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January 11, 2015

Let’s just say I’m not proud of this one…

This was not one of my bests. After a quick re-read I was thoroughly disappointed.  It’s either because I’m a little bit tipsy or I’m just a terrible writer.  Whatever the case may be, I promised I would do a prompt and here it is.  With massive errors and all. I could edit it and have it not suck but… Meh.

A Year of Writing Prompts by Brian A. Klems and Zachary Petit

January 10

Snow Day

“Write about a day during your elementary school years when school was cancelled due to snow. Remember waking up to the “good” news? How did you fill your newfound free time?”

My initial reaction to this prompt was that of a typical Southern Californian. We don’t experience snow days. Although it is not true. While my town is not really in an area with likely snowfall, it could happen, theoretically. That is, if the stars aligned and rain was in the forecast. While it can get below freezing in the San Joaquin Valley, unless it rains the chances of it snowing are really slim. Especially since we typically have an awful lot of sunny days. Which is why our entire state has been in a drought for some time.

The one and only snow day I ever got I remember very well. My mom woke me up at six in the morning. She whispered to me that she had something very important to show me. I was annoyed and told her I wanted to sleep. She assured me in the softest voice, that I would not be disappointed.

Rubbing the sleep from my eyes I walked across the hall to my mother’s bathroom where she had the window open. I looked through the undistorted view at the most beautiful scene I have ever witnessed.

In our backyard is a kidney shaped pool, with a large fiberglass rock waterfall at it’s head. There is even a matching fiberglass planter just to the left. In the summer it’s very beige and our backyard is typically very brown, except for the lush greenery in one corner. This particular morning every surface was covered in soft white powder. The flakes were still drifting down in small flakes.

My heart skipped a beat. “Wow” was all I could say.

In my younger years I went to a private Christian school. During the first year we moved from true southern California to the San Joaquin Valley, I would pray every day in class for snow. I drove my other classmates nuts. I distinctly remember this one morning there was a heavy layer of frost on the grass and this one classmate of mine said, “There’s your snow. Now will you stop praying?” This particular girl regularly hated me. So I just smiled and said no. (Believe me, she was a cunt of the highest order. She was one of the kind who hated me purely because I was fat.)

From my parent’s bathroom I rushed to the front door and looked out at my usually drab world covered in a glistening blanket.

The thing that sticks with me, just as vivid as the moment I stepped out the front door that day, was how silent it was. The silence was so other worldly. It was beautiful, but like the modern world tends to be, it was a true silent. Cutting through the serene silence was the snapping, cracking, of the trees. They were unfamiliar with the weight of the snow on their limbs and were growing weak as they attempted to keep them raised.

I rushed back inside and grabbed our old film camera and starting snapping photos. What came out was so very disappointing. The photos were very dark and did not, in the slightest, capture how it had looked when I took them. To make it worse, the flakes passed right in front of the lens and looked freakish in the photos. Almost like misshapen specters sailing through the air. Me being obsessed with the paranormal, fantasized that to be the case.

By some miracle, the school cancelled instruction for the day. My school typically didn’t even do fog delays like the other schools in the valley. So, it was so exciting to have a whole day to play in the snow.

The cold powder lasted until about midday and it began to melt. Our location is not conducive for the life of snow. Ultimately the only thing I did that day was build snowman cheerleaders in the formation of a two tier, pyramid. (Yeah. I wasn’t gay.)

It has been almost 20 years since that happened and the people in my town still talk about the snow day.

January 6, 2015

Half-Assed but Witty. I think.

So… I already know what I’m going to write. I saw the prompt a couple hours ago when I had intended on writing (but didn’t of course) and have been mulling it over in my head ever since.  And what I came up with I am rather proud of my lazy self.  So, here it goes…

A Year of Writing Prompts by Brian A Klems & Zachary Petit
January 5
Power Outage
Storms have knocked out the power.  You find the flashlight and make shadow bunnies on the wall, but you can tell the kids are not amused.  So instead you decide to tell a scary story.  Create a story that would scare even the toughest of teenagers.

“Guess what kids,” Gary said, “I heard rumblings that a hacker has wormed his way into the power grid and this is permanent!”

Gary’stwo teenage sons, Ryan and Travis, pick themselves up off of the couch and head into the other room.

“Just you wait and see.”

Little did they know how right their father was, and four days without electricity, and no way to check their e-mail, facebook, twitter, instagram, or without the ability to text, their eyeballs bled out and they wasted away until their skin was taut across their bones.

