Barbara Keeling is a friend of A Word with You Press, and of Kid Expression, our non-profit that encourages kids to write. Barbara, it seems, is vying for the spot on 60 minutes vacated by Andy Rooney.

here is a little contribution she calls:

Who Knew It Was [...]]]>

Our scenic and old shoe laces

Barbara Keeling is a friend of A Word with You Press, and of Kid Expression, our non-profit that encourages kids to write. Barbara, it seems, is vying for the spot on 60 minutes vacated by Andy Rooney.

here is a little contribution she calls:

Who Knew It Was So Complicated?

by Barbara Keeling

In everyday life there are countless things we don’t even remember doing. We have been doing them for so many years we give them no notice at all. We seldom even mention these event, because they are no big deal anyway.  They are not a topic brought up over a cup of coffee and a donuts.

When do you remember, ever starting a conversation with:

“ Speaking of Shoelaces…..”

You have likely given little thought to shoelaces until you need to buy a new pair.  This can propel you into a major event.  I mean, how many of us really know how long our shoelaces are.  Never giving that a thought you stand at the shoelace replacement department debating the length you need. Who knew there were so many available lengths of shoelaces.  You usually take a stab at it grab what you think you need and go home to install your replacement laces.  They can end up being so short they don’t make it to the first set of lace up holes or they are so long they could lasso a Brahma Bull.

Of course by the time you find out you had guessed the wrong length and want to return the laces to the store, you realize you had torn apart that little paper deal wrapped around the new laces.  “Oh well” you will think it was only 2 bucks.  You figure you might one day own some shoes these laces would fit, so pack them away in that drawer which includes some other buyers mistakes.

You’re big time annoyed with yourself, that you tossed out the old laces that you could have used for a proper measurement. However since you were really good at math in school, ya’ figure you would dig out a ruler and measure for the proper length you need. Simple enough, count the holes, measure the length between them, measure the distance back and forth across the shoe tongue, it’s a done deal. BUT wait, don’t forget to include measurements for the distance as the lace makes the turn to change directions as you do the back and forth lace up. Then of course just how much length do you really need to tie a bow.  And what if you want to double tie that bow, how much more length do you actually need.

Things like this do remind us how sorry we are not have studied advanced math.

You figure buying shoelaces that are to long is better than to short so you go purchase a pretty long set of laces.  If you lace up the shoe and find you have way to much length you can always cut off the ends.  Of course do consider you will never again be able to reuse these laces once that pointee hard plastic wrap-ee end thing is gone from the end of laces.  Never in your lifetime or anyone else’s will you be able to squeeze that cut off shoelace end into the shoe lace hole. Removing that teeeneee weeeneee, wrapped up plastic like end piece off the shoelace allows laces to explode into a fluffy, fat, fiber, frenzee looking like some grossed out flap of string, with pompoms attached.  Try threading that through the shoelace holes. It’s a “No deal” for sure.

Who’d a thought that something as simple as changing shoelaces could cause so much stress and strain.  Plus damaging our confidence of doing simple tasks.

Well the moral of this epic story is to look for shoes that have a slab of Velcro as the closures.

***************************************************************************************************

Send us anything you’ve written that you would like to share with the Literati to thorn@awordwithyoupress.com.  Happy to see that it gets posted.

Just a story I thought I’d post to give y’all a laugh. Some say this story is true – some say it’s not. I say, “Truth is in the mind of the witness. History is in the telling…”

Dad and the Cat

My little brother [...]]]>

Just a story I thought I’d post to give y’all a laugh. Some say this story is true – some say it’s not. I say, “Truth is in the mind of the witness. History is in the telling…”

Dad and the Cat

My little brother and I knew what the consequences would be, but for some reason that we still don’t understand, that morning we were prepared to take the risk.  Because, you throw a cat into a hot shower with a man with an attitude and there’s no telling what’s going to come out.  But we were just kids, bulletproof kids, and at the time it just seemed like the thing to do.

Billy carried the cat.  I held the handle to the shower door.  The blasted cat heard the water running and it was starting to get a little nervous, so we had to act quick.

Billy nodded at me.  I jerked the door open.  He flung the cat into the hot water down by the drain.

Dad hollered at us, “Close that dang DOOR!”

“HA HA – with PLEASURE old man!”

Then in total shock, both of them stood frozen, eyes locked on eyes, slack jawed and bug eyed.   It took a couple of seconds for them to overcome the shock of what had just happened.  And I don’t know which one of them yelled first but whichever it was, it was followed closely by the other.

Yowling and cursing echoed throughout the upstairs of our house.  Me and Billy couldn’t really make out exactly what was going on in there because of the steam frost on the door.  But what we could see was the shadow of the cat taking about three leaps up dad’s legs, belly and chest, digging its claws in deep with each jump.

Then they came face to face.  The cat yowled and dad yelled, and for all the world to see and hear, it looked and sounded like a shovel full of baby ducks and bucket of river rocks had been dumped into a Briggs and Stratton cement mixer.  Looking through the steamed up glass, we could make out the shadows of hairy arms and legs flailing wildly inside that steamy shower.  The cat took one final leap and perched on top of dad’s bald head like a cheap fur hat.

That cat buried his front claws somewhere between dad’s eyebrows and his forehead.  His hind claws were dug into that huge bald space on the back of dad’s head.  Dad reached up and grabbed the cat around the middle, and every time he tried to push the cat off his head, the wet cat dug it’s claws in deeper.

They finally burst out the shower door and nearly flattened Billy and me as they flew past us, screaming and yowling.  I caught a glimpse of them as they ran past us, and it was the funniest dang thing I’ve ever seen.  There was poor ol’dad, naked, wet, and all soaped up with a wet cat perched on top of his head.

The cat looked like some surreal hood ornament up there.  Its head was stretched straight out in front, and its tail flapped in the breeze behind them as they flew past us.  Every time dad pushed up on the cat to shove it off his head, its death grip on his scalp pulled his eyes open so wide we thought they would pop out of their sockets.

They streaked down the upstairs hall leaving a comet’s trail of bubbles, wet soapy footprints and expletives too bold to share.    The cat’s siren-like yowling alerted everyone in the house that Armageddon had just begun.

Sprinting down the hallway, dad attempted a sharp right turn into the bedroom, but the combination of freshly waxed floor, wet, soapy feet and inertia left him without enough traction to navigate the maneuver.  His feet spun like worn tires on an icy road until they both hit the floor with a great bouncing plop.

The crash knocked the cat to loose, and while dad spun out of control in one direction, the cat, jumping to its feet, slipped and slid across the floor in the opposite direction with a full tail tucked, advanced cat escape tactic.

the sad, wet aftermath

Me and Billy spent the next two weeks at Granny and Papa’s house.  That was kind of dad’s way of sending us to a desert island for punishment.

But, was it worth it?

It was!

Did we ever do it again?

Nope.

Because once you’ve seen a naked man loping down the upstairs hallway with a cat clamped to the top of his head, you’re glad for the experience, but you never want to see it again.

Randomness is awesome
It’s a homemade cherry pie
A red hot literal branding iron
That pokes you in the eye

You’re always out there peddling
Your perfect pedagogic
To worlds of tiny empty skulls
That just can’t get your logic

When the block [...]]]>

Randomness is awesome
It’s a homemade cherry pie
A red hot literal branding iron
That pokes you in the eye

You’re always out there peddling
Your perfect pedagogic
To worlds of tiny empty skulls
That just can’t get your logic

When the block of creation hits you
Like that old pie in the face
Blame yourself and everyone else
Pathetic human race

Lollipops and willy diddlin’
Swimming in the loo
Guess I’ll spank your momma’s ass
Since that’s what writers do

Randomness is awesome
And reality is numbing
Sasquatch squashed a ladybug
She never saw it coming

Ok, while we’re caught here between contests, how ‘bout we do something fun and maybe learn something while we’re having fun. After all, this is a place to learn as well as show off our writing and win some cool prizes at the same time. But, this is not a [...]]]>

Ok, while we’re caught here between contests, how ‘bout we do something fun and maybe learn something while we’re having fun. After all, this is a place to learn as well as show off our writing and win some cool prizes at the same time. But, this is not a contest – there’s no prize for this except what you might learn to improve your writing.

