Australian Invader - Guest Blogger

Rick's vacationing over at Ron D. Voigts blog this morning, writing about the lessons learned from self-publishing, part 7 - What is Success? Join him there. Meanwhile, Sydney, Rick's 19-year-old cockatiel is guest blogging here.

"Got mashed potatoes? No. What kind of cheap outfit is this? Stop flashing that light in my face? I bite you know. Why am I here? I hatched. No mystery. No, I'm not from Australia, but mom was. I've never been out of North Carolina. I write, well, type. Gotta do something around here. Oh, wait! A good one. You're safe for another twenty minutes. Anyway. Here's a story I wrote. Took a year.



LOVE AND THE SINGLE GIRL
Dr. Frankenberry stared at the jellyfish and wondered if they were staring back.

"They're beautiful," he said to Inga.

"Oh, let me go, you’re mad." Inga, clad in a leopard skin bikini, which the doctor bought from Macy's using a seasonal coupon, jingled her silvery chains. "Pretty," she said, before remembering her situation.

"Just think," the doctor said, filling a needle with fluid from a jellyfish that writhed in obvious pain, "if this works, you'll be young and beautiful forever."

"I want to be free," she said emphatically.

The doctor added a yellow fluid into the needle then injected her. He waited. He waited for hours. Nothing happened. Inga finally went to sleep and snored like the town drunk on Sunday morning.

"Drat!" He turned to his desk then sat. He immersed himself in his notes, looking for what could have gone wrong. Hours passed.

He pushed his glasses up his nose. A squishy sound erupted from behind him.

He turned.

"My God!"

Inga slipped out of her silvery bracelets and approached the doctor, stinging him repeatedly before consuming him. She turned to the wounded jellyfish in the tank, slipped inside the aquarium, and made sweet love to her wounded hero.

Hurricane Writer

Hurrican Irene. 'Nuff said. Write your hurricane story. Make your voice heard. If you're somewhere else, write an anti-hurricane story.

Eye of the Storm

I stood near the open garage door, as a garbage can flew past me. "Close one," I yelled, over the huffing and puffing noises. I should really take shelter inside and wait until this blows over, but I was hypnotized by the rage and fury. I wondered what next? I didn't have to wait long. A sturdy shrub, that had grown millimeters into my neighbors yard was yanked out the ground. Dirt and twigs slammed against the side of the house, then slid down like a figther who'd take his last punch. Paralyzed the the display, I squinted in defiance. A cop car cruised down the street, eyeing me. Without warning, a calmness overtook the entire scene.

My nextdoor neighbor came over. "I'll clean up the mess, but next time," he leaned into me, "make sure your herd of hamsters poop on your yard, not mine.

So Misundersood

My wife read part of my short story collection last night. Then, I was forced to sleep on the couch. "It's just a wild imagination," I pleaded. "It's not a psychopathic urge." Even Sydney didn't want to stay with me, preferring his cardboard box next to the oven. Sometimes writers are just misunderstood for no reason.
- - -
"Are the knives sharp?" Frank put on his coat.

"They could split an Adam." Johnny chuckled.

Frank looked over at Johnny. "Atom."

"Yeah, Adam."

"Whatever." Frank opened the door, and they departed.

After they dispatched Adam, Frank tossed the knives down the old well just as an escaping Higgs boson God particle from the CERN facility passed by. The explosion could be felt five hundred miles away.
- - -
Is your writing ever misunderstood by a loved one?

Dolores and the Blond

One hundred and sixteen days...

Dolores sucked on the Budweiser bottle loud and noisy like a starving baby, even dribbling some of the nectar down her chin and onto her turquoise blouse. When she came up for air, she slammed the bottle down and burped triumphantly. Her long fingers, red painted nails with a spot of yellow in the middle (her signature), rose to her lips in an unspoken apology as though she were a countess and committed a faux pas at a state banquet. The twelve old men failed to notice; they feasted on the only other woman at the end of the bar who wavered on her stool with downcast eyes, young and supple, a redhead in the sea of gray, white, or peppered heads.

Quinton, the bartender, took away the spent soldier and a replacement stood at attention on the coaster. "After a month in the joint, you better go slow."

