And Maybe.....

People clogged up in front of her like a log jam. Why here? Why now? Finally necessity made it impossible to be polite and she started using her elbows. People let her through.

Too late. The calla lily bell was gone.

There was no blue scarf anywhere. Astrid glanced back behind her, in case the girl had turned and gone back in. If she waited too long, and the stupid twit was wandering the streets, the distance between them was stretching and it would be all the more impossible to put things right.

And what would she tell Franklin? Yes, I caught sight of your daughter for all of two seconds and then she started moving as though she were running away from me.

It sounded ludicrous. It was ludicrous. What could the girl possibly be thinking?

Astrid's breath was coming in ragged gasps. She found a bench and sat down to rest and think. What could she do? She couldn't go home without the girl. She couldn't follow Zoe wherever she had half-jogged off to. Would she do the logical thing and come back to the train station? Was the best action to wait right here where no stray niece could go in or out without her noticing?

It was so like Franklin to put her in these kinds of situations. Nothing that had anything to do with her brother ever went smoothly or according to protocol. He was always bending and pushing at the rules and why would it be so hard to imagine that his daughter would do the same?

Why had he been so insistant that she return to the States, especially to her? Why had she not instantly told him to find someone else to take in his wayward daughter? Why had she agreed to put her life in turmoil for the sake of family who didn't really care about being a family?

What if....

Zoe wrote letters as she put more distance between herself and the train station and her late--time speaking, not life speaking--Aunt Astrid.

Dear Aunt Astrid, I got it wrong. I knew I would. I am so sorry. I looked and looked and looked for you.

No way to make that sound convincing.

Dear Aunt Astrid, I have lost your address.
Dear Aunt Astrid, Our train was delayed by snow.
Dear Aunt Astrid, One of those meteors--you know, like the one that killed the dinosaurs-- landed on the tracks.
Dear Aunt Astrid, My father was afraid of you and so am I when I'm not angry with you for what you turned him into.

There was no point in writing a letter. If she wrote a letter it was obvious she knew her aunt's address and therefore was capable of finding her house and taking up residence there as was previously arranged.

Right now, it just didn't seem possible to let that happen.

And From the Other POV

Ah, the old bat was late. What to do?

What was the smart thing to do when one was handed a ticket to freedom?

Zoe looked over the bobbing sea of people one more time, looking for a blue paisley scarf on a 50-something woman who looked like she belonged to the name Astrid. No one fit the tell-tale sign nor the picture in her imagination. Zoe was looking across a sea of brown and black hats and an ocassional scarf of the wrong color. Surely Aunt Astrid would be right here close to the platform, ready and waiting like a spider in a web. Unless... unless...

God was answering her prayer! That could be the only answer. Zoe picked up her suitcase and moved as fast as her layered clothing would permit. She'd look like any other passenger trying to make a connection, instead of someone trying to escape.

The voice in the back of her head said she needed to slow down and think this through, but her fear and relief tangled in the nerves and muscles of her legs that were flying now over the old wooden floor that dipped and rose, like a gentle sea. It was carrying her out. Out and away to a new life without fear.

The Arrival

Astrid spotted the girl from a distance. She was wearing the tell-tale blue scarf they had agreed upon. Astrid watched for what seemed like a long time, long enough for the newcomer to edge into the idea that she’d been already been abandoned here in a strange place. She waited for the beginnings of panic to appear, the pavid countenance so familiar in her own brother. Both were absent in his only daughter.

That didn’t mean the rest of the dreaded family traits weren’t buried underneath the heavy brown coat and layers of who-knows-what underneath that made the young woman look somewhat like a long and slender bell with a homespun scarf wrapped around the handle. What Astrid could see of her face was classically beautiful—large dark eyes, high round cheekbones, smooth skin, full red lips. How unfair that her brother’s child be such a beauty. Well, maybe it wasn’t unfair to the girl’s mother.

When the young woman finished searching the crowds she picked up her single suitcase with purpose and headed for the ticket counter. Even with all the layers and the pull of the heavy bag she moved with liquid grace. Astrid noticed she could follow her scarf though the crowds, not just because of the intense blue, but because the top edge moved above the heads of most of the other people.

