It’s a fable. But one I’ve never actually written down before.
I just found something that I started in 2000. It’s got no plot and no plan for one, but I find myself liking it all the same. I’m sure I wrote this in school, rather than, you know, paying attention in class. I almost remember writing it now that I think about it. Pay no attention to the punny locations & names. I have no idea what I was thinking.
I’m pretty sure I started with a drawing of Nicolai. I may even have it somewhere.
I am in a room with a clock at the edge of my field of vision, and the sound of its ticking is the apparition of my every failure.
At its best, this small, Southern town is the deification of sunsets on perfect marsh landscapes. The foam breakers rush up the gray-rimmed shores like torn sheets from frustrated poets, and the boiling colors of the low country horizon come at you like handfuls of flung gravel. The sun gets two finger’s width above the coastline, and sets the marsh afire, blistering the underbellies of stratus clouds until they surrender and flame as well, and the sky blooms lavender shot with shades of orange in the distance.
Favor me, for seizing the day, for living the moment, delirious with childhood, where I may box my own shadow and win. I am you at the quickening moment before you wandered into the combines of the grown-up and wakeful. I am the purity of youth only days before taken by whatever black wreck was built within you. My adolescence is to me now the upturned face of a young peregrine falcon, mouth agape for mother’s meal never to come. I am the living and embodied consequence of the moment previous to childhood’s black and nameless end.
Here’s a bit from a horror story I’ve been working on; the narrator is a very sick and twisted bastard, and he’s giving the reader a glimpse of his early development…
Frogs are natural skydivers.
I learned this when I was maybe 5 or 6 years old. Even after four or five hearty punts high into the air, their bodies - wonderfully designed by millions of years of evolution - would automatically splay out their limbs, slowing their descent and making them into graceful aerialists. Of course, having been punted four or five times and landing on the hard concrete of my patio didn’t do much for their health, so I doubt that they were really appreciating the aesthetics of the situation. After each landing, I would check on the frog, as if somehow the creature would maybe give me a thumbs-up; “Everything OK here! Ready for another flight, sir!” No, usually they would land and bounce a little bit, then sit there opening and closing their mouths silently, as if gasping for air. One time, one of the frogs seemed to be regurgitating some kind of internal organ. I was tempted to pull on it, see what would happen, but then my dog Peppy came along and snatched him up.
Oh, well. Hope you enjoyed the snack, Peppy.
After a while, even the aerial exploits of the frogs got boring. I came up with a new game. First I would have to catch a suitable frog, of course. Then I would put it into a zip-loc bag for a while. The goal here wasn’t to asphyxiate the frog; it was to watch as the frog tried to escape the bag, as panic set in and those little claws tried desperately to scratch open an exit from the bag. A few actually did manage to pull apart the zip-loc seal. Their swift reward was to join the ranks of Frog Skydivers. Many of them did eventually asphyxiate; having gills doesn’t allow you to extract extra air from some hidden dimension, apparently.
The last phase of escalation with the frogs came a few years later. I had been building cheap snap-together model cars and airplanes for a while, and it occurred to me that some of the larger scale models might contain a small frog. So I’d catch a small frog and encase it in the model, usually a car because they have more room. I’d leave out the seats and interior altogether and trap the frog between the chassis and body shell. These frogs of course became crash test frogs; I’d take the frog-laden model outside and ram it full on into the side of the concrete steps leading to my front door. I’m sure that the frogs felt stressed, but after witnessing the panicked escape attempts of the zip-loc frogs, it wasn’t quite entertaining enough. That’s when it occurred to me that car crashes on TV usually ended up in explosions and fire; perfect! With Independence Day a long ways off, I had to settle for using hairspray and a lighter to torch the cars with froggy inside. Pretty stupid, I know. More than once the fire would come back to the can as I sprayed hot death into the models; nearly burned myself more than once that way. The frogs would start squirming as best they could, but it was pretty cramped in the models for most of them.
Hmm. Should have tried to eat the legs. I hear frog legs are pretty tasty.
