Bun In The Oven

A Bun In the Oven
Copyright OCT 6, 2009
Word count: 659
Now, settle down everyone, this isn't what you think. This story came about because of a w.g. challenge, namely to make a spooky story using elements that weren't actually scary. Um, I believe some "Thanks" should go to a BBC documentary, for dwelling on a subject that just messed with my head for weeks after. A certain amount of thanks should also go to my son's doppleganger, for getting me started. This is my first official attempt at Flash Fiction.



As usual, The timer went off just as the phone rang.


Liz-Beth sighed, and reached for the timer with her left hand and the phone with her right. Izzy dashed through the kitchen wearing Liz-Beth's best heels and favorite dress, and her brother, Bo, charged after his three-year old sister, whooping and leaping like an old-movie Indian --his spiky hair held back with a feathered headband --waving his neon T-Rex and a toy hatchet behind her screaming curls.


Liz-Beth did a quick spin-step around her brood, and laughed into the phone. "...Oh my God, I know -- Izzy! Get out of my dress...I'm wearing it when Daddy and I go out to dinner tonight. Yes, yes, I know... Kids. Can't live with 'em...can't send them to Abu Dhabi." With practiced ease, she arranged the infant's arms and legs on the cookie sheet, head in the center... but as usual, she had to wipe her hands off on a towel after she arranged the little boy's head. She never could keep that stuff off of her fingers, and it was so damned sticky. She realized after the fact that she had stained one of her best dishtowels. It just never failed.


She opened the oven door, and gently placed the cookie sheet in, checking that the oven temperature was at an even 265. Then, still wiping at her hands, she leaned against the island and nudged the oven door shut with her shoe...As an afterthought, she leaned over and flicked on the stove light so that she could keep an eye on things, and set the timer again. A soft orange glow covered the body parts, and she was particularly fascinated by the angelic glow around the little one's face. She couldn't help it, she started humming, and then she actually started singing.
“Well you must have been a beautiful baby...you must have been a beautiful boy...---Hmm? What? Oh, sorry, Mags...just a lot going on right now...He did? No. I don't believe it. That doesn't sound like Barry at all.”


Shoulder to phone, Liz-Beth made her way to her table, and pondered an assortment of ice-pick like devices, short, stubby handles, with nails of various sizes wedged into them. She tested one with her finger...admired its heft for a moment, and then selected a longer, thinner version of the same tool.


The timer went off again, startling her...and the reverberations of her children's' howls echoed down from the second floor.

“Oh, hold up a sec., Mags...You kids better knock it off. If I have to come up there, SoHelpMe – No, Bo, I don't care if you captured her fair and square. There are rules in this house, Hiawatha, and one of the big ones is that we simply do not scalp our little sisters! --Mags, seriously, you want some kids? Have I got a deal for you...one matched set, cheap! Bo! Leave her alone....if you two play nice for a few more minutes, I'll come up and read that new Hansel and Gretel book Nana got you.”


She grabbed her oven mitts and carefully, oh-so-carefully, removed the cookie sheet from the oven, then she gently placed the infant parts on a baking rack to cool.


“You're not even medium-rare, are you, little guy.” She mused. “Mags, I'm so excited....yes...I just finished baking my second one...he looks so sweet and innocent, even in this state...I swear I could just eat him up right now.” She shifted the phone to her other ear, and began rearranging the paints on the table, holding a skin-tone up for further consideration. “Ya know...when I first got into “re-borning”, I thought it was the silliest thing I'd ever heard of, but who knew you could make so much just re-sculpting and repainting dolls? If I can sell six more of these little cuties, we are totally going to the Bahamas!”

The Barn

The Barn
Copyright AUG 2009
Word count: 882
This came from a challenge: We were supposed to describe a barn through the eyes of a man who had lost his son in "the war"...We were to try NOT to mention the son, the war, and if we could avoid it, we needed to avoid mentioning the man. While I had trouble adhering to the rules of the challenge, I still liked what came of it. This story is fiction, but the place was real. Any similarities to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.


