Tag Archives: Short Fiction

Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Printable version… Wrong Number

It was early on a beautiful Thursday morning in the city, on the kind of day that gave Spring its well-deserved reputation. The flowers in the large pots on either side of the stone platform outside his front door were blooming. The trees that lined the street in front of his and the other townhouses were beginning to fill in, some of them with delicate white blossoms.

And his suit… Yes, the suit that he wore every day – a medium gray this morning with an almost imperceptible blue fleck – fit his tall and trim 40 something body perfectly, the way expensive, custom tailored suits do. Nice suit, to be sure, but it was all about his choice of ties, the lead singer in his ensemble, with just enough color to make him feel good without attracting too much attention.

“Lock the door, please,” he said as it began to close behind him. There was no one there, but the lock, indeed the entire house, recognized his voice. “Of course, Mr. Street, I’ll take care of it immediately,” the soft professional voice of his “House Nanny” reassured him, followed by the “chunk” of his dead bolt lock.

Stepping briskly down the stairs, he turned right, walking quickly to the corner, saying, “Hi,” and “Good morning,” to passersby who invariably smiled back at him, a reflection of the friendliness, sincerity and success he radiated. Down to the corner, and then right again, without crossing the street, he barely stopped in front of the fifth stoop, snapping up the six steps to his company’s main entrance.

It was a block of what appeared to be 38 recently refurbished townhouses, each one slightly different, just a bit unique, but none so much so that it didn’t complement the ones on either side of it. And yet, almost no one lived in any of them. They were purchased over the course of a few years, carefully remodeled and integrated into a city block of offices for his company, and his company alone. No sign of anything corporate, they blended inconspicuously into the cityscape around them. A small park in the middle of the complex gave all the interior offices windows and balconies, many with hanging plants and flowering vines intermingled among the dark green leaves of ivy clinging to the brick. It was expensive, this invisible office building, but no more than a rounding error in the fortune that Innovative Concepts had amassed from its handful of patents on uncommonly useful items, from residential escalators, to GPS devices for keeping track of your children, to interactive voice activated household appliances and electronics.

“Good morning, Janet.” He said to the receptionist. She was real, and not one of the AI devices they were developing.

“Hey, Will. How are you today?” Regardless of status or authority, everyone who worked there was on a first name basis. That was the rule.

“Fine, thanks. “

“You’ve had three calls which I e-mailed you, and this,” she said handing him an envelope, “that arrived by messenger just a couple of minutes ago.”

Two flights up, and down the hallway through what would have been three more houses, he was at the senior executive suite of offices where he would spend most of his day. The two outer desks were for Diane, his assistant, and the new person, “Bobbie?” he tried to remember, who would be working for her. He had the bigger of the two street-front offices. The other was where Jack worked, doing the daily routine of running the company, while he, Will, concentrated on… on whatever he wanted to.

No one was in yet, but the phone on Diane’s desk was ringing so he picked it up. “Good morning. Can I help you?” And then he listed for a minute. “No, I’m sorry. You’ve misdialed. …No problem.” And he hung up the phone.

“Good morning.” It was Diane and Bobbie, the new person holding a bag of something from “Sweet Cakes,” the bakery down the street.”

“Good morning, ladies. Smells good.”

“We got an extra one for you?” Diane opened the bag, waving her hand over the open top to waff the smell of fresh cinnamon in Will’s direction. “How about it?”

“Tempting, but no thanks.” And then turning to Bobbie, his hand extended to greet hers. “Hi. You must be ‘Bobbie.’ Welcome aboard.”

“Hi,” she responded warmly, shaking his hand and returning his smile.

“Thanks for coming to work for us,” he told her, concerned that she might be a bit nervous on her first day, just as the phone on Diane’s desk rang again.

“Good morning. Innovative Concepts, can I help you? …Sure. No, you’ve got the right number. Let me transfer you to accounting. …Thanks.”

“Thanks. I’m looking forward to…,” but then Will cut her off as soon as Diane put down the phone.

“Diane, I’ve got stuff to think about. If anybody calls, would you tell them, I don’t know, whatever?”

“Sure thing,” she nodded back to him, and he turned, walked into the larger, much nicer of the two executive offices and closed the door behind him. Jack, on the other hand, still not in, would leave his door propped open with a cheap bookend he got from Staples, so he could shout to them without using the intercom.

“Well,” Bobbie turned to Diane, still standing in front of their desks. “Mr. Street seems nice.” And then, noticing the large cut out from the Times front page framed on the wall outside his office, “Wow, how long ago was that?”

The picture in the story was Will, the suit he was wearing at the time in surprisingly good shape under the circumstances, his smile and confidence apparently unaffected what had just happened. He was shaking hands with an odd looking, unkempt, poorly dressed disheveled person next to him, apparently unable to smile. Even in a still photo like this one, the other man seemed visibly shaken. “Homeless Man Saves Invention Mogul in Street Attack,” the headline read in bold type above the picture.

“Quite the story, isn’t it?” Diane had walked to the frame to stand next to Bobbie who was reading the story. “Three men, one with a gun, the other two with knives, attacked him, and this homeless guy comes out of nowhere and takes the three of them out without so much as breaking a sweat.”

“Ehemm.” Jack was almost coughing as he came through the outer door, not to attract their attention, but to clear out whatever had accumulated in his throat since the last time he’d said anything. “Hey,” was all he managed on his way to his office, ignoring the new staffer and completely without ceremony.

