Backhand Stories, the creative writing blog.

Ira Glass On Taste and Storytelling

“How quickly can you get down to London tonight?”

“Tonight? I can’t get there tonight; the last train has gone.”

“Ok, tomorrow, then?”

“Err… maybe just after lunchtime?”

“Ok, the job’s yours. Get there as soon as you can.”

And that was it. My first job out of Uni. Mum ran around like a maniac that evening: washing, drying, ironing, packing. A blizzard of activity, looking after her chick. Early next morning, Dad took me to the train station and put me and my case onto the London train, and then I hustled him off, afraid he’d get stuck on the train too. After I’d waved him out of sight, I jolted down the carriage to find a quiet seat.

They got on at Crewe; a youth with two children. The three wandered down the carriage, looking for seats, and stopped when they came level with me. I’d never seen anyone up close dressed like that before. He was all in black, ringlets dangling in greasy strands, bum fluff on his chin – his signet ring bit into the soft white flesh of his hand. He was dressed beyond his age. He slithered a glance at me, and then muttered something to his two charges who sidled in after him. He sat opposite me. We nodded, then disengaged our eyes. He took out a battered little book and began to read, muttering silently to himself.

I can’t say when I actually realised what was happening. At, first, I thought it just chance. Then I became convinced there was an unruly dog under the table. There was a pressure on my legs, which followed my limbs about, when I tried to keep out of the way. Then I noticed his eyes. Staring, unblinking, over the rims of his thick glasses. At me.

You know those icy fingers that are talked about? Well they played up and down my spine right then. I realised the “dog” was actually his legs pressing onto mine; chasing me around, under the table. And I knew he wanted to see my reaction; see me cringe and disintegrate, right there for his delectation.

But I decided differently. I leant back in the seat and uncrossed my legs and crossed then again; quickly and very firmly, catching my stiletto on his shin.

He winced.

I watched.

We stared eye to eye. I uncrossed my legs again, and crossed them again. Deliberately. He winced once more and looked uncertainly at his companions. They were oblivious to his pain.

I repeated my actions, connecting again; beads of sweat appeared under the black rim of his hat. He muttered disjointedly, and got up – shepherding his party further down the carriage.

I smiled; I knew I’d be able to look after myself then.

Backhand Stories, the creative writing blog.

Rite of Passage by Avis Hickman

“It’s nice,” I lied, knowing she knew it wasn’t but not wanting to give offense.

“Sit,” she said, pointing to an ancient sofa with springs poking through the dirty brown fabric. I sat avoiding the sharp metal springs and the worst of the dirt. I acted as if I were sitting in a mansion, my smile as ever disarming.

“How long?”I asked. She flashed a smile and corrected an errant strand of dark brown hair.

“Not long enough,” She answered, ” I’m sure you’ve heard that before.”

“Many times,” I agreed. We sat for a moment in silence. Then she looked up.

“What do I get?” She was all business this one, there must not have been much time left.

“What do you need?”

“My daughter… she only has me to look after her.”

“She will be cared for.” I smiled, “I will see to it personally.”

“You won’t… my daughter I mean, no catches?”

“No, you need not worry. I realize my reputation is poor but that is the doing of others. I assure you I am an honest… man.”

She seemed comforted, I continued.

“As for you, there is no denying it won’t be pleasant but you will have the knowledge that your daughter is safe and her future her own. That is more than most. No strings. No tricks.”

“When… when will it happen to me.” She asked, bravely.

“Sometime within the next three days.”

“I would have thought you more precise, timed to the exact minute.”

“Oh it is,” I said, “but… better for you if you don’t know.”

“I see,” she said and smiled.

She then stood and held out her small thin hand. I took it gently and turned to leave. I moved slowly to give her a chance to change her mind. She didn’t. We had a deal. So many others had seemed strong until this final point then faltered. This one was strong. I stepped out into the fresh night air and started off towards my next visit without looking back.

Backhand Stories, the creative writing blog.

The Visitor by James A Ford

“Sweetie, you already paid for the ticket. You should go, it’ll be fun.”

“Come on, you have to go.”

I don’t know how much fun it’ll actually be though without him. I attended the same formal last year. It was okay at first. The three of us arrived, them with their boyfriends and me alone (I already knew I would be alone, so there was no disappointment). We had our pictures taken, and danced to pop music while the guys looked on. The food was terrible, but we enjoyed complaining about it together. It was all fun, until the slow dances began.

