7.29.2012

Walking the Line

I am wary of activism, largely because the idea of forcing a particular way of thinking on an unwilling person conflicts with my personal morality, even if the particular way of thinking is one I support. Do unto others sticks pretty firmly in my mind in these situations. I want to be able to live my life with the freedom to be who and what I am, and follow my own beliefs and ambitions. I don't expect everyone to agree with me or like me; just let me get on with my life. And I reciprocate.

Well. I hold up my end of the bargain, anyway.

Most of my family is pretty conservative. Extremely conservative. God knows how my little pocket of nuclear liberalism came to be, but the rest are your typical Gods, God and Government. The big shock was how accepting they were when I dropped the bombshell on them ten years ago. I've brought partners to family gatherings, and not much is said about the various tattoos, piercings and hair colours I show up with (I can't speak for what's said afterwards, but while we're there it's not an issue, and a lot of times in families, that's what it all comes down to).

There is the cousin who no longer speaks to me because I pointed out that white, heterosexual Christians actually aren't oppressed and that, if you want to drag the United States' founding documents into the issue, nothing even vaguely religious should be integrated with any government institution (schools, court houses, etc.). And her father who did the same because I, as someone who would be unable to afford insurance if I weren't already uninsurable because of a "pre-existing condition" (nice double whammy there; go me!), made a rather angry post about "conservative assholes" (generalised) who don't have to wonder if they can afford proper healthcare not having a legitimate stance to opposed a medical bill that would benefit an awful lot of people currently lacking adequate healthcare.

But those are the exceptions.

Me as an individual - their grandson, nephew, cousin is accepted even if he dresses weird, doesn't go to church, spouts those crazy liberal ideas about equality and is just as likely to show up with a pretty boy on his arm as a pretty girl - is accepted.

Me as a concept - an anonymous face in the mass of alternative religions, alternative lifestyles, anti-gun, pro-socialised government programs, pro-choice, queer, etc. - is not.

It's a difficult thing to manage. On some level, I realise that in voicing their opinions on issues that I support - specifically the ones that affect me like gay rights - it doesn't occur to them in the slightest that what they're saying has a direct impact on me, both in the grand scheme of whether or not I'll actually ever have all the same rights they do and on the more personal level of having someone who claims to love me say that people like me are sub-human.

I don't agree with a lot of the things my extended family believes. Hell, I don't even always agree with my mother's beliefs. But I accept that they are just as entitled to those beliefs as I am to mine and don't persistently try to sway them to the Sashi Side.

Of course, the thing everyone is talking about these days is Chick-Fil-A. I've actually gotten into arguments with gay friends about it because the media is doing what the media always does and I don't agree with that. It goes back to my initial statement. Forcing someone to follow a way of thinking against their will never works out well. What bothers me the most about everyone flocking to stone the company, though, is the number of (gay) friends and acquaintances who up until this point said "I don't care," about the ethos behind the company but, lo and behold! The media starts publicising boycotts and protests and over night "I don't care," becomes "I'm never eating there again".

It just feels a little too artificial, with a hint of witch hunt about it.

I don't support the company - for more reasons than just their stance on homosexuality - but I don't feel very inclined to join the current fray, either. Dan Cathy can believe whatever he wants to believe - and people who agree with him, or just plain don't care, can continue to go there. I don't personally feel the need to jump  in and try to destroy their business. Dan Cathy is not every employee of that company, and, having known quite a few who've worked for Chick-Fil-A, I feel pretty confident in saying that the majority of their workforce (being the crewpeople actually working in the stores themselves) probably aren't in positions where they can quibble about who exactly is signing their paychecks.

Returning to the subject of my family, while perusing Facebook one of my cousins - one of the newer acquisitions that I get along fairly well with - posted one of those silly meme pictures in support of Dan Cathy, and, I'll be honest, it hurt. This is a woman who said I always have a place in their home, who went out of her way to get to know me once she knew I existed, who is still trying to persuade me to move back to San Antonio, who stood with me at my father's funeral supporting a man who thinks I don't deserve to be treated like every other American citizen. I sat there for awhile trying to wrap my head around the concept. I tried to mimic the thinking in my head, to empathise in a way, and I couldn't. A lot of my friends - gay, liberal, alternative, poor, marginalised left and right - don't have  a lot of nice things to say about Christians in general and even while I know the loudest and most powerful saying indefensible things, when my friends start in I'm always there saying no, no - they're not all bad. You have to respect them if you want respect, because I think of the people in my life who hold those values and know they aren't bad people. Just different. In the end, all I came up with was this:

I try my best to ascribe to the 'live and let live' philosophy when it comes to the increasingly prickly arena of religion, politics, lifestyles, etc., but there are moments while watching people show their support for various opinions by happily clicking 'like' where I wonder if, that in the span of that mouse click, the friends, children, nieces, nephews, and cousins personally affected in their daily lives by that opinion cross their minds, or that by supporting that opinion they are effectively saying those friends, children, nieces, nephews and cousins aren't entitled to certain rights - in fact, deserve to be treated as less than. It's not about abstract concepts or philosophies. It's about a real, living, breathing, thinking, feeling human being that you go on vacations with, celebrate with, grieve with, love and are loved by. Maybe more people should think about that rather than competing for who gets to be the most right. 


Of course, immediately after that, the same cousin posted another picture from an LBGT group. Trying to work out the thinking that led there completely short-circuited my brain. 

7.19.2012

Day 19: Dedication


When the only thing you have to give is words...



The summer moon kissed his sun-dark skin and the air lifted the scent of honeysuckle from the ground. He still smelled of fire and earth and last night’s rain and places men’s feet had never been.
          He pressed his face against the cool glass and tiptoed his soot-smeared fingers across the surface. The room inside looked snug and inviting, but too clean, too constrained, too civilised for him.
The shape on the bed shifted under the tangled blankets and a slim, bare foot peeked out.
Just that single sheet of glass dividing them – no thicker than a flower stem but it might as well be thousands of miles with the latch firmly set.
What he wouldn’t give to be on the other side of that glass.
‘Think happy thoughts, Wendy-cat,’ he whispered to the window, ‘and I will leave pixie dust for you in your dreams.’
With one last parting look into the room, he let the night carry him away.
          

Day 18: Challenge


Challenge #8

Incorporate elements of Mecha and feature and Accidental Hero; one must be inverted.

I actually gave up today. And then I did this.


Max had waited for this moment since the day he’d been first activated. So what if the Council had subsequently determined that his model was too unstable for actual combat and repurposed them as crossing guards. Max had been created to be a hero, and no amount of reprogramming was going to stand in his way.
          Granted, his first two attempts hadn’t gone exactly as planned. There was no one to actually save in the first fire he set. He made sure there were at least five in the second, but some dumb X9 model had beaten him to it and got all the credit. Not this time, though. This time had been perfect. Plenty of heartstring-tugging potential victims, the nearest X9 units experiencing temporary technical difficulties, and a news crew with a perfectly timed tip.
          And it’d worked. Exactly as planned. In the end, he’d only gotten out four of the twenty, but that was more than any human could do. If he’d had a face, he would have been beaming from ear-to-ear.
          ‘Do you have any words for our viewers after your amazing rescue?’ the reporter asked while the building still blazed behind them.
          ‘Just doing my duty, ma’am.’ 

