This is June week one entry-- Ranch

( 'Someday...' )

This is my entry for week one-- digging


I’m used to it by now-- all this diggin’ .  But desert, it’s purty loose to begin with.  ’specially makeshift graves stationed along the road.  Sometimes I look down the road and wonder what happened to the people who buried fellas like this one.  I think, maybe I’ll be diggin' them up soon too.  

I’m getting closer to the body, so it’s time to ease up on the shovel.  Wouldn’t wanta hurt him.  Now, keep yer gun out and hang onto it, off to the side, while I uncover his face first with one hand.  See his eyes fluttering like that-- an’ his lips gaspin’ like he’s a damn fish outta water?  He’s prolly been awake on an’ off for a while.    

‘How do ya feel?’  

‘Sicker than I ever felt.’

‘Being dead’ll do that to a man.  Careful, there; quit that flailin’.  You’ll waste yer strength.’  This is the toughest, sometimes, gettin’ ’em to settle down enough for me to talk.  ‘I’ll need to ask you a few questions, friend.  Yeah, ya can sit up.  Just no sudden moves.  Now.  I need to know.  Is it in ya, boy?’  Direct.  There’s no other way to be with ’em. Well, I s’pose you could be sneaky and the like, but it would take too long to figure out what you need to know.  

‘Yessir.  I can feel it burrowin’ down in my soul, but I been fightin’ it.’

‘How do I know ya ain’t foolin’ me, huh?’

‘I dun’ even know what the hell is goin’ on here, ya old coot.  I’m tellin’ you the goddamned truth!’  

I can tell by his eyes, he’s lyin’.  Whatcha gotta do with these is shoot the top half of their head clean off.  Then kick dirt over him or something,’ kid.  Ya can’t jus’ leave ‘em lying there-- show some respect.  Not right to leave a body exposed, even now.  ’specially now.         

That’s how I found ya, as ya might recall.  Can ya tell the diff’rence between you and him?  He let that demon take over, while you been wrestling the damned thing… course, that don’t make you any less damned yerself, but you got a special soul.  I swear though, them demons is getting smarter.  Ya see how that one tried to trick me?  They didn’t used to do that.  

Geez, I been at this fer ages, diggin' up the good an' the evil alike since all this started... it can tire a man out, ya know.

What say ya dig out the next one for me, eh?     

This is my entry for December, week one-- unity

( The wedding party proceeded merrily across Old Mesilla plaza... )

This is my entry for November, week three-- limelight

a/n: Uh.  At least I rid us of the couple from the previous two entries. 


She looked up at the clock that hung in the hallway, right before she swept underneath it, black pea coat flaring behind her.  11:15am. Five minutes late for class.  Perfect.  Stopping before the classroom door, she yanked the earphones from her ears and reached, automatically, to adjust the strap of the messenger bag she hadn’t brought with her today, her hand hovering awkwardly in the air for a moment.  She compensated for the odd gesture by reaching for the doorknob.   

The professor had them arrange the little desks into a circle sometimes; this was the case today.  She hated that circle.  All these people with pretentious things to say about poetry that wasn’t really poetry were bad enough, but that damn circle made her feel so exposed.

She was interrupting class-- she didn’t sit down, and they began to stare.  The professor’s patronizing gaze found her.  ‘Care to join us, Ms. Reed.’  It wasn’t a question.  She hesitated.  The eyes of the entire class were on her now.  She rarely-- if ever-- spoke in this class, and when she did, it was low, quiet, and meek.  She nearly froze.  She nearly sat down obediently.   

‘Not particularly, Greeley.’  She tried to speak boldly.  In her real voice.  She wanted these people to hear it.  She removed her coat and tossed it over a chair, revealing, of all things, a shoulder holster containing a six-shot revolver.  She drew the gun and perched on the edge of a desktop.  ‘What do you all think?  About the holster?  Too dramatic?’  She laughed-- a trill in bell-like tones, a sound that did not suit her, or the situation.  ‘I picked it up as part of a Halloween costume one year.  It makes me feel… professional.’  She held the gun loosely in one hand, hanging it relaxed on her lap, and made herself comfortable on the desk, a position of defiance and authority.  She looked around.  No one wanted to say anything.  

