Fiction: The bus

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Fall has arrived, with ghost, goblins and spooky stories. I love this time of year with the crisp air, the crisper apples and the swooshing fireworks of changing leaves. It’s a good time to be a storyteller because, even more than in other seasons, stories seem to find us.

I was walking home the other evening when an older man sitting on a bench called out to me. “Lady,” he said in a voice roughened by age and alcohol, “Lady, I have to tell you something.” I know an invitation to wonder when I see it, so I waited and listened. Sure, it could have been awful. It could have been crude or painful or just a bid for another drink, but I would always rather hope that there is something else possible.

“Lady, I just need to tell someone this. I was right here waiting for the bus, it’s time for me to get home, like I always do. I’d finished my drink,” he waved to a paper bag beside him, “and was hoping it would be here soon cause I had to pee. I looked down the street to see if the bus was coming. I always do that even though I know it won’t come any faster. You know how you do that? You look to see if the bus is there even though you know it's gonna be another five minutes? Anyway, there was nothing.

“I sat back down on the bench when all of a sudden there was this huge gust of wind and a big, black bus stopped in front of me. Like one of those tour buses from the 1970s, you know? I sat there looking at it when the door creaked open and a tall, thin guy in a sharp suit stepped out. I used to wear suits like that, long time ago. I couldn't see much behind him, no driver or anything, it's like there was a curtain or something even though I couldn't see one.

“He looked me up and down and asked if I wanted a ride. Now, I may be a drunk but I’m no fool. I asked him if they would let me off at my stop and he just smiled. His teeth were so white I could barely see. I shook my head no.

“He sighed, told me I didn’t know what I was missing, there were ladies on board and a fresh bottle just for me. But I wouldn’t look at him again. Tell you the truth, I wanted to. But I thought if I could wait just a moment longer I would make it. Kind of like the twelve steps but different.

“I heard the door close and there was a rush of hot air, so dry and nasty it burned my eyes, and when I looked up the bus was gone. Look, you can see the tire marks.”

He was right, I could see a skid on the road, a mark that hadn’t been there the day before.

“First thing I thought was a shoulda got on, but I figure it might stop for me again some time. Whaddya think lady, should I’ve gotten on? Think it might come back?”

I looked at him and was about to say something, no doubt something trite, but he stood up. “My bus is here. See you around.”

The city bus pulled away and I noticed he had left his bottle behind.

I don’t know. What do you think I should have said?

If you are interested in this or other stories please contact me. I’d love to tell stories with you.

(c)2016 Laura S. Packer

Fiction: The True Cause of World War I. Part 4.

Time is a mysterious thing, I've written about this before. Last year - last year! - I posted 3 out of 4 episodes in my story, The True Cause of World War I. I never posted the final episode, not through creative block but through forgetfulness. My friend Beth was kind enough to to ask me if I would ever finish it. Wow. I thought I had. It's amazing, the chaos you can find when time and busyness intersect, though that's a whole other blog post.


So here it is, the long overdue conclusion. As I read through parts one-three I found myself cringing over my poor editing, but that's the way the creative process works. We practice more, we become better at our craft, we wince at our old mistakes. I'm sure I'll wince at this introduction in a year.


If you like this story please contact me before republishing, riffing on or otherwise using it. I recently had a piece of my work stolen and I'd rather that not happen again.


I would urge you to read Parts 1, 2 and 3 before you read the conclusion. It will make a lot more sense. If you can't bear it and need to forge ahead, here is the story so far:


In Part 1 we met a group of poets in the early 20th century. Language is their love, their mistress, their all-consuming passion. A new poet, John Davies, is introduced to the group. He seems naive and unlikely to be a crafter of words. He reads them a poem and they realize he is  someone extraordinary. In Part 2 John Davies reveals that he received a visitation from a heavenly messenger, who told him he was destined to write the greatest poems of his generation, all in praise of Gods return. He reads his friends a poem and they are compelled to write. Part 3 sees the poets at first enraptured by their God-given poetry, but soon they realize that all they write is praise to God, that poetry is no longer the voice of humanity, but the voice of deity. Wherever John Davies speaks his poems, all listeners stop their daily lives and sing hosanas. The world begins to grind to a halt as religious ecstasy spreads like plague. The poets want their own voices back, want to give back self-determination to humanity. In their anger and their need, they murder John Davies' heavenly visitor who brought this cursed gift to the world. As the visitor dies it offers them a great and terrible muse. They dispose of the body in the Thames. Which brings us to...


Part 4

We slunk away into the night, each to his own rooms, his own pen and paper. We didn’t see each other for a time. 

I waited and tried to write, and waited more, but I couldn’t find a word. All I could see was a flood of red on glowing white. 



After a longer time we met again, as if in agreement that it was better to be wordless together. A few of us had poems to share. John Davies had written nothing.



We pretended nothing had happened. The world seemed to be itself, full of gossip and laughter and tears. God wasn't on the lips of the fishmonger and cobbler, the maid or whore. Each went to their work and their prayers were a private thing. 


We pretended we had no need for a muse. We tried to write. Some of us did. We tried to talk. Some of us could. 

But it always rang false. John Davies no longer rushed in clutching paper, instead he sat in the corner drinking scotch. We tried to not look at him, we tried not think about what we had become.



A few months later, the Serbian Duke Ferdinand was killed. In August, the world went mad. What came to be called the Great War fell upon us.



Imagine hundreds, thousands of young men. Round faces, barely formed, peering out from under helmets. Soft hands clutching guns. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of young men rushing up hills, rushing to be slaughtered, backs arching as they fall. 


Imagine running into machine gun fire, bodies rolling down hills, pushed into mud turned red from blood. The trenches deep and thick and muddy, reeking of shit and piss and foot rot. Trenches full of the sound of the lost mumbling for their mothers, the rest of us boasting about how we wouldn’t be killed. 


Imagine the haze of gas, the terror of phosgene, knowing lungs would burn and rot but staying in trenches even as gas settled there because looking up out of the trenches was sure death. It was better to try to hold our breath and grab for the too-few masks then stick our heads up above the roiling yellow cloud that crept towards us, sucking our life away. 


Imagine us, sitting in the trenches, picking off rats one by one, ignoring the stench of a body hanging on the wires, that we could not get because then we would just be another body alongside.


The Marne

Verdun

Gallipoli

The Somme



Oh it was a great and terrible muse we unleashed upon the world.



The others are gone now. I am the only one left and I still dream of flares and shells.



Some of my friends died in the war. Some of us were just as good as dead. John Davies never wrote again. Robert and Sigfried were gunned down. Some swallowed their own guns, others drank themselves into oblivion, a few managed to eke out some kind of life after. But we never spoke of what we had done, what we saw before the war. What our words caused. 



We got what we wanted. We had a muse of mankind. Maybe because man isn’t God we were given a muse of our vengeful hearts, of our jealousy and rage, of our bravery and lies.



And I am all that is left. My joints ache. Standing here telling you has made my heart tighten as it did when I was young and in the trenches waiting to die, watching my friends die. It has made my heart tighten as it did when I heard John Davies' words. It has made my heart tighted as it did when I saw the splash of blood first dim brightness.  



We were young men. We didn’t know. We didn't know. We didn't know there could be such a consequence to our needs.

We got what we wanted and so much more. 

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.


Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.


In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.


If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.


(c)2012 Laura S. Packer
Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

Flash fiction: Once Bitten

I'm really enjoying the flash writing site oneword. You get a single word prompt and 60 seconds to write. Everyone once in a while I produce something evocative. Like today. The word was bitten.

*     *     *

Once bitten twice shy. Once bitten twice shy. Fucking mosquitoes, I’ll show you shy. Slap!

I wish I wasn’t out here tonight, didn’t have to hide in this god forsaken bush while I listen to everything that’s happening inside the house but I don’t dare go back in cause if I do I know what will happen and I don’t want that again.

