Hollywood

Hollywood

Back when my hair was a natural blond, I changed my name from Esther; something my mother (God rest her soul) never forgave. The studios insisted I use something more glamorous, more Hollywood. Whatever that means.

It wasn’t long before my new name was on everyone’s lips. Not just whispered with reverence, as reported in the society columns, but chanted in a breathy staccato while my knees were nudged apart.

Eyes, nose, chin, boobs. All upgraded to appease the masses. And the knee nudgers. Even under close scrutiny—and people get close, let me tell you—you can’t see the scars. My plastic surgeon is a god.

It was all worth it. Even with all the bullshit, it was worth it. I have three Oscars. What do I care if I had to fuck a few producers to get the right part? Between you and me, that was my best acting.

…god you feel good… harder…yeah, just like that…yes! you’re gonna make me…

I should have got a fucking Oscar for that.

Life Rattle Podcast 1197

I'm getting a little annoyed that this whole Working-for-a-Living Thing is getting in the way of my writing. That's not to say I haven't been banging the keyboard. I have. I've made some progress on my novel; I just haven't had time to blog.

However, I have a little something to appease you.

A local station publishes podcasts for a radio show called Life Rattle. Although my stories have previously aired on this station, this is the first podcast available online.

Have a listen to Red Rose, Memere Rosa and The Breakup.

Oh, and if you're asking yourself, who is Monique Massabki? Well, that's me. I wasn't kidding when I said Monica Manning was easier to pronounce.

Red Rose

Today's muse:

As some of you may know, for more than twelve years, I worked in funeral service. I met exceptional people who taught me many things.

Stories like this are why I loved working in funeral service.

And stories like this are why I hated it.

* * *

Red Rose

Walter Pitman sits across from me, his hands clamped around a mug of coffee. He stares down at the table, though I’m sure he doesn’t really see the hand-polished mahogany. Thin wisps of white hair are carefully combed back. His plaid shirt is buttoned at the collar.

He looks so lost, is all I can think.

I open the white folder labelled with his wife’s name.

“Mr. Pitman?” I keep my voice soft, soothing.

He looks up at me, almost seems surprised to see me sitting there. I curve my lips—not a smile, but rather an expression of encouragement. It would, after all, be inappropriate to smile.

“I have a few questions to ask you, so that I can fill out the necessary government forms.”

He nods, rotates his coffee cup.

“Did your wife have a middle name?”

He looks up at the ceiling. “Ruth. Martha Ruth.”

I write Mrs. Pitman’s name on the file and ask a few more questions: What was her maiden name? What was her birth date? Where was she born?

“Did she work outside of the home?” I ask him.

Mr. Pitman surprises me by nodding. His wife was eighty-seven. Hers was a generation of proud homemakers. I wait, my pen poised above the folder.

“She looked after me.” His eyes glisten but he manages a smile. “She took very good care of me.”

“I can see that she did.” I put down my pen, link my hands together. This isn’t the time to write. It is the time to listen.

“It’s just the two of us. We don’t have children.” He shrugs. “Some things are not meant to be.”

I say nothing, simply nod my understanding.

“We have many nieces and nephews.” He grins. “We spoil them.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“We travelled quite a bit.” Somewhat at ease now, he sips his coffee. “Martha loved to travel. She always had to buy something, some little knick knack, to prove that we were there.”

“What kind of things did she like to buy?”

Mr. Pitman sits back in his chair. “Oh, you know, ceramic bowls, figurines…” His voice trails off.

“Figurines?” I prompt.

He sits up again, shakes his head. “She collected those figurines from the tea boxes. You know the ones?”

I nod. “The Red Rose figurines. My mother collects them, too.”

He snorts. “I hate those damned things. Dust collectors is what they are.”

I bite back a smile. How many times had I heard my father grumble the same thing?

“She lined them up across the window ledge above the kitchen sink.” He waves his hands back and forth to demonstrate. “I got fed up one day and swept them all into a drawer. I didn’t say a word, mind you. Just went about my business. She didn’t say anything either.” He sips his coffee. “But the next morning, they were all lined up across the window ledge.”

I smile now.

“Before I went to bed that night, I put them all in the drawer.” Mr. Pitman thumps the table with his fist. “Next morning, they’re back.”

This time, I laugh. I can’t help myself. He laughs, too.

“This went on for years,” he says. “Every night I would stash them in the drawer and every bloody morning I’d wake up and they’d be lined up across the window ledge, as if they’d been there forever.”

His smile fades then and the back of my neck tingles. He cups his mug with both hands.

“When she became sick,” he looks up at me, “I mean really sick, and I could no longer take care of her, she moved into the home.” His gaze shifts, and he stares over my shoulder at some distant memory. “For the last two weeks, every night before going to bed, I've put those damned figurines into the drawer. And every bloody morning, I've taken them out and lined them up on the window ledge.”

He clears his throat. His moist, gray eyes shift to mine. “She would have wanted that,” he says.

I nod. “Yes she would.”

Surprise

Today's muse:   One Word

Today's word: clue

* * *

Surprise!

She is pleasant, doting, loving. And every night, he slices with words. Or—worse—silence. He pushes her away; pushes her down.

So, each night, she pleasures herself and dreams of a new home, a new condo, a new life. Alone. All hers.

And he has no clue that she plans to leave.

She Smiles

Today's muse: Three Word Wednesday

Today's Words (well, last Wednesday's words...I've been busy!): detach, jolt, surge.

* * *

She Smiles

With detached interest, she watches the guardrail whip by in her peripheral vision. What would happen, she wonders, if she gave the steering wheel a good yank to the left?

These days, she ponders this far too often. Dealing with the roller coaster ride is weighing her down. The surge of anger after an argument is replaced with mind-numbing fatigue, leaving her spent and depressed. She just wants to close her eyes and escape. Sleep.

