I've been spending a lot of time doing two kinds of writing: writing code and writing short stories. The code has taught me a lot about the logic behind the interwebs, which is a deep a frightening place, but cool. And the writing of short stories is to keep me in practice because I have decided to do NaNoWriMo this year and I need to train up. It's the writer's equivalent of running a marathon.
I would show you some things I've coded, but they mostly look like things someone in junior high did for a final exam. But I will share here an excerpt from my latest short. I was going to share my previous one that I wrote during my writing class this summer, but Josh hates the subject matter so much I couldn't bring myself to put it up here. Ask me if you want to read, I'll email it to you on the sly.
Culverts
The
trees were whispering secrets. The shadows looked like wolves peeking
from behind boulders, and leaves leaked down from the sky like tears.
I followed closely behind my brother. We were still within earshot of the children playing on the swing set and merry-go-round in the middle of the park. But our footsteps trailed away from them as we approached the tall, dark cottonwoods and willows that bordered the creek.
“I don't think that's what you heard.”
“How do you know?”
He
wouldn't turn his head to face me, and I knew pulling on his arm
would only cause me injury, so I let him keep his breakneck pace and
tried my hardest to keep up. We were close in height growing up, but
by now, in our early twenties, he stood six inches taller than me and
could easily outrun me.
I paused briefly as we reached the edge of the thicket. There was a small, broken path that led down through the trees towards the creek down below. Old candy bar wrappers, plastic bags, bottle caps, and bits of paper were ground into the dirt along the trail. The warm southern California sun embraced our shoulders as we stood on the grass in the park, but a chilly breath of wind rose up from the creek, caressing our cheeks and making my fingers tingle.
My brother plowed forward and I followed. We were swallowed up by dark and I squinted to prevent stumbling on tree roots. The path led down to the edge of the creek and then turned east, following the water until it reached its destination – a huge culvert that opened like a cavern into the side of the hill at the edge of the park.
“It was them, I know it.”
“No, it couldn't be. Those were just stories we made up when we were little.”
We had come here every summer as children. This park bordered the edge of a large housing development in one of the many, many cities that sprawl across the Los Angeles basin, skirting the foothills, covering ground that used to belong to the trees and the animals and anyone who came before, before the cars and houses. My aunt and uncle bought one of the houses in the development, and we had spent hours out here while the adults discussed more adult things in the kitchen. I loved running around the huge field, flying kites, playing on the jungle gym like it was a fort, and making up stories with my brother and cousins.
But the creek had always held a sense of foreboding. The creek itself was normal, with crawfish and little frogs. But the light was never right, and the closer the creek came to the culvert, the quieter the rest of the world became around it. The creek entered, and disappeared. There was no light at the other side, and no hint as to where it led on its journey into the foothills. At first, our older cousins would taunt my brother and me into putting a hand or a foot into the utter blackness of the culvert, telling us stories about ogres or goblins that lived inside. We would oblige, but only with one foot firmly planted on shore, ready to bolt the instant our hands touched the darkness.
One
day, tired of being bullied and sure he was old enough to show off,
my brother stepped into the creek and walked his entire body into the
culvert. I nearly screamed, but a second later he came splashing out
and scrambled up the banks of the creek and through the trees. That's
when he said he heard them. The voices from inside.
And
now, ten years later, he said he heard them again.
And if you want some wine to go with your stories, might we suggest the Roederer Estate Brut Rose ($35). It is a very nice, bready wine that happens to go great with reunions with old friends (thanks, Bernice and Corey).