“What’s he doing here?!” Bobbie whispered to Diane?”

“Are you kidding?”

“It’s the guy in the picture,” she said turning to the wall to make sure. “…wearing the same clothes? Is that even possible?”

“Of course it’s the guy in the picture. It’s Jack, the guy who invented everything. It’s his company,” she whispered back.

“Well, what’s Will doing there?”

“Bobbie, Will’s the homeless guy who saved Jack’s life. Jack didn’t know how to thank him, so he gave him a name. There’s no record of him anywhere. No fingerprints, no DNA, no ID. No missing person reports. Nothing. So Jack gave him a name – “Will Street,” because of the way he was dressed that night – a business card and…”

“Why not ‘Walter Street’?”

“Because no one calls people named ‘Walter’ ‘Wall’ for short. I don’t know,” just a touch of exasperation showing in her voice. “Besides, are you going to question someone who’s made $5 billion, and given 5% of it to his employees?! The same guy who signs our checks?” Eyebrows raised, her head cocked slightly to the right, she continued her thought… So Jack gave him a name, one of our executive apartments to make sure he had a place to stay, and this office. He doesn’t get any calls or mail except what one of the interns in our marketing department sends him. He just hangs out. The only meetings he has are with somebody he thinks needs his help on some community development project, but it’s really a shrink Jack hired to help him, and there’s a private detective that’s trying to figure out who he is. Taking care of him, playing along is one of our jobs.”

“So,” Bobbie asked, looking through the glass walls of Will’s office, “what’s he typing?”

“Who knows? Notes, random thoughts, uh, letters to someone he calls “Sugar,” and an occasional piece of flash fiction he publishes on the blog they set up for him.”

-wf

What to read more? Just click here and pick a title you like.

Copyright as of the title date or earlier, by me.
(I write the WordFeeder blog.)  All rights reserved.
Email WordFeeder@verizon.net for additional information.

Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Printable version… Jones PDF

“Jones,” the older man at the first desk nodded without looking up.

“Good evening, Mr. Colby. How are you?”

“Jones,” as almost everyone called him, was just arriving for the night shift, midnight to 9 AM, as an Assistant Producer – one of those titles that sounded more important that it really was, that they gave you instead of money – for one of the local TV station’s news department.

“Hmm,” was Mr. Colby’s only response. Jones had no real idea what Mr. Colby did there, and wasn’t sure Mr. Colby did either. Some administrative task that didn’t require supervision, or contact with other humans apparently. Whatever it was, he’d been doing it for years.

“Jones,” the next person he saw mumbled, rushing past him, her attention focused on some papers she was desperately trying to read before she got to wherever she was going.

“Good evening, Ms. Collier.”

“Jones.” Up ahead, it was the thin man with the unusually large Adam’s apple holding his tie out of the way while he bent over the water fountain.

“Hey, Mr. Stedman,” Jones returned the greeting, continuing on his way. “How’s your daughter feeling?”

“Much better, thank you,” Mr. Stedman, on his way back up, wiping a few late arriving drops away from his mouth, seemed surprised that Jones knew to ask. “And how, uh…” He wanted to reciprocate, but was in the process of confusing Jones with someone else he didn’t really know.

Sensing the awkwardness, Jones thought he’d help Stedman out. “I don’t have any children,” he smiled politely in passing, “but thank you for asking.”

“Of course, not,” Stedman said going away.

“Of course, not?” Jones thought to himself, a look of concern rippling across his eyes and forehead. “I could have children.”

“Hi, Robert.” Robert was the sports AP, in the first carrel around the corner, in the row of carrels where Jones would spend the night, getting up occasionally to go to editing, the bathroom or throw something from the refrigerator into the microwave. Tonight was special. He’d brought a fresh French baguette, some shaved turkey and Swiss, enough for a couple of sandwiches – and a small, two person bottle of cheap Sangria that he’d left in the bag so no one looking in the refrigerator would see it.

“Yo,” was apparently all Robert had time to say, his eyes glued to some game on his screen – Brazilian women’s volley ball – that had nothing to do with his job. The shift before him had already collected all the local high school and college scores. His job was to redo the major league scripts they’d used at 11, update the clips they had for the sports-head to review when he came in, adding anything interesting that was still happening in the western time zones, plus any feature material worth airing that he could cop from newspapers and other sources out of the area.

Robert was to sports what Jones was to city life. Together with the other APs they’d produce hours of material that would be edited into 22 minutes to air between 5 and 6, and then again between 6 and 7 until the national feed took over. The other 22 minutes would be weather and traffic – two ex-cheerleaders pointing to graphics.

On most nights, it was a two to three hour job they’d manage to stretch into nine.  On the other hand, it was the middle of the night, which is how they all got hired while the normal people spent their nights, and days, doing what normal people do. For Robert, it was because he needed the money. For Jones, it was about breaking into television news, his first real job out of college.

“Is that you, Elijah?” Dawn was the only one who called him by his first name, and his whole first name at that. Without bothering to turn around, she looked up from her screen in the carrel just past his, and he could feel her smiling as if she’d been waiting for him to get in.

“Hey, Dawn,” Jones responded, plopping his worn leather saddlebag of papers down on his desk, taking off the light jacket he threw on top of the metal bookcase behind him, in the space next to the dead plant he kept for unexplained reasons. Just hearing her voice was reason enough to be there. “How’s politics in the big city?”

