Tuesday, April 17, 2018

"I'd like to think so." (Short Story)

I got a really cool opportunity to write a story for Pretty Sick Bitch, a YouTube channel centered around horror stories. I haven't had a lot of experience in the practice of writing stories specifically intended to elicit fear, so I was excited to give it a go. Her accent and production gives a certain classiness to the narrative that I find quite thrilling, so be sure to check it out at the link below:

I'd like to think so.
By Zoe Rose


At eighteen, I consider myself tentatively lucky to still have a great-grandparent. 91 and just only now starting to disappear behind the thicket of dementia, my mother’s mother’s mother is held in my family much like the beautiful antique platter we once had- treasured, requires the most careful of handling, only seen at Christmas.


Not that it was always like this. Maw, as we seven youngest group of descendants call her, she used to be so, well, here. Aged, yes, but she refused to let anybody be able to call her an old lady. I spent elementary summers in quiet awe of how much she was able to at her age, all on her own, while the four others I had known went so quietly into the ground that I can hardly even recall that they were once more than just a figure in the frames on the wall.


Too many errands ran and dinners cooked and nights spent to really pick apart the specific memories of Maw before now. And I was too young to be able to get anything but the essence of things from then. The accumulation of time stretches out like a landscape, blurred and somewhat consistent, peppered by the rare oddity or importance.
But there is one.

I can’t remember how specifically old I was, but it had to’ve been when I was still young and small enough to have been comfortably sleeping on Maw’s loveseat in her living room. An overstuffed structure held together by cool, plastic-y leather, I usually would find myself up with the sun almost directly following saying goodnight. For some reason, on some night, I had been pulled back to consciousness by a very loud, chug-a-lug type of noise.

I do remember keeping my eyes closed for a long time. I figured I’d fall back asleep if I mimed like I actually still was. Eventually the noise became piercing, all-around, too much to ignore. I sat up.

Pushed up against the wall on the other end of the couch was a large, matching chair. It usually sat vacant, but not then. I had opened my eyes to a man sitting there- pants and shoes and an old-man belly visible through a tan shirt- and he didn’t seem one bit out of place with the scene. The prickle of fear that I’d have had nowadays went unfelt then. I was not scared. In my child-mind, he looked even natural to be there.

Most of his face was covered by a great opaque mask that stretched from nearly over his eyes to past his chin. From it ran a long tube that snaked off his knees and onto the floor.

We stayed like that for a while. Even in the Ohio dark, I could see him well enough to make out a struggle in the rise and fall of his chest as he took in air. My mind was so unbothered by the presence of The Man with No Face that I could even conjure up sympathy for him. An asthmatic since kindergarten, I knew what it was like to not be able to take that simple function for granted. I can remember most sharply how bad I felt that this stranger had to live with that loud mask.

But I never said a word or made a motion, and neither did he. I blinked at him. I think he blinked at me. Then, after some time, I squirmed back down onto the couch and fell asleep.

In the daylight, eating pancakes with my brother and Maw and waiting for my mother to come take us all to the movies, the incident felt like nothing more than a really silly dream. I knew how my brother and cousins would laugh- Ha ha ha, a man in the chair. And ha ha ha, he had a mask. The adults would say I was making things up again. I’d get another lesson in truths versus not-truths, and I already knew well enough.

So I had a secret. I once saw a man in Maw’s chair and I was almost proud to have never even whispered it at sleepovers. And after so long of not calling that night back to tell to others, it became far and enough away that I very nearly forgot it happened.

It wasn’t until I was something like sixteen years old when I thought about it again. Maw had finally agreed to move into an assisted living and put her home of about sixty years on the market, and I had come up north to help my grandma and mom clean everything out while Maw settled into a place where (much to our relief) she would never be alone like she had since 1989.

Something about rummaging through an old basement- curling newspapers nestled into the corners of a ripped pool table- inspired such a nostalgia within my mother that she got talking of the times when she was “my age”.

And my age then happened to be the same approximate time within my mother’s life that she had seen her grandma go a widow and herself lose someone that, she admitted with this little pull in her voice, that she cared about very much.

He was a photographer for a local paper. Good one too- almost won the Pulitzer for capturing a “Terror on the Mad River!”. Mom likes photography. Mom is like her grandfather.

And he had a whole life before the bad time, something wholly different than what I had seen. I don’t know if I really believe in God, or monsters, or a world past this, but I’m sure, I’m sure, that we all leave an imprint- an electrical little pulse that grabs hold of what’s around and tells others that dammit, we were, once.

But it didn’t really matter how he lived. This man with the camera, searing the history of Dayton in a fearless bulb- Beatles Here Today!, Mayor Elected, Man Captured- marching only forward, always forward, to an early, choked death. The man who captured everything forever, his own true history lost.

