1224 Bingham Street - Ch1.1

"Mudder! Look what I has!" A tiny blonde boy raced into the dimly lit study. 

"Ah! What is it? Can't you see I'm working?" The woman looked up with a furrowed brow, generated by her broken concentration. 

"But I found someting!" he said, not yet deterred from his pursuit of her attention.

"Fine. Quickly," she said, impatiently beckoning him forward.

"A hopper!" He said, prying his tiny hands apart to reveal a bright green grasshopper. It immediately leapt from the confines of his hands and onto her mahogany desk. He quickly reached out to recapture it, upsetting a bottle of ornamental ink on her desk. Ink pooled across a pile of papers while the shadow of frustration spread across the woman's face and she gasped in anger.

"Robert! I really need you to keep Eldon out of here! He's just destroyed three months of work!" She called out, bringing an end to the life of the green hopper with a single blow from a literary magazine.

Eldon's father strode calmly into the room. "How about we take a little drive down to the park?" He asked, noticing the tears welling up in Eldon's eyes.

 "But…my hopper…" Eldon sobbed as his father shepherded him out of the office. Liz shook her head in frustration. How was she ever going to produce a best-selling book with children under her feet every minute of the day? What she really needed was some space. Time and space…

**********************************

Cheryn gathered the papers from her car and slipped her laptop case over one shoulder. The sound of her car lock alarm echoed through the underground parking at her apartment building as she made her way to the stairwell. Her ascent up the apartment stairs included repeatedly dropping a few pages, retreating several steps to pick them back up, and pressing on to the fifth floor. 

The elevator had been inoperable for the past three weeks, and she was beginning to get used to her daily climb. The building manager had offered the freight elevator as a temporary solution to those who couldn't climb the stairs, but she wasn't interested in riding the same elevator that forever seemed to smell of dirty diapers and rotting scraps of food.

 As she opened the door to the fifth floor, she nearly dropped the book, and out slid a newspaper clipping with a photograph of a young man graduating from high school as the valedictorian. Cheryn rebalanced her load and quickly scooped up the clipping before she dropped something more. 

As she stepped onto the fifth floor she nearly ran face first into Sal, an unemployed computer programmer who passed his days playing online games with his buddies. He had once explained to her how his severance pay kept him from being homeless, but she was only half listening since he had intercepted her racing into apartment for a certain urgent personal matter.

"Cheryn! Hey, I was just thinking about you! You know, I have some buddies coming over tonight to check out the latest version of Halo. They're bringin' some awesome finger food! Anyway, if you want to check it out, you're always welcome to join the fun."

"Oh, thanks for the invite Sal. I have plans already, but if they don't pan out, I'll let you know." She stepped around him and started to fiddle with her apartment keys.

“Hey, let me help you, there,” Sal said, taking the keys from her hand and opening the door for her. He gently rested them on the top of her pile of papers. “Saaay! Eldon Winters! Cool! That even looks like an original newspaper clipping. That’s one smart dude!” Sal gushed enthusiastically. 

Eldon Winters? She’d never heard of the man. She opened her mouth to interrogate Sal further, then resisted the urge to ask for more information. Google might take less time and emotional investment. At least she had a name to work with. She shut the door behind her and flipped on the light to her tiny apartment. 

The kitchen was tidy minus a blue and white striped dish towel that had slipped to the floor  in her haste to wash the syrup off of her hands from shoving a freezer waffle in her mouth as she rushed off to work that morning. The plate and underutilized fork sat next to the 5-second water torture chamber, waiting for their turn to be washed. 

The fridge whined like it was suffering from some dull, undiagnosed ailment. Perhaps it had something to do with the leaky faucet.  She tossed her keys onto the small round kitchen table and stepped into the living room. There she unloaded her laptop onto the once glamorous teal microfiber loveseat that she found six months ago in the nickel ads. Finally, she spread the papers and book on her battered and chipped coffee table. 

“Okay, Mr. Winters,” Cheryn said out loud, slipping her laptop out of its case. “Let’s see if you’re still on the radar.”

The glow of her computer filled the still dim living room, lit only by the glow of the kitchen light fixture. Just as she logged onto a search engine, her cell phone rang. She shuffled through her laptop bag for a moment and then realized that the noise was coming from her jacket pocket. She glanced at the screen to make sure it wasn't Sal and sighed with relief. It was her receptionist-turned-cosmetology-student friend Stacy. “Hey Stacy, what’s up?” Stacy bubbled on for several minutes about the hot new instructor at the school of cosmetology, and then announced the real reason for her call.

“Anyway, we had a contest today to see who could match the new instructor’s hair color the fastest, and guess who won?”

“Hmmm. John? Maggie? Philippe? Oh, no wait, I think I’ve got it! Jazmine!”

“Very funny.” Stacy pouted. Jazmine had accidentally turned Stacy’s hair bright orange the first time Stacy let anyone color her hair. She still wasn’t convinced it was an accident.

“You, of course!” Cheryn finally gave in.

“And as a reward for your correct answer, you will be permitted to accompany me to tonight’s Jazz concert, the grand prize for matching the new instructor’s hair color!” Stacy announced.

