The break up

 This popped into my head early this morning. Kind of like a dream. I see bits of stories from several people, including a little bit of me. Mostly, it's not me which made it fun to write. I can tell I wrote it on my phone while half asleep. It needs work. :)

Eager to please

Too eager to please, he thought

Says what she thinks I want to hear

How can she not know I can see that?

So obviously fake

Her words are meaningless

The only value

Is their dishonesty

I can’t live with such big lies

We all have our secrets

Little things we hide

We have our reasons

But lying to please

Is different

I wish I knew why

I wonder if I would like the real her.

Should I confront her?

Or walk away?

He was curious

And cautious.

She could tell something was wrong

The louder she laughed at his jokes

The less jokes he told,

She saw him wince when she touched his arm, 

And knew it would soon be over.

Why did her relationships always end this way?

She knew the signs,

It was just a matter of time.

Should she hold on?

Was he the ghosting type,

Or direct?

Probably direct.

He seemed like the type who was confident enough to say

This isn’t working for me

You deserve better.

It was fun while it lasted. 

Good luck to you. 

He didn’t seem like a string her along type.

But she’s been wrong before.

Might be worth waiting to see

If she was right.

She knew she was right about it being over.

She just wanted to know if she was right about him.

Would she cry

Ask him to stay together and she would work on it

Apologize,

Blame him,

Say he misunderstood her,

Agree and  wish him well too,

Or give him the silent treatment,

Leave him wondering,

Whose fault it was,

And how they got that far?

It dawned on him that maybe

He had been too eager 

Was he always that way when he met a girl?

This wasn’t the time to think about that.

He could philosophize

And dissect later.

Tomorrow. 

He would call or text her tomorrow.

Lost and Found

No writing prompt tonight and I drove all day. As a result, I reverted to pondering why I do what I do.

Lost when it comes to spoken words

Her brain can’t get them to her mouth fast enough

So many things unsaid.

So many misunderstandings that could have been avoided

If the right words had come fast enough to be spoken.

Lost in the beauty of hiking paths

Head swiveling to absorb the views

Words are superfluous

She tries to preserve memories by taking photos

They will never match what she feels in her heart.

Words and pictures,

Stored in notebooks and boxes,

Physical and digital,

So many stories 

She can tell,

So many stories yet to live.

Lost and found,

She doesn’t feel lost.

Even though the words don’t always come,

Even though others ask what she is running from,

Even though she doesn’t always know where she wants to go,

She feels like she has found herself at last.

The time had come

 NaNoWriMo short story #5. The prompt was "She'd waited so long. Now-finally-the time had come." I think there's more to this one, but not sure where it''s going to go. I'll come back to it later in the month,

She'd waited so long. Now - finally - the time had come. She was ready. She could do this. She had worked this out in her head so many times that sometimes it felt real. But it wasn’t. And now she was ready. It was time.

She rehearsed once again what she planned to say. And the question she needed to ask. Opened the door and realized that once again, it didn’t seem like the right time, Once again, she would wait for the right moment. Once again, she would wish she spoke up. Once again, she would hold her thoughts inside and wish she had spoken up.

She’d waited so long. And now she would wait some more.

She felt regret. Disappointment. Like a coward. And a sense of relief. Waiting meant that things wouldn’t change. They could go on as they had been. Which was okay with him. Not as okay for her. But the fear of losing what they had was bigger than the disappointment of not speaking up. They say that what you choose not to say speaks volumes. When you don’t make a decision, you are making a decision. She knew all of that. And still she decided to wait until the time had come, again. 

And maybe, in that split second, she would finally speak the words she wanted, needed to say. And not be held back by the fear of getting a response.

Today's Struggle

Venting about my day and what I observe on a daily basis.

Struggling to focus on the task at hand

Instead of rewinding depressing clips from the day

And watching them in my mind.

There were good moments too.

There were some great moments.

But the ones that keep popping into my head

In full color with the volume turned up,

Make me sad, mad, disappointed, 

and just flat out make me wonder 

What is the point in being hopeful

when this is how entrenched some people are.

How do people get this way?
Partly by observing the behavior of the adults around them.

Partly by being the recipient of the behavior of those adults.

Partly by being fed a stream of hatred and distrust,

Rather than a stream of acceptance.

Bullies beget bullies.

It’s hard for me to understand

Why and how adults justify

Modeling narrow minded hateful behavior.

Threatening and escalating.

Why they want their children to be fearful

Why they want their children to avoid learning about other cultures

Why they constantly yell at and grab their kids

How they can berate their children in front of friends and strangers

And not be ashamed or embarrassed or realize it is wrong.