The farmhouse smelled of pancakes, bacon, and the low musk of eggs and butter in the morning. Each room carried the lingering odor of furniture polish and old, dark wood. And the sounds of muffled sobs.

He knocked softly on the door again, calling her name, but the door remained shut to him. His feet creaked along the floor boards, head down, mind-blind, his thumb felt for another latch and he stepped out into the dawning air, his breakfast offering untouched. The clouds, not content to relinquish the cold earth yet, curled about him, brushing cold fingers along his coatless neck. The thick treads of his work shoes crunched through the twigs and drying leaves left from the last night's storm.

He felt, somehow, that things should at least have the courtesy to look differently, but the farm was still much as he had left it the night before. The little farm house looked neat and crisp, the black-eyed Susans – the last of the season- swayed gently among the delicate swarms of baby's breath in Esther's garden. Colors of white, yellow, purple and brown waved gently at him. In the calmness of the waking day, he could hear the low grrrrrUP! of the bullfrogs taunting their rivals among the cattails. Sparrows and chickadees hopped about, brazen and fat from Esther's sunflower seeds. A cardinal flitted through the branches of an old pine – a glint of red in the corner of his eye.

The shape of the barn surfaced in the fog...an ancient gray whale in clouded seas.

Out of habit, he opened the barn door – with a movement that was a combination of a heave and a push. It succumbed to his efforts with a wheezing groan of aching wood, and he moved from the bright perfection of Esther's world and into the soft charcoal of his own. The interior of the barn smelled of oats and warm hay, oil, iron, and dust. Light shifted in angles from the cracks between the boards, catching motes by surprise mid-dance. Mourning doves rustled in the eaves, and there was the occasional dark streak from the corners as a rat or mouse dashed from one pile of straw to the next.

Little Fella, the crotchety sixteen-year-old pony, whickered impatiently, and stomped in his stall. Without a word, he went over and removed the wooden beam from the end of the stall. Little Fella backed out, and then walked in arthritic clomps to the rear doors of the barn, where he snorted disdainfully and nudged at the door, jerking his head up and down to make his point. The man made his way to the pony's side with no particular haste, shifted the latch, and patted Little Fella's hindquarters to send him out into the back pasture. He felt in his pocket for a crumple pack of cigarettes, and as he pulled it out, a piece of paper fell from his pocket and landed on the floor in front of him. He froze, eyes locked onto the folded creases...the dark shadows of neat type bled through the creamy white...and even upside down and backwards...he could still read the words...those awful...unbelievable words.

He had never backed down from anything in his life, but he backed away from that letter...never moving his gaze from it. He turned, eyes unseeing, brushing against an item in the second stall...knocking a dusty child's saddle off of a sawhorse. It fell to the boards with a startling loudness that echoed through the barn, and disturbed the cooing doves in the rafters. Somehow, his feet found their way to the stairs. He climbed up in slow, measured steps, and each board creaked and gasped more warnings than the last.

Though most of the second story flooring was weak, questionable, or gone altogether, one could still cross via a few well-placed beams. He was on the far side in minutes...oddly enough, positioned just above the offending paper, sitting on an empty orange crate in front of a nearly forgotten box of family artifacts.

Something gleamed dully near the bottom of the box, and he reached for it numbly. His hand came out covered in dust and cobwebs, and clutching a solid bronze figure.

The weight of the six-inch figure felt good in his hand...it felt right. The figure had once been part of a trophy...a small child holding a bat in mid-swing....The detail on the figure was stunning – the expression was open, excited, grinning and filled with pride. He remembered the day that trophy had come home...remembered...how happy...that day had been.

As he held the figure, he noticed that time and exposure had left a green-black patina He scratched at it with a thumbnail, but it wouldn't come off. He tried harder, with increasing desperation...in his eyes, the patina mark seemed to grow...until he couldn't see the smiling boy's face, only the damage that had been done to it.