Astrid sighed and then straightened her backbone a bit more and started to follow the bobbing blue. She was terribly jostled, and delayed, while the willowy young girl continued to move away from her, past the ticket counter, continuing on. The distance between them increased. Where was the child going?

------------
Generated from: AWAD (from a past unknown date) - pavid (PAV-id) adjective Timid; fearful.

Snippet

She let the main door swing shut behind her and tested to knob to be sure it was still locked, then stood for a few seconds to allow her eyes to adjust. She closed them to help the process along some and let her mind conjure up what the place must have been like when it was truly a house and not eight tiny apartments crammed into a house.

Their hallway was the only place she knew of on the island that was dark. Sun and salt leeched and bleached everything else in sight, except for the alley-like sliver that led to their apartment.

It made perfect sense.

Rather than having the smell of freshly brushed teeth, the air here was full of old cooked cabbage and thick, burnt dust. She hated thinking about what scurried along with her that she couldn't see. Serena had no reason to suspect there were bugs or rodents. They had not seen any in the four months they'd been here. Still, her imagination demanded some leeway.

She slammed the apartment door closed and leaned back against it as though she'd just evaded a person in hot pursuit.

"Pearson!"

Serena slid her backpack from her shoulder and dropped in to the right of the door. She pulled her tam from her head and sent it sailing for the coach. By that time the tabby had made his way in from the bedroom and was about to twine through her legs when she picked him up and scratched under his chin. Together they went over to the green brocade drapes and with a single tug on the string, the material slid away from the window in its own cloud of dust and let the sunshine slant onto the honeyed hardwood floor.

"Let the sun shine in! How was your day?" The cat purred in response while she made her way to the kitchen to find her mother's usual note folded in half and standing like a simple white tent against the deep blue of the tablecloth. She put the cat down and reached for it, then decided to have a snack first. Too much pent-up frustration. She might just as soon tear the note up as read it. No sense in making a bad day worse.

Begin

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius,
magic, and power in it. Begin it now.” -Goethe

This, along with Darcy Pattison's recent blog entries, have me convinced that I need to be creating. I also need to be submitting. Where, oh where, is the balance? I know how good I feel when I've put some creative time in. Perhaps that will lay the groundwork for the persistance, courage and sheer will to get my stuff "out there."

Here goes:

Serena paused on the step for a moment—but not too long—and watched clouds simmer in the sky. There was wind aloft, dragging thin cirrus clouds in one direction, while the winds that blew her hair into a wild tangle sent lower cumulous clouds tumbling toward the north. The watery air reminded her skin of swimming in the dead of summer when the water was bathtub warm. For the first time this spring the buildings and cars and people all took on a hazy look, as though they moved behind a film.

Still the metal doorknob was cold beneath her hand. Her key twisted easily in the lock. This was the only home they’d had where she hadn’t had to push, pull or twist the key in some special pattern for the lock to release. Here a flick (key) and twist (knob) brought easy success. The contrast between the world out there and the one that was hers wasn’t lost on Serena.

It was all she could do to move forward into the anonymous darkness of the hall, instead of turning around on the stoop and right there in broad daylight, indulge in a throat-searing, attention-drawing scream.

Stream-of-Consciousness (Pure Fiction!)

Inside it is still finally. Inside me, inside the room, inside my head. All the rampage is over, all the pain is settling in around the edges and will be steady soon, not so puncture sharp like at the first, but there beneath the drugs to make me comfortable, a reminder that life continues on.

It was touch and go there for awhile. I was out of it but not stupid even then. Thoughts faded in and out and around like a kaleidescope and sometimes melted like swirls of ice cream, but in the back of it all I knew it was a fight, sharp like brine, and so we set about fighting and here we are. Still. Recovering.

I've been here before. Tomorrow there will be the excruciating moments, lovely; they mean life and senses and opportunities that have not left entirely. Not yet. I dread the screaming moments along with the Buggins turn and the nurse it brings to me, some fine young woman who wants more than anything to be home soothing her crying infant, instead of a grown-up who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and really is none of her concern, at least not in the way the baby is.