How, with their children listening, they can call people names based on skin color,

Political party, religion, sexual preference.

I struggle with remaining calm when I observe or interact

With these people whose behavior and words

Disturb me so much,

That they get stuck on replay in my mind.

I try to focus on the happy moments,

The dad who loves libraries and the wide range of materials offered,

The young boy who explained how he was going to color his skull mask,

The mom reading to her daughter, not noticing that other children were listening.

Every day includes happy moments,

Precious moments that shape lives in a positive way

And make me feel better about people, the community, the future.

And every day includes destructive moments 

That seem so routine for those involved.

And I envision the children as clones

Growing up to yell and complain and destroy other’s happiness.

I’m not one of those love is the answer,

Give peace a chance,

Let me give you a flower

And we’ll all live together in harmony,

Kind of people.

I’m too cynical for that.

I think we’re all born innocent

And for a short time,

We’re able to love without judgement.

Our goal is joy in the moment.

But only for a short time.

Parents, clerics, teachers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins, neighbors,

Manage to replace the innocence 

With their brand of knowledge,

Their reasons, their rules,

Their prejudices, their idols.

Time to preach.

We’ve heard this before.

If you live in fear and teach fear,

Your children will most likely be fearful.

If you lovingly live and teach love,

Your children will understand love.

Can you love your children and teach fear?
Absolutely.

Unconditional love.

Ah the irony,

That the parent-child bond, 

that parent-child love,

makes it possible to teach hate.

Apparition

 Ellen’s prompt was: She sat quietly while the others ran from the apparition. “I guess you feel very brave,” she said, “but you are really a great coward.” 

Here’s a very short story (?), poem(?) that began with her prompt.

She sat quietly while the others ran from the apparition.

“I guess you feel very brave,” she said, “but you are really a great coward.”

“That depends,” he answered, “on your perspective. I don’t think of myself as ghostlike. I prefer to think of myself as remarkable and unexpected.”

“Do you enjoy it when they run away?” She asked.

“I enjoy seeing their simple behavior. It humors me how shallow they are. But it hurts that they don’t bother to see who I really am. They see me, run away out of fear, and leave me no choice but to be alone.”

“Are you real?” She asked.

“I feel real. But I fear that I am seen as just a shadowy image. I am more than a shadow. I am a spirit. Looking to be found. Someday I will be truly visible to someone. I am a spirit looking for a believer. I want to guide, not scare.”

“Do you feel brave?” She asked.

“I feel lost.”

“What did you feel when I called you a coward?”

“Upset. Regretful. Sad. Misunderstood.”

“That is a lot of feelings.”

“Yes. How do you feel about me now? Do you still think I am a coward?”

“ I hope you feel brave,” she said, “but I don’t think you’re a great coward. Maybe sometimes you’re a coward. But that would make you human. So I guess calling you a coward didn’t really make sense.”

“I can see why you said it. Why didn’t you run?”

“Because I don’t like bullies and that’s what I thought you were. A cowardly bully.”

“And now?”

“You might be a bully sometimes, but you’re not being a bully now.”

“Thank you for that. I don’t like bullies either. I see them and sometimes I scare them away. I suppose you could call me a bully for doing that.”

“Yes, I suppose I could.” She sat quietly, watching and waiting for more conversation.

She heard a gust of wind and he was gone.

Chester in Accounting

Thanks to Rich W for the prompt, Chester in Accounting. It kind of took off as I typed. When I went back and read it, I realized the beginning needed to be edited. It still needs work but that will come after NaNoWriMo ends.

Chester in accounting was having a bad day. As much as he hated to say it, the sum of the parts was not what he wanted it to be. He was a numbers guy and the numbers weren’t working right now. He was also a statistics guy and the probability was not in his favor. He rarely, if ever, thought of his life in accounting or mathematical terms, but today was turning out to be an exception. 

The company was reorganizing which meant downsizing, which meant he was being reorganized and downsized out of a job. They could only keep a finite number of accountants and he didn’t make the cut. Otis (what kind of name is that!) in the next cubicle when they used to be in the office, made the cut. But not Chester. Otis had texted Chester at around 4 yesterday afternoon to say he’d heard a rumor and wish Chester well. 

Chester had a check-in meeting with his boss scheduled for yesterday afternoon. Nothing unusual about that. They checked in once a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. And then his boss cancelled the meeting and rescheduled it for first thing in the morning. NOthing unusual about that either. The only unusual thing was that text from Otis the idiot, which Chester hadn’t responded to.

