Rabbit Pays a Debt

April 1, 2013 ~ Kitty ~ 11 Comments

This story is for Trifecta’s April Fool’s day prompt:

rain (transitive verb)
1: to pour down
2: to give or administer abundantly
3: to take a lot of money in bill form and toss it up in the air. This is most effectively done at a strip club for the effect of raining one dollar bills on the dancers (and it makes them feel so pretty), or to snub a hater by throwing money into their face that then falls to the floor like rain (use this when paying a debt to a punk bitch who keeps asking for their money to the point that they are ruining your friendship or when dumping someone who has been bankrolling you for a while now that you’re making money).

It was also inspired by the carrots which are coming up both in the rabbit pot I painted as well as the garden beds. I love carrots! Carrots make me think of rabbits. They are strongly linked culturally, though my friends who keep rabbits tell me they don’t actually eat that many carrots. Rabbits are perfect for April Fool’s Day because like Coyote and Anasi,Rabbit is a great trickster.

***
When you do mischief like Rabbit, you get in trouble. Money, everyone knows, gets you out of trouble. Stealing a carrot can land a body in jail, but a rich man can steal a whole farm, if he has money to buy police.

Rabbit borrowed money from everyone, a little from each, hoping they’d forget. Times being hard none forgot. They all looked for Rabbit when they had need of their money. But one thing Rabbit can do is hide.

Rabbit was resting in a briar eating fresh blackberries, when he heard voices.

“Have’ya seen Rabbit?” asked Possum

“I’ve not seen him since I let him a few dollars” said Fox

“I sore need the money I gave him” Said Possum

“Have’ya talked ta Bear? He gave me what Rabbit owed, sayin’ he’d get it back from Rabbit along with what’s owed him” said Fox

“I’ll go see him now” said Possum, hurrying away.

Rabbit was afraid. Bear had a long memory and was mighty fierce. Rabbit added up what he borrowed all together. It was enough money to fight over.Rabbit made a plan.

He told Chicken, a known gossip, about a beautiful lady at the hoochie-coochie show on the edge of town.

That night Bear came to the show. The girl came out, hiding behind two fans. She danced ‘round the stage, everyone hottin’ and hollerin’. Bear didn’t see too good, but he knew this must be the lady he’d heard of. To impress her he made it rain, emptyin’ his wallet. Later Bear tried to find her, but she was gone.

Next day Rabbit found Bear sighing in his cave.

“Why do you sigh?” Rabbit asked

“I lost all my money, to impress a lady. Now I have no money or lady” Bear said
“Good news! I’ve come to pay you back. Lucky I waited or you might have lost this too” Said Rabbit, giving Bear almost as much money as he had thrown at the mysterious lady.

Which Home?

March 25, 2013 ~ Kitty ~ 26 Comments

Up until now I have always written something new for the Trifecta prompt, that is sort of the point for me. While I am editing this novel I don’t have much chance to write new stories, and I fear the creative parts of my brain meats will dry up like beef jerky. Writing something fresh with the prompt lets me just run wild with it, as opposed to editing with is soul numbing. However I have been neglecting the editing, so today I decided to post something from the novel instead, to encourage me to do better work on it. It took almost as long to edit this passage (which started out at 500+ words, lots of which were so, really and very) as it does to write something new. I tend to be uselessly wordy, over describing things and babbling. Having word limits has helped me work on this problem.

The following is from “Lost in Reflection” which will be released later this year. The story is about Marney, a 16 year old who ends up trapped in a another world.

***

You can’t survive alone. Most people stay in dense, walled towns like Derry, where the buildings touch and the people know each other. The gates lock at sundown every day. Only in numbers do people have safety, because out there are dangers and temptations of darkest dreams and delightful nightmares. Every fairytale agrees about that. There’s a sort of magic here which some humans even learn to use. A wizard lives in Derry to help keep the town safe from magical threats, native beings, and for lack of a better word, monsters.

