Thursday, May 28, 2009

Thank God I'm Not a Poet

Went out with the guys for a few rounds of airsoft. For those not familiar, airsoft is basically paintball, but with 6mm plastic BBs. Eye protection is a must. In warmer months, so is bug spray. We went out to Pokey's grandpa's place, where there are acres of thickets and tall grass--prime places for guerrilla tactics. Of course, guerrilla tactics end up being reduced to crouching in sodden underbrush, mosquito dope making your skin tacky and feverish (mosquitoes still whining in your ears, alighting on the bits of flesh not doused in repellent), and being shot by people you can't see but somehow know exactly where you are. It's muggy, it's dark, your clothes cling damply to your skin, and your legs feel like they're on fire from crouching for so long. Every sound you hear is someone creeping up on you, and you expect to feel the wasp-sting of BBs from the gun of someone almost close enough to touch you. In spite of all this, you are having fun.

Pokey and Kyle shelled out big bucks for high-powered equipment, fully automatic assault rifles that make my little battery-powered automatic look like a cap gun. They pack one helluva punch: I've got bloody welts on my left leg from being shot at almost point-blank range. Through cargo pants. Those two almost always seemed to be on the same team, too. We called them on that.

When it became evident that the rounds were taking too long in the thickets, we decided to move it out to the meadows behind the house. The plan was to do some rounds of capture the flag or king of the hill. Never quite made it to that. After the second round of shooting, we could smell a skunk. Nature's jackass. "Oh, hark! I hear loud noises! It sounds like those Human-Things and their guns. I'll investigate. Oh no! They're big and scary! How could I possibly have known? Should I run away? No, I'll just spray them with my foul secretions. That makes perfect sense!"

None of us got sprayed, but still. What the hell, Skunk? What the hell?

Anyway, I guess the whole reason I made this post was to describe the meadow. It was dark, with storm clouds blotting out the stars, but even so I could still see the shape of rolling hills in the darkness. And amidst the shades of black and gray, were thousands of fireflies. Countless points of green light, winking out, returning. Eldritch. Fay and mystical, strange. No wonder people used to believe in fairies. After taking a hit to the shoulder, waiting off to the side for the round to end and the next to start, I would stare out at it. It would have been peaceful, but my system was still churning out adrenaline. A proper poet would have mentioned something about the stars descending to the earth for a night of frolicking in the rain, time spent communing with those who normally look out at them in their cold distance and ponder the strange worlds that circle them and the strange peoples that call those worlds home. Lovers would have marvelled at the simple grace of nature, would have watched the green sparks in each other's eyes.

Instead, I thought it funny that most of nature's beauty and elegance is the result of some one of her creature's trying to get a piece of ass.

And instead of lovers, the fireflies got a loud bunch of irreverent guys who ran and tramped through snarls of high grass and burst through tangles of brier and thorn, covering themselves in mud and scratches, sweating through bug repellent, and hurling curses and taunts along with those plastic BBs.

I like to think we annoyed those fireflies just a bit.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Caution, Ye who Wish

Here's a more recent one. Wrote it a few months ago. Once again, something completely mundane yields to the strange. I laughed the whole time I wrote this, knowing what the very last line would be and hoping I could set it up right. I think I did a pretty good job. I hope you people find it as funny as I do, though that'll make you as weird as me.


Wish I May

She smiled sweetly and shut the door. It was a good door, he thought. A nice, solid door. Fine grain, polished and stained a wonderful, rich brown. Very probably oak. It was the kind of house that would have an oak door. It would not be, he thought, a good idea to kick it.

His own smile— one that had progressed from hope to anxiety, followed by shame, and ultimately replaced by a reluctant (and totally fake) understanding— began to wilt at the edges. He sighed like he would eject his soul, feeling that he had already done so, exposing it for all (or at least one) to see, only to have it waft away in the draft of a closing door.

Bye-bye.

Auf wiedersehen.

Arrivaderci.

Bon voyage, and don’t forget to write.

He realized he was being melodramatic. He didn’t care. He felt like being melodramatic. It was better than anger. Anger would lead to a lot of other useless feelings, like bitterness and resent.

And a broken foot.

He stepped off the front porch and looked up at the sky. The sun was setting. Some would call it lovely. Some, digging deeper, would call it symbolic. He saw a sunset. It was bright and hurt his eyes, and he could imagine it burning away the hazel there, rendering his eyes pale and sightless. He kept looking, not because he thought it would surrender an answer, nor because he craved the blinding pain. He was neither delusional nor a masochist. He did, however, think it made him look introspective and somewhat classy. And perhaps she would look out, see him being classy, and her heart would be swayed.

