Like the Prose: Challenge #29 – Revisit one of your previous challenge pieces and rewrite it from a different POV. (I chose Carob Drops.)

“I will check on her,” I say, “Stay by the fire. Enjoy your wine.” I leave my wife on the couch and move into the kitchen. Calling up the stairs, I assure our young houseguest, “Sophie, it is just a power outage from the storm. You are safe.”

A tremulous voice responds, “Okay.”

I’ve already got the kettle on – fortunately our stove is a gas one – and a mug ready with a bag of fragrant peppermint tea. Peppermint was my favorite, as a boy, and I suspect the child in our loft will appreciate it also. If you stir in just the right amount of turbinado sugar or organic honey it is as if you are drinking a candy-cane.

The kettle whistles. I pour the water over the bag, agitate it with a spoon, and gather the rest of my supplies: a storm lantern, a battered paperback novel, a zip-lock bag of tiny brown candies. Separately these things seem ordinary. Together, they are an arsenal meant to battle a small girl’s fear of (I chuckle to myself as the clichéd phrase comes to mind unbidden) a dark and stormy night.

The tea is ready. I remove the bag after pressing out the water, and decide honey is better than sugar on this night, though I’m generous with the sticky sweetener. In doing so, I become the little girl’s co-conspirator, and perhaps, one day, a friend, rather than the strange brown man who married her mother’s college roommate.

I light the lantern, and place it, and everything else on a bed tray – the kind the with the fold-down legs. So armed, I leave the candle-lit glow of the kitchen and climb the stairs to the loft where our bedrooms are. Sophie is in the smallest one. It’s not more than a nook, really: a small space for a small child. Perhaps, one day, the child will be his child. (I spend a moment imagining a daughter with Emily’s bright blue eyes set into tawny skin slightly lighter than my own, but with my jet-black hair. Or a son, with my dark eyes, but his mother’s soft features. It doesn’t matter… but I hope… oh, I hope….)

“Sophie?” I balance the tray on one arm and knock on the open door. “May I enter?”

“Hi, Rajesh.” Her dark eyes seem huge in the flickering lantern light. They’re not as dark as mine, and yet, I feel a kinship with this child. “Is Mom okay?”

“She is fine. She called earlier. Her conference is going well, and she said to tell you she loves you and to be good. Your Aunt Emily is so cozy on the couch that when you called out, I asked her if she would let me come keep you company for a few moments. Do you mind?”

She shakes her head, and I see her golden braids bob back and forth. “No. I don’t mind. What’s on the tray?”

“Supplies,” I say, making my voice mysterious. “The storm is loud, but you know it cannot get in, yes?”

“Yes,” she agrees. “I know.”

“Still, it makes it difficult to sleep. When I cannot sleep, I like to read, and your mother has mentioned that you, too, like stories, so I have brought you one of my favorites.” I place the lantern on the desk near the bed while I talk to her, just far enough away so that an errant hand cannot knock it over, and then I show her the cover of the book. “A Wrinkle in Time,” I intone. “Have you read it? It’s about a very brave girl, a little older than you are.”

“Is there magic in it?”

“Not precisely. There’s science in it. And sometimes science can seem like magic. Would you like to try it?”

But she’s already taken it from me and is reading the blurb on the back. “I think I’ll like it.”

“I think so, too. I first read it when I was nine.”

“I’m only eight.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh. Okay.” She sniffs the air. “I smell peppermint.”

“Ah, yes. More supplies.” I take the mug of tea from the tray. “Peppermint tea with honey in it. It’s still quite hot, so sip it carefully.”

“I will.”

“And one more thing.” I dangle the bag of candies in front of her.

“Chocolate?”

“Not quite.”

“Then what?”

“Carob drops.”

“What’s carob?”

I smile at her. “It’s a sort of bean from my country. It comes from a kind of evergreen tree, but not the kind we have here. It tastes a lot like chocolate, but it has its own flavor, too. Try one?”

Her small hand reaches into the bag and pulls out a carob drop. She pops it into her mouth, and I watch as her face first grows serious – she is analyzing the flavor – and then lights up: she approves!

