Per Gwen:  ‘A Suitcase Who Refused to Open’

The maroon monstrosity had burrowed its way into their home last spring.  Jacob dragged it up the flight of stairs alone, his back taut like a beam about to snap, sweating and grunting, only to shove it in the closet.

“What in God’s name is IN there?” she asked.

“Some papers and some other stuff - I’m not exactly sure, but I know I need it. I lost the key, but I swear I’ll have that lock looked at soon. Just pretend it’s not there, Baby, Baby-Girl,” he’d said, and gave her a sweaty swirl around their new bedroom, lifting her toes from the floor. The curtains burst into the room with a breeze, and they were happy.

For a couple of months she ignored it, but by December it was making her mad. Under a creamy dust, the case festered like an egg sac. She pulled a wet rag over it and dragged it to the middle of their room to  make Jacob confront it.

“It’s taking up my shoe space,” she argued.

“Leave it!” he said, dragging it back into the closet. “Good Lord, woman, you have too many shoes anyway. If ¾ of a closet isn’t enough, maybe that’s a sign that you should purge your collection.” She ran her toe over the dimples it left in the carpeting as he pulled it back into the dark. He strained, pulling and pushing it back to its corner. “Just ignore it. It’s not in your way. And you know I can’t open it anyway.”

“Why don’t you call a locksmith and get it over with? Aren’t you worried there’s something important in there? Besides, it makes me nuts, it’s taking up too much room. And mice will hide around it,” she shuddered.

“Now THAT’s your imagination,” he’d said. “You work yourself all up about the silliest things.”

It was true, she thought. In the closet, brushed by the hems of her skinny skirts and party dresses, it was unobtrusive. And she wasn’t crazy. It wasn’t as though it occupied all of her waking thoughts. But on her more expulsatory days, cleaning and emptying her home like a Catholic in confession would their soul, the suitcase couldn’t be overlooked.

Other than that, 722 Wicker Drive was how she wanted it, big and full and shaded by a sugary Maple. She pretended sometimes that it sat upon a hill, like in a cartoon from her childhood.  Jacob gave her white shutters, a garden, two cats and a puppy that grew into a steady confidant. In her rocker, she could always drop a hand and run her fingers along the dog’s silky full and floppy ears, watching Jacob sit at his desk and work. She filled time reading novels. Mostly modern fiction, but occasionally she’d slip something classic in so as not to get too vacuous.

“You need something more to talk about at dinner parties than Kate Christensen, darling. Especially with the kind of company we keep,” Jacob would say.

“Snobs!” she’s squeal.

But some Dostoyevsy couldn’t hurt.

On a chilly evening, after a day of Jacob’s working absence and her nit-picking at the house, she found herself in her basement. ‘The way it collects around here,’ she whispered, pulling a finger over a dusty shelf. ‘You’d swear I never ran a cloth over anything.’  She opened drawers and cabinets, unsure of what she was looking for until she found it: a heavy hammer with a thick metal face.

Her heart was in her throat as she climbed the stairs. In the middle of the floor where she’d again dragged it, like a blood-covered mountain, the suitcase waited for her.  The hammer swung loose and heavy in her sweaty palms.  Trying to brace her flaccid arms, she realized that swinging hard enough to knock the case open would require all of her strength.  And there was the nature of the lock:  little bits of metal, pins and disks designed so perfectly, keeping closed the leather-covered plastic shell. Little pieces so tiny and weak that any one of them alone could be dismissed as nothing. Could be ground into gravel without feeling the impact on the sole of your shoe.

She almost felt ashamed. The curtains were still and dull against the dark sky outside, though she’d left windows open in hopes of a breeze.

“What are you doing?” Jacob’s voice startled her so that she dropped the hammer. She realized only her fingertips had been holding on.

“I just thought we could get it open, so we could get it out of here,” she stammered.

“Oh, Baby Girl…” he laughed. “I’ll call someone tomorrow, OK?” She watched as he scampered past her to the case and began dragging it back to the closet, matching the tracks its edges had made along the carpeting. His body looked childlike and bent as he pushed and pulled its weight back to the dark corner.

“OK,” she said, surprised to feel a twinge of relief. “I guess I  could just get rid of some shoes.”

Regardless, this is one of my favorites lines ever written by anyone ever:

“She was thinking perhaps she was adventurous, but really, she was mostly angry.”