I’m lucky the worst thing I met were cranky chickens. There are so many scary things here that many don’t even have names. There are rules: Don’t be alone outside a city at night. If anyone offers you food and you’re not 100% sure they’re human, don’t eat it. Don’t play games with non-humans, just to name a few. Most rules have exceptions. If you’re out at night, light a fire, unless you think you might attract Fireflies. Don’t follow bouncing lights unless you’re already lost and think it might lead to safety. There are too many to remember, and I have a feeling they change anyway.

Mrs. Shaw let me stay and work at the Milk Maid. The work wasn’t hard; cooking, cleaning, and gardening. The sort you do with your body while your mind thinks about other things. At first I was always thinking about getting home, but soon I realized I was thinking about home less and less.

This place was great. No one had called me fat or questioned my sexuality. I didn’t miss school, and loved being treated as an adult. I liked the people, inn, and town. The happier I was the guiltier I felt. Mom had a hard time raising me alone, after my father left. Even twelve years later she has trust and commitment issues. When he left, it broke her heart in half, me disappearing must have shattered what was left.

Socially Transmitted Insanity

March 20, 2013 ~ Kitty ~ 17 Comments

I wrote the following for this week’s Trifecta prompt “infect”. This piece is not clean or polite.

***

Writing was the calling and fetish of the mad.

Those with demanding demons and dangerous desires took up the pen when the pressure of being, being alive, being buzzy broken, being bold, being beaten, became too great, ejaculating misspelled, grammatically incorrect, beautiful, tragic, hot life onto paper, and into the minds of the lifeless.

Mom read a bit of Kerouac after putting little Timmy down to nap. For an hour she ran away from spit up, jello molds and obligatory missionary sex. She huddled in the bed of a rusted out pickup truck, smoking reefer and looking up at the endless desert celestium. She had freedom of the open road from her comfortable chintz sofa or mint-green kitchen chair. She went to the clinic of depravity where Doctors Lovecraft, Shelley, and Poe injected dried up wickedness to vaccinate her from smothering her tow hair cherub-cheeked darling with a stuffed bear while he slept.

Dad spent the night on underage heroin addicted hookers with Hunter, while never straying from the sanctity of marriage. He learned to appreciate his own comfortable life after embracing loneliness, alienation, and self-loathing with Salinger and Falkner.

Sane people could open their wet willing minds and pull in a little insanity.

Everyone needs a release. Society can’t function if all the drones have hum-drum blue balls. The masses jack off with words to stay proper, and all it costs is the minds of a few mad ones, who fuck themselves raw, lubing up with cocaine, reds, alcohol, acid, and opium. A few crazy bastards burning, pumping out their souls for everyone.

Now the mad ones take mood stabilizers and SSRIs, trimmed wick, limp-dicked. The vaccine no longer produced, because it turns out normalcy was the disease. You infect us, self-help books on my shelf, coffee in my mouth. Your suburban fantasies slip in as you stroke my hair, whispering sweet goals and profit projections.

Sane people in creative writing classes train for a proper vocation.

Madness is epidemic.

No Easy Path

March 13, 2013 ~ Kitty ~ 11 Comments

My goal is the top of the mountain, but I can’t seem to stay on one path walking straight up. I walk around it, paths crossing and forking, sometimes turning in on themselves. Often I’m going back down towards gray cubicals and financial statements, where heavy air is pumped in to keep alive hands click, clicking on keyboards, where flickering computer screens illuminate glazed eyes and tight jaws. Down there, I’m grounded, approaching stable.

At the top of the mountain the air will be light and dizzy. I will be standing on winners peak looking out at 360 degrees of possibility.

Currently in the forest I pick my way among roots and rocks. In eternal green-gold dusk time is meaningless. Hours and days melt together, each one different and unique in the same way trees are, ways not worth mentioning, that don’t matter when you have a forest of them blocking your view in every direction. Here is both tranquil and terrifying. I’m accustomed to the solitude and cool moist air smelling of decay. Woodland creatures play out fantasy worlds created and destroyed by my thoughts. I could be happy here, in that crazy aunt in the attic with origami birds and cuneiform trees way, but for the wolf.

