Change Everything

“I need you to keep a secret for me,” Asia said, apropos of nothing.

Riley blinked. “Me?” He didn’t usually get a sword, so the fact that he was in Asia’s stunt cave of all manliness was a rare event.

Asia nodded without looking at him - she was trying to fix a stray piece of armor. Riley thought that was the costume department’s job, but Asia was filled to the brim with odd skills like that.

“Okay.” Riley set down the stunt sword very carefully, lest she say something utterly shocking and he dropped the sword on his foot. “What’s your secret?”

“It’s for James,” Asia said.

Riley felt himself light up, and it took the best of his actor discipline to smooth his face into a calm, half-interested mien. This was the sort of gossip Fiona and Serena would kill for. “For him? As in I should tell him?”

“As in it’s for his benefit, but I hope for your sake you never have to tell him,” Asia said.

That was downright cryptic and, Riley suspected, not really all that romantic. But he stepped closer and lowered his voice, adopting the demeanor of one both interested and sincere. And he was interested and sincere. But he was also dying of curiosity.

“You can tell me your secret,” he said.

“If something should ever happen to me,” Asia said, “and James ever gets the feeling that he’s being...watched. Or followed. Or whatever. He’s not being paranoid. He needs to get in touch with Tobias immediately and tell him what’s going on, and Tobias will keep him safe.”

Riley raised his eyebrows. “Will something ever happen to you?”

Asia glanced up from her armor-smithing. “These are perilous times, friend.”

“Why would people start following James around if something happened to you?” What could have been immensely romantic was now just confusing. Riley resisted the urge to sigh.

“Because today I’m going to let James kiss me, and that’s going to change everything.”

(334 words)

Spilling the Beans

He was sitting alone on a bench in the park, watching boys kick a football around a field. They had more enthusiasm than skill. James couldn’t remember when he’d been that enthusiastic - about anything, but he was an actor, and he could get by at work without prying questions.

“I’m surprised you’re not out there playing.”

James looked up, saw a stranger standing beside his bench. The stranger was about his age, slender, pale but dark-haired. He had shadows around his eyes and looked tired - or possibly ill.

As if he’d read James’s mind, the man tucked a lock of hair behind one ear and said, “Leukemia. It comes and goes. Makes me look like a zombie.”

“I’m sorry,” James said automatically, British at heart, and then, “Can I help you?”

“Not really.” The man smiled wryly. “I can help you, though.”

“How?”

“I’ll tell you a secret.” The man sat down on the bench beside James, leaned in and lowered his voice. “She’s still alive.”

James felt like he’d been dropped into the middle of an episode of Spooks. Was this a hidden camera prank? “She who?”

The man reached into his jacket. James tensed. They always had weapons in their jackets. He glimpsed dark steel, and his pulse skyrocketed - but then the man handed him a crumpled photograph.

“See the newspaper in the background? This was taken two days ago.”

What James saw in the photo robbed him of breath faster than a gunshot. “Asia.”

“Like I said, she’s still alive. And you can find her.” The man cast a glance over his shoulder. The only person James saw nearby was a skinny girl stretching out for a jog. “I should go. But I thought you should know their little secret.”

“Whose secret?”

The man nodded at the photo. “Theirs. Good luck, James Mallory.”

“Wait - who are you? Will you contact me again?”

“I’m Bob. And probably not.” He ducked his chin into his collar, jammed his hands into his pockets, and walked away.

James studied the photo, and he realized he recognized the others.

Asia’s brothers.

(350 words)

Never Will

I don't think I ever told him about that night. The night I first kissed him. We had talked many times since then, but I don't think he ever knew that it was my first kiss. He never knew how long I had waited to find someone special, someone that I could love enough to give that special moment to.

I don't think he knew how important he was to me, how much I had come to love him in such a short time. He probably didn't know how much it hurt to lose him, because I never told him that I loved him.

And now I never will.

Eavesdropping

“What about him?”

Riley lifted his head, surprised at hearing anyone else’s voice round his corner of the set this early in the morning. He picked it because it was quiet, secluded, and he could study his lines in peace.

It took him a moment, but then he recognized the voice - Asia, the new stunt girl.

Riley wasn’t sexist, but that they had a stunt girl blew his mind.

“Yes, he’s as handsome and golden and glorious as ever,” Asia said. She sounded neither dreamy nor sarcastic; without seeing her face, Riley was hard pressed to gauge her emotion.

“No, I’m not going to say anything to him that isn’t perfectly polite or strictly professional,” Asia said. Now there was a touch of impatience to her voice. “I can’t begin to understand why you - or any of the others - would encourage me to engage in such unethical behavior.”

Golden and handsome - she had to be talking about James. To whom? Riley felt guilty for listening in, but Asia was such a cypher, and he was curious. And what could she possibly do with James that would be unethical, besides the obvious? Only maybe that wasn’t unethical, exactly, because she wasn’t James’s boss or his subordinate.

“I’m not in love with him,” Asia snapped. “It doesn’t work that way. Look, I have work to do. If you breathe a word of this to any of the others, I swear I’ll kill you.”

Riley swallowed hard. She sounded serious.

“Can this be the end of the discussion, please? I - no. I won’t say it. Don’t even - don’t you dare! Fine. I am not in love with James Mallory. Are you happy? Well, that’s the truth.” There was a long pause, and then Asia said, softly, “You never stop loving someone, not when you loved them the way I loved him. I really have to go now, Angel. Good luck.”

Riley hunched over his script when he heard her start to move. His heart was pounding. Asia was in love with James. James was mad for her. What could he do with that?

(350 words)

His Voice

I squirmed with a tiny bit of guilt whenever Joyce asked me about the tapes. I know I was supposed to turn the tapes back in. After all it's only fair. Eventually I knew that another blind student may need them, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I couldn't give up his voice.

I smiled as I moved about the kitchen, preparing a little bit of light lunch for myself and Chris, Diane following me around. He was coming over soon to read an additional supplement from class.

My thoughts turned back to Chris. He had volunteered to help me any time that I needed it. I'm sure I had blushed when he told me that. Even now I could feel my face getting warm from thinking of him. He didn't know that I had kept the tapes.

When we were together, it wasn't just his voice that drew me in, it was him. His voice, his personality, his warmth. I knew that if I just reached out that I could touch him, he was never far away when we were together. That always comforted me.

There was another reason that I kept the tapes. What if one day he wasn't there? What was going to happen when he graduated, or I did? We would go our separate ways and that would be that.

I heard the doorbell ring and the sound to Diane's nails on the floor as she trotted to the front hall. I followed quickly, movements sure in my own home.

"Hi," he said, and I could tell he was smiling.

"Hi Chris," I said and patted Diane on the head, "come on in. I have things set up on the table.

"Sounds good," he said and followed me down the short hallway into the kitchen.

You're on

When I sing, I sing only for her. I know that other women come to listen to me, stare at me in rapt attention, dreamy looks floating across their faces. They never see more than my smile, I make sure of that.

It doesn't seem to matter if it's in English, Italian or French; all my songs call to her. I can see it in her eyes, the puzzled look that creases her brow as of she is trying to puzzle something together.

I look out from the side of the stage, from that slight part between the curtain and the wall. I look out at her. Alastrina, sitting so poised and beautiful near the bar. I take in her figure from afar, her green dress swirling just perfectly about her knees. I can also feel the butterflies building in my stomach. Each time I sing to her it's as if it's the first time.

"You're on Partrick," the stage manager told me as he brushed past me.

I swallowed a bit nervously, and reminded myself why I was doing this. I was doing it for her. Hopefully I wouldn't need to keep secrets from her much longer. I stepped out onto the dark stage and found my place as the opening notes flooded into the room.


Hush now baby don't you cry
Rest your wings my butterfly
Peace will come to you in time
And I will sing this lullaby...

One Day, Until Then

James glanced at Asia out of the corner of his eye while she walked Stephen through his half of the sword routine. She didn’t know, and he would never tell her, that he’d been waiting for her all his life.

When he was eight, he’d started having a dream - the same dream, over and over again - of himself, crying and hungry, tearing through the forest with a bow and arrows, desperate to catch something for supper lest he, someone be angry. Halfway through the chase he ran into a man whose face was fuzzy, just out of focus, and at the man’s side was a cloaked figure, and James knew that underneath the cloak she was Asia.

When he was fifteen, he dreamed again and again of sitting in an ancient little Christian church, staring at the altar in which was buried to the hilt a sword, while a maid sat beside him and told him stories of golden deserts and foreign lands. In the dream he was no longer afraid and hungry, and she was no longer wearing a cloak, and he knew her face.

When he was twenty and getting ready for drama school, he dreamed he was dying, and she was crying as she held him.

And then he walked into his dorm room and met his new roommate’s sister...and she’d looked at him with nothing more than polite blankness.

James had never expected to see her in real life, had thought she was little more than a dream. To her, he was little more than an acquaintance, and every time her indifferent gaze passed over him, it was a solid blow to the chest, so hard he was robbed of breath for just a moment.

One day James would make her smile at him.

One day.

Until then...

“Hey James, you’re wanted on set!”

(309 words)

Project #87: Secrets, Take 2

This year, we're going to re-up an old challenge: Secrets. 100-500 words. Tell a character's secret. Or have a character tell a secret - what secret, and to whom? Or have a character being asked to keep a secret. Or maybe a character accidentally overhears a secret. What does she do with it? Past variations on the 'secret' them include vice and confessions.

Happy writing!

Overview #86: Proverbs

I think I did all right as far as using proverbs. Thing is, I sort of wove them into the dialogue without giving them the weight they deserved. They came off as clever quips or perhaps lines of poetry but without much in the way of real depth. Sometimes that was deliberate, as a given character was unaware of proverbs being used, and other times I think I was too busy doing what I do best - dialogue - and not giving ancient wisdom the respect it deserves.

I missed out on a few days due to sheer exhaustion, and right now I think I'm learning about my writing weaknesses more than anything, but so far I'm surviving. Here's to doing better next week.

Silken Goat

"You look surprised to see me," Andrew said, reclining on a plush chair.

I blinked, still not quite sure what to make of the situation, "what are you doing here?" I finally managed to get out.

