Stones In The Ships (Short Story)

One day, for a lark, I decided to play with a random title generator online. I clicked the button a number of times, flipping lists of randomly generated titles faster than I could read them. Then, I picked the three best titles on the list, picked one of those three, and started writing to see what would come of it.




This story is the result.





Stones in the Ships
By L. V. Gaudet
© January 28, 2010




The wet sound of waves lapping against waves danced with the wind in a unique chorus.

The world bobbed and rocked drunkenly. It was dark and dank, reeking of an old dampness that never dried out. It was the utterly unique odor that only trillions of gallons of water sitting forever in a cesspool of life and rotting detritus being eaten and defecated out by billions of creatures for a couple billions of years could have.

The cry of a solitary gull that had winged its way much too far from land pierced the air.

A distant buoy clanged.

Waiting (Short Story)

Waiting
By L. V. Gaudet
© March 2010


It was a busy street where it all happened. At least that’s where my earliest memory begins.

You know the kind of street, where cars whiz by fast, people of every description come, go, or stop a while, and the air is filled with more smells and sounds than the senses can take in.

We waited in the sometimes shelter and sometimes shade of the concrete at the base of the brick building next to the bus stop. There was an almost plaza-like feel to the place, with the large open paved area squeezed in among the streets, sidewalks, and tall brick buildings all around. There was no sidewalk between this particular building and the busy street it nestled against. Pedestrians trying their luck on the street side of the building took their lives in their hands. I was surprised by how many people did that.

It was a very busy bus stop. A nonstop tide of cars, buses, and people came and went constantly.

I don’t know how long we waited, but it sure seemed like a very long time. People came and went, buses came and went, and yet we waited, always waiting. Would our bus never come?

My mind felt like I was looking through a fog. Everything was confusing, my memory somehow lost in a haze I just couldn’t quite see through.

“Why was I here? Where are we going? What bus are we waiting for? And, why won’t that bus ever seem to come?”

Short Story - Falling

Falling
By L. V. Gaudet
© June 2009


This is a mystery, as best as I can tell. Or, perhaps, it is just a story about a mysterious journey of the mind. Is it a crime? Perhaps. The crime of dreams unfulfilled, of a mind neglected; a crime of the mind, the heart, the soul. Ok, perhaps a crime of the body as well.


It started on a day much like today …

#

“Where’s the child?”

“She’s not much of a child anymore. She’s what? Thirty?”

“Twenty-something. She’ll always be a child to me. Where is she?”

“Downstairs.”

“Quiet?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Does she know I’m involved?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Good.”

Short Story - Old Mill Road

Old Mill Road
By L. V. Gaudet
© June 2009


The four kids stood around looking down at it.


“I don’t think we should tell anyone,” David said. He was the oldest of the group, a virtual adult at ten.

“We have to,” his brother Ian insisted.

“They’ll think we did it,” he warned. “We could go to jail.”

The third boy, Nick, youngest of the children, whimpered. He didn’t want to go to jail. That was where they put bad people like Uncle Harvey. Uncle Harvey scared him, a lot. He didn’t want to go live in jail with Uncle Harvey. He started to bawl.

Felicia just stood there next to her little brother Nick, her face ashen, shivering although it was quite warm and sticky with the humidity left by the waning hot day.

The sky grew darker, the sun lowering on the horizon, as they stood there mutely staring like worshipers at a grisly shrine. Finally, they nodded their wordless agreement, turned, and melted into the fast darkening woods, looking more like specters than living children. This would be their secret.

A Short Burst of Writing - Little Cup

Little Cup

The extraordinary story of a very ordinary little cup

By L. V. Gaudet

© December 2008

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The day was as any other, that day on which a very ordinary little cup was made along with a bunch of other very ordinary little cups. And today, again, was a day the same as any other day. The cups sat in a line on the shelf, rows behind rows of identical plain little tin cups. They were not made to be pretty like the fancy little painted tea cups sitting on a similar shelf with their fancy little saucers. The little tin cups were made to be simple, plain, and durable. They will dent, but not shatter or crack like the fancy little fragile china cups.

.

The bell above the door tinkled when the door opened. It might have been a merry sound, but these days there were very few with reason to feel merry.

.

The shopkeeper watched the mother enter the store with a boy trailing at her heel like a trained puppy. She leaned her bulk on the counter, trying to ease the ache in her sore feet as she watched them. The shopkeeper was a little overweight, but her clothes and face sagged with fatigue and the weight she had recently lost. The weight loss was not the result of prudent diet and exercise. Everyone was losing weight these days, including those who hadn’t the weight to lose.

.

The mother looked tired and worn out beyond her years; her eyes avoided making contact as she entered the store with a slight unsure pause as she did so, head lowered in deference to the world around her. Her jacket did not look warm enough for the weather. It was as worn and threadbare as the woman herself. Her cheekbones seemed a little sunken and her eyes held the furtive haunted look of a rabbit trapped within a circle of hungry wolves. She wobbled a little as she wandered along the shelves of the store, examining the goods, pausing and coming back again to the mostly empty shelves holding meager rations of food.

.

The boy looked too small, his age impossible to define. His jacket was much too big, making the boy seem even smaller within its confines. He looked too thin, scrawny sticks for legs sticking out beneath the jacket and ending in worn shoes that looked too small for his feet; the toes sticking out through holes worn through the tips of the shoes giving testament to that. The boy never looked up, just followed his mother silently, a miniature shadow, seeming almost as intangible as a shadow.

.

In another time, an eternity ago although really little time had passed, this woman would have entered with her head held high, looking the clerk in the eye with a smile and nod. The boy would have eagerly rushed forward, seeking out the candy shelves, begging his mother to buy some. Today the candy lay sullenly overlooked as kids instead eyed loaves of bread, dented cans they normally would insolently turn their noses at, and bruised partially rotted fruit with insatiable hunger.

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The clerk caught the mother’s gaze, and turned her eyes away in shame, as though she’d just witnessed something very private. Her cheeks colored with what might have been embarrassment. What she saw in those eyes frightened her.

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Those eyes held the dark bruised look of the desperate, a mother starving herself so that her children can eat what little scraps of food she can get.

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The mother leaned down and whispered into the boy’s ear. What she said would soon become obvious.

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The boy shuffled over towards the candy shelf, eyeing the brightly colored wares with a dull disinterested look. The woman behind the counter watched the boy. Gingerly, as though handling delicate crystal, the boy picked up two candy bars and showed them to the clerk. Digging into his jacket pocket, he retrieved a small handful of coins and showed them to the lady. She shook her head, indicating the sparse coins were not enough for the candy. They went through this little dance of charades, the boy showing her his pittance of money and different candies while she solemnly mimed “no”.

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At last the mother approached the counter. She set on the counter a single dented can and motioned the boy to put the candy back. He gently laid the candy in its place and pocketed his change.

.

The mother at last looked the clerk in the eyes, a shadow of the pride she once had still lingered in those haunted hollow eyes. Carefully digging money from her worn little purse as though those coins were valuable and ancient relics requiring great care, she laid out the money to pay for the can of food.

.

As the mother turned to leave with her single can of food, the clerk leaned across the counter and deftly grabbed the boy’s jacket behind his mothers back. She slipped the coins into his hand and pointed at a candy bar with a wink, the bar filled with nuts, indicating that he should take it. She couldn’t sell the candy anyway. She had seen the mother furtively sneak a few apples into a pocket, while hungrily eyeing a loaf of bread that was too big to hide. She wiped away an unshed tear as the bell over the door tinkled behind the closing door. They would repeat this little dance in exactly one week, and again exactly one week later, as they had in the weeks before.

#

Back in their little shelter where two smaller children, a girl and a boy, huddled against the chill and waited, the mother carefully opened the dented little can. They would eat it as is, cold, shared between them. The mother would pretend to eat too, instead saving her small ration for her children.

.

Nervously, the boy that accompanied her to the store approached his mother. He looked embarrassed, shy. Not sure if he would be in trouble or if his mother would be proud. She looked up at him expectantly. He scuffed his toe, shrugged, and finally dug deep in his pocket. The boy pulled out the candy bar, presenting it solemnly.

.

The mother frowned at the candy bar. Candy was useless. It would not feed their starving bodies. But the nuts blanketed in that rich velvety chocolate were precious life giving little jewels. Protein. She smiled at the boy, hugged him tight. They would save this treat for later, when the children cried in the night from the hunger pains gnawing greedily at their stomachs.

