August 3: Divigate

“Unhand the maiden, foul scum!”

The mugger turned, still gripping the struggling woman’s arm. Rising up before him was a man the size of the Jolly Green Giant. He froze at the sight.

“I said UNHAND HER!”

The force of the exclamation sent the man flying, still attached to his victim. Fortunately, the oversized crime-fighter reached out with his enormous hand and captured her mid-air.

Then, something above caught his eye. “BALLOONS!” he cried gleefully, releasing the woman, who landed on the pavement with a crunch.

The onlookers shook their heads. “The Boy Blunder must be off his meds again.”

July 28: Xanadu

It seems that every superhero has to find someplace where he can be himself. Batman has his Batcave, Superman has his Fortress of Solitude; The Living Wonder has his Xanadu.

Note the difference in purpose. The Batcave is an isolated laboratory. The Fortress of Solitude is, well, a place of solitude. But Xanadu? The “stately pleasure dome?” Hardly an isle of solemn contemplation. The Living Wonder thrives in the public eye.

Some joke that he draws his super-strength from his massive ego, which is powered by the mention of his name in the papers.

But even Charles Kane fell eventually.


Apparently I am writing about superheroes and their flaws; that's cool, it's in vogue these days.

Superhero of the Day Drabbles

Inspired by Elizabeth's drabbles based on the Word of the Day, I've decided to do something similar: I'm going to write a drabble about a superhero, inspired by Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day. The word might be reflected in the superpower, or it might come out in some other element of the story. I can't promise I'll do it every day, but I'll try.


July 27: Permeate

The terrorist had sealed himself and his hostages inside the warehouse. He had no intention to release anyone until his demands were met.

So, they sent her in.

Atomic Girl slid through the wall like a knife through butter; unlike a knife, however, she left no trace of her passage. She could not carry the hostages out with her, but she could take out the dissident and unbolt the doors from the inside.

***

Her date later that night ended early, like they always did. Just once she’d like to go home with someone, but she always slipped through their fingers.

Holler at ‘em down these hallowed halls

From the song "Tables and Chairs"

Playing for Keeps

“Marco!”

“…Polo.”

“Marco!”

“You do know this game is usually played by children, in a swimming pool, instead of a pitch-black cathedral?”

“So?”

“It’s just…” Mark shrugged. “When you said I could challenge you to a game for my soul, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

The Devil paused. “You would have preferred hide-and-seek?”

“Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of chess, or Go.”

An ominous chuckle reverberated around the sanctum. “What, and give you a fair shot at winning? Besides…”

Mark screamed when the heavy hand grabbed his shoulder. “This gets a much better reaction.”


Elizabeth's story

My dewy-eyed Disney bride what has tried swapping your blood with formaldehyde

A very literal take on this line from "Fake Palindromes"


Until Death Do Us Part

Soft lips on my cheek woke me, and I found myself staring up her.

“I want you know that this was the happiest day of my life.” She smiled sweetly before turning to the tray of instruments beside her.

She bustled around the table in her white gown; the train dragged across the basement floor, gathering grime. I tried to call out to her, but my cries were muffled by the duct tape.

“I just want to preserve this moment,” she said as she inserted the IV.

The formaldehyde filled my veins the way Mendelssohn’s Wedding March filled the chapel.


Elizabeth's story

We'll give you a complex and we'll give it a name

From the song "Measuring Cups"

Road Trip

“I’m not touching you.”

Suzy’s finger hovered in front of her sister Sharon’s face. Sharon didn’t even blink. It didn’t phase her anymore, not at this point in the trip.

“I’m not touching you I’m not touching you I’m not touching you.”

Sharon closed her eyes. A billion colonization vessels were making this trip—why did her parents have to book passage on the one hunk of junk that didn’t have functional sleep automators?

Above Sharon’s shut eyelids, Suzy was dangling a loogie. “Ahm nod tod-jing oo…”

Nine hundred miles down, only one-hundred-and-ninety-nine million, nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine thousand, one hundred to go.


Elizabeth's story

He deals in commodities of the abstract sort

from "Banking on a Myth"

Card Tricks

“Pick a card, any card!”

The Astounding Karloff grinned widely as he fanned the deck. Michael stared back, mouth gaping slightly, as he stretched out his hand toward the middle of the fan.

