Got the Hook Up: Part 2

     Gene sat at the bar and waited for Lenny to show up. They were supposed to meet at five thirty, but it was six now and Lenny hadn't shown up. Sitting by himself, surrounded by loud people, Gene thought about how well he actually knew Lenny.
     The people around Gene were local. Judging by the amount of people sitting at the bar and the cars in the lot beside the building, most of them had driven there. They sat around the bar and drank. They drank with purpose. They were dressed in flannel and dirty pants and they wanted to forget that. They laughed and carried on like people 20 years younger then them.
     Gene was would feel himself get a little nervous as the voices rose. Because he was sitting at the bar he could feel people standing behind him and wondering what he was doing there. They would get loud and laugh loudly. Gene knew he had no business being in a place like this. These people had had hard lives. Gene's life wasn't a picnic, but it was different.
     Gene grew up in a family that never talked about their emotions and pretended that everything was okay. His family kept up appearances  In that way he envied these people. All of their hardships were clearly displayed on their bar tabs and weathered faces. They were rageful and happy and funny and they wanted every one to know about it.
     While he sat there, Gene felt like these people could tell he didn't belong. Gene was young, was carrying a shoulder bag with a laptop he had gotten for Christmas, and had been sitting with a miller light for cover, but they could tell.
     He would take a sip from the beer every time he was nervous that he didn't look casual. He had drank three beers in a half an hour so far.
     After college Gene didn't really talk to Lenny too much. They had been friends on facebook, but he had never been to active on there, so it was hard to tell what his life was like from looking at it. His picture had been the same from when he left school and there weren't any new ones on there, or any posts at all really. That seemed to tell Gene something, but he wasn't sure what.
     Could Lenny have become one of these people that were slowly hating Gene as he sat at their bar. Sometimes, in the mornings before work at the library, Lenny would talk about how he used to be a great football player in high school, but busted his leg. He had always walked with a little bit of a limp, but it wasn't something that you would notice without paying attention to it. He was studying sports medicine and graduated with a degree in it.

     At six thirty Lenny finally walked into the bar. Gene wouldn't have noticed it if a few of the other guys at the bar hadn't gotten up and loudly greeted him when he walked in. Lenny was know here, a regular. Gene looked up from his beer and tried to make eye contact with him.
     Lenny stood at the door for a few seconds and saw Gene sitting at the end of the bar. He nodded his head began moving towards him. His limp was much worse than it had been
     "Hey man hows it going." He walked up to Gene and patted him hard on the back.
     "Hey Lenny, its great to see you again, I'm pretty good." There wasn't another seat at the bar next to him, so Gene suggested grabbing one of the empty tables on the other side of the place.
     "Yeah sure, lemme grab a brew first and I'll meet you over there."
     Gene gathered his coat and shoulder bag from the ground beneath his stool. He felt funny carrying all this stuff across the bar to where the tables were. He got a seat by a window that was mostly covered by a large sign for Miller Light.
    Lenny came over with his beer and sat down across from Gene, he held his leg out straight from the table it went right next to Gene, hr would have to step over it to get out.
     "So, Gene," Lenny took a long drink from the beer. "How the hell are you."

Got the Hook Up: Part 1

     Gene stepped off the train onto the cold concrete platform. He hadn't been to this stop before, but the bar he was supposed to meet his friend was right near there, so it was his best bet.
     The whole train stop was under a bridge that blocked out the five o'clock sun. As Gene walked out of the station all he could see was run down buildings and highways. They were the sort of buildings that you would see along highways, brick shells that had been abandoned a while ago. You could still see the faded signs on the roofs of the buildings, peeling and old. Most of the windows had been broken. There were buses and taxis lined up outside of the station too. This didn't seem like a stop that people walked out of.
     He had to walk around the train station to find the side walk that led into town. The only difference between the buildings right in front of Gene and the buildings that he found by walking around the other side of the station were the windows. The windows in town weren't completely smashed. It also seemed more residential, but the general feeling of despair hung heavy along the street. He took the sidewalk along what seemed like a road that was too busy to have a sidewalk. He followed the map on his phone closely, continually making sure that he was in the right place. It seemed to be right, but he couldn't imagine there being a bar along this road. He kept walking, up a little hill lined with check cashing stores and arguing couples. At the top of the hill, he could finally see the place he was supposed to meet Lenny.

