Will looked at Holly, Holly looked at Will. They giggled as the world disintegrated around them, as the impossible came to fruition, as spectres roamed the streets and the sun refused to rise.
“I actually looked up the definition of the word “miss” yesterday, just because I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I missed you.” Holly said.
Her eyes glowed with the reflection of the burning police station on the other side of the town square. His reply was drowned out by a supernatural scream echoing off of every building, but she could read his lips, and his answer was perfect.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
The Windswept Dunes Hotel: Room 237
She watched without fear as the ceiling shivered and then disappeared, the roof ripped from the hotel, receding upwards and away from her into a dark green sky with stars so bright that they shone through the roiling clouds. Her grandmother leaned down next to her ear and whispered not to worry, that the wind couldn’t get down into the room. Right when she started remembering that her grandmother had died years ago, her history professor started banging on a chalkboard and asking her why she was always so late to class.
Collin sat on the next bed and watched Adrienne mumbling to herself in a fitful, illness-induced sleep. As he got up to go wet another washcloth for her forehead, he swore to himself he would never let her eat at a seafood buffet again.
Collin sat on the next bed and watched Adrienne mumbling to herself in a fitful, illness-induced sleep. As he got up to go wet another washcloth for her forehead, he swore to himself he would never let her eat at a seafood buffet again.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
The Windswept Dunes Hotel: Room 114
Pastor Bryan Sullivan took nearly two minutes getting his keycard to work in the door. It was another in a series of inauspicious events on this trip. For a man of less-Christian superstitions, they could have been considered omens, when taking into account the bizarre assignment that had sent him halfway across the country. But Pastor Bryan saw the creator’s warnings instead. The conclusion was the same: trouble brewing.
He was a man of God, young and full of vigor, but also a low man on the totem pole within the central administration of his denomination. So when so many of its flock in this part of the country began reporting strange things, the higher-ups had to send someone to investigate before issuing any official opinion on the subject. Pastor Bryan represented their due diligence.
As he laid his case on the king-size hotel bed, he couldn’t help but think about how in the movies, the catholic priests were always sent to large suburban homes to look into reports of demonic possession. But Pastor Bryan had to go interview trailer park denizens and far-flung homesteaders about strange lights in the desert.
He sighed and took off his shoes, and began thinking about what he might do for dinner.
He was a man of God, young and full of vigor, but also a low man on the totem pole within the central administration of his denomination. So when so many of its flock in this part of the country began reporting strange things, the higher-ups had to send someone to investigate before issuing any official opinion on the subject. Pastor Bryan represented their due diligence.
As he laid his case on the king-size hotel bed, he couldn’t help but think about how in the movies, the catholic priests were always sent to large suburban homes to look into reports of demonic possession. But Pastor Bryan had to go interview trailer park denizens and far-flung homesteaders about strange lights in the desert.
He sighed and took off his shoes, and began thinking about what he might do for dinner.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
just write something, self
I sit here at my computer, forcing myself to write. Been telling myself for a while now that I need not have an amazing story idea to get started. Just sit down and write. That I should tune into my feelings for inspiration. Use the little frustrations of life as a source, I say. But good lord, those things are boring. No one wants to read a story about how I feel like I am going nowhere in life, about how I obsess too much over the girl I am in love with and turn petty and jealous when I don’t get to see her. How I am ridiculously overqualified for my job at a shitty sign company? How my boss is a right-wing nut job? How I even have to weave fiction into this autobiographical listing of my issues, just to make those issues seem even slightly more interesting? How I don’t even work at a sign company? How I make things up all the time? How I am pretty sure I saw an alien standing on the side of the road when I was 16, but I don’t tell anyone because they would think I am making it up?
So maybe I do need a story. Or at least a setting. Or an idea to start with. I will think about it…
So maybe I do need a story. Or at least a setting. Or an idea to start with. I will think about it…
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
a letter from nowhere
Collin lied in bed and stared at the ceiling. A deep dark mood had been creeping up on him all day. A sadness mixed with frustration. It drained him of all ambition. He felt extremely restless, but he had no desire to actually do anything. He couldn’t think of what he would do anyways. Nothing held any interest for him.
