Where have I been?

Good evening all,

Happy Mother’s Day.

You might have noticed that it’s been a while since I posted. I am on a bit of an internet break, including the blog. I just felt that I wanted – and needed – to live life a less online for a while.

I did another one of my periodic “internet audits” where I went through and worked out which sites I should stay a member of and deleted the others and then, I turned everything off.

By everything, I mean my laptop and my phone, and my habit of having them on and within arm’s reach all the time. It turns out I can actually live without checking my twitter feed every 5 seconds after all.

I did something similar recently for my month-long “Wagon” challenge, but this was a bigger scale spring clean, and much-needed break. I don’t have a deadline for when I will be back from the break, except for “when I’m ready”.

Vague, much? Yeah.

But…

Whilst working on the small stuff, I’ve also been contemplating some of the big stuff, and I don’t have all the answers yet, but I feel like I’m asking the right questions, and that’s a start.

What kind of questions? Things like “should I use my pen name or my real name?”. It’s not as small or as simple a question as you might think.* Or, who am I? Who do I want to be? What do I really want to do? What do I need to do? Where should I go? Hmmmm.

*If you have any interesting thoughts on this, feel free to let loose in the comments.

So, whilst I’m away contemplating the meaning of the universe, you might not see me around the internet a lot. Worry not. I’m fine – just living my life a little more offline for a while.

Cheers!

JT

 

24in24: The slush pile

Evenin’ all,

So here is the last part of the 24in24 puzzle – the slush pile. This is the batch of stories that I wrote and didn’t think were any good, in fact, some of them are downright terrible. The story about the fire just made me go “ick” and the micro-romance I wrote just about made me be sick. I am honestly mortified that some of these are seeing the light of day but I promised I’d post all 24, so I will.

I think you can probably tell where I was stuck, desperate, or just completely out of ideas. I think you can also see “the theme” wherein I kept writing the same story over and over in slight variations. I have to say I don’t necessarily think of all of these are awful – a lot of them are, but a couple are just a bit boring, or too similar to really stand out. I think there might be hope for a couple of them yet. I like the last line of “20″, and I can even see how I could turn my crappy micro-romance into something possibly worth reading, with a hell of a lot of work. Hmmmm.

I do think that every word written serves a purpose, even if it’s just learning to identify what’s truly terrible. The 24in24 slush pile has already given me an idea for another challenge, which is to take all 24 stories and work on one a day for 24 days and see what I can make of them. Who knows, maybe there’s a hidden gem somewhere in the slush pile that just needs a little bit more encouragement to come out (and if any of you think you can do anything with any of these, go right ahead).

Apologies that this post is long, I was trying not to spread it over two. Also if you find the new white background harder to read than the old black one, let me know, because I can switch it back.

So, without further procrastination, pull up a pew, grab yourself some popcorn and prepare to get your giggle on as you read the slush pile in all its unedited, cringe-worthy glory.

*************

5.

The storm clouds were gathering in her head as well as overhead. The waterfront was deserted because everyone else was sensible enough to run for cover before the rain actually started falling but that was exactly why Angie was out here, because she wanted to be alone. She pulled her coat tighter around her as the wind picked up and started to bite, and continued to stare out over the water to god only knew what because she didn’t. She was just grateful for a moment of peace and quiet in her otherwise cacophonous life.

Her peace was disturbed very briefly by a runner skipping over the board walk behind her, but it didn’t take long for him to pass and for things to fall quiet again, apart from the thunder that was now starting to rumble in the distance, and the screech of the wind gusts as they whipped past her face. She held her collar shut with one hand, and wished that she’d bought a button, but that was just one thing on the long list of things that she “didn’t have time to do these days”. Out here though, it felt like time had stopped.

Distant voices carried to her on the wind, and Angie started walking before they could catch up with her and shatter her stillness. She wondered how she could take a little piece of that peace with her. She stopped, smiled, took a picture of the clouds and then went off to buy a button.

8.

The ball flew through the air, heading for the boundary rope. Time stopped. Eighty thousand people held their breath. If it landed inside the rope, the fielding team won. If it went over, the opposition. It kept going, arcing through the air, going higher and higher until finally it reached its apex and started to drop – closer and closer to the ground, closer and closer to the rope. Pulses raced, hearts pounded, prayers and curses were said. Then the gods decided which half of the stadium they would listen to, and the ball touched down. The crowd erupted. They had won.

10.

A blinking cursor is the writer’s worst nightmare, Jade thought, as she sat in the library and tried to work out what the hell she was supposed to be writing. She had two hours to write fifteen hundred words, and it had to have something to do with the sea. What the hell was she supposed to do with that? She was an indoors girl from an inland state and had never even seen the sea with her own eyes. Now she found herself stressing herself sick over this assignment, which might have been fine if it was for one of her science papers but no, this was creative writing and she couldn’t just google a bunch of stuff, she actually to craft a story out of it, somehow.

How do you write a story about something you’ve never seen? Jade didn’t know, so she sat and watched her cursor blink and the hands of the clock move, and the ticking seemed like the loudest thing she had ever heard, except perhaps thunder. She’d heard somewhere that was the same way some people described the sea. She wondered if the “roar of the ocean” was an actual thing, or if it was just another bullshit cliché. That was something she could google, and that might be start.