Chester jumped on the call - they were still working remotely even though many businesses were back to in person as the pandemic got under control - at 8:57 am, three minutes early. The first thing he noticed was the witch from HR was on. His boss showed up right at 9, after three awkward minutes which involved a little small talk and a lot of stomach churning for Chester. “Damn, Otis was right! Who does that guy know?”

Willow the witch - yes the HR person really was named Willow even though there was nothing about her that reminded Chester of the weeping willow tree he had in his back yard as a kid. Man, he loved to climb that tree as high as he could go. The upper limbs would bend as the wind blew and Chester loved the feeling of swaying just him and the tree dancing in the wind. Willow greeted Chester’s boss and 

Chester’s boss said hello and suggested they get started. She talked about the reorg (Chester pretended he was surprised), shifting priorities, combining departments, the need to delete redundant and unnecessary positions. “Which was he”, Chester wondered, “redundant or unnecessary, or both?” Could this get any more painful? He was in accounting. He knew the drill. 

Willow talked about a month severance, health insurance going through the end of the month, it was only the fifth so that was good news. Chester’s half listened to Willow. He was thinking, maybe he had time to squeeze in the dentist and a couple of other appointments if they got a cancellation. He should try to get his meds refilled before the end of the month too. Would his doctor call in the prescriptions if he didn’t need them yet? It was worth a try. He needed his meds. He also needed to research a damn COBRA, apply for unemployment, and start thinking about what he wanted to do.

Willow moved on to discussing the paperwork. They could email him the severance forms this afternoon and mail him copies of the signed paperwork. What email address should they send everything to? “We’ll also email the links for unemployment and COBRA.”

When Willow finished, his boss sipped her coffee (a paper Starbucks cup so probably a drink he wouldn’t be able to afford, not that he ever drank that overpriced stuff) and spoke again. Exactly what he expected her to say. They’re sorry to lose him. He was a good employee. He was a valued member of the team. These things happen. You know corporate. Sometimes things are out of our hands. He wished she would just tell the truth. She had to let two people go and he was one of them. Sorry but not sorry. Good luck. And, of course,  she delivered the final kicker, she’d be happy to provide a strong reference letter. “No, I don’t want your letter, I want my job, here, even though you’re a lousy boss. I was going to retire within the next five years. Maybe less than five if the market does well.” He heard her say something about “accounting won’t be the same without you, Chester.” “Well, duh, he thought, that’s because I won’t be there so you’ll have to rely on Otis the idiot or whoever you have do my job. There’s no way he can figure some of this stuff out without cheat sheets. I have some, but they’re on my personal external drive because I’ve been working from home. And no I’m not going to mention my external drive because it’s mine. They can have their laptop back. That thing sucked anyway, which is why I needed the external drive. Boss lady and Otis and my co-workers who will miss me have no idea how slow and crappy that laptop is, but they’ll soon find out. Maybe. Everyone will be back in the office within two months.

Willow the HR witch took over again. “We need to arrange to for you to return your laptop. Maybe you can drop it off and pick up the signed paperwork tomorrow, Wednesday, morning?”

“Oh, yeah, right, it’s Tuesday morning, I guess I can read your email and e-sign everything tonight. Why can’t you just print it and I’ll sign it when I come in?”

“Oh, we wouldn’t want to take that much of your time. You can leave the laptop with security and they can walk you to your office if you need to get anything personal that you left there when we shut down for the pandemic. No need to stop by HR.”

“Wow,” Chester thought, “the proverbial foot kicking you out the door. They don’t want me anywhere near them. Maybe they think that besides being redundant and unnecessary, I’m contagious.”

“I really don’t mind coming in to sign the forms. That way, if I have a question, well, you know.”

Willow cleared her throat. His boss cleared her throat. Chester though they were trying to look at each other and decide who should speak.

His boss decided to put on her manager hat and speak up. “Well, actually Chester, as much as we’d like to see you, today is our last day and we won’t be here tomorrow. Middle management and HR took a hit too.”

And with that, Chester from Accounting finally smiled. “Sorry to hear that.” And thought to himself, “best balance sheet ever.” He loved it when things added up just right. No need for notes. Just a clean balance sheet where the final numbers matched. That was Chester’s happy place. He truly loved it when the numbers told the story and he didn’t need to explain a thing. It might be his last day but it was also his best day. As he said, “Ok, bye then, I’ll watch for that email,” he thought, “Chester in Accounting wishing you well (not) and signing off. Maybe this day isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”

Walter the Wallaby

 Short story #2 for NaNoWriMo. I’m not sure if this one is done or if I’ll add to it.

