momebie

“It’s not what I expected,” David said. He dangled one of his feet over the edge, kicking gravel as he did so, causing it to disappear soundlessly into the abyss below.

Rene pulled his right hand from his pocket and used it shield his eyes from the way the mid-afternoon sun was reflecting off the beiges and blues and reds of the stone canyon walls sprawling out in front of them. “It’s big. Huge. Grand, even. Goes on for fucking ever. What did you expect?”

“I just expected it to look more real. There’s no depth to it. It might as well be a backdrop.”

“There’s depth to it. Maybe you’re just ill-equipped to see it.”

“You’re honestly telling me that your eye can perceive where all of those walls and ridges and towers stand in relation to one another.”

“I’m good with walls.” Rene shrugged.

David pulled his foot back to solid ground and teetered for a moment, shooting his arms up and out to maintain balance. Rene watched him out of the corner of his eye, just in case it looked like he might go in. Not that it wouldn’t serve him right, the miserable idiot.

Rene had been perfectly happily unhappy in Denver. He’d hunkered down into settling for a quiet, unassuming life with no passion, just like everyone else he knew. He had beat back hope and hidden his journals. He’d let his poetry turn into shopping lists of benign compliments. He challenged no one and nothing and he was going to live a good long life because of it if his liver didn’t give out first.

Then David rode into town on his loud motorcycle with his loud mouth and his bright, vivid photographs of parts of the world Rene had always wanted to see and ruined everything. Rene might never forgive him for that. It was yet to be seen. The most important thing, the most painful thing, was that Rene was writing again. With my pictures and your words, we could rule the world, David would say. The idea of that scared the shit out of Rene.

And now here they were with three forty ounce bottles of beer, two pairs of jeans, and jacket between them. Here they were fighting for the keys to the car and over who got to choose the radio station on the hour. Here they were unshaven and hungry and tired, but still able to give sun bright smiles to pretty blondes at gas stations. The road fell away behind them and life rolled on and on and on.

Rene looked into the Grand Canyon and strained to see the floor of it as if he was down there. What would it look like, if he honed in on the smallest part of something so vast? It was the question he asked himself before he sat down to write anything. Seeing so much of the states was ruining that precision, making it harder to focus. How did you describe one beautiful thing when everything was beautiful?

David clapped him hard on the back of his neck and knocked him off balance. He reached and grabbed the tail of David’s leather jacket, trying not to fall in. “What are you thinking?” David said.

“Nothing. Impossible to think with you around.”

“So you say.” David slid his arm around Rene’s shoulder and knocked their heads together. “Isn’t it more than you’d ever hoped for?”

“I had hoped for nothing, so yes.”

“You’re so young to be so dead inside,” David said lightly.

“Not dead, quietly alive. Hope kills, David. Hope makes the fall ten times worse.”

“How’s hope treating you now?”

Rene lifted his eyes, searched the horizon for another sign of life--a bird or a mountain goat or a fat little squirrel. Something that would make him feel less like they weren’t the only two people in the world. If that feeling welled up inside of him and was knocked down, god only knew what would happen. Maybe he’d write great, miserable works of literature. David would be so proud to have spawned them too, regardless of the pain involved.

“The same way she always does,” Rene said.

“The mindfuck then.”

“The mindfuck.”

David squeezed Rene’s shoulder and pulled away. Rene could hear the crunch of David’s boots against the gravel and dry desert ground as he walked back to the car. If there was a more addictive drug than hope, Rene didn’t want to find it. As it was, the fall still might kill him.

This post was written in response to therealljidol Exhibit A, Week Five Topic: This is your brain on.... Concrit and comments are welcome.

Those of you who have been around these parts awhile might know this story, but they might not know it in quite this way.

It was after dark when my classmates and I trickled into the warm fall night, laughing and talking loudly, chasing each other around and feeling an itch to do something brisk and drastic. It was partially because we were teenagers and burrowed deep in that mythic age of boundless energy and waking nights. It was also because we had just spent three hours sitting on the floor of a doctor's den, crafting flowers out of small pink and white bin liners. In the month we'd been working on our float for the homecoming parade we'd made close to 700 trash bag flowers and we needed at least 500 more. Our float won the spirit vote every year and this year was going to be no exception. I still remember the fake vanilla smell and the dryness of my fingertips.

