L.R. Lam's Blog, page 35

Shadowplay Teaser 3: A Scream in the Dark

3. A Scream in the Dark

“Never are we as honest as at night, alone with thoughts and nightmares.”

- Elladan proverb

Interested in more? Shadowplay, the sequel to Pantomime, will be released January 7, 2014.

Pre-order links:

UK: Amazon – The Book Depository - Hive

US: Amazon – Barnes and Noble – Indiebound – Powell’s

Canada: Amazon – Indigo

Australia: BookAdda

NZ: Fishpond

Shadowplay Teaser 2: The Séance

2. The Séance

“Countless times, I have drawn closed the black curtains against the daylight, clasped hands with believers and cynics alike, and claimed to raise the dead. Some believe I actually bring forth ghosts, and others hold tight to their disbelief. But no matter how cynical, there is always the glimmer of fear in their eyes when the possible supernatural crowds the room with them. When the whispers fill their ears and they feel the brush of an unseen hand. Fear of the darkness, and of what they do not understand. Or perhaps it is not fear, but guilt.

“Is it ghosts that truly haunt us, or the memory of our own mistakes that we wish we could undo?”

- The unpublished memoirs of Jasper Maske: The Maske of Magic

Interested in more? Shadowplay, the sequel to Pantomime, will be released January 7, 2014.

Pre-order links:

UK: Amazon – The Book Depository - Hive

US: Amazon – Barnes and Noble – Indiebound – Powell’s

Canada: Amazon – Indigo

Australia: BookAdda

NZ: Fishpond

Free Fiction Friday: “Lad” at The List Magazine

This Friday my free fiction is over at The List Magazine! It went live yesterday. This is my first short publication in a few years, and I think my first flash fiction. It’s one of my university pieces – the assignment was to imitate the style of Jamaica Kincaid’s Girl, which is a one sentence long prose poem where a mother gives her daughter advice. I wrote about a Scottish ned, or chav.

Read “Lad” at The List Magazine. 

Shadowplay Teaser 1: The Magician

Up to and a little bit after release, I’ll be sharing the opening quotes of Shadowplay’s chapters as teasers. They give a little background info, but hopefully don’t give away any of the plot. I won’t explain them – the chapters they precede will do that well-enough in January, I hope There are 30 in all.

1. The Magician

“I know I have created magic to rival the greatest anyone has ever known. What I do not know is whether the price of the gamble was worth it.”

- The unpublished memoirs of Jasper Maske: The Maske of Magic

You can also read the rest of the first chapter here.

Interested in more? Shadowplay, the sequel to Pantomime, will be released January 7, 2014.

Pre-order links:

UK: Amazon – The Book Depository - Hive

US: Amazon – Barnes and Noble – Indiebound – Powell’s

Canada: Amazon – Indigo

Australia: BookAdda

NZ: Fishpond

Shadowplay Teaser: Chapter One: The Magician

Up to and a little bit after release, I’ll be sharing the opening quotes of Shadowplay’s chapters as teasers. They give a little background info, but hopefully don’t give away any of the plot. I won’t explain them – the chapters they precede will do that well-enough in January, I hope There are 30 in all.

1. The Magician

“I know I have created magic to rival the greatest anyone has ever known. What I do not know is whether the price of the gamble was worth it.”

- The unpublished memoirs of Jasper Maske: The Maske of Magic

 

You can also read the rest of the first chapter here.

Interested in more? Shadowplay, the sequel to Pantomime, will be released January 7, 2014.

Pre-order links:

UK: Amazon – The Book Depository - Hive

US: Amazon – Barnes and Noble – Indiebound – Powell’s

Canada: Amazon – Indigo

Australia: BookAdda

NZ: Fishpond

Free Fiction Friday: “Palimpsest”

This is another short story that features Puck, the first story, “Pseudonym”, of which I featured two weeks ago. I was once planning on writing a bunch of short stories that all showed Puck through various people’s points of view to tell an overarching tale, but I never wrote more than two. I quite like this story – it’s the only story I’ve written so far from the point of view of an old man. I never queried, partly because I wasn’t sure what genre it falls into – it has a dash of horror, a dash of supernatural, but not very much. Anyway, here it is. I’d love to know what you think.

Palimpsest

by

Laura Lam

“Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death.” –Frank Herbert

 

The headlights flashed through the darkness, revealing flickers of the surrounding countryside. The twin beams illuminated a tree just long enough to show its twisted limbs stretching over the road before it disappeared, replaced instead by the muted yellow of a yield sign, the flash of a raccoon’s eyes, or the slate gray of the curving road ahead.

My head nodded, vertebrae clicking slightly as my neck slid down towards my chest; I jerked myself awake. It was late and my energy had begun to fade with the setting sun. The eerie green glow of the electronic clock said it was 11:37 pm. Generic classical music crackled out of the speakers, interrupted occasionally by the nasal voices of announcers. The day was slowly winding like the road before me. There were the artificial boundaries of hours and exits, but neither time nor the road ever really ended, except for death or the ocean.

