Gunny

MAUDE’S JOURNAL

                                                   Friday, Night Time

Photo: zeusitup.com

I don’t like the way they look at me. All… mucky. Their faces, mucky. They don’t like me, I see it, I know, but they don’t care, and the other ones, they don’t see them. Probably plotting against me, like those things they call spoons. Not utensils, not at all, not when they’re so sinister. Sinister in disguise. I have proof, too. I saw him go, disappear, poof! Right before my eyes. I saw it. They don’t believe me. They laugh, the mocking things. I don’t need them to believe me, I have Gunny. She believes me. Every time I walk past a reflecty, I can tell Gunny what I saw. She waves when I wave, smiles at me like I smile, ‘cause she likes me. And Hans, he’s good. He gets it, he listens, he smiles. Not like the mocking things, they don’t smile or wave. 

             They’re just mucky.

Photo: farm6.staticflickr.com

Saturday, Morning Time

Somebody else went. In the night. I saw it. The mocking things still hate me, don’t believe me. Gunny says be careful.

                                

                            


                                                      Saturday, Night Time

I hear them whispering. All the time, just sneaking, whispering. They say I’m next. The spoons, they’re plotting things. Like the mocking things. Too many things. Gunny looks scared, too. I packed up camp. Not gonna let them poof! Not th-- 

HANS

Photo: essediem.files.wordpress.com

The old man bent to pick up the stray notebook, closed it up, put it on Maude’s crate. She had a disease, one that required medication, but she couldn’t afford it.  She suffered from delusions, hallucinations; she ranted about them to anyone who would listen, about abductions, disappearances, and most people just laughed at her. She was just a crazy person. Few cared to get to know Maude better, to find out whether or not her ravings held some truth. The old man had just recently discovered that when she talked about “spoons”, she didn’t actually mean the flatware. She meant people dressed in odd suits, with rounded helmets. Probably just another of her hallucinations. He wondered where she had gone. 

Photo: farm4.staticflickr.com

Last night she had told him part of one of her abduction stories, one that she’d told some of the other villagers, but they mocked her for it. They didn’t believe her, because it was so implausible. He never got to hear the ending. He’d hoped to hear it tonight. He looked at the horizon; it was getting late. His wife was holding dinner for them, him and Maude. It was Maude’s favorite. She’d turn up eventually. She wandered often, getting lost in thought or running from the “spoons”. He pulled his jacket tighter around him, and began the walk home, odd whispers filling the night air at his back.

Like a Girl

When you tell me I run

"like a girl"

Australia's Melissa Wu
Photo: abc.net.au

You're telling me I run with grace and poise.

When you tell me I throw

"like a girl"

You're telling me I throw with strength and power.

When you tell me I jump

"like a girl"

You're telling I jump with more force of will and ambition than you have ever seen.

When you tell me I think

"like a girl"

You're telling me what I already know--

That you have forced yourself into labeling me,

that you have allowed yourself to be duped into the false security

of assumptions.

Australia's Sally Pearson
Photo: abc.net.au

I do throw

"like a girl",

I throw with power and calculated force.

I threw you for a loop, didn't I?

I threw you off,

startled you,

gave you what you didn't expect,

proved you wrong,

you don't have to tell me twice,                   
I already know.

Photo: naaree.com

You can't change me by telling me what you think I don't want to hear,

Can't insult me with your words,

Because I hear your words for what they really are--

Your insecurity.

Photo: tedxwaterloo.com

So I'll just keep on doing what I'm doing--

I'll keep on being me--

And if that upsets you,

I'll even respond

"like a girl"--

With the self assurance and the knowledge

that I am who I want to be.

So the next time you tell me I do something

"like a girl",

I'll say

"thank you!"

And I'll walk away like a

Woman--

Like

Me.

 USA's Sanya Richards Ross
Photo: csmonitor.com

Guest Post: Jibril

Today's guest blogger is Mary Jeddore Blakney with an excerpt from her novel Resist the Devil:

Photo: harrycutting.blogspot.com

I am of the mujihadeen.

My father was a traitor and now he abides in the fire where he belongs. I will not be like him.

I am of the faithful ones and my day will come. The unbelievers will be surprised, and I will secure my place in the Garden.


