NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge---Heat 5: Horror/A Bus Stop

Isidor Fisch doesn’t like company at the bus stop. Most days, he waits alone. Some mornings little old ladies sit and knit on the bench, then, remembering they don’t need the bus after all, pack up their skeins and go. Isidor Fisch is 103, but he knows an old lady when he sees one. Some mornings, Isidor gets tired of waiting and wheels himself back home.

Having seen a century, he’s in pretty good shape. He navigates the grounds in his chair, legs atrophied but arms strong. A fur blanket covers his lap on cool days and fair. He doesn’t remember what he ate for breakfast, but he does remember the seam on Gerta’s stockings in 1932. And, for the record, tuberculosis didn’t get the better of him back in ’34.

Today, a stranger wipes his boots on the edge of the bench. The smell of fertilizer and mashed May heliotrope reminds Isidor of a garden in Hopewell. A garden he set foot in once only, seventy-five years ago.

The stranger is both strange and familiar. At least he thinks he’s a stranger. Memory itself can be strange. The stranger is dressed as a gentleman should: suit, tie, and hat, all well-cut if a bit burnt around the seams. He’s younger than Isidor by generations.

“Mind if I smoke, Mr. Fisch?”

The old man bends his head in apathy. The young man produces a sterling case from his jacket pocket. The initials BRH glint in the sun. The young man slips a brown cigarette into his mouth and takes a deep drag. The tip crackles and glows orange, no lighter required. The old man considers this a moment, but resolves that he’s seen many strange things lately. Perhaps some things only make sense in the minds of the young.

Circles of smoke rest in the air between them. First black, then red, then blue.

“We may have a bit of a wait,” offers Isidor. “This bus is often late.”

“I have time… and a story,” replies the young man.

A breeze whips around Isidor’s wheelchair, ringing like children’s church hand bells. He pulls his blanket in tight. What cheek, thinks the old man. I’ve seen and done things horror writers couldn’t conceive. What story could entertain me?

“I know you’re fond of stories,” prods the young man. “In fact, Fisch story was coined after you.”

“Do I know you?” Isidor whispers.

Without wince or ceremony, the young man stamps the cigarette out on a faded eaglet tattoo on the back of his wrist. He tosses the butt on the ground and sticks out his hand.

“I’m Bruno. From Queens by way of Old Smokey.”

The old man reluctantly meets his handshake. A jolt of static runs up through his arm, out his elbow, connects to the chair, and rebounds through his arm again. A black mark blooms on Isidor’s hand.

“You know the story, Mr. Fisch. You may even know how it ends. But, you don’t know how it feels… It’s the story of the century.”

The old man tries vainly to manipulate his chair. The wheels did not budge. He musters his composure before looking Bruno in the eye.

“I don’t remember.”

“You will.”

Bruno stretches his arms theatrically, cracking his knuckles over his head. He then settles himself comfortably on the bench.

“We’ll start in the middle, I think. Let’s see… When I finally was able to come to America, things were still very hard. Not as hard as what I suffered in the war, you understand, nor prison in Bautzen, but my wife Anna and I were very poor. And, I am ashamed to admit, I committed a few petty crimes to keep us in our flat.”

Isidor wonders which war Bruno meant, but sits silent.

“My associate, a furrier known for making good money with supplementary schemes, asked me to invest seventy-five hundred dollars. Now this was no small means to accomplish, but my associate promised hundreds of thousands of dollars in return. Time passed, and I worried that I had made a foolish investment, but I did not want to question a successful and, candidly, dangerous man. The associate asked me to keep a box safe in my home while he took a short trip. I assumed the best for my investment, reasoning I had some type of confidential collateral. Until very recently, I did not see this man again.

“Every day my wife hung her apron on a hook above the shelf where the box sat. Four months later, I read in the paper that this associate had succumbed to a disease. I opened the box, Mr. Fisch, and do you know what it contained?”

“Perhaps,” utters the old man.

“Forty thousand dollars in gold certificates,” the young man says with a smile. “Well, those certificates were then in the process of being taken out of circulation, so claiming them for myself, I quickly took advantage of the return of my investment. I bought a dark blue Dodge sedan. And do you know what happened next?”

The two men regard each other intently. To Isidor, Bruno appears to be thirty or so, certainly no older than thirty-five.

“I thought you were dead,” hisses the old man.

Bruno laughs. “I thought you were dead, too.”

Bruno takes another cigarette from his case. Again it magically lights, unaided by match.

“Now that we have the pleasantries over with,” he puffs, “I can continue our tale… Next, Mr. Fisch—that is, Isidor—one of the spent gold certificates was traced back to me. I wasn’t surprised to learn that the funds were ill-gotten. But, I must admit, I was not prepared to find that my new fortune came from the most infamous kidnapping case in the world.”

Bruno exhales. A noxious smoke cloud hits the roof of the bus shelter and disperses. The air smells of celery, olives, chicken, potato fries, buttered peas, cherries, and cake.

“Last supper,” Bruno apologizes. “It lingers.” He blows a red ring of smoke.

“Even if you can’t remember your last meal, Isidor, you’ll remember the crime. A cherub-faced toddler, darling to his parents, who themselves were the darlings of America, was taken from the nursery in the dark of the night. His father met the kidnapper’s ransom, but the boy was not returned. Ah, I see you’re feeling the story now.”

The old man’s face, in fact, is feeling a bit warm. His wrinkles began to fade and his cheeks grow plump and rosy. His bare pate stings as golden curls begin springing through his scalp. Pearly kernels of baby teeth begin cutting through. His gums, only accustomed to rice pudding and creamed corn, swell and flush with ache. He clutches his blanket in dread and confusion, but instead of fur, he feels only thick flannel.

