Tag: drama

Trunk Stories

The Volunteer Agent

prompt: Write a story about a character who can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.

available at Reedsy

It is imperative that I get stronger. I cannot rely on others to save me forever. That is why I train in every available moment; to be able to save myself without the serum.

No one said that delving into the Otherworld would be easy or safe. That didn’t stop me from volunteering. I thought I was trained enough for the mission, at least until I first encountered them — the inhabitants of the Otherworld.

Many are grotesque, warped, hideous, and yet…a few seem normal, almost beautiful. It was one of the beautiful ones that laid me low the first time.

The training that came before the mission was mental…emotional…not the physical training I so desperately need now. I can still feel the halo device being lowered onto my shaved head. I pushed aside my fear with the memory that I volunteered for this.

There was a moment of brief disorientation as the training loaded into my brain, then I was there. I learned how to move through the Otherworld, how to explore, discover, collect evidence and keys to their defeat. I learned how to keep myself grounded in the moment, hide my thoughts from them, and remain undetected.

Events after the training are broken and disjointed in my memory. The crossing over and back again takes a toll. I do, however, remember the trip in the grey ship; days and weeks passed as I was transported to the gate.

I have my quarters here in the gate station. I’m not the only agent exploring the Otherworld. There are many more here. We do not wear the uniforms of the helpers and support crew. As I spend every waking moment here training, I opt for sweats and soft sneakers.

As I said, I need to get stronger…physically. The Otherworld is dangerous…often violently so.

The support crew sometimes come through the gate, just long enough to inject a serum that gives us the strength to jump back through the gate. It’s never pleasant, but so far, it’s the only thing between me and death.

My goal with constant training is to be able to complete my missions without the serum. While the support crew are friendly enough, they seem to be incapable of normal conversation.

The one that injected me this time, and jumped back through the gate with me, gave me a sad smile. I can’t recall what he said, but it made no sense.

“I need to get these keys to the director,” I said.

He said, “Now you can rest. I’ll check on you later, during my rounds.”

“No,” I said, “I can’t rest right now, the Director needs these keys.”

He nodded. “Yes, that’s good. I’ll see you later.”

Knowing from the sound of the door clicking that I was currently confined to my quarters, I began working out again. Tired or not, I had to get stronger.

There seems to be an unwritten rule that agents don’t talk about their missions. I figured that out my first day when I realized that none of the agents would talk about the Otherworld or the gate. Whatever helps them cope, I guess.

For a station so far away from everything, the Director has gone out of her way to make the agents comfortable. The ever-changing scenery displayed on the false windows looks real — sometimes too real — and the food is better than one would expect for the pre-packaged plastic ration trays; segmented into compartments for each different item. I often wondered how they could heat some compartments and chill others. Technology is wonderful.

Depending on an agent’s current state, they either received their plastic tray of food in the dining hall with the others, or in their quarters. Since I’m currently relegated to in-quarters rest, my tray of food was brought to my room.

Today’s breakfast was buckwheat pancakes. That means my weekly debrief with the Director happens later this afternoon. I guess that’s why the support guy didn’t seem to be in a hurry to get the keys to her.

That’s another issue with these missions; the loss of time. Every trip to the Otherworld and back leaves me unsure of what day or time it is. It seems as though time passes differently there than here. Then again, the serum distorts the passage of time as well.

I had barely eaten half of my breakfast, after what I thought was a short workout, and one of the support crew came to take me to my weekly debrief. No matter, I had nine keys from my last mission for the Director. I held out the hope that she would recognize my good work and offer me some time off…maybe back on Earth.

The artificial window in her office showed a grey drizzle. They really thought of everything when they built this station. The Director wore her heavy, black, plastic-framed glasses, and a tan sweater beneath her white uniform coat. Like many people with advanced degrees, she preferred to be referred to as Doctor or Doc rather than Director.

“Afternoon, Doctor.”

“Good afternoon.” Her desk was more cluttered than usual. She read the reports that the support crew were always writing. “Why don’t you tell me how your week has been?”

“Last mission, I captured nine keys,” I said. “I have them here for you.” I checked the pocket of my sweats, but the keys were gone. Maybe the other pocket? Not there either. A panic began to build.

“That’s not important,” she said.

“They must have fallen out when I was working out,” I told her. “I’m trying to get stronger. I have to get stronger.”

“Why do you feel you need to be stronger?”

“So I have the strength to make it back from…,” I stopped myself. Even the Director didn’t like it when the Otherworld was mentioned directly. “I need to be able to get back on my own power, without endangering the crew.”

The Director nodded and continued to take notes. “What kind of workouts are you doing?”

“Push-ups, sit-ups, lunges, squats; whatever I can do without equipment.”

“Do you feel it’s helping?” she asked.

“I think it is,” I said. “I almost made it back on my own last time.” I shook my head. “The…shot…was way too strong.”

She made another note. “Do you think you’d ever want to go back to what you used to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Before you came here. Do you remember what your job was?”

“I designed a mind-brain interface,” I said, “but it was silly. It was just for a game, not like the serious training I got for this.”

“Do you remember the name of the game?”

I thought hard. It wasn’t coming; it just wasn’t important enough to have stuck. I shook my head.

The Director stood a box with a fancy graphic on her desk. “The Otherworld,” it said. “Does this look familiar?”

It did, but it didn’t at the same time. Like once before, the inhabitants of the Otherworld were trying to take my mind; make me an ineffective agent.

I looked at the Director. Something in her hesitant smile was wrong. I wasn’t in the Director’s office, I’d been sucked back into the Otherworld! That’s why the keys were missing; they were never here to begin with.

I stood and readied myself to fight. “I may not be as strong as I want to be, but I’m strong enough to take you down and get the Director back.”

The next hours were a blur. I fought with the Otherworld denizens; the beautiful one that tried to impersonate the Director, and a dozen or more of the warped and hideous creatures. I captured a key and used it on the locked door I found hidden in the side of a temple guarded by the creatures.

I knew I’d freed the Director when she herself injected me with the serum. As I came to, I was in her office, rather than my quarters. The gate had never opened here before.

She had a bruise forming on her cheek. They’d mistreated her. As for me, my ribs hurt, my right hand felt like I’d slammed it into a wall. The Otherworld denizens were tough. Besides that, the arm where the Director had injected the serum was a little sore, but we were overall safe. The clock on the wall showed that only a few minutes had passed. Time worked differently there.

“Director, you’re safe. Thank god.” I thought it was the Director, but I was worried that maybe they’d replaced her again, with a better impersonator.

“It’s Doctor, remember? You’re safe here.”

I smiled. I knew that an impersonator wouldn’t know the passphrase. Two of the support crew were standing by, including the man that had rescued me the time before. “Could the crew help me to my quarters?” I asked. “I’m feeling a little weak and could use some rest.”

“Sure. You get some rest. We’ll talk more tomorrow”

“Sorry I didn’t bring back any keys, but your safety was more important.”

As I was helped to my feet to leave, I noticed that her desk was tidy, and the box the Otherworlder had shown me was nowhere to be found. I will need to be more careful of my surroundings from now on, but I will continue; I volunteered for this.

Trunk Stories

Tiptoe

prompt: Write about someone who has long since quit but decides to go another round for old time’s sake.

available at Reedsy

Hervé had long ago stopped answering the phone as Lieutenant Deschamps, so he was surprised by the greeting of the woman calling.

“Lieutenant? Detective Julia Thierry, working with INTERPOL. I’m calling to let you know that we have new information on the Tiptoe Thief.”

“Really? That doesn’t surprise me. I imagine he made a death-bed confession in a pensioner’s home?”

“No, nothing like that. He’s struck again.”

Hervé thought about it. He’d chased the jewel thief for the last twenty-two years of his forty-year career. During that time, he’d closed hundreds of cases. The so-called “Tiptoe Thief” had, however, continued on a spree in fourteen countries, scoring a hit every month like clockwork, until he fell silent for the last eight years of Hervé’s investigation.

The theory at the time was that he’d had been jailed on some other charge, or died. Hervé thought that perhaps that he’d aged out of the high-risk jewel theft game. A new hit, however, would disprove that idea.

“What was stolen?”

“The Brilliant Set from the Danish Crown Jewels was stolen from the Amalianborg Museum.”

Hervé sighed. “What makes you think it’s our man?”

“The case was cleaned out in the middle of the day, with two guards and four cameras in the gallery. Nobody saw anything. They were there, then they weren’t. Two minutes of footage wiped. That…plus the Corinthian Emerald.”

“What about it?”

“It was left in place of the jewels.”

“A note?”

“There was an SD card under the emerald with a text file. Same kind of taunts.”

“So, either our guy is still alive and active again after twelve years of silence, or he’s trained someone new.” Hervé paused for a moment. “I can’t imagine he’d have passed on the emerald, though. That was the theft that caught our attention and earned his nickname in the press.”

“It’s possible that he finally made a mistake, though,” Julia said.

“What kind of mistake?”

“There was an eyelash in the case. We’re waiting on DNA results.”

“Are you working out of the Lyon headquarters?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be there in three hours.” Hervé hung up before she could protest and grabbed his coat and keys on his way out the door.

When he arrived and showed his ID he was escorted to Julia’s office. “Good to meet you,” he said, hand out for a shake. He was acutely aware of how grey and stooped he felt next to the young woman in front of him.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“If you’ll allow it, I’d like to offer my services. Unpaid consultant, if that works for you.”

“I’ll take it.” She led him to the conference room where years of records about the Tiptoe Thief were spread across the large table.

He recognized the map he’d marked with the thief’s movements over the years. A new X on the map marked the museum in Denmark. To the right of the map was a dry erase board with “12 years?” in large, circled, red letters at the top.

Below that, the text file that had been found on the SD card was printed out and taped to the board. Hervé read it, finding nothing in it surprising, until the last lines.

This might be enough to pull Lt. Deschamps out of retirement. He loves to chase me as much I love to be chased. Miss you, Hervé. Sincerely, Tiptoe.

“Why do you think he’d come out of retirement now?” Julia asked.

“I’ve always held that he must be about my age,” Hervé said, “partly because of the sophistication of the targets. That idea was reinforced when his retirement was close to the time I was getting too old for field work. So, assuming he’s closing in on seventy like me, he may be feeling his mortality.

“One last hurrah before he shuffles off the mortal coil.”

“What about you?” Julia looked into Hervé’s tired eyes. “This is more than just closing an old case. Is this your last hurrah?”

“It might well be,” he said. “I’d really like to catch this guy.”

“Why don’t you get a hotel room and get some rest, Lieutenant. I’ll call when we have the DNA results.”

