Archive for the ‘David Kopaska-Merkel’ Category
Princess Tulip Ariel Jade*
Thursday, September 17th, 2009
* One of my daughters briefly changed her name to this.
Tulip Ariel Jade, called by her subjects “Sue,” had been sent to bed without her supper. Again.
“And it’s totally not fair,” she said to herself, flopping down as hard as she could on the bed. The covers puffed up at the sides with satisfying vigor. So she did it again. And again, and again, and again, till a voice said “Stop!”
Lying across the bed, sheet rippled and ridged around her, Tulip froze. Silence settled over the room. Then she thought she heard a very soft scrape. She wriggled forward and flopped her head down to look under the bed, upside down, hair puddling on the floor and dust in her nose.
Dust bunnies. A Brat doll she’d been missing. And little people, all dressed up, dancing like in the old movies Mom liked. Dancing to no music.
The ladies wore frilly dresses that made bells around their legs, mostly in pastel colors. The men wore black suits that went well with the dresses. The people were all about 3 inches tall. They ignored her while she watched them, her face prickling as the blood pooled in her head. Finally she had had enough.
“Hey!” They kept on dancing. “I’m learning to dance,” she said. “Ballet. Ms Michiko is very nice. She’s from Houston.”
Just then Tulip fell off the bed. “That didn’t hurt,” she announced. One of the ladies beckoned to her and smiled. Tulip had been wanting to join them, so she ran under the bed. The lady was just a little taller than Tulip.
“My name is Lady Parimore,” the dancer said. “And you?” She raised one eyebrow (Tulip had once tried for a week to learn how to do that).
“Tulip Ariel Jade!” she said, with relish. No one would contradict her here.
They let her join the dance. One of the gentlemen didn’t have a partner, and he taught her the steps. He was very handsome and just her height, with black hair, green eyes, and a smile on one side of his mouth, like Uncle Rudy. He said his name was Mr. Pin. He wore a black suit, a ruffled white shirt, and a pink bowtie that matched her dress. The other men’s bowties matched their partners’ dresses too. And now there was music. She flew through dance after dance. It was wonderful.
At last the dancing was over. Mr. Pin whispered in her ear: “Come with us.”
“Really?”
He nodded.
“But what about my things?”
“You’ll have new things, even better ones,” said Lady Parimore.
“Will I be a princess?”
“Oh, yes,” Mr. Pin said.
End
Fishing for Eloise
Friday, September 4th, 2009
Spent all day working on a story. The high point was a fierce 20-minute tussle that netted me this:
“…came up from the south, boiling the dawn away and filling the sea with stars. Stephen ran up the street, fighting the urge to look over his shoulder. The weather minders had slipped up again, or this was a sending from…”
Fiction, a good start, but aside from that I got prepositions and pronouns, and “brinklayermanship.” WTF? Pardon my telegraphese. Maybe I am using the wrong bait.
No closer to springing Eloise, but I’ll eat well tonight. A balanced haul containing most of the word groups.
I’ve started dreaming about fishing. Last night I dreamed I was here, right here, but I lived in a white gazebo. A climbing rose covered one side, a Lady Banks, I think. Thornless, anyway. The gazebo stood by the pond, and I had the following hanging from a stout chain:
“The title’s a bit misleading, but the fragment is not without interest. On it, hand-written in 21st century English, is the following.”
I was casting my hook again and again, trying to catch the next part of the story, though Eloise was there, tugging on my arm, and begging me to come away with her.
Then I woke up. Today I caught nothing above one syllable. I could not wait to get to sleep, so of course I laid awake counting the croaks of the frogs, the calls of the whippoorwills, the gleams shining through the clouds, for what seemed like many hours.
When I finally slept I was again in the gazebo. This time, I’d caught a bunch of single words, in different fonts, even, but they pieced together into a narrative:
“Angela hated southern summers. She also hated living [missing] onion. Wished she could afford [missing] nice, even a radish. A few [missing] later, as she put away the last of the folded towels, she heard a loud [missing].”
OK, that looked better in my dream. These dream words don’t count anyway. Maybe I should use a net.
I’m going to miss my deadline. I have nothing like a fresh-caught story. No telling what the literaturists are doing to Eloise, or what she will do to me, when I finally get her out.
I’m going to try night fishing, even though I won’t be able to read my catch till morning.
The End