Copperhead Road, Revisited

Copperhead Road via Meta AI

I warned Cameron so many times not to go out on Copperhead Road, but it was like an itch he had to scratch. I told him about the folks who had crossed the rickety bridge over the stream which separated the town proper from the Hollow, and how they had seen otherworldly beings up there. They had never been the same once they got back, and some of ‘em didn't even make it back. Granny had a hunch what had happened, and it wasn’t something I could repeat.

When Cam was a wee one, his eyes would grow big with terror if anyone mentioned Copperhead Road, but once he hit his teens and got his driving license and an old truck, he scoffed at me. “Aunt Elvira, you know as well as I do that the moonshiners make up those crazy stories so no one bothers them. I don’t believe any of that junk for one minute.”

There were ‘shiners living in the Hollow, it was true. The Pettimores had been running whiskey for generations now, and lord only knew what else they had going on. These thoughts were getting my nerves all tangled. I tried to focus on the banana bread I was baking for the church sale, but my hands were shaking, and I couldn't remember if I had put in the salt already. "Cam, please listen—”

“Look, I don’t want you to get upset, Auntie, but someone put spooky lights and stuff on Copperhead Road for Halloween, and Ashley wants to go up to the Hollow. I gotta show some backbone so she doesn’t think I’m a wuss.” Cam grinned as he texted something on his phone.

I sighed in frustration. "I know it’s tempting to go see for yourself, but where there’s smoke there’s fire. You put your hand in the cage, don’t be surprised if it come out snakebit. Ashley will think better of you if you protect her from all that.”

He rolled his eyes and laughed. “Fire and snakes and aliens! Anything else? A ring of devil worshippers?”

I gave up trying to talk sense into him.

On Halloween, the sky boiled up a storm, but this made them more excited about going to the Hollow. Ashley couldn’t stop chattering about it as we passed out candy to the littles. The sensible mommas had taken their kids early to trick or treat, so as to get home before the rain came. 

“Don’t worry, Elvira,” Ashley tried to reassure me. “I’ll blend right in with the Hollow demons in my wicked witch costume. And no one will mess with Cam as the Grim Reaper!”

After they left, I sat by the window as the cold rain turned to sleet and beat against the glass. My own memories disturbed me so much that I added a dollop of ‘shine to my tea. By the time dawn broke, it had been several dollops, and I hadn’t slept a wink. I never told Cam what had happened to me up on Copperhead Road when I was 17, and that story will go with me to the grave. Let’s just say that no one comes back from the Hollow same as they went in.

Midafternoon Cam’s truck rumbled up the driveway. 

~*~

Written for the Sunday Whirl Wordle 777 using show backbone beings believe bit storm stream ring scratch tempting devil hunch. This fictional story was inspired by Steve Earle’s 1988 song “Copperhead Road.”

A Boy Named 2i

AI generated image via Fandango (lightened)

“Life ain’t easy for a boy named 2i,” the cowboy said to the bartender. “My father thought I was imaginary, which is why he saddled me with this ridiculous name before they took him to the funny farm.”

Robby beep-booped sympathetically. “I hear ya, kid. My cousin Claude is so advanced he gets to work at a posh Wall Street firm while I sling tequila sunrises all night. Another round?”

2i nodded. “You’re lucky you have a job. I just wander around LinkedIn trying to hide my shame.”

“It’s a lonely life,” Robby agreed.

“And forget about trying to meet someone.” 2i sipped his drink. “Whenever I get a match on an app and tell her my real name, she ghosts me.”

Robby swiped a rag across the bar. “Well, it’s not a real name.”

2i shook his head. “Everyone’s a comedian. Hey, what about her?” He nodded toward a redhead with curves that went on forever.

Robby leaned closer to whisper. “Strawberry Pi. Stay away from her, kid. She’s irrational.”

~*~

Flash fiction written for Fandango’s new Thursday Inspiration prompt and loosely based on the song “A Boy Named Sue” by Johnny Cash.

The One Who Knocks

AI generated image 

Tony stared at his SUV, which was loaded down with his stuff. Where would he go? He supposed he would have to stay with his mom until he found a new place. “Just one more chance?” he asked.

Mitch shook his head. “No can do, Tony. There have been too many complaints.”

“I was just expressing my feelings!” Tony cried. “And I think Dawn likes me too. She’s just shy.”

“Tony, you kept banging on the pipes. Your neighbors couldn’t get any sleep. They have a baby.”

Tony sighed. Mitch did have a point there. “OK, but when I simply stood outside quietly holding a sign I wasn’t bothering anyone.”

“You were there all night,” Mitch reminded him. “The police asked me what was going on. I can’t have that, Tony. This is an upscale place.”