I shook my head. In my exhaustion, I was waxing philosophical. Usually by this time my head was on a soft pillow.

The headlight beams settled on a lone figure ahead in the gloom. He or she was almost impossible to see, but the pale swatch of a face peered at me, the one dot of a hand wrapped around the body for warmth, and the white comma of the other hand stuck out into the road. The hunkered form of a car crouched behind the small figure, still breathing steam.

I found myself pulling over a bit ahead of the figure. My car hovered by the side of the road, purring. Usually I was a bit more cautious, but I could use the company and the conversation. I chuckled; I was fulfilling the stereotype of the old man who loved to prattle on at the young folk about wars and past presidents.

The steady muffled crunch of footsteps approached. The hitch hiker tried the handle and—finding it locked—knocked politely on the window. I clicked the locks and turned off the radio static, feeling a little silly for forgetting to do it before. I can blame old age on the little things I’d been forgetting for years, at least. The hitch hiker opened the door, the crisp autumn air swirled into the car with its new passenger.

“Thanks,” he said, rubbing his hands together to warm himself. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. He was a young fellow, definitely under thirty. He had a dark beard and a light, slightly grimy face, but in the poor light that was all about him I could discern. His Ivy cap obscured his eyes, which annoyed me. I like to look a person in the eyes when I first meet them. I fiddled with one of the knobs on the dashboard, hoping it was the right one, and the car warmed up by several degrees. The clock read 12:01 am. The green light traced the outlines of my gnarled, liver-spotted hand.

“My car overheated,” the man stated.

“I can see that,” I glanced in my rear view mirror at the smoking ruins as I pulled away. “Where’re you heading?”

“Well eventually I’m headed to Los Angeles, but the nearest big city will be fine so I can call a tow truck. Unless you have a cell phone on you, by any chance?”

“No, sorry,” I said. “I still can’t trust those things.”

He laughed a warm, low sound. “Me neither, though I’m regretting that a bit now.” Though the laugh had been friendly, his face didn’t look it. It looked hard, comprised of sharp angles and tense lines, as if an artist had drawn him while pushing the pencil down too firmly.

“I’m headed about three hours west, to Lincoln; I can take you that far, at least.”

“Thank you.” We sat in silence.

“Pity about your car,” I said, a little awkwardly.

“It was bound to happen sooner rather than later. I seem to have bad luck with cars. They don’t like me.”

“Ah. This car here has served me faithfully for twenty years.” I patted the steering wheel fondly. “They don’t make ‘em like they used to. This is a Ford station wagon. Not fancy, but it’s gotten me from point A to point B over the years. Usually the transmissions on these things are worthless, but my nephew-in-law’s a mechanic and keeps it in good order.” Ah, there was my inane, boring rambling. I was wondering when it’d start up. I felt more awake already.

“It’s nice to count on things.” The man stretched and stifled a yawn. “Feels like I’ve been standing out in that road for hours. What made you decide to take a chance and pick me up?” He twisted, the hat still covering his eyes. He had either a spot of grime or a mole on one cheek. “I could be a crazy person, you know.”

I cleared my throat. “Well, it’s late, and I could use the chatter to stay awake. I’ve always been an early sleeper.”

“Still, shows you’re trusting, what with all the stories on the news.”

I shifted in my seat. “Yes. I suppose I am.” I glanced sideways at him. The man saw and flashed a grin at me. I think it was meant to be reassuring.

“Did you hear about the girl that was killed a week or so ago? Shame, isn’t it? What is the world coming to?” he asked. The tone was sympathetic, the cadence was correct, but something seemed a bit off. It sounded like idle chitchat, like he was talking about the weather.

“Yes. It is a shame,” I said slowly. “It never ends, though. I’ve lost count of how many stories about missing girls I’ve read over the past sixty years. Eventually they all blur together into one sad girl with a sad face.”

“What does that girl look like to you?” He tilted his head at me.

“She’s young, maybe thirteen or so. She has blonde hair but dark eyes. Her face looks like a doll and her eyes look blank, beyond feeling.” I stared off at the road, not really seeing it.

“Who was she?” the man asked, his voice curious.

I hesitated. I was tempted to lie, but I decided to tell the truth to the stranger. “My little niece. We were close. I always think of her when I hear a news report like that.”

“How was she killed?” he asked.

“She was raped and then thrown out of a window wearing black lingerie and angel wings,” I said flatly. Hopefully that would end the conversation.

“What was her name?” he asked after a pause.

“What does it matter?” I said, more sharply than I intended. I should have lied. He turned forward and stared out the windshield.

Silence stretched in the car like elastic. My nerves thinned. The time read 12:53. Two lonely white points of light weaved down the road and passed me. I looked up in the rearview mirror at the red dots as the car disappeared.

