Abortion stories
I have very few unfinished stories. When I sit down and jot a few lines from some abstract idea, I tend to follow it wherever it goes. Some of the stories are truly awful. Better a horrible story, I reason, than a truncated one.
Leaving a story unfinished feels somehow like quitting in the middle of a sexual act. Like walking away from an intriguing stranger met in a dark club. Like rising from the poker table without even looking at your hand.
Still, there are the still borns. I find them every once in a while and only dimly remember what they were meant to be. Aborted stories that could have grown up to be winners or hideous monsters.
The following excerpts are the afterbirth of literary miscarriages. Two I plan to get back to and finish. The others? Tossed in that cold metal bin and taken to the incenerator with the rest of the body parts.
• After giving it careful thought, DelGreco decided the sound was like a handful of pudding dropped on linoleum. It was wet and squishy and sudden. A cool smack and a quiver. The sound of jello squeezed in the fist, only louder… There was something very liquid about the corpse, as though it was melting with decay. It never seemed completely still on the floor, but rippled like a lake. The girl was naked, save one sock on a blackened foot.
• … A low, childlike chuckle rolling from the walk-in closet. Conspiratory, almost stealthy. An evil little laugh of a thousand bad horror movies. Only it had emerged from the depthless dark of the closet where dozens of unfinished dolls and hundreds of body parts lay like things too vile to be allowed into the light.
• Reno thought it was pretty damn peculiar how the shower drain seemed to evict the clog all by itself.
• The girl’s name was Emily and it was clear she was about to cry. The lips were pressed together in a vain attempt to quell the outburst and her face had gone red. A ribbon had come apart around one pony tail which she had repeatedly tugged during the debate. In the dim, gray halls of the dog pound, the eight-year-old looked like a vagabond girl in a dungeon.
• Bitter and angry that she could not bring life into the world, Sarah at first questioned the purpose of her existence. That thought being a little too philosophical, she embraced the anger instead. She began viewing her body as a vessel for sexual pleasure rather than reproduction. In defiance of an ovarian curse God or nature or somebody had stricken her with, Sarah fought back with promiscuity. And she did so with ardor… Sarah was gang raped twice, stabbed once by the jealous wife of a particularly vigorous lover, beaten more times then she could count and once nearly burned in a motel fire. She’d been left at highway rest stops, urinated on, defecated on and subjected to sexual practices she never did understand.
January 15th, 2007 at 6:05 am
Can we try to guess which two you are planning to finish?
My guesses are: the doll closet and the dog pound.
January 15th, 2007 at 6:23 am
Del Greco and Emily are my two guesses.
January 15th, 2007 at 9:04 am
I think you should combine them all to make one interesting story. All I know is that you damn well better finish that last one!!!
January 15th, 2007 at 10:17 am
I can’t stop thinking about a handful of pudding. I’ve had a handful of jello and kind of liked it, but pudding just seems wrong somehow.
Though if it were chocolate … no. Still no.
January 15th, 2007 at 10:28 am
I certainly feel that they all deserve to be completed, but then I am at least a little prejudiced. I am of the belief that no story or part of a story should ever be disposed of, but that many are more then a little deserving of being re-written. I understand that Edgar Allen Poe was so convicted about re-writing some of his materials, that items that he had once published, were re-written so many times that they were not recognizable as the original works when he re-published them later. I think Gils idea is certainly derserving, trying to combine the parts into one story. However I must admit that I find the first two the most intriguing.
I don’t think the stories are still borns, but possibly still in-utero, unborn and awaiting the point of maturity when they are ready to be exposed to the light of day. Consider today an ultrasound, trying to discover the gender of the baby-to-be. You are not participating in an abortion unless you kill the idea. You have seen merely pieces, now you are to figure out if they are bits and pieces of whole, or bits & pieces of a multiple birth. If you are commited to seeing the ideas grow into a story, or even several stories, you may yet become a proud father.
January 15th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Reno and Emily are the two I plan to finish. Emily, anyway. I already know where it’s going. I could write that sucker in one sitting.
I like Gil’s idea, too. Some interesting seques and it could be one, Tarrantino-esque tale of lust, death, messy cleanup and dogs.
January 15th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Hey Mark – if you are finding it hard to continue with any of these threads, rather than letting them malnourish and die, why dont you consider the committee plan – let other blog people add a paragraph or two, and then pass it on and so on. Remember “Naked Lunch?”