“It’s a little… earthier? Is that the word?” I nod and she continues. “It’s a little earthier than chocolate. And there’s something else in the flavor. But I like it. Thank you, Rajesh.”

“You are welcome, Sophie. Now, cuddle up with your book and your tea, and let the storm become a friend instead of a foe. When you’re ready to sleep again, the carob drops will bring sweet dreams, and in the morning your mother will be back.”

She nods at all of that, her eyes wide like saucers and her face so serious. But before I can leave, she puts her hand on my arm. “Rajesh, wait.”

“Is something wrong, Sophie.”

“No. Only… Emily is Aunt Emily.”

“Yes.”

“So, aren’t you Uncle Rajesh?”

“If you wish it, Sophie.”

“I do, please.” And she stretches up and presses her little-girl lips to my cheek.

One day, I think, my own child will give me goodnight kisses like this. Sticky with honey or carob. And I will do to my child what I do with Sophie: I reach out and tug gently on her nearest braid. “You are very welcome, Sophie.”

And I leave her there, wrapped in quilts, in the tiny loft bedroom that is her nest for the night. The little girl with book and peppermint tea.

And carob drops.

* * *

Dark-eyed little girl
Golden braids, serious face
May I be your friend?

Like the Prose: Challenge #28 – Write a Lipogram (A story where you eliminate a specific letter. In this case, the actual story does not use the letter ‘t.’)

Sun.

Sand.

Sea.

She feels her skin baking, feels her scalp burning, feels her lips cracking from marine chemicals, from sol’s inferno, from her own obsession.

She and her board are one.

Endless waves command her focus, her balance, her prowess, her finesse.

Her braided hair flows behind her as she flies over boundless blue and pale foam.

Her body hums ocean music, and  her deep blue sea responds in kind.

Her parched lips spread in a broad grin.

She is joy embodied.

She is free.

She is a surfer.

* * *

Hours pass.

She wakes in her wee beach house.

Inhaling, she recognizes cooking aromas.

Her lover has arrived, dinner is in progress.

A fresh smile appears on her face.

She padds on calloused soles and kisses him hello. “Smells awesome.”

“Me? Or my chicken?”

“Mmm. You. And your chicken. How long?”

“Mmm. Mere seconds.”

“Wine?”

“Yes, please. Chardonnay.”

* * *

She knows his body as well as she does her ocean.

He surfs her body as ably as she does each wave.

As one, rising, falling, laughing, sighing.

A kiss.

A lick.

A nudge.

Ahhh.

Sleep comes only when each has given pleasure and been pleased.

* * *

Dawn wakes her. He remains asleep, snoring.

Dawn is shark hour.

She should be concerned.  She will be careful.

She crosses cool, damp, sand, board under her arm.

Pink rays warm her morning face.

Her waves welcome her.

She and her board are one.

She surfs.

And she smiles.

Like the Prose: Challenge #27 – Use metaphor to explore a mental illness without naming it. (Special thanks to my friend Fran H. for her assistance & insight.) 

If you look at a zebra, you might think you’re seeing a white animal with black stripes. After all, these not-quite-horses have white underbellies, don’t they? So white must be the dominant color.

That’s the order of things.

People often associate white with order. Because it’s clean and fresh, I guess. And maybe, maybe if you’re talking about bedsheets with hospital corners that’s true.

But if you’re creating the lightshow of your life, aligning the prisms so they bend and refract at exactly the right angles, you know the truth. White isn’t order at all. White is chaos. The presence of all colors. White is what you get when you spin the top and everything blurs, and you can’t think or process or feel because everything is too much and too loud and too fast…

But you come out of the white, at the end, and you realize that you’ve amassed this collection of art – writing, paintings, light sculptures – but you didn’t really get to experience them because you were in a frenzy of creation when they sprang into being.

And so, you sink.

You sink into black.

And at first… at first the black is soothing. Because you recognize that the black is your true color. Underneath the white fur, there’s black skin holding everything together.

But sometimes there’s too much black.

Too much darkness.

Because if white is the presence of all color, all light.

Then black is the absence.

