unknownfate

One of headlights burned out Thursday night, so Friday after work I went down to Napa to get a bulb, using the box I had gotten the time before to get the right one. I've had to change them out a few times in the seven years I've had it. I didn't expect any problem in changing it.

But the new bulb doesn't fit in the light socket. It's got a weird little prong that won't let it click into the housing. Somehow I got the wrong bulb. I didn't worry about it. I would just go in the next morning (this morning) and exchange it. So I do, no fuss, no muss. But then I get home and then I realize that the reason the first one didn't fit was because I was trying to fit it into the wrong socket. There are two of them and I'd been wrestling with the wrong one.

Then, I dropped the cap of the bulb area into the depths of the car. I had to snake my arm into the inner works to reach it and got stuck. Such a stupid way to die, I told myself. I suppose I could gnaw my arm off before I starved to death, but it turned out I only had to lose a little skin to get my arm out again.

So, I had to go back to Napa and admit to being an idiot and ask for the first bulb back. I got them to put it in because I had had enough for one day. They did it in like two minutes without getting stuck at all, but I took some comfort in that it took two of them.

Busy, busy, busy.

( Day 18 )

So much written and so little actually typed! I'm catching up though.


( Day 15 )

I don't even remember what day of nanowrimo it is. I'm gonna say 10th because it is the 10th. I haven't been able to do much because of a family development that is going to cause a pretty big upheaval. So I'm trying to deal with that and get 2K words in and I have not been able to the last few days. So grahhh!

( Day 10 )

I was up on the mountain last night and didn’t get any writing finished, so I had to try and make up for it tonight.

<cut text="Day 6”> Maggie tried reading the Bible to repel Russell, but it didn’t work. He knew it word for word, in different languages. It wouldn’t have been too unnerving if all he knew was Italian or maybe Latin since the Mazzas were first generation out of Italy. It might not’ve been terrifying if all he knew was Yiddish or Hebrew. Plenty of people were Jewish. Russell knew them all, though. He spoke perfect German to Al, Welsh to the Lloyds, and would hop back and forth with any other language you asked for. He could be just a very good faker, Kahl thought. It wasn’t like he or Maggie knew any of those languages except the bits and pieces that got picked up in a coal town. Russell could just be able to pretend well enough to fool anyone. Except Al and Lloyd were convinced. Maggie had been raised to believe that every word in the Bible was true or none of it was. To have this unwashed kid tell her things the Bible didn’t say with the confidence of someone who had been there was upsetting to her. Russell told her about the Book of Enoch and showed her the passages in Jude and Ezekiel that tied into it. Kahl didn’t understand it, and neither did the blackbirds or their wives. It infuriated and frightened Maggie enough that she took her Bible and went to talk to the pastor in the little church at the beginning of town. If Kahl would’ve had his way, he would’ve avoided Russell as carefully as he avoided going back down into the mines. The kid popped up all over the place though. He had to remind himself that it wasn’t really a dark-eyed, handsome young man but something more sinister, if Maggie was right. And she probably was. She had been raised with religion and knew more about it than her husband. Hopefully the pastor would tell her something that would comfort her and she would come and tell him, and they could both feel better about this mess. “This was bad enough before you showed up,” Kahl said. He didn’t even have to look to know Russ was there. He wondered what the Mazzas thought of their son surviving a deadly accident and then running off to hang out with strangers at all hours of the day and night. Did they know something was wrong or did they explain it away as a brush with death changing their son? As it was, he didn’t like to talk to the thing in a kid’s skin. He didn’t believe it when it said its name was Russell and he didn’t really want to encourage it by talking to it. But the truth of it was, that it was so much scarier to treat it like a demon than it was to treat it like a weird and unwelcome human. Maybe that was one of its deceptions; talk to it like a person, treat it like a person and maybe you’d start to think of it as one and forget what it really was. “It isn’t my fault that the local girls were so pretty,” Russell said. Kahl didn’t want to hear the explanation for that, so he didn’t ask. Russ grinned, probably reading his mind. He was still dirty and rumpled. Kahl wasn’t sure if he had changed clothes since he had appeared in their house that night. He didn’t stink the way a filthy teenager should. Kahl didn’t think he had ever seen him eat or drink. How long would the Mazza boy’s body last if Russ didn’t take care of it? That was a much safer question, so he did ask that one. Russell looked down at his arms and hands as if he wasn’t sure of the answer either. “The boy was dead,” he said. He said it like he was explaining it to a simpleton. “Dead boys don’t need food or water.” “You don’t smell dead,” Kahl said. It had been days. The body should’ve begun to decay by now. “I’m not,” Russ said. He only explained when was interested in the subject. He would make you ask a series of questions to get answers if he wasn’t. If he had been in one of Kahl’s teams, he would’ve been swatted a long time ago. Junie was keeping an eye on the two of them from a nearby porch. She was shelling peas for soup to take up to the sinkhole camp tomorrow, but her ears were wide open and she didn’t miss much. “What’s wrong with the Hudd brothers?” he asked instead. It might be better to keep the kid talking. “They like it,” Russ said. Sure enough, he didn’t mind changing the subject. “They like being filled up with it. They don’t have to think or worry or wonder. They just have to serve. Maybe that’s what it’s like to be an angel. Filled to the brim with otherworldly fire and not even the capacity to doubt or fear that whatever you happen to do is the will of the Almighty.” “Demons were angels once, weren’t they?” It wasn’t really a question. Kahl had only skimmed the Bible during church and read the passages that were expected of him at Christmas and Easter, but he knew the color plates in Maggie’s old family Bible well. The one of the fall of Lucifer was especially vivid. There were a lot of details in the wings burning. Russell, damn him, had the nerve to shrug. “What were any of us that long ago?” he said. “You pick now to play dumb?” “I only play when it’s a game,” Russell said. “Russell,” Junie said suddenly. Russell’s head whipped around like a startled deer’s. If anything, he looked surprised and delighted to be spoken to by someone new. Hopefully it was Kahl’s imagination that his neck made a soft creak like tough meat being stretched. “Make yourself useful,” Junie went on. “Run tell Myra Keller to give you some fatback for the soup and bring it back here for me.” “For you?” Russell said. “Of course.” He grinned at Kahl as if they were in competition for her and he had just scored a point. He went on his jaunty way and once he had passed what would be earshot for a normal human, Junie fixed one of her steely looks on Kahl. “Don’t encourage him,” she said. “You aren’t seeing how he eats up your attention. He’s like a cat watching a bird, waiting for you to talk to him or look at him. Whatever he wants, he wants it bad, and he thinks he can get it from you.” “I don’t know what to do,” Kahl admitted. “And I’m so tired of not knowing what to do that I’m willing to take help wherever it comes, I guess.” “Is he helping though? Or making it worse?” “You heard what he said about the Hudds. What if it’s true?” “What if it’s not and he just telling you enough to get you to the wrong answer?” “What if he’s deaf?” Russell asked cheerfully. He was standing in the doorway behind Junie on the porch, strips of fatback wrapped in paper held out to her. Kahl thanked all the angels in Heaven that Myra hadn’t let him carry it his grimy hands. There was nearly a whole coal mine under his fingernails alone. “Put it there,” Junie said, sharp as a knife. She refused to be startled or embarrassed, which Kahl was ashamedly grateful for, because it drew Russell’s attention away from him. “That’s two favors I’ve done for you,” Russell said to her. “That’s two favors you owe me.” “You don’t scare me,” Junie said, and if she was lying, Kahl couldn’t tell. “Good,” Russell said. He seemed as sincere as she did. “Frightened people are useless.” </cut>

