Red. The flashing lights of the ambulance told me something was wrong. I slowed down in front of my house and turned into the driveway. The paramedics were already in the vehicle and working temporary magic on whoever was inside. Just to keep them alive until they got to the hospital. I lived alone, so I didn’t know who was in the ambulance that would have been by my house. I stepped up to the van and quietly knocked on the door, flashing my badge in the window. I’m a doctor; a lot of good it did me now.
Blue. She was wearing a blue dress with blue shoes both of which were stained in blood. We found her committing suicide, they reported mechanically. No aspirin, just a four-inch army knife. This is my house, I heard myself say. But I wasn’t so sure anymore. We decided she was a biology student or doctor in training because with that tiny blade she had managed to saw through an artery and there was very little hope for her now. Blood transfusion is what she needed, but there were so little left because of the war I didn’t know if we’d find enough of her blood type. Siren wailing escorted us to the hospital.
White. Clean and lonely we flew the stretcher into an empty room and bandaged her up. One of the female nurses put her in a hospital gown with my help, ripping her clothes off and carefully putting a new one on to keep the bleeding to a minimum. She woke up the next day and shouted about her boyfriend killed in the war, sobbing until her wounds opened again. I wasn’t there. She collapsed the next day and didn’t wake up again.
Filed under: Realistic Fiction by Bri
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My childhood really wasn’t something to brag about. I mean I was short for my age and my mother insisted I have my black hair cut with a pasta bowl. And it wasn’t even black—it’s dark brown. Anyway, my mom comes back one day when I was ten and tells me to go to bring some food to grandmother the next day because she was sick. I wasn’t sure why she didn’t bring food when she went there, but I didn’t have to do it right then, so I was fine. I came home from school and then was packaged off in my hideous red riding cloak and given a basket and shoved out the door. Oh, yeah. So I headed off down the road and tried to think of humility and remembering all the awful soup I had to eat when I was sick when I got a little distracted by a flower field. I knew it was Farmer Carls’ field, but I didn’t think he would miss a few flowers on the edge by the forest. And then comes this guy, one of those fellows who can change into an animal at will. He was such a pervert I don’t know if I can write what he said. The gist of what I said was no and I left off for the rest of the forest. Thank whoever’s up there he didn’t follow me.
Since then I’ve hated wolves. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
So I reach grandmother’s house and the first thing I notice is the gate lock is undone and the door is ajar. If she was so sick, I thought, why the heck is the door open. So I went around the house and didn’t see the small squishy grandmother of mine. I was stupid though and thought whatever thief was there, I could take him on and went in.
As soon as the stupid pervert said hello I knew I was in trouble. Especially since the guy hadn’t even done a good job of hiding my grandmother. I never really liked her much because we didn’t understand each other, but I wasn’t exactly glad that this guy did a service for me. I lost my head. And when I lose my head, I’m so silent I’m like a wall. I suppose I should mention my grandfather was a lumberjack and so he had various saws around the house. But within reach at the time was the loaded (always loaded) rifle next to the door behind the cabinet. So I’m inching over to the cabinet and trying to pretend that nothing happened.
“My you sound sick,” I said. What a bunch of baloney! But he played along and tried to get me to give him some food. The way my mom makes chicken noodle soup, I should have let him have it. But I reached the rifle and not knowing how to shoot a duck if it was nailed to the floor, shot at the bed. I missed three times before I finally hit the guy in the head. Every person and their cousin was running down the road wondering what in the bujesus someone was doing firing a gun. Oh I wish I could describe all of their faces when they saw this short little girl holding a riffle in one hand and a basket in another, smiling from ear to ear in a ridiculous red cloak. I must’ve looked way younger than I was. If I was there I would have thought that this little girl was crazy and who in their right mind let her have a gun. Psycho killer baby on the loose! I’m still laughing about it. So long story short, my grandmother lived with us for the rest of her life and the sheriff ended up teaching me to shoot when I was fifteen. My mom was not very proud. Whatever. I’ve gone off to America and shoot the best in the west. Pretty nifty. No I ain’t Annie Oakly, though I’ve met the gal. For anyone who cares, I’m known as Red and that’s all you need to know.
Filed under: Fairy Tales and Fables by Bri
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Originally published on December 02, 2005
She sighed and reluctantly handed him the car keys to their blue porche. She looked him up and down in his khaki shorts and black tee shirt and bit her lip. He held a neatly wrapped present under his arm and had his hand outstretched for the keys.