The bleak nothingness where you are disconnected.

And while a touch of black is soothing, too much becomes a weight, like an anchor pulling you too far down, or, no, not an anchor, but a lame hoof, causing you to lag further and further behind the herd.

Intellectually, you know they’ll watch out for you.

But in the blackness, if you sense anything at all, it’s the predators you recognize. The ones that live on the edges of the dark forest and spring at you just when you’re starting to emerge from total nothingness, pulling you backwards.

They have stripes, too. The tigers. Or spots. The leopards and cheetahs. They have bits of blackness in them. But it’s a different sort of blackness. Still, it’s enough. It allows them to find you at your weakest point.

Eventually, though, there’s a shift.

Dappled sunlight breaks through the darkest part of the forest.

The herd circles around you, protecting you while your lame hoof (lame head) heals itself (maybe not forever – you’re kind of a klutz – but at least for now).

You catch your reflection in the pond before you take a refreshing drink of the clean, clear water, and you realize your stripes aren’t meant to be isolates. You are not black with white punctuation, or white with black interruption.

You are Zebra.

You are black and white, and when you move your shoulders, sometimes the white dominates, and when you stamp your hooves, the black ripples ominously, but both are parts of the whole. And when you manage to accept that, you also find balance.

Maybe not forever.

But at least for now.

Like the Prose: Challenge #25 – Write a contemporary YA piece.

“Did you get the tickets?” I asked my mother as I dropped into the seat opposite hers in our favorite café. Friday afternoon mochas had been a ritual of ours practically since I’d been weaned. Well, it hadn’t always been mochas. Originally, it had been a spoonful of her coffee mixed into my milk, but, the Friday afternoon thing was sacrosanct.

Through her first marriage, her divorce, her brief dating life, and her marriage to my stepfather (which seemed like it would last), we met for coffee after school on Fridays. I’d tell her about my day, she’d tell me about hers. Then I’d go off to music lessons or community theater rehearsals, or, more recently, a date of my own, and she’d go back to work for a couple of hours, or head home, or go out with my stepfather for a date of their own.

“I did.”

“In the zone?” As a theatre brat I was kind of a snob about seats. The zone meant that the seats were between rows six and sixteen, inclusive.

“Center section, row G, on the aisle. Sweetie, you didn’t have to use your savings on these.”

“Mom, please. It’s the Carole King musical. I grew up with her music. You grew up with her music. How else could we celebrate our last Mothers’ Day with me still living in your house?” My high school graduation was only a few weeks away. I’d already signed on to be resident ingenue in a summer stock theatre company in some cutesy rural town for most of the summer, and then I’d be home long enough to do laundry and pack before I headed off to theatre school. My path was set. “There are some ground rules, though.”

“Ground rules? You’re going to tell me what I can or can’t wear.”

“I don’t care what you wear, as long you don’t feel the need to demonstrate that your underwear matches your outfit while you’re driving.”

“We were stopped at a red light.”

“All my friends were in the car.”

“It was all girls.”

“Daniel isn’t a girl.”

“True. But he’s gay. Also, Veronica is bi.”

“Is she?”

“She announced it last week in the leadership meeting. Brought cupcakes and everything. They were a little dry.”

My mother rolled her eyes at me. “Fine. What else are you going to restrict? Am I allowed to speak? Should I walk three paces behind you? Are you sure you even want to be sitting together?”

“Mom!” I filled the word with my exasperation. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

“Don’t you think you’re over-controlling?”

“I call it ‘having strong leadership skills,’ and where do you think I got them from?”

“Fine.”

“Okay, so… Mom, the thing is… I know you know all the lyrics, but… this is a musical. Not a concert.”

“And…?” her tone was dark. Like, one step away from straightening her glasses at me dark.

“It’s totally okay to sing along with the music at a concert, but you don’t do that at a musical. Except during the curtain call, when they invite it.”

“I can sing if I want to.”

“Mom, do you really think that’s….”

“What?”

“Well, it’s just that your singing is…”

She actually did straighten her glasses. “What about my singing?”

