The Locket

Genre: General
Word Count: 1640

You meet a lot of strange people when you work the night shift out in a gas station just outside of town. It’s an experience, I’ll tell you, and one I’ll probably never forget.

It’s a rare feeling to look out the recently cleaned windows and spot those two glaring lights turning in for a stop at two in the morning. If anyone’s out at all, they aren’t stopping their car unless they really need to.

It’s a slow job, I’ll say, and most nights, after I’ve finished cleaning and rearranging the displays, after I’ve given up trying to get the ‘four’ in the ‘Open Twenty-Four Hours” sign to work, after I’ve counted and recounted the money in the old register, when there’s just about nothing else to do, I’d sit back in the plastic lawn chair I found out back and count the cars that went by.

It was a waiting game, one of those things that just tests your patience. You’d be just about ready to give up, just about ready to go back through and count the cash again when there’d be the faint glow in the distance, slowly coming closer, slowly getting brighter until those glowing eyes pass by, beams pooling ahead like some sort of crazy cones of light.

Sometimes, I’d guess how long it’d be before the next one passed. Some nights, it’d be half-an-hour. Others, two or three. If I was really bored, I’d keep track of my score, trying to figure how much I was off by every time those headlights came in the distance and the soft purr of the engine brushed by.

And then, of course, there was the occasional stopper, someone who was just so low on gas that they didn’t think they could make it over to the next city, to somewhere where there were actually other people, to some other station with their polished, automatically-opening, sliding doors and their bright signs screaming out the latest prices and bargains. Buy one get one free. Twenty percent off a new bottle of antifreeze. Twenty-four ounce fountain drinks for only a buck.

There was nothing like that here, just a bored night-worker and a small convenience store filled with the various trinkets and curios that had piled up over the years.

An authentic baseball hit by the Great Bambino over in the last game he played. A broken guitar string from some artist I’ve never heard about before I took the job. Some holographic trading card apparently worth thousands of dollars. But most special, to me at least, was this small chain of linked golden rings—not even the whole necklace, just a bit of it.

It had joined the stack of stuff at the shop only about six months ago, when he had said that he would return in about half a year. I took the fragile-looking chain and closed my hand tightly around it so I could feel those little golden rings pressing into the inside of my hand. I tried to remember that man’s face, his tired eyes, the wild, untamed wilderness of his hair.

I’ll be back, he had said.

When I had asked when, he only shrugged his shoulders, adjusted his scraggly jacket and reached out to stroke the chain he had just put onto the freakishly clean counter. Three months, two years, it makes no difference to me. He grasped the chain and let a thoughtful look slide onto his face. It came gently, as if it had been pushing all along and the man had only just given in. ‘Bout six months, I suppose. Look for me in about six months.

“You’ll be coming from the West again?”

The thoughtful look disappeared and his eyes returned to that smooth, glassy dullness. Finally, his shoulders rose, and then lowered. He let go of the chain and let it slide gently through his rugged hands onto the counter, like a quaint, golden waterfall over the beaten rocks. The West, the East, it doesn’t matter. When you don’t care where you’re going, any road will get you there.

I didn’t understand completely, but I took his chain and slipped it into a drawer, keeping it as he had asked. No doubt I thought he was just a bit odd then—most who stopped to talk were. I probably figured I’d never see him again.

Man, was I surprised when that letter came two weeks ago. Only five simple words, but they stopped my heart for a moment. Do you still have it?

Five simple words. No return address. There was nothing to do but wait.

I opened my hand and stared curiously at the nice little imprints the rings had left. For some reason, they seemed to beckon, almost as if there was some kind of hidden message to be found in those little grooves.

I looked up, and there, almost as if it had been planned, there was that tell-tale glow on the horizon, a small ghostly form, almost, stretching out and out until it became obvious that there was something coming.

The lights slowed, and then almost passed completely by, but not quite. The dark shape behind the lights made a turn into the lot, and I had a feeling that it was him.

A tall, thick form stepped out of the vehicle, and I left the chain on the counter and stopped out the door, going to offer whoever it was my help, just doing my job. He stepped into the dim light coming from the single bulb by the pump and my suspicions were confirmed. He was almost unrecognizable in the near-complete darkness.

I stopped walking, not wanting to move too far from the comforting oasis of light I had left behind me.

He looked up and saw me, and for the first time, his face was more exposed to the light. His beard had gotten slightly longer, and perhaps his hair as well, although I couldn’t really tell his dark, nearly black strands from the darkness around.

