Write On Press Presents: The Ultimate Collection of Original Short Fiction Volume I Read online

  “Like cleaning.”

  I nodded at my plastic crate of paper towels, Ajax and sponges.

  “You have other talents.” He looked at me intently, “You can write.”

  I felt my face turn hot, the world grew shaky, like I was inside an hourglass and it was all sand around me.

  “How can you tell?”

  “You’re smart. Articulate. Not many strippers know how to pronounce ‘fastidious,’ let alone spell it.”

  “Well…thanks.”

  Nobody had told me I was a good writer since I’d dropped out of school. People had plenty of good things to say about my ass and tattoos and sometimes my smile. But never my word choices.

  “So…can I jerk off?”

  “Fuck you.”

  I wish I could say I turned on my platform heel and walked out and didn’t look back. Every part of me wishes I had. But he still hadn’t paid me. And my student loans weren’t going to disappear just because I got self righteous.

  He left the room and I thought he was going to stiff me because I’d cursed him out. But he returned with cash and a worn paperback in hand.

  “I‘m sorry,” he said as he handed me the book: Letters to a Young Poet. “I still meant everything I said. I’m just a pig. That’s all.”

  I thumbed through the cash. It was more than what he owed me. By a lot.

  “Do you mind if I just ...look?” he asked.

  I didn’t see the harm in that. I lay on the carpet, which I never did get a chance to vacuum, and put one leg in the two o' clock position, one at ten. I felt a slight tug in my groin muscles as I spread wide. Air and light touched a part of me that spends its life in darkness.

  “Well,” I said, watching as a beatific, almost innocent expression melted across his face, “There it is.”

  ~*~

  Chicken Pox Revenge

  By

  H. C. Heartland

  Eileen’s head was beating at such a rapid pace she felt her ear drums would burst. Tossing and turning she must have fallen asleep around midnight, and the following morning, the sheets were soaked.

  Before opening her eyes she heard her husband Terrence say, “What the…”

  This pause caused her to open her eyes and see him staring at her, but he wasn’t really looking at her eyes he seemed to be scanning her face like he had lost something in the grass.

  “What are you doing?” she asked groggily.

  “You have things all over your face” he said aghast as he continued to scan.

  “What does that mean?”

  Eileen jumped out of bed feeling her white cotton sleeping gown sticking to her body from the sweat that drenched her. She ran to the tiny mirror that was hanging on the wall next to the closet. As if not seeing her own reflection but rather a monster on the other end she gasped, “What is it? What’s wrong with me?”

  “I think you may have the chicken pox. Didn’t you ever have them as a child?” Terrence asked still staring with his mouth slightly open in shock.

  “No! I never had them, and I had been exposed several times! I thought I must have built up some sort of immunity! Are you sure? I mean, look at the size of these blisters; they’re huge, is that normal? It’s 1934; I didn’t think adults could get chicken pox anymore!”

  “I heard adult cases can be the worst, my mom made sure to have me play with the other kids so that I’d get it over with because they said it was too painful to have when you got older. I had better call the Doctor and you better go wash up,” said Terrence in an empathetic tone.

  Terrence got up and got dressed quickly. Eileen stood for a few minutes staring at the bumps all over her face and felt sudden shakes come all over her. Expecting another fever to come on she grabbed a clean set of clothes and went in to take a bath so she could spend the rest of the day in bed.

  The Doctor came by that afternoon; more spots had erupted on her back, arms, and torso. Dr. Hammond was only in his sixties but had turned prematurely gray by age 30. He knew everyone in the town since they were born except ones like Eileen who had moved in later on in life, so he had lots of questions about her past. None of these questions, Eileen felt, had anything to do with her present situation, but she was too weak to fight the nosiness which had probably been killing the old man since she first moved to town.