“Really? I mean, congrats on your prize and thanks for considering me as your companion.”

“Who else, silly. I only have one condition. You have to wear something snazzy.” Stacy said somberly.

“Snazzy? Have you seen my wardrobe lately?”

“Oh, not Cheryn-snazzy. I mean something Stacy-snazzy. I’ll be over in a few minutes. I’ve got just the thing.”

“Hmmm. I can’t wait.” Cheryn said unenthusiastically as she hung up the phone and resumed her Internet-search posture, leaning back in one corner of the loveseat and kicking one foot onto an empty corner of the coffee table.

She pulled up MSN white pages and searched for Eldon Winters. Up came two possibilities, one with a phone number in the same area code as Bingham Street. This was just too easy. She glanced down at the book. "It's been lovely, but I think we may have found a home for you. She inhaled deeply and dialed the number. A man's voice answered on the other end of the line.

"Mr. Winters?"

"Yes," he said, a little cautiously.

"Hi. My name is Cheryn, and…"

"Is this a telemarketer?" he asked suspiciously.

"No," she replied with a nervous laugh.  "I found something that may be important to you. What I mean is, do you know someone named Robert, someone who died many years ago?"

"Yes, Robert was...my father." He said, still cautious about this strange call.

"Well, in that case, I think I may have some writings from your mother."

"Writings from my mother? Is this a joke or some hairbrained scam?"

"Yes, I mean no. This is not a scam. I think these writings may have been thrown away unintentionally. I couldn't find a name, but... I recovered them and wanted to return them to you."

"Writings from my mother, you say?" He asked.

"Yes! And I think they are quite…"

"Unusual? Unique? Quite good?" He interrupted. "Well, I suppose a great many people would agree with you, considering that she spent almost every waking moment of her life writing. How unusual, then? Well, not so very. So how much are you after? What "hidden manuscript" have you unveiled this week? I've had enough of these unpublished manuscript scams, and what better timing than after her burial, right? Well, wouldn't you agree, then?"

"I'm sorry sir, I wasn’t aware…This isn't a manuscript. It’s a journal or, perhaps a…" Cheryn started to say, but was again interrupted.

"Let me tell you this. I read every scrap of garbage that my mother wrote because I was the one who helped her publish it. She refused to type, so I had to read her scrawled out mess and translate it into something legible, so don't try to sell me on some missing manuscript garbage, or now with this new idea of a 'journal.' Really, have some respect for the dead by not putting words into her silenced mouth." She could hear him muffle the phone and speak to someone in the background.

Sharon inhaled deeply. "I assure you, sir, that I am not engaging in any sort of scam. I am merely trying to return something that flew out of the garbage to its rightful owner. It seemed to contain such personal details about her life." 

"Well, if you stop by your local big-box bookstore, you may find that her life wasn't so personal after all. In fact, most of it was recorded in her ridiculous books. Why would anyone need more than what she told them since she certainly never practiced any reservations in the past. You go read her books and then tell me if you really found anything new and 'undiscovered.' If you have, then I assure you it would be of little interest to me. Her writing was her whole life. Let her fans consume these "New and undiscovered" writings like they consumed every minute of her day." Sarcasm dripped from his angry words that were thrown at the phone with such force that she could almost feel the phone vibrate with his rage. "You keep what you found. I'm sure you'll get something off at the auction block for them for your time. Good day."

Sharon sat looking at the phone. Maybe he was right. Maybe it really was all written in books, but what books? Who was this mysterious author? She couldn't quite place any author with the last name Winters. He'd mentioned her burial. Perhaps she could find something online in the obituaries. She reached for her computer to search the local paper online, but just then she heard a knock at the door. “Open up, Police!” said the voice on the other side.

“Oh, hold on a sec. I need to stash my bank loot.” She called back as she stood to answer the door. There stood Stacy with a sequin shirt. “No, take me to jail, but PLEASE don’t make me wear that!”

“Stacy-snazzy! You agreed!” Stacy countered, pushing the bejeweled blouse toward Cheryn.

“I’d better not see anyone I know.” She said, taking the blouse and wandering into her bedroom to change.

Stacy pounced onto the couch and picked up Cheryn’s laptop. “Are you randomly picking up dates on the Internet again?” She shouted to Cheryn. “Mr. Eldon Winters. Now why does that sound familiar?”

“This book landed on my car today and Eldon was one of the names in that book..." 

"ON your car? A book fell ON your car? Like from heaven?" Stacy called back.

"Nooo, from a garbage truck. Anyway, quite the irate fellow, that Eldon. He thought I was making it up. He said his mom was a writer, but I don’t know any writers with the name Winters, do you?” She called back, opening the door to her bedroom and then jumping back because Stacy was staring back at her with saucer-like eyes.

“Wait, did you say Winters? As in Liz Winters?” Stacy stammered in amazement, forgetting how much Cheryn appreciated her personal space.

“Liz who?” Cheryn asked quizzically.

“Better known as Ella Chamberlain? Best-selling author of anything containing her name alone? Right up there with Grisham, McCullough, King, Crichton, Rowling?” Stacy prattled on.

