Here is a preview from my latest story, which still goes without a name:
Why is the door so hard to open? Turn already, you stupid knob! Turn, or else I’ll rip you out! Oh great: my brand new house is broken. My first real house in seven years, the first real house I’ve ever had, and somebody was mean and broke the knob. Now I can’t go in.
“Hun, it’s not going to turn.” She steps out of the car and walks down the sidewalk.
“Who broke it?”
“Nobody broke it.”
Her hand chills me like ice as she brushes me aside. Sifting through her collection, she finds the right key.
Oh… I see. The door was locked.
Inside, I survey the room, and what a great place! My mom must devote her time to tidying each inch. She sorts out every speck, then polishes the specks themselves.
“Not much of a place, but I think you will enjoy your time here.”
“Living here?”
“Yes, living here. Oh, and here are your siblings.”
My gosh, I've never beheld a pair so odd. Are they even children? By their looks, they must be children. Their heights don't peak much higher than around four feet, and their faces appear to me so far from finished. And now they strut towards me with sophistication. They don't break out with excitement or skipping or joy; I bet they've never even dirtied those clothes. But, under their form, I really do hope that they're at least jumping to meet me inside their hearts.
Now, I do admit, I don't fancy their clothes much; at least not for me. But I also admit that they model them very nicely - the girl in a blue and frilly, flowing dress, the boy in a button-down shirt, tucked in his slacks. Did they dress in these fancy clothes just for me?
“Arthur, Beatrice,” my new mom gestors. “This is Gregory.”
“Hi!” I cheer. Do I look silly right now? I feel my cheeks on my ears. “It’s great to meet you!”
They nod, and I don’t quite know what that suggests, but I guess that means it’s great to meet me too. They strut off the way they came, like a movie set on rewind.
“We are glad to have you here, Gregory.”
“You know, you could just call me Greg and not Gregory, if you want. I like it that way.”
She twists her nose a bit. “Okay. If you prefer that.”
My attention teases me with its tongue when I ask it to quit bouncing all over the room. Honestly, how can it quit? How can it quit when somebody has crammed a ship into a bottle and placed it onto a table? How can it quit when an ancient vinyl player in the far corner hums groovy rhythm and tunes? How can it quit when somebody has decorated the walls with every painting I can imagine of war generals in blue jackets and kepi hats, and girls sipping Coca-Cola? How can it quit with that giant globe of earth that I just want to push with my fingers and watch it spin? The place is a treasure-trove!
“You have a lot of great stuff here. Where’d you even get all of it?”
“Well, the majority of these things are left over from when your dad – who you’ll meet later, of course – and I were kids. And a lot of the other things are from our parents: your grandparents. Shows a bit of history, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, it’s all so old!”
She chuckles to herself. “You know, most things the inventors ‘invent’ these days aren’t as innovative as they think. They’re really just improvements and combinations of all the old junk that already exists. You can never kill the old times; a bit of them always exists in everything, because everything comes from them.”
Wow, this is boring. I tap my toes a bit, and I play and dance somewhere else in my head. How can talking progress so slowly? But I gift her with a smile and pretend she rivets me; I feel I must because she treated me so nicely: She let me live in her house as her son.
But I intend to never mention the decorations again
Her lips curve to a smile. “Do you want me to show you where I set up your bed? I’ve been putting your room together all week.”
“Yeah! Let’s go!”
“I hope you like it.”
I trail behind her as she walks. She leads me far away from our boring conversation. She leads me to my room in the basement.
Later that night I stretch on the floor, centered in the room my mom made me. She decorated it so prettily. She gave me a bed to grow into, in the corner she placed an old dresser, she hid the floor with a rug, and painted the walls light brown. The bed hides under cozy sheets, the dresser is so old it might crumble at a poke, little x’s are stitched on the border of the rug, and the brown walls are painted just ordinary brown. She also put in a mirror, wrapped shelves around my walls, filled the shelves with models, and hooked some hooks on my doors. It’s a great room.
I push myself up onto my feet and shimmy out of my worn-out blue jeans. Why did I dirty them so much? I hope my new mom doesn’t mind. Maybe she wants me to dress like Arthur in his button-down tucked into his slacks. I pull my flannel off my arms and yank my undershirt over my head, both as filthy as my jeans.
Yawn! I’m tired. Maybe I’ll get some sleep. One day has felt like five.
Was I really playing this morning with twenty kids my age?
Am I in bed? How’d I get here?
What a pretty room.
A great house.
