blog cacophony
millions of voices screaming
mine is but one more
This week's words are
gamble
omitted
temporary
Tough words this week for haiku. Oddly, the one that is giving me fits is omitted. You'd think temporary, which insists on hogging up so many of the 17 available syllables, would be the problem word.
Merry is having a macabre writing contest with a deadline of next Wednesday, July 30th. The rules say the deadline is, um, right now, but she extended the contest because of Book Roast this week.
Go there and enter your own work now!
I am entering, sort of... I'm being lame and recycling a story I posted as a Fiction Friday exercise back in September, 2007. For your reading pleasure, here it is:
Three Wishes
Her mama called it ghost breath, this late September fog that lifted from the nearby pond and swirled slowly around Clara's ankles and calves. It was thicker over near the old, wooden bridge where the stream came down from Parker's Hill and fed the marsh that became Braden's Pond. A ghost breath night, Mama used to say, was a sure omen of death. Soon the ghost breath would swell until Clara couldn't see the stooped, stubby trees across the old gravel access road. Already the bridge had been swallowed up by the silent mist as darkness gradually defeated a reluctant twilight.
Clara sat on the embankment, the train tracks a few feet behind her, and watched the pond disappear into the darkness. Gravel poked through her thin skirt, but the night was warm and she didn't mind the mist seeping through her threadbare school shirt. The moisture gathered and made the shirt cling like a second skin to her shoulders and breasts. Clara closed her eyes and imagined Mama out there gliding across the pond, floating above it in the air like a graceful dancer, pale and white and glowing. Maybe Mama was the lonely soul bringing the ghost breath with her tonight, back to visit the living. Maybe she'd come to take Clara away with her.
Clara opened her eyes and was startled to see the fog glaring bright-white at her from the direction of the old bridge. The brightness was moving, slowly, creeping closer and growing. Her heart jumped and thumped as she held her breath and barely dared to think of Mama coming to her as she'd just envisioned. The feeling lasted only a moment, though, as the brightness clarified into two burning white dots ringed with rainbow coronas: headlights. And now she could feel the vibration of its motor not far off, now sense the rumble of its tires on the gravel road, coming nearer.
For a moment, she hoped the car would drive on by and not see her. Her white shirt might blend in with the fog, her gray skirt with the gravel. But it was Friday night, and as the car lurched to a halt only ten yards away, Clara knew it was already too late to try to run away. She watched the driver's door open, saw Charlie step out and say something. Nick popped out from the other side, laughing with his evil-looking sneer. Finally, Bill slid out from the back, pushing his greasy, black hair back and slouching behind Charlie. The three boys sauntered toward her.
Sometimes, Clara knew, her deafness could be an asset. Now she tried not to imagine all the things the boys were saying to each other. Even ten feet away the stink of bourbon flaked off them and melted into the mist swirling around them all. Maybe she could run after all. Maybe she could make it to the marsh and they'd let her go.
Without hesitating more, Clara pushed off the embankment and drove hard past Charlie, straight into a pounding run aiming for the bridge. They would catch her if she didn't get a good head start into the darkness, into the ghost breath. She passed Charlie, but Bill lashed out with his foot. Pain seared into Clara's shin, and she fell, her hands ripped open by the sharp gravel of the road, her knees ground into the dirt. Then they were on top of her, before she knew what was happening, and they hit her, hard in the legs, or maybe they were kicking. The pain in her leg and now a new wet pain on the side of her head dazed her, and she was only partially aware of the skirt being torn from her amid the stench of new sweat and stale cigarettes and bourbon. She was pushed and rolled and yanked like a rag doll, and every inch of her hurt so much.
Mama, she thought, Mama please come help me. Please come take me away with you.
She closed her eyes and retreated inside herself, clinging to the vision of Mama gliding across the pond, a shimmering vision of death, vengeance--salvation. Unable to hear, choosing not to see, Clara shut out the outside world and ignored her body and what was being done to it. She imagined Mama coming to her, kneeling beside her, hugging her like she used to. She felt Mama's arms around her, felt Mama's heartbeat, Mama's warmth.
