Whine-a-Palooza

This is me today. Okay...most days.

Today’s Monday. I have yet another round of work to do on those macros I’ve been struggling with for the last week. I thought I had it done, but not really. One last thing I have to find and fix, but it’s probably going to be harder than I think. It usually is.

My wife took the kids trick or treating yesterday. I, once again, have missed out because of my crippling back pain. I can’t even walk a few blocks with my kids for their special day. I’m furious, nauseated and f**king sick and tired of this. I want my life back. I can’t function like this. I can get up and do some basic things for a few minutes, so by definition I’m not “disabled”, but normal activities like shopping and walking down the street for more than a few steps are out of the question. I know a few of you have sympathized because you’ve been stricken with chronic illness or back pain yourselves. I’m going on something like three years of debilitating pain. I never had health insurance to deal with it before, and now that I do, the out-of-pocket expenses are too high to deal with this before Christmas. It’s just going to have to go into the hopper for next year. After we recover, of course, from Christmas. And God help us if something happens to the car and we need to fix it again.

I think part of it might be stress. I’m really worried about this stupid issue where I can’t figure out why the data’s not being moved to the right places at the right time. I feel like my job’s on the line, though I have every indication my boss fully supports me and is in my corner, understands and trusts I’ll get it done. I think he mentioned the last time we spoke about it the drop-dead deadline was when the big-wigs from corporate come to visit us and see how we’re doing now that the new system is live for us. That gives me some time, and mostly things are okay. It’s just a couple of things, and I have to root them out and fix them. I have to. I’m sick of saying this.

So today’s my Whine-a-Palooza. How was your weekend?

-JDT-

Halloween Weekend

Well, we’re officially in the “holiday season” – at least, as far as I’m concerned we are. I’ve always discounted Halloween as a holiday, but it’s no less one than say Valentine’s Day. It’s just less sexual, which sucks, but it does have candy, which is good. So.

Thanksgiving is next here in the US, and in just two weeks from Halloween my boy will be nine. NINE. Cripes! What happened?! Where’d the years go?

My back could account for every minute. It’s been bitchin’ and moanin’ up a storm over the last few months and my “walk” – if you can call it that – from the job interview to the train station STILL has me sore. I knew Halloween would be no picnic for me. I can’t walk that far or that long and the kids end up being cheated out of their treats if I have to bail.

With that in mind, I considered buying a cane. Maybe a walker. The walker is the ideal solution. I can walk and still keep my gut’s enormity off my lower back. But I have no idea where I can get one and they don’t give ‘em away, so no-go on that one. Then I thought about a cane. Ideally, one of the metal ones with those four feet down at the bottom for stability. But again, they don’t give those away and I don’t have money for that. Plus I’m not sure a cane would’ve helped. If not, it’s money lost, wasted. Can’t chance it.

So, my wife and I developed a strategy. She can’t drive. I can’t walk. So, I’ll drive her to the location of choice and she’d walk the kids around.

Worked out fabulously. I darn-near finished a book I’ve been pecking at for a few weeks, and had my phone at the ready if she needed a lift. (She didn’t.) The kids ended up with a LOAD of goodies and everyone was happy.

I missed being with them though. I swore next year I’d be in physical condition to do it them, and so, as you read this, today is the day I begin an aggressive attack on my girth.

Wish me luck.

Other than that, I just slurped and struggled with THAT doggone thing. Most people think “revising” a book is easy. It’s not. And it’s REALLY not when the writer of the original writes so radically different from my voice. *Sigh*. Wish me luck THERE too.

How was your weekend?

-JDT-

Check out my latest book, available for download!

A Moonlit Stroll [Amazon Kindle Edition] A Moonlit Stroll [Amazon UK Kindle Edition] A Moonlit Stroll [Smashwords Edition]

And check out my first book, also available for download!

A Fine Cast of Characters on Amazon US (Kindle version) A Fine Cast of Characters on Amazon UK (Kindle version) A Fine Cast of Characters on Smashwords (non-Kindle versions)

©DarcKnyt All rights reserved

Give Me a Light

Another year, another cross-country trip to Georgia for a family visit.

California’s central valley is a boring drive.  There’s not much to see.  They couldn’t leave during the day – he had to work, and the overtime money from the shipyard is hard to turn down – so they left when he got home.  By nightfall, they’re in the bowels of the long, narrow state, and Highway Five is a lonely band of barren road coming into Barstow.  Forty years ago traffic was much lighter, and the nights less invaded with artificial light from sprawling truck stops and suburbs splashing out from the major metropolitan areas.

Besides, there is no major metropolitan area near Button Willow, CA.  Bakersfield is the next best thing, 26 miles east.  There, they’ll veer onto Interstate 40 and head east as far and as long as they can.