“Boring,” she sighed back at him. “Any delicious, salacious, blood dripping sexually charged crime you want to talk to me about? …Pleeeeease?” she fake begged him.

“Maybe later, sweetcakes,” he said in his best Philip Marlowe voice. “Let me see what’s up first, and then we’ll…” he started to say, only to be interrupted by the loud “Pfffuuuuuuu” sound his chair made when he sat down. The pneumatic poll that supported the seat hadn’t worked for weeks. He was instantly short, the front edge of his desk just about at his armpits.

“Honestly, Jones,” Jack Rawlings, the stick-up-his-ass night editor, was just walking past, on his rounds to make sure everyone was in place. “It’s not like you’re the only one here. Next time, take that to the men’s room.”

“Hysterical,” Jones thought to himself sarcastically while Mr. Rawlings continued into his office down the hall, his door – He had a door. – closing hard behind him.

“Don’t worry, Eli,” Dawn pretended to console him. “Farting is a perfectly normal bodily function,” she continued, unable to suppress her giggling, “that, uh, you needn’t be embarrassed about.” Dawn had a face that couldn’t lie, a mouth and eyes that spoke more than words could ever accomplish, a radiant confidence and intelligence that cried out for air time, some day – not to mention a smile that instantly became the only thing anyone could see, its reflection lingering on your eyes well after she’d left the room.

“You just like to say the word “Fart,” he snapped back, lifting his body up while pulling the lever on his right. “God,” he said to himself a few seconds later, waiting until the moment had dissipated in his head, “I love to hear the sound of her laughing.” Rubbing his whole face with his hand to get the blood flowing, it was time to get to work.

For the next few hours, he’d be on his computer and phone until the 5 AM news team crew came in to get ready – to read stories he and the others there would write. His job was to look for breaking local news, mostly crimes and fires, locally, but around the country too, get the details and write 30 to 60 second stories he’d produce, with tape if he thought the visuals would be that interesting and the story was worth the expense – maybe even bring in one of the reporters on call if it was a really big deal.

More of a writer than a television journalist, Jones liked to write what he called “News Noir,” adding this or that detail in the text and the tape he would edit for airing – whatever he could to give the viewer some texture, some sense of reality from a medium that had become brief to the point of meaningless. It was a style everyone seemed to like, except his editor.

“Jones!” It was Mr. Rawlings voice on the intercom built into their desk phones. “Jones! Are you paying attention?!”

“Yes, Mr. Rawlings,” Jones pressed the button to answer him, even though he could hear him over the top and through the glass walls of Rawling’s office. “What do you need?”

“Get in here.”

Ten seconds later, he was standing in front of his editor’s desk, the door to his office closing automatically behind him.

“Jones,” he was exasperated, real or pretending, Jones couldn’t tell, pointing with both hands moving palms up in opposite directions to the printed scripts lying this way and that on his desk. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” (Rawlings was one of those people who overuse profanity to the point of rendering it useless.)

It was a rhetorical question which Jones knew better than to answer, although it was getting harder and harder to hold back.

“You’ve got at most 30 seconds to tell the story.  Thirty seconds at most. With tape, maybe 60. I don’t need to see a rat running past garbage piled up near the crime scene. I don’t care about some little kid cowering behind his mother’s skirt, or how many children she has, or that she’s working two jobs and doesn’t know where they’re going to stay or buy new stuff. Who gives a crap?! Talking head, talking head, crime scene shot and we’re out. Got it?!”

And there was quiet. Rawlings, the editor may have been shouting, and Dawn and the other carrel people listening, but Jones… Jones had been busy thinking.

“No, Mr. Rawlings, I don’t.”

For the first time since Jones had come into the room, Rawlings sat back in his chair, his mouth atypically motionless. “What?”

“I don’t ‘got it.’ Forget about journalism. Forget the art of telling a good story. Just… just for a moment, think about the business, about ratings, about what sells, about the fucking – to use an adjective you can understand – monetary value of connecting with our audience. You want to know why our 5 AM news is third in this market? Because it’s boring, mind numbingly boring. You’ve crammed so many stories into so little time, no one’s paying attention. And then you have the temerity to conclude that they’re the ones with the problem, to justify your abbreviated style by arguing that our viewers haven’t the attention spans to appreciate any more than the superficial, minimalist, bulletized drivel you’re throwing at them.”

“Jones, Jones” Rawlings was pissed and mocking him. “The kid with plain vanilla name is desperate to highlight the distinguishing features of his life…”

“Sure,” Eli agreed. “Who isn’t, not to mention to the people whose stories we write and the viewers who identify with them.”

“Jones!”

“Don’t interrupt.” Eli cut him off, taking a step forward to edge of his oversized desk. His response was startling, the smile and passion on Dawn and the other ADP faces unmistakable. “Do you even know my first name? I’ve been here a year. What’s my first name? Com’on. What my first name?”

It was rhetorical, but Rawling’s eyes began to dart, and then look down at his desk for the answer.

“It’s ‘Elijah,’ ‘Eli’ for short. You can call me ‘Eli.’ ‘Elijah Conover Jones.’ ‘Conover’ was my great great grandmother’s maiden name when she came over here, a single mother barely 20 with two little kids, and built a business and a life out of nothing. Nothing. And now suddenly, you know more about me than about any headliner on this morning’s news. How long did that take?”