As Gary laid his kids to the earth behind their suburban home, the air still thick with smoke, he said, “I told you, you sonsabitches.”

January 4, 2015

An Attempt at Irony

Todays prompt is going to be a hard one. That’s for fucking sure. Mainly it’s because I have no energy today. I am just absolutely 100% out of it. But, such is the weekend.

A Year of Writing Prompts by Brian A. Klems & Zachary Petit
January 3
A Cold Where you (Fill in the Blank) Instead of Sneeze
“You’ve developed a cold, only to discover that instead of sneezing, you (fill in the blank) every time you feel like you have to sneeze. This side effect proves to create a fairly entertaining scene at the office during your weekly budget meeting.”

Terry clutched the phone in his hands, listening to the ring on the other line. With any luck no one would answer and he could leave a message on the office answering machine. That was his best bet to avoid today altogether. No one at work would understand.

Although, the line clicked and Sheila answered the phone.

“Morgan, Pollock, and Masters, Magician Bounty Hunter.”

Terry pinched his nose.

“Sheila, It’s me, I’m not going to be able to come in today. I feel terrible.”

“Oh no, that’s not good! Well we will miss you at the financers meeting. The head from the state is coming in to talk to us about funding. I’m sure Lowell won’t mind. You get better.”

“Thank you,” Terry said from halfway down his throat.

The line clicked and went dead.

Relief flowed through his body and that’s when he could feel it surge. Terry craned back his head, his mouth gaping, and he let out the loudest sneeze, but with it came a puff of smoke and a young child appeared from within.

The young lad stepped from the thinning cloud and looked around Terry’s unkempt apartment. Panic was beginning to blossom in his face, as his lower lip trembled. There would only be a few moments before the boy exploded into tears. A crying child was the last thing his neighbors needed to hear. They knew he lived alone.

“Hey, buddy,” he said in a sickening sweet voice, “It’ll be okay.”

The young boy wrapped his arms around his stomach.

“Where am I?” He said stepping away from terry.

“It’s okay,” he said, “This is all a dream.”

The boy’s eyes grew wide.

“Really?” he said, “I don’t remember taking a nap. I was shopping with mommy.”

“Yeah, you fell asleep under some coats. She’ll find you in a second.”

The boy looked perplexed.

“How do you know that?”

“Cause this is a special dream.”

Preceded by a large gasp, terry sneezed again and the boy vanished from the room.

“Thank the gods,” he said.

The last few sneezes had become even more infrequent and produced the most horrible of momentary guests. At least the kid disappeared before he could cry. The one woman shrieked so much the nosey neighbor next door came poking around to make sure everything was “okay.” Terry wasn’t sure that he had bought that it was tv program he had been watching.

Now without the worry of work looming before him, terry rushed to the kitchen and began to concoct a potion to end this magical mishap. It wasn’t entirely obvious where he had gotten the calling cold but he had it never-the-less. He must have gotten it when he had been on assignment in Southron and they raided that sorcerer’s drug den. It had been absolutely unsanitary.

He was certain that had been where.

The ingredients came quick to his mind. This wasn’t the first time he’d have to brew one. He had gotten the same thing back in school. Luckily, his parents could excuse him and no one would ever learned he was a blossoming magician.

Pulling the sage from the cupboard he could feel another sneeze building. He tensed his face muscles and refused to let it out. Though try as he might it had a will of it’s own and he blew. This time he conjured a flock of parakeets that fluttered furiously around his apartment.

“I can deal with this,” he said.

He bustled around the kitchen pouring each item into his battered black cauldron. He stirred it the appropriate amount of times until it turned a beautiful lavender and he knew it was ready. He couldn’t ladle it fast enough into a copper mug.

Just as the rim touched his lips the phone began to ring. He looked over at the caller ID and it was the offce number. His blood went cold and he sneezed again, dispelling the birds back to wherever they had come from.

He set the steaming cup down and answered the phone, pinching his nose as he did it.

“Hello,” he moaned.

“Tare, look I know you’re sick but Sgt. Errol is coming and I know he will be absolutely pissed if you’re not here. He is insistent that he meets you. He wants to meet the man who took down the Black Ranfort warlock.”

Terry moaned again.

“Boss, I would love to but I can’t-“

“Terry, if you do you know we’ll get more money than we could ever need to take down these filthy magicians. Don’t you want to be the guy named the man who eradicated all things magical?”

Not really, he thought.

“I would, yes. But I can’t even get off the couch, Rick.”

“Look, if you come in I’ll give you the raise you’ve been hounding me for.”

