Katnisssss...

...posted this a few months ago. Its made a few rounds on Facebook, perhaps led to a squabble or three, but all in literary fun. So as I currently find myself wallowing in "edit-hell," I thought I'd re-post my short about a chilly day in the woods when a pale-ish girl named Bella,(perhaps you've heard of her,) happens upon a "firey" deviant from District 12. Stephenie Meyer would not approve...but I'll take my chances:) Enjoy...

Okay, so what if...

An icy breeze, carrying with it the season's first snowflakes, a shimmering dust visible in glimpses only, darting about like hovering insects, left the air gun-metal cold.



What little warmth remained, was held within the blanketing pine grove on the forest floor. A nearly impassable thicket of brush stretching from one trunk to another, and growing upward sometimes ten feet or more through a soft cloak of moss. Like a natural barrier from the outside world, teams of wildlife used the pine grove as a safe haven from both predators and the falling temperature, as winter's hostile embrace slowly tightened.





In this thicket, where even the solemn gray skies failed to penetrate, where cloved hooves and various forms of paws could pad across the forest floor atop millions of scattered pine needles without making a sound, an abundance of wildlife felt assured of their safety. They were wrong...





Walking hand in hand under the shaded canopy of evergreens, their movements seen as a fluid blur of motion, their footsteps as silent as the early morning air itself, Bella and Edward Cullen glided through the dense undergrowth with the stealth of a falcon slicing through an updraft at high altitudes.






Bella's hair had thickened since being turned. Appearing soft, like woven yarn the color of mocha, long strands trailed along behind her as she glided lithely through the forest. At her side, Edward's golden pelt of wavy curls bounced upon his neckline with each measured step. Together they resembled a pair of shimmering ghosts, fingers entwined, their souls skimming the forest floor without disturbing the fallen pine needles under foot.





On their feet were matching tennis shoes, white Nikes. A lightly fitting, ivory dress hugged itself to Bella's slim form, while Edward challenged the wooded thicket in khakis and a simple cotton t-shirt. The inclimate weather didn't bother them. Their pale bodies were already cold like stone. In fact, only one condition drove them to the pine grove with such urgency. Hunger.





Their eyes were dilated to the size of black pearls. The telltale sign of a vampire in need of sustenance. The couple moved about the thicket unnoticed. Together, they breathed in the scents of their surroundings. Hardened pine sap sweetening the frigid air. A tinge of mildew from the moistened needles underfoot. The sour taste of decaying leaves scattered about and rustling in the breeze. And blood. Pulsing through the veins of a crouched puma nearly hidden in a stand of creaking hardwoods. Sloshing under the thick coat of an elk, head bent low, sipping water from a stream across the valley. And a rogue buck. It's antlered head tilted awkwardly to the side, small teeth knawing on the bark of a towering evergreen. Completely unaware of their presence. So close Bella could practically taste it.





"Mine," she breathed.




Edward released her hand and nodded his approval.





As Bella dropped to a crouch, her attention focused entirely upon the nearby deer, Edward closed his eyes and leaned his head back, taking in the various scents of the forest around them.





It was then, as a gentle current sifted under his nose, and merely an instant before Bella launched herself into the air, when he detected another presence in the area. An alarming essence. And worse, one he recognized.





Startled, he sucked in a breath as Bella lifted herself from the ground.





Edward could only watch helplessly as she spread her arms wide, fingers curved into talons, her sleek form dropping silently upon the unsuspecting deer, when an arrow streaked by his face, leaving a whisper of death in it's wake.





The arrow pierced the deer's heart the very moment Bella's fingertips managed to brush a handful of coarse fir along the animal's back. Caught off-guard, she tumbled over the deer and landed with a thud in a nearby pile of leaves and debris.





In a fluid motion far superior to any maneuver a mere human could accomplish, Bella rolled upright, ignoring the dried leaves tangled in her hair, and crouched defensively, her eyes searching the tree tops.





She spotted her almost immediately. Hoisted roughly thirty feet up a massive elm, a girl not unlike herself in size and shape, was nestled comfortably upon one of the tree's heavier limbs.





Very much human, the girl of nearly the same theoretical age as Bella, was balanced on her knees, her back resting against the elm's trunk. Hair a shade lighter than Bella's, fell upon her shoulders in thin waves. She remained as still as the tree itself, her body poised behind an armed bow, her arm bent at the elbow, the sheathed arrow targeted upon Bella herself.