“Have you ever actually read the sports stories you told Robert not to send you? Do you have any idea what cool stuff he comes up with? And Dawn. What about Dawn? Hands down, she’s the best writer here…”

“Dawn?”

“Jesus,” Eli’s rage was gone now, his tone returning to normal. “Her last name is ‘Henderson.’…Your political issues AP? You know, there’s a lot more to politics than the occasional election or vote in the City Council or Legislature. No one understands politics they way she does. You want ratings? You understand ratings don’t you? The third floor sure does. Maybe we should take this conversation upstairs? Put her on the air. The wheelchair’s her problem. Not yours, and certainly not…” The look of surprise on Rawling’s face stopped him cold.

“What? You don’t think we know why you won’t put her on the air? …Unbelievable. You’re such a putz. It’s not only discrimination, it’s bad business. Who would you rather watch? Some over-made-up newsreader, or a professional who actually knows what she’s talking about and who’s had the brains and physical courage to get the under-stories that count?”

“You don’t like what I write, the pieces I produce? You’re the editor. Edit. Do your job. Just keep in mind that the ratings we get are your problem, your fault as much as they are ours.” Silence. “…I’m getting back to work.” And then he left the office.

Walking back down the hallway, he saw Robert standing outside the entrance to his carrel. “I’d be crying,” he joked, “if it were the manly thing to do.”

Eli smiled back at him, mouthing the word “Thanks” in his direction, and then noticed Dawn rolling out of her carrel in front of him.

“Hey,” she smiled up at him.

“Hey,” he smiled back.

“Bend down here so I can give you a kiss.”

And he did, her outstretched arms pulling his face toward her. It was a simple kiss, the short kind that would last forever. “Let’s go,” he said to her, face to face, kneeling in front of her, “I’ve got a sandwich with your name on it and some Sangria we can share in the lunchroom.” And then, looking straight into her eyes, “Who knows? With any luck, I may finally get up the nerve to ask you out.”

“Yes!” she blurted. “Whatever you were going to ask me,” and then she paused to catch her breath and regain her composure. “Yes,” she said, this time with determination. It was 2 AM. “Now that we got that out of the way, I’m hungry. Let’s eat.”

-wf

What to read more? Just click here and pick a title you like.

Copyright as of the title date or earlier, by me.
(I write the WordFeeder blog.)  All rights reserved.
Email WordFeeder@verizon.net for additional information.

(The Fly and the Blonde)
Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Printable version… Business Management 213 PDF

“Mis-ter Conner?” It was the always skeptical, deliberate voice of Professor Weinberg, looking up from the class chart – with pictures, no less – he kept as the blotter on his lectern. If you were late for his Tuesday 8 AM class or, heaven forbid, missing, he knew it. If you were the least bit unprepared, he would sense it, and pounce. Unlike many of the other faculty in the business management program, Jacob Weinberg was no career academic, having built and made a fortune in his own business before retiring to write and teach. His students both respected and feared him, wanting to be in his class just slightly more than they didn’t. It was always a gut-wrenching, but nonetheless intellectually stimulating experience.

Eighteen rows up, just left of center from Weinberg’s point of view, Bobby Conner rolled his pen repeatedly through and over the fingers of his right hand. It was something he did automatically when he was fighting the prospect of a losing battle with the attention and focus a Socratic method lecturer like Weinberg demanded. It wasn’t a lack of interest, but a lack of sleep that was the problem.

Sitting next to him, on his right, was Shelly, the girl from Bobby’s dorm he seldom noticed, or so it seemed to her. No makeup, because she didn’t need any and wouldn’t have troubled to put it on if she did. Two different color t-shirts and jeans so comfortable she may have slept in them, her light blonde shoulder length hair going this way and that, held recklessly behind her with an oversized hair clip she grabbed on the way out the door, rushing to get to class on time. Glancing at the door next to her, she considered knocking, which would have been the friendly thing to do, but shied away, deciding instead to look forward to seeing him in class.

She was gorgeous, in a completely unpretentious way, if only Bobby were paying attention. His mind, more often than not, was somewhere else.

Dressed in a perfectly cut business suit and just the right tie – so he was thinking at daydream speed that moment – a small, soft leather portfolio under his arm, Bobby’s alter ego of the future careened around the floor to ceiling marble to the bank of elevators just off the lobby of the building where he worked. Mr. Conner was on his way up, physically and otherwise, to the senior executive conference room where he was about to make a company- and career-changing presentation.

It was crowded, but not so much that he missed seeing the knockout blonde from “Acquisitions” in the navy blue silk blouse that wouldn’t quit. She was the company babe that every male, and some of the women, in the office wanted, but who was somehow saving herself for him. A couple of polite “Excuse me”s and he was standing in front of her, she with her back to the corner of the polished mahogany paneled elevator, he facing her, his back to the door and everyone else. They had flirted around the idea of going out, but had never actually done it.

“Big meeting?” she asked him, so close he could feel her breath on his face.

“Huge,” he responded without the least hint of nervousness.

“Yeh,” she said softly, taking a step, if that was possible, even closer toward him to whisper in his ear, “well your fly’s down.”

“No it’s not.” He was surprised, but didn’t look down, unwilling and unable to stop staring at her face for even a moment, not the least bit shaken by what she said. “How was it possible,” he thought to himself, “that every luminescent hair landed just right no matter how quickly or slowly she turned her head? Could lipstick be any more red? A mouth any more inviting?”

