The young girl stood at the railing of the Golden Gate Bridge staring out into the thick gray fog. She secured her long curly black hair up into a bun at the back of her neck as tears rolled down her cheeks. She had come to get a last look at the city she had loved, a city that no longer felt safe, but the fog was so thick this morning, she could barely see 2 feet in front of her. She closed her eyes and thought of the last time she had seen the city from this view point. Tina came here often. Her family lived close by and she liked to run everyday. Running across the bridge provided such a beautiful view, plus she loved seeing all the tourists taking pictures and how happy they were to finally be on the famous bridge. Yes, it was annoying sometimes to run around them as they randomly stopped with their selfie sticks, but she made a game out of it, ducking and dodging them like she was in a video game silently keeping score every time she was successful. Her Mom always had a large glass of cold water and a plate of nuts, apples and cheese waiting on the kitchen table when she got back from her run. She had loved her Mom and all the little things she used to do. Tina began to sob now as she thought about it. Her Mom had been killed 6 months ago. She had been walking to her car in a parking garage downtown when a man had grabbed her hijab from behind, pulled her close, and shot her in the head. The man had been caught a week later because he had gotten drunk and started bragging about what he had done to a friend he thought shared his same hatred. The fact that the man had been caught was a relief at first, but all the media attention, the stares, the insults to her Mom, her family, and to her, were too much. Many people had come to support their family. They had received an outpouring from the community of money, food, and some people even came to walk with her to protect her from the haters, but Tina didn’t feel supported. All she could think about was that her mother was gone. She couldn’t get the images of what she’d seen on TV of the people who supported the man who’d killed her mother out of her head. There had been a spray painted message on their garage that had read “You don’t belong here!” And the worst of it, a group of girls had surrounded the outside of her toilet stall at school and had whispered things like “your mother deserved it”, “your mom was a terrorist”, “muslims are scum”, “I hope it hurt when that man shot her”, “I hope the President deports you and bans you from coming back” and so much more. It seemed like they had kept her trapped in there for hours whispering horrible things, things that kept popping into to her head when she least expected it. She can’t forget them no matter what she does. Her father keeps trying to talk to her, but she doesn’t want him to know about it all. He is already so hurt and so angry. She sees how he struggles to keep going for her sake. She hears him crying all night, but every morning he’s in the kitchen making breakfast and trying to appear like nothing is wrong. Tina had stopped running, stopped laughing, stopped caring. She just wanted it all to end. Everyone kept telling her it would get better in time, just think about the good times, remember who your mother was not the way she died, take one day at a time, but that was all bullshit. Her mother was gone and never coming back. Her life had changed forever and she couldn’t handle it. Her Mom had been her rock. The expectation that she be just as strong as her mother, pick up the pieces, and carry on were unfair. Her mother was exceptional. That man had extinguished her life in seconds knowing nothing about her other than she wore a hijab. Tina pulled one of her mother’s hijabs from of her pocket now and put it on. It felt warm like her mother had put her arms around her. As she straightened the material around her neck and head, she caught a whiff of her mother’s scent. She smiled. It was the scent of lavender. She thought of the time her mother had put a little drop of lavender on her wrist and how grown up she had felt. Tina took a deep breath. And another. She knew she had to be fast. She didn’t want anyone to stop her. Someone may be on their way now with all the crying she had been doing. She was angry with herself. She had told herself that she wouldn’t give off any signs of wanting to jump. That anger helped her stop crying now. She wiped her tears away. She took another deep breath, quickly climbed over the railing, and jumped before she could change her mind.
