“The End of Winter”
Streetlamps on the far shore flicker in
And out of view as the snow accumulates
On the slick surface of the lake.
Moonlight filters through the dancing clouds,
Catching the flash of a fox’s tail
Vanishing into a trimmed hedge.
Embers glow in the fireplace, a dying
Reminder of the warmth we shared
Not an hour ago, now lost.
This week, I decided to compete in a Trifecta writing challenge for the first time. As usual, it’s V’s fault. For the challenge this week, we were given three words. They could be used in any order, but we were only allowed to add 33 words for a total of 36. Our words were rain, rebellion, and remember. Here’s my entry.
* * *
It’s been thirty years this week. Thirty long years since the day that the blood fell like rain. The city in the clouds above us had erupted in war, a full fledged rebellion.
I still remember.
And here’s yet another entry for a Chuck Wendig Writing Challenge. This one is brought to you by They Fight Crime. Go check it out. It might just help you come up with that character idea you needed.
My description from They Fight Crime was this: “He’s a scarfaced Catholic stage actor on the hunt for the last specimen of a great and near-mythical creature. She’s a beautiful hip-hop college professor with an evil twin sister. They fight crime!”
And without further ado…
“So, where are we staking out tonight, Doc?” Clark carefully applied a layer of foundation over the pale pink reminders of the fire that lingered on his jaw, neck, and shoulder with a practiced hand. “Same place as last night?”
“No, dear,” Professor Andrews replied as she slipped into the room. “Tonight I was thinking that we’d keep an eye out on the bus stop on 45th. I’ve heard a couple of reports of attacks in that area in the last week.”
“And you think that it’s the same person each time?” he asked.
“Well, ‘person’ is a loose term. I heard hints that it might actually have been him.”
“The werewolf?” Clark paused, triangular sponge in hand.
“Mmmhmm.” She grabbed a pair of headphones and placed them around her neck. “After all, the moon’s been full. The M.O. certainly fits.”
Clark finished his makeup and checked the results in the mirror. No sign now remained of the scars that normally marred his face. Still, the burns ached. The theatre fire had been almost ten years ago, but the pain and the scars lingered, and the makeup could only cover the physical injuries. “Melissa,” he said, “you know how long I’ve been after him, don’t you?”
Professor Andrews stepped behind him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “Clark, darling, of course I know. I’m just worried that you’re going to get caught up in some sort of revenge fantasy like my sister did.” She placed a kiss on his cheek.
“How long has she been in prison now, six months?”
“Seven,” Melissa replied. “We don’t have to worry about her. That’s not the point. If our boy is the one attacking these people, this is our chance to finally put him away.” She played with the chain around Clark’s neck, straightening the crucifix on it as she did so. “And once he’s gone, then we’ll be free to do whatever we like with the rest of our lives.”
“Would you go back to teaching full time?”
“If I could find a college that would take me on. Alyssa did a number on my reputation back when she was pretending to be me. But maybe we could find a place that’s looking for help with their theatre program too. There’s got to be more to your career than small-time performances of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and that web ad campaign you did last summer. ”
“Hey, you loved seeing me as Brad.”
“Pretty sure that has nothing to do with your ability to act. After all, he’s Barry Bostwick in the movie.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, I guess that was a little harsh. I mean, he was pretty funny in Spin City and those Peps…oh, right.”
“Yeah.”
“Clark, it’s not that I think you’re a bad actor. I just think that you’re better suited to what we do right now.”
“You really think I’m good?”
“The best. Other than me, of course. And at least I didn’t make some joke about burning down the theatre because you were awful.”
Clark’s hands went to his foundation-covered scars for a moment before he realized she was still smiling. “Thanks, Melissa. You know, when you first came to me to offer me the job, I was half-convinced that you were only using me as a source for holy water. It’s a big relief to know that there’s more to it than that.”
Melissa straightened and walked back to her wardrobe, pulling out black t-shirt after black t-shirt and throwing them into a pile on the floor. “Oh, I knew you wanted revenge, but I figured you had to have some talent if you were going up against the rest of his pack on your own. Never would have guessed you were that crazy. Proved me wrong, didn’t you? Damn, I can never find the one I’m looking for,” she muttered darkly.
“What are you doing?” Clark called over his shoulder. He was preoccupied with his cell phone now, searching for more information about the recent attacks.
“Trying to find my Wu Tang Clan shirt, but it’s not here.”
“It’s in the laundry. You got blood on it last time.”
“Clark, I need that shirt. It’s the only way that the guys we fight know that I’m ‘Nothing to…'”
“I’m pretty sure the katana’s a dead giveaway for that one.”