A low moan left his mouth, as he held the tarnished piece of brass to his chest. The moan continued, louder and louder.

Below him, a folded piece of paper skittered gently along the floor, dancing in the soft morning air.

Everything's A Test (Or "Hum A Few Bars")

Everything's A Test (Or "Hum A Few Bars")
Copyright JUL 21, 2009
Word count: 226


I am not very good at this dance
I don't know if I want to be an equal...
I don't know that I could be your equal
but I don't want to be the bad puppy.

I never asked for your title,
I never competed for your laurels.
I have never once intended perfection,
I just want to take each moment, and see what happens next,

some moments are better than others...
sometimes some moments are worse...
but moments are not always...
moments were never meant to be always.

I cannot see the long road...
I can only see what is in front of me now,
though I know you will always see what has gone before.
I am what I am by my own lights now,
yours' only started my path.

I cannot be what you are,
but I can still hold my own...
and I can be the person I am,
flawed, oddish, dwelling,
intent on the wrong things...intent on the right things
And maybe, just maybe, that's what is needed now.

As I am dancing through the landmines

with a deep breath and eyes front, big smile in place

-- trying to get through,

I am grateful that you are watching my progress,

but

please

remember

that I am the one taking each step

and I need you to let me try.

Untitled

Untitled
Copyright JUL 14, 2009
Word count: 294
Certain aspects come from a writing exercise from Summer and Rita: Look at a display containing: a few flowers, a scented candle, a string of pearls, a tablecloth, and a picture, and write a piece or a scene about it. My thanks to Dawes Arboretum for providing the idea for the scenery.



Light moved gently, a soft waltz with the wind in the leaves. On a small island in the center of the pond, a goose raised her head from her nest and cocked a suspicious eye at the couple settling their tablecloth on the bank. She felt that they were no real threat, thanks to the distance and the water, but she glared at them disapprovingly even so.

The woman was chattering squirrel-like at the man and after some shifting and repositioning, they threw themselves into the task of setting out their meal. The woman made a valiant but awkward attempt to release the plastic-wrap's death grip on the sandwiches and the man spilled half of the just-opened bottle of wine and was mopping at it in a determined, but ineffective fashion.

There was a shriek of laughter, followed by a shriek of exasperation from the woman, and the brow and neck of the man bent in further consternation.

A child, heretofore unseen by the nosy goose, had discovered the lake...more particularly, the thick obsequious black clay on the banks and within moments of his profound discovery, he had coated himself from toe to golden head in the reeking, impossible stuff. He dashed to his parents covered in clay and grass seeds and leaves, smelling of dead fish, and knocked over the rest of the wine in his haste. He bounced on the sandwiches in his glee, and threw himself at the woman.

The goose noticed the look exchanged between the man and the woman, could hear their sighs even at this distance...and then she heard the sighs slowly, slowly turn to laughter.

The goose tucked her head down around her peaceful, perfect clutch, and spared the noisy threesome only one more thought.


"Amateurs!"

INHALE

Inhale
Copyright DEC 11, 2008
Word count: 67
Can't quite tell you where this one came from...just couldn't get the words to leave me alone until they were on paper.


Do not hold your breath for me
I have not drifted gently into the ether
I am here, kicking and feral

Save me from the poignant pause...
that oh-so-careful hesitation...

I know what you're thinking,
eyes cannot guard their tongues so well

You hold my rose behind your back
and reach out with the other hand
earnest, supportive, sincere,
but

I.
Am.
Still.
Here.


And I don't think you'll find what you're expecting...
and you may well turn blue before I do.

