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Hello, I would like to post a story in this thread, please.
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Aug 5, 2020 08:06
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Ebb Words: 998 Forrest Gump Carol ‘Dean’ Williams grimaced at the bustling football field of Denny Stadium. He stood in the end zone below the student section, having just got back from visiting his father’s grave in Greensboro. The Friday bus left Tuscaloosa at 7 in the morning, and the mid-day bus would get him back somewhere before 2. Normally, he would sit in the shade the sun cast as it started its trek to bed, and stare. He would just stare at the beautiful, empty, immaculate grass, striped like a big green tiger, and he would think about the last words his father said to him. Instead, he saw bench warmers, of which he was one, doing sprints up the field. Carol’s best friend, Jimmy Dill, was huffing and puffing, leading the pack. Their eyes locked; Carol muttered a vulgarity under his breath that he’d never let his mother hear, in fear of the soap. “Where ya been, Dean?” Jimmy gasped, not following the rest of the benchers as they turned back. Carol had not told Jimmy of his Friday ritual, it was the day off that Coach Bryant gave the team, and he liked to keep his lines clean, like the field. “Coach Bryant say Friday warmups are like screwing your hand before a date.” “poo poo, he din’t say nothing to us, we’re doing this ourselves.” Carol liked what he heard even less. “Butch says they found some ringer, a real dipshit by the sound of it, but sumbitch is fast.” “Spring tryouts are done, roster is locked.” “They’re gonna cut one of us, give that idiot the scholarship. It’s a done deal, the only thing that’s up in the air is who’s cut.” Jimmy Dill caught his breath and hit the field. Carol thought about the last time he saw his father. Almost a year ago, his father as close to crying as he had ever seen. The bus to Tuscaloosa leaving soon, and his father insisted on carrying the duffel bags, unknowingly the last kindness he would do for his son. Carol was the first in his family to go to College, on a football scholarship no less. His father swore he would be at every game. He never made it to one. Carol thought about the last words his father said to him. “Roll tide,” he had said, and gave him a punch on the shoulder. Carol hugged his father, to spare him the conflict. Carol then thought about how much he absolutely hated football. Word had gotten back to the coaches that the subs were sweating their spot, and Carol was there with them. Official friday workouts started at 6am. Carol watched the scoreboard clock pass 7, and thought if he could catch the 11am bus, he could still catch the last bus out of Greensboro. “Williams! I said Level-1 Drills, git yer dang head in the game, son!” Coach Blevins screamed right in Carol’s ear. Carol shook off the scolding and went back to dragging himself through the drills. Before he knew it, 11 had come and gone and he was sick to his stomach. There were other subs who had left it on the field too. And it went like this the next Friday, and the Friday after. “Just four more weeks,” he counted down to himself with each Friday he missed. It was a mantra Carol was used to, except the previous year he had measured his indentured servitude in years. “Just four more years,” he would tell himself. He thought about how his father used to tell him that he wanted to be buried near Denny stadium, so that he could always catch the game. His father had been an itinerant handyman, always a few dollars shy of establishing a true apprenticeship or union gig, let alone attend university. But football had always been a solace. Carol, under the urging of his father, started playing football as a child, and what he had thought to be a grueling exercise became even more dire when the National Football Players Association had formed when he was 13 and his father saw an opportunity, an escape. “Williams, I don’t know why your dad named you after a girl, since you’re so bad at handling balls!” A drunken Joe Namath screamed at him from the bleachers. Fridays of leisure had been left untouched for the starters, who in their boredom taken to hazing the subs in their own twisted game of culling the roster. “Just one more week,” Carol thought to himself. He had to endure only one more Friday before season started. Sweaty, exhausted, and on the verge of heat stroke in the August afternoon, Carol managed to work his way through a shower, before sitting down to put on his clean sweats. “Dean, Coach wants to see you,” Jimmy Dill said, coming out of the meeting room. Instead, Coach Blevins sat on the edge of a folding table. “Where’s Coach Bryant?” Carol asked. “I’m sorry Williams. There’s… just not enough space.” “What? Where’s Coach Bryant? What are you saying? What about my scholarship?” “The Athletic Director will send you a letter. You can clean out your locker next week. There’s nothing I can do, Coach Bryant made the call. “This is a joke, right? This is a sick joke?” “I’m sorry son, but Coach Bryant needs someone who’s committed, someone who’s got a brain for it.” Carol couldn’t remember what happened after he left the locker room. He couldn’t remember if anyone looked him in the eyes when he walked out of the stadium. He just remembered looking at the field, and those perfect lines, and Coach Bryant watching a man sprint down the field, and the last words his father had said. The following Friday, 11am had long passed, Carol could tell by the shadows that stretched through the windows. “Just one more day,” he thought to himself. He turned over in his bed and stared at the wall before shutting his eyes.
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Aug 10, 2020 04:30
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In. I am requesting an ingredient, please.
