Thursday, April 26, 2018

The Buddha in the Tree

dontravis.com blog post #282

Lots of page views last week, but not much comment on the story. Hope this flash fiction story gets a better reception.

*****
Courtesy of Max Pixel
THE BUDDHA IN THE TREE

          Herbert sat as still and quiet as a meditating Buddha on the topmost perch of his damaged cat tree, his yellow eyes moving back and forth between the two men standing over what had been his human. She now lay motionless on the floor, a halo of blood matting her splayed hair. Herbert blinked. She was no longer the human who tended and loved him, although he did not know how he came to that conclusion.
          “Damn, Sarge,” one of the men said. The shiny badge affixed to his belt caught lamplight and reflected it at Herbert. “Look at those tracks. Have rats been eating on her?”
          The other man, older than the speaker, motioned toward the cat tree. “Nah. That’s the cat’s paw prints. He came down to investigate. Name’s Herbert, according to the neighbor who found the vic.”
          Herbert’s ears twitched at the sound of his name.
          “Jesus!” the first man said. ‘It’s alive. I thought it was a stuffed toy.”
          “He’s real enough. Probably the only witness to the murder.”
          “You think so?”
          Sarge stroked his chin. “Way I figure it, that cat was sitting right up there on the tree while the perp killed the girl. Then the guy spotted the cat and took a swipe at him with the bat he used to murder the woman. See how the top of the tree’s broke off.”
          “But the cat got away, huh?”
          “Herbert’s sprier or luckier than his owner.”
          “Too bad he can’t talk.”
          Others came inside the apartment and tromped all over Dolly’s carpet. Dolly had been his best friend before she became that thing on the floor. One of the humans held an object to his eyes that clicked and made light flashes.
          Then Herbert heard a voice from outside the open door that make the hair on his back ruffle.
          “What’s going on here? I need to get inside.”
          A soft voice similar to his Dolly’s answered. “Sorry, sir. But I can’t let you in.”
          “This is my girlfriend’s place. I need to see her right now!”
          Herbert half rose and made a small sound.
          Sarge stared at him. “Well now, maybe the cat can talk.” He turned and stepped to the door and blocked the entrance. “I’m Sergeant Doyle. What’s your name, sir?”
          “William Peeler.”
          “And what is your relationship to Dolly Hardiman?”
          “Like I said, I’m her boyfriend. What’s going on here?”
          “There’s been an incident, and I’m afraid your friend is dead,” Sarge explained.
          “Dolly’s dead?”
          “We believe it’s Miss Hardiman, but she’s not been formally identified, as yet. Do you think you could identify her for us?”
          “Of course.”
          “Are you sure. There’s a body in there. Will that disturb you?”
          “Is it Dolly?’
          “Why don’t you step in and tell us.”
          Herbert watched as Sarge move aside and turned to stare at the cat tree as a man moved into the room. Immediately, Herbert stood on stiff legs, bowed his back, and hissed out a snarl.
          Sarge and his companion closed on the young man who had just entered.
          “Mr. Peeler, you need to come down to the station with us.”
          “What? Why?”
          “You’ve just been ID’d.”
          “By who?”
          “By the Buddha in the tree.” 

*****

I’m not a cat person, but I have a friend who is. And I totally believe her cat would spring into action in case disaster befell her.

Let me renew my plea: Keep on reading. Keep on writing. And keep on submitting your work to publishers and agents. You have something to say… so say it.

If you would like to drop me a line, my personal links follow:

Facebook: Don Travis
Twitter: @dontravis3

Here are some buy links to City of Rocks, my most recent book.


The next book in the BJ Vinson Mystery Series, The Lovely Pines is scheduled for release on August 28 of this year. Abaddon’s Locusts follows sometime in the first quarter of 2019.

See you next week.

Don

New Posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.


Thursday, April 19, 2018

On Becoming Invisible

dontravis.com blog post #281

Thanks for indulging me last week. That’s all the wallowing in self-pity until next year… I promise.

