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"Harvest Moon" (the fifty-seventh ACWclub monthly writing contest) |
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Assignment: Write a story or poem using the following title: "Harvest Moon" 2500 words or less. Deadline: Midnight (EDT), May 15, 2006 All entries are the property of the authors and cannot be copied or reprinted without their consent. |
| Harvest Moon By Michael Pelc michaelpelc@yahoo.com (Entry #2) |
| ~Winning Entry~ |
| Winning her heart had been easy,
Harry thought to himself as his mind struggled to piece together the events
from earlier that evening, but then her heart was but a cast away prize, to be
discarded like day-old bread, soured milk, or a rotting corpse. The Harvest Moon Dance was a long-standing tradition at Bennington State. Held at the end of freshmen orientation week, it gave the meek of the world, the incoming freshmen boys, a chance to meet the freshmen girls before they became fodder for the upper class wolves, who had not yet returned to campus. There was a part of Harry that wanted to go, and there was a part of him that knew better. Perhaps, if there had not been a full moon that night, he might have stayed back at the dorm, content to read Shelley or Hesse. Sitting alone and all but ignored by the other freshmen at the mixer, she was California beautiful, with sloopy blonde hair and wide, brown, pixie-like eyes that sparkled of innocence. "Blutsauger, Harry Blutsauger," Harry said, walking over and introducing himself. He sat down in the chair next to her, tipping it back so that it balanced on two legs. She said her name was Sheila something-or-other, and they made small talk about majors and home towns. She said she played the zither; Harry said he played football. They both hated Nixon, would love Elvis forever no matter how fat he got, and were opposed to the war on moral grounds. Then, as quickly and easily as their conversation had begun, they ran out of things to say. The silence made Harry uncomfortable. He didn't want to lose her. He didn't want someone else to move in on what he considered to be his territory. He began to search his brain trying to think of something witty to say when she took his hand and began to trace the lines in his palm with her finger. She told him how she had this gift, this special gift, that enabled her to foretell the future. She said she knew Harry would be here tonight, that he'd be wearing his high school letterman's sweater, that he'd walk over and sit down beside her. She even told him how he'd tip his chair back the way he did. It was, she told him, the reason she had come to the dance. "Really? You knew I'd be here?" She nodded. "You know, I only decided to come at the last minute. I guess I'm not much for dances when you get right down to it." "Or meeting women," she added, finishing the thought in the back of his mind. Harry didn't like people poking around inside his brain like that. There were thoughts that lived in there that would best be left undisturbed, to fester on their own and never see the light of day. Or worse, the light of the moon. "We don't have to stay," she said, breaking the silence before it became awkward again. "We could go out to the lake if you'd like." "The lake?" Harry asked, as if he didn't already know about it. As if he hadn't been there before. As if it weren't the sole reason he'd come to Bennington State in the first place. "Well, it's not really a lake," she said. "It's an old abandoned quarry that's gotten all filled up with water over the years. And sometimes, when it's really warm out and the moon is full, kind of like it is tonight, sometimes the locals go skinny dipping out there." The image of her body, standing naked on the rocks, her soft, wet skin glistening in the moonlight, flashed through Harry's mind. He tried to find another thought, something to mislead her with, just in case she was roaming around inside his brain again. She took hold of his arm and leaned her head against his shoulder. "It's okay," she whispered. "I don't mind if you undress me with your eyes." The road leading to the lake wasn't much of a road. Never had been. Just a wide path from the highway, originally made by the quarry trucks, now maintained, such as it was, by the forest service as a fire road, a way to reach remote areas within the mountains in the event of a wildfire. Though deeply rutted and nearly washed out in sections, Harry didn't have any trouble navigating the old Studebaker through a succession of forks and intersections until he came to the small clearing that served as a parking area. "Do you have a blanket?" she asked as she got out of the car. "A blanket?" "To lie on. After we go swimming. You do want to go swimming, don't you?" Another naked, moonlit, soft-skinned vision danced its way through the darker regions of Harry's brain. "Let me see what I can find," he said. Harry opened the trunk and looked inside, pretending there might be something there besides the burlap sack he didn't want her to know about. The trunk lid wouldn't stay up by itself. He used his shoulder to prop it open and positioned his body to block her view. "That'll do," she said, peeking under his elbow and pointing at the sack. "That? That dirty old thing? That's burlap, you know." "Bring it, Harry." "Won't it be too rough on your skin?" She didn't answer, but turned and began to walk toward the lake. Though her back was to him, Harry could tell from the movement of her arms that she was unbuttoning her blouse. He grabbed the burlap, let the trunk lid slam shut and hurried to catch up with her. Though familiar and well-lit by a late September moon, the path was treacherous. Covered here and there by a thin, slippery layer of pine needles, it ran perilously close to the quarry's edge in places. Like the open jaws of a giant monster, jagged outcroppings of granite, some twenty feet below, awaited the fool who took a careless step or lost his balance. Harry had heard the tales the locals liked to tell of the place, of broken bodies found crushed against the rocks or floating lifeless in the lake. He never thought there was any truth to them. He'd been walking quickly, but Harry couldn't see her ahead of him. He began to wonder if one of them had taken a wrong turn when he came around a corner and found her clothes, neatly folded and set by the side of the trail. He got down on all fours and sniffed at them. He could feel the animal within him coming unleashed. His nostrils flared, his eyes widened. Moving more quickly now, he stuffed her things in the sack, grabbed its cord in his teeth and broke into an easy lope. The sweet scent of her innocence was easy to track, and Harry took delight in the inhalation of her fragrance. It filled the moist mucous linings of his snout and prickled the hair on his back with anticipation. Then suddenly, as if she'd appeared from nowhere, there she was in front of him, standing on a large granite slab, her toes curled over the edge as though poised to dive into the water. Brush strokes from the moon caressed the delicate, inviting curves of her nakedness and painted her skin a delicious silver. The hoot from a distant owl joined a whispery wind blowing through the trees, and the forest composed a Gregorian chant in homage to her loveliness. His transformation complete, Harry emerged from the woods. He crouched low and crept slowly forward on his haunches. His ears were pinned back against the sides of his head. His muscles were stretched taught against his fur. His bared fangs glistened in the moonlight, and his tongue dripped with saliva as he moved silently closer and prepared to devour his prey. She sensed his eyes upon her and turned around to face the wolf at her feet. "Oh, Harry," she said, "you're more beautiful than I ever imagined." She took a step toward him and held out her arms. He snarled and sprang at her. His teeth sank deep into her flesh. His claws ripped at her bosom. Her blood spurted forth from her wounds and drenched his fur in its sweet stickiness. In a moment it was over, her once beautiful body now limp and lifeless. Harry curled himself up next to her remains and licked her cherry-red blood from his paws. With his appetite satiated, his eyes grew heavy. He drifted off to sleep. The moon drifted below the horizon. The stench invaded his nostrils, setting off a chain of neural synapses that traveled rapidly upward to the olfactory regions of Harry's brain. His body flinched reflexively, waking him from his slumber. He sat upright, struggling to regain his bearings, to remember where he was and how he'd gotten there. He saw, with a familiar horror, that his skin was once again crusted with brown splotches of dried blood, and chunks of human tissue were lodged between his fingers and under his nails. He looked over his shoulder and saw the undevoured remnants of her naked body beside him. He turned away, rolling over onto his hands and knees, and became violently ill. Waves of convulsions repeatedly racked his body until there was nothing more left to purge. Getting to his feet, Harry stuffed her foul remains into the burlap sack, slung it over his shoulder, and started back along the path. Weakened now, he found his gait to be unsteady. Thorns shredded his trousers and tore pieces of precious flesh from his legs. Trickles of blood ran down his shins. The weight of the sack grew heavier with each step. The muscles of his back burned with pain. Tears filled his eyes. He couldn't see, his legs trembled, and he was becoming nauseous again. He couldn't take it any more. The time had come for Harry to say good-bye. To bid his love a fond and final farewell. To hurl her corpse over the edge. He adjusted the sack across his shoulders one last time and moved out onto the ledge. Fatigued and reckless, his mind wandering and out of focus, an exposed root snared Harry's foot. He lost his balance. His arms flailed wildly. He stumbled forward, unable to stop himself. The wind hummed softly through the trees as a naked figure emerged briefly from the lake. Nimbly scaling the sheer granite walls of the abandoned quarry, it hesitated only long enough to smooth out the long blonde locks of its hair before it disappeared forever into the woods and into the night. |