Hervé turned to leave, then stopped. “Where are they holding the Corinthian?” he asked.

“Police evidence lockup in Copenhagen.”

Hervé chuckled. “Tell them to check. I’d bet it’s disappeared. It did the job he wanted; proved his identity. Now, he’ll want it back.”

In the early hours of the next morning, Hervé got the call he’d been waiting for. He’d already showered and dressed, so was on his way out the door as he answered. “What have we got?”

“You were right about the Corinthian. I called right after you left, and after arguing with the desk sergeant, they agreed to check. It was gone, with a note that said, ‘The chase is on,’ and, ‘here’s a present.’ There was a hair folded neatly in the note.”

“The hair?” Hervé asked.

“Is already at their lab to test against the eyelash.”

“Maybe the eyelash wasn’t a mistake.”

Julia sighed. “Yeah, well, how soon can you get here?”

“On my way already. There in ten minutes.”

“You’ll find this…interesting,” she said.

Hervé entered the conference room where Julia was doling out assignments for agents to get in touch with other police agencies. He waited by the door until she’d finished relaying her orders.

“You have the DNA results. Did you find a match?” he asked.

“We did. Hervé, how many children do you have?”

“None.”

“Wrong,” she said. She handed him the report, showing that the eyelash belonged to his daughter.

“I…have a daughter?” He was confused. “But…how?”

“Hervé, when a man and woman like each other a whole lot—”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“So, you never had unprotected sex? Ever?”

“Once. But why wouldn’t I know about it?”

“Sometimes, a woman just wants a baby without dealing with a man.”

“I had a lover that begged for unprotected sex after she had been on the pill for a couple months. The day after we did, she went on a trip to Spain for a few weeks, then sent me a letter saying she was moving back to England.” Hervé frowned. “That can’t be it, though.”

“Why?”

“This wasn’t long enough ago. If her child was Tiptoe, she would have only been ten or eleven for the Corinthian heist.”

Julia was scribbling in her notebook. “What was her name? Are you still in contact with her?”

“Melissa Carter,” he said, “an English woman. We haven’t talked since she broke it off with that letter from Spain.”

“I’ll see what I can find on her. The early thefts were in the UK, and we thought the culprit might be English. I’ll check her travel history.” Julia looked at Hervé. “Do you think it’s possible that Ms. Carter is the original Tiptoe, and her daughter…your daughter…is following in her footsteps?”

“Funny you should use that terminology. Melissa had a congenital defect that required the use of braces and crutches to walk.” Hervé shook his head. “She wouldn’t have been able to access the crime scenes and leave unnoticed.”

“How did you meet?”

“She was studying forensic science at American University in Paris. Part of her program was intern work in our lab. After her graduation, we started seeing each other. That lasted about four months.”

Hervé spent the rest of the day assisting with the phone banking, calling departments in France, and sharing the information they had. He also requested the station in Copenhagen send all their surveillance video from the time the Corinthian arrived until they discovered it missing to the Lyon INTERPOL office.

He was watching the footage for the second time, focusing on the evidence access cage when Julia interrupted him. “It’s getting late,” she said, “you should get some dinner, get some rest. We can pick it up again in the morning.”

He nodded and closed the laptop he’d been using. His eyes were heavy and rather than the invigorated feeling he used to get when hunting a suspect, he felt wrung out, tired.

Rather than deal with the restaurant, Hervé called for room service and ordered a light dinner. He was resting his eyes when the knock on his door came.

He opened the door, and the young woman in the hotel uniform pushing the cart into the room looked familiar…but he knew he’d never seen her before.

“Your dinner, sir.”

He held out a banknote for a tip and she shook her head. “That’s not necessary. I just wanted to see you up close.”

“Do I know you?”

“Kind of, but not really.” She leaned against the door. “You’ve been chasing me a long time. And I think, all I ever wanted was to meet you, and get your attention.”

“You’re the Tiptoe Thief?” he asked.

“I hate that name, but yes. Sandra Carter. Mom didn’t tell me who you were until my tenth birthday.”

She slid down the door and sat on the floor. “She took me to the British Museum for my birthday and told me about the police detective she’d tricked into getting her pregnant. Said she felt bad about it, but not too bad, since she had me.

“She was in a wheelchair by then, and I was pushing her around the museum, thinking about how I could meet my father. She didn’t tell me your name, though.

“When I saw the Corinthian, I thought if I nicked it, the police would catch me, and I’d meet you. Stupid, I know.”

Hervé sat in stunned silence as she told her story.

“What I didn’t expect was how easy it was to lift the case just high enough for my little hands, grab the stone, stuff in the back of Mom’s wheelchair and walk out with it. I guess I kind of got hooked on it.”

“But you were so young.”

“I was,” she said. “Twelve years ago, Mom was diagnosed with bone cancer. I took care of her, considered myself retired…even got an honest job.

“When she passed last year, I went through her things in storage. She had collected every story that ever mentioned you in the papers. As much as she tried to tell me that you were nothing more than a sperm donor, I think she fell for you against her own wishes.”

Hervé had pulled out his cell phone to call Julia but had no service. Sandra pointed at the phone. “Sorry. There won’t be any service in this wing of the hotel for at least another twelve hours…until the batteries die.”

“You have to turn yourself in,” he said. “Now that we know who you are, you won’t be able to run forever.”

“We?” she asked. “I only see you here. You know who I am. Do I think you’ll rat me out? Probably. It was worth it, though, to meet you. I’ve seen pictures from when you were younger, and I’m not surprised Mom picked you.”

“Please, turn yourself in. You can go to the regular police if you want, rather than deal with INTERPOL directly.” Hervé locked eyes with her; they were Melissa’s eyes in shape and color. He could see her in Sandra. “If you turn yourself in, you won’t have to run forever, and I would visit you in prison, get to know you. I wish your mother had told me the truth. I would’ve been a part of your life.”

“I can’t turn myself in, Hervé…Dad. It would make some very dangerous people extremely nervous.” She gave him a sad smile. “This was one last attempt to meet you. After this, I’m retiring for good, and Sandra Carter will disappear from the face of the Earth.

“I won’t be completely gone, though. Now that I have your address from the hotel registry, I’ll send you the occasional postcard to keep in touch.”

She stood and reached for the door, pausing to turn back to Hervé. “Goodbye, Dad. It really was nice to meet you, finally.”

He knew he could go after her, stop her before she could leave the hotel, but something held him back. It was several minutes later that he left the room to find a signal and call Julia, though he didn’t know what he would say.

Trunk Stories

The Minister’s Daughter

prompt: Begin your story with somebody getting (or taking) the blame for something they didn’t do.

available at Reedsy

“You sure you don’t want to change your account, Carter?”

Brianna Carter shook her head and rested her face in her hands. “No.”

“Damn it! Ms. Petrova already told us that it was consensual.”

Brianna looked at the agent with fire in her eyes. “No. She’s just scared and confused. I…forced her.”

“I know you’re lying, Carter. Why?” Special Agent Weaver leaned forward on his elbows, moving into her space. “You’re throwing away your entire career, your pension…and…you’ll be facing some serious jail time.”

“Here, or in the states?”

“You know we’ll try to get you back to the states, but we can’t guarantee it.”

“Doesn’t matter, my story doesn’t change.” Brianna crossed her arms and raised her head. “I met Oksana at a restaurant on Tsentralnaya Prospekt and we had a few drinks. The restaurant was closing, and she invited me to her place for drinks, nothing else.

“Once we got there, I forced her, against her will. She thinks I’m CIA, that’s why she’s telling you it was consensual; she’s scared.”

Weaver sighed. “Look, if you don’t tell me the truth, I can’t help you. The State Department can handle you had an affair with a local. But you’re willing to take the rap for….”

Brianna nodded as silent tears ran down her face. “I’ll stick to that story forever, if I have to.”

Weaver pulled a folder out of the briefcase by his feet and opened it for Briana to see. “This contradicts your story. You’ve been seeing Oksana Petrova for the last nine weeks. She’s been your guest for several overnights, and already cleared by embassy security.

“They’re willing to drop the indecency charge against you, and not turn this into an international incident. But you have to play along.”

Brianna slammed the folder shut. “Why would you bring that here?! You stupid, dickless, shit-for-brains moron!” Brianna broke down in tears. “There’s almost no way they’ll buy it now. Do your penance for bringing that in here.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re going to march out of here, right now, and convince them that I am a sick, perverted rapist, and that Oksana Petrova is a victim. You got that?” Brianna slammed her palm on the table. “Until I’ve got word that Oksana’s been released, I’m not cooperating with you or the State Department.”

“If I convince them Ms. Petrova is a victim, there’s no way they don’t prosecute you here. You’ll ‘disappear’ your first week in prison, in some ‘transfer incident’ and you’ll never be heard from again.”

“Better me than her.”

“She’s facing an indecency charge. It’s a maximum sixty-day sentence for a first offense.” Weaver tucked the folder back in the briefcase and leaned on the table close to her again. “Why would you risk your life?”

“What do you think will happen when the daughter of the Minister for Social Morality goes to prison for indecency? Ivan Petrov has already shown a willingness to sacrifice anybody and everybody for his position. Igor Petrov…does that name ring a bell?”

“His brother,” Weaver said. “You think he was….”

“I know he was murdered. The embassy has video from Petrov’s home. He didn’t go climbing in the mountains and disappear. Ivan gunned him down at the dinner table. That was for a forum post that questioned the Morality Minister’s authority to enact his anti-gay legislation. What do you think he’ll do when he finds out his daughter is in prison for violating it?”

“So, you’re willing to risk a major international incident — not to mention your own life — to save Ms. Petrova?”

“In a hot second.”

“I have to make some calls.” Weaver groaned. “Don’t say anything to the police until I get back to you.”

“Can you promise to get Oksana released today?”

“I’ll do everything in my power.” Weaver stood. “Can you promise to keep your mouth shut?”

“I’ll do everything in my power.” As Weaver reached for the door, Brianna called out, “Wait.”

Weaver turned back toward her.

“Bring your phone here.”

“I can’t let you make a call,” he said.

“I won’t, you will.” Weaver handed her his phone and she entered a number along with instructions in his note app. “If it’s looking like you can’t get Oksana released today, call that number and get her an attorney. She won’t survive in a cell overnight. Her father will see to that.”

It was a long hour until Weaver returned to the interrogation room, during which time a few curious local police had opened the door to look in, then left without saying anything. Weaver came in, an argument in Russian blaring from his phone.