“Hey,” the man said after another long pause. “Have you heard of thought experiments?”

“What?” I asked, mystified.

“You know, thought experiments. Theories or problems to think about. I’ve been reading about them a lot recently. Have you heard of the Ship of Theseus?”

Maybe I did pick up a crazy person. “Um, yes, I think I read about it a long time ago, but I’ve forgotten. Greek?”

“Yes, that’s where it originated. It’s also called Theseus’ paradox. You didn’t learn about it in philosophy classes when you were in college? I think it’s pretty standard.”

“I studied biology in the late forties.”

“Ah, right. Theseus’ paradox asks if something has had all of its parts replaced, is it still the same thing?”

“What do you mean?” I asked. I relaxed slightly back into my seat. I always loved discussing hypothetical questions. I had read a bit about philosophy over the years, but no one cared to discuss it with me anymore. The young were too impatient and the old were too senile. Next to me, the man was drumming his fingers against the arm rest on the door, tapping his pinky twice each time. I rolled the window down a crack to let in some fresh air; it was beginning to feel stuffy.

“Well, take the Ship of Theseus. It was this famous ship that Theseus returned home from Crete in. The Greeks were determined to preserve it so as each plank of wood rotted they replaced it with an identical but new piece. After centuries, as you can imagine, all the parts had been replaced. So, even though it had none of the original parts, was it still the same ship?”

I rubbed my leg. “What do you think?” I asked.

“I think that the ship remained the same ship, not physically, but it was still the same ship in the minds of its builders and sailors. Theseus hadn’t walked down those new planks, but they could still imagine him doing so. It’s the same ship in their minds for it looks like it did centuries ago. A pile of rotten wood wouldn’t bring up the same emotions or sentimentality.” His tone was sardonic, as if he found sentimentality distasteful. He stopped and cleared his throat. “Do you think it’s the same ship?” he repeated.

“I don’t think it was the same ship. I visited a castle once. I used to travel abroad a lot in my youth. They had tapestries hanging up in the chapel. They were recreated because the ones from the 15th century or whenever they were made were too delicate and damaged to be displayed. The news ones were identical to the old ones, but to me, they weren’t the same. They weren’t created by a weaver in that century. They had never hung up in the Great Hall while the King and Queen feasted. I suppose they hadn’t replaced the tapestry bit by bit, but it was meant to be the same. But they weren’t the same at all.” The bushes on the side of the road blurred into a constant dark green smudge through my window.

“Point. It doesn’t have the history associated with it, even if it has the design. To be honest, though, I don’t really care about the theory so much with inanimate objects. A thing is a thing, right? But if, say, a human being was replaced bit by bit, would it still be the same person, then?”

“But we already have been entirely replaced. We don’t have any of the same cells we were born with,” I said.

He smiled. “Your biology is showing. What about really being replaced? Where the body is entirely different? Foreign, alien. Little by little.”

“But we couldn’t replace every part of a human. We don’t have the technology.” I lifted a brow, but made sure to lift the one that the man wouldn’t be able to see. I shivered, and rolled the window back up.

“No, but we might one day. What about all those science fiction books about robots? Or what if you replaced half of a person?”

“Well, about an eighth of me has been replaced,” I said.

He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me from under his cap.

“It’s true,” I said, and lifted up my trouser leg. The shiny plastic glowed in the jade-green light of the clock.

The passenger leaned forward intently as he inspected my knee. His head was still bowed, so even though he was closer, I could not see his face. I turned from him to concentrate on the empty road in front of us. Drops of rain flattened into watery ellipses on the windshield before being erased by the windshield wipers. The straight lines of the road were distorted by the rain, and the car slipped a bit on the slick road. I heard a slight rustle of fabric and turned to see the man’s hand on my phantom leg. The man pulled away when I jerked in surprise. Even though I couldn’t perceive the touch, it still felt too familiar. People have touched my leg before without my permission. I imagine it’s a bit like when a woman is pregnant and everyone decides her belly is something they can rub for good luck.

“Excuse me, but I think I should know your name before you feel up my peg leg,” I said, trying to sound jocular.

“I was curious – I’ve never touched one before,” He didn’t apologize, but seemed to feel he should offer something in response. “My name is Puck.” He sat very still, as if waiting for my reaction.

I decided not to comment on the strangeness of the name. I’m sure he had heard it all before. I’d heard stranger names in my time. “My name is Alden.”

Puck smiled. “Did you know it means ‘old friend?’”

“Yes, I did.” I wondered vaguely how he knew—I didn’t have the most common name, either. Perhaps he was a linguist. I stifled a yawn. It was nearly two in the morning. I couldn’t remember the last time I had stayed up so late. It had been years—decades probably.

“So, do you consider it your leg? Or is it just a bit of plastic?” Puck had leaned back in his seat.

