Fiction Friday: The Butcher

“Your mother wouldn’t think you’re much of a lady.”

“Thanks, Grandma.” Aviva finished wrapping a cut of meat and rinsed the blood off her hands.

“That’s not me talking, that’s just what she’d say.”

“That’s twelve fifty.”

“You don’t charge me, I’ve been cleaning your house all month!” The old woman banged the counter.

“It’s your house, not mine. I’ve got a business to run.”

“You can’t let your business run over your grandmother.”

And if Aunt Mamrie heard you got things here for free, she’d want some too and then so would everyone else in town.”

“I don’t have any money. You know that.”

Aviva gave her an unimpressed look and wiped her thick hair away from her face.

“What about a packet of silver beads, instead?” Her grandmother pulled them out as she spoke. Aviva leaned forward. They gleamed in the reflection of her eyes. 

What’s Up Wednesday: Nothing’s up Wednesday

Guys. I leave for Italy in one month. That’s so little time, I am seriously freaking out. I tried to find a gif that properly summed up my emotions about this, and the best I can come up with is somewhere between these two.

Also I still have to pass my summer classes and stuff, so that’s delightful. Meanwhile, I’ve discovered Buffy (about 20 years too late, I know), and have been watching that show like they might take it off Netflix.

Buffy would definitely be on my zombie apocalypse team. I mean, it’s practically her job to fight monsters. I would also want Kel from the Tamora Pierce series Protector of the Small, because she is smart, resourceful, good with weapons, and wouldn’t kill Buffy for being so sarcastic all the time. Then I would take Hermione Granger, for obvious reasons. Then I would want Hank Green; he would be so good in the apocalypse, because of all of his crazy knowledge about technology, ecology, and everything else under the sun. I’d also want John Green for his excessive love of zombie knowledge and insight into human nature, Furiosa from Mad Max because duh, and Taylor Swift, because if I can have her along, I will. I would also like the Doctor, preferably David Tennant.

If anyone wants to draw me this team, I would be eternally grateful. And surprised.

I’ve been doing just school for months and months, so there’s really nothing new to report. I’m getting new glasses. We have five people in this three-bedroom apartment. I get to go home soon. My life is fairly mundane (until I leave for Italy- eeeep!).

Yes, I am posting because I have to and not because I actually have anything to say.

Oh well. I’ll try to do better. Just not tonight. I have homework. Oh, the college life is a glamorous life.

I cannot wait to go home and not be in the humidity for a few weeks. It’s going to be great.

Snapshot Monday: On the Town

It’s warm and humid, a hot night, a sweaty night. The air makes skin sticky and walking slow. People lounge on the outdoor tables of restaurants, their cups of beer and water sweating and making puddles. A homeless man has set up a box and blanket in front of a mural near the tables, where people are coming out of the ice cream shop. It is bright under the streetlights, and he stands next to it and plays his violin. The box has a few dollar bills in it, a few coins. The violin is shiny like his bald head, and better cared-for.

He stands and plays. For a while, he talks to two girls. They look a little uncomfortable, but they don’t leave. “You two buddies?” he asks, and they hug each other and grin. He tells them about a poem, an Italian poem that is sad and beautiful. He tells them about the poet, a man whose only love affairs were unrequited. He recites the poem for them. His voice is low and rhythmic, he speaks poetry the way it was meant to be heard. He does not stumble, he rocks back and forth on his heels with his eyes half-closed while he speaks. It is a beautiful sad poem on a beautiful sad night, and this beautiful sad man recites in his low voice, and the girls feel the kind of despair that would make someone memorize a poem like this. He speaks of balconies and quiet rooms, of goodnights left unanswered, of nature that will not give hope, of eyes that will not shine, except with tears.

When he is done, he says, “That is art. Art makes happy things even happier, and sad things beautiful.”

The girls thank him and go home to their beds, and he stays on the street and plays his shiny violin to a night that is not listening.

---

The poem, if you are interested, is The Evening of the Holiday, by Giacomo Leopardi.

Thoughts from Thursday: YouTube and John Green

The movie Paper Towns comes out today (well, technically it comes out tomorrow but we’re seeing it tonight, as there is no longer such thing as a midnight showing). I’m excited because the cast is superb, the book is great, and John Green is one of my favorite humans on earth. John is the author of Paper Towns and it’s genuinely a little bizarre to see him on red carpets and movie sets, since I’m used to seeing him behind a camera in his office in his vlogbrothers videos.

YouTube fame in general is a little weird to me; I feel like I have a very personal and important connection to John and his brother Hank, and to Hannah Hart and Tyler Oakley and Charlie McDonnell, although they don’t know me or even that I exist. It’s  different from Hollywood fame or the noteriety that comes from politics because we ‘know’ those people through the things they create and the characters they project. They have a public persona and usually are closed about their private life. YouTube blurs the lines between public and private personas; while I obviously don’t know Hank Green personally, for example, but he has become an important and distinct part of my life, different from the way actors are. I ‘know’ him, what he likes and how he talks and the things he cares about, but it’s also clear that I don’t know him. I met him at a convention and could barely even speak, because I felt all at once that immeasurable gap between me and him, because you can’t know someone who doesn’t know you, not really.

