500 Words-day 4 (Lunchboxes)

As part of my participation in My 500 words, I am posting what I write each day.

     Natural insecurities that can occur in a young school age kids can be overcome in different ways. Some kids try to be a part of the crowd, some bully. For me, it was often enough just to carry a lunchbox. At my little elementary school where I attended from Kindergarten to second grade, kids gathered at noon in the lunchroom. There was no kitchen, everyone brought lunch from home. You could brown bag it like some kids. The hippy boy with hair down to his shoulders used the same brown bag every day.

But most kids had metal lunchboxes. Some were rectangular and some were rounded on the top like a standard mailbox shape. In fact, someone may have had a mailbox lunchbox. Nearly everyone’s lunchbox had its theme. Many were Saturday morning cartoons or recent films. One’s lunchbox could be their individuality like a t-shirt or bumper sticker. That was the kid with the Scooby Doo lunchbox, there was the girl with the generic princess one.

We sat in the lunchroom and loudly ate, our lunchboxes open before us and we regarded them like the boxes of our morning cereal. Pictures of our favorite characters were displayed for us as we lunched on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Sometimes there would be bologna or something else with cheese. The popular store-bought cookies brought envy, or one might have some leftover dessert stuffed into a flimsy plastic baggie.

The tumultuous din of the lunchroom continued unabated. School staff and volunteer lunchroom moms would try to encourage a quieter atmosphere on occasion. But it was like trying to hold back the tide. From time to time, one would hear a bag being popped like a balloon, which would stop the noise for a half second before it began again. Ironically, bag popping was a punishable offence.

After lunch we would go out to the playground to work off our energy. Our lunchboxes would wait in lines against the wall. Then we would carry them into the classroom where they would wait for the end of school where we would carry them home.

My 1^st grade lunchbox was mailbox shaped, but it had a schoolbus painted on it with Disney characters riding along. The day I got the lunchbox I felt like a big kid. (Kindergartners only went a half day and didn’t eat lunch at school.) I carried my new lunchbox around until I was requested to leave it in the kitchen until the first day of school.

Only a few weeks into the first grade, I got off the school bus and was approached by some big kids. I don’t know what they said or what I said, but I began to feel threatened. The lead kid was close enough to me, so I swung my lunchbox in an arc and brought it right down on the top of his head. He reached out and tore a corner off of a paper I was bringing home and I burst into tears. That got them running away.

The next year I saw a girl clobber a boy with her lunchbox and it looked like it nearly split the boy’s head open. Reflecting back now, the metal edge may have just cut him, but he had blood running down his head and we all just stared. I realized what a formidable weapon I had used on the bully a year back and was glad I hadn’t hurt him bad enough to get me in trouble.

The next school year I was at a different school in a different state. The cafeteria cooked us lunch. We could bring lunch from home if we wanted and I did once in a while in my Speed Buggy lunchbox from the second grade. The thing is, it took way longer to finish home lunches and the upper grades would be coming in before I was done.

I got bullied a lot more in that school and had no lunchbox. Even if I did, I knew better than to try to hit someone and bloody their head. But I missed the comfort and identity I had once had. But a new life had begun, and the old security was gone.

  

500 words- day 3 (Sidewinder Backstory)

As part of my participation in My 500 words, I am posting what I write each day. The following is backstory not included in my novel, Sidewinder.

When humankind stumbled on the ability to travel at light speed, the galaxy suddenly shrunk. Population on Earth was reaching critical mass despite limiting laws. So governments began building jump ships to carry humans to other worlds. The time and cost of these ships was prohibitive and the energy it took to accelerate a spaceship to light speed without actually accelerating required a fusion reactor big enough to power a state. The fusion reactor would spend a year charging capacitors to make the jump. So the ships that were built were the size of small cities, empty skeletons with several passenger sections attaching on before the jump. 

     Jumps only happened once or twice every decade. Worlds were colonized, and conflicts rose up. For lack of a better term, the military dedicated to the stars was called The Space Corps. Wars were fought, with The Space Corps always possessing superior technology.

     As the years passed, space travel became more commonplace. New worlds were discovered and colonized. The less distance traveled, the easier. So worlds closer together became the centers for government, culture and commerce. The worlds allied into a loose federation called The Stellar Alliance.

Earth stayed out on the fringes with all its history and became something of a curiosity, where many humans would resolve to make a pilgrimage at least once in their life.   

     Out in other fringes other worlds lived in isolation, particularly the worlds with little to offer in trade. More wars started over economics than anything else, with planets vying for business with each other. One conflict grew to threaten the stability of the whole galaxy. One planet managed to capture another with excellent shipbuilding technology. Combined with new chemical lasers and charismatic megalomaniacs leading, the Petros system raided other worlds. That is when The Stellar Alliance and The Space Corps brought out a new style of spacecraft.