Jade hunted through her bag until she found her headphones, then plugged them into her netbook and typed the roar of the ocean into google. She scrolled through a couple of pages of crap before a link popped up with a video. She clicked into it, put her headphones on, turned them up loud enough to tune anything else out, and pressed play.

The sound was like nothing she had ever heard, and she had to rewind it before she believed it. Yes, it was real. It was a roar, alright, and it was deafening but, at the same time, it was so peaceful. Jade found herself leaning back in her chair and playing the sound over and over and over again, letting it wash over her just as she could now imagine that the waves would. It was a roar, but it was also quiet. The sentence didn’t make sense, but it was the truth. It was the first thing in a long time that had allowed her soul to be still, and for that, she was immeasurably grateful. She set the video to repeat and stopped watching the clock. For a long time, she sat there, just listening and breathing, and not thinking and being still. It was only when an alarm on her phone went off warning her that she had only thirty minutes to go that she finally sat forward and acknowledged the outside world again.

She took her earphones out briefly and the rest of the world rushed back in like a wall of water and she quickly put them back in. She set the video to repeat again, minimised the window, and started to type. She didn’t stop until her second alarm warned her that she had five minutes to go and she finished her sentence, hit save, and then uploaded it to the course web page in the nick of time. Now that she was done, she didn’t know what to do now. She put her earphones back on and played the audio again. She needed to see the sea.

11.

The house was colder than it had been but there was a warmth within it that came from its inhabitants and cancelled out the cold of the habitat itself. Jake stood on the steps and watched them through the windows, all rugged up in blankets and cuddling hot water bottles. There was a small floor heater going, but there’d never been anything bigger because they’d never been able to afford it.

As a kid he had sometimes found the lack of space due to seven people being crushed into a two bedroom unit claustrophobic. Now, as he stood outside, he couldn’t wait to get back in his old bunk and bathe in the warmth of people who loved you. He wasn’t rich either – he’d made his parents proud by going to college but the loans had nearly killed him. Even so, they had stood up for him when he had declined a highly paid job at an investment banking firm to go and open a comic book store instead.

These days he had a mortgage as well as his student loans, and slept in a tiny studio apartment he had fashioned out of the loft space above his store. He had a dog that he took for walks when he wasn’t working, and which he lent to the kids who frequented his store, or the nice old guy in the retirement village when he was at work so that they, and Buster, both got some companionship and could pass the day feeling a little less alone.

He was grateful now that he had grown up living in such close quarters – they had taught him how to make the most of a small amount of space and how much he really needed to be happy, and that wasn’t a lot. It was people, not things, who made life worth living and now here he was, after a long drive through the snow, and the people who made his life worth living were all huddled inside waiting for him to arrive.

Buster pawed at the glass and almost in unison, seven heads turned and multiple hands poked out of blankets to wave him inside. Jake gave them a grin and a wave back, turned the door handle and felt their warmth wash over him as Buster pushed past him into the nearest open pair of arms, of which there were many. Dorothy was right, he thought. There’s no place like home.

16.

Fire, everywhere. No remorse, anywhere. The relentless wall of flame advanced, bearing death and destruction on all in its path. The water was the only way out, even if the air above might burn. All living things scrambled for its refuge, and there wasn’t enough room for all. There was nothing to do but try, however, when the other options was condemning yourself to a terrible death.

18.

He looked at me at last, on a dark and stormy night and clichés be damned, it was the single best moment of my life.

20.

When I heard that I got tenure, I celebrated by skipping down the University steps. It was a little bit crazy but they let me off because I was obviously happy and it made the faculty happy to see that someone was genuinely glad to stay there, given how high staff turnover had been in recent times.

What none of them knew, when the voted unanimously in my favour, was that eight years earlier I had escaped from a locked psychiatric unit, and everything I had achieved since then was driven not by academic curiosity, but a desperate need and desire to never go back there. I was a good teacher, mind, and a good researcher too.

I didn’t draw attention to myself because I didn’t want to draw attention to my face, just in case anybody recognized it from the posters of nearly a decade ago. I’d altered my appearance as much as I could, but there was only so much you could do without plastic surgery, and I never had the funds for that. So I adopted a new accent and mannerisms to go with my new name, and turned my back on who I had been – at least on the surface – and forged a new life for myself within the walls of an academic institution, instead of a psychiatric one.

I still can’t stand closed doors, and locked ones are even worse. But I have tenure now, so I worry a little less.

 22.

The shoes in the window were green, and that was unusual in itself. Green wasn’t an “it” colour, which was good because Cassie wasn’t an “it” girl. She was just an office clerk, who hated wearing heels, and longed for comfy feet. She stood on the side-walk and stared through the glass, trying to see a price sticker without having to go inside and ask. She hated pushy shop assistants, and always got embarrassed when things turned out to be more than she could afford. She had a little bit of spare cash since her flatmate had paid her back, but not a lot. There were a few other things she had thought she should buy with the unexpected boon, but that was before she saw the shoes.