“It went so quick,” She said to his box of negatives on the broken wicker chair in the corner, “At the point he was at, the doctor just sent him home. He had this big, loud breathing machine to keep him comfortable, but that was it. We were all there. Grandma had left the room for a few moments, and that was when he went.”

And you wanna know where? Do you really, really want to?

Because I think you already do.

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

"Sapphire's Lament" (Short Play)

I'd written a couple of short plays to submit to a festival something like two months ago...this ended up being one of the many I didn't send and I never heard back, anyways (though I'm not sad or anything- I have a 10-minute play being produced in August). I know it's pretty rough, but I kinda like being able to clearly point at something and say: "Now that needs to be worked on."

Sapphire's Lament
By Zoe Rose

Lights up to SAPPHIRE and GOLDIE, in GOLDIE's dining room. Of the three chairs, one is vacant- CHRIS paces up and down stage right, talking on the phone with his dealer. It's evident that he's high and trying too hard to sound street-impressive for the girls.

CHRIS: For $40 man, I want it loud. I wanna smell it from the car, you get me?...when you coming up?...aight, aight...half an hour man? Better be worth waitin'...aight, I'm trustin' you...

CHRIS hangs up. He turns back to the girls.

GOLDIE: You got it taken care of, babe?

CHRIS (while crossing to sit in the chair next to GOLDIE): I've got all that shit settled for you, baby.

CHRIS and GOLDIE kiss. It's obvious that SAPPHIRE is uncomfortable.

GOLDIE (re: SAPPHIRE): Saph, you don't gotta squirm like that. You ever seen two people in love?

SAPPHIRE smiles, embarrassed.

SAPPHIRE: Sorry. Not used to you with a boy.

CHRIS: That's cuz she's a good girl- only warming up to a real man.

CHRIS wraps an arm around GOLDIE's waist as she laughs.

Goldie's told me you two are the same. Goldie's told me-

GOLDIE clamps a hand over CHRIS's mouth and laughs again. She may be high, too.

GOLDIE: Just a few things.

GOLDIE winks at SAPPHIRE reassuringly. GOLDIE takes her hand off of CHRIS's mouth as he jokingly bites it.

GOLDIE (re: CHRIS): Baby, you wanna get us something to drink? I got cups out on the counter.

CHRIS: Sure, princess.

CHRIS exits stage left where the kitchen would be. GOLDIE turns to SAPPHIRE, smiling in self-satisfaction. SAPPHIRE doesn't seem so pleased.

SAPPHIRE: All you told me was that you met a guy. What's it been, a couple weeks? Maybe a month?

GOLDIE: I like him. Don't you?

SAPPHIRE: He's got this way about him...

GOLDIE: Jesus, give him a chance! He's been here five minutes and you're already thinking up why I should ditch him. Are you just jealous?

SAPPHIRE: Don't be silly. I'm looking out for you. Guys who act all tough never back it up.

GOLDIE (low, almost flirtatiously): You know something, sugar-girl? You'll always be my bestest friend...my, well, my favorite friend. You get me?

SAPPHIRE (relenting): Yeah Goldie, I get it...

CHRIS enters stage left with three red cups. He puts them in the middle of the table as he sits down. The girls each take a cup. SAPPHIRE sniffs the content, her face twisting into a brief grimace.

SAPPHIRE: Little strong to be mixing with pot, don't you think?

CHRIS: It's just for while we wait.

GOLDIE uses her index finger to tip the bottom of SAPPHIRE's cup up, and SAPPHIRE, understanding her cue, drinks.

GOLDIE (re: CHRIS): She's not usually like this, I swear. I think she's trying to feel you out. She's a very protective friend. And sensitive. She wants to be a poet.

CHRIS: Really?

SAPPHIRE shrugs. She takes another drink.

GOLDIE: She wrote a poem about me. Got it put in a magazine and everything.

CHRIS: So you two gotta be real close, yeah?

SAPPHIRE: We've known each other...what, ten years now? Since elementary?

GOLDIE: We've done a lot together.

CHRIS smiles in understanding at this.

CHRIS: Oh, I see! So y'all practice kissing with each other?

SAPPHIRE shrinks back in discomfort, while GOLDIE nods eagerly.

That's cute.

GOLDIE: You wanna see?

SAPPHIRE: Goldie!

GOLDIE: Come on Sapphie, what's the problem? You've always wanted to before.

SAPPHIRE: It was just us before. It was a private thing. Is that why you wanted me to come over? To put on a show for your little boyfriend?

GOLDIE: Calm down, honey...come here.

GOLDIE leans toward SAPPHIRE. CHRIS watches intently. Suddenly, SAPPHIRE springs out of her chair.