Photo Fiction #74 (Random_Michelle) – Write a short story in 300 words or less
The monk had been a baby when he’d come to the temple. He’d never met his parents and never would. He’d been told they had died in an accident leaving him orphaned. When the boy had turned twelve, he’d decided to try and get to the village down the mountain to see if anyone had known his parents. He just wanted to hear stories about them. Unfortunately, he never made it to the village. As he slowly and carefully trekked down the mountain, he’d heard the cry of an animal. It sounded hurt. The boy knew that wounded animals could be even more dangerous yet he still went into the direction of the cry. He finally spotted it as he pushed through a thick set of bushes. Upon seeing that it was a tiger, the boy almost turned and ran, but he realized the tiger wasn’t fully grown yet. The tiger turned it’s head toward him and just cried before laying back down. The boy stepped toward it slowly to see if the tiger would try swipe or bite at him. The tiger just watched him. The boy touched the tiger’s head, first petting him and then scratching the tiger’s ears and while he did this, he inspected the tiger looking for where it was hurt. The tiger had scratches and wounds all over and one of it’s legs seemed to be strained or broken. The boy lovingly had taken care of the tiger for weeks, cleaning and tending the wounds and feeding the tiger. The tiger often nuzzled the boy seeking scratches. They were becoming friends. When the tiger was healed, the boy didn’t want to see the tiger go. Everyday year after year, the boy, now a monk, ate his lunch out on the hillside and sometimes the tiger would find him there.
(A Story Cube Short Story)
As Kayla sat at her desk trying to figure out how her bank account got overdrawn, she began to feel overwhelmed. Christmas is in a month. How was she going to pay for her ticket home? It had to be an oversight on her part somewhere, but where? She scoured her account again looking for a charge she didn’t recognize or didn’t remember. How could she have done this to herself? What is she going to tell her parents when she tells them what happened? It wasn’t her fault though. At least she didn’t think so. She’d been busy for weeks working on her paper for her Emerging Global Culture Class. Sure she had spent a lot of time at the Coffee Genie working on her notes, brainstorming, and writing, but she hadn’t spent $400 on coffee and snacks had she? No, she had to figure this out. She was going to have to learn how to download her transactions from her bank. She hadn’t signed up for it yet because she was afraid that someone would be able to steal her information from her computer, but maybe someone had already gotten ahold of her banking info. Ugh! She dreaded finding out. She still had finals to get through. The last thing she needed right now was to deal with money issues.
“Hey Kayla!”
Kayla jumped.
“Oh, sorry…your door was open. I just wanted to drop off your speech for your Psych class. I went over it. It looks good though I did make a few corrections here and there. I think you should…hey, are you okay?” Liam asked as he got a good look at Kayla.
“Thanks Liam. Sorry, I just found out that I overdrew my account and I don’t know how. I thought I’d been doing a good job balancing my account, but somehow I spent $400 that I don’t remember spending.” Kayla stopped because she felt the tears coming and she tried to hold them back. She didn’t want to cry in front of Liam.
“Wow, are you sure you spent the money? Did you go through your transactions?” Liam inquired.
Kayla nodded still trying to fight the tears.
Liam crossed the room and sat next to Kayla on her bed. “How about your wallet? Do you have all your cards? My Mom dropped her card once on her way out of the grocery store and didn’t notice for days till she tried to use it when she went to the gas station. When she reported it lost, she found out someone had been using it and the charges were reversed.”
Kayla grabbed her purse and took out her wallet. Her fingers fumbled trying to unzip it as she hoped that maybe her problems would be solved if she didn’t find her debit card in there. Liam saw her struggling and took the wallet from her and opened it up. Kayla saw the empty slot immediately. Her card was missing. When had she used it last?
Liam told her to call the bank and report it lost and they would go through her transactions with her to see which charges were hers and which were someone else. Kayla was anxious about calling the bank to admit that she had lost her card despite all of her parents warnings before she left for college to always keep track of it. She had promised that she would and now she was going to have to tell them that she’d lost it and not only that, but that someone had used it. She started crying this time. She couldn’t hold back the tears. She felt like she had let her parents down. She had wanted to show them how much of a grown up she was and yet here only a few months into her first semester she felt like she was barely making it. Liam put his arm around her and told her not to worry. The problem was fixable as long as she dealt with it as soon as possible. Kayla took some deep breaths and got herself under control. She thanked Liam for his help and support, but asked if she could be alone to make the phone calls. Liam said he understood and wished her luck before leaving her dorm room closing the door after him.
