NaNoWriMo Novel, a bit of a reboot
NaNoWriMo Novel...Part X: a bit of a reboot
Alright. Wrote some. Gonna post some. I know I'm not supposed to edit myself. But I've decided to back up, and attack from another angle. Luckily for the threes of you who probably still remember this thing is going on, it doesn't affect how the story goes so far.
Anyway, for those catching up, I started the NaNoWriMo project, but just got 25,000 or so words in, officially. Unofficially, I was around 43,000 words. Then work got in the way, had to stop. Those other words will make it into the story, but later on.
Anyway, started a new branch. Mostly because I had to find the same energy that I had before.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Here's Part 10. Thanks for reading.
The last thing I want to say before I talk about Lyndon’s funeral is this:
I hate funerals.
I was dreading going to this funeral with every fiber of my being. I think with all the outstandingly weird bullshit that was going on, I hadn’t been able to let that thought seep into my brain.
But it did that Sunday morning, as I climbed out the shower, and wiped down the mirror to shave.
And I wasn’t dreading this one because of all the weird shit. The weird shit wasn’t helping. But that dark pit of blackness that rooted itself in my chest, between my heart and stomach, was for the fact that it was a funeral at all.
My parents died four years ago. There was a house fire. They were asleep. It was an old house, with old wiring. A fire started in their bedroom. They died in their beds. The County Coroner said that they never woke up, most likely dying of smoke inhalation in their sleep. Sometimes, I take a little comfort in that fact, that they at least didn’t die in pain, burning to death.
Sometimes not. It’s not like I’ve spent the last four years railing at God about why my folks didn’t wake up to fight their way out. But I do think about it. From time to time. Especially if I’m drunk and alone. I sit there and I wonder at how my Dad who was one of those guys who did just about anything he’d set his mind to, whether there were people standing in his way or he hadn’t even the first clue how to set about doing it, I wonder how God can let a guy who fought for every scrap he ever got die in his sleep in a fire caused by a spark from wiring put in forty years previous.
Or how He could let my Mom, the most quietly smart person I think I’ve ever known, who had probably the funniest comic spark in her eye I ever saw just get blown out like a candle, without a chance to even begin to figure out a way out of the problem.
I don’t know. At the end of the day, you just say to yourself that life isn’t fair. I don’t suppose my story’s so different than anybody who’s lost a parent, in the end. I don’t feel sorry for myself. It’s just one of those things.
Their funeral was a small affair. Closed casket. I’d never had anything to do with setting up a funeral. My aunt Wanda helped a lot with the arrangements. He was the one uncle I’d never had much to do with growing up. She was always off somewhere in the world, doing anything but associating with the family, I reckon. But she showed up within hours of finding out that my folks had been cooked crispy. Before anybody else, even.
She stuck around longer than anybody else, even. For a couple of weeks after. Long after the family had gone on, helping set up the final demolition of my folks’ house. There wasn’t much to salvage, but Wanda picked through the charred remains, I think, even before the coals had cooled completely. She managed to find a few trinkets, a few salvageable items from their house. But not a whole lot. I keep everything that was pulled from the house in an old metal Rambo lunch box, if that tells you how much she was able to find of any value that survived the fire.
I’m a long winded son of a bitch, I realize, but I’ve said all that to say this: I still have a hard time with funerals.
Lyndon’s would be my first. I’d managed to miss a couple that had occurred since then. But this one landed, pretty literally, on my doorstep.
As I pulled the razor across my face, shaving away three days’ worth of beard growth, I found myself thinking of Aunt Wanda. I’d talked to her only once since the funeral. She called me on my birthday, about a year ago. Ostensibly to wish me a happy birthday. We talked of old things, of what I was doing. I dismissed the quiet sort of indignation she seemed to take when I told her I was installing computer equipment as her greenie anti-technology way of thinking. I remembered her asking how the weather was, and she asked about the local news. As we talked, I kept thinking that she was fishing for something. Some news, or something. But she never came out and said, and I never knew if I’d given what she was looking for. I haven’t heard from her since.
I shaved under my chin, and down both sideburns. I was getting the tricky spot under my nose, when Cletus walked into the bathroom and said “There’s no food in my bowl.”
I jumped, but not as much as I probably should have. I regarded my cat, who was sitting on the floor, tail curled politely around his paws.
“Okay. You do talk.”
“Did you think you were dreaming?”
“I guess not,” I said. I moved to shave under my chin. “And why didn’t you talk before? Seems like it would make things easier. Like last week, when you ate the dental floss. Wouldn’t it have been easier to ask me to step on the floss instead of pulling a two foot string of cat turds around with you every where you went?”
“A.) It seems like your fault for not noticing, and B.) How would you like having to ask somebody to pull a two foot length of shit-covered string out of your ass, Michael?”
“I don’t suppose I would, but then, I have opposable thumbs and easy access to soap and water.”
He looked away. Annoyed. “Things are different, now.”
“The whole uneasy animal thing?”
“Well, some of that.”
I shaved the last of my chin, and waited on the rest of the sentence from my cat. When it didn’t come, I looked.
“I can’t put my finger on it,” he said. “I can’t explain it much better than saying time’s a funny thing, and opportunities don’t come twice.”