This is the first draft of the first chapter of a novel I’m  thinking about writing. The idea came to me late one night while I was driving  from Waco to San Angelo. If you’ll excuse the seeming lapse of sanity, I think  the protagonist in this story, Chuck, (no relationship to Claudia), materialized  in my truck somewhere along that long, dark sixty mile stretch of highway between  Brownwood and Ballinger, and he started telling me this story.

I’m not going to tell you anything else about the story. I  know where it goes for a while, but Chuck hasn’t told me how it ends yet.

Here’s the deal;

I published the first draft of the first chapter here with all its typos and punctuation errors. Please pay no attention to grammatical errors and the lack of editing. As I said, this is the first draft. I’ll work that out later. I want you to share your ideas about the story/novel with us all – where would you take this introductory chapter? Here’s some starters for you:

1. What do you see in this first chapter, characters, setting (physical and time), and
   its potential for becoming a novel. (This has nothing to do with me! It’s about
   learning something about how we choose THE BEST idea out of ALL the ideas we
   get so we don’t spend two months working on a story and then realize it’s not as good as we thought it would be.)
2. How many wars can you count that are happening on Bird Street in the first chapter?
3. What’s the reason for not giving the young soldier’s name in the first chapter? (I did that on purpose – just wanted to know if you would understand why I did it that way.)
4. What’s the purpose of spending two paragraphs describing the neighborhood and the houses  in the neighborhood? How does that relate to what you think is going to happen in the story (why is the condition of the houses important to the story)?
5. Where is Chuck’s father? I don’t know either! I’m just wondering what your thinking is and how you would deal with Chuck’s being raised by his mother.
6. And, do you attribute any of Chuck’s problems with socialization to his single parent home?
7. What are your thoughts?

You don’t have to answer all the questions. Heck, you don’t have to answer any of them if you don’t want to. I just thought this would be a cool way for some of us to spend a cold night in front of the fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate or tea and share some ideas and learn something that might sharpen all our writing skills. Share some and learn some. I learned a long time ago, I learn the best lessons from my peers and not from the professors.

Whadda y’a think?

 Chapter 1

When Chuck walked home from school that day, there was an old Chevy sedan parked in the driveway of the haunted house next door. In all his thirteen years no one had lived in that old Victorian cottage on Bird Street. He remembered an occasional homeless person that spent the night there and some students from the university used it for Halloween parties, but no one ever lived there.

The haunted house had once stood proudly among her sister Victorians with their gingerbread trim and stained glass windows. Beginning in the early 1960s, families abandoned those ornate homes and fled to the suburbs where brand new, smaller, simpler, lower maintenance homes better fit their busier family and social lives. The historic homes on Bird Street lost their pride, their social status, and their reason for being. All fell into despair and disrepair.

The haunted house was no  exception. Just like the others, years of abuse and neglect took away her pride and glory and left paint peeling off the clapboards, broken windows, a porch that had partly detached itself from the house and leaned toward the street, and tall weeds that hid the litter left behind from the fraternity parties and other trash that had blown into the yard from the street. Walking up the sidewalk of his own home, Chuck squinted and tried to see through the dirty windows of the abandoned house, hoping he’d see someone his age, someone who would be his friend. The inside looked dark, empty, and abandoned.

As Chuck stepped up on his porch, a tall man in an army uniform walked out of the haunted house and opened the back door of the old Chevy.

“Hi. I’m Chuck”

The young soldier ignored Chuck’s greeting.

“I’m Chuck. Are you moving in? Do you have any kids my age?”

Again, without acknowledging his young neighbor, the soldier reached into the back seat of the Chevy and pulled out a large box. Unaware that Chuck was watching his every move, the soldier placed the box on the trunk of the car and pulled another box from the back seat. He stacked the second box on the first and carried them toward the porch of the haunted house.

“Welcome to the neighborhood,” Chuck called, waving to his new neighbor’s back.

The soldier stopped monetarily on the second step of the leaning porch and looked toward Chuck. There was no expression on the soldier’s face. Chuck smiled and waved again. Then without acknowledging Chuck’s friendly wave, he walked into his house and closed the door.

Walking into his own house, Chuck called out, “Mom. What are you doing here?”

“I have to work the night shift so I came home to rest before I have to go back. Do you have any homework?” Darlene Springer called from her bedroom.

“No. And it’s Friday anyway. Can’t they find another waitress to work tonight? I hate being here alone.”

“Chuck, I don’t have any choice. I’m lucky to have this job and tips are better on the night shift anyway. Friday night after the bars close is the best time to work. All the party people come in, they have a good time and leave big tips and that’s what helps us keep this house. Why don’t you call one of your friends and see if they can come spend the night with you?”

He leaned in the doorway, looking into his mother’s bedroom. “You always work the night shift, mom. You’re never home anymore.”

“What do you expect me to do? I need the money to keep a roof over our head and food to eat. I don’t have any choice.”

“I don’t have anyone to talk to, mom. It gets lonely around here when I’m home all by myself and no one to talk to.”

“Get one of your friends to come over or go to your friend’s house. You can find something to do.”

“Yeah, right, mom. You forget? I don’t have any friends. No one wants to hang around the fat kid. The fat kid is just there because the popular boys need somebody to knock his books out of his hands and shove him against the wall like he’s nothing. It’s the fat kid that gets dragged into the boy’s room and gets his head stuffed in the toilet while someone flushes it and everyone  laughs while they walk out of the bathroom. I’m the kid that sits alone at lunch and never gets invited to any of the parties. You know how that feels, mom? Do you know what I’d give to have just one friend?”

“You’re just being over dramatic, Chuck. Here, zip up my uniform for me,” she said, holding her long hair to the side. “You have lots of friends at school.”

“No, mom. I don’t.”

“I’ve got to get back to work, Chuck. We’ll talk about this later,” Darlen said as she walked out the door.

“Yeah, later. It’s always later,” Chuck mumbled walking into the kitchen.

He reached into the pantry and grabbed a bag of potato chips, a box of moon pies, then pulled a handful of chocolate chip cookies out of the cookie jar and grabbed two root beers from the refrigerator. Carefully balancing his bounty in his arms, he carried it all into the living room. Then he spread dinner across the coffee table.

Turning on the black and white TV, Chuck said a quick, silent prayer before he pressed the button for the cable. A note on the screen reminded him that the service had been disconnected and would be restored as soon as he paid the bill. Every day for the past three months he’d said the same prayer but still found the same disconnect message.

Chuck dropped himself hard on the sofa, causing the bricks used to replace the broken leg to slip away. He growled and struggled off the leaning sofa, then bent over and restacked the bricks, sitting back on the sofa more carefully the second time.

The national news kept him informed on that day’s progress in the war  in Vietnam. Chuck was an expert on body counts, both enemy and American, how many tons of bombs had been dropped on the North, and the latest statements from President Johnson and General Westmoreland regarding the great progress American troops were making toward victory. He could spout war statistics as confidently and accurately as the other boys in his class spouted baseball and football statistics.

