Short Stories #1 and 2!

I love to write! 🙂 

But unfortunately sitting down to work on writing is usually last on my list. I hope to change this by trying to write every week day using a little dollar store book of writing prompts given to me as a gift. The prompts include a theme to write on and about 10 words the writer must weave into their story.

For fun I will include the 10 words I must use and the theme for each story. 

The thing about short stories and writing in general is trimming the fat and getting to the point in an engaging way. The less words the better! At least that according to such classics as: ‘On Writing Well’ by: Willam Zinsser and New York’s acclaimed Gotham Writers’ Workshop. 

So I present my attempts at using as few words as possible to hopefully tell engaging stories…

Story #1- Theme: A Family Mystery Uncovered

Words to use: Sunday, secret, wallpaper, swap, sister, curiosity, island, notebook, marathon, demand

Pink

 It was a Sunday when I discovered a sister in the wall of our attic. 

I can’t call her 

‘my’ sister because I don’t know her, not yet.

Sundays my mom and I almost always have breakfast together. She will ask me what I liked best about the sermon, long dainty fingers, rapping softly on her coffee mug as she waits for my answer. It’s one of the few times I feel close to her. 

 She doesn’t mind my many piercings, dyed jet black hair that falls over my right eye, or how I smear black eyeliner under my eyes on purpose. 

 In fact, I wonder if she even notices I become more gothic every passing year…

This Sunday, I share that I loved how Jesus forgives the bad things we do. We were challenged to imagine being stuck on an island with our worst enemy. 

What would be the first thing we would need to do in order to survive together?

Well, we would have to forgive… My Pastor had said in a matter of fact way and I supposed he was right.

 It seemed to me Jesus was much kinder than the church people. I wondered if they knew how to forgive? 

 Church people smiled at me as if they had just stubbed their toes.  

My mom is young and frail, her large blue eyes are full of sadness most of the time. On Sundays like clockwork, she disappears into her bedroom for a nap and somehow reappears an hour later looking more tired and pale than when she went in.

I guess my mom is queen of the goths. 

Naturally gloomy and mysterious. No makeup needed. 

Sunday afternoon, again like clockwork, her cruel mother comes by for a  visit. My grandmother, Pat, who I have to call Pat not granny or grandma. Pat likes to make my mom feel even worse if that is possible.  If a hard pinch had a face, it would be Pat’s. 

 I wondered if Jesus could forgive someone as mean as Pat?

I could see her scowling at Jesus, she would demand no less of him.

That afternoon, I waited until I was sure my mom was in her room and quietly made my way to the attic stairs which were located on the second floor.

I slowly made my way up, heart pounding, legs shaking.  At the top of the attic stairs, straight ahead under the wooden rafters was a narrow crawl space that led to several large cupboards. Next to the cupboards was the floral wallpaper, the one I had read about in my mother’s journal the day before.

For fourteen years, I have grown up in a house of whispers and secrets. My mom bursting into tears at random has been a normal thing for me as long as I can remember. 

“You’re so depressing Kimberly, just like your father…” Pat said to my mom last Sunday.

It had become my life mission to know.

To know why my mom was so depressed.

More than anything, I wanted to comfort her and make her feel better. As a little girl I picked her flowers and made her cards to help her and now as a teenager I would investigate on her behalf-what lies hidden in the attic.

Sometimes I make her a painting and she tries to find room on her bedroom wall for another. 

But it wasn’t just about helping her.

I didn’t want to have a weak and depressed mom anymore.

 The other mom’s I knew seemed to be strong with happy eyes and pink cheeks. I would see them out around town, looking pretty and vibrant-while my own mom seemed sad, pale, and beaten.

I spied the floral wallpaper and began to carefully peel it away. But careful peeling changed to ripping. I wasn’t surprised at the hot tears burning my eyes.