I understand that, fully, as I drift off to sleep and I vow to be kind to them all, and most of all to myself. Expect nothing, no disappointments. But there's a face that would do more than any pill, any bag dangling from the silver hook, and I dare not ask if I can see it.

From a Skateboard challenge

As posted on the Skateboard newsgroup:
This is from The Write Brain Workbook: 366 Exercises to Liberate Your Writing by Bonnie Neubauer, for the 17th day of the year:

Write a man’s first name
Another man’s first name
An age
Name a body of water
A last name
A setting

Use these six items like blocks and build a story. Start with: The last time I . . .
------------------------------
This is my post:

A man’s first name: Hudson
Another man’s first name: Porter
An age: 92
A body of water: Yost Lake
A last name: Reed
A setting: Railroad tracks

"The last time I will do this..." Hudson mumbled it under his breath, hearing it so that he would not forget. He needed to be fully aware of this last time. With so many other far more important things he'd missed the finale: the last time he picked up his son and held him in his arms; the last time he'd made love to Mabel; the last time he plunged a hoe into a garden of his own. This one he wasn't going to forsake, as though there would be a million more to follow it.

Yost Lake was nothing like it had been. It had been a lake to him back then; now it looked more like a pond. He was fairly certain he was standing about where the tank and pump used to be that moved the water from the lake into the steam engine paused and puffing at the water's edge like a tired runner, on its way across the prairie to more civilized parts. Now it was all civilized, criss crossed with wires and poles, scattered with rooftops. Back then there was nothing but the call of birds, maybe the slap of a beaver's tail, the snort of his horse.

He turned around and looked over the lake toward the bridge on the county road. Off to the left the slap on the water was the flailing arms of children splashing one another as they plunged into the water. A screen door slammed on the building not far from the water's edge. He could smell pepperoni. Probably cost an arm and a leg for a plain cheese pizza these days.

That was enough of a pause. Hudson dug into the pocket of his pants in search of the penny, nickle, dime and quarter he'd put in there. He pulled out a dollar--the new presidential one--and decided it would be appropriate to include that in his little fiftieth-childhood scheme. The gravel slipped under his feet as he scrambled up the embankment, so he slowed a bit. If Porter Reed saw him go down that would be the end of this little escapade. "Escape" was a better description.

Hudson found the rest of the coins and lined them up on the rail of the track, remembering how all those years ago his mother had warned, sternly, him this was illegal. He could see the wisps of her hair sticking to the sweat on her forehead, right above all those little furrows that crossed it with her worry. She honestly believed a police officer somewhere somehow would put her in prison because her son destroyed U.S. currency. Just like his children were sure they would latch him to the bed if he dared leave the nursing home under his own steam to do what he wanted to do. It was all so ludicrous, that people were so enslaved to rules and laws and regulations. All the fun was pressed out of life.

He stood straight to view his handiwork. The sunlight caught a bump or two from the money and shimmied across to meet the greater glare of the steel rails. Now to wait for the 3:00. The sun felt like it wouldn't be long before it arrived. The heat pressed in on him without mercy but Hudson refused to look at his watch. Instead he imagined thick dark mulberries dangling from the trees overhanging the bridge, and lazy large-mouth bass sidling between the wet wood the held the pavilion out over the water. A slip of a boy walked backwards on a waterwheel that churned through the water, while the children on the stairs lifting up to it shouted for him to throw himself into the water below; they wanted a turn.

Over all the ruckus, Hudson believed it was his well-tuned, 92-year-old ear that caught the whistle first. After all, the wind was blowing from the west, and the train was coming in from there as well. He was king of the mountain right on the tracks, while the rest of them were in the hole formed by the lake. Soon though, they had all heard it, because the sounds started to diminish. Hudson scurried down from the tracks to the water's edge, probably a little later than Porter would have liked, and stood lakeside as the line of energy and steel moved ever closer.