He watched video of the troops waving at the news cameras, hoping someone back home would see them and see they were safe. Chuck always waved back at them, hoping they would somehow know that some kid in San Angelo, Texas wished them well.

He hated seeing video of the military men returning from Vietnam, not to the hero’s welcome Chuck thought they deserved, but to the taunts of war protesters calling them baby killers and traitors.

In 1968, the conservative west Texas town of San Angelo had no hippies and no war protests. There were only people who were rich from ranching, oil, and old money and people who worked for the rich people and cowboys who worked on the ranches and roughnecks who worked in the oil fields. Vietnam was too far away for anyone to be concerned. Anyone except those families who had sons fighting there, and most families knew someone over there. The just didn’t talk about it much.

Chuck lay on the worn sofa and watched his usual Friday night shows, High Chaparral and Gomer Pile, USMC. His mind drifted from television to wondering about the new neighbor and if he had been to Vietnam. He prayed that by some miracle the young army man had a son that wouldn’t mind being friends with the fat kid next door.

He didn’t remember drifting off to sleep on the sofa, but when he awoke, the TV was hissing white noise and a test signal let him know he’d slept past midnight. The house was dark except for the glow from the TV screen and the broken spring in the middle of the old sofa had made his ribs sore.

He stretched and winced from the pain in his side, then rolled toward the edge of the sofa, finally pulling himself up to standing. Chuck stumbled sleepily to his bedroom and while he undressed himself, he noticed a dim, flickering light coming from a window in the haunted house. He walked to his window and strained to see what was inside the dimly lit room across the fence. He saw nothing but the wall on the other side of the room. Maybe that’s the new kid’s room and he’s still awake, he thought.

Chuck cupped his hands at the side of his face and leaned against the window, peering deeper into the window across the fence. There was no movement inside the old house.

He sat on the side of his bed, still staring at the flickering light in the haunted house. Suddenly a shadow moved across the wall. Chuck jumped and leaned his forehead against the window, staring into the room on the other side of the fence. The shadow moved quickly across the wall and then disappeared out of his sight. Somebody’s in there, he thought. It might be a guy my age who needs a friend that can tell him that it’s ok not to be scared in that old house. Maybe he needs a friend to tell him the house isn’t really haunted, it just looks like it is.

Walking out the front door, Chuck leaned across the porch rail and stared toward the dimly lit window across the fence. He truggled with the idea of climbing through the fence and getting a closer look at whoever was on the other side of the window he’d been watching. After several starts that were halted by lost courage, Chuck took a deep breath and walked across his yard to the fence. He leaned across the fence trying to see into the window. I need to get closer.

Standing in front of the two loose pickets that he’d crawled between many times before to watch the fraternity party through the windows, Chuck took another deep breath and crawled between the loose pickets into the weed covered yard next door. He felt his heart beating against his chest and he had to make a conscious effort to breathe quietly. He wondered if that was the same feeling
the soldier felt when he was on patrol in Vietnam. Step by agonizingly careful step, he moved toward the window. The box he’d stood on all the times before was still under the window, and Chuck slowly lifted his wobbly right leg and rested his foot on the box. Then pulling himself up, he raised his left foot and stood, bent over, under the dimly lit window. He put his ear against the wall under the window. Nothing but silence.

Chuck straightened his back and lifted his head so his eyes could barely see across the window sill and into the room. There was nothing. He raised himself up further and looked deeper into the room.

In one corner across the room he saw the soldier had cleared a place on the trash covered floor just large enough to spread a blanket. The flickering light Chuck had seen through the window came from a candle inside a mason jar that sat on the floor next to the blanket. There was no sign of anyone in the room.

Leaning dangerously close to the window, Chuck scanned the darkened room from the blanket toward the door that opened into the hallway. As he strained to focus his eyes into the hallway, the soldier leaped from beside the window.

Dressed in camouflage, wearing a camouflage cap on top of his black ski mask, his body filled the entire window. His eyes were enormous and bloodshot and he let out a war cry so loud that Chuck thought it rattled the panes in the window. The soldier jerked his right arm up from his side and thrust a machete toward the darkened window.

Chuck’s eyes popped as large as the soldiers and he stood at the window, frozen with fear. Face to terrified face, Chuck and the soldier stared into each other’s terror filled eyes. In the brief seconds that followed, a million thoughts flowed between them; a million fears and needs surged both ways through the broken window leaving them both terrorized and confused.

Finally able to break away from the soldier’s hypnotic stare, Chuck yelled and stumbled backward, falling backward off the box. Scrambling on all fours, he headed toward the two loose pickets, climbed between them and ran back to his porch. Panting and sweating, he burst through the front door and locked it. With all his weight, he leaned against the door, expecting the soldier to burst through at any time brandishing that huge machete he’d seen. Please, God. Please tell him I’m not the enemy. Please tell him I’m a good guy so he won’t kill me.

Time crawled by slowly while Chuck waited for the attack. But it never came. He crept back to his bedroom and turned off the light, then cupped his  hands at the side of his face and stared across the fence into the dimly lit room. The shadow moved quickly across the wall and then disappeared.

Without undressing, Chuck jumped into his bed and pulled the blanket over himself praying for sleep, but afraid of what could happen if he slept.

AWwYP Technical Director Diana Diehl – You’ve been Clarked!

I am a huge fan of Diana’s work,her technical skill, her writing, and her art. When I came into AWwYP as the Director of the Veterans’ Writing Project I had to learn to publish stories on this site and if you ever [...]]]>

AWwYP Technical Director Diana Diehl – You’ve been Clarked!

I am a huge fan of Diana’s work,her technical skill, her writing, and her art. When I came into AWwYP as the Director of the Veterans’ Writing Project I had to learn to publish stories on this site and if you ever believe a single word I say, (have I ever lied to you?), please believe this; Publishing to this site is NOT EASY to learn for someone as technically challenged as I. It took my daughter almost an hour to teach me how to send a text message on my Blackberry! So, learning how to publish on AWwYP was like going from driving Sparky across the pasture to landing the Space Shuttle on an asteroid.

Anyway, Diana e-mailed me the instructions on how to post. I opened them and froze up quicker than a stolen laptop. “Press this button – type text here – save the document – upload a picture – save the draft – preview post…” and on and on and interminably on. I sent her tons of e-mails asking how to do stuff – she sent back tons of smiles and e-mails encouraging me to do what the instructions say to do and not worry if I make a mistake because the site won’t burst into flames if I screw up – “Just hit the EDIT key and fix it!” I sent more e-mails asking the same questions. I think I asked one question five different times – Diana says I asked it seven times and she’s probably right. Regardless, I finally published my first feature and it looked pretty good, thanks to her.

Then, as fate would have it… One afternoon during a frantic rush to get a story published, I crashed – burned – went down in flames and couldn’t get anything and I mean ANYTHING to work as far as publishing a feature to the site. I sent her an emergency email complete with gritted teeth, tears and snot bubbles begging for help! She worked on her side of the site (on her cell phone because she was out shopping at the time) and I kept screwing up on my side of the site and then I got the final diagnosis…the WORD – the sad fact of my inability to publish anything on the site. Diana took a deep breath and wrote to me and sadly informed me, (this is a direct quote);

“Maybe you have just exceeded your quota of misspelled words and profanity allowed on the AWwYP website.”

Perhaps she was right.

The point of all this? Simply this!

dianadiehlpresents.com/ is Diana’s new website, A Fusion of Art and Writing, Skepticism and Whimsy, and it’s great! Her art is ‘timely’ and beautifully executed. My granddaughter fell in love with the hand-painted shoes. You gotta check it out and buy some stuff and leave good words and then post the site on your Facebook and tweet it and talk about it at the spa and down at the 7-11 while you’re getting your Slushy and some gas and get the word out! She’s done lots of stuff you – do something for her. Got it?
Good!