“All I have left of your memory, sweet daughter, Samantha, are the few pictures I took of you and these old journal entries… I will always regret giving you away. For you took a piece of my soul that I will never get back. To give into my mother’s demands was to give you a new life and forever hurt my own. I’m so sorry Sam. You are a sweet baby, I will always love you… I will keep your memory in the attic where the flowers grow.

 Love, Mommy.

For the last year, I have been sneaking into her closet and searching her many journals. There are stacks and stacks of journals going years back. Finally, last Friday, I found that entry.  All of my searching had paid off. My stomach flipped when I read it. 

How could she have hid this from me? I had a sister named Samantha?

I ripped and ripped the wallpaper, until a leather bound notebook fell out of the wall and into my lap.

Inside the pages, pictures of a little baby! Journal entries of the babies weight, a picture of a young smiling couple… Were they my sisters adopted parents?

The summer heat in the attic was stifling, my heart pounded, was I going to pass out?  I grabbed the journal and ran downstairs, a marathon runner at the start of a race, the finish line was me saying I knew… 

I was ready to swap secrets for answers.

I threw open her bedroom door and she sat up with a start, eyes wide and panicked.

“You don’t have to hide Samantha from me anymore! I know, mommy, I know, I know… you had a little baby.

I forgive you mom, just please, no more…  I began to cry.  No more hiding, no more being depressed and no more crying okay?”  I managed to say this as I watched her rise from her bed like a ghost.

“I forgive you mommy…”

She walked towards me slowly at first and then she was there by my side, embracing me with all her might. 

Suddenly, she felt strong.

“I would have called her Sam for short…” she said stroking my hair. Her usually tired voice now sounded sure.

“Mom, you have to forgive yourself and forgive your mom, this, this has been killing you and I need you, Samantha wouldn’t want you to be…  I searched for the right word, to be a pale ghost.” 

“There is so much, I want to share with you…”  she said.

“I know, and there’s so much I want to know…”

Her face was coming alive like a piece of white paper being filled in with the most beautiful pastel paints. Her shoulders free from a secret burden, straightened with grace and resolve.

The sun shone through her bedroom window and created a cast of light around her that seemed to me the touch of God’s healing hand and love.

She pushed back the hair from my right eye…

“I have missed seeing your beautiful eyes…”  She said, beginning to smile.

“I didn’t think you noticed!” I said feeling shocked.

Just then, the front door opened and closed. 

“Pat!” We both exclaimed and began to break into peels of laughter and soon her eyes were smeared in black too from laughing so hard.

 And that only made us laugh more. We looked like twins now, mommy and baby goths.

By the time Pat found us, we were on the floor doubled over. Pat’s scowls only made us laugh harder. 

And that was a Sunday I will never forget, when the laughter pushed back against the power that had crippled my mom for so long and light broke against the darkness around her, filling her cheeks in with a most joyful flush of pink. 

Story #2

Theme: Drama In and Out Of the Lab

Words to include: microbiologist, telephone, hidden, bystander, trench, inside, international, shoe, heights, persuade

The Examination

The thunder outside made me jump and look at the clock. 9:30

pm on a Saturday. 

I really needed to wrap up my work but I wanted to do one last examination. 

As I examined the slide of bacteria, my mind wandered… I could see the new in ground pool I planned to have built for my boys. Maybe I would add a little waterfall. I could almost hear their giggles as I pictured them cannon balling into the waters. 

 Maybe the pool would be a perfect distraction to the absence of their father.
An image of him smiling warmly, our wedding day, kissing my head like he liked to do-flashed through my mind.

“I miss you Jack…” I sigh and turn my attention back to the slide.

The slide was everything now.

 But I could hardly shake the pain. Jack, my sweet husband.

   “Funny how this bacteria is going to change our lives…” I said to no one and checked the clock again. 

As I looked at the clock, the lab door opened and I screamed.

Somehow a man wearing a long black trench coat had figured out the door code and made it into my lab. 

There was no security working on the weekends and I was alone.

Frozen, I gripped the microscope, my only possible weapon.