Kayla got out her cell phone, took a deep breath, and called the bank. The phone call seemed to take forever, but she felt better once it was over. The person who had helped Kayla had been really nice and like Liam had said, they went through each of the transactions on her account until she got to ones she didn’t recognize. Whoever had taken her card had gone to Barnes & Noble and bought almost $75 in books, $40 in yarn from an organic sheep farmer, and had signed up for a sky diving class. Not what Kayla would’ve done if she’d had free access to someone’s card for sure especially not the sky diving class. She was terrified of heights and hated to fly let alone jump out of a plane. The bank told her to file a police report and let them know about the skydiving class since it hadn’t happened yet. Maybe the person would show up and the police could catch them. Kayla wasn’t sure what would happen, but she was glad that the problem on her end was solved. Well, at least most of it. She still had to tell her parents. Maybe she would go tell Liam what happened and get dinner at the commons before she called her them. Talking to the bank had taken a lot out of her. Talking to her parents was going to be even more taxing. She needed a break. Kayla found her hoodie and put it on, grabbed her school ID and her keys, and walked down to Liam’s room. It felt good to move. She’d been so anxious all afternoon. Maybe she needed to go for a run before she talked to her parents. She wondered if Liam liked to run. She hoped he did.
For weeks I’ve felt like someone was watching me. I’d be at the grocery store or stuck in traffic and I would get that tickly feeling on the back of my neck. I would study the people around me trying to figure out which one of them triggered that sixth sense, but finding no one suspicious or familiar. I figured I was just stressed, but the feeling wouldn’t stop. As a matter of fact, it got worse. It was driving me crazy. My BFF took me out to a club to let off some steam. We did a few shots and danced like crazy. I got really hot and stepped outside to cool off and smoke a cigarette. As I searched my purse for a lighter, a man stepped from the shadows with a lit lighter in hand.
“Oh, thank you,” I said as I stepped forward and lit my cigarette. I looked up into the man’s eyes and the feeling hit me hard. I took a step back and ran into a wall. “Who are you?”
“I’ve been watching you since your Boss’ funeral.” As he said this, I did recognize him. He continued, “Betsy asked me to give you a letter, but she wanted me to make sure of your character first. My team and I have been checking you out and found no red flags, so I am free to give you the letter. She thought very highly of you.” I took the letter and as I read it, I was surprised to find out she had left me her business. Wow! I couldn’t believe it. It was totally unexpected. “Is this for real?”
“Yes, come see me Monday and I’ll explain it all,” he said handing me his business card.
My girlfriend came out to check on me and I ran to tell her the news.
Photo Fiction #70 – Random Michelle – What the hell is real?
Cubing the Stories 11 (The Blog Propellant)
Five days after the reading of my father’s will, I found myself on a plane to Egypt with an old-fashioned key on a chain around my neck. In his will, my father wrote a list of instructions for me to follow in order to earn my inheritance. His last wishes were that I follow my dreams and travel, so he was sending me to Egypt. While there, I was to visit anywhere I like, but specifically the Egyptian Museum, the Valley of Kings, and the Great Pyramid of Giza where I was supposed to find clues that would lead me to what the key unlocked.
After landing, I took the first few days to get over my jet lag and to explore with no specific agenda. I just wandered around, taking pictures, and talking to some friendly locals about the best places to eat. I felt the stresses of my everyday life slipping away as I lost myself in the city of Cairo.
This morning I was heading to cafe recommended to me by a woman I bumped into at the bookstore. I literally bumped into her as I took pictures (a “shelfie” for my bookstagram account) and dropped the books she was carrying. I helped her to pick them up and we got to talking. I mentioned how much I would like to find a good cup of coffee. The coffee in my hotel room just wasn’t cutting it and I didn’t want to find the Starbuck’s I had heard about. I wanted to really experience Egypt. She said I had to go to Zahrat-el Bustan. I found the cafe, ordered a turkish coffee, and took a seat. I sat sipping my coffee, feeling the caffeine zing through my veins, and writing in my travel journal. As I wrote, I found myself smiling. My Father had been right. I needed to follow my dreams. I rubbed the key between my fingers, looked to the sky, and said, “Thank You Daddy.” Tomorrow I would start looking for his clues and figure out what else he wanted to tell me.