…
OK. time out. You didn’t sign up to read about frogs and the various ways they could suffer. I mean, we’ve ALL tortured frogs at some point, right? Or something like frogs, anyway. BORING. After that intro, I’m sure you were expecting something that would shock and disgust you. Or delight you. Depends on what kind of freak you are. The truth of the matter is, you wouldn’t be reading this far unless you’ re like me in some way. Chances are, you’ve read, seen, or imagined something far worse than anything I’m going to write about…and you probably got it on the evening fucking news. Hell, you’ve probably DONE worse than I have, just by VOTING. Asshole. I should leave you hanging right there for that kind of atrocity, the hell that America has been through because you were SO worried that the schools are teaching that we are biological organisms just like every other living thing on the fucking planet but oh, no, that can’t be, The Lord God Almighty made you special and unique and you’re not like these filthy animals that live to eat, fuck, shit, sleep and die. No, you can’t be like THEM, *you *- sorry, getting carried away a bit there. Back on task. Again, if you are the kind that accepts your nature, you are just smiling and nodding right now. If not, you’re feigning disgust and your inner monologue is insisting that you are NOT like this, even as you’re aching to read the next chapter. Admit it. You want to know what I’m going to reveal when things get REALLY nasty. But first, a little fun…
You didn’t say it had to be prose, so here are three nursery rhyme sonnets I did a few years back. There are others in the series, but I figured patience for poetry is probably low:
Sauce for the Goose
I. Three blind mice
The farmer’s wife is cruelty at rest
in calico, in reddened hands and brawn
that stem from wringing rooster necks at dawn
before they crow. She serves invited guests
with crumbled sage and dressing, second best
china for the preacher. In the lawn,
three sleeping mice lie still and dream of drawn
butter on the grains of grasses pressed
into the dirt; of tails still twitching warm;
of noses that would stay content with weeds
and never long for bread to feed their wives;
of ears that could detect the hens’ alarm;
of eyes that have more use than poppy seeds
in farmhouse kitchens filled with carving knives.
**
II. There was a crooked man**
The house is crooked, and the siding gaps
enough to welcome in a mouse or vole
who hopes to find more shelter than a hole
in sod can offer it. The owner naps.
His cat curls like a furry sleeping-cap
around his head. But rodents on patrol
are not as silent as they think. Parole
is brief, then they find prison in the snap
of jaws. He calls her thirst for blood a vice,
disgusting him, if she makes the mistake
of asking him, with purrs, to share her meat.
So she learns secrecy; she kills the mice
with one quick bite before the man can take
them from her mouth and never let her eat.
III. Old Mother Hubbard
The mutt’s tail thumps against the parlor floor
but cannot stir his mistress from her chair.
She waits, as if some djinn will enter there
and grant three wishes. Both grow gaunt, and sore
from pressure on the bones that long before
were cushioned by their flesh. The shelves are bare.
This is no place for mice to feast; nowhere
for kin to step in unannounced and pour
their joys in friendly ears. The hall is grey
with dust and shells of some dead spider’s lunch,
without the track of butcher’s blood to brand
his passage, with a beef roast or filet
beneath his arm. The dog now dreams the crunch
of brittle bones that form his warden’s hand.
From a short thriller I’m in the midst of writing. The dialog needs some work, but I love that this is how the story begins:*
*please be kind concerning my grammar.
From my stub novel, Foresight America,
- The room was far too warm in the Washington summer. But the tall windows had been closed to prevent eavesdroppers; inside it was stifling. Charles Lindbergh stood near a window, his white linen suit rumpled by the humidity, holding a digital watch, watching as the seconds rushed by.
“No noise at all.” He reported as he held the artifact to his ear.
“No moving parts,” General Marshall replied, “we took it apart and couldn’t make heads nor tails of it.” His soft voice carried authority. “It was made in Japan, by the way.”
Lindberg raised an eyebrow and shook the device gently. “This,” he pointed to the timepiece, “means it is all true, every word of it.”
Marshall stepped away “Yes, colonel, every word as far as we can tell. He is who he says he is and he as come from where he says he came.”
“Or came from when he will come,” Senator Taft corrected with a harrumph. “He is the genuine article, a throwback from the year 2000, a time traveler.”