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The boy shuffled again, looking down at his toes.

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The mother looked at him, a question in her eyes.

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At last he dug again in his pocket.

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Mother’s head tilted, curious, and a little worried.

.

The boy pulled out his prize and held it out before Mother’s eyes, his eyes tearing. It was a very ordinary little tin cup. Plain and kind of ugly, but it would not shatter or crack like the pretty little fancy painted teacups.

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“H-happy birthday Mother,” the boy’s voice cracked out.

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Tears welled at Mother’s eyes and she hugged him tight. Words were not necessary; they would have only diminished the moment.

#

Mother carefully sliced a small bruised apple, putting pieces in the little tin cup, on a large piece of what used to be a larger ceramic dinner plate, and on the table beside where she cut. She ate two small slices, giving the rest to the children. When she was done, she carefully licked the juice from the knife and the surface of the table. They could not afford to waste even those few precious drops of juice from the apple.

.

She stepped outside to see the oldest boy carefully pulling a thin slice of apple from the little tin cup and sharing it with a starving scruffy looking little dog. It was food they desperately could not afford to lose, but she wasn’t angry. The little dog would provide them with meat, either by catching the quick little rodents that scurried about in the dark, or by eating the dog itself. Her children had to eat.

#

Mother lay on the cold ground in an icy puddle of dirty water, her coat stained dark like blood by the dirty water. Her eyes were closed as if in sleep, her hair tousled and spread out across the dirty road. A patch of blood lay streaked and already drying across her face. The muddy tracks of the wagon’s wheels lay across Mother’s coat like the sash of a pageant winner.

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The children wailed and sobbed.

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The little dog yelped and cried as the man ran away with the squirming little creature. The little dog would feed his starving family today.

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The wagon that ran over Mother when the man pushed her to the ground in front of it as she fought to keep him from stealing the little dog just kept rolling on, unconcerned.

.

The very ordinary little tin cup lay forgotten in the mud, spattered and dirty, but not shattered or cracked.

.

A man passing by, unconcerned by the children’s plight, noticed the little cup. He stopped and looked at it, stooped and picked it up. It was a rather plain looking little tin cup, dirty and kind of ugly, but it would not shatter or crack like the pretty little fancy painted teacups. With a shrug he shoved the little tin cup in his pocket and walked on.

#

The wagon wheels growled ceaselessly against the rocks and dirt of the road. It was not a smooth road by any means and the wagon creaked and groaned tiredly as it was pulled along by a pair of tired horses.

.

The driver rocked in his seat with the swaying of the wagon. On the seat beside him a rather plain looking little tin cup sat. It was empty now, but its contents had warmed the man as he sipped it while waiting for the load on the wagon to be strapped down securely. He had picked up the discarded cup from the muck of the street, wiped it off, and kept it. A durable little cup like that came in handy.

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The thundering of hooves began to descend on the wagon, echoing off the distance like the rumble of weak thunder.

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The horses ticked their heads up and pricked their ears nervously, picking up on the driver’s nervousness through the long reigns. The driver looked side to side and behind, trying to spot the advancing riders and how far they were. He snapped the reins, calling the horses to greater speed. The wagon wheels wobbled dangerously on the uneven road as the wagon picked up speed.

.

A distant shout.

.

He urged the beasts faster. The wheels wobbled harder.

.

With whoops and yells, the thudding hooves growing closer, the riders chased down the wagon, catching up to it on their faster stolen horses. The ruts and pits of the road slowed down the wagon too much to outrun horses bearing riders only. They surrounded the wagon.

.

One rider leaned over, trying to catch the long rein and pull back on it to slow one of the horses pulling the wagon. If you slow one, you slow them both. He reached and missed, reached again, caught it, and pulled.

.

A sudden lurch of the wagon as its wheel caught a rut pulled him off balance, making him fall from his galloping horse. He tumbled, rolled, and the wagon wheels rolled right over him. The horse continued to pace the horses pulling the wagon in an urgent race.

.

The other men continued to chase the wagon, the driver urging his beasts to greater speed, the wagon wheels wobbling dangerously, and the wagon jostling on the rough road, leaving the injured man laying groaning in the mud of the road behind. They could not lose the wagon. If they did not rob it their families would not eat.

.

The little tin cup wobbled and rolled about the seat, finally rolling off and bouncing against the edge of the wagon side. It fell to the ground, bouncing and rolling, at last coming to rest in the dirt. It lay there in the mud, spattered and dirty, sporting a little dent but not shattered or cracked.

#

Dusk was beginning to close in, drawing a pall of dimness across the world. An old man hobbled down the road, using a cane for support. His stomach had stopped hurting some time ago and now just had the empty hollowness of the starving.

.

Something in the road caught his eye. He stopped and looked at it, stooped with difficulty and picked it up. It was a rather plain looking little tin cup, dirty and kind of ugly, but it would not shatter or crack like the pretty little fancy painted teacups. With a shrug he shoved the little tin cup in his pocket and walked on.

.

The door to the little shack creaked open. The old woman warming herself by a tiny starving fire looked up hopeful, yet a little afraid.

.

The old man shuffled in, closed the door behind him, and slowly peeled his coat off with arthritis stricken fingers. He walked over to the old woman, who looked up at him warmly from her chair.

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“Happy birthday, Mother,” his voice cracked as he leaned over to give his wife a kiss on the forehead. Carefully, he pulled out the little tin cup and presented it to her as though it were something very valuable and fine.

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The old woman stared at the little tin cup. It was a rather plain looking little tin cup, dirty and sporting a little dent and kind of ugly, but it would not shatter or crack like the pretty little fancy painted teacups. She smiled warmly up at the old man, hugging his arm tight. He helped her struggle out of the chair. She shuffled over to the sink, picked up a worn little tea towel, wetted it, and cleaned the little cup with careful love. When she was done, she gently set the cup upon the shelf beside some pretty little fancy painted cracked and chipped teacups.

#

“Hurry,” the boy urged his older brother as he kept watch. The old couple would return soon. He had seen them searching the edge of the woods not far to anything edible they could find.

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“I’m hurrying, I’m hurrying,” the other brother spat back as he urgently ransacked the little shack, desperate to find something to eat. Searching the shelf of mismatched cups in case something lay hidden there, he accidentally knocked a pretty little fancy painted teacup off the shelf. It tumbled as if in slow motion as the two boys eyes watched the delicate little cup’s fall in horror. It shattered when it hit the floor. They stared at it mesmerized.

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Finally the older boy snapped out of it.

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“There’s no food here,” he whispered loudly to the younger boy. The younger boy looked stricken, his hand reflexively reaching for his empty belly.

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“Let’s get out of here,” the older boy said, looking nervously at the door.

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The younger boy paused, eyes glued to the little tin cup. His hand snaked out, snatched the little cup off the shelf, and shoved it into his pocket.

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The boys ran from the house, the old couple yelling at their retreating backs in the distance, having seen the robbers flee from their little shack.

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The boys ran faster, not knowing that the kind old couple had found food and wanted to share it with the two boys they knew regularly burglarized their home in a desperate search for something to eat.

#

Two boys sat cowering against the cold stone wall, huddled in their ragged clothes for warmth they wouldn’t find. Their limbs seemed strangely long, so stick-like were their thin arms and legs. Between them sat a rather plain looking little tin cup sporting a little dent and kind of ugly. They picked this spot because this was where the people with money came to eat and drink. Their eyes locked on every passerby, following them, pleading, hollow and sunken with hunger and desperation. Later, they would move to the back of the building to fight with other children over the meager scraps from the garbage. The workers in the restaurant mostly picked out anything reasonably edible to bring home to their families before the trash made it to the back ally.

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A mean spirited woman passed by, not deigning to give them so much as a glance from the corner of her eye, and making it obviously so. Next came a swaggering man, waddling from his obesity and pomposity.

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After this shuffled a wraith of a woman, scrawny and dirty; eyes withdrawn and empty. She paused before them, not looking at them, and just stood there. At last she turned to stare down at the boys with those empty lifeless eyes. Her eyes scared them. They shrunk into themselves, wishing she would just go away.

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The scary woman reached into her dirty coat. She knelt down and gently laid a single coin in the little tin cup. With a satisfied nod, she got up with a slight wobble, weak from hunger. The boys would eat today instead of her. She shuffled off down the street and vanished around a corner.