| Harvest Moon By lee10@host365.com (Entry #5) |
| ~Runner Up~ |
| Sandra was sitting cross-legged on
the floor. The skirt of her favourite dress, the white, cotton one with pink
rosebuds, made a nice hammock for her doll. She rocked from side to side,
crooning, “Go to sleep, Dolly. Go to sleep.” The floor was cold but her knickers were damp so she didn’t like to sit on her bed or her mother would tell her off. A knot in the wooden floor caught her attention. It looked like a clown with a big nose. Sandra giggled and described to her doll, in a singsong voice, how the clown played jokes on people at the circus. Sandra knew about clowns because her Auntie had taken her to the circus only last week and Sandra hadn’t forgotten the treat yet. The house was a bungalow, a small one, and the bedroom Sandra shared with her sister was next to the kitchen. The crash of a saucepan being slapped onto the cooker signalled the beginning of another argument between her mother and her sister, Katrina. Sandra only half listened. She was used to these arguments and never understood what was going on anyway. Katrina’s voice was shrill. “I’m not taking Sandra to the dinner dance. What’ll Danny think if we have to drag a retard along with us? I don’t care what you say. She’s not going with me!” She screamed at her mother. Another crash, louder than the first. “You selfish, little madam,” her mother, Janet, shouted. “Stop thinking about yourself for once and do as I tell you. Either you take her, or you stay home and look after her.” Janet had told Sandra earlier in the day that Katrina was taking her to the town’s annual Harvest Moon Dinner Dance and though Sandra didn’t know what a dinner dance was, she adored treats and wanted to go so badly that her tummy ached and she needed to go to the toilet. “I’m going with Danny and I’m not taking her!” Katrina slammed from the kitchen into the bedroom. She kicked out angrily, catching Sandra’s foot. The doll went flying and Sandra let out a howl to waken the dead. “It’s all your fault, moron,” Katrina snarled. “I wish you were dead.” Sandra scrambled across the floor, picked up her doll and carried on howling. Janet followed Katrina into the room. She slapped Katrina hard, shouted at her oldest daughter to, “shut up making that awful noise,” and glared at them both. “I wanna go to the dinner dance,” Sandra sobbed. Katrina’s cheek was bright red and her eyes were watering from the force of the blow. She said nothing. She realised she’d probably gone too far this time. “Don’t you ever call your sister that again,” Janet snapped. “It’s not her fault she’s a bit slow. And if your stupid father hadn’t gone off with that woman, I wouldn’t have to work such long hours. Do you think I like being out all the time? Do you think I want to go to work tonight when everybody else is going to the party?” Katrina mumbled something but didn’t backchat her mother any more. “So,” Janet hadn’t finished yet. “You’ll take Sandra with you and you’ll look after her and I don’t care if Danny likes it or lumps it. I’ve bought three tickets and they’re not going to waste. I can’t go now so Sandra’s going and that’s an end of the matter.” She stamped from the room. The girls heard the banging of a broom against the skirting board as Janet swept up the crumbs Sandra had dropped at breakfast. “You’ve wet yourself,” Katrina told Sandra, looking at a puddle on the floor. “Come here. I’ll clean you up before Mum finds out.” * It was 7 pm. Janet was about to leave for work and in the two hours since the argument, Katrina, having tried on and discarded a dozen or more outfits was more or less ready for the evening. Sandra had dressed herself and was wearing a bright, tangerine top and dark-blue jeans. Despite her other shortcomings, she had a keen awareness of colours and when her mother had described the harvest moon to her, she’d known exactly what she would be wearing. “You’re just like the harvest moon in the night sky,” her mother kissed her. “Big and bright and beautiful.” The doorbell sounded and Katrina rushed to the door before her mother could answer the strident summons. She pulled the door to behind her and whispered to her boyfriend. “Danny, I’m sorry. We’ve got to take Sandra with us.” “No way!” he shouted. “Shh!” Katrina hushed him. “We don’t have any choice. It’s either that or we stay home and baby-sit.” “If you stay home, sugar,” Danny said, “you stay without me. It’s no fun trying to have a cuddle when your big lump of a sister’s creeping round the house. I never know when she’s going to pop up from behind the sofa.” Katrina sighed. Danny was right. Sandra did love to see what was going on. “She’s just curious,” she said. “She doesn’t mean any harm.” “She’s not coming her with us.” Danny was adamant. “Mum’s already bought the tickets so it won’t cost you anything,” Katrina wheedled. Danny moved closer and ran two fingers lightly down her throat towards her cleavage. “I love that dress,” he breathed. “It’s so sexy.” Katrina stopped his fingers from straying too far. He shrugged. “She can come, Kat. I suppose we can always lose her in the crowd.” He glanced towards the road, where his car’s engine was ticking over sweetly then looked at his watch “I’ll give you five minutes to finish getting ready.” He grinned. “Got a lager while I wait?” Katrina opened the door and ushered him inside. “And don’t forget to bring a dustbin bag for her to sit on,” Danny said in a loud stage-whisper, “I don’t want a wet back seat.” * The restaurant, Valley View, was half way up the mountain. It stood on the edge of a cliff and had been built to resemble a Swiss chalet. There was a breath-taking, panoramic view over the valley from the long, wooden balcony that ran the entire length of the building. It was perfect for watching the moonrise at the town’s annual Harvest Moon get-together. Danny drove uphill, swooping round hairpin bends, confident that at this time of the evening, everyone else on the road would be going upwards as well. He drove one-handed when he could, with his left hand stealing up the silky-smooth skin of Katrina’s thigh. Sandra, seated on the slippery, dustbin-liner bag, slid along the back seat from one side to the other as they corned. She held tight to her Dolly and chuckled with pleasure. It was daylight still when they drove above the tree line. Sandra was enchanted with the view and bounced up and down until Katrina snapped at her to sit still and keep quiet. She slapped Danny’s hand away, suddenly impatient with the two of them. “What?” Danny complained. “I ain’t done nothing!” “Watch the road,” she grumbled. * Most of the people from the town were at Valley View that night. It was understood that the band would start the evening by playing waltzes, quicksteps and rock ‘n’ roll but that after moon rise, the older folk would go, including the grey-haired band members, and leave the floor to the disco and the youngsters. The M.C. welcomed them at the door. He was also a part-time plumber so knew almost everyone in town. “Hello, girls,” he greeted them and nodded to the young man, “Danny.” “My, Sandra. You’re quite the young lady now, aren’t you?” “Yes,” Sandra beamed, pleased at the attention. “I’m…I’m…How old am I, Katrina?” “You’re nineteen, Sandra,” Katrina told her big sister. “Well, well,” the M.C. patted her shoulder. “And you’ll be getting a boyfriend soon, I suppose?” “I’ve got one already,” Sandra told him earnestly. “It’s Danny. He’s my boyfriend. Me and Katrina’s both.” Katrina pulled her sister inside. “Don’t ever let Danny hear you say that,” she hissed, “or he’ll never take you anywhere ever again.” Tears filled Sandra’s eyes. “But it’s true,” she sniffled. “Maybe so,” Katrina said. “But we’ll keep that to ourselves, shall we?” * The meal was a basic one, designed to symbolise the season’s fruits of the earth but as it included the sweet, local wine and the strong beer brewed in the valley, no one was unhappy with the menu. Katrina was unhappy with Sandra however, who’d managed to spill Danny’s beer into the vegetable dish and her own glass of water onto the floor; followed by her trifle, which had landed upside-down, a gooey, custardy splodge of embarrassment on the carpet. Gravy had dripped down the girl’s orange top and her excitement had caused her to forget most of her table manners. As the meal was finishing, the M.C. called for attention. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” he boomed. “The moon is beginning to rise. If you would care to follow me, we will watch the event from the balcony.” Danny plucked at Katrina’s hand. “Come on sweetheart. Let’s go cuddle in the crowd,” he grinned. She took his hand and rose to follow the people going to the balcony to watch the harvest moon rise over the valley. Sandra stood up too. The tablecloth caught in her belt buckle and twisted with her. An empty glass fell and shattered on the floor. “Where do you think you’re going?” Katrina snapped. “To see the moon,” Sandra answered, bewildered by her sister’s tone. “No you’re not. You don’t like crowds, remember?” “Don’t I?” Sandra asked. “No. Now you wait here while I go with Danny for a quick look then I’ll come back and get you when it’s not so crowded.” Katrina looked round. A waiter was clearing the remains of the meal from a table on the other side of the room. “The waiter will keep an eye on you,” and she turned towards the door that led to the balcony. “O.K. Katrina,” Sandra sat down again at the table. She was thirsty. Her water had all gone so she had a swallow of Katrina’s wine, liked it and had another. The waiter left the room with a large tray of dirty dishes but Sandra didn’t mind being on her own. She’d found a packet of cigarettes and a lighter on the next table and tried to show Dolly how she could smoke now that she was nineteen. An evening breeze fluttered a curtain as Sandra, after much clicking, finally struck up a flame. Startled at her success she dropped the lighter and scrunched down under the table to find it. She crawled out the other side with the lighter clutched in her hand and sat on the carpet at the edge of the dance-floor. The curtain flared orange and fire sparked across to a painting, a portrait of a woman in red, who crinkled her eyes as the oils melted. Sandra’s back was to the bright, harvest moon of her own creation. She didn’t see how the white, wine-spoilt tablecloth scorched brown before flickering flames caught its edges and ran up and across, around island plates and discarded cutlery. Sandra saw something shiny in the middle of the floor and scooted on her bottom to see what it was. She picked the shiny thing up. It was an earring shaped like a cat. She stroked it, showed it to her Dolly and tried to fix it to her own ear. A wispy plume of smoke dipped to where she sat, waylaid by a curious draught. Sandra coughed and waved the grey away. Bidden, it surged up to join the black tsunami that roiled across the ceiling, swamping the cheap chandeliers, melting plastic crystals and coating the bulbs with the smoke’s grey effluent before the heat popped them. A fragment of broken glass dropped near Sandra’s feet. She touched it. It was hot and it was sharp. She snatched her finger back. Her finger was sore and bleeding. She put it in her mouth and sucked it, before looking up at the black cloud that boiled across the ceiling. She didn’t comprehend what it meant but a crackling behind her sounded like Christmas presents being unwrapped so she struggled to her feet and turned round. She clapped her hands, delighted. There, there was the harvest moon! It was huge, just as big and as orange as her mother had promised. It covered the whole end of the room. It blazed in the doorway through which Katrina and Danny had gone. Sandra had to squint. Her mother had told her the moon might be bright. When she got home, she thought, she’d be able to tell her mother she was right about the harvest moon. And she wondered why everyone had gone outside to the balcony when she could see the moon so well from the inside. |
| The
WCA's The Writers' Choice Awards |
| Here's how the members of the
ACWclub voted for their favorite entries: First place: #1 Second place: #2 Third place: #5 Others receiving votes: #3, #6 |
Here are all the entries, posted in the order they were received.
| Harvest Moon Robert P. Herbst herbst@gtcom.net |
#1 of 6 |
| 1084 | |
| As a general rule, I don’t pay much attention to
the passing of dates and the days of the week. Ever since retiring from my
active business life, I run my little shop seven days a week from sun up to sun
set. No holidays or days off. I consider it a matter of pride to be in my shop
whether I’m needed or not. Every day, come rain or shine, my little gathering of friends know there is hot coffee and something to eat waiting for them at my shop. To me, there was nothing special about this day, the sun was up and so was I. As always, my first guest was Yodar Hoopelhoffer, the Mount Perry town idiot. Yodar might seem like he’s a can or two short of a six pack, but he’s a good friend and in my little shop, always welcome. Yodar is also the luckiest man alive. His reputation was well earned when he played Russian Roulette with an automatic and won five games in a row. Today he seemed unusually excited about something and it took some bobbing and weaving to get him to spit it out coherently. It seemed, after all the years I’d known him, he’d just figured out the name, Herbst, meant Autumn, or the fall of the year in German. My name was Herbst, I’m at least part German and he wanted to be sure I was aware the fall season was upon us and the Harvest Moon would shine bright in the sky over good old Mount Perry. According to Yodar, this was my time of year. This was also the season of plenty as the farmers moved out into their fields to harvest their crops. The Mount Perry Peanut Tree, having already shed it’s first crop of large plump peanuts was ready to be harvested of it’s second crop of luscious tasting jelly to be used with the Bread & Butter Vine’s contribution and freshly ground peanut butter. To celebrate this, Yodar had made Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches for one and all. As he pulled the cover off the plate of sandwiches with great flourish he proclaimed, “It’s the season of the Harvest Moon and today we celebrate the good fortune of another bountiful harvest.” Yodar had obviously used great care in the making of this huge plate of sandwiches. The Bread and Butter Vine had been pressed down flat in a more or less rectangular shape, then a thick layer of peanut butter had been smoothed over the vine. Over this was a layer of the sweet jelly freshly harvested from the Mount Perry Peanut tree and another layer of Bread and Butter vine on top. His statement was met with a round of applause as we all picked sandwiches from the plate and marveled at Yodar’s culinary expertise. When eating Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches made with all natural ingredients, one is advised to use a bit more care lest they become impaled on the thorns growing on the Bread and Butter Vine used to make the top and bottom of the sandwich. The topic at the table rapidly switched to a dissertation of how lucky we were to live in Mount Perry and to be able to enjoy the endless bounty of our year round harvest season. There is no season on the harvest of Swamp Cabbage and there are usually always at least one or two adult alligators wandering up or down Jefferson Street. There is always something in season and ripe for the picking. At the very thought of such delicacies, the conversation trailed off and we all had a kind of misty look in our eyes. A lot of time had slipped by since the last time I. Katchum had swaggered through the front door dragging a fourteen foot alligator behind him. Now, here we were facing another Harvest Moon season without our World Famous big game hunter. We’d come to rely on Katchum to provide us with Alligator Tail to go along with our Swamp Cabbage. Naturally, we all hope the next time he brings us an alligator, he kills it first. Just simply throwing a live fourteen foot alligator on our table and saying, “I brung it, you cook it.” had the immediate effect of clearing the room. The alligator, not being in the best of humor from being dragged about by it’s tail, became somewhat destructive in the confined space around our coffee table. Still, we all thanked Katchum because, “It wasn’t the gift that counted, but the thought behind it.” Yodar, of course, made the very best of every situation and brought in a large dish of Swamp Cabbage. By this time the gathering was complete with the arrival of Wally Turkey our friend from Worsbrough Dale, England. The rest of the gang were Perry Noid, Sue A. Cidal and Skitso Frenik. Last to arrive was Formaldi Hyde, the embalmers daughter and her new boy friend Dee Lusional. The conversation switched to the problems faced by the farmers trying to harvest from the Mount Perry Peanut Tree. How does one harvest Peanuts from a sixty foot tree without specialized mechanical equipment even during the comparatively dry harvest season? Fortunately, the same equipment used to harvest the prime peanut crop from near the top of the tree could also be used to strip the jelly from the branches during the Harvest Moon Season. The problem was the weight of the machinery causing the harvester to sink slowly into the mud of the swamp as the harvest took place. I lively debate ensued and as always, there was no resolution to the problem. The loss of so many harvesting machines could easily be the reason the Mount Perry Peanut tree’s crop of Peanut Butter and Jelly, isn’t more popular. The cost of harvesting has made it too expensive. Yodar’s Idea of supporting the weight of the machinery with Helium filled balloons was tried last year, but thorns from the Bread and Butter Vines promptly ended this effort and another harvesting machine sank quietly into the mud of the swamp. Further discussion was put off until next year when once again our little gang would celebrate the Harvest Moon with Swamp Cabbage and Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches. Maybe, by this time I. Katchum will find his way back out of the swamps and bring us another alligator. Somehow, the idea of wishing each other a, “Happy Harvest Moon Season”, didn’t seem to fit the occasion so we all just said, “See you tomorrow.” and left it at that. |
|
| Harvest Moon Michael Pelc michaelpelc@yahoo.com |
#2 of 6 Winning Entry |
| 1655 | |
| Winning her heart had been easy, Harry thought to
himself as his mind struggled to piece together the events from earlier that
evening, but then her heart was but a cast away prize, to be discarded like
