The Birthday Girl

She stood on the corner in her party dress. The lyrics from that song that everyone can sing kept running through her head. “It’s my party and I will cry if I want to, cry if I want to. You would cry too if it happened to you.” She was not crying, but she was very tempted to let the tears she was holding back flow. The party was not supposed to end with her standing on the corner in her party dress. She was supposed to be dancing and laughing and having a great time. It was her birthday after all. But no she was standing here, waiting for a bus. This was supposed to be the best birthday ever and it had so far turned out to be the worst, even worse then the year she had chicken pox. A single tear slid from her eye as she tried to force her mind from the depressing images that flashed before her eyes of the spoiled cake and screaming match that had occurred, her friend’s looks of horror. Her hand still hurt from where she had slapped him. Slapped harder then he deserved but when what you expected as a present is so far from what you get you may become a little irrational. Was she really that hard to read? Did her friends and family really think she would want a gift card to Home Depot? Who were they buying that gift for, certainly not her! The worst birthday ever, but still the waiter did not deserve that slap. It was just a little water.

Zombie War

The mask slipped down a little. She was sweating and her hair and face were slick with the sweat. She tightened the straps on her mask to make sure it slipped no more. If any of the rancid air got in she would be dead. She gripped the machine gun in her hand even tighter. Her team of hunters were tired. This was the 10th patrol in a row they had taken, but so many of the other patrol teams had lost too many members to take this, the most dangerous patrol of the night. She walked slowly behind her captain as she heard the large town clock strike midnight. Twelve gongs rang out through the night, signalling the beginning of feeding time for them. THEM, that is what they called them. THEM, those who had been their loved ones once. THEM, those who ate the flesh of humans, THEM, those who should have stayed buried in the ground but now walked among the living. She clearly remembered the night she was on patrol and finally encountered a former loved one. Her sister! She had done what was necessary but it still had hurt her heart when she had severed the head of the thing that had been her sister. Her family was all gone now and all she had left were the men on this team, they were now her family and she would do anything to make sure none of them were ever turned into one of THEM. She tightened her mask again and prepared for the fight that would surely come as THEY began to feed.

Turning Back Time

The room whirled and danced as she spun herself around and around just like she had as a small girl. Her vision started to blur as she spun faster and faster. Finally she landed with a thump on the floor. Rubbing her thigh where she had landed and was sure to have a bruise later she wobbled her way to the kitchen still dizzy from the spinning. She checked the clock on the microwave and then went to the calendar, hoping to see the calendar turned back to April. But it was still firmly set at June. She new it was futile these crazy attempts at turning time back, but she had to do something. She had ruined it and the only way to get a second chance was to go back in time. She had tried everything, pleading, begging, crying, cajoling, everything! Nothing had worked. He was gone and he was not going to ever give her a second chance. The restraining order was sitting on the coffee table as she wandered back to the family room. Had he really done that? Had she really been that bad? She knew that the calls and e-mails were endless but did he really have to file a restraining order, she only wanted a chance to explain. Explain that it had been a mistake and that she was really sorry. Was that really too much to ask for? She lay down on the floor and looked at the ceiling. The spinning had been her tenth attempt at turning back time, all ideas she had gotten from the internet. None had worked. Tears started to leak at the corners of her eyes as she remembered the confrontation two months ago. He had been so angry and she had done a terrible job of trying to explain and that was it. It was over. She cried herself to sleep that night knowing that there sometimes were no second chances.

The Ocean Voyage

When she saw the ship slowly moving into the port she knew her freedom was over. She had married him in that spur of the moment movement that was sweeping across the country in the first years of the war. He had been funny and handsome and was leaving in the morning for the war front where he might possibly die. They had spent one night together, their wedding night and in the morning he was gone. She was not even sure she could really remember what he looked like. She had spent the last three years marveling at the freedom the wedding ring on her finger gave her. With a husband over seas fighting she was granted the freedom to live alone and work and spend as much time with her friends as she wanted. It was the first time in her life she had never had to report her whereabouts to anyone and she loved it. Every minute of it. Free, like the waves of the ocean which were bringing that freedom to an end.

