Tag: short story

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What She Needed

His hands always drove her crazy. The way his palms slid smoothly across the inside of her arches sent shockwaves through her brain, every single time. The oils he massaged into the soles of her feet lulled her into a state not unlike sleep, where everything was balloons and cotton candy, a veritable smorgasbord of heavenly proportions. His ministrations tricked her mind into thinking only the two of them existed in the whole wide world, that none came before and none would come after. It was just them, in the moment, forever. Or at least until the half hour was up and she paid him the $50 bucks she owed.

Valerie almost never went into the mall by herself, preferring to do most of her shopping online, like most people her age. It took about two seconds for her to buy a few entire outfits, while still in her underwear, and all she had to do was use her credit card like it was going out of style. That turned out to be her problem, though, when every month the credit card bills would fall into her mailbox and put her into a mood. And of course when she was in a mood over money the only thing that could soothe her was another visit to Nails & More in the mall. It was the only reason she ever went.

Then there was Thad too, the man she was sort of seeing. He reminded Valerie of a hitchhiker who was always thumbing a ride to somewhere new because being stagnant was not in his vocabulary. It always surprised her that she could even call him her boyfriend, but he had allowed it just a few weeks before, and she even changed her Facebook status to mirror the sentiment. But she hardly ever actually saw him — he was always on the road with his band — which made it difficult to rely on Thad for support, moral or otherwise. And she needed him desperately right then.

It had hit her like a sack of potatoes when her boss called Valerie into the office to deliver the news, a surreal experience if there ever was one. Twenty minutes later she found herself wandering the small mall like one of those zombies she liked to watch so much on TV, aimless until she found the one place that felt to her like home. Continue reading “What She Needed”

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How to Trap a Leprechaun, Part 3

youve been leprechaundYeah, I totally made it to the Olympics, against all odds, but that was just the beginning. I kept reminding myself of what needed to happen as a part of my complicated plan to trap the leprechaun.

  1. Get to the Olympics. Check.
  2. Win the Olympics. In progress.
  3. Wave the gold medal around like some kind of lunatic.
  4. Locate the leprechaun attracted to the gold.
  5. Utilize LeRoy’s trap, whatever it happened to be.
  6. Get my 3 wishes.

Of course my mom had to make some kind of big fuss about all the time I spent in the gym working on my rhythmic gymnastics routine, but she went with me to all the competitions anyway. It didn’t help that she argued with all of the coaches and booed the other people going for the Olympic spots, but I pretty much blocked her out and kept the peddle to the metal. I had to get a special break from school for all the competitions, so I didn’t really get to check up on how LeRoy was working out, but otherwise things were going to plan.

And when all was said and done, I was invited to be the first male to compete in the discipline. I didn’t care about any of that, but my mom was pretty impressed by it all. The entire journey, though, was relatively easy, and it made me just a little worried that something big would happen to ruin my dreams of those 3 wishes. I did get a good sign, though, the day before we arrived at the Olympics. It rained all night. Continue reading “How to Trap a Leprechaun, Part 3”

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How to Trap a Leprechaun, Part 2

leprechaunThat’s where the plan fell apart because my dentist refused to promise me a gold tooth. Apparently you only get gold when you’re a gangster or something. No wonder not too many people claim to have actually caught a leprechaun in this day and age. If only more gangsters believed in the magic of the little green folk. Of course that still wouldn’t help me get my hands on one, and there is no way I could pass for a gangster, so that plan was out.

Anyone have a key to Fort Knox? Seriously, though, I knew I needed a different plan and one dropped right into my lap the next day when I saw that the Olympics was on TV. A strangely anorexic young lady was standing on a podium with a medallion around her neck, and I’d be a monkey’s uncle if it wasn’t gold! It took me about an hour to figure out what she did to get that gold medallion, but I finally found out. Thus began my rhythmic gymnastics training.