From where he stood, Edward took in the dramatic standoff with an air of apprehension. Both females remained poised for attack. He watched as Bella's mouth slowly opened, releasing an irritable snarl. From the tree, the girl was a statue, seemingly frozen in place behind her weapon. Now all but forgotten, the dead buck remained on it's cloven feet. The arrow had struck so perfectly, instantaneous death caused the deer to simply lean into the pine tree who's bark it had been feasting. Dead before even realizing it. Limbs now supporting a carcass.





Deciding that he'd better intervene with haste, a thought entered Edward's mind. One that didn't belong to him.





"Hello Edward."





His eyes traveled back to the girl in the tree. While her focus remained on Bella, her thoughts had apparently strayed. A thin smile creased his upper lip.





"Hello Katniss," he whispered. "Nice shot."





The words, "Thank you," formed in his head. The grin widened.





"I guess I can assume that your repaired hearing from the Capitol is functioning well."





"It was the least they could do."





Edward turned to Bella, who remained crouched and hissing.





"Bella...sweetheart, it's her kill. She earned it."





"Little showoff," Bella growled. "That arrow wouldn't work so well on me."





"You mind putting a leash on your pet?" The words entered Edwards mind as if sent through a bolt of lightning. He quickly nodded.





"Bella please," he said. "Let's take the elk down at the stream. There'll be plenty for both of us."





With a huff, Bella finally straightened, but defiantly refused to turn away from the arrow, which remained targeted at her throat. Still smiling, Edward walked into the firing range, wrapping his arm around Bella's shoulder and guiding her out of harm's way. At last, Bella grudgingly turned toward the distant stream.





As the pair dropped below the quiet hillside, he glanced back toward the giant elm. The girl was gone. A moment later, a thought entered his mind. "Thank you Edward." He again nodded his head.





"Stop that," Bella snapped.





"What?"





"You know what. Reading her mind. Don't think I don't know what you're doing!"





"Sorry, Sweetheart. It's just...well."





"Well what?"





Edward grinned sheepishly. "The two of you...at each other's throats back there. ...that was hot."





"Shut up, Edward."



"Sweetheart...there's a leaf in your hair."



"Shut up, Edward!"

...sometimes it gets discouraging. The daydreaming and the ideas. Those interesting thoughts and periodic flashes of something that could one day be considered brilliance.

And just when I find myself falling into one of those, "writing grooves," when pretty much everything starts making perfect sense...I read a novel so utterly tantalizing, I'm instantly tossed back into my place, along with the other twenty million author wanna-be's drifting aimlessly about, lost in thought, or just lost.

Edgar Sawtelle was born mute, speaking only in sign, to his parents in a remote farmstead in rural Wisconsin.

While the novel is named after young Edgar, the story revolves around the "Sawtelle Dogs," a fictinal breed of canine started generations earlier by Edgar's grandfather, who sets out to create the perfect companion.

What begins as a slowly moving, poetic glimpse into the Sawtelle' s family history, veers without warning toward a drama, smells of mystery, hints of the super-natural, to finally emerge as a tragedy, whispering the likes of Shakespeare's "Hamlet."

David Wroblewski swares that he never intended to re-write "Hamlet," that his intentions were of original thought. And while the characters honestly don't resemble the ones from Shakespeare's famous play, which I read a thousand years ago in English Lit, it's the storylines that run parallel. And frankly, it doesn't matter. Edgar's story is unforgettable.

And if perhaps the story itself isn't enough, Wroblewski's style of pen keeps the pages turning...

"...They were almost home, walking the road, the world cottoned out ahead, when something caught Edgar's eye. He stopped near the narrow grove of trees that projected into the south field atop the hill. A granite ledge swelled from the ground there, gray and narrow and barnacled with moss, cresting among the trees and submerging near the road like the hump of a whale breaking the surface of the earth. As his father walked along, Edgar stepped into the wild mustard and Johnson grass and waited to see if the ground might ripple and seal over as the thing passed. Instead, a shadow floated into view at the ledge's far end. Then the shadow became a dog, nose lowered to the mossy back of the leviathan as though scenting an old trail. When the dog reached the crest of the rock, it looked up, forepaw aloft, and froze..."

