The Elementary Electorate, God Particles and the Evil Men Do

My daughter is excited about this election. She is six and the possibility for her to see the first female become President is of monumental importance to her. I wish her enthusiasm was contagious. I wish I could look at this election with all the naivete and promise that she can. Instead, I am dreading my own trip to the polls where the responsibility forces me to choose between two people who, in my opinion, have no business being on the ballot.

She is looking forward to accompanying me to the polling location on Tuesday, an event that to her seems shrouded in epic adult importance. She proudly tells me she is casting her vote in her classroom election for Hillary Clinton and unabashedly explains her decision is because "Hillary would be the first girl president" and Trump is a "big bully".

I resist the urge to tell her than indeed both of the candidates have done their fair share of bullying and that voting for Hillary just because she's a woman isn't the best reason. I resist the urge to expand on Trump's temperament, on how he is so much more than a mere bully and the danger he could pose to our already severely divided nation. I resist the urge to talk about the fear I feel in the wake of a tumultuous election and my reservations that either one of these people could unite and heal us. After all, my daughter is only six and her academic coverage of American politics does not dwell on the realities of corruption, greed, back door dealings, sexism, racism and scandals.

For now, the process of selecting our next president has captivated her interest and it is my responsibility to teach her the importance of being a good citizen - even if I am a most discouraged and disgusted one. I find it easiest to talk to her in general terms about the voting process, about our hard earned right to vote and why it so very important to have our voices heard. Instead of discussing these candidates, we talk about civic duty and patriotism. We talk about who suffragettes were and how they made it possible for someone like Hillary to run today. Instead of party affiliations, we talk about the mechanics of voting and the importance of making a personal, informed choice. What else I can do as a parent in these times? Thankfully she is only six and her questions are much easier than they could be, her interests much easier to deflect. The truth is I want her to be invested in her country. I want her to be proudly American but also see the importance of growing into a compassionate global citizen, regardless of who acts as our Commander in Chief.

And now, because I need my own deflection, the prompts...


"Blogging Circle of Friends "
DAY 1450 November 4, 2016
" What happened all those years ago? I remember standing on the bridge of all things and in my hands the salvation of the universe. Just as I attempted to save us I heard a ------ It's your blog, tell us what happens next.

The room had gone still and strangely silent. It was odd. It was as if the sudden absence of all sound had created a fragile seal around us. We held our breath, fearing it seemed, the slightest disruption would shatter everything.

I remember standing on the bridge of all things and in my hands the salvation of the universe. Just as I attempted to save us I heard a sharp intake of breath and a soft, insistent "this can not be." I turned toward her now, my brilliant colleague. I saw that her eyes trembled with a primitive fear so great I could feel it take in root in every cell of my being. I knew our discovery threatened everything, nothing more so then that tenuous thread that connected our very existence to the universe itself.

We had searched for this, this so-called "god particle", for most of our adult lives. We had become so immersed in the challenge, in the pursuit that neither one of us had ever once considered what it would mean if we actually discovered its existence. Now, confronted with that very truth, we were both consumed by the weight of where our science had lead us. I watched her, slip slowly to the ground, one hand slipping beneath her collar. Her hand surfaced, clutching the tiny gold crucifix, a talisman I always thought was more sentimental for her than symbolic. Now, watching her shatter, I realized how delicately her faith had existed alongside her scientific reasoning. There had been a place inside her that had allowed for the science and the belief to coincide, a place that had remained safely shrouded in mystery. Now that place had been exposed in one defining moment, in our cold and sterile lab. She had been at all times both the scientist and the believer and now would cease to be one or the other. Her eyes were on mine, a wordless question rising tragically in them, "what do I do now?"  
 
"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
Day 970 November 4, 2016
What have human beings become? Did war make us evil or did it just activate an evil lurking inside us? Are we guilty of making permanent decisions based on temporary feelings?

I believe in all mankind there is war. It is built into the network of human DNA. I do not believe it make us evil, more that it is a by-product of our biological drive to survive. War does however provide the excuse some evil men need to give license to the darkness embedded in their souls. The opportunity to wage war allows them to paint the world with chaos and pain. It is hard not to think about Syria and how Bashar Hafez al-Assad has made that country a personal canvas for his masterpiece of destruction. It isn't hard to see how war can awaken and give life to a resident evil or how temporary feelings can permanently wound country and its people.

