SUZANNE RUDD HAMILTON

Waiting for a Reply

“Another email about Mary’s game night? What to bring, what time, what day, you think we were Congress trying to negotiate a bill, right lol. It’s not rocket science.” Caroline quickly replied to the email and went back to work.

Then she heard another ding notifying her computer that she had an email. When she checked it, she found an email from her friend Tara.

“Caroline. Did you mean to send that email to everyone?”

She read the email, panicked and then looked back through her sent emails.

“Oh no! I clicked reply to all by mistake. I wish this email chain was easier to use. I get mixed up with all the threads. I sent this to everyone in the group, including Mary. Yikes.”

As Caroline worked throughout the day, she barely kept her mind on her accounting as she received several responses to her mistaken email. Ding after ding, like the bell tolling, a constant reminder of her mistake. Others were smart enough to reply just to her email with their responses.

“Wow, Caroline, didn’t think game night was that taxing on your busy day, haha,” Jim emailed.

“Caroline, seriously, we’d all be too old to play games if we waited for Congress to act,” Mark chided.

“Hey, I thought some of our games are like rocket science, lol.” Carrie replied.

“Oooo, did you get an email from Mary yet?” Debbie emailed with a string of shock emojis.

She didn’t get an email from Mary yet. The waiting was the worse. She toggled between her work and her email, checking for the bell to toll for her.

Hours went by. Nothing. Caroline went over the message again in her head, judging every word and phrase for the possible response.

Ok, the first line could be a joke – but the rocket science line, that probably nailed my coffin, Caroline thought.

Mary was a meticulous host and took her turn for game night very seriously. There were drink menus, snack suggestions and game choices all which required everyone to weigh in an opinion. She coordinated times and dates, which alone was an endless series of emails to sync schedules. Then there were the emails about what everyone would bring. Mary wanted to ensure there were no duplications.

Caroline appreciated her attention to detail and thought if everyone brought chips, that would be bad, but there were more emails during her game night week than any other week.

The fiftieth email check in the last few hours showed no email from Mary, which made Caroline even more nervous. She knew Mary was usually very quick with email replies.

Maybe she’s busy and didn’t check her email, Caroline thought. Or maybe she doesn’t want to respond.

The suspense was killing Caroline. She heard every noise in her office amplified by ten. The coffee pot drip, computer keys typing and the water cooler gurgle echoed in her head. Then she realized she typed the same numbers into four different columns on her spreadsheet and had to figure a way out of the torture.

Can I delete the thread or the email? She thought, Googling the answer. Nope.

What if I reply and head her off at the pass, like it was a joke? Caroline stared at the email crafting the perfect response.

“Lol, just kidding. Can’t wait.” She replied to all and stared at the computer for a response. Silence. Then finally, a lone ding. It was from Mary.

“Lol. Bring nuts,” she emailed.

Caroline was stunned. She obviously read the email thread. Was she taking the high road or mounting her attack to ambush and punish her at game night?

“Arrgh, now I have to wait three more days to find out.” Caroline plopped her head on her desk.

“Alexa, remind me to buy nuts at the store on Thursday,” she said.

Pick That Up!

Should I pick that up? I think the better question is… Why should I pick that up?

My new husband of one year started as a dream. He’s kind, respectful and a lot of fun to be around. But I recently found his fatal flaw. He’s a slob! Not a pigsty slob, but he doesn’t pick up after himself. It’s infuriating!

It started small. He left coins and mail on the kitchen counter, magazines on the coffee table and left his lap top everywhere. But now it seems like every flat surface in our house is his dustbin for anything and everything that comes out of his pockets or lands in his hands. His nightstand, his vanity, the end tables, the countertops, the coffee table… they all have stuff on them and it’s driving me crazy.

I should have known when it took him a month to put away his suitcase from our honeymoon. I accidentally kicked it five times. I reminded him the first week, then the second week, then daily for the next week, but there it sat. Finally, I shuffled into his small closet. He didn’t even notice.

Thankfully, he puts away his clothes most of the time, but everything else is habitual. I’m not a neat freak or anything, but everything has its place. Why do we have closets, cabinets and drawers if we put nothing away? When we were dating, we either went out or to my place, since he lived in a cramped apartment with a few other guys. I never knew. I can’t resolve if he’s absent-minded, untidy or just completely oblivious.

