Writing 2.4 – Who Uses Outlines?

May 22, 2013

essay-writing-a213

I was recently asked about my writing process.  Do I use outlines?  Do you plot a story or just make it up as you go along?  Please keep in mind that what works for one person might not ever work for anyone else or even that one person ever again except that one time.

For my most recent title, Connecting Flight, here’s what happened:

In mid November, 2011, a plane carrying two coaches of the Oklahoma State women’s basketball team crashed.  After seeing the story on the news, I wondered about the last moments of the two coaches, one male and one female.  I wondered what might go through the minds of people on a plane that is plummeting to earth and death is certain or at least likely.  What do people think about?  What do they do or say?  Did they pray, cry, scream, or something else?  And then I settled on what I would likely say.  “I’m not ready to die.  I’m not ready to die.”

And then I wondered about that proverbial light we’re supposed to see upon death, and I wondered what would happen if I or they were truly not ready to die.  What if they refused to go into that good light?  What if they just wandered away?  And what if they lived (no pun intended) up to that ghost theory that some spirits are here because of “unfinished business”?  What if?

I had the beginning of a story, but I couldn’t use the basketball coaches because that would be wrong.  So I did what most writers do – I put myself into it.  I made the male ghost an uptight math teacher.  I needed the female to be different, so she at first she was a rather uneducated, stay-at-home wife.  However, after going through several drafts, I eventually realized that she needed something in her past to haunt her.  (Again, no pun intended.)  She eventually became a model/actress.  Then she became a model/actress of the kind with very little clothing.  That was because she needed to have something in her past to hide and something to make her resist going to “heaven” because of a fear of being rejected based on that past.  There’s more to it than that, but it’s enough for now.

I had people.  I needed reasons.  They are both on a plane together going from Philadelphia to Los Angeles.  He is going to spy on his wife whom he thinks is having an affair.  She is going on business, another “modeling” job, so to speak.  She also suspects her husband is having an affair, but he has provided her with a great amount of wealth and material things, and she shares a good deal with her less-fortunate family, so she quietly takes one for the team.  I had a connection between them, but they wouldn’t know that until the end.

ghost_patrick_swayze

But that’s not important right now.  What’s important is the process.  What I first did was treat the story as I always do – like a movie.  I write outlines and, unlike Stephen King, cannot work without one.  Mine begins with a setting followed by the important events that should happen in that scene/chapter.  Here are the first three scenes/chapters in the outline:

 A.  Philly airport

  1. Ann and Chris, nervous, getting on plane, Philly airport,
  2. neither happy, notice each other, assume fear of flying
  3. small talk, both hinting but hiding something,
  4. turbulence, distracted, notice wedding rings
  5. Plane going down, people freaking, ann and Chris hold hands tightly, repeating “I’m not ready to die”  intensity so great they can’t let go, plane hits, all goes dark

 B.  Airport runway or wreckage site

  1. smoke clearing, EMT all around, blood, wreckage, triage, yelling.
  2. Ann and Chris looking in disbelief, sounds muffled in and out, vision blurry at times
  3. They’re perfectly clean, most others are a mess
  4. Both know something is wrong, not sure what, see a few others like them
  5. Some others walking away, looking back at them, waving for them to follow
  6. Still holding hands, pull apart, big Zap!  Touch again, painful Zap keeps them away
  7. Ball of bright light, others going in, Ann and Chris refuse
  8. See man crying, bloody, next to lifeless body of wife, kids too
  9. Leave area, run quickly, not looking, ambulance goes through them.

 C.   Random places away from crash site

  1. Panicking, crying, debating what to do, to go into the light or not
  2. Agree they not finished on earth, things to do still
  3. Discuss movies, ghost clues, rules, what they can and can’t do?
  4. Ann tells him to be more of a “man” when he cries.  He admits he’s not.
  5. Do we eat?  Sleep?  Piss?  Guess we’ll find out.
  6. Where did others go?  why didn’t we go?  people say spirits don’t know they dead
  7. But we know.  But we not ready?  We need rest.  Tired.  Do we sleep?  Mental detox.

This is not exactly how the story went, but it was the first, maybe second version of an outline.  Although the original outline only had 14 chapters, I eventually ended up with 18.  I always print my outlines so that I can keep them in front of me on the desk as I type.  I constantly check each line to make sure I’m going in order, although there’s always room for changes and improvising.  I also print the outlines because I like the visual of crossing off numbers and letters as I progress.  It helps give me a sense of progress and accomplishment.  Another part of my process is basically “watching a movie.”  When I type, I imagine that I’m watching a movie in my head, and I am simply writing what I am watching.  It allows me to write a lot in a short period of time, but it does have drawbacks, such as a drifting point of view and too much dialogue.  Oh well.  That’s what revising is for.

 

So, the crash was in November of 2011.  I had an outline finished by January of 2012.  Normally an outline doesn’t take that long, but I was still teaching then and didn’t have a great deal of time to work on it.  However, as January began, I knew that I was about to leave the profession, so that motivated me to work more quickly and enjoyably on the outline.

I started typing the first draft somewhere around February 1, 2012, and I finished that somewhere about the first week of March.  It was right about then that I started working more at blogging, having just gotten my first few followers.  That’s when I first started posting chapters as blog posts for feedback.  There were some incredibly nice people who seemed to be reading and greatly enjoying the chapters.  Not a lot of critical feedback, but a lot of polite praise.  A few people even tweeted out my chapters for others to read, and I was gaining more and more blog followers.  It was nice.

il_570xN.249948079

Somewhere in June of 2012 I began revising.  The story was too short and the ending was too easy.  I had rushed it, nobody was interested in the very few queries I had e-mailed, so I knew I had work to do and spent the summer revising heavily.  But that’s when I was really starting to enjoy the blog following that was growing.  Between chapters, I was writing humor, essays, posting photography, and I had also gotten hooked on the flash fiction thing.  Writing and revising were pushed aside, far aside.  I had an audience to feed, and it felt nice.

I won’t recount that episode because I have already spelled it out in Writing 2.0, which brought me back to writing fiction.  It had been a year since I originally wrote the story, and it wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was I.  That’s when I did two things at once: 

1. Revised the chapters a second time in the form of a third draft. 

2. I posted the new chapters for a new audience who immediately helped me revise it further for a fourth draft.  It grew from 18 chapters and 50,000 words to 25 chapters and 76,000 words in about six weeks, and I could not have done any of it without an outline.  

I realize that some of this is a bit redundant for those who have seen the other posts, Writing 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3.  However, as I said in the beginning, someone asked about my process, my outlines and preparation, and I wanted to explain it as fully as possible.  Thanks very much for asking, reading, and putting up with me.

How about you?  Who Uses Outlines?

_____________________________________

64 Comments | writing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by brainsnorts

Writing 2.3 – A Contract with the Reader

May 18, 2013

secret-window (2)

When I took a graduate class called “Writing the Novel” a few years ago, I learned two very important things.  First, if you tell a woman that she’s writing a romance novel when she thinks she’s writing literary fiction, be prepared to see a chair fly across the room.  Second, there’s something called “The Contract with the Reader.”  Let’s forget about throwing chairs for a while and focus on the contract, which was something I had never heard of before.

Let’s pretend you’re in a bar and a guy sitting to your left says, “You want to hear a story?”  Of course you don’t, but you say, “Sure.  Thrill me.”  He knows sarcasm, so he says, “Tell you what.  If I give you a four-sentence setup, and you agree that you’re interested in hearing the rest, then you owe me a beer.  How’s that?”  So of course, you say, “Sure.  Thrill me.”  So he says:

A lonely, 13-year old boy lives with his single mom in a trailer park and has a quiet place in the woods nearby where he feels safe from everyone else.  One afternoon, when his mom is working late, he goes to his place in the woods where he falls asleep until dark.  He wakes frightened from an incredibly strange dream and starts walking home.  Usually he snaps his fingers to break the silence because he’s afraid of the dark, but when he snaps his fingers this night, a painless but warm, candle-like flame comes from the end of his finger.

I don’t know about you, but those four sentences would have cost me at least one beer or as many as it would take for him to tell me the rest of the story, mainly because it begs for questions.  What was the dream about?  Was it really a dream?  What is producing the flames?  How is the dream connected to the flames?  What will he do now?  Is it like a super power?  Why is he lonely?  What kind of kid is he?  How will this change him?  Questions are important.  Without wanting to know more, there’s not reason to continue reading.  That’s why I like to end my chapters with little teases.  Yeah, I’m a tease.

To be clear, that setup was written by another student in the same graduate class as the chair-throwing romance writer.  Would love to take credit for it, but I can’t. 

The storyteller in the bar has just created a contract, and I am the reader.  He has said to me, “If you’re willing to hang in there for about 80,000 words, I promise I will deliver a story that explains everything.”  As the reader, I have the ability to accept the agreement, which means read the story, or not accept, which means I keep browsing the shelves or wait for another guy to show up on the barstool on the right who might have a better story.

Sometimes we accept the contract that turns out to be worth every penny.  Whether it was 2000 pennies for the book or the beer doesn’t matter, as long as you get a story that delivers on its promise.  Sometimes we accept the contract, but the story doesn’t deliver.  Even if you wanted, you won’t get your money back.  Worse than that, you won’t get the time back either.  Those 75,000 words are stuck in your head, and you will probably search right away for another story to wash the memories away.  It was a bad contract and should never have been offered to you, but there’s no way you could have known without someone having warned you.  You don’t usually get that in books or movies, but it sure is needed.

secret_windowOne of my favorite examples of a bad contract is Secret Window with Johnny Depp, based on a story by Stephen King.  It’s got a four-sentence setup that’s so good you would be willing to buy the guy on your left a case of beer if the story worked out.  If you don’t know the story, the setup would go like this:

 Mort Rainey, a successful writer who recently split with his wife, retreats to a lakeside cabin to work on his next book but gets a mysterious visitor.  John Shooter, an angry man from Mississippi, insists that Mort has plagiarized his short story.  Although a typed copy of the man’s story is nearly word for word with the version Mort had published, Mort has printed proof that he wrote the story first.  Mort tries to ignore the man and hopes he’ll go away, but bad things start happening, like a house burning down, friends getting killed, and each bad thing gets closer and closer to Mort.

Sounds like a pretty good setup, right?  Begging for questions?  How did they write the same story without knowing each other?  Who really wrote it first?  Is there some way one could have accidentally gotten it from the other?  How far will this stranger go in tormenting Mort?  

You, like me, would probably have been okay with buying a few beers, maybe even a case, if the guy on the barstool would give you a good 70 or 75,000 words and bring it all together.  However, this is a contract you should not sign.  And if you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want to know the rest, you should stop after the next paragraph.

Secret Window is an excellent example of a broken contract.  The stranger, John Shooter, convinces both himself and the audience that Mort stole his story, and the consequences to Mort’s refusal are swift and strong.  Both the local sheriff and Mort’s lawyer investigate, and more lives are threatened and lost.  When Mort confronts his ex-wife’s new boyfriend about his involvement, he learns that the boyfriend stems from a town in Tennessee called Shooters Bay.  The coincidences grow, as do the close calls, some of which are deadly.  Wanna know how it ends?

xsecretwindow

Split personality.  John Shooter is really some kind of stupid alter-ego of Mort.  We’re supposed to believe that the divorce had shaken Mort so much that he developed another personality that turned around to terrorize himself.  Apparently, when we hear Shooter talk to Mort on the phone, the voice is imaginary – I guess.  Oh, they did some interesting things to plant clues, such as when Mort thinks shooter has broken into his house and, when Mort thinks he’s about to clobber him with a bat, it turns out to be a mirror.  That’s supposed to be a clever way of foreshadowing that Mort is really Shooter, but it’s kind of lame.  The only thing more lame would have been if it had all been a dream.  That’s the worst ever.  Or maybe the “deux ex machina” is worse, when an unseen force, usually referred to as “the hand of God,” reaches down and saves the day.  For that, you might check out Stephen King’s The Stand, in which after hundreds of pages and a final standoff between the good guys and Satan in a denim jacket, nuclear missiles are launched, only to be saved by a “mysterious” hand that rendered them harmless.

It is an unfair and misleading contract, and it is something you should consider when you are writing a story.  What exactly are you offering the reader?  Imagine you are the guy on the barstool to my left.  Thrill me.  Set up a story that makes me want to buy you a beer, and I will gladly listen to all 75,000 words.  However, you better bring it all together with a resolution that takes every loose end and tie them all into neat bows as if it’s my birthday present.  If you don’t, you might want to head for the door when my last beer bottle is just about finished because, like that woman with the chair in my graduate class, I just might tomahawk an empty one in your direction.  So watch your back.

01-26

78 Comments | writing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by brainsnorts

Writing 2.2 – Getting it Ready

May 14, 2013

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

The purpose of this is not to educate you or any other writer.  I don’t pretend to know things that you don’t because I’m actually hoping for the opposite – in that I am detailing this process in case someone knows more than me, has accomplished these things already, and can help me avoid the potholes in the road ahead.

With help, I revised for the fourth time.  That was Writing 2.0.  It also included cutting back on Facebook, humorous blog posts, movie reviews, and a few other things in order to devote more time to actual novel writing.  I discussed choosing to try traditional publishing instead of self publishing, but some misinterpreted me as criticizing self publishing.  To be specific, I didn’t say self publishing is a bad thing.  I said that writers should try traditional publishing first, knowing that they could fall back to try self publishing if traditional doesn’t succeed.