The door creaked open; the one chronically late student paused in the doorway.  ‘Oh, Sam.  I’d forgotten about you.  Come on in.’ She gestured with the gun, a flagrant threat.  He adjusted his large glasses in bewilderment, and then chose an empty desk.  

‘Now.’  She started, beginning to enjoy herself.  Pity, she thought, that that was the case.  ‘Does Russian roulette seem too cliché?’  She opened the cylinder absently, and dumped one round into her palm; she spun the cylinder and snapped it shut mid-spin.  ‘This is how it's really played it, you know-- one empty chamber instead of only one loaded.’  She paused.  ‘Wow, what a crowd this morning.  Well, nobody has to worry.  I’m not going to shoot any of you.  I just wanted you all to hear this.  You see, I’ve always been invisible.  Trying not to be noticed, with my head down over this desk, over a hundred desks just like it.  I’ve spend my entire life pushing people away, avoiding physical contact, shoving headphones into my ears and blasting the volume so I don’t have to listen to all the mundane, vapid things going on all around me.  When, inside, I craved it all.  And I’ve spent so long without, now I can’t have any of it.  But I wanted your attention, just for this.’  

She paused, grabbing her coat from behind her to pull a sheaf of letters from the pocket.  ‘Here,’ she said, rising to place the letters in front of the professor.  ‘Greeley, I respect you.  Get these letters to the people on the envelopes, will you?  Or at least someone who will.  I don’t suppose you care whether I leave the few friends I have and my family pointless letters.  But, silly as it may be, I suppose, because I spent so long caring about them, that they ought to have reason, delivered in my own words and sub-par scrawl.’  She walked back to the desk she had claimed, but didn’t sit.  She stood in front of it, toying with the gun.  Almost like she was giving them a chance to say something.  To object, or plead with her to ‘not do it,’ to ‘get some help.’  To tell her that 'everything’s not as bad as all that.'  They didn’t.  There were blank stares all around, withdrawn.  Like Greeley was still lecturing on about some end-of-the-world poem.  He looked at her though.  And it became apparent to her that he could almost understand.  That he grasped enough of the situation-- that maybe he cared.  He was an intelligent man, she’d give him that, and empathetic to boot.  But she didn’t really care about him, or about any of them for that matter.

‘What should my last words be, hmm?  Any takers?’  She grinned at them.  ‘No?  Fine, make them up.  Tell them I said something profound.  Maybe I quoted Keats’ last words or something.’  She looked around one last time, stretching it out.  She raised the gun to her temple.  ‘Jesus, maybe ya’ll are the ones I ought to be shooting.’                

This is my entry for October, week two-- fuel.

( The beat sign read 'Welcome to Reno-Sparks! The Biggest Little City in the World.' )

This is my entry for October, week one--begin with the phrase 'There it goes'


‘There it goes.’  James Rust briefly considered sprinting after the bus, but sat heavily on the bus stop bench instead.  The city hadn't seen the sun for a week and a fine mist of rain was falling-- though it was hovering, really, more than anything else.  It chilled him with the promise of the winter to come and it made the brilliantly colored leaves stick damply to everything; he idly scraped leaves from his right shoe with his left shoe and then repeated the gesture when the leaves from his right stuck to the left.  

‘There what goes?’  The distant voice on the other end of the phone sounded faintly irritated, or maybe amused, he wasn’t sure which.   

‘My life.’  He snorted a laugh and lit a cigarette.  He didn’t want to talk to her anymore.

‘Whatever.  Call me back when you feel like talking rationally.’  

‘Whatever,’ he said to the ringing dial tone.  



