My short stories

[Toptomcat]

I recently took a Fiction Writing course, and I'm quite proud of some of the stuff I produced. I've decided to put it up here for comment.

[Toptomcat]

(An exercise in dialogue)

“I’m telling you, there isn’t any obligation!”

They made an odd pair, the businessman and the hobo. The strange social leveler of the New York subway system often put the two types into proximity, but rarely into contact; an invisible barrier separated them with the unspoken rule LOOK BUT DON’T INTERACT. Providing each of them an example of the other in its natural habitat; Homo Sapiens Lucre, on display! A fine specimen of Homo Sapiens Hobo, for a limited engagement only!

These two, apparently, were special. Unconscious of the audience they were slowly beginning to attract, the two men continued their spirited debate. The hobo continued to expound on his point;

“I mean, sure, it’s nice. It’s one of the best things a man can do. But the wealthy don’t have to give to charity, issnot, issnot a requirement. Once you’ve made the money, it’s yours, y’know?”

The businessman was becoming increasingly agitated, his tailored suit rumpling as he pounded on his knee for emphasis.

“Maybe in a perfect world, maybe in a one-hundred-percent efficient economy that converted effort into cash so that everyone with money deserved it. But that’s not how we live! Not only is it not the way things work, but it’s not the way things should work! It’d be boring as hell. Anyway. Anyway. What I’m saying is. Issss…accidents happen! Good people get fired, rat bastards get rich. Hell, just look at my boss! There’s too much injustice in the world just to say that everyone deserves to be where they are. Charity is a moral duty.”

The hobo laughed cynically.

“That’s some dangerous thinking, there. ‘Things are unjust, we’ve gotta change ‘em’. How many people did how many things how many times with that thinking, mm? The Rooskies did it. Look where they are, now- ten times as many people like me on their streets, nearly blew up the world once or twice…”

More pounding, more ruffling. The suit was now in a state to reduce the Italian who designed it to tears of rage

“Soviet Russia was a noble experiment and it inspired people the world over and charity isn’t Communism!”

The hobo nodded sagely at this point, as if it were a greater pearl of wisdom than any Buddha or Plato ever produced- then pounced, grinning a yellowed grin as he punctuated each syllable with a jab of his finger.

“Ah, yes, of course, it isn’t- until the gummint starts mandating it! The tax code the way it is, businesses and millionares’re practically forced to donate to keep from losing their shirts! Wealth redistribution from taxation is still wealth redistribution, and still-“

Both men looked up sharply as the alarm for the next stop sounded, and the businessman looked abruptly guilty.

“Listen, this is my stop, and Hastings would kill me if I showed up late- but I’d just explode if I stopped now. Can I meet you here again tomorrow at ten?”

The grubby man seized a well-manicured hand and pumped it enthusiastically.

“I’ll be there!”

The businessman made a hasty exit, and silence reigned abruptly in the subway car. After a moment, one passenger took out their appointment book and marked tomorrow’s scheduled debate in the ‘Urgent’ column.

[Toptomcat]

(An excercise in character and setting:)

The old man sat on a stool, reading his Weekly World News and slowly stroking the ears of his St. Bernard. The man was known colloquially throughout the town of Tilsbury as Old Man Jed, and was detested to a greater or lesser degree by all of its inhabitants. He returned the favor with a catholicity of hatred that put other individuals of lesser ill will to shame. Not for him the wishy-washy, narrowly-focused mere distaste of the Nazi, the Klansman, the jihadi- no, he had a good democratic brand of hatred, the kind that hated the entirety of the human race equally, regardless of race, color, or creed. His dog was a true match for him, a titanic St. Bernard the approximate size and temperament of a mountain lion. Defying its breed’s reputation for friendliness and intelligence, the only emotion that could be glimpsed in its rheumy eye was a dim and feral desire to savage whatever was immediately in front of it at the moment. The only truce the two had was with each other; Jed would only thrash the dog on rare occasions, and the creature would only occasionally slake its thirst for destruction on Jed and his belongings.

Since each of them could not inflict their various atrocities on the other, it fell to them to find other outlets for their antisocial desires. Being a hostile but by no means a stupid man, Jed had put himself in a uniquely good position to do just that. Old Man Jed ran Tilsbury’s only general store, and thus the only place to get groceries within fifty miles. Barring those few fortunate souls who had backbreaking jobs tilling the soil, that meant that everyone in Tilsbury had to interact with Old Man Jed on a regular basis. The only other source of food in town was the cookie factory that supported it; this fact, combined with Jed’s matchless degree of malevolence, meant that Tilsbury had the unique distinction of being the only town in the United States with a significant number of adult citizens who had, at one point or another, attempted to sustain themselves entirely on cookies.

