Quick Update

So I haven't gotten a chance to update this blog in a couple of weeks, but (for once), that doesn't mean I haven't kept busy.

First thing, in my creative writing class, we're finally getting around to critiquing our short short stories. It's been fun reading everyone else's stories, as there's been some I like, some I'm "meh" about, and really only a couple that I actively disliked.

I kinda got annoyed last Friday at class though. The way the actual critiquing for the class went ws that we divided the stories up, five per class. The person who's story we were about to critique got a chance to read it outloud, and then it was pretty much a free for all, where we just raised our hands, the teacher called on us, and then we gave the opinion.

Well, by the middle of the class, the teacher was doing a pretty damn good job of ignoring me. At one point, there were only two people with their hands raise, a girl sitting a few seats next to me, and me. The teacher actually pointed at me, and then, as if thinking better about it, moved his hand to the girl.

Aggravating to say the least, and I walked out of there pretty pissed off. Now that I had a week to think about it, as well as talk to some people, I can understand why he did it. First of all, I'm very outspoken, but, I think more importantly, I tend to head towards the negative side of criticism. Basically, I point out more of the things I felt didn't work. Now, I do this in a constructive manner, and obviously if there's something I liked, I point that out as well, but I am harsh. I think that's because my main experience with critique groups have been online, where there's tons of critics like me.

So this coming Friday I have resolved to tone it down a bit. This Friday is also when Work Shift gets to be critiqued, so I'm excited about that.

On the writing front, I'm currently working on expanding Loss of Words(and changing the title on it). I honestly think the short is one of the better things I written. I struggled a bit of how to continue the story at first, but I now have the framework for what needs to happen down, and are working on a first draft. Probably will post it up in a few days.

Cause I seriously need to finish it so I can start on the new Neil Gaiman book. I'm afraid if I start to read the book now,I'll, subconciously or not, try to mimic his style. So instead I read Charlie Huston's latest, which I quite enjoyed. Probably, once I start with Graveyard Shift, I'll start working on my Normal story once more.

Work Shift Ver. 3

He spills out of the bar and into the streets, a big pile of wrinkled clothes and cheap liquor that stumbles his way to the sidewalk and hunches over. I'm right behind him, letting a poor rendition of The Door's 'Light my Fire' escape from the inside of the bar and flutter into the night, only for it to get swallowed up by the thumping bass of the nightclub next door.

God I need a cigarette.

"Jim, I'm so sorry Jim. Shouldn't have had that last tequila. That's what messed me up. Bad tequila." I'm surprised he manages to get all the words out before the tequila starts kicking his ass again.

I take a step back to avoid the splatter. "No worries Tommy." My usual line around him. It's a shame though, all that good alcohol ending up on the streets. But that's Tommy for you. Just one big shame.

"Tom," he slurs, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. All that does is plaster specks of brown chunks all over his ballooned up cheeks. "The name's Tom."

"Yea, yea. Tom." I'm barely paying attention to the guy, my eyes plastered on a duo exiting the bar. Redhead and a blond, both with short skirts and bare midriffs. Young. "I don't wanna go home! It's not even late!" Looks like someone had too much of a good time. Leading her to their car, Red tries to get her to be quiet but blondie ain't having none of it. "Don't hush me, I'm the one that brought you here. And now you want me to leave?" She suddenly catches sight of me and waves. Bracelets crash against each other and almost drown out her voice. "Hey, I know you." She looks me up and down, swaying like a palm tree in a storm. " You're way cuter than on tv." I flash the old pearly whites and are about to say something smart when Tommy throws up on me.

"The fuck!" I shove him to the ground and he goes down with a sob. I can hear Blondie laughing from inside her car and suddenly I want to make it explode. Betcha I could too. But Red's look softens me up. Kindred spirits her and I, both having to babysit drunks. 'cept hers aint gone soft in the head like mine.

"Didn't mean to Jimbo. Honest." The sad sack is actually crying. Damn it all to hell.

"Here, get up now. Didn't like this pants nohow." He takes my hand, and I'm surprised by how strong his grip is. Guess it's just easy to forget sometimes. I'm reminded now as I look at his hands and spot a dab of dried up blood. No surprise there, his shift ended just a bit a go.