“Valid point. I’ll go with Snoop. Maybe it’ll make our boy giggle when he sees it, and I can hit him while he’s distracted. Did you have a chance to get the silver edging added?”
“Yeah, but you owe Maki another two grand. He melted down a lot of heirlooms for that, and he’s pretty convinced that his great-grandfather is haunting him again.” He laced up a pair of combat boots.
“Fine. We’ll pay for it with the reward money when we stop this werewolf, then we’ll deal with Old Man Yamada.”
“Sounds like a plan. We better get moving, then. It’ll take us at least thirty minutes to get to 45th.”
Melissa pulled two holstered pistols from the wardrobe and handed them to Clark. “You’re driving,” she said. “Those are loaded with the silver-tipped rounds, just in case.”
“Thanks Mel.” Clark stood and attached the holsters to his belt. “Nearly ten years, but we’re down to the last known one. Let’s end this.”
Adding a sword belt to her own outfit, Melissa turned to face him. “Together.”
“Son of a bitch burned me once. Not this time.” Clark quickly crossed himself. “Let’s go.”
What do you do
When someone you love
Tells you that you
Saved their life?
How do you feel
When you realize that
You didn’t know that
They needed help?
Where do you turn
When you believe that
You have reached the
End of everything?
Do you worry that
You might have to
Come to the rescue
One more time?
Or do you simply
Face each new day
With utmost hope for
Those you love?
I go to sleep
Each night with my
Phone on and by
My pillow, close.
So that the ones
I love might sleep
And know that I
Will always answer.
The following piece has been crafted for another one of Chuck Wendig’s writing challenges. We were given three lists of ten topics, for sub-genre, location, and included element. Thanks to the luck of random number generation, I ended up with erotic fairy tale, capital city of an ancient civilization, and a magical pocket watch. Here’s “Shambhala” for your reading pleasure. Or just pleasure. 😉
Shambhala
Tick…tick…tick…
Edmund heard the watch before he saw her, long before he knew what it would come to mean. Nitya was her name, and the watch was hers.
Tick…tick…tick…
His cell was cool, but comfortable, with a woven blanket to keep him warm at night. He didn’t know if the others in the expedition had been taken captive as he was or if they had been killed, but he could hear none of them if they were imprisoned. He could hear nothing but the watch.
Tick…tick…tick…
On his first night in his cell, angry, refusing to sleep, he had seen her. Nitya walked the passage, and the sound had been overwhelming, though her bare feet padded silently on the floor. She had been the first person Edmund had seen since he had woken behind the cold bars, the first he’d seen since he had encountered the girl on the outskirts of the city.
Tick…tick…tick…
The watch’s chain glistened in the moonlight, looping her neck once before vanishing from sight. Edmund knew that the watch itself hovered just below the curves of her breasts, though he found himself wondering how he knew. In that instant, she turned and smiled at him, dark eyes shining. “It had to be you,” a soft voice murmured inside his head as she turned to walk away.
Tick…tick…tick…
He had been offered whatever treasure he could find in exchange for leading the expedition, and so he chartered a plane to Delhi, rode for over three hundred kilometers into the Himalayas, and found a small group of men who would attempt to guide him to the ancient city. The map that his financier had provided was in an ancient form of Sanskrit that few recognized and even fewer could interpret, but soon he was deep in the mountains in search of the mythical Shambhala.
Tick…tick…tick…
On the second night, Nitya passed by his cell again, the sound of the watch the only noise. This time, he lay beneath his blanket and watched her until she passed from his sight, entranced by her beauty. She wore no jewelry, barring the watch looped about her neck, and was clothed in a simple sari. Again, she turned to face him, and once more he heard her words, though she never spoke aloud. “I knew from the moment that I first saw you.”
Tick…tick…tick…
“Ask her who she is,” Edmund had said. The expedition had reached the top of a plateau, where an unbelievable sight had greeted them. A lush, verdant landscape opened before them, trees and ferns and flowers the like of which had never been seen were flourishing here in the harshest mountain range on Earth. In their midst stood a small girl, black hair cascading over her shoulders. She said nothing, but simply stood watching the men. Finally one of Edmund’s interpreters spoke up, speaking first in Hindi, then Urdu, and finally (after a suggestion from Edmund) Sanskrit. At this third attempt, the girl had smiled and raised one hand, as if in greeting. Edmund felt himself growing tired. The last thing he saw before his eyes closed was the flash of a golden chain about the little girl’s neck.