"Didn't you hear that I've been reformed?" he asked. He sipped at his cocktail, smirking like that cat that ate the canary. "I paid my debt to society and they let me out for good behavior," he said. "After all, I was wrongfully imprisoned," he put on a look of hurt, "and I was such a model prisoner. They never had any problems with me at all."

But all those people you killed, all the lives you destroyed. How could they let you out?" I asked.

Andrew stood up and walked across the room to the bar, glancing back at me, "come now Benjamin, I never actually killed anyone, and those so called 'lives' were barely worth calling lives anyway. It was a mercy to them."

"You might fool them," I said quietly, "but I know what you are. A monster. A cold blooded killer who will never change."

"But I have changed Ben. Your government even said so," he laughed.

I shook my head and stepped towards the door, "put silk on a goat, and it's still a goat," I said and walked out into the night.

(Not really what I had in mind for this. I think I will try this quote again later at some point. I really do like it.)

Silence and the Sound of Home

“But I –” Topher began.

Adelle cut in. “Do not speak unless you can improve the silence.”

Topher shut his mouth so fast his teeth clicked. He raised his eyebrows and made a series of highly expressive and inexplicable gestures that indicated he was very agitated about the situation at hand, but Adelle was pondering a serious problem and ignored him.

A voice broke through Adelle’s brooding, and she spun, ready to deliver a sharp invective to the person who had dared act against a direct order, but it was just George, tall and golden and beautiful and so much a victim, standing in the doorway with a pleasantly passive expression on his face.

“ – Ready for my treatment.”

Topher, very deliberately not saying a word, gestured for George to cross the room and seat himself in The Chair. Adelle studied George, and remembered when she’d first seen him, a broken runaway who’d ended up past the other side of the tracks and almost drowned himself in the river of humanity that was Los Angeles. In his doll state, he didn’t have the accent that reminded Adelle fiercely of home.

Six more months on his contract, and his very wealthy parents would be pleased at the sane, healthy, confident young man who returned their vast estates in the Southeast.

Topher was distracted from his mime act by pulling up The Pipepline and parameters of the engagement. He’d done the work beforehand, but once Ivy, sleep-deprived and too afraid to confess it, had mixed up the imprints and the dolls, and Topher was one for leaning from mistakes.

He lowered the chair, and the light flared blue. Adelle didn’t even flinch anymore when George hissed, arched his back in pain, but then Topher was raising the chair, and George was no more.

George’s handler, Perry, was a slender slip of a thing, and underestimated by everyone who looked at him.

“Are you ready?” Perry asked.

“Of course,” George said, only he was someone else now, someone who sounded like home, and Adelle wished, for one moment, he could stay for a chat.

(350 words)

Lies and Truth

“You know what they say.” Gabriel perched on the edge of the railing like a giant eagle, muscles tense, wings quivering with anticipation.

“Depends on who they are and what they’re saying it about.” Kyle watched the rioting mob, the puffs of tear gas and the flailing police batons. He thought it fitting, that the government agents wore black like the demons with whom they’d formed an unholy alliance. He’d been kept awake all night dreading even a glimpse of those shadows in the crowd.

“Lies hurt.”

“Yes.” Kyle slewed a glance at Gabriel, alarmed at his flat tone. Gabriel was never one for stating the obvious.

“Truth kills,” Gabriel said.

Kyle blinked. “Are you allowed to say things like that?”

Gabriel drew a shining steel sword from thin air and hoisted it high. It flashed, like lightning, in the sun. “I wield the Sword of Truth.” And he plummeted from the sky.

Kyle closed his eyes, murmured the same letters he sketched on the railing, and then he flickered from existence. He reappeared on the ground at the edge of the mob, and he began to sing.

(188 words)

Cursed

The blisters on the bottom of my feet seared with pain, each step a fresh agony, every mile a torment. Remote hills marched ponderously closer and receded into the distance behind me.

I didn't know where I was going anymore. Didn't know where I had been or what the next rise would show me; I only knew that I had to keep moving forward. Forever wandering. This was my curse and my punishment.

It all seemed so long ago now. A curse placed upon me for an innocent mistake. I thought back on how I had come to be on this long road.

Nadya was as beautiful as the sunrise and as fair as the spring wind and I had made the mistake of falling in love with her. She was of the wandering people. The Romani, the gypsies. They were an old people. With old traditions and old magic. Nadya had been promised to another, but I didn't care. I foolishly persuaded her to run away with me. I was sure we would be happy together.

That was before her mother had found us out. I remember the coldness in her eyes, deep, fathomless eyes that seemed to burn even as they froze. She simply stepped between us. She looked me in they eye and said, "Poate tu rătăcească pe faţa pământului pentru totdeauna, niciodată de două ori dorm in acelasi pat, nu bea apă de două ori din acelaşi bine, şi niciodată nu cruce de două ori acelaşi râu într-un an."

From that moment on I have continuously wandered. Never resting more than a day and never in the same place. It was a long time before I found anyone that could translate the words that had been burned into my memory. And when I did, I finally understood.



May you wander over the face of the earth forever, never sleep twice in the same bed, never drink water twice from the same well, and never cross the same river twice in a year.

Speech in Silence

It was a long time before I realized why David was so different from other men, and people in general.

It wasn't the fact that he was gentle, I knew a few men who were just as gentle. It wasn't that he was extremely handsome, though he certainly was. It was simply the fact that he said nothing at all. Ever.

I realized it the day that I ran right into him. The boss had just bawled me out for turning in a project late and I was hurrying back to my desk to finalize the plans for the new high rise that our firm was building in the heart of the city. I wasn't looking where I was going, furiously making notes on my hand held about the specs that needed to be updated and the building codes that had to be checked, when I slammed right into someone, knocking the both of us down amid a flurry of papers.

"I am so sorry!" I exclaimed. I made a grab for some papers that were floating within reach. "I wasn't watching where I was going. It's all my fault," I said.

I finally looked up after gathering the papers and my eyes met Davids.

"David!" I gasped, "I... I didn't know it was you."

He smiled at me and made a calming gesture.

"Are you alright?" I asked, "Is anything missing." I reached out to take his offered hand and stood up straight. David nodded and handed me back my hand held. I could feel my brow furrowing in confusion, "David?"

David simply smiled at me and reached into his pocket for a small pad of paper and a pen. "I'm alright. Are you okay?" he jotted down in a neat hand.

"I... I'm sorry. I didn't know. I didn't realized," I stumbled over an apology, embarrassed that I didn't know that he was mute. I felt my face grow red.

"It's alright," I read from his paper, "sometimes silence is also speech.”

A Bird In Hand

“Does anyone else think this is unnecessarily cruel?” Sylvia asked.

Sam curled her hand toward her gun; she noticed Dunham do the same. The three seraph-voice with them stood at the mouth of the tunnel, heads cocked, listening to what only they could hear. And then Damien stepped out into the sunlight.

“You know what they say,” he said.

“What do they say?” Jimmy was always distant, hollow-eyed, lost in his own little world.

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” Damien knelt, sketched invisible letters on the cement. Then he drew a knife, and Dunham flinched.

“Wait just a moment, kid,” Dunham began, and who was he to call anyone kid?

“Let him alone,” Sam said, but she flinched too when Damien sliced open his own palm, squeezed, shook his hand to spatter the blood across his invisible letters. And then he murmured under his breath, sounds from a language humans never knew and maybe were never supposed to know.

“So why aren’t we catching him?” Sylvia asked.

“Like the man said, two in the bush,” Jimmy said. He turned to Sam and smiled, and for the first time Sam saw horrifying lucidity in his eyes. “Why catch the one when he can lead us to more?”

Blood and feathers exploded overhead.

(219 words)

Devil or Angel

"Time was when angels walked the earth. Now they are not even in heaven," Cody whispered. He rocked back and forth, hands wrapped around his knees. 

Agent Dunham stood on the other side of the one-way mirror and watched him intently. "He's crazier than one who flew over the cuckoo's nest."

Sam shook her head.  "No, I don't think so."

Dunham raised his eyebrows. Sam could admit his skepticism was warranted; Cody was disheveled and unkempt, his hair and beard greasy and tangled, his clothes torn and stained. He looked like he'd been sleeping in a dumpster. Local PD had picked him up in an alley on the wrong side of town. 

"He's a complete and utter nutball," Dunham said.

Sam wouldn't tell Dunham that she'd heard the voice of the angel who accompanied Nicodemus Cohen, that she'd known deep down in the space between her heartbeats that she'd heard the voice of death.  But she couldn't hear its voice now.

"He's hiding something," Sam said. "I want to find out what it is."  She pushed open the door and laid a file down on the table. "Cody Cohen, we have to talk."

He lifted his head sharply, blinked at her like she'd flipped a light on in a dark room. "A young angel, an old devil," he said. 

"Where are the angels now?" Sam asked. 

"Gone with the wind," Cody said, and smiled faintly, as if at a distant, happy memory.

"Are they here?" Sam asked. 

Cody shook his head. "You know what they used to say?"

"What?" Sam asked patiently. 

"When the angels present themselves, the devils abscond."  Cody shook his head and laughed. "It's not true anymore."

"Oh? Why not?"

"Because you brought them here," Cody said. "You brought the devils and gave them voices, and now they won't go away." He lifted his head and gazed up at her with hollow eyes. "Have you ever seen a person inside out?"

(325 words)

A Garden in My Pocket

"Found one!" I called out in excitement.

I pounced in glee when my eyes fell on a pocket version of my favorite book, The Count of Monte Cristo. Ann and I were following our usual Saturday ritual of combing through old book stores for rare finds.

I thumbed through the slightly wrinkled pages, noting the slight water damage to the edges. The print was excruciatingly small, but I didn't mind too much. Not when I had the opportunity to carry it with me anywhere.

"Susan, are you finished?" Ann called out to me from the front of the store. I smiled in response to my friend, though she couldn't see me at the moment. I could always count on Ann to join me in a book hunt.

I stepped around the end of a shelf and spotted my friend. She was petite, with red hair and bright blue eyes. She had a smattering of freckles across her nose.

"What did you find?" Ann asked.

