Growth of a River - flash fiction

It was a special time. That time of life when things were wonderful and new. That time when adults were still incredible fonts of wisdom and knowledge. That time when each day brought amazing things never before seen.

Gemma woke that morning, instantly fully awake and with the energy another might need a couple of coffees to attain. She threw on the clothes she and her mother had carefully picked out the night before and ran to her door only to stop short just before the exit. A quick about face, a check in her mirror (Gee, how she loved it!) and a redo of her shirt to make it frontside front, then out the door!

Down the hall, bursting without pause through her parent’s bedroom door and launching herself onto the foot of the bed. “Get up! It’s Missus-pee Day!”

Louise cracked one eye but it was Lance who spoke reaching down to pull Gemma up between her parents, “The River is still sleeping, Silly! Maybe we should have breakfast and let it wake up before we drive out. Whaddya say?”

An “Awww” escaped Gemma before her brain even processed the information. Then it hit her as a good idea and she said, or rather shouted loud enough to make Lance wince, “Yeah! Let’s have Corn Flakes!” Before either parent could groggily respond, Gemma was squirreling back to the foot of the bed, plopping to the floor and racing out.

Her eyes still mostly closed, Louise pushed the covers back and rolled to a sit. She mumbled and Lance understood more than heard, “I guess we’d better try to keep up.” She padded off to the bathroom. Lance pulled himself out of bed and staggered with increasing stability toward the kitchen.

In the kitchen Gemma was already halfway toward breakfast. She had a plastic bowl, a spoon and the box of corn flakes on the island and was pulling on the refrigerator door. The seal was more than her  3-year-old arms could overcome despite her determination and Lance had to give a friendly assist.

“Thanks, Dad!” as she pulled the half-gallon jug off the lowest shelf and carried it in both hands to the island. Reaching above her head she carefully placed the jug on the island, tongue sticking out of her mouth in concentration. Then a quick scramble into the chair and a satisfied “Hmmph!”

Lance flipped on the coffee-maker and moved over to help pour milk and snare a couple wayward corn flakes making a production of bringing them to his mouth and chomping on them to a giggle from Gemma. Then he walked back the way he’d come as Louise slipped past and grabbed a couple mugs from hooks above the sink. Her eyes were still not fully open.

An hour later Gemma was still at full speed but at least Lance and Louise were able to keep pace as they piled into their Integra and negotiated the winding streets of the sub-division out to the highway. Louise drove and Lance sang alternatively silly songs and classic songs with Gemma by turns singing gleefully along and giggling at the edge of uncontrollability. The first hour flew by.

Gradually the songs became less boisterous on Gemma’s end and her gaze wandered more to the passing scenery. Finally she bottomed out, “When is the Missus-pee?”

Louise gave Lance a knowing look and said, “Another hour, luv. Maybe it’s time to count the red cars, but only the red ones, ok? I see one! I have one red car. Can you count more than me?”

“Yeah!” screeched Gemma and was instantly absorbed in the game scanning the road ahead for every oncoming car. Soon Gemma was up to nine, Louise had six and poor Lance, on the passenger side in the back seat, had only counted two.

Gemma cried, “Ten! Now let’s count blue cars!” And so it went for another twenty minutes as cars of color after color in the girl’s repertoire were duly counted as they headed south on the state highway away from the headwaters of the Mississippi.

As the game wound down Gemma agreed to watch the country passing by carefully identifying the corn fields from the soybeans and wheat but needing help on some of the others. Hay and alfalfa and potatoes were all differentiated but they ran into some trouble discerning the hops, the rye, and the oats. A stinky turkey farm zipped past and a couple still functioning dairy farms were noted by the cattle lazing in the sun.

Then the first sign flashed by and Lance said softly, “There, Gemma, Mississippi Headwaters ten miles.”

“Yayyyy! Can I wear my water shoes now?”

Lance dug into the bag they brought, his hands reaching past the snacks and the water bottles to find Gemma’s water shoes. By the time he’d pulled them from the depths of the bag Gemma’s sandals had been kicked off to slam into the back of Louise’s seat and carom onto the floor, just missing Lance’s head as he bent over the bag.

She excitedly kicked her feet making Lance’s job doubly difficult to secure her feet into their snug-fitting water shoes. With his long experience Lance deftly snared first the left foot and then the right and stuffed each foot into its waiting shoe. Gemma never missed a beat and Louise was parking the car as the last shoe was successfully placed.

Only one admonishment was necessary to keep Gemma next to her paents and not bolting across the parking lot alone but she still nearly dragged them both to the gate and down the trail. When they arrived at the small stream gurgling out of the lake that stretched out in a clear sun-lit vista, though, there was trouble.

“Where’s the Missus-pee?” Gemma demanded.