“Wanna bet?” Smiling, her eyes glued to his, she reached down, one hand on and around his belt, the other reaching for the metal tag which was now at the bottom of his zipper, pulling it up way too slowly for any normal, soon-to-be-promoted Vice President to handle.

Her business done, it took all the concentration he had to say, “Thanks. …Maybe I can return the favor,” when his daydream was abruptly interrupted.

“Bobby!” It was Shelly.

Turning his head slowly toward her, he was struck by how familiar she looked. “A little makeup, different clothes maybe…,” he thought to himself. “She’d have to do something with her hair…”

“Bobby!!,” she rubbed his arm gently, whispering his name again, this time as loud as she could get away with.

“Mis-ter Conner?!”

“What? ..Yes, Sir.” Bobby was startled, but quickly got himself under control, the drowsiness in his eyes and demeanor pushed instantly aside by the intensity of his mind bringing itself on-line.

“Mr. Conner, do you or do you not have an opinion about the case study we’re currently discussing?”

Instinctively, Bobby began to rise to his feet. It wasn’t the college rule, but Professor Weinberg insisted on it, very “old school” and proud of it, even while Shelly was pulling on his shirt as if to hold him down.

Still whispering, she did her best to warn him, “Your fly’sssss ..down.” Too, late. He was up, and it was obvious.

Unfazed, Bobby, his voice confident and unshaken, said, “Excuse me,” reaching down, casually, to pull up his zipper as if it were absolutely no big deal. “Sorry. I was up late last night reviewing this study and two others that were similar, and obviously dressed a bit too quickly rather than risk being late.”

“Ahhh, bullshit!” one of his friends fake sneezed from the back of the lecture hall.

Bobby then spent the next two minutes going right to the heart of the case study with impressive detail and insight.

“Sur-pris-ing-ly astute, Mr. Conner,” Professor Weinberg congratulated him reluctantly. “Try to get dressed more carefully next time, before you get to class.”

“Yes, sir,” Bobby responded almost inaudibly as he sat back down.

Shelly looked up at him, mostly with her eyes, with wonder at what he’d just managed to pull off. Moving her left hand in front of her mouth, she waited a few seconds to talk until another student was busy raising some obscure and irrelevant point. “Nice save.” She couldn’t help but smile. “You guys didn’t finish playing poker last night until after midnight. …You do know I live next door, don’t you?”

“Right next door?” he whispered back, playing with her. There are, he was just beginning to realize, some people you get to meet for the first time more than once. “Nah, I checked out some stuff over the weekend.” Turning her way, about to follow up with some smart, maybe snide remark, he changed his mind – something about her eyes he hadn’t noticed before, feeling the touch of her breath on his face.

-wf

What to read more? Just click here and pick a title you like.

Copyright as of the title date or earlier, by me.
(I write the WordFeeder blog.)  All rights reserved.
Email WordFeeder@verizon.net for additional information.

Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Printable version… Creative Running PDF

“Heh, heh, whooo. Heh, heh, whooo.” It was the cadence of his breathing, more prominent, in his head at least, than even the sound of his Nike’s hitting the pavement. As for the pattern, it was the letter “U” in Morse Code. He’d looked it up once. Beyond that, he didn’t know why and didn’t care – just one more idiosyncrasy among many he’d long ago given up trying to understand.

“It was unseasonably cold that morning, not yet 5 AM, running in the dark slowly up the hill to Grey Rock. He’d remembered to take his baseball cap, but not his gloves, and now the occasional rubbing of his hands together was breaking his stri…”

“Heh, heh, whooo.”

“Jesus, I’ve even starting thinking like I’m writing. That’s got to be an early, maybe not so early sign of mental illness,” he thought to himself, which turned out to be the point of it all. He was a good twenty pounds overweight, but the shape he was in or out of had nothing to do with why he ran.

“It’s my time to think. Just me, daydreaming to the rhythm of my breathing and the sound of the street, enjoying the contrast between running by the occasional street light and then through the pitch black tunnels under the leaves of the trees between them. I like it. I can’t sleep more than four or five hours at a time, anyway. Why not run? I get some of my best ideas when I’m running, especially in the early morning. It’s the nice thing about living in the suburbs. No cars, no pedestrians, not this early. Just me and the noise of some insects I don’t ever want to see, doing whatever they do in the bushes and trees between the houses.”

“Speaking of running, there goes my nose. There,” he paused for a moment to breathe in through his nose, “I’ll just suck it up. …Gross. Thank goodness there’s no one else…”

“Good morning.”

“Hi. Hi, uh,” he stammered his response, surprised by the really attractive thirty-something blond who ran past him, not a foot away to his side, coming in the other direction out of the darkness ahead of him. “Crap. The one really good looking jogger in the entire neighborhood and she passes me when I’m snorting. Perfect. That’s what she’ll remember about me for the rest of her life. Every time anyone around her so much as sniffs, she’ll think about me, the guy with the runny nose and no Kleenex. Precisely the impression I’ve always wanted to make on hot women I meet. Who knows? Maybe she finds vulgar personal behavior strangely compelling. Not a bad trait for one of my characters, maybe a stunning, drop dead beautiful woman with no apparent interest in personal hygiene.”

“Heh, heh, whooo. Heh, heh, whooo.”