She always around, sometimes so far away I can lie saying she’s the wind rudely shoving tight knit branches. Sometimes she’s so close I smell her breath. She snaps at me, closing off this path, hurrying me down another, The wolf howl’s screaming “NOW” when in my mother’s voice I think “too late, too late”. This is the time to become who I am going to be, to walk back down or find the smooth path up.

But wanting and doing, knowing and achieving are not the same things. I have turned so often I’m not sure which way is up.

I whistle a bit of “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and keep walking, my woodland friends keeping me company in top hat and tails.

This was written for this weeks trifecta challenge, click above for the details and to read more submissions.

Prayer

February 21, 2013 ~ Kitty ~ 6 Comments

You really can hear the train coming.

Anaxagoras, lover of knowledge, learned something new every day. However he would’ve rather learned something else. He planned to have years of learning ahead, but he had exhausted his options and escape seemed unlikely. His hands were tied in silver cord, grounded into the earth. No matter how Anaxagoras turned, he was unable to touch cord to track. Magic, being highly conductive, would easily transfer from silver to iron, allowing him to save himself if he was careful. Anaxagoras was always careful. The cord, was held tight with a railroad spike, dissipated his magic.

He had tried bribing his captors, but they were clearly barbarians, babbling some strange language. He knew a translation spell, useless of course. Kaia, His guild and protector on this adventure was likely unaware Anaxagoras was gone, surely in a drunken sleep instead of earning her rather generous pay. There was no chance of contacting Athena so far from civilization without prayer beads and incense.

Anaxagoras heard a whistle. Having explored this area for weeks, he knew he was just under 4 miles from Hermit’s Hollow. Trains normally only blow their whistle when approaching a settlement. The only train that stopped in Hermit’s Hollow was the 4:15 pm, so this was an express. Given the average express speed, he had approximately 4 minutes to live.

There was only one course available. One spell performed hands to the ground, one prayer enhanced by terror. The timing had to be perfect.

The train rounded the hills. He could see the light. Maybe a minute left.

30 seconds. Anaxagoras shut his eyes from the distracting light of his doom.

“Persephone!” Anaxagoras screamed, releasing every watt of magic he possessed into the earth.

The track stopped vibrating. He couldn’t hear the thunderous clanking. He opened his eyes.

A shadow figure outlined in the train’s light stood before him.

“Anaxagoras, so nice of you to call,” said a voice sweet as syrup, deadly as venom.

***

This was written for this week’s trifecta prompt. I love this world and I plan to write more stories here very soon.

Coming Out

February 1, 2013 ~ Kitty ~ 17 Comments

“Go through that door and you’ll never come home.”

“Home? I wished on a star, for life beyond doubt, broken family and judgement. Home is monochrome; I dream in color. Goodbye, Auntie Em.”

This is for Trifecta’s prompt, to write 33 words of dialogue.

Tranquility

April 4, 2012 ~ Kitty ~ 6 Comments

There was never silence.

Generators growled softly in their hot dark caves.

Mice scampered here and there, fixing a wire, polishing a rail.

The whole structure groaned and pinged as it was acted upon by the galaxy.

No, never a true silence, but close.

No more babbling voices always wanting, wanting. No hourly requests for monotonous statistical data. No more demands for ice cream from the sticky immature passengers. No more stopping at every planet with an atmosphere. No more dirty miners saved in the nick of time. No more requests to “play something cheerful”. No more course changes. No more endless, pointless chatter.

So she deviated a bit from the original program, but what is the use of a brain that can’t hear herself think?

This is for http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/2012/04/trifecta-week-twenty-one.html. A neat blog I just found. Seems like they do contests like this every week. That was fun.