Southern Belles

Three ladies, all probably about the same age-upper-twenties-but at different points on the path to middle age stepped onto the elevator to the parking garage, a slow old thing that shook and shimmied its way down through four stories worth of terrain.  The alpha female, and also the prettiest-no coincidence, that-remarked to her two friends, one more so than the other, about her eyebrow lady, the one that manicured the eyebrows of all of the local celebrities, and through whom Raven had met them.  Raven’s eyebrows were not unattractive, though normal-looking, which was a fair summary of her in the entirety.  A glossy brunette with a few “tasteful” highlights and a permanent tan, Raven was attractive enough to take home the tomcat of her choice from any of the local bars.  She cast her brown eyes, despite the weight of her eyeliner and mascara, at Shanda, her number two.  Shanda, also not unattractive-though less not unattractive than Raven-nodded mutely, as her role required.  Shanda had the great distinction of being terrifically undistinguishable: a man-even one with the elephant’s memory-would inevitably forget her features immediately after she left the room.  Nonetheless she was passable enough to scrape by on Raven’s leftovers at the end of a long night.  As usual, Rosaline was being ignored-not actively, mind you.  Rosaline stood at five feet three inches if she rose up on her toes.  Her body had already begun to put weight in the places that women will, though she hid it well by wearing mostly black print sundresses in the summer-which, in turn, caused her to sweat profusely at times-and slacks and jackets in the winter.  Compared to the other two, Rosaline was unkempt, though not slovenly by any means.  She simply suffered from split ends, a pasty complexion, and moles on her neck.

Raven went on, “You wouldn’t believe who was in Cari’s shop,” going on to name some minor celebrity that was either past his prime or had never had one, depending on the definition of prime.  Carolyn’s, or Cari’s to the familiar or pretentious-often both-was indeed a spa of some distinction, in fact, the best in Wilmington, North Carolina.  It was true that most celebrities in Wilmington frequented the shop when not shooting; when in-production, the producers would have the appropriate people flown in from Hollywood.  The Wilmington celebrity, typically from a spin-off sitcom or made-for-television movie, was lower rate than that among the Angelinos or New Yorkers, but the locals were thrilled regardless.  Raven’s connection, through Carolyn, was crucial to her self-esteem.

As she prattled on about the peculiarities of some male semi-celebrity, Rosaline felt neglected and began to grow desperate for some acknowledgement from Raven, or Shanda if Raven was unwilling.  “I’m going to dye my hair,” she blurted.

“You’re going to color your hair,” Raven corrected.

Rosaline, wide-eyed, trembling at the acknowledgement, “No, I’m going to dye all of it.”

Raven slipped, as she was prone to do, into irritability, “No, you mean you’re going to color all of it.  Dying is what it is called when it’s done poorly.”

The elevator buzzed, indicating that it had reached its destination.  The doors slowly opened as Rosaline admitted, “Well, I’m going to do it myself, so…”

Raven shook her head and stepped off of the elevator, giving up.  Shandra, seized her opportunity, “So, what color are you going to color it?”

The elevator’s doors shut behind them and the carriage was empty and still, smelling faintly of discount perfume.

250 Word Sentence – Anger

It is unbelievable to me that Harry Winters-a partner who is competent at best, but in all likelihood, merely adequate-has the pluck, the audacity, the sheer propensity for obscenity to delegate to me-of all people, a hard working schmuck that puts his head down and works while at the office instead of gabbing and parleying and trying to move up the corporate ladder-the bulk of a project, nay, the entire project, and then turn around to poor old Salisbury (the codger is lucky if he doesn’t have to be spoon-fed and sponge-bathed) and take credit-full credit, mind you-for the work I’ve done, when he hadn’t even looked at the . . . why, I wish old Salisbury had had the presence of mind, feeble or no, to ask him one question, just one, any question: that’s all it would have taken to reveal Winters’s complete and utter ignorance with regard to the details-hell, even the basic gist-of this project; oh, I would have love to have seen that, by God, and I would even be willing to bet a month’s salary (although to Winters that is probably a paltry week’s worth of labor-if you are willing to refer to stealing another man’s work and soul labor) that he wouldn’t have been able to answer even the most basic question, uninformed enough that even old Salisbury’s feeble mind would have probably been able to pick up on the complete and voluminous ineptitude.