The crowd in the room was generating a low buzz. Groups had formed around the watch, the “laptop computer” and a copy of the Washington Post dated sixty-four years in the future.
Taft straightened himself and rapped on the polished table. “Let us reconvene,” the men, they were all men, began to return to their seats.
“Can we agree, I presume, that the evidence is clear?” the senator from Ohio began. A gentle murmur of agreement went around the meeting.
“General, will you recap what we know?” Taft asked.
The heat did not seem to bother Marshall at all, “Gentlemen, in twenty years, the United States will be the world’s leading power. We will have influence at least as wide as the British do now. Our industry will lead the world. Our people will be the richest and arguably the happiest; our culture will dominate. In fact the world at large will be at peace, democracy and free trade will be the rule. But,” he paused to consider his next words, “between then and now is World War II.”*
Here’s a screed inspired by some egregious act of religious zealotry I read in the paper some time ago:
God’s Mafia
Or, An Offering You Can’t Refuse
There is a striking resemblance between organized religion and organized crime. I mean other than the fact that both originated in Italy. On the one hand is the family Don, dispensing wisdom and advice, warnings and threats; a paternal figure, but not one without a certain amount of menace. A family member’s happiness depends upon how the Don views his activities. There is a certain amount of homage due, one must act within the laws of the family, and there is the periodic donation which insures protection, loyalty, and one’s continued good health.
In the case of organized religion, we have a paternalistic or maternalistic (although women in church hierarchy still seem somewhat paternal, don’t they?) leader who dispenses wisdom and advice, warnings and threats; in short, someone who exhibits all the traits of the Don, with the possible exception of a propensity to murder (although in the case of the Inquisition, the Crusades, jihads and various other purges perpetrated throughout history, this too is well within religion’s purview). We generally treat these people with deference, someone to turn to for solace and guidance. We make periodic donations to them which insure our places in heaven, insure God’s protection, loyalty, and our continued good health. The only difference here is that instead of calling it “protection money”, we call it an “offering”.
The other real difference is that the leader of a crime family doesn’t presume to be able to interpret the word of a supreme being. In some cases, I’m sure, the Don considers himself to be the Supreme Being, which can also be said for some religious leaders. But generally, this particular arrogance is reserved for popes, priests, ministers, imams, and other clergy.
My question is this: if our lives are already pre-ordained, if everything is set and our destination to a ‘heaven’ or ‘hell’ is also set, how then does placing money in a plate or mailing in one’s life savings to a monster like Jerry Falwell, or blowing up some hapless Jewish school children change anything? How does listening to some gasbag blathering on every Sunday about our immortal souls change one goddamn microscopic aspect of our lives? If God dwells within each of us, then don’t we all have our own on-board life tour guide? Aren’t all our clocks winding down at a pre-arranged rate? What possible difference does it make whether I hail Mary or hail a cab? At least I know that if I make an offering to a cabbie, I’m likely to get where I want to go, and he isn’t going to be looking for the vig.
Exerpt from one I am working on right now called Healing Hearts:
Jesse heard Alex moving about the living room early the next morning; he had slept little that night, his mind abuzz with thoughts that he knew were better off ignored, but he was unable to push them to the dark corners of his brain where they belonged. Coming back to California had served as a reminder of the life he had left behind, and awakened a homesickness deep inside him he could not deny. It had also caused him to begin questioning the feelings he had for Hannah, feelings that were becoming stronger with each passing day, of the likes he had never expected to have for her. Feelings that scared him senseless. There was nothing about her that he would have before found attractive in the least, but now… he wondered if he was falling in love with her. And with that particular thought in mind, he had made his decision- it was better to put as much distance between the two of them as he possibly could. He used the hand-held urinal first thing, and managed to drag himself out of the bed and into the wheelchair, wheeling out to the kitchen where Alex was poaching an egg for breakfast.
“Hey little brother, you hungry?” he asked with a smile. It was getting easier, seeing Jesse in the wheelchair, although he didn’t think he would ever get completely used to it.
Jesse shook his head, getting the orange juice out and pouring a glass. Truth be told, his stomach was in knots, and the thought of putting food in it caused it to roll unpleasantly. “I need to talk to you Alex.” He said quietly. “It’s kind of important.”