A handful of people reacted negatively when I said that “self-published” authors should not refer to themselves as “published authors.”  I never said that self-published authors or their books are not as good as traditional, but I did say there is a level of achievement that deserves recognition for going through the traditional process.  It is not easy to run that gauntlet, and it deserves distinction.  Of course I recognize that, although rare, one can make millions of dollars and sell millions of self-published books, but you literally (no pun intended) have a better chance of winning a lottery.  I also recognize that it is entirely possible that the greatest book ever written is sitting undiscovered on someone’s self-published Amazon link.  However, those who disagreed with me should recognize that I could take all the letters from fifty-seven Scrabble games, toss them in a pile, type whatever letter is chosen next, upload that to a self-published Amazon link, and then I have the same legal right to call myself a “published author.”  But should I?  No.

Then came Writing 2.1 - Polishing up the query and preparing the pitch to agents, and this is the main reason why some self-publishing writers are avoiding the traditional route.  It is better to make every possible effort to publish traditionally instead of self publishing first.  There is no argument that a greater percentage of writers would prefer to break into traditional publishing instead of resorting to self publishing, but there are still a great many writers who don’t give traditional a chance and instead go straight for self publishing.  Why?

Some do it because they fear losing control of their work.  Some fear giving up too great a percentage of money.  But some go with self publishing because they fear the rejection of traditional publishing.  They fear the pile of rejection letters or e-mails that say things like “this project is not the right fit for us,” and “I’m sure that you will find success, but it isn’t our style,” and other polite ways of saying “No thanks.”  There are other reasons that push writers into self publishing, but the fear of rejection is clearly the strongest, and I know that from personal experience.

Here’s a good place to get help on a query - 

http://www.writersdigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2012-WM_QLC.pdf

ibm.man_looking_at_stack_of_papers.102649709.lg

Agents have what is called a “slush pile,” a stack of unsolicited submissions that they dig through, and that is where mine will be.  Many self-published writers fear their submission will go from the slush pile to the trash can, and most will, but that is better than not going anywhere at all.

Enough of that.  What I really wanted to do here was share more about the next step – pitching to agents.  I wrote a decent query (new version below), the letter sent to agents in which you boil down 75,000 words to a description of about two paragraphs.  Then you toss in some stuff about yourself and why the book will sell so many copies.  It also helps to do some research, find the names of other authors working with each agent who also write what you write.  So I might have a sentence something like, “This story compares to Screaming Dead Guy by Artie Schlumm published last year by Rigor Mortis Press.”  Once the query is ready, you then have to find the agents.  I chose www.writersmarket.com.

WM 1

It’s a database of many things involved with writing, but the main reason for me is to find agents.  I took some screen shots to give you an idea of what’s involved.  Above is the home page on which you can see the menus of information available, but I am mainly interested in the agents.

There are various criteria you can use for searching, such as state, fiction, non-fiction, etc., but the trickiest for me was the genre of the story.  My story is about ghosts, but it’s not really a “ghost story” in the traditional description.  I was hoping for there to be a “paranormal” option, but there isn’t.  The best choice there is “suspense,” but I’m still not 100% certain, and that isn’t good because it makes me feel as if I don’t know my own story well enough.

WM 2a

After searching, I ended up with a list of forty agents whose information gathered by Writers Market indicates that they might be interested in my type of book.  I now have to visit each individual website to follow their submission guidelines.  Some just want the query, others may ask for the first chapter or three chapters.  Some might want a one-page synopsis or the entire manuscript.  The most important thing is to follow each individual agent’s instructions.  Some are very picky, and if you don’t follow their directions, they won’t even read what you’ve sent.  They’re not all like that, but you can’t take a chance.  If they want those first three chapters in Times New Roman 12 or Courier 12, then you better do it accordingly.  If they do not want attachments, then don’t send attachments.

WM 3

So, time to take the mound and start pitching.  Most agents, when queried through e-mail, will reply in about a month.  So in about a month I will have a growing pile of polite “No thanks.”  Hopefully, very hopefully, a few will ask for the rest of the story.  I will keep you posted.

Meanwhile, what I’ve also learned about writing is to always have two projects going at once.  While you are “pitching” one project, you should also be in the process of writing the next project.  That will begin as soon as round one of my pitches are thrown.  As for now, I have forty letters to customize.  So – time to get the ball and take the mound…

__________________________

Dear Person I Must Impress, 

Connecting Flight – 76,000 words, paranormal suspense

When a cross-country airliner crashes and all aboard are killed, two passengers resist crossing into the afterlife because of “unfinished business.”  Chris Babbage suffers guilt from not preventing the death of his 8-year old son.  Ann Camillo’s guilt is from abandoning her family for a failed modeling/acting career that became soft porn instead.  Additionally, both strongly suspect their spouses are having affairs.  These unresolved issues trap them among the living.  Together, these strangers struggle across the country, destined to complete a mysterious journey home to eventually discover that their unfinished business is secretly connected to each other.

Connecting Flight is about ghosts but more than a ghost story.  Chris, a pragmatic math teacher, and Ann, an earthy artist, occasionally help the living, including a suicidal single mom, a bullying victim, and a teen prostitute.  Each time they help the living, they learn more about their own lives, fears, and selves.  But they aren’t alone in this realm of the non-living.  Other beings with bad intentions are stalking and waiting to take them to a dark and different afterlife.

Connecting Flight combines the paranormal style of Neil Gaiman with the head-butting dialogue of Nora Ephron and reads like a hybrid of the films Ghost and When Harry Met Sally.  The combinations of love, anger, humor, and loss will easily touch a vast audience, especially women.  Marketing plans include book signings, nationwide appearances, and reaching thousands of people in my blogging network.

I have another paranormal novel finished that was a finalist for last year’s Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award and outlines for four more.  I’ve had five short stories published by Piker Press, dozens of film reviews published by CineKatz.com, and essays published on CNN.com.  After having retired from 25 years teaching writing, I would love for you to assist me with my second career.

Thank you for considering Connecting Flight, which is a simultaneous submission.  I limited this query to a letter and the first 50 pages as per your submission guidelines.  If you are interested in reading more, I will send it ASAP, without any layovers, delays or transfers.

 ______________________

Thanks again to Mike and Heidi for your help on this letter.  

Beer in the fridge.  Help yourself.  Sorry, Heidi, no soda.  :P

43 Comments | writing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by brainsnorts

The “Not So” Great Gatsby

May 11, 2013

gatsby-original-cover-artEither late in high school or early in college, I was ordered to read The Great Gatsby. I regarded it as the most boring thing I had ever picked up. However, roughly 20 years later, I decided that it may have been me who was boring, so I decided – through the recommendation of others – that I should read it again because I, as an adult, would now be in a better frame of mind to appreciate the literary genius of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Nope.

Why is it that so many writers, and especially so many writing teachers, are quick to proclaim The Great Gatsby as one of the greatest novels ever written? Shortly after its publication, H.L. Mencken – a rather significant writer and journalist – referred to The Great Gatsby as just a “glorified anecdote,” and I completely agree. It’s a worthless and boring piece of work that does nothing more than allow a handful of shallow-minded society folk to show off their ability to do nothing other than uselessly and wastefully spend money and pursue extra-marital affairs with people more dull than themselves. And without the convenience of coincidence, not even that could happen.

I must apologize however, because it is wrong to refer to this story as “fiction” since there is no driving plot and no likable characters. If Moby Dick could swallow the entire cast, the world would improve. Usually, good fiction can be summarized with the following statement: “Somebody wants something, but someone or something else is in the way.” So tell me, who in this story wants something? Or, to ask a better question, who in this story has a want or need that is so compelling that I actually want to read the book? Maybe Gatsby wants Daisy? Why should I care? Daisy seems to want Nick and kisses him several times, even though they’re cousins but while still proclaiming her love for both Gatsby and her husband Tom, who is having his own affair with Myrtle, the wife of George Wilson. Whew. Affairs can be interesting, especially when there is a great deal of tension between the cheating parties and their legitimate better-half is in the same room. However, it doesn’t take long for Gatsby to pop right up to say that Daisy never loved Tom at all. Tom’s reaction? Basically, “Yes she does.” Wow, that’s drama.

Or maybe what Gatsby wants is to be liked? People seem to enjoy his parties, but nobody really seems to like or respect him. They tell stories about him, but they don’t really care about him. Why should they? He never answers a question with a straight answer and basically bullies people while smiling and sending a butler to refill their drinks, possibly to keep them drunk so they can’t remember what a dullard he is.

The only time there was interesting tension or drama was when Tom realized that he was simultaneously losing both his wife Daisy and his lover Myrtle. However, I could not feel sympathy for Tom because he was a brut who broke Myrtle’s nose after she mentioned his wife’s name. That drama lasted about half a page, and before we could really get into a conflict between husbands, wives, and lovers, Fitzgerald did a very convenient thing: he killed Myrtle and made it seem Gatsby’s fault so that Myrtle’s husband would kill Gatsby. This was way too convenient and could only lead me to one conclusion: Fitzgerald was done. He had nothing else interesting he could say or do with those characters, so he killed them. And he started a pretty good trend. Did you see the film Love Story? How about Terms of Endearment? Those two highly regarded films are cleaned up the same way, and it shows only one thing of the writer. He or she had absolutely no ideas left, so they had to kill someone to end the story. It’s very hard to end a story in a way that makes sense and ties the whole plot together. Just ask Stephen King.

There are other ways that convenience rules here. Without the narrator, Nick Caraway, there is no story. However, there are times in the story where Nick tells of scenes that he cannot possibly know about. Yes, I need to back that up, but I’ll have to find it later. For the attempt of drama to begin, we had to know that Tom was messing around with Myrtle. We learn this because Tom needed to mention it to Nick, his wife’s cousin. Why would a man tell his wife’s cousin that he’s cheating? Because either he’s plain stupid – leading me to not care about him – or the writer is plain stupid if he or she expects me to accept that.

So, let’s review. There is no driving conflict. There is no clear protagonist for me to follow and wait to see if that character achieves success. There is no clear antagonist to hinder the unclear protagonist. There are no likeable characters. Nobody wants or needs anything that I care enough about to see what happens.
Someone please tell me why this book is often called one of the greatest works of American fiction?

54 Comments | writing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by brainsnorts

Writing 2.1 – Getting Help

May 9, 2013

stock-footage-a-man-in-a-fedora-typing-on-a-vintage-manual-typewriter-film-noir-style-lighting Roughly a year ago, I posted 18 chapters and about 50,000 words and thought I had a really good story about two people in a plane crash.  Not so.  Over the past two months I revised those same 18 chapters and, with the help of some great people, I now have 25 chapters, 75,000 words, and a really good story.  Some of the nice words I was given include “spectacular” and “wonderful.”  The chapters have since been removed just to protect the story from being “borrowed.”  It’s happened before.

To those who started the story but did not stick with it, I am sorry and wish I knew why it wasn’t good enough to hold your interest.

To say that I got “help” is a great understatement.  Help is “you typed her but I think you meant he.”  The help I got was more like “in this chapter, the character’s vocabulary is rather casual and contemporary.  But back in other chapters, his speech was more formal.  You need to be consistent.”  I like to think I’m smart, but I never would have noticed that.

When I stopped regular blog posts back in March and focused on preparing a fourth draft of a novel, I could not have imagined the in-depth, razor-sliced critique and feedback that I was lucky enough to find.  It might have only been about five people, but it was a fortunate thing that they turned out to be five brilliantly caring people.  There were discussions, disagreements, but no disparagement.  Well, maybe a couple of sharp e-mails, but that’s about it.  I’m not sleeping with one eye open, let’s put it that way.

So, what’s next?  I prepare a query (see below), which is a letter that takes about 75,000 words and boils them down to about two paragraphs.  Then another paragraph about why I think the book will have mass appeal.  Then a final paragraph about me, what I’ve done, what I plan to do.  Funny how I can write 75,000 above-average words but can’t write a 300-word letter about the 75,000.  Thanks to Mike for going to town on that part.  Just waiting for one more set of eyes to get back to me on the query, but I’m including it below if you’re interested in what it’s like.

Then, I scour websites for agents who work with this kind of story.  Some agents just want the letter.  Some want the letter and the first chapter, few chapters, something like that.  From what I hear, you better follow their directions down the last word because some will disregard your query for the smallest mistake.  I also hear that they just want to read a good story.  I’m clueless on this part of the process, so I would love to hear anyone’s experiences or advice.

Meanwhile, I will keep you aware of what happens as I hear back from the agents I contact.  I expect many rejections because that’s the reality.  However, a rejection is better than nothing because it at least shows that you’re trying.  Also, less than a week from now, I hope to start posting chapters from the next story. Thanks again to these amazing people – in random order – for their comments, questions, suggestions, and generosity:

http://valentinelogar.com/

http://elappleby.wordpress.com/

http://kindredspirit23.wordpress.com/

http://en.gravatar.com/catherinelumb

http://tadalena.wordpress.com/

http://mikecalahan.wordpress.com/

http://thebutterflyhatch.wordpress.com/

http://faithhopechocolate.wordpress.com/

http://buddhakat.wordpress.com/

http://lifeofawillow.wordpress.com/

I looked all of you up through the comments.  If I missed anyone, I greatly apologize.

_______________________________

Query:

Dear Person I Must Impress;

When a flight from Philadelphia to Los Angeles crashes and all aboard are killed, two of the dead, Chris Babbage and Ann Camillo, are granted the heavenly light that invites them to cross over to the afterlife.  However, they are confronted with a gnawing pull of the proverbial unfinished business and choose to remain in the disconnected realm between the living and the dead.  Together, Chris and Ann find no shortage of opportunities to affect the living, including a lonely child who communicates with the dead, an elderly man on his last living day, a single mother contemplating suicide, and a victim of sexual abuse.  Chris and Ann also must be aware of the evil beings pursuing them, “lost souls” that would love nothing more than to drag a few do-gooders to Hell.

