This is an excerpt from a short(ish) I was working on last year for a contest before my hard drive crashed and I lost the bulk of what I'd written, and still haven't worked up the nerve to go back and rewrite the rest of it. This was one of two sections I just happened to have saved in my e-mail at the time.
Not in a Lodge
Neither the cold autumn air seeping through the lower level of the lodge, nor the apprehension of his mother’s ruling that he should be in bed were keeping Jackson from the washroom. It was the number.
The hall, from Jackson’s six year old height, stretched for miles until the dead end between the room where Mr. Hutchenson was sleeping for the weekend, and room 102.
Room 102. As far away as it looked, the door loomed over Jackson as a monument of dare. Jackson didn’t dare. But the washroom was a sprint he would have to risk, no matter how much closer it brought him to that infernal door with its infernal number.
Jackson peered through the crack in his and his mother’s bedroom doorway, staring down the tunnel as if room 102 was capable of lunging at him. But he had to reach the washroom, and he needed the courage. He found it in the only place he knew to look. He covered his eyes with his hands and ran.
He scurried as quietly as he could, so as to not disturb Mr. Hutchenson or attract his mother. Or anything else. But Jackson had blindly estimated how far he should run, and when he stopped it occurred to him that even he hadn’t heard his own footsteps, or any sounds at all. Not Mr. Hutchenson’s snoring, not his mother’s self-supported ranting, and not even the sounds of the wilderness outside. Nothing.
Nothing,
except,
that.
The whimpering.
It was the whine of an animal in pain. Jackson heard it every night. His mother insisted it was coming from outside. His mother was lying. It came from room 102.
Jackson shifted his hands to cover his ears, trying to block the sound out. But he couldn’t. The whimpering didn’t get louder, but covering his ears only seemed to make it clearer.
Jackson had absent-mindedly opened his eyes trying to block the sound, only to discover he had missed the washroom completely. And room 102 was calling to him. Pleading. For help.
His feet moved.
The dead end of the hallway crept closer to Jackson, and the handle of the door to room 102 lifted his fingers, pulling them close enough to almost grasp the cold, dead metal in his hand, when his mother spun him around by his shoulder and yelled a whisper through clenched teeth.
“Damn it Jackson! What do I have to do to keep you away from this room?”
Jackson couldn’t answer, as the anger of his mother coupled with the realization that he’d nearly opened the door again was enough to cause his chin to quiver.
“Answer me!” She snarled. “What are you thinking?”
Again, he couldn’t answer, the tears overpowering his ability to hold them back. His mother allowed it to go on for a few moments before ordering him back to his bed. And then he lost it. The missed run to the washroom couldn’t wait any longer.
And she screamed.
“Do you really think there’s only one side to it?” Zelphina asked from the passenger seat as she unplugged the GPS unit. The lodge was a few minutes away in a straightish shot as the curvy road slithered through the wilderness. The tree line was already challenging the three o’clock sun for dominance, but Caris remained naively confident behind the wheel.
“That’s exactly what I think, Zel.” Caris suppressed a giggle to protect the sincerity of the debate’s preposterousness. “If we were talking about a recorded historical event then yes, I could understand why it’s unfair to presume the underdog’s motivations are unquestionably heroic while the figure in power has no validation for being inflexible; but we’re not. The story is a metaphor, controlled by an all-powerful writer slash illustrator who is clearly explaining how trying something new won’t kill you”.
“You’re talking about art,” said the red head. “Indirect communication. And to the chagrin of everyone who has ever dabbled in creativity, metaphor is at the mercy of the recipient; just as the audience decides if the comedian is funny. The critic judges the movie based on what the production team presented not what they intended to present.”
“Yes sweetie,” the blonde girl patted Zelphina’s thigh. “But you are in the extreme minority of readers who suggest Green Eggs and Ham is about harassment.”
“I never said ‘harassment’,” insisted Zelphina. “I said ‘obsession’. Sam had no business stalking the guy with the hat all over the county just to nag him into eating something he had refused over and over.”