Dolores hesitated. Four weeks ago, the dirty dozen would have tripped over themselves to buy her a drink for a chance at a peck on the cheek or more later in the night when she was too tired or too drunk to care. She dug into the pocket of her jeans. Two crumpled dollars fluttered to the bar as she eyed Quinton. "After a month in the joint, I have a lot of catching up to do." He walked to the end of the bar with her gaze locked on his tight butt. "Yeah, I've got a lot of catching up to do." Dolores had no mind for long-term planning. Revenge suited her better. She milked the second beer for a long time...

"Blow me down. Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck." - Popeye.

One hundred and fifty-two days.

A twig snapped behind me as I stood at the edge of the vegetable garden. I whirled around.

"Crikey, a T-Rex," I mumbled too afraid to scream.

I remembered reading that the ugly brown and red, drooling beast with twiggy arms and smelly breath flowing out of his slobbering mouth have poor vision. I stood still as a naked mannequin in a downtown department store window on a day so cold that grandfather said we had to have someone watch the fire to make sure it didn't freeze. It roared like Jackie Gleason after eating a Thai pepper that Norton had given him. His yellow eyes stared at me like I was a tuna surprise, yet I did not move a nostril hair. He sniffed me like a florist in a rose garden. The foot-long teeth had yellowed over time and the urge to floss them with rope rose in me. Suddenly, the fifteen foot high beast leaned over into the garden and pulled up a row of my early surprise corn and chewed it up. He sucked up twelve stalks of okra, and the sound of satisfaction dribbled out of his mouth like Dom DeLuise at a breakfast buffet table.

"Are you going to eat those carrots," he asked, imitating a Sean Connery brogue.

I shook my head and moved aside just as he scoped up fifty or so carrots and relief overcame me. "You're a vegetarian?"

"Well, my cholesterol is a bit high," he said slurping down the last of the carrots, "I mix things up most days." He smacked his lips and bent over.

THE END

"Fateful Decisions"

Happy Leap Year, y'all. I'm up today on six sentences. Maybe I'll be in the New Yorker next week.

Oy!

I think I have a hangover from eating too many fried wantons at yesterday's New Year's Day party at my house to ring in the new year.

The second lead story on the noon news today was about the minuscule line of snow flurries sneaking through the Raleigh area. It snowed for four minutes and twelve seconds at my house. That was just long enough for me to check and see if we have enough milk and bread, find my snow shovel (I'm the only one on the street with one), and my big boots. Yes, that was sarcasm.

Reminds me of the time I drove to Wilmington, North Carolina in November out of boredom. I had little money, no work, and time. A snow squall spawned from a cold front followed me down I-40 for the three hour drive while every radio station broadcast its progress. Hunger overcame me when I arrived so I stopped at small hamburger joint and ordered a late lunch. Two burgers, a large fry, and a soft drink arrived at the counter a few minutes later. As I pulled out my wallet, a strong gust of wind that hit the building like God doing a high-five and a horizontal burst of snow quickly obscured the buildings across the street. The middle-aged women behind the counter screamed as though Godzilla had asked for four thousand fish sandwiches and she only had six prepared. Quicker than Marion Jones, she dashed to the door shouting, "My kids. I've got to get my kids home from school."

A thin layer of white covered the ground five minutes later. Ten minutes after that, the wind had blown the snow to the edges of the parking lot into mountainous drifts four to six inches high. I walked out into the sun-dried parking lot to my car and assumed the woman had saved her kids. Thanks be to God for southern snowstorms and free lunches for a poor man.

"The Kiss"

Dirk had me where he wanted me. High. My legs dangling. If he was quick enough, I'd plop to the sand faster than that ice cream cone scoop I lost last week. My crotch would explode with pain moments after the hard wood hit, bounced up and...it was too horrible to think about.

He smiled at the fear in my eyes.

"Don't do it," I said.

"Whatcha gonna do about it?" He slipped his muscular leg off to one side.

"Dirk. Don't hurt Rick," Sally pleaded.

"Whatcha gonna do about it?"

