Eggnog #12 and #5--"Digging"/"Bells"
Author: leiamoody
Title: Digging
Rating: PG
Challenge: Eggnog #12, “Let it snow”
Extra: Malt--12 Days of Christmas (“Eleven wads of paper”)
Topping: Whipped Cream
Story: Maybe December
Summary: Allyson wants to bury something in the snow.
Word Count: 194
Notes: This piece is set in February, 1983; Allyson is seven years old.
“Mom, this battery’s dead.” Allyson held out the flat silver disc for her mother’s intervention. “Dad took it out ‘cause his watch can’t tick no more.”
Daphne swiped the battery from her daughter’s hand. “Of course it’s not dead! Your father was just using an expression!”
Michael stopped a never-ending effort to free the Volvo from twenty-three inches of snow. “Don’t snap at her.”
Daphne glared at him. “She ought to know the difference between what’s dead and alive.”
“I know, Mom,” Allyson replied in a self-assured little girl fashion. “But I wanna bury it.”
“Are you serious?” Daphne asked.
“Let Ally give that old battery some proper last rites. Can’t do any harm,” Michael replied.
“Bury it and everything?”
“Use those wads of sales papers we’ve got stuffed in the pantry. I counted about eleven of those damned Bradlees and Sears ads…”
“There is no way I’m going to wrap a dead battery in paper! I’m not letting her bury anything in the snow either!”
Michael dropped the shovel onto a recently uncovered bit of concrete. “Let our kid have some fun.”
“Will you help me, Dad?”
“Sure, kiddo.”
Daphne rolled her eyes.
Author: leiamoody
Title: Bells
Rating: PG
Challenge: Eggnog #5, “Silver bells”
Extra: Malt--12 Days of Christmas (“Six empty boxes”)
Story: Maybe December
Summary: Heaven/Rita gets ready for a performance.
Word Count: 275
“You go far away just to come back again,” Heaven declared to nobody in particular, because nobody else was around in the deserted communal dressing space loosely termed a “dressing room”.
She pulled another half-length of silver dancing bells from its delivery box (five other containers previously filled with sequins, feathers, glow-in-the-dark pasties, and other performance accoutrements were now empty and stacked near the dumpster). Four other strands of glimmering bells meant to be draped around the waist, shoulders, and neck remained in the final box, at least until Heaven added them to her body. When she wore those bells, Heaven became “Rita Shine,” her burlesque identity…wearing those bells in her set gave it an extra pop when she twirled, whirled, pirouetted in six inch stilettos; a weird, fun vision for the audience.
It was Heaven’s first performance in a two-week engagement at the Star Theatre. It was Heaven’s first time back in Harbor Neck since forever and then some…yeah, she was back home, or in the city where she was born. Calling this place “home” was impossible, because nowhere could fit Heaven’s idea of “home”. Not that she could define her idea of “home” to anyone who might ask (some people had tried over the years)…Mamba Cassandra brought her two girls into whatever corners of the world her wandering heart settled upon (because dear Mamba could never find anywhere to call home, which meant her daughters were cursed to feel the same way in the future).
Heaven pulled the remaining four strands of dancing bells from the box. “You come back again, then you go far away. But right now you go on stage.”
Title: Digging
Rating: PG
Challenge: Eggnog #12, “Let it snow”
Extra: Malt--12 Days of Christmas (“Eleven wads of paper”)
Topping: Whipped Cream
Story: Maybe December
Summary: Allyson wants to bury something in the snow.
Word Count: 194
Notes: This piece is set in February, 1983; Allyson is seven years old.
“Mom, this battery’s dead.” Allyson held out the flat silver disc for her mother’s intervention. “Dad took it out ‘cause his watch can’t tick no more.”
Daphne swiped the battery from her daughter’s hand. “Of course it’s not dead! Your father was just using an expression!”
Michael stopped a never-ending effort to free the Volvo from twenty-three inches of snow. “Don’t snap at her.”
Daphne glared at him. “She ought to know the difference between what’s dead and alive.”
“I know, Mom,” Allyson replied in a self-assured little girl fashion. “But I wanna bury it.”
“Are you serious?” Daphne asked.
“Let Ally give that old battery some proper last rites. Can’t do any harm,” Michael replied.
“Bury it and everything?”
“Use those wads of sales papers we’ve got stuffed in the pantry. I counted about eleven of those damned Bradlees and Sears ads…”
“There is no way I’m going to wrap a dead battery in paper! I’m not letting her bury anything in the snow either!”
Michael dropped the shovel onto a recently uncovered bit of concrete. “Let our kid have some fun.”
“Will you help me, Dad?”
“Sure, kiddo.”
Daphne rolled her eyes.
Author: leiamoody
Title: Bells
Rating: PG
Challenge: Eggnog #5, “Silver bells”
Extra: Malt--12 Days of Christmas (“Six empty boxes”)
Story: Maybe December
Summary: Heaven/Rita gets ready for a performance.
Word Count: 275
“You go far away just to come back again,” Heaven declared to nobody in particular, because nobody else was around in the deserted communal dressing space loosely termed a “dressing room”.
She pulled another half-length of silver dancing bells from its delivery box (five other containers previously filled with sequins, feathers, glow-in-the-dark pasties, and other performance accoutrements were now empty and stacked near the dumpster). Four other strands of glimmering bells meant to be draped around the waist, shoulders, and neck remained in the final box, at least until Heaven added them to her body. When she wore those bells, Heaven became “Rita Shine,” her burlesque identity…wearing those bells in her set gave it an extra pop when she twirled, whirled, pirouetted in six inch stilettos; a weird, fun vision for the audience.
It was Heaven’s first performance in a two-week engagement at the Star Theatre. It was Heaven’s first time back in Harbor Neck since forever and then some…yeah, she was back home, or in the city where she was born. Calling this place “home” was impossible, because nowhere could fit Heaven’s idea of “home”. Not that she could define her idea of “home” to anyone who might ask (some people had tried over the years)…Mamba Cassandra brought her two girls into whatever corners of the world her wandering heart settled upon (because dear Mamba could never find anywhere to call home, which meant her daughters were cursed to feel the same way in the future).
Heaven pulled the remaining four strands of dancing bells from the box. “You come back again, then you go far away. But right now you go on stage.”