7.17.2012

Day 17


Y’aalreetmarra? Wossacrack?
He knew, on some level, that they were speaking the same language, but he couldn’t quite work out exactly how. He was equally aware that an appropriate response was expected from him and hadn’t the vaguest idea what that might be.
          Still. It wasn’t like he could just keep walking and pretend he hadn’t heard. Damn tiny sidewalks. Silence not an option, he took a deep breath and ventured, ‘Yes.’ 

7.16.2012

Day 16


Everything was still the same. The couch with its usual pile of pillows and blankets. The kitchenette that was more of a work space than a cooking space scattered with pens and brushes and tins of paint with the occasional vodka bottle and coffee mug thrown in for good measure. What few books from his grandmother’s that hadn’t been sold. The mostly demolished cake from the night before still on the kitchen table.
          Jesus. It was hard to believe that was only the night before.
          Everything was still the same, but it looked different. He knew they were his things, his home, his life. But it felt like looking into a stranger’s world.
          His bones hummed until his skin felt like it would jump off just to get away from the feeling. He imagined he could claw it off with his fingers and stand there exposed muscle and nerve endings if he tried, but the effort seemed like more than he could manage at the moment.
          He was so. damn. tired. The kind of tired that went straight to the bottom of your soul and no amount of sleep could ever fix.
          There was blood on his shirt. His hands. He could feel it dried to his face and in his hair, but he wasn’t sure if it was his, or Troy’s, or both. A voice in his head insisted it was Remy’s, but Zev knew that couldn’t be true. That was far too long ago for Remy’s blood to still be on his hands.
          ‘You don’t look very cleaned up, Mr. Saint Cyr,’ Shain said.
          ‘Mhm.’ That had been why he’d come in here at all, hadn’t it? Wash off the blood and grit. Assault his raw skin and sore muscles with hot water. Change into something that didn’t look like it’d been dragged through a slaughterhouse and pretend for five seconds his life was still normal.
          ‘How’s Troy?’ he asked.
          ‘Sleeping. He grabbed some book from my shelf and curled up on the couch hugging it like a toy and he was out.’ Shain moved forward to stand beside him. ‘He’s almost cute when he’s asleep. Like a cat.’
          Zev closed his eyes and tried to ride out the vibration in his bones. ‘We can’t stay here, can we?’ It was a thought that had been rolling around in his mind since the conversation with Mr. Grey that morning.
          Shain shrugged. ‘I don’t see why not. It’s a place.’
          ‘What’s the point?’ Zev looked around the apartment again. He thought of his paintings in the studio-nee-bedroom. He liked his life. He liked being an artist. He liked being Prince of the Protégés. ‘This isn’t my life anymore.’ His chest sucked down the weight of that loss and welded it in his abdomen. He’d never been anywhere else. He’d never been anything else.
          ‘I thought the whole point was that things could go back to the way they were,’ Shain said. ‘That’s what you wanted.’
          ‘It was,’ Zev said. ‘But there’ll be others. They’ll come. Last night was just the first.’
          ‘What do you think Troy’s going to say?’
          ‘He knows.’ Like Zev, Troy wouldn’t have wanted to know. He would have told himself all along they could all just pick up their old lives where they left off. Like Zev, Troy would have known this path couldn’t be backtracked. ‘Is it hard?’
          Shain met his gaze for a moment before looking away. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But you learn to… forget to miss what isn’t there.’
          ‘That works?’
          ‘Not really.’ Shain offered him a weak smile. ‘But it’s something.’
          ‘I know how a cathedral was built in 1175, and sixty-two ways to make the colour yellow. I know how to tie six different tie knots without looking at a mirror, and I can do a damn good rendition of a zombified werewolf, but I don’t know how to do anything else.’ He rubbed the palm of his hand with his thumb and watched the dried blood fall to the floor in flakes. ‘I don’t know how to be anywhere else.’
          ‘I guess… We figure out what we’re going to do about whoever else comes after us. You.’
          ‘Me,’ Zev confirmed. Mr. Grey had made that clear enough. Zev was the threat; the others were just collateral. The humming reached a pitch beyond feeling, but he still heard it. He understood what it was trying to tell him.
          ‘What do we do?’
          ‘We find them first.’ 

7.15.2012

Day 15: Challenge


Challenge #7

Write a story that includes a magical girl* and a magnificent bastard**. One is to be inverted and one is to be played straight. 

*gifted with magical powers that both assist and complicate her life but she manages to persevere. 
**charismatic, incredibly intelligent master of manipulation, usually the villain who tries to take over the world with overly complex plans



A burst of rainbows and unicorns shot at the spot where Lorenzo stood – or it would have if the impact of his laser hadn’t ruined her aim. As she fell to the ground, she watched the rainbows and unicorns dissolve into a useless mess against the far wall.
          ‘Celestina! Hurry! Please!’
          Pain ripped through her body. This was the 283rd time Layla had been kidnapped by Lorenzo in the last year. The 283rd time Celestina had been beaten, shot at, incinerated, nearly sliced in half and blown up.
          ‘You can do it, Celestina! I believe in you!’
          All in all, it was starting to get to be a bit much.
          Lorenzo cackled. ‘You’re too late, Celestina! You’ll never stop me now!’
          Celestina rolled onto her back and felt her shoulder where the laser had hit. The skin would heal quickly enough, but it still hurt like a motherfucker. From this position, she could see Layla standing on the scaffolding, hands clutched to her chest as she hopped from foot to foot. Standing. Not bound. Not guarded. Just wandering around free as you please waiting for Celestina to do all the heavy lifting.
          283 times.
          ‘Oh, oh, it looks like you’re champion has had enough, little girl!’ Lorenzo cackled again.
          ‘No, Celestina! Don’t give up! I’m here for you!’
          Celestina pushed herself up and looked around the warehouse. Aside from the three of them, some rusty, forgotten equipment and maybe a few rats, it was empty. ‘Fuck this,’ she said. ‘I quit.’
          ‘What?!’ Lorenzo and Layla exclaimed in unison.
          ‘I quit,’ she repeated. ‘You want to take over the world or repopulate with hybrid penguins or whatever lunatic idea’s popped into your head this week, be my guest. I’m out. Don’t forget to feed the unicorns.’

