Happy Gen Day!
Well, today is another Gen Fic Day, hosted by the lovely sg_fignewton. Part of this is the Jack Alpha-Bit Soup, which I sadly did not get to participate due to my extended absence (woe!). Nor did I have a lot of time to come up with something to write for today, but I can offer a glimpse at the gen fic currently hovering near the top of my Unfinished Fic queue.
So in honor of Gen Fic Day, here is a snippet of my in-progress fic, entitled Escape Velocity and intended as a sequel of sorts to Gravity Always Wins in the End.
Escape Velocity
Summer is beginning to give way to Fall, the first crunch of leaves brittle on the ground as the neighborhood kids cling to the fading illusion of summer leisure, riding their bikes up and down the road in the twilight air, ignoring the calls of their mothers.
Just five more minutes. That’s all we want.
It’s been decades since Evan called this particular stretch of pavement and porches home and yet very little has changed.
That kid with the overly large Niners jersey on his BMX bike could be him, twenty years ago. But if that kid is him, then who is Evan now, here on the wrong side of thirty, sitting on his mother’s porch in an old rocking chair with a six-pack by his feet?
Old man Wilkins, Evan thinks with a snort, one hand rubbing at the stubble on his chin.
Wilkins had lived three blocks down on Elm Street, his lawn brown and neglected, shingles missing from the side of his house. It was a dare in the old days, to see what kid was brave enough to race up and touch the bottom step.
Thinking back, Evan knows Wilkins couldn’t have been that old, probably only in his forties, but to a feckless eight-year-old that might as well have been eighty. He scared the bejesus out of the local kids, their own personal boogeyman.
Bet you can’t hit the porch light from the street! Dare you to doorbell ditch, coward.
When they were inevitably caught harassing him, a neighborhood parent dragged them home with furious whispers and awkward apologies to Wilkins that revealed their own discomfort with him.
It’s like some inherent genetic trait among humans, this ability to pick out the weakest, to instinctually know who fits and who doesn’t. The adults tried to hide it behind manners and civility, but the kids saw it nonetheless and faced Wilkins with their own brand of schoolyard justice.
“The war,” the adults would say, shaking their heads as if that explained Wilkins’ eccentricities. The war made him see things no person should ever have to see, do things just that side of barbaric, they said. A hero, because he did it so others wouldn’t have to, so you can run and skin your knees and hit a ball toward that distant wall with your mind full of nothing but that golden dream of homeruns and not be afraid like you would be, if only you knew.
But they didn’t know. War was just a word to them.
So they threw rocks, liked the heavy thunk of them against the rotting siding, the occasional broken window boarded up, but never replaced. Evan remembers thinking about it as they slunk through the bushes spying on the crazy old man, imaging him doing terrible things with his ordinary-looking hands, wishing he was brave enough to ask the question on all of their minds.
Hey mister, you ever seen anybody die?
What’s it like?
One of the great mysteries to the mind of an eight year old. At least it should be.
Evan finishes off his beer, slamming the heel of his hand down on the can, crushing it into the arm of the rocker. One flick of his finger sends the flattened disc skittering across the worn boards of the porch like a hockey puck, bouncing off the plastic pots full of black-eyed susans.
The kid on the street with the hole in the knee of his jeans halts his bike at the end of the front walk, looking up at Evan with wide, curious eyes.
“Touch the bottom step,” Evan murmurs. “I dare you.”
A call echoes down the street and the kid jumps back up on his bike, turning it towards home, his feet pumping up and down on the pedals in his too large sneakers and play-worn jeans.
Evan reaches for another beer.
So in honor of Gen Fic Day, here is a snippet of my in-progress fic, entitled Escape Velocity and intended as a sequel of sorts to Gravity Always Wins in the End.
Escape Velocity
Summer is beginning to give way to Fall, the first crunch of leaves brittle on the ground as the neighborhood kids cling to the fading illusion of summer leisure, riding their bikes up and down the road in the twilight air, ignoring the calls of their mothers.
Just five more minutes. That’s all we want.
It’s been decades since Evan called this particular stretch of pavement and porches home and yet very little has changed.
That kid with the overly large Niners jersey on his BMX bike could be him, twenty years ago. But if that kid is him, then who is Evan now, here on the wrong side of thirty, sitting on his mother’s porch in an old rocking chair with a six-pack by his feet?
Old man Wilkins, Evan thinks with a snort, one hand rubbing at the stubble on his chin.
Wilkins had lived three blocks down on Elm Street, his lawn brown and neglected, shingles missing from the side of his house. It was a dare in the old days, to see what kid was brave enough to race up and touch the bottom step.
Thinking back, Evan knows Wilkins couldn’t have been that old, probably only in his forties, but to a feckless eight-year-old that might as well have been eighty. He scared the bejesus out of the local kids, their own personal boogeyman.
Bet you can’t hit the porch light from the street! Dare you to doorbell ditch, coward.
When they were inevitably caught harassing him, a neighborhood parent dragged them home with furious whispers and awkward apologies to Wilkins that revealed their own discomfort with him.
It’s like some inherent genetic trait among humans, this ability to pick out the weakest, to instinctually know who fits and who doesn’t. The adults tried to hide it behind manners and civility, but the kids saw it nonetheless and faced Wilkins with their own brand of schoolyard justice.
“The war,” the adults would say, shaking their heads as if that explained Wilkins’ eccentricities. The war made him see things no person should ever have to see, do things just that side of barbaric, they said. A hero, because he did it so others wouldn’t have to, so you can run and skin your knees and hit a ball toward that distant wall with your mind full of nothing but that golden dream of homeruns and not be afraid like you would be, if only you knew.
But they didn’t know. War was just a word to them.
So they threw rocks, liked the heavy thunk of them against the rotting siding, the occasional broken window boarded up, but never replaced. Evan remembers thinking about it as they slunk through the bushes spying on the crazy old man, imaging him doing terrible things with his ordinary-looking hands, wishing he was brave enough to ask the question on all of their minds.
Hey mister, you ever seen anybody die?
What’s it like?
One of the great mysteries to the mind of an eight year old. At least it should be.
Evan finishes off his beer, slamming the heel of his hand down on the can, crushing it into the arm of the rocker. One flick of his finger sends the flattened disc skittering across the worn boards of the porch like a hockey puck, bouncing off the plastic pots full of black-eyed susans.
The kid on the street with the hole in the knee of his jeans halts his bike at the end of the front walk, looking up at Evan with wide, curious eyes.
“Touch the bottom step,” Evan murmurs. “I dare you.”
A call echoes down the street and the kid jumps back up on his bike, turning it towards home, his feet pumping up and down on the pedals in his too large sneakers and play-worn jeans.
Evan reaches for another beer.