The Wings

When he was born the wings on his back were laying flat against his body and the doctors and nurses did not notice them at first but as they placed him in his mothers arms one nurse noticed the pale blue and green iridescent color of the wings. She said nothing. Later that day after she finished her shift she went to the nursery to find the boy with the wings, but he was not there. When she asked around she found out that he had been air lifted to another hospital for surgery. The floor was filled with the gossip of the boy with wings and how he was sent to have those wings removed. The nurse said nothing but she would quit that job in a few weeks and disappear. She had been quite and no one really noticed when she left. The boy would grow up forever hiding his back from everyone, including his parents, who had never fully recovered from the trauma of his birth. They had no other children for fear that they too would have the same terrible defect as their son, whom they had never told about the wings only the surgery to "fix his spine". So on his 15th birthday when he felt the first tingles in his back where the wings had once been he thought nothing of it. That night when he took off his clothes and saw the first sprouts of the wings he screamed. His mother came running into the room and when she saw the pale blue and green of the sprouting wings she fainted. When they tried to explain to their son about his birth he grew silent. The wings by now had grown to just over four feet each. He could wrap them around his body and cover them with a shirt. Over the next few years his parents tried to have him get them removed, but he refused. On his eighteenth birthday he gave his parents a birthday gift and disappeared. They were relieved. He told no one of the wings but whenever he got the chance he would soar over the countryside with his beautiful wings sparkling in the sunlight. One day ten years after leaving home as he was flying over a empty field far out in the country he spotted a speck that seemed to be moving toward him. He dropped to the ground and waited. As if dancing on the wind a young woman came into view and dropped down in front of him. The stared at each other for a few seconds and then he started asking questions, he was out of breath and she was laughing. She patiently answered all of his questions about who she was, where she came from, and why she too had wings. As they sat and talked he noticed a shimmer in the distance. She jumped up and started fluttering her wings. She explained that it was her family approaching. He was shocked as a group of people floated down to where they stood.

"Those Wings of yours are just as lovely now as they were when you were born." said the young woman's mother.

I have been shot

So on Sunday morning I was minding my own buisness walking my dog when out of nowhere my arch nemisis, Joshi, appeared and proceeded to pull out a gun, aim it at me and shoot me. Multiple shots to the head, chest and stomach. Joshi is almost three now and it was a water gun, but still he shot me and was laughing the whole time. The little monster.

City on the Lake

She had spent large portions of her life moving from one place to another, never feeling like she was home. In those places she did not call home she had a good life but something always seemed to be missing. So when she returned from a stay over seas and settled in a city where for once her parents and siblings all lived she felt maybe this would be home. But over the next five years they all left. Left her in this dirty, sad and broken city that was slowly falling apart at the seams. Her family was gone and she had no boyfriend and only a few friends and a job she loathed so what was keeping her tied to this city? Nothing. She packed her bags and moved to the gleaming city by the lake and on that very first day in her new city she felt as if she was coming home. Something in the air and on the wind made the strings of her heart strum for this city. She felt it deep in her bones. She had no real connection to this city, other then brief visits for fun and work and a glimmer of past knowledge of her grandmother’s youth here. It was not until she discovered the manuscript buried in a filing cabinet drawer in her parents garage. When she read the history of her grandmother’s family and learned that they had chosen to build their hotel, before the turn of the century, in that gleaming city on the lake she felt her heart strings strum again. She read of the hotel and her great grandmother, she read about her thirteen year old grandmother taking the train downtown, she read about the city her family had loved and she knew without a doubt that she was home. Home in a city that had everything, museums, shops, theaters, comedy, friends and lovers. But most importantly roots. Her roots.

The Turquoise Bike and The Secret Past of Mrs. Komp

I had these two stories posted on Six Sentences so I thought I would put them up here as well.

The Turquoise Bike

When the snow stopped falling she knew it was time to finish it. She loaded the glock, strapped it to her thigh, pulled on her leather jacket and headed out the door. She ran into her eighty-seven year old neighbor Mrs. Komp on her way down the front steps where Mrs. Komp was chaining up her turquoise bike. “Off on another of your adventures” Mrs. Komp asked. She just nodded her head at Mrs. Komp as she pulled her car keys from her pocket. “Be careful dear and don’t shoot any bystanders this time, one shot to the head is all it should take for that weasel” Mrs. Komp said.