WORDS TO A FRIEND

Words To A Friend
Copyright APR 7, 2009
Word count: 122
This one just amuses the heck out of me (not so much the circumstances that brought it about, but the phrasing). Believe it or not, almost all of this poem came directly from my side of a messenger conversation with a friend going through a rough patch...as I typed the words, I could feel them just rolling around , clicking like marbles in my head, and it all came together. I dedicate this to Heidi M. -- who should know better...and does. LANGUAGE ADVISORY.


Bullshit.
I'm sorry. Let me rephrase.
Bull. SHIT!

Settling is settling. It is not noble. It is not honest. It is not real.
It's a slow death and you know it.
It's gasping for air in a plastic bag.
It's the osterich, head underground, and a lion
tearing chunks from its ass.
You clutch at shadows, as others catch the flame
...missing what isn't there.

Take a breath, make your choice,
and run with it like a kid with a kite.
Hold up your head.
No one recognizes their soul mate by their shoes.


And one last thing.


Even when The Big Bad Wolf attacks Red Riding Hood
and eats her grandmother...

In the end, when it matters,
SHE'S still the one wearing his skin
casually around her shoulders
in the same place she once wore her cloak.

Underfoot

UNDERFOOT
Copyright DEC 2008
Word count: 182
Based on life with my son.

see you later alligator,

see you later alligator,

see you, see you ...

He is random, unstoppable

unless I take a step with burdened arms

then he is immovable, taunting, grinning,

pushing from beneath

I am all strings and wonky joints

marionetted

tangled, tripping, halting, slumping

awkwardly from above

see you later alligator,
see you later alligator,
see you, see you ...

Yet

when he is gone I start at every sound,

unnerved by the sudden still...the hush upon these rooms

willing him to call out...to shift and chirp in his sleep

his bear sleeps alone in his bed,

holding onto his scent

of earth

of green

of cologne and lavendar...lingering reminders that hint of those who held him close

of little boy soap, of clean baby hair,

of a whiff of before-bedtime cocoa.

I remain on alert...

eyes to the front,

ears to the ready,

awaiting the cry I keep thinking I hear

pricking for the soft, uncertain treads

of feet that aren't even there.

see you later alligator,
see you later alligator,
see you, see you...

... after while

SMUGGLERS & GMEN

SMUGGLERS & GMEN
Copyright OCT 2008
Word count: 613
Based on a memory from camp.


We climbed the hills like an agitated nest of spiders, chasing the taunting beams of our flashlights, our bodies smelling of wet earth, falling leaves, sticks, and gravel…soft, young sweat…the changing of the season. We threw ourselves over the green-mossed boulders with abject abandon, scrabbling, and leaping, clawing and catching, frantic to seize upon the fleeing shadows before us. We were not a quiet pack, and our prey was not a quiet prey. You could hear us calling out, whispers, howls, whoops, laughter, screams of half-fright...demanding, wanting. They had what we wanted, hidden, secret...there if you knew where to look, and we reveled in the hunt, nostrils flaring, ribs hot with our own breath. You could hear the fall of stones, the thud and the yowl of pain as one of our kind slipped in the chase. He had broken his arm, and some of the others left the pack to carry him out and beyond the ranging shadows.

Whirling, breaking from the main pack, easily out-pacing two would be escapees...panting, grinning, ready for it, waiting only for the weak to succumb. They were ours, but the rest of the shadow pack ran through the darkness. We waited for our captives...breathing hard, hands on knees, still ready to pounce. Their eyes darted, flickering...they were ours. We felt our breath jag over our own white teeth, sharp and wet, and hot. Aching and needing like a long, forgotten girl on a long forgotten prom night. They had it. They had only to give it to us, and we would allow them their freedom...perhaps. Perhaps...though they would fall through the night of infamy....the first caught...the first taken. Ours.

We glared them down...and brushed our hands along their arms, hands and hair...we almost let them go back into the darkness, like little gnats... merely a presence to bore omnipotent predators. Little nothings...little things...we touched the cuffs of their shirts, and the the tags on their necks...even the laces of their shoes...disgusted, impatient...and yet, it I was who found it.

