good, sir.”

As for me, the first thing that emerges from my mouth is an angry squawk, as my jaw drops open.

“Close your mouth, babe,” he says. “You look kinda dumb with your mouth hanging open like that.”

“I’m a vegetarian!”

My words come out in an angry hiss.

“Welp, I guess tonight, you’re not.”

“I hate beer.”

He rolls his eyes at me.

“You can’t drink soda at a classy place like this,” he tells me. “Besides, the light stuff is better for you… you should be watching your weight.”

Stay hopeful, I tell myself.

I also remind myself that my Mom has a date tonight, too, which helps… I’m more worried about interrupting her night than ruining my own. But I force myself to stay calm.

After all, there was a reason I liked this guy in the first place, right? I just need to focus on that, and I’ll be fine.

Thankfully, there isn’t too much time for the conversation to stall – the waitress is quick with our food and our – sigh – beer.

I am pleasantly surprised to find a larger than average portion of vegetables, and what appears to be a small quiche on my plate, and give her a grateful smile.

“So, babe, what do you do?” he asks.

I explain that I majored in Environmental Science – that I’d wanted to go to grad school and work in marine biology in California, but that the funds ran out and, well, that’s how I find myself here.

“Apparently, Chicago doesn’t need environmentalists,” I joke, finally. “But they do need waitresses.”

“Nobody needs environmentalists,” he says. “What a waste of space. Global warming is a pile of crap anyway.”

How tastefully put. I’d never heard anyone put down my entire education and career so succinctly.

I’m really focusing on glaring daggers at his stupid face when he chuckles.

“This food is amazing,” he says. “Can’t believe it’s free.”

“Free?”

“Oh, yeah,” he says. “My mom gave me this coupon. She says I need to get out more – I mean, she has to clean my room some time, and she can’t exactly do that while I’m in it. Seriously, though. A free steak dinner at l’etoile? Like I’m gonna pass that up. Super-fancy, man. Wish I could eat this crap every night.”

“You mean two dinners, don’t you?”

“Awww, man… No, I mean… We’re going dutch, right?” he says. “I thought you knew that.”

“I – yeah. Ummm… sure.”

I don’t have words. The grin on my face has become a rictus.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to use the bathroom.”

“Cool, babe. Hey – don’t be too long.” He waggles his eyebrows. “I’ll miss you, ya know.”

I back away from the table, and go right out the door.

I told him I had to go to the bathroom – I just didn’t tell him I was going to the bathroom at home.

 

******

 

You know those empty-nesters who rekindle their relationship and fall sooooo much more in love after their kids go away to college?

Yeah… That wasn’t us.

Long story short: my husband is on a kibbutz in Israel, doing barely legal drugs and barely legal women, and my daughter is upstairs… Well, not literally upstairs.

But my husband moved out and my daughter moved back in.

So what do you do when you lose a husband and gain a crippling sense of inadequacy and a roommate into the bargain?

1. Buy wine. Lots of wine.
2. Invest in a good (and quiet!) vibrator.
3. Invest in a high-quality pair of noise-canceling headphones (just because your vibrator is quiet, doesn’t mean hers is…)
4. (Gulp)… join the dubious world of online dating.

 

It wasn’t exactly fun the first time, but… here we go again.

I’ve always believed in the power of a home-court advantage. With that in mind, I decided to invite my ‘match’ over for dinner. It didn’t hurt that Haley would be out on her own date.

I took a gulp of wine and started ticking off the reasons this wouldn’t work on my fingers.

1. He could be a serial killer.
2. Or a Trump supporter.
3. He could have weird webbing between his toes
4. Or B.O.
5. Or all of the above.

 

I shake my head to clear out the negative thoughts. Negativity doesn’t help anything, I remind myself out loud the same way I’d say it to Haley.

Besides, it could be wonderful, couldn’t it?

His picture was cute

He appeared to be able to formulate complete sentences, punctuation and all.

He appeared sane, and employed and … well, normal.

So far, so good…

I lean over to check on my pizza.

He didn’t mention what he wanted for dinner, but… let’s be honest here, my pizza’s amazing. I make the dough myself.

My pizza has been known to resolve international crises. Ok…. well, maybe not international crises. But it did the trick whenever Halley was going through teenage drama, and I’ll tell you right now – teenage problems are a lot stickier to resolve than any international crisis.

I pull it out of the oven, pull together a quick salad, check my hair and my makeup, and put a smile on my face as I go to answer the door.

He looks… kind of like his picture. If you consider that the picture was probably taken 15 years and 50 pounds ago.

He definitely has a certain something that was lacking in his profile pic – and that something is a Hitler mustache, hanging on his lip like an angry caterpillar.

“Wow!” he says, immediately angling in for a hug. “You look even prettier than your picture!”

“Thanks,” I say, pulling away as quickly as I can. “You look… like your photo, too. But I don’t remember that mustache from your photos.”

“This thing?” he strokes it proudly. “Can you imagine that my ex-wife hated it? She said it was ‘offensive.’”

He air quotes the last word.

“How can hair be offensive?” he asks. “It’s just hair, right?”

I’m speechless as he walks past me and plonks himself down at the kitchen bar, where I’ve laid out pizza and salad, with homemade breadsticks and twin place settings.

He looks at the pizza like it’s something I snaked out of the drain.

“Pizza?” he says. “I thought I was coming over for a home-cooked meal.”

“It is home-cooked. I made the dough myself and everything.”

“Still,” he says. “Pizza? I mean, I could’ve just ordered pizza.”

He gives me a critical look and continues.

“My ex-wife – she would’ve made a real dinner. Baked potatoes and steak and ….”

I stop him before he can develop a full head of steam.

“Well, then,” I interject. “Why don’t you go back to your ex-wife?”

“There’s no need to be like that,” he says. “I was just pointing out that you could’ve done better, you know, if you’d tried… You’ll never catch a man with that attitude.”

“And I was just about to point out the door. Same one you came in through.”

“Well, if you’re going to be like that!” he huffs. “You’re certainly never going to find forever-love.”

“And I certainly don’t want ‘forever-love’ if it’s going to be with someone like you.”

I’ve only just sat down and poured myself a glass of wine when Halley comes home. She looks… well, she looks beautiful, in the red sweater dress that contrasts with her dark hair and makes her blue eyes pop. And she also looks like someone just kicked her puppy…. Until she sees the food.

“Omygosh!!! Pizza!!!”

“Yup,” I tell her. “My date didn’t appreciate it.”

She stares at me bug-eyed.

“Didn’t appreciate it?” Her jaw drops open. “Mom – your pizza could solve the crisis in the middle east.”

And don’t I know it.

“You wanna watch a movie?” I ask.

 

*****

 

It’s the middle of the night, when everything seems quiet. Even the sound from the tv is strangely muted.

We’re two Julia Roberts movies and 3/4 of a pizza in when Halley starts to nod. And we’re somewhere around the point that Julia is telling Dermot Mulroney about her fake engagement that Halley’s head drops onto my shoulder and her arms wrap around my waist.

I wrap my arm around her and she cuddles into me, just like she used to do when she was a little girl.

“Best date night ever,” she whispers, cuddling closer.

And that’s when I finally realize it…. I already have forever-love, although not the kind he was talking about. It is right here, next to me.

Yup. I agree. Best date night ever.