In an almost robotic tone I said, “You sing with great joy and enthusiasm.” Mentally, I added, “and absolutely no sense of pitch, whatsoever.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Mom – ”

“Yes?”

“Never mind.”

We finished our mochas in silence. Maybe when I was older, I’d be better at picking my battles. Maybe I’d never win with her. Or, maybe, there would come a time when I’d realize that as tone deaf as she was, the fact that my mother would never stop singing along with musicals, with the radio, with the stupid sound system at the grocery store, was somehow beautiful.

Then again… maybe not.

Like the Prose: Challenge #24 – Write a descriptive piece about an object in your home/room.

It stands a silent sentinel just to the left of the front door. Tall. Brown. Regal. Its curved headpiece provides a warm welcome to all who enter, and its gold-inlaid face serves as a gentle reminder of the graciousness of an earlier age.

The carved corners and straight lines of the main case are petite for such a figure, lending a feminine cant to the piece. Inside the central glass, shiny brass weights rest, frozen outside of time, unused, unusable, but somehow conveying a sense of willingness.

“Fix me,” the timepiece seems to whisper, as the daylight turns to night and the shadows lengthen on the wooden floor. “Make me useful again.”

And if the twilight deepens to just the right shade, if the evening is quiet enough, the air almost seems to echo on the hour: the four bars of the Westminster Chimes followed by the resonant bongs that mark the specific time.

But then the magic is gone.

The hands, behind their glass, are still unmoving.

The chains don’t carry the weights up or down.

There is no ticking or tocking from this Grandmother Clock.

Like the Prose: Challenge #23 – Include your personal philosophy in your story. (I didn’t. My story is completely off-brief because I’ve had my Mom visiting from Mexico, and I’ve been spending time with her. So you get a Basil-Zoe story instead.)

The thing about spaceships is that when you’ve lived on one long enough, you learn the places you can go when you want to be alone, but also be able to be found. And when you’ve become friends with a line officer who also happens to be both prone to brooding and a synthetic lifeform, you learn where they are likely to go in similar situations.

Which is why I found myself climbing a ladder inside an maintenance crawlway in heels on the night of my eighteenth birthday, in order to access a little-known observation alcove where said synthetic lifeform  had often brought me to practice music “… because the acoustics here are quite excellent, Zoe.”

He turned when I stepped off the ladder, and the starlight on his pale-silver features made my breathe catch. I’d been reacting that way a lot lately. “Had a feeling I’d find you here,” I said by way of a greeting. “You didn’t come to my party.”

“I did not wish to intrude upon the fun you and your friends were no doubt having.”

“Basil,” I made his name into something like an admonishment. “You’re my friend, too, aren’t you? I wouldn’t have invited you if I didn’t want you there.” I moved closer to the tiny bench he was occupying. “Move over a little.”

He did as I asked, making room for me. “I had planned to contact you once I had returned to my quarters. I came here to determine what I wished to say.”

“Well, ‘Happy Birthday’ is the typically used phrase, but if you had something more original, I’m sure I wouldn’t object.” I could tell he meant something more. I was keeping my tone light on purpose.

“You are human.”

“Kinda knew that.”

“I was not finished. You are human and you are now eighteen. In all of the aligned worlds, achieving that age marks you as an adult.”

“Is this the part where you remind me that when I complete this semester, I’m no longer considered my mother’s dependent and lose my residency eligibility?”

“No,” he said quietly. “It is not.” He changed his position on the bench, angling his body so that he was facing me. “It is the part where I tell you that I have enjoyed the friendship we have forged in the past few months. It is the part where I share that while playing music with you has enhanced my emotional and intellectual growth, so has the time we have spent ‘just talking.'” His eyes flashed ruby, then gold, then back to the cool sapphire they usually were. “It is the part where I ask if you would consider altering the paradigm of our relationship from friendship to romance.”

I reached for his left hand and wrapped my right one around it. “You skipped my birthday party because you wanted to ask me on a date?” I was only half teasing. The truth was that we’d been having regular lunches and dinners together, and even movie night, when mom’s duty shift kept her busy, for weeks. I was pretty sure his friends among the crew assumed we were dating already. I knew mine did.