I pondered the question for a few minutes. “It is a piece of plastic, but it’s also my leg. It can’t feel anything. On the other hand – pardon the almost-pun – it doesn’t ache like my real leg. I rely on it in the same way I relied on the leg I lost, so I suppose it is my leg.”

“Interesting. So you consider yourself still fundamentally the same?”

“Of course. I’m still me. I just have one less leg than most people. Although I suppose as a result I’m a different person mentally than I would have been if I still had both.”

“What sort of person would you be mentally if, say, you lost both of your legs?” Puck asked.

I paused. “Well, I wouldn’t be driving right now, would I?” I said carefully, wondering where the discussion was leading. I felt nervous, my stomach fluttering. My unease was growing like a cancer. Perhaps being tired would have been preferable. A tiny trickle of sweat snaked its way down my spine.

“Legs are very physical things anyway—I mean, they help you get around, but they don’t change who you are very significantly. But what if you lost something that related to your senses or the way you communicate?”

“What do you mean?” I seemed to be asking this question a lot. I could see the two glints of his eyes from under the cap.

The silence seemed to seep into my very pores. My lungs felt choked with the quiet. I took my eyes from the road and looked over at him, wondering at the heavy pause.

“What if you lost your tongue?” He grinned and stuck out his own tongue, as if to demonstrate. His teeth flashed white in the gloom of the car. His pointed tongue looked slightly speckled in the moonlight.

“I—well, I wouldn’t be talking right now,” I stammered. The tongue in question curled itself behind my teeth. My answers weren’t very creative, either.

Puck laughed. I flinched. My nerves were wound as taut as a guitar string, and ready to snap. Puck’s laughter had not been malicious or spiteful, rather it was playful, and that was even more unsettling. I realized that I was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that my hands were numb.

“Why are you asking these questions?” I hated the quavering note to my voice. I sounded like a plaintive old man.

“Like I said – I’m curious. Why, do these questions bother you?” He sounded amused. He turned his torso towards me and rested his head on his hand.

“I don’t quite understand the reason you’re asking them to little more than a stranger.” The countryside outside seemed very silent, and very empty. The only sign of civilization was the weaving road I sped down. I eased my foot down slightly on the gas pedal; the speedometer inched past 80 miles per hour. It was a quarter after two.

“I ask these questions to a lot of people. The reactions are so varied, so different.” He paused reflectively. “Yet I suppose at its root the reaction is all the same.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“People always ask why I ask them. They never want to actually answer.”

“Maybe you ask the wrong questions.” A sign emerged out of the darkness. The nearest town with a population of over twenty was still nearly an hour away. I brought my foot down still harder on the gas. I didn’t know if Puck was playing a game with me or was serious, but in either scenario I was still the mouse and he was still the cat. My thoughts were running too fast on an unsteady track and my old, creaky self couldn’t keep up.

“Maybe I ask the right questions and that’s why people are too afraid to answer them. Will you give me a serious answer? What would you do if someone snipped off your tongue?” I was frantically keeping my eyes on the road, but I could imagine him staring at my mouth as he spoke.

I took a deep breath, gathering the frayed remnants of my nerves. “Losing my tongue would mean losing a fundamental part of myself—my voice. I speak every day: to my wife, the woman I buy my paper from, the waiter who serves me a cup of coffee.”

“You could still communicate. You could use sign language or write on a piece of paper.”

“I could, but it’s not the same. They wouldn’t hear the nuances of my voice. It’d be like speaking on the internet all the time. I finally bought a computer and I try sending e-mails to my children, but it’s not the same. Too much is lost. I grew up before we became so dependent on technology. Speaking is more than a way of getting through life, like a leg is used for walking. I’ve developed friendships and loves due to this tongue. It’s how I met my wife. It’s the tongue I used to read to my niece and my children before they went to sleep. It’s possibly my utmost means of expression. To lose it would cripple me far more than the loss of a leg.” I spoke very quickly, the tongue in question skittering across the back of my teeth. Perhaps I said too much, or the wrong thing. Puck was quiet for a moment.

“That makes sense.” It seemed as if I had passed an unspoken test of some sort. “Others have answered in such mundane, insipid ways. The younger ones have shown false bravado, saying it wouldn’t affect them at all, or that they’d kill the man who did it. Some have just been confused completely and not been able to answer at all. I’ve heard your sentiment before, but not so eloquently. Well done.” He gave a few soft claps with his hands. “I find it interesting you find the tongue so valuable. The spoken word, and the written one especially, seem to be going down in value as the years go on. And I suppose, Alden, your tongue is how you make friends?”

“Yes. I’ve made—and lost—many friends with this tongue of mine.”

“Interesting.” He lapsed back into thoughtful silence.

I let out the breath I didn’t know I had been holding. My sweaty palms slipped on the leather of the steering wheel. We crested a hill, and lights appeared in the matte darkness, as if holes were being punched out of a sheet of paper. We were reaching a destination, but I didn’t know what it was.

