Atmosphere

Here is a link to today’s word, “atmosphere”. If you would like to join me in this practice, feel free to write a short piece of fiction containing the word of the day at your own writing place and post it in the comments below. Or join the Write Practice community and post there! It’s a great way to connect with fellow writers.

Definition:

Noun:

1. the gaseous envelope surrounding the earth; the air.
2. this medium at a given place.
3. Astronomy . the gaseous envelope surrounding a heavenly body.
4. Chemistry . any gaseous envelope or medium.
5. a conventional unit of pressure.
6. the pervading tone or mood of a place, situation, or creative work.

The Saturday Knight broke atmosphere with a Khorran warship rocketing after it. Captain Lyla Cowler watched its tiny red blip on the radar while chewing on her knuckle. A warship had a great many more guns than Ser Saturday was equipped to deal with.

“When can we jump, Travis?” She didn’t take her eyes off of the radar. The Khorrans couldn’t match the Saturday’s speed, but their torpedoes could.

“Charged in ten, Captain,” Travis said.

Lyla smacked a fly that landed on her arm. She looked from its squashed body to the Khorran warship blinking on her radar. She buzzed the intercom down to engineering.

“Macey, tell me you have those new brakes primed…”

“Two minutes! Just two more minutes!”

“I need them now!” Lyla let her finger off the intercom before the girl could respond.

A red warning flashed on the command deck’s overhead display. The Khorrans had locked onto the Saturday Knight and were nearing firing range. Lyla kept her eye on a tiny unlit LED on her console, above which the word “Brakes” was written in black marker on a piece of duct tape.

“Come on…” Lyla whispered. “Come on…”

The warning on her HUD flashed violently and a new message appeared: “Incoming torpedoes. Evasive maneuvers highly recommended.” Lyla didn’t need to say anything, Travis had seen it too. The Saturday began a series of dizzying spins, Khorran torpedoes following its trajectory in a mad spiral.

“Now, Macey!” Lyla shouted to no one in particular. As she did so, the brake light blinked on. “Travis, we’re ready for a ‘return package!’ “

“Naturally…” Travis muttered. He pulled his squawk box down from above his pilot’s seat. “Hold onto your butts!” he said before thumbing a open glass case on his control board and slamming his palm down on the button beneath.

The Saturday Knight lurched to a stop, shifting everything and everyone on the ship forward at an alarming speed. Those not buckled into their seats were hurled forward. Bones were broken, but the torpedoes outside sped on ahead of them. By the time the ballistics had rerouted themselves and were speeding back toward the Saturday, she was already heading straight for the Khorran warship.

“Get us as close as possible. How long until the warp drive is ready?”

“Three minutes,” he said.

“How well can those torpedoes bank?” Lyla asked.

Travis shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out…”

Ser Saturday charged full throttle at the Khorran warship, a cloud of torpedoes dancing behind her. The Khorrans opened heavy fire on the tiny ship, but Travis was too clever for them and Saturday too quick by far. She turned upward suddenly, just narrowly missing the Khorrans’ bow. The torpedoes, unable to make such a sharp turn, crashed into the Khorran war vessel in a silent explosion.

Lyla smiled, letting her gnarled knuckle drift away from her mouth as she eased into her captain’s chair. She watched her radar for a long minute until the red blip of the Khorran ship disappeared. Lyla took in a deep, slow, breath and smiled at Travis.

“Well done…Get us out of here.”

“As good as done, Captain,” he said and the Saturday Knight fired its warp engines. The stars outside of Lyla’s display were swallowed whole by a blinding light as she and her crew made for the lawless expanse of the Black.

Last Week’s Word

• Patina

Patina

Here is a link to today’s word, “patina”. If you would like to join me in this practice, feel free to write a short piece of fiction containing the word of the day at your own writing place and post it in the comments below. Or join the Write Practice community and post there! It’s a great way to connect with fellow writers.

Definition:

Noun:

1. a film or incrustation, usually green, produced by oxidation on the surface of old bronze and often esteemed as being of ornamental value.
2. a similar film or colouring appearing gradually on some other substance.
3. a surface calcification of implements, usually indicating great age.

She stares at the old truck parked in the junkyard that is her grandfather’s back acreage. The truck is rusty and the bed is filled with debris and newly grown foliage that has pushed up through cracks in the metal. Its wheels have been replaced by cinder blocks and much of it is covered with a thin patina the color of fresh pine needles. Lara tries the handle of the passenger door, but it doesn’t budge.

