Mid-Week Blues Buster

Yvette

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I can’t believe the A to Z Challenge is coming to an end tomorrow. I’ve loved doing it. I thought about writing, “It’s not over YET,” as my “Y” post, but I had some flash to do, so instead I just named one of the characters Yvette.  I think I’ll do a reflection post on Friday about the A to Z Challenge. I’ve enjoyed the experience so much.

Without further ado, here’s the piece I wrote for Mid-week Blues-Buster. The song, to me seemed to be about internal demons, but it spun a great little thriller piece in my head. This is one I may develop further at another time.

Peace at Last
@laurenegreene
639 words

 

The rain rushed in as Yvette tried to kick in the door with her heel.

“Let me do it,” Steve said, pushing her out of the way.

We thought the house was empty. It’s true what they say—when you’re wrapped up with the wrong group of friends, you never realize it until it’s too late. That night, as the lightening crashed down around us, and the moss on the oak trees swayed like ghosts dancing in the rain, fate started shaking its ugly fist.

Steve and I both had pistols. Yvette and Coco raided the kitchen. I didn’t know why in the hell they always went there first. I followed Steve toward the bedroom. The house was dark, but looked lived in. A magazine was tossed on a coffee stained table in the living room, a stuffed bunny abandoned on a multi-colored rug. We rounded the corner, and looked up stairs that led to a loft, but continued past to the master bedroom. If the girls had told us food was simmering on the stove, we would have walked out the door, but that’s not what happened.

They were in bed, and the commotion had awakened them. A terrified look on their faces like a deer right before he’s hit by a car.

“I thought you said no one was home,” I said.

“Shut up,” Steve said.

The half-naked man and woman in the bed shook, huddled together with fear. Steve had his gun out now, and so I took my gun out too.

The half strangled word came out of their mouths, “No,” before it was cut off by the sound of the bullet crashing into the man’s skull and the woman’s scream, which I quickly silenced with a bullet of my own. My heart raced in my chest like thunder rolling down a mountain, and I couldn’t believe what I’d done in that split second. Now, I wasn’t just a thief, I was a killer.

“Oh my God, we have to get out of here.”

Steve laughed. That nervous type of laugh, you know the one a kid has after he’s done something he’s not supposed to.

“We killed them, Ollie.”

My face blanched, but I refuse to look back at the bed where Steve was staring.

“I’m going.”

“We came here to rob the joint and that’s what we’re going to do.”

The girls were sitting sullenly in the living room.

“What happened?” Yvette asked.

I was too stunned to answer. A few minutes later Steve came out with a bag full of Lord knows what. I didn’t want any of it—I just wanted to rewind time. My head was spinning with the knowledge of what we’d done.

And then we heard it.

“Mommy.”

We all looked up. A little girl, no more than four stood up at the top of the loft stairs looking down at us. Steve pulled out his gun, but I grabbed his arm.  It happened so quickly, when he pulled the trigger, the bullet traveled into my skin and through my side.

“It’s just a flesh wound,” Coco said.

“I can’t believe you were going to kill that kid,” Yvette said.

“Let’s get out of here,” Steve said.

I stood, blood dripping everywhere, and I looked up the stairs to see the little girl’s wide blue eyes looking down at me, like an angel from above beckoning me to join her. Coco, Steve, and Yvette were gone by the time I stumbled over the side of the couch. I tried to stand, to get my footing, but I slipped on something wet. When I hit the floor, the blood pooled around me like embryonic fluid. When I closed my eyes for the last time, I felt the little girl’s hand on my face, soft and warm. Peace at last.

The Hanging Tree

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Yesterday, my family traipsed all over Alabama. I had memories of my childhood, where my parents’ special talent seemed to be turning a four hour trip into an eight hour trip. We drove to Moundville, AL and on the way home we came through Selma, AL. In case you didn’t know, the 50th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Movement is this year. Today, the walkers who recreated the 1965 walk from Selma to Montgomery are arriving in Montgomery. We have come so far, but there is still a lot of hate in our world. There are still a lot of people who are denied rights. There is still a lot of racism. Teach your children well, to love all men, and there will be a lot less hate and racism. Hate begets hate. Love begets love.

I took this, not so wonderful cell-phone picture, of the Edmund Pettus bridge from the backseat of a mini-van. Sorry for the glare, but it shows you where my inspiration for this week’s Mid-week Blues Buster came from. 

EdmundPettus Bridge

The Hanging Tree
635 words
@laurenegreene

The last few times they’d visited the tree a rope had been hanging from one of the branches, a perfect circle, a hangman’s rope, Pamela knew. They’d put it there as a warning, the men with the tall white hats who ran around haunting the town.