“It was months before the toddler’s body was discovered,” continues Bruno. “And what a state! So bad, the investigators couldn’t tell at first whether it was a boy or girl. I think that he was identified by the overlapping toes on the right foot. It must have been the right, because the left leg…”

“Stop! Stop!” screams the old man. “It was too long ago. I’m a different man…”

Bruno doesn’t flinch. “Yet, I am the same. So, we continue. It must have been the right foot, because the left leg was missing.”

Isidor’s right leg twitches as his middle toe curls and shrivels up to the shape of a petrified seahorse. His left leg, which had been spared from sensation for many years, begins to shake under the blanket. There is a rending noise as the tendons and muscles separate against the grain. A sharp crack as the thighbone snaps. A sickly slithering, like fingers combing through hot cheese casserole, and a metallic thump like the casserole dish falling downstairs. His left leg bangs against the footrest of the wheelchair. Then, just as suddenly, it is gone.

“Please stop!” he screams again.

Bruno calmly speaks on. “And both hands were missing.”

The old man flails, his face contorts in pain. The blanket slips from his grasp. His palms open, as if in a gesture of acceptance, but an unseen pressure on his thumbs keeps turning his wrists one full circle and then another. The bones in his wrists make a tinfoil crackle. His hands bend at unnatural angles. They twist and twist until they simply pop off. Explode, really —two gory Christmas crackers throwing blood and bits of bone instead of confetti.

“I’ll wait to tell you how he met his unfortunate end until after I tell you how I met mine.”

The creature in the wheelchair pants and weeps from temporary relief. He now has pudgy cheeks of a baby, blonde curls, blue eyes, one leg, no hands, and infinite fear.

“They had eight experts testify that my handwriting matched that on the demand note. They matched wood from my garage to the grain of the ladder used for the crime. And, I had those damned gold certificates which had been paid as ransom.

“No fingerprints, Isidor. No evidence except circumstantial. No motive to hurt anybody’s baby. I was no angel, but I never would have hurt a kid. Even the governor vouched for me.

“They fried me up at New Jersey State. That should’ve been you.”

The old man braces his body for an electric shock, but no jolt comes.

“Imagine this little boy, just old enough to know the words mama and daddy, scared, cold, and hurting. Taken from his warm bed to a rickety old boat in the middle of the night. Bludgeoned to death and dumped in a field four miles from home.”

The old man feels something warm and sticky seep through his new curls. A gash opens in the back of his head. It grows deeper and wider, oozing blood and greenish syrup. Isidor can taste his own brain fluid in the back of his throat.

“We dropped him from the ladder,” he cries. “It was an accident. An accident! We just wanted the money. But the package was dead before we even delivered the note. I remember now. It was an accident!”

“He wasn’t even two.” Bruno betrays no emotion. “He never had a chance to do anything but good. In two lifetimes, you and I put together couldn’t come up with two years of good.”

The old man’s bloody blonde head rolls forward against his chest. Bruno speaks once more, though he knows he is no longer heard. “The little body was badly decomposed.”

Heliotrope sprouts from the discarded cigarette. Isidor’s body turns from pink to black to green and then succumbs to the blooms. Little purple blossoms twist through the spokes of the wheelchair, covering the decay with their cherry pie scent. Bruno snaps a few and places them decorously in his buttonhole. He sits, waits, and is rewarded with the arrival of his bus: Number 35, Fresh Pond Crematory Line.

As he boards the bus, a woman in white runs toward him across the green.

“Wait!” she shouts. “This isn’t a bus stop!”

“A bus stopped for me, miss. You must be mistaken.” Number 35 pulls away from the curb and vanishes down the lane.

The woman’s companion waits for an explanation. She smoothes her skirt and straightens her cap.

“As I was saying, we have many amenities here for people with your father’s challenges. We find it’s best to accommodate their delusions—only harmless ones, of course. And, well, those with dementia often feel the need to go take care of a task, to leave the facility.”

“I don’t quite follow you, Nurse Anne.”

“We erected this fake bus shelter in the garden a few years ago. It gives our older residents a destination. People with dementia can be very restless. They’re contented with the idea that a bus will come to take them where they need to go. After a few minutes or a few hours, they’ll have forgotten why they were waiting for a bus in the first place. It seems to be soothing for them.”

A white-haired lady pardons herself past them and perches her knitting bag on the bench.

“Where are you headed today?” the nurse gently asks.

“Home,” she says with worry. “I think I left the oven on.”

“Well, come on back if you remember otherwise, dear.”

The nurse leans over to pick up a spent butt, and spots something blue under the heliotrope. It’s a baby blanket of the softest flannel. It is spattered with little airplanes and little stars.

What a strange day, she thinks. Buses, no buses, babies, and planes. Perhaps some things only make sense in the minds of the old.

NYC Midnight Creative Writing Challenge---Heat 5: Drama/Cubicle/Airplane Ticket

Temporary Insanity



Bisbee’s bottom itched hot with carpet burns, and her shoulder was scratched pink, courtesy of the keyboard tray. She was happily rife with bruises and bites and, in fact, dressed more conservatively now than before the misadventures began, lest she spike the curiosity of Human Resources. But her flushed cheeks and steam-curled hair, golden-red like the copper town for which she was named, were hard to hide.

