Short Stories, etc.
I plan to make this page for my short stories, of which I only have one so far.
10/25/10 I have not had the inspiration to work on a short story... and poetry, though I love it, has never been my strong suit. Perhaps I shall be moved to try it again... and perhaps not. Right now I have my mind into spiritual, personal, and global/political concerns. As well, I am really being drawn back to my book as to the life of real people that I have merely been away from for a time. so there it is.... :)
May 17, 2011 - slight revision to my story below: A Cold Winter's Day
May 10, 2011
I find it strange that when one first writes a story or anything for that matter it seems just fine. Then you go away for a time... more than a day or so, because the story idea is still fresh in your mind. I think one knows the story, or at least the drift of it. Then after being away for some weeks... or in this case months, I reread my story and found that I did not make myself clear. I knew what I meant… and so without thinking I thought my readers would. I like writing, though I am surely a novice at the practice. So if someone is reading my drivel… well, not drivel… my ramblings… yeah, that’s it, ramblings. Well, I hope you will keep in mind that I am a novice.
Revised a Cold Winter's Day: May 1, 2011
12/15/10 (this is a true story)
I almost died today. I’m a diabetic. This morning I woke up with high blood glucose level, almost 300. I took my insulin and called my school to tell them that I would be a little late. Probably all I would need was 15 or 20 minutes of sleep maybe an hour and I would be fine and into work. This happens now and again. I forget to take my insulin because my glucose is a little low, and I think I should eat first. You know if it was going to take me a bit to prepare my meal. So then I am very hunger and plan to take it after. Perhaps I forget. Perhaps it is because sometimes my body is producing insulin, so it changes things.
In any case, this day I did not wake back up until about 1:30. So I know that if I had awakened in the time frame mentioned before, I would be just fine. But since I did not, the insulin was making my glucose level steadily drop. Which was no doubt why I slept. When I did wake up it was like pulling my self up from a very deep pit of black water, and all I could do to grab onto my consciousness. My ears were ringing and everything would periodically go completely black. I was dripping wet with sweat my night clothes completely soaked. Perhaps that is what woke me up.
Finally I got awake enough to drag myself from my sweat soaked bed to the kitchen to take my blood sugar to find out what it was, up or down, to know what to do. I was not thinking rationally. If my mind was working normally, I would have known that it was low; but it wasn’t. It was all I could do to take the blood testing. It was down… way down… 46.
This happened once before some weeks ago in the middle of the night. I thought it a fluke, but here it was happening again. I staggered my way to the sofa by feel despite the fact that my living room light was on from the previous evening. It was like moving through that same black pit of water pulling at my every step like my feet were made of lead. I have candy stored in a small foot rest. I pulled out some and began to eat. I have no idea how many of those little candy bars I ate because I was in a dark hole watching what was happening to me. I knew why I was doing what I was doing, but it did not seem to matter all that much except that I knew on some level I did not want to die. And I was eating as fast as I could. I began to feel like I was waking up. My head was pounding and I felt exhausted. I fell back to sleep there on the sofa and slept until almost 5:00. When I awoke, I first thought it was time to get up for work. Then I realized I was on the sofa and it all came flooding back into my memory.
I felt exhausted like I had wrestled a demon in my sleep when I finally awoke completely. Perhaps I did. What is it that a blood glucose level of 46 wakes me up or at least has twice? That was exactly the number level before. I am still learning how to deal with Diabetes after all these years. Just when I think I know it all, something pops up to say, “Don’t become too complacent, I can kill you yet.”
A Cold Winter’s Day
by Tricia Pryce
Revised May 1, 2011
There’s something almost sinister about bare brown trees in winter, their frozen limbs rattling in the cold clacking like a flock of Black Birds.
Tree trunks block the vision on either side of the road until suddenly they abruptly end and open into empty fields.
A mud rutted lane frozen solid leads up to and past an antique mansion from an era long gone. The large three story building sprouts solidly like a huge brick cube growing out of the frozen earth. A thin grey smoke stream winds its way up from a lonely chimney into the sky and disappears on the wind.
As one draws nearer to that brick façade, it appears to squat there like an ancient dowager wearing a narrowly slanted slate roof like a flat felt hat such as old women are want to wear. Though it would be much too cold for that head covering this day when no one should be out and about, but cozened up to a nice warm fire.