“Are you sure that’s the one you want?” Karloff asked, giving the child a knowing look.

Michael hesitated, then let his hand drift to the right, never taking his eyes from Karloff’s, looking for a sign that he was making the right choice.

“Good!” Karloff exclaimed, once Michael had settled on the third-to-last card from the conjurer thumb. “Now, don’t show me—your parents are getting divorced?"


A in a bizarre twist of something, Elizabeth and I wrote about different lines. You can still read her story, though.

Also, I have blogger's guilt. I can make excuses like, "I was out of town" and "I was apartment-hunting, and those bastards are good at hiding," and I really was busy all last week, had only night at home...so, yes, I guess I will make those excuses.

Whiskey-plied voices cried, "Fratricide!"

From the song "Fake Palindromes"

Fair’s Fair

Armed with pitchforks and axes, Bramford’s menfolk raced up the mountainside to rid their town of the menacing beast, each ready to do his part—once they’d agreed to divide up equally any loot the monster left behind.

They found the demon asleep and fell upon it. Their work was bloody but quick.

Behind the vanquished beast they saw no jewels, no gold. Instead, a maiden, unconscious, lay amidst a pile of bones.

The men began to grumble. “What about our agreement?” someone yelled. Old Sal, their leader, sighed. With a shrug, he removed the hunting knife from his belt.

Elizabeth's story

If you're made of calcium, I'll have to take a taste

From the song "MX Missiles."

In Bad Taste

The five senses are supposedly equally important, but Tommy had a favorite. Sight, hearing, smell, touch—sure, they had their uses, they were probably even necessary for daily life, but those weren’t the senses he used to really understand the world.

Since he never seemed to get sick from it, Tommy’s parents encouraged his oral explorations, appreciating their son’s unique learning style. They took an odd pride in watching him run his tongue over surfaces, discovering new textures and tastes.

That is, until the day Tommy became curious about animals and decided to find out how the dog’s insides worked.


Elizabeth's story

I had not become a cephalopod

From the song "Opposite Day."

Monsters

Harold awoke to the sun streaming onto his face. He felt refreshed; everything seemed right in the world. Yawning, he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, then froze.

Something was very wrong.

Pulling his arms away from his face, Harold stared at them in horror. He cried out—terrible, primal sounds.

Penny came quickly. When she saw him she stopped. “Oh, Harold.”

He was pale, deflated. “Look at me. I’m a monster.”

Penny caressed his human hands with her tentacles. “Curse or no curse, I’ll always love you. But, the next time you cross a Sea Witch, apologize, okay?”


Link to Elizabeth's story

The sky is full of zeros and ones

My friend Elizabeth and I are playing a game: once or twice a week, we pick a line from a song by Andrew Bird and write a drabble inspired by it (as loosely or as closely as possible). I think the goal of the project (besides doing some regular writing) is to see how differently we use the lines.

Anyway, the first line is "The sky is full of zeros and ones," from the song "Masterfade."


Zeros and Ones

“Son, let me tell you something. There’s two kinds of people in this world: winners and losers. You’re either a zero or a one.”

Sam’s dad put his arm around his son’s shoulders, but Sam knew it wasn’t an affectionate gesture. He didn’t know which kind of person it meant his father thought he was.

“You don’t want to be a zero, do you?”

Sam looked at his father and suddenly, for the first time, he saw him for what he really was: self-important, bigoted, a hollow shell. A zero.

Shrugging away his father’s arm, Sam turned and headed home.


Link to Elizabeth's story

A drabble in ten parts: Part X

X.

I have never been able to find my way back to that house, though I can’t say I’ve tried particularly hard. Whenever I feel I’m getting close, I let myself get distracted, and I lose the trail.

And none of my photos from that day came out; the film was overexposed. Well, save for one photograph.

It’s the very last picture I took before fleeing. A jagged line cuts across it—the broken lens—and it’s dark and out of focus. But sometimes I can just make out the figure standing on the stairs, waving at the camera.