Things started innocently enough. They were just two misplaced journalists who the unfortunate job market had driven corporate. After too many days of compartmentalized copywriting, Bisbee wrote a fabulous, and not repeatable, filthy joke on Babbitt’s proofing sheet. This led to a flurry of dirty little post-it notes. Sexy suggestions of things only English majors would to each other, with footnotes on how positions may vary according to AP or Chicago style.

Soon those long grey days were broken by stolen moments before and after, and a few times during, office hours. Bisbee lived for the pressure of the water cooler against the small of her back, the white tap releasing a stream down her thigh. The acrid taste of company coffee on his mouth. The department-morale meetings during which she slipped off her shoe under the conference table, trying to keep poker-faced as her bare toes worked up his chair.

It wasn’t just last night under her desk—or the elevator, bathroom stall, or electrical room. She knew Babbitt had true affection. He brought a mirror to entertain her lonely Beta fish, Blue. Among salacious text messages, there were sweet ones like you’re the bee’s knees. And, he took a light hand editing her, writing please and sorry in the margins.

The best was yet to come. The two were booked for a copy editing conference in Vegas. Bisbee dreamed of the desert and its neon signs bright with electric sex. She craved nights that went long past five, free cocktails to lower her few last inhibitions, and finally getting to use a bed.

Tuesday, over Vietnamese takeout, Babbitt confided, “I called the hotel and made arrangements for adjoining rooms…”

Bisbee was so excited, she stabbed him with a plastic fork. The tines broke against his khaki-clad muscled thigh, but she still kissed the spot in apology later.

Though Bisbee generally kept a blank and unsentimental workspace, the navy envelope containing her plane ticket was T-pinned lovingly right above the fishbowl. It was a company function, after all, and Bisbee was a valued employee. Her manager even hired a temp to cover the workload during her absence.

Bisbee had two days to train the temp. From day one, they were enemies. Her name was Iskra or Ilonka or something else foreign. Bisbee refused to learn it, really because the temp was younger, prettier, and skinnier. Every seat swiveled when the temp walked past. She received several invitations to Friday’s potluck, cajoled that she didn’t even have to bring anything.

The temp leaned forward to ask something, and her skirt hitched up showing a slice of black garter. It reminded Bisbee of the stockings she purchased specially for the hotel, and it made her green that she wasn’t the type to wear them every day. Bisbee took in the temp’s cat-shaped eyes, full bottom lip, breasts high and tight under a v-neck. She blew off the request to borrow her style guide. “And don’t feed my fish while I’m gone,” Bisbee warned.

The next day, she resolved friendliness. It was Bisbee and Babbitt who were going to Vegas after all, and envy was so unbecoming. She came in at 7:46, hoping to rendezvous between the reams of white and canary yellow. She was pleased to see steaming coffee on Babbitt’s desk.

Bisbee tried the door to the copy room, but it wouldn’t budge. She could hear the whine of the archaic printer warming up. Several thumps followed. She knocked.

“Babbitt?” she whispered. “Hey, Babbitt-Rabbit, are you in there?” The door was still locked.

Returning to her cubicle, Bisbee shifted from confusion to panic. A fresh cup of coffee sat on the temp’s desk, too.

Bisbee did the only thing she knew to do in times of crisis. She cleaned. She pulled the guts out of the latest edition of Webster’s, and put it and every other living bit of paper in the confidential shredding bin. She tossed her mug and fern. She carried Blue over to the coffee island and turned on the tap. The hapless Beta slid into the drain, and Bisbee pulsed the disposal. She was wiping down her desk when the temp resurfaced. The girl adjusted her skirt and smiled.

“Hey, what happened to your fish?”

“He died.” Bisbee betrayed no emotion. They both looked at the empty spot where the little bowl once sat.

“Hey, where’s my ticket?” Bisbee spat at the temp. “It was right here!”

“What ticket?”

“Oh come on,” shouted Bisbee. “You been here 24 hours and you’ve christened the copy machine and taken my trip to Vegas!”

Bisbee reached over the divider and pulled the girl’s shiny black hair—hard.

The temp shrieked. Babbitt ran down the aisle. “What the hell…?”

“My ticket,” she repeated.

“Oh for God’s sake,” said Babbitt, “I have it right here. I was just checking seat assignments to see if we were together.” He regarded the empty cubicle and shook his head. “We are.”

Bisbee regarded Babbitt. He had left his pen uncapped and red stain bloomed on his pocket. He looked like any and every other guy in the office in a blue oxford and khakis. She surveyed the grey-blue maze of cubicles, took the navy envelope, tore off the top ticket, and left.

There are better boxes to be had. An airplane seat, a lavatory, a hotel room, each square self-contained. There is a place for every tiny coffeepot and cup, a precision and beauty to the arrangement of single-serving soap. And there are banks of slot machines, endless glistening rows making up bright new cubicle farms.

NYC Midnight Creative Writing Challenge---Heat 10: Romance/Attic/Butcher's Knife

The Cleaver

Underneath the smell of fat, blood, and salt, Isa can smell the sun. It radiates from Bruno who, in defiance of his name, is as golden as the Aryan ideal. And, despite his kindnesses, she’s jealous of his freedom to enjoy the weather.

It’s July now. The storage garret is sweltering. Westfalian landschinken and links of landjägers crowd the curing hooks. The hams and sausages mostly repel her, though there is some comfort in their camouflage.

Still, Isa’s luckier than most.

There are entire families hidden in spaces smaller than this. Families with little food or water, with crying infants and terrible decisions to make.

She’s survived so far due to her dry, delicate wit, what her father called attic salt. And, of course, attic faith. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,” he told her, “the evidence of things not seen.”

