Friday Fiction: Midnight Text

Genre: Very Short Story/Realistic Fiction
Mood: Existential-ish
Word Count: 325
Rating: All
Muse: Written for [Fiction] Friday Challenge #136 for Jan 1st, 2010: A text message pops up on your character’s phone in the middle of the night. It reads, “You have 30 days left to live. Use them wisely”

Peggy woke with the sound of her phone ringing- and thought to herself- who was calling at- she glanced at the time on her cell as she picked it up- 1:47 a.m.?

It was Nannette, of course. Who else? Peggy went to silence the ringer and realized that it had only rung once, which meant it was a text and not an actual call. She clicked through to read it, after a moment of indecision about just rolling over and going back to sleep. It read, “U hav 30 daz 2 live- use them wisely.”

Despite the fact that she had to work in the morning, Peggy flipped the phone open to respond, “Haven’t I told you not to send me existential texts when I have to get up in the morning?”

“bst time 2 ponder ur mortality- when u cant sleep,” Nannette sent back.

Peggy sighed and typed, “I was sleeping just fine until you woke me.”

“How can u sleep in the cold n dark?” the response came with another chime of her ringtone.

Peggy was starting to type her reply when another text came in. Her stupid phone made her read that one before she could write the rest of the one she was already working on.

“rnt u scared of the night?” it read.

Peggy knew right then what she needed to do. She got out of bed- her husband Teddy made a little snore, finally almost noticing that there was noise in the room- Peggy got out of bed, pulled on her robe, pushed her feet into her slippers and shuffled down the hall to her six-year-old’s room. The light was on and Nannette sat huddled in the middle of her bed, her knees drawn up and her phone still clutched in her hands.

“Want me to read you a story?” Peggy asked, climbing onto the bed and pulling Nannette into her lap.

“Yes, Mommy,” Nannette gave in sleepy reply.

Lillia’s Tale

Genre: Fantasy
Word Count: 2,000-ish
Rating: 10+
Summary: Lillia’s father has always been a half-seen shadow- never present, but always close.
Author’s Note: This story is being written three snippets a day using the prompts in the table below. In theory, I will finish at the end of December, 2009. Lillia’s Tale Will make more sense if you read Ari’s Tale, since Lillia is Ari’s daughter and what happened to Ari is much in my mind as I write of Lillia.

Millie’s Brush with Reality

Genre: Science Fiction
Word Count: 684
Rating: All
Summary: Millie isn’t all that smart. That doesn’t stop her from seeing what she isn’t supposed to see.

And I Will Sing for Your Father

Spent most of my day with a friend, her children and her very ill father. A small poem wanted out this evening. It wants to be sung, but I don’t have the notes yet.

And I Will Sing for Your Father

And I will sing for you father
Although I know him not,
And I will call you sister
Despite the truth- you’re not,
And I will hold your children
And stoke their shiny hair.
They may not call me Mama
But I will still be there-
‘Cause there’s a greater truth than bloodlines
And there’s a stronger love than names.
The world may not call us family
Still we are just the same.

Tootin’ my own horn.

Taking this time of year to draw attention to two of my older stories, both written last year around the holidays.

The Hidden Properties of Fruitcake
(1) (2)
~ An Epiphany Story

The Yearlings
~ A New Years Story

I really love both of these pieces and hope you do, too.

Burgess Gulch (6)

Genre:Sci-fi/Western
Word Count:5,350
Rating:10+
Summary: Things around Burgess Gulch continue to get more and more perplexing.
Author’s Note: This began as my 2006 Nanowrimo Novel.

Previous Parts (1) (2) (3) (4) (5).

6

“Come on Sheriff- it’s the Armageddon for sure!” Little Jack Miller shouted into Cody’s office door. His round face, flushed with panic, popped inside for a moment, “Well, are you coming?” he asked and he popped back outside just as quickly.

Cody looked over at Prentice and scowled. “Don’t that boy have a lick of sense?” But, he got up and headed out the door anyways because round there, you just never did know.