Forgiving me.

~~~

Thanks for reading, everyone! I hope it's been fun. For the record, I had this story workshopped today, and will probably post my revisions when they're ironed out.

A drabble in ten parts: Part IX

IX.

“I know you didn’t want to come here, but this isn’t funny. Bill?” The smell from the kitchen is even stronger than before. I can distinctly hear piano music, and laughing voices and the sound of silverware against china.

There is one place I haven’t looked, I realize. But I don’t want to go down into the cellar, don’t want to find what’s there. That something else I sensed when we arrived.

“Bill!” I call one last time into the no longer empty house. As I back out the door, shaking, I hold up my camera for one last shot.

A drabble in ten parts: Part VIII

VIII.

Frantically I race down the corridor, knocking open doors as I go. “Bill!” I call. “Bill, where are you?”

At the end of the hallway is a bathroom. The mirror is fogged up, as if someone was just taking a hot shower, but the room is cold as ice. As I turn to leave I slip on the slick tile floor. I catch myself on the edge of the sink, but my camera falls and I hear the lens crack as it makes contact. Scrambling to my feet, I rush to the staircase.

“Bill,” I plead, “please come back now!”

A drabble in ten parts: Part VII

VII.

The first room we come to must have been the bedroom of a little girl. Pink sheets, now faded, line the bed adorned with dolls and toy animals. I can almost make out my own reflection in their shiny glass eyes as I bend down, peering at them from behind the lens. They disappear momentarily as the shutter clicks.

Beside the bureau is a full-length mirror with a gilded frame. I consider my reflection, picture lace dresses and tiaras. Yeah, right.

Then I realize that I don’t see anyone behind me in the reflection. I spin around.

Bill is gone.

A drabble in ten parts: Part VI

(Sorry I missed a post yesterday! Have two today!)

VI.

“Let’s go upstairs,” I suggest, though I can feel my courage beginning to drain. We climb the stairs one at a time, testing the boards as we go in case they’re structurally unsound. At the top I turn around and shoot a picture down the stairs toward the front door. Through the crack in the door I can see dusk’s rosy hue. “Huh, we must have left it ajar when we came in.”

I turn back to face the corridor, and I take Bill’s hand. It’s warm in mine.

He smiles. “You wanna leave?”

I shake my head. “Not yet.”

A drabble in ten parts: Part V

V.

We enter the kitchen holding hands and are greeted by the scent of food cooking. “That’s weird,” he says. “I can smell rosemary roast potatoes.”

“It’s just your imagination,” I assure him, but I can smell it, too, the sensation causing the hairs on the back of my neck to rise. I squeeze his hand before letting go to grab my camera. Dishes and utensils are scattered across the work surfaces, as if someone was in the middle of preparing a meal when they just...what, vanished? I wonder if Bill is wondering the same thing: what happened to these people?

A drabble in ten parts: Part IV

IV.

The long dining room table is set for a formal dinner party. I take photos of fish forks and soup spoons, of glasses for reds and glasses for whites, of carefully-folded napkins. “Can’t you just imagine the spread!”

“What do you think they were going to be serving?” Bill asks, humoring me.

“Oh, something delicate, like quail. Or maybe venison steaks, killed in the day’s hunt. Fennel, arugula, truffles…”

“And for dessert?”

I walk toward him until my face is next to his. “Strawberries with cream,” I purr, and as we kiss I imagine I hear glasses tinkling behind us.

A drabble in ten parts: Part III

III.

In the parlor there’s a baby grand piano, covered with dust. I sit down at the bench, lift the lid from the keys. I am about to play a chord when I realize that Bill would probably disapprove. So instead I raise my camera and snap a shot of the dusty ivories, another of the yellowed copy of Beethoven’s Für Elise. “How long’s it been since someone last played this piano, do you think?”

He shrugs. “A long time, I guess.”

As we wander from the room, I do not notice the keys begin to move, silently, on their own.

A drabble in ten parts: Part II

II.

It’s dark inside, though the sun has just begun to set. There are cobwebbed chandeliers and creaky floorboards and everything. It smells like mildew, mothballs, and something else. “This place is fantastic,” I whisper, unsure why I’m doing so.

“If you say so,” he whispers back. “...Why are we whispering?”

I grin. “Because there’s something here, and we don’t want it to hear us.”

He drops my hand. “Laura, if you’re going to be childish about this I’m going home.”

I smile apologetically. “I’m sorry, babe. I just want to take some pictures, and then we can go, I promise.”