“Oh my… Ella? Ella Chamberlain? Did she? She just died, right?”

Stacy sat on the arm of the loveseat and snatched up Cheryn’s laptop, tapping in her name. “‘Ms. Ella Chamberlain passed away Tuesday evening from heart failure…’ or this one, ‘Family of Chamberlain refuse to disclose burial location for privacy reasons.’ Or how about, ‘Famed author leaves behind three children.’”

“That last one, is one of the children named Eldon?” Cheryn asked.

“Aye lassie. ‘Family representative Eldon Winters pleads, No flowers.’ “

Cheryn shook her head in amazement. “All of those books, and all about successful business women. Maybe he's right. Maybe it's all in her books after all.”

Stacy cocked her head and closed one eye. “What are you talking about?”

“The book…” Cheryn rushed over to the coffee table. “The book, the journal… of Ella, er Liz. At least I am pretty sure that’s what it is.”

Stacy reached out and picked up a loose page or two. “How did you find this again? This could be worth millions. You’ve got to get it to the family members! What an amazing find with her dead and all. This is invaluable!”

“I told you, it landed on my car today, off of a garbage truck. Only… only her son didn’t want it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. He practically said that it should have stayed where I found it. I just don’t get it. He said that everything in here is probably already in her books anyway, so why would he want this?”

“That’s odd. When my grandma died, everyone wanted something to remember her by. My uncles fought over her daily notebooks like they were gold, even though they already knew what was in them.”

“That’s what’s so strange. I just can’t figure out why someone would be so acidic toward someone who just died unless…”

“Unless what?” Stacy queried.

“I don’t know. It’s probably unfair to speculate. Wait, what time is it? We’d better go unless we want to miss out on the concert. We can take a look at this book later. What I need to figure out is if there’s anything new or different in this book than is recorded in her novels. Her son said that he wasn’t interested because he thought he’d already read it through her novels.”

“I’ve read all of her books, so that shouldn’t be a problem.” Stacy said as they headed out for the concert. As they opened the door into the hallway, a pizza delivery guy knocked on Sal’s door.

“Hey Cheryn! Lookin’ good!” he called out as they walked past in all of their glimmering glory.

“Yeah, thanks.” Cheryn said, untouched by the compliment. As the door to the stairwell closed, she mumbled to Stacy, “Thanks a LOT. I’ll heretofore be known as "The Dancing Queen.”

                                              *****************************************

1224 Bingham Street - Ch1

Gray clouds threatened to beat down upon the handful of family members gathered around the unembellished grave. The smell of rain filled the air, but held its distance from the somber crowd. They had arrived only moments prior to the graveside service, too busy with their daily lives to pause for a fistful of flowers to brighten the dark mound of dirt. Eldon's wife Nancy had gently pointed out a flower shack as they passed through town toward the cemetery. Her gesture was shrugged off with a curt mumble about being late and wasting good money on fancy lawn fertilizer. 


Oddly, the fragments of family present at the service had requested a viewing at the graveside in lieu of a formal funerary event. Indeed, the opening of the casket had very little to do with a need for closure, although nobody cared to ask for an explanation. I suppose you could say that the real reason rested somewhere between confirmation that the woman was really dead, and the satisfaction of knowing that she hadn't hidden any of her fortune inside of the coffin.


Eldon stood in his tailored suit, cut at his request a bit smaller than was recommended for his generous size. His waif of a wife wore a dainty draping dress that clung to her tiny form like a sheet on a coat tree. She refrained from gawking at the pallor figure resting in the black satin-lined coffin, while Eldon and his comrades leaned in suspiciously, studying the embalmed figure.


The interment consisted of a severe rationing of words garnished with an unseemly number of snickers and side comments. After the last words were uttered, the would-be mourners did not budge, but looked around expectantly. After an uncomfortably long pause, Eldon spoke. "Where are the shovels, then?"


The undertaker blinked in amazement, uncertain if he'd heard Eldon correctly. "Beg your pardon sir?"


"The shovels then, I say. Shall we have this finished?" Eldon repeated, a bit impatiently.


The timid man paused, and then nodded in understanding. "Well, sir, 'tis a backhoe that we use these days."


"Where is it, then?" Eldon said, quite immune to his own repetition of the word, 'then.' He'd heard the word used by an admired associate and fancied himself quite the intellect for having adopted the practice into his own daily conversation. He was blind to the fact that it had quite the opposite effect on his listeners


"'Tis yonder, sir, waiting out of respect for those grieving to depart before..."


"I assure you that the only grief felt at this moment is due to a lack of shovels. Still, I suppose a backhoe will suffice. Well, then?" He asked, leaning toward the undertaker expectantly. Muffled snickers were offered by his fellow relations.


The undertaker attempted to mask the surprise in his eyes, and then turned to place an arm high in the air. He waved the backhoe forward. It crept out from behind a cluster of trees, lurching and jerking as the tracks ground against the gravel road in an unholy fashion. It halted several yards away, filling the air with the hum of its engine and the scent of burning fuel.