They were a bit like ballet slippers, but more solid, and they reminded her of when she used to dance. Green was her favourite colour, and it was so because it reminded her of the outdoors, where she had spent the half of her childhood that she hadn’t spent at her dance classes. She liked the way the crystals caught the light, and added a brightness without being garish. She appreciated her job, because it kept a roof over her head and food on her table and she knew there were people who had a lot less, but even so, it was tough to go in every day to a place where you did not belong and didn’t want to. She craned her neck sideways and finally caught sight of the sticker. They were expensive, just as she had feared. They would cost all the money she had been repaid and a few more dollars she didn’t have but might just be able to squeeze, if she walked to work for the next few weeks instead of taking the bus.

She tossed it over and over in her mind, then finally went inside and requested the green shoes from the window. There was only one pair, and they were miraculously her size. She was still umming and ahhing when she caught her reflection in the mirror, and the smile on her face that she hadn’t seen in a long time. A lump caught in her throat, and she lied and told the shop assistant that she had a cold when she asked if she was alright. She let out a deep breath and asked if they could cut off the tag so that she didn’t have to take them off. The shop assistant said that was okay, so she paid and then she left.

Walking down the street, Cassie felt like swinging around a lamp post like Fred Astaire. When she reached a place where there weren’t too many people, she did. When some of them looked at her like she was nuts, she smiled at them instead of being embarrassed and then walked on, her head held high instead of shyly down, no longer afraid to look a stranger or the world in the eye, as comfortable in her own skin as she was in her new green shoes.

 23.

They’d come camping to get some peace and quiet but the night was not quiet at all. The trees were rustling, crickets were chirping, and, most annoying of all, a chorus of frogs was croaking out a symphony of sound that didn’t sound like it was going to reach its crescendo any time soon. The campers were starting to rethink their decision to seek refuge in the great outdoors, realising that it was not the silent oasis that they had imagined after all.

It was a different type of noise, though, Kent thought as he lay there with his girlfriend moaning in his arms – not in the fun, kinky way, but the whining, never stopping claiming kind of way – than the endless traffic and construction sounds that bombarded him twenty-four seven or, just for a change, some music blaring through the apartment walls. He was tired and uncomfortable, things were biting him and crawling on him, and he was pretty sure he would still be tired in the morning, with itchy and sore added in for a good measure, but even so, he felt that it wasn’t the frogs that were annoying, it was Heather. If she would only shut up, just for a minute, and listen…well, then, a lot of things would be better, not just this night. If only the frogs would sing louder, then he wouldn’t be able to hear her, and that would be even better. Wishing that did not make Kent feel any better, and he tried to wish the guilt of the thought away, but failed.

The frog chorus rose louder and it seemed he would almost get his wish, when Heather abruptly announced that she wanted to go home. Right now, not in the morning. Kent sighed to himself and felt a stab of anger rise in his chest. It had been her fucking idea to come out here, to spend all this money and buy all this gear and get away from the city and “close to nature” and now, as usual, she’d gotten her way and then changed her mind. Kent was a city slicker, he’d never been camping in his life.

But he’d gone out and organized it and taken the time off work and everything for her, because he loved her….or did he? He started to wonder as he packed up their camp and she continued to complain, as he did everything and she stood by “supervising” or demanding, as usual. Kent thought for a second that it would be nice to leave her out here, then realized that he’d rather give her the keys to the car and the house and stay here himself. When she stalked back to the car in huff over god only knew what, he stood there, and listened to the frogs, and thought seriously about that second option again. It wasn’t the first time that he’d wondered what his life might be like without her, but, as the frogs croaked and the stars twinkled overhead, he thought that it might just be the last.

Only when he could procrastinate no longer did her follow her back to the car, and listen to her complain all the way home as well. He glanced at her in the mirror, and saw her in a different light. She was not a bad person, and he still liked her, but he did not love her, and he did not want to be with her any longer. It would be a huge upheaval to unpick the life that they had built together but he was reminded of the old adage about a house built on sand and could not escape the conclusion that there was no longer a solid foundation for their relationship.

It was not going to be easy, but he would take the hit for her, in terms of finance and friends, and everything else that they needed to divide between them. It would mean starting again in a lot of ways but as he drove down the highway Kent caught the reflection of the moon in his side mirror and thought that maybe that wasn’t as scary or bad as it at first seemed. He was pretty sure she would kick him out of the house when he told her he didn’t want to be with her any more, and he was sure now, where he would go.

She could keep the apartment, and Kent would keep the tent.

24.

Whoever said you couldn’t teach and old dog new tricks didn’t know Danny Daly or his dog, Hector. Hector was a golden labrador who had been named after an ancient greek hero, and Danny was a small boy who loved his dog more than anyone had ever loved anything on this earth. Danny had taught him to fetch and heel and sit; Hector had taught Danny to heal and play and to be still. They were each others blood brother, despite their difference is species, and inseparable until life tried to tear them apart.

Life, however, underestimated the sheer strength of the bond between Danny Daly and his dog, and was unprepared for what came next. When the disease first started to crawl through Danny’s cells and to ravage his body from the inside out, it was Hector who sniffed it out and worried his parents so much that they took him to a Doctor and discovered that he was ill. When Danny lay in hospital, sheltered from everyone and everything whilst he received his treatment, it was Hector who learned to open doors with his teeth and his paws and saved his sanity by sneaking in and keeping him company in the long nights when he would have lain alone and scared.