We were all a little disappointed too, to tell the truth. Every homecoming there was a war between the senior class and the junior class and we had been prepared for junior operatives to come by and try to take us unawares. We had eggs and paintball guns and water cannons at the ready, but we were left undisturbed. So it was with extra nervousness that I made small talk with the boy I liked as we headed to our vehicles.

"Sucks that nothing happened," he said.

"I know," I said.

His friend offered no comment, hanging back with his hands in his pockets.

We stopped between my car and his truck, standing safe in the warm yellow glow of a phosphorous street lamp as our friends drove away, gazing out into the darkness surrounding the house rather than make eye contact. "Hey," he said. "Do you wanna do something?"

"Yeah."

"How about a high speed car chase?"

I think I'd meant to make an excuse, and I remember feeling like my knees were going to buckle. Still, something about the straight way his mouth was set and the light in his eyes confused my response. "Yes, I'm in."

He played it cool then, getting into his truck and letting his friend in the passenger side. I was shaking so hard at that point that I fumbled extra long with my keys and worried that they'd lose me off the bat. I was later told that he was shaking too and saying 'I didn't expect her to say yes' over and over to his friend. We all do stupid things when we're young.

We managed to make it out of the subdivision before we got too wild, but five minutes later I was flying down the beach road, pushing my 10 year old Honda to 95 miles per hour in a 35 mile per hour zone, flying past tourists in slow, lumbering sedans with northern plates. I was still shaking, but now with exhilaration. The island where I grew up isn't a big place. It's about five miles by twelve miles, and we only actually drove over about a quarter of it in our adventure, staying off the two busiest roads and sticking to dark clusters of neighborhoods on the north end. The streets were well-worn grooves to us by this time, even though we hadn't been driving for more than a couple years. We merely followed the paths we knew by heart and trusted the stagnant nature of the place to keep us safe.

When you're eighteen you're invincible, so even as my car slid sideways into a sandy lot in an empty subdivision newly under construction, I didn't once think about hitting someone or something. I didn't stop to consider how much a speeding ticket would cost if I was gunned pushing 100 miles per hour on surface streets. I only thought about my steering wheel and the Nine Inch Nails blaring in my tinny, stock speakers and the traction of my tires and keeping up. We probably drove around this way for close to half an hour, but it was only that slide that nearly made me lose him.

He finally stopped his truck at the top of the Eighteenth Street hill and got out. It's the highest point on the island at a staggering 17 feet above sea level. When I had parked and joined him in the middle of the street we were literally standing at the top of our small world. It was then that the night fell in on me. I hadn't noticed any of it before, too distracted by his presence and my itch. It was clear out. There were stars upon stars above us. The air was warm and wet, like it usually is in Florida in September, and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Yes, I'll blame that on the air.

"I need to take my friend home," he said. "But good try."

"Thanks," I replied, trying to be cool about what I'd just done, as if I often spent my week nights doing stupid things with stupid boys. I didn't want to show my hand. I didn't want to be seen as excitable or overeager, even though he probably knew pretty well by then that I was both of those things. "I'll see you at school then?"

"Yeah," he said. And we parted ways. I spent a good amount of time after that aimlessly driving around the island and trying to calm my nerves enough to go home.

The funniest part of this story, the part worn smooth from telling, is that on my way home I got pulled over and given a warning for 'reckless driving'. It happened when I flipped my turn indicator and accidentally rolled my hand along the arm, briefly turning on my brights. I turned them off quickly, but was signaled over by a cop I hadn't even seen who thought I was warning other people that he was there. A neat trick, considering it was close to midnight and there was no one else on the road. I gladly took it though, and laughed giddily on my way back to my parents' house. Reckless, I thought, if only he'd seen me just minutes before.

So that's the part of the story I tell, but it's not the part that's the most important. The part that's the most important is that I said yes impulsively to something I knew I shouldn't do, something dangerous and stupid, and it changed my life. If only I could remember that more often as I grow. It would keep me from stagnating like home.