Connecting Flight is a 75,000-word novel about two strangers thrown together under extraordinary circumstances and learning to survive in an unseen and disconnected world somewhere between the living and the dead.  Chris and Ann have a charming and witty rapport that ranges from contentious to congenial, including times when they might even try to kill each other if they weren’t already dead.  Readers will immediately compare the biting and witty dialogue to When Harry Met Sally.  If you loved Harry and Sally, you will love the head-butting and love-hate relationship in Connecting Flight.

With three full revisions and five beta-readers, Connecting Flight is ready for publication.  I also have four other titles, four outlines ready for first drafts, and ten short stories – so there will be no shortage of work or writer’s block if you choose to work with me.

After teaching English for 25 years, I am now writing full time as well as supervising a local writing group. My publication credits include a few dozen film reviews (CineKatz.com), four short stories (Piker Press), and a handful of social commentary (CNN iReport).  If you are interested in seeing either sample chapters or the entire manuscript for Connecting Flight, I will gladly make sure you have it immediately.  I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely yours, 

Guy Who Wrote It

_______________________

31 Comments | writing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by brainsnorts

Connecting Flight – ch.9

April 10, 2013

Welcome back.  You are brave, that’s for sure.  

Chapter 9 was originally very short, about 1,500 words.  Chapter 10 was originally slightly above average, about 3,200.  After reading both, I realized that most of what happens in 10 is not necessary, or at least is not necessary right now.  I took the important parts of 10 and added them to the end of the shorter 9, bringing this chapter to about 2,900.  I think the result trims some fat and makes things a little stronger.  Of course, you wouldn’t know that unless you saw what was cut from Chapter 10.  I think you will eventually see it in another chapter because it does hold a significant revelation.  

I hope you make it to the two questions at the end.  Happy Wednesday, and thanks again.

________________________________

5142966093_b51136ae8b

Chapter 9

Ann, walking inside the girl, was the last to depart the school bus.  Chris looked back at the bus to see the suicide couple sitting on the roof.  The boy raised a middle finger and his girlfriend raised a two-finger peace sign. 

“What’s her name?” Chris asked.

“Darla,” said the boy.

Chris happened to glance inside the bus where the driver, a woman in her 40’s, was still watching Darla walk away.  Chris tried to read the woman’s expression, but all he could tell for sure was that she neither blinked nor smiled.

Darla was taller and appeared older than the rest of the kids who had been on the bus.  She walked with intent and a steady pace, never looking to the side, just marching forward.  Chris had to remind himself several times that he was following Ann and was not stalking a girl off a school bus.  He was surprised by the walk because he thought most school buses dropped kids off in front of their homes.  However, as random turns began to overlap, he realized that this was a walk to avoid going home.

Darla slowed, now looking around the neighborhood, eyes staying a little longer on parked cars.  Most were empty, but one had a man behind the wheel who was getting an eyeful of her from beneath the bill of a solid black baseball cap.

Darla turned up a path to an impressive house.  Chris assumed at least four bedrooms and two and a half or three bathrooms.  He figured that in the Philadelphia area the property would go for half a million.  Here, wherever here is, probably two-hundred grand.

He continued walking past the house as Darla entered and did his best to not look back.  He reached the corner, about four houses up, and crossed to the opposite side of the street to get a better perspective.  He lurked far enough away where he could see the house through some shrubs.  Less than a minute later, the man with the black cap got out of the parked car.  He wore a black t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers.  He carefully surveyed the area before entering the house without knocking.

Chris was not happy.  He knew that whatever was happening was not right, not good.  His logical approach dictated that there could be no good reason for Darla to take such a way home and then followed into the house that way.  It couldn’t be right, but he didn’t know what to do about it.  The wait was eating him.  He was sure she needed help.  He was sure he could help.  He was sure he should enter the house.  He was sure he would regret doing nothing.  He was also sure that if Ann really needed help, she would find a way to let him know.

A car pulled up behind him slowly to the corner.  The driver turned left, towards the house, and Chris could see another baseball cap pulled low.  As this car pulled over near the house, Chris moved closer, still staying behind shrubs.  He heard the front door open at the house where he was hiding.  Just as he flattened himself to hide against the side of the house, he mentally kicked his own ass.  You idiot.  Nobody can see you.

He jumped from behind the house, rounded the corner, and ran to the new car that had arrived.  He watched through the window as the man tucked his wallet, watch, cell phone, and keys under the floor mat.  He flipped through five $20 bills and stuck them in his jeans pocket.  Then he left the car quickly, hustled up the stairs, and entered the unlocked front door that he locked behind him.  Chris was so close to following but stopped.  He was more certain than ever that this was horribly wrong, but he also had a certainty nagging him that Ann wanted to do this alone.  Needed to do this alone.  Chris stood near the front windows with an ear tuned but staying where Ann wouldn’t see him from inside.  That’s when he heard the first cry.

It was a man’s cry, and he was pleading.  “No!  No!  I swear!”  Glass smashed.  Wood broke.  A girl screamed orders.  A man cried, but not the same man as before.  This was a cry of pain, not pleading.  There was a gunshot.

Chris scanned to see if anyone might be close enough to hear, but these houses were far enough apart that only someone outside would notice.  He looked for his watch, then remembered it was gone.  It was quiet for a while, but he didn’t know what “a while” was like anymore.  It was still quiet.

A girl’s voice growled orders and men said nothing.  She gave more orders, louder, and a man cried again but with tears.  There was something that sounded like a baseball bat had hit something, but it was not a baseball, followed by another man’s cry.

Chris knew that things were wrong, but the great urge to do something about it had subsided.  He didn’t know why, but he guessed it might have a connection to how Ann just randomly “knew” things about him.  Then he sensed a voice.  It was Ann.  Don’t worry.  Almost done.  Be ready but don’t do anything.

Chris heard footsteps coming and the front door opening.  A thin, naked man ran to the street, jumped into his car, hurriedly felt the floor for his keys, and sped away.  The front door hadn’t closed, and Chris leaned to peer into the darkness inside.  That’s when he noticed a trail of blood left by the naked man.  It wasn’t a lot of blood, not a life-threatening amount, but blood was blood.  Blood on the ground was never good.

Quick and silent, a police car rolled up.  Two officers with shaved heads sprinted up the steps with guns drawn.  They ran into the house as Ann, no longer Darla, walked immediately out with her arms wrapped tightly around herself.  Her eyes remained straight down as she walked with the same firmness with which Darla had arrived.  She didn’t tell Chris to follow, but he knew to do so.

She walked several blocks in silence until reaching a park with a playground, benches, happy kids, and dogs.  She sat in the center of the bench, unintentionally forcing Chris to sit close.  He had decided to say nothing until she did.  He moved to put an arm around her but changed his mind.  A couple walked by with a floppy-eared dog that kept sniffing around Chris’s feet.  He didn’t move them, hoping that something here would lighten whatever trauma was weighing Ann down.  The couple tugged at the leash for the dog to follow, but it took more than the usual tug and the usual, “C’mon, Sherlock.  Let’s go.”

It was almost dark when Ann spoke.

“Can there really be this much tragedy?  This much pain and anger and hate?  This much – wrong that people are doing to each other?”  She looked at Chris with tears.

“I think,” he began, cautiously, “I think that, yeah, there is this much.  But we wouldn’t know it.  People don’t talk about it.  For every news story about something tragic, there are ten more that nobody knows about because the newscast or the newspaper only has so much room.  Probably on a daily basis they have to decide which murder to show because they can’t show all of them.  They probably have to look at their ratings and figure out which section of the city has the most people watching, and then show the murder that’s in that section.  So the murders in the other section don’t get talked about as much.  And then more people think the bad area is worse and the good area is good.”  He spoke slowly and carefully.  “And we are now in a unique position where we can know things that other people don’t know.”  He waited.  “That’s what I think.”

Ann stood and moved to the playground ahead.  Without breaking pace, she reached and climbed the ladder for the slide.  She climbed, slide down, and did it again.  For hours, they played like children in the playground.  They climbed the monkey bars with acrobatic ease, walked the seesaw as if it were a tightrope, but failed to move the merry-go-round.  They sat on the highest thing they could find and talked until the stars faded and the sun came up.

They looked at each other differently.  Chris saw what she had seen in Darla’s house, and he cried for the first time in a long time.  Then they tried again at the merry-go-round.  It was only a few inches, but it moved

Ann stood. 

“C’mon.  Let’s get to Philly.”

_______________________________

Here’s where the chapter originally ended.

____________________________

 

They walked.  They watched people.  They turned left or right to follow bigger streets.

“This way,” said Chris in front of a library.

“You have an urge to read?”

“You’ll see.  I hope.”  He scanned the walls until he found a large map on a wall.

“Geography lesson?” Ann asked.

“Not quite.”

“My husband does that.  The tongue thing.”

“What?”

“You stick out your tongue when you’re focusing on something.”

“I hate that.  Makes me look stupid.  Here.  Bus station.  We’ll go there and find a bus going east.  How’s that sound?”

“Whatever works for you,” she said.

“You mentioned your husband.”

“So?”

“So you haven’t mentioned him at all until now.”

“My bad,” Ann said before walking away from him and out of the library.

______________________________

 

An hour later they were sitting comfortably on a Greyhound bus heading for Chicago. 

“You okay?” Chris asked.

“Sure.”  She didn’t open her eyes.

“You want to talk or just relax?” Chris asked.

“Sure.”

“It’s not a yes or no question.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Us.”

Ann’s eyebrows popped.  “Us?  I’ve only known you a couple of days.  Technically, we’re still on our first date.”  She smiled.  He was close.

“I mean, this.  The dead, ghost thing.  Whatever you want to call it.  I was thinking about different movies about ghosts, and the different rules and things that ghosts could or couldn’t do.”

“Like what?”

“Like in the movie Ghost with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore.  How Whoopi Goldberg could see him or hear him or talk to him, but Demi Moore couldn’t.  And Whoopi had to convince her that it was real.  And the part where there were other people trying to talk through Whoopi and somebody just sat on her, got inside her like that.”

“I thought you said you never saw that movie?”  She smiled.

Chris sat back, slightly stunned.  “Are you having fun doing that?  Now you’re reversing it?  First, you’re reading my thoughts.  Now, you’re actually giving me thoughts?  This is amazing.”

She struggled not to laugh.  “I don’t think Whoopi could see him.  I think she could only hear him.”

“Maybe, but I mean the part about him getting inside her.”

“What about it?”

“Well, think about that and think about what the old guy George said.  How there are troublemakers here who do things like that.”

“Okay?”

“That explains people who go crazy.  Schizophrenic.  Multiple personalities.  Makes sense, right?”

“I guess,” Ann said blankly, drawing a glare from Chris.  “What?”

“I thought maybe you’d be curious about all this.  You don’t seem that interested.  “You okay?” he asked.

“I can’t help thinking I should’ve just followed all those other people going wherever they were going after the crash.  I’d be in a fluffy, happy place with birds chirping and frogs singing.  And everything would be cookies and milk instead of children getting hurt and abused.  So maybe no, I’m not okay.”

“Well, let me ask you this.  We didn’t go with everyone else because something drove us to stay.  But do you think you were wrong?  You don’t feel that drive anymore?”

Ann waited.  “I lost track of it.  I think I’ve spent enough time involved in other people’s horrible lives that I just want to get away from here.  If there’s another place, it’s probably amazing.  I want to go there now.  Didn’t I earn that by dying?”

“We haven’t helped all that many people,” Chris said.

“The woman on the train.”

“That doesn’t count.  She didn’t really need help.”

“The girl back there.  The kids on the bus.  The kid in school.”

“What kid in school?” Chris said.

“I told you before that I went into the school while you were passed out on the bus.  There was a kid getting yelled at by his teacher.  I walked into the classroom.”

“You mentioned the school but not the kid.  Why did you do that?”

“It was that thing George said.  Sometimes you feel something telling you want to do, and you follow it.”

“What happened?”

“I kind of got there in the middle, but he seemed distracted and getting in trouble.  There was something going on where nobody believed him, and he was depressed about it.  Like my sister was.  Then I walked in, and he saw me.  At first he didn’t know I was – dead.  He thought I was a guidance counselor coming to help him.  But when the teacher didn’t see me, he knew and he told her.  And she was interested, like she had experiences too.  She asked him to ask me to prove I was there.  She told him to ask me something that he couldn’t know, and I proved it, and she apologized to him and told him she believed him.  Told him she would help him from now on and that everything would be okay.  And then he left there so happy that someone finally believed him.” 

Ann almost cried while Chris processed it before answering.

“Maybe that’s it,” Chris said.

“What’s what?”

“The unfinished business.  Maybe you’re supposed to help people.  People like that kid.  Like that girl back there.”

“Oh, no way.  No way I’m doing that for eternity.  Are you kidding me?  I’m ready to shoot myself or take heroin.  You have no idea what the emotional drain is like.  Do you want to know what happened back there in that house?  Because I’ll tell you.  And after I tell you, you’ll wish I never told you.  You want to know?”

“N-no.  I really don’t.”

“I didn’t think so.  And if that’s what I’m supposed to do, screw that.”  She looked up.  “Hey, God, get someone else because I ain’t doing it.”

“Angels,” Chris said.

“Where?”  She looked out the bus window.

“No.  Us.  Angels.  What if we’re supposed to be like guardian angels?  Helping people?”

“Then as soon as I see that friggin’ light again, I’m running into it faster than anything.  This isn’t some TV show or movie.  Crazy as it seems, it’s real.”

They sat in silence for a minute, watching things go by.

“What if God,” Chris began, only to be interrupted.

“You don’t believe in God.”

“Just listen.  What if God came to you and asked you to do this.  What would you say?”

“Stupid question.”

“Why?”

“God doesn’t care what I’m doing.”

“But you’re doing it anyway.”

“Only because I’m an idiot for not following everyone else into that stupid light.”

