I Saw Her Standing There

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The first time he ever saw her, she was standing on the corner by a Stop- N- Go drinking a soda from a glass  bottle. Her long dark hair was loose and she was wearing a pink and white stripped shirt.

That moment had happened so long ago but those minutes stretched out for years and there was never more then five minutes when he wasn’t there with her.

And now, years and years later, at last, they were standing together on a different corner-

” Is this really all for me?” he asked her, just as the Sun was about to fall.

She rested her chin on his shoulder and nodded. ” Every square inch. ”

” I just can’t believe it. ”

” I know, but go ahead. Try it on for size. ”

He started to step away from her and she lifted her chin up and let him go. ” I can’t believe you came all this way to give me this.” he said with a lover’s sigh.

He had slowed his car down and one of his friends had waved to her and she stepped off of the curb and smiled as she walked in front of them. The Soda bottle was only half full and her hair was so long and so dark and that minute she was in front of them  became a lifetime.

” I’ve thought about you everyday and that first time I saw you. ” he told her ” And now your here. Giving me this.” His voice caught and he turned around and reached out to her.

He thought about his wife and daughter for a second, but it was only for a second. ” What have I done to deserve this, to deserve you after all of these years.”

They were standing over his open grave, the one he would shortly be buried in and she said, ” you ran me over and left me for dead, that’s what you’ve done to deserve me now. And you’re going to deserve me for a very long time ” she promised.

They lowered his casket into the ground and at his graveside his wife and daughter cried, as they had been for several days now at their unexpected loss.

Next to his family, one of  the mourners,  the other boy from the car that day, now an old man who smoked to much and ate to much,  looked down the neatly kept cemetery path and he saw her  standing there,  a  girl  with long dark hair in the pink and white top drinking soda  from a glass bottle.

 

 

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Daily Addictions Prompt: Immense

My True Story- The Death of An Artist

 

I have always wanted to draw

I have always wanted to put lines and color together

and have them tell a story

I have always wanted to be an artist.

 

But one day

when I was 7 years old

my teacher took a look at a picture I was painting and she cried,

” What is the matter with you? Are you doing this on purpose? All you had to do was paint a tree. How hard is it

to paint a tree? I showed you how. ”

 

She pointed to the chalkboard where she had drawn a perfect tree for us to copy.

It was indeed a beautiful tree.

 

I stood there in my oversized shirt with flowers on it- my first and only artist’s ” smock ” and looked at my painting of a cat with fangs and devil’s horns. It wasn’t like the tree on the chalkboard or even close to the ones my classmates had painted and I was pretty sure it was not beautiful.

 

” It told me it wanted to be a Cat. With fangs. And horns. ” I said pointing to the obvious mistake I had created at my easel.  ” Not a tree. It did NOT want to be a tree.”

 

She pulled the brush out of my hands, grabbed my arm and marched me back to my seat and made me sit down in it.

Hard.

 

” Don’t ever do that again.”

 

And I didn’t.

 

I never painted or drew my own pictures again because they never seem to want to be anything close to what I was expected to produce. They have ideas of their own.

 

Instead I write stories with Fangs and horns and sometimes they have a cat’s face and they can be exactly who they want to be.

 

Lines and colors kept safe in words on a page.

 

amm

 

Daily Addictions Prompt: Refuge

It Was That Kind Of Day

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She timed it so that she would be seated in the boardroom first, before any of those little pissants that were about to do her in drove up the ramp into the car park of the building that she built brick by brick with her own two hands.

Well she signed the paperwork that brought it all into being but why split hairs now?

Cassandra Nevada was about to be ruled irrelevant and fired and turned away from the only job she had ever had or done well for that matter.

She could have played with her phone as she waited, she could have carved a litteny of profanity- Profanity being one of the many languages she had mastered- at her Father’s insistence and her Mother’s overbearing ‘support’ so that she could be the very best Cassandra Nevada the world had ever known.

She spun around and around in her chair and wondered what she would do with all of the time that would be dropped into her lap. Eating a lot of pizza and drinking heavily she guessed. She saw a lot of cats and in her future too.

The door opened and for a minute it would appear it had opened on it’s one because no one was in the doorway.