This post was written in response to therealljidol Exhibit A, Week Three Topic: Shenanigans. Concrit and comments are welcome.

Am I crazy? Indubitably. There, this is going to be the easiest prompt of the whole competition!

I feel that, without a doubt, I am most certainly a crazy person. This opinion of myself though, is often met with resistance by the people around me. (As are many of my opinions about myself, such as the ones pertaining to my looks or my social skills or which Hogwarts house I'm in, but that's a whole other post.) Crazy is, it seems, not as crazy does. Instead, crazy is as crazy is perceived, and everyone's measure is different. So what is it that makes me crazy and why is it that we can't agree on a set identifier?

The term crazy gets a bad rap in the current online social community, for good reason. It's a dismissive catch-all term that lacks as much in precision as it does in empathy. What we call crazy are the thoughts and behaviors in others which we don't understand. The people on Hoarders, for instance, or the two women who are married to the Berlin wall. They are crazy. There is something identifiably deviant about these people when measured against the accepted social markers. They become too attached to things we don't think a person should be attached to, for starters.

This is where crazy gets slippery, because often those people don't think that they're crazy. It feels right to them to create these attachments. It would almost be crazier to deny the heart what it wants, which I think is a sentiment a lot of us can agree with when it's targeted toward other people or really nice shoes. Their neurological makeup does not understand why a person shouldn't fall in love with the Berlin wall, it merely does.

This line of thinking brings us back around to me and my brain, which feels guilty and awkward and deviant for the things that happen in it all of the time. Sunday I had a panic attack over the smell of a stranger's cologne. It triggered a negative response to a specific memory and my body reacted physically as if it was still in that situation. That made me feel crazy. It was a reaction which I mentally identified as being deviant when related to my current physical state of safety. I mean, other people don't stop breathing as they're leaving movie theaters. The Last Stand wasn't good, but it wasn't so bad it robbed me of life.

When I voiced concern over my reaction in relation to my mental state, several people who know me assured me that I wasn't crazy, that I'm still not, because they could identify with my reaction. It wasn't deviant. I'm not crazy because they understand me, and they're not crazy. This attitude, of course, does not take into account my personal discomfort with my own mind, which is really what makes most of us feel crazy when we do.

What about the people then who don't feel uncomfortable with who they are, but who make us uncomfortable? Much like in Catch-22, if you can identify that you might be insane, then you are sane enough to hide it and perform your duties. You think you're crazy, so you can't possible be crazy. Congratulations! But that is little comfort to the people still fighting the battles they disagree with and who want nothing more than to escape from them.

So, am I crazy? I still think so. I want to believe it's unnatural to feel at odds with the simple facts of who you are on a daily basis, but the truth is it's not. This pervasive cultural discomfort makes finding a corroborating diagnosis of insanity difficult, regardless of your symptoms. Unless you fall in love with the Berlin wall, in which case, keep that nonsense over there, thanks.


This post was written in response to therealljidol Exhibit A, Week One Topic: Am I Crazy? Concrit and comments are welcome.

This is my bid to play in LJ Idol: Exhibit A.


I have not deserted you all, by the by. I've just been busy and confused and haven't known what to say. A real post about writing and possibly some fic to follow later this evening.

Original fiction.
~1500 words.
The Steampunk-verse.
For theemdash.


1.

“Do you think I made the appropriate impression?” William fiddled with the lace at the end of his sleeve and looked about the crowded parlor room, scanning it to find Jon Henley. He’d wanted to please him. It was important to William to become someone important, which he fully believed Jon could do for him.

“I think you made an impression,” Edmund said.

He was rather brazenly wearing a smug grin that William felt was definitely inappropriate for the occasion. Then again, he admittedly didn’t quite know what was appropriate for the occasion, hence the question. Sometimes he hated everyone he knew.

“Smooth,” Nate said. He donned his hat and started patting about the lapels of his jacket, searching for his cigarette case. “Not quite as…worldly as you could have been, though.”

“Worldly?”