     Lenny had been a friend from college. Gene knew him from the job that he picked up to help pay for tuition, they had both worked in the library at the school. Gene had worked at the snack bar in the lobby to be more specific, and Lenny was at the front desk of the library.
     When they had met, Gene thought Lenny seemed like a nice guy. It had been freshman year for Gene, but Lenny was a senior. Gene was still young enough to be impressed by older kids talking to him. Lenny kept his hair long and had a goatee too, which made him seem even cooler. He would get the same sticky breakfast roll from Gene everyday saying something along the lines of:
     "This sticky bun is so choice right now man."

     And he would talk with Gene until one of their bosses yelled at them. Lenny would come into work high most of the time too, but no one seemed to notice. If they did notice, they didn't seem to care. Gene had tried going to class high once but almost had a panic attack so quickly learned that wasn't his thing.

     Gene walked down the hill to the bar. There was a small snowy parking lot next to it where a few lonely cars sat. It was five on a Tuesday so he was hoping the place would be mostly empty. He just wanted to meet Lenny and get back on the train.
     There were a couple of guys standing outside while Gene walked in. Gene felt like they had been watching him come towards the bar since the top of the hill and seemed genuinely surprised when he walked into their bar. But he was careful not to make eye contact, or look like he noticed that they were watching him.
     Despite the people smoking outside, the inside of the bar wreaked of cigarettes. There were two rooms separated by a partition leading down the center of the bar. On the right wall there was a bar along with a surprising number of patrons sitting at it. On the left there was a small sitting area that was empty but for a man sitting by himself eating what looked like a breakfast platter.
     Gene looked at his phone again. He had texted Lenny when he had gotten to the train station, but he didn't get anything back yet. He didn't want to seem too forceful, even though Gene was just buying pot from him, Lenny didn't have to sell to him, and he wanted to maintain good terms with him in case it was out of Lenny's way to hook him up.

     Before Lenny had graduated, Gene and him got rather close. They didn't hang out much outside of work, but they both worked the same shifts and Gene saw him as the one person there that he could talk to. The other people he worked with were terrible. Lenny would tell Gene about some crazy thing he did on mushrooms the night before or they would just talk about life.
     Maybe it was because of all the drugs, but Lenny was great with really deep conversations. He would talk in a way that seemed meaningful, and would always listen when Gene would talk. Gene took to seeing his talks with Lenny as mutual therapy.

     Gene was looking forward to another deep conversation when he had heard that Lenny was still around. He hadn't seen him since he had graduated. He did want to buy some weed and he felt a little bad about just calling him up out of the blue for just that.
     The bottles behind the bar were shinny but the colors seemed dull. There was a sparkle to them, but it seemed like the lazy sparkle of street lights when you were too drunk to see where you were going. It was disorienting.

     The other people at the bar laughed like it wasn't Tuesday night. They talked about their plumbing and kids that they were so proud of. The bottles behind the bar shone in the low lights hanging from the ceiling   

Workin' Out

     Gene had always been a little overweight. He had been chubby as a kid and never quite grew out of it. People would always say that if you looked good you felt good. It wasn't that Gene didn't feel good, he was just sick of pulling at shirts that felt too tight and worrying that people could tell that his arm fat jiggled when he waved at people.

     He had tried diets and gym regiments before, but they would generally all end the same way. He would stick with them for a week or two and then realize that if he didn't have to worry about his weight then he would just find something else to be insecure about, its just who he was. So he would figure “What's the point?” and stop working out.

     Despite this he wanted to reach a goal that he had set for himself. Going to the gym seemed like a good one to start with so he convinced himself to do it again. He started going to the gym, determined to stick with it and accomplish something.

     And he was actually able to do it. They say that once you get past three weeks, you are over the hardest part. He was onto four and he was actually feeling better about himself. He still felt uncomfortable in tight shirts, but the exercise helped him clear his mind and he liked that.

     He even started changing his diet. He replaced all of his crappy snack food and macaroni and cheese with this with some better food: fruits, vegetables, stuff with bran in it.

     He did keep some of the snack food though. He liked to reward himself with it. The most important thing was portions. So now instead of eating a whole pizza, he would eat a few slices and save the rest for later.

     Between going to the gym and eating better, Gene really felt like he was losing weight and getting healthier. He would go to work, hit the gym on his way home after work, and have a nice balanced dinner when he got home.

