Category: fiction

The End

He’d never seen the movie, “Unforgiven.” He explained to incredulous friends that his wife, rest in peace, didn’t like television, and disliked Clint Eastwood. He was Squint Eastwood to her, spoken with disparaging smugness. “He can’t act,” she said. “I don’t know why people like him.”

Nor had he seen “Reservoir Dogs.” “Too violent,” she said, scowling. Same with Al Pacino in “Scarface,” and Tom Hanks in “Saving Private Ryan,” and other movies.

After a year of mourning her death, his friends convinced him that he should rent and watch them. It took that long to feel like he wasn’t betraying his wife’s principles and tastes. He intellectually recognized that silliness, but that didn’t stop him from apologizing to her spirit on his first movie night. Filling a growler with an IPA from a local station – something he’d never done while she was alive – and buying and baking a Papa Murphy pizza, he settled in for the first one, “Unforgiven.” His friends had really enjoyed it. They thought he would, too.

But he was old. He’d had a long day, what, with walking, laundry, and house-cleaning. Pizza and beer added its weight. Despite his desire to see justice meted out against the cruel Little Bill (played superbly by Gene Hackman), he fell asleep as Little Bill tortured Logan (Morgan Freeman). Instead, he awoke, somehow in his bed and night clothes, an alternately alarming, bemusing, amusing turn. But going out to start the day, he discovered the laundry washed the day before was accumulated in the basket as though it hadn’t been done. The toilet and sink would benefit from cleaning, and he needed to run the vacuum. The grass needed to be cut.

Walking around and seeing the state of things, he worried about his sanity.  There wasn’t any leftover pizza, although he’d only eaten two slices. No beer in a growler. No sign of “Unforgiven” on DVD. Alarm rising, he rushed through activities, confirming he was reliving the day before, as Bill Murray had done in “Groundhog Day.”

Getting in the car and driving down to Redbox to pick up “Unforgiven,” he remembered that “Groundhog Day” had been one of his wife’s favorite movies (although she would tell people it was “Three Coins In A Fountain”).

He watched “Unforgiven” earlier and saw the ending, but couldn’t remember it the next day, when he again awoke in his bed without knowing how he got there. This, he believed, was a departure from “Groundhog Day.” Bill Murray had been able to learn to play the piano and help people, hadn’t he? He would need to watch it again.

Maybe. He suspected his version of “Groundhog Day” was different. He thought it would be a long time before he would remember and know the end of “Unforgiven,” even though he was forced to order and pick it up every day. Apparently, some things could not be altered.

On the other hand, he could eat and drink whatever he wanted, and not gain any weight, and never had to worry about money again.

He’d always been a glass half-full sort of person.

2

What I’m Not Watching

I’m not watching “19-2.” Season four is over. It remains a beautifully written, produced, directed, and acted television series. I look forward to it, and then must ration myself to make it last. It’s always worth the time. Episode one, season two, about the school shooting, remains one of the most gripping pieces of electronic fiction I’ve enjoyed, vividly drawn and executed.

I’m not watching “Rake,” either. I’m not referencing the American version, but the Australian original. Sorry, but Richard Roxburgh is Cleaver Green, that rake. After the shocks of last season – hell, every episode on every season offers a shock – I’m looking forward to the next one.

Naturally, I’m not watching “Game of Thrones.” I’m not watching “Code.” Code is over. I didn’t find year two as interesting as year one, but then, year one was hellagood. No, I’m not watching “Red Rocks” out of Ireland, restlessly awaiting its continuation, or another Australian show, “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.” I’m not watching “The IT Crowd” – the original U.K. series, with Chris O’Dowd, Matt Berry, Catherine Parkinson, and Richard Ayoade, or “Misfits,” nor the mischievous, cheeky “Raised By Wolves.” And of course, I’m not watching “Gavin and Stacy,” “The Killing,” “Happy Valley,” “The Vikings,” or that crazy, silly show, “Red Dwarf,” either, or “Prime Suspect,” “Cracker,” or any Wallender or Case History shows.

No, they’re all done, or on hiatus, leaving me to wait to see what the world comes up with next. The world is pretty good at surprising me.

0

Unanswered

She’s a Luddite, no doubt. Never had a computer or a personal email account. She’d had the one when she’d worked, in email’s early days. Didn’t have a cellphone and was only vaguely aware of selfies, and she didn’t have a television.

But she did have a P.O.T. – a plain old telephone – and an answering machine. When they called, though, it ringed without switching over. One day. Two. Twice on that second day, once each in the morning and afternoon, and then again twice on the morning of the third day. Official worry had launched by then. That. Was not. Like her.