I began with the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities. I have always loved museums. My Father took me to many different ones when I was a kid and now I always felt the need to check out the museums in the cities I did get to visit. I roamed around the museum reading the fascinating histories of the pieces presented. As I walked over to see the statue of the Goddess Neith, a man in a suit approached me. He held out his hand and introduced himself as Muhammad. As I shook his hand, he went on to say that he had been a friend of my father’s. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope handing it to me. “Your father gave me this to give to you when I saw you here.” I started to ask how he knew who I was, but he stopped me, put his hand back into his pocket, and pulled out an old photograph of me. It was one my father had taken of me a few years ago when we had gone on a brunch cruise out on the San Francisco bay. It had been right before he’d been diagnosed with cancer. Muhammad and I walked around the museum talking about my father. Muhammad told me so many stories I hadn’t known. They met 45 years ago when my father came to do research for a book he was writing and apparently my father came back quite often to visit and spend time with Muhammad and his family. I wondered why my father had never mentioned it. I thought I had known everything about him. I thanked Muhammad for his time and he invited me to his house for dinner before I left. I accepted his invitation looking forward to learning more about my Father, but what I really wanted right now was to find a place to sit down and read what was inside the envelope. I walked out of the museum and sat down on the nearest unoccupied bench outside. My hands were trembling as I tore open the envelope and pulled the letter out. It read;
My dear sweet daughter,
Just kidding. Hello Lunaloo! I know this must be hard, but I am proud of you for coming all the way here. What do you think? Isn’t this city fascinating? It has become a home away from home for me. Muhammad and his family always welcomed me. I loved to escape here. Being around all this ancient history always got my mind going whenever I was stuck. I think almost every one of my books came from an idea I got while wandering around various parts of Egypt, but the museum was one of my favorites. I spent many hours here thinking about what it must have been like all those years ago when the antiquities seen here were brand new. You know how I used to get. I could day-dream for hours. Muhammad often had to come looking for me when I was late for dinner. He was such an understanding man. I hope you will spend some time here and really take it all in. As you may have guessed by now, I have some friends waiting for you at each of the destinations I asked you to visit. I know I never told you about coming here, but I never told anyone. It was where I came whenever I got writer’s block. I always had to come alone. I didn’t want the distractions or itineraries that traveling with others brought. I hope you can understand. I did want you to see it though. I love you Lunaloo and I always will. Love, Daddy
My eyes teared up a little, but I was able to stop the tears from overflowing. I didn’t want to cry out here in front of all these people. My father’s words warmed my heart. I headed back to my hotel and planned out my next day. I thought I would go to the Great Pyramid of Giza next. I had always dreamt of going there ever since I saw “The Mummy” starring Boris Karloff and started studying everything I could find out about Egypt and mummification as a kid. I wonder if that’s why my Dad brought me here. I dragged him to the library I don’t know how many times to check out book after book about Egypt or even just books where the stories took place in Egypt. I think I was obsessed for over a year before I took a painting class that included a little art history about the techniques we would be learning. I then became obsessed with the painters of old. As all the memories flooded in, I started to feel exhausted physically and mentally and decided to turn in early. Tomorrow had the potential to be another long day.
I made it to the Pyramid early. I wanted to get pictures of it in all kinds of light through the day. I also hoped to get a few shots before a lot of people arrived. I wished I had gone to the cafe first to get a cup of that delicious turkish coffee, but I was here now and ready to learn whatever my Father wanted to tell me today. I sat in silence just staring at the Pyramid when a little old man came walking toward me and introduced himself as Asra. He sat down next to me and handed me a large envelope. As I took it in my hands, I felt that it was quite heavy. Asra was a little out of breath, so I we sat in silence for a few minutes while he recovered.