When Danny died, it was Hector who found a way to be by his side, and to will his own heart to stop so that he could go with him into the light. His parents had not known what he was doing, but when they realised that both their boy and their dog had stopped breathing, they immediately understood, and were eternally grateful and relieved. That was how Hector learned to give comfort to the living even through dying, and it was perhaps the most valuable trick anyone ever learned.

Maybe they’re right, and you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. But maybe what they can know, what they can do, and what they can teach you, is limitless.

*************

That’s all of ‘em, folks.

JT

24in24: The “4″ story, and the story of “4″

Evenin’ all,

Here is the number “4″ story from my 24in24 challenge. Apologies for the delay in posting, folks, but it’s been one of those “best laid plans” weeks.

So, 4.

You might remember my quick description of 4 in my review post as:

“4. The second of Emm’s prompts was “A long lost box, a dead bird, and a book on my shelf”. I think she might have meant them to be three separate things but it was the middle one which immediately jumped out at me. It reminded me of a story which she had written, which reminded me of some things, and suddenly all these things fit together, and this is what inspired the story that I don’t know if I will share, because it made me cry, and I’m not sure if I’m ready to explain to the whole world why.”

You can read Emm’s “Black Bird” story here.

So. My story. It’s too long to post here so I’ve PDF’d it and you can download it here. I haven’t given it an actual name yet. It’s still just called “Four”. I’ve also posted it over on the Showcase page.

I’ve spent all week trying to write the story of my story and why it was so emotional for me and I could take another 100 weeks and probably still not get it right, so let’s just say the story itself is fiction, but there is a lot of truth in it.

A beloved friend of mine did die in her sleep, too soon.

Things that are too hard to talk about, still.

Making boxes. Earthquakes. The Elephant. True Faces. Wasted time.

The list goes on. The story is a composite of many separate things, which somehow came together and became this thing.

It made me bawl my eyes out to write it, but I love it.

I hope you like it, but it’s OK if you don’t.

I think it deserves a better blog than this, but this is the best that I can do right now.

Still to come: the slush pile.

Cheers!!

JT

24in24: Part Three – 3 of my favourites

Evenin’ all,

The 24in24 stories continue with 3 of my favourites tonight.

Remember, I haven’t edited, so my spelling and grammar are probably all over the place. The only change I have made is to star out a lot of the stronger swear words in “2” because there are a lot.

Speaking of “2”, this one is for Michael Gray, because it came from his prompt. I had an absolute blast writing it, so thanks again.

The second one I affectionately refer to as “Apocolypse Cat”. The fact that it gives me a reason to refer to something as “Apocolypse Cat” is reason enough to like it.

The third one? I just like it. Or, I feel it. I can picture the scene so easily and so vividly.

Anyway, that’s enough spoilers.

*************

2.

The blade was warm and wet because contrary to popular belief, vampire blood is not cold, and it was completely coated in it. It was also bullshit they were allergic to sunlight – she’d met this one at a beach party in Santa Monica in broad daylight – and that garlic warded off anyone for any reason other than because if you eat loads of it, your breath f****** reeks. Even that only repels people wanting to kiss you, not people wanting to kill you. Holy water only worked if you could find something that the person you were gonna be throwing it at considered holy, and Mika had learned from hard experience that the b***h that she had just killed didn’t worship anyone or anything. Crucifixes were out too, for the same reason. Out of all the old wives tales, that had just left her with the good old stake through the heart but Mika didn’t own anything fitting that description so she’d gone for a steak knife instead – the biggest, sharpest one that she could find.

It turns out that if you stab a vampire in the neck so many times that you practically decapitate them, they die just like everyone else. You can then finish the job for comfort, good measure, or both. Mika lay in the same sand where they had first met and contemplated what she had just done. She tried to feel bad about it, but failed. She looked sideways at the think that had been Julie and felt absolutely nothing. It wasn’t that the she had drunk blood that had made her a monster, it was the hate and spite and cruelty that had run through her veins long before she ever got jumped by Edward Cullen in a f****** alley or whatever the hell had turned her into a biological freak. She’d been a horrible f****** b***h and a bully long before then, Mika now knew, and she’d tried to feel sympathy for her, hoping for some tragic back story, but there wasn’t one. When Mika had discovered her true nature, it wasn’t the fangs which shocked her, it was the sheer joy that the b***h got out of other people’s pain and terror. She didn’t kill because she had to. She did it because she wanted to, because it was how she got her kicks. Half the time she didn’t even drink, she just got off on the torture instead.

But then she’d made a mistake. A critical one. She’d tried to turn her new found friend into someone like her, and Mika could have lived with the blood drinking – you didn’t have to kill people, you could drink blood from a bottle instead, just like beer, she’d seen it in a TV show somewhere – but she wasn’t a f****** murderer, and having been bullied for half her life, she wasn’t about to be one herself. When Mika had gone home to visit her parents for the weekend and found the b***h sitting in the back yard with her baby brother in her arms, innocently playing with his trucks and gotten scolded for not telling her parents that her “friend” was also coming to visit, that had been the last straw.