Valkyries and Night Demons - Writing to the Prompts

"Blogging Circle of Friends "
DAY 1425 October 28, 2016
When everyone turns 25 years old they are assigned either a Demon or an Angel based on karma, however ,you are assigned a Valkyrie? What happened, how did you luck out or not?

Distant bells brought Nora back from a sleep so dream-filled she felt exhausted despite her more than twelve hours of slumber. She dragged herself up, shaking her head to rid it of the remnants of last night's mind magic. She hated the nights of dreams, the vivid parade of images and mishmash of hyphenated story lines that always left her strangely restless and discontent the whole day. Nora hated that she always felt obligated to sort through her brain's deluge, looking for hidden messages and directives, unable to ever qualify the dreams as simply a brain dump. She padded into the small kitchen only to find the coffee maker had failed to follow its program and the pot sat empty, taunting her with the lack of hot java. Nora groaned dramatically and flipped the switch.

"Brew bitch!" she commanded, just as her phone began to vibrate with an incoming call.

Nora looked at the clock, barely 6am...right on time....

Her sister Gretchen had started singing before she even got the phone up to her ear. Her younger sister belted through her own uninhibited version of "Happy, Happy Birthday" as she had done every year since Nora had moved away from home. Gretchen finished on a high note that sent her roommates into a chorus of howls and barks. Gretchen lived with a small menagerie of creatures that included three huskies and a old basset hound. Nora waited while her sister quieted the dogs.

"So, big sis is 25 today - how's it feel? Any big plans?" Gretchen asked.

"Same and yesterday and no, nothing planned outside of Chinese takeout and a bottle of wine later. Its been brutal at work, worked every day this week until 8," Nora admitted.

"You wanted to be big city mouse sis...hope its worth it!" Gretchen chided.

After a few more minutes of sisterly banter, Nora signed off and headed to the shower. She emerged, wrapped in her last clean towel, to find the woman standing in her bedroom. Nora screamed, falling back onto to her butt in the carpet, losing her towel. The woman was a tall platinum blonde with amazonian proportions and gun metal gray eyes. She was dressed in a copper armor that hugged her curves and gleamed in the dim light of Nora's room. Stunned into silence, Nora backed away, tugged the towel over her body and pressed herself back against the wall.

The woman smiled, but there was no warmth in it. She crossed the room in two strides and stood over Nora. She bent forward until her chin was nearly touching the top of Nora's head.

"I'm the Valkyrie called Melania. I've been assigned to you. I will have your back in battle until you die. Then I will deliver your soul to Valhalla."

Her heart beating so hard it hurt, Nora could only stammer, "but I'm a paralegal", weakly.

The Valkyrie stood. She shook her shoulders and great black wings unfolded, seeming to swallow all the free space in the room. Nora felt the scream and covered her mouth with her hands. Melania smiled, a fraction less coldly, and extended a hand toward Nora. When Nora was on her feet, Melania folded her great wings away again.

"People in your bloodline usually get demons, a few get the occasional angel but in the rarest of circumstances, they get a Valkyrie. The fact I've been assigned to you means you are destined to be much more than a paralegal Nora. It means you will be a warrior and I will fight beside you until your death. You will die hard but well and I will deliver your soul to eternal rest". Melania delivered this news flatly, without drama.

Nora felt the blackness well up behind her eyes and the world shift under her bare feet.

"Good thing this one didn't get a demon," Melania said, catching Nora before she hit the ground.



"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
DAY 963 October 28, 2016
Do you agree or disagree with this statement. "When you wake up at 2-3am without any reason there is an 80% chance someone is staring at you!" Have you ever woke up in the middle of the night and felt you weren't alone? Tell us about it.
(not counting your other halves)

Red digital digits blinked back at Stevie from the gloom. It was 3:04 am and she was, inexplicably wide awake. The tiny hairs on the nape of her neck seemed to be standing on edge and her forearms were prickled with gooseflesh. "Someone is here," the thought came, rushing into her mind with a frightening clarity.

Stevie sat up, peered into the darkness at the foot of the bed. She tried to coach a shape from the inkiness there. She snapped her eyes to the open doorway of the bedroom, half expecting to see a shadow lurking there but it was vacant, just an empty doorway with only darker space beyond it. She swung her legs out of bed, shivering as her bare feet made contact with the cold oak floors. Stevie reached for the side lamp, switching it on. An arch of weak light cut into the darkness, driving it back a few feet.

