Monday, June 9, 2014

Fireflies: Day One (Live-Blogging a Story)

Okay, I did me some writing, and here's the first day's output.  1,613 words.  7,132 characters without spaces, 8,768 with (why would that stat matter to anyone at all, and why would they tell you when you're checking your word count?).  Scene one of my story.  Hope you like it, and are intrigued to read the rest.


Fireflies

by
B. D. Anklevich


Prologue


    Simi was playing the cello for the unborn baby.  At least that’s what she told Oscar.  When it came down to it, there was no difference to what she was doing this evening and what she did at this same time last year when she wasn’t pregnant.  Oscar didn’t subscribe to any of that new age philosophy.  He was as happy as Simi that they were finally expecting after all these years of trying and failing, but he wasn’t going to talk to her belly in hopes of establishing a relationship with the fetus.
    All the same, Simi played.  She wasn’t gung ho for the new age stuff, but she definitely believed in the power of music to improve people, be it making them smarter, more capable, or simply happier.  So, each evening, as a sort of lullaby to the baby, she went to her practice room and played.  Tonight, it was Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G.
    She wasn’t even through the prelude, however, when she yelped.  Oscar heard the bow clatter to the hardwood floor, and his blossoming sense of fatherhood filled him with worry for his wife and baby’s state of well-being.
    “Oscar!” Simi shouted, “Come here, quick!”
    She didn’t sound worried or in pain.  In fact she sounded excited, but his worry increased all the same.  “What is it, Simi?” he asked as he dropped Abraham Lincoln biography he was reading and dashed for the music room.
    He found her still seated on her stool, her cello resting against the wall, the bow forgotten on the floor where she had dropped it.  Her head was tilted back, her eyes unfocused as she stared at the ceiling.  Both of her hands were pressed against her belly.  It couldn’t even be called a swollen belly yet.  It was perhaps a slight bit larger than it used to be, but it was months from a time when strangers would be able to tell that she had something cooking down there.
    When she heard him enter, she glanced at him, and the smile that spread across her face could be described as nothing but glowing.  The sparkle in her eyes was the same.
    “Oscar,” she said, “He’s kicking!”
    “He?” Oscar asked.  They’d already had their 20-week ultrasound, but since this was their first and possibly only child, they’d decided to leave the baby’s gender a surprise.  Simi said it would be a boy; it was just a feeling that she had, but to her it was certain.  Oscar was a skeptic to her intuition, and insisted that she not latch on to a gender too strongly, just in case, and he always chided her about it.  She was in no mood for that presently, though.
    “Oh, you know what I mean.  Come here!”
    Oscar stepped over, and knelt beside her stool.  She took his hands and placed them on her abdomen, and then tilted her head as if she were listening for something.  A baby kicking in her uterus would make no sound of course, but it was her waiting pose.
    They sat in that position for perhaps a full minute, long enough to cause Oscar’s knees to start complaining about kneeling on the wood floor.  Neither spoke, they simply waited.
    Then suddenly, “There!  Did you feel that?” Simi asked.
    Oscar hadn’t felt a thing, and said as much.
    “Okay, hold on.  He’ll do it again.”
    “He?” Oscar chided.
    “Oh, cut it out.  You can bug me about that some other time.  This is special, don’t make me ruin the moment by smacking you.”
    They waited again, this time for more than a minute.  Simi shushed Oscar each time he grew frustrated with waiting and started to speak.  At last, another one came.
    “There!  Did you feel that?  You had to feel that.  That was a big one.”
    “I’m sorry, cariño, I can’t feel it.  The baby must still be too small for me to feel it on the outside still.”
    “Really?  You think?  It feels so big to me though.  I swear I felt it with my hand and not from the inside.” She hung her head momentarily, then brightened.  “Hold on.”
    She stood up, and pulled her dress over her head.  Oscar couldn’t help being instantly aroused at the sight of her wearing nothing but a bra, panties, and high-heeled shoes.  Simi only made it worse by sitting back down on the stool, and pulling his head between her legs to rest against her stomach.
    “This is so hot, Simi,” he said.
    “Shh,” she scolded.  “Be quiet, and wait for it.  He’ll kick you, and I bet you’ll feel it better this way.”
    “He?” Oscar said.
    “Shh!”
    “Why would I feel it better with my cheek than with my hand.”
    “I mean it, Oscar.  Be quiet,” Simi said, “If you’re not paying complete attention, you’ll probably miss it.”