“Don’t get reckless, ok. Keep it in one piece.”
“Don’t worry, sis. How bad do you think I am? It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“I just can’t bear to see you hurt or in trouble.”
He smiled in his perfect way as she placed the keys in his hand.
“Oh and-“
“Don’t stay out too long. I’ll be fine sis; I can take care of myself.”
She watched him go out the door into the crisp frozen air. She smiled to herself as she watched him close the door and drive away. She shook her head as put on her coat and headed outside to their second car. Her sister ran out the door in her slippers as she grasped a coat around her frail frame. Her hair was in messy tendrils flying from her head as she ran to the car.
“November, don’t be so hard on him,” she said. “You know December is strong, he’ll be safe. Promise me you won’t go after him.”
“Don’t worry, October. I’m just going to the store to buy some eggs. We seem to be out of them, again.”
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Originally published on November 28, 2006
The moon was as bright as the smoky sunlight and cast pastel shadows on the sand. The water was a charcoal gray and crawled up the shore with foamy arms. It was the tenth anniversary of that day, and I had gone through with my tradition of avoiding myself then. Memories do have a way to catch up to a running soul, and my thoughts were polluted by the sight of his blood on the sidewalk. No matter how loud I put my music or how hard I focused on my schoolwork, I couldn’t get the face of his ghost out of my actions. I directed tear-glazed eyes toward the silver moon and spackled night sky. Before I had always thought there was nothing I wouldn’t give to change everything that happened, but now, I’m not so sure. I’ve become stronger and wiser because of my loss and I’m not so sure it would have been better if he had stayed alive. But who am I to talk? I can’t control time and I can’t take it back.
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“Miriam Gallante is Broadway’s hottest new star. She took acting and dancing at Juliard in New York and is a fresh new face out of college. Her first large part, and first musical in New York’s Broadway, is in the musical Chicago when she was switched to playing the main role the last week before the show because the previous actress had fallen during rehearsals and broke her ankle. Come on out Miriam.”
The crowd cheered adoringly and a thin blond woman came out waving and blowing kisses to the adoring audience.
“Well first off, welcome to the show.”
“Thank you.”
“What got you started on your career? What made you want to be an actress in musicals?”
“I’ve always wanted to be a dancer for as long as I can remember. I used to love to sing, too. My mom said I would always make such a noise in the shower that the neighbors could hear me. Well, she never had the window open when I sang at any rate. I took a couple lessons and got better and eventually started singing and dancing at school musicals and other small auditions around town. I never thought it would get this big. It was just something I liked to do.”
Felicia turned off the TV in disgust and threw the remote back down on the couch. Luck, she thought as she stepped up the small step to her kitchen to pour another cup of coffee. When the coffee didn’t drown out her sorrows, she picked up her violin and started to play, slowly engrossing herself enough to dance to her own music. Her mind flew from being on stage and whirling as the Sugar Plum fairy to playing violin in the humid heat of Cairo. She relived the countless auditions and with particular vigor, the acceptance letter into the Joffrey Ballet. She went on the road trip again with her friends traveling on the band bus across the country on tour. But when the song was finished, she still could not get the dry feeling out of her mouth of not appearing as these stars in interviews. She could not erase the feeling of worthlessness and her thoughts of I’ve done everything newsworthy and unusual from her stomach, even when she resorted to a little wine from the freezer.
She drove down to the studio armed with a boom box and dance shoes and snuck into the back door. The stage was still there with the luscious velvet seats and she put on her shoes and set the boom box on the piano. “Play me anything,” she told it and pressed the search key for a couple seconds. The radio stations were cooperating for once and she danced to every random song that played, switching stations when the other one stopped for commercials. With every spin and jump the anger and guilt melted away and she spun and kicked it around on the stage. Sweat was pouring down her face when she sat down at the piano and played and sung to other songs on the radio. Then, feeling satisfied, she left the studio and drove back to her apartment to start cooking dinner.
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Originally published on November 29, 2005
Rivers. Rivers of pain, ice, and fire. She grew up on the banks of these waters and she knew what it was like to know nothing but a constant feeling of numbness and missing something you love or need. The Hawkes took care of her and left her for dead when she reached age seventeen. Now, she was fit for an empress and there was nothing in her path that was going to stop her.
