June 2014 Issue of The Scribblers Newsletter

Welcome to the June issue of The Scribblers.  In this issue we have new writing prompts, part three of the story "Sisters" by Jamie Baker, contest information and a very short story I wrote several years ago. We hope you enjoy this issue.

June Writing Prompts

Each month we try to provide prompts for you to use. Pick one or more and write 500 to 1,000 words using the prompt/s as the basis of your story. 

( I found a couple of really fun prompts at the Warren Wilson College website)

1.  Create a story using words of one-syllable only, beginning with a phrase such as:

"The last time I saw her, she...”

“From the back of the truck...”

“On the night of the full moon...”

“The one thing I know for sure…”

2.  Create a short story that is 26 sentences long, each sentence beginning with the next letter of the alphabet. 

(Add other, arbitrary conditions, if desired, such as one sentence should be one-word long; there should be one question mark, one quotation, etc.) Rigid rules often produce fascinating results—such as with well-written sonnets, which have 14 lines and tight rhyme schemes, each line governed by a specific number of syllables and alternating stressed and unstressed syllables.

3.  Describe a routine or holiday ritual, using the 2nd person “you”:

For example, “You stand in the steaming kitchen with people you haven’t seen in almost a year. You wish your shirt didn’t have that tiny stain on the cuff. You wish your aunt’s laugh wasn’t quite so brittle. Feet stomp on the porch and you hurry to let your tall uncle in, forgetting to keep the dog from escaping outside…”

Glimmer Train Writing Contest

Glimmer Train Magazine's Upcoming deadline: 

Fiction Open. 1st Place: $2,500, and publication in Issue 95. Deadline: 6/30.

This category is our most "open"—all writers, all subjects, all themes, and just about any lengths are welcome!

Second- and 3rd-place winners receive $1,000/$600, respectively, or, if accepted for publication, $700. Winners and finalists will be announced in the September bulletin, and contacted directly the previous week.

Most submissions to this category run 2,000 - 8,000 words, but can be as long as 20,000. Please, no more than three submissions per person.

FICTION OPEN guidelines:

Open to all subjects, all themes, and all writers.

Most entries run from 2,000 to 8,000 words, but stories from 2,000 to 20,000 words are fine.

Held twice a year. Open to submissions in JUNE and DECEMBER.

Next deadline: June 30*

Winners are announced in the September 1 and March 1 bulletins, respectively, and contacted directly one week earlier.

Reading fee: $19 per story. Please no more than three submissions per contest.

Prizes:

1st place wins $2,500, publication in Glimmer Train Stories, and 20 copies of that issue.

2nd place wins $1,000 (and 10 copies, if accepted for publication).

3rd place wins $600 (or, if accepted for publication, $700 and 10 copies).

Please make your submissions at Glimmer Train's online submission site. We look forward to reading your work!

* There is always a one-week grace period.

Submissions are to be made here: https://www.glimmertrainpress.com/writer/html/index2.asp

Sisters, Part 3

by Jamie Baker

New Year’s eve day dragged like it was 100 hours long.  Dad slept most of the day.  Mom was tense and  reminded me 100 times that she was expecting me to take care of my brothers while she and dad were out for the night.  Like I never baby sat them before.  Like I wasn’t responsible. 

“This is my only night out in months.  I don’t want to have to worry about you all night long.”  She said this, or something like it, about every 20 minutes. 

By dinner time, she had made me so nervous, I couldn’t eat.  I pushed the food around on my plate.  The bites I did take turned to paste in my mouth from all the chewing and I could hardly swallow them.

“Why aren’t you eating?”  This from Dad.  “You’re mother cooked this great stew and you’re turning your nose up at it?”

“Don’t tell me you’re getting sick.  That would be just like you.  Get sick when I have a chance to go out for a change.”  Mom said.

“I get her dessert if she doesn’t eat.”  This from Jeff, which started an argument with Mike over who was going to get extra dessert.  One good thing about all my brothers’ squabbling, it usually took the focus off me.

 

While my parents got ready for their big night out, I washed the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen, stretching it out as long as possible.  Finally they were ready.  They gave us another lecture about behaving and where they could be reached if there was an emergency and to call the apartment manager if we needed help.  When the door finally clicked closed behind them, I stripped the beds, put on clean sheets and headed out the door with a laundry basket full of not-very dirty sheets and a pocket full of quarters. I told my brothers I was going to the laundry room.

“Don’t burn the place down or blow up the TV again.”  They made faces at me in response.

From the laundry room, I could look right into Ginger and Marci’s apartment.  The curtains were open and I could see Ginger standing in the middle of the living room talking to a guy with a pony tail.  When he put a cigarette in his mouth, she leaned forward with her Zippo and lit it for him.  Then they both laughed, though I could only see them laughing, not hear them.  I was nervous about going over there.  Ginger had invited me, but I hadn’t seen her for over a week.  Maybe by now, she’d forgotten she’d invited me.  Or changed her mind. 

