Incognito

“What’s your name?” the girl asked.

Jesse shoved his hands into his pockets and hoped his hat covered his hair adequately. “Thom,” he said. He would answer to that in a crowd.

“Oh.” The girl’s expression was disappointed. “It’s just - you look like Jesse Carlisle.”

“Who?” he asked, and was pleased that his innocent mien was holding. He wouldn’t be much of an actor if he couldn’t keep up this one small façade.

The girl looked exasperated. “The villian from the new Angel Revelations film,” she said. She flipped her hair over her shoulder with an impatient gesture. “I suppose since you’re a boy you don’t really care, but Jesse Carlisle’s a really hot, really talented actor from England.”

Jesse blinked and tried not to let his surprise show. His managers had ranted and raved about the reviews he was getting in the press, but he’d never been confronted so brazenly by a teenage girl’s opinion. “Oh. I’m sure he’d be, er, really flattered to hear you say that.”

“You really look like him,” the girl said again, and peered closer.

He backed up a step. “I guess that’s a compliment, then,” he said cautiously.

The girl studied his face a moment longer, then sighed and stepped back. “Well, it was nice meeting you, Thom.” She waved and walked away.

Jesse watched her go, relief spreading through him. He nearly had a heart attack when Thom came careening around the corner with a cry of, “Jesse!”

The girl, who was halfway down the pavement, turned around. Her eyes went wide.

Jesse grabbed Thom’s wrist and dragged him into the nearest shop. “Time to go!”

(274 words)

Inter-office Cooperation

Jennifer hung back and watched Samantha talking to the really hot lawyer who worked in the firm on the third floor. Sam worked at that office too, ostensibly as a secretary, so the were probably talking business, but goodness gracious the man was fun to watch.

As soon as the man was gone, Jennifer stepped out from the around the corner as if she’d just gotten off the elevator, and she slung an arm around Sam’s shoulders.

“So I saw you talking to Counselor Hotness,” she said.

Sam rolled her eyes. “You shouldn’t talk about one of the senior partners like that.”

Jennifer craned her neck to peer at the man’s retreating figure. “He’s really a senior partner? He’s so young.”

“He’s a hotshot litigator.” Sam steered the both of them toward the hoagie stand that stood next to the Starbucks kiosk. “Come on - let’s get some food.”

“You should totally come on to him,” Jennifer said. “Isn’t that what hotshot lawyers do? Spend way too many hours at work and have sordid love affairs with their secretaries?”

“I’m glad you think so much of the legal profession,” Sam drawled. “And there are rules about that sort of thing - sexual harassment goes every which way now.”

Jennifer laughed. “You need to loosen up a bit, Sam. You get to see him every day, enjoy his Adonis-like beauty. You should be a happy, happy girl!”

Sam opened her mouth to reply, but her cell phone rang. She checked the number and winced. “It’s one of the senior partners. Go - get us the usual.” She pushed Jennifer toward the hoagie stand.

Jennifer, still laughing, went to stand in line behind the other office workers on her lunch break. She didn’t see the smirk that crossed Sam’s face as she answered the phone, didn’t hear the conversation that followed.

“What is it, Counselor Hotness?”

“Is that what she calls me?”

“That’s a direct quote.”

“She still thinks you’re a secretary and doesn’t know you’re my wife, right?”

“It’s going to stay that way as long as possible,” Sam said, and darted a glance at Jennifer, who was flirting with one of the mail room boys from the accounting firm on the fourth floor. “Now get home and check on our son, all right?”

Her husband laughed and disconnected. Sam slid her cell phone into her bag and went to join Jennifer at her usual table.

“You know,” Sam said, “I should tell him you call him Counselor Hotness.”

Jennifer snorted delicately. “You don’t have the nerve.”

Same smiled and lied. “That’s true.”

(430 words)

What Did You Do?

David stared in shock at what he saw. He was not sure if sleep deprivation was causing him to hallucinate, or what he was seeing was real. He closed and slowly opened his eyes again, the sight did not change.

"What did you do?" David advanced on his men, the three of them backing away from their leader.

Joe, Brian and Mark backed up until they were against the wall.

David was tired, he was sore, he had been pushed about as far as he could go. And now, he was angry.