day-old bread, soured milk, or a rotting corpse. The Harvest Moon Dance was a long-standing tradition at Bennington State. Held at the end of freshmen orientation week, it gave the meek of the world, the incoming freshmen boys, a chance to meet the freshmen girls before they became fodder for the upper class wolves, who had not yet returned to campus. There was a part of Harry that wanted to go, and there was a part of him that knew better. Perhaps, if there had not been a full moon that night, he might have stayed back at the dorm, content to read Shelley or Hesse. Sitting alone and all but ignored by the other freshmen at the mixer, she was California beautiful, with sloopy blonde hair and wide, brown, pixie-like eyes that sparkled of innocence. "Blutsauger, Harry Blutsauger," Harry said, walking over and introducing himself. He sat down in the chair next to her, tipping it back so that it balanced on two legs. She said her name was Sheila something-or-other, and they made small talk about majors and home towns. She said she played the zither; Harry said he played football. They both hated Nixon, would love Elvis forever no matter how fat he got, and were opposed to the war on moral grounds. Then, as quickly and easily as their conversation had begun, they ran out of things to say. The silence made Harry uncomfortable. He didn't want to lose her. He didn't want someone else to move in on what he considered to be his territory. He began to search his brain trying to think of something witty to say when she took his hand and began to trace the lines in his palm with her finger. She told him how she had this gift, this special gift, that enabled her to foretell the future. She said she knew Harry would be here tonight, that he'd be wearing his high school letterman's sweater, that he'd walk over and sit down beside her. She even told him how he'd tip his chair back the way he did. It was, she told him, the reason she had come to the dance. "Really? You knew I'd be here?" She nodded. "You know, I only decided to come at the last minute. I guess I'm not much for dances when you get right down to it." "Or meeting women," she added, finishing the thought in the back of his mind. Harry didn't like people poking around inside his brain like that. There were thoughts that lived in there that would best be left undisturbed, to fester on their own and never see the light of day. Or worse, the light of the moon. "We don't have to stay," she said, breaking the silence before it became awkward again. "We could go out to the lake if you'd like." "The lake?" Harry asked, as if he didn't already know about it. As if he hadn't been there before. As if it weren't the sole reason he'd come to Bennington State in the first place. "Well, it's not really a lake," she said. "It's an old abandoned quarry that's gotten all filled up with water over the years. And sometimes, when it's really warm out and the moon is full, kind of like it is tonight, sometimes the locals go skinny dipping out there." The image of her body, standing naked on the rocks, her soft, wet skin glistening in the moonlight, flashed through Harry's mind. He tried to find another thought, something to mislead her with, just in case she was roaming around inside his brain again. She took hold of his arm and leaned her head against his shoulder. "It's okay," she whispered. "I don't mind if you undress me with your eyes." The road leading to the lake wasn't much of a road. Never had been. Just a wide path from the highway, originally made by the quarry trucks, now maintained, such as it was, by the forest service as a fire road, a way to reach remote areas within the mountains in the event of a wildfire. Though deeply rutted and nearly washed out in sections, Harry didn't have any trouble navigating the old Studebaker through a succession of forks and intersections until he came to the small clearing that served as a parking area. "Do you have a blanket?" she asked as she got out of the car. "A blanket?" "To lie on. After we go swimming. You do want to go swimming, don't you?" Another naked, moonlit, soft-skinned vision danced its way through the darker regions of Harry's brain. "Let me see what I can find," he said. Harry opened the trunk and looked inside, pretending there might be something there besides the burlap sack he didn't want her to know about. The trunk lid wouldn't stay up by itself. He used his shoulder to prop it open and positioned his body to block her view. "That'll do," she said, peeking under his elbow and pointing at the sack. "That? That dirty old thing? That's burlap, you know." "Bring it, Harry." "Won't it be too rough on your skin?" She didn't answer, but turned and began to walk toward the lake. Though her back was to him, Harry could tell from the movement of her arms that she was unbuttoning her blouse. He grabbed the burlap, let the trunk lid slam shut and hurried to catch up with her. Though familiar and well-lit by a late September moon, the path was treacherous. Covered here and there by a thin, slippery layer of pine needles, it ran perilously close to the quarry's edge in places. Like the open jaws of a giant monster, jagged outcroppings of granite, some twenty feet below, awaited the fool who took a careless step or lost his balance. Harry had heard the tales the locals liked to tell of the place, of broken bodies found crushed against the rocks or floating lifeless in the lake. He never thought there was any truth to them. He'd been walking quickly, but Harry couldn't see her ahead of him. He began to wonder if one of them had taken a wrong turn when he came around a corner and found her clothes, neatly folded and set by the side of the trail. He got down on all fours and sniffed at them. He could feel the animal within him coming unleashed. His nostrils flared, his eyes widened. Moving more quickly now, he stuffed her things in the sack, grabbed its cord in his teeth and broke into an easy lope. The sweet scent of her innocence was easy to track, and Harry took delight in the inhalation of her fragrance. It filled the moist mucous linings of his snout and prickled the hair on his back with anticipation. Then suddenly, as if she'd appeared from nowhere, there she was in front of him, standing on a large granite slab, her toes curled over the edge as though poised to dive into the water. Brush strokes from the moon caressed the delicate, inviting curves of her nakedness and painted her skin a delicious silver. The hoot from a distant owl joined a whispery wind blowing through the trees, and the forest composed a Gregorian chant in homage to her loveliness. His transformation complete, Harry emerged from the woods. He crouched low and crept slowly forward on his haunches. His ears were pinned back against the sides of his head. His muscles were stretched taught against his fur. His bared fangs glistened in the moonlight, and his tongue dripped with saliva as he moved silently closer and prepared to devour his prey. She sensed his eyes upon her and turned around to face the wolf at her feet. "Oh, Harry," she said, "you're more beautiful than I ever imagined." She took a step toward him and held out her arms. He snarled and sprang at her. His teeth sank deep into her flesh. His claws ripped at her bosom. Her blood spurted forth from her wounds and drenched his fur in its sweet stickiness. In a moment it was over, her once beautiful body now limp and lifeless. Harry curled himself up next to her remains and licked her cherry-red blood from his paws. With his appetite satiated, his eyes grew heavy. He drifted off to sleep. The moon drifted below the horizon. The stench invaded his nostrils, setting off a chain of neural synapses that traveled rapidly upward to the olfactory regions of Harry's brain. His body flinched reflexively, waking him from his slumber. He sat upright, struggling to regain his bearings, to remember where he was and how he'd gotten there. He saw, with a familiar horror, that his skin was once again crusted with brown splotches of dried blood, and chunks of human tissue were lodged between his fingers and under his nails. He looked over his shoulder and saw the undevoured remnants of her naked body beside him. He turned away, rolling over onto his hands and knees, and became violently ill. Waves of convulsions repeatedly racked his body until there was nothing more left to purge. Getting to his feet, Harry stuffed her foul remains into the burlap sack, slung it over his shoulder, and started back along the path. Weakened now, he found his gait to be unsteady. Thorns shredded his trousers and tore pieces of precious flesh from his legs. Trickles of blood ran down his shins. The weight of the sack grew heavier with each step. The muscles of his back burned with pain. Tears filled his eyes. He couldn't see, his legs trembled, and he was becoming nauseous again. He couldn't take it any more. The time had come for Harry to say good-bye. To bid his love a fond and final farewell. To hurl her corpse over the edge. He adjusted the sack across his shoulders one last time and moved out onto the ledge. Fatigued and reckless, his mind wandering and out of focus, an exposed root snared Harry's foot. He lost his balance. His arms flailed wildly. He stumbled forward, unable to stop himself. The wind hummed softly through the trees as a naked figure emerged briefly from the lake. Nimbly scaling the sheer granite walls of the abandoned quarry, it hesitated only long enough to smooth out the long blonde locks of its hair before it disappeared forever into the woods and into the night. |
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| Harvest Moon roger@cowboylogic.net |
#3 of 6 |
| 871 | |
| “It’s 1933 and you are complaining because we
don’t have enough to feed the children? Look at the hen house. Last count
I did we had 33 chickens with 7 hens nesting. We have 3 pigs, all different
ages, a good plow horse and a milk cow. We have potatoes in the root cellar and
all the clear, clean drinking water we can use, right next to the cabin.”
