“Stop it.  He is not,” she protested through slightly clenched teeth as her gaze again wandered to the intriguing stranger seated on the couch near the door to the office suite.

“Oh, yeah, he is,” Marilyn pressed.  “He is checking you out.”

She could feel heat radiating from her cheeks.  She was flushed and the inside of her mouth had suddenly become dry.  If Marilyn only knew, she thought to herself.

Just then the intercom buzzed.  “Yes, Mr. Bascom, I’ll send him right in,” she said politely before replacing the receiver.  “Mr. Bascom is ready to see you now,” she advised him, standing and coming around from behind the counter in order to escort him down the hall to the office of the company’s Vice President for his job interview.

Neither of them spoke as he followed her down the corridor.  When she stopped in front of Mr. Bascom’s closed office door, she tapped lightly with her right hand as she turned the doorknob with her left and then gestured to him to enter.  She mouthed the words “good luck” to him as he walked past her before gently closing the door and returning to her work station.  There, she began her morning transcription.

An hour or so later, her headphones on, she was typing furiously and did not hear him re-enter the foyer, so she nearly jumped out of her chair when she turned to find him leaning on the counter watching her.  He was smiling broadly.

“Oh, my gawd,” she shrieked.  “How long have you been standing there?”

“Just a few seconds,” he said grinning mischievously.  “I’m sorry that I startled you.”

Scrambling to regain her composure, she asked, “Well, how did the interview go?”

“I think it went well.  He said I would be hearing from him in a few days, so keep your fingers crossed,” he replied earnestly.

“All right, I’ll do that,” she responded just as Marilyn returned and took her seat a few feet away. “Good luck and hope to see you again.”

“Me, too.”  He winked as he took his time to turn away from the counter and walk to the door, glancing back one more time and nodding his head slightly before exiting.

She continued to stare at the door for a few seconds after he closed it, primarily because she could feel Marilyn’s piercing stare and did not want to turn and face her.

When she could avoid doing so no longer, Marilyn rolled her eyes dramatically as she placed her headphones over her ears and mumbled, “Oh, no, he wasn’t flirting with you. Nah.  That wasn’t flirting . . . that was just . . . I don’t know . . . conversation.  Yeah.  That’s what that was. Just conversation.  Right.”  She continued shaking her head in amusement as she began typing.

A few weeks later, she was exiting her vehicle in the company parking lot when she heard a voice she did not recognize greet her. “Good morning,” he said as she spun around to find him standing by the rear corner of her car. He grinned sheepishly, realizing that he had again startled her.

“Do you enjoy doing that to poor, unsuspecting women?” she said with mock exasperation.

“I’m sorry. I thought you saw me as I was walking over here. I didn’t mean to scare you,” he responded with genuine kindness. It was at that moment she realized that he had the most beautiful brown eyes she had ever seen — deep-set and warm.

“I take it you got the job?” she inquired.

“I sure did. Today is my first day,” he said proudly.

“Well, congratulations!” She was trembling slightly.

“We’d better get to work then,” he said as they began walking toward the building together. “How long have you worked here?”

“Oh, only about six months. I take night classes at the university,” she explained. “This is my second semester there. I decided that I wanted to be completely independent from my parents and support myself, so I switched to evening classes. I work all day and have classes four nights a week.”

“Wow, that’s a rough schedule, isn’t it?” he asked.

“It’s not bad. It just doesn’t leave much time for outside activities. I pretty much spend all of my weekends studying,” she shrugged.

“No time for a boyfriend then,” he said gingerly as he waited for her reaction.

“No, I guess not,” she laughed lightly. “Not that I have to worry about that.” She felt the heat rising in her cheeks as she wondered what he would think if he knew that she had never really had a boyfriend. Not that she hadn’t been interested in several young men during her high school and college years. But none of them had ever reciprocated her feelings.

“Oh, I don’t believe that.” He smiled softly as he held the door to the building open for her.

“This is where we go our separate ways. You need to go up to Personnel and check in. They’ll have about a million forms for you to fill out, and they’ll give you your security badge,” she explained as she pulled hers from her bag and showed it to the security guard posted near the bank of elevators.

“Well then, I guess I’ll see you later. Maybe we can have lunch soon.”

She was dumbfounded. Was he asking her on a date? “Um . . . ah . . . sure. That would be nice,” she stammered as she pressed the button to summon an elevator even though it was already illuminated.

“All right then. You have a good day now.” Her knees felt wobbly when she realized that he was looking right at her, smiling broadly.

“Yeah . . . you, too. Congratulations again,” she said as she stepped into the elevator and the doors closed behind her.

For a few moments, she stood frozen, facing the back wall of the elevator. “What are you doing?” she asked herself aloud. “What are you thinking? Are you crazy? You can’t go out with him.” Just then she felt the elevator stop so she quickly turned to face the door, slightly out of breath and thoroughly rattled by her brief encounter with the stranger who had indeed been flirting with her, just as Marilyn observed. She sighed regretfully as she reminded herself that she could not, under any circumstances, date or become involved with the first man who had ever pursued her. She knew that, no matter how strong their attraction to each other, any relationship they might enter into would inevitably and inescapably end very badly.

To be continued . . .

Inspired by the Sunday Scribblings prompt: Stranger

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Her friend put down the pen with which she was addressing an envelope, reached over and squeezed her hand as she said gently, “Yes, honey, you did.”

“I keep hearing this horrible sound in my head,” she said. “I didn’t realize what it was until just a few moments ago. Isn’t that odd?”

“Not really,” her friend assured her. “It was a horrible shock. People react all sorts of different ways when they receive such terrible news.”

“I guess,” she said absent-mindedly as she stared at the blank envelope in front of her.

“How about if you let me finish doing this and you go take a nap?” her friend suggested.

“No, no,” she replied. “I’m fine. I need to keep busy. I’m just glad I finally figured out what that sound was because it’s been very perplexing.”

“All right then,” her friend said as she picked the pen up and resumed writing.

“You’re early, Ms. Carlisle,” the deputy said as she placed her handbag on the conveyor belt to be xrayed and walked through the metal detector in the courthouse lobby. “The hearing’s not for another hour,” he said kindly as he retrieved her purse and handed it to her.

“I know, Seth. I wanted to get here before the newspaper people and. . . ” her voice trailed off as the deputy looked at her knowingly.

“Well, Judge Humphreys is still hearing his 8:30 calendar. You can sit in the courtroom if you’d like. There are only a couple of folks in there,” he said.

“Thank you,” she smiled softly as the two of them walked down the hallway. When they reached the second of three sets of double doors, Seth opened the door for her and gestured toward the back left corner of the courtroom, gently closing the door behind her as she took the seat she had occupied every day during the three-week trial. Judge Humphreys was on the bench and there were two lawyers standing behind the tables placed on opposite sides of the aisle, one flanked by a female client and one by a male.  They were taking turns arguing about bank accounts and a visitation schedule as the female client kept her head down, her long hair falling over her shoulders as she self-consciously dabbed her tears with a pink handkerchief.  The man at the other table was staring at the judge, his hands clasped as they rested atop the table, while the lawyers’ exchange grew increasingly animated.

