~MY SUMMER OF KATIE by Diane~

That particular summer I had signed up to perform as part of the Pirates Extravaganza! show at Busch Gardens, just about 20 minutes from my parents’ house. I had a clear and selfish reason for choosing this particular summer job—Katie Winchester. Katie and I had gone through school together since kindergarten. I’d never taken particular notice of her, but then she went away to college. She slimmed down, got herself a pair of fashionably funky square-rimmed glasses, and streaked her shoulder-length blond hair with flashes of bright pink. The new Katie Winchester was first revealed to me at Mickel’s Dairy—she was enjoying a low-fat vanilla custard over Memorial Day while visiting her family.

When my buddy Matt told me she was playing the Pirate Princess all summer long I knew what I had to do. I seriously began to ponder switching my major to theater come fall. Or maybe switching colleges entirely. It would depend on how the summer ended…

~DESERT ISLAND by Diane~

There had been so many jokes about it—what would you bring to a deserted island? Who would you want with you there? What food would you miss most? What cd would you play over and over again? And etc. The questions floated around the internet, across drunken nights and through friends like little pebbles bouncing their way down a river.

Emily had one thing and one thing alone. It was her copy of Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, speckled with chicken scratchings and flashes of pink highlighter from her college days. The corners were tattered, and there was a coffee stain on the inside cover from the time she loaned it to a boy she was dating. It reminded her of late nights discussing topics in Nihilism with her study group at the Burger King down the street from her apartment.She packed it specifically in case this cruise would unexpectedly land her on a deserted island. And surprisingly, here she was, feeling fully prepared for the journey ahead.

***Multi-layered and thoughtful.***

Tie for First

"Liberating"

It isn't as hard as it looks.

You just have to give up a few things that you're probably not using anyway. Your mind, for instance, and your free will. You give up your independence, and you give up your individuality. That's about all. It's not a lot.

I haven't had to think in years.

It's so liberating!

-Dragon


"Still Life with Marionette"

Polly hates the strings. They’re always getting caught in zippers or snagging on parking meters.She can’t drive a car unless it’s a convertible. There is something invariably dull about her footsteps, as if she never truly touches the ground. Everything is approximate. Polly has a hard time remembering which string to pull so that by the time she extends her hand to the cashier, her change has fallen through the cracks in the counter. She’d rather leave it down there than make the cat’s cradle that will let her kneel. A special knob opens her mouth to receive the communion wafer. Another closes her legs at appropriate moments, like sitting at the DMV when the driving instructor enters. Polly can remove her eyes and walk all the way to her apartment from the strip mall where the license plates are stored because the strings have memorized the route. As long as there are no entanglements, this gives her more time to dream about scissors.

-Ann Walters


"BIRTHDAY WISHES"

Rupert's gallery would be opening on my birthday. He announced it to me over reheated tuna casserole. "There's nothing I can do, dear," he said. "It's the only time I could get the space, and this is primo space." He put the emphasis on primo as if it made him somehow more European, or cultured, or something equally ridiculous.I had just moved to New York from a lifetime in St. Louis when I met Rupert. Like the city, he had seemed so strange and exciting--unlike anything I'd known before.

Now, a year later, I find Central Park to be a glorified lawn, New York bagels to be oversized, salty puffs of stale bread, and to be honest, I really do not like Rupert's art at all.

-Diane

***A remarkable trio, thanks ladies!***

~The Fool by Diane~

We met in Central Park. I was out for a morning run, and he was walking two of the cutest dogs I had ever seen. I’d find out later he had his wedding ring slipped off and tucked it into the pocket of his pants.

It’s been two years now and I can’t seem to get out.--despite knowing what I am doing is not right, despite knowing that there is not just a wife but also a child, and despite knowing I am not the only one. He doesn’t buy me expensive presents or take me out for extravagant dinners and order a bottle of the finest wine. He is not movie-star handsome, and he doesn’t have an exotic job that has him traveling the world. All in all he could really be anybody’s husband. Except, of course, he couldn’t be mine.

~Buff by Diane~

Stan was never sure which was the more bothersome problem with time travel—the shaky, dizzy, nauseated feeling he experienced upon arrival, or the fact that despite his best efforts to focus his mind on his destination he sometimes did not end up where he planned to go.

The bigger problem with his misplaced arrivals was that he attempted to dress in period costume for wherever…or whenever…he hoped to land. Stan was a bit of a history buff, to put it mildly.

Abandoning his youthful desire to become a history professor one day, he followed in his father’s footsteps and pursued a career in medicine instead. But his true passion, along with an unbelievable collection of historical artifacts his surgeon’s salary had helped him obtain, kept him well equipped for his travels around the world and through time.

Anyway, on this particular day, he knew he was not going to last long in 2005 New York City wearing a particularly ridiculous wig he had donned in the hopes of visiting the French Revolution.

***Anything with revolutionary wigs is alright in our book!***