"Mama," Clara whispered to the vision, "Mama take me with you. I wish I was dead. I wish to be with you."
Her mama looked her in the eye with sad calm. "Hush, Clara. Don't say that. Why, you're just fourteen. You've got so much good ahead. Don't wish that. Wish something else." The vision embraced Clara again, this time with strength and solidity.
"Then Mama," Clara whispered, "I wish Charlie would die. I wish Nick would die. And I especially with Bill would die."
Mama pulled back from Clara and looked into her eyes again, sadness now mixed with that look she used to give when she was very proud of Clara. Mama nodded slowly and began drifting away, backwards so they kept looking into each other's eyes, until the bright figure merged into the mist and faded into the brightness that now was all around Clara.
Later. How much later, Clara had no idea. She had fallen asleep. No, she had passed out. She knew because she felt the pain growing as she became aware, as she floated up out of the depths of unconsciousness. The pain, everywhere, so intense she could barely gasp in enough breath.
Then, a familiar rumble began building in the ground under her. The gravel vibrated beneath her, and she opened her eyes. In less than a minute, the freight train would barrel past. All was darkness around her. The mist still loitered, now still as a frightened rabbit, waiting for something. The train would stir up the mist good, Clara thought.
In the distance, she saw the glimmer of the train's headlamp glowing small and orange-white, a little sun in the dark mist. It was going fast tonight, Clara could feel it in the vibration of the gravel. She pulled herself to her knees, then stood up. The car was no longer next to her, but the stench of bourbon still lingered. She felt her head, found the blood still sticky in her hair.
Fifteen seconds, perhaps. The train was heavy, too. It was an insistent rumble, an unstoppable determination. She looked at the tracks on top of the embankment, their rails black as onyx, almost sucking what little light there was around her. Then she saw it. The car. Parked on the tracks. She could see the boys' heads through the windows. They looked asleep, maybe.
As the train bore down on the car, Clara realized it was too late to save the boys. She felt a shudder through her chest that must have been an urgent blast on the train's whistle, then a grating grinding as sparks leapt from underneath the engine. In the bright white of the train's headlamp, the car became a brilliant centerpiece in the black surroundings. Charlie in the driver's seat, asleep. Nick in the passenger seat, asleep. Bill in the back, lifting his head, his eyes growing wide as he watched his million-pound death pour down upon him at eighty miles an hour...
Clara did not close her eyes at the impact. She did not flinch. She watched in vague curiosity as the car first buckled and shrank, then sprang away from the train like a bead of oil off a hot griddle, up and away, off the tracks into the night beyond.
Limping, she turned to the gravel road and began trudging toward the bridge where the ghost breath still lay thicker than anywhere. Away in the distance, over the pond, she thought she saw a shimmer of pale white gliding away from her and disappearing into the mist.
Photo snarfed from Michael-brncos3 at http://flickr.com/photos/brncos3/1807466862/. Found it through Google image search. Posted without permission, but I'm hoping Michael-brncos3 doesn't mind since I'm attributing and linking.
So I suppose beating more than seventy other contestants is something to be celebrated. But it's a lukewarm kind of happiness I feel as I announce that my short story WHACK won honorable mention in a ByLine Magazine contest recently. Alas, contest winners do not necessarily receive publication (which for me was the real prize, not the $40 or whatever they dangled). Which I suppose means I'm free to send it elsewhere.
It's been a busy year, so this is the only story I've managed to submit anywhere. But I can't say I'm batting a thousand... it's more like my only at-bat resulted in an RBI sacrifice fly. Congratulated by my teammates, I return to the dugout wondering if I could have powered it over the fence with just a little more effort...
WHACK is short and (I hope) amusing, so if you would like to read it, let me know and I'll email it to you. Critiques welcomed since I do plan to send it out to other markets in the future.
This week's words are
avoid
class
sticky
Fun but limited words this week. Sticky is just not that versatile. Avoid is tough to use in too many ways. But together, these three words from Bone have some fun in them. I was going to do my usual three, but then two others just popped into my head as I was writing this. I'll leave it to you to guess which two...