He sat on his bunk as the waves of the ocean lapped at the sides of the ship that was slowly making its way into the harbor. He tried to drown out the voice in his head by listening to the slap of those waves against the ship, but it was no use. The voice kept repeating one word over and over and over again. That word was Idiot. He had been an idiot to marry a girl he had just met and knew nothing about the night before he left for war. But he had been sure he was going to die in that war and she had been funny and pretty. And now here he was. Stuck, trapped, and imprisoned in a marriage with a woman he did not know. As the waves drew the ship closer to shore he closed his eyes and tried not to think about the freedom he would lose when this ocean voyage ended.

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…..”

The Deep and Dark

In the dark forest behind the house where she grew-up there was a place no one went. All of the other kids in the neighborhood were scared of this deepest darkest part of the already dark forest. That is the place where she would go to sit in silence and dream of a future outside this godforsaken town and its equally forsaken inhabitants. She would sit in the dark hollowed out oak tree and imagine herself in exotic places doing exotic things. She was a voracious reader and she knew that the world beyond this hellish town was real and magical all at once. She imagined that once this town had been a better place but it had lost all of its magic long ago. She knew this but no one else did, so they feared this forest and its darkness while she tasted of its secrets. When word got out that she was venturing into the darkness her mother beat her with a wooden spoon leaving welts that took weeks to fade. Her classmates shunned her and called her evil names. But she did not care. They had no magic in their veins anymore and she was pretty sure that most could not read and would never understand the beauty of the forest or the world beyond. She had falsely promised her mother that she would not venture into the deep dark forest again, but once the welts faded so did the memory of that promise and she went back into the forest. That trip into the dark would change her life for ever. As she followed the path deeper and deeper into the forest she did not hear the sirens that warned of a tornado coming, the forest blocked the noise of those sirens like it would block the wind from that tornado. The forest would protect her that day as the tornado would ripe through her town destroying everything in it path including the house she lived in. When she would emerge from the deep and dark of the forest and survey the ruin of her town and home, she would only shed a tear for the books she had lost, but nothing else.

When the state legislature passed the bill that would allow for a mall to be built where that forest stood, one woman wept at her computer in a city across the ocean. Wept for the deepest darkest part of that forest.

Ballad of a Giggling Girl

He wrote the song about a girl he knew in High School. It rose to number one on the Pop Charts quickly. He went on all the morning talk shows to perform and he went on all the late night talk shows to perform. When they asked if the song was about anyone in particular, he lied made up a pretty story about a lovely girl in college. He kept the real story to himself. The story of the fifteen year old girl who giggled at the drop of a hat and loved him like he would never be loved again. A story of a summer filled with gigles and love. A story so sad it still made his face flame with shame. A story of destruction. A story of that same giggling girl discovering his deception, of hearing the laughs of thier fellow classmates when she confronted him in the hallway and he denied any knowledge of thier shared summer. A story about the look on the girls face that shattered his heart and ruined him for anyone else. A story of a girl who never giggled again. On those late night talk shows he would play that ballad with all his soul. Straining to hear the giggles.

Future Visions

She saw the future in her dreams. When she was six she dreamed of her high school graduation. When she was nine she dreamed of her college days and what she would study. When she was twelve she dreamed of her future career. When she was sixteen she dreamed of her wedding day and saw the man she would marry. Her dreams continued to show the future, so she made no plans and let her dreams carry her along. She graduated from High School just like her dream. She went to college and when she graduated she got the job she had dreamed of. All her dreams had come true so far and so she waited for the rest, and as she waited she failed to take notice that her life was passing her by, so when she woke upon the morning of the day she dreamed her wedding would be and had no groom to marry her dreams crumbled. As she sat on her bed and cried she slowly realized that dreams could not compare with life and she had let hers go by without taking part. So she got herself up off her bed and made the decisions to no longer rely on her dreams to build her life. Now she would make the decisions. And as the rest of her life unfolded she no longer was just along for the ride but was the driving force and that made all the difference.

