Creative Writing: The In-Between Waltz

Being born in Massachusetts meant that I was raised to see the pavement spread before me as a battlefield. Driving wasn’t simply just a way to get from point A to point B but also to get there before anyone else. I was used to being in the backseat, observing the scenery, while my father sped and swerved. “Damn blueheads,” he would mutter and I would twist quickly, trying to see the blue skinned alien in the slow moving car beside us. I was always disappointed to be faced with an old woman with graying hair that peeked over the steering wheel. He often mumbled that no one knew how to drive as he challenged the limitations of the lines painted on the road. The yellow and white lines were not painted to direct my father but to assist the uneducated masses.

Most teenagers in drivers ed are taught that a yellow light means slow down, the speed limit is as fast as you should go, and to never pass over doubled solid yellow lines. I was taught those same rules but my father showed me exceptions while he said “Don’t do as I do” in a harsh quick tone. When my father approached a yellow light, I could hear the engine roar before the car pulled forward causing my head to unexpectedly hit the head rest. He kept up the pace even after we escaped the red light, passing a sign that stated the speed limit was 50 miles an hour. I glanced at the speedometer, 65. “Shit, I forgot my phone,” he cursed and hastily made a U-turn, passing over the two solid yellow lanes. I don’t remember where we were going but I recalled that he was in a hurry and maybe if he slowed down once and awhile, he wouldn’t have forgotten his phone at home and we wouldn’t have wasted time to get it.

While I drove the speed limit going south on the highway, I spotted a blue sedan dancing between lanes and cars to a beat that no one else could hear. It didn’t take me much time to catch up and in the next few moments I was behind the impatient car. The first thing I noticed were her two bumper stickers that read “Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History” and “I hated Sarah Palin before it was cool” which made be chuckle. For some reason, I felt the need to see who was driving. All I could spy was a small bump of dirty blonde hair. I changed lanes, using my blinker, and drove beside her. She was plain looking, not fat but not skinny and not beautiful but not ugly. She had an inbetweenness about her that fascinated me. I knew I should have been watching the road but my eyes yearned to look through her passenger door window.

Her hands clenched the steering wheel and the whiteness of her knuckles was a sharp contrast to the rest of her lightly tanned skin. How hard was she holding on to that wheel? Her posture was stiff yet ready to pounce into the next lane. Except for a few rigid glimpses into her mirrors, her eyes hardly left the road in front of her. I hoped that the interior of her car would reveal something more about her than her feminist ideals and hatred of Sarah Palin. Strangely enough, her car was void of any personal touches. There were no beanie baby mascots on the seats or mardi gras beads hanging from the rearview window. Her car was so empty, so incomplete, so lifeless. Without any interior accents, I couldn’t even begin to draw a picture of who she was.

After my fifth glance, she saw stomped on the gas and swerved from the middle lane to the left then up the narrow breakdown lane. Within seconds she was ten cars ahead of me. Still, she wasn’t satisfied and returned to the middle lane. Cars honked at her and drivers scowled but she remained unaffected and defiant. Usually I would be annoyed by the impatient car, generally replacing the driver with the image of my father, but I didn’t mind her. She weaved and danced between us all, not with a sense of hurry, but with an impartial grace. There was no emotion, just fluid movement that always seemed to settle in the middle lane like a ballerina returning to center stage. She rejected the other drivers that moved with a synchronized speed. She lunged, she pivoted, she flew past us all.

My mind played Tchaikovsky's “Sleeping Beauty Waltz,” her movements quickening and pausing upon the whimsical and bold notes. The squeal of tires mirrored the crisp vibrations of a violin’s strings. The beeping of car horns rose to match the heralding brass horns reaching the crescendo. Middle fingers waved in her direction, composing the orchestra of sounds that she left in her wake. The sky darkened, the curtain fell, and the audience applauded at her disappearance. I was the only one who cried for an encore.

The Sleeping Beauty Waltz

Creative Writing: Fat and Lazy Water

I reach in the freezer to get some ice for my glass of water. I can’t stand drinking water that has merely been refrigerated. I need it to be ice cold, so cold that the minute it touches my back teeth they chime and ring upon my nerves. I want to be able to feel the icy water rush down my throat like rushing rapids and hit my calm stomach, coating it with a thin frost. Then of course, I want the brief shiver that starts at the back of my neck as my body reacts to rapid temperature change. That is how drinking water should feel.

I pull out the ice tray and find it empty, except for the small slivers left behind from banging the ice out of its mould. These puny pieces are useless to me. No one had filled the ice tray, again. My mother, who uses the ice most, refused years ago to never make ice. When my parents went shopping for a refrigerator, my mother wanted one with an ice maker but my father resisted; playfully saying that he would be the ice maker. The refrigerator without the ice maker was within their budget so that is the one my father bought.