“You still have it?” the voice was surprisingly hoarse, almost guttural.

I started nodding before I realized how hard it would be for him to see my movements. I was about to say something, but he seemed to have gotten the message.

He took a step towards the small store. “’Kin you get it out?”

“Alright,” and I turned and made my way back towards the door I had just stepped through barely a minute before. I heard the door of the car slam behind me and then the sound of his heavy boots on the gravel.

He stepped into the store right behind me and homed in on the short length of chain on the counter right away. He looked as if he was about to say something, but only a sort of gulping noise came out of his mouth. He walked up to the counter and I followed him, wondering what he was doing here a second time.

In one quick movement, he had reached into one of the folds of his jacket and produced a small pendant hanging from some of an identical chain. The rings at the ends were popped open.

He dropped it next to the chain on the counter.

He was blocking my view of the two pieces now, and I could only make out a short length of part of the broken necklace. There was a glint of gold in the bare light as, for a moment, he lifted both together before him. A heart-shaped locket hung open along the chain—I thought there was a picture in it for a moment, but he had moved it too quickly for me to judge for sure.

“You found the rest,” I said, breaking the silence. The words seem to hang awkwardly in the air.

“I’ve always had the other part,” he said heavily, setting the now-completed necklace back onto the counter. I heard the soft clink of metal hitting porcelain.
He sighed heavily. “I had hoped it could be fixed but…” his voice died off into some sort of croak.

In one swift movement, he produced a hammer from somewhere and smashed it down onto the counter.

I stood, frozen, as the last waves of the blow faded away.

He slid the tool back into a loop in his pants, where it must have been hanging before. He turned slowly towards me, all of a sudden seeming completely exhausted. “Thank you,” he said tiredly. He stumbled past me to the door.

The remains of the necklace were still left on the counter. Most of the links were still intact, but the locket had been completely pulverized, the precious gold pressed into a heart-shaped foil on the counter. There was a barely visible rectangle raised slightly in the center, just about the size of a small picture.

Outside, a car started. With a cautious finger, I brushed the top of the flattened gold, feeling the barely perceptible bump as my finger passed over where a picture must have been entombed. It was a disquieting feeling, one that sent some sensations through my spine, not a chill, but more like a feeling of clearance, a feeling of completion.

Finally, I thought I understood the words he had told me half a year ago. Finally, I understood the reason the man had been driving so late at night in the middle of nowhere.

I lifted my finger from the gold, lifted my finger from the final monument to the now-destroyed love that must have brought the chain here in the first place.

I have loved, and I have lost, the words stared back at me from the small scrap of paper left on the counter.

It was a melancholy hand that finally threw the crumpled note into the wastebasket.

Written: Before 12/17/2007

Citrus Tea

Written: 17 June, 2009
Word count: 732

He visits frequently and just sporadically enough to keep me on my toes. I'll be watching from my fire escape, spraying my flowers, and he's standing there, the bottom of his Levi's slightly damp from the evening dew. My gut always gives a slight lurch, not wholly unpleasant, every time I turn and say, "Oh, you're here." Sometimes he flashes me his crooked smile or gives a slight shrug. Other times, he turns and walks away. Some nights he comes in, and I boil two citrus peels in honey water for him and watch him as he drinks.

Other nights, we sit on the fire escape and talk until we hear the first honks of the morning delivery trucks. We admire the unstable silence of the New York streets at dawn. I keep him talking. The week's late night soaps, the sporadic wars of the world, the woman across the street with an affinity for exotic herbs, the man downstairs with the peculiar tattoo, the mythology behind Orion's belt. I keep him talking in hopes of hearing him utter my name, ever so quietly into the heavy night air.

"Where do you go off every morning, Dave? So early in the morning. . . "
"I'll take you someday." He jokingly pushes my shoulder causing me to spill my tea. I run to the kitchen, and when I return with a patterned towel, Dave is gone, his cup untouched. No footsteps touch the stairs for the rest of the week. I keep a cup of citrus tea on the table every night, just in case.

My vigilance pays off when I hear a creak on my fire escape. I knock over one of my petunia pots in my fervor to open the door and shout, "Oh, you're back!"

"Say my name," I whisper, scared I'll frighten him.

"Why?"

"Just do it. Please."

"Karen."

The name drifts into the air and settles somewhere up higher than I can reach. Hoping to snatch a measly vowel or consonant, I desperately grasp for something tangible to keep.

