Mr. Chang's Tomatoes

 

 

 

Happy Father’s Day, John.

 

---

 

Mr. Li Chang peeked out the kitchen window of  his son’s apartment at the next door neighbor. The fellow was middle-aged, at least twenty years younger than himself. Mr. Chang smiled as he watched the man watering his tomato plants. There were five of them, swaying on an overhanging shelf just outside of his basement door. It was obvious that the man had done this before, but his method, Mr. Chang thought, was a bit amateurish. So typical for Americans. Americans did everything so large and complicated, when all that was really needed was to use the methods that farmers like himself had done for centuries back in China.

Mr. Chang’s eyes misted over as he thought about his homeland. He probably would never see it again. His beloved Wen had passed on two years ago, and his son had arranged for him to come to America to live with him and his wife, and their daughters. Oh, he was happy to be near his son and to see his two granddaughters raised up well, but he did not like America. For one thing, there was not enough green for someone who had been raised in the countryside of Beihai, in the Guangxi province. He missed the flow of the River Li in the mornings as he would awaken before dark in order to be down at the river before sunrise.

Mr. Chang breathed in deeply until the memories passed. He turned his attention back to the man tending his tomato plants. Mr. Chang turned away from the window and on a whim, looked around t he room for something to draw on. He spied his granddaughter’s school notebook and he picked it up, along with a black ink pen. He opened the notebook to a blank page and sat down at the kitchen table.

Back in China, when he was young, he’d been a fair artist, had wanted to travel to Shanghai to become famous. Then he met Wen. They married and made plans to escape their small existence in Behai. But Wen became pregnant, and their hopes to travel down the mountain to the big city were lost.

Mr. Chang looked down at the notebook. He filled in the details of the plant he was drawing. An hour later, he had completed the drawing, and satisfied, he carefully removed the page from the notebook. He headed to the front door and walked across the courtyard to the man’s apartment.

The man looked up when he saw him, and Mr. Chang made a slight bow in greeting. He extended his arm, holding out the drawing.

He watched the man wrinkle his brow in puzzlement as he looked down at the drawing. His face brightened as he recognized the plant in the picture.

Mr. Chang had drawn very detailed tomato plants, describing pictorially how to prune and tie them in order to yield the best fruit.

The man looked down at Mr. Chang with a big smile, saying something, speaking very rapidly, but Mr. Chang could not understand. He only spoke the Cantonese dialect of his homeland, and English was a very difficult language to learn. He was too old and weary to learn something new, and he did not like this country enough to put forth much of an effort. His son and wife spoke enough English to get by, and his granddaughters were fluent in the language.

But he knew that the man was pleased, and it made him very happy. He bowed again to the man, and turned, heading back to his son’s apartment.

The next morning, Mr. Chang was at the kitchen window, watching the man as he hurriedly watered the tomato plants before jumping in his truck to go to work. Once he left, Mr. Chang walked across the courtyard to examine the man’s plants. He started in surprise as he glanced at the wall of the building.

On the wall was the drawing that he had made, encased in a black frame. Mr. Chang’s throat tightened as he looked at the picture. He stood there a while, remembering his dream to become an artist when he was a young man in China. There was more than one way to achieve a dream, Mr. Chang realized.

He took one more look at his artwork, then turned to the man’s tomato plants and started to prune them, humming as he worked.

4:30 AM on a Tuesday

MCM has pledged to write 1,000 short stories this summer. Send him a line, an idea, a concept, and he will write a story. My request was "The truth is, I don't want to die alone." His story follows.

4:30 AM on a Tuesday

He saw her by the fading light of the old refrigerator, standing against the door frame, light t-shirt clinging her to moist skin. She was watching him, the quietest thing in the room, bare feet soaking up the cold from the tile floor.

“You’re up,” he said, voice croaking, but left the door open. He needed the cool air.

“I heard you leave,” she said. “Are you hungry?”

He smiled, swung the fridge open more to get a better look at his options. Nothing seemed right. Milk, beer, yoghurt.

“I was,” he said. “Until I got here. Now, not so much. How about you? Are you hungry at all? Help me choose?”

“I’m okay,” she said, and slid up beside him, wrapping an arm around his waist, resting her head on his shoulder. “Come back to bed?”

“I’m not tired yet,” he sighed.

