The following is a piece written for the #WeekendWriter prompt.  Please check out the other fantastic pieces written for this challenge! 

The Folly of the Unaware

“You aren’t hearing me, Becca.  I won’t meet you again.  It should never have started and now I’m ending it.”  The tinny words rasped out of the baby monitor.  Vivian’s eyes closed.  The hand stirring the risotto slowed, then stopped.  The housewife set the wooden spoon on the rest as if it were spun glass and walked out of the kitchen.

__

Roger paused on the last step.  His blood pressure throbbed in his temples, an unwanted reminder that perhaps he had cancelled and rescheduled his cardiologist appointment too many times.  He counted to twenty, taking slow, measured breaths before sliding his silenced cell phone into his pocket.  He rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the tension knotting them , then stepped through the doorway into the kitchen.

The empty room glared at him.  He frowned as a pop splattered up out of the pan.  Roger crossed to the stove and turned the pan off, a scrape of the spoon through the risotto revealing the burn on the bottom.  ”What the-”

Roger found his wife sitting in the parlor.  His stomach clenched.  Vivian perched on the edge of her grandmother’s velvet upholstered Empire sofa, her feet tucked under and to the side, skirt spread just so, back straight, eyes fixed on the window looking out into the street.  Her thumb moved in a little circle on the velvet, changing the color of the fabric as she moved the pile back and forth.

“Vivan?”

__

She didn’t look at him.  The calm that filled her felt like that of a bottled storm, a restrained fury waiting for release.  She wouldn’t release it though.  That was unladylike.  ”Thank you for putting Alex to sleep,” she said, proud of her serene voice.  ”You forgot to change the batteries in the monitor yesterday…”

Roger shifted in her peripheral vision, his hands turning upwards.  ”Oh, I’ll do that right-”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, Roger dear.  I changed them this morning.”  Vivian let her eyes track to him at last and watched all the color drain from his face save for two bright red spots over his cheeks.  He really wasn’t an attractive man when he let himself get angry and even less so gone pale with fear.

She smoothed her hands down her skirt and settled back into the sofa more.  She was both surprised and not by her husband’s foolishness.  True, their marriage was one of mutual benefit, alliance, and familiar obligation, but he still needed to learn a lesson.

“I thought to call Daddy, Roger,”  he jerked and his mouth opened and closed repeatedly like a landed fish.  ”But I thought perhaps it best that we discuss things first before upending everything.”  She watched his panic rise up in him and waited for him to clutch at his stomach.  ”Now.  Sit.  It’s time we lay all the cards on the table.”

Roger moved like a man drugged to the chair across from her.  When he sat, ramrod straight, on the edge of it she smiled gently at him.  Really, Vivian mused as he fidgeted, why did men think that women had no strength of will?  She crossed one leg over the over and let her pump swing from her toes.

She really didn’t care that he was fucking around.  And by the end of the night he would agree that they could both have their “relief” from their marriage or she would, indeed, call Daddy and start the process that would leave him a ruined, husk of a man.

This following was inspired by the prompts of the seventh week of  The Weekend Writer.  Do stop in to the prompt post and check out the rest of the offerings.  It’s fascinating to see the different places six images take each individual.

~*~

To Whom It May Concern,

My name is Elena Boschwitz Gray of 439 Franklin Blvd, Philadelphia.  Let there be no doubt who I am, as there will be little left of me to identify my body when you find this letter, if all goes according to plan.  My dental records are on file with Dr. Sorenson on Center Ave.  If more are needed, please contact Dr. Henry Aver.  He has my x-rays.  There are plenty of unique characteristics to my skeleton that will allow you to identify my remains.

If you’re still searching the wreckage of Graystone Place where I plan to end this insanity, please save our brave and hardworking firemen the energy.

There will be no other bodies but my own.  Everyone knows I’m true to my word.

There may be a body at my home.  It depends on whether or not the bastard takes after me with his cane again. If he does. . . Well.  I’m sure you’ll understand that I simply can hold back any longer.