He interrupted the other parties. “This isn’t going anywhere. I’m sorry for taking up your time.” He hung up before anyone on the call could respond.

“What was that about?”

“Ms. Petrova is dual citizen. I thought maybe the Russian embassy could help out. At first, they were willing, until they heard the charge.”

“I could’ve told you that would be a dead end. They don’t have the same laws, but the attitude’s not much different.”

Weaver sat down and leaned close to Brianna. “What would happen if we could get her to Russia?”

“Honestly, I would expect them to extradite her back here immediately.” Brianna grabbed Weaver’s hand. “It’s time to get her a lawyer.”

Weaver nodded and dialed the number she’d put in the note. He sat quiet for a moment, listening, then answered. “Yeah, we could use a good lawyer here at the police station in Kuznezran.

“A US citizen and a local. … That’s right. … She said the hummingbird doesn’t know the words. … Yeah, sure.”

He hung up and looked at Brianna who was staring daggers at him. “In here? Really?”

Weaver sat down and leaned close again, speaking softly. “If I leave the station, I’ve been told I can’t come back. They’re only allowing me here as a courtesy. As in, as long as I keep trying to convince you to agree to their version of the story, I can be here. Otherwise, I’m interfering in their investigation.”

“Shit.” Brianna laid her head on the desk. “This is so fucked up.”

“Why were you doing…that…at her place?”

“We weren’t.” Brianna took his phone and tapped out another message in his notes app. “This is for my family,” she said, “since I may not see them for a while.”

The message, however, read, “Went to O’s to get her papers, apply for asylum at embassy. In O’s less than a minute, police kicked down door, false report.”

Weaver nodded and put his phone away. The two sat quietly until a commotion arose outside the door. “Stay put, I’m going to see what this is about,” Weaver said.

He had no sooner reached for the door than it flew open. A tall, blonde woman in a business suit entered, holding a briefcase in one hand and a bag of Brianna’s belongings, including her shoes, in the other. She tossed the bag to Brianna. “I’m Sasha Makarova, your attorney. Come on, Carter, we’re taking you back to the embassy.”

“Not without Oksana.”

“We have to go, now.”

Brianna stood and stared at the tall woman. “Not. Without. Oksana.”

Sasha narrowed her eyes. “After this, you owe me one.” She stepped out of the open room and motioned over the station chief. After a high-speed exchange in Russian, she flashed a stack of US currency in the briefcase. He nodded and walked away.

“She’s on her way. You two, get ready to go. If your shoes aren’t tied, that’s your problem.”

The station chief appeared outside the door again, leading Oksana, still barefoot, and holding her bag of belongings. Sasha looked at Oksana and nodded. “Put your shoes on, quick.” She stepped out into the hallway with the station chief and masked the exchange of money from the hallway cameras with her bag, leaving it apparent to the trio in the interrogation room.

Oksana slipped her shoes on, and Sasha said, “Let’s go, kids.” She led them to a waiting SUV which sped them to the embassy while Weaver made plans on his phone.

“They took my passports,” Oksana said. “My Kryznian and Russian ones.”

“Won’t be a problem,” Weaver said. “You’ll both be getting on a diplomatic flight out.”

Sasha pulled off her heels and kicked them to the side, then stripped to her underwear and put on jeans, a sweatshirt and a pair of running shoes that had been waiting in the truck. “I hate those things. And those weren’t your passports. That Oksana Petrova is currently on holiday in Spain. This Oksana Petrova happens to be a US citizen. Seeing how her passports were brought back to the Republic of Kryznia by a tourist, she’s soon going to be considered missing.”

“Thanks, Susan…Sasha,” Brianna said, “whatever your name is today.”

“Sasha’s burned after this, and I doubt I can work in Kryznia again. I’ll be flying back with you under my own name.” She looked at Oksana, huddled close to Brianna. “This is the one you’ve been telling me about?”

“Yeah.” Brianna took Oksana’s hand and squeezed it.

“Mom’s gonna be pissed I got to meet her first.”

“No, she’s gonna be pissed you were ready to leave her behind.”

“If I didn’t have enough of a bribe for the station chief, I would’ve had to. Would have dragged you out kicking and screaming.”

“Thank god it didn’t come to that.”

Susan looked at her sister with a raised eyebrow. “This time.” Switching to Russian, she turned to Oksana and asked, “Has Bri told you about the time I had to rescue her from a biker bar in Burbank?”

Brianna slapped Susan on the leg. “Susan, no! No you don’t! And it wasn’t a rescue!”

Susan smirked. “Yes I do and yes it was. We’re almost at the embassy…I’ll tell you on the flight. Bri always passes out after takeoff.”

Brianna growled at her sister while Oksana chuckled. “This,” Oksana said, “is what sisters do, yes?”

Brianna shook her head while Susan beamed and said, “Exactly!”

Trunk Stories

Picking Up a Stray

prompt: Write a story where a local takes a newcomer under their wing. 

available at Reedsy

He had the look in his green eyes; the haunted, startled gaze that saw everything and nothing as threat. Young, away from home for the first time, adrift…completely and utterly alone. The streets are especially dangerous for girls, but almost as much so for tiny boys like him.

He was probably underage, but I knew if I asked, he would say he was eighteen. Hell, it’s gotten to where eighteen-year-olds look like babies to me, so he may have been. More likely, though, is that he was another runaway, and discovering for the first time how bad it could get.

Aside from the traces of a fading black eye, his face was clean; a warm, light gold-red-brown that left his ethnicity an open question. His hair, curly brown, messy and sporting a leaf where he’d probably slept in the park recently needed a wash, as did his clothes. The backpack he wore tightly strapped around him was hardly large enough for a single change of clothes.

“Hey kid,” I said, keeping my voice soft, “you hungry?”

After his initial start at my voice, he looked at me like a puppy that had been teased with a treat without ever getting it. He nodded.

“Get up and follow me, kid,” I said, offering a hand up. He looked at my hand like it was infectious. “It’s just motor oil stains. It’s clean.”

 He took my hand and stood; shorter than me, and barely weighed enough to not blow away in a stiff breeze. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Oh no, you don’t call me ma’am. I ain’t that old.”

“Yes, ma—okay.”

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Ma—Mark. And I’m not a kid…I’m eighteen.”

I’d thought he was about to Matt or Matthew, but the vowel changed at the last second. If he didn’t want to give me his real name that was his business. “I’m Isabel Hernandez.”

I led “Mark” to a fast-food joint on the way to my place. It sat at the boundary between the ’hood and the start of the gentrified area. He got dirty looks from some of the uptown, office types. One of them, not much older than Mark, walked past us and muttered, “Cougar.”

A sharp retort was at the tip of my tongue until I heard the young man with her say, “More like MILF,” followed by her punching his arm and cursing him out.

For his part, “Mark” moved closer to me as though he expected to be attacked. I asked what he wanted, and doubled the order, except for the soda; I ordered an unsweetened tea for myself.

When we sat at the table, I took the tea and pushed the tray across to him. He tried to set half off for me and I told him, “No, that’s all yours.”

Tears pooled in his eyes, which he was quick to hide by stuffing his face with the burgers and fries. Through it all, his backpack stayed tightly strapped to him.

“Mark,” I said, and he kept on eating. “Mark?”

It took him a moment to realize I was talking to him. “Oh….” He set the fries down.

“Look, I know it’s not your real name, but try to remember what name you gave, okay?”

He couldn’t look me in the eye, staring at the decimated tray of food in front of him. “It’s Manuel,” he said, barely above a whisper.

“Okay, Manuel. Is it alright if I call you Manny?”

He nodded.

“Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?”

He shook his head and allowed his hunger to overcome his guilt as he resumed eating.

“There’s a shelter on—”

“No!” His sudden outburst surprised both of us. “I uh…they stole my stuff.” He pointed at the bruised eye.

“Do you have clothes in the backpack?”

“Just…a book and a…,” he trailed off. “They took my clothes and wallet and my suitcase. When I tried to stop them, they beat me up.”

“Fair enough. When you’re done, we’ll go to my place. You can get a shower, and I have some sweats you can wear while I wash your clothes.”

Once he was cleaned up and dressed in my sweats, I realized just how tiny he was. I ran a load of laundry, mixing some of my clothes with his in my apartment-sized washer-dryer combo.

While the dryer ran, I switched on the TV to watch a movie. Manny sat next to me on the couch.

The movie had just started, and Manny leaned in close and tried to kiss me. “Whoa! What are you doing?”

“I—I thought…I mean…you fed me, you let me stay here, I thought you wanted….” He retreated to the far end of the couch and pulled his knees against his chest. “Sorry. I’ll leave as soon as my clothes are dry.”

“No, you won’t. You’re not in trouble, and I’m not mad at you.” I did my best to keep my voice even and gentle. “I didn’t offer you a place to stay to get something from you, just to help.”

The tears fell from his eyes in silence. I couldn’t tell what he was feeling, beyond maybe embarrassment. Did he feel I rejected him? I didn’t want to scare him back out into the streets; he wouldn’t last much longer out there.

“Manny, really, I’m not mad. Look, you’re good looking for a guy, but I don’t swing that way.” I moved closer and put a hand on his shoulder. “I honestly don’t want anything from you, other than to see you safe.”

That was all it took. He broke down into heaving sobs, and when I pulled him into a hug he grabbed on as if his life depended on it. I got the feeling he hadn’t been shown any attention, much less affection, in a long time.

He eventually cried himself to sleep, and I let him down on the couch and covered him with a blanket. When the dryer finished, I folded his clothes and put them on the coffee table. In his sleep he kept muttering “nanay.”

When I woke, he was dressed and looking nervous, his backpack once again tightly strapped on. “I’m not going to steal your stuff,” I said, “but if you want to wear your backpack all the time, I won’t stop you. I’m making breakfast, it’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

We ate breakfast in silence. Although he’d taken his backpack off, he looked over at it every few minutes. Still, Manny had wolfed down his eggs, bacon, and toast before I’d even finished my eggs.

When he’d finished, he picked up his plate and fork, washed them, placed them in the drying rack, and scrubbed out the pan.

“Thanks, Manny. Appreciate the help.” I got ready to wash my own dishes and he took them from me to do them. “Thanks again.”

I went to my room and made a call to the shelter. I could hear Manny cleaning up in the kitchen. When I stepped back out, he had his backpack strapped tightly on again.

“Thank you, Ms. Hernandez,” he said. “I’ll find somewhere to go.”