"A copy of The Count of Monte Cristo. And it's small enough to carry anywhere," I said with excitement.

"But you have at least four copies of that book already," Ann laughed. We quickly payed for our purchases.

"But this one I can take anywhere. After all a book is like a garden carried in the pocket," I said.

Project Assignment #86 - Proverbs

Sorry for this one coming in so late in the day. But this week is Proverbs.

Have fun let's keep it to 350 words.

Posting may be light from me. It's coming up on the end of the semester, but I will try to post as often as I can.

Overview #85: Allusions

I had fun with this. One songfic, one mad Bible reference, and some movie references. I wasn't as steady as I wanted to be with posting this week, but I had fun, and I got to explore the ways in which we communicate in shorthand - namely, with allusions. The new job is out to kill me, but I'm always glad to get in the writing I did. I'm getting the feel of the Seraph-verse boys and girls more. When I first started out, I thought I'd like Kyle the best, but maybe I do kind of like Cody. A lot. I didn't think much of Marsh as a character, but readers seemed to like him. I need to do more work with Agent Sam Samuels, but I think I'm getting the hang of her, and I'm liking the way the angels themselves are developing personalities.

Of course, I know the boys of Sector Five the best, and I was really pleased at what came out with their conversation. Here's to having more energy to post regularly next week.

Go Time

“What do you think?” Christian, Keith, Tobias, Gabriel, DJ, and Angel huddled in the shadows, scanning the entrance to the building. Guards with sub-machine guns were stationed at annoyingly regular intervals.

“We could do a Princess Bride with Keith on fire and DJ creating a voice illusion,” Tobias said.

DJ hummed thoughtfully. “I think you’d have a better chance of doing a Sebastien Foucan from Casino Royale up to that third floor mezzanine.”

“Gabriel’s here,” Keith said. “We could walk right past the guards and do a Boondock Saints ice the Russians up in the penthouse suite instead.”

“We do have rope,” Christian said.

“That was a stupid idea and a stupid movie,” Gabriel said. “If we’re going to go Hollywood, why not just have Angel go Carrie at the prom?”

The other five stared at him.

“Carrie?” Keith echoed. “Really?”

Gabriel fought to not blush. “What? He’s totally capable of it –”

“How about a little X-Men?” Tobias said. He curled his hand into a fist, and bone claws sprouted from his knuckles. Keith snapped his fingers, and flames appeared over his fingertips.

DJ sketched a rune, and then he had a solid sphere of ice ready for the throwing.

Christian rubbed his hands together, and blue-gold energy crackled. He scooped up a fallen pipe, and Gabriel saw it spark.

“So we’ve got Wolverine, Pyro, Iceman, and Gambit,” he said. Then he frowned. “Wait a minute, does that mean I’m Dr. X?”

“Pretty much,” DJ said. He peered over the hedge. “And Angel is Dr. Grey.”

Angel squawked. “Wait, I’m a bloody bird?”

“But Angel, you love the ladies.” Keith grinned, and he launched a fireball toward the guards. It was go time.

(286 words)

Listening to Classic Rock

“So you think you can tell heaven from hell.”

Sam took a deep, shuddering breath. She’d been careful not to be left alone with any of the choirboys on either side, to always have someone else there to ground her to reality, but now she could hear their voices.

She’d know Abbadon’s voice anywhere.

Some people didn’t believe in angels - but many did.

Most people refused to believe in Satan.

Sam was pretty sure she heard his voice - or something close to it. Abbadon had been to Satan what Gabriel had been to God during the War in Heaven. And now he was on earth, seemingly at the beck and call of the hollow-eyed boy sitting on the floor next to the radiator, fidgeting with a broken pencil

“Blue skies from pain?” another voice asked.

Another angel. Sam didn’t know any of their names besides the one that had first spoken to her when she was a child - Asrael - but this must have been the one accompanying the skinny moppet of a blonde girl who was curled in the cage in the corner.

A cage.

The things the government did that the people didn’t know, didn’t care about in their fear.

“What?” Abbadon asked.

Neither Abbadon’s singer nor the girl were reacting, and Sam couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t just hearing voices. She’d taken her meds. Hadn’t she? No one at the Bureau could know.

“Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?” that second voice said, almost sing-song, taunting.

“You know nothing,” Abbadon spat. “You’ve not yet seen hell, not seen half of the horrors –”

“And did they get you to trade your heros for ghosts?” the other voice continued.

Abbadon let out a snarl.

And then the blonde girl said, “Chill out. It’s just a song.” And she began to sing, “We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year.”

Sam straightened up. “You taught an angel classic rock?”

The blonde girl sat up. “You’re a Listener?”

(350 words)

Beyond and Beyond

"Where are you going?" James asked. He stood to the side as he watched his friend packing an old leather backpack; the type you would associate with a long journey.

"I don't really know. Not yet at least," Brandon replied as he placed another item in the bag. Piled along side the bag was a long walking stick and a map, a rain coat and a pair of sturdy boots.

"I guess a better question would be why are you going?" James said.

Brandon mumbled something under his breath.

"I didn't quite catch that mate," James said and he leaned closer.

"Beyond the East the sunrise, beyond the West the sea. And East and West, the wanderthirst that will never let me be. It works in me like madness to bid me say goodbye. For the seas call and the stars call, and oh, the call of the sky," Brandon quoted.

James blinked in surprise at the intensity. Not only of his friend but also of the poem. In those few lines he began to understand what drove his friend to travel.

"Would you mind if I joined you?" James asked after a moment, the words of the poem still echoing in he mind, reverberating with a hidden power.

"I wouldn't mind at all," Brandon said with a smile, "long roads seem shorter with a friend at your side."

Friends Forever

“You can’t go out there,” Kyle said quietly. He caught Cody by the wrist.

“Who else is going to go out there?” Cody looked steadily at Kyle and watched, for the first time, defeat darken the boy’s blue eyes. Elise was gone; Marsh was gone; both their angels had descended in a fury of feathers and unearthly power, the trumpets of Armageddon and the entropy of the universe coming to bear on the forces of the Fallen, but it hadn’t been enough, and now the Fallen were at their door, and the only place to go was down.

Kyle glanced over his shoulder at Gabriel, who was clutching the wound in his side and trying to look as stoic as possible.

“Are you sure?” Kyle asked.

Cody smiled and said, “Maiorem dilectionem nemo habet ut animam suam quis ponat pro amicis suis.”

Kyle blinked.

“I can say it in Greek for you,” Cody said.

In the corner, Gabriel blinked, confused and amused.

Asrael curled a hand on Cody’s shoulder, and Cody said, “μείζονα ταύτης ἀγάπην οὐδεὶς ἔχει ἵνα τις τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ θῇ ὑπὲρ τῶν φίλων αὐτοῦ.” He reached for the doorknob.

Kyle said, “You’ve been reading the New Testament.”

“I had time on my hands,” Cody said.

Asrael leaned down and whispered, “Time’s up.”

Cody nodded and opened the door, stepped out into the sunlight.

Kyle sketched a handful of Hebrew letters, turned the wall into a one-way mirror, and he and Gabriel watched Cody go to face their enemies.

Gabriel was smiling. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Kyle said, “I didn’t realize he thought of us as friends,” and watched Cody step back over the cliff.

(291 words)

Project #85: Allusions

Apologies for getting this in a day late. This week's assignment is to quote something, allude to something, reference something in your piece, 100-350 words. It can be pop culture or esoteric ancient scripture, it can be an idea or a song lyric or a poem, a famous aphorism or a whisper on the wind. Make it obvious, make it subtle, throw it in or make it the title. It's up to you! Time to put that education to use.

Overview #84: Deadlines

So...I was pretty dissatisfied with my work earlier in the week. I'm getting the hang of the Seraph-verse kids and their Angels, which makes me happy, but it seemed like I wasn't doing anything too unique with the prompts. And then on the last two days I just failed altogether, so there's that to take into consideration too. In the end the post I liked most was the Dagaz one, probably because I went back to my roots where the words were a prompt and not the theme, which likely deviated from the assignment, but I went with it. Still, considering I started a new job this week, I think I did all right.

Almost Got It

"Hurry up!" Joe urged, almost hopping up and down with impatience.

"You're not helping," Bryan replied as he wiped a sheen of sweat from his face.

"You realize that we could all die?" Joe said.

"Gee, I didn't know that Joe!" Bryan said, laying the sarcasm on thick, "it's not like I can't see the timer. This isn't as easy as it looks."

Joe started pacing back and forth as Bryan continued to work, literally humming with anxiety.

"I've almost got it," Bryan mumbled more to himself than to Joe.

Joe stopped pacing to watch his friend intently, "ten seconds he warned."

Bryan could hear the beeping of the timer and held his breath as it read 3...2...1

He let out and explosive breath and let his head drop into his hands, frustrated with his failure. "I can't believe I have to start the level all over again," he moaned and picked up the controller

Almost finished

"Don't you ever worry about deadlines?" Ariana asked as she filled in yet another line on yet another college application. She not only needed to finish fulling out the applications but also write up the required essays. She and David were applying for all the same schools and hoping that they were accepted to the same ones. She was holding out for an East coast school.

"Not really," David said. His own papers were all neatly filled out and sitting in a pile along with the essays; he was intent on addressing envelopes. "If you are prepared and start early then there is really no need to panic over deadlines."

Ariana knew that he was right and that she should get batter at prioritizing. She knew that she was smart; she just didn't like to think about deadlines. Didn't like to feel pressured. She laughed to herself, her lips twitching into a small grin, "you would think that as much as I don't like pressure that I would have had these done a while ago like you did."

David shrugged and leaned back, "everyone deals with stuff like this differently," he said and leaned over to give his girl a quick hug. "Are you almost finished?" he asked.

"Yeah. Almost finished," Ariana said and turned back to her forms.

You Need to Know

James could see around the edges of the blindfold, and he knew he was somewhere dim, dim enough that he couldn’t tell the color of the floors but light enough that he could sense shadows - people - moving around him. They spoke a flurry of foreign languages, jumping from one to the next that James was beginning to suspect, over the pounding of his heart, that they couldn’t understand each other at all.