 

 

A Royal Mess

 

 

 

 

Synopsis:

 

Haley wants to protect the Belgravian countryside against fracking, but in order to do that, she needs to talk the snobby Belgravian Prince into seeing her point of view. Can she do it or is the whole endeavor doomed to be a disaster?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Does this dress look slutty?”

“Yes,” Johannah says. “but isn’t it supposed to?”

“Yeah, I know.”

I concede.

I’m twisting in front of the mirror in my tiny dorm room, trying to see how it looks from behind. I catch a glimpse and grimace — the whole world is going to get a good look at my behind in this thing.

Which is kind of the point.

Johannah, my flatmate, is sitting cross-legged on my bed, wearing flannel pajama pants and a sweatshirt from the University of Belgravia, which we both attend.

The dress, if it can be called that, is a red vinyl tube that pushes certain things up while barely concealing others.

It’s not something I would be caught dead in, under normal circumstances. But desperate times, as they say, call for desperate measures.

I give the dress a dirty look and turn my attention to the strappy black heels that await me. Torture devices. All heels are, of course, but these look particularly gruesome.

None of it’s mine. The dress and the heels are borrowed off a friend of a friend. Our other flatmate did my hair, which now cascades in dark waves down my back, and my makeup.

It all looks ridiculous.

It looks slutty.

It looks, loathe as I am to admit it, perfect for my purposes.

Behind me, Johannah sighs.

“You know, you really don’t have to do this. It’s probably a bad idea.”

She looks me up and down.

“No offense, Haley,” she says. “But I don’t think this is going to work.”

I cast a baleful look at my own reflection.

“This is inarguably a bad idea,” I admit. “And I’m pretty sure it’s not going to work. And I have to do it anyway.”

I totter out of the bedroom on the spiky death contraptions attached to my feet.

I am our last, best hope.

I know I have to try.

 

******

 

When the Overland Gas Corporation petitioned the Belgravian Parliament for permission to begin hydraulic fracking in the countryside, no one thought for a second that the members of Parliament would even consider the idea.

The countryside, known for rolling hills and flower-studded valleys, is a gem of Belgravian tourism. It’s where the bulk of Belgravia’s produce comes from, and Belgravian cheddar is world-renowned for its richness and sweetness.

And now I sound like a textbook.

The point is that no one expected Parliament to take it seriously… But those greedy rat-bastards took it to heart, especially given the sizable donations Overland made to their campaign funds.

I’m not Belgravian. I’m American, spending a semester abroad studying environmental science. Apparently, I arrived just in time to witness the complete destruction of Belgravia’s beautiful forests and meadows.

The University’s biology department has been lobbying against this for over a year, but it’s only recently that they’ve begun to give up hope.

None of their letters or pleas have penetrated the thick skulls of the members of Parliament. The final vote on the matter is next week.

We’re getting desperate.

That’s where the dress comes in.

While neither the lobbyists nor the scientists hold any sway with Parliament, the royal family does.

The royal family’s functions are mostly ceremonial and administrative now, but they retain some political powers. For example, the King or Queen of Belgravia can command a temporary stay on any parliamentary decision.

But none of the lobbyists have access to the King or the Queen.

Which leaves us with one pathetic longshot: Prince Philip.

Prince Philip is the crown prince of Belgravia, and that’s really the best that can be said about him. He’s been given every opportunity in the world, and he’s squandered them all.

He spends his nights drinking and dancing at Belgravia’s finest bars and clubs, and his mornings sleeping off the ensuing hangover.

We can’t get into the palace for a royal audience.

A club, though… a club, we can do.

 

******

 

This place resembles my worst nightmares. It’s loud and crowded. I’ve yet to touch any of the surfaces, but I’m pretty sure they’re all sticky.

The music is pounding loudly enough to be completely unrecognizable as music. Even if you could figure out how to dance to it, the dance floor is such a heaving mass of bodies that you wouldn’t be able to move.

I spot him as soon as I walk in. He’s standing in an alcove near the bar, a jewel amongst a crowd of beautiful people. He’s wearing a suit that appears to be navy blue, when it isn’t spackled in rainbow colors by the strobe lights.

The suit would bring out his blue eyes, if it weren’t for this nightmarish atmosphere. I’ve been looking at photos of him, just for research, obviously, so that I could recognize him. His eyes really are a beautiful, cerulean blue. His blonde hair is swept back from his forehead, rainbow-colored in the lurid light.

Why would someone so attractive voluntarily spend time in such a dark, dingy place?

Not that I think he’s attractive.

These dratted shoes – I can barely walk in them. The borrowed heels are too big, and walking in heels was never part of my skill set to begin with.

Somehow, I manage to make it across the room without falling flat on my face. But at that moment my shoe snags on the sticky floor and suddenly, the ground is approaching at far greater speed than I’d like it to. Just as suddenly, I’m caught in a pair of navy suit-jacketed arms, and looking into Prince Philip’s handsome face.

“Hello, Gorgeous,” he says. “Falling for me, already?”

I can’t help it – I snort.

“Does that really work on women?”

The words are out before I can stop myself.

He sets me back on my feet.

“Yes,” he says. “It does, usually. But, then again, most women don’t literally fall at my feet.”

I feel the blush rising to my cheeks. It must be visible even in this absurd lighting, because his smile widens.

“Can I speak to you? Somewhere quieter?”

“Sure thing, sweetheart,” he says, taking my hand and pulling me behind him.

He pulls me into a hallway off the main club. I can still hear the thumping bass, but it’s quiet enough that we can actually have a conversation. … but I don’t have time to think about that.

Instantly, my back is against the wall, his hand is on my hip, his other hand is stroking my jaw as he tilts my face up, and his lips are on mine.

Mmmm.

Shit.

No.

My brain reels. I plant my hands on his chest and shove.

“No.”

Good. That one was out loud.

I shake my head to clear it.

“No — I mean …..”

I take a deep breath.

“When I said I wanted to talk, I meant that I actually wanted to talk.”

He lifts an eyebrow.

“Ok,” He stands back. “Then talk.”

“I’m … I study environmental sciences at the University of Belgravia.”

He nods, like he’s talking to a child.

“Yes? And?”

“I — this is because of your parents.”

Shit.

“I mean, this is because you live with your parents.”

The eyebrow rises again.

“If your parents lived in an opulent palace, you’d probably live with your parents, too,” he points out.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

His expression is cold now.

I’m not the first person to hit him up for something and I won’t be the last, but dammit, this is important.

“I’m studying environmental sciences.”

“You already said that.”

“I know…. It’s just… Last year Overland Corp petitioned the Belgravian Parliament for permission to begin fracking on Belgravian soil. The vote is next week….”

He rolls his eyes.

“This is important!” I hope he hears the urgency in my voice. “If Overland gets permission, they’ll destroy the Belgravian countryside — the entire ecosystem will be ruined, all of Belgravian agriculture will be tainted with toxic chemicals. All so the members of Parliament can line their pockets.”

His face is stone.

“This is your country!” I half-shout. “This is your history. Your heritage! These are your people. Don’t you even care?”

“You sound like my mother.”

He looks away. And when he looks back, he won’t meet my eyes.

“As it happens, that’s who you should talk to. You should take this up with my mother. Make an appointment for a royal audience.”

“But we can’t get a royal audience.”

“I’m not the one to talk to,” he says, and I see sadness in his eyes. “Even if I did bring this up to my parents, no one takes ‘the party prince’ seriously. My word means about as much to them as a contract written on toilet paper.”