Dirk sounded like my Grandma's one-note parrot before I dropped the bowling ball on it. Gawd, I could use the extra weight now to lift Dirk up. What I wouldn't give to weigh sixty pounds.

"I'll never speak to you again," Sally said walking away from Dirk and toward me.

"Talking's overrated," Dirk replied. "At least that's what my old man says." He had a leg on the ground, and I felt my end of the see-saw dip. His shirt hung over the hand bar, but I knew his hands still held on tight.

"This can only end badly for you, Dirk."

"Whatcha gonna do about it?" He had called my bluff and leaned to shove off the see-saw, but Sally grabbed my side.

He rose into the air surprised by her sudden movement. His shirt caught on the hand bar as his body swung under the seat. He wrapped his legs around the seat and dangled upside down. I descended slow enough that the feared crash never occurred. Our positions had been reversed.

"Let me down easy. Please."Dirk pleaded.

I slid to the end of the seat. "Whatcha gonna do about it?"

Sally let go. I jumped off. All seventy-five pounds of Dirk crashed to the ground and a great wailing erupted. I ran to Sally and like my father's favorite actor, John Wayne, had done to Maureen O'Haira, and like Elliott had done to the blond girl in "ET". I bent her backwards and kissed her long and hard, but not with the tongue as I heard my older brother talk about. That was gross.

Sally pushed me away. She swung and and knocked me into the uncaring Dirk in the sand under the see-saw.

She wiped her hand across her face. "Ick. Boy germs," and ran away.

It would be twelve more torturous years before I got a second kiss.

Guest Blog

My fifteen-year-old cockatiel, Sydney, begged for a guest post. Here it is:

Bright lights. Someone comes. It is early. Darkness outside. On my purse, gawd, l love my soft purse, I stretch. Food. Now. Can't they hear me? I've bee yelling politely for ten seconds. Ah, Cheerios. Ah, a cashew. Is it my birthday? Oh, I'm dying of joy. Millet seed. Crunch, snap, pop, snarf. Wait a minute. Every time they give me millet. Wait. Ah, good bowel movement. Where was I? Millet. Delicious, wondrous. Wait a minute. Every time they give me. Ooh. A finger. Oh, I love being on shoulders. Ear lobe. Hey! If I want to nibble, I'll nibble. Damn hand, but the purse is soft. Ooh. Millet. Snarf, gobble, chew. Wait a minute. Every time they. Fresh water. I drink the sweet nectar and shout it's goodness. Ooh. Millet. Ooh. A finger. I can't chose! Up and away on the shoulder again. Yes. To the office. Yes. Ah, that was a good poop. Tissue paper. Get away. Back down on office purse. Bare toes. Attack. Attack. Up and away. No not the kitchen. No I want the office. Not the kitchen purse. Ooh. Millet. Crack, fresh, 2007 is a good year. What's a year? I'm tired. My cardboard box. Darkness. Chewed cardboard is soft underneath. It was a hard morning. I yawn. Yawn. Yawn. Eyes heavy. Sneeze. Sneeze. Ah. Sleep, perhaps to dream. Yawn. I have to remember. Yawn. Remember sleep. Eyes close.

Where do you find inspiration?

After leaving the service and armed with the G.I. bill, I lived in a small college town for four years while pursuing my degree in English. I had selected a creative writing course for the fall term. I wanted to get a head start on my coursework, so I decided to write a few short stories during a three week period between the end of summer and beginning of fall. Splat. The brain froze at the moment of need. I needed to do something radical.

Over breakfast one morning in a local diner, I heard someone lament, "The most exciting thing in this town is watching the light change." Yeah, it's a cliche of sorts, and we did have only one light, and when schools out, there isn't much to do in a dry town in a dry county in which there are more deer than people. So I decided to test the theory. I would spend 24 hours watching the light change.

I reasoned it would be best to start in the late afternoon after rising at noon which was par for the course in the summer. Watching the light change from my post on the only bench downtown turned out to be a rewarding experience. I was harassed by a cop several times for being a vagrant (I wasn't because I had money on me). I got propositioned three times (only one seemed remotely legitimate--the other two would probably be passed out before we got anywhere--a dry town and dry county doesn't mean there wasn't alcohol). I got four items thrown at me (a beer can, empty cup of coffee, wad of paper, and a light bulb--maybe it was Diogenes' cousin). It is colder than you might think in northern Pennsylvania in mid-August in the middle of the night.