I grab my towel, and head for the shower. Tears still threaten to pour out, but I stop them. I don’t want to seem like the type of person who seeks attention. I ponder whether I should let it out in the shower while no one is looking.

If only he was able to come, I thought. If only his bosses weren’t such jerks! I thought. A fire starts in my chest when I think of them. There was a 50% chance that he’ll be able to come and still keep his job. His tone though, already told me that it was impossible.

The water starts. My hair begins to drown me. My hands move the same way they do every night, but my soul is hundreds of miles away. I don’t know where it is. One minute, I’m in the past, then the future, then outside of my body watching a soap opera. I know no one is around to hear me, so this would be as good a time as ever. I stop myself though.

This is stupid, I thought. I’m just creating more drama than this needs to be. I hate drama. I went out of my way in high school to avoid all the useless drama. All the ‘he hates me’ and ‘she’s so annoying’; I don’t need it. I don’t need it outside and not inside my mind either. I know he wants to come as badly as I do, and making him feel guilty or anyone else feel bad won’t make things better. Even if I really begged him, and he quit his job to rush to my side, I would be one of those selfish preps who have disposable boys. It would be so selfish! He works so hard to help pay the bills in his house and raise whatever he can to go to college, while I’m here watching stupid videos on my stupid computer in between homework assignments. How can I even ask him to spend so much just to come to me for one weekend when that money can go somewhere useful? I’m pathetic. If I worked half as hard as him, then I might be worthy of being selfish.

I make up my mind; I can’t cry. It’s ridiculous high school drama that has no business in the Real World. It’s only a dance and it’s only one weekend. I don’t need the tears. I’m better than that. The emotions soon pass on as I continue to wash my hair and then my body. I think about happier moments in life, and my soul returns to my body by the time I finish by washing my face.

I turn the nozzle. None of the water on my face came from me. I grab the towel off of the rack and cover my face to dry. I try to lift it away, but it sticks. A movie starts and in an instant I hear soft music. I’m transported to a dance, watching so many happy couples dance in the dim light. There’s my roommate, my neighbors, and all my other friends. Our song is playing. I return to the present. One drop from each eye is reflected on the towel. Drama is not for me, so I won’t have it. I step out of the room, all wrapped up. My body is cold, and my heart is frozen.

Kristine Guadagno is a college sophomore from Boston. This is her first piece for Backhand Stories

Backhand Stories, the creative writing blog.

Useless Drama by Kristine Guadagno

Today, the etchings on his paper begin to come together in the shape of a face. The gentle curve of a cheek becomes obvious. He carefully draws small ears and a nose. Then the figure is given an outline of long hair that flows over thin-framed shoulders. With a meticulous hand, he creates a thin midsection that expands at the hips. Two long legs end with tiny feet. Each toe is drawn to perfection. The portrait is faultless. I watch her with steady eyes; just as the angels must have watched over God’s shoulder as he began his work on man and woman.

“Who is she?” I ask as I hold the corner of the paper between two of my fingers. My brother doesn’t answer; he simply smiles and puts his pencil against the paper once more. Her mouth is drawn closed with two petite lips. As his work continues, I feel as though I am watching her birth occur in slow motion.

Her eyes take the longest. He spends a full hour completing them. Whenever I look into them, it is as though I can see every second of her life leading up to the moment in which my brother captured her. He must have seen her somewhere, I think to myself.

His wife may have left him, but he remained the gifted artist he was before.

She doesn’t know what she gave up.

Jake Wickenhofer is a seventeen-year-old writer living in Bridgeport, West Virginia.. His work has been accepted by magazines such as The Oracular Tree, Alienskin Magazine, Static Movement, AntipodeanSF, Flash Scribe, and of course Backhand Stories. His major influences are Greg Wickenhofer, Chuck Palahniuk, and Julie Maxey.

Backhand Stories, the creative writing blog.

What She Gave Up by Jake Wickenhofer

One of my roommates, Eimear, arrived in America three weeks ago from Ireland. She didn’t arrive by boat and has yet to visit Lady Liberty. In fact, Eimear isn’t even planning to say long, but would like to work while she’s here.

