A Modern Dilemma

Mulberry Wine

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 14:46:00 +0000

Summer damp rumpled the pages of the book on the nightstand; the whir of the fan echoed the restlessness of a dark, sonorous night. Bullfrogs at the lake’s edge sang a song of weariness and ennui. Fireflies flashed in recognition of the sentiment.
Sleep was a fugitive on many nights like this. The humidity was just high enough to make the sheet cling to her legs, tangling her feet with each toss and turn. The book had been picked up and put down several times already, failing its one job as soporific.
The breeze rustled the leaves of the trees in the yard and brought the scent of roses in the window. So many years ago she had climbed out this window in the middle of the night whenever sleep eluded her. The sense that she was escaping a box full of disapproval meant just for her was exhilarating. In mid-summer she would sneak down to the lake and climb the mulberry tree whose ancient branches swept out over the water. Eating her fill of ripe mulberries, the splash of raccoons fishing at the water’s edge would nearly lull her to sleep in the tree.
Tonight she considered climbing out that window again, just for old time’s sake. A feeling of foolishness washed over her as she tossed aside the damp sheet. Instead of by the mulberry tree near the lake, she found herself in the kitchen pouring a glass of her uncle’s homemade mulberry wine. The cat squinted up at her and wound itself around her feet, determined not to be left out of whatever mischief was afoot.
As she and the cat settled into the glider on the front porch, it occurred to her that the alchemy of changing mulberries into wine was an excellent metaphor for life. The brash tartness of the berries had been boiled, strained, sweetened and fermented. The resulting dark liquid held the memory of whence it came. It also held the knowledge of transformation – from modest beginnings into fragrant sweetness. Yet the transformation wouldn’t have been so grand had the berry not been so humble.
Sometimes the hero and the damsel in distress can be one and the same.

The wait

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 14:20:00 +0000

an unmanned boat in the middle of the river
slight ripples skitter across the surface
blown by the breeze that sighs in the yews
wrinkled, amber colored leaves
land in the water with the barest sound
like the distant chittering of ravens
Charon is on holiday, and I dip my toe in the Acheron
the winds can keep no secrets
and I
haunted
await his return

Technorati Tags: poem,river,Charon

King Harold’s defeat

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Fri, 11 May 2012 23:18:00 +0000

King Harold slowly picked himself up from the gravel and wiped the blood from his mouth. He had the unshakeable feeling that the wheel of fortune had not only thrown him down, but was now rolling over his bones, crushing any remaining hope for normalcy like the dried seedpods scattered at his feet.

His enemies had won the day, once again. His ego was tattered and bruised, his family would be distraught.

His mother, Dr. Anna Harold, professor of medieval history at Cambridge University had considered herself so very droll when she named her son King. He had suffered relentless punishment from his peers since toddlerhood.

He was absolutely certain that it was not, in fact, good to be King.

Technorati Tags: short story,flash fiction

Here and Now

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:10:00 +0000

Carrie was never very good at being ‘in the moment.’ In fact, she was nearly always stuck in another time, another conversation, another place. She wished very much for one of the birds from Aldous Huxley’s novel that would constantly remind her to pay attention to the “here and now, here and now.”

The train whistle transported her. Carrie had been watching the wild grasses switch in the stiff breeze and reliving the joyfulness of watching her young children play with the dog in the pasture. The whistle took her back to a place and time she had never experienced, but that felt no less real.

The heat of a still summer afternoon was oppressive and the household chores would have to wait. Snapping green beans in the shade of the front porch and listening to Mood Indigo crackle over the radio from the parlor, Carrie heard the whistle as the train approached her backwater town. The children always ran past her house on their way to meet it at the station – they imagined that one day someone famous might step off that train and they didn’t want to miss it. The farrier down the street could be heard cursing the horse he was working on – the fool never got a horse to cooperate with him, he was such an unpleasant person the horses could smell his ill humor a mile away.

