Posted by Willow on July 19, 2001, at 22:34:06
In reply to Re: wanna write a story?, posted by kid_A on July 19, 2001, at 10:06:56
Dolores looked down and noticed the muddy spurs of Julio's boots snagging on her dining-room
tablecloth. Her politeness and desire to scold him fought a swift battle in her mind. Politeness was
the victor. Julio glanced at her face and assumed the sudden narrowing of her eyes and
compression of her lips were a sign she was having second thoughts about the plan. Words would
surely set her off, he thought; better to proceed without them. He raised his eyebrows, smiled
weakly, and waved his arm to the side, displaying the palm of his hand. Dolores nodded, went into
the basement, and emerged with a screwdriver. Julio could see her proceed into the kitchen,
where the telephone hung. She unscrewed it and detached a small envelope from the wall behind
it. Dolores looked down at those spurs again and felt utterly disgusted as she traversed the
distance between the kitchen and the dining room. She handed him the envelope and headed back
towards the kitchen. Julio tipped his hat in a gesture of thanks, slammed the door behind him, and
mounted his pinto horse, leaving despair, Dolores, and Des Moines behind him to pursue his next
deal.
Heaving a sigh, Delores went to the refridgerator, pulled out an
"Eckerd-up" (Eckerd's store brand of 7-up), and plopped down on the
couch. She pulled out a camel light from her pack on the coffee table
and lit it with the pack of matches she always kept in her pocket.
Smoking was something she only did when Julio wasn't around. He'd throw
a fit. Smoking wasn't for ladies in his mind. Although he and
his cronies would stay up until the wee hours filling her
clean house with smelly cigar smoke. Oh well, what'cha gonna do?
Inhaling the
smoke deeply, then exhaling it, she realized something with a stab
of anger. Here she was playing the victim again. The poor little wifey who
sits home while he's out having all the fun. Well, not anymore, she thought.
She'd had it with all the late nights, chain smoking on the couch, waiting for
him to return. She stabbed out the cigerette and stood up. She went to her
bedroom to change out of her dowdy housedress to a pair of faded levi's and a
flannel shirt. She opened the door and could feel the crisp night
air on her face. "I'll be back by midnight tomorrow", she told Des Moines, her
black and white cat. Despair, the sulky eyed blood hound stared at
her reproachfully. "Yeah, I love you too", she said, giving him a slap on the
rump, "But I gotta go...I'll be back soon".
Delores stood by the door, not for hesitation's sake, not for unwillingness, a vast well of feeling
that surfaced suddenly, where to go, what to do, what little planning had been made prior to this
sudden sensation of movement, like the movement of the kitsch jumping beans that could be had
at the store proclaiming 'everything for a a dollar'... A wan smile stretched across her face as she
opened the door, the landscape stretched out beyond her like it was painted there, muddy hues of
red and orange clay, smeared greys and tinted hues of blue that pressed down on the terra, an
oppressive atmosphre of heat and air and raw electricty, waves of heat that distorted the distance
like a funhouse mirror. She heard a truck roll by in the distance, an eighteen wheeler for sure,
carying a cargo of frozen mangos or cattle feed or imigrant workers to some unknown locale, or
still, returned from some remote and imagined faraway fairytale land, Ice Station Vostock with a
sample of soil cores for unknown sientists harbored somewhere in the local Los Alamos area...
Los Alamos with its nuclear wind and toxic rivers, Los Alamos, home of the dead and the
deceased, the nearly dying and the newly born, the crippled and maimed, the rugged and strong,
old and young, black and white, brown tan tope the mishmash of distorted America that you read
about in propaganda literature, the tired poor huddled masses of an America disjointed, emptiness
and loss, hope and dream, sex and survival, speed, heroin, valium, coca cola and moon pies, it
was all here in Los Alamos, just waiting to be taken. Delores took her first step, the step always
the hardest, one that drags the heel like mud and traction, tentitive and at first unsure, and then a
reafirmed conviction, Delores steped out of the door, oak and painted red, long ago peeling from
lack of care, stepped out and locked the door behind her.Little did she know how that first rash step would change the rest of her life. She was never to return to her self-made prison which she called home. The next few hours were to have such a dire effect that before the sun rose she wouldn’t even remember her name. If she had any sight of the doom which waited for her she wouldn’t have left the safety of her house.
PS I like Koontz
poster:Willow
thread:7628
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010717/msgs/7665.html