The lodge appeared at the top of a hill a small distance away and Caris rolled her window up. “And you don’t think he was being just a little stubborn?”
“No, he was needlessly stubborn. But that wasn’t about a refusal to experiment. That was a defense against Sam’s invasive rambunctiousness. I really believe if Sam had walked up to him calmly at the beginning, apologized for interrupting the man with the hat’s newspaper, and politely offered a taste of the recipe explaining that the color of the food was no indication of a lesser quality, the man would have been much more open to the suggestion.”
“Honey, I see your point, but somehow I don’t think the book would have really flown off the shelf if the conflict had been resolved on the opening page.”
Caris turned the car onto the gravel path leading up the hill to the lodge, with the axles groaning at the terrain shift.
“Okay Zel, I know where this conversation took the wrong turn. You’re taking a Dr. Seuss story seriously, which was the opposite of what I was getting at.”
“What about The Butter Battle Book?”
“See? That’s what I’m talking about,” Caris lightly tickled Zelphina’s waist, causing her to squirm. “You don’t have to be allergic to lightening the mood. Look around us, sweetie. We’re surrounded by beauty.”
“We’re surrounded by creatures that want to eat us,” corrected Zelphina.
“Yes, but those creatures are beautiful if you just open up to appreciate them.”
“Caris, for bad or worse this is who I am.”
“I know.” Caris smiled sympathetically. “I’m not asking you to turn into me. I just think if you could try to filter out some of the pain in life instead of absorbing it you might be able to let in a bit of the world’s delight.”
“To what end?”
“No end,” said Caris. “Beauty is supposed to make you happy.”
“And then it’s gone.”
The tires bounced off an eroded gap in what used to be a well-traveled path up to the lodge, and Caris grinded her teeth as she steadied the vehicle’s trajectory.
“Memories last,” said Caris, regaining her ground, “Look at Marilyn Monroe. She’s still on magazine covers.”
“And how happy was she?”
“Zelphina, I am literally about to wreck this car searching for some semblance of cheer in you. Why do you resent beauty so much? I mean you think I’m beautiful, don’t you?”
Zelphina sighed. “I think that’s the societal consensus, yes.”
Caris pulled the car into the remains of a parking spot and turned off the ignition. “Okay, my self-esteem just felt a chill.”
“What do you mean?”
Caris turned in the driver’s seat to face Zelphina. “You find me attractive, right?”
“Caris, you’re 5’11” with a symmetrical face and a seventy percent waist to hip ratio. Why would you even need to ask that?”
Caris locked her fingers in Zelphina’s. “Zel, I get that a fragile ego is a foreign concept to you, but I’m a girl with baggage not so subtly fishing for a subjective compliment.”
Zelphina’s expression changed. “I’ve hurt your feelings again, haven’t I?”
Caris shrugged awkwardly. “I just want to know that you like me.”
“Caris, I love you from the depths of my being.”
“Yeah, I know. And thank you. But loving someone and liking them are two different things.”
Tawny peeked through the curtains in the window, surprised to see a car outside. She watched intently as two young girls stepped out of the vehicle. From a distance, they both appeared to be in their early twenties. The blonde was a few inches taller than the redhead, but either one of them could pass for a model. This was not the lodge’s usual clientele.
“Come on,” said Caris. “You must like something. What about kids?”
“I hate kids,” said Zelphina. “I hate people. And kids are people I’m told I have to like.”
“What about animals?”
“Animals are likable. They have no politics.”
The girls started up the wooden stairs. “Well let’s try holding on to that.” Caris grinned. “What do you like about animals?”
“They’re unbound. Unchained. Not mounted on a pedestal.”
Caris reached the door handle. “Isn’t that a beautiful image worth embracing?”
Zelphina nodded. “You’re right. It is.”
They pushed the doors open and came face to face with the head of a massive elk staring at them from the wall over the fireplace. Zelphina’s eye began to twitch.
“Well,” sighed Caris, “that’s the new face of my impeccably poor timing.”
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