“Your father saved my life once,” he said. I looked at him surprised. He laughed and continued, “He saw some men chase and corner me in an alley. He followed them in and stood in front of me. They told him to mind his own business, but your father persisted. He asked and kept asking what I had done. They finally told him I owed them money. He asked how much and when they gave him the number, your father didn’t blink, he reached into his bag and he paid the men. After they left, I thanked him, but told him he was crazy for interfering. Your father just laughed and said he couldn’t stand by and watch them kill me. Your father was a good man. I owed him my life and helped him whenever I could after that. He came to see me about two years ago and gave me that package for you. He looked terrible. It broke my heart to see him so weak when all I could remember was that man who stood up for me. He tells me you are just like him; strong, wild, and an imagination that can create worlds far greater than anything he could. He asked me to tell you to stop dreaming of those worlds and start writing those stories in your head down. Inside that envelope is one of his last book ideas. He made a lot of notes and even started writing the story. I read it and helped him edit it as I always have with his books. It’s good, but it’s not finished. I hope you will finish it.” He stopped talking then and I could see tears in his eyes. I put my hand on his and thanked him for being my father’s friend and for all his words. I couldn’t tell him that I was not a writer like my father though. I had always wanted to be, but every time I sat down and tried to get the stories out, they never came. Asra showed me around the Great Pyramid. Telling me more stories I didn’t know about my father. It was another good day and I thought I would be exhausted again as I made my way back to my hotel, but my curiosity about what was in the now very heavy envelope won in the end. I stayed up almost all night reading the story my father had started. I was so engrossed in the story that when a late night lightning storm knocked out the power for an hour, I had used the flashlight on my keychain to keep reading. I was so tired, but I felt energized at the same time. The story had stirred up so many thoughts. I had made notes throughout the night. As I went over them again adding a few things here and there, the exhaustion won out and I fell asleep for 10 hours. I woke up starving and as I left my room in search of food I found a man sitting outside my door. I screamed and started to back into my room and just as I was closing the door, he quickly said, “I knew your father.” I pulled the door back open. “I’m sorry to have frightened you, but when you did not come to the Valley of Kings today, I worried about you and brought your Father’s gift here. I knocked several times, but you did not answer. Are you okay?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine. I was just up all night reading my father’s manuscript and fell asleep this morning. I just woke up. Wow, I must have really been sleeping hard. I did not hear your knocks. I am so sorry.”
“Well, I have brought your last present from your Father. How about I take you to a wonderful place I know for dinner and we can talk?”
“Sure, that sounds good.” I doubled checked that I had my room key and left with him. His name was Nofre and the wonderful place he knew was his house. His wife and family were very welcoming and the food was warm and delicious. We talked for a few hours. His stories were funny and spending time with his family was just what I needed after spending most of the last week alone. I kept staring at the box he had brought from my father. It was a large beautifully carved wooden box. I had not missed the keyhole on the front. The keyhole that I bet the key around my neck would fit. Nofre noticed me staring and he got up and brought it to the table in front of me. I took out the key and looked at him, he nodded, and I unlocked the box. Inside were more notes, pictures, drawings, and on the very bottom a laptop. As I pulled everything out and laid it on the table, Nofre told me how he and his father would work on stories together. My father would ask him to take him to see places he’d read about, places that he would eventually include somehow in his stories. They may appear as the city on a space station deep in space or the road trip between two old friends in another or some artifact would change a little, but it would be the treasure the main characters went out on a quest for. They had shared many adventures together and her father had hoped that his daughter would be inspired their adventures too. The drawings included, Nofre had done and sent via texts to her father when he got to weak to travel. His mind had never stopped working. I had known he had kept trying to write, but I didn’t know he had gone to such lengths to get his ideas. I thought he had just come up with them on his own. Now all those talks I had had with my Father about traveling and experiencing life made sense. He’d wanted me to have adventures too. I started crying as I realized how much I had stood in my own way. He had been nudging me for years and now only after he was gone did I see what he’d been doing this whole time.
That night I wrote an e-mail to my boss quitting my job. On the laptop I had found a video from my Father that explained to me about a very large bank account that he had set aside for me to start living. I took his advice and started traveling everywhere I had dreamt about. I worked on the story he had started and when I finished it I brought it back to Egypt and shared it with my Father’s friends. They each read it and gave me some final pointers before I submitted it to my father’s agent. It was 2 long months before he found a publishing house to print it, but I finally became a published author with my father’s name next to mine on the cover. I still wore the key around my neck. It had become a lucky charm of sorts. Standing in the back room at my first book talk and signing, I rubbed the key, looked up at the ceiling, and said, “Thank you Daddy.”
Write a short story using the dice pictured above (The Blog Propellant)
Three weeks ago, I friend of mine named George called and asked if I wanted to go camping. George is not the outdoorsy type, so naturally I was intrigued.
“Why do you, of all people, want to go camping?” I asked.