Alex used a slotted spoon to scoop the soft-cooked egg out of the water, depositing it onto a piece of waiting toast and sprinkling it with salt and pepper. “Shoot.” He encouraged, pouring them each a cup of coffee.
Jesse put his juice between his legs and wheeled closer to the table, hesitating before he spoke again. He licked his lips nervously. “I… I was just thinking last night…” he began haltingly, “Could I… I mean, would you mind if I stay here with you?” Alex had used the side of his fork to cut into the egg, letting the thick liquid yolk spread across his toast, and he snapped his head up to stare at Jesse. “Please… I won’t be any trouble, Alex, I can help out around here a little bit, I’m learning how to do more things every day. I even got in the chair by myself today…”
Alex pushed his breakfast aside without even taking a bite. “Jesse, you know I can’t do that.” He said softly. “No matter if I want to or not, I can’t. I’m taking time off work while you’re here, but this isn’t the norm. I’m never home, Jesse. I wouldn’t be here to help you do anything, and right now, I just can’t afford to hire a nurse.”
“There’ll be money when my house sells.” Jesse replied quietly. “I can pay for my own nurse…”
Alex rubbed his eyes wearily, shaking his head. “Not that much, Jesse. You still owe a huge chunk on it; the lion’s share is going to just be paying off your mortgage. And you have no idea if you are ever going to get out of that chair. It won’t work, I’m sorry…”
Jesse’s brow knitted in a deep frown, and he pushed away from the table. “Yeah, well so am I. I would hate to think that I’m a burden to you, Alex.”
Alex sprung from his seat and stopped the wheelchair half way across the kitchen, spinning him around so quickly that he almost knocked it over. “What the fuck’s wrong with you? You act as if it’s my fault you got yourself into this! It isn’t! It wasn’t me that got behind the wheel of a car after I’d been drinking! It wasn’t me that tried to take a goddamned exit ramp doing sixty or seventy miles an hour! I’m doing everything I can to help you out, but you know what? I like my life the way it is Jesse! I don’t want a wheelchair ramp on my porch! I don’t want to have to worry every minute I’m away from home if you’ve managed to hurt yourself again! I don’t want to bring a girlfriend home for the night and have to explain, ‘yeah, that’s my little brother, he broke his back driving drunk, and now I have to change his diapers…’ Is that what you wanted to hear Jesse? It’s not just the money!”
Hannah had heard their voices in the kitchen and got up, slipping her robe on; as she got closer, the words became clearer to her. The realization of just what they were saying hit her hard, like a mule kick to her gut, and she stepped into the kitchen doorway unnoticed by either brother.
“You’re my brother Alex!” Jesse screamed, his eyes filling with tears, his face flushing deeply. “We’re family! I’d do it for you, but you can’t be bothered to help me? I have to depend on someone that was almost a total stranger to me to help? Mom and Dad would be so proud of you!” he snorted sarcastically
“Yeah, well I don’t exactly think they’d be calling you son of the year, either!” Alex yelled right back.
“You weren’t planning to come back with me?” Hannah’s soft voice floated across the kitchen, silencing both men at once. “I guess living with a total stranger wasn’t good enough for you.”
Jesse turned his chair around to stare at her, the pain on her face enough to make him forget his own pain. “I wasn’t planning it, Hannah.” He backpedaled. “I just thought…”
She held her hand up to silence him. “When were you going to tell me Jesse? When I rented the U Haul? Kinda… ‘oh, by the way, we need to take this stuff to Alex’s house; I’m not going back with you’? My God Jesse, do you have any idea what I’ve been through for you? Do you? How much money I’ve put out? What I’ve given up? It’s not bad for a total stranger.” Hot, stinging tears began to flow down her cheeks and she hastily swiped them away with the back of her hand.