He’d just been walking along the Thames, admiring the London Eye and the lights along the South Bank, and then it had been just like in the films, a black van, masked men with guns, a black bag over his head. James had kicked and fought for all he was worth, but then someone jabbed him in the neck and his world went white.

And now he was kneeling on the damp cement floor of some dimly lit room while his captors argued furiously. James caught snatches of Russian, French, and German, and maybe something else European - Norwegian? - but there were other languages in there that sounded almost completely made up.

And then a man spoke, in perfectly crisp Queen’s English, like the type MPs and the Etonian-Oxbridge elite spoke, and he said,

“Time’s up.”

Someone yanked the blindfold off, and James had to blink at the cliché, the single lightbulb swinging from overhead.

“Who are you? What do you want?” he asked, keeping his voice level.

“He really doesn’t look all that afraid,” one man said, and he had a bland accent, as if English weren’t his first language but he’d learnt it well.

“He’s an actor,” another man said, and he had an American accent, a strangely familiar voice. “He’s terrified, but he thinks he’s not going to give us the satisfaction.”

“We’re not going to hurt you,” a fourth man said, and James counted six in all.

“That’s what they all say, before they chop a man’s hand off,” James said.

A fifth man started to laugh, turned it into a cough. “He thinks we’re terrorists.” And he reached up, pulled off his mask. “Hello, James.”

James blinked. “You’re –”

“Not actually in a boyband,” Christian said. “We’re here to protect you, actually. You’re lucky it was us and not someone else who grabbed you.”

“Why did you bring me here?” James asked. If Christian was one of his kidnappers, that meant the others were...

One by one, Asia’s brothers tugged off their masks. That familiar voice had been Tobias, then, and of course the Queen’s English was Angel.

“We need a place to hold you until we can arrange for a safehouse,” DJ said, and it was strange, seeing someone James knew as artistic and dreamy and model-vapid speaking with all the efficiency of a seasoned soldier.

“Why?” James asked.

“Like Christian said, to protect you,” Gabriel said.

“From whom?”

“Everyone,” Tobias said. He offered a hand. “Now come on - there are some things you need to know.”

(495 words)

Your Time is Up

Joe was ecstatic. Time had run out and he was ready to leave. He smiled to himself, Not only was he leaving behind this nightmare of a foster home but he had somewhere to go. Joe grabbed a few more things and placed them in a box.

As if sensing the end was near, Hal came bursting into the room. Joe could smell the booze on him and he wrinkled his nose in disgust at the putrid scent.

"Where do you think you're going?" the drunkard slurred in Joe's general direction, his eyes unable to focus very well.

"Shouldn't matter to you," Joe said. He could hardly stand the sight of the man let alone the smell.

"You don't turn eighteen until next week," Hal said as he approached Joe, his hand curling onto a fist, "until then, you stay."

Joe laughed, tears coming to his eyes at the ridiculousness of the situation, "you think you can make me stay? You think you can tell me what to do anymore? You think I'm going to stick around and let you try to ruin my life further? Though, heaven knows, the only think that you could do is make me sick from looking at you," Joe said in derision.

"I'll teach you a thing or two before you go," Hal threatened as he moved forward. He didn't see how Joe shifted his weight, hands held loosely by his side.

Before Hal could raise his fist Joe had struck quick as lighting, his own blow landing in Hal's spongy midsection, followed quickly by a vicious right cross to the face.

Hal stumbled backwards and fell to the ground, gripping his stomach in obvious agony. He looked up to see Joe standing over him and flinched back from the rage in his face.

"Your time is up Hal," Joe said and stepped over the prone man on the ground.

Hurry

“Would it be annoying of me to ask you to hurry?” Cody asked, his tone tight and more than a little sarcastic.

Kyle knelt at the base of the wall, scribbling Hebrew letters as fast as he could, murmuring the ward incantations under his breath. Elise was curled around her guitar in the other corner; she was too tense to even play. Marsh was watching the entire proceedings, mouth set in a thin line. He had a pair of dice in one hand and was rattling them, but he hadn’t thrown them yet.

All four of their angels were wheeling high overhead in the beams and buttresses of the cathedral like so many carrion birds.

“Hurry up, please,” Cody said.

“I’m almost there.”

Cody watched the seconds tick by on the face of his very expensive wristwatch. “Yes, well, the Choir of the Fallen gave us a deadline, and we have eighty-seven more seconds to meet it.”

“If you’d let me work, I could get this done,” Kyle said, “and then we’ll meet it.”

Cody forced himself to take a deep breath and step away from the wall. The government was insane if it thought it could control the fallen. The geological record was scarred with ice ages and volcanoes, earth-shattering cataclysms because more than on idiot had thought he could control the powers of darkness.

Then Kyle said, “There,” and sat back, wiped his hand theatrically across his brow. He grinned up at Cody. “That should keep them out.”

Marsh and Elise wilted in relief.

And then there came a pounding at the double doors, like someone had taken a battering ram to them, and Agent Samuels said,

“Open up! This is the FBI!”

“So much for those wards,” Cody muttered.

The four angels came swooping down to the ground.

(303 words)

Simply Ask

"Time's getting short," Bryan taunted his brother, his tone almost sing-song in quality.

"Don't you think I know that!" Mark snarled back. His hands clenched and unclenched unconsciously as he paced back and forth in the room that they shared.

Bryan stood off to one side of the room and watched his twins restless pacing. "Seriously," he asked after a few minutes of the one man parade, "what is the big deal about this? It's not like it's the end of the world or anything."

"Easy for you to say," Mark muttered.

"What was that?" Bryan asked leaning forward.

"I said, that it's easy for you to say that. You've never had troubles with this sort of thing. It just comes easily for you," Mark said.

"Okay, seriously," Bryan said, "just go and ask her. I know you like her and she likes you, and the dance is in three days. And," Bryan stressed, "if you don't ask Katie now then somebody else might and then you lose out."

"You're right," Mark said and sat down on the edge of the bed, "but I just don't know what to say." He had heard all of the various girls around the school gushing about who had been asked and how and all the creativity that seemed to be an intrinsic part of the biggest dance of the year.

"How about, would you like to go to the dance with me?" Bryan suggested simply. He reclined on the bed with his hands crossed behind his head.

"I guess I should go and ask her then," Mark said.

"Now is as good a time as any," Bryan replied sagely and tossed his brother his cell phone.

Mark caught the phone and heard a quiet ringing coming from it followed by a faint, "hello?"

Mark raised the phone to his ear and swallowed hard, "Hi Katie, it's Mark...."

Best Muse Ever

“Are you all right?” Israfel was tucked into a corner, a lap harp perched on his knees while he plucked desultory minor chords.

“No,” Elise said. She reached up to run a hand through her hair again and had to consciously force herself to stop, because she’d been doing that for the last hour and turned her hair into a rat’s nest. She sat on her free hand and continued twirling her pencil with her right hand. The staff paper remained stubbornly blank, and she couldn’t hear anything but those stupid minor chords. She twisted around and said, “Could you knock it off for just a little bit?”

Israfel obediently lifted his hands off the strings, and the instrument dissolved into thin air.

Elise narrowed her eyes, untrusting of the blank guilelessness on Israfel’s face, but she said, “Thanks,” and resumed staring at the empty staff paper. It was taunting her.

“The song is due at noon,” Israfel said. “It’s almost one a.m. now.”

“I know that,” Elise said between gritted teeth. She hummed under her breath, and the tune was catchy. Maybe she could work with it. But then she realized it was just the melody to Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here. Crap. She needed something original.

“Tick tock,” Israfel sing-songed, and he was grinning, that winged nuisance.

Tick tock, Elise thought glumly, and then it struck her. She yanked a blank piece of paper out of her math notebook and began scratching out lyrics.

Tick tock
It’s the running of the clock
The countdown
To the meltdown
And the end of
Time

Then she abandoned the lyrics and scooped up her guitar, and now she could hear it, her song, her one song glory. She tried chord after chord until she found the one that matched the beauty in her mind, and as she played it came to her, the slide of notes, the shift of chords, the pattern and the rhythm.

When she stopped to look at the clock again, it was almost five a.m. and Israfel was singing a countermelody for the chorus.

Deadlines were the best muse ever.

(355 words)

Know What it Takes?

"Come on Steve!" Bryan called down the hall, "are you ready to hit the club?"

"I can't come," Steve called back, adjusting his glasses with one hand while his other hand kept his place in the shuffle of papers on the desk.

"What!? Why not?" Bryan asked as he entered the room. He was dressed to go out. A slightly iridescent black shirt was paired with comfortable jeans.

Steven looked up from his paperwork, "because I have reports and paperwork to finish that are due next week. And they won't do themselves," he said calmly.

"Aw man, take the night off," Bryan wheedled, "you can get it done tomorrow."

"If I do that then I will get behind," Steve said as he turned back to his papers, "do you know what it takes to keep this unit running smoothly?"

Bryan thought about that for a moment, realizing that he didn't know exactly how everything got to where it needed to be and how they got their money, or paid their bills or received their supplies. He always assumed that some clerk in the military handled the logistics of the team.

"I guess not," Bryan finally said.

Steve nodded, more to himself than to Bryan and returned to his paperwork as Bryan left the room.

"I should be free on Friday night though!" he called to Bryan. He couldn't see Bryan's grin as he walked out the front door.

Loaded Dice

“Why aren’t you doing your homework?” Tabris asked.

Marsh was buried in a gaming manual, scribbling notes about storylines, NPCs, and possible adventures. “Because it’s not due for another couple of days. I can do it tomorrow night.”

“But what if you’re distracted tomorrow night?” Tabris leaned his chin on his hand and blinked at Marsh with wide gray eyes.

Marsh didn’t look up. “That’s a chance I’ll have to take, isn’t it? Life’s a game of chance. Homework is chance – either I’ll get it done, or I won’t, and in the end if I’m not supposed to get it done it won’t get it done, no matter how hard I work.”

Tabris hummed thoughtfully, tunelessly, and his eyes gleamed red briefly. “Perhaps. Or maybe you misunderstand your place in the universe – and mine.” He reached out and scooped up a handful of Marsh’s dice, cast them across the carpet.