"I think I should go away."

Now, what the hell am I suppose to say here? Damn right Tommy should go away. Would do him a world of good. Every day it becomes harder and harder for me to remember the man I met so many years ago. In his prime, Tommy was…fuck, Tommy was motherfuckin' Tom. Best and brightest of us all, able to put in twice the amount of hours than anyone else and still have that aww-shucks-I'm-just-from-the-country smile when he walked into the bar at the end of his shift. The smile was a legend in itself, nabbing him chickadees from all corners.

Sometimes he still tried that smile. It's then when it's the hardest to be his friend. Mainly cause I want to burn his face off.

Might be thinking I'm not much of a friend with that sort of admission. Thing is, I'm probably the last friend he got. Most of the others won't look at him anymore. They would be too chicken shit to admit it, but they stay away because Tommy's a reminder of what happens if we stay too long in the game. Too many punches and you might end up like old Tommy I'll heard them say.

"Here we go." Propping him up against the wall, I loosen his tie and clean him up best as I can. His head rolls side as I do so, as if he's doing some sort of drunken yoga. "Stay still you hear? Pants I might not have cared about, but I do fancy this shirt." He nods.

"Think I should go away?"

I look at him. Really look at him. How old must he be? His hair is thinning more so every day, and as if in direct corelation, his second chin grows bigger. His eyes are glazed over, and I wish I could say it's all due to the drinking.

"Nah Tommy, you still got a few good years left."

"Thanks Jimmy, really. You always tell it straight don't you?"

"That I do, that I do." I lean against the wall and search for a cig. I can make out some of the sounds from the inside of the bar and I wish I was there. I don't know what I want more right now a drink or a fuck. No wait, scratch that. I want a damn cigarette. Can't believe I got none.

We both freeze when we hear the sirens. They cry out to the streets, sounding all together like an alley cat in a fight. More sirens, all heading to the same direction. Means something big is up.

"I should go."

I could stop him. Could tell him he already put in his hours, let someone else worry about this. But I don't, cause Tommy needs this. Needs to feel like he's still able to do something.

He's still fast. Not as fast as a speeding..well, you know the rest of that phrase, but still fast. I watch him rise to the clouds and fly towards the sirens, their screams calling out to him.

"Luck Tom," I finally find a cig in my back pocket. I call up a flame and let it dance on the tips of two of my fingers before bringing it close to the cigarette. I take a slow drag. Best enjoy this, my shift will start soon.

Then it's off to save the world.

Okay, that's it. The final version. Whether I like it or not. I reworked the beginning of the story, on the advice of someone, and I gotta say, I like this beginning better. I think it flows a bit more smoothly. I exercised out a few lines and put in a new ones, but for the most part very little changed.

This is the piece I'm going to turn in tomorrow for my creative writing class. I been leaning towards this piece for a few days, but what finally made up my mind was seeing Dawn of the Dead today. I was honestly blown away by that movie, and just feel like even though Whores doesn't exactly deal with the same themes, it still has a similar structure in which Romero just manages to do so much more with.

ICW: The Loss of Words

Too many words. That was the problem with William, the whole village agreed. And when you get a whole village to agree about a single thing, well, you know they probably have a point.

"Too many words" cried out the baker, smelling of fresh bread and day old muffins. "Every time he comes to my shop it takes him an hour to get him to tell me what he wants." His belly stretched like the dough he kneed every morning, crumbs scattering across the town hall floor as he spoke.

And the baker did have a point. This is just one example of how William would usually saunter into the bakery;

"Why, what a beautiful, sunny, break of dawn we have here don't you agree my good man? Such a radiant day, in which we find the sun out, brandishing its rays of lights like a knight brandishes his sword. This is just the type of that day that would bring a fellow like myself to your shop, your place of business, the profession that heh, puts the proverbial 'bread' on your table if you will."

That is, unless it rained. If it rained, William's greeting might have gone something like this;

"Oh such raging tempest is outside your door baker my good man. Oh how envious am I of you, to be able to be near the raging fire that is your furnace and never feel the prickling kisses from mother nature. Yes, this is the type of day that demands one to come for some baked goods, even if it means facing down winds that I could not have fathom in my wildest of dreams. "

The day it snowed, the poor baker didn't even bother opening up his shop.