     One night he got home and realized that he had stuck to this regiment for a whole month. When he got home from the gym he took a shower, had some dinner, and decided he should reward himself for sticking to his plan.

     He found a bag of tortilla chips. It was a big bag, meant to feed a family over the course of a week, twelve servings in a bag. Gene would normally finish one of these in a few nights and was excited about applying his new eating habits.

     The bag was perforated at the top and the bottom and had a flap on the back so it could be opened. Gene pulled at the top of the bag, and then at the bottom, but the perforated edges wouldn't give. He opened the flap on the back and tried to open it that way, but that also failed.

     Each time he tried to open the bag, he could feel his body shaking with effort. As he shook, so did all the fat that he realized he hadn't lost at all. Gene could feel his whole body jiggle with every pull. The longer he tried to open this family sized bag of chips, the worse he felt about the last four weeks.

     After a while, he gave up, grabbed a pair of scissors from his room and cut the bag open. He took the bag and sat in front of the TV still telling himself he was only going to eat some of them, but that voice got more and more quiet as Gene worked his way through the whole bag. 

First Date

     Gene had met her on an online dating website that he had been using off and on since college. Every once in a while he would get stressed out about being single and he would hop back on this site to try to date. He would message three or four girls a day for about a week and it would make him feel better, it felt like he was doing something. Inevitably,  none of the girls would get back to him and he would get discouraged and bitter and stop using the site again.

     This pattern seemed to be going no differently during his most recent foray into the online dating world. He had gone through a week of messaging people every night, but he had gotten nothing back. After whispering something dismissive to himself, he stopped sending out messages.

     He did keep checking the site for a few day after.

     “Just logging on to make sure no one messaged me.” He would tell himself, secretly expecting there to be a hundred messages waiting for him. But this time, someone had actually messaged him back.

     Her name was Caroline, and she was one of the girls that he had been really excited about, one that he had really hoped would message him back. He liked all of the books and movies she listed as being 'in to', and even the tone of the writing was appealing. She seemed confident and funny.

     So Gene tried not to waste any time and set up a date with Caroline for that weekend. He suggested a little restaurant in the city and she quickly accepted. He had been there before. It was a small place, the lighting was low, the food was decent, and the atmosphere had always stuck him as great for a date.

     On the night of the date, Gene got to the restaurant about twenty minutes early, so he grabbed a table and ordered a beer. While he sat with his beer he thought about the date, and how he barely knew this girl. When he had made the date, he figured that the hard part was over, but sitting in the restaurant he realized that it had just begun. He ordered another drink.

     Caroline finally arrived, on time, and she sat down with him. She looked nice and Gene was sure to let her know. She reciprocated and they continued into basic date conversation: “Where are you from?” “Cats or dogs?” There would be brief but torturous gaps of silence between each topic. Each time someone would say something to keep the conversation going, but each gap was scary.

     As the night went on, Gene realized that he would need to use the bathroom. He had had a few beers and a few waters sitting here. Drinking something was a great way to fill in the gaps in a conversation because it seemed like the gap was because of the drinking rather than the lack of things to talk about.

     Urinating usually wasn't a problem for Gene, but he wanted to look good on the date and if going to awful frat parties in college was any indication, peeing was a sign of weakness in 'man world'. Would she think he was weak for peeing? She was pretty, he was trying his hardest to be charming, would urinating ruin this somehow?

     Gene let the conversation return to the inevitable awkward silence between topics to excuse himself and go to the bathroom, weakness be damned. It was a relief to pee, but after a minute or so, Gene realized he had been in the bathroom for a little while now.

     If he kept peeing like this, she would think he was shitting. That seemed much worse, and Gene cut his bladder off short, leaving the bathroom half full, but in a reasonable amount of time. Why ruin a first date with an implied bowel movement?

     The night went on, Gene still had to pee, but he was able to ignore it through the end of the night. The train ride home would be bad, but at least he wouldn't lose any more face. They walked back to the train station.

     “I had a great time.” Gene said, wondering if he should put his arm around her as they walked. “We should do this again. And then some more times after that.” He smiled at his joke and looked to Caroline.

     “Yeah,” there was a silence. “I would love to, but I'm actually seeing someone right now.” Gene didn't stop walking.

     “Oh, okay.” He didn't remember what her relationship status was on the site, but who the hell goes on a dating website if they are already in a relationship? He was buzzed enough to want to scream this at her in the middle of the street. “Well, you should continue you seeing that person then.”

