Teardrop Fiction

Things that don't fit anywhere else...

Postby Tumbleweed_Tex » Wed Jul 07, 2010 7:05 am

THE FIRST TIME

We were fourth-graders back then, and the hundred or so of us were divided into four classrooms down one side of a wide hallway with incredibly high ceilings. Even then, I knew the reason the hallways were so dark (downright scary until you were in third grade, at which time you became too old to be scared). It was simple...the dang lights were too dang high...and explaining that phenomenon gave me a dang excuse to use the newest word in my dang vocabulary.

As the month of February rolled in, and our teacher taped up pictures of Cupid and his bow, each of us was instructed to bring from home a small brown paper bag, of the lunch-size variety. We then cut out red hearts from construction paper, traced our pencil-written names in glue on the bag, and made one hell of a mess with red and silver glitter. Each bag was then taped in the open position along the bottom of the tall wooden windows in our respective classrooms. (in alphabetical order mind you)

(All the way through school, EVERYTHING was done in alphabetical order, so I was second from the last at everything we ever did. I used to lay awake at night praying Sarah Yates wouldn't die before we graduated).

We were then instructed to bring valentines for our classmates, and deposit them into the proper bag.

The Walmart of those days was Morgan & Lindsey's "dime store", where you could purchase a bag of 100 valentines (with envelopes), for fifteen cents. Momma-Tex wouldn't hear of it. Accordingly, I spent a whole dang night cutting white sheets of paper in half, crossways, and folding them over into dang little cards...two cards from every dang sheet.

I spent the next two nights missing the latest installments of "Bonanza", cutting out red hearts and little black keyholes, and gluing them onto the front of the dang cards. A fourth night was wasted by hand writing "You Are the Key to My Heart" on the inside of each and every card, and attaching a tiny cardboard key underneath the words. There were 18 girls in my classroom, and Momma-Tex had a list with all their names...even the ones with dang cooties.

Which brings us to morning recess, February 14...about an hour after we had all retrieved the bag with our name on it, and opened our cards. I remember it like yesterday. There I was, standing under the big oak tree near the rusty old chain-link fence, when who but Miss Most-Popular-Girl-in-the-WHOLE-dang-Fourth-Grade-Class should walk up? DOROTHY CAGLE. She was…dang…beautiful.

"Hey cowboy...thanks for the valentine...it was really sweet...you're the only boy in the whole class who took the time to hand make me a card."

I blushed redder than Cupid’s butt. Then…the very first female lips ever to touch my own did that thing that female lips do, and I was hooked…forever.

Several minutes later, the bell having long since sounded, I found myself completely alone on the huge expanse of playground, staring off into space. Forcing my knees to work, I raced into the building and drank enough water to quench a forest fire.

D A N G!!!

Thanks Momma,

Tex
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Postby okiecamper » Wed Jul 07, 2010 10:39 am

OMG Tex those are great stories!!!


makes me wanna sit down and write too


:applause: :thumbsup:
there are many storms in life that come our way
the trick is learning to "dance in the rain."




May the apple of your eye see only good
May God make smooth the path before you.
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Postby Tumbleweed_Tex » Wed Jul 07, 2010 1:06 pm

Yeah? So what's the hold up?

In fact...I DARE you...

:)
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Postby Tumbleweed_Tex » Wed Jul 07, 2010 1:41 pm

When it rains, odd things like THIS ooze from my keyboard…

NUMBERS

After starting the coffee in the little pot on the table, he sat in his chair and stared intently at the calendar taped to the side wall, the wall opposite the door. It was day 1412...only 591 to go before his debt to society would be paid.

He glanced at the clock, although he already knew there were four more minutes remaining before he would be required to begin. Just enough time to pour the few ounces of scalding blackness over the stains in his cup, swirl it around, and make a few miniature waves across it's surface with his breath. He leaned his head backwards, tilting his chair, defying gravity to the very limit, almost hoping he would take a loud tumble and break the daily routine.

He wondered briefly what might happen if he poured some of the dark steaming liquid down his chin, but the clock wouldn't allow any such unproductive activities.

Right on cue, the flat little screen before him came to life, illuminating the creases in his face, and reminding him where he had left off the day before…long columns of meaningless numbers in neat little rows.

He knew the routine well by now...every thirty two seconds, the screen would refresh with new numbers. His task, his 2000-day, court-ordered sentence, was to add the numbers in the columns, and enter the sums....over and over and over.

Every two hours he would be given a break. Any combination of three mistakes or timeouts would add another day to his sentence. So far, he had managed to accumulate only three extra days...and they had all come during his first week in this place.