The Evil Eye

She had worn the necklace for as long as she could remember. She could still remember the day her grandmother had given it to her. It had been her sixth birthday and her grandmother, who had been living with them for three years by then, had pulled her into her room. She sat her on the bed and gave her the gold chain with the beautiful blue crystal pendant. When she looked at the pendant she would swear to this day that the eye winked at her. Her Grandmother stressed that she must wear the pendant always. That it would protect her from anyone who was trying to do her bad. So she had. Not because she believed but because she had loved her grandmother. A woman from another land and another time, who did not fit in to the American culture, who kept her old superstitions. The girl had never been to her mother's homeland, a place her Grandmother described with such love and hate at the same time. A country left to die under a communist regime for 39 years. A place where to this day folk myths, legends and superstitions still existed. So she wore the necklace for 30 years now, never giving it a second thought until someone asked about it and then she would tell them the story of her grandmother and how she made her swear never to take it off. It was a good story, people enjoyed it. So the day that it happened she did not even realize that without her grandmother she would not have lived. He was walking toward her on the sidewalk and at first she did not notice him, but as he got closer she felt the change in the air and shivered. She did not look at his face as he approached a warning remembered from her Grandmother. As he passed by she could feel the heat of the pendant and at that moment she understood that there was evil in her modern world and that she must listen to those old superstitions and protect herself.

Trapped and Puzzeled

She awoke with no knowledge of where she was. She blinked her eyes rapidly hoping that would help. But it did not. She tried to sit up but realized almost immediately that she could not. Her arms were chained to the bed on which she was laying. What the heck was happing? The last thing she remembered was the sound of her students leaving the classroom at the end of the day. She had gone to the window to look out on the playground and there was a loud banging sound then nothing. Everything after that was dark. What had happened and who would do this to her. Over the next few years she tried to figure out how she had come to be trapped in this dark place chained to a bed. She heard voices outside her cell often but when she screamed for help none ever came. It was a puzzle she feared she would never solve and slowly she came to accept her imprisonment.


The Nurse was checking her vitals when her mother walked into the room. “How is she doing today?” her mother asked. “She is the same, Mrs. Thompson. No change, she is still in a coma.” the Nurse replied.

Karl Marx and the Rolex

So I was in a meeting at which a gentleman wearing a Rolex (a real one) was speaking about things that purely fit into the category Capitalism with a big old C. And as I was occasionally weaving back and forth between what he was saying and my own random thoughts I almost missed when he quoted Karl Marx. I kid you not a man wearing a Rolex talking about Capitalism, specifically World Points earned on certain credit cards quoted from Karl Marx. The direct quote was “World Points are the opium of the masses.” I almost busted out laughing, I quickly surveyed the room and either they were not paying attention or had better poker faces then because no one else seemed to notice. I have a couple questions still bouncing around in my head now. Did he realize that was Marx? If he did was he being ironic? Will I ever have an answer to these questions, I doubt it, but at least a have had this surreal experience. Gotta love this Country.