Silence flooded the car again. Puck seemed unnatural. I could not begin to guess at what he was thinking beneath the cowl the shadows of his hair and hat cast about him.

“How did you lose your leg?” He asked.

“World War Two. Landmine in Normandy.”

Puck seemed to fill with energy. “Ah! So you’ve killed people. This raises another perfect debate: do you think taking life takes away a part of yourself?”

I was quiet. The tang of blood and smoke filled my nose and my eyes clouded with visions of men dying. “Yes. It takes away a large part.” I almost whispered.

“You don’t think it adds anything? You don’t feel as if you gain power over those you kill?”

I looked at him, shocked. “No. Nothing but remorse and nightmares.”

“You’re going to ask me why I asked, aren’t you?” He gave a lopsided smile, the skin creasing over his mole.

I had, in fact, been about to demand that. I did not want to seem redundant, as I had a feeling that would annoy him. Instead, I shook my head and asked a different question: “Have you ever killed anyone?”

“Yes.”

I tried not to gulp. In retrospect, that was quite a stupid question to ask. My heart pattered in my chest. I had to keep him talking: “Do you think you gained anything?”

“Insight. We are surrounded by symbols, hidden by them, named by them. They are thrown about frivolously, but at the end, they mean everything.” His statement made absolutely no sense to me, but I didn’t want to ask him to explain himself. Puck stared off into the road, pensive, yet he didn’t seem to be thinking about this statement in reference to me. I left him to his reverie, trying not to even breathe loudly, not wanting to disturb him and bring his attention back to me.

We reached the outskirts of the city. Houses began to pepper the side of the road more, but I knew I couldn’t stop yet. I needed to get to the center of town, where the most people would be. I should try to make sure and stop outside of a bar or a night club.

We neared the town center. My eyes soaked in the welcome sight of human life—lights bled from houses and streetlamps, and music floated out of a late-night house party we passed. I saw a couple walking down the road, holding hands. I wanted to just stop the car, open the door, and run out into the street, screaming. But I could barely walk with my cane, much less run without it, and I didn’t know what Puck had spirited away under his dark coat.

“Let me out here,” Puck said suddenly. A pay phone was on the corner. I stared at it blankly. Hours ago, I dimly remembered Puck saying he needed a phone, but I thought it had just been a pretense. The normalcy seemed incongruous with Puck’s behavior. Who would he call?

I slowed the car, but relief warred with suspicion. The pay phone was not very well-lit. It lay just outside the island of light from the nearest streetlamp. There were no people around. Should I stop it on the hope that Puck would leave my life forever? Or should I keep going to somewhere with lights and life, and risk angering him?

“Stop here.” Puck said. There was a note of warning. I stopped.

I snapped the locks open, but he stayed seated for a moment. The acidic green light of the clock showed 2:59. He looked at me and took off his cap. I finally saw his eyes. They were primordial pools, with dark shapes flitting beneath their surface.

“Thanks for the ride. I won’t forget this.” He made the grateful words seem a threat.  I shrank back from him, aware that I was trapped in my seat. Puck opened the door and slid smoothly out of the car. He nudged the door closed with his hip, stuck his hands deep in his pockets, and sauntered around the front of the car. His languid walk was caught in the headlights as if he were on stage, putting on a show for my benefit. Puck stopped and rapped on my window. A loud group of drunken young men were stumbling down the sidewalk, so I cautiously rolled the window down.

“By the way, old friend, I’m sorry about your Evelyn.”

I lunged at him, but I only managed to grab the edge of his coat, which slipped through my fingers as though it were insubstantial. He jumped nimbly back and stood in the center of the road, laughing. The laugh reached into me and grabbed an invisible stone that let loose an avalanche of pent-up fears. I gave an incoherent yell and stamped on the gas as hard as I could with my false foot. The car screeched as it careened forward, leaving Puck behind me, still cackling. I wheezed and leaned my chest on the steering wheel for strength. My heart was a trapped bird beating against my ribcage, giving its last fight to escape. I sped down the road again, wide awake.

-

If you enjoyed this short story, please consider purchasing my full-length work, Pantomime & forthcoming Shadowplay. Thank you for reading.

Books Read in November

1. Fables Vol 2: Animal Farm – Bill Willingham.

2. Fables Vol 3: Storybook Love – Bill Willingham

3. Fables Vol 4: March of the Wooden Soldiers – Bill Willingham

4. Fables Vol 5: The Mean Seasons – Bill Willingham

5. Fables Vol 6: Homelands - Bill Willingham

6. The Republic of Thieves – Scott Lynch

7. The Ocean at the End of the Lane – Neil Gaiman (audiobook)

8. Fables Vol 7: Arabian Nights – Bill Willingham

Sometimes I write mini reviews, but don’t feel the need to this month. By far and away my favourite book was Republic of Thieves, and I’m enjoying my Fables re-read. Ocean I enjoyed well-enough, but it’s not favourite of Gaiman’s novels.

