The following work is from the students
of the Long Story Short School of Writing.
The first piece is from Michael Loyd Gray's course,
A Fish of Uncommon Stature
by Judith Randall
He watched his boots crash through the calm surface of the pristine water and explode the bottom of the riverbed. A cloud of sand, pebbles, fish the size of paper clips and microscopic life burst out from beneath his step in an underwater Hiroshima.
He cast his fishing rod before him and waited. Bracing himself slightly against the steady gentle current that lapped around his thighs he was King Neptune, waking from his nap and surveying his sea in waders. The sky hung low, like the blanket he and his brother draped across two chairs to make their childhood tent. The sky’s blanket had holes too and the sun’s rays funneled through like spotlights. The woods that stood behind the rocky shore were sparse in late fall, just dark trunks and limbs like charred skeletons with their arms reaching out and a hold-out leaf occasionally dropping to the mushy forest floor; one could see into them for quite a way but then became more dense and like a wall. The autumn air reminded him of hard green apples, the ones that made your jaw lock and meant for pie.
Across the stream large jagged rocks leaned against the bank like swimmers stopping to take a rest. He noticed an uncommon color among the rocks. It was red and billowed like a half-deflated balloon that had escaped from a child’s hand. And something else floated among the boulders. It was the color of cream and took his breath when he recognized what it was. The stream was not that wide, maybe 30 feet, but there were deep holes where a step could mean deep water so he decided not to cross it and instead, reeled in his line and headed back the few feet to his shore.
The police arrived less than 30 minutes later. He sat on a large flat rock, on his side of the stream and watched them do their jobs. It was a silent movie. The red dress and cream color had been replaced with a blue nylon bag with a zipper that ran from one end to the other; like those you carry onboard the plane and stuff in the overhead storage bin. The bag was placed on a gurney whose legs collapsed when pushed into the back of the corner’s van that drove down the shore until it came to a narrow clay path that skirted the woods and led to the main highway. Others from the police department used tools and bags and envelopes to gather items of interest where the cream and red was found.
A few minutes passed and two police detectives in sports jackets and perfect hair stood over him asking if they could “have a few words.”
“Of course,” he said. “But I already told the other…”
"I know, but I need you to tell me. Can you start with when you first saw the body?”
“Of course I Uhhh can. I was in the stream, fishing, a few minutes or so, less than 30, when I noticed the red color…”
“You mean her dress?” the detective interrupted.
“It was billowing,” he continued. “And caught between the rocks. The cream color was next to the red and that’s when I realized what it all was… and had the people in the house cal the police, call you.”
The detectives were silent. They stared down at the man, still in his rubber overalls, sitting on the flat rock, holding his fishing rod in his right hand like a staff. The red on his shirt and jacket sleeves was deeper and more brownish than the dress in the water. And his throat and hands were tanned, not cream colored.
Judith: Los Angeles, California native. Traveled to Europe in the early sixties with my husband, visiting museums and cathedrals, then worked in London (he was English)for almost a year when the Beatles were beginning. Returned to France and Spain a few years ago with a friend. Have written stories and poetry since the age of 10. Had a "flash" piece published in a college journal. Presently work at a Los Angeles nonprofit across the street from the La Brea Tar Pits and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. And I live in Long Beach, just a few blocks from the beach.
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS WRITTEN FOR JENNIFER SVENDSEN DELANEY'S COURSE,
Night Journey
by Margaret Fieland
I drift weightless in nothingness
On my left is a yellow pail
Full of sea shells
On my right, a dirty white fox terrier
The terrier barks and runs towards me
I walk at twilight down a road full of shadows
The only sound is the clack-clack
Of my buster brown oxfords
On the uneven pavement
I round a corner and the fox terrier
Jumps out from behind a bush
He clamps his teeth around my ankle
I walk on a beach
Of smooth pale sand
That slopes down
To a navy blue ocean
A sliver of moon hangs on the horizon
The wind blows in my face
I turn and the yellow pail erupts from the sand
My fingers melt onto the handle
I scream
The fox terrier crawls out of the hole
He jumps up and grabs the pail in his teeth
He pulls and I am free
The next morning the fox terrier
Is curled up on the end of my bed
A shell sits on a table by the door
My feet are wet and sandy
