in blackest night

Just another UMW Blogs weblog

“I don’t understand death,” I whispered to Sam.  She looked up at me from the yellow stretcher she was strapped down to, her face was half covered in white gauss, I dared not imagine what lies beneath them.

“Good thing I’m gonna be ok, huh?” she let the phrase croak out of her swollen, puffy violet lips.

“Uh-huh,” I tried to let my tone let her know what the doctors had warned me about when I arrived.  “Can I call someone for you? Your mother?”

“Everyone I want here…is here,” Sam said just before furiously coughing and hacking.

I looked down at her, with my arms folded across my chest, and asked if she was all right.  She was like a child’s loose tooth, just hanging on by a thread.  “You know, you should rest.  I’ll be back in a little while.”

“You’re just gonna run away? Again? Sam called out to me as I stepped through the pale yellow curtain that separated us from the rest of the ER.  I didn’t look back.  I just walked to the vending machine, slid all the change in my pocket into the coin slot and pressed E7 over and over until either I ran out of money or the vending machine ran out of Moon Pies.

Within a few minutes my fingers were brown and sticky, I felt better.  I crinkled the cellophane wrappers in my hand to the beat of the soft jazz playing over the soundsystem, which reminded me of the supermarket, and my weekly grocery shopping with Sam.  I stood up and made my way back to the yellow curtains. I pushed them out of my way with one arm and stepped through.

“You were right, I run…” I started to say before the monotone wail, of the machine you see on all the medical shows, pierced my ears.  I stood still, staring at her small body, almost pocket-sized now, before I heard the woosh of the curtain opening behind me.  I knew the horde of people clawing at her weren’t miracle workers, so I sucked the last bit of chocolate from my thumb, turned around, and ran.

coleman

Slow: Write a narrative scene in which you convey to your reader an expression of slow, mental or physical.

I stood up from my seat on the red velvet upholstered loveseat, lifted the small china teacup, with the gold leaf pattern just below the lip, and took in the final drops of my tea, which had chilled during our conversation.  I turn and leave, without a word, stepping through the front door and out onto the porch overlooking the lawn, colored dull hues of brown and amber from winter’s bitterness.  I looked down at the stack of soggy newspapers beside the frayed w_lco_e mat, they smelled sour, surely infested with varmints that would kill the poor soul kind enough to pick up after her.  My vision moves to my car, the beige station wagon with wood paneling on the sides, sitting in the driveway.  I shouldn’t get distracted by the little things, they will keep me here longer than I should; the overturned terracotta pots with soil and dead flowers spilling out onto the porch, the broken window with a pillow stuffed through it, the exposed nails jabbing out of the broken bottom step leading down to the walkway.

The breeze was frigid, stinging my face crept by, nudging me to my car, and maybe purposefully chilling me to the point where I put my hands in my pockets and remember I’ve forgotten my keys inside.  I rotate slowly on my heels, crackling the loose gravel between my shoes and the paved walkway, and return to the porch.  I turn the weathered brass handle of the large, dark cherry stained door, with an oval window in the center featuring a gorgeous, intricate design made of small glass shapes, with no discernable image or pattern, and open it.  I walked in, my nose greeted with the same musty odor of the foyer, the smell is only a glimpse of what horrors lie in this house, with rooms full of old clothing, Daddy’s old baseball cards, broken lamps, coupons dating back to the mid-eighties, nick-knacks, and hand-me-downs, all of which should be throw-me-aways.

I was about to call out for mother, to tell her not to get too excited, I haven’t changed my mind, she cannot live here by herself anymore, I’ve just forgotten my keys, but something felt off.  I passed by the grandfather clock in the foyer, its hands frozen on the one and the seven, and inch by inch, I approached her chair in the parlor.  As I slowly rounded the love-seat I could see her face completely, her eyes shut behind their paper-thin, purple lids, her mouth relaxed, wide and flat across her laugh-lined face.   With her teacup turned over on the area rug beneath her chair, its dark brown contents now a stain on her white caftan, I could tell we were at peace.

-coleman clark

Fast: Write a narrative scene in which you convey to your reader an expression of speed, mental or physical.

I don’t notice him.  Behind me.  Until the little gust blows across my face, he cinches the black cloth sack down over my head.  He’s tall.  His arms wrap around my chest from behind.  My feet lift up from the sidewalk, he’s carrying me.  The bag makes every noise fuzzy.  I think someone slides open the side door of the van.  I saw one parked a few streets back, the engine still running.  Someone grabs my hands.  Theirs are gloved.  There’s a loud bang, they closed the door.  The sharp, pinching restraints hurt.  They bind my feet the same.  I’m lying on the cold, metal floor of the van.  My body slides in one direction, the van’s moving, fast.