It’s been a tug of wills for months. He leaves things around. I wait a few days, and then gently remind him -but nothing. And every day I look at the mess seething with pent up rage. Finally, when I’m about to burst like Krakatau or when we have people over, whichever comes first, I tidy it up. I’ll put everything in drawers beneath or nearby wherever things land.

Frankly, I’m at my wit’s end. I’ve tried to help make him organized. I bought him separators for his drawers so he can easily put everything in them. I got magazine holders for his magazines, labeled them and put them on the shelf. I even got a new end table for the living room with a cabinet for his laptop. When I showed him how easy it was, he thanked me and said they were great. Still, they remain empty.

I even got a little passive aggressive once and took all his things and put them in a box to teach him a lesson. I figured if he couldn’t find anything he needed, he would learn the reason you put things away is so you can find them. At first he didn’t even notice, but when he was blindly looking around for his things, I caved and told him I took them and gave them back. And he just thanked me!

Is this my life—to be Cinderella and pick up after him constantly or live in a hoarder house, embarrassed to have anyone I know come in? Is that fair? I work too; we’re supposed to split the chores. And what happens when we have kids? If they’re like him and follow his example, I will spend my life in servitude up to my eyeballs in stuff.

On a recent trip to his mother’s house out of state, the clouds cleared, and I got some clarity. It took me a few days to notice, but I realized she followed him around, picking up his clothes and folding them on the bed, taking his dishes from him, and each morning we found things he left around neatly stacked near the bed. And as soon as we got out of the bed, it was magically made. Aha!

He never had to pick anything up his whole life, so he never learned that’s what he’s supposed to do. He doesn’t think this is any different. But it is.

That’s it! Now I’m going to have to break him of this mommy-coddling habit right away. Maybe I’ll take a page from Pavlov’s book.

Now I’m wondering what other habits I’ll have to break. I hope Pavlov’s theory works on husbands too.

Newtakes not mistakes

Albert Einstein said “A person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new.” After all, one person’s mistake is another’s invention. That statement was never truer than with my childhood friend, Skizitz. Others saw everything she did as a mistake, but to me, it was creative and amazing. She was definitely an original.

As an Army brat, I moved around a lot, which was not conducive to making friends easily, until I met sixties. In three short years, she showed me how to try new things, ignore naysayers and bullies and completely be yourself. Words I’ve lived by my whole life.

She not only made lemonade out of lemons, it was a sweetest lemonade you every tasted because it was unique. Nothing was impossible, because to her it wasn’t right or wrong, it was just different.

When we went snowboarding the first time, we failed miserably. We went down a couple of feet and both fell. It was hard to balance. We thought if we held hands, we could help each other balance. That worked for a few feet, but then we both face-planted in the snow. We sat there in the snow as others glided down around us and knew we either had to try again or walk down the hill in defeat.

Skizitz smiled and kneeled on her snowboard in her patented butterfly pose sitting with her knees in front of her and her legs on either side like wings. “Try this Emmy, we can shush down the hill like a sled and use our hands to make us go.”

I know that’s not how we were supposed to snowboard, but we moved fast with the cool wind in our faces. It was fun and we got down the hill in style, with less bruises.

I’ll never forget the food concoctions she would come up with and the interesting way she ate everything. Popcorn with ranch dressing mix and butter a la Skizitz was her signature snack. And she ate her Skizitz-style peanut butter sandwiches by separating the two pieces of bread, splitting Oreo cookies in two, licking the white filling out of the Oreos and scooping all the peanut butter from each bread slice with the chocolate part of the cookie. Then she took the slice of cheese and put it between the bread and ate the sandwich. Is that the way to make a cheese sandwich or a peanut butter sandwich with cheese and peanut butter Oreos? I think they even sell peanut butter Oreos now. She was ahead of her time.

She found her own way to do everything from her made-up words to her banana-peel way of tripping, falling down at kicking a winning soccer goal. The unusual way she created costumes with on-the-spot back stories for every character like the half man-half clown, clownman, the princess pirate, or the frogbee are neighborhood legends.

Yes, kids made fun of her and teachers and parents always told her she was doing things wrong, but it wasn’t a mistake for her. Everything she did was unapologetically her way. I never forgot that.

Now I own an environmental sustainability company that has changed the face of our climate for the better, allowing affordable renewable energies to progress and thrive to produce clean water and air. I made a lot of mistakes along the way, but I was really just finding ways not to invent my process. Without those mistakes, I would have never achieved my goal. And even though it was years ago, every time something didn’t work or fell short, I remembered how Skizitz would call it newtakes and make it different. And I did.

