fiction

Wow, it has been a REALLY long time. After a very long dry spell of no writing, I've finally decided to put down a story that has been floating around in my head for a couple years. It is most definitely not my best work, so any sort of feedback would be appreciated, but it is very good to be writing again. This is the first page. If people like it/I finish it (a rare thing, but I have hope), I'll be putting up the rest!

Warning: Some mature topics/language (not in this one, really, but later especially)

_____

The first time I saw Raquel Davis she was nothing more than a flawless honey-colored ponytail bouncing in front of me as we ran around the cross country track. I was duly impressed, both by the ponytail and by the tiny pair of shorts she managed to pull of with confidence. I myself lacked the confidence and the know-how to pull off either; instead, my shorts were adequate length, and my ponytails drooped down the back of my neck, pieces of them flying out around my ears. Read more »

Big Picture South Burlington

           I remember my grandmother telling me stories of the surface. When I was younger, without my own children, I would sit by her side watching the fish swim pass my biofield helmet, and listen to her talk for hours.
            She told me that mother Earth had begun heating, and that it was irreversible. I remember not understanding why that was. It didn’t make sense that my ancestors were incapable of reversing their mistakes, if they could create such wonderful technology. She explained to me that Homo sapiens had damaged our planet to the point of no return, because they were selfish, and had disconnected themselves from nature.
            When my generation came along the title of "human" began to mean different things then it once did. I remember looking at her toes and wondering if sometimes she felt unnatural down here. She belonged to the land and I, one of the first homo ichthyoid’s, belonged to the sea. My toes were webbed to match my hands. At times I wished for gills, and other times I thought about cutting my webbing's.  Read more »

“Hurry up, will you, we’re going to get caught.” A low voice hissed from behind me as my fingers fumbled with the lock. It’s very hard to concentrate when four people are breathing down your neck. My hands were sweaty as, clumsily, I stuck the paperclip in the lock, and it opened with a faint but satisfying click. Bruce, the boy who had asked me to do this ,shoved past me, making me fall to the ground. He pushed open the door. The three boys behind followed him into the small room. Wheeling around, Bruce turned to the boy on his left, the one who had hurried me before.
      “ You said it was in here, Aiden!” Bruce said angrily
       “ It was when I was here before, and anyway, I still say it’s too risky. Let’s just get out of here while we can.” Aiden answered, a hint of fear flickering in his eyes.
From my place on the ground, I could hear everything they said, but that didn’t help me in understanding them. I had no idea what they were talking about. Read more »

  Read more »

“Ohhh god.....” Sighed Steven, collapsing down into bed.

Stevens girlfriend cuddles up from behind him and asked the mandatory, “Rough day at the clinic?”

“Ha, that’s one way to put it.”

“Is it the stress getting to you? Or is it someone specific?”

Dian’s thoughtful words were comforting as always to Steven, but it seemed to him something else lay behind them. Possibly guilt, he diagnosed. He decided that he’s address it later.

“Well there’s this one guy, he’s really just a pain in the ass, I guess.” Steven’s heart rate quickened ever so slightly thinking about it, and Dian took notice, giving his hand a comforting squeeze.

Steven continued, “This guy is so frustrating to work with. I can deal with mental issues, I mean, I completely understand him, but it’s just such a rare case. It’s defiantly schizophrenia, no doubt about it, but this specific guy just seems like he was designed for some sort of final exam back at... School.”

Dian nodded encouragingly, showing far too many signs of guilt for his liking. What had she been up to? Doesn’t she know she can’t get away with anything while dating a psychologist? Maybe she’s cheating.

“Steven?” She asked, breaking the extended silence.

Steven decided to keep going with his story anyway. “Right, sorry. As I was saying, this specific schizophrenic patient of mine seems like too perfect a case. This guy, along with having countless imaginary “friends,” actually believes that he’s a psychologist.” Read more »

Hello my once-lost-twice-loved-never-found dear,
I like the lilt of your name as it falls and rises
like waves under the pull of 
the crescent moon
and I like it even more than
teasers-games-playing-with-my-feelings
because the latter does not make me
tap-tap-tap
my feet
like names do.

Because I am porcelain
and I am a friend-person-nonpartaker-of-silly-love-stories,
but I am a girl who dreams of
story-tales-with-princes-and-princesses
and
walks-on-the-beach-with-candles-not-flashlights
and I crack easier than eggshells that are off-eggshell-white
or china teacups with my rouge-tinted-lipstick-stains.