“Hey!” A car turning off one of the side streets just missed him, cutting its turn too fast and too close to the curb as he approached the corner, somehow failing to see the light ban he wore on his right wrist. “Paperboy, my ass. Whatever happened to kids delivering the paper rolled up in the baskets on slow moving Schwinns, meandering down the streets, trying their best to lead their customers’ paths and front porches just perfectly, too cute for anyone to complain when they didn’t. …There, I’m doing it again. ‘Doctor, doctor, give me the news. I’ve got a bad case of…’”

“Bacon?! Wow, smell that bacon. Someone’s up early making breakfast,” he wondered, looking around for the source, as if he’d stop by for directions and maybe invite himself in. “God, I love the smell of bacon. I don’t see any lights. Must be a kitchen in the back of one of these houses with a vent running over the stove. Two eggs over easy. Four, maybe five hundred milligrams of cholesterol. Some chopped potatoes grilled in a fry pan. Just what I need.”

“Actually, what I need is to get back to work. Let’s see… ..Hey, what’s that? Hey! It’s uh.. yeah, it’s a naked woman running, running badly, more like flailing down the middle of the street! There!! Just ahead under the street lamps at the corner. She’s crying so much I can’t make out what she’s screaming. I’ve got to help her. I’ll speed up. Oh, man, she’s fallen down… ..No, no. Too sexual. Gratuitous nudity. Exciting, but no substitute for quality writing. On the other hand,” never wanting to forget a good gimmick, “the idea could come in handy one day.”

“Heh, heh, whooo. Heh, heh, whooo.” Unexpectedly, our runner looks up toward the sound of deep throated exhaust coming fast down the middle of the street, the throbbing of its speakers confirming an SUV from somewhere else.

“Asshole!!” one of the young men from the SUV shouted out the window at him when it drove by, uncomfortably close to where he was running, just a couple of feet from the curb.”

Turning quickly for what he was certain would be an unheard act of defiance, “That’s ‘Mr. Asshole,’ you jerk!”

“Who gave them,” he muttered between breaths, feeling like they’d picked on him and gotten away with it, “the right to interrupt my personal time? …Heh, heh, whooo. Heh, heh, whooo. …Can’t they see I’m working?”

“Unfortunately, the next thing he heard was the squealing of tires doing a fast one eighty behind him. They were coming back, this time with two of them hanging out the driver’s side windows closest to where he was running, driving on the wrong side, his side of the street.”

“Looking over his shoulder, he had a choice: Show them he wasn’t afraid, which would have been faking it, or run off the street between the houses, maybe look for some people who might be up to pound on their door. Figuring this was no time to pretend to be cool, and without anyone around to impress, he picked up speed and headed for the curb, thinking he should turn off his wrist ban in case they stopped and chased after him.”

“Probably just some teenagers who’ve had a few too many beers,” he said to himself, doing his best to rationalize away the fear he wasn’t accustomed to feeling. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Hey!” he heard someone shout from the car, “Eat this, ‘Mr. Asshole.’!! ..POP. POP, POP!”

“It was the sound of something he’d never even written about, the sound of something he’d only heard in the movies and on TV, and not at all what he expected. For a second, he didn’t even understand why he was falling to the sidewalk, ricocheting off a tree at the curb, thinking he had tripped, not feeling any pain or other sensation that would have told him the awful truth, that that popping sound might be the last he’d ever.. ..hear.”

“Nahhh. Way too dramatic. Heh, heh, whooo. Heh, heh, whooo.”

-wf

What to read more? Just click here and pick a title you like.

Copyright as of the title date or earlier, by me.
(I write the WordFeeder blog.)  All rights reserved.
Email WordFeeder@verizon.net for additional information.

Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
Friday, September 12, 2008
Printable version… Dialogue PDF

“God, I love Sunday mornings. …Richard?”

“What?”

“Could you at least not read the paper until we get there? You can’t walk and unfold the paper at the same time. You’re just smooshing it all up. You know I like it crisp, the way it was when we bought it.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll wait.”

“Com’on. What’s not to enjoy? …Watch it, that guy’s turning. Let’s wait for the light.”

“I’m waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“For the light. You just asked me to wait for the light, didn’t you?”

“Could you get back on the curb?”

“But I like the idea of being married to a taller woman. ..Com’on. We have 24 seconds to cross the street.”

“It’s perfect. We sleep late, slop on some clothes, pick up the paper, and take as much time as we want reading it cover to cover over some fresh coffee and a toasted bagel with extra-saturated fat, mmmm, mmm declicious walnut cream cheese. …Life is good.”

“Hm.”

“Richard, you promised.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll put it away, but you’re getting breakfast.”

“Deal. Now hold my hand and pretend like we actually enjoy hanging out together. It’s the one day we both have off. …There, isn’t that better?”

“You just want to remind your friends that we’re the only marriage they know that isn’t on the rocks, and that’s just because, in four years, we’ve only spent one day a week together. What’s that, 108 days, roughly three months? No wonder we’re still happy.”

“208 days. Four times 52 is 208. Seven months.”

“Whatever. Technically, we’re still newlyweds. At this rate our marriage could last forever.”

“But we have great sex, don’t we?”

“Confirming my theory that it’s best if only one of us is awake at a time. …I need to write a paper on that.”

“Hey, any time you want to move to the suburbs, we can both stop working 12 hour days.”

“What, and not eat out every meal?”

“We could save some money. That would be… Brenda!”

“Jesus, stop waiving. She’ll want to join us.”

