Short Stories @ MindSay

I have sorely neglected this blog.  I don't like making New Year's resolutions, but I resolve to write something creative here at least once a month -- even if it is only a descriptive sentence. 

I guess I'll write a few sentences to continue the short story, "Hands".

  ***

Three interviews this week and at least twenty faxed resumés have yielded nothing but frustration and sore, blistered feet. She was usually an optimistic, "the-sun-will-come-out-tomorrow" kind of person, but lately the sun was consistently hidden by dark clouds.  If those clouds had a silver lining, she was pretty sure it was too tarnished to be seen.

For six months Clara's life consisted of job hunting during the day and picking up lousy tips at the I-10 Diner at night. She'd become an expert at juggling bills and doing without.  A prepaid phone functioned as her house and mobile phone. Her second-floor, 405 sq.ft., efficiency apartment on the west side of Houston was probably more expensive than a full, one-bedroom apartment in the south side of the city, but she figured, she'd like to avoid as much crime as possible. A night light placed in a convienent outlet near the window facing the front of the apartment provided a security light while she was out, along with the light from her 13 inch television.

Robert the Spider

            “I think I’ll go to bed now,” Courtney said thoughtfully to the droopy-eared dog lying at the top of the stairs. She pulled herself up the white burber steps and headed into the bathroom, happy to be putting an end to anther long day. She had leaned forward to examine a rather large zit on her forehead when she jumped back suddenly. There, on the medicine cabinet, right under where her nose had been, was a slick, sneaky, greasy yellow spider the size of a quarter. Courtney stared at it in fear. Spiders that are out at night are hunting spiders and likely to be more venomous than your average house spider. And bathrooms are a bad place for nomadic, venomous spiders. People expose the most skin and make vulnerable the most delicate body parts in a bathroom. It’s just not a good place – for any spider, really.

            Courtney looked over at the blue box of tissues on the toilet. Would a simple tissue really be enough to keep this big yellow spider from piercing her skin with its fangs? She reached under the sink and pulled out a Kotex pad. That would protect her. She opened it up and fumbled with it, trying to fold it in a way that would help her sandwich the little bugger. She soon realized that this was not going to work. Then she had an idea: what if she used the sticky side? It was genius. The spider would stick to the pad like a mouse to a paper trap. Courtney felt a rush of evil genius run through her as she slowly advanced toward the spider. She was just moments away from ending her anxiety and going off for a nice, peaceful sleep. She was centimeters from her target. She stopped. It was as though there were some kind of invisible shield protecting the spider.

            “It’s evil, it has to die,” Courtney reminded herself. But what if she were the evil one? Courtney was the one who sought death and violence. That spider didn’t want to hurt her at all. It only wanted a meal. And the bugs it ate were more a nascence to her than the spider itself. It was doing her a favor. And what if it had a family?

            Robert returned home to the luxurious bathroom vent he shared with his wife and three kids. “Honey, I’m home!” he called, hanging up his tiny brown hat on the coat rack. His wife Matilda was a lovely brown house spider he had met during his house travels shortly after college. They had seen each other from across the kitchen and it was love at first sight.

            Now she was crawling from around the corner toward him wearing a light blue apron and holding a dripping lunch plate and an old red rag. “Welcome home, sweetie,” she said as three tiny black blurs dropped from silky strings directly onto Robert’s back.

            “DAAAAD!!!” they shouted as the crawled all over him.

            “Hi kids!” he said as they jumped off of him.

            “Can I have my birthday present now?” the smallest one asked with eight large eyes gazing up at him.

            “Uhh… no. No, why don’t we wait to open it, ok Ricky?”

            “Ok…” said Ricky disappointedly.

            “Can I see you in the webroom?” his wife asked sharply. Robert was in trouble.

            “Yes dear?” he said turning the corner and taking a seat on their web.

            “You forgot, didn’t you,” Matilda said flatly.

            “I’m sorry honey! It’s just… it was such a hard day at work, and –“

            “Go out there and get your son the roley poley basketball,” she said, and the conversation was over.

            “See you kids at dinner,” Robert said as he put his hat back on and slipped out the vent doors.

            Courtney looked down at the crumpled pad in her hand. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t kill Robert and ruin little Ricky’s birthday. She turned and threw the pad in the garbage. As she turned back to give the greasy yellow spider a look of reluctant affection, she jumped back once more. Robert was gone.

Grace the Elf

As everyone knows, Christmas time is the busiest time of year in Santa’s workshop. It’s when all the elves realize how far behind they are in making presents and the chronic procrastinators start pulling their hair out and snapping at any elf that looks at them the wrong way. Grace hated this time of year. During the summer, she could take a break and play Frisbee with the other elves, and if she broke something, they wouldn’t mind too much. They’d just say something like, “It’s ok, Grace. We can make another one.” But not during the Christmas season.