The cat jumped in Carrie’s lap and startled her out of the reverie. The suddenness left her slightly disoriented, as if peering out of someone else’s eyeglasses. What was it that made that particular daydream so real? She was imagining a time long before she was even born, but it felt like it might have been last week. Was it just because times are hard for so many these days, as it was then? Was it that her grandmother’s stories had been so skillfully woven that she envisioned the era as her own memory, rather than someone else’s? Or perhaps Carrie longed for a time in which (she believed) people had a better sense of community and camaraderie, and spent less time arguing politics and religion, and posting trollish comments on the internet.

It doesn’t matter. What matters is that there is a cat in Carrie’s lap, and its head needs petting. Here and now, here and now.

Technorati Tags: short story,flash fiction

An impotent justice

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 02:04:00 +0000

There is something therapeutic about the breaking of glass. Not just the action of it, but the sound of it. The tinkling of glass raining down on a tile floor sounds like a gentle, cleansing rain.

The baseball entered the kitchen with barely enough speed to make it through the window. Six year-olds can’t put enough chutzpah behind a baseball to make a statement. Not that the intent isn’t there, it’s just that a six year-old’s anger makes promises their arm can’t keep.

Phillip had never wanted anything as much as he wanted to destroy the home his grandfather lived in. Fortunately, he was too young to have discovered the inflammatory properties of gasoline. At only six, he had already suffered three years of sexual abuse, without any sense of understanding about what was happening to him. His nightmares centered around an old man with burning eyes that chased him through the hallways, always waking just before the bony hands clasped him while he crouched in a corner. Had Phillip known, or rather understood, what his life had become after his parents were killed in the car accident three years ago, he would have become an avenging angel, set to slowly destroy the man responsible for his descent into Hell.

Instead, his six year old mind could only conceive of heaving a baseball through a glass window, for which he was sure to be punished. But for the moment, the sound of the glass slivers bouncing on the tile floor was cathartic, and all was right with the world.

Technorati Tags: short story,flash fiction

Fear and kindness

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:02:00 +0000

For Linda Medrano, who is apparently
my biggest fan

The window was open. The window was never open. Moe had an unreasonable fear of smog, pollen, dust from the neighboring fields, insects small enough to fit through the screening, and the Hollywood version of the angel of death. On any given day, Maris would stop by to check on Moe and find him hermetically sealed in his tiny bungalow at the edge of town. His encyclopedia of fears prompted him to keep the windows closed all year round, the doors locked whenever he wasn’t actively using them.

Moe hadn’t always been so fearful. An inability to understand how he had completely screwed up his own life led to a fear of each thing that had unaccountably (in his mind) caused him to lose a job, a wife, a friend. Moe’s life was filled with loss. None of it his fault. With each event that he could ascribe to someone or something else, he collected a new fear. His collection of fears soon rivaled his childhood collection of marbles.

“Moe? Everything ok?” Maris called from the front porch. Window open and no response – that couldn’t be good. “Moe? I had some fried chicken left over from last night’s dinner – I thought you might like it for lunch.” It took a minute for her to work up the nerve to try the front door when he didn’t answer.

The door was unlocked, another aberration. Maris stepped into the living room and swallowed a gasp. The floor was littered with papers ripped into tiny pieces, the couch had several small burn holes, and nearly half of a section of wallpaper had been torn from the wall. Her heart pounding, she stepped into the kitchen slowly, terrified of what she might find. Cabinet doors were open, dishes ripped out of them and smashed on the floor, a chair lay on its side. The back door stood wide open.

Maris went to the doorway and searched for signs of forced entry – nothing. Something caught her attention in the corner of her eye. Looking up, she watched as Moe stood by the pond in the side yard, tossing bread to the ducks. Moe was afraid of water. He was terrified of ducks.

“Moe!” Maris ran across the yard. “Moe! What happened? Are you ok?”

Moe turned his wrinkled, careworn face toward her, and it lit up when he saw her. A smile full of sunshine greeted her when she reached him.

“I get it, Maris! I get it!”

“You get what, Moe?”

“It was all my fault. I made a total mess of everything. I didn’t understand until I got the letter.”

“What letter?”