They’re talking, whispering.  Cock my head to listen closer.  They’re speaking a different language.  A booted foot slams down on my head.  Right behind my ear.  My head is back on the floor with the rest of my body.  I don’t raise it again.  A noise startles me.  It was a loud thud, just before the van bounced up and down once.  Did it hit something?  My body jerks with the van.  Bouncing up, losing contact with the floor, then meeting it again.  My weight lands on my left side.  I lay very still.  I look complacent, hopefully.  A hand slips around my neck.  They took something off of me.  Something drops near my head.  It lands with a clink.  A massive thud cracks it into pieces.  Two hands pat at my legs. My butt.  My head.  They’re looking for something.

My body lurches forward.  The van stopped.  I’m being picked up.  My bound arms and legs are useless.  Should I call for help?  Is there anyone there to hear it?  The air is limited in the sack.  I smell exhaust.  Burning something.  Rubber?  Oil?  Probably best I can’t fully smell it.  My body is hot, I can tell we’re still outside.  The sun’s heat soaks into my coat.  There’s a high squeak.  Maybe an old door?  We’re inside.  It’s dark, even with the hood on.  It’s cool in here.  Loud, so loud.  My ears rattle from within at barking.  There must be hundreds.  All barking.  I’m dropped.  The floor is concrete, cold.  Wet on my stomach.  Something stiff clamps around my neck.  It tightens, too tight.  I can breathe, barely.  The hood is off.  My eyes squint.  A row of narrow windows by the ceiling.  It’s an old factory.  They drag me to a cage, already full.  I’m stuffed in.  I can’t even sit down.  Just whimper like the rest. My snout is smashed up against the side.  Someone bites my tail.

-coleman clark

“Dumping you on graduation day was the worst mistake of my life. Terry and I didn’t work out—Terry—was the second worst mistake.  I will be at La Petite tonight at eight.  I asked the chef to prepare a lemon soufflé, and to put white tulips—your favorites—on the table.  Please, please, come.”

“You were right, dumping me was the worst mistake of your life, because now you’re really gonna pay,” Madelyn said with a wink at Colby, and looked to the waiter standing by their table, “I’ll have another glass of Merlot.”

“Actually just make that a bottle, and another glass?” Colby instructed the waiter, who quickly dashed off to the bar.  Madelyn sat one leg folded beneath the other in the small circular booth in the corner of Le Petite.  Her pale skin glowed in contrast to the tiny black dress she dug out of the back of her closet.  It still fit like a glove, except for the delicate straps that frequently slipped from her bare shoulders, which drew Colby’s attention every time.

“Ooh la la, look at you pulling out all the stops,” Madelyn teased, her burgundy nails reflecting the flickering light of the candle in the center of the table.  The light was low in the restaurant, and the tables were all filled with couples, many of them sneaking glances at the corner table.  Madelyn picked the warm bread on her plate into tiny pieces as she asked, “After all these years, the marriage didn’t work out?”

“Nope.  I tried, I really did, but when it got down to it, we just wanted different things,” Colby explained as he scooped a small amount of soft butter onto his bread and took a bite.”

“That’s what everyone says,” she replied, then realizing she sounded bitchy and insensitive, she added, “but I’m sure that everyone says it because it’s true, marriage must be hard.”  Madelyn discarded the shredded bread from her hands and quickly grasped her wine glass to down the last drops.

As Madelyn scanned the restaurant for their waiter bringing the bottle of wine, Colby said, “Well yeah, it’s been, what?  Fifteen years of marriage?  Most people don’t even make it to that before they bail out.”  He seemed relaxed in his dark navy suit with very faint pinstripes; his shirt was unbuttoned at the top, revealing the top of his still firm chest.  “It’s just a shame with the kids, you know?”

“Oh you have kids?” Madelyn asked coyly, as if she hadn’t already Googled him.

“Yeah, Cody’s thirteen and Joanna’s ten,” Colby said, hoping his date wasn’t turned off by the baggage that came along with a divorcee.

“Wow,” Madelyn said, preoccupied with the waiter who appeared and opened their wine.

“Well, Terry will probably get custody of the kids, and I’ll get them every other weekend,” Colby said, sensing Madelyn’s uneasiness.

“Oh that’s a shame,” she said after she sipped her second glass of merlot, “I’m sure they’re gonna miss you, and you them.”

“Um, well, nothing’s final yet,” Colby scrambled.  He picked up the glass of wine before him and quickly gulped half of it away.

They were both nervous, it had been sixteen years since they had seen each other, and neither of them knew exactly what to say to make the other feel at ease.  He had hoped to catch Madelyn at the fifteen year reunion, but she avoided that night, so instead he charmed her number from the reunion committee.

“So, what about you?  Any kids?  A husband?  Boyfriend?” Colby inquired.

“Let’s just say I always pick the losers,” Madelyn replied.

He chuckled as he said, “Well you’re here at dinner with me, so what does that say about me?”

“Oh you know what I meant,” she added with a wide grin on her face.  She excused herself and trotted to the bathroom, her high heels clicking on the marble floor the whole way.

Madelyn set her purse down on the counter and glanced over her appearance in the mirror for a minute.  She shook out her wavy raven hair, which just barely brushed her shoulders and sprayed a fine mist of the hairspray she keeps in her bag.  As she replaced the aerosol can in her purse, something caught her eye.  It was her wedding ring, which she had stashed just before the date.  She took out a compact and patted just a little powder on the tan line on her left ring finger.  Madelyn glanced again at the ring resting at the bottom of the bag before she closed it, released a heavy sigh as she stomped back to her date.