Character Tuesday: Some ideas

Guys, I may have to rethink this character Tuesday thing. I just don’t have that many characters in the works. I thought I did, and then I abandoned most of them because I’m flaky and they bore me. Also, I’m not sure character bios are really the best way to introduce or flesh out a character, even if I’m just doing it for myself. I wrote a short story a few days ago and I didn’t even know most of the important parts of my narrator’s personality until I was almost at the very end. It was a boss story. Well, I thought so, but I’m sure I’ll find out for real during my writer’s workshop on Thursday (eek).

It’s possible that creating a character bio can set a personality in stone, and prevent characters from growing and changing. It might be a good place to start, but I’m not sure the characters that I bio like I have been are actually the most realistic or compelling of the characters I’ve written. 

Fiction Friday: Set a Scene

The area was deserted, but not deserted enough. I was already some way off the road. The ground was soft and mushy; it clung to my feet like it was trying to keep me there. I yanked my feet out of the mud with every step. To my right, a pyramid of logs rose up. The loggers might be back soon, wonder what  Iwas doing there. I couldn’t hide behind the logs themselves. There was a herd of sheep milling stupidly about the ragged grass a few hundred meters away. they wouldn’t even notice if I barrelled through them with a rifle and a butcher’s knife, but they must have a shepherd nearby, too. Even devoid of people, this place seemed like it was being watched. I turned back to the logs and pulled my feet out of the mud. Maybe there were some woods around here, since these logs couldn’t have come from too far away. I could hide there and figure out what to do next. Unless the loggers were there, in which case I was in even more trouble. I looked back at my line of footprints in the mud and scowled. Nothing to be done about that.

---

This was yet another prompt for class, because I keep forgetting about Fiction Friday and not preparing anything in time. The prompt was to write a scene from the point of view of a man who had just murdered someone, without mentioning the murder. How did I do?

What’s Up Wednesday: Chicago!

School is school, but I did have a few fun things going on last weekend. For the 4th of July my friend and I went to her parent’s house to see the fireworks. My dad has never been thrilled with the idea of hearing obnoxiously loud noises and dealing with traffic to see fireworks on the 4th, so instead, we would always go to the top of the hill behind our house. We could see practically the whole city, and we sat in our lawn chairs in the dark and quiet and got to see the little fireworks shows from all over town. This was really cool, and it meant that not only did we not have to deal with the crush of people downtown, but we also got to see about ten different shows. They are still bright and colorful and impressive, even from far away.

But this year I got to see fireworks close up, for the first time that I can remember on the 4th. It wasn’t the most spectacular show in the whole wide world (I’ve seen the one at Disneyland, and that took the cake), but it was fun to see all the kids running around with their little sparklers and everyone all set up with their blankets and beers. As a bonus, my friend and I also bought sparklers. This may seem like a little thing, but they’re not legal in Colorado (too many wild fires) so it was really fun for me to run around with sparks and try to catch fireflies, which we also don’t have in Colorado. My friend’s family was lovely, and one of the guys (an uncle?) seemed at least as excited as I was about how awesome it is that we can make things explode in specific patters and colors. He also knew about FPS, so we had a good conversation about geeky stuff. 

Snapshot Monday: An Excerpt

I know I missed Thursday’s post, and I don’t even really have a good excuse. I will be buying my sister another gelato to make up for it, unless someone has a better punishment suggestion.

This is an excerpt for the same story as the last post, which I’ll post in its entirety after I get it edited. You can think of this as a teaser, except it’s a short story so there’s not really that much to tease.

---

Carmen first introduced me to Ella at a house party. It wasn’t surprising to see Carmen curved around someone on a couch, but what struck me was how she put up with Ella playing wither her hair. I’d tried to do Carmen’s hair exactly once, after which she took the whole thing apart and put it in a ponytail, but Ella braided and re-braided Carmen’s hair, more and more slowly after every drink.

Character Tuesday: Carmen and Cecilia

“You’re too good for this world.”

I snorted. “Relax, it’s just cake. I wouldn’t have even made it if you weren’t so totally pathetic.” I said.

“Okay, fine, Cecilia. Don’t take a compliment.”

“Okay fine, Carmen,” I mimicked. “I won’t.

On the table between us, the phone rang. “Don’t answer,” I said. Carmen tapped the dark wood and scowled. “Don’t,” I repeated as her fingers inched toward the phone. I snatched it away from her and hit ‘ignore’, then rolled my eyes. “You’re absurd.” I deleted her background picture– Ella flipping her sun streaked hair– and replaced it with one of our dog.

“She still has some of my shirts,” Carmen grumbled.

Fiction Friday: A Single Sentence

She knew it was a lie, but they stepped out into the sunlight together anyways, into the harsh brightness, the unforgiving glare that spun above and watched her all day long, and she didn’t tell him anything, not with the cracked words in the middle of the night, not with a frilled laugh in the daytime, not into his ear while they danced in the poisonous sunlight, the sunlight that never shone to his blinded eyes, that never revealed more than her voice did, that burned his skin without his notice while she danced with him and their shoes got dusty on the sunbaked, solid ground, while it reminded her with every scorching ray that they had lied, that he would never see the truth, that she could never correct this to his failing vision.

---

This is a very short fiction and I’m sorry to be so brief, but it’s based on a prompt in class. We had to write for five minutes without ending the sentence. It was a fun exercise and I think I’ll try it again sometime.