Luckily for me, you don’t have to be in shape to do it. I figured while I was learning how to throw those ribbons and giant balls the leprechaun would be busy finding other gold or sleeping. They must be awful sleepy sometimes with all the running around they do either rushing to hoard gold or trying to escape greedy kids wanting to capture them for wishes. So while my leprechaun friend was probably fast asleep I was in the gym throwing and catching a basketball and an old scarf. I could almost feel the gold in my grubby hands. Continue reading “How to Trap a Leprechaun, Part 2”

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How to Trap a Leprechaun, Part 1

Leprechaun-WallpapaerThe first leprechaun I remember was the pipe-smoking one on the Boston Celtics’ logo who could have been mistaken for Mr. Magoo had he not been smoking the aforementioned pipe and balancing a basketball on the tip of his finger. And shortly thereafter I was introduced to that loveable curmudgeon on the Lucky Charms box with the brilliant green hat and abnormally tiny hands. Of course neither one was guarding a pot of gold when I saw them, so I figured they had left their gold unprotected and I went on expeditions to find it. Um, yeah. The joys of being 14.

Leprechauns were fascinating to me because they had something I didn’t: magic. And I wanted to find their gold, but I wouldn’t have sniffed at catching one of them for my very own. Legend has it that a leprechaun who has gotten captured has to grant its captor any three wishes in exchange for letting him go. I knew just what I wanted to do with those three wishes too.

  1. Get the newest pair of Air Jordan’s
  2. Be the most popular kid in school
  3. Have unlimited free pizza

The last one was negotiable. Free macaroni and cheese would have been just as good, but the Air Jordan’s had to be the black ones, and if I wasn’t at least more popular than Stanley Knapp then #2 wouldn’t have been worth it either. But then again I knew that according to folklore the leprechaun would have to give me exactly what I wanted, so I wasn’t too worried about it turning out poorly. I just had to catch him first. Continue reading “How to Trap a Leprechaun, Part 1”

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Monsters

Shadowhunter_Springborg_Beast02There were monsters under my bed. And no, not the same monsters that other kids had, the fuzzy kind that looked like various flavors of Kool-Aid, or the ones that grunted in the middle of the night for the sole purpose of making kids wet their beds. Nor were they the personable monsters of Monsters, Inc. who had entire lives completely absent of their scaring occupations. These were abominable beasts who ate children for breakfast and lived under my bed every second of every day and night. They were subtle until they weren’t anymore, and there were dozens of them. I lived in fear for years, and no one would believe me.

They could write, too. I would find notes from them at all hours. On my well-made bed. Taped to my clothes hanging in the closet. In my underwear drawer right next to my freshly laundered white briefs. They were obscene, these notes, with made-up language and crudely drawn smiley faces, and they accomplished their purpose. When I would show them to my dad, though, he would simply laugh and attribute them to me, and to my well-honed imagination. Then I would burst into tears and run back to my room, leaving the door wide open. I never closed it.

I imagined they had names like Bob, Terry, and Jack. I even made up little dialogues between them as they sat there bored under my bed, waiting for me to start freaking out. Believe me, if I didn’t make up those conversations I would have gone certifiably insane. Maybe I did go insane despite my mechanisms. Continue reading “Monsters”

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Still

358966The old farmhouse shudders against the oncoming wind, frightened of even more damage that would settle a score it hadn’t known it owed. A whistling sound screams against its sides and squeezes through the cracks under the doors, more eerie than a little bit, precursor to the squall that will come after midnight, when the house is all tucked in and snoring comfortably. An old cocker spaniel lies on the mat by the kitchen door, ears cocked, ready to defend his family against whatever is making the horrible keening noise. Of course that noise is him, but he listens nonetheless, oblivious.

A fire crackles in the stone fireplace, warming the thick rug in the den as the sparks get perilously close. The young man of the house stoked it quite full before he turned in for the night, as is his nightly habit, meant to ward off the need to get up in the middle of the night to re-fill the behemoth. A patter on the roof would remind him of little feet running pell mell across its surface if he were awake to hear its drumming. It is night rain coming down slowly but surely, and it will soon multiply in frequency and in pressure, but for now it runs across like the lost child they have tried so hard to forget.

A solitary human soul is tortured in the face of the nearby onslaught. The years have not been kind to her. Her lined face and the deep creases around her eyes are testament to that, that and long nights without sleep. She fights against herself harder than the elements pound on the house she has called home for longer than she would care to admit. Her back is ramrod straight against the wall as she sits up in the bed she shares with a corpse. Continue reading “Still”