“Lara!” her father calls from the house at the top of the hill. “We’re going to be late!”

Lara looks from the truck to the house and then back again, hesitant. Her father does not like to be late to anything. On the other hand, she is almost certain that this is the truck she’s looking for. Though much of it is warn away or coated in a green film, she can see hints of its former red color peeking at her from places. Of course, it would be easier were the license plates still attached, but they are long gone.

She considers braving the forest that has overtaken the bed of the truck to crawl through the back window, but she is uncertain if it has been broken open and does not want to climb through all that bramble and trash for nothing. Instead, she grabs a large rock, covers her face with her free arm, and chucks it through the passenger window. For a second everything is tinkling glass.

“Lara!?” her father shouts again. This time she can hear him coming down the hill towards her. “What was that!? Lara! Are you okay!?”

Lara reaches through the busted window of the truck and unlocks the door. She opens it and takes off her black cardigan, using it to sweep glass off of the bench seat. By the time her father comes to the truck, she has already crawled inside, retrieved the rock, and is bashing at the glove compartment.

“Are you okay?” her father asks. “What are you doing in there? Stop that!”

She ignores her father, bringing the rock down hard on the glove compartment’s lock one last time before it pops open. From inside she takes a small parcel wrapped in an old handkerchief. She scoots out of the truck, her black dress now covered in dirt. Her father is wide-eyed and unsure if he should be more angry or curious. In the end curiosity wins.

“What is that?” he asks.

“It was Grandpa’s favorite…” she says, gently unfolding the handkerchief to reveal an ornate tobacco pipe made of a beautiful dark wood. “He used to smoke out of it every day when I was little…”

“How did you…why was it…?” Her father runs a hand down his face and then pulls up the sleeve of his black suit to look at his watch. “We’re late.”

“They’ll wait…” Lara says, still looking at the pipe. Hints of tears sparkle in the corners of her eyes. She looks up at her father as she says “I stole it from him. So that he would stop smoking.”

Her father hears the weight in her words and sees the tears pooling in her eyes. He doesn’t interrupt.

“He complained every day for three months about how he knew I stole it and about how I was such a brat, but…he stopped smoking.” She shakes her head, wrapping the pipe in the handkerchief once more. “I don’t know…I just…kind of thought…he should have it back now. Like he could take it with him…”

Lara’s father runs a hand through her hair, pulling it away from her eyes. “I think that’s a great idea…”

She doesn’t cry, just sniffles once and wipes her nose clean before straightening her dress and patting out the dirt. She smiles her best smile and her father smiles back.

“Come on, kid. We’re late…” her father says, walking with his daughter back up the hill to the house.

As they walk, Lara holds the pipe in her hands like a baby bird, careful not to drop it. She looks back at the beat up old truck and its broken window, then to the pipe and finally up at the house her grandfather lived in his entire life. She takes one deep breath before they enter.

Last Week’s Word

• Gaunt

Gaunt

Here is a link to today’s word, “gaunt”. If you would like to join me in this practice, feel free to write a short piece of fiction containing “gaunt” at your own writing place and post it in the comments below. Or join the Write Practice community and post there! It’s a great way to connect with fellow writers.

Definition:

adjective

1. Extremely thin and bony, haggard and drawn, as from great hunger, weariness or torture, emaciated
2. Bleak, desolate, or grim, as places or things

It has been thirteen days since Jamus crawled out of the crumbling remains of the barrow. He has eaten only scarcely and his gaunt frame is more of a marionette’s than a man’s. Clutched in his hands is an empty golden chalice ringed at the lip by seven amethysts. When the sun strikes it, as it does now, the chalice sings a lilting tune. Jamus suspects it is this tune that propels him forward.

On a cold morning in the Eastern Heights he crests one last hill and finds his destination before him: the town of High Ember. The streets are busy and some part of Jamus suspects that it must be market day, but the thought is small and far away. At the forefront of his mind is always the chalice, followed closely by the church that looms at the center of town.

People who have known Jamus his whole life eye him suspiciously. A woman tucks her daughter close as he walks by, mumbling to himself. He passes his best friend Krewe Weathers and the man actually jumps at the sight of him. They do not exchange pleasantries. As the sun rises slowly in the east, the morning cloud layer begins to thin and light stretches toward the chalice just as Jamus reaches the steps of the church.