He lay on his back on the bed, blowing smoke at the ceiling and listening to his voice mail.  ‘You have eleven new messages.  First message,’ he mimicked the metallic woman’s voice to entertain himself.  

‘Jimmy, call me when’ --‘Message deleted.’  ‘Jimmy, I’m worr…’ --‘Message deleted.’  

Again and again, through eight of the eleven.  The other three were one from his mother and two from a drunken guy he didn’t think he knew.  He dropped his phone to the floor, where it clattered among a pile half-empty, plastic orange bottles.  Count them: One for depression, one for sleepless nights (or maybe that one was generic, not prescription-- or maybe he had one of each), one for a side effect of the anti-depressant, and so on.  He rolled over, and reached for thefloor; he emptied one bottle into another, and put out his cigarette in the empty bottle.  He had been practicing putting them out on his tongue, but it stung today.  

He went to his desk, shoving aside trash, ashes, and untouched food he thought he had wanted when he had fixed it.  His e-mail was mostly junk, but there were a few messages from her.  ‘She didn’t care this much then, why does she care now?’ he asked the harsh blue glow, but he was pretty sure she had cared then; he just didn’t want to think about it.     


It was nearing eleven o’ clock.  He thought about jerking off, just for something to do, really, but then he would just think of her.  He could go to a party, but she would probably be there.  And how would he be?  Would he just be able to be her friend?  Would he beg her to take him back?  Would he get belligerent?  Would he cry?  He didn’t trust himself.

He dug a bottle of wine out from underneath a pile of clothing and papers and decided to go for a walk.  Ending up on one of the city’s many foot bridges, he stood against the rail and chain-smoked.  Light one smoke from another and flick the old one away.  The small colored butt flew filter end over ash into the dark river below.  ‘There it goes,’ he slurred.  He wondered what it would be like to totter on the rail and fall like that, end over end, into the river.  He didn’t think that humans fell like that-- they plopped.  Or flew, if they were lucky.  He began throwing things-- his wine bottle, his phone, his shoes-- into the river, ‘There it goes’ a drunken mantra.  He managed to climb up on the rail and shakily sit; he kicked his dangling feet, aimlessly childlike.  ‘There what goes?’  he asked himself.  ‘My life,’ he answered and snorted another humorless laugh.     

 

So, as you may have noticed, I've been writing in a contest community, brigits_flame, for a few months.  I'd like to invite ya'll to join.  It's really a great place to write, and the people are incredibly friendly.  There's still time to sign up for October, so you should check it out.  And, feel free to ask me, or anyone else, for that matter ((like I said, they're quite friendly!)), if you have any questions. 

EDIT: so, the banner didn't quite work, but I'm working on it.  I think, if you click on the first link, it will take you to the comm, regardless.

<center><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/brigits_flame/"><img src="http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm113/brigits_flame/s328780x240.jpg" Alt="A Brigits_Flame Banner- Click Here to Visit the Community!" title="Click here to visit Brigits_Flame" border="0"></a></center>

This is my entry for September, week two-- Eternal


( eternal )

So, I recently got invited to LinkedIn, a professional networking site, by one of my cousins.  Not that I have a real career or anything, but it looks like a good place to be and build professional connections and get answers to questions and possibly find jobs.  So, anyway, I was thinking of inviting ya'll to join, and for that I need your email addresses.  I probably already have them, or could look them up, but I'm going to be lazy and ask you to post them.  If anyone is interested in at least looking at the site, post your email here and I'll send you an invite.   

This is my entry for September, week one-- mud.

