I'll get the hang of this blog thing soon---if I can recruit a little help from my friends!
A writer (of horror stories) I was talking to the other day read a short story I had written after a prompt I read in Stephen King's book On Writing. She liked it, and suggested I post it to "my blog." (I didn't have one.)
My son, who says, Mom you really didn't grow up with computers.... would understand my initial dilemma. He's sleeping or I'd ask him--How to I pull the story from my documents to this blog?
Oh how I love pen and paper and snail mail...still...at times; I'm loving the speed of computers too.
Back to prompts--- It's a great exercise for writing. A brief suggestion is made--a sentence, a scene, 6 words, etc and for the next 20 minutes (or other alloted time given) one writes what comes to mind.
DING DING--- I figured it out. Simply copy and paste.
Ok: In Mr. King's book, he had set up a scene between a man and woman, where the woman is the ...dangerous one. The names were Dick and Jane. The following is what came to my mind--I did clean up what I wrote--not much. What fun writing is!
PS Usually my writing is women's fiction with slight romance. For the following to slide out of my brain was an interesting insight.
Hope you enjoy! Sharon
DICK AND JANE
By Sharon Palmerton
Dick and Jane…This is not from the 1960’s kindergarten book… Dick sees Jane... See
Dick run. Although Dick would like to run—back to the past to warn his foolish self, or at least faster than Jane. Jane--The maniac woman who enticed him at the bar, became a real whack job within time. At first, Dick was in denial. No woman could be planning to murder me, he had thought. Then it was reality after Little Nell was born—He couldn’t overlook it—It was in several dashes of time, he concluded with no doubt, the woman he married was schizophrenic and dangerous. He couldn’t understand how a woman with a PhD could have a metamorphosis in reverse, like a butterfly into a worm… not a caterpillar, but a worm. One that belongs at the bottom of a Tequila bottle, or better yet, chewed up and dead in the belly of a fish, deep in the ocean.
Dick had been in denial—but no more. In reflection, Jane had manipulated and drew him in. Her workings were like casting bait on a fishing line. She liked being the bait. She was also the rod she held as she cast the line and hook. He had been caught like a hungry fish. And all of it came to smell. Yes, he admitted, he had been hooked for four years. Four years lost of his life. Three years of his daughter’s. A daughter he would watch only months ago, as she played with her dolls, … to make certain she didn’t behead another and blame it on Rex, the dog. His pet dog, whose tail used to curl up and wag, and since Jane entered, it too often seemed stuck in a tucked position.
Dick made it to hell. All because he found Jane irresistibly attractive. She had taken his internal compass, his radar, and shifted the views. She moved like a professional sniper, seemingly quiet and out of sight…all while in the midst of his presence.
Now, Dick cracked a beer. He grinned… and then felt familiar anguish. He wondered about his sanity. He sniffed the dark ale and felt foam run down his fingers wrapped around the cold glass bottle. He brought them up to his mouth and licked. As he popped the cap into the garbage can, he thought about taking the trash out in the morning. It was after all, trash day. Maybe that’s why he was thinking of Jane again. He tried not to, yet seemed to, twice a week, on the nights before garbage pick up.
“Never again,” he said as he opened the refrigerator and saw four more beers. “That’s enough for tonight.”
He went into the living room, moved three books off the cushion and sat down in his chair. He looked at the mantle. Three framed pictures grouped on the end were dust free. “Here’s to you, my little Nell,” Dick said as he took a swallow and his throat tightened. His cheeks held the extra cool liquid until enough went down, and then he pulled the rest inside. He rubbed the tender spot over his belly where it landed.
Dick stood and moved in front of the pictures, watching the eyes of the beloved as he traversed his path. In the first picture, one of Nell soon after birth, her eyes stayed the same as he walked. Hairy, wet, and he thought, full of potential. His blood. Or half anyway. The middle picture was of her at two, playing with blocks, looking up, and smiling at him. He saw her. He knew her, the good her. At two, she was still fresh eyed and charming; he had no clue what would happen the next year. The third framed shot was Nell’s last picture taken. In it, Dick held her, but she had a look...dazed, glassy eyed. Or had she been reaching out? He now wondered.
Dick walked three feet, looking into the last picture of him and Nell. He watched his eyes. He walked back. They stayed fixed. He walked three feet and looked into Little Nell’s eyes. He walked back. They followed him, both ways. Her headless doll was behind them, on the ground, under the bush. He hadn’t noticed it that day, only later when Jane told him she had bought the fifth replacement.
“It’s her, I swear it’s her doing it! She’s not your little princess like you think!” Jane had screamed. They were taking Jane away, her arms pinned across her abdomen with a strap. Spit leaked out her mouth. Her once immaculate strands of hair laid in order were frazzled over her face, somehow leaving spaces for her eyes to be seen…black pupils reaching out instead of being empty place holders Dick had become accustomed to.
The next stretcher had sent him reeling to his knees as the adult body bag was but a quarter full, with Nell.
((That's what I get for reading Stephen King---- Oh, let me go read some Jane Austen!))
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