"Please step to the other side of the road." The undertaker shouted rather elegantly over the sound of the backhoe engine, attempting to mask the disdain in his voice.


The family obediently shuffled across the road, giving sufficient distance for safe admittance to the metal contraption. If art could be had in maneuvering a backhoe, this operator had mastered it. Despite the spastic lurching of the machine, he gracefully replaced the dirt and patted it carefully into place before obediently limping off behind the clump of trees once again.

Without another word or a glance backward, the family melted away into their respective vehicles and vanished from sight. The undertaker stood, staring off into the distance at the cemetery gate.

"Now what was that all about?" The backhoe driver stood with his hands in the back pockets of his overalls. 

"Never in 45 years have I encountered a family so eager to toss a body in the grave. Some you suspect would, but they have the decency to feign affection and grief of some sort. Jack, I confess, I could not have been more surprised had they brought along a fiddler so they could dance a jig on the grave!" 

                                                     *********************************


Chance fills the gap where conscious decision and destiny fail to meet. It is the crevice in which a single coin falls to determine the fate of a wishful heart, or the tiny slip of paper containing an a scrap of information that will lead astray the driven soul. It is the cast off, unforeseen element that begins a chain of events in which the parties involved unknowingly leap down the veritable rabbit-hole or swallow some catalyst for life-long change. 


Such was the case with Cheryn Hammond, a woman of simplicity in every possible way. She was the type of individual that never catches the eye. She was not too thin, nor too heavy. She was not beautiful, nor did she have anything about her that would cause one to pay attention to her for lack of beauty. She did not fancy herself fashionable, nor did she consider her style particularly frumpy. She was never a cheerleader, an all-star, a champion, or an MVP, but she had always remained active and successful in her own small way. Above all else, she had considered herself an observer of humanity, watchful without being nosy, curious without prying,  and hopeful without being overly optimistic.


She wore glasses because she could not afford contacts, and usually wore her hair in a simple stacked A-line cut because it required little maintenance on her part if she had it cut each month. Her friend Stacy had tossed her receptionist career to the curb eight months ago in pursuit of becoming an aesthetician, making Cheryn's monthly haircut financially feasible.


Cheryn refused to wear perfume, mainly because her mother reacted so badly to fragrance. She could not justify sending others into anaphylactic shock in order to safe face by masking some unseemly body odor. The only scent that she occasionally carried with her was the faint and temporary smell of vanillaroma car freshener from her seven-year old Honda Accord. 


When Cheryn left work that day, she certainly did not expect anything unusual to happen to her. She had become quite accustomed to the fact that anyone with the name Sharon was destined for monotony and normalcy. She found little comfort in the blatant misspelling of the name. Her entire elementary and secondary education was spent trying to explain why her name SOUNDED like Sharon, and yet was spelled completely different. Her parents' creative attempt to give her a competitive edge with this unique orthography had failed miserably. 


While Cheryn sat waiting in the left turn lane at Bingham Street and 45th, she noticed a large green garbage truck driving up Bingham Street from the opposite direction. Just as the left turn signal turned green, the garbage truck swung in front of her onto 45th. Being of the ordinary type, she sighed with resignation and followed the grinding, smelly truck down the road toward the freeway. 


"Ugh. Really?" She said out loud as a flurry of loose paper scattered into the air from the open top of the truck. She turned on her windshield wipers to keep the pages from sticking to her window, but somehow they slipped under the wiper blades, blocking her vision. She heard a loud clunk and pulled to the side of the road to remedy her sightless condition. The driver behind her generously offered the sustained fermata of his horn as he dramatically swerved into the middle of the road to avoid her. 


She ripped the papers off of her windshield in frustration, and inspected the hood of her car to identify the source of the loud clunk. As she looked under the front wheel of her car, she noticed a large, old book. She wasn't sure how it had escaped the garbage truck given its weight. As she reached out to remove the book, she noticed that some of the pages that she had crumpled in her hand were torn from it. They were hand-written in a shaky scrawl. 


She straightened the page in her hand and began to read the first few lines:


Tonight I walked alone to Robert's grave. The moon was bright, so it was easy to find the way in the darkness. It's so hard to think that he is gone, and with him my one connection to the children. I know I will never see them again. 


Another driver blasted a car horn in Cheryn's direction, but she didn't notice who it was. She was contemplating this old journal that had somehow fallen into her world. Something  in those four brief sentences had stirred something in her heart. 


She glanced around at the sheets of paper. Some were scattered in the street and danced wildly each time a car drove by. Others were clinging to the chain-link fence on her left, and a few were lying in the gutter beneath her car. 

She picked up the book and set it gently on the floor of her car along with the torn pages in her hand, and then proceeded to collect the scattered pages. Some had old newspaper clippings or theater ticket stubs attached with brittle yellow tape. Others had drawings or lists scrawled on them. Some bits of paper were just scraps of garbage that had flown out along with the book, and these she left behind. 


Time seemed to fly as she carefully followed the trail of the garbage truck on foot, sorting through bits of paper for book pages until the paper trail ran dry. She wasn't sure if she had them all, but at least she had those that had been left behind by the truck. Content, she looked at her armful of paper, and turned to see her car sitting almost a mile back. A police officer was slipping a ticket beneath her wiper blade. 


