Ripost!

Monday, June 25, 2012

Oh, snap! It would seem that I have "moved on"! http://prompt-ripost.tumblr.com/ Tell that to my exes...

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Fool

(Inspired by the Trumps - idea for a story. Broken lives and archetypes, each one looking to resolve their presentation - to finish what their card represents...)

I will never be more than a feast to folly. I was born, and I will die, and I will never understand.

The others know, and somewhere deep inside, I'm jealous. I've seen them, and they're broken, each and every one. I'm lucky, and I know it. And yet...they know. They're sure.

If there is one advantage to the curse, it's that you never need to doubt. You are. It is. And it knows you.

But I'm different. I'm privy to the show, and another player in the game of cards, but...I'm not bound like they are. I'm allowed to stumble, given the gift of doubt and anticipation. I've seen what they can do.

Even I can't be sure what I might be doing next.

I'm sorry, I suppose, for all the others. It's arrogant to feel that way, when I have my own weakness, but I do. Never being sure, never being ready, never being done...doesn't that just mean my story's never over? The rest are just waiting for their card to be drawn, for Fate to set them into motion.

My gift is freedom. My curse is the precipice. I'll never know when my steps are sure. They'll never know anything but the paths long since set before them.

Call me Lucky. Pick a card. And let the games begin.

Trigger

A cigarette flew out of nowhere, struck the ground. It was the last, worst luck that found her that night. To her, it was the end.

To the story, it is not the beginning, but certainly at least the first rising action.

She didn't drink - drinking didn't sit well with her medication. Neither did certain sugars, certain lifestyles, the significant amount of stress that she was under, and most of all, these drugs did not play very well with others. Least of all with the smooth white pill dissolving in her glass of water.

She didn't earn the first drink splashed on her. She might have earned the second - she didn't try to be a bitch, but getting soaked by some drunk idiot struck her as proof. Why be nice if you'd get the blunt end anyway? And so she said a few unkind words that didn't matter much, except to turn her from damp to doused in short order.

Now she was sure. Fate or hubris, it didn't matter. This was set to be a bad night. So when the nice young man asked her about her long and involved sleeves of red tattoos, she blew him off. He was trouble with a pretty smile - of course, she was right.

Fate had nothing to do with it, unless you believe in self-fulfilling prophecies - but it was one more thing. The smooth white pill, swallowed down in one smooth gulp that she'd forgotten by the time her glass hit the counter.

It took twenty minutes to get in and out of the bathroom, around and through the crowds, and out to fresh air and a smoke to ruin it with. Of course, her lighter wouldn't work. And no one else to save her, but the same bitch that she'd told off just a short time ago. She'd forgotten; the bitch had not.

She was tired, angry, and wet. She wasn't looking, just reacting and ready to leave. She didn't even see or smell the leaking motorcycle gas tank. The bitch was too drunk to know or care.

The gas should not have lit, but the vapor had a good, long time to rise up. There'd been a lull - the perfect song was playing.

She asked the bitch for a smoke. The bitch smirked, tried to look as nice as she could fake - and then she tossed her butt towards the woman's face.

She missed, but that was worse.

Everything was flashing light and sucking air. Vapor flew to gas, to climb up alcohol and fabric. Her hair caught like a firework and sure enough, her cigarette caught light.

And everything exploded.

To her, it was the end. The fire hurt, down into her bones. She closed her eyes.

But she was far from dead. The night was far from over.

And fate was far from done with her.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Accelerate

I put the car into gear and let it fly. It barely took a touch; she danced under my fingers like a lover, and I loved every inch of tire on the ground. She purred under me, and together, we took the ride into town.

It's the quiet that gets you worst. The city is what it is - too many malls and not enough gas stations. I'd made a list, but siphoning up was hard work and time was getting shorter. My credit card got me lucky sometimes, but finding a working pump computer was getting harder. Tech support wasn't answering. No one was.

But driving got me where I needed. Back home, I had a fat stack of survival. Food, water, solar panels. It was all worked out. That wasn't the problem.

The problem was finding reasons to panic. To move. To think. I needed something meaningful, and ever since I was a little girl, the roar of Dad's 'Vette was it and everything.

As I roared down the freeway doing 90, I had lots of thrills and surprises. New cars stalled out half inside a lane. The occasional trap set by thrillers. Jumper bones from overpasses. Cracks and potholes - the bitches, they weren't even special. My Dad's 'Vette laughed and rumbled, and we blazed aside and past it all, turning the big loop into our time trial.

Once a week. One day, the gas would end. Or worse, I'd find a problem I couldn't fix. On my fourteenth tire, my fifth spark plug. My second transmission, and the last one I'd found in months. So...once a week. That'd last a while, wouldn't it? I would be different. I'd be anxious...not like the wasters in their chairs, their beds, their offices.

The new world was supposed to be happy. Instead, the new world was satisified. We'd won. No depression. No anxiety. No one was lonely...but no one was hungry, either. Tired? Sick? Dying?

I hadn't felt lonely for two months. I maxxed out the engine and let fly. I could have died. And there it was, the ache to see another person, taste their skin, and eat them up like sweet candy, to never let them go.

But I've seen the lovers. They never wake up, rotting like pretzels in each other's arms. The new world wasn't happy; it was satisfied.

So I put her through her paces. And I was never satisfied. I never felt the wind fly through my hair like Daddy used to make it whip. But that need was enough.

I wasn't satisfied, but I was still alive. The new world hadn't found me yet; I was savagely unhappy, and I kept fighting. I'm a survivor. Me and the 'Vette, we'd go on 'til the gas ran out. And then the Colt in the glove box would do the rest.

