Been sick for a while, robbed of my creative will. Here are some small bits of writing, just to keep the words active in my deleterious brain. (Not quite the right adjective.)
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We missed the plane. Terribly. It had been our favorite craft, twin props, smelling of oil and candy bars, and painted banana yellow.
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Night was coming quickly, and the cold with it. My foot had swelled from the sand and the spider bite. No blanket, no water, no shelter. I'd be lucky to make it through the night, but I'd also be damned if Jack Sanhorn would take my life along with everything else.
I stuffed a piece of scrub brush into my pants pocket. When I saw him, I was going to rub his face in it until he bled.
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When Marjorie wore that white, sheer bedsheet with the eyes cut out, my belly would go numb. I loved our private Halloween.
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"Never mind the cat," said Mallory. "What about the million dollars you promised me?"
Sunny tipped her hat a little back from her forehead and gazed at him as if he were an icicle that she was deciding whether to lick.
"Mallory, my man," she said, "the million was dependent on the feline, and the feline was dependent on you, and you are not, it seems, dependable. Didn't Jules make this clear to you? Did you even read the contract?"
Mallory leaned forward and smacked the desk. "Hell yes, I read it! And don't ever send that fat momma's boy here again to try and intimidate me. I got one question for you, lady. How was I supposed to rescue this alley cat when it was dead before you called me?"
"Tickle, tickle, good sir."
"What in Christ sake does that mean?"
"It means, you need to feel funny. I have a piece of equipment here, with twelve good reasons for you to become more light-hearted." She drew a flat automatic from her tailored jacket to emphasize her meaning.
Phil Mallory had dealt with people. Lots of people. He knew a bluff when he saw one.
He wasn't seeing one now.
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They held hands from eleven until midnight, walking toward the barn where he would spend the night. Behind them, the river lapped the shore like a thousand golden retrievers, while around their heads the gnats and fireflies competed for attention. Oklahoma, when it's warm and wet, proclaims its earthiness. Stepping outside, the atmosphere doesn't equivocate. "What's under your feet is what owns you," it says. "This life in open air and moonlight is an illusion that the land allows you. At a whim, you can be retrieved into the soil."
Lovers, friends, brutes and whores. They all breathe in life on those nights, and stare at the stars, and remember nightmares when they were seven, and cotton candy, and popping fireplaces with flues needing cleaning.
Our couple arrives at the barn. Her eyes are brown, the color of wet dust. She kisses him so he'll want more, then walks to her house. He sleeps in the straw, smells the odor of cows, counts the flapping of bats, and drifts into dreaming as the owls return with their breakfasts.