Once bitten twice shy. Once bitten twice shy.


(c)2012 Laura S. Packer

Friday fiction: Doorways

It was a scene out of a movie, one of those long trembling moments when the plot could fall one way or another, and each character is desperately hoping for a different outcome.

We’d been friends for years. It was the kind of friendship that had been broken and remade over and over again, something that, frankly, I don’t usually care for. I prefer the kind of friendship where you know the other person will be there, predictable, a straight road, maybe annoying, but reliable. Not this friendship. This was a storm-tossed ship, riding high then crashing low, unsure of its direction. If you asked either of us we’d agree it was because he was a little crazy and I was a lot impatient. And if you asked again one or the other might tell you it had something to do with the way he felt, and the way I didn’t, but then again, we might not. In any case, we’d been friends for years and navigated many choppy waters to finally find ourselves here, standing on opposite sides of a doorway.

It had been one of the good times, clear sailing on bright waters. I was in love with someone I found troubling and didn’t understand; he had no one but me. We’d been up late talking and it was time for him to leave. So many things hung in the air unsaid, so many things that I felt as though I was pushing through them as I walked behind him, towards the door.

As he stepped through the doorway he turned and looked at me and it was all there on his face, all the longing and love he hadn’t voiced, everything he wished he could say. I looked at him for a long moment and I knew, as clearly as if he acted upon it, that he wanted to reach through the door, take me in his arms, and kiss me. He opened his mouth and no words came out. I spoke, before his breath could organize itself into thought.

“Don’t say it. I know. And we both know it can’t be. Not now, maybe not ever. Thank you, though. Just, thank you.”

And we stood there a moment longer, looking at each other. I couldn’t be the first to turn away, the one to break the contact he needed so deeply. Maybe I needed it, too.

“Go home.”

And he did.

If this were a movie, someone would have written us better lines. Or turned my heart in that moment from the complicated love I was already in, to this simpler, longer, maybe more honest one. Or at least given him the gift of love waiting down the road if not at the foot of the stairs. But life isn’t quite like the movies. All that we were left with was that long moment in the doorway, bodies framed, and the lingering question of what would have happened if we were two different people at a different time, who instead had said “yes.”

(c) 2011 Laura S. Packer

(c)2011 Laura S. Packer

Friday Fiction: Running away with Greta

I'm proud to say this story was was a selection from the 2011 Muse and the Marketplace for The Drum Literary magazine. You can hear it here.

*   *   *

When I was a little girl, somewhere between 5 and 10, my best friend was Greta Smith. She lived on the other end of our block with her mom and brother, Christian. I remember thinking it was odd that her brother was named after a religion.

Greta was my cool friend. There was a giant poster of some kind of sports car in her living room and I saw star trek for the first time at her house. I remember her mother tried to explain “divorce” to me. I didn’t understand – my parents fought all the time but they were still married.

Greta was the first person who told me that the way my father treated me wasn’t right, that it wasn’t okay that he yelled at me, threatened to hit me, told me I was a bad girl when I was just being a kid. She told me I didn’t have to suffer.

After one particularly bad fight I climbed out of my bedroom window, down the wisteria tree and ran to Greta’s house.

I expect I was crying but I don’t remember tears.

She said we should run away. I thought this was a grand idea. We found old broomsticks in her backyard brush pile, then took shirts from the rag bag. I would bring crackers, socks, peanut butter and my teddy bear. She had a map and a bottle of orange juice. Between us we had a few dollars. We agreed to meet at midnight on her front steps. I went home to prepare.

That night my mother made creamed corn for dinner, my favorite, usually reserved for my birthday or when she wanted me to know she was sorry my father and I fought. That she didn’t stand up for me. That I wasn’t a good girl. She wanted me to know she loved me anyway.

After dinner I went to my room. I played. I filled the shirt with stolen crackers, socks, a jar of peanut butter and what money I had in my piggy bank, then I tied the bundle to the end of the broomstick. I would be a hobo if it meant no one would yell at me anymore. I hid my prepared supplies under the bed.

My parents read to me, tucked me in and turned out the light.

I think I fell asleep around 11.

The next day I walked to Greta’s house, ashamed.

She asked me why I didn’t come, she’d been on the steps at midnight, why wasn’t I there? I imagined this little girl, in the quiet pool of the streetlight, waiting. The world was so big at night. I realized I never would have tasted my mother’s creamed corn again and I was glad I hadn’t come.

“I fell asleep.”
“Well, at least you didn’t chicken out.”

We played all day.

I got home before dinner, left my hobo stick under the bed just in case, and stayed up long past bedtime, staring out of my window, listening to the night.

(c)2011 Laura S. Packer

Friday Fiction: A jacket that's wrong for the weather

I'm delighted to introduce you to Ryan Underhill, my partner in the Great April Fool's Day Blog Swap organized by Tony Noland. We each were given the same prompt, a jacket that's wrong for the weather, and went from there. His story is a lot of fun, I'm sure you'll enjoy it!

*  *  *

Gisele hunched her shoulders as the cold, bitter wind blew through the fabric of her windbreaker. She knew it was too cold for it, but she's been in a rush when she'd left the house and hadn't grabbed anything more substantial. The last thing she had wanted then was to be in a house with Mark any longer, not after finding a string of love notes in email and IM messages to “Jessica”, a woman whom Gisele could only imagine to be a horrid little thing who delighted in ruining the lives of others.  The cold would be less suffering than that.
    

Eventually the wind became too much, and Gisele ducked into the front of the next store that she came to.  The sign above the door read “Geomancy”.  Gisele wasn't sure that meant, but paid it no mind.  She just needed to get out of the cold for a moment, and it was as good a store as any. “Brutal out there, isn't it?” the girl behind the cash register asked her as she entered the shop.
    

“Yeah, it's pretty bad,” Gisele said as she turned around to look at the girl behind the counter. She had a look on her face that showed that she wanted to ask Gisele why she wasn't wearing a thicker coat, but had enough tact to not say anything.
    

“It's a long story,” Gisele offered.
    

“Well, take your time, do some window shopping,” the girl offered. “The weather outside means it's going to be pretty quiet in here today, and frankly I could use the company.”
   

Gisele started to look at the items arranged on the shelf next to the door. There were a series of oddly-shaped statues along the shelf.  They didn't look like anything Gisele had seen before -  little collections of loops and waves, handshaped out of clay and having a shape that seemed instantly alien and familiar. “What are these?” she asked as she picked one of them up.
    

“Better be careful with those,” the girl said, jumping over the counter.
    

“Oh, sorry, are they expensive?”
     

“No, that's not it at all.  You'd think they would be, because they were dug up from an archeological site in Babylon.  But they're sandstone, so they're not very durable, which drives the price down a little.  Also we have to sell them cheap because a lot of people get a little freakout out at the idea of owning a soul catcher.”
    

“Soul catchers?” Gisele asked. “You mean, like dream catchers?”
     

“Uh, kind of,” the girl said, wrinkling her nose. “Only with, you know, souls.  Legend has it that if you used it correctly you could trap someone's soul and force it to walk the endless paths of its surface, and while their soul was trapped they had to do your bidding.”

Gisele tried to read the girl's face, but couldn't tell from it whether she honestly beleived that or was trying to put one over on her.  Either way, she uneasily put the soul catcher back down on the shelf;  Gisele wasn't entirely sure she believed in souls, but she wasn't entirely sure that she didn't believe in them, either. 
    

“My name's Marisa, by the way,” the shopgirl said, extending a hand that Gisele promptly shook, introducing herself as she did.
    

“So, are you sure you don't want to talk about what he did?” Marisa asked.  “We've got a kettle in the back room – I can make you some tea or something and you can let it all out.”
    