Joe was edging away from his angry commander, but froze when David barked "Attention!" They all jerked to a halt and felt themselves snap to attention, years of training betraying their desire to run from the ire of their commander.

"I asked you a question." David's voice was deadly quiet.

David sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as Joe broke into a rambling story.

Steve, who was standing to the side rolled his eyes at Joe's story.

"And that's what happened." Joe finally seemed to take a breath, the others nodding.

"Just fix it." David said in exasperation. He turned to Steve, his second in command and walked away with him, conversing quietly.

"Yes sir." they chorused meekly and moved away from their commander, gathering tools.

David turned to look at the damage. The drivers side mirror had been sheered off of the car body.

Brian shot a look at Mark. "What if...?"

"Shut it. What he doesn't know won't kill us."

"You and your stupid ideas Joe." Mark growled at him.

"Hey, I kept him from killing us, and if we play it smart, he'll never know what really happened." Joe shot back.

The others grumbled as they set to repairing their leaders car.

Another Left Behind

The four young men waited. They had been there for a while, marking time until the fifth arrived and they could be on their way.

Joe, Steve, and Mark were getting impatient for David to get there. They tossed a baseball back and forth, acting like the young men that they were, but anxious to be gone.

Steve checked his watch again for the tenth time. "He's never late, at least I have never known him to be late. Do you guys think something happened to him?"

"Naw," Mark piped up, deftly catching the ball that Brian had careened at his head. "He's probably just stuck in traffic or something. Nothing to be worried about."

"Yeah," Brian said taking his turn with the ball, "I mean, have you ever known a time that David couldn't handle himself?"

"I suppose not, but it's still strange that he's not here yet," Steve said, glancing at his watch again.

"Oh, you worry to much. Someone would think you were his mother." Joe reached over and punched Steve on the shoulder.

Steve sighed and pulled down his shirt sleeve to cover his watch, trying not to think about the minutes passing by. Steve kept an eye out for David as the others game of catch turned into at throwing contest that devolved into a wrestling match.

Steve perked up at the sound of a roaring engine heading their way.

David pulled up to the curb in his black Camero that he drove and opened the door. Killing the engine he stepped out and faced his crew.

"Where ya been man?" Joe called from the pile of bodies on the ground.

"You okay boss?" Steve asked quietly?

Rain had begun to fall, and David did not bother to take off his sunglasses even though the sun was starting to go down.

David looked down at his men on the ground until they pulled themselves to their feet, dusting off their clothes. He looked over at Steve. "I'm fine." His voice was flat, nothing to hint at any type of emotion at all. "Get in." He ordered them.

The three men piled into the back, still shoving each other playfully.

Steve slid into the passenger and David climbed behind the wheel.

"Boss..."

"I said I'm fine." His tone was harsh. The three in the back quieted down suddenly.

David started the car with a roar and accelerated away from the curb, rounding corners and blowing through stop signs until they reached the highway.

Joe, Mark and Brian began talking quietly. David looked in the rear view mirror at the city he was leaving behind. "I'm fine he whispered to himself."

But he knew it was a lie.

Helping a Friend

“I did it because I had to.” His eyes were dark, solemn. His calm expression belied the stain of arterial spray across his face, the gore dripping from his hands.

“Eddie,” she said. Her voice wavered, but her gun didn’t.

He kept his hands in the air, his back to the wall. “You know what they did to me. I had no choice. It was the only way.”

She took a deep breath to steady herself before the memories hit, because they always did, at just the wrong moment. Eddie’s voice, so small and soft as he wept in the darkness in the bed across from hers, the sound of fists on flesh coming from the shadows across the hall -- she did know what they’d done to him, and heaven help her if she wasn’t fiercely glad he’d done it.

“You can’t stay here,” she said finally. “Find the Merchant - he’ll get you out safely.”

“They won’t just let me walk out of here alive.”

She gestured with the gun. “Then distract them.”

He studied her expression.

She sighed. “Don’t hit anything vital.”

“All right.” And he lunged. They grappled, exchanged blow for blow in smooth martial precision, and then he pinned her down, shot her through the shoulder. He was out the window and down the fire escape in two seconds. Three seconds later, back-up arrived. Simons knelt beside her and put pressure on the wound, screaming into his cell phone for a bus.

The paramedics arrived quickly enough, but Eddie was a good shot and even though her shoulder hurt something fierce she knew she would be fine. As the paramedics wheeled her away on the stretched, Simons hovered anxiously.