Suddenly it was there, clacking and buckling in that familiar rhythm, without the hiss of steam, huge and monsterous, but so familiar. The swimmers behind him counted the cars in unison. It was a long train, and he wondered how far he would have to walk to retrieve his treasure.

Finally the train was past. The children went back to their summer amusements. Hudson caught a glance of Porter before he turned to go back up the embankment, probably because Porter was waving at him to come back. If they didn't hurry, someone might discover that his roommate's son had been kind enough to bring him here. Hudson didn't want that to happen, but he hadn't come this far, or climbed this high, to go back without his prize.

The coins were where he'd left them, but wide and misshapen, just like he'd remembered. He tossed them in his palm a few times. They caught no light now, harbored no shadow because they were too flat. He folded his fingers over them and started back along the bank to where Porter had parked the car. Hudson would show him the coins and then Porter Reed might also understand how precious a day in the sun could be when one's days had all but roared past in all their rhythm and energy and had left behind a flat, misshapen image of what life used to be.

Past in the Night or Waking Up to More

Merle was just a dentist. How he longed to be more than just a dentist.

People didn't like him much. When was the last time anyone dreaded going to see the librarian, or the nice waitress at Hugh's who took his order only after she'd licked the tip of the pencil? No, people were eager to be pointed to important bits of information. Having his oval plate of three scrambled eggs and three bacon strips cooked crisp delivered by milk white hands with pink pearl polish on the nails—who would run from that? People came to him in pain most often. Then complained about the price. Yes, his profession was simply a necessary evil, and so by association, he was much the same. Sort of like taxes.

It might have been better if his grandma hadn't died when he was ten. She was the only person on the whole earth that he'd felt connected with. She understood things about him that he didn't understand himself. She would have taught him. Merle knew it like he knew the sun would come up tomorrow. His life would have been so much different if she would have been around long enough to teach him some crucial point he was obviously missing.

He'd tried to live it as he thought she'd want, but it was difficult to bring her into his adult world. He ended up following his father's advice—the mantra that still ran through his head like a chant. "As long as there are teeth, we'll need dentists. As long as there's running water in houses, we'll need plumbers. So do you want to crawl under houses with me?"

That he didn't want to do. Mold made him sick. Mud—well mud was an entity all it's own and he didn't care at all for it. There was no mold or mud involved in dentistry.

Funny Dad hadn't mentioned being a doctor. It took almost as long to be a dentist, but his father thought it was easier. Besides which, Matthew was in line to be the doctor.

Merle moved from the waiting room, where he hit the switch and allowed the darkness to settle before he flipped the sign to the closed side. No crises tonight. Besides his potential partner was on call. Which meant Merle should go home. But he didn't. First he made a trip to the extraction room and took a meek inhalation of nitrous oxide, then retreated into the little den in the back of the building where he sat sometimes when he needed a break from people in pain. He closed the door softly behind him and locked it. His hand was sure and steady as it reached behind the Charles Dickens volumes to find his grandmother's box of medicine. This was one treasure that had remained his, because no one else had ever known of its existence.

He settled into the massive leather chair behind the desk and kicked off his loafers. The carpet was soft under his feet; he was again without clean socks and made a rather hazy mental note that he should buy some soon. He settled into his chair, centered the medicine box on the blotter centered on his immaculate desk. All that was left was to peer over it to the corner where Matthew's favorite rocking stood silent and still; it would be swaying when he woke, and the scent of polished wood would fill the air.

It wouldn't be hard to see Matthew then, astride the rhythmic creature, the sun gleaming in his red-blonde hair. Merle could not figure out how such a thing could happen in a room where the light sources together amounted to less than 100 watts. Matthew would ride (in silence; if Merle spoke he'd disappear) and Merle would nod, until the rocking stopped and it was time for him to go home where he could dream of something else other than the gone-too-soon grandmother and gone-too-soon-forever-too-perfect brother.