Crossing the morbidly cold room to the window, she gently brushed everything on her desk with her pale frozen fingers. Snow glistened outside in the distant sunlight. The breath of thousands of commoners lingered on the morning air like clouds of a thousand souls. Nature had a way of seeming wickedly beautiful and she knew that a gorgeous day today would become a treacherous blizzard tomorrow. Time had a way to do that to a person as well; youth was wonderful and carefree but tomorrow’s age would only come with suffering and a race against death.
Her day to die was not today. She had lived centuries without bothering to barter her soul and she intended to live many more winters like this without ever having to think about it again.
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Originally published on November 27, 2005
Winter was approaching fast. It was only September and it had already snowed. Twice. Clouds were moving along the coast and dropping rain just as quickly. Droughts flew across the center of the continent. Thousands of species dropped like flies. Humans took planes, trains, cars, and boats, to hundreds of coast cities around the world to try and escape.
Who needs wars? She thought as she smiled and closed the game board. When you’ve got Mother Nature?
A wave of her hand cleaned the game up and she put another tally mark next to her name by the door. She had won again.
For heaven’s sake, it’s so easy, John. Why can’t you win more than three times? She thought shaking her head as she flew down the hallways.
Although training had been hard, it was these games that gave her strength and courage to continue. It was that particular power that had gotten her through so far. Far enough to be leaving at the end of the year and be the heir to the throne.
I do admit, she said smiling, it’s a good thing you can’t seem to win. How else would I be so close to getting rid of those humans once and for all?
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“What do you mean you can’t fit us into your schedule? Don’t try and tell me you’re a popular place to be! If you don’t want my business, I’m not going to bother with this,” Megan hung up the phone and stared at the window at the lakeshore below. A knock at the door pulled her away from the hues in the sky to all the papers on her desk.
“No luck?” John asked.
She shook her head. “I can’t get a place that’ll let us perform. Apparently the Ballet of the Dying Roses doesn’t sound like a popular play.”
“Is it that, or that no place you’ve called has a stage big enough. This isn’t exactly a small puppet show you put on.”
“But every time I do it, everyone loves it.”
“That was when you were sponsored,” he sat down at the chair facing her desk and fell back putting his hands behind his head. “I just got off the phone with a large agency and they allowed us to rent out an empty theater they bought before its scheduled demolition. Every month we have to pay for rent and extra stuff for renovating the building and advertising, in exchange for putting their name on programs.”
“I hate working with agencies. It’s so…low.”
“I know. But all we have to do is give them credit and pay rent. No percentage of the cost we make, no rules to follow on how to run it. There are no strings attached.”
She sighed loudly and rubbed her index fingers to her temples. “You know what,” she said finally. “Fine, I don’t care. Make the deal. By the way,” she said as he got up, “what agency?”
He bit his lip. “Sandalwood.”
He shut the door as he heard her screaming about politics and the swindlers behind the company trying to buy her puppet show business and walked to his desk. He cautiously dialed the telephone.
>“Hello, Sandalwood Company headquarters. How may I help you?”
“Hi, I’d like to speak to Mark Tan. I told him I would call him back on the matter of renting a theater.”
The theater was dusty and gray, not much of a sight inside or out. John and Megan looked at each other and started in the middle of the lobby with the paper work and finances. The first step was working on the electronics, which were updated and rewired through the entire house, lobby, and stage. Curtains were replaced and an inner sheer curtains were installed on the inside. Megan insisted that they were able to change them according to the play. Then, the walls were painted on the inside and outside; new carpet was put in the theater and tile in the lobby. The bathrooms were redesigned and renovated and the stairs were fixed and a new railing put on. They painted backstage and set up a studio for making and clothing the dolls in the back behind the stage. On stage right they set up a closet for the costumes and props and set up a series of wooden boxes where the puppets were kept. The lids opened outward and each puppet’s name was engraved on the “door.” Another closet was put in stage left to hold supplies, such as paint and extra curtains, for their plays. The seats were re-cushioned and new windows were put in.
“Finally, we have just enough to put a name on the outside.” Megan said ecstatically.
“Will we have enough money for heating and air-conditioning, or to buy tickets from the publications company for the play? And we need some cash to pay our puppeteers” John said looking around pleased.
“Well then what do you suggest we do outside?”