"I warned you, aye I did," the schoolteacher said, wagging a wrinkled finger to all her past students. Considering that she not only had to put up with hearing William, but also grade his papers, one could accuse her of being prejudice to the whole matter. Then again, perhaps reading papers with titles such as;

The Pontification of the Ramifications of Reading and Analyzing See Rex Run, Run Rex Run

By

William Bartholomew James

Afforded her a bit of prejudice.

"I had to switch bedrooms," the prettiest girl in the village pouted. Prettily of course. At one point, she'd been the proud owner of the bedroom with the best view of the village. Every morning she could wake up and watch the sun rise from the mountaintops. Until William got it in his head to try to woo her.

"They say that eyes are the windows of the soul. Well, I am here to rectify such saying with a fresher , and far more truthful statement. I decree that windows are in fact the windows of the soul. For as I stare up at your window I can't help but see my own soul, and the happiness that grows there, like a seed burrowed in the loving soil every time I happen to catch sigh of your beautiful visage. Oh my darling, my muse, my reason for existing, will you not allow the moon to strike your perfectly oval face and awash it with its caress?"

Now her bedroom was on the first floor, with a beautiful view of the outhouse. The smell wasn't pleasant, but at least she didn't have to listen to William.

From the village drunk to the mayor himself(who happened to be brothers by the by), everyone had a story to share about William. If the mayor, his long distinguished mustache tired of bristling with every tale, hadn't bang his gavel, the village meeting would have gone on for the entire night. But bang his gavel he did, spreading silence through the hall.

"I have heard enough," he exclaimed, banging his gavel a few more times for good measure. Plus, well, he liked the powerful sound it made as it hit the podium.. "William has made the entire village suffer for far too long. How long are we going to live in fear of him? Something must be done."

Indeed, something needed to be done, the entire village was in agreement on that. But exactly what to do is what now drove the meeting.

"I say we just throw him into the furnace," the baker suggested.

"We eat the bread cooked on that furnace," the schoolteacher reasoned. "Just bring him back to my class. Ruler and I will beat the words back into him."

"That's too mean" the prettiest girl in the village whispered, remembering how ugly her hands how looked when she'd been a student. "We should just cut off his tongue."

"I think we should marry William". Then he'll be too busy being a husband to speak." All the men nodded their head in agreement, and all the wives elbowed their husband a second later.

"I think we should get thief to steal his words." Conversation suddenly came to a stop as people chewed on the latest suggestion, deciding it tasted just right. It really was quite simple when one stopped and thought about it. The only thing left was finding thief.

"Don't look at me," shrugged the constable, angling for one of the pastries brought by the baker. "He escaped my cell a week ago. Haven't seen him since."

With a sigh, the Mayor looked around the room before speaking. "I hereby pardon thief of any of the numerous, and I'm sure quite true charges that might have been levied at him."

"Thank you." The words floated down from the rafters, causing everyone to crane their necks up to catch a sight of thief. Most just saw shadows.

Trying to hide his surprise, the mayor pounded on the gavel. "Ahem, well, that's on the condition that you can solve our little problem."

Out of the shadows came a smile. "Sure."

Last Friday in our creative writing class we were tasked with writing a faery tale, or at least the beginning to one. The funny thing is that the day prior for whatever reason I been mulling over the idea of writing a noir faery tale. My idea was just basically transposing something like Snow White into the noir setting. That still sounds like something that would be fun to write. I decided to try to stretch out from my normal writing habits and came out with this. I kinda surprised myself, as originally the main character was going be William himself, but I really don't think I'm up to writing in his words for a lot of time, nor are people up for reading that. The idea of the thief just popped up of nowhere, and I like it. While brainstorming I suddenly remember an old character I created for roleplaying. His name was Coin, or as I liked to introduce him, Coin the self proclaimed master thief. Basically, he was Deadpool mixed with Dungeons and Dragons. I briefly thought of putting him in this story, but it just wouldn't work, seeing as he's as much as a chatterbox as William is. Instead I went with just the name thief, which follows the naming motiff of the rest of the story.