It was a crisp autumn morning and the air in the drafty courtroom was cool, so she kept her jacket on as she settled into her usual seat.  She had listened to every scrap of evidence introduced throughout the trial, committing most of the details to memory.  She had studied the young defendant, her son Sean’s best friend, as he listened to the details about the speed at which he was navigating the car down Main Street when he lost control of it, the velocity with which it struck the light pole, how the boys driving the car against which the defendant and her son were racing sped off without stopping after the crash, and the details concerning her son’s fatal injuries.  The District Attorney had tried to convince her to leave the courtroom when he showed photos of the vehicle to the jury, including the poster-size color shots of the jaws of life tearing off the roof of the vehicle in order to extricate her boy so that the medical personnel could try to save him.

But she remained in her seat, diverting her eyes from the photos. She considered the defendant’s parents while the jury stared at the photos in disbelief, several of whom were visibly shaken and wiped away tears.  She watched the defendant’s mother sob quietly, her face buried in her hands.  She watched his father try to comfort his wife, choking back his own tears, and wondered whether they were crying primarily for the loss of Sean’s life or the loss of their own son’s once-bright future.

She had not spoken to them since Sean’s funeral.  She wanted to, but their son’s attorney would not permit them to speak to her.  She telephoned their home a couple of times, but they did not answer.  A few days later, a letter arrived from the boy’s lawyer in which condolences were expressed, but she was firmly instructed not to call again because they would not converse with her until after the conclusion of the trial — if then. 

Each day of the trial, as on this morning, she walked the few short blocks from her modest home to the courthouse and sat in the same seat, rarely speaking to anyone except the deputies who helped her navigate the security checkpoint and escorted her down the hallway.  During breaks in the proceeding, they stood near her as if to signal to the reporters and local townspeople who dropped in from time to time to see how the trial was progressing that she was not feeling up to speaking with anyone.  A couple of the dputies pressed her to let them give her a lift home at the end of the day, but she declined appreciatively, preferring to walk back home, taking in the cool afternoon air as the sun slipped behind the gently rolling hills just beyond the city limits earlier and earlier with each passing day.

Sean and the defendant had been friends all their lives.  They grew up together, participating in Boy Scouts, sports, and church activities before graduating from high school.  Her son, a dedicated student determined to become an architect, won a scholarship to the state university, while his friend continued living at home with his parents and attended the local community college before transferring to the university.  The two became roommates in their junior year and came home together for holidays and school breaks.  It was during the break between semesters last winter that the two had decided to go out with some of their other friends for pizza and a movie.  They were scheduled to begin the spring semester of their senior year in just a couple of weeks. Sean had already been accepted to the most prestigious graduate program in the state and offered a summer job with a large architectural firm.

The defendant had always had a wild streak, but had never been in any serious trouble.  His parents told her many times over the years that they were grateful for the boys’ friendship because her son was a stable, responsible influence in their son’s life.

None of them had any inklin that the boys had ever engaged in street-racing. So nothing prepared them to learn that the defendant had been driving his car 110 miles per hour down Main Street that night, as conclusively established by the vehicle’s data recorder.

That night, the phone startled her when it rang at just after midnight.  She had dozed off while watching television and was momentarily disoriented.  But when the deep voice on the other end of the phone asked if she was the mother of Sean Carlisle, she knew something was terribly wrong.  The gentleman advised that two officers should just be pulling up in front of her house to take her to the hospital because her son had been involved in a motor vehicle accident.  He claimed not to know any details about Sean’s condition.  Just then, the doorbell rang and the remaining events of that night unfolded as though in slow motion.

The officers escorted her into the emergency room where her priest was already waiting for her, along with the police chaplain and her long-time friend.  Immediately, she was taken into the small examining room where Sean’s body had been prepared for her viewing.  When the door opened and there was no sound of a respirator or other medical equipment working to sustain her son’s life, she instinctively knew that her only child had been taken from her.  It was at the moment when she caught the first glimpse of her dead son that she involuntarily screamed in agony.  She learned later that he died instantly at the accident scene as a result of blunt trauma.

The litigants and their attorneys exited the courtroom separately, the woman still wiping her eyes, and Judge Humphreys turned his attention to two different lawyers who were debating the details of a contract for the sale of computer equipment as the court clerk scribbled notes furiously.  Townspeople were beginning to filter into the courtroom and the deputies warned them to remain silent so as not to disrupt the proceedings. Before long, the judge entertained argument from a fifth pair of attorneys about the disposition of a decedent’s assets, including several Arabian horses.  A little while later, as the judge finished arraigning several prisoners wearing yellow jumpsuits and exited the courtroom, she observed the defendant’s parents enter the courtroom, accompanied by a dozen or so friends and relatives.  Both wore sunglasses and looked down at the floor as they quickly took their seats immediately behind the railing separating the gallery from the table where their son would be seated in a few moments.  None of them looked at or acknowledged her.

Moments later, the door to the right of the judge’s bench opened and Sean’s best friend was escorted into the courtroom by his attorney and a couple of deputies.  Wearing a black shirt, grey tie, and black suit, he nodded slightly to his supporters as he took his seat next to his lawyer.  Six weeks earlier, he had been convicted of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, as well as driving recklessly, but was allowed to remain free on bail pending this sentencing hearing.  In the intervening weeks, a recommendation had been prepared and submitted to the judge for his consideration.

“All rise,” the bailiff commanded as Judge Humphries returned to the bench.  Following the usual formalities, he turned to the defendant, who stood alongside his attorney to hear his fate.

“Young man, this is an enormous tragedy because the lives of two young men have been ruined — Sean Carlisle’s and your own — solely as a result of your reckless behavior,” Judge Humphreys began.  He then discussed the details of the recommendation that had been submitted to him and asked the defendant if he wanted to make a statement prior to learning his sentence.  On behalf of his client, the defendant’s attorney declared he would forego the opportunity to address the court.

“Very well,” the judge replied before announcing that Sean’s best friend would spend the next 16 years in state prison, followed by four years of parole following his release, for a total of 20 years.

Although the defendant neither flinched nor showed any emotion in response to the judge’s pronouncement, which was followed by a directive to the deputies to take him into custody immediately, she heard a strange, but eerily familiar sound.  As the deputies pulled the young man’s hands behind his back and placed handcuffs upon them, her attention was drawn to his mother.  The scene seemed to unfold before her in slow motion. His mother was being restrained by her husband on one side and, on her other side, a man she recognized as the defendant’s uncle.  His mother was trying to rise from her seat, extending her arms toward and calling for her son.  As she did so, the sound she emitted was more of a plaintive howl than a scream.  Visceral and somewhat primitive, the sound filled the courtroom and could be heard echoing in the hallway of the courthouse by the small crowd gathered there.

Inspired by A Thousand Words: Prompt Number Eleven

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“Shoot,” Kevin said, anxious to see whether the question he anticipated hearing would be the one that was actually troubling Jake. After so many years in the ministry, it was like a little game he played as he counseled his parishioners, hospital patients or the other folks who occasionally found their way into his church. When his prediction was wrong, he made a note, sometimes using the insight revealed during such exchanges to punctuate a point in his weekly sermons.

