New Dice

1. A story is based on song lyrics. A writer may only use one song per band and the story itself must contain the lyrics be it individually (each word scattered throughout) or as a whole.

2. A story must have a happy ending. That means happy as in positive, not "the killer murders everyone therefore he's happy" ending.

3. Rant. A story about nothing in particular (continued from the first season).

4. "What's Penny up to?" The entry itself will be about an ancillary character and their perspective, be it Penny, Kat, the lady at the coffee house etc. Since it would be difficult to represent in print, the idea would be to have an introduction of the characters, where they are, etc etc (whatever you wish) have them roll a 4, transition to the new character, then come back when they're done.

5. A story must be inspired by a picture. A nice touch would be to actually post the picture either in the blog or in the comments section

6. A story must hold an element that is strange but true, a concept that can be defined as "stranger than fiction."

I love Penny. (Part One of Two).

"Portsmouth Potbellies, getch'er Portsmouth Potbellies!"

The aged crate with "ORANGES" emblazoned across the side wobbled beneath her, every stomp of her tiny feet threatening to pitch her to the dirt below. She thrust her arms high above her head and sucked in as much air as her lungs would allow before shouting, with all the force of her cracked, dusty voice, "GETCH'ER PORTSMOUTH POTBELLIES RIGHT HERE."

She found herself confused. She was the greatest saleswoman Lang Tang Motors had ever seen, a star employee with a plaque hung in her honor for every month of the year, yet not a single customer had approached her to purchase a pig. With a huff, she dismissed the haunting idea that it could be because she had no pigs to sell; it didn't occur to her that it might be because she had no customers in the first place, standing atop this used crate of oranges in the middle of a field.

Dissatisfied, Penny climbed down, slipping on the slick surface of the wood and crashing into the mud below. "Oh, alright, Clancy, you can use the vacuum on me if that's what you're going to do!" she cried as she got to her feet, mud and earth-stuffs clinging to all parts of her. She deliberated the merits of a line of work as a mud saleswoman as she dragged her crate with her through the muck, searching at her feet for the road she'd left behind many hours ago.

Night was falling fast and the crows conversed between themselves about this lump of a woman, dressed in pink and white rags (and now, caked head-to-foot in thick, grey mud), careening through their field making airplane noises. As though in agreement, the crows took to flight and abandoned the field for another day; they simply didn't care for the looks - or the smell - of this old crone.

"Not no way, not no how, gonna find some screws and make me a cow," she sang.

A road emerged from the barrenness of the field, marked only by a lonely line of telephone poles stretching from horizon to horizon. Penny stepped onto the gravel and surveyed her options; to the left, nothingness, and to the right, more nothingness.

"Eeny-meeny-miney-moe," she began, using her forefinger to tick off each option. "Catch-a-nigger-by-his-toe, if-he-hollers-let-it-snow, birthday-cake-for-Jimmy-Joe. My-dead-husband-told-me-to-choose-the-very-best-one-and-you-are-not --"

Headlights appeared on the horizon to her right, routing the impending darkness of nightfall in their high beams. Penny thought it would be a great joke to surprise the driver, so she hustled into the street and quickly dropped on all fours beside her crate. With a few grunts and curses, she lifted the crate over her head and crawled beneath it, concealed between the sides of the sick-smelling box. She could hear the crunch of gravel-beneath-tire grow louder as the vehicle drew nearer, and she softly giggled to herself. What a wonderful surprise this would be.

The crunch of the gravel grew very loud for a moment, then stopped. Light poured in through the cracks in the crate, and Penny peered into the blinding illumination eagerly, her warped fingers caught hold across her mouth to keep her giggles from falling out. A car door opened with a rusty squeal, then shut again with a bang.

Footsteps.

"Jesus-sakes-Christ," came a gruff, beer-whetted voice from outside.

"Surprise!" Penny shouted as she threw the crate off herself, leaping to her feet. 

The silhouette seemed scantly taken aback by finding an elderly woman hiding beneath a crate meant for oranges in the middle of the road in the middle of Nebraska - or, if he did, he was quite gifted at retaining his emotions outwardly. This, of course, made Penny quite sad.

"And what do we have here?" the man said, his breath wet with whiskey.

"A surprise, you dimwit. Haven't you ever had a surprise party before?" Penny demanded, striding up to him and jabbing a finger at his chest. She eyed him suspiciously. "You ain't one of them buttbandits, are you?"

"Fuck no," the man replied. "Crem here likes the pussy. You still got a pussy, ya'old bitch?"

Penny shook her head. "Misses Buttersocks died in the war."

The man made an "ah" sound and looked her over. "Well, hidin' in crates is no place for such a fine lady. You want to go for a ride in my truck? Cost ya a blow."