I always worry that people won't find my "humorous" stories as funny as I do. This one I'm curious about, because there's a lot of spots that might just fall flat in their face.

Don't know if I'll ever continue this, as I'm not in love love with this story, and don't know exactly how I would continue it.

Whores

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Colonel Part Deux

Here’s a riddle for you;

What’s got four legs and is a great listener? A table with a shit load of ears on top of it that’s what.

Had to hand it to Ramos, the ears didn’t seem to faze him at all. He just smiled cordially at our host and ate around the ear that flopped unto his plate.

I on the other hand wasn’t taking things to well. Hey, it’s not like I’m used to seeing someone pull off a Vangogh times a million. The screeching sound the chair made as I frantically scooted back reminded me of my mother in law, and just like whenever I thought of her, my right hand itched for a gun to hold.

“First impressions. They are important no?” His English wasn’t bad, and it probably would have been better if he stopped chewing on one of the ears he picked off the floor. “And I trust I have made a good impression. Now you know I’m serious.” His daughter, unperturbed by the shower of ears refilled his wine glass.

The itch got harder to ignore when he turned to look at me with those milky eyes of his.“It’s not always ears ,” he said, swallowing the last bit of lobe, the green earring attached to it winking at me. “I have taken a piece of every man, women, and child living in my land. A tax I think your people call it.”

Having finished all the food, Ramos now slid the ear to the center of the plate and looked up. “That is what we have come to discuss.” He speared the ear with his fork and brought up eye level. “The world is changing Mr. Santos. “

The old man smiled. He had specks of ear stuck to his teeth. “I have heard that before. My useless son talked about change. Till I cut off his tongue.” He tilted his head and licked his lips. “Would you like to see it?”

My fingers twitched.

Ramos shook his head and returned the smile. “I will take your word for it sir. And you should take mine. The world outside this villa is nothing like you remember. There are pictures of your ‘tax’ on newspapers every other month or so. Your own president has renounced all ties with you.”

“That is what all sons do. Renounce the father. No matter, I’ll just birth another president. My seed is still good.”

“I don’t doubt it sir.”

He looked from Ramos to me and leaned back with a calmness that I knew came from his insanity. “So you two are here to try to kill me, is that it?”

Chuckling, Ramos shook his head. “No sir, nothing of the sort. We’re just here to be witnesses.”

Another sip of the wine. “Witnesses? To what?”

Finally, something I could contribute to the conversation. “To see how well the virus works.” My throat felt dry, so I took a sip of water. From the earless glass mind you. “He,” I motioned to Ramos, “was right in saying the world is changing. No one uses guns anymore. The rage nowadays is biological warfare. Which is a shame if you ask me.”

“But no one ever does.” Added Ramos, still looking at the ear on his fork.

“But one ever does. So biological warfare it is.”

The old man remained frozen in his chair, staring at us with confusion, and then recognition slowly seeped into his face. Just as I’m sure the virus was seeping into his bloodstream.

“Change is good,” Ramos said. “It keeps your enemies from guessing. For example, if you changed your habit of having to make good first impressions, we would have had a harder time getting the virus into you.”

“You..you poisoned me.” He tried lunging at me, but he no longer had the body function to do it.
“Not you. The villages. Every man, women, and child.” I don’t even know why I spoke, he was far too gon.. I kicked him in the ribs. “Over one thousand people will die along with you.”
Another kick, harder this time. “All cause guns are out of style.”

I don’t know for how long I kept kicking him. All I know is that when we left the villa, my hand still itched.

Been a while hasn't it? While I might not be updating the blog as often as I like, I do find myself writing more often, which I guess is good. I worked for most of last week on and off on a writing prompt from a forum contest. Unfortunately the deadline hit before I managed to finish. I'm sort of iffy on what I have so far on that piece, so I might just post it here and move on, although I'm still trying to salvage it at this point. Maybe without the constrict of a maximum words I'll churn out something better.

But anyways Colonel Part Deux is a writing exercise from my creative writing class. We read The Colonel by Carolyne Forche, and our task was to continue where she left off. At first I was going to try to write in her style, which is very matter of fact, almost bullet point like if that's an apt description, but I couldn't think of the right way to approach that style. So I went with my old standby hardboiled one. The teacher didn't want a full story, just a continuation, so obviously I didn't want to make it too long. I think the piece is alright, took me a while to figure out a good way to tie it all together at the end, but I do like the last line.

