Throwback Thursday

I suddenly thought that I’d like to run the rest of the way. It was a breezy night, not dark enough to be creepy, but dark enough to be powerful.

And then we were off running, me clutching my hood up around my face with both hands, Maddie holding her jacket closed against the wind.

As we ran I turned to her, because I couldn’t remember: “Hey Mad, did I start running, or did you?”

“You did, I think.”

“Did I? It’s funny, because the split second after I had the idea that I’d like to run, we were running, and I didn’t know who set us going.”

She laughed at me, and we continued on towards the Tweet Spot, laughing at ourselves for running towards 11 pm junk food, and at the prospect of being spotted from a dorm window, and at the largeness of the night, and how hilariously small we were within it.

There's nothing new under the sun

Just because I want to write but can't, I'm going to draw back on old stuff again. Sorry. These are beginnings to stories I never wrote. Please keep in mind that some of them are very, very old. I've been not finishing stories for many years now.

First, there was nothing. Then light appeared. It seemed to creep up slowly, smothering the warm, dark carpet. I flipped onto my stomach and let my cheek hang off the pillow as I tried to return to my dream.

He and I stared blankly at each other, me pressed against the wall in an attempt to get out of the way, and him still clutching the doorknob as if loss of contact would keep it locked forever. "There's no way out?" He asked briskly.
"No." We were doomed.
I sank to the floor and looked around the room. Toilet. Sink. Tub. There were no resources, no possible means of escape. His back thumped against the door as he sat down across from me.

Helen looked up at Mother, who was wringing a Kleenex in her hands and staring intently at the never-ending gray highway, which separated their neat green lawn from the tumbledown Mullet farm.

It’s funny how things you look forward to seem to shrink as you near them.

It’s a chilly June morning and I’m burrowed under my blankets like my dog, Leech does when he hears the word V-E-T. I wake up to a scuffle outside my window.

The Summer Chronicles

I was just looking back through my old Microsoft Word documents when I found this. I wrote it last summer as a series of little blips. I was kind of hoping they would turn themselves into a story.
Anyway, the reason I'm posting is because I think they're funny. It's interesting how things that seem like the most important things in the world can seem so stupid a few months down the road.
I think the writing is okay overall-maybe a little heavy on the adjectives, but that has always been an issue.
So here's a little treat from last July:


All the ugly things in the world came crashing down as Gus Molina shouted at me. I was glad for her sunglasses; glad I didn’t have to see her flat brown eyes burn.
The rest of the saxophones peered through their sweat at us. There were a few tentative giggles-no one knew yet if this was a joke.
Gus’s volume increased, then. “I’ve been in marching band for four years, and we have always played with the brasses. We are brasses. You need to accept that and move on. We play with the brasses.”
I didn’t know what to say. So I just remained still, like an animal playing dead in the jaws of a predator.
Now Mollie was there, holding her sax in one hand, swinging her sunglasses in the other. She may as well have been wearing a cape and tights. “Gus, what is the matter with you? You need to apologize to Holly right now.”
Gus studied the oak tree across the street. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
I stared at Gus’s ear. “It’s fine.” No it’s not.
Gus raised her chin. “But I know I’m right.”
I looked at Ryan. His mouth was open, and his reed was hanging out, dripping blue drops of saliva onto the pavement. I watched the drops turn black and run together into a small puddle, before slowly trailing to the curb.
There was the metallic clank of a tenor saxophone, and Gus was gone, walking swiftly towards the school with a triumphant gait.
The altos and I looked at each other.

Mom picked through a piece of walleye, pinching the tiny bones between her fingers and scraping them onto a napkin. “So, Matt, who died today?”
Dad’s face was sunburned, and the top of his head shone with reflected evening sunlight. “Just some guy on TV. They’re sure making a big deal out of it, but he’s no one worth getting your undies in a bundle over.”
Often things that are not remotely funny, like death for example, can be the funniest things in the world. Amy and I thought so, and we laughed until we cried into our coleslaw.
Later, when the kitchen was empty but for me, and a pile of greasy, menacing dishes, I felt sorry, and vowed to say a prayer for the TV man who had died. I thought I’d thank him for giving me the best laugh I’d had in a long time.

It was one of those nights when the world seemed to be full, and perilously close to overflowing. I had marching band the next day, during which I had to face Gus, play Hot Hot Hot memorized, and become a fearless leader. Thinking about these approaching events rattled the globe a bit, and a few drops splattered into space and were gone. There was only pale blue where New Zealand used to be, and Antarctica was barely clinging to the ocean. But we can only move forward, and so I put the world back onto my shoulders, finding it even heavier than Atlas did, and took a step.