Nerves coiling into a rat’s nest, they went to her house. Her car was there. The house looked normal. Sunning cats watched their investigation with narrow eyes, their ears pricked forward to hear their soft voices. Soft voices were needed in a moment like this, when you don’t know what you’ll find.

No one answered their knock.

They walked around the house. She wasn’t in the yard working, or in the shed. They checked the shed…in case.

The cats looked okay. They discussed it. How the cats looked meant nothing. A window was open for the cats to come and go. They could see a feeder half-filled with kibble inside, and a water bowl.

She kept her doors unlocked. That’s how she was. He remembered her answer to his amazement about how she lived. She said, scoffing, “I don’t think I remember where the house keys are.” They thought she was joking, but she said she wasn’t. Remembering that she didn’t lock her doors didn’t make them feel any better about the lack of connections to her.

Knocking again, they opened the door and called her name.

No reply.

Entering, they crept around, invaders of a friendly territory. It reminded him of entering a church when nothing was scheduled. It was a clean house, but not organized. That wasn’t a concern. They had other concerns, like bodies.

No bodies were on the floor. No blood. No signs of fights or struggles, as they’d seen in movies and television shows. They called her again, in bolder voices. The kitchen was clean. There was food on the refrigerator. The dishes were done. Nothing was in the sink.

They looked in all the rooms. No one was found. He went to her rotary Trimline phone and picked it up. He heard a dial tone. The answering machine was beside the phone. A red light showed it had power. Blinking showed it had messages. Maybe it was full.

Further walking around did nothing but reinforce the fact that they’d walked into another’s house without an invitation. “Let’s leave her a note,” he said. “Tell her we called and came by, and that her answering machine doesn’t seem to be working.”

They wrote the note, and left after two more minutes. They’d allowed that time in case she was out somewhere. She could return at any moment.

They closed the door behind them, and looked around again, to see what they’d missed. The sunning cats watched, and wondered who they were.

0

A Crazy Little Thing

He’d originally hacked into her accounts. No, he’d originally seen her at Starbucks. He didn’t frequent Starbucks on the principle that those fucking corporations were sapping the originality and creativity out of America, and changing its citizens into zombies. (Zombizens, he called them, but it didn’t catch on.) One rainy day, he rushed into Starbucks and used their restroom to drop a load. That’s when he saw her.

She was stone gorgeous in his eyes. His eyes were all that mattered. Learning her name, he cyber-stalked her, and then hacked her accounts. With access to her bank accounts, he saw, man, was she busted. Knowing her routines, he figured out when and where he could spy on her, and did, thinking about how he was gonna meet her. Wanted something fresh as an approach, something that would stand out.

She drove a shit-brown and rusted Camry manufactured back when they were compact cars. The mirrors were duct-taped to her car. Colored tape held the back lights on. The front bumper was missing, and her windshield was cracked. Through study, he saw the car blowing blue smoke when it ran, and noticed the windows were hard to roll up and down.

He would replace the Camry for her. After she’d parked one night after evening classes, he covered the P.O.S. with toilet paper, stole the radio, cut up the upholstery with his knife, slit the tires, put sugar in her tank, and broke her headlights and everything else he could. He thought about pissing in her car but did not – DNA. He was present the next morning, when she came out to see the destruction.

Hurrying to her, he commiserated as she stared, cried, took photos, and called people on her cell (a cheap little flip thing). “You need a new car,” he said, a comment that caused her to light into him about what else she needed, while he was at it. “You think I drive this for its fucking style?” she said with wild, menacing eyes.

Man, he liked her style. “I’m going to get you a new car.”

She gave him a dismissive look. “How are you going to do that?”

“I’m gonna start a crowdfund for you. Know what that is?”

“Who the fuck are you?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”

“Ceon,” he said. “I was just walking by, and I saw you, and your car, and I wanted to help.” He’d put on his best jeans and shoes, and washed and groomed, trimming his beard, trying to look good. He didn’t have much, because consumerism was destroying the world, but he had the latest iPhone. He whipped it out as she said, “Ceon?”

“I’m setting it up right now,” he said. He posted photos of her beside the wrecked vehicle, and asked her questions as if he was ignorant, crafting a pity story guaranteed to stir others, linking it to his social media accounts. “Just want to raise enough to help this hard-working poor young woman and get her a new car,” he wrote, establishing a goal of five thousand dollars. “She needs it to go to class. She’s studying to be a teacher.” He knew people. He knew they’d answer up to this beautiful woman and her wrecked car.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked. She was wary. He liked that.

“Just trying to help,” he said. “Can I buy you a coffee? There’s a great little cafe around the corner.”

She gave him a look that he couldn’t read. He figured, it must be love.