ICW:Allegory for Sex

 

You really wish you had read the manual. But no, that would have meant wasting needless time right? And damn it, you already waited enough.

    I bet your glad you'd forgot to cut your nails. Makes tearing into the shrink wrap ever so much easier. Scratch the hell of the cover, but who cares, that ain't the important part. The best part. That's yet to come. Shrink wrap ends up on the floor, soon joined by the manual. Unimportant things. Window dressings really.

    Heh. Donuts to dollars that your hands shake as you cram the cartridge into your Nintendo. But what's this? It won't start! Shit. Fuck. Son of a bitch. That's what happens when you go too fast. When you forget to give the system a little bit of well…attention.

So you pop the cartridge right out and do what you done hundreds of times before. You blow on it. Run your finger across the insides of it and make sure there's no dust. Familiarity bred out of repetition. But today it seems more important than ever. And then you turn to the old NES and do the same. And you wait. Cross your fingers maybe?

Aha! Success! Sweet, sweet success. You get the start up screen. Might be a new game, but you're somewhat familiar with the procedure. After all, you heard all your friends recommend it enough. Talk about it enough. Even draw pictures. All as if to taunt you. So you press start, watch some words scroll to the screen, and finally, finally there you are. World 1. Level 1. Section 1.

Every once in a while(probably on Fridays) I'll post something with ICW in the title. It stands for In Class Writing. I'm taking a creative writing class, and we usually have an assignment at the last half of the class where the professor gives us a prompt or directions and we have about ten or so minutes to write something. Today our assignment was to write a scene where the entire thing revolved around sex, but we never went into specifics.

 

Work Shift ver. 2

It's a fucking shame man, that's what it is. All that good alcohol ending up on the streets. But that's two drinks Tommy for you. A fucking shame.

"Jim, I'm sorry Jim. Shouldn't have had that last tequila. That's what messed me up. Bad tequila." I'm surprised he manages to get all the words out before the tequila starts kicking his pudgy little ass again.

I take a step back to avoid the splatter. "No worries Tommy." It's my usual line when it comes to him.

"Tom," he slurs, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. All that does is plaster specks of brown chunks all over his ballooned up cheeks. "The name's Tom."

"Yea, yea. Tom." I'm barely paying attention to the guy, my eyes stuck on a duo exiting the bar. A redhead and a blond, short skirts and bare midriffs. Young. "I don't wanna go home! It's not even late!" Blond had too much of a good time it seems. Red tries to get her to be quiet as she leads her to their car, but blondie ain't having none of it. "Don't hush me, I'm the one that brought you here. And now you want me to leave?" She suddenly caught sight of me and waved. Bracelets crash against each other and almost drown out her voice. "Hey! You're cute, doing anything?" Red gets her into the car before I have a chance to answer. I think about making my way to the two and having a chat. Just a chat, nothing more. Honest. But just as I'm contemplating a good line to come through Tommy throws up on me.

"The fuck!" I shove him to the ground and he goes down with a sob. I can hear Blondie laughing from inside her car and suddenly I want to make it explode. Betcha I could too. But Red's look softens me up. Kindred spirits her and I, both having to babysit drunks. 'cept hers aint gone soft in the head like mine has.

"Didn't mean to Jimbo. Honest." The sad sack is actually crying. Damn it all to hell.

"Here, get up now. Didn't like this pants nohow." He takes my hand, and I'm surprised by how strong his grip is. Dunno why, surprised that is. Guess it's just easy to forget sometimes. I'm reminded now as I look at his hands. Large and ape like, his hand is almost the size of a small child's head with calluses running all across his knuckles. I think I spot a dab of dried up blood. No surprise there, his shift ended just a bit a go.

"I think I should go away."

Now, what the hell am I suppose to say here? Damn right Tommy should go away. Would do him a world of good. Every day it becomes harder and harder for me to remember the man I met so many years ago. In his prime, Tommy was…fuck, Tommy was motherfuckin' Tom. Best and brightest of us all, able to put in twice the amount of hours than anyone else and still have that aww-shucks-I'm-just-from-the-country smile when he walked into the bar at the end of his shift. That smile was a legend, nabbing him chick a dils from all corners. Grateful civilians, women from our side, and even some from theirs.