Stevie crossed to the door, walking out onto the landing, turning the light on as she moved. The landing was suddenly flooded with light. The bright overhead bulbs illuminated the small space, the bookshelf and easy chair in the corner, the top of the carpeted stairwell and thing crouching low on the first step. It raised its head, partially covered by one of its gray arms, and hissed at Stevie. It struggled to back down the stairs, attempting to move away from the reach of the light.

Stevie felt her insides lurch at the same time her battle weary mind engaged the age-old language. The ancient tongue came back to her as it always did, rolling off her tongue. The thing on the stairs stopped moving and stared back at her with a sharp, new interest. Stevie sank to her knees on the landing, reciting the words that would call it to her. The thing began to rise and creep closer. As it moved into the light, Stevie saw with some dismay that this was a new breed. She would need more than the old prayers this time.

Characters and Consquences

"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
Day 852 July 8, 2016
Let's try writing in a very confined space: A bathtub story. Your character/ or you are going to stay in this single, relatively confined space for your entry. Do you think you could write a good story with such restrictions placed on you?

Terri could feel the cold porcelain through the thin silk of the oxford shirt. The voices in the next room suddenly jumped several octaves and she heard a stream of explosive cursing. Terri instinctively slipped down lower in the empty claw foot tub, wrapping her arms protectively around her sides, trying to make herself smaller, less conspicuous than she felt. The bathroom was small, but classy. Terri had once thought it was elegant. The claw foot tub was immaculate and white, standing free in the center of the space. The walls were lemon yellow and the decor was retro chic. It was bright and airy, only now it felt like a prison. The ceiling fan slowing rotating above her head drove a consistent, steady stream of near frigid air straight down onto her head and shoulders, slipped right through the thin layer of cotton and chilling her to the bone.

She listened to the argument raging away in the next room and contemplated, not for the first time, the series of bad decisions that had landed her in this uncomfortable situation. Terri tried to focus on what her plan B was going to actually be if hiding in her lover's bathroom did not work out. She thought about what she might do if Lorne's husband suddenly threw open the door and found his ex-wife hiding, half naked in the bathroom of his brand new home. Things could get far more uncomfortable for Terri certainly than they were right now. As if the point needed to be driven home, the shiny chrome faucet began to drip. Icy cold water began running in rivulets over her bare feet and ankles. "Seriously?"

The volume of the voices had dropped again. Terri gripped the edges of the tub and drew body upward, straining to listen. She could swear she heard soft weeping. A bolt of panic surged through her, bouncing off the gleaming porcelain tomb around her. "Was Nadine in there confessing to him?" For a few fiercely painful moments she imagined her sitting on the end of the bed, her pretty blonde face soaked with guilty tears, one trembling hand pointing to the closed bathroom door...

"Stop that!" Terri commanded herself. Nadine would never expose her. She knew that as well as she knew anything in her life.

Suddenly, there was a single, terrified scream. Masculine. Not Nadine. There came the sound of breaking glass and an ominous, heavy thud somewhere in the house. Terri's ears registered the sounds and therir horrifying implications just as the bathroom door flew open so violently, the hinges tore out with a splintering crash.

TO BE CONTINUED...MAYBE...MAYBE NOT...

"Blogging Circle of Friends "
Day 1332 July 8, 2016
I was reading Creating Characters by the editors at Writer's Digest and came across this:
There is a character hierarchy where not all characters are created equal. They indicate place holders,walk ons, minor characters and your lead characters create the story. I'm curious how do you measure the importance of each character before the story develops or does it just fall into place?

I think character development typically begins well before I write the first word of any fictional piece. I tend to see the characters or character first, then the plot naturally seems to build around them. There always is a tangible connection between any of my main characters and some element or elements of myself. I feel I write stronger that way, craft more relatable characters whether they end up being protagonists or antagonists. Having characters be engaging to my readers is so important because I typically produce shorter fiction. I have a finite number of words with which to capture, engage and entertain. Limited word counts mean I have to develop those characters quickly and tell their complete story - carrying all the threads through to the end. It is challenging, but perhaps less so than writing novel length fiction where you have room to stretch your legs a bit more but have a lot more work to get done with those "legs".