“Julie wrote me to tell me that our grandson was graduating first in his class at Indiana University. Our granddaughter is engaged to a kind man with a good job. Julie remarried years ago and is enjoying retirement in Fort Lauderdale. I haven’t heard from her in 30 years and I thought she was telling me all this to rub my face in her happiness. To make me jealous that everything she did after I left went well and I have had nothing but hardship. But you know what she said at the end of the letter?”

“What, Moe?”

“She said she missed me. She doesn’t hate me, Maris!” His huge grin was beautiful.

“Oh, Moe…”

“I started thinking about all the things that haven’t gone well in my life, and wondering how many times I thought things were one way, when actually they were very different. How many things I might have done differently if only I had known. At first I went nuts, tearing the letter up and trashing the house in frustration, screaming at the top of my lungs how unfair it was that my whole life had been a mess because I made it that way. But then I realized what a gift I have been given. I have been absolved. Now I can die in peace.”

“What on earth do you mean? You aren’t planning something stupid, are you?”

“I’m done with stupidity. You should go now, Maris. Thank you for being a friend to such a cantankerous old man.”

“Wait, Moe, why don’t we go down to that little diner you like and get a sandwich and a Coke. You can tell me more about this.”

“No, Maris. You need to go now. Thank you.”

Maris hesitated, and Moe waved her toward her car. Reluctantly, she turned and walked back, looking over her shoulder once to see him beaming at the ducks that only yesterday would have made him wet himself if they came so close.

The next day, as she was preparing to take a loaf of fresh-baked bread to Moe’s house, the mail carrier pulled up to her mailbox. Pulling the mail out and tossing it on the front seat of her car, she noticed a small envelope addressed to her in a scrawly hand. Maris snatched it up and opened it with a peculiar dread.

Dear Maris,

You have been such a darling, trying to show kindness to an old man who never deserved it. I truly believe your kindness will be repaid someday, although it will have to be returned to you through another person.

I hope you will understand but I ask that you not come over again. Please give a call to Sheriff Lassiter. Tell him to come by my house when you receive this, and remember, I have asked you not to come.

Thank you again for your kindness and caring. If only all of humanity could see the world through your eyes, the world could be a glorious place.

Your friend,
Moe

Moe was found floating in the pond that afternoon. He must have mailed the letter the previous day, planning his demise in such a way that Maris wouldn’t be the one to discover the body. It was his last, greatest act of kindness, and Maris would never forget it.

Technorati Tags: short story,fiction

A day on the farm

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 12:10:00 +0000

“She told me she just couldn’t take it anymore. She’s so distraught she doesn’t know what to do.” The little hen clucked and preened and pranced, knowing that the dog was fully absorbed in her story.

“Really?” The dog’s huge eyes watched the hen closely, measuring her posture against her words. The hen was known for overdramatizing a situation.

“Well I just don’t know how she has managed thus far!”

Two puppies came tearing around the corner of the barn, nipping at each other’s heels and yipping with glee. The sow rolled over, eyed them carefully, and closed her eyes again, confident that they were headed off in another direction. “Lordy, someone should take a cane to those pups. For their own good, of course. One day they’re going to run right under the tractor.”

The rabbit watched the hen and dog from his cage, hopping from side to side, anxious to contribute something to the discussion, but aware that he had absolutely nothing to say. So he danced, hopped, and scratched, hoping to draw attention to himself and divert the conversation.

The donkey ambled into the barnyard and cast a doleful look around. “Just as I thought. No one has anything worthwhile to say. Always talking about other animals.” He turned and wandered off in the direction of the pasture, content to spend his time alone there rather than suffer fools.

The cat lounged in the shadow of a bench beside the barn unnoticed, taking in all the theatrics and confusion. Her day would be spent napping, visiting the cows and catching mice, as had all her days since before she could remember. That was a good life, she mused. No need to tell the others how to live, or report on the perils and misdeeds of others. Her whiskers twitched as she caught a quick movement nearby. From her languid posture to a full pounce in a second, she snared the mouse and crossed the barnyard to deposit it on the farmer’s doorstep. Her satisfaction with a job well done was evident.