She doesn’t speak to Bruno often, but she sees daily evidence of his affection. There are food packages, modest but fine, delivered before sunrise and after sunset. Books in German, Hebrew, English and Czech. Candles. A pitcher of water in the middle of the night.

Isa’s pragmatic. She’s certainly has time to think about things. Though her feelings for Bruno could be afforded to dependence, or loneliness, or gratitude, that’s not all this is. Given another time and place she would feel the same admiration. She wonders at Bruno’s strength, both his physicality and his character. His arms rope-muscled from his daily work, and a butcher’s work itself, belie a gentleness. It’s as if she’s a wounded-wing bird he’s cradled from the windowsill. But it’s more than that, too. She feels it when their eyes meet over lighting a match, the way their fingers brush when the candle passes hands.

She’s come to know this stranger by his gestures: a kosher meal wrapped in butchers’ paper, a rose-scented cake of soap, news he gleans from the gossiping patrons. Bruno takes great risk to bring her these pleasures—to her they are not so very small.

It’s been weeks since Papa left to go looking for her sister Lisabet, and no word from him. No news overheard. It’s just Isa and the charcuterie sharing the dark, salty space.

This isn’t kosher, she thought the first day, and laughed out loud at the turn of phrase. Papa, Lisabet, and the stranger all shot her awful looks at the inappropriate mirth. It wasn’t right to laugh when so much was at stake. It can’t be right to feel the flush of love when there’s been so much loss. But then, nothing’s been right since that first yellow Jude star was stitched to her sweater.

Under other circumstances, Isa may not be tempted, as she is now, to take a piece from the tref ham and revel in the new taste. Desperate times are the true tests of our faith. Is it better to starve than partake of the forbidden? An endless series of days unfold in the near dark, with the seeming inevitability of iron-heeled jackboots kicking in the attic door. And darkness grows in Isa with each day she comes to know Bruno and what cannot be.

She’s come to live by this stranger’s routine. She anticipates the whir of the knife wheel. She waits for the lock of the shop doors the way a patient waits for the tap of the fingernail on a vial of morphine.

Isa can hear him closing up shop below. She cups a candle and strikes a match before she can lose the ambient light. Bruno whispers her name.

He enters the attic, sits on the floor, and sets down a bundle of white cotton carefully.

“Isa.” Her name rests on his lips like a prayer. “Officers were in the shop today. Could you hear?” He doesn’t wait for a response. “I will do everything in my ability to protect you, Isa…. But if you hear boots which aren’t mine upon these steps…”

He cannot bear to say more. Instead, he leans over the flame and kisses Isa. For one brief sparking moment, she can feel everything. It’s a kiss full and wet with regret and longing and finality.

Bruno opens the folded apron to reveal a small bottle of bleach and a butcher’s knife. “Whatever happens, don’t let them take you, Isa.”

She presses her face to Bruno’s cheek, his tears hot on her lashes. For the first time since hiding, Isa allows herself to cry, too. Her love is pure. It’s not susceptible to violence, not capable of being profaned.

When Bruno leaves the attic, she turns the well-honed knife over in her hand. A terrible decision to make. To cleave means to cling faithfully, Isa thinks. To cleave means to split apart.

She pulls her hair up tight with a ribbon and hacks with the knife until all of the long locks are strewn at her feet. She takes off her shirtdress. Using the apron to cover her eyes, she pours bleach over her hair. Wet-headed, Isa uses a bent pin to rip the stitches out of those sickly yellow stars. Isa waits. She scrubs with a soap cake. She rinses over and again from the pitcher to the bowl.

By morning, she’s as blond as Garbo and smells like a rose. Isa smoothes out her dress and ties on the apron. She pushes the door open, reveling in the draft. Even the scent of fresh blood from the shop below is a blessing after months of salt and smoke. She ventures farther onto the steps and breathes deeply. Bruno turns, startled to see her out of context and out of color. He smiles.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting. The shop has been so busy lately,” Bruno tells his morning customers. “It may be fortunate that my widowed cousin will be coming to town soon. Perhaps she’ll be able to help.”

Absinthe Minded

These sort of days aggravated Constable Bell’s dyspepsia. The blooming season brought its annual onslaught of property disputes and lovers’ quarrels to the station. But the Fées Vertes brought, well, more urban problems to the Bois Blanc precinct.

Over the past few years, Canterbury Bell had witnessed more human writers, uninspired by their city surroundings, venturing wide-eyed to the woods. And with more aspiring artists comes a certain kind of fairy. Frankly, a fairy tough for even Bell to tame. The Fées Vertes showed little respect for woodland conventions. They played wild and late, dressed in little more than wisps of fog, and mercilessly teased the local boys. In fact, the same talent to which gave muse to artists and authors also seduced imps, elves, and sprites. As well as other creatures. Things always ended badly—the defenestration of adversaries, rent petals, and tears. And the Vertes, capricious by nature, would tire of the attentions of their new plaything and seek the protection of Bell’s office from stalking. This is how the rule of law came to be.

The Bois Blanc station, adeptly run by Constable Canterbury Bell, simply did not have the bandwidth to handle other creature crimes. Even if an elfin boy was found to be overly rough with a fairy paramour, it was tough to tell what kind of magic would keep him in his cell. And if a troll or goblin, or (heaven’s sake) a squirrel, were charged, the fairy station could not hold him. It wasn’t miscegenation, just practicality. The station at its tallest point was five inches-three. So, Kingcup Fairy and Queen-of-the-Meadow ordered a rule be established outside the door. A human measuring-stick was enchanted and planted in the ground. Creatures more than four inches tall could not be detained, merely banished from the fairy ring. While this kept Bell’s cells free for fairy perpetrators, it encouraged the mischievous Vertes to make many and more claims. Once tired of certain affection, or annoyed by a pretty garden-variety rival, the Vertes sought quick dispatch.