Tick…tick…tick…
Could she possibly be the same girl? Edmund’s mind raced. The chain was the same. It had to be. It was the only possible conclusion. That meant, however, that Nitya had been responsible for the fate of his companions, whatever that might have been. The day passed in a confused blur of sleep and hunger. When he awoke with the moon on the third night, he found a small cup of water on the floor beside him. He sipped slowly, knowing that the ache in his stomach would only be worse if he didn’t pace himself.
Tick…tick…tick…
She was coming. The moon was waxing, and Nitya was drawing near. The sound of the watch grew louder. Was it really the third night that he had been locked in this cell? Time seemed to lose its natural rhythm. Was the moon waning now? Edmund could no longer be certain of anything. She had passed into his field of vision, and once again she paused before him. “I have been waiting my entire life for your arrival,” she said without speaking. “My father, King Suchandra, told me that you would come, but he has been gone for over six hundred years, and the Kulika now rules here.” She smiled again. For the first time, she opened her mouth and Edmund heard her voice with his ears. “Hello, Edmund. I am Nitya. And it is time that you were freed.”
Tick…tick…tick…
Edmund stood outside of the bars of his cell for the first time. Nitya stood beside him, an ivory and gold sari wrapped around her. “Welcome,” she said. “Welcome to Kalapa.”
“W…where am I?”
“Kalapa,” the woman repeated. “Capital city of the great realm of Shambhala.”
Edmund stammered again, confusion and disbelief mingling on his face. “S…Shambhala?”
“Is this not what you have sought? Was it not your wish to find this place?” Nitya’s voice was soft and mysterious, unmistakably feminine but with deep, dulcet tones and an accent akin to that of Edmund’s Sanskrit interpreter. When he said nothing, Nitya continued. “I see. You searched for my home, but you did not believe. You did not know that such a place could possibly exist.”
Tick…tick…tick…
“What happened to the rest of my men?” Edmund demanded, finding his voice at last.
“They have been sent away, returned to their families with no memory of this place, or even of you, Edmund.”
“How?”
“The watch,” she replied, reaching beneath the sari to reveal a golden pocket watch attached to the chain. “It grants me some control, within the boundaries of Shambhala.”
Tick…tick…tick…
Edmund blinked and found that he was now standing in the middle of a sandalwood grove, an enormous mandala towering over him. Nitya was at his side.
“This was my father’s garden,” she said. “And now it is mine, to share with the one that I deemed to be worthy. So it is that I saved you from your companions and brought you here.”
“Were you the little girl that we met at the edge of the city?”
“I was,” Nitya nodded, “but when I saw you, saw that you were of your age, I knew that the form I had taken to greet you was too young to welcome you properly. The watch accounted for this as well. And now,” she continued, “I am ready.” Nitya crossed her arms, taking the edges of the sari and pulling them down, exposing the full, smooth curves of her breasts. “I have waited for centuries, Edmund. Waited for the one with whom I could share the fullness of maithuna.” The sari fell away from her body as she stepped toward him, placing a kiss on his lips. “Do you understand now?”
Tick…tick…tick…
Edmund’s heart was racing as he wrapped his arms around her. “I came here to find you, didn’t I?”
“You came here because I desired it,” Nitya whispered, unbuckling Edmund’s belt. “You came here,” she kissed his neck, “because I desired you.”
“Why me?” Edmund was gasping as his arousal grew. Nitya’s hands reached into his pants, pulling them down.
“You have the kundalini,” she said. “The sleeping energy. It is only waiting for you to reach the proper understanding, to awaken, for release.”
Edmund lifted his shirt over his head and tossed it to the ground as Nitya’s hands came to rest on his back. “The energy is here,” her fingers traced lightly over the base of his spine, “but you are yet unprepared.”
Tick…tick…tick…
Edmund lay naked on a bed of sandalwood, the moon now full overhead. Nitya knelt behind him, slowly massaging a fragrant oil into his skin. She chanted quietly in a forgotten tongue, her hands helping him to relax.
“If you fight, Edmund, if you are unprepared, the awakening can be most unpleasant. Breathe deeply now.” For what seemed like hours or days or months, her hands caressed him, until finally Nitya ran her index finger up his spine, placing a kiss at the back of his neck. Edmund felt a tingling race along his back, following the path Nitya had drawn, and his eyes flashed open. “Now.”
Tick…tick…tick…
“Now,” Nitya whispered, “maithuna, the union.”
Edmund rolled onto his back as Nitya climbed onto him, slowing lowering herself and moaning with pleasure. The watch swung on its chain as Edmund kissed her breasts, as he tasted her, as he filled her. Time fell away as they came together, again and again, the moon waxing and waning above them as energy surged between their bodies.