“No, Zoe. While we never named it thusly, by any definition, we have already been dating. I skipped your birthday because, as I said, I did not wish to intrude upon your celebration. But also, because I wished a more private assignation with the woman I hope is my… girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?”

“If you are amena – ”

I interrupted him the way I’d wanted to interrupt so many conversations over the past few weeks: I kissed him. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Metal? Plastic? But… kissing Basil didn’t feel physically different than kissing any other humanoid-shaped person. His mouth was warm. His lips were soft against mine, then firmer as he joined the kiss, becoming a participant. His tongue met mine, and I tasted something faintly sweet, but nothing I could put a name to. It was just… just him.

I broke away when I had to breathe.

“May I assume that was a ‘yes?'”

“You may.” I realized I was still holding his hand. I let it go and scooted closer to him. “You know I’m going to have some questions… and I don’t want… I don’t want to seem invasive or rude when I ask.”

“You have the right to ask me anything, Zoe.”

“Oh, Basil… then I guess… how far can we go? Is sex on the table? Is this only until I leave for university or work or whatever I do at the end of the school year? Are we – we don’t have to hide this do we?”

“We do not have to ‘hide’ anything, Zoe, though as a line officer, a certain level of decorum is expected. I do not believe we should define a schedule… it may be that we are not as compatible as lovers than we are as friends. It may be that when you leave our relationship ends naturally.”

“That’s fair.”

“And you would be welcome to visit, should you wish to. Even if your mother were to transfer.”

“And sex?”

“Anatomically, Zoe, I am little different than a human male. You know this.”

“I know it intellectually.”

“And you wish… first-hand experience?”

“As you pointed out earlier, I am human. But, I don’t… I don’t want to go there if it’s something you’re doing only for me. Either it’s for both of us, or it doesn’t happen.”

“I would have it no other way.”

“Good.” We sat in silence for a few moments, though Basil put his arm around my shoulders, drawing me closer to his body. The warm solidity of him was something I’d always noticed in friendly hugs. Now it was mine to experience in a whole new way. “Basil?”

“Yes, Zoe?”

“Is sex even something you’re interested in?”

“With you?”

“Basil.”

“Forgive me, Zoe. Perhaps it was inappropriate to attempt humor at such a moment.”

“Only a little.”

“Then let me be clear… I am interested in exploring whatever you wish to explore, Zoe Harris.”

“You know this doesn’t get you out of giving me an actual birthday present.”

“I have a gift for you in my quarters. We can go retrieve it whenever you are ready.”

“We can go to your quarters in a bit,” I agreed, “but it’s late so I think my present might have to wait til after breakfast.” I caught his reaction to the real meaning of my sentence and smiled slightly. “For now, staying here is good. Especially if you kiss me again.”

“I am happy to comply,” Basil answered, and he did.

As his lips met mine for another delicious kiss, I considered whether it was too soon to sleep with him. I might have just turned eighteen, but I wasn’t innocent. I also knew that if Basil was declaring himself in this way, he meant it.

This wasn’t an impulsive hookup.

This was just us… switching gears.

Like the Prose: Challenge #22 – Write something nonsensical. (I did not succeed. I merely managed to be silly.)

Morning comes too early. I’m pulled from sleep in the middle of REM sleep. I stumble to the kitchen in that half-aware state between sleeping and waking.

The dogs are barking at nothing.

Or something.

Maybe they see things I don’t.

Maybe the leaves three blocks away really are a threat.

Coffee.

Coffee won’t listen and understand but it will make the morning feel less like razor blades and more like something merely annoying, like when I get a hair caught in my eyelash but I can’t quite grab it, and it keeps irritating me until I’m ready to gouge my eyes out with rusty spoons.

Dull ones.

Because fruit spoons would make it too easy.

I’ve been using that line for years and I’ve never revealed that I actually stole it from Swoosie Kurt’s character in a filmed-for-tv production of The House of Blue Leaves where she threatens to commit suicide by slitting her wrists with spoons.

Except that’s not quite right.

Spoons.

Coffee.

Milk.