It was then that Mika had decided that the world would be a much better place if the b***h was dead. There was no way she was going to feel bad about cutting off her f****** head. It had taken her a while to gather her courage, and she was ashamed of that, because she knew more people had been hurt whilst she waited. In the end, however, she’d ended up in the kitchen polishing the knife and then in the dunes, slashing and screaming and hoping like hell that what she was doing was working and nobody was overhearing.

That was where she lay now, with the body of the b***h and her severed head, gathering flies whilst Mika gathered her thoughts and her breath. She had to move before someone found her, and she ended up in jail. As sure as hell, no one would believe her. She stood and reached into her pocket for the lighter that she’d brought with her and the bag of creamer that she’d shoved in her backpack – that shit was pretty flammable, she’d seen it on Mythbusters. So was most of the cheap Chinese factory made fashion that what had once been Julie was wearing and Mika was right – with the help of those accelerants, the body went up in an instant.

She didn’t stop for a solemn good-bye, or cast a last look over her shoulder. She just picked up her backpack, made sure she hadn’t missed anything and that the fire wasn’t going out, and then headed off across the dunes into the night. She didn’t feel like Blade, or like Buffy. She felt the adrenalin wear off and ducked into a McDonald’s to get changed and get some sugar and then sat there surfing the web whilst she waited for her balance to come back. It didn’t really register, what she had just gone. She remembered a friend of hers saying nothing really happened if it didn’t get mentioned on facebook and briefly contemplated a status update saying “Just killed a vampire, motherf*****s. Going home to watch Twilight now, LOL!” but decided against it.

Instead she sat, in McDonald’s, on Saturday night, sipping her soda and taking advantage of their free wi-fi. She put her earphones in and listened to some music, and made a plan to burn the bloodied clothes that were in her bag. She’d got surprisingly little spatter on them, so had been able to hide it with her jacket quite easily and she made a mental note to thank her Dad who always insisted that she bring the lightweight thing which crushed up into a little pouch with her everywhere in case it rained.

It didn’t just rain, Dad. It f****** poured.

She finished her soda and considered getting another but couldn’t be bothered. She was tired, actually, and carrying around a bag full of bloodied clothes and a bloody big knife was creepy. What if she encountered some creep on the street who jumped her and thought that those things were an invitation? She’d done her dealing to assholes for tonight. She just wanted to go home, get rid of that shit, and ring her Dad.

Mika put all of her rubbish onto her tray and dutifully took it over to the waste bin and dumped it. It felt symbolic, somehow, and she smiled for the first time as she stepped out of the door and onto the street – just another California girl with headphones and an iphone, seemingly oblivious to the world around her.

Maybe she would watch Twilight, after all.

3.

The cat sat watching the scene unfolding below, only the occasional twitch of its tail giving away its interest. The rooftop was its favourite place to people watch and also soak up some sun – two birds, one stone, or so they said. They thought that the cat didn’t understand their language, but it had learned. It was older than all of them, and had ‘strayed’ from one civilization to another just as easily as they went from one fad to the next. It had seen them rise and fall countless times, and knew that another apocalypse was coming soon, as sure as its own fur was ginger. Without a single streak of grey, it might have added, if it could be bothered, but being a cat, it couldn’t. Instead it simply held its position and continued to observe the incident in the street. Two young people were bullying another and no-one was stopping to help. That was unsurprising, but still disappointing. The cat continued to watch as the world continued to turn a blind eye to the cruelty of their own, and its tail twitched in annoyance as more and more people passed by and the pool of potential candidates went down, down, and down.

Finally, at long last, someone stopped. The boy was now on the ground, being kicked and punched by the two bigger boys. A young girl – no, a she wasn’t that young, she was just short – stopped and nervously put her shopping bags on the ground. She cleared her throat and said “Excuse me.” The cat’s ears pricked up. “Excuse me.” she tried again. Still no response, but the cat’s tail was twitching non stop now. “Hey assholes!”

This time they turned, and the cat leapt to its feet. It watched as it ran, as the boys stood over the much smaller female and tried to make themselves into bigger men by belittling her attempts to help the boy they were beating senseless on the ground. They towered over her, but she stood her ground. They started shoving her, but she refused to back down. She was about to join the battered boy on the ground when the police arrived, and they ran off. The cat thought for a second that someone else had called the cops, and there was another good Samaritan out there somewhere, but quickly learned that the girl had called them before she had stopped and directly intervened, thinking that they would not arrive in time, if they even took any notice at all.

He was as surprised as her that they’d actually turned up, and unsurprised when they didn’t chase the offenders. He was happy that she was angry about this, and gave them a good serve whilst they bundled the beaten boy into the back of their squad car to take him to the hospital. She continued to watch the car as it sped off into the distance, just as the cat continued to watch her. She wasn’t that young at all, really, maybe mid 20s. But she was still young enough to learn, and the cat still had plenty to teach. It had been worshipped once, and did not expect that same treatment again, but for a little bit of companionship and kindness it was willing to share its knowledge – but only with those who were worthy. The people that it had been living with for the past decade were good people, but the cat felt that its work there was done. It had taught the son and daughter all that it could, and now they were going away to College to hopefully spread the empathy vaccine (empathy) to the disease (apathy). The cat needed to find a new student, and a new home, and this girl certainly had potential.

