Running Late

Hi, my name's Bethany, and I'm an underwriter.

I guess you could say that it all started when I was about thirteen. I read a book called Eragon by a guy named Christopher Paolini; and on the inside flap, it said that Christopher had started writing when he was fifteen and was now published at nineteen. Well, I knew that I could write as well as Paolini, and a plot was already forming in my head. Fantasy requires no research since you make everything up. It was just all coming together. So, I made a statement: I would start writing my book at thirteen and be published by eighteen! Take that!

(sigh)

But wait, it gets worse. While reading an article on J. K. Rowling, I noticed that she hand wrote every single one of her Harry Potter manuscripts. Youth is so ambitious and, unfortunately, blind. I decided to write out my bestseller as well and just edit it on the computer later. Please remember that at this stage of my writing obsession, I had visions of the Oprah show dancing in my head.

Now, I am nineteen years old. I have an unfinished manuscript that is still being handwritten because of my youthful stubbornness and determination. I also have writer's block.

Then one day I was introduced to this cool, new site called Storypraxis. It offered a fun writing practice in order to get the creativity flowing. So, I tried it. It was great at first; I was spitting out stories everyday. I even got two of them into the Magazine!

But now, as I sit here telling my testimonial, the literary high has come to a crashing low. The prompts no longer spark my imagination. Sometimes, I will get an idea in my head,  just a tiny sprout of a plot, so I will go on Storypraxis, only to find a prompt that is completely opposite to my idea. My hope is once again deflated.

My biological clock is ticking away, and my story is running very, very late. Paolini has had three bestsellers and is working on a fourth; his book was also made into a movie, albeit a very badly made movie. I have six months to finish my manuscript and have it published before I turn the dreaded twenty. Why did I choose this path?! Why?!

Bethany Bachman writes and doesn't write in Philadelphia. (sob)

www.storypraxis.com

The Bearded Lady Ornament

"What's with the bearded lady?" my son asked around a mouthful of cereal.

"It's a muff, Nick," I sighed with a roll of my eyes.

Nick grunted and shoveled more sugar puffs into his abyssal mouth. "Don't forget I'm going to Dad's tonight."

Ouch, Nick, why don't you just stab me with the butcher knife. I muttered, "How could I forget?" Fiddling with another ornament, I bit my lip to keep my true feelings below the surface. As a mom and respected leader of my community, it was required that I be untouchable by anything emotional. Even if I was going to be alone on Christmas Eve.

"You're the one who kicked him out, Mom," said Nick, the world's wisest sixteen-year-old.

"Nick, please not now." I didn't care if I was whining at this point. "Make sure you have everything you need." I placed another glass ball on the saggy pine tree drooping in my living room.

Three hours later, I sat in front of that now glittering tree, nursing a cup of hot cocoa and wrapped up in blankets. Bing Crosby crooned about snow in the background, but outside the window, it was still as dry as a bone. I flipped on the TV to catch the last scene of It's a Wonderful Life, the perfect reminder that my family wanted nothing to do with me tonight.

I frowned at the closest ornament, the bearded lady. "Why do I have to be the bigger person? Why can't I just throw a tantrum whenever I feel like it?" Great, now I'm complaining to a freak-of-nature ornament. My life was pathetic. I drew my blankets over my head, clicked my heels together three times, and chanted softly, "There's no place like sanity. There's no place like sanity. There's no place like sanity."

Bethany Bachman writes in Philadelphia and admits that her creativity levels are running extremely low.

For more fiction fun, check out www.storypraxis.com.

Things on My Mind

"You seem a little distracted, Jack," I said, sitting down across from the teen.

"I've got some things on my mind, ya know?" he mumbled through the greasy strands of hair that hadn't been washed or cut in months. He jiggled his leg, keeping his face turned towards the left.

I set my tape recorder down between us and turned it on. "Ryan Collins interview with Jack Kelly, Thursday, May fifteenth, two thousand eight. You said you had things on your mind. What kind of things?"

Jack bit at his fingernails as his leg shook furiously. "None of your business."

"Jack, look at me, please." His bloodshot eyes were tormented; they reminded me of the eyes of the wounded soldiers I had talked to before. They and Jack had both been to hell and back, whether in the Middle East or a local high school. "I'm here to help you. You have to trust me, okay? Why don't you tell me more about the morning before you-"

"It's Kara," he interrupted, with an irritated look. "I've been thinking about Kara." I flipped through my mental notes and remembered that Kara was the girl Jack had been close friends with and also one of the students who had died that day.

"She wasn't supposed to be there," he continued. "I told her to stay home, pretend to be sick." He made a quiet, wounded sound in his throat. "She was the first person I saw in the hall. I think she screamed when she saw the gun. I yelled at her to get out of there. I said Jay-Jay and his gang were gonna pay for treating me like crap." His voice was growing louder, and his fidgeting had stopped. His chest heaved with quick breaths as adrenaline started to fill his veins. "They were going to see that I'm stronger than they are and beg for my forgiveness as they lay dying on the floor in front of me."

