Wordsmith Holler

Original Pulp Fiction

Tag: room

  • Driving Back from Spring Break

    [aesop_image imgwidth=”500px” img=”https://wordsmithholler.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/bokeh-1033539_1920.jpg” credit=”Pixabay” align=”right” lightbox=”on” captionposition=”left” revealfx=”off”]

    Three days earlier I studied all night with a girlfriend for a physics exam and afterward drove four classmates 12 hours to San Diego for spring break. The entire trip the girls giggled and cackled behind me while a Korean kid sat silent up front. I decided we scared Jae. Although, being a confused immigrant might also explain his silence. Either way, he only said thanks when I dropped him off at his house. For that matter, Cindy told me how to find it.

    The rest of the trip to Oceanside I drove in a blur on autopilot. All of the lights merged into a slow motion light show and I doubt I could even tell you about the trip. I arrived at the motel, went to bed, and slept nearly all Sunday despite my mother’s pleas to come to the beach. In the morning, I drove her north to Anaheim where we rode the teacups, stood in a long line for the bobsleds, and paddled a canoe. We ate dinner on the bayou, visited the pirates, posed with Mickey Mouse, and explored the Swiss Family Robinson tree house. Overall, mom had a great time and I played the sweet son. By nightfall, the sky exploded with fireworks and we headed back south. Mom slept pressed into the window missing the nuclear power plant, the Marines, and the moonlit beach. As the tail lights on the interstate blurred into red, I again drove like a drone.

    Tuesday, I left mom in the room sadly wondering why I was heading back to college. I made Spring Break last only as long as a three-day weekend with an irritating baby. At the studio I planned to make a lot of cash in the remaining days of my break.

    Before I left, Cindy called to say she wanted to ride back with me to school.

    (more…)


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  • The Bedwell Curse

    I am sure she really meant no harm when she said, “You will never be a writer.”

    The shock of the statement caused me to burn inside and I ached to prove her wrong. My sophomore English teacher failed to understand my punctuation and short sentences that often lacked complexity or my fascination with Tyburn poems.

    “Rat-a-tat-tat,” she would write on my papers.

    “Less poetry, more exposition,” she scrawled in big red letters.

    [plain]Rhyming
    Timing
    Quaffing
    Imbibing
    Rhyming, timing spontaneity
    Rebuffed as a quaffing, imbibing wastefulness.
    [/plain]

    Sentences consisting of subject-verb-object became my bread and butter; my go to sentence when I needed to clearly state a point. Ten years of television journalism proved a simple sentence often was all that was needed.

    I felt pride in knowing Mrs. Bedwell was wrong.

    Yet, I wasn’t really sure.

    Writing 75 words a day for a crime story really doesn’t make for a deep writing career. The first day on the job as a science writer, I was assigned to write a 3,500 word story on a complex chemical reaction. I nearly left the Selectric II behind.

    “How do I start?” I asked my new editor Kippie.

    “Start by writing,” she had replied.

    I still couldn’t begin. This was the first time I considered Mrs. Bedwell might have been right.

    “You will never be a writer.”

    The blank page turned brighter and I just stared at it until whiteness filed the room. I was pulled out of my brooding by a phone call.

    “Just start,” Kippie, said through the speaker.

    The typewriter clacked out the first word. Then the next. Soon there was a page of thoughts and sentences. Surprisingly, some of it seemed to flow and tell the story. It was rough.

    “That’s what editors are for,” said Kippie, when I confessed it wasn’t very polished.

    Who knows if I am the writer Mrs. Bedwell envisioned.

    It doesn’t matter.

    I am the writer I want to be.

    [plain]Where you ever told you couldn’t write? Was that a proper judgement? If not, what did you do about it? Add your thoughts to the comments below.[/plain]


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  • A Simple Mistake

    It had happened again. And he feared the result. A near miss or a slip up and the entire room was questioning his ability. More than 30 years doing this job. And yet, he wondered if he really understood how to do it.