The cat made its decision and made its way over to her shopping bags and started sticking its nose in. She spotted it immediately and knelt down not to shoo it but to pet it. It played the part of the shy homeless kitty for a few moments, then started rubbing itself up against her legs, nuzzling her with its head, and purring a loud happy purr when paid attention. It held its breath for a second when she reached down and picked her shopping bags up and started to walk away – and then looked back and said “Well, are you coming?”

The cat miaowed, flicked its tail, and trotted happily after her. If it could just find a few more people like her and the children that it had just left, perhaps the next apocalypse could be averted after all.

13.

A small bear sat on an old television set, abandoned and alone. Once it had been beloved, but the little boy who had hugged it and loved it, slept with it every night and taken it everywhere he went in the world and shown it the world was long gone. All that was left was a rotting ribbon and the remains of a home made corked hat that the boy had made for it after he saw a documentary on Australia on the same television that Arthur the abandoned bear now sat on. The boy who had named him had been ripped away from him in an act of unspeakable violence, and the house had been abandoned by his parents soon afterwards. No one had wanted to buy it, and the bear would have thought that was fair enough, if it had understood those things, but it would not have been less lonely. It did not understand how they had taken everything else, but somehow left it behind. It seemed an unspeakable betrayal to the bear which now sat on top of the television alone, being worn down by the weather and the years, wishing for a friend.

It’s prayers were answered today in the most unusual way, when a tiny little creature and its mother took refuge in the ruins, having been driven out of their own habitat by developers time and time again until they no longer had anywhere to go except to try and find some shelter amongst the places that were as unwanted by humanity as they were. The Coyote mother had been watching the abandoned old house for weeks, and had seen no signs of any presence other than her own. Finally she collected her courage and her cub and stole into what had been a home through a hole in a wall and found to her relief that her initial impressions had been right, and this was a safe place for her and her baby, at least for tonight.

The cub, now, noticed the tiny teddy on top of the television set. It did not know what the television was, only that there was another creature sitting upon it, and it looked friendly. It scrambled over a pile of rumble and reached its chin out toward the bear but could not reach it. Several more tries also failed. Finally, it knew what it had to do, and gathered itself on its haunches and jumped. It made it, but only just, slid along the unexpectedly slippery surface and desperately snapped its little jaws sideways as it sped past the bears position and went flying out into the air.

It pawed frantically at the air, but there was nothing there. The cub crashed to the ground with a squeal, and a bear gripped firmly between its teeth. At the cry its mother came running, and fussed over her baby until she was certain that he was not badly hurt. She scolded him in her way, and then sniffed curiously at the thing that he was clinging to. It looked like an animal, but it wasn’t alive. It didn’t smell dead, either, and it seemed to be smiling. More importantly, it made her baby feel better, and maybe if he had something to play with she wouldn’t have to worry about his wandering whilst she was away scavenging for food.

So the day ended, with a mother and baby making an abandoned house back into a home again, and a small bear beloved again. Arthur knew no difference between being loved by a beast or a boy, he only knew that he was loved, and that was enough.

*************

That’s all for tonight folks. Still to come – the famous “4”, and the rejection pile.

Cheers!

JT

24in24, Part Two: The not-so-micro stories

Evenin’ all,

I’m sitting here nursing a sore arm after another round of vaccinations. I don’t recall saying as a kid “When I grow up, I want to be a pincushion” but you never know how things are gonna turn out, right?

Yay.

So, whilst I’m sitting here feeling sorry for myself, I decided it was time to post the second batch of the 24in24 stories. There’s a bit of a trick to these ones because there’s a couple that I really like, and a couple that I really like the idea of, but really don’t think are there yet. But the idea was to post them raw, and unedited (I haven’t even spell checked) so I better get my butt into gear and do it before I pick up my editor’s pen.

Spoiler alert: don’t read this bit til you’ve read the stories:

*************

3, 7, and 15 are the ones I really like – 3 makes me want to write the rest of it, 7 I am quite happy to leave as is, and 15 makes me want to fall in love again. 12 and 14 are the ones I think I could do something with, and I already have an interesting twist on 12 knocking around in my head.

*************

3.

The seagull ate my toes, but that wasn’t what worried me most. The fact that I was dead, but still awake, was a little bit more disturbing. I sat up, and wondered how I was able to do that. I looked back, and saw my mortal remains still there in the sand and stared into my own glassy eyes for a long time. My body was bloated, from having been in the water for quite some time, and covered in wounds from where things other than the seagulls had started nibbling at me before I washed up on the shore and the seagulls started their feast on my feet.

The wind picked up and blew my hair that was still attached to my body in all different directions but mine never moved, nor did I feel the breeze upon my skin. The sand swirled around and I put my head down to prevent it blowing into my eyes but instead it blew through me. That was when the full horror of my situation hit me. I was awake, but I was not alive. I could feel emotions, but nothing else – not the sun, the wind, the sand, not anything at all.

There were questions, so many questions, and I wanted answers, but for now I just hung my head and wept. When I realised I could not feel the tracks of my tears on my cheeks, I wept harder.

 7.

