I've decided to enter a writing contest. What prompted me was this: I got a flier in the mail for a writing contest. Now, I'm a reasonably lazy person by most standards, but even I'm not lazy enough to turn down an opportunity handed to me. You see, my only real complaint about writing contests and submitting works of fiction to publishers (outside of the rejection bit) is that it takes an awful lot of work to find the right contest and the right publisher.
So, having a short story or two cluttering up my hard drive, and having no real excuse not to, I've decided to enter. I expect to hear word of my inevitable rejection (or is it failure if it's a contest?) come April.
With that in mind, I'm posting one of my short stories here for your reading pleasure. It's not the one I'm submitting, but I like it anyway.
Calculators and Stun Guns
“Calculators should come with stun gun attachments,” Ed said as he rubbed his swollen lip.
“Don’t be a moron, Ed.” Gregory leaned his back against the brick wall. He didn’t look at Ed, who was sitting in the grass a few feet way. Gregory didn’t look at anything. He just stared blankly in the general direction of the sky, soaking in the sun and trying to forget how much it sucked to be alive.
“I’m just saying that it would be a major selling point. A company has to think of their target demographic, you know.”
At five and a half feet tall, Ed was short, even for a high school freshman. He had curly black hair that bobbed when he talked, making him appear even more animated than he already was. His ever present uniform was a worn pair of jeans and a too-large flannel shirt that would have made him cool had he gone to school in the nineties during the height of Nirvana-induced grunge. Sadly, fashion had turned, and Ed’s outfits added just one more reason to an already long list of reasons why it was necessary to keep him at the fringes of polite society.
“Don’t be a moron, Ed.” Gregory hated repeating himself, but it was often necessary with Ed. He was in every way Gregory’s opposite. Where Ed was short and pudgy, Gregory was tall and slim. Ed was loud-mouthed and slovenly, whereas Gregory was quiet and meticulously neat. Ed wore flannel shirts; Gregory wore polos.
“Switchblades?”
“What?” Gregory turned his head and looked down at Ed, who was slashing his graphing calculator through the air as if it were a rapier.
“How about switchblades instead of stun guns?” Ed paused in response to Gregory’s disapproving stare. He stood up, ran his left hand through his bouncing curls, and stared right back. When he started talking, he held his calculator in front of him as if it held the answers to the universe’s deepest questions. “Listen, I’m not being a moron. I’m being practical. Just carrying one of these things is an invitation to get the holy crap kicked out of you. As a responsible vendor, I believe that Texas Instruments should provide its patrons with integral defense features.” Ed paused just long enough to bask in his unassailable logic. “Like stun guns or switch blades or pepper spray.”
“They make calculators, Ed. Not death rays.” Gregory’s voice was monotone. It was the voice of a condemned man, a voice that wanted to fight, but had none left to give. He was only fifteen years old, and he was already jaded to the point of exhaustion.
“It’s like talking to a wall sometimes, Gregory.” Ed tossed his calculator into the air, watched it spin three full revolutions, and then tried to catch it in his chest pocket. The calculator, no more aerodynamic than it was intimidating, bounced off his chest and fell onto the grassy ground. Ignoring his own antics, Ed continued. “You see, the fact that they simply make calculators is exactly the problem. If they made calculators and death rays, I believe that their profit margins would go through the roof.” He paused, kicked his calculator softly with the toe of his shoe, and added, “The roof is only metaphorical, you understand.”
Gregory understood, but didn’t voice that understanding. He merely leaned his head back until it contacted the brick wall behind him. He slid his slender hands into his pocket, scrapping some of the dried blood from the knuckles of his right hand.
The pair stood in silence for some time. Above them, pure white clouds drifted in a sea of unassailable blue. There was something about the purity of the sky and the cleanliness of the clouds that struck Gregory as scandalous. There they stood, as unimpeachable in their purity as they did an hour ago when Ed was bleeding and yelling and crying. How was it that they could watch that without blinking, without helping? What use was purity if it watched from afar as the good of the world suffered?
In the stillness of the afternoon, Gregory closed his eyes and tried to think pleasant thoughts. He tried not to hate the clouds or the sky or the world in general. He failed. All he saw when he closed his eyes was four knuckles covered with Ed’s blood and spit. The knuckles were attached to some nameless, faceless senior. He didn’t deserve a name. Rather, he was the kind of person who would be listed as “henchman number 3” in the credits of a movie: just another violent extra.
The scene was frozen in Gregory’s mind, locked in time like a movie trapped by the pause button. A thin red tendril connected the henchman’s knuckles with the newly formed split in Ed’s lower lip. Ed’s eyes were pinched shut in fear and pain. His calculator was suspended inches from the splayed fingertips of his right hand, and three textbooks were clutched tightly to his chest by his left arm. If Norman Rockwell were alive today, this would be the kind of scene that he would paint. This, in the mind of young Gregory Martin, was life at its essence.