That was where Bea found him most Friday nights after she eased the pin into the hole in the doorknob and popped the lock, and came in to clean. The first time was the only time she was surprised to see him sprawled spread-eagle in the chair behind his desk, somehow managing not to let gravity pull him all the way out to the floor. He looked more huge than he did even when she worked up the nerve to have him check her decades-old wisdom teeth to see if they'd lost their smarts and needed to come out. He hadn't blinked once or made her feel like the idiot she already felt, searching for some reason to visit the dentist. It was another amazing feat of Dr. Merle.

Bea did the quiet things first, like dusting, watering and grooming plants, scrubbing sinks with quiet sponges instead of bristle brushes. She always drew him a cup of water because he snored ferociously and breathed through is mouth as he slept. She knew from experience that made a person very thirsty. Asleep he looked like an overgrown boy; a boy who couldn't stop until he dropped from exhaustion, only when he was positive he could not miss anything important. How wonderful it must be to have an important job, a job you would gladly do again and again and again, because skill flowed from your mind through your fingers and made people's lives better.

When she gazed upon him like this, from the charcoal shock of wavy hair that fell cross his forehead to the too-long big-toe nails, she felt a twinge of guilt. She argued in self-defense that there should be some perks to being just the cleaning lady. How she longed to be more than just the cleaning lady. People expected her to stay invisible, as though the counters dusted themselves and fingerprints on glass doors automatically vanished overnight. What would happen if just this one night, when there was nothing left to do but vacuum which would wake him, she pulled up a chair opposite him, kicked off her shoes and let the carpet squish under her toes, and simply watched him until he woke? He'd do that at 2:00 am, give or take ten minutes. She knew precisely when to go out to her Kia for a break, then come back to finish after he'd driven his forest green Jag out to 44^th street and made a left under the yellow-orange streetlight that turned the car brown.

What if tonight she took her break right here and let him wake up with her in full view? He'd blink, bounce to his feet and say, "Who are you? What are you doing here?" and she would say, "I am Bea and I brought you water." He would be thankful and ask if she was about finished and she would say yes, but I think I'll stop by the café at 44^th and Rose and have a piece of cherry pie. And he'd say cherry was his favorite. (There were often plastic dessert plates with cherry pie remnants in the trash.) And maybe in the eeriness of the hour he would relax and she would ask what was in the box, and why the horse rocked in the corner, and he would know she could be empathetic and soothing, even if she could never be as important as a dentist.

But her mother would talk to her the longer she sat there. She knew her mother's voice; they had lain her body to rest but not her tentacles, and they would insidiously over-reach Bea's mind. Nice girls wait. They aren't forward or pushy. Humble girls didn't look for more than they deserved. Mother thought she'd make a good plumber's wife.

Here was Dr. Merle, no plumber, that's for sure, and for some reason he stirred something in her that she dared not culture or examine. She did not pull the guest chair to the desk. Instead she wiped down the rocking horse, as she generally did—the last thing before she went on break. It didn't help that tonight for some reason she was so god-awful tired. Tired of cleaning, tired of oogling the sleeping dentist, tired of dealing with all the insignificant details of her life. The thought crossed her mind that she could just vacuum so she could get home. So what if it woke him? He could go sleep at home where he belonged and they'd both feel better for it in the morning. He obviously needed a reason to go home and sleep in his bed on Friday nights. Why couldn't she be more than invisible for just one night, for crying out loud? Let what happened happen.

---------------------------------

Prompt: Describe a barefooted prophet walking with grandmother's box of medicine. The year is 1612; the dentist is high on gas, while a toy horse rocks in the corner.

Flash Fiction

An asp would be quite welcome at this point. Another high whine sounded overhead and ended in the deafening explosion she'd try to come to expect. The booms always made her jump--whether driven by force or fear, it was hard to tell. There was a hole in the corner where something had taken out both the roof and the ceiling. The sun was hidden by either smoke or clouds. Only a cold grey rain could make this any worse.

She was hiding in the bathtub like she used to do when tornados came. It was a stupid place, not only because of the hole in the roof and not being underground, but also because she knew that her brother had put the munitions in the bathroom closet. She knew there was a case of hand grenades. If one of those shells hit, there would be such a show. But she wouldn't be alive to see it.