There was something about the way my stomach seemed to sink into itself that worried me.  It didn’t literally sink into itself, but that was the only way I could describe the pain, which I had woken up with two days before.  I dismissed it as stress related, or maybe I ate something I shouldn’t have, either too much of those super-saccharine candies my boyfriend brought back from his trip to Ecuador, or maybe that bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch was extra sweet that day because the milk had expired.  I let this reasoning continue for a little while longer.  I had felt this before, laid on the crinkly paper cover of the doctor’s brown pleather-bound table, swallowed the chalky “banana” isotopic shake, made absolutely no movement in the dark tunnel of the MRI machine, and still they found nothing wrong with me.  There was no way I would submit myself to that kind of all day commitment when there was no indication of a life threatening ailment.

On the fourth day I woke up, but somehow I missed that moment or two when I usually forgot about the imaginary knife in my belly-button in the morning.  That day it was the pain that woke me up.  I still resisted the thought that it could be appendicitis, after all, when Meredith on Grey’s had appendicitis, she threw up.  I hadn’t thrown up, I was fine.  I got dressed and walked to my class, but I missed it.  I mean, I was there, but I didn’t catch a word the professor said.  I just sat there and stared at the space in front of me, rocking back and forth a little I think.  The pain was deep now; it was like that tiny hole in the center of my stomach that once kept me alive was now slowly killing me from within.  Class ended and my friend tapped me on the shoulder and alerted me to the fact that everyone was leaving, and insisted that I go to the hospital.  I caved.  I called my boyfriend and he picked me up.  I paced back and forth outside of my dorm; either the constant movement was distracting me from the pain, or calming my nerves about the trip to the emergency room.

After gasping for air as I hyperventilated in the ER from the increasing pain, the nurses admitted me.  I laid there, poked and prodded, drained of blood samples and urine samples and any other bodily fluid they needed before they could shoot me up with the good drugs.  I thought the lovely paper gown, seafoam green with lilac polka dots, was the final dose of humiliation I could stand, but then a doctor sauntered in and examined me.

“Does it hurt here?” she asked before she pressed on my chest.  I said no, and she proceeded to test another area with a gentle nudge, “Here?”  No. No. No. No.  Those were my answers to the other four test areas before she said, “How about…here?” and plunged her four fingers and thumb, bunched together into a point, directly into my belly button.  I couldn’t even scream, that’s the level of pain I’m talking about.  I was still hoping it was just some sort of mutant stomach zit on the inside that would be easily popped and green mucus would spray everywhere and that would be that.  No such luck, it was the dreaded “a” word: appendicitis.

The “good” doctor left, and some intern ignorantly asked, “Do you want anything for the pain?”  Needless to say she learned a valuable lesson in patient care at that point.  After her reaming, she sent someone who actually knew what they were doing to care for me, or so I thought.  This nurse, short and blond and totally unresponsive to my Grey’s jokes, asked me to drink a fruit punch flavored drink that would make my appendix glow in the MRI.  Had I known they invented something tasty to replace that awful “banana” shake, clearly the biggest medical breakthrough of the century, I might have gone to the hospital days earlier.  I downed the fruit punch and just got into a rerun of Ellen when the blond nurse came back and said I could have my morphine.  Hallelujah.  She shot me up and then said, yes after the fact she decides to tell me, “You might get nauseous from this, so just let me know.”  Thanks, you’re really doing a bang-up job.  I didn’t feel sick though, the pain went away, but not the tightness in my stomach.  When the nurse brought a wheelchair to take me to the MRI, my boyfriend grabbed my hand and gently helped me out of bed and into the chair.  We started moving and I felt so lightheaded, it was like I was a dandelion about to blow those seeds all over the yard.  They pushed me down the hallway and right beside the nurse’s station I barely let the words “I feel sick” escape my mouth before the wave of red, fruit punch flavored vomit spewed from my mouth, all over my paper gown and onto the floor in front of me.  I looked like the elevator in “The Shining.”  I puked and puked, and despite wanting to call the blond nurse an idiot for grabbing the smallest possible container to catch the remaining drops left, she was just trying to help.  I can’t believe I puked.  I’ll never doubt Grey’s Anatomy again.

