novel – Let's Get Out of Here

When words matter, pick the right ones

I cut my writing teeth on short stories. Sometimes, they were very short. Working on a novel is quite different. But I’ve found the process of choosing the right words to express what I want to be similar to those exercises in flash fiction. Maybe I learned something? Time and editing will tell.

For now, here are five of my favorite very short stories. Four of them were published in online journals and I’ve included links at the end of this post.

Despite the brief length, each is a complete tale. I hope you enjoy them, and the photos. All the pictures here are either ones I’ve taken or photos of me. I try to pick shots that match the feeling and mood of the stories.

This first piece is fiction, but I’d be lying if I told you it doesn’t sit close to truth. Unless you were super popular in school, I think you can relate to those feelings of being an outsider in the midst of your peers. And maybe even the popular kids felt that way at times.

The inspiration for this one wasn’t my own high school reunion, but an abandoned school that my husband and I drove past one Sunday afternoon. Hence the last lines in the story.

The author, photo from high school album

Reunion

I open my email and scroll past a black-and-white photo—stone lions crouching at a high school entrance. Recollection rings like the end of day bell. Rushing from locker to class, brushing past people who don’t see me, don’t feel me. I inhale the scent of rubber-soled shoes on a waxed gym floor. My arms sag, heavy with books sharp against my chest. Thirty years unravel, an unruly thread.

The invitation, sent from a name I’m supposed to recognize, gradually slides down my inbox, behind offers for car repairs and notices of bills now due. That high school has long emptied of anyone I care to see again. Ghosts linger like clouds of chalk dust, and wander empty halls that echo with phantom footsteps. They climb the stands and cheer for games now played only in memory.

That evening, I mention the reunion to Mark, my husband.

“Thirty years is big. Are we going?” He asks.

I shrug. “I don’t think so.”

I log onto Facebook and find the reunion group. Former students have posted pictures. Squinting at the images, I try to reconcile the faces with those captured in the yearbooks on my bookcase.

I request to join the group. A week later, the group admin replies and asks, “Who are you?”

In high school, she had sat next to me in algebra class. Now, she’s the person organizing the reunion. After searching through my email, I find and delete the invitation.

Months later, on a slow Sunday, Mark and I drive past a building marked for demolition. Broken windows cast blank stares. A shadow flickers like a waving hand, and somewhere inside I imagine a bell ringing. I tell my husband, “I went to school there. I think.”

THE END

This next one if my favorite micro fiction story that I’ve written. It has that feel of the Old West, blended with a crime thriller. If you like it, you would probably enjoy one of my favorite movies: Hell or High Water.

You Can Tell a Lot About a Person by What They Leave Behind.

Fifty-six years of bad choices ended in a job cleaning toilets and sweeping used condoms from under sway-backed beds at the Star Motel. Nobody traveled there except oil tankers, tumbleweeds, and truckers dodging weigh stations.

The place paid in cash – enough to linger, not escape. Drunken nights spent listening to West Texas wind, dreaming of something else. One day, I opened a nightstand drawer, expecting a water-stained bible. Instead, a snub nose revolver lay coiled like a black snake. I climbed into my rusted-out Ford and tucked the gun under the vinyl seat.

It waited there, a dark possibility.

THE END

This next one was a contest entry for Globe Soup. The contest required entries to use the word “hollow”. It didn’t win anything, but it found a home eventually and was published.

We enjoy feeding birds at our house, and crows are frequent visitors.

Photo by the author, edited with the Waterlogue app

An Empty Heart Holds Only Echoes

The day after her husband’s funeral, a crow crashed into Vera Scott’s patio door. At first, she overlooked the small black body on the other side of the glass. The collision’s hollow thump had been so loud she had expected something larger to have caused it.

She kneeled and picked up the bird. Lined above them in the trees, a murder of crows assembled. Cawing, they hopped from limb to limb—loud, black clad mourners.

Tired of death, she willed the bird to stir. A shiny eye blinked. With a rustle of ebony feathers, the crow flew—hollow bones lifted weightless.

THE END

Most of the horror stories I write tend more toward Gothic fiction, with haunted houses and ghosts set in Texas or other strange places. I’ll never kill off a dog, cat, or child in my tales, but grown adults are fair game.

This little story is one that keeps popping back in my imagination, begging for more words. It’s a bit dark, but not gory.

What is Planted in Despair Will be Raised for Vengeance

We buried her in the spring, in the field where summer poppies bloom. Nothing holy grew from our grief, scattered like seeds across her grave.

Her mother’s tears watered the ground. Her lover’s guilt summoned the reaping. Had we recognized in time the truth of her death, he would have joined her under that cold blanket of dirt.

Her bones rose—white roots clawing through black soil to reach the sun. Conjured with regret, she will glean the good with the guilty.

We could have salted the earth to kill the curse, but fall is the time for the harvest.

THE END

My relationship with my mom had the normal ups and downs, plus the complications from her undiagnosed mental illness. By the time this picture was taken we had reconciled and we had relaxed into enjoying each other’s company.

The micro fiction below was an entry in a contest. My entry didn’t win or advance and I haven’t tried to submit it anywhere. Instead, I chose to share it here.

I don’t remember the exact prompt, but it was something like “packing for a trip.”

I chose a darker interpretation of that prompt.

My mother, Christene Hamilton, passed away in 2010 at age 92. Departed finally on that last journey.

The author and her mother, Christene, sometime around 1982.

Wishing You Weren’t Here

My mother will not go. Her empty suitcase waits, ready to be packed.

Photographs faded to blue and green, recipe cards in her careful printing, a hairbrush threaded with silver, scarves scented with her perfume—all lie scattered nearby.

I add postcards from places never ventured, menus for foods never tasted. The yellowed fabric of her wedding dress goes in last. Out of sight, lest regret serve as an anchor. The coin for Charon’s crossing gleams beside the case.