“After this cancer takes me . . . after I’m dead, will I finally stop hearing that sound?” Jake inquired matter-of-factly. “Because I’ve been hearing it every time I close my eyes for all these years. And frankly, Kevin, I need to know whether your God is going to give me some relief from that sound, given that he is taking me out ahead of schedule, so to speak.”

“Jake, I believe that you will find peace here, on earth, before you die, if you just ask for it,” Kevin said genuinely, making a mental note that he had accurately anticipated Jake’s question.

“Hhmmph,” Jake grunted. “Stock answer. I expected better from you, Kevin.”

“If you are truly remorseful and ask forgiveness, it is given, Jake,” Kevin explained, completely nonplussed by Jake’s cynicism. “But forgiveness is a tricky thing. Even though God forgave you long ago, you haven’t forgiven yourself. And until you do, you will never have any peace.”

“The best profit of future is the past.”

Jake stared at the pastor, one eyebrow raised in acknowledgment that Kevin’s response was precisely on target. Kevin waited, as he had on so many similar occasions, for Jake to continue telling his story and asking the questions that had been weighing him down for so many years, wondering if the conversation was going to proceed along the course he envisioned.

Jake reached for the top drawer of the bedside stand. “Let me help you,” Kevin offered, rising from his chair and walking over to the side of the hospital bed.

“Can you reach into the drawer and get my wallet?” Jake asked.

“Certainly.” Kevin opened the drawer, removed a plastic bag upon which the words “Patient’s Belongings” were stamped, and handed it to Jake.

His hands shook slightly as Jake opened the well-worn leather wallet from which he retrieved a small plastic bag and held it out to Kevin. At first, Kevin thought the bag was empty but, as he took it into his hands, he could see a single small piece of white paper was encased in it. Taking his reading glasses from their case, he perched them on the bridge of his nose as he held the bag up and considered the tiny slip of paper. From that vantage point, he could see that the type was faded, but it was a fortune — the type found in fortune cookies.

“The best profit of future is the past,” he read aloud, as Jake mouthed the words along with him. He looked at Jake quizzically, but waited for Jake to answer all of his unarticulated questions.

“About six months after she took Timmy and left, I went down to Chinatown for dinner with some of my employees. After dinner, everyone was reading their fortune out loud. That was mine. When no one was looking, I stuck it in my pocket, took it home, and have carried it in my wallet ever since. I was so stupid,” Jake said, shaking his head. “I thought it was some kind of sign . . . an indicator that I should keep the private detectives working, looking for them. I thought that stupid fortune was telling me that learning from my past mistakes would give me back the future. Boy, was I wrong.”

Kevin started to hand the plastic bag back to Jake, but he put up his hand in protest. “No, preacher,” he said sarcastically. “You keep it. Maybe it will bring you some good fortune. God knows it never did anything for me.” Then he added, “God knows. God. I guess he always knows where they are, but he sure never let me in on the secret, did he? Now I guess I’ll never know. I never had the chance to make things right,” his voice broke as he turned his face back toward the window.

“Jake,” Kevin said gently. “Tell me about the day they left. How did it happen? Did she tell you she was leaving? Was it a big fight that ended up with her storming out of the house, or . . . ? I’d like to know. If you want to tell me, that is.”

“Like I said, it was Christmastime. There hadn’t been much work because of the rain, so I’d had a lot of free time on my hands. Time to drink with the guys, play some cards, kill time. I wasn’t spending enough time with her — or Timmy — and she was very unhappy about it. So we fought a lot during those weeks leading up to . . . ” Jake shifted a bit in the bed, wincing as the needles from the i.v.’s dug further into his veins when he leaned on his arm in order to steady himself.

“Anyway, we were supposed to go to the company Christmas party that night, but we never made it. We ended up having a terrible fight. Thank God Timmy wasn’t there. She had taken him to her sister’s house to spend the weekend so that we could go to the party and get some sleep the next morning. So he didn’t hear us arguing when we were getting ready to go to the party,” he explained.

“Basically, that night it was just more of the same,” he continued. “She warned me not to drink too much and embarrass her, I got mad . . . the next thing you know, I shoved her across the living room. She fell backwards and, as she felt herself falling, she put her hand out to grab something. What she grabbed was a branch of the Christmas tree, so, of course, it fell down as she did. Thank God it didn’t land on her, but all of the ornaments broke and that made her cry, of course. Which made me even madder.”

Jake stopped for a moment to collect his thoughts, take a few deep breaths, and control the tears that were welling up in his eyes. Kevin continued to wait patiently for him to gather the strength to keep relating the events of that evening.

“Anyway, we never made it to the party. I ended up pushing her around more after the tree fell . . . we said some really ugly things to each other. I hit her pretty hard. Caught her on the left side of her face and gave her a large bruise on her cheek and under her eye. Bruised up her arms and one of her legs pretty good, too. Some of those marks were probably caused by her fall in the living room when the tree was knocked down,” he said. He let his head hang down on his chest, his eyes closed, as he recalled the events of that night. Without moving, he continued speaking. “I stormed out of the house, of course. Went down to the neighborhood bar to cool off. Stayed there a few hours.”

“But Kevin,” he said, “something happened to me that night. I knew that was it. I knew we couldn’t go on like that. When I walked out the door of the house, she was standing in the living room, crying. All bruised up. I couldn’t look at her, so I had to get away for a while. It was like something inside of me snapped. I knew I wasn’t a man. No man does that to the woman he loves. No, sir. Something was wrong with me. And I made up my mind while I was walking down the sidewalk to the bar that night that things were going to change.”

Jake was speaking with a resolve that mirrored the determination he felt on that night so many years earlier. “I went to the bar because I didn’t know where else to go. But I didn’t drink. Nope. I didn’t touch a drop of liquor that night. I drank coffee. Several cups of strong, black coffee. Told the bartender, Eddy, to keep the coffee coming. He just laughed . . . figured I needed to sober up in order to go home, and I just let him think that. But I wasn’t drunk that night . . . and I’ve never been drunk since.”

With that, he stopped speaking and looked deep into Kevin’s blue eyes, as Kevin sat mesmerized by the story that was unfolding. “No, sir. I never took another drop of liquor the rest of my life.”

“Never?” Kevin asked incredulously. “You’ve never had any alcohol since that night? None at all? Note even a beer or a glass of wine?”

“Nothing. Not a drop. Not even a taste of your fancy communion wine,” Jake declared. “For all the good it did me. I’ve been thinking about checking out of this hospital and getting good and drunk. So here’s my next question, pastor. What do you think of that plan?”

“I think that, considering all of the medication you are probably receiving, that would be very foolish. You would most likely just make yourself sicker than you already feel,” Kevin replied matter-of-factly.

“Yup, I suspect you are correct, preacher,” Jake sighed.

“So what happened that night after you left the bar? Did you go back home?” Kevin’s own curiosity fueled his effort to keep Jake talking.

“I did,” Jake smiled softly. “While I was in the bar having my ‘come-to-Jesus’ — you should excuse the expression — moments, she cleaned up the mess, righted the Christmas tree, and rehung the few ornaments that hadn’t broken. She was in bed, but not asleep, when I got back. And Kevin, . . . ” Jake’s voice trailed off for a few seconds. “Well, let me just put it this way. That was the most beautiful night of our married life, if you get my meaning.”

Kevin smiled and nodded knowingly. “I’m a married man,” he said quietly. “I get it.”