Watching closely so as not to trip on the frozen ruts in the road; I look up and see something move, something I had not noticed before. As I draw nearer I see a woman standing off to the side of the old stone relic so out of place in this empty barren landscape.
She draws her shawl more tightly around her shoulders as though that would keep out the cold or hold back the wind from whipping her scarf and skirt. Long strands of black hair battle wind and scarf as though seeking freedom from both. In the distance one hears a frozen tree branch groan in the wind, then crack like the sound of a whip.
No relic from another time, the woman appears past middle age though. By the way she moves it is clear she is no stranger to hard work. She rubs her hands together to keep the circulation moving and perhaps to be sure she can still feel them. Her lips are blue from the cold and numb. She presses them together trying to warm them. Cupping her hands and drawing them up to her mouth, she breathes into them to fight away the cold.
Her eyes trail over the barren garden, the few plants left bent and frozen brown to the earth. With a deep sigh, a sound that carries over a distance on the crisp winter air like a moan; she exhales a puff of steam as her breath freezes on the air.
No cloud mares the surface of the sky only the unrelenting frozen sun. She makes a little shelf of one hand to hold over her eyes and block out some of the glare of that cold blue sun of a hard winter’s day. She looks as though she might be trying to soak up some of the warmth she knows is behind that white looking ball hidden in a haze of smoky blue. Or might she be trying to guess how long it will take for the sun to burn up the cold winter sky, and bring back the warmth of spring.
She stares until she can no longer bear the light. Or, is it the cold? I wonder how long she’s been there beside her solid brick house with the barren winter all around her. She turns to move back along the stone path to the house. As she turns a blank spot will block her vision where the sun had been there before. It will take several steps for it do di disappear as her eyes grow accustomed to the shadow cast by her own body. She moves a little faster hunching over as she walks away from the sun. Her leather shoes make little patting sounds on the stone path; and her skirts whip around her legs popping like wet sheets on a clothes line.
Shivering in the cold she climbs the short stair steps leading up to a small stoop. She opens first the outer door, which she braces open with her back as she opens the inner door. She turns to close that door carefully, and I presume to lock it tightly shut. I see her shadow as she pauses there. Then she closes the heavier inner door in the same precise manner.
I walk by her house, and I wonder if she was even the least aware that I was there on a cold winter’s day.
August 22, 2010
Revised September 16, 2010
Revised May 1, 2011 (sometimes it takes months to get away from a story to really read what it says. I know the meaning in my head, and it's hard to get past that fact.
This is sort of like a short story to me... ;) Now, I’m thinking of some political things as well as spiritual things… actually 9/11 and the building of a Muslim Mosque near the site. I am appalled at the number of Americans who are up in arms about this! This country was built on religious freedom. We can’t blame all Muslims for what fringe fanatical group was responsible for… oh… oh, wait… yes, we can. A large number of Americans… in fact, if statistics are correct something like 70%.. for God’s sake! Can’t people think for themselves? Do they have to believe every damned thing they hear from any bozo who wants to say it?
Here’s what I wish… I wish every religion in the world… well, wait… not churches of Satan. Even though I don’t believe in a devil… or Satan per se… I do, yes, believe in a force for evil in the world. I wish all the churches of the world would come together and build their churches or temples as close as they can to that 9/11 site. I wish that they would clear the site and place a huge monolith to some kind of shining white stone… huge… reaching up into the sky like a beacon. I wish they would make the place a park with walk ways around the outside of the site and walk ways up to the monolith like the spokes of a wheel… keep it a circle. I would wish that it had beautiful benches all around the site so that people could look up at the monolith and remember that we are all worshipping the same Creator no matter what we call that Deity. We all worship in different ways… but it is still the One God. I wish that all the religions of the world should be written on the base of that monolith. Beautiful trees… the whole place lit so that it looks like daylight all the time… this in part for the safety of any that might come at night to worship. Lights turned up to the top of that monolith like a beacon to God. Let all people go there and sit in the sight of a place dedicated to ALL religions, including that of my People! Gezuzzz… that would be a beautiful! Damned Beautiful! I’m an artist and a spiritual woman. I think about these things.
