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Category Archives: Writing

Zombie Apocalypse (aka Bandwagon Day)

I woke up a few days ago and I found this in my twitter feed. Now I like good zombie fiction as much as anybody else (and probably a hell of a lot more than some of you), but the topic is one that I’d tried to avoid mainly due to the over-saturation of modern popular culture. Well, that and I’ve worked in retail over Christmas, so I’m pretty certain I’ve already had some first-hand experience with fending off zombies. NO! BACK! YOU CAN’T HAVE MY BRAIN! HAVE THIS DELICIOUS HOMELESS MAN WHO HAS BEEN CAMPED IN FRONT OF THE STORE ALL WINTER INSTEAD!

The zombie craze has been going strong for several years now, and I am pleased to say that I think the vampire sex fantasies are dying off slowly, as exposure to light generally shows how stupid that concept is. (Disclaimer: I have read the Twilight books, and once I was done, I found myself wondering if I hadn’t briefly been turned into a zombie… I got better once someone handed me a copy of A Game of Thrones, and I am fully convinced that this is a legitimate cure. If nothing else, you can use the hardcover editions for bludgeoning weapons and a layer of the paperbacks as a sort of lightweight but still nearly bulletproof armor. Thank you for saving me, George.) Not that vampire stuff can’t be done well. Bram Stoker’s Dracula give me chills, three readings later, and Anne Rice had a great thing going with her earlier work. Or there’s always the Sookie Stackhouse books. You might know them as those stories that Stephanie Meyer completely ripped off when she wrote Twilight, or like A Game of Thrones, you might know of the story from the sexy HBO adaptation (I’m still waiting for the HBO version of my own life to kick in).

This isn’t to say that the zombie fiction isn’t just as ridiculous as the vampire fiction. Far from it. However, it is technically a little more plausible, especially given recent events. People are even catering to the zombie apocalypse with “anti-zombie” ammunition, bladed and blunt weapons, and fortresses. Zombies are in our video games, our movies, our books, and even our news articles. Combine pop culture’s love of this kind of shit with the fact that some people are legitimately convinced that the world’s going to end because a calendar carved in stone around 2600 years ago is running out of room (oh, hey, look, my calendar printed on paper is going to end this year too, I wonder if that means that the world really WILL end…) and people start to get a little twitchy. I must admit, though, that I am curious as to how a civilization that has supposedly predicted the end of the world couldn’t have foretold their inevitable downfall… I mean, it’s not like anyone who’s ever predicted the end of the world has ever been wrong. Wait, what? You mean they’ve ALL been wrong? Oh man, I need to rethink my strategy… But I digress. In all seriousness, the zombie apocalypse could be a lot of fun. There are some great depictions of it. I just can’t help thinking that any disease or thing like that might likely just kill everyone rather than creating living dead. You can blame my recent reading of Margaret Atwood for this.

Anyway, I should get some sleep. Zombies are making me sleepy. What’s that sitting beside me, you ask? Nothing, nothing, just a little shotgun in the event that you start moaning and craving brains in the near future. Can’t be too careful.

The Door

The door was locked. It had been for as long as I could remember, and it would probably remain so until the day that I died. Maybe even longer than that. It wasn’t that I couldn’t unlock the door to find out what she had hidden away so carefully. It was that I made a promise.

The door stood at the far end of the hallway from the room where I slept. I didn’t sleep in my bedroom anymore at that point. It seemed futile to try to fall asleep in that bed after she was gone. No, the room where I now slept, where I had been sleeping for nearly ten years now, was my study. The overstuffed recliner next to the fireplace served as a better bed for me, and I had lost count of how many times I had nodded off while a fire roared to counter the howling wind and snow outside of my windows.

The door led to a room that had been intended as a nursery, but the children had never come. One day she had gone into the room, and stayed there for several hours. When she came out, her face was pale, but filled with grim accomplishment. She locked the door then, and made me swear to never open it again. She threw the key into the fire that night, and we sat together in the recliner and watched as it melted away.

For a time, we were happy again, and we ignored the door at the far end of the hallway next to the bedroom, when the bed was still shared and we didn’t need the fire to stay warm. The door stayed locked, and I never asked her the reason. We trusted each other with every secret but this one, and it eventually drove us apart.

