Signs & Oddities: A quirky collection of flash fiction Read online

  Contents

  Books by Nancy Chase

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Introduction

  Signs

  The Horizon

  Lucky Day

  Self-Preservation

  Awake

  Voice Mail

  The Faerie Bed

  Trials

  The Fish

  Shadows

  His Closet

  The Last Selkie

  The Dragon's Egg

  The "D" Word

  The Fine Print

  Lucid

  Promises

  Charybdis

  A Sudden Storm

  Saturday Night at Cinderella's

  Visitation

  A Note from the Author

  About the Author

  You Might Also Enjoy

  The Seventh Magpie

  Signs & Oddities

  SIGNS & ODDITIES

  Copyright © 2015 by Nancy Chase.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For information contact:

  http://www.nancychase.com

  Published by Nancy Chase

  Cover and book design by Nancy Chase

  ASIN: B00VIYLTQG

  First Edition: May 2015

  For all the readers and writers out there

  fishing the deep pools of imagination

  “It’s the pool where we all go down to drink, to swim, to catch a little fish from the edge of the shore; it’s also the pool where some hardy souls go out in their flimsy wooden boats after the big ones. It is the pool of life, the cup of imagination.”

  ― Stephen King, Lisey’s Story

  Where do stories come from? Do authors build them piece by piece, meticulously layering character concepts, themes, and story arcs until the narrative forms a cohesive whole? Or are the ideas already there, swimming around in our collective unconscious—that dark and mysterious “pool where we all go down to drink”—just waiting for someone to fish them out, alive and wriggling? What is the author’s role? Architect or fisherman? Ideally, I suspect, we must be both.

  By nature I tend to lean more toward the architect role, but some years ago, in an effort to improve my spontaneity, I started an online writer’s group for doing daily writing warm-ups: fifteen minutes a day of uncensored, unedited free writing. For the first year, we followed the prompts in A Writer’s Book of Days by Judy Reeves. After that, we continued on our own.

  At first, my sessions produced mainly personal musings and autobiographical snippets, but sometimes I’d sit down to do the exercise and a story would unexpectedly pop out. Unplanned and written from start to finish in a single session, these stories always surprised me, their characters, conflicts, and resolutions of appearing as if by magic as I wrote. Sure, the stories were short, and maybe they weren’t masterpieces, but whatever their limitations, they were real stories, sprung from ideas that hadn’t existed fifteen minutes earlier. Where had they come from?

  Out of the hundreds of prompts I wrote, the twenty stories in this book are my favorites, presented here just as they first appeared to me, with only minor line edits and proofreading.

  I still don’t know exactly where stories come from, but in collecting and evaluating the tales for this collection, I did glimpse a few hints.

  First of all, ideas seem to swarm in schools, like fish. For example, for no discernible reason, several of the stories in this book ended up being about bad weddings. Several others are about the sea, which may have been residual leakage from my work on The Seventh Magpie (in which the sea plays a major part) during the time the stories were written. One of the stories even showed up as a companion piece to the story written on the previous day: the same scenario written from a different point of view.

  While the source of some of the story ideas remains a mystery, the origins of others were obvious. For example, I wrote “Trials” after serving on jury duty. “The Fish” was partially inspired by my own rather arrogant pet betta. Memories—even forgotten ones—also play a role in the stories we write. After I wrote “Lucid”, a friend told me it reminded him of Ray Bradbury’s “The Veldt.” The title didn’t sound familiar at first, but when I looked it up, I suddenly recalled reading that story back in my teens. After decades of being forgotten, there it was, still swimming around in the depths of my imagination, spawning little baby stories of its own!

  This book is for all the writers and other creative people out there, to honor those occasional flashes of inspiration when the muse strikes and the creativity flows, seemingly without effort. But it’s also to honor the unsung hours, weeks, and years of work that go on behind the scenes preparing the way and making you ready to catch the inspiration when it swims past your boat.

  Happy fishing—and happy reading—everyone!

  “Why are you doing this?” I ask. The church bell is clanging and the crowd of relatives in pastel summer dresses is waiting in the pews, but it’s not too late to back out. This little changing room has a back door, and my car is parked right outside.

  “What do you mean?” She examines her forehead in the mirror, licks the tip of her finger and smooths one eyebrow before dropping the gossamer veil down over her face. “He’s The One.”

  “Which one? The Antichrist?”

  Beneath the veil, her lips curve slightly. She pats my arm. “Don’t be silly. He’s The One, Mr. Right, my soul mate.” She picks up her bouquet and steps toward the door. Twelve yards of creamy silk taffeta rustle behind her.

  “How can you possibly know that?”

  “Oh,” she lifts her hand airily. The diamond catches the light. “There were signs.”

  I snort. “Like what? The carton of empty beer cans in the back seat of your car when he brought it back with the big dent in the front? The bruises on your arm the morning after the Fourth of July barbecue? The photos of him with the stripper at the bachelor party last night?”