Though he realized that often they were truly in trouble, Bell had little sympathy for the Vertes. This day, he was settling a dispute between the unrelated fairies of Greater and Lesser Celandine, and investigating the mysterious vandalism of the Strawberry Festival pavilion. So, when lovely Fanchon swept in seeking assistance, he made her sit and wait.

Fanchon’s disheveled state only emphasized the sultry beauty which caused the gossip of her neighbors. Her hair was mussed, her cheeks ruddy, the shredded tips of her wings tangled on the breeze. The smell of Florence fennel filled the little office as each tear fell. And between the whimpers, Bell noted her once-euphonic tinkle had an off-note, like toy piano out-of-tune.

“Fanchon Artemisia, what kind have trouble have you gotten yourself into today?” bellowed Bell.

“Oh, Canterbury…”

“That’s Constable Bell.”

“Oh, Canterbury, I’ve had the most terrible fortune. I need your help!”

“Who is it this time, Fanchon? An angry gnome?”

As a flower-fairy himself, Bell was as rather hurt and offended that he was regarded too foppish for a Verte. But even he could see that her wings had been manhandled. She wore one lonely little green shoe.

“For whatever personal reasons you do not care for me,” Fanchon held, “I have just as much right to report a crime as any fairy…. and to be treated fairly.”

Fanchon slipped off her shoe and set in gingerly in her lap. She crossed her bare ankles and began her tale.

“I am quite good at what I do, you know. We sisters don’t grow pansies. We grow flowers in the minds of men. Art, music, prose, and rhyme is Fées’ work. Fiction is my specialty.

I came to a writer’s cottage this very June. And in it I found a man of such considerable skill, I was taxed to assist him. I could only share my secrets to better content. The talent was all his. Still, he treated me with much gratitude and affection. It was difficult not to express my…. esteem.

The writer made me a seat on the finest crystal cup and silver spoon. I would sit and encourage his work deep into the night. He, in turn, would feed me sugar cubes and cool water. One evening, enamored by our success, I kissed him. I kissed him, Canterbury, right on the mouth!”

Bell felt his cheeks flush with envy. “And then?”

“Then the man’s wife came into the study,” Fanchon said quietly. “She called me a moral disgrace. She said I was a vice….”

“Cruel, yes, Fanchon, but not a crime.”

“She put some cotton wool close to my face, and I lost time. But when I woke, two pushpins speared my wings. I was tethered to a white board next to deceased Lycaena mariposa. It was after much sacrifice I was able to fashion my escape…. I can no longer fly….”

The constable melted a bit. “I don’t know what justice I can offer. You know the rule of law.”

“That’s all I request.”

A dark shadow descended over the station. Bell opened the doors to reveal the unfortunately familiar view of a man’s loafer. The writer towered almost six feet over the ruler. He bent awkwardly to retrieve it, having recognized it as missing from his own desk drawer. A leather elbow patch brushed the station, quaking the inhabitants. And just as the writer shook soil from the ruler, a great explosion catapulted him across the wood. Befuddled by the blast, the man strode forward. He smacked comically into nothing, as a sparrow colliding with an overly-clean window. Try as he might, he could not pass into the fairy ring.

“Thank you, Canterbury.” Fanchon kissed the constable on the cheek.

“But your wings, your lovely wings,” Bell shook his head.

“I have no power for flight,” she conceded. “But he has no book.” Fanchon smiled. “The manuscript for The Complete Book of Fairies lies safely within the ring.”

NYC Midnight Screenwriting Challenge -- Heat 6: Science Fiction/Swimming Pool

Power Dating

It’s not easy to meet someone special when you’re a man of John’s strength or a woman of Jane’s warmth. Who, how, and where to date can be super challenging.

Read the Power Dating screenplay at Celtx Project Central:

http://pc.celtx.com/project/FFq0rDCq0SAK

NYC Midnight Short Story Competition -- Final Round: Ghost Story/Salesman

Cold Call

Daisy Jameson will be an Independent Senior Director this year. In fact, she’s telling herself now.

“I, Daisy J. Jameson, will join the Circle of Achievement this year,” she says to the review mirror. “I am empowered to realize my dream of career success.” She reapplies her Sassy Pink Fabulous Lip Color and checks her teeth for cupcake frosting. The car behind her honks irritably and she proceeds through the intersection.

It’s hot. Her new skirt-suit, in the same shade of Sassy Pink, is pure polyester. She cracks the Accord’s window, but not enough to mess her hair. She parks in a shaded side street and pops the hatchback. Once she recruits twelve consultants and meets her sales goals, she’ll be eligible for a brand new Mustang. And if she becomes a Senior Executive Director, maybe even a Mercedes. Then she’d be proud to park in front of any customer, that is client’s, home.

Now, however, she gently pats away a little moustache of sweat and wishes for A/C. Hopefully, her beauty case has stayed cool. How embarrassing it would be to pop open her portable candy store of cosmetics, only to show pink pools of melted wax.

Daisy repeats her personal affirmation. Her thighs are audible as they brush together, sausaged into drugstore stockings. Shish-shush with every step. The buttons of her jacket strain to stay in their buttonholes. Perhaps she’s put a little on since Dale’s been gone. She still has a pretty face and a personality to match. At least, that’s what the Senior Executive Director leading the two-day Beauty University said. So Daisy wrote her a check for $500, and set out with conviction and a fresh case of product samples.

