A Literary Life

This was written for a 48-hour short-story contest. It had to be 1,000 words or fewer, and it had to include fantasy, a library, and a remote control:

Moishele stalked into the library as he had every Monday through Saturday for the past 11 months.

The warm, cold fluorescent lights of the library comforted and depressed him. But what did he want? A waterside park to arise from the children's section? Perhaps a wet bar to open over in fiction? He pictured Miss Gupta, the librarian who looked a young 25 and acted an old 85, dancing in high heels atop the bookshelf.

"Mr. Gwynn?" came a voice from behind him.

He assumed it was Miss Gupta, though it sounded as if she had a cold. Not only was she the only one there with a British accent, she was also the only one who ever struck up conversation with Moisele, though it tended so toward either the mundane or the literarily analytical that Moisele would eventually find himself imagining grabbing her and kissing her, half because of her shimmering lips and that accent, and half just to shut her up. Of course, that was as far as even his imagination allowed him to go without embarrassment.

Moishele turned toward the voice. Instead of Miss Gupta, he was surprised to see a spring hare in a dressing gown on its hind legs, addressing him.

"Your reputation impedes you."

Moishele felt himself blushing. How awkward for this semi-literate hare, he thought.

"'Your reputation precedes you' is, I believe, the phrase you are grasping for," he said.

"Oh, that it does as well, sir, but that is not me intended message," said the hare. "I mean to communicate that your reputation, or, more accurately, your self-image, really, keeps you from realizing your full potential."

"Bollocks," said Moishele, surprising himself - he'd never considered British a medium in which his tongue was very comfortable.

"Most right, sir - that's the spirit! Never too late to change things for the better!" replied the hare.

"Why would I want to change things? And why can no one else see you?"

"Why would you think me invisible to them, sir? It's a library - it's rude to stare."

"But not to come up unannounced behind a bloke and accuse him of self-limitation?"

"Well, no, sir - that's just honest good-Samaritanism!"

"You're from Samaria?"

"North Samarsheffieldchestershire, near Trifle-upon-Avon."

"I'm afraid I'm not familiar."

"Quite not - they'd find you very strange indeed, sir. Strange but intriguing. But we have other matters to attend."

"What exactly are the matters?"

"The matters are myriad, but, in crude summary..."

The hare somehow held in his small, hairy paw a remote control of the most peculiar variety. It was purple with neon-green writing and trim. It appeared to have a raised glass prism near the upper-right corner in which a small gummiworm-like object seemed to rotate.

It had all the usual buttons - "Play", "Pause", etc. But it also had others, including one labeled "Viewer Selection", and that mysterious prism.

"It's like a sorcerer's TV remote," Moishele said.

"Give it a try," said the smiling hare.

"I don't have a sorcerer's TV."

"The world is your set," said the hare as he bounded off and disappeared into Reference.

Moishele looked the remote over. It was compelling. It begged to be manipulated.

The most alluring part was undoubtedly the prism, but, If I start there, where is there to go? thought Moisele.

After much deliberation, his fingers hovering over the "Fast-Forward" button, then "Rewind". Finally, pointing it at an elderly patron, he pressed "Play".

Nothing happened.

He pointed it at the bookshelf and tried again.

This time, one of the books spontaneously shook, fell off the shelf, and opened.

Above it appeared something like a hologram, but dreamier. A pirate ship rocked on storm-stirred sea.

Zoom into the captain's room, where sat a pirate and a beautiful maiden on a rickety bed. He tore at her clothes, and she at his.

Moishele looked around, embarrassed. But no one else seemed to be paying the least bit of attention to the half-naked grope-fest unfolding before his eyes.

Still, he didn't want to risk it. Panickedly, he pushed "Pause". The figures froze in a skinful embrace.

That wasn't much better.

So Moishele pushed "Stop". And the figures disappeared. And the book closed. It still lay on the floor, however.

Moishele went to put it back. As he did, he saw the title for the first time: Pilfered Passions.