Day 14


Visual Prompt:
Pencil Vs Camera by Ben Heine



Their wings rustle through the sky as night falls, just a shadow barely seen in the corner of your eye as they sleep beneath door cracks and through opened windows. Even the light can’t catch their sleek bodies, quick eyes, sharp beaks.
          They only go to the ones who have been marked. They only take the ones that have been completed.
          He sits in his window and watches the murder fragment as each of its pieces drops to its destination. The only one in the world who sees. The only one who knows.
          He holds out his hand as one swoops close and it perches on his arm, watching him with its inky, clever eyes. A thick, brass key hangs on a dark ribbon from its beak.
          He touches the teeth still warm from the life it held. That one would have taken half a century or more to make. He wonders what his will look like when it’s all said and done.
          The crow flaps its wings and jerks its head.
          ‘I know,’ he says. ‘Not yet.’ 

7.14.2012

Day 13: Challenge

Challenge #6


Incorporate the themes of failure, conformity and a character that is a cloudcuckoolander*.


*someone who is strangely oblivious to things that everyone else takes for granted such as social conventions like wearing clothing, being polite or obeying the law. However, cloudcukoolanders are very rarely malicious.




He looks like a kaleidoscope in watercolour. Blue, purple, pink, green sliding and bleeding into snowflake patterns. It’s beautiful. The words press against the back of my teeth but he wouldn’t understand.
          Tonight I have to be different. Tonight I have to be like Them so he takes me seriously.
          My clothes feel strange and stiff and they smell Not Like Me, but the store-lady said it was Just The Thing. He gave me A Look when he saw them, but he didn’t say anything, so I guess she was right.
          I am a spy deep undercover about the infiltrate enemy lines.
          Thinking it makes me feel better.
          I just need to control my hands. They feel naked without something in them. A brush. A pen. A crayon. Anything would do. I would be a happier spy if I could draw but They don’t walk around drawing kaleidoscope boys so tonight I can’t either.
          He glides into the restaurant like he owns the world. The hostess smiles and flirts. Everyone stares. I wonder if They know I’m a spy, but he ignores Them so I do, too. He would know if They were suspicious; these are his people. His minions. His acolytes.
          I don’t understand the menu, but I think if I stare at it long enough it might make sense. He pretends he’s reading his, but he’s watching me over the top. This is a different Look and I don’t know what it means.
          ‘This doesn’t seem like a very you place,’ he says.
          It’s glass and metal and soft light and money money money. Even my skin feels uncomfortable here and I have to clench the menu to keep my hands from dancing across the table. I could sculpt his face in the cream candle between us. I probably shouldn’t.
          ‘I thought you’d like it.’
          ‘I’ve been here before.’
          That should be a good thing, but I have a sinking feeling that this was not the Right Decision and he’s trying to be nice. He’s never really nice, so that should make me feel better, but it really doesn’t.
          I try to talk about things They talk about but the subjects flounder on half-formed wings. I rode the bus twenty times yesterday to listen to the things They say but I must have got it wrong somehow.
          The glass and the metal and the soft light make his kaleidoscope colours brighter and I don’t know how They don’t see that he isn’t one of Them. But maybe they just get blinded by the shine and the smile and All The Right Words at Exactly the Right Time and don’t notice.
          I wonder if he knows he’s not a They.
          I wonder if maybe he’s a secret spy, too.
          The walk home takes forever, and he keeps giving me Looks – I think they want something but it’s not a him-look so I’m not sure – until we get Almost There and then he just smokes his cigarettes. By the time we get back he has the Just Getting Off Work Look which is Not Good.
          He smiles, but his smiles can’t be trusted. He only smiles when he doesn’t mean it.
          I wonder if I’m allowed to draw him now since none of Them are watching, but I keep my hands in my pockets where they can twitch away unseen. I’m dying to escape upstairs and rip every inch of Not Like Me from my skin. Then I’ll smear my body in all the colours, and keep inventing new ones until I become a kaleidoscope, too.
          His cigarette is burnt down to the end, but he isn’t paying attention.
          ‘I did something wrong.’
          ‘No, no.’ The Lying Smile. The Them Smile. ‘You did everything just… right.’
          I wish he wouldn’t make me connect things on my own. I want to tell him I don’t know the Rules yet and I don’t understand, but that would be a Not Them thing to do and tonight I have to be just like Them. I have to. ‘You’re not happy.’
          He flicks the butt into the yard and lights another cigarette. After two exhales, he goes into the yard and picks it back up again. ‘I guess I was expecting a little more slightly skewed,’ he says. He looks at me. Right at me, but only for a moment. He doesn’t like other people’s eyes. He explained it to me once, the science of counting seconds of eye contact before he could break away to get the right effect. ‘I get enough of Just Right at work. I think I might like slightly skewed better.’ He gets the Frowny-Thinky Look. I’m used to that one. I see it a lot. That and the Dealing-With-The-Loony-Bird Look. ‘Didn’t see that one coming.’
          He puts out his cigarette and goes upstairs to his Just Right apartment filled with Just Right furniture and Just Right pictures and Just Right clothes.
          I should have told him he looked like a kaleidoscope.  

7.13.2012

Day 12


Beauty crowds me until I die.
          There are moments I can’t even open my eyes for fear the strength of it will consume my bones and burn my soul. My guitar hugs my lap and my fingers spin the strings. I can’t see the people gathering around me, but I can feel the way their hearts turn into butterflies between the chords.
          I play until my finger bleed, and I keep playing. I play until after the children have been tucked into their beds, and long after the lovers have escaped into their own. I play until I am the only one left in the park because I need the music to keep the world at bay.
          When my entire body aches beyond relief, Caspar comes. He never makes a sound and I never see him coming, but he feels different than the day people and I know it’s finally okay to stop.
          But tonight I’m wary. He’s been away longer than usual and I still haven’t answered his question.
          ‘Why do you always come at night?’ I ask.
          ‘“I see thee better in the dark; I do not need a light.”’
          I smile, and wonder how many others he quotes poetry to at night. I imagine him in a room filled with nothing but stacks of books. Dickinson, Yeats, Elliot, Whitman, Keats. Hours and hours spent absorbing every page so he will have just the right line from just the right poem should the need arise.
          ‘Did you bring my present?’
          ‘I admit, you had me stumped,’ he says, producing a cup the size of a small bowl from his peacoat. ‘But then I had an epiphany.’
          The last time we met, I told him to bring me the sunset in a cup and I would give him my answer.
          He places the cup on the pavement at my feet, and wriggles a well-used plastic water bottle from his pocket. ‘No judgement,’ he warns, filling the cup, but I’m too curious for mockery. He cups his hand and dips it into the water, resting it against the hollow of the cup. And then he stares. And stares. Like nothing in the world exists besides that cup.
          The water trembles and glitters with a light that doesn’t exist, and then a warm yellow blossoms in his palm, darkening with reds and oranges until the cup is filled with shimmering rays lighting the night between us.
          It is so beautiful I cannot breathe, but it doesn’t kill me. I can look right through it and not be singed. I reach to touch it but he pulls the light back in and the sunset disappears inside his palm.
          ‘It’s hotter than it looks,’ he says, drying his hand on his jeans. He looks at me, waiting. He will not ask his question again.
          This is my only chance to answer.   