That was Thursday. By the weekend, Daisy had set out 24 slotted cardboard boxes, pads and pens in friendly shops around town. “Become Your Best Self – FREE Skincare & Cosmetic Consultations” touted the boxes. But on Wednesday, as she dutifully shook each for leads, mostly candy wrappers fell out. From some boxes, worse.

At the diner, her last stop, she felt an acute pang of doubt. A pink and green buttercream cupcake and a Tab settled her stomach. “Five-hundred dollars,” she sighed, “five-oh-oh.”

As she counted her change, the waitress slid the cardboard box down the counter. “Don’t forget this, honey.”

A folded note stuck half-in half-out of the slot. Under “Call me today to schedule my complimentary, no-obligation professional consultation!” there was no phone number, simply “2932 Lily Parkway” and “Thank you. Beryl.”

Daisy clicks down Lily Parkway in Sassy Pink heels. She finds 2930 and 2934 and marches to the door of the house between. She repeats her affirmation once more before ringing the bell.

Silence.

Daisy pushes the button again. A little jolt of electricity arcs to her finger. Zot! The button blackens. Just burns out.

She blows out the smoldering tip of one acrylic nail. “Beauty calling…. Anyone home?”

The door creaks open, cutting a swath in the dusty foyer floor. “Come in,” she hears. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Daisy follows the voice down the hall to a study. Narrow ribbons of sunlight eke between the closed shutters. They trip across a sterling letter opener, a crystal paperweight, an engraved snuffbox, and the gilded bindings of several books strewn across the room. Daisy blows the dust off two covers and discovers West of the Night and The Splendid Outcast. She sets them on the desk next to a book by Saint Exupèry – a name she remembers from her childhood. A book about a little boy on a lonely little planet. A little boy and a rose.

I am in the wrong place, she thinks. And just as fast she corrects herself. Every interaction is an opportunity to share the life-changing benefits of True Beauty.“Beryl? Is there a Beryl here?”

“Yes, that’s me. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Daisy looks doubtfully at the neglected study. Every woman deserves and can afford beauty she remembers from her training. She regains her Sassy Pink smile.

There is a shuffle of slippers and Beryl appears. She is cocooned in a man’s cable-knit cardigan with suede elbow patches. It smells as if tobacco and honeysuckle are stashed in her pockets. Daisy realizes she was expecting an old woman. An old woman in a dusty study, with an old name like Beryl, lonely and looking for company instead of lipstick. She looks barely twenty. Just a girl, really.

“Welcome,” she says and extends a pale cool hand.

Beauty University taught a three-point selling system: One, meet the client’s immediate need. Two, get them into a core daily-use product. And then, three, match them with something special specific to their lifestyle.

Temperature I can’t do too much about, Daisy thinks. “You have such a pretty face. Have you ever tried a bronzer?”

“Oh, do make yourself comfortable.” Daisy hears the cheerful clink of ice cubes. Beryl motions to two cut-crystal tumblers brimming with something sparkling pink and garnished with mint. “I’ve had hardly any company since Papa died. And none at all since the crash.”

The word crash lingers in the air between them. Daisy finally breaks the silence with the sharp clack of the clasps on her case. She motions toward the cracked leather wingchair. “Oh, do make yourself comfortable,” Daisy counters. “I’ll get started. Just relax, chat if you’d like.”

“Well, okay….”

As Beryl sits, she brushes the chair’s arm and the brass nailhead trim oxidizes a bright blue-green under her fingers.

“Tell me about your current skincare routine…. ”

“I don’t really, I mean, I guess it was just soap and water.” Daisy smiles at her reassuringly. “I never much cared about his sort of thing. But lately… oh, I thought a change might help. Perhaps they were right.”

“They who?”

“My family. My mother and sisters were very ladylike. They were attentive to their beauty.”

“You have such a pretty face, too,” Daisy repeats with a smile. But pretty wasn’t quite the right word. Though her eyes take on the lucid green of a cut gem, Beryl’s face is drawn and pale. Daisy can feel its chill through the cotton pad of ph-balanced astringent. With each touch, Beryl’s skin takes on progressive translucency.

“Perhaps some color?” offers Daisy. “We could play up your emerald eyes with an aquamarine shadow. Lip gloss? What do you like? I’m thinking Morganite Pink, Scarlet Siren, or Riesling Red.”

“Oh, you choose.”

The lip gloss has a similar strange effect. It shimmers at first and then dissipates, taking more of Beryl’s scarce natural color with it. Daisy looks helplessly at the row of candy-colored compacts. She takes a drink of the sparkling concoction.

They didn’t cover this in training.

“Tell me a bit about yourself,” she stalls. “We have so many wonderful True Beauty products, I want to be sure and show you what meets your needs. What do you like?”

Beryl thinks for a moment. “I like green.”

“Well, that’s a good start.”

“I liked gardens, topiary, and hedges and hedgehogs. I liked flowerbeds and fat velvet honeybees. I liked croquet on the lawn.” Her cheeks briefly flush pink.

“I liked my Papa. The smell of his pipe in this study. The crinkle of pages as he read the Sunday news. I liked flying with him best off all.”

It’s hard to lose a good man, thinks Daisy. There’s so few to go around. There’s so few it’s hard to lose a bad one, too.

“He really was a good man,” Beryl says aloud. “I don’t mean to compare fathers with husbands. That’s a different loss…. ”

Daisy cautiously takes another drink.