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The boys stared after her, eyes wide in wonder at the starving homeless woman who gave when even the wealthiest just ignored them.

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Later, at the garbage behind the building, the younger boy cowered against the wall, the precious coin hidden within his rags of clothes. The older boy rolled and scuffled on the ground with another boy, kicking, punching, and biting. Other children stood around, jeering and cheering. The little tin cup rolled out of the older boy’s pocket, bouncing on the ground with a dull little clang.

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With a rude smirk one of the spectators, an older boy with a dirty freckled face, kicked the little cup hard, sending it skittering and bouncing and rolling out into the street. It bounced off the wheel of a slow moving car. Cars were relatively new still and very few of even the rich had one. The cup was kicked by a plodding horse’s hoof as the animal pulled a wagon past. It skittered and bounced and rolled, finally coming to rest someplace out of sight.

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Satisfied, the older boy joined the fight, beating up the boy who lost the little tin cup.

#

A little girl picked up something from the mud. It was so dirty and caked with mud that she had to wipe some of the thick mud off to see what it was. It was a little tin cup. It was a rather plain looking little tin cup, dirty and dented and kind of ugly, but it would not shatter or crack like the pretty little fancy painted teacups. She smiled and wiped more mud off.

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The little girl used the little tin cup to give water to a very thirsty little cat. The little cat purred and rubbed against her legs appreciatively before scampering off. The little girl frowned, sad, and stared at the little cup in her hands.

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The grateful little cat returned with a prize, dropping a freshly caught fat rat at the little girl’s feet. She set the cup down on a window ledge beside her and stared at the ugly hairy creature lying at her feet. The little cat stared up at her expectantly. The girl’s eyes lit up and she smiled at the little cat. Scooping up the dead rat she ran for home, the little cat following at her heels. Her family would eat meat today. The little tin cup sat alone and forgotten on the ledge.

#

A man walked along, carrying a worn black doctor’s bag. He had urgent business. As he walked he pondered, hoping the family he was visiting still had some meager belongings, still had a shelter and warmth, and still had some kind of little cup or bowl to mix the medicine in a broth to feed the ill father.

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As he walked, something caught his eye. He paused and looked at a little tin cup sitting forgotten on a window ledge as the world shuffled on by. It was a rather plain looking little tin cup, dirty and dented and kind of ugly, but it would not shatter or crack like the pretty little fancy painted teacups. He smiled, picked up the cup, and shoved it in his pocket. He continued on his way, whistling a sad little song.

#

“The doctor is here, the doctor is here,” a little boy came rushing in eagerly. He was little and skinny, his eyes bruised and hollow with hunger.

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The mother rushed to the door, closing it behind her, confronting the doctor before he could enter. She blocked the door, holding the handle so curious little hands could not open it to see what is going on. She looked frail and frightened, her eyes holding that furtive haunted look of a rabbit trapped within a circle of hungry wolves. Her eyes stared into the eyes of the doctor. What he saw in those eyes frightened him.

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“We can’t pay you,” she said in a quiet matter of fact voice.

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He nodded and stepped forward, saying not a word. Words were not needed and would only have diminished the moment.

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She stepped away from the door, allowing the doctor to enter.

#

An icy rain pelted down, cutting sharply against exposed flesh. It was very dark. Some things simply did not wait for daylight these days.

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A frail looking mother stood silently in the rain, a little boy standing beside her, his tears lost in the streaming pellets of rain. They watched the men dig, opening a dark hole in the ground, a paupers grave. Silently, the mother wished she could step forward, close her eyes, and fall into that black void with the body of her husband. She looked down at the boy by her side, her hands fidgeting in her pockets, trying to warm them. Her hand closed around an object she’d forgotten shoving into her pocket. She pulled it out and stared at it as though she’d never seen it before. It was a little tin cup, plain and dented and kind of ugly. Her eyes burned with anger and unshed tears. She hated that little cup. The mother turned, wound up her arm like a baseball pitcher, and threw the little cup as hard and as far as she could. She watched it sail through the air, tumbling, and vanishing in the darkness.

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The little boy’s eyes followed the rolling flight of the little tin cup solemnly, as though this simply were part of the rite of burial.

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The little tin cup called back its goodbye’s, a tinny echo as it clanged and rolled somewhere in the dark until it came to rest.

#

A figure lurked in the darkness, quiet, treading carefully so as to be utterly silent.

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A woman waited anxiously, unaware of the man creeping up on her in the darkness.

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The man’s eyes fixed on the woman, watching her in anticipation as she slowly drew nearer with every cautious step he took.

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She did not see him, did not hear him, and did not feel his presence in that uncanny way some women have of sensing someone staring at them.

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The man reached out his arms, eyes glinting, teeth glinting against the distant light as he bared them in a nasty grimace. The knife in his hand gleamed sharply off that distant light. Just one more step…

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The tinny little clang of the little tin cup echoed like a deafening thunderclap to the man’s ears. He froze, eyes scared.

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Startled the woman looked up, turned around, and screamed. It was a frightened scream.

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The man’s feet slapped against the ground as he fled into the dark of night.

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Trembling, the woman looked down and her eyes caught sight of the little tin cup. She stooped down and picked it up, turning it in her hand to look at it. It was a rather plain looking little tin cup, dirty and dented and kind of ugly, but it would not shatter or crack like the pretty little fancy painted teacups. With a shrug, she put the cup in her coat pocket. It would come in useful. She continued to wait, a little more wary now.

#

A worn little wooden crate sat in a corner. It didn’t hold much. A few scraps of worn clothing, some fruit well on the way to rotten, a loaf of hard and molding bread, and one little tin cup. It was a rather plain looking little tin cup, dirty and dented and kind of ugly, but it would not shatter or crack like the pretty little fancy painted teacups.

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Stuck to the crate was a simple little note.

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“Orphanage,” the note read in an uneven scrawl.

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Tonight, the children would eat.

Published:

Jan 23/09 online at Patchwork http://www.patchworkproject.com/lvgaudet.html

A Short Burst of Writing - Untitled Short Story #1

This is a short story I originally started writing August 1999, put aside, and only now picked up to work on again. This is a work in progress, and an early draft with many revisions to come.

Untitled Short Story #1
By L. V. Gaudet
© August 1999 


The naked figure crouched low to the ground as though trying to hide in the short stubble of the freshly harvested wheat field. Her hot steamy breath wafted out in a white mist between lightly parted lips as she exhaled gently into the chill fall air. The crisp coolness of the night enveloped her body in a silky blanket of frigid darkness. Alone in the center of the field, she raised up from her crouched position on the ground to her full height. Pale face reaching for the sky, she watched as the moon danced out from behind a bank of slowly roiling clouds to bathe her in its eerie white glow. A cold breeze tickled across her bare back, making her shiver, catching her long flowing ebony hair and teasing it up into the air like the swirling skirts of a dancing lady.


From a distance, a far distance, her form was breathtaking. Surreal beauty as you would expect it to appear in a nymph or a fairy that you just discovered, real and in the flesh. Glimpses of pale creamy bare flesh through a cloak of thick shiny black hair that trailed all the way down to her knees teased with a promise of what this creature might look like up close. An exquisite being that had just walked flesh and blood out of the mists of myths and legends. This, however, was if someone had been present to witness this creature from a far distance, far enough to leave details to the imagination only.

Up close her appearance was different. Very different.

All alone in the field not so much as a field mouse dared to invade on her solitude. Even the crickets would not have made a sound had they not been already slumbering from the cold.

Turning slowly like a broken carousel, wobbling slightly, face to the sky, she raised her arms like elegant featherless wings as she turned. Barely moving, she turned slowly, silently, ethereally. Turning and turning in one spot, ever so slowly quickening her pace. Faster and faster she turned, spinning like a slowly winding up top. Faster and faster she turned, trampling the wheat stubble beneath her feet to a flattened nest. Faster and faster she turned, dizzily, spinning wildly; face reaching for the sky, staring down the moon and the stars. Faster and faster she turned, a wild shrill cry erupting from her throat, getting louder, higher, as she turned faster. It was a bone chilling, spine tingling shriek of someone who has just lost everything that ever had any meaning to them. All at once. Devastatingly. All loves, hates, needs, wants and thoughts. The high wailing howl of death.