Gisele looked at her quizically.
    

“Sorry, I just assumed there was a him,” Marisa said.  “It happens every once in a while – woman comes in, horribly underdressed for the weather, with that look in her eyes like you had when you came in – usually there's a him.”
   

Gisele smiled.  “There sort of is – it's a long story,” she explained.  “Maybe that tea would be a good idea.”
    

“Okay,” Marisa said, bouncing into the back to turn the kettle on.  “It'll just be a couple of minutes.”
      

As soon as the girl was out of sight, Gisele picked up the soul catcher again.  Its surface had seemed dull at first, but the more she looked at it, the more intriguing and captivating it appeared to her.  She was mesmerized by it, and quickly slipped it into her pocket.  She still wasn't quite sure what she thought of it, but if it worked it would be the perfect way of getting back at Mark.  If not it would at least make for a fun paperweight.
    

As Marisa seemed fully occupied in her tea making, Gisele started to head towards the door.  It had been years since she had shoplifted, but she felt like she needed this thing, and her purse was back with her coat.
   

Then the smell of oolong tea started to waft into the room, and she stopped moving.  She was taken back to the nights in university that she had spent studying and drinking oolong tea to stay awake.  The nights before Mark and his lies.
    

She took the small piece of sandstone out of her pocket and put it back on the shelf.  “Do you need any help in there?” she called to  Marisa as she headed to the back of the store.

Fiction: The True Cause of World War 1. Part 3

Part 3. In which the poets reclaim their words from God.

The story so far... In Part 1 we met a group of poets in the early 20th century. Language is their love, their mistress, their all consuming passion. One day, a new poet named John Davies is introduced to the group. He seems naive and unlikely to be a crafter of words. He reads them a poem and they realize he is  someone extraordinary. In Part 2 John Davies reveals that he received a visitation from a heavenly messenger who told him he is destined to write the greatest poems of his generation, all in praise of God's return. He reads his friends a poem and they are compelled to write...

I wasn’t alone. We were all compelled to write throughout night, right where we were. We didn’t go home, we didn’t stop to wash the ink from our clothing or our hands.

The next day our fists were full of paper, our fingers ink-stained. We hadn't slept but, oh, we all were so alive and we all had the best poems we’d ever written. Sheaves of paper in praise of God, heralding God's arrival. This went on for days. We read each other poems, which compelled us to write more, praising God, praising creation, looking forward to heaven on earth. We didn’t drink or stop to eat beyond the barest sustenance nor barely to sleep. All there was, was poetry, glorious language and the hope of God’s retrun.

Every day John Davies had greater and greater poetry. His words were inspired beyond anything I had ever read, beyond anything that had ever existed. Soon John took to the streets reading his poems aloud on street corners and in parks, in markets and outside churches. Instead of ignoring him or mocking him as though mad, people stood and listened. The rag man, fish monger and the wealthy alike all were entranced. They would walk away telling each other of God's imminent arrival, their faces suffused with joy. The newsboys stopped calling out the latest murders and wars and instead screamed, “God is coming. Prepare yourselves for joy!”

It spread like ripples. Everyhere John went, all anyone could talk about was God. No longer did people discuss their own dreams and woes, cures for colic or recipes for bread. Business ground to  a halt in his wake. Anticipation filled every crack and alley. God was coming. And John was God’s herald.

I don't remember who got angry first - perhaps it was the one of us who tried to write letter to a friend but could only write praise. Or the one who threw down his pen in dismay when he tried to write “I had a good day” and instead wrote “God’s day is glorious. “ Or the one who wanted to write “I have a headache,” and instead penned, “God teaches through suffering.” We could no longer write anything other than God. There were no words in our hearts not full of God.

We began to talk in whispers. One by one we all admitted our rage except for John Davies, who was too full of glory to see what what had been stolen, too full of joy to mourn the loss of the voice of man. If part of what poets do is talk of man’s experiences so God can understand us, how can this god steal our voice? How can God understand anything of us now, when all our words are God’s? If poetry is God seeking to understand man, then how could God take man’s voice out of poetry?

What could we do? The bubble of praise was spreading. John was like a disease, everyone he touched, everyone he spoke to had nothing left, no words or hope or glory of their own. Nothing left but God.

Seigfried asked first. “Take us to your rooms, we want to meet this messenger, feel this heat.” John Davies refused.

Robert implored him. “Come. Let us see the light that creates poetry. Don’t you think we are as hungry to feed at the source as you were?”

John said nothing, only looked away. A few days later he came to us and said that yes, he would bring us to his rooms and show us the messenger.

His rooms were no different than mine. A few rooms, a bed and a desk, a coal stove, books. But in his room was light and warmth and grace such as we had never seen. We looked at it and it  sang celestial music to us.

And then, as if we were of one mind, we moved. It took six to hold it down, three to hold John back and only one to draw the knife across its glowing throat.

Blood poured out, staining its whiteness. Its blood was as red as any I had seen or would ever see again even in what was to come. In a voice unaffected by its wound, it asked us why we had done this. And one of us said that times are different now. Poetry is man talking to man, not just God.

Another said it was because we need our muses. God can’t be our only muse, we want to speak with the voice of man. We want to talk about man’s life, man’s experiences, man’s glory. Not only only about your god but the things that make us what we are. We've been away from the garden for a long time now, let us sing our own songs. God should be able to listen to us and grant us our own muses now.

It smiled a terrible smile and said in a gentle voice, “Very well then, you want a muse, you shall have a great and terrible muse.”

There was a gush of blood and it died. For some reason, I guess from the stain of childhood stories and the remains of a belief in the Bible, I expected the body to vanish, to be taken back to the heavens. Instead it simply lay there, inert and dark. Its light was gone. John Davies sagged to the floor and didn't move.

We cut off its wings and wrapped them up in a sheet. One of us carried that soft bundle, while two others draped its arms around their shoulders, pretending it was a drunken friend. We stumbled out late at night and when we could see no one watching us, we threw it into the Thames along with the bundled wings. Together, the body and wings sank with splash that hurt to hear.

Conclusion in Part 4.

(c)2011 Laura S. Packer

Fiction: The True Cause of World War 1. Part 2

Part 2. In which we learn where poetry comes from and begin to suspect that language may be contagious.

The story so far... In Part 1 we met a group of poets in the early 20th century. Language is their love, their mistress, their all consuming passion. One day, a new poet named John Davies is introduced to the group. He seems naive and unlikely to be a crafter of words. He reads them a poem and...


Paper trembling in his hand, John Davies read us a poem. It wasn’t so many lines, it didn’t rhyme, in truth I don’t remember what it was about, but it was the best we’d ever heard.  The room was silent.

Finally Seigfried cleared his throat,  his customary aplomb gone. “Oh. Oh my. Could you read us another?”

John Davies read another and another and another until he’d read all he had brought. We clustered around him, slapped him on the back and assured him that yes, he was a fine a poet, then before not too long we all rushed to our rooms to write. To see if we could compare with the fire, the fury, the light of his words. We couldn’t. But we kept trying, each writing long into the night, long after the coal in the scuttle had burned to ash.

We all fell in love with him then. We all hated him then. Great poetry makes you want to be greater yourself and when the source of that inspiration stands before you and grins like a school boy twisting his cap, you don’t know whether to fall to your knees in awe or to plunge a knife into his heart and bury him, before anyone knows such a thing ever existed.

The thing about John was that he was never mean about it. Of course he knew he was good, how could he not with our praise soaking into his skin, but he thought we were good, too. He never pushed us down, always brought us up. The gift he brought to us, the gift of sharing his poems, made us want to write and made us be better writers. We all wanted to hate him, his talent made ours look tiny, but we couldn’t. He was too good a man.

In our own ways we each fell in love with him not only because he had words like that but because he made us better writers. Better people.