“Did the suspect say anything?”

“No. I had him cornered and we fought and he got my gun and --”

Simons smoothed a hand over her hair. “Hey, hey, it’s not your fault. See you at the hospital.”

She nodded and closed her eyes. She’d see Eddie again. In the meantime, he was safe.

(336 words)

Easier to Lie

“Hey kid, why aren’t you in school?”

Spencer lifted his head and blinked, confused. He’d been so engrossed in his abnormal psychology textbook that he hadn’t even noticed he’d wandered a little too far from campus.

The truant officer who loomed over him looked like every other jerkface cop who’d given him trouble since he’d started, but Spencer didn’t recognize his face. He must have been new, then, and the others probably hadn’t thought to warn him about the little fifteen-year-old kid who had a free pass from the dean of psychology over at UNLV.

“I’m on my way to class, actually.” Spencer pushed his glasses up his nose, clutched his textbook to his chest.

“Then I’ll walk you,” the cop said. He grabbed Spencer by the collar and started to haul him toward the high school.

“Sir, really, I’m not a high school student,” Spencer said. “I mean, I am high school age, but --”

The cop shook him once, roughly, and Spencer felt, rather sourly, like a mistreated puppy.

“Shut up, kid. Who’s your homeroom teacher?”

“Sir --”

“Who?”

Spencer sighed. “Mrs. Putnam.” It was no use telling the truth when they got like this. The cop didn’t let up on his grip on Spencer’s collar, so he had to tacitly consent to being dragged along like a sack of potatoes. He’d been into the high school before on excursions just like this, and he didn’t miss the garish lockers, the crookedly-drawn posters announcing football games and prom.

He didn’t miss any of it.

The cop dragged him down the hall to Mrs. Putnam’s room. He flung open the door, chest puffed out like a grand-standing terrier, and hauled Spencer in front of her desk.

“You missing a student, ma’am?” He kept his voice gruff. Did he think he was Clint Eastwood?

Mrs. Putnam peered at Spencer over the top of her glasses and smiled sympathetically. “You must be new, Officer Jenkins. Mr. Reid is not a student here, or at any high school in this district. Perhaps your fellow officers neglected to mention it to you. Spencer, aren’t you late for class?”

“My Jung seminar was cancelled for the day, actually.” Spencer felt the cop’s grip on him relax, and he squirmed free. “Have a good day, Mrs. Putnam. Sorry to interrupt.” And he left the humiliated cop behind. Some days, it was just easier to lie.

(402)

Hurt

Elizabeth swallowed all the words she wanted to say to Damien, all the avowals of love and unending passion. She knew she had to say the words that would drive him away, that would keep him safe.

Damien looked at her with his emotions evident in his face.

And even though she knew it would make them both miserable, she said the words.

"I don't love you Damien, I never did."

Elizabeth watched as something died in his eyes. Damien nodded and turned away from Elizabeth.

Elizabeth watched him go, knowing that it was best for the both of them. She watched him until he turned the corner and walked out of her life forever.

She allowed only a single tear to run down her face. Elizabeth wiped away the tear and turned to her equipment.

Small White Lie

"So what do you think?" Sara turned in a circle next to her friend, showing off the dress she was wearing.

Heather stifled a small smile, "do you like it?"

Sara smiled, "yes I do." The dress was a frilly, frothy type of concoction. Pink and white. It was almost as if she had stepped out of Victorian England. Heather was surprised that the design had lasted so long.

"Then I think it looks great."

Speaking in Tongues

Michael stared helplessly at the newspaper. Behind him, a pair of women conversed in low, hushed tones. They were speaking Russian.

“Tonight, then,” the first said. “It will be simple - just infiltrate the party. I will take down the guards. The vault is in his office on the third floor.”

“Third floor - facing the garden or the street?”

“The street - it will make for an easy escape. Here, take this make-up compact. Beneath the powder compartments are some electronic skeleton keys, one for his office door, one for the safe.”

There was a rustling of fabric as the women exchanged items.

“Thank you. And the dead drop?”

“At the Champs Elysées fifteen minutes after infiltration.”

“I’ll be there.”

Greg trotted back from the ice cream stand, studying his newly-acquired treat. “Can you even read French?” he asked, gesturing to Michael’s newspaper.