Prompt:  Write about a character’s first kiss. It can be the first kiss ever, or the first time kissing a particular person.

He was born in Wake, North Carolina, and that was his mother’s running joke - When would Jake wake up?

They lived in Windusky now, and had since he was five, but every once in while she’d still have a good laugh about it.  “Jake, we still waitin’ on him to WAKE up!” and she’d whoop out a laugh and tip back her vodka-tonic, grinning ferociously.

Around the corner, picking at the edges of the carpeting, he’d listen to her answer her friends’ whispered questions.

“Why he ain’t talk, really, Shelly?  He just can’t?”

“Girl, you know there ain’t nothing really wrong with him.  He just stubborn.  He’ll wake up someday!  Ha!”  And then she’d chortle and sometimes so would her friends.   When he got tired of listening he would go out back and play with one of the tired dogs that always occupied their yard.

Around 13 he started waking up early, before his mother and his sisters.  He’d pull a jacket over his flannels and walk.  Only a few houses on his street were lit up when he left: an older man who arrived home from work as the night ended, always in heavy boots and overalls, and two other women that reminded him of his mother.  He’d watch them through their windows, drinking coffee, watching the early news.  He’d brush through the lawns, letting dew wet his sneakers, listening to the birds call to one another.

As light broke people started to open their doors, jangle their keys, start their cars and fill the streets with lines of Fords and Chevys.  He’d walk until the kids lined up at the bus stops, yawning, and then he would head home to see his own mother off to work.

“Have a day, baby,” she’d say sleepily, tucking her cash and transfers into her purse before patting him on the cheek.  “See you at three.”

He didn’t count on Kelly. She came at 9:30 one morning, after the schools had started, the buses had left left and his cartoons were about to turn into court TV.  She stood in his doorway, her hands on her hips, chocolate eyes glaring through the screen.  Pink bubble gum oozed out from between her teeth with the pressure of her tongue.

“Why ain’t you at school?” She asked.  “I see you walkin’ in the morning but I ain’t never see you get on a bus.  Your momma know you home?”  A snapping bubble escaped her lips just long enough to be annihilated by her white teeth.  He shrugged and then nodded.

“Huh,” she said, jutting out her chin  “Well, I missed my bus.”  She opened up the screen and leaned her shoulder on the frame.  “I’m Kelly, anyway.  Why don’t you invite me in?”

He led her to the couch and sat, facing Transformers.  Through her eyes he saw the living room:  dusty piles of magazines, his sisters’ hairbrushes and flat irons in front of the hairspray-caked mirror, the heavy drawn curtains.  She tossed her backpack on the floor and sat next to him.

“So what, like you just be here all day?  Watchin’ TV?  Why don’t you go to school?”  She worked her gum for another minute, looking around the room.  “I look for you at school, Wilhelm, but I don’t ever see you.  You kinda cute,” she said, resting her jaw and grinning.  He couldn’t help but smile and shrug.  She jabbed him in the ribs with a pointed finger.  “What, you think I’m gonna kiss you or something?  Cuz you cute?”  He felt his face warm and he looked down.

In one smooth motion she leaned over, lay her cool hand on his cheek and pressed her lips against his.  Then she sat back and eyed him with a smile, procuring her gum from the back of her mouth with her tongue.  “Ha!” she said.  “You funny.”  She stretched her arms above her head and yawned.  “Well, I probably should start walkin’.  I can’t miss the whole day.”

As he watched her walk down the drive away from his house she looked back.  “Maybe I’ll miss my bus again some time and I’ll come see you.  Ha!  Have fun with your TV.”  He stood in the doorway, a half-smile on his face, watching until she was out of site.

Gwen’s latest prompt:  ‘Write a scene in third person p.o.v. in which your character is taking a journey via a favorite mode (car, plane, train, horseback, etc.) that s/he has long anticipated. A fellow traveler disrupts the trip.’  I’m a tad over 500, as usual…

“Sandy, pick up the water bottles.  Sandy!  Shit, they’ll end up under the driver’s seat again.  I’m not getting ‘em.”  Nan shook her head and stuck out her bottom lip.   Her eyes rolled around in her head as she tried to avoid looking at the bottles.