Note: This is a character preview of a new middle-grade book The One and Only Skizitz.

Reruns

“Hi Mom, I need to ask you something about your crockpot.” Jamie called her mother on Facetime.

“I can see you, can you see me? Isn’t this Facetimes thing fun?” her mother laughed.

“Mom, hold the phone back, I can only see your mouth. Good. I’m using your old crockpot. How did you get it to the right setting again? Warm for 1 hour than high for an hour? Mom you’re muted.”

“Oh sorry. I didn’t mean to hit it. It’s warm for 30 minutes, high for one hour and then warm for 30 minutes again. I can’t believe that old thing is still working. It was your grandmothers. Why don’t you get a new one. Maybe one of those instapots I hear about. That thing’s got to be on it’s last leg. It’s…”

“Mom, you’re on mute again. Anyway, I like it. They don’t sell ones this big anymore and I can fit a whole chicken, plus potatoes and vegetables in it. Those new ones don’t fit half that. Sometimes it’s worth keeping. Mom, I see your lips moving…but I have to go anyway, I hear the kids making noise in the other room. Love you, bye.”

Jamie laughs, sighs and walks into the living room holding a basket of laundry and sees her two young daughters Avery and Alex dancing to a familiar tune and begins to move to the music a little.

“Mom, we’re making a TikTok video,” Avery sighed.

“You’re in the frame, mom,” Alex said.

“I could swear I know that song.” Jamie quickly hopped out of their way and started folding laundry, humming the song in her head.

With her back to the girls, Jamie kept humming the song and moves her head, shoulders to the beat.

“Mom! What are you doing?” The girls both stopped and stared at her as if she was crazy.

Then a light bulb went off in her head. “I know that song.”

Jamie started to sing and dance a little to the song. The girls’ jaws dropped.

“How do you know that song, Mom?” Avery asked.

“That song is new,” Alex said.

Jamie laughed. “That song is not new. It was popular when I was a kid. I think I may still know the whole dance.”

Jamie put the laundry down and stood next to the girls and sang and danced the whole song. The girls were dumbfounded.

“That’s better than what we were doing,” Alex said.

“Mom, can you teach us that dance,” Avery asked.

Jamie and the girls laughed as she taught them the moves to the old song.

“Let’s put it on TikTok,” Avery said excited.

“Oh no, I don’t know about that girls,” Jamie said and walked back to the laundry.

“Come on Mom, you’re better than most of the people we see on there,” Alex coaxed.

“Well, ok, I guess.” Jamie smiled and checked her hair in the mirror.

It took a few takes, but they finally all agreed and uploaded the video to TikTok entitled “Old School Dance.” It has ten thousand likes, and counting.

Attic Adventures

Cammie was bored. The ten-hour car trip with her mother, grandmother and aunts was bad enough, but when they reached her great aunt’s house, there was literally nothing to do. No Wi-Fi, no TV, nothing.

Her great aunt Gertrude recently had a health scare, so they wanted to visit her while they could. Gertrude lived alone in their ancestral home and was the keeper of the family line. She kept the family stories to pass onto stories other women in the line to ensure they would not be forgotten. Cammie’s mother included her on this all-girl tour to get some first-hand knowledge of her heritage.

For hours, the women talked, drank tea and looked at picture scrapbooks. But Cammie rolled her eyes and counted the tiles on the kitchen walls while she pretended to look.

These are just a bunch of old pictures of people I don’t know, she thought. Why should I care?

She excused herself to use the bathroom and found a hallway full of doors. Her aunt said the bathroom was on the left, but there were two doors on the left. Cammie opened one and saw a narrow stairway. She flicked the light switch and climbed the stairs. The steps were so narrow her feet were nearly too big for them.

“This is the most exciting thing that happened to me in two days,” she laughed.

She followed the stairway to the top and looked into the room. It didn’t look like attics she saw in the movies or on TV; it just looked like a room. It had bright lights, as there were no windows, white linoleum floor, white walls and ceilings and different colored sheets thrown over mysterious objects.

“Now this is more like it. Let the adventure begin.” Cammie ran around the room taking the sheets off one by one.