“Please,” I plead. “You have to try.”

He cuts me off. The sadness in his eyes is gone, replaced by ice.

“I don’t have to do anything. And I’m really not interested. Not my problem,” he says. “My deepest apologies.”

And then he’s gone, just like that.

I’ve screwed up royally. I’ve just destroyed our last chance at preserving this beautiful country’s natural resources.

I do what every girl does when she needs to regroup from a humiliating failure — I go to the ladies room.

I push past a pair of girls on my way… Jeez. I thought my outfit was ridiculous. Clearly not. The blonde’s skirt is so short I’m surprised she hasn’t been arrested for indecent exposure.

I crash into a stall and try to deep breathe my way back to calm….

I focus on my surroundings. Just breathe.

Which means I overhear the girls’ conversation loud and clear.

“You look like you’re on the prowl tonight.”

“Haha. Yup. Going big game hunting.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m gonna bag a Prince tonight.”

“What makes you so sure?” The first girl laughs.

“Honey, look at me. What man could resist this?”

I can almost hear the first girl’s eyebrows going up.

“What if he can? Not like he’s hurting for options.”

“Let’s just say I have a secret weapon.”

Their voices fade as they leave.

I have a really bad feeling about this.

I rush out of the bathroom to see the pair standing at the bar.

The blonde orders two drinks. They’re all the way across the room, so I can’t see very clearly, but I see her pull a packet out of her purse. And I see her empty it into one of the drinks.

And then I see her sidle up to Prince Philip and offer him the drink.

The way she rubs up against him, I can almost hear the purr in her voice.

This is the kind of girl he thought I was earlier. The thought makes me nauseous.

Maybe I didn’t see what I thought I saw. Maybe she was pouring sweetener into her drink.

Yeah. And maybe I’m the Easter Bunny.

What am I supposed to do? Go over there and claw her eyes out? I’m not the catfight type.

So I do what I can. I wait and watch.

I watch as she pulls him onto the dance floor. I watch her grind against him.

And I watch as his movements slow and his eyes begin to slide closed.

Yeah. No way was that sweetener.

I shove through the crowd.

He spots me first.

“Baaaaabe,” he slurs. “I knew you’d be back. Knew you couldn’ reshisht thisssh.”

Blondie gets in my face.

“Back off, bitch! He’s with me.”

“Who’re you?” he asked, looking at her, as though surprised to find a blonde twined around him like a python.

“Yeah. Clearly he’s with you.”

I step closer and stick my finger into his drink.

I’m not much for makeup, but nail polish is my one indulgence. Specifically, this nail polish: it’s chemically formulated to change color when it encounters the date rape drug.

I hold up my finger. Her eyes widen as the polish turns from bright red to pale pink.

She’s familiar with it, because she immediately pales under her fake tan.

“You can step away from him right now, or I can take this matter to security. What do you think?”

I’ve never seen someone move so quickly through a crowded space.

He’s wobbling on his feet, barely keeping upright.

How much did she put into that damn drink?

I sling his arm around my shoulder. Somehow, we make it out of the club and into a cab.

I can’t very well return him to the palace in this condition. What if they think I drugged him? My student visa doesn’t cover chemical assault on royalty.

I give the driver my address and start dialing.

By the time we pull up, Johannah is waiting, slipper-clad foot tapping impatiently.

She takes in the mostly unconscious prince and me, trying to cajole him out of the vehicle, and her eyes go saucer-wide.

“Haley… What have you gotten yourself into?

“I —” grunt — “didn’t get myself into anything. He’s the —” ummphhh — “dummy who drank a drug-laced drink.”

She’s still shaking her head in disapproval. But she helps me get him out of the cab anyway.

The interrogation begins as we’re dragging his heavy butt up three flights of stairs to our flat. Student housing doesn’t have elevators.

“Eearggh. What happened? Did he agree to talk to his parents about the fracking?”

“Erm… No.”

“No? Whaddaya mean, no?”

“He turned me down. Said it wasn’t his problem.”

Johannah lets go. I almost drop him, but manage to keep him from hitting the floor.

“Not his problem?” she sweeps sweaty bangs off her face. “Then why is this” — gestures to the prince — “our problem?”

“Because sometimes you just have to do the right thing.”

“Fine,” she stoops and slings his arm over her shoulder. “It’s not a good reason, but at least it’s a reason. Let’s do this.”

 

******

 

My room is the same mess it was yesterday, but it looks better with him in it.

He rolls over and opens his eyes.

Dammit. Even hungover, he’s gorgeous.

His eyes sparkle. Morning sunlight brings out shades of gold in his hair.

He bolts awake….And remembers last night.

He looks shamefaced as he meets my gaze.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“I don’t remember what happened, but I remember enough to know you saved me.”

I shrug.

“It’s fine. Our couch is actually really comfortable. The hard part was getting you up the stairs.”

He looks at the charts on my walls – the ones that compare growth of algae against the pH of river water.

Most people have posters of musicians. I have charts.

Then he looks at me.

“Tell me about Overland and their proposal.”

“Why?”

“Because when I approach my parents to explain why Parliament should reject the offer, I want to know what I’m talking about.”

“Yeah? What changed your mind?”

“Sometimes,” he says. “You just have to do the right thing.”

Observations of the Species

Hi all,

As per my usual, I wrote two stories for my NYC Midnight. This one, written later, is the product of 3 o’clock in the morning and an abundance of caffeine. It’s also the one I like less and the one I didn’t submit. It has received considerably less editing/revising/attention/love than the other story, so keep that in mind when you encounter a typo or some such… But, of course, you’re welcome to read it, if you wish.

Prompt:

Genre: Romantic Comedy
Location: A Grotto
Object: A Ping-Pong Paddle

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Caught outside of his native environment, the young North American male creates as much noise as possible, in order to scare off predators,” she said quietly, affecting a ridiculous Australian accent.

 

Alexis drifted to the back of the group. She’d hoped to avoid them, this one time.

 

“Far from a rare species,” she continued, quietly speaking to herself in that same atrocious accent. “The young North American male has taken it upon itself to spread the population round the world, traveling to rare, exotic locales, and filling the air with its primary communicative call of “More beer!”

 

Thus far, this particular invasive species had been the plague of her summer. She’d been looking forward to spending her summer backpacking around Europe. Alas, every location she visited had already been invaded by the Common American Bro.

 

She’d hoped that by signing up for a group hike, instead of going down to the beach, she’d be able to avoid the worst of them. She’d been wrong, as evidenced by the flock of college-aged bros ahead of her on the trail. She sighed – she still wanted to see Aphrodite’s grotto, which was up the mountain at the end of their hike. It was supposed to be beautiful.

 

She wasn’t about to let a herd of bros stop her from seeing it.

 

What did you call a group of them anyway? A flock? A herd? A team?

 

“A pack of collegiate North American males, commonly referred to as “bros” will stick together in the wild, ensuring pack safety.”

 

The soft voice beside her almost jolted her to a stop. Around her own age – early 20-something – the girl kept pace beside her, wearing sneakers, jeans, a tank top, and a roguish smile. Her light brown hair was cut to chin length, and a baseball cap cast her face in shadow – although it was too late – sun-darkened freckles dotted her cheeks.

 

“I’m Jane,” the girl said, reaching her hand out for a quick shake.

 

Alexis took her hand for a moment, before raising a finger to her lips with a smile.