Movie Star Crush

She was not the type of girl boys had crushes on. She had her share of crushes growing up but she never knew of a single boy or girl for that matter who had a crush on her. And when she was young it hurt but as she grew older it did not bother her as much. But she did dream of what it would be like if some one did have a crush on her, would it make her feel powerful, would she finally feel pretty? She knew in her heart that these were ridiculous things to dream about but there you have it the mind does not always agree with the heart. So she was utterly unprepared for when it happened. She did not even realize it was a crush at first. At the age of thirty –five she never expected to be the object of anyone’s crush let alone a famous movie star. It happened quite by accident, she was crossing one of the many bridges that span the Chicago River when her heel got stuck in a crack between the planks. He was approaching from the other side, she had heard he had a Condo in this part of town but she never expected to see him. But there he was helping her pull her shoe out of the crack, making her laugh and asking her to lunch. She declined of course. It would be ridiculous to think he was interested, but then the calls and flowers started. She finally agreed to meet him for lunch at some upscale restaurant she had never dreamed of going to. It was nice, but the food was better then the conversation and she realized that his personality that blared so loudly on screen was an act. He was an actor after all. She thanked him for lunch and planned to never see him again, but he had other plans. She refused his dinner invitations; she threw the flowers in the garbage. This was getting ridiculous and she had no experience with these kinds of crushes. How was she going to get him to stop? When he invited her to the Oscars she finally told him NO for good. She went to an Oscar party at her friends that year. She had told no one of his crush, because who would believe her anyway. They watched the arrival of the Stars, oohing and ahhing over everyone’s dresses and the handsome men, Then there he was on the TV, alone and looking forlorn, when E Entertainment Television asked him why he was alone he blurted out the whole story, he was in love with a girl in Chicago who had turned him down. After that night everything in her world went topsy turvy. The Press would not stop calling. She had to change her phone number 20 times. She could not leave her apartment without being followed. When she had dreamed of someone having a crush on her this is not what she had expected. She wanted her life back. So late one evening when the reporters were drinking coffee at the corner Starbucks she snuck out of her apartment with a small bag and disappeared into the night. After a month of no reappearance the press and her crush moved on to the next big thing, while she silently slipped back into her life.

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Pink Icing

I think I had the best valentines day that I have ever had since i was a little kid. do you remember how great valentines was as a kid? You got a little folded card from everyone in your class and there was a party with cupcakes and candy and everyone was wearing red and pink and you had also gotten a box of chocolates from your parents as well. There was no pressure just fun. That is what valentines should be like. But as I walked by the florist yesterday as everyone was rushing in to get flowers, it just did not seem that fun. We humans put to much pressure on ourselves to have this fantastical romantic day that no one can ever really do. So I have for many years boycotted the day. I do not wear red , I do not buy cards , I do not send flowers. And this year was no different. But this year my friends D and S and I decided to have dinner at my house and watch Lost, which we occasionally do on Wed, anyway. So I made Lasagna and Red Velvet Cupcakes with Pink Icing and D brought cocktails and we sat and ate and talked and then watched Lost and it was so nice. I think that when people first started celebrating Valentines day this is what they meant, have a good time, enjoy your friends and loved ones. Do not expect presents because you will be disappointed.

If only everything could be this Yummy

She lost her virginity in the cornfield behind her house the summer after her senior year and it was yummy. She had dreaded the experience because she had heard the stories of pain and unpleasteness that the first time would likely be, but with him it was different. With him everything was yummy. She was in love for the first time and he was everything she had ever dreamed of. He was funny and smart and so handsome it almost made her weep. With his intense blue eyes and serious talk of world politics she had fallen hard and the fact that he loved her still amazed her even to this day 20 years later, to think that the beautiful young man with such a charisma could love her, the bookish chubby weird girl. She had spent most of High School dreading the mornings when she had to leave, she planned her escape down to the last detail and then he had entered her life and she gave him everything she had been saving of herself. They spent hours driving around in his car talking and laughing and loving. And in the field the week before she left for College she gave him her virginity and it was perfect so perfect that at that moment she knew nothing would ever be as good as that. She left for college while he stayed home and worked on his father’s farm and slowly this beautiful thing they had slowly started to disintegrate and in the end she was left with a sweet yummy memory that still twenty years later could bring a smile to her face. There were many more boys after him even one she married, but none of them could ever dislodge that blue-eyed boy from her heart and when she heard of his death a little piece of her disappeared through the whole in heart that he had left.