Fog Floats Over Water - Kevin

My mind is fog
Waiting for the sun
Waiting to remember

The house
The lake

Days you couldn't see five feet in front of you
And too many days of complete clarity

Our finch bounces with life in its cage
As mother watches from the bed, her life sneaking away

From across the lake a cello plays

Father's question:
Is it the big things in life that matter?
Or is it the small things that remind us how big
The big things really are?

The wood of the dock creaks steadily from out the window
Like a lullaby

I can't sleep
Then I can
I am like two different people

The cello plays and I can never see from where
It could be played by a ghost
The ghost haunts me through music

Each morning
Here on the dock
At first light
I can convince myself I am the only person on earth

By last light I have learned the hard way
That isn't true

Silver fish peekaboo beneath me like swimming nickels

Father's arms
Veins bulging
Row the boat

Mother's hands
Veins collapsing
Put on lipstick, even at the end

Our finch
The cello
Music
Life somewhere out there
Just beyond the quiet whiteness

I hold up my hand
I can barely see it
Maybe this means
I barely exist

Fog floats over water.


For more of my writing, go to: http://sportpastime.blogspot.com

Talking Rain - JohnD

He put his last three dollars into the slot machine. “Okay, I only need a seven hundred dollar jackpot and I'm back to normal,” he said to himself.

He pulled the handle: a lemon, a lemon, and a monkey. “A monkey? Is that a monkey?” he asked aloud. Nobody answered. His vision was blurred. He squinted and leaned forward and back again trying to make the monkey, if that's what it was, come into focus. The leaning motion made him mildly dizzy, blurring his vision a bit more. Maybe the monkey-like thing doubles the lemon jackpot, he hoped. But, no. Nothing happened. That was it. He was finished. He downed the rest of his drink.

“Franklin, get some more money. I'll pay off for you big time.”

“Who, what?” asked Franklin.

“Trust me Franklin,” the machine said.

Franklin looked at the slot machine as he felt the room spin slightly. “Are you talking?” he asked.

“Come on Franklin. Don't be like that,” the machine soothed. “It's me. I'll take care of you.”

“Don't be like what?” Franklin demanded.

“You don't trust me?” said the machine, tension in it's voice.

“Hold on!” said Franklin. “Just hold on.” He felt the casino tilting now as the slow spin continued. “This doesn't make any sense. I mean, when did I say anything about not trusting you? I'm just out of money. That's all!”

“Oh, come on,” the machine pleaded. “Like you don't have a credit card?”

“Stop it!” yelled Franklin. People from nearby slot machines looked up momentarily before being consumed again by their respective machines.

“Fine,” whispered the machine, sobbing gently. “You don't have to make a scene.”

“Don't start crying,” said Franklin.

The machine started bawling uncontrollably. “Well,” replied the machine. “It's just that I try my best for you, but nothing's good enough!”

Franklin shuddered. “Wait, wait!” he said to himself. “You're normal. You're a normal person. You've been drinking too much and you haven't slept in, like, 36 hours. Go, go, get out of here; get back to your hotel room!” He started leaving.

“Come back!” yelled the machine. “I need you. I'm nothing without you!”

Franklin kept walking. “Where is my hotel?” he thought. He walked to the open doors of the casino. It was raining hard.

“Hold on Franklin, don't come out into me!”

“Oh, for heaven's sake!” yelled Franklin.

“No really Franklin,” said the rain. “I'm all acidic this evening. It would be a considerable health risk. You'd better go back into the protective environment of that casino.”

“Stop it!” screamed Franklin. “Acid rain? That's ridiculous!”

“No, truly,” said the rain. “You might just want to get some more money and continue making wagers in that comfortable, dry, highly respectable gambling establishment. Given the circumstances, it's the safest course of action.”

Franklin took a deep breath. “Nobody ever said doing the right thing would be easy,” he mused. But, he had to admit that that rain was really starting to make some sense. So, after straightening his stance and patting down his hair from the sideburns back, he turned around and headed proudly back into the casino. Yes, it definitely felt good to be thinking rationally again; to do what was reasonable; to do what was right. “Whew!”