He chuckled and scratched the back of his head, tousling curly, red hair. Okay. Maybe a little delusional.

As he turned to walk down the street, he saw a glimmer in the sky. A star. He looked around at the rest of the darkening sky. The first star of the night, it seemed. He almost passed it up, but something made him pause.

First star I see tonight, he thought. What the hell.

“I wish,” he said. “I wish I could be the kind of person she would like. That she would want.” He searched for something else to say, but discovered he felt foolish enough as it was.

He started walking.

***

Sun shining in her eyes from the window was all that brought her close enough to wakefulness to hear the knock at the door. It wasn’t quite panicked, but it could get there, given another five minutes or so. She grumbled an “I’m coming” that would never reach the door and checked her reflection to make sure she was decent.

She stumbled through the hallway, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, once again primping before a mirror in the foyer. Though not quite satisfied, she crossed over to the door. The knocking had gotten louder, and not just because of proximity. She jerked the door open and heard a gasp of surprise. She took a small measure of satisfaction in that.

“Yeah, what do you— ” There was not much more to say, as the person on the other side of the door wasn’t at all who she was expecting. Whoever she had been expecting.

The first things she noticed were the eyes. Bright with some of that panic that had begun to show in the intensity of the knocking, but also something in them that smoldered. They were a shade of hazel tending toward green. And something familiar….

The hair came next. The fiercest red this side of Ireland. Curly, almost to the point of ringlets.

And that feeling of familiarity persisted.

The clothes were loose-fitting and obviously belonged to a guy. The pants stayed up only with a helping hand. For all that, they could not completely hide a generous set of curves.

She stared at the girl on the porch and felt her heart quicken.

“Can…can I help you?”

“I gotta tell you,” the girl on the porch said, “I never would’ve pegged you for a lesbian.”

Turtles Have Short Legs

Sarah suggested posting some of my fiction to my blog. Think I might try it. This is a story I wrote about four years ago. It plays with one of my favorite themes: mundane situations suddenly becoming fantastical. Or sometimes just plain strange.

The post's title, by the way, comes from the '70s German punk group, Can. The piano intro is catchy as hell.


Under the Tarp

“Look, all I’m saying is that if you’re sure she’s cheating on you, then dump her.” Brian took a puff on his cigarette, blew smoke out the window. “You’re either the nicest guy I know, or the dumbest.”

“That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“I’m just tryin to figure out why you keep putting up with her shit.” Another puff. Another plume of smoke out the window. “The sex must be fantastic.”

Jared kept his hands on the wheel, his eyes on the interstate before them. About fifty yards ahead, there was a large diesel truck hauling a flat-bed trailer. On the trailer was a large . . . thing. Rectangular prism wrapped in tarp. A very big tarp. Jared thought, No tarps were harmed in the making of this movie, and then shook his head.

“That doesn’t explain why I still put up with your shit,” he said.

Brian thought about that a moment and then nodded his agreement. “Yeah, the sex between us is terrible.”

On their left passed a long black smudge that culminated in a great coil of rubber. The shed skin of the elusive roadsnake. The diesel was a little closer now. Loose edges of the tarp flapped and tugged at the thing it was covering. Jared only felt half attached to reality. For some reason, the faded-purple of the interstate’s pavement made him feel like he was in a story. Maybe something about rangers, hobbits, and vagabond wizards. Only for him, there was no ring to destroy, no quest to complete. It was nothing but the Dead Marshes, baby, and his version of Sam sometimes seemed more akin to Gollum, hold the Sméagol.

Jared shrugged, tapped out a rhythmless pattern on the wheel, and said, “I don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?”

He shifted in his seat and wiggled his foot around to try to shake some of the tension in his shins. He wished he had cruise control.

“I don’t know. You know, if she’s cheating. Or how I’m supposed to find out. Just generally what in the bloody hell I’m supposed to do.”

Brian took a last drag on his cig and flicked the butt out of the car. He rolled up the window. “Well, I think this is a nice start.”

“What is?”

“Actually talking about it instead of keeping your friggin lip buttoned like you usually do. Vent. Call her names. Like, say she’s a bitch.”

“What?”

“C’mon, say it.”

Jared watched another shred of tire go past.

“Saaay it.”