“We didn’t do any sleeping that night,” Jake recalled gently. “I got into bed with her and she could see that I was stone-cold sober. I told her how sorry I was. She rolled over, looked at me with real sad eyes, and then came right into my arms like nothing was wrong. We didn’t do any more talking. Yessir, it was a beautiful night,” Jake said, softly clearing his throat.

“Sounds like it,” Kevin responded. “So now I’m confused. You told her about your ‘come-to-Jesus’ moment — your epiphany, as it were? What happened? Did you break your promises? Fail to follow through? Is that why she left you?”

“Nope. None of that,” Jake said, shaking his head as the bitter tone with which the conversation had begun crept back into his voice. “I never got a chance to tell her that everything was going to be different. Never got a chance.”

Kevin continued gazing at him with a puzzled expression on his face.

“The next morning — Sunday morning — we were going to have some breakfast and then pick Timmy up. I was going to tell her what I decided the night before. I had it all planned in my head. I was going to sit her down at the kitchen table, and promise her that I would never lay a hand on her again. I was going to ask her to help me find one of those groups . . . you know, where you go to meetings.”

“AA?” Kevin interjected.

“No, one of those other groups for men who hit their wives,” Jake clarified. “I was going to get real, serious help. I knew that if I didn’t, things would keep getting worse and worse . . . Kevin, I scared myself real good that night. I was afraid that eventually I would really hurt her. Or Timmy.”

Kevin waited, afraid now that his suspicions about how Jake’s story would end were about to be confirmed.

“That morning, she told me to get a little more sleep. She was going to take a shower, put the coffee on, make us some breakfast. She got up from the bed and walked toward the bathroom. The morning light coming from that room was very bright. It was one of those sunny December mornings when it’s so cold you can practically feel the air. No fog, no clouds. The kind of day when they take the postcard pictures and write the songs about San Francisco. Just a cold, sunny, beautiful morning . . . like the night before had ended up being.”

“So I mumbled, ‘O.K., wake me up when breakfast is ready.’ I looked up at her as she was walking into the bathroom to take a shower. She paused for a moment in the doorway and the light behind her was so bright . . . I remember thinking to myself how gorgeous she looked standing there. She turned back toward me for a moment and I thought to myself that her face was absolutely perfect. At least the side without the bruises was. And I told myself again what a lucky man I was and swore I would never, ever again lay a hand on her or hurt her. She said, ‘All right. I’ll wake you up. Now you get some sleep.’ And then she added, ‘Always remember that I loved you.’ I thought that was kind of an odd thing for her to say, but I was half-asleep and dozed right back off.”

Kevin sat perfectly still as Jake continued relaying the details, horrified as he conceptualized the inevitable conclusion of Jake’s story. “She was gone when you woke up, wasn’t she?” he asked softly.

“Yessir, she was,” Jake said resolutely. “Gone. She had it all planned. I never saw her or Timmy again.”

“Jake, I’m so sorry,” Kevin said with genuine compassion.

“I never got a chance to tell her all the things I’d planned to say that morning. Never had a chance to get help and put things right between us or for Timmy. I woke up a few hours later and the house was perfectly quiet. I had the feeling that I had slept a lot longer than I intended to . . . you know that feeling, Kevin?” Jake asked.

“I do,” Kevin replied. “Like the first time your baby sleeps through the night and you know the moment your eyes fly open that you have been asleep way too long. You panic for a moment, until you realize that everything is fine. It’s a terrible feeling.”

“That it is,” Jake agreed. “And every morning has been like that for the last thirty-five years. Every morning when I wake up, I see my beautiful wife standing in the doorway with the light behind her. Before I open my eyes, I think I’m going to realize that it was all just a bad dream, and she’ll be in the kitchen drinking coffee, waiting for me. But every morning, I have that same feeling of panic when I realize that it wasn’t a dream . . . it really happened and I’ve never been able to do anything to change it. Imagine living your life like that for thirty-five years, Kevin?” Jake asked cynically.

“No, Jake,” Kevin said with genuine compassion and sadness in his voice. “No. I can’t imagine.” The two men sat in uncomfortable silence for a few seconds before Jake asserted, “Well, I have another question for you. This is the big one. The granddaddy question. You ready for it?”

“I guess so. Lay it on me,” Kevin replied, completely rattled by the manner in which Jake’s tale had ended.

“Think hell is gonna be any worse?” Jake asked somewhat defiantly. “Cause I’m betting that’s where your God is planning to send me . . . since I stopped believing in him all those years ago. Think whatever he’s got in mind for me after this cancer takes me out could possibly be any worse than what the last thirty-five years have been like?”

“Jake.” Kevin could say only the man’s name. Despite his years of experience at the bedsides of terminally ill or critically injured people of all ages from a multitude of backgrounds, he found himself at a complete loss for words. “Jake . . .”

“Looks like I’ve succeeded,” Jake laughed cryptically. “I was wondering if I could stump the preacher.” He continued chuckling to himself.

Regaining his composure, Kevin looked him squarely in the eye as he collected his thoughts. “Jake, I don’t believe that God has any greater punishment in store for you than you have already endured here on earth. You have punished yourself over and over by not being able to forgive yourself for what you did all those years ago. I can’t judge you. Only God himself can do that, but I believe that you are a man who has suffered greatly for his sins. You have a repentant heart and contrite spirit. I am going to pray to God to show you his merciful kindness in the coming days. And I’m going to ask him to give you the peace that passes understanding.”

Kevin continued, “Someday in the not-too-distant-future, I believe that you will be given answers to all of the questions you are asking — all of the answers you’d like me to provide. But I can’t provide them because all of your questions really boil down to one question: Why? And that’s the one question I can’t answer. No one can answer it. So, in that respect, I’m afraid that I am failing you today. All I can tell you is that God loves you unconditionally and will never forsake you. All I can do is ask you to believe that — as a matter of faith.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured you would say,” Jake replied. Just then a nurse entered the room. “How are you doing, Jake? Is there anything I can get you?”

“No, I’m doing just fine,” Jake responded.

“All right,” the nurse said brightly as she checked the bags dangling from the i.v. pole next to his bed. “We’re going to be having dinner in about a half hour. This bag,” she gestured to the largest bag, “should be empty by then. You’ll be free of this one for the evening. You’ll get the next dose tomorrow.”

“No, I won’t,” Jake said calmly.

“Excuse me?” the nurse replied as she jotted some notes on a small pad of paper she had pulled from the pocket of the brightly colored smock she wore over a pair of green surgical scrubs.

“No more doses for me. No more medication. I’m going to go home tomorrow,” Jake explained. “This stuff isn’t going to help me. It’s only going to prolong the inevitable and I don’t want to spend my last days in this room. I’m going home to my boat and I’m going to spend my last days on it.”

“Have you helped him make this decision?” the nurse asked Kevin. Gazing at Jake, he saw the determination in Jake’s eyes, and replied, “Yes. Yes, I have.”

“Please get whatever paperwork I need to sign in order, because I am going to leave first thing in the morning,” Jake requested politely, but firmly. “I assume the doctors are going to want me to sign my life away — no pun intended — so they can be sure that I won’t sue them later. So please let them know what my plans are.”