November Writing Goals: The Verdict

 Last month, though I didn’t participate in NaNoWriMo, I did have some writing-related goals and shared them here.

How did I do?

1. Finish the draft of my WIP. CHECK! I wrote about 17,000 words and finished the first draft of Bonkers Book, which is currently 67,000 words. It’ll definitely be beefed up in edits, probably to around 80k. The ending is rather rough (ahahaa it makes no sense), but still, it’s done! It’s by far the fastest I’ve ever drafted and again by far the most fun I had while drafting. It’s so very, very different from my other work that it was freeing and refreshing to stretch out different writing muscles. Even if nothing happens with this book (though I hope that’s not the case), this book drove home how much I love writing. I’ve heard people mention a lifeline book before and didn’t know what that meant. Now I do.

2. Try not to freak out as Shadowplay reviews trickle in. FAIL. I wasn’t TOO freaked out, but I was definitely nervous. I’ve had enough come in now that I feel reasonably confident that not everyone will hate it and be horrifically disappointed, so that’s a relief. I’ve also made good progress on the blog tour and wrote about eight posts to be sent back to bloggers, so in that respect, CHECK.

3. Send off an application to the Scottish Book Trust to be on their author database for Live Literature. CHECK! Though I haven’t heard back and need to follow up. I’m also in the process of joining another group, so DOUBLE CHECK.

BONUS STUFF: Went to a convention in Brighton, I wrote a poem, planned another short story, put up some free fiction on the blog, and also wrote a few other entries. I finished up a few beta-reads. So, it’s not NaNoWriMo, but it’s a good month’s work around the day job just the same.

Free Fiction Friday: Poem: “I Just Confessed I Love You”

Craig first insulted my taste in books on the internet on Black Friday, 2003. It’s weird to know that I’ve known him for ten years now, and to think about how much we changed from those 15 and 16 year olds we were when we met.

So here’s a sort of love poem. I don’t normally go for mushy ones, so this is about how petrified I felt after I told Craig I loved him. A bit personal, but then again, isn’t most writing?

I Just Confessed “I Love You”

Laura Lam

The words were there.

I had sent them,

pixels forever in cyberspace.

I stared at them and began

to supernova.

My hair was a red-gold corona,

my skin sloughed and shed,

floating away in delicate, translucent nebulae

of red, green, and purple.

My veins unfurled into the arms

of the Milky Way,

blood trickled

into stars.

I’ve stripped myself farther

than to the bone. You can see

the black hole at the center.

A single, infinite point.

Waiting.

-

If you enjoyed this poem, please consider purchasing my full-length work, Pantomime & forthcoming Shadowplay.

Free Fiction Friday: “Pseudonym”

This is the first short story I wrote for university. It’s the first short story I’d written for a very long time, and the first bit of writing I showed to people I didn’t know – the other people in my class. I feel I’ve come a long way since writing it, but I still like it and think it has my voice. So here it is.

“Pseudonym”

by

Laura Lam

“Integrity: A name is the blueprint of the thing we call character. You ask, What’s in a name? I answer, Just about everything you do.” -Morris Mandel

When he walked into the diner every head glanced up with bleary eyes, then, uninterested, returned to staring into their cups of coffee. My eyes stayed upon him.

There wasn’t any particular reason why they should do so—he wasn’t extraordinary in looks—but there was a way he moved. He moved like he came from the city; his legs swished stiffly, like scissors. Here in Imogene, Iowa, our strides are looser, wider, more relaxed. He paused in the doorway, silhouetted by the morning sunlight behind him, taking in the tired jukebox, the faded, faux-leather red seats, the tarnished chrome. It no longer bothered me, but I knew the stale miasma of old grease and cheap coffee wafted towards him. For a moment, he hesitated, but after a resigned squaring of the shoulders, the man met my stare and sat in my section.

I came over with the coffeepot. He gave a quick nod of his head and I poured it. He wore a ratty cap pulled low on his forehead, casting a shadow over his face. His dark clothes were almost caked with smog. New York, I decided. As I leaned over to pour the coffee, he noticed my nametag.

“Sage,” he said. “It means wisdom. A good, strong name.”

“What, no hippie joke?” I said with the smile I always reserved for customers who commented on my name.

“It was around long before the hippies.”

“I suppose.” I paused. “What’s your name?”

He looked up and the light fell across him. He seemed to be somewhere in his mid-twenties. Half of his face was covered in a 5 o’clock shadow, but the other half was almost shockingly pale, and with one mole marring a cheek he looked like a ying-yang sign.

He grimaced. “Puck.”

“Like the fairy in A Midsummer’s Night Dream?” I asked, intrigued to discover someone else with an unusual name. Here, everyone was named Jessica, Britney, John, or Todd.

“That’s one meaning, but I don’t think I’m much like him.” He smiled, showing white teeth. As another waitress passed behind me in a pastel pink blur, his eyes flicked towards her.