My mother is a fool.

She listens to the lies of the unbelievers. 

 But I am of the faithful ones and my day will come.

Photo: zawaj.com

I will secure my place in the Garden, and my mother’s eyes will be opened and she will be saved from the fire.


I am Jibril: Mighty One of God.

My day has not yet come, but it will come.

Perhaps my preparation will take longer than I had thought, but it will come.

I will be diligent and study, and I will secure my place in the Garden, and save my mother from the fire.


My training has taken longer than I ever imagined.

Photo: flickriver.com

I have studied, I have researched, I have developed discipline, endurance, strength and skill.

My day draws near.

I am of the mujihadeen.

Deluded

Photo: profail.deviantart.com

I wonder if this makes sense.

We sit here and smile as though  

we're both content,

When we both know there is 

nothing left to say,

nowhere left to go,

And we are caught

in a never ending loop of

"I'm fine"s, and rote interaction.

Things were great, for a while,

but then we couldn't ignore our

lies, our insecurities; our inability

To see past ourselves.

Selfish. We were selfish. 

To be honest, I think you still are.

Photo: andrea-mission-possible.blogspot.com

I mean, come on. Who were you 

kidding when you said you loved me?

You can't love me. You don't even love 

Yourself. Let me tell you,

It's not easy being the third wheel

In a two-person relationship.

                                     

Photo: tumblr.com

 I can't fix you.

I never could.

I just wish I'd realized it sooner.

Here's hoping the next girl you 

snag isn't so deluded.

Guest Post: The Art of Losing Things

Today's guest blogger is Mary Jeddore Blakney:

“When are you going to grow up and figure out what you want to do with your life?” Normally Lara would have felt proud of her brother Eric, looking so handsome in his dressy polo shirt with those touches of premature grey at his temples. But not today.

Photo: stockbyte/thinkstock

He had stopped by to pick up some well water. After six months she had finally managed to convince him that he was wasting money buying water at the supermarket. He was wasting packaging, too, but she wasn’t sure he cared about that.

“I know what I want to do with my life,” she answered him, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice, handing him a gallon apple juice jug full of water. The next one was labeled “Fruit Punch.” She opened it, positioned it in the sink and turned the faucet on.

“Well, what?” Eric spread his arms out in a huge, lopsided shrug, his left hand going only halfway out because of the weight of the jug. “Are you keeping it a secret?” Lara just shook her head.

He put the apple juice jug down by the door with the rest of them and used his right thumb to dial his phone. Then he walked to the bay window in the dining room and dialed again. “And why do you live out here?” he yelled from the dining room. “You don’t even have phone signal. Don’t you people believe in towers?”

“I get signal on my phone,” she answered, turning off the faucet and capping the jug. Apple juice again. She brought it to the door herself since it was the last one.

“Well, let me use your phone, then.” He put his own back in the pouch on his belt and held his hand out.

Lara shook her head again. “I don’t know where it is.” She opened a closet, grabbed her painting smock from a hook and put it on over her head. It was an old dress, big enough to fit into two or two or three times over, in a style that had been madly in fashion for a few months about ten years ago.

Eric averted his eyes from the hideous dress. “You lost your phone—again?”

Lara just looked him in the eyes, feeling sheepish.

“How long since you’ve had it?”

She made a face.

“How long?”

“About a week, I guess.” She uncapped a couple of paint tubes, the yellow and the white, for the sky.

Eric sighed. “Well,” he said, “let me use your house phone, then.”

She handed him the cordless handset. “You can’t call long distance, though.”

The look he gave her would have withered an oak tree. “Really?” The word came out in a squeak.

“I mean,” she explained, “it’s not in my plan.”

“Oh,” he said. “Why not?”

“I have my cell phone.”

He just stared at her.

She shrugged. “Except when I don’t.”

“How exactly did you manage to lose your cell phone,” he asked, “again?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I ought to be on medicine.” She capped the paints again. It was no use trying to work now: she couldn’t concentrate.

Eric wiped his forehead like it was sweaty, even though it wasn’t. “If it’s medicine you need, go see a doctor. Make an appointment right now. Come with me, we’ll borrow a phone, one that gets signal, and get you an appointment.” He opened the door and grabbed two of the jugs.