     “We could still hang out, I just wanted you to know that.”

     Gene had been down that road before. He wanted to yell at her and call her mean words, but he knew it wouldn't change anything, and he had felt defeated anyway. “That's okay, I think I'm all set.” 

     On the way home, Gene thought that maybe he could have just been her friend, and then dated her when she broke up with her boyfriend, which he imagined wasn't far off. He thought about this, but he was tired of chasing unavailable girls. If they had met differently, if their first interaction wasn't on a dating site, if the first time he saw her in person wasn't on their first date, then things might have been different. Gene didn't mind being friends with girls, but being friends with this one would make him feel even more pathetic.  

False Start

Gene got into his car and slammed the door. He was parked in the driveway his now ex-girlfriend. She said she had met someone else and sent Gene on his way. He sighed as he looked down at his hands on the steering wheel.  

He didn't know if he wanted to slam his fists on the wheel or just cry. He thought about both, he would probably do both.

The keys were in the ignition for a few seconds before he felt he had the strength to turn them. They sat there, a pink owl hung off of them, she had given him that. He took the keys out and tried to get the key-ring off. The metal ring wouldn't separate. He tried to get his finger nails in there to get the owl off, but he had been biting him for the whole hour and a half break up. His hands were sweaty and shaky. He gave up, put the keys back in the ignition and started the car.

Only, the car wouldn't start. He tried to turn the keys again, but still nothing.

                “Fuck”

The car was dead. Gene felt the blood rush to his face as he tried to think about going back into that house and asking for someone to help. He tried to think of anything else, anyone he could call.

Looking up he saw the little roadside service button. He had never really trusted it, it just seemed too convenient, but he couldn't think of anything else to do.

“Roadside assistance, how are you doing today?”

The woman’s voice was soft and kind. She spoke as if she really wanted to know how he was doing. That was all he needed to break down. He would never hear her voice on the phone again, never wake up to her kissing him, never feel the comfort of knowing that she would pick up the phone when he called and they could talk for hours.

“Hi,” he mustered out. He wasn't quite sobbing, but he was starting to breath funny, where he couldn't get words out.

“Are you okay sir?”

“No.” The ‘o’ lingered out into another sob.

“Do you need me to call someone?” Her voice was serious now. Gene realized how this must sound.

“No, no” He sucked up some mucus “I’m fine. I just broke up with….” The words were still hard. Everything he said shot him back through a thousand memories.

“Sir, I need you to tell me what happened.” Her voice was assertive, but still kind. She sounded so nice.

“My girlfriend…I…we…we broke up.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“She wanted to be with someone else.” Gene felt some weight come off his chest just saying it. He took a deep steady breath. It was the first one he had fully taken in two hours. “She said the met on a tilt-a-whirl.”

“A tilt-a-whirl?” She sounded so understanding and talking was making him feel  better. She was on his side.

“I know. How do you meet someone on a tilt-a-whirl?” Gene let out another long breath. “It doesn’t even make sense.” He remembered her leaving for Florida. “She had gone down to visit schools in Miami, I had called her every night. She told me about-“ He choked up again.

There was a few seconds of silence. “You’re going to be okay.”

“She told me about going to a carnival one of the schools was throwing. I guess they must have met there. She’s going to the University of Miami and were breaking up.”

“Look, a lot of people break up when they go to college, you should look at this as an opportunity.”

“How is this as an opportunity?” Gene wiped his nose off on his sleeve.

“Well, I’m sure your relationship wasn't perfect…”

“It was!” Gene could feel himself jump on the defensive, but then he thought for a second. “Well-“

“If she is going to jump on the first guy she meets down there, I can’t imagine she was much of a keeper.” Gene suppressed his instinct to defend himself. He let her finish. “Think of this as a chance to start fresh.”

“Start fresh.” It wasn't much, but he had stopped sobbing. He could breathe normally again too. Maybe he was going to be okay. “Thanks, I really do feel better.”

“Good, I’m glad I could help.”

“I think I just needed to break down a bit, sorry about that.”

“That’s quite alright, I was happy to help but I-“

“Things just get all bottled up in times like this, you know?”

“Yes sir I do, but I have to-“

“I’m really glad I called you.”

“Yes, I have to-“

“Oh! You have to go don’t you”

“Yes, I’m so glad I could help but I have other callers so I do need to go.”