Sometimes he still tried that smile. It's then when it's the hardest to be his friend. Mainly cause I want to burn his face off.

Might be thinking I'm not much of a friend with that sort of admission. Thing is, I'm probably the last friend he got. Most of the others won't look at him anymore. They would be too chicken shit to admit it, but they stay away because Tommy's a reminder of what happens if we stay too long in the game. Too many punches and you might end up like old Tommy I heard them say.

"Here we go." Propping him up against the wall, I loosen his tie and clean him up best as I can. His head rolls side as I do so, reminding him of a doll with all its joints loose. "Stay still you hear? Pants I might not have cared about, but I do fancy this shirt." He nods.

"Think I should go away?"

I look at him. Really look at him. How old must he be? His hair is thinning more so every day, and as if in direct relations, his second chin grows bigger. His eyes are glazed over, and I wish I could say its all due to the drinking.

"Nah Tommy, you still got a few good years left."

"Thanks Jimmy, really. You always tell it straight don't you?"

"That I do, that I do." I lean against the wall and search for a cig. I can make out some of the sounds from the inside of the bar and I wish I was there. I don't know what I want more right now a drink or a fuck. No wait, scratch that. I want a damn cigarette. Can't believe I got none.

We both freeze when we hear the sirens. They cry out to the streets, like a mother crying out for her child. More sirens, all heading to the same direction. Means something big is up.

"I should go."

I could stop him. Could tell him he already put in his hours, let someone else worry about this. But I don't, cause Tommy needs this. Needs to feel like he's still able to do something.

He's still fast. Not as fast as a speeding..well, you know the rest of that phrase, but still fast. I watch him rise to the clouds and fly towards the sirens, their screams calling out to him.

"Luck Tom," I finally find a cig in my back pocket. I let a flame dance on the tips of two of my fingers and take a long drag. Best enjoy this, my shift will start soon.

Then it's off to save the world.

Been a productive few days. I actually have been working on my normal novel and so far I like what I have. I ended up posting the story that grew out of the prompt on a forum and didn't get much critiques, but the ones I did get were along the line of what I was thinking. I really liked the idea I came up with, even though to be fair it's not THAT original, so I figured I would try to rewrite it, this time without the shackles of a prompt. I actually really like what I came up with, and I think Tom and the James are more fleshed out. In my head, James is British, pretty clear the inspiration for that was Spike from Buffy, while Tom is a Superman analogue, except his obviously a much sadder version. I originally wanted to make him almost mentally challenge, like Lenny from Of Mice and Men(which by the way is a great story I should reread sometime soon) I don't know if I went far enough with it, or if I should.

I also wanted to try something new. Both in the forum that I posted the original story, along with my creative writing teacher mentioned how a lot of writers are moving away from the whole "she said/said/exclaimed" kinda thing, so I wanted to try writing something that did away with that. Along with that, I wanted to try to write something in present tense, as it's the tense I least work with. Woo, who knows, maybe sometime soon I'm try writing something not in the comic/fantasy/horror/noir theme. Or even gasp something that isn't in first person.

“PROMPT-Helpful Hint: Wait until you’re sober before trying that again”

It didn't take Tom falling of the stool for me to realize that he had more than enough to drink for the night. I known ever since he went off to talk to the cute blonde girl at the other side of the bar. Sober Tom would never have had the balls to do that. Drunk Tom, or Tommy as he liked to be called swaggered over to the girl with a half empty bottle of Shiner and what one can assumed passed for a cocky smile. That smile didn't even budge a millimeter when the girl laughed in his face and shoved him away.

That stupid smile was still there as I helped him back up to his feet. "Here's a helpful hint," I said, "wait until you're sober before trying that again."

"She was too pretty to wait for" he muttered, glancing at the stool as if trying to figure out the best approach for attempting a remount.

"I was talking about sitting" I said, taking him by the cuff of his shirt and leading him away from the bar. Nice thing about going to a bar on a Tuesday- no crowd to try to fight our way through.