“Isn’t that just like her. She parades around the farm with dead things in her mouth, like it’s some sort of badge of honor!” clucked the hen. “It’s so disgusting, and she behaves as if she’s so much better than we are. And that stupid farmer! He praises her and gives her a saucer of milk! And here I feed his family and never a word! It’s just not right! I deserve better!”

The farmer’s wife stepped out of the kitchen door of the farmhouse and headed to the barnyard. She strode straight over to the hen and grabbed her by the neck, swinging her once around her head, snapping her neck instantly. Off she went back to the farmhouse, to prepare dinner for her guests that evening.

The sow opened one eye, and remarked “I told her she ought not make such a fuss or she’d be the next one in the pot.”

The dog trotted off to find the puppies, intent on quieting them down lest they be next.

Technorati Tags: short story,fiction

The essence of nothing

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0000

The list of things leaking out of my life grows longer. It is a simplification process – or do I rationalize?

Am I resisting because I am too connected to the material, because my spirit isn’t properly enlightened?

Or is it because I’m afraid that after the distillation process, when I am reduced to my essence, I will find that there is nothing left?

Fingerprints

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 16:30:00 +0000

Clara was too young to comprehend. Daddy’s little girl with the platinum blond curls and omnipresent smile stood at the attic window swimming in utter confusion as she watched her father walk away from the house, get into his car and drive away. Once again she tried the attic door – why would he lock it? Clara had never been locked inside a room before. At only 4 years old, she had never been left alone in a house before.

Her gaze swept around the attic of the old house, stuffing the cracks in her soul with the shadows and cobwebs, trying desperately to prevent the tears that might leak out. The chill of the attic seeped into her, threatening to drown her, suffocate her, to break the thin thread that tethers existence to sanity. A creeping panic arose deep inside her that she quickly squashed, feeling more fearful of the panic than of the circumstances.

Something scurried in the far corner and Clara crept over to investigate. She had never shied away from wild things, and subconsciously needed the company now. Whatever she had heard was much less interested in her than she was in it – there was nothing to be found amongst the debris in the corner.

Throwing herself down on a dusty, moldering sofa she began to cry – no sobbing, only quiet tears streaming down her cheeks. The feelings of abandonment and betrayal consumed every ounce of energy that might have been used for a good cleansing tantrum.

Years hence, and for the rest of her life, she will wonder whether that really happened, or whether it was a vivid nightmare, indistinguishable in a young child’s mind from reality. Each fall the emotions of abandonment and betrayal will hang over her like a pall whenever she sees an attic window in an old house. By early December the feelings will have evaporated – drops of water on the wood-burning stove – the memory of the incident (or was it a nightmare?) gone again for another year.

But the years of her life will be marked indelibly with this annual anguish – the literal and figurative chill of that betrayal. And she will often wonder if the fingerprints of that experience can be found over all the aspects of her life. Waiting invisibly for someone to dust for them, explain them, and then wipe them away. Wishing she knew how to do it herself.

Technorati Tags: fiction,short story,flash fiction

The rock stacker

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 11:56:00 +0000

The decisions to be made are pounding on the door, demanding an audience. Possibilities are endless, true enough, but making a choice is such a heavy burden. There is so very much riding on each choice.

The level of concentration required of me has me chewing the inside of my lower lip to shreds. A nervous habit I can’t break.

Some day, before too long, I will sleep through the night. I will listen to classical music again. I will eat a meal without indigestion. I will hear the phone ring without feeling sick.

In the meantime, I will stack rocks, one on top of another. I will focus on the balance, the beauty, the patience of the practice. I will imagine the rocks taking a yogic breath as they struggle to maintain their positions.

And when they fall, I will stack them again. And again. And again, ad infinitum. Until I am no longer needed as a rock stacker. Until I am needed elsewhere.

Technorati Tags: non-fiction,essay

Brevity

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 20:35:00 +0000

Brevity is the soul of wit.

And of pleasant house guests.

And hugs with smelly cousin David.

And sermons.

Amen.