Fifteen drafts and several years were spent creating "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle." The laborous edit work, the re-writes, the third party volunteer work...tedious to no end. And in this case, it paid off.

Some novels I read and can pretty much visualize the movie set as I thumb through the pages. "The Road." "Feedomland." "Gone Baby Gone." That vampire saga we've all been caught up in. Suzanne Collins's "Hunger Games" in the not too distant future I'm sure. As for Edgar...I hope it's left alone. I don't want Hollywood to change the sights and sounds so perfectly described by Wroblewski. It's that good...

2010...

...as the crystal ball touched bottom on Times Square on New Year's Eve, it wasn't the cheers I heard from the millions in attendance that drew my attention to the television as I lowered my half empty glass from my lips. It wasn't the flashy colors or new age haircuts that New Yorkers are well known for, or even that strange outfit on Jennifer Lopez, causing her to appear naked, but resulting in her looking, well...kinda old, and maybe a little desperate.

Muffled in the drumming background noise of every party in America, whether televised or not, was the sound of a weary sigh being exhaled.

Simultaneously, and without warning or malice, struggling Americans bid farewell to 2009 with the same reverence as reaching the summit of a mountain, but finding the act of celebration too exhausting to do much more than breathe.

Jobs lost, major industry shaken from their foundation, a plunging economy, and spiralling retirement funds have slapped our faces with a hard reality check, as we glimpse ahead to an unstable future.

Over the past 18 months, as our staggering markets slowed to a crawl, it was the little guys, the same ones who boosted the economy and collectively tucked our executives into their king-sized beds in the hills each evening, who were sliced from payrolls and left behind so that the strong could carry on. So the rich could get richer.

It happened at my job. It happened at your job. It happened everywhere.

But as I heard that long sigh being released on New Year's Eve, and timed it with my own, I realized that perhaps it wasn't so much the sound made out of desperation or futility. The last gasp uttered from a dying breed. Perhaps it wasn't an exhale at all. But rather an inhale. A collective gathering of air in the lungs. Building. Prepairing. An act of hope.

I've read the stories. I've seen the papers. From coast to coast...from Micanopy, Florida to Forks, Washington. From Brownsville, Texas to District 12, people have started turning their backs on those major corporations who so quickly turned their backs on them, and asked themselves that one important question, "So what do I want to do now?"

People have started thinking back to their childhoods, to that moment in their lives when they were asked, "What do you want to do when you grow up?" ...and they remembered their answer.

Read the success stories, check out the statistics. People who have been "bought out," or "laid off," have fired back by venturing out on their own, by taking risks, by putting it all on the line. To better themselves. To better all of us.

And as we begin to realize that life can move forward without the help of major corporations running our lives, we've quietly started to ban together. To help each other succeed. To build on what we've started.

Strangers holding hands. Nodding to one another with a fearful, but hopeful acknowledgement. And moving forward. Living as we've never lived before.

And when the economy does begin to move once again...and money starts being made...and people find themselves worth something again, big industry will come calling as they've always done in the past. Help wanted! Benefits! Bonuses! And maybe this time they won't get so lucky. Maybe this time we'll have moved on. Having learned how to live on our terms instead of theirs, maybe this time it'll be them who have to learn how to survive.

Because that's what we do. The "Little Guys." We fight. We work hard. We learn. And we move forward.

My family escaped this past year with little more than our health. I was spared my job, but fell victim to every other casualty the industry could legally, and perhaps illegally, send my way. Take, take, take. And in the end we were left with little more than a spindly paystub that barely managed to hold a roof over our heads. Long hours spent...measley results awarded.

And as 2009 hissed and spat, growled and clawed at our spirit, my wife turned to me, and I turned to her, and we said, "Enough already."

I thought back to when I was young. A boy sitting behind a school desk, 10 or maybe 12 years old, looking up to an expectant teacher as she asked me that question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

But she was a smart lady. She already knew the answer. And I remembered...

2010...it's time for change.

Christmas on the Battlefield

...Christmas Day.

Mid-afternoon. The lights in the tree have been twinkling since sunrise. Silent flames dance in scarlet cheer from the gas fireplace. Through the front window the world rests quietly in gray doldrums, the air thick with moisture. Occasionally a car drifts by, it's exhaust fumes dissipating like scattering leaves in the wind. ...and the holiday is observed.