“This is it! This is where the river is born!” said Louise.

“But it’s too little,” Gemma insisted. “The Missus-pee is humongous.”  And she spread her arms wide above her head.

Lance tried, “But the river grows just like you. It starts small like you did when you were born and gets big as it goes.”

“But I’m older! The river here is the same years old as the one by us!”

“Rivers grow as they flow,” Louise tried alliteration. “The Mississippi is old because it wanders, like Grandpa…”

“Or Mommy before she has her coffee!” This got Lance a sardonic look from Louise.

“But it grows the further it goes. Feel it move.” Louise bent to touch the shallow, swiftly moving water. “More water pours in all the time as it flows, making the river grow.”

Gemma frowned. She did not like this much but she was willing to consider this unforeseen development. She walked into the water and splashed a bit. That made everything feel a bit better. She watched a bug spiral downstream, caught in the splashing and watched the other people as they variously stood, walked, and tip-toed in the water. They all seemed to think this was the Mississippi.

“Can we see the Missus-pee grow?” She asked.

Louise and Lance exchanged a knowing look, turned in unison to Gemma and nodded. They spent the rest of the day meandering like the river from town to town, bridge to bridge and watched the Mississippi grow from its rivulet at Itasca to its breadth at St. Paul. 

Review - Bowdrie by Louis L'Amour

This is an early collection of short stories all using the same protagonist, the eponymous Texas Ranger. L'Amour rooted his character in history and the stories play out in a fictionalized version several events from the early days of the Texas Rangers. All of these first appeared in pulps in the late 40's and are excellent. L'Amour tells a fast-paced, full-bodied story without some of the pedantry that crept into his later works.

There is a follow-on collection titled Bowdrie's Law. L'Amour's short stories were originally published in paperback by Bantam under multiple titles in the 1970s and 1980s. They have been republished as The Collected Short Stories in 8 volumes.

Wishing you good reading!

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Now available for FREE on Smashwords the first three short short stories from my upcoming collection, Scenes.

Scenes (preview 1)

Additional previews will be posted in the coming weeks.

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A story of Christmas Morning

The below is a short short from my upcoming book, Scenes, due out in February.

Christmas Morning

I had been dreaming. She was pretty and said all the right things and made all the right moves. But suddenly there was a screech from outside my dream and a weight crashed into my no longer sleeping chest.

“Daddy! Daddy! DADDY! Santa was here! Santa was here!” in two simultaneous voices, one directly over my head and one slightly to the left.

My eyes fluttered open to see Meghan, my 7-year-old, jumping up and down next to the bed, a huge smile on her face, and James, 5, with a similar smile hugging me.

James rolled off the bed and nearly onto his sister and they both grabbed my left hand which was outside the blankets, pulling hard.

“Come see!” they screeched in excited unison and I let myself be pulled out of the warm bed and into the early morning chill.

The kids alternately pulled my hand and ran ahead a few steps out the bedroom, down the hall, and into the living room. Under the small blue spruce decorated with a mixture of store-bought ornaments and pre-school/elementary art ornaments, was exactly what Meghan and James had asked Santa for – a gleaming red fire truck with flashing lights and a Molly Pitcher doll.

James immediately had to show me how the lights flashed as he pushed the truck across the floor toward the kitchen, making siren noises and terrifying the cat who was just trying to watch the festivities from a corner. Simultaneously Meghan was explaining how Molly was awake and ready to help “chase the Redcoats!”

I didn’t say anything; I didn’t have to. The two of them raced through their imaginary adventures, giving me a continuous, loud, and excited, minute by minute detail. I dutifully caught the eye of first one then the other and nodded and smiled as they raced through their events. A smile, much smaller than theirs, but with the wistful remembrances of Christmases long gone, played over my face.

Once the first burst of activity subsided both of them asked, hopefully, if they could open “just ONE more present?!”

The answer, as they knew it would be, was no, they had to wait, and wouldn’t they like some waffles?

After the obligatory, and momentary, vocalization of disappointment, both eagerly agreed to waffles. James raced into the kitchen first, yelling, “I’ll get the eggs!” while Meghan quickly pulled out the small stepstool while exclaiming, “I’ll get the mix!”

Moving more slowly, I cautioned James to be careful with the eggs and Meghan to be careful climbing and pulled the battered waffle maker from its perch high above the stove. It was a Christmas tradition, started with my first married Christmas, to have waffles before opening gifts. That memory, flashing through as I gripped the waffle iron, just me and Denise in our tiny first apartment, caused a hitch in my throat.