3:30 a.m. is the dead of night not midnight. At 3:30 a.m. all the drunks have made it home or have driven off the sides of the mountains and those early-bird workers haven't hit the streets yet. I saw two fender-benders, lots of trucks at night (I was surprised), a Model-T, two corvettes, had various people sit with me, but none for more than an hour (wussies), and had some woman very concerned about my mental state tempting me with chocolate cookies to come into the small downtown clinic. I was able to snatch two cookies without going in. Animals are about more than we realize, and at 4 a.m. a deer jaywalked from behind a closed frat house across the main road and through the Mr. Donuts parking lot without pausing to look both ways. She stood by a dumpster for a few minutes. Disgusted that there were no leftovers, she kicked the refuse container and left.

Did it inspire some great stories? Not until years later, but I did get an "A" in the class, primarily on the strength of my story, "I've Got Them Old Lovesick Cafeteria Blues Again".

A female townie thought what I was doing was bold, cool, daring, and I even remember a few "far outs". My last few summer nights turned out to be exceptionally exciting, and I did learn that watching the light change wasn't the most exciting thing in my small college town.
---
So where do you find inspiration?

What?

Which witch was which when we went with Wendy watching witches watering wilting willows with wet water while waning Wilbur wept wantonly without William's woollen woven windbreak which was whisked westward with windy whirs when wheezy witches winked wickedly.

True Passion

"Write!" Bubba was a man of few spoken words. He scribbled with his Number 2 pencil on yellow legal pad, smugged with grease from the brake job on which he'd been working.

Hours later, he lay down the pencil worn to the nub next to the thirty or more pages of paper. He smiled at me as he gently pulled a stick of gum from the pack like a debutant pulling a tissue from her sleeve. He growled with satisfaction as he chewed it, and then stretched like a panther ready to pounce on an unsuspecting gazelle.

With six lengthy strides, Bubba stood before the car with his large hands, calloused in ways not normally associated with a mechanic. He flipped on the compressor and grabbed the pneumatic wrench. Bubba tightened the last nut of the tire, and then lowered the car.

"Done," he said.

"Thanks." I looked him in the eye. "Sometimes you just have to strike...." I let the rest of the cliche get sucked into the garage's exhaust fan like a rank fart in a small bathroom.

"'Nuff said." He took my check.

As I drove away, I saw him get another pencil and pad. He plopped them beside his stool before he raised the next car in a long line of tired and patient customers that would keep him busy until late at night.

"The Red Lamp Shade"

Carol moves into a small furnished apartment on the edge of the seedy part of town where bars dominate the landscape and nightly rentals hide the sins of the city. She unpacks hurriedly and doesn't notice the lamp by the window wears a red lamp shade and that her questions about the former tenant go unanswered. The world is a blur and opportunities await.

As she scours the classified ads later that evening for a job, a knock at her door startles her. She knows no one in the city, and no one knows she is here.

"Who is it?" She stands near the door holding a small knife.

"Bobby sent me." The man's whispery voice is horse. His words barely leach through the thin door.

"I'm sorry. I don't know a Bobby."

"But the light is on."

She glances at the lamp.

"Please. Go away."
#
Detective Ron Howard looks around the room. The girl lies in a puddle of blood next to the smashed door.

After dusting the lamp for prints, a CSI technician sets it upright. "An egg-shell colored shade would have gone better with this color motif."

Howard listens inattentively and stares at a torn remains of the red lamp shade. He nods. "Yes. The color of the lamp shade made all the difference in the killer's motive."

"One Chance"

He ran, hurried and panicked. The brush slapped his face, adding insult to injury. He knew it had been folly to go there, yet boastful and proud, he had to try once more. Hunger, and the promise of an easy meal drove him to take the risk, despite the danger to him, his family, and his comrades.