Meanwhile, a lone soldier clings an uzi to his waist as he rolls behind the wreckage from a recently destroyed apartment building as bullets slice through the air overhead.

His chinstrap unclasps, causing his helmet, once olive, now covered in dust, to slide over his eyes as he waits for the buzzing in his ears settle.

He opens his eyes, immediately feeling the sting of grit and tiny pieces of shrapnel floating through the paltry air. In the distance he can hear the voices of his enemy, calling out to one another in foreign tongue. If only he could understand them...

From his belt the two-way radio chirps. What remains of the rest of his squadron, calling out to him. He quickly taps the receiver with a forefinger, then turns the radio off. The voices fall silent. Did they hear it? Did they discover his whereabouts?

He rises to a sitting position behind the brick husk of what was once the home to many civilians and their children who are no doubt long gone by now.

He can hear the thudding of combat boots approaching. Several pairs, from different angles.

Knowing he's cornered, he clutches the sub-machine gun with both hands and looks up through the soot to the sun above. It's the same ball of fire he's seen countless times throughout his life. But from this strange, desolate place, it's somehow different. Not as friendly. It's managed to absorb the turbulence of the unforgiving mountainside surrounding him, of the blazing sand under his torn fatigues, and of the vacant angst expressed on the faces of the few survivors left behind. The one's he's fighting to protect. The same one's who turn on him without a moment's hesitation.

For a moment he closes his eyes, saying a prayer through a hoarse whisper. Then he releases a breath, grips his weapon, and turns toward the oncoming assault...

"Awww man! Got shot again!" my son exclaims, bent over in frustration in front of the television. I glance up from the book I'm reading. The television shows a downed soldier lying in a pool of blood, a few splatters having clouded the screen itself.

I look to my son, clutching his XBox controller as if wielding The Hobbit's magic ring and positively refusing to relinquish it's power.

Still bent over in defeat, his eyes find my gaze from across the room. The corner of his mouth curls up in a grin. "Care if I try again?" he asks.

I roll my eyes, shrug my shoulders, and return to my book.

"You're going down lousy terrorists!" my son exclaims.

Then I hear the eery background music. Moments later I hear the guns.

Christmas 2009. Modern Warfare.

...Jeez I'm getting old.

Excerpt from "The Fall" Part II

He was running.

Hurtling the guardrail and dodging the oncoming traffic. Ignoring the screech of tires and the frantic bellow of car horns, he escaped being run down by a careening Dodge pickup, and leapt onto a familiar side street. From there he turned west and faced the setting sun, it’s rays stretching toward him as it sunk below the purple landscape. Johnny slowed his breathing, allowing his athleticism to take over.

Only a few years earlier he’d been a star wide receiver on the high school football team. His speed had allowed him to break long touchdown runs regularly. Now as he rounded a corner, leaving pavement to bounce upon century old cobbled streets, he reached within himself, calling for one more burst of speed. A final run.

Despite the sun’s steady departure under a skyline smeared in copper, the temperature remained ablaze. He could see the heat radiating up from the sidewalk before him. Like transparent tentacles, waving in the thin breeze, reaching toward him, trying to slow his pace.
Johnny however, was no stranger to the intense heat of the south. Nor was he unfamiliar to running the historical streets of Charleston. He’d done it once before. On a breezy night a few years earlier. A night he’d never forget. No matter how hard he tried.

And as he ran on this day, veering around a couple of evening strollers walking hand in hand, getting yipped at by a stray spaniel lying under a park bench, memories from that night, not so long ago, began racing through his mind...

What he was doing was wrong. It went against every promise he’d ever made to her. And yet the fear he’d so easily recognized on her face, the tremor he’d felt when their lips touched, now justified his actions.

Jessica’s home was only a few short blocks from his parent’s two story colonial. And if you knew all the short cuts through little-known back allies, the trip could be made in minutes on foot.
As the shadows lengthened to night, and a hollow breeze nipped at his skin, causing gooseflesh to rise, Johnny found himself crouched behind a towering pine standing like an aging monument long forgotten, at the perimeter of Jessica’s ranch style home.