 

“We need to be quiet,” she said. “So as not to spook the pack.”

 

Jane grinned, and the girls returned their attentions to their anthropological observation.

 

Alexis caught Jane’s gaze and rolled her eyes at the bros, noting the ping-pong paddles that dangled from a strap on one of their backpacks, casually spanking the aforementioned bro on his khaki cargo-short-covered butt.

 

“The average collegiate North American male is ever-prepared for a ‘party’, as evidenced by their consistent supply of beer, chips, and red solo cups, contained within backpacks, which are a form of traditional garb, toted everywhere by these fascinating creatures,” Jane noted, faux-Australian accent still intact.

 

“While the ‘bro’ can survive on other liquids, such as water or soda, ‘beer’ or specialty beverages commonly referred to as ‘energy drinks’ are the primary source of hydration,” Alexis added.

 

Silently, they watched for a few more minutes as they continued hiking up the mountain, taking in some of the beautiful scenery that surrounded them, in addition to the obnoxious group ahead of them.

 

A whoop from ahead grabbed their attention, pulling their eyes away from the pine forest that surrounded them and the boundless blue sky above them.

 

“This particular species cannot survive long in silence, needing to draw attention to itself with loud, harsh cries that draw a response from the rest of the pack,” Jane smirked, as the rest of the bros whooped in reply.

 

“So many of the customs belonging to this species stem from a need for attention, from their brightly-colored plumage” – Alexis nodded at their idiotically bright t-shirts – “to their constant need to create noise.”

 

The girls smirked at each other as they continued up the path.

 

Thankfully, Aphrodite’s grotto wasn’t very much farther up the path. They followed the pack of bros into the cave.

 

The guide books had been right, Alexis thought – it was beautiful. Algae blooms created glowing blue light in the darkness, illuminating statue of the goddess that stood guard over the pool of water at the river’s mouth.

 

The bros didn’t hesitate, stripping off t-shirts and backpacks and leaping into the cool water. The splashing they made almost, but not quite drowned out the voice of their tour guide.

 

The tour guide stood by the statue and began to speak anyway, trying her best to ignore the bros, despite the fact that her trousers were already soaked to the knee from their splashing.

 

Alexis and Jane stripped off their shoes and sat down on the rim of the pool, dunking their feet into the water as they listened.

 

The guide explained that the cave was traditionally considered sacred to Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and the water that flowed from it was considered to be a boon from the goddess.

 

Girls from the village at the foot of the mountain were sent up to the cave on the eve of their 16^th birthdays, the guide explained, to bathe in the goddess’s water, so that they could receive her blessing and ask for her help in finding love.

 

Emerging from the water at her feet, like an annoying dolphin, dark hair slicked back and teeth so white they almost glowed in the darkness, one of the dude bros splashed Alexis, grinning up at her.

 

“How about you, babe?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows. “You looking to find love in Aphrodite’s grotto?”

 

“No,” Alexis said, thoughtfully.

 

She smiled, and reached over to take Jane’s hand, twining their fingers together.

 

“I wasn’t looking for love,” she said. “But I think I might’ve found it.”

 

 

Seeking

My most recent entry for the NYC Midnight flash fiction competition. I actually wrote two… I’ll be posting the other one shortly:

 

 

“Seeking a warm-hearted partner to spend my nights with. I’m looking for someone who’s sweet, funny and adventurous. Seeking someone understanding, who’s ready to take a few risks. I’m a night owl, and I’d love to explore the city at night with someone special. I enjoy swimming in the ocean, moon-lit walks on the beach and late-night ping pong tournaments at Harry’s on 18^th Street (they serve the best warm beer). Reply if you’re ready to take a bite out of life.”

Holly gnawed her fingernail and read the post again, for the third time. She normally browsed Craigslist personals for laughs, but every now and then, she looked at the WforW section. She’d never responded to one before… but she’d never wanted to respond to one as badly as she did now. This girl sounded perfect – and everything was spelled right. She knew she’d always wonder if she didn’t respond. So, she took a chance.

“Dear Seeking,” she typed.

******

Holly’s heart thudded as she got off the bus. Meeting at the grotto off the 23^rd Street beach at midnight seemed like a wildly romantic idea at the time. She wore her favorite black sandals and her lucky green dress, wanting to look her best for her secret midnight assignation. Now it just seemed stupid and possibly dangerous.

She clutched the ping pong paddle to her chest as she entered the cave. ‘Seeking’ – a.k.a Victoria – had requested the paddle “so I know it’s you.”

Which seemed a little beside the point now… how many people hung out in an abandoned grotto after midnight?

Not many, apparently.

Holly was alone, clutching her paddle.

Victoria was right about one thing – it was beautiful. Bioluminescent algae bloomed in the tide that washed the depths of the cave, and the rock walls reflected the light back, so the cave glowed with the reflected light of a million blue-and-green stars.

The bats hanging on the ceiling, however, were a less desirable feature.

Holly looked up at the source of the squeaking. Correction: bat, singular. How odd.

The squeaking stopped. A breeze sweep through the cave, brushing her gold-red hair off her shoulders.

Moments later, she was wrapped up in a tight hug.

“You came!”

Victoria stepped back to look at her. Holly self-consciously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and pushed her glasses farther up her nose.

“I’m so glad you came!” Victoria squeaked. “You look beautiful. Craigslist is so hit-or-miss – you never know… You could’ve been a serial killer. Or a Trump supporter. Or a Mormon.”

She shuddered, imagining those possibilities.

Huh.

Holly looked her up and down. Victoria was just as she’d described herself – long, black hair flowed down her back, and crystal-blue eyes shone in a pale face. Her little black dress accentuated every curve, and for a moment Holly was distracted. Blushing, she forced herself to focus.

Dark hair. Pale skin. A bright smile with unusually sharp teeth. And the bat that had mysteriously disappeared.

Holly gulped, dropping Victoria’s hand, which seemed to have found its way into hers.

“You’re not a … are you?”

Gulp.

“Are you a vampire?”

“‘Course I am. Is that going to be a problem?”

“I…. don’t know.”

And she didn’t know. She’d dated goth girls before, but a real vampire? This was uncharted territory.

Victoria’s face turned serious.

“You’re not one of those people, are you?” she asked. “Because you seemed really sweet and open-minded when we were emailing. I’d hate to think you’re the kind of person who discriminates based on stupid old stereotypes.”

Holly paused. Was she that kind of person? She thought of the marches she’d attended, toting brightly-colored homemade signs. She hadn’t thought she was….

Victoria looked hurt. She sat on the edge of the grotto, dunking her feet into the water, stirring it with her toes.

“My family doesn’t understand me. They think my romantic preferences are ‘unnatural’.”

She air-quoted the last word with her fingers.

“They think I’ll get over it eventually,” she continued. “I mean… I’m 107 years old – I’m not a child. And you can’t help who you love.”

Holly couldn’t help sympathizing. Her family had been understanding when she’d come out in high school, but she knew a lot of people hadn’t been as lucky. And a disapproving family that was functionally immortal was probably much worse than regular disapproving parents.

She sat down next to Victoria, and covered the woman’s hand with hers.

“I’m sorry. My family has always been accepting of my relationships with women. It must be hard when your family doesn’t understand you.”

Victoria looked up with a confused smirk.

“Women? My family is cool with women. They don’t understand my need to have relationships with humans. They’re all ‘stop playing with your food’ and ‘why can’t you settle down with a nice Yeti?’ My relationship with Wendy the Wendigo ended decades ago, and my mom is still harping on about her.”