“Don’t ruin my dice mojo,” Marsh said.

Tabris prodded him in the arm. “Look.”

Marsh huffed, annoyed, and rolled his eyes, lifted his head to look. And stared. All five dice had come up twenty. Marsh turned to Tabris and gaped.

Tabris fluttered his fingertips and said, “Just because life is a game of chance doesn’t mean you can’t take action to tip the scales in your favor. If you do your homework now, there’s a greater chance that it’ll get done and you’ll face no repercussion. But if you wait till tomorrow...”

Marsh set aside his manual and reached for his backpack. “It’s creepy, you know,” he said. “You’re a worse nag than my mum, and you’re a dude.”

Tabris arched an eyebrow.

“Well,” Marsh amended, “you’re sort of a dude.”

Tabris threw his head back and laughed, shook out his massive gold-tipped wings. “I’m an angel, and there’s nothing else like me on earth.”

“Except Israfel, Asrael, and Gabriel,” Marsh said.

Tabris swiped at him, and Marsh dodged, laughing.

At the foot of the stairs, Marsh’s mother stared at her son’s madness and shook her head. The doctors had told them it was hereditary; she should have known it would fall on her shoulders, one way or another. In her family, the dice were always loaded.

(369 words)

Overview #83: Raise a character

So...I spent a bit too much time on his childhood and then skipped straight to his death. I guess, in my head, the full novel would cover his adolescence, which is pretty much why I skipped it. I hadn't intended to make Cody a super-genius (in my head he was always smart, but Kyle was meant to be the special one) and I really didn't intend for Cody to die (but it looks like Elise died too), but in the end it worked, and I'm okay with it. So...now I at least have the hang of Cody.

Poor Cody.

I killed him.

Project Assignment #84 - Deadlines

This week is about deadlines! Deadlines for work, applications to school, projects...

Do your characters crack under pressure? Do they carefully plan out everything so there is hardly any stress involved? Do they perform best when time is short? Are they procrastinators or the type that is right on top of things? Do they abhor deadlines with a passion or work best when they have one?

500 words max

Have Fun!!

It All Went Wrong

Maybe Cody had been listening to Elise’s music too much, because as he stood facing down Agent Samuels and a dozen other armed agents, all he could think of were song lyrics.

Six feet under by age twenty-five.

It was a sad, sad day when his life could be summed up by the lyrics to song by a band called Venus in Furs. Somewhere, while she plucked playfully at Israfel’s wings, Elise was laughing.

“Stand down, Cohen,” Agent Samuels said. Her voice shook, but her hands on the gun were firm.

Cody knew why her voice was shaking. Even though she couldn’t see them, she could feel them, the Fallen who’d accompanied the choirboys the government had rounded up, had foolishly thought were prizes. Samael, Abbadon, Malpas and Zagan. They hovered on the edges of the crowd, black eyes glittering with malicious glee, and their choirboys stared past Cody, eyes devoid of human soul.

“I have nowhere to go but down,” Cody said. “Six feet under, from the looks of it.”

“You don’t have to die today, Cohen,” Agent Samuels said. “What do you say? Will you come with me?”

Samael was the first to move, had always been the first to move, from the war in heaven to the war on earth, and he was grinning.

Cody felt afraid and tired, but mostly tired, because he’d spent the last ten years being afraid, and he was tired of it.

“Can you hear me? Cohen? Don’t listen to your angel. Listen to me. Cohen!” Agent Samuels said.

She didn’t know Asrael was gone and, for the first time in a long time, Cody was alone.

Agent Samuels shouted again, “Cohen!”

And Cody remembered lyrics to a song half-forgotten.

And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but...

“Hallelujah,” Cody whispered, and stepped back over the edge of the cliff.

(322 words)

Welcome to Growing Up

“Well this is an unfortunate turn of events,” Cody said, staring at himself in the mirror.

Behind him, Asrael spread his wings, and for a moment it looked like Cody had two heads and a pair of massive feathered wings. “How so?”

Cody poked at his jaw. “I have a zit.”

“Aren’t blemishes a common occurrence for all adolescents?” Asrael said. He tilted his head to one side quizzically.

“I’ve never had one before, and school pictures are today,” Cody said. He sighed. It didn’t really matter what he looked like for school pictures since people only really saw Jonathan’s pictures anyway, but he shuddered to think about what Sterling Shepard’s friends would do if they saw.

“As you always say, there’s a first time for everything.” That Asrael could smile and make a joke like that was disturbing, seeing how he was the angel of death. Or maybe he’d just been around Cody for too long.

Cody sighed and reached for his toothbrush. He’d heard his mother nag Jonathan plenty of times – if he didn’t pick at it, it wouldn’t scar.

Asrael studied Cody’s reflection some more. “After school, if you like, I can help you practice your piece for your bar mitzvah.”

Cody blinked, surprised. “Really?”

Asrael nodded. “I’m nowhere near as talented as Israfel, but –”

“Thank you,” Cody said. “I’d really like that.”

Jonathan banged on the door. “Cody, stop talking to yourself in there. It’s creepy.”

“I have a zit,” Cody called back.

Jonathan laughed. “Welcome to growing up, little brother. Now hurry up and get out of there – my study group will be here any moment now.”

Cody rolled his eyes. Jonathan just wanted to impress the pretty girls in his college classes.

Asrael started to fade from visibility. “You don’t want to be late for school,” he said.

Cody rolled his eyes again. The angel of death was starting to sound like his most annoying nanny.

(322 words)

The Voice

It was the night after Grandma Bernstein’s funeral that Cody first heard the voice. He was almost seven and Jonathan was supposed to be preparing for his bar mitzvah, so Cody thought Jonathan was practicing what the cantor had given him to sing, but after he opened his eyes and listened, he realized it was neither Hebrew nor Jonathan’s voice.

Except Jonathan was the only one in the house who called him Cody.

Can you hear me, Cody? Will you listen?

Cody said, “I’m listening.”

Will you follow my voice?

Cody kicked the covers aside. It sounded like the voice was whispering over near the door, so he followed it.

Come along, the voice whispered, so softly Cody couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. The door creaked open. Cody tip-toed down the hall, tracking the soft whispers. Was it just his imagination, or were the shadows moving? He thought he felt something slither against his ankle as he turned into the drawing room.

As he moved across the carpet, he realized the voice was leading him toward Grandma Bernstein’s favorite chair.

Well done, sweet singer, the voice said.

Cody blinked at the empty chair, confused. “I’m not a sweet singer,” he said. “That’s Jonathan. I can’t sing at all.”

The susurration that followed could only have been called laughter. But you will speak for a member of a choir, and through you my sword will sing.

Cody had read about swords in books. They sounded fun, but people usually ended up getting hurt. “I don’t want a sword.”

Worry not, the voice said, for this sword is not of steel and shine but of silence and chaos, and it will show you the edge of the world.

“What’s at the edge of the world?” Cody asked.

Death, the voice said.

“Like where Grandma Bernstein went?”

There was no answer.

Cody peered at the chair. “Hello? Is that where she went?”

A hand came down on his shoulder, and he yelped.

“Nicodemus,” Mr. Cohen said. He looked annoyed and half-awake. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

Cody immediately ducked his head. “Sorry. I thought I heard something.”

Mr. Cohen said, “Go back to bed.”

Cody obeyed. As he tugged the covers up to his chin, the voice whispered, right next to his ear, Good night.


(389 words)

Reading and Writing

“What was that?” Mr. Cohen glanced up briefly from his newspaper.

“Nicodemus,” he said.

“Yes, that’s your name.” Mr. Cohen returned to his perusal of the Wall Street Journal.

“That paper over the fireplace,” Nicodemus said. “It says Nicodemus.”

“Yes it does,” Mr. Cohen said.

Jonathan blinked and paused, a spoonful of cereal halfway to his mouth. “You can read?”

Nicodemus nodded. “Yes. That paper – it says Nicodemus Matthias Cohen. Nicodemus is a very long word. I don’t like it.”

“It’s your name,” Mr. Cohen said. “Whether or not you like it is irrelevant.”

Jonathan goggled at his father, then at his little brother. “Nicodemus, how old are you?”

Nicodemus blinked and looked down at his hand, then held up four fingers.

“Say it,” Jonathan said, because for the first three years of his life, Nicodemus had been reluctant to say anything at all.

“Four,” Nicodemus said.

“How do you spell it?” Jonathan asked.

“I’m not sure,” Nicodemus said. “It could be f-o-r, f-o-r-e, or f-o-u-r.”

“Dad,” Jonathan said. “Nicodemus can read.”

“As can you and I and the maid and the miscreant who washes our windows,” Mr. Cohen said.

Jonathan reached into his pocket for a pen and notebook, and he scribbled out four letters. “Can you read this?”

Nicodemus leaned forward in his high chair and peered, nose scrunched up in concentration. “Um...does it say yahweh?”

“Where did you learn to read Hebrew?” Jonathan’s eyes were wide with excitement and awe.

“You have a book,” Nicodemus said. “Beginner’s Guide to Hebrew. You left it in the toy room.”

Jonathan twisted around in his chair. “Mama, Nicodemus knows how to read!”

Mrs. Cohen glanced up from her folder full of complicated papers about a party she was planning for some of the other wives in the neighborhood. “Really, Nicodemus?”

Nicodemus said, “I don’t like my name. Too long. I want to be...Cody. It’s short.”

Mr. Cohen said, “Absolutely not. It’s a terribly plebeian name after a charlatan who made a living off of racism and genocide.”

Mrs. Cohen raised and eyebrow at Jonathan and said, “What have I told you about telling tales? Now eat your breakfast. The driver’s already got the car warming. You don’t want to be late for school.”

Jonathan tried to protest, tried to explain that Nicodemus could read, but then Nicodemus got his pen, and his pen met the fine white tablecloth.

(400 words)

And a Spare

Mr. and Mrs. Cohen stood over the bassinet and gazed down at their son.

“Nicodemus is a noble name,” Mr. Cohen said.

“Compared to Jonathan, you don’t think it’s a bit...austere?” Mrs. Cohen asked.