First, she unveiled a beautiful wood dressing table with an attached ornate three-way mirror. Cammie looked into the drawers and found a beaded purse with fringe, some small gold metal boxes and a silver comb and brush. Next to that was a bookcase full of old leather books.

Then she found a chest full of fabric and clothes, an old record player with a big horn, and a weird square treadmill with a big while belt attached to it. With each new item, she looked with fresh interest and anticipation until the next find. After she was done, she surveyed the room again and wondered what they were all used for? How old they were? And who they belonged to?

“There’s a tale for each one of these treasures,” great aunt Gertrude said as she hobbled up the stairs with her cane. Cammie was so entranced in her adventure she didn’t even hear her coming.

“Is this an attic auntie?” Cammie helped her sit in a big velvet chair she uncovered.

“It was an attic when the home was built, but when there were more kids in the family than bedrooms, it was used as a bedroom. Over time, it became the final resting place for all their treasures.”

“Who?” Cammie asked.

“The Cole women, of course. Each piece tells a tale of the women in our family.” Gertrude pointed to the vanity.

“That dressing table belonged to Victoria. She was a flapper in the 1920’s and was the life of the party. She was killed in a car accident at 22. They found those little gold boxes of snuff powder on her.”

“The chest was brought here on a stage cross-country from Pennsylvania in 1870. It contained everything Mary’s family owned. Can you believe that? She became a seamstress and made custom dresses for all the richest women in town.”

“What’s with the horn on this record player?” Cammie asked.

Gertrude laughed. “It’s called a Victrola. It was Emily’s most prized possession. She took it all the way to California in 1910 when she tried to make it as a singer in Hollywood. She sang in movie theaters during silent pictures.”

“And oh, the bookcases. Aren’t they marvelous? Lillian was the librarian until 1950 when she died at 85. She kept her favorite books in that bookcase. She was considered the smartest women in town – like a walking encyclopedia. It was Lillian who started the golden book of Cole women.” Gertrude motioned to the giant book lying atop the bookcases.

Cammie brought the book to Gertrude. It was covered in shiny gold leaf and had the word “Cole” engraved on the top.

“In this book is one page for every woman in our family. Each generation had a record keeper who passed down the stories mother to daughter, aunt to niece. Lillian decided to write each story in the book to preserve them and handed the book to a special girl in the family to continue the line.” She handed the book to Cammie.

Each of the creamy pages had a woman’s name and year at the top and told the story of her life. And there were many blank pages for the future. Cammie looked at each page with wonder. These women were all chronicled in this book. How they lived, who they were and how they died.

“I’ve kept the record for the past 60 years, since my aunt gave it to me. It’s time for new blood.” Gertrude smiled and gently handed the book to Cammie.

“I can’t do this. I wouldn’t know what to write.” Cammie looked at her with big-eyed fear.

“Just listen and tell their stories. You can start with your grandmother and I.” She said.

For the rest of the trip, Gertrude told Cammie stories and showed her pictures of the Cole women. Cammie took notes to write the stories in the book later. Now she saw the women in the picture scrapbooks as people. Through the stories, she felt she knew them. They were family and now she could keep them alive until it was her time to bestow the book upon the next generation of Cole women.

An Unexpected Wind

Emma dreamed of visiting the Hardie Casino baths. Hardie’s two-story building with big arched Greek columns was the fanciest and the largest bathing casinos in Miami. Her mother, Carla, recently began working there as a sandwich maker, since their move from New York. Emma would sit every night entranced as Carla told her about all the people she saw that day sunbathing on the beach and swimming in the big salt water baths. She pictured fancy ladies in sunglasses and big-brimmed hats lying under beach umbrellas in the tropical sun and dozens of heads donned with bathing caps bobbing about in the deep salt water. And she imagined men diving from boards high in the air plunging into the pool below. But a casino pass was too expensive for their little struggling family, so Emma would have to live through Carla’s daily tales.

“Emma, Emma, I have a wonderful surprise for you.” Carla excitedly ran up the stairs to their 2^nd floor apartment. Emma smiled and met her at the door just like every day before.

“Mr. Hardie gave this to me himself as a bonus.” Carla smiled and handed a yellow ticket to her daughter.

Emma looked down at the ticket and cheered, jumping into her mother’s arms in glee. It was a day pass to visit the Hardie baths tomorrow. She would finally get to see everything she imagined with her own eyes and get to sunbathe on the golden beach and swim in the sea water pools. It was a dream come true.

