I sat on the curb tonight.

Right outside of Hulsey, after scuba let out at nine. My bag nestled beside me, and my braid dripped down my back. I had my phone in my hands, and I was absently turning it and polishing the orange cover, with my elbows on my knees. I know people assumed, if they wondered at all, that I was waiting for a ride. But I wasn't. My car was sitting a few dozen feet away, with half a tank of gas and the keys in the ignition. But there are some places you want to go that a car won't take you.

There are tears here. I don't like them. They burn, and when they are willed away they stick until it hurts to swallow. But, even after all these years, I don't know what to do with them. So I sat there contemplating my phone and letting people think I was waiting for someone--and I was. Hoping that, if I provided the opportunity, somebody would come along with the gift of a few moments. That would have been nice.

But they never came. So after a while I took a deep breath and stood up, slung my bag on my back, and grabbed my keys. I let the car take me home, since tonight, at least, I didn't find a way to where I wanted to go. Maybe tomorrow.

Rosemary

The air is heavy
Flowing sluggishly, pouring
Into the darkening hollows
Under pear trees and hedges
Lightning slides effortlessly
Through the throbbing thunder
Mixed with the tang of rosemary
That lives quietly in a red pot
Here on the porch rail
Beside my elbow.

Elevator

This is my rough draft of the Flash Fiction for Creative Writing.

She blinks, walking in from the sunlight to a dark lobby. There are starburst aftereffects clouding her vision—even so, she deftly slides around the corner, even half blinded, and strides rapidly towards the elevators. Both doors stand open.


A man, perhaps young, perhaps not, stands in front of the elevators, several feet away, facing the opposite direction. His body angles away from the elevators, indicates his disinterest even more than his lack of movement towards them. She doesn’t really look at him, only registers that he is not in her way and is not heading for the open doors that are her destination.

Her shoulder curves, her foot takes the step to lead her towards the elevator—and he turns to look at her, sends her waves of attention and intention

—cold sweat—

she doesn’t look back, but she feels it in a shudder down her spine—and her heart sinks. She’s on the elevator now and pushes the button, wills the doors to close, wills him not to appear, watches the “4” light up on the bank of lights

—he’ll see it—

watching the doors pause an eternity, slowly slide almost shut until a shoulder shoves between them, almost too late to make it, but he does and he’s on, and she asks him what floor, can’t stop being polite, although now she feels irrational panic, why should she feel that way?

—always knew the doors wouldn’t open if you were caught between them—

silently curses the lit button that tells him where she’s going. He looks at the bank of lights, telltale lit circle, and replies “four” but she barely registers it except as affirmation she doesn’t want, already caught up in furious rationalizing. But her rational coldly reminds her that floor three is the men’s floor, that the only boys she sees on fourth are with their girlfriends, that his intentions are screaming a warning

—how do I know I’m right but I do—

elevator rises and she keeps a tight rein on the panic that still blooms where it began the second he looked at her, and she sees his subtle intent body language, she knows what happens next

—bloody hellfire and damnation—

slides her hand down in her bag, fits her few keys through her fingers, clenches her fist to test the grip. Already she thinks of what few advantages she holds if it comes down to it. The shoulder bag is the first thing that will go, to free her arms—if time permits, straight at his face. Silently she reviews the training—how to put your body into a swing to get maximum impact, how to defend if attacked from behind

—thank you Max—

and the elevator stops

—has it only been ten seconds—

and the doors open. She hesitates, she knows he won’t move first, doesn’t want to force the issue, walks out, takes the third hall. Behind her, perhaps ten feet, he follows. She curses the silent carpet, checks his position as they move. He maintains the distance and she maintains her pace, stifles the urge to run. She passes doors—so does he. Only ten more feet left

—only my door and the fire escape left—

and no more doubt now, only fear she’ll screw this up. Her hand hangs down, forgotten, keys extended, as she plans her response

—Father don’t let me forget what to do—

the adrenaline begins to flow down her fingers; she stops planning stops thinking stops everything but movement and just listens

—red and silver hell, he’s still moving—

and her key is in the door, it’s turning, and she’s tense because this is the most dangerous part, sings out “Hey, Mary!”