c0leman clark

“I wasn’t seeing things,” he said, sitting on the edge the hard metal chair, leaning forward so that his elbows rested on his knees, “So I don’t want you to say that I was or that this is all just in my head because it happened, I know you Doc and you’re gonna to say there can’t be two Richard’s, but there were.”
“Jerry, I’ve told you,” the man across from him replied, “Your name is Jerry, and I will not refer to you as anything else.  I haven’t let you get away with it in past sessions, I never acknowledged Louis or Jeremy, or any of the other names you like to call yourself, and I won’t accept Richard either.”  Doctor Rayner sighed and reluctantly gave in to his sympathy, “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and listen to the story before I pass judgment,” he said, peeking over the square frames of his glasses.  He jotted down a note on the yellow legal pad resting on his folded leg as Jerry’s story began.
“Ok, so like I said, I finished up at work at like five and got in my Chevy to drive home, but something was different with my keys,” Jerry said.
Dr. Rayner looked up from his notes and asked, “How were the keys different, Jerry? He was bored with the story already and preoccupied with the thought of the yellow plastic package of M&M’s in the desk in his office. “Did they look different, or did they make you feel different?”
“No, I mean yeah, well the point is they just were different,” Jerry answered, “The keys looked different, and there were like three more than there usually are. Oh and my keychain was missing, you seen it before Doc, it’s a little brown bear with a blue jersey on.”
“No, I’ve never even seen you with keys before, Jerry,” the doctor replied.
“Well I did have ‘em that morning when drove to work, and that’s how I knew something was up, ‘cause I pulled my keys out of my pocket and they were different in the afternoon, but I put one of the key’s in my door of my truck and it opened, see, so I was real suspicious about how different keys still worked in my pickup,” he explained, sitting up from his hunched over position. He wanted to make sure Dr. Rayner took him seriously, so he made every attempt to look the doctor in the eyes when he spoke. “So I got in the truck and it took me forever to get home, like I don’t remember ever driving that long after work, but I did, and when I finally got there, I pulled up in my usual spot across the street, and I saw him.”
“Yourself, Jerry?” the doctor asked him, trying to veil the disbelief in his voice.
“Yeah, myself.  I sat there in my truck and I saw a man exactly the same lookin’ as me get out of this really nice cherry-red car in my driveway and walk up to the door,” Jerry said. “I know Doc, I thought I was seeing things too, but then I saw the bastard’s keys. They were mine, with the little bear and everything!”
“Jerry…” Rayner began.
“No no, just shut up for a sec and let me explain,” Jerry cut him off, becoming aggrivated, “So I saw this guy using my keys to unlock the door and then he went inside and started walking around. I saw him in the living room window, and he was turning on my TV. Then he went upstairs and the sonuvabitch puts on my clothes and goes back down stairs. So I got out of my truck and creeped up to the house real close, and I saw he went out back and was fooling around.  So I ran back out front and snuck in real quiet. Then I tip-toed upstairs as soon as I got in and I went to the bedroom to get my gun I keep under the bed.  I get in there, and everything’s real neat and cleaned up, and it smells like a real expensive cologne I smelled before, and I was startin’ to think about maybe I was bein’ targeted by somebody rich and important.”