Every night, I would hear my mother’s hand grab in the tray, causing the other ice cubes to jaunt and jingle. She would plop them in her drink, one by one, until the glass overflowed. The cubes would crack and cackle once they hit the vodka mixture and then quietly bump against each other. When she walked, the cubes would wobble lightheartedly as they pushed some of the liquid from the glass. I always knew my mother had made a drink when I either heard the ice cubes shriek or when my bare foot would step upon a small vodka puddle. When my father went to fill his occasional drink, the tray would be barren except for those small splinters. He would then quietly refill the tray and make more ice. His silence lasted until he noticed that I was using the ice too.

“Kathleen Anne! Fill the ice tray,” he would then yell.

One day, without me knowing, the position of ice maker had fallen to me. I wanted no part of it; I was not there when the decision was made to get a refrigerator without an ice machine. If I were there, I would have voted for the ice machine because even at a young age I would have known that it would be me, the youngest, which would suffer. If I were to fill the ice tray, it would be me forever. I see the past me, young with red cheeks and long blonde hair with homemade popsicles from the ice tray. My mother would pour orange juice and lemonade in the trays and stick popsicle sticks in. One of my teachers told me the water freezes because the molecules would slow down and then they would expand. I would wait for what seemed like years, starring up at the freezer, waiting for those water molecules to become lazy and fat. Would I have wanted an ice machine to steal that memory from me? Then again I see the future me, living in a built in freezer in my parents’ basement, shivering next an empty ice tray. I resisted, I would not get in between the ice cube battle.

I sighed heavily. I really want ice but I don’t want them to know that I filled the ice tray. If I fill it, I give in and my future of a walk in freezer life becomes a reality. I cursed my father for not buying that stupid fridge with an ice machine. I cursed my mother for putting that last ice cube in her drink, causing it to overflow when she could have left it in the tray. I cursed myself for not being able to drink water without ice. I reached to the ice mould tray and pried a few cubes from their square nest and plopped them in my glass. I grabbed another glass, filled it with water, and then poured it into the empty holes of the mould tray. I stood in the kitchen for what seemed like years, starring down at the freezer, waiting for those water molecules to become lazy and fat.

No one would ever know.

Creative Writing: Soap is Soap

I was born into a bar soap family that bought family size packs, meaning that I would be using the same kind of soap for the next eighteen years of my life. In my early teens, I would watch commercials starring a long haired brunette taking a slow motion shower. She would use a fancy soap that wasn’t sold in bulk packaging and her skin would glisten. After she was done, she would run her hand up her arm to show how smooth it was. When I did that against my own skin, I felt bumps and dry skin. I wanted to be that brunette! I suggested that we should buy one of those “fancy brands” that was on TV to my father.

“Irish Spring not good enough for you?” he asked.

“I want that fancy soap from the commercial,” I answered.

“I could get six bars of Irish Spring for the same price as one of those fancy bars,” he calculated.

“It’s because the fancy soap is better.”

“Soap is soap,” he stated then walked away, indicating the end of the conversation.

The packaging of those fancy soaps was memorizing. I was drawn to the bright colors, the wispy text, and that long haired brunette. I would throwaway our bars of soap, telling my dad that we were out. I would tag along to store and when he wasn’t looking, I would slide that fancy soap into the cart. He would always find it because when the cashier would tell him the total, he would go over the prices of everything he picked up and discover the discrepancy. The cashier would remove the soap from the bag with sympathetic eyes.

But when I had money of my own and a car, my fancy soap dreams would become a reality. I walked proudly down the bath needs aisle, looking at all the nice packaging. They all had pictures of fruits and leaves on the bottles, telling the customer that their product was the best because it was natural and it had pronounceable ingredients. I was set against getting bar soap; I would get body wash, the kind that the new brunette uses in the new commercial.

The bottle I chose was lovely sea foam green. It boasted that its main ingredient, sea kelp, would solve any dry skin problems due to its penetrating course crystals. I was so excited that I took a shower right when I got home at four in the afternoon. The contents of the bottle were like wet sand and when it flowed down my body it left a trail of itching skin. It echoed the feeling of coming out of the ocean and sensing sand collecting in your bathing suit where you did not want it to collect. When I got out of the shower I expected my skin to sparkle but it was normal, Irish Spring normal. How could that be? I sensed that the ingredients would be able to answer my question.