“I’ve found, in my dealings about the Opera house, that it is polite to kiss the knuckles of your betters when you greet them.” He found the cigarette case and pulled one out, tapping the tip of it gently on the smooth silver back absentmindedly. “Did you kiss him, Mr. Claxton?”

Edmund choked around a laugh and William felt his ears going red. The silk lining of his jacket suddenly felt as constricting as any male corset. “He’s not my type,” William said.

“It’s hardly about types, my good man,” Nate said. “And I’m off.” William watched him disappear into the crowd.

Edmund crowded in next to him and draped his arm across William’s shoulders. “I’ll buy you a whole bottle of that disgusting Sarmillian plum wine you like so much if you do it.”

“Once a man has tried to kill you with a priceless vase, it’s a little late for first impressions,” William said.

“Don’t you think it’s time we left for the evening?”

William looked at Edmund, who was still carefully composed and smug. “Sod it,” William said. He stalked through the parlor and out into the foyer, leaving Edmund behind. When he finally found Jon Henley the man was surrounded by other people. William stood at the edge of the group for a moment, composing himself. He then did something he had told himself he would never do and let a stereotype get the better of him. He flounced into the center of the circle, letting his cane lead the way.

“Mr. Claxton,” Jon said, eyebrow raised.

“Mr. Henley,” William said. He reached out and grasped at Jon’s naked hand, holding it firmly in his gloved fingers. “It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance this evening. I look forward our next meeting.” And there, in front of everyone, William brought Jon’s fingers to his lips and gave them a quick, dry kiss. Then, without looking up into Jon’s face again, he bowed his way out of the circle and shot for the door.

“Dandies,” he heard Jon say behind him, and the crowd laughed: quietly, politely, conspiratorially.

“I’d say you’ve left an impression now,” Edmund said, clapping his hand down on William’s shaking shoulder and wheeling him off the porch and down to where their horses were stabled.

“I think,” William said carefully, “that if I work for him, I’m going to become someone different than who I mean to be.”

2.

It had been a whirlwind six months, working for Jon Henley as one of his Architects. William learned more than he thought there was to know about the way politics worked and how to get people to do the things he wanted. Edmund was still the deadliest blade in their group, but William had become the most graceful, and as such had made himself as useful to Mr. Henley as he imagined he could be.

And he was the most graceful. He prided himself in being carefully put together at all times. He liked the way Jon looked at him when he first entered the room. He felt petted and approved of whenever Jon would give him one of his slight nods. “Thank you,” he assumed it to mean. “You’re perfect.”

The fact that that woman had joined the group did not make things different. Her golden hair and her demure lips and the swell of her hips were nothing when compared to the sword William kept in his cane. Feminine wiles did not a conspirator make. So why did Jon now nod in her direction when she entered the room. As if she’d done more than sleep with Nate Ayre and frustrate that Dawes boy. Not that he couldn’t appreciate anything that frustrated Derek Dawes. But still….

William needed to do something drastic. He needed to get himself noticed again. And since carving her heart out and delivering it to Jon with the evening report seemed a little drastic, he settled on something a little more subtle.

“Mr. Claxton,” Jon said, as William entered the main drawing room on the airship. Jon was already seated, preparing for the unmooring that he had never really gotten used to.

William noted the distinct lack of an appreciative nod and straightened up. “Mr. Henley,” he said, stepping forward. He leaned in and grasped Jon’s forearm, pulling him forward in his chair. Then he swooped down and left a small kiss on Jon’s cheek.

Jon froze. William smiled and leaned back, releasing his grip on Jon’s forearm. There was a cough at the door and William turned, taking a step to the side, just in time to see Tom Bridgman back out of the room with a tip of his hat. William smiled at him. After all, there was nothing unusual happening, just a guard dog greeting his master in the appropriate manner.

The silence between them evaporated as the airship’s engines were cranked and prepared for takeoff. William watched as Jon slid back in his seat and gripped hard at the arms of his chair. “The report, Mr. Claxton,” he said in a tight voice.

3.

They were drunk. Edmund disgracefully so, but William wasn’t far behind him. Technically they didn’t have nights off. The job of revolutionary wasn’t one that came with an office or routine, so in general it suited them to be as sharp as they could whenever possible. Some nights though, some nights you just needed to let your hair down.