Her fingers dance around the steering wheel, itch to give it a quick jerk. Just a small one. Nothing serious. She’d wake up in the hospital, and he’d be there when she opened her eyes. He’d tell her how much he loved her, how much she meant to him, that he couldn’t live without her. It would be the jolt he needs to make him realize he was being an asshole.

The sound of crushing metal is deafening as her car careens into the concrete barrier. The vehicle rolls over and over, windshield glass explodes into a thousand diamonds. The roof collapses like a deflated soufflé.

Moments before the darkness takes her, she realizes the truth. He won’t miss her, he probably won’t even grieve. He’ll just be really pissed that she totalled the car.

And that thought curves her lips.

Reality Check

Today's muse: Three Word Wednesday

Today's words: bubble, lumber, wreck

* * *

Reality Check

The whole thing is a wreck, a fucking sham.

Once filled to bursting, I now lumber along, going through the motions, acting out my part. It is just a matter of time before the hollow façade bounces across a spike strip and collapses like a delicate soap bubble.

Reality will ooze like black grease, and I will smear it over my skin to camouflage. I will hide.

And he won’t find me.

Plastic

Today's muse: Three Word Wednesday

Today's words: downhill, sliver, freak

* * *

Plastic

Arguments used to be so simple. Breaking up meant taking my Barbies and storming out because you wouldn’t share your crayons.

It’s so much more complicated now. The Dream House is more of a nightmare.

Arguments are about communication—or, rather, lack thereof. How you don’t listen, how you don’t talk. But when you do, it’s rhetoric about my happiness, encouraging me to spend time with friends. Yet, when I go out with Midge and Skipper, you freak out.

Joy rushes out of the open convertible as it bullets downhill. I reach for slivers of love that escape, but my fingers just miss them.

Or perhaps I don’t want to stretch that far.

Strike Three

Today's muse: Thursday Tales

Today's prompt is this awesome picture by Scott Speck:

* * *

Strike Three

There isn’t much light coming through—that haze just before dawn—and it takes a moment before I realize it’s because my eyes are closed. I try to open them, but can’t.

I press a hand to my face, tracing fingers around the contours of swollen eyes. Something is wrong. Very wrong. Panic rips through me, followed by searing pain. Hundreds of ice picks stab, tear at my limbs.

What the fuck happened?

It takes considerable effort, but I open my eyes a crack. I can’t see much, but I see enough to know that I’m lying on the floor, in the middle of…oh shit.

Now I remember.

Pieces drop into place, flash before me like a maniacal slide show. My body convulses as my mind replays his rage; feels, once again, his fists, his boots. The sound of crushing bones echoes in my ears.

I wonder if I can walk. I need to get up. Get the hell out of here. I sit up, hold down my stomach as the room tips, then rights itself. The door opens and closes with a soft click, and I realize it’s too late. As his footsteps bounce off the columns of the mausoleum, the final slide drops into my memory.

Kneeling over me, a leg on either side, hands pressed against my head, he lowers his mouth to my ear. Bile burns my throat when he presses his hard cock against my thigh.

“Wait here,” he whispers, swiping his tongue across my cheek. “I’ll be right back. I’m just going to get the baseball bat.”

New Day

Today's muse: Sunday Scribblings

Today's Prompt: New

* * *

New Day

When the sun sets and the moon is high, nightmares creep into my bedroom and drag me into the undertow, hold me down as I claw for air.

Each new day dawns, tangled in the threads of my dreamcatcher, childhood memories fading in the morning sun.

Promises, Promises

Today's muse: Three Word Wednesday

Today's words: demolish, resolution, transform

* * *

Promises, Promises

Milky blank pages of linen note paper stare back at me. After a moment’s pause, lips set in grim resolution, my Mont Blanc etches lines of promises.

Vow to decrease the numbers that have crept higher and higher on the scale. Pledge to explore my writing; finish the book—at least the first draft. Commit to leave work at a reasonable hour and reduce (if not eliminate) those retched twelve-hour days. Transform the tired, angry person I have become, into the content, peaceful woman I once was.

In a moment of clarity, the pen hovers above the expensive parchment, and I know what must be done. My hands curl around the paper and, in one violent motion, tear the pages into shreds, demolishing the words of promise.

Who am I kidding? The entire list will be moot by January third.

Small Town

Small Town

There is a paved road that runs east off the highway, winds its way around a small lake, then veers north. If you drive long enough, it becomes a dirt road. Further along, a two-lane path. Eventually, it’s nothing more than a rut in the dirt, camouflaged by tall grass.

It’s been years since anyone has driven through here. A shame really. It was a nice community. Corn grew higher than you could reach, everyone knew everyone, and the church was full every Sunday. The chug of tractors echoed across the fields, cows chewed lazily in the sun. Neighbours had a friendly wave when anyone drove by. The response was always a quick toot of the horn.

Prosperity died when the mine closed. One by one they left, moved to the Big City to start over. Or fail again.

Once a God-fearing community, it is now a desolate trail, reduced to a mosquito-infested swamp miles from any living being. It doesn’t appear on any map. No one talks about it.

It's perfect. This is where I’ll bury the body.

More Time

More Time

Darkness drapes over me like a funeral pall. Wishes and dreams press down on my shoulders with surprising weight. They weren’t so heavy when they were filled with light and hope.

Voices call down the cavern, coax me from the mire. I ignore them, turn my face into my bent knees. Go away, I want to be alone.

I should crawl toward the light, drag myself up, but I don’t have the energy. Reaching for outstretched hands is exhausting. It’s easier to slap them away. Leave me here, wrapped in the darkness, pressed in the quiet. Just for a while.

I need a little more time.