“Well, thanks again. Bye.”

“Good bye sir.”

It was only a few minutes of conversation, but Gene felt better. It still hurt, but there was hope now. Gene looked down at his keys in the ignition.

“Fuck”

Coffee Line

     Gene walked into the coffee shop down the street from his office. The walk wasn't to long, but the winter weather had just started rolling in and he had neglected to wear his coat. He took a few steps into the shop, dragging his feet against the door mat and welcomed the warmth. He could only get a few steps in though, as the line was rather long. It was about 9:30 and the place was full of other people looking for a way to procrastinate before actually doing work.

     He stood behind a big guy in a red t shirt. The man had a foot on Gene, but hunched his back up so the height difference wasn't as noticeable. It seemed he also neglected to wear a coat, but Gene got the impression that this was by choice rather than neglect. The t shirt was tight on him too and didn't flatter his broad frame.

     As the line dragged on, Gene just stared at the back of this guys head. You can only stand behind someone so long before you start to hate them. The man had a shaved head, but Gene could still tell that he rarely showered based on the amount of bumpy red blemishes. The smell was another give away. It wasn't a terrible smell, it was just a smell that was clearly coming from this man. Almost musky, but not too overwhelming. Still, Gene tried to breathe mostly through his mouth.

     With each step the man jingled. At first, Gene though it was change in his pocket or something, but after closer inspection, it was a huge mess of keys hanging off his hip. There must have been twenty five keys on there, not to mention some huge key chains, one of which being a heavy pewter statue of a robot.

     'What an obnoxious amount of keys', Gene thought himself.

     When the man finally reached the front, he greeted the bored looking girl tending the register and looked up at the menu displayed above the counter. The back of his thick head bunched up into fat rolls when he looked up. He read the menu as if he hadn't been standing in line for the past seven minutes.

     He was cheerful when he finally ordered too. That some how made it worse. Did he not realize there were people behind him, waiting for him to make his order? Could he not feel the impatience surging?

     The man ordered a large iced coffee with extra creme and a cinnamon roll. In reality, the order probably took less than a minute, but it didn't seem like that. His order finished, he moved off to the side to wait for his coffee.

     Gene stepped up to the counter. The second he did, he could feel the same impatience surging behind him. It broke against him like waves. All he could think about was the growing line of people waiting for him to make his order. With the guy in front of him, Gene could redirect any impatience he felt, but there was no buffer now. He felt it all himself.

     The people standing behind him and hating him just as he had hated the guy in red. Gene could feel them looking at his stupid hair cut that he hated anyway, the way his shirt was tucked in, what he ordered. He could feel their attention on everything. He didn't dare look up at the menu. The only thing he could think to order was the iced coffee the man in red had just got. No cinnamon roll though. They would recognize that, the iced coffee alone could have just been a coincidence.

     Gene moved out of line like he was moving out from under a bus. He noticed that the man in the red was still in the cafe. He had gotten his coffee and moved over to a little station where you could add more sugar or whatever you wanted. Gene watched the man for a little bit longer. He was taking his time. He looked at the packets of sugar and the various types of creme that the cafe had provided. He though about what he wanted, and then added it to the cup.

      Gene got his coffee and moved to stand next to him, pretending to examine the various selections. The smell and the keys and everything else about this man was still there, surrounding him like an aura, but it seemed different now.

     Looking back at the line that had stood behind Gene just a moment ago, everyone looked as indifferent an bored at the girl behind the counter. The man in red took his time, got what he waned and jingled back onto the cold street in his tight red t shirt. 

A Visual Scene 2

     This is another scene from the same movie. This scene occurs right after the first one. Again, I tried to show feeling through action and visuals rather than the interior thoughts of the characters. Let me know what you think in the comments.

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     Black and deep, the only light that makes it down shimmers off the oil bubbling up from the bottom of the pit. The Man stands knee deep in oil at the bottom, digging deeper. He picks his head up from the work and pulls at the air that makes it down to the bottom. The light coming down from the mouth of the hole shines off the man's oil covered face.

     The Man's shift in the hole finished, he studies a picture of a machine. He pulls meaning from it and breaks it down to basic forms. The other man not in the hole tends to a baby, his son. The son is silent while they both watch the Man working to replicate this machine.

     The man measures the length of the large metal pike against the designs he has drawn up from the book. It takes two men to pull it up to the surface from the bottom of the pit, one man on the crank designed to raise it, and another pulling the rope itself.