He pointed the remote at An Annotated History of the Crimean War and pressed "Play". The book fell open and atop it appeared a mishmash of sword-fighting horsemen. It looked as if England were trying to take over Turkey. The noise was deafening.

Still, no one batted an eyelash.

He pressed "Stop".

The war ended. Or, at least, disappeared.

Too numb to be astonished, Moishele wanted to know what the glass prism did.

He was about to touch it when he heard footsteps approaching.

"Hey, Moishele. Oh, what you got there?"

Miss Gupta was there, a thick tome under her arm as usual, staring at the remote. Moishele handed it to her.

"Well, now, what's this?" she continued. "'Viewer Selection'?"

She moved the viewer selection dial from "1" to "2".

"It's beautiful. It looks so high-tech, yet this prism reminds me of something I read about in a Victorian novel."

"I'm still figuring it out myself."

"Well, you'll have to tell me what it does when you're mastered it," she said, handing it back.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "I think a little of the library dust has already begun to blanket that beautiful crystal. Let me just…"

She placed one hand on the remote to steady it and blew on the crystal.

Where she and Moishele had stood, only the tome that had fallen from Miss Gupta's grasp remained. Open to page one, it read "Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Sing as well the confusion of Moishele Gwynn, son of Ira, and Shama Gupta, daughter of Anil, thrust into a war not theirs…"

Souvenir

My 11-page screenplay - check it!

Reality Check

Rod and I wrote this short script:

Click here to read the "Reality Check" script.

Wedding-Night Jitters

There was a contest I lost. Entrants had to write stories of 875 words or fewer in 24 hours based on the following prompt:

Strong waves pounded the dark sand just a few yards away. Hidden by beach grass, they embraced, relieved to finally escape their wedding guests. His poetic whispers suddenly ceased as he leaned back, and said, "There's something I need to tell you..."

This is the story I wrote:

Relieved to have finally escaped our wedding guests, I whispered, "There's something I need to tell you – I’ve been with a woman.”

“Since we’ve been together?”

“Since we’ve been married.”

“How?”

“Your mom cornered me in the bathroom.”

“Again?”

“Huh?”

She turned and stalked back toward the reception.

I followed her into the bright room and the sight of dancing guests. She went straight for the head table, beside which stood her mother. As my bride confronted her, her mother’s tongue fell like a just-shot seal from the ear of the catering boy.

“Mother! How could you?”

“He’s 18,” she said as she turned to the caterer boy. As he started to shake his head, she pushed him away.

“Not him. Him!” she said, looking at me.

“He’s definitely 18,” she said, giving me raised eyebrows and a slight smile.

“I thought you said this would stop.”

“And it would have, had he stopped it.”

“You’re my mother – you’re supposed to love me!” she said, ignoring the reference to me.

“And I do. That doesn’t mean I can’t love others.”

She winked at the DJ, who nodded to her with a smile.

My new wife turned away and headed toward the door, storming right past her grandmother, who was whispering into the ear of her dance partner, the cake girl.

On the way out, the priest managed to waylay her.

“My child, why are you so distraught?” He asked. “May I provide some counsel?”

“Yeah – do you know a good divorce lawyer?”

“But, my daughter, you’ve just been joined in love in the house of the Lord.”

Looking at me, she said, “He just made love to my mother in the stall of the bathroom.”

He looked at me.

“Oh, God – son, but, why?”

“The cloakroom was occupied.”

The father looked at us sheepishly.

“Young David and I have a special relationship.”

“I understand, Father. You are forgiven,” I said, mercifully.

“My nephew David – the ring bearer?” she said, making it about her.

“He bore more than that this evening,” I said

The father and I shared a knowing smirk.

The priest addressed her once again.

“Let us not get sidetracked. The issue here is forgiveness. Dear, can you forgive him for what he’s done?”

“No.”

“My son, can you forgive her for not offering forgiveness?”

“Yes,” I said, confident that I could.

“Well, then, there you go,” said the father, smiling at her. “I think my job here is done.”

She just stared at him before starting to walk away. Then she hesitated and turned back.

“And, Father, I don’t want you corrupting young David anymore.”