  “So, you never had the chicken pox where you lived as child? Where was that again by the way? Oh, you say it was a bigger town, ‘bigger the town bigger the epidemic,’ usually. Odd, you weren’t exposed in school, what grade did you say you ended up finishing?” He kept inquiring without giving Eileen much time to answer. She could barely whisper a groan since her fever had peeked and she felt faint.

  “You had better try to stay as cool as possible, so that more spots don’t come on, but, unfortunately more probably will. You had better stay out of sight until those spots dry up, and don’t scratch them or your husband won’t be too pleased at your appearance anymore,” said the Doctor while putting his tools back into his black medicine bag.

  He picked up his black medicine bag and went off leaving her alone in her dark room to groan from the pain of her headache and toss and turn from the pain of the blisters on every corner of her body. The next day the blisters looked more like clusters of grapes.

  “Honey, I hate to leave you like this but I’ve got to go to work.” Terrence looked down at her with pity and yet enough personal revulsion to stay a few steps away from the bed any time he was in the room.

  Eileen attempted to ease his conscience. “It’s okay; there is nothing you can do for me. Please just make sure I have enough water by my bed stand with the aspirin the Doctor left me.”

  “Don’t you want anything to eat?” he asked concerned as she had only had liquids and a few bites of food since the outbreak of the first bumps the night before.

  “No, I think they have gone into my throat, I don’t think I could bare a bite.”

  “Alright then, I hope you feel better soon.”

  He left, happy to get out of the dismal room.

  ~*~

  The last thing Eileen felt inclined to do was to receive visitors. Of course, who of all people would come by but the most obnoxious of all the town’s residents? Not to mention the very individual who happened to give Eileen the chicken pox at that! Mrs. Leighton’s daughter in law, Mary, who had recently come from Ireland, had also never had the chicken pox. She reportedly got them from her nephew on her husband’s side and didn’t feel the need to stay indoors after a weeks’ time.

  “This town is full of weaklings,” she was heard saying, “I’m not going to stay cooped up in the house for 2 weeks or more just because I look ugly!”

  She went to town and everyone rolled their eyes, but it wasn’t until she transmitted the virus to Eileen that she now realized she may have actually been the cause of loathing for the very sight of the innocent woman.

  Feeling some remorse over what happened, Mary decided to pay Eileen a visit; Eileen didn’t see how she could possibly refuse her so she let her in.

  “Well, just look at you! You look like a walking polka dot!” spurted Mary trying to sound humorous.

  “Yes, I suppose you would know something about it, Mary. I can see you still have a few marks left on you. How are you feeling?” asked Eileen.

  “Oh it only took me a few days to be feeling ready to get back to work again. Some people just have a weaker constitution I guess.”

  She said this looking at Eileen with her mouth turned upside down making the sort of sad face you make when children bump their knee.

  Within minutes, Eileen felt the evil crawl up inside of her. She wanted to avenge herself of the agony that she felt. And the only person she could think of who deserved to feel her wrath was sitting right in front of her, mocking Eileen for suffering the very affliction she had given her.

  Under the guise of hospitality, she forced herself out of her chair and offered Mary some tea. She had read once that certain medicines put in tea were
not traceable by taste but gave the person the worst case of diarrhea within a matter of minutes. She ran to the medicine cabinet scanning for something to sweeten Mary’s tea with. She found just the bottle, something her husband hadn’t used in a year or so. Hoping it would still be effective she slowly stirred in the drops, smelling it to see if there were any signs of its existence. Eileen said a short prayer, hoping it wouldn’t do more harm then she intended, and then handed Mary the tea swiftly before she could change her mind. Mary drank the tea down so quickly Eileen wondered if she had scalded her throat.

  Mary sat the cup down and said, “I wouldn’t mind another cup of that lovely concoction. I must say the tea you have here in America tastes quite different from what I’m used to in Ireland but I like it so much I must beg for another.”

