Regrets, I've had a few . . .

(This is another Debra story. I started writing about her as a lark last June 2008 for a writing prompt. If you want to start at the beginning, click --> here. They read in reverse order, so start from June 20, 2008. I have no idea where it will end, but will continue when and if the mood strikes.)



“Where is HERE?” Debra demanded.

“Looks like a beach.”

Trust Charles to state the obvious. Deb was getting annoyed. No. More than annoyed. Pissed off. No. More than pissed off.

The pressure of a can’t take it any more, screeching at the sky, gut-wrenching primal scream was building from somewhere in her core. Clenching her fists, she screamed silently inside her head. Not that it was silent inside her head, but Charles couldn’t hear it. Inside her head, it was a long AAAAAAAAAAAAAAArrrrGh!!! with full glottal stop.

She turned and with steely determination smiled at Charles through gritted teeth. “Yes, I know it’s a beach. But what beach? Why? And you didn’t answer me. What are you doing here?”

Charles rubbed his stubbly beard with the tips of his fingers. “Good question. Last I remember I was heading out for a day of ballooning. Hot air ballooning, you know? With propane tanks, floating around . . .”

“Yes, I know what hot air ballooning is,” Debra cut him off. “I’ve been. Now, I’m stuck.”

“What do you mean by ‘stuck’?”

“Stuck. As in can’t move. As in stuck in the same place. Stuck! One minute I’m on the beach, looking at a dead horse and thinking about my shitty life; next, I’m in a hot air balloon hearing songs and thinking about my crazy mother; and now I’m back on this fucking beach again – with you!”

“Sounds like your classic nightmare, if you ask me. Though it seems pretty nice here. Blue water. Nice breeze.”

“Yeah? So lick me.”

“Classic Deb. Mary Sunshine, you’re not.”

Debra rolled her eyes. “Here we go again. Think positive thoughts. Blah, blah, blah. Life is what you make of it. The glass is half full. . . .. Don’t you ever get tired of that crap?”

“By crap, I take it you mean being happy?”

“No. ‘Crap’, as in there’s no such thing as willing yourself into happiness. There is no such thing as happy. Just a lot of people pretending to be happy.”

“You think I’m pretending?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

“I think you’re pretending to be unhappy.”

Debra collapsed back into the sand. That was the thing with Charles, she thought, for all his positive guru-think, he could always see through her.

As a matter of fact, she WAS rather enjoying herself. She had missed him over these last few years. He had been her counter-balance, the light to her dark, the yin to her yang. Of all her ill-fated relationships and the men she’d known and dated, Charles still held a special place in her heart.

She felt, not regret exactly, but something . . ..


Another Sunday Scribblings #148 prompt - "Regrets")

For Richer or Poorer, Better Or Worse

(a Sunday Scribblings prompt and the continuing saga of Debra)


"Deb, it is you. What are you doing here?"

Charles took Debra's hand and yanked her to her feet. As she busied herself with brushing sand -- yet again -- off her clothes, Debra couldn't help but see Charles shaking his head in his annoying, can't believe she's done it again manner. She could feel herself bristling.

"What?!!"

"Nothing. I just can't believe you're here."

Charles shuffled backwards and plopped himself onto the sand. He was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, faded khakis and sandals. Very un-Charles-like.

The last time she'd seen him, he was pounding on her apartment door saying they could still "work things out" if she'd only talk to him. She couldn't be bothered. There was nothing to work out. She ignored his subsequent phone messages, emails, notes and letters. Eventually, they stopped. Their relationship had ended like all her relationships -- nowhere. Not that Charles was a bad guy. He just didn't get it.

He'd always been her cheerleader -- a you can do it, think positive kind of guy. He had wanted to get her out of the city and learn how to relax. She didn't see the point. He didn't understand her constant whining about the noise and pollution, her job, her boss, the twits around her, and yet her refusal to do anything about it. She knew it didn't matter where she was -- different people, but still twits; different job, but still annoying boss. Moving would only be a temporary fix. Once the initial glow of new wore off, it would be the same ol' same ol'.

He had been saving his money and wanted to quit his six-figure marketing job and pursue his passion for travel and writing. She thought he was nuts. Why give up a sure thing? Pursuing something as nebulous as "what I've always wanted to do" could only lead to disappointment.

After awhile, she couldn't stand his Pollyanna-isms anymore. What had been, at first, endearing became unbearable. Couldn't he just leave her alone? She was quite content to live her life in sombre misery with the occasional, fleeting ray of sunshine/happiness.

They started arguing about everything. Or rather, she argued about everything. Charles, would just shake his head and shrug. He seemed resigned to her constant nitpicking and complaining. Occasionally he'd suggest a trip to someplace warm and exotic - which she always declined. Then one day, he simply stated that she didn't want to be happy; that, in fact, she revelled in her unhappiness and that he wasn't sure if he could take it any more.

Of course he'd been right. Her unhappiness was a warm security blanket. It was a logical and realistic way to face life. Far better to expect nothing - anything good was a bonus. She couldn't get him to see it that way.

One day, when Charles was on a business trip, Debra had the apartment lock changed, quietly and efficiently packed his belongings in boxes and set them outside the door. She attached a short note saying good-bye and that things would never work out for them. That was five years ago.