I pour the milk into the cup first and the coffee on top, because I’m lazy and don’t want to have to wash an extra spoon. I watch the abstract patterns form and I have the line from that Carly Simon song riffing in my head, “I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee,” and suddenly I’m on a sailboat on a coffee sea and the sails are cocktail napkins held up by masts made of balsa-wood stirrer-stick masts.

A wave of café au lait washes over the boat, and I pick up a teaspoon oar and try to beat it back, but it drenches me.

But even worse… it’s decaf.

* * *

Beeping. I hear beeping. Maybe it’s the emergency beacon and someone is floating me a stack of shortbread to float home on.

Or.

Maybe it’s the alarm, and my REM sleep was never interrupted.

And it was all a dream within a dream.

And the only spooning I’m doing is being the inside one in the stack formed with me and my husband.

Who is snoring like foghorns, loud enough to wake the dead.

And the dogs bark.

And he rolls on his back.

And I pull him back to me.

“You have to stay on your side,” I say, “because there are lizards coming to scoop out your brains. And they drink decaf and it’s awful.”

He holds me tighter.

I go back to sleep.

And in the morning, he brings me caffeinated coffee in a mug with dinosaurs on it.

Like the Prose: Challenge #21 – Today was about doing the opposite of what you usually do. I typically write in bed and work in a horror or sci-fi twist. I wrote this in the living room and it’s completely human and earthbound.

The teabag arrived in a pink envelope on a gray day. The sender had wrapped it in a page of lined notepaper and scrawled a brief message, but it had gotten wet, and she couldn’t really read the signature. The message was clear, however: it was Penelope’s turn for the tea exchange,  that she should sip the tea and think of someone she loved and then send a bag of her own favorite tea to the address on the note.

The address was surprisingly clear.

She looked at the green envelope. “Pukka,” she read. “Supreme Matcha Green.” She’d had matcha before, when visiting her college roommate’s family for the holidays. Though Emi had been born in America her parents had left Asia shortly after their marriage – her mother was from Taiwan and her father from mainland China – and they’d had packets of instant matcha powder in a basket on the counter.

Penelope had fallen in love with the stuff, searched all over it, finally told her friend she loved it, and asked how to get it. Beginning that Christmas, and every year in the decade since, she’d received a box of the stuff every December and she measured it out over the next year until the next box came.

But this wasn’t her treasured matcha powder; this was a bag of green tea with matcha in it. Still, it seemed like a lovely rainy-day sort of tea. She filled the kettle and turned it on, took her favorite mug from the cabinet, and sliced an apple and some cheese to nibble with her cup.

Never a patient person, Penelope forced herself to follow the directions on the bag and let the tea steep the required length of time. She took deep breaths of the deepening brew, absorbing the herbal scent. She appreciated the deep emerald color.

Finally, she pulled the bag from the water and discarded it.

Taking tea and snack to the dining room table, she sat facing the window and watched the rain on the street. Think about someone you love; the note had said. There were so many people! Her husband, obviously, her parents, her local friends. But afternoon tea with Emi had become a ritual in college that continued through their grad school days.

They’d rented their first apartment together – a horrible sixth-floor walkup with a toilet that whistled for three full minutes after every flush and a clawfoot bathtub that rocked back and forth when you stepped over the side to get in it.

Both sets of their parents had been mortified by the choice, but despite the apartment’s quirks, it was in a safe building in a decent neighborhood, and they had a small balcony that held two chairs and a bistro table they’d found free on the sidewalk.

On days when it wasn’t raining, they’d bring glasses (okay, bottles) of wine out there, and trade their boyfriend woes, complain about classes, share fears about work and life after graduation…

And on days when it was…

That’s when they’d sit in the bay window and drink tea.

Penelope finished the last wedge of apple, the last square of cheese, and the last swallow of the tea.

Then she picked up the phone and punched in the number she knew almost as well as her husband’s.

“Hello?” It was as if ten years had dropped away when she heard that voice.

“Hey, Em? It’s Pen. It’s raining here, and I was just sipping tea, and thinking of you. Do you have a free weekend anytime soon? It’s been too long. We should get together.”