The necklace at William’s throat was spinning, receiving a message. “You,” he said, pulling at the waist of the woman closest to Edmund. She giggled and fell back into him. He gave her his widest, most charming smile and said “do you have a looking glass on you, my dear?”

“You’re still the prettiest in the land, Will,” Edmund crowed, and pinched the breast of the girl in his lap. She shrieked compliantly.

“No,” William said. “I believe it’s the boss.”

“Ah, that familiar stirring in your heart, then?”

“Almost surely,” William said. The girl handed her mirror over and William took it over to the fire. He unbuttoned his shirt down to his stomach and pulled it and the lapel of his jacket aside, holding the mirror up so that he could clearly see his left collar bone. There they were, the familiar raised bumps on his chest in the code that only the Architects knew. Morse code for the devil himself. “I believe we’re being summoned,” he said.

“Let the bastard bring his arse down here where it’s warm and comfortable,” Edmund said.

“The bastard shouldn’t have to bring his arse anywhere.”

William turned around quickly, almost tripping over his heel. “Mr. Henley,” he said. “Jon.”

“Has this fine young man come to join the party?” said the girl in Edmund’s lap.

“I’ve come to join nothing. You are needed, Wilson,” he said to Edmund. “If you’re finished polishing your saber you can clean yourself up and meet Mr. Bridgman outside.”

Edmund frowned and stood, carefully pushing the girl from his lap. She gave a small pout, but he tapped the end of her nose with his finger and spared her a smile. “I’ll be back for you,” he said. To Jon he said, “you could use a little polish yourself, careful you don’t tarnish.” Then he stomped from the room.

Jon stared at William expectantly. Do something, William thought. You have an audience. What would get the greatest reaction?

“What a pleasure this is,” William said. He tripped forward toward Jon as foppishly as he could manage in his already disoriented state. “You are always welcome in our home.” With that William clasped Jon’s neck in both of his hands and dragged him bodily forward, laying a wet, welcoming kiss on Jon’s lips.

The girls clapped and cheered. Jon stood very, very still as William let him go and stepped back, grinning for all the world like a street mutt that had just found a bone.

“You forget your place, Mr. Claxton. And you do it often.”

William let his lips fall, drawing himself in and trying to look more serious. “You forget that you wouldn’t have your place if I knew mine.”


This bit of fiction was written for the Second Chance Topic: No Man Is a Hero to His Valet at therealljidol. I realize this is kind of ridiculous, even for me, so you know, let me know if you were amused. As always, all comments and questions are welcome.

Original fiction.
~1500 words.

This entry follows directly after this post. Though, if you missed it, you might need some of the information from this interlude.

. . .


“There is something I do want to know, if we're done with the questions,” Mattie said.

The Or across the table put down her pen and crossed her hands over the pad, blocking Mattie's vision of the words that were written there. “Yes?”

“Who are you?”

“What do you mean? I'm Or.”

Mattie shook her head. “No, who are you really? Because if you were Or I'd be able to see your halo. Unless you people have learned how to hide parts of your souls along everything else you've fabricated.”

The Or looked down at her hands and smiled. “Why didn't you tell your male friend there was something wrong? Don't you want him here to save you?”

( Do I need saving? )


This post was written for Topic 24: Bats in the Belfry at therealljidol. Please let me know what you think. All comments and questions are welcome.

Original fiction.
~1700 words.
This week on LJ Idol is another intersection. This fiction entry has been written to correspond with the non-fiction entry that comedychick has written. You can read hers here. I highly recommend that you do.

This story is another installment of the ongoing serial. It follows directly after the last LJ Idol post.

. . .

They didn't have to cover a lot of distance to get back to the headquarters, but Mattie had never been on a motorcycle before so the trip felt like it lasted for ages. The wind fingered wildly through her hair and coarsely brushed her exposed skin. She shivered and clutched tighter to Chet, burying her cheek into his back and closing her eyes. The sound buffeted around her and she let the landscape create itself in her mind. It was there, somewhere between flying and fainting, that she realized that this little trip into someone else's life could get her killed. She found that, when she really thought about it, this wasn't a possibility that scared her.