The girl he loved was on the other side of the world, the other side of the planet. He hadn’t heard from her in two days, which doesn’t seem that long, but to him felt like months. He knew she was busy and if she wasn’t calling, it was because she couldn’t get to the phone. But his personality was such that the slightest little thing allowed doubt to creep in. Despite knowing full well how much she loved him too, he couldn’t help but think horrible thoughts about how maybe she had grown tired of him suddenly. How being away had changed her perspective on things. About how much fun she was having. Laughing, living her life without him.
But that was ridiculous. He had to get up and stop thinking things like that. She wasn’t the cause of his dark mood. She was his ray of light. She was the best thing in his life and to doubt her was wrong and unfair. The genesis of this depression rested in the moment he had opened that letter the night before.
It had seemed so innocuous at first. He had found it nothing more than amusing and even a little confusing. A second reading had done little to illuminate the point of the missive, so he had set it aside and gone about his evening and gone to bed.
In the morning it all seemed different. It was like his brain had restructured itself over night, making him suddenly able to decode what was being said in the letter. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the key to that understanding had been handed to him in a dream. But he couldn’t remember the dream, no matter how hard he tried.
He had picked the letter up and read it again. What it said now startled him, where it had amused him before. The things he had found particularly funny were now threatening, damning. However, the situation was hopeless. There was nothing he could do now. So he had tried to put it out of his mind. His thoughts kept going back to Adrienne. If she were here he could talk to her about it. She was the only one who would understand.
The girl he loved was on the other side of the world, the other side of the planet. He hadn’t heard from her in two days, which doesn’t seem that long, but to him felt like months. He knew she was busy and if she wasn’t calling, it was because she couldn’t get to the phone. But his personality was such that the slightest little thing allowed doubt to creep in. Despite knowing full well how much she loved him too, he couldn’t help but think horrible thoughts about how maybe she had grown tired of him suddenly. How being away had changed her perspective on things. About how much fun she was having. Laughing, living her life without him.
But that was ridiculous. He had to get up and stop thinking things like that. She wasn’t the cause of his dark mood. She was his ray of light. She was the best thing in his life and to doubt her was wrong and unfair. The genesis of this depression rested in the moment he had opened that letter the night before.
It had seemed so innocuous at first. He had found it nothing more than amusing and even a little confusing. A second reading had done little to illuminate the point of the missive, so he had set it aside and gone about his evening and gone to bed.
In the morning it all seemed different. It was like his brain had restructured itself over night, making him suddenly able to decode what was being said in the letter. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the key to that understanding had been handed to him in a dream. But he couldn’t remember the dream, no matter how hard he tried.
He had picked the letter up and read it again. What it said now startled him, where it had amused him before. The things he had found particularly funny were now threatening, damning. However, the situation was hopeless. There was nothing he could do now. So he had tried to put it out of his mind. His thoughts kept going back to Adrienne. If she were here he could talk to her about it. She was the only one who would understand.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Chapter 12: the really short chapter where all hell breaks loose
[from an unfinished, and unstarted, mystery novel]
Frank sat up with a jolt. A sound had awoken him, but stubbornly refused to last long enough be identified. Confusion and curiosity were swept unceremoniously aside in favor of dizziness and nausea. He closed his eyes and sat there in bed. One minute passed and he opened them again and looked slowly around the room.
Jackie was gone. Frank dimly recalled drunken attempts to remove underpants, uncoordinated fiddling with one another’s parts and, possibly, an orgasm. He giggled at the sheer romance of it.
He finally decided to get out of bed and stood up and made a rough attempt to shake and stretch the chains of encroaching middle age from his aching body. After a few moments he decided he had succeeded as much as he was going to and plodded nakedly towards the kitchen. Some rogue organ in his side threatened to explode as he reached up into the cabinet for a coffee filter, but he paused and the feeling passed.
Once the coffee was brewing, Frank climbed into the shower to see if the hot water could wash away some of the grogginess. At one point he thought he heard the phone and stuck his head outside the shower curtain, but was greeted with only silence, so he grabbed the shampoo and went to work on his thinning hair.
As he was toweling off, the phone rang again. He considered not answering it, but thought it might be a prospective client, or even Jackie. With a sigh he walked into the living room, leaving a trail of wet footprints across the hardwood floors. He picked up the receiver on the fifth ring.
“Jesus Christ, Frank! Don’t you ever answer your fucking phone?!?” shouted a slightly familiar voice on the other end.