10/25/10 I have not had the inspiration to work on a short story... and poetry, though I love it, has never been my strong suit. Perhaps I shall be moved to try it again... and perhaps not. Right now I have my mind into spiritual, personal, and global/political concerns. As well, I am really being drawn back to my book as to the life of real people that I have merely been away from for a time. so there it is.... :)
May 17, 2011 - slight revision to my story below: A Cold Winter's Day
May 10, 2011
I find it strange that when one first writes a story or anything for that matter it seems just fine. Then you go away for a time... more than a day or so, because the story idea is still fresh in your mind. I think one knows the story, or at least the drift of it. Then after being away for some weeks... or in this case months, I reread my story and found that I did not make myself clear. I knew what I meant… and so without thinking I thought my readers would. I like writing, though I am surely a novice at the practice. So if someone is reading my drivel… well, not drivel… my ramblings… yeah, that’s it, ramblings. Well, I hope you will keep in mind that I am a novice.
Revised a Cold Winter's Day: May 1, 2011
12/15/10 (this is a true story)
I almost died today. I’m a diabetic. This morning I woke up with high blood glucose level, almost 300. I took my insulin and called my school to tell them that I would be a little late. Probably all I would need was 15 or 20 minutes of sleep maybe an hour and I would be fine and into work. This happens now and again. I forget to take my insulin because my glucose is a little low, and I think I should eat first. You know if it was going to take me a bit to prepare my meal. So then I am very hunger and plan to take it after. Perhaps I forget. Perhaps it is because sometimes my body is producing insulin, so it changes things.
In any case, this day I did not wake back up until about 1:30. So I know that if I had awakened in the time frame mentioned before, I would be just fine. But since I did not, the insulin was making my glucose level steadily drop. Which was no doubt why I slept. When I did wake up it was like pulling my self up from a very deep pit of black water, and all I could do to grab onto my consciousness. My ears were ringing and everything would periodically go completely black. I was dripping wet with sweat my night clothes completely soaked. Perhaps that is what woke me up.
Finally I got awake enough to drag myself from my sweat soaked bed to the kitchen to take my blood sugar to find out what it was, up or down, to know what to do. I was not thinking rationally. If my mind was working normally, I would have known that it was low; but it wasn’t. It was all I could do to take the blood testing. It was down… way down… 46.
This happened once before some weeks ago in the middle of the night. I thought it a fluke, but here it was happening again. I staggered my way to the sofa by feel despite the fact that my living room light was on from the previous evening. It was like moving through that same black pit of water pulling at my every step like my feet were made of lead. I have candy stored in a small foot rest. I pulled out some and began to eat. I have no idea how many of those little candy bars I ate because I was in a dark hole watching what was happening to me. I knew why I was doing what I was doing, but it did not seem to matter all that much except that I knew on some level I did not want to die. And I was eating as fast as I could. I began to feel like I was waking up. My head was pounding and I felt exhausted. I fell back to sleep there on the sofa and slept until almost 5:00. When I awoke, I first thought it was time to get up for work. Then I realized I was on the sofa and it all came flooding back into my memory.
I felt exhausted like I had wrestled a demon in my sleep when I finally awoke completely. Perhaps I did. What is it that a blood glucose level of 46 wakes me up or at least has twice? That was exactly the number level before. I am still learning how to deal with Diabetes after all these years. Just when I think I know it all, something pops up to say, “Don’t become too complacent, I can kill you yet.”
A Cold Winter’s Day
by Tricia Pryce
Revised May 1, 2011
There’s something almost sinister about bare brown trees in winter, their frozen limbs rattling in the cold clacking like a flock of Black Birds.
Tree trunks block the vision on either side of the road until suddenly they abruptly end and open into empty fields.
A mud rutted lane frozen solid leads up to and past an antique mansion from an era long gone. The large three story building sprouts solidly like a huge brick cube growing out of the frozen earth. A thin grey smoke stream winds its way up from a lonely chimney into the sky and disappears on the wind.
As one draws nearer to that brick façade, it appears to squat there like an ancient dowager wearing a narrowly slanted slate roof like a flat felt hat such as old women are want to wear. Though it would be much too cold for that head covering this day when no one should be out and about, but cozened up to a nice warm fire.