“You don’t need to be tired,” she smiled, and pulled herself closer. It caught him by surprise, and he almost missed her mouth, probing at his chin, his neck. He returned the kiss, and she wrapped herself around him, arms locked over his shoulders, legs pulling herself up.

“I’ve never done this before,” he said between breaths, hands running down her hips, under the shirt, up again.

“Done what?” she purred.

“A one-night stand,” he said, turning her around and setting her on the edge of the counter.

“It doesn’t have to be just the one night,” she said. “Good things have… oh… good things have strange beginnings…”

He laughed, pulled her shirt over her head, kissed her neck, down to the scar in the middle of her chest. He’d seen it earlier, but the booze and the passion and the excitement had made him forget it. Long and clean, lit up by the fridge. He traced it with his finger and she moaned.

“What happened?” he asked softly, and she took his hand and put it over her left breast, whispered in his ear.

“A hole in my heart,” she said. He felt the beating beneath his fingers, racing with every breath. Her blue eyes, half-open and delirious with want, kept locked with his. “Unfixable, like the rest of me.”

He kissed her, and she wrapped her arms around him, helped him forget for a moment, but then she shuddered, and he drew back, thumb brushing the hair from her face.

“Is it dangerous?” he asked.

She smiled, half-shrugged, and tugged at his shorts, an effort that trailed off when she realized his hesitation.

“It’ll kill me,” she admitted. “Some day.”

“How?” he asked, stepping back.

“I’ll tell you when I get there,” she smiled, and tried to carry on. He didn’t move.

“What is this?” he asked, picking her shirt off the ground. Her heels wrapped around his waist and pulled him back, but he didn’t accept her embrace. He pushed the shirt to her chest. “What are we doing?”

“Forgetting fate for a bit,” she said, dropping the shirt back on the ground. “One night at a time. There’s a hole in my heart, and one day, a beat will go wrong and I’ll die. But I’m not going to live in fear of that day. I’m not afraid of dying. Dying is easy.”

He shook his head, unlocked her legs, stepped back, closed the fridge door. It was cold, suddenly. He needed his shirt. He felt exposed.

“I won’t help you kill yourself.”

She caught his arm as he tried to leave. He tried not to look at her, but the moonlight on her back drew him in. Her eyes were shimmering with tears.

“You can’t kill me,” she said. “My heart’s on its own schedule. I’m not afraid of dying. I’m really not. The truth is, I don’t want to die alone. I’m deathly afraid of dying alone.”

She let go of his arm, her hand brushing his cheek, pulling away. She slumped, staring at the floor, suddenly frail.

“What do you want from me?” he said, a gulf between them, filled with hated desires and unspoken thoughts.

“Keep me company until you can’t anymore,” she whispered. “One night or a thousand. And when I go, just carry on, because I was happy.”

He looked at her, said nothing for a moment. He took her hand in his, and their fingers entwined, and he stepped into her embrace, her face resting on his chest.

“How can I know that?” he asked. “How can I know you were happy?”

“Because,” she said softly, “I have nothing else to feel.”

I'm following along in a Creativity Workshop by Merrilee. Even though I am not an "official" participant, I thought it would be fun to kickstart my writing brain.

Written for the Bebop Drabble Challenge at lj fayeandspike community.

Drabble #1: Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before

I was delayed, I was way-laid
an emergency stop, I smelt the last ten seconds of life
I crashed down on the crossbar
and the pain was enough to make
a shy, bald Buddhist reflect
and plan a mass-murder
who said I'd lied to her?
who said I'd lied because I never, I never
who said I'd lied because I never
stop me if you think that you've heard this one before

Spike sucked in a breath and fell backwards to the floor as the wind was knocked out of him by a hard punch that landed right in the center of his abdomen. The throbbing pain blurred his vision and he squinted, looking up at her furious face.

“So, would you like to share any more words of wisdom about life?” Faye stood over him, her chest heaving as her foot tapped incessantly against his chest.

Spike thought it was probably best not to answer that question.



Drabble #2 - What Difference Does it Make?

All men have secrets and here is mine
So let it be known
For we have been through hell and high tide
I think I can rely on you ... And yet you start to recoil
Heavy words are so lightly thrown
But still I'd leap in front of a flying bullet for you

He had always known that she’d fallen for him, that she thought it would somehow change her, change her life.

