This is where I'll keep my stories.
Pelican Dreams
A small, brownish pelican gently moved the other birds aside with his beak as he boarded his little raft. They fussed some but this raft was his and they let it be. As the tide went out, I watched the brave little pelican floating out to sea. Some days he’d only float some yards from shore and later come back in with the tide to go about his little brave business. Other times I watched him disappear over the horizon to brave the deep and the fishes from there that would visit him. I feared once that he might not return but he finally floated in, head high and eyes sharp. A tear came to my eye as saw him ashore again. It was a somehow noble thing this little one did, braving the waves and the deep -- a sentinel of sky and sea on the little wood raft he rode.
Charlotte
Charlotte loved her uncle Charley very much. After all, he had been the first person to ever make her laugh. From the time she was born onward, she couldn’t help but smile every time she saw him. On top of everything, he was also her only uncle. Every time he came to visit, which tended to be often, she would charge at him with open arms and a smile so large it was slightly silly, but in a beautifully endearing way. She would ask, “How now uncle?” (as they both shared a love of reading and of writing,) and he would respond, “Alas poor Charlotte, I’m still chasing the dream.” At this they would laugh and continue on to less poorly spun silliness. What was left unmentioned was that the dream he chased was not the average, typical ‘dream’ that everyone else seemed to mean when they said this. No, he had had a dream and was truly chasing it. His dream, as most worthwhile dreams do, had come in bits and pieces of clarity. When he first had it, he decided to find the place he dreamed about and do what he dreamed he had done. He went from place to place, doing this thing and that, trying to live this markedly average, but remarkably particular dream. You see, it’s perfectly respectable to chase a dream like freedom, or starting your own restaurant. Even admirable. But that’s a different sort of dream entirely. No, he had dreamed events and, for years, had been trying to make them real. Not surprisingly, this was not approved of by his family and he was asked not to mention it. Especially around Charlotte: because she was too much like him already and it wouldn’t do to have her wasting her life chasing “actual” dreams.
It is necessary, now, to mention a very unfortunate truth. Charlotte’s parents weren’t really her parents. They had never told her this and she, like very nearly everyone else, thought that they, in fact, were. Another unfortunate truth is that dear Uncle Charley, contrary to popular opinion, had not always been single. His dear wife had died inexplicably at a young age. Poor Charley had been left, heart broken to say the least, and very alone to raise a very small child. In short, he knew he couldn’t do it. Not that he wasn’t willing to try; he was never a quitter. But Charley was also not stupid and he realized his daughter deserved more than he could give. Rather than give her up entirely, he gave her to his brother and his sister in law. Being a very bright girl, if Charlotte had been told this story it wouldn’t take her more than few seconds to put it together, as you surely have. Charley was not Charlottes uncle but her father. This more than likely accounted for all the unique similarities they shared. It is also worth noting that Charley’s dream had first come with the death of his dear wife, and this more than likely accounted for his chasing of it.
Musical Seams
It was a bleak morning’s afternoon. You know how those are. I’d run into him once or twice before. He was so aggravatingly familiar that I never bothered to ask him who he was or where he’d come from. I didn’t really want to know. I was on my break, working at the music store, when I next bumped into him--literally. So what? He said sorry, I said fine; I just wanted to go back to looking at music. He wouldn’t leave me alone though; I tried to ignore his attempts to be nice and conversational by putting my headphones in. He got all kinds of dirty looks for his laughing after he held up the unplugged jack at the end of my chord.
“Look, I’m sorry I bumped into you. Go away.”
“Mmm, no. I like this store. I think I’ll come every day.”
I frowned. I knew that meant he’d keep bothering me.
“Fine, I don’t care. Just leave me alone.”
As I left, he followed me, jabbering all the way. You’d think I would be freaked out by this but for what ever reason it seemed normal. Like it had always been that way. Sometimes he wouldn’t shut up, sometimes he had almost nothing to say.