Silence and stillness crashed into the field at once when she suddenly stopped still, silent. Her dark eyes blazed with such intensity they should have glowed in the silvery light of the moon. Violence filled that heated glare. All the rage, hatred, fear, and loathing a world could hold filled those all too human eyes at once. Breathing heavy, her breath rushed out to meet the cold night air; a cloud of mist roiling out like the dust from a battle field as hot moist breath clashed with the freezing air.

Her face twisted into a demonic grin of hatred, a death’s mask. She dropped to sit on her haunches, unable to stand any longer. She was not accustomed to being able to raise herself to more than a low crouch due to the limiting confines of the cages she was cruelly kept in.

On hands and feet like a four legged animal, she fled. Racing from the field with a surprising grace and agility similar to a long legged lanky wolf, her hideousness was bathed in the moon’s glow. The long flowing hair was not a wondrous mane of human hair, but a scraggly pelt of longish dirty fur covering much of her body as well as her head. Bald patches gave her the appearance similar to an animal with mange. She was a creature that walked on two legs with a human-like body and very human eyes, with the face of a creature spawned from a cesspool of genes not of this world. Lesions, welts, and deformities twisted her body and features into a Frankensteinian creation. Hideous. Evil. Terrifying.







DARKNESS



A terrible shriek shattered the stillness of the cool night.

Voices called out, echoing through the deserted hallways of the small research center, followed by running feet.

“Dr Sternheim!”

“Gregory!”

“Who yelled?!”

#

In the security office on the main floor beside the lobby door a telephone warbled its two quick rings signifying and internal call. It warbled twice more before the beefy security guard, who was leaning back in his chair with his feet up on the desk and dozing, sat up with a start and answered the phone.

“Security,” the large security guard croaked sleepily into the phone. He fumbled the receiver, catching it before it could clatter to the floor.

“Code B One in lab three, code B One in lab three,” a panicky woman’s voice hissed out of the phone.

Code B-1. Emergency of the highest degree.

Level 1. Biohazard.

His day couldn’t have been worse. A biohazard of unknown origin has escaped from containment in the lab, possibly leaked outside of the building. The repercussions are unforeseeable, unthinkable.

“Shit! I’m on it,” he said and hung up the phone. Fumbling for the keys on his belt, he pulled them off and hurriedly selected the one with the base encased in bright red plastic. Red for emergency. Jamming the key into the keyhole in the panel to his left, he turned it, releasing the lockdown controls in the panel. The security guard rapidly punched in his access code, the security code, and the lockdown code; initiating the lockdown process. Through excessive and intensive training, he could do this in his sleep, a reflex action. It was a conditioned response, ingrained deeper than the reflex for self preservation. It had to be or people could die. Billions. Perhaps the world.

An alarm started blaring loudly throughout the facility. This was quickly followed by a distance metallic rumbling and almost drowned out hissing of air.

The guard’s panicked mind automatically thought about his date tonight with that hot broad he met at the club last weekend. Shit, her number was at home. He’d have to stand her up and probably wouldn’t get another chance. Then he realized … biohazard.

His eyes widened, dilating.

His panicked mind raced. He could be breathing in some horrible disease right now, or worse. For all he knew, he could be a walking dead man right now and he just didn’t know it yet.

Jumping from his chair, the guard ran from the security office, heading for the door, and stopped. It’s too late. The emergency lockdown system is designed to lockdown swiftly enough to prevent anything, or anyone, from escaping. He would have had to be standing at the entrance to the building when the alarm started to sound, immediately pull open the door and rush outside before the falling shutter crushed the open door. Even then, sprinting for the gate, he would not have made it across the wide lawn in time. He could never have made it off the grounds. He silently cursed himself for turning that key, punching those codes.

Resigned, he returned to his office, put on his pistol belt, grabbed his walkie talkie, and headed at a dead sprint for lab three.

He doesn’t know it yet, but he is a walking dead man. Just not in the way he was imagining.

#

The alarm began wailing throughout the building and its grounds. The locks on all the exit doors thudded into place, a special red light on each pass card panel glowing to indicate that all access codes have been terminated. Airtight shutters immediately began to fall shut with a loud metallic rattle, sealing all external windows and doors. The entrance gate to the grounds began to slide shut, electricity already flowing through the fence surrounding the compound. Enough voltage vibrated through the metal fence to temporarily disable a man.

The surprised guard standing beside the closed wooden barrier at the gate house watched immobilized as an approaching blue sedan suddenly leapt forward, the driver gunning the gas at the sound of the sirens, bolting for the exit.

Racing the slowly closing reinforced gate, the car smashed through the barrier, sending pieces of wood flying. The car barely squeezed through the closing gap. The gate caught the bumper, pinching it against the electrified fence, ripping it off with a screech of tearing and popping metal, spinning the car left with the sudden jolt of the car breaking free of its captured bumper. A paralyzing jolt of electricity jumped through the car from its brief contact with the electrified fence.

Temporarily stunned by the reduced shock of voltage that jumped through his body, the driver sat paralyzed but aware, staring ahead as the car raced out of control across the lawn outside the fence, his food jammed hard against the accelerator.

The amputated bumper, caught on the gate, slid noisily along the pavement, pushed towards the fence by the closing gate. Caught between the two, the bumper was crushed by the relentless push of the gate, popping out and rattling discarded to the ground. The lock mechanism thudded into place with a dull metallic sound as the gate closed tight.

The building and grounds were effectively cut off from physical contact with the outside world.

Regaining some of his mobility, the driver regained just enough control of the car to swerve so it slammed into the large oak tree looming up from the ground ahead sideways instead of dead on, saving himself from being killed. Badly injured, it would be some time before he awoke and even longer before he managed to pull himself out of the car and begin to crawl away. He would escape under fire as the security guards locked in the grounds outside the building try to stop him from escaping, not knowing what bio hazard escaped or what contagion he may be carrying with him.

#

A sparrow, frightened by the noise from the alarms, took flight from its nest in a tree inside the compound and flew over the fence. Caught by the motion sensor, the small bird was sighted by a laser mounted on one of the brick fence posts, and burned into oblivion. A few charred feathers floating to the ground was all that remained.

#

Inside the research center, the sirens wailed loudly for twenty minutes then dimmed to an annoying but bearable volume. The air began to taste metallic and slightly stale. The fresh air intakes have all sealed airtight and redirected the circulated air through purifiers to clean the air and replenish the necessary oxygen from emergency tanks inside the building.



Thunder growled in the distance. Black clouds gathering on the horizon signaled the coming winds and torrential rain. Lightning flashed violently against a backdrop of heaving sinister clouds.

An omen to the end of the world?







IN THE BEGINNING



While the unidentified DNA was of extraterrestrial origin, the creature was of course a product of earthbound scientists. After all, a species of such advanced technology as to be able to travel so far to Earth would know better than to play around with something as deadly as foreign biological entities without fully understanding the nature of what they are creating and foreseeing the probable outcome of their experiments. Only a race of inflated ego and limited technology and even less understanding of it would be foolish enough to knowingly create what is, in essence, a living time bomb; blindly using ingredients they don’t comprehend. Like baking a cake with no recipe, using ingredients in unlabelled jars, and without knowing the nature of those ingredients. Any jar could be a spice, flour, sugar, poison, or even explosive.







EVIL SPAWNS



Reading the report, his face turned very pale and his hand began to tremble. The document he held shook and crumpled as his fist clenched.

“This can’t be real,” Nathaniel Morgan thought to himself. “It must be a joke, a mistake. Something, but not real.” He read on.

“To study the reproductive process of their creation, the scientists tried to impregnate the subject with some of the frozen fertilized eggs they saved when they created the first test tube baby. All attempts were failures. The genetically altered eggs could not withstand the hostile environment of the uterus. The subject’s immune system attacked and destroyed the eggs. Something in the process of starting the cell splitting process was weakening the eggs. They would have to be fertilized through more conventional means. They would need a sperm donor. The only compatible sperm they found was human.”

“My god!” he gasped, “what have they done?!”



Frightened, she cowered in the little crawl space under the stairs of the house on the edge of the woods. The darkness of the night was a small comfort to her. She had already discovered that her senses were keener than most of the creatures she has encountered so far. Her night vision was much better than the two-legs who can’t seem to smell anything but very strong overpowering stinks. She could even see better than the four legged hairy things that chased her earlier. Their noses were keener than hers, but they seemed to have forgotten how to scent. They ran faster, but she lost them easily. Although they could easily smell her trail, and surely must be able to hear here, they couldn’t seem to decide which way to go. Such stupid creatures they are.