Sarah looked through her tears at her raging husband and stammered, but nothing intelligible would cross her lips. Herbert, noting her condition continued to drive his point home. "We may not have as much variety as your wealthy family in Toronto, but we are not about to starve like so many folks in this vast dust bin we call Saskatchewan. We are going to make it and the farm payment due at the end of the month will be paid when the crop is laid away.” Herbert's normally weathered red skin grew crimson across his cheeks as he slammed the rough hewn door hard enough to shake dust from the dried sod roofing to feather down around her silent misery. The children had to be awake through that torrent, but they were silent. Even Meg in her cradle knew enough to hold her tiny voice. Tears streaming down her dusty cheeks, Sara turned and filled the kettle to heat water to clean the supper dishes and make some willow tea for the aches in their back, legs and arms. The day folded back around her mind as she busied herself and she relived the labors in the fields along side Herbert who had started threshing before light this morning and had only stopped long enough for the potato cakes in pork fat and tea she had taken him in the fields as she joined him for the daily grind with the stone boat behind Charlie. They broke again at 7:30 to feed the children, eat and rest the horse. Automatically, through habit she placed the chipped clay dishes in the apple crates nailed to the wall, as she thought of Herbert out there servicing the steam thresher and preparing for their “evening shift”. "How long can we keep this up?" she thought. She tucked Meg in and kissed her, moved to Joe and kissed him, then on to Margaret to who she whispered “Keep an eye out sweetheart; we’ll be back in the house before you know it”. She kissed her oldest daughter on the forehead and stepped for the door. Charlie was waiting in the lean-to stable and she soon had him harnessed to the wagon she would drive beside the puffing and clanging monster that would collect the wheat and blow it along with a ton of chaff at the wagon. Most of the grain would stay in the wagon and most of the chaff would find her on the wagon seat. As Charlie plodded slowly toward the north 40, Sarah listened with dread to the whistle and clatter of the thresher across the prairie. Even at this distance the noise was painfully loud and menacing. She found that in this world there was only one thing she hated and that was that infernal, dangerous machine she understood was their salvation and captor all at once. As Charlie stepped through the slip wire fence gate, Sarah was at the same time worried about the gathering clouds the full orange moon lit up on the horizon to the south west behind her and the amazing picture of the threshing machine silhouetted in perfect black atop the moonlit field to the north east. It seemed to be waiting for her under the full and knowing moon. As she drew closer the glint of the moonlight brought to life all the worn parts of the machine with a vibrating glow, but the painted steel and wood remained black as sin. She saw no silhouette of Herbert either puttering or sitting aloft awaiting the wagon. Finally Sarah pulled Charlie into place beside the wagon, stepped down to wade through chest high grain stalks, around the slowly spinning blades to look for Herbert. She paused in shock as she found Herbert on his back, with the toes of each foot locked around the bottom spokes of the front wheel and his shoulder being grazed over and over by the swift moving blades. Panic pumped adrenalin through her body as she jumped for the ladder to the controls and worked the gears to stop the belt from turning the blades, then pulled the steam release and shut down the boiler, checked the brakes and jumped back down as the blades ground to a stop. Sarah grabbed Herbert’s left arm and with a mighty heave pulled him out of danger… Not all of him… His right arm, from shoulder down was missing and the bright orange moonlight displayed an ominous black wet spot in the dust with a sickening red sheen. She bent crying his name and bathed his face in her tears as the steam release drowned out her sobs. As the hiss subsided, he looked up at her and said, “Sarah, you were right. It’s over. I love you.” He closed his eyes and went silent. Sarah looked up at the perfect harvest moon and wailed a primal scream that the children heard in their beds. |
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| Harvest Moon Tom Campbell topcat@spiritone.com |
#4 of 6 |
| 1235 | |
| Rocky Corners is just a little ol' farm town in the
dusty prairie. Ain't but about 180 folks there countin' cows and chickens.
Tain't a lot to do there 'ceptin' the Friday night square dance or mebbe drive
someone's Model T over to Bartlesville on Saturday night to see a Tom Mix
movie. The most fun for me was stepping past the rotating red, white, and blue
pole into Al's Hair Emporium where the men would usually be singing barbershop
quartet music. I learned all the popular songs from the time I was knee high to a grasshopper 'cause my ma would play them on the old upright piano most every night. 'Bout every house had a piano in those days and we sang all the tunes from Irving Berlin to George M. Cohan and plenty that were a lot older than that. I even joined the church choir, partly to keep from having to go to Sunday school, but mostly 'cause I liked to sing. Even when my voice changed, I just switched to bass, singing all them old hymns and gospel songs. When I was sixteen, getting my hair cut at Al's (everybody got their hair cut at Al's), three other guys started hanging out there and singing the old songs barbershop style. Al was kind of a portly man, always real well dressed, even when working in his shirtsleeves, and had 'bout the sweetest lead voice this side of Heaven. Horace was kinda tall and gangly and his specs often slipped down his nose, but he sang a pretty fair tenor though he sometimes squeaked a little on the high notes. O.C. , always quick with a joke, owned a little hardware store though he titled himself the Third Assistant Temporary Vice Chairman. He always claimed he was the best baritone in the country and no one could argue with the way he slipped in those inner notes beautifully. Big Joe was the most impressive with his square jaw and the way he could sing notes so low only a mole could hear 'em. When he boomed out those big bum, bum, bum's of his between lines it was like a train goin' by but he could sing as softly as the rest of 'em if it were a ballad. I always wanted to sit in on a song or two but I was too green and skeered to ask. Pretty soon they had a bunch of songs down pat. O.C. always said if they sang it the same way twice it was in their repertoire. They got some matching vests and old timey straw hats and afore long they were singin' at socials and fairs and anywhere else anyone would listen to 'em. They even came up with a name for themselves, the Okie Four. I sure wanted to be just like them. Now I knew this girl in town, Amanda Holcomb, whose fiance had just made a run for it and took off for St. Louis to work on a riverboat. Amanda was purty with long wavy hair that the poets might have called chestnut or auburn, but it was brown to me, and a cute little dimpled smile that could drop a man from across the room. One thing I knew, she was shore itchin' for a hitchin'. I was thinking if I could steer her towards Big Joe he might get distracted enough to fergit some of his quartet woodshedding and I could fill in a little. I really wanted to sing in a quartet and was purty fair singing those bum, bum, bum's myself. At the Friday square dance I introduced them and they seemed to hit it off jest fine. Then ol' Cletis Culpepper come waltzing in and asks her to dance. He's a good lookin' fella and a purty fair dancer. She seemed to be taking a shine to him which left me mighty disappointed. After a few dances, he excused himself to go to the outhouse while I was still standing by the wall, sippin' cider and ponderin'. My eyes lit on a Sears and Roebuck catalogue on a nearby table and a idea came to me. In those days, old Sears and Roebucks catalogues ended up in the outhouse and not fer readin' either. I tore off a page and sidled over to the door. When Cletis came back in I clapped him on the back and said howdy, how're things down at the feed store. Meanwhile I slipped half that page down the back of his pants as slick as snail snot so when he crossed the room to rejoin Amanda, everyone was snickering at him. Amanda took one look at what was stickin' out of the back of his trousers, blushed, and scurried away. I guess that fixed it for Cletis but I saw Amanda was intercepted by Freddy MacGillicuddy. He was a smooth one, that boy, who could charm a possum out of a tree. They took a few turns dancin' and I took to ponderin' agin. I knew Freddy wasn't the marryin' kind since I seed him with a lot of different gals on his arm, so I goes over to have a little powwow. All I told him was that Amanda was looking for a steady beau and if he approached her pa right, he could probably get her hand in marriage. Her pa was purty mean, I says. Last feller he caught her with sittin' on the porch swing and holdin' hands... well he run the boy off with a shotgun. Natchurly, Freddy hotfoots it over to dance with some other gal and I goes over to parley with Amanda. I told her Big Joe was sweet on her and she