Just as he reached a particularly involving article involving Bat Boy having saved Elvis’ life from the Men in Black, thus hastening the Rapture, Jed noticed a shopper approaching the gloomy storefront of the Tilsbury General Store. He hastened to put his newspaper down so as to devote all of his attention to his customary murderous stare. The St. Bernard began its ritual of repeatedly ramming the counter with its broad head and shoulders, working itself up into a paroxysm of canine ferocity. Jed was pleased to note that his customer was wincing in time with the cacophony the dog was creating, and chose that moment as an ideal time to twist the knife.

“Well?”

No single syllable has been as packed with frustration and impatience since the Norman conquest of England.

“Well…what?”, the customer replied, cringing preemptively.

“Are you going to buy something, or are you going to stand around and loiter like a bum?”

The word shot from Jed’s mouth like a bullet from a machine-gun; brief, vicious, and with the promise of much more unpleasantness to come. The customer spasmodically seized the nearest thing on the shelf, which happened to be a bottle of Grey Goose vodka.

“I didn’t know you were a drunk,” said Jed gleefully as he subtly slid a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s out of the customer’s view.

This one was going to be fun.

[Toptomcat]

(An exercise in magical realism:)

“Round about the cauldron go; in the precious entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone days and nights has thirty-one. Sweltered tonic sleeping got, boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.”

The participants of the ritual jibed perfectly with the content of their words. Three witches stood about their cauldron, witches of the old school; peaked cap, black robes, and a warty, oversized nose on the oldest of them. One was the picture of stunning vitality, a beautiful girl that couldn’t have been more than eighteen. One was the image of motherly nurturing, a middle-aged woman who gave a distinct impression of competence and warmth. The last was the embodiment of old age, a crone with scraggled hair and a faintly sinister aspect.

“Fillet of a fenny snake, in the cauldron boil and bake; eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog, adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting, lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing,. For a charm that’s powerful able, like a hell-broth boil and bubble.”

The witches’ surroundings, however, seemed wildly incongruous. Fluorescent lights lit a hospital-white workroom, shelves crowded with Tupperware containers with various and sundry contents. The witched gathered around a sterile chemist’s crucible, not the iron-black pot of legend and myth, and the Beatles’ ‘Get Back’ played softly in the background. 21st century medical texts warred for space with leather-bound grimoires in a low bookshelf in the corner, and an iPod rested atop one of the Tupperware containers.

“Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, witches’ mummy, maw and gulf of the ravin’d salt-sea shark, root of hemlock digg’d i’the dark, liver of den-digging shrew, gall of goat, and slips of yew silver’d in the moon’s eclipse, tip of dirk and mortar’s scraps. Knuckle of birth-strangled claf ditch-deliver’d by a drab, make the gruel thick and slab; add thereto a tiger’s chaudron, for the ingredients of our cauldron.”

There was another oddity, not quite mundane or mystical; simply odd. A pill press was set up next to the crucible, and next to it was a small scrap of paper with a single long word and an illegible signature on it. A doctor’s prescription.

“Cool it with a baboon’s blood, then the charm is firm and good.”

There was an awkward silence as the potion in the crucible slowly cooled, a less-than-perfect transition from the magical to the routine where everyone involved felt slightly embarrassed. At last, the second of the three coughed lightly, breaking the silence.

“Well. That should clear up the Gibson widow’s arthritis just fine.”

A general chorus of agreement and small talk greeted the witch’s statement, the normal way of things swiftly reasserting itself. As the crone poured the still-cooling concoction into a normal-looking medicine bottle with practiced hands, the other two changed back into civilian clothes and headed back out to the storefront. It was, after all, still business hours at the Moirae Pharmacy.

Eventually, the Gibson widow did come, limping and tottering and leaning against the counter, for her arthritis medicine. Clotho, the youngest, gave her her medicine, and she went on her way. But a strange transformation occurred the moment the widow was out of sight of the pharmacy. She stood upright, walked at a steady pace, stopped holding onto things for support. The thing that changed most was her manner; far from the doddering, half-senile woman who had shown herself to the witches, she had an alert and crafty air to her, and she glanced at the prescription bottle in her hand with distrust and curiosity in equal measure.

It works too well. All of it- it works too well. Their medicines cure colds, chase away viruses- one of their cough medicines sent my cancer into total remission within three days! That’s not normal, damn it!
But now I can have it. Whatever those bizarre women put into their elixirs, I’ve got it now, I can analyze it, make more…

So her thoughts ran as she carefully packed the bottle of medication into a box and mailed it off to a lab for analysis.