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Aug 11, 2020 06:16
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The Secret of the Churnkeep Food: Butter Words: 1999 In the warm, but dimly lit, backroom of the bistro, four patrons waited with intoxicating anticipation. The buttermonger stepped through the bone-beaded curtain that separated the main lobby from the private backroom, carrying a platter of assorted pale cubes, pads, and spreads. One of the patrons betrayed their excitement and inhaled the aroma noisily before controlling their slavering urges. “Before we begin, I want to tell you of something,” the buttermonger said. “Maybe something of a history, or context, as you partake in the maternal harvest of the butter. Francisco Seviny says there are two kinds of butters, salted and unsalted. Though, I’m sure Marlon Brando would tell you there was a third: assaulted butter. But I do not agree with Seviny, for there is truly only one kind of butter.” The patrons scrunched their eyebrows and looked down at the platter. They had already teased their palettes with a series of tantalizing tastes. Had the salted goat’s butter, fed only from chives and bourbon, so salty that it had felt nearly effervescent, not been butter? Had the creamy, barely solid, Portuguese ghee, melting from just the heat of their mouths, to pool in their cheeks, not been considered butter? Had the unctuous, nearly sardine-like sheep’s milk spread, that elicited a cacophony of moans and gurgling, not been butter? “In fact, I was much like you, in my younger years. I had been searching, outwardly and inwardly, I had been searching. My partner and I, though I must digress, from the way I may describe him, he may seem more of an accomplice than partner in this tale, but you see, we had found something. The Mère Céleste.” “Is that not an old maid’s tale? Something cooked up by a farmer on the guillotine to stay his execution?” A patron puzzled. “Ah…You and I were one in the same. The Shangri-La to always be searching for, to never be content with yourself so long as there was something to quest for. But no, you see, The Mère Céleste exists, and I have tasted the sweet, heavenly return to primordial understanding that is The Mère Céleste.” The patrons put down their knives and breads, rapt with attention, no longer interested in victuals that lay in front of them. “But that is the end of our story. The beginning of the story is what I want to share with you. I must share with you the secret. It was only by chance that we found this shoppe in a back alley of Polminhac, but once inside, we found what we had been searching for, sequestered, hoarded, by a man, a craven wretch of a man known as The Churnkeep.” “The Churnkeep knew it too from the moment we set foot in his hovel. He knew the look on our faces as we perused the butters he had on display. The snow white cream of goat, the beautiful yellow of a Scottish bovine, even the rare yak’s Bouton Grumeleux. He knew what consternation looked like, and while the peasantry of these dilapidated alleys must surely be engrossed in these butters, my partner and I were ready to leave.” “But then, he beckoned us, showed us to a backroom so very similar to this. From an icebox, he produced a wooden container, locked and sealed, but for a few holes perfectly cut for ventilation. The pungency from even just those small perforations nearly sent me sprawling. I knew, that even if he were lying, what he had produced was something beyond the pale.” “And, in a moment of giddy triumph, he sealed it back in his icebox! My partner and I were stunned, aghast, and furious. He cackled with glee, and attacked us with a spiked mallet, chasing us from the back room, laughing, laughing, it followed us as we ran down the alleyways, it has followed me ever since.” The buttermonger turned his hand over, and scars, almost like acne, covered a perfect square on the back of his left hand. He ran the tips of his right hand over the indentations for a moment, silent, before briefly touching his left shoulder. “My partner and I would not let such a personal affront stand. I, to this day, wonder was I searching to rectify my wounded pride, or, could I not let the possibility of the Mère Céleste escape after having been so close. We stalked the Churnkeep, we waited, and followed him. Surely, he must suspect that this may happen, so we kept our distance, and our patience. Until one day, long after boredom had set in, running on only the fumes of obsession, did we discover an unusual activity. We tailed him, and the miniature icebox he kept to prevent thievery, to a small hospital in Aurillac. A most peculiar thing we saw. The Churnkeep had a clandestine meeting with a nurse, and what we saw would shock most people, but we were intrigued. The Churnkeep bought scores of medical bags full of breastmilk, stashing them in his portable icebox. Such a scandal would easily depose this monster, chase him from the town with torches and pitchforks. And we would use this to our advantage.” “As the Churnkeep closed shop that night, we made our presence known. We laid out our pictures, our recording of the nurse we accosted after the Churnkeep had left, and our demands. The Mère Céleste. And what I tell you now, I share now is the secret of the Churnkeep.” The guests caught their breath as the buttermonger exited through the bone-beaded curtain, returning with a small tray. “The Churnkeep acquiesced, his shameful head hung like a dog. And we indulged to our earthly delight, in such ecstasy to turn even an angel to inferno. Words can scarcely tell a fraction of its majesty. Near sublimation as the butter lent itself to being all absorbed by the body. There is a sweetness, that that is something like nostalgia, but in truth closer to melancholia. There is a creaminess that is ephemeral, and a tang of the sweat