No...I don’t know...go away; I felt like a broken record with my answers but he didn’t seem to mind hearing the same thing every day. One day he didn’t show up and in a twisted way, I felt a twinge of disappointment which I quickly erased from my thoughts because it was so stupid. The next day he was back and back to his old jabbering.
I decided to go to the park to see if he’d follow me there one day. He did. He’d been provoking me the whole way. What’s your favorite this, have you ever thought about that, if I were a jelly bean what flavor would I be? His questions ranged form the ridiculous to the sublime and back again without even the bat of an eye from him. It was so painfully annoying and so longed for at the same time. I hated it. The way he did it made me want to punch him in the ribs so he’d shut his trap, but then pour my soul out. Somehow he’d made me care which made me want to prove how much I didn’t care.
“Do you prefer platypus or beavers?”
“No,” I said.
“Ah, an otter person I see.”
“Please leave.”
“What’s your favorite instrument?”
“I don’t know.” What I really wanted to say was which ever one rings the best harmony with my heart when music is the only place I have left to turn.
“Hmm; what do you know?”
“That you’re bugging me.”
“Hah, that’s funny.” He seemed delighted to be so annoying. “At least that’s something.”
“What’s your favorite time to remember?”
I almost smiled and I almost cried. They sort of looked the same on my face. ‘All the joy of meetings past, minus the pain of what might have been’ would have been a good answer.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you have one?”
“I haven’t thought about it.” Lying like that had become so easy.
“Favorite grade? Favorite summer? You must have a favorite summer.”
“No.” I had answers to all his questions, but they were mine. With each one though, keeping them in hurt a little more.
“Have you ever had a favorite time of day?” he asked.
I could have told him it was at ten minutes to five, especially in September, just as the leaves scrape the light from the bottoms of clouds like so many pallet knives. Instead, all I said was, “No.”
“You’ve made a habit of not forming opinions, haven’t you. Was that on purpose or did it just happen?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it always like that for you, or is it a more recent development?”
My reflex was just to say that I didn’t know again and be done with it and done with him. But I was tired of being done with it; all that really meant was I’d go back to being alone, inside myself, begging to get out; staying broken until I had to come back to my problems and decide again whether to fix them or to just ‘not know’ some more. Lying about not knowing had become more painful than knowing. I knew. This time I would know out loud.
“You know,” I said, “it hasn’t always been like this for me. I’ve grown this numb, ignorant shell of ‘not knowing’ over years of unanswered wonderings about things I’ve been told aren’t important. Things like, what is it about holding a living thing that makes you smile? Or what about a harbor keeps a ship afloat? Why must the dawn be breaking to come? Why are insides and outsides on different sides? Must a mind be tormented to be beautiful? What about discomfiture is so needed for learning? How does the top get so far from the bottom? Which way do you swim when the sea all looks the same? How complex a thing can be defined by a name? These are things that I really don’t know. I must confess though, I lied about not knowing everything else. I say I don’t know because they say it doesn’t hurt to feel nothing. Whether that means it eliminates pain or just won’t be a hinderment makes no difference. Now I say they’re wrong. Dead wrong. I say it makes you dead and being dead while you’re alive is anything but painless, and anything but helpful.”
He stared at me with a one of those mouth open even though it wasn’t sort of looks so long that he almost walked into a tree.
“Where did that come from?”
“It came from me. The me that doesn’t pretend that I don’t miss Orion when I can’t see him anymore; that doesn’t pretend that munching on silence soup doesn’t make me want to vomit twelve-tone catastrophes at the piano. The me that hid my insides so deep they don’t have sides. The me that doesn’t pretend that five fifty five in the afternoon, especially in October, when the light on the treetops is as alive as the trees and the clouds sing as loud as the birds and stained glass cacophonies of unmet potential wait to scream with the light hasn’t always been my favorite time of day. The me that is me; that still remembers the joy of knowing there’s somewhere to grow.”