For now, the empty road winds near the mountains encircling the valley.  Crisp, bright stars dot the night sky.  The little VW’s interior is dark, but the bright, white moon casts a baleful eye over the scene, stretching shadows in menacing claws over dirt, gravel, scrub brush and highway.

The road rises for miles, then begins to drop into the basin where the “towns” are – wide spots in the road designed to refuel and feed truckers bound for points east.  A few burger joints, gas stations and not much else mark the place, for those not heading to L.A. or Barstow or Bakersfield.

They begin their slow ascent and the little VW bug strains at it.  The stars pierce bright in the clear, desert sky.  She’s staring out the window, watching them twinkle, when something catches her eye.

“What is that?” she says, turning her face to him and pointing out of the corner of the windshield.

He leans forward, scrunching his face up to lift his glasses in front of his eyes.  “Oh, that’s Venus.”

“Venus?”

“Yeah.”

“Does Venus move in and out of the mountains like that?”  She folds her arms over her chest and leans back.

He blinks at her, then looks again.

A brilliant spot of unfluctuating light moved in perfect unison with the stars as the car droned on … and then it passed in front of the silhouette of a mountain, ducked behind another and reappeared in front of yet a third.  She perks a brow at him.

“Venus?”

“Probably a helicopter or plane, then,” he states, and returns his focus to the road ahead.

She looks back at the little beacon and watches it move along beside them for a moment, then reaches into her purse.  She pulls out a package of Salems, slides one into her mouth, and fishes for a lighter.  She finds a battered book of them, pulls one free, and strikes it.

And the tiny beacon, so shiny in the mountains some miles away, suddenly shot toward them.  It drew near enough to be the size of a dinner plate and its brilliance illuminated the entire interior of the car, chasing away all shadows and gashing their dark-adjusted eyes.

“Holy—!” he says, and the car swerves, spitting gravel from the tires as it runs onto the unpaved shoulder.

She gasps and drops the match.  It dies as it falls.

And the light backs away, so they can see again, but is about the size of a softball and the glow still lights the inside of the car, the road around them and the ground beneath it.  It illuminates enough to show the sandy color of the dirt, the dead, gray grasses tufted in patches amid the stones, and the green of the scrub brush leaves.

“Oh my God,” she whispers.

“Don’t … do that again,” he says, still driving.

“It’s … following us.”

He grunts, and presses the gas to the floor.  The speedometer climbs – 60, 65, 70 miles an hour.

The light never moves, never changes its position relative to theirs, size or shape.  It matches them move for move.

He grunts again and hits the brakes, and she has to put her hands against the dash to keep from slamming into it.  50, 40, 35 … all the way down to ten miles an hour.

And still the light kept pace, never changes position, size or shape.

Gradually, he accelerates again, and the light stays in place, moving as if part of their vehicle, just off the road a safe distance, lighting the ground beneath it.

“What … what should we do?” she says, her voice wavering.

He shakes his head, says nothing.  There’s no color in his face.

The road crests and then sinks, and on the horizon, the glittering lights of Barstow appear in the sea of black, shimmering in the distance.  And as suddenly as it appeared, the light receded to a tiny point among the stars in the night, and vanished.

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This story is true as related to me by my parents.  I rode on these trips with them as an infant or small child, but have no memory of them directly.

All original content © 2009 DarcKnyt
ALL rights reserved.

Just a Shadow of a Man

I don’t remember what he said awoke him.  A sense of foreboding?  That prickly sensation of someone being there?  Stealthy footfalls on the carpet?  I can’t recall.

My father awoke and listened.  The quiet suburb seems morgue-like in its stillness at night.  This is a relatively new neighborhood, and not all the houses are occupied.  The loping hills which roll around the town, ripples of the Diablo range, still encroach on the streets and the fresh, black asphalt.  There is little disturbance during the day, and in the dark of night, the quiet is complete.

He heard it again.  Padded steps, whispering across the carpet.

He stole to the bedroom door and chanced a quick glance through the doorway.  He could reach the door from his bed unseen from the short hallway beyond, but then would be in view of the intruder if he peeked around the corner of the hall to the living room.

Silhouetted against the wall of the living room was a man.  Long coat, hat seated low on his head, the figure fills most of the door frame.

My father stretched his hand out to the hallway light.  In a burst of movement he’d turn on the light, surprise the intruder, and strike full-force while he was dazed in the sudden blast of light.

He positioned himself, steeled his nerve, tensed to spring … and tripped the switch.

His coiled muscles froze halfway through their spring.

The hallway was empty.

In the time it took for the light to come on, the shadow standing between hallway and adjoining living room had vanished.

Without a trace.