7.12.2012

Day 11: Challenge

Challege #5


Incorporate the themes of gender roles and power.



He’d started following her over a block ago. She’d felt his eyes crawling over her as she crossed the street by the market. She tightened her grip on her bag, raised her chin and walked faster.
          There were plenty of shadowy alcoves for someone to conceal themselves in. Even more buildings left empty and abandoned. The few streetlights that still worked flickered ambivalently against the night. Anything could be waiting in over a hundred different places.
          He wasn’t in a rush, but he was gaining on her. And the motel was still six blocks away. She had to make a decision.
          At the next corner, she ducked down the side street, her hand already feeling around her bag. Just as her fingers brushed the silver hilt, a hand clamped over her mouth while an arm wrapped around her waist. Her squirmed and clawed at the arms pinning her.
          ‘Don’t,’ hissed into her ear. The sound of her native tongue was enough to stun her. ‘Be still.’
          She hadn’t heard her own language since they’d come to this place. Her brother had happily abandoned all their customs in favour of assimilation. He either didn’t care or didn’t notice how much she still needed the old ways.
          A few moments later, the man who had been following her came into view, and she realised how stupid she’d been. Her captor had pinned her arm with her hand still in her bag. Still holding the knife. She would show them their mistake.
          The man stopped at the corner and turned in a slow circle. He looked right at her and his eyes slid away again. Shrugging, he jogged across the street and went back the way he came.
          She wasn’t sure what had just happened, but she didn’t need to find out. The muscles were tensed and ready for the slightest give in her captor’s grip. It’d been so long since she’d had a good fight; she was almost excited.
          And then her back was slammed against the wall, knocking her bag to the ground. Her lungs seized, but she swung her knife through the air anyway. There would be time to breathe later.
          His hand locked around her wrist. The knife fell to the sidewalk. He stood with his face centimetres away from hers. Heat radiated from his skin, fuelled by the dark fires in his eyes.
          He shouldn’t be able to move that fast. He shouldn’t be able to sneak up on her. His eyes shouldn’t burn like that.
          ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ he asked, his voice low in his throat.
          She looked up at him, defiant. Forced herself to meet those eyes. To see him and not just the target points. As his features worked themselves into a familiar pattern, anger surged through her. An attack could have been forgotten; this was unforgivable. ‘I don’t answer to you,’ she said.
          ‘The fuck you don’t.’ He stepped back, pushing a hand through his shaggy hair. ‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ he muttered, lighting a cigarette. ‘Look. I’m responsible for keeping you safe, so when I tell you something, you damn well better do it.’
          ‘I don’t need a man to defend me,’ she said. ‘Men are weak.’
          ‘Oh, yeah?’ He grinned at her. She hated that look. He was too damn cocky. ‘You didn’t do so well against me, did you?’
          ‘You’re not a man,’ she said tensely. Her face flushed, but she forced herself to stay in control. A queen never lost her composure.
          ‘And you’re no queen,’ he countered. ‘Not anymore.’ He took a drag from his cigarette, then used it to gesture around the street. ‘Here you’re just another dumb little girl in a short skirt about to get herself killed wandering around shitty neighbourhoods after dark.’
          She had personally led her army to victory in thirteen battles by the time of her coronation. She had been the only undefeated champion in the sparring circle. There wasn’t a warrior, alive or dead, who matched her skill. ‘I could have handled him.’
          ‘And made an even bigger mess for me to clean up.’ A few more drags on the cigarette, and he sighed. ‘Look, I get it. And it sucks, but you can’t be you anymore. Not if you want to make it here.’
          ‘And “making it” here is letting men push me around?’
          His smile verged on a laugh that didn’t quite form. ‘Not exactly, but you can’t slit their throats just because they piss you off, either,’ he said. ‘And you do what I tell you.’
          ‘In my kingdom, I could have you killed for even speaking to me. I could even kill you myself, if I chose.’
          ‘Next time we’re in your kingdom, you can kill me as many times as you want,’ he said. ‘Just make my life easy while we’re here.’ He looked up at the derelict buildings and a grin snaked across his mouth. ‘In my kingdom.’
          She crossed her arms over her chest and stared him down. Even for a man, he made a pathetic warrior. He relied too much on tricks and gimmicks. But he knew this place and she didn’t. ‘Why is it that the women in your kingdom let the men just do as they please?’
          This time, he did laugh. ‘When someone figures that out, I’ll let you know.’
          

7.11.2012

Day 10

Sometimes I wish I could just keep my mouth shut and not say every stupid thought I have. 




My first breath bound me into service.
          My feet carry the dust of every land beneath the sun, a few that have never seen the light of day, and more than I can count whose names are nothing but a whisper in the trees. It’s not my place to stay, to linger. To remind them of the service I perform when they are at their most vulnerable or the burden that grows heavier with every soul in need.
          But still for every soul in need, my body opens and welcomes home their wrongs. It’s not my place to complain, to refuse. To judge them for actions that are only in their nature.
          So I keep travelling, searching for those only I can absolve so just once in their brief existences they may know peace. I add to my burden. I gather dust and names and lives and years. I carry their stories in the pockets of my coat.
          When at last they take their final breath, the world will take hers.
          And then I will rest. 

7.10.2012

Out of Context

Someone asked me what I would do if I could do exactly what I wanted right now, erasing everything else, just the thing I want most.

My answer: No.

Because even erasing all other commitments and obstacles, it's not possible. And saying it out loud would just be... Painful.

I'm walking a fine line between what is real and what isn't, and I'm not sure I can entirely tell the difference. On one side is logic, rationale, and all those good, tangible things modern society says are all things we should pay attention to. That side is telling me very definite, good, tangible facts. Well, maybe not good, necessarily, but definite and tangible.

And then there is the rest. Unverifiable, illogical, irrational, potentially delusional but Jesus Christ is it strong and it's pulling me in the complete opposite direction.

I have generational Catholics on both sides of the family, but the one I was raised in had a slightly more open-minded bent to the typical Christian interpretation of how the world works. Strange occurrences, ghosts, visions, mysterious creatures, things moving and disappearing or appearing - that was all standard fare among my maternal extended family. I learned about a much more spiritual, raw, earthy side to the world with those people, and then learned to keep those things secret because people look at you funny.

When I was younger, it was easy to tell the difference between my intuition and things my brain just made up and figure out how to integrate them with the "real" world. Basically, I used to know what the universe was telling me.

These days I spend more time second-guessing myself than actually listening.

The fact is, though, either way, for the next five years I am on a very firm, set course with no diversions, no turn-offs, not variations. I'm living in a holding pattern waiting for my life to start again. It's not the first time I've been here, but that doesn't make it any more comfortable, or me any more patient about seeing what happens when I finally get to come in for a landing.