I jerked to a halt and looked at him a little bewilderedly; my mouth may have spread open a hair as I stood, self-dumfounded, staring. I felt a little sheepish and unsure of what his reaction could possibly be to this cold rush of blood that had set my bones on fire and ripped past the borders of all thought as it poured out of me. He did something I couldn’t have expected less. He looked me right in the eye and began to smile, and smile, and smile until I thought his face might crack. Then he roared, “I knew I’d know the you in there! Sorry, that didn’t make sense, but I knew it.”
“What?” was all I could come up with.
“You’re seams aren’t bursting, they’re too tight for that. But the stuff between your seams is just begging to get out.” He was speaking too quickly for anybody’s own good now. He might have done cartwheels he had to work so hard to hold his joy in.
“What do you mean?” I pleaded impatiently. “What did you know about me?” I honestly felt a little perturbed that he claimed he knew ‘me’ even though that was impossible. Where did he get off thinking he could see through me? He just beamed with pleasure.
“I’m sorry I said anything but ‘I don’t know’ now,” I said. His smile faded slightly.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. From the moment I met you I knew there was someone different, someone else that I wasn’t meeting yet. For all you’ve done to prove how dead you are, you can’t hide how alive you would be if you had the chance. Something in your eyes, something in your hands; a something that speaks with subtle voice when hearts are left alone to chase the fleeting years. Memories that barred the dark of nightmares past; prayers that fractured fear. A something that rings with hope for light’s last philharmonic spark. You can’t hide that.”
“Where’d that come from?” finally dumped out of my mouth.
“Me.” He chuckled.
When that word spilled out of his mouth; “me,” I blinked and realized it was my mouth I was watching. I looked at myself in the mirror that had been there the whole time. It’s funny how dreams turn moments into memories. Even day dreams. Time means very little when you’re heart has something to tell you to keep from bursting at its seams.
Laundry
Laundry
Doing laundry, I noticed the sleeve of a shirt was wrapped around a pair of shorts. The phrase “strangle hold” immediately came to mind. A battle of laundry swiftly ensued as the socks pounced on the jeans. The baseball shirts all fought as a team as if everything else were the umps. The board shorts retained their non partizan chill until rib knits began throwing things. The static ballistics all crackled and screamed as I tried to break up the fight. And in a moment I realized I was nuts thinking my clothes could have fights.
A Life for a Life
It was originally just a test of new building technologies being developed for a Mars colony, but it just kept getting bigger and bigger. The Mercury colony was enormous. Building it in space meant it didn’t have to support any weight, not even its own, during construction. There was no limit to its size. And man likes a challenge. The whole world seemed to be consumed by it: building. It all seemed like a dream. Then, when it became visible to the naked eye from Earth’s surface, the dream cracked and reality was left; an exact duplicate of what the dream had been. That began to change opinions. Groups of anti-Mercurians arose; protests, demonstrations, riots. “Because we can,” wasn’t a good enough reason to build anymore. None of them could make it to space to cause actual harm to the station, but people at home started checking their locks.
For people like Charlotte Wolfe, that was all too personal. Her husband, Spencer, had been promoted from research engineer directly to project manager at the Mercury colony. After he had solved the issues with the planet-core tech, a great deal was expected of him. Charlotte was left with two small children and an otherwise empty house with nothing to look forward to but a weekly video chat with Spencer, thousands of miles away. On his first trip to the colony, Charlotte ignored her misgivings at the launch pad. She gave Spencer a goodbye kiss and hid the biting icy part of her mixed feelings from her children who didn’t understand what that monstrous obelisk was that their daddy was walking into. Survey and design were only scheduled for a month.
“What’s taking so long?” asked Charlotte.
“We’ve run into a few snags, that’s all,” replied Spencer.
“What kind of snags turn a month into four?”