Riley wasn’t sure why Nan was in the van at all.  Nan was unstable at the best of times.  Two days of weed, drinking and acid in a sweltering van was making life surreal for all of them, but for Nan…  she was just trying to hold onto the little thread of sanity she maybe had at the beginning of the trip.  And it wasn’t looking good.

“Nanny, it’s cool,” said Riley.  She stood and scooped up the Aquafina bottles, cradling them in her sweater.  She sat back down in the bean bag and spread her legs out in front of her.  Sandy was sleeping in a pile of blankets before her, a clear trail of drool seeping out of the corner of her mouth.  She ran her toe over Sandy’s calf.  God, could she use some sleep, to curl up next to Sandy and close her eyes for a bit…  But not with Nan awake.  Riley didn’t trust her to not do something really nuts.  She couldn’t even imagine what, but her energy was tense, brought to mind a mangy squirrel or a tortured cat.  Even now, with her eyes closed like she was maybe trying to rest, her hands were twitchy.  Her toes were curled.

Riley yawned and went up to talk to Brian.  She kissed his cheek and he took one hand off the steering wheel to pat her shoulder.  Curled up in the passenger seat she watched Arizona pass, the Black Mountains an unmoving backdrop for the desert.  She’d been looking forward to this trip across the country for months, had mapped out the trip county by county.  From Boston to San Fran there were 12 monuments she wanted to see; she’d even bought a sweet new Cannon digital to record every belligerent moment in order to scrapbook the hell out of it later.

The trip was almost over and she had only 15 images stored on the SD.  They were of rest stop signs and Brian and Sandy making faces at each other.  No hot springs, no mountain ranges, no saguaro cacti.  Nan freaked out every time they had to pay money to see something, or eat non-organic, or walk more than 100 feet away from the van.  Or get out of the van, for that matter.  Or breathe.

Brian flipped his dreadlocks over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows at her.  ‘Nan,’ she mouthed.  He sighed and nodded.  ‘Freaking out,’ she whispered.  He cleared his throat and nodded again.  He squeezed her knee with a knotty hand.

“Sandy!!  You’re drooling all over the goddamn blankets!”  barked Nan from the back.  “Swear to God, I ain’t washing ‘em!  We all have to share those, you know.”  Sandy snorted a little snore.  At least she could sleep through it.

“Need me to drive?” Riley asked Brian.  Driving would at least keep her occupied, give her something to focus on.  He shrugged.  No way either of them would fall asleep with Nan in the van.

This is my latest prompt.  We were given several choices, one of them being ‘doing the right thing for the wrong reason.’  As usual, it’s just a touch of 500 words!

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Cleaning up the sides of highways was a good thing, a commendable thing, even.  He wore the plastic orange blazer with pride.  He’d found the group ‘Ordinary People Clean Up’ on the MDOT web site.  They picked up garbage and road debris, specifically from along the two mile stretch between exit 62, Harris Road, and M51.  He called the contact number and joined two days before their third and final cleanup effort of the summer, claiming he wanted to get involved in some kind of effort to make amends for his disposable lifestyle.  ‘And to round out my resume,’ he’d said with a wink when he’d met the organizer, flirting a little.  Mindy was young and cute and idealistic, but not so much of an idiot that he thought she’d really buy the making amends explanation.  Most of these people were her friends or wanna-be boyfriends, roped into trolling for crunched up packs of Kools and empty beer cans by means of her smile.  He didn’t get asked many questions, and any he did he deflected with his wit.

Scanning the weedy sides of highways was surprisingly interesting.  Though his main focus was looking for the hand, or preventing someone else from finding it, he found himself pondering the types of people who left a trail of debris behind them as they sped along at 75 mph.  Technically, he was one of those people, but his litter had been accidental.  The tarp wasn’t tied down properly, which he knew when he left for the river, but he’d been trying to hurry when creating a web of bungee cords over the bulky pieces of corpse.  If it weren’t for those damned nosy neighbors he could have taken his time and none of this would have happened.

His most interesting (and potentially useful) find was a cheap pleather purse, barely weathered, complete with a lady’s wallet (no ID or cash), a tube of mostly used lip gloss and small hash pipe.  He found a pink lighter with a chipped bottom nearby and assumed it fell out of the same bag.  Somebody got nervous, he thought grinning.  He knew the feeling.