“Jerry, we’ve been over this before, your first assumption when something doesn’t go your way cannot be that someone is out to get you,” Dr. Rayner interjected, now digging his monogrammed pen into the legal pad’s yellow page with frustration.  He looked up at Jerry’s face sullen face.  The expression on it had changed from excitement to hurt after the doctor’s comment.  “But I want to believe your story and find out the cause of this,” the doctor paused from his reassuring words to find the gentlest description for his patient’s latest breakdown, “episode, so please continue, what happened when you got into your bedroom?  You said something about your gun?”
“Yeah, yeah I got this .45 my dad gave me after he retired from the force in a old cigar box I found,” Jerry explained, “and I keep it under my bed, so I got down on my hands and knees and reached my arm in real far, but my hand just kept slappin’ the floor, it wasn’t there any more.”  Jerry started shifting back and forth in the chair.  “That sneaky sonuvabitch took my gun, so I really started freakin’ out then, and I got up and jumped over the bed to the window ‘cause I heard the lawnmower start sputtering and stuff.  I look down at the back yard and looks like he ran out of gas, and he went and checked if there was anymore gas in the shed out back.  I don’t know what this guy was tryin’ to do, mowin’ my yard and goin’ out of his way like that, but he was determined to do it.  Why would a person do that Doc?”
The doctor removed his glasses with one hand and rubbed his tired eyes with the fingers of his other hand.  “Well, Jerry, I can’t really tell you, I don’t know who this guy is, you say it’s another Jerry, so maybe, hmm, a clone of you let’s say, so why would you mow the lawn?” he countered.
“That’s just it, it wasn’t me though, he just looked like me, but I’m me, so I would mow my yard ‘cause it needs it, but this guy didn’t have no business doin’ it.”
“Ok, if it was another person that looked similar to you,” Dr. Rayner replied while stretching his arms, then checked his watch, and continued, “I don’t suppose I could guess his motives without speaking with him.  Let’s get back to you then, Jerry, what happened after he went to look for more gasoline?”
Jerry pursed his thin lips to hold back his frustration at the doctor’s disbelief and answered, “Then I went downstairs ‘cause I saw him pickin’ up the gas can and it must of been empty, so I figured he was going out to get some.”  He relaxed a little when Dr. Rayner nodded his head up and down, signifying that he was listening.  “So I got this idea, and I ran to the garage and grabbed this bucket, and I got outside to his car,” Jerry told the doctor, who grew more intent with this turn in the story, “and I slid under his car real fast on the driver’s side so he couldn’t see me if he walked out too soon, and I loosened the relief valve and let the oil drip out.”
“Why would you do that?” Rayner demanded, his wide eyes fixed on Jerry.
“I’m getting’ to it,” Jerry said, putting one flat palm up in front of him, signaling the doctor to calm down, “so he was coming out ‘cause I heard the front door open, and he had my keys and he locked the deadbolt, so I tightened up the valve and crawled backwards into the neighbor’s shrubby bushes they planted, and he started his little red convertible and backed out.”  The doctor unscrewed the cap of his water bottle and took a big gulp, trying to ease his anxiety as Jerry told the next part of the story.
Jerry scratched the scalp beneath his buzzed, light bronze hair as he said, “Then I got in my truck and followed him after a couple minutes so he didn’t get suspicious or see me or anything.  And he gets maybe a few miles before his car starts overheatin’ and I was just comin’ around the corner and I saw him on the side of the road cursing and shit, and the sun had just gone down and it was cloudy anyways, so he knew he better do somethin’ quick.  So I stopped, and tried to quit smiling, ‘cause I knew I caught the sonuvabitch now, and I rolled down the window and asked ‘Trouble?’ and he, oh what’d he say?  ‘Yeah must’ve run out of gas or something,’ which tore me up even more ‘cause he didn’t know shit about cars, so I was snickerin’ real bad.”
“Get on with it Jerry, what did you do next?” the irritated Dr. Rayner demanded of his patient, “You checked in here bruised and bloody tonight and all you would say is you were attacked, now did he hurt you?  What did he do after you pulled over?” Rayner queried, practically shouting.
“He asked me if I had a cell phone, his went missing,” Jerry said, speaking through his clenched teeth, his fists balled up so tightly that his knuckles were bone-white.  He didn’t relax this time however, and moved on with the story, “I said I didn’t but I’d give him a ride, and he opened the door and dusted off the seat with his hand before he hopped up in, fuckin’ pansy-ass,” Jerry’s lips curled slightly into a smirk at the insult.  “So we get to drivin’ and he didn’t say anything about us looking the same or nothing, and ‘cause I knew he was tryin’ to act like he didn’t notice.”
“Jerry, didn’t you stop and think about the consequences, like we talked about?” the doctor grew more impatient, “weren’t you thinking about how you could get hurt?”
“Hey, I’ll admit I was shakin’ a little bit ‘cause I was nervous, but I had it under control.  What was I saying?  Oh, so I took a left turn onto this back road I know, it goes into the woods a little ways and then ends at this old scrap yard, but ain’t nobody run it for years so it’s all overgrown with plants and shit in between the cars and junk layin’ around.”
“What about the gun, Jerry, did he have the gun with him?” Rayner asked.
“He didn’t have it on him, and I could tell ‘cause he was just in my t-shirt and some shorts, I woulda seen it if he had it on him,” Jerry reasoned, “so I couldn’t keep it in and I said to him, ‘Not gonna say anything about us lookin’ the same, huh?’  And he turned his head away from the window and looked at me and asked me ‘What?’
Dr. Rayner stopped taking notes, unable to focus on anything but Jerry’s words.  He leaned forward to set his pad and pen down on the cold steel table, dark and dull gray with a bright white spot in the center where the halogen light bulb hanging above reflected.
“So this guy asks where we were going anyhow ‘cause he knew there wasn’t a gas station down that way, and he’s lookin’ real nervous and eyin’ the door handle,” Jerry continued, “and I just lost it and I slammed my foot down on the gas pedal.  And we start flyin’ and he can’t jump out now, and he’s beggin’ me to stop, and I just looked over at him and I screamed ‘I saw you in my house! Goin’ through my things! Wearin’ my clothes! Lookin’ just like me, fucker!  What the fuck do you want from…’ and then he squealed real loud and I looked forward just as the front of the truck slammed into a tree that fell down over the road.  Then we flipped over and sideways, and then kept rollin’, I don’t know how many times, and the windows broke and dust filled up the truck.  We were getting’ cut and pounded and I hit my head I think.  The other guy wasn’t wearin’ a seatbelt and he went flying out the windshield.”
Jerry had a full smile across his face now as he recited the events of that night, and then said, “The truck finally stopped rolling, so after I could see straight again, I got outta my seatbelt and climbed outta the cab and stood up straight as I could.  I saw him limpin’ away and the bastards got this old, orange, rusty scrap-metal jammed clear through his calf, but he’s gettin’ away just the same.  So I get into this slow jog after him, and I was lookin’ around for something to defend myself with and I grabbed a old pipe and caught up to him.
“Jerry…” Dr. Rayner uttered, barely audible as fear overwhelmed him.
“No, no, it’s ok, I took care of it, see there wasn’t supposed to be two of me and this other one was up to no good,” Jerry defended himself,”  He fell down on his back, and he was bloody and there was mud on his face from the dirt mixin’ into his tears.  And I grabbed him by his mop of curly black hair and pulled in real close so my mouth was at his ear and gave him one last chance to come clean, ‘Who. Are. You?’”
Jerry’s expression shifted instantly, his smile washed away, his eyes widened but became unfocused, he stared blankly as he repeated the man on the ground’s reply, “’My name is Richard! I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wasn’t in your house, I swear! I don’t even know you!’  He was squealin’ and cryin’ and I couldn’t take his lies anymore so I stood up over him, got the pipe up over my head real high and swung it down on him.  He tried to block it with his arm, but the pipe just broke it.  And I raised it again, and I screamed over his cryin’ ‘NO! I’m Richard,’ before I swung the pipe down on him again, right in the chest, right down on the UCLA logo of my fuckin’ shirt, bastard ruined it and it made me even madder.”
Dr. Rayner stood up slowly from his chair, trembling. He backed away from the table, keeping his eyes like spotlights trained on Jerry who sat focused on the table before him.
“I kept slammin’ it down on him, yellin’ ‘I! AM! RICHARD! MOTHER! FUCKER!’ hitting him in-between each word.  I was huffin’ and pantin’ but I couldn’t stop, ‘Nobody’s stealin’ anything from me’ I yelled.  I beat him over and over, and his bones made this sick crunch like steppin’ on a grasshopper on the sidewalk, and blood was shootin’ up in my face,” Jerry grunted, his lips barely moving, the speech choked by his clenched teeth.  “He just kept on starin’ at me, so I beat him ‘till there wasn’t nothin’ left to stare with.”
“Jerry…why?  You’re very, very sick, and some people are going to come help you get better,” Rayner whispered, still facing Jerry, his hand behind his back on the door handle.
“Jerry, you’re very sick,” Jerry repeated, still staring blankly at the notepad on the desk, “Jerry you need help.  Jerry, Richard… Jerry, Richard…”
“Do you understand that you are not Richard?” the doctor stammered. “Do you realize what you’ve done?”
Jerry snapped back into focus, he sat there in a blood-soaked t-shirt with the UCLA logo on the chest and crimson athletic shorts, and replied calmly, “Richard?  Of course I’m not Richard,” he said, as he leaned forward and grabbed the legal pad and pen from the table, and placed it over his crossed legs, “I’m Dr. Rayner, and I want to help you.”\