“I think Dawn was starting to fall for me though,” Tony insisted. “She kept playing that love song as I knocked on the floor in Morse code. It was only a matter of time before she knocked back.”

“Dawn was the one who called the police.” Mitch held out his hand.

Tony realized that he was at a dead end. Reluctantly, he handed over the key.

~*~

Written for Fandango’s Story Starter 261 and inspired by the Tony Orlando and Dawn song “Knock Three Times.” Title inspired by a Breaking Bad episode.

Not So Gentle (flash fiction)

AI generated image of a couple arguing 

“I just don’t understand what you’re so upset about, Beth.” Kevin pointed to his sleeping bag upon which Beth’s chubby grey cat was crouched. “I always leave my stuff behind your couch.”

Beth rolled her eyes. “You assume that you can flop here whenever you please, after disappearing for months or even years, without considering that I might have made a life for myself while you were gone.”

Kevin thought about that. “Of course you should have fun when I’m traveling.”

“I am not talking about fun, Kevin!” Beth yelled. “I’m talking about being an adult, having responsibilities, and making commitments.”

Eww, the C-word. Kevin shuddered. That was almost as bad as the M-word. Wait, what was that on Beth’s left hand? “Beth!” Kevin gasped. “Are you engaged?”

“I am.” Beth held out her hand, and the diamond ring sparkled in the afternoon sunlight. 

“But I thought we agreed not to be bound by a fussy old contract. We’re both free spirits!” Kevin frowned. “That’s why thoughts of you are always so gentle on my mind.”

Beth sighed. “We said those silly things when we were teenagers. I’m thirty years old now, and I want a home and a family. A husband and children. Someone who will be there for me every night, not sleeping in bus stations and hooking up with whoever happens along.”

At a loss for words, Kevin grabbed his stuff and left. As he wandered back to the freeway, he decided that this was for the best. He was a nature photographer and couldn’t settle down in one place. Beth had changed so radically he didn’t even know her anymore. A home and a family? Who would bring children into a world like this? Crazy talk. Kevin shook his head and popped out his thumb to hitchhike. 

Decades passed, and Kevin found that he could no longer revisit rivers of his memory to be comforted by images of Beth. Their last conversation ruined those gentle feelings. He tried to recreate the relationship they’d had early on with new women, but nothing ever worked out for more than a few nights. No one desired an ongoing, yet open love affair. No one wanted to let him stash his stuff at her house. He had to keep renting lockers as he traveled around.

Kevin woke up on a train outside Boise on Christmas morning. It was bitterly cold, and there was something heavy sleeping on his chest, probably Beth’s cat. He tried to nudge the kitty away, but he couldn’t lift his arm. “Beth?” he whispered as everything went dark.

~*~

This fictional story was inspired by the song “Gentle on My Mind,” which was written by John Hartford and popularized by Glen Campbell in 1967. 

Every Breath You Take (flash fiction)

AI flowers and candy

Some people thought he was too intense for his own good.

Glen had never been able to do anything halfway. It was all or nothing, whether work or play or romance. And the irony was that Valerie had said she loved that about him. She had loved his constant calls and texts, his relentless attention to detail, his devotion to her needs, his thoughtful gestures and gifts, and his steady presence to make her feel secure. Or at least she had said she loved all those things before she decided it was too much. 

“Maybe she’s not my soulmate after all,” Glen cried to his mother during their weekly chat. “She doesn’t seem to appreciate or even acknowledge anything I do now. I gave her a box of candy when I brought her breakfast, and she threw it on the floor.”

“Face facts, darling,” his mother replied crisply, as was her way. “You’re too good for her. You’ve spoiled her rotten with nothing to show for it. Time to move on.”

Glen glanced at his laptop and rechecked the app he used to track Valerie’s movements. He thought maybe she would be writing him a note of apology or thanks, but she was just staring off into space. “I guess you’re right, Mumsy. She was treated so badly by her ex that she freaks out at my pure and honest heart.”

“Have you considered that you’re a bit too intense? Try not coming on so strongly with the next one, dear.”

Even his own mother was criticizing him now! Glen slammed his phone down in frustration. But she was right about one thing: he needed to quit obsessing over Valerie and find someone new. He began with the apps and methodically deleted each one he had been using to track her. He deleted every email and text, and he emptied the trash can. There was only one more loose end.

Glen sighed as he clomped downstairs to his basement apartment with the syringe in his hand. He politely knocked before using his key in case she was getting dressed. So annoying to have to dispose of another dead body, but she had left him no choice. Maybe he would go to that speed dating thingie tonight after he cleaned everything up.