“Any more than what?” he asked.

A low growl became audible that seemed to originate deep in her throat. I shrugged to the father. He shrugged back.

Women.

He had chosen a life without them, and I was really beginning to see why.

She slugged him in the gut before she turned and marched out of the reception toward our car – in which her family had arrived. I followed her. Some might think this tactic folly, but our limo had long since left. She was my ride home.

She opened the unlocked door but realized she didn’t have the keys – her dress didn’t even have pockets.

Women.

In one final, humbling act, she turned to me.

“Give me the keys.”

But I didn’t have the keys.

I shrugged.

She reached into the back seat and grabbed her grandmother’s non-dancing cane.

She swung.

I ducked.

She came at me again.

This time, I sidestepped it and caught her in my embrace. I would hold her until her mind was calmed by remembered love.

She caught a bit of my ear between her teeth and pulled in quickly alternating directions.

I released her in the hope that she would release my ear in kind.

She didn’t.

I socked her in the gut.

She only bit harder.

“Listen, dear, we have an untenable situation here.”

“I don’t know what you mean. I find it very tenab-“

I pulled my ear from her vice-like bite. I couldn’t feel it, so I reached up and felt it. It seemed to still be there, though with my lover’s bite impression firmly embedded in it like some crazy love tattoo.

“We don’t have to be enemies,” I ventured

Her eyes lit with a ferocity I’d not known possible. They seemed luminescent, outshining the weak light of the moon.

“But we can be,” I offered as I backed up.

She came at me again. Instinctually, I dove into the car and slammed the door, locking it.

Even in that state, with my ear in that state, I thought I’d heard something jingle when I’d slammed the door. It was either coins or…

I reached into the door-side container to find the rage of the moment – the keys.

As she banged the glass inches from my face with the newly recovered cane, I decided we needed some time apart – things had been going downhill ever since the wedding.

My last memory of her, as she faded in my mirrors from the red of the taillights to the dim blue of moonlight, was the unmistakable sound of cane flung against trunk.

4 a.m.

I look at my phone - it's 4 a.m. I don't even know what to do with 4 a.m. Sure, 4 a.m.'s OK if you're about to fall asleep. Or if you've just woken up and in the mood to work - nothing else to do at 4 a.m. but work or sleep. But what if, like me, you've already tried working. You've already tried sleeping. Neither works - what then?

Then you just sit there and get irritated by the irregular sound of the blinds being cleaved by the wayward slab on the air conditioning vent. Like a snaggletooth with less charm, or a persistent cowlick, the moment you let it irritate you, you've set forth on an irreversible spiral into madness.

And why is there stain on my glasses? A filthy, grimy smudge. Can't they keep themselves clean? I clean myself every day - is it too much to ask that they do the same? I bought them. I keep them safe in their little case. Is it really too much for them to show some appreciation? Some common hygienic decency?

And why is the earplug in my right ear not as good as the one in my left? I wouldn't even need earplugs except for the stupid sound from the stupid blinds because of the stupid broken AC vent. But of course it is and they do so I must, to keep me from going insane, but now there's more noise coming into my right ear than my left, and that's a recipe for lunacy if I've ever heard one.

What am I supposed to do? Eat? I just ate. It's getting cold in here. But you know three seconds after I turn down the AC, it's going to be too hot.

If only I had something to distract me. If I had worked all day under the hot sun, or in the dark mine, then I'd be too exhausted to worry about this stupid stuff. But no, I had to spend the stupid day in the stupid coffee shop, typing to stupid people online while trying not to make eye contact with the lady in sunglasses sitting next to me.

"Sunglasses?" you snicker? "How can you know if you're making eye contact with someone in sunglasses?" you laughingly question? Well, I'll tell you - when you know the person is hungrily stalking you as a lion a lame gazelle, waiting for the slightest opportunity to strike…up conversation.

And, yeah, OK, maybe I did the same thing with the cute blonde girl on the plane, but that's the price she pays for being cute. I'm not cute, I'm just there, and the conversational predator next to me would as gladly prey on my momentary unabsorbedness and careless gaze placement as she would the next guy's. It's just I'm the easiest pickins 'cause I'm the closest target.