I don’t remember exactly what happened on the day (or night, I can’t seem to recall the hour) when she left. I don’t know where she went, but I know why. The locked door seemed to torment her more than me, a reminder of the life that she couldn’t carry. I want to say that I plead with her that night, got down on my knees and begged her to tell me what was eating away at her, what this secret was, but I don’t know. I may have, instead, filled my heart with courage from an increasingly empty bottle and told her that if she couldn’t live with herself then she couldn’t live with me, and that she needed to get out.

I don’t remember when it was that I took every one of my books and my lamps and my blankets and my pillows from the room that had been ours and left every one of hers behind. I haven’t been back in that bedroom for years, but I’ve left it unlocked. I can’t risk doing what she did. I can’t leave the house, either. That’s not to say that I can’t go out my door to buy groceries or to find a new book, but I can’t move. I can’t pack up and find somewhere new to live. I’m held here by my promise to her. If someone else were to buy the house, they might open the locked door, and I cannot bear the thought of some stranger learning the secret that tore her away from me.

The door sits at the end of the hallway, on the second floor of my home. My kitchen is directly beneath the room, and some days I find myself staring at the ceiling in wonder. What-if’s fill my head, and I find that I lose my appetite until the next day, when another empty bottle of whiskey or rum or vodka has turned up next to my recliner and I have no memory of coming back upstairs. One morning, I woke up on the floor of the hallway next to the locked door, a screwdriver and a hammer beside me. I must have decided that I had to open the door, but I had passed out before I could put my plan into action.

It’s better that way, really. I don’t want to know what’s behind that door, or at least that’s what I tell myself. Instead I sit next to the fire, or at my desk, and I read, or I write, or I try to do one or the other and fail miserably at both because I remember how much she used to inspire me and remember that she’s gone and she’s not coming back. Occasionally a magazine calls and asks me if I can finish another story for them this month, and I tell them yes, because I still need to eat.

Once in a while, I thought about having a new key made, or having a locksmith come in and open the door, but I realized that would still be breaking my promise, and even now I am still a man of my word. I know what I’m going to do now, though. I’m not going to break my promise to her. I’m not going to unlock the door. I’m going to stoke the fire high tonight, and I’m going to leave my chair closer to it than usual. I’m going to have a drink, and I’m going to fall asleep, surrounded by my books and covered in an afghan that she made for me the winter after I proposed, one of the blankets that I took from our old bedroom after she left. I’m not going to leave a note. It wouldn’t survive anyway. I suppose that the fire will start slowly, kissing the pages of the books, blackening them and turning them to ash. It will start in the study, and make its way down the hall.

It will consume everything in its path. It’s fire, after all, and it will devour the house that was once ours and is now mine and mine alone. The hallway will offer little resistance. Likewise the bedroom we once shared and I now shun. It will burn, and the smoke alarms will attempt to wake me to save me from myself, but it will be in vain. The locked door will stand at the end of the hall, but it too will burn, and her secret will die with me.

Librarian

Since my physical dictionary is still in a cardboard box somewhere (ugh), I’ll have to resort to web sources for this one. Dictionary.com defines a librarian as “a person trained in library science and engaged in library service.” At this point in my life, the term does not directly apply to me. I’m a library clerk, merely a person engaged in library service. The training is still severely lacking, and there’s this piece of paper with a few words on it, like master, library, science, and my name that is still at least two years away. I’m not a librarian. Not yet. It’s a goal, though, and it’s one that I’ve grown more and more serious about in the last few years. One of my coworkers has described it as catching the “library bug” and wanting to get more involved.

My background is filled with books. My parents both read to me and my sisters while we were getting ready for bed. As I was growing up, I would frequently visit the local public library, a site that still plays into a great deal of my writing. We would have story time there, and my sisters and friends and I would always participate in the summer reading program. There was a small local bookstore owned by a couple (quite literally, as they were married at the time) of the teachers that we’d visit on occasion. When they decided that they didn’t want to run it anymore, my parents stepped in and bought it so that there would still be a bookstore in town. After that, the bookstore was my after-school hangout of choice, though I would still stop by the library on the way there. I couldn’t get enough books. I devoured everything that came into my reach.

