Inspiration?

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by Boss Radio

Do any of you write professionally?

If not, have you considered it?

Heh. Welcome to the Open Mic. Perhaps we should rename it "If we got off our collective asses, we'd be published by now." We have been badgering Eliza about her non-pro status for quite some time now, and this forum has forced the rest of us to reveal our talents, and thereby get badgered as well.

Anyway, all that's for another thread. We're here to push each other do write more, and by writing more, get better at it.

It's so good to see someone else posting here, and with a great story to boot. I've always loved the aliens-studying-humans angle, and the dialogue-only style totally works for it. Can't wait to see your next work.

As usual, no new inspiration until next week. I'd love to see more submissions!

[Bornieo: Fully Loaded]

Reception at Nora's

I took this picture because I wanted to have some sort of solid remembrance of what happened there and maybe for some sort reminder of penance. The place doesn't exist anymore, days later a large tractor demolished the building, but the pain of the heart remains long after the physical is gone.

It hadn’t changed a bit since the time, although the pool table was replaced years later. There were several tables and chairs and a juke box that played Elvis songs constantly. That’s what they liked to hear. They sat among the cigar smoke, cigarette smoke and the scent of week old beer. They were unshaven and smelled of pig ****, chicken feathers and cornbread. That scent makes me gag to this day. I hated them.

I can remember the first time, there was that window that I could barely peek over. That window changed my perspective for sure. I was just walking by on my way back from school one day and heard the music and saw the smoke billowing out from that damned window. There was a measure to it where a new puff of smoke would appear at the 2nd beat of that song, “Don’t Be Cruel” and the shadows of people moving to the beat cascaded through the smoke like ghosts, and the laughter, an unearthly cackle that sounds like it was coming from the bottom of a deep, damp well.

“Oh yeah, move that ass.”

The song changed as I caught my first glimpse of this new world.

“Wise men say, only fools rush in...”

The room had stopped and they were watching two people in the middle of the room dancing real slowly. The girl was no more that twenty and the boy not much older.

After another cackle, “Closer!” was yelled by this beastly fat man sitting on a chair that some would think would collapse at any moment from the immense weight. After his yelp, he shoved a big smoldering cigar back into his unshaven face and glared with the tiny eyes of a rat about to scurry and covet some cheese. He gripped the pool cue with 4 fat fingers, his middle finger was missing and I wondered how that happened, his shirt sleeves were pulled up and the stains of sweat ran down from his button up shirt, down his fat belly and seemed to disappear into the **** brow pants he wore, that stretched to the point that if it had a voice, it would be screaming in pain. Then our eyes met. He cackled and moved his eyes back to the couple.

“Closer, yah ****in’ bastards.”

Faster than anyone would think, he brought the pool cue down and whacked the girl in the leg just below the hem of her flower skirt. They all laughed, deep and low as she began to sob and moved closer to the boy who also began to tear up. Another pool cue came down, this time on the boys shoulder and where the girls hand rested. There was a loud, sharp sound and I noticed the shiny ring on her finger and the blood that dripped from underneath it.

Suddenly my view was obscured by a smiling, giggling face.

“What’dya lookin fer boy! Da reception’s over!” There was a whiff of the smell of beer and tobacco and the man came closer, grinning with two teeth and a unshaven face. His hand reached out and grabbed my shirt. Louder “What’dya loookin fer!

“Leave him be, Pete.” Came quietly from behind him. The music had stopped and they had all turned to look at the window. The man bowed his head and moved back to his place among them.

“Get your ass home, boy.” Came calmly from the Fat man. “Go on.”

Hypnotized, I turned and walked home. Down the road the music started, a deep bass beat and then a scream.

The next day was Saturday and I was hesitant to walk the same way past that building they all were in last night. But curiosity was never one of my better traits and as I walked towards the building, the door swung open and a fat man walked onto the porch. With the wooden boards creaking under his feet he walked to the steps and stopped. The tiny eyes in his fat head met mine and the fat four fingers waved me over.

“Boy.”

I stood at the base of the steps and looked up a the fat man who looked down at me. He seemed to be sweating even more and I feared that the drops that ran down his double chin would hit me in the eye or mouth and that I would die from some horrible disease. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin, hand made cigarette and lit it. He looked up at the blue sky and exhaled a puff then looked back at me with those tiny eyes.