“But you don’t know why you didn’t go.  What if God wanted you to stay?  What if he was telling you to stay?  Then what?”

“Then let him come here and tell me himself.  If he wants me to do something that difficult, that painful.  Something that’s his job to do, not my job.  Then let him tell me to my face.”

“What if he already did?”

“What are you talking about?”

“That old guy, George, on the train.  You suggested he could be God.  What if he is God?  What if that was God telling you to go around and find moments of some kind of strong feeling and help people?”

“Didn’t George tell us not to worry about other people?” said Ann.

“Yeah,” said Chris, “but he also told us to pay attention to strong feelings.  That’s what pushed you to that motel and the drunk woman.  And the girl on the bus.  Maybe you didn’t go into the light because God didn’t want you there yet.”

“Why wouldn’t he want me there yet?  I’m not good enough?”

“What if it’s a way for people to make up for bad things they’ve done?”

Silence a bit.

“Then I guess I have something to think about.”

__________________________________

Question 1:  What do you think of ending the chapter where it would have originally ended?

Question 2:  Ann’s last line at the end – what might be her reason to say that?

10 Comments | writing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by brainsnorts

Connecting Flight – ch.7 – update

April 8, 2013

Warning you now – this is a loooong chapter, slightly over 4,100 words.  I think I can break it into two chapters, but it is begging me to leave it as one.  I will put a mark where I think it can be broken.  Question 1 addresses that.  Thanks again to those of you sticking with it.  Your help has been amazing, and I hope you are not getting bored.  Happy Monday.

Update – it’s been cut from 4,100 down to about 3,900 words.  Changes in blue.

______________________

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Chapter 7

It was about three in the morning when the train was slowing down.  They had no idea where they were, but Chris sensed they had to leave the train.  Ann followed him from the lounge car through the next two.  Chris walked through doors as if they weren’t there, Ann winced slightly upon approach.  They reached a dimly lit car full of wide seats that reclined for sleeping.  He noticed a few people sitting up and a few empty seats.  They continued to the next car where Chris stopped so abruptly as soon as they entered the car that Ann had to walk around him instead of running into him from behind.

He immediately glanced to his left and just as immediately regretted it.  He was certain that they had revealed themselves to someone.  They were being watched, but he couldn’t tell who or why.  All Chris knew for sure was that eyes were on them.  Ann followed again as Chris headed towards the far end of the car where again Chris stopped.  When he looked back at the door they had entered at the other end, he realized they had entered this car by walking through the door.  He stored that away for later because something told him to move without delay.

Chris turned again to the door ahead of them and ran through it, followed closely by Ann.  They didn’t see who got up from the dark corner in the previous car, but they knew someone was coming.  They ran through two more cars of staterooms before arriving just behind the locomotives.  They stood between two cars and saw lights far in the distance.

“Go!  Now!” yelled Chris before pushing her out.  With feline grace, she turned in the air and danced on one foot, stutter-stepped, and pranced like a deer into thick scrub and bushes of a dark, Arizona night.  Before she could admire her dexterity, Chris was already running past her and called, “Keep going!”  For ten minutes they trotted through the desert, not far from a highway with little traffic.  She slowed but he didn’t.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Something’s up there.”

“What kind of something?”

“Don’t know, but it knows we’re coming.”

“What’s it doing?” he asked.

She paused.  “Waiting.”  She looked ahead, tried stretching up on her toes, but saw nothing.  “It’s smart.  We won’t see it until we get there.”  She looked back, then forward again.  “It’s not going to hurt us.”

“You know that?”

“Pretty sure,” she said.

“Any chance you can drum up a definitely instead?”

They crept carefully with each step towards a small ridge lined with sparse shrubs and cactus.  Straight ahead was a more concentrated clump of growth.  Ann looked at it, at Chris, and nodded.  She pointed at him, then the left, and then she moved to the right.

As they circled the collection of shrubs, two small triangular shapes moved.  Then something moved side to side.  Their shoulders relaxed as they exhaled.  From behind the shrub sat a coyote.  It approached Ann with a wagging tail and lowered its head to be petted.

“That’s amazing,” whispered Chris.

“Why are you whispering?”

“I don’t know.”

They stroked the fur of the thin animal that looked in need of a few good meals.  Its fur did not move while being petted, but it still wagged its tail and panted as their hands slid along its spine.

“He sees us,” said Ann as she rubbed her nose against the coyote’s snout, “and he’s not afraid.  I sensed he was here before we got here.  It was like having a premonition that turns out right.  Did you sense him?”

“No,” he said, looking ahead in the distance.

She glanced up from a cross-legged position in the dirt.  “I felt something, but it didn’t feel anything threatening or dangerous.  I guess that’s because it can’t really hurt us.  But it probably didn’t know that until we got closer.”

He continued to scan the horizon.  “C’mon.  Let’s get to that town so we could figure out how to get back to Philly.”

“Let me make sure I got this right,” she said.  “We’re trying to get to Philly.  We were just on a train going pretty fast in the right direction, but something told you we had to get off that train?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but yeah.”

“I’m not saying it sounds crazy.  I just want to make sure I got it right.”  She patted the coyote once more, ruffled her hands on its neck, and walked towards a gathering of lights and cars in the distance.  “It’s not like I have anything else to do,” she added.

“Are you being sarcastic?”

“No flies on you.”

“What does that mean?”

“You think you’re so much smarter than everyone else.  Figure it out.”

They continued walking, veering closer to the highway until they and the road met at a traffic light and a bar.  As they passed gas stations, motels, and convenience stores, Ann took the lead.

“Where are you going?”  asked Chris.

“Up there.  See the blue blinking sign?”

“Yeah.  It’s a motel.  Why are we going there?”

“Don’t know yet.”

The brightly-lit motel had a sign that boasted free breakfast and Wi-Fi.  It was good enough not to announce mirrored ceilings.  The pool was like glass but empty, the still surface perfectly reflected a few of the brighter stars in the night sky.

“Now what?” Chris asked.

“Here.”  She turned as a black Mustang slid into the parking lot.  It stopped abruptly as if it were considering plowing through the door of one of the first-floor rooms.  A woman stepped from the car and walked unevenly through the parking lot to the pool, kicked off her heels, sat at the edge, and put her legs in the water.  Her mini skirt stayed dry.  She pulled a cigarette from her purse and lit it.

“She left the keys in the car,” said Ann.

“She’s drunk.  Do most women drink this much?”

“Yes, and it’s your fault.  C’mon.”  Ann led him up a flight of stairs and walked along a row of doors, turning a few times until she was certain of which one to enter.  She nodded at the door, and they walked through.

Ann smiled at the gold décor, strutted to the bed, and hopped upon it.  The mattress gave not an inch beneath the weight she no longer had.

“Pretty nice,” said Chris.  He walked to the corner of the room where a suitcase rested on a table.  “Looks like a female.”

“Or a transvestite?  You think it’s the girl out by the pool?”

“Could be.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” she snarled.

Chris walked around the room.  “So what do we do?”

“Don’t know.”

“Then why are we here?”

“Like George said.  If something feels strong enough, check it out.  It’s not like we have anywhere to go.”

“George also said that it’s not our business to get involved with other people and to just take care of ourselves,” argued Chris.  ”Why don’t you want to go home?  Don’t you want to see your husband?”

Ann lost her smile.  “No.”

“Why not?”

“George also said not to go home.”

Chris walked closer.  “Look.  I don’t mean to pry.  I realize you don’t owe me any explanations.  It’s just that we’re kind of connected now.  I don’t know where this is going or what’s going to happen.  I just figure we’re probably better off together.  So we may as well get to know each other.”

She fought back a suspicion of tears while studying the room.  “You’re right.  I know.  I’ll get there soon.”

Chris reached out to her but stopped when she leaned away from his approach.  He walked further around the large room, then over by the bathroom.  “Nice,” he said, but he only took three steps on the marble floor when the door to the room opened.  He quickly hid in the bathroom.

“You don’t have to hide, doofus.  C’mon out,” Ann said.

“Forgot.”

“You were right.  The woman by the pool.”

Chris stepped out in time to see the thin woman toss her big heels on the floor near her suitcase and her cell phone on the bed, right through Ann who instinctively tried to catch it.

“Uh oh,” said Ann.  The woman had streams of mascara running down her face.  She searched the suitcase for a small, amber bottle of medication and shook a few into her hand before going into the bathroom for a mouthful of something to wash them down.

She returned from the bathroom and crawled on the bed to find her cell phone.  She sat up against the headboard as she scrolled through messages and missed calls.  She stared at the phone for roughly half a minute, reading, until she clapped the phone closed and bounced it on the bed.  She took a pillow and hugged it, lying on her side and curling her legs up to help surround the pillow so that it could never get away.  Her body twitched a few times, her eyes closed, and her mouth stayed tight until the strength of the repressed sobs was too great, and those sobs burst forth like water from a garden hose as if someone had a finger on the end and then released it.

Chris, looking at Ann, opened his mouth to speak until a knock at the door interrupted.  The woman hopped off the bed, checked herself in the mirror, put her big heels back on, straightened her skirt, and strutted to the door.  After peeking through the curtain, she opened it, and an unshaven man in a flannel shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots slipped in quickly.

“I didn’t think you were coming,” she said.

“Me neither,” he whispered, peeking out through the door before closing it and fastening the chain and lock.  He turned to her with starving eyes and began to unbuckle his belt.

“Hey, slow down,” she said.  “No hurry.  You want a drink?”

“No time for a drink,” he smiled.

“Well I ain’t going that fast.  I barely know you.”

He caught up to her, backing her toward the bed.  She attempted to maneuver differently, but he was steering.  She stopped at the edge of the bed and won the fight to remain standing, but he reached down for the bottom of her skirt and yanked it up.

Chris took a step forward until Ann told him, “No.”

“I said slow down.”  The woman grabbed at the bottom of her skirt and tried to hold it down, but that allowed him to push her backwards onto the bed and climb over her until he straddled her waist.  When she put her hands up to hold him away, he grabbed her wrists and pinned her arms helplessly on the bed above her head.

“You think you get to tease me like that for an hour and then just turn it all off?”  He smiled as fear grew in her eyes.  “Doesn’t work like that, Honey.”  He had the strength to hold both wrists down with one hand and unbutton her blouse with the other.

“No,” she grunted.  “Get off.”  She struggled.

“I plan to,” he drooled.

She tried to kick her knees up at his back but couldn’t get enough leverage against the soft mattress.  She tried to twist beneath him, but his weight was too much.  As she searched for another option, there was a knock at the door.  He glared threateningly at her and put a finger up to his lips.

“Jimmy!” yelled a deep voice.  “We gotta go!  Fast!  There’s a fight!”

“I got one in here too!” he yelled back.

“Now, Jimmy!  Forget that bitch!  Find another one later!”

He hung his head for a second before getting off the bed and buckling his belt.  She sat up with three things to say to him but held them back.  He turned for the door, then quickly turned back and delivered an open hand to the woman’s unsuspecting face, knocking her to the floor.  He ran from the room to his friend’s car waiting in the parking lot.

Chris and Ann watched as she struggled to her feet.  She looked again at the mirror that only a minute ago she had looked at so proudly.  This time, instead of tears she had a hint of hatred and pity.

“I didn’t know we could cry,” sniffed Ann.

The woman pulled off her top, leaving only a tiny black bra.  Chris looked away.

“What?” said Ann.

“What what?” he said.

“It’s not a big deal if you look.”

“Well, it feels wrong.”

“Why?”

“I’m married.”

“Not anymore.  And after all you been through, you deserve a peek.  Your wife peeks at guys all the time.”

“Stop it.  You don’t know that.”

“If I know it, you know it.”

“Whatever.  It’s not a big deal to look.  If I’m on a diet, it’s okay if I look at a burger as long as I don’t eat it.  Same thing.”

“I am seriously beginning to worry about you.” Chris said.  ”A woman gets smacked in the face, and you’re comparing looking at her naked body to having a burger?”

“Wait.  You watched me have sex, but you won’t peek at her?”

“I didn’t watch you have sex.  It wasn’t you.”

“Don’t tell me it wasn’t me.  I was there.  Up close.”

The woman slipped off the skirt, threw it at the suitcase, and walked naked to the bathroom.  They heard the bathtub start and the water rushing heavily to fill it.  Then came the clinking of a glass.

“She drinking?” Chris asked.

“Go see.”

“You go see.”

“Fine, you baby.”  Ann got up and walked into the bathroom doorway from where she saw the woman attempting to get in the bathtub.  “Oh, she’s a mess.”

The woman reached the edge of the tub and sank to her knees.  The combination of pills and alcohol prevented her from feeling the cracking of her kneecap when she landed on the marble floor.  She turned slightly and sat, held the side of the tub, and began to cry more heavily.  First some slight sniffles and then body-shaking sobs.  Chris reluctantly entered the bathroom.

“What do we do?” he asked.  The woman pulled herself up, went to the vanity for her bottle of vodka, and took the last mouthful.  Unexpectedly, she cracked the bottle on the rim of the sink, creating a jagged edge at the end of the neck, which she gripped tightly as she struggled back into the tub and sank into the water.

___________________________________

Here is where I considered breaking it into a separate chapter.

___________________________________

“Oh no,” said Ann.  “She’s gonna cut herself.  Stop her.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“Wait.  What if we shouldn’t?”

“Are you nuts?  You want to just let her kill herself?”

“Well, what if we stop her, and she gets up and drives drunk and kills someone?  Maybe it’s better that she just kills herself.  What if this is meant to be?”

“You don’t believe anything is meant to be,” Ann snapped, “and you know it.  Think of something fast.”

The woman reclined in the bathtub, mouth barely above the water but arms reaching out to her elbows as she traced the sharp glass along her fingers, palm, and wrist.  Occasionally, she pressed hard enough to draw a run of blood that slid down her arm and faded into the hot water, hotter than a sober woman would have tolerated.