Hee hee
January 15th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Well I was right about one of them. I can’t believe you are bailing on the doll closet. That one has a lot of possibilities!
January 15th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
The doll story was inspired back when Flamette was making those creepy ass reborner dolls. She had this walk in closet with body parts strewn everywhere. Then she moved on to something else and the doll parts went away. So did the inspiration, I guess.
January 15th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
I’m picturing a doll as mass murderer. Probably lame — I have mutant fright genes or something. I never know what’s scary to other people and what isn’t.
January 15th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
The direction I was going with that one was, the husband was detoxing from alcohol and suffering from weird hallucinations. He assumed the creepy doll experience was part of delirium tremens. It would have turned out the wife was using real body parts in the making of the dolls. Or something. Because wives are wicked.
January 15th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
I want to know what’s got poor little Emily so upset.
January 15th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
And, what the hell is it that was clogging Reno’s shower drain? Something gross, I’m sure.
January 15th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Oh, the Emily one can’t be predicted at all. I should write that one pronto.
January 15th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Well, get to it. I need a good book to read!
January 15th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
I am reading a really good book right now. Almost done actually.
January 15th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
That doll thing — its just as well you are abandoning it. Or to put it another way, hope it wasn’t autobiographical.
January 15th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
What are you reading, MT?
January 15th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
I am a beginning writer and I have no Quirks on stopping a story if I don’t like where it is going. Sometimes I restart it and go a different direction but most of the time I just stop it.
By the way, Chris. Your post on Liberals and Conservatives left me so confused I didn’t know which one I was.
January 15th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
I like oopsy’s idea. Thow out a paragraph and we’ll continue. With some of the messed-up neurotics we have in here (and I count for at least two by myself), we have to come up with a few interesting ideas. I’m sure the Friendly Buddhist will toss out a haiku or two, and we already have a dead hooker/cockatoo sonnet floating around in here somewhere.
January 15th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Hey Gil, how was the poker at Foxwoods? Make any money?
January 15th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
I like oopsy’s idea too, but you could also do it as a contest, give each person the same materials, (paragraph, phrase, idea, etc) and have each person write their own short story …. I bet the results would be fascinating.
January 15th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
If you freaks want to pick up a thread like that, I’d be happy to compile it and throw out the opening paragraph.
January 15th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Foxwoods was excellent. I played a few $120 buy-in sit & go’s, won one, finished second in another. Stepped up to the $230 buy-ins and couldn’t win a damn thing. Down $200, I sat at a lower limit ring game of hold ‘em at 130pm Saturday afternoon, and was down to $30 by 630pm. I got up from the table at 230am Sunday morning with my $200 plus another 3 racks of chips. Tough grinding away like that for over 12 hours, but it paid off in the end.
And bring on the story thread Mark.
January 15th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
Jacob was a small man, frail and easily rattled. He was working on his fortitude though, and eventually, over time, he felt the power of God working in him, giving him strength and courage. Slowly. Over time. And this campaign for steeliness was only just begun when the first test of his hard sought mettle was presented.
The woman seated at his kitchen table had no head.
January 16th, 2007 at 12:35 am
She had had a head at the beginning. Of that he was positive. When his Rosie had brought her home from the shelter, he was positive her head had been intact. He was also positive that of all the identifying characteristics that one notices upon meeting someone new, having a head was one of the first. What he was not positive of is when, exactly, the woman had become seperated from her head. Unfortunately, it was also the question that Detective Ritchey kept asking.
January 16th, 2007 at 12:39 am
It was easy enough to pick it up off the floor, bag it and stick it in the freezer chest he was now pleased he finally had use for. But the body, he wondered, what to do with the body. The head was the real trophy. Jacob felt the adrenaline and knew he had at last found his destiny. In the rush of his newfound power, his mind temporarily forgot about the body and he decided immediately that he would do it again, and soon. Within minutes, he even had someone in mind and surprised himself as he let out a girlish squeal when she popped in his head.
It wasn’t until he shifted his position and noticed that there was something sticky under his feet that he remembered about the body. There was blood all over the floor and he had to take care of that mess before he could plan his next step.
He rose reluctantly to start cleaning up.
January 16th, 2007 at 12:39 am
That’s how he perceived all women, especially this one.