As Cody stepped outside into the relative cool of the street- it had been uncomfortably hot for days, but a storm seemed to be coming in- as Cody left the stifling heat of his office, his ears were battered by a low thrumming hum pulsing up and down from loud to louder and back again. Cody paused there in the doorway- the sound like a wall he was pushing against. Jitters came to the door behind him- sort of bumbled into Cody’s back, which served to pop Cody through the sound-wall and into the dusty street.

In the street he could see more than a few of the fine citizens of Burgess Gulch running in a right proper panic. Little Jack Miller was trying to get his father’s mule- which was loaded down with far too large a pack for the scrawny little thing- to heed and come on with him. Mrs. Carmichael and her brood were rushing round gathering up what looked like several bushels of potatoes that were rolling across the ground and hopping in time with the thrumming- near everything was hoping in time with the thrumming, come to think on it. Thompson Smith, the blacksmith, was chasing a spooked and half unshod mare that had got away from him.

And, there weren’t no way that that there horse was giving way for sweet Lisel Carmichael, who was all of three, and chasing after one of them wayward tubers. Cody snapped into action on seeing the little girl in the path of the runaway mare, breaking into a run, hoping to get there before the hooves came down on that pretty but unaware head of golden curls. Weaving in and out between the rubbish that was jumping around in his path, Cody reached out and scooped the girl up as he stumbled on something or other that he couldn’t quite avoid. He did his best to roll himself over the girl as they hit the dirt hopeful that the hooves would somehow miss his most tender and vulnerable parts and miss the girl entirely as the horse trampled him.

Burgess Gulch (5)

Genre:Sci-fi/Western
Word Count:2,115
Rating:10+
Summary: Cody investigates the Mayoress’ disappearance and things get a might tricky.
Author’s Note: This began as my 2006 Nanowrimo Novel.

Previous Parts (1) (2) (3) (4).

5

Cody went round to see Mandy the next morning, hoping for some different answers to the same questions, which was of no use, Cody knew, but it didn’t stop him trying. Doc Smith had sent her home, so Cody had to saddle up the horse he never called Clara and ride out to the big house she had outside of town.

The house had used to belong to Cody’s granddaddy, who, not coincidentally, had been Mandy’s father. It had been a bone of some contention betwixt her and Cody’s daddy before the old man had passed, him being the son, he figured on getting that house, but Mandy was the old man’s pride and joy. After that, Cody’s father hadn’t ever spoken to his little sister, ’til the day he died. Wasn’t but a few days after his daddy’s passing that Mandy came round to Cody banking on a new start, which Cody gladly agreed to. Four years on, they had a grudging friendliness and a certain respect- kin was kin after all, so Cody was glad to be on friendly terms with all that was left of his.

His knocking at the great door was answered promptly by Mandy’s girl Carlotta. As she gave him a nod and led him into the parlor, where his Auntie was sitting up next to the fire, a carpet over her legs, Cody was struck with wondering why it was that Carlotta hadn’t come to him about Mandy going missing. She should have noted it far sooner than Cody, what with living in the same house with her boss-lady.

I’m back, Lost On Earth, and what’s next.

* I kind of dropped out for a while there. I did continue my Nano novel, but it became very slow going and I finished the month with about 18,000 words. I like the universe I was creating, but I didn’t ever manage to grow a plot, so if I do anything more with it, it will be at some indeterminate point in the future. Eh- I won the two previous years, so this doesn’t sting too much. I did take down the bits I had posted because I don’t like having something unfinished and without a known schedule for continuing up on the blog.

* Just prior to the madness that is Nano season, I participated in a cooperative writing thing over at Write Anything. It was posted on the site during the last week of November. Below is a link to the story, Lost On Earth on Write Anything as well as one for the e-book version on Scribd.

Lost On Earth in chapters

Lost On Earth the e-book

* As I wrote at the end of October, I kind of abandoned my serials while getting ready for Nanowrimo, although I was planning to give each of them another 2 or 3 parts before the end of the year. I may not be able to get quite that far in them considering the holiday rush is about to rush me, but I do intend to try and put a bit more of each of them up over the next month before putting them on hiatus and restarting The Golden Apple Tales, Travis Keller (Not So Super Hero), Brave the Arid Ocean and Spirals in January.