    The mistake had happened almost as soon as he made the decision to move forward. A reaction timed wrongly, and if it had not been noticed, he might have been able to correct it. Unfortunately, he was no longer as young as he was once was and others now seemed to be quicker and better able to do the job. They pounced on the mistake faster than a lioness. He was dead before he hit the ground.

    “Let me just try this again,” he said sheepishly.

    “It’s really nothing,” she said.

    “Just give me a minute.”

    “No need. We’ll take it from here,” she finalized.

    (more…)


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  • On the Path from Small to Large

    Small.
    Brownie Cottage.
    300 square feet.
    Enough room to sit.
    And maybe spin all around.
    The size of a gingerbread doghouse.
    If the dog was a small mastiff.
    A big dog with a very large appetite.
    With no place to store the dog food bags.
    The minimalists say we all could stand to slim down.
    That our mega mansions, stuff, and stacks of books signify waste.
    But the very thought of living in a one-room cabin frightens me:
    Like Thoreau living in an urban forest with no solitude or private pond.
    The stacks of books, hand selected, some with gold leaf edges are precious friends.
    Even if they spill off the shelves and pile up in towers on the floor.
    “You’re a hoarder,” say visitors who look down in disdain at my collection of wordy excess.
    And although I attempt to purge, sort, and reduce the pages, it is hard to part company.
    They all contain dreams, fantastic journeys, ginormous thoughts, hidden truths, ineffable fruit, obsolete wisdom, scientific hypotheses, and farce.
    Put them on a Kindle, they say, yet most are out-of-print, esoteric, or hand-me-down treasures.
    Which makes it all the more difficult to release them to a better place; a Goodwill, or a book sale.
    So they stand stacked like beleaguered sentries circled in spindly towers keeping silent watch over words cluttering the floor.
    They wait and watch with dread wondering when they will be released into the world and set free.
    Each knows I haven’t the courage to sort, pick, or drop any of them into a box.
    A certain belief none of them will be downsized to shoehorn them into a tiny house.
    Or are they mistaken to express this joyful expectation that they are so highly regarded?
    Unfortunately some must be labeled, screened, and stacked for certain delivery to the curb.
    The house must shrink from 3,500 to 1,700 squares, albeit not a one-room schoolhouse.
    It is still smaller than the library where the sentries now stand guard.
    The childhood adventures remain and the college texts with inspired margin notes.
    Each is carefully stacked next to the poems and dime-store mysteries.
    The free classics will find a home electronic and portable.
    Words stacked neatly alphabetical in my library virtual.
    I will sneak in some Steinbeck or Holmes.
    The rest will be donated for free.
    To give others pleasure or pain.
    The words will worm inward.
    To plant a seed.
    An inspirational spark.
    To think.
    Large.

    Copyright 2015, Michael S. Sommermeyer. All Rights Reserved.

    [plain]This shape poem works from one to 20 words and then back to a single word. Pick a topic and write your own shape poem. Add it to the comments below.[/plain]


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  • A Ghost Story – Ghosts Wished People Believed

    A Ghost Story – Ghosts Wished People Believed

    A few of the residents believed they lived in a haunted house. To the ghosts, it seemed unlikely anyone believed. They bumped into the living without the slightest notice. Sometimes they made a sudden movement to remind each other they were still around. They bounced among the residents coloring happy memories or darkening deep regrets. Never had they sparked passion in the hearts of the living. The ghosts wished people believed.
     
    Tommy woke from an afternoon nap. He rubbed his eyes, stretched up his arms, and crunched his knuckles. A ghost bounced a light stream around the cracking fingers. The light then flashed away. The ghost hung above the bed. An idea popped into Tommy’s head. He smiled at the sudden thought.
     
    This time he would do it. Weighing only 98 pounds, more or less, his mother had told him he was too small to play football.
     
    “You’re better suited to chess,” she would say.
     
    But he wanted to grind his toe in the grass and scuff up his shoes until they were green. He yearned to slip the shoulder pads on, bury his head in the helmet, and chew on the mouthpiece.
     