“Well…I found this old teepee in my grandfather’s basement the other day. I remember him telling me about it as a kid. He told me stories of when he used to take my Dad out several times a year and they would camp under the stars in the teepee. He had always wanted to take me too, but after he had that first stroke when I was four, he never could. I dreamed about it all the time though. I wondered what it would be like to be out there with him, so I thought it might be a nice way to remember him and my Dad now that they are both gone. What do you think?”
“I would love to, but what happens if we can’t get the teepee up? What if it’s so old it just falls apart? Don’t get me wrong, I loved your grandpa and your dad and would love to sit around and talk about them with you, but I’d like to know that we’re going to have at least a little something between us and the wildlife.”
“Oh, no worries there. I already brought it up from the basement and spread it all out for an inspection to make sure it was all in one piece. Everything seems in working order. I even think I can get it standing. I was going to do a practice run this week to make sure though. So, will you come with me?”
I sat so quietly contemplating my decision that George thought I had ended the call, but eventually I agreed to go.
We left on our adventure a week later. We packed everything from flashlights to first-aid kits into my jeep and followed the directions to the campsite his grandfather used to always go to. George had found a box with maps,a bunch of little boxes and whatnot, and postcards/letters his Dad had sent home while camping in the teepee. George had only looked at the maps. He had thought that going through the box was something we could do once we got there. “I think it will have more meaning if we see the stuff and read the letters in the place they were written,” he’d explained when I asked as we drove. I kind of understood that, but I don’t think I could’ve resisted looking if I were him.
The trip to the campsite only took a little over 3 hours. The final directions were to turn right onto this dirt road that lead into a forest that seemed to get darker the further we drove into it. It was a little creepy and I began to feel uneasy. I kept trying to tell myself that it was all in my head, but then I kept seeing movement and sometimes glowing yellow eyes every now and then. George noticed that I had started to look a little nervous and asked, “Are you okay?” I just shook my head and said, “I’m fine. I think I’m just getting hungry and a little tired.” He seemed to accept my answer, but my unease kept growing and just as I was about to ask him if we could turn around, we came to a break in the forest and the sunlight returned. It felt warm on my skin and my fear began to fade. Siri announced that our destination would be on our left in half a mile. A sign appeared that read, “Sunflower Ranch and Camping Grounds” and just after it, a driveway. We turned in, paid for our campsite and return we got a map. The man also told us to watch out for sheep in the road. “They are apart of the ranch and move about freely, but generally move out of the way when cars approach,” he’d warned. When I looked at the map, it seemed that our site was the furthest from the road and didn’t really have any other sites near it. I was happy about that. When George and I get to talking about old times, we tend to get a little loud. Every other time, we’d gone camping, we had always gotten warnings to be quiet from the Ranger on duty. Maybe this time would be different.
We made it to the campsite without encountering any sheep. We unloaded most of what was in the jeep and George began putting up the teepee. I jumped in to help as needed. He had obviously practiced more than once because it seemed like the teepee was up in no time. I took pictures of us with the teepee using my tripod. There was no cell service out here, so I couldn’t post anything just yet, but I wanted to document our trip. I started thinking of what to call our trip, “Our Adventure into the Trees” or “A Night in a Teepee”. I wouldn’t decide yet since so much could happen overnight that could really define our time here.
George started making a fire and I found the portable speaker and got some tunes going. Then I started pulling out the ingredients I had already pre-chopped for campfire nachos and threw them into the cast iron skillet. Once I was done arranging it into the pan, the fire was just starting to really catch. It wasn’t quite hot enough to cook on yet, so I grabbed the bottle opener and cracked open a few beers. George set out the folding chairs. We took a seat and watched the fire as it grew and started to give off warmth. After our first beers were gone, we got up and I started the nachos while he finished unloading our stuff. He set the table and moved our chairs to the table. He disappeared into the teepee for a bit and when he reappeared, he was carrying a big box.
“Here’s the box of camping stuff I told you about. I can’t wait to go through it,” he said as he set it down on the table.
“Wow, that’s a lot bigger than I thought it would be. How many times did your Dad and Grandfather come out here?” I asked as the smell of the cooking nachos hit me and made my stomach rumble.