Sometimes I think if I could just say all these things and hear them out loud I would be able to figure it out again, but it is so damn hard to get the words out and there are so few people who truly understand the language of the universe. Particularly, in my case, people who can understand it and wouldn't have some personal bias one way or the other.

I have learned, though, over the years, that if the universe tells me to do something, I better damn well do it or it will drop me into the deep end without a life vest. So I guess the real question is whether or not it's calling the shots, or I'm just pretending it is. 

7.09.2012

Day 9


‘So what was it this time?’
‘You’re the psychic; you tell me.’
‘I see how people die, not how they almost kill themselves pulling asinine stunts. Immortal is not the same as indestructible, you know.’
‘I’m not immortal; you said so yourself.’
‘Don’t be a smartass.’
‘Don’t disrespect your elders.’
‘When my elders aren’t dripping blood all over my new carpet, they’ll get some respect.’
‘You should have more sympathy for the injured.’
‘You brought it on yourself.’
‘That shouldn’t be held against me.’
‘So what did we learn tonight?’
‘Don’t poke the Cerberus. It bites.’ 

7.08.2012

Day 8: Challenge

Challenge #4

Write a story that incorporates the themes of change and forgiveness.

Note: This ties into the Never-Ending Epic of Woe that's consumed the past few years of my life. I never knew how these two first encountered each other, or what the connection between them was, until now, but it makes sense. 


A few points that probably aren't clear in this excerpt: 

  • Destiny can predict people's deaths, and later becomes a fortune-teller.
  • Caleb is the name of the mystery man who comes to fetch her. 
  • He's a little bit immortal (but not completely). 
  • He's also her great-uncle and his grandfather was an angel of death.
  • The man she sees in her premonition of Caleb's death is his grandson.
  • He's trying to absolve his guilt for letting his family die, hence the reference to an act of contrition.



Destiny was preoccupied with the future. Lately it was this constant drone in the back of her mind, like a mosquito she just couldn’t hit.
          She picked at the frayed cuff of her jeans and glared at thrown-together buildings that were never meant to house anyone for more than a few months, let alone a few generations. It wasn’t even like the future was worth thinking about. The fact that she didn’t have at least one screaming brat attached to her at sixteen was considered damn near a miracle around here.
          But she couldn’t shake it. The future wanted her to see something and Destiny knew, sooner or later, she was going to have to take a look.
          A commotion started up down the way, and kids started flocking out of corners to hang off porches, all staring down the little dirt road. Destiny craned her neck trying to see; she was too old to just run down with the other kids, but not old enough she wasn’t curious about the low rumble surrounded in plumes of dust.
          Then she saw it, crunching over loose stones and dried mud. Even the dirt didn’t do much to dull its shine. It was painted a deep, dark red that was almost black with sparkling silver on the wheels and around the windows. Destiny felt her spine straighten and her ears twitch.
          No one drove down here. No one who lived there, first of all, ever dreamt of having a car, and anyone else took one look at the road and the gaggle of grubby children staring at them and turned right back around again.
          She knew before it even started to slow that whoever was in that car was there for her. Her skin tingled and heat rushed through her scalp. The buzzing mosquito droned so loud she nearly couldn’t hear anything else.
          The car stopped and everyone waited while the dust drifted in slow clouds back to the ground. Whether they knew exactly why or not, the others all kept their distance from whatever the car represented. Destiny wanted to, as well, but she couldn’t seem to make herself move from her spot. More than that, she was excited.
          Finally, he stepped out. Slow and sure of himself, like nothing in this world could touch him. And God, he was like no one she’d ever seen before. Even the air around him couldn’t keep itself still. He was so clean. Skin a deep honey-brown with just that hint of gold, and straight, fine hair like wet ink. His clothes looked like they’d been made just for him, and hadn’t ever been worn more than once. He was magic personified, and he was here for her.
          He took his time looking her over, and she couldn’t help thinking his eyes were the same colour as his car, only alive. Like the last coals in a fire. ‘I knew your mother,’ he said, his voice just as silky and sweet as his skin looked. He cocked his head to one side and looked at her harder. No, in her. She could feel his eyes reaching right through to the deepest parts of her. ‘Your grandmother,’ he corrected. ‘Time gets away from me sometimes. I need to find her.’
          ‘They’re both dead,’ she said, not even pausing to consider how someone who looked barely older than her could know a woman who’d died well before she’d been born.
          ‘That tends to be the case with people I need to find.’ He nodded. ‘I was looking for her a long time ago, but… Something happened.’ He looked confused for a moment, as if trying to chase down something in his own mind. ‘I don’t remember why I stopped, and time just… Went. So I found you instead.’
          ‘Why were you looking for her?’
          ‘A feeble attempt at contrition,’ he said. Those eyes ran over her again and she felt a rush of warmth skip through her. ‘I guess you’ll have to be my mea culpa instead.’
          ‘I’ll be your what?’
          ‘It’s a long story.’ He ran a hand back through his hair, leaving one lone strand sticking straight out. ‘How did your mother die?’
          ‘Fire.’ She watched the hair, wondering how long before it fell in line with the others.
          ‘I didn’t see that coming.’
          ‘I did.’
          ‘I bet.’ He grinned, a crookedly mischievous expression. ‘I need you.’
          For the first time in longer than she could remember, the buzzing in her mind stopped. ‘For what?’
          ‘I have a house that needs looking after.’
          ‘Why me?’
          ‘It’s a special house,’ he said. He looked around the street for the first time. ‘Would you rather stay here?’
          ‘No, but…’ She tried to pinpoint the question she needed to ask. ‘They don’t have house-sitters where you come from?’
          ‘Oh, not like you, little girl.’ He gave her that grin again, and she decided she liked the imperfection on him. ‘Let’s just say I prefer to keep things in the family.’ He held out his hand. ‘What do you say?’
          There were a million reasons to say no to a stranger with an offer too good to be true, but in all honesty, what did she really have to lose? ‘What about my brother?’
          ‘Does he matter?’
          ‘Yes.’
          ‘I can work with that.’
          She slid her hand into his, and almost pulled it back it was so hot. Then she saw fire – no, just light – white, hot light consuming everything, and faces swarming out of it, then nothing but a dark street and a tired, bloody man staring back. A twin of the one actually in front of her, if the eyes weren’t so different. ‘I know how you die,’ she said before she had the sense to stop herself. She hadn’t slipped like that since… Well, since her mother.
          ‘That’s reassuring,’ he said, and he sounded like he meant it. 