     The Man has the rope wrapped around his arm and pulls with all of the energy he has remaining after the days work. The sand shifts under his feel as he tries to pull the rope along. The Man stumbles and the rope slips out of his hands. The crank spins wildly as the metal pike plummets to the bottom of the pit.

     With a thunk, the pike is driven into the flesh of the earth. Bubbles begin rising from the fresh wound as the pit slowly fills with oil. The father lowers himself into the pit as the other two men bring the pike back up a bit. At the bottom, the father runs his hand against the pike as it rises up. It is slick with hot oil. He laughs and raises his oil soaked palm to the mouth of the pit.

     The men work quickly now, with the proof of their labor. They make a small pool not far from the hole to store the oil in as they bring it up. The wooden beams used to raise and lower the large metal pike are now used to raise and lower buckets for extracting the oil.

     The father holds his son as he dumps one of the buckets into the collecting pool. He kneels down. Father and son are reflected in the smooth, black surface of the oil. The father dips his hand into the pool and marks to son's forehead with the oil. The son whimpers and struggles for comfort in his father's arms.

     The men bring bucket after bucket to the surface. The man and the father work in the hole to fill the buckets with oil, while the third pulls each load to the surface and adds it to the pool. The scaffolding used to    support the buckets is silhouetted against what light makes it into the pit.

     The snap is sudden. There are only a few second before the bucket come down to crush the father's skull. His blood splashes over the Man's face, covering some of the oil with deep red. There's no sound, no scream, just the wet smack of a man becoming a corpse in a pit of oil.

     The man look at the child laying in its basket and sips from a flask. The child weeps. The Man pours a bit of his flask on the nipple of the child's bottle, but the child rejects it.

     The job done, the Man rides across the state in a locomotive, the child next to him. He looks down to the baby looking up at him. The son reaches up from the basket and the Man leans down.  

A Visual Scene

This is the first scene of a movie. The scene is almost entirely visual and I was once told it would be a good exercise to write a scene like this. I also tried to keep out as much interiority as possible. Let me know what you think in comments and let me know if you know what movie its from too. 

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     A gaping expanse of dirt and dying plants focuses down on a large hole in the ground. It's quiet, with only the whine of an injured animal ringing our over a small wood structure set up over the large, black hole.

In the hole, he picks away at the rock, digging deeper. The small dark lights up around the point of the pick with each strike. The dust from the rock fills the air. He breaks the rocks like he is digging a grave, he breaks them with purpose. He digs with that purpose for hours.

     The man stops digging only to sharpen the blunt point of the pick. He drags the sharpening tool across the pick like he has a thousand times before. He has always been sharpening this pick, tempering it against the rocks and making his way.
     The man spends his nights next to a fire, underneath an unending sheet of stars. He keeps the fire going while he is awake. If he is lucky, it will keep its warmth through the night.
     In the hole, the man picks at the walls with a rhythm. But his rhythm quickly breaks today. The rock caves easy to his pick as it moves faster against the wall. He slips a stick of dynamite into the space he has made. His tools in a bucket and rigged to be pulled back to the surface, he lights he fuse.
     Out of the hole, he pulls himself up onto the I beam reaching across the top of the hole and hops back onto the surface. The rope attached to the bucket runs up out of the hole and down a small decline outside the hole. He grabs it, wrapping it around his right arm and pulls.
     All of his weight into the rope gets the bucket off the ground a bit, the bucket wobbles, and falls back to the floor of the pit. He gets the rope a bit tighter around his arm and pulls again. The small flame is running along the fuse, getting closer to the dynamite while he pulls. The weight of the bucket keeps him from being able to return it to the surface.
     The pop is sudden but muted by the depth of the hole. Dust rises like the smoke from a locomotive.
     Moving back to the hole, he eases himself back onto the ladder leading down. His hands clamber down the rungs. He grabs each one as he lowers himself into the hole. About twenty feet from the bottom, one of these rungs slips out from the ladder, sending him quickly to the bottom.
     He wakes with a hard, long breath. The air rushes back into him through the rock and the dust. He pulls himself up to sit against one of the walls of the pit. He digs through some of the rubble from the blast. The rock shimmers a bit, even through the dust and dirt covering it.
     “There she is.” He spits the rock and wipes at it, “There she is.”
     He tucks the rock into his shirt. The rope holding the stubborn bucket hangs down like a noose from the small bit of light above. He grabs it, pulling himself up. His leg is broken. He pulls himself up on the rope and leverages his weight against the wall to reach the ladder.
     The climb out of the hole is long, but he is able to manage up the remaining rungs of the ladder with the rock tight against his chest. He tumbles out onto the bright sand upon reaching the top. The air is fresh. An animal cries out and echos around the canyon.