In order to work in the United Sates, however, non-citizens need three things:

1. Valid identification
2. Work visa
3. United States social security number

Even though she has an appropriate passport and visa, Eimear is having as difficult a time being issued a social security card as many of us will have collecting social security benefits.

This is especially unfortunate because Eimear might have found a job at the Build-A-Bear Workshop, a toy store where children design and construct their own stuffed bears. Build-A-Bear is the salad bar of toy stores, and as soon as she’s issued a social security number, Eimear will begin walking children through their bear buffet in Times Square.

(Times Square is an exciting chaos of light and sound where most tourists take their first bite from the Big Apple. Like the strip in Las Vegas, the French Quarter in New Orleans, and the McDonalds in Montana, Times Square is the social center of our city. Sinatra once sang that “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.” The same holds true for a child wanting to build a bear at the Build-A-Bear Workshop in Times Square. Can he/she make one there? Yes. With over 200 locations in malls nationwide, can he/she also make one anywhere? Same answer. Yes.)

After completing all the necessary paperwork, Eimear arrived at the Build-A-Bear Workshop at 10:45, fifteen minutes before her scheduled 11:00 interview. Eimear didn’t realize, however, that you don’t interview to work at the Build-A-Bear Workshop, you audition. This audition is held for a group of twenty candidates andincludes, but is not limited to:

• An oral recitation of the Build-A-Bear pledge, from memory.
• An improvised group presentation entitled: “Build a memory. Build a Bear.”
• A personal testimony covering “my definition of teamwork,” “a time when I touched someone’s life,” and “what makes me special.”
• A 150 question ethics exam meant to evaluate whether or not the potential bear builder might one day qualify for relocation to Santa’s Workshop.

One applicant was so overcome by her own “a time when I touched someone’s life” story that, weeping, she had to be escorted from the room. Perhaps behind closed doors the interviewer told the girl that the Build-A-Bear Workshop would probably be too emotionally demanding an environment for someone with her sensitive temperament.

Or, she might have immediately been named employee of the month.

Eimear wasn’t as fortunate. After the three hour audition / interview, Eimear arrived at our apartment emotionally exhausted.

“How did it go,” I asked.

“I didn’t offer to work for free like the crying girl did, but I think it went quite well.”

“The crying girl? What crying girl?”

“The one who told a story about how she touched someone’s life by shaving her head because her friend went bald. I don’t know. I was fighting a wicked hangover and was having quite a hard time paying attention through her blubbering.”

“You interviewed at a toy store with a hangover?!”

Despite her condition at the interview (and after two subsequent call-backs), Eimear was offered a job at the Build-A-Bear Workshop – and she should have been. Even at her worst, Eimear is magnificent.

Even Eimear, however, doesn’t deny the irony of her own story.

Arriving hung-over at a Build-A-Bear interview is like showing up pregnant for a Snow White audition. The same rules apply.

In a world where image is everything, smile. It’s what’s on the outside that counts.

You can read more of Bryan’s work on his blog, sometimesroadsdiverge.blogspot.com

Backhand Stories, the creative writing blog.

Build a Memory. Build a Bear. by Bryan Currie

We leaned together in a human teepee for support, Jill because she was wearing high-heel boots and was five months pregnant and me because of the bottle of wine. Jill had wet her lips with the Zinfandel to toast our anniversary and I had felt compelled to finish the remaining four and a half glasses before the check. The result was that I was less help to her than she was to me.

As we inched toward our car on Wells Street, a man staggered into the street waving his arms and jacket at a passing sedan. The car braked, fish-tailed in the slush and then accelerated, missing the man by the width of its rear view mirror. The man yelled unintelligibly, as the tail lights dissolved into the cataract of the storm.

“Is he coming over here?” Jill’s fingers dug through my coat into the flesh of my forearm, as if the added pressure could transfer her welling anxiety to me.

“Of course,” I said, meaning to be funny. (I’m told I find myself quite hilarious when imbibing.)

A few seconds later, the man’s stumbling trajectory converged with ours.

