I have to admit, I am weak at short stories. So I am working on getting better at them. I don't have a lot of time so I have set myself a rather low goal. A page a day on a short story.
“They sang three songs when I was born, and I expect they’ll sing the same three songs when I die. That’s what I want anyway,” the old woman told May. May smiled from where she was folding laundry. She stood and kissed the old woman on the cheek.
“Yes but you won’t die anytime soon now will you?” she said. May was of no relation to the old woman but came over several times a week to look after her and spend time with her. The old woman, who had no relatives anymore, had come to look at May as a favorite granddaughter who she could tell anything to. She taught May how to knit, sew, bake, and told her stories and in exchange May did any chores the old woman needed done.
“It isn’t a matter of whether I’m going to die soon or not,” the old woman told May. “The point is the songs, the songs are important. I’m not about to sing them, because my voice isn’t what it used to be, I’ve got them written down, what I want to tell you about is why they sang those songs when I was born.” May found a seat where she could sit comfortably, she always liked the old woman’s stories. They spoke of a time that was long gone, but for a moment you could imagine it wasn’t.
“My mother gave me the first song,” the old woman explained. “She wasn’t from this country you know. She came from Ireland at first, as a young woman. She didn’t have any family in this country so she found herself work taking care of a widower’s children. There were two of them, a little boy and a little girl. Mother used to talk about them a lot but I can’t remember their names now. It was a good job but because she lived with the family and took care of the children all of the time she didn’t get around as much as people these days to. Finally a man, who worked for the neighbors and was sweet on Mother came around and asked her to go out dancing with him, and she got permission to go.”
You never realize life changing choices that will haunt you for the rest of your life until after you’ve made them. I should have listened to my stupid younger brother. Luke isn’t smart, or strong, or useful, but sometimes he does make good points.
What I shouldn’t have done was go upstairs to Isabelle’s room. I shouldn’t have tied her up. I shouldn’t have thrown her out of her bedroom window, which is on the third floor. I guess I should say that I am right now writing all of this from a cell, not in the house, but in the real world. I really did lose the game this time. I read a lot these days, from the books they allow me, so I’m learning some new words. Like retrospect, and hindsight, those are good words.
Isabelle’s injuries were very serious, serious enough that she had to be taken by helicopter to the nearest hospital. Then there came the questions, which led to my arrest for attempted murder. Mother couldn’t do anything other then hire me a real good lawyer. He’s trying to say I’m crazy; I’m starting to think maybe I am too. I didn’t tell them that Luke helped me, Luke was only following orders, and Luke doesn’t mean anything. Luke isn’t important, but I am, I’m the one who did it. Even if I did lose the game at least let me get the credit for having done something, they won’t forget me, I’m too important.
The next day Luke brought me down my tray of food, looking very nervous and tense. He didn’t say anything to me, and he had a black eye, I guess Isabelle had got him. On my tray though was the important bit, a new journal, so he had got my note and followed it.
Once Luke was gone I lay down on my cot, with a pencil and my new journal. I opened up the journal, pencil at the ready, the first few pages were already full of Luke’s neat writing. Pretending to write on the already filled page, I started to read. Always on camera, that was a problem.
Alice had taken my place, of course, with all of her information. She was now one of the important ones. She and her husband now lived in the house with Mother rather then in their mother’s house, in my old room.
Isabelle had gotten rid of Dan when Dan had tried to get rid of her. Dan had always pushed too much. Isabelle had thrown him through the second story window; he was now living with Al, since Dan was too young to live alone. That meant it was just Isabelle, Ben and Alice.
Luke had also written about himself. I don’t know why he had thought his update belonged with the ones about Isabelle and Ben but he seemed to think that it did. He was, he didn’t tell me why, still considered my underling. That’s why he brought me food, it was his job. I was his job. He had been marked. He didn’t say so but I could guess he was only a little better off then I was. He could go outside, I hadn’t liked outside until I could go. I now loved outside.
I flipped through the blank pages of the journal and almost dropped the book on the floor once I came the last hundred pages or so. I had thought the journal was a bit heavy. Now was not the time for quiet or sneaky. It was the time for fast action, no plans were needed. I grabbed the blot cutter from where it had been hidden in the journal and took care of the bolt on my cell. Right now Alice would probably notice me doing this and I would get in trouble, but maybe not. She couldn’t watch everywhere at the same time. Maybe if I really got in trouble they would actually kick me out of the game, rather then keeping me in the cell. That was a thought.