AWwYP Technical Director Diana Diehl keeps our site running smoothly, and single-handedly prevents all the technical stuff from going completely wack-a-doo. (Scratch that–she actually uses both her hands.) She believes it’s a good idea to reinvent yourself frequently. Although physics was her first love in college, she worked on a breeding program for giant endangered toads,
created Rent-a-Fish, an aquarium leasing program for college students, practiced veterinary medicine on anything that would hold still long enough (removing tumors from piranhas and rehabilitating paralyzed eels). Later paths sent her off installing networking and hard drives, providing computer and database training and support, designing graphics and Web sites, and writing
documentation for supercomputers.

Somewhere in between, she edited children’s books, played Lara Croft look-alike, learned to weld, sang in an a cappella choir, and dabbled in community theater. And she loves to write. Through all the twists and turns of time, a deep and compelling love of words and their ability to reveal, entertain, and elevate the human spirit has endured and found a cozy haven here at A Word with You Press.

That’s from her AWwYP profile and from my thinking it just doesn’t say, “Thank you, Diana,” and so from me and all of us who enjoy the site and sometimes forget the people who are really running stuff here, ‘Thanks, Diana.
We love y’a!’

And, you just been Clarked.

…“and don’t fret none about breakfast.”

Literati!

Let me remind you all once again that we are more than just contests and a pretty face. We encourage you to send us your works complete or in progress, and we will put it on line for critique and comments.

What [...]]]>

…“and don’t fret none about breakfast.”

Literati!

Let me remind you all once again that we are more than just contests and a pretty face. We encourage you to send us your works complete or in progress, and we will put it on line for critique and comments.

What I am posting here is the start of a charming coming of age story by Scott Gressitt.  I have read about fifty pages, and oohhhhh, it do make you long for simpler times! Here he is as a sixteen year old keruacing his way through cattle country and country cattle.

His book–not sure yet if it’s gonna be fictionalized or straight memoir, is aptly titled:  Sixteen.

Here is the start of chapter one.

Summer Solstice

by Scott Gressitt

I had been hitchhiking across Texas for a week; stopping every time something caught my eye.

This piece of gear was instrumental in Scott's journey as a sixteen year old

Everything caught my eye.

I had made some trouble at home. I was putting as many miles as possible between trouble and me.

Colorado City was a dirty little town built around a lake a few miles west.

I had slept in the bushes behind a truck stop last night, where my last ride had dropped me off in the dark. I was hungry and needed to find work to get some chow and a pack of smokes.

But first, coffee.

I scanned the parking lot. I looked East and West; not a cop in site. I struck out onto the main drag looking for breakfast.

Looking through the screen in the front door, “Claire’s” was the smallest café I’d ever seen. The kitchen ran the length of the establishment along the West wall. Guests were protected from the hash slinging by an avocado green counter running front to back, the length of the diner. There was a narrow opening through which the staff could pass.

No uniforms were present, so I entered.

Half a dozen patrons sat on chrome and vinyl stools elbowing their way into the active socializing that was in full flow. That is, until my door opening rang a little bell attached to the jam.

Chewing stopped, discussion halted, and every head turned to examine the intruder who disrupted their repartee.

I stood up straight, threw my shoulders back and cheerily engaged the crowd, “Good morning citizens!”

The gaggle looked me up and down, muttering under their collective breaths and, without missing a beat, picked up right where they had left off.

Turning from the griddle, and quickly surveying me, Claire said, “Good morning, young feller. What can I do for you?”

“Coffee and a bagel, please.”

“A bagel?” she grinned, astonished.

“Hm, toast?”

“Have a seat. It’ll be a minute.”

She pulled two slices of Wonder bread out of a bag, threw down a scoop of lard on the griddle and thwacked the slices into the bubbling blob.

She poured coffee into a porcelain cup and slid a steel pitcher of cream and a glass sugar shaker toward me.

I made it up and took a sip.

“Perfect.” I reported.

“Like that, do you? Aren’t you a bit young for coffee?”

Fuck it!

“I like your coffee. It’s good and strong.

And hey, I’m looking for a job. Need any help?”

“Nope. I run the whole ship myself, young man.” She said, spreading out her arms, gesturing as if her diner were as big as Texas.

“May I work off my breakfast with a tune?”

“Nope. This is one of those profit deals. We take cash.”

A lean man, about forty, sitting alone, spoke up. He looked me in the eye and said, “I’ll buy your breakfast if the music’s any good.”

I pulled my banjo over my head and sang;
I am a man of constant sorrow
I’ve seen trouble all my day.
I bid farewell to old Kentucky
The place where I was born and raised.

My new patron chimed in with a high harmony on the chorus.
(The place where he was born and raised)
I twanged out a lead, frailing my heart out between verses.

The tenor and I sang the last verse, harmonizing as if we’d been singing together for years.

It was sweet!

“That was pretty good, young man. I got your breakfast covered.” He stuck out his hand, “ I’m Jim. What’s your name?”

I told him and he said, “Nice to meet you. Look, my family owns the feed store in town and they’re always looking for a big strappin’ lug like you to help. You’re on your own, though. Don’t tell them I sent you or they’ll show you the door.”

“Thanks Jim. You know, you should sing in public. You have a hell of a voice.”

He smiled a benevolent smile, winking at Claire, looking like he was going to reach over and pat me on the head. “Thanks Scott. You sang and played real well, too.”

Jim and I shook hands and I headed for the door, looking outside for any signs of the law. I launched out into the morning swealter and walked down the bright dusty main drag towards the feed store, guessing at the temperature, bearing up for the sweat I knew was forthcoming.

In passing what looked like a cross between a junkyard, an auto repair, and an antique store, I wandered into the dirt side yard to have a look around.

It was packed full of treasure.

“That’d make a nice strap for my banjo.” I said to a guy cutting up an old cast iron vertical mill with a gas torch.

He was soaked with sweat, and covered with a film of dirt and grease, head to toe.

“What’s that, you say?” he asked pulling the goggles up onto his forehead to look at me.

I had watched him carelessly slash the drive belt off the mills’ massive old pulleys with a pair of shears, and casually toss it into the scrap heap at his feet.

It was a half-inch thick cowhide belt, three inches wide, weathered from a half century of quietly slapping, relentlessly spinning around pulleys all its life.

“Would you sell me that belt?” I asked, pointing to his drop.

“Oh hell, kid, I don’t give a shit about it. You can have it.”

“Thanks.” I said scooping it up and looping it around my waist, dogging the ends down through the belt in my jeans.

“Nice score, Scotty,” I muttered to myself, walking away, planning the mod to a banjo strap in my head. I walked a block south to get off the main drag, then headed towards the rail siding just west of town.

As I’d done so many times before, I walked down the tracks balancing heal – toeing on one rail all the way to the siding at the feed store.

I talked the feed shop owner into putting me on his delivery truck for the day. I rode shotgun, back and forth from “Mitchell’s Hay and Grain” to half a dozen farms and ranches, dropping off sacks of feed and bales of timothy and alfalfa; sweating in the dusty hundred degree heat.

Albert, the driver, asked me to play just about every bluegrass tune I knew on the banjo. It was a damn good day. He sang harmony, and, man, he could sing!

At the end of the day, Mr. Mitchell asked Albert how “the kid” did as a helper.

“For a young feller, he kicked ass! And he serenaded me between stops.”

Mr. Mitchell dug in his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills, peeled off a twenty, and folded it in half and handed it to me.

