Two-fer Tuesday
A Sketchbook double-header
Stories in the Tiny Worlds Sketchbook are like a pencil sketch with words; loose, unrefined and not wholly a thing. But I like them and think there’s something here you might like, too.
Hawkwind
The dirt had crusted on her suit along the stitched cuff, above her boots. She tapped the right foot against the left. A fine powder scattered and fell to the ground.
Dark as a storm with flecks of floating amber, she looked at the tableau. She exhaled a sigh as opposing forces on her forehead drew toward the same battle line as her brow turned in on itself.
“…it’s not right" she said aloud as she took a step back.
The words hardly came out as a whisper but no creature large or small could have heard them anyway. Even if she exhausted every last note in her register, every last breath in the whole of this world, there would be only a silent stillness in the landscape without atmosphere.
A sun appeared on the horizon, its second transit of the day. The tinted glass in front of her face did a fine job as a shield but wishing it away for a real breeze wouldn’t make it so. Neither would wishing away the last twenty-four hours or rewinding it like some spool of twine.
She had trained for virtually everything, but this.
She stepped forward pushing the last of the metal further into the ground. It made a grinding she felt through her shoulder as she forced it with all her weight. The feel of it ran up her arm like a sound wave. She imagined a pick running slowly along the thickest string of an electric guitar — crunchy, gravelly.
The thought was a welcome memory in this place with no sound. Not a tree brushing on it’s neighbor, a leaf skittering across the sidewalk or an ocean somewhere off in the distance. Of course, in this canyon she’d never know if any of those things lay just beyond its edge.
A few paces back she took another look, a hand raised to her visor to block that damn sun. Her slivered eyes opened and she took a better view of the scene.
Six braces from the ship, lashed together with spare wiring.
Six crosses standing exactly upright.
Above six domes of dirt.
There they were, her fellow crew.
This would be the last place they see, forever. Their ghosts, she imagined, would haunt here floating over the lifeless landscape always wandering, wondering.
With her gloved hand she taps at a screen on her wrist. A fan in her suit cycled down to a low burr. The microphone in her helmet would pick up her voice a bit better, she thought.
“First Mate—uh, Captain Rae of the Hawkmoon. Day 713. The crew is gone and I’ve just buried them."
She taps the screen to register her location. A marker of the moment if someone ever needs it.
“I’m the last. The crew was...unprepared. I’ll carry on though maybe a bit more cautiously without them."
While her gloved hand could shield her eyes a second sun burned at her cheek as she turned away from the crew — the last time she'd leave them behind.
Now her ship, the Hawkwind, hovered neatly just over her shoulder. The outer hull, a metal face pock-marked with burns and scrapes, had seen better days, like yesterday.
Up a ladder she climbed as the remaining crust from the planet fell away from her suit.
Just before the hatch to the ship closed she said to herself, “Onto the next planet. I know a buccaneer needs a new crew."
Craigslist
It’s starting to feel like home here.
I wondered how I would all come to an end — a knife at my throat, a hit and run, maybe just enough drain cleaner in my evening cocktail. Something I wouldn’t expect.
We’d kiss goodnight in our matrimonial bed with threadbare sheets and roll our separate ways. I didn’t expect to wake up. I told people that bitch would get me first.
The planning started innocently, the way you tell someone: I wish he was dead. Words hissed in exhaustion when the day is long.
How could I blame her, I’m hard to live with. It can’t be easy. We’re hard on each other. Difficult, I mean. That’s what the shrink says I should say : we— I — am difficult to live with.
On a whim she probably typed her thoughts into Craigslist. A few choice descriptions about how she loathed me, how our life together was a joke. I’m sure she sold it good.
Maybe it surprised her when someone answered that post — you know, a do-gooder with a hero complex. He was going to save her from the monster on the next pillow. He would tip the scale and right the ship. How dashing.
And she led him on, feeding him the little details that make all relationships sound rocky.
She probably started with the time I forgot her birthday, a line or two about my calm but nasty nature. Then set the hook with our drunken screaming outside the bar and the bloody lip at 3am. I can see her reeling him in like fish from a stocked pond.
Over the next month they probably plotted, talking about the life they’d have after. I remember seeing her at the computer late at night. I didn’t think much of it then but remember it now.
And still, I always woke up. Not so much as a hiccup as I sipped my late night bourbon.
I don’t know how the police found out but they had been reading every email. They watched from afar until they had enough details. They knew the time and date of my death.
The police knew how I would die. What a mindfuck.
Then the day came.
We were both shocked when the badges showed up on the doorstep. With that awful tv show blaring they parted us in the living room shouting, guns drawn. Through the open door I could see some guy sprawled out on the lawn, belly down and a cop on his back.
They made her sit on the couch but they handcuffed me.
And that cocksucker detective told her about it all — Craigslist, the emails. Everything.
All she could do was scream. Her eyes were wild, teeth biting in the air with each word. That’s the first time I truly saw hate in her eyes.
It’s all true, of course. Every word of it.
And this cell really is starting to feel like home.
***
Some shit can’t be made up: Man jailed for trying to frame his wife
😭😭😭 what a wild ride
I read this line: She had trained for virtually everything, but this.
And thought: She had virtually trained for everything, but this.
A slightly different meaning. Excellent story, J.
As for craigslist: I have been wasting my time selling used lawn furniture and tools! I had NO IDEA of the things / services that could be found there! Great twist!