"An Ending" - Dixie

What I wouldn't give for an ending. Alas, it eludes. I have a beginning, I have a middle, I do not have an ending. The girl in the story is fully formed, or becoming so. She develops easily, although she does not have a name and is rather clueless about what is happening. She needs an ending to go forward, a light on the horizon, that North Star that the know-it-all writer is moving toward.

"So, what's the point of the bank robbery?" she asks me in that innocent way of hers.

"Yeah, I don't get it," pipes in Sanjay, the character who does have a name. "What's it have to do with the gun and the pool?" He smooths his silk shirt and tosses the gun on the table. Clunk.

"What happens after we rob the bank?" She timidly pushes the gun, as if playing spin the bottle. The muzzle points at me.

Oh, shit. They're right. What is going to happen after they rob the bank? Or are they even going to? We are all confused, except maybe the gun, which probably doesn't even belong in this story.

"Oh, well," she says dreamily and sits back into her huge sunglasses. Trust personified.

"Fuck it," says Sanjay. He stomps out of the room slamming the door behind him. Absolutely no trust.

I reluctantly pick up the gun, which turns into my pen and sends a few words spurting on the page.

"Although they had no idea what they were doing, ..."

To read the full story: http://tothebottom900.blogspot.com/
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"The black room took us in like a cave" - Maya

It was just what I wanted – walls painted black, even the windows, which were painted shut as well. They were covered with heavy curtains, but I pulled them back to check. No light. A single bulb dangled from the remnants of a long-discarded light fixture in the ceiling, but that was no problem. We didn’t have to turn it on. And we wouldn’t.

The black room took us in like a cave. I know what you’re thinking – like a womb. I don’t care. You can psychologize me all you want, it won’t matter. Black was what we wanted and black was what we got. We weren’t looking for airless or claustrophobic, so it was good that it was on the third floor an not, say, in the basement. Black and damp would have been too much for me. I’m allergic to mold anyway. In fact, it might have been a bright and airy room at onetime. Might be again. I wouldn’t want to be the one to paint over it or scrape off all that black paint, but that’s neither here nor there.

We had our little cave now. Our little sanctuary. Our refuge. I imagined it to be like an underground temple or a blank slate. We didn’t even need to bring much with us.

I’m sure you’re wondering why I did it. Well, you see, I didn’t know who he was when I met him. Or maybe I should say “what” he was. He was different – I could see that right away. I always was a sucker for different. And he moved fast. Those dark eyes that looked unflinchingly into mine – as though he wanted to see inside me. And did. And like who he found there.

He never lied to me. He just made sure I cared about him before he told me. All right, I’ll say it – I fell in love with him. Loved him. And he needed me, needed someone badly. He’d just arrived and wasn’t safe. He’d left his family – needed new territory, new blood, so to speak.

It’s not every day that someone promises you eternal life. Can’t you understand? Eternal life with someone you love and who loves you? I felt loved, anyway. I don’t know. I think he did love me.

So, I found the room. He promised he’d take me, turn me, once we settled in. He needed me to stay as I was to do the necessary business in daylight hours. Once we had a safe place it could happen. And it was perfect. I had the coffin moved in right away. He was so pleased. It was perfect.

How could I know he’d been followed from the old country? Tracked, like an animal. All they saw was trouble. Not his beauty, his kindness, his intense love. All they saw was danger. I didn’t. He’d explained it to me and it seemed doable. It seemed…okay. Does different have to mean bad? I’ve never thought so.

They’d waited till the sun went down and the coffin opened. Stakes in hand, they burst through the locked door – I don’t know how – and they killed him. God, they killed him. They’d have killed me, too, if he had turned me. But he hadn’t and they didn’t, obviously. They called me stupid, gullible, dangerous. They told me to leave before the police arrived. They were giving me a chance to start over. Then they left. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t just leave him like that.

Don’t you see? I could have run away and avoided all this, but I didn’t. I wanted to stay here in our cave, our sanctuary. I wanted to be with him forever.

Prompt: "The black room took us in like a cave." - Anne Sexton
6/7/08