ScatteredStories

  • Scattered Stories: Letter From an Old Maid

    Hey New Baby,

    I see you there, strutting your stuff around in the cold weather while the men lift their glasses to you and the women sigh and coo. You probably think you're something else, don't you? Yes, it must be nice to hear how "You're different" and "I needed a change, I'm so glad you're here!" I see how you look at me, with those eyes of pity, thinking my time is done. Ah, it's amazing how the young forget how the old once were young! You think I never was the toast of the town? They ADORED me.

    I remember when men used to talk to me like that. I was excited, just like you. I believed their promises. Then the complaints started coming. "I lost my job, and its your fault." "You were supposed to be different!" "You're just like all the others!" They blamed me for old loves lost and new loves found. They blamed me for jobs lost and jobs kept. They shoved me away and hoped I would leave, when I gave them everything I had, until I was spent and there was no time left. It's not my fault that what I gave them wasn't enough. They could have been perfectly happy, if only they had used me right!

    Want to know a little secret? Despite what they say, it isn't about you. It's about them and their projections on you. Soon enough they'll be hooting and hollering at the next young hot thing, and you'll be left as nothing more than a memory. They'll never interact with you again, and they'll sound grateful for it. I hope they treat you better than they did me. But some people never change. So Happy New Year, 2011...from your older sister, 2010.

    I often wonder why we insist on using analogy that a year is an old man/young baby. I kind of liked this twist on the old analogy. Hope you did too.

  • Scattered Stories: No Culture for Old Men

    The father stood in despair, his hands clenched at his fists. “So the hole must be fed once more, this time with my own son’s bones?” he hissed. His son looked at him in defiance, but the son’s hand drummed nervously and quietly on the table. “Once more Gorgoth demands a virgin lad so that there may be rain on our fields. One would think the gods would grow tired of bodies and blood!”

    His son stood himself, strong biceps and hips propelling him out of his chair. “I am not afraid, father! I am ready to climb to the cusp of Golgath and throw myself down as a sacrifice!” The father scowled. “And who told you that you must be the sacrifice?! Who told you that your scream must echo from the lips of Golgath? That foul priest Bar-gath, no doubt!”

    “Father, I have heard the screams of joy as the young men give themselves to Gor…”

    His father cut him off. “Yes, yes, that is what the priests rave about—the screams on the WAY to the bottom. Funny how they do not like to mention the men who miss the lake, who find themselves dashed to pieces on the rocks! Certainly the tickets paid by the idle to watch the jumps could not influence our noble priests!”

    “What of it father? I am ready! Those men who miss were weak! You would have me wait like Jason…”

    “Jason is an honorable man! He knows he is not ready. He resists the call…”

    “Jason is a coward who stays indoors surrounded by his scrolls! All men must jump. You yourself jumped!”

    “Yes, I jumped, and you will not throw it in my face!" The father let the spittle fly, flecks starting to wet the face of the son. "I jumped after years of training! I jumped off the east side, the safest side, and I knew your mother was waiting for me at the bottom. And I still was not ready! You! You want to jump after a month!”

    The son refused to back down, pushing down on the table until his knuckles were as white as his father’s face. “I will not resist Gorgoth’s call. I will jump. I will make it rain.”

    Deflated, the father sat down. He picked up a pencil and began scratching at the table. Finally he looked up. Each word he spoke forced itself out of his clenched jaw. “Will you use protection and wear the small parachute? It will lessen the chances you fall on your head from over-rotating.”

    The son smiled a toothless smirk of victory. “Always, father.”

    The father jabbed the pencil on the table and broke it. “Go then, son! Go feed the desire of the onlookers for blood! Add your bones to the pile! This is no culture for old men…”

  • The Woman from Thangorodrim

    I like to dedicate any creative writing when I can, and this one is for Amy, my fellow Tolkien obsessive, who will be disconcerted by my lack of detail but will hopefully forgive me anyway. Your family and you have always been encouraging to me since I met you in 1999, and this dedication is well-deserved.

    He stared blankly outside the window, watching the flakes fall. Behind him, the woman from Thangorodim briskly prepared the table, her attentive eyes arranging the vase of flowers to provide beauty, her precise hands placing each utensil and plate to provide balance. He re-focused his eyes to see her in the window’s reflection, her mass of dark hair cascading until the ends tickled the apron string that circled her chiseled waist.

    “How many days?” he said, whispering to the window. “How many days until my miracle becomes my bane?” His hissed words fogged the window and blotted out the sight of snow. Would that his breath could quench the fires of Thangorodrim! But he had already exerted all his strength when he and the Noldor fought before Angband, and carried her back over his shoulder while the black winged beasts blotted out the sun. He knew the cost even then; that while taking her away, she must go back someday to the triple peaks, her body to be consumed in the lava as her family had done for generations. But he thought of little of costs when she clung to him that day, her tall, thin frame wrapping around his back as he strode forward with her hips riding his shoulder.

    He felt something wet on his neck, and wondered if the small cabin was leaking. She never really spoke of how their story would end…did she think about it? Did she…another drop hit his neck. She was so quiet, but so instinctual, like a…and then the window unfogged, and he too wept without needing to turn around.

  • Scattered Stories: Weaponized

    The scientist gleefully paced the corridors of the mall, waiting for his opportunity. He calmed himself by remembering how it all began. He was in the lab late one night, working with whiny Susan on his latest experiment. As usual, she was carrying on about some idiot man who had the good sense to leave her before Susan's constant nagging sapped his soul. The scientist was busy nodding his head while working when suddenly...
    BOOM
    Peter Parker required the bite of a spider to grow his web, but the scientist's weapon had the bite of 10,000 spiders, and was smaller than a tarantula. The resulting explosion tore Susan to shreds before the scientist's alternatively amazed and gleeful eyes. He carefully wrote down each detail that had led to the explosion in his lab notebook before fleeing the scene.
    Now, he walked the mall levels, gleefully waiting for a worthy victim. He began walking towards Jamba Juice when suddenly, an acne-marked fat teenage boy cut across his path and bumped him. The scientist's eyes narrowed with cruel hate. He quickly unsealed the clasps that housed his weapon, opening the white-zippered teeth that kept the pouch intact. He tapped the young man on the shoulder and opened the pouch, ready to destroy the teen the way he had destroyed Susan late that night, leaving her body intact but her soul forever broken. A world of evil was unleashed...