"Turn." I demanded, she did...knowing that I had seen beyond her deception...Ooh, clever rabbits...more capable that we had credited them. They had followed the rules...and used them to their advantage. "Take them off." I growled, and the cry went up behind me, joyful, ecstatic. Slowly, shyly, she did as she was told....raising her hand to her eyes, brushing her fingers back against the copper frames, and carefully, oh so carefully, my little rabbit handed me her glasses...allowing her fingers to remain for the briefest moment on the slender metal....I had no wish to hide the triumph I felt. I could feel the joy of the pack rising behind me. Carefully, as though I was touching the wing of a butterfly, I unrolled the tiny white curl of paper from the dark coppered temple...the place that would have been positioned just behind my little rabbit's left ear. It was warm from her heat...and damp from her sweat...and reluctant to give up its secret. "Easy, easy"...I coaxed it...easing and unfolding the wet, white slip until it surrendered under my intricate molestation. A low whistle from my mouth....and I held it aloft. The splinter pack howled and laughed in their joy. "That's it my friends! 375 points on the first try!!! Even if they get all of the other points, tonight this game is ours!!!"

Our victory was assured, but the chase was far from over. We left our captives where they stood, allowing them to bob about like aimless balloons, and we threw ourselves once more into the dark.

In Kay's Kitchen

In Kay's Kitchen
copyright OCT 2008
Word count: 340
Flash Fiction prompt.


Kay's Kitchen was a haven, soft and glowing, scented with cinnamon, butter, and long simmering roasts. Everything was "Just So" and "Utterly Perfect" and "How Dear"...or so I thought before I heard the muffled thumps in the side cupboard.

I was only one of many house guests, but the only one who couldn't sleep. Well-worn boards sighed and creaked beneath my feet. Delicately lit grapevine wreaths and polished copper clamored in a most polite and Kay-like fashion for my attention, welcoming the expected flattery, but ready to deflect it prettily with the deft grace of a consummate actress.

The thumps continued, louder, insistent. I found myself wondering what kind of ghost could live in the Uber--perfection of Kay's fairytale home. Would she require them to have their 800-thread-count-organic-cotton-shrouds to be freshly starched and pressed after each night of haunting...perhaps lovingly spritzed with lavender linen water. Would they hang themselves up neatly in sachet-laden garment bags, on the off chance that some imaginary errant moth would make an appearance?

Louder then...and louder still. Even in this land of obsessively crisp antique doilies, something was off. My heart shifted into overdrive...and I could not tell which thumps came from my chest or behind the ancient wooden doors. I moved toward the cupboard, slow shallow breaths between bitten lower lip...noticing in spite of myself, that the brass knobs of the cupboard had been polished with to a soft, luminous glow.

The doors rattled again, and I could hear all six sets of Kay's unchipped Lenox china shivering in response. There was nothing for it. I ripped open the doors, and discovered
a bedraggled, snaggle-toothed-one-eyed fiend...its mouth dripping with carnage.
The ancient beast poured out of the cupboard, glaring at me with the contempt that only the very fat, and most Persian of cats could maintain.

As I watched it saunter awkwardly away, I breathed a prayer of absolute joy, ecstatic at last. Finally, I could sleep soundly. There were mice in Kay's Oh-So-Perfect kitchen...and life was now very good, indeed.

BIRDS

Birds
copyright SEPT 2008
Wordcount: 966
Written for a reason.



Once upon a time, Birds couldn't fly.


Everyone of them looked exactly alike, and everyone of them looked just like a lumpy rock with beady black eyes, and a sharp yellow beak. They had one goal in their lives….to see what was on the island that floated in the clouds above them…and to eat of the windswept seeds that grew there.