Walter the Wallaby was getting grumpy. Okay, maybe he wasn’t getting grumpy. He’d been grumpy for a while. He didn’t like his kangaroo neighbors. He didn’t like jumping and running in the same place every day. He kept thinking there must be something more to life. He kept feeling like there should be more to his life. Like there should be more wallabies for him to meet. But there weren’t. It was him, Mac, Becky, and Addie. And those snobby kangaroos, some humans who worked at the zoo and thought they understood Walter and his moods, and those totally annoying humans who came to visit during the day. He could hear them running, jumping, screaming, laughing, crying, banging on the fence, and generally be loud and, well, annoying. Why couldn’t they visit quietly? Why did they have to visit at all? Why couldn’t they just let him live in peace?

He heard the humans who brought the food talking, they might be getting two more wallabies. Neither Becky nor Addie was pregnant so they weren’t going have a joey. Where were these wallabies coming from? Would they still need him? Maybe they could set him free or send him to a zoo that had a bigger area to jump in. Or more wallabies. Or less annoying visitors. Maybe even better weather. He thought he would like some place a little warmer, Sometimes it got so cold the building he slept in was warmed by a machine. It was noisy. The hot air would blow down on him and make his long snout itch.

But Walter knew he wasn’t going anywhere. He was too old. And too grumpy. The zoo was probably getting a couple of joeys. Walter knew what that meant. If the zoo got joeys now, when he got really old the joeys would be old enough to provide entertainment the way he used to. Before he started getting old and cynical. Before he started getting bored and disappointed. Before he started having dreams of a life before the zoo and realized the dreams weren’t totally made up, parts of them were real. He really did have a life before this zoo. A mother and father. Maybe even a sister or brother. Mac, Becky, and Addie were nice enough, but he knew they were friends not relatives. He couldn’t remember if he had lived in another zoo or out in the open. Free. All he remembered was more space, more wallabies, and a feeling of home. Family, not friends. Most importantly, he remembered being called a name that wasn’t Walter. He couldn’t remember the name exactly but it didn’t sound like Walter. It’s might have been sun which seemed like a funny name for a wallaby. Or maybe sometimes he was called sun and sometimes he was called something else. What he really wanted to be called was Boomer or Jack. He remembered hearing those names. And he thought his mom was Jill. He still heard those names used, but this zoo didn’t have a wallaby named Jack or Jill or Boomer, so maybe he was imagining it. As he thought about it, he felt something in his heart or maybe it was in his snout. Thinking about it made him feel tired. And the more he thought about it the grumpier he got. 

Walter the Wallaby was grumpy and old. And jumpy. No matter how grumpy he got, he still chomped down on leafy plants and hopped around the pen. And tried to ignore the voices inside his head as well as the ones outside the pen. And always he listened for the chirp he remembered and would shout out his chirp in the hope it would be returned.

 

 

 

Misty the Narwhal

 Day 1 of NaNoWriMo. I’m trying to write 20-30 short stories this month. Extra bonus if I write in prose instead of verse. To get started I went on FB and asked my friends for prompts - character names or 

Today’s prompt was Misty the Narwhal (thanks to Denise M).

Misty the Narwhal didn’t consider herself a rebel. But she wanted a tusk, She really, really wanted a tusk. It didn’t seem fair that the boys got them. and that some boys even grew two. 

 

Misty had just changed from being brownish-gray to being blue-black. Even that bothered her. Why had it taken so long. Narwhals younger than her changed color faster. And she was smaller than some girls who were younger. Nick, a Narwhal in her pod started calling her Misty the Mini. Then the other kids started calling her that too. Even the babies.

All MIsty wanted to do was grow faster. She wanted to be bigger and darker so when she got older the change from dark to white would be noticeable. Like some of the senior narwhals with their distinguished white skin. 

She knew she should be content to just play under the ice with her friends. She knew the rules. If you need to get air, find a buddy to go up with you. Because she didn’t have a tusk a hunter wouldn’t try to kidnap her. But sometimes the hunters would use a net and capture any narwhal that came up for air. They also shot them with darts which made it hard for the narwhals to try to escape. That sounded scary. She knew that was what happened to her father and one of her uncles.

Misty knew that tusks weren’t a weapon. But if she had a tusk she could pretend it was. And use it to protect others. Like the calf her mother was going to have. Her mother said it would be a while before her brother or sister was born. 

So Misty did what she was told. She played with the other narwhals. She was careful about going above water. She avoided strange objects in the water. Her mother said the objects weren’t alive but she should avoid them because they were the enemy. Misty didn’t understand that but she trusted her mother so she stayed clear of things in the water that didn’t look like a fish.

And everyday, Misty asked her mother why she didn’t have a tusk. And everyday her mother would tell her to go play and stop asking foolish questions.