Backyard

The family boat sat on a trailer in the back yard.  It had been unmoved in such a long period of time that it had sunk into the ground up to its axles and weeds were sprouting from every available opening.  A Chevy Camaro was similarly marooned, resting on its axles.  Near the Camaro was a cube of cinderblocks, about eight feet by eight.  Originally, the blocks were intended for a new shed, but it had yet to be built.  And when it was finally started, Dank would surely die before it was finished-probably from the bite of one of the black widows resting in the cracks.  The old shed it was intended to replace rested unevenly on the ground.  The lean to the left made the shelves on the right unusable.  The shed’s roof had worn through many years ago.  When it had first worn out, it was simply covered with a piece of tarpaulin.  Subsequently, whenever the tarpaulin wore thing, Dank would tie another sheet over it.

One Event, Five Descriptions

1)

 

Mack was a hustler, always bumping into people on the street as he tried to read his morning paper and walk at the same time.  He refused to slow down for anyone or anything.  Too many things to do, he would say, and life is too short.  This morning was no different, except in consequence.  While exiting the city bus, he missed a step and tumbled to the pavement.  Embarrassed and shaken up, he looked around to see if anybody-anybody important, at least-had noticed his fall.  Of course, everybody had seen it, and it had caused quite a stir.  A young blonde woman in professional attire, looked at him in amusement, a tiny pucker somewhere between a smirk and a smile.

 

2)

 

Maximillian J. Hollandsworth, the Third, developed a reputation about the community as an exceedingly difficult man to converse with; his obligations at a given time always exceeding his friends in terms of quantity, he was singularly unable to focus his attention on any one person or object for more than a few moments.  This facet of his personality poorly equipped him with the faculties required of a strong driver: he was eternal, both in his suffering and his insufferability.  The city bus provided a much more feasible alternative, allowing him to both peruse the previous day’s events and return the morning’s phone messages simultaneously-much to the ire of those unfortunate enough to be in his adjacency.  Unparalleled in reading efficiency, Maximillian would routinely finish the first three sections of the Wall Street Journal before reaching his stop at Chesterton Station, a typical commute lasting approximately eighteen minutes.  On one particular morning, the bus reached its terminal two minutes early, which gave Maximillian cause to smile.  He rose and began to proceed to the front exit of the bus; he kept reading, as he had nearly finished the third section of his newspaper.  Just as Maximillian began the first sentence of the penultimate paragraph, he stepped out when he should have stepped down and collapsed into a pile of flesh, fine wool, and newspaper.  Bugger, he thought, as he looked around and gathered up his scraps of newspaper.  Despite, being the universe’s perfect expression of perpetual motion, he stopped.  For the first time, he noticed a beautiful young professional, who was smiling at his mishap.  Embarrassed, he stooped to gather the rest of his scraps and hurried away.

 

3)

 

Must hurry.  Can you not move any faster?  This bus makes me want to rip out each one of hairs on my thickly laden head.  What a waste.  Imagine, to squander the two minutes that this bus granted us.  This bus, not just on time for once, but ahead of schedule.  Look here.  The damn high-risk debt market is still plummeting.  The Journal says that it could cause a recession.  A recession?  I think not.  I think-God damn it!  My fucking arm must be broke.  Did I miss a step or did somebody push me?  Oh, look at this paper, ruined.  Son. Of. A. Bitch.  Did anybody see this?  Obviously.  Everybody is staring at me.  Move it, you sons of retarded monkey fucks.  Look at this bitch, chuckling at me.  Like you’re so much better than me.  Move out of my fucking way, I need to get to work.