He was straying from the group, clutching the purse in one gloved hand and a garbage bag in the other.  It billowed around his feet and kept getting caught on the prickly burweeds that were, as far as he was now concerned, the street-punk bastards of highway plants.  He was letting out a stream of curses after pulling his bare wrist across one thorny plant when he spied something that looked out of place.  There it was, bloated and dirty and partially hidden by the leaf of a milkweed plant.  The gray fingers were curled in toward the palm.  He glanced back at Mindy and her crew, who were now headed toward him.  He snatched it up, shoved it into the purse and then dropped the purse into the garbage bag.  It couldn’t have been smoother.  He knotted and then double knotted the thick garbage bag as Mindy approached him with a toothy smile.

“What did you think?” She asked  “Going to join us again next summer?”  She piled her garbage bag on top of his, and several others did the same.

“It wasn’t bad,” he said.  “It felt kind of good to do a good deed.  It’s like we made the world a better place today.”  He grinned from ear to ear as they walked back to their cars.  Maybe he would join them again next year.

This is a response to Gwen’s latest prompt - a 500 word piece detailing someone’s unusual New Year’s resolution and a scene describing why they need it.  I once again went a bit over 500 - sorry!

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Matthew ascended the steps to the cathedral, a looming structure bursting from the frozen ground like a stalagmite.  He almost expected a chill as he entered it, but inside it was, logically, warmer than out.  The cavernous entryway was empty and thickly carpeted.  He padded slowly through the stuffy room, hearing the choir through the dark wood of the doors leading to the nave.  Sniffling a few times and picking cat hair from his tweed, glancing around to be sure he was indeed alone, he lay a hand on the dark wood of the door’s frame.

There were maybe 20, 30 people singing.  The men’s voices filled the space with their timbre, deepness resonating through the wood and into his hand.  As always, the women’s voices rippled through the air like strings he wanted to pull, making him quiver.  A visceral shiver ran through his gut.

The image of Jemma Dee, his polite and rather busty neighbor, ran through his mind.  She was cradling cocoa in hands bundled in knit mittens, a plush smile behind the mug, the day the gas main had broken on their street.  Jemma Dee looked like what he was listening to now.  The combination of the bass, alto, and her smile was exalting.

This particular Babtist chapel’s doors were heavy and windowless.  To view the singers would require opening the doors and joining the parishioners.  It was a distasteful thought and he cleared his throat at it.

Mostly, the sight of any choir tended to be disappointing anyway.  The street clothes, the casual mannerisms that had become so commonplace, were practically blasphemous.  People rendering the sacred music of God ought to have more dignity than to wear sneakers and jeans.  It was a disgrace.   And with so many hip little cars covered in Liberal bumper stickers in the parking lot of this one, it was probably better he couldn’t see.  After a quick glance around, he pressed his ear to the cool frame.

“Come Holy Ghost, Creator Blessed
And in our hearts take up thy rest
Come with thy grace and heavenly aid
To fill the hearts which thou hast made
To fill the hearts which thou hast made…”

After several minutes he sleepily pulled his eyes open, feeling satisfied.  The priest had begun speaking again.  He had a kind voice, young but hopeful.  Not that he really cared, but this one sounded earnest, compared to some of the creepy, crumbling old farts that pandered to the hapless peoples.

Outside, weapon-like icicles hung from the overhang.  Drips frozen in action clung to the tips of several, small but bulbous.  Against them, the sun was blinding, a white winter light he let burn his eyes.

“Matt?”  A voice called from the lower steps.  He looked down, but his field of vision was a purple blur from the sun.  “Matt, is that you?  Holy cow, I didn’t expect to see you here!”  The cheeriness gave her away - it was Jemma Dee.  She was all bustle and hurry, pulling her purse strap over her shoulder.  “Are you coming?  Come in and sit with me!  We’re only 30 minutes late or so.  That’s not too bad, right?”  She laughed and took his elbow.  Her voice lowered when they entered the foyer.  He saw his foot imprints near the door, but she was unaware.  “I promised my Mom, for my New Year’s resolution, I’d start going to church every Sunday.  This one has such nice steeple.  I thought it would be a good start.”  She giggled and winked at him.

“I was going to do the same thing,” he said, surprising himself.  “That’s my resolution too.”  She seemed to not hear.