Richard was taking measurements and recording hourly findings in the ledger. He volunteered for the twelve-hour night shift, relieving a work friend who left to attend his mother’s 60^th birthday party. September 17^th 8pm: 19 mph wind speed, barometer mostly steady slight drop, mild rain. No signs of any disturbances, he wrote, filled up his coffee and tilted back in his desk chair until his next report.

Emma fell asleep that night smiling with her wool bathing costume and cap next to her, dreaming of the next day’s event.

At midnight, Richard wiped the sleep from his eyes, filled up his coffee cup and read the wind speed and barometer again. The wind picked up to 30 miles per hour speed, the rain increased and the barometer dove again. Additional drop in barometer, probably due to rain, he wrote. No other disturbances.

Unaccustomed to the night shift, Richard fell in and out of sleep for the next few hours draining the coffee pot. He dutifully managed the hourly reports with no incidents, but at 5am Richard noticed a curious plummet in the mercurial rate of the barometer with the rain and winds increasing. Precipitation and wind speed steadily increasing to 50 mph, barometer dropping, he wrote. Still within parameters of rain storm-will monitor pattern.

Now Richard was wide awake. The rain and wind didn’t bother him, but the barometer was a concern. The barometric pressure and wireless reports from ocean steamships to Washington DC were their only indication of a tropical storm.

By 8am the barometer had jumped up and down like a ball, but the rain diminished and the wind was down to 10 mph. The barometer pattern is uncertain, could be within margin of error. Rain and wind speed depleted, no disturbances noted, but will continue to monitor barometer.

Emma and Carla awoke to overcast conditions, but no rain.

“Do you still want to go today? There’s no sun.” Carla asked. Emma’s eyes and smile grew big as she quickly nodded in response. Nothing could keep her from visiting the bathing casino, especially not a few clouds. Since Carla had to work anyway, they headed out the door to be there for the 9am opening.

After leaving her mother in the back-door kitchen, Emma quickly dressed in her bathing costume and wool cap and walked through the restaurant into the bath area. It was beautiful, just as she pictured. The long deep pool lay in the middle of the deck filled with chaise lounge chairs and fresh towels rolled on the seat. Her eyes turned skyward toward the three diving boards of various heights which seemed to reach to the heavens. Walking on the beach, she saw lounge chairs with umbrellas resting near the ebbing tide. All it needed was people to fill in the blanks. By 10am, despite the lack of sun, there were water bathers in the pool and ocean and sunbathers occupying the chaises. Emma happily went back and forth jumping into the bathing pool, watching the divers and running up and down the tide line.

At 10am, Richard noticed a big drop in the barometer again, but there was no rain and wind speed held at 10-15 mph. He looked at the wireless and saw no reports from the sea.

Suddenly at 10:30am, the wind speed reading picked up to 40 mph. Richard called the anemometer reader at the Federal building to double-check. They were also reading 40 mph, but he knew their margin of error was 15 mph because the three-story building was surrounded by newer buildings 10 to 12 ft taller in Miami’s growing metropolis. Richard was concerned. Checking the wind speed constantly, at 10:45 he noticed the wind increased to 60 mph. He tried to call the Federal Building to check the readings, but the phone lines were down. Protocol dictated posting the only public warning flags on the beach at 65 mph. Without confirmation, he was hesitant to make the solo call, but felt it was imminent, so he gathered the red and black-squared flags and walked three blocks to the beach.

Emma saw workers on the beach, hurriedly lowering the umbrellas tussling in the wind. Some people retreated to the pool area where the building provided a windbreak.

“Due to the wind, please exit the beach area immediately and take shelter in the building,” a man walked along the beach shouting into a megaphone.

Emma quickly walked toward the restaurant where Carla was waiting at the back door and hugged her. “I was coming to get you. We lost power in the kitchen, but I have a light. I think the freezer is the best place to be until this blows over.”

Richard reached the empty beach and posted the flags at 11:15am and ran back to the office fighting against the amplifying wind gusts. By 11:50, the wind speed was 95 mph. The category 4 hurricane hit Miami at 12:05pm at a velocity of 100-115 mph with a 15-ft storm surge.

The front half of the Hardie Casino building caved like a melting bar of chocolate with the 2-story building tiers and front columns atop each other. As the wind lulled, people came out on the street to see the damage, but a second wave hit a half hour later at 60 mph, killing more people and toppling the front of the building and the big Greek columns to rubble. Emma and Carla were safe in the kitchen’s walk-in freezer. The back of the Hardie building was the only part left standing.