Almost before I noticed the catch in my throat my attention was drawn to the drama near the fridge as James struggled to pull the egg carton out without toppling the  container of leftover rice  that rested above. He, of course, despite his best effort, toppled the rice onto the floor. Fortunately the lid stayed tight and his grip on the eggs was true. Triumphantly he handed me the eggs and raced back out of the kitchen to snatch up the fire truck once again. I stooped to put the rice back in the fridge and close the door while Meghan jumped off the stool and showered me with a light dusting of waffle mix shaken from the box with her impact with the floor.

She carefully placed the box on the counter next to the waffle maker and followed her brother into the living room, to swoop Molly Pitcher up in her arms and carry her swiftly to meet “everybody” in her room.

Cancer had taken Denise physically from us, but I still saw her every day, in Meghan and James and the traditions we had made in the few years we had had together. A tear formed in my eye, as it did every year, and I turned to the task at hand, hearing the squeals of joy from the other rooms, sad for what I/we had lost yet overwhelmingly happy for what I had.

Buckskin Run - Review

This is a collection of 6 western stories with 5 short historical vignettes. The stories were originally published in pulp magazines in the 1940s and 1950s. The vignettes are new to the book. The vignettes are not related to any of the stories.

I am a big fan of L'Amour. However, these stories are not his best. They do have interesting twists and plenty of action and his signature strong, moral protagonists.The eponymous story, where the protagonists solves an old mystery, "Jackson of Horntown" where an aging sheriff goes out to capture the last surviving member of a (supposedly) lawless family but finds something else instead, and "Down the Pagonip Trail" where an outlaw and a sheriff find much more than they expect from a down and almost out rancher are the best.

The stories all read quickly and are full of the wholesome adventure and the flavor of the Old West as it progressed from empty wilderness to settled farm and ranch. They are perfect for reading when one doesn't have a lot of time or wants something relatively light.

Three stars (of 5).

A Morning in a Life - short story

A Morning in a Life

The cobwebs clung to my eyes as I struggled to identify the alarm clock on the cluttered night stand. My right arm, still stiff from sleep, snaked out from the blanket and hit the snooze. In the sudden quiet my brain fluttered to functional. Morning. Time to get up. 

I disentangled myself from the covers and wandered into the bathroom. Ten minutes later, skin still flushed from the hot water and the rough towel, all my parts had awakened. My eyes saw the laundry piled high in the corner, my nose smelled the dog who now waited expectantly, my ears heard the city stirring outside in the lightening dark of the early winter morning.

First things first, walk the dog. He’s  a pretty tolerant mutt, with the appearance of a collie but God knows what mixed in. But he needs to get out by 8.

I slipped on a pair of torn jeans and an almost-clean flannel shirt and struggled into my walking shoes, clipped on the leash and we were off. George waited with the impatient patience of a big dog until the door was open when he immediately pulled me out the door.  I managed to swing the door shut as we launched down the steps and up the street.

George’s morning walks are all very similar. He races from one checkpoint to the next, always sniffing the same items, always relieving himself in the same place. He spends 10-30 seconds at each stopping place, I think depending on whether the smell has changed since the day before or not. Weather doesn’t matter to George. The routine is the same rain or shine, hot or cold.

Of course, for me, some days the walk is interminable and others it ends all too soon. Today is nothing special. The wind sliding down the street is cool but brings with it the smell of the city waking up and the promise of a dry, sunny day.

George bounds back up the steps to the landing and waits as I follow more slowly to reopen the door. His tail wags happily as it always does after the morning walk. It’s good to be George.

Time for breakfast.  George sits quietly by his bowls, his eyes watching my every move as I putter around the small kitchen. I fire up the coffee pot and drop a bagel in the toaster before opening the cabinet and scooping out a goodly portion of Dog Chow. George tosses his head a little when the scoop goes in – he knows breakfast is on its way – but he doesn’t otherwise move until the food is safely in the bowl and the scoop is on its way back under the cabinet.

I get out plate, knife and coffee mug as George happily (and noisily) munches his breakfast. He is finished by the time the toaster pops out the bagel and the coffeepot clicks indicating the brewing cycle is done. He trots off to lie down on the as yet unmade bed leaving me alone to ponder the sunlight filtering through the small window.

This is the loneliest part of the morning for me, alone with my coffee and my thoughts sitting at my battered 1970s table on its matching metal and foam chair. Sometimes I savor the quiet, others I hasten through wishing to be anywhere but here.

George is oblivious to this, my morning crisis, the first of many such small crises over the course of the day. He is happily snoring almost from the time he hits the bed, thinking dog thoughts, probably about the smells he just encountered, piecing together the story of the night based on his data-gathering. He shows no signs of loneliness, no sign of ever wanting to be somewhere else. Some days I envy him.

Today is a good day. The bagel tastes fresh; the coffee has the sharp edge I like, no heavy thoughts intrude. A bird even drops by near the small window to sing to me.  Not bad.