She pitched her voice higher, mimicking her mother.

“Wendy was soooo nice’, ‘Wendy was sweet’, and ‘Why doesn’t Wendy come around anymore?’” She rolled her eyes. “Wendy was a sociopath. She’d go from nice and sweet to wanting to tear your head off in thirty seconds. You can’t have a relationship with someone like that.”

Holly nodded. She’d had ex-girlfriends like that, although hers hadn’t been capable of physically tearing someone’s head off, so maybe it was different.

Victoria met her eyes and smiled. Holly thought she had a beautiful smile, extra-sharp incisors aside.

“You can’t help who you love,” Victoria said again.

That much, Holy knew, was true.

Victoria was gorgeous. She was clever and funny. And she wasn’t a Mormon or a Trump supporter.

Just how high were Holly’s standards if she was willing to let this woman slip away?

She shrugged.

So what if Victoria wasn’t human?

Nobody was perfect.

Story # 3

Hello all,

(If I may be so bold as to consider whoever is reading this as ‘all’)

This is the third (and final) story resulting from the pre-round practices, done as a sort of rehearsal for the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Competition. Prompt at the end. I hope you enjoy:

 

That the day was rainy and drab could not be helped. Alice had made the plans for this day so long ago that she had felt it would never come – certainly a little rain wasn’t going to stop her.

She had an umbrella if she needed it, and some of those new kind of galoshes – the oversized things slid on over one’s shoes. They were rather difficult to walk in, but at least they’d keep her feet out of the wet.

More’s the pity that they didn’t make the things in children’s sizes. Little Oliver would have to do without. She rather suspected he’d enjoy it – the four-year-old liked playing in mud more than anyone had a right to, and although the carriage ride home would be an absolute mess, at least he’d enjoy himself.

At least someone would enjoy themselves. Alice certainly wouldn’t.

She looked at the elderly Russian woman sitting in the seat opposite, quietly gazing out the window at the slanting rain. With frizzy, graying hair wrapped in a red scarf to keep off the rain, a rather unfashionable patched dress, and old boots that appeared to be more hole than boot, she was not exactly a vision to inspire confidence. But Alice’s friends had sworn by her services, whispering secrets in parlors – saying she had told them things she could never have known if her powers were not real.

Madame Anya had claimed that in order to contact Walter’s spirit, she would need to see the place where he had passed. And although it would cost an outrageously large sum to rent a carriage and driver, on top of Madame’s exorbitant fees, Alice decided to do it. She would’ve walked through Hell and back to speak to Walter again. Renting a carriage was, to put it mildly, an inconvenience compared to that.

Taking Madame Anya to the location of Walter’s death was not as difficult as it seemed. Although service in the Union army had dragged Walter halfway around the country, it had also, rather unfortunately, dragged him back home again. Walter died in the mud at Gettysburg, a scant few miles from the town where he’d been born, and where his wife and unborn child waited for his return.

This was the first time she’d been to the battleground. Even when President Lincoln had come to give his speech there, she couldn’t bring herself to come. She hadn’t wanted to see it.

Even now, she didn’t particularly want to see it, but the psychic had been specific about her peculiar terms, and so … here they were. The hour-long carriage ride had turned into two with the rain and the muddy roads, but they had finally arrived.

Alice awkwardly climbed down from the carriage, grasping the driver’s hand and trying not to slip in the mud in her big, galoshed feet. Madame Anya followed, less awkwardly, and without so much as a wince at the mud filling her shoes.

Ollie just jumped down from the carriage, eager to start splashing.

Alice winced a little, anticipating the mess she’d have to clean up later. She supposed she shouldn’t have brought Ollie – this was not a trip for a child. But if there was something of Walter still lingering here, she wanted him to see his son. Walter had been pressed into service just after she’d fallen pregnant – they hadn’t even had time to use their wedding china before he was gone.

Now the war was over, and he was never coming home.

Alice looked around the field. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. A field where the grass was still red with blood, maybe, still strewn with corpses and the weapons of the fallen. She shook her head at her own silliness. Of course there wouldn’t be any sign of the slaughter that had taken place here years ago… It was just an empty field now.

Behind her, Madame Anya began humming, almost as though she was singing to the field.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I feel many presences here. So many violent deaths. So many young men, lost.”

She closed her eyes and reached her arms out, like she was playing some strange version of Blind Man’s Bluff.

“Yessssss.” Her voice was hoarse, emphasizing the thick Russian accent, and the word ended on a hiss. “The spirit of your Wendell is very strong here.”

Alice gave her a sharp look.

“Walter,” she corrected.

“Yes, yessss, of course…. Walter.”

She tilted her face up to the sky, a small smile on her face, as though the rain were a gift from heaven.

“He is here,” Madame Anya intoned. She rolled the r. Her accent seemed to grow thicker by the second. “He is standing right here beside me. He wants me to tell you how verrry much he lufs you and ze little one. How much he misses bose of you.”

She lowered her head again to face Alice.

“Really?” Alice said.

She was eager for word from Walter. Any word, really, so long as she could know that he was happy and peaceful on the other side, wherever that was.

“Rrrreally,” Madame Anya said. “He iss smiling down on ze little one now. He says that he isss glad zat little Oliver has such beautiful brown eyes, just like his Papa, so zat perhaps when Oliver looks at you, you may see a little bit of Wallace peeking through.”

“Walter,” Alice corrected again, a bit absent-mindedly this time. She did not bother mentioning that Walter had blue eyes.

She was, at this point, relatively certain that Madame Anya was a huckster, just trying to weasel money out of a grieving widow. Oddly, she wasn’t as bothered by that as she should be.

Just because Madame Anya wasn’t real didn’t mean Walter’s spirit wasn’t out there somewhere, she decided. It didn’t mean his spirit wasn’t happy or safe, tucked away in heaven. All it meant was that Madame Anya was a con artist. And Alice was fine with that. She’d pay the old woman and send her on her way.

“Yesss, Walter,” Madame Anya nodded. “He isss coming through so strong. He wants you to know that he is happy – that he is at peace. He will alwaysss be wiz you, and wiz your leetle boy. He will alwaysss be watching over you.”

Madame Anya took a deep breath and continued.

“He wishes you to remember him as he was, when you were together. He wishes you to remember ze deep red roses he brought you when you were courting, and to remember his love for you, always.”

Walter had never brought her roses. He knew she hated the cloying, sweet scent of them. Instead, he’d brought her paper flowers, spending hours folding and refolding newspaper sheets until he had a black-and-white bouquet. She’d pressed the flowers, and they were now safely in a drawer in her bedroom. Those flowers, and Oliver, were all she had left of Walter. She wasn’t about to lose them. She also wasn’t about to tell Madame Anya about them.

Madame Anya dramatically drew a hand across her forehead.

“I am spent,” she said. “It takes much energy to channel a spirit, especially one so strong as your Watson. I must retire to the carriage.”

Alice did not turn to watch the old woman climb into the carriage.

What a waste of time this had been. At least she’d finally gotten to see this place.

Maybe she was a fool for believing there was anything here for her.

She felt a tear slide down her cheek as she looked around the empty field, which was silent save for Oliver splashing around merrily.

“I don’t know if you’re here,” she whispered. “But if you are, know that I love you with all my heart. I always will.”