Alright. Wrote some. Gonna post some. I know I'm not supposed to edit myself. But I've decided to back up, and attack from another angle. Luckily for the threes of you who probably still remember this thing is going on, it doesn't affect how the story goes so far.
Anyway, for those catching up, I started the NaNoWriMo project, but just got 25,000 or so words in, officially. Unofficially, I was around 43,000 words. Then work got in the way, had to stop. Those other words will make it into the story, but later on.
Anyway, started a new branch. Mostly because I had to find the same energy that I had before.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Here's Part 10. Thanks for reading.
The last thing I want to say before I talk about Lyndon’s funeral is this:
I hate funerals.
I was dreading going to this funeral with every fiber of my being. I think with all the outstandingly weird bullshit that was going on, I hadn’t been able to let that thought seep into my brain.
But it did that Sunday morning, as I climbed out the shower, and wiped down the mirror to shave.
And I wasn’t dreading this one because of all the weird shit. The weird shit wasn’t helping. But that dark pit of blackness that rooted itself in my chest, between my heart and stomach, was for the fact that it was a funeral at all.
My parents died four years ago. There was a house fire. They were asleep. It was an old house, with old wiring. A fire started in their bedroom. They died in their beds. The County Coroner said that they never woke up, most likely dying of smoke inhalation in their sleep. Sometimes, I take a little comfort in that fact, that they at least didn’t die in pain, burning to death.
Sometimes not. It’s not like I’ve spent the last four years railing at God about why my folks didn’t wake up to fight their way out. But I do think about it. From time to time. Especially if I’m drunk and alone. I sit there and I wonder at how my Dad who was one of those guys who did just about anything he’d set his mind to, whether there were people standing in his way or he hadn’t even the first clue how to set about doing it, I wonder how God can let a guy who fought for every scrap he ever got die in his sleep in a fire caused by a spark from wiring put in forty years previous.
Or how He could let my Mom, the most quietly smart person I think I’ve ever known, who had probably the funniest comic spark in her eye I ever saw just get blown out like a candle, without a chance to even begin to figure out a way out of the problem.
I don’t know. At the end of the day, you just say to yourself that life isn’t fair. I don’t suppose my story’s so different than anybody who’s lost a parent, in the end. I don’t feel sorry for myself. It’s just one of those things.
Their funeral was a small affair. Closed casket. I’d never had anything to do with setting up a funeral. My aunt Wanda helped a lot with the arrangements. He was the one uncle I’d never had much to do with growing up. She was always off somewhere in the world, doing anything but associating with the family, I reckon. But she showed up within hours of finding out that my folks had been cooked crispy. Before anybody else, even.
She stuck around longer than anybody else, even. For a couple of weeks after. Long after the family had gone on, helping set up the final demolition of my folks’ house. There wasn’t much to salvage, but Wanda picked through the charred remains, I think, even before the coals had cooled completely. She managed to find a few trinkets, a few salvageable items from their house. But not a whole lot. I keep everything that was pulled from the house in an old metal Rambo lunch box, if that tells you how much she was able to find of any value that survived the fire.
I’m a long winded son of a bitch, I realize, but I’ve said all that to say this: I still have a hard time with funerals.
Lyndon’s would be my first. I’d managed to miss a couple that had occurred since then. But this one landed, pretty literally, on my doorstep.
As I pulled the razor across my face, shaving away three days’ worth of beard growth, I found myself thinking of Aunt Wanda. I’d talked to her only once since the funeral. She called me on my birthday, about a year ago. Ostensibly to wish me a happy birthday. We talked of old things, of what I was doing. I dismissed the quiet sort of indignation she seemed to take when I told her I was installing computer equipment as her greenie anti-technology way of thinking. I remembered her asking how the weather was, and she asked about the local news. As we talked, I kept thinking that she was fishing for something. Some news, or something. But she never came out and said, and I never knew if I’d given what she was looking for. I haven’t heard from her since.
I shaved under my chin, and down both sideburns. I was getting the tricky spot under my nose, when Cletus walked into the bathroom and said “There’s no food in my bowl.”
I jumped, but not as much as I probably should have. I regarded my cat, who was sitting on the floor, tail curled politely around his paws.
“Okay. You do talk.”
“Did you think you were dreaming?”
“I guess not,” I said. I moved to shave under my chin. “And why didn’t you talk before? Seems like it would make things easier. Like last week, when you ate the dental floss. Wouldn’t it have been easier to ask me to step on the floss instead of pulling a two foot string of cat turds around with you every where you went?”
“A.) It seems like your fault for not noticing, and B.) How would you like having to ask somebody to pull a two foot length of shit-covered string out of your ass, Michael?”
“I don’t suppose I would, but then, I have opposable thumbs and easy access to soap and water.”
He looked away. Annoyed. “Things are different, now.”
“The whole uneasy animal thing?”
“Well, some of that.”
I shaved the last of my chin, and waited on the rest of the sentence from my cat. When it didn’t come, I looked.
“I can’t put my finger on it,” he said. “I can’t explain it much better than saying time’s a funny thing, and opportunities don’t come twice.”
posted by Tommy at
11:50
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