Everyone knew better.

The police called it a suicide, but everyone knew better.
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The room was tiny and with the door closed it had no light, natural or otherwise.  A desk sat in the middle, once probably stately and elegant but now notched and dented with years of careless use.  On top lay a thick book, flipped open to a page in the middle.  Leaning closer, I could make out a list of names - some scratched out, some circled, all with a price next to them.  Kalen, £350.  Aliastra, £475.  A sad Jaled, who only cost £120.  Did the boy know that’s all his life was worth before he died?

A man sat in the chair, slumped over.  He had blondish hair and scruffy beard at least a week old.  His face was slack, the skin loose, like an ill-fitting mask or a stuffed toy with the insides pulled out.  Deflated.

I had come to kill this man, but found him already dead.  A knife speckled with blood was still clutched in his hand and a river of crimson trailed down his shirt.  It looked like a suicide, and I wanted to believe it.  The things he’d done.  The lives he’d stolen and then sold.  The people he’d killed without ever getting his hands dirty.  You would think it would weigh on him.

But he was a Drogoi.  They didn’t have souls.  They would kill their best friends in a brawl over a mug of ale and sleep the deep, restful sleep of someone with an unburdened conscience.  I had seen them destroy their own homes with their families still inside in a fit of pique.  One Drogoi that frequented the Rusty Nail told me he had killed his sister when she refused to service him.  Then he sold her body to his friend, a well know deviant with a love of cutting things into smaller pieces.

This man, this trader of flesh, had not been crippled by guilt and then taken his own life.  So who had beaten me here to kill him?

She liked to burn things

She liked to burn things, but once the fires started they never stopped.
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It hadn’t started out as something she wanted to do.  The first time had been an accident while camping with her friends.  Jenna was in charge of lighting the campfire for Smores and Beth, an experienced camper, “supervised”.   Beth needled her incessantly about this being Jenna’s first time camping and that she didn’t know the right way to do anything.  As her anger rose, she felt her cheeks flush and her hands go warm.  Then the sticks she had been arranging sparked to life, the fire jumping quickly outside the fire pit’s stone ring.  Beth had to rush to stamp out the fire before it spread to the forest around them.

Jenna sat bewildered for a long time.  She couldn’t puzzle out how she had done it or why she had enjoyed it so much.

Power.  Over time she realized the fire represented freedom and power.  Something wild, hard to contain.  Not subject to the rules she was every day.  Get up, go to school, homework.  March, obey, be good.  Be quiet. 

Fire raged.  Fire fought.  Fire got what it wanted.  And now fire came from her.

When her life got worse, on days she couldn’t handle her mother’s drinking, her father’s endless avoidance, and the lonely wails of her baby sister, Jenna trudged out to the forest behind their house and sat in a clearing.  She breathed in and out, letting the flame rise to the surface of her skin, enjoying the tingling in her palms.  She looked at her hands and considered letting the flame inside her loose, burning everything to the ground – her life, her family, the whole uncaring town.

So ... yeah.

So, I turned 39 in March.  And I vowed I'd write a book before turning 40.  I am serious about this resolution, so I've started taking steps towards it. 

I started a small writing group with four great people (plus myself) - we meet weekly at the TRL from 6-8 on Fridays.  It helps keep me motivated and inspired, and I love the feedback I get from the super smart members of the group.

I also have started doing nightly writing prompts.  Just five or ten minutes every night has gotten me used to writing daily, as well as becoming more comfortable with writing imperfectly.  I have always been gripped with indecision about how to phrase things, and an anxiety about the words coming out all muddled.  I know that you can edit things afterwards, but that didn't make me feel better about it.  Forcing myself to churn out 5-10 minutes worth of writing a night has helped ease the fear, and now I'm much more willing to just write whatever comes to me and worry about editing later.

So I decided to show you some of these.  I'll post the prompt first, then a line, then the edited version, and lastly the original version, for those curious about how things changed.

Here's the first one.

She was convinced that she could fly, that she flew at night, and she continued to be convinced of it, though she stopped speaking of it as she grew; in fact, she ceased to speak at all.

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At first it was just the mornings.  Jesse looked withdrawn and sad, her shoulders slumped over her bowl of cereal.  I asked her why she was unhappy, but she always ignored me.  Then I tried to engage her with jokes.  I’m not a funny guy and my jokes were terrible.  I guess I’m not surprised she never laughed. 

And then one day I gave up.  I stopped noticing that Jesse didn’t talk.  Though I never admitted it, I liked her silence – it made her an even better listener than she used to be.  I would talk to her for hours, tell her all my secrets, knowing she’d never spread them around.  Sometimes I’d even make up outrageous stories to test how extreme a secret she was willing to keep.

And then one night I woke up from a nightmare, and Jesse wasn’t in the bed across from me.  The crescent moon hung heavy in the sky, painting the world outside our window in cool blue-grays.  I crept into the hallway searching for my strange, quiet sister.  She wasn’t there.  I crept down the stairs slowly, avoiding any sudden movement that would wake our parents sleeping in a room just down the hall. 

The front door was slightly ajar, and after passing through I was careful not to shut it all the way.  The click of the lock would be too loud in the still night.

Jesse sat on the porch, legs curled up underneath her.  She was looking at the pigeons dozing on the telephone wires strung high above the sidewalk, her head tilted back, and hair brushing her shoulders.  Her eyes were dark black pools when she turned to me and said, “I can’t reach them.  My wings aren’t working and I don’t know how to fix them.” 

The longing in her voice made my chest hurt.  I didn’t know what to say to the first words she’d spoken in months.  When she turned back to the birds, I could see something bunched under the thin white fabric of her nightshirt.  The moonlight cast its shadow on two tiny perfect wings, folded up against her shoulder blades. 

  

Original version:

At first it was just the mornings.  Jesse looked withdrawn and sad, her shoulders slumped over her bowl of cereal.  I tried to ask her why she was unhappy, but she always ignored me.  Then I tried to engage her with jokes.  I’m not a funny guy and my jokes were terrible.  I guess I’m not surprised she never laughed. 

And then one day I gave up.  I stopped noticing that Jesse didn’t talk.  Though I never admitted it out loud, I liked that she didn’t talk anymore – it made her an even better listener than she used to be.  I would talk to her for hours, tell her all my secrets, knowing she’d never spread them around.  Sometimes I’d even make up outrageous stories, testing her, pushing the boundary of just how outrageous a secret she was willing to keep.

And then one night I woke up from a nightmare when the crescent moon hung heavy in the sky.  Jesse wasn’t in the bed across from me, so I got up and crept to the hallway to search for her.  She wasn’t there.  I snuck down the stairs slowly, trying to avoid any sudden movement that will wake our parents, sleeping in a room just down the hall from the one Jesse and I share.

 

I’m careful not to shut the door all the way.  I was worried the click of the lock would be too loud in the still night.

There on the porch sits Jesse, legs curled up underneath her.  She is looking up, eyes trained on the pigeons dozing on the telephone wires strung along the sidewalk.  Her eyes are dark black pools when she turns to me and says, “I can’t reach them.  My wings aren’t working and I don’t know how to fix them.”  The longing in her voice makes my chest her.  (has actual wings).