She raised her head alertly at the sudden sizzling sound in the distance. An acrid smell she couldn’t identify that made her nose tickle drifted to her on a breeze. What could this be? What activity are those two-legs gathered in a large herd across the open space up to? Was it dangerous for her? They didn’t act like they knew she was here, but her experienced had taught her these creatures could not be trusted.

There was a popping sound on the ground on the other side of the open space. Something leapt into the sky with a shrill whine.

Curiosity took over where fear climaxed. She cocked her head, listening, scenting, watching. She leaned forward in her hiding place.

Suddenly the sky exploded with an earth shattering crackling boom, and a flash of bright colorful lights.

She cowered lower to the ground, screaming in terror, eyes wide. Her nostrils flared with the pungent smell, her night vision was shattered by the bright blinding light. Temporarily blinded by the colored spots that danced before her eyes, she struck out with a hiss at a foe that wasn’t there.

Another pop and hiss. The sky roared with another boom as more lights erupted in the sky. The ground beneath her trembled with its shock.

She screamed again, trembling violently.

Hairy four-legs from all sides began barking and howling.

She recognized that they too were crying their fear.









A TIME FOR REFLECTION



The distant crackling of fireworks is quickly drowned out by the deeper rumble of the approaching thunder.

The blue sedan crumpled against the large oak tree had long ago stopped hissing and ticking as its lifeblood dripped from cracked parts under the hood down through the hot metal of the engine, the metal itself tick-tick-ticking as it cooled. An odor of gas still lingered in the air.

The man inside the car groaned. He lay immobile for a long time, jammed against the door jammed against the oak. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. That would have taken too long to buckle up, missing his window of escape. He thought he must be alive. You couldn’t be in this much pain and not be alive, could you? His eyes fluttered and closed as he lost consciousness again.



Work in progress

A Short Burst of Writing - Charlie

This is a short story I initially wrote years ago, and have very recently re-edited. Do you catch anything unsaid within the story?

Charlie
by L. V. Gaudet
(c) November 2008


A large bumblebee flittered lazily around the flowers below the window sill, buzzing softly like a lover serenading his girl. The flowers gently sway in the light morning breeze as their fragrance is born aloft on the warm air. The lacy white curtain trembles slightly as a breeze gently slips through the mesh of the window screen, sending a faint patterned shadow dancing across the room. Wind chimes hanging outside the window tinkle merrily, playing as accompaniment to the love song of the bee. The sunlight filtering through the semi-transparent curtains glows warmly on the wrinkled face lying in a cloud of grey-white hair. It is an old face, a spider web of age lines crisscrossing across it like an invisible veil. Beneath the surreal mask of wrinkles lies the real person, a sad and lonely woman who grew old before she was ready, ever yearning for the youth she still felt in her heart if not in her arthritic limbs.

A quiet gasp escapes past the age-chapped lips. Her eyelids flutter open as her mind gropes its way out of a deep sleep with a realization of the silence. To the old woman, it seems as an almost deathlike stillness. The silence is broken only by the soft purring drone of the bumble bee playing a duet with the tinkling chimes outside the window. The old woman is deaf to the subtle sounds drifting in through the window, her ears hoping desperately for other, more domestic, sounds. Sounds she knew would not be there.

She sighs depressingly, knowing all too well that this morning will be like all the others. Her life now is an endless stream of mornings greeted by gloomy silence; suffocating and still, like an ancient tomb where life hasn’t tread for centuries.

Her thoughts, still fuzzy with sleep, turn automatically to memories of the past, as they do every morning. Days when each morning was welcomed by the delicious smells of breakfast cooking, the unmistakable sounds of running feet and voices of children laughing, arguing. Most unmistakable of all to her lonely mind was the gentle voice of her beloved husband.

Those were the days when she was happy, fulfilled; a lifetime ago.

Now she lives alone. Her children are all grown up with children of their own, and her loving husband has been dead for five years now.

Wearily, she pulls herself into a sitting position, considering whether or not to bother getting out of bed today. There seems little point in it.

#

There is a light half-hearted scratch at the bedroom door, then a small meow, and then a Pause. After a brief moment a more determined scratch came, followed by a loud demanding “Mrraaoow!”

Lovingly, she looks to the closed bedroom door where Charlie is meowing loudly, demanding attention. He is her only relief from this suffering loneliness, but somehow not quite fulfilling her need for companionship.

She slowly twists her body, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, blue varicose veins weaving a rambling pattern down them like a live road map. Loose skinned and frail looking, her arm stretches out, reaching for her cane, her hand knobby with purple-blue vein bumps. She gripped the bed post with the other hand to steady herself. Her silver-white hair, the tangled mane of a banshee, falls across her pale creased face, half obscuring sunken brown eyes. She mutters incoherently to herself.

If you saw her, you would wonder if even she knew what she was saying.

#

Using her cane to pull herself unsteadily to her feet, the old woman slowly made her way to the door with an unsteady shuffling walk. It creaked slightly as she opened it. Looking down, she saw a large orange striped tomcat stretching stiffly on the weathered floor at her feet. The cat was mostly an indistinct blur of orange, a fuzzy blob at her feet.

He gazed up at her affectionately, meowing his good morning. An understanding look passed between them.

“Alright, let’s go and get you looked after,” the old woman said as Charlie rose painfully on stiff arthritic limbs and preceded her stiffly to the tiny kitchen.

As the old woman was finishing the daily morning ritual of dressing, cleaning, and feeding Charlie and herself, she wondered if she should call her son Dave and ask him to visit. Still sitting in her favorite chair in the living room, her plate holding a meager breakfast balanced precariously on her lap, she ate with arthritic numbed fingers. Each bite was an effort to hold with those fingers that couldn’t quite grasp as they should, a faint tremble to her hands. In this chair she can look out the window and watch the people passing by on the street outside.

Just as she decided to wait until later to call her son the doorbell rang, its chime calling out urgently through her small home. Excited at the thought of company, she set her plate aside and pushed herself out of the chair with difficulty. She waddled like an anorexic penguin slowly to the door, peering through the peephole when she finally reached her destination.

On the other side a pretty girl stood. She had the smoothly tanned complexion of youth and long curly dark brown hair. She is eight years old.

To the old woman’s rheumy eyes the figure through the peep hole is fuzzy and hard to see. Straining to reach high enough to see through the peep hole, she can see only a blur in the shape of a human form. She can see no distinguishing features to tell her who her visitor is.

“Who’s there,” the old woman called through the door. Her voice is weak and cracked, an old crone’s voice, as ancient as the mountains.

“Grandma, it’s me, Sherry,” a soft melodically low voice replied through the door.

Cautiously the old woman opened the door. The face is still not clear enough to be recognizable.

“I don’t know you! What do you want?” the old woman complained to the girl standing in front of her.

The happy girl’s expression changed to a crushed one.

Feeling hurt, Sherry explained.

“It’s me, Sherry. You know; your granddaughter. My dad is your son, Dave. We visited you last month.”

“Oh,” the old woman exclaimed, “well don’t just stand there, come in, come in.” She moved her withered frame away from the door to allow her granddaughter to enter.

"No wonder I don’t know who you are, when I see you once a month,” the old woman muttered irritably. Adding as an afterthought, “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you dear. I can’t see a damn thing through these glasses anymore.”

“Um, Grandma,” Sherry said carefully, “you aren’t wearing your glasses.”

“That’s because they don’t work,” the old woman snapped.

Shrugging it off, Sherry suggested as she walked past the old woman into her house, “Well then why don’t you get new glasses?”

Ignoring this, the old woman turned and walked back to her chair, grumbling.

“I don’t like being called ‘Grandma’, it makes me sound old. Call me Eve.” The chair protested as she settled her slight weight into it. She motioned Sherry to sit down.

#

As the ancient clock on the wall chimed its announcement that it is two o’clock, the old woman and Sherry were interrupted by the bing bonging call of the doorbell. The old woman motioned for Sherry to answer it, complaining about how hard it is on her stiff joints when she has to keep getting up.

Her sprite narrow frame hopping up from the floor where she sat cross legged in front of her Grandmother, Sherry strolled lightly to the door.

“Look through the hole before you answer the door,” her Grandmother warned. The rest was muttered incoherently under her breath, perhaps something about strangers lurking outside her door.