The house was small, resembling a large mobile home. The neglected white siding had grown cloudy over the years, changing it’s color to a dingy gray. A couple of maroon shutters were knocking against the house with the breeze, their fasteners having loosened, the threads long stripped. The square-shaped property hadn’t been mowed in weeks. Grass like jungle foliage sprouted in dense clumps throughout the backyard. The ideal hideaway for a copperhead in search of sleeping arrangements.

From his position, Johnny watched the silhouette of a lone figure moving behind the blinds from room to room. Tidying up the kitchen. Pushing a vacuum across the carpeted living room. And finally back to where he guessed was the bathroom, where she appeared to be standing under a showerhead.

Feeling guilty, Johnny was about to sneak back the way he’d come, when a car swerved into the driveway and screeched to a stop. The shadow of an elderly-looking man rose from the car, lunch pail in hand, and stumbled along the concrete drive to the front door. From where he remained behind the tree, Johnny could hear Jessica’s father mumbling to himself as he approached the house. The rambling slur of an alcoholic in full grace.

Johnny remembered the deep bruise Jessica had been trying to keep hidden under a tuft of curled bangs on her forehead. An ugly purple wound in the shape of a small egg, glaring out from the soft follicles of her hairline. Then Johnny thought of all the other bruises he’d spotted over the past month.

Jessica’s father fumbled with the doorknob, released a swear, and finally managed to fall into the house. Creeping along on the balls of his feet, Johnny quietly pursued...

Leather loafers were not intended for a spontaneous, two mile run along city streets, through a suffocating Carolina heat wave. The heels of each foot had eventually numbed from minimal arch support while pounding on Charleston’s ancient sidewalks. His beige trousers had grown heavy with either sweat or fatigue, or both. And he figured at this point he’d be able to peel off his collared, button down shirt and wring it out like a well-used dish towel.

He’d brought on the attention of many finger-pointers and confused expressions as he bolted for the outskirts of town. The rustle of aging palm fronds whispered encouragement as he passed beneath them.

A throb had begun twisting the muscles along his side as he fought to control his breathing. A few years ago he would’ve been able to run this distance without difficulty. In fact, a few years ago he had...

He slid through the front door, left slightly ajar by the lumbering form of Jessica’s father. He eased one of his sneakers onto the foyer, stepping onto a departing shadow as it faded toward the back of the house. Footsteps thudding to a stop in the hallway.

Hearing the twist and click of a door latch, he peeked around the corner as Jessica’s father entered the bathroom. A wedge of light pierced the darkened hallway, causing Johnny’s shadow to loom. He froze in mid-step, studying the sinewy shape upon the aged, desert-colored carpeting, and again silently cursed himself for being there.

From behind the partially opened door he heard the gravely rumble of a voice. The tinny squeal of another. He tensed, his breath held in behind the constricted muscles guarding his lungs. A moment passed before a scream filled the house. Then Johnny knew why he was there.

He lunged forward. "Jessica run!" he hollered. "Get out!"

Jessica’s father turned with a start. His mouth opened, chafed lips forming into a silent O as a look of shock, or perhaps fear, passed over his face. There and gone in an instant, as if carried by an ocean’s breeze.

Johnny watched as the man’s brow lowered. Grizzled cheeks gathered around a jaw clenched in fury. Burly fingers stained to the color of rust from a lifetime spent hunched over machinery, now closed to form grimy clubs, wavering upon the end of each arm.

From out of her father’s mouth came a warning, painfully gargled as if the rust from his fingers had somehow found it’s way to the lining of his throat. "Get outta my house." Beads of phlegm followed his words, tumbling through the air in an arc before at last plummeting to the floor between their feet.

Johnny hastened a glance at Jessica, huddled upon the porcelain floor of the bathtub. Trembling arms were wrapped around her chest, and her knees were folded up, partially hiding her face while shielding her body. For a moment their eyes met. A silent understanding rendered. Then Johnny backed out of the bathroom, her father in pursuit.

Facing Jessica’s father, Johnny backed down the hallway, the shadows growing longer as he departed the bathroom’s florescent glow. He watched as the towering form bent forward to a crouch. He glimpsed the fleeting image of his girlfriend sneaking out of the bathroom and down the hall in the opposite direction. She’d slipped a thin nightgown over her head, the hem trailing behind her like the dwindling fragments of a ghost. As her father released a grunt and lunged, the sound of the front door opening with a creak of strained hinges assured him of Jessica’s safety. He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and awaited the blow...