The scene slipped into motion, and suddenly Gregory wasn’t looking at a memory, he was reliving it. He felt the heat of rage burning behind his eyes, warming his whole face. The sound of his book bag striking the concrete behind him barely registered as he ran toward Ed, his fists clenched so tightly that the veins in his forearms throbbed. The world around him blurred, became inconsequential. He didn’t see the glass doors of the school turned to twin sheets of light by the late afternoon sun. He didn’t see the faces of the students around Ed and Number 3. The whole of his vision was filled with Ed and his antagonist.
Then there were two sets of bleeding knuckles. The senior was on his back, displaying his teeth through a scowl of pain. Diluted blood showed on the off-white surfaces. Gregory’s right hand hurt. Ed was yelling something as tears rolled down his face, but Gregory didn’t hear him. No one did. He became inconsequential as soon as Gregory entered the scene. Ed always became inconsequential when Gregory was around.
The senior stood, his shock replaced by anger. Gregory stood between him and the increasingly vocal Ed. Adrenaline twisted Gregory’s perception of the world, made it difficult to focus on any one thing. He felt invincible but uncontrollable. His arms shook slightly, not from fear but from an attempt to contain the energy building up inside of him. Ed was saying something over and over again. It seemed important, but it couldn’t penetrate the haze of hatred that was swallowing Gregory.
A fragment seeped through. “…ornwall’s coming.” The triggered something, brought Gregory farther out of his trance. “Mrs. Cornwall’s coming.”
With that sentence, two words lit up in Gregory’s mind like roadside flares on a black night: zero tolerance. Those words were followed by a string of others: mandatory suspension, father, and rage. Images of raised fists, screaming mouths, and empty beer bottles followed the words. The whole world snapped back into focus.
“Run, you idiot. Mrs. Cornwall's coming.” Ed’s voice.
A hand on his shoulder. Ed’s hand.
Somewhere in the mix of things, he grabbed his bag and raced along the outside of the school building, tromping over the grass heedless of the polite sign that read, “Please keep off the grass.”
Gregory’s recollection ended. He looked down at Ed, who was sprawled out on the grass. “What did you do to start it?” he asked blandly.
Ed didn’t move. “Does it matter?”
Gregory wanted to say yes, it did matter. He wanted to announce to the world that the cause was just as important as the effect, the means as important as the end. But then he thought about the clouds again. To him, they represented purity in every way. They were perfect, beautiful, and wholly apathetic to the lives of impure humans. He wondered if God was like a cloud: perfect, untouchable, and uncaring.
“No, I guess it doesn’t.”
Ed laughed. “You’re too young to be a cynic, Gregory.” Looking straight up at the clouds that Gregory hated so much, Ed continued. “The answer is yes. It does matter, and you know it.” He sat up and leveled his gaze at Gregory. His boundless black hair was spread everywhere. A single curl split his forehead. Had he been wearing a camel skin suit, Gregory would have sworn he was a young John the Baptist.
“Nothing matters, Ed.”
“Then why’d you do it?”
“What?”
“If nothing matters, if it’s all meaningless, why’d you stop him? You could have just stood there like everyone else and watch him pummel me. But you didn’t because you know that some things do matter.”
“Don’t be a moron, Ed.”
Crack! A small puff of dust erupted off the bricks next to Gregory’s shoulder. Ed’s calculator bounced to the ground, the gray plastic turned white in the corner where it smashed into the wall.
“Don’t say that again.” Ed retrieved his calculator. “I’m sick of hearing you moan about how useless life is. You bought a lie, and you know it’s a lie. If nothing matters, you wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning, and you certainly wouldn’t have risked your neck on a loud-mouth like me.” Ed stabbed Gregory in the chest with his calculator. “You’re talking like a dead man or an atheist, and I don’t hang out with dead people or atheists.”
Gregory shoved Ed backwards, his expression eerily similar to the one he used when staring down Number 3. “All right, Ed. Then why’d I help you?”
“And I’m the moron?” Ed turned around, picked up his books, and started to walk away.
“Answer the question, Ed.”
Ed kept walking.
“Ed! Answer the question.”
Ed stopped, turned around slowly, and looked at Gregory with pity. “You tell me, smart guy.”
Gregory’s response was hesitant. “Because it was the right thing to do?”
Ed smiled his heart-stopping smile. “Yeah. It was the right thing to do.” He flipped his calculator over in his hand. “And I still think this thing needs a stun gun attachment.”