Author’s Note: Those of us who live in hurricane paths are grateful for the notice and preparation provided by technology. 100 years ago, very little notice or public warning was provided.

The Perfect Date

The beaming sun stretched its smile, enveloping the lake. A comforting breeze swept ripples across the surface dancing to the beat of a full symphony of lilting melodic wonders playing the soundtrack for love in the band shell. Swans sang an operatic aria floating in aimless harmony.

I even saw a butterfly go by. Add in a basket full of wine, bread and cheese and it was the perfect setting for romance. Neal left no stone unturned to create a beautiful first date.

He was attentive. He was kind. He was generous. It was everything I could have asked for and more than I expected from a date on harmoniousencounters.com.

I went into online dating with a lot of skepticism. This site asked every question except my blood type and promised to use their groundbreaking algorithm to find my perfect match. Well, it worked.

Neal and I had everything possible in common from the choice of wine and type of music to books, politics… and on and on. We talked for hours about every manner of topic from travel and wines to architectural styles and classical music preferences. He was a simply perfect match. Yet I sit in this perfectly wonderful setting with this charming man across from me and all I can think of is… “Meh?”

It was pleasant, but I was not attracted to him in the slightest – not at all. I don’t understand it. He was smart, good-looking and funny, but that spark, the joie de vivre, just wasn’t there.

I dreaded the end-of-date kiss like the plague. Everyone puts so much emphasis on the fireworks of the first kiss. But if there are no embers the entire day, the pressing of lips together can’t create a fire. They’re not flint. Unfortunately, I was right. It was like kissing a friend or relative; it was just pressing lips, nothing more.

That night as I cozied into a cup of hot tea and my romance novel du jour, I started to think I expect too much from a first date or any dates. In all these novels I read, its instant chemistry. They either hate each other or love each other at first site, then sparks fly. Of course, it’s fiction, but after a lifetime of reading books and watching sappy movies, I think I’m programmed to believe in love at first site and happy endings.

Maybe the perfect person is the wrong fit. Opposites attract, right? Maybe you need someone who’s your exact opposite and makes your blood boil to get your gears running. Neal was too perfect. Instead of Prince Charming, maybe I’m more of a dashing rogue girl. Where do you find them? Is there an unharmonious.com?

Well, for right now, I know where to find them – right in the pages of this book. But first, I need to cut the cord. Even if my happy ending isn’t easy, it will never happen on a computer. harmoniousencounters.com—delete account.

Time Capsule

It was the last day of high school in the year 1971 in a small Midwestern town. Four best friends secretly buried time capsules under the tree in front of the high school to commemorate their time there and vowed to meet fifty years later to dig it up.

All agreed to put three items each in individual tin coffee cans; something that represented what they did in high school, what they wanted to be and how they saw themselves at the time.

Over the 50 years, the four eventually went their separate ways. At first, they saw each other occasionally, then less frequently. They called on birthdays and sent letters and cards at Christmas. And when social media came out, they shared pictures and milestones on that. But life took them in different directions, so they were never again the best of friends.

Margie was the first to leave. She went to college in California, lived in a commune for a while. Then she became a public defender and was elected as a democrat to Congress. She never married; she always said she didn’t want someone else trying to run her life.

Evie, who’s now called Evelyn, stayed in town for a while and went to work as a teller in the bank. She fell in love with the head banker who rose up the ranks to in JP Morgan Chase and moved to New York to head up their corporate division. So basically, she’s rich.

Fran married her high school sweetheart and lived in town for 20 years. It was a bad situation. Her husband mentally and physically abused her and cheated on her all the time. She kept having children, seven in all to keep things happy, but it didn’t. Everyone in town knew; it’s a small town. She finally withdrew and became a shut-in from the embarrassment. He died of a heart attack at 40. It was very sudden. Most people thought it was a suspicious death, but nothing was done. She got married to an insurance salesman moved away to start a new life with the kids. It was better for her to leave; too many bad memories and too much gossip.

I stayed in town the whole time. I worked in my father’s grocery store for a while and avoided marriage and kids for the longest time. Finally, I met my husband, George. He was the guy who brought the bread every day. It was a long courtship where he pursued me for years and after we got married and had kids, he helped me run the store.