John Davies quickly became one of us. He talked and he listened. He taught us how to listen. In truth, we hadn’t been good listeners before. Now, when someone brought a fresh poem instead of thinking only about how we would tear it down, we listened to it as the tender new thing it was. Of course, the insults were still elegant and we all competed to be second to John, but we were perhaps a bit kinder to one another. Not that we would ever have admitted it. We still argued about nature of poetry, of history, of man, god and nature itself. Above all else we argued about and revered words. Words poured out of our hearts, down our arms, into pens, across paper in smears of black ink. I remember the scratchy sound of nib on paper, I remember feeling so eager to write the nib split and spilled, I remember the smell of ink, I still remember John’s handwriting. Cramped, small and unschooled. Beautiful in content if not in form.

I don’t know how long it had been, but by then John was a friend. I valued him as much as any of the others. One evening he seemed troubled and quiet. He had never been as boisterous as the rest of us, but not like this, staring into his beer as if it might contain answers or maybe more questions. The others were drinking, smoking, arguing - verdant isn't right word for spring it’s trite and over used, try something else. Someone noticed John didn’t look right. Pale, pulled in. Rocking back and forth as if he were trying to comfort himself.

"What’s wrong?" we asked him and pushed another drink into his hand.

He pushed it away. “No, I don’t want another drink. This one’s gone warm anyway.” We crowded around him.

"What's wrong?" we insisted. "Are you ill? Has someone died?"

“No, I’ve had some news.” The room was silent. Waiting. Finally, "What news?"

“What would you do if you were told the thing you most wanted to hear and you were told it from a source of utter purity? What if you learned the thing you most longed for and feared were true?”

“I’d get drunk, what else?” someone laughed in reply.

“No I don’t believe you would.” John Davies clutched at his drink.

“What were you told.?”

“I can’t tell you. You’d laugh, think I’m mad. Hell, I think I’m mad.”  His hands were shaking and he was pale, sweaty.

Seigfried stepped forward and crouched so he was at eye level with Davies. “We are your friends. You can tell us anything.” Sig could be very persuasive. He waited.

Someone handed John Davies a glass of water. He drank, his chin wet. He looked at each one of us, a steady gaze as if he was affirming who we were. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and began to speak.

“Last night as usual I went home to my rooms. I was sitting at my desk writing, words pouring out, you know how it is. I don't know how long I'd been writing when I felt heat on back and I wondered if the landlady put coal on fire. Not bloody likely, she’s a stingy soul. I turned around.

“Gentleman, I don’t know how to tell you what I saw.”

The room grew quieter still, I think no one breathed. John Davies was out of words? Unable to describe a piece of the world?

“It was as though it was made of light. As though it was heat and poetry personified. I didn’t believe it, especially not the wings, but it looked at me and said

John Davies I have come with a message from God.

Now I don’t know what you would have done, but I found I was on my knees, there was no doubting when I heard that voice, when I was in that presence. This was something divine.”

He fell silent again, seeing something we could not.

Someone asked what we all were wondering. “What did it say?”

“It said to me: You are voice of your generation. You shall write the greatest poetry of 20th century. But you have been given a gift for purpose.


“Poetry is how God seeks to speak with Man. Poets speak with the voice of God and, since time began, poets have spoken God's dreams through Man’s throat and fingers. Poets are celestial translators, speaking words for Man that God can no longer speak directly. They are words from God that Man hears. Man can no longer bear the voice of God without a filter. Poets translate between Man and God. And you are the greatest poet of your generation. 

“I think I wet myself then. You would have too.”

None of us disagreed.

John Davies went on. “It said: We have come to you with a message. God is coming, you are God's herald. God thanks you deeply and truly for your service to Man and your service as God’s voice. God needs you to spread word of God’s return. With that my heart was full of the most glorious poetry.

“ I ran to desk and began to write regardless of the winged thing standing behind me. I think I would have hurt anything that tried to stop me from writing. I found myself writing songs of God's return. The thing stepped forward and touched my shoulder. Now, John Davies, you will go forth and spread the word.

“When I stopped writing the room was cold, the creature was gone, my hands were cramped and the sun was cresting the trees. I have all of this.” He held out a great sheaf of paper full of his cramped handwriting.

“John,” said William, “surely you just drank too much absinthe.”

“I was NOT DRUNK,” John Davies roared, “and  I have the words to prove it.”

He read us a poem then. I don't remember it. I do know it was beyond anything I had ever heard and I am glad I can't recall the words, it was too pure. I do know it was full of cadence and language  overflowing with love and longing and hope. As soon as they entered my ears and flowed through my body my heart too knew this language. This was the language of the world before the Tower of Babel fell. All I could do in response was to grab paper and begin to write poems of God. All praise songs about God coming to earth and the joy we would lie in once God arrived.

I wasn’t alone. We were all compelled to write throughout night, right where we were. We didn’t go home, we didn’t stop to wash the ink from our clothing or our hands.

Continued in Part 3.

(c)2011 Laura S. Packer

Fiction: The True Cause of World War 1. Part I

Part I, in which we consider words as weapons, great talent and modesty.

Have you ever met someone who had the gifts you most long for? It fills your heart with conflict. You don’t know whether to be grateful that yes, such things exist in the world, or full of hate and rage, that you are not the chosen one. That you must feel the grinding jealousy of someone else’s light. When he first came among us we didn’t know whether to love him or hate him. We thought we had to choose.

This is not the way to tell the story. I am old now. The others are gone, all dead and buried, mostly forgotten, a few celebrated but truly their hearts are unknown. I am the only one left, the only one to tell the story, the only one who knows what really happened. Sometimes I think my whole life was meant for this moment. That this was my role. To witness. To remember. And finally to tell.

I won’t tell this to you in my voice. I don’t want you to know what my hand did, what my voice said. My shame and fear and sorrow are still too deep. And I want my death to end this story, to ensure that these actions are not repeated. I would rather be forgotten and leave only a warning. So please, indulge an old man. Listen.

We had never seen Seigfried so excited. It was written! He had done it! The world can finally rest! He went on and on and on about his marvelous words. Frankly we were sick of his talk about marvelous words, he was extraordinary but only every once in a while, though truly, the poem was written and it was fine.

We lived in our words. Through our words. Our words were our swords, our limbs, our every sense. We were the best of our generation in the best of times. We listened to each other, read each other’s poems and criticized with the sharpest of phrases, a surgeon's scalpel had nothing on our tongues. We spoke to one another as only poets could.

We talked about meaning and greater meaning.  We gathered to talk of everything that mattered in the world; of beauty, of truth, of love, of language and mostly of poetry. We were drunk on language, it sustained us, fed us and inebriated us more thoroughly than the finest foods, the sweetest wines. We were in love with language, with our youth, with what we thought we could become.

Me and Seigfried and Willy and Robert and Bertie and all of them. We wrote our poems, drank and wenched and then compared notes. But it was always the words that we came back to, the words that drove us, each of us trying to write a better poem than last time, capture that peculiar essence of what it was to be alive, how our lovely mother tongue could mother us all. Some nights we were undoubtedly insufferable, singing and arguing and boasting beyond compare, but when we wrote and listened to one another - ah! Then we lived.

It was Bertie who told us about him first, interrupting Seigfried's pleasure in himself. Bertie was too eager, so we didn’t believe him of course. He said, “I have met the perfect poet. I have found the poet whose words will change world and he doesn’t even know it yet. I will bring him to you, you will listen to him and you will believe.” His face was radiant. How could we believe him? I thought he’d simply found a better absinthe.

Robert laughed. “He’s not better than any of us. Bertie, you’ve just fallen in love with another pretty face, you’re confusing fine words with a fine -”

“Oh no, John Davies is the best there is, maybe the best there ever will be.”