The trees hesitantly drop their autumnal costumes to the ground, scrap by fiery scrap; the air is crisp, and almost smells clean, awash with the scent of recently fallen rain.   A child sits in the small yard as the sun is slowly impaled on the peaks that shelter the sprawling city.  He is waiting for his father to come home.  His mother stands in the doorway, watching.  She would bring him in when the sun sets, but he will insist on waiting up, so she lets him play a little longer.  The day has wound down and a full dinner plate awaits her husband.  She is exhausted, as at the end of every day, but she is content.  So she watches her son, her only baby, who is now nearly five, mainly to see that he stays relatively clean and out of the mud, since he has already had his bath.  He builds little castles of stones and knocks them down, scattering pebbles across the mixed stone walkway.

His mother glances away briefly, in the general direction of down town, where the factories are located, her husband’s workplace included.  He builds automatons and commercial golems for the wealthy.  He, however, works at a slightly superior plant, because he is an Animator.  Something in the way he works, the way he thinks, as if born with a special word in his thoughts, or the way he creates, (no one is quite certain) allows him to animate the golems he makes, and usually, those that others make.  That is harder, but he is very talented.  It is a good natural talent to possess, she reflects; if it were not for that, they would likely be living on the edges of the city, and they would both likely be working for the railroad, laying track for the new steam engines.  He should be home shortly; she even thinks she may see a shadow, far down the road, heading steadily for them.

A delighted giggle from her son draws her back to the yard.  She sighs, for she sees that he has found his way to the mud after all-- he sits in a large puddle, his back toward her.  She starts in his direction, intending to take him inside and wash him up quickly, before his father arrives. 

‘Oh,’ a soft gasp bursts from her previously pursed lips when she sees what has made her boy laugh.  A little golem of soft mud totters from the child’s hands, its limbs and torso running together as it lurches a few inches, then collapses.  The boy’s eyes widen in shock, then well with moisture, surprised by the quick demise of his tiny handmade toy.  The mother scoops her muddy child into her arms, twirling slowly in a joyful circle, her chiming laughter chasing the tears from his eyes.  ‘Oh, my little boy, my brilliant son, wait until your father sees!’                  

this is my entry for August, week three-- canary in a coal mine


They were crouched in the underbrush, squatting in as close to a circle as could be achieved.  She clutched her gun, her arm growing tired with the weight of it.  It seemed that they had been here for hours, scrambling about the rough ground, evading the enemy, and being slowly picked off.  Sweat trickled down her forehead and the back of her neck; she tilted her head and squirmed with her shoulders, as if trying to shed the extra skin of grime.  ‘Canary, are you paying attention?’  She grimaced at the name.  The dwindling team had a sick sense of humor; they had insisted on calling the last of their appointed scouts ‘Canary.’  She returned her eyes to the ground in front of her, where Chief was drawing a 'game plan.'  He also insisted on being code-named ‘Chief;’ the others obliged.  They had lost their original leader much earlier, and Chief was the reason that they had survived this long. 

‘I ain’t complainin’, Chief,’ one of the southern boys, Gimp, drawled, ‘but what’s the use of all these diagrams?  I mean, they been awful quiet for a long time, for all we know, they could be surroundin’ us right now.’  Canary suspected that he exaggerated his accent for effect, seeing as it hadn’t been so pronounced when she had met him.

‘If they were surrounding us, Gimp, we’d all be dead by now.’  Chief snapped.  ‘And if all of you morons would shut up for two seconds, I could finish this plan and we could get going.’ 

‘On another suicide mission, you mean?’  Canary asked.  The other southern boy, Gimp’s brother or cousin, she thought, put out his arm and gave her a shove, nearly sending her into the dirt.  ‘You’re lucky I have such good balance,’ she growled, as she teetered in place.  Chief’s second glared at them both.  Chief finished raking his fingers through the dirt and uttering terse instructions.  ‘Okay, Canary.  You’re up.’ 

She rose slightly from her squat, enough to move her legs, and began to scuttle towards the nearest cover-- a large satellite dish sunk into the ground.  Stooped behind the satellite, she waited for a moment.  The sun was harsher here, and her cover was coated in thick muck; the stench was almost overwhelming.  She pushed her legs onward, knowing that she had a duty to fulfill.  Canary’s job was a mix of scout and decoy; she couldn’t necessarily return to her team and tell them the enemies’ positions, but she could tell them whether it was safe to proceed a certain way and provide some distraction. 

