The Confabulator Cafe

Category: Confabulation

  • The Gift of Flesh

    On the first day of Christmas, I received a big toe. I stepped out of the front door of my house with my greyhound rescue Clever. The crisp winter air cut through my jogging gear. I cursed the 5:30 AM alarm, and my veterinarian’s insistence that Clever needed more exercise.
    I didn’t see the package. Not at first. I leaped off the doorstep and plunged forward in to the wind only to be yanked back by the leash.

    “Clever, come on boy,” I said, raising my voice in the high, slightly embarrassing tone that I only used with him.

    Clever sat anchored to the concrete. His sniffed a small package on the ice-glazed step, snorting as if he might inhale the thing. I snatched the cardboard box from beneath his nose. (more…)

  • The Fruit Cake Invasion

    “What possessed you to input a request for fruit cake to begin with?” the repair man asked.

    I shrugged. “Nostalgia.” I leaned to the side as the food replicator shot out another rock-hard fruit cake. I grimaced as glass shattered. I’d thought I had moved everything to safety. Apparently not.

    “I’ve never seen anything like this. You say it’s spewed out nearly a thousand of these suckers?” The man scratched his ass as he dodged the next projectile.

    I sighed and surveyed the various Old-Earth Christmas relics, now nearly buried in piles of fruit cake: an aluminum cone that I thought was supposed to be a tree, a tube that said Tootsie Roll that had a slit in the plastic of one end, two tiny crinkled pieces of silver material, and an over-sized sock with the name “Gertie” glued to the cuff in silver glitter, as well as several glass ornaments in bright greens, reds, and silvers, all in various stages of crushed, chipped, and broken.

    I’d also found two Bing Crosby albums, a faded red hat edged with gnarly brown fuzz that might have been white once, a creepy elf-like creature that was missing both eyes, and a hard lump of something that might have been food once, wrapped in plastic with a label that said Grandma’s Home Made Fruit Cake. (more…)

  • The Smell of Christmas

    The coffee shop smelled like Christmas when I walked in—rotten eggnog, burnt pie, and BO. I pinched the bridge of my nose, of all the days he chose to stop living up to my expectations, it was on the day that more than anything I needed to guzzle the world’s largest coffee—as advertised on the chalk signboard—in peace.

    I drew in a deep breath—through my mouth, because there are some smells you’d rather not be in your nose—and winded my way through the overcrowded tables to one in the back corner populated by a man in a stained crimson hoodie with the hood pulled up over a baseball cap.

    He grunted and pushed one of the cups of coffee closer to me. I watched as it sloshed over the sides of the cup and dribbled onto the table. I clasped my hands in front of me on the table and leaned forward. “What’s this all about?”

    “It’s good to see you, Sam,” he grunted. “Thanks for coming out on such short notice.”

    “Sure. Whatever. Are you in trouble?”

    “Why would you think that?”

    “Because the only reasons you’ve ever called me in the past decade is because you needed something.” I tried not to breathe in too deeply in his presence.

    “Fine. I was trying to be… nevermind. I finally found it.” He hauled a box out of his rank backpack and dropped it on the table. He’d wrapped it in dark green paper with snowmen and Santa hats all over it. Plaid ribbon wrapped about it several times and finished in an oversized, lopsided bow.”

    “Found what?”

    “It.” He gestured at the box. “It’s in there.” (more…)

  • What Kind of Mother

    I had thought I was doing right by Levi—I took him to church, to concerts, museums—but here is a severed rat leg telling me otherwise. (more…)

  • The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Written

    I haven’t participated in NaNoWriMo since 2012, but I’m still reaping the writing rewards of that one year.

    My fiction before that NaNoWriMo had been mostly successful. All of my plays were awarded staged readings and most of my short stories got published. Of course, I had only written two plays and three short stories over the course of 11 years. Five things total. I was a 29 year old woman who had wanted to write fiction all my life, but I just didn’t do it.

    It would have been embarrassing to turn out something from my own imagination that was imperfect and less than brilliant. And so I didn’t write fiction. I wrote news articles, academic papers, and grant proposals successfully. After all I could write, but those weren’t pieces of my Very Own Personal imagination on display, so I felt less exposed.

    In 2012 I could see my 30th birthday approaching and I had always thought that I would have finished my first novel before I was 30. Still just the two plays and three short stories. So I jumped on the NaNoWriMo bandwagon.

    Writing for a word count taught me to just keep going. My novel was wretched. I did have a couple of moments of brilliant extemporizing that were exhilarating, especially so since I am an avid plotter and in no way shape or form a seat-of-your-pants writer. But mostly it was horrible.

    I found it freeing to have written something horrible. Whatever I wrote next couldn’t possibly be the worst thing I’ve ever written. Nope. That was my NaNo Novel. Crown taken.

    So, I have learned to keep going through painful stories, through half formed ideas, bad plots, weak characters, etc. I have decided that I can learn nothing from stories I don’t write. And so, whenever I can make time for my fiction hobby, I write. I’m getting better, too.