Ann moved to the tub and dropped into the water without the slightest splash or ripple.  She turned and settled into the drunken woman’s body.   She cried more loudly than before.  Her face contorted into emotional but not physical pain.  Chris tried to decipher whether the cries were from Ann, the woman, or both.

“Come on, honey,” said Ann, not audible other than to Chris’s thoughts.  “Put the glass down.”  The woman’s hand shook as the jagged glass backed slightly away from her left wrist.  “Atta girl,” Ann continued.  “You can do it.  Put it down.”

The woman grew tired and out of breath.  She let both arms sink into the hot water, and her neck and back arched before submerging again.  Her face slipped under and fought to stay both below and above.

“Good job,” said Chris softly.

But immediately the woman raised her arms from the water and moved the glass towards her soft wrist.  Chris could hear Ann grunting and panting to stop her.

“Don’t give up,” said Chris.  “You got this.  Pull away.”

“I’m tryyyying.  She’s too strong.  She really wants to do thiiisss.”

“No she doesn’t.  You’re going to stop her.  Put it down.”

Chris watched as the point of the glass settled into her skin where a small wound opened.  A noise.  He walked to the other room where her cell phone was ringing.  The ringtone was “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” by Randy Newman from the movie Toy Story.

“Her phone is ringing,” Chris yelled.

“She can’t hear it,” Ann said.

“So tell her it’s ringing.  Tell her to get up and answer it.  It’ll give her a reason to fight.”

“What if it’s someone she doesn’t want to talk to?”

“She’ll find that out after she doesn’t drown.  Tell her to get out.  Tell her it’s important.  Does she have a kid?”

“Yes.”

“Tell her it’s her kid calling.”

The woman slipped under again and then sat up, dropping the glass out of the tub to the floor.  The harm had stopped but not the tears or cries.  She drew herself up, tripped uneasily as she left the tub, and slipped her way to the bed where her cell phone waited.

Before she flipped the phone open, she took a few deep breaths and wrapped her wet self in the comforter from the unmade bed.

“Hi, Baby,” she cried, then paused to listen.

“I’m sorry, Baby.  I had to work late.”  She rolled and left a small streak of blood on the bed.

“I know, but I couldn’t come home last night.  You had fun with Grandma, right?”

She wiped her drippy nose on the pillow she was hugging.

“Oh, I know.  Me too.”

She rolled more, further wrapping herself in the bedding.

“Tonight?  She looked around the room, then at the blood on her wrist.

“Yes, Baby.  Tonight.  I have to clean up a few things, and then I’ll be home as fast as I can.”  She got up quickly with a new breath.

“No, you don’t have to wait up.  But I promise I’ll wake you up when I get home so I can say goodnight.  Okay?”

She smiled and cried, but in a good way.

“Aww, you’re the best kid ever.  You go be good for Grandma.  Bye bye.”  And she hung up.

She searched her suitcase and pulled out comfortable clothes, gray sweatpants and a matching zippered top.  She dug out white socks and sneakers and quickly put everything on, still crying.

“She’s doing pretty well for being so drunk,” said Chris.

“Motivation,” said Ann.

“She’s still too drunk to drive.”

“Guess so.”

“Shouldn’t we stop her?”

“How?”

“You stopped her from cutting herself.  Get back inside her while she’s driving.”

“I don’t know where she lives.”

“She knows.  She’ll tell you where to go.”

Ann looked straight at Chris.  “How about I tell you where to go?  How ‘bout that?”

They followed the woman as she dragged her suitcase to the steps and down to her car.  She fumbled with the keys and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve until she suddenly was more composed and aware.

“Thanks,” said Chris.

“Yeah,” said Ann, taking a seat behind the wheel.

____________________________________

They drove for almost two hours until parking in the lot of an apartment building somewhere in Arizona.  The woman got out of her car without her suitcase or locking the car.  After locking the car and noticing the brilliant collection of stars, the woman looked around as if she hadn’t been expecting something.  She burst with a smile, a bit of a happy cry, and flipped for the key to her apartment.

As the woman stepped away from her car, Ann remained standing with Chris a few steps away.  She turned to him with a proud smile and waited.

“Two things,” he said.  “First, I never could’ve done that.  Second, I think she forgot to lock the door back at the motel.”

Ann’s shoulders sagged.  “You couldn’t stop at the first one?”

“Sorry.”  He walked through the parking lot and headed back to the street in the direction from which they had arrived.

“Where are you going?” Ann caught up.

“Philly.”

“I mean now.”

“I saw a bus in someone’s driveway up the street.  Just want to try to take a nap, sit in a quiet place for a while.  Think about everything.”

“We can’t sleep.”

“I mean just like meditate or think in a quiet place.”

“Oh.  Do I have permission to join you?” she stressed with attitude.

Still walking, he said, “What’s your problem?”

“You’re just doing whatever you want to do, and I’m just supposed to be ready for when you want to give me orders.”

“That’s not true.”

“Feels that way to me,” she jabbed.

“Sorry.”

“Oh, that’s real sincere,” she jabbed again.

“What do you want me to do?  Print a certificate?  Give you a sticker?  Throw a party?  What can I possibly do?  Be real.”

“I am being real.  And you’re being a real jerk.”

“And you just want praise and attention.  Can’t people just do a good thing for the sake of doing a good thing without being rewarded for it?”

“You think I helped her out just to get praise from you?  How about considering the fact that I did that for you?”

“For me?”  Chris stopped walking and turned to her.  “How do you possibly think you did that for me?  I was the one telling you to leave her alone and reminding you that we’re not supposed to get involved with other people’s lives.  So why did you push me to get involved?”

“Because you were feeling guilty.  That’s why you begged me to help her.  You didn’t have the guts to do it, but it would have driven you nuts if we didn’t help.  You needed me to help so you didn’t feel guilty if something happened to her.”

“She had a kid waiting at home, and she was about to drive drunk, possibly killing herself and someone else.  Isn’t that enough reason to help?” Chris yelled.

“Yes.  But why did you ask me to do it?  Why didn’t you do it yourself?”

“Because she’s a woman and so are you.”

“Oh, bullshit.  Boy, girl, what’s the difference?  You think it would be weird if you were inside the girl?  What?  Are you afraid that it makes you gay or something?”

“No.”

“Yes.  That’s it, isn’t it?  As a kid, they all called you gay because you wouldn’t do all the rugged stuff your friends did.”

“Yeah.  That’s right.  You happy?  I was called a fag and queer and everything else, just because I didn’t want to go shoplifting or play football or try cigarettes or any of the other macho bullshit.  Is it fun to pry into my head and figure that out?”

Ann stared quietly back at Chris, both losing hold of tears.  She softly answered.  “Do I look happy?”  He waited a bit.

“No.”  He glanced at his feet, then up, then anywhere but at her.

They walked to the bus Chris had seen.  It was a yellow school bus in a driveway of a ranch home that had seen better days.  They entered the bus, found two bench seats in the back, and sat silent and still until sunrise.

_________________________________________

Question 1:  As I said, this is a long chapter.  Do you agree with the mark at which I suggested breaking it, leave it as one chapter, or perhaps break somewhere else?

59 Comments | writing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by brainsnorts

Connecting Flight – ch.6-updated

April 6, 2013

My continued thanks for coming back again.  This chapter is one that is supposed to give the story some direction.  I don’t know if that’s clear, or if that is clear enough.  I hope it works for you.  If not, I know that you will let me know.  What I don’t know is if it enough to keep you reading.  Fingers crossed.

Update – I have made changes in the past day or so, changes in blue.

_________________________________

ghost-train

Chapter 6

The elderly man hadn’t moved, gotten up, nothing.  One moment he wasn’t there, then he was there.  His smile was comforting, as if a shopping mall Santa Claus suit were to smile at you in mid December.  They relaxed and sat back.

“We – we’re hearing you, right?” Chris asked.

“Yes, we can hear and see each other,” the man said softly.

“Are you the homeless guy I saw when I was getting on the train?” Chris asked.

“Yes, but I’m not homeless.  I just find these clothes comfortable.  Nice to meet you.  My name is George.”

“I apologize.  That was kind of judgmental of me.  I’m Chris.  This is Ann.  And you are?”

Ann turned to Chris.  “Did you not just hear him say his name is George?”

“I’m sure it’s because I startled you,” George said.  “Do you mind if I join you?”

“Please do,” said Chris, waving towards a third seat angled their way.  The man rose slowly and walked cautiously towards them, keeping his smile all the way as Chris continued.  “So, I guess you’re dead like us?”

“Long time, yes.”  He sat back, now smiling specifically at Ann.  He nodded and likely would have tipped his hat if he were wearing one.

“This just happened to us yesterday,” Ann started.  “I think it was yesterday,” glancing at Chris questioningly.  “Wow, I’m losing track of time.”

“That’s normal,” said George.  “It’s because you won’t sleep anymore, so the hours pass strangely.  Hard to keep track, but you’ll get used to it.”

Chris leaned forward.  “You know a lot about this?”

“Oh yes.  Yes.  If you have any questions, I’ll be glad to help.”  He punctuated each sentence with a smile and nod.

“Well, I’m not sure where to begin,” said Chris.

“Then let me ask you some questions.  Why didn’t you go when the light called you?”

Ann jumped in.  “For me, I know it might sound overused-”

“Nothing is overused if it’s correct,” George said, bringing a smile from Ann.  “Sorry, go on.”

“I wasn’t ready to die.”

“Exactly,” Chris jumped in.  “Actually, as the plane was going down, I was saying that to myself.”

“No you weren’t,” Ann said.

“How can you tell me I wasn’t?”

“No, no.  I mean you weren’t praying to yourself.  I heard you.  You were praying out loud.”

“I was NOT praying.”  Chris’s insistence pushed Ann to move back slightly.  There was an awkward silence.

“Anyway,” said a more somber Chris, “I was saying it to myself while listening to you.”

George interrupted, “You weren’t ready to go.  And you’ve heard many theories that say when there’s a ghost or spirit around, it’s someone who is not finished here on earth, not ready to leave this life.  And that’s one reason, but not the only reason.  Sometimes, they don’t have a choice.”

“How do you know that?” asked Chris as George unbuttoned his ragged, gray coat.

“Just talking to people.  I get a good sense for why people say and do things.  You can tell me anything, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred I can tell you if you’re being honest.  Let me ask you, what do you think your unfinished business is?”

Chris rubbed at his lip.  “I think I just want to see my wife once more.”  He glanced at Ann, who looked at him as if about to ask a question.  Instead, she reached and patted his hand, greeted again by a great shock that sent her hand away.

“Oh my,” said George.

“Yeah, what is that?” asked Chris.  “If we touch, we get a nasty zap.  Ever see that before?”

“Not that I can think of, but I am sure it is important.  I suggest the two of you stick together as often as possible.”

“Why?” asked Ann.

“It’s happening for a reason.  So when it stops, there will also be a reason, and it will likely be something very important.  And it might have something to do with why you are both here and not – somewhere else.”

“Uh,” Chris began, “where exactly is somewhere else?  You mean Hell?”

“Oh, no,” George laughed.  “Trust me, young man.  There is no such thing.”

George smiled, as did Ann, but Chris not so much.

“So how do we figure out this unfinished business?” asked Chris.

“There are no directions for that.  Pretend that you bought a game at a store.  You open the game, and there are pieces of different shapes and colors, cards with random pictures, numbered dice, odd and ends in the box, but no directions.  And you have to just look at what you have and figure out the game.  And you might figure out one game.”  He turned to Ann.  “And you might figure out a different game, both with the same pieces.  That’s all fine, as long as each one works.  However, it is not very likely that your unfinished business is the same thing, so do not expect to both see that light return at the same time.  One of you very likely will move on before the other.”

“So, I might see it, but she might not, and then she won’t be able to go with me?”

“Exactly,” said George, “but that does not mean you won’t eventually see each other again somewhere else.”

Chris and Ann glanced at each other, then Ann asked, “What about our families?”

“If you are thinking of seeing them, I would not,” George said.

“Why not?” asked Chris.

“There are only two possibilities, and both are bad.  One is that you see them, and they’re greatly upset.  That would hurt.  On the other hand, you see them, and they are not upset.  That would hurt even more.”

A train steward entered the car, flicked on the lights, and surveyed the lounge car.  He flowed routinely around the car, opened various cabinets, checked supplies, and marked things on a clipboard.

“Can people see us?” Ann asked.

“Very few.”

“When my sister was little, she used to see people.  Nobody believed her.  I didn’t want to believe her.  Now I feel horrible that I didn’t.  What decides who can or can’t see us?”

“I wish I could explain, and I’m very sorry about your sister.  Why do birds build nests?  Why do vultures pick on dead animals and not tomatoes?  I wish I had an answer for you about your sister.  It’s both a curse and a blessing.”

“How is it a blessing?” asked Chris.

“Her sister could have helped you get from here to wherever you are going.”

Ann’s turn.  “Where are we going?”

“Call it ‘heaven’ I supposed,” said George

The steward continued to the opposite end of the car, inspecting one last area before tucking his clipboard under his arm and rearranging a few items inside the last cabinet.

“But don’t be afraid,” George continued.  ”It’s okay that you are still here, but it’s not where you are supposed to be.  Think of how crowded it would be if everyone who died was still here.  Even if you wanted to stay here, trust me you would get bored and want to leave.  Just do not wait too long.  Some people stay here so long, they can’t leave.  They get addicted to being here, and they do not realize all the wonderful things they are missing.”

“What’s here that would be addicting?” asked Chris.