“He’s a Cohen,” Mr. Cohen said. The baby boy in the bassinet blinked big, dark eyes up at his father and pressed his tiny chubby fist to his mouth. “He will adjust as is necessary. Children are more resilient than we give them credit for.”

Mrs. Cohen eyed the blue romper suit the nanny had chosen; she didn’t like the color, but the baby seemed comfortable. “I really liked David, though. It would be poetic, don’t you think? Jonathan and David.”

Mr. Cohen shot her a withering look. “You know what people today say about Jonathan and David. Besides, Jonathan was prince, but it was David who became king. That’s not how things will be in this house.”

Mrs. Cohen nodded and stepped back from the bassinet. “I know. Heir and a spare. Jonathan already takes after his father.”

Mr. Cohen cast the baby one last look before turning and heading for the door. “I’d prefer it if we didn’t need a spare, but life never gives us the guarantees we want. Now come along – I want to hear from the tutors how Jonathan is doing.”

The door swung shut, and the baby was left staring up at the ceiling and wondering when a pleasant face would come back.

(244 words)

Project #83: Raise a character

We've done this before, and we're going it again, but this time with a longer word count and one day less. You have 100-400 words to raise a character, from birth to death (because everyone is born/created, and everyone ends, even vampires and gods). You can choose your moments from societally acknowledged rites of passage, like learning to walk, learning to ride a bike, learning to read, learning to drive, going on a first date, getting married, becoming a parent – whatever you choose. You can choose a character you've been working on or try a brand new one. It's up to you!

Happy writing.

Overview #82: Books

I started out this week all right, except I totally bailed on feedback, for which I apologize. I was excited about this challenge, because I hadn't really thought about the literariness of my characters. It would be stereotypical to have Cody be really well-read, and obviously Angel and Asia would be incredibly well-read. As DJ is an artist, surely he would read graphic novels. I tried to shake it up a bit, pick books that made sense but were also a twist, and I think I did the best with Angel, but everyone else...yeah. I was pretty proud of what I did with Marsh, because he's the seraph-verse character I know the least, and I liked what happened with him.

In the end, I've been watching too much MI-5 and I picked too many books that I like (although it would be difficult for me to pick books I don't like, as I don't remember them and can't give them to characters as a result), and I welched on feedback, so this week was a posting success but otherwise kind of a bust.

Also, it feels like I still have writer's block.

Holy Books

“I don’t know why more people don’t read the Bible,” Angel said. “It’s very comforting, no matter your religion.”

Asia tipped her head back against the coolness of the cement wall. “It’s only comforting if you believe its words. Otherwise it’s just...Early Modern English poetry, and not great poetry, for that matter.”

Angel smiled faintly. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil –”

“Because I am the God of Death, and this is my valley, baby,” Christian said, and he grinned.

Jo Seung peered up at them from the opposite corner. “They’re gonna torture us, aren’t they?”

Asia glanced toward the door. On the other side, they could hear the faint rattlings and mumblings of their captors. “Probably,” she said.

Christian shot her a look.

Asia arched an eyebrow and continued blithely. “Not just them, though. They’ve been paid, so they’ll pass us on to whoever wants us next.”

“You sound remarkably calm,” Jo Seung said.

Angel leaned in to her and said, too low for human ears to hear, “Just because we don’t die doesn’t mean we don’t feel pain.”

“Did you really think this was the first time I’d been captured?” Asia asked.

“I’ve been captured before too, obviously,” Angel said. “Usually I escaped – or died temporarily.”

Asia said flatly, “They don’t treat men and women the same in captivity.”

Angel’s mouth closed so fast his teeth clicked.

Outside the door, someone began to scream. Jo Seung flinched.

Angel said, “Ignore it – it’s just a recording.”

Jo Seung shook his head. “No – it’s Jamal. I know his voice!” His face was pale, his eyes wide.

“It’s a recording,” Angel said again.

Jo Seung began to shake.

Angel slid closer to him, wrapped an arm around his shoulders, began to murmur softly.

“That’s from the Qu’ran,” Asia said. “He’s Korean. Try something – Buddhist.”

“That’s stereotyping,” Jo Seung. “I’m Christian.”

Christian said, “Forget religion.” He shuffled closer to Jo Seung, nudged the boy’s shoulder with his. “Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste of death but once.”

“I’ve been valiant,” Jo Seung said. “I’ve served The Change. But I’m pretty sure I will die a thousand times before these people are done with me.”

“If you like,” Asia said, “you only need die the one.”

Angel blinked. “What?”

But Jo Seung nodded. “Please.”

Asia turned to Angel and said, “What other holy books have you read?”

Angel began to recite from the Rig Vedas, and Asia closed her hands around Jo Seung’s neck. He was smiling as he listened, and then he closed his eyes, and Asia twisted.

(442 words)

Any Other Twenty-somethings

“Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly –”

“That’s pretty morbid,” Serena said.

James sighed. “I was trying to read.”

“Yes, aloud,” Katie said, and rolled her eyes.

“It’s actually not that morbid,” Riley said without looking up from his copy of Love in a Time of Cholera. “It’s about the Lady of Shallott.”

“There was a lady of wild garlic?” Serena wrinkled her nose. “Sounds like she’s totally your style, James.”

“She’s from Arthurian legend,” Riley said. “She was in love with Sir Lancelot.”

“I thought that was Queen Guinevere,” Serena said.

“She was in love with Lancelot too, but...well, lots of ladies fancied him,” Riley said. “That’s not the point. Keep reading, James.”

Katie arched an eyebrow. “He was reading for you?”

Serena hummed. “James does have a pleasant speaking voice.”

Riley turned a page in his book. “Read, minion.”

Soon the power would be back on and they could resume shooting. Till then, they were sprawled on the grass in the sun, pretending they were any other twenty-somethings, dressed in medieval gear and sitting in the lee of a fourteenth century castle.

(194 words)

Any Good?

"What are you reading?" Hal asked, plopping down beside David. Hal was one of the few people that David would count as a friend in this school. One of the only people who would make the first move to initiate conversation.

David held up the slim novel, "Persuasion, by Jane Austen," he said.

Hal tried, but didn't succeed in suppressing a bubble of laughter. "Why on earth are you reading that?" he asked, merriment dancing in his eyes at the thought of his friend reading such a girly book.

"Just because you would never broaden your horizons doesn't mean the rest of us don't," David sniffed in mock disdain, "besides," he added and smiled a little, "it's one of Ariana's favorites."

"What's it about?" Hal asked, still clearly amused.

"It's about a military man who fell in love with a young girl. The young girl gave up the relationship when pressured by her family. They split up and he went to sea. He came back years later and this is the story of how they both cope with it. It's a story about waiting," David said.

"Is it any good?" Hal asked, his tone low, as if embarrassed to be caught asking.

"It's really good," David said, "I'll let you read it when I'm finished if you want," he continued, casting a sidelong glance at his friend.

Hal looked around quickly, "alright," he said, "if it's as good as you say then I'll check it out."

David smirked a little and returned to the story.

Moving Memories

"What are you looking for?" Jen asked as she watched Joe rummage through a tattered old moving box.

"Nothing in particular," he said, brushing dust from his cheek.

"What's in the box?" she asked leaning a little closer. She could see old papers, notebooks, and some odds and ends.

"It's just a bunch of stuff from the past," Joe mumbled, his voice muffled from his head being in the box as he dug deeper, "I haven't looking in this box in years."

Jen leaned against the last unpainted wall of the apartment, she was wearing white overalls and a pair of faded old sneakers. Her hair was pulled into a high ponytail and the rest was trapped by an old red bandanna. She held a paintbrush in one hand, letting her arms rest atop her knees.

"What made you decide to look in the box now?" Jen asked; she eyed the young man in curiosity.

Joe looked up at her and smiled, "because of the move, silly," he said. It had taken them a while to agree that they should get an apartment together and even longer before they found one that they liked. "Isn't that what people do when they move? They go through old boxes and relive the past, try to decide if they want to keep the stuff, realize the memories it brings back and decide to keep it though they will hardly ever look at it again,"

Joe's searching fingers had grasped a thin glossy book and pulled it from under the pile of papers. He smiled fondly at it as he thumbed through it. "I haven't seen or though of this book in years," he said.

"What book is that?" Jen asked looking over at him.

Joe stood up and crossed the room to sit beside her, "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day," Joe said, "Alec used to read it to me when we were young. Whenever I was having a bad day."

Jen glanced sideways to see if Joe was in pain, but was relieved to find only a fond smile tugging at his mouth. "Will you read it to me?" Jen asked.

Joe's smile widened and he flipped open the front cover. "I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there's gum in my hair..."

Down to Chance

“I don’t like to read much,” Marsh said.

Elise raised her eyebrows at the stack of books next to his knee and strummed her guitar. “Really?”

“Sometimes reading is necessary, of course,” Marsh said. “But that doesn’t mean I like to do it. I can just do it quickly. And remember loads of it.”

“Those look like textbooks,” Elise said.

“They are, of a sort.” Marsh glanced at the stack of books. They were hardbacks and had lavish fantasy illustrations on the covers. Elise tilted her head to study the titles. Monster Manual, Psionics, Players Handbook, Exalted, Dragonlance.

“What are you studying?” They didn’t look like they would be useful in any subject at school, not even at Cody’s fancy private school.

“Rules. For a game,” Marsh said. “Every game has rules. The best players understand how the rules work – and how to make the rules work for them.”

Elise hummed thoughtfully, a counterpoint to the chords she was playing. “All right – what’s the most important rule in that game?”

Marsh’s smile was so sweet it was frightening. “Everything comes down to chance.”

(183 words)

In the Beginning

Kyle read in a strange, rolling tongue, “En arché en ò lógos, kai ò lógos en pròs tòn théon –”

Cody glanced up from his worn copy of Lovecraft’s Necronomicon and said, “What are you reading?”

Kyle blinked, startled out of his narration, and looked up at Cody. “Pardon?”

Cody nodded at the antique-looking volume Kyle had propped up on his knees. “What book are you reading? And for the record, what language?” They all spoke Hebrew, to one degree or another, and sometimes Aramaic and Latin came in handy, but that sounded brand new.