Was she in for a surprise.

II.
“WHAT?!”

“You heard me, ma’m. Not only does the stuff you sent me have no medical value whatsoever, I’m pretty sure it’s an active biohazard. So far, the only components we’ve managed to conclusively identify are the neurotoxin coniine- apparently from fragments of hemlock suspended in the mixture- and snake meat. I’m not sure what you’re trying to pull, but this stuff isn’t any kind of medicine.“

“But, but, but. Did you actually try it? Find someone sick, make someone sick, give them the medicine! There’s got to be something!”

Before just this moment, the widow hadn’t realized the kind of dreams she’d had riding on that small bottle. She could live forever, dole out panacea to an adoring world, become rich and famous and-

“Ma’m, we’ve already discarded what you sent us and reported the pharmacy you got it from to the FDA. Please don’t call us again. Have a nice day.”

The widow was left with a dial tone and a plunging pit in her stomach. Forgetting her ‘arthritis’ entirely, she ran to the site of the pharmacy- but it was gone, the entire building vanished and its foundations standing bare. In its place was a single cut thread.

Maria Gibson died of cancer at the age of 72.

[Japic]

Hrm, interesting.

Dialogue; Not bad, but I didn't feel drawn into the debate and want to come back tomorrow.

Character and Setting; Very well done. There was certainly a good feel for the characters, though thinking on it further you didnt' explore the setting quite as much as you could have. This one I would have kept reading to see what old Jed did to this unlucky fool.

Magical realism; also well done. There were parts that felt almost shakespearian, and you managed to bring the brewing scene together very well. Reminds me overall of a compressed version of some fable, as a story with a lesson to be learned.

Good job overall.

[TheUdjat]

My comments are basically the same as Japic's.

1. Interesting dialogue, but better setting and description than debate. As Japic said, I wasn't terribly immersed in it. Maybe if you'd had long to draw it out, or been able to show the start of it.

But maybe I just dislike economic debates.

2. I liked this quite a bit. I wanted to see where else this was going to go, and felt your character was very tangible.

3. I love magical realism (or urban fantasy, or whatever the hell you want to call it). Felt like a mini-fable. Such a trio (a very classical trio ) could certainly have been integrated seamlessly into a novel-length story, or anywhere else. The only way I would've liked it better would be if the modern-esque stuff had actualyl been interacted with - If one of the witches were listening to the ipod, or using a plastic spatula to stir, or perhaps at the very end of their chanted list of ingredients was something like 'and a little pepto bismal to taste'. The spice of magical realism is having these archaic characters USE modern things, rather than just being around it.

The ending was a nice touch.

[K Man]

{I just remembered I owed someone a B-Day present critique. }

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1. (An exercise in dialogue)

This is a good example of dialogue that flows well--probably the point of the exercise--scene and subject aside for those that don't enjoy them. I think you did a great job setting the whole scene up in the first few sentences with some powerful imagery. It was very easy to picture and the dialogue did sound natural.

If I had to find a downside to this one, it would be too much author-interjection inbetween the statements of the two. I would have preferred to have just a few lines of rapid dialogue in the middle, without descriptions, that were clear enough in source to comprehend who was speaking. But overall, this was very good!

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2. (An excercise in character and setting:)

Like the first, this was overall very good. It reminded me almost of an Anne Rice setting. The kind where she paints such a vivid picture that when you, as a reader, are near the end of a description you can't help but think Jesus, I get it, get to the sex-scene already!!--but again, this was probably the point. Each sentence further fleshed out the old crotchety man and his big-ass dog. Very well done.

Just to nitpick for consistency's sake, in paragraph 3 there were two sentences that I tripped over as a reader. One of my big pet-peeves is using the same word (mostly verbs and adjectives) in neighboring sentences, in this case 'hastening' and 'hastened'. I usually try to avoid it because it does bother me personally, but others could probably care less.

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3. (An exercise in magical realism:)

This story I dug like a garden! Like Udjat, magic interjected into my reasonably mundane understanding of the world of science is such a kick to me. Modern fantasy, Urban Arcana...all things of this nature constantly grab and hold my attention so I'm immediately biased to this story. I really did enjoy it and think it would make an excellent part of a collection of short stories or fleshed out into a full length novella.

I would also agree with Udjat in that a little more modern would have been nice. Maybe the recipe was just faxed over from their sister coven in Scotland, or the box of Toad parts just got here from Amazon.com...something like that. Mesh it a little bit more, just for flavor.

Well done TTC! Keep up the good work. Was this course a general requisite or part of a larger degree--like one in English?