 A sunflower stared out of its vase, cheering the world with its yellowy brightness. Behind it stood small suitcase imprinted with images of Paris in the springtime and the sunflower seemed to match that. Behind both of them was a mirror, reflecting the image of a woman who was standing staring into her own eyes trying to figure out who was looking back. Her body was skinnier than it had been, but still in acceptable condition. She reached for the case and flicked the latches open, wondering which war paint she should choose before she went out onto the front lines today. She leaned forward and breathed on the glass, creating a canvas on which to write, and then leaned back. Slowly, just as the mist fog began to clear, a word began to appear.

 Green.

That settled it.

She quickly did her green mascara, eye-liner, and eye shadow, then blinked furiously several times as she willed her eyes to change to match. They watered, her vision blurred, and she wasn’t sure if it had worked or not. She breathed again on the glass and waited for a critique.

Perfect.

She drew a smiley face in the last of the mist and then turned and left the bathroom and then the house, ready to face the world.

12.

The wind was cold on its face as it raised its head above the water and cast a long, lonely look towards shore. It hung there for a long time, remembering to duck down now and again to keep the water running over its gills and waited impatiently for the thing that had become its fascination to appear. The sky darkened and the light faded but still no luck. It was going to give up when finally a movement in the dunes caught its eye, and a familiar form trotted out onto the sand. It called out immediately and the answering whinny came just as quick. It dived and did a careful reconnaissance of the area before emerging and calling again to the creature that was now pacing back and forth along the edge of the water. It did a leap to let its playmate know that it was safe to enter the water, and with that reassurance, the foal left the safety of the shore and waded into the water to meet its friend. The two companions played together in the ocean as the sky turned red and a huge moon rose, until at long last, the foal was too tired to kept its head above water any longer and its playmate needed to return to its pod before it became a target for the big predators that were prone to picking off lone individuals in the water. It went as close to the shore as it could without beaching, then turned and headed back out into the open sea, breaching for one last time before it headed back to its pod, and its playmate to its herd, to count down the time until it could come back and do it all again tomorrow.

14.

 A red bird flew overhead, framed by an equally red sky that made it hard to pick out against the sky. Even so, someone down on land saw it, and once she had it in her sights, tracked it across the sky. She had been hiding in the bush for days, attempting to run away from everyone and everything just like she had dreamed of as a kid, but not had the courage to do until she became an adult. She’d simply walked out of work one day, left her letter of resignation on the counter, walked to her bank and cleared out her account in cash, then proceeded to the nearest camping store, bought herself a tent and some other gear, gone home to leave a similar note for her flatmates and a month’s rent, and walked off towards the nearest track, and then off it. For a week now, she had been living off the supplies in her backpack whilst she learned to live off the land and although she was learning the hard way, she felt free for the first time not in a long time, but ever. She watched the bird soar across the sky and felt the same joy she imagined it did and knew in that moment that she wasn’t going back. She’d eat the bird, if it came to that, but there was a freedom in her new existence that there wasn’t in the city and that was worth more than any monetary reward. She watched the bird for a while longer, until she could no longer make it out against the same coloured sky, then turned and walked back into the bush, to spread her own wings and fly.

15.

I quit my art class the day my teacher told me to draw something beautiful and I drew the red-haired girl who lived next door. Her freckles had always fascinated me, as had her flaming red hair. But that was not my teacher’s idea of what was beautiful, or appropriate for a fifteen year old girl to believe was beautiful. So I told her to go fuck herself, went home, picked a flower along the way, gave it to the girl next door and told her that she was beautiful. I was leaning over the fence passing her the sunflower when my mother came screaming out of the house. The teacher had called and complained, she said. I’m gay, I said. We stood and stared at each other whilst freckles hid behind the fence, peeking through the gap between boards. My mother didn’t say anything, just turned and stormed back into the house and pretended she hadn’t heard what I’d said. I’m not gay, freckles said, and I said that was okay, and we pretended that I hadn’t told her, and became the best of friends. When my first exhibition opened, she was the first one I invited, and she came. My mother was second, and she didn’t. My old art teacher was third, and she did. I hung the portrait that I had done of the fiery goddess who had started my love affair with art in pride of place, and when said art teacher saw it, and saw her standing beside it, she practically had kittens. She was gracious enough to say that she was sorry, and I shook her hand and thanked her. When she asked why, I told her – she had made me look inside myself and see, and believe in the beauty that I had found there, and stick with it. Without that day, I might not have become an artist, found my best friend, or known any of the loves that I had lost. We parted not as friends but not as enemies, and I waited for my mother to arrive, but she never did.

As I walked out of the after party with another beautiful red-haired woman by my side, our hands entwined and coats pulled tights against the cold, the lamplight caught her hair and lit it up like a flame. I stopped, and kissed her, and said a silent thanks to my teacher, forgiveness to my mother, and skipped on through the snow towards home.

*****

Cheers!

JT

24in24: The stories, part one

Evenin’ all,

So I’m a little bit late with the first of my 24in24 stories posts. I procrastinated at the weekend by – wait for it – doing uni stuff all day Saturday and Sunday, rather than other things. Is this the first time a uni student has ever done this? It just might be.

Anyway.

After much hand-wringing over how to post the 24in24 stories, I decided I would do what I had done to my trip: break it up into chunks. So I’ll be blogging them in sections over the next week or so, starting with the micro-micro stories.