“Thank you sir. I really appreciate it.”

“You want to work tomorrow, Scotty?”

“Of course.”

He walked me out the back door to the rail siding and pointed to the two train car loads of oat hay; the biggest bales I’d ever seen.

“You can start on those in the morning”

“Tell you what, Mr. Mitchell, I’ll unload’m both for a hundred and fifty dollars.”

He turned and looked me up and down, grinning, and said “A hundred and fifty, eh?”

I kept my mouth shut, didn’t blink, and just smiled back at him, real calm.

I knew he’d have to pay a couple of laborers at least two or three hundred dollars, depending upon their ambition.

I was offering him a bargain.

“Alright Scotty, a hundred and fifty dollars it is.”

He stuck out his hand and I said, “One condition, though, sir.”

“What’s that?”

“I’d prefer to do it at night.” I said, accepting his handshake.

He thought for a moment, rubbing his chin and said, “I don’t see why not.”

“See you tomorrow at sunset…and thanks for the opportunity, Mr. Mitchell.”

“Call me Bill.”

“G’nite then, Bill.”

I perched on a busy corner in town. I stuffed my hair up into my beret, pulled on some sunglasses and, playing my banjo, sang my heart out for the crowd queuing up in front of the movie theater to see ‘Billy Jack’. I hadn’t seen the movie, but knew the story line and the crowd looked like they would be a supportive audience.

Many of the folks threw nickels, dimes, and quarters in my hat, but a lady that looked like my mother dropped a dollar bill and smiled sweetly at me, as if she wanted to take me home, wash my face, cook me a proper meal, and send me back to high school.

Fuck. This peach fuzz on my chin must really make me look like a baby.

“Hello young man. Thanks for serenading an old widow. If you get hungry, come by my place and I’ll feed you. My house is the last place on Fourth Street, corner of Cherry. I’m Nattie, Nattie Benson. Everyone in town knows me.”

“Thanks Mrs. Benson. I’ll come play for you. G’nite. Enjoy your movie.”

Some young kid had emptied two pennies from his pocket into my hat, with a smile and a wave.

I played for twenty minutes and made eight dollars and twenty-seven cents.

The ticket window opened and folks paid the freight and went in; my audience started to evaporate.

Just as I started to wind down my act, a cruiser drove by and slowed to look at the waning commotion on my corner. Without pulling over, he stopped his cruiser, swung open the door and walked towards me, tipping his hat to a couple of giggling young who women who taunted him, “Good evening, officer Jimmy.”

He smiled at them as they walked into the theater and walked right up to me and said, “Good evening young man. You passing through Colorado City?”

“No Sir, I just moved here. I work for Jim Mitchell.”

“That so? Where are you staying?”

“I’m staying at Widow Bensons over on Fourth Street,” I said without breaking eye contact.

“Is that so? Would you like a lift over there? I’m headed that way.”

“No thank you, officer. Natties’ in watching Billy Jack and I’m headed over to Betty’s to get some dinner.” I was real smooth.

“What’s your name, young man?”

“Bob Denver,” I gulped, extending my hand, not believing my own impetuous name choice. He sure wasn’t going to.

“Like the actor?”

“Yeah. My friends call me Gilligan,” I bullshat furiously, beaming my best kid next-door smile.

“OK, Bob Denver, got some ID?

“Nope, I lost my wallet on the way here last week.”

“Really? Where are you from, Bob?”

“Crossville, Tennessee,” I said, smiling real big. “You ever been there?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I have, Bob. I have in-laws near Crossville.”

“Realy? What’s there name?” I just knew I was going jail and the jig was up. I was firing my final rounds.

“The Hartmans. Davis and Betty Hartman. I married their daughter, Patience. You know them?”

My bowels were about to take charge of themselves, taking control away from me and creating a whole ‘nuther set of problems.

“No sir, I don’t. But Crossville’s a pretty big place.”

“Ok Bob Denver. Come see me at the station tomorrow and we’ll see about getting you some new ID.

“I’m Office Loveless, but you can call me Officer Loveless,” he said winking at me, with a complete deadpan expression.

If I hadn’t started laughing so hard, I guess I would have been crying in two shakes. He just gave me smile as he headed back to his beat.

As he walked back to his cruiser, I tried not to shake too furiously as I packed my kit.

What kind of a woman would knowingly marry into such a name; Patience Hartman Loveless?

No shit.

Now I was wondering if he had been bullshitting me…

Scott Gressitt during leaner times on the road

*****************

Send us your own stories, and we will be happy to see them get posted, and please do leave comments for the authors.  That’s why they are here!

Literati!

We are delighted to post your work beyond the scope of our contests, and here is one piece that gives me special pleasure to share with you.

When Peggy Dobbs first entered a contest almost a year and a half ago, she did not even know how [...]]]>

Literati!

We are delighted to post your work beyond the scope of our contests, and here is one piece that gives me special pleasure to share with you.

When Peggy Dobbs first entered a contest almost a year and a half ago, she did not even know how to send an attachment, and asked her daughter for help.  Now she is one of our most prolific contributors to the site, and her sage wisdom inspires and endears us all.

So, gentlemen, here she is with the guy we just can’t compete with, husband of 63 years, Homer Dobbs.  And Ladies?  May you strive to be as hot as Peggy is in this high school picture, and has remained all her life.

So here is a poem for those of us who refuse to believe that love fades with time.

WHAT  I  SEE AFTER 63 YEARS

by Peggy Dobbs

I’ve heard that cameras never tell a lie

but I don’t believe that’s true.

For when you look sadly at your pictures,

you don’t see the man I do.

You see an old man,

one who is way past his prime.

You see liver spots and wrinkles

and sags brought on by time.

You know it could be much worse

but you see only what age has scarred.

You say, “No more pictures of me,

all cameras on birthdays barred!”

Pride doesn’t remain our friend

as the years go swiftly by.

It whispers dreadful things to us,

telling each a damning lie.

It says that we can remain the same,

that our bodies will not grow old,

that our worth is on the outside,

and we believe these lies we’re told!

But when I look at your picture,

or stare into your face,

the memories that over flood my heart

paint pictures cameras can’t replace.

I see love and fun and passion.

I see faithfulness and a friend.

I see the boy I married

who owns my heart ever, without end.

Peggy  8/30/2011

Oh, Literati!

We all know that Vampires Suck! and that our contest of the same name will close the crypt on August 28th, the night of a new moon.  You still have time to submit(ah! that magic word that thrills and delights me!), but let me remind you: we [...]]]>

Oh, Literati!

We all know that Vampires Suck! and that our contest of the same name will close the crypt on August 28th, the night of a new moon.  You still have time to submit(ah! that magic word that thrills and delights me!), but let me remind you: we are more than just a pretty face and host for contests, some frivolous, some not-so-frivolous, and all of fun.

We also are a forum for writers to expose themselves to the genital public—oops! I mean submit work for their writing peers to review, and comment upon.  If you have a story you would like to share, we are happy to put it on line for you, and hope those who read will provide feedback.

Editor-in-chief (moi) seen here in his smokin' jacket! (Oh, lord, the byrony of it all!)

Trevor Treller has sent me a poem that he would like to share.  Those of you who have followed the site over the last 15 months know that I am no poet, and as such, don’t appreciate poetry to its fullest.  The flaw is mine.  I just don’t absorb the poetry of others the way I do fiction, and subsequently there is very little poetry on the site.

But Trevor has huevos.  He has sent me a poem.  I am happy to see it get the light of day, unlike our vampire entries which can only find cyberspace in the dark (look again at midnight for the newest entries into our Vampires Suck! contest)

In the meantime (why is time considered mean?) , here is Trevor’s poetry.

