the eye of Nova's mind

Samantha chewed on the paper bag that held her purchase from twenty minutes' prior. She'd traveled to the corner store and procured a Hershey's bar and a quarter-ounce of potato chips, all of which fit in the smallest bag available, one for three ounces. She'd stopped at Charlie's house on the way back, not the way forward, despite the momentous revelation she had for him. She'd planned to keep the purchase surreptitious, but when the words fell out of her mouth, the bag gave her sufficient cover.

"Are you sure?" Charlie asked, his face wan. He'd fallen back from a stance onto the lip of the tub. She hadn't planned on springing such information on him in such a vulnerable place as the bathroom, but here they were, and here she was spilling.

"Yeah," she said. "I took a test; it was positive."

Charlie, with his closely cropped strawberry-blond hair, looked as though he were going to faint. Samantha had never seen a male come close to such a resemblance. True, he already seemed close to such a state, with his mixed heritage and all, but still it was quite a sight. She chewed more on the bag to hide her urge to grin.

"What--what are you going to do?" he asked.

"I plan to keep it," she said, again masticating.

Charlie truly looked about to swoon. He stared at the floor and attempted to reclaim his balance, although he was firmly planted on the edge of his bathtub. Brows knitted, he kept his mouth pressed like two bookends. Samantha retained her air of silence while admiring her handiwork. Charlie stuttered, mentioning something about speaking to her again tomorrow at school. He stumbled out, apparently leaving her to find her her exit from his home.

Samantha indeed found the door, traipsed through and began her walk home, visibly smiling. He'd bought her story in utter entirety. The hilarity lay in the fact that Samantha was notoriously a bad liar. A tic would give her away, or some rhetorical anomaly: an inadvertent pause, a downward look, a revelatory stress in her choice of words. This time she had a prop! An unintentional prop, to be sure--she'd stopped at the store as a matter of circumstance, not in alignment with her proposed deceit--but useful nonetheless.

She suppressed the impulse to skip home. Instead, she maintained her steady, dolorous pace.

( Read more... )

"And just what do you think you're doing?"

Jonathan turned around, a puzzled look on his thin face. "I'm gathering my tools so I can go fix that tire. Unless you want to do it?"

Nate grimaced and turned his face up and away. "Whatever, man. Just don't touch my stuff."

Jonathan continued on into the utility room, muttering to himself. Good God, they’d been living in the same apartment house for two years. One would think that Nate would know by now that Jon would take care of Nate's things, or at least ignore them. He'd never break anything, whether out of spite or accident. Jon felt the rise of bile but took the time to swallow.

Walking into the tiny 4x6' room cluttered with cleaning supplies and other various implements, Jon wondered why he felt the responsibility to change the tire fell to him. He wasn't the one who left nails in the driveway. What the hell had Nate been doing in the first place? Why were nails in the lane? Nate never did give him a straight answer. Seriously, was he building a go-kart or something? Making a make-shift basketball hoop with a wooden crate? Creating an IUD? Whatever it was, he sure should have cleaned up after himself, instead of doling out half-hearted apologies when Jon arrived home from work, reverse, into the driveway, into a blown tire. What kind of jackass does that?

A sigh escaped Jon's lips. The tire would get repaired. Then he and Nate would pretend as though it never happened. This was the pattern that repeated itself throughout their relationship, the same goddamn pattern, like a fractal. But what could be done at this point? He and Nate had been friends for all but eight of each of their lives. Jon had better friends, but none that had lasted as long. In the realm of friendships, longevity held its own glamor.

( In twenty minutes, the rim clenched a fresh tire. )

It seems so timely.

( Woman as Object: The Circumambulatory Ideology of Radical Feminists )

This was the genesis of my very best college paper, which is to say it's dense. You are warned.

( Body, Nature, Gender: Toward a Cultural Understanding of Prostitution )

What do you do when you think/realize you don't like the story you're writing?

I don't know if I can go on like this for 50,000 words.

Edit: I didn't realize my question was so controversial. I appreciate all the advice people have given. (While it may be permissible to write the same sentence over and over and have that be "a novel," it kind of goes against what actually is prohibited, which is writing the same word over and over. So, I have to determine whether or not I have stick-to-it-tiveness. The idea of killing off my characters is kind of silly at this point.)

On July 4th, netmouse held a writers' workshop in her home. The second half of the workshop involved everyone writing a short story with a slightly apocalyptic theme/setting. As I had complained earlier that day, I really have no idea how to execute a short story, so what I have so far seems to be the beginning of a novella. I picked up the story again this week, but I still do not have a full chapter. (Yes, this means that what follows is unfinished.) I thought I'd post what I have, in the hopes that by doing so I will have more motivation to revisit it.

What you can do, as a reader, is tell me if what you read here makes you want to read more.

---

July fourth. Yeah. What a holiday. What a breakdown. I don't know how anyone could have come up with such a crazy, and I mean crazy, side of summer. Were we supposed to enjoy weather like this? And all this refuse, newspaper strewn all over the street. It's hard enough to keep walking.

Up ahead, NRG. Funny. I need a place to crash, but before that, let's get some groove on. What else to do in this wasteland. It's time to dive.

---

"What'll it be?"

Dan looked at the scraggly face before him. ( 'It'll be tequila all night.' )