Saw this floating around the interwebs today and had to try it.

Never having read any Stephen King (with the exception of On Writing, years ago), I have no idea whether my style remotely resembles his.  (My previous blog post came up Margaret Atwood – yay! – but the first page of my novel, which I re-wrote yesterday, came up Dan Brown – bleurgh.) Maybe those of you who read King can read this short story of mine and compare.  But do not expect any telekinetic prom queens, freaky clowns, or possessed automobiles.

Dust to Dust

I hear the doorbell ring and suddenly the panic takes me
The sound so ominously tearing through the silence
I cannot move, I’m standing
Numb and frozen
Among the things I love so dearly
The books, the paintings, and the furniture
Help me …
- Abba, “The Visitors”

Two black bags stood packed in the middle of the living room. It was the first time they’d ever been used, purchased not quite three months ago at the J.C. Penney thirty miles away. Their newness was obvious, even jarring, in the midst of all the antique furniture that fitted out the room. A lot of it was Victorian, or Victorian reproduction, and all of it feminine. None of it suited the dark paneled walls and rustic beams in the ceiling, and it certainly wasn’t the kind of furniture to suit the leathery skinned, denim clad cowboy leaning against the kitchen doorjamb staring at the bags (who, if he’d heard himself called a cowboy, would’ve made a gruff sound in his throat; he was far too old to be called any kind of boy). It was the detritus of the grandmother Judith had never known, which always seemed coated in layers of dust no matter how often she took the furniture polish to it, as if the dust were Nana’s presence in the house.

The old cowboy — Papa, he was to Judith — never talked much about Nana, yet to Judith, it somehow felt like he never spoke of anything else. He held her forever in his deep-set, startlingly blue eyes; her name was marked indelibly on his forearm, below the rolled-up shirtsleeve. Once Judith had asked about the tattoo, and Papa grunted and told her that all the guys got them during the war — anchors and eagles and such war imagery, or hearts draped in banners with their sweethearts’ names. It was very romantic, Judith thought, and very tragic. She told her boyfriend Johnny, and for Christmas he got her name tattooed on his bicep for her, which made Judith write in her diary that it would be Johnny her own granddaughter would see forever held in her eyes. Which were green, and not as naturally conducive to tragic romance as startling blue; but she had to work with what she got.

What Papa didn’t tell Judith was that Betty Jean hadn’t been impressed by the romantic gesture. Said she thought love meant remembering a girl’s name without having it written on your arm like a cheat sheet. She’d been that breed of practical Baptist farm girl indigenous to East Texas — the breed of girl Judith had never quite managed to be, even though she wore western cut jeans and shirts and boots.

But then, Judith had been born in San Francisco. Read the rest of this entry »

In case you missed it last Friday, I posted the first part of a two-part short story.  I’m not waiting until this Friday to post the conclusion, because Fridays are slow days on teh internets.

Her Dying Wish (Part 2)

Normally, Saturday mornings were for her (as they are for everybody–as they are for you) bliss.  Waking up is a delight because you have slept well, your subconscious untroubled in slumber by the unpleasant prospect of being woken by an alarm and having to go to work and finding repose in the freedom of an entire day ahead of you to do as you please–or, if you are dying, an entire day to do the things you always wanted to do before you die.

This Saturday, however, she awoke feeling as if she had never slept at all.  Read the rest of this entry »

Authors, apparently, must also be Bloggers.  As part of my mission to re-vamp lrburt.com, I’m incorporating several regular features, including Fiction Fridays, which are dedicated to posts about writing or excerpts of my fiction projects.

Since my readers are probably more interested in what I write than in how I write it, I’ll kick off Fiction Fridays with a short story I wrote a few years ago.  Actually, it’s not terribly short, so I’ll break it into two parts to post this week and next.  It’s a humor piece, and a love story, and it stars a roll of toilet paper.  Something for everyone.

Her Dying Wish

by LR Burt

If you asked her what she wanted to do before she died, she would tell you things unsurprising and unremarkable: to travel to Europe, to write a novel, to go skydiving, maybe, if she was feeling adventurous.

If she told you this, you would believe her; after all, everybody, yourself included, wants to travel to Europe, write a novel, and skydive before they die.

Like everyone who claims these dying wishes, she never put spare change in a jar to save for that European vacation; she never sat down to write the first line of the novel that came to her as a lightning bolt of inspiration; she definitely never felt adventurous enough to sign up for a skydiving course.

No, what she dreamed of, in her secret heart, was to knock glass jars off supermarket shelves; to say swear words in places and in front of people she shouldn’t; to write a scathing letter to a person of great importance.

In short, what she wanted to do before she died was to become a menace to society.

Of course, if you asked her, she would never tell you that, because as far as she knew, she really and truly believed she was exactly like everybody else–and nobody else wanted to become a menace to society before they died. At least, no one told her otherwise. If anyone had, she might have recognized her real dreams sooner, without resistance or thinking she was going mad, and by pleasanter means than the threat of her imminent death.

Although, if she had recognized her real dreams under less urgent circumstances, she would not have realized that she’d never really lived at all, or felt so acutely what it meant to come to life. Read the rest of this entry »