Technorati Tags: essay,non-fiction,Shakespeare

The old linden

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0000

The old tree suffered a difficult summer. Weeks without rain, record high temperatures, and hurricane remnants ravaged it and left it looking tattered. The leaves at the end of the branches are withered and brown. Ragged stumps remain where gracious limbs once swayed in the breeze.

But there is a small, timid creek that flows beneath it. The slanting morning sun reflects off the water and onto the underside of the leaves. The effect is breathtaking.

This cool September morning I recognize the strength of that metaphor – sometimes the true beauty is underneath.

Memories

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 12:04:00 +0000

Faint breezes caress the tired, dry leaves of the ancient maple in the yard. Russell sits on the front porch in his wool sweater in spite of the early September heat. Arms crossed over his chest and chin lowered, he nods his head gently – remembering picnics at the beach, the sepia photo of himself in front of his first car, the day his first child was born.

The baseball game on the radio fades in and out; Russell leans a little closer. The hint of a smile on his face broadens into a grin as he remembers his first professional baseball game, the pretty girl he took with him and the smell of her perfume. The armed forces commercial brings back the day his son returned from Korea, the scented love letters he received from the army nurse in WWII.

A dog barks in the neighbor’s yard down the street. Russell thinks of the Pekinese dog his daughter adored – the one that followed her everywhere, and the baby duck she nursed back to health after finding it the park with an injured wing. He remembers the sleep overs his daughter had, loud rambunctious laughter ringing through the house til the wee hours; he recalls taking his younger son to baseball practice and the pride he felt when he was offered a spot on the minor league team.

These are the fleeting thoughts that fill his mind this day and every day.

These are the only things worth remembering.

Technorati Tags: short story,fiction

I love you, a bushel and a peck

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0000

“I love you, a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck. A barrel and a heap, yes a barrel and a heap, and I’m talkin’ in my sleep about yoouuu….”

Jill stopped short, almost unable to breathe when she heard a young mother singing that to her toddler, complete with hugs and nose rubs, just the way Jill’s grandmother had done for her. She hadn’t heard that in 40 years, and the tidal wave of nostalgia that came with it nearly knocked her over.

The young mother noticed Jill’s discomfort and nervously gathered up all the paraphernalia that accompanies toddlers, and the toddler herself. As they left the park bench, the young mother cast glances behind her as if she expected Jill to follow. Once they were beyond the playground area and out of sight, Jill sat down. Behind the park bench she spied a small fuzzy thing, familiar looking and worn. The toddler’s toy had apparently fallen off the seat in the scurry to gather her up.

Jill reached down and picked it up, the catch in her throat returning. It was Spareribs, her toy dog from childhood, worn fur and missing left eye. It couldn’t be – that toy was destroyed in the house fire that killed her grandmother. But it was, she was certain. Her grandmother had made that stuffed animal. There wasn’t another one like it anywhere.

Jill’s phone rang, startling her back to the present.

“Jill! I’ve been trying to reach you for hours! Why did you check yourself out of the hospaital? Where are you now?”

“I’m…I’m…” The strangeness of the day wouldn’t release her voice. “I’m at the park.”

“Stay right where you are – I’m on my way.”

The phone went dead and Jill was catapulted from awed confusion to dread of the disapproval of her therapist. She looked down at the small furry thing in her hand. It was a dead squirrel. Tears began to stream down her cheeks and she set the squirrel gently on the ground. It twitched, jumped up and ran off.

Jill’s head began to pound as the sounds of the park changed to colors, and then to tastes. There was nothing to do now but lie down on the bench and wait for the therapist. Maybe this time she could convince her that her grandmother was obviously not really dead.

Technorati Tags: short story,fiction,flash fiction

The grace of pain

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Sometimes death enters the room in padded slippers. Sometimes he crashes through the gate on a glossy black steed. It doesn’t matter how he arrives. The result is always the same.

I have seen his various methods of arrival - pompous and pretentious, sudden and surreptitious, acquiescing and accepting. Death gets bored and needs to mix it up.

Those left behind know that hearing his footsteps helps you prepare for the loss. It gives parameters to the hole in your life. It helps you make sense of the loss during your grief.