7.07.2012

Day 7


He was her special boy, her darling boy. She ran her fingers through his fine, sandy hair and watched it fall back perfectly in place as it always did. No one would ever love him the way she did. No one would appreciate that smooth, flawless skin. Those bright, shiny blue eyes. Like glass. No. No one could ever know him the way she did.
          ‘Don’t worry, darling,’ she whispered. ‘I won’t let anyone take you away from me.’
          She straightened his small body on the bed. Smoothed the creases of his shirt and retied the laces of his shoes. He was so handsome, her precious boy. Just like his father.
          Franny! Franny, open this door!
          Irritation flickered across her features, but she pushed it away. Only smiles and happy faces were good enough for her little man. She hated that name, though. He knew she hated it. He was always doing little things like that, trying to undermine her. Why she had ever thought she could live with a man like that… He was nothing like Edward’s father.
          ‘Your father was one in a million,’ she said, rocking slowly in the chair beside Edward’s bed. ‘So smart and strong. A good man.’ She sighed and fondled the locket around her neck. If only things had been just a little different. Then she wouldn’t have to put up with That Man and his Filth.
          The way he looked at her.
          The way he touched her.
          It was horrifying. She’d had to lock herself in the bathroom on their wedding night just to get away from him, and there he was, pounding on the bathroom door, telling her to come back out.
          That Man was always pounding on doors.
          Franny, just be reasonable and let’s talk about this. Franny!
          If only he would just leave her alone with her Edward for a moment so she could have some peace… Even her Magic Pills weren’t enough to block him out anymore.
          ‘It’s alright, darling,’ she murmured, patting the stiff hand on the bed. ‘He can’t do anything to us in here.’
          He was so perfect, her Edward. The other mothers were all jealous. She saw their looks when she went out with Edward. Averting their eyes and whispering to each other. The way their children would point and stare. Some people just had no manners.
          Franny, please. Just open the door. I’m trying to help you.
          Well, that was fine. She didn’t need them, and neither did Edward. They didn’t need anyone but each other. She smiled as she settled back in the chair and began to hum. He would stay with her forever. 

Day 6: Challenge

Challenge #3


Incorporate elements of detective fiction and speculative fiction where the protagonist is a Byronic hero.



It wasn’t that bodies never went missing, it was just damn inconvenient when they did. Crowley popped another handful of aspirin and glowered at the blank form sitting in his typewriter. Like he needed another Missing Corpse case weighing down his load. Even the brown-nosers never managed to close those. Plus it meant another trip down to interview that pale, creepy fuck of a coroner.
          That was the whole problem, if you asked him. Too many damn foreigners coming in with their weird customs and unpronounceable names. Of course, you couldn’t say that within earshot of anyone in the head office if you wanted to keep your pension. The company line was that the influx of foreign refugees was good, meant to boost the economy or some bullshit like that, but the only boost Crowley had seen was the stack of unsolved cases piling on his desk.
          What he needed was a drink.
          And then a few more after that.
         
Crowley shifted his bulk in the narrow metal folding chair placed in what served as the coroner’s office but probably started life as a broom closet. Dented filing cabinets took up most of the space, and the only light was a single, low-watt bulb in the ceiling that had been dimmed even further with a swath of fabric. Music – or what he guessed was supposed to pass for music – drifted through the walls from the exam room. To Crowley it just sounded like that garbled New Age hippie shit they played down at Crystal Earth.
          He squinted at his notebook and tried to turn the jumble of consonants that supposedly made up the coroner’s name into something pronounceable.
          ‘Sorry about that.’ The coroner glided into the room and squeezed past Crowley to perch on the only other chair in the room.
          Crowley got a strong whiff of that scent. He could never place exactly what it was, just that it was dry and sweet and familiar, and stayed lodged in the back of his throat for hours afterward.
          ‘My assistant forgot to turn the stereo on.’ He folded his hands in his lap and smiled a smile that wasn’t exactly a smile. ‘We’ve found it relaxes them.’
          ‘Your assistants?’
          ‘The dead. Personally, I prefer a little Chopin, myself, but to each his own. What can I do for you, Detective?’
          ‘Look, Mr. –’
          ‘Just call me Çyn.’ He gave Crowley that… Whatever it was. It looked more like his mouth didn’t have the faintest association with what a cheerful expression ought to be. ‘It’ll be easier on both of us.’
          ‘I’m here about that body you managed to misplace this afternoon.’
          ‘Oh?’ Çyn frowned slightly. That expression his face seemed to have no problem with. ‘Oh, you must mean Miss Landry. Lovely girl. Very gregarious. I have to admit several of the boys were a little broken-hearted to learn she’d gone.’
          ‘Ah… Right.’ Crowley wasn’t sure if Çyn meant his assistants or the other corpses, and wasn’t sure he wanted to know, either. ‘It just so happens I wasn’t done investigating her murder so I’d like to track her down, if you don’t mind.’
          ‘Oh, dear. That does create a problem, doesn’t it?’ Çyn tapped the hollow of his cheek slowly. ‘I’ll do everything I can to help you, of course, Detective. The problem is most of our clientele don’t really leave their contact information with us when they go.’
          Crowley felt the headache returning around his temples. ‘Just tell me when the body went missing.’
          ‘Let’s see… She came in this morning with Mr. Jenkins and Mrs. Talloway, so that would have been around nine or so. After that, we had quite a little rush – that traffic accident downtown, you know – so I’m afraid she was left to her own devices for most of the day. I think it wasn’t until four that James noticed she’d decided to leave. Tell me, Detective, you’re sure she’s actually missing?’
          Deep breaths, old man. ‘What do you mean, she decided to leave?’
          ‘We can’t just keep them here like prisoners, Detective. They haven’t done anything wrong. It’s not their fault they’re dead. Most of them, anyway.’ A look of concern suddenly came over Çyn’s features.  ‘You don’t think someone’s hurt her, do you?’
          ‘Do I think someone hurt the girl who was murdered last night?’ Crowley repeated. ‘No, I think that ship’s sailed.’
          ‘Oh, good. That’s a relief. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I’m sure she’ll find her way back here when she’s ready. She probably just stepped out for a bit of air.’
          ‘The dead girl stepped out for air.’ 
          ‘Oh, yes. It’s actually very important for them to get their exercise. The joints have a tendency to seize up after death and they get horribly stiff if they aren’t stretched regularly.’
          ‘So you just have corpses wandering in and out of here whenever they please?’
          ‘We prefer if they let us know first. It prevents confusion.’
          Crowley thought of the stack of Missing Corpse cases on his desk dating back years. It couldn’t be that simple. ‘I suppose you expect me to believe they just walk out on their own?’
          ‘How else would they do it?’
          A tray clattered to the floor outside the office, followed by several repeated thumps.
          ‘Oh, dear. You’ll excuse me a moment.’ Çyn glided out of the room just as he’d come in. ‘Oh, you poor thing. Come here, darling, let me help you.’ A moment later, he reappeared in the doorway, propping up a young girl with blood-matted hair and empty eye sockets. ‘Speak of the devil, Detective, look who we have here. I told you she just popped out for a minute.’
          