Fifty years to the day, we all met in the high school courtyard. The tree was huge, but the campus was basically the same. The reunion was nice. We all looked older, of course, but at least we all made it. I had my grandson dig up the tins for us. Let’s face it, none of us wanted to dig in the dirt anymore.

After the hugs and introductory greetings, we walked up the tree and all stared down at the tins. No one moved.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Margie said and grabbed her can, scraped off the dirt and ripped open the tin lid. She pulled out a program from the school play where she played the lead, her young republicans Nixon pin and her hand painted flower child peace headband.

“Check out the Nixon pin. Wow, you came a long way baby,” Evie laughed.

“This is ridiculous. I never voted for Nixon! I’m a liberal.” She flamed and threw down the can.

With the tension broken, Evie smiled as she took out her old band baton cap and cheerleader bow, but grimaced when she saw her 4H farm medal for raising chickens.

“You can take the girl out of the farm, huh Evie?” Margie laughed and Evie pouted and quickly put the tin down.

“This is not mine. Who put this in here? Funny joke.” Evie took a wipe from her purse and cleaned her hands with a puckered look on her face.

I opened mine and laughed out loud. There were photographs of the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben and the Pyramids and a picture of myself with a camera, all inside a grocery bag from the store. Yes, I wanted to travel and photograph the world.

“Well at least the grocery store bag was right. I knew I’d never leave anyway.” I shrugged and put the pictures back in the can.

Everyone looked at Fran as she put her hand in and retrieved pictures of her and Bert, her first husband, with a card that said “Fran and Bert Forever” and began to cry.

“I was so stupid to give my life up for that jerk!” Fran covered her face and let the pictures and coffee can fall to the ground.

Time is funny. We took separate roads and left behind who we were then and what we thought about life, when it didn’t turn out as we planned. Some out of necessity, some from convenience and some just changing life as it went along. They always say looking back in a mirror, objects are closer than they appear. Our time capsule experiment seemed to show the opposite. Seems the past is buried deep and far behind. Maybe that’s where it should stay.

I am an Island

Author note: I wrote this for a challenge to finish another writer’s prose. It took an interesting turn for me to give a look into the mind of the everyday writer.

“The descending sun painted the sky in an amber glow. Soft white clouds danced to a gentle breeze’s beat. The ascending moon tossed a quiet light over the plains, that separated the wilds of nature from what passes for civilization. The birds bid farewell in a rhythmic chorus. The lovers smiled at each other, in peaceful content. Twigs crumble under pained stress. Footsteps draw closer, stilling their thoughts, and chilling the night…”

“Rascal, lay down, I’m in the zone.” I scratched his ears and he sat on his pillow at my feet.

After reading this passage describing a scene of isolation on my half-blank computer screen, I realized something. This is my island; my oasis of calm in an ever-changing sea of still glass or turbulent crescent waves. No matter what’s happening in the world outside my very small window, I can escape into a sphere of reality which I create.

In my little office, my writing takes me on a journey where I listen to the characters in my head and they tell me their stories.

Yes, I hear them. I know that sounds weird to non-writers, but as a writer, you become the observer in the world you create. With every word on your glowing screen, you weave tales and build a universe where people live, love, learn, thrive and survive. And you hope someday readers will share that world with you and enjoy their stay.

It’s a strange omnipotent power to create a fake reality. You wield fate like a god and hold the lives of your characters in your hands. With a sentence or paragraph, I can give this one true love, put that one in danger or even kill someone off. I think that’s the toughest part. I feel like a parent to these fictional children I formed.

Sometimes I feel responsible for them, although I often think they’re in charge of their own destinies and I’m just the one with computer chronicling it all. But even as witness, I’m servant to the divined natural science of our story world. Not unlike real life, there are rules in the tropes that must adhere. Certain stories must have a happy ending and in some, death is assured. I travel through their existence, sensing everything as they do. I guess just like the civilization I see outside my window, my island also experiences both calm and rough seas. Maybe my little island isn’t that different, but at least here, I’m still in control.

Ok, I’ve procrastinated long enough…I’m listening lovers, whose footsteps are chilling you in the night? I’m in the zone again. I hear the footsteps too.

“Again Rascal? Ok, let’s go potty.” I walked toward the door and took one more look at my screen.

Lovers, you’ll have to wait a little longer to find your stalker.

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