    Oscar obeyed.  He couldn’t really complain about his wife shoving his face between her legs, even if she missed the place he really wanted to go.  He settled in, putting his arms around her waist, and lowering down of his complaining knees to rest on the side of his left thigh.  He stayed for a full five minutes before Simi finally broke the silence.
    “Maybe he’s gone to sleep,” she said.
    “Maybe,” Oscar said, and snuggled closer.
    After fifteen seconds, he started kissing Simi’s skin just above the line of her panties.  Oscar decided she must have given up on him feeling a kick, because she didn’t immediately reprimand him.  He settled all the way down to his butt, removed his cheek from her stomach, and looked up at her.
    “I think it’s still probably a while before I’m supposed to be able to feel a kick from the outside, Niña.  Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll get my chance.”
    “I guess, “ she said, resigned, “but it was so cool.  You would have loved it.”
    “ I will love it.”
    “Right,” she said, standing up from the stool, grabbing her dress, and throwing it back over her head.  “He must have gone to sleep or something.”
    “Wait a minute,” Oscar protested, “What’s that about.  Take that back off.”
    She ignored him.  Her mind wasn’t as easily led to sex as Oscar’s was.  She was still revelling in the glorious event that was feeling the being growing inside her moving for the first time.
    “It was so amazing, Oscar. Wow,” Simi said, ”I bet it was the Bach that got him excited.”
    “Him?”
    “Oh my God, do you never quit?” she screamed, stomping her feet and shaking her head in frustration.
    “I guess not,” Oscar said.  He stood quickly to get out of the dangerous position he’d been in.  She’d almost jabbed his hand with one of her heels as she’d stomped her feet.
    When he rose, she stepped into him, and hugged him close.
    “Oh, Oscar.  It’s real!  It’s finally happening.  I can’t believe it.”
    “Yeah, I--”  He broke off as he noticed the light in the room changing.  The white hue of the overhead light was being replaced with a yellowish tinge, but no sooner did it go yellow than it shifted to green, then blue.
    “What is that?” asked Simi.
    They stepped away from each other, and looked around the room, which had filled with rainbow light.  Eventually, both of their gazes were drawn to Simi’s belly.  The light seemed to be originating from there, as if a prism was imbedded inside it, and a light was shining through it, spraying the colors of the rainbow out into the room.
    Simi turned, and the colors followed her as she did.
    “What’s going on Oscar?” she said, both fear and awe fighting in her voice for control.
    “I don’t know, Simi.  I don’t--” he didn’t know what to say.  Simi had a rainbow flowing out of her stomach into the music room.  He’d never seen or even heard of anything like it.  “What are you doing?” he asked, panic seeping into his question.  The rainbow light rippled through the room as if it were liquid.
    “I don’t know.  I’m not doing anything,” she said, fear winning out over awe in her own voice.  “There’s a, a rainbow coming out of me, Oscar.  A fucking rainbow!  What’s going on.”
    Simi never swore.  In fact, she gave him grief every time he ever swore in front of her as well.  Hearing her use that word took Oscar’s panic to another level.  Scenes from movies where people filled with energy and then exploded played across the screen in the theater of his mind.  What could he do to stop it?  Throw water on her?  He had no idea.
    “Um...um, does it hurt?  Are you in pain?” He asked, although he didn’t know what he’d do if she said yes.  Or if she said no, for that matter.
    “No,” she said, “but what’s going on?”  She was shrieking now.
    Oscar could only shriek back, “I don’t know.  I...I don’t know.”
    He decided he would go and get some water, and turned for the door, when suddenly the light went out.  The rainbow hues vanished, replaced again by the stark white light of the overhead lamp.
    Simi and Oscar stood in the music room, staring at each other, and panting.  Their eyes darted around the room, neither moved an inch.  They both waited for the phenomenon to return, or perhaps something worse to occur.
    After a moment of silence, Simi finally said, “What happened, Oscar?  What was that?”
    “I don’t know,” was all he could respond.  “I don’t know.  I wish I did, but I don’t.”

END OF DAY ONE

If you find any typos, let me know.  If you have other comments, aside from those of the, "You can do it, keep going," variety, please save them until I have finished the story.  I don't want anything to kill my momentum and prevent me from actually finishing the story.  Thanks.

2 comments:

Jason said...

Interesting, looking forward to the next installment!

Journey Into... said...

Holy crap Big! Nice word count! That's about four times what I was able to produce.