Jacob knew he was “called” to be a preacher, and he’d prayed daily for the ability to speak in front of people. When he got nervous he stuttered, his eyebrows twittered. But he just knew in his soul that the power of God would work in him and give him the courage and ability to speak.
Here he was, finally gathered a handful of men to his first Bible study, his opportunity to fulfill the “calling” of God, and she had to come. She sabotaged him every time he came close to making a point. She somehow drew attention away from the Bible and onto herself. He could not seem to make his point.
Jacob read the scriptures: “Paul wrote: Man is head of the woman as Christ is head of the Church.”
“No,” she argued, “It’s really: Christ is head of the Church as Man is head of the family.”
“There’s no difference. ”
“Yes, there is a great difference.” she insisted.
Jacob’s eyebrows twittered, he couldn’t seem to find the words, he stood looking at her trying to stop the eyebrows from their nervous twitching. He thought: “This woman has no head. Not at all. I’ll be her head! I want her,” the thought slowly formed in him, as he struggled to quell distracting thoughts. ” She’s seducing me to sin, but if I marry her, it won’t be a sin to have these feelings for her. I can have her, I can be her head, and I can still follow my calling and become a preacher.”
January 16th, 2007 at 12:42 am
(In my story she wasn’t literally decapitated.)
but do with it as you will….
January 16th, 2007 at 12:43 am
HA!!! So much for a flowing story, LOL!! Very interesting though!
January 16th, 2007 at 12:59 am
Okay, so he’s confronted by the detective, decides to clean up the body on his own, and then gets all biblical about it? I think it can work, in a Monty Python way. It’s up to 600 words.
January 16th, 2007 at 1:02 am
FYI, I was writing mine when Gil’s got posted…so was responding to Mark’s beginning as well
January 16th, 2007 at 1:05 am
Ok then…scratch my last post…keep it goin…(this’ll be interesting!
)
January 16th, 2007 at 1:22 am
Actually, yours works quite well on top of Gil’s.
January 16th, 2007 at 1:44 am
Yeah, like I haven’t heard that before.
Again, is it only me that thinks this way?
January 16th, 2007 at 2:39 am
Brenda, it’s “Puff, Puff, Pass”. Stop bogarting whatever that shit is that you’re smoking.
January 16th, 2007 at 9:57 am
what?
I posted at the same time as you so obviously I didn’t know what you were writing or it would have been different. YOu were taking the headless thing & running with it, but I was expanding on the things mark had written:
“Jacob was a small man, frail and easily rattled. He was working on his fortitude though, and eventually, over time, he felt the power of God working in him, giving him strength and courage. Slowly. Over time. And this campaign for steeliness was only just begun when the first test of his hard sought mettle was presented.
The woman seated at his kitchen table had no head. ”
That’s how he perceived all women, especially this one.
Jacob knew he was “called” to be a preacher, and he’d prayed daily for the ability to speak in front of people. When he got nervous he stuttered, his eyebrows twittered. But he just knew in his soul that the power of God would work in him and give him the courage and ability to speak.
Here he was, finally gathered a handful of men to his first Bible study, his opportunity to fulfill the “calling” of God, and she HAD to come. She sabotaged him every time he came close to making a point. She somehow drew attention away from the Bible and onto herself. He could not seem to make his point.
Jacob read the scriptures: “Paul wrote: Man is head of the woman as Christ is head of the Church.”
“No, that’s not what it means,” she argued, “It’s really: Christ is head of the Church as Man is head of the family.”
“There’s no difference. ”
“Yes, there is a great difference.” she insisted.
Jacob’s eyebrows twittered, he couldn’t seem to find the words, he stood looking at her trying to stop the eyebrows from their nervous twitching. He thought: “This woman has no head. Not at all. I’ll be her head! I want her,” the thought slowly formed in him, as he struggled to quell distracting thoughts. ” She’s seducing me to sin…. “
January 16th, 2007 at 9:59 am
gil, I don’t smoke.
January 16th, 2007 at 10:17 am
The woman seated at his kitchen table had no head.
He really wanted her to give him head…….
January 16th, 2007 at 10:28 am
I can’t imagine why treehugger thinks you’re insane.
January 16th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Sitting there, feeling stirrings in his body that were definitely not Biblical in nature, Jacob had cause to rethink his religious calling. The woman continued to speak to him of her convictions, but he continued to see her as headless. This conundrum caused him to twitch and twitter at an alarming rate.