  “That stuff doesn’t matter. It’s just guy stuff, it’s no big deal.” With her veil down, all I can see of her is her perfect porcelain chin and her lips, which I have just helped her paint a delicate rosy shade of pink called “Forever Mine.” I watch the lips for signs of doubt or vulnerability, but they remain both tender and smug. As usual, she’s unflappable. “You just don’t understand because you haven’t met your One, yet.”

  “I’m not settling for just one. I think I’ll take a dozen.”

  But she won’t be deterred from her point. “When you meet The One, you’ll change your mind.”

  “Lose my mind, you mean, if it’s anything like what you’re going through.”

  “Linda!”

  “Okay, okay. Tell me about the signs, then, so I’ll know it when it happens.”

  “You’re just trying to make fun of me, but I’m serious about this. I know you don’t like him, but I know he’ll make me happy.”

  “All right. I’m sorry. I won’t make fun of you. Just tell me about the signs.”

  She’s silent for a moment as she evaluates my sincerity. The “Forever Mine” lips express doubt, but her eternal optimism wins out. “Well, the first time I ever laid eyes on him, the air just filled with music.”
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  “Gloria, that was the stereo in his truck. He never goes anywhere without it turned up full blast.”

  “Okay, what about the first time we kissed, then?” She sounds a bit defensive. “There was an actual earthquake, right at that moment. A 5.6, at least. He kissed me, and the earth actually moved.”

  “Didn’t a plant pot fall off the shelf and kill your cat during that quake?”

  She gives me a dirty look. I can tell, even through the veil. “Fine, but you can’t argue with the shooting star the first time we made love. It was an undeniable sign that he’s The One.”

  I’m having a hard time keeping myself from trying to shake some sense back into her. “Gloria,” I say through clenched teeth, “It was a meteor. It crashed through your roof and burned your house to the ground. It was a miracle you weren’t killed.”

  “See?” she says. “He’s my miracle.”

  “Fine, whatever.” I give up. There’s just no reasoning with her, so we might as well get this day over with. I open the door and signal the best man, who has been waiting in the hall. From his vantage point, he signals the organist, and the opening chords of the Wedding March peal joyously throughout the building.

  Just then, something thumps against the window, then another and another. I rush over and look outside. Small brown lumps fall from the sky by the hundreds, bouncing off cars and pavement alike.

  Gloria crowds behind me, craning to see. “What is it?” she asks.

  I sigh. I should have expected this. “Toads,” I say. “It’s a rain of toads, Gloria. And me without my umbrella.”

  He’d been staring at it for three days now, hoping for a sign, but it never changed. Everything else changed. Everything else was an endless, mind-numbing sea of change.

  The sky changed from hour to hour. On the first day, a belligerent greeny-yellow glow sweltered within a nest of ominous black thunderclouds, the winds howled, and the rain pelted down like stones. Now, a brutally cheerful sun grinned down like a death’s head from the antiseptic swath of cloudless blue. Sometimes the sky even relaxed its all-or-nothing ferocity and granted him an hour or two of cool, sweet dawn or a gilded and monumental technicolor sunset.

  The sea changed a hundred billion times a minute. The sea was nothing but a vast and thunderous infinity of changes. Tiny tongues of change licked the gunwales of the lifeboat with all the thoughtless greed of a toddler with a popsicle. Night and day, hungry teeth of change gnawed the edges of his sanity.

  Then why—WHY?—did the damned horizon never change?

  This thought, above all others, obsessed him. He watched all day its far, indifferent curve, willing it to show some sign, some acknowledgement of his presence. He had even begun to wake at night from his few hours of fitful sleep, jolted to consciousness with the suspicion that the horizon had humped upward for a moment to take a look at him. But however wildly he stared out into the slippery darkness, nothing was ever there.

  Day or night, it didn’t matter. The damned horizon lay quiescent at the edge of things, flat and featureless as ever. His throat was parched, his eyes bloodshot in his sunburned face. He no longer prayed to God, he invoked the merciless, omnipresent horizon. He no longer pleaded for salvation. Now he begged for change, any change, to end his endless misery. Rise up, he begged. Rise up, tilt the surface of the sea as it sizzles like a greased skillet, and slide me off into oblivion. Rise up with rocks or waterspouts. Shake off your immutable silence and speak to me, only once.

  Only the circling sharks acknowledged his prayers, but they were too lazy, well-fed, and indifferent to respond. Soon he was alone again.

  After nine days, his raving ceased, and silence reigned in the bobbing lifeboat. With mild pleasure, the horizon contemplated the change it had wrought, then turned its ponderous attention elsewhere.

  I know, I know. I’m sorry I’m late, but you’ll never believe what happened to me on the way over here.

  First, I’m just strolling along as usual, right? Just getting some fresh air and heading for the Seven Eleven to get a cup of coffee. On the way, I step in some dog shit—can you believe some people still don’t pick up after their mutts?—and I think, oh gross, I can tell already this is not going to be my day. But as I’m bending down to scrape the stuff off, I see this slip of paper, halfway submerged in a puddle. I don’t know why I pick it up, but I do.

