3-22-07 | Wild Life - Page 2 - Writers Forum

rboy27 · 03-26-2007, 08:08 PM

The Cedar Door
500 Words

The cedar door sent a chilling moan throughout the cells; its iron hinges gripping the stone frame like it was their final moments, too. They creaked a horrible pain and shod centuries old rust onto the cold, unforgiving granite floor. I sat in my favorite corner and stared intently at the falling flakes of oxide. So too was my fate.

What awaits us beyond the cedar door, we all wondered.

Time meant nothing to us; with no windows and certainly no clocks, minutes and hours were merely words now from some ancient lexis.

Captives past etched crude sketches and somber journals of their incarcerations into the walls of several cells. Some were too far dated now to be legible, others were no older than a fortnight. There was no calculability between the prisoners; some wrote for a week, others months.

When would be my time? I felt it was soon, though I’m sure we all did.

We clamored to see outside whenever the Red Cloaks would come to seize one of us. The door would fly open very dramatically; how it never splintered into a thousand pieces I’ll never understand.

It was, by my count, the 37th year of my imprisonment. Our feeding pipes dropped from their positions in the ceiling and poured the same tasteless paste into our mouths. Just as I finished salvaging what I could out of the cracks between the cobblestone floor, the Red Cloaks came, stopped at my cell, and escorted me towards the door.

Their hands were feeble and as frail as bones. This is the grip of my feared captors? I thought to myself. I’m going to make a break for it.

I kicked at the inhuman shins of my masters but found them quite unbreakable. Alas, my foot was not. They continued to walk unaffected and carried me and my shattered toes to the cedar door, kicking and yelling all the while, though I new it would do me no good.

Walking through the hallowed doorway, I closed my eyes, both from fear and a blinding light that surrounded me. I felt the petty grip of the Red Cloaks diminish and when I opened my eyes, they were gone. I was in a field with no sign of humanity or the cedar door.

I remembered learning in the Scouts to stay in one place if you’re lost and eventually someone will find you, so I waited. Hours passed but the sun moved not one inch across the blue sky. Hours later and still no sign of mother Moon.

I don’t know where I am, and I know I’ll never know. This will be my new cell.

I laid down on my side and began to laugh hysterically. Just then, I noticed the enticing shine of a hunting knife not two feet from my head. I know it wasn’t there before. Then again, how can I trust what I know anymore?

I grabbed my Serrated Savior and plunged him fiercely between my ribs.

cyberspecter · 04-02-2007, 05:07 PM

I put mine in the LM section in workshop.

Mike · 04-03-2007, 10:10 AM

The Chimichanga

I still felt like confessing, even when using your hand was how it was done back in the day, back in Jesus Times. Her left eyebrow stood up, accusing me yet again of being a hippie.

“Did you wash with organic soap?”

“Wash?” I scoffed. “With water privatization such as it is?” Sunlight filtered in through the kitchen window and dust lingered in the luminance. “I just wanted to know what it was like,” I continued. “My life is now complete.”

She didn’t look up from the crossword. “If you would like to know what it’s like to never again feel the touch of my body, please continue this disgusting habit. What’s an eleven letter word for a deep-fried Mexican dish?”

I leaned over her shoulder and tried not to feel dizzy. “It’s a, uh…chimichanga.”

“Nice.”

“Speaking of which, are you hungry?”

She looked up. “Do you really have to ask?”

Her hazel eyes held me until she looked away. I swallowed roughly and felt sweat drip down my ribs. Hurriedly, I turned and assembled all the ingredients on the countertop. Before long, the stove was sizzling with garlic, onions, mushrooms and kidney beans.

“God, that smells good.” Her voice startled me. I cursed myself for losing focus. I was supposed to absorb everything, to enjoy every moment. Looking at her now, I felt a twinge of regret. I should have told her the truth about the headaches.

“I’ll get the tortillas,” I said.

“No, let me. You always do everything.”

I would have argued. I would have told her to sit back down on the sofa and let me attend to everything. It was how I could love her. Goddammit, I could be dead tomorrow. But she was already digging in the cabinet, standing on her toes. A memory rekindled my spirit. I tried to keep from laughing.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“Remember the first time I gave you a massage?”

“Yeah, you ended up groping me half the time.”

“Who wouldn’t?”

She gave me a look.

“I just remember that when I got to your feet you completely freaked out and peed on the bed. Remember that?”

Her silence let me know that she did, in fact, remember and certainly didn’t appreciate me bringing it up.

“It was cute,” I remarked.

She aimed the tortillas at my head and missed. “Cute? Puppies are cute. Drooling children with sugar and crayon in their teeth are cute. Our governor is an idiot, but he’s cute like that. Small, rabid wombats are…what are you looking at?”

“You.”

“You’re burning the onions,” she replied, brushing aside her hair.

I ended up making the best chimichangas I’ve ever tasted: the onions burnt, the beans overcooked, and the tortillas too greasy.

We washed dishes together, just like we had in the last eight years. Later, we’d stay home and eat ice cream for dinner. At sunset, we’d lounge on the porch and watch the wind scatter the leaves.