 Disbelief, then fear washed over me, the same white hot fear I have of heights and my whole body tingled with dread.

How could this be?

He had brought the storm raging outside the lab windows with him. Rain dripped from every part of his clothing and thunder crashed wildly behind him as he made his way towards me.

Working as an international microbiologist for 10 years, I had met many fellow scientists but I could tell this man was no scientist. 

A violent looking neck tattoo of a snake, half hidden beneath his trench, slithered up his neck-it’s eyes looked almost alive.

“What do you want?” I screamed.

“You know what I want…”  the man said, continuing his walk towards me.

“Come any closer and I will hit the panic button, security will come, the alarm…”  

“Be quiet.” He demanded drawing closer to me.

“What do you want?”

“I want you to give me the bacteria.” He said continuing to advance.

“No, I won’t, I don’t even know who you are! I’ve been working on this bacteria for 5 years and for 5 years…”

He stood directly in front of me and drew a handgun, pointing it at my head.

“For 5 years, you have been plotting to give this bacteria to the Chinese government so they can mold it into a bio weapon. Who could resist a million dollar payoff? Apparently not you…

 For 5 years your husband pleaded with you not to but I wonder Kristen, did you listen to him? He is a good man and you pushed him away.”

I stand speechless.  The steel of the gun feels cold against my forehead.

My heart is pierced by his words. His words are truth and gun or no gun, I can’t escape the truth.

“Who are you?” I say, beginning to cry. 

“You’re tears won’t persuade me. Give me the slide…” He says.

I noticed his shoe. It’s a running shoe. I suddenly absurdly wonder if he is likes to run. I’ve run marathons my whole life…

“The slide…” He says as he watches me push it away from under the microscope.

“I’ve lost everything for this.” I say.

“You made a choice. We all have choices. Greed is never a good choice.”  He says taking the slide into his black leather gloved hand.

He walks to a sink and pulls a hammer from the pocket of his trench.

I watch him place the slide inside the sink and smash a million dollars, a million dreams.

He turns to me and smiles.

“That’s what you should have done with this idea when it was still just an idea. You see ideas turn into actions and  well actions sometimes need sometimes need to have a gun pulled on them and smashed with a hammer.”

I slowly back towards the wall and slide down it, never taking my eyes from him.

“You’ll thank me someday.” He says turning and walking towards the door.

I watch him walk away.

 I don’t try to scream.

 I don’t call 911.

I pull my cell-phone from my lab coat, hand shaking.

It’s been a year but he picks up the phone immediately.

“Kristen?” He asks sounding shocked.

I can’t speak. I can only shake.

“Kristen? Are you okay? What’s going on?” He asks sounding alarmed now.

“Jack…” I manage to whisper.

“Kristen, where are you? Are you at the lab?” Where are the kids?” 

“Jack, I’m so sorry… I was wrong, I love you…please forgive me.” I say as tears roll from my eyes.

His silence on the other end is more terrifying to me then the man and the gun combined.

“Please say something Jack…please…”

“Kristen, you were wrong to…”

“Listen to me Jack, do you believe in guardian angels? Because a man just came and destroyed what was destroying us for 5 years. It’s gone, it’s done and if you will forgive me-we can start over? Oh will you forgive Jack? Please will you?”

“Yes, Kristen, I will. I’ve never stopped loving you.”

“I love you too-please come home-the boys miss you but I miss you more…”

“I’m on my way.” He says and hangs up.

I stay sitting on the floor. Wondering if the man will reappear but I suddenly feel quite certain he won’t.

His job was to put me under a microscope and to get rid of the poison and now his job was done.

 

“I love you too Jack. Please, come to the lab. Please come home darling, the bacteria is destroyed. I won’t be going forward with the plan. We can start over now.”  I say this gripping the phone so tight my hand aches.

“I’m on my way Kristen… wait for me.”

We hang up and I watch as the lightening crashes outside the lab windows and I realize the stranger was right.

If I could, I would thank him with all my heart.