looks over to see him standin' over there lookin' handsome and rugged like a football player, which he used to be. He flashes her his best smile and she returns it with her little dimpled grin. They walked toward each other and met in the middle of the floor, jest like in the movies. Every dance the rest of the night they danced together. She even 'lowed him to walk her home. The quartet didn't meet on weekends sincin' the barbershop was closed, so Saturday night he takes her to the movies in Bartlesville, gittin' home quite late. Sunday they takes a walk down by the river and the old mill. Then God opened up his Heavens and poured down a real gullywasher of a rainstorm. They took refuge in the old mill and was in there two hours, what led to a lot of gossip. Monday mornin' I hears they eloped to Topeka. I was right there when the barbershop opened and from the look on the men's faces, I could tell they had already heard the news, which spreads fast in a little town like Rocky Corners. Old Al looked older, Horace was draped in the corner cleanin' his specs, and even O.C. didn't have a joke. I tells 'em I can fill in for Big Joe fer a while; I knowed all their songs from havin' heard 'em so many times. They says, what the heck, let's give the kid a try. Shore I was mighty ashamed of the way I done it but I was happier than a pig in slop when Al hangs out a note and off we went. "Shine on, shine on harvest moon up in the sky Bum, bum, bum, I..." |
|
| Harvest Moon lee10@host365.com |
#5 of 6 Runner-up |
| 2102 | |
| Sandra was sitting cross-legged on the floor. The skirt
of her favourite dress, the white, cotton one with pink rosebuds, made a nice
hammock for her doll. She rocked from side to side, crooning, “Go to
sleep, Dolly. Go to sleep.” The floor was cold but her knickers were damp so she didn’t like to sit on her bed or her mother would tell her off. A knot in the wooden floor caught her attention. It looked like a clown with a big nose. Sandra giggled and described to her doll, in a singsong voice, how the clown played jokes on people at the circus. Sandra knew about clowns because her Auntie had taken her to the circus only last week and Sandra hadn’t forgotten the treat yet. The house was a bungalow, a small one, and the bedroom Sandra shared with her sister was next to the kitchen. The crash of a saucepan being slapped onto the cooker signalled the beginning of another argument between her mother and her sister, Katrina. Sandra only half listened. She was used to these arguments and never understood what was going on anyway. Katrina’s voice was shrill. “I’m not taking Sandra to the dinner dance. What’ll Danny think if we have to drag a retard along with us? I don’t care what you say. She’s not going with me!” She screamed at her mother. Another crash, louder than the first. “You selfish, little madam,” her mother, Janet, shouted. “Stop thinking about yourself for once and do as I tell you. Either you take her, or you stay home and look after her.” Janet had told Sandra earlier in the day that Katrina was taking her to the town’s annual Harvest Moon Dinner Dance and though Sandra didn’t know what a dinner dance was, she adored treats and wanted to go so badly that her tummy ached and she needed to go to the toilet. “I’m going with Danny and I’m not taking her!” Katrina slammed from the kitchen into the bedroom. She kicked out angrily, catching Sandra’s foot. The doll went flying and Sandra let out a howl to waken the dead. “It’s all your fault, moron,” Katrina snarled. “I wish you were dead.” Sandra scrambled across the floor, picked up her doll and carried on howling. Janet followed Katrina into the room. She slapped Katrina hard, shouted at her oldest daughter to, “shut up making that awful noise,” and glared at them both. “I wanna go to the dinner dance,” Sandra sobbed. Katrina’s cheek was bright red and her eyes were watering from the force of the blow. She said nothing. She realised she’d probably gone too far this time. “Don’t you ever call your sister that again,” Janet snapped. “It’s not her fault she’s a bit slow. And if your stupid father hadn’t gone off with that woman, I wouldn’t have to work such long hours. Do you think I like being out all the time? Do you think I want to go to work tonight when everybody else is going to the party?” Katrina mumbled something but didn’t backchat her mother any more. “So,” Janet hadn’t finished yet. “You’ll take Sandra with you and you’ll look after her and I don’t care if Danny likes it or lumps it. I’ve bought three tickets and they’re not going to waste. I can’t go now so Sandra’s going and that’s an end of the matter.” She stamped from the room. The girls heard the banging of a broom against the skirting board as Janet swept up the crumbs Sandra had dropped at breakfast. “You’ve wet yourself,” Katrina told Sandra, looking at a puddle on the floor. “Come here. I’ll clean you up before Mum finds out.” * It was 7 pm. Janet was about to leave for work and in the two hours since the argument, Katrina, having tried on and discarded a dozen or more outfits was more or less ready for the evening. Sandra had dressed herself and was wearing a bright, tangerine top and dark-blue jeans. Despite her other shortcomings, she had a keen awareness of colours and when her mother had described the harvest moon to her, she’d known exactly what she would be wearing. “You’re just like the harvest moon in the night sky,” her mother kissed her. “Big and bright and beautiful.” The doorbell sounded and Katrina rushed to the door before her mother could answer the strident summons. She pulled the door to behind her and whispered to her boyfriend. “Danny, I’m sorry. We’ve got to take Sandra with us.” “No way!” he shouted. “Shh!” Katrina hushed him. “We don’t have any choice. It’s either that or we stay home and baby-sit.” “If you stay home, sugar,” Danny said, “you stay without me. It’s no fun trying to have a cuddle when your big lump of a sister’s creeping round the house. I never know when she’s going to pop up from behind the sofa.” Katrina sighed. Danny was right. Sandra did love to see what was going on. “She’s just curious,” she said. “She doesn’t mean any harm.” “She’s not coming her with us.” Danny was adamant. “Mum’s already bought the tickets so it won’t cost you anything,” Katrina wheedled. Danny moved closer and ran two fingers lightly down her throat towards her cleavage. “I love that dress,” he breathed. “It’s so sexy.” Katrina stopped his fingers from straying too far. He shrugged. “She can come, Kat. I suppose we can always lose her in the crowd.” He glanced towards the road, where his car’s engine was ticking over sweetly then looked at his watch “I’ll give you five minutes to finish getting ready.” He grinned. “Got a lager while I wait?” Katrina opened the door and ushered him inside. “And don’t forget to bring a dustbin bag for her to sit on,” Danny said in a loud stage-whisper, “I don’t want a wet back seat.” * The restaurant, Valley View, was half way up the mountain. It stood on the edge of a cliff and had been built to resemble a Swiss chalet. There was a breath-taking, panoramic view over the valley from the long, wooden balcony that ran the entire length of the building. It was perfect for watching the moonrise at the town’s annual Harvest Moon get-together. Danny drove uphill, swooping round hairpin bends, confident that at this time of the evening, everyone else on the road would be going upwards as well. He drove one-handed when he could, with his left hand stealing up the silky-smooth skin of Katrina’s thigh. Sandra, seated on the slippery, dustbin-liner bag, slid along the back seat from one side to the other as they corned. She held tight to her Dolly and chuckled with pleasure. It was daylight still when they drove above the tree line. Sandra was enchanted with the view and bounced up and down until Katrina snapped at her to sit still and keep quiet. She slapped Danny’s hand away, suddenly impatient with the two of them. “What?” Danny complained. “I ain’t done nothing!” “Watch the road,” she grumbled. * Most of the people from the town were at Valley View that night. It was understood that the band would start the evening by playing waltzes, quicksteps and rock ‘n’ roll but that after moon rise, the older folk would go, including the grey-haired band members, and leave the floor to the disco and the youngsters. The M.C. welcomed them at the door. He was also a part-time plumber so knew almost everyone in town. “Hello, girls,” he greeted them and nodded to the young man, “Danny.” “My, Sandra. You’re quite the young lady now, aren’t you?” “Yes,” Sandra beamed, pleased at the attention. “I’m…I’m…How old am I, Katrina?” “You’re nineteen, Sandra,” Katrina told her big sister. “Well, well,” the M.C. patted her shoulder. “And you’ll be getting a boyfriend soon, I suppose?” “I’ve got one already,” Sandra told him earnestly. “It’s Danny. He’s my boyfriend. Me and Katrina’s both.” Katrina pulled her sister inside. “Don’t ever let Danny hear you say that,” she hissed, “or he’ll never take you anywhere ever again.” Tears filled Sandra’s eyes. “But it’s true,” she sniffled. “Maybe so,” Katrina said. “But we’ll keep that to ourselves, shall we?” * The meal was a basic one, designed to symbolise the season’s fruits of the earth but as it included the sweet, local wine and the strong beer brewed in the valley, no one was unhappy with the menu. Katrina was unhappy with Sandra however, who’d managed to spill Danny’s beer into the vegetable dish and her own glass of water onto the floor; followed by her trifle, which had landed upside-down, a gooey, custardy splodge of embarrassment on the carpet. Gravy had dripped down the girl’s orange top and her excitement had caused her to forget most of her table manners. As the meal was finishing, the M.C. called for attention. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” he boomed. “The moon is beginning to rise. If you would care to follow me, we will watch the event from the balcony.” Danny plucked at Katrina’s hand. “Come on sweetheart. Let’s go cuddle in the crowd,” he grinned. She took his hand and rose to follow the people going to the balcony to watch the harvest moon rise over the valley. Sandra stood up too. The tablecloth caught in her belt buckle and twisted with her. An empty glass fell and shattered on the floor. “Where do you think you’re going?” Katrina snapped. “To see the moon,” Sandra answered, bewildered by her sister’s tone. “No you’re not. You don’t like crowds, remember?” “Don’t I?” Sandra asked. “No. Now you wait here while I go with Danny for a quick look then I’ll come back and get you when it’s not so crowded.” Katrina looked round. A waiter was clearing the remains of the meal from a table on the other side of the room. “The waiter will keep an eye on you,” and she turned towards the door that led to the balcony. “O.K. Katrina,” Sandra sat down again at the table. She was thirsty. Her water had all gone so she had a swallow of Katrina’s wine, liked it and had another. The waiter left the room with a large tray of dirty dishes but Sandra didn’t mind being on her own. She’d found a packet of cigarettes and a lighter on the next table and tried to show Dolly how she could smoke now that she was nineteen. An evening breeze fluttered a curtain as Sandra, after much clicking, finally struck up a flame. Startled at her success she dropped the lighter and scrunched down under the table to find it. She crawled out the other side with the lighter clutched in her hand and sat on the carpet at the edge of the dance-floor. The curtain flared orange and fire sparked across to a painting, a portrait of a woman in red, who crinkled her eyes as the oils melted. Sandra’s back was to the bright, harvest moon of her own creation. She didn’t see how the white, wine-spoilt tablecloth scorched brown before flickering flames caught its edges and ran up and across, around island plates and discarded cutlery. Sandra saw something shiny in the middle of the floor and scooted on her bottom to see what it was. She picked the shiny thing up. It was an earring shaped like a cat. She stroked it, showed it to her Dolly and tried to fix it to her own ear. A wispy plume of smoke dipped to where she sat, waylaid by a curious draught. Sandra coughed and waved the grey away. Bidden, it surged up to join the black tsunami that roiled across the ceiling, swamping the cheap chandeliers, melting plastic crystals and coating the bulbs with the smoke’s grey effluent before the heat popped them. A fragment of broken glass dropped near Sandra’s feet. She touched it. It was hot and it was sharp. She snatched her finger back. Her finger was sore and bleeding. She put it in her mouth and sucked it, before looking up at the black cloud that boiled across the ceiling. She didn’t comprehend what it meant but a crackling behind her sounded like Christmas presents being unwrapped so she struggled to her feet and turned round. She clapped her hands, delighted. There, there was the harvest moon! It was huge, just as big and as orange as her mother had promised. It covered the whole end of the room. It blazed in the doorway through which Katrina and Danny had gone. Sandra had to squint. Her mother had told her the moon might be bright. When she got home, she thought, she’d be able to tell her mother she was right about the harvest moon. And she wondered why everyone had gone outside to the balcony when she could see the moon so well from the inside. |
|
| Harvest Moon davidy@funkypenguin.co.za |
#6 of 6 |
| 2401 | |
| I Michael Jeffreys rocked back in his chair, his feet on the desk, and a mug of coffee in his hand. He was going through his early morning routine, reviewing the state of HARVEST's network and systems, before the day's work began. Having finished the final report, and noticed nothing out of the ordinary, he signed off the securiy audit, and filed it in his drawer. Propping his feet back on the desk, holding his mug in both hands, he tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and savoured the silence. His IT system was in tip-top condition, he told himself. "Purring like a kitten", he whispered softly. "Who, me? Would it turn you on if I did?" Michael turned, blushing. Bianca Dedray stood behind him, a playful smile on her face. Bianca was the latest addition to the HARVEST senior team, and on Gordon's instructions, had been working closely with Michael since July. It was now September, and Bianca was almost as proficient as he was at managing the intricate layers of systems and data which were the lifeblood and the heart of the data mining company. HARVEST had been founded by Michael four years ago, born out of his frustration at levels of deception to which public figures would stoop. He recalled his own father, Senator Jonathan Jeffreys, being voted into power mainly due to his relentless stance on morality and family values. Two years later, Michael had discovered his father in the act of adultery. Refusing to keep silent, he'd confronted first his father, and then his mother. Both parents, although "deeply saddened", had ignored Michael's indignant protestations. His father had continued his adulterous liasons, and his mother had continued to ignore them. An academic, Michael completed his Master's thesis that year, focusing on artificial intelligence and machine learning. The following year, he built on that research and stared a free online service, mining the web for information and opinion, negative or positive, on prominent public figures. A few months later, he'd met Gordon Moon, a self-made millionaire investor, who offered Michael the opportunity to pursue his vision of enabling transparent policital leadership in the commercial sector. So HARVEST was born. The big-brother of credit and reference checks, HARVEST was an evolving, learning system, which was able (thanks to deals signed with the federal government), to retrieve almost any publically available data on an individual, from their home address to their birth records. This in itself, of course, was nothing special. What made HARVEST unique in the data-mining industry was its uncanny ability to uncover links between seemingly unrelated information. An employer, for example, could request a HARVEST report on a prospective staff member. In addition to standard credit and criminal record checks, HARVEST would return every bit of information recorded, relating to that person. Using cutting-edge face recognition techniques, as well as half a dozen new techniques developed by Michael, HARVEST would return every public photograph, every traffic video clip, and every newspaper clipping featuring the target, even if the target was not mentioned in the article, or was simply a face in the crowd at a recorded public event. "For the second and final time, would you like another cup of coffee?", Bianca asked, raising her voice slightly. "Were you daydreaming?", she smirked. "All great artists daydream", Michael shot back with a grin. "Yeah, whatever. Two sugars, Da Vinci?" II A week later, Michael had completed the additions to the twenty-fifth iteration of the HARVEST intelligence and data-matching core. He hadn't added any new features; he'd just optimized some data-matching routines, avoiding redundant matching, and making the harvesting process significantly faster. He ran his usual battery of tests on the new version, generating a HARVEST report on every staff member, and comparing the results to the scan taken on the previous iteration. His own report was huge - his father had faithfully served the public interest for eight years. Michael noted with sadness that every time he ran a report on himself, there were a collection of candid photos of his father with women other than his mother. These photos were mainly from public events, such as theatre, and from in-store cameras. Michael compared the size of the new reports with the older ones. He expected a decrease in size - his redundant matching code should have weeded out some extraneous information. All the staff reports matched his expectations, with the exception of one. Gordon Moon, his executive partner. Gordon's profile was now empty. Surprised, but unconcerned, Michael enabled a debugger, and rescheduled Gordon's report. This time, he instructed HARVEST to not to check its pre-cached data, but to go out and retrieve live data. Knowing it would take about ten hours, even with his recent modification, he made a note to re-check it the following morning. "Hey Mike!", Bianca grinned at him, and perched herself on the desk next to his. "How'd your latest run go? You were testing an iteration today, right?" "Right", he smiled. "Funny thing, Gordon's report turned up blank. I'm guessing I made a mistake somewhere, I've scheduled a live report, and I'll check the debug log tomorrow. I guess I was too eager to make those redundancy-matching changes" "Hmmpf. That's weird. No to