"Say it again."

"I can't keep coming back."

My stupor breaks.

"Why not?"

"You haven't left the apartment in a year."

"I'm always waiting for you." I try not to sound like a child.

"I can't come back. It's been a year. I can't keep coming back for you."

He slowly makes his way to the bookshelf and grabs a pile of newspaper clippings. He flips past last week's garden club tips and the month before's book recommendations. Past the erotic horoscopes and crossword puzzles. Past the stock market quotes, the weather predictions. In a flash his hands sift through one years worth of useless information and delicately pick out one lone slip of paper. A rogue neuron in my brain fires, and I realize what he's trying to show me.

"No! No! We can keep going like this! Nobody can say my name like you. Please keep coming, Dave. We still have so many constellations to look at! Too many cups of tea to drink! You're all I have."

"I was all you had."

He drops the tattered article to the ground. I can barely make out the words and the accompanying photo through my tear glands now in overdrive. My hand involuntarily picks up the crumpled wad reading. I blot out the words with my tears until no one can ever read them anymore.

"No! Take me with you, please, Dave. Take me with you! Please!" I grab a corner of his blue striped polo in a fit of mental abandon.

"I can't, Karen."

I hit my side on a table corner and fall to the ground, wincing. I catch a last glimpse of him in the door, and the creak of his feet on the fire escape.

******

"Is this Karen Alexander's house?"

"Yes, this is. I'm Karen's mother. Please come in."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I can't. I just came to give my condolences. I live downstairs. I heard about the suici-- well, I'm very sorry about, well, I'll be glad to help if you need anything. Just down the stairs. Uh, yes, well, nice to meet you."

Karen's mother walks back inside and sits in the kitchen, staring out the window, a cup of citrus tea in hand.

Heaven's Messenger

Genre: General/Sci-fi?
Word Count: 1412

It was a cold night to be out, but I wasn’t going to be the one complaining.

“How much farther?” Hal asked, his breath coming out in a mist from his mouth. He thumped his gloved hands together. “It’s cold out.”

“It is,” Angela huddled close to me. She wrapped her hands around her as she walked.

“Oh, come on, Angie,” Hal thumped his hands again, “You have a hat and everything—coat, scarf, gloves, earmuffs—”

“My legs are freezing,” she huddled closer to me, and I put a hand over her shoulder, bringing her in.

Hal threw up his hands. “Oh, come on, you even have Joel to cuddle with.”

“Quiet,” Nolan stopped moving and shone his flashlight at the trees all around us. I finally saw that the path split ahead, and the light danced between the two trails. I almost considered losing face and going back to grab another layer, but finally, the beam stopped on the left path. “Alright,” he said calmly, and started walking again.

The three of us followed him, I on the left, a bit behind him, Angela next to me, and Hal on her right, a little behind.

“Damn, it’s cold,” Hal said finally, breaking the repetitive crunching sound of our feet stepping on the woodchip-covered path.

“It’s going to snow tomorrow,” Nolan said calmly without turning around.

“Ugh,” I stuffed my hands into my pockets, but Angela relocated my arm so she could hang on to it, “Snow. I hate it. It gets everything—shoes, floor, the bottom of my jeans—ugh!” She shivered. “I wish I lived somewhere else.”

“Really.” I thought I might have sounded a bit too unconcerned. Too late to go back now.

“Well, I wish you were there, too, of course,” she smiled at me, looking almost like a completely different person all wrapped up in her winter-wear.

“How much longer?” Hal’s voice came out again.

“Oh, not long now, I think,” Nolan’s reply was prompt. He flashed his light around, and showed that the woods were starting to thin. “We’re almost there.”

“Good.”

“Oh, come on, Hal,” Angela imitated. “You have a coat and everything. Joel’s only got a jacket.”

Hal wasn’t deterred at all. “That’s only because I’m not dumb enough to walk out here wearing that little. I mean, come on.”

I was freezing. I wasn’t even sure I could feel my ears anymore. Angela seemed to be looking at me expectantly, though, so I tried to ignore all of that. “I’m fine.”

“See?” she turned triumphantly. “He’s fine.”

I tried to keep my teeth from chattering. It’s an odd thing, something you’d never think could actually happen sometimes. It’s just one of those things that you read about in stories and that’s about it. You’d never expect it to actually happen. I tried to move my hands around inside the pockets to make sure they were still attached—they were, thankfully enough.

Below, the woodchips were more sparsely layered, and there were some dark stalks of grass poking through now and then.