Jesse had no idea how to handle the situation so he struck out blindly. “If you’re worried about your fuckin’ money, I’ll pay you off when I sell the house. There should be enough there. And I don’t want to be a problem for either one of you, surely there’s a homeless shelter somewhere that would take me in!” He began wheeling furiously toward the front door, left open from Alex bringing in the morning paper. Before either Hannah or Alex could react to stop him, Jesse pushed the storm door open, wheeling out onto the front stoop, with Alex and Hannah coming after him at a run. Jesse tried to wheel down the wide steps, but the wheel hit the second one wrong and the chair tipped, almost in slow motion, falling onto its left side, dumping Jesse out onto the walk. Hannah shoved Alex aside and came down the steps at a run, dropping to her knees beside him as he tried to crawl away, angry, frustrated tears spilling down his cheeks. As she touched his shoulder, he shrugged her off violently, his face contorted in anger. “Don’t touch me!” he hissed between gritted teeth. “Keep your fucking hands off of me! I can take care of myself!”
“Stop it!” Hannah gave him a shake, refusing to release him. “You’re bleeding, Jesse!” There was a thin trickle of blood running from a cut on his lip, and the side of his temple was already coloring with a bruise. “Alex, call an ambulance.”
“I don’t need a fucking ambulance!” Jesse growled, pushing Hannah away and trying to drag himself toward the overturned chair. “I’m fine! Just leave me the hell alone!”
Alex came down the steps and sat the chair upright. “C’mon, let’s get you back inside.” He said gently, taking hold of Jesse’s arm in an attempt to get him off the ground. Jesse was still struggling and took a swing at his brother with the other hand, but Alex was able to avoid contact easily. Any further punches were stopped when Hannah grabbed the other arm, and together she and Alex got him into the chair. Jesse slumped forward, the fight suddenly gone out of him. “Are you alright?” Alex squatted down in front of him, looking into his face. Jesse turned his head away and nodded stiffly.
“I’m fine.” He replied tersely. Alex shook his head, and he and Hannah got Jesse back inside the house. Hannah pushed the chair into the bathroom, wetting a washcloth and gently dabbing at the blood on his lip.
“What were you thinking?” she chided gently. “Are you sure you’re OK?” Jesse would not meet her eyes.
“Just that I wanted to get out of here.” He sighed, wincing as she wiped the cut. “And yes, I’m fine.”
She sat back on the closed toilet seat. “I don’t understand, Jesse. Why weren’t you going to tell me you wanted to stay here? Why didn’t you tell me before we came out here?”
(If anyone would like to read the whole thing, please let me know… I am hoping to get it published eventually and would love honest critique, I would be happy to e mail the Word document to you.)
Here’s a little scene with one of my favorite characters. Hope you enjoy. 
*Chopping time. Corn to be cut. As if some craggy and capricious and domineering god looked down upon a placid world and said ‘Let there be haste.’ Tractors pulling ensilage wagons full to brimming topping hills and rounding bends, wailing like things come down from orbit. Dump trucks similarly laden with their miscellaneous and multitudinous tickings like doomsday clocks overwound and ready to come unsprung, and the lot of them, all, leaving great spumes and rooster tails of chaff whorling surreally in their separate wakes as if the very air were abrasive, possessed a sentience of its own and was set against their passing.
The pilots piloting these crafts do so with the complete serenity known only to the abjectly mad, slightly atotter as if nodding in time to some unheard tinkling, chimes of their own imagining perhaps, raising a hand in passing to storefront watchers, porchbound watchers, who nod or wave them by in turn and say to those likewise, to themselves if there are no others, ‘There ought to be a law.’
So they pass, hell bent for the field, for the silo, for the boneyard-which? Leaving behind them silence made the greater by the din having passed, air ludicrously confettied, as if here has gone the lone sane absconder from some kinghell demented parade.*
There was a time I served as an oarsman aboard The Moldy Kettle. If you’ve ever worked the oars you might know what I mean, but I should tell you the Kettle was a strange vessel. It was in truth a very large kettle, perfect in shape and scale.The rowing song was straight enough; “All aboard the Moldy Kettle! Iron oars and floors a’ Metal! Shore to shore nowhere’s t’settle! Forward go’ers the Moldy Kettle!”
