The Morning News

Final imitation project for Short Story class. It might not make any sense unless you were to read the piece I'm imitating, but suffice to say that it's basically a surrealist work of fiction that plays on the themes of media desensitization and the over-stimulated American culture. It's not really something I'm planning on taking any further than this class, but I hope you enjoy it regardless.

"The Morning News"
by Cameron L. Maris
an imitation of “Reading the Paper” by Ron Carlson

All I want to do is watch the morning news, but right now, I’ve got a wolf to shoot. The damn thing killed my dog last week, and before that a domestic goat, as well as several guard dogs before that. The state has authorized us to kill the entire wolf pack, and killing wolves is not an easy or a pleasant thing to do. I’m a pretty decent shot, though, as my father took me hunting when I was a kid, so I don’t fret about it too much. The wolves are always coming around the yard, looking for squirrels and rabbits, so it’s easy to get a bead on him and take him out. Then Mollie’s alarm clock goes off, so I throw a bagel in the toaster and brew us a pot of coffee before work. She drinks two cups with me, and as her car pulls out of the driveway, before I can even pick up the remote to turn on the TV, I hear the squeal of tires and the gnashing of metal and glass. Some kid has been huffing Dust-Off like we used to do in the basement of the old house, and the kid’s so high that he can’t pay attention to the road, and he’s t-boned Mollie’s car and killed her. There are two cans of Dust-Off on the floor of his passenger seat, and one of them has his DNA all over the fucking thing. So, I’ve finally got the news on and I’m halfway through the leadoff story, and there’s a loud crash from the backyard. It’s so loud and so early that I know it’s got to be something big, and I’m right. It’s a huge branch that’s fallen off the tree in the backyard, the tree that’s being destroyed by the beetle epidemic from the news, the beetles that’ve been killing trees all over the Rocky Mountain region. The critters have been slowly migrating from Yellowstone to other parts of the state, and sure enough, here they are, in my backyard, tearing my tree apart, grain by grain. After surveying the damage, my bagel’s cold, so I pop it in the microwave and am about to sit down when I see Gabriel, my friend from Casper, walking up the sidewalk in his dark grey peacoat, so I pour another cup of coffee. Gabe’s cough seems to be getting worse. She started coughing about a year before the EPA started regulating emissions of greenhouse gases from cars and factories and whatnot. Our senators and congressmen have been working to prevent the legislation, bless their souls, or somebody might have done something sooner. But now, Gabe’s purchased a handkerchief to cover his mouth to catch the phlegm and spittle, so that makes it a little more tolerable. He says he heard about the wolf thing, and he asks “What color was that wolf, anyway?” I barely pay attention to him, because I see through the window two Muslim guys down the block, hanging out at the courthouse with bulges under their robes. If the explosion’s too big, it’s going to get debris all over my yard, which I just raked yesterday. The bombs go off, and most of the shrapnel lands in the street; that courthouse had such nice big white pillars out front. I turn back to Gabriel and the morning news, and I notice the coffee-ring stain on the kitchen table is still there. Gabe’s cough is worse than usual, a little deeper and wetter these days. God damn it, as much as I scrub and scrub this lousy stain, it never really seems to come out.

Window

Another attempt at micro-fiction for next week's class. Only three paragraphs this time, and I think this one's less.... um... tacky. Please enjoy.

"Window"
by Cameron L. Maris

Three young girls dressed in sweatpants and nightshirts creep across a front yard in a nice middle-class neighborhood. There is a boy inside the house, a boy the girls know from school, and it is two-o-clock in the morning. The girls had thrown a slumber party, and have snuck out of the house, scurrying and giggling down the block in socked feet, clutching their chests in the cold November night. Tina is the bravest of the three, and the most in love with the boy. Her hand is moving slowly and cautiously merely inches from his window. Colleen stands just yards behind her, holding her hands out awkwardly in the air to maintain her balance in case she suddenly needs to run. Amy stands further back, on the sidewalk, nearly in tears. She had not wanted to sneak out; the others had teased her and she did not want to seem like a scared child.