"Wait!" She called out, but to no avail. The officer had just climbed into her car and was pulling away. Cheryn shook her head in frustration, wondering if her sudden urge to become a garbage collector was worth the $45.00 parking ticket. 


                                           ***********************************

H'Turt

[Note for clarity, since this is taken mid-chapter: "She" discovers the corpse buried below a thick covering of leaves, thus accounting for the green staining of the bones. Also, the tree canopy is almost suffocatingly dense overhead trapping in the heavy air and limiting access to sunlight]

She stared for a long time at the face of the ragged skeleton in the dim light of the forest. At last she glanced down at the hands clasped over the chest. Through the pale green fingers, she saw a glint of something gold. It appeared to be an amulet of sorts, made of interlaced gold surrounding a dim jewel. She gently lifted the wrist bone of the hand, and the amulet slid from the silent fingers into her own hand.

Time and age made it difficult to tell just what it was, but the small jewel that was clasped in the hand of the figure seemed strangely familiar. She had seen it before. She studied it, and turned it in her hand.

On the back was an inscription she could not quite make out. She brushed at the stone to read the strange letters. The thick canopy of trees overhead creaked loudly, as if they were doors that had not been opened for many years. She looked upward to see what was causing the noise. Suddenly, with a loud groan the trees moved aside, and a flood of sunlight poured into the dim forest with such force that she thought she heard the trees gasp, as if they were taking their first breath after many, many years.

In the beam of light she heard a voice, so peaceful, so soft. It was a woman’s voice, and although she did not recognize the language, in her mind she understood. She looked at the amulet again. She’d never seen the letters before, but she heard the words in her head and spoke them aloud.

The Gem in the center of the amulet glowed a brilliant amber, and then came alive with fire, burning from the inside and growing so bright that she could no longer look at it. Startled, she stood and dropped it. She was not sure what happened next. Whether the Jewel dropped on or near the body lying on the ground, she could not tell, it glowed so brightly.

She reached down to take it up again, shielding her eyes from the bright light. Her hand brushed up against the body, and in astonishment she cried out and jumped back. She had not brushed against the cool bones of a skeleton, but rather against a warm body. In the light of the amulet, she could see skin starting to grow on the skeleton. Dark hair covered the head. The shreds of cloth re-wove itself around the frame. The face took shape and the empty holes grew into a nose, eyes, and lips. The arms grew full with muscle under the skin, and the ribs were no longer visible...
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The Diggie-Dum Bird

Deep in the forest, there once could be heard, the beautiful song of a Diggie-Dum bird.

His song rose above all the other birds’ notes, compared to the Diggie, the rest sung like goats!

Fairies and animals gathered around to dance to the song that was sweetest in sound.

One day said the Diggie-Dum bird, “That’s enough!” and he sat for a week with his feathers a-fluff.

A tiny young fairy climbed up on his wing, and said, “Dearest Diggie-Dum, why won’t you sing?”

“My song is the BEST, so I hear them all say. I’ll not sing again ‘til the King comes my way!”

The Diggie stopped singing, for none but the King. For all of the fairies, t’was quite a sad thing.

The rest of the birds in the forest felt bad. They didn’t like seeing the fairies so sad!

They gathered together and made up plan. “We’re not the Diggie, but we’ll do what we can!”

The birds of the forest sang out day and night, to help them get through the Diggie-Dum plight.

Soon the fairies and animals danced all around, but the Diggie-Dum STILL would not make a sound!

The birds in the forest sang out with delight! They practiced and practiced with all of their might.

The songs of the forest were played all day long – ‘til ...

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Action Gram

There are moments in life that seem too rare to be true, like walking through the woods with cottonwood dancing through the sky like tiny fairies, or when the temperature is just right and snowflakes really do look like the paper ones you cut out in school.  There are moments when something almost magical happens and you wonder if your eyes really saw what they did.  It was like that one evening when I was leaving the police station after waiting all day for some headline news to come in for tomorrow’s newscast.  Maxwell Wright had covered the headline stories for the past two weeks and I was determined to find some morsel of news that would break his reign as “King of the Hill” at the news station. 

I brought my laptop with me to work on a backup story while I kept my ears peeled for something spectacular.  At 1:00 am I was still without that spectacular something, and mournfully left the station with only my backup story.  I walked down the stairs onto the sidewalk and was about to cross the street to my car when I was swept off of my feet and my laptop flew into the air.  It wasn’t there long because the culprit of my fall swept it under his arm and flew down the street.  I had scarcely started to cry for help when what appeared to be an elderly lady swung her cane at the man’s head so fast that it swept him off of his feet and knocked him out cold.  She caught the laptop and gently laid it down.  I jumped up and glanced around to see if anyone had seen what I did, and when I looked back the woman was gone.  As I walked toward the man laying on the sidewalk, Officer Fredericks opened the door to the police station. 

“Did you see that?”  I asked like an awe-struck child.