“But Papa…. He shared his library with me. We went to the horse races together. Oh, how my mother hated that! And he even let me fly his plane…. ” The color drains from her cheeks just as quickly as it had come. “It seems as though I’ve lost the capacity for flight.”

Daisy rummages through the case. “I think,” she says finally, “I have just the thing.”

She presents a fancy topaz atomizer. “It’s new. It’s only for those women ready for True Beauty. Ready to invest in the preservation of beauty.” “Inside and out,” she adds, so as not to sound shallow. “It’s called Sweet Repose.”

Daisy squeezes the gold bulb and spritzes the air. There’s a ting-ting-ting like a triangle being played in grade school band. “We’ve had Sweet Rose and Sweet Vanilla sprays for awhile, but this is special.”

Beryl tries the atomizer herself. A bright spark flashes as each droplet touches her skin. “I had a good feeling about you,” says Beryl. “Your check is on the tray, Daisy J. Jameson.”

“I don’t understand.... ”

Spritz! Spark, spark, spark! Beryl keeps dousing herself in Sweet Repose. “The paperweight, it’s crystal, you see. Beryl mineral, actually. It’s for scrying. We’ve had it in the family for years.”

“It’s for crying?”

“No, no, scrying.” Beryl is sparking more now. “Scrying, seeing the future. So happiness sometimes, I guess, and crying others.”

Bits of light shine where bits of Beryl used to be. “I won’t have much use for it now.” The ball falls through her sparking fingers and rolls out of the study. “Follow it, Daisy J. Jameson, if you want to know your fate.”

Beryl lights up like a chandelier. The bottle of Sweet Repose of the Soul falls indecorously to the floor. Daisy folds the $500 check into her polyester pocket and runs awkwardly in her pink pumps after the scrying crystal. It rolls down the hall and bumps down the steps. It keeps rolling down the sidewalk of Lily Parkway.

The house goes very bright and then –pop- it’s out like a burnt bulb. It’s gone. There’s a honeysuckle hedge rich with bees where 2932 should be.

Daisy turns her attention back to the accelerating ball. A man unloads bakery boxes from a white delivery truck and turns to cross its path. The ball hits the side of his handcart with surprising force. It sounds as if a thousand triangles have simultaneously been dropped on the sidewalk.

“No!” Daisy shouts. She collapses right there on the curb, not even caring to sit like a lady. The man kneels down and offers her the sleeve of his white jacket.

“I don’t have a handkerchief,” he apologizes. Daisy wipes the mascara racooning under her eyes with her finger. She wipes her black finger on his sleeve.

“There you go,” he laughs.

He’s handsome. More than Dale was even. “You look too pretty in pink to be so upset,” he says. He reaches for the top box off the cart. “Would you like a cupcake?”

NYC Midnight Short Story Competition -- Heat 6: Suspense/Locker

The Changing Room

C.W. usually takes number 6. She leaves two cocktail rings, the valet tag and lip gloss in a leather wristlet, but puts her BlackBerry in the pocket of her robe. Hanna leaves a Birkin filled with goodies—a Symthson diary, black AmEx, scrips—in number 11 on Mondays and Thursdays. And an unnamed patron with an impeccable silver bob favors number 18. The shoes she leaves are insanely good, if I was lucky enough to be her size.

I take 24 in the corner. But I won’t tell you what I keep in it yet.

You really don’t need to bring anything here. In the atrium, there is always hot tea and yerba mate, fresh fruit and a crisp stack of magazines. The girls provide a warm robe and slippers and a little brass key that matches a numbered brass plate on your locker. Just drop your car with the valet and give your signature for all else. You don’t need anything, but it’s amazing the things people bring.

The moneyed are trusting, I told Brewster. Just last month, I returned a handbag from Filene’s Basement to Ralph Lauren. And the tony catering spot next door took my personal check without asking for an ID or running it through a machine. It’s as if you wouldn’t even know they existed unless you were one of them, so of course you can afford it.

When I joined Highsmith, there was a whole docket of paperwork to fill out. But when I gave the guest services manager my check, she simply folded it into her appointment book.

“Do what you need to do and get out of there,” said Brewster. “Get the hell out before they try to cash that check.”

It takes time, I told him. I need to learn routines. Hanna, for example, takes off her jewelry before a massage so it doesn’t get slick with lavender oil. C.W. doesn’t wear her rings to her appointments with the new young pro.

It’s not too hard to fit in. Old money, that’s what you want to be. Old money has a certain look. Don’t bother with the runway stills in Harper's, take note of what the philanthropists are wearing. I chose a camelhair coat, oversize sunglasses, a pair of ballerina flats and a burnt-orange “Kelly” bag. The faux-Hermes stays tucked snug under my arm, so you can’t see the crooked stitching. My studs are CZ.

I go straight to the ladies’ lounge without opening my coat. There’s no point in wearing anything underneath. If I wanted to dress like them, though, I’d wear one color from head to toe. Preferably ivory or cream. You have to be well-off to look immaculate in a color that’s so easily stained. Old money shies from color at the argument of quality. If you get regular manicures, you shouldn’t need polish. Fingernails and toenails should be the healthy pink of a seashell. Polish is tacky, acrylic tips are tacky, logoed handbags and piss-colored diamonds are tacky.

A woman should have the resources and leisure to take care of herself. As far as they know, I do.

My hair is blown-out daily. I choose smoothies of anti-oxidant rich berries. I allow myself to be lulled by the water-play in the fountain, by the hush-hush of slippers in the corridor. In between treatments, there’s a steam room and an endless pool. As I relax in the atrium, flipping through Philanthropy magazine, the ladies are escorted down one hall to the med-spa, down another for wet treatments, another for the salon.