Lara grabbed two more. “I can’t. I don’t have insurance.”

“Don’t you qualify for free care?” he asked, walking out.

“I think I do,” she answered, following him, “or I would, if it weren’t for the red tape.”

“What do you mean, red tape?”

Photo: moneycrashers.com

“All that paperwork.”

“So fill out the paperwork.” They lifted the four jugs into his trunk, which was already open.

“I started to,” she said. They started back to the house for the rest of the jugs.

“What happened?”

“So many questions.”

“So answer them.”

“Half of them are unanswerable.”

“What do you mean, unanswerable?” They grabbed the rest of the jugs.

“I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Well, can you show me?”

“I don’t know where it is.”

“Well, when did you have it last?” They put the jugs in the trunk again.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” he put his hand on the trunk lid and waited until she was clear of it before slamming it down.

“I probably had it when I was asleep.”

“Oh, come on!”

“No, I mean,” she began, but it was hard to find the right words. “I,” she started again, and stalled again.

“Take your time,” Eric said, and leaned his elbows on his trunk, to slow himself down. “I’m listening.”

“Sometimes I go through life half asleep,” she said. “Caffeine doesn’t help; I can’t give myself a sugar high; exercise doesn’t help. And that’s when I lose things; when I come out of it, things are missing.”

His head was down, his hands folded, the bridge of his nose on the tips of his thumbs. “You do need to be on medicine,” he said firmly, looking up.

“I’m worried, though, Eric,” she told him. “What if it makes me lose my artistic ability?”

“What artistic ability?” he scoffed. “You waste your time painting and dreaming. We’re talking about real life here.”

The phone rang from inside the house.

“Go get it,” he said, “I’ve got to go anyway. I have to make this call.”

“Lara!” the voice on the phone gushed, “How come you were holding out on us?”

“Holding out on you?” Lara repeated stupidly. She hadn’t placed the caller’s voice yet.

“I had no idea you were so talented.”

“Oh, thank you,” Lara replied. She knew who had called, now: it was a woman she was friendly with, had met a few times. Her name was Jodie. “To what do I owe the random compliment?” she asked.

“Oh, I just saw your website.” Jodie explained. “I had no idea.”

“Oh. Thank you,” said Lara again. The conversation felt awkward, and she didn’t want to talk on the phone right now, anyway. She wanted to paint.

“Why didn’t you tell me you could paint like that?” Jodie asked.

“I don’t know, I—“ Lara stammered. “I thought I’d mentioned that I like to paint, sorry.”

“Like to paint!” Jodie mocked. “This is a whole lot more than just liking to paint. This is talent. I had no idea.”

“Well, thank you,” Lara said again. She didn’t know what else to say.

“You shouldn’t hide it,” Jodie advised. “You should be in a gallery. There’s a nice one in Setterton.”

“Yeah,” Lara agreed. “I like that one.”

“Or there’s Diamante Gallery in Hillsborough,” said Jodie. “I don’t know what ‘Diamante’ means, but it’s another option, I guess.”

“’Diamante’ is Spanish for ‘diamond,’” Lara answered, “but I don’t know why they named it that. I saw a nice pottery exhibit there a few years ago.”

“Well, anyway,” Jodie went on, “you should be in one of them—your paintings should, I mean.”

“Sounds nice,” Lara replied. She wanted to paint.

“So which one?” Jodie asked. She sounded excited.

“Which one what?”

“Which gallery do you want your paintings in, of course.”

“Oh, well, either one would be great, for sure.”

“So pick one,” said Jodie, “and let me know when I can see it there. I can’t wait to show all my friends. I can’t believe I know you.”

“Whoa, there!” Lara covered her eyes with her left hand, glad Jodie couldn’t see it. “Wait a minute. Getting into a gallery isn’t that easy.”

“But you’re that good,” Jodie argued. “Sure, it’s not easy for us regular people, but for you it’s no problem. That’s why the galleries are there, Lara. They need artists like you, or they wouldn’t exist.”

“Well, thanks for the vote of confidence,” she replied diplomatically.