He paused and called to his comrades. No answer. They scattered when the first shot winged him. The blood oozed, leaving a faint trail behind him. He knew it lead to him. His pursuer's clumsy footfalls in the woods shouted his confidence of a kill.

As his breathing recovered, he stealed his nerve. He wasn't going down without a fight, but he didn't possess a weapon of such firepower. He waited. Footsteps came closer. A nervous cackle leaked from his throat, and then he shifted his position to the other side of the path. He scrunched down low. His opponent outweighed him by a hundred pounds, but he didn't survive all these years without learning a few tricks. His opponent stood a few feet away, looking in the direction of the last sound, bending over and peering into the forest thicket. His backside was exposed.

Bursting through the weeds, he ran the last few yards, leapt into the air, and grasped the soft flesh on his opponents backside. A primordial screamed erupted. The gunshot blast deafened him. His opponent thrashed in circles trying to get him off, but he only sunk his grasp into him further, his mouth, his only real weapon, biting at grasping hands every time one reached back. The opponent swore, but still couldn't loosen his grasp. The gun dropped to the ground, and the opponent ran up the path from whence he came.

He fell to the ground exhausted, tasting the warm, sickly sweet blood in his mouth. The fleeing enemy, thrashed through the bushes. Satisfied, he smiled and closed his eyes and lay where he had landed.

He lost track of the time. One by one, his family and comrades came by, and deferentially left small offerings. He nibbled some food. His strength slowly returned. He stood. He waddled his way to a small creek and took a drink. His wounds would heal.

He was "The Tom".

"The Critic"

Murder, most foul, the writer thought, shaken, but satisfied. He stood over the armchair critic who had talked for over an hour at lunch and had said nothing. His knowledge was an ocean wide and an inch deep, but he wouldn't say anything more. The writer plucked the jagged-edged turkey leg bone from the critic's chest and tossed it outside to the critic's beast. The dog bayed at nothing every night from two in the morning until six am and roamed the neighborhood as a part-time member of a small dog pack. The dog greedily crunched the bone, choked a bit, but kept on eating. It might die, and if not, some relative would soon whisk the dog away. Either way, the silenced critic and the dog would be gone.

Pleased, the writer washed his hands with a touch of bleach in the laundry room and headed for home on the path through the woods as he had done dozens of times before. He contemplated the vague description he'd give of a car that had never driven into their quiet cul-de-sac this morning. The burn pit, piled high with weeds and twigs, awaited his blood-splattered clothes from his perfectly planned murder.

"Murder, most fowl," he said in a gruff voice, hoarse from a night of arguing with himself about the critic and what to do about his nemesis. He laughed and a bug flew into his mouth. He gagged and stepped into a leaf-covered hole left by a memory of a pine tree. His leg snapped. He pulled his lips tight against the pain until they split against his teeth. The burning agony of his shattered leg nearly caused him to pass out. Blood trickled down his leg, and he saw the splinters of bone. When he looked up, his vision was blurred. His glasses had flown onto the forest floor. He couldn't see them and searched the immediate area with his hands, and then realized he couldn't pull his leg out of the hole. Something moved in the bushes behind him, startling him. Several somethings crunched leaves, but he couldn't make out what it or they were. He growled low a few times, conserving his voice. The rustling stopped. Yelling would attract no one. The only other person who stayed at home during the day had been the critic. Other neighbors wouldn't return until dark.

Even in the woods, the afternoon sun found a path through the leaves and baked him in spring's first heat wave. His moaning lessened as the hours passed. His tee-shirt draped over his head only trapped the heat. He whined when dizziness overcame him, and he passed out several times. As night settled around him, something moved again in the bushes. The dog. It must be the dog. He froze as something approached stealthily from behind while the sun's last rays slipped under night's cloak. The headlights of a car swept into the cul-de-sac. Through the fog of his delirium, he needed to yell, attract attention. He hesitated. Someone rescuing him would undo his perfectly planned murder. A single sharp peck at the base his head froze his thoughts. He waved an arm in defense like a twig in a dying breeze. More strikes. He slumped forward. He had become one of the characters the critic had complained about: dead to the world around him.

A flock of turkeys pecked, ate, and gobbled collectively--murder, most foul.