“Well, it can be fun,” George smiled as he stood, crossed the room, and pushed open a cabinet door.  The train steward was about to leave the car until he saw the cabinet door that George had just opened.  The steward glanced around the room, slowly moved to the cabinet, closed the door, checked it again, and then hurried from the car.

“Fun,” said George, “but not for very long.  You would get bored, then unhappy, and then you never know what you might be capable of.  You should move on to the next place while you can because not everyone can move on.  Not everyone who goes to high school will be ready to graduate in four years.  Not everyone learns to ride a bike the first day.  Some people need another day, and some people will never have enough days.”

“So,” Chris said, “mediums, psychics, those kinds of people.  Are they real?”

“Very few, but the real ones don’t charge money.  They just want to help.”

“Wait,” added Ann.  “You opened that cabinet.  We can make things move?”

“Sometimes, if it’s important enough, you’ll do it.”

“We tried,” said Ann, “but we couldn’t.”

“How were you feeling?” asked George.

“Angry about being dead.”

“That’s why.  There’s no place for anger here.  When you are angry, you are thinking more about what you don’t want.  The wrong motivations are at the center of your thoughts.  When you are calm, positive, you can think more about what you do want.  It’s kind of a Buddhist thing.”

Ann nodded positively and jumped in.  “So when I tried to kick a trash can, it didn’t work because I wasn’t thinking about the trash can.  I was thinking about being dead.”

“Yes.  Your anger had nothing to do with moving a trash can.  However, if you tried to move a trash can because it fell on a child, then moving the trash can would really be what you want, and then you would probably move it.”

“What about touching things?” asked Chris.  ”We were sitting on top of a train car.  It was holding us up.  But then we walked through a locked door.  If the train car held us up, then why didn’t the door stop us?”

“Because it did what you wanted it to do.  You wanted the sit on the train.  You wanted to go through the door.  If you wanted to go through the train, you would have, but you sat down with the expectation and desire to sit down, just as you are now.”

“So if I wanted to fall through the chair and land on the floor, that’s what would happen?” said Chris.

“Yes,” said George.  ”But it takes great mental ability to think differently like that.  You might try to fall through the chair, but your mind won’t believe you unless it sees a reason other than to just prove that you can do it.”

Ann jumped in.  “I sort of stepped inside someone.”

“Oh, yes,” smiled George.  “That’s fun too, but be careful.  That can really be addictive, and it’s not very nice.  Usually, people in life who had behavior issues, problems with self identify, actors, they like doing that.  And, those same people may have had someone inside them during their lives.  I have seen some of us who stayed inside someone for so very long that eventually they could not get out.  They literally became that person and lived out the rest of that person’s life.  I tried to help them get out, but there was nothing I could do.  They became something like a split personality, and they would sometimes take over and try to convince people that they were the real being.  Eventually, that host body was so distraught he committed suicide, and they were both dead.  Spirits who are trapped here will sometimes do that in the hope that they will move on, but it does not work that way.”

“Do they know when you’re inside them?” Ann asked.

“Not usually, unless you want them to, but they probably would just think it was their imagination.  But they could shut you out if they wanted to, provided they knew or suspected.”

“Can we make people do things?” she asked.

“Depends on their focus and attitude.  If someone is doing something that takes concentration, you would not have any effect.  But if they were relaxed, then it is possible.  Move their arms, make them walk, things like that.  But please be careful.  Just because you can do something does not mean that you should.  Be certain that what you are going to do is necessary and something that you would accept being done to you.”

George shifted in his seat.  ”But let me ask you something.  Why would you want to do things like that?  It is a rather invasive thing, to occupy someone’s body.  What gives you the right to do such a thing?”

“What if someone is in trouble or needs help?” Ann asked.

“People always need help,” said George.  ”How do you know what help they need?  How do you get to decide when you should or should not help someone?  In an attempt to help, what if you just make things worse?  Then what?  You have no business with such things.  Your purpose, as you have chosen, is to help yourself.  To find what you have missed so you can move on.  I am sorry to sound so harsh, but you are not any kind of supreme authority annointed to get involved in the lives and problems of others.”

Chris waited, letting those thoughts sink in, before speaking up.  “Are you some kind of authority here?”

“I’ve been around here for a long time, and I have gathered a lot from different people.  I made it my purpose to pass on as much as I can to help those like you.”

“Why haven’t you moved on to somewhere else?” Ann asked.

George smiled less.  “I just want to help.”

“Can we disapparate?” Ann asked.

“Dis-what?” asked George.

“It’s a Harry Potter thing,” Ann said.  “Can we disappear and appear somewhere else?”

“No.  You are a being, just not a physical one.  You can not fly or float, but you can go through things because your state of matter is not the same as everything else.  Think of a rock and air.  They can touch, but they do not really affect each other.  All your life, you have been the rock.  Now you are the air.  That is why you have trouble moving or touching things.  Your body no longer works the same way.  A small amount of air will not move a rock, but a strong, focused amount of air like from a storm can move a rock.  I suppose it is like when people say ‘mind over matter.’”

“We were walking away from the crash site,” Chris started, “and I – felt – something that told me to go a certain way.  Then I felt something that said to get on this train.  Does that make sense?”

“Oh yes,” said George.  “But, it is not always good.  You will get strong feelings, but you will not know the difference between good or bad feelings.”  He pointed at Ann.  “There could be something bad about this train for you, something good for him, but it would feel the same to both of you.”

“Well that’s scary,” said Chris as Ann pulled her legs up on her seat and against her chest.

“Yes, it is,” said George.

“Any advice?” asked Chris.

“Yes.  Do not ignore those feelings, but do not run to them either.  Keep your eyes open, but keep your mind open too.  Something might look like a bad thing, but you will not know for sure until it is over.”

“Like life,” said Chris solemnly.

“Yes.”

“There was a kid,” said Ann.  “He was looking at us like he could see us.”

“He probably could,” said George.

“But he didn’t look any different to us than the living people.  How can we tell who is who?”

“He gave himself away by looking at you.  But even if he was not looking at you, you still would have felt him nearby.  Like I said before, your energy is different from the living.  If you were blindfolded, you still would have known he was nearby.  You will feel it, but you will not always know which person it is you are sensing because we look just as alive as everyone else who is dead.  You can not tell the difference just by looking at each other.  You looked alive to him, but he sensed someone was nearby.  It is possible he has passed on.  It is also possible he is living but has the sight to see you, and you were really feeling someone else in the room.”

“The light,” said Chris, “the one we didn’t go towards.  Will it come back?”

“It will come back when you have accomplished whatever it is that kept you from going the first time.  However, it is possible that it will come back for only one but not both.  You both saw it the first time because you died together.  Things are different now, and I doubt you will find what you seek at the same time, unless of course that what you are seeking is the same thing.  So that light will be visible to only one of you.  Stay together but think individually.  It’s a nice thing that you are friends, but do not expect that you will both go at the same time.”

“Something important caused you to fight to stay.  But just because it is important does not mean that it is better to know than not to know.  Have you ever learned something that you wish you had not learned?”

“My sister,” Ann said, “visited a friend who moved into an old house.  There was an old woman sitting by the fireplace, and she told my sister how much she really liked the friend who just bought her house.  The friend said that it was an estate sale, and the owner had passed away a few months ago.  My sister kind of knew the woman was just a spirit, but she wasn’t sure and didn’t want to be rude.  The old woman told my sister that there was something hidden up in the attic and to please make sure her son gets it.  It was a box with a lot of money.”

“Interesting,” said George.

“So my sister told this to the friend, who freaked out, chased my sister away, and told her never to come back again.  My sister told to the husband.  He went up and found it, but he never brought it to the dead woman’s son.  He kept it.  And the dead woman still haunts their house.  My sister used to walk by the house, see the old woman outside in the garden.  Talk to her.  But she had to be careful or the friend would chase her away.  They even called the cops once.  Said she was stalking them.”

Does your sister still talk to the dead woman?” asked Chris, just as George attempted to interrupt.

“My sister killed herself last year.”

Chris gasped.

“Couldn’t take it.  Couldn’t deal with seeing people, started to think maybe she was crazy because nobody believed her.  Not even me.  Well, I believed her, but I didn’t have the guts to admit it.”

They sat in silence for several moments until George reached and patted her hand.  She looked at his had with curiosity before looking up at him with questions in her eyes.

“I am sorry, my dear.  Please do not blame yourself.  Let me warn you about something.”  He buttoned his coat as he stood.  “Just as there are bad people, those who commit crimes and cause trouble in life, there are also people like that in death.  There will be those who will try to hurt you and hurt those who are still living.”

“You mean like a poltergeist?” asked Ann.

“Sometimes, yes,” said George.  ”Sometimes worse.  There are things you will see.  I call them ‘things’ because they are no longer people.  No light will ever return for them, but they know that you still have a chance.  They will try to inhabit you and hope to move on with you once it is your turn to go.  Stay away from them.”

“What do they look like?” asked Ann.

“They are as different as you or I, but they are silent.  They think they can sneak up on you if they stay silent.  They will be drawn to you, they can feel you, just as that boy could feel you.  They will not stop following you.”

“So these things are just roaming the earth?” asked Chris, “like zombies?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to call them zombies.  Just lost souls.  There used to be others like me who tried to catch them, but I don’t think that happens anymore.  Too many lost souls, and too few who want to help.  Those spirits will eventually disappear.  They become just the ghostly images that most people see.  When that happens, they are just harmless spots of light.”

“Like the old woman who stayed to give her son the money in the attic,” said Ann.

“Yes,” said George.  “Now, please, please remember.  There is a danger in what you have chosen.  You were given an invitation that you turned down for a reason.  You will not get that invitation again until you satisfy that reason.  Sadly, that elderly woman will never leave this earth because her reason for staying cannot be satisfied.”

“So like the other ghosts or spirits that are still here?” asked Ann.

“Yes.  Those spirits from hundreds of years ago are just echoes.  Their people have faded away, never made it to your heaven.  You must focus on what kept you here.  Find it.  Satisfy it.  And then you will be able move on.  Otherwise, you will be one of those echoes.”

They all stood, shook hands, and George turned for the door.

“Will we see you again?” asked Chris.

“Never know.”  George smiled and stepped through the door into the next train car.

They sat quietly for a few seconds.

“Oh shit,” said Chris.

“What?” said Ann.

“I should have asked him how long we have to do whatever it is or that light won’t come back.”

“I guess until it’s not possible.  Like that woman with the money.” 

They returned to their seats.  “So, what do you think about George?” asked Ann.

“George?  I believe him.”

“Anything else?”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is that he seems to know a lot about all this, and I’m thinking he’s more than just a guy named George.”

“What more could he be?”

“Really?  Nothing more comes to mind?”

“Please save me the trouble and just tell me what you’re thinking.”

“What if you were just talking to an angel?”

“What if you’re nuts?”

“What if you were just talking to God?”

“I’m going home.”  Chris stood and stepped towards the same door through which George had just exited.

“So not only do you think you’re smarter than everyone else, but you think you’re smarter than George, or God, or whoever he was?”

“No.  I just feel I’m supposed to go home.”

“You were on your way to Los Angeles.  Wouldn’t it make sense that your answer is there?”

“I feel it’s back home.  And I feel you’re supposed to come with me.”

“I’m supposed to go?” said Ann.  “No.  You’re afraid to go alone.  And you didn’t answer my question.  What if we were just talking to God?”

Chris stopped and turned to face Ann.  “Let’s get this straight so we don’t have to talk about it ever again.  There is no God.”

______________________________-

Question 1:  This chapter was long and mainly dialogue.  Did it feel too long?

Question 2:  Are the ghost rules clear?  Does it seem like anything was contradictory to anything that Chris or Ann did in previous chapters?

 

49 Comments | writing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by brainsnorts

Connecting Flight – ch.5

April 4, 2013

A previous reader said that the next two chapters, 5 and 6, might need to be reversed.  Some opinions are that by chapter 5 a book needs to clarify a conflict, to set the direction for the rest of the story.   As it is written now, that happens in chapter 6.  Chapter 5 is more about a physical challenge for them combined with what I can only describe as a “fun” chapter before setting up a conflict in chapter 6.  So I’m just not sure which should come first, this chapter I’m posting as 5 or the next one, thus making this chapter 6 instead of 5.  Oh well.  We shall see.

And again, my greatest thanks to those of you still with me, still reading, and still giving your time so generously.

___________________________

BeFunky_Underpainting_1.jpg

Chapter 5

About the only difference between Chris and Ann sitting in the lounge car at about 1 in the morning and any other couple sitting in a diner in Philadelphia at 2 in the morning was that these two had not been on a date for the previous four or five hours.  The tables and booths were smaller but lined up similarly.  The bar and stools, bolted to the floor, were smaller versions of diners back home, but no more drinks were being poured here.  They couldn’t feel the motion of the train, but they could see random lights, stars, and horizons moving past the windows in a car that had been fairly crowded an hour before.  They welcomed the emptiness and put their feet up on the empty half of each other’s booth bench.  They weren’t asleep, but they wished they were.  They tried, but there were too many thoughts and things to think about.

“Tell me again why you didn’t go through the door?” Ann asked.

“It wasn’t about going through the door.  It was just something that felt wrong about following the kid.  I had a really creepy vibe.  Didn’t you feel anything?”

“No.  I saw you take a step, and I saw you back up again.  Then you said, ‘This isn’t right.’  And then you went back to the corner and sat on the floor.”

“I didn’t say ‘This isn’t right.’  Did I?”

“Yup,” she said.

“I don’t remember that.  I remember getting hit with a – like a breeze through the door.  Like a window opened and a cold breeze came in.”

She turned his way a little.  “A breeze through the door?  Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I did tell you.  You asked why I didn’t go through the door, and I told you about the breeze.”

“You did not,” she sat more upright.  “You just said that something didn’t feel right.  You’re having some memory issues.”