“Please help me. It hurts. Help me. My head,” His stained winter coat was off, pressed to the right side of his scalp. “Look. It hurts. My head,”

He pulled the jacket away from his bald skull to reveal a deep two inch gash, which seemed in no hurry to stop bleeding. Blood had darkened the side of his jacket, his sweatshirt, his jeans. A drop fell into the crust of fresh snow and radiated outward, as if the flakes wished to share their gory find.

Honestly, I didn’t want to help. My first thought was for my wife’s safety and to a lesser degree my own. The man seemed erratic, the wound more likely the result a blow than a fall. And even if he proved injured but harmless, I had my wife shivering next to me and a bottle of California’s finest clouding my judgment. Did I have to get involved?

Valet #1 came trotting down the block, perhaps in aid to an obvious scene of distress. Valet #1 slowed, as my wife asked him to return to the restaurant for help, and then continued toward the lot, as if the question had been in Aramaic. Valets #2 and #3 feigned deafness as they passed.

I dialed 911, while arguing with my wife to return to the car. All the while, the injured man kept us current with an on-going, fragmented account of his pain. It was too late to walk away.

I summed up the situation for the emergency operator, still pleading with my wife via facial contortions and hand gestures. I provided our location. I attempted to answer the dispatcher’s clarifying questions.

“I don’t know if he’s been drinking or on drugs.” I told the dispatcher.

“I’M NOT ON DRUGS!” The injured man’s scream was loud enough to freeze the valets in their tracks and the breath in my throat. The operator did not need me to repeat his answer.

I hung up, my hands shaking from more than cold. With additional begging, my wife finally relented and went to warm up the car, where she promised to keep watch. I promised I would be fine.

Still agitated, the man tried to walk away. Repeatedly, I gently led him back to the tree where we’d first met. I tried to calm him as best I could.

“Keep the pressure on, it’s okay, help is coming, don’t sit down, you’re going to be okay.”

But really I was thinking how lucky I was. In ten minutes my end of the ordeal would be over, the wounded man’s still in progress and uncertain. He may or not have been homeless, but was surely somewhere on the left of prosperity’s Bell Curve. Even after the ambulance came, even if he received prompt medical attention, how ‘okay’ would things really be for him?

The fire truck created its own slow motion effect, as it closed tentatively along the still unplowed street. The siren grew with the intensity of the reflected light. Then the alarm cut silent, leaving only the revolving red strobe to mark area of emergency.

As the first firefighter leapt from the truck, I began to guide the injured man. Before I could take a second step, the three valets swept past me like a pack of black-jacketed Dalmatians. They yelped and hopped around the firemen, suddenly too helpful, seeking some imaginary scrap of credit that was somehow infinitely more important to them than to me.

An ambulance arrived and a scrambling paramedic came bearing gear. He threw a blanket over the injured man’s shoulders. I knew then I could no longer add anything to the situation.

I stepped outside the radius of the flashing lights. At that moment, I was no longer an active player, not even a spectator. I was miles from being a hero, and in fact did little more than the bare minimum, what anyone would reasonably expect if they were in similar peril. And yet how many had ignored him before my wife and I stopped? How many more would have passed if we didn’t?

I climbed inside our climate controlled car and swept flakes from my lashes and brow. My wife had questions, but I needed a moment to process. She pulled into the street, past the resolving spectacle, and we disappeared into the whiteout, as anonymous as the man we almost didn’t help.

Randy Kohl has also been published in Pology Magazine, Kaleidoscopic Resonance and Perigee: publication for the arts.

Backhand Stories, the creative writing blog.

The I of the Storm by Randy Kohl

During the spring, the kids at Shepherdson Elementary get a two-week break from classes. A group of friends place a hundred heads of cattails under the wheels of every parked car on their street, bringing an artificial winter to Fort Collins by midday until the afternoon spring rain pulls the fluff out of the air. The fluff disappears in streams that flow down street gullies into the city’s sewer system, which scatter the seeds along the banks of the Cache La Poudre River basin and give birth to hundreds of new cattails by the following year.

Tomorrow, a huge flock of geese will be flying over a forest of willow trees towards a small, communal lake where a young girl will be sharing popcorn with all the other geese. And several miles away, 13 year-old Todd Bennet will be being rushed to the hospital after being bitten by a rabid bat that he’d found lying in the grass in his backyard. And Mrs. Moter, who creates mosaics out of glass, will be finishing up her mural for her church. And Mr. Hath, who lives next to the famous motorcycle mechanic, will die of cancer at the age of 97 while the family two blocks down the street will celebrate the birth of their new-born child, James.