So, having a short story or two cluttering up my hard drive, and having no real excuse not to, I've decided to enter. I expect to hear word of my inevitable rejection (or is it failure if it's a contest?) come April.
With that in mind, I'm posting one of my short stories here for your reading pleasure. It's not the one I'm submitting, but I like it anyway.
Calculators and Stun Guns
“Calculators should come with stun gun attachments,” Ed said as he rubbed his swollen lip.
“Don’t be a moron, Ed.” Gregory leaned his back against the brick wall. He didn’t look at Ed, who was sitting in the grass a few feet way. Gregory didn’t look at anything. He just stared blankly in the general direction of the sky, soaking in the sun and trying to forget how much it sucked to be alive.
“I’m just saying that it would be a major selling point. A company has to think of their target demographic, you know.”
At five and a half feet tall, Ed was short, even for a high school freshman. He had curly black hair that bobbed when he talked, making him appear even more animated than he already was. His ever present uniform was a worn pair of jeans and a too-large flannel shirt that would have made him cool had he gone to school in the nineties during the height of Nirvana-induced grunge. Sadly, fashion had turned, and Ed’s outfits added just one more reason to an already long list of reasons why it was necessary to keep him at the fringes of polite society.
“Don’t be a moron, Ed.” Gregory hated repeating himself, but it was often necessary with Ed. He was in every way Gregory’s opposite. Where Ed was short and pudgy, Gregory was tall and slim. Ed was loud-mouthed and slovenly, whereas Gregory was quiet and meticulously neat. Ed wore flannel shirts; Gregory wore polos.
“Switchblades?”
“What?” Gregory turned his head and looked down at Ed, who was slashing his graphing calculator through the air as if it were a rapier.
“How about switchblades instead of stun guns?” Ed paused in response to Gregory’s disapproving stare. He stood up, ran his left hand through his bouncing curls, and stared right back. When he started talking, he held his calculator in front of him as if it held the answers to the universe’s deepest questions. “Listen, I’m not being a moron. I’m being practical. Just carrying one of these things is an invitation to get the holy crap kicked out of you. As a responsible vendor, I believe that Texas Instruments should provide its patrons with integral defense features.” Ed paused just long enough to bask in his unassailable logic. “Like stun guns or switch blades or pepper spray.”
“They make calculators, Ed. Not death rays.” Gregory’s voice was monotone. It was the voice of a condemned man, a voice that wanted to fight, but had none left to give. He was only fifteen years old, and he was already jaded to the point of exhaustion.
“It’s like talking to a wall sometimes, Gregory.” Ed tossed his calculator into the air, watched it spin three full revolutions, and then tried to catch it in his chest pocket. The calculator, no more aerodynamic than it was intimidating, bounced off his chest and fell onto the grassy ground. Ignoring his own antics, Ed continued. “You see, the fact that they simply make calculators is exactly the problem. If they made calculators and death rays, I believe that their profit margins would go through the roof.” He paused, kicked his calculator softly with the toe of his shoe, and added, “The roof is only metaphorical, you understand.”
Gregory understood, but didn’t voice that understanding. He merely leaned his head back until it contacted the brick wall behind him. He slid his slender hands into his pocket, scrapping some of the dried blood from the knuckles of his right hand.
The pair stood in silence for some time. Above them, pure white clouds drifted in a sea of unassailable blue. There was something about the purity of the sky and the cleanliness of the clouds that struck Gregory as scandalous. There they stood, as unimpeachable in their purity as they did an hour ago when Ed was bleeding and yelling and crying. How was it that they could watch that without blinking, without helping? What use was purity if it watched from afar as the good of the world suffered?
In the stillness of the afternoon, Gregory closed his eyes and tried to think pleasant thoughts. He tried not to hate the clouds or the sky or the world in general. He failed. All he saw when he closed his eyes was four knuckles covered with Ed’s blood and spit. The knuckles were attached to some nameless, faceless senior. He didn’t deserve a name. Rather, he was the kind of person who would be listed as “henchman number 3” in the credits of a movie: just another violent extra.
The scene was frozen in Gregory’s mind, locked in time like a movie trapped by the pause button. A thin red tendril connected the henchman’s knuckles with the newly formed split in Ed’s lower lip. Ed’s eyes were pinched shut in fear and pain. His calculator was suspended inches from the splayed fingertips of his right hand, and three textbooks were clutched tightly to his chest by his left arm. If Norman Rockwell were alive today, this would be the kind of scene that he would paint. This, in the mind of young Gregory Martin, was life at its essence.
The scene slipped into motion, and suddenly Gregory wasn’t looking at a memory, he was reliving it. He felt the heat of rage burning behind his eyes, warming his whole face. The sound of his book bag striking the concrete behind him barely registered as he ran toward Ed, his fists clenched so tightly that the veins in his forearms throbbed. The world around him blurred, became inconsequential. He didn’t see the glass doors of the school turned to twin sheets of light by the late afternoon sun. He didn’t see the faces of the students around Ed and Number 3. The whole of his vision was filled with Ed and his antagonist.