“All right! She’s a bitch.”

“There. Feel better?”

“Not exactly.”

“Now why is she a bitch?”

“What?”

“You called her a bitch. Now tell me why?”

Jared sighed. “Do you have a point?”

“My point is to stop worrying about it. You are young, my friend. You are nearing the prime of your life. There’s plenty of time left. Anyway, it’s not like you were going to marry her.”

Jared didn’t answer. After a moment, Brian looked at him, stricken. “Oh God, don’t tell me you were going to marry her!”

“What?” Jared felt actual surprise. “No!”

Brian calmed a little but still looked wary. “You swear that’s true? There’s no ring hidden away in your desk drawer, is there?”

“No, Brian. I wasn’t going to marry her.”

As if he hadn’t heard him: “Because if there is, then so help me, I will jump out of this car right now!”

“I swear, marriage was never the intent.”

“All right,” Brian said. He shifted to an easier position and took his hand off the door handle. Jared had never seen it go there in the first place. He realized he wasn’t so sure that Brian wouldn’t have jumped out.

He shook his head. Best not to think about it. Ahead, the diesel was closer. The tarp continued to flap and beat. It bulged weirdly in the wind.

“It was just, you know, the average boy-girl relationship. Go to the movies, go to dinner, someplace. Go back to the apartment, fool around.”

“You guys do it?”

“Couple times,” Jared said. “But it was like that was all it’d ever amount to. A little fun, a little pleasure, a little sex. I never felt really intimate with her. I really think that we were just in the right place at the right time, and eventually we would wind down, it would stop working, and we’d say, I don’t know . . . see ya later.”

“So you’re saying there was no real emotional attachment between you.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Pansy.”

“I thought that was coming.”

“And yet you blundered into it just the same.”

“Bite me.”

“And when you heard she was cheating,” Brian said, “you didn’t confront her because . . . .”

“Because there was no emotional attachment.”

“Right.”

“I guess I wasn’t really mad at her. Disappointed maybe, but not all that mad. So I decided to wait. See if it’s true.”

“Good plan, I guess,” Brian said, rolling down the window with one hand, pulling out a half-crumpled pack of Marlboro Lights with the other. “Don’t lay into her until you know for sure.”

“Yeah. Makes it easier for both of us.”

“Nice guy.”

“You know, I hear they finish last.”

“He who laughs last, laughs best.”

“That doesn’t quite fit.”

“The sentiment’s the same,” Brian said. He puffed a cigarette into ignition, then put pack and lighter away.

“You’re gonna kill yourself with those,” Jared said.

“Gotta die of something,” Brian said.

Ahead, the diesel was only ten yards away. The tarp was bulging severely, too much for the wind to be the cause. Like something was pushing out.

Something bony and white punched through one side of the tarp and unzipped it top to bottom. The ragged edges flapped. The top bulged more than ever and began to split. Whatever was pushing it out retracted for a moment and then slammed upward again. The bulge was slighter than before, but permanent. There was a bang of metal that Jared and Brian could hear over the wake rolling off the car.

“What the hell!” Brian said.

Jared didn’t say anything.

There was another of those impossibly loud bangs and the bulge became more pronounced. A steel bar, horribly distended, peeked through the split in the tarp. With one more bang, a groan and a wrench, the bar gave way to the monstrous force assailing it. Something big and dark erupted out and leaped clear of what could only be a cage.

The only thing Jared could think to do was slam on the brakes. The car swerved, fishtailed, and threatened to spin out, but Jared kept it in control long enough to come to a complete stop. When the car had stopped rolling, he raked his fingers across the seatbelt release, threw open the door, and jumped out onto the interstate. A minute later, Brian was beside him. His cigarette dangled from his bottom lip.

“Shit!” he said.

“What the hell—”

“Shit!” Brian said again.

Ahead, now almost a quarter mile away, the diesel began to slow down, the driver having finally noticed that something might have gone a bit wrong. Neither Jared nor Brian noticed, nor even cared, about the diesel. They were all eyes for the thing that was flying away. It was fast. Already, it was little more than a vague shape very far away. It was, however, still close enough for them to see the spirited little somersault it did, as well as the gout of flame it trumpeted into the sky, as if in celebration of its newfound freedom.

Jared shook his head. “Is that a—”

“Don’t say it,” Brian said.

“I don’t believe it.”

“Shit!” Brian said a third time.

A moment of silence. And then:

“I think it really is. It’s a—”

“Don’t say it.”