Bertie’s face took on a stubborness I had never seen. There was something different in his voice and I wondered if maybe he was telling the truth. Then I laughed with the rest and went on teasing him about his fine boy of a poet.

It took Bertie weeks to convince John Davies to come to us. I don’t know where he met him, he never would say which perhaps confirms my suspicions that Bertie first thought of him as a toy and nothing else, but he wouldn’t stop talking about the words that flew from John Davies' pen. He said he begged him to join us, but he didn’t want to. That he would say over and over again, “Oh no, I can’t come, can’t read with them, I am just not good enough. I am only a simple man who likes to write.”

The awful thing was, that it wasn’t false modesty, he was a simple, kind man who by happenstance had the greatest gift for poetry I have ever encountered. He didn’t think of himself as anything other than someone who wrote what he believed. Nothing more or less.

Bertie begged and pleaded. Finally John Davies came among us and nothing would ever be the same. We didn't know that at first.

Seigfried walked around him and said, “So you’re Bertie’s prodigy. Very nice We’ll see if your words are as good as he says. Frankly I think he’s been dancing with the green fairies too much. But it’s not your fault that he falls in love so easily.”

John Davies look chagrined and twisted his hat in his hands. He sat at a table in the corner and sipped a beer.  He remained quiet while Sig declared in a voice that brooked no challenge, “Poetry isn’t the voice of God. The fools who decry us as as blasphemers for writing poems of men and mens’ lives haven’t lived themselves, they are too afraid of their own blood and passion to know what poetry really is. Poetry is man's voice.  Poetry is the song of man’s experiences. It is how we proclaim ourselves beyond God because God doesn’t waste time with us. God no longer bellows from the mountains, no longer gives us tablets writ with rules. God has left us alone to babble to ourselves, so we have given ourselves poems to take over the voice of God. Poetry fills in where God lacks.”

John Davies leaned forward then and spoke into the silence that always followed Sigfried's challenges.

“No. Poetry is the voice of man for God. It’s how God understands man. Since the fall of the tower, we no longer speak with divine tongues. God gave us poetry so we could explain ourselves to him. He longs to know us in our own words.”

It was the first time he’d spoken since Bertie introduced him. It was as if he noticed his voice in the silence and pulled back, embarrassed. Sigfried looked at him from arched brows. The argument went on around the room - did Adam and Eve chatter in verse and so all cultures have poems? - was the tower of Babel really a kind of poetic meter? but the words lacked the passion that rang in John Davies’ voice.

Finally the arguments turned into little more than biblical puns. Sig announced that it was time to read. He asked if anyone had a poem they would like to share, that we could then discuss. No one stepped forward. The discussions, as all but John Davies knew, were brutal. Poets snipe like no one else and utter the most elegant insults you will ever hear.

And of course, because he didn’t know, John Davies was the first to step up; in spite of his modesty, he had come to be heard.. He cleared his throat and, clutching a sheaf of papers, said, “If no one minds, I did come here to read my little poems to poets. Perhaps I could try.” I could hear the fear in his voice and almost told him to sit down, almost wanted to protect him, but didn’t for fear of the lashing I would then endure. With barely a glance beyond his drink, Sigfried waved him into the center of the room.

Paper trembling in his hand, John Davies read us a poem. It wasn’t so many lines, it didn’t rhyme, in truth I don’t remember what it was about, but it was the best we’d ever heard.  The room was silent.

Continued in Part 2.

(c)2011 Laura S. Packer

Fiction: Camaro, Part 2

Continued from last week

But sometimes they haunt you anyway, whether or not you want them to. He just couldn’t stop thinking about it, about her, about wishes. He got up every day and went to work, every day drove his car. And every day he wondered, “What do I want?”

Sometimes he thought he would wish for wealth, but then thought if it was unearned, trouble would come with it. He’d read those stories about djinnis when he was a kid and knew that these things often had strings attached and he didn’t want to be stupid about it, no matter what she said.

Other times he thought he’d wish for fame, be a big time rapper or rock and roll star, but then he remembered what happened to so many of those people. Maybe it wasn’t such a good wish after all. Maybe they’d wished themselves there and that’s why they’d turned out the way they did. Besides, he didn’t really have any talent to begin with.

And then he thought he’d wish for world peace, but then it occurred to him there were far too many ways a djinni could play with that one. What if everyone just disappeared and he was all that was left? Wasn’t that an episode of some old tv show or another? Anyway, it didn’t seem like a good idea.

When he took his friends out for drives he told them the glove box was jammed, they shouldn’t bother messing with it. That way he didn’t have to explain any of it. It was just easier to keep it locked, easier that way all around.

He still loved the car but soon, every time he looked at it, instead of that almost sexual thrill, he’d think of her. And he’d think of wishes. And he’d ask himself, “What do I want?” Each time he had to admit that he just didn’t know.

Finally he decided he could try something. After work, a long day of spilled oil and dropped wrenches, his boss yelling at him for being a total fuck-up, he drove away from the lights of Main Street and parked behind the supermarket. The lights were dim here and the cops wouldn’t patrol until later. The distant whiff of the dumpster barely registered over the smell of exhaust and oil and gasoline that he had come to love.

He felt like a fool as he reached over to unlock the glove box and pop the button, but at least, if this had all been in his imagination, he would be an unobserved fool. A thin rope of smoke trickled out of the glove box and she was there. No pop or snap, she just appeared in the passenger seat, as calm as can be, examining her fingernails. She put her hands down.

“Well kid, it’s taken you long enough. What do you want?”

He felt the back of his neck tense up the way it did whenever his mother nagged at him about his room or his life.

“I’m not sure, but I thought maybe –“

“Look, kid, if you don’t know then don’t bother me.” She looked out the passenger window with a sigh.

He looked at her. She was incredibly irritating, thinking she knew everything. Just because she was djinni and he was some 19-year-old kid didn’t mean she had to treat him like that. She shifted, the seat creaked under her as the light played over the planes of her face.

Still, for all that she was a pain, she was cute. And he was 19.

“Okay, look, I’ve got it. I know what I want.”

She looked at him, skepticism playing across her mouth.

He lowered his voice, making it as husky as he could without coughing. He’d heard actors with voices like this and knew it was a sexy sound. He hoped his voice wouldn’t crack in the middle, as he said slowly, “You. I want you.”

For a moment it seemed as though she stopped breathing and for a moment he thought that was a good sign.

“Are you kidding? I mean, kid, you could wish for anything, money, girls – hear that? Girlsssss? Or boysssss? Drugs, power? Anything! And you’re saying me? Come on…”

He pulled back as though she’d struck him.

“You asked what I wanted and I’m telling you. You. I want you!” His voice no longer had that sexy, husky tone.

“Alright.” He tried to think she wasn’t trying not to laugh. “Let’s go.”

“I mean, not like. I meant…”

“You said you wanted me. You didn’t ask for romance.”

Afterwards, when it was over far more quickly than he would have wanted to admit, she vanished with that snap. He found himself half on the passenger side of the car, trying to pull his pants up, hoping no one would come by, hoping there were no security camera, thinking that this wasn’t what he meant at all.

He drove home and tried not to think about wishes for a very long time.

His life continued as it always had, at least on the surface. He worked. He talked with friends. He drove his car.

He did not think about wishes.

This last was a lie, of course, he could barely think of anything else. Every day he came up with a new wish, every day he realized it wasn’t what he really wanted. Girls. No, because then it wasn’t real love and he already figured out that feeling wasn’t what he wanted. Money. Sure it would be nice, but if he was having this much trouble coming up with a wish, what would he spend the money on? Immortality. That seemed like asking for trouble somehow. He had no enemies to wish against, he had vague plans but nothing formed, he just didn’t know.

That was the problem. He didn’t know. He was 19 and he didn’t know who he wanted to be yet, he hardly knew who he was right now.