That’s one of the few things about me that hasn’t changed as I’ve grown older. I love books, and I want to be around them whenever possible. That’s what drew me to work in libraries and bookstores. It’s why I interned for a literary agency, and it’s why I started this blog. I read because I want to read, and I write because I want to write. It’s been said that one should write the book they want to read. That’s very true. I’m going to bathe my life in ink and clothe it in parchment.

I’m going to become a librarian. There’s no doubt of that in my mind. Right now, I just need to be able to support myself and get signed up for the GRE. I’m not looking forward to the test itself, or to the couple of years of grad school that the advanced degree will require, but I am looking forward to finding a way to maintain libraries into the future. I want the world to be a safe place for readers and writers alike, and I want them to know that their work will always have some refuge. Besides, for a writer, what better day job could there be?

An Update

I have at least four short stories that I’ve gotten good starts to. These stories are currently sitting in a Moleskine, eagerly awaiting digitization. Most of these will not be published on here, not yet, anyway. These are the big ones, the stories that I’m going to be submitting to various publications in the hopes of getting noticed. Don’t worry, dear readers. I’m still writing some stuff that will be just for you. “Gateway Shuffle” will be coming soon, continuing my Cowboy Bebop-inspired sci-fi series. Additionally, I’m working on an update on what’s going on with Arsus and Rime as their journey across the Sand Sea continues in “The Swords of the Ancients.”

The Cycle

I have considered myself a writer for many years, even though it wasn’t until I was out of college that I began to realize that it was okay to be serious about it and strive to have writing as my primary career. Please note that said aforementioned career shift has yet to occur. It’s the unfortunate truth that I have to have a day job, and that I really need a second one to make ends meet. Needless to say, it may be a while before I can get one of these.

Seriously, though, who wouldn’t save up for this?

As my attempts at writing have grown more serious, especially over the last year or so that I’ve been maintaining this blog, I’ve noticed that there’s something highly repetitive about the life of a writer. It’s a vicious cycle, really.

Write, format, edit, submit, get rejected, repeat.

You know the worst part about this?

I’m totally okay with it.

 

Honky Tonk Women

And here’s number 3 in my latest series, pieces inspired by Cowboy Bebop episode titles. This one’s called “Honky Tonk Women.”

 

 

“Do you really think that life will be that different out there? I mean, we’ve got it pretty good here, all things considered. The bar is even starting to turn a profit.”

“I don’t know. I want it to be better, but I don’t know. All I know is that they’ve offered me the job in Valentine.”

“Abby, you know we can’t afford to go to Mars!”

“They’ve offered to pay my way. Full coverage of relocation. Not just me, actually. Both of us.”

“Us?”

“You know I can’t imagine going anywhere without you. How long have we been together now?”

“Two years, next Thursday.”

“Exactly. What better way to celebrate our anniversary? We can even go out for a fancy dinner, steak, or sushi, or something, maybe go see a show. When was the last time we went out? It’ll be my treat, Emily.”

“But you always pay for dinner…”

“No buts, missy.”

“Fine. But on one condition.”

“To dinner, or to my taking the job in Valentine?”

“To your taking the job, I guess.”

“Okay.”

“Well…are you going to tell them about me? About us?”

“They already know, Em. I had to put someone down as my beneficiary if something happens to me. I sure as hell wasn’t going to leave anything to my parents after what they said to you.”

“You’re…but…why?”

“Because I love you, you big dork.”

“I love you too, Abby.”

“So, they’ve offered us relocation expenses, including a ride on the TPE next week. Our stuff will be sent along as freight, so we don’t have to worry about having some jackass movers meet us there. We’ve already got a lease ready to sign for an apartment in central Valentine, just down the street from the library. They want me to start as soon as we can get there.”

“Oh my God…”

“I know. We’re going to be set, hun.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“They just got back to me yesterday. I wanted to surprise you with the news, but you were at work, and I didn’t want to tell the whole bar. It’s not like you could’ve heard me over that godawful country crap they play in there.”

“What are we going to do about it?”

“The bar? Sell it! Hasn’t James been talking to you about converting part of it into a hookah place anyway? Let him have the whole building. Start a new one on Mars! You can call it ‘The Mars Bar’ or some other lame pun like you love so much.”

“You know me way too well…”

“I thought that was the idea.”

“So, you’ve got a new job that’s going to take care of both of us.”

“Yup.”

“It sounds like they thought of everything.”