This week's Ten on Tuesday theme is least favorite celebrities. Um... that would be... pretty much all of them. I don't mind most movie stars and sports figures, but anyone who's a "celebrity" annoys me. So I tend not to pay attention.
But, in the spirit of giving it the old college try, I turned to Wikipedia and found this great page. Who knew there were online lists of celebrity Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioners, polyamorists, and people with dwarfism. Isn't the internet great?
generations
07/18/2008
A stick was I given, and
as I walked the beach
I dragged it
scratching furrowed letters,
marking my travel
rhythmic cacophony of waves
slate gray cresting to frothing white
flattening to nothingness
smoothing the sand
before me
near the land's end
smooth sand morphed
a jagged rock blockade
I turned as the world
and faced my past
what I had written
faded behind me
erased again to smooth sand
I shook my stick in despair
angry wail unheard
memories swept away
lost
stolen by time
but in the distance
a boy
he walked in the smooth sand
and dragged a straight stick
and the laughing waves
slid slate gray and white
under the sun
One of my writing goals for 2008 is to write at least one light verse or poem every week in addition to my haiku wednesday. I will try to do this on Mondays. This is not particularly "light verse," but I'm tagging it that anyway.
This week's words are
history
narrow
spent
I found these to be very difficult words this week, at least for light haiku. I think it's in part because "spent" has mostly negative connotation. I feel I could have done better, but time is pressing and I need to start in on my work day!
This week's Ten on Tuesday theme is memorable vacation moments. Although my dad was no Clark Griswold, we had our share of childhood road trip disasters. Here are ten of my memories.
My first trip to Disneyland
My sister went to Austria for a year in college, and we visited over Christmas break. I was perhaps thirteen. We walked across a frozen lake and toured the very cool fortress, and I got laughed at by Austrian kids on the ski slopes. My dad spoke almost no German, and he left a note for the B&B lady that said something like, "Sorry we left before breakfast. We went shitting." He meant to write "skiing."
Block Island
Walking Mt. Katahdin's Knife Edge
In the year before kids, we drove around England. One stop was York, which I loved, but not because of the Jorvik Viking Museum. I am a huge fan of medieval history, particularly the English period around the time of Alfred. But Jorvik seemed a surreal Disneyland treatment, complete with barnyard smells, when I was hoping for something more... museumlike.
Lunch at the Louvre
I spent summers in Las Vegas, and my favorite hangout was the old MGM Grand. Their back section held the jai-alai fronton, the video arcade, a Swensen's ice cream shop, and the movie theater which showed old, MGM classics and had big, puffy seats like recliners and servers who would bring you food and drinks. Too bad it burned down.
Most recent trip to Disneylandenvironmentalist
07/14/2008
When Constance burst in through the door
she screamed at me, "Turn off that light!"
And then around the house she tore
and watching her my neck got sore
until I managed to implore
and stop her terrifying flight.
"Have you gone mad, are you insane?
You've made the house as dark as night!
You're giving me severe eye strain
resulting in a headache pain
and though I don't mean to complain
you're giving me an awful fright."
Then Constance shrieked, "You're so darn dumb!
You'd live your life by pure hindsight!
While you just sit on your fat bum
the coal and oil burners hum
creating grimy, sooty scum
so you can keep your curtains tight."
She ripped them open, sun streamed in,
and outside a horrific sight.
Where woods and trees and lakes had been
lurked smog and smoke and dreadful din.
The evidence of mankind's sin
assaulted me with deep insight.
And to my eyes there came some tears
to see the land's most awful blight,
for all I'd done throughout the years
was thumb my nose and offer sneers
ignoring all their silly fears
denying their predicted plight.
And Constance whispered quietly,
"I can no longer be polite.
I've tried to tell you doggedly
but you just scoffed and pooh-poohed me.
Turn off your lights and you will see
it's not too late to put it right."
One of my writing goals for 2008 is to write at least one light verse or poem every week in addition to my haiku wednesday and fiction friday posts. I will try to do this on Mondays.