Grasping the handle she found that, although her grandmother is a short woman, she has to stand on tiptoes to see through the peephole.

#

On the other side of the peeling door is a tall, slightly chubby man with thin black hair, balding on top.

“It’s Dad,” she exclaimed, opening the door and eagerly standing aside to allow him to enter.

Seeing her son, who was a tall indistinct blur to her ill-working eyes, the old woman immediately started on a tirade, preaching about his cruelty to her in being too busy to come visiting more often.

“It’s been a month since I last saw you! Are you too busy to see your poor old mother, who raised you and cared for you!” she demanded. “Or are you just too good now to spare any time for me.” It was not a question, but a pronouncement.

Having only begun, she continued.

“I sit here alone day after day, waiting for someone to bother to find the time to visit me. I’m not safe here all alone, an old woman like me, strange people lurking out there, coming to the door and trying to trick me into letting them in and at me …”

Frustrated, Dave cut her off.

“I have a family to spend time with. I can’t spend all of it with you. Besides, why don’t you get out sometime and make some friends. Then you won’t feel so lonely.”

“Don’t I count as family anymore?” the old woman muttered under her breath. When Dave ignored this she continued in a defeated whimper. “You’re just making excuses. You don’t want to waste your precious time on a useless old woman.”

Getting angry now, Dave raised his voice in protest.

“Stop it Mother! Stop being so miserable! If you didn’t complain so much about how nobody has time for you and whine so much about how hard on you we are, then maybe it would be easier to want to make time for you. You’re just being paranoid that nobody wants you!”

His anger flared further as he watched the old woman fumbling blindly through her knitting basket, pulling out a large print magazine, and holding it so close it touched her nose as she squinted and pretended to be trying to read it.

“And for God’s sake put on your glasses!” Dave fumed.

With a loud “Hhmph!” the old woman snatched her glasses off the little round corner table beside her chair with surprising dexterity that didn’t match her decrepitness and put them on. As she did so everything suddenly jumped into clear focus. She squinted at her son angrily through the glasses, wrinkling the magazine noisily as she brought it back to her nose, holding it far away, and back to her nose again, making a show of being unable to read the magazine, proving her point that the glasses don’t work.

Breaking the uncomfortable silence that has fallen between them, the old woman quietly despaired.

“It’s true though, nobody wants me. I’m just a useless old woman,” she moaned.

Dave sighed with exasperation.

“We do love you,” he continued, “but you have to make a life of your own. We can’t all revolve our lives around you.”

“I did,” the old woman thinks to herself, remembering the years she spent revolving her life around her children, raising them.

Slouching with dejection and tired of it all, Dave added, “I don’t want to hear any more about how hard up and neglected you think you are.”

With a hurt look the old woman retreated into silence.

#

Following an afternoon filled with tension, Dave noticed that Charlie hasn’t been in his usual spot, purring on his mother’s lap. Hoping to distract his two women from the angry moods they have both slipped into, he commented on the cat’s conspicuous absence.

“I haven’t seen Charlie today. He’s always the first to reach the door when he hears the bell,” Dave said. Thinking about it briefly, he continued,” I’ve never known him to miss out on company.”

"Maybe he’s taking a nap,” Sherry suggested, her slender arm snaking out to snatch another cookie off the plate sitting on the old age-worn coffee table.

Thoughtfully, Dave looked at her for a moment. He shook his head and replied, Beginning slowly, absent mindedly, and almost slurring his words so deep was he in thought.

"I don’t think so,” Dave said. “I have never known that cat to nap through company and miss out on being the center of attention, no matter how tired he is.”

“Yeah,” Sherry agreed thoughtfully, “but he is pretty old. He must be tired a lot.”

Not about to miss a chance to suggest that his mother get rid of the ancient feline, whose limbs are now stiff and arthritic, Dave looked at his mother, trying to catch her eye.

“He is pretty old you know,” Dave said, “I mean, Charlie is already half blind with cataracts and almost crippled from arthritis. Half his organs are failing with age.”

Ignoring the shocked looks he was receiving from both his mother and daughter, he continued in a bored lecturing tone.

“You know, he really should have been put down when that car hit him two years ago. He never did quite recover from that,” Dave lectured.

Dave looked quite pleased with himself. His face suddenly lit up with excitement as he pretended to have just had a wonderful revelation. Eagerly, he made the suggestion he has tried to find the words for every time he came to visit.

"I know! Why don’t we take him to the vet and have him put out of his misery now? Today!” Dave’s eyes gleamed with triumph, as though he just offered them the fulfillment of their hearts’ every desire, looking to the two sets of eyes staring back at him in horrified shock,

It was very badly put.

The old woman’s mouth dropped open as a blank look of shock claimed her face. Her jaw opened and closed spastically a few times, the creases around the corners deepening. Her eyes widened with hollowed shock.

His daughter, Sherry, gaped at him in shock, disbelieving her own father could say something so cruel. Poor Charlie!

“H-How could you suggest a thing?!” the old lady exclaimed incredulously, her voice rising in pitch. Her shock turned to hurt, the expression of horrified amazement sinking into an injured look and then to a trembling anger.

“Charlie has been with me for sixteen years now! It would be MURDER to kill him!” She would have spit when she talked if her salivary glands weren’t so dried up with age. Her eyes began to shine with the threat of tears.

Her lower lip trembled and a slight whimper entered her voice.

“He can’t even defend himself from you,” the old woman said, turning away from her son in angry despair. Her eyes looked about, desperate for a sign of her cat, feeling the urgent need to protect the feline from her murderous son.

“Oh how could I have birthed such a horrible monster,” she wondered to herself, “Cruel, cruel, cruel.”

“Besides, he’s all I have,” she finished admonishing her son, her voice cracking, not turning to look at him.

"But Mom,” Dave exclaimed, interrupting, “you have us!”

Angered by this the old woman spun around to face him, rising slowly and unsteadily from her chair, head low and menacing, her squinting eyes burning with anger. Her anger exploded from her.

“That is a LIE!” The old woman screamed. “I don’t have you! I have no one!” Finishing in a sarcastic tone, she continued, “You can’t even be bothered to spare any time from your precious schedule to come see me more than once a month.”

They stood there in a standoff, staring each other down. The old woman stood rock solid and breathing heavy. Dave trembled slightly, the little boy who broke the bad neighbor’s window having to fess up to his mother, who would be angry at having to spend their meager grocery money to repair the damage.

The old woman’s voice quavered as she continued.

“Is this what you’re going to do to me?” she demanded, staring down the little boy standing before her, making him shrink within himself, trying to hide from that stare, trying to disappear.

“Have me ‘put down’ when you’re sick of me? Is that your solution to anything that gets old and useless?” Her voice shook with age and anger, dripping with hatred.

Dave just blinked back at her, still the little boy staring up at his all powerful mother, protector, and punisher all in one, instead of the man who stood before his decrepit old mother.

Spent and exhausted from her angry outburst, she lost her determined fighters stance, shoulders slumping in defeat. The frail old woman suddenly looked much older. Her voice dropped to barely a whisper.

“I have no one but Charlie.”

Dave just stood there, voiceless, scuffing the toe of his shoe guiltily on the carpeted floor, toeing the frayed strings of the worn carpet. His slouching shoulders hunched up protectively like a turtle trying to hide its head, but for some reason can’t pull it inside its shell.

“You are heartless!” the old woman demanded, almost in tears now. Her voice stabbed at Dave like a knife. “You want to take away from me the only one who cares, the only company I have to get me through these lonely days.”

Dave visibly cringed with every word she emphasized.

With vehemence the old woman screamed at him again, her anger renewed.

“You stay away from my Charlie!” Her dried up salivary glands managed to let fly a loose spittle this time with the force of her words. She breathed heavily, glaring at her son with a baleful look comparable in potency to that of Medusa, who was notorious for her ability to turn most men to stone with just a gaze, or perhaps the mythical salamander.

Biting her lip so hard she almost drew blood in her effort not to cry, Sherry looked from her father to her grandmother.

“Please don’t say these things,” she pleaded quietly. “Don’t fight like this.” She begged them with her eyes.

Ignoring his daughter, Dave sighed exasperatedly. He did that a lot when he visited his mother.