She wiped away the tears and called Oliver back to her. She was, after all, just a foolish woman, standing in an empty field, talking to no one, and there was plenty to do at home.

The carriage clip-clopped out of the field on its way home, drawn by two strong, chestnut horses.

Behind it, ghostly fingers swept the tall grass.

A pale figure in a military uniform, all but unseen against the gray sky and vivid green grass, stood in its wake.

Walter would never return home. Would never hold his wife again and tell her he loved her. Would never see his little boy grow into a man.

But he had seen his beautiful wife. Had heard her whispered words, telling him she still loved him, even after all this time. Had seen his child, happy and healthy and strong.

And maybe, as the figure silently faded away, that was enough.

 

Prompt:

Genre: Romance

Object: Galoshes

Place: Gettysburg

 

Pre-Contest Prompt #2

This was the result of another pre-round round with friends from my writing group. I wrote another one for this prompt as well: that one to follow soon. Since this one is a little more cheerful than both the preceding and following stories, I thought I’d sandwich it in the middle. I didn’t cut this one down to 1,000, like I usually do, because I liked it the way it was and because it wasn’t ‘officially’ for the contest, so I kinda didn’t have to. As usual, prompt will be posted after the story. Enjoy:

 

 

Apparently, completing her doctoral thesis did not qualify as a ‘job.’ At least, it didn’t count as much as Alison’s ‘real’ office job, where Alison had an all-day conference that she couldn’t miss.

That was why Anna was currently bumping along on a bus full of nine-year-olds, one of whom was her nephew, Aidan.

The morning had not started out well. She awoke to gloomy, drizzly, not-quite-rain and groaned, pulling herself out of bed, and forcing herself to get dressed.

She looked at the drizzle, and then looked down at the outfit she’d managed to slap together. Black pencil skirt, red t-shirt and… galoshes. The field trip to Gettysburg was going to happen rain or shine. She wasn’t about to traipse around a muddy field in heels, and she was too lazy to change.

It didn’t help that Aidan, normally well-behaved when she encountered him, was actually a tiny terror.

She’d been chatting with the other chaperons when Aidan decided he had a burning question to ask her. He not-so-gently tugged on her skirt, pulling it down. He would’ve pantsed her in front of the other adults and his entire fourth grade class, had her reflexes been a tiny bit slower.

Five minutes into the bus ride he’d managed to turn his juicebox into a projectile, squirting his classmates with apple juice, water-cannon style.

It was going to be a long day.

The entire class trooped off of the bus, dutifully standing in their assigned groups of eight, as they waited for tickets into the battleground. She looked down as they waited, glad of her galoshes. It hadn’t rained that day, but it had for three days prior, and the ground was soup.

Each group was assigned a tour guide to take them around, and explain the history of the place.

She’d expected an old man, feather-haired and demonstrably patriotic. Anna was pleasantly surprised – their tour guide was cute. Tall and lean, with dark hair cut short, and blue eyes that blazed through the grayness of the day, he was – well, maybe he was enough to make up for how bad this day was turning out to be.

His voice was soothing, a mellow baritone that somehow still managed to make itself heard over the squabbling children, tourist families and the general noise of the place.

And what he was saying was actually interesting. Despite having grown up in the area, Anna hadn’t retained any actual knowledge of Gettysburg. Maybe she’d blocked it out, she thought, the way kidnapping victims block out traumatic events.

They were at the first stop of the tour, listening, when Anna heard “Auntie! Look! A cannon!”

Shit.

She turned, only for her jaw to drop in horror. Down the field from where they were standing, another guide was doing a demonstration on how to load – and fire – a real cannon. And Aidan had taken off, running right towards it.

“He’s not even my kid,” she muttered under her breath, and began to give chase.

She ran as fast as she could – nine-year-olds, it turns out, can be surprisingly fast. She could hear nothing but the slap of her boots against the mud and the blood pounding in her ears. Finally, she caught up to him, managing to wrap a hand around his bicep.

She was too winded to say anything, just panting for a few moments with her other palm resting on her knee.

Finally, she managed to gasp “Stay… With … the … Group,” and dragged him back toward the rest of the children.

That was when she looked down, only to see one boot, and one mud-spattered, blue-nail-polished foot.

In the running, the sucking mud must have pulled off one of her galoshes.

With as much dignity as she could muster, still keeping ahold of Aidan, she step-squelched back to the group.

The tour guide looked her mud-covered form up and down before speaking, blue eyes dancing.

“I believe this belongs to you,” he said, offering her the bright fuchsia galosh.

“Yeah, thanks,” she accepted the boot and slipped it back on, cheeks burning bright red.

She was grateful when they reached the final stop of the guided tour – the prerecorded movie on the history of Gettysburg. The kids meandered in, plopping down on the wooden benches that lined the small, dark room, and tiredly, she collapsed onto the bench beside them.

They were a few minutes into the film when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She looked up, to find that same tour guide looking down at her.

Quietly, he said, “I believe this belongs to you.”

He gestured to Aidan, standing behind him, looking not the least bit ashamed.

“We found him trying to grab one of the swords out of the hands of a mannequin in the diorama,” he explained.

“Aidan…” she growled, shoving him onto the bench beside her. “Stay. With. The. Group.”

Dammit.

“You know,” the tour guide said. “You really should keep closer track of your son.”

“He’s not my son, he’s my nephew,” she said distractedly, eyes still on Aidan.

She looked back up at him, suddenly aware of how close he was standing. She had to look up at him – at 5’4, pretty much everyone was taller than her, but he was especially so….. And, was he blushing?

She grinned at him.

“Well, then…” he said. “Still… anyway.”

Seeming to think that was enough, he gave her an awkward nod and retreated.

The rest of the day was a nightmare.

At lunch, he decided to get creative with his pudding, creating ‘art’ on the tabletop. After lunch, he attempted to climb or destroy any exhibit they were shown. When it was time to get back on the bus, he ran away from the group, declaring that he was going to ‘run away and become a pirate!’

Clearly, none of the history had penetrated his brain, nor the fact that they were nowhere near the ocean.

Anna gave chase again, this time sliding on the floor and scraping her knee before managing to wrangle the tiny terror.

The other chaperons kindly decided to spare her the ride back to school. She could get patched up and then call herself an Uber. The solitary ride home, it seemed, was her reward for surviving a day of Aidan.

One of the elderly female tour guides approached her with a first aid kit. She sat, letting herself be doctored, as the lady swabbed her knee with rubbing alcohol and got out the bandaids.

She felt a tap on her shoulder.

“I believe this belongs to you,” he said, offering her a steaming paper cup.

“Does it?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah. I think after a day like that, you’ve probably earned a Nobel peace prize, but all I’ve got is a cup of cocoa.”

She accepted it, wrapping her hands around it and blowing gently on the contents.

“But it has cinnamon in it,” he added.

“Oh. If it has cinnamon in it, then it’s better than a Nobel prize. I hear those are just plain chocolate. And that they’re hollow inside, like those cheap chocolate Easter bunnies.”

He laughed. It was a nice sound. Soothing, after a day full of raucous children.

“I’m Jack,” he said, sliding onto the bench beside her.

“Anna,” she replied, taking a sip.

“I don’t quite know how to phrase this,” he said. “But I think I’d like to see you again, somewhere without screaming children or mud. Would you like to have dinner sometime? With me?”

“I’d love to.”

Maybe this wasn’t such a bad day after all.