“There’s no other library like it in the solar system. They said they wanted the best people to work for them, and they picked me, so here we are.”

“So, when do we leave?”

“How quickly can you pack?”

“I don’t even know what to say.”

“Say you’ll come with me to Mars, and we’ll be able to live our dreams together.”

“I’ll go.”

100 Words: April/May Writing Challenge

Each month, the wonderful Sonia M. over at doingthewritething presents her fellow bloggers with a writing challenge, usually to create a piece of microfiction that fits within a particular word limit and based on a simple prompt. It’s a great way to connect with other writers, and it can only help to boost your creativity. Isaac Asimov even wrote under similar limits, once crafting a short piece of fiction designed to fit on the back of a postcard. The man was a genius, but I digress.

This month, Sonia’s challenge for us was “First Impressions and Famous Last Words.” We were allowed to write any genre, but we were limited to one hundred words and told to create either the opening or closing lines to a story. Here’s my contribution.

*     *     *     *     *     *

The explosion shook me off my feet, hurling me into the bulkhead. The airtight doors around me began to seal, red hazard lights flashing as artificial atmosphere vented. I scrambled for my emergency oxygen mask, knowing that precious seconds would make the difference between living and dying. As soon as I was breathing normally, I looked around again, pleased that my training had saved me but terrified of what could’ve caused such a catastrophic failure in the compartment. My communicator was still attached to my belt, but it had been damaged in my fall. No signal. I was truly alone.

*     *     *     *     *     *

Was it the first or last hundred words of a story? I don’t know. I like that it could be either one.

Stray Dog Strut

Number Two in my series of microfiction stories inspired by Cowboy Bebop episode titles, this is Stray Dog Strut. Some influence comes from the same source as the poem I posted. It’s also set in the same universe as the other story in this series, Asteroid Blues, and my earlier piece, Trans-Planetary Express. Reading any of the other stories is non-critical to understanding, but you will see further references to them as time goes by.

Stray Dog Strut

My name is Dog. Well, it is now. It’s not a real name, I suppose, but it’s one that I go by out here. I’ve gone by a lot of names in my life, so Dog is as good as any.

I used to work for the Express back in the day. That was right after things really calmed down in the colonies on Deimos. With half of the other moon blown to hell, tourism dropped off big time. The layoffs hit everyone hard, but people in my line of work usually found something to do, whether it’s private security or public military service. But not me.

Things just never seemed to go my way after I lost my job with the Express. Without the cash for a ride home, I was stuck on Mars. They’d built the planet into an ecumenopolis after the terraforming, and they called the city Valentine, like it would have any connotation for the illiterate masses flooding in from Earth and Luna, or the few surviving Phobian refugees. I don’t like it here, but I don’t have a lot of options at the moment. I’m keeping my head up, though. I knew a guy who let it get to him. Last I heard, he was on Phobos at the time of the blast, and might’ve even been involved. No thanks. Not my bag, not anymore. I got out of that lifestyle years ago, and the Express hired me.

The new transports are faster and nicer than the Express was, even in her glory days, but they lack the sentimental quality she had. Now it’s all surgical steel, emotionless smooth bulkheads, spartan quarters. They’re more expensive and not as nice. The TPE, now she had everything. She was a spaceliner, though, built for affordable luxury travel from Earth to Mars. I’m sure that I could find work on one, if I really tried, but I need to get myself cleaned up before I try.

Out here, I’m what they call a stray, so going by this name is all the better for me to fit in until I feel like the time is right. Maybe I will get back to Earth eventually, but here, I’m a person who can accomplish things for the rest of the strays. Valentine’s beautiful, but not without its flaws. There are others out here who depend on guys like me. We look after each other. Besides, it’s Earth. From what I’ve head, it’s almost back down to 2023 in terms of population, so that’s a good indicator that things are looking up, despite the exodus to the colonies. They’re talking about building Io up into a global city too, so I’ve got no desire to move further outward again.

My great-great grandpa owned a little piece of land back home. Should still be family around somewhere. Maybe I’ll try my hand at farming. It’d do me good to get out of the cities for a while. Anyway, I should get on my way. I’ve still got to find a place to bed down for the night. Good luck to ya, son. Thanks for listening.