At the door of the church, he turns and faces the townspeople who have now gathered around him in curiosity. He holds the chalice above his head and shouts, “Look upon me! Look at the gift many have sought and only I have brought back! Hear the Chalice of Her Voice!” He closes his eyes and waits as the warmth of the sun creeps up his legs, his chest, his arms, and strikes his hands.

Only there is no song. The townspeople murmur amongst themselves and one man whispers perhaps too loudly, “Another damn crocker from the crypt…”

Jamus opens his eyes and looks at the dusty wooden cup in his hands. “No…” he whispers through cracked lips. “No, no, no…” The tears that dribble down his cheeks are the last of the water in him. He is dry and empty and the weight of the cup is almost more than he can bare. Jamus crumples to the steps of the church, the cup cracking as it bounces down the stairs.

A man in brown robes cinched with a thick rope steps from the church and the townspeople flee like children who have just been discovered neglecting their chores. The man looks from them to the waif at his feet to the wooden cup that has rolled into the dirt. He gathers the man up into his arms and carries him inside the church. The necklace that hangs from his neck pools on the Jamus’s chest, a metal effigy of Her cold on his bare skin.

The monk carries Jamus down the center of the room, lined on both sides by men and women worn bone-thin and muttering to themselves. They almost had it. They could feel it in their hands. They could hear it in their hearts. They almost had it.

Jamus looks the man in the eyes. He whimpers. “I almost had it…” he says.

The monk shakes his head and carries Jamus to a cot. Two more monks close shut the doors of the church and now the large room is filled with the moaning and the crying and the whimpers of the lost. Jamus shivers and the monk lays a blanket over him.

“I almost had it…”

Last Week’s Word

• Incandescent
  

An Introduction to Defiance

When I was asked to play through Trion Worlds’s MMORPG…TPS, Defiance, I was admittedly skeptical. The game was developed side-by-side with a SyFy original series of the same name. I have never been a fan of the misspelled channel or anything that it has put out and am not afraid to admit that I went into my playthrough of Defiance with a negative bias and a desire to scoff at everything the game did wrong. Perhaps not so surprisingly for some of you, the game is actually loads of fun and forced me to swallow my sci-fi elitism more times than I care to admit.

Read the full review here.

Previous Review

• A Look at the Lonely Life of a Cargo Commander (firstwordproblems.wordpress.com)

Incandescent

Here is a link to today’s word, “incandescent”. If you would like to join me in this practice, feel free to write a short piece of fiction containing “incandescent” at your own writing place and post it in the comments below. Or join the Write Practice community and post there! It’s a great way to connect with fellow writers.

Definition:

Adjective:

1. full of strong emotion; passionate
2. containing a filament which glows white-hot when heated by a current passed through it
3. emitting light as a result of being heated
4. extremely angry

I stood at the feet of the Prophet, awash in the incandescent glow of the divine waters of the baptismal pool. Though he was only a man, the Prophet was two heads taller than me with a full white beard and eyes so piercing blue they were impossible to stare into for more than a second. He gripped my shoulder tight and he whispered, “Welcome.”

Behind me stood several more men and women dressed in the same white I was, their heads bowed and their hands clasped together in prayer. They echoed, “Welcome.” Only I did not bow, looking up at the Prophet, but never meeting his eyes. He rest his other hand on my opposite shoulder and his blue eyes fell into me.

“Welcome back to the fold,” the Prophet said. “Welcome to redemption.”

Struck through with sunlight, the stained glass mosaic of the Prophet himself leading his wife and daughter to the holy city draped the room of the cathedral in myriad colors, all mixed in the soft glow of the warm waters around our feet. This same man before me had led my people here, to our home, and now he was welcoming me back. This same man was gripping my arms and holding me fast, as if I might slip away.

I let the Prophet pull me into his arms. I would go under and I would be saved my past discretions. The Prophet lay a single all-encompassing hand over my face and I breathed in what I could of him before he plunged me beneath the waters of the Light. I sputtered and thrashed in a sudden primal fear, but the Prophet held me fast. Held me under, with too tight a grip.

The black crept in at the edges of my vision, the only permanent thing in the blurry warm existence of purification, but before it could consume me, the Prophet pulled me back up. I sucked in air, the waters streaming off me to splash back into the pool below.

“Welcome back, brother,” the Prophet said with a smile.

He brought me back to my feet and pulled me into a hug. I held him and for a moment was lost in the joy of acceptance. To be welcomed home again after so many years away was more than I could bear. I wept quietly in the Prophet’s arms, thinking myself free’d of my sins, but dwelling on them brought them back to the forefront of my mind.