—please somebody please be here—

and the door is closing behind her with a bang, because all doors here open and close like the crack of doom but she’s safe and has to shake out the adrenaline, or maybe she just shakes, and rubs out the key prints on her palms. Much later, she wonders why it never occurred to her to factor screaming into her plans.

There is one more door, across the hall, that he could have taken; one reason to be on fourth that didn’t include her, didn’t warrant the sweat chilling on her neck, didn't require her fear of what she had to do.

She listens for the next few minutes, but nothing disturbs the quiet of the hall. Far away, an elevator hums.

     *     *     *     *     *

I wonder if the rest of my Workshop group will understand why the grammer is so bad--that that's how you think in that situation, without periods and pauses and punctuation marks. I wonder if they'll suggest I change certain aspects to make it more reader-friendly. I wonder if I'll tell them that I just wrote it exactly as it happened, that it's not fiction at all.

Probably not. But I'll know.

What a strange place I'm in.

In my mind, I mean.

Trying to get back into the flow of testing, problem solving, writing. And to make the matter worse, I, for the first time in my life, am horribly afflicted with senioritis. Which sounds like I should be crabby and wheeling around in a little chair with electric locomotion, taking long afternoon naps in the sun. I guess two out of three isn't bad.

On the flipside, I got my MCAT score back. Apparently there's some big umbrella of silence that hangs over what the actual number is; not that I care. I'm well aware that there are many, many people who are smarter than me, and it doesn't bother me because I'm not competative. At all, maybe somewhat. And as much as I enjoy a righteous arguement, for the sake of peace I bow to convention and will not volunteer what I got--but I'm smiling a lot these days. It's so good to be done! I'm so pleased.

So now I'm scratching my head wondering, "Where do I go from here?"

No, but seriously, where do I go? Loma Linda had Adventists. It also has a whopping brutal price tag. Compared to the D.O. school in my hometown. Which has no Adventists. (The Adventist deal is mostly based on the Adventist men, among whom my mother hopes I will meet up with my future intended. Which is a worthy cause, but still, I'm not sure the slim chance is worth $40,000 a year). And then...there are still other schools. So, where do I go from here?

I  Relient K song.

Effort

I had the first class of my first day of my last year at Southern. Creative Writing. To me, that's a hopeful thing, sign, premonition, wish, call it what you will. But seriously, how bad can a year be that starts with the first class I've even taken that was entirely for knowledge and experience that I want? Me. Not for my major, not as a stepping stone to the things that I've decided I want to accomplish. Just for the joy of it.

That's what this year is going to be about, you know? Joy. Lots of it. Intense as flooded river, as deep as the fathomless places in the sky between the stars, quieter than the whisper of snow on snow. Just the way I like it.

For a long time it's been all about trying--be more outgoing. Make the effort, do more, be more. I'd forgotten how effortless it can be. And that doesn't mean that nothing requires work; simply that trying too hard, and for the wrong reasons, leads to unhappiness. What should be easy is the reason you're making the effort in the first place.

I stared up at the dark last night before I feel asleep and talked to Amanda about random things, like sisters do. I got my first pair of climbing shoes (purple) and my first harness (pink. the gods must hate me). Hurrah! Two things I waited for forever, it seems.

Arpeggio

They're back.

Oh, are they back.

Everything changes. I'm learning to accept this, as much as my DNA snarls in protest. But some things, some wonderful, achingly beautiful things, will never, ever grow old, or strange, or unfamiliar. I sat in a warm glow of friendship tonight. Not just any friends. My friends, my people, my family. It's been 18 months. The people at the Taco Bell here in Ooltewah must have thought we were all ready to be committed, but we were just happy. I could feel the emotions swirling around in eddies, currents of contentment, laughter, joy, this bewildering but exhilerating wave of...excitement? thrill? peace? I know exactly what it feels like when crucial pieces of your life walk away, but having them come running back in the door and into your arms is another thing altogether.