I’m done.

So.

Please be forewarned.  The following letter has already been dropped in the mail to every newspaper for whom I could find an address.  It’s going to raise alot of chaos.  Hence the heads up.  Tell the Mayor to duck and the District Attorney to prepare for a shit storm.

Dear Public,

My face is as familiar, if not more so, to most of you than it is to myself.  There are no mirrors at in the house at 439 Franklin Blvd.  So I see myself through your eyes, through the camera lenses of the paparazzi and amateur photographers and professionals and in the watery reflection of the water in my courtyard fountain.

I bid you farewell.

Tonight I will be giving my last performance to an audience of cockroaches and rats.  Instead of flowers tossed on stage I will throw myself from the tower that stands as emblem and totem of my husband’s ill-gotten gains, followed by a shower of glass and steel.

Twelve years ago I fell victim to the magic charm of the man himself.

You all watched me wooed and won.  Cheered as the city’s favorite son married its golden girl.

Oh, my dear, dear public.  What you couldn’t see, what I didn’t see, until I was trapped in the grips of that monster.

I send these letters out to make sure you all get to hear my words one last time.  I hope someone will read them; will give me voice long after my own is silenced.

But know this.  I do this because that beast hunted me, trapped me, then sucked every bit of vitality from me.

I am a ghost already.

My final act will be to become one in truth.

My swan song echoed from the rafters of an immaculate prison, unheard and unheeded.

I give my life for you, my city.  Don’t let him such you dry.

Farewell.

Elena

The following is my offering for week 3 of The Weekend Writer.  I have to say I’ve been completely blown away by the variety and skill that has been exhibited by those that have taken up this challenge and look forward to seeing how everyone tackles the prompts.  Please check the original post for the list of stories written against this week’s challenge. And yes…I’m on a sailing theme this week ;)

Passed, Flying Colors

The sight of the harbor opening up on the horizon startled a woop from my throat and brought Casey up from below.

“What!” she called before turned to follow the line of my arm.  Her lips curved, splitting her tanned skin with a bright white smile.  ”Is that what I think it is?”

I laughed and tied the tiller off, jumping down to catch her in an exuberant hug. “We did it!”

The idea had started off as a discussion in compatibility.  How many failed relationships had left scars, visible and otherwise, on our bodies and hearts?  I loved her.  She loved me.  But did we dare?

“Let’s take a trip together.”  I don’t remember why I thought it was a good idea, but once it sprung to mind I dogged it.  ”A long trip.  Just us.  We’ll go,” I paused, meeting her incredulous gaze then tossing a look out the great room windows to think.  A boat skipped over the waves, sails bellowed, keel heeled as it surrendered to the wind’s will.  ”We’ll go sailing.”

Three months later we set out on a rented yacht.  While I’d had confidence my own small craft could make the trip, we agreed it wouldn’t be particularly comfortable.  It was a month long trip.  Just us, the boat, and a course laid that would take us down the coast.  It might as well have been a trip around the world we were attempting in the eyes of our families, but our friends got it.  They knew what we were trying to prove.

Could we do it?  Rely on ourselves and each other, solely, for a month?  Forget our jobs, leave the world behind, surrender the need to segment out days into hours dolled out to this client and another?  Would we drive each other crazy or come out on the other side of it with a confidence we were in it together for the long haul?

The wind died off and without a word Casey made her way to the bow and readied the spinnaker.  I checked the heading and joined her.  When the bright orange and yellow sail billowed out, catching the light wind like a parachute, the boat heeled beneath our feet.  We laughed together and made our way back to the cockpit.

I wondered what everyone would make of us when we returned.  A part of me knew we were so different from the individuals who’d set out, so alien, that some wouldn’t recognize us.  Surely no one would expect to see the both of us, tanned, salt-stained, sunstreaked, barefoot and more comfortable in our own skins than ever before.