“Tell you what,” Jodie chirped. “I’ll get you an application, and then you can get started. Oh, it’ll be great! You’re going to be famous, Lara, I just know it, as soon as you get your work out there. But you have to get it out there, first thing. I can see it now, you and me at your exhibit, and all your fans, and we can…”

Lara had been trying hard to pay attention, to follow Jodie’s chatter at least in general, but there were just too many words, coming too fast, and her mind wandered. It didn’t help that she couldn’t see the words—if they’d been text on a page it would have been a little easier, and even better if Jodie had been standing in front of her in person.

What she could see was her painting, sitting there on its easel, waiting for her. Its unfinished state gave it a melancholy look, like harmony without melody, and she couldn’t help feeling sorry for it.

She cradled the phone with her right shoulder and picked up the tube of yellow. She unscrewed the cap and stared at the tiny foil seal, wishing Jodie would stop chattering and let her break it, squeeze it, mix it, get on to painting.

She could see exactly how she would mix it with the white, exactly how she would apply the mixture to the canvas, exactly how the sunbeam would look when she was finished. She could almost hear it.

She sighed quietly, screwed the cap back on the paint tube and rested her chin on both her hands, her wrists together—and that’s when she realized she was no longer holding the phone.

It didn’t seem to be lying anywhere nearby, so she was going to have to look for it, call Jodie back and apologize.

But where should she look? When Eric had called yesterday, it had rung from the egg-keeper on the top tier of the fridge door. But she hadn’t opened the fridge since Jodie had called. She checked the mail table, all the windowsills in the living room, all the shelves of the art closet, all the steps in the staircase.

She was just getting down to look under the sofa when she heard a sound that reminded her of frightened chickens, and realized the phone had fallen into one of the big front pockets of her smock. Or maybe she’d put it there and forgotten.

“Lara? Did you hear me?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” She stood up, bumping her head lightly on the coffee table. It didn’t hurt, but the stack of books fell over. “That’s great, Jodie, thanks,” she said with a smile, amused that the woman had actually been talking the whole time. She put the phone back on her shoulder and restacked the books.

Jodie was on a roll again, something about the technique some other artist used, da Vinci maybe. Lara took a deep breath and barged in: “In fact, I’m going to start painting here in another minute. I’m sorry, but I have to go. I can’t talk on the phone when I’m painting. It’s a zone thing.”

“Oh, well don’t let me stop you,” Jodie replied. “Any time I call and you’re getting ready to paint, you just let me know, and I’ll go. I don’t want to interfere with your creative process and all.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that,” said Lara sincerely.

“So you get started, then,” Jodie continued. “I’ll stop by the galleries and grab those applications for you in the next couple of days. I have to go to Hillsborough anyway tomorrow. This is so exciting, Lara! Okay, I’ll talk to you later. Go paint.”

“’Kay, thanks, Jodie. Bye” Lara set the handset down in its cradle to charge, went to the kitchen and washed her hands.

She unscrewed the cap to the yellow paint, turned it around and carefully punctured the foil seal. She placed the cap on the tray of her easel, picked up her palette and pinched the end of the tube, down near the crimp. A dab of shiny buttercups appeared and sang a pure single note, an E. She picked up the tube of white paint, opened it, pinched it. White was two notes lower, middle C. She picked up her brush and began to swirl the two colors together, combining the notes until they formed a constant, even harmony.

Photo: 500px.com

Then she turned her attention to the painting. Its incomplete melody sounded flat, looked flat, felt flat. It was a bog or wetland on a dismal, cloudy day. An unfinished bull moose stood half-submerged, his velvety antlers raised high, his chin still dripping from his watery lunch.

She prepared her brush and lovingly applied the paint, adding a shaft of sunshine that broke through the cloud cover. The flat tones of the overcast bog began to recede into the background, began to be the harmony. The yellow hum of sunshine and the strong trumpeting brown of moose-fur began to take their rightful place as the melody.