“It’s just...plans keep changing. They’ve decided to see if they can keep building until it has gravity -- natural gravity, and can support atmosphere. There’s a lot more potential for the tech than we realized.”
“Gravity? There’s a lot of potential for your family too. The longer you’re gone the more we risk losing it. Do you know when you’re coming home yet?”
“Soon. I hope. It’s over my head Charlotte; I’m not really the one making decisions.”
“Well, tell whoever is they’d better get on it.” She grinned.
“I know Hon, I miss you too. Tell the kids I love them. I’ll try and relay your message, but I’m not sure how well it will go over.” He chuckled.
Charlotte was at the pad eight months later when Spencer finally came home.
On it went; building and building, pro-building, protesting, living life normally but with the knowledge that normal was going to include a new planet.
There were rumors that engines and weapons were being built into the very structure of that new planet -- a traveling world that could either protect or destroy. One could never tell with rumors.
By Spencer’s third trip, Charlotte didn’t even look out the window as the shuttle launched. She couldn’t. She hated the colony. She wasn’t really anti-Mercurian -- she couldn’t care less about politics. She hated it for the simple fact that it took her husband away.
Eventually it seemed that there were two moons in the sky. Problems with tides and magnetic fields were already cropping up, all promptly squelched by the world building force; but the bigger problems still seemed far distant. Earth was still home.
Still, the only people on the station were scientists and engineers. Calculating, designing, researching, recalculating; everything had to be done on the largest scale anyone could imagine. It’s remarkable how small the details of that scale are. A planet was being created. Orbits had to be mapped; the gravity of the Earth, the moon, the sun, and the other planets would all be affected. You couldn’t just plop a new planet right in the middle of it all and expect luck to work things out. Every factor had to be accounted for. Atmosphere had to be carefully formulated. Some of it could be manufactured, but most of it would have to come from what was already available. It would be filtered and enriched and transported to the Mercury colony leaving the Earth with nothing. The operation would be colossal: as atmosphere moved life would have to follow but enough had to be left on Earth to support the plants, animals, and people that would be waiting for the next transport. All other needed materials would be moved the same way; filtered and separated, transferred by degrees. A veritable Garden of Eden would be created, a hellish waste left. It would have to be done in carefully planned stages. Noah’s arc across orbits, and the flood would be everything, and it would be disappearing not growing.
Construction reached a critical point; the colony almost had enough gravity for civilians to start migrating. One morning, Spencer Wolfe looked out at the Earth-rise over the colony horizon. It still felt like a dream. Opportunity, hope, loneliness; the colony was many things to him. Home was not one of them. He rolled the lucky red lego his son had sent him in his hand and sighed.
“Earth to Spencer, we need you over here,” yelled a worker. “Or should I say colony to Spencer?” Spencer jumped and almost lost his grip on the lego.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I’ve been calling you for five minutes,” said the worker. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I’m sorry. You know, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me just now. I could have sworn your voice was coming from Earth,” Spencer replied.
“Wow Spence, I think you’ve been wearing that helmet a little too long.”
“Yeah, maybe so. What did you need?”
“The transport with the core-components just got here. We need your okay on install.”
“Alright. Lets go.”
Time was growing short for the Earth. Spencer felt a twinge of regret as they bounded off to the transport dock. He’d miss the rest of the Earth-rise. There would only be so many more of those before it was just a woeful rock.
The Mercurians, had adopted a new system of days and hours and even years to match the growing size of their planet. Sooner or later everyone would have to get used to that; different years. Even Charlotte. The strangest part was that the scale would keep changing as long as the planet kept growing. It almost seemed like it could grow now, instead of just being built. Then one morning, Mercury colony time, the whole Earth was suddenly flooded with a single data feed. Every broadcast on the planet was commandeered to show a video of one single action with one single sound, only a few seconds long. A helmeted figure, so used to life in space where Newton’s laws are on hold, let go of a small red block -- and it dropped.