“I heard some racket out here.”  He followed my glance to the laptop thief.  “Did you do this, Maggie?”  I walked over and picked up my laptop bag, then looked down the street.  “Maggie?”

“Did you see . . .”  I hesitated, “an old lady?”  

Officer Fredericks walked over to the man lying on the ground.  “Maggie, this is no old lady.  This is Justice, pickpocket extraordinaire.”  Just then Justice groaned and placed one hand on his swollen red forehead. 

“This man tried to swipe my laptop, but this old woman . . .”  Fredericks slapped handcuffs on the exposed wrist, rolled Justice over and cuffed his other wrist.  Officer Martinez appeared at the door.

“Well Fredericks, what do you have there?  Why if it isn’t Justice?  How nice of you to visit!”  Officer Martinez walked over and helped Justice to his feet and together they walked back into the station.  “Maybe this will count for the news you’ve been waiting for all day, Maggie!”  Martinez called out over his shoulder.

I stood there, looking bewildered down the dark street as if I would see some old woman appear in a Ninja outfit.  A moment later, Fredericks poked his head out the police station door.  “We need you to answer a few questions before you go, Mags.”  I slowly turned and walked back inside, still dazed.  Officer Fredericks was sifting through the first aid kit for an icepack while Justice sat in a chair, dramatically groaning because of rather sizable goose egg on his head. 

I sat down and wrote down a brief description of what happened just moments before.  Chief O’Neal sat at the desk across from me and leaned back.  “You okay, Maggie?”  He asked with sincere concern.  

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Lexanter and Melan

[Piraxella is a name I made up. I borrowed from the Spanish "ch" pronunciation of the letter 'X' while also creating a name that sounded Italian. I have not yet settled on the spelling - Pyraxella, Pirexella, Pyrachella, and a few additional variations are some possibilities. I did search online for possible matches of this newly created name to ensure its origination and found none, as a signature of my original work. Any use of this name from this point forward may be traced back to this first instance of its posting online. I checked again just prior to posting this entry and no occurrence of this name appears online prior to this entry - June 25, 2010]


Her earrings appeared to be made of silver, but they glistened with an unusual radiance in the sun. Some women wore a variety of different baubles on their lobes, but she only ever wore the same silver keys. It was as if they were as permanent as the hair on her head, and so often were they attached to her ears, that one began to think nothing of them, as if they were a permanent fixture. She seemed to always smile, but not a friendly or a cheerful smile. Rather it was a knowing smile, as if a secret were about to escape those ruby lips. She kept them slightly parted when she smiled so that her teeth peeked out like partially hidden pearls behind red curtains. That secret could have slipped away at any moment, but somehow it had come to love her, and so it willingly remained captive behind an open prison door...

...So it was that when the chest was finally found, that nobody could open it. Every attempt to open the chest failed, and while the immense pile of keys in which it was hidden seemed somehow attached to gaining entry to its contents, no keyhole could be found anywhere upon its six surfaces. Each corner was covered with  an impenetrable three petaled plate of steel, and each surface was carefully plated with decorative metal, neither brittle, nor flexible to the visible eye. The contents were thought to be so valuable that no one dared force the chest open, lest some harm should come to the entrails of this impervious and enigmatic portmanteau.

At last it was determined that the case would be placed on display, if for no other reason than to invite the attention of the scientific world to determine an entry point. Beside the box was displayed a portion of the keys that were its companions for many a decade. The security surrounding the case was impeccable,  and nobody expected or could have possibly imagined what would happen next. There in the viewing room stood a large crowd of science students, so taken with the keys that the group surrounded the case to block from the view of the camera a straight shot of the chest, and when they left a security guard noted on the screen a strange protrusion coming from the right side of the chest. Upon closer inspection it was discovered that the protrusion was a door left slightly ajar on the side of the chest, and the contents of the chest were missing.

It was as if the thief who managed to open the chest wanted to make sure that there was no question about how clever he or she was, and without doubt, this was the message inaudibly delivered to the security team, who seemed hypnotized by sheer astonishment. Each and every student was carefully inspected to determine which of them could have been the culprit, but only one clue remained at he scene: a tiny key-shaped earring, still inserted into the imperceptibly small keyhole at the joint of the triple-petaled metal plate on the corner of the chest.

Lexanter stood staring at the tiny key for some time before Melan asked if he would like to have it examined for a partial print along with the chest. Lexanter laughed so subtly that it was barely imperceptible to a bystander, rather it came out as a quick burst of air from his chest. "Hardly so. That would just be a waste of time. This is not a clue, my friend. This is a signature; the signature of an artist."

Melan looked perplexed, but stood staring at the tiny key for a moment. "Well then, shall I make an appointment with the artist?" he asked.

"Indeed you shall," Lexanter said softly without moving a muscle, "Indeed you shall." And without another word, Melan and Lexanter turned and strode silently out of the hall.