-Coleman Clark

Pick a bumper sticker.  Describe the car it’s on.  Open the door, describe the interior.  Describe three normal things, describe one surprising thing.  Uh oh, here comes the owner.  Busted.  Describe him/her and what he/she says.  Here’s my spin on that….

“Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History,” the phrase caught my eye, sprawled out in white, all capital letters, against a severe shade of pink.  Underneath a layer of dust that covers even the tiny emblem of a ram’s head just above the license plate, the bumper sticker barely clings to the matte silver bumper.  My relationship with the phrase was always love/hate: I love spotting it on the back of minivans such as this, picturing the soccer-mom or substitute teacher that all of her friends described as a “hoot.”  I hate them though for their insistence on driving ten miles under the limit because they’re busy on the phone coordinating which kid’s parent is in charge of snacks that week.  I feel a twinge of guilt about my ill wishes for those women as I round the car from the back to the driver’s side.

“Messy one, huh?” a question that snaps me out of a trance, “Two dead, one in critical, headed to St. Mary’s.”

“Yeah,” is all I can say to the paramedic.  I crouch down, my boots twisting the pieces of shattered windshield into the pavement.  My eyes squint through the radiating heat waves rising from the street to search for any indication of braking or hesitation.  There are none.  It was a hit and run, the van drove into the intersection just in time to be battered by a now missing vehicle.  My gloved hand feels along the jagged metal frame where the sliding side door was ripped off with the Jaws of Life.  My nostrils burn with the hot summer air in the car; it’s tinged with an overpowering metallic scent.  I grab a pair of forceps in my pack and use them to examine the Blackberry on the back floorboard.  The phone is covered in a spider-web of cracks, with small chunks of cartilage, skin, and hair in between the glass.  I flip it over, revealing a Backyardigan’s sticker on the back, the image of Pablo the Penguin wearing away to white.

Dark red splatters smear the tan upholstery, already stained from juice boxes and pb&j’s.  On the side of the impact there is a car seat, crumpled up like it is made of paper.  I pause, resting in my hunched position beneath.  I shake my head, snipping away the emotional strings tying themselves to my back.  I know better.    I distract myself with the curious Playboy on the floor.  An edition from 2003, its pages are creased and worn, falling open to a particular spread of pictures naturally.  I scan the walls up to the roof, where an overhead compartment had busted open, its plastic door hanging by one hinge.