“Who the hell-“ Frank started.
“Listen, you’ve got no time, buddy. You’ve apparently asked the wrong questions of the wrong people and it has gotten back to even more wrong people, if you catch my drift. You have to get off the grid. Get out of town – NOW! They know who you are and this thing may be bigger than you ever could’ve guessed.”
Frank tried again to ask the identity of the overagitated caller, but was greeted with only a dial tone.
Then he heard two car doors slam outside. Then footsteps coming up the stairs to his garage apartment. Unsure of where he had left his gun, Frank reached instead for the supposedly ancient ceremonial dagger the crazy old gypsy lady had given him. Remembering her ridiculous words (“This dagger, it’s name is Horatio, it will be the only man you can trust when the time comes…”), he hid the knife behind his back just before his front door exploded inward in a hail of splinters.
Frank sat up with a jolt. A sound had awoken him, but stubbornly refused to last long enough be identified. Confusion and curiosity were swept unceremoniously aside in favor of dizziness and nausea. He closed his eyes and sat there in bed. One minute passed and he opened them again and looked slowly around the room.
Jackie was gone. Frank dimly recalled drunken attempts to remove underpants, uncoordinated fiddling with one another’s parts and, possibly, an orgasm. He giggled at the sheer romance of it.
He finally decided to get out of bed and stood up and made a rough attempt to shake and stretch the chains of encroaching middle age from his aching body. After a few moments he decided he had succeeded as much as he was going to and plodded nakedly towards the kitchen. Some rogue organ in his side threatened to explode as he reached up into the cabinet for a coffee filter, but he paused and the feeling passed.
Once the coffee was brewing, Frank climbed into the shower to see if the hot water could wash away some of the grogginess. At one point he thought he heard the phone and stuck his head outside the shower curtain, but was greeted with only silence, so he grabbed the shampoo and went to work on his thinning hair.
As he was toweling off, the phone rang again. He considered not answering it, but thought it might be a prospective client, or even Jackie. With a sigh he walked into the living room, leaving a trail of wet footprints across the hardwood floors. He picked up the receiver on the fifth ring.
“Jesus Christ, Frank! Don’t you ever answer your fucking phone?!?” shouted a slightly familiar voice on the other end.
“Who the hell-“ Frank started.
“Listen, you’ve got no time, buddy. You’ve apparently asked the wrong questions of the wrong people and it has gotten back to even more wrong people, if you catch my drift. You have to get off the grid. Get out of town – NOW! They know who you are and this thing may be bigger than you ever could’ve guessed.”
Frank tried again to ask the identity of the overagitated caller, but was greeted with only a dial tone.
Then he heard two car doors slam outside. Then footsteps coming up the stairs to his garage apartment. Unsure of where he had left his gun, Frank reached instead for the supposedly ancient ceremonial dagger the crazy old gypsy lady had given him. Remembering her ridiculous words (“This dagger, it’s name is Horatio, it will be the only man you can trust when the time comes…”), he hid the knife behind his back just before his front door exploded inward in a hail of splinters.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
short cuts
As a child I drew maps of the roads and fields and forests surrounding my home. I meticulously researched every gully, every rock, every creek that wound through the trees. I tried my best to present it all perfectly to scale.
I had dreams that I discovered new roads that I didn’t even know existed. In the middle of the country, where I lived, there weren’t that many roads, and only one that led to my house. I would surely have noticed these hidden ones. Sometimes the dreamed short cuts were preposterous, such as one road that I had never noticed, that just so happened to lead straight to Dallas. Normally a trip of some two hours, this hidden road could get you there in 3 minutes.
To this day, I still have dreams of finding short cuts. No matter where I live. I get so excited at the discovery, calling myself a dope for not having found it before. I am so disappointed when I wake up.
I had dreams that I discovered new roads that I didn’t even know existed. In the middle of the country, where I lived, there weren’t that many roads, and only one that led to my house. I would surely have noticed these hidden ones. Sometimes the dreamed short cuts were preposterous, such as one road that I had never noticed, that just so happened to lead straight to Dallas. Normally a trip of some two hours, this hidden road could get you there in 3 minutes.
To this day, I still have dreams of finding short cuts. No matter where I live. I get so excited at the discovery, calling myself a dope for not having found it before. I am so disappointed when I wake up.
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