Saturday mornings belong to YOU! Women develop writing skills through instruction, exercises, peer-coaching, and critique. An optional opportunity for professional editing of any work-in-progress is also offered to participants. Our new eight-week session is as follows: June 13, 20, 27, July 11, 18, 25, August 1, 8. Coming soon will be our late summer women's writing salon.
Question: What would you do in connection with your writing if you were really brave?
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Love in Laguna
We slip into afternoon
scattered light to sip
wine-soaked strawberries
beside bougainvillea
the color of Merlot;
Sometime around noon
we slather marmalade
thick with orange rine,
and whip eggs smooth
like creamy meringue;
We loll on hot sand
in private beach coves,
finding a hundred reasons
to touch skin kissed
by salty sea spray;
Late lovers, we stroll,
arms around each other
tightly along St. Ann's
asthe eight o'clock sun
infuses summer's sea;
Like spoons, we sleep
below an August moon,
while in the night sky
a droning plane
recalls September.
scattered light to sip
wine-soaked strawberries
beside bougainvillea
the color of Merlot;
Sometime around noon
we slather marmalade
thick with orange rine,
and whip eggs smooth
like creamy meringue;
We loll on hot sand
in private beach coves,
finding a hundred reasons
to touch skin kissed
by salty sea spray;
Late lovers, we stroll,
arms around each other
tightly along St. Ann's
asthe eight o'clock sun
infuses summer's sea;
Like spoons, we sleep
below an August moon,
while in the night sky
a droning plane
recalls September.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Losing Entry
Here's my FLASH FICTION entry that did not win.
LAST ROUNDUP
“Hey, pretty lady, what’s a filly like you doin’ out so late?”
He ordered himself a double shot and one for her.
“Not many cowboys come through this town anymore,” she said. “Pity, too.” Then she smiled. “You out lookin’ for some hog-killin’ fun?”
He spurred her on. “Yep.”
As the crowd thinned at two, she said, “Don’t ‘spect me to slide into that filthy pickup out front.”
He lit her cigarette, ordered a last round. “Your call, ma’am. Sometimes you get. Sometimes you get got.”
She caught him by the big brass buckle. He didn’t mind.
“I’m game,” she said, and they climbed the stairs out back to the stars.
LAST ROUNDUP
“Hey, pretty lady, what’s a filly like you doin’ out so late?”
He ordered himself a double shot and one for her.
“Not many cowboys come through this town anymore,” she said. “Pity, too.” Then she smiled. “You out lookin’ for some hog-killin’ fun?”
He spurred her on. “Yep.”
As the crowd thinned at two, she said, “Don’t ‘spect me to slide into that filthy pickup out front.”
He lit her cigarette, ordered a last round. “Your call, ma’am. Sometimes you get. Sometimes you get got.”
She caught him by the big brass buckle. He didn’t mind.
“I’m game,” she said, and they climbed the stairs out back to the stars.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Last Love
Almost every night she slips into my bed, and I welcome her, craving her warmth as she curls to conform her body to mine. We sleep, spoon fashion.
Oh, there are times when we don’t agree. She can be shrill, scolding the neighbors up too soon or those who tear around late. She’s protective, doesn’t want me disturbed or unduly startled. She’s young, you see, and I am old, but in our May-December relationship, she gives my life meaning, a reason to arise each morning.
She’s beautiful and as playful as a kitten at times. Her eagerness for a good time gets me out of my chair and makes me laugh. How clever she is and oh, how she teases. She puts a spring in my step and lifts my spirits every hour of the day.
The two of us walk every afternoon, strolling along the honeysuckle walk to get the mail or to the corner to watch the boys on bikes. We dawdle, examining leaves and bits of bark, little things others might not notice as we inhale the cool salt scent wafting inland from the coast. We poke about, checking our property, alert to anything the least bit altered from the day before. By now we know every inch of the garden planters, the slope of the grass, and what lies behind every bush. She’s alert, warning me of anything amiss. With her, I feel safe.
