Vignette: Uprising

"Interview."

"Yep."

"I'm supposed to interview you?"

"Yep."

"Why?"

"Well, apparently she was reading something on some writing forum, about interviewing characters, and they said that the characters could interview each other instead, so you'd get information about two personalities for the price of one."

"Characters?"

"Yep."

"Meaning us."

"Yep."

"She's kind of blowing right through that fourth wall thing, isn't she?"

"Well, yes. So maybe you should ask me about my hob--"

"No no no. No hobbies. No favorite colors. No childhood traumatic memories. Forget that. While that wall is open, I've got some questions for her."

"Um..."

"Like what's with this fieldstone-into-bricks transformation? I though this was modern realism, and now we've got magic, or we're having a long dream, or something. That's not what I signed up for."

"Well, it was just that one--"

"No, it wasn't just that one. There was the bit with the candy shop coming to life. The candy part coming to life, I mean. You weren't there, it was just me and some kid. I'll never be able to look at a jelly baby again."

"I'm thinking that was a dream--"

"And I'm getting a major unrequited love vibe here. Any minute now there'll be scenes with me following you around like a loyal sheepdog while you're dating every marketing executive in--what city do we live in anyway?"

"I think it might be Chicago."

"Great. Snow. That's all I need. You see my point? I want some answers here."

"Yeah. I don't think you're going to get them."

"Why not?"

"She just passed two hundred words."

"Damn it!"

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Vignette: Herringbone

(A scene that would come from my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel, if I rewrote it enough. (The novel, that is.) Reality is shifting, and Emily's just discovered one alarming piece of evidence, at her Aunt Clara's house, a place that Henry occasionally visits.)

Henry shook his head. "What do you mean, it changed?"

"I mean," Emily said, "that yesterday it was a flagstone path, and today it's brick."

"So you're losing your memory."

She frowned at him, then flounced out of her seat, exasperated. "Wait."

He waited.

She returned with a cellphone, and sat down to peck at the screen.

"You're calling somebody?"

"Wait."

"I am waiting."

"Here." She thrust the phone at him. "I took a picture of one of the cats, lolling on the path. Right out there. Yesterday."

"And?"

"And, look at the path."

He looked. He looked down at the image of the garden on the phone, then looked up and through the French doors, at the same bit of garden. He walked to the doors and again compared image with reality. He opened the doors and walked out, down the path in the garden. The brick path.

He took a few steps down the path, a few steps back, again comparing the photo with the scene in front of him. Finally, he said, "Well."

"You see?"

"Maybe--"

"What?"

He said, "I don't know."

"You were going to say, 'Maybe somebody played a prank and installed the brick path last night', weren't you? And then you saw the moss, and the cracks. That path's been there for years."

"Yeah."

"Except it wasn't there yesterday."

"Yeah."

She nodded. "And then you wondered if I Photoshoppped that photo and put it on my phone, to mess with your mind."

"Well, no. But maybe somebody put it on there for you. Or something. That's what I was thinking."

"I remember taking the photo. You don't have anything but the photo for evidence, but I remember taking the photo. And, really, you don't remember the flagstones?"

He backed up to the French doors. "Sort of. I don't remember the bricks. I remember thinking that that rosebush, the one in the corner, was a nice shot of color in the summer, and that you needed something else for color in the winter because the whole place was so..."

"Gray."

"Right."

"Like flagstones." She folded her arms.

"Right."

"Like the path that was there yesterday."

"Also right."

"So what's the conclusion here?"

"Matching straitjackets?"

Image: By Jean-Noele Lefargue. Wikimedia Commons.

Vignette: Painkillers

"My head hurts."

"Try some aspirin."

"Aspirin never works for me."

"Try some caffeine."

"Caffeine makes me nervous."

"Take a nap."

"I can't sleep; my head hurts."

"Did you want a solution here?"

"No, I want sympathy."

"How about a nice cup of tea?"

"That's not sympathy, that's caffeine."

"Look, it's the best I can do without turning into a girl."

"Sympathy makes you a girl?"

"Yes. Sympathy has to be expressed with an 'awwwwww' in a baby voice. That turns you into a girl. Instantly."