True to that, she had iron oars, bane of all oarsmen consigned to the Kettle, being in those times, as now, that oarsmen’s oars of choice should be wooden. All oarsmen I have known, I should say, all but Runkle. Forty stone to an oar and 2 men to work it, I held 3rd oar, portside, with Runkle. Runkle had one joke and he wasn’t shy with it. “Iron oars of iron-ore!” he’d chort. “Bootis!” he’d call to me, upon which time I’d either look at him, or not. “Whaddya say 'bout these Iron Oars of iron-ore?” And then during those times that we’d sing the Moldy Kettle song, at the part where one is supposed to say “Iron Oars”, Runkle would cry “iron-ORES”, much louder than it is supposed to be sung, and then wink at me, or whoever might be looking at him, or to no one in particular. The oars being as heavy as they were, and the song being as short as it was (which gave Runkle cause for much winking and "iron-ORE"ing, as the one verse would be repeated and repeated endlessly from port to port), only led me to become increasingly conscious of the needless weight of those heavy, heavy oars. And that if they were made of wood, they would weigh 30 stone less, and the Kettle might then achieve 20 knots or more, instead of the 2 we could barely maintain, and that with wooden oars, Runkle would have no joke.
So while docked at a Cape, I inquired to the first mate about the chance of replacing the Kettle’s Iron oars for those of wood, and he said he would check into it, but that probably not, since there were other repairs and refittings of higher priority which themselves had been waiting attention for several dockings. And he also pointed out the Moldy Kettle was an all-iron vessel. I noticed Runkle had overheard my inquiry, and had seemed quite disappointed , at which time, for some reason I did feel sorry for him.
And then that night I was assigned 12th oar, portside, with Bowers. Had Runkle requested the reassignment? I never found out.
If you don’t mind me saying so, I loved this. Thanks for sharing
I put this together a few years ago.
Wednesday Evenings
I had purchased an old fieldstone farmhouse in need of serious repair. Having long
held a dream to live in a beautiful old house, the feeling of history, the charm, and the beautiful stature of a restored house. What had not
been considered was the amount of repair needed to turn my house into one of those
handsome homes. There was always a project going on inside or outside and I lived
with sawdust and dust and dodged around tools left out to finish a job.
I never had enough money to just hire someone with some experience for these jobs.
This was the first house I had owned and slowly I learned how to wire an electrical socket and sweat a joint. Every night after work as I drove home I would click off the
long list of things to do and try to remember that list so that when I got home I could
add it to the ever growing number of items that were posted on the refrigerator door.
Only occasionally I could go over and cross off something that had been completed.
The list grew and was at times a burden, slowly understanding how much time, energy
and money was needed to finish anything. As the children were born, I tried to finish projects so the house would be more comfortable and safe as the kids grew.
. When my oldest, a daughter, turned five years old, she started dance class at a studio about twenty-five minutes from our house. The class was one hour, so after making sure
she was settled in, it did not seem to be worth the time to go home and then turn around
and drive back again so soon afterward. Instead, leaving the car parked on the quiet
side street near the studio, I would walk up the long main street through the sparse business district and circle through the college campus just beyond the stores. The former teachers college was now a modern university but still had the charm of old academia. Then returning down the opposite side of the street, and arriving just in time as the class ended.
The dance class followed the school calendar, so my Wednesday evening walks were often in the long shadows and then fading light of autumn and spring when the sun was near the horizon. Beginning late in the fall, after the clocks were turned back to standard time, it was dark before we left the house. I would walk in the darkness, occasionally treading over a section of sidewalk bathed in a streetlight. On the way up the hill towards the shopping area there were older townhouses built up against the sidewalk. Passing by the windows lit with the bluish hues of a television or a reading lamp casting shades of yellow against the glass, I would be drawn to look into the window. Never breaking stride, feeling much the voyeur, seeing the safe comfortable life of the main street residents.
Returning to the studio and slipping out of the cold into the small waiting room to meet my daughter, my glasses fogging in the moist warm air as I joined other parents dropping
off or picking up the future ballerinas. The dancers donned their winter coats and mittens
over pink tights and ran off into the evening, giggling and smiling as they made their way to their parents vehicles.
Dave
Who me? Mind? Are you crazy? 