I back out of the van to get some air.  Ramirez pats me on the shoulder and says she’ll take over for a bit.  I smile through my nausea.  I didn’t hear a word she said, but I got the message.  My world had slowed almost to a stop.  I walk slowly to our SUV for some water, my eyes closed tight to escape for a few seconds.  The pressure in my head throbs like my skull is shrinking around my brain.  The screeching of tires takes it all away.  My world lurches into focus, my eyes wide open now as the frantic man, late thirties, in shape, business suit and tie, bursts from his car.  His leather dress-shoes clicking with each gallop towards me, I put on the stern, calm look that he needs right now.  He shouldn’t be here.  I intercept, crashing his body into my own, my arms wrap around his waist.  He can’t carry that image with him for the rest of his life, I won’t let him.  Still struggling, running in place, reaching both arms past me to the carnage, he breaks his long chain of wails and moans, shouting “Why?”

-Coleman Clark

Running Late

“Thank you all for joining me today,” her voice firmly cutting through the room, “I know that you all have heard many rumors in the past few weeks.  Speculation about the future of this company, questions about job security and,” she glances down at her wrinkled note cards, scanning the lines for the next phrase, “severance packages.  While I wish I could put your fears to rest, I must inform you that the company has, in fact, decided to close this branch.  We have ye… shit,” she cut herself off as she realized she skipped a line.  She whispers the end of a line and then continues sternly with the next, “…branch. This means that we will be evaluating everyone’s position within the company and deciding whether your transfer to another branch would be in the company’s best interest.  We have yet to come to a final decision about who stays and who goes,” she pauses to blow a stream of air upward to displace her shaggy bangs from her eye line,” which means you should be putting forth your best effort in the weeks to come in order to prove your worse to, fuck, I mean worth,” she interrupts her speech to release a heavy sigh and collect herself.  While combing the bed-head tangles from her hair with her nervously gnarled nails, she groans, “…this sucks.”

She carelessly lets the stack of note cards drop into the bathroom sink, damp with foamy spit-out toothpaste, and wipes away the condensation from the mirror before her.  “This is what you get for partying too much in college, you never take anything seriously,” she utters in a high squeaky tone, her mothers. “Now you’re stuck in a gosh-darn dead-end job, firing the poor souls that slave away for millionaire fat-cats,” she retorts in the deeper voice of her father.  “Oh yeah? Well fuuuuuuuuck yoooooou,” she taunts her imaginary parents, lifting her left leg and scrunching up the left side of her face as she releases the tiniest fart.  Her eyes scan the tiny bathroom, she knows the apartment is empty, but it’s still a habit.  “You’re not the young lady I raised, ladies do not fart,” she embodies her mother again before she replies in her own defiant voice, “Yeah mom, that’s because I’m a real person.  I burp, and fart, and have so many cocktails at the office Christmas party that I lift my skirt up to hail a cab home.  I have a real job, and I don’t know how to make pot roast….oh, oh, or even have a man to make pot roast for!  That just kills you doesn’t it?  Well I’m sorry I’m not the Suzy Sunshine little girl you saw in Heidi.  Might as well sell me to the gypsies, bitch…”  Her phone skids across the window as it vibrates.  She scrambles to pick it up but drops it with a loud clink, which surely meant a cracked screen from the flamingo pink floor tiles, an eyesore, but a small price to pay for a rent controlled apartment on the Upper East Side.  “Phew,” she says as she inspects the intact screen, “just my alarm.” She presses the end button and the home screen reappears, displaying the time.  “Jesus H…it’s eight,” she yelps as she furiously shakes free from her purple, fuzzy robe and slips into the shower under the cascading water.

“Don’t stop! Believin’! Doooooon’t! Street lights!” she squeals along with the shower radio.  “I’m sorry Mr. Graves, sir, I won’t be late again,” she says, practicing a different speech she’ll need for work.  “You see…remember when I missed that meeting the other morning, sir, when my cat was sick and I had to go to the vet?  Well, sir, she’s still sick and I was going to take her to the vet again, but after I packed her up in her carrier, she looked much better so I just decided to come in a few minutes late,” she finishes as she rinses out the remaining conditioner from her hair.  “Shit, forgot to put a bath-mat out,” she whispers, “eh, it will dry, whatever.”  “Ugh! Stop buying the cheap shit,” she scolds herself as her eyeliner smudges and runs uncontrollably into her eye.  “No more penny pinching, you are not your mother!  You have a job, money is meant to be spent, and would you rather spend five extra dollars or look like a crack ho at work every day?  Jesus, I look like Marilyn Manson.”

“Coat, wallet, keys,” she pants once she finishes her makeup and makeup, and dons her lucky suit, “um, um, uh note cards, and coffee.  Yes!”  She reaches down to pick off a piece of the flaking faux leather from the heel of her Louboutin knockoffs before she flicks off the lights, slips out the door and says “Just might make it,” as she turns the key in the deadbolt.

-Coleman Clark

1. 1. An overheard conversation, and what happens next, include speculation on the participants, based on your observations (dress, hair styles, hair color–if it gets your attention, and/or if it doesn’t– scars, piercings, where they are when you overhear them, voice tones…).