This week, let’s go back to flash fiction.
*****
Courtesy of Pixabay
ON BECOMING INVISIBLE
For eight years, it was just Mar and Bar, or Mars Bar to some. Blond-headed, green-eyed Barkley was Bar, and black-haired, brown-eyed me was Mario. Thick as thieves, we hung out, backed one another’s plays, made a great horseshoe tossing team, and occasionally got on one another’s nerves.
During one of those latter times, Bar invited Wanda in. She was an all-right girl… so far as girls went. She could bat better than I could, but I was a way better pitcher. Before long, Wanda and I began to grate. Bar was the oil that kept us from flaying one another.
By senior year, she’d managed to wedge her way so firmly between us, I wasn’t even certain if Bar knew I was around any longer. I was flipping invisible to my best friend. We’d be doing something together, and things would be almost like old times when she’d show up and claim his attention. Pow. Just like that, I was invisible, man. Invisible.
A couple of months ago, I figured it had become physical between them. Bar never said as much, but he dropped hints. And Wanda became more defensive. I felt like a fifth-wheel and tried pulling away, but Bar wouldn’t let me. I didn’t understand it any better than Wanda did, but when the best friend I’d ever had wouldn’t let go, no way could I stand on my own two legs and do it myself.
Wanda and Bar enrolled in a local college while I was going out of state, so the summer after graduation was heaven with a lot of torture thrown in. After the break was over, I’d be forcibly parted from my best-buddy-for-life. The thought hurt, but at least the invisibility factor would be ended. I’d be on my own forming new friendships. Midway through the summer break, I realized that same concept had finally struck Bar.
I have no idea if his awakening was a factor or not, but shortly after that, things changed. We went to a baseball game together—without Wanda. She was helping her mother shop. Then a friend’s birthday bash rolled around with Wanda nowhere in sight. Not feeling good, apparently. Then came the Friday night Bar stood outside my window and yelled my name until my father woke me and told me to go shut him up.
He was soused. Broken up like I’d never seen him before. I no sooner settled in the passenger’s seat in his car than he stifled a sob.
“It’s over man. She’s gone.”
“What happened?”
“Richard asked her out. When I called her on it, she said she was free to talk to anybody she wanted.”
For two years now, she hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone but Bar. Hell, she didn’t even talk to me, and I was there practically all the time. Of course, Richard was a good-looking fellow and the captain of the baseball team.
“Did she say yes?”
“She did after I let loose on her. They went on a date tonight.” Bar hickuped. “Why did she have to get in between us. We were just two happy-go-lucky guys until she showed up.”
That was something I did have an opinion on. “As I recall, you—”
I almost bit my tongue when he threw his arms around me and buried his head in my shoulder, sobbing as if he’d just received a death sentence.
My heart raced as I clapped a hand to the back of his head and made shushing noises. Secretly, I was elated. Something went wrong, and he turned to me for consolation. “Hey, man. It’ll be okay. She’ll come crying back tomorrow. You’ll see.”
He lifted his head, and his eyes stabbed me through the darkness. “Maybe… maybe I don’t want her back. Maybe I’d like things to be like they were.”
Hope danced through me, prickling my insides. Did he mean it? Maybe he needed me now more than he needed her. Maybe we’d….
Whoa there, Mario Quincy Jones! Where was this going? A couple of years back I’d have liked to… To what? Get it on with Barkley Jelson? Yeah, I would have. Back then we were a couple of curious kids. That would have been innocent experimentation. But now? Now it would carry more meaning. Maybe more than I wanted. He shifted in the seat, tightening his grip on me.
Oh, Lord! What would I do if he made a move on me? Did I want him to? Yes. No. Maybe. From the way my nerve ends tingled and my mouth went dry, I likely hoped he would. But he must have come to his senses. He released me and leaned back in his own seat.
“What am I?” he demanded. “Some blubbering kid. Take it like a man, Barkley. Won’t be the last time you’ll get dumped.”
He turned in his seat and unleashed a smile that picked up the light from the lamppost in the yard. “But I still got my best bud, don’t I? We’re still Mar and Bar, right? The Mars Bar. For the rest of the summer, it’s just you and me. Okay?”
“The way it was meant to be.”
“Amen, bro.”
After planning a trip to the local swimming pool tomorrow, I got out of the car and stood brimming with happiness at having my best friend back, at no longer being invisible. Then as I watched him pull off down the street, I frowned into the night as something else tugged at me. Could it be regret at not taking advantage of a moment that would never come again?

*****

We all have moments like this in our past, don’t we? Moments we let pass and later regret or feel relieved over. Mario told me later that he heard Bar and Wanda got back together during the next semester. That was okay with him. He was forging new friendships and standing on his own two feet.

Please: Keep on reading. Keep on writing. And keep on submitting your work to publishers and agents. You have something to say… so say it.

If you feel like dropping me a line, my personal links follow:

Facebook: Don Travis
Twitter: @dontravis3

Here are some buy links to City of Rocks, my most recent book.


The next book in the BJ Vinson Mystery Series, The Lovely Pines is scheduled for release on August 28 of this year. Abaddon’s Locusts follows sometime in the first quarter of 2019.

See you next week.

Don

New Posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.


Thursday, April 12, 2018

Personal Indulgence: My Blue Period Revisited

dontravis.com blog post #280

Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons
Regular readers of this blog know that I proclaim three months of the year as my “Blue Period:” February 12, the date of my wife’s death; March 13, her birthday; and April 8, our wedding anniversary. I have just passed through this time of mourning and remembrance for the ninth time. Each year, I find these three months get a bit easier.