The music was as real for Lara, its notes as distinct and recognizable, as if it had been an orchestra in front of her instead of a canvas. ‘Synesthesia’, the psychology books called it. But to Lara it was just reality: each shade of color was connected intrinsically to a specific musical note. Or, to put it another way, each musical note was a particular shade of color. When she went to concerts, she would close her eyes and lose herself in the ever-changing storms of color. When she painted, she composed music. She’d never learned to read actual sheet music very well, although it was one of those things she hoped to get to someday, but whenever she looked at anything, its colors sang their notes to her as distinctly as a page of sheet music sang in the mind of a veteran composer. It was one of those things she could never explain well enough for Eric to grasp.

She stood back and surveyed her work, added a brushstroke here, a descant of nearly-pure white there, perfecting the scene, harmonizing the tones, heightening the heavenly crescendo of the sunbeam.

Two discordant notes jangled in the composition, ruining the melody. They weren’t in the clouds: tiny notes of discord, mostly purples and blacks, buzzed in the receding storm clouds. But they were small, quiet, in the background. They provided the sinister counterpoint that emphasized the joy of the sunshine. These notes were in the foreground, overpowering the joy, wrecking the music. For an instant, Lara’s reaction was to check the canvas, see where she’d spilled or smeared or carelessly swiped her brush. Then she realized the offending sounds were not in the painting.

She shook her head, laughing at herself for mistaking the sound of the doorbell for colors in a painting, laughing in giddy relief that her precious “Moose in a Bog” was not ruined. She wiped her hands on her smock and began to lean around the fridge to glance out the window at the driveway, to see whose car was there. She didn’t want company. She wanted to color symphonies and orchestrate sunshine. She wanted to paint.

The doorbell sounded again, double this time: “Ding-dong, ding-dong.”

“Coming!” Lara called. She turned her back to the driveway-window and walked to the door.

Note: The author answered a call from Chainbooks.com to write just the first chapters for several novels, and The Art of Losing Things is one of them. If you'd like to contribute a chapter to The Art of Losing Things, or check out the other novels-in-progress at Chainbooks, click here.

Nowhere

    
    
    

         G’Morning, Cass.

Photo: workplacegiving.co.uk

    It cooled off like crazy last night. Glad I had your sweater to keep me warm. 

    Just wish I had you. 

    Divo reminded me about that free clothes bank we went to. Might as well hit them up before movin’ on. Only gonna get colder, now it’s December. Guess the holidays are comin’ up soon. Everybody’s got them Christmas lights up. Checked the newspapers yesterday. It was the tenth, which makes today the eleventh. Was gonna get you that grey sweater you liked. Finally saved up enough money for it, and I didn’t even have to turn tricks or nothin’, neither. Beena does that, now. Remember when Frankie tried to get you into that? Divo kicked his ass, left him cryin’ in the dirt. Told him it was sick, tryin’ to get a fourteen year old into that. 
    

You were just a kid. 

    

Photo: dan4kent.wordpress.com

    Frankie died last week, too. Just laid down for a nap and didn’t wake up, same as you. Now it’s just me, Beena, and Divo, since Ace left to marry some rich chick last year, and Eezy’s Mama come to get ‘im. 
    

    I miss you, Cass. 

    
   
     



      Remember we used to play that game, I-Spy? You used to go first, but on that last night, you let me.
I said, “I spy, with my little eye, something sweet.” 
You kept guessin’ about the chocolate shop and the coffee place, but you didn’t get it. You fell asleep before you could guess. 

It was you.

Photo: fida-sunshine.blogspot.com

Beena started singin’ your song the other day. Divo joined her, and finally got me to do it, too. My voice isn’t as pretty as yours was. Yours could light me up inside like nothin’ could. Beena says you sang like an angel. Divo says you sang perfect.

I think you sang like home.

    My birthday was yesterday. I didn’t remember, but the others did. Beena made me a card. She used the art supplies she bought, and Divo signed it, too. She made the G  backwards. I gotta give her credit, though. She drew a cake and balloons on the inside and it looked so real, the cake made my mouth water. 

I miss your voice. 

I wish you could sing me to sleep tonight.

I used Beena’s art supplies to make a sign. “Going Nowhere Fast”, just like that social worker said I was doing when she took me out of those foster homes. I remember one night, you asked me if Nowhere was a real place. I said yeah, and you said, “We ever gonna get there, G?”
I said, “Close your eyes, and pray we don’t.”

Photo: rolofoto.net

Guess what, Cass?

I found it.