Vision’s First Elation

by Trevor Treller

When vision’s first elation’d sprung

upon a waking, conscious thought,

great evidence of more was hung

on wistfulness that fancy’d flung

from what, no longer, was unsought.

As children’s footprints first beheld

were made on glen and hill,

t’was sight’s capacity that welled

within the spirit’s parts that meld

to see them as we will.

Embellished vistas shone with light

and depth, with gauged proximity.

So blackness, even, failed at night

as other glowings bade our sight

to never cease, or fear, to see.

And colors made up vision’s bones

that stabilized perception’s glance –

so stronger grew their sight with tones

that beauty’s presence still condones

to mortals’ eyes, and minds, entrance.

Delicious movement first was seen

and soon recorded evermore.

A memory of what had been

at last, was ever, just as keen

as first, its viewing, did adore.

And contrasts, greater art, create

to layer gorgeous thing on thing;

so never may its sight abate

that I, my eye, may satiate

as vision’s voice must ever ring.

A varied brightness lays its hold

to balance what is shown.

And as its lighting will unfold

to blur the sight of young and old

its end remains unknown.

Such incongruent beams are spread

as distance, only, vision dims;

but seeing cannot be so bled

and time and measure can’t make dead

this bright-lit beauty’s weakest whims.

And sight can trace such great detail

as intricacies, then, are etched.

So truth’s perception cannot fail,

despite confusing scenes that flail –

so, through the shadows, truth is fetched.

And as this culmination glows

its greatness does not fade.

Its cumulus, as seen, still grows

and evidence of more that shows

is ever being made.

Good Morning

And good whatever time of day it is for those of you who don’t live in California.

We are more than just contests at A Word with You Press. We invite all writers to submit their work for posting on our site for the purpose of getting [...]]]>

Good Morning

And good whatever time of day it is for those of you who don’t live in California.

We are more than just contests at A Word with You Press. We invite all writers to submit their work for posting on our site for the purpose of getting a little public feedback, or simply because they like sharing their talents with a desire to entertain.

Edgar Allen Poe seen here putting gravitas on a lo carb diet after pitting his pendulum

Our current contest, Vampires Suck!, is about things that go chump in the night.  Raymond Neely has a tale for your consideration that might serve as a bed-time story for baby vampires. ‘Tis not an entry into the contest, but a stand-alone piece that is truly Poe-tent.  Let me Usher in

The Stairwell Haunt

by  Raymond Neely

I know not where nor in what state a man can feel unthreatened, unless it be man in an uninformed state, or in a firm salvation that eludes me, in this cosmic predicament, least of all in his dreams, for there is not safe from, shall we say…intrusions.  Agents are at work in the abyss of the uncharted, spirits of men come seeking a dream voyeur in their sorcery, nefarious monsters from out of the ether, demons from the infinite reaches.  Things approach often the dreamer, though the greater part of mankind remains stubbornly oblivious to the fact, often unknown to the dreamer, but sometimes leaving their mark.  Their intentions are to influence, to leave behind and impression, or to plant a deterministic seed in the dreamer’s unconscious.  Yet, more often than not, the dreamer’s haunts are benign or even righteous entities riding the gentle carpet of a prayer.  Such haunts do not reveal enough to create disharmony in the dreamer, but instead work their subtle and powerful magic, remembered only in the stirrings of daily enchantment.

Some things which approach the dreamer, however, terrify and threaten by revealing unnerving aspects of the hulking unknown, and impinge upon the sovereignty of souls.  Being spared certain knowledge of the unseen and unfound is a mercy.

It is not knowledge to settle the child insomniac, but there are things which will get you in your sleep.  In fact, it is in one’s drifting, dreaming transcendence that one is most vulnerable to the groping clutches and renegade magic of the demon world.  It is also in the timelessness of dreams that one is subject to local sorceries.

In the quiet and seemingly inert hours after midnight of a not long passed date, I found myself standing before a small rural shanty, and what I now know to be the abode of a sorcerer with ominous connections to the undesirable nether world.  I knew not that I dreamed as I approached out of the darkness across the unfamiliar snow covered terrain, the hand-built farmhouse.  It was a low roofed and simple, dirty, white, one-story house of no exceptional make or appearance, if not a bit unsettling in the nearly imperceptibly skewed angles of the walls and the foundation.  The geometry deviated so little, however, as to be written away to human error and would go unnoticed by most, except in a subtle edginess that would creep unexplained into the nerves of an approaching wanderer.

I walked in without knocking, having felt welcome in with no word from the tenant, and something of mischief or meddlesome, something forbidden, and as though summoned.  I entered a dark kitchen with cabinets and appliances closing in to form a thin path through the shadows toward a lighted back room.  I went through a small dark foyer.  There was no sign of who lived there, to the light that spilled from the open doorway of the back room.  I felt immediate revulsion from the empty white room with lime green carpeting, at first without reason.  I am uncertain if I saw or detected with some sense keener than vision the impression of blotches or bruises on the unhallowed walls of the room, but they seemed all around as though the room remembered some unspeakable event that impressed itself upon me.  Though this faded like mere suggestion,  I knew that it was a death room, and even worse than a death room, by the unmistakable nightmare manna of murder, by the terror of my mind overcoming its sluggish resistance, and by the physical pain of shock from my sudden entrapment in the trapezoid walled room.  It struck me that the only slightly off-kilter leveling of the outer walls magnified into such drastic angles of the inside.

During my heightened trepidation, a young man appeared in the doorway.  The boy of an obese and unthreatening stature had unremarkable dark hair and wore a short-sleeved button up shirt with tiny lime green checks on it.  His full, acne speckled cheeks were marked by sparse croppings of black hair, unkempt and too scraggly to mature into a full beard.  He merely stood there between myself and the doorway through which I entered.

He looked to me as a specimen of that quasi-intellectual underworld of people who live in their parents’ basements late into their twenties, spend hours with tarot cards and in inspired duels of Dungeons and Dragons, and spend nights out on high-tech ghost hunts.  He was of the kind of nerd, though infinitely more weird, who attract the attention of high school bullies who knock books from their hands, and in infinite adolescent knowledge, turn them into social refuse.  He had led me in my naïve enthusiasm to this pivotal location.  No sooner had this character information became available to me that the sweat dripping from the neck of the boy, ran flesh tone make-up as though he were melting a disguise from his face.  His eyebrows ran together in the middle and insect like hairs began to appear beneath his dribbling mask.

Then, as if sensing my extreme fear and desire to flee, the boy stepped aside leaving a hulking shadow and the terror of the outdoor night before me, offering escape from the room and gestured of fairness.  As I ran by him, it was to be understood that he meant, “Few are ready to know,” with chaos in his unfathomable mind.

I ran from the house and from the creeping intentions of the occult nerd’s magic.  I felt as though something had reached from behind and scratched the nape of my neck, startling me from the silent and deep thought that one can only slink into when left alone, into the reality of the monster upon me.  Yet, nothing had happened.  It seemed though, that a lengthier span of time had elapsed since I entered the small house, as though I had been held and tampered with by the sorcerer, even though, I could not remember this.  I ran faster out into the night and my terror subsided.

I ran in the same unfamiliar neighborhood, same unfamiliar night, until I came upon a second house, this one of a much larger stature, two-storied, white, in the style of New England colonial.  I never stopped to realize that I’d come to this house as a direct result of having fled the other one.  Again, the same unspoken invitation was about the place and I guess that I only continued because to act on compulsion seemed to be the path of less resistance.  This time I approached with a timid carefulness, with unblinking eyes and ready to flee.  I opened the door into the unlighted foyer and surveyed the room.  The walls were a familiar lime green and framed by wide white trimming.  A thin framed picture hung on the wall, the shadow of a vase, and an eating table all of refined taste and old-fashioned were visible in the less than quarter light of the room.  Two windows were uncurtained, lighting the room dimly but only served to more closely we the room to the soundlessly shifting darkness without.