I’m going to close my eyes just for a mome…..........
Why is the door so hard to open? Turn already, you stupid knob! Turn, or else I’ll rip you out! Oh great: my brand new house is broken. My first real house in seven years, the first real house I’ve ever had, and somebody was mean and broke the knob. Now I can’t go in.
“Hun, it’s not going to turn.” She steps out of the car and walks down the sidewalk.
“Who broke it?”
“Nobody broke it.”
Her hand chills me like ice as she brushes me aside. Sifting through her collection, she finds the right key.
Oh… I see. The door was locked.
Inside, I survey the room, and what a great place! My mom must devote her time to tidying each inch. She sorts out every speck, then polishes the specks themselves.
“Not much of a place, but I think you will enjoy your time here.”
“Living here?”
“Yes, living here. Oh, and here are your siblings.”
My gosh, I've never beheld a pair so odd. Are they even children? By their looks, they must be children. Their heights don't peak much higher than around four feet, and their faces appear to me so far from finished. And now they strut towards me with sophistication. They don't break out with excitement or skipping or joy; I bet they've never even dirtied those clothes. But, under their form, I really do hope that they're at least jumping to meet me inside their hearts.
Now, I do admit, I don't fancy their clothes much; at least not for me. But I also admit that they model them very nicely - the girl in a blue and frilly, flowing dress, the boy in a button-down shirt, tucked in his slacks. Did they dress in these fancy clothes just for me?
“Arthur, Beatrice,” my new mom gestors. “This is Gregory.”
“Hi!” I cheer. Do I look silly right now? I feel my cheeks on my ears. “It’s great to meet you!”
They nod, and I don’t quite know what that suggests, but I guess that means it’s great to meet me too. They strut off the way they came, like a movie set on rewind.
“We are glad to have you here, Gregory.”
“You know, you could just call me Greg and not Gregory, if you want. I like it that way.”
She twists her nose a bit. “Okay. If you prefer that.”
My attention teases me with its tongue when I ask it to quit bouncing all over the room. Honestly, how can it quit? How can it quit when somebody has crammed a ship into a bottle and placed it onto a table? How can it quit when an ancient vinyl player in the far corner hums groovy rhythm and tunes? How can it quit when somebody has decorated the walls with every painting I can imagine of war generals in blue jackets and kepi hats, and girls sipping Coca-Cola? How can it quit with that giant globe of earth that I just want to push with my fingers and watch it spin? The place is a treasure-trove!
“You have a lot of great stuff here. Where’d you even get all of it?”
“Well, the majority of these things are left over from when your dad – who you’ll meet later, of course – and I were kids. And a lot of the other things are from our parents: your grandparents. Shows a bit of history, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, it’s all so old!”
She chuckles to herself. “You know, most things the inventors ‘invent’ these days aren’t as innovative as they think. They’re really just improvements and combinations of all the old junk that already exists. You can never kill the old times; a bit of them always exists in everything, because everything comes from them.”
Wow, this is boring. I tap my toes a bit, and I play and dance somewhere else in my head. How can talking progress so slowly? But I gift her with a smile and pretend she rivets me; I feel I must because she treated me so nicely: She let me live in her house as her son.
But I intend to never mention the decorations again
Her lips curve to a smile. “Do you want me to show you where I set up your bed? I’ve been putting your room together all week.”
“Yeah! Let’s go!”
“I hope you like it.”
I trail behind her as she walks. She leads me far away from our boring conversation. She leads me to my room in the basement.
Later that night I stretch on the floor, centered in the room my mom made me. She decorated it so prettily. She gave me a bed to grow into, in the corner she placed an old dresser, she hid the floor with a rug, and painted the walls light brown. The bed hides under cozy sheets, the dresser is so old it might crumble at a poke, little x’s are stitched on the border of the rug, and the brown walls are painted just ordinary brown. She also put in a mirror, wrapped shelves around my walls, filled the shelves with models, and hooked some hooks on my doors. It’s a great room.
I push myself up onto my feet and shimmy out of my worn-out blue jeans. Why did I dirty them so much? I hope my new mom doesn’t mind. Maybe she wants me to dress like Arthur in his button-down tucked into his slacks. I pull my flannel off my arms and yank my undershirt over my head, both as filthy as my jeans.
Yawn! I’m tired. Maybe I’ll get some sleep. One day has felt like five.
Was I really playing this morning with twenty kids my age?
Am I in bed? How’d I get here?
What a pretty room.
A great house.
I’m going to close my eyes just for a mome…..........
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