( Mattie had never given a thought to the notion that she'd live even this long. )


This continuation of ridiculous fiction was written for Topic 22: Playing the Odds at therealljidol. All comments and questions are welcome.

Oh hey! I didn't give up! I owe Em and Stevie cookies for telling me not to. It seriously came easier than I thought it would. This LJ Idol entry follows immediately after the last one.

Original fiction.
~1000 words.


Mattie helped Maynard climb into the back of the cab as Or pre-paid the driver and told him where to take them. “Are you sure you don't want us to take you to the hospital?” Mattie whispered.

Maynard shook his head. “This is the most exciting thing I've ever been a part of. You think I'm going to let you run off with that mysterious woman and have all the fun?”

“I'm sending you to a safe house outside the border of this node,” Or said, bending over and sticking her head into the back of the cab. “Hopefully our shooter is just after me for the time being and you can play clueless. If you're accosted tell them that I broke in, that I held a gun to your head, anything.”

Mattie nodded. “Yeah, we'll do that.”

Or stood for an extra several moments and looked at Mattie. She was hanging halfway out of the back of the cab in a way that seemed incredibly uncomfortable. Mattie found herself shifting forward towards Or, ever so slightly.

“Or,” Maynard said.

She tilted her head and squinted. “Yeah, sorry. I'm going. I'll meet up with you in a couple of hours. Do not leave the safe house under any circumstances.” She slammed the door and stepped up onto the curb. The cab pulled away.

Mattie watched the apartment blocks and houses as they went by. She thought about how she'd never really noticed them before, even though she'd looked at them all hundreds of times in her daily comings and goings. They suddenly seemed prominent, as if they were asserting their will onto the landscape. Mattie felt like they were trying to teach her something.

The cabby turned the radio on and it began playing an old Jazz standard. Someone's girl had done 'em wrong. She was the direct cause of his affair with the bottle. “Is there anything that women don't get blamed for?” Mattie asked.

Maynard scratched his chin and pretended to be confused. “I'm sure I've never blamed a woman for anything.”

“Except for when I dumped the coffee all over the floor.”

“I didn't blame you for that. Though, I suppose I should have blamed Or, which would have been about the same, all things considered. It was her that startled you that night, wasn't it?”

Mattie stubbornly stared away from him and didn't acknowledge the comment.

“You think she knows?”

“I think I could I could probably write a set of encyclopedias on the things she knows that I don't.”

“That's part of the attraction, isn't it?”

Mattie shook her head. “Not really.” Because it wasn't. Her infatuation had started so long ago that it wasn't possible for the two things to be related. Not in a way that made sense, anyway. Then as an after thought she said, “you won't tell anyone, will you?”

“You mean, will I rat you out to the people who apparently just shot me? No, that's not something you need to worry about. Not even if I could see your halo.” He squeezed her elbow and she smiled at her reflection in the side window.

The cab pulled to a stop outside of a warehouse building. Mattie looked at the cabby, confused. “This isn't outside the node.”

The cabby gripped the steering wheel and stared forward. “This is your stop, young lady,” he said.

There was a knock on her window and when Mattie turned she was staring down the barrel of a small handgun. It had an infinity symbol at the tip of it. She felt Maynard shift away behind her.

“Get on out now, girly,” the man behind the gun said. “I think you've got some things to tell us.”

“I don't have anything to tell you!” She locked the door. The man cocked the hammer.

“The thing is, precious, I think you do. But I'm not above shooting you or your boyfriend. Now don't let's be silly. Get out of the cab!”

Mattie heard someone choke and turned her head to see Maynard hovering off of the back seat, his arm wrapped around the cabby's throat. “Drive!” he shouted. “Drive now or I will kill you, and it won't matter how much money you've been paid!” The cab lurched forward and the man with the gun let out two shots. One of which shattered the back window.

Maynard was thrown back against his seat and the cabby leaned forward into his steering wheel. “You touch me again and I'll have your balls,” he seethed. “I don't owe you nothin'.”