When we’ve had enough of the outdoors or, I should say, when I’ve had enough for she would like nothing better than to go around again, dawdling, observing, roaming the intricate pathways of our neighborhood, I ask, “Sweetie, don’t you think it’s time to go back into the house and have a little snack.”
I pour myself a glass of red wine, have a cracker or two, maybe some cheese or some dark chocolate. She prefers fresh water and a few carrot sticks. No wonder she’s in better shape than I, slim and trim; her diet and exercise keeps her that way.
I sort the day’s mail at the table, open the paper to read our horoscopes since we catch the rest of news on CNN. Then she’ll sit in my lap as I pour another glass of wine. While she rests, drowsy after a full day, I fix dinner.
In the evening, she’s alert again and demands my attention, nudging and prodding, insisting on some quality time even tough I must get some writing done, check my e-mail, and do some research on the net.
She gets out her toys, one after another, eager to play, thinking one game or another will entice me. Surely, the neighbors can hear how badly she wants to party for she can become quite insistent in the evenings.
“Shh, it’s getting late,” I tell her. Then I coax her a little, rub her back, and she settles down. She loves me, and I love her, my dachshund, my Annie.
Oh, there are times when we don’t agree. She can be shrill, scolding the neighbors up too soon or those who tear around late. She’s protective, doesn’t want me disturbed or unduly startled. She’s young, you see, and I am old, but in our May-December relationship, she gives my life meaning, a reason to arise each morning.
She’s beautiful and as playful as a kitten at times. Her eagerness for a good time gets me out of my chair and makes me laugh. How clever she is and oh, how she teases. She puts a spring in my step and lifts my spirits every hour of the day.
The two of us walk every afternoon, strolling along the honeysuckle walk to get the mail or to the corner to watch the boys on bikes. We dawdle, examining leaves and bits of bark, little things others might not notice as we inhale the cool salt scent wafting inland from the coast. We poke about, checking our property, alert to anything the least bit altered from the day before. By now we know every inch of the garden planters, the slope of the grass, and what lies behind every bush. She’s alert, warning me of anything amiss. With her, I feel safe.
When we’ve had enough of the outdoors or, I should say, when I’ve had enough for she would like nothing better than to go around again, dawdling, observing, roaming the intricate pathways of our neighborhood, I ask, “Sweetie, don’t you think it’s time to go back into the house and have a little snack.”
I pour myself a glass of red wine, have a cracker or two, maybe some cheese or some dark chocolate. She prefers fresh water and a few carrot sticks. No wonder she’s in better shape than I, slim and trim; her diet and exercise keeps her that way.
I sort the day’s mail at the table, open the paper to read our horoscopes since we catch the rest of news on CNN. Then she’ll sit in my lap as I pour another glass of wine. While she rests, drowsy after a full day, I fix dinner.
In the evening, she’s alert again and demands my attention, nudging and prodding, insisting on some quality time even tough I must get some writing done, check my e-mail, and do some research on the net.
She gets out her toys, one after another, eager to play, thinking one game or another will entice me. Surely, the neighbors can hear how badly she wants to party for she can become quite insistent in the evenings.
“Shh, it’s getting late,” I tell her. Then I coax her a little, rub her back, and she settles down. She loves me, and I love her, my dachshund, my Annie.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
New Book I'm Working On
Hello here is a new book I just started!!!
Haunted
Her new Home.
She had moved to the South. Found a place on the internet and bought it sight unseen. After twelve years with her employer the move could only be called abrupt. She quit her job and left.
She had been enchanted with the jasmine vine entwining the white pickets of the front porch. The house was built in 1849! And so no surprise there were some rotten boards here and there. She could almost smell the history of the place. Deep. Dark. Fertile.
Her first night. Very quiet. She wasn’t used to that. She lay in bed and heard herself breathing. The crickets chirped with the unvarying cadence of machines . She had locked the door, but the lock was not much good. A strong nudge and the door would creak open.