The first entry was water. Of course, what could be more natural than water? Then sea salt extract, which would explain that beach feeling. The next ingredient was Pacific sea kelp. Okay, so far so good. But the next item was what worried me: Methyl Ether. I was pretty sure that I never saw this item on a produce stand or at the beach. I was positive that Methyl Ether did not grow on trees or on the ocean floor. After a quick internet search, I found out that I could not comprehend the sea of scientific jargon flashing before me. What I did could understand were the words propellant, propane, and combustible. After careful thought and consideration, I threw the bottle away and placed a new bar of Irish Spring on the soap tray.

Creative Writing : The Delivery Guy

An exercise with dialogue (inspired by my mother's joking comment that my dad was having an affair with the UPS guy)

“I think your father is seeing the delivery guy,” my mother stated with a heavy sigh.

She was nonchalant about the statement, simply stirring the ice cubes in her vodka drink. The tinkling of the ice filled the silence. My face twisted into a question mark.

“What?” I ask.

“The delivery guy. He’s dropping off packages up to three times a week,” she says.

“Well, dad has been ordering stuff so the guy is only doing his job,” I reply.

“But they all require signatures. You have to request to sign for something. He comes home from work to sign for the things.”

My mother points with her glass to the door, slightly spilling her drink.

“Mom, he orders coins and shit, that requires signatures. He’s not seeing the delivery guy,” I answer. I roll my eyes.

“The packages are decoys, they are probably empty,” she replies.

She is silent for awhile, her eyes glued to the TV. She pets the dog with a tender gentleness that is always reserved for the animals. She occasionally glances out to the driveway, searching for my dad’s truck. He is not home yet. She turns to the clock on the wall, 5:35. He should have been home ten minutes ago.

“God damn delivery guy,” she mutters.

“Dad is not seeing the delivery guy!” I yell, half in anger and half in laughter.

“If he is not seeing the delivery guy then it means that he really is ordering all that shit and spending all that money!” She shouts then drinks from her glass. “You better hope he’s seeing the delivery guy, for his sake!”

I hear a loud engine noise outside. My dad pulls up in his rusted out truck, into the pockmarked driveway. I hear the truck door slam and him clear his throat. My mother doesn’t even look out the window, she continues to stare at the TV and stir her drink. My dad approaches the door and fiddles with the broken knob. It will only be a matter of seconds before he enters and this problem with the delivery guy will be announced. I get up, grab my keys, and run out the back door.

Creative Writing : Unclaimed

Work in progress for a contest where the theme is "Anger and Revenge"

Mary Kay. The very mention of her name reawakens feelings inside of me that shame me to this day. I see her as the seven year old child I once knew with fair white skin and flawless blond hair. She held back her stray bangs with a pink bowed head band that exposed her petite pierced ears. My memory always dresses her in a bright pink tank top with pink jean shorts and white socks hemmed with lace. Her shoes were always a spotless white making me think that she hardly played outside or she had a closet dedicated to those damn shoes. This poster child of perfection is the living image of destruction that jump ropes innocently in my mind.

In late spring, when I was nine years old, I sought a piece of land that I could call my own. The front yard of my home belonged to my mother with her vibrant flower gardens and the back yard housed my father’s vegetable garden. These spaces came with irate shouts of “Don’t step on my lavender, they are older than you are,” and “The tomatoes aren’t ripe yet, stop touching them,” which was usually followed by being sprayed by the hose. There was a small rock wall that separated my parents’ property from miles and miles of unclaimed woodland. Unclaimed, the word fizzled on my tongue and shivered off my cherry Popsicle stained lips.

I set forward in my shredded jean shorts and worn foam flip flops onto the dirt path leading into the woods behind my house. The ground was littered with desiccated leaves, decaying branches, and immortal debris. A tiny vine clung desperately to an old soda can, reaching over its dented sides towards a sliver of sunlight. It was there that I spotted a small area, void of any growth between three large boulders. My mind raced with ideas as my toes snuck off the foam sole of my flip flop and wiggled into the soft dirt.

“Where are you going?” my father asked as I ran down the path with a hammer, a skein of green yarn, and scissors with a sense of purpose.

“Nowhere,” I answered without turning towards him but I felt a light spray of water pass over me.

“Don’t lose that hammer, young lady! It’s new,” he said, attempting to spray me with the hose again.

I built fences made of dead branches, tied together with yarn and propped up against large rocks and fat trees. I scoured the forest floor of all of the dead limbs, but I still needed more wood to complete the fence. I didn’t want to ask my father for help but I was out of options. On the path back home, I spotted a stack of wooden planks behind my neighbor’s house. The planks were ripe, rotted and teemed with nails. White mushrooms sprouted from their cracked skin and tiny bugs scurried through the termite tunnels. They were thrown over the rock wall, forsaken, forgotten. Unclaimed. I shook with excitement and began dragging them back to my space. The splinters bit me and dug deep into my arms but I didn’t care. My mom often swore after the roses’ thorns had pierced her wrists during planting but she still stared at their blossoms with accomplishment.