Life is brutal.

Overcast

It was the beginning of a new semester at the University of Pittsburgh, and the first week, which was also the first week of September, looked as if it had been misplaced from somewhere in late October. The drizzle, chill, and wind forced the girls to hide their wares underneath oppressive layers of fabric. It was as if the dance of the new semester had undergone a theme change at the last minute, from “Basking in Nature and Each Other’s Gazes” to “Shelter from the Elements”.

Happy to be inside, under the comforting fluorescent lights of the engineering building, the large windows in the hallway functioned for me much like my head as it poked out from under the covers on a cold night – enhancing my comfort by showing me what I was one down comforter (or, in this case, a double window pane) from enduring.

I sat at my desk, trying to muster some forward momentum on my attempts to write a program to quickly model light-diffraction. In fact, it was already quick. The problem was that it was nowhere near accurate. As I sat there, hoping the success I felt at having turned on the computer would carry me forward to something even greater, I heard her.

From her cough, I could tell she was attractive – maybe 5’4”, 115 lbs, long black hair, white skin, a longish, beautiful face, a pretty-but-conservative dress. Maybe smart. Maybe a bit of a sorority girl. But dignified, as those things go.

I headed down the hall toward the water fountain specifically to see her. I turned the corner, and there she was – 5’2”, maybe, light-brown skin, ringlet-curly dark hair with blonde highlights. Freckles. Cute. Perhaps quite a distraction if she had some personality to her. But not someone to make me fall all over myself. Unless I thought about her to much. Or she smiled at me.

In the past, each had proved critical mass.

I continued past her down the hall toward the water fountain, filled up the water bottle I’d brought with me, and headed back, by which time she’d vanished.

Five minutes later I sat fully hydrated in front of my computer, the code of the modelling program confronting me. I decided I should probably check if Jose was in yet. I walked across the hall and knocked.

“Come in,” he said.

I did, and, to my utter shock, found that my view of Jose was blocked by ringlet-curly highlights, sitting quite boldly on the desk of my colleague and newly former friend.

How did she know Jose? And why was she sitting on his desk, dangling her foot off the side like that? How had he kept this secret from me? More importantly, why?

He’d been hiding her, obviously. Jealously guarding her – secreting her away, when a creature of her beauty and grace deserved to be free to roam the entire engineering department unhindered and uninhibited. He deserved, nay, required a harsh rebuke and severe reprimand for his greed and arrogance.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey, man,” he said.

“Hi,” she finally decided to say.

“Hi,” I responded

He looked at me, slightly smiling. Waiting. She looked at him, then back at me. I looked at him, then at her.

“Oh, haven’t you two met?”

Come, come now, Mr. Bond – you know as well as I that we’ve never before exchanged so much as a glance.

“No,” I said.

She shook her head.

“Zoraida, this is Sam.”

We shared our assessments on the acquaintance-making that had just occurred, (and, in what was perhaps a sign of our compatibility), assessing it identically – as nice.

There was an enchanting confidence in the way she spoke. Her speech accented undeserved final syllables just often enough to deny a listener’s attention any rest. I didn’t know if it pointed to her accent or her personality. Maybe the interplay of the two.

I excused myself when I felt things were getting awkward, which is usually well after things had actually gotten awkward. I returned to my desk and busied myself with tedious work, going over the simulation’s code and making sure all instances of the old equation had been replaced by the new one and that no doubling factor remained anywhere.

I got a reprieve with lunch and a couple afternoon classes, then returned to finish changing the code. I had little realistic hope that this latest attempt would result in any kind of breakthrough, but, as always, there was that rather significant bit of unreasonable hope that the first run would miraculously yield exactly the pattern we’d been looking for, and, at that point, I was too tired to even try to suppress it.

The first run yielded an error message, and I decided either I or the computer had to go, and the machine seemed firmly entrenched.