The drone of the insects had a hypnotic effect. She slept. It was one in the morning when she awoke in the dark. She couldn’t describe it, but she felt a “presence”. The hairs on her neck crawled. Her palms were damp. She lay awake, listening to rustle of leaves, the tapping of branches, the subtle creaks of an old house.
The next thing she knew it was morning. Spring sunshine dappling her bed. Birds trilling. And the sweet jasmine blossoms gay and cheerful. She inhaled, stretched like a cat. Today she would tackle the overgrown garden.
The garden had about merged with the wildness at the edges of her property – scrub pine, acacia, thistle . A blackberry had gone crazy and smothered a bouganviilla , with the rare lily or rose trying to poke its damp tentative blossom toward the sun. Ripping away the vines with gloved hands and whacking them with her machete, she encountered a scraggly tomato plant. The heavy green tomatoes lay against the moist dark soil, savageable. She smiled.
Just then her cell phone buzzed in the pocket of her jeans.
What?
How is it going?
I’m busy.
Is there anything you need?
Yeah. I need for you to stop calling me.
She turned off her phone. She took her machete and whacked at the blackberry. She had quite a pile of thorny severed boughs.
Idiot. She said aloud. Stopping, flushed and breathing hard. A bird of prey (an eagle?) soared overhead. White clouds stretched and changed shape against the blue sky. May. Her favorite month.
She had accomplished quite a bit by the time darkness extinguished the long dusk. She began to visualize orderly rows of vegetables. Sipping Jasmine tea, she smiled as she rocked in sunbleached porch rocker. The rocker was lopsided, but most enjoyable. She tasted the skin of her sunburnt forearm. Salty.
No electricity yet. The wiring was shot. As cool night yielded insects and dew. She lit the wick of a kerosene lamp. She would be sore tomorrow. Not used to physical work. She felt a healthy exhaustion which rendered her peaceful. Not like the fatigue after a sedentary day of endless phone calls and emails, capped with a commute in dense aggressive traffic, while her cell phone continued to buzz. She had yet to turn on her laptop.
The bathroom was narrow box. It had been added in the forties. The toilet. stained porcelain, was slow, but flushed, eventually. The bedroom closets were small, but the kitchen pantry was large. A big walk in pantry. No doubt it once held a winter’s worth of home canned fruits and vegetables.
She sunk into bed. The “partly furnished” component of her new house was appreciated, though the too soft double bed had a distinct gentile sag. A grandmotherly bed. Sweet but arthritic, it held her in it’s crooked springs. She would sleep well tonight.
But she did not. She had dozed off almost immediately, but awakened suddenly in the whispering blackness. A cramp bit into bowels. The usual panic attack, all she had to do was count to one hundred. One, two, three . . . .
She had the sensation of being locked in a vault. She sucked in air but felt she wasn’t getting enough. Slow. Slow down, her brain tried to tell itself, but her body had its own ideas. Her heartbeat accelerated like a gas pedal pushed down.
Then she heard something. Not loud. She had to strain to hear. Where was it? In the kitchen? She listened with the vigilance of a prey animal at high alert. But the sound did not return. The wind kicked up. It puffed the muslin curtin cooled by a pattering of summer rain. She could hear it gently rocking the oaks. The sound of rhythmic swooshings soothed her and sleep overtook her.
The next morning she emerged from her bedroom, treading softly on the oak floored hallway with the quaint patterned carpet runners that had so captivated her on the internet. Night terrors banished by the light. She yawned, anticipating brewing morning coffee on the petite gas stove, and getting to work again. Today she would begin to clear out the detached garage. The garage (not shown in the internet advertisement) was stuffed floor to ceiling with several lifetimes worth of junk. She envisioned turning the garage into a tidy little art studio slash library.
As she entered the kitchen, she stopped and froze. A smeared swath of bright red blood was already attracting a few files on the pale linoleum. Her eyes followed the blood to its terminus, where a rat lay with its intestines ripped out.
She gasped.
Instinctively she covered her eyes. But quickly recovered. This was her house and her dead rat. She would have to clean it up.