“It’s ancient Greek,” Kyle said. “And I’m reading from the Bible.”

Cody raised his eyebrows. “The Bible?”

“Yes,” Kyle said, and he began to recite, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God –”

“The New Testament,” Cody said flatly.

Kyle shrugged. “Yes, well, I do have Gabriel.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“Well, Gabriel isn’t named till the New Testament, now is he?” Kyle smiled and returned to reading aloud in his rolling ancient Greek, leaving Cody to puzzle over that piece of information.

Cody finally spat on his fingertips and drew some Hebrew letters, and Asrael coalesced from the shadows, blinking and looking like a cat that had been unceremoniously dumped into a frigid swimming pool.

“Yes?” Asrael asked.

“Where in the scriptures are you first named?”

Asrael raised his eyebrows. “Well, they never really named me in the Qu’ran - there they simply call me the Angel of Death. I have many names, of course. But you won’t find my name in any canonized scripture, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Cody’s mouth shaped the word Qu’ran but no words came out.

Asrael smiled and patted his shoulder. “Maybe you need to read something else.”

(297 words)

Spoiled

Mark eagerly began the last chapter of his novel, Warbreaker. He had waited a while to savor this book until he had a little R&R and could take the time to really enjoy it fully. He could almost see it as if it were being played out in front of him. It was one of the reasons he loved to read. He could see it. He could rewind and replay a scene over and over again.

"Hey, I've read that one," Joe exclaimed as he wandered into the living room, "isn't it fantastic? I loved the ending, didn't you? I especially like the part where Vash defeats the bad guy at the end and the God-King is proven to be... Wasn't that a surprise?"

Mark looked up at Joe, his eyes flashing in anger. "It isn't a surprise anymore," Mark said flatly as he snapped the book closed, "do you know how long I've been waiting to read that?"

Joe swallowed hard, suddenly looking like he would rather be anywhere else than where he was. Joe slowly backed out of the room before turning and hurrying down the hall.

Mark growled in frustration and tossed the book aside. He hated a spoiled ending.

Cry to Heaven

“Whatcha reading?” Tobias asked.

DJ didn’t even look up. “A book.” He turned the page.

“Goodness gracious me, I’m so unobservant that I didn’t notice.” Tobias rolled his eyes and perched on the arm of the sofa with the uncanny balance of a bird of prey.

“You can read the title.”

“Yes, well, Cry to Heaven doesn’t tell me much. It could be religious or weepy or whatnot,” Tobias said.

DJ said, “It’s none of the above.”

“Then what’s it about?”

“Revenge.”

Tobias blinked. Then he leaned in, peered at the cover, and sure the cover was bright red and all, but that didn’t tell him much. “So...revenge. Who’s getting revenge on who?”

“A boy is getting revenge on his father,” DJ said, “and he has to become a monster to do it.”

“Oh.” Tobias mulled that over for a moment, then said, “But you’ve already done all that. Surely a book pales compared to the real thing.”

The smile that curved DJ’s lips would have sent Jack the Ripper fleeing in terror. “You’d be surprised.”

Later, when Tobias read the book, he was.

(185 words)

The Mammoth Ego of Merlin

“You are such an egomaniac,” Asia said.

Angel peered over the top of the worn paperback and raised his eyebrows. “What makes you say that?”

Asia nodded at the spine of his book. “The Crystal Cave? And don’t think I didn’t see your copy of Le Morte D’Arthur and The Idylls of the King. Also, let’s not forget The Mammoth Book of Merlin.”

“I’m very interested in Arthurian legend,” Angel said.

Asia rolled her eyes. “Please. You’re just obsessed with how most legends turned you into a cantankerous old man with a massive white beard.”

A mutinous expression crossed Angel’s face, and he looked ready to launch into an age-old tirade, but then he said, “Actually, I’m fascinated at how you manage to not be in any of the legends. To my knowledge, no one ever mentions his page, squire, or personal servant.”

“Do you really want to know?” Asia asked. She plopped down on the other end of the sofa.

Angel closed the book over a bookmark (a tattered thing made of plaited yarn born of one of Keith’s bored days). “You actually know the answer?”

“Yes,” Asia said.

“Go on then. Tell me how history managed to utterly cock up one of our finest moments,” Angel said.

Asia leaned in and lowered her voice. “Well, after Arthur died, we went our separate ways. You became a samurai, but I stayed in the British Isles, and I returned to my ways as a wandering songstress.”

“And?”

“And I might have started telling stories about a wondrous king, a sword in a stone...and his cranky old wizard,” Asia said.

Fury sparked in Angel’s eyes, and his telekinesis laced the air. Pillows launched themselves at Asia from all sides. She laughed and batted them away. Angel lunged at her, and Asia leapt off the sofa, danced out of reach.

“You –!” Angel yelled.

Asia was still laughing. “Yes, me.”

Angel attempted to fling more household furnishings at her, but she just dodged. When they finally settled down, Angel picked up his novel.

“Fine, so maybe I had it coming, what with spawning Mordred,” Angel said. Then he tilted his head and looked at her, curious. “Why did you write yourself out of the legend?”

“Because no one would believe a woman was any good with a sword,” Asia said easily, and both of them knew she was lying.

“Do you think you’ll ever get a second chance with him?” Angel asked.

Asia frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Like with all the others – do you think you’ll have a second chance?”

“No.”

“But the prophecy –”

“Those are books, Angel,” Asia said, and she stood up. Maybe one day he would remember that he, too, had been there to witness the burial of the king, and he’d heard her say the words himself. Until then, he could keep reading and imagining.

(479 words)

Project Assignment # 82 - Books

What is your characters favorite book? Have the written a book or do they just like to putter around? Why is the book their favorite? Does Tobias like historical fiction? Maybe Bryan likes fantasy books.

500 word limit.

Have fun!!!

Overview # 81 Musical Instruments

I tried to get a feel for what instruments my boys would play. And I think the most difficult was writing Stephens Beat Box piece. How do you render those sounds into writing...?

I have to say I partially failed this week because my sister gave birth and so it kinda didn't happen.

I enjoyed writing Mark and Joe's pieces.

Overview #81: Musical Instruments

So...this week was all right. I learned some new things about the boys and girls in Seraph-verse. The cheap thing about the boys in the Dagaz is that they all play instruments (except maybe Angel) and they all play bloody well. I'd given Tobias an instrument from his first life, and I think he's the only one who inherently has two, so I gave Keith another one out of national pride, but...I don't know that I really did anything new with them having musical instruments. In typical me fashion, what started off as an exploration of music itself turned into an exploration of character with music as a sort of foil or entry point.

Who knows. As long as I'm learning new things about my characters, I'm glad, but I'm not entirely sure I grew as a writer this week.

On the other hand...this week Madness wins! Because she wrote her own song lyrics for a piece. That's artistic integrity and dedication, friends. So...fandom of your choice, 1000 words or less!

For Food Money

Elise was surprised that the person who knew the most pop songs was Kyle. Cody had an ear for classical and ethnic music, most of which wasn’t suited for the western musical scale, and Marsh was a fan of old rock and alternative rock, in that order.

So Elise let Kyle sit beside her on the corner of Harney and 11th while they played for food money. Elise had put a lot of effort into learning weird Indie music and grunge rock – so maybe Cody calling her a Courtney Love cliché had some truth to it – but her taste in music wasn’t going to get them fed.

“Try some Leona Lewis,” Kyle said. “You can sing, right?” And he hummed the melody.

For all that Cody assumed most days Elise was uneducated white trash, she’d had a decent enough musical education, and she could pick out a chord progression for a melody. “I don’t know the words,” she said..

Kyle sighed. “Fine. Just for you, I’ll break out my countertenor skills. You ready?”

Elise tested the chord progression, and then Kyle explained the verse-chorus-bridge layout to her, and they began another performance. A group of girls stopped to listen and coo at Kyle (who looked all of six and was really twelve) and nod along to the song, and they dropped some actual bills into Elise’s case, and maybe at the end of an eight-hour day they’d have enough to buy supper for all of them.

Kyle scanned the streets and spotted a group of retiree tourists.

“How’s your American folk music?” he asked.

Elise could play Spanish guitar with the best of them. “What do you mean?”

“Woody Guthrie,” Kyle said. “I know all the verses.”

So Elise played, and Kyle sang, and they were paid.

(300 words)

Dirges and Love Songs

James flung open the door, still enraged at the absolute cock-up that was his afternoon improv exercise. His partner had been utterly unprepared – because, contrary to popular belief, improv required actual preparation – and everything had gone to hell in a handcart.

“Have you ever been stuck with Sanderson for an exercise?” he began, and he stopped short.

Tobias was standing in the middle of the room poised with a violin, eyes closed, making the the strings weep.

James took a deep breath, and then he closed the door quietly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

Tobias opened his eyes and smiled. The curve of his mouth was utterly gentle, but his eyes were pitch black, and he looked ready to cry. “Don’t worry, you didn’t disturb me.” He lowered his bow and stretched his neck. “Just thought my instrument needed a little love. School got in the way for a while.”

“I didn’t know you played,” James said. He sat down on the edge of his bed.

“I’ve played since I was a child.” Tobias reached into his pocket for a hanky and used it to clean the strings. “I used to practice every day, but then I decided on drama instead of music.”

“I play the guitar, but not nearly as well as you play the violin,” James said, awed. “I hear it’s one of the most difficult instruments to play.”

“Maybe,” Tobias said. “Do you have a guitar?”

“Sold it to buy books,” James said. “What song were you playing?”

“Old Russian melody,” Tobias said, and his smiled turned brighter. “It was a love song, but they all sound like dirges.”

James laughed. “Can you sing any of them?”

“Do you want to top yourself?”

“Fine. Can you play Flight of the Bumblebee?”

(297 words)

Speak-Easy

Mark couldn't remember how long it had been since he had played the piano. He ran his fingers across the dusty keys and picked out a few chords. The bench creaked as he sat down, his weight settling the ancient wood.

Only one or two keys were slightly out of tune as Mark tested them out, his fingers flowing across the ivory. Music flooded the room and it sounded like an entire jazz band era orchestra was coming from the old piano. A vision seemed to materialize from the notes that shimmered in the air.