Pamela and Nathan had ridden their bikes down to the five and dime to get a peppermint stick that day. They liked to sit under the shade of the old oak tree on the edge of town and talk.

Danny Risen nodded at them as they left the store, the jingle of the bell following them as they secured their feet on the pedals of their bikes and rode through the town of Selma. Old plantation houses loomed. A town, rich on textiles, and the center of what Pamela’s mother said was the Voting Rights movement. Just a few days before, the march had taken place. Pamela’s mother and father said it was about time. But Pamela knew they were in the minority.  The kids at school had nothing good to say about it.

They pedaled, the wind rippling through their hair, out to the edge of town and turned the corner on the dirt road toward the tree.

“Danny Risen is one of them.”

“How do you know?” Pamela asked.

The Ku Klux Klan members in Selma kept their identity a secret, but Nathan always claimed to know who was who.

“They set fire to a cross in front of one of their black preacher’s houses the other day. I heard Bucky talking about it at school. Said his Pa did it. Seemed right proud too.”

They pedaled down the dirt road, but even from this distance Pamela could see the shadow of the man hanging. Her heart sped up as her feet moved faster on the pedals.. She thought maybe if she could get there she could save him. Nathan always chastised her for wanting to save the world. “It’s too big of a task for a girl to take on,” he said.

Nathan had fallen behind, even as Pamela pedaled faster.  When they reached the tree, they saw the limp legs, hanging. The shoes untied and the feet at an awkward angle. Pamela slowly moved her eyes up his body, taking in every detail, until she saw his face. Ghostly white and young, his eyes were open, staring into the unknown face of death. There were scratches on his face and neck, where he’d tried to get the rope off his neck as he slowly suffocated to death.  Pamela had overheard her father say that when men were hung they danced a jig, their body jerking strangely, as they were slowly deprived of oxygen.

“I thought they put bags on their heads,” Nathan said.

Pamela shook her head, looking down at his feet again, his shoes seemed polish to a tee. This was a proud man, and he’d been pulled from Lord knows where and murdered for no reason. Pamela’s tears fell into the dirt, and Nathan placed a hand on her shoulder.

“There ain’t nothing we can do for him now, Pam. Come on. Let’s go home and tell someone. The least we can do is that, and maybe he can get a proper burial.”

Pamela shook Nathan’s hand off her shoulder.

“We need to get him down.”

“He’s deader than a doornail. A big ‘ole man like that. How do you think we can do that?”

She didn’t answer, and they turned to leave. From then on, her memories of the oak tree weren’t of spring and summer days with Nathan, unwinding and laughing in the shade.  Whenever she thought of the oak tree, she’d see the man’s face, bloated with eyes wide open and lips slightly parted as if he was questioning, “Why me?”

Little Boy Blue

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I think I’m a pretty happy person. But, for some reason writing sad or tragic comes easiest to me. I love the emotionally charged feeling that comes with describing tragic scenes. When I’m reading, I love how an author can make you feel anguish through their use of words. As I’m writing every day now, my description has changed and evolved. I’m finding new ways to convey the feelings in my stories.

For Mid-Week Blues-Buster this week I wrote, “Little Boy Blue.” With the music choice, you’d think I would have picked adult protagonist, but this just came to me, and what do you do? You write what comes.

Here’s the song:

And here’s the story:

Little Boy Blue
621 word count
@laurenegreene

She lay on her back on the floor of the blue room, dirt securely stuck under her tiny fingernails. She stared at the mobile, gently swirling around as the light rays streaming through the window seemed to make it move. The crib sat, empty in the corner. She had peeked into it earlier, looked through the slates to make sure no one was there. Empty. Abandoned.

“Hattie.” Daddy was leaning against the doorjamb, the shadow of a beard had started to creep across his face. “Your mother would be upset if she saw you in here.”

“Where did he go, Daddy?”

But Daddy just shook his head and waited for her to stand up and come to him.

He took her small hand in his and they crept down the hall, passed the room where her mother stifled sobs all day long. Bury your troubles. Hattie didn’t know what had happened. Her brother, chubby cheeks, flailing arms, all smiles, was there one minute and gone the next. An empty nursery—the ghost of the baby haunting their house.

Daddy lifted her to the counter and kissed her cheek, the scratchiness of his five o’clock shadow made her giggle.

“Peanut Butter and Jelly?”

“Mommy usually makes me lunch.”

“Turkey sandwich?”

He pulled out the meat and the bread, slapped mayonnaise on both sides, shook a few chips from the bag, as Hattie scrambled down from the counter and to her seat at the table.

When he put the food in front of her, Hattie wailed, “It’s not right.” She started kicking her feet, a tantrum rising up in her blood like a tsunami ready to destroy anything in its path.