The Prophet pushed me back and clasped my shoulders, getting a good look at me. “You are clean again,” he spoke the words in command.

“Thank you, my Prophet,” I said and looked into his eyes, hoping for reassurance. I could see there, in the sharp blue, a warning. One that told me I would still be watched. One that told me I was not forgiven, but on the path to forgiveness. One that knew that even these waters would not wash the blood of the Prophet’s daughter from these hands.

There in the pit of the Prophet’s judgment, I could see that I was not clean and I knew then that I would never be. Because the Prophet was a man and I had wounded him. Because the holy city was our home and I had tarnished it.

 

Last Week’s Word

• Sublime (firstwordproblems.wordpress.com)

Words on Wednesdays: Sublime

Here is a link to today’s word, “sublime”. If you would like to join me in this practice, feel free to write a short piece of fiction containing the word of the day at your own writing place and post it in the comments below. Or join the Write Practice community and post there! It’s a great way to connect with fellow writers.

Sublime

Definition of sublime

adjective

1. of very great excellence or beauty

noun

1. producing an overwhelming sense of awe or other high emotion through being vast or grand
2. (of a person’s attitude or behaviour) extreme or unparalleled

verb

1. Chemistry (of a solid substance) change directly into vapour when heated, typically forming a solid deposit again on cooling
2. cause (a substance) to sublime
3. archaic elevate to a high degree of moral or spiritual purity or excellence

-ate (in psychoanalytic theory) divert or modify (an instinctual impulse) into a culturally higher or socially more acceptable activity

It is dark for 6 AM, but the sun peeks through the clouds and the trees of Jaime’s Virginia acreage. A painting of a woman rests on an easel firmly planted in the dirt beside a rusty red wheelbarrow filled with sand. The woman was not beautiful, but the painting is. There are fewer colors than could have truly described her, but Jaime does not want to continue. Jaime is holding a gallon of gasoline in his hand and is unsure of how long he has been staring at his painting.

Two years dead and he still smelled her in his sheets. Lilac with just the right amount of woman permeating through. He thought of spraying a wisp of her perfume onto the canvas, but the more of her he put into the painting, the more his stomach twisted. No matter how it looked or smelled, it would always be missing the sublime presence of her. Jaime twists the cap off of the gallon of gasoline and upends it onto the canvas. The colors run down, down, down in sappy waves.

He is struck a blow by the running of her creme-colored skin. The way her smile droops to frown, to river, to puddle. Jaime watches her sag and bend, bleed and weep. There are screams in his head, but none on his lips as he takes the matchbox from the pocket of his husky work jacket. He scratches the match along the bottom of the box and it bursts to eager life. It burns quick and greedily between his fingertips as he hesitates.

The match cartwheels through the air and lands on her clavicle. Jaime doesn’t see the fire, but he feels it on the back of his closed eyelids. He feels the tears drying on his cheeks under the weight of that merciless heat. When he opens his eyes, there is nothing left of the canvas, but inferno. The easel crumples in on itself and Jaime has to move quickly to dump the sand from the wheelbarrow onto the fire.

He sits beside the pile of sand and wood and smoldering woman and runs a rough hand down his face. Above, the clouds make way for the day and the sun shines brighter, but it only illuminates the wreckage before him. It is another hour before Jaime rolls the wheelbarrow back up to his house.

Last Week’s Word

• Words on Wednesdays: Mortify (firstwordproblems.wordpress.com)

Words on Wednesdays: Mortify

Here is a link to today’s word, “mortify”. If you would like to join me in this practice, feel free to write a short piece of fiction containing today’s word at your own writing place and post it in the comments below. Or join the Write Practice community and post there! It’s a great way to connect with fellow writers.

Mortify

Definition:
verb

1. cause (someone) to feel very embarrassed or ashamed
2. subdue (the body or its needs and desires) by self-denial or discipline
3. (of flesh) be affected by gangrene or necrosis

The skin of the man who opens the tavern’s door is mortified in a way that I never thought possible. He tries desperately to hide it beneath his heavy robes, but his hands give him away. When he speaks, it is clear that the mortification is more than skin deep.

“He is come,” the man says and in the rowdy crowd, only I hear him. “He is come!”

Everyone ceases their merriment and looks at the pariah, shocked. In the silence, a man in the back corner is still laughing into his cups.