And then one day


A lumpy bird began to attach leaves to itself…and it even managed to catch a strong breeze all the way up to the island….soon the other lumpy birds began to do the same…and each bird made its way to the island in the sky…


But on the island, the first bird had taken over….lording it over the other birds…commanding the center of the island for itself, and the best of the windswept seeds as its own… It resented the intrusion of the others and soon it wanted the bounty of the entire island for itself. It would hop up to the other birds, belittling their plumage, and knock them off the island, losing some of its plumage each time. Each fallen bird clutched at a bit of the island's earth with their feet, trying and failing to hold on…and the floating island became smaller and smaller each time, finally dwindling down to just enough room for the first bird and the small tree it chose to perch upon. The First Bird continued to array himself in the finest of the leaves from the little tree, and soon even that tree began to feel as barren as the rest of the island, and slowly, though the First Bird did not know it, little bits of the island trickled out from underneath him, and drifted away on the wind.


And then one day


A strange, new bird landed on the island. Instead of having make-shift wings cobbled together from leaves and twigs, it had taken the time to pull its wings out from its own body, shaping and molding each feather precisely with its beak. It perched on a lower branch on the small tree and respectfully dipped its head in greeting to the First Bird.


"You, there." screeched the First Bird, ruffling his tree-leaf wings in genuine agitation. "You are not welcome here. This is my island. You can't have it. You can't stay. It is MY island."


"Stay?" mused the New Bird as the sun glinted sleekly off of its lovely wings. "I'm afraid you've got me all wrong." said the New Bird.


"Well, this is my island. I was here first, and you and your freakish attempts at feathers aren't welcome." huffed the First Bird.


"I'm only stopping to catch my breath." replied the New Bird in a friendly tone. "I have no intention of remaining here."


Now the first bird was truly affronted. The island in the sky was the goal of every true bird….all of the other birds had dreamed their whole lives about living there forever and eating the windswept seeds, and the First Bird told the intruder this in no uncertain terms. "Obviously, "snarled the First Bird, 'You are as stupid as your feathers are ugly."


The New Bird took his time cleaning his feathers and let the wind ruffle them gently, taking little notice of the First Bird's rude behavior. His wings weren't as showy as the First Bird's twigs and leaves…but the New Bird was too polite to say that at least HIS feathers didn't fall off every time he moved.


The calm silence of the intruder only agitated the First Bird that much more, and he began to push and peck at the New Bird. The New Bird cocked his head at the First Bird and hopped gracefully out of the way, with the merest flap of his wings to keep him balanced.Meanwhile, every ill-tempered attack caused the First Bird to lose more of its accumulated plumage…and each hop and peck also caused a little more of the tiny island to crumble and drift off beneath his feet. The New Bird noted this, and finally, he tired of the First Bird's petty tantrums.


"As I said, I only stopped to catch my breath, and as I said, I have no intention of remaining here." the New Bird declared forcefully.


"But Why NOT?!!!" whined the First Bird, utterly exhausted and very much confused. "This is the island in the sky…You are a bird…you are SUPPOSED to want to stay here forever and eat the windswept seeds. Only the very best windswept seeds can be found here, but only the master of this island -- and that would be ME!!! -- is entitled to eat them."


The New Bird shook his head, and stretched the well-made wings he had extended so much time and effort on. "Certainly the windswept seeds here are very nice." He agreed. "However, there are plenty of seeds out there. I don't need the ones on this island."


"What?!!!" shrieked the First Bird in disbelief. Such a thought had simply never occurred to him. "That can't be right. The island in the sky is the Most Important Thing there is…and since it belongs to me, I am the Most Important Bird on the Most Important Thing there is."


The New Bird eyed the First Bird sadly, before stretching his lovely useful wings and flying into the air. "You are one very small bird on one very small island. There are many other birds and many other islands…and there is far more to the sky than just you."


As the New Bird flew off into the joy of the clouds and the light of the sun, the flying island crumbled completely beneath the feet of the First Bird, and he fell to the earth below, clutching vainly at the remains of his false feathers.