“But,” he thought to himself, “the Bible is scattered with sexual scenes. I should not be feeling guilt. Humans are sexual creatures.”
Still headless, the woman spoke in a hollow, ringing voice, of the true meaning of spiritualism and how man was meant to occupy his place in the universe. Jacob quickly realized that he was in over his head.
January 16th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
AO, not to get off subject or anything, but I am just finishing up another LaFlamme classic and in the mail today, I received Millennium Babe: The Prophecy by none other than our very own Betty Dravis. I will start that this weekend.
Betty-you had 6 children? And your daughter Mindy owns a newspaper? How interesting!!! Was the picture of you on the back cover taken in Santa Cruz? It’s a great pic.
January 16th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Another LaFlamme classic? When can we buy that one? is it the DT book? I am falling behind in my reading, haven’t got Betty’s yet.
January 16th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
It’s not on sale yet. Not the DT book, though. I am sure that one will be good, as well. I am pretty anxious to get into Betty’s book. You want to borrow it when I am done or have you already ordered it?
January 16th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Fine word, Oopsy. Into the file it goes.
By the way: I always picture you spilling coffee or dropping a knick knack when I read your screenname.
January 16th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Me too Mark. Something about Ooopsy. Good name though. Whre are you from Ooopsy?
January 16th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Ma num a num do do di do do
ma num a num do do do do
ma num a num do do di do do, di do do , di do do do do doo
Doncha hate it when you get a dumb melody stuck in your head?
January 16th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Good grief — where did you all go?
January 16th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
I’ve been vegging out in front of the t.v. Has anybody seen the new show Dirt yet? I started watching it but couldn’t get over the fact that the photographer guy was making out with a dead girl. I don’t know…just something kinda creepy about that. I would have kept on watching to see were this dead end relationship was going to go but, I had to had the clicker over to my son. Maybe I’ll catch up next week.
January 16th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Oops…I meant to say “hand” the clicker over to my son.
January 16th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
I missed that — creepy, was it? Will have to check it out.
January 16th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
I’d say more on the weird side. I think I’d like it if I actually had the chance to watch the whole show. It had kind of a dark feeling to it. You know, kind of like a women’s body without a head?
January 16th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Mmmm …. dark.
January 17th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Hey, you don’t have to wait for Mark to finish any of those. He has a little “horror story” posted on Amazon Shorts. It’s titled LEGEND and is really good ‘n scary. But he can’t outdo me in the horror department. So rub a couple of your quarters together and check out his LEGEND and my V.O. and see which one of us is the most “HORRIBLE.”
We can both be pretty “creepy” when we want to be, huh, Mark????
Grin!
Betty
January 18th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
from an article in bbc news:
“In the court he ruffled through a collection of dusty files and then started reading.
Fifty-seven-year-old Stephen Dollo, being moved and seduced by Satan the Devil, intentionally jumped on the peaceful five-year-old girl, removed her clothes and committed the crime of rape.
And then the file of Arthur Blackie, a 64-year-old man who was found guilty of raping an eight-year-old girl, Josephine.”
Arthur Blackie is a church pastor. “
January 18th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Women are Evil DONT MESS WITH EM…!
The FBI had an opening for an assassin. After all the
background checks, interviews and testing were done
there were 3 finalists. Two men and a woman.
For the final test, the FBI agents took one of the men
to a large metal door and handed him a gun. “We must
know that you will follow your instructions no matter
what the circumstances. Inside the room you will find
your wife sitting in a chair. Kill Her!!!” The man
said, “You can’t be serious, I could never shoot my
wife” The agent said, “Then you’re not the right man
for this job. Take your wife and go home.”
The second man was given the same instructions. He
took the gun and went into the room. All was quiet for
about 5 minutes. The man came out with tears in his
eyes, “I tried, but I can’t kill my wife.” The agent
said, “You don’t have what it takes. Take your wife
and go home.”
Finally, it was the woman’s turn. She was given the
same instructions, to kill her husband. She took the
gun and went into the room. Shots were heard, one
after another. They heard screaming, crashing and
banging on the walls. After a few minutes, all was
quiet. The door opened slowly and there stood the
woman. She wiped the sweat from her brow. “The gun is
loaded with blanks” she said “I had to beat him to
death with the chair.”
________________________
(Copied from powwows.com)