“All right,” the nurse replied. “I’ll call your doctor right now.” She fluffed his pillows and let her hand linger on his shoulder for a few moments, as she asked, “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

“You’ve seen my chart,” Jake said. “Can you blame me?”

Moving her hand to his, she gave him a little squeeze as she smiled in silent understanding and affirmation of his decision before leaving the two men alone again.

“Would you like me to come back in the morning to be here when you check out? Can I give you a lift to your boat or help you in some way?” Kevin asked.

“No, Kevin, you’ve done enough.You just listened to me tell you things that I have never verbalized to anyone. You’ve helped me make my decision about how to spend what time is left to me. You’ve done more than I could ever have asked of anyone. There’s nothing more you or anyone else can do for me now,” Jake said. “You haven’t failed. You said it best, preacher. From here on out, I’m completely in the hands of your God, right?”

“The one you don’t believe in,” Kevin teased gently.

“Yup. That one.” Jake smiled at Kevin, as he stood and approached the bed. He reached into his pocket and removed a small vial of oil. Placing a small amount on his right forefinger, Kevin took Jake’s hand in his as he gently rested his other hand on Jake’s head. “Jake, child of God,” he said, as he made the sign of the cross on Jake’s forehead with the oil, “know that you are loved unconditionally and that all of your sins are forgiven. The one who gave his life for you has gone before you to prepare a place for you. Soon you will be there with him — in paradise. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

Both men were overcome with emotion and unable to speak. Kevin simply squeezed Jake’s shoulder as he eased away from the bed toward the doorway and exited the room, knowing that he would never see Jake again.

It was a beautiful, sunny morning in the San Francisco bay. The night before, Jake had cut the motor and simply let his beloved boat drift with the current as he sat on the deck sipping a cup of hot cocoa, studying the lights illuminating the city he had called home his entire life.

The vessel was floating with the current past Alcatraz toward the Golden Gate bridge when he drifted off to sleep, confident that his remaining time was growing short because he was getting weaker and breathing with increasing difficulty. He could no longer navigate the stairs to the cabin below, so he wrapped himself in a couple of warm blankets and got comfortable on deck, dozing off as he considered the lights along the shoreline.

In the morning, he awoke just as the sun was rising brightly over the East Bay. He realized immediately that he did not have sufficient strength to stand, so shifted slightly and resolve to sleep awhile longer as the cool morning seabreeze caressed his face. He opened his eyes just for a moment and squinted into the sun. It was then that he saw her — as he had every morning since the day his life changed irrevocably. She was rising from the deck and moving away from him in the direction of the light. He smiled groggily as he considered how beautiful she looked with the morning light behind her as she turned her head slightly and looked back at him, revealing only the right side of her perfect face — the one without the bruises. He again heard her say, “I’ll wake you up. Now you get some sleep. And always remember that I loved you” just before he fell into a deep sleep from which he would not again awaken.

Inspired by A Thousand Words: Prompt Number Ten

Included in the October 18, 2008, Just Write Blog Carnival.

Presenting the finest of the writer’s blogs by the bloggers who write them: Top 5 Picks as chosen by the October 18, 2008 WOOF Contest contestants.

Fiction:

• Jenn - In the Morning Light (Part Two) - The conclusion of a two-part short story about a man who has lived a life of regret. The first installment is found here.

About Writing:

• Writing Nag - Collage to Inspire, Reduce Anxiety and Have Fun - Facing the blank page can be overwhelming. How to use another artistic outlet to prompt your daily writing.
• Ferox - Vindictive Poetry - Writing a poem for the wrong reasons sometimes earns you a reward.

Poetry:

• Dragon Blogger - In This Age - A poem written for his wife years ago.
• Jennifer M Scott - Mrs Butterworth - A poem about Mrs Butterworth.

Brought to you by PlotDog Press with the Serial Thriller Dead Play.

Want to participate in the next WOOF? Submit a link to your best writing of the past two weeks using the form at the bottom of this page.

Other WOOF Contestants for October 18, 2008:

Poetry

You Might Also Enjoy:

• What Friends Do (7)
• The Wicker Chair (8)
• The Pseudonym (7)
• The Drawing (7)
• Still Holding Her Hand (8)

He sighed deeply as he shifted his gaze back to the I.V. pole from which hung several plastic bags containing clear liquids. Three separate tubes carried the substances from the bags to his veins. He winced as he moved his left arm. Looking down, he noticed that a new bruise had developed where the nurse had unsuccessfully tried to reinsert the needle earlier in the day.

Just as he was struggling in vain to shift his weight and find a few moments of comfort in the narrow hospital bed, the door opened and a lanky middle-aged man entered the room. “Good afternoon, Mr. Kelley!” he said cheerily as he strode toward the bed. “The folks at the front desk said you requested a visit from a chaplain. I’m Pastor O’Grady,” he announced, as he extended his right hand.

“Pastor O’Grady?” he responded warily. “You guys don’t call yourselves ‘Father’ any more?” he asked, noting that his visitor was wearing jeans and a pale yellow polo shirt with what appeared to be a logo of some sort embroidered on the left pocket.

“With a name like O’Grady, I get that question a lot,” the pastor chuckled. “But I’m not a Catholic priest. I’m a Methodist minister. Did you wish to meet with a priest? If so, I can let the hospital folks know and they will ask Father Rivera to stop in and see you.”

“No, no,” he replied. “I’m not a Catholic. I’m not a member of any church. I just wanted to speak with one of you guys when you made your rounds.”

“All right then,” the pastor said as he slid a straight chair from the corner of the room over to the side of the bed and made himself comfortable. “Looks like your getting chemotherapy in that I.V. What kind of cancer is it?”

“The kind that’s going to kill me in a few months. If not sooner,” he said matter-of-factly. “I think I’m just going to tell them to disconnect me so that I can go home and die quietly. What do you think about that idea, Pastor O’Grady?”

“I think that whether or not to continue treatment is your choice entirely,” the pastor responded with equal candor. “If the treatment is not going to provide a cure, but merely extend the amount of time you have left, you need to evaluate whether the extra time is worth it. Do you have a family, Mr. Kelley?”

“No, Pastor, I don’t,” he said softly.

“No wife or children?” Pastor O’Grady pushed gently.

“Not a soul,” he said, looking down at the plain gold wedding band on the pastor’s left hand. “I used to have a ring just like that one. I wore it for many years after my wife left me.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Oh, let’s see . . . ” his voice trailed off and he looked back toward the window as he considered his response. “It was in 1973. So it’s been thirty-five years.” He nodded silently as he turned to again face the pastor. “Thirty-five years, Pastor.”

“A long time indeed,” the other man said thoughtfully. “By the way, why don’t you call me ‘Kevin’? We don’t need formalities. Is it all right if I call you ‘Jacob’?”

“Just Jake will do,” he replied. “‘Kevin,’ huh? With a name like Kevin O’Grady, how come you’re not a Catholic?”

“Because I converted from Catholicism when I decided to enter seminary,” Kevin explained. “I was raised in the Catholic church and most of my family members are still practicing Roman Catholics. I wanted very much to enter the ministry, but I had some theological disagreements with the Church, the primary one being celibacy. When I began dating my wife in college, she was a Methodist. I visited her congregation, met with her pastor, and things just fell into place. I realized that I was called to serve, but as a Protestant pastor.”