You could argue that a single line story isn’t really a story but that’s like trying to define what is or isn’t “art”. It is what it is. Like them, loathe them, lol at them, use them as prompts if you want. I had a blast writing them, ergo I’m happy. If you feel like you can do something with them, go right ahead. My only request is that you share that with me so I can share the warm fuzzies with you.

A couple of things to note: None of these have been edited at all, they are still in the same raw form in which they were written. Secondly, I’ve used the same numbering system that I did in the previously so you can match them to my comments if you want. Also, I’m only posting the ones that made my personal cut; the ones I felt I liked or at least felt I could do something with, even if they were terrible to begin with. I’m contemplating doing a “rejection pile” blog when I’m finished, just in case someone else spots something in them that I missed. What do you guys think?

So here we go, the micro-micro stories:

1.

In April, I became one of the ones left behind. It turns out it wasn’t the rapture, so that turned out to be a good thing.

6.

They say that courage isn’t the absence of fear, it’s the ability to act despite it. I know this is true because when I did the bravest thing I’ve ever done, I’d never been so scared in my life. But I pressed the button, and the world didn’t end, and even if it had, it would have been worth it.

17.

Once upon a time, light-speed was just a dream. Then the dream came true and man went to the stars, and didn’t like what it found there. It was too late, however, to take it back. Our existence had been discovered, and our ambition quickly became our end.

19.

Time marches on and the clock doesn’t stop for anyone, no matter how much you want it to…unless you learn how to bend it to your will, but that’s a whole different kettle of fish.

21.

They told me not to worry, because it only happened ‘once in a blue moon’. Then a blue moon happened, and everything changed.

*******

So there you go. 24in24: Part one. Next instalment? The not-so-micro-stories.

’til tomorrow…

Cheers!

JT

Change of plan

Evenin’ all,

Apologies for taking so long to get this blog up. No, the 24in24 stories are not in it. That’s my project for the weekend, because I’ve had other things on my mind in the meantime.

It’s been a long couple of weeks. It’s the first of March today, and I feel like I’ve crammed more into the past couple of weeks than in the six before them put together.

Last friday was the second anniversary of the Christchurch earthquake. I tried to write about it, and failed. I couldn’t find the words. Maybe that’s because I’m still processing it, or maybe there just aren’t any words for it. I’m alive, and will be forever grateful for that fact. People I knew and loved and countless others were not so lucky. So, on the anniversary, my mother and I had our memorial. We went and sat by the banks of the river, and waited and watched the “River of Flowers” come past. We had our moment of grief for everyone and everything lost, and our moment of gratitude for our survival and another affirmation that life is too short.

It seems impossible that it could be two years. It feels like it has only been weeks but, at the same time, the longest of weeks. It feels like we have been living in limbo, or in reactionary mode, for all that time. It’s almost like time stopped that day, for us, but kept going for everyone else, and we’ve only just been able to restart it.

That’s probably a terrible description, but it’s the best that I can do right now. I’m sitting in my bedroom nursing a sore arm from a tetanus shot – one of a good half-dozen that I need to have in preparation for the forthcoming trip, and the ones after.

That was a decision I made this past week. There is not going to be a single round the world trip. There’s going to be several shorter trips. I ummed and ahhed over this and ultimately realised that it was the right decision.

I was already on #TheWagon (going facebook free for the month of February), and that had gotten me thinking not just about how I communicated, but who I communicated with. You could say not having access to my friends list made me think about who my friends really are. I started thinking about the people and the places that I missed, and I ended up getting horribly homesick.

I was already homesick, this just made it worse. Then came the anniversary, and the reminder once again that life is too short, and the homesickness ramped up a notch. I realised that as much as I want to go to Africa and America and Europe, I want to go home even more. Aren’t you already home, you ask? No. I’m not talking about New Zealand. I’m talking about Australia – Sydney.

This might be another one of those things that’s hard to understand unless you’ve experienced it but I am half-Aussie, half-Kiwi, and have always been pulled between the two. Sydney is as much home to me as Southland is, and its the place that I long for at the minute. The trip that we took there a couple of months ago was the first time I had seen my (other) home soil in two years, and at the risk of sounding completely pathetic, I bawled on the train on the way to the airport to leave, and I didn’t care who saw.

So, having spent most of February thinking about the people and the places that mattered to me, life, loss, love, dreams, wasted time, and travel plans, I realised that I need to go home. I talked this over with my Mom who is the other traveller and she felt the same way. Then we contacted our travel agent and cancelled our round the world tickets.

We’re still going on an amazing holiday – a month in Asia, where I’ve never visited for anything other than transit – and then we’re going home to Sydney. I’m going to dance on the Opera House steps, and dig my feet into the sand at Coogee, and just be…home.

For how long, I don’t know.

After that, I don’t know.

That’s OK.

I’m not abandoing those other places, but they can wait, and they don’t have to be done all at once, they can be broken up into chunks. So one trip becomes several, which becomes several somethings to look forward to, and whatever I decide to do, I will have the money that I had saved for the trip to help me do it.

Maybe I’ll stay in Sydney a while, or maybe I’ll soak up the sand and then get back on the next plane to…wherever I want to go that’s on sale.

A world of possibilities. Is there anything better?

Cheers!

JT