It got so he couldn’t sleep much anymore. His mother kept asking him what was wrong, his friend kept bugging him about the car and really all he wanted was to be left alone. That seemed like a waste of a wish and something even a beginner djinni could change into something awful. But that wish… that one last wish was eating into him like a cancer.

Finally one night after work he decided to go for a drive. He got in the car and drove down the main streets he’d known his whole life, passing the stores that never seemed to change, that seemed to have the same pencils and books, clothing and games from his childhood. He passed the barbershop where his father had taken him for his first haircut. He remembered the fear in his gut was colder than then steel that brushed his ears. He passed the restaurant where his mother would take him when she brought him with her to work, the place where he always got bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches, a forbidden treat at home. He passed his whole life in a few well lit blocks.

He turned the car, still marveling at the pull of the wheel under his hands even after these weeks of owning her, onto the state highway. The traffic was faster here and he barely had time to notice the fast food place he and his friends used to hang out at after school before graduation. He’d tell his mother he was going to the library, but he’d go eat hamburgers and milkshakes instead. The grass he mowed to earn his play money probably tasted better than that shit, but he didn’t care, he was with his friends, flirting with girls, thinking he was so grown up. All of that came crashing to a halt when his grades dropped, but he remembered the certainty of knowing who he was and where he was going as he ran across fields and construction lots to meet the people who mattered most in the world. He hadn’t talked to any of them since graduation it seemed. They’d gone to college or moved away or gotten real jobs. But here he was, in his Camaro, watching the highway on-ramp slide up under him.

For a while the highway took his mind of wishes and the past, cars pulling up beside him and honking, some trying to get him to race. Soon enough, though, he was leaving the city behind. The sky was fading from sherbert night clouds to darkness. Ahead he could see gaps of sky. He drove in the middle lane, letting the engine stretch out. There was no need to prove anything here, he was just driving by himself, watching the hyphens of white paint appear and disappear, appear and disappear, in the white light headlight.

When he’d driven farther than he ever had alone he let the car coast off an exit ramp. The curve of the ramp pulled them along so easily he scarcely had to drive.

Soon enough he was on a secondary road, fields on either side of him and the black star-laden night filling the windshield. He pulled the car over, turned off the engine and listened to it tick tick tick itself into silence. With a breath he leaned over and opened the glove box. And there she was.

“Alright kid, it’s been long enough. What do you want?” She checked her nails, not even looking at him.

He looked at his hands in his lap. “I don’t know.”

Twisting in her seat she said “You don’t know? So what did you call me out for? Don’t you think I have better things to do? You think I spend all my time hanging around in your glove box thinking about you and your driving? Which, I might add, is pretty sketchy sometimes. You’d think you could remember that this car is much older than you are.”

“No,” he said, looking at her, “I don’t know. And I don’t think you spend all your time waiting for me. But listen, I have an idea.”

“Great, you called me out here for an idea. I feel so much better.”

“Please! Just listen. I need you to help me.”

She paused in her sighing and fidgeting.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… I mean, I’m 19, you know? I don’t know what I want. I don’t know who I am yet. But… I think you’ve been in this business of giving people what they want for a long time. No offense, Miss. But I bet you’re pretty good at it, you know? And what I think I want is this. I think I want you to give me whatever you think will make me happiest. No tricks or anything, just whatever you think I truly want.”

The silence in the car stretched out, an awkward thing.

“Kid, are you serious? That’s a huge responsibility, a huge thing to give someone. You don’t know me. Frankly, I haven’t been very nice to you. What makes you think I could help you?”

“Lady, I don’t know you. I don’t know me. I do know you know something about wishes. More than I do anyway. And I know I can’t stand this anymore. I’d rather trust you and see what happens.”

“Kid, are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

She looked out of the windshield into the infinity of stars, then sighed. “Okay. Okay. I’ll do it. No tricks.”

“Thank you,” he said. He opened the driver’s side door and, without looking to see if she was still there, tossed the keys onto the seat. He began the walk back towards home.

It’s been years now. He doesn’t have the skinny body of a 19 year old, but the smile remembers the young man’s face. It’s the end of the day and he’s standing alone in the open bay of his garage, wiping grease off a wrench after sending his employees home. He’s looking out at the long light of the afternoon, watching the world pass by, when he sees an old car, a 1969 Camaro, drive down the street.

“Hmm,” he thinks. “I used to have one of those. I wonder whatever happened to it. She sure is a beaut though.” The car turns and drives down the street towards his garage, then parks and a young woman gets out.

“She’s kinda cute,” he thinks, “When I was young I would have gone for her, but not now.”

She walks into the garage. “Hey. You still open?”

“I’m still here. How can I help you?”

“I need an oil change. You mind?”

“Nah. Drive her over here, I’ll guide you onto the lift.” She gets back into the car and easily brings the car into place. The girl can drive. They both watch the car rise into the air, the wheels relax and dangle.

Underneath, he feels the familiar resistance then give as he loosens the bolt then watches the oil start to ribbon out of the oil pan.

“Hey,” she says, “is this your family?”

“Yeah, my wife and two girls. They’re the whole world to me, you know? One wants to be a racecar driver, the other wants to be a ballerina. Who knows what it will be next week.”

“You been here long?”

“Long enough. I got a couple of guys working with me. We get to take care of people, you know? It’s a good business. I like working with my hands, I like cars. I used to have a car like this when I was young. It’s a young man’s car, now I need something a little more practical.”

He can hear her smiling. “I love it,” she says. “It was a gift from a friend.”

He brings the car down on the lift, changes the oil filter and fills the Camaro up with oil.

She pays, then turns and pauses, looking at him. After a moment she asks, “Are you happy? Do you like your life?”

“Like my life? Lady, this is everything I’ve ever wanted.”


(c)2010 Laura S. Packer

Fiction: Camaro, Part 1

He was 19. And who knows who they want to be when they’re 19? It’s hard, you know? The whole world seemed like it was telling him, “Be this, do that,” and all he really wanted was to be left alone. He knew he’d figure it out given enough time, he just didn’t know what enough time was.

He knew that for right now his life was kind of a stereotype but he figured that’s what stereotypes were for, to give you something to hide behind while you figured out what you wanted to be next. Sure, he lived in his parent’s basement and drove his mother’s car, but at least he graduated from high school and had a job. That was more than some of his friends did anyway. He liked his job, even if his parents kept telling him it was a dead end and he should go to college. It was good work and the pay wasn’t too bad. He worked in one of those Quikie Lube places, doing ten-minute oil changes, you know the kind, $19.99 special and car wash thrown in for good measure. He liked it because he liked cars, liked working with his hands, liked starting a job and finishing it, all in one go. And, come on, he was 19, he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. Who really does at that age?

For now? For now it worked. He would get up, go to work, come home, hang out with his friends… it wasn’t much of a life but it was enough until his real life found him.

So, it was a day just like any other. He was driving his mother’s car, that made it a little different maybe, usually she wouldn’t let him take her car, insisted she on driving him so he felt like a baby. When he drove his mother’s car he was never sure if he should slump down and hide (it was only a station wagon) or if he should sit up and grin (hell he was driving something, better than most of his friends anyway) and at least he wasn’t on the bus. He was saving up for his own car, had a box of money under the bed but it wasn’t enough for anything more than a shitbox and, well, anyway, she let him take her car that day. As he drove he slumped down low in the seat hoping no one would see him in that piece of crap when he slowed down, nearly stopping in the middle of the street. It was beautiful. Sleek. Sex-on-wheels. And the sign said, “For Sale.” Not that he could ever afford a pristine 1969 black Camaro, but oh god, he just had to look, anyone would, so he pulled his mother’s clunker over and went to investigate.