Robin once again smacked us all with the gauntlet, and once again I am giving it a half-assed shot. At least in this one I look less of a bum and the lighting isn't reminiscent of a Bigfoot sighting. These are the words from the first couple of pages of my current work in progress, working title of "Gold Miner's Daughter." (No, she doesn't become a singing star. Ha, ha. That was funny maybe the first nineteen times I heard it.)
Here is the video:
And here is the text that I'm reading in the video:
Gold Miner’s Daughter
Chapter 1
The doctor squatted in the golden candlelight next to the cot, sweating whiskey and smelling of mildewed canvas. Andie watched him pat at her father’s forehead with a wet cloth, as if he were tapping time to a spirited camp song. “Gently,” she breathed.
The doctor stopped and pushed himself up with a groan, wobbling as he turned. He rubbed a dirt-smeared hand across his scraggled mining camp beard. While his eyes focused in the dim tent, he smacked his lips three or four times. He was so tall and lanky he had to stoop. “So…” His wheezing voice wavered in the flickering candlelight. “You and your father been here about a month, that right?”
“Yes, sir, only just.” Three months it took them from
The doctor let his gaze rove slowly up and down her. His beard cracked with a wide grin, and his dull eyes seemed not to sparkle at all in the flickering candlelight. “That so, that so,” he mumbled. “How old are you?”
Andie stiffened and clasped her hands together. She had met enough gold rushers to understand that only two types of boys asked that: young boys who wanted to know if she was too old to play make-believe, and grown men wanting to know if she was too young to get married. She measured her reply, looking past the mess of a doctor into the shadows beyond. “I turned fourteen the day we left
He nodded, thinking and sucking at his beard, and finally he winked. “You’re a fine, young woman.” The doctor stepped past her and pushed open the tent’s flap. In swept the cool evening air of August in the
“Wait!” Andie hurried after him, anxious and confused. “What about my father?”
“Nothing I can do,” said the doctor as if she’d asked him to make it snow.
“But… but, you’re the doctor. Don’t you have medicine, or something?” If only that doctor from the steamship, Doctor Albrecht, were here.
“Eh…” The doctor looked down into the starlit camp, gray canvas tents huddled like sleeping baby elephants by the river’s edge. “No medicine,” he murmured.
“What?” Andie thought the idea of a doctor who didn’t have medicine absurd. What good was a doctor without medicine?
“No medicine here,” he added, louder. “All gone. Got… used up. Sent for more from
Andie knew the doctor was also a miner, like the others. She’d seen him out in the river with his washbowl, flinging handfuls of mud and splashing about. Apparently, he was no better doctor than he was a miner. “I have two nuggets,” she offered quietly, wondering if Father would scold her for it.
“Hmm? What’s that?” The doctor seemed flustered. “How big… I mean, it don’t matter.” He glanced at the hulking, dark tents again and whispered. “No medicine, I tell you.”
“I’ll find more!” Andie grabbed at his grimy sleeve, desperation turning her fear to panic. The doctor couldn’t leave. Without a doctor, her father would die. Then who would find the gold to send back to Uncle Timothy? What would happen to Mother if Uncle Timothy turned her out?
“Don’t you get it, little girl?” The doctor hissed at her with an urgency and sudden sober focus that made her gasp. “I ain’t got no medicine. I ain’t got nothing that can help your daddy.” He held her with his glare and corrosive breath a moment more, then turned and loped off toward the main camp.
This week's words are
inappropriate
order
shortcut
A big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Ethan, who turns 12 years old today. Bone, you made it tough on us haikuers today... nine out of 17 syllables already accounted for, and a five-syllable word, too! And to all this week's participants: I apologize in advance if I don't get round to your sites this week. It's a wicked busy time at work. Plus, it's ETHAN'S BIRTHDAY!
This week's Ten on Tuesday theme is 10 Favorite Movie Characters. I had a difficult time coming up with really, really good ones after the first three or four, until I got my stride. Then I could barely restrict it to ten.
Everyone's favorite, Captain Jack Sparrow.