“Not at all,” Michael said. He’d told Greg, once, long ago, that his mother had been French, but if Greg couldn’t remember, it was his own downfall.

Greg leaned in and lowered his voice. “Those chicks behind you are hot. Gonna try to talk to one of them?”

“They’re tourists like we are, man,” Michael said.

“How do you know?”

“They’re speaking in Russian.”

“Oh. Do you understand Russian?” Greg licked at his ice cream.

Michael shot him a look.

Greg raised one hand in a defensive gesture. “Hey, we’re on vacation. I thought it’d be safe to ask.”

“Whatever. I’m going back to the hotel.”

“Why?”

“I have some stuff I want to do,” Michael said. “Touristy stuff. Meet you at Notre Dame tonight for the evening mass?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’m gonna go on that Hemingway tour, if you’re in,” Greg said. His expression said he didn’t care whether or not Michael came.

Good.

Michael slid the newspaper into a nearby recycling bin. “All right. Catch you later.” He turned and headed for the hotel. He had a date tonight - at the Champs Elysées.

(329 words)

Bento

“Do you like it?” Hitomi asked anxiously. She hovered beside him on the bench, watching as he picked at the onigiri with his chopsticks. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he was probably one of the only Japanese boys in the world who hated onigiri, even ones made to look like cute usagi and koinu and koneko. He wondered if he could peel away some of the nori and just pick at the rice; he hated red beans, too.

“It’s good,” he said finally, and took a tiny stab of the rice. He didn’t know how to tell her that it was his mother’s fault for marrying a gaijin, for turning him into a mixed-breed who wasn’t Japanese enough to like onigiri and not German enough to like sausage. He speared up a piece of tempura and chewed it thoughtfully. It was delicious. “Saaa...Hitomi-chan, oishii!”

She beamed and clapped her hands. “I’m glad you like it, Richie-san. I’ll see you in class, ne?” And she bounded over to her waiting friends, whereupon they burst into mad giggles.

As soon as she was out of sight, Richie finished the tempura and dumped the onigiri. Then he dug into his backpack for the lunch his mother had packed and ate all but the sausage. He even ate the saurkraut.

(224 words)

K-rock

“I really, really like this band,” Tommy said. He nodded his head to the beat, watching his iPod screen.

Jeff craned his neck to peer over Tommy’s shoulder at the music video. They boys in the video - four - wore outrageously gothic outfits and headbanged wildly. They were all Asian of one sort or another - Japanese or Chinese or Korean; Jeff had never been able to tell which.

“Can you even understand what they’re saying?” he asked.

Tommy rolled his eyes. “It’s not about the lyrics, man. Jingles have proven that a song is good even with different lyrics. It’s about the music.”

Again with the high-browed aesthetic philosophy. Tommy’s older brother really had to put his philosophy books on a shelf Tommy couldn’t reach.

“Do you have any of their other stuff?” Jeff asked.

“Only what I could find on YouTube. They’re Korean, but they can sing in English and Japanese too,” Tommy said. He pointed. “Look at that! He can totally shred. When was the last time you saw an American act that good?”

“Whatever,” Jeff said, but he was secretly impressed.

“According to some of the fan forums I checked out, this song is a couple of years old, but I don’t read Korean, so I haven’t gotten a line on anything more recent,” Tommy said. “I’d really, really like one of their CDs. Maybe my mom’ll get me one for Christmas.”

Across the hallway at the other bank of lockers, Hyun Lee was rearranging the contents of his backpack. Jeff spotted him immediately.

“Hey, the exchange student - he’s Korean, right? I’ll bet he’d know.” Jeff beckoned. “Hey, Hyun Lee, come over here!”

Hyun Lee turned and raised his eyebrows. Jeff nodded. He didn’t really like talking to Hyun Lee, because all the girls flirted with him and thought he was pretty, but he barely spoke English, and the sudden rush of popularity was enough to annoy pretty much every other guy in the junior class.

Hyun Lee crossed the hall, dodging some of the older students, and came to stand beside them.

“Yes?”

Jeff pointed to Tommy’s iPod screen. “You know this band? They’re Korean.”

Hyun Lee studied the screen thoughtfully, and an unreadable expression crossed his face. But then he shrugged. “Sorry. Never heard of them.”