He stole into the living room to be sure.  Empty.  A glance to the front door showed the lock still secured.  He crossed the living room and entered the kitchen.  Empty.  Another three steps over the cold linoleum floor to the family room at the back of the house.   Nothing.  A verification with the lights on – nothing.  He strode to the sliding glass door and check its lock, and it, too, was secure.

He wandered back to the hallway, and checked on me.  Asleep, peaceful in my room, unaware.  He checked the third, empty bedroom as well, and the closet.  Just to be sure.  To make absolutely certain.  But the lauan doors hid no trenchcoated stowaways, and the house held no secrets from him.

He laid back in his bed and stared at the ceiling for long hours, as daylight crept closer, listening.  But the house held its silence.

===================================================

This story is related to me by my father, and he has never varied the recount in any detail I can recall.  He insists he saw a man standing between the hall and the living room in this, his first tiny house in a quiet suburb in Northern California.  I can’t verify any of the events.

All original content © 2009 DarcKnyt
ALL rights reserved.

The Rat Man

The black swallows the dark ribbon of asphalt as soon as the weak headlamp beams die.  The vast desert around is an amorphous silhouette only delineated by the stars stabbing the velvety sky above the mountains obscuring the highway.  The drone of the Volkswagen’s engine rings in the interior, the dashboard lights casting eerie pale green on two young faces staring at the passing tumbleweeds and Joshua trees crouching at the gravel shoulder.

There’s no moon to cast silvery illumination on the scene.  There are no following cars to light the car’s cracker box interior.  Ahead, out of range of the headlights, a semi roars through the night, setting a pace the couple is content to follow.

The cross-country journey from California to Georgia is shortened as much as possible each time they take it.  They drive through the night when they can, sleep in a motel only when exhaustion overtakes the determined, stubborn husband, and the wife demands only the finest in roadside amenities for relieving full bladders.  The miles pass beneath the car in seeming endless procession, but they are on a limited budget, both for time and money, and sacrifices must be made.

They’re approaching a bastion of civilization, a tiny puddle of lights and humanity in the midst of the ocean of black.  An oasis of a sort.  It’s visible just before the base of the mountains when the terrain dips and the road angle permits.  When it rises again, like a mirage the glittering blue, orange and yellow jewel vanishes without a trace.

She sighs.  The long trip can be grating.  They bicker sometimes.  But now, boredom and monotony have the better of her.  She stares at the pane of glass to her right, but sees more of her own reflection than the geography beyond.

The car jolts and shudders, and her husband swears under his breath as the rocking taps her forehead into the window.

She jerks her head forward in time to see the huge trailer ahead of them, marked by a series of amber lights strung across the top edge of its rear and the crimson burn of tail lights, swerve hard left, tipping wildly as if to topple.  Smoke of melting rubber launches at the tiny car, blocks their view for an instant as it plumes around the semi, then clears to reveal the truck swinging back to the right, regaining its wheels.  The blast of the air horn stabs the night.

“What was that all about?” she asks, rubbing her head.

“I don’t know,” he mutters.  “Crazy sonuvabitch musta fallen aslee—”

The VW bounces and rattles, skitters to the side as if driving on loose river rock or crumbling cobblestones.  She gasps and slams her hands against the dash and the passenger door, stomping her feet to the floorboard to brace her body in the high-backed vinyl seat.  He curses again, fighting the wheel, and risks taking one hand from the wheel to reseat his jarred glasses back to his face, the car sliding left.

The road is a carpet of tiny bumps, teeming and roiling nearly to the dividing double yellow line at the center.

Rats.  Millions of rats.

She gives a stark shriek, deadened and hollow in the tiny bubble of the car.  On the road, in the lane ahead of them, a figure looms amidst the rodent hoards.  The high collar of the black cape on his shoulders rises to the brim of a top hat seated above a gaunt, bony face of ghastly white, the cape’s tail lost in the swarming vermin at his feet.  The rats scrabble up his back, arms, legs, and tumble down as he walks along the middle of the road, into oncoming traffic.

She draws breath to scream again, but terror locks the sound in her throat as the car’s tires find purchase on the asphalt again, around the slick, bubbling brew of rats, and begins to go around the ghoul.  A lunging step takes him near the center line, and he bends to stare with jaundiced bloodshot eyes into the passenger window, following the car as it passes with his head, bluish eyelids and lips within reaching distance of the glass.

She tries again to scream, but only a sobbing hiss escapes.  He accelerates as fast as the tiny motor will permit, and within a few seconds the specter is lost to the blackness behind them.  The road crests then slopes down, and ahead they can see the glittering jewel of the tiny town ahead once more, beckoning them to hurry through the miles to its safety … and light.

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This is a true story as related to me by my parents, so I’ve posted it here instead of on my fiction blog.  Hope you enjoy.

-JDT-

All original content © 2009 DarcKnyt
ALL rights reserved.