"What happened then?" I asked softly.

"I shot them!" he screamed, springing out of his chair and raising his fists to the cell ceiling. "I held the gun up to their faces and stole their lives! They were scared and crying, but I just laughed because I had the power! I was in control, and they couldn't do anything about it!"

"What about Kara?"

Jack lowered his hands slowly, breathing heavily. His face twitched as he struggled to keep tears at bay. "She tried to take the gun out of my hands," he started slowly. "I struggled with her, and a shot went off."

Jack sank down to the floor. He drew his knees up to his chest, locking his arms around them and starting to rock. "She fell down, and there was blood...on her-"

Suddenly, he raised his head and screamed. His eyes were wide with terror, and he started to babble at the space above my head. "I'm sorry, Kara, I'm sorry! Not you! It wasn't supposed to be you!"

I quickly knelt beside him and tried to calm him down. The noise alerted some guards, who roughly pushed me out of the cell. "That's enough for today, Mr. Collins."

"But wait!" I protested. The slamming of the heavy, iron door echoed with Jack's last words.

"No, Kara, it wasn't supposed to be you!"

Bethany Bachman writes in Philadelphia and thinks bullies are worse people than the victims who go on shooting rampages.

Check out www.storypraxis.com for more fiction fun.

Someday I'll Kill You

The dried blood on his fingers looked like spaghetti sauce. He giggled at the thought.

"Spaghetti and meatballs for dinner tonight," he whispered to himself, flexing his hands in front of him. He giggled even more at that. He was clever and witty; no matter what anyone else said.

He picked up his hacksaw and continued cutting through the elbow on his blood-stained workbench. He had to finish quickly; rigor mortis was setting in, and the body would be too hard to dismember soon.

Looking back over at the corpse, he grinned maliciously and licked his lips. She had screamed for so long before finally succumbing to death; it had excited and terrified him at the same time. The initial rape meant nothing to him and was only to make her realize that he was in control. His favorite part had come after the first knife wounds were made, and she was overcome by the pain. That's when she realized she was going to die.

The grandfather clock bonged above his head, spurring him on to make quick work of the girl. He kept her body naked and her eyes open, occasionally leaning over to smile at them and laugh at their emptiness. He carefully wrapped everything he cut off and packed it into the deep chest freezer. That would feed him for at least a month. He threw the skeletal remains of his victim in a tarp and rolled it up tightly, tying the ends with twine.

"Abel! Aaaabel!"a sharp voice poked through the basement ceiling. He whimpered and scrubbed his hands with puce soap in the washtub. "Where are you, you stupid dolt?"

"I'll be right up, ma'am," he yelled up the steps. He shoved the body bag behind a loose brick in the wall, giving the dead girl a vicious kick before closing her in. He heard his mother's cane tapping across the kitchen floor.

Glaring at the floorboards above his head, he whispered, "Someday, I'll kill you too."

Bethany Bachman writes in Philadelphia and admits that this story came from a very dark, angry place in her mind that was visited today.

Check out www.storypraxis.com for more fiction fun.

Fame

"She's lying to you, detective, right through her pale yellow teeth," Georgie hissed. A thin stream of spittle flew out of his mouth, swung around, and smacked into his cheek.

"Easy, guv," purred the drowned rat who sat on the other side of the interrogation table.

Detective Hayes huffed an insufferable sigh. "Yes, thank you, Georgie. Why don't you go to the cafeteria for a nice hot plate of spam, while I speak with Miss...um..."

"Witch. Miss Witch," the girl supplied.

"Yes, thank you, Miss Witch," Hayes nodded.

"I'm not really a witch, you know," she continued. "They just call me one 'cause I weigh the same as a duck."

Sputtering, Georgie pointed at the witch, his finger shaking with fury. "You turned me into a newt!"

"Well, it looks as though you got better," Hayes said loudly, prodding Georgie out the door amid his stammers. "Yes, thank you. Good-bye." Hayes sat back down at the interrogation table.

"I come from a very respectable family," Miss Witch said, "the Brook-Hamsters."

"Ah, yes, your brother works at the Ministry of Silly Walks, am I right?"

She sighed, "Yes, and my eldest brother, Gervais, was the Upper-Class Twit of the Year. We are all so proud of him. He is our claim to fame, you know."

"Very nice," Hayes smiled politely before clearing his throat. He opened a folder that lay on the table and skimmed it over. "Now, what can you tell me about this dead parrot?"

Miss Brook-Hamster gasped. "I had no part in that incident."

"You did. It says so right here."

"I didn't."

"Did."

"Didn't!"

"Did!"

"Look, matey, I didn't come here for an argument," She stood, pushing the chair out with a loud scrape.