Luke was waiting for me in the kitchen, that’s where the stairs to the basement came from. He looked scared but was steadier then I would have thought he would be. Luke wasn’t strong like some people, Luke was weak. But he had gotten me out of my cell, and he was waiting for me.
“I talked to Mother,” was the first thing he said to me, no hello. “I asked her to let us get a house somewhere in the real world, outside of this place. This isn’t a good place for us anymore.” For the first time he wasn’t asking me what to do, he had decided what to do; the problem was I didn’t like it.
“I like being in the game, I’m not going to lose,” I told him. We didn’t have a lot of time but I wasn’t going to be told that I had lost.
“They aren’t going to let you leave if you don’t leave now,” Luke told me. “They want to keep you in that cell forever, until you die. I would have to bring you food forever, until I died. They don’t like you, so they’ve thought of a worse fate then losing for you.”
I expected to be out of the game with this. All they would have had to do was throw me out of the house and the next thing I would have known Mother would have bought me a house somewhere in the outside world. They weren’t that nice, they played a new sort of game. In this game losers stayed to have being a loser rubbed in their face, I don’t like it much. They had a cell for me, ready in the basement, where no one ever goes.
I guess that in the real world, outside of the game that is, this sort of thing is against the law. The law is nothing out here though, since we are so far from any cops. I guess outside of the game Mother would have stopped them from putting me in a cell in the basement, or made them let me go. That would have been true but Mother is in the game too and so it was allowed. Maybe she wasn’t happy with them, but I didn’t get to see, not from my cell.
I have always thought of myself as important in the game. When I was younger I thought I was important because I was me, when I was older I got important. This was the first time I have been not important. It was even worse because I didn’t have anything to do in my cell, so I could think about it a lot.
Mother wouldn’t have let them kill me, I knew that. What ever happened I wouldn’t die anyway, a small comfort. Luke brought me food, but he didn’t talk to me. I don’t think anyone was allowed to talk to me. He did bring me paper and ink, and couple of books. I was being the most well read I had been ever. Usually I was too busy thinking of ways to take care of Isabelle, Ben, and Dan. There didn’t seem a point anymore, this was more serious then Lose a Turn in some board game.
I have no idea how many days, weeks, months, years, passed between when they locked me up in the cell and that day that Luke spoke to me for the first time. I had tried to talk to him before, be he always just put down my food and left. I had given up, I had given up on everything, and then Luke up and talks to me. He looked around when he spoke, and he whispered, he knew he was breaking some rule of the game, but he talked anyway.
“Do you want anything?” he whispered to me. “You’ve been down here an awful long time.”
“Don’t I know that,” I whispered back. I complained before about how all he did was ask questions but this question filled me with a really warm feeling. “I could use some news, what’s been going on?”
“I shouldn’t tell you, I’m not supposed to talk to you at all but I feel bad. If I can get you anything,” he trailed off, looking back over his shoulder again. I think faster then Luke does, that’s why Luke followed me. I knew for sure that my cell had cameras and microphones in it and this would be the last talk we’d have. Alice would see to that. I shook my head and he went away. No need to get Luke in trouble when he wouldn’t be able to do anything for me even if he wanted to.
I thought some, I had a lot of time for thinking being in the cell, and then I went over to the pad of paper Luke had give me and got out a sheet of writing paper. I wasn’t sure where the cameras were so I had to be careful. I had never had to be tricky like this before. I wrote a note, I folded it, I stuck it in my pocket, and then I went over to my dinner tray. It was the work of a moment, with my heart beating fast, to slip the note under my plate. I could hope that it had looked like I was just picking crumbs off my plate to the camera, I could hope that Luke would find the note, I could hope. If I failed I could see Isabelle coming down and slamming me into the wall a couple of times, it was worth it. Risk was good, risk made me feel alive again. I wasn't out of the game yet.