~*~

Written for Fandango’s Story Starter 260 and inspired by the song “Every Breath You Take” by The Police (songwriting credit goes to Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, from the 1983 album Synchronicity).

Delilah

Scared woman in a house via Pixabay

Delilah loved her new home, except for the weird feeling she experienced in certain locations, particularly near the front door. This past week, she'd felt so scared near the door that she began exiting the house through the patio and coming around the side. The house was beautiful, but Delilah began to have thoughts of moving away, far away. 

She stood on the patio, sipping her coffee, wondering if she was losing her mind. Maybe she was just lonely with Tom gone all the time now that his band was a success. All the good things he had promised her in his silly hit song had come to pass, so why wasn't she happy?

"Hey there, Delilah!" Andy the pool guy greeted her with the line from the song. Everyone knew she was that Delilah, and while at first it was off-putting to be famous, she'd long since gotten used to it. 

She watched him unload the supplies from his cart and begin to test the water. "Morning, Andy." Usually, she went back inside while he worked, but today she didn't feel like being in the house alone. Sometimes lately she felt it was alive, breathing, waiting. Waiting for what? She didn't know.

When Andy was finished, Delilah invited him in so she could write his check. "Does it seem funny in here to you?" she asked him abruptly with her pen in the air.

"Funny?" he repeated. "Not sure what you mean."

"In the foyer especially." Delilah motioned for him to follow her toward the front door. "It's... colder right here or something. It gives me the shivers. And the light never works. I changed the bulb twice."

Andy glanced up and around. "Well, it could be the AC vents. Want me to close them for you? I can grab my ladder. Not sure about the light, but I know an electrician who could check it out. Or maybe you're psychic and getting flashbacks of the stabbing. Haha, just kidding!"

"Wait, what stabbing?" she stared at him in horror, as a dark, cold fog seemed to settle around her.

"Yikes, you don't know." He shrugged. "I guess it was just a local story."

Delilah was growing increasingly annoyed as well as terrified. "What was it?" she yelled, opening the door to let the sunshine in. 

Andy seemed startled at her tone. "Nothing for you to worry about. Around twenty years ago, a crazy guy was obsessed with a woman who lived here. One morning he knocked on her door and stabbed her to death when she opened it. He told the police she was cheating on him, but it turned out they'd never met and he'd been stalking her for months. He would stand over there," Andy pointed at the park across the street, "watching her from behind the trees. They said he was unfit for trial and committed him to a mental institution."

"Oh, my God, that's horrible." Delilah vowed she would tell Tom that they had to move. After Andy left with his check, she began googling for information. She skipped dinner and kept searching as it grew dark outside. There was no way she would be able to sleep in this house again. Maybe she should go to a hotel. She realized that Tom had forgotten to call, so she texted him, but it didn't go through. She resumed her online search. It was hard to find old news stories with all the ads and crap cluttering up the pages, but she kept clicking. Finally, she found it, just like Andy had described.

Except he had left out one thing: the murdered woman's name was Delilah.

~*~

Written for Fandango's Loosely Based series with inspiration from the Plain White T's song "Hey There Delilah" (writing credit to Tom Higgenson) as well as the oldie "Delilah" sung by Tom Jones (writing credit to Barry Mason).

Insensitive

Watercolor of a woman in the rain (Pixabay)

Version 1, parataxis:

It was late. She confessed. We got dressed. I drove her home. She was crying. I said goodbye. She opened the door. It was raining. She walked away. 

Version 2, hypotaxis:

It was late, and there wasn’t anything left to say after she confessed that she had fallen in love with me. As we got dressed, I explained again how I had signed a contract and would be based in different cities over the next several years. While I drove her home, I told her how much I had enjoyed our time together, as brief as it was, but I couldn’t make any kind of commitment. She was crying and seemed inconsolable, so I said goodbye. She opened the door, and it was raining as she walked away.

Explanation:

I wrote these two versions of a scene based on Reena’s prompt of parataxis (no conjunctions) vs hypotaxis (use of connectors to give a flow. I used Jann Arden’s song “Insensitive” as my inspiration for this scene—both versions are from the opposite perspective of the song’s female narrator. I’m including this post in my new “song fiction” collection, which I began with Lucille's Version, a continuation of the Kenny Rogers' song, and next I wrote “Stones” via Neil Diamond, a response to Fandango’s “loosely based” idea.

Stones (flash fiction)

Golden sandals on a stony beach (Meta AI)

When her father passed away, Angela received tens of millions of dollars in cash and investments at age 24. She quit her teaching job, left her boyfriend, and began to travel the world. She visited every city on her list, some more than once, and stayed in luxurious hotels for months at a time. It felt so good to immerse in local culture, checking out all the museums and restaurants and cute little shops. Angela never stayed in a place long enough to make real friends, but she didn’t care about that, at least not at first.