Daddy always told me, "It's when you stop wanting that life kills you." I'm still here, Dad. I'm still here.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

The Gospel According to Mike

"There are rules, man, there are fucking rules. And rule first and mother fore-fucking-most is this, and listen! You DO. Not HIT. On the bartender."

Sage advice, Mike, but fuck you. There are a hundred bars in this little redneck town, and every single one had Bud on the tap and Harleys on the pavement. There are rules, and there are regulations. They're written into the nicks in the countertops and into twisting barland stories. Mike saw himself a prophet, but tonight I wasn't worshipping.

There was a crazy quality about her. I know, calling someone crazy isn't ideal courtship strategy, but listen. Most people never dare to really see the world. Something in her smile and in the wrinkle of her nose could smell what's out there, and yet she smiles. She smiles at things that makes me drink. If that isn't special, what kind of crazy is?

Mike doesn't get it. "She's another blonde. Another inked-up mystery behind the counter. You want to give her something special? Tip two bucks a shot, and shut your fucking mouth. Magic!"

Fuck you, Mike, as if I'm not aware. There's a glass screen in this life, between the people living in a moment and the people selling it. You'll always be "that wacky/bitchy/quiet customer" to them, a character on the show they just have to watch. At least it pays, or else we might forget there's people under there at all. I wanted to be a man, and not a creeper, not a customer. Mike's gospels rang inside my ears like laughing high school hordes. They had me dead to rights, and I just wasn't being cool.

"Listen, man. I get it. I really, really get it. You think that seeing something means something. It doesn't. Nothing real ever happens within 50 feet of Jager. Trust me!" I wanted oh so much to disagree, but that Mike, he had me dead to rights.

And then she smiled at me. I swallowed half a sea of water and a wicked, sharp little chunk of ice. She laughed, and I smiled like a shameful boy might smile. She asked me if I wanted another, and I took it. I wanted more, had so many words to say. I washed them down, and that was that. She was in another customer sitcom show, and I was drunk and inarticulate.

Mike saw himself a prophet. A wiser man would listen sooner. Mike would never be more than he was, but at least he knew how to keep his dreams inside the spirits.

I never said a word. I tipped two bucks and shut my fucking mouth. The feeling passed, and Mike proved right again. The rules, they had me, dead and true.

The rules, they had me written.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Galatea

(Free-writing experiment to work through some random thoughts.)
My hands were wet and black and busy. They were certain, while my mind was loose and shaking in its shell.
The chassis frame was simple, smooth, and elegant. I’d chosen every dent and every scratch – each piece came with a history, a story, or a song behind it. I could have taken something fresh and new, but I wanted texture and meaning. I wanted perfection from age, like wine or history. Some things take a trip or two to settle in, and a good frame is no different. I knew it wouldn’t buckle. I knew it wouldn’t break. I knew that it could bend. All in all, that was the easiest work and I set to it with distant eyes.
What was I doing? Why? What did I hope to make, and what was I making it for? Was this perverted or was it passion? Was it both or neither, or something in between? The frame was soft and hard in places, reacting to my fingers by twisted nerve and old reflex. I could feel it, cold and firm, much firmer than it would be once I’d breathed the life inside it. What life could I breathe inside it? What was I doing? And why?
Next came the more delicate components. Lengths and ribbons of fleshy tube, all lubricated and carefully set into a bed in the belly of the frame. I built connections and made a pathway, a conduit for what was yet to come. My hands were certain, but I was not. This was delicate, but unimaginative. The interior was the same, all but the flaws, and here I had no time for flaws. The only stories here were climaxes and epilogues, and I had no mind for those. To know the destination, I’d need to know where I was headed with the work. The answer still eluded me.
I was holding the pumping piston as the juice slid between my fingers, and it struck me. I wanted this for me, for no one else. This creation was something my hands were aching for, taking heed from something deeper than my mind. I’d chosen carefully from memory and dream - each component, each fluid, each whisper and murmur and spark followed some half-remembered, half-imagined ideal. I was making something that my heart desired, and holding that heart, I placed a wet and gentle kiss upon it. The thrum of resonance was immediate – it would know desire as I knew it, in its fingers, in its frame. The mind would be the last to know.
The human work required a special touch that way.
The needle and thread were smoothly sewn, but the face was the slowest work of all. My mind had joined me, and it whispered aloud through my lips. It gave me answers, gave me guidance. I bore the muse internal, and before my eyes, a skull gave way like marble before the chisel, my scalpel in the sculptor’s trance. She looked at me, unblinking, as I set pale green jewels into their places. I let her watch as I set the height of her cheeks, the sharpness of her jaw. I slid a skin over her, working the living clay with a delicate cruelty – I left nothing out of place. Each blemish was intention, each error cut and smoothed away. I folded her lids over at the last, once I was sure those eyes looked on me with approval. Eyes should be closed for the first kiss, after all.
I breathed in my hopes and wonder, and I breathed out my doubts, my fears, and my weakness. I took a dozen flushing breaths, taking in all of the ambitions I could hope to share and letting out the stains of hard experience. She was a gentle work, and I would keep her clean. I was sure. I was certain. I was ready. I pressed my lips to hers and I exhaled, and with a gasp, she took in all that I could hope to give her.
I felt a flutter and her eyelids slowly rose. New fingers tensed and grasped my face, too hard, too clumsy. There was a moan, a scream, a moan again, and then she softened against me, she stilled. She looked at me. And with a cracking voice, she spoke. “Your hands are wet…master.”
I smiled. “Clean them, please. And thank you.” And with gentle lips and tongue, she set to work. She stained and smudged her cheeks and chin, but it was perfect. She was perfect. She was mine.