“Perhaps it would be wise to deal with Ben before we deal with Isabelle,” Alice told me one morning. She was sitting at the bank of computers that had been installed in my room as her personal work station. My room, since I was the leader, had become our office. I was starting to think I should kick another sibling out of their room to make a real office. Maybe Bernie who lived right door to me, with a sledgehammer Luke could make a door between the two rooms and I would have my own space again.
“What’s Ben up to?” I asked. Alice’s main worry was about Isabelle and usually she didn’t say anything about Ben or Dan. I wondered what it was that Isabelle had done exactly to make Alice worry so much but knowing Isabelle it didn’t take much imagination. Isabelle was all about hitting people. She hadn’t chased anyone out of the house like Ben and I but she hadn’t had to. She only had to shove your head through a wall once before you wanted to be on her good side.
“Ben is trying to make an alliance, much like the one that we have, with Isabelle. That seems dangerous to me. Isabelle is resisting, she doesn’t work well with others, but the risk is high,” Alice told me.
“That doesn’t make any sense; he sets me up to take on Isabelle and then goes to team up with her?”
“I believe he is trying to destroy you, you are the up and coming leader after all. You made sure that Dan wasn’t a threat and then you were looking at the other two threateningly. It would only make sense if they decided to do something about you, like luring you into a trap. Right now if you attack Isabelle you will face both her and Ben and if you try and wait it out Dan will attack you. Pretty dangerous, I have to admit.”
“So what do you want me to do about it?” I asked. Once again my underlings were talking about problems and then thinking I could fix them, like I’m a god or something.
“I think we should attack now, while we can, before Ben finalizes what ever deal he is making with Isabelle and before Dan can gather strength to attack you,” Alice said firmly. Okay and when my underlings do make suggestions they are crazy and likely to get me killed. Attacking Isabelle without a plan could get me thrown off the roof. I couldn’t think of anything better to do though.
Sneaking into Isabelle’s room in the middle of the night was a really dumb idea. I will admit that. The idea was to catch her off guard so that she wouldn’t get a chance to pitch us out the window. That was all good but she had traps we didn’t know about hidden in her door frame. Smart of her, I wouldn’t have thought she was the trap type. I knew as soon as I was caught in the net that there was no way she had built it herself though. She’s my sister after all; she’s more into the maiming sort of trap if she likes traps at all. Nets aren’t her style at all.
The lights switched on and I looked around. Dan, Ben, Isabelle, they all stood there looking at me. I had been expected. I turned and looked at Alice and her husband; they had hung back so I would be the first to go into the room.
“Good job Alice,” Isabelle said. “Would you like his room? It’s bigger then yours is.”
“Don’t forget my husband,” Alice said. “He deserves as much credit as I do. He’s the only one in this house who could have built this sort of trap after all. I would also like to remind you that according to our contract you owe us a large sum of money.”
“If you aren’t interested then I will take my offer to Ben or Dan,” Alice said, standing from where she sat down on my bed.
“I didn’t say I wasn’t interested,” I said quickly. “You have a deal, but first I have to know who you were working under before?”
“No one, I am independent, usually, unfortunately I have found some things out that make me targeted by Isabelle. That means it’s in my interest to team up with someone who also wants to get rid of Isabelle. This is only a temporary alliance, please keep that in mind.” Alice really was like no one I have ever met before. She isn’t Ben’s sister, Ben is the son of my Aunt’s son, and Alice is the daughter of my Uncle. Usually I just group my cousin’s by these two parents, but Alice was clearly in a class of her own.
“So now that I have agreed to work with you will you tell me what good it’s going to do me?” I asked. Now that I thought about it she had done a lot better then I had in the bargaining part of our conversation.
“I have cameras and microphones hidden everywhere in all of these houses, and I do mean everywhere. Some of the movies I have I could probably sell for a lot of money on the internet, but I don’t, you don’t have to worry.” She smirked knowingly at me and I shuddered. In my mental list of family politics Alice was upgraded from low pawn to slightly above Dan. She was dangerous and even more dangerous because no one realized she was one of the important people.
“In that case I would like to add to our deal that every tape you have of me is destroyed,” I said.
“That won’t happen just for a temporary alliance, maybe if I was working with you forever I might agree but as it is I am afraid that is not an option. I will not be losing all leverage over you just for a little of your help. However I will take out the cameras and microphones from your room for the time that I am working with you. How is that?”