She poked her head around the curving side of the satellite, looking for the clearest, quickest route.  Hissed whispers of  ‘Go on,’ and ‘take one for the team’ came from behind her.  She gritted her teeth.  You signed up for this, she reminded herself.  Not this, another tiny voice retorted as she took off from behind the dish, sprinting towards the next hiding place, a small lean-to that was sure to be slathered in the same goop as the satellite.

Shots immediately sounded from several directions.  She felt one on her upper thigh, as her leg buckled underneath her, and took another to the torso.  ‘Out!’  Canary threw her arms and gun above her head, yelling ‘Out!’ once more after getting hit again. 

‘Canary?’  She heard a voice from where one of her fellows would have gone according to Chief’s ill-fated plan.  But she couldn’t answer; she was supposed to be dead.  Besides, the racket of the returning fire was nearly deafening.  Some of her team was shooting, in vain she supposed, in the direction from which the shots had come.  She trudged off the field, raising her mask.  It was against the rules, but she was dying for a breath of fresh air.  She caught a glimpse of Gimp, doing his best to slink through the trees; he grinned and waved at her.  Rolling her eyes, she plopped down on the ridge with the rest of the dead.  From this vantage point, she could see what she had deduced from the way she had been shot at: her team was nearly surrounded, and the way that they had spread out since she had left was not going to help them.

‘This has got to be the longest paint ball match I’ve ever been in,’ someone in the group said, and there was a general murmur of agreement. 

‘What was that they were calling you?’ One of the other team asked her, his grin apparent even in his words.  They all looked remarkably indistinguishable in their jumpsuits and custom masks.  She glanced at her rag-tag team, arrayed in dirty rental masks, and ill-fitting, paint splattered jeans and t-shirts, clutching old, rented guns. 

‘Oh, nothing,’ she mumbled, while the rest of the line burst into laughter.                                     

This is my entry for August, week one-- shadow of self.

I walk into the bathroom.  I had waited as long as I could, making as few trips per day as possible.  I notice immediately that the sheet I had duct taped over the mirror has fallen from one corner and I avert my eyes.  Snatching up the tape left on the counter for such occurrences, I quickly tape the sheet back up.  But not before I see it there: my own face, grinning maliciously back at me. 

I stand, facing the covered mirror.  It has been nearly two weeks since this started, and I am not accustomed to my brief encounters with it.  I wonder what it is doing now.  Logically, it shouldn’t be doing anything, as the sheet keeps the mirror from reflecting me.  When it is uncovered, it still mimics me perfectly, except for that evil smile, but I know it doesn’t need me in order to move.  It used to follow me around the apartment, but I’ve since foiled that-- the television is perpetually on, so the darkened screen cannot hold a reflection, the face of the microwave covered, and so on.  Now, I suppose, it does nothing but dwell behind that sheet, waiting.  Sometimes I wonder that it cannot come out of the mirror; the duct tape proves to have less hold than I would have expected, and I think it may pick at the edges.   
   
I go back to the living area and sit down, flipping mindlessly through the channels.  It is difficult not to think about it, not to picture that horrible toothy smile, especially at night.  The screen goes black for a few seconds and there it is, looking out at me.  The commercial comes back on and it is gone.  I feel my face, just to make sure I am not smiling.  I unplug the television and put it out on the balcony, braving the few seconds of my reflection in the sliding glass door.  I go back inside; but just as I am about to close the blinds, it does something unexpected.  It does something that I am not doing.  Its hand steadily rises.  It presses a gun to its temple, still grinning.  Belatedly, I realize my own hand has risen to my head and my fingers mimic the shape of the gun.  It is almost impossible to turn my eyes away, but I do, and I sweep the blinds closed.  I imagine I can hear it chuckling.   
   