  Not wanting to disappoint her guest and also not wanting to spoil the surprise, Eileen again added the same amount of medicine to the second cup of tea. This time, Mary attempted to sip it like the lady she was trying to be. Within the half hour, Eileen could hear Mary’s stomach begin to gurgle; she could see her visitor squirm in discomfort not really knowing what to do in the presence of company when needing to release certain unpleasant gastric movements in her intestinal wall.

  Eileen thought all of this would force Mary to run home but instead she heard her say, “Just need to use your water closet for a moment if you don’t mind my dear, it seems that tea has gone right through me!”

  Much to Eileen’s dismay, what ensued was the loudest concert of bodily noises she had heard since her Uncle Wally had gotten worms from the cow’s milk he bought on the roadside. Eileen’s guilt turned into panic at the thought of having to clean up the mess after Mary left.

  It was some time before Mary came out. Once the concert had ended, everything had become very quiet. Eileen

  became worried that Mary may have passed out on the floor so she knocked on the door and asked, “Mary is everything alright in there?”

  Mary slowly opened the door, her face drained of all color, and said, “Oh Ms. Eileen, it seems I’ve caught a bit of stomach flu. But don’t you worry, I’ve taken it upon myself to clean up everything and made sure to light some matches so as not to offend you too much with the remnants of my visit.”

  Eileen tried to smile and lead Mary slowly to the door, assuming she would be taking her leave. She was very quickly taken aback by the ease in which Mary sat right back down in the parlor chair making no attempts to leave. Still holding onto her arm, Eileen said, “Are you sure you are up for the rest of the visit? I would understand if you deemed it necessary to return home, Mary.”

  “Oh. No!” Mary said rather jovially, “I feel much better now, I wouldn’t think of leaving you here all by yourself.”

  The day carried on in such a fashion, Mary talked and talked and Eileen listened wondering when her dreaded company would leave. At this point she would have thanked Mary for giving her the chicken pox if only it meant her leaving sooner.

  When it did come time for Mary to leave she put both hands on Eileen’s shoulders and said with all sincerity, “I just want to tell you this is the loveliest time I’ve had with anyone since coming to your country. Thank you for being so kind. Since we both have shared the same ailment, it has brought us closer together and I hope we can share many more a moment such as this. When you are better, you must come over to my place for a turn and try some of the tea from Ireland.”

  And with that, Mary left Eileen standing there mouth gaping at the door.

  All Eileen could do was smile, wave...and scratch.

  ~*~

  The Girl in the Library

  By

  Randy Walker

  I would venture to guess that if you were to conduct a survey of the number of attractive women that frequent the public library, compared to the number of deeply disturbed gentlemen that frequent the library, you would find that disturbed gentlemen outnumber attractive women by a margin of six to one. This, I have noticed, is a rather unfortunate truth that the gentler sex has had to deal with, as deeply disturbed gentlemen seem to think it is perfectly acceptable to confront and hit on these poor ladies whose only desired companionship is that of a good book.

  This is why I generally refrain from approaching women at the library; for fear that they will assume I am disturbed. That, and the fact that you’re supposed to be quiet at a library, but mostly the first thing.

  But the other day, I was at a table, looking for employment in the paper and minding my own business, I found myself confronted by an attractive woman. She was an older woman, older than me at least. I would say she was somewhere between 33-36. She was ethnic, maybe Persian. And she was cute. She was definitely cute, especially when she smiled. When I first saw her she was smiling at me.

  “Excuse me,” She said as she approached me, “But do you know where the other outlets are? I need to plug in my computer.”

  She motioned to my computer, which was plugged into one of the outlets below the table.

  “Oh, no, I think that is the only one.” I said casually-yet confidently.

  “You can have it if you want. My computer has a few hours charge already.”

  “I tell you what,” She said as she leaned closer towards me. “Why don't we just share your charger? We have the same computer, we can just trade off.”

  “OK!” I agreed, a little too eagerly. I made a mental note to tone down the enthusiasm.