Terry gulped. That raise had been his mission the past two years. It would give him enough money to move out of the tiny apartment he lived in, that he now noticed was covered in bird shirt and feathers.

“See you in a few.”

Before Terry could argue his boss ended the call.

For a brief moment panick gripped his chest, but then the saw the cup gleam out of the corner of his eye. He chugged it and waited, but within only a few moments he sneezed again, producing a pair of old men playing chess, table and all. But he didn’t have time to explain, he hurried around his apartment trying to get ready. Although he didn’t want to look too good. He put on a white shirt, top button undone, a striped tie as slap-dash as he could get it, and a brown coat. He put on his glasses and messed up his hair and then tried to wrestle it into something decent.

By the time he was dressed and ready to go he sneezed again and the men disappeared.

He hurried as quick as he could and got to the office without a single sneeze. That would mean the potion was working. He just needed to trust his skill.

He climbed the steps to the fourth floor office just o wear himself out and appear more sickly. This wasn’t his first rodeo. By the time he entered the office he was sweaty, red faced, and breathing heavily.

“Terry! You look awful.”

He could barely speak so instead waved and nodded.

“Go right on in.”

He wound his way around the cubicles to the conference room and entered. Everyone stood, especially Sgt. Errol.”

“Son,” he said, shaking his hand, “I really admire your moxy. If I was as sick as you I’d have told my boss to go fuck himself and not come in.”

Everyone laughed nervously.

“This is why I wanted to meet you. You are the best. I’ve been keeping an eye on you. I knew you were something special. It’s guys like you that will take down this magical menace and-“

The sneeze built in his chest, which prompted him to swallow air.

“You alright?”

Terry nodded as he cosed his eyes an concentrated.

“Course you are!” Sgt. Errol said, slapping him on the back.

Terry sneezed and in a puff of smoke appeared a man, bathing in a shower on top of the table.  The water slowly trickled away out of the shower head, as the man looked out of the clear curtain.

December 29, 2014

It Feels Nerdy to Say ‘I’m a Druid’

As I stand at the precipice of a new year I have discovered one thing of myself, that I am lost.  It could be due to the fact that my husband has started a new job or that things in my office are transitioning or because my lack of any real “purpose” (Whatever that may mean) has finally worn away at my heart.  Whatever the reason it has pushed me to look for a faith.

I was raised Baptist.  My family originates in the Midwest area and are very faithful church goers.  Although, my parents laziness kept our family at home most Sundays it did not stop my parents beliefs.  Also, I went to Christian school from pre-k to 8th grade.  So I’ve been enveloped in Christianity for a good chunk of my life.  Yet, even still, I never really believed.  I tried.  I wanted to.  I heard stories of God speaking to my friends or family and I wanted that.  Though no matter how hard I prayed I couldn’t have the same faithful reaction.   It just wasn’t me.

Since then I have slowly chipped away at what remained of my Christian beliefs.  It has since become a tiny pebble that once was a great stone edifice that lead my life.  My husband was the one who did the most damage.  Back when we started dating he debated faith and belief with me, and it was then that I realized the things I thought were ridiculous and based in nothing.  They were just regurgitated thoughts.  After that I maintained a little bit of my faith, but it wasn’t until I met a Christian person with a belief in evolution that I lost even more of it.  Prior to that point I was a staunch “7-day creation” literalist.  (Sad, I know.)

The final blow to my belief in Christianity came by the way of Google earth.  Yes. Google. Earth.  It dawned on me that if I could see a man sunbathing nude on the roof of his home I would certainly be able to find this mythical “garden of eden” with the flaming sword guarding the entrance.  (Like I said, literalist.)

Clarification of the falseness of Christianity came by way of my Ancient Civilizations class where we learned of Zoroastrianism and how one faith led to another and another and… blah.  It became crystal clear that faith was just early forms of science trying to explain the world around them.

Now empty of any real belief I feel kind of lost.  One may ask, “Do you really need a faith?” No, I don’t.  But I feel that there is something else out there.  Something bigger than myself.  And while I don’t believe in God or any human-like deity, I do believe in a great energy that flows through the earth.  It was with that thought that I did a search and came across Druidism.

What I know of Druidism so far is just basic points of belief (Wisdom, Love, and Creativity) and that one communes with nature.  Other than those points I am clueless.  Thus I intend to buy some books and read up before I make a commitment.  Although, I can already say, I’m leaning toward druidism already.  And I don’t know if it’s because it feels right to me, or because I am desperate for a path.  So, it’ll definitely be a journey.