"Oh, my poor Misses Buttersocks. She had the brightest blue eyes you've ever seen," Penny reminisced as she hobbled toward the pickup. "Then she built that space rocket and flew off into the stars, never to be seen again. I saw her last Saturday at the market, but of course she acted like she didn't recognize me. I think she was fucking my husband."

Penny hoisted herself into the passenger seat and closed the door. The man - Crem, as he identified himself - climbed into the driver's side and slammed his door shut. He quickly stabbed his finger at a button on his door, causing both child-safe door locks to slide into place.

"You're taking me to see my husband," Penny said.

"Where is he?" Crem asked as he put the truck into gear.

"Heaven, with all the other niggers."

"Yeah, lady," Crem said with a drunken guffaw, his fingers - slicked with red ooze - slipping on the steering wheel. "Yeah, I'm taking you to see your husband."

They drove off, leaving the crate by the side of the road for the field mice to make their home.

Phobia

They drove for what felt to be an interminable amount of time.

"Do you guys realize this is the first time we've been in a vehicle in forever."

"Yeah, since Jaime took us gallivanting. Oh wonderful day that was."

"Do you count my ambulance ride?" Joe gestured gingerly to his sling, but didn't get much out a laugh out of the rest.

"What the fuck is that?"

"Snow Gordon, this is Colorado."

"I know what the bloody hell snow is you silly tosser, I meant that." Gordon crossed over to Joe's seat and pointed towards the frame the caravan window provided. Under Gordon's direction, Mali stopped the car to the sound of snow being compacted beneath the tires.

"That's seriously fucked up."

With thee lone exception of Parker, they all stooped and peered out the windows to the view of a large mustard yellow house, the paint heavily worn, not taking lightly the dramatic chastisement of time, a sign dangling by a single nail that barely read "Clown Heaven." The building itself was situated entirely on cinder blocks, much like an abandoned mobile home.

"Should we check it out?"

"What are we, Scooby Doo? No. Fucking. Way."

"What a surprise from our fearless leader. Cars don't scare you, but decrepit buildings do?" Casey's jeer found its mark.

"Better than fearin' the almighty pickle I say." Gordon's words fell flat. Apparently they didn't get the reference.

"Has there ever been a point in your life where something truly frightened you? I mean more than the after effects of a scary movie, I'm speaking on an entirely different level. Sure adolescence is filled with twists and turns, new exposures and the light of learning, but there are some things that can shake a child's bones.

Imagine a simple trip, a small vacation your parents take you on. You walk hand in hand, ready to welcome the surprises that await you. you see the large canopy, the animated colors that await you. The smells are numerous, the most pervasive being that of sugar and sweat, which makes sense given the seemingly endless span of people shuffling into into the red and yellow striped tent and those that stayed outside wait patiently for the purveyor of tasty treats. You take your seat and wait impatiently, gripping the freshly painted board that functions as your seat and tap your feet, jumping with every flicker of movement. Whether it's the lion tamer passing through his cage, checking and re-checking his implements or the aerial experts, stretching in tandem to the side of the stage. In your anticipation, you journey towards the facility, after all, you are old enough to go on your own, you're practically a man. The journey is much longer than anticipated, but you do find them, you just don't realize the lavatories you discover aren't the ones designated for the public: rather they were obscurely placed for the privacy of the staff and crew. you ignore the signs situated above your perspective and venture forth, only to come across the most horrible moment of your decade minus one life: the smell is pungent, like the back of a butcher shop. In your view is a man, face partially smeared, the remnants of his red smile now a smattering swirl of white, blue and red stretching across his cheek. His hands are stained red and seem to be the source of the smell. He is attempting to wrest something from a cage obscured from your vision. You are frozen, entirely focused on the man in action. He prevails in the end, but not realizing his own strength, the object goes flying in your direction and rolls to a stop at your feet. Matted hair and blood cover the roundish object and before you have time to react the man yells at you. "Don't touch that, get out of here," he yells come towards you in a stalking fashion, ready to place his crimson palms on your throat, after all he has to keep you quiet now that you know his secret, but you are too smart for him and bolt, losing yourself in the crowd. You try to divulge your newfound murderous secret but no one listens. That clown is still out there, feeding stray children to his animals under the guise of a smile and a balloon."

"Joe, he was probably feeding them. Chances are if there were a murderous clown out there, we'd hear about it."

"Given about 40% of murders go unsolved each year, maybe not."

"Seriously, he was feeding whatever animal it was. You said it yourself, it smelled like a butcher shop, like raw meat."

"Fuck you. That is all........oh and this just in, go fuck yourself."

"I'll blame that on that meds, but really we should move on."

The Gadget Whisperer

Mali yawned wide and craned her neck in all different directions, searching for that elusive "pop" of the springs and joints and fasteners in the coils of her spine. A knot had formed somewhere deep between her shoulder blades and she rubbed her back furiously against the stiff, coarse cloth of the car seat to no avail. She spied a sign stating "Rifle 45 Miles" to the right of the road and summoned what comfort she could in knowing Utah was forever behind her.