Early the next morning Melan and Lexanter stood in the brisk morning air on the stone landing facing an elegant hickory door. The handle was so simply elaborate that at a glance one nearly forgot that it was a bronze sculpture in the shape of a tree branch. Lexanter lifted his eyes to the globe camera, carefully hidden behind a strip of stained glass above the door. Melan followed his eyes, and neither lifted an arm to announce their greeting. Within moments the door swept open in the most dramatic fashion and the brisk morning air was suddenly infiltrated with a warm wave, lightly tipped in rose water. Piraxella stood in the doorway as a most gracious hostess  in an evening gown of trembling grey sueded silk. Her walnut locks fell in long ringlets down the sides of her face, intentionally shielding her ears.

"You are most appropriately garmented for the early hours of the morning, Pirexella. One might think you've been expecting us." Melan wittily wafted.

"Do come in, gentlemen. Breakfast is waiting!" She said with her knowing smile. Lexanter and Melan exchanged glances and obediently followed Piraxella into a bright sun room filled with so many botanicals that it felt more like a jungle than a home.

The table was laid with delicate fruit tarts and a basketof unfamiliar fruits. An egg cup stood valiantly beside each place setting, emitting a soft yarn of steam.  "I do struggle so with the most challenging decisions," she flippantly declared.

Lexanter played along as he pulled her chair out for her, "And what decisions might those be."

"Well yolks, of course! Poached seems so brutal, somehow, as if dissecting and then destroying. Boiling seems so much kinder, because you leave the armor right where it should be until the dirty deed is done. But I do love a baked egg. It reminds me of bathing in the sun until my skin is warm and buttery golden."

"Ah, YOKES. Have yokes been on your mind of late?" Melan questioned, fiddling with a pair of handcuffs at his side.

Piraxella seemed indignant at his comment for a brief moment, and immediately shifted back into her hostess role. "Lychees! I picked them up overseas." She said, gesturing toward the basket of oddly shaped fruit. "And I do hope you enjoy the tarts. I spent so much time on the custard."

"Really, Piraxella, you do live an extraordinary life," Lexander mused. "Such privilege and yet such drive to do it all! When will you ever entertain the idea of hiring a cook or housekeeper?"

"The human spirit is much too free to waste on serving the base needs of another human.  I despise servitude, even if it is masked as employment," Piraxella countered. "There are so many things we are capable of doing ourselves, and yet we use wealth or privilege to excuse ourselves from the normal functions of life, as if our wealth or position has put us above our personal responsibilities. Of course this does not in any way degrade the virtue of true service, when offered with a willing heart."

"Bravo! I applaud your insatiable pursuit of human justice. And where does such an honorable virtue fit among the crowd of less than virtuous…" Melan started to draw the irony of her obvious lack of certain virtues, but was quickly interrupted by Lexanter.

"What Melan means, my dear Piraxella, is that we are simply ASTOUNDED by your diverse treasure trove of skills and attributes,  how is it that you manage to remain so wildly independent whilst conquering the world?"

"We are all a shard of greatness in our own right. It is only fair to make one's abilities stretch as far as one may. And yet here we are, with these yolks growing cold. With that she held gently stabilized the egg between her thumb and finger, and with one swipe of her knife, capped the top of the egg. "Cheers!" she said as she elegantly dipped into her egg with a tiny silver spoon.

Lexanter followed suit, and Melan, unaccustomed to this culinary delicacy, sent a splatter of yellow yolk against the basket of lychees. In an attempt to chase the scattered yolk down with a linen towel, Melan tipped the salt cellar, sending a shower of white flakes to the floor. Piraxella tossed her head back in laughter as Melan blushed with embarrassment, but Lexanter scarcely noticed. His eye was fixed upon the briefly unveiled earlobe of his criminal specimen, and for the first time in fifteen years, he noticed a single lobe with no earring, but more than that, a lobe with a brutal tear through the bottom of the lobe.

"I must tell you, Piraxella," Lexanter said without missing a beat, "I have had fruit tarts the world over, but never have they contained a custard that could truly do justice to the race of tarts." Lexanter said with a grin, for the first time noticing the well hidden pain behind those fox-like eyes. Piraxella opened her mouth as if to say something, but nothing cam out; then her lips relaxed into a genuine smile.

An hour later Lexanter and Melan crossed her threshold and stepped back into the street.

"Excellent distraction, Melan," Lexanter murmured quietly as they strode off together.

"The question is, did you see what you needed to see?" Melan asked eagerly.

"Most efficient efforts come away with rewards, and this excellent performance certainly did likewise. The key was apparently removed by force."

"Hmmm. Should that be considered façade or fact?" Melan questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"That, my friend, should merely be considered Piraxella." Then Lexanter and Melan shared a knowing laugh. 

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The First Hundred Words

Writers write. There is an unstoppable flood of words and lyrics, rhyme and reason that pours out of them in some way. They may write in the form of letters, e-mail, journals, blogs, articles, or a variety of other outlets. A writer is like a fish out of water without some instrument with which to capture the siren's call. Writers write, good or bad, but seldom do writers complete that monumental achievement of completing "The Book." Many of the best writers in history were informed that they were not good writers, and like great vocalists, some writers have a magical world in which they captivate their audiences, a portal to their unique way of using the ordinary bricks and mortar of writing and building something magnificent. Writers write because they love to write, and whether a publisher stands ready to shower the world with your words or not, there is something to be said for achieving a completed product.