Burgess Gulch (4)

Genre:Sci-fi/Western
Word Count:2,001
Rating:10+
Summary: A resident of Burgess Gulch goes missing and Cody is about the onliest person to notice, until it happens again.
Author’s Note: This began as my 2006 Nanowrimo Novel.

Previous Parts (1) (2) (3).

4

Whitey McGee wasn’t a body one normally missed. Now that you come to it, his was a body one was usually pleased to miss, what with the smell. That said, a few days after Cody’d seen the strange woman riding up to the high pasture, he came to notice that he hadn’t had to step past Whitey- who could be reliably found at the mouth of the alley between Miss Nannette Corbet’s and the saloon, reclining with his back against the broken hitching post there- Cody hadn’t had to step past him in more than a day, maybe two. Cody stopped in on Jeb, the undertaker, to make certain that he hadn’t planted him in the potter’s field (he hadn’t) before putting Prentice on the case. Jitters was alternately pleased to have Cody showing trust in him and disappointed at the person he was meant to find. Seemed that looking under haystacks for the town drunk wasn’t the kind of work he’d been hoping for.

Two days later, Whitey came stumbling back into town with a wild-eyed story about beams of bright light and green skinned strangers poking at him while he screamed and thrashed about. Jitters was bit twice by Whitey’s reappearance, firstly because it meant that he would again have to endure the stench of Whitey on a long hot August afternoon when the wind blew easterly, wafting it gently into the door of the Sheriff’s Office, and secondly, it meant that Jitters had failed to solve the first case Cody had given him on account of not being able to find a drunkard on a three day bender. Thing was, Cody had watched Prentice going about looking for Whitey and he hadn’t done a half-bad job of it. The fact that Jitters didn’t come up with Whitey didn’t go against the truth of it that he’d done just the same as Cody would have- looked under the same rocks and behind the same outhouses. By what he did, Prentice should have found Whitey, only he just didn’t.

Less than a day later, it was the Mayoress that Cody came to notice he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of in a day or so, which was just unheard of, so he decided to take on the mystery of the disappearances himself, her being kin and all.

Bent or the Modern Tiresias(3)

Genre:Fantasy
Word Count:2,145
Rating:teen
Muse:Tiresias
Warning:Cussing
Summary:Lauren juggles playing Portia’s boyfriend with being her sister, and another visit to Hera Lake makes Lauren wonder how hopeless her situation is.

Previous Parts (1) (2)

The Way About Her

And despite the fact that Lauren’s life felt as if it should be on hold until she got her real body back- and saved Terry from the fate of forever being a frog- it wasn’t. Portia and Lauren’s parents got her letter and promptly forgot about how worried they were, getting angry at her instead. Lauren couldn’t blame them. If she had really run off with no word to anyone so that she could find herself, it would have been supremely stupid and selfish. Somewhat ironically, finding herself was kind of what She was having to do- well, it was more like finding Terry’s self- finding out who he is and what he does so that she could fake her way through his life well enough that his mother would stop worrying and Portia would stop looking at her funny for continuing to be nice to her even though the crisis of Lauren’s disappearance had blown over.

Lauren had thought that she had been doing a pretty good job of not making Portia suspect anything while Lauren hedged and stalled while waiting for the day that Terry was scheduled to get on a plane to the other side of the country to start college. She thought she had been doing a pretty good job. Apparently she was wrong.

“Okay, that’s it! I can’t take this anymore, so just do it already!” Portia shouted at Lauren right after she had offered to go shopping with Portia so she could use Terry’s ridiculously muscle-bound arms to carry packages for Portia.

“Umm-” Lauren said, stunned, because Portia never spoke to Terry like that- Lauren she had used to scream like a banshee at, but Terry? Never. Also she had no clue what she had done wrong.