But once in a while, something comes out of the blue and whacks me in the head… usually all out of proportion to the occurrence. My wife executed one oil painting in her lifetime, and I proudly had it framed and hung it on the wall. It is a still-life of a brown teapot, an orange, and two pears on a table done in the primitive style. There is nothing exceptional about it, except that she is the one who painted it.

Yesterday as I walked past the painting, it reached out and caught my eye, demanded attention. I stopped and examined it—really examined it—for the first time in quite a while. For a moment, it was as if I suffered my loss anew after all this time. It became fresh and pressing and depressing all out of proportion to the time. And I mourned her again.

I have no idea why that happened at that particular time for that specific reason, but perhaps the loss of my younger brother to lung cancer in December had something to do with it. He and his wife had a particularly close and loving relationship, so his widow is having a difficult time coping with her loss. I text her regularly to share my walk down this path with her and to try to assure her it becomes more manageable as time goes by. Perhaps that’s why I got pole-axed by a painting from the past.

Thanks for indulging me.
*****
Please: Keep on reading. Keep on writing. And keep on submitting your work to publishers and agents. You have something to say… so say it.

If you feel like dropping me a line, my personal links follow:

Facebook: Don Travis
Twitter: @dontravis3

Here are some buy links to City of Rocks, my most recent book.


The next book in the BJ Vinson Mystery Series, The Lovely Pines is scheduled for release on August 28 of this year.

See you next week.

Don

New Posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.


Thursday, April 5, 2018

The Voxlightner Scandal, the 6th Book in the BJ Vinson Mystery Series

dontravis.com blog post #279

Last week, I told you I have started the sixth book in the BJ Vinson Mystery series. Today, I’d like you to take a look at the Prologue and let me know if it sparks any interest.

*****
Courtesy of Pixabay
THE VOXLIGHTNER SCANDAL
           Prologue

          Relaxing in the den of his comfortable home at 4818 Post Oak Drive NW, Pierce picked up a book from the lamp table beside his recliner and inspected it closely. His latest novel—his third—just delivered from his publisher in this morning’s mail. In a rare moment of brutal honesty, he admitted the most impressive thing on the cover was his name: John Pierce Belhaven. A good name for an author, it rolled off the tongue and lent gravitas to the trite title, Macabre Desserts. Although too egotistical to admit being a hack, in moments such as this, he silently acknowledged he was no James Lee Burke. Whenever he attempted some of the Louisiana writer’s soaring, poetic passages, they always ended up as muddied puddles of worthless ink that contributed nothing to the plot. What was Elmore Leonard’s rule number ten? Leave out the parts that nobody wanted to read.
          His next book would be a game changer. Just as the others, it would be a mystery, but this time he’d solve a real puzzle. One that had plagued Albuquerque for a generation. One involving the theft of millions and the death of a respected attorney. A mystery that only he could solve. He stumbled on the crucial clue years ago in his capacity as a utility company executive but hadn’t understood its significance until he researched his new book. It was a work that would carry him from humdrum to bestseller. And the interview with Wilma Hardesty on KALB-TV that aired that very afternoon had put the world on notice he was reopening the moribund Voxlightner case
          This would set them on their ears down at SouthWest Writers, make them sit up and take notice of him… not as a writer, but as an author. He quelled an urge to rush to his office on the other side of the house to assure himself the growing file of research on his desk was safe.
          A noise from the front of the house brought him out of his chair. He glanced at the clock on the mantel. Ten-thirty-four. Who could that be at this time of night? Melanie? He shook his head. His daughter hadn’t indicated she was driving in from Grants where she lived with that odious husband of hers. Harrison wouldn’t deign to show up at his door, probably not even to pick up his inheritance, should Pierce decide to leave his estranged son one.
          He smiled and then faltered. It wasn’t sweet Sarah. She was in Arizona visiting her family. His heartbeat quickened. It must be Spencer, although the lad didn’t usually show up on Wednesdays. Before walking to the garage door, he adjusted the book on the coffee table in such a way that Spence could hardly miss it. As he reached for the brass doorknob, he heard the gas-fired lawn mower roar to life.
          What the hell? John Pierce Bellhaven opened the door and entered the darkened garage.

*****
In the words of my last three posts—the book has been inseminated and is now gestating. Please let me know if you find the prologue interesting.

In the meantime: Keep on reading. Keep on writing. And keep on submitting your work to publishers and agents. You have something to say… so say it.

If you feel like dropping me a line, my personal links follow:

Facebook: Don Travis
Twitter: @dontravis3

Here are some buy links to City of Rocks, my most recent book.


See you next week.

Don

New Posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.


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