He could feel her love pulling him down, and he had to make her believe that he didn’t want to be caught, that he didn’t care.

He couldn’t do it to her, couldn’t let her believe that any hope was possible.

He would always remember her from the times when leaving was furthest from his mind, before the urge to reach for her was so strong that it threatened to kill him alive.



Drabble #3 - Well I Wonder

Well I wonder
Do you hear me when you sleep?
I hoarsely cry
Oh ...

Gasping - but somehow still alive
This is the fierce last stand of all I am

Well I wonder
Please keep me in mind
Keep me in mind
Keep me in mind

From the couch, a figure was just sitting up, becoming aware of her presence. He looked at her, his expression hidden by the darkness.

She didn’t need the light to know what expression he chose to hide under the shadow of night.

And because he knew that she loved him, he would look everywhere but in her eyes.

No words were spoken, but he would try to show how much he didn’t care, about her, about himself, about anything. He would say with that expression that he didn’t need her or anyone.

But she knew him well enough to know that it was a lie, because those were the times when he needed her the most.

Drabble #4 - Half a Person

Call me morbid, call me pale
I've spent six years on your trail
Six full years of my life on your trail

And if you have five seconds to spare
Then I'll tell you the story of my life :

She was left behind, and sour
And she wrote to me, equally dour
She said : "In the days when you were
Hopelessly poor
I just liked you more..."

---

I've got a new life now and I don't even think about you.

He chases away the image of emerald green with fury and blood on his hands.

His eyes are cold and dangerous; he’s not the same person she knew. He’s only half alive and sinking deeper into darkness.

There’s a chick who’s been itching to get in my pants, and I can get laid anytime I want, so I don’t need to think about you.

Restlessness rages through him and he chases the vision away with mindless fucking, empty sex.

But every night, after the fury has died away, the restlessness returns. There is something missing, and he sees no light in the darkness of his life. No matter how hard he tries, he cannot chase away the vision of emerald green.

He is lost without her.

Cowboy Bebop Drabble Triangle

Three songs. Three drabbles. My entries for the Cowboy Bebop Drabble triangle over at LJ.

---

Why I Have My Grandma's Sad Eyes by Kill Hannah vettac
It started like this,
I was here right, standing leaning back,
My deer in the headlights look never fails
but hearing all the things that you said,
Cut me to the core, blew me away,
Like I got hit with a gunshot, like a bomb dropped,
Stabbed with a white hot knife in the heart,
While all these people still ask me
why I have my grandma's sad eyes.

Spike leaned against the side of the Swordfish, under the wing, hands in his pockets and a cigarette hanging from his mouth. He had needed some air, and even though there was a slight breeze, the oppressive heat of the Martian sun was impossible to escape. A strong gust swirled up, blowing smoke into his face. He welcomed the burning in his eyes as the image of Faye washed away along with the tear that rolled down his cheek. He took a hand from his pocket to discard the butt and swiped his face on his jacket sleeve as he pushed himself off from the ship.

After dinner earlier that evening, he had been minding his own damned business, watching Big Shots and debating whether a two hundred thousand woolong bounty was going to be worth his time and energy.

For some reason still unknown to him, he had looked up to find Faye's eyes upon him, and for a few minutes neither of them had said a word, simply staring each other down.

Then she had turned and walked away, leaving him to watch her small figure disappear down the hallway to her room.

The crushing pain that hit him was unlike anything he had felt in a long time; it started from deep down in his gut and traveled all the way up his torso, sitting like a ball of lead in his chest. He found it hard to swallow that thick knot in his throat, and for a moment he wondered if Jet had put something in tonight's dinner that had not sat well in his stomach.

He reached in his pocket and pulled out another cigarette to light.

Who was he kidding?

He knew exactly what the problem was, had known for some time now.

It was that woman with the green eyes.

---

Mind Over Money by Turin Breaks bob5fic
Mind over money, bent over backwards
Light up my life like a very last cigarette
Time after time dear we will just lie here
Staring at ceilings it doesn't really matter where we are

Wearing a smile like it's going out of style
Look at your self, there's nothing in there
Just put points on a grave stone, can you see yourself sinking
Staring at ceilings it doesn't really matter where you are

That's alright I warned myself
Keep blood on the inside and nowhere else
Up on a shelf that's where I need to be

His eyes were closed as Faye watched him, his hands clasped across his stomach, a self-absorbed smirk across his face. He looked the picture of peace and contentment. She could have no idea of what was going on inside his head.