“I bet that was a big hit with your folks,” Jake teased.

“Not,” Kevin recalled, smiling wistfully. “But they got over it and even visit my parish from time to time.”

“A happy ending then,” Jake noted. “Good for you.”

“So, Jake, how can I help you? What would you like to talk about . . . your treatment options? Or your faith . . . ? Nothing is off-limits.” Jake was warming up to the minister.

“You seem like a straight-up guy, Kevin, so I’m going to tell you straight-up that I don’t have any faith. I haven’t been a believer in your God for a long time now,” Jake explained. “And I don’t think I’m about to start believing in him now, especially considering that he hasn’t given me much more time.”

Kevin smiled slightly, but let Jake continue.

“The reason I wanted to see you today was this. I’ve got some questions. Do you have any answers?” Jake challenged him, squinting his eyes to study the pastor’s face carefully.

“Well, I’ll give it my best shot. Hit me with the first question and we’ll go from there,” Kevin said without flinching, as he met Jake’s gaze head-on. In his twenty-two year career as a minister, he had encountered many people whose circumstances were akin to Jake’s. But he never grew tired of hearing their stories, each unique but always leading up to similar inquiries to which he was well-equipped and prepared to respond.

“I tried to find her, Kevin. I tried for years. I spent every cent I earned on private detectives and none of them could ever find a trace of either one of them. I wanted to make things right . . . I planned to, but she didn’t give me a chance. Finally, I had to give up searching for them because every investigator told me the same thing — that it was hopeless. So now . . . ” he turned his face back toward the window as his voice broke, determined not to let Kevin see the tears forming.

“I take it you’re taking about your wife . . . and there was also a child?” Kevin queried.

“Yes,” he said, clearing his throat. “We had a son. She took him and left me when the boy was five years old.” The two men sat in silence for a few moments as Kevin allowed him to regain his composure.

“We were living in San Francisco. Doing real well for ourselves. I have a construction company and I was making some real good money,” Jake explained. “Got a house, had a lot of projects going, the boy was going to start kindergarten that fall. But I got too full of myself. You know?”

Kevin nodded sympathetically as he continued listening to Jake’s story.

“I started drinking too much,” Jake added. “I had a little money, beautiful wife, handsome boy. I thought I had the world by the tail . . . I was invincible. So I started stopping in at the neighborhood bar after work a little too often. I told myself it was for business. Making contacts. And that was true to some degree, but that wasn’t all of it, of course.”

“Were there other women?” Kevin asked without emotion.

“A couple, but that wasn’t really the problem,” Jake admitted. “I loved her. God knows I loved that woman. So much that there has never been a woman since. Thirty-five years . . . never remarried. Never even lived with another one. I couldn’t. She was the only one I loved. But . . . ”

“Why did she leave, Jake? Did she find out about those other women?” Kevin adeptly urged Jake to continue.

“No, that wasn’t it,” Jake replied quietly. “It was something else. Something I’m not proud of.” He sat up straighter in the hospital bed and let his head fall forward onto his chest, closing his eyes.

Kevin again waited patiently, allowing Jake to tell his story in his own time and manner.

Without looking up or opening his eyes, Jake said, “I hit her.”

“I see. How many times?”

“I don’t know. It went on for awhile. Until one day, she left . . . and never came back.” Jake looked up and allowed Kevin to see that tears were streaming down his cheeks. “That next morning I was going to tell her how sorry I was and that I was going to get help. I knew I had a problem and I was ready to face up to it. We had a wonderful night and I made up my mind that in the morning, I was going to tell her everything . . . how much she and Timmy meant to me. I was going to ask her to help me find a place to get help. But I never got the chance.”

“That was the day she left?” Kevin pushed.

“It was Christmastime. We hadn’t been working much because it was a real rainy year. I’d been spending way too much time in the bar with my employees. A couple of weeks earlier, we had a big fight about it. She was upset that I wasn’t spending much time at home — and she was right about everything. Anyway, the first time it happened was when she was pregnant. I pushed her. I didn’t hurt her that time, but it seemed like after that, every time we had an argument, I put my hands on her.”

“So things escalated over the years?” the pastor encouraged him to tell the whole story.

“Yeah. I shoved her a few times. She would push my buttons and, especially after a few drinks, I would shove her out of the way and storm out of the house. I’d stay gone for awhile, sober up, come home. I’d apologize and we’d make up. You know?” he looked at Kevin, who nodded knowingly.

“Then one day, when Timmy was a baby, she made me so mad that I slapped her across the face. I put a welt on her cheek with my big ol’ rough hand . . . oh, God, I felt terrible,” his voice broke again. After a few seconds, he said, “You know, Kevin, I’m telling you things today that I have never told another living soul. Ever. I’ve never talked about any of this to anyone before.”

“How does it feel to finally tell someone?” Kevin inquired gently.

“I’m not sure yet. I’ve carried this stuff around in my own head for so many years that it almost sounds like someone else is talking, you know?”

“Yeah. Actually, people have told me that before. I think it’s a pretty common reaction after having carried a secret around with you for so long,” Kevin explained. “Would you like to keep talking or prefer that I come back tomorrow?”

“We haven’t even gotten to my questions yet,” Jake reminded him. “Do you have to be somewhere else?”

“No, I don’t, Jake,” Kevin responded. “Tell me how you ended up spending the last thirty-five years alone.”

Click here to read the conclusion.

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“What? Who?” Karen shrieked through a loud yawn. “Oh, man, I really wanted to get through the summer without going to a another freakin’ funeral!”

“Huh? No, no . . . nobody died.”

“Then what are you talking about?” Karen mumbled, still half-asleep.

“You obviously haven’t read today’s newspaper yet,” she replied. “Go get it. Look at the ‘Birth Announcements’ on page eight. I’ll get another cup of coffee while you do.”

“Oh, all right,” Karen responded, stretching and yawning again. “Be right back.” She placed the telephone receiver on the kitchen table and stumbled toward the front door to retrieve the morning edition of the local newspaper from the step.

In the meantime, her best friend of more than forty years cradled her cordless telephone on her shoulder as she moved toward the counter of her spacious, sunny kitchen and poured herself a second cup of coffee. Every morning, she arose early — sometimes before dawn — and read the local newspaper as she enjoyed freshly brewed coffee and her only dietary indulgence, a single cake donut. Sleep never came easy or lasted more than a couple of hours, so she consoled herself by enjoying the stillness of those fleeting morning hours, frequently lingering in her kitchen. She was determined to complete the crossword puzzle published in the local newspaper each day as she talked on the telephone with friends living throughout the United States and in several European countries, many of whom she accumulated during her successful corporate career. Two years ago, she retired — on the eve of her fiftieth birthday — and returned to her home town where she purchased and renovated the largest home in the small city and settled into a daily routine interrupted only by the several trips she took throughout the year. She enjoyed telling friends about her upcoming “vacations from my retirement!”