“You keep to yourself. Those negro folks ain’t worth a damn.”

After reaching with the four fingers to dust my hair, he lumbered off. I didn’t watch him leave, but I did catch a glimpse of a shiny ring on his pinky and a smatter of blood on his shirt.

Now physically it is all gone and in the past. All I have is the picture and the thoughts of some sort of absolution.

(c)2005 MrB

[LSPoorEeyorick]

Jane was under the pool table, and she had no intention of coming out.

Even though Conty the bartender had flipped on the lights and had, in his sandpapery voice, informed the local degenerates that their speakeasy had spoken easy enough for one night. Even though the last trucker had trudged out the door. Even though Mitch was probably halfway to Mississipi, Jane wasn't going to move.

It was achy-damp in her hiding spot, and though the tungsten filaments illuminated every etched name on the walls, the space around her might as well have been a black hole. She'd made an effort to control her wandering fingers, which had a habit of reaching out and exploring textures without her even realizing it. She couldn't help herself when she saw a stone polished by the sand and the rocks in the creek behind her father's property-- she'd stoop over and seize the treasure, fondle it between her hands, stroke it across her cheek, her lips, her tongue, even-- she couldn't get enough of the feel of things.

Here under the table, she knew should control her impulse, but her curiosity got the better of her, and she found herself rubbing her finger back and forth on the sticky edge between the tile and the linoleum. She’d discovered a sticky pool of dried beer, its skunk lending a sour zest to the sickly bouquet of p_ss and prophylactic. It reminded her of the time her mother got a vase full of cully-roses from a boyfriend Jane had never met. He didn’t call back after that, and her mother kept the flowers in the vase until they could see the stems mush and the water turn brown through the patterned glass. They gave off an odor of rotting spunk and tomatoes left too long on the vine.

She hadn’t had much luck controlling her fingers earlier, either. She’d been leaning on the wall watching the high-school dropouts in their billiard-disguised pissing contest when she’d seen the old friend of her father’s knocking back whiskey with Conty and Shep. There he was, craggy and charming as she’d remembered from when he used to come and help her father clear the field every spring. She knew she hadn’t seen him since she was seven or eight. The fields hadn’t been cleared in those ten years, either. She smiled at him. Called his name.

“How you know me, girl?” he’d asked.

“If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you.”

This made his eyes crinkle up and brighten, and he leaned forward. She could smell his whiskey-sweet breath. “Aren’t you a trickster, then?”

“Yep, that’s me.”

They’d talked about the music—a bunch of old country dirges. They’d talked about the drought and the way he saw the trouble city to city from his truck. She found comfort in the old friend, even if he didn’t remember her. But after awhile her fingers couldn’t resist the texture of the turquoise stone in his belt buckle. He didn’t know she didn’t mean anything by it.

“And you’re a honeysuckle, too. Fresh as one,” he’d said, as he was tearing her flesh before she managed to break away, before she’d become just another rotting flower under the table at Nora’s Midway Truck Stop.

[blueerica]

For me, Boss, the answers are no and not really.

I just get excited when new topics, ideas, and challenges come up. I'm finally at a place again where I feel like I can start really writing again. I'm jazzed to read what others are going to write, and to try and imagine angles they might take. Even though we're given a starting point, or at least a point of reference, I like to imagine inside of their minds and reading these short stories and poems is like finding a piece to a puzzle. Reading these stories is like a piece of their hearts, their minds, and their history, real or unreal.

This week's inspiration challenge has been my favorite so far. I even considered writing a second story, but my weekend looks like it's jam packed, so I'm not sure if I'll get around to it in time for the next topic to come up. I am already anticipating the next idea...

[blueerica]

Bornieo & LSPE -- Wow...

[lizziebith]

I didn’t want to go into that room; I could tell already that it stank. I reeked too, of gasoline, and you’d think I wouldn’t what with the shortage and all, but long-haulers were outside pumping like there was no tomorrow. Maybe they were right. But I needed no new stink on me, no belch-perfume, no human chimney plume, no damp-flesh-rot, please. But I was pushed.

I came in off the 43 and out of the late afternoon and pressure gradient and noise of whinging brakes, but I still didn’t want to go into that room. All doorways and no way out, I thought to myself. All walls and ceilings and no shelter. Not like I knew what I’d do with shelter.