“The Blight King has come to this land and has sown his blood in our crops…” says the cripple. When he talks, something unnatural bubbles at his lips. “Keep one eye on the North and the other on your harvest!”

Like an overturned sack, the man crumples to a pile of bones beneath his robes, out from under which floats a fog of flies. Whispers and buzzing fill the room as everyone panics. Some leave the tavern immediately, likely making for home. Others demand more ale. I watch the flies intently.

They hover over the abandoned robes and then drift from the room like a foul stench. I rise to my feet and pull my hood up, following the flies into the dying daylight. It is nearly impossible to see the flies in the light, but I stalk them over Bedon’s Hill where they join yet more buzzing horrors. From all over the valley, the flies gather in a single cornfield.

Amidst the corn, a lone figure stands. It watches me with glowing eyes and I shiver to look upon its silhouette, mangled and grotesque as it is. A harbinger of the Blight King; a messenger of doom. The seed of corruption has been sewn.

Last Week’s Word

• Words on Wednesdays: Preternatural (firstwordproblems.wordpress.com)

Words on Wednesdays: Preternatural

Here is a link to today’s word, “preternatural”. If you would like to join me in this practice, feel free to write a short piece of fiction containing “preternatural” at your own writing place and post it in the comments below. Or join the Write Practice community and post there! It’s a great way to connect with fellow writers.

Preternatural

Definition of preternatural

Adjective:

beyond what is normal or natural

Synonyms:

aberrant, anomalous, atypical, deviant, deviate, extraordinary, ghostly, inexplicable, irregular, marvellous, miraculous, mysterious, odd, peculiar, strange, superhuman, superior, supernatural, unaccountable, unearthly, unnatural, unrepresentative, untypical

In all of the Eastern Tribes there was no swordsman as skilled as Lou’fun. Even the great masters of the Blades bowed before his preternatural skillwith a sword. For decades, Lou’fun wandered the eastern plains, challenging swordsmen and -women in every village he came to. It was late in the Year of the Dragon, under a setting sun, that Lou’fun finally met his equal.

The girl met Lou’fun in a field outside of her village, astride an angry horse that had violence in its eyes. It’s said of the Plainsfolk that their horses mirror their riders and it was true of the girl and her stallion. She gave the duel no consideration, leaping straight at Lou’fun from her horse, sword drawn. It was a testament of the swordmaster’s skill that he narrowly sidestepped the young girl’s advance.

Villagers came to watch, giving the duel a wide birth. All around the swordfighters the tall grass of the plains fell in sheathes as slashes and swipes were sidestepped and ducked. The two fought well into the night, more villagers bringing torches to illuminate the field. Lou’fun began to tire, his sword arm weary from a lifetime of constant use. He couldn’t keep up with the girl’s spirit, or her rage.

“You fight with a proper passion,” Lou’fun said as he clashed blades with the girl.

The girl brought her knee up to Lou’fun’s stomach, but the master twisted away, riposting without a second’s hesitation. “I owe it to you!” the girl shouted as she smacked Lou’fun’s blade out of the way with her own, driving it into the old man’s stomach.

Lou’fun laughed, blood speckling his lips. “I thought… you looked like him,” he said and fell to his knees.

The girl kicked the old man to the ground, placing the tip of her sword to his throat. “You know his name,” she said through clenched teeth. “Say it!”

“Mar…” Lou’fun whispered.

“Louder!”

“Mar!” Lou’fun shouted.

“He was twice the man you ever were and every bit your better!” the girl said and drove her sword into Lou’fun’s throat. “Murderer…” she said before spitting on the dead master’s face.

The villagers returned quickly and silently to their homes, taking the torches with them. In the dark, stroking her stallions cheek, Marla wept quietly. She wrapped her arms around the horse’s neck and buried her face in its fur.

• Words on Wednesdays: Batter (firstwordproblems.wordpress.com)

Words on Wednesdays: Batter

Here is a link to today’s word, “batter”. If you would like to join me in this practice, feel free to write a short piece of fiction containing “batter” at your own writing place and post it in the comments below. Or join the Write Practice community and post there! It’s a great way to connect with fellow writers.

Batter

Definition of batter

verb:

1. to beat persistently or hard; pound repeatedly.
2. to damage by beating or hard usage.
3. to deal heavy, repeated blows; pound steadily.

noun

1. a damaged area on the face of type or plate.
2. the resulting defect in print.
3. a mixture in baking
4. an aqueous solution of baked or deep fried goods.