497 words

defenestrator · 04-05-2007, 02:05 AM

Last Breath

In, out. In, out.
The sound of my breathing overwhelms all other noises in the room. It's not that I'm breathing particularly loud, nor that the room is particularly silent. Yet when you know that before another day is through, it's a sound you will never hear again, you end up listening for it all the more.

I wonder, what happens to that breath after it has left my body? That puff of air, floating into the unknown. In my mind, I follow its journey as it mingles with the stale air of the room, before eventually seeping through the small crack of open window. Unwillingly thrust into the atmosphere, it follows the call of the wind.

As it flows down the street, it will reach the park with its open spaces and rudimentary play equipment. Maybe it will join in one of the seemingly perpetual games of hide and seek. Teaming with the wind, the little breath makes a good seeker, thrusting aside foliage to reveal the whereabouts of one child, moaning through the tunnel where another crouches. Or maybe it will play in their game of tag, rushing in the wake of a scurrying kid, tagged by another which crosses its path. Then turning as the wind picks up again, now doing the chasing, now tagging someone else as it rushes squarely at their face, and blowing their hair back as it races away.

I can see it moving on to the old swing set, where the children pump away in pursuit of the mythical goal of going over the top. Possibly it, too, will make the attempt, leaving a swing creaking eerily alongside the others - but short of a gale force wind, it will never succeed. My little breath, buffered by the wind, will give up eventually, as most children do.

Next in line would be the slide, where the more nervous children teeter hesitantly on the top. A precarious position, its little push is enough to send them speeding downwards in shock, with it in their drag. Then celebrating at the bottom, creating little tornadoes around the feet of the whooping child.

Who knows where it goes next? Maybe through the shaky stick houses or the mock duels of children playing make-believe. My little breath, sharing the joy of those who find so much pleasure in the smallest wonders of life, who can live with such abandon for only today. But as the wind dies down, I hope that breath will come to rest near one of the infants being taken for a walk through the park. Even from this room, I can hear them breathing, taking in that little breath so their body will live another day.
In, out. In, out…

457 words

Foxee · 04-05-2007, 03:20 PM

My entry, The Mourning After (499 words) is posted in the LM Entries section of the Writer's Workshop.

Thanks to the judges in advance for donating their time.

Matrim · 04-06-2007, 12:23 AM

My Entry, Ash, is also posted in the LM entries section of the Writer's Workshop.

I hope you enjoy it!

mwd · 04-07-2007, 04:09 AM

My entry is posted in the Workshop: http://www.writingforums.com/showpost.php?p=866340

Thanks judges.

eggo · 04-07-2007, 10:01 AM

Mine is over at WW as well,

The Letter

http://writingforums.com/showthread....425#post866425

Towards the bottom,

Thanks guys

ruksak · 04-08-2007, 10:54 AM

Bum Blue Roy (499 words)

Because of Roy Martin I’ve been dying tomorrow since I was fourteen.

Roy was a wheaty-haired, broad-chested child, with an unusually wide and mottled face. When he got excited or angry his face went blue. Not violet or rouge or even some distant cousin of blue - the poor kid went pure blue. We were told this was as he’d been born with a hole in his heart. I never have been sure how that happens, how people live through that, but that’s the truth, and that’s why he was called Blue Roy.

Seeing as Blue Roy was an odd looking kid he got picked on. We all did it. It was never physical though – more of out of fear we’d kill him than compassion though. All the same we’d goad him about his blueing complexion whenever we felt like it, which was often. This would make him particularly distressed and he’d turn a murkier, more sinister blue than during his usual upsets. That’s when we’d stop and make some feeble apology by saying we were just kidding.

When puberty began to invade our year the taunting waned a bit. Most of the boys, out of the need to survive socially, began to talk about sex. This meant masturbating for almost everyone of course, but a talent for saying something coarse, beyond our age or embryonic experience was always appreciated. So, we called each other ‘bummers’, ‘pencil dicks’, etc without really knowing what those things meant. The upshot was, for a while at least, that Blue Roy was off the teasing menu.

However, one day a friend was baiting me about my naivety of a sexual proclivity or something and I retorted, spontaneously I guess, with ‘Hey, bum Blue Roy.’ Basically, telling him to go and have anal sex with Roy Martin, the kid with a hole in his heart. That was it – the phrase ignited the whole school. It spread from my group of friends, to the class, to the whole year, and finally the whole school. Within in a month everyone was saying it. The only way to go a day without hearing it several times was to be off sick.

In fact it happened one Friday when I was off sick. Rich Malton, a notorious bully, went for Blue Roy. Someone told me he’d said ‘Blue Roy, everyone in this school has been told to fuck you up the arse. The whole fucking school. How does that feel Roy?’

The following Monday morning our headmaster told the assembly that Roy Martin had died at the weekend. Nobody made a single sound in the minute’s silence. Roy was fourteen, like us.

Shuffling out of the hall, Rich Malton pointed hard at me.
‘Oy! You! Bum Blue Roy!’

Plenty heard it, but nobody laughed. It was my fault it had started and it’s been with me since. If I’d know Blue Roy was going to die, I’d have never said it. I’ve not been saying it ever since.

silverwriter · 04-09-2007, 09:36 PM

And there you have it.