Watching closely so as not to trip on the frozen ruts in the road; I look up and see something move, something I had not noticed before. As I draw nearer I see a woman standing off to the side of the old stone relic so out of place in this empty barren landscape.
She draws her shawl more tightly around her shoulders as though that would keep out the cold or hold back the wind from whipping her scarf and skirt. Long strands of black hair battle wind and scarf as though seeking freedom from both. In the distance one hears a frozen tree branch groan in the wind, then crack like the sound of a whip.
No relic from another time, the woman appears past middle age though. By the way she moves it is clear she is no stranger to hard work. She rubs her hands together to keep the circulation moving and perhaps to be sure she can still feel them. Her lips are blue from the cold and numb. She presses them together trying to warm them. Cupping her hands and drawing them up to her mouth, she breathes into them to fight away the cold.
Her eyes trail over the barren garden, the few plants left bent and frozen brown to the earth. With a deep sigh, a sound that carries over a distance on the crisp winter air like a moan; she exhales a puff of steam as her breath freezes on the air.
No cloud mares the surface of the sky only the unrelenting frozen sun. She makes a little shelf of one hand to hold over her eyes and block out some of the glare of that cold blue sun of a hard winter’s day. She looks as though she might be trying to soak up some of the warmth she knows is behind that white looking ball hidden in a haze of smoky blue. Or might she be trying to guess how long it will take for the sun to burn up the cold winter sky, and bring back the warmth of spring.
She stares until she can no longer bear the light. Or, is it the cold? I wonder how long she’s been there beside her solid brick house with the barren winter all around her. She turns to move back along the stone path to the house. As she turns a blank spot will block her vision where the sun had been there before. It will take several steps for it do di disappear as her eyes grow accustomed to the shadow cast by her own body. She moves a little faster hunching over as she walks away from the sun. Her leather shoes make little patting sounds on the stone path; and her skirts whip around her legs popping like wet sheets on a clothes line.
Shivering in the cold she climbs the short stair steps leading up to a small stoop. She opens first the outer door, which she braces open with her back as she opens the inner door. She turns to close that door carefully, and I presume to lock it tightly shut. I see her shadow as she pauses there. Then she closes the heavier inner door in the same precise manner.
I walk by her house, and I wonder if she was even the least aware that I was there on a cold winter’s day.
August 22, 2010
Revised September 16, 2010
Revised May 1, 2011 (sometimes it takes months to get away from a story to really read what it says. I know the meaning in my head, and it's hard to get past that fact.
This is sort of like a short story to me... ;) Now, I’m thinking of some political things as well as spiritual things… actually 9/11 and the building of a Muslim Mosque near the site. I am appalled at the number of Americans who are up in arms about this! This country was built on religious freedom. We can’t blame all Muslims for what fringe fanatical group was responsible for… oh… oh, wait… yes, we can. A large number of Americans… in fact, if statistics are correct something like 70%.. for God’s sake! Can’t people think for themselves? Do they have to believe every damned thing they hear from any bozo who wants to say it?
Here’s what I wish… I wish every religion in the world… well, wait… not churches of Satan. Even though I don’t believe in a devil… or Satan per se… I do, yes, believe in a force for evil in the world. I wish all the churches of the world would come together and build their churches or temples as close as they can to that 9/11 site. I wish that they would clear the site and place a huge monolith to some kind of shining white stone… huge… reaching up into the sky like a beacon. I wish they would make the place a park with walk ways around the outside of the site and walk ways up to the monolith like the spokes of a wheel… keep it a circle. I would wish that it had beautiful benches all around the site so that people could look up at the monolith and remember that we are all worshipping the same Creator no matter what we call that Deity. We all worship in different ways… but it is still the One God. I wish that all the religions of the world should be written on the base of that monolith. Beautiful trees… the whole place lit so that it looks like daylight all the time… this in part for the safety of any that might come at night to worship. Lights turned up to the top of that monolith like a beacon to God. Let all people go there and sit in the sight of a place dedicated to ALL religions, including that of my People! Gezuzzz… that would be a beautiful! Damned Beautiful! I’m an artist and a spiritual woman. I think about these things.