“No,” said Mattie, “we owe you. Now take us where you were supposed to.” She was thrown into the door of the cab as it took a sharp left turn. When she pulled herself back upright she could see another car gaining on them from behind.

“We're only a short way off from the bridge!” Maynard shouted. “We'll never get through clearance looking like we're evading the authorities though.”

The cabby took another sharp corner and launched Mattie into Maynard's side. Maynard yelped as her elbow hit his wound. “Stop,” she said. “Stop!”

The cab skidded to a halt at a red light. They were in the outskirts of the node. There were few buildings to hide in, but more wooded park area to get lost in.

“I can run,” Maynard said, guessing at what she was going to ask.

“Good,” she said. “We're going to have to.” Mattie scrambled with the lock on the door before she finally got it to pop up. She launched herself out of the cab just as the car following them came around the corner. It didn't have enough time to stop. Maynard was on her heels. There was a screech of tires and the crumpling, mangling sound of steel collapsing on itself. Without looking back, Mattie ran for the tree line. Her lungs started to burn as she gulped for air.


This continuation of ridiculous fiction was written for Topic 29: Whisper at therealljidol. All comments and questions are welcome.

Original fiction.
~1100 words.

For those of you following along, I've finally named The Waiter. We're calling him Maynard. This follows closely after my last LJ Idol entry, which can be found here.

* * *

Maynard ran his finger across Mattie's collarbone, pausing over the small, round tattoo just below it. The touch tickled. She squirmed, pulling away slightly, and he took it as an invitation. His lips followed the line as his fingers pushed the strap of her bra down her shoulder. Mattie wasn't sure what she was feeling, but none of those feelings were sexy. Or needed. Or wanted. She just kept thinking about Or and her heavily lidded eyes and light skin.

“Mayn,” she said, and placed a hand flat against his chest.

Maynard stopped and pulled back. He propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at her. One of his fingers traced its way down her side, as if he was afraid to let her go. “Yeah?”

“I'm sorry, I just.”

“No, it's fine. It's fine.” He leaned in and kissed her on the nose. “I know I don't glow for you. I'm just trying to be the perfect distraction.” He nipped at her chin and she laughed, pushing him over as she sat up.

“It's not like I glow for you either.” She straightened her bra strap and sighed. “What are we doing?”

“Killing time,” he said. “Slow and easy.”

“Just the way it was meant to die,” she said.

“Is there something eating at you, Mattie my girl? You seem farther away this evening.”

“Nothing.” She sighed and flopped back on her pillow. “Everything. You weren't far off when you asked if I'd seen a ghost. I have. I've been seeing it for a week now, here and there. It won't leave me be.”

“Is there anything for it?”

“Not really. I've been...censoring myself since I was very young. Things happen sometimes that I don't know how to deal with, so I lose them. I make the decision to cast them to sea so I'm not weighed down by them.”

“Except they're never really gone, are they?”

“No, not really. I pretend I'm fine for long periods of time, until something floats to the surface and reminds me of who I used to be.”

“That sounds lonely,” he said.

“Sometimes loneliness is just a part of surviving.”

Maynard opened his mouth to answer, but anything he might have said was drowned out by a pounding on the door. “What the hell?” he said finally.

Mattie shrugged and tumbled out of bed, finding her balance as she went. There was more pounding as she made her way through the kitchen. “All right already!” She opened the door with the chain on, giving her two inches of space to investigate.

Or was on the other side. She placed her face right against the crack. “Let me in,” she said. “You have to let me in.”

Mattie didn't think she had to do anything, but Or seemed to be legitimately startled, which threw her. She closed the door, undid the chain, and then opened it again. Or rushed in and slammed the door shut behind her, redoing the chain and throwing the deadbolt.

When Mattie turned around Maynard was in the living room. “What is going on here?”

Or turned to look at him. Mattie was suddenly aware that neither of them was wearing very much. Or raised an eyebrow, but she didn't bring attention to what she may have interrupted. Instead she pulled off her red gloves and shucked her black pea coat, dropping her things onto Mattie's couch. “I'm sorry for the interruption, but I seem to have gotten into a spot of trouble.”