Then there were two sets of bleeding knuckles. The senior was on his back, displaying his teeth through a scowl of pain. Diluted blood showed on the off-white surfaces. Gregory’s right hand hurt. Ed was yelling something as tears rolled down his face, but Gregory didn’t hear him. No one did. He became inconsequential as soon as Gregory entered the scene. Ed always became inconsequential when Gregory was around.
The senior stood, his shock replaced by anger. Gregory stood between him and the increasingly vocal Ed. Adrenaline twisted Gregory’s perception of the world, made it difficult to focus on any one thing. He felt invincible but uncontrollable. His arms shook slightly, not from fear but from an attempt to contain the energy building up inside of him. Ed was saying something over and over again. It seemed important, but it couldn’t penetrate the haze of hatred that was swallowing Gregory.
A fragment seeped through. “…ornwall’s coming.” The triggered something, brought Gregory farther out of his trance. “Mrs. Cornwall’s coming.”
With that sentence, two words lit up in Gregory’s mind like roadside flares on a black night: zero tolerance. Those words were followed by a string of others: mandatory suspension, father, and rage. Images of raised fists, screaming mouths, and empty beer bottles followed the words. The whole world snapped back into focus.
“Run, you idiot. Mrs. Cornwall's coming.” Ed’s voice.
A hand on his shoulder. Ed’s hand.
Somewhere in the mix of things, he grabbed his bag and raced along the outside of the school building, tromping over the grass heedless of the polite sign that read, “Please keep off the grass.”
Gregory’s recollection ended. He looked down at Ed, who was sprawled out on the grass. “What did you do to start it?” he asked blandly.
Ed didn’t move. “Does it matter?”
Gregory wanted to say yes, it did matter. He wanted to announce to the world that the cause was just as important as the effect, the means as important as the end. But then he thought about the clouds again. To him, they represented purity in every way. They were perfect, beautiful, and wholly apathetic to the lives of impure humans. He wondered if God was like a cloud: perfect, untouchable, and uncaring.
“No, I guess it doesn’t.”
Ed laughed. “You’re too young to be a cynic, Gregory.” Looking straight up at the clouds that Gregory hated so much, Ed continued. “The answer is yes. It does matter, and you know it.” He sat up and leveled his gaze at Gregory. His boundless black hair was spread everywhere. A single curl split his forehead. Had he been wearing a camel skin suit, Gregory would have sworn he was a young John the Baptist.
“Nothing matters, Ed.”
“Then why’d you do it?”
“What?”
“If nothing matters, if it’s all meaningless, why’d you stop him? You could have just stood there like everyone else and watch him pummel me. But you didn’t because you know that some things do matter.”
“Don’t be a moron, Ed.”
Crack! A small puff of dust erupted off the bricks next to Gregory’s shoulder. Ed’s calculator bounced to the ground, the gray plastic turned white in the corner where it smashed into the wall.
“Don’t say that again.” Ed retrieved his calculator. “I’m sick of hearing you moan about how useless life is. You bought a lie, and you know it’s a lie. If nothing matters, you wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning, and you certainly wouldn’t have risked your neck on a loud-mouth like me.” Ed stabbed Gregory in the chest with his calculator. “You’re talking like a dead man or an atheist, and I don’t hang out with dead people or atheists.”
Gregory shoved Ed backwards, his expression eerily similar to the one he used when staring down Number 3. “All right, Ed. Then why’d I help you?”
“And I’m the moron?” Ed turned around, picked up his books, and started to walk away.
“Answer the question, Ed.”
Ed kept walking.
“Ed! Answer the question.”
Ed stopped, turned around slowly, and looked at Gregory with pity. “You tell me, smart guy.”
Gregory’s response was hesitant. “Because it was the right thing to do?”
Ed smiled his heart-stopping smile. “Yeah. It was the right thing to do.” He flipped his calculator over in his hand. “And I still think this thing needs a stun gun attachment.”
Comments
Lastly, I'll come back to read the story, but thanks for what you said..about love, and yes, it's true, but not always true about me. I write what I like to see in myself. Today I yelled, but yesterday, i was a pretty good mom. So, I'm talking myself into being the sort of mother I want to be...
But also recognizing I can't do it without HIM.
I usually send stories off with the hopes of getting published but with the realization that even if they are amazing there's a good chance they won't get published. So I publically claim that I'll get rejected while I secretly hope to stand astride the literary world like a colossus. It's twisted, but it helps take some of the pressure off.