There really aren't the words. Music, maybe. Each of us, individual notes, chords, scales. Together, a masterpiece. Other than that...I can't explain it. I hope you know what it's like.

Together.

I'm so happy I may spontaneously combust. Hello, senior year. You already rock my world.

The Dilemma of the TV

I've barely been in my new house for 18 hours & already my world is sliding off of the nice stable platform I built for it out of expectations, & into the realm of the unknown. I forsee intense moments of navigation ahead, if I can stop focusing on the way I want things to be.
I get kind of startled when things don't happen in a way I expect. There's always a moment of panic while I try & adjust my equilibrium, & then the sudden grasp of balance & the sigh of relief. Just like when you make a grab during a hard climb, the second after you commit & before you are sure the hold is there, when you're straining over a million possibilities & empty space. Change & I have never been good friends, the kind you sleep in piles of sleeping bags with, where you wake up & no one is quite sure which foot belongs to who--more like a new acquintance with possibilities but an unpredictable personality, who you watch with fascination but more than a little wariness as you get to know each other.
When I was ten I thought that, as soon as I was twelve, I would know what was up. I'd have a firm grasp on the world & it would all make sense. When I was thirteen, I waited for 18. By 18, I didn't expect anything different, but when 21 rolled around I was surprised at how much had changed. A year later, now, I've finally settled into expecting that nothing I expected is going to turn out quite like I expected it too. Which is kind of twisted. Actually.
I do want a few things, though, with this house & the new challenge of co-existing peacefully with my two younger sibthings. I want to not always come home to the herd of freshman that seem to follow Alex around, even though I don't blame them. I want to work things out with Amanda so that we don't resort to yelling when our versions of housekeeping (not to mention alarm clocks) don't quite coincide. But the biggest thing right now is, I DO NOT want to have the TV on. Pretty much ever. I hate how I can't read in the same room because I can't concentrate, & how my neck keeps turning to look at it when something interesting happens. & how nobody can carry on a conversation with it on. But I have a plan. I'm going to wait a few days, so suspicion isn't turned on me, & then I'm going to haul it out of the cabinet & yank a wire out of the back where they'll never see. That's pretty much what all this chatter was about. I was in the living room and it took about two minutes to realized that this was change I wasn't going to deal with. I grew up without a TV & I hate them. Of course, the other two did as well, & they like it. Go figure. But it has to die.

Shatterglass

She grew up thinking that all the mirrors were broken & wondered why until the day she realized nobody else knew it. Her mother caught her patting the glass & touching her face & frowning. Looking up, she asked, mama, why does the mirror lie? Her mama asked what she meant, & the girl said, that's not my face. That's not what I look like inside.

Her mama knelt beside her & said, see? Here's my face, & here's my reflection in the mirror. They're the same. But the girl shook her head & said, no, they're not. Can't you see? Nobody looks like they do in a mirror. The mirror doesn't show how beautiful people are. She looked at the mirror & then her mama in disbelief & asked, is this what everybody else sees?  

Her mama smiled at her & said, that's what makes people like you special. Always look at what the mirror doesn't show. But the girl stopped looking for a mirror that showed who she really was, & carried the ache in her heart because she knew that all the mirrors in the world were broken.

all the better to...eat black cherries with

She looked into the future, at all the dark, interestingly scary places in it, & said, my, what big teeth you have, & the Future shrugged back & said, well, at least we'll never bite off more than we can chew, & what were you expecting? These adventures come with a warning label. She blinked & thought about it for a moment & realized that was exactly what she wanted.

fath agus uaigneach

In all reality, summers at home are lonely. Summers at home where you're supposed to be preparing for a test that really isn't all that preparable for is an even bigger isolater. Throw in a cell phone with limited service and you've got yourself one heck of a I'm-so-feeling-sorry-for-myself fiesta just waiting for the violin music to get started.

