Writer Dame

Story-a-Day May: Revenge Fantasies

And then as he moved his hand closer to her leg where it rested on the bus seat, she pulled the pencil she was clutching out of her purse and jammed it into the fleshy space between his thumb and index finger. She felt the corners of her mouth rise as he screamed.

Maribeth would like to carry out all of the revenge fantasies she lived in her head. If she could do it without consequences. She didn’t want to go to jail or anything, she just wanted some justice, no matter how small. Her daily rounds were a death by paper cut – not one fatal blow but hundreds of tiny slashes. She was tired of the pain.

Like the man on the bus this morning who kept ‘accidentally’ touching her leg. Nothing adding up to an actual assault of course but it was no accident. She knew better and so did he, and his tilted head and smirk showed that he knew there was nothing she could do about him touching her.

Karen at the front desk let the coffee boil dry again. She always took the last cup, leaving just enough at the bottom to cling to a sliver of truth in the phrase ‘it wasn’t empty.’ Maribeth found herself soaking and washing the coffeepot for what had to be the thousandth time since she started working there.

Sherry stepped ahead of her in the lunch line, Mike had taken all the pens off her desk again, a client belched in her ear. The doctor kept her waiting while he chatted in the hallway about the hockey game, the grocery store clerk put the bread on the bottom of the bag of tinned food.

None of these things were significant in themselves but they made up the avalanche of tiny indignities that would have crushed her if she didn’t imagine her revenge.

In her mind, she was much more assertive. She wore red heels, and maybe a pair of those enormous sunglasses. She carried a great purse, she had a brain full of witty comebacks, and she took action immediately. She didn’t shuffle like she did in real life, revenge fantasy Maribeth had a bit of a strut. No one got one over on that Maribeth.

Lecherous men found themselves extracting pencils, coffee bandits got ex-laxed, line skippers and pen stealers were featured in Wanted posters on the company bulletin boards. Nasty clients got accidentally left on hold. Disrespectful doctors encountered a wall of rage in red heels, and grocery clerks found themselves in long meetings with their managers. Revenge fantasy Maribeth did not fool around.

Real-life Maribeth looked out the window on the bus and pretended nothing was happening. She washed a coffeepot, waited longer for her lunch, bought more pens, and ignored the belch. She slouched in the chair in the doctor’s office, and then went home to make sandwiches out of oddly-shaped bread.

She chewed quietly, sipped some tea and browsed online for red heels, enormous sunglasses and a great purse that she’d never buy.

 

 

(30 minutes writing, 5 minutes editing)

Story-A-Day May – Getting Home

I’m doing the Story-A-Day challenge. This is a quick story I wrote this morning, I gave myself 15m to write it and 2m to edit. The writing prompt was ‘Getting Home’     

 

Janna leaned her head back against the bus seat. It should have been more comfortable than it was, but even one of those plush bus seats offers no comfort when it is worn thin over the metal frame. She left her head there anyway, the base of her skull bouncing on the fabric covered metal. It generated a kind of muscle-y headache but it distracted her from thoughts of facing her aunt.

    She knew what Aunt Sadey would look like, wearing jeans and a grey sweatshirt – the crew neck, plastic-y kind that no one else wears anymore – leaning her left shoulder on the door frame, an unlit cigarette hanging from the fingers of her right hand, hair dragged back in a ponytail except for a scrappy little bang that would be standing up in sections from being swept off of Sadey’s forehead. And she’d be shaking her head, just a little, so Janna would know that she’d let her family down again.

“You were your mother’s pride and joy, you know. You were going to save the lot of us.” Sadey wouldn’t even have to say the words aloud, Janna knew the script. “I knows how hard it is. Sure, haven’t I had the same troubles myself?”

It was the same thing that Sadey said every time, but Janna didn’t believe it. She couldn’t imagine that grey Aunt Sadey had ever gone off excited for anything, let alone for a job. Sadey always seemed happy enough working at Mercer’s Convenience, keeping the local kids from stealing chips and beer, standing on the front steps for a smoke on her break. Janna wasn’t like Sadey though, she was excited. Every single time.

The problem was that Janna she always started with such confidence. She was always sure that this was the one that was going to pan out, this was the job that would switch them up over that line from almost having enough to finally being able to get ahead.

It never was though.

Lots of times it was close, but when it all came down to it, Janna just didn’t fit. Her clothes were a little too cheap, her make-up a bit too heavy, her language a bit too ragged. After the interview it was always completely clear, a glance in the mirror told her what she had done wrong this time. She’d love to have that insight beforehand just once, when it would be of some use.

She was just tired. She needed a break somewhere. But if that break wasn’t coming, then she needed Sadey to not be waiting at the door when she got home from trying. It was never not getting the job. It was never the pursed lips of the interviewer. Never the sad head shake from the secretary on the way out. The gut-wrenching part was Sadey, standing on the steps, knowing that Janna had let them all down again. The saddest part was never not getting the job, the saddest part was getting back home.

100 Days

I want to write more, I want to be physically stronger, I want to prepare for my black belt test in Taekwondo, and, I want to play more games with my boys.

I’ve decided to focus on all of these things during the next 100 days.

cool picture

This is me battling the dragon of resistance. Drawn by my boys about 2 years ago.

 

Yes, I know that the ideal way to reach a goal is to pick one thing at a time. But I also know that sometimes we can trigger change by picking something audacious to aim for.

I’m doing both.

My main goal is to do 100 days of preparation for my black belt test.

So every day between now and February 9, I am going to do some preparation for my test – whether that is practicing my pattern, studying my theory or anything else that occurs to me.

Chance favours the prepared, and I am bringing chance into my corner by preparing thoroughly.

Everything else is something  I am taking the next 100 days to work into my schedule. Some days I’ll manage it all, some days I won’t, but by the time February 9th rolls around, I will have regular habits supporting all of those ideals. They may not be daily habits, but they’ll be regular ones.

I’m going to write about this 100 days of practice here on my blog several days per week.  Some days will be more exciting than

others.