This is how I see them as I turn the corner on the dark street -- posed in the yard like a plaster nativity set, and lit in the halo of the streetlight. I recognize their poses, and am struck with an odd sense of clarity and kinship. I, too, was once someone who believed that true love was something that involved throwing pebbles at a window in the middle of the night.

Amy glances at me with terrified, watery eyes as I pass. Her future is something that she has been trying to imagine, without much success. As she gazes down the street after me, all she sees is darkness.

The Number-Four Fade

We've been studying the art of micro-fiction (also known as "flash fiction") in Short Story class, and we've been assigned to write a piece for next week. Feedback might be nice; it's not due 'til next Tuesday.

“The Number-Four Fade”
by Cameron L. Maris

“Beth” is the name she writes, next to my name, on the chart, which I glance over as she sets it on the cold beige counter. When she asks me what I want her to do, I give the usual rambling description as if I am just now speaking the words for the first time, like it had just now occurred to me to get a haircut. Beth drapes the protective plastic cape over my shoulders, unfurling it out around me into the air like a bed sheet.
“Are you from here?” Beth speaks awkwardly and deliberately; this is a rehearsed conversation that hairstylists must memorize.
“No. From Alaska originally, but I was raised mostly in Sheridan, about four hours north of here.”
Beth turns on the clippers and begins cutting. I attempt to continue the conversation. “You?”
“Here.” Beth speaks in one-word poems, flash-of-light love sonnets.
“In Laramie? Born and raised?”
“Yep.”
“Wow. What’s it like going through puberty in a University town?” (Ha Ha.)
“It was actually . . . boring.”
I wait for her to continue the small-talk, but she never will. I want to ask her things, like if she is a student, but I resist from fear of embarrassing her. I can feel the blade of the clippers pulling and cutting each individual hair, Autumn wind yanking leaves violently but passionately from a tree.
I watch Beth’s hands moving in the mirror. She wears three rings, two on her left hand and one on her right. Her hair is dyed two different colors; her thin frame looks even thinner and more fragile as she stood next to my square shoulder. Her breast, firm and round beneath her rubber apron, brushes me as she moves past. I look like a granite formation next to her willowy figure.
Beside us in the waiting area, two young blond boys wrestle with each other. Their older sister chastises them, “You’re going to bump into that guy,” motioning to me.
“Yeah,” I smile at the children, “You wouldn’t want to bump me, or she might cut my ear off. You wouldn’t want Beth to cut my ear off, would ya guys?” The boys say nothing, giggle and run away. Their sister stays behind and smiles. She feels vindicated. I have vindicated her authority, her womanhood. She is proud, and I am proud of her.
“Don’t worry, Beth, I know you won’t cut my ear off,” I joke, “despite the wild things in the corner.” Beth smiles and blushes, but she doesn’t reply. I briefly imagine Beth’s hand slipping, and lopping off my ear in one smooth motion. The blood is dark and warm, and it looks beautiful on Beth’s smooth hands.
The front of Beth’s jeans rub against my shoulder as she cuts. I can see her nude, laying in my bed; I see myself making love to her in the cold glow of the moonlight, she, writhing with sharp and bitter desire. All of space and time folds into a tiny sliver of air, no wider than a wisp of hair, and I can see it all. I wonder in this moment if she can see the same things I can.
“In the future, you can just tell them you want a number-four fade,” Beth says quietly, in almost a whisper.
“So if I come here again, I can ask for Beth, and I can tell you I want the number-four fade?”
“Yep.”
When Beth is finished cutting, she removes the plastic cape and leads me to the cash register. I am much too generous in tipping her, since the cut she gave me was far too short, and nothing much like what I had asked for. I glance back once at the pile of my dead hair on the floor, mourning briefly and silently.
I sense the icy breath of snow on my neck, and I feel naked. Winter is coming; winter is here, and I am totally, woefully, unforgivably unprepared.