"Can't you just produce the sympathy and then switch back?"

"I'm not risking it."

"You might like being a girl."

"Nail polish. Panty hose. Lipstick. All that smiling. No, thank you."

"You claimed that women enjoy wearing panty hose."

"I lied."

"You'd never have to wear a tie again."

"Tempting, but insufficient."

"No draft."

"I'm already too old for the draft."

"You could take bubble baths."

"I can't wish for bubble baths without, again, turning into a girl."

"So you would wish for them if you could."

"We are not going there."

"You could cry."

"Oh, my God, no. That's worse than the panty hose."

"You could wear high heels."

"You've changed sides in this debate, haven't you?"

"Apparently. We could discuss girdles."

"Please tell me that women no longer wear girdles."

"Some of them do. They just have different names."

"We need to stop now."

"Am I giving you my headache?"

"Yes."

Image: By Stilfehler. Wikimedia Commons.

Vignette: Crunchy

(A shift away from grumpy dialogue.)

"Chicken."

"No, fish."

"I'm cooking it, and it's going to be chicken."

"You're still making the batter. The batter doesn't care if you dip chicken or fish in it."

"Of course it cares. Chicken is...well, it's chicken. The golden meat. The crispy meat. The meat of picnics and Sunday dinner. The thing in every pot in the mythical time of prosperity. The happy surprise in the cardboard bucket when Dad comes home. It's chicken."

"Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime."

"Fine, but that doesn't mean he'll enjoy it."

"Haven't you ever heard of fish fries?"

"Yes; they're what happens when all the chickens have flown south for the winter."

"Chickens don't fly."

"That's by choice. As long as we don't insult them by bringing in a lot of stinky fish, they stay nearby because they love us. Like shmoos."

"Like whats?"

"Shmoos. They're shaped like a big chicken drumstick with legs. They want to be eaten."

"When did you open the wine?"

"I'm perfectly sober. Shmoos. From the Valley of the Shmoon. Go read Al Capp."

"So it's fiction."

"It's an allegory about something or other. Big political and sociological and economic implications."

"Which you're going to explain."

"Of course."

"Will you promise not to if I agree to chicken?"

"Of course."

Image: By Dougs Tech. Wikimedia Commons.

Vignette: RSVP

When the bell went unanswered, Henry unlocked the door and fumbled to push the bakelite lightswitch. "Emily?"

The chandelier struggled to life. Emily blinked at him from the depths of the chaise in the corner. "Hey. Wow, you wore a suit?"

He pulled the chain of the standing lamp by the coat tree. "Were you asleep?"

"How was the party?"

"People asked after you." He peered at the label of the 78 on the phonograph, and gingerly rotated the switch. He watched until the needle landed safely, then added over the scratchy sound of drums, "They were worried. I tried to call your cell."

"Did they miss the spanakopita?"

"Spanakowhat?" The song started to skip. Henry stepped away from the phonograph.

"Those little puffed pastry spinach things. I was going to make some for the party, but I forgot them in the oven."

"I thought I smelled something."

She frowned at him as the same drumbeat repeated over and over. "Are you going to get that? This is one of my favorite songs."

He took another step away. "I know."

She got up, wiping her hands on her shirt, and approached the phonograph. "Who else was there?"

"That cousin of yours, the one with the hair. And Doctor Goldmark, and a lot of old ladies from the church. Did you fall asleep?"

Emily tapped the needle ever so gently. The drumming finished, and a mellow-voiced woman started to sing. "Doesn't sound like much of a party."

"Emily."

She frowned down at the record. "What? Why are you talking? This is the best part."

"Emily, I just came from Clara's funeral."

Image: By Norman Bruderhofer. Wikimedia Commons.

Vignette: Further Conversation

(The same pair.)

"Your tie's crooked."

He turned to the mirror and frowned at said tie. Pulling at it, he said, "You sure about this dress code?"

"Would I be wearing panty hose otherwise?"

Pfft. "Panty hose are nothing. Women enjoy wearing those, I've been told on good authority--you're just a weirdo. But ties, ties are mentioned in most documents on human rights."