“Try smiling. She’s got a morning session with her trainer, and please don’t say anything. I already know what you’re thinking.”

“I am trying to smile. This is the best I can do.”

“Alright, kill the smile. You’re beginning to scare people.”

“There, the table on the end. The one by the ficus with the squirrel pooping in the pot.”

“How do you know it’s a ficus?”

“I don’t. It’s the only potted tree name I know. Besides, I like the way it sounds. ‘Ficus.’ If we ever have children, I want to name it ‘Ficus.’”

“It? …Would you mind if we took this chair? …Thanks.”

“Boy. Girl. Who cares? Ficus is one of those names, like ‘Dana,” that works either way. .Have you got money?”

“I do. It’s in my sock. …Don’t ask.”

“I won’t.”

“I’m too young for a fanny pack.”

“Did you notice, I didn’t ask. Just make sure my croissant is perfect. And make sure, actually tell him not to slice it. I like tearing my croissants apart.”

“I’m going.”

“I mean it! Don’t take it if he.. slices it. She can’t hear me. I’m just talking to myself.”

“Hey, Richard.”

“Oh, hey, Brenda. You don’t mind if I don’t get up, do you? Lisa insisted that we walk, and I’m exhausted.”

“Richard, you only live 8 minutes from here.”

“Well, it seemed like 10. Besides, if I stop reading, I’ll forget where I was and have to start over again.”

“Aren’t those the comics?”

“This one has more words than usual.”

“Your chair’s wobbling.”

“True, but it’s wobbling less than the other chairs. …Lisa’s inside getting food.”

“No, I’m right here. There was no one in line. Serge actually seemed glad to see me. Hi, honey.”

“I thought I was ‘honey’.”

“No, you’re ‘sweet cheeks’. I’ll make you name tag when I get back. Brenda and I need to chat for a second. I’ll be right back.”

“You really think my cheeks are sweet?”

“ Read the paper.”

“I thought we were going to read the.. paper together. Apparently not.”

“You were right.”

“That was quick. Right about what?”

“About Jeffrey. Hand me the ‘Arts & Leisure’ section.”

“Who’s ‘Jeffrey’? Here.”

“Her trainer. I think he’s 12, but Brenda says he has the maturity of a 15 year old. …Oh my God! I can’t believe you dog eared one of the pages. Have you learned nothing living with me??”

“Just read the review of Bob’s play. You can thank me later.”

“Richard, there’s a pigeon on the table.”

“None of my friends are pigeons. It must be one of yours.”

“Do I have poppy seeds in my teeth?’

“No.”

“Richard, put the paper down and tell me if I have poppy seeds in my teeth.”

“No, but your teeth seem unusually large today.”

“By the way, I meant to tell you…”

“Tell me what?”

“Hey, will you try not to dip the corner of the paper in my cream cheese the next time you turn the page. It has the perfect number of walnuts.”

“That’s what you wanted to tell me?”

“No. …I’m expecting.”

“Hm.”

“I said, ‘I’m expecting…”

“Expecting what?”

“…a ficus.”

“We’ll put it on the balcony. It’ll be fine. …Did you take the financial section?”

“Richard?”

“Hm.”

“Richard?!!”

“What?!”

“We don’t have a balcony.”

-wf

What to read more? Just click here and pick a title you like.

Copyright as of the title date or earlier, by me.
(I write the WordFeeder blog.)  All rights reserved.
Email WordFeeder@verizon.net for additional information.

Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Printable version… Precocious PDF

“My name is John Stansfield. I’m an agricultural microbiologist for a consulting firm. The name of the company isn’t important. They had nothing to do with what I’m about to describe. Besides, by now whatever personal records I kept at the office have removed or altered to fool any investigation. These people don’t erase any evidence of your existence. That’s way too hard, too suspicious. Better to leave you out there, stripped of your credibility. By now, my life has been tweaked, altered with finesse just enough to make anything I say here seem plausibly unbelievable, at most the ramblings of an over-active imagination. They have taken from me the fraction of my life that made me special. It was hardly anything, but everything that made me unique. It is the proverbial telltale partial fingerprint proving their involvement, that I have become extraordinarily ordinary, of no particular interest to anyone. The records I have, but they don’t know about, are quite probably the last surviving evidence that what I am about to tell you is true. I fear for my life. Even more, I fear that what I have done, however innocent and well meaning, will be left to prove in horrible retrospect that my story was authentic, and the danger all too real.”

“It’s late. If you care, I’m working in the dark, except for the glow of my screen, in the upstairs bedroom of one the kids of an acquaintance who’s on vacation. I overheard him leaving his house key with his secretary to take care of his plants, and made a copy while she went out for lunch. He doesn’t know I’m here, and I borrowed a friend’s car in case they were tracking mine. No one followed me. I should be okay for the next few hours – time enough to write this, get some sleep, and be up and out of here early, before any of the neighbors notice. I’m afraid to use my cell phone, and these people don’t have a land line. It sounds corny, I know, but I’ll give you instructions later for how you can reach me by running a personals add on-line. …I’m talking too much. I’m so tired, but I’ve got to get this out.”

“My particular specialty is protecting agricultural products from exposure to environmental and biological elements which, when those agricultural products are consumed, would cause harm to the public.”