  • Party at Pinehurst

    For the first time in three generations, Pinehurst Mansion felt vibrant and alive. The annual interfraternity council Halloween party packed the place with more students than a Psych 101 lecture hall. Sexy police officers danced with black and white striped prisoners. Vampires necked with mobsters, their plastic tommy guns forgotten in dark corners. A neon green liquid flowed liberally from a punch bowl bigger than a laundry basket.

    I swam drunkeningly through the ballroom floor, tripping over my own feet, hoping to find a bathroom or at the very least a rough equivalent. I had hoped that tonight I would finally profess my infatuation to Keri Wilson.  Elegantly, of course, with poetry, song, or one of the other sickenly sweet romantic devices that I had concocted. Instead, I got drunk and put it off for another day–the right day–I told myself. Some day when I didn’t need to find a place to puke. (more…)

  • Alexandra’s Halloween

    “Alexandra, wait. Where’s your hat?” Jean caught her arm as she tried to barrel out the door.

    The hat was big and floppy and it made her feel foolish, but her grandmother was so proud of it. Grudgingly she reached behind the sofa where it had “accidentally” fallen behind and plopped the thing on her head.

    Jean clasped her hands together with a great jingling of her jewelry. “You look perfect! Do you have your candy bag?”

    “Grandma, it’s a senior dance. I think we’re a bit old for trick or treating.”

    “Oh, yes, well, be safe then my young witch.” Grandma Jean stood back to admire her handiwork on the costume. She thought it was the grandest joke in the world for a Firestarter to be a witch on Halloween. Not too long ago most humans would have considered them witches, and if they had been especially unfortunate they would have met the hot end of a bonfire.

    “I’m always safe.” Alex gathered her long black skirt around her and shuffled to the door before Jean could give her any further warnings. But she wasn’t quick enough.

    “Not always.” (more…)

  • Beneath the Waves

    The boards of the pier were rough beneath her hands as she watched the sun sink lower, turning the water fiery red. Her hard mulled cider sat untouched by her hand, long since chilled by the evening air. A stiff breeze cut through the thin sweater she’d pulled over her sexy pirate costume. The wind brought with it the smell of the beachside bonfire and the raucous laughter of the revelers.

    “Hey—Emily, right?”

    Her feet jerked mid swing and she swore as she banged one against the post. She hadn’t heard his approach. “If you don’t mind, I’d prefer to be alone right now.” (more…)

  • The Murder Cabin

    “Babe, how far is it again?” Peter asked, looking out the window as they turned onto another Missouri county road. Their two-car caravan would carve its way through rural Missouri from Oak Grove to Jeff City, then on to Salem.

    “About five hours,” Samara said.

    “Okay, well wake me up when we get to Jeff. I’ll drive from there if you want.”

    “I can also drive at some point if you need a break,” Jackie said. She was stretched out in the back seat and flipped through a magazine with her head propped on a pillow.

    “You guys just relax and sleep. I’d hate to put you out.” Samara said and laughed.

    “Aw you’re so sweet,” Peter said, digging in a duffel bag at his feet. “Hey, I made a playlist for the occasion.” He shoved the CD into the slot and smiled as “Holiday Road” started playing.

    #

    The last turn took them from a gravel road to dirt, and Peter sat up with wide eyes. “Where in the hell are we going?” (more…)

  • Secrets of Passages

    The door was stuck. Not the first time it’d happened to me but no less infuriating for it. There should have been an instruction card near to hand for the occasion so I thumbed on my flashlight app.

    The light popped on just above the bridge of my nose. I furrowed my brow so that the beam would be tighter. Less chance of it shining through the cracks around the door. I moved my head back and forth methodically.

    No card.

    Damn it, Boston. You’re crap at details.

    “It’s one of the Great Houses,” you told me. “That shit always works.”

    Not this time, apparently.

    I smooshed the the heel of my hand against my forehead to shut off the light. Now there was a chance this whole thing was some kind of trap. In the dark again, I ran my fingers up and down and around the frame. Along the top were two latches. Locked from the inside. I wondered who passed through here last and why there was a need to lock the door after.

    Some small effort was rewarded with both latches flipping open though neither wanted to. Rather than barging out, I listened for sounds of anyone near the other side of the door.

    Nothing.

    I pushed the door open a crack and waited. Still nothing. Deep breath, slow release and I went through.

    Nice hallway. I didn’t recognize the portraits on the wall opposite me. A quick glance left and right. I was alone in the hall.

    “Welcome.” A female voice. Nice. Quiet. Another voice and another until there was a mob of voices welcoming me. I was still alone in the hall. The dull red carpet, the white walls yellowing at the top, the brass sconces that needed dusting and the portraits were all the company I had.

    Of course, the portraits. The owner had infused the voices of the subjects into the house system. I supposed there’s a certain comfort in being surrounded by people you knew all the time. At least they’d never talk back.

    “Jimmy Cavanaugh,” a strong lady’s voice said. “I thought never to see you again.” (more…)