It - she - was impeccable. Her curves were the best kind of geometry, the kind he could have passed without even trying, no neat to study or cheat. Her paint was flawless, as smooth and elemental as obsidian. Her tires looked as though they would grip the ground like fingers clutching skin and her upholstery was incomparable, no cigarette burns, no pulls, no wear, as though no one had ever marred her with their weight. She was perfect.

He walked around her in a daze, his fingers tracing the seams of her hood, pulling at her lines as though he was undressing her. She was still warm from the sunlight that had played over her skin. He was so enamored that he didn’t hear her owner walk up behind him until he called out, “She’s something, isn’t she kid?”

He jumped back, as though touching the car were somehow sinful, nodded, “Yeah. I’ve always loved these babies. She’s a dream.” He crossed his arms, trying to look cool.

The man watched him look at the car, shifted his toothpick from cheek to cheek.

“You wanna take her out for a spin?”

He looked at the man, took a breath so his voice wouldn’t shake, then said, “Sure, I’ll just try her out. Can’t hurt to see what she can do.” He gave the man the keys to his mother’s car and – as if it were a fair trade – the man gave him the keys to the Camaro.

The door opened easily, swinging shut behind him without a creak and closing with a solid thump, letting him know he was encased in the best kind of engineering. The bucket seat cradled him and he leaned back for a moment, feeling the warmth of the car around him. The key slid into the lock so organically that he didn’t even think about it and with one, two pumps of the gas pedal, she roared into life.

The engine purred underneath him, just a little uneven so he’d know she was a force to be reckoned with, the steering wheel shuddering just a little in his hands. He barely had to think about shifting her into gear and he eased the car out of the driveway, onto the street.

He drove her around the block. That’s all it took for him to know that this would be one of the great lost loves of his life, because there was no way, no way, he could afford this car, and man, was she sweet. The engine rumbled like it was singing to him and he could feel all of the contained power underneath his feet, just waiting for him to say, “Yes.” No way he could afford this car, but this little taste at least, maybe it was better than nothing. Or maybe it would have been better to have never known.

He brought her back to the man’s house, pulled it into the drive and tucked the "For Sale" sign back onto the dash.

“Well kid? Whaddya think?”

“Like I said, she’s a dream, mister.” He paused, then thought what the hell. “How much do you want for her?” His casual tone tasted like a lie.

The man shifted his toothpick to the other side of his mouth, looked at the kid for a moment, and named his price.

He froze. It was just a little less than what was in his box under the bed, a little less than his shitbox fund, exactly the right price for him to buy this dream of a car and still have enough for registration and all the paperwork that he knew he’d have to do. He thought he felt his heart stop for a moment.

“I think I could do that,” he said, trying to sound calm. “You mind holding her for me while I go home and get your money? I mean, you won’t sell her out from under me or anything?”

The man half-laughed. “Kid, I remember being your age. Everyone needs a break. Let’s shake on it. Now go home, she’ll be waiting for you when you get back.”

If he thought about it later he would have sworn his feet never touched the ground as he flew back to his mother’s car and rushed home. He was lucky the local cops were looking the other way as he ignored all the advice his father and driving instructors had given him. Thank god no one was home to ask him questions about his hurry or the brown paper bundle he ran out clutching.

As he drove back to the man’s house he was sure she would be gone. Sure the man got a better offer and broke his word. Sure that this was too good for some kid like him. When he turned the corner and saw her waiting for him, saw the glimmer of sunlight on the hood wink, he realized he could breath again.

The sale took less time than he would have imagined. The man said he would hold the car while the kid took care of the paperwork and for once the registry opened up in front of him. It was as though this car was magic and made the lines dissolve. An hour later and she was wholly, legally his.

The man chuckled as the shook hands. “Kid, what are you gonna do with two cars and one driver?” He froze. He’d forgotten about his mother’s car. “Tell you what,” the man said, “Let me take her out for a last drive and I’ll follow you home. Then you can bring me back here.”

As quick as it takes to tell about it, it was done. The car was in his driveway, looking like it had always been there.

His parents were home by now and came out to see what the fuss was about. His mother said, “What is that racket?” while his father walked around her, then said, “I had one kind of like this when I was your age. She looks to be in good shape, son.”

His mother started fussing, the way she always did when he left his socks out or when she wanted him to go to college. Where would he keep it in the winter? Could he afford the insurance? Wasn’t this a waste of money when he was supposed to be saving his money for other things? Wouldn’t the noise wake the neighbors? Would it leave oil stains on the driveway? He was starting to feel utterly eroded and about to burst out in screams when his father intervened. Finally.

“Leave the boy alone. He earned the money fair and square. Everyone needs to start somewhere and I don’t think a car is a bad place to begin. Let’s go inside, dinner is getting cold. He’ll figure it out, just like we did.” It was as though the warmth of his hand on her shoulder said far more than his words. Her mouth shut and she stopped worrying her fingers. “Well, son,” she said, “I hope it’s worth it. Dinner’s in the oven when you come home.”

And then, oh god, he was free! Before the screen door banged shut behind them he was back in the driver’s seat, pumping the gas pedal and feeling her purr underneath him. He had nowhere and everywhere to go, it was time to show the world who he could become with the right set of wheels. This car, this 1969 Camaro would help him finally, utterly, know what he was doing with his life.

Except all he could really think to do was drive up Main St, calm and cool as could be, and wave to the guys he knew, as though he’d always been driving this car. He loved seeing the flash of envy and greed in their faces as he cruised by. They’d never looked at him like that before. This was just the beginning.

And speaking of which, it was almost the beginning of his shift. He eased her around the block and headed toward the Quikie Lube, enjoying every moment of his drive. The smooth slide of the steering wheel under his hands. The sweet musty smell of the decaying foam seats. The rumble in his back answering the tempo of the engine. Everything about this car told him that she was his.

By the time he arrived at work he was as relaxed and as happy as he had ever been. He wondered if this was what being in love felt like, since this feeling was nothing like what he’d felt for any of the girls he’d dated. This was something deep inside of him.

He pulled the car into the employee spot behind the Quikie Lube. The growl of the engine lured the other mechanics out and they clustered around the car, running their fingers over the smooth lines of the body, asking him where he got her, could they see the engine, telling him what a lucky bastard he was. He smiled. He already knew.

Work was like a dream. Down in the pit he watched car after car drive into place, nervous owners carefully navigating to make sure they didn’t fall into the drop. He opened crankcase after crankcase and watched the thick, dirty old ribbon down into the disposal tanks. Usually his mind would wander and he’d find himself far away from his work, but today everything had a crystalline clarity to it. He saw the wear on the undercarriage of each car, heard the conversations up above, smelled the difference between old oil and new. Usually his back and arms would start to hurt, but today his body seemed to treat the work as a dance. He greeted each new vehicle as a new partner, each motion in the oil change as part of an elaborate ritual with formal implications and subtle meaning, as though it were a courtship he’d never before considered. Usually he couldn’t wait to go home, although home had little to recommend it, but today he was content to let the rhythm of the day play out, knowing that something spectacular awaited him at day’s end.

Before he knew it he was wiping down his wrenches and hose. The workday was over and it was time to go driving.

The door unlocked with a snick and the seat sighed under him as he settled in. The key seemed magnetically drawn to the ignition and the engine roared to life almost before he cranked it. He slide out of the lot and took off, gradually picking up speed as he turned from side road to main street. With his arm resting on the windowsill, his hand relaxed on the wheel and the wind in his face, he knew he looked good. Girls looked up as he growled by. His friends, and even his old enemies from  school, turned to see who it was driving this beauty of a car. He slowed down to let them see. It didn’t matter that the old AM radio didn’t work. It didn’t matter that the gastank would drink his entire paycheck. All that mattered was this moment. He was 19 and in the car of his dreams.