This started at age nine for me when I received my first journal, I suppose, or perhaps at age three when I wrote in crayons on the back of the door, "The Agly Daklin." I loved to write, and I didn't care what anyone else thought about what I wrote. Nearly twenty years went by as I started book after book after book. It was more thrilling for me to write a book, more thrilling to create than to read. One day I found an solution, a means by which to push myself to the next level. It was a challenge. The hundred word challenge. I had a colleague at work with whom I was reasonably competitive, and while we had very differing opinions and views, I realized that the competitive nature of our association made me want to work harder and drive myself to keep up, to keep ahead. I approached this friend with the chalenge: The hundred word challenge, and suddenly, the race started. We raced off on our individual paths, working independently and whole heartedly. Certainly, it was a race of the best kind: a race to complete the first three chapters of a book.

The math made it rather easy, really. A book contains anywhere between 75,000 and 120,000 words. In order to have a literary agent examine your work, you must have completed at least the first three chapters of a book. Three chapters consisted of approximately 5000 words each, so just to be considered, to be taken seriously, you had to have at least 15,000 words before approaching a literary agent. I challenged my colleague to three completed chapters by the end of the year. It was the end of June. Immediately we threw out December because that would be swamped with holiday festivities. We broke that down to 3000 words per month, and finally, with the realization that with an average of thirty days per month, this simply meant a measly hundred words per day.

Next we examined an average e-mail. I pulled up one that my colleague recently drafted, and ran a word count on it. 529 words. That was almost a week's worth of writing! It was thrilling to realize that this was almost laughably do-able. 100 words per day, and individually, we could be prepared before the end of the year to submit a partially completed literary work to an agent.

The first day I received a response from my colleague, describing the sheer... Want to read more of this book? Vote below to see this come to life...

#454 - Ch1 P2

The voice was her husband's, and the emergency? Meg, a tiny, wispy figure of two years who stared up out of a camoflage of brown from the tip of her fairy-like toes to the tufts of her cornsilk hair. The source was apparent. As she stepped closer, she smelled the sweet fragrant scent of Nutella.

"I don't know how she does it. I was just making her another slice of toast, and when I turned around..." Her father shook his head.

"What are we going to do with this chocolate covered honey-bear?" She asked, giving a stern, smile-suppressed glance to her husband.

"Don't worry, I already caught a few photos for you," He said. "Incriminating evidence for the dating years."

"Excellent work, detective. It seems there is only one thing left to do then, and it looks like I'll have to be the one to do it." With that she swept up the tiny figure and tossed her in the tub, giggling, clothes and all, and started washing the chocolate down the drain. As she did so, she was overtaken with the memory of a green grassy bank, and tiny feet tickled by the dancing waters below.

"Is everything okay in here? You've been just sitting like that for a while." Her husband asked, concerned. She'd been unaware that she had been kneeling at the side of the tub for several minutes without moving. A squirming Meg was still being held by her arms, ready to get out and on with her toddlering day. The sound of the last bit of water water slurping down the drain caught her attention. She was so lost in her own thoughts that she had lost track of time.

She didn't say much, but handed Meg to her husband and wrung out her tiny clothes in the tub before rising to her feet. Something was happening to her, and she wasn't sure just what it was.

#454 - Ch1 P1

"There was a reason." The phrase echoed through her mind as the water wove its rivulets down the strands of her hair. Some of them stuck to her neck and face, redirecting the warm water down her freshly washed skin. The humid air mingled with the scent of citrus swept into her down-turned nose as she stared at her red-nailed feet, hoping they would somehow remind her of what this all meant. Suddenly at age thirty she felt as if she had left something behind, but she couldn't be sure what it might be. She stood that way for some time, veiled in her cobweb of wet hair, staring at her reddening feet against their porcelain canvas.

Her mind suddenly flashed with a memory that had been long packed away in a corrugated box in the archives of her mind. There she saw the farm house, white and rickety with a screened in porch. She saw herself moving across the lawn, if it could be called that. It consisted of inconsistent tufts of stunted weed-like grass. As she drew closer to the house she saw a tiny face peering through the screen at her, but when she glanced up to catch its gaze, the face vanished from view. She took a step closer, and...

"We have a tiny emergency out here." A voice shattered her thoughts.

Have You Ever?

• made up a new word because you didn't quite find the right one?
• tried using a word in a completely different way just to see if it was possible?
• taken more than a year to finish a poem or story?
• slept with pen and paper next to your bed to capture that comet of an idea that streaks through your head just as you fall asleep?
• felt uneasy if you went somewhere without a pen and paper in close proximity?
• craved writing more than food?
• felt like you found an old friend by reading an old story or journal entry written by you?
• read something you wrote years ago and doted in gleeful approval over your own work?
• felt the literary muse beckon you at inopportune moments with the sweet dew of pure inspiration?
• grieved because you lost something you wrote down, or perhaps over something you failed to write down?

Well, then! You must be a writer! Welcome to my Writerz Bloque, the place where I meta-write - - er, write about writing! Want to read more? Check out my Writerz Blogue!