Tick…tick…tick…
“Your life outside of Kapala is now over, Edmund. Your time in the world beyond Shambhala is at an end, but your time with me is only beginning.”
Edmund and Nitya kissed beneath the pale glow of the moon.
“Then I shall stay,” he said. “I shall stay.”
There’s an incredible overwhelming
Silence that comes at 3 AM,
After the hum of the television
Dies. When the mind is free
To wander without the distractions
Of the day.
A stillness settles on the world,
Broken only by the soft scratch
Of a pen on paper.
Outside the darkness rests upon
The field of fallen white,
But the wind has passed,
And the storm is at an end,
And the fire is now but embers,
And in the fading light I strive
To make some memory of it all.
This is my entry for Chuck Wendig’s latest weekly flash fiction challenge, which asked us to write what we know, but with a fictional twist. Here’s “Before the Dawn” for your enjoyment.
My father wakens me before the dawn. I dress myself in the dark, preparing to go to work with skill born of endless days of practice. Within minutes I am ready, and I leave my bedroom to find my father seated at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee before him, a glass of orange juice at the seat next to his. I sit beside him, questioning him about the day ahead of us and what it might bring. He is tired, though he tries not to show it. Work has been hard on him for the past few weeks, more so than normal. It’s harvest season, and it’s nearly over.
I glance out the window and I can see the last traces of the second moon fading as the sun peers across the distant horizon. The red tinge of our world is barely noticeable in the larger cities like Valentine, but out here, Mars is still Mars, and it still feels like home. My family and I have lived here my whole life, and soon I will come of age, but not yet. I find myself dreaming of Earth sometimes, but I am grateful for the opportunity to be where I am. My mind drifts to what a boy my age on Earth would be thinking as my father tells me that it’s time to go.
We climb into the truck and head north, toward the field that we finished cutting last night. Since the terraforming, wheat has grown better on Mars than it did in the last hundred years or so on Earth. We’ve got almost a thousand acres left to harvest, but our crew is great this year. Two of my uncles, my grandfather, and a small army of cousins will be reaching the field soon, but since it’s one that’s close to our house, Dad and I are the first ones there.
I stretch as I climb out of the truck. A cool breeze is blowing across the stubble, and I think about how wise it was to bring a thermal sweatshirt this morning. Dad is already starting his half of the pre-harvest tasks, preparing the combine for operation. The equipment that we use was manufactured here on Mars, assembled by my grandfather and his brother from pieces that were printed upon their arrival on the planet. It was the only practical way to get the necessary machinery to another world, and it was achieved using Martian minerals. The technique had proven itself on Luna, and had only seen improvement by the time the terraforming process was complete on Mars.
My side of things is relatively simple. As has been my job since I was thirteen, I prepare the grain cart and the tractor that pulls it. I pull our truck alongside the tractor, lining up the fuel tank in the truck’s bed with the tank on the side of the tractor. Once the fueling is in progress, I grab a grease gun and a rag from one of the tool boxes and begin the hunt for the the various zerks that are found on bearings around the tractor and the auger on the grain cart. Dad likes to tell me that farming has changed very little since he was my age. The only real difference is in location. And a little bit of gravity. Okay, quite a bit of gravity.
I jump up to the top of the auger, greasing the bearing there before dropping back to the ground. Greasing the grain cart takes about ten more minutes, and the fuel pump clicks off just as I’m finishing up. As I’m wrapping the fuel hose back around the pump, the rest of the harvest crew arrives to service their machines. A swarm of family members pours out of a handful of other pickups, quickly preparing the other four combines, the tractors and grain carts, and the semi trucks that will haul the wheat away.
As the sun rises higher, the crew piles back into their various vehicles to make the move to the next field. We’ve got a fifteen kilometer trip there, so we form up into a convoy with the combines at the front and the pickups at the rear. At the max speed for the combines, it takes us about forty-five minutes. Upon our arrival at the new field, my grandfather takes the lead with his combine, cutting a small swath in the corner of the field where the rest of the vehicles will initially park. Once he’s done, he begins to cut a path through the wheat at the field’s perimeter. My father and uncles and one of my cousins follow suit, taking the next header width in. As my grandfather finishes his first round, the hopper on top of his combine is nearly full. It’s a good sign of the quality of the wheat, a sign of a good yield on a field this size.
