drabblegrrl

I wrote this in 2011 for a creative writing class I taught for kids.

The day I loaned Morgan $400 bucks was the most exciting day of my life. She was only 10 years old, but she had a smile that lit up the room like the sun in summer and the brightest blue eyes I ever did see. She found me sitting on the steps of my porch, bored out of my mind, and she got me all wrapped up in more trouble than you can shake a stick at.

See, she found a diamond bracelet in the back of the car. It was her dad’s car, but she had no mom, so we didn’t know who the bracelet belonged to. Morgan decided that we could sell it, but we didn’t know who would buy a bracelet a couple of kids found. She convinced me to loan her $400 so we could buy a couple of train tickets to somewhere more interesting than our sleepy little town, and I fell for it. It was my entire life savings, but I forked it over.

We made it to the train station, but that’s where she ditched me. She managed to make off with all that money and the diamond bracelet, to boot. That Morgan. She may be young, but she’s not stupid.

She fell to pieces all over the kitchen floor.

As she was the only one to ever clean anything up, she just lay there a long time. She examined the tiles beneath her, the cracks like canyons stretching out as far as she could see. She gazed up, the dust on the ceiling glittering like stars. She counted her heartbeats, slow and glacial.

It’s not so bad, falling apart, she thought to herself. Peaceful, really. Surprising, when one isn’t planning for it. Inconvenient, perhaps.

She cast her eyes out over the floor. There, in the distance, she could see the sun rising over her green suitcase.

“I’ll never get them to trust me after this,” she sighed, tucking the unicorn into her pocket. Looking behind her, she glared at the dark wizard. Even encased in crystal, he frightened her – though she tried not to show it. That wouldn’t do.

So she faced him. “I’ve killed twice to stop you,” she said, tightly controlling the tremble in her voice. “I’ve taken two lives. And now I’ve an entire species to restore,” she gently patted her pocket, “and their trust to regain.”

She looked into his frozen eyes, and could not restrain the shiver that ran down her spine. “And, of course, you.”

She knew what to do. And she was the only one left who would.

She woke, knowing. Her eyes and her heart opened as the sunlight streamed into her room, swirling around her, encouraging her.

She rose, readied, and left.

In her car, she took a deep breath. She put on her favorite music. She let her mind wander so her heart could drive.

She drove until she got there. She rang his doorbell. He opened the door, and she looked into his eyes.

Familiar soul in a stranger’s body. They knew each other without introduction, without names.

They embraced, and their loneliness crept out the back door. Their lives began here, today, together.

The sky was obsessively blue, the kind of blue that comes from thousands of years of practice. Not a cloud visible. Most likely, they’d all run from the heat.

The heat. Good lord, the heat. It rolled in waves, rippling across the sands, creating a kind of fucked up water effect. It was beautiful in a brutal way – like the heat itself was trying to make up for how bad it was out there with the mirage of relief.

But it only made us all the crazier.

And that’s when she came. Right when we were considering drastic measures, there showed up a tiny kitten, blue as the sky. We all had to hold her, to make sure our eyes weren’t lying to us, but she was real as any of us. A tiny purring mystery.

She took to the youngest of our tribe; a tiny girl with eyes that matched the sky’s obsessive blue – and the kitten’s strange fur.

We none of us questioned it. Stranger things happen out here. And the kitten seemed a blessing.

Little did we know what would follow.

She reached out her hand.

His heart, hard, refused her.

She smiled.

His heart, angry, ignored her.

She persisted, he resisted.

She loved. He feared.

She began to dance alone. She stumbled over her own feet, but she danced on.

He watched, standing alone.

She danced, slowly, in the empty room. Her heartbeat, her rhythm. Her breath the music. She filled the room with her love.

His walls began to crumble.

She stopped, inches from him.

His heart stopped.

Time stopped.

She reached out her hand. She took his hand. She pulled him to her.

Together, they danced.

She learned how to follow, he learned how to be.

This story is dedicated to Rachael Maddox, who gave me the final line which blossomed into this story. Thank you, Rachael! <3

I am about to break his heart.

I watch him sleep, for the last time. His dark eyes closed, twitching as he dreams. His chest rising, falling, breathing. He stirs, he mutters, but he does not wake.

He has no idea what’s coming. No idea of what’s in store. He thinks me in bed, still beside him, all is well and nothing wrong.

But everything changed three days ago. Three days. Thirteen steps from the bed to my car. And only one minute for the world to tilt, for everything to change.

I lay my hand on his chest, feeling the slow steady beat within.

I will break his heart, like he broke mine.

She sat in the driver’s seat of her brand-new car in the parking lot of her brand-new apartment, her head resting on the steering wheel as she willed herself to get out. To go inside. To start her brand-new life.

She took a deep breath, dried her eyes, and opened the car door. The cool night air rushed in like a lover eager to greet her.

If only.

She shook away the thought, burying the memories. Not now.

She opened the hatch and pulled out her duffel, slinging it over her shoulder. She took the first few steps toward her apartment with trepidation until determination took hold and her pace quickened. She unlocked the door, sweeping it open and stepping inside. Fumbling for the light, she dropped her bag on the plushly carpeted floor. Her fingertips found the switch, throwing on a soft golden glow.

It illuminated the tiny loft like sunrise.

She gasped.

No.

Not here, too.

Keys, duffel, trepidation – all forgotten. She took a couple of steps further into the room, heart pounding, breath held.

Oh, yes. She could see clearly now.

Crop circles.

In the carpet.

They’d found her. Again.

She watched. All-too-familiar white clouds bobbed on the horizon, moving swiftly in the wind. She watched as they grew closer, larger. She watched as they became sails on ships, white as snow, billowing over dark wooden bellies. She watched, unconcerned, as they moved over her waters.

The ships dropped iron into the sea and slowed to a stop; she watched as the fish around her followed in the wake, watched as they danced in and out of the links in the chain. Her dolphins took flight and plunged back, spiraling around her, around each other.

She watched.

She watched as they lowered their tiny boats into the ocean, unknowing of their deeds or their futures. She watched as they began rowing toward the island. She watched as the sea began to froth, as the waves began to rise, as the storm began to brew. She watched their tiny frantic faces as their little boats tipped, casting them into the tumultuous waters. She watched as her sharks devoured all of them, one by screaming one. All except the captain. And she watched as the octopus wrapped all eight arms around the man and brought him to her.

She reached out her hand to the captain. The rest was up to him.

This is the story I wrote for the Creative Writing class I’m teaching, using Popsicle prompts.

I put tulips under all the pillows, and then I set fire to the house. I had spent twenty years with Bill, and I finally snapped. I couldn’t take the thing he does with the newspaper anymore – I tried to ignore it, then I tried to forget it, but eventually, I realized that the only way out was to burn it all down.

I realized it when I caught them at the diner. She was standing behind the counter, giving him this root beer-float kind of smile. And there he was, doing that thing with the newspaper. I knew they were up to something, and I knew it was nothing good.

So that night, I raided the garden. Tulips were my favorite flower, so I had them planted in every color imaginable. I picked only as many as I needed.

As the house burned, I walked away with a new sense of peace in my heart.