“Just a second, Manny. First, I’m Isabel, not Ms. Hernandez. Second, I told you, I want to see you safe. You ain’t safe out there on the streets. Third, I have some shopping to do and could really use your help, if you want to.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

I walked with him to the Goodwill a block away from my apartment and made a beeline for the men’s clothing section. It took a bit of convincing, but he finally agreed to let me buy him some clothes. A suitcase, also from the Goodwill, filled with clothes for him and a couple pairs of sneakers only set me back seventy dollars.

From there, we stopped by the supermarket where I picked up some groceries and told him to pick out some underwear and socks. He didn’t argue this time, though I did have to get after him to pick up more than just one three-pack of each.

On the way out, I made a copy of the apartment key and handed it to him. “You can come and go as you please,” I said. “I trust you not to steal my shit, and I won’t steal yours. I need to go to work, but first, I’m going by the shelter. They say your ID is there, but nothing else.”

The flash of fear in his eyes told me he wasn’t ready to face it. “It’s fine, I’ll pick it up, and see you after work…around five. Oh! Whatever you do, if you see a short, barrel-chested white dude with a blonde bowl-cut, meth mouth, and hairy arms in the building, don’t even look at him, much less talk to him. That’s Rufus…at least that’s what everyone calls him. He’s dangerous when he’s off his meds, which is pretty much always. Although…I haven’t heard him yelling up the stairs in a while.”

His ID gave me his last name, Lim, previous address on the other side of the state, and his age; he was eighteen by four days. Not long enough for the difference between his round-cheeked ID photo and his current state. Not my business, I told myself.

The workday was long; our “shop mouse” didn’t show again. I spent the morning trying to get in touch with him. Finally, his sister called to let me know he was passed out drunk at her place. I let her know that the fifth time was the last, and that he was fired.

I took some deep breaths before I opened the door to the apartment. It wouldn’t do to spook Manny with my mood. The scene in front of me left me floored.

The apartment was spotless. The carpet stains were gone from the front half of the living room, and Manny was on his knees, scrubbing at the carpet in the back. Meanwhile, he was talking to someone in a language that I’d only heard on TV: Tagalog.

As I stepped in, I saw who he was talking to. It was a stuffed, patchwork rabbit. When the door clicked shut behind me, he rushed to stuff the toy into his backpack.

Bringing it up could wait. There was no reason to embarrass him. “Wow, Manny. I don’t think the apartment’s looked this good since I moved in. Hell, before I moved in.”

“My father said, you don’t work, you don’t eat.”

“Sounds a little extreme. Like I said, you don’t have to do anything for me to stay here but thank you.” I dropped my keys on the counter and moved toward my room. “I’m going to shower and then get dinner started. You don’t have to keep scrubbing.”

Manny watched me in the kitchen while I cooked, his eyes only flicking toward his backpack a few times. “If you like,” I said, “I can teach you to cook.”

He choked back tears and nodded.

As we ate dinner, I slid his ID across the table to him. “Almost forgot this,” I said.

“Thank you.” He stared at me, making serious eye contact for the first time. “Are you sad?”

“No…yeah, a little. I had to fire the shop mouse today. He’d rather drink than come to work.” I let out a sigh of resignation. “I really like him, too. He’s a good kid, just has an addiction he needs to deal with.”

“I’m sorry your friend is sick like that. My dad’s sick like that…only, now he’s in prison.”

“How…long ago?”

“Last year. I left because they wanted to put me in foster care.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Your mother?”

“She was different sick. She died when I was eight.” His eyes moved to the backpack and stayed fixed on it.

“So, the book and the…other thing in there…. Those were from your mom?”

He turned back to me and nodded.

“You don’t have to hide them from me, and I’ll never touch them without your permission. Deal?”

“’Kay.” He cleared the table, and we washed up together.

“What’s a shop mouse?” he asked.

“Just a helper. Clean up, put tools away, sometimes give me a hand with heavy stuff.” I stopped drying and looked at him. “How would you like a job, Manny? Hours are regular, Tuesday through Saturday. Pays fifteen bucks an hour.”

“I…uh…you mean that?”

“I mean that.” I put the last of the dishes away and turned to him. “Can you start tomorrow?”

“Don’t I have to fill out an application and stuff?”

“I’ll have Jaylin take care of that. She’s the entire office staff.”

I spent the next few days introducing Manny around the shop and the building, slowly expanding out to the immediate neighborhood. I made it clear that the dealers should know that I was watching over him, and anyone messing with him or selling to him would have to deal with me.

He’d already proven he wasn’t afraid of hard work, and he got right to it in the shop. After the first couple weeks, he began to leave his backpack at the apartment. A week after that he showed me the rabbit and the book. It was a Suess book; well-worn and near to falling apart. Nestled within its pages was a picture of Manny and his parents in happier times. He looked just like his mother.

We found a place on a shelf for the book and the rabbit he called Victoria, where he could always see them. It was the best way I knew to make it clear that as long as he was here, he was home.

In those times he was home and I wasn’t, the little sneak finished scrubbing the carpet in the front room and began on the bedroom. It looked great but made it impossible for me to demand the landlord replace it. I guess the end result was the same either way.

One afternoon, I brought home a GED study guide, and his eyes lit up. I just wanted to give him the option, but he was excited about it, and studied every chance he got. When he passed the test three months later, we held a party in the apartment for the neighbors he’d gotten to know.

Manny prepared all the food, including a cake. He wouldn’t let me lift a hand to help. I noticed that Victoria was secreted away somewhere, not that it surprised me. I was surprised when Rufus showed up with a present for him…and he wasn’t high or yelling at people that weren’t there.

Rufus…Carl, actually…told me how Manny had held the door for him one day and bought him a soda out of the machine in the lobby another. Carl explained that he understood why everyone avoided him, but he was back on his proper meds, clean off everything else for eight months, and was trying to get his life back on track.

“That kid,” Carl said, “is the first person outside of the rooms to see me for more than an angry, psycho, meth-head. We talked for a long time about not letting the world drive you to drugs or booze…like I did…and his dad, apparently.”

“To think,” I said, “not so long ago he was a skinny, scared kid in the alley behind 7-11.”

“Yeah. He told me how you made him feel at home for first time since his mother died.” Carl leaned in closer. “You didn’t hear it from me, but I think he’s got a little crush on you. He kept talking about loving going to work to, quote, ‘see her in her tight pants’ and how was learning to cook so he could make dinner for her.”

I chuckled. “That wouldn’t be me. I wear loose, greasy coveralls. Sounds like he’s talking about Jaylin, the office girl. She’s closer to his age, at least.”

“Oh, okay. Sorry if I overstepped.”

Manny interrupted. “If you two are done whispering, food’s ready. Come, eat. Oh, Isabel, there’s some paperwork on the counter for you, if you think it’s all right.”

The paperwork was proof of employment and income for an enrollment application to a local automotive repair trade school. I signed off on the paperwork and smiled at him, his face now filled out, his body beginning to build some muscle where he’d been emaciated before. I don’t know what happens for him next, but I know I’ll be there for him, whatever.

Trunk Stories

You Told Me So

prompt: Write about a character who discovers the grass isn’t actually greener on the other side.

available at Reedsy

One week. It took one short week to shatter her entire world.

Most things are not binary but exist in degrees. For instance, there was want, desire, ache, obsession, and far above that, the degree to which Ty wished to move to the mainland.

“You what?!”

Ty flipped her short, bleached hair back. “I quit the gym, and I have my ticket to the mainland. I leave tomorrow.”

Lila covered her face in her hands, letting her warm brown hair fall around them. “I know I said I’ll always support your decisions, but I never said I wouldn’t tell you if I thought they were foolish.”

“Mom, stop it. It’s done.”

“Did you save enough for a return trip…in case it doesn’t work out?”

“I have my ticket, and enough money to hold me over until I get settled.”

“Do you have a job lined up?”

“Mother…really. I’m a personal trainer. There’s work anywhere there are gyms, you know, like, everywhere.”

“I really wish you’d given it more time, found a job first.”

Ty moved her mother’s hands away from her face and lifted her chin. “Mom, I’ll be fine. As soon as I get there, I’ll call to let you know I landed safe.”

“I’ll miss you, babygirl.”

“I’m an adult.”

“Yes, you are, but you’re still my baby. No matter what happens, if you need me, you call. I promise I won’t ever say ‘told you so’ about anything.”

#

Although she’d called her mother on landing, she wondered how she would describe the place she was staying. It was the cheapest room available with weekly rather nightly rates, but it was still far too much money for what it was.

She could try to convince her mother that it wasn’t a filthy hovel in a terrible neighborhood, but she’d never been able to successfully lie to her. Might be best to not bring it up, she thought.

Ty did her best to ignore the questionable brown stains on the carpet and wall, even though they looked a bit like dried blood…ketchup maybe, she tried to convince herself. Aside from her clothes, all of them workout wear, she had nothing worth stealing, so she wasn’t concerned about leaving the room to go job hunting.

She took a bus to downtown, where she would find the higher-end gyms. Her workout wear was newish, and very much in style. She carried a folder, weight belt, gloves, exercise bands, water bottle, towel and change of clothes in a small gym bag.

As she approached the first gym, a man in a shiny suit and dark glasses stepped in front of her. “Wow, island girl, you are insanely fit. You looking for that mainland money, baby? I can give you lots.”

Ty raised a fist and flexed; her delts, biceps, and pecs clearly defined. “You’re not my type, and I’m not your baby. Out of my way before I flatten your doughy ass.”

“Ohhh, yes, mistress,” he said, holding out a business card. “Please, mistress, I’ll do anything if you crush me with your thighs.”

Ty feigned vomiting and stepped around him. She noticed that the man at the front desk of the gym had been watching her exchange. That probably ruined my chance for a job here, she thought.

She entered the gym and set her bag by her feet at the counter after removing the folder.

“Looking for a membership?” the young man asked. His name tag said “Bruno” but she thought he looked more like a Colin or Caden.

“Hi. My name’s Ty, and I’m looking for work.” She opened the folder to her credentials and turned it so Bruno could see.

“Personal trainer and professional masseuse, huh?”

“Yes.”

“I hope your interactions with clients are better than with Creeper Carl, out there.”

Ty felt shame redden her cheeks. She took a deep breath and shook it off. “Yeah, I didn’t handle that well at all. It was just so…I’ve not been propositioned quite like that before.”

“Let me guess, he wanted you to crush him with your thighs.”

Ty nodded. “Yeah, but first he called me island girl and baby and tried to offer me mainland money.”

“He’s a major creep, thus the name. Used to work out here until we booted him out and banned him for life.” He leaned forward over the counter. “You looked like you were about to beat the crap out of him, but you controlled yourself better than I could have.”

