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June 25, 2005

Volume 2, Issue 25

Some people have a thing for random lines from books; I like lyrics (btw, my story titles every day are bits of song lyrics)

Give me your hair, just a lock will do
An old photograph to capture the spirit of you
And I'll keep these things wrapped up in an old cotton blouse
The one you wore that summer before your love petered out

--Toadies, Jigsaw Girl

**Admin Note - The word count for author posts has been vastly irritating us, in that it insists on counting formatting tags as words. Sometimes. So, we've ditched it. We'll continue to verify our own word counts via Word, WordPerfect, etc., but will not necessarily make a note of it in our entries from now on.

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Comments

She loves me; she loves me not.

To hell with her.

Sleeping with my best friend and thinking that I wasn't going to find out about it-

That said, we had a great night last night. Dinner, dancing- lots of drinks. Lots of drinks. She can't hold her wine too well and passed out sprawled across the bed when we got home. She murmered that she loved me.

You don't do that to someone you love.

I took the scissors and started gingerly cutting.

He always told me how much he loved her hair. Now it's blowing across his porch.

Posted by: Adam at June 25, 2005 5:51 AM · Permalink

Harvey was ugly, plug ugly, ugly to the bone, the kind of ugly only a mother could love. He had heard it all from his fellow Marines, but at least they had to admit, he was a damned good Marine. Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, he'd survived both bloody invasions.

They'd always wondered about the picture he carried of his 'one true love' in a locket. He never showed it to anyone, though they had seen the lock of blonde hair. So when the sniper got him on Okinawa, the Navy medic just had to look.

It was a golden Labrador retriever.

Posted by: hnumpah at June 25, 2005 7:07 AM · Permalink

He found them in the bottom of an old cardboard box. The lock of hair, the picture, and the blouse. He grinned and slowly remembered.

The trips to the beach - windy, hot, coconut oil on tan skin, and gritty sand. Stolen time in the back seat of an old Buick - sweat, sticky vinyl, smooth skin, the smell of lavender and soap in long, flowing hair, the blouse buttons reversed, and excitingly strange clasps on elastic.

Long ago, he had thought the excruciating agony of their break-up would ruin his life forever. Now he couldn’t even remember her name.

Posted by: Jim Parkinson at June 25, 2005 10:04 AM · Permalink

Great-uncle Virgil never married after Ruby left. The other town girls tried to woo him, showing up at the house he had built for his erstwhile bride with covered dishes and no underwear. He turned them away, keeping a picture of Ruby in the foyer.

Packing up the house after the funeral, I lifted Ruby from the wall, meaning to put her in the trunk I discovered in the foyer closet. The inset held a locket of her hair, a yellowed blouse – I smiled at Virgil’s sentimentality.

Then I saw the pile of bones at the bottom of the trunk.

Posted by: Darleen at June 25, 2005 11:31 AM · Permalink

Your words were not pleasing to me.

I have deleted everything I wrote that even remotely involved you. Any CD which had pictures of you took one last flight to the waste basket.

I found some of your things on the shelves, in a few drawers. You can find them on the lawn. Hurry, the people in this neighborhood are quick to pick up stuff, and are not discerning. I expect even the panties will soon be gone.

I cleaned the bathroom. None of your hair is left here.

If I could scrub my brain clean of you, I would.

Posted by: david at June 25, 2005 4:05 PM · Permalink

She awoke with a silent groan, as she did everyday. Today was different though. She accepted their happy birthdays with faked cheer, and sent them on their way.

Fifty. She was actually fifty, and worse, married, middle class and two kids.

She went to the attic, and dug deep into the trunk. She pulled out a box. On top was a tie dyed blouse. Then came the pictures, black and white, but still vivid memories. There at the bottom, a lock of her once waist long golden hair.

What had happened to that flower child of the summer of '69?

Posted by: Gahrie at June 25, 2005 10:42 PM · Permalink