I was putting the wet sheets into the dryer when the laundry room door opened.

“Jesus, it’s cold out there.  Hey, you’d rather do laundry than party with me?”

It was Ginger.

I made some dumb excuse about coming over as soon as I checked on my brothers.

“Merry Christmas and Happy New Years, by the way,” she called over her shoulder as she ran back across the courtyard.   “Hurry up and get over here.”

“Hey, kid, you want some of this rum in that coke?”  I was standing in the kitchen, the guy with the pony tail was pointed a bottle at me.

“My name’s Carol and no thanks.”

“Whatever,” he said and went back to lean against the wall near the front door.  I was in the kitchen because the living room was filled with people, most of them a few years older than me, some of them a lot older.  They were packed onto the old sofa, draped across the overstuffed chairs, and a gaggle of skinny, long-haired hippie girls sat cross-legged on the floor.  The air was hazy with smoke and the trash can in the kitchen overflowed with beer cans.  I hadn’t seen Ginger or Marci in a while.  The bedroom door was closed but every few minutes someone would come out and someone else would unfold from whatever seat they had and disappear into the bedroom.

The radio was tuned to a station I hadn’t heard before.  The music was rock and roll and I didn’t know any of the songs.  The music was hard to hear over all the different conversations that were going on.  Every few minutes the guy with the pony tail would turn the volume up and one of the girls on the floor would get up and turn it back down.

It was turned down pretty low when I heard the knock on the front door.   Leaning across the counter I could see out the window over the kitchen sink.  The person knocking was the apartment manager.  I bolted from the kitchen, right into the bedroom. 

“What’s happening, Carol.” Ginger was sitting on top of the dresser.

“The apartment manager’s at the front door.  She can’t know I’m here.  She’ll tell my parents.”

“Stay in here.  I’ll handle it.”

Ginger went out, closing the door behind her.

“Marci, quit bogarting that joint,” a guy with really short hair said, “you already had 2 hits, pass it this way.”

After he’d taken a couple of deep drags he passed it to me.

“Don’t hit it too hard, it’s pretty harsh,” he choked at me, trying to hold in the smoke while he talked.

I’d smoked a few cigarettes, but nothing else.  I didn’t even know a marijuana cigarette was called a joint.  I took a small puff, held it in and passed the joint back to Marci. 

“I’m ripped, no more for me.  You guys finish it,” she said and flopped back on the bed.

“Take another hit,” the guy with the crew cut said to me, “I’m Richie and if you’re wondering why I have this convict haircut, I’m in the army.”

“I’m Carol.  What’s that like?” I asked after inhaling another small drag.  This time it burned down into my lungs and I coughed. 

“Told you, it’s some harsh shit.  The army?  Mostly it’s bullshit, but I’ve got 20 more months to go, so I’m trying to be flexible and just go with the flow.”

“Were you drafted?”

“Not exactly.  I was given a choice, army or jail.  The army seemed like the better choice.  And it’s working out ok so far, I’m getting some pretty good pot, pretty cheap too.”

I took another hit on the joint and managed to tamp down the cough that wanted to burst out of me.

 

“Will you go to Viet Nam?”

“If I do, I’ll be screwed, but maybe I’ll get lucky and get sent to Korea,” he pinched the butt end of the joint, took the last drag and then popped the thing in his mouth and swallowed it, “or maybe Germany.”

“Why was the other choice jail?”

Richie stretched out on his stomach on the bed and pulled a cigar box out from under one of the pillows.  Inside was a pile of dry, herb-like stuff and Richie started crumbling it apart.

“I got pulled over for a busted tail light and the cop found my stash.”  He sprinkled a row of the herb across a cigarette paper, kicked the edge and used his thumbs to roll the new joint against his fingers.

 

“I got caught shop lifting when I was a juvenile, so the judge said army or jail.  What a jerk, like he really believed that offering me the army was some kind of gift.  But hey, as long as I don’t get my ass shot off, it could be a gift.  After all, I could be visiting foreign lands, meeting interesting people and killing them before they kill me.”

He was handing me the lit joint when Ginger banged the door open, laughing loudly as she stumbled in, bringing the pony-tail guy with her.

“What did she want, Ginger?  What did she say?”

“Who?” Ginger pulled the joint from my fingers with a puzzled look.

“Mrs.  Duncan, that’s who.  Did she say everybody had to leave?”

“No, she didn’t even realize we were having a party.  But somebody parked their car in a tenant space.  BFD, right?”

“Whose car was it?” asked Richie.

“Havisto’s.  And guess what?  He was passed out in the back seat.”