Her eyes flicked to her companions, mere silhouettes occasionally illuminated in the glow of a passing vehicle. Casey, understandably exhausted, had fallen into the deepest of slumbers the moment they had driven their immense caravan off the lot and now snored with the fervor of a grizzly bear. Joe, too, had succumbed to his medication and wheezed against the window pane a row behind her. Gordon appeared awake, though his eyes were fixed on the landscape beyond, off in his own accented world of tomfoolery and biscuits. And little Parker, having finished his work in his notebook, now sprawled across the expanse of the back seat, drool pooling in the crevices of his shoulder.

With all the night for her's and her's alone, Mali's thoughts drifted across time and space. Absently, she flicked her nimble fingers across the face of the stereoplate. The dials twirled until the static faded into the haunting coos of a familiar Brit, his falsettos spiking and swirling betwixt jagged, distorted percussion.

Ha'come I end up where I started?

Her thoughts trailed to a history she had left behind, a mother and father and brother who still wrote her letters - from time to time. She could smell the citrus of her mother's favorite tea as though a pot were brewing right there in the minivan.

Ha'come I end up where I went wrong?

Her father's cigar smoke, too, now wafted through their vehicle. It burned her nose and she hastily cracked her window, hoping the coolness of the night air would steal the stench from her senses.

I won't take my eye off the ball ag'in,

The scent of her brother came with an audible cringe, a gasp of repulsion so inert and reflexive that Mali hadn't realized she'd done so until the air whooshed from her lungs. She remembered the scent of his room, a cocktail of faint body odor and the ripe sweat of aging books stacked on one another until they tickled the ceiling.

You reel me out then you cut the string.

Amazing, she thought, that he should be the favorite.

You used to be al'right,

Bolero, her elder brother by three years, was the veritable prize of her tiny community. His skill with computers and gadgets was unprecedented, even by the standards of her - graduate cum laude with honors in computer science, MS - father. Just as those in the backwaters idolize a man who can communicated with a car's engine and practically treaty it to run anew, her brother could build, mend, or negotiate with any contraption. It was his destiny to follow in his father's shoes, her mother always said.

So what happened?

Choosing to not leave his parents and baby sister behind, Bolero had opted to take his courses via the internet. For weeks at a time he would retire to his room, emerging only for the barest of necessities, explaining his confinement as the unfortunate product of slaving over manuals and technical terms. Their father would always nod approvingly, suggesting that he had done much the same when he was in school. It was enough for their mother, too.

Did the cat get your tongue?

Mali could recall a time when they were the smallest of brats, she a tomboy and he a spectacled outcast, and their secrets and discoveries were shared with the utmost confidence.

Did your string come undone?

College, she supposed, changes people.

One by one, one by one

With the absence of her brother from the dinner table, evening talks stifled and they three were left to masticate in silence. Her mother would occasionally inquire about her school work, but as soon as Mali had acknowledge that she - yes, was in fact still in school, her mother would dismiss her and resume staring at her dinner plate. Her father never spoke unless it was to agree that their son was prodigious and an ardent worker.

It comes to us all

One night, after many months of contending with her brother's reclusiveness, decided she'd had enough. She decided, against the will of the "Keep Out" poster pinned to her brother's door, to investigate just what was keeping him locked away from all the world.

It's as soft as your pillow

She crept across the hallway, her toes gingerly seeping between ribbons in the plush carpet, her breath caught in her throat.

You used to be al'right

She begged for her parents to not wake, for her plans would be spoiled and she would be sent back to her room.

What happened?

A pale blue light flickered beneath the crack in his door.

Et cetera, et cetera

Nearly there.

Facts for whatever

An outreached hand, craning for the doorknob...

Fifteen steps

"Brother?" Mali whispered as she pushed the door open.

Then a shear drop

The sight would haunt her for years to come. Bolero spun in his chair, his face a mask of disbelief and anger for his premises being violated by uninvited intruders. His hands flew to his groin to cover his swollen shame as he bolted from his seat to snatch his trousers from the bed. On the screen, a pale elf, replete with a bustier and snow white panties, glanced around coyly, as though pondering how she had come to find herself nearly nude in a land of those questing for the very best of equipment drops.

--

"Thom Yorke's a prick," Gordon muttered, snapping Mali out of her thoughts.

"What makes you say that?" she inquired, her voice shaky from the horrors of that which can never be unseen.

"A lot of people in the Merry Ol' don't care for 'im much," Gordon shrugged. "Full of himself, he is. Spends his whole career with a chip on his shoulder 'cos he got roughed up a bit in grade school. Sorry way to waste a life spent as a rock star if you ask me."

"No one did," Mali replied and turned up the radio, which had by now been swallowed in static. The electric roll of white noise carried them further into the night and on toward Denver.