Seeing this, I slip my tractor into gear, driving across the stubble to line up with the now-extended auger on the combine, matching my speed to his as the auger begins to feed wheat from the combine into my grain cart. My cousins fall in alongside the other combines, and as each grain cart is slowly filled we peel away to transfer our loads to the semis. When the semis are in turn filled, other members of the crew will drive them to a storage facility on the outskirts of Valentine, about twenty-five kilometers away. It’s a familiar operation, one we’ve carried out every summer for as long as any of us can remember. We stop in shifts to eat packed lunches in our tractors and combines, and the day goes smoothly. Soon we will have provided a good portion of the wheat necessary for the growing colonies.
Dad calls me over to his combine as the sun begins to set and Phobos and Deimos appear in the sky.
“Good work today, sonny boy,” he says.
I’ll answer your questions, certainly. But I’m going to answer them in the manner that I see fit.
1.) Yes, I’m still alive. I don’t mean to be sarcastic, but would I be able to give this interview if things had ended differently?
2.) No, I’m not going to tell you who I really am. I used a pseudonym on the plane for that very reason.
3.) I love the internet. Just because I’m old doesn’t mean that I can’t use newer technology. The joys of anonymity are numerous. Besides, I responded to your message board post requesting an interview, didn’t I?
4.) Yes, the bills I was given were marked. You think I didn’t expect that? You’d be surprised at how easy it was to get overseas under yet another pseudonym, exchange the marked cash, and move on back in ’71. A few similar swaps with the right contacts, and I was a free (and very wealthy) man. Marked bills serve as one thing. A paper trail. If you know you’re leaving one, it’s easy enough to set a false path. Hell, I started one before I even left the states. $5,800 in marked bills served as a perfect distraction. Took their time finding those, though, didn’t they?
5.) The briefcase didn’t have a real bomb. Again, I’m not that stupid. Even with security standards as they were in the seventies, I wasn’t about to try to take a real bomb onto a plane. I wanted to get money, not hurt people. That stewardess actually gave a surprisingly accurate description, what with the “red cylinders” and whatnot. Good on her. She stayed pretty damn calm the whole time, too. I wonder what ever happened to her. Quite a gal. Shame I couldn’t have let her in on the whole thing, but too many loose ends get real damn complicated real quick. I’d have at least donated a few grand to get her out of the stewardess business, maybe help her get an education or something.
6.) I’m well aware that they’re still looking for me. It’s funny, honestly. Some people had been making me out to be some sort of Robin Hood. What bullshit that was. It was never for anyone’s benefit other than mine, though like I said, I wouldn’t have said no to tossing a stack of cash to that stewardess.
7.) If I’d known how things were going to go, I might have gone about it a bit differently. Picked a different night, tried to find a better route out. I did bang up my leg pretty badly when I landed, but it was nothing I wasn’t prepared for. I didn’t plan to get caught, though, and I didn’t, so that’s pretty good overall.
8.) I suppose that someday I might let a memoir get published, let the feds know how I managed to dodge them for decades, but it’ll be a posthumous thing. Oh well. I’m not anywhere they’re going to be finding me any time soon. Hell, by the time they realize where I really am, I’ll be dead and the money will be so far beyond their reach that it isn’t even funny.
9.) It seemed like a good idea at the time. Certainly caught the nation’s interest, didn’t it? Big media frenzy over the crazy hijacker, “Oh, he stole so much, how will we ever catch him?” Hmph. I was tired of regular life, see? I thought, as you kids would put it, that I needed to go big or go home.
10.) No, we can’t meet in person. Quite frankly, I’m tired of answering your questions now, so I’m going to go.
Sincerely,
The Real Mr. Cooper
In the dark there’s nothing but me
And my thoughts of what could
Have been,
And my anxiety and fear of what
Will be,
And my desires and my needs
And my tears.
It’s too much for any one person
To bear
But I know that you too carry
The weight
And so
In the dark there’s nothing but me
And silence.
The writing process varies from writer to writer. There are no guarantees that this is what writing is like for you. There are no guarantees that my process even remains the same from one piece to another. However, this is a pretty good breakdown of how most of it goes for me.
1.) Get an idea.
2.) Decide if it’s a short story or if it needs to be a longer piece.
3.) Start writing. Get around two hundred words.
4.) Change narration style. Rewrite initial two hundred words.
5.) Consume caffeine.
6.) Take a break to play video games.
7.) Try to write again. Get fifty or so words down this time.
8.) Eat dinner.
9.) Consume alcohol, usually 1-3 beers or a White Russian.
10.) Lose all track of where I’d been in my writing.
11.) Watch TV instead.
12.) Get new idea. Decide if it needs to be written down tonight, or if it can wait til tomorrow.
13.) Begin again.
The Swords of the Ancients 