My @IndieInk challenge from @Lazidaisical: You (or your fictional character) wake up next to pieces of paper scrawled with strange symbols, breath smelling/tasting of metal and lavender. What happened prior to you falling asleep?
FLUTTERS
She feels dead inside.
He was there when she fell asleep.
He was gone when she awoke.
That’s what she’ll always remember. Not that he’s gone. Because that will never change. That she can accept.
No, what she can’t accept is that she was there. He was with her, by her side, entwined in her limbs, hand in hand. And still she didn’t know.
His heart, her heart.
Still she couldn’t stop him.
She had breathed him all night. His scent of wood, wax, strength, sweetness, love, possession, desire, sex – she buried herself in his neck as she always did, her favorite place in the world to be. She claimed her spot, not that he ever minded. His fingers would play up and down her back, massaging her in circles, relaxing her into sleep.
Her inhale, his exhale.
She woke up to find him gone; he had made her favorite drink, his special blend of green tea and lavender. As he did every morning. He knew she loved the scent. He knew she liked to start her day slowly, quietly.
As she took her first sip, she noticed the flutter of papers floating by. Had he left the window open? He was always so careful to lock up. Her body chilled. The first sign something wasn’t right, was so incredibly not right. Her subconscious knew then what the scrap of paper warning was trying to say.
He’s not coming back.
She grabbed a scrap – symbols, drops of red. It made no sense. Her heart sank. She knew it didn’t matter. The lavender scent took on a rank metallic stench, making her want to retch.
She remembers dropping the cup, watching the tea stain their much-derided white carpet.
She wonders now—if she had woken up, would she have smelled his sadness, his desperation, his detached air?
His death, her breath.
He told her once, she remembers, these two words have no other rhyme but each other.
If she could go back, she thinks...
She would open her eyes, instead of her heart.
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My IndieInk challenge from Kat this week: Who is someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted apart. What happened?
I have no problem with the crass and commercial. I am, after all, an independently-published author who self-aggrandizingly hawks her eBook each day on Twitter with nary a thought to what the hell you think, according to several comments I’ve received. (Um, isn’t that what the self in self-promotion is for?) Silly me.
Anway…I figure it comes with sharing the fact that I think I’m fly like a G6 on a good day (thanks Urban Dictionary, a mid-40s chick's best friend), I’m a longtime Madonna fan and, despite her many plastic surgeries and her tendency to inappropriately touch celebs’ boobies, I think Joan Rivers is still scathingly funny—two crass, commercial icons.
So it may come as a surprise that I hate The Crassest Place on Earth, Disneyland. Yep. Crucify me now. Here I live in the land of blondes and tans, beaches and beach bums, and yes Anaheim, The House of Mouse. I hate everything about the little rodent. Sorry, people. If you’re offended and feel I'm being unAmerican, stop reading now.
Oh, it’s all fun and games when you’re a kid, sure. Then, you become a parent. When you live in the OC (for those of you who don’t know where the OC is, it’s also the home of The Happiest Fucking Place on Earth. Now. You. Know.), you quickly find out it’s de rigueur to have a “pass” to Disneyland. That way you can go whenever you want! Woot!
So much for marrying Prince Charming, Snow White. Get your pass—it’s a dream come true!
Crowds, lines, parking, constant unrelenting 'happy noise,' walking, schlepping, crying kids, hot sun, sunburns, diapers, rashes, sore feet, blisters, headaches, anxiety, below average food, smells that I can’t even begin to explain, and don’t even get me started on the outrageous prices…um, I’m sorry-- when does the fun start? Where is the happy exactly? (In California Adventure where they sell wine and margaritas.)
Okay, I’ll give you that it’s kinda cute to see my kid's smiling faces, and that makes it all worth it blah blah….nope. Can’t make me swallow that load of stale popcorn. I can hold my little guy upside down and tickle him and he’ll smile brighter and laugh harder. In fact, whenever he sees the large-eared rodent he runs and hides behind me. (Yea, that’s so worth the price of admission.)
So why do we go? We don’t. Not anymore. I’ve had to wean my husband, born and raised in Pasadena (a mere hop, skip, and mouse finding-cheese-scurry from Anaheim) from his few- times-monthly trips to the Tragic Kingdom. Despite protestations of needing his Pirates of the Caribbean fix, we’ve drifted away from this long-term relationship. But for a long time, I too bought into the OC belief that I needed to provide this required entertainment for my kids. After all, we lived RIGHT HERE!
Yea well, there’s only so much happy a girl can stand. I live an eighth of a mile from the beach – that’s enough happy right there. Nothing crass and commercial and if I see a mouse, I won’t even mind. I might even name him.
Something like Mortimer sounds nice.