“Thanks anyway, man,” Jeff said.

Hyun Lee nodded and went back to his locker. Tommy and Jeff began arguing about whether or not Asian kids could even do real rock’n’roll, and neither of them noticed Hyun Lee, smirking, pick up a guitar case and head for the door.

(429 words)

Bright Lights

Bright lights burst overhead. Red, white, and every other color you could imagine. The heat is fading with the setting sun. Rock music blares in the background, and families and friends mill about the large grassy fields. There is an abundance of food and laughter flows as freely as soda and beer. Snap lights glow in the gathering darkness, children running wild in the night. A yearly celebration of freedom.

Where have you been?

"Where have you been?!"

"I was out with a friend."

"A friend?"

"Yes."

"So what did you do?"

"We went to a movie."

"Which one?"

"Australia. What is going on? Why are you so worried about where I have been."

"Haven't you heard the news?"

"Apparently not. What happened?"

"The Rebel leader in Kazakhstan has been assassinated."

"Really? When did that happen?"

"Just now. They said that the assassin might have been injured."

"Well that would make them easier to find I suppose."

The woman walked into her room wincing just slightly. She shrugged out of her long coat and looked at the white bandage on her arm. Oh, she knew alright. And the world was better off without him.

Project Assignment # 14 - The Lie

This week is to write a piece in which a lie is used. It can be a big lie, it can be a small lie, an innocuous lie or one that is life changing. You can use characters you have established, create new characters or write a random scene between two people. It can be dialoug or otherwise. It can be a lie of convenience or of malice. The sky is the limit.

Lets sent the word count to 500

Overview #13- Places

I thoroughly enjoyed this project. It was fun to describe both real and imagined places. Places I have been and places I have not. I did fudge at one point and described a person, but I thought it was not so bad.

The first place I described, the kitchen, is a most familiar place. I did struggle to come up with the sounds that make up the kitchen. The various tones. I found myself the next day listening and trying to define those sounds. Most were accurate, some were not.

I found that I alternated between real places and imaginary places.

This was a really fun week.

Overview #13 - Places

I'd been wanting to do this exercise for a while, because I needed it desperately. My limited sense of spatial perception makes it almost impossible for me to properly describe scenery while writing a scene, and often it's clear where the characters are in relation to each other but the setting is blank - at least to me, or it's filled in by a scene from real life, a place I really know, which is why I started off with an actual place. I just sat there in the library and turned phrases over in my head until I thought I had an accurate verbal picture of a place I avoid rather strenuously. I tried to mix it up a bit - I think I only did one outdoor scene, but I did different places - a library, a pub/bar/thing, a habitation, a work-place. It was good fun, seeing the places through someone else's eyes, or even my own.

I take it back, I did two outdoor scenes, one of which was a confederate army camp. Even though I know such long description wouldn't really fly in my ordinary narration, I do have to learn how to weave it in, and I thought I'd take the opportunity to learn to describe physical detail as well as try to create an emotional backdrop of a location, and I think I did all right. Who knows what comes next?

Grease-monkey Central

The battered radio in the corner blared loud dance-rock, and someone somewhere hummed tunelessly to the beat. In counterpoint to the music someone was drilling, or using a high-powered screwdriver, or something, because there was a repetitive, high-pitched power-tool shriek, occasionally punctuated by curses as something went wrong. The scent of gasoline and oil was overwhelming, and both substances were smeared across the floor in casual splashes, as if Jackson Pollock had come through drunk. Cold air blew in a steady draft beneath the bottom of the garage door, which needed new weather-stripping. Someone hit his head on something he shouldn’t have, which set off a round of cursing and a series of metallic thuds as car parts landed on the ground. Three tall red tool-boxes stood free and proud in the middle of the cement floor like misplaced modern art sculptures and were scrupulously organized, if grease-stained. Someone - perhaps the chief mechanic’s wife - had nailed a coat rack to the back wall, and from it hung several grey, oil-stained overalls, each paired with a different-colored bandanna; there was one for each mechanic. The microwave in the opposite corner from the radio let out a ping and emitted smoke and the scent of too-cooked instant burrito, and the punch-clock on top of it rattled dangerously. In ten minutes, the corpse-like cars up on blocks would be swarmed with boys in overalls, and lunch break would begin.

(248 words)