 

Prompt:

Genre: Romance

Object: Galoshes

Place: Gettysburg

Pre-Contest Prompt 1

Hello all,

Quite frankly, I don’t know if there’s anyone reading this blog, but I shall continue to address you as ‘all’ since it at least makes me feel like I’m speaking to someone and not merely addressing the ether.

If anyone’s been reading my previous couple of posts, you’ll know that I’ve entered the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Competition. Competition information here:

http://www.nycmidnight.com/Competitions/FFC/Challenge.htm

I’ve also conned a couple of friends from my writer’s group into participating in the contest with me. As a result of that, we decided to do a few pre-contest warm up prompts, so that everyone could get acclimated to writing flash.

These were written well over a month ago, but I’ve only just gotten round to posting them now (judge me if you wish).

This is the first one we did, and it’s not my favorite, but maybe someone else will like it more than I do… I’ll share what the prompt was at the end:

The first settlement on Mars was supposed to be peaceful. Our parents came armed with medicine and books, and hope, that this planet could be a happier one than the Earth they had left behind.

Earth sent its teachers, doctors, and artists. And for a while, it worked.

In the end, it wasn’t enough.

One little spore.

One little spore became one not-so-little virus, creeping into people’s lungs, turning them hollow-eyed and weak. The virus invaded bodies, turning lungs to liquid. We watched our parents gasp for breath as they died.

Children born on Mars had inborn immunity, so we were lucky, in a way.

In other ways, we weren’t so lucky.

The virus spared some adults. But those who survived were altered by it. From those who died, the virus took their ability to breathe. From those who survived, it took their humanity. We watched neighbors become monsters, stripped of kindness and compassion. There was nothing left but rage and greed.

Sara and I were fortunate in another sense – our parents were botanists. They’d built our home away from town, far enough to have a garden. This far from town, no one came looking for us.

For a while, we were ok. We survived on food our parents left behind, and what we could gather from the garden at night – it wasn’t safe during the day.

Eventually our luck, and our food, ran out.

I watched as Sara grew gaunt. She’d always been thin, but now hollows grew beneath her cheeks.

I had to do something. I had to take care of her.

Sara was the beautiful one. With cornsilk blonde hair, bright blue eyes and long, coltish legs, she was always the center of attention. She’s beautiful in a way that I could never hope to be, with my rough, sand-colored curls and stubby frame.

Whenever I complained to Mom, she’d say that I was a cactus and Sara was a rose. They’re both beautiful, but the rose wears its beauty on the outside, while hiding its thorns. The cactus has beauty too, but the first thing you see are spikes. The beauty hides within. I didn’t think cacti could be beautiful. I didn’t believe her until she showed me pictures of cacti on earth, blooming with bright blossoms in the desert.

In that, as in so many things, she was right. Now she was gone. And I was the only one left to protect her rose.

I crept out in the darkness, determined to find food if it killed me, and thinking that it just might. I slipped into one of the houses that ringed the town square.

It was empty.

I was grateful.

I took a pillowcase and started grabbing whatever food I could find.

That was when I saw the light glinting through the windows.

A bonfire lit the square, with some sort of creature roasting over a spit. My jaw dropped. Our settlement had always been vegetarian… I shuddered to think where they’d gotten meat. The men who sat by the fire were rough and red-eyed, mindless in a way I didn’t think humans could be.

They were the only ones in the square – wait.

They weren’t.

I saw children hiding in the shadows. All of them, toddlers to almost-not-quite teenagers, verging on adulthood, huddled together. I could see their eyes, wide with hunger and fear. Firelight glinted off of the chains that bound them.

Where were the teenagers? Girls my age… Where had they gone?

Then I looked up.

Figures stood in the windows of the houses around the square, so thin that they were barely visible against the darkness behind them. They were hollow-eyed, with stringy hair hanging around their faces. Their eyes held something else too – a kind of sorrow, resignation to misery for what little remained of their lives.

Looking at them, my stomach clenched. I would’ve thrown up if there had been anything left in my stomach.

I backed away from the window.

But it was too late.

They’d seen me.

I ran, sprinting off the road and into the foliage, hoping darkness would hide me.

I tripped on an unseen root, tumbling over my own feet. I landed on my right knee with a crack. I kept myself from crying out, biting my tongue until it bled.

I held my breath as I heard them run past me. Whatever the virus had done to them, it also made them simple-minded – they didn’t think to look beyond the path. They returned a few minutes later. They didn’t seem any fonder of the dark than I was and quickly retreated to the comfort of their fire.

With a shiver, I realized that they didn’t need to chase me. They already knew where we were hiding.

I couldn’t stand. Pain overwhelmed me every time I tried. I spent the rest of the night dragging myself through the grass. Slowly, painfully, I made my way home.

Sara helped me into the house just before dawn.

I told her what happened.

We watched the sunrise. We’d nailed slats over the windows weeks ago, knowing this day would come. Rosy light shone on the floor, peering through gaps in the wood.

Sara said nothing, but collected whatever sharp things she could find, lining our small arsenal up on the floor at our feet.

They were coming.

The sun was burning bright red stripes across the floor when we heard it. The thunder of their boots like an approaching storm. Their voices melded together into a mindless roar.

I looked at Sara. I expected to see tears in her eyes, but her face was dry, and her eyes were cold.

I grabbed a knife and tried to rise, but crumpled back to the floor when I tried to put weight on my leg.

I had failed.

I couldn’t protect my little sister.

I couldn’t even stand.

She took a knife in each hand, stood and gave me a grim smile.

“Time to show my thorns.”

 

Prompt:

Genre: Horror
Location: Mars
Object: Cactus

 

To anyone who is actually reading: thank you.

Dragon Gate

As promised, this is the other story I wrote for Round 1 of the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Competition. I chose to submit the other one because I felt it was closer to my assigned genre. I haven’t changed this story at all since I wrote it. I have since learned that some dragons in Chinese mythology have deer antlers… that would’ve been nice to know going in, lol. Without further ado, the story:

 

 

 

 

They say that there’s no magic left in the world. I wish that they were right.

I learned the hard way, on the night that he broke me. I won’t say I wasn’t drawn to him. There was always something about him. A glimmer. A shine. Not that there were many men to choose from on my father’s fishing farm, but he always stood out.

The girls used to whisper about him in the darkness. About how he had power. They said he’d been born with deer antlers, sprouting right out of his head as an infant, and that his family had to cut them off, so he could be normal, so that he could hide his magic.

I didn’t believe in magic, and when the female employees gossiped in the darkness of the dormitory, I told them to stop their useless chatter.

But I would be lying if I said I didn’t go to his bed willingly.

It was only after, when I lay there, broken, bruised, bleeding, inches from death, that I knew the truth of it. He did have magic. And he used the last of it on me.

He smiled down on my broken, bleeding form, and whispered words in a language that I could not recognize.

Suddenly, I was not myself. And there was no air. I flapped and flopped, struggling against the wooden floor of his hut. He opened the door, kicking me across the deck, and into the tank with the rest of the fish. My blood filtered through the water like red ribbons in the moonlight.

“Good night, little fish,” he said, closing the door to the wooden hut, leaving me in the cold, wet, overcrowded darkness with the rest.

No one would notice an injured fish, let alone one of thousands in a tank. I was meant to gasp my final breaths in that water. To die quietly, like a good girl.

It was then that I did something he did not expect: I lived.