  Turns out it’s a lottery ticket. Now, you know I never play the lottery. Those things are just rigged, you know? You have more chance of being hit by an elephant falling out of a tenth-story window and crushing you to death than you do winning the lottery, that’s what I always say. But here’s this ticket, from yesterday’s drawing, and like I say, I’m going into the Seven Eleven anyway, so on a whim I take it up to the counter and show it to the girl.

  She looks at the numbers and then at me and then at the numbers again, and then she starts to squeal and jump up and down like some hyperactive contestant on a game show. At first, I just think she’s drunk eight cups of coffee and then stepped barefoot into a yellow jackets’ nest or something, because of course I’m not thinking anything about this ticket. So she jumps up and down there for quite a while before I can understand what she’s saying. Can you believe it? The ticket’s a winner. A winning ticket, just lying there in the gutter, and me of all people picking it up.

  You know how much it was? Nine point eight million dollars! I’m thinking what the hell am I going to do with that much money, right? I’m thinking vacations, summer homes, new cars, but that doesn’t even begin to use up that kind of money. So, I mean, my whole life is gonna change now, I’m gonna have to start planning and investing and learning about tax shelters and all that. Imagine me, needing a tax shelter!

  So anyway, I’m just starting to think about all that, when some guy comes in all in a big hurry, wearing a ski mask over his face and carrying a gun. I mean, why wear a ski mask? Isn’t that sort of like saying, “Hey everyone, I’m a-gonna go rob me that store over yonder”? Pretty stupid if you ask me. But of course, the guy doesn’t ask me, he just waves his gun at the girl behind the counter until I think the poor little thing is gonna aspirate her chewing gum or wet herself, or both.

  She hands him all the money in the cash register, and then he turns and sort of glares at me and says in a big, macho-mean voice, “What you lookin’ at?”

  I almost say, “A moron in a ski mask who wouldn’t know inconspicuous if it bit him on the ass,” but considering the way he’s waving that gun around, sort of nervous and erratic-like, I figure I’ll just keep quiet.

  Maybe I should have said something after all, because just then the guy catches sight of my lottery ticket laying there on the counter. He must’ve heard the cashier girl squealing when he first came in, because now his eyes light on my ticket and he knows right away. “This a winning ticket?” he demands. “For real? Holy shit, it’s my lucky day.” He grabs the ticket and the cashier girl’s money and runs out of the store.

  Now I’m thinking what kind of moron this guy is. Like, the whole thing is captured on the security cameras, right? So does he really think he’s gonna be able to cash in a lottery ticket he got at gunpoint during a holdup? I mean, finding it in a mud puddle while scraping dog shit from your shoe is one thing, that’s just fate, or good luck or something. But shoving a gun in someone’s face and taking it, that’s just some other cup of fish entirely.

  The cashier girl is crying and phoning the cops, but I’m just so mad, I run out after the guy. Not to tackle him, of course. I’m not that big, and I don’t have a death wish, even over losing nine million dollars. I just want to see where he goes, maybe get the license number of his car or something.

  But you know what the idiot does? He just runs down the sidewalk, as plain as can be, still wearing his ski mask. He doesn’t even remember to put his gun away. It’s there in his hand, flailing up and down as he runs, for everyone to see. Then, all of a sudden—you’ll never believe this—I see him slip. He’s stepped in that sa
me patch of dog shit! So, he goes down, hits his tailbone on the sidewalk, and the gun goes off, pointing straight up. Only, it’s not pointing quite straight up, you see. It’s pointing at the window of that high-rise apartment right there on the corner, you know the one I mean.

  The bullet ricochets off this big alabaster figurine that’s sitting there on the windowsill—well, you know, the window was already open, you see, being as how it was such a nice day and all. Anyhow, this figurine spins sideways with the force of the bullet and then topples out the window and lands right on this guy’s head. He’s knocked out cold, laying flat on his back in the dog shit like a squashed possum, and his big fistful of money goes flying up into the air.

  Naturally, I head on over to see if he’s dead or what-all. I have to fight through the crowd of people who are scampering around risking their lives in traffic picking up all those dollar bills from the convenience store like I don’t know what. I’m thinking the worst, of course, but when I get there, sure enough, there in his hand is my lottery ticket. It’s not a greenback, so all the money-grabbing onlookers didn’t even notice it.

  I bend down and sort of feel for the guy’s pulse, you know, to see if he’s dead or what. And, well, sort of pocket my lottery ticket while I’m at it, since it was mine after all. I’m just about to stand up, and I can hear the sirens already approaching, when what do you think I notice?

  That’s right, the figurine. The alabaster statue that fell out of that tenth story window and stopped the crook. What do you think it is? God’s honest truth, I swear on my mother’s grave, it’s a twenty pound, solid alabaster elephant.

  “So you see,” the man in the white lab coat concluded, “a year after your death, you’ll look just as beautiful as you do today.”

  Lorraine frowned at the brochure. “A year?”