They also know that when he storms the gate and rips your life into shreds, there is really no repairing that tear. That gaping wound is yours for life. It will ache less in ten years, even less in twenty, but it will cling to you like a spider web.

The problem is that modern life makes no room for that clinging sorrow. We knew once, as a species, that there was a place for that sorrow. It served a purpose. It made us aware, sentient, compassionate.

Now there is no time. Hurry up and snap out of it. There is life to live, money to be made, fun to be had. There is therapy available, drugs to take, partying to assuage the pain. Pain = evil. Pain = weakness.

No.

Pain is necessary.

Enduring pain makes you human.

Surviving pain with grace makes you divine.

Technorati Tags: non-fiction,essay,death,pain

Cricket wisdom

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0000

The crickets get a little louder each evening.

They seem to know their days are numbered. They are clamoring for attention, begging for someone to hear their song, desperate to tell their stories.

Time is short, and the wisdom is fleeting.

Technorati Tags: non-fiction,essay

Larger than life

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Some moments are larger than life, bigger than the space allotted to hold them. Some moments give more than they take, leaving behind a sense of emptiness, for the next moment is bound to disappoint.

But those sparkling moments, ripe and full and rich, hold all of eternity in their grasp.

Technorati Tags: non-fiction,essay

Secrets

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:51:00 +0000

The pine trees lining the driveway murmured amongst themselves, the inconsiderate bastards. Don’t they know it’s rude to exclude people from a conversation? I need to know what they are saying. They might be plotting an ambush on my car during the next storm, hosting a flock of insolent birds with digestive troubles, creeping under the driveway with their roots, preparing to burst forth and tear the pavement into pebbles.

That’s alright. I have a lot of patience. And a chainsaw.

Technorati Tags: short story,fiction,flash fiction

Opus 27, No. 1

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0000

The sound of the Nocturne hung in the room, coloring the very air with its sadness. Kelly sat motionless at the piano bench, frozen in the last moment of the music, unwilling to let go of it. The echo filled her ears, her lungs, her fingertips and she ached to bring it back.

Evan finished his sherry and rose from his chair. “I don’t suppose there’s any cake left?”

A light creak issued from the piano bench as Kelly turned slowly toward the open window. Having tried discussion, Kelly was hoping that the music could convey the pain that her words had failed to impart. But all he wanted was cake.

With appalling certainty, Kelly realized that while she had thought people were listening to her words or her music, they were usually just waiting their turn to talk.

Evan left the room in search of dessert, and found the room empty when he returned.

Screams floated through the open window. Evan wandered over to see what new calamity was taking place on the street below his 15th floor condo. Kelly’s twisted body lay on the pavement, surrounded by horrified onlookers.

Evan’s first thought was “Damn it, Kelly! Why didn’t you say something?”

Technorati Tags: fiction,short story,flash fiction

A choice

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0000

One and one half miles. Hardly makes one an elite athlete, but a long enough walk to get the blood pumping, work out the kinks in the back from sitting all day. The route was the same every day, the familiarity beginning to breed contempt.

I came to the first intersection, where I always made a left turn, and stopped. Staring off to the right I felt a pull – a queer physical feeling, as if my heart were attached to a string that was being pulled in the opposite direction of the way I intended to go. I stood still – pondering, hoping, yearning. Wondering if it could possibly make a difference, if somehow turning the other direction could change my life, give it direction and meaning. Could it feed the hungry, house the homeless? Could it find homes for the stray cats, conquer my heartburn, make my cantankerous mother apologize?

God damn Frost – generations will stand at that divergence and wonder, certain that whichever path they choose will be the wrong one. His mother apparently never told him the adage about jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I turned around.

Technorati Tags: non-fiction,essay,Robert Frost

Intermezzo

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 12:09:00 +0000

All at once it was clear – this year had been the intermezzo. Julie thought that this year had been the beginning of a new road, a new life, a way of being. She had embraced it, as she believed she should. But it had not hugged back.