The next day, I was so absorbed in the last bit a fence that I didn’t notice my younger next door neighbor behind me. Mary Kay. She stepped next to me, blocking the small bit of sunlight that peeked through the trees. When I looked up at her I had to squint because of the brightness haloed around her head. I hated her ever since I saw her amazing dollhouse on display in the window that faced my house. Hers was real, built from wood with authentic carpets and furniture while mine was a bright plastic monstrosity.

“Can I join your fort?” She asked, picking up my sap crusted craft scissors. I grabbed them in one swoop, causing her to gasp.

“Don’t touch anything, you’ll break it,” I shouted as I lifted the last bit of fence between us, blocking her out.

Her eyes quivered and she ran home, her blonde hair swaying with her unsteady hips. I made sure to wear dark clothes the next time so she couldn’t see me outside her window. I hid behind trees as I approached the piece of woods behind her backyard and found another prize, two discarded sawhorses spotted with aged paint drops. I could make a table! I pulled out some of the old nails in the planks and hammered mismatched boards on top of the sawhorses. When the table was done, I put a vase of lavender flowers and a bowl of bright green tomatoes in the center of the table. I spread out stained carpet remnants on the floor which had been destroyed in my basement from water damage. An unsteady plank tied to one of the boulders served as a chair.

The sun was setting so I filled a rusted bucket with my tools and tied the doorway fence behind me. It wasn’t until a reached my backyard that I saw Mary Kate’s mother, arms crossed and her lips twisted in anger. Mary Kay was behind her, the pink bow from her head band peaking around her mother’s tanned arms.

“Did you steal my saw horses?” the mother asked sternly.

I didn’t answer.

She hurried towards me and clenched her hands on my shoulders. She towered over me and yelled louder. She gripped tighter, her manicured claws piercing my naked shoulders. I kept my eyes low to ground, see only Mary Kay’s bright white shoes. Before she could ask again, I ran into my house. My parents tried to console me but all I could say was “I didn’t steal her seahorses” between cries. My father confronted my neighbor, but it was too late. They found out about about the wood, the saw horses.

“I didn’t steal! The wood was just there,” I cried on the kitchen floor.

“It wasn’t yours. You can’t just take things,” my father explained while he emptied my rusted bucket into the trash. The hammer thunked loudly against the plastic bin. He reached down and retrieved the hammer.

“No one wanted it,” I whispered and crawled to my room.

As punishment, I had to return everything I had taken from behind Mary Kay’s house. Through watery eyes I yanked the yarn from the unsuspecting planks and dragged them to her driveway one by one. I tore apart the table, the green tomatoes rolling out of the bowl and then flattening underneath my feet. I stomped savagely upon those unripe tomatoes until their bludgeoned bodies spit out their seeds. The lavender flowers wept over the side of the cheap plastic vase and I slapped them away, scattering the wilting plants on the ground. The vase cracked against the stiff bark of one of the trees before seeking shelter beneath a labyrinth of roots. I lugged out the last piece of wood, not really noticing the deep enraged scars in the dirt from my numerous trips appeared behind me. I thrust that last piece of wood into the pile and went home. I could see Mary Kay and her mother staring out the window.

Later that night while trapping fireflies in an old coffee can, I smelled something burning. The smell made me think of marshmallows. My dad often fired up the grill to make smores but the smell wasn’t coming from my yard. I ran to the old wooden fence that separated my house from the neighbors and peeked through one of the cracks. I breathed in harshly and clenched my teeth so tight that I was sure the pressure would pulverize everyone bone in my body. There in my neighbor’s driveway was my dismantled fort, my small sanctuary, immersed in flames with Mary Kay’s mother standing beside it with a large box of matches in her hand.

My mouth opened wide and I turned my face skyward. If I freed that burning scream, it would have certainly blistered my throat. All that escaped from my shriveled lips was a guttural breath. And there she was in the window, next to her perfect dollhouse. My nails raked down the wooden fence and I pounded my fists against my thighs.

Fifteen years have passed and I found out a few weeks ago that her mother has been diagnosed with cancer. Through rumors, I hear she only has a few months to live and yet Mary Kay is nowhere to be found. I know that my wish for revenge was strong that day and I know that there is no way I could wish cancer upon anyone but a part of me, the nine year old part, is still crying “I didn’t steal.” I can still see Mary Kay’s dollhouse displayed in the window.