If you enjoy Rachel’s rants and ramblings, watch her keep moving forward here, on Twitter, Facebook, or purchase her snarkalicious eBook A Walk In The Snark on Amazon only $2.99.
Comments welcome, retweets and mentions loved.
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More deets to follow!
This week's @IndieInk challenge is from the fabulous Jen-O: THINK OF YOUR GREATEST FEAR AND THE LIMITATIONS IT CAUSES. NOW WRITE ABOUT SOMETHING YOU WOULD DO IF YOU WEREN’T AFRAID.
GONE
He’s afraid to tell her the truth. That he’s not who he says he is. That he has no job. No money. That he lost his beloved truck. His young son. Most of his friends won’t put up with him anymore.
That he sits in his sister’s house drinking his days away. That his life exists online, talking to his friends all day waiting waiting waiting to see that she’s jumped on so he can talk with her, even if it’s just for a tiny moment. That he should never have let her go. That he should have fought for her.
He’s afraid to tell her that she’ll think he’s the loser he knows he already is. That he’s tried to end his life. Twice. That he can’t do this anymore. That he aches for her. That he was a jerk. That cheating on her was by far the dumbest thing he’s ever done. That it changed the course of his life, her life; that he’s afraid it has put him in this box he’s not ever going to escape from that is filled so high with his pile of regrets he has no room to breathe.
If he wasn’t so afraid he would never have done any of those things. He would have been the man she wanted him to be. He would have continued to hold her close, stroke her hair, look into her eyes that could stop a band just by walking into a club and see the man she saw in him. Been the man she reached for. Held her heart in the palm of his hand as she still holds his.
As she will always hold his.
He needs to be free, to climb out of the box the only way he knows how.
And be gone.
If you read my eBook, A Walk In The Snark, (or previous posts even) then you know who I'm talking about here. I willl never understand where his head was, but I can try to craft together pieces from notes, memories, conversations, and of course, my imagination.
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Comments, mentions and retweets always loved and welcomed. Thanks for reading.
So I’m here at #SXSW in Austin. Our self-publishing panel (if you're a Tweeter, search under #futureofnovel) went GREAT. Carolyn (my cofounder at the Indie Book Collective) rocked the house and we also had some key interviews after that which were darn cool, I must say.
Leading up to getting to Austin was quite interesting, however.
Let me deconstruct.
In the last week, my husband had to make two trips to the east coast. Not one, but two. Which meant I had less time to prepare for this thingy, but more time with my kiddles. One excellent thing about that was the General Grievous conversation I had with my five-year-old son, Lukas.
See, General Grevious is on Twitter. I’m on Twitter. Genius Boy wanted to know how the General, in all his war-mongering glory, can tweet at the same time he’s firing on the Republic’s ships? He did notice only one hand shooting. Is he shooting with the other hand? Lukas figured that the droids weren’t doing the fighting cause ya know, they’re kinda stupid and all. (Remember, little dude is FIVE, people).
So, I sent a tweet to General Grevious. And…he answered me back. (What’s your son’s name? Lukas. Of course it is.) You should have seen Genius Boy’s already large round eyes become even larger and rounder when told by the evil Lord that he plans his tweets out ahead of time and sends them automatically so he can keep his hands free for fighting. And of course, he said, Lukas is right--the droids are too stupid to fight. He can’t trust them with anything.
I am now aces in my son’s book when it comes to my time on The Twitter. Hey, he watches The Spongebob. We’re even.
As for my girl, eleven-year-old Anya, I’ve been able to bond with her (even more if that's possible) over something unique. If you read my book A Walk In The Snark, the essay Contact, then you KNOW what I’m talking about.
Oh yes, we’ve had critters come visit her hair once again. I thought about buying a bottle of scotch and dumping it on her head (between swigs) but instead went for the old use-the- organic-won’t-blind her-with-pesticides routine. She’s now bug-free and still loves me. And the scotch, well, it’s all mine, baby.
So, here we are in Austin, between panels and meetings and what-not. Resting our feet, wondering where all the cowboys are to buy my martinis. (Kidding, honey #wellkinda.)
I’m so glad I’m here and grateful to my family for surviving without me for three days. Please do the laundry and run the dishwasher.
Don’t make me snark at you over the phone.
You should follow me here, on Twitter, the Indie Book Collective, or buy my eBook A Walk in the Snark cause dudes, you'll love it.
This week's Indie Ink challenge came from Sir: "Sometimes fear is the best friend we could ever have," and it really struck a chord with me. After much consideration, I'm sharing an experience from my past that I've never discussed on my blog before, that only those closest to me know anything about.
I'm not doing this for shock value but for many personal reasons, the clearest is that my daughter is now eleven years old--the same age I was when this happened. I feel compelled to write about this.
Dearest Anastasia, my girl, I am your tiger mother.