Angela sighed loudly. “Look at the sky. It’s amazing.”

I looked up at the vast expanse of lights shining above us. The tree cover had dropped away behind us, and we could see the night sky naked before our eyes.

“There’re so many of them,” she breathed. “I never thought you could see so many.”

“It’s the lights in the city,” Nolan said, pausing for a moment to look up. “There’s too much light around to see the stars real well.”

The sky was like an inviting dark blanket with little sparkles thrown all over it. It was just full of stars, burning spheres of light, almost inviting —nothing like the sky I had grown so used to. I thought about how the first humans must have seen the heavens, resting around the fire after stuffing themselves with that day’s hunt. Warm. Comfortable. I almost asked to borrow a hat.

Angela took my arm again. “Thinking about something?”

“Nothing really,” I caught Hal in the corner of my vision, looking as if he were about to echo me mockingly, but he noticed that I had seen him and said nothing. “I was just thinking about how it must have been before…” I thought for another moment, “before electricity and cities and cars and all that.”

“Of course,” Hal said scathingly.

“Hal!”

“What?”

Nolan cleared his throat. “We’re almost there—we don’t want to miss it.”

“What time is it?” Hal looked to me questioningly.

“Time for you to get a watch,” Angela said quickly.

He ignored her. Reluctantly, I jerked my left hand out of my pocket and tried to make out the numbers in the dark. I brought my other hand out quickly and jabbed at the button to make the numbers light up. I stuffed the hand back. “Eleven fifty.”

“A few more minutes, huh?” Hal looked back into the sky.

I slid my left hand back into the pockets. I could barely tell the difference in temperature. Somehow, I didn’t think that was a good sign. Either my pockets were pretty cold—which they were bound to be—or my hands were starting to lose their feeling. For a moment, I tried to remember the symptoms of frostbite and the conditions needed, but I just couldn’t recall them. That only made me feel colder.

Nolan stopped and switched off his light. “Here we are.”

Hal looked around. I could make out his figure in the starlight. “We’re on a hill.”

“Yeah,” Nolan answered.

“We walked all the way out here to sit on a hill.”

“That sounds about right,” Nolan nodded. “Yeah.”

Hal looked confused. “Is there something really special about this hill?”

“Not really, no. We can go to another one if you want. What time is it now?”

I checked my watch again. “Fifty-six.”

Angela intercepted my hands before they could make it back to their shelters. She clutched them in her gloves. “Cold?”

I thought I saw Hal look gloatingly over. “A little bit,” I admitted.

“Want to borrow my hat?” she started taking off the pink, red, and white hat she was wearing. “I’ve got a hood on my coat.” She shoved the thing into my hand.

It felt warm, and I let some of the heat pass into my freezing hands.

“Well,” she put her earmuffs back on and then flipped the hood of her coat over her head. “Put it on.”

“Put it on!” Hall imitated.

“Oh, shut up, Hal,” she punched at him, but he skipped lightly away.

“You missed.”

Angela didn’t answer. I pulled the woolen hat onto my head, glad it was dark and glad that I couldn’t see myself wearing it. It made me feel warmer for a bit, but then the heat seemed to fade away and I couldn’t help but notice that I was trembling slightly.

“It should be about time,” Nolan stared up into the sky.

I checked my watch again. Twelve one, it blinked. Any time now.

“Where do you think it’ll be?” Hal asked.

Nolan took a few seconds to answer. “I don’t know.”

Angela pressed towards me. “Aren’t you glad it’s going to miss us?” she whispered, so that only I could hear.

“Yeah,” I breathed softly, watching the light mist of my breath disappear quickly in the night air. “But we were lucky.”

She suddenly pointed out into the sky a little above the tree line. “Is that it?”

As I looked out at the horizon, I saw a narrow streak of light burning through the night sky.

“There it is,” Nolan pointed as well.

Hal was surprisingly silent.

For a moment, I almost forgot about being cold as I watched the streak of light move across the sky. The line grew thicker and brighter as the asteroid moved deeper into the atmosphere. It would only miss by a few hundred miles. I shivered, nearly asked for the scarf.

The front end of the line ignited and now it glowed a glaringly bright white, obscuring the long tail of heat it left behind. The spectacle passed out of view behind the trees.

I realized that I had been holding my breath and let it rush out. “It’s over then.”

Nolan seemed to be nodding. “Thank God it’s over.”

“Amen,” Hal said quietly.

