fight scene blogfest entry

This is from an old dog-eared novel of mine that I can't seem to finish properly, but the fight scene blogfest at Crimson Ink caught my attention and fit my mood, so here's my fight scene:

A Training Accident
A warning klaxon started to sound. Janice felt herself flinch. Zumi had been talking about trying to escape today. As if anyone could escape from a station the size of a moon. She had tried to ignore him.

Without Lieutenant’s Sagat’s close supervision she could get a better picture of her surroundings, so she looked up and stopped working. Sagat was barely visible around the bend in the hallway. The other cadets were sitting still all looking in his direction, and then Tonney looked at her with a hard glare.

“You.” He got up from his place in their line, and picked up his bucket.

Janice stood also, only holding her brush.

“You got me into this mess, and now you know something about this, don’t you?” He pointed at the red revolving light nearest to them.

Janice backed away, knowing the punishment for fighting meant three days locked in solitary. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tonney.”

He threw the bucket of water at her, and she sidestepped the murky water. She instantly realized her mistake, as he jabbed her stomach with the hard side of his brush.

She stumbled back, and grabbed his arm as she fell to the floor. He came down with her, and she rolled him over onto his back with a kick to his groin, and a heave of her arms.

A booted foot against her neck stopped her from scrambling up. Lieutenant Sagat pressed his weight into her throat for a moment, and then released her. “Haven’t had enough solitary, crudet?”

“She knows something . . .” Tonney gasped. “I heard her and that Bel-Arrivan talking about escape.”

Lieutenant Sagat looked away from Janice and focused his attention on Tonney. She wanted to clear herself of any guilt, but knew that interrupting the Lieutenant would only bring worse treatment.

“And you, my pet ferret, forgot to mention this information to me until now.” Lieutenant Sagat nudged Tonney’s ribs with the toe of his boot.

Janice winced in memory of what that boot had done to her own ribs the first week of “boot camp” as Lieutenant Sagat evilly called the first few weeks of their training.

“Sir, I would have but we were scrubbing after breakfast, and I had no chance to tell you, sir, please.”

It was sickening how a bully like Tonney could cower in front of a bigger bully like Lieutenant Sagat. She wondered if this was how all officers began, or if Sagat was a special case, along with Tonney.

Lieutenant Sagat chuckled at Tonney, and then turned away from him and back to her. “On your feet, crudet, and tell me the whole story. If you leave anything out, I’ll keep you in solitary for a week.”

Janice stood up, slowly, taking time to study her reddened, cold toes, and the black foor beneath them. Zumi was one of the few cadets she respected, well, actually, liked. He had a way of taking control of situations and making their team have the advantage over the others. His idea of escape was the only foolish idea he seemed to have had. She couldn’t rat on him, especially since Lieutenant Sagat had a way of punishing her anyway. She might tell him all and spend a week in solitary anyway. She straightened her shoulders, sucked her stomach in, and focused on the sound of the klaxons. If Zumi had found a way out of this hell, a week in solitary would be worth it.

“I’m waiting, crudet.”

She ignored Lieutenant Sagat, looking over his black uniformed shoulder at the wall beyond. She saw the flicker of his fist a moment before it connected with her jaw, and she didn’t flinch. The pain blossomed incredibly from jawbone to ear, to head, and then darkness thankfully engulfed her.

at night

at night when the windows
shimmer black
and there is a sound,

not quite defined.
the dogs bark, and whine
the cat looks alarmed.

the phone rings,
breathing -
and nothing else

the lights go out,
darkness surrounds me
and I listen,

crouching
down,
waiting,

then impatiently
jumpng up for
the flashlight,

going to get
the gun that's
locked in my safe.

Why I Write

Why do I write?

I write because

it creates an inner sun break on a rainy day
because I crave to see my words dance on a page,
make a rhythm that force my feet to dance,
and help me find my voice.

I write because

it keeps me sane
when the world around me seems anything but.

I write because

it strengthens my relationships,
relieves the tensions, gives purpose
to those moments I don't always understand.

I write because

I feel that I have been called,
and sometimes even gifted,
although those moments are rare,

I know somehow God meets me here

on this blank page filling slowly
with awkward words, hopes, dreams,
dances, stumbles, extreme cliff jumps
and puddle splashes, grey skies and rainbows.

A penchant for mondegreens

To borrow a few words from Dictionary.com's Word of the Day listing, I have to say that I have a definite penchant for mondegreens.

Mondegreens are the cause a great deal of laughter in our household.

One can just imagine what I thought my daughter was saying one day, when she tried to ask me to put a "bun in her hair" before dance class . . . and I was across the house, and mistook the "n" sound for a "t". We've laughed over that one several times.

Then my parents, who are both partially deaf even with hearing aids, regularly add to this hilarity. One day, with six of us riding in a mini-van, we had a hysterical conversation regarding a friend's family name. "Missed Carrot?" "No!"

Someday, maybe all this will make it's way into a story . . . or just become part of the family legends.

New Month, Same Sky

New month, same sky
white gray fills the eye
from horizon to horizon.

There was a sun break
yesterday.

I missed most of it
because I stopped looking out

stopped noticing the trees reaching upward
to catch every ray of sun that fights
it's way through the pervasive clouds.

stopped budding like the buds on the tree
by my front porch window,
the tree that insists it is spring
before any other plant knows it.

Time to start again.