7

The Air, the Fitbit, the Writing, the Dreams

Our outdoor air sucks. Need more?

Smoke from wildfires is filling our air. The Air Quality Index leaped to one hundred fifteen last night. DANGEROUS. It hasn’t been hot, only into the nineties. We open the house at night to cool it off, and then close the blinds and windows during the day. Opening the windows last night sent us into coughing fits as wet smoke smells wafted in. Eventually, we donned masks.

Today isn’t as bad. The A.Q.I. is in the fifties, and officially, moderate. Visibility remains down. It’s like a white-out beyond a a few hundred feet.

All this wildfire smoke has reduced my Fitbit activities. Walking is way down, to five miles a day average. It’s not as critical as many other issues resulting from wildfires. None of the fires are directly affecting our community. We feel for all those being evacuated in those areas, and appreciate the firefighters’ efforts. If this stuff is terrible for me, a guy in his early sixties who considers himself in good health, those with emphysema and other respiratory issues must be deeply suffering.

I took to the Orson Scott Card method for visualizing and organizing the novel in progress. O.S.C. talked about just drawing places, like a city, and then adding details. With each detail and area added or defined, entertain questions about why those areas and details exist. I’ve done this exercise before, with excellent results. I wasn’t disappointed this time.

I had been editing the novel’s first draft. Halfway through that process, I perceived a problem. A new ‘greater arc’ was required as the solution. I could be wrong, but this is how I decided to address the issue. It’s essentially an epic. I like epics. Bigger is better.

This was decided over a four day period. Then, after deciding it was necessary, I went on a reading sprint. I finished reading two novels, and read two others, in five days. I also read fiction stories and news articles online. This reading stimulated my writing juices and invigorated my writing dreams. I found myself re-committed to who I was, and what I was doing. It’s a matter of taking a deep breath, turning on the computer, and putting the ass in chair, and the fingers on a keyboard.

This new arc takes place on a planet where technology fails. An outpost is established using outdated technology. Suddenly, it’s like living in a frontier castle. I loved that difference in direction from my usual challenges of visualizing the far future and other intelligent races.

I drew the outpost on my computer, and brainstormed about how the lack of technology affects them, and solutions and work-arounds. The team living in the outpost are hunting for people, but can’t use their suits or vehicles. They fall back to horses. Having horses adds more problems and dimensions.

So do the powerful windstorms endured on the planet. That’s why the outpost becomes a castle; something stout enough to survive the windstorms are necessary. That’s the iceberg view of all the scenes, problems, and challenges realized. I don’t want to give away more. Drawing and brainstorming in this manner was a catalyst to my imagination. I scrambled to capture ideas an create an event timeline. It resulted in *shudder* an outline. 

As an organic writer, the outline overwhelmed me. Suddenly, there it all was, this part of the novel mapped out in all its complications and key events. I could imagine, see, and hear them. Writing them was required. It’s daunting for an organic pantser. I decided I would scramble to write key scenes and moments, and patch them together with bridge and pivot scenes, and build the story in layers, much like I used to do when oil painting, or writing a business case, or analyzing data.

I think that whatever opened my creative floodgates also turned the dream valves to full open. I had six remembered dreams last night. Friends from my past were featured. My wife also made an appearance. Of course, maybe it was the eclipse opening the dream and creativity gates. Who can say?

Trying to capture details this morning diverted personal resources already earmarked for other activities. I resorted to dream summaries. The dreams were wild. Once again, my muses were prominently featured. They were attempting to guide and assist me in different manners. Sorting the chaos was a fascinating exercise.

Having your muses show up in my dreams injects high confidence levels. I felt empowered and emboldened when I awaken. Yet, being me, the confidence evaporates to more normal levels by midday. Having your muses and some higher beings populate your dreams and offer encouragement has a good thing. I’m certainly not going to kick them out.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more time. How about you, writers? Have you seen increased creativity? Maybe it is the eclipse.

Or maybe it’s the coffee.

2

His Walk

“Did you see how Marla says I walked?” he asked.

“No,” she replied.

“She was talking to you in the kitchen She said, “I knew the look, and the walk.” Then she did this weird walk. I don’t walk like that, do I?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t see what she did.”

“How would you describe my walk?”

“You walk just like your father.”

“That’s not helping. You’re basically saying that I walk like Mott the Hoople.”

“I don’t know how Mott the Hoople walks.”

He didn’t want to show her; it would only prove her point.

 

 

 

0

Broken Nose

“You mean you’ve never broken your nose?” the other man asked.

He looked at the guy. “What’s the big deal?”

“I don’t understand how a boy can grow up without breaking your nose. You weren’t ever punched in the nose?”

“No.”