 

“Dog”

 As April is National Poetry Month, I present to you an older piece, one that I did two years ago in a class on Poetry and Social Justice. I’ve mentioned it once or twice before. This poem, “Dog,” was published in Active For Justice back in 2010, and I’ve linked to it previously, but now I’ll present the poem in its unedited entirety. Enjoy.

“Dog”

My face is new to you today, but you say hello to me

Anyway. I’m tired as hell, feeling sick, and my feet are

Already sore. It’s not a big deal, though, not in comparison.

Anyway, we’re not even halfway through this walk.

I’m young. I can handle it.

You smiled honestly as we walked up to you, as if

You knew what we were going to say and what we

Were going to offer you. Yes, you say, it’s a byooo-

Tee-full day outside today, but it’s going to get chilly

Tonight, when the sun sets.

I don’t know what your real name is. Out here you’re

A nickname. It’s protection. No one can hurt you if

They don’t know who you are. That’s the idea, at

Any rate. But no one can help you if they don’t know

That you’re here.

It’s a little after noon. I shouldn’t be so tired, and it

Really shouldn’t be an issue, not when I’m seeing

How you and your friends live. Not when I’m seeing

How badly you might need medicine, or propane to keep

Warm, or even just a damn toothbrush.

You don’t say “fucking” in front of us. You try to maintain

Some sort of air of being a gentleman in front of the lady in

Our group. She’s touched by this, and the fact that you call
Her byooo-tee-full, Despite that you’re wearing an inside-out

Hoodie and a bandana, and rarely put down your beer.

You know why you’re here today. You know that you’ve made

Some mistakes. Trusted people you shouldn’t have. Not trusted

The ones who would’ve helped you. Doesn’t matter now. You’re

Here, among friends, fellows, living together in a canvas city

Beside the creek.

You’re glad to see us walking the trail today. My tiredness and

Physical weakness is forgotten as you shake my hand and I feel

Your strength. Strength that you long to put to use for the benefit

Of a society that has shunned you because you don’t conform to

Its standards.

I wish that I could stay to chat with you longer, but we’ve still got

A lot of trail to cover. You’ve got places to be too, now that your

Natty Light and your hand-rolled smokes are done with. Lunch time’s
Over. It’s time for you to grab your bike and move on for a few hours,

But you’ve inspired me more than you’ll ever know.

I hope I see you again, under better circumstances.

                                    -Philip Krogmeier

                                January, 2010

Asteroid Blues

One of my fellow wordpress bloggers recently “liked” one of my posts on here, and so I decided to look at her blog to see what she had to say. I was fascinated when her blog contained this. You see, Joanna is a fan of my favorite anime series of all time, Cowboy Bebop. She also happens to be a writing blogger, and she has given me great inspiration. She’s working on a series of short fiction pieces based on the titles of the episodes that make up the series. Please note that this series will not attempt to directly reference Bebop or its universe in anything other than the titles. This isn’t supposed to turn into fan-fic. This is #1 in what will hopefully be a 25-26 piece series of original microfiction. Here I present “Asteroid Blues” for your reading pleasure.

Asteroid Blues:

You don’t expect the depression. It sneaks up on you in a place like this. You can do whatever you want to try to find a way around it, or a way to fight it. Doesn’t do you a damn bit of good. I’ve seen it a lot, so much so, in fact, that I didn’t recognize the symptoms in myself until after I’d seen to half of the crew being sent off. I just dismissed the signs, telling myself that it couldn’t happen to me. I was the strong one. I was in denial.

The Kuiper Belt is no place to make a living. The corporations set up the mining facilities and a few of the basic necessities, then they left. Now we’re here, sucking out ice to transport back to Earth. I’m sick of it. I’m tired of having nothing better to do when I’m done with work than going out and drinking. I’m tired of being so far away from my wife.

I know that I can get better. I just can’t shake the feeling that something big is about to go down. Something. My last memory of Earth was walking to my car, getting ready to leave for this job. It was the first real week of spring, and she was standing on the porch in a cotton dress, waving goodbye to me and whispering “I love you” in the breeze.

Why does that sit in the front of my mind, six months later? Because she’s gone…I got word today. The accident took her. Now there’s no reason to go back. Her funeral was a week ago, and I just found out. Guess I should leave the damn bar and go home, but I don’t really know what I’d be going back to. Maybe just one more beer…