“He probably would’ve enjoyed it, anyway,” Ty said.

That elicited a laugh from the young man. “I take it you were working as a trainer on the island?”

“Mornings, masseuse in the evenings.”

“If I could, I’d offer you a job,” he said, “but our trainers are hurting for clients as it is.”

“That’s okay,” Ty said, “there’s a lot of gyms.”

“Good luck out there. Nice to meet you, Ty.”

“Thanks, Bruno. Nice meeting you.”

He looked down at the tag on his shirt and chuckled. “The name’s Aiden, but whoever works the desk wears the Bruno tag.”

Ty began working her way out from that gym in an ever-increasing spiral. Every gym, spa, and fitness center said the same thing: Not hiring.

At one of the spas where she’d been turned down, Ty couldn’t help but flirt with the attractive young receptionist. When that flirtation was reciprocated, she gave the woman her number and left with a new bounce in her step. It was an hour later that she realized she hadn’t gotten the woman’s name.

The first week ended with no job, and no remaining gyms, spas or fitness centers she hadn’t checked. She was looking for other jobs, any jobs, when she got a call from an unknown number.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Ty. I don’t know if you remember me, but we talked at Lily Spa a few days ago and you gave me your number. I tried to text, but I kept getting an error.”

“Oh, yeah. I had to switch to a voice-only plan to save some money. Hey…uh…I forgot to ask your name.”

“Miri.”

“Hi, Miri.”

“Are you doing anything tomorrow evening? If not, I’d like to take you out for drinks and conversation.”

“Is that what they call it on the mainland?”

Miri laughed. “No, but seriously, I’d like to sit over drinks and talk to you for a while.”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

“Butterfly Bar at nine. See you there.” She hung up before Ty could respond.

The following morning, she went to the front desk to pay for the next week. She’d planned on having enough money for at least a month, then she discovered what room rates and food prices were like. If she spent nothing else, she had enough for two weeks; one payable that day, the other a week later.

She laid out the payment for the next week, and the manager wrote her a receipt. “Any luck on the job hunt?” he asked.

“No. And I’ve checked every gym everywhere.”

“Oh? What do you do?”

“I’m a personal trainer and professional masseuse.”

“Well, it ain’t exactly a gym, but it’s a workout…,” he pointed at the Help Wanted sign on the door.

She read it over. “Housekeeping, huh?”

“Early mornings, until you finish for the day. No clocking in or out, but you got to finish your work.”

She looked at the bottom of the flyer. “That’s all it pays?”

“That’s it. Paid weekly.”

Ty sighed. It would cover her room, and, if she was careful, possibly keep her fed. She’d have to give up her phone, though. “That’s…not really enough to live on, is it?”

The man shrugged. “That’s what it pays. Of course, a pretty, little island girl like you could make a lot more in one night out there.” He pointed out to the street.

Ty knew what the women out there were doing after dark, and she would have none of it. “No. Not happening. Especially not with guys.” She heaved a sigh. “Can I start tomorrow?”

“Sure.” He pushed a form across the desk to her. “Just sign there, and don’t worry about what the night manager says, I’m your boss. He gives you any grief, tell him Al said, ‘Stuff it.’”

“Thanks…Al.”

The Butterfly Bar was on the edge of the neighborhood, straddling the boundary between the gentrified area and the seedy part where her hotel room lay. It was a short walk, but filled with whistles, catcalls, and inebriated men asking, “How much?”

It was quieter than she’d expected in the bar. Booths provided semi-privacy for conversation by low light, while a swinging door at the end led to a dance floor. Except for when the doors opened and the music poured through the bar in a tsunami of aural assault, only the low thump of the bass, more felt than heard, made itself known.

Miri was there waiting for her and motioned her to a booth. Ty sat to find a pitcher of beer and two glasses waiting for her.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Miri said, “but I took the liberty of ordering. If you don’t like beer, that’s fine, I’m sure I can finish it myself, if you promise to stuff me in a cab later.”

“Beer’s fine,” Ty said.

Miri poured her a glass with a practiced hand, resulting in the perfect head without overtopping the glass.

“Looks like you have practice.”

“College,” she said. “Worked as a bartender my freshman and sophomore year, then the spa while I was finishing my undergrad.”

“What’s your major?”

“Exercise Science.”

“Oh! I have an Associates in Massage Therapy, and a Bachelor’s in Kinesiology. I was going to go into physical therapy but fell in love with training.”

The conversation meandered through trivialities for a while, until the second pitcher appeared. “Ty, tell me about the island. What do I need to know to get by there?”

“Uh…it’s not…um…well.” Ty found herself struggling to come up with something coherent to say. “Maybe, if you tell me why, I can figure out what you need to know.”

“You know, basic stuff. What to wear when I show up for work, how to not piss people off unintentionally, where the gay bars are…the basics.”

“The gay…what?”

“Gay bars. You were flirting with me, right? Or did I read that entirely wrong? If so, I am so sorry.”

“I was flirting. I think you’re attractive, and interesting, and I’d like to get to know you better. But…gay bars?”

“Look around,” Miri said, “what do you think this is?”

Taking the time to notice her surroundings for the first time, she realized that most of the couples in the bar were same-sex couples. It was odd to her, since that sort of segregation was not something she was used to.

“Miri,” she said, “this is weird. All the bars on the island are the same. Do you mean that I can’t go to just any bar I want?”

“You can, but it can be dangerous. So, if two guys were making out in one of the bars on the island, what would happen?”

“Someone might tease them, tell them to get a room, but nothing else. Same for any couple doing that in public.”

“Wow! I am so in love with the island…I can’t wait!”

“A—are you moving to the island?”

“Yeah! I got a personal trainer position at a gym close to the beach. It doesn’t pay as much as it would here, but it’s so much cheaper to live there.” Miri stretched with a contented sigh. “And, I can go to any bar, anywhere, and be myself.”

“Wha—what gym?”

“Black Sands Fitness.”

Ty felt her heart drop. The one good thing she thought she’d found, was leaving, and taking—.

“What’s wrong?”

“That’s my old job,” she said, barely above a whisper.

“Well, you’re here to explore the mainland and have an adventure, right? How’s the search?”

“Housekeeping at the Overview. Pays just enough for rent.”

“Hey, hey.” Miri took her hands. “Chin up, island beauty. You’ll find something better.”

Ty didn’t want Miri to see her crying, so she excused herself and instead of going to the washroom walked out the front door. There was no end of men offering to help her “get over it” or ignoring her tears entirely while trying to buy her body.

She stopped in front of her room in the hotel and stared in shock. Did Al do it? The night manager? Someone who saw her going into the Butterfly Bar? Someone who couldn’t spell, anyway. Scrawled in red spray paint on her door in huge, capital letters, were the words “dyke” and “iland lezbain”. The paint was still wet, and she rushed into the room, bolted the door and collapsed in front of it.

Two hours later, Ty held the phone in shaking hands. When her mother answered, she broke down into deep, gut-felt sobs. “Mommy, I’m so sorry. You told me so.”

Trunk Stories

A Profoundly Unhappy Man

prompt: Write about two neighbors who cannot stand each other.

available at Reedsy

Herman Fish Jr. was a profoundly unhappy man. Life had dealt him a poor hand, as he saw it, and it looked as though that wouldn’t improve any time soon. The new neighbor was just another proof that life had singled him out for misery.

The day Asha Hassan moved in, he’d introduced himself and tried to welcome her to the complex, and she responded in a most rude manner. That was all he needed to know about her: rude. She was living in the apartment on the other side of the wall…and she was there to make his life more of a hell than it already was.

When he’d first seen her, he was surprised. She was tall and thin, warm, reddish-brown skin with high cheekbones, deep brown eyes, and long, thick waves of black hair. She’d been dressed in shorts and a tee-shirt, and when she spoke, her accent was so thick he could barely understand her.

She’d told him she was from Somalia, here to go to university, and that her American girlfriend was helping her move. He’d expressed his genuine surprise that a woman from Africa as pretty as she, might be gay. She’d gotten aggressive, finally cursing him in some foreign language.

Before he knew it, the entire weekend had passed, and he’d accomplished nothing beyond seething at the unfairness of his life and the rudeness of his new neighbor. When Monday morning rolled around, he made his way to his dull job in the bleak Department of Motor Vehicles. As if dealing with rude people at work wasn’t enough, he’d have to go home and possibly run into her again.

Lunch, like every workday, was a dismal sandwich from the deli across the street. They were always soggy by the time he got them back to the break room, and they always used too much mayonnaise. After scraping off half the mayonnaise and putting the sandwich back together, he choked it down with the sad, bitter coffee from the giant percolator in the break room.

He watched the second hand on the clock, determined to not work any longer than he was paid for. At precisely 12:30, he returned to the crooked stool at his station and removed the “Out to Lunch” sign. “Next,” he said in a flat voice.

His week continued as normal, only seeing his rude neighbor on the rare occasion they were both in the hallway at the same time. He was glad he hadn’t had to share an elevator with her, as the way she looked at him was as if he was something foul. For his part, he did his best to hide his dislike; after all, they had to live next to each other. She seemed to spend most of her time away, and was only at her apartment at night, alone.

Monday of the second week after she moved in, Herman returned from his lunch of soggy sandwich and bitter coffee, and called out, “Next.”

“Oh. Hello, Mr. Fish. I am needing a driving license.”

Herman looked up to see her. “Great…just fantastic,” he muttered under his breath. “Do you have the form for the written test filled out?”

Asha pointed at the paper she’d already laid on the counter. “I hope our first meeting is not having an influence on this.”

He didn’t answer, but took the form, checked it against her passport, and stamped it. He handed Asha a plastic tag with a number on it. “Take this to the room over there and they’ll get you started on your written test.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but Herman was already droning out, “Next.”

Not that he was paying particular attention, but he noticed that Asha had finished the written test in half the time allowed and had managed to get a slot for the driving portion of the test.

While she was out doing the road test, there was a lull, and he found himself facing her girlfriend. She was a pale, pink-cheeked, five feet nothing of whippy muscle in a sleeveless shirt, short blonde hair, and intense green eyes that bored through him.

“How can I help you?” he asked.

“Look, I don’t know if you’re racist, homophobic, or just stupid, but that was some fucked up shit you said to Asha last week. As if she didn’t deal with enough of that shit at home, now she’s afraid to be around you.”

“What did I do?”

“What did you…ugh! Think about what you said!”

“I said she was pretty, was I wrong?”

“You said she was too pretty and too African to be gay. Does that help you remember?”

“I did no such thing!” Herman cursed whatever fate had decided that this would be a horrid Monday.