kissed from the brow of a newborn.” “Our indulgences were strong, stronger than the weak flesh of our bodies. We could not contain ourselves, such is the nature of want. I scarcely remember what happened in the aftermath, save for the taste. Darkness closed around me, as though the notion of existence had fled, defeated by rapture. And such, I can only present you with but a sampling. The guests were given a ramekin with a small dollop each, with no accompaniment of bread, nor honey, nor fruit. The aroma of such a butter was even more pungent than the buttermonger had described. A layman might think it soured, but that would be an illusion, a cheeky, cloying game the butter played against inferior consumers. The first guest took a quivering hand, using their index finger, scooped the cream, having to use their other hand cupped underneath for safety from how nervously they shook. With the implicit permission of the first guest, the others followed suit. Some taking the ramekin whole in their hands, to nurse the whipped peak of the Mère Céleste like a breast. Semi-liquid euphoria followed, coursing around their tongues and teeth. It seeped, like varnish, into their gums, into the roots of their molars, softening muscle, gland, and the tension of gritted anticipation. There was no breathing. There was no gasping. There was only silence. It deafened the room. The buttermonger closed his eyes, vicariously absorbing the atmosphere. And then the lapping of the ramekins and the sucking of fingers, and the tongues dragging across tooth and gum filled the air. A desperate sweat stank the room, and the buttermonger savored that instead. “And then we awoke, naked save for our undergarments. We were in a forest, how large, I have no idea, no real way of knowing, for it all looked just the same as any square inch just outside of my periphery. On our backs, a bizarre contraption, a cannister of something, forcibly strapped to our backs, with no mechanism we could find to release it. It was filled with a liquid; I could feel the weight of it slosh as we moved our bodies. So tight were the straps that our lungs ached and yearned for a full breath. No matter what we could try, we found no tool nor purchase to pry it from ourselves.” “The Churnkeep called to us, from parts unknown, hidden in the trees. He told us we had a day’s headstart, and that afterwards, his hunt would begin. My partner and I, I remember this so vividly, but we clasped our hands together and prayed. I remember praying for my life, for my life to be just a moment longer that I may yet enjoy the Mère Céleste one last time. Funny, that I should think of something so, inelegant, in my time of mortal apprehension, but you must forgive the nature of panic. And so, I kept my prayers silent in shame. And then we ran.” The buttermonger paused, retreating into his thoughts. “Buttermonger,” a patron managed to whisper. The sound shook the buttermonger from his reverie, infuriated for a slight moment, but recollected. “How did you two escape?” The other three patrons barely registered the question as they nervously sought another source of cream. The buttermonger laughed. “I didn’t.” “The Churnkeep caught us. Of course, he would. We struggled for days in the forest, surely having double, triple-backed by accident. Starving, dehydrated, and strapped to that infernal cannister, with no way of removing it. I can still feel the raw sores the leather imparted on my ribs. I can still remember the feel of the way your leg muscles fail, all of the sudden, as though they were never there, and you collapse in the dirt, the soil cool on your face. Delirium of malnutrition, it will make you lose your thoughts, and make you question your plans, your strategy. And that is when the Churnkeep found us.” “He lorded over us, leering at our weakness. He first told us what was in the cannisters. We had been carrying the Mère Céleste on our backs the entire time. A sick, twisted, cruel labor he inflicted upon us. Our making, undoing and salvation, inaccessible on our backs the entire time. He knew we would be back, he knew that we had no other primal choice but to return to the Mère Céleste. Our indulgence was no accident. Nor the debilitating side effects of our urges would inflict up on us.” “And then he told us that in our unconsciousness, we had been forced to swallow the key to each other’s cannisters. That stuck in the other’s gut was the way to save ourselves. And he told us that is the secret of how the Mère Céleste is made. The patron’s eyes began to droop. They shook their heads to clear the clouds of confusion and haze. One of them looked the buttermonger in the eyes, realization setting in. “For you see, the Mère Céleste is not just the milk of the mother. It must be churned so specifically, so purposefully, that even with the ingredients, only a façade can be recreated. Unless you act with purpose. With determination. With sorrow. With desperation.” “Fear. Fear is what makes the Mère Céleste. Terror. The milk feeds on it. It needs it. Only that can make this eldritch ambrosia.” One guest’s head slumped, cracking their forehead against the low coffee table. Another guest stood, knocking their chair to the ground, backing away towards the bone-beaded curtains. That guest pitched backwards, overcome and collapsing to the ground. The buttermonger reached under a shelf, procuring a cannister, covered in straps and buckles. He turned to the remaining two patrons, who were barely combating the stupefaction of the Mère Céleste. The buttermonger narrowed his eyes, and he reached for a spiked mallet on the countertop.
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Aug 16, 2020 22:13
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In.
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Aug 18, 2020 23:12
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