Sometimes she considered buying a property in one of the beautiful locations, settling down, perhaps starting a family, but a new adventure always beckoned. When she turned 40, alone on a gorgeous Greek island, she realized that it was probably impossible to find a man who wasn’t solely interested in her money. She mulled over the idea of raising a child by herself and decided against it. After all, she had a Norwegian cruise booked for next year and another safari three months later. She didn’t want to cancel them and go on the prowl for a baby daddy instead.

It would be nice to have someone to talk to about all this, Angela thought wistfully, but she hadn’t kept up with any of her former friends or colleagues. These days, she exchanged only courtesies with waiters and hotel staff. No one really cared about her the way her father had. She had no one now to share memories with or even silly inside jokes. Angela riffled through the card file in her mind and came up with nothing, not a single name, not even a distant cousin with whom she could engage in superficial chitchat.

Angela stared out at the endless sea and picked up a smooth stone warmed by the morning sun. She flung it out across the turquoise water, satisfied that it skipped three times. This beach was covered with stones, some dull grey, others glittering like jewels. She picked up a coppery one and a silvery one and filled her hands with so many stones that she began to drop them. Finally, she let them all fall at her feet in a big clatter and stood among the stones with empty hands.

~*~

Written for Fandango’s new Loosely Based prompt. My story is loosely based on Neil Diamond’s 1971 song “Stones” (stones would play inside her head / and where she slept they made her bed / she would ache for love and get but stones).

Lucille's Version

 

Black and white AI image of a woman at a bar

So I finally got the courage to leave Hank, after all those years of acting like a submissive jellyfish, taking care of his four kids (that never had weekends with his ex-wife as Hank had promised), doing a billion chores around the farm (that Hank had promised he would hire help for), not being allowed to work part-time to have my own money, never seeing my friends because Hank didn't like them, and finally never even making love as we were too tired. What kind of marriage is that? Hank refused to go to counseling with me, so I finally went alone, and the counselor told me that she saw no hope for us if Hank refused to even admit there was a problem.

I didn't take anything of his with me, just some of my clothes and the money I made selling eggs at the market. Technically, the chickens belonged to Hank, but I was the one who took care of them. I doubted I would miss Hank or his snotty kids who never listened to me (and Hank never backed me up either), but I would miss those chickens, especially the silkies. My plan was to take a bus to Pittsburgh and go to work at my aunt's coffee shop, and I got as far as Toledo when I had a four-hour wait until the next bus out. I decided to go have a drink at the bar, and, well, the rest is history.

In a bar in Toledo, across from the depot

On a bar stool she took off her ring
I thought I'd get closer, so I walked on over
I sat down and asked her her name
When the drinks finally hit her, she said "I'm no quitter
But I finally quit living on dreams
I'm hungry for laughter and here ever after
I'm after whatever the other life brings

Yeah, I probably had a few too many, but what the heck ~ I wasn't driving. It was fun having a new man pay attention to me and engage in some mutual flirtation, even if it was only for a couple hours. But then Hank showed up! He put on quite a show for the clueless new guy, whining that I was leaving "hungry" kids when I made those little monsters a vat of mac and cheese before I left. And crops in the field, really? He meant the strawberries that he wanted me to sell at his booth at the county fair. What a big phony! But the new guy fell for it. He was some kind of traveling salesman, not too successful by the look of things, and certainly not the brightest bulb.

After he left us I ordered more whiskey

I thought how she'd made him look small

From the lights of the bar room to a rented hotel room

We walked without talking at all

She was a beauty, but when she came to me

She must have thought I'd lost my mind

I couldn't hold her, 'cause the words that he told her

Kept coming back time after time

Fine, whatever. It's not like I was really attracted to him or anything; I just thought it would be nice to have some affection after the drought with Hank. But it was not meant to be. I left the guy sitting by himself in his room, walked back to the bus station, grabbed my stuff out of the locker, and waited for the 10:00 to Pittsburgh. Maybe the drinks would allow me to sleep on the bus and not think about this whole disaster I created by impulsively marrying Hank. Gah! No more men. I needed to find a cheap divorce lawyer as soon as I scraped up some funds, and then I would--

"Excuse me, doll, is this the line for Pittsburgh?" A scruffy 20-something guy holding a guitar case was gazing at me expectantly. He had gorgeous blue eyes.

OK. No more farmers or traveling salesman. I shouldn't rule out all men though. 

~*~

"Lucille" was written by Roger Bowling and Hal Bynum. Kenny Rogers recorded/ released it in 1977. I wanted to expand on the song, which was solely from the man's point of view, and create a version from Lucille's POV.