She heard Karen open the back door, call “Good morning, ladies!” to her two elderly neighbors who went for a walk every morning promptly at six o’clock, and then shuffle back toward the receiver. As she listened to the familiar sound of her friend’s slippers scraping the tiled kitchen floor, she smiled and mumbled to herself, “I’ve got to buy that woman a decent pair of slippers for Christmas this year.” Karen’s well-worn, but beloved, fuzzy Garfield the cat slippers had long been a source of good-natured derision.

“O.K., let me see here . . .” Karen mumbled as she flipped to page eight of the Village Enterprise. “Hmmm . . . oh, my god. I don’t believe it.”

“That’s number five,” she deadpanned.

“Wait a minute,” Karen said quietly. “The name . . . ”

“Yeah,” she said. “How ’bout that?”

“That’s the same last name she had last time, but what the . . .” Karen’s voice trailed off as she reread the announcement. “It’s a different father.”

“Sure is,” she replied, her voice still devoid of emotion. “Check out the list of the other children. Four others and a combined total of three different last names between the five of them.”

“Holy schmoly,” Karen whispered. “Father’s Day must be fun. How old is this girl, anyway?”

“Well, I don’t know exactly, but according to my calculations, she can’t be more than twenty-three,” she responded. “Let’s say she’s twenty-five. Five kids by the time you’re twenty-five years old — with three different fathers — makes for an extremely difficult life unless your last name is Trump or Hilton . . . or one of the fathers is Brad Pitt.”

“I’m stunned. It seems like the last birth announcement was just a few months ago,” Karen said quietly.

“I know. I don’t think it was even a year ago,” she sighed. “And there’s his name. He’s listed again as one of the ‘proud grandparents.’”

“The joys of small-town life . . . your personal business published for the whole village to gossip about,” Karen observed.

“How does the newspaper get this information?” she asked, sipping her coffee.

“Well, as I remember it, there was a hospital volunteer who came to my room and went over all of the relevant information with me. I remember that she asked my parents’ names, and the names of Samuel’s parents. I thought it was for the birth certificate, but the Enterprise published one of these announcements when Alex was born. So I think the hospital forwards the details to the newspaper,” Karen explained.

“But there are a couple photos of other babies included in this article,” she pointed out. “Those pictures had to have been submitted by the family.”

“True,” Karen acknowledged.

After a few moments of silence on the telephone line, Karen said, “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Well, how do you feel about this?” she probed.

“Lucky,” she declared, a distinct hint of sadness in her voice. “I just can’t imagine trying to take care of all those kids. When I was that age, I couldn’t even walk and chew gum yet.”

“Baloney,” Karen chided. “When you were that age, you were in graduate school, working two — or was it three? — part-time jobs and juggling at least as many men, as I remember it. Including one professor.”

“Do you realize that by the time he and I were that age, it was already over? I was wearing bell bottoms the night we broke up. I had been disco dancing with Dave the night before. It’s beyond ancient history, girlfriend. According to this blurb, he’s still married to the Mrs. and they are the ‘proud grandparents’ of the five little rugrats. I’ll bet the little Mrs. is helping raise them and he’s providing financial support. Their house,” she added cynically, “is undoubtedly child-proofed.”

“Remember the question I asked you a few weeks ago?” Karen asked gently.

“Yeah, I remember,” she said evasively. “Well, I’d better let you get ready for work. And I have a ton of errands to run today. I’m leaving on Sunday, remember?”

“I have it on my calendar. Shall we have brunch before we head to the airport?” Karen queried.

“Sounds great. Bring Sam and Alex. My treat,” she responded, her tone brightening.

“They’re going fishing with a couple of Sam’s buddies from work, so it will have to be just us girls,” Karen explained.

“Excellent! You pick the place. My plane leaves at 3:00 p.m., so we’ll have plenty of time to linger over our mimosas,” she responded.

“All right,” Karen replied. “It is getting late, so I’d better run.” She paused for a moment. “Do me a favor?”

“Anything,” she answered. “You know that.”

“Answer the question,” Karen urged.

She swallowed the last lukewarm drop of coffee from her cup and took a deep breath. “You’re not going to be happy until I do, are you?”

“Nope. I really want to know what you believe, deep down inside in that dark, vulnerable little corner of your heart that you have convinced everyone else has no address,” Karen prodded.

“Fine. But you have to do me a favor,” she bartered.

“Name it.”

“You have to promise me that we will not speak of this again. I will answer the question — once — but then that’s the end of it. Talking about it incessantly is pointless. The past is . . . well, the past. We can’t change history. No matter how much we might wish we could.” She instantly regretted saying that, but it slipped out before she could stop herself.

“I promise. I will never ask again,” Karen swore solemnly.

“All right then.” She sat up straight and drew a long, focused breath through her nostrils as she pursed her lips and chose her words carefully. “The answer is ‘yes.’ I believe in my — what did you call it?”

“The dark, vulnerable little corner of your heart that everyone else thinks has no address,” Karen reminded her playfully.

“Yeah. Whatever,” she rolled her eyes. “I believe that he would have had a better life if he had chosen me. There. I said it. Out loud. I believe that all the way to the dark, vulnerable little corner of my soul, not just my heart. If he had loved me even half as much as I loved him, it would have been enough for me. I would have married him, given birth to all the little crumb-crunchers he wanted, and I’d be chasing all those grandkids around with him right now.”

“But, Karen,” she continued pointedly, “he didn’t love me, did he? So this is an entirely academic exercise. I haven’t seen him in nearly thirty years, so I have no way of knowing whether he’s happy or not. He might be flippin’ ecstatic every minute of every day, for all I know. I can’t judge the quality of someone else’s life, even though I am completely convinced that, under my value system, we would have had a fabulous life together. And I, naturally, enjoy imagining that he’s completely miserable.”

Karen snorted, but did not interrupt.

“But . . . ” she let her voice trail off and paused for a moment as she considered her words carefully. His house is undoubtedly child-proofed and he’s probably lost more than a few nights’ sleep about his daughter’s circumstances. I, in contrast, am enjoying my hard-earned retirement, my investment accounts are doing quite nicely in spite of the current economic climate, there is no spit-up or drool on my new living room furniture — which, by the way, you still haven’t come over to see — and I have to get to the travel agency and pick up my tickets and itinerary this morning. I don’t think about him . . . except when I pick up the newspaper and see another one of these silly announcements. O.K.? Satisfied?”

“O.K., girlfriend,” Karen replied softly. She glanced up at the clock. “Oh, geez, I really do have to get Alex ready for school now. I’ll see you Sunday.”

“You’ve got it,” she said cheerily.

She hung up the phone, walked back to the counter and poured herself a third cup of coffee. Then she paused in the doorway, perusing the elegant dining room adjacent to the kitchen and, beyond it, professionally redecorated living room where she frequently entertained guests. She turned, walked out the back door and sat down on the pristine patio. The sun was shining brightly now as she waved to the young man who had just come through the gate to perform his twice-weekly maintenance ritual. “It’s going to be a hot one today, so I got an early start. Figured you might want to spend some time in the pool this afternoon,” he called to her.

“You bet I do,” she agreed, pulling her feet up onto the chaise lounge. She leaned back, stretched out comfortably, and closed her eyes.

As always, it was his face she saw in her mind’s eye as she drifted into an early morning poolside nap. In the dark, hidden-away, vulnerable corner of her heart where her feelings for and memories of him remained hidden away, he was still the handsome, twenty-something young man who walked out of her life that night so many years earlier, rather than a fifty-something grandfather of five. And he always would be.