You know it's pretty bad when my whole family, grandparents included, sit out by the chicken pen in the evenings to watch the ducks chase my turkeys, which incidentally are also afraid of the chickens. What can I say? No TV. So that's been my entertainment. The five movies I have on good ol' Righin here have been watched until I can recite, word for word, the engaging reparte between Watson and Holmes, and hum the theme music to Gladiator in my head. Ugh. Also, I'm learning to pronounce Irish. Righin means stubborn, which my computer is. Ha.

So Kelly's half grown kitten is a blessed relief. I've never decided if I'm more of a cat or dog person. I don't think it's really important, honestly, no matter what it tells about a person's character (?). Kind of the way I feel about Ben's wacky INFJ classification. It's just the way it's gonna be.

But this cat...she makes me laugh. So absolutely her own personality, so crazily communicative that she gets more across than a lot of verbal types I know. Felines may be short on sympathy, occasionally, but what she lacks in submissiveness she makes up for with snap and spice, and what I swear is amusement. Crazy cat.

MCAT in one week, three days. Pray for me?

Black cat on a fence
Would have you think her path is chose by random chance
But really, nothing a cat will do is happenstance
No question to her keen cool mind where she will wonder hence

Green eyes flashing in the night
She can sense a thousand things that lesser creatures miss
The rustle of a mouse’s step, the cool wind’s faintest hiss
She carries her own ghostly glowing effervescing sight

Lady of audacity and perfect self-possession
A master of the twitch of tail, and tilt of head to show disdain
For called commands, and gesturing hands, and any drops of rain
A narrow slitted eye and spitting growl to greet transgression

Ronny.

He steps out of the truck and I think, Well hello, Hickville. Where have you been all my life?


Ronnie is the epitome of a redneck, a medium-height, skinny older man with scraggly grey hair and a questionable sense of humor. As he approaches us in the falling dusk he is weaving slightly, although for the amount of beer he consumes every night it is a miracle he could even stay on his feet. I’m fairly certain that if I were to ingest half of what he does, I would die of alcohol poisoning. But he does so cheerfully, and keeps right on trucking.

One of the most eccentric people I know, his scrawny-ness is completely offset by his wife, who towers over him in both height and girth—the kind of person at whom my uncle Keith shakes his head admiringly and says, “Now that’s a big woman!”

On this evening he’s dressed in what I later find out is totally typical Ronny attire—ragged short cut-off shorts, an old white wife beater with the axel-grease of bygone days still decorating it, knee-high used-to-be-white socks, and laced high work boots. On his head was an old confederate hat from the Civil War days, complete with a blue jay and cardinal feather, and numerous old buttons—across his chest was what looks like the type of man-purse that Davy Crocket would wear, canteen shaped, with a long leather fringe hanging off of it. His .25 pistol is stuck in the back of his pants and his long musket is propped up in his back window, but no, Ronny isn’t here to fire guns with us, although he did take a shot with the little brother’s new Beretta. No, Ronny is there to fire his cannon.

This marvel of modern engineering is handmade. Currently, it consists of a large rusty pipe about three, four feet long, six inches in diameter, with two handles at the bottom and a piece wielded on to make it stand up at an angle. Still weaving slightly, he hauls it out of the truck and proceeds to pack it full of gunpowder and cans of baked beans, beating it down with a shovel and pouring water down the barrel. He tells us, “The blueberries were too expensive, and I couldn’t find no sauerkraut, so I got the beans.” I just look at him in disbelief.