“I’m not much of a writer, but I’ll do my best to explain what’s happened, and then I’m going to go. This will be an e-mail addressed to the Editors-in-Chief of the major television news networks and most prominent newspapers. Hopefully, one of you will take me seriously, investigate on the odd chance that I’m not a crackpot, and do something about it. I can’t, and don’t think I’ll live long enough even if I could. At best, you’ll staff it out, if it even makes it to your desk. At most, you might do your duty and forward it to the local office of the FBI who will give it casual study until it’s too late. At worst, these notes will be one more inconspicuous item for the nice Hispanic lady who empties your trash after you’ve gone home for the day. With luck, you’ll never realize how many lives you could have saved had you only paid attention.”

“Some months ago, I was approached by someone who identified herself – verbally and with written credentials which I verified with her agency – as Rebecca Kloonz, a senior analyst with Homeland Security, an almost too attractive blonde, as stunning as she was friendly, the consummate professional you couldn’t get out of your head no matter how hard you tried. What I did, to be honest, I did for my country, but pleasing her was certainly part of it.”

“When I first met her, she was accompanied by a suit claiming to be a lawyer with the same agency. I’ll attach copies of the business cards they gave me. Although I now know they are imposters, both of them checked out when we first met. I called Homeland Security, and there used to be a handful of citations on Google, and a My Space page, but they’re gone now. Kloontz, the analyst, was to be my contact. The lawyer – the suit that came with her after I agreed to cooperate – was supposedly there to explain a handful of forms and agreements I had to sign related to federal secrecy statutes.”

“The gist of what they wanted was to hire me, outside of our company, to participate in what amounted to a game in the war against terrorism. My job was to devise and precisely document three to five means by which terrorists could infect the food supply so as to produce the most widespread, most frightening harm to our people, with devastating effects on the economy. One simple example that she gave me, far less sophisticated and effective than what she knew I could propose, was to introduce Mad Cow’s Disease in multiple herds around the country, destroying the American beef industry and all the various related companies whose products derive from that core ingredient. But MCD was too obvious. What they wanted from me were techniques that would kill as many people as possible, quickly, before the root cause could be determined, and for which there would be no obvious or convenient solution.”

“Other experts, as unknown to me as I would be to them, would then be tasked to devise means of protecting against these threats that I had devised, and recovering from such an attack. In later games, our roles would be reversed. It was the patriotic thing for me to do. It’s unbelievable, but I even met with Ms. Kloonz at her offices in the Homeland Security building in Washington. Why wouldn’t I believe her? While I was there, some senior gentlemen stopped by to thank me for agreeing to work with them on behalf of the American people would never appreciate the value of my efforts and that of other scientists like me. Who knows what he thought I was there to do? Was he in on it, or not? God forgive me, but who wouldn’t have thought this was real?”

“Attached to this e-mail are copies of the three suggestions I made, including detailed formulas, instructions for manufacturing, and plans for distribution. Their insidious effectiveness never disgusted me. Their cleverness made me proud of what I could do for my country, but then they counted on that, didn’t they, that I would be so highly motivated to do the right thing.”

Of the three proposals I made to Kloonz, the one in which she seemed to be most interested wa… Hold on. I think there’s a car pulling up in the driveway. Jesus, it’s after 1 AM and Jack isn’t due home until next week. Hold on… It’s just one man. F**k, he’s working the front door. He’s coming in. I’m going to e-mail this now and send you the attachments later, as soon as I…”

“Hi, honey.” His mother gave her smiling husband a quick kiss on the lips, and turned to shout upstairs to her favorite (and only) son. “Nelson! Com’on. Daddy’s home. I’ve got dinner ready to go. Get your sister and come on down. We’ve still go to pack so we can get an early start tomorrow morning.”

“Nuts,” Nelson thought to himself, interrupting his typing to press on the center of his frames, pushing his glasses up this nose which, sadly, would eventually be large enough to no longer need his assistance.

“He’s not packed yet?” his father asked, putting down his briefcase on top of their cat he hadn’t noticed was sitting in his favorite family room chair.” You’d have thought Jack, the cat, would have screamed, but then he was used to it, and looked forward to their leaving him home for a week of peace and quiet. “What’s he been doing all day?”

“Writing. I don’t know. I haven’t packed either.” And then she laughed, not wanting to make fun of their son, but unable to help herself. “He’s been grumbling that he has less than three weeks to come up with a really cool nickname.”

“It’s summertime. Why isn’t he busy with his dorky friends inventing something?”

“Hey, they’re not that dorky,” his older sister, Samantha, always protective of her younger brother, had just come around the corner into the kitchen. “He’s just a kid – a really, really smart kid with an overly active imagination. He’ll be okay as soon as he starts Middle School after we get back.”

“Nelson!!!” His mother couldn’t stand not serving dinner when it was ready.

The cringe was a reflex he couldn’t suppress. Still upstairs, standing up from his desk, Nelson moved the arrow “Send/Receive” and pressed the left key below his synapse pad. “Maybe it’ll make the news,” he said out loud. “That would be cool.”

“NELSON.” This time it was his father calling him. “Sam, please go get your brother.”

“Nelson Metcalf Rogerson. Jesus, what were they thinking?” he muttered under his breath, closing the lid of his laptop on his way to the door. “I’m never going to get a girl to go out with me. Never, ever.”

-wf

What to read more? Just click here and pick a title you like.

Copyright as of the title date or earlier, by me.
(I write the WordFeeder blog.)  All rights reserved.
Email WordFeeder@verizon.net for additional information.