Mombie – a bit of everything

Story-A-Day May: Gold

(I decided to challenge myself with a 100 word story today)

Dragons aren’t monsters but they are compelled to protect the gold they sleep on. Yet, the Emperor will only trade my sister for a doubloon marked by a dragon’s claw.

I crept into the sleeping beast’s lair, eased the coin from beneath him, and made my way toward the mouth of the cave. The light from outside made me bold and I hurried toward our freedom, but, in my haste, a stone skittered from beneath my foot. A creature that large shouldn’t be able to move so quickly, just a moment between claws on coins and claws encircling my waist.

Story-A-Day May: List

A short piece of flash fiction about (one aspect of) mothering.

Before Owen was born, Carolyn had assumed that her days would be filled with glancing adoringly at her baby and then writing while he napped. She imagined all the creative projects that she would get done while he slept and all of the fun they would have together while he was awake. She imagined walks to the park, cute photos on Instagram. She thought about learning to scrapbook so she could have a record of all of the heartbreakingly cute moments of his early years. She imagined the joy of nursing him, the thrill of rocking him to sleep, the fun of making him giggle as she bathed him.

Of course, with mothering, like with anything, there are parts that you cannot know until you are living them. Now that she had context, she understood the things that her sisters had tried to tell her about their days. Her baby was young, her creative projects were few, her days were baffling. There was joy but very little order.

She found herself laughing at her list, made a few days before Owen arrived, of the things she would need for the first few months. She thought she would need things like cute outfits for the baby, some props, and a faster internet connection so she could share her photos easier.

Now that he was her, her list for the first few months was far shorter. She just needed more sleep.

Story-A-Day May: Secret

Some people were exceptionally good at keeping secrets but Polly’s Aunt Mary was not among them. She was just sliding across the cracked vinyl seat in the diner when Aunt Mary started talking.

“Okay, so don’t tell him that I told you this but your cousin David says that Ken is going to ask you to marry him on Saturday!” Mary’s face was shining and she had her hands clasped under her chin in a way that suggested that she was just barely holding herself together.

Polly didn’t know what to say. She did a mental scroll through all possible reactions, wondering which one Aunt Mary expected, and then decided to just go with the truth.

“Oh, shit.”

Mary’s smile dropped into a frown. “This isn’t good news, honey?”

“Not exactly, no. Ken is okay boyfriend material but he’s not husband material.” She braced herself, knowing that Mary was going to have a lot to say about how Polly was getting too old to be choosy, and how she was going to end up alone if she kept expecting men to be perfect. It was the kind of thing that her mother said all the time, why would Aunt Mary be any different.

“Oh. That’s different then. Can’t have you settling for just any guy! You can do better than that loser.” Mary took a breath and sat back in her chair. “Pass me the menu so we can order our lunch. Then, we’ll figure out how you can let him down easy.”

Polly shook her head a little and handed over the menu.

Story-A-Day May: Trouble

This isn’t the story I wrote today, it’s a substitute. I had originally posted today’s story (about an hour ago) but  the character who was telling the story was relying heavily on the words ‘crazy’ and ‘sane’ and I wasn’t comfortable with coming across in an ableist way. Especially since I didn’t have a lot of room to develop the character and give her context AND because I am pretty sure that the end of the story is actually the beginning of the part she wanted to tell. So, I took it down to work on it but  I didn’t want to leave a blank day. So, this is a short piece I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I just edited it a little today. 

Somehow, after all this time, she wasn’t sure that he was going to be waiting there when she climbed the stairs. It was ridiculous to think that. There was no way for him to leave without coming down where she was, but, still, somehow, she was never sure that he would be there.

Of course, there were many ways to leave without actually moving your body to a different place, it was possible to check out without moving at all. She had had men like that before, ones who looked at her blankly when she complained, they couldn’t understand why she was annoyed, they were right there with her, weren’t they?

They weren’t capable of understanding the difference between being there and really, actually being there. Even though he had been there in all senses of the words ever since she had taken him home with her, she still didn’t trust it. She still didn’t believe in always.

It was a deep seated thing she figured, she must figure that she wasn’t worth it somehow, that she was too much trouble. If she was too much trouble then he was sure to leave and he would do it all of sudden, too. She would think everything was fine and then he would grab his things, his clothes, his feelings, and pull them all away. She would stand there, gasping and it would only be in retrospect that she would be able to see the path leading here.

She tried to pick fights with him sometimes, just to have control of the time that he gave up on her. She hadn’t made it happen yet, no matter how ridiculous or unreasonably she behaved. It seemed like that should be evidence that she was set, that he was here for however long she needed him, but still, it didn’t sit, it didn’t settle.

She still waited for it all to be withdrawn, for him to back away. She always expected there to be trouble.
Because she was trouble. That’s what they had always said about her: she caused a lot of trouble. She made everything more difficult.

It was only a matter of time until he figured that out.

Story-A-Day May: Carried Away

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I feel like this is actually part of a longer piece but it is its own story for now:

Shelby had always said that that a Irish man would be able to convince her to do anything. It must have been true because that was the only explanation as to why my height-phobic friend would be currently floating up off the ground in a hot air balloon that was only just getting to its cruising height.

She must have been terrified, maybe too terrified to text and definitely too terrified to say anything to the smooth guy with the lovely accent that we had met in the pub a few hours earlier. Sure, it seemed funny when he suggested that she go up in the balloon with him, after all, who actually has a hot air balloon? So she agreed to go after her next beer and she thought she was just playing along with the joke as they walked out through the door and down the street to reach the meadow down the street. It was no joke though because there, on the grass, was a hot air balloon. Multicoloured stripes, tiny basket, sandbags, everything. We hardly knew what to say about it.

Shelby had already said that she wanted to go for a ride in his balloon, I think she thought it was a metaphor when she said it but now it was way too late and she was actually going to have to go up in a balloon. I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking that she could have backed out that she didn’t actually have to go, especially with someone she doesn’t actually know. That’s all true, in a literal sense, but it tells me that you have never actually gotten in over your head when talking to someone that you were interested in. And that makes you a hell of lot less interesting to me.

I want to know people who get in over their heads, people who lose their grip on the situation, people who go up in hot air balloons even though they are afraid of heights. Shelby looked down over the edge of the basket at me, looking like the poster girl for a change of heart. Her face was the colour of the milk at the bottom of a cereal bowl, white but slightly tinged with yellow. Her hands, clamped on to the basket rim were much the same colour, and the expression on her face suggested that she had been condemned.

I wanted to call out some comfort but I didn’t want to blow her cool-girl cover, so I just stood there, looking up and holding our purses and the souvenirs we bought that afternoon. I hoped the Irish guy turned out to be worth it.