Nope, no one liked Grace at Christmas time. You see, Grace was an elf you might characterize as clumsy, or accident prone. She was unusually tall, almost three feet, and she had rather large feet. Her legs were skinny and knobby, and her arms were freakishly long. Sometimes her awkward appendages were hard to control. She always ended up poking another elf in the eye with her elbow or knocking over a Christmas tree. These kinds of mishaps are extremely irritating to stressed-out elves. Even her very best friend, TJ, would say “Grace, maybe you should go somewhere else for a while.” It was always the same story, and this year was no different.

It was the day before Christmas Eve and somehow Grace had managed to avoid any serious disasters in the weeks before. She knew she had to be especially careful now, though, because if she ruined something there wouldn’t be much time to fix her mistake. It was crunch time.

Grace had gone all day without any accidents at all, so she was pretty proud of herself. “I deserve a nice, cold Coke,” she said, and she skipped over to the pop machine. On her way back to her work station, she stopped to talk to TJ. “Hey TJ, guess what? I haven’t had an accident all day!” Grace said lifting the tab on her pop can with enthusiasm. To her horror, the can started spewing sticky wet foam all over the table of toys.

“Oh no!” shouted TJ.

“The Hannah Montana tickets!” screamed the irate elf across from her. “Look at these! They look like that say Nanna Mountain now! What preteen girl is going to want to see someone called Nanna Mountain in concert?!”

“I’m sorry!” Grace said sincerely on the verge of tears. She had been feeling so good about herself up until this point and now she had spoiled an entire days worth of ticket making.

“Well sorry isn’t good enough! They are all ruined! That’s a whole day of work down the pooper! Maybe you should just lock yourself in a closet until Christmas is over, Grace. It would do everyone a big favor.”

“Sorry,” she repeated quietly as she turned away so that no one could see the silent tears streaming down her cheeks.

Grace ran down the hall into her room and threw herself onto her somewhat undersized bed. “Why am I so clumsy?” she sobbed into her favorite teddy bear. Maybe she just wasn’t cut out to be an elf. Maybe Santa’s workshop would just be better off without her.

Grace got out a pen and paper. “Dear Santa, I am running away because I am just too clumsy to be an elf. I ruin and break more presents than I make, and I’m afraid that one year I really will ruin Christmas. I think it would be best if I left now before it’s too late. Love, Grace.” She folded the note and put it in her pocket. She would drop it off in Santa’s office on her way out.

After packing up her teddy bear and a few candy canes for the road, Grace walked forlornly down the hall, wondering where she would go. Just then she heard a scream.

“Help! Someone help! Santa’s in trouble!”

It was coming from the break room. Grace ran down and peeked her large head around the corner to see what was going on. There were about 20 elves crowded around Santa, who was kneeling on the ground next to the snack machine.

“What’s going on?” she asked with a voice full of concern.

“Grace!” said Santa. “I’m so glad to see you! I was just getting some of Grandma’s double chocolate chip cookies from the vending machine, and, well, now I’m stuck.” The elves around him stepped back, revealing his short, pudgy arm in the window of the snack machine. “My watch is caught. Do you think you can help, Grace?”

“I don’t know,” Grace said sadly. “I would probably just end up breaking your arm. I’d better just not get involved.”

“But none of us have arms long enough to reach his watch,” pleaded Derek, the elf that had yelled at her earlier. “And he can’t get out alone.”

“I don’t suppose I could take a vending machine with me down a chimney,” Santa said solemnly. “For the first time, I think we might have to cancel Christmas.” All the elves dropped their heads in despair. “Are you sure you can’t help, Grace?”

“Well, I guess I could try,” she said reluctantly. Grace bent down next to Santa and carefully placed her arm in the slot. With surprising ease, she was able to bend her arm the right way and free Santa’s watch from its trap.

“I’m free!” Santa cried, holding his arm triumphantly in the air. “And I have cookies! Thank you, Grace. You saved Christmas!”

“Hooray for Grace!” shouted Derek.

“Yay!” the other elves chorused.

And from then on, no one got mad at Grace when she broke a toy or knocked something over. They just said something like, “It’s ok, Grace. We can make another one.”

The End

I'm thinking of doing a contest for The Art, Poetry, & Writing forum section? I'm thinking that we might have to break it down into categories:

Art:
Photography
Graphic Art/Mixed Media
Traditional Art

Writing:
Poem
Short Stories

I'm thinking short story's because it takes a while to read pages and pages of a novella. We'd have to have rules and limitations like picture sizes, story length, number of entries, etc.

There are some issues with the poll system and PMing your votes, so I think what will happen is that we will have one topic for contest entries and set a date to have them in by, then when the deadline date hits we'll open a new topic and set up all the entries to vote on.

What do you think? Seriously, if I don't get good feed back on this I don't even know if it will happen. Can't do this alone, if you could link to this entry from your blog to send the word it would be greatly appreciated.

Link: http://underground1986.mindsay.com/ideas_i_know_you_have_them_dang_it_cough_em_up.mws