But then one pallid face after another gathered in the opening and they filed in- trying very hard to pretend that they were looking her square in the face. Of course they weren’t and that brought the tiniest of smiles to the corners of Cassandra’s mouth.

” Good morning Ms Nevada” Pert and sassy Kirsten Simpson chirped as she closed the door behind herself.

Ah. Kirsten Simpson it appeared was the designated Hatchetman. Of course. Send her in last. Just like a Bride walking down the aisle to meet her Groom.

This was her day apparently.

” I’ve had better, not many but you know. Better.”

They all took their seats and Kirsten jumped right into the fire.

” The direction of this company, your company has changed and it comes with no small pleasure that you as an individual have not changed with us.”

” Really?” Cassandra was honestly surprised. ” I thought you’d be over joyed with that. I mean, ” Cassandra stood up and at least 8 eight chairs slid back from the conference table and the rest of them tried for no good reason to push themselves closer to it. ” look at all you’ll have to gain.”

” Everything- every single pie I have put my fingers into, every single deal I have ever made, every man, woman and child-even the ones who aren’t born yet that will call on us and the services we offer to help them in their time of need.”

” That’s the problem Ms. Nevada. You own so much and all of it is built on old technology, dated research and to be honest your public image…”

” Careful there Sweetheart.”

” It’s a bit- intimidating for-

” Don’t.”

” A woman.”

” Christ on a horse, you really went there.”

” The point is, we need a more approachable and user friendly image and you are not able to project that.”

” You know Kirsten, that was the point. We do serious deals with serious people. ”

” That model-”

Cassandra was trying very hard to not let- to coin a phrase her Mother used- to let her devil’s horns show. Once you lost control of yourself her Father believed you were toast. And he would know. He had a long history of popping arteries.

” The model where we actually ask for signatures- written- not printed, not followed by little emojis on actual paper? That we only used clocks with faces and hands in our offices That I demand my employees are fluent in at least three languages and that yes we are actually closed down on Sundays?”

” Locking us out of our system on Sundays puts us behind, we spend all day-”

” Working. Which is what you get paid for.”

” Come on release me. Go ahead. ”

And they did.

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Cassandra found herself in those last moments in her Company with Kirsten.

” You know, my parents insisted I master Math and Latin. Did you know that?”

” I think we put that out on one of our older info promos we did back in the day.”

” They believed that Math like music is the Universal language. And Latin. So many rules,so many lessons in Latin. It was painful to have to learn a dead language. It’s not like I could trot up to the executive washroom and shoot the breeze with people in it. I am literally the only person in this entire organization that knows it.”

Kirsten looked smug. Cassandra was outdated and old school and she just proved her point- thank you very much.

” Why did they insist on it, if it was a dead language. Your parents were a bit on the theatrical side if not practical from what I understand.”

Cassandra Nevada leaned into Kirsten’s ear and whispered, ” Because, you can raise all sorts of hell with that dead language. All kinds of Hell. ”

And then Cassandra pushed her hair away from her face and she went ahead and let her horns show because it was that kind of day.

 

Daily Addictions Prompt: EXEMPLIFY 

 

The Pumpkin Patch

In the field

that I  drive by each day

is a field of pumpkins

waiting to meet their makers for Halloween.

The pumpkins are round and orange and golden and they are full of sweet smelling pulp and slick smooth seeds.

Any day now the field will be decorated with scarecrows, the farmers will set up tables and serve warm spiced apple cider and hot chocolate and I think you can get your face painted before or after you pick your pumpkin.

I think the choice is yours.

There is  so much excitement in that field, on those days when people show up to drink warm cider, get their faces painted and pick out that perfect pumpkin to carve, to shape to mold into their vision, to tell their story about Halloween.

The  pumpkins are hallow, they are empty, they are lumps of cool white marble, softy gray clay waiting to meet the artist who fill them with dreams and candles and give them a voice with a story to tell.

The pumpkins are empty, I’ve heard people say, until they are filled with our dreams of Halloween.

In the field

that I drive by each day

is a field of pumpkins

and sometimes I roll my window down

and I think I can hear the wind

I hope it’s the wind

that sounds like a chorus of screams.

Daily Addictions Prompt: CAPACIOUS