Three seems to be the lucky number, when it’s not one like last week. I particularly enjoyed the submissions this week. A giant thanks to everyone who contributed!
Next week’s topic is: Robots
Enjoy the stories. Catch ya next week!
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Untitled
–Emily Jindra
“I don’t make wishes,” Lana said matter-of-factly, true to her usual inflection. “My father had a saying. ‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.’ My father was a very wise man.”
They passed the fountain that provided the pigeons of the park with a 24-hour birdbath and doubled as a wishing well to the city’s superstitious demographic. Each morning the two women walked past it on their way to work, and Maggie, the younger of the two, would toss in a coin and a tacit supplication to some unknown mystical force. The God of the Wishing Well. “I hate that saying,” she thought to herself on this particular morning, digging her hands into her pockets in the hope that she might make another offering. All she found was lint.
“It’s not like I’m tossing coins into the well and thinking seriously that the hand of fate will retrieve them and cause the wishes to come to fruition. It’s just…” Maggie searched for the words that would justify this frivolous action to her friend. She knew it was a lost cause even before she started to speak, but she tried anyway. Lana was someone who trimmed her fingernails three times a week, counted out a hundred hair brush strokes each night before bed, didn’t play cards, and never drank to excess. Frivolity was not a word in her vernacular. “Haven’t you ever wished that things had gone differently? Haven’t you ever wanted to feel the grass under your bare feet in the dead of winter? Don’t you dream?” Agitation was registering in Maggie’s voice and she cut herself off before she offended her friend.
Lana quickened her pace, pulled her collar close around her neck against the cold, and pursed her lips before making her reply. “No,” she said after a moment’s thought, but it wasn’t a convincing answer. The two walked the rest of the short route in silence.
The question repeated itself in her mind all day at work, like a needle skipping over the same broken record track again and again and again. “Don’t you dream? Don’t you dream? Lana. Lana. Don’t you dream?” The copy machine churned out a rythym that gave a sickening sense of life to this phrase that had taken residence at the front of her consciousness. At five o’clock she put her coat on once again, headed back to her studio apartment, and went to sleep.
When she woke it was past midnight. Lana hadn’t been outside past midnight for ages, but on this night she got up, dressed, and fumbled around in the dark for her purse. Once the bag was found she stepped carefully down the stairs to the front door. When she got to the well she had a coin in hand.
“I…” She looked around to make sure she was alone. The pigeons were her only audience, but her tone was hushed anyway. “I wish that tonight, I would dream.”
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The Well
–Theo Porter
Jose Cuervo meandered down the side of the road, his thumb in the air. The dusty desert highway rolled out in front of and behind him and on either side tall cacti mocked his desperate hand motions. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to survive another day like this, out on the road with no water. The bandolier he wore around his shoulder was starting to chafe but there was no getting around that. Being hired for a job means seeing it through to the end and there wasn’t any getting out of this one.
His left hand jerked up again at the distant sound of a car engine. He fingered the leather strap that kept his 45 Schofield in its holster around his waist. The car was a candy apple red convertible driven by a luscious brunette who he could barely see in the broiling sunlight as she approached at top speed. It skidded to a full stop on the gravely pavement, missing his knees by mere inches. Without a word, he got in, making sure to keep the edge of his duster over the gun. Together they drove on down the road.
A small village appeared out of nowhere and again, the brunette skidded the car to a stop in the middle of the town. There was no one, anywhere. The town was completely empty and void of life. Tumbleweed blew down the board sidewalk in front of the saloon. Still dying of thirst, Cuervo sauntered over to the town well, lifting the bucket to his lips and taking a draught. He kept his shifty eyes on everything that moved, which wasn’t all that much. He knew this was the place but his target didn’t seem to be anywhere around.
Cuervo knew he’d been shot before the report reached his ears. A sharp pain went through his chest, just below his left shoulder. He knew instantly that his heart had been torn through and wouldn’t work much longer. Taking shallow breaths, he turn, using the lip of the well for support. The brunette was sitting up on the back of the car, a smoking rifle lazily resting in her hands. Cuervo started to laugh.
She stood and hopped out of the car, landing lightly on her feet with a slight bend of the knee. She walked coyly over to the now convulsing cowboy. She grabbed his collar and lifted him to his now useless legs as if he were a feather. His moustache twitched as he smelled her cheap perfume on the dirty wind. She leaned in and kissed him gently on the lips. With that, his body slumped against hers, all of the life draining from it in a pool of blood at his feet. Deftly, the woman toppled Cuervo head over heels into the well and stood with her hands on her hips looking down into the murky blackness. Satisfied he was gone, she turned and drove off into the scorching afternoon heat.
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Wishing Well
–Ahniwa Ferrari
“Hey, guess what!”
“Didn’t I ask you to stop following me an hour ago? Scram!”
“Where ya goin’?”
“None of your beeswax. Now get lost before I tell mom about how you like to climb around on the roof.”
“No way! I’d get in trouble! Besides, then I’d have to tell her about how I seen you sneak out the window to go kiss Angie near the pond.”
“You don’t sleep enough, ya know? Fine. Just be quiet, okay? You really are a pain.”
“Where we goin? Hey, you never guessed what!”
“Alright. What?”
“Chicken butt!”
“You suck. I swear you were adopted. From aliens.”
“Was not!”
“Whatever. Be quiet. We’re almost there.”
“Where?”
“Ssshhhh.”
“Hey, what’s that?”
“It’s a well, Einstein.”
“What’s it doing out here in the middle of the woods?”
“Dunno. I think there used to be a house out here or something.”
“Huh. Is this where we were going?”
“We’re here, aren’t we? Now be quiet and pull up the rope.”
“What for? What ya gonna do?”
“I’m goin’ down there, that’s what. Stop asking so many stupid questions.”
“But what’s down there?”
“George Bee told me that it used to be an old bandit hideout, and that they stashed their loot there. But then the cave collapsed on them, and they got caught inside and all suffocated to death.”
“Whoa.”
“Did you get that rope pulled up yet? Good. You might be worth something after all.”
“You really goin’ down there?”
“Don’t be such a chicken-shit. It’s just a well.”
“But it’s dark! How far down does it go?”
“To the bottom. Duh. I brought a flashlight. Look, it’s rigged so that even you should be able to help lower me down. Just pull and don’t let go.”
“But you didn’t want me to come. How were you gonna get down there without me!?”
“George was supposed to show up. I figured he’d skip out. I bet he’s down near the mill with Angie right now.”
“But I thought –“
“Yeah, well you think too much. Stop it, will ya? Once I find this loot, no way Angie will like that clown more than me. You ready?”
“But what if –“
“Shut up and hold on to the lever. Here I go.”
“…”
“Hey Ben? … Ben? … Hey Ben, how ya gonna get back up?”