    Today he would race down the field and catch the winning pass. This was going to be his year; he would not be too short, too skinny, too uncoordinated. He was playing football, no matter what. Of course, mother would never approved. He let that thought slip away.
     
    He climbed to end of the bed on his elbows and pushed up to the edge. His spindly feet touched the cold floor. He jerked up before setting them down again on the concrete. Should he stay in bed?
     
    He considered his plan. It is nice and warm in here. He looked back at the paperback he was reading. The next chapter could be good. He snapped out of his doubt. No, I have to do this.
     
    Across the street from the old house, two teams gathered on a long field of green. Tommy grabbed his helmet and shoulder pads and rushed across the street. He slowed as he reached the edge of the grass and paused. He thought better of the idea. He turned back.
     
    Tommy missed his chance to retreat. A large hand grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled out on the field. On the line, a hulk known as Smasher thumped Tommy’s helmet down hard over his head. Tommy bit down deeper into his mouthpiece. Smasher smiled a deep satisfying grin. He crouched down opposite the wimpy football player.
     
    “You’re going down,” said Smasher. Tommy cringed. “Not likely,” he said under his breath. Tommy breathed in and stared into Smasher’s eyes. Blood gathered in his veins.
     
    Tommy slipped sideways to avoid the mass facing off from him. Smasher followed and crouched back into a stance. Tommy trembled at the thought of grizzled terror bearing down on his small frame. He stepped backward and started to pull up but missed his chance to flee. The quarterback counted down, the ball snapped, and both lines pushed together. Tommy froze.
     
    He started counting. One, two. Tommy didn’t get to three.
     
    Smasher lunged forward before grabbing Tommy by the waist. He twirled Tommy above the crumbling defenders. He pushed him high above the tangled bodies and laughed. Smasher curled the smaller player downward and then pushed him back up. A weak scream escaped from Tommy as Smasher reached higher and higher. Tommy hung above the field in slow motion. He could see the entire team below him collapsing into a twisted heap. Smasher dropped his prey.
     
    Before falling onto the mangled mass, Tommy saw an entire stand of cheering fans. The crowd vanished in a blink as Tommy landed on the pile below. Mom would not like this, he decided.
     
    Tommy lay on the ground for a few more minutes before pulling himself up. He limped to the side of the field and fell down again on the grass. He stared up at the clouds rolling passed. He smiled a satisfied grin. After a few minutes, two orderlies placed him on a stretcher and carted him off to the infirmary.
     
    “What you don’t seem to remember,” said the nurse “is that you are 84-years-old and too fragile to be playing football.” She placed an ice bag on Tommy’s knee. He covered the bag and smiled up at her.
     
    Both men sat in the library playing chess and grinning. It had been a good day.
     
    “And you, Mr. David Lemboski.” The nurse pushed away a wandering hand from the bottom of her skirt. “You should be ashamed of yourself. Trying to pick up a grown man over your head!” She smacked the back of his head and walked away to the nurse’s station.
     
    “You know Smasher,” Tommy said. “I never felt more alive.”
     
    The two men turned to the chessboard between them. Smasher picked up a rook and put his queen in jeopardy. Tommy considered a sudden revelation. “Mom was right. I should have stuck to chess.”
     
    Touching the ceiling, two ghosts hovered above Tommy and Smasher feeling very alive. They then floated through the pieces on the game board. Tommy and Smasher advanced through the squares. The ghosts picked up speed and flew across the room.
     
    They drifted over to join a group of other faded personages. Both ghosts shined brighter than the rest. One in particular seemed very pleased and she beamed a sliver of light down to the chessboard.
     
    Tommy looked over at the two happy ghosts and winked. A wave of happiness extended from the ghost of his mother to his eyes. He chuckled. She nodded in approval. Tommy realized it didn’t matter anymore what she thought.
     
    The line of ghosts drew inward forming a common light, floated through the chess pieces, and then shot out the window. Tommy watched them disappear. The truth was very clear to him. They lived in a haunted house.
     
     Copyright 2013, Michael S. Sommermeyer. All Rights Reserved.

    Inspiration:

     


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