“Fine,” Dave said in frustration, “you won’t have to be alone.” He paused, and then continued. “I’ll get you a new kitten.” He regretted the words even as he said them. He knew his mother would have to go into a home soon, if she didn’t die of a stroke or something before then. Either way, he’d have a whole new fight on his hands trying to get rid of the new cat against the protests of his wife, daughter, and his mother … if she was still alive by then. Damned cats!

The old woman turned her back on him stubbornly.

“I won’t let you take Charlie away from me,” she insisted, “I won’t let you murder him.” The hated word dripped with venom. “I don’t want a new kitten,” she added, “Charlie can NOT be replaced!”

Through most of this Sherry sat quietly, considering where Charlie might be. Surely he couldn’t have slept through all this shouting. She just couldn’t think of any place, and he never goes outside any more. Finally she interrupted the two arguing adults.

“Where is Charlie, Grandma?” she asked.

#

Truly realizing for the first time that no one has seen Charlie all afternoon, they all looked around dumbfounded. Despite arguing about it, the reality hadn’t really sunk in until now, nor did the significance. The old woman fell back stiffly into her chair, eyes downcast.

After a few awkward moments of silence, the old woman pushed herself out of her chair with visible effort, grunting with the pain and stiffness. Her boney knuckles turned white as the dry papery skin pulled tight over the bones and cartilage of her hands. Grasping her cane tightly with the anger which still hasn’t left her, the old woman slowly shuffled out of the room, calling Charlie with a dry age-cracked voice.

“Charlie, here kitty,” she called out, “where are you, you lazy tom.”

Sherry jumped up, following the old woman to help in the search.

Dave watched them go, standing stiffly, slouching. His head hung low and his hands were thrust in the pockets of his trousers like a rebellious boy who has just been scolded. He shifted uneasily, feeling bad now.

Finally, Dave moved into action with jerky movements, joining the search for the cat. He wasn’t really looking, just going through the motions mostly.

Dave searched the living room while his mother and Sherry explored the kitchen and bathroom.

“Lucky she moved into a small home after Dad died,” Dave thought to himself.

After they exhausted the searches in their individual rooms, they switched without comment or even really thinking about the fact that the rooms have already been checked.

Inside the kitchen, Dave shook his head in disgust at the shallow china bowl of drying canned cat food sitting on the floor in a corner. The edges of the food looked dried and cracked, darkened. It looked old and gross, an insult to the delicate pattern of the china that belonged behind glass doors. Beside it sat a chipped china bowl of a different pattern. The milk seemed chunky. A foul odor wafted up on the air from it. He looked around the kitchen dismally without really looking while Sherry and the old woman frantically searched the living room.

Still, they had no luck.

“I’m going outside to look,” Dave declared, giving up the search indoors.

“But Daddy, you know he never goes outside,” Sherry reminded him.

“I’ll look just in case,” he said, closing the door behind him. He didn’t really intend to look outside; he just needed to get out of there for a bit.

By now the old woman was back sitting in her chair, too upset and tired to continue the search. Sherry sank down into another chair.

“Grandma,” Sherry exclaimed, her eyes lighting up, “we didn’t check your bedroom.”

A glimmer of hope sparked in the old woman’s eyes, blossoming into confidence.

“Well, that’s obviously where he is then,” she said. “Why don’t you go fetch him dear?” She remembered that the door to her bedroom had been closed. Poor Charlie simply couldn’t get out. His hearing wasn’t too good these days either, he probably didn’t hear the door and just curled up for a nap.

Eagerly, Sherry hopped up and skipped out of the room.

#

Sherry twisted the door knob slowly and swung open the bedroom door. The door hinges creaked quietly as metal ground against metal; their lubricating oil wearing down. Entering the room, her eyes darted about from one end to the other.

A faint sickly sweet odor hung in the air. The ‘old woman smell’ is present as always, but it seems somehow different, stronger, today.

“This room smells awful,” she whispered to herself, gasping slightly at the shock of the putrid odor. The breeze wafting in through the open window did little to stir the air.

Not seeing the cat, she crouched on her hands and knees to check under the bed, involuntarily holding her breath.

There is nothing there but a pair of worn pink fuzzy slippers. They are half bald.

Standing up, she crossed the room to the closet near the foot of the bed. Opening the door, she is hit with the overpowering stench of mothballs mingled with other unidentifiable scents. Sucking in her breath and holding it, she quickly shifted around the clothes hanging on the bar and the few items on the floor. Her eyes burn and water a little from the odor. When she didn’t find the cat she quickly closed the door, her eyes had turned a little red from the mothball fumes.

Turning toward the bed, she noticed the furry tip of a tail poking out from under the tangled bed sheets. She couldn’t have seen it from the doorway.

Her face burst into a triumphant grin and she called out happily.

“So there you are! You silly cat, were you hiding from us?” She approached the bed, expecting the cat to sit up or roll over lazily at any moment.

“Is this a new game you learned?” she asked the silent cat.

Reaching out, she slowly pulled back the blanket and saw Charlie.

#

The orange cat is laying half curled, his tongue hanging out slightly as though he were too thirsty and weak to hold it in place. His eyes were open with a blank, glazed expression, dry and looking more like marbles than eyes.

He looks kind of flat, almost like he sank or caved into himself, his flesh sagging lifelessly into itself, shrunken. His once luxuriant fur dull and scraggly with age now looked more like cheap imitation fake fur that has been chewed up and spit out. He looked stiff, without even having to reach out to touch him and see.

A foul odor rose to Sherry’s nostrils, making them flare in disgust. Reaching out her hand tentatively to give the cat a gentle shake, disbelieving what her eyes clearly saw, she noticed the grayish pallor to the skin under the cat’s thin fur. She also noticed with her eyes and nose both that the feline’s bowels had emptied themselves as he lay there, the mess having oozed out onto the bed.

Shocked, knowing the truth but unable to readily accept it, she shook him anyway to be sure. Charlie rocked slightly at her gentle touch, stiffly, like a wooden carving of a cat. His stiffened joints and flesh didn’t even move.

Yes, he’d dead.

Gently picking him up, she cradled him in her arms and dejectedly stumbled out of the room in shock.

#

The old woman looked up as the young girl entered the room with her grisly cargo. The expression on the old woman’s face changed from confident expectancy to curious to disbelief, and finally to horror. Her eyes locked on the bundle cradled in the girl’s arms. Her head swiveled slowly, following the girl as she stumbled into the room with her terrible burden.

Seeing that her beloved Charlie seems limp and deflated, yet visibly stiffened, she immediately knew that her only relief from complete desolation and loneliness is now gone.

Paralyzed with the sudden ache of an intense loneliness that she hasn’t felt since the death of her husband, the old woman would have collapsed to the floor if she were not already sitting down. She seemed to have suddenly shriveled and shrunk into herself like the deceased feline had as his body sank into the long sleep of death.

A tremor gripped the old woman’s body. Shaking and feeling tremendously weak, she wished she could just drop into oblivion. She stared dully at the door as it slowly creaked open and her son, Dave, walked in shaking his head. He was about to say something, to say that he searched everywhere and could not find the cat. He started opening his mouth to talk.

The old woman glared at him, giving him a bitter “Are you happy now? You have what you wanted,” look.

He looked questioningly at her, then at his daughter. Seeing the cat grasped to the girl’s chest, he knew immediately from the stricken look on her face and the cat’s stiffly unreal appearance that the animal was dead. His stomach turned with revulsion at seeing his daughter clinging to the dead creature as though it were one of her baby dolls. He pounced on the girl, knocking the dead animal from her arms.

The old woman gasped in shock and horror, watching her beloved Charlie falling as if in slow motion, turning and bouncing slightly as he hit the floor.

Sherry stood numbly, staring into her father’s face, confused and stricken by his angry behavior, shocked as the poor animal tumbled from her grasp.

Dave sat down heavily on the couch and looked at his mother, making the effort not to stare with grisly fascination at the dead cat laying abandoned on the floor, feeling guilty now for the things he said.

#

They all sat in silence, trying to avoid each other’s eyes, not knowing what to say. Charlie lay on the floor, now wrapped discretely in an old towel.

Finally, Sherry voiced what nobody else wanted to.

“Charlie is gone now,” she said, looking questioningly at her father, then to her grandmother.

Timidly, Sherry asked the old woman, “Do you want a kitten now, Grandma?” Pausing awkwardly, she added, “You were worried about being alone. You’re alone now … a kitten would change that.”