Here is what I have handy.
Agreed; some serious talent on the Dope! Of course, by now that’s not that big of a surprise, I guess.
Here’s the beginning of what was probably my most well-received piece of spanking fiction. It’s called “The House in the Woods”. My original story idea was for more of a horror story, but it turned into a 50-year-old ghost story/romance/mystery, and also something of an anti-racism screed, and much better overall than what I’d had in mind. That’s one of the “problems” with my stories - the characters sometimes take on a life of their own and practically write themselves, not always paying attention to what I intended for them 
Brianna knew she shouldn’t, but she was in a hurry. She’d overslept, again. One more tardy at school, and she would be in big trouble with Mom. So even though she knew better, she took a shortcut through the woods.
Oh, she’d heard all about these woods. All through her sixteen years she had heard the whispered stories about the ‘stalker’. She’d heard those ridiculous tales of other girls getting snatched in these woods, and of the horrible things that had happened to them. “Silly rumors, that’s all they are,” Brianna reassured herself.
The story went back at least fifty years. “Some girl” would wander into these woods, and “something” would happen to her. Nobody ever said what that “something” was. Time had exaggerated the story, of course. To hear her parents’ and grandparents’ generations tell it, at least a hundred girls had been “snatched”. And it was always the same story: the girl would come home, apparently unharmed, but terribly frightened and refusing to talk about it. The alleged incidents had become fewer and fewer in the last twenty years, though, and Brianna had never known anybody her own age who’d had a strange experience in the woods.
Still, she remembered hearing something about Becca Jackson, who was five years older than Brianna. Funny… in a town where most girls were married as soon as they finished high school (or within a couple of years, anyway) Becca was still single. She’d broken up with her boyfriend shortly before graduation, and since then she pretty much stayed on her parent’s farm, rarely coming into town any more. Weird.
The rumors persisted, and Brianna’s generation had grown up with the understanding that going into these woods was something a girl just didn’t do. And so Brianna, a smart girl, had never cut through the woods before today. Not because she really believed the warnings, but because that was just the way things were done in her small town. The way they’d always been done.
So she ran. Silly rumors aside, there was still no need to linger. And she was still running late. She jogged as fast as she could across the leaf-strewn floor of the woods, slowing from time to time to hop a fallen, moss-covered log. The maples were nearly bare, though a few red leaves still clung stubbornly to the branches. She found herself wishing she had worn jeans and boots today. The slick soles of her saddle shoes didn’t provide much traction on the damp ground, and her short skirt kept creeping up while she ran.
Brianna didn’t even see the clearing until she was standing in the middle of it.
And since when was there a house in the middle of these woods? Brianna had ridden in her parents’ car many times along the road that followed the crest of the nearby hills. In all the times she had stared out the window, across the trees, she had never seen any houses. The woods had always looked like virgin timber to her. Yet there was no denying the big, two-story, white farmhouse, with a covered porch that ran all the way across the front. Big as life, looking lived-in, if a bit run down. Brianna was familiar with the style, as there were many similar old farmhouses surrounding the town.
“Alice! I am glad you could come!” The accented male voice boomed behind her.
Brianna whirled in fright, and found herself face to face with a handsome young man. He had black hair that was cut in one of those old-fashioned styles that had come back into vogue recently, and brown skin, as well as the deepest brown eyes Brianna had ever seen. She guessed him to be about twenty-one, though having had no experience with dark-skinned people, she couldn’t be sure. His accent was as unfamiliar as his appearance. Surely, Brianna would have noticed a man like him in her all-white farm town. He would have stood out like a sore thumb.
“Um hi,” Brianna said, uncertainly. “Um, my name’s not Alice…”
For those who may be interested, here’s the full story. (Plain text, main character 16 years old, no explicit sex)
And here’s “Serendipitous”. (Plain text, all characters over 18, explicit sex)
From a novella I wrote about a guy who wins the lottery:
Here’s two lines from a song. They are in reference to a deep friendship which now (in song time) seems to be fading.
I dunno, you probably have to hear it in context. (And I’m not going to provide it because in the same song there are, to my chagrin, a couple of real howlers.)
-FrL-