I remember a time when it felt strange to be taking care of Tom this way. He was at least twenty years older than me and was always careful to exude an image of self control at work that had served him well. Work wise, Tom was a machine, racking up twice as many numbers as the next best guy. Which would be me. Funny though, I never begrudged him for being better than me, maybe because I saw what such determination did to him.

"Hey Jimmy?"

"Yeah Tom?"

"Tommy, man, Tommy" He leaned dangerously to the left, almost bumping into a couple who were severely overdressed for the type of night and place this was.

Pulling him to the right I offered an apologetic smile to the couple. "What's up Tommy?"

"I want to quit."

No need to ask what he wanted to quit, this wasn't Tom and I's first Tuesday out. "No you don't." My answer wasn't always the same. Sometimes I encouraged him to quit, sometimes I would argue for him not to. Okay, so 'argue' was to strong of a word to use for what I did..I would just tell him not to. See, I long ago discovered that whatever I said wasn't really important. Tom wanted to just be heard, not have an actual discussion about it.

"I do! I'm sick of the workload and the hours. Look at me Jimbo, I'm not a young man anymore."

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. The man I that leaned on me as we walked looked very little like the one I met all those years ago. At that point he'd had hair and good eyesight. He still had those things, but it was all fake. Expensive toupees and top of the line contacts. All in an attempt to keep pace with the younger and younger men and women getting into the business. What he couldn't fake was what the job had done to his body. I helped him walk not only because he was drunk and liable to tip over, but because I knew of the joint pains he tried to hide. For the briefest of instants I was disgusted with him, disgusted with what he let himself become. That disgust quickly went away, replaced with guilt, and..fear. Guilt that I had felt the way I had, and fear that well, that I was looking at my future.

The cold air as we stepped outside of the bar seemed to snap Tom back into the land of sobriety. For my part I wished I worn a coat. We heard police sirens wail away out in the distance, and I could feel both us become tense. Neither of us said a word until the sirens faded. Sticking my hands into my pockets I paced back and forth on the sidewalk for warmth. Wished I had a cigarette too.

"Everything changes James, everything," Tom whispered, extending an open pack of cigarettes. I took one and left the remaining one for him. "Back when I started out, the whole job was new and exciting. Heh, same could be same for the city." Lighting the cig, he brought it to his lips and took a deep puff before beginning to cough. "Damn, don't know why I smoke this things."

Probably same reason he drank and chased girls half his age. Same reason he'd been in the this profession for so long. Looking down to the cigarette I held, I suddenly no longer wanted a smoke.

"The city, God I loved it back, then," he continued, looking around the block. "There were more brownstones you know. And alleys for crooks to dart in and out off."

I glanced around the neighborhood, trying to imagine what he was seeing and failing. To me the City would always be this neon bright thing. Type of place where you could feel totally crowded and alone at the same time. And crooks didn't have to dart in and out of nowhere this days, no, nowadays they just strolled casually on the sidewalk and did their thing.

We heard the sirens again, angry wails that pushed through the street and cared not for who they stirred.

"I should go," Tom said, undoing the first button of his shirt.

I could have told him that I could handle it. That he already put in almost ten hours. But I didn't. Because he wouldn't listen. And because he needed this. So I just nodded and wished him luck.

He was still fast. Not faster than a speeding..well, you know the phrase, but still fast. I watched him rise to the sky and head towards the sirens until he became a speck in the clouds. Then I went back inside the bar. My own shift would start soon.

This is an experiment. I'm hoping that every day I can come in and write something. Somedays, like today I'll take inspiration from a book I have, The Writer's Book of Matches, which is a book of prompts. For the most part I'll probably use prompts, but there might be times when I'm actually inspired and go without them, we'll see on that.

As for this particular work, I started off knowing I wanted to keep it to one thousand words or less. I'm starting a creative writing class, and our first work that is due is a piece of flash fiction that is 1k or less. I'm hoping that the story makes sense, but I have a feeling I rushed through it. I really didn't want to use the "faster than a speeding.." line, nor have Tom fly away, as it brings up the image of Supes, but I couldn't figure out how to end the story in a strong enough image that tells the reader what is going on with the limited amount of space I had left.