I sit down on the couch, thinking.  I cannot allow it to taunt me any longer.  I go out to my little storage space, and find my tire iron.  It is there too, on the windows of my car and my neighbors’ cars. 
   
Back in the bathroom, I face the covered mirror again.  Adrenaline floods my system as I reach the iron up to pull down the sheet.  It’s there, smiling away at me.  It has a tire iron too, only it has hooked the iron around the back of its neck and hangs on with both arms, in a very relaxed manner.  I bring the iron up, hesitating out of fear; the smile seems to dare me to do it.  The blunt end lands square on its forehead, not very hard, though hard enough for a couple cracks to spiral out from the blow.  It looks at me for a moment, and though its mouth still smiles, its eyes are briefly stunned.  Then they are laughing again.  It angers me.  I swing harder, and stumble with the effort.  Some of the glass falls out of the mirror.  My head aches a little; I reach my hand up and it comes back bloody.  Infuriated, I glare at the mirror.  Though its face is shattered, it grins.  I heave the tire iron and I swing.  Again, again, again.  It drops the tire iron.  Blood runs in my eyes.  I am too weak to lift the iron anymore.  The tile floor feels cool under my cheek. 

I imagine I can hear it chuckling.        

Check this out:  www.lost.eu/786cb

I got hooked into this 'game' online and figured why not try?  I know this isn't very creative, but I just need to get a start and then I'll try some other stuff.   I've already written the url on a couple dollar bills, but it felt silly.  And slightly illegal.  ((I don't know if  it is or not, but whatever.))  Anyhow, come play. 

This is my entry for July, Week Two-- It hurts when I do this

This is my entry for July, Week One-- Heavy.



She lay in the bed, all the sheets kicked off, as still as if she were sleeping.  In actuality, she was frozen against him in realization.  The weight of his arm around her was usually comforting, warm and heavy and familiar.   Suddenly, it had become too much. 

Life was boring.  It stifled her like the thick, pervasive heat that had draped itself across their sleepy rural city.  Not a month before, the summer had been everything summer was supposed to be-- a couch in the sunny driveway, lemonade, cutoffs, classic rock.  Bonfires when the evenings cooled just enough.  It had been light and lazy, laced with immortality. 

Now... it was the same, but it felt different.  It wasn’t freeing anymore; it threatened to crush her, squeezing her tighter and tighter into a loop of superficiality and purposelessness.  The seeming strangeness of the situation weighed on her-- Why was she so unsatisfied with all the wonderful things she had?     

She ran her fingers lightly over his arm, absently feeling the structure beneath the skin.  Then she shifted it, and moved away.  Suddenly, it was just too heavy.   
   


---
A question for those of you who enjoy editing:  Usually, I'm a grammar and spelling nazi... but for the life of me, I cannot decide if the phrase 'as if she were sleeping' is correct, or if it should be  'as if she was sleeping'.  They both sound really odd to me.  So, anyone?

The consensus seems to be 'as if she were sleeping' --so I'll leave it as is.  Thanks everyone. ^ ^
 
 

This is my intro post for the community bridgits_flame; my journal is 'friends only,' but all my writing for this comm will be public ((obviously)).

So, most people around the internet call me Lila, but my real name is Cat, and I'll answer to either.  Anyhow, I'm a college student studying creative writing, with a full time job in the electronics section at WalMart.  My soon-to-be roommate ((and best friend)) and I have two darling little kitties whose joint purpose is to raise hell and make our lives slightly more... entertaining.

I like to write fantasy, specifically dark urban fantasy, science fiction, and I occasionally try my hand at realistic fiction.  I love to edit and critique too.  Oh, and my absolute favorite author is Jeff VanderMeer. 

Erm... I don't really like writing these type of things, because I always feel like a dork... so that's it, but you can always look at my profile to learn a bit more about me.