Reread what I've written so far and decided to add this. Wee bit smutty and not too important to the plot, but oh well.

( Day 4 )

The trouble with nanowrimo is I don't really have it all in linear form. I have scattered notes and a list of names. I'm basically just stream of consciousness typing it out. When I hit a block I hop to another part.

( Day 2 )

"The darkness in them wasn't their soul. It was just the empty place where a soul should've been."

Here’s a rambling little story.

Many moons ago, when I was a wee sprig of a girl in the 2nd grade, there was some kind of state-wide writing contest. I don’t remember what I wrote, but it won for my grade level. I got to go with the other winners to the state capitol for some kind of writer’s panel that was going on.

The only thing I cared about was that Maurice Sendak was there. He read one of his stories and talked during the panel. As a seven-year old, I didn’t care beans about the adults’ questions and all the debate with the other authors about writing things. I only cared about the story. So, while they all talked about the technical parts, I drew a picture of Mr. Sendak sitting there, holding the paper in front of him, with one of his own Wild Things creeping up behind him.

My teacher insisted I show it to him, and led bashful little me up to the table after the speakers were finished. I gave him the drawing and Mr. Sendak was very gracious. He drew a Wild Thing of my own for me and gave me a signed copy of Where the Wild Things Are. I was over the moon for the rest of the day and the only other thing I remember was that an older lady came up at a different panel and read a poem. All I remember from that was that I liked it, and the repeated line “I flapped and I flewed.”

Now, decades later, I have come across this. It’s a little different, but I think it must be the same poem. I don’t know if the improper grammar I remember is something I misheard, or just an affectation of the reader, but I think it’s the poem from all those years ago! I can't help but be ridiculously happy over that.

How can it be only Tuesday?

My desk is in shambles and under three layers of clutter.

My car is a mess best described as unholy.

I am exhausted.

And it’s only Tuesday. If it was Thursday, I could say it had been a rough week.

But it’s only Tuesday.

And how is my car almost out of gas already? It’s only Tuesday!!