How had it come to this? She tried to run her fingers through her hair, but they got stuck in the tangles and dust, so she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand instead and then hunkered down to wait till the distant whine became full blown and exploded. There simply wasn't enough time between them to search for a better place to die.

"Cleopatra. Queen of Denial." She wished her brother's voice was real and not some mockery playing over and over again in her mind. Cleo never dreamed it would be possible for things to get this bad.

"They've gotten that bad everywhere else on the earth. We're not immune, you know." He spoke to her clearly, his head cocked to the side, grinning with half a mouth like he did when he had to be serious for a moment.

But there had been all the promises. She'd believed them instead of her brother because she didn't want to have to think about a future that included what was happening to her now.

So she forced her mind into the future. Into wandering the streets with her dust-gray tangled hair, searching, competing for something to eat. She imagined stepping thought the broken plate-glass window of the grocery store and filling her pockets with bread rolls. Then she'd be foolish enough to share. How could one refuse the request of a starving child?

Maybe it would be best to start pulling pins....

-----
From Writer's Idea Bank by Mode Room Press. It's a gadget on my Google home page that generates random story ideas.

Describe Cleopatra in her bathroom
with a case of hand grenades.
The sky drizzles a cold grey rain;
the old wench stuffs her pockets with bread rolls,
while all the children are starving.

From a Different Angle

Chester A. Hogan, III

It had been some time since he'd seen his name all spelled out legal like that. The closest it came most of the time was when he pushed Carla close to her edge, and she growled "Chester Hogan!" while she glared at him over the top of her glasses. Most of the time he was just Hogie. Sometimes--even sweeter--Grandpa Hogie.

He sighed and threw the envelope on the table for Carla to open. It couldn't be good news. He couldn't face it without her.

She was due back from town any time now. He lifted his ball cap, ran his fingers through his hair, and settled the cap back in place before checking his watch. Too early to quit for the day. Too late to start anything major. He wished the telephone to ring; let it be one of the kids in a talkative mood so he'd have an excuse for standing here doing nothing. In his boots which were supposed to have come off in the mudroom. Gingerly he tip-toed back to the room that separated Carla's immaculate kitchen from the great outdoors, hoping to leave as little debris behind as possible. There from the doorway the timber beckoned him. He left his shoes on and grabbed a dishpan from the shelf above the washing machine. Surely there were some blackberries ready for picking.

He could pick and think.

Hogie wanted to plant corn. Next year of course. It was way too late now. Corn was all the rage, with them making gas out of the stuff and all. He felt certain he could do it. But there was the ever formidable Carla who was more than likely sure he couldn't. She was for parceling up the place and selling it. Of course she was. She wasn't from here. She didn't grow up here. All she was concerned with was keeping his sorry hide alive. And for that he was, of course, grateful. Not to mention he loved her more deeply that most of the time he cared to admit.

Part of him would die when he left this place. He knew that. He just wasn't sure how to make her understand it. If he could do that--and it was a puzzlement to him that he hadn't already, that she didn't know this about him after 42 years together--she would help him find a way. There had to be a way.

"Yes, if free help fell from the sky, Hogie. Not likely." She would say it softly, tenderly as she slipped under his arm and let him draw her up against his side. She'd wrap her arm around his waist and they'd stare out across the rolling prairie stretching to the horizon.

So where would they go? Hogie let the thought play through his mind for the first time without shutting it down immediately. Would it be worth it to parcel up the land and keep the house? Or should they sell it all and find a little place in town where it was easy to get groceries? Maybe nearer one of the kids. Which one? He shook his head.

Back to the corn. Or not corn. Maybe there was something else he could plant. Something else that started cheap and wasn't too late to throw in the ground. What else was popular these days? Organic. Organic this and that. Carla would be for organic. Part of what scared her about farming was the herbicide and the pesticides. It was a blessing he'd had a heart attack and not cancer. She'd have sold the place out from under his nose while he was hooked up to some chemo drip.

Which strangely enough made him smile.

A bit more. . .