I stopped for a bagel on the way home and saw Jose in the cafe. He told me to sit with him. It felt awkward – I was sure I stunk of jealousy and that my eyes accused betrayal. As I looked down to sit, I told myself, “When you look at him again, just pretend he’s a normal person, not the traitor he is. But my brain was too smart to believe that, and I was sure my feelings were tattooed on my hot face and my thoughts telegraphed through my every pained action and muted reaction.

Luckily, he spoke first.

“So, how’s it going, Paleskin? Looks like there’s a storm coming, eh?”

I looked out the window at the sky, which had finally switched from overcast to dark.

“Yeah, well, you can’t always believe what you see,” I said.

“Hmm… you seem very wise today.”

“Clouds bring me clarity.”

We talked for a bit – Family Guy and international politics – the usual. Finally, he stood.

“Well, I should get going.”

“I’ll join you.”

We exited the café.

“So, this Zoraida…” I started.

He smiled. Turned. Looked at me. Lost the smile. Raised his eyebrows.

“Yes?”

“How… how long you known her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a year. We TA’ed Circuits 101 together two spring semesters ago.”

“Where’s she been since then?”

“She studied abroad in Mexico for a year,” he said as we continued our passive-aggressive race against the weather, walking down the sidewalk toward our places in Shadyside.

“You must be glad she’s back.”

He turned to face me again.

“Why do you say that, Paleskin?”

“I don’t know – you guys seemed like friends.”

“Yeah. It just felt like you might be implying something more.”

“Would that be offensive?” I asked, looking down at my shadow.

“I’m not sure. Coming from you, a lot of things seem to be.”

“Seem to be.”

“Perception is reality,” he said.

“Well, one version of it, at least,” I said, slowing to take off my jacket – all this activity had warmed me up.

“But each of us only has one version.”

“I didn’t make the rules.”

“But you play by them.”

“Under protest.”

He gave me a look.

“Paleskin, is there anything you want to come out and say to me?”

“Sorry, buddy – I’m still not gay.”

“What?”

“’Come out.’? I know your code.”

He sighed.

“Are you ever serious?”

I looked up and felt his gaze follow mine to the bright-golden late-afternoon sun.

“Only when it’s cloudy.”

A Shocking Conversation

“I just don’t like it,” she said, staring at him with those big brown eyes under smoldering brows.

“You think I like it any more than you do? But what choice do I have?” he asked, his blue eyes wide.

“You have no choice.”

“I have but one choice – to die for my country.”

“That’s not a choice, that’s a path.”

“Yes, I have but one path – country-death.”

“So it’s not heroic, it’s just tragic.”

“Yeah, I’m a tragic hero.”

“You are tragic.”

“Heroically."

"Actually, I take it back – you always have a choice."

"Yeah, to starve or to do the devil’s work – some choice."

"Weaker men than you have chosen the former."

"DUMBER men than I have chosen the former."

"I can’t tell you what to do."

"Seems like you are."

"Well, I can’t make you do what I want."

"Not for lack of whining."

"Where’d u hear that?"

"The President of Canada."

"Canada doesn’t have a president."

"Then I declare myself President of Canada!"

"You’ll have no power."

"Neither do those Windsors, but look at all the fun they have."

"Technically, they do, but they’re only to be consulted when all else has failed."

"Like Bush!"

"I guess."

"So, that’ll be me, minus the power."

"I don’t see the point."

"It’ll be great! You can be my mistress!"

"Mistress?"

"Yeah. I’ll need a respectable wife, but you’ll provide just that hint of scandal that keeps people interested – you’ll be my Camilla."

"Your Lewinski."

"Exactly!"

" Fat chance."

"Ha ha!"

"My gosh – let the poor woman rest in peace!"

"I’m pretty sure she’s still alive."

"I should hope so – she’s sleeping on my couch."

"Oh, is that who that was? I thought it was your sister."

"My sister’s in another state."

"Which one?"

"Shock."

"What happened?"

"She fought the law."

"And the law won?"

"Yeah, the law of physics – she was fixing this one outlet – turned out it was a live one."

"Was she like, 'We’ve got a live one here!'?"

"No, she was like, convulsing."