“I suppose I don’t have a choice,” I said.
“Then I will write up the contract and have it here for you to sign tomorrow. My husband will witness the signing, just in case you feel like you can deny it later.” Never in my family has anything been done so businesslike then the deal that I made the next day with Alice. Her husband even signed as a witness, amazing.
With Alice and Luke, and Alice’s husband as well on my side, I was finally ready to do something about Isabelle. I was used to the stupid Luke; it took me at little while to learn to make plans that included the other two. Alice really did know everything about everyone and her husband was the sneaky one who had planted all of the cameras and microphones without anyone knowing it. It was a scary combo when I knew that they would not always be on my side.
Alice’s husband, his name was Harry; brought me my relative’s documents just like his wife brought me their movements and conversations. I began to piece things together like I hadn’t been able to before. For one thing, by reading photocopies of Ben’s journal, I was able to find out that he meant me to fight against Isabelle for his purposes and that made me mad. I couldn’t not go through with it though, even though he had manipulated me, because the only reason Alice and Harry were on my side was to get at Isabelle.
Dan was targeting me as a steppingstone just like I was targeting Isabelle, and because of the same person. Ben had gotten to him, I decided I didn’t like Ben much, but I never had. Dan had been dropped in the lists because he no longer had any followers, he was important, but only barely, so I didn’t pay him a lot of attention.
“I heard of course about Al, so unfortunate when families can’t get along. You should be ashamed of yourself, bullying your brother to that extent,” Ben preached at me. He looked totally sincere while he said it even; I will admit that I did actually feel a pang of guilt until I remembered what he had done to his sister. Mary had been far more defenseless then Al had been, though Al had been pretty pathetic as well.
“So what are you going to do now? How many people from our family do you intend to stab in the back before you are content?” Ben demanded. Always trying to pretend he is above all of us, that’s Ben.
“How would you like to be next?” I asked, finally getting angry enough to stop pretending that we were friends.
“Don’t even try it my dear cousin, I would hate to have to destroy you,” Ben’s voice grew just as harsh as mine had. It was nice to stop lying. He was still smiling with all sincerity and honesty, but that’s what Ben scary. If he wasn’t I would have taken him down long ago. To destroy another leader, that was going to be my new goal I decided right then and there. After all, I hated all of them, and what good did it really do to take down people who were lower then me. If I looked at people as stepping stones I wanted to go higher, not stay at the same height.
“If I wanna challenge you then, how should I get?” I asked. If anyone had walked in at that moment they probably would have decided we were going to kill each other, we sure looked it.
“I would suggest then, as someone who really cares about your welfare, that you defeat at least Dan first, though Isabelle would be better. After all if she could beat me she would have already, and that means she’s weaker then I am. Of course I don’t want to sound like I am trying to cause family strife but I am telling you my honest opinions.”
Ben smiled me to the door and I left. Having made my visits, and gained a new goal, I returned to my room. Alice was waiting for me, she’s another cousin, and one who I have never really noticed even thought we live so close to each other. She is always in the background of everything.
“What do you want?” I asked, unlocking my door. It’s a very good idea to always lock your door around here, though some of my opponents know how to pick most locks. Because of that I installed alarms and have caught a couple of people in the act.
“I am here to offer you my services,” Alice said. Because she usually doesn’t say much I had expected her to have a quiet voice but her voice is crisp and businesslike.
“What kind of services,” I said, sitting down. This was after all a job interview, I’ve never been to one of course, not out here, but I’ve seen them on TV. I have a good idea of how they should be done anyway.
“I heard a rumor that you intend to take out Isabelle, I want to help.” I couldn’t help but wonder how someone so straightforward could survive in this world. Obviously she had though, that would be a reason for her to keep her mouth shut. “I would like to know how it is that the news of my plans gets home before I do,” I told Alice.
“That’s something you only find out if you agree that I work with you, not only that but I would like it in writing that I am under your protection and you won’t get rid of me when it’s convenient for you.” This was the first time that I had ever heard of such a thing. If nothing else Alice had a sense for business the rest of us didn’t.
“Asking for a lot aren’t you?” I asked. She had interested me, she would make a very useful tool but she couldn’t know that yet.