Now, mom has only heard about Ronny. This is the first time she has had the privilege of meeting him, and he’s drunk as a skunk, dressed like the Redneck poster child and about to fire a handmade cannon off of our new house site to Lord knows where, armed with a shovel, baked beans and a handful of bottle rockets. For the fuses, you know. Her eyes can’t get any wider. Even my dad is grinning because we’re not sure if he’s about to fall over or blow himself to kingdom come.

They set up on a pile of evacuated dirt. The cannon is pointing somewhere between the direction of my grandfather’s house, a mere ½ mile away, and John’s old abandoned place in the jungle, which everybody knows it haunted. It’s getting dark at this point, and mom and I crouch down in the cement stairwell and peer over. Dad and Alex retreat to a safe distance, and Ronny goes up to light the fuse, which he does with his cigarette.

He retreats. Nothing happens. The fuse has gone out, although it’s still glowing quietly. None of us know what to do—it’s like the bomb that won’t go off. Except for Ronny, Ronny always knows what to do. With the fearlessness of the perpetually inebriated, he grabs the shovel, strides over to the cannon, and begins beating it. At this point, my mom is clutching my arm and uttering squeaks of alarm, because she just knows we’re about to be splattered with alcohol-soaked little pieces of Ronny, and she can’t stand it. I’m laughing too hard to do anything about either one of them.

He finally realizes that nothing is going to happen, so he bends down to the now burned-off fuse and relights it. Three and a half seconds of retreat, and the thing spectacularly explodes in a shower of paper, sparks, and the distinctive smell of baked beans. The cannon itself is shot backwards five feet, and we’re all dancing around like proper heathens, yelling, whooping, and hollering as the sound rolls in a palatable wave over the mountains, deep like thunder sunk into your bones.

At this point, we notice a light flashing erratically across the top of the opposite field. It’s my uncle Keith, and he’s hiding behind a massive pile of dirt and plant life, yowling at the top of his lungs and trying not to wet himself. I don’t blame him. It’s not every night you have a drunk Confederate soldier shooting baked beans at you out of a cannon.

Jack

His name was Jack and he was six foot six, blue eyed and husky with years of work. They were young farm boys, most just turned eighteen, fresh out of high school and headed straight for the Vietnam war. He and his buddies were caught between the dread of the unknown and a strange excitement from traveling so far away from home, some for the first time. He was nineteen.


To the man they were masters of marksmanship—any one of them could pick the eye out of a squirrel at hundreds of yards. They’d done their basic training, but they’d been trained from the first time they carried a gun that it was never, under any circumstances, to be turned on another person. They talked about it quietly among themselves, wondering to each other if they’d be able to do it, to pull the trigger. Jack couldn’t imagine it, himself. Despite the desperate situation overseas, he knew that the enemy was going to be made up of other young men just like himself, just with a different skin, a different language. With the others, he asked himself if he could pull that trigger—and there was no answer. He dreaded finding out.

They were dumped out on the edge of the jungle after the long flight, and sent straight out to hassle a formation of the enemy, and hunt them down. For several days as they pressed inward through the steamy verdancy, so foreign to all of them, there was no resistance. They were apprehensive, but growing bolder as the hours passed and no shots were fired. He remembers they were cracking jokes; the sergeant just shook his head but didn’t say anything.

And then, as Jack haltingly says, everything changed. They reached a site where the Vietcong had just vacated, dust still settling from the air. And in the middle of the abandoned camp was the body of a soldier, not American but one of the Allied forces, strung up by his testicles, left to die. He was still warm.

The Vietnamese had left him there to intimidate the new American troupes following behind. It was the worst mistake they could have made. Jack cried as he sat in the chair in the office, reliving the moment when a bunch of innocent, uncertain farm boys transformed into mad killing machines. He choked out that they had torn across the jungle after that, mowing down anybody they came across, without a thought in their rage. Everyone. His broad shoulders shook as he sat with head bowed, telling us what he had never told his family, grieving for the loss of innocence in that boy he had been. And I thought, someday, Lord, make them pay for what they did to him. Make them pay.