They were Mary Washington students: fact.  You know how I know they were Mary Washington students?  I mean, besides wearing UMW paraphernalia head to toe which made them look like they just jumped into the 50% off bin and bought whatever stuck.  It was because they were girls, and not just any girls, UMW sporty-girls.  I’m certain that if you’ve stepped foot on this campus during the daylight hours then you’ve seen them saunter down the sidewalk, decked out in sweatpants, a hoody, and flip-flops, all of which bear the UMW logo, but most aren’t even in our school colors.  I’m not sure why they insist on going to class in what they slept in, just because they are comfortable doesn’t mean we are comfortable seeing them like that.  Oh, and if you doubt that I correctly identified these girls as sporty-girls just by their cocky gait and school spirit makeshift jumpsuits, let me put you at ease: these girls had the signature sporty-girl hair.  Now what possesses a girl to take a shower and then slick back her hair as tightly as possible, still sopping wet, into the tightest knotted bun, as high as possible on top of their head?  Far be it from me to stop her from adding that “cute” little elastic headband, I guess it distracts you from her forehead splitting open from the tension of her bun.  Of course no one ever says anything discouraging about this style to their faces, sporty-girls are aggressive by nature, hence the sports as an outlet, and no one unaffiliated with a sports team could take them in an unarmed fight.  So these two sporty-girls were walking and chattering down the hallway in Combs as I’m sitting, trying to focus on Boethius, but as far as I’m concerned, the gossip of the past weekend’s parties is far more intriguing than an old dead guy.

“Then she ran up to me and was like, ‘I remember what you said,’” the taller girl bellowed, her lacrosse stick slung over her shoulder like she was some sort of Marine marching with a gun.

“Nu-uh,” the other sporty-girl grunted in response.  I noticed that she managed to text, glance over notes, and maintain conversation all while walking.  Multi-tasking is clearly essential to the sporty-girl lifestyle.

“Uh-huh,” the tall one said, “but she so did not because JP said, like, there was no way she could have remembered ‘cause, like, she was so schwasted that night.  He, like, told me she was playing him in pong and, like, she didn’t get any of his cups and, like, she kept drinking all her cups and just getting more wasted and shit.  Ya know?”

“Uh-huh, she’s like that, like, all the time,” the other one snorted, “she, like, showed up to practice that one day, and like, it was so obvious she was hung-over.”

“Dude, she’s gonna lose her scholarship,” the tall one retorted as they walked out of range, not noticing as she knocked fluorescent fliers from the bulletin board with her lacrosse stick.  I know little about the secrets and codes of the sporty-girl clan, but by what I have been able to pick up, I know that mentioning losing an athletic scholarship is the equivalent to “Lords name in vain!” from a southern Baptist.  Seriously, I heard the sporty-girl council of elders is meeting later to decide her fate.  Should the ruling be unfavorable, she will be sentenced to watch as her lacrosse stick is burned and wear her hair in a style that doesn’t make her look surprised all the time.  Wouldn’t that just be the end of the world?  It’s not that I don’t like sporty-girls, they are just like any other species of UMW students.   Some are nice, some are rude, accidentally whacking you in the face with their lacrosse stick as you walk by without apologizing.  The one’s I’ve encountered have been pleasant, I just implore them to make the effort to slip on a pair of jeans or something that doesn’t make them look like an extra from a Bally Total Fitness commercial.

*Could NOT get this to be double-spaced on here to save my life

Just off of route 39, at the end of a lonely dirt road, rests the peaceful skeleton of an unfinished barn. The stiff hickory beams stand at attention to the dawn’s rising sun, casting a crisscross shadow on the graveyard of tools left out in the dewy pasture. In a tiny mound are dark orange nails, rough from corrosion. A once strong rope, anchoring the east wall in place, now hangs together by threads. Two exhausted saw-horses bear the burden of forgotten lumber between them, their feet sinking further into the earth. Hammers and saws lay scattered, left behind in the forgetfulness of hunger and fatigue.

The framework for the new barn inherited the land of the old barn that collapsed in the blizzard of ’05. It wasn’t a great loss; the old barn served no real purpose. It slouched on the property, lethargically existed only out of the pretense that it should, and finally buckled under the weight of the ice. Deciding to rebuild and create a purpose for it, the land was cleared of the old bones when the frosty white sheet melted. Soon posts were unloaded from the back of the F-150, blistering hands even through thick gloves as they were hoisted and secured into place. The sun rose and set around the two workers, slowly bringing the structure to life. Sighs of aggravation, swishing of sandpaper, and grinding of the saw’s teeth against the wooden planks created a noisy sense of accomplishment. The squares and rectangles from the imaginary blueprints somehow became windows, stalls and a loft. The wood gleamed in the hot summer, its comforting scent filled the heavy breeze, and the moment where the barn became recognizable as such, passed without any notice.

The barn stands ignored today, remaining a stranger at the door of a farm house, delivering a heartbreaking message. As the sun rises higher in the cloudless sky, spring brings with it a fragrant garden of celosia, zinnia, and hydrangea, but the prized emperor tulip hasn’t come back for two years now. The day passes by and the barn keeps a silent vigil, gazing past a wife tending to her children in the garden, to that lonely dirt road, waiting for an an F-150 that will never come.

-Coleman Clark