In his mind he was recounting all of the near-misses in his life, trying to figure out how many lives he had used up or given away, and how many he had left.

The first one, he figured, was the day he walked into the Red Dragons headquarters, signing away his autonomy and independence.

The second was when he had had allowed himself to be talked into swapping out the eye he was born with for one owned by Mao and the Dragons, pulling him deeper into the dungeon and away from himself.
The third life was wrested away from him during crossfire between the Dragons and a rival syndicate, and that was the first one from which he almost did not make it back. He and Vicious became fast friends from that point on, and enjoyed a long run of camaraderie while moving up the ranks together.

Then a stone dropped like lead to the bottom of a cesspool, when Julia entered the scene. Despite warnings from Vicious and Mao, he gave away another life by falling in love with her.

When finally he had to rid himself from the oppressive life that the Dragons had become, he faked his death to escape, nearly losing his life in the process. The rest were easy to figure out: mad Pierrot, Vincent, the destruction of Vicious and the Red Dragons.

Now another woman, whose existence in his time and space threatened to sluice out another life.

He cracked open an eye and made himself look at Faye’s still figure, fast asleep, mouth ajar as soft snores emanated from her pretty little mouth.

He closed his eyes. Yeah, he guessed he could hold on to this last life for awhile.

---

Seeds of Night by The Cave Singers sidewalksg

Oh my love
This is our town
Where gray cloud wander
Over heaven and ground

Oh, thinking of heaven
Oh, thinking it's night
Oh, thinking of heaven
Oh, maybe next time
Next life down the road


Faye had grown tired of waiting for Spike and decided to venture off on her own. She wandered along the avenue, stopping to glance up at a high-rise building displaying the weather report. She wondered briefly whether an umbrella could offer protection against meteor showers the way that her pink umbrella with the Dalmatians used to when she was a child …

“Today’s forecast: 80% chance of clouds today.”

Faye skipped merrily along the sidewalk, her pink umbrella over her head as she jumped into every puddle that she came upon. Daddy had bought it for her as a present when he returned from his last business trip. When she opened the big box, she had pulled out the pink umbrella that had oodles of her favorite kind of dog, along with her favorite movie, 101 Dalmatians. She had begged Daddy to buy her a Dalmatian of her own, but he had told her no, because when she had grown tired of the dog and the responsibility that came with caring for it, the task would fall to the servants. Faye had sulked for weeks until a new obsession had taken her interest away from a Dalmatian.

“Today’s forecast: 80% chance of meteor showers today.”

Faye heard the patter of small stones hitting the ground behind her, and she ducked under the awning of a building, waiting until the wave had passed. Once the showers had passed, she ventured out to continue her walk.

She saw Spike heading towards her from the opposite direction. Judging by the sour look on his face, she must have been gone longer than she thought. She put her hand up to her ear and realized that she had also forgotten to turn on her earpiece.

She stopped and waited for him to reach her.

“Where were you?” He towered over her imposingly.

Faye gave him an arrogant look of her own.

“You took too long.”

Gems

Spike wandered aimlessly through the market, eating an apple he'd swiped from one of the stands, his ears picking up various transactions between the market dealers hawking their wares.

He stopped and looked up to watch the Venusian spores float from the sky like furry snowflakes, illuminated in the waning light of dusk.

As the spores fell, he imagined that they held memories, perhaps Faye's, floating through space and time. A spore landed softly on his nose and he stuck out his tongue to catch it.

He turned his thoughts away from Faye and continued his lazy amble through the street, pausing every now and then at a stall to eye the goods. After the fourth or fifth stop, he found himself at a stand displaying an assortment of gems and trinkets of varying sizes and colors.

One in particular caught his eye. It was a thin silver strand with a small iridescent green stone, the light hitting it in such a way that he was immediately reminded of Faye's eyes – green, like a cat's, especially when she was up to something. Her eyes would take on that look he knew well, which she always tried to play off as innocence.

But he knew better. Oh yeah, he knew, because these days he found himself watching her all of the time, not that she would ever catch him, since his technique had been perfected years before he had ever met her.
He bent down to examine the stone more closely. Yeah, definitely looked like her. On an impulse, he purchased it.