“What’s not right?” Daddy asked.

“Mommy cuts it in triangles. Not a square. I don’t want a square!”

Hattie pouted, pushing her lower lip out, and tears sprang to her eyes.

“Fine,” Daddy said, taking the plate to the counter in a huff. “You just won’t eat. Go to your room.”

Hattie stomped off, but she didn’t go to her room. She ran outside into the backyard instead. She’d put the shovel behind the shed. She pulled it out, and she emptied her pockets: a little pile of treasures lined up. The shovel was hard to manage for her six-year old muscles, but after a few minutes she’d dug a hole, big enough to drop the treasures into and cover up.  She set the shovel down beside her and dug a little bit more with her hands, dirt staining them a dusty black. She put the items into the hole, lined up one by one, next to each other. There were seven filled in holes now. Daddy and Mommy hadn’t noticed them. They’d been too busy crying and hiding away from the world.

She patted down the dirt and felt satisfied. She stood up and started walking towards the shed.

“Hattie.” It was Mommy—red-rimmed eyes and hair askew.  Mommy didn’t look like herself.

Hattie flung the shovel behind her back, but she knew it was too late. She stepped back, and Mommy’s eyes traveled to the holes behind her, half covered, remnants of the past rising to the surface.

“What are you doing, Hattie?”

“Daddy didn’t know the sandwiches were supposed to be triangles!” Hattie shouted, throwing down the shovel and then running for the safety of the house.

Mommy, puzzled, drained of all emotions leaned down into the dirt. Her nightgown swept the ground, picking up dirt as she started digging.

The first thing she pulled out was a teddy bear, soft and blue. Then a rattle. Then a pacifier. Grief threatened to consume her when she pulled out the photo: Daddy, Mommy, Hattie and baby Grayson. Bury your troubles.

The Lily

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I’m sorry this is so sad. I wrote it for Mid-week Blue’s Buster over on The Tsuruoka Files.  It’s what came to mind, and it’s a little heartbreaking. This particular flash fiction site uses music as a prompt. I’d never heard this song, Faded Flowers by Shriekback.

Here’s a video of it, if you’re interested:

And here’s the story:

The Lily
578 words
@laurenegreene

The petals from the lily in the red vase had fallen to the table. Marcie knew she should get up and throw it away, but the lily reminded her of the fragility of life. She could feel the disease spreading through her body like a vine, and when she looked at the flower she thought about the night out with Brooks.

Only a week ago, they had gone out to dinner and it had been just like old times. Before the slammed doors, before the separate bedrooms, before the silence had crept up between them like a plague. Her heart hurt for the way things used to be between them, and that night she had felt a little of the old spark return.

She had planned the dinner. It had been her intention to tell him what the doctor had told her.

“Colon cancer. Metastatic.”

“How long do I have to live?”

And he had just shook his head, and then droned on and on about treatment options. In that moment, she had a desire to set things straight with Brooks. An affair was an affair, right? And she could forgive him for that. We’re only human, she thought.

At dinner, he’d slid his hand across the table and grasped hers, and she felt the long lost flutter fill her with a longing for him she hadn’t felt in so long.  She wanted to go home and crawl into bed with him. She wanted him to hold her tight all night long to comfort her and tell her everything would be alright, even when she knew it wouldn’t.

He bought the flower from the vendor in the courtyard outside the restaurant, one of the petals brushed off into the snow: white on white. And so she thought with the kindness of the night, they would go home and make love. The babysitter would have already put the kids to bed.

But when they came home they went their separate ways. She curled up in the middle of her bed and the tears ran rivers down her pillowcase as she thought about what little time she had left and everything she still wanted to do. She wanted to feel Brooks’ arms around her, she wanted to cuddle into him, but more than that she wanted to fix what had gone wrong in the first place: whatever that was.

So she hadn’t told him, and a week had gone by. She hustled the kids off to school in their winter coats every day and watched Brooks walk out the door. Slowly, the petals began to drop from the flower, one by one, dying as she was.

He came home early one day, and he was shocked to see her there.

“I thought you’d be at knitting club or something?”

“I have something to tell you,” she said.

“I have something to tell you too.”

“You first,” she said.

“I don’t love you anymore,” he said, as he sank into his chair. “I want a divorce.”

She stared at the petals resting on the table. The words stung, but they’d be nothing compared to the words she could throw back at him.

“I’ve been googling.”

“Huh?”

She focused on the flower petals curled up, browned at the edge, laying on the table and did not look at him. The pain in her chest was unbearable.

“I wouldn’t go through the cost of the divorce, if I were you. I’ll be dead in six months anyway.”