“My dad said they would go at least 5 or 6 times a year. They had a good relationship and enjoyed spending time together. Times were different back then before cell phones, iPods, iPads, and TV. My dad said he hardly ever watched TV even though they had one. He loved being outside. That’s how he became fascinated with bugs and decided to study them when he got to college.”
“I remember that one time I came to your house and your dad had brought home those bugs he had found on his trip and he was mounting them. It gave me the heebee jeebees. How did you not have nightmares all the time?”
“I have been learning about bugs and touching them for as long as I can remember. I never found them gross or scary. They were always just there.”
I brought the nachos to the table and we dug in, burning our tongues, but we were so hungry, we didn’t care.
Once we were full, we cleared the table and cleaned up. Then George put the box back on the table and we started spreading out the things we found inside. We made pile of the postcards/letters. There were also;
- a bunch of old coins
- a few old matchbox cars
- a big box of polished/unpolished rocks
- another smaller box filled with old arrowheads and what looked like little bones
- a sketch pad filled with drawings of bugs, birds, and trees
- a small arrow
- a weird little statue of what looked like a bear
We sat down and just looked at everything, turning them over in our hands, and inspecting the items. George’s Dad had been a really good artist even at a young age. He started to add real details around age 9. The pictures of the spiders really creeped me out because they looked so real on the page. It was like they were going to pop right out at me. At the back of the book, there was a picture of the weird little bear statue sitting in the hollow of a tree with a notation saying “Found on December 23, 1955”.
George picked up the pile of postcards and started reading them out loud. They told stories of fishing and bug catching, long hikes up into the hills, finding caves, being scared of a snake that had wiggled across their path, and this one time he had fallen out of their canoe because he had been laughing so hard at a hawk that had caught a snake, but the snake had wrapped itself around the hawk’s wing in flight and made if fall from the sky. The snake had escaped as the hawk just lay there dazed from the fall.
The last letter was different from the others. George’s Dad’s handwriting looked shaky and rushed and the story it told was weird. The letter began one morning right after breakfast, a bird had landed on their table and kept tweeting at them. It would hop towards the end of the table tweeting then come back. It seemed that the bird wanted them to follow it. So they did. The bird would fly aways and then tweet till they caught up and then fly again. Eventually they found it sitting outside a cave they had never seen before. They approached the cave quietly and looked in and listened. Something in there seemed to be in pain. The bird flew in and when they didn’t follow, it came back out and pecked George’s Dad on the head and flew back in again. It did this several times before they cautiously went in.
Just a short way into the cave, they found a baby bear holding it’s paw and crying out. George’s Grandfather was worried about the Momma bear coming back and finding them there and suggested they let the little bear be and go. His Momma would help him. It wasn’t their job, but George’s Dad disagreed. He didn’t want to leave the little bear crying like that. He approached the bear. At first, the baby bear growled and tried to swipe it him, but the bird that had lead them there pecked the baby bear on the head and the bear stopped. The little bear let George’s Dad look at it’s paw. At first he thought it was just a stick protruding out, but when he got a good look at it, he realized it was an arrow. Someone had shot the bear. Father and son worked together to get the arrow out and bandage up the baby bear. They kept an eye on the bear for the rest of their camping trip, but never saw it’s mother. They were heading home when George’s Dad got really upset about leaving the poor little bear all alone. They turned around and took all the food they had left in the truck to the cave for the bear.
“That’s it? That’s the end of the story?” I asked George when he stopped reading.
“Looks like it.”
“But I wanna know what happened to the baby bear. Did it’s Momma ever come back? Did it survive?”
“It doesn’t say and I don’t see any other letters or postcards that come after that one. What a cliffhanger!”
“There has to be another letter. Check the box again.”
George looked in the box, checking under the flaps and turning it upside down. Nothing.
I picked up the letter and read through it again hoping to find clues we may have missed the first time around, but it wasn’t until I was putting the letter back in order that I noticed the date at the top. George’s Dad had written the letter in August of 1955. 1955…where had I seen that? I searched the other letters and the coins. Nothing. Was I imagining it? Then I saw George looking through the sketchbook. I grabbed it from him and I went straight to the last page. The sketch of the weird little bear statue.
