Vignette #13 - Visitor

Figure I might as well finish them out, since I only had a few more to go to complete the #15.  OK, so I'm nearly three weeks late and it's really a little too long to qualify.  Oh well.

I think this one may grow into a short story.

Norman was waiting for Amanda when she got home, sitting on the bottom step with his knees drawn up and the old blue coat she'd given him last time pulled tightly around him.  The coat was much the worse for wear: filthy, the edges of the cuffs hanging in ragged, sodden tatters.  Duct tape patched a hole in one sleeve; greyish stuffing spilled out on one side where the tape had pulled loose.  He jumped up with an open grin as she approached, revealing a new gap--one of his top teeth was missing.  "Heya, sis!"  For a moment, he seemed about to embrace her, and she drew back involuntarily.  A shadow crossed his face; he held out a rough, black-nailed hand instead, and she grabbed on, swallowing her disgust.
"Norman," she said.  "It's been awhile."  His hand was not only dirty but also cold as ice and clammy.  It took all she had not to pull away immediately.  "I gave you gloves," she said.  "Two pairs."
He shrugged.  "I get by."  Which meant, of course, that he'd given them away.  He always did.  It was a wonder he still had the coat.  Probably no one else wanted it.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
He looked away.  "Just wanted to see you."
"Really."
He raised his head to look at her, his grey eyes thoughtful, but said nothing.  She sighed.
A neighbor pulled up in the drive next door; the woman stared at Norman with alarm as she climbed out of her car.  Amanda felt her face flush, and felt simultaneously angry with herself for her shame and with Norman for shaming her.  She managed a weak smile and a wave.  "'Afternoon, Marie!" she called out.  Marie smiled back uncertainly, and hurried up the stairs and inside, glancing back over her shoulder, her face pinched.
"Thinks I'm going to mug you or something," Norman whispered cheerfully.  He knew--that was the worst of it.  He knew, and yet...
Amanda pursed her lips and turned away.  "You'd better come on in," she muttered.  She stepped past him up the steps, unlocked the door and banged it open, switched on the light, dropped her keys with a clatter in the tray by the door, and went into the house, Norman following silently at her heels.  They'd done this often enough to have a sort of ritual, she thought bitterly.  No words were needed.  Norman waited with his hands folded in front of him while she dug out some clothes she'd picked up for him in the interim; he took the shirt and pants, underwear and socks, pulled a plastic grocery bag from the bin by the laundry room, and went up to the upstairs bathroom to clean up.  Always the same thing.  And as always, when he came down, shaven and scrubbed, carrying his dirty clothes in the grocery bag, she asked her usual question: "Have you eaten?"
And as usual, he tried to make light of his situation.  "Depends on what you mean by that.  I couldn't possibly have arrived at my current age and state of being if I'd never--"
"Norman," she said sharply, "are you hungry?"
The half-smile faded and something like sadness flickered in his eyes for a moment.  "Yes," he said quietly.
"OK, then."  She slammed the refrigerator door open and started taking out containers of leftovers, banging each one in turn down on the counter as Norman stood silently waiting in his clean clothes and his stocking feet, blinking a little at each impact.  Why was she being this way? she asked herself.  To punish him?  For what, exactly?
When the last option was set out, she turned around, leaning back against the counter with her arms folded and demanded, "Which one?  And don't say it doesn't matter.  That doesn't simplify anything.  There's chili, tuna casserole, turkey for sandwiches, or I can heat you up a burrito or make an omelet.  Which?"
He gazed at the containers, swallowing.  "Chili," he said finally.
"Fine."  She snapped the lid off, set it loosely on top, and shoved the container in the microwave. "And sit down, why don't you?" she said, pointing at a chair.  "You're making me nervous."

Vignette #12 - Priorities (plus bonus mini-poem)

And yes, I realize my priorities are as skewed as the other extreme...still working on that whole balance thing. For the record, I *did* do dishes and laundry today...

And a sort of a word doodle sort of thing I scribbled down at work today:

Vignette #11 - Campfire

Smells: smoke of burning pine and burning maple, mingled spicy-sweet.  Hot dogs, some charred.   Melted chocolate, ketchup, mustard, sweet relish.  The sticky golden smell of toasted marshmallows.  The round green-wintergreen smell of the sharpened, bark-peeled-off birch branches we use for roasting marshmallows.

Sensations: gravel beneath my feet, the wind, smoke following a dance around the fire to sting my eyes and touch my hair.  The rough and sandy bark of the gathered tree branches we break to toss on the flames.  A fleck of ash touches my cheek: a burning brand.  I've a pebble in my sandals--shake it out, shake it out!

Sights: Flames, blue-tinged at the depths and orange and yellow and disappearing as they rise.  The sharp orange glow of coals, the blackened wood.  Sand and grass and big soft leaves that flutter in the breeze.  A blue sky that goes a deep purple-black as the day falls behind the darkened hills.

Sounds: crackle-pop, and the whispering roar of the flames.  Laughter, crickets, an owl, the snap of breaking branches.  The final hiss as we douse the flames, and amid sleepy murmurs of conversation, retreat for the night.

Vignette #10 - Garden Song

Vignette #9 - School Bus

Vignette #8 - Sharp

Since I've slipped into poetry, and while I'm in revealing-my-dark-side mode...I present another not altogether cheery piece...

Vignette #7 - Talk at Twilight

A poem this time. Not sure I like this one...there's maybe too much left to the imagination of the reader for it to make sense.

Vignette #6 - Spat (and now for something completely different...)

Total fiction this time around, and right at the edge of what I'm comfortable with writing.


I may expand this into a short story some day. I'd like to know who these people are, and...maybe not so much redeem them as set them off on the road toward redemption.

Vignette #5 - The Big Old Tree

I sat down and read a bunch of definitions of what a vignette should be, and I think I'm more confused than ever. I'm not sure most of my previous blurbs qualify, and I'm equally unsure about this one, but it's what I wrote, so it's what you get...



Awful lot of repeated phrases and words and other such things, but this being a typecast...what you see is what you get.

Vignette #4 - Daybreak

I'm behind on these things, I think...had a bad cold/flu thing over the weekend that pretty much put me down for the count. For the record, reading peculiar sci-fi whilst feverish can lead to some interesting sorta waking dream type things. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. This has nothing to do with the vignette, however.



In other news, somewhere between the peculiar sci-fi and the waking dreams and some other reading, I'm really fired up about finally finishing my first sci-fi novel...not this past year's NaNoWriMo project, but an older story. It needs to be taken apart at the seams and completely and ruthlessly rewritten, so I'd shelved it for ages. But now...I think I have enough distance from the initial writing that I can carve it up and start again. Yay for a summer writing project!

Vignette #3 (experimental stream of consciousness style...)

July Vignette #2

I'm terrible at titles. Everything that occurred to me was cheesy. It shall be nameless, poor thing.

July Vignette #1

Here we go, per Art's challenge... Hopefully this counts as a vignette?