The relief was palpable as Julie now realized that this year had only been the short entertainment between acts to distract her from set and costume changes. This year – with its upheaval and strain, triumphs and trauma – had not been the new scene, but the diversion while larger forces were at work.

There was a thread that ran unbroken from earliest remembrances to the present. The feeling of being cut loose, unmoored and drifting for many months had been an illusion.

Now to sit back and watch it unfold, for after all, “the play’s the thing.”

Technorati Tags: fiction,short story,Shakespeare,Hamlet

Mummy says…

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0000

The curtains shivered gently in the breeze. Sally sat on the stool, staring out the second floor window, as she had done every day since her mother died. Not a word, not a caress, not a look had she given a single human since that day. Trays of food left on the table by her side were toyed with, nibbled at, shoved aside.

Twice her nanny had tried to take the china baby doll from the sideboard. Twice she had quickly returned it, the hair on the back of her neck standing up, electricity flickering through her body. Sally had named the doll Lolly. The nanny was certain that Lolly was had something to do with the difficulty her ward was having coping with her grief.

Then came the morning the nanny entered Sally’s room to find the curtains billowing, and the doll gone. Sally sat on the stool, facing the door as the nanny entered, blood on her hands and chin, staining the front of her pretty nightdress.

“Mummy says things will be better now that Lolly is gone.” Sally’s eyes were wide, intense, staring. “Mummy said Lolly wasn’t nice to me, so she had to be done away with. You’ll be nice to me, won’t you Nanny?” A grin spread slowly over her face, showing a small tuft of doll hair caught in her teeth.

Technorati Tags: short story,fiction,horror

August morn

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:17:00 +0000

The light has changed.

The seasons develop an identity crisis before releasing their hold on the year. It is mid-August, but the golden slant of the morning light hints at late September. The sun is no longer breaking through the trees and onto my face to serve as alarm clock. Crickets sing as they did in June, but now their song is a sad one, an elegy for the fullness of summer.

It is mid-August, I can’t relinquish the summer yet. But the light has changed.

Technorati Tags: essay,non-fiction

The critic

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Waiter! Garcon! Waiter! Yes, yes, come here please.

I believe I ordered the filet mignon. Medium rare. This is not filet mignon. In fact, I am absolutely certain this is not even beef. Or pork, or lamb or chicken or even cleverly disguised tofu.

Please take this back to the kitchen and tell the chef that he should not have quit his job at the prison, because I’m sure his fine cuisine was greatly appreciated there, but in a five star restaurant, this will never do.

The restaurant guide clearly stated that this establishment offered some of the finest cuisine in the city! I must have satisfaction. Waiter! Where are you going? Waiter?!

Very well, you leave me no choice. I will alert the media.

Technorati Tags: short story,fiction,humor

And when she was good…

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Ann) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0000

“There once was a girl, who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead.
And when she was good she was very, very good. But when she was bad she was horrid.

There was a catchy little tune that went with that. Abby’s father thought that was funny. Abby always thought it was a horrible thing to be told, catchy tune or no.

Well, if one has a reputation of being ‘horrid’, even if only occasionally, one might as well give it some substance, right? What a shame it would be to have such a reputation without any of the fun that comes with acquiring it.

Abby tossed the suitcase in the back seat of the BMW and tore out of the parking lot. The 405 was lightly travelled at this time of night – she wouldn’t stand out, but she had room to maneuver.

She spotted the police lights in her rearview mirror, changed lanes right in front of a car that looked much like hers, and exited almost immediately. Six quick turns off of Wiltshire Boulevard and Abby found herself deep into a residential neighborhood. She turned off her lights, cut the engine, and coasted into a driveway. She ducked, invisible in the front seat as the cop car rolled past. After counting to 100, she peeked over the seat, saw that the street was now empty and put the car in neutral, rolling out of the drive. She started the engine and headed back the way she came.

Abby smiled as she imagined Rembrandt’s portrait of An Old Man in Military Costume, removed just that evening from the Getty Museum, screaming from inside the suitcase, banging on the inside of the bag, gasping for air.

Yes, when she was bad she was horrid.

Technorati Tags: short story,fiction