And some college student will be dry heaving in another person’s bathroom at 2 in the morning. And a girl and her best friend will think they’re being followed by the blue truck with the paint peeling off its doors. And brothers Ian and Kyle will be selling lemonade at the corner of Omega and Harmony, while a homeless man smokes skunk beneath the bridge. And Travis, the 11-year old German shepherd, will fall asleep on his owner’s woodpile and never wake up again, while the jet-black crows perched on the three-story Victorian home will caw and squawk an opus from hell.

And when the air is foggy in September, an old man will walk his dog, Rusty, along the sidewalk that is adjacent to the black, iron fence; through the neighborhood where a child once let his imagination run loose, where bike gangs had wars with wooden swords and air-soft guns, and nobody felt any pain because the future was unpredictable and the past was new. And someone will be giving sermons outside the Vineyard Church. And someone will be chasing after the cards that the air picked up and threw across Edora Park. And the railroad spike, the oddly-shaped bush, the fifteen-foot telephone pole, her crystal blue eyes, the color of the man’s skin, the delinquent shoes sitting in the middle of the road, the black silhouette of the murderer’s hair, the sound of laughter, the hallucinations, the hopes, the dreams, the thrills, the pain, will all be a bunch of hazy memories to the old, decrepit child with the ashes in his hair.

In the morning of every day, Ethan Isaiah is shaky, sitting on a miniature stool in the middle of the tomato patch that has been decomposing since his wife, Irene, died of ovarian cancer last month. His chapped hands grasp an empty whiskey bottle that he pulls up to his mouth; looking through it, the world is a glossy blur, a scent of fermented grains and organic compost that sigh for a deep, longing paradise. He envisions himself as a child again, living back in South Carolina before his family flew to Colorado, lugging a sack of fresh tomatoes back to his father’s beat-up truck, swimming in the crystal, clear water of Lake Jocassee at night with his younger sister, Natalie, and his cousin, Tom; the moon’s reflection a shimmering scintillate on the black, marbled water. He envisions the sun molding over the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite; followed by a thousand bodies of the sea crashing over her fragile, naked body until she rumples and dissolves like soggy, charcoaled paper down a sink drain.

A robin flies down from a willow tree and sheds its beak next to a fuzzy caterpillar that wriggles up through the soil. Brown, wrinkled tomatoes putrefy the writhing earth, providing a feeding frenzy for all types of insects. Ants scurry up Ethan’s dirty jeans, across his gristly arms, through his matted, black hair, between his swollen gums and down his husky throat. A car alarm echoes out from West Mulberry Street, where a college student is trying to explain to an old man that it was all an accident. Ethan’s dog barks until the curled distortion of the sun sets behind the molars of Horsetooth Mountain. At night, she rests her head on Ethan’s lap and looks up at him with black, marbled eyes that reflect the moon and remind Ethan of home.

“Alright… let’s go, girl” Ethan sighs. “Let’s go inside. Let’s go eat.”

Several miles away, the air is sighing for the coming season while a jetliner flies over the city; the city where the rivers flood over, where the geese flock, where the streets are made of cobblestones, where spring becomes winter for an hour, where stories clash, and twist, and run parallel to each other, and nothing makes any sense because it is all a subtle chaotic string that changes tone every second and mixes beautiful melodies with straight cacophony and the cycle of life and death and the constant stream of curiosity and bounded adventure.

Backhand Stories, the creative writing blog.

Fort Collins by Scott Jensen

Backhand Stories, the creative writing blog.

Short Story Competition

“How long have you been up?” She stared through the blinds. The scent of her perfume filled his nostrils: Nina by Nina Ricci. Light. Two sprays.

“You can’t leave” He straightened his tie: Two tone. Black on silver. Soft sheen; Next Department store. “There’s too much snow. They’ve closed the roads” He untied the knot – perfect Windsor – and laid the tie down on the kitchen table. He put his hand to his face. Clean-shaven. Fresh. Aftershave: Calvin Klein. Three Sprays. He leaned on the counter.

“Why are your bags packed?”

Backhand Stories, the creative writing blog.

The Blizzard by Karl Thomas Smith