 

******

 

I furl my wings as I land on the waters of my former home. It was on these docks that I played, when I was a little girl. This is where I kicked my feet into the water and felt the little fish in the tanks sucking on my toes. This is where I laughed and played and grew.

This is where I nearly died. And it is not my home anymore. He made sure of it.

I am silent as I step onto the dock in front of his hut. These are the same wood planks I stood on, not so long ago, as he kissed me. I remember smiling against his mouth, butterflies filling my stomach at the anticipation of what was to come.

Now there are no butterflies. There is the silence of the night, and the darkness of the water. And there is my hand upon the doorknob, as I open the door and enter his home, quiet as a nightmare.

I stroke gentle fingers down his cheek to wake him. He blinks, trying to focus, and his sleepy eyes meet mine.

He has no more magic. The glimmer that was once in his eyes is gone now, but I bet the women still chase after him anyway.

“Do you know what happens to fish when they leap over the falls of the Yellow River at Dragon Gate?” I ask him, the knife shining silver in my hand.

I don’t wait for an answer.

“Sometimes,” I tell him, “They fall. But sometimes, we fly.”

I unfurl my wings as I plunge the knife into his heart. He gasps. His lifeblood seeps out, staining my fingers the deep purple of mulberry wine, and I smile.

 

******

 

Gentle hands stroke my skin as I open my eyes. When I see her face, I think I must still be dreaming. She’s dead. She can’t be here. Her face is perfect – smooth, pale skin and dark, almond-shaped eyes that used to crinkle at the edges when she smiled. She isn’t smiling now. Her long, black hair frames her face like a curtain, and her dark eyes blaze.

It is then that I see the knife, gleaming silver in her clenched fist. I can feel my eyes widen as she unfurls wings. They are enormous, filling the span of the room behind her. They are black as night. They are black as vengeance. They are black as death.

They are dragon’s wings. My little fish is a fish no longer.

“Do you know what happens to fish when they leap over the falls of the Yellow River at Dragon Gate?” she asks. “Sometimes, they fall. But sometimes, we fly.”

I see the knife rise for a moment, before it plunges into my chest. I see her smile. And then the whole world is fire.

 

******

 

I can see the flames from the burning hut reflected on the water as I leap, shifting form as I do, spreading my wings and soaring through the skies above my former home.

There is magic in the world. It destroyed me. And then it gave me vengeance.

 

 

Writing Prompt:

Genre: Horror

Location: A Fish Farm

Object: Deer Antlers

(Please note: I do not own the accompanying image, nor do I know who drew it. I merely saw it and thought it was beautiful. Much praise to whoever created it)

 

 

 

Group 31: Shui Gui

I actually wrote two stories on this prompt. This is the one I submitted. Without further ado, here’s the story:

 

The rain pelted down in needle-like drops. He could feel each and every one through the thin material of his t-shirt as soon as he stepped out the door.

He muttered something disgruntled, in the way that only teenagers can, making it somehow indecipherable and insulting at the same time.

“What was that?” Hui An called.

“Nothing, Hou Ma!” he called back.

How could she hear him all the way from the kitchen? He shook his head. He used to think wicked stepmothers were a thing of fairy tales. That was until Dad decided to marry Hui An. What kind of woman would send a kid out at night, in the pouring rain, to check on fish tanks?

What was she doing in the kitchen that was so important, anyway? Probably her nails. He rolled his eyes.

Xiao Zhang tried to pull his t-shirt up to cover more of his neck and failed miserably. The shirt would be sopping wet in a minute anyway. Far be it for Hui An to give him an umbrella – that would mean actually thinking about someone other than herself for once.

He walked through the woods behind the house, taking a shortcut to the river, where they kept the tanks that constituted their small fish farm.

He heard hoof beats behind him and turned, finding himself almost nose-to-nose with a huge deer, antlers soaring above its head like a strange crown. Zhang held his breath. The animal’s dark, liquid eyes held immeasurable sadness. It felt almost like a warning. And then it was gone, leaping gracefully into the wet, rainy darkness between the trees.

He shook off the lingering creepiness left in the deer’s wake. It was just an animal looking for shelter in the rainstorm, he reasoned, as he continued through the forest. The sucking mud clung to his sneakers with every step, almost as though it was trying to slow him down.

He wrapped his arms around himself as best he could and tried not to shiver as he walked along the river. She had, of course, insisted that he check the pH levels on the tank farthest from the house, to make sure the rain wasn’t upsetting the acidity of the water.

That tank had been giving Dad trouble. The pH levels jumped all over the place. Every day they’d find handfuls of fish floating belly-up. The workers refused to check that tank. They claimed that part of the river was haunted by an evil spirit or some such nonsense.

He chuckled. There was no such as evil spirits. His mama had told him those silly stories when he was little. They were the sorts of stories you told children to get them to sleep at night. You told them about things ‘haunting the night’ so that the brats would just stay in bed. When he was little, he’d believed in that junk.

Spirits were no more real than wicked stepmothers. He might crack jokes about Hui An behind her back (sometimes not very far behind her back), but he knew she wasn’t evil. She was shallow and stupid, which can be just as bad sometimes, but she wasn’t evil.

He’d stopped believing in those little-kid stories the day his mother died.

And if someone needed to check the pH balance of that tank, in the dark, in the pouring rain, he’d do it, and no imaginary evil spirits were going to stop him.

He pulled the test strip out of his pocket and knelt by the riverbank, ignoring the way the mud sucked at his jeans, and stuck the strip into the water.

The pH was normal. Her majesty would be pleased to know that.

He took one more look at the water before getting up to go home and found that he couldn’t. Get up, that is. The face that looked back at him held him transfixed.

It was a girl.

A beautiful girl, with long dark hair that spread out around her face, drifting through the water like ribbons of night. Tears streamed down his cheeks unbidden, mirroring the depths of sadness he saw in her black eyes.

Palms pressing into the mud, he leaned closer to her, his face just inches away from the water’s surface. The water was smooth as glass, and he could see her face perfectly.

“Shui Gui,” he whispered, naming the spirit.

The words came from the fog of his childhood memories, from the stories his mama had told him so long ago.

The girl smiled at him, but the smile did not touch the weight of the sadness in her eyes. Pale hands reached out of the water, grasping his shoulders.

It was his first kiss. It would be his last.

Her lips were cold against his as she pulled him into the water, dragging him, down, down, inexorably down into the dark depths.

 

******

 

Hui An heard the door slam just as she finished applying top coat.

“Finally!” she called out. “Took you long enough!”

She had no idea what her lazy, good-for-nothing stepson had been doing all that time, and she didn’t care, as long as he’d done what she’d asked, for once.

“Did you check it?” she yelled.

She examined her nails carefully, blowing on them gently as he walked into the kitchen.

“Yes, Hou Ma,” he said. “It was fine.”

“Ok. Great.”

He gave her a small smile before walking out of the room.

Huh, she thought. Maybe the kid was finally learning some respect.

She didn’t notice the new blackness in his eyes – a strange depth that hadn’t been there before. Nor did she notice the silence of his steps. His were the kind of quiet footsteps you wouldn’t hear entering your bedroom in the middle of the night.

But, of course, she didn’t notice.

Hui An returned to the task at hand – admiring her newly-polished nails, with a self-satisfied smile on her face.

 

 

 

Genre: Horror
Location: A fish farm
Object: Deer Antlers

Character Count: 997