Sometimes it was multiplication, and on rare occassion, square roots. He liked doing the roots best of all.

And after all this time, he still thought of HER during his breaks, and sometimes daydreamed of what he might do once his sentence had been served...once he had been released back into the world. She had been found guilty too, and while he had no idea of her fate, he sometimes found comfort in the thought that she might very well be serving HER sentence in the next little room down the hallway.

From the beginning, both of them had known the dangers of falling in love...it was, after all, forbidden by law. Emotions were things of the past...not only signs of weakness, but having no place in this, the logical new world. How could one be a productive member of the human race if things like affection were allowed to interfere with logical thought processes? Thus the law...breakers of which were, by necessity, "re-trained" in little rooms just like this one. Remove the capacity of the heart to influence the mind...for the good of mankind. That was the directive of the new world, and violating that directive had brought him here.

He waited patiently for the right combination of numbers to appear. Sooner or later, in a few minutes, or over the course of several days, the randomness of the system would provide one of those sums which could easily be solved in under twenty seconds. And when it happened, he would be ready.

At the very end of the day, when his anticipation of the screen going dim was at it's peak, he recognized his chance, so instead of carefully entering the correct sum in the little box at the bottom of the display, he quickly typed ROBIN instead.
He allowed himself a full three seconds to absorb the warmth of her name before quickly deleting it and entering the correct numbers in the little answer box.

He smiled as the screen displayed his daily score...no mistakes, no timeouts.

Only 590 days remaining.

Tex
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Postby Cliffmeister2000 » Wed Jul 07, 2010 2:43 pm

Love it! :applause:
God Bless

Cliff

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1 John 4:9-11

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Postby swissarmygirl » Wed Jul 07, 2010 2:49 pm

How very "1984" :thinking:
"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." - Mark Twain
"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." - Albert Einstein

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Postby Tumbleweed_Tex » Wed Jul 07, 2010 3:07 pm

True, but Winston preferred gin, and Julia...
...not coffee and Robin.
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Postby Tumbleweed_Tex » Wed Jul 07, 2010 3:22 pm

TIME

The most amazing thing about the device was not it's appearance...for it was in no way attractive. Simply contained within a discarded shoebox, it was, in fact, quite ugly. It was not even mechanically impressive, because some of the little wheels seemed to wobble precariously, causing the rubber band drive belts to sway to and fro.

In fact, none of the parts were noteworthy in and of themselves...a small battery, various small pulleys from a dead tape recorder, a tiny electric motor, a bird's nest of wires in a rainbow of colors... No, the most amazing thing about the device was not how it looked...but simply that it had been designed and constructed by a nine year old boy.

It was not until Mr. Robison, the local third grade science teacher, flipped the little switch on the side of the box, that the device got any attention at all. And this, simply because it made a most alluring sound...a sort of high pitched whine completely out of character for the speed at which any of the little wheels rotated.

Everyone in the auditorium at the grade-school science fair had paused to listen then, but only for a moment.

Odd...but charming in the fact that the thing didn't shake itself to pieces. With all it's apparent unreliability, the little wheels just kept going round and round, the little levers back and forth...the little belts all but trembling in their slow journey around the pulleys. Mr. Robison tried to be impressed, but alas, the thing apparently just sat there and did nothing, other than make that sound. If it were only...perhaps... a little less ugly, it might have done better in the competition.

Walking home from the school, the little boy was somewhat disappointed with the red, third place ribbon taped to the lid of his little box. He had lost out to the big, impressive, electric volcano...simply because it took two men to move it into place, and the fact that the girl had made a big production out of roping off the immediate area before turning the thing on. Vinegar, baking soda, and food coloring…so what?

Even the one judge he liked and trusted, Mrs. Miller, had chuckled as she read the neat little sign he had glued to the front of his box...Time Machine. That's when he moved to the window and watched the wind stir the leaves...too proud to explain, no longer caring whether he won or lost.

And now, in the privacy of his room, he sat on the edge of his bed, gently rocking back and forth, humming softly to himself. He rolled the red ribbon neatly into a small cylinder, clumsily wrapped it with clear tape, and placed it in the one empty corner of the box…where the little X was drawn crudely in pencil. With practiced patience, he flipped on the switch, waited for the whine to reach full volume, then watched the ribbon closely.

It was strange to him how all the objects he put in there would assume a slight greenish glow just before they disappeared forever into time.