“It’ll be nice to be home.”  Casey leaned against my shoulder and I kissed her brow.

“It will,” I agreed.  ”Wonder if we’ll get Cecil back from Amy.”  Cecil, the turtle that had been my pet since college, who’d been turned over to our best friend and her children for tending.

“Will it be ok if we don’t?”

I looked along the yacht’s hull, watching the wave split before us.  Eyed the distance to the span of the bridge that would mark our return home when we passed beneath it.  Tears pricked at my eyes.  ”Yes,” I answered simply.  I knew sometime soon I’d ask Casey to move in with me.  To finally give up her tiny apartment whose only redemption was the inner courtyard with its pretty fountain.  To move out to the coast and sail with me as often as possible.

It was out on the boat that we’d found our balance.  Discovered our own silent language and spent night after night rocked to sleep in each other’s arms.  I almost didn’t want to go home.  Because it wouldn’t be home without her.

I looked at her, she looked at me, and we shared a smile.  ”Come home with me?” I didn’t mean to ask, but the words slipped out anyways.

“Yes.” She kissed me.  I wanted to take her below and make love to her one more time.  But I would wait.  I’d learned patience at sea.  And there would be time enough.  ”Yes,” she whispered against my lips as we parted and I returned my attention to our course.  With her head against my shoulder I felt full and empty and falling and flying.

And it all felt good.

~fini~

The following is my offering for week 2 of The Weekend Writer.  I have to say I’ve been completely blown away by the variety and skill that has been exhibited by those that have taken up this challenge.  Please check the original post for the list of stories written against this week’s challenge.

∞ ω ∞

Encoded

The engine backfired as the truck twisted down the driveway, an cacophonic emphasis on what had been a quiet ending.  It had taken time, thirteen years and four months, for the bright light that had been their passionate love affair to deteriorate.  Samantha watched until the vehicle disappeared around the bend, know her eyes would never again set sight on the driver again.  It was strange, surreal in the way of a day spent staggering without sleep.

Of course, it’d been weeks since she’d slept, too.

The tiny cottage echoed.  Sun-shaded outlines revealed the voids once occupied by another’s memories.  There, the plaque with the captive shape of a trout in mid-leap; over there the odd shapes of railroad lanterns and conductor’s lights.  A memory of a well-practiced tease rippled across her consciousness; “They’re just flashlights, Jacob. . .”

“I’m going to have to do some bargain-hunting,” Sam announced to the living room, wincing as her voice pinged around the empty space, piecing her desperately gripped composure.  The house felt like a pregnant pause, a cartoon bubble waiting for the words to give it meaning. Blinking away moisture she walked with silent footsteps, finding her way to the tiny back room, little more than a closet, than had been her only sacred space for a decade.

There, memories shone like tiny beacons from random objects; little pilfered items that meant nothing to anyone but her.  The Scrabble tile, an “L”,  meticulously drilled and hug from a piece of smooth letter;  Laura.  The magnifying glass, minus its glass, just a brass ring and smooth wooden handle; a sunny day in a green, green field.  A scrap of fabric, iridescent; the water that slid over Laura’s smooth, golden flesh.  The arrow, homemade, carefully steamed shaft and knapped head; that one weekend of freedom and a chance meeting with a woman who haunted her still.

Sam reached into the back of the cabinet.  The beads of the abacus accepted her grip.  She carried it out into the living room and sat on the floor, staring at it.  How long had it held a promise; would it still be there?  She knew she would make the trip back along the creek in the morning, follow the narrow path to her favorite tree.  Beneath it in a carefully sealed box a letter hid; secreted away against prying eyes.  But the phone number she’d saved here, on this abacus.  Her fingers sought the notches, moving the beads into position.

The sun slid down the sky; butter melting, smearing along the horizon.  Samantha waited, trying to weave her way through her own worries, knowing on the other side of her heart’s labyrinth a call would be made and an answer tendered.