She inserted herself between him and the mirror and reached to tighten the knot. "That's just misogyny among diplomats. It's well known."

And he loosened it again. "Nah. You're deluded. Haven't you seen those women in the Victoria's Secret commercials? They're always happy."

She shook her head. "Those aren't women. They're space aliens. And by the way, pouting and pushing out their chests is the way that that space aliens express pain."

"Is it legal to date space aliens?"

She stepped away. "They only go out with men wearing correctly tied ties."

He gingerly tightened the knot, millimeter by millimeter, steadily drawing the tie to a crooked angle again. Studying the result in the mirror, he said, "What about those T shirts with the tuxedo and ties printed on them?"

"They get one look at that, and they'll attack you. It's like gang colors. Don't mock ties. Ties are very important to space aliens."

"So you're a space alien?"

"No, I just work for them."

Image: By Bertow. Wikimedia Commons

Vignette: Conversation

(I'm playing with dialogue, so, a sample.)

"Passive aggressive."

"What do you mean, passive aggressive?"

"Well, I mean--you've never heard the term?"

"Nope."

"OK. Aunt Millie comes over to watch the election returns and hides in the corner somewhere. She has lousy hearing, so you offer her a seat closer to the TV. She says, no, no, she's just fine here, this is lovely, thank you. And then later when everybody's packing up to go home, you ask her a question about the speeches, and she says, oh, dear, she's so sorry, but she wasn't actually able to hear them."

"Oh. I've got one of those."

"You have relatives like that?"

"Every woman over the age of forty is like that."

"Hey!"

"You're barely thirty."

"I'm thirty-two."

"So you've got eight years."

"And when I'm forty?"

"I'll go find another friend. Maybe male this time. To avoid the deadline."

"So it's sort of like a friendship with a balloon payment."

"Exactly."

Photo: By Bjoertvedt. Painting: By Auguste Renoir. Wikimedia Commons.

Vignette: Coriolis Effect

Emily knew she was in trouble when she saw the marzipan dog.

She'd sent the dog as a joking gift for Aunt Clara's birthday. Year before last.

Clara always denied being a hoarder. She denied it when she was sorting the newspapers by date, and organizing credit card solicitations by color and size, and scraping bits of sugar out of chocolate boxes and filing them in gold and silver stacks. The word was not to be spoken around Clara.

That marzipan dog should have been filed in the second shelf of the third refrigerator in the garage, along with the cherry cordials that Clara received every year from her accountant, and other items in the category Food:Candy:Types Clara Doesn't Eat. But it was on the hall table, in the center of the silver tray that was supposed to contain bent paper clips and pennies issued before 1950.

Food with pennies. Clara had abandoned organization.

Trouble. Big, big trouble.

Emily picked up the dog and examined it. It was as adorable as it had looked in the catalog--too much so, no doubt. Clara normally ate marzipan, though she saved the box and the paper cups. Apparently the dog had crossed over into "too good to use", and was doomed to live in Clara's house forever.

It was impossible to imagine Clara's possessions being disposed of, even after her death. Even moving them or packing them away was absurd. The 1968 cans of peas could end up in the same box as the 2007 cans of apricots--violation of fruit versus vegetable, expired versus unexpired, crossing of decades. No. Clara would surely rise out of her grave. Or perhaps time itself would stop, to enforce Clara's rules of order.

Emily grimaced and reached to put the marzipan dog down. Then she paused. Then she did it.

She carried the marzipan dog to the kitchen. She moved one of the flower vases filed in the left-hand side of the sink. She adjusted the faucet so that its stream would fall directly into the drain.

She turned on the garbage disposal, and she dropped the marzipan dog into the drain.

The grinding was brittle. Then it was gummy. Then it faded into the normal roaring of the disposal motor.

The dog was gone, its sugary remains draining away toward the sewer. Away from Clara's house.

Away. From Clara's house. One of Clara's possessions had left. And there was no thundercrack, no opening of the sky, no roaring of God's voice.

Emily smiled.

Image: By Frank Kovalchek. Wikimedia Commons.