“Look George, this sketch was drawn after the letter. It’s the statue from the box.”
They both looked over at the statue. Had his Dad made it in remembrance of the bear? It looked like it had been whittled. As I reached out to touch it, I felt a shock like I had been dragging my feet across a carpet. I pulled my hand back and just looked at it. Hmmm…weird.
“I guess we’ll just have to wonder,” George said as he picked it up without incident. I nodded my head, but I hate unanswered questions and I knew it would bug me the rest of the night.
We ended up sitting around the fire talking about the good old days until we both grew tipsy and tired and passed out in the teepee.
I was woken up by the smell of smoke and was that electricity? As I reached over to wake George, something entered the teepee and grabbed my sleeping bag and pulled me out. As my head cleared the teepee, I saw what had pulled me. It was a bear. There were two of them. The bigger one, bit the side of my sleeping bag and lifted me up over of the smaller one, and laid me on the top. As soon as the big bear let go, the little bear took off. It was then that I noticed the teepee was on fire. George! I tried to wiggle off the bear, but that only made him run faster. Just as we were leaving the clearing of our campground, I saw the big bear pulling George out. A bird swooped down then and pecked George on the head. George looked up and saw the teepee was on fire and moved away on his own. It started to pour down rain then. This all seemed so surreal. I just hung on to the bear and went with it. I saw George running behind the big bear and the little bird on the path behind us. What the hell was going on? Where was this bear taking me?
I thought we were never going to stop, but then we entered a cave and the little bear shook me off. I got myself out of my sleeping bag just as George and the others caught up to us.
George bent down to help me up. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I think so. Is this really happening? I’m not dreaming am I?”
George pinched me. “Ow! That Hurt!”
“Nope you’re not dreaming,” he said.
The bird pecked George on the head and flew toward a light in the cave. We followed and found many pictures on the walls. The big bear pointed at a picture of lightning and then one of a teepee, then back at us. Was he trying to talk to us?
“Lightning struck our teepee?” George asked. He seemed to be catching on quicker than I.
The bear nodded.
“Why did you save us?”
The big bear turned around and moved further back into the cave. The bird pecked our heads and we followed. The bear stopped and pointed again. We had to get close to see what he was pointing at this time. It was a picture of two stick figures putting food at the mouth of the cave with a tiny bear inside. Next to this picture were five sun drawings in a row. The big bear touched each sun and then there was a big bear entering the cave. Then there was a picture of the bird pecking at a fallen log. Followed by a picture of the weird little bear statue. The big bear held up the statue now and I got chills.
George said, “You saved us cause my family saved you?”
The bear nodded.
We both said “Thank you” in unison and smiled. We now knew the end of the story as crazy as it was.
We never spoke of the bears or the bird to anyone else, but we continued to go out there to visit them and we would always share a meal.
Photo-Fiction #51 – (Random Michelle) Write a story or poem based on the the picture in 300 words.
George sat going through the file of the person he was to question next. They only had a few hours before they had to get back to work. This was an off the books operation. His partner of twenty years was helping him. They had finally brought in the two guys they had each taken turns following for weeks in connection to the disappearance of his daughter Julie. She had been missing for a year. Three months ago, George had been going through her room again. He pulled all the books off of her shelves, sat on her bed and went through them looking for clues of any kind. Julie had been an avid reader. She tagged her favorite quotes, made notes in the margins, and posted reviews on her vlog. He read her notes, visited each spot that was marked, and then flipped through and shook each book. He found himself learning a lot about his daughter that he hadn’t known. She really thought about the books she read and the underlying lessons in each story. She always tried to talk him about the books she read, but he only half listened. He regretted that now. He’d been beaten himself up about how little he had paid attention to her because maybe he could’ve protected her if he’d known what was going on in her life. Eventually, he’d found a handwritten note that said, “Victor, White Door Publishing @ The Crazy Bean 4pm 8/16” That was the day she’d gone missing. The two guys they had brought in worked for Victor. They suspected Victor was some sort of internet pimp, selling girls online, but they didn’t have anything concrete yet. George heard footsteps approaching the door. He put his game face on and hoped he could get another lead.
Onto My Next 40 Years 