So hold my heart and let it dance
or never take it and let it fly
like birds that flutter, 
especially in these autumn days,
because you, my dear, are an amalgamation of 
colors and emotions and feelings
like after-sunset skies,
only those invoke a certain happiness
that your ambiguity gently takes away.

Shards can always be melded back together,
but those who play with porcelain
will always live with the wounds and 
scars.

I started the year off in a Holocaust Studies class, which I eventually omitted from my schedule due to a multitude of reasons---nevertheless, the topic manages to fascinate me to all extents.  I'm incredibly saddened by every event, but each story is so compelling.  Anne Frank, of course, sparks my interest the most---the way that a girl like me faced all this.  It reminds me to be grateful for life, for each breath.  I've been reading some stories about the Holocaust, so this was inspired by it.  I think I may continue it to a broader story, but that would require some more mental strength.  

  Read more »

More late night ramblings, inspired by e.e. cummings.  poetry is still a newish feeling to me; rather, not as familiar as it used to be.  

lost, i am lost,

i am a wandering soul

in a mist, 

i gasp in the fog,

entangled in my own web 

of intermittent 

emotions

i smell rainy 

sunday mornings

when the stars would

whisper secrets,

and you are not

what the stars said you 

were

you are not

frigid

a.m.’s burdened

by red-rose lacy fingers

not inspired rolling hills

that roll endlessly

[and i am

but a wanderer]

  Read more »

    There once were four men, all in training for a trade. One aspired to be a philosopher, another to enter the army, one wished to become a clergyman, and the fourth desired to be a comedian. They were all close friends who share a large house out in a rural area, and they were all faced with a problem. The comedian was murdered, he lay dead in the kitchen. It was evening, and no one had come or gone from the house all day. No one had driven by the house, and the door remained locked. The three friends gather in the dining room for a discussion on the matter.

       The soldier started, "Whoever did it has cut the telephone lines, and we have no way to contact the police without driving all the way into town."

      "But," Countered the Philosopher, "The murderer is obviously amongst us. Who else would have all day to cut the phone lines? And no one has entered or left this house all day! If we let someone go into town, we might just be letting the murderer free." Serious looks were past all around the table, as each considered the others.

      The clergyman thought to himself. I'm surrounded by a man of violence, and one of thought. Who else should I suspect but the soldier? So the clergyman's eyes turned to the soldier.

     The soldier thought to himself. A man of the cloth would never be moved to violence, and that leaves only the philosopher. And so the soldier's eyes turned to the philosopher. Read more »

Hey guys, I got this prompt from Ciel, and I thought it would be really fun to write this, so here you go. I wrote note before I wrote the piece, so I don’t know how long it will be, but I have the feeling that it will be pretty long. I might use mature language, but I’m not sure. Thanks for reading it! ~zeus

EDIT: I think I’ll be putting this up in parts, so I’ll give you the first part now, and then go to sleep. Probably get you guys the next couple of parts tomorrow. I think its gonna be pretty different from what Ciel had originally, but I got the original idea off the prompt she posted. ~zeus

Spies

(any idea for better titles?)

Terry Crocker

The First Monday

            I was sitting at my desk, with my feet up on a pile of papers, the obligatory cigarette in my hand, when he knocked at my door. I sat for a moment longer, still absorbing the headline of the Daily News, before I responded.

            “Come in.” Read more »

Basically, I listened to this song about fifty times in a row and started thinking in melancholy Sunset Boulevard cliches.

*

Holly Wood is poker-faced androgyny,

reality bound like double-ds flattened by

     emerald silk

all flash and wit,

smoke and mirror,

fools' gold chipped to reveal

the disappointment of granite.

Her dress is cut too low,

     her breasts:

fouled by cigarettes' dripping ash.

She promenades those gilded hills,

catches tragedy sucking face

     with comedy

under every busted streetlight;

in the midnight speakeasies, she

ogles those immortal newlyweds,

anguish and joy.

Wearing her jewels like

a second skin,

she patrols the moonlit alleys.

At sunset, she shimmies up the stairwell

and waits for her lonesome star to rise.

She watches men fall apart in her

hands and her sex

puts them back together

but only for a moment:

only until the bucks and moans

have shaken them loose again.

She rocks them to sleep with hands

like lace that might as well be steel

and fondles her dirty pearls when

they drop off,

waiting to hear them beg.

"Don't leave, don't leave"; their murmurs

set the cadence of the night, deliver

control straight to her lacy hands,

and she smiles: Forever is her

favorite word. Full of inflated

nothing. Pregnant with hot air.

A word that without the weight

of lust might float away, her

hard-earned pearls on the wing.

"I don't usually kiss," she tells

each one, "but for you, I make an

exception."