 

4)

 

Gather ‘roun’, kiddos.  And bite yer tongues, I’m a’go’n'a tell ya a story ‘bout how yer great-gran’pap met his wife o’ sixty years and o’ seven babies, including yers truly.  Y’see, yer gran’pap, ‘fore he seen the light, was city-folk.  A’bustlin’ roun’ the Big Apple like a ‘coon hound after a jack-rabbit.  E’ery mo’nin’, he’d a’git his stories from the bus’ness paper while ridin’ the bus to work, yammerin’ to hisself the whole time about the stock-market this, debt that.  Oh, how he did love those papers-like a piglet in fresh-laid shit.  Well, then, on this one partic’lar mo’nin’ he found hisself antsin’ to get off the bus so’s he could get on to work, up on the Wall Street.  But, he a’couldn’t keep his’n eyes off his stories.  Well, the result’n’ mess is that he found hisself ass over elbows on ground after fallin’ down them there steps.  Well, he looked up, about as beet red as a whore in church, and a’who was it he seen?  Why this b’utif’l wom’n all drussed up like a bus’ness man, I reckon about the only woman on the whole of Wall Street.  And she was a’smilin’ at him, he bein’ all lit up like a deer in headlights from the ‘barrassment.  Don’t you know, from then on, they didn’ forget the other.

 

5)

 

This is the first day of the rest of your life, Mack told himself as the bus pulled into the station.  He checked his watch, delighting in the fact that he was early.  If I can just finish this section of the paper, he thought, I’ll be off to a fine start.  Caught between thoughts of billable hours from his daydreams and the realities of the struggling debt markets in the paper in front of him, he failed to find the step as he tried to exit the bus.  End over end, he fell until he collapsed in a heap.  At first, he felt only disappointment: What a way to squander a head start, he thought.  Then he looked around and saw all eyes on him, and some mouths agape.  He felt the heat first build up behind his ears and then spread to the rest of his face.  Oh Lord, he thought as his eyes fell upon a striking blonde professional, attired in a snug-fitting jacket and business slacks that showed her curves.  She was smiling at him, or was it leering, he thought.  Not today, he thought, gathering his scraps meekly and shuffling away; for once, slow and deliberate.

The Penultimate Paragraph

Janice walked into the room and immediately felt that something was amiss.  The shades were drawn down, shutting out the mid-afternoon sunlight that generally poured through the large windows at the head of the bed.  Very unusual.  The master bedroom was perched at the top of the house like the jewel of a crown, so would-be peeping toms could see little more than the ceiling from street level.  As a result, the curtains were generally left open during the day.  The room had a slightly musky smell to it: her husband’s fragrance, combined with sweat, and . . . something else.  Tom shouldn’t have been home yet.  She flipped on the overhead light and noticed that the scarlet comforter duvet cover was rumpled up from the foot of the bed, revealing brown sheets-Tom’s choice, not hers.  She smiled as she remembered the argument over the sheets: Tom had chosen the brown ones to put on their wedding registry because she kept pestering him to have an opinion about something-anything.  She walked to the closed bathroom door across the room, placed a hand on the cool, brass knob.  So Tom had chosen the ugliest sheets he could find to make some point that was lost on her.  Janice placed her head against the bathroom door to listen.  She didn’t change the registry and, sure enough, somebody bought them the brown sheets.  It was something that they still laughed about, eight years later.  Janice knocked, no answer.  She felt an unexplainable buzzing in her head.  She turned the knob.  She felt flush, and too warm.  She opened the door.

The Missing Rug

A University of North Carolina Tarheels throw rug went missing from the house, a vacant 1960’s-style home that was being renovated for sale.  Tara, the owner of the rug-and house-interrogated the contractor.  A finger-in-face and spitting-and-hissing interrogation.  The contractor vouched for his men-all good people, he said-but promised to talk to each of them, and suggested that she may talk to the realtor in the meantime.  Tara dismissed the suggestion, the realtor, she said, was respectable.