     The Sidewinder was like nothing ever made before. It resembled the flying saucers of Old Earth UFO lore. And it was powered by pushing against gravity, an anti-gravity ship. With the fresh technology came the ability to navigate like no other ship had. Inertia was blocked, so the ship could turn and accelerate without the pilot experiencing anything. The Sidewinder ships were so maneuverable that they were impossible to hit. Skilled pilots almost appeared to dodge the directed energy shot from enemy ships.

     With the Sidewinder ships, everyone thought the war would end. But Petros and its allies continued to fight. Driving them back meant going planet to planet. Space battles took weeks. The Sidewinders were large enough to be equipped with bunks and pilots, engineers and gunners slept in shifts during battles. Crew members struggled with fatigue. The Space Corps fitted Sidewinders for ground assaults and the war dragged on.

     Then one day an engineer named Jarlath Ivanpah took off from a carrier on the border and flew off toward Petros. Just weeks later, the enemy fleet had Sidewinders of their own. Jarlath Ivanpah had sold out.

     The Stellar Alliance negotiated a treaty with Petros. Worlds and trade rights were given over. But the war was ended.

     Jarlath Ivanpah became the most hated man in the galaxy. Even though a small minority were thankful the war was over, everyone still called him a traitor. Most people believed he disappeared to live on Petros. But there were other worlds, frontier worlds far away from everything, where someone could go and start a new life. And on one of those worlds, a man named Burl Appleton arrived just before the start of the planet’s seven year winter. He reportedly buried something out in the dunes, halfway between the world’s city and its spaceport. Then the winter began and people forgot about him. He vanished, hoping to start a new life when spring came.  

500 Words- day 2 (My Writing Goal)

     As part of my participation in My 500 words, I am posting what I write each day.

    It was probably about 10 years ago. As I sat at my computer one afternoon, trying to write, I shooed my kids away, telling them that if they ever wanted something better, they would leave me alone and let me write. I don’t know which job I was working at the time, it may have been the construction job which paid higher than anything I’ve ever had. But whatever it was, I had notions in my head that it was not paying enough, it was dead-end and I hated it to the point that the only way out was to try to make a living at writing something.

     I have since repented from those absurd notions. I have learned that even successful, published authors don’t usually earn enough from their writing to get by, especially if they have a family. I have also learned that good writing takes years of practice. I may have had a decent story idea back then, but my writing skills were unrefined. In the past decade I’ve studied the craft and practiced my writing, but I’m still just an amateur.

     Another notion I needed to repent from was that if I wanted to write, I could do it on a weekday afternoon. I had young children in the house. How realistic is it to expect them to leave daddy alone so he can try to do not just a little writing, but make a living at it? No, when I became serious about writing, I needed a few lifestyle changes. I had to recover from my unhealthy habits regarding the internet and be able to open a word document and just write. For this, I bought a cheap, used laptop that had no internet. It was a good start. But then I had to set aside time to write. I took my laptop to coffee shops a lot and wrote at home some evenings. It took a few years, but I completed a first draft of a novel.

     But as I grew to love writing more, I needed to make it more a part of my life. So I started getting up early. This morning I got up at 6 to complete today’s 500 word challenge. The prompt was to set a goal for this 31 day challenge. But to do that, I felt I needed to go back and consider what the goal of my writing is.

     I write because I love to write. But do I really hope to make a living at it, or even earn a little money? Why am I getting out of bed at 6 if it’s not to better my life? I’m not at all sure of the answer. Sure, it would be cool to be a published author and I can set a goal on doing the best I can to achieve that. But doing my best is as far as I can go. So what is my goal?

     My goal is to become a better writer. I will never be so good that there won’t be room for great improvement. And as long as I love writing, I will continue to pursue this goal.

     For now, my short term goals are 500 words a day. Next month, it will be 50,000 words in a month, which is just under 1700 words a day. And the month following that, it’s to finish the next draft of Sidewinder by the end of February. More on Sidewinder later this month. But there is an observable and measurable goal, and I just told the world. There’s no turning back now.  

500 Words- day 1 (Sidewinder Finale)

As part of my participation in My 500 words, I am posting what I write each day. Today is part of a draft of one of the last scenes in my novel, Sidewinder. Spoilers to follow.

     The bunker was cool and dark on the inside. Men stood at the windows with weapons ready, most looked like locals. Mundy sat tied to a chair while there was quiet conversation around him. He tried to pick up on what Ash was saying to Nottage. Yeah, these two would get along just fine. They weren’t using names, but Mundy thought he knew what the general gist of things was. Dean had picked up and left Channel to come out to this tiny little planet out in the sticks for little more reason than to exact revenge on a kid who had turned traitor on him a little bit ago. Nottage seemed incredulous, but Ash was cool about it.