“Oh well.  I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Oh well?  You tell me one thing, then tell me another, don’t remember the first thing, then you don’t remember the second thing, and all you have is ‘Oh well’?”  She leaned against the table, closer to him.  ”What happened to the tense and nervous guy who spends an hour picking out Christmas cards?  Now you’re just the ‘Oh well’ guy instead?  You’re acting more like sixty instead of thirty.”  She took a breath and sat back.  ”And I know you never told me your age, so don’t bother mentioning it.”

“Yeah, maybe I’m too relaxed about this,” Chris said.  “Maybe I should be freaking out.  Maybe I should be crying about my family and all the things I never got to do.  Never got to Europe.  Never took surfing lessons.  Never went to a nude beach.”

“Really?” Ann chirped.

“Just seeing if you’re paying attention.”  He smiled.  “And you said I’m not funny.”

“You lie.  You wouldn’t go to a nude beach if everyone else died.”

“Really?”

“Okay,” she softened, “bad choice of words.  But-”

The door at the far end of the dining car slid open, and they immediately looked up.  A disheveled man shuffled in, the one who Chris had noticed as they were boarding the train.  Chris wondered if the man was homeless, had somehow sneaked aboard, and was now looking for food in the dining car after everyone had gone to sleep.  The old man glanced in various directions, up down, left right, past the booth in which Chris and Ann sat.  He moved through the car to the opposite door, slid that open, and then disappeared into the next car.

“Did you feel that?” whispered Chris.

“I felt something, not sure what.”

“That’s what I felt when I was about to follow that kid.  It’s like someone opened a door to a freezer and-”

Before they could talk further, a woman stumbled in through the same door that the old man had just left.  She planted herself on a bar stool as if there were a bartender there, flipped open a cell phone, flipped it closed, then stuffed it in a purse.  Less than a minute later the door opened again.  A man entered carrying two drinks, each with a small straw and a few ice cubes.

“Did you think you could get away from me?” he sneered.

“You again?  If my husband sees you following me, he’s gonna be pissed,” she slurred.

“Oh, just have a drink and relax.”  He handed her a glass.  She took a slow, slight sip.

“I’ve had many drinks, and I don’t mean just today, but I have no idea what that is.”

Ann looked to Chris.  “I bet he spiked her drink with something.”

“Good girl,” the man said.  “So, where you from?”

“Doesn’t matter where I’m from,” she said.  “Matters where I’m going.”

“I like the sound of that.”  The man slid off his seat and moved behind her.  He put a hand on her neck, gently massaging while trying his best to keep eye contact.  He smiled as her eyes closed.

“I like that,” she purred.

“As good as your husband does it?”

“Mmm.  Better.”  Her head leaned forward, exposing more of her neck.  He took advantage and used two hands while moving his face into her hair.  His whisperings were inaudible to Chris and Ann, but it didn’t matter.

The woman giggled, then he did.  “I told you I have a husband.”

“Does he have one of these?” the man said, and he pressed himself closely against her from behind.

“Pretty sure.”  She spun around on her barstool, knees slightly apart, until the man parted them further.  He pushed his teeth gently against her neck.  Her head fell back, eyes almost closed, and legs weakened.

“Don’t you dare fall asleep.”

“I need to lay down.  I had too much to drink.”  She attempted to get up but struggled as he got an arm around her waist.

“My room is in the next car.  C’mon.  You can lay down in there.”  He smiled and glanced at both doors before guiding her towards the one through which they had entered.

“What about my husband?”

“I’m sure we’ll find him later.”

Ann turned to Chris.  “What do we do?”

“C’mon.”

They followed the man as he guided the drunken woman to the door.  He slid the door open with his elbow and moved with her through while Chris and Ann stepped with them before it closed.

“Almost there,” the man grunted.

Ahead was a corridor with a dozen windows on the left and doors on the right, each leading to private rooms.  The man swiped a key card in the fourth door and took the woman inside.

“Well?” Ann said.  “You going through this door, or you chickening out again?” 

Chris quietly walked towards the door and disappeared through it.  Ann, like a child entering a swimming pool, held her breath and followed him through.

Inside, the woman had already flopped onto a bed about the size of an army cot.  The man was undressing.

“This looks jus’ like my rumm,” she tried.

“They all look alike.”  He tossed his pants on a chair.

“They don’t all look alike.”  She giggled and pointed between his legs.

“They don’t all feel alike either.”  He moved closer.

“No, no.  My husbin’ eh lookn fer me.”

“I’m sure he’ll find you eventually.”  She shifted back on the bed towards the wall and away from his approach.

“Now what?” asked Ann.

“I don’t know,” said Chris.  He stood by the bed and reached for the man, trying to pull him off the woman, but his hands swept through like nothing.  He stepped to the door and tried to knock on it, but the result was the same.

“I have an idea,” said Ann.  She crawled on the bed and turned her back before rolling towards the woman until she was absorbed into her.  There was no visible reaction that Chris could see from the unstable, drunk woman.  He watched and waited helplessly.

“Chris,” he heard, “can you hear me?”

“Yeah.”

“Holy shit, this woman is toasted beyond anything.  I feel like I’m in a vodka bathtub.”

“I can hear you, but I guess he can’t.  And her mouth isn’t moving.  This is wild.”

“Yeah, well, not for me.  I’m trying to fight him off, but either she’s really drunk or I just can’t control her.”

The man slid her dress up around her waist and spread her legs enough to plant himself between them.

“Oooh, I like when you fight me,” the man growled as the woman pushed against him enough that he gripped her wrists to hold her down.

“Uuugh!  This isn’t working.” Ann yelled.  “Think of something.”

Chris circled the tiny room, looking for any ideas but found nothing.  He moved to the man’s pants on a chair and tried to remove the belt but failed.

“Oh no,” Ann cried.

“What?”

“You know what!”

“Huh?  Oh.  You can feel it?” Chris asked.

“Oh God yeah.” Ann said as the woman fought less and returned the animal kisses that the man had been forcing on her.  “Oh, she’s right.  They’re not all the same.  Holy Christ!”

“All right, stop it,” protested Chris.  “I don’t want to hear that.  Try to keep in mind you’re being raped.  You don’t have to like it.”

Chris continued to think until something shiny caught his eye.  It was a small picture frame no bigger than a postcard.  In the picture were two children along with the man and woman on the bed.

“Hey!”

“What?”  Ann groaned.  “Either stop him or get out of here and let me enjoy this.”

“No, it’s okay.  They’re together.”

“What?”

“There’s a picture here of them together.  They were just flirting.  Just playing around.”

“Oh good,” huffed Ann.  “Now get out.”

“Why?”

“Uuuuhhhhh God.  This is kind of – uuuh – personal?  I’m, like, having, uuuh, oooh, sex.  And nine times out of ten I prefer not to be watched, okay?”

“Nine times you what?”

“Nothing.  Get out.”

“Oh.  Ok.  I’ll be outside.”  Chris disappeared through the door and returned to the dark dining car where they had been when they first saw the couple.

_______________________

Roughly thirty minutes later Ann returned to the dining car and sat across from Chris, exactly as they had before the couple had entered.  She flopped into the seat with a great exhale.

“I guess it was good for you?” Chris asked.

She said nothing.  Only smiled.

“Aren’t you married?” Chris asked.  “Don’t you feel guilty?”

“Ask me tomorrow.”

“Do you think you could have fought him off if she wasn’t drunk?”

“Well, I think I was controlling her a little, but I’m not sure.  Maybe I’ll go back to their room tomorrow and try again when she’s sober.”  She gave an exaggerated smile.

Chris leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.  “I’m gonna try tomorrow when someone’s having breakfast.  Coffee and bacon.  Maybe an omelet with tomato and cheese.”

“I don’t like eggs, but what about that kid?”

“I was just thinking about him.”

“I know.  The way he was looking at you, he had to see you.”

“People can’t see us.”

“How do you know?”

“How could they?”

“Hey.”  She sat up.  “If you had asked me this morning if this – whatever this is, if this could even exist like this, I’d have said no way.”  Her attitude grew.

“Calm down, will you.  I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Ann huffed and relaxed again in the seat.  “When I was a kid, my sister always said she saw things.  We’d go into a house, like a friend’s house, and she’d tell me there were people in there.  Like an old lady in a rocking chair, but I would never see anything.”

“Did you believe her?”

“Of course not.  I was just a kid.  I didn’t know what to believe, but I didn’t want to think my sister was crazy either.  She’d get upset, and she’d get yelled at for telling stories.  Sometimes she’d cry at night about how nobody believed her.  She’d get grounded or whatever, but she’d never change her story.  I really felt bad for her, and it turns out she was right.”

“Well, she might’ve been right.”

“Shut up.  She was right.  I knew it then, but I was too afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid of what?  How about afraid of knowing there really were dead people walking around us?  Isn’t that scary enough?”

“It’s not that scary,” spoke a voice from several tables away.

Chris and Ann sat up straight in their booth, hands hitting the table, heads snapping towards the voice.

“Who’s there?” Chris asked.  “Where are you?”

Slowly, an image appeared, like a candle that starts out faintly but then brightens to full strength.  It was the elderly man who Chris thought might have been homeless.

____________________________

Question 1:  The “ghost rules” have not been clearly defined yet but will be in the next chapter.  Do you have any suggestions, warnings, preferences, recommendations about ghost rules either here or in other stories?

Question 2:  Was there anything “wrong” (opinion, of course) about the sex scene?  Do you feel Chris and Ann handled it well, or was there anything that bothered you?

______________________________

45 Comments | writing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by brainsnorts

Connecting Flight – ch. 4

April 3, 2013

My continued and unending thanks to those who are helping.  FYI – I’ve gone back to the first chapter, made some changes, and set the text in red in case you want to glance through to see what was changed or added.  I will also do that for other chapters as I revise using your suggestions.  Thanks again for your patience between chapters as I’m trying to revise each one again before posting them here, trying to take care of point of view issues.  There are some scenes coming up in which I know it’s going to be a problem, but I haven’t yet figured out how to work around it.  Oh well.  We shall see…

Oh, also, don’t worry about the picture not matching up well with the description.  Just something I plucked off the internet.

__________________________________________

4 (1)

Chapter 4

Ann eyes followed his to her right.  The train they had ridden was now in the distance, rumbling west.  With lights still flashing, a crossing gate was just reaching its upright position and traffic was poised to resume in two lanes each way.  Across the road there was a train station that looked every bit how a station would have looked 100 years prior.  Ann’s first thought was that it was a tourist attraction, no longer used but restored by a local historical society.

“There’s something over there,” Chris said.

“You mean the train station?”

“Yup.”

“You think it’s real?” she asked.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Well, what if it’s like a place for – for people like us?” she asked.  “People waiting to go to wherever it is we might be going?”

“This isn’t a kids’ movie.  Maybe you’ve read too much Harry Potter.”

“Harry who?”

“Really?”

She shrugged, and they slowly walked towards the station, still more than 100 yards away.  As they grew closer, a taxi pulled up and let out a passenger who then walked into the station just as another exited.

“Guess it’s real,” Ann said with an exhale.

They continued to the sidewalk and stood across the street from the station, careful not to touch any of the many people strolling by.

“You think we need to avoid people?” Ann asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean these people walking by.  They can’t see us, but what if they touch us?  What do you think will happen?”

Chris looked around, watching cars and everything that passed.  “I’m not so sure they can’t see us.”

“Really?  Why?”

“Well, a few of them seemed like they’re looking right at me.”  He glanced at every face possible in passing cars.

“How do you know they’re not just looking at something behind you and it just seems like they’re looking at you?” she asked.

“Because,” he paused, “it looks like they’re keeping their eyes on me even as they go by.”

“They?  How many is they?”

“One.”

“I wanna try something.”  She stepped slightly into the street towards the traffic driving from her left to right.  She stepped again, then a little more.  Chris watched quietly, his eyes squinting and mouth contorted like a parent whose kid was climbing a tree for the first time.  He watched the path of the cars coming by, and they didn’t seem to be wavering despite how close they were coming to Ann.

She looked back at Chris to see his concern, then she turned again to the traffic.  The next car was about 30 yards away and approaching quickly when Ann stepped completely into the middle of the road.  Chris watched as the coming car slowed to a stop, barely a few inches away.  Her face twisted in confusion as she attempted to hide her eyes.  She put her head down and walked back to where Chris waited smiling.

“That was embarrassing,” whispered Ann.  “They can see us.”

Instead of answering, Chris waved her around so she could see the crossing gates descending, lights flashing, and bells beginning to clang behind her, blocking the road for an oncoming train.

“Okay,” she said, turning away from Chris, “so let’s go check out that station.”

That station was a red brick building, one-story tall with a pitched, dark green, aluminum roof.  The late-afternoon sun was dropping behind it, and the shade it created reached to their side of the street.  To the right of the building was a street-level, wooden platform on which a line was growing.  The red and silver train responsible for dropping the crossing gate was hissing to a stop.

As they crossed the street, Chris spotted a man who seemed like a vagrant.  The elderly man in slightly stained clothing shuffled around the corner from the rear of the station.  He stood near the train but off to the side, away from the steps, as passengers departed from the train. 

“Ain’t that a beauty!” Chris said.

“What?  A train?”

Chris’s eyes followed the gold letters that announced each car joined together behind the diesel engine of the Texas Sunset.

“Trains are superior forms of travel that are incredibly underused and undervalued,” he preached.  “Sleeper cars, dining cars, and-”  He caught her eyes rolling again, so he saved the rest of the speech for another time.

A short line formed and waited for others to finish exiting before boarding.  Two unseen people, new to this part of the country, and this unloving dimension, also waited.  They waited until the last person was up the short stairs, and then Chris came face to face with the elderly man who had previously stepped out from behind the station.  The man turned away and leaned down, reaching for what looked like a few coins, thus allowing Chris and Ann to get aboard before him.  They boarded slowly, trying their best to avoid touching anyone.