He passed into a city park. Towering live oaks, their skeletal branches ever reaching, entwining themselves into the wooded appendages of their neighbor, lined both sides of his path. Olive shawls of moss cascaded from overhead, brushing his shoulders as he sprinted beneath.
His breathing labored, grew ragged, his chest heaving. The gasping drew the curious gazes of many. Some pointing from park benches. Others relaxing hand in hand under the shade of the century-old oaks.

As evening matured to dusk, the sun now nothing more than a paint stroke over the distant hills of Columbia, Johnny stumbled onward. Somehow he managed to quicken his pace. Perhaps the knowledge of his upcoming destination allowed his weary legs a second wind. He was close now. Across an ancient wooden bridge passing over the marsh along the western perimeter of the park. Through a small meadow of wild flowers native to the south, and left untouched by local developers. Just beyond the meadow, the cemetery awaited. He hoped he wasn’t too late...

The back of his head made contact with the paneled wall at the far end of the house. The thud seemed to shake the foundation of the entire home. A crack of bone and splintered paneling, still echoing inside his head. Johnny sagged to the floor of a bedroom, he wasn’t sure which one, and for a moment, lost awareness.

A right hook landed above his eye, was actually what drove the fogginess from his senses. A sharp pain, like a needle plunged into his temple, caused him to open his eyes and focus on the lumbering adversary standing over him.

Jessica’s inebriated father. Mumbling something in a lazy drawl about punks nosing into his business.

Johnny could feel the throb of his right eye as it began to swell. If not tended to soon it would surely close up.

He sensed the presence of his girlfriend’s father looming closer. Preparing for another strike. With his right hand, he reached out into the darkness, searching...

Reading Material...

...I guess you could say that I'm never at a loss for words.

10 years, give or take. 3 drafts. 534 pages. 40 chapters. 130,000 words.

"Broken" has been requested for a "read," by an authoritive figure in the publishing industry.

She's all grown up now and ready to spread her wings...

...here's something interesting, at least for bookworm/reader-geeks who also love a good movie now and then...like me.

While finishing up James Patterson's "Cat & Mouse" while at work earlier this evening, (when I'm bored while at work, reading happens,) I read the following line which began on page 429, and at last fizzled out somewhere towards the top of 430.

"Everything was going crazy again, caroming out of control at the whim of a madman."

I stopped, went back, read it again, and thought, huh..."whim of a madman?" Now where have I heard that one before?

Then it came to me.

I thought back to a scene from one of my favorite action movies. Dennis Hopper in a small room, surrounded in nineteen inch televisions, and if memory serves, a computer or two, each one tuned to a different news channel broadcasting the same horrifying live feed involving a bus, a bomb, and a sinister plot with a pile of cash as the ultimate goal.

Dennis Hopper, playing the role of Howard Payne, ex-police officer with a grudge to settle, listens as one of the broadcasting news reporters describes the live feed as "Out of control on the whim of a madman."

Dennis Hopper laughs and says, "The whim of a madman! I like that!"

The movie's called "Speed."

It hit theaters in mid-summer of 1994. "Cat & Mouse" was released in 1997.

Considering how James Patterson probably averages a hundred million in sales per year with his literary prowess, I won't be pointing fingers anytime soon. For whatever reason, the majority of our reading population fancy those Alex Cross and Max novels to no end. And I guess I've grown fond of Alex running around the country in hot pursuit of all those sinister, over-arching bad guys myself.

Seriously though...from a literary standpoint, the thieving of an entire phrase from a high dollar movie only three years old takes moxie.

But what do I know? Maybe Patterson co-wrote "Speed," and thought to himself, "Hmm, that's catchy. I'm gonna have to use that one again sometime."

Or he watched the movie, liked the line and thought, "Screw it, I'm using it, and if they come after me, I'll throw one of my lawyers and a wallet full 'o cash at em."

Either way, it caught my eye, and earned itself a giggle. Not from Patterson...from Hopper of course. Love that guy.

And naturally, after putting all the pieces together on a "whim," Cross gets the madman in "Cat & Mouse." Oops. Gave it away...