“Okay,” Maynard said slowly. He ran his hand through his hair and and looked helplessly at Mattie for a moment before returning to the bedroom.

Mattie stood in the center of the living room, her arms wrapped around her waist, and waited for an explanation. Or huddled on the edge of the the couch and looked Mattie up and down. The corner of her mouth turned up and Mattie suddenly felt warm.

Maynard returned then, and chucked a shirt at Mattie. “Right,” he said. “Who are you, and what's this about?”

Or waited until Mattie was clothed again before answering. “I'm being tracked,” she said.

“Tracked? You mean followed.”

“No, tracked. Like an animal. I'm sure they mean to kill me eventually as well.”

“What the hell,” Mattie said, echoing Maynard. “What have you done?”

“I haven't done anything, yet. But those fuckers are going to get theirs when I get to the bottom of all of this.”

“The bottom of what?” Maynard flipped his hand in Or's direction. “Mattie, what is going on?”

“I don't know,” she said. Because she didn't. To Or she said, “how did you find my apartment?”

“The same way I find everything. Research, Mattie, research. Please keep up, because I don't want to die tonight.”

“No one is going to die here,” Maynard said. “I'm going to turn the light on. All of us standing here in the dark is ridiculous.”

“No!” Or leaped up from the couch and grabbed his wrist. “No, don't. I don't want you to draw any attention here. Not until I can find out who it is exactly that I'm dealing with. Does either of you have a computer?”

“Yeah,” Mattie said. “In here.” She led Or through to the bedroom and turned on the old desktop machine. “I barely use the thing.”

Or sat down in the desk chair and then looked back at Mattie over her shoulder. “I find that hard to believe,” she said.

“Why?”

“Why do you have one of the Diviner's Marks tattooed on your chest?”

“That's not—”

“It most definitely is my business. Especially now that they're trying to kill me.”

"Why would the Diviner's be trying to kill you?"

Instead of answering Or slapped the side of the computer, which was being slow to start. “Come on!”

Out in the living room Mattie heard glass break. “What the hell?” she said again, her voice tighter in her throat this time. It seemed to be the only response she could muster to the mad alternate universe she'd just been dropped in. Before she could make it out of the room Maynard trundled in and collapsed against her. She swayed under his weight. It took a moment for the wetness between them to register. His shirt was wet. She pushed him away and saw that there was a dark, rapidly growing stain on the front of his shirt.

When she looked down she saw that the front of her shirt was now wet as well. The stain looked dark purple in the bluish glow from the computer screen. Maynard stumbled backwards onto the bed and passed out.

Mattie screamed.


This bit of fiction was written for Topic 18: Jetsam at therealljidol. Thank you to paragraphs for helping me name The Waiter. All comments and questions are welcome.

Original Fiction.
~1,500 words.
Because the one from last week got fairly good reviews and people asked for more. It just gets weirder the further I go, kids. I hope it's still interesting to you.


The next time Mattie saw the halo she was sitting in the back pew of the Diviner's House watching the Choral Cantata of Hours. The Cantata of Hours was based loosely on the one original Diviner, who had found his way across the ridges of a great canyon in total darkness without falling over the edge. It was said that he had been blessed by the land itself with the ability to feel out the core of the earth. They said that he vibrated, the closer he got to it. Mattie didn't know how she felt about the mythology, but she was certain that she had felt a vibrating like that at times in her life before.

As she opened her eyes after the Diviner's Benediction, she saw a low, wavering glow out the corner of her vision. Mattie turned her head. It was the woman.

Mattie couldn't think of the woman as anything but her. She was the woman she'd seen the other day, but at the same time, she was also the girl Mattie had been so smitten with those fifteen years ago. Mattie couldn't reconcile these two people in her mind. Instead of trying, she turned back to the choir and closed her eyes again, nodding her head slowly in time.

* * *

( The Old Man was sitting outside of the Diviner's House and Mattie hung back, not sure if she should risk entering. )

This strange little continuation of last week's bit of fiction was written for Topic 16: Open Topic at therealljidol. Much thanks goes to kyasuriin for making me think entirely too hard at 1 am. ♥ All comments and questions are welcome.