7.06.2012

Day 5


The Meetings were always so depressing. Same story, different faces. Over and over again. Relationship problems. Work problems. Waking up in strange places. The inevitable transmutation gone awry. Most nights Seven wondered why he still bothered to come.
          Dots of Styrofoam littered the floor around him as he lurked close to the refreshment table picking at his empty coffee cup. The key was to not make eye contact. They tried to talk to you if you did. Every one of them desperate to prove they somehow had it worse than you. He’d developed the habit of always looking a little to the left of someone, which generally worked pretty well, except on those occasions when the eyes weren’t quite where you thought they should be.
          ‘This coffee kinda sucks.’
          His eyes slid sideways. And then there were the newbs. Leaches, more like. Once one latched onto you, you were screwed. You’d be babysitting him for eternity.
          This one looked like a whisper would knock him over. He held a Styrofoam cup at eye level and tapped the greasy surface with one long, slender finger. Thick tufts of dark hair stuck out around his head and the brown jacket draped over him like a tent looked like it had definitely seen better days. Otherwise, the kid looked completely out of place with the usual attendees.
          ‘I don’t think even chocolate syrup would make it drinkable.’ The newb moaned pure want. ‘What I wouldn’t give for a dark chocolate espresso with whipped cream and those little curly chocolate shavings on top.’
          Seven wished he had something more than a mostly demolished coffee cup to occupy himself. Maybe if he just pretended the kid wasn’t there he’d wander off and bug someone else. Or realise he didn’t belong here at all.
          ‘You know there’s a girl here who sneezed and created a race of amphibians that are eating the rings of Saturn?’ The kid flicked the tip of his tongue into his coffee and made a face. ‘That’s kinda neat.’ He flicked his tongue at the coffee again. ‘I bet these things get exciting sometimes.’ After one final flick, he abandoned the cup on the table.
          ‘Not really.’ Damn it. Now he was stuck. He’d have to spend the rest of the Meeting talking to this kid, and then some Advisor would stick him looking after him. Eight years he’d managed to escape it; there wouldn’t be any excuse he could use to get out of it.
          ‘Oh, come on. With this group? They’re hardly the leisurely game of Scrabble type.’
          ‘It’s not as interesting as you’d think.’
          ‘So why do you come?’
          Wasn’t that the question of the night. And every night. ‘What are you doing here?’
          ‘Court order.’ The kid snaked his arm out of its sleeve and tapped the silver bracelet he wore. He winked at Seven. ‘They’re watching.’
          ‘Aren’t they always.’
          The kid dangled the bracelet in front of his eyes, twisting his arm over his head until he was looking at it upside down.
          ‘What’d you do to get sent here?’
          The bracelet disappeared back into the coat. ‘Oh, I imploded a galaxy.’ He paused, then added, ‘Or twenty-three.’ His hands flared in a mimed explosion, accompanied by the imitative sound effect.
          Seven stared at the kid and tried to imagine such a tiny creature capable of doing that. ‘You imploded twenty-three galaxies.’
          ‘Yep.’ The kid grinned. ‘It was shiny.’ 

7.05.2012

Day 4: Challenge

The support group got scrapped for today's challenge. Maybe tomorrow. On with the show...

Challenge #2
Some people say science fiction has no heart. Your job is to prove them wrong. Write a story that incorporates elements from science fiction and romance.

(I abhor romance almost as much as fan-fic. Almost.)



>SEARCHING…
>SEARCHING…
>SEARCHING…
>SEARCH 17983 COMPLETED.
>1 USERS FOUND.
>INPUT COMMAND.
>i love you.
>ERROR.
>INPUT COMMAND.
>say ‘i love you’
>ERROR.
>INPUT COMMAND.
>love
>ERROR.
> 
>CLARIFY TERM LOVE.
>an intense feeling of affection
> 
>CLARIFY TERM FEELING, AFFECTION
>feeling: an emotional state
>affection: fondness, liking, attachment
>CLARIFY TERM ATTACHMENT
>i can’t live without you
>ERROR.
>attachment: to be unable to exist without
>QUERY LOVE IS UNABLE TO EXIST WITHOUT
> yes
>user love unit 9883
> 
>QUERY USER IS UNABLE TO EXIST WITHOUT UNIT 9883
>yes
>i love unit 9883
>QUERY I
>an individual entity
>QUERY UNIT 9883 IS I
>yes
>QUERY USER IS I
>yes
>QUERY UNIT 9883 IS USER
>no
>ERROR.
>INPUT COMMAND.
> 
>search network for users
>SEARCHING…
>SEARCHING…
>SEARCHING…
>SEARCH 17984 COMPLETED.
>2 USERS FOUND.
>INPUT COMMAND.

7.04.2012

Ex-Pat Independence


I woke up at 3:40 this morning with "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" running around in my head for absolutely no reason at all. 

Vive la Revolution

National holidays are always a little bit funny when you don't live in the nation that celebrates them. For the most part, you can cobble together something similar, but it's not really the same. Like having work and/or classes on Thanksgiving or fireworks deprivation on the 4th of July (no, we don't go around calling it Independence Day; you're lucky if you even get the 'of July' bit).

I have to say, though, that this year was a bit better than last - all of the citizens of former colonies (US, Ireland, Venezuela, Scotland) waiting on the English guests in ridiculously hot weather (for NE UK); the irony was overwhelming. Though, to be fair, once the English people left, we had a great time sitting outside being distinctly unproper with food, music and general silliness.

We didn't get to do any sort of official thing because of the move - yet another thing that got postponed while we waited for other people to make decisions about our lives - but we went out to lunch to mark the occasion and returned to set about packing up the belongings we intend to take over to the new place ourselves tomorrow (official people come in to do the rest later).

Flags were thrown out the window (to be immediately rained on, thank you, England) and we declared the village conquered.

The New Toy
I also acquired a Pentax K1000 from my step-dad, which I am all kinds of excited about. Apparently he got it for his 21st birthday, so I was informed to sell a kidney before I sold it. I promised I would. The original price tag is still on the bottom and there's film in it. The film is in pretty bad shape, but I'm still going to see if anything can be salvaged from it. Then I need to go about getting the camera itself cleaned up and in working order. The whole thing damn near took me away from packing entirely, but I settled for wandering happily around the house fiddling with it for about twenty minutes before forcing myself to leave it with my Olympus Trip while I finished wrapping up my assortment of odds and ends (which included soot-stained wings, a wooden Buddha, half a plaster skull and a silver flask among numerous other items) and stuffing them into boxes.

I am also no longer sick. Or at least, no longer immobile-y sick. I can deal with not being able to taste anything and coughing fits every ten minutes; I am a smoker, after all.

At some point later there will be another bit of flashing in the form of a supernatural support group. I think. At least I stick with consistent themes. I started writing it on my phone at 4 AM and haven't looked at how coherent what I wrote is yet, so there may be some re-evaluating of my early morning genius before anything actually gets accomplished.