It was a wise thing to come under the cover of pre-dawn with just a sliver of moon to bounce off the tired plastic letters that announced the names of the various establishments--definitely not something the cowboy would have seen.

She eased the bike in a wide circle and left the way she came, pondering how to go about introducing herself to the little town. Were they progressive enough to accept a potential school secretary arriving on a motorcycle? Or would it be better to cut her auburn locks short, hide her barely-there feminine curves and take a breeches part. Maybe someone needed a good hand out on a ranch or farm badly enough that her gender wouldn't be an issue at all.

It would be so great not to have to play a part for a change, not have to worry if she was accurately staying in character. Relax. The world alone was heavenly to think about.

And dangerous.
----------------
Today's word: breeches part

The Plan

I told Mara today that I need time.

"How much time?" she asked.

"As much time as it takes," I told her. "Change isn't easy. He has to want to do it."

"You can't make a person want something."

"Gosh, I hadn't considered that maybe.... Maybe you're right. Hey, Jason gave me a note for you. I almost forgot. I put it in my backpack here."

My backpack is known for containing more junk than a backpack ever should. I really have to clean it out this weekend.

By the time I started rummaging through the third pocket Mara couldn't take anymore. "Sheesh, Anna. Why did you put it in your backpack anyway when you could have just stuck it in your jeans pocket?"

"What's the matter Mara? Am I making you want something?" I reached into my jeans pocket and pulled out the note.

"Alright, Miss Wisenheimer. So you won that battle. It didn't really change anything, did it?"

"I don't know. Maybe you should read the note. But I can't stick around. I got into a fight with Andrew and I'm grounded, so I'd best get myself home pronto."

"Stupid Andrew. I'm sorry," Mara said, instantly empathetic. She has a younger brother, too. "Can I call you later?"

"Sure. It's probably a gift in disguise. This project is going to take a lot of planning if I'm going to pull it off."

Mara made a face, (she still doesn't believe I can do this) and then gave me a hug. "I guess it's better than sitting in your room doing nothing. I bet you're finished your homework, right?"

"Yep. They can take away my freedom, but they can't take away my mind. It'll be fun. See you tomorrow."

The Straw - The First One

When it came to memories there were some that were worth keeping and others that would be better erased, and those were the ones that came back clear and vivid while she chose vegetables at grocery store, in the midst of a pleasant dream or in the throes of a sappy movie.

It was a clear August day, which was something odd for August, because the air was usually cloudy with humidity. There was a festival downtown for some worthy cause. It didn't matter what--all that mattered was that they share the afternoon with other giddy people in the mood to celebrate.

"I can't believe we did it! We did it, Chuck! We're buying a house." She looked at the sparkle in his eye--somehow excited and gentle all at the same time--while he lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. She gave him a watery smile and then looked out her window.

Everything was crisp and clear, now that the muddle of offers and counteroffers was over, inspections were done, the final okay was in, and all that was left was to move forward to closing. Move into their house. Plant a garden in the back and a peach tree. After the bank account was back to normal maybe even have a baby. But even before that there would be games of cards with their parents and their very own dining table, new holiday traditions, smells of lasagna to greet Chuck when he walked through the door after a long day. She reached out to hold his hand, while he watched the road for a parking space.

She didn't remember parking and she didn't remember walking toward the park in the center of town. She felt like she was drifting inches above the ground. Chuck was busy making his way to the bandstand, where the music thudded at a volume that drowned everything except the voice.

"Charles Pendgraft?" It was a deep voice. She had to crane her neck to look up for the source. It came from a barrel-chested man with a Hitler mustache and grey eyes, shadowed by a hat that looked as though it would be too hot. Behind him there was a smaller bald man who looked serious.

Of course Chuck nodded at him.

"Charles Pendgraft, you are under arrest for the murder of Catherine Parks, you have the right to remain silent--"

The rest of it faded away just as it would in a scene from Law and Order. There was a flurry of activity and confusion. She was sure she screamed his name once, because he looked her in the eye. There was no longer any trace of giddiness or laughter, only a cold, bullet stare that made her blood run cold. She stopped in her tracks and watch the two men escourt him over the hill and out of sight.

