Stumble (an acrostic poem)

Slipping beneath the sheets, Martha reviewed her day

Too many regrets greeted her observations

Useless tossing and turning commenced

Martha watched minutes slip by as she snuggled up with those regrets

Blaming herself for every little thing she had done

Little things that most people wouldn’t lose sleep over

Especially that little glass of wine, but that was one glass too far

Bloody Kiss

Tap.  Tap.  Tap.  The chips of virgin white marble flew with each hit of the chisel from the hammer, littering the floor with inspiration.  Morgan had spent seven days going over this particular block looking at what was hidden within.  Seven days of laying on of hands, to get the feel of the rock.  She spent hours upon hours looking at the block from every conceivable angle.  Now she was obsessed with releasing the imprisoned statue held within the marble tomb.  She tasted flecks of cold hard marble as she continued her work.  The sound from her chisel and hammer gave her clues as to how she was doing with her excavation.  The smell of her sweat mixed with the marble dust made her almost intoxicated.

Tap. Tap. Tap.  The statue began to come to life.  Morgan could feel it start to breathe with the life she was pouring out of her hands.  It began to flex the muscles she carved into its limbs.  The creator was working on the created, while the created worked on the creator; a circle of energy that kept building and building until…

Crack.  A small imperfection of the marble block made itself known with the release of energy and sound pent up for millennia. Morgan stopped her hammer mid swing and let it drop of her deadened fingers.  With a second crack it fell to the floor.  The created life fled the lump of stone, leaving a petrified corpse behind.  Morgan felt her creativity evaporate under the glare of the broken piece of art in front of her.  She placed her chisel softly on her lips, as if to kiss the whole endeavor goodbye.

Morgan puckered her lips a bit, feeling the sharp end slice her lightly.  The blood she tasted woke her out of her torpor.  She picked up the flawed marble statue and gave it a bloody kiss.  Where she had kissed the marble left a blood red “lipstick” mark.  That made her smile.  It was almost like a goodnight kiss on their first date.  She would figure this piece out eventually.  All good relationships just needed time.  She left the marble behind on her table, the chisel laid beside.  Tomorrow she would try again, but first she needed to take care of this bloody lip.

The Promise

The slow hiss of the radiator exhaling its last breath before moving on to the big recycling center in the sky made Jerry almost giddy.  “This time she’s dead!” he said as he shut the engine off.  He popped open the glove compartment of his 2001 Toyota Corolla and pulled out the once shiny, but now grimy and worn, flier for a brand new Chevy Camaro.  He flipped to the picture of a flaming red brute that seemed like it was about to drive off the page.  “Gotcha!” he yelled, pumping his fist in the air.  He then put his hand in his mouth from where he had just punched the roof of his Corolla.  “Sorry girl,” he said.  Jerry pulled out his cell phone and dialed a tow truck.  Time to get his ass to the dealership.

Jerry watched as his car was dropped off near the service bay.  He waved at the tow truck driver as the driver finished releasing the car into the space.  “Thanks, Vinnie!    Nice riding with you!” Jerry said.

Vinnie started to get back into the cab.  “You enjoy that dream cars of yours, dude.  Hopefully I won’t be seeing you around,” Vinnie said with a big grin on his face.  He slipped in behind the wheel and tooted the horn as he drove out of the parking lot.

Jerry waved as he watched Vinnie leave.  A voice from behind startled him.  “What can I help you with today?”

Jerry whirled around to see a large man with a cowboy hat wearing khakis and penny loafers with honest to goodness pennies in the pockets. Those pennies gleamed in the bright sun and made Jerry reconsider his color of choice.

“I’m hear to pick out a brand new Camaro,” Jerry said.  “My Toyota just died and it’s time to live the dream.”

“Your Corolla died,” the cowboy hat man said.  “Do you want me to get you a quote on how much to fix it?”

Jerry shook his head.  “No sir.  I want to buy a Camaro.  I’ve been waiting for five years for this moment.”