Tex
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Postby godskid » Wed Jul 07, 2010 5:24 pm

Oooooo -- now THAT would be a useful box!
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Postby High Desert » Wed Jul 07, 2010 5:53 pm

I heard that last story in Rod Serlings voice....
Shaun

"it's not the years honey, it's the mileage"
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Postby queeniejeanne » Thu Jul 08, 2010 7:20 am

Oh boy, what kind of rain causes two stories of science fiction?

I'd like to have really camped where you where..:roll: ...

The first reminding me of the odd outcome of "Soylent Green" or Twilight Zones episode "How to Serve Man"

Time is just wonderful, like the song by Helen Redy's "Angie Baby".

What wonders some minds can unwrap. :applause:

Queenie Jeanne


PS. Phil, he really just called you a chicken. If you have read the whole thread you will see what you now must do............."nobody, I mean, nobody calls me chicken!"
HEY a tiny trailer. Whatever it takes.
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Postby Tumbleweed_Tex » Thu Jul 08, 2010 8:39 am

JUSTIFIABLE DOG-ECIDE

As an unwritten and unspoken part of my “rental agreementâ€
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Postby godskid » Thu Jul 08, 2010 12:13 pm

Did Dog at least lick it off you? I mean -- I feel sorry for him. He didn't get his full dinner.

;)
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Postby Tumbleweed_Tex » Fri Jul 09, 2010 7:18 am

In almost a half-century of cowboyism, I've had ladies call me everything from a swamp-toad to things I'd have a hard time spelling without m's and k's and r's...but never, until I joined this forum, have I received a private note, wherein I've been labeled an "adorable grammar geek". Believe me, neighbors, even a cowboy doesn't have a comeback for that one...especially when the labeler is wrapped in a such a drop-dead-gorgeous package. So...all I can say is...thank you Ma’am...(I think...)

Tex
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Postby Tumbleweed_Tex » Fri Jul 09, 2010 7:25 am

TIME WARP

The peas and corn I planted in Renee’s little campground veggie garden did so well this year, I decided to stop in at the feed store yesterday...just to see if Bubba Earl was gonna order seeds from the same company next year. I found him gainfully employed, cleaning out the old antique Coke cooler.

It's one of the old chest types, with a lift-off door on top and an old fashioned bottle opener screwed to the front. Having nothing better to do while we talked, I pitched in to help, carefully removing the plastic bottles and placing them in a big wooden box on the floor.

Along about the time the conversation turned from purple hull peas to the latest edition of the Grizzly tool catalog, I reached way in the back of the cooler, down in a little slot between the side and the bottom, and came out holding an original, sixteen ounce glass bottle of R.C. Cola. HOLY SCHMOLY!!!

The bottle design itself shed light on the fact that somehow, through the years, it had been pushed back, lost, overlooked, hidden, disregarded, and forgotten...to the tune of at least thirty years.

Now...as any self-respectin' Antique Cowboy knows, a genuine, original, sixteen ounce RC Cola in the tall slender glass bottle ranks right up there with Katherine Ross in cut-off jeans and a half-buttoned denim work shirt. And since I knew for a fact that Bubba Earl kept a box of Moon Pies stashed behind the counter in case of mid-afternoon hunger attacks, like a zombie I confiscated one and eased on outside to the truck, lost in a heavenly time warp.

The younger generation doesn't know that the door latches on a forty year-old pickup truck are designed to double as bottle openers for the old, pry off, bottle lids...or, for that matter, that there is a time-honored way to partake of a Moon Pie and an R.C. Cola.

First, one takes two huge bites of the cookie, and just as the throat begins to scream in dryness after the swallow, one turns up the bottle and chugs as much of the cola as possible. The sensational change from choking dry to eye-watering burn is all but erotic.

It took about six seconds for me to sense that something was amiss, and another four or five gasps for air to realize that at some point, eventually, after several hundred months, sugar, in liquid form, will, and does, turn to alcohol. Really good alcohol. Disinfectant grade. Once able to breathe again, I just sat there, staring at the almost empty bottle, nibbling the cookie, contemplating life, wondering if RC alcohol was poison, and if the new Grizzly planer on page 72 was big enough to handle 3x12 rough cyprus planks.

Bubba Earl is one of the hardest working people I know. At some point yesterday afternoon, after hiding my truck keys so I wouldn’t kill anyone out on the highway…not only did he paint the feed store a lovely shade of passion pink, he re-roofed the entire building using 1943 Studebaker hubcaps. Hoping to expand and diversify his business, he imported several varieties of exotic zoo animals, including giraffapotamuses and ephanants, and turned them loose in the parking lot.

He even put in one of those new-fangled, executive restrooms on wheels…with padded seats and windows...and decorated it to look just like a deputy sheriff's patrol car. I don’t remember much after that.

Tex
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