  And so for the next hour, we sat at the table and shared my charger. Our system was pretty brilliant if, I do say so myself. One of us would use the charger for ten minutes and then the other would use it for the next ten. But here was the brilliant part about it. Every time we would trade off, one of us would ask a question about the other. We would talk quietly for a few minutes, learning a little more about each other, and then go back to our work, before doing the whole thing again ten minutes later.

  After an hour of this, I knew quite a bit about this fellow library dweller. Her name was Anna and she was Armenian. She had lived in Armenia for most of her life. But she moved out here some years ago and now worked part time in a bar in Pasadena, and lived with her mom in a small house. And she learned quite a bit about me too. She learned that I was a strong, impressive writer who had been mostly ignored by the Hollywood system because of his focus of substance over flashy writing. Oh yes, she knew me quite well.

  We both knew each other so well, that I felt confident enough to ask her to join me for coffee at the coffee stand just outside the library.

  “No, its okay, I'm really not thirsty.” She replied.

  This left me dejected, but I did not show it. Instead, I increased my typing speed by 40 percent, showing her how truly skilled I was. Ten minutes later she popped her head out from her laptop and looked over at me.

  “You know, Roger,” She smiled playfully as she said my name. “I actually think a coffee would be great right now.”

  Gotcha, I thought. The typing fast maneuver always works on the ladies.

  And so, we stepped out of the library for coffee. Unfortunately the first thing she noticed was that I did not, in fact, order coffee, but rather a grape soda.

  “Truthfully I can’t stand coffee.” I explained. “But I thought it would be easier to talk to you out here than in there,” I said. And then I waited. This was the moment of truth. Would she be annoyed by my deception, even fearing that I was actually one of those disturbed library types, or would she find my directness endearing, even attractive?

  She smiled playfully again and I let out an almost non-existent sigh of relief.

  “Very sneaky, mister.”

  We sat down at a patio table, and for the first time since we met, we had a conversation in normal, audible voices. And we talked about a great many things. The weather, the people of LA, the traffic, all the usual b.s. that people talk about while drinking coffee and grape soda. But then I asked her what it was like to be Armenian in Los Angeles and things got interesting.

&nbs
p; “Well, for the most part, I don't really think people treat me any different. But...”

  She paused suddenly. As if she had something important to say, but wasn’t sure if she should share it.

  “Go on. Say what you were gonna say.”

  “I don't know if I should. We just met each other.”

  “We shared computer cords, Anna. That's a connection that can never be broken.” I joked. She laughed.

  “OK. It's just that...I feel like we Armenians just have a better grasp of the world we live in.” I opened my mouth, but before I could get a word out she reached over and touched my hand, which instantly silenced me.

  “I'm not saying that we are smarter than anyone else. It's not that. It's just that, the Armenians have been through so much, so much suffering and bitter disappointment, we had no other choice but to learn the hard truth about life.”

  “What kind of hard truth?” I asked while slyly looking down at the pretty hand that was touching mine.

  “Like, for example, the fact that this country, the US, is completely controlled by a secret society; a society that holds power over everyone and everything.”

  “Uh huh...” I muttered in confusion. I could tell she wasn't happy with this response, as her pretty finger left mine abruptly. I did not like this, so I tried to keep her talking.

  “So, um, what secret society is this, exactly?”

  She leaned in across the table. “The Masons. It's the secret society of the Masons. They are the real leaders over this country. And they will use their puppet to destroy the people of America.”

  “Puppet?” I ask.

  “Obama, of course. He is not the real leader of this country; he is just some pet of theirs. And if he gets reelected the Masons will have completed their final piece of their plan. Then your country will turn into the Soviet Union, just like mine did.”

  “Did the Masons have power over your country too?”

  “No, but clearly they are following their plan.”

  “I see...” I said, because I had no fucking clue of what else to say.

  “I'm telling you!” She exclaimed rather suddenly. “You cannot vote for that man! He is under the Masons control! You must vote for the other one. Romney. He is his own man. He will destroy all of the Masons if he is elected. You must believe me!”