We turned and started walking back towards the car. I was in a mood for hot chocolate.

Written: Before 12/8/2007

Progress

Genre: Unknown
Word Count: 804

A/N: I haven't posted anything for ages... ugh. So I dug up this work from a LONG time ago in my writing history... from my days when I was a lot less subtle and skilled with writing. >.<

The door opened with barely a creak, and the president turned to face his assailant.

“I’ve been expecting you,” the tired-looking man slowly lowered himself into the expensive chair behind the desk. He faced the stranger.

The young assassin removed the remains of the guards’ uniform he had been using as a disguise. “If you knew I was coming, you should know what I have come to do.” He raised a gun.

“I do,” the president said impassively.

“And yet you did nothing to stop it,” the young man aimed his weapon, shifting from one eye to the other. He did not believe that his task would be this easy. “You are not an imposter?”

“And would I tell you even if I was?” the president reclined in the chair. “But that is not the case. I am the president.”

“The president of a land in turmoil.”

“Nonetheless, I am still president.”

“For the moment,” the assassin chose the right eye and prepared to fire.

“But,” the soon-to-be-dead man raised a hand, buying more time. He let the word linger slightly, gambling upon the curiosity of the killer. “Realize what you are doing with your bullet.”

“I am doing a great deed for the people,” the man replied mechanically, as if the answer had been drilled into his brain. Inculcated.

The president looked closely at the man holding a gun. He is little more than a boy. He should not be involved in this conflict. “Are you?” He replied questioningly.

“I am ridding the land of a tyrant. I am preparing the way for a bright new future—a rebirth in the history of our nation,” the reply was automatic.

“What makes you think the future will be brighter?” the president pressed, his charismatic face filled with a look that instilled doubt into the boy. “What do you think killing me will accomplish?” He waited for an answer.

“I will end the suffering of the people. I will bring a new, glorious age to our—”

“Suffering?” the president interrupted unexpectedly. “You will end suffering?” He laughed bitterly. “There will be no end to suffering, ever!” The president stared the boy in the eyes, unblinking, unmoving. The boy dropped his gaze. “Human beings are the definition of suffering.”

“You’re wrong!” the finger tightened on the trigger, but the president showed no fear.

“What has our race produced? All the years—decades, centuries, millennia—all those years of human civilization. What have we produced? What have we reaped?” He laughed again, mockingly. “The dominant trait of the human race is suffering.”

“That will change!”

“Will it?” the leader continued, nonplussed. “What will you accomplish? What will you bring?”

“I will bring freedom, prosperity, an end to suffering—”

“An end to suffering?” the well-known man shook his head. “People will suffer under a democracy and under a dictatorship alike. The suffering may come in different forms—physical suffering, emotional suffering, mental suffering—but there will still be suffering. Prosperity?” The leader’s voice increased in intensity. “How can there be riches without the poor? One cannot coexist without the other.”

“Plato says—”

“Yes, Plato. Your self-named leader. Does he envision utopia? Does he see better times? Progress, even?” the dictator clenched his fists. “Does he see himself in power?”

“The power will be shared by the people—” the boy began.

“Ahh… but there will be power nonetheless. Tell me. What is power, but the ability to cause suffering?”

“I…I…don’t—” the aim of the gun wavered, but held firm.

“Nothing is accomplished by your empty dreams. You seek progress? Progress is just the delusion that things are getting better. But suffering is still there… will always be there. Problems are still there—what will you have accomplished?”
“We will solve the problems!” The aim faltered again.

The dictator’s eyes followed the gun closely. “Will you?” he shook his head again. “Problems are never solved—can never be solved. They are only postponed. All solutions are only temporary—only problems are eternal.”

“Our lives will be better!” The boy exclaimed vehemently, but it was clear that he was weakening, becoming confused.

“Will it? What will the people live like in the instability after the fall of this government? What of your family, when there is no law? No one to tell the murderer to stop. No one to keep order.”

“It…will…be…better,” the gunman’s arm faltered and the barrel of the gun slipped down for a moment. The despot noticed and gave the signal. Behind the young assassin, two guards burst out and disarmed the boy.

“What is life,” the man who had murdered millions stood up triumphantly, “without suffering?” He threw his head back and laughed.

---

Outside, the sounds of the slaving people continued, never ceasing as the screams from the torture rooms began.

Written: Before 9/21/2007, exact date unknown (I might be able to find it, but it would involve a lot of searching into random piles of notebook paper for the original draft.