“Shoot,” she said.  “No windows.  We’re going in blind!  At least there’s the two of us.  We won’t look so nutty.”  She took a deep breath and put her hand on the thick handle.

“We should do this every week,” he said.  “It will help us stick to it.”  She nodded her blonde head.

“Deal.”  She pulled the door open and they joined the congregation.

Summers in Memphis were sweet. Honeysuckle and azalea blooms lined the park paths in frilly rows, and each time she walked through Romeo she thought she should lean and pat each bloom in appreciation. She seemed unable to perform this task, though, and knew it signified her inability to appreciate any free pleasure or lagniappe in life. Unless there was a serious something to be gained, a reward, most tasks were useless. She hated herself.

Mostly, she missed the ocean.

The streets by the salty bed had been warm, and on Fridays she’d strolled down the walk, into the heart of the city and down to the water. The sea had smelled gentle and playful and she’d been glad to live near to it. From her flat, she’d been able to see the water and would often spy on people lounging on the peer, idly considering throwing on her rubbers and approaching them, encroaching on their space as they had on her field of vision.

Tennessee was not so bad, though. The music was good, if you pulled yourself down the right streets, and she did. In heavy boots she sent shivers through the sidewalk, hovering between looking for something and desperately not wanting to find it.

As a child she would sit on the kitchen counter, eating the sugar her father used for his coffee out of its little glass jar. Sometimes it tasted like coffee still from the double dipping of his spoon, which sat next to the jar with a puddle of beige liquid in its recess. If he walked in on her his hand would swing before she could even catch his eye, firmly shoving her off the granite into a free fall. She insisted on enjoying her spinning departure from the crunchy, grainy sweetness, relishing the taste between her tongue and the roof of her mouth until the sting from hitting the tile made her eyes water.

Looking for Joe was the same, a sweetness, a pinch she almost liked but knew she had to be rid of at the same time. She would find him and flick him from her life like an insect, quick and simple.

I found the below bit digging through old files, trying to find something worthy of working on in place of the short story I should be re-writing. A lot of times I listen to music when I’m writing. When I do so, I punch in a few of the lyrics at the top of the document, just to get me in the mood, and to maybe remind me of what I was listening to when I look back at it. This was a Tori piece (off of a more recent album, Scarlett’s Walk I think?)… which doesn’t make a WHOLE lot of sense… but is interesting all the same.

—

He drowned in those walls, under that ceiling, counting cracks, killing roaches, listening to the muffled sound of his mother’s daytime TV with its sparkling clean commercials for diapers and soap and breakfast cereal. They made him hungry, sometimes. Mostly he wanted to go outside. He watched the street below from his window, chin resting on the sill, for hours. They were in a corner house, next door to Ralph’s, so he could watch people slow at the stop sign and walk to and from the party store, empty handed on their way in, leaving with paper sacks. He watched the noontime shadows disappear and reappear as the day wore on. If it was going to be a good day he would hear her in the kitchen rattling around with pans and water would run, and if he waited, smells of food would waft into his room. Later, when she was quiet, he could slip out and clean out the pan, let his fingers get sticky picking up leftover pieces of macaroni or squiggly noodles. He would find any spills and lick them up and run his fingers along the inside of the pan as hard as he could, getting out the last of the residue. He would then slip back into his room, sucking on each of his fingers until the flavor was gone and his fingers were damp and tasteless.

The assignment I chose, out of Gwen’s list, was to write a 500 word story that begins with ‘Alice tried to remember who had given her the key.’   It’s a tad over 500… forgive me!  It is below.  Enjoy!

Alice tried to remember who had given her the key. She knew when she had received it. It had been a Tuesday, because under a rocky, gray sky she had been on her way to Steiny’s to eat a creamy bagel sandwich. The same sprout-laden, cream cheese covered delight was still offered only on Tuesdays, and she still went as often as possible. In New York, having a good deli with a friendly young buck behind the counter ready to whip up a specialty you’ve waited for all week was almost like having a family. You just went every week without exception, even if it was the busiest time of day on a Tuesday.

The afternoon she’d been handed the key, which she now wore every day around her neck, the traffic had been busier than usual. She was pushing through the streets, worrying before she’d even left the office that she would be late returning.

