Short Story: Orville Makes Coffee

Standing on his dew dampened welcome mat, Orville Newton tapped the wand he’d made from an old car radio antenna, a griffin feather, and some conductive tape on his leg absently. He could feel the dull tickle the wand’s energies starting to wake up. These sort of homemade wands always needed some time before they warmed up for use. Any minute now the morning edition of The Cosmic Rote would be materialize on the doorsteps of all their faithful subscribers. Stealing his neighbor’s paper had become more of a challenge lately. The publisher had started using Stranger Danger Wards on their morning editions. If the resourceful paper thief wasn’t careful they could wind up zapped into unconsciousness by a misworded ward breaker.

The low sizzle and pop of the atmosphere being condensed into matter began to spread through the apartment complex’s courtyard as The Cosmic Rote began appearing on doorsteps. Orville jumped into action. Waving the wand around towards the paper and motioning towards a tattered notebook he placed in front of him.

He thought for a moment about what words he would use to let the magic know his intent “Ego quoque fregit praebere,” his latin sounded Italian, he could never get his accent to sound natural.

Despite his butchering of the words, the book in front of him began flipping through it’s pages. Moved by some unseen wind as the worn pages filled up with copies of the text from The Cosmic Rote. It was a little lighter and much smaller than what was in the paper, but what do you want for quick magic from a wizard who hadn’t even had their coffee yet.

The headlines on the front-page seemed like they’d been the same for days. Unemployment among wizards was still on the rise, terrestrial industries were pre-screening all new applicants for magical abilities to weed out potential liability issues, while the Council of Ethereals fought with the International Terrestrial Protectorate Initiative about whose fault it all was. It seemed like none of them had any new ideas and were too busy tearing down each other’s ideas to come up with any of their own. Nothing out of the ordinary for global politics, but that didn’t make it any easier to sit through.

On the kitchen table sat an empty saucer with a dark coffee stain ring on it’s surface, “Joe?” Orville called out into the empty apartment.

He could never find anything in his apartment. It didn’t help that it had been awhile since he had cleaned up the place. The clutter seemed to be getting the better of all his flat surfaces. Empty packages of instant noodles, alchemy ingredient wrappers, and open books lay across all the counters in the kitchen.

“Did I leave you someplace?” he asked half hoping he might hear some sort of response.

His living room coffee table was a collage of past due bills and the tickets from unlicensed magic use violations he’d gotten since he’d failed to renew his license. He had no idea how many violations you could rack up before they actually came after you. He had no intention of ever finding out, but still hadn’t figured out a way to pay them yet. A sound from somewhere on the cluttered bookshelf drew Orville’s attention away from his fiscal predicament and back to his search.

“Come on, Joe. Is this really necessary? I’ve told you we can play hide and seek after breakfast. Not before,” Orville approached the bookshelf with caution.

Without warning his fuzzy blue bathrobe came flying out from behind the sofa at his face. The robe wrapped around him and the cords tied themselves behind his back as he stumbled backwards. Something hit the back of his legs as he retreated, tripping him, and leaving him sprawled on his back. The robe loosened it’s grip and slithered into a pile of fabric next to him. He saw two socks were tied together and stretched between the wall and the sofa. The soft sound of porcelain rattling came from the now empty shelf.

“Glad you think it’s funny, Joe. I suppose this was your idea Left?” the socks untied themselves and began wriggling on the ground in a mime of laughter that his bathrobe had already started, “You’d never have gotten the drop on me if I’d had my coffee already.”

Joe the coffee cup was puffing out small clouds of steam as it clattered away in its porcelain snickering. Tiny drops of coffee burbled from the top as it chuckled and hopped about on the shelf.

“Alright, alright, that was pretty good. You got me,” Orville said as he scratched the heels of the socks, “Let’s have breakfast.” Joe was already happily hopping towards the kitchen with the socks inchworming their way after him.