Misty would watch the boys and ask them if they felt their tusks growing. They’d laugh at her and say no. And if they did feel anything, they certainly wouldn’t let it bother them. Then they would laugh again and say the only thing bothering them was her and all of her questions. If she was that jealous maybe she should ask her mother why she didn’t have a boy instead of an annoying girl like Misty. She would try to splash them as she turned and swam away, crying warm tears into the cold water.

“Sticks and stones can break my bones but names can never hurt me.” That’s what her aunt told her to say. Misty thought it was a ridiculous thing to say. Names did hurt. They hurt more than bumps and scrapes. They hurt inside. She didn’t care about hurting her body. It would heal. She saw the scars and bumps on the older narwhals. Some of the white seniors boasted about how they got them. Stories about men, boat propellers, and things she needed to know about, but they hoped she would never see.

So Misty began to spend more time alone. She stayed close to the pod and watched the other kids play and talk. But she didn’t join their games as often. It hurt to see them having so much fun and not asking her to join them. At first they did ask her and she gave excuses about not being in the mood to play. After a while they stopped asking. Some of the seniors noticed. They told her she needed to play to stay healthy for the months under ice. So she exercised on her own and felt herself getting stronger.

She practiced echolocation. She worked on learning to identify the voice of each narwhal in her pod. When they met up with other pods she would hang out with narwhals who looked around her age. Sometimes they were younger but since they didn’t know how old she was, they didn’t make fun of her. She made up names and games for non-living things she saw in the water. She used her tail fins to push them away. Sometimes she’d try to throw them out of the water. When the other narwhals saw that they would laugh. But she noticed their laugh sounded different. It wasn’t at her. It sounded joyful, like they enjoyed seeing what she could do.

Day after day Misty worked on her narwhal skills and wished for a tusk. And watched the other narwhals, especially Nick, whose tusk was the longest. How fierce he was beginning to look. Some of the younger boys were becoming afraid of him. Nick’s tusk was growing so fast he seemed awkward. Not as smooth a swimmer as he had been. Not as sure of his aim when he needed to pop through the hole in the ice for air.

Soon Nick was spending less time with his friends and more time alone. Misty would notice him swim away from the others. He seemed to be practicing his echolocation too. She could tell because of the way he stayed still, closed his eyes, and then swam towards an object. She did that too. She also kept her eyes closed, listened, swam, then opened her eyes to see if her hearing was accurate. It usually was. She noticed that Nick was getting better too.

Even though Nick had always been mean to her, she felt like she needed to talk to him. Maybe she could help him. Maybe he could help her.  Nick had been the main boy narwhal but she heard the seniors talk about him. “That boy is trouble.” “That tusk of his is growing to big too fast.” The seniors told her to be careful around him. Her mother told her to “watch out for that boy.” And MIsty realized that Nick was probably as lonely as she was. 

She enjoyed being alone. She enjoyed challenging herself and feeling a sense of accomplishment when met the challenge. But sometimes she missed being a member of the pod. She knew she was part of the pod, but she didn’t feel like she belonged. As she watched Nick, she thought, “Neither does he.”

Misty the Narwhal didn’t consider herself a rebel. She thought she just wanted a tusk, And to be a little bigger, the right shade of gray, a little more like the other narwhals. As she observed the narwhals in her pod she realized she didn’t want to look exactly like any of them. She didn’t want to be the exact same color or size. She didn’t want to speak exactly like them. She wanted to be different. She wanted to keep being herself. She liked being herself. And being herself meant she would help someone who looked like they were sad the way she was when the kid narwhals picked on her and told her she was different. So one day she swam over to Nick. His eyes were closed but she knew he heard her coming. She splashed her fin, he opened his eyes, and they played together. And MIsty didn’t care what anyone thought or said. She didn’t have a tusk, but maybe, just maybe, she realized, she really was rebel after all. In a good way. A tusk would be fun but being a rebel was better.

 

Ailments and Calls

 Just another attempt at communication.

The phone rang once and clicked when I picked up.

A minute later a chirping to announce a video call

I hit audio only.

More ailments,

More reasons why

We can’t get together yet

But we will

Not sure when

Or where

Or what we’ll be able to do.

Let’s talk again.

Need to get

Answers to questions,

Ask new questions,

Research new plans.

Same old people,

Wondering why it takes so long

To connect,

Wondering how to react,

And will the need ever be satisfied.

Calls, texts, emails, and messenger

Relay updates about

Appointments, diagnoses, treatment.

There’s less, more, the same.

Every time the conversation resumes.

More time to wait,

Before committing