“See, her name? Sarah. It sounds boring, it’s ubiquitous, and all it means is princess in Hebrew.”  I suppressed an un-waitress-like snigger. Sarah wasn’t exactly a princess.

“What’s in a name?” I said with a more genuine smile. He gave a lopsided grin in return, but I had the feeling he’d probably heard that line before.

I took his order of eggs and bacon to the kitchen, watching him from behind the counter. He drew lazy organic designs on the tabletop with a fingertip. His eyes occasionally followed Sarah as she weaved her way among the customers, taking in the bleached hair, the tan, the raccoon’s mask of mascara and eyeliner. She was the opposite of me in looks. I looked down at the cracked linoleum countertop for a moment, biting my lip.

As Sarah sashayed back towards the kitchen, she flicked back her mock-blond hair and lifted her stenciled eyebrows at me. I just smiled back. That eyebrow lift signaled “he’s cute.” I agreed with her, for once; usually her tastes ran to the big, blonde and blockheaded, and so generally her eyebrow lift was met with my nose scrunching up with distaste. We usually passed judgment on the attractiveness of customers to help make the shifts a bit livelier, but this time it felt hollow.

When I returned with Puck’s order, he had torn and folded his Rainier’s napkin into a little crown. He pushed it to the side so I could set the plate down.

“Fantastic!” He exclaimed. He picked up his knife and fork and immediately began eating.

“Do you want another napkin?” I asked. He wolfed down his food, but not messily or noisily. I can’t stand messy eaters, and unfortunately our diner was usually full of them. The sound of the almost violent way people masticated their food always turned my stomach. Usually people tend to attack their food like a hunter descending on their prey. Puck ate his food like a surgeon. Since entering the service industry, I judged people on their manners.

“Uh,” he did not appear to have heard me, but had noticed I was still standing by the table.

“Do you want another napkin?” I repeated. “They’re free.” I added, stupidly.

“Yes, that’d be great,” he had chewed and swallowed his food before answering, which I found rather endearing. So many customers yelled at me for more ketchup or syrup, the half-chewed pancakes and sausage looking like maggots in their mouths, bits of egg caught on their chin. Puck had eaten half his meal by the time I returned with a few napkins. He had little crinkles around his eyes; either he laughed a lot or he was older than he seemed.

“So, how and when are you getting out of this place?” Puck asked as soon as I put the napkins down next to his plate.

“How do you know I wanna leave?” I asked, placing a fist on my hip and emphasizing my mid-western twang. “Maybe I’m gonna stay here till I’m wrinkled as a raisin.”

“I know you want to get away from here. I was just like you: too smart for a town or job like this,” he took a napkin and wiped his mouth. I made sure none of my colleagues were within earshot.

“I’m going to college. I’ll leave when I’m finished.”

“Des Moines?”

“No, I want to get out of this whole state. Maybe I’ll go to New York.” I was fishing to see if my assumption from where he was from was correct.

“I’m traveling from there. I guess you can tell. People seem to have a look about them if they’re from the city. Sort of beat down?” He shrugged and smiled.

“But it seems so alive compared to this place.” I glanced around my area and saw that the place was nearly empty and no bosses were around to yell at me, so I slid into the seat across from him.

“Being in a vibrant, busy city wears you down. Sometimes I have to get away, so I start wandering and stop at places like this.”

“Sounds romantic,” I said sarcastically, glancing around at the faded glory of the diner.  Compared to him, I felt like a little girl. He had obviously done and seen so much more than I probably ever would. We sat in mostly comfortable silence as he finished the last few bites of his meal. I kept trying to think of another conversation starter, but found myself shy. I opened my mouth once or twice and then abruptly snapped it shut. Puck, staring down at his plate, didn’t notice. When the plate had been scraped clean, he gave me a generous tip and the napkin crown.

“Thanks for the company. Don’t let this place wear you down,” he said with a wink as he left.

I stayed seated in the booth after he left. The end of the conversation had been anti-climatic. If only I could have impressed him, I berated myself, my fingernails scraping along the tacky leather of my seat as they balled up into a fist. In Puck I had glimpsed something of the outside world, a world that seemed so removed from my tiny, isolated sphere. Foolish girlish daydreams of running away with him warred with the pragmatic thought that one day I might be just like him: a mysterious stranger from a big city, experience writ large on my face.

“Only one more year and I’ll get out of here,” I confided to the little napkin crown in my hand.

 *

The next day, Sarah didn’t show up for work, so I did twice the amount of table cleaning. I cursed her as I used two wet rags to draw wet figure-eights on the sticky tables. Sarah had the dubious honor of being the diner manager’s niece, so she could skip out whenever she wanted. Virginia, the other co-worker who usually shared my shifts, was also late, probably due to entertaining half the football squad the night before. That was unkind.