This was the second visit from the sheriffs to our home. This time they brought the female. She was better with the little girls, they told my mom.
My mom had three little girls.
They wanted to know the truth. They told us not to be ashamed. We didn’t do anything wrong. It was the big man. He was the one in trouble. Our neighbor.
I was eleven years old. My older sister was thirteen. My baby sister was just that, only one. I held her close, all dark curly hair and soft velvety skin.
Had he touched us inappropriately? I whispered to my mom, what does that word mean? All she could do was cry and squeeze my shoulder. It hurt when she did that.
My mom said, “We called him the ‘Pied Piper’ for God’s sake!” The sheriffs looked down at their shiny black shoes.
The female sheriff asked if they could talk with each girl separately. My parents were terrified.
So was I. I was an eleven year old girl with a terrible burden. I’d been protecting my family for the past three months and they didn’t even know. I’d been keeping them alive. They had no idea.
That…that man. My best friend, Margie’s daddy. Yes. He’d taken me on a scooter ride to the isolated trees down the street. Yes, he’d done things. More than once.
He showed me his gun, with the bullets. Made me hold it. He was an army officer. Told me he’d kill my family if I told on him. Told me sometimes fear is the best friend we could ever have.
I can feel the lady sheriff’s eyes burning a hole in my soul. She knows. She knows what he did to me. I start to cry. “I don’t want my family to die!” My mom looks at her in confusion until it dawns on her...
I already knew what inappropriate meant.
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It’s true. I make up words.
Mancode words.
Surely you remember Manesia. Who could forget Refrigeratoritis?
And now…MABY.
This one has been brewing for awhile now. It’s what happens your manly man, he who hammers, nails, plumbs, heave-hos, grunts, and flexes in the face of adversity, becomes a whining little baby when his widdle bitty throat hurts.
Ergo, MAN + BABY = MABY.
I have a MABY in my home as we speak. I’m not making fun (okay, maybe a little). He’s sitting on the sofa, wrapped in his favorite cozy soft blankey, wearing a decades-old turtleneck (his home remedy), drinking gobs of tea with honey and lemon, something I, of course, advocate. What I don’t appreciate are the calls for me to make him more, more, more (cause, what? his legs are broken?), or the fact that I’ve also got two actual real-life children to care for, as well as a deadline to meet.
My pleas for “Could you heat up a slice for the five-year-old while you’re in there?” go unheeded because apparently, hands attached to the sore throat don’t work for anything other than tea-making when the MABY is sick.
I understand. I do. I’m not that much of a bitch.
But here’s THE THING.
My throat hurts, too. But do moms get to be MABYS? (or would that be MABIES? Let me check with The Imaginary Word Committee…just a sec...MABIES it is.)
Ahem. Do moms get to be MABIES?
No. Moms still have to take care of everyone when we’re sick. It’s just kind of the way it is.
I know my guy isn’t being a selfish jerkface. He’s simply doing what all guys do—turning inward, focusing on the singular task at hand—getting better so he can go back to making mo money mo money mo money. Men don’t give a thought to the family as a whole when they are sick – I’ve lived with enough men to know this to be true (boyfriends, dad, roommates, friends). It’s not that my guy isn’t loving and generous, because he is. He’s just sick and being a big um, MABY.
Every woman I know has been begging me to write this article and I’ve always declined. Why? I figure I’m going to piss off a few men out there who will tell me I’m high, they’re just wonderful to everyone when they’re sick; they even make delicious homemade cookies and embroider tea cozies when they have the sniffles, blah blah blah. Ok, fine. This essay is not about you, so hush. Clearly, I don’t know you.
So could you please come over? I’m too tired to make cookies and I’m fresh out of tea cozies.
And while you’re here, could you make me some tea?
That’d be great. Thanks.
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Funny, poignant, 5/5 star reviews. Go on. You don't even need a Kindle (you knew that right? Even Rachel's five-year-old little boy knows that. Come on, people.)
This week's Indie Ink challenge: IT’S JUST ANOTHER TOOL
LOST
I know it’s time to sleep.
I know it’s time to dream.
When you left me I crawled into bed and craved sleep so I could dream of you.
You came to me then, holding me with your strong, muscular arms so tightly I was afraid to breathe for fear I’d wake up.
Because if I woke up, you’d be gone.
Again.
In my dreams, you’re here. With me. Breathing me in.
Holding my words in your eyes, entwined like the strings of my shattered heart.
Your fingers burning my fears away, pressing tracks on my skin to show me you’ll never leave again.
How much would I give to carry those scars with me now? I cry when I wake, aching for one reminder, just one to help me through these endless, yawning days without you.
Night my only refuge, just another tool to finding you inside my soul.
Comments welcome, retweets and mentions loved.
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