“Just…try not to be such a dick around her.” The girlfriend, whose name, Herman realized, he didn’t know, stormed off.

It was fifteen minutes to closing when Asha’s scores crossed his desk with the order for a new resident alien driver’s license. Any normal day, he’d tell them to come back the next day to pick it up, but he didn’t want to anger the little blonde any further.

Herman heaved a sigh as he typed out the information for her new license, then called out, “Asha Hassan to the camera…please.”

She stepped in front of the backdrop, standing on the X on the floor, and her smile dropped as soon as she saw him. He would normally have to tell them to stand on the X, remove their sunglasses or hat, try not to smile, and look directly at the camera. Asha was a pro. Of course, her passport was new, so she’d done this not so long ago…that’s why she knew not to smile.

He focused the image on the computer’s monitor. She really was pretty when she wasn’t cursing him out. He hadn’t seen her girlfriend look anything but angry, but he thought Asha could do better. Herman opened his mouth to say so, but he swallowed his comment with a sour frown. She’d think I was insulting her or something.

The ring light flashed, and the machine began printing her driver’s license. “I’ll call you up when it’s ready,” he said.

The machine was slow, and with the time it took to cool down it should have been shut down already. While the card printed and was overlaid with the holographic coating, Herman cleaned the camera and got his desk ready for closing.

The card was ready with less than five minutes left in the day, and he’d be forced to stay an extra ten minutes after closing until the machine was cool enough to be covered with the dust sheet.

“Asha Hassan to window three, please.” There was no one else in the waiting room but Asha and her girlfriend and no clerks other than himself, but he was going to remain professional. He even went above and beyond by saying “please.”

The two women stepped up to the counter, and he slid the card across to her. Her girlfriend stood on tiptoes to kiss her on the cheek. “Let’s go celebrate.”

They left without even thanking him for staying late. “You’re welcome,” he said to the empty room. “Typical.”

Herman’s commute home took twenty minutes longer than normal. Staying late had put him in the midst of the worst of rush hour traffic. When he finally got home, it was too late to make something decent for dinner, so he settled for a can of soup. While he ate it, he wondered why the store was always out of the good soup whenever he shopped.

After soup and getting ready for bed, Herman heard the elevator at the end of the hall ding. A moment later, he heard…barely…Asha’s door being opened and shut.

Now she’s sneaking around like a thief, he thought, totally untrustworthy. That annoyed him. Herman ignored the part of his brain that said he’d be more annoyed if she’d made more noise getting in.

Once the news had finished confirming his worst fears about the state of the world, Herman turned off the television. He heard a faint giggle from Asha’s apartment. It didn’t sound like she was in the living room which adjoined his, but probably in her bedroom.

He moved to his own bedroom and lay down. He couldn’t hear anything else from the adjoining apartment, but his imagination wouldn’t let him rest. Herman was certain the women were laughing at him; at how rude they’d been and how they’d made him stay late and get stuck in rush hour traffic.

Sleep was slow in coming, and fitful. Life, fate, whatever it was, had once again kicked him while he was down. Herman Fish Jr. was a profoundly unhappy man.

Trunk Stories

Are You My Client?

prompt: Set your story in the lowest rated restaurant in town.

available at Reedsy

The tall, pale woman dressed in black riding leathers parked her hog behind the small, grey, brick building and locked her helmet to the saddle. A casual stroll around the building, her booted steps quieter than what would be expected, assured her that she was alone.

She entered Frank’s Diner, ignoring the Health Department scorecard that listed it as “Needs Improvement,” one grade above being closed down. She made her way to her usual table in the back corner, where the lights didn’t seem to reach. The floors were sticky and stained, the chairs long past their usable date.

She sat down, her leathers creaking as she did, and checked her watch; three minutes to two. When the waitress started towards her, she waved her off and pointed to her watch.

The front door creaked, and a short, self-assured man in an expensive suit stepped in. The waitress greeted him and pointed to the table where she waited.

He approached her table and stopped. “What a shithole. I take it you’re the ghost?”

“Sit.” Her voice was commanding without being harsh.

He sat opposite her, and she watched him trying to maintain his cool composure in the chair with one leg slightly shorter than the other three. “What should I call you?” he asked.

“Ghost is enough,” she said.

“Why are we here?”

“It’s a shithole dive. No one’s going to be looking for you here.” Raising her voice, she called out, “Marlene, sweetie, two of my usual, please.”

The waitress answered back from the pass-through window, “Right away, hun.”

She pulled a small device out of her pocket and held it as she walked around him slowly.

“Looking for wires? I’m clean.”

Satisfied, she returned to her chair and sat. “Why don’t you tell me what you need and when, and I’ll tell you if it’s possible.”

The man had shifted such that the chair was stable beneath him. He crossed his legs and laid his hands on his lap. “I need some security at the docks, Thursday night. Two hours, sixty-thousand dollars.”

“What are you securing?”

They fell silent as Marlene approached and set a to-go cardboard box in front of each of them. The boxes each contained a grilled cheese sandwich, a bag of off-brand barbecue chips, and a can of off-brand cola. The woman dug into hers as she waited for the man’s response.

“We’ll be liberating a shipment from a container before it goes through customs inspection.”

“How big is this shipment?”

“Why does that matter?”

She set down her sandwich and picked up a chip, waving her hand to make it disappear and reappear. “Small things are easy to screen.” She popped the chip in her mouth, continuing to talk while she chewed. “Bigger things,” she picked up the can of cola, “take more preparation…bigger teams.”

“I’m not at liberty to say in exact terms, but it fits in the trunk of a car. Two-man team, in and out.”

“Sixty grand, now, and I save your sorry ass.”

“What makes you think—?”

“That I’ll need to save your ass? I’m about to do that now.”

His eyes took on a predatory glare. “Who do you think you’re dealing with?”

“You’re Don Marco’s man. Antony, right? And you’re getting ready to steal a pair of lead-lined, hard-sided cases marked as sensitive scientific equipment.”

The man’s surprise showed only for the briefest moment before he composed himself. “You seem to have me at a disadvantage.”

“First, whatever you think is in those cases is wrong. The person that opens one of those cases without proper precautions is going to die a slow, painful death.”

He snorted a derisive laugh. “Trying to scare us off the di—uh…package, isn’t going to work.”

“Second, let’s say you show up on Thursday night and manage to get the cases. By sunrise Friday, the war you started will be in full swing. Monday morning, when the smoke clears, Don Marco will be begging for death, the Marino family will be history, and the rightful owner of those cases will be auctioning off the east side to the highest bidder.

“This is me saving your ass. Go home. Forget about it. There are no diamonds, just death.”

“So you say.”

“Isn’t it odd that Don Marco is looking for help outside the family? Does he not trust his own people enough for this?” She shook her head. “No, he wants to limit the number of people who know, because he knows it would turn into a bloodbath if anyone so much as lets out a peep. So, it’s him, you, the two-man team and maybe a driver. Even then, you don’t know everything he does, and I’d guess the team knows even less.”

“Who is it?” he asked. “The Russians? The Irish? Some punk street gang? We’re not afraid of any of them.”

“All I’ll tell you is that you don’t want to cross them,” she said. “They’re a client. The only way I remain a free agent and continue to get jobs is that I don’t tell my clients’ business to anyone else.”

“I see. Then I guess I’ll need to look elsewhere.”

“That’ll be sixty thousand,” she said.

“For what?”

“Are you my client? Or do I go to my other client and tell them Don Marco is sniffing around their property?”

His pleasant smile dropped, and he pulled a pistol from inside his jacket.

She felt an electric jolt of adrenaline and her legs tensed in reflex, ready for action. She took a calming breath and met his steel gaze with her own. “Are you my client?”

“You just made the wrong enemy.”

“Antony,” she said, forcing herself to relax and spread her arms out, making sure he saw that Marlene and the cook were staring at them, “you’re not going to shoot me here, in the middle of the day. If you were one of the street rats or goons, I’d be worried. You’re too smart for that.”

“You’re right. But I know what you look like now, and the family will be looking for you to shut you up within the hour. I’m gonna’ save your ass now. Run while you can, bitch.”

She leaned forward and spoke in a soft voice, “From whom? You’re already dead, you just don’t know it yet.”

“You don’t scare me, bitch.” He put the pistol away and left the diner. She waited for the sound of his car starting and driving away before she pulled out her cell phone and flipped it open.

“Checking in,” she said, when the phone was answered.

“Hello, Ghost. Are the packages safe?” the voice asked.

She dropped two twenty-dollar bills on the table and waved to Marlene on her way out. “Yeah, still safe. Somebody’s interested, though.”

“And this somebody tried to hire you. Will you let us know who it is, or are they your client?”

Once out the door, she headed the long way around the diner to her bike parked in the back. “If they were my client I wouldn’t have needed to call, because they would’ve gone home and forgotten about it like a good boy. Don Marco sent Antony looking for outside security to grab the packages from the docks…Thursday night. I’d bet most of the Marino family are in the dark, though, or he would’ve used his own people. Oh! They’ve got the diamonds story, if that tells you where the leak is.”

“Interesting, it does.” There was a moment of silence, followed by the unmistakable sound of a gunshot. “When we catch Don Marco’s boys with the packages, we’ll get the information we need to shut them down for good. You might want to stay clear of Marino territory for a while.”

She reached her bike. “I’ll be staying clear for a while anyway. Antony just put a price on my head.”

“You need anything from us?”

“Nah, they’re amateurs and I’ll see ’em coming. The courier dropped the first package last night. It’s at the warehouse. The other two land tomorrow and hit customs on Friday.”

“I suppose you’re due a bonus for the heads-up, and for exposing the mole. What would you consider a fair price?”

“I’ll leave that to you, but could you have your guys pick up the package soon? It’s giving me the creeps. Why do you deal in that shit, anyways?”

“It’s a form of currency in my business. I’ll make sure to leave you out of any future payment deliveries, especially on such short notice. Someone will be by within the hour to pick it up. Call me for the challenge and code word when they get there.”

“Thanks. And let me when it’s safe to go back out.”

“Will do, Ghost. And if you decide to leave consulting for a full-time position, my head of security position just opened up.”

“No, you know me…free spirit and all.” She put her phone away, straddled the bike, and pulled on her helmet. The bike started with a rumble, and she eased out of the alley, turning west on the road fronting the diner.

She wasn’t about to go to work for any client full-time…especially this one. Things like the package currently sitting in her warehouse would probably happen all too often. “Currency” or not, lead-lined case notwithstanding, she wasn’t happy about having radioactive materials in her home.