SAPPHIRE: Don't kiss me. Please.

GOLDIE: Why? What's the matter?

SAPPHIRE: Because if you kiss me I know I'll kiss you back. And it's not gonna be for him, it'd be for me. Goldie, did you even read the poem? Did you? It was my way of telling you that- oh, God...

CHRIS suddenly gets up, grateful for any excuse to leave the room, and crosses stage right.

CHRIS (re: GOLDIE): Babe, my boy's here. I'm gonna meet him out front.

GOLDIE: I'll be out in a second.

CHRIS exits stage right. GOLDIE slowly gets up out of her chair and sighs.

Of course I did. It's pretty, it's a poem, and I didn't understand any of it. Sapph, I love you, but I'm not like you. You've always been so wrapped up in yourself, always wondering and worrying and thinking- thinking all the goddamn time. I finally found someone that I can have something real with, and you can't even be happy for me. I'm sorry, sweetie, but I'm just...not that way. Not really. And you know what? I can be happy for myself here. I can be happy with some stupid boy and community college and probably a family real soon like how our Mama's were. I'm happy to be like our Mamas. And you're not. You want that college up North and I know it and good luck and all the best and everything else...I'm going outside.

GOLDIE turns and exits stage right. SAPPHIRE crosses to center stage, looks offstage right, and squeezes her eyes shut. She tips her face up to the sky and recites like a prayer.

SAPPHIRE:
And I'm just tryna get back to those happy times-
Balmy nights, neon lights,
Dark wash jeans stitched skin-tight.
Back to those days-
14, fake ID
Bad-bred chicks flirtin' almost mean.
The Daytona dreams!
And oh my god,
Where-is-she?!
It's all gone, isn't it?
Everything to pot and Hell,
all falls to shit.
And when we go too, I can't tell.
I hope- oh, for your sake honey- I hope soon.

SAPPHIRE manages a smile.





Thursday, April 5, 2018

On Something "Horrible"

I've decided that tomorrow I'll hide for the majority of the day in the library. It's not unpleasant; a cool, dark place to concentrate on work and filled with old books to take home (they're purging their collection in anticipation of a complete remodeling). I'm actually quite excited at this prospect, of spending three or four solid hours in the library.

I'm doing this because my school has decided to put on a "mock DUI event" the week before prom. By 9am they'll have all the juniors and seniors gathered up onto the bleachers and ready for the show. They've been bolstering it on the announcements these past five days- opening act will be a quadriplegic whispering of the night she was thrown from a truck, followed by a mother who lost a whole pair of twins to a day-drinker, and then, for the grandest act this Central Floridian school has seen since the last bomb threat, two students will drive junk cars across the football field into a head-on collision. 

It's supposed to be a secret, but we all know- a semisweet leadership girl who lost the school election has been given the absolute honor to die tomorrow. She'll be pulled out of the twisted metal and shattered by a helicopter, the ripped tule of her prom dress flying out in the wind around her lifeless body, and won't be seen again until Monday.

They have a beautiful memorial planned for her. They'll set up a stand with roses and her senior photo in the cafeteria, something her friends will have the solemn task of posing with for their Snapchat stories. But, don't worry, she won't sacrifice too much of her life. Someone has agreed to take over her streaks while she stays home and lets everyone contemplate her loss.

It's guaranteed that people will cry. Girls have been joking they won't even bother with mascara beforehand. Girls and boys will cry over this, girls and boys to whom the worst thing that's ever happened is failing algebra or a speeding ticket. Girls and boys who will nod this all away when the bell rings and text at stoplights on their way home.

Attendance mandatory.

This, however, won't be happening for me. I would just skip school outright, but I know that my dad will get on me about it and then I won't get anything done. Show up for Spanish in the morning and a bit of macro in the afternoon. Library for all the rest.

I have a family member who really did die like that. I have another family member who was struck in the street by a drunk-driver and had all his talents and independence dashed out of him. And yeah, they didn't get to come back after a three-day weekend. You know what they got? Not the roses, not the memorial. Not a locally-trending hashtag campaign. The only place their names still exist are engraved on a weed-covered rock and on their door in an assisted living facility. 

The best way for me to get through tomorrow would be to choose not to speak. If I open my mouth for a hello, this really might come out instead. And if I contradict, if I refute something that we really put a lot of time in it and why don't you just be respectful and sit this one through, my last few weeks of high school will be difficult indeed. And it's already been difficult.

So I'll just shut my mouth and stay somewhere on the complete opposite side of campus and hope to God that I won't be able to hear the helicopters, hear the screeching, hear the collision, hear the screams, have to have any idea of what it was real-life like for them on the nights that they were called to be a tragedy.