“Wow.” Grinning, the man shook his head. “Wow.”

Which made him feel bad. Two broken necks, a digit cut off, stitches in five places, a broken ankle, and a displaced wrist, but he’d never had a broken nose.

It felt like he’d been doing something wrong.

2

The Connection

Thousands of small, black ants were swarming over the kitchen’s granite counter-top. Looking at his tanned forearm, he began crushing ants under his thumbs.

Yes, there was no doubt; each time he killed an ant, a black spot appeared on his arm. There seemed to be more and more ants, too.

Discounting what he was seeing, he kept killing ants. His arms blackened, and then his hands. He refused to stop even when he felt tingling on his face and an itchiness on his back and legs.

He would get rid of the little bastards.

He would win.

3

Silently Working

I’ve been on pause from editing the novel in progress, “Incomplete States.” I’d become troubled that it was missing an overall aspect that could tie it together.

It wasn’t something I immediately jumped on. I let it flow through me for a while and considered what I’d written, the novel’s totality. I didn’t want to be rash. I convinced myself it was necessary to add a greater arc.

I didn’t have any idea what that arc would be.

I began addressing the problem by thinking and writing about it. Exactly what was it that I was looking for in the greater arc? The novels and series that are most in mind with this novel came back to me:

  • Roger Zelazny’s “Chronicles of Amber”
  • George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Fire and Ice”
  • Frank Herbert – “Dune”
  • Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series
  • J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series
  • J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy

To a lessor extent, I also thought of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels. All that reading helps.

This wasn’t a quest novel, though; I wanted to ensure I didn’t accept an easy route and create another quest.

Several aspects attracted me. One, the epic sweep. Two, was how these novels and series embraced multiple levels of acceptance about the past, legends and myths, and prophecies. As the past receded in them, the past blended with myth and legend. More people in the novels grew enamored with lessor concerns that gathered importance in their lives, like fortunes, empires, and revenge. These smaller concerns were magnified into important concerns that eventually dwarfed the true, greater threats. In a way, I saw mirrors with our own planet and human civilizations, and how often we put profits, nation, and empire ahead of civilization and the planet.

But —

These novels and series also attracted me because of the greater and lessor acceptance. Uniform agreement about what was to happen, what had happened, and why, didn’t exist. Elements told their own stories. The differences in these stories provided the foundations for tension and conflict.

I wrote a one paragraph summary of each of these novels and series, defining their greater arcs against the dominant sub-stories that often propelled most of the action. That helped me clarify what I though my novel lacked.

Then I turned my attention to my novel and the situation.

I began by organizing information. Hundreds of thousands of words had been written. Deciding I needed visual assistance, I created character cards for the six major characters. Keeping faithful to the novel’s concept induced me to create character cards for each of their major iterations. As this novel is about cosmic and other entanglements, several of the characters are sometimes male, and sometimes female, with and without children, and sometimes married to one another. Sometimes one is the other’s parent, and sometimes, they’re enemies. Cards were created for each of them.

Having the cards allowed me to tack them up and move them around, hoping to prompt new thinking and insights. That approach produced; I brainstormed potential ideas, and then walked, thinking through what attracted me to each, and discarding some. After doing this, I thought I’d come up with the structure for the greater arc.

About four days had passed.

I sat down to write this morning. While I’d been thinking through all of these angles, the muse, or the muses, were at work in me. Sitting down with the slimmest idea of what was now to happen, I began typing. Within a few lines, I was on a world I’d not conceived before this. Memory of Jack Chalker’s “The Four Lords of the Diamond” series flashed into me along with Brian Aldiss’ Helliconia trilogy. New characters jumped into action, along with the agenda they pursued, in accordance with the greater arc.

Finishing with thirty-five hundred words about an hour later, I felt excellent about where I was. There’s still a tremendous amount to be done, but I had the semblance of the direction, the outlines of a plan, and vague ideas about events.

It was a good day of writing like crazy.

0

The Sound

He was in the bath room, fresh from the shower and reaching for a towel, when he heard the sound.

It sounded like a thump in the other room, like someone was in the house. Knowing he was home alone, he grew still and listened for it again. He’d left the windows open to bring in fresh, cold mountain air before the day became the oven in hell’s kitchen. Someone may have come through one of the windows.

The thump came again.

It was not from the other room, but from below.

He looked down, considering what he’d heard and where it emanated. For, it seemed like the sound had come from his abdomen.

Listening for it, he heard it again, like someone jumping on the floor, coming from his abdomen.

Was that normal? He’d never heard a noise like that from his body before.

He resumed drying. Growing old was a murky business. The more he aged, the less he knew his body, and the less he trusted it.

He never knew what it was going to do next.

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