Barn of Newly Sonless Man

<!–[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]–><!–[if gte mso 9]> <![endif]–> <!–[endif]–>

The barn’s gaping maw inhaled, setting bits of straw and dust to life-spinning them violently through the air for a few moments before once again laying them to rest on the dull concrete floor.  The behemoth’s door had settled into the dirt on account of a faulty hinge.  The isosceles alcove it had created was home to the odd piece of refuse that would otherwise drift through the country-side, disintegrating until it was no longer traceable.

The little space was a shop of curiosities for the twittering mice that skittered through the barn, enough so that they created a shortcut by meticulously gnawing out a wood-knot from the bottom of a cedar plank-just wide enough for them to squeeze through in the months of plenty.  Lately, the mice had been able to fit through without brushing against either side of the hole.

Two of the mice tumbled about in a light-hearted wrestling match, carefree despite the presence of all of the implements that had the potential to bring an end to a mouse’s useful life, some of them designed exclusively for that purpose.  The characteristic shared by these instruments-in addition to being metallic and either sharp or pointed-was the sheen of barn dust and mildew that had found a home on the surfaces, dulling them to the same opaquey glazed gray as the floor.

Occasionally a gust of wind would set a long piece of metal to song, allowing it to sustain a high-pitched vibration.  More haunting was when the wind would come through a corridor from the barn’s open maw to the smaller open window above the hayloft on the opposite wall, catching it in just such a way to create a low, gravelly hum, not unlike a groan.

Such wind was welcomed however.  It replaced the moist, stuffy air of the barn’s interior with a fresher variety of moist air.  The stuffiest air usually accumulated in the elevated hayloft, despite the presence of the window.  Largely unused, only a few errant strands of hay littered the planking.  Though the wind often struck the barn’s groaning chord, it was never able to generate sufficient force to blow up the layers of dust coating the loft’s planks.  A fall from the loft to the floor was insufficient to rob a man of his life, unless he calculated to land in just the right manner, but it could guarantee a couple of sprained ankles and most of the time would be satisfactory to cause a few breaks.

The fear of that type of fall may have been the deciding factor in the loft’s retirement.  A man would have a poor of a probability of loosing scream from the floor-no matter how bloodcurdling-and having it hit another set of ears as he would have hitting them with a thrown stone, so deeply was the barn set in its isolation.

The winch dangled, lonely, in the half-elevated position on one of two ropes strung from ceiling to floor.  The ropes were still smooth and oily, the individual twines still orderly and obedient.  The ropes were taut between two pulleys-one bolted to the floor, the other the ceiling-which, though hurting for an oiling, sat attentively and were fully functional.

Mice continued to skitter back and forth between various crevices leading to an unseen network of tubes and tunnels, their population unchecked by barn-cats.  Though a barn-cat would have had a mighty feast, he would have lamented the lack of cozy spaces against which to rest his heft as he languored during digestion.  Not so much as a burlap sack to use as a mat.  A barn full of sharp edges and empty corners, with only a few wisps of hay to remind of what was or could again be.

The Automaton

Today, I had some burning questions.  So I went to visit the Automaton on the forty-third floor.

I knocked on his open door and entered upon his command.

“Be seated, please.”

I sat.

“How can I help you?”

“I have questions.”

“Good.  I have answers.”

I fidgeted a bit, struggling to look the Automaton in his emotionless face.  He sat erectly, his forearms and hands resting on the desk in front of him–a ballpoint pen perched atop his right thumb and forefinger.

“My work is dominating my life.  I have no time or energy for anything else.  Is this typical?”

The Automaton began to spew company line: “At this firm, we respect work-life balance.  A happy attorney is a good attorney.  Many of our attorneys have children.  As parents, they attend their children’s events.”

I nodded.  The Automaton stared back at me, void of sentiment.

“But how do they manage this?  The work is consuming me, but my bosses want more.”

The Automaton paused before repeating himself: ”"At this firm, we respect work-life balance.  A happy attorney is a good attorney.  Many of our attorneys have children.  As parents, they attend their children’s events.”

I sat defeated.  The Automaton continued to stare at me, neither annoyed nor pleased.  I thanked him and walked back to my office.