On mornings their pranks were particularly inventive, Orville thought about how Joe and the others had been an accident. Orville had been moving to a smaller apartment one car load at a time after losing his job,when a cat had shot across the street unexpectedly. He had to slam on his brakes, throwing much of his well packed car’s contents into the front seat.

The box of Bolivian Marching Powder Moving Dust a friend had loaned him came sailing over the seat and smashed against the front Window. A dusty pink cloud filled the car. Every inanimate object the dust landed on suddenly burst up with life. There was a moment of chaos as all of his belongs came unwillingly into conscious existence. The existential scream of his toilet- plunger still haunts his dreams.

A moment later his car doors were opening on their own and spit him out with the rest of his belongings. The car reared up on it’s back wheels, blasted its horn, and screeched off down a side street. His stuff scattered in every direction. Rolling, squirming, walking, and sliding away from him. Even the clothes he was wearing slipped off and slithered away.

Standing naked in the street, the only things that had stuck around were a brand new pair of socks he hadn’t worn yet, his fuzzy blue bathrobe, and Joe his coffee mug. He’d thought about replacing them with less rambunctious inanimate versions, but he didn’t have the heart to get rid of them, or the money to replace them for that matter.

At the kitchen table, Joe was settled back onto the saucer and filling with coffee, “Extra strong, extra sugar, and no cream this morning Joe. I want all my synapses firing at peak efficiency.”
The sun was just now peaking through the blinds painting a tall streaks of light across Joe. Joe couldn’t remember what coffee made by hand tasted like, but whatever brew Joe made the first sip always tasted like a warm hug of energy. Left, Right, and the bathrobe were eating up some dryer sheets Orville had left for them. He felt the reassuring warmth of the first cup of coffee for the day spread over him from his stomach. He decided today would be better than yesterday.

30 in 30 2016: To Edit or Not to Edit

Fear of editing is a common affliction for writers. If someone else tries to make my work better, isn't that really just them putting their own influence/preferences on my words? Not really, but that's part of the irrational fear that sets in and starts waking up it's BFF Apathy to keep everything stagnating.

Apathy for edits is that feeling of "well...what's the point of fixing it if it isn't going anywhere." An awful mindset to have, especially about your own work, but that's always been a big-ish issue for me. I don't want to do it just because it's there to be done and nothing says it really needs to be done. It would be easier if I had to turn it in, deadlines work great for me, but fake ones are too transparent to trick my brain into upping the effort.

Even as I'm writing this, I'm coming up with reasons it doesn't make any sense to put the effort into edits. What if I put the effort into reading through them all and fixing them, but wind up making them worse or not being able to fix them at all? What if I go to reread them and find out they were awful and I want to change everything? What if what if what if? All the what if's end up bring on the stagnation I want to avoid anyway.

It feels strange not editing the poems, almost like abandoning something I cared about a great deal, at least for a time. It is like not calling your parents for a long time, sure it doesn't REALLY affect that much, but you feel bad for letting it happen anyway. Ultimately I don't think I will put a lot of time into editing the poems, at least not publicly. I feel like the important part about the whole 30 in 30 experiment was to put my efforts out there for whatever they were worth. I am pleased with the way a lot of them came out and with the experiment overall. Even with that I feel like editing the poems and posting them back onto my blog would be like running in place. Not getting anywhere from trying the same thing over and over again.

I've got an idea, that instead of posting the edits to the poems I'll record myself reading the poems aloud and posting them instead. I need more practice with my voice and I feel like it's easier to get the work out there if people don't have to read the stuff. Not sure if I'll do audio recordings or try my hand at YouTubery, but I like the idea of that way more than posting more walls of text to the emptiness of my corner of the internet. Plus I'm overdue for getting pro-active with putting my work out there. Fixating on making the poems "better" to publish on my blog seems less important than using the poems to practice other aspects of writing and presenting my work.

This idea may end up not happening like some of the others I've had, but given the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, the edits and posting on my blog feels far too samey. Gotta try something new, even if I'm not exactly sure what that new thing is yet.