I scowled at the table, annoyed with my bitter morning thoughts. I had half-hoped that Puck would have breakfast here again. Time wore on. He was probably already driving his car—in my head it was a cherry-red Corvette—at exhilarating speeds down a distant freeway. He was long gone, making an enviable getaway from the fair town of Imogene. I, meanwhile, would have to work an extra shift just to get gas money to get to the next town. I sighed, ignoring the ringing phone at the other side of the dining area. Mr. Roberts, the manager, picked it up and held up the receiver to his mouth with his shoulder.

“Yeah, that’s me…what?”

He listened for a moment, glaring at a stain on the wall. Abruptly, the glass he had been polishing fell to the floor with a smash, the shards skittering across the floor.

*

Her body had been found early that morning in an abandoned warehouse, a dark cavern of broken glass, food wrappers, crushed aluminum cans, and condoms. Her body had been placed on an old recliner. So said the wagging tongues of the diners over the lunch rush. A detective came around the diner later that day and interviewed everyone. He had taken me aside and asked me the standard questions: When did you last see Sarah Roberts? Did you notice when she went missing? Had I noticed anything or anyone unusual? My answers were all vague. As the detective turned away from me and weaved through the tables to speak yet again to Sarah’s uncle, a photo slipped from his Manila folder and landed as lightly as a feather upon the floor.

Mesmerized, I stepped forward and peered down at it. Sarah looked back at me with unseeing eyes surrounded by smeared mascara and glitter. A bruise bloomed on one cheekbone. She was wearing a cheap, plastic crown, set slightly askew. Her hair framed her face in a corona. Her naked body lounged gracefully on the recliner, her throne. In death, despite her dollar-store crown and filthy surroundings, she looked regal. But empty. She wasn’t Sarah any longer. It was like looking at a painting of a long-dead monarch. She came, she saw, she conquered. But she was conquered.

I picked up the photograph, but mid-crouch the importance of the crown suddenly stopped me cold. I stayed there, poised like a bird about to take flight. The cogs of my mind began to spin and my stomach churned. It was a coincidence. My mind suddenly saw the silver sheen of Sarah’s crown imposed over a little folded Rainier napkin nestled in my palm. No. I rifled through my memories of those few hours, frantically searching for any hint. How could I think so low of someone? Especially someone who had been so . . . friendly? So nice? It didn’t fit. But someone did this. This is a small town. He was just passing through. For what reason? No. He didn’t know her.

But he knew what her name meant. He had told me. Crown. Princess.

I turned away from the photograph and stumbled out the back door to the alleyway separating the diner from the only Chinese restaurant in Imogene. Numb, I leaned against the stone wall and slid down it until I was sitting, the hot asphalt burning into my palms.

My mind raced. If it was him, then it could have very well been me they found today. I couldn’t get my head around it. He had spoken to me, connected with me. Was that why he didn’t choose me? Had he been planning to get me, at first? Perhaps it had been like when a child goes to the zoo and pets a piglet and finally makes the connection between it and bacon. He couldn’t think of me as livestock. Or, perhaps he just wanted to kill the princess instead of wisdom. A gruesome image of a dead me dressed in a toga and laurel leaves, holding an aegis and a spear swam before my vision. I barked out a bitter semblance of a laugh.

The mechanisms of my mind whirred and finally clanked to a halt. Eventually I calmed down slightly, though my hands still shook and my heart continued to beat out irregular, staccato beats against my ribcage. For a long time I just sat, my mind completely blank.

When I could think again, I told myself I was just being morbid and ridiculous, but the pit of dread stayed in my stomach. Shaking my head, I shoved myself up, the imprint of the stones dug into my hands and my eyes burned hot and bright.

 *

After a few days, I convinced myself I was spinning webs that had too many holes in them to hold any flies. Sarah had always acted like a princess; some jilted lover had a dark, twisted sense of humor. Deep down, in a tiny dark corner of my mind where I refused to look, I think I knew I was fooling myself.

I never told the police about Puck. I didn’t tell the slick FBI agent that came a few months later either. I pushed it all from my mind as much as possible and I went back to the endless drudgery of bacon and eggs, hamburgers and fries, still counting the days until I received my diploma and could fly out of this tired town.

New York no longer held the same magic. I decided to go to sunny Los Angeles instead. Sometimes, I still took out the little napkin crown and looked at it.

Life went on. I waited on rude customers. I brought innumerable plates and took them away again. Eventually, Puck faded in my mind, becoming instead a vague feeling of unease and danger. But if anyone who looked like him came into the diner, I fled to the kitchen or the bathroom and made someone else take his table.

Graduation passed in a swirl of black robes and red balloons. I had saved enough of the crumpled one dollar notes of my tips to move. At last, the day came where I could quit, and I did. I said my goodbyes, loaded up my battered station wagon with my paltry possessions and waited for morning.

That night, I had a note pushed under my door, a tiny sprig of sage attached to it with a lavender ribbon:

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

Before I left, I checked, and Virginia hadn’t shown up for work.

 

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