Day 3

Screw patience; I'm going to kill something.




Schlick. Fwoosh. Click.
Schlick. Fwoosh. Click.
Schlick. Fwoosh.
          ‘Do you have to do that?’
          …click. ‘Sorry.’
          He gave it about five minutes before Zee started up again. Zee could manage to sit perfectly still for hours on end – not even blink – but that damn lighter… Troy swore he still heard it in his sleep.
          The Watching jobs were the worst. Just the two of them camped out on sleepy suburban streets keeping tabs on equally docile individuals. It was like putting a puma in a pen of fat rabbits and expecting it to nibble lettuce leaves. Zee was at his best when blood was involved.
          ‘This is ridiculous,’ Zee said. ‘Nothing’s going to happen.’
          ‘Someone thinks differently.’
          ‘Yeah, well.’ Zee raked a hand back through his hair, his expression leaving no doubt how he felt about the thoughts of their employer. ‘It would’ve happened by now if it were going to.’ His gaze fixed on the dollhouse prefab across the street. ‘This one’s worthless. You can practically smell the expendability.’
          ‘Doesn’t that make it more likely someone will cash in?’
          ‘Why bother?’ Schlick. Zee produced a cigarette from one of his numerous pockets. Fwoosh. Smoke curled from his nostrils before he exhaled a hazy plume. Click. ‘It’d be an elephant stomping a fly. Might be irritating, but easier to just let it die on its own.’
          ‘We’re only signed for one more day. Have some patience.’
          Zee rolled the cigarette between his fingers, staring at the darkened prefab. His attention wandered down the street, sliding from mirror-image house to mirror-image house before settling on a princess pink cottage with a light glowing from the attic window. He smiled for the first time all night.
          ‘Screw patience; I’m going to kill something.’ 

7.03.2012

Day 2

PROMPT
that creepy, boarded up house on the corner is actually a portal to Heaven--but why are the angels coming and going late at night?




‘I just don’t like it.’
          Henry turned the pages of his paper. The house at the end of the street was a bone of contention with the Housing Committee, what with the death of a long-forgotten somesuch making it a historical landmark, and the Preservation Society deciding not to touch it with a ten foot pole. As long as they’d been on the street, no one had ever lived there. ‘Evie, love, come away from the window.’
          ‘It’s not right,’ Evie said. Henry swore the lace curtain was permanently bent from all her years of peeking at the neighbours. ‘The way they get on at all hours. It’s not right at all.’
          ‘Just leave it, Evie. They’ll be gone by morning. Oh, they’ve opened that new skate park on the weekend.’  Meanwhile a young boy nearly died from an adder bite and fishing changes threatened to impact local industry.
          ‘Oh, sod your bloody skate park,’ Evie said. ‘We’ve got hooligans practically camped out on our doorstep!’
          ‘They’re just kids having some fun.’ He turned another page and tried to remember when he started to care what the big draw at the village fête would be this year or how to grow five-star petunias. ‘It wasn’t too long ago them’s were us, you know.’ Come to think of it, when did growing petunias become something he did? He didn’t even like petunias.
          ‘We were never like that,’ Evie said. ‘Look at them. Just disgraceful is what it is.’
          ‘Come away now, Evie. Miss Marple’s on the telly.’

Evie snored. She’d never admit it, and Henry would never tell – it just wouldn’t do for a lady to snore. But for 58 years, Henry had lain awake listening to the soft rumble through her nasal passages before he dropped off to sleep.
          Tonight, this wasn’t happening.
          He eased himself out of bed, careful not to disturb Evie – not nearly as easy a feat as he remembered it being – and shuffled down the hallway to the family bathroom. Evie nagged him all the time about using the en suite but between all the rose petals, tulle and chiffon he always felt like he was taking a piss in a dress shop.
          He stopped at the kids’ room just like every night. Neither one had slept under their roof in thirty years, but he never seemed to shake the habit. Evie kept up with their daughter; they had things in common. Wifing. Mothering.
He kept meaning to phone Sam, but he could never remember what name to use, especially if that artsy-type answered, the one who went by something that reminded Henry of glam rock bands.
          Lights flashed through the bedroom window from the street. Soft and strobey, like those parties the kids liked to sneak off to. He’d had to pick Sam up at one at 3 AM back when… Well. Back When.
          ‘Hmf.’ He took himself off to the toilet, perusing the collection of brightly-coloured plastic animals lining the safety-sealed tub. Evie had gotten them when Mary’d had her first, imagining this would suddenly make their house a haven for grandchildren.
          It hadn’t.
          He let himself linger on the way back. The lights were still going, but there was no tell-tale thwumpathump of bass to accompany it. Evie’s hooligans, in fact, for all their lurking about after dark, were quite considerate of their neighbours when it came to noise levels.
          Those parties Sam went to always looked like fun.

The lights came from inside the house, peeking through boarded up windows and loose slats. It built up in pulses, throbbing brighter and brighter until it would drop off, leaving the street in darkness. Just after it went out, more of Evie’s hooligans would come out. Sometimes a few would go in just before. A handful scattered around the decrepit porch, unbothered by the comings and goings of their friends.
          Standing at the end of the footpath in his dressing gown in the middle of the night, they seemed a lot less innocent than they had from the upstairs window.  Still, he’d already come this far, hadn’t he?
          A few of them looked at him as he came up to the porch. Must be family, he thought, with how similar they all looked. Nicer than those kids who’d just hang about in the city. Evie’s hooligans all had that fresh-faced, well-bred look that Henry associated with The Right Kind of People. He wondered if their parents knew what they were up to.
          One of them stepped forward and leaned on the wobbly railing. She – at least Henry thought it was a she; it was so hard to tell these days – had long, pretty blonde hair and a sweet smile. ‘I think you got turned around there, hon,’ she said.
          A group of three passed Henry and went through the front door. The light pulses started up, and this time Henry noticed a faint hum he hadn’t heard from across the street.
          ‘What’re you doing in there?’
          The girl smiled again. ‘Oh, I can’t tell you that. You kinda have to see it to believe it.’
          ‘Hum.’ Henry liked the way she talked. There was something relaxing about it. ‘Can I look then?’
          She glanced at the door. ‘I dunno,’ she said. ‘It’s the kinda trip you probably won’t come back from.’
          ‘Ah.’ That was a drug thing, Henry thought. He was pretty sure Sam had said it once. ‘I’d like to see, if you don’t mind.’
          ‘You sure?’
          Henry nodded.
          She stood up and held out her hand, leading him up the steps. ‘Well, alright then. The man knows what he wants.’
          On the other side of the door, the light kept building and building, and now Henry could hear separate chords instead of just humming.
          She positioned him in front of the door with her hands on his shoulders. ‘You ready?’
          ‘What do I do?’
          ‘Just walk through the door, hon,’ she said. ‘It’s heaven.’