New money women gossip incessantly about their husbands, their help and each other. They look for their own photos in the social pictures of the metro magazines. But even I know that a lady should only be in the paper twice—upon her marriage and upon her death. My silence is taken as new money manners, which is just as well. When I do speak, I am amicable to everyone. I am gracious to the manicurists, the juice girl, the laundry girl. I remember everyone’s name and thank them sincerely. It would be tacky not to.

When you are given such thoughtful attention, you want to be lovely enough to deserve it. Everything and everyone is nice. The lockers don’t even need vents. In most changing rooms, they need to make sure your unaired gym clothes don’t go skunky. Here, you leave your spent tennis whites or yoga pants in a little mesh bag, and a girl brings them back cleaned and pressed on a hanger.

The changing room here smells like Boucheron, brass polish and vanilla bean. Brewster smells of charred coffee and curdled milk. His polo gets soaked when he empties the garbage at Sweet Bean, and I swear that stink won’t wash out. Brewster makes $7.75 an hour and splits the tip jar. He just doesn’t understand.

I don’t want to squander all of the amenities that Highsmith Resort Club & Spa has to offer. Though I haven’t told Brewster, I slipped my check right out of that drawer when no one was looking. It will take them a little longer to realize it’s gone, and apologetically ask for another, than it would to bounce the first. I haven’t yet tried the restaurant’s signature salmon and micro-greens or any of the seven types of yoga at the Health & Wellness Pavilion. I haven’t stayed in the villas. I did, however, sign for a couple of great pieces from the boutique, so I’ll have something to wear besides the robe.

Today, as I make my way across the lawn, I see Brewster. He’s pacing outside the gates and waiting for me to come out. His arms, ropy from hoisting bags of beans, strain his knit shirt. Brewster’s ready for his cut and ready for me to come home. But I don’t think that security will buzz in an angry guy in a dirty barista apron. Even if he has a bit of a temper, Brewster’s not stupid. He won’t interfere if there’s still a chance of getting the goods.

“Get them when they’re down to their drawers,” he said. “If a women is as classy as all that, you could slip a ring right off her hand during a mud bath, or whatever it is, and she’s not gonna run half-naked after you.”

Honestly, Brewster just doesn’t get it.

Still, I skip Pilates in the pavilion and head back to the changing room before Brewster can see me. And there, kneeling in front of number 24, is the laundry girl. She’s got the lock to my Kelly bag in her right hand.

Now, the lock should be engraved with the word “Hermes” and a number, and this number should match one engraved on each of two keys. Lottie knows this and I know this. Just the same way the little brass key clipped to my sleeve is engraved with “24.” Lottie—that’s the laundry girl—I’ve always remembered to thank her by name. The counterfeit handbag is a moot point, though, as Lottie has two pages from Philanthropy clutched in her other hand. On one I’d kept a careful ledger of the comings and goings of the other guests: when and what they would leave in their lockers. On the other (and this list was almost as long) I chronicled Brewster’s exploits, as leverage in case he decided to rat on me.

The old me wouldn’t know quite how to handle this, but the new me feels absolutely clear. I focus on the H embroidered on Lottie’s knit shirt and I take pity on her. It reminds me of Brewster’s sad work shirt and its little stitched heart and coffee bean. I take a deep yogic breath before I speak.

“Lottie, do you need some help?”

She startles and drops the bag.

“Lottie,” I say with infinite patience, “if you needed bus fare to get home, you only need to have asked.”

“Oh no, miss,” she says. “I just came to hang your cleaning in your locker.”

“Thank you…”

“And all of this just fell out.”

“I see.”

Lottie smoothes the lists flat, then hands me the orange Kelly, my un-cashed check, a hair clip, an earring.

Poor girl, I think. Once you’re caught going through a member’s personal belongings, it would be hard to get another job at a nice place like Highsmith. It would be hard to get minimum wage at Sweet Bean.

So I won’t say anything about it. I’m a private person, really, and I don’t want to bring undue attention upon myself.
“Thank you, Lottie.”

I put the papers in the bag, the bag on the hook, the clip in my hair and the earring in my pocket.

“You’re welcome, miss.” Then her face flushes pink and sweaty as if she’d steeped in the steam room. And she goes.

It’s getting late. The ladies come and empty their lockers. They have pressing social engagements. I sit in a dim corner of the changing room, turning the earring over in my hand. See, if there’s a rash of theft, no one will keep their valuables in their lockers anymore. They might just leave the club altogether. And girls like Lottie could lose their jobs. And, eventually, they’ll be looking for me. But one earring out of a pair, that’s not a theft, that’s just carelessness. It’s bound to turn up.

Once it’s dark, I’ll pry the diamonds out of Hanna’s Fred Leighton piece. And I’ll be able to properly pay my membership dues.

The door to the changing room opens. I expect it's the laundry girl's return, but it's the prematurely-silver socialite. I see her though she doesn't see me. She takes an oversized hobo bag from number 18 and drops in something shiny. Then, after giving the room a quick scope, she grabs a stack of freshly laundered towels and two pairs of slippers and shoves them in, too. It's a shame. I'd think that a woman with shoes like hers would have better taste.

The door of number 18, like the rest of the changing room, is immaculate. Slick and polished, no breathing holes. The little brass plate catches the light. And, before she can see me, I've decided to take care of this myself. Taking towels is just plain tacky. We can't have that kind of thing here. It's an atmosphere of trust.