Inspired by A Thousand Words: Prompt Number Eight

Presenting the finest of the writer’s blogs by the bloggers who write them: Top 5 Picks as chosen by the August 15, 2008 WOOF Contest contestants.

About Writing:

• Writing Nag - 5 Ways to Face Down Rejection

Poetry:

• Robert Bourne - Hope
• Jennifer M. Scott - Waiting for September

Fiction:

• Jenn - The Birth Announcement

Prose/Non-Fiction

• Mike Fried - There’s No Business Like Law Business

Brought to You by Plotdog Press with Shattered Heart (Richard’s Backstory) First Draft Novel Intervention

Other August 15, 2008 Contestants:

Poetry

• Kayla - Purification Party
• Charles Sapp II - Why I Write
• exquisite corpse - Midnight Shadows
• Jennifer M. Scott - Crude Canvas
• Jennifer M. Scott - Déjà Vu
• Jennifer M Scott - Haiku Series #13

Fiction

• Shiva Nagri - Prime – Chapter 14
• Jennifer M. Scott - Kaylena

Prose/Non-Fiction

• Mike Fried - I’m Drawing A Blank

About Writing

• Joelle Anthony - Writing and Music - Part Two

Want to participate in the next WOOF? The next contest ends August 22, 2008. Submit a link to your best writing of the past two weeks using the form at the bottom of this page.

You Might Also Enjoy:

• What Friends Do (7)
• The Pseudonym (7)
• The Drawing (7)
• Still Holding Her Hand (8)
• In the Morning Light (Part Two) (11)

Welcome to the Just Write Blog Carnival, featuring a diverse and information-packed collection of articles about the various aspects of writing. Be sure to convey your appreciation to the participants by joining in the discussion at their respective sites and submitting their work to your favorite social networking groups. Enjoy!

Book Reviews

Christina M. Rau presents Chris Martin The Thief posted at Livin’ The Dream (One Loser at a Time), which she describes as a “good book with a kitschy cover.”

Alessandra presents Book Review: Lock and Key posted at Out of the Blue, exploring the themes of family and change.

Encouragement for Writers

JHS, Esq. presents If a writer writes . . . posted at Colloquium.

Toni presents These hands were made for writing posted at Wifely Steps. She believes that “typing your thoughts out is great, but writing your thoughts out by hand is best.”

Mark David Gerson presents The Voice of Your Muse: Birthing a Book I posted at The Voice of Your Muse.

Freelance

Amy Munnell presents Website Wants You . . . to Write How-To posted at 3 Questions and Answers, a look at eHowcom and its call for writers of how-to articles.

Allison Nazarian presents Copywriting: What Is It and Why Should You Care? (Part 1 of 2) posted at CopywritingForVAs. “As a Virtual Assistant,” Allison writes, “understanding copywriting is important for two key reasons: You need to promote your Virtual Assistant business, and, ideally, be able to write effective copy for your own website, brochure, and other marketing materials.”

Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen presents Pitching Your Freelance Article to Magazines: How to Sell What You Write posted at Quips and Tips for Freelance Writers, offering seven tips on pitching articles to editors, plus a very short example of a professional query letter.

Sharon Hurley Hall presents Are You Invisible? posted at Get Paid to Write Online. According to Sharon, “finding success as a freelance writer is about many things: writing skills, communication skills, punctuality and much more. But none of that will do you a bit of good if clients can’t find you.”

Love Affair With Words

Jim Murdoch presents The Joy of Libraries posted at The Truth About Lies, a humorous look at the changing place of libraries in our lives.

Brian Jay Stanley presents The Melodrama of Young Writers posted at Aphorisms and Paradoxes.

Poetry

Patricia Twitchell presents The Adventures of Penny Pincher: Penny Pincher Helps Patricia with Her Gardening posted at Just Bears and Stuff. Patricia loves to spend time in her garden. She spends a lot of time planting colorful and fragrant flowers, and people passing by admire the beautiful garden. Read about how Penny Pincher helps Patricia.

Ella Moss presents Of God and Her posted at Zodiac Times that she describes as “a little gem — enjoyable and inspiring.”

Publishing

Riley presents Interview With an Editor posted at All Rileyed Up, a discussion with a literary journal editor.

GrrlScientist presents Harry Potter’s The Tales of Beedle the Bard to be Published posted at Living the Scientific Life. The Tales of Beedle the Bard was first mentioned in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Now it is being published December 4, 2008 — just in time for the holiday gift-giving.

The Writing Life

Stephen presents MMA - The Ultimate Reality TV posted at MMA Bulletin.

Heather Johnson presents Guest Post: Improve Your Reading Habits posted at Dallas Woodburn’s Writing Life.

Janice Campbell presents Writing Evaluator Member of the Month- Troy Howell posted at NAIWE NewsWire. In this interview with freelance writer Troy Howell, readers get a glimpse into the life of a freelance writer from the perspective of a more than twenty-five year veteran writing, illustrator, and manuscript evaluator. Even with all he has accomplished, Howell is still, according to Janice, “growing, changing, and adapting.

Tracy Cooper-Posey presents Is It Worth Getting An Agent? - Foundation Series posted at Anchored Authors.

Amy Munnell presents Interview . . . with journalist/novelist Janice Harayda posted at 3 Questions and Answers. Harayda reveals how she juggles her job as a book critic and her life as a novelist.

Writing Mechanics

Jim Murdoch presents Poetry and art (part one) posted at The Truth About Lies, the first of a three-part series of articles.

Amy Munnell presents Virtual Book Tour . . . author Bill Frederick posted at 3 Questions and Answers. The author answers questions from readers about his new book, virtual book tours, and e-book publishing.

Writing Resources

Fiona King presents 50 Must-Have Firefox Extensions for Writers posted at Best Colleges Online.

Kathleen Gage presents Attention Authors! Sell Lots of Books with Teleseminars! posted at Street Smarts Marketing & Promotions. Authors dream of selling lots of books, becoming well known — achieving celebrity status — and earning a fortune. But most will never succeed because they do not know how to develop and implement an effective publicity plan. This article describes an effective marketing strategy.

Writing Tips

mediamonkey presents How to write a bibliography: Bibliography tips posted at How to: Tips and Tricks, a step by step guide.

KD Choi presents Say It Ain’t So: Grammar Rules You Can Break posted at Miss Write.

debergerac78 presents Editing for Money III - oDesk Insider posted at oDesk Insider, noting that “successful editing means bridging the gap between what your employer wants and what you feel the target audience needs.”

Steve Osborne presents Walk Your Way to Better Writing posted at The Writers Bag com.

Erin Straza presents writers bloc: Getting My Welcome Mats in a Row (i.e., How to Create a Writer’s Reference System) posted at Filling My Patch of Sky.

Amy Munnell presents Want to Write Full Time? 3 Questions You Need to Answer posted at 3 Questions and Answers, offering “tips for a successful transition from a part-time to full-time writing career.”

A big “thank you” goes to all the writers who participated in this wonderful edition!

If you would like to submit an article for next week’s edition or peruse the carnival archive, click here.

Interested in hosting a future edition? Send a message to Missy!

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