“Hella hella, Purple yella!” a brown, weathered man sang over the twang of his guitar. His foot tapped against a black felt hat on the ground before him. “Don’t you want a fella, sugar?” She slowed for a moment to listen, dropping a dollar in his hat and giving him a smile, but moved along quickly. She was determined to get her lunch and flirt with her deli boy a little, in as unhurried a way as possible. His smile was warm and thick behind the glass counter; his eyes were golden brown. She found herself humming the man’s tune while deli boy’s tan face filled her mind. Her steps were light on the pavement. She was having a little daydream when the Cadillac roared around the corner, just as her leg extended into the street.

She and two other people were hit, but she bounced the farthest. She didn’t lose consciousness immediately, and so was able to experience the weightlessness of being tossed through the air. The feeling of hitting the pavement, though painless, was vivid; she felt like a rug might, being beat against something to free the dirt.

As she lay twisted in the road watching the clouds shift through the sky, a face appeared in her field of vision. It was the singing man, and for a moment his wrinkled, dirty face was beautiful and comforting. “You look all right,” he said, laughing. He looked to the right. “She might need a little help next time, eh? Maybe something to keep her safe?” She looked away from him and saw he was speaking to a squat, small-eyed man, equally dirty. He nodded.

When she woke in the ambulance, by then feeling the pain from her splintered shin, the key was in her hand. Etched into one smooth side was the word ‘Safety’ in loopy script. “Watcha got there?” said the EMS man, checking the blood pressure monitor.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “A key, I guess.”

“Hmmm… For what? You were holding onto it pretty tight. I’ve never seen anyone bounce off the pavement like that and still have something in their hand,” he said, adjusting a knob on the monitor.

“I don’t know. I think an angel gave it to me,” she said. He raised his eyebrows and wrote something into a notepad.

“Well, you’d better hold onto it then. Might be important,” he said. She closed her eyes and drifted off, trying to capture the faces of the men who’d hovered over her in the street.

So here’s my first Writers In The Woods assignment:  a 500 word piece involving a ‘man in black,’ a ‘fishbowl,’ and ‘train tracks.’  I wrote it in the presence of four children, but the task is complete, so I’ll post and post happily!  Please check out the writer’s links in the blogroll to see other stories using the same guidelines.

She lived alone, and most days The Watchers didn’t come to her. She’d hear them knocking on the neighboring doors, up and down the hall, and she strained to listen each time. They would stomp past her door while she waited on the inside, goldfish bowl in hand, ready to prove its sustained livelihood.

She’d never had a goldfish die. Once every three months or so a man dressed in black would come to her door, collect the old bug-eyed specimen, and deliver another in a tightly knotted plastic bag. She thought it was the same man every time, but it was hard to say. He came alone, never smiled, and had cool blue eyes that refused to become familiar. The first few months she’d tried to question him and then make polite conversation, but he had obviously been instructed not to partake in such niceties.

“Ma’am,” he’d say loudly. “Ma’am, I’m in quite a hurry.” He’d speak over her until her voice was just a whisper, and eventually, she stopped trying to talk altogether.

On a Tuesday morning near the end of her third September as a Fish-Watcher, she woke with a start. She’d been dreaming of the blue-eyed man. His eyes protruded from his face and his mouth was drawn up in a funny way. She waited at her open doorway, wanting to ask him what was wrong but unable to speak. She stood, terrified, as he slowly pursed his lips and blew a fat, slobbery, opalescent bubble. As it drifted toward the ceiling her fright grew. She stifled a scream and woke as it popped.

She dashed over to the bureau and saw before getting there that the fish was drifting sideways through its bowl.  “No, no, no, no…” she mumbled. She tapped at the glass and then shook it a little. A cloud of dust stirred from the bottom of the bowl and the fish sloshed through it gracefully, obviously dead.

There was a knock on the door. She spun and glared, hoping the person on the other side would pass her over. The next knock was louder and accompanied by a strong voice. “FW 1264, open the door, please. Routine check, please.”

She walked trembling to the door and held out her bowl to be checked. In less than a minute, the bowl was sealed and placed in a black box, and she was being escorted to the waiting train behind the building.

Sitting all around her were the other fish-killers, and the blue-eyed men in black, sitting silently. She noticed each of them had eyes that protruded slightly from their flat faces, and they all looked eerily alike.