In a tiny cabin, far away from anything or anyone, James sat with an empty canteen and four matches, staring at the door as it thrust repeatedly against its hinges. Outside, they battered on the windows. They battered on the walls and they battered on the roof. It would only be a matter of time before something got in.

James had never suspected his getaway trip to end like this. He never suspected that any trip could end like this. Somewhere in the back of his mind he had yet to fully grasp that this was actually happening. It would only be a few minutes now before they burst in, fangs and claws, and devoured him. He might be able to push past them into the woods beyond, but he wouldn’t get far.

Three of the matches were already burnt out and he dropped them into the canteen. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe even this close to a grizzly death, he hated the idea of littering someone else’s floor with discarded matchsticks. James struck the last match for the sake of it. He watched the fire burn down, down, down to his fingertips. He let it burn him, but when it did he yelped and dropped the spent match into the canteen with its peers.

That was it. The last of his supplies. The end of a three week expedition into the Yukon. The end of the worst vacation anyone could ever take. That tiny part of him that still refused to believe this was happening thought that at least it was nice to have seen a bit of the unknown – to go out in a remote part of the world few people had ever seen. It would be nice to die a unique death.

Last Week’s Word

• Words on Wednesdays: Denizen (firstwordproblems.wordpress.com)

Words on Wednesdays: Denizen

Here is a link to today’s word, “denizen”. If you would like to join me in this practice, feel free to write a short piece of fiction containing “denizen” at your own writing place and post it in the comments below. Or join the Write Practice community and post there! It’s a great way to connect with fellow writers.

Denizen

Definition of denizen

noun

1. an inhabitant; resident.
2. a person who regularly frequents a place; habitué: the denizens of a local bar.

When I was in my early twenties, I was one of seven devoted denizens of our local coffee shop, the Quilted Tavern. There was Cathy, who was a workaholic and never strayed too far from her americano. On hot days, she would sometimes get it iced. Jason was thirty-four and Lacy was thirty-five – they were lovers, of each other and of iced mochas, regardless of the weather. Mark, Luke, and Ryan were teenagers and infected with the do-nothing disease so commonly found in mid-sized towns caught between good country living and the exciting city life. They all got plain black coffee, the cheapest thing after good ol’ fashion H2O. And then there was me: twenty-something, recently divorced, and perpetually angry. I spent most of my time at the Quilted Tavern writing a novel that would one day amount to exactly nothing.

Cathy was the first to go. She likely found some job in the city and without so much as a goodbye, or even a hello, she disappeared from the Tavern forever. Having never spoken so much as a passing word to her, I still find myself wondering where it is she wound up, or who or what it was that saved her from Penton, NE.

Mark dropped out of high school and fell in with a bad crowd. He showed up at the Tavern from time to time, drunk or worse, until the management finally kicked him out for good. Luke told me not long after that Mark had died in a car accident. I was sad to hear it, but not surprised. I had lost similar friends to similar deaths.

After Mark died, Ryan and Luke both graduated with some honor or another. Ryan joined a branch of the military, the Marines I think, got a haircut and shipped out. He showed up from time to time, getting more and more jacked up on whatever it is we’re feeding our soldiers these days. The last time I saw him he was a foot taller than me and his shoulders dwarfed mine.

Luke met a girl, ran off to the city, and only came back on occasion to see his parents. When he would visit us at the Tavern, he looked happy, but his wife was unusually quiet and shy. When Luke talked, she seemed almost afraid of him, like the louder her got, the more likely he was to lash out at her. I decided I didn’t really like Luke after that.

Jason and Lucy had a kid, bought a house in the neighborhood near my parents’ and were still visiting the Tavern every day, right up until the day I left. They named their daughter Briar Rose after Sleeping Beauty. It was Lucy’s favorite movie growing up. She had blue eyes like her father and she laughed tiny chimes that made everyone smile. They’re still there from time to time, when I come back to visit.

I bled all of my anger into my novel, slowly transforming my quiet rage at my young, cheating, wife into sorrow and eventually forgiveness. Right around the time that I finished my first draft, I landed a job at an accounting firm in the city. I often hope I’ll run into Cathy on the street, or maybe Ryan, or Jason and Lucy, but I never do. My novel is still sitting in a drawer inside my desk at home and occasionally I consider finishing it, but I don’t know. It wouldn’t be the same working on it anywhere, but at the Quilted Tavern.

Last Week’s Word

• Words on Wednesdays: Denizen (firstwordproblems.wordpress.com)