worry, a brainiac like you should be able to nail it easy. Now how about that coffee you owe me?" III Michael stared at the screen. Impossible. He'd run a live report - it couldn't have come back entirely empty. He examined the debug file he'd recorded. "Social Security Database - Search Gordon Moon - No records" "Internal Revenue Service - Search Gordon Moon - No records" The list went on. Credit checks, birth records, drivers' license, traffic violations. All empty. All null. How could his minor changes have resulted in errors like this? Michael connected directly to the IRS database, and ran a manual search for Gordon Moon. No results. He raised an eyebrow. He ran an identical search on the social security database. No results. The realization stunned him. This wasn't a HARVEST problem. Gordon's records were missing from two of the country's largest databases. Inconceivable. Gordon's social security number, tax ID, birth certificate - it was all gone. Could he have made so serious an error in the latest iteration that it corrupted their upstream databases? No, everybody else's reports were normal. What had happened to Gordon's data? His mind spinning, he climbed out of his chair to try and clear his head. He almost bumped headfirst into Bianca. She had a hard, cold look in her eyes. "Hey Mike, did you manage to debug that empty report problem you told me about yesterday?" "Uh, no, not yet. Still trying to find the logic error", he mumbled. "Too bad", she said, sympathetically. Now she smiled, her eyes twinkling. "How about some coffee?" "Not now thanks, I need to stretch my legs" "C'mon, I insist", she said, stepping into him, forcing him to return to his chair, or find himself awkwardly close to her. Michael was still thinking about the missing data when Bianca returned two minutes later, holding two mugs of coffee. "Here ya go", she said, handing him his mug. "Sorry, got a lot on my mind". "Yeah me too, don't sweat. Just take it easy for a bit. Cheers". He raised his mug in salute, and sipped the bitter coffee. IV Michael woke with his head pounding, and his mouth tasting like vomit. His eyes adjusting to the darkness, he looked around. He heard the faint humming of machinery, and the flashing of lights. Conciousness hit him in a rush. He recognised the lights, the noises, the outlines of the racks. He was in the data vault, the secure centre of HARVEST's data mining operations. He stood up, dizzy, and stumbled over to the door. He pulled the handle. It was locked. Why was he in the data vault, and why was the door locked? The coffee! The last thing he remembered was talking to Bianca, and drinking coffee. Bianca! She sabotaged HARVEST! What was in that coffee? Determined to find out what was happening, he walked to the closest system terminal, and punched in his administrative credentials. Instead of the welcome screen he expected, the wail of a siren assaulted his ears. A message flashed across the terminal screen, reading "Fire Retardant System Test Activation - Total Gaseous Flooding in five minutes". When installing the system, Michael had insisted on the total gaseous flooding system. In theory, in the event of a fire, the two carbon-dioxide canisters beneath the raised floor on either side of the room would vent enough gas to retard combustion, but not to make the environment unbreathable for humans. A control panel by the door lit up, counting down from five minutes. Directly next to the control panel, where the override handle was supposed to be, was a metal base. The override handle lay buckled on the floor. He was in a carefully laid trap, he realized. The door locked, the anti-fire system triggered only when he logged in, the override switch sabotaged - "She wants it to look like I died in here. The CO2 concentrations have probably been altered too". Michael knew he couldn't escape. The walls were one foot of solid concrete, lined with steel plates. The false floor was raised about a metre above the concrete floor, to allow for cabling and power to be run underneath. That, and the carbon-dioxide canisters. He would suffoctae here, he realised, unless he disabled the gas-release system. In opposite corners of the room were small vents in the floor. Each vent was connected to an electronic valve, and an airhose, and in turn to a canister of carbon dioxide. Michael scrambled to the corner opposite the door. He pulled the valve and the hose out of the floor, and pinched the hose under the leg of a desk. The second vent, next to the door, was more of a challenge. A huge steel desk had been placed on top of it, to provide additional workspace. The closest floor tile was about twelve feet away from the vent. Michael picked up the suction grip, a triangular device with a handle in the middle, and three rubber suckers at each corner. By laying the grip on top of the nearest square, steel floor tile, Michael was able to twist the handle, engage the suckers, and lift the board out of the floor. Headfirst, he squirmed his way under the floor, and crawled towards the corner. It was dark, and he bumped his head on the metal rods and power cables which ran beneath the reased floor. He backtracked, and wormed his way to the canister in the corner. Feeling the smooth, cylindrical shape under his hands, he worked his hands up towards the neck of the cylinder, until he felt the ridged edges of the mechanical valve. Heart pounding, he twisted the valve closed. Seconds before he completed tightened the valve, a loud hissing noise escaped from the cylinder. Time was up! Holding the breath he'd been about to exhale, he completed tightening the valve, and heard the hiss tail off into silence. Still holding his breath, Michael wriggled his way back to the opening in the floor, climbed out, and at last heaved a breath. He'd made it. V Michael made his way back to the far corner, and removed the air hose he'd pinched beneath the desk. Immediately he heard the hiss of the gas, and felt the hose cool in his fingers. Silently, he considered the hose, and then placed it back under the desk, and lay down on the floor, twisting his body into what he hoped looked like an acceptable death-by-suffocation position. He didn't have to wait long. After about twenty minutes, he heard a metalic clunk as the steel door was opened from the outside. Taking a deep breath, he froze in position. He heard footsteps approach him, then a faint rustle of fabric, and he felt a hand touch his neck, feeling for a pulse. Straightening out, he pulled on the hose and pointed it directly into the face of his attacker. The gas whooshed out explosively. Startled, and unable to catch her breath, Bianca dropped to her knees. Michael pushed past her, and raced out the door. He slammed the door behind him, and engaged the manual lock. Michael staggered back into his office, trying to make sense of all the thoughts running through his head. "Michael!" He turned, and saw Gordon Moon standing at the doorway. Gordon was wearing a blue windbreaker, and looked as if he'd recently been sleeping. "Gordon, man it's good to see you!" "The alarm company called me. What happened?" "Attempted murder", Michael responded grimly, "You'd better sit down". Gordon's eyes widened as Michael told him about the missing data, about Bianca's drugged coffee, and about the fire-retardant system in the data vault. "What I can't figure out", Michael started, "is why Bianca would sabotage you - what did she have against you, anyway?" "Actually, yes", Gordon said quietly. "I instructed her to. HOWL was far more effective than I'd hoped." "HOWL?" Gordon smiled. "A working title. I figured since you came up with such a great acronym for your project, I should be entitled to the same. You howl at the moon, get it?" Michael was dumbfounded. HOWL? "So what is HOWL, basically HARVEST in reverse? Seek and destroy mode?" "One step further, Michael. Seek, Destroy, and Discredit. Bianca built it with the same AI core as HARVEST. It silently purges what data it can, and fortunately we now have full access to the upsteam databases. What it can't purge, it statistically discredits. Michael was speechless. Gordon and Bianca had constructed the anti-HARVEST! "Why Gordon? Why would you do that? The business. our purpose is to expose deception, to promote transparency. This is the opposite of that. This would allow someone." "To disappear", Gordon finished. "Well, it's quite obvious really. Our clients are the honest ones, the trusting public, and thanks to your genius, we ensure that their leaders, can no longer deceive them." "Yes" "But those clients only take us so far. Where the real profit lies, Michael, is in the clients who want to be hidden from scrutiny. The clients who want to be un-harvestable." Michael was silent. ".. and I need you with me, Michael. Bianca was acting on her own tonight, I need your brains - I wouldn't try to get rid of you". Gordon shuddered. "You'll have full developmental control, Michael. Test the two systems against each other. Think of it as sibling rivalry". The prospect thrilled Michael. Hadn't he been on his twenty-fifth iteration yesterday? Hadn't he been thinking how it was no longer challenging? "What do you say, Michael?" "Full developmental control?" "Absolutely" Competition is good for the industry. Light and dark. Yin and Yang. Superman and Lex Luthor Michael reached his decision. "I'm in." |
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"You're Too Loose"
The Aspiring Editors Club