He coasted from road to road, enjoying the moment. Idling at a traffic light he realized he hadn’t even opened the glove box yet, who knew what treasures were in there? The owner’s manual? Service records? Even an old pair of gloves? One foot on the brake, the other precarious on the clutch, he leaned over and punched the glove box button. As soon as it popped open smoke began to pour into the car - thick, black, oily. It blinded him as soon as it touched his face and he began to cough. Barely able to see he drove to the side of the road, turned the car off and jumped out.

“Shit! Shit!” He threw the hood open and looked for flames or smoke, anything to tell him why his new baby was vomiting up smoke. Nothing. The engine gazed up at him, ticking itself cool. He dropped to the ground and looked underneath. Nothing. The brakes weren’t in flames, no stream of oil, no telltale glow on the pavement. He slowly stood up and brushed off his jeans, closed the hood and sat with a thump back in the driver’s seat.

He didn’t notice her until she spoke.

“Well? What will it be?”

He stifled a yell as he arched away from the passenger seat occupied by a woman who seemed to not much older than he was.

“What? Who – How did you get here?”

She ignored him, looking instead outside through the windshield. “Come on, what’ll it be. I don’t have all night.”

He looked around. No one was near by, no tell tale gleam of a camera.

“Lady, I don’t know what you mean. How did you get in my car? If you’re, you know, selling stuff, I don’t want any. I just stopped ‘cause my car was acting weird.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes with the grace of a 15 year old, then pivoted around to face him.

“Look, kid, are you slow or what? You don’t look that dumb. You opened the glove box so here I am. You must know the drill, I’m sure you’ve watched television at some point in your life. Three wishes? Get it? So what do you want? Don’t you think I have better things to do that just sit here waiting for you?”

She stared at him while he gaped. He couldn’t believe what she was saying, this was ridiculous. What she was suggesting was something out of a fairy tale, some kind of myth or something. These things just don’t happen. And if they did happen they certainly wouldn’t happen to him.

“Look, lady, just get out of my car and we’ll forget all of this. Do you want money? I think I have maybe seven dollars.”

She sighed, puffing her hair out of her face.

“How many times do I have to say this? Three wishes. Let’s get this over with, okay?”

He was quiet. Wishes. Hell, he didn’t know what he wanted for breakfast, let alone how to use a wish. And she just wouldn’t shut up, this was making him feel like an idiot, considering this was just some kind of stupid prank.

“Alright lady, you know what I want, I want you to just go away. That’s my wish.”

“Okay kid, if that’s what you want…” And like that, like a snap of the fingers or a crack of a bone, she was gone. The door to the Camaro never opened, she didn’t fade into nothing, she just vanished.

“Shit.”

After what couldn’t have been as long as it felt, he turned the car back on. It started without a hiccup, the engine rolling into life as readily as it ticked into silence. He drove home, trying not to think about what just happened. Some things you need to not think about for a while.

But sometimes they haunt you anyway, whether or not you want them to. He just couldn’t stop thinking about it, about her, about wishes. He got up every day and went to work, every day drove his car. And every day he wondered, “What do I want?”
 

To be continued next week...

(c)2010 Laura S. Packer

Fiction: Aliens

This was written for the 10 Weeks 10 Stories class given by Grub Street Writers. The assignment was to write a story in one, long sentence. Take a deep breath and away we go...

*  *  *

I listened to her in increasingly slack jawed amazement, as she told me what it was like to be abducted, about the first time it happened when she was just a little girl and how she wasn’t expecting it, but now it was a regular thing that she almost didn’t mind, even felt lonely when it didn’t happen for too long in spite of the indignities visited upon her when they took her away, and I tried not to notice the glances and snickers around us, the growing silence as others grew still to eavesdrop (I felt a slight shame remembering all the times I grew still and silent so I could eavesdrop, thinking I was unknown and unnoticed - I never knew I was so obvious) but she continued unabashed, maybe even welcoming the extra attention, because, I was thinking, that’s what this is all about, the attention, when they come and take her that makes her special, that means she’s different from the rest of us who have to get up every day and go to work, slog through our lives and come home to everyday chores and the same beds we’ll probably die in, when I realized I wasn’t quite listening anymore and she was leaning across the table, saying in that particularly breathless tone she has, “You know, I think I remember seeing you there once, that’s why I wanted to talk to you, are there ever any nights you just don’t remember, when you don’t know where you were?” and all I could think was of course, who can remember every moment of every night, I think that’s a blessing, I would hate to remember every moment, in fact I wish I could forget this very moment right now but instead I just sat there stock still (recognizing, too, the tiny wish to be special the way that she thought she was) and not wanting to hurt her because of all the years of not-quite-friendship but not-just-acquaintances either, I just kind of shrugged, told a half lie by not answering and knew that I was about to become part of her story that she would begin by leaning across some other table in a growing listening silence, where she would start by saying, “I know this sounds crazy, but I have to tell someone and I need you to believe me when I tell you…”

(c)2010 Laura S. Packer

Fabulous Flash Award! Thank you!

I am honored and delighted to have been given a Fabulous Flash award by Diandra, writer and creator of Short Stories and Mad Rants. You should read her blog, she has some wonderful stories posted there.


She gave me this award stating that my flash fiction stories are, "short, imaginative and fun to read, and they sound fresh." Cool! I'm really tickled.


The requirement of this award is that I pass it on, so check here next Friday for four great flash fiction authors you should be reading. And if you'd like to read any of my flash fiction just click on the fiction tag to the right.


Thanks again, Diandra, you really made my month.




(c)2010 Laura S. Packer

Friday Fiction: Unemployment in Storyland

Behind the counter the ass-headed man looks over her papers.

"You have an impressive resume, but I'm not sure if I can find you work in your field. These days wicked step-mothers are a dime-a-dozen. Just look out there, you can see them on the streets, begging for small children to take home with them. It’s not a growth industry. Let me see, what are your other skills.”

She fidgets. She hates being assessed and found wanting. It was easier in the good old days, when all she had to do was walk on, cackle a few times then die a dramatic death. Nothing like a good death scene to get the blood pumping. Of course, she'll tell anyone who asks that she got a bad rap. She wasn't really all that wicked. Maybe just a little misguided.

“I see here you have some kitchen experience. Potions, poisons, so on and so forth. We can probably parlay that into a sous chef position with a little bit of spin. What else…”

He pulls down an ear and absent-mindedly strokes it. She sees the spot he’d rubbed bald.

“A bit of sewing experience, that helps too… maybe a ladies’ maid? Only in a house with no children, of course.”

She smells his barnyard scent, scarcely masked by deodorant and body spray. This wasn’t what she was made for; she was a creature of schemes and longing, not a person relegated to someone else’s scullery. She sighs.

He looks at her, his liquid brown eyes weary with compassion and futility. “Ma’am, I know this is hard. We’re pretty sure the recession will lift soon and there should be more work for everyone. Even King Midas is having a tough time; the price of gold has dropped and no one is willing to let him touch their stuff, they want to hold on to what they have, they’re afraid of change. But we’ll figure out something.”

His donkey mouth can’t quite pronounce the r sounds, so even his kindness is hard to accept. Ma’am, I know this is hot. Wuh pity sha the wucession… She closes her eyes to stop herself from laughing, though any scrap of humor would be welcome.

“Come back next week and we’ll see what I can find. My secretary will give you your check – just don’t spend it all in one place!” He snorts a giggle. She stands, as elegant as she ever was before the mirror. He stands and holds out his hand, so delicate in contrast to his muzzle.

“Thank you for your time. I’m sure something will come up. I’m sure you’ll be able to help me somehow.” Her hand in his seems tiny and she is aware of her palm sweating.

She turns and leaves the agency, ready to begin the rounds with her resume, right after she goes to the restroom to check herself in the mirror. Who know what will look back at her? Maybe this time she’ll be lucky. Maybe this time she won’t be alone.


(c)2010 Laura S. Packer