Donning gloves, she scooped up the rat with a shovel and buried beyond her property line in the forest. She deduced that the rat was killed in a fight with another rat. What else could have killed it?
She had peered into the dusty attic in search of the source of the rat . It was scattered with rat “pellets”, and it, like the garage contained dusty junk. Boxes, things covered in sheets, odds and ends, stacks of magazines and papers. Another project for another day. The real estate agent had emphasized that the house was a “fixer-upper”. The bold words “AS-IS” were something she was required to initial on the purchase contract. Of course that was why the house was so cheap she could buy it outright with cash.
She drove to the nearest small town seventeen miles distant, savoring traffic-free Oak Leaf Road for seven meandering miles. Shady forest tunnels gave was to sunlit meadows with collapsing red barns. She crossed Shenandoah Creek over a stone bridge, and turned onto two lane Shadrach County highway. The route had originally been used by horse drawn carriages trotting residents to a brisk little railroad station and thence to churning cities far beyond. The route had long ago been supplanted by the interstate. And thus it was that the town of Red Stone and all its former arteries atrophied to lovely oblivion.
The old town of Red Stone consisted of a boarded up moldering schoolhouse tucked deep in a cypress wood, a crumbling railroad station similarly festooned with vines and far enough from the existing thoroufare to look somewhat haunted, two street, two block old downtown, with a white clapboard church here and there. The “new” Redstone consisted of a couple of the most prolific Big Boxes and fast food places. A nursing home doing its best impression of a prison , an auto dealership vying for “most garish”, and a squat stucco drive through bank looking like a smug fat toad completed the ensemble. Civilization as we know it. Ugly, but convenient.
She smelled the delicious aroma of fried food. She decided to try to local fare and drove through “Ernie’s Drive-In” She ordered onion rings from a chubby freckled teenager whose name tag said “Shandora”.
Eating her onion rings at a small park while perusing the local paper, a red-neck in a base-ball cap, leered at her, and gunned his engine for all it was worth. Bare legs, a tank top, and long dirty blond hair. What more could a guy ask? Not much, she well knew. She felt good. The sun felt warm on her legs. She dipped an onion ring in ketchup and relished the crispy taste. Perfection. She loved this place. Maybe she would open a little restaurant. She still had a fair chunk of savings. She had to do something to make money, eventually.
After her onion ring feast, she purchased chocolate, peanut butter, olive oil, pasta, tomato paste, garlic, oregano, canned tomatos, lemon cake mix with lemon frosting, eggs, and rat traps
Back home she made herself jump when trying to bait the traps with peanut butter. The big traps inadvertently snapped with considerable force. She put one in the kitchen, one in the attic, and one on the front porch.
At about three a.m. she was awakened by an agonized rat squeal and the banging sound of a rat in its death throes flopping the trap around. The banging didn’t last long. She sighed and went back to sleep. She knew it was evil to murder the rat. But it had to be done. Life was brutal.
What Happened Next.
Her rat bonanza ended after she bagged six. She didn’t trap any more after that.
As the month of Map unfolded, she found herself on Sunday morning following an old stone wall along her southerly property boundary. The wall continued past her property into the forest where it became progressively more mossy and crumbling. She had no particular reason to follow the wall, and no particular reason not to. She was curious. The wall continued for about a quarter mile and veered sharply west where its condition improved. She was thrilled to hear the exuberant not too distant whinny of a horse amplified through the tall Alder and Dogwood. She skipped along and the wall curved, went down, went up, right, and left and then straight.
As she followed the straight section of wall the trees became increasingly sparse. The wall had been cemented along the top and the cement was warm and smooth. The wall was in good enough condition she could walk along the top of it and she did. She removed her shoes. She from under an enoumous weeping willow tree to a vast rolling pasture studded with oaks. In the distance several horses were grazing. One of them lifted its head and whinneyed to her. She didn’t know much about horses. She waved jumped up and down and then whinneyed back.
Something in the pasture moved that looked like part of the boulder it was sitting on moved. It turned out to be a person. The smallest oldest person she had ever seen.
The person held up a crooked walking stick in a gesture of greeting. She laughed. It was like looking at a munchkin in equestrian attire. A tiny stooped old woman with knarled hands and wrinkles everywhere. Her smile was toothless, but her blue eyes twinkled as she looked up approaching slowly using her walking stick. The wrinkles make patterns, formed a landscape of trails, were a sort of dermal geophrapic phenomenon. The old woman came and stood leaning on her cane looking up.
And what is your name young lady?
Merle. I bought the little white house. Up that way.
You live alone?
Yes.
So do I.
Merle sat on the wall smiling, fascinated with the munchkin woman, who was equally fascinated with her and smiled back.
I’m JoJo Pikering. That little house you bought used to part of my great great great grandfather’s land. He owned five thousand acres. I’ve got the last five hundred.
Wow. Merle was trying to suppress her laughter. She knew she was being impolite. It was just that when JoJo talked her wrinkly skin and tiny wrinkled mouth moved in such a way, that when she said “I’ve got the last two hundred” she looked extremely comical. A dwarf. A gnome. It was surreal!
Say young lady have you been smoking something?
No no I’m sorry. I just . . . it’s very nice to meet you. I guess I’m just . . . I don’t know. I’ve never owned a house before and I’m a little . . . you know . . .
Lonely?
Merle’s borderline hysteria was making her eyes water and for an embarrassing second she thought she would cry. She felt that she had a Hoover Dam of tears inside and the dam had sprung a dangerous crack. What would JoJo Pikering think of her new neighbor if she broke down sobbing for no reason?
Haunted
Her new Home.
She had moved to the South. Found a place on the internet and bought it sight unseen. After twelve years with her employer the move could only be called abrupt. She quit her job and left.
She had been enchanted with the jasmine vine entwining the white pickets of the front porch. The house was built in 1849! And so no surprise there were some rotten boards here and there. She could almost smell the history of the place. Deep. Dark. Fertile.
Her first night. Very quiet. She wasn’t used to that. She lay in bed and heard herself breathing. The crickets chirped with the unvarying cadence of machines . She had locked the door, but the lock was not much good. A strong nudge and the door would creak open.
The drone of the insects had a hypnotic effect. She slept. It was one in the morning when she awoke in the dark. She couldn’t describe it, but she felt a “presence”. The hairs on her neck crawled. Her palms were damp. She lay awake, listening to rustle of leaves, the tapping of branches, the subtle creaks of an old house.
The next thing she knew it was morning. Spring sunshine dappling her bed. Birds trilling. And the sweet jasmine blossoms gay and cheerful. She inhaled, stretched like a cat. Today she would tackle the overgrown garden.
The garden had about merged with the wildness at the edges of her property – scrub pine, acacia, thistle . A blackberry had gone crazy and smothered a bouganviilla , with the rare lily or rose trying to poke its damp tentative blossom toward the sun. Ripping away the vines with gloved hands and whacking them with her machete, she encountered a scraggly tomato plant. The heavy green tomatoes lay against the moist dark soil, savageable. She smiled.
Just then her cell phone buzzed in the pocket of her jeans.
What?
How is it going?
I’m busy.
Is there anything you need?
Yeah. I need for you to stop calling me.
She turned off her phone. She took her machete and whacked at the blackberry. She had quite a pile of thorny severed boughs.
Idiot. She said aloud. Stopping, flushed and breathing hard. A bird of prey (an eagle?) soared overhead. White clouds stretched and changed shape against the blue sky. May. Her favorite month.
She had accomplished quite a bit by the time darkness extinguished the long dusk. She began to visualize orderly rows of vegetables. Sipping Jasmine tea, she smiled as she rocked in sunbleached porch rocker. The rocker was lopsided, but most enjoyable. She tasted the skin of her sunburnt forearm. Salty.
No electricity yet. The wiring was shot. As cool night yielded insects and dew. She lit the wick of a kerosene lamp. She would be sore tomorrow. Not used to physical work. She felt a healthy exhaustion which rendered her peaceful. Not like the fatigue after a sedentary day of endless phone calls and emails, capped with a commute in dense aggressive traffic, while her cell phone continued to buzz. She had yet to turn on her laptop.
The bathroom was narrow box. It had been added in the forties. The toilet. stained porcelain, was slow, but flushed, eventually. The bedroom closets were small, but the kitchen pantry was large. A big walk in pantry. No doubt it once held a winter’s worth of home canned fruits and vegetables.
She sunk into bed. The “partly furnished” component of her new house was appreciated, though the too soft double bed had a distinct gentile sag. A grandmotherly bed. Sweet but arthritic, it held her in it’s crooked springs. She would sleep well tonight.
But she did not. She had dozed off almost immediately, but awakened suddenly in the whispering blackness. A cramp bit into bowels. The usual panic attack, all she had to do was count to one hundred. One, two, three . . . .
She had the sensation of being locked in a vault. She sucked in air but felt she wasn’t getting enough. Slow. Slow down, her brain tried to tell itself, but her body had its own ideas. Her heartbeat accelerated like a gas pedal pushed down.
Then she heard something. Not loud. She had to strain to hear. Where was it? In the kitchen? She listened with the vigilance of a prey animal at high alert. But the sound did not return. The wind kicked up. It puffed the muslin curtin cooled by a pattering of summer rain. She could hear it gently rocking the oaks. The sound of rhythmic swooshings soothed her and sleep overtook her.
The next morning she emerged from her bedroom, treading softly on the oak floored hallway with the quaint patterned carpet runners that had so captivated her on the internet. Night terrors banished by the light. She yawned, anticipating brewing morning coffee on the petite gas stove, and getting to work again. Today she would begin to clear out the detached garage. The garage (not shown in the internet advertisement) was stuffed floor to ceiling with several lifetimes worth of junk. She envisioned turning the garage into a tidy little art studio slash library.
As she entered the kitchen, she stopped and froze. A smeared swath of bright red blood was already attracting a few files on the pale linoleum. Her eyes followed the blood to its terminus, where a rat lay with its intestines ripped out.
She gasped.
Instinctively she covered her eyes. But quickly recovered. This was her house and her dead rat. She would have to clean it up.
Donning gloves, she scooped up the rat with a shovel and buried beyond her property line in the forest. She deduced that the rat was killed in a fight with another rat. What else could have killed it?
She had peered into the dusty attic in search of the source of the rat . It was scattered with rat “pellets”, and it, like the garage contained dusty junk. Boxes, things covered in sheets, odds and ends, stacks of magazines and papers. Another project for another day. The real estate agent had emphasized that the house was a “fixer-upper”. The bold words “AS-IS” were something she was required to initial on the purchase contract. Of course that was why the house was so cheap she could buy it outright with cash.
She drove to the nearest small town seventeen miles distant, savoring traffic-free Oak Leaf Road for seven meandering miles. Shady forest tunnels gave was to sunlit meadows with collapsing red barns. She crossed Shenandoah Creek over a stone bridge, and turned onto two lane Shadrach County highway. The route had originally been used by horse drawn carriages trotting residents to a brisk little railroad station and thence to churning cities far beyond. The route had long ago been supplanted by the interstate. And thus it was that the town of Red Stone and all its former arteries atrophied to lovely oblivion.
The old town of Red Stone consisted of a boarded up moldering schoolhouse tucked deep in a cypress wood, a crumbling railroad station similarly festooned with vines and far enough from the existing thoroufare to look somewhat haunted, two street, two block old downtown, with a white clapboard church here and there. The “new” Redstone consisted of a couple of the most prolific Big Boxes and fast food places. A nursing home doing its best impression of a prison , an auto dealership vying for “most garish”, and a squat stucco drive through bank looking like a smug fat toad completed the ensemble. Civilization as we know it. Ugly, but convenient.
