A shred of story
Even if I’m not blogging, I am writing. Fiction is very redemptive, especially when life is not sending a ladder down into the sixth circle of hell so that you can climb out. Or whatever circle of hell is the “worrying about things you’re not sure you can change” circle. I’m not sure if it’s the sixth. I think lust is the second and traitors are right at the bottom getting chewed on but other than that I’m a bit foggy.
So I wrote a story about two boys who did, in fact, manage to escape a trip to hell. Very rewarding to rescue someone from the eternal flames.
Here’s a bit of it.
“You missed a bit,” she said sweetly. A tiny sparkling cube of glass sprang from a crack between the floorboards. It flew straight into her mouth and she swallowed it. “That’s better. Stupid of you to miss it. Stupid, lazy, wicked boys.” She looked at us carefully, as if deciding whether she’d eat us next.
“Wicked, yes,” she said. “But maybe not quite wicked enough.” She leaned forward and looked me straight in the eyes. She put out her hand and drew her finger slowly down the side of my face. It felt like a tear rolling down my cheek. “No, not quite wicked enough,” she sighed. Then she winked. “Not yet anyway.”
She was right in front of me and the room was deathly quiet except for the sound of Joe’s breathing and my own. That was when I realized something else. We were breathing. She wasn’t.
I couldn’t look away. Her eyes were fixed to mine like they were on the same hot skewer. I was going to stand here looking at her forever. I was going to vanish and all that would be left was the deep darkness of her eyes and the leaping red flames in their center. I was falling and still she stared at me and I couldn’t even blink.
I couldn’t blink. Which makes my nose itch. Which makes me sneeze. So I sneezed, hard. And you know you have to close your eyes when you sneeze. Physiological fact. Otherwise your eyeballs would pop out. So I sneezed and my eyelids clamped down to keep my eyeballs safe in their sockets. And just like that, I was back in my own head and my eyes were free to wander around like puppies in a park. I sneezed again.
She laughed and it was the most beautiful laugh I had ever heard, like a thousand happy babies all gurgling at once. “I’d say bless you, but that wouldn’t be right, would it?”
[Quiet applause is heard.]
I got to read the whole thing, and I can tell y’all it’s fabulous. It better get published…