“Hold the back of my sweater, and stay with me,” whispered Chris over his shoulder.

“You want me to get another shock?” she asked.

“Not if you only touch the sweater.”  He was right, and she followed close behind.

Chris guided her through a mostly empty car with lounge seats arranged for conversation and view.  The afternoon sun cast horizontal shadows as they stepped towards the rear of the car, into the next car, until they found one that was empty.  They parked themselves in wide, soft-leather chairs aimed at the windows.

Chris leaned his head back and closed his eyes, waiting to feel the warm rays on his face.  And he waited, but there was nothing.  He sat up.

“What?” asked Ann.

“I can’t feel the sun.”

She looked straight at the sun with her eyes closed, blinked a few times, then kept her eyes open.  “It doesn’t hurt like it should.”

“Well, we didn’t feel cold or wind riding on top of the freight train.  We probably won’t feel pain either.  I guess we take the good with the bad.  One of life’s philosophies.”

“Except we’re not life anymore.  Do you think we’ll need to sleep?” Ann asked.

“Don’t know, but I would really like a nap.”

“You tired?”

“No.  More like a mental nap.  A break from thinking about everything.  My wife dealing with the news.  All that.  My father will not handle this well.”

“Why did we get on this train?”

“I don’t know.  Something just – told me.  And it’s going east, and we both live by Philly, so maybe we should go home.”

“Be a lot faster to fly,” she said.

He turned towards her.  “Would you really get on a plane right now?”

She shrugged.  “What’s the worst that could happen?”

He slumped back in his seat.  They both stayed silent, eyes closed, until a door opened and scattered people wandered into the car.  They hopped from their seats and found an out-of-the-way corner in which to tuck themselves.  Although they were certain they could not be seen, they still cowered and winced each time someone got too close.

Eventually every seat was filled, and others continued to the next car until the cattle call subsided.  As conversations picked up, Chris and Ann sat on the floor beneath a big-screen TV mounted on the wall.

“What should we do?” she asked.

“Stay here I guess.  Maybe we’ll learn something.”

Ann moved from the corner and cautiously walked around the car as the train proceeded from the station.  Although other passengers rocked slightly from the unexpected jerking as the train began rolling, Ann moved effortlessly.  Chris watched with surprise as she stopped behind a 30-something woman with a book in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.  Ann glanced back at Chris, then again at the woman seated in front of her.  Ann reached out a finger and gently ran it through the woman’s curly hair.  It was as if the woman was just a projection of light and Ann’s hand was waving at color-tinted air, moving through her as if she weren’t there.

Ann looked back at Chris who softly asked, “What’s it feel like?”

Ann shook her head and shrugged.  When she leaned over and gently blew on the back of the woman’s neck, things were different.  The woman shrugged her shoulders up and looked around the car behind her.  Ann looked back in a strange triumph before continuing to another seat.  She reached her hand out to touch a different woman’s shoulder, but there was no reaction this time.  She pushed on the shoulder, leaning more forward, but still nothing.  She kept her hand inside the woman’s shoulder and looked back at Chris, about to say something, when she abruptly pulled her hand away as if touching a hot surface.  Surrounded by concern, Ann stepped back to Chris.

“What happened?” he said.

“It was weird.”  She looked back at the woman, still reading.  “I knew what she was reading.  It was like she was reading to me.  I was hearing her thoughts.”

“Maybe that explains how you knew things about me,” said Chris.

“But I wasn’t touching you when I knew things.”  Ann watched as the woman closed the book, placed it on her lap, and rubbed at her eyes.  “I want to try something.”

Ann walked back towards the woman, around her chair, and stood in front of her.  Then she turned, bent her waist and knees, and sat in the seat.  For Chris, it was as if Ann disappeared into the woman’s body.  He watched silently, barely blinking.  About a minute later he saw a blurred, then clearer vision of Ann standing up again before she tiptoeing back to Chris.  His eyes bulged with anxiety.  She looked up with similar eyes.

“Well?” he said.

“That was – that was -.”  Her confusion showed as she searched for words. 

“Oh, you don’t have to tiptoe,” he interrupted.  “Nobody is going to hear you.”

“That was – everything.  Remember when you were a kid, and you figured out how to make your own phone extension?  And you hooked it up, and you listened to your sister talking to her friends on the phone?”

“Yeah, and can you stop doing that?”

“Oh, sorry.  That was you?  I thought maybe I just made that up.”

“No, that was me.  Keep going.  What happened?”

“It was like that.  Listening to someone on the phone when they don’t know you’re listening.  I mean, I know it’s wrong, but it was amazing.”  She turned to see the woman place her book on the seat and leave the train car.

“She’s going to find a bathroom, I heard her say she had to take a piss,” Ann added.

“Did you hear her say it, or did you feel it?”

“The piss?”

“No, that’s not-”

“Not sure.  Could be either.”

“What else did you hear?” Chris asked.

“She just lost her job, and she’s going to Florida to live with her mom.  She’s mad that the train will take so long, but she’s afraid to fly and she already sold her car.  Sold everything pretty much.”

“She said all that?” Chris asked.

“Not sure.  I think so.”

“Do you think she knew that you were in there?”

“Don’t think so, but you gotta try it,” she smiled.

“Not yet.  Here’s what I want you to do.  Go back to her when she comes back, and sit – sit on her, in her, whatever.  And try to make her move.  Try to do something like scratch your ear or something.”

“Let me do someone else.  She was just too sad.  I felt so much of her, like it was happening to me.  You know how we weren’t tired or anything when we were running?  We weren’t cold?  Not with this.  I felt this.”

Chris looked around and spied a younger woman with a magazine and earphones, listening to an iPod.  “Her.  She looks happy.  Go do her.”

Ann moved through the car carefully, avoiding touching anyone, until she reached the younger woman’s seat.  She stood in front of the toe-tapping, gum-chewing, head-nodding demeanor.  She smiled, turned, and sat.

Chris estimated her age at about 25.  He watched her ponytail sway slightly in tune with her music.  After roughly a minute, Chris noticed that the woman hadn’t turned a magazine page since Ann entered her.  Her eyes seemed to be focused elsewhere, her attention not on the pages.  She let the magazine fall on her lap as her head relaxed back on the seat’s headrest.  Her legs had been crossed with one foot tapping to the music, but she uncrossed her legs and pulled them up against her chest.  She pulled the earphones out and put the music in her shoulder bag on the floor beneath her.  Then she tilted sideways, almost lying her head on the armrest.

Chris looked at a clock on the wall and estimated she had been curled up about ten minutes.  He struggled with worry before moving towards her.  He stood behind her, leaned as if he were going to whisper, but then backed away.  Twice his lips twitched, but both times he held back.  He went back to the corner beneath the TV and waited.  Before he could lean against the wall, Ann returned.  Again, he waited for her to speak, but she took longer than before.  She sat on the floor next to him, again curling up in her trademark fetal position, leaving him wondering again what had happened.  He sat down next to her.

“Did you curl up like that on the chair, or did she do that.”

“Huh?”

“I noticed,” he paused, “that you sit like that when you’re unhappy.”

“Uh huh.”

“So when the woman in the chair turned and sat that way, I thought maybe you were doing it.”

She thought quietly before speaking.  “She was a little happy but also a little scared.  She’s-”  Ann paused when she noticed Chris’s distracted eyes were focused on her hair.  After noticing the silence, he refocused on her, and she continued.  “She works as an au pair.  Like a nanny.  She’s on her way to Texas to work for a couple with a new baby.  She left her last job when the wife accused her of sleeping with the husband.  She actually wanted to sleep with the guy but didn’t.  And she’s thinking about how she can make a lot of money if she does sleep with the guy and then blackmails him, threatens to tell his wife unless he gives her some extra cash.  I think I talked her out of it.”

“You talked to her?”

Ann turned to face Chris and showed a half-hearted smile.  “I didn’t exactly talk to her.  But I made her feel really guilty.”

“How?” he asked.

“Not sure how to explain it.  She’s thinking about getting off at the next stop and going back home.”

“Do you think you were able to make her move at all?”

“I forgot about that.  I was too busy trying to hear what she was thinking.  Sorry.”  She smiled at Chris.  “Want me to try again?”

Chris looked around the room and stopped at a man with glasses, a notebook on his lap, and a pen in his hand.  Like Chris, he was about 35 and conservatively dressed.  Chris said nothing, stood, and approached him.  The man was scribbling across lined paper.  Chris turned his back to the man and looked over at Ann.  After her positive nod, he casually took a seat on the man.

Ann watched as the man’s pen stopped.  He took off his glasses, looked at them curiously, and attempted to clean them with his shirt.  He put them on and off again, looking at his notebook, on and off again, and then put them on top of his head before going back to writing.  He wrote a few words, stopped, looked closely at the page, and wrote some more.  He did this several times, each time looking closely again at the page until finally he clicked his pen, put it in his shirt pocket, and looked out the window at the passing mountains.

Slowly, a vision of Chris, seen only by Ann, rose from the man’s seat and trudged back to Ann in the corner and again sat next to her.

“Well?”  Her eyes darted from his eyes to his lips and back.  A noise drew both sets of eyes back to the man when he ripped the top page from his notebook and glanced around at the population of the train car.  “What did you do?” Ann asked as Chris caught his breath.

“He was writing a note to his kid.  He and his wife are splitting up.  I was reading the note.”  Chris took a deep breath.  “Not once did he tell his kid he loved her.  So I started telling him what to write.”

Ann looked up at the man to catch him as he took his glasses from his head and put them back on his face.  Then she turned back to Chris.  “You made him move?”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t easy.”

“How’s your eyesight?”

“Perfect.  I can read a license plate a block away.”

“Interesting.”

“What?”

“Did you know he took his glasses off?”

“No.  I didn’t notice,” he said with disappointment.

“I guess you affected his eyesight.  How did you feel?  Did you know where you were?”

Chris searched.  “It was quiet.  I couldn’t really hear anything like I can now.  Not the train wheels or the pen on the paper.  I could see, but it was like looking through binoculars.  I mean like, I couldn’t see off to the sides much.  Like blinders.”  He held his hands to the side of his eyes.  “But I felt his sadness from what he was writing.  And I connected with that from, from all this, and it pissed me off.  I mean, how do you write a note to your kid and not say I love you?  People are messed up.  If you’re not going to love them, then why have kids?”  He looked down at his feet as he rested his head in his hands.

“Maybe he just didn’t get to it yet,” she tried.  “But how did you feel?”

“Angry,” he said.  Neither spoke for a half hour.

________________________________

 

“I used to love trains,” he mumbled.

“You still do,” Ann said.

“Nah, it’s different.  I-”  He shot a glance at her.  “I can’t feel the rocking of the cars.  That’s part of the fun.  I don’t feel anything.”

“Maybe they’re built better.”  She looked up to see Chris’s eyes locked on a boy of about 12 standing by the door to the lounge car.  He seemed to be looking back at them.  Ann leaned close and whispered, “Do you think he sees us?”

“I think so.  He hasn’t looked away.”

“Should we do something?”

“I don’t know.”

The door opened behind him and a man stepped in.  Then the boy dashed through before it closed.

“Should we follow him?” asked Ann.

“I think so.”  They stood.  “Wait.”

“What?”

“Is it going to matter to you if he follows us around?  I mean, if he’s – like us, then he’s probably scared, and he’ll want to stay with us.  But if you don’t want that, then let’s just let him go.  Don’t take on that burden unless you’re sure you want it.”

Ann leaned to look at the door again.  “After that speech you gave me about people not loving their kids, you think I’m just going to let that kid go on alone?  Think of how confused we are, and we’re adults.  He’s probably shitting his pants.”

Chris rolled his eyes at her word choice.  “Okay.  That’s fine.  I just didn’t want to impose something on you unless you really wanted it.”

“It was my idea,” she said, voice rising.  Chris glanced around as if someone might have heard her.

“I know.  C’mon.”  He took a step, then stopped.  “By the way, it’s not like I’m in charge here.  You’re a big girl.  If you want to do something, just do it.  Don’t ask my permission.”

“I didn’t.  What are you talking about?”

“You asked me if we should follow him.”

“Yeah,” she said sharply, “but I’m not asking your permission.  I’m taking your opinion into consideration.  I’m somebody who likes to get opinions before I do something.  Is that so wrong?”

“No,” Chris replied, “but you’re making me feel like I have to make all the decisions.”

“No I’m not.  You’re just worried that you might make a wrong decision, so you’d rather not make any decisions, this way you won’t ever have to feel wrong.  That’s why you never like to pick a restaurant when your wife wants to go out to dinner.”

The words hadn’t finished reaching his ears before the regret showed in her eyes and slumped shoulders.  She glanced down, up at his eyes, down again, and headed towards the door through which the boy disappeared.

At the door, she tentatively reached a hand out to the door handle, but her fingers went through it like nothing.  She put her hands on her hips and looked back at Chris.

“Walk through it,” he said.

“You.”

Neither moved.  They just stood, looking at the door.

“You’re afraid.” he said.

“Yeah, but so are you.”

“You’ll go right through it like that trash can in the park.”

“And what if I don’t?  What if I smack my face into it?” she asked.

He looked at her, looked at the door, and stepped forward.

________________________________

Question 1:  Other readers thought that the scene with Ann testing cars to see if they would stop was awkward and just did not fit the story.  How did you feel about it?

Question 2:  How did you feel about Chris and Ann “entering” people?  Did it make sense for them to attempt that?

Question 3:  What do you think should happen when Chris attempts to walk through the door at the very end?

20 Comments | writing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by brainsnorts

« Previous Entries
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 876 other followers

%d bloggers like this: