Getting Carded

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"Huh?" Manny replied, not sure if he had heard right.

The girl working the ticket stand rolled her eyes. "Your ID, sir. Can I see it, please?"

"Oh, uh, yes." He fumbled out his wallet and began rooting around in it, meanwhile wondering why he needed an ID just to get into a movie. It'd make sense if he were a kid trying to sneak into a gory picture. Thing was, he was 37 and the movie he wanted to see was rated PG. He found the ID card before he found an answer, and held it aloft, somewhat confusedly.

The ticket girl, for her part, idly thumped a few buttons on the register. "Eight-seventy-five, please," she said in a bored voice. No explanation seemed forthcoming, so Manny forked over the money silently and escaped with his ticket.

He kept an eye on the ticket line as he made his way to the concession stand. The guy who'd been behind him in line didn't get carded, just got charged the better part of nine bucks without incident. Manny looked at the mirror behind the concession workers, wondering if perhaps he'd acquired the face of some famous criminal since this morning; but no, the usual mug stared back at him, slightly tired-looking beneath thinning red hair. Maybe the ticket girl was just bored.

He ordered popcorn and a Coke from a gangly kid with braces, this time managing to complete the transaction without having to show his ID.


...am I the only one with deja vu?

Close At Hand

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He'd started out small, when he was younger. A few scribbles on the back of his hand when he was bored. Maybe he'd write something down on the palm so he could remember it later.

As he went through high school, either classes got more boring or his attention span just got shorter, because the patterns began to grow more complicated. Some days he would come home with ink all down his left arm, and since he tended to wear shorts, sometimes his legs would get the treatment as well. He did well in all his classes and behaved quite normally in all other ways, so while his ink-tattooing habit got him a lot of strange looks and a few trips to the school psychologist, it didn't really harm him any. Doodling, after all, is a common enough behavior; his choice of just where to doodle was the only peculiar note.

It was during his senior year of high school that the drawings reached their highest point of creativity. Jagged blocks and lines marched across his arms and legs, melding into graceful whorls and curves; they sometimes seemed almost to spell out messages in some unknown pictographic language. Every once in a while he would detail a fractal pattern in there somewhere, shapes splitting off into smaller versions of themselves, down into the most intricate levels of detail that he could get with a fine-point pen on skin. His art was a constant work in progress, for as older portions faded with time and soap and water, new drawings would take their place. He never considered himself an artist. Still, his skin was a canvas on which more than a few pens bled their last.

In college the patterns stopped. He was enrolled in the pre-law program at a fairly prestigious university; his classes were more interesting, now, or at least more challenging. There were other things to do besides doodle. By the end of his first semester, there was no sign that the ink had ever stained his skin at all.

He never considered himself an artist. But perhaps his life would have been a little more interesting if he had.

Hats

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The room smelled of sawdust and machine oil, of old sweat and the ghosts of a thousand fresh-mown lawns. Marie couldn't remember a time when it had ever been otherwise. She might have grown up, and grown away, and left home to live all the way across the country, but this had always been her father's space, all down the years and decades.

One full wall was taken up with his hat collection, hung from rows of pegs that went from her waist to well over her head. As a little girl she could spend hours in here with him, pointing to one hat after another, asking where did you get this one, when did you get it, tell me about it. Even then he had had an impressive collection. They were baseball caps, mostly -- promotional items from long-since-defunct farm-supply companies; souvenirs from places he had visited; gifts given him for dozens of birthdays and Christmases and Father's Days. Other dads got ties; hers got hats.

She pulled one down from the wall, turning it over in her hands and smiling a little. This had been one of his favorites, and even now the scent of sweat and Old Spice seemed to issue faintly from its worn fabric. He'd retired from the sawmill back in '86, after thirty-five years of working there and eight of actually running the place. This hat had been his parting gift from his former employees, more meaningful than any gold watch. "SAW BOSS", it read across the front. Their nickname for him at the mill. Marie smiled, remembering him describing it to her over the phone. He was usually so reserved, which made his excitement over the gift all the more touching.

Carefully Marie replaced the hat back on its peg, then looked around the room one more time, breathing in the air of the room where her father had spent so much of his free time over the years. Then she looked toward the doorway. "Yes, mama?"

Her mother attempted a smile. "Are you ready, dear? We have to leave pretty soon. Don't want to be late to the -- the funeral."

Marie crossed the room to give her mother a brief hug. Then she nodded. "I'm ready, mama. Just wanted to say goodbye."

Chores

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"Kenny!"

He ignored his mother's voice wafting up from the kitchen; truth be told, he didn't even notice it. All his attention was focused on the words in front of him, on the world of gods and magic and ambulatory furniture.

"Kenny!"

He'd gotten two books for his birthday last year, had borrowed several more from the library. One wondrous day he had found, lurking in the back of the used-book store down the street, four ragged volumes priced at a quarter each. He had snatched them up immediately, bearing his plastic-bagged prize home as though it were made of glass.

At first his parents had only been glad to see him reading so willingly. Then, as his nigh-obsession became apparent, they tried first to ply him with other sorts of reading, then to curtail the hobby entirely. He had more or less become a junkie, and his drug was this author's work, this fantasy world that marched across the page. The only thing better than reading about it would be living in it.

"KENNETH MICHAEL YOU GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!"

Kenny's head whipped up, his attention dragged at last from the book. He recognized that tone of voice. It was the one that meant that it was likely already too late to avoid punishment; probably he should have taken out the trash when she asked, except he'd figured he could read a little more before dinner --

He hid the book back under his mattress, then hopped up and made a run for the stairs. Maybe someday he could find a way out of this world, find the one where he could be a powerful magician who never had to do any chores he didn't want to, but right now he'd settle for not being grounded.


Magic and ambulatory furniture... maybe little Kenny has discovered Terry Pratchett, and maybe he's discovered the Elemenstor Saga. You can decide for yourself, because I like both possibilities.

It's definitely not The Song of the Sorcelator, though. Even a child can see through that tripe.

Ben-Gay

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Richard lowered himself into the bath gingerly, sighing as the warm water began its work. He'd have much rather run the water hot, except his doctor had nixed that -- warm was bad enough, she'd told him, it was cold that would actually help the inflammation in his joints. Thing was, there was nothing soothing about a cold bath. It seemed rather an oversight on the part of whoever was in charge of such things.

He lay there for a few minutes, not really thinking about anything, letting the warm water do its work. It had been a long day, with little opportunity to relax. He'd gotten a lot accomplished, though. Richard smiled a little. Yeah, it had been a pretty good day.

Eventually the water grew tepid, and then he rose, leaning fairly heavily on the bar installed in the bathroom wall. He stepped out carefully, then grabbed a towel and began drying off.

It was funny how much more he had come to appreciate a good bath since the accident. His broken leg and ribs had mended, and the pin in his hip had long since been set into place. Mainly he didn't have too much trouble with pain anymore, except on long days like today. But he was always up for a nice warm soak.

Finally, bathed and dressed, Richard exited the bathroom and walked slowly down the hall. He would watch a little TV, maybe catch the news, then call it a night. As he settled onto the couch, the lack of pain from his joints made him smile again. And since he'd done things the smart way 'round, he wouldn't even have to go to bed smelling of Ben-Gay tonight.

Shirts

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After she left he had gone into the bedroom, flopped down on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a while. It was taking a while to sink in. Six years together, three of those in the same apartment, and now it was all over. "Not feeling it anymore," she said. Well, what did that even mean?

He lay there for maybe half an hour, not wanting to think about what had just happened, but unable to stop. He kept thinking back to the years they had had together, which was even worse. What good were all of the hopes he'd had for them, all the times they'd talked about finally getting married, settling down, buying a house -- what the hell had been the point? Six years of his life gone, and yet not nearly enough time. Why did it have to turn out like this?

Eventually he got up and went to the closet. The door was hanging partly open; she hadn't bothered to shut it after emptying her half. Absently he pushed it aside and stared at his own clothes. They seemed almost to be huddled together against the gaping emptiness on the other side. He knew how they felt.

He pulled out one of his t-shirts and stared at it for a minute. Band logo in blue and white on red. He remembered buying this one; it had been at that concert at the Coach House two years ago. Her favorite band, and she'd convinced him to come along. He had loved it.

Angry, now, he threw the shirt to the floor. She'd certainly done a good job excising herself from his life, so why didn't he finish the job? He tore another shirt from the closet. "No, I Will Not Fix Your Computer," it read -- a birthday present from her, back when he kept getting suckered into doing everyone's tech support at work. He hurled it at the floor with the first one. Here, one of those fancy-pants polo shirts with the alligator on it, which she had given him as a joke; there, a sweatshirt bought from their favorite vacation spot. Souvenirs of their life together, now as useless as he felt.

Finally he finished the job, and then only stood there for a moment, glaring at the pile of clothing. He stormed out to the kitchen for a trash bag to put it in. That was the ticket. He'd throw it all away. She'd thrown him away, after all, hadn't she? So he thought as he worked on bagging up the pile; but when he was done he only left the bag of shirts there, and sat on the bed to stare at it, thoughtfully.

An Average Day

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Jordan twisted about under the covers, trying to get comfortable. It had been a long day, and looked to be just as long tomorrow; a pity, then, that he couldn't seem to get any sleep, since he could really use some.

His mind was refusing to settle down, but instead skipped merrily along, going over everything he'd done today and everything still left to do. Of course, he hadn't gotten to mowing the lawn yet, but that could be done easily enough tomorrow... oh, and he needed to return the tools he'd borrowed from his brother. No, wait, Mike had said he didn't need them back yet. All right, then, never mind.

He turned over again, just about as tired as he could ever remember being, and yet still his mind raced on. There was the laundry... no, no, he'd caught up on that, there wouldn't be but one load to do tomorrow. And there were the bills to pay... tomorrow. They could wait one more day, surely. He wouldn't be able to mail them out till tomorrow anyway.

He could do the mending on his overalls before going off to work, and mow the lawn after he came home; of course, right after work he needed to visit Mama and take her out to dinner, so he wouldn't actually get home till fairly late. And then after that there was the creaky bathroom door that he should take a look at, and maybe at some point he could even get a chance to catch a couple minutes of that new TV show that Mike kept saying he should watch.

And there were the bills to pay, of course.

A few more minutes went by, and Jordan lay awake with his body screaming for rest and his brain kicked up into overdrive. Finally, sighing loudly, he kicked off the blankets and got back up.

Might as well get something else done, since sleep obviously wasn't on the list.

Entertainment

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The room was quiet but for the ticking of the clock on the bookcase, the humming of the furnace, and the rustling of Paul's newspaper. Outside the picture window, snow fell in lazy drifts, piling up around the bushes that lined the porch. Paul made a mental note to call the Jensen boy down the street -- the front walk would need shoveling again, and little Charlie was always eager to make an easy five dollars after a snowfall.

Paul chuckled to himself as he turned the page. Not so little anymore, that boy. Charlie had to be... what, thirteen, fourteen by now? Before him, it had been his brother Matt who had kept Paul's walk shoveled in the winters, but now Matt was away at college. Studying something with computers. He was a bright boy; hard worker, too. Paul figured Charlie would follow in his footsteps soon enough, going off to college to get some fancy degree. There were no more boys in the Jensen family, but Paul supposed he would worry about that when the time came.

The clock chimed softly, rousing him from his thoughts. Ten o'clock. Time for bed, that was. Paul folded up his newspaper, set it on the table by his chair, and stood up slowly. He walked over to the window, twitching aside the curtain to look out at the snow for a moment; then he turned around and left the room, switching off the lamp as he went.

History

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"Well, it isn't like I have any war stories to tell," Harry cautioned his grandson. "I was only a boy then -- World War II ended just three days before my twelfth birthday, in fact." He smiled at the memory. "When I was your age, though, it was still going on, and oh, how I wished I was old enough to be a part of it. The excitement, the glamor, the chance to see foreign countries and commit brave and daring acts of courage... we all thought that was what war would be like, me and my friends. Sure, Tommy's older brother had been drafted, and from the letters he sent home, it wasn't nearly as wonderful as all that. But we still dreamed."

Matt's eyes were wide. "Did his brother die?"

"Well, yes," Harry replied with a laugh, "but not just then. He served a tour of duty in England, came safely home again, and died in bed at the age of seventy-four. No, the families in our neighborhood were mostly lucky. Only old Mrs. Haversham's son didn't make it home, and that only because of an accident. He never actually saw combat at all."

"So what was it like growing up during the war?" Matt asked.

"It was," Harry said, and stopped. He thought for a moment. Finally, "Different," he began again, and smiled as the boy settled in to listen to his story. "It was different."

One Hour

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His internal clock woke him, as usual, after eight and a half hours; it was never off more than ten minutes, one way or the other. Decades of work at the same nine-to-five had trained him that way. On top of his eleven PM bedtime, it didn't tend to leave him that much time to get ready before starting his commute. Once a year it was even insufficient to get him to work on time, and he had to either schedule a rare day off to save himself the trouble, or set his alarm.

Of course, by the same token, once a year it left him with an extra hour to savor, all his own.

He stepped out onto the porch with his coffee. It was cold, of course, late October was always a cold time of year, but he was bundled up in a warm sweater, even if his feet were still clad only in slippers. He also, of course, had his coffee. A miniature heater in an old chipped mug.

Leaning on the porch rail, he sipped slowly at the coffee, his eyes moving slowly around the neighborhood. Most of the fall colors were starting to fade from the city's trees by now, but for some reason his block always seemed to stay bright just a little longer. The Hendersons' oaks flamed crimson red; the birches and maples and ash trees next door blazed a dozen colors from achingly vibrant gold to nearly purple. His own lawn was smooth grass, treeless. He found that most of the year, a tree was too much work to maintain, to clean up after and kept trimmed away from eaves and powerlines. And when fall came, the neighbors provided more than enough foliage to dazzle his eyes. The commute all the way into the city was worth it, just to be able to have this all around him for a few weeks out of the year. Glorious.

Eventually his coffee was finished, and his precious free hour nearly up. He stretched and yawned momentarily, then took one last look around the neighborhood. Soon enough the trees would be skeletal and bare, of course, all their leaves shed, all semblance of life gone. Then would come another spring, and summer, and not nearly soon enough, another fall. The same old cycle that had gone on since long before he had ever been born, and would continue to go on long after he died, but -- for now -- belonged, just the tiniest bit, to him.

"See you next year," he murmured, smiling a little.

Dear Diary

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It was an old, old habit of hers; so old, in fact, that it had long since passed into tradition, and then into ritual. She would brush her teeth and wash her face, dress for bed, and then open up her diary to record the events of her day. Ever since her tenth birthday, she had been doing it. There was a box up in the attic full of old diaries, a new one started on every birthday since then. If she filled up one before the year was out, she added entries on notebook paper until the next birthday, and the next fresh volume. Tradition. Ritual.

Tonight she began as she always did, taking a deep breath and clearing her mind as she opened the book. "Dear Diary," she wrote, and then paused. There was always the question of what to include, and what to leave out. Some days it was fairly obvious what needed noting, but not always; the most mundane, uneventful things were, after all, what made up the flavor of a life. Whatever random details she chose to write today would be her only record of what it had been like to live this day. Years later she might look back on tonight's entry, and wonder at who she had once been. She already did so with the old volumes, dozens of them, stretching back to distant childhood. The words would be as immutable as if written in stone when that time came.

These thoughts were not new to her, of course, and as always they helped to provide focus for her memories of the day. A brief smile moved across her face as the entry took shape in her mind. She gripped the pen tighter, took another deep breath, and then, once more, began to write.

Tuna Breath

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Edna lowered herself into the armchair, uttering a little sigh as she did so. It was raining outside, with cold winds gusting occasionally and playing about the eaves; a good enough night to sit in a warm room after a long day. She closed her eyes and sat calmly for a few moments, smiling a little. Then her eyes flew open as something furry landed on her feet with an ungraceful THUMP.

"Well, hello to you too, Mittens," she said to the cat, who merely gazed back at her through slitted eyes, purring. "I guess you've had a long, busy day too, hmm?" Edna settled back into the chair again. "So many mice to catch; so many naps to take. Oh, and baths. Those are especially important, aren't they?"

Mittens stretched, then curled up on Edna's feet and continued purring. They both sat like that for a few minutes, and Edna turned her attention back to the sound of the rain outside. She was glad she'd finally gotten the garage cleaned out enough to fit the car inside; its roof leaked, and if it were in the driveway in this mess, its seats would be positively swampy by tomorrow morning. Another thing to feel accomplished about. Today had been a productive day.

"And now," she said to the cat, "I'm afraid it's time for me to get off to bed. That does mean you'll have to move, I'm afraid." Edna wiggled one foot in emphasis, and Mittens responded by rising up and jumping into her lap. "No, no," Edna laughed, pushing the still-purring animal away. "Get away from me, you silly creature, you've got tuna breath."

Mittens plopped to the floor, looking vaguely offended, and then stalked off to the kitchen. Edna chuckled again, but quietly. Then she went to bed, and fell asleep to the sound of the wind outside.