Trunk Stories

One Square Centimeter of Nothing

prompt: Write a story about someone forced out of their home.

available at Reedsy

It wasn’t that Jersey loved her tiny flat; in fact, she wasn’t even that fond of it, but it was home. The artificial gravity was glitchy, it took forever to get hot water from the tap, power outages were a monthly occurrence, and the recycler hadn’t worked for months. Still, the idea that a faceless corporation could take it away from her made her angry.

She marched through the station, strawberry blonde curls bouncing around her pale, pink-cheeked face, headed for the administration office. In her hand she clutched a data cube with her lease agreement, payment history, and every other bit of data she felt was relevant.

A detailed plan for the upgrades to the station was plastered to the front window of the offices, below the sign that read, “Under New Management!” Jersey growled at the sign’s forced jocularity.

She pushed through the door. “Kai, we have a problem,” she said.

The young woman at the reception desk looked up at her. “I’m sorry, Kai is no longer here. He chose to move on after the sale. My name is Ana. How can I help you?”

Jersey took a deep breath to calm herself. The raven-haired young woman before her with black eyes flashing from a golden-brown face was not to blame. “What gives your bosses the right to break my lease agreement?” she asked, holding the data cube up.

“Ma’am, if you’d like to talk to one of the officers, I can set up an appointment for you. I’m just the receptionist.”

“Can I just sit here and wait?”

“If you’d like,” Ana said, tapping away at her console. “The earliest appointment I can get for you is at 16:00 today, unless you’d like to come back tomorrow morning.”

Jersey groaned, trying to hold in a complaint. “Sixteen works. I’ll be back then.”

“Your name?”

“Jersey Mickle, flat 1423.”

“Thank you. See you this afternoon.”

Jersey made her way to the cargo docks, hoping to pick up a half shift to keep her occupied. It was busy that morning, so she thought her chances were good. She waved the foreperson over.

“You looking for a shift?” the short, stocky woman asked. Her reddish-brown hair was mostly stuffed under a hard hat, her light brown eyes hidden behind safety glasses, but her warm brown arms were exposed from the shoulders to the tops of her heavy gloves.

“Hey, Lia, have a half shift I can grab? I have an appointment at sixteen.”

“Did you sign with Taro Group?”

“What?”

“Since TG bought the station, if you want to keep working on the station you have to sign an employment agreement with them.”

“But the docks are Stellar Freight. Did their lease get broken, too?”

“No, TG bought Stellar as part of the deal.” Lia leaned in close. “They bought out all the independent vendors, too. The chains are staying, but all the small shops, and both bars are closing.”

“I’m not signing anything until I figure out where I’m going to live.”

Lia’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, are you in The Thousands?”

“Yeah. The flat where I grew up, and they say I have fifteen days to vacate.”

“I heard about that. They’re saying that whole section of the station is going to be ripped out and replaced. If you’re going to stay, you should check out the flats in The Downs.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Jersey knew that the flats in The Downs were far beyond her means. “I’ll spend the day trying to figure out what to do next, I guess.”

Lia put a hand on Jersey’s arm. “If you’re going to stay, you should sign on soon. If you’re not, then I hope you’ll stop by to see me before you leave. Flat 77 in The Downs.”

“Will do.” Jersey waved at a worker that was trying to get their attention. “It looks like you’re needed. I’ll let you get back to work.”

Jersey walked back to the station’s main promenade. She walked past the shops she’d grown accustomed to, owned by people who were, if not friends, at least acquaintances. Most had a “going out of business” sign. The bakery, however, had a different sign.

“Armando’s Bakery is closed. Future site of PanStar Cafe and Bistro.”

Armando’s is closed, and they’re putting another PanStar in, she thought. As if three on the station wasn’t too many already.

The confectioner’s was open and Jersey wandered in. The tall, rail-thin man behind the counter greeted her. “Hallo, Jersey! You need some sweets today?”

“Morning, Moussa. I don’t know if need sweets.”

Moussa frowned. Creases formed on his forehead, dark brown eyes squinting amid his mahogany face. “You look sad. I think maybe you do need sweets.” Just as quickly as he had frowned, his broad smile returned. “Yes. Sweets to make you feel better!”

“How can you be so chipper? We’re all being evicted so some big corporation can turn the station into some sort of fake paradise or something.”

He leaned over the counter. “I’m chipper, because I refuse to be angry or sad. I’ll open a new shop on Mars; already have a lease signed. Besides, I charged Taro with a huge amount for breaking my five-year lease three years early. They were happy to settle rather than go to court.”

“The other shops have done the same?”

He nodded. “They were very generous, since they were breaking our business and home leases.”

“I hope they’ll do the same for me,” Jersey said, though she doubted it.

“You live in The Thousands, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“How long has your gravity been messed up? Or your water? Or electricity?”

“At least a year,” she said, “maybe longer.”

“Maybe you can get a refund to go with your lease buyout.”

“What lease buyout? All I got was a notice that I had fifteen days to vacate, and a notice that the entire section of the station was condemned.”

Moussa looked serious for a moment, then nodded. “All right. I know what you need.” He pulled out a small bag, filled it with an assortment of candies and handed it across the counter to her.

“How does that help?”

He smiled. “It doesn’t fix anything except your mood,” he said, “and a good mood will help your negotiations.”

“Thanks, Moussa. How much?”

“Nothing today. Special 100 percent eviction discount…only for friends.”

Jersey wandered the station for hours, finally settling into a chair in the administrative office at 15:30. She took her time with the sweets, letting them melt on her tongue and savoring each. She’d only made it halfway through the bag.

When the time for her appointment rolled around, Jersey was ushered into the administrator’s office. The colorful mural that had been taken up three walls of the office was covered in a pasty off-white, faint hints of the darkest areas of the mural showing through.

Everything about the small, frazzled man at the desk was beige. Beige skin, mousy hair, light brown eyes, and a rumpled beige suit. He gestured at the chair opposite his desk. “Have a seat.”

“How am I supposed to—,” she began before he cut her off.

“Ms. Mickle, I’m David Smith from the Taro Group’s property management division. I’m aware of your situation…everyone in the Thousands, really…and very sorry about it. We’re doing all we can, but our hands are tied.”

“Tied how?”

“When TG bought the station and the leases, the courts wouldn’t allow Bakshi Enterprises to sell the leases in the portion of the station where you live.” He slid a data gem across the desk to her. “Those leases were found to be in violation of Federal housing law, as those flats have been deemed unfit for habitation.”

“And yet you bought the station and are now evicting me with eight months left on my annual renewal lease. I grew up in that flat, and between my mother and I, we’ve paid enough rent to buy it outright four or five times…if they’d have let us.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, where is your mother?”

“You know the big oak in the park?” she asked. “Her ashes are buried there. But I guess I won’t get to visit her anymore, either, since you’re evicting me.”

“Read the eviction notice closer,” he said. “Taro Group is not evicting you; the court is. Since we were unable to buy the leases, you’ll have to go to court to get Bakshi to reimburse you. This gem has a copy of the court documents, including the judgement of the court that Bakshi has to reimburse all the leases in that section of the station in full.”

“Well, that at least gives me something to buy a ticket to somewhere else, I guess. Not sure where to go, though. This is my home.”

David sighed a heavy sigh. “You can take this to civil court, but it’ll be tied up for years. In the meantime, Bakshi has already filed for bankruptcy, so I doubt you’ll get anything out of it.”

“Are there any available flats elsewhere on the station? Ones that I could maybe afford?”

“If you sign on with TG, you should be able to keep your job, at the same pay. It looks like we have a five-room flat on deck seven, just below the promenade deck, or a three-room on level nine.”

“My job doesn’t pay enough to live in The Downs. Why do you think I live in The Thousands? Anything in the outer ring?”

“Sorry, those are the only open flats at this time.”

Jersey noticed the dark rings under his eyes, and realized he’d probably been going through this exact song and dance all day. Her vision swam behind tears that threatened to fall. The sweet taste of the candies had left a film on her tongue and all she tasted was despair. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t have anywhere to go and can’t afford a ticket to get there.”

David retrieved a chit from his desk drawer and handed it to her. It was embossed with the seal of the Federal Government and had a small data chip embedded. “This is a housing emergency pass,” he said. “A troop carrier is stopping tomorrow afternoon for refueling, then heading to Mars. This will get you on the ship and they’ll let you out there. It’s not the best place to go, but there’s always work there, at least, and Federal subsidy housing.”

“And if I don’t go on the ship?”

“If you’re still here after the eviction date, you’ll be taken into police custody for trespass.” He looked at her with tired eyes. “There’s three-hundred and nine of you that are being displaced,” he said, “and so far, I’ve only talked to twenty-seven…including you.”

“Where else will this get me?” she asked, holding the chit up.

David typed at his console and read for a few quiet moments. “After the troop carrier tomorrow, there’s a government passenger vessel bringing an inspector at the end of the week. It has room for six more passengers and is going to…Mars afterward.”

He typed some more. “The only other government vessel stopping by before your eviction date is a cargo carrier, heading to Luna. No passengers allowed.” He turned off his console. “I’m sorry, Ms. Mickle, but I think your only option is the troop carrier to Mars.”

Jersey stood and set the half bag of candy on the desk. “You can have those.” She crossed the office to the door and stopped. “I miss it already.”

“The station?”

“My flat. Yeah, it’s dim and dingy, it takes forever to get hot water, the gravity goes weak all the time and the electricity is hit and miss…but it was home. I grew up in those twenty-two square meters, and I was happy for it. I had twenty-two square meters of crap to myself, and now I have,” she held up the chit, “one square centimeter of nothing.”

Trunk Stories

The Last Manuscript

prompt: Write about a character giving something one last shot.

available at Reedsy

Agnes placed the stack of papers into the box. She ran a wrinkled hand across the cover sheet at the top.

She closed the box and sealed it with shipping tape. With a marker and a careful hand, she wrote her return address on the upper left, then the address of the publisher in the center.

That done, she moved to the kitchen to make her breakfast. A bowl on the counter and a box of cold cereal in her hand, she stopped.

“Agnes,” she said aloud to herself, “you deserve to celebrate today.”

She put the cold cereal away and made an egg, sunny-side, two strips of bacon, and piece of toast with far too much jam to be healthy. Agnes ate her breakfast in front of the radio playing the news from the local public radio station.

After the news, she knew she had half an hour until the post office opened. Unwilling to waste any time, she called for a van. It would arrive in just a few minutes. She stood waiting at the end of her driveway, leaning on her walking frame, the box sitting in the sling strung across the arms of the frame.

