A place filled with mostly unfinished stories. Begun primarily as a direct result of my association with the OC Writer's Guild
Written for the Daily Prompt; Assumption
“How could this possibly have happened?”
“Well, I assumed… ”
“You made an assumption? YOU MADE AN ASSUMPTION? Don’t you know what happens when you make an assumption? It makes an ass out of you and Umption.”
“That’s not quite how it goes, boss.”
“Shut up!”
Danny clutched the case and pushed into the shop. Mendoza was perched on a stool at the counter caressing a Stratocaster.
“I been ‘specting you Danny, heard what happened.”
Danny set the case on the counter and popped it open. Inside was cradled his ’56 gold face Les Paul. The finish was dinged bad and the neck was bowed.
“Can you fix it?”
“I can straighten the neck and re-fret the fingerboard. The finish is probly done though. She threw it out in the rain, huh?”
“After she swung it at me; I don’t blame her, I prolly deserved it.”
Jen came back –
back home yesterday.
She didn’t
tell me where
she’d been. She just hugged me and
dragged me upstairs. Bliss.
She kept silent for reasons that don’t matter; today she spoke loudly.
I’m still playing with American Sentences.
Keep speaking out – make things change!
There’s a planet, Renee, tucked away – at the verge of the milky way.
It outshines the surrounding stars; trying, in vain, to summon her home.
I’ve been playing with American Sentences lately – too much fun!
Luc had one arm around the girl; his free hand clutched the machine pistol taken from the sentry. The magazine was full; the safety off.
“Give it up, Luc!” urged the girl, “We’ll never beat Doctor Regulus, not here, not now.”
“I’ll never quit, Missy, understand? If we don’t continue, if we don’t end this now, all the others will have died in vain.”
“Oh, Luc; you’re so brave and manly!”
Missy swooned and Luc still held her in his arms when he confronted Regulus in the laboratory.
“Drop the detonator, Doctor! It’s over.”
“I’ll decide when it’s over, Luc.”
There once was a nuclear man
Who induced controlled fusion by hand
The fuel was divisible
The reactor was critical
Free neutrons were his to command.
Reactor Scram – Reactor Scram
It was Christmas morning, 1917 and a sleepy-eyed young man made his way downstairs. He was ten years old and desperately wanted to see what Father Christmas had brought him.
He longed for a six string guitar, but his momma had warned him not to get his hopes up too high. She had cautioned that Santa might not be able to carry a present that fine all the way to the remote town of Tioga, Texas.
“What in tarnation would you be wantin’ with a guitar anyways, Gene?” she asked him on Christmas eve after he had told her for the two-hundredth time that that was the only thing he craved and that if Santa Claus brought just this one present he wouldn’t ever ask for another thing.
Orvon Grover Autry’s momma had called him Gene since he was a tad. It was a name he thought suited him. It was the name he would use his entire life.
“I wanna learn to play it Momma,” he said, “I’m already makin’ some words; I just need to make some music to go with ‘em.”
“Lemme hear them words, son.” She said as she tucked him into bed. It was early, but it was Christmas Eve, and he knew Santa would only come if he was sleepin’. He wasn’t about to push his luck.
Gene sat back up, leaned against his pillow, cleared his throat and sang in his yet unchanged soprano, “I’ve got spurs that jingle jangle jingle, as I go ridin’ merrily along.”
“Them’s some mighty fine words, boy.” His momma grinned in that lopsided way that she always did and kissed him on the top of his head before tuckin’ him in again.
“Sleep now.” She stood and left the bedroom leaving his door cracked open, just a bit.
His face lit up as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and spotted the handmade instrument resting against the boughs of the tree. He walked slowly, reverently, across the room so that he could reach out and touch it.
We got to the test site base camp in the late afternoon of July 14th, and had traveled quite a distance to arrive at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range that day. All told there were about 400 of us there.
They weren’t ready for me or my team when we got there so we moved into the camp and got something to eat. It was about eight o’clock that evening before word came down that we were on. My team worked under the code name “FLASHPOINT.” There were six of us and we worked in pairs. Victor and Loretta went to the northwest edge of the site, Larry and Rick went to the east, while Brenda and I drifted to the south. We stayed in contact with one another until everyone was in position and then shifted to radio silence while we set up our equipment and instruments.
Brenda was excited and she talked continuously; to me, and to herself, and to the night sky about what she thought we would see and about the benefits of this technology. She was giddy with anticipation and looked forward to analyzing the data we expected would be gleaned from this first test. She was a talented engineer and scientist. I shared her ebullient anticipation but I lacked her loquaciousness. We worked straight through until almost 0400 on the morning of the 16th when our preparations were complete.
About half an hour before we completed our set up, Larry and Rick had broken radio silence to announce, “B Team standing by,” which was their announcement that their preparations were complete and they were ready.
At 0358 Brenda broadcast, “A Team is standing by.” Victor and Loretta announced their readiness at 0514 and we all knew that from that point it would be exactly 15 minutes until the test commenced. We expected things to happen fast when it began so we settled in on our folding chairs, where we could watch the equipment. We waited and at 0527 I reached over and took Brenda’s hand. We sat like that until it happened.
We felt it first. The earth jolted and the ground began to shake. It was immediate; there was no slow buildup or early tremors that we had anticipated. We had been wrong about that, but before I could register our miscalculation we saw it. In the blink of an eye there was a dome of light to the north of us. It must have been at least 500 feet high and then it blossomed into a mushroom shape of smoke and dust as the glow grew wider and higher. Brenda and I were both thrown backwards to the ground and everything went black.
I learned later that Larry and Rick were both killed as a result of the initial blast. They were the closest to the test site. Victor died less than three days later. Loretta lasted five. Brenda was hit by one of the spectrometers that had been thrown by the force of the explosion. It killed her immediately. It’s been a year now and somehow I’m still around. I sleep a lot and I have my moments of clarity, but for the most part I’m confused. Some days I can’t remember my name, or the future that Brenda and I had envisioned for ourselves. I get bad headaches that resist the best efforts of the doctors to treat. I’ve lost over 48 pounds due to the nausea and my inability to keep food down.
The symptoms are getting worse, not better. I think Brenda and I will be reunited soon. I hope so.
tnkerr-Writing Prompts and Practice 