Month: April 2011

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You Don’t Think of It as Murder

This week’s attempt at Inspiration Monday. This is the quickest I’ve written and it’s going up unedited. Yikes! But what fun!

*****

He turned around and looked at me even though we were supposed to be reading the exercise to ourselves. He picked up one of my freshly sharpened pencils and smiled.

That’s when the bombs started going off. One. Two. Three four five. The wall to my right collapsed. Six. Seven. He grabbed my hand, and we were running. Eight. And then I stopped counting. The screams so close to my ears spread out, thinned, dampened by the heavy air around us. Air too heavy to breathe. We fell to our knees in the grass. He pulled me up, and we were running again. Dodging bodies. People I should know, but I couldn’t recognize. Some upright, running like us. Some not.

You don’t think of it as murder when it’s happening to you. It’s survival.

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His Revenge Was Different Than I Expected

Another attempt at BeKindRewrite’s Inspiration Monday. I’m quickly getting addicted.

*****

His revenge was different than I expected.

Most guys would assemble his buddies. Find you in a bar alone. Watch you. Follow you outside. They’d trash you then trash your car, and you’d forgive it, because you felt it was justified. You break the code, you get what’s coming to you. You could go home, relieved. It would be over. You could move on.

Not this time. He’s still my best friend, as if nothing happened. As if I didn’t do what I did.

His hand pauses midair. A high-five on the cusp, daring me to refuse. I meet it. I’m too afraid not to.

“You in for tonight?”

“Course.” I just want to lay low, not provoke any questions. I go over the confrontation in my head for the hundredth time. Did I dream it? Did I hallucinate? Does he have amnesia?

“What’s so fuckin’ funny?”

My fists ball. I stiffen out of reflex. But someone shoves him instead, and I see it’s a game. Just someone passing by, giving him shit about something else. They don’t know. If they did, they’d be all over it. I pick up my gym bag before I do something stupid.

“How ’bout if I give you a hand with that oil pan beforehand?”

I shrug. It’s the last thing I want.

But he’s going to carry on. He’s going to be my best friend, rubbing my face in my own excrement until we both die.

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Why Is the Sky Black?

My first attempt at Inspiration Monday. I’ll be brave and post this unedited. (Eek.)

*****

I didn’t see you that day. You had gone off on a mission, and who was I to judge? I tried to take your advice and not think about it. But something about cleaning your cabin always put my mind on the runway, shooting out the side of the ship, searching the depth of space for you.

I remember the blood on your pillow. I remember the clean pillowcase I put on it. I remember collecting my sponge and pail. Closing and locking your door. Then I let myself in next door and walked in on Jax removing his combat suit. I didn’t expect the two of you back so soon.

He wasn’t mad. He just hugged me to him, sponge and pail and all.

“We won,” he said. He had blood all over him. I knew it couldn’t be his.

I stared past him, out the little porthole window, knowing you weren’t with him like you should be.

“Why is the sky black?”