So, I blew in, and there was no turning back. I’ve found I’m reckoned only in terms of my direction, and forward is the only way I know how to go. So in I went. And inside, I found the angles confusing; I ducked under the remnants of the room’s original outer wall and curled quietly into the jamb of a long-barred door, and there I waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and... Until you came.

And you breathed me in and took me away.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

lizziebith's riddle threw me for a loop at first but I did get it eventually. Nice.

[€uroMeinke]

She had no business being there.

I know it may not be the right thing to say, but she was just asking for trouble showing up that day and she never should have stuck around as long as she did.

I guess it’s still no excuse about what happened, but Jay could be a real asshole. Any of us who knew him, knew to stay clear when he was in one of his moods. I know she couldn’t of known that, and maybe we should of tried to stop it. But the truth is, we didn’t.

It was hot that day, that southern kind of hot that just weighs on you like a sick old dog. Nobody was even playing pool, just talking Sh*t and enjoying the coolness of the beer.

The room changed when she walked through the door. She was a sweet little thing, all tight jeans, and a halter-top. The crappy air-conditioning was probably a relief to her, I can still see the beads of sweat disappearing between her tits. There aren’t too many woman who come into Nora’s, except maybe somebody’s ex looking to pick another fight. Women like this just didn’t come here – one whiff of bleach, stale beer, and sweat should have been enough to send her back out onto the interstate and find some other place to take a piss.

Maybe the heat got to her, I don’t know, but instead of turning tale, she asked for the restroom and walked on in.

Jay was beside himself of course, He was always bragging about the p*ssy he got on the road. We all thought he was full of sh*t – maybe that’s why he felt the need to prove something. And the rest of us? Well, I said we don’t get many women here so I don’t think any of us was going to chase her off, own good or not.

When she came out she hesitated a moment, maybe some sense came into her after all. But Jay quickly put an end to that, pressing a beer into her hand, telling her to relax and cool down a bit.

I didn’t hear her say all that much. I think she was running from something, must have been on the road for a while. But Jay started to get a bit weird, saying that he knew her from somewhere, some bar down in Mobile. Said he’d seen her dance there. That’s when she really shut up. “I don’t dance any more.” Was all she said.

“Honey, I don’t want to see you dance”

He grabbed her head and pulled her in to kiss her. She tried to push him away, but Jay wasn’t going to stop. "f*ck you Jay, I’m done with that”

“Like hell, you are bitch - not till you show me a little respect first.” Before I knew it, he’d backhanded her and she fell back against the pool table. He was on her before she ever got her balance. He grabed her halter, twisting and ripping it down so you could see her bra. “you gonna be friendly now?”

She said nothing.

Some of us had gotten up over the commotion. I didn’t know what to think. It wasn’t right. But damn if I wasn’t getting hard myself.

“You f*cking whore” He shouted into her face. “This bitch comes all the way from Mobile to come looking for some cash. Well if she wants something she’s gonna earn it.”

Hank was the first to step in. “Cool it Jay, I don’t want any trouble here.”

Then it happened.

She grabbed the knife off Jay’s belt. He charged into her but that just plunged the knife deeper into his belly. That was the freakiest thing I ever seen, Jay with a knife stuck right in him and it was like nothing happene. His rage wouldn’t stop. He took hold of her and threw her to the ground.
Hank tried to stop him but got a beer bottle in the face before he could even touch him. Then he was on top of her, the knife still sticking from his belly. “Now you’re really gonna pay, bitch!”

I pulled Hank behind the bar and it suddenly got silent. Jay, there on top of her, his arm raised about to give her another one – but he stopped there, let out a gurgling belch, and a single drop of blood slid down the side of his mouth.

They say he might have lived if he left the knife alone. But it seems in those last moments he’d pulled it out and bled to death. It took days to get the blood up, I doubt it'll ever come full clean. I still can smell him.

We never found out who the woman was, or what she was doing there. Maybe Jay knew, but then he was always full of sh*t. Who ever she was though, she had no business being there.

[blueerica]

Hello Class! My name is Miss Blue and I'll be your substitute for this week....

"My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it."

Mark Twain

This Sunday, May 8th, is Mother's Day. So, I wanna hear it:

Mothers.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

The name's Blue. Erica Blue.

Thanks for taking over, I haven't had very much time this week. Yes, she has my blessing. Now get writing! (That is, once you get back from Disneyland...mine may take a few days as well. )