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Today's prompt from AWAD for March 21, 2006: casus belli (KAY-suhs BEL-i, rhymes with bell-eye, BEL-ee) noun plural casus belli An action or event that causes or is used to justify starting a war.

Henry Long

Henry Long was finally sick to death of collecting those stiff, put-out sideways glances from his wife when he did something she thought not quite right for his age.

"For heaven's sake, Henry. Act your age!"

If he had a dollar for every time she said it, he wouldn't have had to hide his overtime pay in a separate checking account so that he could take her on a cruise.

It was an odd thing--caught in the middle this way. She'd rant and rave and say she didn't have the time, energy, money or clothes to go. But he wanted to go, and he really didn't want to go without her. Besides he had a dream.

He had a dream about the warm sea breezes coming off the Caribbean and doing a number on her like in Little Mermaid where Ariel turned into human being. (Yes, watching "childish" movies was one of those things she clicked her tongue at, but he loved the music and the story and the way the grandkids lit up when he suggested they watch it.) Her hair, thick and heavy and waving like the ocean, would come out of her top not and stream down her back while she inhaled the magical fragrance and she'd become the girl that he had so much fun with back when they had gone to college. Of course she'd be a bit shorter and have a few more wrinkles and her hair wouldn't be that firey auburn, but all that didn't really matter as much as what was in her soul.

Henry had thought long and hard about what it was in their life that had turned her into such a taskmaster that she had forgotten how to tango. Oh how they used to tango. They turned so many heads, it was a wonder they didn't have people sending them chiropractic bills for whiplash. Yes, he'd lost that spark for awhile too. There were kids and bills and mortgages and ailing parents and friends and small disasters like the tornado that whipped away the kids bedrooms back in the 60s. Thankfully the kids weren't in it. Afterwards he got a great deal of joy in telling them that "your bedroom looks like a tornado hit it" and listening to them giggle, but by then the love of his life had quit giggling.

Would she have been happier if she'd worked outside the home? Lots of women were doing that nowadays and they were starting to when the kids were all in school. It might not have hurt if she'd gotten something part time then, though he was so grateful that she was home when they got in from school and they didn't fill their afternoons with the kind of mischief unsupervised children did. It was impossible to tell.

No use thinking about it. There was no way to go back and change the past. There was only the future to fix. He looked at the brochure in his hand and decided to head down to the travel agent. He'd find someone who knew exactly what she should have on this jaunt, from hair pins to flip flops, and he'd pack it for her. He'd call the kids and find out what all she might fret about not paying or doing or seeing got done while she was gone and ask them to do it. Then he'd just load her up on the day of their departure and drive her to the airport and carry her on the plane if he had to.

Oh, she'd fume for awhile. But he'd talk to her. Tell her it was killing him. Killing her, in fact. That she needed to have more fun, to find that girl who used to plant flowers and hike and dance. The full moon would rise over the horizon while they walked on the sand and she'd stop being clenched like a fist and relax and remember. Maybe. The effort would be worth it either way. He wasn't going to collect those angry darts and worry himself to death about what he should have done differently anymore.

Order!

Use the following words in today's write. Any form of the word is acceptable.

people, professional, family, memory, bagel sock, plug, tube, toy, local, tool, cord,

"My goodness people! Can't you be a little more professional? This is not a family reunion. Here is not where we talk about Timmy's lost sock, or Aunt Millie's failing memory, or Grandma Moses' award-winning recipe for bagels." It was the third time he'd tried to get their attention and this time he succeeded only because he used a microphone.

"Now who has the posters for the local toy fair plug that airs on the tube next month?"

Silence.

"We forgot to bring the posters? Or we don't have them at all?"

If anyone said there were no posters he was going to pull the cord from the monitor and simply hang himself with it. It was simply too much to be asked to put together an important presentation tool with a group who didn't seem to care one way or another if anything got done period, let alone done right. And they wanted to become advertising executives. Dream on. All they were about to becomes was unemployed.