And now? She was on a stupid beach, god-knows-where, sand in her shoes, sand down her shirt and sand stuck in her hair. She'd been dumped out of a hot air balloon at the feet of someone she'd dumped just as unceremoniously.

Hot air balloons, dead horses – now Charles? Better or worse, dream or no dream, she needed to figure this out.

"Where is HERE?" she demanded.

Chance Encounter

(Continuation of a previous SS story).

Not your usual pick up, that's for sure. But who said Prince Charming had to come on a white horse? Besides, she'd always wanted a ride in a hot-air balloon.

As soon as the gate snapped closed, Debra had a brief moment of self-doubt as visions of a news broadcast flashed through her mind, Witnesses said it looked like a giant fireball as the balloon climbed into the sky and then plunged into the RV Park near the U.S. border.

"Oh, stop it! It's only a dream! Enjoy yourself!"

She had a habit of thinking the worst. It was a way to shield herself from the inevitable disappointments in life. Her life philosophy went like this: If she could think of the worst case scenario in any given situation and it didn't happen, then she was ahead of the game; wasn't she.

Debra could still hear the strains of "Someday My Prince Will Come", but it was morphing into something else. She couldn't quite put her finger on it. Oh well, it would come to her later.

She looked up to see the balloon billowing and filling above her head. There didn't seem to be any source to inflate it. Well, at least she didn't have to worry about exploding propane tanks. The basket lifted gently off the sand and rose up, up and away.

Up, Up and Away! That's what the other song was - the Fifth Dimension song. "This isn't a dream, it's a nightmare!"

Now, that she could name it, she couldn't get it out of her head:

Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon
Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon
We could float among the stars together, you and I
For we can fly we can fly
Up, up and away
My beautiful, my beautiful balloon
The world's a nicer place in my beautiful balloon
It wears a nicer face in my beautiful balloon
We can sing a song and sail along the silver sky
For we can fly we can fly
Up, up and away

Debra hated the song. She'd always hated it. It was one of her mother's favourite songs; one that she'd play over and over, happily dancing and singing along. "Ha! Lot of good all that happiness did for her."

The syrupy, sweet lyrics made Debra want to gag. It was the antithesis of everything she'd come to know about life. Her life, at least. There is no nicer place, no silver sky, and certainly no "you and I".

How could she get this stupid thing down? And how could she stop the friggin' music?

As her head filled with colourful adjectives, she heard a whooshing sound. A cold wind ripped through the basket of the balloon, knocking her off-balance. The back of her head smacked against the edge of the basket and in the engulfing black fuzziness, she felt herself slide and roll onto the floor.

When Debra opened her eyes, she realized she was back on the beach. Same white blouse, white slacks, white pumps.

There was a figure silhouetted against the blue sky. She squinted to make out details.

"Charles? Is that you?"



For a Sunday Scribblings prompt.

Deus Ex Machina

Debra liked the demented, the dark and the surreal. It reflected her personality. From a young age, she’d realized there was no such thing as happy endings. The pursuit of happiness was for the delusional.

To the world, she presented a hard, been knocked around, can take care of myself, so don’t fuck with me veneer. She didn’t believe in fairy tales -- unless they were told by Tim Burton. Yet, in the back of her mind, she harboured the faint hope that there might be a happy ever after for her. Of course, she never allowed anyone to see this hopefulness.

So, now, here she was lying on a white sand beach. She couldn’t remember how she got there.

She looked down at herself. She was dressed all in white; white slacks, white blouse, white pumps. She strained to remember something – anything. It was surreal; a scene from the Twilight Zone. Wasn’t there a scene like this in Contact where Jodie Foster’s character meets her dead father on a beach? Maybe she was dead. Maybe she was dreaming. That’s it – a dream – it must be a dream. Well, if that was the case, she’d just go with it.

Down the beach, she could see a dark shape against the whiteness of the sand. As there was nothing else around, she took a step towards it. In an instant, she found herself looking down at the body of a black Arabian, lying on its side – the same horse she’d sketched over and over in countless notebooks as a child; when she still had dreams of happiness; before her mom’s death; before the anger and constant black cloud.

A kaleidoscope of her life played back at her in the sheen of the Arabian’s coat; the self-destructive behaviour, the failed marriages, the sabotaged relationships, the sorry state of her self-imposed loneliness. Maybe she really was dead. But wasn't there anything good about her life?

A fluttering movement caught her attention. She turned around to see a multi-coloured hot air balloon. It hadn’t been there a moment ago. That’s the thing about death dreams, she thought – they don’t need to make sense.

Across the breeze, a pure light-as-air voice was singing, “Some day my prince will come . . .”

Debra brushed the sand from her blouse, took a last, wistful look at the now putrefying horse, and stepped into the hot-air balloon.


For Sunday Scribblings, "Happy Ending" and Dan Wiencek's 13 Writing Prompts

(This is probably one of the weirdest pieces I've done. All I had was Dan Wiencek's last sentence, the Sunday Scribbling’s prompt of “Happy Ending” and my own self-imposed word limit. I had no idea how I’d get there until I got there.)