She smelled the delicious aroma of fried food. She decided to try to local fare and drove through “Ernie’s Drive-In” She ordered onion rings from a chubby freckled teenager whose name tag said “Shandora”.
Eating her onion rings at a small park while perusing the local paper, a red-neck in a base-ball cap, leered at her, and gunned his engine for all it was worth. Bare legs, a tank top, and long dirty blond hair. What more could a guy ask? Not much, she well knew. She felt good. The sun felt warm on her legs. She dipped an onion ring in ketchup and relished the crispy taste. Perfection. She loved this place. Maybe she would open a little restaurant. She still had a fair chunk of savings. She had to do something to make money, eventually.
After her onion ring feast, she purchased chocolate, peanut butter, olive oil, pasta, tomato paste, garlic, oregano, canned tomatos, lemon cake mix with lemon frosting, eggs, and rat traps
Back home she made herself jump when trying to bait the traps with peanut butter. The big traps inadvertently snapped with considerable force. She put one in the kitchen, one in the attic, and one on the front porch.
At about three a.m. she was awakened by an agonized rat squeal and the banging sound of a rat in its death throes flopping the trap around. The banging didn’t last long. She sighed and went back to sleep. She knew it was evil to murder the rat. But it had to be done. Life was brutal.
What Happened Next.
Her rat bonanza ended after she bagged six. She didn’t trap any more after that.
As the month of Map unfolded, she found herself on Sunday morning following an old stone wall along her southerly property boundary. The wall continued past her property into the forest where it became progressively more mossy and crumbling. She had no particular reason to follow the wall, and no particular reason not to. She was curious. The wall continued for about a quarter mile and veered sharply west where its condition improved. She was thrilled to hear the exuberant not too distant whinny of a horse amplified through the tall Alder and Dogwood. She skipped along and the wall curved, went down, went up, right, and left and then straight.
As she followed the straight section of wall the trees became increasingly sparse. The wall had been cemented along the top and the cement was warm and smooth. The wall was in good enough condition she could walk along the top of it and she did. She removed her shoes. She from under an enoumous weeping willow tree to a vast rolling pasture studded with oaks. In the distance several horses were grazing. One of them lifted its head and whinneyed to her. She didn’t know much about horses. She waved jumped up and down and then whinneyed back.
Something in the pasture moved that looked like part of the boulder it was sitting on moved. It turned out to be a person. The smallest oldest person she had ever seen.
The person held up a crooked walking stick in a gesture of greeting. She laughed. It was like looking at a munchkin in equestrian attire. A tiny stooped old woman with knarled hands and wrinkles everywhere. Her smile was toothless, but her blue eyes twinkled as she looked up approaching slowly using her walking stick. The wrinkles make patterns, formed a landscape of trails, were a sort of dermal geophrapic phenomenon. The old woman came and stood leaning on her cane looking up.
And what is your name young lady?
Merle. I bought the little white house. Up that way.
You live alone?
Yes.
So do I.
Merle sat on the wall smiling, fascinated with the munchkin woman, who was equally fascinated with her and smiled back.
I’m JoJo Pikering. That little house you bought used to part of my great great great grandfather’s land. He owned five thousand acres. I’ve got the last five hundred.
Wow. Merle was trying to suppress her laughter. She knew she was being impolite. It was just that when JoJo talked her wrinkly skin and tiny wrinkled mouth moved in such a way, that when she said “I’ve got the last two hundred” she looked extremely comical. A dwarf. A gnome. It was surreal!
Say young lady have you been smoking something?
No no I’m sorry. I just . . . it’s very nice to meet you. I guess I’m just . . . I don’t know. I’ve never owned a house before and I’m a little . . . you know . . .
Lonely?
Merle’s borderline hysteria was making her eyes water and for an embarrassing second she thought she would cry. She felt that she had a Hoover Dam of tears inside and the dam had sprung a dangerous crack. What would JoJo Pikering think of her new neighbor if she broke down sobbing for no reason?
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