They ended up having a friend of theirs paint a metal sign outside above the door: The Marionette Theater.
“Cheep, but I’ll live with it for now,” Megan said dismissively.
It was Thursday night when the play was preformed and John was nervous.
“Stop pacing,” Megan said annoyed.
“I swear this is not The Producers! What if it flops?”
“Then it flops and we do one that the audience likes more. The Funeral March seemed to go well, if I remember correctly.”
The lights went down in the house and Megan took a little breath excitedly. John watched the reactions of people throughout the entire play and listened to the audience during intermission on the intercom back stage. Megan walked around with the people talking and making sure that everything ran well. She stopped under the speaker at one point and struck up a conversation with what sounded like someone who had approached her leaving the bathroom.
“Did you write this?” a woman asked. She sounded shocked.
“Well, I didn’t write it. I only direct. My business partner John wrote it.”
“It’s a brilliant piece of work. Perhaps I can meet him. I write short stories for various magazines and I would love to meet him and maybe do an interview.”
“Well if you meet me after the show I can arrange something. He prefers not to be around for people to criticize his work.”
“I know the type,” the woman said laughing. “It’s really a brilliant idea doing a play with puppets. I’m sure it cuts the time on rehearsals down a bit.”
“I’ve always been the kind of girl to love puppet shows.”
The lights must have flickered on and off in the lobby because they both said good-bye and promised to meet by the right box seats after the performance.
“It really was brilliant,” the woman said shaking hands with John. He smiled but didn’t say anything.
“Have you written any plays?” Megan asked to fill the silence.
“I personally have not but I have a few ideas which you might like to turn into a play. Perhaps we could contact each other sometime.”
They exchanged office phone numbers and watched her leave into the street.
“Total success! I told you it would be,” Megan punched him lightly on the arm.
“Alright, you win,” John said and walked towards the backstage. The actors had left and the dolls were put away for the night in their labeled cases.
“I’d better go home and start writing another play for the next time,” he said turning around.
“Why?” Megan asked. She was busily putting the costumes hangers and hanging them up. “This will go on for a while longer.”
“Because we have to have a schedule and you’re better off having a pile of ideas for performances. Besides, we could get them out faster.”
“True,” she said nostalgically. “I would love to have something else to work on. Write something fantastical, all right? I feel like making marionette dragons.”
John laughed. “We’ll see what my muse says. I’ll see you at one tomorrow.”
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Originally published on November 24, 2005
Rain was pouring down in buckets and no matter how fast her windshield wipers were going, her vision was still blurred by the water. Every few seconds thunder shook her car and lightning would momentarily blind her. She had been witness to three accidents so far tonight, and she was still miles away from home. She turned the radio on to try to calm down her nerves.
“It’s going to be a wet night tonight and-“
She cut the announcer off short and switched the station. Commercials, techno music, and more commercials, flew across the small space of the car as she moved from one station to the next. She stopped on a station she playing Beatles hits and took a deep breath.
“That was the Beatles singing ‘Love, Love me do,’” a woman said. Her voice was melodic and deep like her mother’s. “That’s going to do it for ‘Best Moments in Rock.’ I’m Carol Parker, have a nice night.”
Several different songs played until a young man’s voice came on. “Good evening folks. Tonight we’re going to cover the issue of lost souls. Yep, that’s right. All over the nation the idea of lost souls is puzzling people. Every night, outside the walls of normal buildings, and supposedly only in the environment are reports of dark shadows moving about. People have never directly spotted one, and as far as we know they don’t do anything, but people are growing increasingly worried. Experts say that they’re just figments from cats or other animals or people out late. However, they have abstained from comment when asked about rural sightings. All we can tell you, folks, is to stay indoors and when you’re in your car don’t forget to lock the doors.”
She frowned. “I didn’t think this was going to be a threat,” she said under her breath to the radio. She reached over to change the station before her hand was held by something. She looked over to the passanger’s seat and saw nothing.
“We’re not a threat,” she heard her unknown passenger say, “humans just don’t understand.”
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Originally updated on November 22, 2005
I cry in the color black
With tears that stain my face
I hope for no tomorrow
And today to leave without a trace
I smile in the color green
To bring hope to all I see
And hide away the feelings
that seem to eat away at me
I live in the color blue
And pretend that I don’t feel
And try to push the pain away
Hoping one day I will heal.
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