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.

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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.