The cowboy hat man pointed his thumb in the direction of the deceased Corolla.  “Then why do you have that over there?” he asked.

“It just died an hour ago.  I wanted to get here as fast as I could, so I had Vinnie drop me off here.  To do that, he had to drop my car off as well.  So now we’re both here,” Jerry said.

The cowboy hat man put is hands on his hips.  “That ain’t gonna do,” he said.  Jerry was about to butt in, but the cowboy hat man raised up a hand to cut him off.  “I know, you want a Camaro,” the cowboy hat said.  “I want to sell one to you, trust me.”  He grinned so quick, like he just said something particularly funny.  Jerry missed the humor.  “But I can’t be having you beater car parked in my lot.  You need to take care of it before we get down to brass tacks.”

Definitely copper or brass for the paint color thought Jerry.  He could just see how sexy it would look.  He shook himself out of his daydreaming.  “So I can’t buy a car until I take care of my old one?” he asked.

“That’s what I’m telling you,” the cowboy hat man replied.  “So how do you want to work this?”

Jerry looked at his old car.  He had made a promise to the vehicle that he wouldn’t trade her in or replace her while she still lived.  “Will you take it as a trade in?” he asked.

The cowboy hat man looked at the Toyota once more.  “Does it run?” he asked.

“She blew a radiator,” Jerry replied.  “So if you replaced that you would be all set.”

The cowboy hat man shook his head again.  “Is that a 2003?”

“She’s a 2001,” Jerry replied.

The cowboy hat man put his hands on his hips again.  “Nope, won’t touch it until she runs.  I could barely get two hundred for it if it worked.”

Jerry began to get desperate.  “What if I told you you could have her for free?” he pleaded.

That made the cowboy hat man laugh.  “You would have to pay me to take that car off your hands,” he said.

“How much,” asked Jerry.

“The amount it would take to replace that radiator,” the cowboy hat man said.  “Then I could get my two hundred.”

---

Jerry pulled out of the dealership in his newly repaired Corolla, muttering under his breath.  Maybe next time he wouldn’t make a promise to an inanimate object that he wasn’t willing to keep.  He pounded on the dashboard and immediately felt bad.  “Sorry girl.  I’ll make it up to you and take you to the car wash.”

Relationships Decoded

After his seventh bowl of Captain Crunch, Dave looked up with his milk filled beard, “What do you think, Honey?” he asked.  He put on his craziest expression.  “I’m a cereal killer.”

“That’s surreal!” exclaimed Honey.  “More like a werewolf looking for his Milkbone.”  She tossed Dave a towel.  “Or maybe a fulfilled lap dog.”  She imitated a dog drinking water.

“Funny girl,” he garbled as he wiped his face clean, “but that skill might someday translate into some money.”

Honey crossed her arms.  “Really, and how are you going to do that?  Suing the Captain for his treasure chest and secret decoder ring?”

Dave threw the towel into her face.  “Competitive eating,” he said.  “They can make some nice coin I heard.”

Honey threw the towel back at Dave, which he moved to block, but missed it entirely.  It landed with great fanfare on top of his head.  “As long as you don’t have to catch the food, maybe you have a chance,” she said.

Dave removed the towel from his head.  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he said.  He looked at the cereal box sitting next to him.  “Now can I fit in one more bowl?”

“You know I know you really just want the decoder ring,” Honey said.

“Well, maybe,” Dave said reaching for the box.

Before he snagged it, Honey grabbed it and walked away from the table.  “Too slow,” she said as she disappeared down the hallway.

Dave reached into his pocket and removed the ruby red ring with the obligatory blue dial as its precious stone.  “Nope,” he said as he rubbed slowly his distended belly, “too full.”