Suddenly, the door crashed open, and a policeman in a trench coat entered. "Alright, alright, allow me to introduce myself. I am Inspector Fox from the Light Entertainment Police, Comedy division, Special Flying Squad. Everyone is this room is hereby charged under Section B12 with involvement in a strange prompt, that being a prompt, short story, or piece of written work intended to cause grievous mental confusions to the online public."

Bethany Bachman writes in Philadelphia and dedicates this prompt to Monty Python fans everywhere.

Check out www.storypraxis.com for more fiction fun.

What? I Said "Vacuum"

The front door swung open, and a pile of bags staggered in. I pulled out an earbud and said, "I swept the floors, like you asked."

The living load of groceries froze mid-step. My mother's head poked out from behind the plastic lumps. "What?"

"I said, 'I swept the floors'," I repeated, returning my eyes back to my book.

My name came out of her mouth in a long, drawn out wail that made me grit my teeth in annoyance. I hate when she says my name that way. With an irritated sigh, I flick my eyes back up to hers.

"I said 'vacuum'. I wanted you to vacuum the floors," she cried, almost in tears now. "They don't get clean enough when you just swept them. Now, I'll have to do them all over again on top of everything else I have to do."

She hurried into the kitchen with the wobbly tower of food; and I follow her. I should know by now to just avoid her when she's in this mood; but I still close my long-awaited book and shuffle into the kitchen where she's continuing her rant.

"All I asked you to do was one little thing while I was at the store, and you couldn't do it right. What does that tell me? I only have two hours before the company comes, you know. I had hoped you could have helped me out a little."

"Mom, it's not like we're having someone special over. It's just your kids. They've lived here; they know what the house looks like, clean or dirty."

"I don't care. The house can still be clean for them," she said, starting off again.

I stand against the wall of the kitchen, leaning my head back. I'm half mad at her for making a big deal out of nothing and half mad at myself for making a stupid mistake. I can't help it if I didn't get the housewife genes that my sister did. So I still need told to clean something instead of just seeing that it needs cleaned, what's the big deal? I don't get why every room in the house needs to be spotless when it's just my brother and his wife coming for dinner.

"Ok, so what do you want to do now?" I cut in on her.

"Nothing," she sighed. "Just go read your book."

I throw my hands up in frustration and stomp back to my chair. Earbuds back in, book open to the right page, I wash my hands of the whole cleaning situation. I'm still angry though, and the words on the page just won't come into focus. I wind up reading the same sentence three times. It can't be helped. I snap the book shut with a bang. The floors need vacuumed.

Bethany Bachman writes in Philadelphia and doesn't understand why the whole house needs cleaned when company only sees two or three rooms.

Check out www.storypraxis.com for more fiction fun.

Never Get Out of This Maze

"We'll never get out of this maze!" his wife cried over the noise, her voice weighed down with exhaustion and anxiety.

"No, we will make it, Kimberly," Jim replied. He clapped his arm around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze. "Let me carry it for awhile." Kimberly gratefully handed him their treasured prize.

Suddenly, a battle cry rang out from behind a glass jewelry counter. A group of shoppers with murderous, wild eyes sprang out with claws extended.

"They've found us!" Kimberly screamed.

Jim pushed her forward. "Quickly! Aisle Three! Use your elbows!"

She flung herself into the crowd, bouncing off of people, carts, and shelves like a pinball. She tried to make room for Jim and the box, but the greedy zombies she divided poured back into the pathway like water.

Jim kept one eye on Kimberly and one eye on the rioting mob closing in. With his body, he sheltered the precious box he carried, as he shoved his way to the sanctuary of Aisle Three. Victory was just out of his reach when he felt the first hand land on him arm.

Kimberly turned in time to see her husband disappear under a pile of dirty bodies. The maddened shoppers, in their camp-out clothes, tore at Jim with snarling words and howls of desperation. Kimberly screamed her warrior cry and threw herself at the woman on top, who was poking into the pile with a golf umbrella.

"Save yourself!" came Jim's muffled yell. "Leave me here!"

A piercing whistle distracted everyone, and a knight in a shining, navy blue uniform flashed his badge and brandished his night-stick. He came into the fight like a tornado, pulling people off the pile and throwing them to the side where they glowered and licked their wounds with grumbles and blasphemies. At last, he pulled Jim up off the floor and herded him and Kimberly to Aisle Three.

"Here you go, folks. Hope that's still in one piece." he gestured to the box in Jim's arms. They thanked him over and over again, until he spotted another dog-pile and cut them off.

Jim and Kimberly payed $399 for their 42-inch plasma HD tv and scurried it out to their car. Jim shoved it into the backseat before jumping into the vehicle and locking the doors. They sat quietly under the bright parking lot light for a moment before Kimberly finally spoke up.

"So, what are we going to do with it now?"

Jim shrugged and turned the key in the ignition. "Sell it on eBay, I guess."

Bethany Bachman writes in Philadelphia and has seen fights break out on Black Friday over more ridiculous things than a tv (an Elmo doll comes to mind).

Check out www.storypraxis.com for more fiction fun.