“We could take a drive right now to pick one out,” Dave put in immediately, his voice raised eagerly. He had no intention earlier of doing so, despite making the offer. But now he was tied in knots with guilt. He’d do anything to buy his way out of it, even if it was only himself he had to pay off to be rid of the guilt.

“I don’t want a kitten,” the old woman spat, not pleased with the suggestion. Her temper flared, and she fought to control her voice as she continued, articulating slowly and deliberately.

“Charlie … can … not … be … replaced.” Her voice was firm despite its cracking with emotion. She crossed her arms over her chest in a gesture of stubbornness, refusing to give in.

“We’re not trying to replace him,” Dave replied, “We just don’t want to see you lonely.”

“Is that why you wanted to kill him?” she snapped back bitterly.

“Come on, Grandma,” Sherry said, desperate to comfort the old woman. “You don’t have to get a kitten. Just come for the ride.”

Finally, they broke through the old woman’s fierce determination to be bitter and sullen, convincing her to ‘just come for the ride.’

All the while looking at the kittens, the old woman continued to insist she doesn’t want one. She shuffled along stiffly, sullenly, shaking her head and muttering under her breath, casting angry glares at her son.

However, there was one tiny kitten whose cage she was a little hesitant to pass by.

Giving up the effort, the trio stalked off back to the car, Dave and the old woman both angry and stubborn. A wordless look passed between Dave and his daughter.

As Dave and the old woman walked to the car, Sherry made an excuse and ran back to buy the kitten. The old woman’s pause at the cage hadn’t passed unnoticed by her two escorts.

#

The old woman glared at the young girl as she climbed into the car with the tiny bundle of mewling fur.

“I said I don’t want a kitten!” the old woman yelled and lapsed into a sullen silence, staring straight ahead. Then she added more quietly, more muttered under her breath than directed to anyone in particular, “I won’t keep it.”

Sherry looked down at the shivering little bundle of bones and fur in her lap, pouting her disappointment.

“Well then just babysit her for me, ok?” She looked up at her grandmother hopefully, not quite hiding her hurt feelings. “Just for a few days Grandma, please?”

The car pulled up in front of the old woman’s home.

"Why don’t you just keep it for a few days,” Dave suggested, “we already paid for it anyway. If you don’t want it then, I’ll take it back to the shelter.”

The old woman glared at him, and then stiffly climbed out of the car.

“No!” she shouted angrily, eyes burning and teeth clenched.

Before she knew what was happening, the tiny mewling kitten was thrust into her arms and the car sped away.

Although upset at the attempt to replace Charlie, the old woman felt inexplicit relief that she won’t be entirely alone.

Entering her home, she plunked the kitten down on the living room floor and warned it sternly.

“I don’t want you! Just stay out of my way!” With that, the old woman shuffled out of the room to the kitchen.

Charlie still lay wrapped in the old towel on the floor before the old woman’s favorite chair, stiff, cold and forgotten. Dave was to bury the old cat in the small back yard of his mother’s tiny house when they returned, but had forgotten.

#

Round green eyes, seemingly too large for their tiny head, stared in bewilderment at these strange surroundings.

Tentatively raising a clumsy little paw, the kitten moved to lick it, changed her mind, and lowered it again.

Confused and frightened, she mewed experimentally. It was a weak and pitiful sound, barely loud enough to hear. Nothing happened. She looked around, ruffled her fur, stretched her head out, and a loud wail expressing all the grief and anxiety she felt trapped inside her tiny shivering body escaped up her trembling throat.

#

On hearing the kitten’s cry, the old woman set down the small china bowl she was about to pour milk for the kitten into and shuffled in a hurry back to the living room. She shuffled to her favorite chair, turned around awkwardly, and sat down in her chair. She used her cane to brace herself with as she lowered her frail body shakily into the cushioned chair.

With a sigh of defeat and exhaustion, she watched as the kitten clumsily made its way towards her, lifting her paws gingerly and placing them carefully before her as though not sure where to step.

Feeling a twinge of emotion for this helpless little creature, the old woman leaned forward in her chair, reaching and spreading her fingers to touch the kitten. She froze suddenly as a paralyzing sharp pain tore through her body. Her muscles clenched, her eyes widened, her breath caught in her chest and rattled.

The kitten stretched its tiny pink nose, a little jumpy at the woman’s strange behavior, sniffing delicately at the tips of her fingers, its tiny pink tongue reaching out to delicately tap a finger tip.

A steady ache replaced the pain running through her chest and down both arms. A frightening numbness followed, creeping much more slowly, like a jungle cat closing in on the kill, consuming her body.

Somehow through the pain and numbness the old woman knows that, finally, she will be freed from waking ever again to the gloomy silence that has filled these past lonely years.

She’s not afraid.

She struggles to straighten up in her chair, wanting to meet her destiny sitting tall and proud.

Again, agony wreaks havoc through her body, freezing her in position, doubled over and leaning almost out of her chair as her heart clenches as if being squeezed in an iron hard fist.

She sees her dear lost husband, Charlie sitting at his side luxuriantly curling and uncurling his tail in a mix of pleasure and impatience.

I’m coming my love,” she gasps through pain clenched teeth, “I’m coming Charlie.”

I’m here, waiting,” her husband replies gently.

Charlie cocks his head then throws it back, his chin in the air. An expression that has always meant, “Well come on then, I’m waiting. But don’t make me wait too long.” The cat has always had a bit of an attitude about him.

A thin smile crosses her age chapped lips, a look of utter peace settles on her wrinkled time-worn face, the years seeming to magically melt away with the slackening of her flesh.

Suddenly all is blackness … nothingness.

#

The kitten looks up at the massive creature towering above her, this creature sitting on a strangely shaped mountain, leaning down with a strange large paw outstretched.

She takes a hesitant step and falters, afraid. Her eyes widen happily as she remembers the gentle fingers she has experienced before. It is not her mother, who already has begun to grow fuzzy in her tiny memory, but it will do.

Clumsily, the tiny kitten toddles over to her new protector.

The large creature made a strange gurgling noise, startling the jumpy little kitten. The kitten stretched its tiny pink nose, a little nervous at the woman’s strange behavior, sniffing delicately at the tips of her fingers, its tiny pink tongue reaching out to delicately tap a finger tip.

Startled, the kitten paused, crouching timidly, looking up as the woman sitting above her doubled over. The woman mumbled something unintelligible.

Slumping forward, the huge body is reflected in the bright green eyes looking up and seeking reassurance. The old woman slips from the chair, landing with a soft sound on top of the kitten.

#

A terrible crushing weight pins the helpless kitten to the floor. Her head and front shoulders barely poke out, front legs splayed out uncomfortably.

Squirming and fighting desperately to pull herself loose, the tiny kitten starts gasping as it becomes harder and harder to breath.

She mewls softly, plaintively, unable to do more. Fighting less and less, her strength diminishing, the breath slowly being squeezed out of her tiny body.

The tiny kitten wheezed out the last of her air and her beautiful green eyes bulge, mouth open as if to call out one more time, her eyes begin to glaze over.

#

A soft noise, like warm mud squishing between your toes, emits from the old woman’s body accompanied by an unpleasant smell as her bowels released their contents.

The smell assaulted the kitten’s tiny pink triangle nose, making her gag.

Her cries have become silent though her mouth still opens and closes, desperately trying to cry out. But her frail little body is no longer able to pull sweet air into her painful lungs. Her glazing eyes are having trouble focusing, turning everything to indistinct shapes and blurs.

Finally, she stops struggling and looks around hopefully, but no mother cat appears.

Her small bony frame shudders … blackness engulfs her … nothingness.

#

Only a few scant minutes have passed since the old woman sat in her chair and leaned over to comfort the little kitten.

On the floor at the foot of an old chair, an old woman’s body slowly cools. Beneath it the tiny frame of a kitten, too young to understand what death is, lays trapped and stiffening. The kitten’s head and shoulders are barely visible sticking out from beneath the old woman, showing bulging green eyes and a tiny blue tinted tongue, a pale bubbly froth at the corners of her mouth.

A few feet away lay the stiffened body of an ancient feline wrapped lovingly in an old towel.

A sickly sweet odor mingles with the foul scent of body excrement and ‘old woman’ smell, filling the air, permeating the small old house.

#

In death, Eve has more companionship than she did in the last years of her life.



Meow
(End)


Published May 11, 2010 on Angie's Diary (blog)

http://angiesdiary.com/2010/05/charlie/