To the right a run of white stairs went into the gloominess.  As my eyes adjusted to the dimness, the silhouette of a figure became visible seated at a small writing table by the back window.  The desk was pushed against the walled stairwell so that it was in the corner and the woman there seated, having sensed my entry , beckoned me closer with a listening silence that awaited a pin drop, scratching mouse, or recurring bump in the night.  In fact, the elderly woman held a shaky index finger to her lips as I came closer and sustained a long, nearly inaudible, “Shh.”  Her nervous eyes fixed at a spot in space, not looking, not seeing, they were beyond the wall.  Her ear was turned toward the wall of the stairwell and it struck me at that instant that she was much like one Rodderick Usher listening with heightened senses for the clawing of his prematurely entombed sister.  Her hair was pulled back from her skeletal, liver spotted forehead.  Her lips trembled.  Loudly she whispered, “listen!” and at once grabbed my upper arm roughly with her frightened talon.  As soon as she grabbed me the moment was right, for right away I heard a fast series of stumbling footfalls down the stairs as though someone or something ran upside down beneath them.  My immediate contrivance was of a demonic mover half sliding down the underside of the stairs.

“There,” she gasped, “hear!?” she half asked, half commanded.  She said this with the excitement of having told a bottled up secret, relieved for sharing the burden of the knowledge.

I charged around to the foot of the stairs to find immediately what or who had so abruptly traversed them.  They still ran up into the gloominess of the woman’s second floor with nothing in view that had gone up or down them.  The lady raised and stretched her neck to watch me and I looked back to her in her defeated and long-standing fright, conveying her fear to me, staring with tears and rapid breaths which released me entirely from my denial.  She and I shared a moment’s terror, not so much of the thing under the stairs as of the greater knowledge at which it hinted.  I found that I did not wish to share in her perpetual haunting for longer.  As I fled, I could imagine all the nights she lay awake just listening for the ghost’s nightly descent , her ears playing tricks, her nerves growing alert, tremulous, uncontrollable, just listening in her lonesome vulnerability for the thing in her house to abruptly scuttle down the underside of her stairs.

I awakened quite frightened and remembered the dream vividly.  I struggled to write the dream off as my mind playing tricks.  I tried to believe that the wizard and the old lady were of my own unconscious invention.  Much against my rationality, I began to wonder if the characters could be somewhere out in the living world.  I tried to dismiss this notion and was greatly at odds with some newly awakened sensibility to do so.

I was driving back north on a detour that I took off of the interstate in order to prolong my enjoyment of the sunny winter drive as much as to prolong the time I had before arriving back in good company to roll the considerations of my magic research over in my mind, when, traveling through a crooked hollow of West Virginia, just outside of a dying coal town, I spotted, out in the real daylight, on an abandoned stretch of road, the rural shanty with the flawed angles from my dream.  The boy from my dream carried a bag of leaves around to the back and grinned over his shoulder at my passing car.  My initial reaction to the dream came stammering back like first thunder as the boy disappeared around the corner.  Just then, the car bumped over something and there appeared in the rear view mirror a black cat squalling and lashing its hind legs, grotesquely broken, around in the road.  I screeched the brakes, nearly losing control of the vehicle, feeling both dread and obligation to check on the welfare of the creature and to report the accident to its owner.  As I looked back at the house, stopped quite unprofessionally in the road, the boy peeked around the corner at the mangled black cat, moving so that I would not notice him, to see if I returned to the spot where the creature yowled, raised up and shivered, and then fell helplessly back to the road.  The boy went to a knee to watch with an assassins cunning in his eye, obviously still believing that he was concealed from my view, and pulled out a ritual sword from his back like a medieval warrior waiting to charge.  At this I turned my attention toward the open road and sped away.  I could almost hear the cursing of his ungovernable satanic rage as he stepped into the road over the cooling carcass and waved me back to him.

I knew that the woman from my dream was this boy’s mother and that she was lying tied up in that trapezoid magic room with rope burns on her wrists, starting at every creak in the floor as well as I knew that her stairwell haunt was lying dead in the road.

*************************

We love submission at A Word with You Press. You have only five days to submit an entry into Vampires Suck!

Don’t miss your chance for immorality!  Sink your teeth into this link: www.awordwithyoupress.com/2011/08/06/literati-of-the-night-our-new-contest/

And if you have any work that you would like to share on line that is not contest related, we’d love to see you posted!  Send your stories as a separate word doc attachment to thorn@awordwithyoupress.com and indicate in the subject line ‘writer’s showcase’

Burning the midnight gargoyle at A Word with You Press

(translation:  Mari Maiko is taking the world of writing by storm with her cat-tale)

Literati!

We are not just about contests.  We are about encouraging writing that goes beyond the limits of our contests, though they contests area good place to start. Hence, we encourage you to submit [...]]]>

(translation:  Mari Maiko is taking the world of writing by storm with her cat-tale)

Literati!

We are not just about contests.  We are about encouraging writing that goes beyond the limits of our contests, though they contests area good place to start. Hence, we encourage you to submit anything to us to that you care to, and get a bit of tribal feedback.

Here is just such a piece, and the email from Mac Egan explains it all:

“Not quite a year ago (August 2010 to be more precise) AWwYP sponsored the Feline Virtue and Vice Contest.  With only three entries posted, Thorn changed the rules (because he is allowed to do that) and gave the option of completing a story based on a premise provided by Victor Villasenor.

A cat could get lost in these woods

Sincerely,

Mac Eagan”

Here is Mari’s story:

Neko stalked Himitsu’s cream and chocolate tail as she dozed in the sun near the dark pine coffee table.  He padded nearer and nearer, making sure not to wake her; she would be able to counter more easily then.  He slowly advanced, stopping every time a bird chirped or a cloud momentarily covered the sun.

That might wake her up, Neko thought to himself, and imagined Himitsu waking, feeling the cold floor.  In his mind he saw her stretching out to find the warmth of the sun and finding nothing.  He imagined Himitsu getting up to move to a warmer spot and finding him crouched down, poised to attack.  She would counter, even though he was only playing.  Neko pre-planned everything.

I should lay low so she won’t see me, he thought.

He got on the floor and then watched through the low bay window as a coyote chased a rabbit into the woods.  A growl and a snap sent chills down Neko’s spine.  Everyone was afraid of the coyotes, as they were known to kill and eat their own when food was scarce.  Sometimes they even killed the weak members of the pack.  If a coyote in the pack did anything that angered the leader, he could be punished by death – either by a sudden attack or slow starvation.  Neko felt sad for a moment, but it quickly passed.  This was the way their life went and there was nothing he could do about it – unless he grew to two feet high from the shoulder, gained forty pounds, and grew teeth the size of kitchen knives.

The sun glinted as a large white cloud passed and Neko continued his prowl.  Just as he was about to pounce, the door from the kitchen to the garage swung open with a loud creak.

Emily, the family’s teenage daughter, walked in and kicked off her shoes.

“Hey, you guys, how’s it going?” she inquired, “Me, I just failed math and science badly, but the good news is that Mom and Dad won’t even notice when they find out that I was entered into another writing contest.  At least I hope they won’t.”

Emily sighed and Neko started rubbing against her ankles.  As Emily rubbed Neko with her socked foot the stresses of the day seemed to melt away from her mind.  She knew that she was a smart kid – she had been in the school’s gifted program since she was nine years old.  Ever since the third grade she knew she had a talent in writing.

