Just days after we got our scores back for story one, it was time to write our second story.
Once again, we were given a surprise genre, location and object and had 48 hours to write, edit and submit a 1000 word or less story that fits that genre, is predominately set in that given location and mentions the object. They'll total the points from the two stories and the top five in each group will go on to the next round. I'm fairly certain my score will not be high enough to move me forward, but I still consider this experience a super-win.
This time my Genre/Location/Object was:
Drama/Dog Park/Pistol
Here's my submission for Story 2:
Dogs Don't Make Plans
A
man on the brink of achieving his lifelong goal is deterred by an
unexpected encounter at a dog park. The experience leads him to the
discovery of purpose. John had owned the pistol for seven years. He didn't purchase the used, forty-five caliber Ruger for personal security or target practice. He wasn't a die-hard gun rights activist or a member of the NRA. He just wanted to ensure he had access to a gun when he finally worked up the courage to shoot himself.
Seven years, and today was the first time he loaded it. Monica's leaving had been the catalyst, but she wasn't to blame. He'd been wanting this long before their marriage dissolved, long before their relationship had begun. He'd wanted this as long as he could remember.
The
weight of the gun in his waistband, solid against the small of his
back, comforted him as he walked. Its presence gave him strength.
The sure-footed energy of youth that had abandoned him years before
returned under the influence of the pistol's unyielding pressure.
Today would be the day.
The
street ended at the park. John walked in, defying the rapidly
setting sun.
“Park
closes at dusk,”
the
security guard barked at him. John recognized the lack of intention
in her undertone, familiar as his own face, and ignored her veiled
warning.
His
footsteps didn't slow until he reached the small dog park. The
enclosure was deserted in the chilly twilight. He let himself in
through the double gates, making sure the first closed before he
opened the second, observing the protocol, though he had no dog.
John
headed for his usual spot, the solitary bench beneath the bank of
trees near the fence. He spent many afternoons there, eyeing the dog
owners who gathered in the center. He detested the way they
pretended to like each other while the dogs they were too embarrassed
to admit they regretted obtaining ran off the energy that would
otherwise be spent destroying carpets and clawing furniture.
John
deplored the transience of it. The transience and the waste. People
waddling back and forth to jobs that accomplished nothing, breeding
children they spoiled, wasting what little the Earth had left,
sucking up everything natural and turning it into plastic. All for
what? Five minutes of distraction gift wrapped as pleasure,
ultimately creating nothing but torn paper and flattened ribbon.
More waste.
He
sensed the beginning of a spiral. Therapy had taught him to
recognize the onset of his obsessive thought patterns. They took
control of his mind, rendering him bedridden and useless for hours,
sometimes days. They left only once they'd ravaged him fully, the
hole inside him that much bigger, his goal that much further away.
Aware of the pattern, he stopped it from progressing.
John
sat on the bench. It was time to reach for the gun, but he couldn't
force his traitorous hands to move. Fear! Stupid fake emotion that
always blocked him from getting what he wanted, what he deserved!
No
matter. He had planned for this. He popped in his ear buds, reached
in his pocket and hit play.
“All
you desire is waiting for you,”
the
soothing voice of David Waters, self-help guru and award-winning life
coach reminded John, “just
beyond the veil that fear is holding before your eyes. You have the
power to take control of your life. That black mass of terror is
just a paper screen. Reach out and rip it down. Tear it away! Do
it. Do it now!”
The
recorded words freed John's hands. He pulled out the gun and took
off the safety. His heart sped up in his chest. A tingle went
through him, a long-forgotten spark of life. This was it. It was
finally going to happen.
“In
this thirty seconds of silence, imagine achieving your goal,”
David
Waters' voice droned on. “Open
all your senses, feel the texture of the objects you touch, listen to
the sounds they make, visualize every detail.”
John
closed his eyes, felt the weight of the gun in his hands, ran his
thumb over the grooves of the grip panel.
A
whimper interrupted the silence.
Squeezing
his eyes shut tighter against the sound, John lifted the gun.
The
noise continued, louder and incessant.
“Dammit!”
John
dropped the gun and jumped to his feet, jerking the buds out of his
ears as he stood. The whimper stopped, replaced by a futile
thrashing sound.
John
walked toward the noise and gasped.
Wedged
between a slender birch and the chain link fence was a wriggling mass
of fur, shivers and mud. The little mutt, whose haphazard, lop-eared
dimensions could define it as nothing else, was trapped. Its fluffy
tail and one stubby back leg were entangled in a thorny vine.
John
looked around the park. Still empty. No anxiously searching owner,
no tear-streaked kid looking for his pet. Just the two of them, a
man desperate to die and a puppy desperate to live.
“Aw,
what the hell,”
John
stooped down and untangled the vine. Delighted to be free, the
little dog bounded away from the fence in tiny, joyous circles.
John
was no match for such celebratory antics. He walked to the entrance
gate, half-smiling.
“Come
on,”
he
called, “you'll
be better off out there.”
The
dog ran halfway toward John and stopped short.
“Come
on.”
The
stubborn thing wouldn't budge.
With
a sigh, John walked back. As he reached for the dog, the setting sun
slashed free of the treeline and lit up its eyes. These were not the
beady, solid brown orbs of most dogs. These had depth; they swirled
with dozens of colors, imperfectly mixed into clusters of dark and
light like the nebula of distant stars.
“I
saw the universe in them,”
he
would tell the story years afterward to his grandchildren. “It's
not the world that's pointless, just our silly plans. The thing
about dogs is, they don't make plans.”
But
John did. He tied his headphones into a makeshift leash and slipped
it over the dog's head. “Come
on, then, Galaxy. Let's go home.”
Galaxy
trotted after him without hesitation, lop-ear bouncing, fluffy tail
wagging.