“Couldn’t even make it to midnight, huh?” pony-tail guy said.

“He just moaned a little when I frisked him for the keys.  I parked him down the street aways.”

A while later, I heard the people in the living room doing the count down to mid night.  Pony-tail guy, Richie, Ginger and I were still in the bedroom, smoking cigarettes and pot.  Marci was asleep.  When the count got to zero, Richie kissed me on the cheek, while pony-tail guy and Ginger kissed on the lips.  Then Ginger turned to me and gave me a long kiss on the mouth.

“Happy new year Carol.  You’ve been initiated.”  I didn’t know if she meant the kiss or the pot.

 Not long after that, I went over to the laundry room and got the basket of neatly folded sheets and let myself into our apartment.  My brothers were still asleep on the living room floor, just as they had been when I’d checked on them 2 hours ago.  I turned off the television, left the basket of laundry on the kitchen table so my mom could see I’d been making myself useful and went to bed. 

Curled between the clean, cold sheets, I thought about the party.  I could still smell the weird pot smell, I think it was caught in my hair.  I thought about the skinny hippie girls, bare foot and braless, and Richie.  Would he go to the war?  I forgot to ask him what his army job was.   I wondered if I would ever see him again, if this was the last party he would ever go to.  I thought about Ginger kissing me on the mouth.  That was weird, sort of.   I was almost asleep when I heard my parents in the living room getting my brothers, but I was asleep by the time Mom came down the hall and opened my door to check on me. 

9-1-1

A Short Story

by

Colleen Weikel

            Sunlight filtered through the grimy window to cast a dim gray eye on the chipped Formica table.  The aroma of perking coffee mingled with the stench of the overflowing contents of a long-neglected trash can and floated under the door of Cal’s apartment, joining similar noxious odors from the other apartments in the crumbling relic of brick that contained others such as my old friend.  They had all given up on life at some point for reasons known only to them. 

            I couldn’t understand what would cause people to abandon their hopes and dreams, their families and friends, but I know that whatever the scenario, it had to have been a catastrophic moment that had crushed the spirit of each of these defeated creatures who go through the motions of living each day, hoping that each day would be their last.

            I stood in the hallway. Hands jammed into the pockets of my leather jacket, toying with thoughts of going back home without visiting Cal.  He wouldn’t know the difference.  He wasn’t expecting me, and he didn’t pay much attention to me when I had stopped to see him on other occasions.

            It wasn’t this place filled with smells of hopelessness and failure that made me desperate to turn and run, but the thought of Cal himself.  His dull gray hair, cloudy blue eyes and wrinkled skin made him look ancient, even though he was 2 years younger than I.

            None of the guys at the station knew exactly what had happened to Cal, but we were all sure that it had something to do with Jim Kingman’s death.  Cal’s sudden decline began the moment that we determined that the 9-1-1 call was not for Jim’s wife, but for Jim himself.  And we were too late.  

            If we’d gotten there just 10 minutes sooner…  But we hadn’t, and Jim was still dead, and Cal was still bat shit crazy, existing in this hovel, wearing the same clothing for weeks on end, not bathing, and only leaving his filthy digs when he ran out of cheap booze or cigars.

            I didn’t knock.  He wouldn’t answer anyway.  I pushed open the door and sat down across from him at the table.  He didn’t acknowledge me, but sat watching a small brown mouse nibble at the edge of a cracker that had been crushed underfoot some time earlier.

            “Hey Buddy!” I smiled at him.  He reeked of old whiskey, sweat and stale cigar smoke.  He looked up at me, then back at the mouse.  He creaked audibly when he stood, like some rusted erector-set toy robot, and lumbered over to the mouse and crushed it beneath the heel of his thick soled boot.

            “Just like Jim,” he muttered.  “Just like Jim.”  I couldn’t answer him.  Hell, I didn’t even know what he was talking about.

I watched as he scooped up the tiny corpse and tossed it onto the top layer of the trash in the bin.

 “Why is that little mouse just like Jim?”  I asked.  Cal turned quickly, looking me in the eye for the first time in a long time.  He picked an empty whiskey bottle out of the trash can and darted across the room with the bottle raised above his head.

I ducked just in time to avoid injury.  Cal grabbed his heavy coffee mug from the table and lobbed it at me.  I heard it hit the door and shatter just as I closed it behind me.  That was the last time I ever visited Cal.

 A week later I saw his obituary in the newspaper.  Cal had committed suicide.   He had put a bullet in his chest.  He left a note that only said 'Just like Jim'.

And Finally...

We are always looking for articles and short stories to publish, as well as suggestions for the newsletter.  Please send any ideas, stories, etc. to colleen at: colleen.  We'd love to see any contributions you'd like to make to The Scribblers.

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