August 21, 2008 – Write From Karen

Still busy.

Still INSANELY busy. School starts Monday here and I’m up to my eyeballs posting updates and syllabi on the seven school websites I maintain. Well, actually, I maintain six but I’m uploading a new high school website today! (Ack! Pray it goes well!!)

And I’m finishing templates for a new school website as we speak. (By the way, if your school needs a website, I’m the woman for the job!! Contact me and let’s talk!) I’ll post links to “my” schools soon.

Anyhoo, I don’t have time to write new fiction this week, so I’ll post an oldie (and hopefully a goodie). This was originally published on my self-hosted blog January 11, 2006. It’s what I call “Picture Fiction” – where I take a Creative Commons picture from Flickr and write a short story around it. I should start doing this again – it’s really fun and challenging. *makes note to self*

Catch ya later!

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Thursday is the day I post a bit o’ fiction.

Taking a random photograph from Flickr and weaving a short story around it. It’s Picture Fiction!
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Gemini

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There was something wrong with me. I knew it. I felt it. There was a splitting of souls inside the dark, smelly place I called a heart, one good, the other, not so much. I never knew who was in control. The loving husband who doted on his three-year-old son; or the promiscuous thirty-eight year old man who disappeared for hours at a time after work only to collapse on his front stoop, drunk and reeking of urine?

Why can’t I control the blackness? Why do I find myself succumbing to its seductive allure more and more?

I hear Sharon’s cries. I see the confusion in little Anthony. I can smell their fear. I can hear her, I can see him, I can sense their apprehensions, and yet, I do not care. A cold, evil animal lurks deep in my gut and no amount of coaxing will persuade the beast to venture out of his cave and seek the warmth his family offers on a daily basis.

A part of me is scared and dying. It’s as if I’m in a boat, looking toward shore, and see the good part of me sadly waving goodbye. This goodness shrinks with each passing stroke of the oar while the evil monster inside grows in both size and strength hogging the vessel more and more.

I cannot stop it. It has consumed me. The animal has been released and no one dares capture it.

Thirteen Painful Memories from my Past
(Not for the squeamish)

1. Feared I would never see my sister again when she got lost at an amusement park (she was like five!)

2. While sewing, accidentally got too close to the needle and stuck it through my middle finger (punched a perfect hole through my bone – it took five nurses to hold me down while they jerked it out. – it was more painful than childbirth)

3. Sliced the heel of my foot with a can lid (in the trash bag, on the floor, I simply stepped back and well, you get the picture)

4. Nearly sliced a big chunk of skin off my knuckle while washing a glass (the glass busted on my hand)

5. Fell out of my car (while driving), went skidding across a busy intersection in front of traffic on a busy Friday afternoon (this was on my 19th birthday). My sunglasses disintegrated on my face and sliced the skin on my forehead down to the bone – had to have those big ugly, thick, black stitches, I looked like Frankenstein for weeks. I have an ugly three-inch scar to remind me to WEAR MY SEATBELT! (remind me to tell this story sometime).

6. Smashed my pinky in a folding chair while on my honeymoon – lost the fingernail entirely a few days later.

7. Gave birth to my oldest son eight weeks early, no explanation, it just happened and didn’t know if my little guy would survive or not. He was born on my husband’s birthday. (Little stinker. lol)

8. Lost a few years off my life when my second son was born and they couldn’t get him to breathe.

9. Witnessed my oldest son fall and bust his lip on the edge of the chair. It bled a lot but we didn’t take him to the emergency room for stitches. He has a pretty big bump there now and I blame myself for making the wrong decision.

10. Nearly lost my mind when my youngest son had an asthma attack and literally couldn’t breathe because he was coughing so badly. To top it off, his pediatrician wouldn’t see him because he didn’t have an appointment. I had to take him to a walk-in clinic.

11. Lost my youngest, ON HIS BITHDAY, DURING HIS BIRTHDAY PARTY, and couldn’t find him for fifteen minutes. He had wandered down to a neighbor’s house – she brought him back to me.

12. Had a head-on collision with a woman who turned in front of me. I had JUST settled my youngest in the passenger side seat and buckled him in (he was very whiny, about three, and to quiet him, I told him he could sit up front with me – it was an older car, no air bag) when seconds later we crashed. If it had happened moments earlier, my youngest would have been thrown through the windshield.

13. Fell off a six-foot ladder, from the very top, while changing the marquee in front of Wendy’s on a Friday afternoon. Didn’t go to the hospital until I started peeing blood. Had to have SEVEN enemas before they could x-ray my kidneys to see what kind of damage had been done – they were merely bruised.

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Another session of Coffee Chat starts soon!