The van pulled to a stop and a large door opened on the side, revealing a lift. The driver jumped out and began lowering the ramp. “Good morning, Agnes!”

“Good morning indeed, Hector.”

“Sending another manuscript today?”

“You know it.”

He helped her onto the lift and closed the safety gate behind her. “Feel good about this one?”

“Oh, yes. I think it may be my best yet.” She shook her head. “It better be, anyway, as I think it’s my last.”

“Why is that, Agnes?”

“I’m not getting any younger,” she said, moving into the van proper and sitting on the nearest seat. She patted the box. “These take a lot out of me.”

Hector secured the lift and got back into the driver’s seat. “You promised to sign my copy when you get published,” he said. “I hope that’s still in the cards.”

Agnes smiled. “I don’t have any reason to think they’ll treat this one any different to the others, but I still have to try, don’t I?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Hector pulled out into traffic and began the journey to the post office. “Your determination is inspiring. Every time I think work and school and the baby is too much, I think of you. ‘Agnes wouldn’t quit,’ I think, and I keep on.”

“I don’t know about all that.” Agnes shifted in her seat. “I never had to do so much at once as you.”

After helping her off at the post office, Hector asked, “Are you going home after this, or do you have some other errands to run?”

“I’ll be heading back home. Wouldn’t want to keep you all to myself all day,” she said with a smile.

“I’d be okay with that.” Hector smiled back at her as she toddled into the lobby.

Agnes was the first in line and set the box on the counter. Once it was weighed, postage applied, and she’d paid with bills she’d removed from the neatly folded stack in her purse, she thanked the clerk and went back out.

Hector was waiting with the van running and the lift down. “In a hurry to get rid of me?” she asked.

Hector laughed. “No, ma’am, just didn’t want you to have to wait for me. Instead of wasting your energy standing around, you might have something more exciting planned.”

“This was enough excitement for me, today.”

“Aww, does that mean no drag racing on the way home?”

Agnes laughed. “Thanks for entertaining an old lady.”

Hector jumped backed into the driver’s seat. “You’re my favorite rider.”

“You probably say that to all the ladies.”

“No, ma’am. Only the nice ones.” Hector beamed a smile in the rear-view mirror. “You’d be surprised how many innocent-looking little old grannies are down-right foul-tempered.”

“No, not really,” Agnes said. “You don’t get to be ninety-seven without learning something about people. Everyone has the capacity for good or evil. Most people have a fair bit of good in them, but too many are afraid to let it out.”

“I’ll have to remember that.” Hector pulled to a smooth stop in front of her house. He helped her out and gave a slight bow. “Have a wonderful day, Agnes. And have faith. They’ll want this one.”

“Thank you, Hector. Always such a polite young man.” She took a few steps toward her door and stopped to turn back. “I hope you don’t go flirting like this all the time. Some are not so savvy and worldly as me. Wouldn’t want you breaking hearts.”

Hector laughed. “No, ma’am; no flirting. I’ll behave myself.”

Agnes settled into the armchair in her bedroom, the television showing the local news. To her right stood two piles of manuscript mailing boxes, each with their rejection letters in an envelope taped neatly to the top. The piles, forty years of work, stood nearly as tall as Agnes.

If number eighty didn’t sell, Agnes didn’t think she’d try again. Even though she’d moved from a typewriter to a computer years ago, her fingers still ached after a couple hours of typing. Add to that the annoying sound of the printer when it came time to send a manuscript out….

She wondered what Hector would think if he read the latest. Would he recognize himself as the protagonist? There was just something about him that sparked an idea for her. An heroic tale of a desperate last stand, with “Jorge” defending his family against a tyrannical warlord.

Agnes chuckled. She realized that Jorge was as much her as it was Hector. Not that she was fighting tyrannical warlords, but she might as well be. The publishing industry didn’t want manuscripts from unknown writers with no agents, and agents weren’t interested in an author her age.

She pulled the last box off the pile and looked at the most recent rejection letter. It wasn’t a form letter for a change. Someone had read the manuscript. They’d praised the writing as tight, and the story as engaging, but the tone didn’t fit what they were looking for.

The letter ended with the reader saying they looked forward to any future manuscripts, especially if they were more action oriented. The one she’d just sent off was, indeed, that.

A hopeful smile crossed her face as she nodded off in the chair. She dreamt of seeing her book in print and signing a copy for Hector.

She woke to a sharp pain in her chest, a pounding in her ears. She knew she was drawing her final breaths. In that moment, she also knew that it didn’t matter whether her book was published; what mattered was that she had never stopped trying.

Trunk Stories

I Meant What I Said

prompt: Write a story about two people who don’t know each other but bump into one other on New Year’s Eve (either once or every year). 

available at Reedsy

The first time I saw her, her eyes were haunted, her scars fresh. She came through the line in the soup kitchen, pointing at what she wanted but never uttering a sound. If I had to guess, I would say she was nineteen or twenty. That was New Year’s Eve, three years ago.

Two years ago, I volunteered on New Year’s Eve again, and saw her again. The haunted look in her eyes was pushed down, hiding under despair and dark circles. Her scars, the result of some horrendous fire, were still visible, but the color almost matched her medium-tan skin.

She was wearing a sticker on her jacket, probably from a twelve-step meeting somewhere. It said, “Hello, my name is Anita.” Once again, she uttered no sounds, but pointed out what she wanted. She seemed thinner, frailer. She seemed to have aged several years.

“Hi, Anita,” I said, “I’m Tim. Have you got a place to stay warm?” I made sure to include the card for the women’s shelter on her tray.

She looked up at me, for just a second, before walking away with her food. I watched her sit across from another woman, grey hair, missing most of her teeth, with the leathery skin of someone who has lived rough for years. They signed to each other between bites. The older woman cackled at something, but Anita didn’t seem amused.

By last New Year’s Eve, I had learned enough sign language to be almost conversational. I was able to talk to the older woman, who I found out was Maribeth, once a beauty pageant winner, fifty-four years old, and homeless for the last seventeen years. Maribeth had a crank habit, and claimed she’d been kicked out of shelters and rehab programs all up and down the west coast.

I asked about Anita, and she grew angry. She was signing too fast for me to keep up, but I caught the gist. They’d had a falling out. Maribeth’s signing slowed for emphasis as she told me, “That bitch thinks she’s too good for my meth. I tried to share but she said no. I bet she’s working for the government.”

Not wanting to aggravate her further, or get drawn into her delusions, I told Maribeth that she should eat before her food gets cold…and that she was holding up the line.

I didn’t see Anita until after Maribeth left. The despair in her eyes had turned to resignation but the haunt was still buried there. The cold outside made her scars stand out pink against her throat and hands.

She removed her heavy parka, four sizes too large. Where she had been thin the previous year, she was positively gaunt, and needle tracks marked her arm. She looked closer to forty than twenty-five.

As she approached, I signed, “Hello, Anita. Do you have somewhere warm to sleep tonight?”

She looked up at me and signed back, “Who cares? And I can hear.”

“Good to know,” I said. I grabbed one of the cards for the women’s shelter and was about to put it on her tray. Instead, I turned it over, wrote my name and number on the back, and handed it to her.

Anita looked at the card like it was poisoned. “I don’t want anything from you, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m just worried about you. If you go to the shelter, talk to Julia Marquez, she taught me sign, she can help. If you need someone to talk to, you can text me at this number, any time.”

“Not my hero,” she signed with an angry huff, but I noticed that she put the card in her jacket pocket.

“Not even close to a hero,” I said. “I just care.”

As she ate, I noticed she was watching me like a hawk. Every interaction I had with the others as they came through the line. “Do you have someplace warm to sleep tonight? No? Here’s a card for a men’s shelter over on Second.”

There was a slight delay as a woman holding an infant and trailing a toddler came in. The left side of her face was swollen and purple, the eye almost swollen shut. Dried blood from her nose and lip mingled with the tracks of tears. When I made a move to help her, she cowered from me, so I backed off. “Sister Kathleen,” I called, “we could use your help.”

The sister came over at once and bundled the three of them into one of the side rooms that connected with the main body of the chapel. I stared at the door that had closed behind them far too long, trying to calm the reflexive part of me that wanted to find the monster that had done that to her and pay them back in kind.

I took a deep breath to calm myself, wiped the tears of anger that had started to form, and turned back around and went back to serving. My phone chimed, and I finished helping the man who was so intoxicated as to be reeling on his feet to a table before checking it.

It was an unknown number. The text message said, “Do u mean it?”

“Mean what?” I texted back.

“U care – any time – that shit.”

I looked at Anita, who was staring holes through me. I walked to her table and said, “Yes, I meant everything I said. I care, and I’m available any time.”

“What was her name?” she signed.

“Julia Marquez.” I texted it to her as I said it. “She’s the real deal.”

Anita rose to leave, and I thought I saw something different in her eyes…a faint glimmer of hope. Sometimes, that’s all one can ask for.

She didn’t text me at all after that. All I could do was hope for the best. As New Year’s Eve rolled around again, I volunteered for the fourth year running. Aside from some of the sisters, it seemed that the volunteers were new each year more than the people we were feeding.

I was about to introduce myself to the new volunteers when my phone chimed. I looked at it; a new text from Anita. “Behind you,” it said.

I turned around, and there she was. She’d gained some weight and shed the extra years, looking more her age. Her clothes, while casual, were neat and clean, in her size, her hair styled, and best of all, she wore a smile. The circles under her eyes were gone, and there was true happiness in them. She held her arms out, and I copied her.

Anita stepped close and gave me a big hug. As I hugged her back, she began to sob. I looked around for help, but Sister Kathleen just grinned at me.

“I—is something wrong?” I asked.

She shook her head no and clung on. After a minute or so she stepped back. “Nothing’s wrong,” she signed. “I’m just so glad you’re here.”

I noticed that she was wearing a volunteer pin. “I’m so glad that you’re here, on this side of the line.”

“I thought I was done,” she signed, “but you told me you cared, and I thought, if the dork at the soup kitchen can care enough to learn sign for me, I should be able to care enough to ask for help. So I did.”

I was about to ask her for more details, but she pulled something out of her pocket. It was a keychain from Narcotics Anonymous that said, “9 Months.” The pride in her smile was unmistakable.

“They say we can change lives doing things like this. Want to see if it’s true?” I asked.

She signed at me, “You dork, of course it’s true. I’m working next to you so you can translate.”

“Not if you’re calling people names,” I said.

“Never,” she signed, “at least not here. I work for the church as a janitor and I do this every month now, you should join me.”

“I think I will,” I said. As always, I meant exactly what I said.