The Secret Past of Mrs. Komp

She waited for the door of the elevator to close before she removed the letter from her bag and stared once again at the face that had haunted her dreams since that night 60 years ago. That night had changed her life forever and this face was the reason she had become the person she was today. That night 60 years ago was supposed to be her wedding night, but one bullet had ended her dreams and set her on this path of destruction. Tonight she would end it and with this one last job she could retire and disappear to a tropical island. She had grown weary of this profession and besides her eye sight was faltering, that is what happened when you got old. As the elevator reached the 25th floor and the doors began to slide open she pulled her .45 from her bag and waited for her moment.

Kurt Vonnegut 1922-2007

"We are what we pretend to be so we must be careful what we pretend to be." Kurt Vonnegut

It is a sad day for America. We have lost one of the most brilliant minds in America and with his passing a small part of what has made this country great in the past is gone. If we fail to acknowldege this we will soon have no cutlure left. So tonight instead of watching a stupid reality show are lame sitcom grab a copy of Welcome to the Monkey House or Breakfast of Champions or any Vonnegut book and see what makes America great.

The Image is from his website.

In the news.............

that morning was a story of woman who was found wandering around downtown wearing a wedding dress and carrying a bloody knife. When interviewed by police she claimed she had no knowledge of who she was or where she had gotten either the dress or the bloody knife. They admitted her to the psychiatric ward of the county hospital where she underwent a multitude of tests. All of the test and psychiatrists agreed that she was suffering from amnesia. The police tested the blood and could find no known DNA match. They plastered her face over all the news outlets in the city, state and entire country but no one, not a single person, came forward claiming knowledge of the woman. So after a few months of hospital care and still no return of her memory and still no person coming forward claiming to know her, she was released. The people of the city had been generous and when she left the hospital there was a very large sum of money waiting for her, donated by people who felt bad for the young woman with no memory. She rented an apartment and found a job and created a life from nothing. With no memory she could create what ever she wanted. For a while she was a minor celebrity in the city and people would approach her at restaurants and in the grocery store, wondering if her memory had returned. After a year people stopped approaching her and her celebrity wore off. Two years into her new life she meet a man and fell in love. He loved her humor and her brain and did not care that she had no memories from before two years. They married and in a few years started a family. And still no glimmer of memory. Her husband would sometimes ask and she would always say the same thing, " I don't think it is ever coming back." Doctors would occasionally call to interview her for a paper or a study about amnesia and it sometimes lasting effects. Then one day when her children were nearly grown and on their way out the door headed to school, she sat down with a coffee and began to read the paper and there in the news was the story she had feared she would see all these years. The story was about two hikers who found a body in a shallow grave in the forest preserve that bordered the city. The story went on to mention that the body appeared to be wearing a tux. The police were chasing leads. She set the paper down when she heard the doorbell ring. She slowly got up crossed to the sliding glass door and slipped out the back, leaving the police ringing the doorbell on her empty house.

In the Kitchen

I did not get the chance to post something for the Sunday Scribbling topic in the kitchen but I did write this recently:

There was a single light glowing above the sink in the kitchen as she slowly pushed the back door open and slipped into the house. She began tip-toeing to the front of the house. She had made it to about the middle of the room before she heard the flick of the light switch and she was blinded by the flood of lights that filled the kitchen. He sat on the stool in the corner by the refrigerator. He was wearing his fire engine pajamas and looked like to the entire world the perfect image of the perfect little boy, but she knew better. She knew that in his small blond adorable frame he contained more evil then had ever existed anywhere else on earth and she regretted the errand she had had to run this night that put her in this position. She knew that he would use this to blackmail her into something terrible. As she stood there frozen in the middle of the kitchen and looked at the adorable blond child, a vicious smile spread across his face transforming the angelic child into the monster he was. She knew the moment he decided what her punishment would be bad she could tell it was going to be very bad. How long was she going to have to continue this charade and how was she ever going to rid the world of his evil. She was the only one who saw and knew and one day she was going to have to end it. When she looked back at the child his smile had slipped a little and she remembered to make her face the blank mask that was her only protection. He looked her up and down and then in his sweet high infant voice said, “You are in big trouble Mommy, you should never have left the house without telling me, this is what I need you to do…..”