Take Shape

     Gene looks through the box that he had used to clear off his desk. It's mostly empty despite his six years of service to the company; a coffee mug, a name plate, and a bunch of paper clip scraps. He takes out the mug and the name plate, putting them on the counter next to the box. He collects all the metal scraps in one corner, and dumps them into his hand. It's just a jumbled mess of broken paperclips, a few magnets and a screw. It had been something once, but now it's this mess. Gene lays the pieces out on the counter and tries to put everything back together.

     While employed, Gene worked at an office supply distributor. Much of his day involved going over order forms and maintaining spread sheets. His life was ruled by the spread sheets. He didn't mind much though. Gene took pride in his work. He enjoyed optimizing the organization of data and finding better ways to look at it. He came up for a snappy title for his position, Distribution Manager, and took pride in handing out business cards. It wasn't something to pick up chicks with, but he liked it.

     Due to the various mundane tasks he would tackle on a day to day basis, Gene took to unbending paper clips while he worked. It seemed to help him concentrate and no one really seemed to mind the broken paper clip parts strewn across his desk.

     While he was in a meeting during his first few months at the company, Gene had found four tiny magnetic spheres stuck to the chair he was sitting in. They served as a nice substitute for the paper clips during the meeting, which was of no interest to him. He separated them and let them pull themselves back together. He like the idea of a force that brought four separate things into one.

     Getting back to his desk, Gene was looking forward to jumping into a new document that measured client's orders per month against their proximity to new product distribution centers the company had just opened. He put the magnets down on his desk and reached for a paper clip. Before he could get to unbending the paper clip, he noticed something.

     The magnets had brought the scraps on his desk together. What was once a line of magnets and a bunch of broken paper clips was now a little metal tree. The broken pieces of paper clip extended from the magnetic trunk like branches.

     Gene played around with this, trying to allow it to take shape itself like it had before. He saw something in the mess and tried to fill in the blanks. He took a few more paperclip scraps and a screw that had fallen out of his chair, adding them into the mix. He was careful not to further alter the pieces themselves. If something was bent one way, he didn't change it to better suit his needs, he just let the existing pieces come together as they were.

     Eventually, the magnetic spheres took the shape of a back and spine, the screw sat on top, like a head. The magnets held the arms and legs to the rest of the body too. It was a little person. He looked up at Gene and seemed to wave. The magnetic nervous system allowed the man to move and be posed. Gene smiled and sat the man down next to his coffee mug.

     People didn't usually notice the magnet man, or if they did, they didn't mention it. He sat on the desk for six years. Gene would occasionally move the little man around the desk, changing his pose, but other than that, Gene didn't think too much about him either. He quickly became just as innocuous as any of the other trinkets people collected on their desks.

     When then time came for him to leave the company, Gene went quietly. He never liked to burn bridges and he felt that the experience had been valuable, so he turned in his ID badge and cleared off his desk. He wasn't happy about giving six years to a company only to be told “It was a really hard decision” and “There just isn't room in the budget.” But he was happy for the experience and tried to take it in stride. Cleaning off his desk, he realized that almost everything belonged to the company, the only things that were his were his coffee mug and his name plate. He packed these up in the box his boss had given him, and almost missed the little magnet man. Gene threw him in too.

     The box had been bouncing around quite a bit while Gene took it home, down stairs, up stairs, taking turns on his way back to his apartment that he wasn't sure he could afford anymore. He could here the nameplate as it bounced against the coffee mug making desperately trying to make a toast.

     So here Gene stood, looking down at these metal scraps. He lays them out on the counter next to the box, trying to piece the little man back together. The first time he did it, Gene wasn't quite sure how everything would take shape. He has an image in his mind now. That little man that had been sitting quietly on Gene's desk for six years. He tries to build the pieces back up, but the image of the little man sitting on his desk keeps coming back. He know what he wants this mess to be, and that makes it so much more difficult. The pieces just don't fit any more.