Story (an acrostic poem)

Sensing the drama level falling, Christine kicked it into high gear

To think she might go home tonight without having fun was ludicrous

Ordering another round for the table she raised her glass and offered a toast

Relishing the spotlight she threw it back and enjoyed the burn down her throat

Yet later, when the body count was done, hers was the one missing

Footsteps on the Moon

The soft white snow made crunching noises as Clarence walked across its pristine surface.  Looking back at his own tracks, he wondered if Neil Armstrong’s footprints were still on the moon.  What would it mean to leave such a mark on another planet and human history?  Clarence looked up at the full moon, trying with all his might to see if they were still there, but he knew the gesture was futile.  Still, for a moment, he thought he could glimpse that history.

A sudden wind gust swept across the landscape, snow leaping into the air and dancing to a mad tune that could only be heard in the whipping air.  Clarence shuddered at the chill north wind and closed his eyes to its frolicking snowflake dance partner.  Just as suddenly, the wind lost its melody and the snow sat back down waiting for the next number.  Clarence looked around him, the landscape had changed in that simple moment, erasing its memory of his passing.

Clarence looked back at the moon.  Those footprints might still be there, but that was a dead tidal locked rock island in a large space ocean.  Even though it chilled him to the bone to think about his own mortality, he was much happier to be here where he could watch the dance around himself, even if it meant his mark on this place would eventually be blown away in the symphony of change.

Clarence continued his walk, not worried about the footsteps he was leaving behind, but about the warm glass of mulled apple cider that was yet to come.

Differential Bagels

Cali opened Brent’s notebook and began thumbing through.  “What class was this for?” she asked.

Brent looked up from his bagel and mumbled.  “That’s a diary that I had to keep for a math class.  Differential equations.”

Cali flipped to a random page.  “I think Laplace transforms are the devil, since the details are what matter,” she read aloud.  Cali looked up at Brent.  “That’s deep.”

“What?” Brent whined after licking his fingers clean of cream cheese.  “Who makes  a class write journal entries for a senior level math course?  He deserved deep.”

Cali flipped to another page.  She showed Brent a picture of a large bird of some sort walking across a stick representation of a differential equations book.  “And this?” she asked.

“I wanted to give the dude the bird,” Brent said, picking up the other half of his bagel.  “I also wanted to pass the course, so the middle finger wasn’t allowed.”

Cali shook her head putting the book down.  “What did you get in the course?” she asked.

“That’s the best,” Brent said.  “Look at the last page that I wrote on.”  He took a large bit of his bagel and began chewing behind a wide grin.

Cali picked back up the book and started searching for the last page.  “I don’t get it,” she said.  “All it has on it is a large question mark.”

“Exactly,” Brent said.  He took a big swig of his chocolate milk.

Cali threw the notebook at Brent, almost causing him to spill the rest of his milk.  “Okay smartass, what did you get?”

Brent took another bite and made her wait till he was done chewing.  “You will never know,” he said.

“Why not?  Did you fail?” Cali asked.

“Nope.  It’s because I don’t know,” Brent said.

“You dropped the course?” Cali asked.  “How lame.  Why not stick it out till the end?”

Brent smiled.  “Because I wanted to start going out with a certain cute girl in my psych class, and if I told her I couldn’t go out during the weekends because I had to study differential equations and write in my diary about my feelings on the subject, I don’t think she would have said yes.”

Cali smiled.  “Yeah, probably a good decision,” she said.  “But why the question mark?”

“Because I wasn’t sure if I was making the right decision,” Brent said holding his hands up.

“And now?” Cali asked.

“Let’s just say I think I am getting a higher grade here than I was going to get in diff eq,” Brent said.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Cali said.  “I might fail you right now.”

Brent leaned forward and gave her a gentle kiss.  “No makeups for this examination?” he asked.

Cali smiled.  “Depends, do you want to walk to the store with me.  I need some more seltzer,” she said.

“Walk?” Brent asked.  “Why not drive over?”

Cali held up her phone.  “So I can catch some more Pokémon.  Got to catch them all.”

Brent shook his head.  “Nerd!”

Cali pointed at Brent’s notebook.  “Like you’re the one to talk,” she said.

“Touché.  Actually this works for me as well,” Brent said.

“Why is that?” Cali asked.

“Because I’m now out of bagels,” Brent said.