My first true love, Mary Poppins. Also any other role the young Julie Andrews played, particularly Maria in The Sound of Music. I am still in love with Mary Poppins and Maria. Le sigh.
Dory. Has there ever been a better animated character? "I wish I could speak whale."
Inspector Cluseau (the Peter Sellers version). Sellers bridged Marx Brothers humor with more modern slapstick in a creative, hilarious, and subtle way. Cluseau (along with Dreyfuss and Cato) are among the most memorable characters ever.
Navin R. Johnson. "He hates these cans!" "The new phone book's here! The new phone book's here!" Steve Martin's defining role, I think. At least until later in his career.
Here's a twofer: Harold and Maude. Neither character rates my top ten without the other, but together they were terrific.
Forrest Gump. A lot of people seem to think this movie is cotton candy for the brain, but I love it, and the character is the main reason. And Lieutenant Dan makes my honorable mention list.
Inigo Montoya.
Willie Wonka. I have not seen the remake starring Captain Jack Sparrow, but I knew I had to put a Gene Wilder role in my top ten, and this was the clear, logical choice.
Indiana Solo. I mean Han Jones. You know, those phenomenally awesome cool guy adventure roles played by Harrison Ford.
And honorable mentions:
This week's words are
indifferent
pour
reason
Bone picks good words. I am curious to see how these were treated by the other 3WW writers. The only note is that I chose to assign indifferent four syllables even though when I say it it usually sounds like three.
Yesterday I drove my 4WD on a mess of a backwoods dirt road, including driving through a sort of seasonal stream that is more of a temporary West Nile Virus factory. At my destination, one of the things I did was shoot a rifle. On the drive out, in low four wheel drive, I realized something: It had been fun.
No, I didn't go hunting. That's not on my agenda any time soon. My older son is on his first week away at Boy Scout camp in the Sierra foothills, a beautiful campground in gold country. The setting really is spectacular, and although it's isolated along a river in the wilderness, it's not far from several historic sites and towns. Since my parents were visiting, we decided to spend a couple of days up there and also drop in on the camp to see how the little bugger was doing.
Short version: He is having the time of his life. He's only 11 and gets to fire a .22 rifle (at targets). He hasn't even attained his first rank yet, and he's likely completed his Shooting merit badge this morning. He could (and may before the end of the week) try shooting a shotgun at skeet. Since he's 68 pounds soaking wet, it may break his shoulder. But he'd love it.
I tried my hand at the .22, too. I almost got the five shots within a quarter's diameter (the requirement for the merit badge).
We only spent a few hours visiting the camp. The rest of our mini vacation to gold country included a visit to historic Columbia state park. We panned for gold and drank Sarsaparilla, and the ranger talked to me for quite a while about the history of the Wells Fargo express office building. Next year I hope to get to the Columbia Diggin's.
Besides walking through Murphys, a cute little town with a preponderance of antique shops and a curious penchant for attracting Harley riders and rally car drivers, we descended into Mercer Caverns. We had a few years ago ventured into Black Chasm, which I enjoyed immensely. The story of Mercer and his discovery was more interesting, but I liked the mystery of Black Chasm's deep underground pool. Both are fascinating.
We stayed overnight at the Best Western on Hwy 4 in Angels Camp, and I can recommend it. Nice rooms. Clean. Pleasant continental breakfast. Good location. Quiet. It's also near a little park called Utica Park, right on Hwy 4, which is a great place for a picnic lunch. We also veered off the road to see the Mark Twain Cabin, not knowing anything about it beforehand. When we got there, we found out why it's located on Jackass Hill. Cuz only jackasses bother to drive up there to see this little "cabin" which really has almost no actual interesting history to it whatsoever.
The best part of this trip is that my WIP takes place during the Gold Rush in a fictitious area not unlike these towns. There's even a cave that plays a pivotal role. So believe I can write off much of the trip as research expense. (Note to self: Save receipts.)
This week's Ten on Tuesday theme is "10 Favorite Sports to Play/Watch." I decided to break it down into five of each.
To Play:
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