     “… already known as the biggest boss on a core world,” Mundy heard Ash say. “He’s going to expand his empire. A little world like this is a good start. The local gangs may not have heard of him, but he can offer them a cut of the big deals off world. Eventually, they’ll be working for him, another world under his control. And it starts with him coming after someone who did him dirty.”

     It got quiet and Mundy dared to look in their direction. Nottage was looking straight at Mundy with a blank look, as if he was reading a menu card but not hungry. Then he turned away and walked toward Reetow. Maybe these two were new lieutenants. Maybe they would run the operations on Indus IV.

     Mundy tried to remember the other time he saw this building here at the old spaceport. Roy had pointed it out as a relic of the war, the only one left around here, just a fortified bunker. Had he really been that happy then? Why? What had been so good? He was out for a ride, what was so splendid about that? It didn’t take much thought to know why it had been such a good day. Mundy knew. It wasn’t just that he was spending the day riding and exploring. It was everything, especially what was waiting for him back at Sidewinder. He had friends, real friends who were looking out for him. It was almost like a family. In his mind, the image of Jerusha smiled. Mundy’s stomach knotted and the urge to cry shuddered up his windpipe. Mundy took a deep breath and got it under control.  

     They wouldn’t come for him. He had turned them in. He was a sidewinder just like Jarlath Ivanpah, a traitor, worth nothing more than a bargaining tool. And what if they did come for him? What if? Things would never be the same after this, not after what he did. But no, they wouldn’t come. And when they didn’t come, Mundy knew what would happen.

     He counted 19 men around the room, most at the alert.

     “Time,” Dean called out.

     Ash nodded. “Time’s up.”

     Spelunk walked over to Mundy’s chair and pulled a huge sidearm. Mundy felt his every muscle tense up. The big man paused, probably enjoying the sight of him cringing.

     “No sign of anything?” Deal asked.

     Ash walked to the window and raised his power binoculars.

     “I don’t see anything out there,” he said.

     Spelunk’s stepped closer and Mundy closed his eyes, not before he saw the man’s arm move in a fast arc. The next thing Mundy knew, he felt like his left knee was ripped off. The world turned purple with pain. He fell forward, bringing his chair down with him and landed face down on the dirty floor. He couldn’t hear himself, but he knew he was crying in pain. Spelunk hadn’t shot him. He had brought his pistol down across Mundy’s knee. But this must hurt worse than a bullet. His leg wouldn’t move and he blinked through tears and dirt to see blood soaking through his trousers.

     “Take it easy on him still,” Dean said calmly.

     “Can I do the other one?” Spelunk asked.

     “Just wait. I don’t want him passing out from the pain just yet.”

     Spelunk pushed the chair back upright. Mundy gasped and tried to get his breathing under control. If his knee wasn’t broken, he didn’t want to know what a real break felt like.

     Mundy couldn’t tell how much time passed after that. The throbbing seemed to keep the time, but he kept losing count.

Sharing What's Good

     Even Hawaii had a few unpleasantly hot days out of the year and I was walking through one. Turning off the crowded main strip of the tourist town I lived in, I walked down a short alleyway to the little kiosk I knew would provide relief, the shave-ice stand. Call them sno-cones if you want, in Hawaii, it’s shave-ice. And this little stand, part of a local chain, made the best I knew. The girl behind the counter complained how bored she was as she fixed my treat and put on the three syrups I asked for, cherry, watermelon and bubblegum. I understood how she felt. The kiosk was in a little commercial mall, set back from the main strip of the town. Despite the crowds of the heavy tourist season, I was the only customer.

     I got my shave ice and walked back toward the street. Out in the sun the sweet red syrup began running down my hand, so I stopped right where I was and sat on a stoop. Right there, ignoring the crowds walking past me, I ate my cold shave ice with the joy one would expect, vaguely aware of people stopping to look at me.

     When I was done I stood up, entertaining the thought of perhaps going and just chatting with the girl at the kiosk. But to my surprise, there was a line reaching almost to the street. What had happened? Me. The only thing that had happened to bring business in was me sitting and eating the shave ice where everyone could see me.

     I walked home, cooled by the cold delight, but pondering what I knew about my faith. That shave ice was like The Kingdom of God. Yes, it was tasty, but not for that reason. I didn’t go out on the street and wave signs about the shave ice stand, I didn’t drive around the town with a bumper sticker and I didn’t go to the nearest ice cream parlor and yell people away from it. All I did was be among people walking down the hot sidewalk, enjoying what I had.

     Psalm 34:8 tells us  Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Sometimes all we need to do is show others the truth of that.