*****

"Here." Spike thrust the package in her hand.

"What's this?" she asked, looking suspiciously at the package and then up at him.

"Just open it already."

"Are you feeling alright?" she asked as she peeked into the bag.

Spike shrugged.

Faye's eyes widened as she pulled out the gift. The gem sparkled in the cabin light as she twirled the silver strand on her fingers.

She looked up at him in astonishment. "You bought this? For me?"

Spike reddened. "Shut up, Faye," he mumbled, walking away. Yeah, he was right – it was a perfect match.

"Thanks, hon!" she yelled to his retreating back.

Greta: the Beginning (draft)

The Sanding house sat in the middle of Maple Street, a quiet street sandwiched between the middle-class section of town on one end and the just-turned fringe area at the other end, what people had always described as the bad section of town. Forty years ago James and Lillian Sanding had purchased the house when James had returned from the war.

They had met at the local diner, Marion’s Luncheonette, when James was a young foreman and the steel mill, and Lillian one of the waitresses that served the lunch crew. James was a handsome, ebullient young man who caught the eye of many a maiden in the town, but for some reason, he only had eyes for Lillian.

Lillian at age 19 was pretty and petite, with a full smile that stretched across rosebud lips. She had been orphaned when both her parents were killed in an automobile accident; they were crossing the street hand in hand when old Mrs. Robinson had come down the avenue in her new Edsel and had pressed her foot on the accelerator instead of the brake. Lillian had been taken in by Angelo and Rosa Martucci, who took pity on the fourteen year old, and gave her a room over their store and a job at the luncheonette. In the back of their minds, they were also thinking about their son Roberto who was so painfully shy that they feared he would never meet a girl, and they wanted grandchildren to carry on the family line. They hoped that somehow he and Lillian would someday marry.

But then Lillian met James, and they realized that it was never going to happen. Lillian was just as smitten with James as he was with her. James and Roberto became best friends, they believed, because James could see that Robert was in love with Lillian, and felt sorry for him.

Lillian and James got married and rented a tiny third floor apartment from one of the neighbors just a few houses away from the Martucci house. They were a happy couple, and James brought out the best in Lillian. Her reticent demeanor was beginning to thaw during her life with James, and the neighbors thought that finally she would finally have some happiness in her life after the death of her parents.

Lillian gave birth to a healthy seven pound baby girl seven months later after she and James were married, leading to much speculation among the conservative and traditional residents of the town, who knew that no baby would be born early at such a weight. But the birth was difficult one, and took a toll on Lillian’s health, and the neighbors put aside their disapproval, after much coaching and pleading from Rosa, and came out to help the young couple. Lillian was bedridden for a few months after the birth, and it was James who would take his baby daughter out in the pram, walking about town, and stopping to chat with the neighbors, who were quite smitten with the dashing young man. They were secretly glad that it was James and not Lillian who brought the child out, because as pretty as Lillian was, she was also a little standoffish, leaving the neighbors at a loss with what to talk with her about. Lillian eventually grew healthier and would occasionally take Greta out for strolls, but it was James who the neighbors would see more often. They didn’t believe that Lillian was that fond of the walks or the baby, but she seemed to be happy enough with her husband.

Things changed drastically when a year later, war was declared overseas. James immediately enlisted, and Roberto followed in his footsteps, much to the chagrin of his Angelo and Rosa. To their relief, Roberto and James were deployed together; they knew that James would look after their son. The boys were sent to the front, and for over a year, no word was heard from either of them.

Too Many Secrets 8/?

Intermezzo

He sits absolutely still, looking across the Tharsis, squinting as he tries to make out the vehicles speeding around the circles of the freeway. He wonders where they could be going in such a hurry. But that was the atmosphere of Tharsis, rushing, bustling, making deals, rushing headlong to nowhere. Just like him.

I hate you.

All the things she said keep running through his head. He closes his eyes but he cannot block out her image, her face, the hurt in her eyes.

I hate you.

He raises a cigarette to his mouth and lights it, inhaling the acidic smoke deep into his lungs. He welcomes the burning pain. He smiles as he blows the smoke out letting the wind carry it away, just like he wishes it would carry away the image of those green eyes that haunt him…

I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.