One could picture a 1920s speak-easy, fedoras tilted at rakish angles and the air hazy with cigarette smoke. Low conversation punctuated by the soft clink of ice in glasses of illegally obtained booze. Smooth men in suits with smartly oiled hair played cards and transacted business deals. Women were resplendent in tight cocktail dresses, hair perfectly coiffed, faces painted up to look like perfect china dolls.

Servers in tuxedos ghosted through the room, collecting glasses and lighting cigars. A piano sat in the far corner of the lounge, a smartly dressed man in slacks and suspenders sat on the bench, coaxing popular tunes from the instrument.

With a final flourish, Mark raised his fingers from the keys and the vision of the speak-easy faded slowly into the dusty darkness.

Guitar and Drums

“So I hear you play the drums,” Will said.

Anna blinked. “You heard correctly. Why?”

“Are you busy?”

Answering a question with a question – a law student should know better. Anna said, “No.”

“Is it true you have a set of drums in your apartment?” Will asked.

“Yes.” Where was he going with this?

“Great. Can I come over?”

Anna glanced longingly at the next season of Spooks, waiting for her in all its Richard Armitage goodness and said, “Yes.”

Seven minutes later, Anna opened her door and saw Will standing on the doorstep, guitar slung across his back, amp in one hand.

“Where are your drums?” he asked.

Anna gaped. Will – proper, buttoned-up, Victorian Will – played the guitar? A gleaming red electric fender, no less. Will craned his neck and peered past her.

“Oh, they’re in your room,” he said. “Is there a plug in there for me to set up?”

Anna said, “Yes,” because it seemed that was all she was capable of saying, and she led Will into her bedroom. He spotted a power outlet and set up immediately while she stared, confused.

“Sit down and play a beat, any beat,” he said, so Anna, still dazed, obeyed. She grabbed her sticks, adjusted the hi-hat, and picked a beat from a song she’d been working on for a while. It was a beat for a Moffatts song, but then Will began picking a series of notes, a Chili Peppers song, and somehow it worked.

Will played the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

In Anna’s room. While she played the drums.

Wonders would never cease. Anna kicked into a filler and slid into a new beat, and Will followed her, this time with some Pink Floyd.

To top it off, he began to sing.

(297 words)

Paying the Piper

“What d’you suppose this is?” the professor asked. The slide changed to an image of a series of shapes, faintly tubular, encrusted with dirt and obviously fragile with age, bound together in a series of staggered lengths.

The students in the dimly-lit classroom made no move to answer.

The professor sighed. “Come on, put your thinking caps on! Look at it from an artist’s perspective. Why was it given this shape? What was it for – was it practical or ornamental or both?”

Tobias raised his eyebrow at the notion of thinking caps, because they were in Art History 101, not second grade. He glanced up at the slide, and then he felt something in his chest tighten. He knew that image instinctively, from some place buried deep inside of him. He raised his hand.

“Yes, Andrew,” the professor said, and the name ricocheted down to the soles of Tobias’s feet.

“It’s a set of pipes,” he said, “carved from the antlers of the deer driven on the steppes by the people who roamed Russia back in those days. It was tied with a strip of deer hide and used both to play music and also as a signaling device for hunters to communicate across long distances.”

The professor blinked at the eloquent answer. “Yes...that’s a very real possibility.”

Tobias knew it wasn’t a possibility – he knew it was the truth, because he’d played those pipes himself. He could close his eyes and see Asia – no, Kana dancing to his songs. If he had those pipes in his hands, he could breathe life and magic into them, he was sure of it.

But then the lights came on, and the lecture was over.

Tobias wondered what other skills were sleeping just beneath the surface.

(295 words)

Brother My Brother

Joe let his fingers lightly caress the strings as he hummed a wordless melody, his pitch perfectly harmonic to the chords he strummed. A ripple of sound rolled off six strings and echoed through the wooden body of the old guitar that Alec had left behind.

"I didn't know you played the guitar," David said as he poked his head into the den of their little apartment, his thoughts had been sidetracked when he had heard the quiet music.

"I don't really," Joe replied, "Just the chords that someone once taught me. I shuffle them around into different patterns, though it never comes out quite right."

David stepped out of the room, his mind returning to his paperwork when he was arrested in his thoughts again as Joe softly began to sing, his voice a rich tenor.

"Brother my brother
our time, it was so brief.
We laughed until our days were gone
And now we come to grief.

Time and again I remember when
We laughed until we cried.
And even though the memory is strong
It feels like I'm dying inside.

Your spirit whispers softly
urging me to carry on.
Still you keep me from falling,
Even now, when you are gone."

David hadn't noticed when tears had begun rolling down his cheeks.



(I am proud to say that I wrote those lyrics myself just for this piece.)

Uilleann Pipes

“I might play the uillean pipes.” Keith slanted a glance sideways at Tobias, who was making a fine point of tuning his violin.

“I thought you played the bass,” James said.

“I do play the bass,” Keith said. “But I also play the uillean pipes.”

Asia raised an eyebrow. “I don’t ever remember you –”

“I might have picked them up in a moment of national consciousness,” Keith said.

“What are uillean pipes?” James looked slightly cornered with all of Asia’s brothers crowded into the tiny kitchen in his flat.

“The Irish equivalent of bagpipes,” Tobias said without looking up from his violin.

“Irish equivalent my foot.” Riley stood in the doorway, hands tucked into his pockets, grinning. “Uillean pipes sound far better than those Scottish honking geese.”

Keith broke into a grin. “A man after my own taste. Do I detect a hint of Armagh in you, m’lad?”

Riley grinned back at him. “Aye. And I hear some Ulster in you, I dare say.”

“Indeed.”

James cleared his throat. “So...how long have you been playing the uillean pipes?”

Keith started to say something, but Asia dug an elbow into his ribs, and he wheezed out, “Five years.”

“I have a set, you know,” Riley said. He reached toward the crowded table and poured himself a cup of hot cocoa. “Serenade us, why don’t you?”

Keith immediately turned a fantastic shade of red. “I, er, I’ve never performed before.”

“Why do you have a set of uillean pipes?” James asked.

Riley shrugged. “National pride. And my granddad played, too.”

“Tell you what,” Asia said, “sometime you play for us, and I will play for you.”

Tobias lifted his head sharply. “Since when do you play an instrument?”

“Didn’t you know?” James said. “Asia plays the piano. Hammers and strings.”

(299 words)

Beatbox

Steve sauntered down the hall towards his math class, headless of the looks that he got as he passed. He tapped rhythmicly on his thigh as his lips contorted, his voice forming the strangest sounds. For a moment it sounded like a snare drum to be followed by a base drum, a kick, some base, and various synth sounds, all of it tumbling from his lips in the most compelling patterns.

Steve leaned against the wall outside his class room as he continued to Beat box, his eyes closed and his fingers keeping time on the wall; increasing in tempo and complexity. He finished with a flourish of sounds and stepped into the room just as the bell rang, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

The Harp

“You play an instrument?” Elise asked.

Marsh thought her eyebrows were going to fly right off her face.

“It’s not uncommon,” Cody said, hunching his massive shoulders defensively. “Reading music helps children read better when they’re younger, and practicing an instrument instills discipline –”

“Yeah whatever,” Elise said, waving a hand dismissively.

Cody hunched his shoulders further. “Promise you won’t laugh.”

“Why would I laugh?” Elise asked. “It’s not something embarrassing like the tuba or triangle, is it?”

Cody cast a shifty glance in Marsh’s direction.

Glee lit in Elise’s eyes. “It is the tuba, isn’t it?”

“It’s the harp,” Cody said flatly.

“The harp? Like...angels on a cloud harp?” Elise’s glee turned to puzzlement.

“It makes sense,” Kyle said, and Marsh blinked; he’d almost forgotten Kyle was there. Kyle was prone to long bouts of silence while he set wards on a safehouse.

“I guess...since Cody’s so big he can carry one around,” Elise said, but she was eyeing Cody with a newfound skepticism.

“King David played the harp,” Kyle explained.

“Like David and Goliath David?” Elise asked.

Marsh hummed tonelessly and attempted to sing, “I heard there was a secret chord that David played and it pleased the Lord –”

“I always figured it was a piano,” Elise said.

“They didn’t have pianos back then,” Cody said. He cast Israfel a look. “Don’t you teach her anything?”

Israfel shrugged and sketched quavers in the air. “She sings, and I answer.”

“Play us a song,” Elise said.

Cody cast her a withering look. “I don’t have a harp with me.”

Elise snapped her fingers. “Israfel. A harp for the boy.”

“He’s an angel, not a genie in a bottle,” Cody said.

Elise shimmied her hips and sang an old pop song. Cody sighed. Marsh laughed. Kyle finished the wards.

(300 words)

Overview # 80 - Poetry

Okay. So I turned out a few this week that I was proud of, but I got sick with a terrible cold so my posting slacked off. I did have several more ideas, most of them were of the fever induced variety and they didn't stick around for very long. Plus my internet connection has been driving me up the wall this week! It will randomly stop working. So I hope to be forgiven.

Most of my work this week didn't rhyme; which is kind of a departure for me, but I rather liked it.

Project #81: Musical Instruments

I realize we have a list of challenges we'd like to do, and I know we did songfics recently, but I'd like to see how your characters deal with musical instruments. Can they play? What instrument can they play? Were they classically trained or self-taught? What kind of music do they play? Are their instruments expensive or cheap, rented or owned, family heirlooms or bought on a whim? Do they refuse to play? Is there an instrument they like listening to best? 100-300 words. Musical instruments...go!

Overview #80: Open-form poetry

.....And I wrote poetry for the first time in almost a year. Most of it was whimsical and centered around a single image, a metaphor, and was really prose with line breaks, the kind of prose you can't get away with in the middle of a fictional narrative but that works okay with line breaks. Only one poem had even a vaguest notion of a story. The rest of it was emotional.

I noticed there was a lot of emotional poetry this week. I'm my imagistic self, sticking to concrete images and trying to avoid abstractions (not that they didn't tumble off of my fingertips all over the place). I need to learn a new trick or angle, I think, and maybe my poetry will be better.