Before then, her teachers realized her talent, but Emily had aspired to be so many different things it took her a while to see it, too.

Everything changed for Emily in middle school, though.  She got stressed; her grades stayed about the same but she always feared that she was failing.  Soon Emily made herself fail by constantly worrying about her grades.  Only one thing did not change – every year she got entered into the writing competitions.  Some years she even won.  Those were the only times that she felt powerful and strong.  She wished those times would never end.

Emily walked to the office to do her homework. As Neko turned to resume his attack, he found Himitsu sitting up licking her paw.  He tried to lie down and look natural so she would not notice that he had been crouched down earlier trying to pounce on her tail.  It was too late and Neko found himself faced by Himitsu’s perky stare.

“You were trying to pounce on me weren’t you?” Himitsu asked, as if she already knew the answer.  In truth, she did.  Neko, though, thought that he could outsmart Himitsu.

“No I wasn’t, why would I do that?” Neko replied, trying to hide his emotions.

“Okay – you were!” she said, moving into the kitchen with her tail up and a bit of a bounce in her step.

How does she do that? Neko questioned himself, looking back on all of his life.  When they were just baby kittens play-fighting she would always win because his next move was already blocked.  His blocks were always ineffective, because Himitsu knew what he was going to do.

Now that they were older he still could not surprise her and she acted like he could not do anything for himself.  Neko had tried everything, trying to hide his emotions, doing the opposite of what he would normally do to throw Himitsu off… nothing worked.  No matter what he did Himitsu was always two steps ahead.

Neko hated when Himitsu always said what he was going to do next, and then used it against him.  Neko decided to ask Emily what to do; she always came to him with her problems and he did his best to help her, although she didn’t seem to take his advice.  Neko knew Emily would try to help him.  And he would listen to her advice.  At that decision Neko jumped onto the sunny windowsill and went to sleep.

As the day went on and people filled the house, flames filled the fireplace.  Neko lay there and dozed, listening to everything that went on.  Fragments of conversations floated through the air and Neko’s and Himitsu’s ears caught every word.

“We don’t see how you can fail math and science; you’re such an intelligent girl.”

“Well I know how!  It’s because I’m a total idiot!” sobbed Emily.

“We’ve been thinking that maybe if you took some tutoring sessions that you could raise your grades,” stated Mrs. Peterson.

“You’re just like them!  You think I need some sort of special classes just to pass by in school!”

Neko heard more sobbing, followed by a loud stomping up the steps.  Emily must have run to her room.  She probably would not come down until dinner, unless it was really bad, then she would not come down until in the morning.  Neko decidedly got up and walked to Emily’s room.  He knew he could comfort her.

A while later the call that drew all family members together rang and echoed through the house and neighborhood.

“Dinner!”

Emily trudged down from her room, feeling depressed and refusing to look anyone in the eyes.  James came running in from the cul-de-sac where he was playing soccer with the neighbors.  His sandy blonde hair hung down, saturated with sweat.  His face was so covered with dirt his freckles could not be seen.  He wiped the dirt from his eyes, only managing to smear his face more.  James’ clothes were in the same state and he had a rip in his jeans.

“James, look at you!  Go wash up before dinner,” exclaimed Mrs. Peterson.

Mr. Peterson came from the office holding a piece of paper.  It was a referral for a tutor e-mailed to him by Emily’s Language Arts teacher, Mrs. Rolland.  Mrs. Rolland was one of the few teachers that understood Emily, and felt that Emily could do well.

As they sat down to dinner Mr. Peterson began to read aloud.

“Mr. and Mrs. Peterson,

I feel that your daughter is very talented but needs a little more help in her other subjects.  My son had the same problems and I found a wonderful tutoring program.  It’s called the Green Meadow Learning Center.  If you are interested please reply.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Rolland.”

Emily stared blankly at her father.

“You want me to get a tutor?”

“It’s not just us, Emily,” explained Mrs. Peterson, “Everyone wants you to do well.  Everyone cares about you.  Please, Emily, don’t just do it for us, do it for everyone.”

Emily wanted at first to answer in a way that sounded defiant and sullen, but hearing her parents say that everyone wanted her to do well caused her to soften.  She finally forced a small smile and replied, “Okay, I’ll do it.”

Dinner began, and every one steered clear of the subject of grades and school.  Emily felt happy and carefree.  James enjoyed that there was not another meltdown at the table, and he was getting his fair share of attention.  Although his fair share of attention mainly consisted of “… James, don’t slouch.  James, use your knife,” or “I thought I told you to wash up…” But attention was attention.

Mr. and Mrs. Peterson were glad that everyone was getting along and happy.  After dinner the family gathered in the living room to watch television.

Hearing that everything was quiet downstairs, Neko came down and lay next to the fireplace.  Sleepily he watched as flames licked and consumed the logs.  When he was a kitten he was horrified of the fireplace.  He saw how the logs came in perfectly whole and unharmed.  Curiously he watched as they were laid in the fireplace, neatly stacked on top of each other.  To Neko’s surprise they were immediately lit on fire and caged into the fireplace.  The logs cracked and fell as if pleading for him to help them.  After they finally submitted to their treacherous fate, a sweet piney scent filled the air.  It smelled sweet but appeared as a black cloud that made Neko sneeze and cough.

Even when the logs were just a pile of ashes being swept out into the yard, Neko feared the fireplace.  If his favorite ball of yarn fell toward the fireplace he stayed away, because he was sure if he went too close to the fireplace he would be put in it and burned.

Then one cold fall evening several years ago, when the leaves were bright patches of orange, red, and yellow, his opinion changed.  Emily and James had come in from taking a walk in the scenic woods.  Their cheeks were a rosy pink from the cold.

“Hey, Mom!” called Emily, “Can we roast marshmallows in the fireplace?”

“Sure just let me get the fire started.  James, can you get the marshmallows?”

After finding the marshmallows and the lighter, piling the logs in the fireplace, and Mrs. Peterson convincing James that it would be safer for her to light the fire no matter how many Boy Scout badges he had, the fire was burning merrily.  At least to the children it was.

Neko, on the other hand, saw that not only were the logs being executed but the marshmallows were being tortured as well.  Then he saw how happy Emily and James were as they sat on their jackets next to the fireplace.  Maybe the fireplace wasn’t so bad.

“Awwww.  Look at Neko, he’s shivering,” Emily exclaimed even though Neko was nice and warm on the couch.

“Come here, Neko, why don’t you warm your paws?”

If Neko was reconsidering the fireplace, he stopped at those few words.

Very much against his will Neko was plucked up by a gleeful little Emily, who half carried and half dragged Neko to the fireplace.  Seeing the roaring fire blazing and trying to reach him to drag him down to his death caused adrenaline to pulse through his body.  As he prepared himself to be placed into the fire, Emily placed him on the warm floor instead.  His incredible fear was replaced by curiosity.  Why hadn’t Emily placed him in the fire?

“Hey, kitty, want a marshmallow?”  James asked, holding a fluffy white puff of a marshmallow up to Neko’s nose.  Sniffing it he realized that the fireplace wasn’t such a terrible place.  It brought joy to Emily and James. 

Those memories filled Neko with happiness.  Back then was peaceful and tonight was as a glimpse at the past.  Everyone was laughing at a comedy, and although Neko didn’t understand it he was glad that all were enjoying themselves.  Feeling contented Neko laid his head down and went to sleep.  Today seemed like it was a great day.

*********************************

We are having a few technical difficulties with the site and we are not able to post the cover at this time.  We will try it again once we have the problem solved.